Senator Jim DeMint thinks he knows what's happ'nin' in da DC 'hoods.
Think Progress:Yesterday, at a news conference promoting a Republican amendment to continue D.C.’s school voucher program, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) — alongtime cheerleaderfor vouchers — suggested that students in D.C. public schools aremore likely to join gangs than graduate. “If you send a kid to [public] school in D.C., chances are that they will end up in a gang rather than graduating,” he said. City officials were quick to respond, noting that “gross misjudgments like that one” bolster the argument for giving D.C. full voting rights in the House. In fact, nearly 70 percent of D.C. students graduated last year, putting the District “in line with the national average,” while Sen. DeMint’s home state ofSouth Carolina had a graduation rate of “almost 56 percent,” the fourth worst in the nation.
The new Glenn Beck show has got to be the freakiest thing I've seen in a long, long time. And that's just from watching clips because Jebus knows, I don't tune in to this crap. Sure, Bill O'Reilly is an idiot, but at least with him you sort of know what you're getting. With Beck, you have no idea where he is headed from minute to minute. I'm waiting for him to start drooling in the middle of his show or banging pots over his heads and screaming "Oklahoma!"
Watch the clip provided by C & L to see what I mean. The inclusion of Jonah Goldberg as a guest only intensifies this train wreck.
President Obama: "There's been some talk about the notion that maybe we're taking on too much. That we're in the midst of an economic crisis and that the system is overloaded and so we should put this off for another day.
Well, let's just be clear. When times were good, we didn't get it done. When we had mild recessions, we didn't get it done. When we were in peace time, we did not get it done. When we were at war, we did not get it done. There is always a reason not to do it. And it strikes me that now is exactly the time for us to deal with this problem. The American people are looking for solutions, business is looking for solutions and government, state, federal and local, needs solutions to this problem.
So for all of you who've been elected to office or those who are heading up major associations, I would say, 'What better time than now? And what better cause for us to take up?' Imagine the pride when we go back to our constituencies next year and say, 'You know what? We finally got something done on health care.' That's something that's worth fighting for and I hope that all of you fight for it."
One hates to keep talking about Rush Limbaugh all the time. After all, if you're not a dittohead why would you want your world to be consumed by all things Limbaugh 24/7? But I would be remiss to ignore the continuing clusterfuck that is the Republican party being sucked up in a Limbaugh food vacuole.
Yesterday, I mentioned the ever deepening quicksand the Republicans are sinking into as they try wriggling away from the notion that Limbaugh is the de facto head of their party while being fearful of offending him and feeling the Rush wrath. And now as a testament that the GOP is stuck between a rock and a fat place, Texas Senator John Cornyn has started a petition to get the big, bad "Democrat party" to stop saying mean things about how Rush leads the Republicans.
...just weeks into his Administration the President’s staff has been caught engaging in a coordinated and cynical political attack game – the very diversion and manipulation then-candidate Obama attacked the McCain campaign for last year. The apparent goal of this strategy was to distract public attention from the Democrats’ massive spending proposals by depicting Rush Limbaugh as the new face of the Republican Party.
...President Obama owes the American people an explanation.
His staff should apologize to the American people for supporting these tactics and diverting attention to the hard work that needs to be done to get America’s economy back on track.
Please join me in signing this petition and calling on the Obama White House to come clean on this matter. Join me in asking them to work with Republicans on the critical issues facing our country today. The American people deserve better than diversions and manipulations.
Seriously? What's more of a diversion from "the hard work" than a petition to stop the White House from connecting Limbaugh and the GOP? Instead of Cornyn, or any Republican for that matter, proving the theory wrong and blatantly stating that Rush Limbaugh does not speak for any elected official in the Republican party, he decides to indirectly defend Limbaugh and try to turn the attack on the White House with a ridiculous petition, in essense inferring that the accusations have some merit!
But this is my favorite line of his "Stop, or I'll take my ball and go home" petition:
...It appears the Obama Administration has forgotten that the salaries of White House staff are paid for by you the taxpayer.
And who the fuck is paying Cornyn's salary while writing Save Rush Limbaugh petitions? Limbaugh? Cornyn is under the assumption that all other work stops when exposing the Republican party's Limbaugh ass kissing, puncuated by his petition. He forgets that the Democratic party, unlike his party, has the ability to multitask because they don't march in lockstop with one specific idea.
Until the Republicans can divorce themselves from the negative Limbaugh rhetoric without pissing in their pants for fear of a Rush retribution the following day on his radio show, then Big John Cornyn should shut the fuck up and prove that the "Limbaugh is leader" meme is wrong.
"I am offering President Obama to come on this program without staffers, without a teleprompter, without note cards to debate me on the issues," Limbaugh said on his program today. "Let's talk about free markets versus government control. Let's talk about nationalizing health care and raising taxes on small business. ... Let's talk about illegal immigration and lawlessness on the borders. Let's talk about massive deficits and the destroying the opportunities of future generations."
And apparently, he thinks if he's "taken out," that President Obama will have defeated his opposition and will "own" the country. As if a radio talk show personality warranted equal footing with the leader of the free world .
"If you take me out," Limbaugh said addressing Obama directly, "if you can wipe me out in a debate and prove to the rest of America that what I say is senseless and wrong, do you realize you will own the United States of America? You will have no opposition."
Un. Hinged.
Callers then asked why, if he's fighting for the soul of America, Limbaugh wouldn't take the opportunity to debate in prime time with a moderator of his choosing in front of a huge audience. Limbaugh refused. It had to be on his show.
