Billionaire Pete Peterson is holding a by-invitation-only “Fiscal Summit” Tuesday. This gathering to discuss how to gut entitlement programs and otherwise keep denizens of the top tier from slipping out of the one percentile category is becoming an annual affair. This is No. 3.

I wasn’t invited. Chances are you weren’t either. And neither was Sen. Bernie Sanders. But that isn’t stopping the Vermont independent from showing up to join a little protest rally outside the summit’s venue at 1301 Constitution Avenue NW in Washington, D.C. The organizers are informally calling it the “People’s Summit.” If you’re in town and you have a few minutes, you ought to think about dropping in.

At the Campaign for America’s Future, Dave Johnson writes:

Deficit theater is coming to DC tomorrow, with a well-funded “fiscal summit.” The plot summary is that we have Deficit Trouble — Right Here In River City! so to fix it we need to cut Social Security and Medicare and the things democracy does for We, the People — while cutting taxes on the rich and their corporations to make us more “business-friendly.” (This musical is sometimes billed as “Simpson-Bowles” but it’s the same old song.) [...]

What happened under Bush? We cut taxes on the rich and doubled military spending. (And started wars.) And don’t forget collapsing the economy, forcing people onto unemployment and food stamps. That is why we have a deficit. We have a deficit because of tax cuts for the rich, huge military budget increases and the consequences of deregulating corporations.

Here are some questions for tomorrow’s deficit theater:

• How large was the country’s yearly budget deficit and total debt in the “Eisenhower/Truman” decades when the top tax rate was 90%?

• Today we have an “infrastructure deficit” – the amount needed to repair our country’s roads, bridges, sewers, etc. – of somewhere upwards of $ 1.6 trillion. Was our infrastructure kept in good repair before the top tax rates were cut?

• Concentration of wealth is long recognized as a threat to democracy, and now we are seeing a low-wage, everything-to-the-top economy with the greatest ever concentration of wealth going to a few at the top. Was the problem of wealth concentration increasing or decreasing before the top tax rates were cut?
• When top rates were high people couldn’t take home vast fortunes in a single year. When it took several years to make a fortune did corporations depend on long-term or short-term thinking? Did the executives of corporations care if the infrastructure and communities their companies depended on were in good shape? Did large corporations fleece customers and exploit employees for quarterly returns as they do now? [...]

How do we fix this? Doesn’t it make sense to look at what caused the deficits and fix that? There actually are budget plans that get rid of the deficit without cutting back on the things democracy does for We, the People. Here is a post about one of those budget plans: The People’s Budget Balances The Budget — Why Isn’t It Part Of These “Deficit” Talks?

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2004:

This week Howard Dean announced “Dean’s Dozen,” a dozen (actually 14) candidates that had garnered the official support of his organization, Democracy for America:

Our new organization — Democracy for America — is dedicated to using its resources to support those candidates in their fight to take our country back from the right-wing conservatives who dominate our government. Today, Democracy for America announces the Dean Dozen — twelve diverse candidates that represent the spirit of grassroots democracy. These will be tough races, and not all of the Dean Dozen may win. However, they will all spread the message that to change America progressives must compete.

Well, his dozen is a peculiar list.  It’s very difficult to discern what strategic considerations Dean and his staff put into their choices, except possibly that these folks are being rewarded for their loyalty to Dean’s candidacy.  How else to explain Dean’s decision to target the resources of his still significant fundraising and activist base to this collection of campaigns …

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If your church pastor is telling you to sit out the 2012 election, you need to find another church.
— @eclecticbrotha via TweetDeck

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Ben talks with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd about the 2012 State of the Union Address and President Obama’s strong vision to rebuild America. 1/25/12
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November 16, 2011 — On MSNBC’s Martin Bashir Show, Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) urged colleagues to work across party lines and find common ground to establish a bipartisan solution for managing the budget.
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Whether Rand Paul could now — against all odds — catapult him to the vice presidency is likely to be one of the more compelling dramas to unfold as the GOP nominating race slowly draws to a close.
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All hail the arrival of the Toolitzer.  

Over at Crooked Timber, Henry Farrell has announced a new writing award for book authors like Jonah Goldberg (who was just nailed for claiming he once part of that small, elite group of people who have been nominated for a Pulitzer prize — two in his case, he said — when, in fact, he was just one of thousands of applicants, and one can apply on his or her own). Farrell:
 

A few weeks ago, I got an email from a publicist at Penguin Books:

In 2008, columnist Jonah Goldberg triggered a firestorm of controversy with his first book, LIBERAL FASCISM, a #1 New York Times bestseller. Now, he’s about to unleash another bold, funny, and thoughtful argument in his new book, THE TYRANNY OF CLICHÉS: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas (Sentinel, May 1). … Please let me know if you’d like a copy of THE TYRANNY OF CLICHÉS.

I responded by saying that I was grateful for the offer, but that I’d rather slice my eyeballs open with a rusty can-opener. I also gave them permission to use this quote as a back-cover blurb if they liked. They never got back to me (I thought it was at least as good as Brad Thor’s “In the P.C. prison yard of accepted political thought, Jonah Goldberg has just shivved progressivism,” but I’m probably just biased). Now, fate has given me (and Penguin Books) a second chance.

On the dust jacket of his new book, “The Tyranny of Clichés: How Liberals Cheat in the War of Ideas,” best-selling conservative author and commentator Jonah Goldberg is described as having “twice been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.” In fact, as Goldberg acknowledged on Tuesday, he has never been a Pulitzer nominee, but merely one of thousands of entrants. … His publisher, Penguin Group (USA), said the error was unintentional and it would remove the Pulitzer word from his book jacket when it’s time for the first reprint, “just like any other innocent mistake brought to our attention.”

