Happy Hump day, good people! Today’s songs are dedicated to Jueseppi, The OBAMACRAT. No charge for you, my Brotha!
Wiki: Thomas DeCarlo Callaway born May 30, 1974),[1] better known by his stage name Cee Lo Green, is an American singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer and actor. He originally came to prominence as a member of the southern hip hop group Goodie Mob, later launching a critically acclaimed solo career[2] and forming Gnarls Barkley with DJ Danger Mouse.
Internationally, Cee Lo is best known for his hip hop work and Gnarls Barkley’s 2006 worldwide hit “Crazy”, which reached number one in various singles charts worldwide, including the UK. In the United States, “Crazy” reached number two on the Billboard Hot 100. Parent album St. Elsewhere was also a hit, reaching number one on the UK Albums Chart and number four on the US Billboard 200 album charts. Gnarls Barkley’s second album, The Odd Couple (2008), was less successful and missed the top ten in both the UK and U.S., where it charted at number 12 in the U.S. and 18 in the UK.
In 2010, Cee Lo took a break from recording with Gnarls Barkley and released the single “Fuck You!” on August 19 as a solo recording artist. The song was an instant hit, with the radio-edit version “Forget You” reaching the top spot in the UK and the Netherlands and charted at number two on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100. The parent album, The Lady Killer (2010) saw similar success, peaking within the top five of the UK Albums Chart and debuting within the top ten on the Billboard 200 album charts, and received a Gold certification from the BPI in the UK shortly after its release. His second single “It’s OK” was a hit in Europe and the third single, “Bright Lights Bigger City” has also seen similar charting success. Cee Lo is also currently a vocal coach on the NBC reality talent show The Voice with Adam Levine, Christina Aguilera,
May 23, 2012 09:20 AM
Colin Powell Takes Hannity to Task for His Obsession with Bill Ayers and Rev. Wright
By Heather
Full transcript of that portion of Powell’s interview below the fold.
HANNITY: Well, hopefully — look, I have never been more worried than I am today about the economy, about the world situation. You know, this is — I have known you for a long time. You were gracious enough as secretary of state, you would grant me interviews. And I spent time with you. I have watched your military career, where you grew up in New York. You didn’t grow up with a silver spoon in your mouth by any stretch. And you’ve achieved the highest levels of power. And you work for Ronald Reagan. And what I didn’t understand — and hopefully, you can explain this — is I look at President Reagan and where he stood on socialized medicine, on lower taxes, on limited government, government is the problem, not the answer. And then I watched as you endorsed President Obama — I didn’t understand it. And a lot of conservatives didn’t understand it.
POWELL: I know that. I looked at it very carefully back in 2008. And I saw the economy going into a free fall. I saw a situation where we were in two wars that really weren’t sorting themselves out as cleanly as they should.
HANNITY: Right.
POWELL: I felt that the Republican Party at that time was conveying an impression of harshness, there was a certain ugliness of some of the things that were being said about President Obama, and some of the things that you see at the campaign events. But it was the economy more than anything else that I thought he might be better able to handle than somebody who I have the highest regard for and have known for 30 years, and that’s John McCain.
HANNITY: You know, I watched and I remembered — and maybe this is just a point of disagreement we wouldn’t be able to resolve. You know, when you didn’t like in particular, you felt it was a character assassination to bring up, like, Bill Ayers. Let me go back and this is what you said at the time. And let me play it for and you ask you a question out of this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
POWELL, OCT. 19, 2008: I was troubled a couple of weeks ago when in the middle of the crisis, the campaign said, we are going on go negative. And they announced it, “We are going to negative and attack his character through Bill Ayers.” And now I guess, the message this week is, “We are going to call him a socialist.” Mr. Obama is now a socialist because he dares to suggest that maybe we ought to look at the tax structure that we have.
POWELL, “MEET THE PRESS”/NBC, OCT. 19, 2008: Because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities — and we have to take that into account — as well as he has substance, he has both style and substance. He has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president. I think he is a transformational figure. He is a new generation coming in to the world, onto the world stage, on the American stage, and for that reason, I will be voting for Senator Barack Obama.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
HANNITY: That’s when you made the endorsement. You said because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, reaching out across America. The president himself has now said the Republican plan for this country is for dirty air and dirty water. You are still a Republican, right? That Republicans want kids with autism and Down’s syndrome, the elderly to fend for themselves. We have the Democratic ads, Paul Ryan look-alikes throwing granny over the cliff.
Does that sound inclusive? Seriously, because I find him one of the most divisive figures that I’ve witnessed in politics today.
POWELL: Well, that’s a term that’s being used rather freely. I don’t think it’s that divisive of an issue. I think we have right now, we have dueling points of view strongly held by both sides. And the president is starting to go to the mattresses, just as the Republicans are going to go to the mattresses to try to win the election.
What could have been more divisive than when President Obama was inaugurated for a number of Republicans, friends of mine and a number of commentators to say, we are going to destroy him. We are going to destroy him.
HANNITY: Who said that?
POWELL: A lot of people saying, I can get you a list, but I don’t want to just take it off —
HANNITY: I was one of the harshest critics. I wasn’t out to destroy him.
POWELL: I don’t ever remember you saying it.
HANNITY: Well, I was critical about Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright.
POWELL: I don’t know Bill Ayers from the man in the moon. Bill Ayers and Reverend Wright are just passing things through his life.
HANNITY: Twenty years in his church? Twenty years?
POWELL: Well, so?
HANNITY: Unrepentant terrorist giving speeches, starting your political career in his house, that didn’t impress you at all?
POWELL: At the time it was a guy who is living in Chicago and happened to have a friend by the name of Bill Ayers. But I don’t see Bill Ayers as having that kind of long-standing terrorist influence on the President. I mean, it is ancient history now. Why are we fooling with this?
HANNITY: Well, I don’t think it’s the issue. I think the economy and the president’s record — I couldn’t see you and Reverend Wright’s church for 20 years.
POWELL: I wasn’t in Reverend Wright — I didn’t know anything about Reverend Wright or his church.
HANNITY: I know but that’s my point.
POWELL: This thing explodes and it becomes a big — everybody tries to make it the defining issue of the 2008 campaign. And guess what, the American people heard it, they heard all the attacks, they heard all the things that were said about the Reverend Wright issue, then-Senator Obama gave a speech on it and the American people took it in stride and they elected him president.
HANNITY: Yes, they didn’t listen to me, that’s the power and influence I have.
No they didn’t Sean. Here’s to hoping your continued attacks are ignored once again. As the post from Media Matters noted:
Hannity has been called out about his obsession about Wright and Ayers before, but it seems unlikely that he’ll ever give up his obsession as long as Obama is in office.
VIDEO: http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/colin-powell-takes-hannity-task-his-obsess
Romney: “I know how to read a balance sheet.”
