Why is this guy still in business?
Sheriff Joe Arpaio's volunteer investigation into documents pertaining to President Barack Obama's place of birth and citizenship now includes the services of a taxpayer-funded ...
The lies roll off the man's lips like music off Yo-Yo Ma's cello. Both are virtuosos - one a cellist, the other a liar.
A partial list.
Bush had nothing to do ...
Happy Friday.
The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor.
"Barack Obama supports same-sex marriage. Mitt Romney doesn't even support same-sex car pools." –David Letterman
"The head of ...
Republican Rep. Mike Coffman at a Saturday afternoon fundraiser in Colorado.
I don't know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America. I don't know that. But I ...
Rand Paul:
Call me cynical, but I didn’t think his [Obama's] views on marriage could get any gayer.
We won't call Rand cynical. Ignorant, bigoted asshole is more fitting. An adult using ...
Happy Friday.
The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor.
"President Obama came out with approval of same-sex marriage. He said that over the years, he has ...
I've never understood Log Cabin Republicans - gay conservatives who give their support to a homophobic political party that derides their sexuality and refuses to grant them equal rights under ...
Finally.
“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own ...
Election roundup:
Indiana.
As polls forecast, the Tea Party's efforts to cleanse the GOP of any impure conservatives has Dick Lugar out and teabagger Richard Mourdock in. Mourdock is the new Republican ...
There are lies...and then there are lies.
My own view, by the way, was that the auto companies needed to go through bankruptcy before government help. And frankly, that’s finally what ...
From the papers captured last year at Osama bin Laden's Pakistani hideout comes this.
Like any public figures, bin Laden and his advisers were mindful of the media. Adam Gadahn, one ...
The best from Political Humor‘s collection of the week’s late night political humor. Happy Friday.
"Today Mitt Romney visited a firehouse here in New York City. Of course, he was disappointed ...
It happened to Kerry. Can it happen to Obama? Nope says Margaret Carlson.
Obama’s belief system -- in that hopey-changey business and the post-partisanship thing -- has been altered by reality. ...
Sullivan:
What do Republicans call a gay man with neoconservative passion, a committed relationship and personal courage?
A faggot.
Exactly right, but then could one expect anything different from a political party that ...
And they claim that atheists are immoral?
The ugly side of religion shows its face once again. The words below were spoken at a Sunday sermon by Sean Harris, a pastor ...
It's been fun watching conservatives and Romney twist themselves into pretzels trying to undo Mitt's past words on GM and bin Laden.
Romney, April 2007:
It’s not worth moving heaven and earth ...
In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, a couple of scholars from liberal and conservative think tanks, discuss the state of American politics.
We have been studying Washington politics and ...
Romney's VP-in-waiting, Marco Rubio, is perfecting the conservative sleaze play.
He has proposed his version of the Dream Act in which people who entered the country illegally as children will be ...
Beyond the rhetoric, the political BS, the lies - that is, the concerted effort by the right-wing noise machine to distort and misinform at every opportunity - is the very ...
President Obama is now fighting the war of public opinion over his stimulus package. He conducted a town hall meeting in Elkhart Indiana today in an attempt to sway public opinion and in turn, move Congress to pass the bill. Tonight he takes to the airwaves in a television address.
Republicans were successful for a week in swaying public opinion away from the bill but the latest Gallop Poll indicates that 67% of Americans approve of the way the President is handling the economy as opposed to 25% who disapprove. Republicans who felt they had a winning gameplan in opposing the bill received the approval of only 31% of Americans with 58% disapproving of their take on the stimulus package.
We can count on the President to continue his assault and taking it to the people every day until the bill is passed. For anyone who thought that Obama would be a Jimmy Carter type president, they’re quickly learning that Obama’s confidence, intelligence and command of the issues portrays him as a man in charge.
What a difference a couple of months has made in how one views the United States. But then it was never about Americans as a people. No, it was only about a lying and corrupt leadership which held sway over a country, and the world, for 8 long years.
It ain’t over ’till it’ over but it’s looking better. After backdoor negotiations and a cut of $160 billion to bring the stimulus bill down to $780 billion, it appears that the minimum 60 Senate votes required are there. It’s been reported that 3 Senate Republicans are ready to vote for the stimulus plan; Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania and Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins, both of Maine.
That said, Republicans still don’t get it. With almost 600,000 jobs lost in January, Reps are still calling for major tax cuts when it’s been shown that tax cuts are not a stimulus to the economy. Here is what Mark Zandi, Moody’s chief economist and former economic adviser to John McCain had to say on Fox Business (watch video).
