Inspire Political Discourse

SB1070 Palin Again Defending What Was Wrought "We’re all Arizonians"

On Saturday, Palin spoke at a news conference with Gov. Jan Brewer [R-AZ] in an effort to discourage the growing boycott of Arizona due to SB1070, the immigration law enacted in Arizona earlier this month.

Palin defended the law by declaring President Obama responsible for the lack of secure borders, said lack "forcing" Arizona to take action to defend itself and secure it's own borders.

We're all Arizonans now. And in clear unison we say, 'Mr. President: Do your job. Secure our border”.

Okay, so here are a few FACTS for Ms. Palin:

  The crime rate in border towns has not increased for a number of years.

Will 2010 rival 1994 as a debacle for the Dems?

According to Time magazine, perhaps not. A summary of the reasoning behind the article:

“At a time when Republicans should be celebrating their momentum, Steele is stealing headlines — and not in a good way.

In my opinion, this will not have much of an effect. While it's fun to kick Steele and the RNC around, I don't think that their shenanigans will do much to affect the vote. Republicans aren't going to vote Democratic because of it. Although, it could affect the motivation of Republicans when they consider whether or not to vote at all in midterm elections.

Health Care Reform Progress

The Senate bill which is the base for health care reform passed the house on Sunday, March 21, 2010.

Today, the reconciliation bill passed the Senate, The Senate Parliamentarian claims that the Byrd rule was violated, and the bill now returns to the House for another vote.

UPDATE:
Last night, March 25, the House passed the reconciliation bill, and the long effort to enact health care reform is over. That is, excepting the improvements we intend to make over the next few years before the mandates kick in.

Will Republican oppostion to health care reform hurt them in November?

The Republicans have threatened to repeal the health care reform bill one piece at a time. 13 attorneys general, all Republicans, have filed a lawsuit against the federal government to exempt their states from health care reform.

Health care now becomes a policy story rather than a legislative sausage-grinding story. Tales of death panels and warnings about losing your doctor can now be falsified. (That's what happened to the early scare stories about Social Security and Medicare.) And Republicans who denounce the program and promise to repeal it will no longer be bashing an abstraction. They will be proposing to take away existing, tangible benefits. [.....]

Former Bush Speechwriter, David Frum, on the Republican HCR Waterloo

George W. Bush's former speechwriter, David Frum, on the passage of the health care reform bill:

“Conservatives and Republicans today suffered their most crushing legislative defeat since the 1960s.

 

It’s hard to exaggerate the magnitude of the disaster. Conservatives may cheer themselves that they’ll compensate for today’s expected vote with a big win in the November 2010 elections.

 

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

 

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

 

So today’s defeat for free-market economics and Republican values is a huge win for the conservative entertainment industry. Their listeners and viewers will now be even more enraged, even more frustrated, even more disappointed in everybody except the responsibility-free talkers on television and radio. For them, it’s mission accomplished. For the cause they purport to represent, it’s Waterloo all right: ours. [.....]

Patrick Kennedy Calls Out the National Press

During a debate today on ending the war in Afghanistan, Rep. Patrick Kennedy aimed a fierce diatribe at the press, which he feels has been irresponsible in reporting on the topics that really matter.

“There's one, two press people in this gallery. We're talking about Eric Massa 24/7 on the TV. We're talking about war and peace; $3 billion; 1,000 lives and no press! No press!

You want to know why the American public is fit? They're fit because they're not seeing their Congress do the work that they're sent to do! It's because the press, the press of the United States, is not covering the most significant issue of national importance and that's the laying of lives down in the nation for the service of our country. It's despicable, the national press corps right now.” [....]

It's about damn time that someone said it. You GO, Patrick.

Note to Congress: Reconcile That Baby!

Health Care Reform is too long past overdue.

The Democrats have worked in good faith with Republicans who care more for their corporate masters than they do for the American people.

The time has come to move past the obstructionists, and do what is needed.

In 14 out of the 22 times that reconciliation has been used since 1981, it was used by the GOP.

And not just on minor issues, but on very major and controversial issues such as the Contract for America, Medicare reform, tax cuts for the wealthy, welfare reform, etc..

The hypocrites be damned.