I've been reading some comments on other web threads of those who are concerned of the Limbaugh situation and how it may galvanize Republicans in 2010 and 2012. Or perhaps that the Democrats are not taking Limbaugh seriously.
Sure, it's great comedy for the left - right now. What about in a couple of years when these idiots mobilize? And mark my words, they surely will. This whole "kiss the ring" mentality of the party is ludicrous, but it keeps them in the news cycle.
I say fine, let it come. Let them continue to make asses out of themselves by bowing down to a radio talk show entertainer. Anyone who listens to and agrees with Limbaugh is never in a million years voting Democratic anyway. It's the independents who are annoyed, frustrated and fed up with the Limbaugh rhetoric, and if the Republican party refuses to distance themselves from Rush because they're afraid of him and the power he wields with 20 million listeners, then it shows them for weak party they've become. They can sit behind their podiums and threaten to filibuster when they're in the collegial body of the Senate, but when they have to shiv someone in a Rush Limbaugh airwaves street fight, they kneel down, cower and beg for mercy.
So in a sense, Democrats and liberals who are making the correlation between Limbaugh and the leadership of the GOP aren't doing it for a laugh, they aren't taking Limbaugh for granted, they're embracing the fact that as far as GOP voters are concerned, Limbaugh TRULY IS the de facto leader of the Republican party and every time a GOP politician tries to distance himself from Rush, he looks like twice the fool when he tucks his tail between his legs and apologizes the next day. They can't say Rush doesn't speak for the party and then backtrack and say they "cherish his voice in the public debate."
And what if they do "mobilize"? The crazies came out in droves to vote against what they perceived was a black, Muslim, Manchurian candidate, foreign born socialist who palled around with terrorists. There were shouts of "treason" and "terrorist" and "off with his head" from the wingnuts at Sarah Palin rallies.
What did that get them? 45 million votes, 160 some odd electoral votes, and major seat losses in Congress. They're in for the same thing if the strategy remains the same. If the Republican party was serious about changing, they wouldn't be touting the likes of Jindal and Palin for 2012.
As an aside, I don't know whether the Obama staff and the Democratic party in general stumbled upon Limbaugh equaling the head of GOP by chance, or whether it was a carefully laid out tactic, but it seems to be working. The Republicans are in Limbaugh quicksand right now, and the more they struggle to extract themselves, the deeper they sink.
UPDATE (4:25pm):
Maybe it was planned after all. Well, I suppose not "planned" per se, but the Democrats are definitely using it to their advantage.
The Dow Jones average fell below 7000 for the first time since 1997. And it's Obama's fault. At least that's what the corporatists and right wing would like you to believe. The fast and furious mudslinging doesn't stop, nor will it ever in my opinion. Anything bad that happens? It Obama's fault.
Nevermind the fact that it's taken years to reach the financial tsunami, this perfect storm of a crisis. It's Obama's fault. Even the Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal, a financial paper that used to have some credibility has jumped on the "Blame Obama" bandwagon.
As 2009 opened, three weeks before Barack Obama took office, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 9034 on January 2, its highest level since the autumn panic. Yesterday the Dow fell another 4.24% to 6763, for an overall decline of 25% in two months and to its lowest level since 1997. The dismaying message here is that President Obama's policies have become part of the economy's problem.
January 2nd? But President Obama didn't take office until January 20th, when the Dow closed at 7949. Kinda blows a whole in the numbers, doesn't it? So not only is it bad enough for the WSJ editors to fudge numbers to make it look worse since Obama took office, they are now saying he's had enough time to fix the economy. Why can't Obama close the deal?
But after five weeks in office, it’s become clear that Mr. Obama’s policies are slowing, if not stopping, what would otherwise be the normal process of economic recovery. From punishing business to squandering scarce national public resources, Team Obama is creating more uncertainty and less confidence — and thus a longer period of recession or subpar growth.
Yes, because after eight years of deregulation, ponzi schemes, major tax cuts for the wealthy causing a continuing disparity between the upper crust and the middle class, and during war time no less, it only takes five weeks to clean up the mess, doesn't it...
You'd think some serious ideas to help solve the problem instead of being the Party of No would behoove these people, but why should I continue to be surprised?
The Omnibus bill currently being debated in the Senate is being attack by the right as just more pork with thousands of earmarks categorized as wasteful spending. But the people doing the most talking account for practically half of all the earmarks. That's right, almost half.
Bob Cesca:Okay, so it's time for another wingnut revolution (get a permit!) to protest the staggering amount of pork in the omnibus bill that's moving through Congress right now. So let's go, wingnuts. Get your little tea bagsand your awesome signsand get going.
Here are the top three offenders (solo earmarks): 1) Senator Byrd (D-W.Va.) - $123 million But Byrd supports the earmark system, so of course he's going to take advantage. He always does. But look... 2) Senator Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) - $114 million 3) Senator Kit Bond (R-Mo.) - $86 million
Senator Inhofe? $53 million. Senator Cochran? $76 million. Senator McConnell? $51 million.
Could this be correct? I don't doubt that Cesca's numbers are wrong, but you'd think that the fiscally responsible Republicans would tone down the rhetoric if they were just as guilty of adding earmarks to the 2009 Budget. But I tend to forget that for the most part, they are idiots.
SOLO EARMARKS: 6 of the top 10 solo earmark procurers were Republicans for a total of $454.4 million. The remaining 4 Democrats in the top 10: $312.9 million.
