BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days

Subject: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 04:31 PM

The age of post-political politics is officially over (it took three days):

THE PLAN:

Democrats -- spend money! get us out of trouble (more government!)
Republicans -- tax cuts! can't spend out of trouble (less government!)

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 04:37 PM

Democrats -- spend money! get us out of trouble (more government!)
Republicans -- tax cuts! borrow MORE money to get us out of trouble (still more government, but without oversight or rules on spending!)

Don't be silly. BOTH parties are going to spend money (there's that $700 B-for-billion that was authorized by W, for instance, not to mention the "stimulus package" a year ago) and both borrowing it, most likely from China or the EU. And in case you missed it, Obama has ALSO proposed tax cuts.

If I'm going to bail you out from your own foolishness I really, really WANT to put regulations on you and know how you spend MY money.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 04:48 PM

The main difference between the Republicans and Democrats is that, while they would both spend large amounts of taxpayer and borrowed money, with the Republicans, the money would go to further enrich their already rich cronies, and with the Democrats, the money will go to help the majority of taxpayers as well as the economy and the country's infrastructure.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 04:53 PM

Right, Carol...

The Repubs think the answer is more "trickle-down"??? Hmmmmm, wonder what happened to the $350B we allready gave the rich??? No one seems to know but it sho nuff didn't trickle down...

But the Repubs say, "Trust us... We just need more of that sough and it will eventually trickle down..."

Problem is that is what they have been saying since Ronald Reagan and if it ain't happened yet then it ain't gonna happen ever...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: freda underhill
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 05:05 PM

He's been in for 3 days.

The first foreign leader he contacted was Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian authority.

He announced a wage freeze for all White House staff earning more than $100,000 a year. "Families are tightening their belts, and so should Washington," he says

On day 2 he signed an order to close Guantanamo Bay prison and prohibit torture of suspected terrorists.

He names peacebrokers George Mitchell and Richard Holbrooke as special envoys to the Middle East and to Pakistan and Afghanistan respectively.

The honeymoon is still happening as far as I'm concerned.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: freda underhill
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 05:09 PM

.. and re spending money .. all the money he has is taxpayers money. taxpayers are entitled to have it spent on improving the economy. and spreading it about, to ordinary people. it's their money. and they are the workers who keep the economy moving.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: bald headed step child
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 05:25 PM

He also issued an executive order to overturn a Bush order that restricted funding to international health care agencies who offer abortions.

That should not be construed to mean that we are funding abortion, just that we are expanding the number of international organisations who are eligible for funding.

Under Bushes order the organisations we supposedly sent to fight the AIDS epidemic in Africa could not even suggest the use of condoms.

He has a lot of work ahead of him just trying to undo the damage of the last 8 yrs, and actually as pointed out by Bobert, the last 30 yrs, as most of these problems began with Reaganomics.

Change is a comin, ain't nowhere to go but up. :)

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 06:01 PM

He wants to give lower income wage earners more of their paychecks by not withholding so much tax, but frankly, that isn't going to make a big difference to me (as one of those relatively low income wage earners). I'd rather see him sink it into projects that put people in the area back to work. If they do actually (for example) put solar collectors on all federal buildings (not just Federal Buildings) then the expertise and the availability of materials ought to both go up. It means this kind of project is something that can trickle out into the community as well.

My two cents.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 06:09 PM

The main difference between Republicans and Democrats, is only in perception!..Neither have the common interests of you and me, in their agendas...which of course, is two halves of a whole! Another thing they have in common, is they are both corrupted to the core!

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 06:20 PM

Well, GfS, we'll see??? Yeah, yer prolly right but I'm gonna give Obama a chance to see if he is the Trojan Horse... 'Cause that is the only way that the Repubocratic stanglehold can ever be broken short of armed revolution... And, frankly, I ain't into shooting at people...

But we all know of your complete distain for Obama... It ain't no secret here... So I reckon you will join hands with the Bushites here a blast Obama every chance you get...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: bald headed step child
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 06:45 PM

I would agree there are people in both parties who are corrupt, and there are good in both also.

I do feel though that Obama is a different kind of man than we have seen in politics for a long time. I believe he does care about average people. I may be wrong, but if I am I know I won't be alone.

He has my total support, and if he fails it won't be from lack of trying, it will probably be from sabotage by those who are happy with the way things have been going.

I always considered myself politically conservative, but the republicans haven't been that for years. I know they still try to claim that's what they are, but most of the people in the Republican party don't even know what a conservative is anymore.

And before the comments start coming I will restate "political conservative". Not religious conservative. Not social conservative. Not neo-conservative. There are extreme differences in all these and I am not going to explain them all. If you don't know the difference, try reading a book instead of burning them.

Sorry folks, that last paragraph was for a select few. They know who they are. Don't know their names though, cuz a the hoods and all that.

I look forward to the coming times, I think there will be a lot of good stuff going on.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Will Fly
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 07:10 PM

I just hope - for the sake of all my good buddies in the US - that Obama lives up to the impression that he has created in the minds of many Americans as someone who WILL make change.

I remember my euphoria when Blair came to power in the UK - the incredible feeling that here was someone who was young, fresh, principled, powerful - full of potential. In a very short time, all this fell by the wayside and he was ultimately revealed as a liar, a short-termist, a corrupt man - in short, no different from any other politician.

I hope, for all of you, that this pattern is not repeated with BO.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 07:21 PM

I am not so sure that I was that convinced by Blair personally even then, but I remember the heady sense that the venal rich had been disempowered. Of course, Blair did go to Fettes.

I am encouraged by the fact that the first European leader to speak to Obama the president was Brown, and that Obama seems to be following the lead that Brown gave on managed and controlled (those words are important) reflation.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 07:25 PM

Just because the hyenas and plutocrats have been beaten back from the hearth does not mean they will stop howling around the door.

