At the risk of sounding like a broken record (kids: a long time ago people listened to music on things called records and sometimes they got scratched and skipped and played the same little section of a song over and over and over and…oh never mind) Republicans just don’t get it.
The kerfuffle over Barack Obama’s “Tonight Show” appearance is so incredibly telling — and sad if you were hoping for a reasonably adept opposition to push back on Barack occasionally. The usual suspects and brothers in arms — The New …

When the stimulus plan was being debated earlier this year it was all about money and speed as in: How much money can Washington spend how fast? Now we know the answer. Not much not very.
The Wall Street Journal reports this morning that at least some of those “shovel-ready” projects we heard so much about aren’t so ready for a shovel after all. The problems run the gamut from local opposition to specific projects to lengthy bidding and contracting processes required by law.
That should be no surprise to anyone who …

So let’s just put this up front: Nobody really knows what the f*ck is going on with the economy. But still, there are some “experts” that really shouldn’t even be allowed to speak or write or exist.
Remember the heady days almost precisely a decade ago of the dot com boom? Thanks to new technology and supersmart economists the world’s advanced economies had little to worry about in the way of recessions or downturns. Sure there might be a hiccup here or there but the bad old days of economic cycles …

It will happen in the next 90 days. A decision that may reignite a culture war that could consume the Obama Administration’s best-laid plans on health care and the economy. Or not.
Thursday California’s Supreme Court heard arguments for and against the proposal that it overturn Proposition 8 — the initiative voters approved in November that overturned the Court’s prior ruling making same-sex marriage legal. Prop 8 passed with the help of a massive infusion of people and cash from the Mormon Church along with Christian and conservative groups after more …

The new video on Rush, Barack, and what’s really behind the mutually beneficial relationship. We said it first and Get Real keeps at the reality behind the circus politicus.
 
GET REAL :: Rush Hour from Jay DeDapper on Vimeo.

We’ve said it before and we say it again: Rush Limbaugh is the best thing that has happened to Barack Obama all year.
First came Limbaugh’s filibuster-worthy speech at CPAC (the convention for conservatives) on Saturday during which he “doubled down” (as White House Press secretary Robert Gibbs so eloquently put it) on his earlier statement that he was hoping for Obama to fail. The crowd and the conservative blogosphere could barely contain itself.
Then hours later the battle between Limbaugh and new Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele began — a cat …

Sunday’s NY Times had a Week in Review front-pager on how conservatives have decided on “socialism” as their primary rhetorical weapon against Barack Obama and the Democrats. The piece had plenty of examples and a nice bit asking an actual socialist in Congress (Vermont’s junior Senator Bernie Sanders) what he thinks of it all. But it was left to the editor laying out the pages to point out what this really represents.
In the next column over from the article’s Page 3 jump is another piece entitled “Ailing GOP Risks Losing …

Now that President Obama has officially declared he wants to let the tax rates for those making more than $250,000 per year go back up to pre-2001 levels the flood of faux facts has begun. Chief among them is this one amply explained in a New York Post editorial on Thursday:
“Many of the folks who report $250,000 or more in income are hardly fat cats: They’re hard-working small-business owners who pay taxes on their revenues via their personal income-tax returns. In fact, in the top two income-tax brackets – the …

Forget the performance critiques of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s Republican response to Barack Obama’s State-of-the-Union-in-name-only speech Tuesday night. Plenty of Democrats sucked in the same role following the far less gifted orator George W Bush (remember Tim Kaine in 2006 or Harry Reid in 2005? Lordy they were bad!). Jindal’s problem wasn’t performance, it was substance and it reaffirms our diagnosis that the Republican Party is in critical condition.
Many Republicans leaders, egged on by right-wing radio hosts like Rush and Hannity, have charted a course of total opposition to the …

Last week the media formed a now-normal closed loop regurgitating the “news” that Americans were “deeply split” (NY Post) on Obama and his housing plan.
The cable nets went full-tilt especially after a CNBC reporter checked his credibility at the door of the Chicago Board of Trade and went on a stream-of-consciousness rant about how Obama’s housing plan reminded him of nothing more than Cuba under Castro.
By Sunday when the nets rolled out their gabfests it was no longer a question. The debates were over how bad Americans hated the housing …