Mario Piperni dot Com

GOP - Searching for a leader

Anyone following the circus act at this years CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) can’t help but scratch their head and wonder what ever became of the Grand Old Party? When republicans turn to clowns like Rush Limbaugh and Joe the Plumber for direction, you know they’re in trouble.

One of their major problems, of course, has been the disastrous leadership of George W. Bush. How bad was it? I’ll let Andy Barr of Politico tell you. In a piece titled ‘Bush a four-letter word at CPAC‘, he wrote:

“Conservatives aren’t sure who’s the Republican presidential frontrunner in 2012. They disagree over how sharply to attack President Barack Obama and on the question of whether a back-to-basics approach is the path back to majority.”

“But if there’s one thing those attending the annual Conservative Political Action Conference this week agree on, it is this: They don’t want another George W. Bush.”

“Few come out right out and say it, but they don’t have to. There’s no nostalgia for the past eight years, no tributes to Bush and no sessions dedicated to exploring his presidency.”

“Indeed, for a president who publicly embraced conservative principles, there is little evidence that the movement returns the sentiment.  When the subject of the 43rd president has come up at CPAC — where he spoke each year of his presidency — it’s usually been in an unflattering context.”

Hmmm…not too surprising I’d say.  Mike Huckabee, who many believe will run once more in 2012, said in a speech on Thursday:

“You know what kind of conservatives we need most? Competent conservatives.  It’s when we lose our competence, that Americans lose their confidence.”

Right you are, Mike.  And Americans discovered in 2006 that the current version of the Republican party was highly incompetent and they reaffirmed their discovery in 2008…and both times they let you know at the voting booth.

My belief is that Republican’s problems lie deeper than the Bush fiasco.  It appears more and more that the party is out of step with what Americans want.  It might be time for them to examine their core ideology and determine what parts of it are no longer tenable to Americans.  Simply saying “NO!!” to every non-conservative idea without offering alternatives which make sense to Americans would appear to be a losing proposition.

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President Obama today announced his plans on Iraq. The New York Times wrote,

“President Obama declared Friday that the United States has now “begun the work of ending this war” in Iraq as he announced the withdrawal of most American forces by the summer of next year while leaving behind as many as 50,000 troops for more limited missions.”

“Nearly six years after American troops crossed the border into Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, Mr. Obama said “renewed cause for hope” produced by improved security would allow Americans to begin disentangling militarily and turn the country over to the Iraqis themselves.”

“Let me say this as plainly as I can,” the president told thousands of Marines stationed here. “By August 31, 2010, our combat mission in Iraq will end.”

Obama’s speech presented a balanced, reasoned approach to ending the war in Iraq in much the way he promised during the election campaign when he repeatedly stated that he would do so in a responsible manner.  As a matter of fact, his plan is so responsible that he has Democrats like Reid, Pelosi and Schumer complaining that leaving 50,000 troops in Iraq until the end of 2011 is unnecessary while Senator John McCain praised the president for his approach.   Wow.

Anyone out there who still doubts Obama’s intellectual genius and his determined effort to be a president for all?

Here’s the president’s entire speech on Iraq.

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Robama Hood!

President Obama has submitted his budget plan to Congress. The summary plan is a prelude to the complete budget package which will be finalized in April and prepare the way for the next fiscal year beginning in October.

The Washington Post described the budget as follows:

“President Obama delivered to Congress yesterday a $3.6 trillion spending plan that would finance vast new investments in health care, energy independence and education by raising taxes on the oil and gas industry, hedge fund managers, multinational corporations and nearly 3 million of the nation’s top earners.” “The blueprint, meanwhile, would overhaul programs across the federal bureaucracy to strengthen assistance for millions of people who have borne the consequences of what Obama called “an era of profound irresponsibility,” helping them pay for college, train for better jobs and save for retirement while taking less of their earnings in taxes.”

