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Lawrence Kudlow interviewed Dick Cheney on CNBC yesterday and it was all about his views on the economy. Kudlow tried to get Cheney to call Obama a "socialist," but he wouldn't bite on that one. I do have to give Kudlow a little credit here. He didn't just blow right past the part of our history where the Bush/Cheney administration almost destroyed the global economy, and he even put some of the blame on his guest.

Anyway, Cheney suddenly is now very worried about deficits since President Obama has been forced to pump massive amounts of money into the economy to try and save it from Cheney's handiwork. You may remember this little gem from Dick when he got into it with Paul O'Neil:

O'Neill, fired in a shakeup of Bush's economic team in December 2002, raised objections to a new round of tax cuts and said the president balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from "the corporate crowd," a key constituency.

O'Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due." A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.

In this portion of the interview, Cheney elaborates on the economy as he sees it and is so terrified that President Obama has just ruined everything.

Transcript via Kudlow below the fold:

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The National Rifle Association is having its big annual convention in Arizona this week, which means we'll see the usual parade of fearmongering and liberal-bashing on steroids that these affairs always are -- with a special emphasis on President Obama, that scary Muslim left-wing radical who wants to take all our guns away.

It's all paranoia, all the time. As you can see from clips above, all the raging talk at the convention is about how gun sales are through the roof because everyone's afraid Obama is going on a gun-grabbing spree. (Side note: Was that a Freudian slip on Larry Kudlow's part, calling the NRA the "IRA"?)

Pretty typical is Ted Nugent, who's blogging the affair from Arizona for Human Events and coming up with some prime bon mots ("Write this down: Gun Free Zones are a felon’s playgrounds. Ban Gun Free Zones now. Join the NRA.") while drawing a bead on the bottom line: Keep your hands off my guns, you dirty stinking liberals:

Meanwhile, in order to stop the drowning and murders, I will work on banning water, Obama can try to ban guns. Good luck. Save an innocent life, join the NRA and celebrate 138 years of keeping and bearing. Drive a bad guys nuts. Then shoot him while he’s committing a violent crime.

That's the stuff circulating for mainstream-media consumption. But always at these shows, and around them, there's the gaseous nebula of conspiracism. The warnings of an NRA fan posted at one of the local news stories is fairly typical of the material floating about the convention and among its attendees:

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Larry Kudlow showing his "compassionate conservative" side. (h/t Heather)

Swing State Project:

This strikes me as hilarious:

Here at CPAC a well placed source with knowledge of the Republican Senate Committee plans tells me that Larry Kudlow is "considering" a Senate run against embattled Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd.

Larry Kudlow has a long track record of being wrong about just about everything. Just last week, for instance, he was addled enough to say of Obama's mortage plan that "the people who win here are Fannie and Freddie. The Americans who paid their taxes on time and their mortgages on time get hurt" - even though Fannie and Freddie are, of course, now owned by the US government. And that's just one example among many, many more - check out Atrios's archives for all kinds of gems.

We have lots and lots of gems from Larry Kudlow as well. In fact, this is a Republican challenger that I'm actually looking forward to, for no other reason than the amount of damage we can do to Kudlow's credibility simply by using his own words.

Also...joy of all joys...since the conservative blogosphere went nuts and demanded that Chris Matthews be relieved of his NBC/MSNBC duties if he threw his hat in the ring in Pennsylvania, dare we hope that Larry Kudlow would be similarly removed from the airwaves?

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On Washington Journal, Larry Kudow is asked about the unfairness of a the caller's seventeen year old grandson being sent to prison for a year for buying marijuana when those like Rush Limbaugh got off Scott free for their drug possessions and Kudlow's response is to send the kid to AA. Kudlow had some other less than friendly callers that morning as well. The entire interview for anyone with the stomach for it can be found here.

Hopefully the important issue the caller was trying to get to before being cut off by C-SPAN is one that our incoming administration will treat a bit differently as noted in this recent Washington Post article.

A recent report by the Government Accountability Office, commissioned by Sen. Joe Biden, has come to an unsurprising conclusion: After more than $6 billion spent, the controversial drug control operation known as Plan Colombia has failed by large margins to meet its targets.

