Steve Benen Finally Gets The GOP Plan

Scorched Earth 101 seems simple enough to me and anyone else who's been reading for the last, oh, eighteen months, but even beltway inside types like Benen are starting to finally notice that the Republicans don't give a damn if the economy collapses as long as they can blame Obama.

For weeks, Senate Democrats have tried to pass what's called the "tax-extenders bill" -- a key economic package that extends unemployment benefits, maintains popular tax breaks, protects doctors from Medicare cuts, and boosts state aid to prevent massive job layoffs in the states. The country needs this bill to pass, but Republicans won't let it come up for a vote.


In the hopes of finding a compromise, Dems have repeatedly scaled-back the measure, watering it down and removing worthwhile investments. The GOP has responded by insisting the reductions aren't enough, and that they still won't allow a vote.

It now appears Republicans are going to win this fight -- and Americans will lose.

What's the downside for the Republicans here for not cooperating?  Nobody's assessing any penalties so far.  But it finally looks like somebody starting to.

In the real world, this means millions of jobless Americans will lose their already-modest benefits, and hundreds of thousands of workers will be laid off over the next year, including teachers, police officers, and firefighters. All of this will happen because Republicans are more concerned about the deficit -- a deficit they created under Bush/Cheney -- than the economy.

It's unpleasant to think about, and I really hope it's not true, but it may be time for a discussion about whether GOP lawmakers are trying to deliberately sabotage the economy to help their midterm election strategy. After all, these same Republicans have supported deficit-financed tax-extenders before -- there's no credible reason to change course now. On the contrary, with the economy struggling to break through, the need for this package is more obvious, not less, if your goal is to actually improve economic conditions.

Really?  Why would Republicans want to improve economic conditions with a Democrat they can blame in the White House and midterm elections they want to win?  Why would they ever allow any legislation at all to pass at this point when they can filibuster everything and say "The Democrats failed!  Government has failed!  Vote for us!"

It's probably far too late for Benen to be sounding this alarm here, but it should be at least noted.  the Republican Party does not want the economy to improve.  They want to win.  Those are mutually exclusive things to Republicans.

In The End, It's Always A Liberal's Fault

John Yoo applied his legal gymnastics to l'affaire McCrystal and comes up with "Liberals in the observatory with the candlestick" claiming that it's Democrats that undermined the civilian authority of the Commander-In-Chief.

Congressional Democrats spent the Bush years undermining this fundamental principle of constitutional government. True, civilian-military relations had already been on the wane. Generals overtly fought President Bill Clinton's effort to integrate gays in the military. Colin Powell, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, published a 1992 editorial opposing intervention in Bosnia. Other military officers successfully resisted a large intervention in Haiti in 1994 to stop human rights abuses and blamed civilian leaders for the humiliating 1994 withdrawal from Somalia after the deaths of 18 American soldiers. 

Military resistance reached a crescendo under President George W. Bush. Fueled by Democrats eager to add kindling, generals openly feuded with Defense Department officials over the number of troops needed for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. In 2006, in what has come to be known in the American military as the "revolt of the generals," dozens of senior retired officers publicly called for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Military lawyers publicly opposed the administration over the use of military commissions to try al Qaeda leaders and whether the Geneva Conventions governed counterterrorism operations.

Liberals in the media and Congress eagerly joined the chorus for Mr. Rumsfeld's head. They manipulated the generals' revolt to support their opposition to the administration's Iraq and terrorism policies. They undermined the president's ability to receive forthright, confidential military advice. Presidents won't trust generals who may run to Congress or the press at the first sign of disagreement with the military's consensus advice. They traded short-term political gains against Mr. Bush for the Constitution's promise of long-term political stability.

Now the bill is coming due, and it will cost Democrats more dearly than Republicans. Scholars have observed that the officer corps has become increasingly conservative in the last few decades, the result of self-selection and the end of the draft, Republican Party outreach, and the disappearance of the national security wing of the Democratic Party. Soldiers who have risked their lives for their nation on the fields of Afghanistan and Iraq do not like to hear elected politicians calling their wars unjust or devising the fastest way to withdraw. 