This year’s budget deficit will reach $1.75 trillion while next year’s deficit is predicted to be $1.2 trillion.  Obama has proposed cutting the defict in half by the end of 2012.  In part this will be achieved by allowing the Bush tax cuts to the wealthy expire at the end of next year. Republicans are already on the rampage and most soundbites coming out of conservative mouth’s point to Obama as a Robin Hood, taking from the rich and giving to the poor.  While that is an exaggeration, I kind of like it.  For 8 years, the middle class received little or nothing in tax cuts while those earning over $250,000 a year were the happy recipients of multiple tax cuts.

So yes, my conservative friends, feel free to call Obama the new Robin Hood while the rest of us portray Republicans as the evil Sheriff of Sherwood Forest.

Click on the play button and sing along!

He called the greatest archers to a tavern on the green
They vowed to help the people of the king
They handled all the troubles on the English countryside
And still found plenty of time to sing

[Chorus]

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men
Feared by the bad (conservatives), loved by the good (everyone else)
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood

He came to Sherwood Forest (Washington) with a feather in his cap
A fighter never looking for a fight
His bow was always ready, and he kept his arrows sharp.
He used them  fighting for what was right.

[Chorus]

With Allen, Dale and Little John they had a roguish look,
They did the deed that others wouldn’t dare.
Recaptured all the money on the English country scene
And still found plenty of time to sing.

[Chorus]

The King of England knighted him the Earl of Huntington,
And that’s the way the legend goes.

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men
Feared by the bad (conservatives), loved by the good (everyone else)
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood!!

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Ban of press coverage of military coffins reversed

In 1991, the administration of President George H. Bush banned news organizations from photographing the return of flag-draped coffins from the field of battle. Both Presidents Clinton and Bush 43 kept the ban in effect. Many felt it was the administrations’ way of avoiding more criticism from people opposing war of any kind.

Today, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the ban will be reversed should the families of the fallen agree. At a Pentagon news conference, Gates said, “We should not presume to make the decision for the families.  We should actually let them make it.”

One of the more poignant statements on the proposed reversal came from Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America.

“All too often, the sacrifices of our military are hidden from view.   The sight of flag-draped coffins is, and should be, a sobering reminder to all Americans of the ultimate sacrifice our troops have made and the high price of our freedom.”

Bravo.

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If Bush Was An Ice Cream

I came across the following on Daniel Kurtzman’s Political Humor Blog and thought it was quite clever.
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Ben & Jerry created “Yes Pecan!” ice cream flavor for Obama. They then asked people to fill in the blank for the following:

For George W., Ben & Jerry created “_________”.

Here are some of their favorite responses:

- Grape Depression
- Abu Grape
- Cluster Fudge
- Nut’n Accomplished
- Iraqi Road
- Chock ‘n Awe
- WireTapioca
- Impeach Cobbler
- Impeach Mint
- Heck of a Job, Brownie!
- Chunky Monkey in Chief
- WMDelicious
- Guantanmallow
- Neocon Politan
- RockyRoad to Fascism
- The Reese’s-cession
- Cookie D’oh!
- Housing Crunch
- Nougalar Proliferation
- Death by Chocolate… and Torture
- Freedom Vanilla Ice Cream
- Chocolate Chip On My Shoulder
- Credit Crunch
- Mission Pecanplished
- Good Riddance You Lousy Motherf**ker… Swirl ( LOL!!  I love this one!)
- Country Pumpkin
- Chocolate Chimp
- Bloody Sundae
- Caramel Preemptive Stripe

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Bobby Jindal Blows his big moment.

Bobby Jindal, the young Louisiana governor, had his big moment in the spotlight last night as the designated Republican to put forth a response to President Obama’s speech to Congress and the nation.  By all indications, he messed it up big time.

Conservative writer David Brook, had the following to say on Jindal’s performance last night.