I have yet to hear a positive3 plan from the lopyal opposition, except for cutting corporate taxes.

This presupposed that companies, of and by themselves can find ways to remedy social ills. This is not the case. The market is not the sole judge of social well-being, god only knows. This trickle-down crap is not the answer, because it hasn't worked. In fact the worst economy we have ever had was born in the throes of Bushian tax cuts and corporate support. You would think SOMEONE on the other side of the aisle would be able to put two and two together.   It takes a real hard-nosed dedication to blind ignorance to not see that something fails in such large ways.

A

A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 07:26 PM

The proof will be in the pudding. If we get a tax cuts (I anticipate at least two for us, one for our personal income and one for our corporation, plus a tax credit to our corporation for providing us with health insurance), then I will know that there is a substantial difference between the Democrats and the Republicans at least on the issue of who their economic policies are designed to help.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 07:42 PM

"Right-Wing Myths About The Stimulus


Last week, House Democrats released an $825 billion economic recovery package, which consists of $550 billion in government spending and $275 billion in tax cuts. The provisions in the plan were marked up by various congressional committees this week, with the goal of passing a full stimulus package sometime in mid-February. Though they voiced some support when President Obama initially laid out his vision for a stimulus plan, conservatives balked upon seeing the bill that emerged from the House. Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) made his opposition known by simply saying "Oh. My. God." Conservatives have coalesced around "alternative" stimulus proposals like one crafted by the Republican Study Committee (RSC). But in their opposition, conservatives have propagated several myths about the stimulus and its potential effect on the economy. Here are the three most prominent conservative stimulus myths, and why they amount to nothing more than hot air.
 
MYTH 1 -- SPENDING IS NOT STIMULATIVE: In response to the stimulus plan, conservatives on the House Budget Committee released a report stating that the proposal "pours taxpayers' money" into projects, "many of which may be worthy in themselves, but have little to do with 'stimulating' the economy." Harvard professor Robert Barro derided the plan as "voodoo economics," while right-wing pundit Michelle Malkin claimed that it will "at most be useless." However, an analysis by Moody's Economy.com found that government spending results in more significant "bang for the buck." For every dollar invested in specific types of spending, the boost in real GDP is more than $1.30. The most benefit comes from extending unemployment benefits ($1.64) and increasing food stamps ($1.73), but strong returns result from infrastructure investment ($1.59) and aid to state and local governments ($1.36), as well. Furthermore, Moody's also noted, "A well-timed, targeted, and temporary stimulus could in fact cost the Treasury less in the long run, since a debilitating recession would severely undermine tax revenues and prompt more government spending for longer." Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's and former adviser to Sen. John McCain's (R-AZ) presidential campaign, released his analysis of the House plan on Wednesday, and concluded that it would "provide a vital boost to the flagging economy," without which full employment would not return until 2014.
 
MYTH 2 -- STIMULUS WON'T CREATE JOBS: Last week, Boehner claimed, "When it comes to slow-moving government spending programs, it's clear that it doesn't create the jobs or preserve the jobs that need to happen." Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said that "even if consumption were to bump up, it would not lead businesses to expand and to add jobs." However, as former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich explained, "The stimulus plan will create jobs repairing and upgrading the nation's roads, bridges, ports, levees, water and sewage system, public-transit systems, electricity grid, and schools." It stands to reason that investing in infrastructure is going to lead to job creation, as someone needs to be hired to actually complete the various projects. By investing $100 billion in clean energy infrastructure alone, the Center for American Progress (CAP) has estimated that 2 million jobs can be created in the next two years. Aid to states through bolstering Medicaid also "generates business and gets people into jobs," as a recent report by Families USA showed: "The new dollars pass from one person to another in successive rounds of spending, generating additional business activity, jobs, and wages that would not otherwise be produced." Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Christina Romer and Vice President Biden aide Jared Bernstein, meanwhile -- by using the "1% of GDP equals 1 million jobs rule of thumb" -- estimated that a stimulus plan will create or save three million jobs. According to their calculations, "30% of the jobs created will be in construction and manufacturing," while "the other two significant sectors that are disproportionately represented in job creation are retail trade and leisure and hospitality."

MYTH 3 -- PERMANENT TAX CUTS ARE THE BEST STIMULUS: The only stimulus idea that conservatives are wholeheartedly supporting is permanent tax cuts. At a hearing before the RSC, Romney, former eBay CEO Meg Whitman, and Americans for Tax Reform President Grover Norquist all claimed that the stimulus should include permanent corporate tax cuts, while Barro claimed that fully "eliminating the federal corporate income tax would be brilliant." But CAP'sWill Straw explained, "The track record for such steps is poor in general, but they are particularly ill-suited for a recessionary period. After all, the reason that businesses and individuals are not investing at the moment has little to do with the taxes they may pay in the future and everything to do with a fear of losing money because there is no demand in the economy." The Heritage Foundation, meanwhile, proposed an "alternative" to the House stimulus: "permanent tax reductions such as the ones Congress passed in 2003." "Tax cuts like those have a proven track record of encouraging economic growth," wrote Heritage. But this is simply the same supply-side approach adopted by the Bush administration, and the evidence that it helps economic growth is "weak at best." An analysis by the Center for American Progress Action Fund shows that every $10 billion spent on this kind of cut would create or save just 10,000 jobs, "versus nearly 60,000 jobs which could be created or saved by extending unemployment benefits and food stamps or investing directly in energy, transportation and education infrastructure." Furthermore, permanent measures will exacerbate the long-term debt much more than temporary measures will."...

(Progressive)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 08:06 PM

The only things that trickle down are pee and snot.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: kendall
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 08:17 PM

Trickle down has failed. So, let's try bubble up.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 08:20 PM

You have to accept that the greedy rich are trying to make sure that they get 110% of all economic aid.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 09:05 PM

"The main difference between Republicans and Democrats, is only in perception!..Neither have the common interests of you and me, in their agendas...which of course, is two halves of a whole! Another thing they have in common, is they are both corrupted to the core!" Go away. This is not a subject that you can discuss sanely.
On second thought, I'm sure Amos is right when he says: 'Just because the hyenas and plutocrats have been beaten back from the hearth does not mean they will stop howling around the door." So howl away.