Of the 78 Senators asking for solo earmarks, 40 were Republican. Of the 22 Senators that didn't ask for solo earmarks, only 5 were Republican. Of the seven Senators that didn't ask for ANY earmarks, only one was Republican.
Total amount for 55* Democratic Senators: $681.3 million. Total amount for 45* Republican Senators: $665.8 million.
EARMARKS (SOLO AND WITH OTHER MEMBERS): Democrats: 3,956 earmarks for a total of $4.75 billion. Republicans: 3,536 earmarks for a total of $4.6 billion.
PERCENTAGES: Democrats: 52.8% of earmarks totaling 50.8% of the money. Republicans: 47.2% of earmarks totaling 49.2% of the money.
So there you have it. The fiscally responsible Republicans in the Senate who have been front and center complaining about earmarks as pork account for basically HALF of the earmarks... with less members.
But we're supposed to take them seriously as they grovel at the feet of Rush Limbaugh, see Bobby Jindal as the future of the their party and play identity politics with their choices of Sarah Palin and Michael Steele.
* list includes members that are no longer in the Senate.
...are now sitting in a jar on Rush Limbaugh's mantle along with the rest of the Republican political so-called leaders on Capitol Hill.
It started early on with Phil Gingrey in his once in a lifetime moment of lucidity when questioning the rhetoric of Rush Limbaugh, until folding like a house of cards and apologizing to The Portly One the very next day after receiving tons of phone calls from the Dittoheads. For every time one of the Republican politicians deny that Limbaugh doesn't speak for them, denounce his "hope that Obama fails," or that they don't go by what Limbaugh says, they then grovel and apologize the next day.
Now the new off-the-hook, hip-hop, leader of the RNC, Michael Steele is the latest to fall under Limbaugh's corpulent thumb.
During Steele's appearance on D.L. Hughley's CNN show on Saturday, he took umbrage at his host's observation that Limbaugh is the de facto leader of the Republican party.
"I am the de facto leader of the Republican party... Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh — his whole thing is entertainment. He has this incendiary — yes, it's ugly.”
Wow! Michael Steele was one step away from poppin' a cap in Limbaugh's fat ass. But then the inevitable happened.
"My intent was not to go after Rush – I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh,” Steele said in a telephone interview. “I was maybe a little bit inarticulate. … There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership.
...I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren’t what I was thinking,” Steele said. "It was one of those things where I thinking I was saying one thing, and it came out differently. What I was trying to say was a lot of people … want to make Rush the scapegoat, the bogeyman, and he’s not.
I’m not going to engage these guys and sit back and provide them the popcorn for a fight between me and Rush Limbaugh,” Steele added. “No such thing is going to happen. … I wasn’t trying to slam him or anything."
That brown you see on Michael Steele's face is no longer his skin color, it's the skidmark left after inserting his head into Limbaugh's cornhole. Add another jar to Limbaugh's mantle to house Michael Steele's testicles next to Phil Gingrey's, Mike Pence's, Eric Cantor's, Mitch McConnell's and on and on.
Here's Democratic Committee Chairman Tim Kaine's shorter response: I was impressed with Steele for about a minute, until he licked Limbaugh's stiletto heels. All hail Rush Limbaugh! Leader of what used to be the Republican Party!
"We believe that the preamble to the Constitution contains an inarguable truth that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life. Liberty, Freedom. And the pursuit of happiness." —Rush Limbaugh in his address to CPAC
Psst... Rush, that's the Declaration of Independence... which you also got wrong.
The more things "Change" the more they remain the same.
This past weekend saw the return of the Conservative Political Action Conference convention (2009 Crazy Edition), and what a show it was! Between Cliff Kincaid, a right wing activist who is an editor at the ironically named "Accuracy In Media" inferring that President Obama is a communist and doubting his citizenship, and Ann Coulter suggesting that some U.S. cities aren't worth saving in a nuclear attack, everything was overshadowed by the leader of the Republican Party Rush Limbaugh apparently making the crazies cream in their pants with a 90 minute speech for the ages, and receiving CPAC's Defender of the Constitution Award. No, really.
It's impossible to hear House Minority Whip Eric Cantor's claim that the GOP rejects Limbaugh's hope that President Obama fails over the din of his frenzied base at their yearly circle jerk.
MSNBC:Employees of Tiversa, a Cranberry Township, Pa.-based security company that specializes in peer-to-peer technology, reportedly found engineering and communications information about Marine One at an IP address in Tehran, Iran.
Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, told WPXI-TV: "We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One, which is the president's helicopter."
It was incredibly tempting and I'm still arguing with myself to award the dubious distinction of Broadway Carl's Douchebag of the Week honors to CPAC and the entire body of people who attended or spoke at the event, but in light of the fact that there were soooo many douchenozzlesattending, I had to narrow it down.
I couldn't lump in Rush Limbaugh and Ann "Obama is insane for sending troops to Afghanistan" Coulter and Michael "My bad" Steele and the myriad other assholes who said ridiculously asinine things during the weekend; besides, I'm sure they'll have their own week soon enough. But the one person in my mind that stuck out was early on was Cliff Kincaid. Who? This guy.
Douchebag of the Week: Cliff "We are sore losers so we may as well keep perpetuating the lies" Kincaid.
When then Senator and now Vice President Joe Biden called paying taxes patriotic, it was derided as ridiculous spin on the Obama campaign's tax plan should he win office. Republican opponent John McCain called income tax increases "painful" although those tax increases (to let the Bush tax cuts that had benefited so many of the nation's wealthiest 1% expire) help us in paying for the war of choice that the right continues to tout to this day.
