LANGUAGE WARNING: Today’s story is uncharacteristically blunt, and from this moment forward we will be using lots of inappropriate language in making our points.
It is by now fairly well known that Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s White House Chief of Staff, had a bit of a blow-up with liberals who were ready to start running ads against “blue dog” Democrats who were working very hard to shut down the health care reform effort.
Now we’re not gonna get in the middle of that argument today; instead, since we’re finally getting a chance to talk, I figured me and Rahm could get a few other things out of the way that have been on everyone’s mind for the past year or so.
The political and societal 'what ifs' are some of the most interesting things that occur in modern times. What I'm talking about are the things in conventional wisdom or in scholarly thought are the things assumed not likely to occur. However, some of these things have been defeated due to circumstance or sheer luck, but it happened. Case and point, the Commonwealth of Virginia elected it first black governor with L. Douglas Wilder back in 1989 although just 7 years prior California failed doing the same with the candidacy of Tom Bradley thus we have the political theory known as the Bradley effect. Nevertheless, a Southern state was the first to actually elect self-identified black governor to its office.
Republican senators are somehow surprised by negative publicity over their vote endorsing Halliburton's gang rape cover-up. Both of my senators have attempted damage control. In response to my email, Senator Jeff Sessions has sent a letter that is a scandal in its own right.
Thank you for contacting me regarding Senator Franken's amendment to the Department of Defense Appropriations Act, H.R. 3326.
Unfortunately, a number of media personalities have portrayed the amendment in a misleading manner. The truth is the amendment prohibits basic contract rights between all defense contractors and their employees. This is one of the reasons President Obama's administration strongly opposed it.
Senator Sessions is the one misleading. Here is what White House spokesman Tommy Vietor actually said: "We support the intent of the amendment, and we're working with the conferees to make sure that it is enforceable." Hardly the words of strong opposition. The Department of Defense was against the amendment; but then again, DoD always supports its contractors.
Arguing against the amendment in the Senate, Sessions claimed that it "would impose the will of Congress on private individuals and companies in a retroactive fashion, invalidating employment contracts without due process of law." But the amendment isn't retroactive, applying to the fiscal year 2010 defense bill and after. Perhaps that naked untruth is why Sessions has changed his story:
David Cao(R. Louisiana) tells Micheal Steel to Bring it On! Now that's what I'm talking about. A real republican who stands up for his people and doesn't back down. Cao is the kind of representative I wish I had instead of the representative I have.
Cao told CNN that Steele retains "the right to come after those members who do not conform to party lines, but I would hope that he would work with us in order to adjust to the needs of the district and to hold a seat that the Republican party would need." He represents the second congressional district of Louisiana, a solidly Democratic district that includes New Orleans. Cao said earlier today that he put the needs of his district over what was popular with his own party.
I'm happy the health care reform act passed but I'm dissappointed too. I'm disaapointed the entire Alabama delegation didn't vote in favor of the health care reform bill, but voted in favor of keeping poor women from having a safe and legal abortion. I'm dissappointed there are those who are attempting to defend the indefensable. *Sigh*
I'm disappointed in so many things, more than I can enumerate here. Someday I hope some of those things that I've listed above will no longer exist and my disappointments will be fewer. Then again, I have always been an idealist and a dreamer.
The easiest way for Democrtas to LOSE elections is to not use the power given to them by their voters to enact policies that they run on. Let every Democrat in Congress beware on Stupak-Pitts, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
The choice is yours. Give us a reason to vote for you, or we sit home. And you aren't going to make up the margins with conservative voters. They already know exactly who they're voting for, and it ain't you.
Republicans Robert F. McDonnell who is now Governor Elect, Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling and state Sen. Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, who is now Attorney General, Elect. As the washington post noted, "by some accounts, the three represent the most conservative Republican ticket to run in Virginia in many years."
The Rude Pundit breaks it all down as only The Rude Pundit can in The Rude Pundit Style. Warning, raw.
Forget what the assholes on TV are saying about the various elections and initiatives from last night. Who gives a shit what Michael Steele is crowing about?
Across the country, Democrats still hold 60 legislative chambers and control 55 percent of the nation's partisan legislative seats. Our current position remains a solid one heading into the final election before the Census and the next round of Congressional and legislative redistricting.
We've heard about selective prosecutions and political prosecutions under the George W. Bush Department of Justice. But the Alex Latifi case in Alabama can best be described as a "racial prosecution." And that makes it one of the ugliest Bush fiascoes of all.
If I were a gambling sort of person I might put some money on seeing the first TV ads of the Alabama governor's race before Santa visits and before Christmas Eve services have drawn their last celebrants.
Most politicians are already making the obligatory Baptist church rounds; the Republicans, in particular, feeling they have to out-God each other to win the party primary and Artur Davis trying to prove he's not a liberal atheist (as if the two are synonymous).