Yoo's projection fantasies are impressive, but they boil down to "When the Generals said that it was a bad idea to go to war, the Commander-In-Chief has total power and to hell with the generals, when the generals make fun of Joe Biden, clearly they know better than the President."

I also like how John Yoo speaks for all soldiers when he says "Soldiers who have risked their lives for their nation on the fields of Afghanistan and Iraq do not like to hear elected politicians calling their wars unjust or devising the fastest way to withdraw. "  I know soldiers who have been to the Sandbox and back who say just that, the the wars are complete bullcrap, that good people died for no good reason, and that we need to get the hell out as soon as possible.

Oh, and Yoo still doesn't have any idea how to "win" Afghanistan...nor does he have any idea what victory or even a metric towards victory is supposed to look like.  Nobody does.  That's the main reason why we need out.

Appropriate Appropriations

All this austerity hysteria has finally gotten to the point where something actually useful might happen:  reining in defense spending.

Liberal Democrats for years have called for cuts to the massive defense budget to no avail. Even after Democrats regained control of Congress in 2007, their few attempts at reining in defense spending have proven futile, partly because of opposition from centrist Democrats hawkish on defense issues.

Now that opposition is softening amid rising concern about the nation's fiscal future and the fact that defense makes up more than half the country’s discretionary spending.

“We are going to have to adopt the philosophy that nothing can be off the table,” said Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho), one of the first members of the class of 2008 to be admitted into the Blue Dog Coalition. “And that is increasingly becoming the dominant view of the Blue Dogs.”

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), a centrist who is the House's top defense appropriator, believes his panel can reduce the Pentagon's budget top line somewhat without affecting military readiness, according to Dicks's chief of staff, George Behan.

“He expects that the Defense subcommittee will be recommending a bill that represents a modest reduction from the amount requested by the president,” Behan said.

The good news is maybe we won't have to axe so many social programs if we get rid of military pork.  The better news is that the Republicans will probably throw a screaming hissy fit over this, proving they were never serious about deficits anyway.  The long, long, long shot is that somebody might ask "Hey do you know how much money we can free up if we weren't fighting these stupid wars?"

I wouldn't count on the last one, but the other two are a pretty distinct possibility.

If It's Thursday...

New jobless claims down 19k to 457k.  Continuing  claims down 45k to 4.55 million.  Not bad...but not good either.

Still a long way to go.  Still no real evidence of recovery.

Scott Brown Is The New Snowe Queen

Getting anything done in the Senate requires at least one Republican, and increasingly that Republican is shaping up to be Scott Brown, our new de facto Senate Majority Leader.

In the battle between Scott Brown and Russ Feingold over financial reform, Scott Brown appears to be winning.

Senate staffers tonight are hammering out the shape of the so-called Volcker rule, which would limit insured financial firms' ability to take speculative bets with their capital, or prohibit it altogether.

Brown for weeks has been seeking a carveout in the legislation--originally authored by Sens. Carl Levin (D-MI) and Jeff Merkley (D-OR)--that would allow banks to invest a portion of their profits in hedge and private equity funds. And as the 60th vote for financial reform, his demands carry a lot of weight. Enter Feingold, who opposed financial reform from the left. After discussions with, and public pressure from, pro-reform groups, Feingold has toyed with the idea of changing his vote from 'no' to 'yes', becoming the new 60th vote and robbing Brown of his leverage--if the Volcker rule survived loophole free.

Multiple sources tonight say that in all likelihood the hedge fund loophole (known as a 'de minimis exemption') will be included in the offer that the conference committee considers this week. 