I've been listening to the Republicans in disbelief. They are spouting all this rhetoric about the stimulus package, saying that this is money that is being borrowed from future generations, that tax cuts are the answer... on and on.

No one seems to remind them that tax cuts are a great part of what brought us to this pass.

And where was their concern about future generations way back when? As far as I'm concerned, the Republicans had their chance and didn't take it. They too would rather howl.

John Boehner, GOP, had a suggestion, though, that seemed it should be looked at. He said (paraphrased) that the federal government should be allocating the money to the states rather than doing it from the federal level because the states already know the need and have the means set up to get money into the hands of the people quickly, much faster than a federal program can.

The downside of that, probably, is that monitoring, oversight, would be a nightmare.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 09:34 PM

Whatever is done had better be done pretty damned fast. Arguing about whether or not FDR did what brought the country out of the Depression is pointless when your kids are hungry. Arguing about ideology will get you tossed out of Congress when your "constituents" are without jobs, homes, and hope. Ranting on and on doesn't get a sick person well.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: pdq
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 09:38 PM

"John Boehner, GOP, had a suggestion, though, that seemed it should be looked at. He said (paraphrased) that the federal government should be allocating the money to the states rather than doing it from the federal level because the states already know the need and have the means set up to get money into the hands of the people quickly, much faster than a federal program can."

Ebbie sez: "The downside of that, probably, is that monitoring, oversight, would be a nightmare."

Sorry to disagree, but the state governments, all 50 of them, must be assumed to be honest and capable of doing such a job.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 10:39 PM

I think you are right, pdq, but why didn't the previous government try that?

It is also true that the banks, the auto industry, Wall Street itself, got us in a world of hurt when we assumed they must be honest and capable of doing such a job.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 24 Jan 09 - 11:36 PM

If we didn't have corrupt and dishonest state governments, we wouldn't have so many governors, former governors, and members of Congress going to prison all the time.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: katlaughing
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 12:23 AM

I've been listening to the Republicans in disbelief. They are spouting all this rhetoric about the stimulus package, saying that this is money that is being borrowed from future generations, that tax cuts are the answer... on and on.

ONe wonders why they didn't say that when they and Bush borrowed money form China for his stimulus plan last year. The GOP is an endangered species and they are going to try every thing they can to put up road blocks for ANY good which may be done, but they will not succeed. They are stuck in the Divider More, following their former leader. President Obama is a Uniter and will be quite successful.

pdq, are you being ironic? What basis do you use to say state governments MUST be honest, etc. Remember what they say about "ass you & mee" ing?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 02:56 AM

This is disappointing, however...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090124/world/pakistan

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: bald headed step child
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 03:19 AM

I heard about this early this morning, and yes it is disappointing when innocent civilians are killed.

However, these people have been hiding in this area for the last 7 years and the Pakistani gov't has done little to discourage them.

It has seemed to me that it has been some kind of running joke between the Bush administration and Pakistan.

Obama made no bones about it during the campaign or since the election.

Bush made virtually no attempts to get these people who WERE responsible for the attacks on 9/11, choosing instead to slaughter innocent Iraqui's to further his own agenda.

These are the same people who launch attacks on humanitarian aid convoys, blow up schools, and send people to spray acid on little girls who only want to go to school, all the while being hidden by these innocent civilians

Rather than issue complaints about the U S missile strikes, the Pakisatani gov't needs to get off their asses and do something about the problem.

Obama has made it pretty clear that there won't be any more "nudge nudge, wink wink" when it comes to dealing with al qaeda.

I hate when innocents die every bit as much as others, but an end has to come to this sooner or later and I hope that by Obama showing he means business, it will be sooner.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 04:41 AM

I think it will backfire. From the article...

"Pakistani leaders complain that the more than 30 missile strikes since August have fanned anti-American sentiment and undermined the government's own efforts to counter Islamic militants.

One thing we ought to have learned by now (sheesh), is that when we kill their wives, children, and grandparents, we create more extremists, whom we then have to fight.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: bald headed step child
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 04:57 AM

Yes and no.

When the IRA was asked during disarmament if their wives knew what they were up to, the reply was "who do you think was hiding the weapons?"

The Pakistani gov't is going to say whatever is politically expediant for them. The point still remains, they have done little to solve the problem, partly because the Bush administration didn't want them to.

Things are changing and they are going to have to understand that their good buddy George ain't in charge no more.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 05:19 AM

Killing children always backfires. No amount of rationalization will ever change that.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: bald headed step child
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 05:24 AM

That's what I keep thinking.

How many children have the Taliban and al Qaeda killed in the same area in the same time?

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 05:31 AM

The difference between us and the Taliban and al Qaeda is that we can only win our battles if we also win the hearts and minds of the people of the countries where we are trying to make a difference. al Qaeda and the Taliban, on the other hand, win their battles by scaring people. What works for them will not work for us.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: bald headed step child
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 05:47 AM

I think you should look alittle deeper into the subject.

I believe that al Qaeda and the Taliban do have the hearts and minds of their people. I believe they have done so by deception, but that is beside the point, or is it?

Terrorists try to instill fear in their enemies,(that would be us),and win the hearts of their countrymen by battling the enemy,(again, us).

They have convinced the civilian population there that they are the good guys, and we are the bad guys. In other words, to them WE are the terrorists.

In the meantime, they blow up schools, and kill innocents who only want a better way of life, because these are tools aimed at the destruction of their way of life.

So, keeping this in mind, is it all still as black and white for you?