So our would be governors will try to sell us on how close they are to God, how wonderful they are for their families and ours and how we should all put aside politics and remember the reason for the season. None of them have introduced themselves via TV really yet so this is their chance to seem all warm and cuddly before the gloves get dropped sometime in the spring.
I'm back! Did you miss me over the weekend? Don't answer that. :) I'm back after spending the week end at the Coal Bowl (more on this later), playing catch up in the world of politics and compose a quick blog stroll and open thread.
Booman says It ain't white males who make up the bulk of the progressive movement. No stuff?
While the MSM was breathlessly getting played today by the non-story of the boy who was thought to be in an air balloon President Obama was in New Orleans. For those who missed the speech, here is a link. BTW, David "Diapers" Vitter appeared with the President as well as Governor Bobby Jindahl who was roundly booed when he was introduced. *snicker*.
The Lost Generation is a must read, and a must hear about how the recession is affecting young people. Maybe when republicans realize the current economic situation is affecting them to the will stop obstructing President Obama's agenda. But then again, they are republicans....
Who knew that Hate Radio paid so well? Ru$h is rich enough to buy a NFL football franchise. Unfortuanately for him the NFL said NO to Hate. Good for them.
As usual, it's the democrats and the media's fault. Psst Rush! You ARE the media. Remember?
"This is not about the NFL, it's not about the St. Louis Rams, it's not about me," Limbaugh said. "This is about the ongoing effort by the left in this country, wherever you find them, in the media, the Democrat Party, or wherever, to destroy conservatism, to prevent the mainstreaming of anyone who is prominent as a conservative.
Not too long ago, the right wing argument against health care reform went something like this:
We don't want single payer. Canada and the UK are scary. We want private insurance.
We don't want a public option. We want the private insurers to be able to profit, and we don't think private insurers can compete with a public option despite the number of other private services that do just fine in other areas with public options.
Have you met Mitt Romney? Isn't he wonderful? Isn't his health care plan wonderful?
We want a bill that pays for itself.
We want the Democrats to include our ideas in this health care reform.
Unlike Democratic proposals that would give Americans the choice of joining a government-run health care plan, Massachusetts has no public option. Instead, people in the state are required to buy private insurance, and the poor get subsidies.
Figures from the state's Center for Health Statistics show that 74.2 percent of live births in 2008 were to women who got adequate prenatal care. That means that more than a quarter of mothers did not, a significant percentage that all but guarantees problems.
Not surprisingly, mothers who had some form of health insurance had much lower infant mortality rates - 6.9 for those with private insurance, 10.8 for those with Medicaid. Among uninsured mothers, the rate was 20.1.
waltm sumumerizes; To summarize: the child most likely not to see a birthday cake is black, had a low birth weight, does not have health coverage, has a sibling less than two, a teenage mother who smokes and was one of a multiple birth.
This month, 10.4% of the population (or about 217,306 people) are out of work.
Sweet Home Alabama, where the skies are blue and finally a Democrat is standing up and fighting back. Uh, instead of investigating ACORN, the DoJ may want to examine selective prosecutions in Alabama. I'm just saying.
Remember Cindy Sheehan? Remember the day she tried to attend the State of the Union speech wearing a t-shirt protesting the Iraq War? She was summarily thrown out of the chamber when she showed up with the t-shirt; many people denounced her for wearing it and essentially blamed her for trying to use the State of the Union address as a means of embarrassing Bush about lying this country into a war it couldn’t afford.
One way for the Blue Dog Democrats to avoid criticism from progressives is to stop humping the leg of insurance companies. Since that isn't going to happen, they just try to make us shut up:
Facts are pesky things, aren't they? Luckily for you, facts are never all that important to your supporters and rising star GOP strategist Patrick Ruffini is already stumping on your behalf for fundraising. Ruffini is also working for Bob McDonnell, the GOoPer who believes that working women, fornicators and homosexuals are ruining the country. Talking to some of my buddies with experience in campaigns, it appears that the way the GOP consultants work is that they make 10-12% from all online contributions. No wonder Ruffini is trying to capitalize on this egregious violations of protocol and raise money.
On November 14, 1988, Reagan addressed and took questions from students from four area middle schools in the Old Executive Office Building. According to press secretary Marlin Fitzwater, the speech was broadcast live and rebroadcast by C-Span, and Instructional Television Network fed the program “to schools nationwide on three different days.” Much of Reagan’s speech that day covered the American “vision of self-government” and the need “to keep faith with the unfinished vision of the greatness and wonder of America” but in the middle of the speech, the president went off on a tangent about the importance of low taxes:
Thank you, Ms. Mostoller, and thanks for allowing me to visit your classroom to talk to you and all these students, and millions more in classrooms all across the country.