Bashir: “So does Bernie Madoff, but that doesn’t qualify him to be president”
******BWA HA HA HA******
I’ve been enjoying Martin Bashir this week on The Last Word.
Speak on it, Governor, Deval Patrick.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRFOkDRSZJg&feature=player_embedded
David Letterman Spoofs Mitt Romney’s ‘Day One’ Campaign Ad (VIDEO)
http://www.manmademag.com/out/af954/
12:28 PM EDT, Wednesday May 23, 2012
Carney: Claims Of Obama Spending Binge Are ‘BS,’ Slothful, Lazy Reporting
Gaggling with reporters on Air Force One Wednesday morning, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney alerted the press corps to a new story reiterating the point that President Obama has actually demonstrated unusual fiscal restraint, and warned them that uncritically reporting GOP tax-and-spend claims to the contrary amounts to “BS” and a sign of “sloth and laziness.”
“[T]he rate of spending – federal spending increase is lower under President Obama than all of his predecessors since Dwight Eisenhower, including all of his Republican predecessors,” Carney said, according to an official transcript. “That is a fact not often noted in the press and certainly never mentioned by the Republicans. “[T]his President has been – has demonstrated significant fiscal restraint and acted with great fiscal responsibility. That is also why he has put forward a balanced plan to further reduce our deficit and debt by over $4 trillion….
ALL.OFTHIS.. I simply make the point, as an editor might say, to check it out; do not buy into the BS that you hear about spending and fiscal constraint [sic] with regard to this administration. I think doing so is a sign of sloth and laziness.”
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/carney-claims-of-obama-spending-binge-are-bs
I get chills watching this video and I am so PROUD of you, President Obama.
Hewlett-Packard says it is slashing 27,000 jobs in a move aimed at slimming down the struggling tech giant.
The company expects the layoffs, which amount to 8% of its worldwide workforce, to save $3 billion to $3.5 billion by the end of 2014. The majority of that savings will be reinvested in research and development, HP said.
Obama Pride: LGBT Americans for Obama
“The work that we’ve done with respect to the LGBT community I think is just profoundly American and is at the heart of who we are.”— President Obama
http://bit.ly/Lp09FP
When it comes to marriage equality, Romney would write discrimination into the Constitution.
http://www.keepinggophonest.com/when-it-comes-to-marriage-equality-romney-would-write-discrimination-into-t/
Let’s remember what Romney’s economics looks like, STATE BY STATE
http://www.romneyeconomics.com/states
Quote For The Day
“Romney. This joker comes in saying that Obama has done nothing: ‘He hasn’t fixed the deficit.’ Let me tell you something. Do you actually fucking believe that in four years you’re going to fix the deficit? Are you kidding me? That’s a lifetime project. … It’s amazing the bullshit that people believe,” – Jose Canseco, the testosteroned baseball player.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/
LOL If I were Romney, I’d stir clear of the testorsteroned baseball bat
Posted at 01:06 PM ET, 05/23/2012
TheWashingtonPost
Why we should expect Obama to lose Florida in 2012
By Jamelle Bouie
The latest poll from Quinnipiac University shows President Obama with a six-point deficit in Florida, 41 percent to Mitt Romney’s 47 percent. Romney also gets much better ratings on the economy — 50 percent say that the Republican is better able to handle the economy, compared to 40 percent for Obama. Forty-four percent say that they approve of the president’s job performance, and his unfavorables have risen to 50 percent.
Predictably, this poll has led to warnings of doom for President Obama. But I’m not too surprised by the outcome. Florida has only gone for the Democratic nominee in two of the last eight presidential elections — Bill Clinton in 1996 with 48 percent of the vote, and Obama in 2008 with 51 percent of the vote. What’s more, relative to their national vote totals, both presidents underperformed in Florida; Clinton by 1.2 percent and Obama by 1.9 percent.
Given Florida’s demographics, it’s not hard to understand why the Sunshine State is less-than-friendly territory for Democratic candidates. In 2008, an excellent year for Democrats, 49 percent of Florida voters were above the age of 50, and 71 percent were white. Among whites, Obama lost every single age group by double digits; his best performance was among whites aged 18 to 29, whom he lost by 10 points, instead of 12.5 points for whites over the age of 45, and 22 points for whites aged 30 to 44.
Florida also is hurting economically — it ranks near the top nationally for foreclosures, and it has a higher-than-average unemployment rate of 9 percent.
When you combine this with the fact of its demographics — and its slim history of electing Democrats — then it’s no surprise that Obama faces a six-point deficit. Indeed, if Obama were tied with or leading Romney, it would amount to terrible news for the Republican nominee.
Obama can win the presidency without Florida; because of its unique demographic profile — mostly white with a substantial portion of Republican-leaning Latinos — weakness there doesn’t translate to other vote-rich states such as Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio.
By contrast, while it’s possible for Romney to win the presidency without Florida, it’s unlikely: He would be the first Republican to do so, ever. If this election is as close as it looks, then a Romney advantage in Florida should be expected.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/why-we-should-expect-obama-to-lose-florida-in-2012/2012/05/23/gJQAXv3rkU_blog.html
Just Rename Detroit as Obama City
by BooMan
Wed May 23rd, 2012 at 12:59:41 PM EST
If political courage is defined by doing the right thing even when it is unpopular, President Obama’s rescue of the American auto industry deserves a Profile in Courage:
It was, to put it gently, unpopular. In polls at the time, 3 in 4 Americans said Washington should not broaden its effort to help the carmakers, as it ended up doing; nearly 6 in 10 poll respondents opposed the bailouts once they happened; and 54 percent of people said they were “mostly bad for the economy.” Largely negative polls accumulated through 2010 and 2011, too.
Those were the numbers Mitt Romney was looking at when he, in effect, recommended that the president let the industry die. With no private money available to finance a managed bankruptcy, Romney’s plan would have put the car makers and their suppliers out of business, left their assets and pensions worth cents on the dollar, and their jobs permanently destroyed. That’s a model Romney perfected at Bain Capital to enrich himself and his partners, but it’s not a model that would have helped the American people. Obama stepped in and look at us now!
Chrysler and General Motors, the major beneficiaries of the auto rescue, have both reported their best profits in more than a decade, and both were already planning to add jobs this year. With factories now struggling to meet demand, both foreign and domestic auto companies are planning to add even more jobs, and as the Center for American Progress’ Adam Hersh and Jane Farrell noted in April, the industry has added more than 139,000 jobs in the last three years. The strength of the auto industry is yet another sign that letting it fail would have been a major mistake. Not only would it have cost more than a million jobs at a time when the economy was struggling, it would have prevented the current growth that is helping both the industry and the American economy recover.
http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2012/5/23/125941/229
Posted at 09:53 AM ET, 05/23/2012
TheWashingtonPost
The myth of Obama’s spending binge
By Jamelle Bouie
At this point, it’s conventional wisdom that President Obama has run a spendthrift administration. Annual deficits have been above $1 trillion since he entered office, and the most important legislation of his administration, the Affordable Care Act, will cost nearly as much over the next 10 years. He signed an $831 billion stimulus package, and pressed Congress for more money to support food stamps, unemployment benefits and fiscal aid to states.