BHSC

PS, this is not an attack on you Carol, or anyone else, just a friendly chat.:)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 06:00 AM

We cannot win the hearts and minds of either the people of Pakistan or the people of Afghanistan by killing the children of those countries. We know from experience that when we do that, we increase the number of people we then have to fight, rather than reducing their number. This is something we know from experience, and we have also been told by the government of Afghanistan, and now also Pakistan.

Our killing the children of those places is the best recruiting tool groups like the Taliban and al Qaeda have. Battling us only wins the hearts and minds of previously non-extremist people if those people feel that they have a legitimate grievance with us. Without that sense of grievance, the Taliban and al Qaeda have nothing whatever to work with. In the meantime, if they are blowing up schools and killing innocents themselves, they can't really be said to be trying to win hearts and minds, now, can they? Obviously not. If that is what they are doing, then they are attempting to rule through fear. That way of doing things works for them to a very limited degree, but we have seen that when al Qaeda pisses off enough people, they don't receive the assistance they need to continue to operate.

When we kill children, we make al Qaeda stronger. When they kill children, if we are not also doing the same, al Qaeda becomes weaker.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: bald headed step child
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 06:27 AM

I think you missed the point of my post, or maybe you just already had your mind made up that I was wrong.

Religious fundamentalists have convinced the people of a certain country that another country is trying to destroy their way of life.

They kill innocent people either directly, or indirectly, because those people have a desire for a better way of life, and are therefore tools of the enemy.

The killing will continue as long as the fundamentalists can convince the people that the enemy is bent on their destruction.

No matter what the enemy does, it will be a trick, designed to deal the fatal blow.

Any innocents who die will be considered martyrs, patriots who died for the cause.

Stand fast, as God is on our side.

The people have a common enemy and only we can protect you from them.

IF you look at it from both sides, you can see the script is the same.

So, I ask again. Is it still black and white for you?

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: kendall
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 09:13 AM

Carol C is right.

I don't know about the republican party being an endangered species, but I sure hope the Rush Limbaugh republican is. Can you believe what he said about Obama? He said "We hope he fails." What kind of blind stupid asshole makes a remark like that? If that is the attitude of the republican party, it deserves to die out.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 10:27 AM

I think the problem -- exemplified by Rush Limbaugh's remark -- is that the political systems have become so filled with corrupt and evangelical (not necessarily in the Christian sense) people that someone who is fundamentally decent -- and one of the glories of Obama is that, as far as I can tell, he is someone thoughtful and decent -- is prey to being rolled over and chewed up and spat out.   It doesn't seem to me that merely suggesting that we need to be bipartisan is enough to fight this. It is actually going to take some ruthlessness to make do. I wonder if he has it in him: to both be decent and ruthless in support of what he wants to do. It is a hard road to walk carefully down.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ron Davies
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 11:10 AM

Anybody who claims that Obama's "honeymoon" is over in 3 days seems to be incredibly naive about politics. The term "honeymoon" is absurdly misleading anyway. No president has been totally free from criticism--for any sizable period of time--including FDR--with the possible exception of Washington. (In Washington's case, the predominant sentiment when he was first "elected" (unanimously) was gratitude that he was willing, Cincinnatus-like, to try to lead a group of fractious states which might become a country. And the gratitude did not last).

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 12:37 PM

I didn't miss the point of the post. I disagree with the basic premise being offered. The only reason the religious fundamentalists are able to convince people that another country is trying to destroy their way of life is because we daily provide them with evidence to support their claims.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 01:36 PM

You don't understand, Carol. Those people holding their dead children must know that their children were killed by good bombs from people who had their long-term interests at heart. I am sure they will forgive us once they understand that.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 01:40 PM

Mr. Bi-partisan, John McCain, this morning:

"We need to make tax cuts permanent, and we need to make a commitment that there'll be no new taxes. We need to cut payroll taxes. We need to cut business taxes."

So the trillion dollar + deficit and the spending are to be paid for how? (Last I heard, the Chinese were leaving town.....)

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Sawzaw
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 01:45 PM

Reality Check:

The Money "given away" under TARP are actually loans with an obligation for repayment to the Treasury.

Tax cuts is not money printed up and given away or spent. It results in less tax money being collected by the Treasury.

The Tax "refunds" for people that do not pay income tax and the spending programs proposed by the Obamacrats will never be returned to the government. It is simply money printed up and given away or spent. It will never be recouped except for possibly a small percentage returned in taxes collected by the Treasury.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 01:45 PM

These "tax-cut" fanatics are yapping up the wrong tree as hard as they can.

What does it take to recognize a failure?



A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Sawzaw
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 01:53 PM

Amos:

First someone has to point out the failure instead of making a Nifongesque, straw man, false logic accusation with no facts to support their statement.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: bald headed step child
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 02:22 PM

The point was to look at the issue from BOTH sides.

Every one of the points I stated have been hammered at us since 9/11.

Every one of the points I stated have been hammered into the people of these other countries.

It's the age old story of "my invisible man is bigger than your invisible man, and we are right and you are the infidels".

Sorry if the sarcasm was lost on some. Next time I will try to be a little more obvious.

I was not trying to piss anyone off, just get people to think and realise there are no easy answers to this issue, but looking in the mirror for the solution is usually a good place to start.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 02:37 PM

Looking at it from both sides, it looks to me like the average civilian in Afghanistan and Pakistan is not being given enough credit for intelligence in the above arguments.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: bald headed step child
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 02:45 PM

Maybe, but the average civilian here may be getting too much credit.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 03:01 PM

Maybe. In the meantime, there's this...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090125/wl_nm/us_afghan_protest

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Sawzaw
Date: 25 Jan 09 - 10:59 PM

It's tha Sameold Sameold:

WASHINGTON â€" President Barack Obama's ban on earmarks in the $825 billion economic stimulus bill doesn't mean interest groups, lobbyists and lawmakers won't be able to funnel money to pet projects.

