Pinboard Links

Flap’s Links and Comments for July 8th on 12:08

These are my links for July 8th from 12:08 to 12:11:

  • The Elmendorf Rule – The president who ignored the debt problem for two years now tells Congress to get serious about the budget – Here we go again. An approaching crisis. A looming deadline. Nervous markets. And then, from the miasma of gridlock, rises our president, calling upon those unruly congressional children to quit squabbling, stop kicking the can down the road, and get serious about debt.

    This from the man who:

    Ignored the debt problem for two years by kicking the can to a commission.
     
    Promptly ignored the commission’s December 2010 report.
     
    Delivered a State of the Union address in January that didn’t even mention the debt until 35 minutes in.
     
    Delivered in February a budget so embarrassing — it actually increased the deficit — that the Democratic-controlled Senate rejected it 97–0.
     
    Took a budget mulligan with his April 13 debt-plan speech. Asked in Congress how this new “budget framework” would affect the actual federal budget, Congressional Budget Office director Doug Elmendorf replied with a devastating “We don’t estimate speeches.” You can’t assign numbers to air.

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    Read it all

    Pretty amazing….. but the Presidential 2012 polls tell the story – Obama is sinking.

  • Dem Senator Patty Murray Asked Koch Industries for Donation – Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), head of the Senate Democratic campaign effort, apparently left a voice mail for the president of Koch Industries asking for a donation. The company is owned by billionaire conservative donors Charles and David Koch.

    Koch president Philip Ellender wrote back: "I'm hoping you can help me understand the intent of your request because it's hard not to conclude that DSCC politics have become so cynical that you actually expect people whom you routinely denounce to give DSCC money."

  • DSCC asking Kochs for cash – The Kochs have become a major target of Democratic ire recently — but that hasn't stopped the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee from asking their company for money. A Koch company executive fires back in a letter to DSCC chairwoman Sen. Patty Murray:

    For many months now, your colleagues in the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee leadership have engaged in a series of disparagements and ad hominem attacks about us, apparently as part of a concerted political and fundraising strategy. Just recently, Senator Reid wrote in a DSCC fundraising letter that Republicans are trying to “force through their extreme agenda faster than you can say ‘Koch Brothers.’”

    So you can imagine my chagrin when I got a letter from you on June 17 asking us to make five-figure contributions to the DSCC. You followed that up with a voicemail* indicating that, if we contributed heavily enough, we would garner an invitation to join you and other Democratic leaders at a retreat in Kiawah Island this September.

    I’m hoping you can help me understand the intent of your request because it’s hard not to conclude that DSCC politics have become so cynical that you actually expect people whom you routinely denounce to give DSCC money.

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    Pretty amazing – bash and then ask for cash.