It’s for all of the above that conservatives have excoriated Obama for increasing the debt load. Mitt Romney, in particular, has placed debt at the center of his campaign for the presidency. His Web site asserts that we have a “moral responsibility not to spend more than we take in,” and his most recent speech — to a crowd of supporters in Des Moines, Iowa — was a near-jeremiad on the peril of public debt. “A prairie fire of debt is sweeping across Iowa and our nation, and every day we fail to act that fire gets closer to the homes and children we love,” said Romney, who blames the president for the conflagration.
But contrary to conventional wisdom and conservative rhetoric, Obama didn’t start the fire and, in fact, has done more than recent presidents to contain the blaze. I briefly mentioned this in yesterday’s post on the new Crossroads GPS commercial, but the simple fact is that Obama has run a shockingly cost-sensitive administration. Writing for MarketWatch, a project of the Wall Street Journal, Rex Nutting found that government spending has slowed dramatically under the Obama administration. From fiscal year 2010 to the present, government spending — including the stimulus bill — has risen at a 1.4 percent annualized pace, slower than at any time since the 1950s. For those who value fiscal responsibility, Obama is better than any of the past four presidents:
Spending has nearly flattened under the president, despite clear signs that the economy needs more to boost its prospects. Indeed, I think most liberals would have preferred profligacy from the administration; even if some of the spending was wasteful, it would have helped short-term economic prospects.
The simple fact is that there is no data to support the Obama “spending binge” of Republican rhetoric. At most, you could argue that Obama has locked in higher rates of future spending, with the Affordable Care Act, and has done little to slow the growth of Medicare. But even that’s suspect; Obamacare is unpopular, in part, because it cuts $500 billion from Medicare and tries to impose cost-controls on the health-care system writ large. Overall, the ACA would reduce the deficit by $100 billion in the next 10 years, and $1 trillion in the 10 years after that. In other words, Obama’s signature accomplishment — blamed for our debt and our sluggish economy — will do more to reduce deficits than any bill passed since the Clinton administration.
By contrast, as Jonathan pointed out yesterday, the Romney budget outline — if implemented in full — would be a disaster for the federal budget. It would require either deep cuts to existing social programs or tremendous deficits, and since past Republicans have been reluctant to make the cuts necessary to square the circle, there’s a high likelihood that Romney would also take the path of least political resistance. And so, like his Republican predecessor, a President Romney would finance massive tax cuts with soaring deficits. Instead of trying to stop the “prairie fire of debt,” as promised in his speech, he would spark it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-myth-of-obamas-spending-binge/2012/05/23/gJQA7biTkU_blog.html
“How I Learned My Husband Was Gay” Ctd
Another reader shares her story:
Lord have mercy, but this thread is cosmically poignant to me right now. I don’t know if you want to post another story, but I needed to write this. Thanks for the forum.
Last Monday, six days after I voted against the amendment in North Carolina that would protect the sanctity of marriage by stomping on the rights of gay couples, I told my husband that as much as it saddened me, we needed to divorce. We’ve been married for nearly 25 years and have two great teenagers, but I found out seven years ago that he was gay. We have worked mightily to reach some sort of an accord that would keep our marriage and our family intact. But I just can’t do it anymore.
I knew he would never pull the plug on our marriage, so fierce is his guilt over what he’s done to me. Over the past seven years, I have passed through all seven stages of grieving that Kubler-Ross outlines, because I was in mourning for the life I thought I had and the future that I thought we would have. It’s taken this long for me to let go.
As soon as I told him that the end was here, the emotion in second place to our sadness was relief … for both of us. The day we had both been dreading but knew deep down had to come was finally here. We will tell our children the whole truth once school is over. We feel they are old enough to understand now, and it is important that they know why we are separating so the cycle of secrets can stop.
When we got married, he was sure that he had put “those” feelings behind him for good, relieved that he wouldn’t be disappointing his parents. He was optimistic about having it all: the wife, the family, the career – things he didn’t feel he could have had if he’d chosen to be openly gay in the late 1980s. So he pushed it all away until he couldn’t deny it any longer and he left enough breadcrumbs for me to figure it out.
And it is all just so sad. I have to part ways with the person that I thought I would grow old with, who knows me better than any human on earth, who laughed out loud with utter joy when our daughter was born, who read each Harry Potter book aloud to our son until he was old enough to read them himself. I’m not mad at him anymore. I’m just so very sad.
A son’s perspective:
My mother started to have doubts about my father being gay 10 years into their marriage of 20. When my family moved to Canada in 2000, my parents split, saying they just couldn’t get along anymore. A year later, my mother was bringing my sister to my father’s place one night only to find my father kissing a young Asian man in front of the house. Both my mother and sister reacted very strongly, both in disgust.
My mother will never forgive my father, which I understand. She told me this terrible statement after it came out that my father is gay: “Your father never fucked me for 20 years and I thought it was my fault”. For her, he stole her womanhood; he stole the possibility of making love and being loved by a man who desired her. That’s what hurt me the most.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/05/how-i-learned-my-husband-was-gay-ctd-1.html
A good problem for Detroit to have
By Steve Benen – Wed May 23, 2012 11:30 AM EDT.
The American auto industry has a real problem: it’s doing so well, it’s struggling to make enough cars.
Automakers are pushing factories and workers to the limit to try to meet burgeoning demand for new vehicles.
Some plants are adding third work shifts. Others are piling on worker overtime and six-day weeks. And Ford Motor and Chrysler Group are cutting out or reducing the annual two-week July shutdown at several plants this summer to add thousands of vehicles to their output.
“We have many plants working at maximum capacity now,” says Ford spokeswoman Marcey Evans.
Manufacturers are adding working hours and hiring new workers.
There is, of course, a political angle to all of this. It was, after all, just two weeks ago that Mitt Romney boasted, “I’ll take a lot of credit for the fact that this industry’s come back.”
It’s credit he doesn’t deserve, but President Obama does.
——————————————————————————–
Just to recap, Romney has said, publicly and repeatedly, that he opposed Obama’s industry rescue plan — the one he now wants credit for. The former governor has said repeatedly that GM and Chrysler should rely on private funding to restructure and get back on their feet.
Of course, in early 2009, the credit markets were frozen and there was no private funding available. (When a company called Bain Capital was approached, it refused to invest.) How does Romney reconcile his demands with reality? For the last three years, he hasn’t even tried to explain the contradiction. In fact, he’d prefer if we just overlook the details altogether.