Henry Farrell, creator of the Toolitzer
(Photo by Patrick Nielsen Hayden)

It’s time to fill that gap on the back cover of the first reprint. So let me simultaneously (a) announce the creation of the Toolitzer Prizes, with myself as sole judge and executive chairman of the nominating committee, and (b) nominate The Tyranny of Cliches, and (retroactively), Liberal Fascism for the award, so that our Jonah will have two new nominations to take the place of the old ones. Should the necessary conditions of the competition be fulfilled (see below), the prize will be awarded to the book with the most serious, thoughtful, argument that has never before been made in such detail or with such care. Of course, deciding this would actually require me to read the books: hence the nomination process will have two steps.

If readers want to simply nominate books, they may do so by simply leaving a comment to this post, describing the book, and making a brief statement about its merits for the award. Books so nominated will have full and explicit permission to describe themselves as Toolitzer nominees in publicity materials, on the author’s website and so on, regardless of whether an actual award is made in the calendar year 2012.

If readers actually want an award to be made, they will need to both nominate a book and provide evidence of having made a minimum $ 500 donation in honor of the award to an organization which, in the opinion of the executive chairman, exemplifies the ideals of Liberal Fascism (examples might include The Baffler, Planned Parenthood, The American Prospect etc). Should readers so do, the sole judge will undertake to read the nominated book (as long as it is under 600 pages), and write a detailed blogpost evaluating its worthiness for the award (the sole judge quietly and selfishly hopes that no-one actually takes this second step, but will take his lumps if someone does).

Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2005:

Looking at the front page today, you can see we have spent a bit of time on the GOP Smear of Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid. The brouhaha is supposed to be about the FBI file of Bush judicial nominee Henry Saad.

The Thief is Manuel Miranda, who earned his exalted place in the GOP pantheon by  stealing Democratic files while he was working for Bill “Nuclear Option” Frist. He now leads the Extreme Right’s fight for Frist’s Nuclear Option. A commitment to “ethics,” the hallmark of the GOP.

The Hack is Charles Hurt, Moonie Times “reporter” and stenographer for the Thief, who seems to have forgotten he wrote about Saad’s FBI file one year ago. Now which GOP Senator do you suppose was Hurt’s source on that one?

The Shills are the usual suspects, the Right Wing blogs and the rest of the Republican Smear Machine. One fellow stands out though — the foolish Byron York

Tweet of the Day:

Klein has a bull shit book to sell saying Oprah and First Lady had bitter fight….spare us….we have Drudge for that…and its Free
— @JeffersonObama via TweetDeck

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The world is greatly benefiting from the French and Chinese humanistic traditions, but in a century of unprecedented interdependence, it is the quality of their articulation which can make a difference.
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www.92y.org Comedian Richard Lewis sat down with MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on April 27, 2008, to talk about his life and career for the Y’s Funny People Series. More talks in the Funny People series here: www.92y.org And for more from the Lewis and Olbermann talk, we have an audio file here which includes exclusive conversation not contained in the video clip here: blog.92y.org

Like OMN on Facebook: www.facebook.com Follow OMN on Twitter: twitter.com Check out oneminutenews.com Keith Olbermann went on Letterman last night to prove to the world he’s a million chandelier without a home. Source bit.ly Blake Griffin proves he can jump high by dunking on Pau Gasol, too bad his team didn’t win. The Miami Marlins opened the 2012 baseball season in their new park, too bad they lost to the Cardinals. And, The Masters too bad they don’t admit women. Source: es.pn | cbsn.ws | bit.ly Kim Jung Un is doing his father proud by “bringing the crazy.” The North Korea leader said if anyone… and I mean anyone tried to stop his missile tests he will send them to the bottom of the sea. Source: bit.ly
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For the past couple of months, Ann Romney has been trying to convince Americans that her husband is a “wild and crazy guy,” and this week we began to see evidence of it.

On Monday, Mitt told a Cleveland TV reporter that he’d take a lot of credit for the auto industry’s recovery, which is pretty fucking crazy.

But it wasn’t until Thursday that Mitt’s wild side came into focus, thanks to the investigative reporting of The Washington Post.

According to several classmates who witnessed his high school “pranks” firsthand, at the tender age of 18, Mitt was already displaying wild and crazy leadership skills—much like Jack Merridew in Lord of the Flies.

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Here’s the dividend for Republicans in working relentlessly to sabotage the economy for the entirety of President Obama’s first term: a shaky economy and tough polling. From Washington Post/ABC News:

With unemployment still high, homeowners still underwater and facing foreclosure, and ongoing financial uncertainty and insecurity, it’s not surprising that the nation is pretty ambivalent on Obama’s performance on the economy. But what’s also important to keep in mind, and for Obama to keep talking about, is the fact that Republicans have blocked all of his attempts to get the economy moving since they agreed to the stimulus.

Republicans put politics over the country every time for the past three and a half years, and Obama needs to be ruthlessly partisan in pointing that out. This needs to be the face of the GOP for the next six months:

Mitch McConnell: “The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president.”

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In addition to receiving flowers and cards this Mother’s Day, an increasing number of moms will also be setting aside time to send out child support and alimony checks.
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GOP spinning about Job Growth Keith Olbermann

Countdown Keith Olbermann A portrait of the Bush economy

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