So it's the day of the big speech, Mr. President, and we got trouble with a capital "T" right here in Health Care City.
What are you gonna do? Do we follow the traditional Democratic Party legislative process of passing...something...at any cost, assuming the entire time that the Left and the Netroots will "go along with the program", or is there a risk that the calculus doesn't work as well today as it did in 1994 and 1996?
Well, lucky for you, I'm a fake consultant, and I know a few things about your "target market", so before you answer that question...we need to talk.
I can only imagine how much class and restraint it must take our African American members of Congress to even look their Republican colleauges in the face after the last 7+ months of racist, vitriolic nonsense about birth certificates, monkey comparisons and other open acts of hatred. And to think some still speak of bi-partisanship.
But Representative Waters embodies that class and restraint, as well as the cool, calm and collected strategy embodied by both our President, as well as generations of African Americans before him who had to endure such hatred and malice. In fact, there is a genius to that patience.
jackandjill politics.com is on my must read for all things healthcare reform. Be sure and catch, This is how I feel about the President and health care reform right now and The crooked plan that is the co-op. They also have great coverage of Alabama native Rev. Joseph Lowery being awarded The Presidential Medal of Freedom.
http://www.jackandjillpolitics...
Crooks and Liars is on fire today. The Annals of Journalism on Mikes Blog Roundup is a must read amont many. And please read about how President Obama is conspiring with us netroot thugs*snicker*. http://crooksandliars.com/
Whether you consider Sunday the beginning of the week, or the end of the week, we can all agree this was an "eventful" week. I want to take this opportunity to roundup and recap two of the most important issues discussed here at LiA, healthcare reform and the arrest of Prof. Henry Louis Gates.
I Tried to Tell You.
Remember when I said the so called Blue DogsDEMOCRATS were really repubicans? Remember how I was accused of wanting a "perfect party" and told any DEMOCRAT is better than a republican, and that DEMOCRATS are the "big tent" party and I wanted to kick people out of the tent who didn't agree with me on the "social issues" blah, blah, blah?
Remember how I was blasted for saying the Blue DogsDEMOCRATS had infiltrated our party so they could pi$$ in the pool? Remember how I was accused of "scapegoating" the DNC, the DLC and the DCCC for funding the Blue Dog DEMOCRATS at the expense of progressive DEMOCRATS?
Assume a 50-50 split among the parties, something akin to 2004. That year, George W. Bush won 255 congressional districts to Kerry's 180. Why the disparity? The Republican vote was distributed more evenly, while the Democratic vote was concentrated in urban and minority-majority districts. This is a distinct advantage that Republicans enjoy. To win the House, Democrats have had to win districts that Republican presidential candidates carry in 50-50 years. This is not inconsequential for public policy.
If President Obama's healthcare reform iniative fails it will be because of the Blue Dog DEMOCRATS, the DEMOCRATIC National Committee, The DEMOCRATIC Leadership Council, and the DEMOCRATIC CONGRESSIONAL Campaign Committee. If these DEMOCRATIC organizations had taken our contributions and used them to fund Josh Segall, Cheryl Sabel and Vivian Figures instead of Bobby "not so" Bright and Wayne Parker Griffith, we might be getting the public option instead of the shaft. As my Daddy says, this is like getting shot with your own gun.
The intraparty dispute had racial overtones. One African-American Democrat, Representative Hank Johnson of Georgia, pointed out that the seven Blue Dog Democrats holding up the health care bill in the Energy and Commerce Committee were “a nondiverse group” of white men.
"Make no mistake: The pain of discrimination is still felt in America," the president said in honoring the organization's 100th convention. Obama urged African-Americans to be realistic about some of the difficulties they may face, but to remember that "your destiny is in your hands."
So what did the media we have focus on? Why *ahem* personal responsiblity, or let them tell it, the lack of personal responsibility i.e. looking for a handout or wanting the government to take care of them,Obama tells blacks no excuses, of course.
Obama's remarks about "black responsibility" were almost at the end of his speech. And sure, they were hard-hitting. But for most of his talk, he hit issues of economic and social justice much harder, and outlined the way American society has failed African-Americans. But did the media we have talk about any of that? Nooooooo.
My question, How come Obama didn't say that to the banks he bailed out, "Your destiny is in your hands ?" I guess Barack Obama likes to talk shallow simplistic rubbish and scold black americans and Africans.
I for one am tired of hearing the turn off the X-Box, read to your children, help them with their homework, attend parent teacher conference, pull yourself up by your bootstrap, take personal responsiblity lecture from President Obama. Yes there are people out there, both black and white who need to hear things like this, but they aren't listening. They are playing X-Box. The people at the convention last night do read to their kids, attend parent teacher conferences etc. so he was preaching to the choir.