We can say a couple of things with certainty. First, when President Obama launched his ambitious policy in 2009, he was taking a major gamble — not only with the backbone of American manufacturing, but with his presidency and its ability to use the power of government to repair a private industry facing collapse. As First Read noted at the time, “As the GM bailout goes, so goes the Obama presidency.”
We now know the gamble paid off. GM and Chrysler are making money, expanding American facilities, and operating at capacity. It’s a remarkable success story and one of Obama’s most important domestic accomplishments. Republicans were absolutely certain the White House’s policy would fail, and they were wrong.
Second, we also know that if policymakers had followed Romney’s advice, and waited for private financing, the American auto industry likely would have collapsed while waiting for capital that simply wasn’t available. An economy that was already on the brink would have been forced to absorb hundreds of thousands of unemployed auto workers, crushing already-struggling communities in the Midwest.
.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/23/11830594-a-good-problem-for-detroit-to-have?lite
anyone here been on a cruise to Alaska? did you like it?
I hope you see this. One of my Aunts did this about 15 years ago after she retired. She loved it! She flew to Seattle & then took the ship from there. She raved about her experience & took about a million photos. I know it was expensive, though but she had saved for years to fulfill this dream. It was something she had always wanted to do.
thanks AG. I think I’m gonna start saving for one.
Coffman struggles to defend himself
By Steve Benen – Wed May 23, 2012 2:12 PM EDT
.A couple of weeks ago, Rep. Mike Coffman (R), whose Colorado district is increasingly competitive, lashed out at President Obama in a bizarre harangue. “I don’t know whether Barack Obama was born in the United States of America; I don’t know that,” he said. “But I do know this, that in his heart, he’s not an American. He’s just not an American.”
Coffman later said he was sorry for “misspeaking,” but the controversy surrounding his remarks was significant enough that the normally-accessible congressman has refused to talk to reporters, and begun sending aides to public events.
Yesterday, a reporter with the local NBC affiliate met up with Coffman. As this clip, by way of David Sirota, helps show, the brief interview really didn’t go well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=RF-m0PF6O5A
The questions for the Republican weren’t exactly unfair or even hard-hitting. The reporter just gave Coffman an opportunity to explain what he meant when he condemned the president.
But Coffman, rattled, was stuck repeating the same silly talking point, as if he were some kind of political robot: he “misspoke” (though he really didn’t) and he “apologizes” (though it’s not clear to whom).
Watch the clip; it’s brutal
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/23/11832968-coffman-struggles-to-defend-himself?lite
The party of civil rights
By Steve Benen – Wed May 23, 2012 1:34 PM EDT.
.
Kevin Williamson covers some well-traveled ground this week, making the case that, despite popular political “myth,” it’s the Republican Party that’s the “party of civil rights
That Republicans have let Democrats get away with this mountebankery is a symptom of their political fecklessness, and in letting them get away with it the GOP has allowed itself to be cut off rhetorically from a pantheon of Republican political heroes, from Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass to Susan B. Anthony, who represent an expression of conservative ideals as true and relevant today as it was in the 19th century.
Perhaps even worse, the Democrats have been allowed to rhetorically bury their Bull Connors, their longstanding affiliation with the Ku Klux Klan, and their pitiless opposition to practically every major piece of civil-rights legislation for a century.
The right brings this up from time to time, sometimes as a defensive reaction when Republicans are feeling vulnerable on civil rights, but usually as a way of trying to convince African-American voters to ignore the last several decades and break from the Democratic coalition.
But the historical record doesn’t do the GOP any favors.
The Democratic Party, in the first half of the 20th century, was home to two broad, competing constituencies — southern whites with abhorrent views on race, and white progressives and African Americans in the north, who sought to advance the cause of civil rights. The party struggled with this conflict for years, before ultimately siding with an inclusive, liberal agenda.
As the party shifted, the Democratic mainstream embraced its new role. Republicans, meanwhile, also changed. In the wake of Democratic President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act, the Republican Party welcomed the white supremacists who no longer felt comfortable in the Democratic Party. Indeed, in 1964, Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater boasted of his opposition to the Civil Rights Act, and made it part of his platform. It was right around this time when figures like Jesse Helms and Strom Thurmond made the transition — leaving the progressive, diverse, tolerant Democratic Party for the GOP.
In the years that followed, Democrats embraced their role as the party of inclusion and civil rights. Republicans, meanwhile, became the party of the “Southern Strategy,” opposition to affirmative action, campaigns based on race-baiting, vote-caging, discriminatory voter-ID laws, and politicians like Helms and Thurmond.
——————————————————————————–
Williamson’s piece emphasizes Democratic votes from mid-19th century. His observations aren’t wrong — Democrats were, in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War — on the wrong side.
The problem, however, is with the relevance of Williamson’s observation. Which matters more in contemporary politics: that white supremacists were Democrats in the latter half of the 19th century or that white supremacists made a new home in the Republican Party in the latter half of the 20th century?
Democrats have no reason to sweep this history under the rug: they eventually got it right, and dispatched the racists and segregationists to the GOP, which welcomed them and their racial attitudes. Indeed, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee conceded just two years ago that his party deliberately used racial division for electoral gain for the last four decades. (This includes, by the way, Ronald Reagan.)
By Williamson’s reasoning, voters should care less about the last four decades, and more about the Democratic Party’s divisions four generations ago. I’m afraid that’s backwards.
If history ended in the 1960s, Williamson may have a slightly more legitimate point. But given what we’ve seen over the last half-century, the more salient point is that Dems have been part of the solution on race, and the GOP has been part of the problem.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/23/11832448-the-party-of-civil-rights?lite
PBO gives commencement addressat the USAF Academy
Watch it live here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/live
OOPS!
WHY MITT ROMNEY IS RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT. SEE BAIN CAPITAL & MA GOVERNORHSIP RECORDS!
African American Doctor Depicted as Gorilla at UCLA Event
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eMwYtycb_I&feature=share
A respected African American faculty surgeon filed a racial discrimination suit against the UCLA Medical Center and UC Regents. Dr. Christian Head has been intentionally degraded based on his race and UCLA officials have ignored blatant acts of racial discrimination, including an edited photo depicting Dr. Head as a gorilla being sodomized by his supervisor. That alone is offensive. But the fact that the photo was publicly presented for laughs during an annual medical school sponsored event attended by more than 200 physicians, faculty, residents and guests is both shocking and indefensible. Hear what Dr. Head has endured and what UCLA officials continue ignore.
Dr. Head is one of many Intelligent, black professionals whom whites fear more than life itself. It’s in their DNA to resort to despicable, hateful, racist acts and language, because they’ve got nothing else to justify their own inadequate, inferior selves.
