Quickies

• Stocks have dropped more than 10% in two weeks. Can we now talk about JOBS?

• Of course if we talk about JOBS the Republicans will do everything they can to block any government action that might spur job creation. Why on earth would an American do that? Because they are more worried about making the president appear as a failure than they are about America succeeding. So what are Dems to do? Truman anyone?

• Stock dives prove how stupid and unnecessary the debt ceiling debate was.  Instead of spending months threatening American default for the first time ever, and playing political games with an absolutely GOP-created problem, Congress should have been using that time to come up with measures to stimulate the economy.

• Republicans love state's rights except for when they love to take those rights away by amending the Constitution.  Nowadays such insanity is called tea baggery.

• Best paragraph I've read all week: "In other words, a slew of millionaire politicians who spent the last decade exploding the national debt with Endless War, a sprawling Surveillance State, and tax cuts for the rich are now imposing extreme suffering on the already-suffering ordinary citizenry, all at the direction of their plutocratic overlords, who are prospering more than ever and will sacrifice virtually nothing under this deal (despite their responsibility for the 2008 financial collapse that continues to spawn economic misery).  And all of this will be justified by these politicians and their millionaire media mouthpieces with the obscenely deceitful slogans of "shared sacrifice" and "balanced debt reduction" -- two of the most odiously Orwellian phrases since "Look Forward, not Backward" and "2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate" (and anyone claiming that Obama was involuntarily forced by the "crazy" Tea Party into massive budget cuts at a time of almost 10% unemployment: see the actual facts here)."