There are some who believe he makes these remarks everytime he addresses an African American audience to pacify RushCo. and because he's scared of Faux News. There are some who believe it is a White House strategy to appeal to white conservative voters. Whatever it is. I'm tired of it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying black folks shouldn't take "personal responsibility" whatever that means, I'm saying black folks aren't the ONLY ones who need to take some "personal" responsibility. And we certainly don't have to be told the same thing over and over again like we are stoopid or children, or both. I don't condone what Reverend Jesse Jackson was caught on tape saying about President Obama talking down to black folks but I understand.
Why are black folks the only ones being told they need to "take personal responsibility" for their actions? Black folks aren't responsible for creating the current mess we find our country in. Why are black folks the only ones told they "need to stop making excuses and blaming others for their problems". I don't hear anyone telling democrats to stop making excuses for being whimps. I don't hear anyone telling republicans to stop making excuses for being obstructionist. I don't hear anyone (well almost) telling President Obama to stop making excuses.
WTF did we even have to have 2 special elections in the first place?
WTF was the GOTV?
WTF were the town hall meetings and rallies?
WTF were the television, radio newspapers ads?
WTF was the freaking organization?
WTF where Artur Davis and Ron Sparks?
WTF is in charge?
I tired to calm down, really I did, but I'm pi$$ed. Before I go any further let me be perfectly clear, this rant is not directed at anyone specifically, it is directed to everyone collectively and rhetorically.
One thing I'll give the republicans credit for. They always bring their A game and they play to win. If they weren't anti minority, anti choice, anti gay rights, anti labor etc. they would be my kind of party. They know how to play to PR/spin game. They know how to excite their base. They know how to frame the issues so they look like the good guys intead of the bad guys they really are. Of course it doesn't hurt they have the media and the InJustice system as enablers.
WTF is wrong with the democratic party? It's as if they don't want to win. It's as if they are afraid to stand up and fight for what is right (no pun). Who/WhatTF are they afraid of?
Last week Bill Maher called out Obama for pussy-footing around in the face of an audacious onslaught from Corporate America. He made clear that the President needs to show a little audacity of his own if he hopes to beat the health care companies, the energy companies, and the legions of powerful lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill.
Well, tonight he called out Corporate America's wholly-owned human subsidiaries in the US Congress, specifically those in the Democratic Party.
So if you’re like me, you have been wondering just exactly what all this “tea party” stuff is about. There’s going to be some sort of protest, that we know; but beyond that the whole thing seems a little...vague.
Alternatively, it’s possible that you were unaware that “tea party” has recently become a word reborn in conservative political circles.
Well, whether you knew it or not, April 15th was indeed a day of protest, with citizens gathering for what were reported to be a series of grassroots events across the nation that was intended to invoke the spirit of the Boston Tea Party.
In an effort to find out exactly what is motivating these folks, and to find out what they are trying to accomplish, I took my handy recorder and captured a conversation with a “tea bag” protester.
We will review that conversation, and we will follow it up with a few thoughts about how this group of voters might impact electoral politics going forward.
How about Republicans who like to fantasize about Democrats dying? Especially Democrats who are fighting against cancer. Insensitive? Boorish? Nah. Obsession with dying Democrats is just routine trash talking if you're Senator Jim Bunning (R, KY) who said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would be dead in 9 months from pancreatic cancer or de facto head of the Republican party Rush Limbaugh who says Senator Ted Kennedy will be dead of a brain tumor before health care legislation is passed.
Oh my God! First Lady Michelle Obama served meals at a Washington, DC soup kitchen -- and proved that poor people aren't poor enough! Turn in all your possessions and clothing before getting in line for that soup, you bum! Did Laura or Barbara Bush ever serve soup to the poor? Just asking.
The right really does want to fight the Civil War all over again. Thursday morning I heard Neal Boortz going on about America under President Obama. He actually advocated secession to a caller from Texas. The guy on the line said the treaty does allow Texas to split into as many as 5 states which wasn't enough for Boortz. He said if Texas seceded he would be willing to relocate there (is that supposed to be an incentive?) Anyway, this was too much for the caller who said he couldn't go along with that because he felt secession would be treason. Boortz pushed the caller, who held his ground. Are the hate talkers finally losing their audience?
As they decry pork and excessive spending, Republican Senators, including our own Dick Shelby, are jostling for position at the earmark trough.
Republicans are calling for RNC Chair Michael Steele's head -- even though he grovelled to Rush Limbaugh. They say he hasn't been an effective leader after what, 5 weeks on the job? He wasn't really the guy the party wanted. It took 6 ballots to elect him. Surely to goodness the move to kick him out is unrelated to the fact that Steele is black.
Bowtie Boy had a truth attack a couple of years ago. It's worth a replay. "The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power." Amen, brother Tucker!
"The deep truth is that the elites in the Republican Party have pure contempt for the evangelicals who put their party in power."