Rep. Anthony Weiner [D-NY] calls out the Republicans in Congress on their corporate ownership.

Will the Republicans Attempt to Impeach President Obama? Yes.

From Bob Cesca, on the Huffington Post:

If the Republicans ever manage to retake Congress, they will absolutely try to impeach President Obama. And it'll be based upon a supremely ridiculous charge such as, say, the president refusing to nourish our crops with a sports drink instead of water.

Okay, so maybe the Idiocracy example is over-the-top, but if we follow the current trajectory of far-right attacks to their logical yet insane conclusion, it makes sense in a very eerie way. Have you seen the television commercials solemnly defending our right to poison our kids with "juice drinks and soda?" There you go.

I've been following the Republican descent into the realms of the bizarre for some time now, and it wasn't until the "czars" thing broke that I became convinced that if they retook Congress the Republicans might try to impeach the president. The grounds for both the impeachment and the language used to sell it will likely be fabricated by either Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh.

I mean, 100 Republican members of Congress have signed onto Rep. Jack Kingston's cartoonish czar bill. 100 House Republicans out of 177 have attached their names to a bill that was essentially invented as a television bit by Glenn Beck without any regard for the fact that "czar" is a nickname invented by the press, and that every president -- all of them! -- has employed policy and political advisers within their administrations. But it functions as an effective Beck attack because he knows his audience isn't bright enough to distinguish "czars" from "communists." By the way, not to be out-crazied by his House colleagues, Senator Ensign introduced an amendment to the Finance Committee health care reform bill called "Transparency in Czars." This might as well be "Transparency in Hobbits" because it's just that ludicrous.

Nevertheless, there's a growing conventional wisdom in the press alleging that both sides of the political spectrum are equally guilty of wackaloon attacks and conspiracy theories.

Granted there might be one or two very fringe exceptions but this is otherwise a false equivalency written by the establishment media as part of their self-conscious effort to seem balanced. The distinction is that any "fringe" attacks from the left during the Bush years weren't mainstreamed and legitimized the way the wingnut attacks are today, even though the fringe attacks from the left turned out to be mostly accurate.

Continue reading http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/the-impeachment-of-presid_b_297330.html

TEXT-TRANSCRIPT: PRESIDENT OBAMA SPEECH TO CONGRESS ON HEALTHCARE REFORM SEPT. 9, 2009

Click here to watch the video.

PRESIDENT OBAMA:
“Madame Speaker, Vice President Biden, Members of Congress, and the American people:

When I spoke here last winter, this nation was facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We were losing an average of 700,000 jobs per month. Credit was frozen. And our financial system was on the verge of collapse.

As any American who is still looking for work or a way to pay their bills will tell you, we are by no means out of the woods. A full and vibrant recovery is many months away. And I will not let up until those Americans who seek jobs can find them; until those businesses that seek capital and credit can thrive; until all responsible homeowners can stay in their homes. That is our ultimate goal. But thanks to the bold and decisive action we have taken since January, I can stand here with confidence and say that we have pulled this economy back from the brink.

VIDEO : PRESIDENT OBAMA SPEECH TO CONGRESS ON HEALTHCARE REFORM SEPT. 9, 2009

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Click here to read the transcript.

IPD Political News Summary, Wednesday, April 22, 2009

| At a United Nations conference on racism in Geneva on Monday, the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,  launched in to a tirade against Israel. Delegates from a number of European countries walked out in protest.
The U.S., Germany, Italy, Poland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, and Israel all boycotted the conference as they had expected Ahmadinejad to use the conference as a forum to “focus on maligning Israel rather than on the global problems of discrimination, replaying the disputes that marked the first United Nations conference on combating racism in Durban, South Africa, in 2001.”
The countries that walked out: Austria, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic (has left the conference for good), Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, , Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, St. Kitts and Nevis
Image courtesy of The NYT.

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| The release of the Bush torture memos last week caused many on the left to become more vocal, urging the current administration to hold accountable those who directed others to violate U.S. and international law. On Tuesday, President Obama stated publicly for the first time, that he is open to prosecution of the people responsible for directing others to commit acts of torture. Bolding is mine.From The New York Times:

But in response to questions from reporters in the Oval Office, he said, “if and when there needs to be a further accounting,” he hoped that Congress would examine ways to obtain one “in a bipartisan fashion,” from people who are independent and therefore can build credibility with the public.

