The Only Adult In The Room

[ms_m]

372 Bills passed in the House still waiting on the Senate
From Open Congress

In theory, the Senate is supposed to slow the legislative process down sometimes. It was intended to be the more deliberative chamber, preventing the potentially impulsive House from doing anything too rash. Therefore, one might reasonably expect some bills to get past the House but not the Senate, and consider them indicators that the Senate is doing its job.

However, the bills the Senate holds up probably ought to be the controversial ones — the ones deserving of serious and lengthy debate. The word “controversial” describes few of these 372 bills. 182 of them were passed in the House by voice vote, so there aren’t recorded vote totals for them. Of the other 190:

* 44 were passed with 100% [[of those voting) voting in favor,
* another 31 were passed with at least 99% voting in favor,
* another 46 were passed with at least 90% voting in favor, and
* another 53 were passed with at least 60% voting in favor,

leaving only 16 passed with less than 60%. Over 85% of the roll call votes had at least 261 [[60% of the House) in favor, meaning they could have passed even if the House shared the Senate rules that allowed for filibusters [[necessitating a three-fifths vote for cloture).

On average, the bills have been waiting about 10 months. 242 of the 372 were passed in the House more than six months ago [[of which 131 were passed more than a year ago). A couple [[H.R.35 and H.R.36) were passed January 7, 2009. Are Senators, as we would hope, spending this time to exchange opinions, consider and reject unneeded bills, and improve other bills before passage? For the most part, no.

For a list of bills passed by the House, but not by the Senate, click Link
http://www.opencongress.org/wiki/Bil...111th_Congress

Bills have to be passed by both houses in the same congress to become law, so bills not passed by the Senate before the session ends will have to be re-introduced in the 112th Congress. The time the current House spent passing them this time will have been wasted, and they will have to wait months to go through the process again [[assuming they are re-introduced at all). The Senate’s leisurely pace arguably has the benefit of slowing government expansion, but, even if one favors small government, is this really how the government should be shrunk — by a Senate too overwhelmed to properly consider what should and shouldn’t be passed? And, if it lacks the time to consider some matters at all, how likely is it that the Senate is giving enough attention to all the bills it does pass?

[ms_m]

Why didn’t liberals/progressives get in Saint Russ Feingold’s face when he begged the White House not to allow the vote to come up BEFORE the elections, or Barbara Boxer, or Patti Murray, or Carl Levin?

Were liberals ever in the streets to champion their causes these past two years. folks voted in Nov 2008 then went home expecting one person who has ONLY 1/3 of the power of government to carry everyone’s water right?

These are the same folks who claimed to have preferred his “calm and rational” demeanor, and now that he using said “calm and rational” demeanor to get legislative victories that no other President has won, or obstruction that no President in the last fifty years has had to contend with; now he is not good enough?

AND THEN SHE SAID...

[ms_m]

We are living in a time of grossly distorted fun-house mirror political debates, where the far-right thinks that the president is a Marxist and the far-left thinks that he is a Wall Street sellout. In this over-heated environment, the responsibilities of governing get downgraded as the country gets divided. It is time to start turning the tide.

Obama Finds His Mojo
by John Avlon

“My job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there. What is helping the American people live out their lives? What is giving them more opportunity? What is growing the economy? What is making us more competitive? And at any given juncture, there are going to be times where my preferred option, what I am absolutely positive is right, I can’t get done. And so then my question is, does it make sense for me to tack a little bit this way or tack a little bit that way, because I’m keeping my eye on the long term and the long fight—not my day-to-day news cycle, but where am I going over the long term.”

Full Article Here:

[ms_m]

Op-Ed Columnist
Obama’s Very Good Week
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: December 9, 2010

Over the past week we’ve seen the big differences between cluster liberals and network liberals. Cluster liberals [[like cluster conservatives) view politics as a battle between implacable opponents. As a result, they believe victory is achieved through maximum unity. Psychologically, they tend to value loyalty and solidarity. They tend to angle toward situations in which philosophical lines are clearly drawn and partisan might can be bluntly applied.

Network liberals share the same goals and emerge from the same movement. But they tend to believe — the nation being as diverse as it is and the Constitution saying what it does — that politics is a complex jockeying of ideas and interests. They believe progress is achieved by leaders savvy enough to build coalitions. Psychologically, network liberals are comfortable with weak ties; they are comfortable building relationships with people they disagree with.

This contrast is not between lefties and moderates. It’s a contrast between different theories of how politics is done. Ted Kennedy was a network liberal, willing to stray from his preferences in negotiation with George W. Bush or John McCain. Most House Democrats, by contrast, are cluster liberals. They come from safe seats, have a poor feel for the wider electorate and work in an institution where politics is a war of all against all.
Barack Obama ran for president as a network liberal, and entranced a Facebook nation. But in office, Obama, like George W. Bush before him, narrowed his networks. To get things done quickly, he governed like a cluster liberal, relying on partisan leaders.

The results were predictable: insularity, alienation and defeat. So now we are headed toward divided government. But there is a whiff of coalition-building in the air. Dick Durbin and Tom Coburn boldly embraced the bipartisan fiscal commission process. Obama opened up a comprehensive set of negotiations with Republican leaders to handle the Bush tax cuts.

The big story of the week is that Obama is returning to first principles, re-establishing himself as a network liberal. This isn’t a move to the center or triangulation. It’s not the Clinton model or the Truman model or any of the other stale categories people are trying to impose on him. It’s standing at one spot in the political universe and trying to build temporarily alliances with people at other spots in the political universe.
You don’t have to abandon your principles to cut a deal. You just have to acknowledge that there are other people in the world and even a president doesn’t get to stamp his foot and have his way.
Cluster liberals in the House and the commentariat are angry. They have no strategy for how Obama could have better played his weak hand — with a coming Republican majority, an expiring tax law and several Democratic senators from red states insisting on extending all the cuts. They just sense the waning of their moment and are howling in protest.

They believe nonliberals are blackmailers or hostage-takers or the concentrated repositories of human evil, so, of course, they see coalition-building as collaboration. They are also convinced that Democrats should never start a negotiation because they will always end up losing in the end. [[Perhaps psychologists can explain the interesting combination: intellectual self-confidence alongside a political inferiority complex).

The fact is, Obama and the Democrats have had an excellent week. The White House negotiators did an outstanding job for their side. With little leverage, they got not only the unemployment insurance, but also an Earned Income Tax Credit provision, a college scholarship provision and other Democratic goodies. With little leverage, they got a package that could win grudging praise from big-name liberal groups like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Center for American Progress.

Moreover, Obama has put himself in a position to govern again. The package is popular. According to the most recent Gallup numbers, 67 percent of independents and 52 percent of Democrats support extending all the tax cuts. Higher numbers support extending the unemployment insurance. Obama is reminding independents why they liked him in the first place.

He only needs to work on two things. He needs to explain his method better than he did in his press conference. It is entirely consistent to support a policy and be willing to move off of it in exchange for a greater good or a necessary accommodation. That’s called real life.

Then he’s got to bring this networking style to the larger issues. It’s easy to cut a deal that explodes deficits. It’s harder to cut one that reduces them. But there are more networks waiting to be built: to reform the tax code; to reduce consumption and expand productivity; to reform entitlements.
Washington doesn’t know how to handle coalition-building anymore; you can see consternation and confusion all around.

But did anybody think changing the tone was going to be easy?

[juicefree20]

Ms M.

I don't get the chance to visit here anymore, but I just wanted to thank you for putting out some very important information, that seems to somehow get overlooked by people whoses jobs it is to get that information too us.

Many people will still keep their heads buried in the sand & believe what they WANT to believe, like that egg-headed guy who plays for the Orioles. Sadly, for as intelligent & sophisticated as many of our fellow americans believe themselves to be, the intelligent quotient for all too many these days is in retrograde

Thanks for trying to give PROOF, proof which will likely fly over the heads of those who simply prefer to hold on to erroneous beliefs simply because it gives them something to bitch about, as opposed to actually doing something to improve their lot in life.

I'm sure glad that Rosa Parks & so many of my forefathers during the Civil Rights struggle had more fortitude & endurance than some of my generation & that of the younger generation whom have chosen to forgotten WAY too much, WAY too soon.

If our forefathers had this kind of spine, my black behind would still be drinking at "Colored Only" water fountains & sitting at the back of the bus, not because I CHOOSE to [[as is my preference), but because I had no other choice.

Thanks again for what you're trying to do. It's appreciated & you're doing a better job of putting out the accomplishments of the Democrats, than the damn Democrats are.

I think that they need to hire you because they've been dropping the ball big-time!

[ms_m]

Hi Juice,
Good to see you.

Thanks for the kind words and please know they are very much appreciated. There is so much noise out here these days, it's really difficult to get the facts needed to make informed decisions. I hope this info helps in that regard.

Thanks again and hope all is well with you and yours. If I don't get a chance to say this later, Happy Holidays!

[ms_m]

U.S. Senate Advances Extension for Bush-Era Income Tax Cuts

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-1...-tax-cuts.html

The U.S. Senate advanced President Barack Obama’s $858 billion agreement with Republicans to extend all Bush-era income-tax cuts, setting up a vote on final passage as soon as tomorrow.
The 83-15 vote, with 60 needed, had support from members of both political parties including many Democrats. Senators who frequently disagree on fiscal issues, such as Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, voted to advance the bill.

The vote was held open for several hours to allow lawmakers time to return to Washington.
Obama, speaking at the White House during the vote, congratulated the Senate on moving forward, saying the “bill does some very good things” for the economy. He urged the House to act quickly, saying “the nature of compromise” is “sacrificing something that each of us cares about to move forward on what matters to all of us.”

[ms_m]

This is a cool and instructive interactive tool. You can click to compare the current, proposed plan versus other options.