“I know it [the stimulus package] is not perfect. I would have done a few things differently. But I think it’s good enough and I think it’ll make a big difference. Most importantly I think it needs to get passed quickly. The economy needs help this spring and summer so we need to get this done in the next few weeks.”
“The only source of growth in our economy today literally is government spending . There’s only one way out for us in a graceful and reasonably graceful way and that is for our government to be aggressive on every front.”
Zandi also produced a table which demonstrates how spending has a greater effect on stimulating the economy than tax cuts.
As can be seen from the table, $1 of tax rebates produces $1.02 return to the economy while that same $1 spent on infrastructure brings in a return of $1.59 and yet Republicans cry out for more tax cuts and threaten to hold up the bill if they don’t get their way.
How ridiculous have Republicans become in their battle to change the stimulus package? Well, read what Republican Texas Rep. Pete Sessions had to say on the role his party needs to adopt.
“Insurgency we understand perhaps a little bit more because of the Taliban. And that is that they went about systematically understanding how to disrupt and change a person’s entire processes. And these Taliban — I’m not trying to say the Republican Party is the Taliban — no, that’s not what we’re saying. I’m saying an example of how you go about is to change a person from their messaging to their operations to their front line message. And we need to understand that insurgency may be required when the other side, the House leadership, does not follow the same commands, which we entered the game with.”
The Taliban?!!? Pete Sessions has chosen the Taliban as a role model for his party to emulate in fighting the stimulus bill? Lunacy. Every time Republicans open their mouth these days, it’s a reminder of why the electorate threw them out of office with the force they did. Republicans, in general, have one single motive in all they do: getting back into power. And that motive takes precedent over the welfare of their country. This is clear.
No, Republicans have no desire for finding common ground and it appears that President Obama has finally come to this realization. While I don’t think he’ll completely abandon his attempt at creating a new bipartisanship era, there are signs that for the time being, he’s ready to start playing hardball. Obama was emphatic this week in declaring that returning to the same stale policies which took the country into the current economical crisis, is not an option. As Michael Hirsch wrote in Newsweek,
“The reason Obama is getting so few votes is that he is no longer setting the terms of the debate over how to save the economy. Instead the Republican Party–the one we thought lost the election–is doing that. And the confusion and delay this is causing could realize Obama’s worst fears, turning “crisis into a catastrophe,” as the president said Wednesday. Obama’s desire to begin a “post-partisan” era may have backfired. In his eagerness to accommodate Republicans and listen to their ideas over the past week, he has allowed the GOP to turn the haggling over the stimulus package into a decidedly stale, Republican-style debate over pork, waste and overspending. This makes very little economic sense when you are in a major recession that only gets worse day by day.”
Enough already. The Republicans have gotten some of the tax cuts they wanted written into the stimulus package. Aside from that, as President Obama noted yesterday, Republican complaints that it’s a “spending bill” and not a “stimulus bill” is ridiculous. Stimulus implies spending! How difficult is it for anyone to figure that one out?
Make no mistake about it – Republicans are playing politics. They’re the minority party and they’re not happy.
The battle lines have been drawn. Republicans in Congress have united and are doing what they do best – being Republicans. They’ve done a good job of highlighting the 1% of the stimulus package which could be referred to as pork. On a broader perspective, they have decided to make the package Obama’s bill and have set their eyes on the 2010 elections. If the stimulus bill fails, as Republicans certainly hope it does, then the probability of recapturing either the House or Senate goes up a notch.
For his part, President Obama has gotten tougher in pushing Congress to pass the bill. In an op-ed piece in the Washington Post, Obama writes:
“That’s why I feel such a sense of urgency about the recovery plan before Congress. With it, we will create or save more than 3 million jobs over the next two years, provide immediate tax relief to 95 percent of American workers, ignite spending by businesses and consumers alike, and take steps to strengthen our country for years to come.”
“In recent days, there have been misguided criticisms of this plan that echo the failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis — the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can meet our enormous tests with half-steps and piecemeal measures; that we can ignore fundamental challenges such as energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.”
“I reject these theories, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change. They know that we have tried it those ways for too long. And because we have, our health-care costs still rise faster than inflation. Our dependence on foreign oil still threatens our economy and our security. Our children still study in schools that put them at a disadvantage. We’ve seen the tragic consequences when our bridges crumble and our levees fail.”
“Every day, our economy gets sicker — and the time for a remedy that puts Americans back to work, jump-starts our economy and invests in lasting growth is now.”
It appears that as much as Obama desired a bipartisan bill, it’s not going to happen. So be it.
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