Tea Party

Morning Must Reads: On Deck

By Adam Sorensen | @adamsorensen | June 7, 2010 | +

White House

Official White House Photo by Pete Souza

–BP’s containment cap made some progress over the weekend.

–The administration’s not slapping any backs quite yet. They expect clean-up efforts to last at least through the fall. Thad Allen is on deck for today’s White House press briefing.

–Underestimating risk might be the theme of the decade.

–Geithner wants to be able to go to the G20 summit with final financial reform language in hand.

–Jay and Katy cue up tomorrow’s super primary Tuesday nicely. Tea Party favs Sharron Angle and Nikki Haley look strong in Nevada and South Carolina respectively.

–The AP, in what is perhaps a bit of a causal leap, reports midterm jitters have put the kibosh on spending.

–Democrats remember last summer.

–Paul Krugman questions the logic of (U.S.) austerity measures. Reihan Salam questions the efficiency of stimulus.

–It looks like Charlie Crist will be hit hardest by RPOF spending scrutiny in the end. His handpicked party chairman Jim Greer has  turned on Crist and Co. in wake of being slapped with a handful of felony charges.

–Mitch Daniels gets a Weekly Standard cover. (Cue the ’12 buzz.)

–Ben Smith and Maggie Haberman write public employee unions have become hot political targets. Teachers unions are chief among them, and this New York Times Sunday mag piece from a few weeks back is well worth a read.

–And Arizona looks to remake its image. Second City saw this coming.

I missed a lot in the last two weeks, but you readers didn’t thanks to Michael, Kate, Alex and Jay. My two cents from 30,000 feet: The Gaza Flotilla incident has put the Obama administration in another impossible situation vis-à-vis Israel, but their ambivalence can only last so long. It is difficult to overstate the gravity of the Gulf Oil spill and difficult to understate the gravity of Jim Messina’s overtures to Andrew Romanoff.

What did I miss?

Related Topics: 2012 Election, Barack Obama, Budgets, Congress, Democratic Party, Economy, Education, Immigration, Miscellany, Republican Party, State Governments, Tea Party, White House

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  • freeinpa
  • http://phd9.blogspot.com Paul Dirks

    Much of this indifference stemmed from an obsession with profits, come what may. But there also appears to have been another factor, one more universally human, at work.
    .
    Since when is an obsession with profits not universally human?
    .
    http://phd9.blogspot.com/2010/06/re-bp-ceo-i-want-my-life-back.html
    .
    There were problems with the well that caused significant concerns among personnel there. But the lines of accountability, the determination of what sort of behavior is rewarded and what sort of behavior is punished, determined that the best course of action was to shove the problems under the rug.
    .
    The nature of Corporate organization almost guarantees the response. Would the CEO have approved had he been informed? Probably not. That’s why he wasn’t informed
    .
    http://phd9.blogspot.com/2009/08/left-on-joe-klein-thread.html
    .
    Like the proverbial scorpion crossing the river, Insurance companies can, should and do whatever they can get away with. Our job is to make sure that ‘what they get away with’ actually serves the public.

  • tstar3

    While I applaud Mitch Daniels for taking a gander at the massive Defense budget, he must be smoking something good if he thinks that is going to get him anywhere with the start a war with Iran and double Gitmo crowd.

    .
    Speaking of Gitmo, it has cost (so far) 500 mill in renovations post 9/11. (WashPo)

  • kevin

    A Weekly Standard cover? Well, it’s not like they’re ever wrong, right?
    .
    Seriously, if the budget director for the Bush White House wants to run for president on that sterling record, please, bring it on.

  • http://phd9.blogspot.com Paul Dirks

    Please release me – let me go…..

  • http://phd9.blogspot.com Paul Dirks

    Much of this indifference stemmed from an obsession with profits, come what may. But there also appears to have been another factor, one more universally human, at work.
    .
    Since when is an obsession with profits not universally human?
    .
    Quoting meyself:
    .
    There were problems with the well that caused significant concerns among personnel there. But the lines of accountability, the determination of what sort of behavior is rewarded and what sort of behavior is punished, determined that the best course of action was to shove the problems under the rug.
    .
    The nature of Corporate organization almost guarantees the response. Would the CEO have approved had he been informed? Probably not. That’s why he wasn’t informed
    .
    And elsewhere:
    .
    Like the proverbial scorpion crossing the river, Insurance companies can, should and do whatever they can get away with. Our job is to make sure that ‘what they get away with’ actually serves the public.

  • sacredh

    …you don’t love me anymore.
    .
    I still have a hard time understanding how that song kept Penny Lane/Strawberry Fields Forever from being #1.

  • Ivy_B
  • merlanai

    Having lived in Indiana when Mitch Daniels put a complete freeze on educational funding (as in STOPPED SENDING MONEY TO SCHOOLS) I simply can’t imagine what he’d do with the entire country in his hands. Unfortunately, he has a catchy campaign slogan. (My Man Mitch.)

  • nflfoghorn

    “…difficult to understate the gravity of Jim Messina’s overtures to Kenny Loggins”
    .
    FIFY

  • freeinpa

    “I simply can’t imagine what he’d do with the entire country in his hands.”

    Bring it back to fiscal responsibility? I know its a tough concept for liberals who blame Bush (well for everything but) for the deficit that has exploded under a Demo Congress and WH. We don’t lack spending on education we lack discipline of that spending.

    As always the left never runs out of other people’s money to spend.

  • grape_crush

    What did I miss?

    - “I don’t know which species is worse. You don’t see them f**k!ng each other over for a godd**n percentage.”

    The Republican War on Science continues.

    - Supporting the Military [contractors].

    “Among other odd legacies from war-on-terror spending since 2001 for the troops at Guantanamo Bay: an abandoned volleyball court for $249,000, an unused go-kart track for $296,000 and $3.5 million for 27 playgrounds that are often vacant.”

    - Stimulus? What stimulus?

    “…the answer is that there hasn’t been any net fiscal stimulus, all the Obama administration’s efforts plus the automatic stabilizers have done is mitigate the contractionary impact of state and local policy…”

    - And finally, your Sunday morning fact-check.

  • freeinpa

    Another socialist state coming to reality check

    http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100607/D9G6B83O0.html

  • http://phd9.blogspot.com Paul Dirks

    Clue for freep.

    Governement revenues are directly tied to economic activity. Less activity = less revenue AND more obligation.
    .
    As this chart makes clear:
    http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdp_large.gif
    The loss of productivity that created this mess began in Q3 2008 and peaked in Q1 2009. You might recall the our current President was sworn in During Q1 2009.

    The reason people blame Bush for the defecit is because he caused the defecit. No amount of hand-waving can change that simple fact.

  • freeinpa

    “Clue for freep”

    It’s the left that needs the clue. You can’t blame Bush for spending and the deficit then presume to fix it by spending even more and expanding the deficit by at least a factor of two.
    ==
    Here is an updated forecast from the WH

    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2010/06/graph_of_the_day_for_june_7_20.html

    Its projections for the stimulus were off by 25+% and now the revised is even worse. Better off doing nothing.

    The only conclusion: Clueless or dead wrong. And still spending and you can point all the fingers at Bush but the spending continues and the problems remain. And its all Dems!

  • deconstructiva

    “500 words” –
    Oil spill staffers practice shadow puppets on the screen, but Obama makes them stop doing the bird figures when the cameras show up, something about being inappropriate gestures or whatever.

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