After clicking on link below, place your cursor over the different images and play around with it to get the feel of how it works.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...the-tax-plans/

[ms_m]

A Glimpse into the future of a Republican Controlled House

Incoming GOP Financial Services Chairman: Washington’s Role Is ‘To Serve The Banks’
Rep. Spencer Bachus [[R-AL)

During the financial reform debate, Rep. Spencer Bachus [[R-AL) — who will become chairman of the House Financial Services Committee in the 112th Congress — continually criticized the reform effort. He falsely characterized the legislation that ultimately became the Dodd-Frank financial reform law as creating “permanent bailout authority,” and he staunchly opposed the creation of the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Now that he’ll be taking the Financial Services committee gavel, Bachus has telegraphed his intention to weaken some of the bill’s most important sections, including derivatives reform and rules meant to prevent banks from making risky trades with federally insured dollars.

Full Article Here

[ms_m]

Social Security Administration Eliminates Mulligans
by JDWolverton
Mon Dec 13, 2010 at 12:18:40 PM ADT

I saw this last Fall and shrugged it off as important, but not urgent. It's a win for fiscal responsibility. It's not getting much press. It's responsible governance initiated by the Obama administration that is getting very little media play that deserves a closer look.

The [[now nixed) strategy [[aka interest free loan program) was to take early retirement at age 62, then at ages 66-70, return all the money received over the previous 4-8 years and refile for social security to receive greater benefits benefits available to those who retire at ages 66-70.

The kick was you had to have a spare $100,000-$160,000 or so hanging around to take advantage of this option. It was more than an interest free loan. It was a way to have your cake and eat it too, a concept that only people affluent enough to do the payback could afford. Imagine getting $1,000-$1,600 per month to play the stock market for 8 years, then at the end you only have to return the original funds you received. You get to keep all of the proceeds.

This sweetheart of a deal came to an end last week.

The Social Security Administration made the new withdrawal and suspension rules effective last Wednesday, but will accept comments for 60 days and will post a permanent rule at the end of the comment period. The lack of media attention on this fiscally responsible rule highlights the hypocrisy of fiscal conservatives. Unlike the payroll tax holiday, this rule change benefits the Social Security Trust Fund. You'd think that Obama would be crowing about this rule change, but all we're hearing are crickets.

Crocodile Tears

Kiplinger is going to have to rewrite their Social Security strategies and nix Strategy #3.

Interestingly, they have a "call to action" article posted as of last Wednesday encouraging their readers to comment on the Social Security Administration's changes to withdrawal rules.

What Kiplinger rightly points out is that there's a bunch of people who elected to do the payback strategy are mid stream in the process and the SSA made this change with about 2 months of poorly publicized notice. Meaning anyone who planned to get greater benefits later needed to file their withdrawal from SSA immediately [[as of last September) or they would stay at reduced social security benefits for life. Ten years ago only 500 people utilized this option per year, but the option was gaining popularity every year and those numbers nearly doubled by 2009. It's true, this is a sudden change [[for a government agency ), however, I'm not sympathetic to those caught in this snare.

Affluent retirees want to retain their ability to withdraw and reapply for social security benefits and are willing to repay the money with a "reasonable" interest payment, which again, will be lower than what a savvy investor can generate. Isn't this what the vaunted private market is all about? If these retirees wanted a high paying annuity, then they should have bought one on the free market.

Annuities in Perpetuity

This is a little publicized win for the tax payer. We've been subsidizing an interest free loan program for affluent retirees for decades. Now, I'm all for an annuity, but we're talking about Social Security's modified perpetuity that ends at death. [[True perpetuity investments are rare.)

If you wanted an annuity that paid $1,500 a month for 84 months, you'd have to put in more than $120,000 to start [[with no absolute guarantee on your rate of return) and at the end of eight years you'd have zip. For the average retiree, Social Security keeps paying you long after you've recovered your contributions plus interest. The SSA interest-free loan program was so attractive because at the end of 8 years you'd refund social security and then mulligan for up to a 57% increase in monthly benefits for the rest of your life. Why didn't more people do it? Well, a lot of people need their social Security money to pay the rent.

Wait!

Isn't this social security we're talking about? What about the 40 years or so they paid into the program first? Shouldn't I calculate that in? Yes and if you look at the linked annuity calculator, you can see that you get back your 40 years of Social Security contributions after about 5 years of retirement.

Hypocrisy Now

The irksome takeaway from eliminating the Social Security Mulligan is the hypocrisy.

Where's the Tea Party on this? This is a win for the Social Security Trust Fund that is going to save it millions of dollars, but we got more crickets.

Where's Sarah Palin, Dick Cheney, Dick Armey and Karl Rove on this? What? and find something nice to say about President Obama's Administration? forgedaboudit, here, have some cricket sound effects.

What's Cramer, Cavuto, Bartiromo and other finance reporter's take on this? What about Hannity, Beck or O'Reilly? Buchanen, Scarborough? After all, most of them decry the trust going bust every chance they get. This policy change is a boon for new business with privately owned investment firms. Why not crow about a fiscally responsible policy change ...for a change? Yep, you got it, more crickets.

Where are the Libertarians like Ben Stein or Rand & Ron Paul on this tax payer saving, policy change? Why aren't they hopping up and down with approval? It reduces government spending. What? Why would any Libertarian find anything positive to say about anything a Democratic Administration does? It would be unlibertarian? ...and I'll dispense with the crickets in favor of a deafening silence.

It's not lost on me why the Tea party, Republicans, Libertarians and finance reporters aren't giving this policy change much press. It's personal. It's political. It's cherry picking the facts to support moral bankruptcy dressed up as a political philosophy. Social Security's closing the Mulligan Loophole and saving money doesn't fit their Obama frame, so they aren't talking about it.

[ms_m]

A few weeks ago I went with a friend to visit his mom who is in a nursing home.
It was a surreal experience to say the least. When we arrived my friend’s mom was sitting with a diverse group of residents talking and the subject of politics came up. I was surprised they were so up on current events, and quite knowledgeable. Most were between the ages of 70-90 with my friend’s mom being 93.

In the middle of the conversation an older White gentleman, with a very heavy southern drawl spoke up, he said, “in all my years, I have never seen a President treated with such disrespect.” Everyone around him shook their head and agreed.

I started this thread out of frustration. Not only frustrated with the misinformation but the ad homien attacks, hate and vitriol I was seeing throughout the internet, much of it coming from “Democratic Progressives.”

Constructive criticism tempered with facts is necessary and even expected but the tone from many of the Democratic base, and the obstructionist behavior of the President’s own Congress has been mind blowing to watch. When things are going well, they are all cheers and grins, when they are not; they throw knives in his back. Of course nothing is their fault, it’s all about what the President didn’t do, should do or did do, to cause all the problems.

Yet, the Only Adult in the Room continues to move forward, continues to work, to make the lives of people in this country better than he found it. It hasn’t been an easy process and he still has a very long way to go, with jobs being the critical tipping point for many.

But contrary to what many believe, he is working and he is accomplishing a great deal. The progress is slow, but it is out there. Turning around a country riddled with 30 years of damage was never going to happen in two years. I would love to see all the critics do more, but that will never happen. When you ask them for solutions, they only criticize more.

There are those that are fighting back and standing up. Hopefully more will join in before it’s too late.

Beth Broderick
Actress, founding member of MOMENTUM
Posted: December 13, 2010 09:16 PM
Obama and the Age of Unreason

I cannot imagine a worse job than being President of these Untied States in these most trying of times. President Barack Obama has been under siege from every side for the entirety of his time in office. The poor guy just cannot do anything right. Passing health care legislation, wrestling 25 billion out of BP, turning around the auto industry and his many other accomplishments are simply ignored. The good is simply not good enough. In spite of his many courageous acts the common wisdom prevails that he is not tough, not all up in the Kool-Aid of the opposition. A notion complicated by the fact that those who oppose him are often on his home team.

Not tough enough? The guy is made of steel. Governing this wild kingdom of a nation is like a never ending episode of Survivor. Every week we send our leader into a shark tank with a bucket of bloody mackerel around his neck. Then when by some miracle he manages to come back alive with enough fish to feed the team we scream: "What? No tuna? No orange roughy?" "Is that the best you can do"? We moan, we wail, we shake our fists!! "Should a gave those sharks a what for!!" We cry. Then we bait him up again and send him back into the tank.

The recent hand wringing over the temporary tax cut deal is a true case in point. The president does not preside over only like minded citizens. He must govern for us all. I agree with Bernie Sanders on principle, but I applaud the president's deft avoidance of a show down in crazy town. A whole lot of folks most pointedly do not agree with Mr. Sanders or with me for that matter as the last election made exceedingly clear. Obama saved the bacon of the unemployed, assured tax credits for children and college students and prevented the middle class from receiving a bill for 3,000.00 on January 1. We seem to think that he has some kind of magic wand that he is refusing to wave. There just simply is no such thing. He is the president not the King and God help him. Really I mean that, God ... please help him.

The seeming horror of holding the highest office in the land makes me wonder what all this jealousy is about among the members of the Senate. Those little green men [[and a few women) who are the true hobgoblins of our eternal gridlock. Poor John McCain has been so eaten up with jealousy that he has shrunk to near invisibility. If a Senator shouts in the woods ... and no one hears him ... is he still a Senator? Much of the argument about the issue should be taken up with Cantwell or Murray or Baucus those who clamor for permanent estate tax cuts. There were 12 Democrat Senators prepared to vote against you and me and our dear determined Bernie if the president had not made this deal. The ground shifts under that chamber so relentlessly that it is a wonder some of the older members have not taken a tumble down the aisle. Mr. Schumer is a smart smart guy, but he holds only one perspective while Obama must behold them all.

One of my biggest complaints [[and there were so very many) about the Bush administration was that he seemed to care not a whit about those on the left side of the electorate. He did not seem to be my president. He did not hear my voice or care about my values and it hurt my damned feelings. It also demonstrably hurt the country.

I hear a constant refrain about Republicans. It is argued that they are pure and always get their way due to an admirable lock step in their party gait. The Republicans are finger pointers not problem solvers and I do not envy their approach to politics. The fact is they did not do much governing last time around. They did plenty of war starting and marriage defending, but, very little actual governing. There is a reason for that. Governing this nation is hard and truly thankless, but it needs doing. I most certainly do not want Democrats to start acting like Republicans. I absolutely never want to see Mr. Obama acting like Mr. Bush and if you do then I respectfully suggest that you go back on your meds.