They're just working around it â€" and perhaps inadvertently making the process more secretive.

The projects run the gamut: a Metrolink station that needs building in Placentia, Calif.; a stretch of beach in Sandy Hook, N.J., that could really use some more sand; a water park in Miami.

There are thousands of projects like those that once would have been gotten money upfront but now are left to scramble for dollars at the back end of the process as "ready to go" jobs eligible for the stimulus plan.

The result, as The Associated Press learned in interviews with more than a dozen lawmakers, lobbyists and state and local officials, is a shadowy lobbying effort that may make it difficult to discern how hundreds of billions in federal money will be parceled out.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Donuel
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 01:40 PM

bubble up works even in a desert. Its called an Oasis.

MAD magazine has a cover showing Obama after the first 100 minutes.

Rush Limbaugh said he hopes Obama's stimulus plan fails. This week Rush seems to be giving Obama a lap dance as he calls for unity cahnge and bi-partisanship. Rush is calling all birth control abortion as he retreats to one of the last hot button issues he is allowed to exploit. It got me wondering how many children Rush has and who on earth would have allowed such a thing to happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Art Thieme
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 02:10 PM

In hopes of catching some of that trickle-down, I now wear Depends 24-7.

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Bobert
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 07:58 PM

Waterboard Rush Limbaugh... He has earned it fair and square... Might of fact, had any "liberal" come close to saying what Rush said during the mad-dask-to-Iraq the conservatives would have been talking about bringing this person up on treason charges and threatened the death penalty...

I mean, lets get real here... Alot of us here were against the invasion of Iraq but none ever said, "Geeze, I hope it fails and we get alot of our boys shot up"...

But, in essence, this is what Rush Limbaugh had said... He wants the stimulus package to fail... This will mean millions of Americans loosing their jobs... It will mean milliopns of Americans loosing their homes.... It will plunge American into the abyss but...

...at least Rush Limbaug will be happy...

This man needs to be deported... The USofA don't need his likes...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Amos
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 08:56 PM

Noe, Bobez--we gotta preserve his freedom to be an asshole, too, ya know.

It is his most precious right.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: bald headed step child
Date: 26 Jan 09 - 09:57 PM

Hey, some good might come of it. Even a lot of the "ditto-heads" are running for cover on this one.

BHSC

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 03:25 AM

Maybe an arrangement could be made with the UK government, to try him here for war crimes including torture if he was deported here. Can the US deport a US citizen?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: kendall
Date: 27 Jan 09 - 09:12 PM

Who are these people who don't pay any income taxes? How many of them are there?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 28 Jan 09 - 06:13 AM

Obama honeymoon over?

Boy oh boy.

I'm just starting to get loved up!!

Read
THIS!!!

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 07:38 AM

Obama loves up the Republicans, even has a drinks party. Result at voting time? : zilch. When is he going to get the message: these guys are dinosaurs and morons, they want, love, need to beat up on him. This bipartisanship thing is absurd.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 07:51 AM

It's his style, though. I think he understands the concept of instant karma. He keeps to the high road, and he harms no one, and people like that. When they take the low road, they just harm themselves.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 09:57 AM

The two extremes towards which Obama is sliding.....

Model one: before he was married to her, Richard Nixon used to drive Pat Nixon to dates with other men.

Model two: the emperor Augustus let the senate talk away and say what it liked, but eventually he decided they were worthless, and did what he wanted anyway.

Which will it be.......?

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 10:06 AM

Glenn Greenwald at Salon has it exactly right:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/01/29/armey/

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 10:20 AM

I think he understands that he's not playing to the Republicans in Congress. His attempts at bipartisanship and his ability to keep the tone civil and even respectful (at least out in the open), is appreciated by the majority of people who vote. I think that's part of what got him elected. So as I said, he keeps things on the high ground and he comes out smelling good. They take it down into the muck and they come out smelling pretty bad.

Personally, I wouldn't be surprised if the things they gave up in the stimulus package were just put there as bargaining chips, and they didn't really expect those items to get passed.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 12:25 PM

Kendall-
Two basic classes of non-taxpayers: the very rich and the unemployed.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 06:22 PM

This is from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), speaking about the stimulus at the Heritage Foundation:

The stimulus bill that is being championed by President Obama, which was passed by Democrats in the House last night, is the worst piece of economic legislation Congress has considered in a hundred years. Not since the passage in 1909 of the 16th Amendment -- which cleared the way for a federal income tax -- has the United States seriously entertained a policy so comprehensively hostile to economic freedom, nor so arrogantly indifferent to economic reality...

This bill is not a stimulus, ladies and gentlemen; it is a mugging. It is a fraud.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 06:34 PM

"Boehner and his colleagues pushed for a return to Bushonomics. "We have said let's do tax cuts, let's let the American people make the decisions on how they'll spend the money," said Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL), on CNBC earlier this week."That will stimulate the economy more than bringing all that money to Washington and then distributing it out in all sorts of government programs." The alternative proposed by House Republicans yesterday, which was defeated 266-170, was composed almost entirely of tax cuts. "These are the same people who told us the Bush tax cuts were going to lead to nirvana," said Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) in response to the conservative focus on tax cuts. On MSNBC yesterday, one of the most prominent proponents of the tax-cut-only approach, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), complained that the Democrats' recovery plan would take "America in a new direction." Though conservatives might be happy to be free from the "burden" of President Bush, they still seem to be longing for his failed economic policies.

SAME OLD ARGUMENTS: In 2001 and 2003, Bush pushed massive tax cuts through Congress, claiming that they were "vital" to boosting the economy and creating jobs. Though Bush initially sold his 2001 tax cut by insisting "that the federal government was running an excessive budget surplus," he quickly changed his argument as the economy worsened, claiming they would be "a form of demand-side economic stimulus." "The economy has slowed down, in which case we need to accelerate tax cuts," Bush said in a March 2001 radio address. "You see, tax relief will put money in people's pockets, which will help give the economy a second wind." "By ensuring that Americans have more to spend, to save and to invest, this legislation is adding fuel to an economic recovery," announced Bush in 2003, as he signed his tax cut legislation. "We have taken aggressive action to strengthen the foundation of our economy so that every American who wants to work will be able to find a job."