We must call out these MOFOs each & every time, and make them own their RACISM!
Please sign the petition here to UCLA: http://www.change.org/petitions/ucla-chancellor-gene-block-stop-discriminating-and-retaliating-against-dr-christian-head
This is just so disgusting! I will sign the petition.
BWA HA HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXkB9jz5E2Q&feature=player_embedded
Colin Powell should know, now, shouldn’t he?
Obama daughters’ school hit with prank email about sex, contraception
By Olivier Knox | The Ticket – 19 hrs ago
The upscale Washington private school that counts Sasha and Malia Obama among its students was hit Tuesday with a prank email advising parents that, among other things, their children would receive “a voucher that may be redeemed for their choice of contraception” at the prom this year.
Washingtonian magazine broke the news of the fake message, which purported to be a missive sent from the Sidwell Friends School administration. It is unclear how many families at the Quaker day school received the message, which was addressed to “Parents of the Sidwell Friends School Community.”
Contacted by Yahoo News, the school had no immediate comment. The person designated to handle media inquiries, Ellis Turner, was unavailable. Washingtonian said upper-school principal Lee Palmer had emailed parents to disavow the message as a fake.
Among the gems in the prank message, which Washingtonian reprinted in full:
•”With the influence of today’s media—often as morally corrosive as it is entertaining—many Sidwell students believe that it is OK to engage in mature sexual relationships at a young age, and even at school.”
•The school will ensure “availability of free condoms in all restrooms and distribution of condoms at school dances, sporting events, theatre productions, and other school-sponsored activities.”
•Regarding the prom: “As students board the chartered buses that will transport them from Sidwell Friends to the Four Seasons Hotel, they will each receive a voucher that may be redeemed for their choice of contraception at the conclusion of the Prom and After-Party event. This option will be provided free of charge.”
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-daughters-school-hit-prank-email-sex-contraception-181555465.html
May 22, 2012 2:31 PM
“Organic Connection”
By Ed Kilgore
There’s a lot of ridiculous stuff being said in the wake of the essentially ridiculous brouhaha over Corey Booker’s criticism of the president’s shots at Bain Capital. But BuzzFeed’s Zeke Miller offers a take on it that really does require some pushback. The problem, he suggests, is that Obama’s a will-o-the-wisp who came out of nowhere politically, and has no “organic connection” to “Democratic institutions” and those who represent them—you know, like Corey Booker and Harold Ford.
Lord-a-mighty, when it comes to being connected to regular Democrats, Barack Obama is Boss Tweed compared to Booker and Ford. Booker became mayor of Newark after years of fighting the regular Democratic organization of the city. Post-partisan commentary is totally second nature to him, which could be a problem for him if he decides to run for higher office. And he’s always worked hard to get along with corporate leaders, from both Wall Street and Silicon Valley. He is in very few respects a typical Democrat.
As for Harold Ford, I wonder what sort of “organic connection” to Democrats around the country he is supposed to represent? I’m not even sure where Harold lives any more; presumably he’s in New York, where he moved after losing a 2006 Senate race in his home state of Tennessee. His last big foray into politics was a poorly received feint in the direction of a 2010 Senate race in the Empire State. Yes, he was once chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council (where I used to work, though I had stopped being a spokesman or officer or even a full-time employee of the group by the time Ford arrived), but his chairmanship coincided with the organization’s decline and demise. His comments on private equity firms were not terribly surprising, since he pulls down seven figures as an executive at Merrill Lynch.
In any event, saying Booker’s or Ford’s dissents from Obama on Bain Capital illustrate a problem for Obama among Democrats is like saying Mitt Romney has a problem with Republicans because David Frum has issues with him for pandering to the Christian Right. Obama’s Bain-bashing is precisely what most “regular Democrats” enjoy hearing. Zeke Miller needs to find a different angle on the incident, or better yet, just drop it.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_05/organic_connection037495.php
We’ve got “Savealadyfromaburninghousefirediggingsnow” Booker and “Confederate Flag-posing” Ford’s number.
So much for ‘character assassination’
By Steve Benen – Wed May 23, 2012 8:35 AM EDT
.As recently as five days ago, Mitt Romney argued that any criticism of his controversial private-sector background was evidence “character assassination,” and an attack on capitalism itself.
It’s a curious way to stifle debate, isn’t it? To hear the Republican candidate tell it, he could make Bain Capital the centerpiece of his campaign, but criticism of his business tactics has no place in the public discourse.
Yesterday, however, the line appears to have been moved. As Rachel noted last night, former Gov. John Sununu (R-N.H.), one of the most prominent Romney surrogates, told reporters, “I think the Bain record, as a whole, is fair game.”
What’s more, Priorities USA Action released this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fJhF6uctfM&feature=player_embedded
In the two-minute clip, we see several prominent Republicans — including Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Jon Huntsman, and Sarah Palin — all of whom agree that Romney’s leveraged buyouts and mass layoffs are a legitimate subject for campaign debate.
So, which is it? Is Romney right when he characterizes this scrutiny as “character assassination” and an attack on free enterprise, or is Romney’s surrogate and fellow Republicans right when they say Bain Capital is fair game?
.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/23/11827798-so-much-for-character-assassination?lite
The contraceptives lawsuits, explained
Posted by Sarah Kliff at 04:01 PM ET, 05/22/2012
TheWashingtonPost
Forty-three major Catholic institutions on Monday filed a dozen lawsuits, in
courts across the country, challenging the health reform law’s mandated coverage of contraceptives.
The legal documents are complicated — one suit, from Notre Dame, comes in at 57 pages. But the thing to know is this: Everything hinges on how courts interpret a law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA.
Under that provision, signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993, religious institutions can challenge federal laws that put a “substantial burden” on their ability to exercise a sincere religious belief. And if they can prove a substantial burden, then it’s up to the government to show two things: that the law furthers a compelling government interest and that that interest cannot be furthered in any other way that would be less restrictive to religion.
The Obama administration, for its part, has asked courts to dismiss these suits for lack of standing, since the requirement to cover birth control hasn’t started yet. But after it does start, in August 2013 for many of the religious objectors, courts will have to get into the more substantive issues at hand. They would have to answer questions such as: Does requiring insurers to cover contraceptives at religiously affiliated institutions constitute a “significant burden”? Is providing birth control a compelling government interest, and if it is, can it be accomplished in a way that is less restrictive to religion?