I have great hopes for this president and for the future of this country. I am grateful to Bill Clinton, a man I have had my issues with, for stepping up and having Obama's back this week. It is something we are all going to need to do if we want progressive values to prevail in the end. We need to surrender this idea that political purity is the highest value. Good governance should be the goal. The problem with political purity is that it leads to purging on both sides of the equation. Can we really survive wave election after wave election without achieving the tiniest ripple of consensus? The notion that we lost in 2010 because the White House did not tack far enough to the left is simply unfounded. A struggling economy was not helpful, but every election is ours to lose and we lost because we did not support our team. Turnout among Democrats was terrible especially by the young and newly registered, the very folks whose future depends on the success of this president.

If we turn into the latte version of the Tea party threatening censure of all but the most purely progressive, this country will continue to be torn apart. Let's leave the wringing and the rancor to the Republicans. We are not a party known for its unity, but we are united in our desire to work for the common good and to bend the will of history toward justice.

President Obama is not perfect nor is he a purist, but he is on our side. I for one intend to stand by his efforts on this mission near impossible. It is a tough job, but somebody's got to do it and so I pray may God bless him. Really, God please bless him, because God knows he is going to need it. And he is going to need us.

[ms_m]

President Obama signs the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 Into Law

Monday, December 13, 2010, the President and First Lady Michelle Obama jointly delivered remarks during the signing of the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 at Harriet Tubman Elementary School, Washington, D.C. This new law will provide $4.5 billion in new funding and will give USDA the authority to set nutritional standards for all foods regularly sold in schools creating a national standard. It also will increase the number of eligible children enrolled in federally subsidized school meal programs by approximately 115,000 students.

[ms_m]

December 14, 2010, 2:50 pm

House Democrats To Make Final Push On “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”

By CARL HULSE

House Democratic leaders have decided to make one last push to repeal the military’s ban on gays and lesbians serving openly, leaving the door slightly open to lifting the ban before the end of the lame-duck Congress.
Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the House majority leader, said he and Representative Patrick Murphy, Democrat of Pennsylvania, would bring a standalone repeal of the ban to the floor as early as Wednesday.

The House move comes in response to the Senate’s failure last week to break a Republican filibuster against a broader Pentagon measure that would have lifted the ban.

Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Independent of Connecticut, urged Senate leaders to try to pass a separate measure ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell rule,” untangling the issue from the broader military policy measure.
“I look forward to bringing this bill to the House floor soon, and I hope the Senate will swiftly take action as well so that the bill can be signed into law as soon as possible,” Mr. Hoyer said Tuesday. “This discriminatory and harmful policy has weakened America’s security by depriving us of the work of tens of thousands of gay and lesbian troops who have served their country honorably. And it has severely compromised our armed forces’ core value of integrity.

The House has previously approved repealing by the ban by a 40-vote margin. Under the procedure the House intends to follow, passage of the new standalone measure would mean that the Senate would face just one procedural vote requiring the support of 60 senators to pass the bill.
Since more than 60 senators have already indicated they would support the repeal if sufficient debate were allowed, the biggest hurdle may be time since the Senate process could consume at least parts of three days. In addition, opponents of the ban would have to keep the measure free of any changes so it could be sent directly to President Obama were it to pass the Senate
Activists pushing for repeal drew hope from the House action.
“Introduction of a House repeal bill is a strong indicator that momentum is on the side of an end to ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign.

Please get involved, call the offices of your congress critters and make sure they understand, DADT needs to be repealed now!

[ms_m]

START Treaty...Can You Help Make Calls? [[With Pics)

One of President Obama's major goal is ratifying the agreement signed on April 8, 2010, with President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia that would commit the U.S. and Russia to cut their deployed nuclear weapons by about 30 percent limiting their nuclear warheads to 1,550 within the next seven years.

The treaty has passed through the Senate Foreign Relations committee on Sept. 16, 2010, with a 14-4 vote with all Democrats voting to approve the resolution along with Republican Sens. Richard Lugar [[R-IN), Bob Corker [[R-TN), and Johnny Isakson [[R-GA).

Four Senators, James Inhofe [[R-OK), John Barrasso [[R-WY), Roger Wicker [[R-MS), and Jim Risch [[R-ID) VOTED NO with South Carolina's Senator DeMint a no show for the vote.

As of today, the leadership in the Republican Party don't find it important or are too busy plotting the next "how can we undermine THAT ONE" game to actually do something, anything constructive.

It is utter hypocrisy when the Republican Party rail about national security and go all hawkish on the Democrats and yet when it is time to act to defend the national security of the Country, they are missing in action or playing politics and for that amongst many things they must be exposed.

Senate ratification of New START treaty would require a two-thirds vote which means 9 Republicans in the current congress, or 14 next year have to vote for it when the new congress is in session.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been very instrumental in the back door negotiations with her Russian counterpart and has made clear she wants to see a vote before newly elected senators take their seats.

So does the President and this is why?

Read more here
http://www.thepeoplesview.net/2010/1...ake-calls.html

There are more pics in the article. I posted this one because there is something about the President’s causal attire, with those shoes and socks that cracks me up.

[1382hitsville]

Ms M, I miss you at the Motown Forum...but back to the subject. As coming from another country [[the Netherlands) I value democracy. But democracy requires work. Don't believe the media, check several sources and make up your own mind.

It's a shame for a lot of people that is too much work....they just like to be told what to think and what is right and wrong. We all know the world is more complex than black and white.

Teach, read, listnen, talk, discuss and learn....

[ms_m]

LOL

You're preaching to the choir. I rarely listen to MSM [[main stream media) with a few net link exceptions from time to time. Can't even tell you the last time I watched a TV program from beginning to end. Although I do check out PBS and C-span via the net but they aren't main stream.

As a matter of fact, I'm not even a big supporter of the two liberals on the block. They're ok and better than most but I can live without 'em. I realized what was going on in MSM a couple of years ago during the campaign. I've even watched sources I cherished turn to garbage.

I prefer doing my own research and then I research the research. It's fun and something I enjoy.

After awhile, you learn to sniff out the good and discard the bad and BS, but thanks for looking out.

[ms_m]

Many people are screaming the Stimulus Package didn’t work and of course, it’s, all the President’s fault….really?

It’s time for citizens to look beyond the President and start asking a few questions, maybe throw some of that criticism in another direction, a direction where it would really do some good. It’s time to look locally and statewide, in your own areas.

Despite the increase in homes being weatherized, the program has done little to create new jobs, despite $4 million that was set aside for weatherization job training.

4mil set aside for job training but little jobs created? It’s time for NJ residents to ask their GOVERNOR…”where the jobs at?” The same question should be asked of Governor’s all around the country who have received Stimulus Money.

You probably should also ask your Governor, what the heck is up with paying 27 bucks for a light bulb?

Unless of course, throwing President Obama under the bus is more important to you, than fighting for jobs for people in you area who are struggling.



State ramps up program for energy-efficient homes

By Beth DeFalco
Associated Press

TRENTON - With winter temperatures setting in, New Jersey has ramped up a program to help low-income residents make their homes more energy-efficient using federal stimulus money after a recent audit found the program plagued by mismanagement and possibly fraud.

Community Affairs Commissioner Lori Grifa told lawmakers Monday that the state would easily have 30 percent of the promised 13,000 units done by the end of the year.

The weatherization program is designed to help residents save on energy costs through the installation of insulation and sealing ducts and reduction of heat loss through leaky windows and doors.
The program has been around for many years but typically received as little as $5 million in federal grants annually. In April 2009, it received $119 million over three years as part of President Obama's economic-stimulus plan with the intention of creating green jobs while helping low-income families save money.

The Department of Community Affairs oversees the program but uses government and nonprofit agencies to do the work.
Though the program had been operating for more than a year, a recently released audit showed that as of July, just more than 1,000 units had been completed and only 5 percent of $119 million in federal stimulus money spent, which put New Jersey at risk of losing half the money.

New Jersey was awarded half, or $64 million, up front. The state was promised the other half once it could demonstrate progress, which it classified as 30 percent of the units the state promised to weatherize as having been completed.
The audit also said $2.7 million of $8.7 million in expenditures submitted to the state appeared fraudulent.
The Senate Legislative Oversight Committee asked Grifa and a state Labor Department official to explain the audit's findings and to discover what was being done to fix the program designed to reduce energy use, save low-income residents money, and create jobs.

Grifa said the rapid expansion of the program in 2009 - before she was appointed - exposed weaknesses in oversight, but she also said the state was taking steps to speed up the work and put more stringent monitoring in place.
"We have turned this program around," Grifa said, adding that the program now completes an average of 715 units a month, compared to 129 units it had been averaging earlier in the year.

State Auditor Stephen Eells agreed that the program had made "significant progress" since July, when his audit showed that construction costs fluctuated dramatically, workers were underpaid, and contractors were overpaid, according to the audit.

One weatherization agency charged the program $1.50 for lightbulbs, while another charged $27.
Grifa said she had referred some weatherization agencies to the state Attorney General's Office for investigation.

Despite the increase in homes being weatherized, the program has done little to create new jobs, despite $4 million that was set aside for weatherization job training.

[ms_m]

Several days before the Wikileaks scandal broke, there was a story about Homeland Security teaming up with the RIAA to close down several P2P file sharing sites. I meant to bookmark it but forgot. Anyhoo, It was a few days later, Julian Assange did the amazing dump of confidential Diplomatic records.

I have mixed feelings about the entire Wikileaks mess. The handling of this dump by Assange was [[imo) extremely irresponsible and did not serve this country in anyway shape or form. As a matter of fact it may have harmed us in terms of getting sorely needed information that could protect our National Security.

However, I do not like the idea of restricting information, especially in light of the fact, Homeland Security seems to be using the dump of info, from Wikileaks, as an excuse to target many file sharing sights.

Whatever your feelings are about file sharing, restricting these sight gets dangerously close to stifling freedom of speech. That’s a concern we all need to pay closer attention to.

Today, I ran across another interesting story and I think anyone on this site connected to the industry [[and I’m more concerned with “Indies” than major labels) should read the article below.