BUSH'S TAX CUTS DIDN'T WORK: Before he left office this past month, Bush told he U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce that "when people take a look back at this moment in our economic history, they'll recognize tax cuts work." But the fact is that they didn't. As Center for American Progress Senior Fellows Christian Weller and John Halpin noted in 2006, the outcome of the 2001 tax cuts was "the weakest employment growth in decades." The 2003 tax cuts didn't fare much better, resulting in job creation that was "well below historical averages." When Bush's White House proposed the 2003 cuts, they promised that it would add 5.5 million new jobs between June 2003 and the end of 2004. But "by the end of 2004, there were only 2.6 million more jobs than in June 2003." As Paul Krugman has pointed out, the belief that Bush's tax cuts successfully stimulated the economy is a form of mythology. CAP's Michael Ettlinger and John Irons wrote in September, "Economic growth as measured by real U.S. gross domestic product was stronger following the tax increases of 1993 than in the two supply-side eras" that followed Reagan's 1981 tax cuts and Bush's 2001 tax cuts. Indeed, employment growth was much stronger post-1993 than post-2001. The average annual employment growth was 2.5 percent after 1993 and just 0.6 percent after 2001. Unfortunately, the supply-side myth that tax cuts cure all still lives on today, as conservatives complain about progressive approaches to fixing the mess left by Bush Administration.: (Progressive)

---

Yes, we're for change!! We want to change back to the fgaile dpolicies of yesteryear again!!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 06:41 PM

Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN), complained that the Democrats' recovery plan would take "America in a new direction."

LOLOL


Apparently he wasn't listening to the voters when they spoke in November.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: pdq
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 07:07 PM

"This bill is not a stimulus, ladies and gentlemen; it is a mugging. It is a fraud."

Are those words from Mudcat's Peter T. or are they from Senator Jim DeMint?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 07:09 PM

To paraphrase an old adage, "Spend in haste, repent at leisure."
Instead of fixing the system, it looks like we're just going to paper it over. Sorry to say, GWB set the example for Pres. Obama.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 07:31 PM

I think on inspection you will find imporant difference, John. Accountabilty, for one; Obama is threatening to make the Wall Street execs refund their bonuses paid for failing; Bush would never have dreamed of such a move.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ron Davies
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 08:41 PM

"This bipartisan thing is absurd".   

Ah, now it becomes clear. "Obama Honeymoon Lasts 3 Days" should have read "Obama Honeymoon Lasts 3 Days With Me".

So the thread title is a bit misleading, to say the least.

For the rest of the country, it looks like it will be considerably longer. Bipartisanship--an end to the endless partisan wrangling--and resulting gridlock--was one of Obama's main appeals. If the poster is advocating a return to the GWB approach of only trying to appeal to your own party--stuff everybody else--he is in the distinct minority.

Fortunately.

Actually, far from ending the Obama honeymoon, even Congressional Republicans are very careful to not blame Obama for what they see as bad policy.   They blame Congressional Democrats--in fact they are trying to drive a wedge between the popular President and Congressional Democrats. ( Check the approval rating for the House)

Obama's response: I support the House Democrats' plan.



In addition, as I pointed out earlier, the originator of the thread shows remarkable political naivete.

It never was realistic that Obama would get many Republican votes in the House for the stimulus bill.

Primarily because both parties have sought to create safe seats for their members--and been quite successful in this. So in the House, compromise is mainly punished by voters, not rewarded. And the punishment is handed out every 2 years.    So Members keep an ear to the ground constantly.

In the Senate it's a vastly different story. As we will see shortly.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 08:56 PM

Amos, all the executive bonus and perk returns will amount to a thimble full of water from Lake Superior. However, it is a very good symbolic gesture. Makes us prols believe something substantive is being done.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 29 Jan 09 - 10:01 PM

the mugging quote is from the Senator....

My naivete is not the issue. Obama's may be.....we will see. Amos' posting makes the eloquent point that the people Obama is trying to be bipartisan with are troglodytic evangelical marketers, and are unreachable. Compromising with them equals losing.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 09:58 PM

"troglodytic..."

That ain't the way to win friends and influence people. In fact it sounds remarkably like what GWB used to do--demonize the opposition.

Obama is smarter than that--and smarter than the true believers on the Left urging that self-defeating posture.

As I said, the House is vastly different from the Senate.   Compromise is coming.   And the final bill may well get House Republican votes--as long as Obama doesn't take the advice coming from the Left on Mudcat on this thread and others.

You guys should listen to the Stones more often--specifically "You Can't Always Get What You Want".

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Riginslinger
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 10:02 PM

Now that Michael Steele is the chairman of the Republican party, who's court is the ball in?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 10:03 PM

In conversation last night we agreed that dubya Bush turned out to be the Uniter after all. 'Most everbuddy is glad he is gone.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ron Davies
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 12:05 AM

Ebbie--

Are they glad in Alaska that GWB is gone?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 03:34 AM

I really don't know, Ron. I live in Juneau, and Juneau is much more liberal than most of the state. Suffice it to say that just about everybody I know is ecstatic about it.

The other evening, however, in passing the apartment manager (recently from Seattle)I mentioned that I was off to a house party, a 'Going Away' party.

She said, Oh, are you leaving?

I said, No. But Bush is.

She said, Oh, I like Bush.

