“The President calls on Republicans in Congress to put scoring political points aside, and instead to focus on solving the problems facing the nation.  At the time of this address, the Republican leadership is blocking progress on a bill to boost the economy, retain jobs for teachers and cops, and help people buy their first home; another bill which would hold oil companies accountable for any disasters they cause by removing the current $75 million liability cap; and 136 highly qualified men and women who have been nominated to government positions.”

On the other hand, Eric Cantor says that Gulf of Mexico oil catastrophe, which even its partner Anadarko blames on BP, is a “natural disaster.”  No, Mr. Cantor, it’s your policies and your ideology that led to this “disaster,” and they’re all manmade, by people just like yourself. Instead of apologizing to BP (or trying to blame President Obama, Democrats, environmentalists, anyone but yourselves), why don’t you guys apologize to the American people for what deregulation, crony capitalism, gutting government regulation, and creating a new “robber baron” era in this country, have done to us?

This truly is pitiful.

Five days after his statement appeared in print that he would “absolutely” be willing to appear in debates with both Tom Perriello and independent candidate Jeff Clark, Sen. Robert Hurt is changing his story. He is now refusing to debate with the independent candidate.

[…]

“This is pitiful. Virginians hate career politicians who say one thing and do another. Sen. Hurt should stay true to his word and debate Mr. Perriello and Mr. Clark. Sen. Hurt could not get the majority support of his own party and now wants to silence independent voices that reflect many in this district, including many views of the Tea Party,” said Lise Clavel, campaign manager for the Perriello campaign. “Tom Perriello faced hundreds of Tea Party constituents during his 21 town hall meetings last summer. If Sen. Hurt wants this job so badly, why is he afraid to face just one?“

Good question, but I’m sure Hurt’s puppet master, Chris “Swift Boat” LaCivita, has a good answer. Or not.

Just as the President’s commission on government debt gets going, and showing a suspicious co-ordination with the growing Republican-Wall Street campaign to curtail federal debt and wring more money from Main Street in preference to mounting a new attack to stimulate job growth, up pops Alan Greenspan with another piece of sage advice.  According to Bloomberg the former Federal Reserve Chair (1987-2006) testified at a Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission in Washington, that the U.S. may soon face higher borrowing costs (i.e., interest payments) on its “swelling debt.” Bloomberg also quoted from Greenspan’s own article in The Wall Street Journal, where he stated

“The United States, and most of the rest of the developed world, is in need of a tectonic shift in fiscal policy… the federal government is currently saddled with commitments for the next three decades that it will be unable to meet in real terms…. (the) very severity of the pending crisis and growing analogies to Greece set the stage for a serious response.”

This from the very man who contributed most to one bubble after another by borrowing more and more and more money from the major savers of the world (who happened to reside in places like China and Japan), the man who created the financing for Bush II’s wars out of thin air, so Bush did not have to raise taxes, and, the man who indeed approved when Bush cut taxes on the wealthiest, despite warnings from many economists, and severe chastisement from the same Austrian economists who are suddenly so beloved of the Tea Party.

Now he tells he’s worried about all that debt, when back during Bush-times he encouraged Vice-President Cheney to pontificate that “deficits don’t matter.” Do his opinions depend on who is occupying the White House, or has Mr. Greenspan suddenly got religion?

Secretary of the Treasury, Timothy Geithner was also quoted in the same article, as saying that “while fiscal tightening is needed over the ‘medium term,’ governments must reinforce the recovery in private demand.” Translation: if we tighten up and pull back on federal spending at this moment, we will abort the recovery and create a double-dip recession. That is exactly what happened to FDR in 1937, when he caved in to Wall Street bankers, and what had been a healthy turn-around in the economy after the 1929 crash suddenly petered out, hard times returned with a vengeance, to be ameliorated only by the return of deficit spending to fight World War II.

The question of how to pull out of another one of disaster capitalism’s crises, the timing and scope of deficit spending, and the invidious attack on such an effort by those who represent the interests of Wall Street and Big Money, and not the interests of average people on Main Street, was addressed in Obessing About the Deficit vs Opportunity Costs. Mr. Greenspan’s comments, and their being showcased in Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, are one more indication of the growing campaign, not to “reduce the deficit” so much as to cut what the right-wing calls entitlements, meaning Social Security and health care, and everything else that helps the average American. It is one more shot in the War Against the Middle Class.

We heard no such heart-felt pleas for fiscal restraint when it was a question of running up the bill for military interventionism in Iraq (that’s “defense” in modern parlance), nor when it came to the desperate necessity of bailing out imprudent and greedy banksters. Oh, no, all of that was either State Secrets or Economic Life and Death. The pain of repairing the damage from the reckless creation of bubbles as wrought by such as Mr. Greenspan is not going to be borne by the Big Moneymen who profited from the bubbles on the way up and again on the way down as they burst—– no, the pain is going to be borne by the victims and the little guy—- it must be that the banksters and the Big Money still think we little mice might have a bit of treasure they can squeeze out of us for the big rats to enjoy).

OR: this will be the case unless the administration makes a better effort to get the other side of the argument out into the public domain, and in a more aggressive way than the pale, mousey words of timid Timothy Geithner.

Last night there was an opportunity to attend a meeting where Ken Stolle couldn’t pull his 4th Amendment shenanigan to have “objectionable attendees” removed. But the Sheriff of Virginia Beach was a no show. Either he is a frail executive or his Undersheriff lacks integrity. Or worse.

The Sheriff committed himself to address the monthly Third Police Precinct Citizen’s Advisory Committee, so it was disappointing when he sent Undersheriff Dennis Free in his stead. Free, a glib former Virginia Beach police officer rolled off the office’s accomplishments during the past year accentuating the fiscal responsibility theme: that the office has been significantly tightened up since the departure of Sheriff Paul Lanteigne. Message: Paul Lanteigne was a poor administrator. But if Stolle was really unable to attend the meeting for the reason Free provided, Stolle is weak at best. And if that wasn’t the situation, there is no reason to trust the man Stolle has installed as his Undersheriff and possibly Stolle himself. Stolle, Free explained, was meeting with a person providing the phone contract and by law the contract is with the Sheriff himself…at 7PM on a night he previously committed. A contactor is dictating Stolle’s schedule.

It is always educational listening to someone with no practical business experience explain the business of government. Certainly this was Sheriff Stolle’s slide show, but here was a fellow whose advocates count among themselves those who grin and nod when they hear the rants about “Government Motors” getting an audience to grin and nod when he discussed Stolle’s “Government Farms.” But apparently this great innovator doesn’t understand the business-client customer relationship. Of course, Stolle, a former policeman and legislator has no executive experience.

There’s more though. Turns out that Stolle penned legislation in his days as a state senator that the state says his office is now violating. Free explained that Stolle insists that since he wrote the law he knows what it means, therefore he will do as he pleases. The Attorney General’s office is want to enforce the law, apparently too focused on enforcing US Constitutional law to spend effort on Virginia Constitutional responsibilities. Think there’s enough arrogance to go around?

So, why is it that a constitutional officer is bowing to a vendor? That is troubling. Why is it that a constitutional officer is meeting with a contractor outside of business hours? Is it that this business “deal” cannot survive scrutiny in the light of day? Should Stolle have recused himself from this contract decision? After all, he is awarding a contract for a service which must include as a bidder one of his brother’s political opponents’ employers. Free openly bragged the office was ignoring enforcement of a law; is it also ignoring ethical standards?