So they want to rid the world of the evildoers, but they don't want to pay for it? And then they use the "we don't want to use our children's and grandchildren's credit cards to pay for this" line to criticize the Obama recovery plan, when we've been using those credit cards and hiding the true cost of the occupation of Iraq all along.
President Obama spoke today at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina to announce his plan to draw down troops for an eventual end to the War in Iraq. But what struck me most about his speech was the idea of sacrifice for country. Standing behind him, I saw the faces of men and women who have sacrificed for their country, not to mention the faces of those who served that we'll never see again, and yet the privileged few complain about paying higher taxes to support those who are defending us.
Raise your hand if you guessed that Piyush "Bobby" Jindal's Sheriff Lee and The Katrina Rescue Boats story during his Republican response was a bunch of bullshit. Well, the part that Jindal was there, that is.
...Jindal spokeswoman Melissa Sellers told Smith, "It was days later .. Sheriff Lee was on the phone and the governor came down to visit him. It wasn't that they were standing right down there with the boats."
Jindal was on a foreign trip when Katrina made landfall on Aug 29 ,2005 - he inserted himself into the story for... we'll call it "dramatic purposes." Not a great way to make a your debut as the Republicans' Great Brown Hope.
And now it seems that the Jindal office is trying to revise their revision multiple times. When you find yourself in a hole, stop digging, Piyush.
Coming hot on the heels of "Bobby" Jindal's spectacularly awful performance in delivering the GOP response to President Obama's recent address to Congress, now we have news that "Joe" the "Plumber"'s recent Washington book signing event was something of a dud:
About 11 people wandered into the rows of seats set up hopefully in the basement of a downtown Border's bookstore to hear Joe speak. Joe addressed them from behind a lectern and with a microphone, but that seemed unnecessarily formal.
Even the Washington Post can't keep the snark in check on this one. Classic:
It's fair to say Joe's appearance at Borders at 18th and L streets wasn't eagerly anticipated. People just kind of shuffled over when Joe strode in with Thomas N. Tabback, the co-author of "Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream." Annie Hickman, a young woman whom Wurzelbacher called "sweetie" during a brief Q&A, was browsing when the PA announced that Joe was in the house. "I'm missing pottery class for this," she said.
You know what I especially love about the rise and fall of this gormless nitwit? The fact that he, like so many other intellectual midgets before him, has been hailed by the Republican party as the embodiment of a "real American." As if those of us who, for example, manage to pay our taxes and speak in coherent sentences, should by all rights pack up and move to France. The irony is breathtaking: this guy is somehow the real thing, according to the right-wingers, yet he goes by a fake name and lied about being a licensed plumber. It's as if there was a Women Who are Proud of Having Real Boobs organization, and they appointed Pamela Anderson as their spokesperson. Makes no sense. Just ain't right.
Luckily for the rest of us, it looks like old "Joe," or Sam, or whatever the hell his actual name is, is about to shuffle off into the obscurity he so richly deserves.
I seriously want to know how stupid the voters are in Michele Bachmann's Minnesota district. Is there some kind of chemical plant in the area poisoning their local water supply? How is it possible that one of the stupidest people on the planet is an elected representative of the United States?
Well, never let it be said that Bachmann isn't the conservative goose that lays the racist egg. After RNC Chairman Michael Steele spoke at CPAC yesterday, Bachmann let loose with some words of praise, but in an effort to follow Steele's call for appealing to "urban-suburban hip-hop settings," shouted out "You be da man! You be da man!" Come to think of it, is Bachmann related to the woman in the movie "Airplane" that was able to translate jive?
Really? That's not what you said on G. Gordon Liddy's sorry excuse for a show.
Good for Matt Lauer to call out this moron. And Lauer didn't even mention the fact that the reason Robert Gibbs "called out" Santelli is because he was asked a question about Santelli's specific action!
Q On the foreclosure plan, aside from Rush Limbaugh and that cable rant on the floor of the Exchange, there really does appear to be some --
MR. GIBBS: Chuck's network? (Laughter.)
Q -- there really does appear to be some anger out there from people who just don't believe the President when he said that only people who acted responsibly are going to be helped here. How can you assure people that you're going to reward only people, only homeowners who acted responsibly?
This guy is super smart. He is, apparently, a Rhodes scholar. I'm sure the folks who award the Rhodes scholarships are feeling extra proud right about now:
In his response to President Obama's address, Jindal said he opposed the stimulus package's inclusion of “$140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.'”
“Instead of monitoring volcanoes, what Congress should be monitoring is the eruption of spending in Washington, D.C,” Jindal said.
While the claim was factually inaccurate (the $140 million will go to the US Geological Survey, of which volcanic research is only a part), scientists are also decrying Jindal's comments as a blast of hot volcanic air.
“Apparently the governor of Louisiana doesn't remember any of the major volcanic eruptions in recent history,” said Mark Brandon, a professor of geology at Yale University who has studied volcanoes around the world. “Volcanic monitoring right now is absolutely essential for protecting lives and property. The amount of money invested compared to the amount of money returned is trivial. It's not just some hobby—if the governor were in a volcanic eruption, he'd realize that the people who do that work are very useful in protecting you from direct hazards.”
Brandon was a student at University of Washington when Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, killing 57 people and destroying hundreds of homes. Many more would almost certainly have died without the volcanic monitoring that allowed authorities to evacuate the population ahead of time.
Nothing like a little Morning Joke™ to get the blood flowing in the morning.