Full disclosure, I do not have any great love for the RIAA. Their pretense at caring for and fighting for the rights of artist is full of holes. As far as I’m concern their real allegiance is with making money for themselves and for major record labels at the expense, of artist.

I refuse to get into any conspiracy theories, [[sorry Des) but something about all of this does not smell right. The stench isn’t coming from Assange and Wikileaks, as much as it’s coming from the RIAA and all their former lawyers in the Justice Department.

I'm going to break this up in several parts because it is rather long and has a lot of links inside the article you guys should also check out.

[ms_m]

The Chilling Story You May Have Missed
by beachmom
Tue Dec 14, 2010 at 01:46:04 PM ADT

These last few weeks, we have heard a lot of talk about WikiLeaks, and government action to shut down their website. But what has surprised me is how little talk there has been about the Department of Homeland Security's seizure of 82 domain sites for alleged piracy and counterfeit. Wired had the story here which gives a detailed list of the sites. Now it appears a lot of them were selling counterfeit handbags, sunglasses, and so on for which they look to have a case. However, a series of hip hop sites were also taken down, which brings us to why I find this government action so troubling.

It seems the Justice Department has several, former RIAA lawyers, 5 to be exact.

Obama Taps 5th RIAA Lawyer to Justice Dept.

Monday’s naming of Ian Gershengorn, to become the department’s deputy assistant attorney of the Civil Division, comes more than a week after nearly two-dozen public interest groups, trade pacts and library coalitions urged the new president to quit filling his administration with lawyers plucked from the Recording Industry Association of America.

Yes the same RIAA who sued fans for file sharing, oftentimes in error. The attorney appointed in April represented the RIAA against Grokster, and is now in the "DOJ Federal Programs Branch", which:
just told a federal judge the Obama administration supports monetary damages as high as $150,000 per purloined music track on a peer-to-peer file sharing program.


*Donald Verrilli, associate deputy attorney general — the No. 3 in the DOJ, who unsuccessfully urged a federal judge to uphold the $222,000 file sharing verdict against Jammie Thomas.

*Tom Perrilli, as Verrilli’s former boss, the Justice Department’s No. 2 argued in 2002 that internet service providers should release customer information to the RIAA even without a court subpoena.

*Brian Hauck, counsel to associate attorney general, worked on the Grokster case on behalf of the record labels.

*Ginger Anders, assistant to the solicitor general, litigated on the Cablevision case.

The Justice Department certainly has made a lot of noise in support of the file sharing lawsuits, but given that the RIAA has decided to end suing individuals [[because they were a P.R. disaster, extremely costly, and did not slow down the rate of illegal downloading: a TOTAL failure, if you will), it didn't seem so bad at first. However, we now know what the RIAA wants to do instead of suing fans -- they want the government to help them. They have already been busy in Europe where France passed a three strikes and you're out law, and now we have this DHS action. So why is the DHS action disturbing?

There was allegedly no due process. No notice was given, no legal action: they just seized the sites. Says Mashable:

Yesterday, it was reported that the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement office had seized Torrent-Finder.com, a site that linked to other sites that hosted and shared torrent files of copyrighted material. The news itself was not too unusual; what seems out of order was that the site had been shut down without the owner being notified and without a court conviction or, to our knowledge, any other legal proceedings.

The Department of Homeland Security [[DHS) is seizing sites directly from ICANN because of complaints filed against them; the agency is not doing so under the auspices of the Digital Millenium Copyright Act [[DMCA) or a more recently introduced, so-called "censorship" bill, the Combating Online Infringements and Counterfeits Act, or COICA, which was created specifically to address the issue of piracy.

What we can’t debate is that the government has a right to enforce its own laws. If copyrights are being infringed upon and goods are being counterfeited, the government does have the authority to put a stop to those activities.

But when legislators have taken great pains to construct and pass laws that create procedures for dealing with these exact issues, it does seem a bit off that none of those procedures were used.

[ms_m]

Check out what happened to Kevin Hofman, owner of the hip hop site smashon.com, as reported today in the New York Times:

Thanksgiving Day had barely begun when Kevin Hofman’s BlackBerry buzzed. It was one of the technical operators of OnSmash.com, Mr. Hofman’s popular hip-hop blog, telling him that the site had gone mysteriously blank just after midnight.

OnSmash.com and the handful of other music blogs shut down by the government post brand-new songs and videos without licenses, but much of that material is often leaked to them by managers, music labels and even the artists themselves.

As a result, these sites have a complex symbiosis with the music business. While the Recording Industry Association of America wants to shut them down, the rank and file of the record labels [[particularly in hip-hop circles) uses them as marketing tools and publicity outlets.

Yes, you heard that right. Music labels and artists USED OnSmash.com as a promotional vehicle, were in constant contact with them, and they fed mp3s to the music blog to post!


PAUSE

I wanted to take a break for a second before I ended this and remind everyone I am not into CT thinking. The story I've presented was not written by me, I did check out all the links and they match the story up to this point. Again, please take the time to read the links yourself.

I do not know if 5 RIAA lawyers being appointed to the Justice Dept is a coincidence or deliberate. However, the author does have a theory and I repeat this is ONLY a theory.

[ms_m]

Authors Theory

Here is my theory. The RIAA remains a lobbyist outfit that is as incompetent as it is arrogant. Doubling the problem? The Justice Department is now full of folks who are friendly with the RIAA. Hey, these are their pals. So when the RIAA whispers complaints to the federal government, it seems the government didn't check the situation out very thoroughly, because they trust the RIAA. Meanwhile, there is profound disagreement within the music industry on what their business model should be, so this music blog gets shut down on account of that confusion! You know, in spite of my distaste for the RIAA, I actually am in favor of paying for music, and am saddened by so many people freeloading off artists' blood, sweat, toil and tears. But I also expect my government to respect the rule of law, and respect a free and open internet.

For now the seized domains are in legal limbo. David Snead, a lawyer specializing in Internet cases who is representing the owner of torrent-finder.com, speculated that it might be 30 to 60 days before he would be able to see a seizure order. "The government is providing zero information to help us determine what he is being charged with," he said. "It’s a black hole."

Seeing as they are not providing the public with any information [[what is this a terrorist investigation??), I find this story quite disturbing and worthy of more attention. We the people deserve an explanation.

[ms_m]

My final words.

Although I understand and agree with the author up to a point, I'm not adamantly against P2P file sharing sites and here is my reason why. As you have seen in the article, major labels leak music to many of these sites. Why, because it's another way for their artist to get heard. For totally Independent artists it can be one of the most important PR tools for you to have because, totally indie artist as a general rule [[with few exceptions) DO NOT GET terrestrial radio airplay.

People who download music and like the artist they are listening to, more often than not will seek out music they can buy from that same artist whose music they downloaded. [[strange but true) but keep in mind, the quality of a CD out performs a MP3 any day of the week. Not to mention the CD comes with liner notes, maybe a booklet; many of the things you don't get with file sharing [[there can be exceptions, depending who uploaded the files)

I truly believe if the major labels and RIAA had sat down with Napster back in the day and worked out a fair and equitable deal for artists, we would not be having this problem today but IMO they were BOTH greedy and here we are.

I'm not comfortable with any of this. Not the odd way these companies are being shut down with out seemingly any rule of law being followed, nor am I comfortable with the RIAA possibly having this type of control over the Justice Dept.

For now, I think it would be prudent we all kept our good eye open and monitor this situation to see where it could lead. That also means staying on top of Wikileaks reports since it seems to be the Pandora's box, that ushered in a need for the Justice Dept to even go down this road.

[ms_m]

Senate Passes $858 Billion Tax Plan by Wide Margin

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Wednesday approved the $858 billion tax plan negotiated by the White House and Republican leaders — the first concrete product of a new era of divided government and acid compromise.

The vote was 81 to 19, as Democrats yielded in their long push to end the Bush-era lowered tax rates for high-income taxpayers, and Republicans agreed to back a huge economic stimulus package, including an extension of jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed and a one-year payroll-tax cut for most workers, with the entire cost added to the federal deficit.

The bill goes next to the House, where Democratic leaders said they expected to bring the bill to the floor on Thursday. They predicted that it would be approved this week, despite lingering opposition among rank-and-file Democrats who are still intent on making changes to a provision that grants a generous tax exemption to wealthy estates. Republicans have said they will not accept any change.

“A tremendous accomplishment,” the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, declared shortly before the vote on Wednesday. “Whether you agree with all the contents of the bill or not, everyone should understand this is one of the major accomplishments of any Congress where two parties, ideologically divided, have agreed on a major issue for the American people.”

The two-year tax measure will touch virtually every American — poor and rich, old and young, married or single, with children or living alone, and even those who die. And, with a reprise of this year’s contentious debate now slated for the height of the 2012 presidential campaign, the bill is likely to be a precursor to a broader effort by President Obama to overhaul the nation’s labyrinthine tax code and begin tackling the long-term deficit.

The tax plan would extend all of the lowered income tax rates enacted under President George W. Bush, as well as the 15 percent rate on capital gains and dividends, which were due to expire at the end of this month. And it would set new estate tax parameters, including an exemption of $5 million per person, or $10 million per couple, and a maximum rate of 35 percent. All these provisions would last for two years.

The estate tax lapsed entirely this year, but was set to return on Jan. 1 with an exemption of $1 million per person and a maximum rate of 55 percent. House Democrats were particularly infuriated by the White House’s agreement on the estate tax, which provides a more generous exemption and lower rate than many of them wanted.

The bill would also keep jobless aid flowing to the long-term unemployed for an additional 13 months, maintaining extended limits, which now range from 60 weeks in states with less than 6 percent joblessness to 99 weeks in states where the unemployment rate is more than 8.5 percent. Benefits normally last for just 26 weeks.
The one-year payroll tax cut would reduce to 4.2 percent the 6.2 percent Social Security tax levied on income up to $106,800. For a family with $50,000 in annual income, the cut would yield tax savings of about $1,000. For a worker paying the maximum tax, it would provide savings of $2,136.

