January 2010

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A New Kind of Politics.

January 25, 2010 in Democratic Party, GOP, Health Care, Obama Administration, Tea Baggers, Wingnuts | No comments

The public elected President Obama on the basis of his persistent invocation of bipartisanship or a “new kind of politics,”. While a President getting elected on promises of bipartisanship, or working with “the other side of the isle” is nothing new, it was foreseeable that Obama had a slim to none chance of success. I do not blame or criticize Republicans for sticking to their principles (tax cuts are the universal elixir), misguided though I believe they are, but the more I think about this the more I agree that Martha Coakley’s defeat in Massachusetts should mark the end of Obama’s efforts to create a new, bipartisan climate in Washington.

Consider last spring’s $787 Billion stimulus bill which was heavily weighted toward tax cuts in an effort to win some Republican support. In the end, the bill received not a single Republican vote.
Consider that he nominated a moderate, pro-prosecution Supreme Court justice, Sonia Sotomayor, only to see her tagged as a racist over some rather harmless remarks she made about being a “wise Latina”.
Consider that healthcare reform became bogged down in such a compromise-ridden mess to try an woo Senator Olympia Snow, and appease Senator’s Landrieu, Nelson, and Lincoln. Let’s include the fact that President Obama never truly fought hard for a public option to compete with private insurance companies because those in his inner circle knew it would never get passed.

Obama has done precisely what he condemned while campaigning for the presidency: he has played the old Washington game of compromising on basics to win a few votes. Now the idea was to bring along a few Republican senators thought to hold reasonable views, I get that, but NO Republican support was offered by the other side…none…NADA.

Instead we got calls for this becoming Obama’s “waterloo”. Obama’s attempts to find compromise solutions did not stop Republicans from labelling him as a radical – or their nutty tea-party allies from calling him a “socialist” and citing scripture (Psalm 109:8) calling for his death. He’s being called a radical though he’s doing nothing radical, and yet alienating radicals because he’s doing nothing radical. It’s an old paradox: you can’t chase with the hounds and run with the foxes.

The House should pass the Senate Health care bill and fix it later through reconciliation. Put a “W” in the Win column and move on.

Then he needs to pick another fight….. and then FIGHT, and stop going for these half-assed measures by watering down legislation to get any GOP votes. Maybe he is finally starting with his proposing a tax to recoup some of the billions of dollars in bailout money the bankers received, and has referred to bonus payments as “obscene” at a time when many “continue to face real hardship in this recession.”

The White House and the Democratic Party still have time to change course. Surely Obama knows his strategy of reaching out to Republicans was an utter failure. It’s time to try something new.

I hope he is ready for it.

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Scott Brown’s Birther connection.

January 24, 2010 in Birther, GOP, Republican Party, Right Wing, Scott Brown, Tea Baggers, Wingnuts | No comments

Birther

To help me get this straight I need to look at the timeline…

Nov 2008: –

Hudak put pictures on his lawn portraying Barack Obama as Osama Bin Laden. He defended the pictures and told a local paper that Obama was born in Kenya. From affidavits that he made available: “Obama was not born in the United States but in Kenya”. He also said that Obama has ties to the Muslim faith through an extremist cousin that is from Kenya. “There is a lot more going on here than anyone knows,” Hudak said…

Tri-Town Transcript published this story.

Later in Sept 2009 the Salem News published another story linking Hudak to the birther movement.

Scott Brown runs for Senate –

Bill Hudak is running against Rep. John Tierney (D-Mass.). Hudak campaign spokesman Tyler Harber says that Hudak and Brown are personally close, that they appeared together several times during the campaign and that Hudak put his volunteers to work for Brown in the closing days of the campaign.

“They were text messaging on election day, they were so close,” Harber added.

Jan 19, 2010 –

Scott Brown wins Tuesday’s election.

Came out strong for Hudak the morning after and all but praised (endorsed) him “Bill was with us from the beginning and is (the) representative the people of the 6th district need,” Brown said. “Bill is not beholden to special interests and will help me bring the voice of the people Washington.”

“Bill was with us…Bill is what the people need”…Bill is not beholden…Bill will help me (Scott Brown). tell me oh wise one what does this mean?

Jan 20, 2010 –

Hudak announces endorsement by Scott Brown

Hudak’s spokesperson has clarified that Hudak indeed believes that Obama was born in the United States and feels that his comments were mischaracterized in the original article.

“The birther issue is a non issue for Bill,” said Tyler Harber. “He believes the President of the United States was born in the United States.

There were two sources about Hudak being a birther. The Tri-Town Transcript, which published the original story in November 2008, and in a column by Nelson Benton in the Salem News published September 2009. In both cases Hudak never asked for a correction.

Jan 21, 2010 –

Brown’s campaign will not say whether their candidate has endorsed Bill Hudak.

Hudak’s campaign says Brown gave a private, verbal endorsement to Hudak, and blasted Brown’s staff for reneging.

“Scott Brown gave his endorsement to Bill Hudak and it’s unfortunate that the people Scott Brown surrounds himself with are backing down from a commitment that their boss already made,” said Tyler Harber, a spokesman for Hudak.