While ending their interview with StenyHoyer and the bumper music playing out, here is what transpired:
Joe Scarborough: Hey, Steny we gotta go but I got a question from Twitter here. Somebody e-mailed me and said, "I see the House $410 billion spending bill has 9,000earmarks. It's totally insane. What's wrong with these people?!" Are there really 9,000 earmarks in that bill?
Mika Brzezinski: Please tell me that's not true.
StenyHoyer: I think that's two and a half times what they're - about 4,000 earmarks for all the members and for 435 districts around the country. Um...
MB: That's kind of a lot, isn't it?
SH: It is a lot, but it's been very substantially reduced - cut in half over the last two ears.
JS: Alright. Very good, Steny...
MB: ...That doesn't make it alright though.
JS: Hey you know, isn't it great following a Republican party that for eight years porked it up, uh, huh, it's uh...
MB: ...Everything'sRELATIVE.
JS: ... it's easy to draw a good contrast.
MB: Yeah! Good on ya.
SH: Well, we're in the process of getting back to a place where we were some years ago before the Republicans, as you say, quadrupled the number of earmarks.
MB: Okay, that doesn't make it okay. But alright.
JS: Good to see you.
SH: Making progress.
MB: (laughs) He's honest.
Now, I understand the earmark issue, but if it's obviously that important to Joe and Mika, why not come out and ask Hoyer at an appropriate time in the interview and debate the issue instead of blindsiding him with the excuse of a "tweet"?
Let's also not forget that not all earmarks are bad things. This is how congressional leaders help their individual districts. There might be some waste, but you can't generalize - they should be looked at individually.
This also begs the question - will President Obama send this bill back because of the earmarks?
By the way, Chris Matthews was on the show for an extended period - does he ever sleep?
ADDING... Pat Buchanan learned something on the show today. "I think that Barack Obama is taking the biggest gamble in American political history, I think he's at his peak I think we learned, and he's headed for real trouble."
To which Joe Scarborough responded: "Buchanan! He's already predicted the downfall of Barack Obama! I'm stunned!"
LOS ALAMITOS, Calif.—Keyanus Price, an African American, said she was appalled when she received an e-mail from Mayor Dean Grose's personal account that showed a picture of the White House with a watermelon patch imposed as the White House garden.
...Grose's e-mail included the picture with a heading that read, "No Easter Egg hunt this year."
UPDATE (2/27/09 8:45pm):
AP:LOS ALAMITOS, Calif. (AP) — The mayor of a small Southern California city says he will resign after being criticized for sharing an e-mail picture depicting the White House lawn planted with watermelons under the title "No Easter egg hunt this year."
Los Alamitos Mayor Dean Grose issued a statement Thursday saying he is sorry and will step down as mayor at Monday's City Council meeting.
Circumstances prevented me from watching President Obama's address to joint Congress live last night. I was about an hour behind so I purposely stayed away from the Internets until I watched the full speech for fear of spoilers. As usual, I was not disappointed in another Obama speech full of The Awesomeness™.
Then I waited with trepidation for the Republican Party response from Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal, the "rising star" of the GOP and one being touted for a presidential run in 2012. Jindal was on Meet The Press the previous Sunday and although he typically regurgitated Republican talking points, he seemed well put together, able to speak off the cuff and is obviously an intelligent individual. What I witnessed last night however, was a completely different Bobby Jindal. I include the entire speech for those who missed it.
Who is this man and what did they do with Bobby Jindal? Surely, this isn't the rising star with the hopes of the GOP squarely on his shoulders in 2012, is it? ...Really?
His sing-song approach was a little disconcerting - was he trying to sell me a used car recovered from the 9th Ward? I was inadvertently shot back to my youth and half expected Jindal to break into song and take us to the Magic Kingdom where Republicans know what they're talking about, but then I realized there were no hand puppets... at least within camera shot. Or maybe Jindal is a hand puppet...
Then my jaw hit the floor when I heard the following line:
"Today in Washington, some are promising that government will rescue us from the economic storms raging all around us. Those of us who lived through Hurricane Katrina -- we have our doubts."
Wait... did I hear that right? Was Jindal telling us we can't trust government and using the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the incompetence of the Bush administration's rescue efforts as a gauge? Was he telling us, by using Hurricane Fucking Katrina as an example, that citizens have to deal with disaster on their own? And in seemingly the next breath, asking us to trust the Republican Party? Government shouldn't be trusted and that is why the GOP is the correct choice for 2010 - we don't give you hope. With us, you know you'll be fucked from the beginning, so there'll be no surprises!
Then he told us a story about Sheriff Harry Lee and the volunteer rescue boat operation, featuring the evil government bureaucrat who insisted on seeing the insurance and registration for the boats before allowing them to rescue New Orleans' drowning victims. I found this story a little hard to believe until I realized that, yeah, maybe it was true - after all, who was running the government back in 2005? After hearing that story, do you think RNC Chairman Michael Steele was staring blankly at his television in a "What the fuck?" haze? Yeah, me neither. He was probably pumping his fist, Arsenio Hall style, and barking up a storm, thinking this speech was "off the hook!"