What, you thought that some of the richest people in the country were actually going to close the casino for THE richest people in the country?  You're mad.  Of course hedge funds are going to gamble with trillions.  America doesn't have a manufacturing base anymore, we gave that to China.  American consumers are tapped out on debt, they can't help.  So the ultra rich have to turn to the Big Casino to get paid in Great Recession America, and there are no bigger whales than hedge fund managers lording over trillions in retirement cash.

Somebody's got to make money in this country, right?

StupidiNews Focus: General Disarray Edition

HuffPo's Sam Stein has one of the most notable pieces on the McChrystal aftermath:  apparently being involved in the Pat Tillman cover-up or in torture allegations in Iraq wasn't enough to get McChrystal fired...but making fun of VP Joe Biden was completely unacceptable.

McChrystal was the head of Special Operations command in Afghanistan when Army Ranger and former football star Pat Tillman was killed by friendly fire. He approved the paperwork awarding Tillman a Silver Star for dying in the line "of enemy fire" -- and he was "accountable for the inaccurate and misleading assertions" contained therein, according to an investigation -- despite knowing (or at least suspecting) that Tillman had died in an episode of fratricide. That episode barely registered with the public or, for that matter, Congress, when McChrystal went before the Senate Armed Services Committee waiting to take over control in Afghanistan. The one person who questioned whether more answers were needed was journalist Jon Krakauer who had just penned a book on Tillman's death and thought the general's explanations were "preposterous" and "unbelievable."

The second episode was even less well-known. Years after the Tillman death, McChrystal was mentioned several times in a report by Human Rights Watch which documented the abuse and torture of detained prisoners at Camp Nama in Iraq. A soldier, quoted anonymously in the findings, recalled seeing McChrystal at the facility "a couple of times." It was also reported that the general himself said there was no way that the Red Cross would ever be allowed through the door at Nama -- where treatment of detainees was so bad, it earned the nickname Nasty Ass Military Area.

"It is not easy to say what his role was accurately because the entire program of detention and interrogation going on there remains highly classified," said John Siston, an author of the Human Rights Watch report. "But HRW was able to learn enough to say that he was in the chain of command that oversaw the operations of that special task force and the interrogation unit that took care of the detainees that that special task force detained."

Nama, like Tillman, never played a role in McChrystal's quick ascendancy through the military ranks. Indeed, one of the most ignored nuggets in the Rolling Stone piece involved the general and his staff prepping for tough questioning on both of these topics, only to discover that Congress didn't care.

In May 2009, as McChrystal prepared for his confirmation hearings, his staff prepared him for hard questions about Camp Nama and the Tillman cover-up. But the scandals barely made a ripple in Congress, and McChrystal was soon on his way back to Kabul to run the war in Afghanistan.

Congress it seemed was more invested in moving forward than looking back. And so it was that McChrystal became embroiled in a career-threatening controversy only after the Rolling Stone piece raised questions as to whether his shaky relationship with civilian leadership would compromise the Afghan mission.

It wasn't an unworthy basis for the general's dismissal though it may have fallen a bit short of the official definition of insubordination (but not by much). But it was telling for some that after dodging several other bullets, it was an article in a music magazine (and not even a cover article at that) that did the trick.  

The reality is McChystal never should have been promoted and never kept in his position by Obama, either.  He should have been gone after the whole Tillman affair.  Instead he got promoted.  It was overlooked by both Obama and Congress...but not dissing the Veep!

The even larger problem is that with Petraeus running the business as usual flag up the pole in Afghanistan, it signals that Obama has no intention of changing our strategy there or wrapping things up.  We'll stay in Afghanistan as long as Obama's president...and his successor's term as well.

StupidiNews!

• President Obama's choice of Gen. David Petraeus to take over in Afghanistan is expected to be confirmed quickly by the Senate. 
• YouTube has prevailed in a landmark copyright case filed by Viacom that could have cost owner Google billions.
• Oil sludge has now reached the Florida Panhandle as several miles of beach were inundated with sticky tar on Wednesday morning.
• Sales of new homes in May plunged to a record low after the government's homebuyer tax credit expired.
• You can get the new iPhone 4 in any color you want as long as it's black.

