David Gregory gets some face time with President Obama and he gets schooled on the finer points of how to interview a TRUE STATESMAN.
Excerpts
Loved how POTUS spoke about how we need to be careful of using “false equivalency.” Both side are NOT OBSTRUCTIONIST.
D*MN! looks like MSNBC TLW was right again calling for “off the cliff” mths ago and these sick fanatics think we and the POTUS are playing this game again with the DEBT with new members coming in while watching them attempt a end game around filibuster reform whose only purpose is to give them cover like rats to f*uck-up-game… they can find time for this… don’t know WTF has happened to Sen Carl Levin wallowing around in the alley with this *ish!
Keep On Pushing
Can’t stop now; move up a little higher, some way, some how…
Senators created this nonsense; so get to steppin’ & dig yourselves out of it. Just sheer insanity…
BWA HA HA HA
This isn’t a normal negotiation
Posted by Greg Sargent on December 30, 2012 at 3:57 pm
So the fiscal cliff talks have hit a major snag, according to multiple reports, because Senate Republicans have now demanded that cuts to Social Security benefits — i.e., Chained CPI — be part of a temporary, short term solution, whereas the White House had only put them on the table as part of a long term one.
At the same time, Republicans are not willing to raise the debt ceiling. They want to retain the leverage the debt ceiling gives them when the longer term “fiscal cliff” talks resume next year.
And so the current Republican demand, as I understand it, is that Dems must agree to Social Security cuts and a higher income threshold for the lower tax rates (either $400,000 or $500,000, depending on the source), in exchange for an extension of middle class tax cuts (which Republicans also want) and an extension of unemployment benefits. If Dems don’t give up those things, while allowing Republicans to retain their debt ceiling leverage, taxes go up on everybody and unemployment benefits expire for over two million Americans.
Why would Democrats agree to Social Security cuts and lower tax rates on many wealthy households even as Republicans hold on to their leverage to extract still more in spending cuts later? No wonder a Dem aide described this as a “serious setback.”
It needs to be reiterated, again, that in threatening to hold the debt ceiling hostage next year, Republicans are not making a conventional negotiating demand, in which each side withholds concessions in order to extract more from the other side. The eventual GOP agreement to raise the debt ceiling will not constitute a concession on Republicans’ part. Republican leaders know they will have to raise the debt ceiling, because (as they also know) not doing so will lead to default and damage the economy. If and when they do agree to do so, that will simply constitute an agreement on their part not to hurt the country, yet they will ask that it be treated as a concession for which they should receive something in return. And Republicans not only want to retain this tactic as a way to increase their leverage later, they want to do so even as they ask Dems to give ground right now on cuts to Social Security and on allowing more wealthy households to pay lower tax rates.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2012/12/30/this-isnt-a-normal-negotiation/
The “Obama Corlone” hashtag is hilarious.
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
Pres. Obama: “You get nothing.” McConnell: “But…but..but” Pres. Obama: “YOU GET NOTHING!” #ObamaCorelone
Nerdy Wonka @NerdyWonka
POTUS: “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.” McConnell walks in. BO: “Door 1: Take the deal. Door 2: U get nothing” #ObamaCorelone
secretcabdriver @secretcabdriver
You have to go right up to McConnell and Boehner and “Badda Bing” #obamacorelone
Arrogant Demon @ArrogantDemon
“I don’t like violence, John. I’m the President. Blood is a big expense.” #obamacorelone
Arrogant Demon @ArrogantDemon
“Joe, how’s Grover? Oh, Grover? You wont see him no more” #obamacorelone
BWA HA HA HA These are hilarious!
Arrogant Demon @ArrogantDemon
“Tonight the Obama Administration settles its accounts” #ObamaCorleone
With 33 hours to go
By Steve Benen
Sun Dec 30, 2012 2:47 PM EST
The plan, by the most optimistic of scenarios, was for the Senate leaders to reach some kind of fiscal agreement this afternoon, vote on it tonight, and send it to the House for a vote tomorrow. How’s that plan shaping up? Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) spoke a few minutes ago on the floor and said the following
“We have been negotiating now for 36 hours or thereabouts. We did have conversations last night that ended late in the evening between staffs. This morning, we have been trying to come up with some counteroffer to my friend’s proposal. We have been unable to do that. I have had a number of conversations with the President, and at this stage we’re unable to make a counteroffer.