But this childish, pathetic excuse for a speech turned sour in my book when Jindal insisted on using the latest GOP talking points of an imaginary "'magnetic levitation' line from Las Vegas to Disneyland," categorized as wasteful spending the replacement of the government fleet of cars, which would create manufacturing jobs to produce the energy efficient cars and reduce our oil dependence, and pointed to "$140 million for something called 'volcano monitoring.'" Well, perhaps down by the bayou, volcano monitoring may be thought of as wasteful spending, but I'm sure citizens of Hawaii and Washington state appreciate it. Had the shoe been on the other foot and a GOP led country was blindsided by a volcano eruption that turned a Hawaiian town into a 21st century Pompeii, they could just pull out the Katrina textbook and say, "Well, no one could have anticipated the eruption of the volcano." Not to mention the fact that Jindal was pointing to 0.00018% of the entire plan, the very thing President Obama warned against in his address to the nation's governors as well as during the Fiscal Responsibility Summit.
So this is what we have to deal with in 2012? We've seen what we're going to get with Sarah "Position Flexible Also" Palin. And the latest Michael Steele Foot in Mouth Disease moment regarding civil unions makes me wonder what the GOP was thinking. But for the time being until this all dies down, Bobby Jindal has to take the gumbo. The Republican Party's sad attempt to show that they're inclusionary and exotic with the choices of Palin, Steele and Jindal as a substitute for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Oscar winners for Slumdog Millionaire don't mean a thing if their ideology is skewing further right than ever.
Heh. Slumdog Millionaire. Yeah, that's right! I said it.
I'm still gathering my thoughts for a longer post about last night's speech by President Obama, but in the meantime I wanted to parachute in here with a couple of quick thoughts:
1. Did our President kick some Republican ass last night or what? and
2. As far as Bobby Jindal is concerned, I for one was quite impressed with his performance, in that, as a public speaker, he makes Sarah Palin look positively eloquent. If this chicken-fried dipshit represents the best of the Republican party, they are beyond hosed. They are DONE. I can't wait to see this guy run for VP on the ticket with Palin. Go Bobby go!
As an active-duty Officer in the United States Army, I have grave concerns about the constitutional eligibilty [sic] of Barack Hussein Obama to hold the Office of President of The United States. He has absolutely refused to provide to the American public his original birth certificate, as well as other documents which may prove or disprove his eligibility. In fact, he has fought every attempt made by concerned citizens in their effort to force him to do so. Until Mr. Obama releases a "vault copy" of his original birth certificate for public review, I will consider him neither my Commander in Chief nor my President, but rather, a usurper to the Office - an impostor. My conviction is such that I am compelled to join Dr. Orly Taitz's lawsuit, as a plaintiff, against Mr. Obama. As a citizen, it pains me to do this, but as an Offficer [sic], my sworn oath to support and defend our Constitution requires this action.
I joined the Army at age 40, after working in Iraq as a contractor with KBR in '05/'06. I chose to work with KBR to support my troops and then left that lucrative position when the Army raised it's maximum enlistment age to 40. Upon completion of Basic Training, I entered Officer Candidate School and commissioned as a 2LT in August 2007. After completing the subsequent Basic Officer Leadership courses, I was assigned to Ft. Knox and shortly therafter [sic] deployed to Balad, Iraq. I was promoted to 1LT on Feb. 2, 2009 and I have approximately five months remaining of our fifteen month deployment.
I implore all Service-members and citizens to contact their Senators and Representatives and demand that they require Mr. Obama prove his eligibility. Our Constitution and our great nation must not be allowed to be disgraced.
Very Respectfull[sic], Scott R. Easterling 1LT OD/LG United States Army
Why is this still an issue? And if this letter is real, why is an Army officer this ridiculously stupid?
UPDATE (2/25/09 6:50am):
Thanks, Matt Osborne for bringing this to my attention. I found it last night (the impetus for this post) and was originally going to add it, but between President Obama's speech and the Jindal "PBS Children's Special" response, was too flabbergasted and forgot.
"Any commissioned officer who uses contemptuous wordsagainst the president, the vice president, congress, the secretary of defense, the secretary of a military department, the secretary of homeland security, or the governor or legislature of any state, commonwealth, or possession in which he is on duty or present shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."
Wasteful spending. That's what I call anyone or any company willing to pay for the "pleasure" of hearing former president George W. Bush speak. (And by "pleasure" I only mean equal to this.)
Think Progress:As the Dallas Morning News reported earlier this month, George W. Bush’s first post-presidency addresswill be in Canada on March 17. The closed event is being billed as “a conversation with George W. Bush,” during which he will “share his thoughts on his eight momentous years in the Oval Office.”
Ah, yes. Eight momentous years. The Bush Legacy Project continues...
I woke up this morning poised to post something with nothing in mind. So I thought I'd turn on the Farnsworth invention and see what was on Morning Joke™. Surely I could find something within 30 seconds. And I was right.
What the fuck? Iced coffee, anyone? The Morning Joke™ crew is televising live from Washington, D.C. in anticipation of President Obama's address to a joint session of Congress tonight. Did no one tell NBC? They're sitting out in front of the White House freezing their balls off! Doesn't NBC have studios in Washington?!
These imbeciles are sitting on the White House lawn interviewing Senator Chuck Schumer from his remote spot in the warm Capital Building but forcing others like new Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to sit out there like a schmuck giving these guys time with the wind howling, Mika shivering under a blanket and Mike Barnicle about to die from hypothermia. They can barely talk because their faces a frozen stiff.
According to Weather.com, it's currently 12° with the wind chill factor in D.C. Willie "Scooter" Geist is nowhere to be seen. Maybe he's the smart one after all. Oh wait, there he is on the other side of the White House proving he's just as moronic as the rest of them. At least he didn't disappoint.
Along with having a good sense of humor, President Obama hit another home run.
