When some of us say that President Obama should have asked for much much more in his opening stimulus proposal, this is why:

[T]he centrists continue[] to demand more reductions. . . . Other reductions are likely in a $15,000 tax credit for all home purchases in the next year as well as a tax credit for the purchase of new cars, both of which were added to the Senate bill after little debate. House Democrats have objected to wholesale deletions from their original bill during the Senate debate, but they are likely to see some return of aid to states that their plan priced at $79 billion. The Senate reduced that figure to $39 billion, while it also zeroed out a fund that would finance school construction, another priority for which House Democrats are pushing to restore funds.

(Emphasis supplied.) There was never any rational thought process from "the Centrists" on this. No underlying thought or plan. It was always going to be "The Price Is Right" with these fools. Cuz that's how Broder designed this game. If you understood the game, you would have known to ask for more so that when "the Centrists" came in, they would do less damage.

Speaking for me only

Glenn Greenwald:

Ambinder's Atlantic colleague, Andrew Sullivan, quickly praised Ambinder for his "reporting" and -- after arguing just two days ago that Obama was becoming retroactively complicit in Bush's torture program as a result of shielding it from scrutiny -- changed his mind and has now decided that Obama's embrace of Bush's state secrets theory shows how wonderfully "pragmatic" (the all-purpose Obama-justifying term) and thoughtful and sober Obama's governing style is.

More . . .

Diaries from our readers: The Best Idea Yet, by Steve M., touting paying Wall Street bonuses with toxic assets.

Falling Short, by lilburro, regarding the unconvincing testimony of Leon Panetta on interrogation methods.

Mike Ditto argues that we should be celebrating some of the cuts made in the stimulus package.

Jacob Freeze takes on Ivy Leaguers like President Obama and, um, me.

You can find all the diaries by our readers at this link. This is an Open Thread.

While the "Senate moderates" gutted the stimulus in the stimulus package while embracing Republican tax cut pork, in the country there is severe economic pain. The Governor of Ohio Ted Strickland expresses his frustration with the "Senate moderates":

Gov. Ted Strickland says the $827 billion stimulus package the Senate is expected to approve today would be "hugely harmful" to Ohio. Because the revamped measure reduces money for states, it now threatens Ohio with a tuition increase for 40 percent of public-college students, the loss of thousands of state- and local-government jobs, closure of two "medium-sized" prisons, and 50,000 fewer people receiving mental-health services, the governor said yesterday.

While embracing GOP tax cut pork, the "Senate moderates" are blocking real stimulus where it is needed. It is disgraceful

Speaking for me only

The Wall Street Journal "reports:"

[T]op lawmakers struggl[ed] to bring the price of the two-year package down to $800 billion. That would be well below the $838.2 billion plan approved Tuesday by the Senate on a 61-37 vote, but would reflect pressure from influential moderates in the Senate to hold down costs.

(Emphasis supplied.) This is false reporting by the Wall Street Journal. The "Senate moderates" (read Nelson, Collins, Specter and Snowe) were perfectly willing not to cut the costs of the biggest pieces of pork proposed in the Senate bill. These came from Republican Senators Charles Grassley of Iowa (with his insistence on the inclusion of the Alternative Minimum Tax fix at a cost of $70 billion) and Johnny Issakson of Georgia (with his insistence at the inclusion of a home buying tax credit of $15,000 at a cost of $35 billion). Ironically, neither Senator actually voted for the stimulus package.

More . . .

How is President Obama doing? On this page, we try to look at the substance of what he is doing and whether he is taking steps to achieve policies we deem effective. Hence, we applauded his executive orders on Gitmo and torture, stem cell research, the signing of the Lily Ledbetter Act, the S-CHIP bill and similar actions that forwarded policies we think are good policy. We criticized actions we believe forwarded bad policy, most recently the Obama Administration's embrace of the Bush expansive view of the state secrets privilege. We have spent a good deal of time on the stimulus issue. Today in the WaPo, Ruth Marcus provides a prime example of how the Beltway pundits discuss issues - style over substance:

"Give it away, give it away now."

Has anyone even bothered to read the House and Senate stimulus bills? The Wall St. Journal has a chart with the differences between the two. (Note: $=1000s.) They read like a Joe Biden crime bill. Pure pork and what on earth are they doing in a stimulus bill to help the economy and struggling Americans?

Every one of these needs to get tossed from this bill. No wonder we're going broke. Even the first one, which is laudable, doesn't belong in a stimulus bill.

• Funds for office supervising humane confinement of federal detainees.
  House $0
  Senate $100,000
• Justice spending oversight.
  House $2,000
  Senate $2,000
• Extra FBI agents to focus on crimes against children.
  House $0
  Senate $50,000
• Construction at US Marshals Service
  House $0
  Senate $100,000
• Extra hires to target mortgage fraud.
  House $0
  Senate $75,000
• Construction at FBI
  House $0
  Senate $300,000

[More...]

A few days ago I wrote about the call by marijuana reform advocates to boycott Kellogg's cereal for having canceled Michael Phelps' sponsorship deal.

The New York Times reports on the impact of boycott.

In one sign of the campaign's impact, the Phelps saga took precedence over the tainted peanut butter outbreak in the recorded reply on Kellogg's consumer hot line Tuesday.

''If you would like to share your comments regarding our relationship with Michael Phelps, please press one to speak to a representative,'' said the recording. ''If you're calling about the recent peanut butter recall, please press two now.''

[More...]

NBC reports that Patrick Fitzgerald will stay on as U.S. Attorney in Illinois.

I don't think this was in doubt. When the Chicago Tribune editorial board interviewed Obama in March during the campaign, he was asked about this and said:

Wall St. doesn't think much of the stimulus plan. The Dow fell 382 points.

Yesterday's decline deepened as investors -- who had bid up the price of stocks last week in anticipation of this week's announcement -- cashed in their gains and sold, traders and analysts said.

Geithner's presser hurt as well:[More....]

An editorial in the Greensboro News-Record makes a good point:

While using federal dollars to put more police officers on the street probably will lower crime rates, it's a stretch to think doing so stimulates the economy.

Actually, it's a stretch to think that more cops on the street will lower crime rates. As the editorial notes:

As proposed, the stimulus plan includes about $4 billion to revive grants dating back to the Clinton administration that funded drug task forces, after-school programs, prisoner rehabilitation and salaries for local police officers. In the 1990s, the money was used to hire more than 100,000 police officers nationwide. Yet critics say the federal cash infusion was mostly ineffective in reducing crime and seldom cost-effective.

[more ...]

AP:

The U.S. and Iran have a chance to "work out a way of talking" that could lead to understandings on a range of issues, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday. In a hopeful assessment of prospects for improved relations with Tehran, Clinton told reporters at the State Department that the U.S. remains opposed to Iran getting nuclear weapons. She added that the Obama administration hopes the two nations can work out "a better understanding of one another."

[More....]