Hudak, in an interview with the Salem News, says, “There’s no question that he [Brown] gave me his endorsement,” citing a “private conversation” the two men had. He also says he did not see the press release his own campaign put out touting the alleged endorsement, but that it’s OK with him: “I trust my campaign staff to do what they need to do.”

Brown tells the Boston Globe that Hudak put out a press release touting Brown’s endorsement without his knowledge or permission. “I haven’t spoken to Bill at all,’’ Brown said. “I understand he made a press release of some sort. But I wasn’t aware of it, and we’ve asked him to retract it.”

So now we have a press release filled with direct quotes from both Brown and Hudak, and both men say they were unaware of it before it went out. LOL

Finally.. for 14 months Hudak did not refute his birther beliefs yet Scott Brown and Hudak campaigned together and according to a spokesman “Hudak and Brown are personally close”.

Ten will get you twenty that the re-election campaign of Scott Brown won’t go as smoothly.

Yes, yes, there is a lot more going on here than anyone knows.

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Going Full Birther!!

January 21, 2010 in Birther, Republican Party, Right Wing, Scott Brown, Tea Baggers, Wingnuts | 8 comments

Republican, Sen.-elect, and nude centerfold model Scott Brown has endorsed a candidate for Congress who has asserted that President Obama was born in Kenya rather than the United States. Republican lawyer William Hudak of Boxford, hopes to unseat U.S. Rep. John Tierney, a Salem Democrat, this fall, but on Nov. 3, 2008 Hudak and another person who lives on his street had festooned their properties with anti Obama signs that their neighbors found offensive including one picture of Obama dressed as Osama Bin Laden.

Obama Osama

Hudak asserts that Obama was not born in the United States but in Kenya, according to affidavits that he made available to the Tri-Town Transcript. He said that Obama has ties to the Muslim faith through an extremist cousin that is from Kenya.

Will Scott Brown have the balls to repudiate Hudak? Maybe… which will make a few teabaggers unhappy. I guess it didn’t take long for the “independent” Scott Brown to reveal his true leanings.

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Just who is supposed to be our enemy here?

January 6, 2010 in Cheney, Health Care, Hypocrisy, Obama Administration, Religious Right, Republican Party, Right Wing, Terrorism, Wingnuts | 1 comment

Just a few short years ago wasn’t terrorism supposed to be the the existential threat facing the West in the 21st century? Didn’t Dick Cheney say in 2004 “the 21st-century terrorism threat presents a new and far greater peril”

… than what?

“Today, we face a sophisticated global network of terrorists who are opposed to the values of liberty, tolerance and openness that form the basis of our societies. Their hatred and sense of grievance are not directed at any one government or nation or religion, but against all governments, nations and people that stand in their way.”

Sure seems like he was talking about al Qaeda.

Today religious leaders, right-wing blowhards, and Republicans the like are saying entirely different things.

Neal Boortz is arguing, “ObamaCare will do more damage than a successful terrorist bombing of an airliner … and kill more people as well.”

Allen Quist, a Republican congressional candidate going up against Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN), has made a serious accusation:

“It’s because I, like you, have seen that our country is being destroyed. I mean, this is — every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom. This is our fight. And this is our time. This is it. Terrorism, yes — but that’s not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C., with the radicals. They aren’t liberals, they’re radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz — they’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They are destroying our country. And people all over are figuring that out.”

Rep. Walz, the one Quist is describing as a radical enemy of the U.S. and a more serious threat than al Qaeda, is a 24-year veteran of the National Guard, retiring as a command sergeant major and the highest ranking enlisted soldier in southern Minnesota. But he is worst that al Qaeda?

Rep. Virginia Foxx’s (R-N.C.) looked pretty ridiculous in November when she said Americans have “more to fear” from health care reform than “from any terrorist right now in any country.”

Rep. John Shadegg (R-Ariz.) said that the health care debate is more consequential than the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

According to Sen. Jim DeMint, a right-wing Republican from South Carolina protecting the American public from terrorism is a priority, but for DeMint, preventing government workers from organizing is a much higher priority.

And finally according to religious right leader Pat Robertson who argued on ABC’s This Week that the “runaway” federal judiciary constitutes the gravest threat to American life. Robertson says the “tyranny” of the federal judiciary is a bigger threat to America than the Nazis during World War II and the Civil War and poses a “more serious [threat] than a few bearded terrorists who fly into buildings,” referring to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in which nearly 3,000 people were killed.

Do Republicans take terrorism seriously, or do they merely use it as a political tool to attack their enemies — and NOT a set of policy pronouncements?

After all it was an excuse to attack Iraq.

Do we assume that Republicans somehow care if terrorists attack America, especially if that means they get to attack Obama as well? If a terrorist attack occurs under a Republican president it’s the fault of the last Democrat to hold office. If a THWARTED attack occurs under a Democrat it’s because the administration didn’t take “the terrorist threat seriously!”

But, NOTHING could possibly qualify as “taking the terrorist threat seriously” as far as Republicans are concerned — except for Obama to resign and appoint Dick Cheney president.

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