Last Call

Once again we spend twice as much on health care per capita than any other country, and we still have one of the most inefficient systems on Earth.

The United States ranked last when compared to six other countries -- Britain, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, the Commonwealth Fund report found.

"As an American it just bothers me that with all of our know-how, all of our wealth, that we are not assuring that people who need healthcare can get it," Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis told reporters in a telephone briefing.

Previous reports by the nonprofit fund, which conducts research into healthcare performance and promotes changes in the U.S. system, have been heavily used by policymakers and politicians pressing for healthcare reform.

Davis said she hoped health reform legislation passed in March would lead to improvements.

The current report uses data from nationally representative patient and physician surveys in seven countries in 2007, 2008, and 2009. It is available here.

In 2007, health spending was $7,290 per person in the United States, more than double that of any other country in the survey.

Australians spent $3,357, Canadians $3,895, Germans $3,588, the Netherlands $3,837 and Britons spent $2,992 per capita on health in 2007. New Zealand spent the least at $2,454.

This is a big rise from the Fund's last similar survey, in 2007, which found Americans spent $6,697 per capita on healthcare in 2005, or 16 percent of gross domestic product.

"We rank last on safety and do poorly on several dimensions of quality," Schoen told reporters. "We do particularly poorly on going without care because of cost. And we also do surprisingly poorly on access to primary care and after-hours care."

 Health care reform will help with this, but we still have decades of improvements to make.  Meanwhile, let's look at what's gone on just 3 years ago:


And over the last 30 years.





Remember, the Republicans want to go back to this system, because they think it's the best on Earth.

Just Because You Say It, Doesn't Make It True

Minnesota GOP nutbar Tom Emmert showcases some pretty impressive levels of ignorance on the laws he's supposed to be crafting as a state representative.

Under Emmer's proposal, no federal mandate upon the state would be honored by Minnesota unless the governor, Speaker of the state House and state Senate Majority Leader were to issue determinations that the federal government has the power to legislate in that area. If any of those three officials were to determine that the federal government does not have the relevant power, the mandate could not take effect unless the legislature passed a law specifically applying it.

MinnPost pointed out to Emmer that this idea runs afoul of the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, which established that federal laws are the "supreme Law of the Land" to which states are bound. It was only noted that Emmer's method skips the traditionally accepted manner for states to challenge a federal law, to file a lawsuit and adjudicate the matter in the courts. Emmer responded that this is the "preferred mechanism by some. That is usually federal-leaning constitutionalists." But he said the states shouldn't wait for courts to determine the scope of the federal government's authority.

"So while I appreciate that some might say that is the mechanism, well, that is one of the mechanisms," said Emmer. "I think if you're going to talk about a constitutional legal question. I'm taking about taking it from whether or not the authority is there in the first place. [Meaning the constitutional authority for the federal government to legislate in a particular area]. The state certainly does have the right to determine that at the state level, I believe, under our existing constitution."

It should be noted that theories of nullification were often floated during the first several decades of the United States, by individual states having disputes with the federal government over issues ranging from slavery to tariffs -- but the Civil War and the Northern victory over Southern secession firmly established the supremacy of the federal government. Nullification was later invoked by Southern segregationists during the Civil Rights movement, and was consistently rejected in federal courts.

So basically, Emmert has taken it upon itself to have the states determine the constitutionality of laws, not the courts.  This jackass by the way is Gov. Tim Pawlenty's replacement on the GOP side.  I'm not sure what Emmert hopes to accomplish by trying to wipe out a hundred and fifty plus years of established federal supremacy precedent by simply saying he can do that, but the last group of guys that thought it would be really great for the states to tell the federal government to screw off started one of those civil war things.

Yet another leading light of the Republican party, folks.

