President Obama: "Let's Put this Country Back to Work"

President Barack Obama joined by Vice President Joe Biden
delivers a statement on the American Jobs Act
in the Rose Garden of the White House, Sept. 12, 2011.
(Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Even the most ideological, rigid Republicans and Tea Partiers surly know jobs, consumer demand and disposable income are critical to priming the domestic economy. A healthy economy is the mission, objective, and aim for all policymakers, correct? Wrong. The GOP-Tea Baggers want to scrap the crash jobs project that would save millions of families and burn down the house in the hope of putting Rick Perry in the oval office to consolidate and codify the radical, GOP vision that labor, a hard day's work, is no longer sacred.
Will the adult Republicans, Rep. Tom Petri (Fond du Lac) for example, [I can't think of another one off hand] defend the United States of America against his own political party?

From the White House

This morning, President Obama was joined by Vice President Biden as well as teachers, veterans, small business owners, construction workers and first responders, as he called on Congress to pass the American Jobs Act right away:

On Thursday, I told Congress that I’ll be sending them a bill called the American Jobs Act. Well, here it is. This is a bill that will put people back to work all across the country. This is the bill that will help our economy in a moment of national crisis. This is a bill that is based on ideas from both Democrats and Republicans. And this is the bill that Congress needs to pass. No games. No politics. No delays. I’m sending this bill to Congress today, and they ought to pass it immediately.

The jobs bill President Obama is sending to Congress will help put teachers back into the class room, construction workers back on the job and provide a tax credit for companies that hire anybody who spent more than six months looking for a job. And for middle-class families, the American Jobs Act will prevent taxes from going up, giving the typical working family a $1,500 tax cut. It is also paid for in full and would not add to the debt.

As the President said, getting the American Jobs Act passed and putting Americans back to work is in our hands:

You hear a lot of folks talking about uncertainty in the economy. This is a bit of uncertainty that we could avoid by going ahead and taking action to make sure that we’re helping the American people.

So if you agree with me, if you want Congress to take action, then I’m going to need everybody here and everybody watching -- you’ve got to make sure that your voices are heard. Help make the case. There's no reason not to pass this bill. Its ideas are bipartisan. Its ideas are common sense. It will make a difference. That’s not just my opinion; independent economists and validators have said this could add a significant amount to our Gross Domestic Product, and could put people back to work all across the country. So the only thing that’s stopping it is politics. And we can’t afford these same political games. Not now.

So I want you to pick up the phone. I want you to send an email. Use one of those airplane skywriters. Dust off the fax machine. Or you can just, like, write a letter. So long as you get the message to Congress: Send me the American Jobs Act so I can sign it into law. Let’s get something done. Let’s put this country back to work.

Paul Ryan toasts Medicare cuts with $350 bottles of wine

Paul Ryan lives large - Photos via AP/Susan Feinberg

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin), budget-hawk and free-spender, wines and dines with buddies, [A Hedge Fund Manager and a University Of Chicago Economist; Cliff Asness and John Cochrane], downing two $350 bottles of wine, as witnessed by Rutgers Prof. Susan Feinberg. Outrage follows Ryan consuming $100s in wine while Congress tries to cut seniors' safety net. "F—— her," said one of Ryan's companions referring to Feinberg.

Update: Ryan now (late October 2015) positioning himself as the next Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

From Jim Rowan's comment on TPM's piece by Susan Crabtree:

At the swanky Bistro Bis restaurant, where a website gushes:

An award-winning destination restaurant in Downtown Washington, DC, Bistro Bis is the place to savor and be seen - where Capitol Hill powerbrokers and politicians enjoy innovative interpretations of classic French bistro cuisine.

Owned and operated by renowned Chef Jeffrey Buben, this non-smoking, downtown DC restaurant is next to The Hotel George on the slope of the world-famous Capitol Hill. Senators, congressman, celebrities, entertainers and leaders come to experience bold French fare in the refreshing ambiance and chic luxury of one of he most enticing restaurants in downtown Washington, DC

More from the account of the dinner, the confrontation and a subsequent interview, from Talking Points Memo:

Ryan and anti-working class friends live it up

Susan Feinberg, an associate business professor at Rutgers, was at Bistro Bis celebrating her birthday with her husband that night. When she saw the label on the bottle of Jayer-Gilles 2004 Echezeaux Grand Cru Ryan's table had ordered, she quickly looked it up on the wine list and saw that it sold for an eye-popping $350, the most expensive wine in the house along with one other with the same price-tag.

If you're a fiscal hawk, life is good in DC.

If not full of contradiction - - a long way from Janesville, Wisconsin, aina.

Teabaggers Are Stupid White People - Video

Teabaggers are the same, old, white, xenophobic, racist garbage. Good for a laugh, but never let racism go by unchallenged. Cuéntame -- "a place for Latinos and the public in general to connect with fellow fans, bloggers, activists, artists, musicians, journalists" challenges the racism of the Teabaggers.

