Margaret Thatcher is Dead

And the word is a better place for it. Alex Pareene knocks this out of the park, but I'll leave you with this quote by former London mayor Ken Livingstone:

She created today’s housing crisis. She created the banking crisis. And she created the benefits crisis. It was her government that started putting people on incapacity benefit rather than register them as unemployed because the Britain she inherited was broadly full employment. She decided when she wrote off our manufacturing industry that she could live with two or three million unemployed, and the benefits bill, the legacy of that, we are struggling with today. In actual fact, every real problem we face today is the legacy of the fact that she was fundamentally wrong.

Well said.

Max Baucus is a Corrupt Sack of Shit

Well done to the New York Times for going to great lengths to point this out:

WASHINGTON — Restaurant chains like McDonald’s want to keep their lucrative tax credit for hiring veterans. Altria, the tobacco giant, wants to cut the corporate tax rate. And Sapphire Energy, a small alternative energy company, is determined to protect a tax incentive it believes could turn algae into a popular motor fuel.

To make their case as Congress prepares to debate a rewrite of the nation’s tax code, this diverse set of businesses has at least one strategy in common: they have retained firms that employ lobbyists who are former aides to Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which will have a crucial role in shaping any legislation.

No other lawmaker on Capitol Hill has such a sizable constellation of former aides working as tax lobbyists, representing blue-chip clients that include telecommunications businesses, oil companies, retailers and financial firms, according to an analysis by LegiStorm, an online database that tracks Congressional staff members and lobbying. At least 28 aides who have worked for Mr. Baucus, Democrat of Montana, since he became the committee chairman in 2001 have lobbied on tax issues during the Obama administration — more than any other current member of Congress, according to the analysis of lobbying filings performed for The New York Times.

“K Street is literally littered with former Baucus staffers,” said Jade West, an executive at a wholesalers’ trade association that relies on a former finance panel aide, Mary Burke Baker. “It opens doors that allow you to make the case.”

Like Ms. Baker, many of those lobbyists have already saved their clients millions — in some cases, billions — of dollars after Mr. Baucus backed their requests to extend certain corporate tax perks, provisions that were adopted as part of the so-called fiscal cliff legislation in January. Baucus aides who later became lobbyists helped financial firms save $11.2 billion in tax deferments and helped secure a $222 million tax benefit that is shared with the liquor industry.

Those who remember the Healthcare bill remember that Max Baucus carried the water for the insurance industry (and the Obama Administration) in making the bill much, much worse. Only Baucus didn't always oppose elements of the house bill, he's simply so corrupt he can't help himself. When discussions about healthcare began, Baucus released a white paper that included a public option, and other improvements on the bill. That was until the health insurance industry dumped over 2 million dollars into his campaign, making him suddenly have a change of heart over these reforms. Rahm Emanuel then used him to craft the White House's preferred bill with no public option (among other things), and that was basically the bill that ended up becoming law.

Ahhh memories.

Max Baucus is the worst. He also represents a state with a million people, yet has the same power as representatives of states with 30 million. Probably more, based on his committee position. Abolish the Senate, if for no other reason than it breeds and empowers the Max Baucuses of the world.

Obama Officially Proposes Social Security Cuts

In his budget:

WASHINGTON — President Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his annual budget in an effort to demonstrate his willingness to compromise with Republicans and revive prospects for a long-term deficit-reduction deal, administration officials say.

In a significant shift in fiscal strategy, Mr. Obama on Wednesday will send a budget plan to Capitol Hill that departs from the usual presidential wish list that Republicans typically declare dead on arrival. Instead it will embody the final compromise offer that he made to Speaker John A. Boehner late last year, before Mr. Boehner abandoned negotiations in opposition to the president’s demand for higher taxes from wealthy individuals and some corporations.

Congressional Republicans have dug in against any new tax revenues after higher taxes for the affluent were approved at the start of the year. The administration’s hope is to create cracks in Republicans’ antitax resistance, especially in the Senate, as constituents complain about the across-the-board cuts in military and domestic programs that took effect March 1.

Mr. Obama’s proposed deficit reduction would replace those cuts. And if Republicans continue to resist the president, the White House believes that most Americans will blame them for the fiscal paralysis.

