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POPS Miller Time Sure, the last Beer Summit was an empty political gesture, something Obama was forced into after he stepped in it.* This one could actually be meaningful, if everyone behaves, sincerely tries to become a better person … which is asking a lot, I know. Likelihood of it happening? Zip. But maybe the White House Press Corps, which initiated the last Beer Summit, could try to prompt this one. By asking the president about it, like they did last time. Checking Google news, not seeing that has happened. * Boston Herald, take a bow. Fired the twin rockets of Sgt. Crowley’s distinctly unracist past and his position as a police academy racial profiling instructor that blew up that race thing in Gates’ and Obama’s faces. I remember watching Gates on CNN that afternoon, and the president at his press conference that night, thinking, “Have a good time, guys. Rockets impact in the a.m.” If Skip had just returned our calls …
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POPS"a bitterness has infected our politics that has weakened our country..." Some excellent commentary by Joe Scarborough, including a fresh, non-partisan perspective on President Obama’s attempt to get the Olympic games in Chicago. I hope/believe that those who follow this approach to politics and partisanship will emerge as the powerful class in Congress. I fully understand that right now those who talk loudest and criticize most harshly get the spotlight. But i think most Americans are pretty tired of it and desensitized to it. It seems to me that most people are looking for leaders who will vigorously and rationally debate the issues - but do so in a way that shows that country comes before party.
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POPSACORN Comes Under Closer Scrutiny In New York
or loan counseling services. That may be where you would hope the money goes, but they don't specifically set out how monies should be spent when dividing up member items in the state budget. The New York Times finally ran one of its reporters out to discuss the developing situation with ACORN, but he focuses on the partisanship of those pushing the videos and avoids serious scrutiny of the discussion of illegal activities on the videos. The fact is that ACORN hires people with a certain moral and ethical flexibility that allows them to slip right into these kinds of conversations with the greatest of ease. They had no problem discussing how to avoid legal entanglements for running child prostitution rings, brothels, and other illegal activities out of properties purchased with ACORN's assistance. What that suggests is that ACORN training is far from okay. It suggests a serious breakdown of procedures, and a failure of oversight. It also suggests that the organization . . .
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POPSRacial Simmer It's not talked about (except Carter's comment). But it needs to be. Bring it out in the open and shout it from the mountaintops. Racism is alive and well, albeit below the surface for the most part. But it is acting like the driving force. The hidden engine, if you will, of the hate and shouting emanating from the Right these days. The message from these KKK wannabees is clear. The President is not one of us. He is to be feared. He's not fit for the job. It has nothing to do with facts. The people protesting, for the most part, are angry because a black man is their leader and they just can't wrap their small minds around that. The continuance of this hate and bigotry makes me profoundly sad and worried for our country.
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POPS Organs For Health Care and I don’t want to spend the rest of my career waste-deep in a tub of hybrid vehicle battery acid. I just want to note a major beneficial aspect of the one-party autocracy system that Friedman left out. The work camps for political prisoners. Not only would they be a great place to throw angry peasants and annoying right-wing talk show hosts, shutting them up and making them a useful source of cheap labor for jobs that undocumented comrades don’t want to do, like working in vats full of whatever chemicals they need to make all the ”green” stuff. But the government also could sell their organs to help pay for universal health care. There, that’s my idea.
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POPSDump the Incumbents 4. It is partisanship over constituents-Each party's focus is on defeating and sabotaging each other. 5. Both parties love voter apathy and take the necessary steps to ensure a low voter turnout. 6. They have created an incumbency protection racket and called it campaign finance reform. 7. They have created a system where the truth is so hidden that they have to hire a staff that is skilled at cover ups, evasion, spin, lies, disinformation, half-truths, feigned ignorance, sudden memory loss, manipulation of facts, distortions, controlled polling, double standards, and blame-shifting.
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POPSTea Party movement smells like racism I went to a meeting of these folks. They were being led by a failed Republican congressional candidate from the Deep South, who was also a loser in Chico's elections last year. Everything I saw and heard at the meeting sounded like Fox News/Republican Party non-ideas. Sensing partisanship on their Web site I sought information. Choosing the direct route, I asked via e-mail. Are you Republicans? I asked. They would not deny it. Are you racists? I asked. They would not deny that either. Wow. You'd think they would. Their position is more understandable now. They are not completely stupid, just afflicted with one of the oldest diseases known to mankind. Narrow minds. > Talk about a narrow minded moron - Quentin - no one can top you on that <
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POPSObama's Great Race to Change America By Victor Davis Hanson But he has earned almost no bipartisan support for his proposed legislation. After six months in office, he still blames George Bush for much of the country's problems. When Attorney General Eric Holder called Americans "cowards" for not discussing race honestly, when Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor claimed Latina judges would make wiser decisions than white male judges in some cases, and when the president himself said police had "stupidly" arrested his friend Henry Louis Gates, the public saw more of the old tired identity politics. And despite promises of a new ethics in Washington, there are still tax avoiders and revolving-door lobbyists in the Obama administration just like in any other past presidency. Third, there is a vague sense of foreboding about the future and the direction the country is going. The amount of money George Bush proposed the government borrow at the end of his presidency now looks small. "Trillion" has replaced "billion" as the common . . .
