Category Archives: Democrats

Obama Deflects The Opposition

Barack Obama, Debt, Democrats, Economy, Republicans

President Obama visited House Republicans at their annual retreat and took “public questions from members of the opposition party.” While the session was a rare gesture from a sitting president, it is nevertheless consistent with the Obama modus operandi, which entails showy displays designed to accentuate his ostensible historic uniqueness.

I completely agree with the president when he points out that “the component parts of the Recovery Act are consistent” with what many Republicans say are important.” [Although, I believe, “is important” would have been more grammatical.]

After all, “Nothing much distinguishes Republican from Democratic vulgar Keynesianism. Republicans have offered no change in paradigm. Guru Gingrich, a ‘hard core’ fiscal conservative, advised fellow Republikeynsians to offer Americans a more efficient, targeted stimulus, when no stimulus is the conservative way; when allowing markets to contract is the conservative way.” [I.O.U.S.A]

Didn’t Republicans vote for the Bush administration’s bailout bonanza, and before that for the Bush stimulus? (Someone please hunt down the relevant Republican voting record.) Did not the Republikeynsians agree with Barack’s Bill’s alleged job-creation thrust?

“How much to hand out; who to hand it to; which handout makes the best use of taxpayer money … —that’s the depth of the ‘philosophical’ to-be-or-not-to-be among Republikeynsians.”

Pelosi Against The Military-Media-Congressional-Industrial Complex

Debt, Democrats, Foreign Policy, Military, War

I thanked Nancy Pelosi once in the past for going up against The Decider and his ditto heads. This time she’s owed some gratitude for confronting the Democrats’ deity.

Obama’s proposed Big spending Freeze is a big farce. In 2009, he increased overall spending by 22%. Nancy is insisting that “pork-laden Pentagon programs shouldn’t be protected from President Obama’s proposed three-year spending freeze.”

“While we all want to support our men and women in uniform… and our national defense and our veterans, I don’t think that we should protect military contractors, and I want to make that distinction very clear,” Pelosi said at her weekly press conference Thursday.

The government can’t minimize wasteful spending without auditing the Pentagon, Pelosi said, citing a 2009 report indicating that top U.S. weapons programs went over budget by some $296 billion.

“I don’t support exempting them from the freeze,” she said.

“… the Warfare State is every bit as corrupt, corrupting, and bankrupting as the Welfare State. Over $1 trillion is spent yearly on imperial expeditions that are awash in American blood, but offer few benefits to the sacrificed. Besides, what kind of a nation neglects its own borders while defending to the death borders not its own? [From “Addicted To That Rush”]

Updated: SOTU 2010 Excerpted (Full Text)

Barack Obama, Democrats, Politics

In case you’re biting your nails in anticipation, here are some excerpts from BO’s State of The Union Address, courtesy of CNN:

Obama: “We face big and difficult challenges. And what the American people hope — what they deserve — is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics. For while the people who sent us here have different backgrounds and different stories and different beliefs, the anxieties they face are the same. The aspirations they hold are shared. A job that pays the bill. A chance to get ahead. Most of all, the ability to give their children a better life.

You know what else they share? They share a stubborn resilience in the face of adversity. After one of the most difficult years in our history, they remain busy building cars and teaching kids; starting businesses and going back to school. They are coaching Little League and helping their neighbors. As one woman wrote to me, “We are strained but hopeful, struggling but encouraged.”

It is because of this spirit — this great decency and great strength — that I have never been more hopeful about America’s future than I am tonight. Despite our hardships, our union is strong. We do not give up. We do not quit. We don’t allow fear or division to break our spirit. In this new decade, it’s time the American people get a government that matches their decency; that embodies their strength. And tonight, I’d like to talk about how together, we can deliver on that promise.

…

By the time I’m finished speaking tonight, more Americans will have lost their health insurance. Millions will lose it this year. Our deficit will grow. Premiums will go up. Co-pays will go up. Patients will be denied the care they need. Small business owners will continue to drop coverage altogether. I will not walk away from these Americans. And neither should the people in this chamber.

…

Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it’s time for something new. Let’s try common sense. Let’s invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt. Let’s meet our responsibility to the people who sent us here.

To do that, we have to recognize that we face more than a deficit of dollars right now. We face a deficit of trust — deep and corrosive doubts about how Washington works that have been growing for years. To close that credibility gap we must take action on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to end the outsized influence of lobbyists; to do our work openly; and to give our people the government they deserve.

That’s what I came to Washington to do. That’s why — for the first time in history — my administration posts our White House visitors online. And that’s why we’ve excluded lobbyists from policy-making jobs or seats on federal boards and commissions.

But we cannot stop there. It’s time to require lobbyists to disclose each contact they make on behalf of a client with my administration or Congress. And it’s time to put strict limits on the contributions that lobbyists give to candidates for federal office. Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign companies — to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don’t think American elections should be bankrolled by America’s most powerful interests, and worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that’s why I’m urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong.

I’m also calling on Congress to continue down the path of earmark reform. You have trimmed some of this spending and embraced some meaningful change. But restoring the public trust demands more. For example, some members of Congress post some earmark requests online. Tonight, I’m calling on Congress to publish all earmark requests on a single Web site before there’s a vote so that the American people can see how their money is being spent.”

Update: The full text is HERE. Discuss among yourselves.

Updated: Dumb As They Come

Crime, Criminal Injustice, Democrats, Journalism, Law, Pop-Culture, Republicans

Among the many dumb things Republicans have given us (read “GOP and Man at Yale”) is a brand of tease “journalism” headed by Hannah Giles, a well-connected, monosyllabic, Town-Hall tartlet, who partook in an ACORN-exposing (tush-wagging) operation. Her partner (he played the pimp) was James O’Keefe, who, it transpires, is even dumber than Hannah.

A recent headline on Nola.com blares:

“ACORN ‘gotcha’ man arrested in attempt to tamper with Mary Landrieu’s office phones. James O’Keefe … a conservative activist who last year posed as a pimp to target the community-organizing group ACORN, is one of four people arrested by the FBI and accused of trying to interfere with phones at Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans.”

O’Keefe and his pals are “charged with entering federal property under false pretenses for the purposes of committing a felony.”

Phone tapping or something.

The little pischer O’Keefe had given “a speech to the Pelican Institute for Public Policy, a libertarian group in New Orleans,” which seems to be standing by him.

While the ACORN fun lasted, Andrew Breitbart put O’Keefe up as some sort of editor on his Big This/Big That websites, and appeared with him and Hannah on all the Republican TV shows. Now Big Breitbart is distancing himself from his protege. I guess AB has some sense of how fascistic and fickle American law and culture can be (you can go to jail for a long time for non-offenses; and become the toast of the town for major offenses). Here’s the interview he hastened to give to Hugh Hewitt.

Update (Jan. 27): “A lawyer for one of the men said outside the courthouse that his clients may have the product of ‘poor judgment’ and that he didn’t intend to commit a crime; lawyers for other defendants could not immediately be reached for comment.”

This defense attorney is right, of course, but the American legal system, which Republicans (like this intrepid contingent of guerrilla journalists) are forever striving to make less constitutional, will fight to keep these idiots under its jurisdiction. It’s reflexive.