Courts haven’t taken up these issues in previous case law, as they relate to the particular issue of providing contraceptives. That makes it difficult for experts to predict how they might rule — and whether these lawsuits could ultimately take down this part of the health reform law.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/the-contraceptives-lawsuits-explained/2012/05/22/gIQAdCriiU_blog.html
The Irresponsibility Of John Boehner22 May 2012 .Posted by Stan Collender
There’s not much I need to say to introduce my column from today’s Roll Call other than that I really felt I had no choice but to write this as directly as I did. A special shout out to Roll Call for not blinking even once when I told them what I wanted to write this week
The Irresponsibility of Speaker John Boehner
May 22, 2012, Midnight
Like most federal budget watchers, I assumed that the extremely negative political reaction to the federal government shutdowns in 1995 and 1996 meant that tactic wasn’t likely to be threatened again, let alone actually used. That changed last year when a shutdown became the favored approach for many on Capitol Hill.
Although the timetable obviously was much more compressed, I thought much the same thing last summer after the extreme negative reaction to the fight over raising the federal debt ceiling also made that look less likely to happen again in the future. Despite the statements made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) and other Republicans that using the increase in the federal government’s borrowing limit as leverage to win policy changes was now the new standard operating procedure, the downside was so great that the threat seemed to be mere words.
I was sure that was the case because, unlike the situation in 1995 and 1996, the negative response to the 2011 debt ceiling increase debacle was more than political.
Yes, it was a political nightmare: The approval rating for Congress and the White House fell during and immediately after the battle. But the negative reaction was also material because it resulted in the downgrading of U.S. debt by one of the three major rating agencies.
The downgrade occurred not just because of a concern about the government’s capacity to pay the debt, which wasn’t really questioned but because of what Standard & Poor’s said was the growing inability of the U.S. political system to deal with its fiscal problems. The result was a significant hit to the government’s financial reputation. Most analysts I’ve spoken with are convinced that, were it not for the economic woes in Europe, U.S. interest rates would be much higher as a result.
It seemed so clear that not using the debt ceiling as a weapon had become the minimum price elected officials would have to pay to prevent another possible downgrade that I thought there was no way it would happen again.
That’s why the first major activity by a senior elected official on this topic since then — Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) choreographed events last week in which he repeatedly said he would prevent the debt ceiling increase that will be needed at the end of 2012 or the start of 2013 from happening unless he got what he wanted — was so exceptionally irresponsible.
I’m using the word “irresponsible” very deliberately.
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/stan-collender/2555/irresponsibility-john-boehner
Posted at 02:30 PM ET, 05/22/2012 TheWashingtonPost Romney’s budget choices
By Jonathan Bernstein
Just how extreme are Mitt Romney’s budget proposals? The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities breaks down what exactly is implied by Romney’s commitments to slashing tax rates, increasing defense spending, keeping Social Security untouched, and balancing the budget…and the results are, well, in Romney’s words, “severe.” At least, if you take Romney at his word. I have my doubts.
I’ll start with what Romney says he would do, as interpreted by CBPP:
If policymakers exempted Social Security from the cuts, as Governor Romney has suggested, and cut Medicare, Medicaid, and all other entitlement and discretionary programs by the same percentage, then nondefense programs other than Social Security would have to be cut 29 percent in 2016 and 59 percent in 2022…The cuts that would be required under the Romney budget proposals in programs such as veterans’ disability compensation, Supplemental Security Income for poor elderly and disabled individuals, SNAP (formerly food stamps), and child nutrition programs would move millions of households below the poverty line or drive them deeper into poverty. The cuts in Medicare and Medicaid would make health insurance unaffordable (or unavailable) to tens of millions of people.
But it’s not just anti-poverty programs that would get slashed; as CBPP’s Paul Van de Water says, it would include such things as “elementary and secondary education, law enforcement, veterans’ health care, environmental protection, and biomedical research.” Sure, Romney could protect any particular program — CBPP is just assuming equal across-the-board cuts — but only at the expense of another one.
CBPP claims that Romney’s cuts would be “substantially deeper” than those in the House-passed Ryan budget. I wouldn’t put it that way; remember that Ryan’s budget essentially shuts down the federal government other than the military, Social Security, and health entitlement programs by 2050. Instead, I’d say that Romney’s cuts would be quicker than Ryan’s.
CBPP also notes, correctly, that it could be a lot worse. The big scoring question is how to evaluate Romney’s tax proposals. The former Governor says that he would cut rates, and pay for it by eliminating tax expenditures, although he rules out some areas for savings. CBPP guesses that Romney would wind up recovering half the lost revenues from tax rates, but the supporting argument makes it clear that it’s implausible that Romney would achieve anywhere near that much.
So when all is said and done, what would a Romney budget really look like if he had majorities in Congress? There’s no real way of knowing, but fifty years of GOP history suggests that the tax rate cuts would happen, and programs that benefit Democratic constituencies would be hit hard. However, the offsetting revenues would never materialize, and neither would broader spending cuts – and so deficits, especially projected long-term deficits, would soar.
Now, that’s not what Romney (or Paul Ryan) says. But any time you try to pin them down about which programs they would cut or which deductions they would eliminate, it’s foreign aid, PBS, and lots of hemming and hawing and harrumphing about waste and fraud, and how dare you accuse us of cutting such-and-such popular program. So after a while, you start to get the picture. At any rate, that’s the choice: assuming Romney’s specific commitments to tax rate cuts and defense spending are for real, then he’ll either be blowing up the deficit or slashing spending on very popular programs. There really is no other possibility.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/romneys-budget-choices/2012/05/22/gIQAKFdXiU_blog.html
Monday, May 21, 2012
Barack Obama and the Hurt Feelings of Our Galitan Overlords
Josh Marshall has a nice piece on business leaders’ reaction to the Obama Administration. Despite the fact that Washington pulled capitalism from the brink in ’08-09, the business community in general and high finance in particular has been apoplectic over their treatment in the subsequent years. He notes:
President Obama is, when compared to Democrats over the last half century, objectively quite middle of the road. And yet the reaction from Wall Street and the halls of finance is one you’d think meant he was trying to bring capitalism to its knees. The President’s policies and tenure in office simply don’t explain the reaction. And I don’t think political spin does either. We need to look deeper into the political economy of the nation at large to understand it
How did we get here? Let’s try to at least start with some observations.
•We should start by re-reading Keith Poole on polarization. The Cliff’s Notes version is that partisanship increases in lock-step with income inequality, as the parties come to represent the “haves” and the “have nots” and respond to the needs of their constituents accordingly. Inequality has returned to levels not seen since the Gilded Age, if not earlier, and business leaders are the ultimate haves, so that’s certainly a factor.
•Second, I think there are some real ways in which Dodd-Frank means that high finance will never again be as free-wheeling as it was in the mid-aughts. That’s good for everyone else, but bad if you’re a banker. Likewise, as best I can tell the Bush administration had the most lassiez-faire regulatory apparatus in the post-war era. So for any business–not just finance, but anything–that got used to having the EPA, DOA, DOL, OSHA, etc., accomplishing close to nothing, the Obama-era agencies are a kick in the pants. Things might feel awful for the business community, but if that’s so, they got used to the cushy times during the Bush era way too quickly.