When accepting the suggestion that he continue to reach out to the minority and comparing it to the parable of sowing seeds and that his seeds would eventually find fertile soil, the President said, "I will certainly do that because I'm just a glutton for punishment... I'm going to keep talking to Eric Cantor. Someday sooner or later, he's going to say, 'Boy, Obama had a good idea.' It's gonna happen."
And then he closed with this:
"One last point I want to make, just because I think, from the press perspective, I was reading some of the newspapers today and there was a sense that maybe we were doing a 'pivot' because we had just moved forward on the recovery package and now we're talking about fiscal responsibility, how do those two things match up?
I just want to be very clear about this and I've said it to the Governors this morning and I've said it to my staff in the past. We chose to move forward on a recovery package because there was a strong sense among the vast majority of economists that if we did not try to fill a $1 trillion a year hole in demand, because of the drastic pulling back of businesses and consumers, that the recession would get worse, unemployment would increase and as a consequence, tax revenues would go down and the long term deficit and debt projections would be even higher.
That was the basis for the decision. It was not ideologically driven. I have no interest in making government bigger for the sake of it. I've got more than enough on my plate, as Lindsey [Graham] knows, between Afghanistan and Iraq, and issues of terrorism, that if the private sector was just humming along and we could just make government more efficient and not have to worry about this financial crisis, I would love that. But that's not the circumstance we find ourselves in, so I made the best judgement about the need to for us to move forward on a recovery package.
There were some differences, significant differences between the parties about this. I would suggest that if you look at the differences, they amounted to maybe 10, maybe 15 percent of the total package. There wasn't a lot of argument about counter cyclical payments to states to make sure that people had extended unemployment insurance or Food Stamps. There wasn't a lot of disagreement about some of the infrastructure that needs to be repaired. There wasn't a lot of disagreement on the tax cut front. Fifteen, twenty percent of it there was some disagreements about.
But the reason I make this point is that if we're going to be successful moving forward, it's important for us to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and our politics. And the reason there is no contradiction from my perspective in doing the recovery package first but now focusing on the medium and long term is because our hope is that this economy starts recovering - we will have taken a hit in terms of our debt and our deficit, but as Bob Greenstein said, the recovery package will account for about one tenth of one percent of our long term debt, the real problems are the structural deficit and the structural debt we've been accumulating and all of us are complicit in.
So we've gotta get that taken care of. We would have had to get it taken care of whether or not there was a recession. This just underscores the urgency of it and I'm hopeful that we move forward in that spirit in the days and weeks and months to come."
The quote of the day when someone harped that the Democrats in the House were not inclusive of the Republicans in the recovery bill process.
"On the one hand, the majority has to be inclusive. On the other hand, minority needs to be constructive... What you should see, I think, is the majority saying 'What are your ideas?' The minority has got to then come up with those ideas and not just want to blow the thing up."
... for is boneheaded remark about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
"I apologize if my comments offended Justice Ginsberg," Bunning said. "That certainly was not my intent. It is great to see her back at the Supreme Court today and I hope she recovers quickly. My thoughts and prayers are with her and her family."
My current Followers List on the right on the right side of this page boasts 22 followers. It was 23 this morning. Who bailed? Why? Did I offend someone with my last few posts? Do they disagree with me on the forclosure plan so vehemently that they decided to write me off and sever their ties to my blog? Or maybe they were just following too many blogs and I was the odd site out.
The darned thing is that I can't figure out who decided to stop following. The list is right there with names and everything, but if they disappear, I can't tell who left. I guess that's what bugs me the most. Who were you?!
Oh well. Good luck, lost follower. Perhaps we'll meet up again someday.
ADDING... I figured it out! It was a follower who used a Greatful Dead logo for his icon. And I think he had a "43" after his name. Well, whoever you were, I hope you are well.
Looks like the Southern Regional GOP is losing their shit. For years now, these Boss Hoggs sat in their sties as they enjoyed rolling around in their shit. But now that there's a new farmer in the house, they're squealing as they're being led to the election slaughterhouse.
...a Republican, has said he is considering turning down millions of dollars in unemployment aid because it would force his state to raise taxes when the stimulus money runs out by putting in place a tax on employers.
"There is some (money) we will not take in Mississippi. ...We want more jobs. You don't get more jobs by putting an extra tax on creating jobs," Barbour told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.
Maybe if Governor Barbour took the mud out his eyes, he might see that extended unemployment aid might help bridge the time between receiving the aid and developing the jobs. Is he telling us that hey have absolutely no infrastructure to improve in Mississippi? Mississippi?!
I think the best thing they could've done, for example, was to cut taxes on things like capital gains, the lower tax brackets, to get the private sector spending again.
Uh... how many citizens of Mississippi receive capital gains?
...How does $300 million for federal cars, $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, how is spending like that going to help our economy? How's that stimulus?
Somebody has to make those cars. That equals jobs. It also makes the new hybrid fleet more energy efficient thereby reducing our energy dependence over the long term. NEA spending? I'm sure hundreds of thousands that are employed in the arts, actors, dancers, artists, stage crew employees, designers, non profit public television, and on and on would appreciate the continued employment. Or would you rather have them lose their jobs and homes as well?
You know, now they're talking about spending billions of that to build a train from Disneyland to Las Vegas. There was so much wasteful spending here.
Please show us the provision in the bill for the train from Disneyland to Las Vegas. Go ahead. What page is that on? After watching Jindal on Meet The Press, I heard absolutely nothing new but the same typical Republican talking points that we've heard all along. More tax cuts for businesses, wasted spending in the bill, blah, blah, blah. I'm surprised he didn't go for the "Pelosi's swamp mouse" dig.