I didn't have time to ask her Why? but just said back breezily, Well, I'm glad that someone does.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 03:41 AM

I'm starting to see a certain amount of elegance in Obama's approach on this stimulus bill. He seriously courted the votes of Republicans and he and the House made a lot of concessions as a part of that effort. Not one Republican voted for the bill. This accomplishes two things. One, people can see that Obama did make the effort, and he didn't try to ram the bill down the throats of Republicans without making any compromises, and two, now that the Republicans have shown that they won't vote for it anyway, Democrats are free to change it to be more to their liking before passing it.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 06:16 AM

All I know is that it is a dangerous game.

The truth is that all this free market, small government, tax cut stuff is over. The people walking around -- like the Wall Streeters giving themselves massive bonuses -- are dead, and they don't know it yet. The next year is going to pulverize them into tiny shards. The only thing between them and being strung up on lampposts will ironically enough be Obama.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 06:29 AM

Maybe. Although I think he genuinely wanted to bring Republicans on board with this legislation. So I don't think he was trying to get the particular outcome that he got. But sometimes a person just sticks to the high road and does what's right, and anyone who tries to take advantage of the vulnerabilities this presents just ends up hurting him or herself in the end. That's one of the things that makes Obama so effective, and is why he has the approval that he does among the electorate in this country.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 05:42 PM

The classic American president who tried to save the rich from themselves was Teddy Roosevelt, and they never got the message -- they were Republicans of his own party!! -- and they booted him out the first chance they got.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 05:54 PM

Yeah. It will be interesting to see how the Republicans try to morph themselves into something that can get elected during the next few years, and what form that will take (on the surface).

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 08:49 PM

Dang. So often I simply don't understant what people are saying. "Booted him out the first chance they got"? What does that mean? Teddy Roosevelt served as president for two terms.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 06:56 AM

It's true, I was wrong the way I said it. Roosevelt was stupid enough on the evening of his victory to pledge that he wouldn't run again. But the reason he bolted the party was that he could make no progressive headway among his own Republicans.


yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Amos
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 09:43 AM

"...We also now know conclusively that the larger Bush tax cuts, besides running up record deficits and exacerbating income inequality, were also at best a placebo on our road to ruin. In a January survey of economists, including former McCain advisers like Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Mark Zandi, The Washington Post determined that the job growth the Bush administration kept bragging about ("52 straight months!") was a mirage inflated by the housing bubble. Job growth — about 2 percent — was in fact the most tepid of any eight-year period "since data collection began seven decades ago." Gross domestic product grew at a slower pace than in any eight years since the Truman administration.

But even if tax cuts alone could jump-start a recovery, they couldn't do the heavy lifting that Obama has promised and the country desperately needs: a down payment on a new economy to replace our dilapidated 20th-century model and bring back long-term growth. The Republicans don't acknowledge the need for this transformation, or debate it in good conscience, preferring instead to hyperventilate over the contraceptives in a small family-planning program since removed from the stimulus bill. All it takes is the specter of condoms for the party of Vitter, Foley and Craig to go gaga.

The Republicans' other preoccupation remains Rush Limbaugh, who is by default becoming their de facto leader. While most Americans are fearing fear itself, G.O.P. politicians are tripping over themselves in morbid terror of Rush.

These pratfalls commenced after Obama casually told some Republican congressmen (correctly) that they won't "get things done" if they take their orders from Limbaugh. That's all the stimulus the big man needed to go on a new bender of self-aggrandizement. He boasted that Obama is "more frightened" of him than he is of the Republican leaders in the House or Senate. He said of the new president, "I hope he fails."

Obama no doubt finds Limbaugh's grandiosity more amusing than frightening, but G.O.P. politicians are shaking like Jell-O. When asked by Andrea Mitchell of NBC News on Wednesday if he shared Limbaugh's hope that Obama fails, Eric Cantor spun like a top before running off, as it happened, to appear on Limbaugh's radio show. Mike Pence of Indiana, No. 3 in the Republican House leadership, similarly squirmed when asked if he agreed with Limbaugh. Though the Republicans' official, poll-driven line is that they want Obama to succeed, they'd rather abandon that disingenuous nicety than cross Rush.

Most pathetic of all was Phil Gingrey, a right-wing Republican congressman from Georgia, who mildly criticized both Limbaugh and Sean Hannity to Politico because they "stand back and throw bricks" while lawmakers labor in the trenches. So many called Gingrey's office to complain that the poor congressman begged Limbaugh to bring him on air to publicly recant on Wednesday. As Gingrey abjectly apologized to talk radio's commandant for his "stupid comments" and "foot-in-mouth disease," he sounded like the inmate in a B-prison-movie cowering before the warden after a failed jailbreak.

"It's up to me to hijack the Obama honeymoon," Limbaugh soon gloated, "and I've done it." In his dreams. He has hijacked what's left of the Republican Party; the Obama honeymoon remains intact. The nightmare is that we have so irrelevant, clownish and childish an opposition party at a moment when America is in an all-hands-on-deck emergency that's as trying as war. To paraphrase a dictum that has been variously attributed to two of our most storied leaders in times of great challenge, Thomas Paine and George Patton, the Republicans should either lead, follow or get out of the grown-ups' way...."(NYT)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 01 Feb 09 - 12:10 PM

get out of the grown-up's way is right. (Put away childish things....). Years of too much money make you stupid and careless....(the Bible's reason why the rich don't always have it their own way.....

my favorite muckraker is at it again today. Glenn Greenwald on the disgusting Tom Daschle:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/02/01/daschle/

(Just to show we don't play Democratic favorites around here.....)

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 05:20 PM

The Bipartisan Ship continues sinking with each passing day.   And this is long before they get to health care!


yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 05:50 PM

Well, like Carol, I am impressed with the way that Obama is dealing with the Republicans and they absolutely hate it... This is why John "Bonehead" Bayner (sp) told 'um to "jus' say no" before Obama even sat down with them...

That was stupid on the Repubs part... It made the Repubs look petty and playin' only to the Rush Limbaugh'ers... Since when was a political party run by a conservative talk show guy... Usually the other way around but seems that the Repubs have relinquished that power to Rush...