Zandar's Thought Of The Day

Protip:

Should you happen to be placed in charge of the US war effort in another country, don't get smashed on a case of Bud Light Lime on a bus and talk to a reporter.

Bad things happen when you do.

World Cupdate

Group C's early games meant do or die time for the United States taking on Algeria, and for England taking on Slovenia.  The winners advance, the losers go home, and the tension was on.  Algeria haven't scored a goal yet in this tournament, something that weighs quite heavily on them.  On the other hand, the US have never won a Round 3 match in their World Cup history, in fact they've lost their 3rd match in every World Cup they've ever been in, a fact that wasn't lost on manager Bob Bradley.  Bradley went with a 2-4-4 setup with Jozy Altidore and Hercules Gomez in the front, while Algeria countered with an aggressive 3-4-3 attack with Djebbour, Matmour, and Ziani as the triple threat.  Early the Desert Foxes outfoxed the Yanks as their assault seemed to knock the US into a defensive crouch and left the US team vulnerable as they have been to getting behind in the match.  A draw here would send both teams home, but so would a loss.  In the last 15 minutes of the first half, the US started to finally get a few opportunities as they adjusted to the Algerian attack but they were simply unable to convert.  The US needed a goal or they were going home.  Benny Feilhaber came in for Hercules Gomez at the half, and the second stanza began much as the first: the Algerians on the attack and the US unable to convert on the counters despite multiple chances.  Running out of time, the US threw everything they had at Algeria.  Into stoppage time, the US needed a miracle...and that miracle's name was Landon Donovan, as he finally connects with the back of the net, saving the Stars and Stripes.  Algeria's Anthar Yahia collects a blatant red card in sheer frustration, but it's the Yanks that prevail 1-0 and Algeria's scoreless streak lasts another four years...

The other match for all the marbles had England and Slovenia facing off, the Three Lions, looking shaky so far like the rest of the European favorites, wanted to win to advance.  Both teams went with a nearly identical 2-4-4 format, the Lions with Jermain Dafoe and the always deadly Wayne Rooney up front, the Dragons with goal scoring heroes Novakovic and Ljubijankic leading the attack.  Early on the Three Lions roared to life, pressing the attack and earning a number of corner kicks that rattled the Slovenian defense.  That resulted in a counter cross to Dafoe that was blistered in at 23'.  With that confidence booster, the Brits tried to hammer home an early winner but the Dragons held out for the first half only down one.  The second half was all England as they hammered again and again at the Slovenian defense, but the Dragons were just too stiff-necked to give anything else up, and the English decide to skive off the rest of the match and take the win, as both teams saw the US and Algeria heading to the draw and both would advance with the 1-0 England win...but that last second US goal ripped the floor out from under Slovenia and it's the Yanks who win the Group, followed by the Brits.  The Slovenians came in leading the group...and now they are going home with nothing.

The late games in Group D would determine who the USA and England would face this weekend.  Group leader Ghana was set to tilt against Germany, and Australia was looking for a miracle of their own against Serbia, who threw the entire Group into shambles by shocking the Germans.  Everyone needed wins, and everyone was certainly aiming for the three points.  Ghana's Black Stars started out with a strong 3-3-4 offense, with Ayew and Tagoe at the wings and Ghana's star Asamoah Gyan at center.  The Germans formulated a precision counter 1-3-2-4 battle plan with Cacau at point after Miroslav's Klose's suspension last game.  As expected, Ghana immediately went on the attack, and Germany lay in wait to take advantage.  Both sides got some solid chances around the 20' mark as a result.  That fired up both sides and the game was on in the rest of the half, but neither side could capitalize. Half number two was much the same in a match that should have been 2-2 or even 3-3, but it was Germany's Ozil who actually connected at 60'.  The Black Stars were in danger of blacking out of the Cup.  Germany, sensing the win, pushed forward but Ghana's dangerous offense kept the Europeans on the defensive and Ghana went all out to try to even the score, but it wasn't meant to be.  They had to settle for the loss and hoped that Australia would win...