•Third, with a shrinking (or very-slowly growing) economic pie, people are crankier in general. If the economy were growing at 3% annually and we were arguing about how to split up the gains, it’s much easier to come up with a solution that largely satisfies all parties. But instead we had several quarters of a shrinking economy followed by anemic growth. Under those conditions it’s natural for everyone to be more pissed off than they otherwise would be.
http://www.donkeylicious.com/2012/05/barack-obama-and-hurt-feelings-of-our.html
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
The Big…Democratic?…Primary Thread
Posted by Zandar
Breaking news apparently: Registered Democrats who voted against Barack Obama in 2008 in blood-red southern states are A) still registered Democrats, B) still in blood-red states, and C) still voting against the black guy.
Four in ten Democratic voters chose someone other than President Obama on Tuesday in primaries in Arkansas and Kentucky.
In Arkansas, John Wolfe — a perennial, long-shot candidate — took 41 percent of the vote in the Democratic primary, with 71 percent of precincts reporting. Obama came in just under 60 percent. The Associated Press did not call the race for Obama until close to midnight.
And in Kentucky, 42 percent of Democrats chose “uncommitted” rather than cast a vote for the incumbent president. Obama took 58 percent, with 99 percent of precincts reporting.
With turnout low, Obama did get more total votes than presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney, who won his primary with almost 67 percent of the vote. Obama had more than 118,600 votes to about 117,100 for Romney.
Obama’s nomination for a second term by the Democratic Party has never been in danger. But the large number of defections is bad optics for Obama, highlighting widespread discontent with his administration among Democrats who come from conservative states.
Now, here’s the problem: Some 80,000 plus voters here in Kentucky yesterday voted for “uncommitted” rather than the President. You can make all the excuses about policy, about the economy, about whatever you want, but the county map shows that the President lost 66 of 120 counties, and he lost every single one of the rural counties in the east (south and east of Wolfe County) and all but McCracken County in the rural west, and outside of Boone, Kenton and Campbell he lost all the northern ones outside the Cincy suburbs.
Folks, I’ve lived here. There’s a reason why a state of majority registered Democratic voters gave John McCain the win here by 15 points in 2008. Hillary Clinton won here by thirty-five points four years ago. The headline really should read “Barack Obama becomes first African-American to win a statewide race in Kentucky”. Period. It’s the truth. It hasn’t happened before. The 57% he got last night was a vast improvement compared to the 30% he got in 2008, people. It was historic.
Here’s a hint as to why: it wasn’t the “Obama administration policies” in 2008 any more than it was here in 2012. Mitt Romney got about the same number of votes that the President did in his primary, and Dems outnumber Republicans here about 60-40%. Romney will probably win here by 20 points, easy. I know it’s bad here for Dems in the Bluegrass State, but this is pretty awful. Under no illusions that Obama had a chance, but damn, people. Pay attention, will you? It’s freakin’ Kentucky.
Oh, and in KY-4 it will indeed be Bill Adkins taking on Thomas Massie.
http://zandarvts.blogspot.com/2012/05/bigdemocraticprimary-thread.html
The CaCs will continue to vote AGAINST their own better interest. BIGOTRY wins ever time.
Two steps forward, one step back in Arizona
By Steve Benen – Wed May 23, 2012 8:00 AM EDT.
Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett (R), who oversees the state’s elections and serves as the state co-chair of Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign, created quite a mess for himself last week. Though he denied being a Birther, Bennett nevertheless threatened to keep President Obama off the Arizona ballot due to imaginary questions about his citizenship.
Yesterday, Bennett, the subject of national ridicule, changed course.
…Bennett on Tuesday backed off his threat to keep the president off the ballot in November and apologized to his state.
“If I embarrassed the state, I apologize, but that certainly wasn’t my intent,” Bennett said in an interview with Phoenix radio station KTAR. “He’ll be on the ballot as long as he fills out the same paperwork and does the same things that everybody else has.”
Bennett said he still intends to keep asking Hawaii for verification that Obama’s birth certificate is authentic. But he said he only plans to use Hawaii’s answer as a way to satisfy demands from constituents who remain unconvinced Obama is a natural born citizen of the United States and so therefore eligible to be president.
That’s not much of a motivation — it’s generally not the Arizona Secretary of State’s job to answer willfully confused people who believe in deranged conspiracy theories — but late yesterday, Hawaiian officials nevertheless provided additional verification of the president’s birth to Bennett, apparently resolving the matter.
So, with Bennett chastened and embarrassed over this ridiculous stunt, is it safe to say reason and decency will live to see another day in the Grand Canyon State? Well, almost.
——————————————————————————–
While Bennett’s nonsense appears to have come to an end, there’s still that other Arizona Republican who’s even more detached from reality: Maricopa County’s unhinged sheriff, Joe Arpaio, who sent a “posse” to Hawaii this week, hoping to uncover documents that have already been released to the public.
http://maddowblog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/23/11827467-two-steps-forward-one-step-back-in-arizona?lite
The Deck Is Stacked Against Obama In Nevada — And He’s Leading Anyway
Tom Kludt- May 23, 2012, 5:05 AM
If you were betting on President Barack Obama’s chances to win Nevada in a Vegas casino, you would probably consider the state’s staggering unemployment rate, its history of voting for Republicans in seven of the last 10 presidential elections and its large Mormon population. And you might be wise to put your chips on him anyway.
Despite the many factors working against Obama in the Silver State, he is still favored to beat Mitt Romney there in November.
Nevada bore the brunt of the recession arguably worse than any other state. Its unemployment rate dipped below 12 percent for the first time since 2009 last week, but its jobless rate is still the highest in the country. While any improvement is welcome for the state’s beleaguered economy, there was an important caveat: The dip in unemployment numbers was partly due to a shrinking labor force. On paper, that should validate Romney’s constant criticism that the economy has not recovered fast enough under Obama.
But recent polls indicate that talking point is simply not resonating in Nevada. A survey from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling (PPP) last month gave Obama a healthy 8-point advantage over Romney in the state. Another poll released last month by Rasmussen Reports, a Republican-leaning firm, showed the president’s approval rating in Nevada at 55 percent. The current PollTracker Average of both the presidential contest and Obama’s approval rating in Nevada tells a similar story.
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/obama-romney-nevada-presidential-campaign-economy.php
May 22, 2012
Today, the Booker game-changer; tomorrow …
As Chris Matthews and Ed Schultz’s heads exploded at MSNBC, there prevailed considerable calm from Politico’s Glenn Thrush and Maggie Haberman. Last night, Matthews was so worked up over the Cory Booker kerfuffle that he came within inches of declaring the Obama campaign irreversibly toasted; meanwhile, reported Thrush and Haberman, Democratic advisers “consider the Booker … comments to be a sideshow that elevates the cable news chatter level but doesn’t hurt their overall message where they care about it, which is in the Midwest.”