The bill also contains an array of other tax breaks for individuals and businesses, aimed at pumping up the economy. It continues a college tuition credit for some families, an expanded child tax credit and the earned income tax credit. It also includes a two-year adjustment to the Alternative Minimum Tax to prevent as many as 21 million more households from being hit by it, and it contains a provision allowing businesses to write off some kinds of expenses more quickly.
The tax deal was sealed in back-channel talks between Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and the Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. It offered a glimpse of a new power dynamic that is likely to characterize the next two years, as Republicans take control of the House and occupy six additional seats in the Senate.

Many Democrats had reacted furiously to the proposal, but ultimately bowed to the political reality that Republicans, by making big gains in the November elections, had also won the upper hand in the tax debate. Some Democrats said they had concluded that the White House had won important concessions that would help middle-income Americans and potentially give a big lift to the still-struggling economy.

Democratic opponents of the plan said it would overly benefit the wealthiest Americans and not do enough for the working-class and the poor, and that the money used to continue reduced tax rates on the highest incomes could be better spent on other steps to stimulate the economy.

The bill met with opposition as well from some Republicans, who said it was too expensive and would add dangerously to the deficit at a time when many public officials are worried about the nation’s rising debt.

Even so, President Obama defended the deal as the best that could realistically be struck, and said it should be enacted despite its shortcomings. “I am absolutely convinced that this tax-cut plan, while not perfect, will help grow our economy and create jobs in the private sector,” Mr. Obama said on Wednesday before a meeting with business leaders.
The Senate’s overwhelming approval of the tax plan was a brief flash of bipartisan cooperation amid the deep partisan acrimony in the waning days of the 111th Congress. The tax plan was supported by 43 Democrats, 37 Republicans and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, the Connecticut independent. Opposed were 13 Democrats, 5 Republicans and Senator Bernard Sanders, the Vermont independent. Both Mr. Lieberman and Mr. Sanders caucus with the Democrats.
Ahead of the tax vote on Wednesday, Mr. McConnell denounced the effort by Democrats to approve a $1.1 trillion spending bill that would finance the government through the end of the federal fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2011.
Mr. McConnell called on Democrats to approve a stop-gap spending measure that would last only through the early part of next year instead, and to abandon everything else on their agenda and adjourn for the year.
“We should accomplish the most basic function of government — we can at least vote to keep the lights on around here,” he said. “Pass the tax legislation and keep the lights on,” Mr. McConnell said. “Everything else can wait.”
Democrats, however, are refusing to back down on any of their priorities, which include the omnibus spending bill, the New Start arms control treaty with Russia, a bill to repeal the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring open service by gay soldiers, and an immigration measure that would create a path to citizenship for certain illegal immigrants brought to the United States as young children.

Mr. Reid said that the Senate would be in session on Sunday in a push to finish work on all of these legislative items, but Republicans were maneuvering aggressively to thwart him. Senator Jim DeMint, Republican of South Carolina, said he would force a complete public reading of both the Start treaty and the more than 1,900-page spending bill, potentially locking up the Senate floor for more than 24 hours.

[ms_m]

• ATTORNEY GENERAL HOLDER AND HHS SECRETARY SEBELIUS: HEALTH REFORM WILL SURVIVE COURT CHALLENGES •

Office of the Press Secretary, Dec. 14, 2010:

Op-ed by Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius

The full text of the op-ed by Attorney General Eric Holder and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is printed below. The piece, published in today’s Washington Post, can be read online HERE.
Health reform will survive its legal fight

By Eric H. Holder Jr., Attorney General of the United States, and Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of health and Human Services

In March, New Hampshire preschool teacher Gail O'Brien, who was unable to obtain health insurance through her employer, was diagnosed with an aggressive form of lymphoma. Her subsequent applications for health insurance were rejected because of her condition. With each round of chemotherapy costing $16,000, she delayed treatment because she knew her savings wouldn't last.

Then President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act. Thanks to this law, O'Brien is getting treatment through a temporary program that provides affordable coverage to people who've been shut out of the insurance market because of a preexisting condition. Even better, she knows that in 2014 insurers will be banned from discriminating against her or any American with preexisting conditions.

That's what makes the recent lawsuits challenging the Affordable Care Act so troubling. Roughly 20 cases question the new law's individual responsibility provision, which says that Americans who can afford to must maintain basic health coverage.

Federal courts in Michigan and Virginia have upheld the law as constitutional, but Monday, a federal court in Virginia reached the opposite result. These and other cases will continue through our courts as opponents try to block the law. But these attacks are wrong on the law, and if allowed to succeed, they would have devastating consequences for everyone with health insurance.

The majority of Americans who have health insurance pay a higher price because of our broken system. Every insured family pays an average of $1,000 more a year in premiums to cover the care of those who have no insurance.
Everyone wants health care to be affordable and available when they need it. But we have to stop imposing extra costs on people who carry insurance, and that means everyone who can afford coverage needs to carry minimum health coverage starting in 2014.

If we want to prevent insurers from denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions, it's essential that everyone have coverage. Imagine what would happen if everyone waited to buy car insurance until after they got in an accident. Premiums would skyrocket, coverage would be unaffordable, and responsible drivers would be priced out of the market.
The same is true for health insurance. Without an individual responsibility provision, controlling costs and ending discrimination against people with preexisting conditions doesn't work.

The legal arguments made against the law gloss over this problem even as opponents have sought to invent new constitutional theories and dig up old ones that were rejected 80 years ago.
Opponents claim the individual responsibility provision is unlawful because it "regulates inactivity." But none of us is a bystander when it comes to health care. All of us need health care eventually. Do we pay in advance, by getting insurance, or do we try to pay later, when we need medical care?
The individual responsibility provision says that as participants in the health-care market, Americans should pay for insurance if they can afford it. That's important because when people who don't have insurance show up at emergency rooms, we don't deny them care. The costs of this uncompensated care - $43 billion in 2008 - are then passed on to doctors, hospitals, small businesses and Americans who have insurance.

As two federal courts have already held, this unfair cost-shifting harms the marketplace. For decades, Supreme Court decisions have made clear that the Constitution allows Congress to adopt rules to deal with such harmful economic effects, which is what the law does - it regulates how we pay for health care by ensuring that those who have insurance don't continue to pay for those who don't. Because of the long-held legal precedent of upholding such provisions, even President Ronald Reagan's solicitor general, Charles Fried, called legal objections to the law "far-fetched."
As these lawsuits continue, Americans should be clear about what the opponents of reform are asking the courts to do. Striking down the individual responsibility provision means slamming the door on millions of Americans like Gail O'Brien, who've been locked out of our health insurance markets, and shifting more costs onto families who've acted responsibly.
It's not surprising that opponents, having lost in Congress, have taken to the courts. We saw similar challenges to laws that created Social Security and established new civil rights protections. Those challenges ultimately failed, and so will this one.

Rather than fighting to undo the progress we've made, and returning to the days when one out of seven Americans was denied insurance due to their medical histories, supporters of repeal should work with us to implement this law effectively. The initial decisions about the Affordable Care Act will be reviewed on appeal. We are confident that the law will ultimately be upheld.

[stephanie]

MS M thank you!! I didnt know all of this stuff about the RIAA it was interesting reading it makes me want to open up a bottle of wine and even though I dont drink I would like to have a glass of wine and stay at my computer all night this is gold.

[ms_m]

Glad you like it Stephanie.

It's definitely something to keep an eye on. If the DOJ decides it can go in anytime and start closing down sites, that's censorship and a loss of Freedom of Speech.

There are a lot of things on the net I don't like but I can self censor. Don't need or want the "gubment" to do it for me.

The RIAA thing has me troubled as well. I think the author was dead on with the "arrogant" tag and in the end it may bite the RIAA and major labels in the butt more than independent musicians. At least that's my wish.

[juicefree20]

Hey Ms. M

It's good to be here. The real world has intruded on me & has greatly reduced my ability to visit here often. Between mom & my grandson who's here every weekend, my hands are more than full. At this rate, my lady's going to think I've been hanging with Mrs. Jones. And it's great having a grandson & watching the things that his curious 7 month-old mind comes up with. Thinking that he's big enough to walk, crawling around getting into all kinds of things & if he's not doing that, he's decided that he's my siamese twin & usually refuses to hang with anyone but me.

Yes, I do believe that you're doing a great jobs of putting information out here for those who just MIGHT want to hear a fair explanation about what's really going on & the various nefarious tricks being employed to make President Obama's life & job a living hell. Why anyone would vote for people who openly stated NOT that we're going to work together to do what's best for the American public, NOT that they'd refuse to allow partisan politics to persuade them into holding the needs of the American public hostage, but that their goal was to make President Obama a ONE-TERM PRESIDENT, is beyond me.

Knowing the mess that we're in [[while quite conveniently forgetting HOW we got there), to give power to those whose openly-stated goal is that our President FAIL, is absolutely ridiculous.

And now these folks will see exactly what the cost for doing that will be.

It's absolutely amazing to consider that during the last election, the largest contigent that came out to vote, that voted AGAINST President Obama's so-called "failed" policies, voted for the very people who want to screw them tenfold. They chose to re-elect people whom have been systematically attacking the very institutions that are supposed to safeguard them in their golden years & would be so disgusting as to try to attach monies for necessary benefits for the workers from Ground Zero & 2 million Americans facing the end of their unemployment, to a deal that makes millionaires & billionaires richer...folks by the way whom have proven that THEY DO NOT CREATE JOBS as is so commonly alleged by their supporters!

America...I have looked into the mirrors of my so-called peers & have found that often times, the TRUE enemies of Americans don't always come wearing turbans or towels on their heads, nor do they necessarily come bearing car bombs, nor as suicide bombers. In my mind, the greatest threat to Americans & our future are other Americans whom choose to be ignorant about important issues that truly affect them, whom can be easily swayed by lies & 2 minute soundbites & are just too damn stupid & arrogant to consider that he whom forgets the past is condemned to repeat it.

This $hit is beginning to look like "Groundhog Day" to me.

Just keeps going around...& around...& around...& around...& around...