Image of the scales of justice on top of the Old Bailey in London, by Andrew Parsons, courtesy of the BBC.

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| Congress is back in Washington this week, after a break for Easter recess. At the top of their agenda is the budget, healthcare, and credit cards.
The president has said that he expects Republicans to come back with a more “constructive attitude toward health care, energy and other administration initiatives.” David Axelrod via Huffpost:

"No one expects the Republican Party to fully embrace what we're doing," Axelrod said. "What they would like is for us to ratify the policies that we've had for the last eight years that have gotten us into the mess we're in. We have two parties for a reason, but there are areas of common interest, and we ought to pursue them."

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| On Monday, President Obama directed his cabinet to cut spending by $100 million, acknowledging that it’s a drop in the proverbial bucket.
The cabinet was directed to go through the expenses in each of their areas, and eliminate a total of $100 million from the budget.

Obama said the $100 million would come from "efficiencies" in agency operations, and would be in addition to future cuts in programs that aren't working.

Yet the red ink in the annual budget is currently in the hundreds of billions. He was asked if the efficiency saving isn't just "a drop in the bucket".

"It is," he replied. "None of these things alone are going to make a difference. But cumulatively, they make an extraordinary difference because they start setting a tone ... $100 million there, $100 million here _ pretty soon, even here in Washington, it adds up to real money."

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| In signing legislation that will triple the size of the Americorps program, President Obama called on students to volunteer to improve their communities. .
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| MEDIA MATTERS log, April 20 - April 26, 2009

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IPD Political News Summary: Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Political News Summary: Monday, April 6 – Tuesday, April 7, 2009

| President Obama spent two days in Turkey, before ending his trip with an unannounced visit to the troops in Iraq, bringing the war back to the forefront of the news again.
In Turkey, Obama reached out to Muslims, telling them;

. “One of the great strengths of the United States is ... we have a;very large Christian population -- we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values.”

You can view the video here. Obama also held a town hall with Turkish students, and spoke to Turkish lawmakers where he told them that America is not at war with Islam.

“The United States is not, and will never be, at war with Islam,” Obama declared, adding that America's relationship with the Muslim world “cannot, and will not, just be based upon opposition to terrorism. We seek broader engagement based on mutual interest and mutual respect.”

In Iraq, the president invoked warmer feelings from the Iraqis than former President Bush had. He also spoke to U.S. troops in Bagdad, telling them

“Under enormous strain and under enormous sacrifice, through controversy and difficulty and politics, you have kept your eyes focused on just doing your job and because of that, every mission that has been assigned from getting rid of Saddam to reducing violence, to stabilising the country, to facilitating elections, you have given Iraq the opportunity to stand on its own as a democratic country.”

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IPD Political News Summary: Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Political News Summary Covering Monday, March 30 – Tuesday, March 31, 2009

| The results of a new poll show that Americans are not drinking the GOP koolaide when it comes to blaming Obama for the recession.

| On Thursday, the US House passed a bill, in a 247-171 vote, that would give the Treasury broad powers to prohibit "unreasonable and excessive" compensation and bonuses that are not based on performance standards.The bill would affect all employees at financial institutions that receive bailout funds.

| Last night, on MSNBC’s Countdown, Keith Olbermann named O’Reilly “Worst Person” for using his harassment machine to stalk a liberal blogger.

| On Wednesday, the GOP, in a typical move, authored an article containing a phony graph in the Wall Street Journal. Their intent, was of course to discredit Obama’s budget plan.

Cartoon courtesy of McClatchy
Image courtesy of HuffPost.
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ZERO Cred, and ZERO Numbers in the GOP “Budget” Plan

In response to President Obama’s call to produce their own budget, the GOP did just that, invoking the criticism of media conservatives, as well as hilarity from the Democrats, when it was noted that the GOP budget had not one number in it! That’s right, ZERO NUMBERS in a budget!

You may see this ad put out by the DNC as a little silly……on the other hand, the GOP’s idea of a budget is one hell of a lot sillier. Still laughing here.