At a Lincoln Day Dinner speech over the weekend, Bunning predicted that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would likely be dead from pancreatic cancer in nine months, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal.
The paper reports that Bunning reiterated his support of conservative judges, saying “that’s going to be in place very shortly because Ruth Bader Ginsburg…has cancer.”
“Bad cancer. The kind you don’t get better from,” Bunning went on. “Even though she was operated on, usually nine months is the longest that anybody would live after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.”
What a compassionate Christian conservative, that Jim Bunning. Talking about support for conservative judges because Ginsburg is about to kick the bucket? How sweet of him. By the way, Ginsburg went back to work today, 18 days after her surgery.
ADDING... Thanks to commenter Annette who reminded me of this little doozey which prompted me to start this post in the first place, but being so riled up, forgot to add.
[A] local resident asked Shelby if there was any truth to a rumor that appeared during the presidential campaign concerning Obama’s U.S. citizenship, or lack thereof.
“Well his father was Kenyan and they said he was born in Hawaii, but I haven’t seen any birth certificate,” Shelby said. “You have to be born in America to be president.”
Shorter Shelby: When you are a Republican and see your base shrinking as your nose is growing, it never hurts to sling mud and bring up doubts about a Manchurian candidate for rabble rousing purposes. Git yer pitchforks ready!
Since the reporting of Shelby's statement, a spokeman for Shelby has stated that the partial quote attributed to Shelby distorted its meaning.
Johnathan Graffeo: "At the town hall meeting in Cullman, Sen. Shelby laid out the Constitutional qualifications for the Presidency and said that, while he hasn't personally seen the President's birth certificate, he is confident that the matter has been thoroughly examined."
Well that begs the question, if Shelby is confident that the matter was thoroughly examined, why make a statement that sows the seeds of doubt regarding his citizenship? Instead of remarking about President Obama's father and confirming that he personally hasn't seen a birth certificate, Shelby could have said President Obama was born in Hawaii, therefore an American citizen. Period. But he didn't say that so Shelby done brought that shit on hisself. Or perhaps Shelby spokeman Jonathan Graffeo should remind Shelby that Hawaii is a fucking state!
President Obama:"There has been some healthy debate over the last few weeks, the last few days about this stimulus package even among the Governors. And I think that's a healthy debate. That keeps me on my toes, it keeps our administration on our toes. But I just want us to not lose perspective of the fact that most of the things that have been the topic of argument over the last several days amount to a fraction of the overall stimulus package. This sometimes gets lost in the cable chatter.
For example, I think there are some very legitimate concerns on the part of some about the sustainability of expanding unemployment insurance. What hasn't been noted is that is $7 billion out of a $787 billion program and it's not even the majority of the expansion of unemployment insurance. So it is possible for those who are concerned about sustaining a change that increases eligibility for part time workers to still see the benefit of $30 billion plus that is going even if you don't make the change.
So I, the reason I make that point is that I want to make sure that we are having an honest debate and presenting to the American people a fulsome accounting of what is going on in this program. When I hear people say, 'Well, there's a lot of waste in this program,' well from my perspective at least, keeping teachers in the classroom is not wasteful. From my perspective, tax cuts to 95% of working families is not wasteful. From my perspective, providing all of you additional resources to rebuild roads and bridges, and levees and dams, that will enhance the quality of life in your state but also make it more economically competitive, that's not wasteful.
And so if we agree on 90% of this stuff and we're spending all our time on television arguing about one, two, three percent of the spending in this thing, and somehow it's being characterized in broad brushes, wasteful spending, that starts sounding more like politics, and that's what right now we don't have time to do.
So, I will always be open to honest disagreements and I think there are some legitimate concerns that can be raised on a whole host of these issues, and you're responsible at the state level. And if the federal government gives you something now, and then two years later it's gone and people are looking to you and starting to blame you - I don't want to put you in that position - and so you need to think about how this money is going to be spent wisely. What I don't want us to do though, it to just get caught up in the same old stuff that inhibits us from acting effectively and in concert. There's going to be ample time for campaigns down the road. Right now we've got to make sure we're standing up for the American people and putting them back to work."
Ever wonder why no one made a big stink on the television invention about the vast amounts of money being used for Iraq and Afghanistan but wasn't included in the budget? George W. Bush would call it "emergency funding" or a "war supplemental" bill. They'd allocate billions and billions of dollars to the war on terror but not really show it on their balance sheets. They essentially had two sets of books. Well not anymore.
For his first annual budget next week, President Obama has banned four accounting gimmicks that President George W. Bush used to make deficit projections look smaller. The price of more honest bookkeeping: A budget that is $2.7 trillion deeper in the red over the next decade than it would otherwise appear, according to administration officials.
The new accounting involves spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Medicare reimbursements to physicians and the cost of disaster responses.
But the biggest adjustment will deal with revenues from the alternative minimum tax, a parallel tax system enacted in 1969 to prevent the wealthy from using tax shelters to avoid paying any income tax.
...Mr. Obama’s banishment of the gimmicks, which have been widely criticized, is in keeping with his promise to run a more transparent government.
Fiscal sleight of hand has long been a staple of federal budgets, giving rise to phrases like “rosy scenario” and “magic asterisks.”
The $2.7 trillion in additional deficit spending, Mr. Orszag said, is “a huge amount of money that would just be kind of a magic asterisk in previous budgets.”
“The president prefers to tell the truth,” he said, “rather than make the numbers look better by pretending.”
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