“…to come up at this moment in history with a stale, “government is the problem…we can’t trust the government”…it’s just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic, now. They may not like the way the Congress passed the stimulus bill. The idea that government is going to have no role in this…in a moment where only the Federal government is big enough to do stuff…to just ignore all that and say government’s the problem…corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending – it’s just a form of nihilism. It’s just not where the country is, it’s not where the future of the country is. There’s an intra-Republican debate: some people say the Republican party lost its way because it got too moderate, some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and he’s making that case. I think it’s insane. I think it’s a disaster for the party. I just think it’s unfortunate right now.”

Bobby Jindal is one of the Republican party’s great hopes; part of a new young breed of conservatives along with the likes of Tim Pawlenty,  who is supposed to rescue the party from the decimation it has suffered over the last 8 years.  The Economist wrote of Jindal,

“His ambition is well known, and most people think he is laying the groundwork for a run at the presidency in 2012.”

“Republican leaders will be watching closely to see if Mr Jindal, who a month ago marked his first year as the governor of one of America’s poorest and most troubled states, is the man they hope he is: the redeemer of their hard-pressed party.”

Well, based on his performance last night, Republicans had better keep looking.  Aside from Jindal’s poor oratorical performance last night, the content of his speech was flat and out of step with the times.  There was nothing I could pick up in what he said which would give anyone but the most fervent conservative, hope that the Republican party had any fresh ideas.  Repeating the same rhetoric of the past and promoting ideas which have failed would not seem to be the way to the future.

For the Republican party, it’s back to the drawing board.

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Rupert Murdoch

Wow…who would of thought? Rupert Murdoch, head honcho of News Corp, apologized for the cartoon which appeard in the New York Post which linked a dead chimpanzee with the stimulus bill (see The Stimulus Bill and Racial Overtones).   Many saw it as a veiled racist remark toward President Obama.

Well, after three days of refusal by the Post to apologize for the cartoon, Murdoch stepped in.  While I am no fan of Rupert Murdoch, I do applaud him for saying what he did today in today’s Post.  Here is what he wrote:

“As the Chairman of the New York Post, I am ultimately responsible for what is printed in its pages. The buck stops with me.

Last week, we made a mistake. We ran a cartoon that offended many people. Today I want to personally apologize to any reader who felt offended, and even insulted.

Over the past couple of days, I have spoken to a number of people and I now better understand the hurt this cartoon has caused. At the same time, I have had conversations with Post editors about the situation and I can assure you – without a doubt – that the only intent of that cartoon was to mock a badly written piece of legislation. It was not meant to be racist, but unfortunately, it was interpreted by many as such.

We all hold the readers of the New York Post in high regard and I promise you that we will seek to be more attuned to the sensitivities of our community.”

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Conservative Conspiracy Theories

First things first: why bother discussing what to most is a ridiculous hypothesis? Answer:  Because as of November 2008, 10% of Americans believed any or all of the following:

• Obama’s COLB (Certificate Of Live Birth) was forged
• Obama was born in Kenya
• Obama became a citizen of Indonesia when his mother remarried and his stepfather moved the family to that country
• Obama’s dual citizenship at birth (his father, a Kenyan, was a citizen of Britain) does not make him a ‘natural born citizen’ and therefore disallows his right to run for the presidency

There have been court challenges and letter writing campaigns and inane comments like this one from Michael Savage, “We’re getting ready for the Communist takeover of America with a noncitizen at the helm.”

See?  There are crazy people out there and it becomes imperative that we don’t allow them to make a mockery of the facts and have them influence those among us who aren’t sure what to think.  It’s incumbent on all of us to not allow the crazies to run rampant and leave their delusional claims unchallenged.  So here are a few facts;

• Obama’s COLB has been verified by FactCheck.org to be a true document beyond question
• In August 1961, the Hawaii Department of Health published a notice of Obama’s birth in 2 separate newspapers
• Obama was a dual citizen of the U.S. and Kenya due to his Kenyan father but lost his Kenyan citizenship when he turned 21.  The Kenyan constitution demands that one revoke all foreign citizenships at adulthood or lose citizenship.  Obama has never given up his U.S. citizenship.