¡Hola,

As hosts of Cuéntame we want to tell you a bit about ourselves, the project and about our latest campaign against Tea Party racism and violence.

Both Ofelia and I have seen with great sadness and frustration how Tea Partiers have unjustly and unfairly targeted the Latino community to further their political agenda. This is why our latest campaign exposing Tea Party racism has hit a nerve, not only within the Latino community but also with many folks across the country who like us are fed-up of all the hatred, the violence and the bigotry peddled by teabaggers.

From calling Mexicans 'filthy, stinking animals,' to listening the likes of Tom Tancredo and Sarah Palin deliver hateful speech after hateful speech to the increase use of violence in their words and actions, Teabaggers have come out in full force against our community.

We are fed up and are ready to fight back. You can help us not only by watching and spreading our videos, but also by joining our [FaceBook] page ... and recruiting your friends - Latino or not - to do the same.

Michael Moore on GM

Eventually, even the most obtuse auto executive will listen to this guy.

Goodbye, GM: "It's a new day and a new century. The President – and the UAW – must seize this moment and create a big batch of lemonade from this very sour and sad lemon."
– Michael Moore

From Moore:

(A)s GM is ‘reorganized’ by the federal government and the bankruptcy court, here is the plan I am asking President Obama to implement for the good of the workers, the GM communities, and the nation as a whole. Twenty years ago when I made ‘Roger & Me,’ I tried to warn people about what was ahead for General Motors. Had the power structure and the punditocracy listened, maybe much of this could have been avoided. Based on my track record, I request an honest and sincere consideration of the following suggestions:

1. Just as President Roosevelt did after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the President must tell the nation that we are at war and we must immediately convert our auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices. Within months in Flint in 1942, GM halted all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns. The conversion took no time at all. Everyone pitched in. The fascists were defeated.

We are now in a different kind of war -- a war that we have conducted against the ecosystem and has been conducted by our very own corporate leaders. This current war has two fronts. One is headquartered in Detroit. The products built in the factories of GM, Ford and Chrysler are some of the greatest weapons of mass destruction responsible for global warming and the melting of our polar icecaps. The things we call ‘cars’ may have been fun to drive, but they are like a million daggers into the heart of Mother Nature. To continue to build them would only lead to the ruin of our species and much of the planet.

The other front in this war is being waged by the oil companies against you and me. They are committed to fleecing us whenever they can, and they have been reckless stewards of the finite amount of oil that is located under the surface of the earth. They know they are sucking it bone dry. And like the lumber tycoons of the early 20th century who didn't give a damn about future generations as they tore down every forest they could get their hands on, these oil barons are not telling the public what they know to be true -- that there are only a few more decades of useable oil on this planet. And as the end days of oil approach us, get ready for some very desperate people willing to kill and be killed just to get their hands on a gallon can of gasoline.
President Obama, now that he has taken control of GM, needs to convert the factories to new and needed uses immediately.

2. Don't put another $30 billion into the coffers of GM to build cars. Instead, use that money to keep the current workforce -- and most of those who have been laid off -- employed so that they can build the new modes of 21st century transportation. Let them start the conversion work now.

3. Announce that we will have bullet trains criss-crossing this country in the next five years. Japan is celebrating the 45th anniversary of its first bullet train this year. Now they have dozens of them. Average speed: 165 mph. Average time a train is late: under 30 seconds. They have had these high speed trains for nearly five decades -- and we don't even have one! The fact that the technology already exists for us to go from New York to L.A. in 17 hours by train, and that we haven't used it, is criminal. Let's hire the unemployed to build the new high speed lines all over the country. Chicago to Detroit in less than two hours. Miami to DC in under 7 hours. Denver to Dallas in five and a half. This can be done and done now.

4. Initiate a program to put light rail mass transit lines in all our large and medium-sized cities. Build those trains in the GM factories. And hire local people everywhere to install and run this system.

5. For people in rural areas not served by the train lines, have the GM plants produce energy efficient clean buses.

6. For the time being, have some factories build hybrid or all-electric cars (and batteries). It will take a few years for people to get used to the new ways to transport ourselves, so if we're going to have automobiles, let's have kinder, gentler ones. We can be building these next month (do not believe anyone who tells you it will take years to retool the factories -- that simply isn't true).

7. Transform some of the empty GM factories to facilities that build windmills, solar panels and other means of alternate forms of energy. We need tens of millions of solar panels right now. And there is an eager and skilled workforce who can build them.

8. Provide tax incentives for those who travel by hybrid car or bus or train. Also, credits for those who convert their home to alternative energy.

9. To help pay for this, impose a two-dollar tax on every gallon of gasoline. This will get people to switch to more energy saving cars or to use the new rail lines and rail cars the former autoworkers have built for them.

Well, that's a start.