Obama’s Policies Are Working

 Politics
Feb 202012
 

Early in the Obama administration, Republicans kept blaming him for the economy.  They called the recession that their policies had caused the Obama economy.  They called the job losses they had brought about Obama’s unemployment.  They promised new ideas to fix the economy, but never came up with anything more that more and bigger tax cuts for and less regulation on millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals.  In short, they offered only more of what caused the mess.  Now they are talking less about the economy.  When they do mention it, they usually lie and say it’s getting worse.  When they cannot escape an improvement, they lie to try to take the credit for themselves.  But mostly, they are advancing their extreme social agenda out of desperation.  They will do anything keep people from realizing that Obama’s policies are working.

20bikiniPresident Obama had barely taken the oath of office when Republicans announced their highest priority was to make sure his presidency would fail. Nearly every day since, they’ve proclaimed his every policy move a failure. Whenever the news was bad, Republicans blame our president. For instance when the stock market fell below 700 points (on the S&P index), my conservative friends called it “Obama’s economy.” But now that his policies are working, and the market is flirting with 1,300 again, they ignore it.

And there are many more improvements documented at that link. The unemployment rate is dropping. Jobs are being created. The auto industry is making a comeback. Manufacturing is improving. The GDP has shown growth in numerous consecutive quarters. President Obama should be getting credit for it.

Instead, even today on the campaign trail, the Republican candidates repeat the same tired refrain. They tell the voters “Obama’s policies failed.” But is that true? The evidence suggests it is not. Despite the Republican party’s best efforts to thwart him, they were only able to slow the recovery down. So sure, the recovery is not as advanced as anyone would like, but the vast majority of economic experts agree, the Recovery Act worked… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Detroit News>

Sure, there are some things Obama had done that I have not liked, and there have been some things I consider necessary that Obama has not done. However, most fail to realize that he has done far more right than wrong, because only the problems get attention.  If it bleeds, it leads.

In January 2013 either Barack Obama or the Republican nominee will be President.  Wishing for 3rd party success will not make it happen.  No 3rd party candidate will exceed the 2.74% of Ralph Nader in 2000.  Nader had better ballot penetration then than any do today, Nader had better name recognition, and Nader was very well funded with Republican money.

But the old saw about this being a choice of the greater vs. the lesser evil is a non sequitur.  It is a choice of the greater evil vs. the imperfect but pretty good.

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:00 am  12 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , ,

Open Thread–2/20/2011

 Blog News, Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 202012
 

Yesterday I rested as much as I could.  I’m current with replies.  I’m scheduled for a colonoscopy on Tuesday morning.  No worries.  It’s routine, because of my age.  Because of it, I’m likely to be gone for two days, so expect no more articles, until early Thursday morning.  This morning and early afternoon, I’ll sleep all I can.  This afternoon and tonight I’ll be taking the medications to purge me for the test.  I will not be able to sit on one place long enough to concentrate on anything, except for the place made of porcelain.  I’ll be up all night taking medicine.  During the test I’ll be under a twilight anesthetic, so I’m likely to he groggy afterwards, in addition to sleepy from being up all night.  By Wednesday I should be able to research again.  I am not looking forward to this at all.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:39 (average 4:23).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From CBS: Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum stood by comments he made Saturday opposing prenatal testing, saying it leads to selective abortions, and he said the president is "continuing" policies that encourage such abortions.

How much more invasive into privacy can these Republicans get?

From Minnesota Public Radio News: Mitt Romney returned to Salt Lake City on Saturday to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the 2002 Winter Games he helped lead, but the GOP presidential candidate has come under attack for urging the federal government to provide big bucks for Olympic expenses.

Republicans believe in limited government spending, but not on anything they want.

From Think Progress: During an appearance on Fox News Sunday this morning, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) couldn’t explain why the public rejects large parts of the Republican legislative agenda and instead blamed Democrats for opposing it.

 

Cantor is full of Santorum. This is why the public rejects their programs.  Republicans govern exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires and corporate criminals. They do NOT represent YOU!

Cartoon:

20Cartoon

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:00 am  10 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Christie’s Scheme

 Politics
Feb 192012
 

NJ Governor Christ Christie has vetoed the bill passed by the NJ legislature that would have observed the right of same sex couples to marry.  At the same time he referred the measure for voter review in November 2012.  Is this a move to respect democratic principles, or does Christie have an ulterior motive?

19Christie…As opposed to bloviating little bullies like Chris Christie, who like to talk big and pretend to be straight shooters, but are actually scared little boys who are afraid to cross their party’s right wing:

Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) — New Jersey’s Republican Governor Chris Christie fulfilled his pledge to veto a bill that would have legalized same-sex marriage, setting up an override fight with a Legislature controlled by Democrats.

Christie, 49, announced the move in a statement issued late today from his Trenton office. Lawmakers sent the measure to him earlier in the day. Sponsors said they’ll work to assemble the two-thirds majority in each chamber needed to override the veto.