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POPSWhat Is Freedom Worth? These are moments in history whose salience it is simply impossible to know as they happen. But today has already demonstrated both the total bankruptcy of the current Iranian regime and the immense bravery, humanity and genius of the Iranian people. 1.45 pm. Shiraz erupts. 1.44 pm. Via NIAC, translation of the chants: “I welcome death I welcome death But not subjugation But not subjugation” 1.36 pm. Kristol and Hayes want Obama to say what the regime now falsely accuses him of saying. No, they won't learn. Their ideology is too rigid for actual judgment and their partisanship too deep to support the president at a moment like this. 1.33 pm. Kevin Sullivan: "There is a list of embassies in Tehran floating around, as injured protesters are being encouraged to go to them instead of hospitals. The hospitals are very like stocked full of Basijis. Question: If the embassies become overwhelmed, what happens then? In 1906, over 10,000 Persian constitutionalists occupied
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POPSACORN Internal Memo Blows Cover Off Its Claims Of "Non-Partisan" Status Worse, ACORN is competing for $8 billion in Stimulus dough, thanks to President Obama. So where does the money go? Fox News traced the money to a single, small funeral parlor in New Orleans on Elysian Fields Avenue. It appears to be a bank for ACORN and as many as 268 of its far-left affiliates. And some of its affiliates -- like "The ACORN Institute" -- are 501(c)(3) organizations. To maintain its tax-exempt status, various arms of ACORN purport to be a non-partisan, community support organizations. These are laughable propositions, to be sure, but thus far have resisted attempts to puncture their complex corporate veils. In other words, ACORN plotted a national campaign to benefit a Democrat Party takeover of Congress, explicitly naming the Democrats as beneficiaries of their "largesse". Sounds non-partisan, eh? You can read the entire memo here, preserved for posterity. http://docs.google.com/View?id=dw454vd_19c8nb9qcg
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POPSChina: Stimulus Appears To Kick In. China had a massive (relative to economic size) stimulus that is _investing_ in the country's infrastructure. Obama's stimulus, also beginning to show signs of helping the economy, has been hampered by old guard thinking that promotes destructive and vicious partisanship and thinks that the only solution to any economic problem is more tax cuts. Will this be seen as the moment where backward thinking and vicious partisan politics in the U.S. hampered our response and opened the door to Chinese supremacy in Asia? Let's hope not.
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POPSSteele Claims He's Done With President Obama!
Con't: And the latest poll is telling us that Murphy (D) now has a 4-point lead in that race. With Steele's job possibly hinging on the outcome, I believe the GOP would like Steele's attention off of the President at least until after the special election. Democrat Scott Murphy has taken a 4 percentage point lead over Republican Jim Tedisco in the race for the 20th Congressional District, according to the latest Siena Research Institute poll. That's outside the 3.2 percent margin of error. However, by a 10-point margin, more voters think Tedisco, an Assemblyman, will end up beating Murphy in the special election, the poll said. Murphy, a venture capitalist, erased a 4 percentage point deficit in just two weeks. Tedisco’s campaign is seen as being more negative than Murphy’s by a 44-25 percent margin, according to the Siena Research Institute survey. The NRCC is so frightened by the prospect of losing in a Republican district that they've pulled out the 9/11 --
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POPSFirst 100 Days - ala Wiki (Editable) Humorous, fairly moderate satirical, and mostly fictional re-telling of the Obama Administration as it unfolds. Fun reading as it is, and you are the author. I think it's beauty is the lack of bitter, vengeful edits of high partisanship and, while the fictional happenings may seem wild, the narcissistic audacity of our dear leader and crew in reality make these tall-tales seem not so far from being reality on any given day.