Thanks for caring enough to risk exasperation, appoplexia, high-blood pressure, agita & the heartbreak of psoriasis trying to explain all this to a public whom far too many are just too apathetic & filled with misplaced rage too care.

Keep shining your light sweetie...keep on shining your light. There are some folks out there whom will get it, which makes it all worthwhile

[ms_m]

Hi Juice,

I can see the grin from here when you talk about the "little man" so it's all good. I bet he's a blast.

To say things are crazy out here is an understatement and yep, the deal sucks, you will not get an argument from me on that one. The problem though, it was the President's own Dem congress that tied his hands. If they had taken the vote before the midterm elections he would have had more wiggle room to negotiate a better deal.

The Dems never had the votes to repeal the tax cuts but they could have flipped the script on the Repubs by showing the country the Repubs cared more about the rich than the middle class and poor. Going into an election the GOP would have been seen for the arses they are or would have taken whatever deal they could, to control their image with their voters. Not even Tea Party folks want to see their taxes raised.

The Dem Congress took away their hold card because they were scared of losing seats in the election, which is what they did anyway and, in the process gave the President less room to negotiate.

The one thing to keep in mind though Juice, these tax cuts are not new, they have been in place for the last nine years. This is an extension of what was already in place.

As bad as the deal is the middle class still managed to get quite a lot from it. The Social Security Holiday Tax may prove to be somewhat of a problem down the road but people need relief now and every little bit helps.

Then we have 20% of the Dem voter base [[Progressives) who have turned into raging idiots. It's like watching Glen Beck on steroids, with ALL that implies if you catch my drift. Their goal is definitely to make him a one term president and let me repeat, I'm talking about 20% of the DEMOCRATIC base! Fun, fun times ahead. [[rolling eyes) Good news, 87% of the Dem base accepts the deal so, let the crazy rage on if that's what makes them happy.

To tell you the truth Juice, this thread has turned into my oasis of sanity. Finding little gems and nuggets plus National News is therapeutic. I hope people are getting something out of it, but I definitely know I am.

Thanks again for your support. It means a lot!

[ms_m]

Senate kicks off debate over US-Russia arms treaty

The Associated Press
Wednesday, December 15, 2010; 7:18 PM

WASHINGTON -- Senate Democrats secured the backing of a significant number of Republicans in a crucial test vote Wednesday on a new U.S.-Russia arms control treaty - President Barack Obama's top foreign policy priority.
The 66-32 vote to take up the treaty bolstered White House and senior Democrats' claims that they will have the two-thirds majority needed to ratify it before Congress adjourns for the holiday, even though a majority of Republicans prefer waiting until next year.

Nine Republicans, including Sen. John McCain of Arizona, Obama's 2008 presidential rival and a top lawmaker on national security issues, supported moving ahead on the treaty now.

Obama has said he is prepared to delay a planned holiday vacation until the treaty is completed, elevating the measure to year-end, must-do status along with the tax deal he cut with Republicans. Democrats are determined to push the treaty through the Senate in hopes of giving Obama a foreign policy victory before the GOP grabs more power next year.
"We believe we should stay here as long as it takes to get this treaty ratified, and we are prepared to do so," said Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass.

Still, several Republicans, led by Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., objected to considering the treaty in the waning days of Congress' lame-duck session, insisting the Senate should delay action until it has more time. Sens. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Saxby Chambliss of Georgia said they could support the treaty but not under the current timetable. Alexander told reporters it was "reckless."

Speaking for the treaty before Democrats took their turn, Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana said the treaty "will enable American teams to return to Russia to collect data on the Russian arsenal and verify Russian compliance. These inspections greatly reduce the possibility that we will be surprised by Russian nuclear deployments or advancements."
U.S. weapons inspections ended a year ago with the expiration of the 1991 arms control treaty.

Angry accusations marked the hours before the vote as Republicans threatened to force the treaty, signed in April, to be read aloud in the Senate, which would have delayed consideration. The White House called the GOP out on the maneuver, with press secretary Robert Gibbs assailing it as a "new low in putting political stunts ahead of our national security." Gibbs singled out Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., for possible delaying tactics.

The heated rhetoric quickly gave way to a more sober analysis. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said of the talk about reading the treaty, "Our view is that is not essential."
Several Republicans had argued that the limited time available in the lame-duck session made it difficult to give the treaty the consideration it deserved. Twenty-two Republican senators signed a letter Dec. 2 calling for debate on the treaty to be delayed until next year.
Proponents of the treaty cite the renewed weapons inspections and say it would keep the two biggest nuclear powers on the path to reducing their arsenals. Opponents have asserted it would limit U.S. missile defense options and argued that it has insufficient procedures to verify Russia's adherence to the treaty.

The treaty has pitted moderate Republicans against hard-line conservatives, with potential 2012 challengers to Obama making opposition a requirement for anyone weighing a bid for the GOP presidential nomination. Lining up in opposition are Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.
Backing the treaty are former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton and several secretaries of state and defense from Republican and Democratic administrations, including Condoleezza Rice.

Supporters are pushing for ratification in this legislative session because prospects for passage will dim when the Democrats' majority shrinks by five senators in January. The Constitution requires approval by two-thirds of the Senate to ratify a treaty.

Obama signed the treaty with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in April. It would allow each country 1,550 strategic warheads, down from the current ceiling of 2,200.

GOP Nominees???

The treaty has pitted moderate Republicans against hard-line conservatives, with potential 2012 challengers to Obama making opposition a requirement for anyone weighing a bid for the GOP presidential nomination. Lining up in opposition are Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.

[ms_m]

JOBS
Click This Link to See Available Positions

Railroad Job Vacancies Reported to the RRB
December 10, 2010

[ms_m]

Bob Cesca: Are Progressives Losing Touch With Reality?

This afternoon, Markos Moulitsas wrote an offhanded comment on Daily Kos that seems completely in line with the recent upswing in progressive apoplexy.

Referencing a post by Duncan Black about the president's tax cut deal, Markos wrote, "Tax cuts don't create jobs. It's really obnoxious hearing Democrats like Obama trying to make that argument."

Right off the bat, and not to go all Aaron Sorkin nitpicky on Markos, but it's President Obama. Come on. Is it seriously that difficult to type the word "president?" And while I agree with the first part, I'm not sure what Markos is talking about in the second part. The president has never once suggested that tax cuts create jobs.
In fact, he said exactly the opposite as recently as Dec. 10 on NPR. From ThinkProgress:

And in an interview on NPR this morning with Morning Edition host Steve Inkseep, President Obama reflected this point of view, agreeing that the tax cuts for the wealthy will not create "one single job":

INSKEEP: Let me ask you about something that we heard from one of our listeners... The question that we got was: "Please ask him how keeping the tax rate for the richest the same as it has been for a decade creates one single job."

President Obama: It doesn't, which is why I was opposed to it -- and I'm still opposed to it.

Link to audio.


"It doesn't" create jobs, the president said. No gray area there. The exact opposite of what's being claimed by Markos and other progressives.

Concurrently, the president has obviously been ballyhooing his tax-cut compromise with the Republicans, while commenting that the deal will create jobs -- not the tax cuts part of the deal, specifically, but the overall deal. And he's right. If the CBO numbers indicating $1.61 in stimulus for every dollar spent on unemployment benefits are correct, then extending the benefits will create jobs as the economy grows.
What's so difficult to understand about this?

My intention here isn't to single out Markos -- or the tax-cut deal, for that matter. There's a larger and growing crisis within the progressive movement. I'm worried that certain factions of the movement are losing touch with reality.

No, this tax-cut deal isn't perfect. We're all well aware that tax cuts for the richest two percent won't create jobs, nor will they stimulate the economy. But -- and this is the case the president is making about the deal -- the only way to pass some form of economic stimulus [[unemployment benefits) is to achieve a whip count that includes Republican votes.

And the only way to get Republican votes is to accept their deficit-ballooning tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans -- financed with money borrowed from China. Toss into the mix their laugh-out-loud, self-satirical contradictions about the deficit and debt "crisis" even though they're supporting the Bush tax cuts, which will add another $830 billion over the next 10 years. But the challenge is to overcome the GOP filibuster of, well, everything. Hell, they're even filibustering health care for the 9/11 heroes. These Republican 9/11 fetishists, who gladly exploit images of planes crashing into buildings along with the rubble-strewn streets of New York in campaign commercials, are filibustering health care for the heroes of that terrible event. And if they're willing to filibuster 9/11 heroes, naturally they'll filibuster unemployment benefits -- or any other form of effective stimulus for that matter.

President Obama understands this. And while the optics and his performance in trying to sell the deal have been lacking, the politics are best case, given the opposition party's carpet-bombing strategy.

Somehow, though, certain progressives don't get it. They believe the president is
betraying progressive principles and deliberately sticking it to "the base."
First of all, the progressive movement is hardly the president's base. Most progressive leaders supported John Edwards during the primaries, and many were ambivalent about the president once he was nominated. The president's base is made up of mostly non-political Americans -- many of whom desperately need their unemployment benefits to continue until the jobs return.

Second, stop whining and wise up, progressives. The president isn't going to pass every last thing on your personal wish list. Just because he compromised on something that you've been frantically tweeting about doesn't mean it's time to pitch a tantrum and hurl the board game across the room -- storming off in a snit.
The volume of progressive crabbery and moping lately has been staggering -- otherwise sane progressives vowing to not vote in 2012, or to somehow conjure up a viable primary challenger to run against the president. Suffice to say, both ideas are ridiculous and ultimately self-defeating. Fun to bitch about as a way to blow off steam, but also a great way to elect Awful Republican President X.
Good gravy, are we really this fragile? The president accurately criticizes progressives for not understanding the political climate on the Hill, and we stomp and flail like a gaggle of infants? Pathetic.

Last week, Keith Olbermann delivered a Special Comment about the tax cut deal. In it, he predictably eviscerated the president for accepting the tax-cut compromise. Fine. I get it. And I like Keith.