As for the matter of Obama not being a ‘natural born citizen’, here is what the U.S. Constitution says on the matter.

“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

As Wikipedia notes,

“The phrase “natural born Citizen” is not defined anywhere in the Constitution, as is also true with most other constitutional terms.”

“One possible source of the natural born citizen clause can be traced to a letter of July 25, 1787, from John Jay (who was born in New York) to George Washington (who was born in Virginia), presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention. John Jay wrote: “Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen.” (Underlining in the original)^[3] There was no debate, and this qualification for the office of the Presidency was introduced by the drafting Committee of Eleven, and then adopted without discussion by the Constitutional Convention.”

And that, my friends, are the facts.  I’ll end this post with this quote from PolitiFact.com,

“It is possible that Obama conspired his way to the precipice of the world’s biggest job, involving a vast network of people and government agencies over decades of lies. Anything’s possible. But step back and look at the overwhelming evidence to the contrary and your sense of what’s reasonable has to take over. There is not one shred of evidence to disprove PolitiFact’s conclusion that the candidate’s name is Barack Hussein Obama, or to support allegations that the birth certificate he released isn’t authentic. And that’s true no matter how many people cling to some hint of doubt and use the Internet to fuel their innate sense of distrust.”

End of story.

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Barack Obama's birth certificate

If there is any doubt that the Republican party is a tattered and lost group pulling at any straw they can to remain relevant then one need look no further than the nonsense concerning Barack Obama’s birth certificate.  One would of thought that the claims Obama was not a U.S. citizen would of died by now.  After much noise  last year by conservatives, Obama produced his birth certificate last June which was validated by the Hawaii Department of Health. That act still wasn’t enough for the loonies and here we are in the second month of Obama’s presidency and there still exists a large group of fanatics who claim the birth certificate is a forgery and Obama is not a U.S. citizen and therefore an illegitimate president.

If the conspiracy theorists were restricted to a fringe group at the wingnut extremes of the Republican party, there would be less concern for the rest of us.  Well, this week, Republican Alabama Senator Richard Shelby made the following statement when asked by a citizen as to whether there was any truth to the Obama forged birth certificate story:

“Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate.  You have to be born in America to be president.”

What?!!?  “You have to born in America to be president”?  What did you mean by that Mr. Shelby?  That Barack Obama was perhaps not really the president?  That perhaps because you didn’t actually see his birth certificate, that maybe, just maybe, it’s a fake?  Nice going there, Shelby.  Go and give all those lunatic Obama-haters more garbage to feed there irrational logic.

Salon.com had an interesting piece last December on why the the Obama birth certificate story will never go away.  The essence of the story can be summed up in the following few paragraphs.

“There’s no amount of evidence or data that will change somebody’s mind,” says Michael Shermer, who is the publisher of Skeptic magazine and a columnist for Scientific American, and who holds an undergraduate and a master’s degree in psychology. “The more data you present a person, the more they doubt it … Once you’re committed, especially behaviorally committed or financially committed, the more impossible it becomes to change your mind.”

“Any inconvenient facts are irrelevant. People who believe in a conspiracy theory “develop a selective perception, their mind refuses to accept contrary evidence,” Chip Berlet, a senior analyst with Political Research Associates who studies such theories, says. “As soon as you criticize a conspiracy theory, you become part of the conspiracy.”

“Evan Harrington, a social psychologist who is an associate professor at the Chicago School of Professional Psychology, agrees. “One of the tendencies of the conspiracy notion, the whole appeal, is that a lot of the information the believer has is secret or special,” Harrington says. “The real evidence is out there, [and] you can give them all this evidence, but they’ll have convenient ways to discredit [it].”"

I wonder if any of these psychologists would be willing to give a group discount for some  heavy duty therapy for members of the Republican party?

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