David Plouffe Takes Aim at the New Leader of the GOP

:: David Plouffe provides some perspective for the party of "NO!" on their choice of Rush Limbaugh-aka-the-sphereazoid-sleazy-manhood-cruncher-former?-druggie-I-hope-Obama-fails-right-wing-radio-show-lunatic, as their new leader.

Aren't you people (Republicans) embarrassed? For gawd's sake, the GOP has become a party ruled by 6-year-olds! From The Washington Post:

The 2008 election sent many messages. At the top: Americans wanted to turn the page on the politics of division and partisan pettiness, and they wanted a government -- and country -- that would put the middle class first.

Watching the Republicans operate this past month, it would appear that they missed that unmistakable signal.

Instead, Rush Limbaugh has become their leader.

Limbaugh, of course, told his radio listeners that he's rooting for President Obama to fail -- and hoping the president's ideas for bolstering our economy fail with him. For many Americans, hungry for leadership and cooperation, this sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard. When Limbaugh reiterated the sentiment this weekend, hundreds of Republican conservatives cheered him on. But instead of rebuking the radio personality or charting their own course, Republican leaders in Washington are paralyzed with fear of crossing their leader. Less than 24 hours after committing the unforgivable sin of criticizing Limbaugh, RNC Chairman Michael Steele felt compelled to publicly apologize. He was not the first and will certainly not be the last.

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McCain to Help Obama Get a Line-Item Veto

:: McCain, angry at all the pork in the omnibus budget (from the last/110th Congress), blasted President Obama for deciding to sign the spending bill.

"The measure has over 9,000 unnecessarily and wasteful earmarks. So much for the promise of change," McCain said. "What are we doing here? Not only business as usual; an outrageous insult to the American people."

Within a few hours, McCain did an about face, and said that he would reintroduce legislation to give the president a line-item veto right, in order to enable him to go after wasteful spending.

On Tuesday, McCain, along with Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), announced that he would reintroduce legislation to provide the president with a line-item veto to target wasteful spending. This came just one week after the president's press secretary, Robert Gibbs, told reporters that Obama would "love to take [a line-item veto] for a test drive."

Had McCain deliberately greased the legislative wheels to give the president the tool he desired? Or was he simply acting on a long-held view about how best to combat wasteful spending? The Senator's office did not immediately say whether they had talked to the White House about the measure.

READ MORE HERE.
AP photo.
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WATCH: Matthews - Strike the Filibuster and Let the Majority Rule!

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Rush Limbaugh: the Real Leader of the GOP

Progressives to Challenge Incumbent Democrats in Primaries

:: A new organization, Accountability Now PAC, will hold Democrats accountable by targeting those viewed as not acting in the best interests of their constituents. From HUFFPOST:

Accountability Now PAC will officially be based in Washington D.C., though its influence is designed to be felt in congressional districts across the country. The group will adopt an aggressive approach to pushing the Democratic Party in a progressive direction; it will actively target, raise funds, poll and campaign for primary challengers to members who are either ethically or politically out-of-touch with their voters. The goal, officials with the organization say, is to start with 25 potential races and dwindle it down to eight or 10; ultimately spending hundreds of thousands on elections that usually wouldn't be touched.

"Most of the time, regardless of your record in Washington, an incumbent does not have to worry about being challenged in a primary," explained Jeff Hauser, an online Democratic operative who will serve as the group's executive director. "This only increases the power of the Washington echo chamber and the influence of lobbyists. We are trying to change that... We think there are potentially talented challengers out there who think the process of mounting a primary challenge is simply too daunting. When you bring to bear the resources of national organizations and the influence of the netroots, you can help these potential candidates."

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GOP Forces 10% increase in Congressional Budget to Retain Their Own Staffing Levels

:: These people truly, truly need to BE GONE, before Webster changes the definition of hypocrisy to include the term "Republican". The Republicans insisted on maintaining their staffing levels in spite of the fact that they lost 20% of their congressional seats in 2008. Aside from the utter hypocrisy/absurdity evidenced in this, we should ask ourselves why they require that additional staff. Perhaps campaign activities on the taxpayer dime?  From Think Progress:

We had a situation — you should direct that question to Senator McConnell because we had trouble organizing this year. He wanted to maintain a lot of their staffing even though they had lost huge numbers. And the only way we could get it done is to do what we did.

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