But within the cablecast essay, Olbermann noted how the president engaged in a "preemptive abandonment" of both the public option and single-payer. Regarding the aforementioned and ridiculous notion of running a primary challenger to the president, it's worth noting here that not one serious Democratic presidential candidate has ever proposed single-payer. Ever. Not the 2008 progressive favorite John Edwards. Certainly not Hillary Clinton. And not even 2004 progressive favorite Howard Dean. And neither did Barack Obama. So I'm not exactly sure how President Obama can "abandon" a policy he never proposed in the first place.

The public option wasn't "preemptively" jettisoned either. Like every aspect and line item contained within the various health-care-reform bills that were ricocheting around Congress, it was up for negotiation. Every policy within those bills was negotiable. Not just the public option.

And despite that, it was still alive by November and December of 2009 -- at the end of that protracted battle. The president himself even promoted the idea in his joint session address in September of 2009, deep within the belly of the process. Hardly a "preemptive abandonment." [[By the way, I couldn't believe my ears when Olbermann brought up the Gitmo closing in his list of presidential trespasses. Keith surely must be aware that the president ordered Guantanamo closed, but the Senate, including the progressive members like Bernie Sanders, voted against funding to actually close the base and move the detainees to Supermax prisons on the mainland.)
Okay, okay. I'm not making any friends here, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to participate in a movement where so many colleagues have careened off the rails. We're supposed to be the smart ones, the reality-based people.

And yet, out of some sort of manic-depression or desire for hipster cred, we've become overly preoccupied with tearing down the most liberal president in decades using non-reality-based criticisms instead of laser-focusing our efforts and resources on tearing down the real killers -- conservatives, Tea Party people and the GOP.
We need to focus and engage in smart accountability -- carefully pick our battles with the White House and, when we fight, we need to employ airtight, concise, reality-based arguments designed to convince rather than to hector. Otherwise, we're everything the president said in his press conference last week -- or worse -- and our attempts at accountability will increasingly resemble Tea-Party-style screeching. Featureless, brainless white noise in the distance.

But mainly, enough with the pouting. We have to stop mistaking petulance for "principle" and get something done.

[ms_m]

New Wall St Journal poll shows Obama w/ huge leads over GOP rivals

Short and sweet, lets get to the meat.

But putting a specific Republican name into the question changes the picture. Mr. Obama leads former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by seven percentage points, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by 22 points, and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota by 20 points.

In all, 63% of Democrats polled said they wanted to see Democratic leaders in Washington make compromises to gain consensus on legislation, about the same percentage of independents who expressed that view. Just 29% of Democrats said they would rather see their elected leaders stick to their positions, even if that meant not reaching any consensus.
This is a President who was elected with 52% of the popular vote and is holding strong after two contentious years of Tea Party onslaught and, 20% of Democratic Progressives yapping at his heels.

On paper, Mitt Romney might be the GOP's best candidate for the 2012 general election, but he's got a problem: the party's conservative base just doesn't trust him.

Soon-to-be House budget chair Paul Ryan said Tuesday that some of the shots that fellow conservatives are taking at the bipartisan tax deal are motivated by politics, not policy.

“A lot of people are making these political arguments, which are, ‘What is the proper political chess move against Obama?’ And that is not the way we should be thinking right now when it comes to jobs and economy,” Ryan said in an interview Tuesday.

Ryan, the Janesville congressman, supports the tax deal, saying that without it, the Bush tax cuts would lapse, taxes would go up, and “that’s going to harm the people I represent.”
The package has come under fire from the left for including GOP priorities such as an extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and favorable treatment of the tax on large estates.

But it has also come under fire from the right for generating more borrowing and for extending unemployment benefits without paying for them. Some Republicans have complained that the plan is a re-election aid for Obama because it borrows money to provide short-term stimulus to the economy.

Likely GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney came out against the tax deal in an op-ed for USA Today.
Asked about Romney’s opposition, Ryan said:

“I think presidential aspirants will try to out-conservative each other for their own purposes.”

You don't hear conservatives arguing that Sarah Palin or Newt Gingrich or Mike Huckabee are positioning themselves, because conservatives basically trust those candidates. But Mitt Romney they don't trust. They just don't think he's authentic. And they've got a point: Romney didn't support the Bush tax cuts to begin with.

[ms_m]

There is a good news, bad news aspect of rummaging around political blogs. The good news is finding great fact based commentary that you don’t get from MSM. The bad news is seeing some of the vilest comments ever from all sides of the political spectrum. To say it’ like walking through garbage would be putting it mildly but you do run across positive comments and I’m posting one below.

One of the things I’d like to highlight is the commenter’s reference to people in the “middle.” Folks on both sides of the isle tend to forget, voters in this country are more “center” than either extreme to the left or the right.

It will always be a mystery to me how many so call intelligent Democratic voters saw Barack Obama as part of their extreme left [[Progressives)

He never pretended to be a Progressive. As a matter of fact the polices he was putting forth during the campaign, were not that much different than the ones HRC was putting out there and the Clinton’s were hardcore DLC. The difference between the two came down to a nuance in their political ideology, their style and personality more than anything else.

From where I sit, average voters in this country are not political purist. They understand the need for capitalism but they want corporations to be restrained from going overboard to the point of destroying the country. Seems fair to me.

Random Comment from a blogger

I just think the press conference was a turning point. I caught a glimpse of the man who gave the red state/blue state speech, as well as the speech on race. There was a hard truth to his words that hit home. And I think some progressives were just hurt to see the return of that eloquence and biting truth, directed towards them! lol
Many feel defeated and have been yearning for someone to fight for them.

What they need to understand is, his ability to turn from a “shellacking” and in a blink of an eye, be able to swim with sharks, speaks well for the country and will help Dems as a whole in the long run.

If he did a press conference where he talked of nothing but bipartisanship and rainbows, that would be troubling. But that press conference was reality-based in the coldest possible terms. He showed he knows EXACTLY who he is dealing with on both sides. And just because he’s of the left doesn’t mean he thinks the left is above reproach. Also, he knows the GOP and what motivates them [[their “Holy Grail”).

He is now in a position to govern, to be seen as a voice of reason, etc. He may very well turn into the “Red state/Blue state” Obama and figure of change that many in the middle hoped he be. Of all the campaign promises he’s kept, the goal of “changing how Washington works” and “changing the tone” are areas that were not within reach because of the GOP’s demonization and obstruction. This tax deal affords him a new look.

[ms_m]

I realize for many of you much of what I post is redundant. I’ve learned through experience, there are some that skim through material as oppose to reading it thoroughly. I often like to present an article in a different way to help folks catch things they may have missed.

Statement by the President on Senate Passage of the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010

Today, the Senate passed with strong bipartisan support a bill that’s a win for American families, American businesses, and our economic recovery. This vote brings us one step closer to ensuring that middle class families across the country won’t have to worry about a massive tax hike at the end of the year. It would offer hope to millions of Americans who are out of work that they won’t suddenly find themselves without the unemployment insurance they need to make ends meet as they fight to find a job. And it would offer additional tax relief to families across the country and encourage businesses to grow and hire.

I know that not every Member of Congress likes every piece of this bill, and it includes some provisions that I oppose. But as a whole, this package will grow our economy, create jobs, and help middle class families across the country. As this bill moves to the House of Representatives, I hope that members from both parties can come together in a spirit of common purpose to protect American families and our economy as a whole by passing this essential economic package.

Statement by the President on the House Passage of the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010


I applaud the House for passing, with bipartisan support, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell Repeal Act of 2010. Legislative repeal is supported by the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The process contained in this legislation allows for a smooth and responsible repeal of "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" in a way that maintains good order and discipline in our military ranks. Indeed, all of the Service Chiefs have said that when this law is changed , they will implement an orderly transition effectively and efficiently. As the comprehensive study by the Department of Defense clearly shows, we can move to a new policy in a responsible manner that ensures our military strength and our national security.

I particularly want to thank Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Congressman Patrick Murphy for their leadership on this issue. I have consistently called for the repeal of this law. Moving forward with the repeal is not only the right thing to do, it will also give our military the clarity and certainty it deserves. We must ensure that Americans who are willing to risk their lives for their country are treated fairly and equally by their country.

House Votes to Repeal ‘Don’t Ask,’ Gates Urges Senate Action


American Forces Press Service

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is pleased with today’s House of Representatives vote to repeal the law that bans gays from serving openly in the military, Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said, and he hopes the Senate will follow suit before its current session ends.

The House voted 250-175 to repeal the so-called "Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell" law, and Senate action is required for the bill to go to President Barack Obama’s desk for signature.

The president has advocated the law’s repeal, and Gates and other military leaders repeatedly have expressed a preference for legislative action – which they say would permit an orderly transition for the military – over having the law struck down by a court, requiring immediate compliance with the change and possibly creating different rules in different places.

"[[The secretary) encourages the Senate to pass the legislation this session, enabling the Department of Defense to carefully and responsibly manage a change in this policy instead of risking an abrupt change resulting from a decision in the courts," Morrell said....

BREAKING:
[[I’ve always wanted to say that)

The Senate has the votes for DADT repeal!

The Senate has at least 62 votes to repeal the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, Rep. Barney Frank [[D-Mass.) said Thursday morning.

"I have to give Joe Lieberman credit. We were told, Steny Hoyer was told by the Senate leadership, and particularly by Senator Lieberman -- Senator Collins and I will give her credit too, she has been good on this from our standpoint -- that if we passed it as a separate bill that would help," Frank said on the Sirius XM Satellite Radio show "POTUS." "There are at least 62 senators -- more than the 60 that is needed under that outrageous filibuster rule,

[ms_m]

GOP Senator Calls Cops on 9/11 Responders

Republican senators were so worried about meeting with 9/11 responders who came to Washington today that at least one called the cops on them, the Daily News has learned.

Even before the nine responders had a chance to start visiting senators’ offices - where they intended to stay until meeting with legislators - they were greeted by Capitol Police, who had been called by Sen. Susan Collins [[R-Maine).

Collins apparently reacted to a story in the today’s News, which quoted a letter to senators from 9/11 advocate John Feal, warning that he and others planned to sit in offices until they got meetings - or the police made them leave.

Collins is among the senators the 9/11 community hopes will come over to their side, but her call to authorities left them wondering if they could succeed.