“The Republican leader has told me that — and he’s just said here — that he’s working with the Vice President, and he and the Vice President, I wish them well. In the meantime, I will continue to try to come up with something but at this stage, I don’t have a counteroffer to make. Perhaps as the day wears on, I will be able to. I will say this: I think that the Republican leader has shown absolutely good faith. It’s just that we are apart on some pretty big issues.”
http://maddowblog.msnbc.com/_news/2012/12/30/16252721-with-33-hours-to-go?lite
DAVID GREGORY: Mr. President, as you look forward to a second term, you think about your legacy, you think about your goals, how frustrated are you at how hard it appears to be to get some of these things done? Very difficult relationship with Congress. People come up to me all the time and say, “Don’t they realize, all of them, the president, Republicans and Democrats, how frustrated we all are?”
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Well, I think we’re all frustrated. The only thing I would caution against, David, is I think this notion of, “Well, both sides are just kind of unwilling to cooperate.” And that’s just not true. I mean if you look at the facts, what you have is a situation here where the Democratic party, warts and all, and certainly me, warts and all, have consistently done our best to try to put country first.
And to try to work with everybody involved to make sure that we’ve got an economy grows. Make sure that it works for everybody. Make sure that we’re keeping the country safe. And does the Democratic party still have some knee jerk ideological positions and are there some folks in the Democratic party who sometimes aren’t reasonable? Of course. That’s true of every political party.
But generally if you look at how I’ve tried to govern over the last four years and how I’ll continue to try to govern, I’m not driven by some ideological agenda. I am a pretty practical guy. And I just want to make sure that things work. And one of the nice things about never having another election again, I will never campaign again, is I think you can rest assured that all I care about is making sure that I leave behind an America that is stronger, more prosperous, more stable, more secure than it was when I came into office.
And that’s going to continue to drive me. And I think that the issue that we’re dealing with right now in the fiscal cliff is a prime example of it. What I’m arguing for are maintaining tax cuts for 98% of Americans. I don’t think anybody would consider that some liberal left wing agenda. That used to be considered a pretty mainstream Republican agenda.
And it’s something that we can accomplish today if we simply allow for a vote in the Senate and in the House to get it done. The fact that it’s not happening is an indication of how far certain factions inside the Republican party have gone where they can’t even accept what used to be considered centrist, mainstream positions on these issues.
LiberalPhenom @LiberalPhenom
Oh, Jesus I’m crying! RT @EddieLove44 Boehner; “I’m smart! Not like people say #obamacorelone
Ezra Klein @ezraklein
So House R’s didn’t stand behind Boehner’s Plan B and Senate R’s didn’t stand behind McConnell’s chained-CPI push.
Joshua Green @JoshuaGreen
CPI off table. Guess Obama must’ve said, “This is my counter offer: nothing.” And stabbed out his cigarette, just like in the movies.
DAVID GREGORY: What is it about you, Mr. President, that you think is so hard to say yes to?
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: That’s something you’re probably going to have to ask them, because David, you follow this stuff pretty carefully. The offers that I’ve made to them have been so fair that a lot of Democrats get mad at me. I mean I offered to make some significant changes to our entitlement programs in order to reduce the deficit.
I offered not only a trillion dollars in — over a trillion dollars in spending cuts over the next 10 years, but these changes would result in even more savings in the next 10 years. And would solve our deficit problem for a decade. They say that their biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they’re behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected. That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme.
Now if we have raised some revenue by the wealthy paying a little bit more, that would be sufficient to turn off what’s called the sequester, these automatic spending cuts, and that also would have a better outcome for our economy long-term. But so far, at least, Congress has not been able to get this stuff done. Not because Democrats in Congress don’t want to go ahead and cooperate, but because I think it’s been very hard for Speaker Boehner and Republican Leader McConnell to accept the fact that taxes on the wealthiest Americans should go up a little bit, as part of an overall deficit reduction package
Sunday, December 30, 2012
At cliff’s edge, Obama lays down his conciliator chips
President Obama invested a large sum of political capital in his interview with David Gregory on Meet the Press this morning.
All published accounts (1, 2) highlight — because no one could miss — the forcefulness with which he rejected false equivalence regarding the causes of his standoff with the GOP and blamed them for taking us to the brink. What I would stress is that to the extent that you can genuinely credit Obama with playing a long game, this is its locus: convincing the public that he is the reasonable one, the one willing to compromise, the one putting forth centrist, mainstream, “balanced” proposals for deficit reduction. That self-portrait is now backed by several rounds of negotiations in which he appeared (to supporters at least) to yield too much, always stressing that he was doing the best he could in the face of implacable opposition by ideological fanatics. Now, when the leverage is on his side, he has a long history backing his claim that he is not the intransigent party.
http://xpostfactoid.blogspot.com/2012/12/at-cliffs-edge-obama-lays-down-his.html
G.O.P. Backs Off a Demand, Clearing Way for More Talks (chained-CPI)
Source: New York Times
WASHINGTON — Negotiations over a last-ditch agreement to head off large tax increases and sweeping spending cuts in the new year appeared to resume Sunday afternoon after Republican senators withdrew their demand that a deal must include a new way of calculating inflation that would lower payments to beneficiaries programs like Social Security and slow their growth.