“For someone who has national aspirations in the Republican party right now, I think there’s not much choice but to take this position,” Ken Sherrill, who teaches politics at Hunter College in New York, said by telephone.

Christie has said he believes that marriage should be between a man and a woman and that the issue should be decided by a statewide referendum. Democrats have countered that marriage is a civil right and shouldn’t be subjected to a popular vote. Legislative leaders have made the issue a priority, two years after failing to pass a similar bill supported by then-Governor Jon Corzine, a Democrat.

“I am adhering to what I’ve said since this bill was first introduced — an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to decide,” Christie said in his statement.

Now go listen to the stirring video, in which Newark Mayor Cory Booker puts Christie in his place… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Crooks and Liars>

 

Booker is spot on, and here is why. A Jew may not be deprived of equal protection under the law, as guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. All but the most rabid Republicans agree with that. To put that to a popular vote would be unthinkable. In the exact same way, a gay person may not be deprived of equal protection under the law.

As for Christie, the reason why he wants this issue on the ballot could not be more obvious.  The Republican Party is demonstrating a singular lack of enthusiasm for all their candidates, and that portends a lackluster showing at the polls in November.  But having gay marriage on the ballot will draw on Republican hatred of gay people to get the base to the polls and improve the totals for Republicans.

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:03 am  13 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , ,

Bye Bye Buchanan!

 Politics
Feb 192012
 

On Thursday, MSNBC pulled the plug on Pat Buchanan, an anchor on Joe Scarborough’s three hour conservative commentary every weekday morning.  The rabid, racist Republican right, along with Buchanan himself, are claiming that the left silenced his freedom of speech.  Lets examine Buchanan’s history and character, and lets see why the Republican claims are lies.

19BuchananYesterday, Pat Buchanan announced [propaganda delinked] that his tenure as a commentator at MSNBC was finally over, ending months of speculation about his absence from his once-frequent perch aside morning anchors Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

Calls for Buchanan’s firing by groups like Color of Change, Credo, and Media Matters had been loud and growing, following years of controversial, offensive and outright bigoted statements made by Buchanan without apology or remorse. Here is a look back at 10 of the most offensive and outrageous statements made by Pat Buchanan:

1. Wanted to close the borders to protect white dominance…

2. Blamed lower test scores on minorities…

3. Claimed Jerry Sandusky’s atrocities are because of “Homosexual marriage…

4. Said the Jewish population in the United States dropped in the 90s because Jews aborted all their babies…

5. Asserted Anders Breivik, who murdered 77 people including 69 teens in Norway, “may have been right.”…

… [emphasis original]

Inserted from <Alternet>

Click through to review the documentation on the first five items and to see the other five, which are every bit as egregious, if not more so.

MSNBC fired Buchanan because he plugged his racist book on the air, on MSNBC’s time, without consent.  This led to a public outcry against him and boycotts of MSNBCs advertisers for the show.  Buchanan’s termination for just cause does not violate his right to free speech.  Nowhere does the First Amendment state that the right to free speech includes the right to a public microphone.  Concerned citizens exercised our right to free speech in voicing our objections to MSNBC and our intent to advertisers that we will not support them with our patronage, as long as they finance Buchanan’s microphone.  Buchanan still has the same right to free speech that you and I do.  What we took away was his microphone, and the US is better for it.

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:02 am  13 Responses »  Tagged with: , , ,

Santorum Froths Lies Over Millionaire’s Remarks

 Politics
Feb 182012
 

Presidential candidate, Rick Santorum, has been greatly inconvenienced by the “aspirin tablet between the knees” joke by his own private millionaire, Foster Friess.  First, he assumed a victim stance.  Then, after all his rhetoric against birth control in recent weeks, Santorum actually tried to present himself as a birth control supporter.  One has to wonder if he took lessons from Romney.

18MisogynySantorumRepublican presidential candidate Rick Santorum took a page from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s playbook on Friday and lashed out at CBS News for asking him about a major supporter who dismissed the need for contraception by saying women could put an aspirin “between their knees.”

“This is someone who is a supporter of mine and I’m not responsible for every comment a supporter of mine makes,” the candidate told CBS host Charlie Rose. “It was a bad joke. It was a stupid joke. It’s not reflective of me or my record on this issue. … This is the same gotcha politics that you get from the media.”

“Nobody said you were responsible,” Rose explained. “They said, how would you characterize it and what had you said to him, not that you were responsible? It’s to understand how you differ from what this person said.”

“This is what you guys do,” Santorum charged. “You don’t do this with President Obama. In fact with President Obama, what you did was you went out and defended him against someone who he sat in a church for — for 20 years — and defended him that, ‘Oh, he can’t possibly believe what he listened to for 20 years.’”

“It’s a double standard,” he continued. “This is what you’re pulling off, and I’m going to call you on it.”

Rose noted that as late as last October, the former Pennsylvania senator had said birth control was “not OK”… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <Raw Story>

Here’s the video.