Schultz we should excuse. He means well; he’s a good-hearted populist who seems to genuinely believe in the purely propagandistic concept of the “99 percent.” It’s that very passion, however, that corrupts his understanding of practical politics–and it shows. Matthews, though, should know better. He worked in the political rackets before starring in the cable rackets. The latter have evidently swamped his sense of perspective. Last night the poor man was so exercised over Booker’s self-important sabotage of Obama’s principal campaign message, he wrung his hands on-air for an additional live hour–only to watch Booker, on Maddow, about an hour later, offer a serviceable rebuttal of Republicans’ typically instant overreach.
My point is a common, and perhaps even a superfluous, one: We no longer just follow political campaigns, we careen through them–we zig, zag, bounce off the walls and do Daffy Duck backflips and handsprings upon every news-cycle story: this is the one, the one game-changer, the explosive mutation that alters everything.
Until tomorrow, or later that day, or the next “tweet.”
Meanwhile, the cable-news gurus who are forever bemoaning the loss of real debate about substantive, deep and deep-rooted issues in political campaigns remain forever fixated on each hour’s supreme game-changer.
I’d wager if I were to stop the next hundred folks I met on the street and ask them who Cory Booker is, maybe, maybe one could tell me. This is what Barack Obama understands about American politics, and the gurus do not.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/05/today-the-booker-game-changer-tomorrow.html
Report: FBI Investigating Donations To Ohio Republicans
Ryan J. Reilly- May 21, 2012, 12:43 PM
The FBI is investigating campaign payments to two Ohio Republicans made by employees of the Suarez Corporation Industries, the New Republic reports.
The direct marketing company is owned by Benjamin Suarez, a major Republican donor. The Toledo Blade reported back in August that 17 employees of the company had given large sums of money to Republican Senate candidate Josh Mandel and Rep. Jim Renacci (R-OH). That raised suspicions that Suarez might have been illegally reimbursing the employees for their donations to the campaigns.
Alec MacGillis reports for the New Republic that the FBI is looking into it:
I visited the home of Michael Blubaugh, a copywriter at Suarez who had given $5,000 each to Renacci and Mandel last year—and whose wife, Donna, had done the same. They live in a modest subdivision, in a home valued by Zillow at about $142,000. When Donna came to the door, she said she had already been asked about the donations by the FBI. The inquiry had caught her by surprise, she said, “because I didn’t know about the rules, so I was like, ‘What?’” But she said the $20,000 had been given of her and her husband’s free wills. “Our house may not look it, because we’re saving for retirement, but my husband makes good money as a copywriter,” she said. But why give so much to the candidates? “My husband made the decision, not me,” she said.
http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/benjamin_suarez_josh_mandel_jim_renacci.php
This morning I have to ask for your prayers for a friend of mine who called last night to tell me that he has a brain tumor. I appreciate any positive thoughts you can send his way.
Sending all the positive thoughts and prayers of God’s Amazing Grace your friends way. May the Blessings Be.
May 22, 2012
Beinart’s brilliant assessment
Peter Beinart brilliantly muses on the presidential politics of Afghanistan:
Essentially, [Obama] played rope-a-dope, giving Petraeus & Co. the chance to prove what one suspects Obama already believed: that counterinsurgency in Afghanistan had no chance.
Finally, a Democrat who knows how to play the politics of national security and win. But political victories can carry a human price. According to iCasualties, more than 1,300 Americans have died in Afghanistan since Obama took office, more than twice the number that died under George W. Bush. And since it is highly unlikely that Afghanistan’s future will be significantly different because America withdrew its combat troops in 2013 instead of 2009, one can reasonably ask: what did the United States accomplish during those four years that can possibly justify their deaths? It’s disturbing that Barack Obama doesn’t have a good answer to that question. It’s even more disturbing that politically, he doesn’t need one
Some on the left argue that these 1,300 American deaths were not only needless, but inexcusable. Obama, they say, should have begun pulling our combat troops out of Afghanistan on Day One, notwithstanding his campaign pledge to beef up our efforts there, and to finish what W. so abruptly abandoned in favor of an even greater monstrosity. Our Afghanistan mission was always doomed–few among us ever doubted that, including, and probably more so than others, President Obama–and for the United States to squander more lives on a catastrophic fait accompli was merely an exercise in both imperial hubris and political cowardice.
That, anyway, is one powerful argument, and a rather familiar one. The counterargument, however, is at least as powerful, even if less frequently argued. As Beinart suggests, an early-2009 withdrawal would have brought eruptions of “political consequences [that] might have been brutal”; and those eruptions might have been so violently burrowing as to doom Obama’s presidency, and his reelection. Today we might have been facing a quite different fait accompli: a Mitt Romney–or some other neocon–presidency, brimming with imperially muscular imbecilities and, ultimately, far more than 1,300 American deaths, in some other godforsaken wasteland.
I don’t know which argument is weightier. No one does, because there’s no way to know, because there’s no way to travel back in time and reset the clock and its circumstances. My instincts, however, tell me that Obama played an exceptionally bad hand as best he could; and what’s more, that those lost, 1,300 American lives were not lost in vain–not, indeed, if they helped prevent another W.-like presidency.
I do know one thing for sure, though. I am damn glad I didn’t have to make the decision.
http://pmcarpenter.blogs.com/p_m_carpenters_commentary/2012/05/beinarts-brilliant-assessment.html
I’ve said it before, and we all need to shout this.
The problem with Willard’s vulture capitalism is the VULTURE part of it.
NOBODY in America, who considers themselves a ‘realist’, is going to hold it against someone making money on a company – THAT IS SUCCESSFUL.
The problem for Willard, and his VULTURE CAPITALIST FIRM BAIN IS….
It’s the numerous times, during his leadership, where the company WAS NOT SUCCESSFUL. Not only was it not successful, but Bain ran the company into bankruptcy, walked away from all the pension and medical obligations for present employees and retirees – AND WALKED AWAY WITH MILLIONS EVERY SINGLE TIME.
It’s THAT that they don’t have anything but a 1% ridiculous explanation for….cause for the average person, they look at you like you’ve lost your damn mind, trying to explain WHY you should pocket MILLIONS and the company IS FUCKING BANKRUPT.
THIS is the crux of problem for Willard and the GOP.
They can’t explain it, other than ‘we’re greedy sociopaths, and fuck you little people.’
SAY IT LOUDER!!!
YES, His MITTNESS said he was running on his business creds.
Good Morning, Everyone :)
Good Morning, Everyone! :-)
Ametia,
I’ve just posted 3 times, and nothing is showing.
Ametia, it seems ok now.
Hi rikyrah. Good to see things are posting well. POST AWAY! :-)