Senate Republicans emerged from a closed-door meeting to say they agreed with Democrats that the request — which had temporarily brought talks to a standstill — was not appropriate for a quick deal to avert the tax increases and spending cuts starting Jan. 1.
To hold the line against raising taxes on high-income households while fighting for cuts to Social Security was “not a winning hand,” Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, said.
The concession could be a breakthrough, but Senate Republicans were still balking at an agreement on Sunday, adopting a new talking point that Democrats want to raise taxes just to increase spending, not to cut the deficit. That concern appears to center on a Democratic proposal to temporarily suspend across-the-board spending cuts to military and domestic programs as talks resume on a larger deficit deal.
Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/31/us/politics/obama-accuses-republicans-of-blocking-tax-deal.html?_r=0
Obama: Blame Republicans if There’s No Fiscal Cliff Deal
By Daniel Politi
Posted Sunday, Dec. 30, 2012, at 12:16 PM ET
SNIP
The message Obama was trying to send in the interview was clear: I’m the reasonable negotiator, willing to compromise, points out the Wall Street Journal. Even though Obama had said on Friday he was “modestly optimistic” that a deal would be reached, “we don’t yet see an agreement,” he told NBC’s David Gregory. Obama said he still holds out hope that “over the next 48 hours … people recognize that, regardless of partisan differences, our top priority has to be to make sure that taxes on middle-class families do not go up. That would hurt our economy badly.” The president emphasized that failing to reach a deal before the new year would “obviously … have an adverse reaction in the markets.”
SNIP
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/12/30/video_president_obama_meet_the_press_on_nbc
McConnell does NOT want to deal with President Obama; would rather deal with VP Biden instead. Could it be that make Obama a one term president didn’t work out so well in November and McConnell still does not want to deal with the BLACK PRESIDENT. Can’t make him look like he’s getting along with POTUS now can he?
McConnell has to keep up his image for the racist.
Sincerely hope Ashley Judd’s keeping score on Tippy T. McConnell.
Lest we forget this mofo dances with the DEVIL
A water carrying GOP hack!
David Brooks says the POTUS comes off a visitor from a superior planet. Seriously, this muthafucka’s still spewing the “uppity niggra” meme. Give it up, David Brooks. President Obama doesn’t talk down to adults. You and your infantile party can’t deal with INTELLIGENCE, FAIRNESS, and THIS PRESIDENT.
We’ve been saying these fools want to destroy our Social Security benefits, while the rich fat cats continue stealing them. FUCK THEM!
Fiscal cliff: Barack Obama’s trap for Republicans
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20869137
America’s reckless politicians may still take the country over the cliff into an uncertain land where recession looms.
But President Obama has sprung his trap. The Republicans are in a corner – over a barrel – although perilously unaware of their plight. Before the election, during the election and since his victory, he has insisted the rich must pay a little more in taxes. It is a policy that appeals to his party but doesn’t really make much of an economic impact. But its purpose is political, not fiscal.
He has announced his fallback position. If there is no bipartisan deal by the leaders of the Senate, he will get Democrats to introduce a minimalist bill. It would be, Mr Obama said in his weekly address, an “up-or-down vote on a basic package that protects the middle class from an income tax hike, extends vital unemployment insurance for Americans looking for a job, and lays the groundwork for future progress on more economic growth and deficit reduction”.
If Republicans vote it down, they will be directly voting to bring in a tax rise on “ordinary Americans”.
YEP POTUS asked for a simple UP or DOWN vote. Don’t buy into the media’s Dems don’t want to play with the Rethugs bullshit. And GOP House can get their sniffing noses away from our SOCIAL SECURTIY.
Gregory just can’t let the theatrics go, wasted opportunity
Obama Calls Out Republicans for Being Rich Protecting Deficit Reduction Frauds
By: Jason Easley
Dec. 30th, 2012
President Obama called out the called out the the Republicans as deficit reduction frauds, and turned the fiscal cliff into permanent political damage for the right on Meet The Press.
David Gregory asked Obama what he thought it was about him that was so hard for the Republicans to say yes to.
The president answered,
That’s something you’re probably going to ask them. David, you follow this stuff pretty carefully. The offers I’ve made to them have been so fair, a lot of Democrats get mad at me. I offered to make some significant changes to our entitlement programs in order to reduce the deficit. I offered not only a trillion dollars in spending cuts over the next ten years, but these changes would result in even more savings in the next ten years, and would solve our deficit problem for a decade.