Meanwhile, Australia rolled out against Serbia, the Socceroos with Tim Cahill returning from his first match red card backing up striker Joshua Kennedy in their 1-3-2-4 formation, while the White Eagles were looking to soar with Nikola Zigic leading a powerfully defensive minded 1-5-4 blockade.  Both sides were evenly matched in the first half, the Socceroos making a couple of probes into White Eagles territory before being booted out by their strong defense, but the Serbs, despite playing much better ball, were still unable to counterattack early either.  Later on they even found the back of the net only to have it called back for offsides, and the Socceroos proved being lucky is sometimes just as important as being good.  The second half has Serbia piling on but the laconic Socceroos absorbed all the White Eagles' fury and then started finding their own legs as the Serbs started drooping midway through the half, and Tim Cahill headed it in at 69'.  Then Holman knocked one in just four minutes later.  All of a sudden Australia was trying to make up that 5 goal differential to earn that #2 spot.  That ended when Serbia's Pantelic finally knocked one home at 84'.  Serbia wasn't done yet and a draw here would get them in past Ghana, but it wasn't enough.  Australia won their pride, but both the Socceroos and the Serbs are going home, with Germany winning the group to face England in the Round of 16 on Sunday, and Ghana going to face the USA on Saturday...winner take all.

Epic Houston, We Have A Problem Fail

Umm...so that riser pipe containment cap thing BP stuck on the end of the geyser in order to collect oil and prevent that whole worst-case scenario?  Not preventing the worst-case scenario anymore.

The Coast Guard says BP has been forced to remove a cap that was containing some of the oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico.

Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen says an underwater robot bumped into the venting system. That sent gas rising through vent that carries warm water down to prevent ice-like crystals from forming in the cap.

Allen says the cap has been removed and crews are checking to see if crystals have formed before putting it back on. In the meantime, a different system is still burning oil on the surface.

Before the problem with the containment cap, it had collected about 700,000 gallons of oil in the previous 24 hours. Another 438,000 gallons was burned.

The current worst-case estimate of what's spewing into the Gulf is about 2.5 million gallons a day. 

Please fix that and replace it.  Thanks. Now.  Immediately.  If not sooner.

EPIC FAILing at, oh, a couple million gallons a day now?

Playing The Paranoia Angle, Part 3

Sharon Angle is the gift that keeps on giving.  Harry Reid must be smiling like it's Christmas and his birthday rolled into one.

Adding to her troubles, Angle said in an interview with a local Nevada affiliate that the country’s unemployed are “spoiled“:

ANGLE: You can make more money on unemployment then you can going down and getting one of those jobs that is an honest job, but [] doesn’t pay as much. And so that’s what’s happened to us is that we have put in so much entitlement into our government that we really have spoiled our citizenry and said “you don’t want the jobs that are available.”

And in a campaign appearance last month, the GOP Senate nominee said she has no interest in bringing jobs to her state:

ANGLE: As your U.S. Senator, I’m not in the business of creating jobs. … People ask me, “What are you gonna do to develop jobs in your state?” Well that’s not my job as a U.S. Senator — to bring industry to this state. That’s the lieutenant governor’s job, that’s your state senator’s and assemblymen’s job, that’s your secretary of state’s job to make a climate here in the state that says, “Y’all come.”

OK, so Sharon Angle's official position as Senator is "not in charge of job development".  That's bad enough, given Nevada's 14% unemployment rate.  It of course gets worse:

Yet despite her claim that a senator’s job is not to bring jobs to the state, Angle attacked Reid specifically for not bringing jobs to Nevada. From an interview interview with Human Events this week:

HUMAN EVENTS: What are the three reasons why Harry Reid needs to go come November?
ANGLE: Fourteen percent unemployment in the state of Nevada, the highest foreclosure rate in the nation in Nevada, and the highest rate of bankruptcy in Nevada. That is where people have really held Harry Reid accountable because Harry Reid doesn’t care about their jobs. He doesn’t care that they are having trouble staying in their homes and that’s why Harry Reid needs to be fired.