“I’m deeply disappointed in Sen. Collins for calling the Capitol Police, but they welcomed us with open arms,” said Feal, although he wound up with a police escort for the first stops on his visit.

“I’m more disappointed that Susan Collins is hiding behind ideology, and now the police, to stop from helping us,” Feal said. “And the people she called to stop us, are just like us. It’s a little ironic.”

Officers eventually determined he and his team were not threatening and left them alone.

Only one Republican has agreed to back the $7.4 billion James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, and even he - Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois - voted against bringing it up until the Bush-era tax cuts are extended.

Collins’ office did not immediately comment on why she was worried enough about the 9/11 responders to call police.


Read more:

The irony of news reporting:

It’s possible that Sen. Collins and or her staff were reacting to this hyperbolic, over-the-top headline:

Ground Zero workers plan to storm senators' offices in bid for Zadroga Act support

Yet the next article stated:

Collins apparently reacted to a story in today’s News which quoted a letter to senators from 9/11 advocate John Feal warning that he and others planned to sit in offices until they got meetings - or the police made them leave.

Note: all the hyperbole is missing.
Both articles are from the same paper, The NY Daily News.

I can’t begin to understand why the Republicans vetoed this bill but to call First Responders on the First Responders, who answered the call of bravery during 911, is almost as incomprehensible as denying them benefits.

…the sensationalized reporting of the media? I report, you decide.

[MotownSteve]

I just went to her website where it lists her accomplishment. No mention of the above. But in 2007 she co-sponsored a bill supporting them: http://collins.senate.gov/public/con...TOKEN=38448839 Hmm.

[ms_m]

From what I can tell MS the Republicans are claiming this is about reigning in spending, the deficit, yada yada yada

You would think continuing the funding for 9-11 First Responders would be a no brainer. The ill affects from all that dust and smoke have been well documented.

I thought it was cool how the police treated the responders with the respect they deserve.

They didn't go there to cause harm, but to get answers and support. She and her staff overacted. hmmmmm...is right.

[ms_m]

RUN SARAH, RUN…

Obama in Good Shape for 2012 Despite Current Woes, Poll Finds

The Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll out Thursday finds while only 42 percent of respondents say they'd probably vote for the president if he runs again, just 39 percent say they'd vote for a Republican. Ten percent say it depends who the GOP opponent is.

But when you put a Republican name into the equation, the numbers change -- in favor of Obama. The president leads former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney 47 to 40 percent. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota trails by 20 points, 47 to 27 percent.

In fairness to the Republicans, voters are a long way from Election Day 2012, and GOP unannounced potential challengers such as Thune are handicapped in mock head-to-head match-ups because their names are much less known than the president's. But name identification is hardly Sarah Palin's problem -- and the president leads the former Alaska governor, 55 to 33 percent.

Read More

[ms_m]

Political Theater

Two weeks before the year ends, a Republican majority coming in January, and the best Dem Congress Critters in the House can do is play games???

“Liberal” Democratic Tantrum Delays Tax Bill in House


On December 16, 2010, at 5:21 pm, In Politics-House, By Leanne

The Democrats in the House who take pains to classify themselves as “liberals” want you to know they are NOT HAPPY with the tax deal negotiated by President Obama and passed yesterday by an overwhelming majority in the Senate. And they are demonstrating how much they are NOT HAPPY by creating a procedural delay in the vote on this bill.

Now, bear in mind that this is all for the benefit of you, the public, their constituents. They know that they are going to have to pass this thing or be roundly vilified by pretty much everybody in the country. But by kicking and screaming, stomping their feet, and throwing themselves to the floor and holding their breath, they can make sure that their constituents know that they DID NOT WANT to vote for this bill – after they vote for it.

Read More

[ms_m]

Here comes the sun

W.H. aims to fast-track solar power

By PATRICK REIS | 12/16/10 12:57 PM Updated: 12/16/10 7:15 PM

Obama administration officials on Thursday unveiled a key piece of their plan to jump-start the solar power industry: opening up public lands for “sun farms” and other solar power projects.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu released a draft document intended to speed the process for obtaining permits for clean energy sun farms on land held by the federal government, which would create 24 “solar zones” in six states.

“We are working hard to rapidly and responsibly develop renewable energy on public lands,” Salazar told reporters on a conference call. The sites would be able to support up to 24,000 megawatts of solar power on 214,000 acres, he said.

Full Article Here

[MotownSteve]

I just watched four First Responders to 9/11 on the Jon Stewart Show. I have some ideas on what the house and senate should do. The mildest of them is when they go home for Christmas, don't come back. Give up your insurance and get what most of the rest of us have. Then try to get a real job.

[sunshineonacloudyday]

Then there's the National Association of Broadcasters blocking the expansion of LPFM non-commercial [[i.e., non-corporate) community radio.

http://http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1210/46433.html

[ms_m]

Good catch sunshineonacloudyday

Low power stations are usually community oriented stations. I think it's safe to say the larger [[corporate owned) stations are lobbying against this



MS as of January not much matters since the House will come back with the Republicans in the majority. All revenue bills have to originate with them before they reach the Senate. Anything of major consequence we can forget about it for the next 2 years. [[with maybe a few exceptions)

[ms_m]

oh and any bills that do not get passed in the next week or so are basically toast. The probability of any of them being reintroduced is slim to none. 300 plus bills that were passed in the House are going right down the drain.

The Republicans filibustered and obstructed everything down the pike so well these first two years, it's actually amazing we were able to get as much as we did.

[ms_m]

The House finally got over their little hissy fit late this evening and passed the tax bill .

[ms_m]

LPFM

The more I think about this the more I KNOW how important it is to get corporate money away from the legislative table.
They are not even trying to hide their dirty deeds. It's all out in the open and people still are not paying attention.


Campaign Finance Reform it's the only way we are ever going to truly change how business is done in DC.

[ms_m]

Last week, when an unidentified Democratic lawmaker muttered "fuck the president" during a House caucus meeting, it was clear that a full-scale revolt was underway among liberals enraged over the president's tax-cut compromise with the Republicans. And the White House fired back. Vice President Joe Biden lit into Rep. Anthony Weiner [[D-N.Y.) for slamming Obama as a "negotiator-in-chief" instead of a leader. "There's no goddamned way I'm going to stand here and talk about the president like that," Biden reportedly said. It looked like civil war.

Link to story



Liberal Dems and Obama: It's Complicated
Are the Democratic lawmakers who went to war with the White House over tax cuts ready to kiss and make up?

— By Suzy Khimm

Rep. Jim McDermott [[D-Wash.) has called Obama's bill "just awful" and still refuses to support it. But with the passage of the tax package now all but a forgone conclusion, he says he doesn't resent the White House and is prepared to move on. "I'm a professional, that's yesterday," McDermott told reporters Wednesday. "Now today, what's on the table for today? You can't walk around sort of nursing grudges. A lot of things get said, and people sometimes go a little over the top. The next day you get over it and go onto the next one."

But what if the White House adopts the same model for compromises with the next Congress, where the Republicans will have an even stronger hand? Welch insists that he'd support such an approach: "I think we've got to find common ground and compromise." Rep. Mike Honda [[D-Calif.)—a member of the House Progressive Caucus who's undecided about the bill—emphasizes that the president had the right to intervene. "The executive branch needs to go ahead to cut the deals they have to cut, and we [in the House] have to do what we can do," he says. The California Democrat added there was nothing unusual about the rifts within the party: "Herding Democrats is like herding cats...we air our laundry sometimes."

Read More

"I'm a professional, that's yesterday,"

Hope someone reminds the Progressives base...

[sunshineonacloudyday]

ms m

You are so right about corporate corruption. And the corporate heads are blatant about it. Arrogant even, right under our noses.

The struggle over LPFM is one big clue to their methodology...Simply lock a monopoly on the media--primarily radio and television--among 4 or 5 like-minded corporate group$ and dumb down your audience with ignorant reality shows [[TV), or a limited playlist of "music" from the latest video star [[radio.)

Low Power radio OTOH, gives the power back to the People at a LOCAL level, indeed a frightening concept for the corporate elite.

For more information on LPFM check out

www.prometheusradio.org

[ms_m]

And the corporate heads are blatant about it. Arrogant even, right under our noses.

They can afford to be. They have become so adept at keeping us divided and distracted, not enough people are paying attention. And they are using the Republicans as their lackeys. Now we all know the Dems hands aren't totally clean either but you can trace what's going on out here, all the way back to the Reagan Administration.

If you have read Audacity of Hope reread it. The media has so distorted what President Obama was saying about Reagan it's pathetic.

[ms_m]

Don’t know what’s gotten into Charles Krauthammer these days. Maybe he’s drinking the “kool aid” too.
But his commentary has been dead on lately.


Viewpoints: The political death of Barack Obama is greatly exaggerated

By Charles Krauthammer
Published: Friday, Dec. 17, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 19A

If Barack Obama wins re-election in 2012, as is now more likely than not, historians will mark his comeback as beginning on Dec. 6, the day of the Great Tax Cut Deal of 2010.
Obama had a bad November. Self-confessedly shellacked in the midterm election, he fled the scene to Asia and various unsuccessful meetings, only to return to a sad-sack lame-duck Congress with ghostly dozens of defeated Democrats wandering the halls.

Now, with his stunning tax deal, Obama is back. Holding no high cards, he nonetheless managed to resurface suddenly not just as a player but as orchestrator, dealmaker and central actor in a high $1 trillion drama.

I think he's over reaching on this though because although Dem Congress critters and Progressives were pissed, many of us that make up his base were going, hell yes!

The greatest mistake Ronald Reagan's opponents ever made – and they made it over and over again – was to underestimate him. Same with Obama. The difference is that Reagan was so deeply self-assured that he invited underestimation – low expectations are a priceless political asset – whereas Obama's vanity makes him always needing to appear the smartest guy in the room. Hence that display of prickliness in his disastrous post-deal news conference last week.

...then he goes on to say...

"But don't be fooled by defensive style or thin-skinned temperament. The president is a very smart man. How smart? His comeback is already a year ahead of Clinton's."

Read More