President Obama has just announced a press conference where he will concede everything the Tea Party wants.  A recent survey by Jimmy Kimmel has proved to President Obama that, without a  doubt, the American people do not want Obamacare, but they really want the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

The President will explain that he finally sees why the Tea Party is so against Obamacare, but surely they cannot disagree with the great majority of the American public who want the Affordable Care Act.

How could the Republicans possibly explain being against the Affordable Care Act?  How could they possibly defend such a position?

I’ll make another post as soon as the press conference is over to tell you what the reaction of the press was.  Maybe even before that there will be some advance reaction from the Republicans.  If there is, I will report that first.

Democracy Now has an extended interview Taking on Capitalism, U.S. Torture & Dictatorships, Costa-Gavras on Decades of Political Filmmaking.

As a big fan of his movies Z and Missing, I couldn’t resist seeing what he is up to now. His latest film, Capital, looks to be a film worth seeing.(If nothing else, the scenery is very interesting.) (If Sharon were looking over my shoulder right now, she would say “I knew you would say that.”)

Jimmy Kimmel did a Person On The Street segment – Six of One – Obamacare vs. The Affordable Care Act.

I think Obama should compromise. Agree to postpone Obamacare and let’s first see if the Affordable Care Act works. If it does, than we can forgo Obamacare altogether.

No, seriously. If this is what people want, then just give it to them.

Thanks to RichardH for bringing this scientific poll to my attention.

The Real News Network has the video and transcript Exposed: California’s Secret Plan to Gut Public Pensions.  From the transcript with a “you know” filter applied:

A bunch of plutocrats have gotten together and decided that it’s a good time to swindle the American people yet again. And this time they’re going after public pensions. They are waging war on people whose only crime is to get up in the morning and go to work and serve their communities. It’s an audacious and cynical attack on people who have no responsibility for the state budget shortfalls that some of these groups are screaming about.

You will have to do research yourself to find out what is actually in the swindle.  Taking the video at its word, we have to realize that it is not only government “entitlements” like social security that these people are after.

Just think that since the 401k and IRA were introduced, the private pension has all but disappeared.  Even worse than that, the 401k has been turned into a corporate profit center because the company gives the contract to manage your 401K to a management company.  And by “gives” I don’t mean for free.

Since the top 1% of the country has most of the income and assets, you wonder what there is left to squeeze out of the bottom 99%.  I guess they make it up in volume.  Then again, the top 0.5% can start taking  from the next 0.5%.  Does this increasing concentration of wealth at the top have a happy outcome for the rest of us?  What do you think?

USA Today used the silly headline Physics Nobel Prize goes to ‘God particle’ scientists for this article.

The 2013 Nobel Prize in Physics has gone to Britain’s Peter W. Higgs and Belgium’s Francois Englert, the Nobel Committee announced in Stockholm on Tuesday.

They were jointly awarded the prize for their work on a theory that offers an explanation for how the fundamental particles of the Universe acquire mass.

Next year the Nobel Prize in Physics will be awarded for the astrophysical notion discovered by USA Today that the Universe does not revolve around the US Government shutdown.

USA Today has the brief article Obama calls Boehner, will speak at 2 p.m.

President Obama called House Speaker John Boehner on Tuesday, again telling the Ohio Republican he will not negotiate on budget items until the GOP-run House ends the shutdown and raises the debt ceiling.

Gee, you’d almost think that the White House read my blog post White House open to short-term increase in debt ceiling.  This is where I suggested the wording:

“Congress, just do your job.  Keep the government running.  Call me after you have done your job, and we can talk about other issues.  There will be no further communications to you from the White House.”

Between the President and Elizabeth Warren, we might get this resolved.

If you only have 5 minutes or so, here is the edited version of Elizabeth Warren’s speech before Congress.

If you have 12 minutes or so of time, it is highly worth while to listen to the full speech below.

Elizabeth Warren for President!!!

Thanks to DonF for bringing these videos to my attention.

Aljazeera has the article Smart people, stupid people, and budget politics by Dean Baker.

Blame the media

When a typical person hears that the government spends $445m a year on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, they are likely to think that this is a lot of money, since it is way more than most people will ever see in their lifetime. Almost no one has their nose in the budget books, so they are not able to recognise that this sum is just a bit more than one-hundredth of one percent of the budget.

The same is true for other categories of government spending. People hear huge numbers and think that programs involve lots of money, because to them these sums would be lots of money. They are not in a position to assess the importance of a program to the federal budget

This article is a beautiful attempt to put some meaning behind Greenberg’s Law of The Media – “If a news item has a number in it, then it is probably misleading.”

Quoting large dollar figures with no context to be able to judge significance is just one of the ways that news story seem to imply something for which there is no basis in the article.

McClatchy DC has the article White House open to short-term increase in debt ceiling.  I knew this was trouble as soon as I saw the headline.

The White House indicated Monday for the first time that it would be open to a short-term increase to the nation’s borrowing limit, allowing the federal government to avoid a possible default on its obligations that could plunge the nation into another recession.

Senate Democrats expect to bring a longer-term fix to the floor for a vote later this week. It would raise the debt ceiling for months, perhaps until after the November 2014 elections. House Republicans said they could consider a stopgap measure if it were part of a larger deal.

“If the White House is open to a short-term debt limit increase with accompanying spending cuts and reforms, that is a positive sign,” said Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner.

It is pointless to even talk to the Republicans.  As soon as you open your mouth they think you are now negotiating non-negotiable positions.

The point of having stop gaps and continuing resolutions is to keep the government running while the two sides work out the issues on which they cannot agree.  Every time Obama makes the slightest concession, the Republicans demand everything else.  The President would just stop talking completely.

The President should just say,

“Congress, just do your job.  Keep the government running.  Call me after you have done your job, and we can talk about other issues.  There will be no further communications to you from the White House.”

USA Today has the brief story China warns U.S. about debt default.

“‘We hope the United States fully understands the lessons of history,’ Zhu said, referring to a deadlock in 2011 that led to a downgrade of the U.S. credit rating to “AA+” from “AAA” by agency Standard & Poors.

“The last big confrontation over the debt ceiling, in August 2011, ended with an eleventh-hour agreement under pressure from shaken markets and warnings of an economic catastrophe if a default were allowed to happen.”

First it was Russia telling us how to avoid war, and now the Chinese government is explaining to us how to run a capitalist economy.

How dare they?  Isn’t the USA the best capitalist country in the world?  Maybe not.