Besides the tax increases that most Republicans continue to oppose, Mr. Obama’s budget will propose a new inflation formula that would have the effect of reducing cost-of-living payments for Social Security benefits, though with financial protections for low-income and very old beneficiaries, administration officials said. The idea, known as chained C.P.I., has infuriated some Democrats and advocacy groups to Mr. Obama’s left, and they have already mobilized in opposition.

A politically idiotic move by a moral monster willing to hurt the weakest among us to achieve his economically damaging goals.

And good luck in your next race house Democrats, because when the Republicans say you're trying to cut social security, they aren't lying!

It needs to be pointed out that this is not surprising in the slightest since Obama has been setting up this exact moment for years. When Republicans nearly shut down the government and held the debt ceiling hostage to cut spending, Obama used both crisis moments as opportunities to push a grand bargain that cut social security. When those failed, he designed the sequester's austerity as a mechanism to force a grand bargain that cuts social security. When the sequester failed to force a deal and started actually hurting the economy, he now has proposed these cuts in his budget. Now it seems the bet is to force liberals to choose between a deal that cuts social security and one that makes the sequester's austerity permanent. If you've been paying attention to the reporting (or even what Obama himself was saying), you've known this day was coming.

Now it's time to fight back, and inflict as much political damage on Obama as humanly possible. It's a shame it's come to this, but then again, it's a shame Obama is hurting the economy as leverage to force cuts that will kill old people.

On this day, 45 Years Ago...

Martin Luther King was murdered in Memphis, where he was supporting striking sanitation workers.

Rest in Piece.

Matt Taibbi on David Brooks

Oh man, just read this whole thing. It's too goddamn funny.

Heavy Crude Pipeline Explodes in Arkansas

There aren't really words for the horrifying sights in this video.



My only hope is that this can help generate momentum against the Keystone XL pipeline, and encourage more activism that forces Obama to reverse course and oppose it. The more people who see the video, the better. Pass it around.

Wingnuts Finding New Ways To Look Like Idiots

The sheer stupidity of wingnuts is fairly impressive. What happened yesterday started as a relatively stupid wingnut story, but then gradually made it's way to one of my favorite wingnut freakouts in some time. (thanks to that buzzfeed story for all the screen grabs)

First outrage: Wingnuts upset that Google not honoring Easter with their doodle

Wingnut Hilariousness Rating: D Not particularly humorous if this was the only thing that got them worked up, although getting angry at google for "not honoring Easter enough" is pretty funny. Thankfully there is more to this story.

Second outrage: Wingnuts upset that Google chose to honor Caesar Chavez, ON EASTER OF ALL DAYS.

Google has something on Cesar Chavez's birthday rather than something for Easter Sunday. I'm seriously disappointed. #BooGoogle
— Matt Johnson (@nova_mjohnson) March 31, 2013

Google is run by a bunch of knuckleheads. Cesar Chavez? Really? On Easter Sunday? SMH
— Rob V. (@Cajuncowboy22) March 31, 2013

Wingnut Hilariousness Rating: B. Wingnuts are constantly worked into frenzys about easter not being honored enough, so them combining it into a freakout over honoring a pretty much universally respected labor leader is great. Unions join the war on Easter!

This would all be pretty funny if it ended here. Thankfully, a subset of the those that were worked into a rage over the last development are such unspeakable idiots that they managed to take it to the next level.

Third outrage: Wingnuts heard something something "Chavez" and thought google had honored Hugo Chavez .... ON EASTER OF ALL DAYS.

Happy Easter to all.Hallelujah, He has risen!Very sad to see Google honoring Hugo Chavez today and not the Savior of all mankind.
— Steve Doell (@HerrDoell) March 31, 2013

#Google you people r pathetic excuse for American. Dishoring this day & offending you users with this Hugo Chavez crap! How dare you? Losers
— Lisette Riveira (@LisetteRiveira) March 31, 2013

Wingnut Hilariousness Rating: A+. It combines all the elements of everything you love about wingnuts: Ill-targeted rage, racism, profound ignorance, and of course, mind blowing stupidity.