Apparently, Angle's angle is to have it both ways.

Another Milepost On The Road To Oblivion

Leave it to the Washington Examiner to concoct the dumbest Obama attack yet:  our President is in shape, and we need one built like Peter Griffin from Family Guy, dammit!

Last week, President Obama strolled the beaches for a photo op with Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a self-described "fat redneck." Our beanpole president made quite a contrast to the chubby gov, who, as the New York Times noted Sunday, resembles "an adult version of Spanky from the Little Rascals."

Newsweek calls Barbour "the anti-Obama," but the Times downplayed his presidential prospects. Apparently, Haley needs to slim down if he's serious.

Is corpulence really a disqualification for the presidency in the land of supersized fries? If so, that's a shame.

America might do better with a fat president. After all, some of our best have been big fellows, and lately the trim and ambitious types haven't served us so well.

"Yon Cassius has a lean and hungry look; he thinks too much. Such men are dangerous," Shakespeare's Julius Caesar comments to Marc Antony. "Let me have men about me that are fat ... such as sleep o' nights."

Point of order, wasn't Clinton savaged for being the President that at at McDonald's?  Isn't "Al Gore is fat" a running joke with the right even now?  And now they're going after Obama because he's not fat enough?  What, does being in shape now mean you're not a Real American?  I'm sure that's new to Dubya, who actually was one of the most physically fit Presidents we ever had, the guy worked out all the damn time, rode his bike, cleared brush, etc.  Bush may have been a lot of things, but out of shape wasn't one of them.

Apparently Obama on the other hand is just too...fit?  And yet, given the right wing attacks on Michelle Obama's anti-obesity initiative for Americans and the White House garden, this is the logical next step in the Obama Derangement progression:  Obama (and his wife, and his soccer-playing children) are too much in shape to be Real Americans.

Man, it never ends with these guys, does it?  If Obama was a big guy like myself, we'd never hear the end about how he was too fat.  But since he and his family are in shape, he's being attacked for being in shape.  Doesn't matter...Obama Derangement Syndrome always finds a way.

Before Zee Germans Get Here, Part 5

George Soros doesn't mince words in a newspaper interview with Germany's Die Zeit.

Germany's budget savings policy risks destroying the European project and a collapse of the euro cannot be ruled out, billionaire investor George Soros said in a newspaper interview released on Wednesday.

"German policy is a danger for Europe, it could destroy the European project," he told German weekly Die Zeit.

Soros, who earned $1 billion in 1992 by betting against the British pound, added that he "could not rule out a collapse of the euro." 

"If the Germans don't change their policy, their exit from the currency union would be helpful for the rest of Europe," he said.

Chancellor Angela Merkel unveiled plans earlier this month for 80 billion euros ($107 billion) in budget cuts over the next four years—a package she hopes will bring Germany's structural deficit within European Union limits by 2013.

Thousands in Germany protested the measures, which union leaders said were "economically damaging."

"Right now the Germans are dragging their neighbours into deflation, which threatens a long phase of stagnation. And that leads to nationalism, social unrest and xenophobia. Democracy itself could be at risk," Soros said.

"Germany is globally isolated ... Why don't they let their salaries rise? That would help other EU states to pick up." 

Soros echoes what others have said, that cutting social spending and raising taxes right now will stagger the economy and could drop the planet back into a recession.  To be honest, we never really left the recession in the first place, it just got more manageable.  It's going to get a whole hell of a lot less manageable in 2011 if this keeps up.

I'm not sure if the Euro will collapse as a result, but a lot of countries with foreign reserves are spreading out their portfolios as of late, and that's only going to hurt the Euro's chances even more.  Furthermore, when Spain or italy snaps and goes the way of Greece, who's going to bail them out?  Not Germany:  they're bunkering up.