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POPSProposal to Eliminate Cost-of-Living Pay Raises for Congress Vitter's amendment would turn it off permanently, but is expected to be defeated on a bipartisan vote. Lawmakers are going ahead and pocketing the $5,000 salary increase they got at the beginning of this year to raise their salaries to $174,000. Vitter's amendment is getting a vote after Republicans Thursday night successfully blocked a Democratic effort to close debate on the omnibus bill. Republicans were unhappy that they were only allowed to offer a handful of amendments. But fewer and fewer "old school" members remain in Congress and the increasingly bitter partisanship has eroded a truce that used to exist between the parties on the issue. House Democrats used the issue when taking control in the 2006 elections by running ads against those who support the system.
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POPS Prosperity In A Crisis If the American public is finding it difficult to muster enthusiasm about the stimulus bill, perhaps that is because ordinary taxpayers are growing suspicious that there is little in the bill that will make them more prosperous in the future than they are now. Similarly, international observers are beginning to wonder whether this bill will do much to help the American economy, the recovery of which is necessary to help the global economy. Obama has done little to make clear to the American people what he considers to be the fundamentals of a prosperous society, even though he is prepared to spend nearly a trillion dollars in its pursuit. The nature of prosperity is a question for our times. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush all got elected with relatively clear positions on what the underlying factors of a successful economy and society looked like, and they offered policy proposals based on those factors. Obama did not, and as an anxious public worries . . .
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POPSPorn and Politics Special understanding? Uniquely qualified? Please enlighten us as to what special understanding and unique qualities does having sex with anyone who breathes makes her think she is more capable than someone engaged in legitimate employment facing the daily struggle of putting food on their table and keeping a roof over their head. Has the state of our political system gotten so distorted and fallen to such a low level of respect that this proposal can be entertained as serious? As if to say, “people we have elected to political office exhibit the same low-moral character of the porn industry so why not elect a person whose only qualifications are that she ‘rose to the top of her profession’. Am I part of a dying breed that thinks ethics and morality should still be considered as legitimate values? Perhaps the time is right for porn to get into politics. Politicians have screwed us out of everything else we hold dear.
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POPSLimbaugh Well-Liked by Many, but Not All, Republicans Given the deliberately partisan and ideological nature of Limbaugh's radio program, the sharp divide in views of the talk-show host by partisanship are not surprising. Still, the data from Gallup's Jan. 30-Feb. 1 poll show that Republican support for Limbaugh is not monolithic. Although a clear majority of 60% of Republicans have a favorable opinion of Limbaugh, a not-insignificant 23% have an unfavorable opinion. Seventeen percent of Republicans say they have no opinion of Limbaugh either way (either because they haven't heard of him or don't know enough about him to say).
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POPS Pelosi Dismisses Bi-Partisanship Pelosi — speaking to reporters on the second day of her retreat with House Democrats at a swank Williamsburg, Va., golf resort — was clearly annoyed with Senate attempts to slash up to $100 billion in spending from the $819 billion package the House passed last week. At the same time, she urged the need for speed in passing the package — and stopped short of saying that she’d insist on her demands during upcoming conference negotiations with the Senate.
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POPSThe Joy of Rebubbacan Hysteria From source: Scenario B -- the far more likely one, in my opinion -- is that dark Republican prayers to the economic gods will go unanswered and the economy indeed will have lifted by late 2010. In this scenario, at the rate they're going and given the spectacled manner in which they're doing it, Republicans will have effectively extinguished themselves as a national party of serious opposition.
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POPSDems To Leadership: Cut GOP Loose Makes sense to me. They make demands that they say must be met to get their votes, they get concessions they demanded, then vote against it anyway. Bi-partisanship is a two way street. If one side tries and the other purposefully snubs them, the only thing trying again is likely to accomplish is getting snubbed again. The Rethuglicans seem to have forgotten that they're votes aren't even needed. Obama and the Dem House leadership were basically just being polite and got slapped in the face for their trouble. I'm liking the Republican plans to lose even more seats in 210
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POPSRepubs. Object to Stimulus Dollars for (such as) ACORNe I think that American citizens from both sides of the economy issue recognize that these so-called "stimulus" packages are getting beyond ridiculous and someone needs to reign them in. Now would be a good time for some genuine bi-partisanship
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POPSBoehner Tells GOP to Vote Against Stimulus I know Obama's going with the "post-partisan" thing of his, but if the Republicans aren't willing to move beyond partisanship, then he should say, "Screw 'em." He doesn't need their votes, their input is inane in its Hooverism, and they're being obstructionist for political gain. Maybe Republicans need a demonstration of just how irrelevant this BS has already made them. Steamroller them, get the stimulus you want, then invite the GOP to work with you on the next issue. If the lesson still hasn't sunk in, do it again. And again. Make every Republican member of Congress run with a record of complete ineffectiveness in their next reelection campaigns. And they think they got their asses kicked last time...
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