That’s so many lies, it proves he Republican!

That’s so many lies, it proves he Republican!

That’s so many lies, it proves he Republican!

Ed Schultz adds far more depth in interviews with Jan Shakowsky (D-IL) and Terry O’Neill, and more on the Republican War on Women.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I hope they keep it up, because it demonstrates just how destructive to freedom Republican big, intrusive government would be.  All support personhood, where an absolute right to life begins at conception and ends at birth.  Consider how much more Republicans will overreach if they get the White House.

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:01 am  17 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , ,

Open Thread–2/18/2012

 Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Feb 182012
 

Yesterday I clearly needed to rest, and except for cleaning out my email, paying bill, and the normal hours I spend in research I rested, sleeping longer than usual in the afternoon.  I’m current with replies.  Today I may have an errand to run.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 3:19 (average 5:08).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: The Best Quote From Barack Obama We’ve Seen This Week

18Obama-quote-full

The Republican project to transfer wealth from the poor and middle classes to the 1% IS class warfare. This is another example of Republican projection.

From Washington Post: Congress passed a $150 billion economic package Friday, extending for the rest of the year a payroll tax holiday for 160 million workers and unemployment benefits for millions of others.

On a 293-132 vote, a bipartisan House coalition supported the compromise plan to keep giving workers a small amount of extra cash with each paycheck while also providing a continued cushion for the unemployed.Shortly afterward, the Senate voted 60 to 36 to approve the plan. It now goes to President Obama to be signed into law, giving him a victory on a portion of the massive jobs bill he presented to Congress last fall.

Score a big one for the good guys!

From LA Times: Pat Buchanan has been dismissed by MSNBC, the left-leaning news network, four months after the channel suspended him.

In an angry post on his blog, conservative commentator Buchanan took his critics to task, writing, "After 10 enjoyable years, I am departing, after an incessant clamor from the left that to permit me continued access to the microphones of MSNBC would be an outrage against decency, and dangerous."

Buchanan says the calls for his firing began with the publication in October of his book "Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025?" about America’s decline, which critics have called racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic.

Buchanan was fired because he made racist comments on air, while plugging his white-power book on MSNBC time.  Good riddance to bad Bircher rubbish.

Cartoon:

18Cartoon

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:00 am  10 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , , ,

Bill Moyers vs Theocons and More

 Politics, Religion
Feb 172012
 

In their campaign to keep women barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen, Republicans are backing themselves into another no-win situation, as the nation lines up against their position.  However, instead of having the wisdom to back down, Republicans are doubling down, generating even more widespread opposition.

17Moyers

In this video essay, Bill Moyers addresses the question of how to honor religious liberty without it becoming the liberty to impose on others moral beliefs they don’t share. The recent debate over contraception coverage in Catholic hospitals and other faith-based institutions brought this question to the forefront, but then something surprising happened — a reasonable, practical, and equitable solution from President Obama…

Inserted from <Bill Moyers>

 

Moyers is right.  Religious liberty does not include the ability to impose on others moral beliefs they do not share, as Republicans are working to accomplish.

Darryl Issa (R-CA) made matters worse by forcefully excluding women from his sham hearing.

17HearingAs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee began a hearing Thursday morning on the Obama administration’s rule mandating free contraceptive care for employees at religiously-affiliated institutions, New York Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney had a question for the panel: "Where are the women?" she asked.

"I look at this panel, and I don’t one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventive health care services, including family planning," Maloney said. "Where are the women?"

The hearing, entitled "Lines crossed: Separation of church and state. Has the Obama administration trampled on freedom of religion and freedom of conscience?" aimed to address the White House’s ruling on contraception, and whether or not that rule infringes on religious liberty…

…In his opening remarks, Rep. Elijah Cummings, the panel’s top Democrat, argued committee chair Darrell Issa had "stacked" the panel with people who reflected only the Republican perspective, and accused the committee of perpetrating a "massive injustice" by failing to include women in the discussion.

Democrats on the committee charged that Issa "personally rejected" testimony from Sandra Fluke, a woman who had hoped to tell the story of her friend, who she says lost an ovary due to a lack of contraceptive coverage.

"Your staff told us you personally rejected Ms. Fluke’s testimony, saying that, quote, ‘the hearing is not about reproductive rights and contraception,’" Maloney said to Issa in her opening remarks during the hearing.

"Of course this hearing is about rights — contraception and birth control," she said. "It’s about the fact that women want to have access to basic health services family planning through their health insurance plan."… [emphasis added]

Inserted from <CBS>

Ed Schultz provides excellent coverage of this story and interviews both Sandra Fluke and Professor Caroline Heldman.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I fully support the notion of freedom of religion, enshrined as it is in our Constitution, but when Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians attempt to impose their religious dogma on you and me, they are interfering with our freedom of religion.

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 Posted by TomCat at 12:01 am  14 Responses »  Tagged with: , , , , ,
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