They say that their biggest priority is making sure that we deal with the deficit in a serious way, but the way they’re behaving is that their only priority is making sure that tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans are protected. That seems to be their only overriding, unifying theme. And at some point, I think what’s going to be important is that they listen to the American people.
The president is doing a masterful job of placing the blame where it belongs. He shot down the idea that he is responsible for a deal not being done. (This is the main Republican talking point, and the one that the mainstream media has happily latched on to.) Obama has taken his case to the American people, and shown the the deal that he offered Republicans.
http://www.politicususa.com/obama-calls-republicans-rich-protecting-deficit-reduction-frauds.html
Sunday, December 30, 2012
Gregory: “What is it about you, Mr. President, that you think is so hard to say yes to?”
I don’t expect journalists to have degrees in history. But I do think that the least we should be able to expect from someone like David Gregory is that, when interviewing the President of the United States, he isn’t completely oblivious to the recorded facts about the Republican Party’s strategy developed just 4 years ago.
And yet this morning on Meet the Press, David Gregory completely ignored those facts and asked, “What is it about you, Mr. President, that you think is so hard to say yes to?”
I’d like to recommend some reading material to Mr. Gregory. The Republican Party’s strategy since the day of President Obama’s inauguration has been well documented. But perhaps nowhere more thoroughly than by Michael Grunwald. Here’s how Ohio Senator George Voinovich summarized it:
If Obama was for it, we had to be against it.
It really is that simple. Congressional Republicans knew that they had no hope of winning the war of ideas after conservative policies had been so demolished during the Bush years. And they knew that the biggest threat to their power was the post-partisan outstretched hand that President Obama was offering. And so their decision was to become the party of “no.”
http://immasmartypants.blogspot.com/2012/12/gregory-what-is-it-about-you-mr.html
I’m so glad PBO sat down with that hound dog Gregory. If you listen to the has-been Dems and Rethugs, they are literally saying that if PBO doesn’t come through for the American people, it could damage his legacy?! Really? I’m sure PBO goes to sleep every night thinking about his legacy. The media hacks are soem shameful, deceitful MOFOS.
MEMO to MEDIA: Your legacy died in 2008.
check!
LOL The media and GOP got SLAMMED hard because the AMERICAN VOTERS (MAJORITY) Re-elected BARACK HUSSEIN OBAMA. They’re still trying to convince themselves that their white privilege still hold powers of PERSUASSION. Ummm, NOPE!
Where’s the 3 Chics checkmarks? LOL
I think the legacy of the media died on January 20, 2001, when the jackals began covering up the ineptitude of GWB. It has since been revealed that when GWB, Cheney, or any other Bush official wanted something to appear in the press, they wrote it down, and the media acted as Bush stenographers. I hold them 100% accountable for the debacle in Iraq that cost the lives of @1,000 members of our military, the maiming of thousands of them, and the death of untold numbers of Iraqi citizens. Gregory is a coward. He has an opportunity to ask republicans why they refuse to work with PBO every Sunday, but never asks them a thing about it, but he waits to interview the president and acts as if he is the reason republicans won’t do their jobs. It seems that he doesn’t know about the separation of powers in our government. It’s not PBO’s job to handle the responsibilities of the executive and legislative branches, and only one ignorant of the Constitution would think so.
Sorry, I meant to type @ 4,000 members of our military
Oh, we got you, majiir. Gregory and Co. have no intentions of broadcasting any real substantive & HONEST news or commentary. MSNBC immediately went to a panel of all white males and pesidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin to further the meme of PBO’s weakness to lead and how this might affect his legacy.
The Time Magazine hack went on to spew how Reagan and Dems were able to compromise;SSDD Same shit, different day These fools will not address the stinky ELEPHANT DUNG in the room.
The REPUBLICAN PARTY IS FULL OF RACIST, POWER HUNGRY, GREEDY WHITE MEN, whose sole purpose is to make the rich richer, and destroy America’s social safety net- AKA SOCIAL SECURITY.
Well our President once again in his most honest way hands them their butts!
Hi vitaminlover. David Gregory had the nerve to ask POTUS wassamatta-U, Obama, why the Republicans won’t work with him? Really, trying to trap him to go the race-baiting route. Frat boy can’t hang with the POTUS.
Hi to you Ametia. I agree they just don’t know who they are dealing with. This man is head and shoulders above these clowns. Lying clowns at that!
David Gregory think he’s slick. Fking amateurs!
LOL David and nem can handle the prior 43 POTUS’ inadequacies, infidelities, ignorance, arrogance, power-hunger, showboating, lying, cheating, racism, but can’t handle the BLACK PRESIDENT, because he is none of these behaviors. AND THIS IS WHY THEY MAD.
THE REPUBLICANS ARE THE PROBLEM Got that Gregory and GOP-baggers!