The goal had been to cut cocaine production in Colombia by 50 percent from 2000 to 2006 through eradication of coca crops and training of anti-narcotics police and military personnel. In fact, cocaine production in Colombia rose 4 percent during that period, the GAO found. With increases in Peru and Bolivia, production of cocaine in South America increased by 12 percent during that period. In 1999 it cost $142 to buy a gram of cocaine on the street in the United States, according to inflation-adjusted figures from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. By 2006 the price had fallen to $94 per gram.

President-elect Barack Obama won his historic victory by promising pragmatic, results-oriented solutions aimed at the common good. The recent report demonstrates that Plan Colombia does not fit those criteria.

Follow this link to read the rest of the article: Wasting Drug War Resources.

Big h/t for Paul Krugman on this one.

Stock markets are the best barometer of the health, wealth and security of a nation” And today's stock market message is an unmistakable vote of confidence for the president. Even the best low-tax, limited-government economic policies can be thwarted if the men and women going to work in the morning can't get safely back to their homes and families at night.

Larry Kudlow says A Stock Market Vote of Confidence for Bush. He is such a tool...

This is too funny. You know my fondness for Kudlow, who blames poor people for the mess we're in.  Well, Larry "Market Popeil" Kudlow said he was in favor of the bail out and Bernie Sanders, (I) VT, called him out on it. Larry, who hates all forms of regulations on Wall Street and is a big free marketeer and Conservative is looking for a hand out. Way to go Larry.

Sanders: Larry,  I'm sure after all of the ranting and raving you have done against government intervention and the virtues of free market I know without saying that you are opposed to the bail out.

Kudlow: No, I'm in favor of it.

Sanders: Oh, you've become a Socialist overnight Larry, what happened?....I think your version of socialism is to bail out the rich. My concern is about the middle class and working families who are now asked to bail out the disaster caused by the incredibly greedy people on Wall Street who have fought for this deregulation which is now taking us over the cliff.

Larry Kudlow proves once again that he's nothing more than a right wing, free market, Milton Friedman hack that just lies at will. Doesn't he have a conscience? Nope...It's never the big money freepers that horde the wealth of this country and  have no restrictions on what they can do thanks in part to Mr Deregulation himself, John McCain. Jon Perr has more...

Download | play   Download | play (h/t Heather) (rough transcript)

Kudlow: It's time for the Congress, Republicans and Democrats to stop encouraging---exhorting and forcing banks to make low income loans with no documentation. Stop that---literally pushed these lenders to make low income loans

Scarborough: Hold on a second. You cannot blame this on low income people that are getting a house. 

Kudlow: I'm not blaming them. Kudlow: Sub prime, sub standard loans were a creature of the US Congress in the 90's and the 2000's.

Scarborough: Are you saying that poor people have caused this crisis?

Kudlow: Not poor people. Members of Congress who were rich people. But their Liberal guilt consciences forced banks and lenders to make lousy sub-standard loans and that has to be repealed...not everybody can afford a home, Joe. Some people have to rent."

What a crock.  Kudlow blames it all on the liberals. What a joke this man is. This is another case that proves conservatism is dead. Of course not everybody can afford a home. Sorry, the irresponsible lending practices went on because it kept Bush's economy chugging along for years before it crashed and burned. The ownership society Bush and conservatives called it. Morning Joe actually takes him apart for even suggesting that low income families are the root cause of our economic problems in the housing market. It's up to the lenders to qualify people for loans. PERIOD. 

I watched this crisis unfold and saw people walking into fairly expensive homes in Venice, CA with no down payments and either low or no interest loans. Yes, I'm a renter now. I couldn't believe my eyes when the property values skyrocketed (went up to 1 million) because of these lending practices. People can apply for a loan all they want, but that does not automatically mean they should be approved. That's up to the lenders. Liberal guilt is never an issue and a lie, Mr Kudlow. They aren't supposed to hand over thousands of dollars without knowing that they will be paid back. The predatory lenders made boat loads of cash at will with a conservative philosophy in hand. Just ask your best friend for a hundred bucks and see what happens...Naomi Klein writes: Disowned by the Ownership Society

Washington think-tanker Grover Norquist predicted that the ownership society would be Bush's greatest legacy, remembered "long after people can no longer pronounce or spell Fallujah." Bush has turned out to be the ownership society's undertaker.

I hope these work....Contact Larry Kudlow here: Larry.Kudlow@cnbc.com  Larry.Kudlow@nbcuni.com Call 877-251-5685 up until 7 pm EST and let him know how you feel in a respectful way.

Logan Murphy says:

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