Meanwhile, Obama rides above all that crap that American peoplesay they are sick of and he looks like the real deal when it comes to changing the tone in Washington...

Obama has won this round and the Repubs, at least in the House, have blown an opportunity 'cause if their goal is to get back in power, this dog won't hunt...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 02 Feb 09 - 06:47 PM

So now I guess we'll get to see how Obama handles Israel's declared intention to attack Iran within the next year...

http://news.antiwar.com/2009/01/30/israeli-envoy-attack-on-gaza-a-preintroduction-to-attack-on-iran/

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 12:53 AM

"Roosevelt was stupid enough on the evening of his victory to pledge that he wouldn't run again. But the reason he bolted the party was that he could make no progressive headway among his own Republicans." Peter T

I still don't quite understand you. The way I remember it is that a couple of years after his two terms T. Roosevelt ran again, this time on the Progressive Party ticket which he formed after the Republican party went with Taft to run against Wilson.

Let's see- here is a link
leading to an article:

"In 1912 there were 12 states with Republican direct presidential primaries. Bob LaFollette won North Dakota and his uncontested home state, Wisconsin. President Taft won Massachusetts by a small margin. Theodore Roosevelt won in California, Illinois, Maryland, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, nine out of 12 primaries. Roosevelt's victories in the nine states were landslides , except in Maryland.

"TR carried California over Taft by a margin of almost two to one. He swept Illinois by more than two to one, and his margins in South Dakota and Nebraska were more than three to one. In Taft's home state of Ohio, the vote was LaFollete 15,570, Taft 118,362, TR 165,809. The total vote cast in all primaries was LaFollete 351,043, Taft 761,716, Roosevelt 1,157,397. Senator LaFollette won a total of 36 delegates in the primaries; the voters awarded President Taft 48 delegates; and Theodore Roosevelt won 278 delegates in the primaries.

"The voice of the people" was clear in the Republican primaries. But the voters were not allowed to "speak" in most states.This was the first year in which there were presidential primaries. The primary system had developed on the state level for state offices from the 1890s on, and in 1912 presidential primaries were introduced, often promoted by supporters of TR.

"But some 36 states had no direct popular Republican primary. In these states delegates were chosen by state conventions, and delegates to state conventions were usually chosen in local conventions. It was a system easily dominated by professional politicians, particularly in the South where there were few Republicans but many delegates. Republicans in the South were often simply federal officeholders, such as postmasters and revenue collectors.

"Rough politics was nothing new , but in 1912 records were set for riot, rough house, fraud, and dispute. The end result was that in many states contesting delegates claimed the same seats. Some 254 delegate seats to the Republican convention were contested.

"The Republican National Committee, dominated by President Taft's supporters, had the power to decide the delegate disputes. Incidentally, of the 53 members of that committee, 15 had not been elected delegates to the convention in 1912, and four came from US territorial possessions and 10 from Southern states, areas where GOP politics was completely controlled by presidential patronage. these three groups accounted for 29 members of the Republican National Committee-- a majority. Of the 254 contested seats, TR was awarded 19 and President Taft was given 235.

"About the best that could be said for the GOP adjudication process was that Taft had stolen a majority "fair and square." That is to say, what was done was probably legal , if barely so in many delegate cases. But there were no law suits and trials. The courts seldom got involved in party disputes in those days.

"A loss of 22 delegates would have denied Taft the nomination on the first ballot. The conclusion seemed obvious to Roosevelt's supporters at the Republican national convention in Chicago in June 1912. The Chicago Tribune printed a banner headline: "THOU SHALT NOT STEAL."

"Most of Roosevelt's delegates walked out of the Republican convention and held a mass meeting, where it was decided to bolt the Republican Party and found a new party. Roosevelt agreed to lead a new party if nominated . In August 1912 the national convention of the new Progressive Party met in Chicago, and nominated TR for President and Governor Hiram W. Johnson of California for Vice President.

"In November the Republicans for the first and only time in history came in third in both the popular and electoral vote for President. TR came in second, and because of the split in the normal Republican vote, Democrat Woodrow Wilson was elected.

"Never again would any political party decline to nominate the clear winner of the presidential primaries, and by the 1970s the primary system entirely controlled the nominating process. Theodore Roosevelt won the Republican primaries in 1912, and then lost the nomination and the election. Wilson won the election in November.

"But the real winner in 1912 was democracy in the form of the presidential primaries. By running and losing, by refusing to be counted out by party leaders when the voters had spoken first, Theodore Roosevelt had firmly established the new primary system."

In connection with a history project I used to do a lot of research on Teddy Roosevelt.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 02:07 AM

link

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 04:11 AM

Like I said, I was wrong the first time around. Your article confirms what I said the second time around -- he couldn't win his own Republicans because they wouldn't go with him. I didn't say that he had immense trouble throughout his two terms dealing with his own party. He was a Progressive among dinosaurs (progressive in spots).   At least Franklin was a Democrat.....

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 04:32 PM

Tom Daschle goes down.

To repeat myself, the truth is that all this carelessness, this who gives a shit about the underclass, is over -- maybe not in truth, but in perception. The people walking around -- like the Wall Streeters giving themselves massive bonuses -- are dead, and they don't know it yet. The next year is going to pulverize them into tiny shards. The only thing between them and being strung up on lampposts will ironically enough be Obama.

Except that Daschle just got his own lamppost.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: GUEST,coyote breath w/o cookie
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 05:08 PM

I love the intelligent level of most of these posts. Thoughtful. Reasoned.

So I'd like to interject my usual half-baked take on things.

A joke on Leno: "the four words we have all been waiting to hear: Former President George Bush." that sums it up for me. and then this:
is TARP an anagram for TRAP?

Is any one surprised that some of the "bail-out billions" went to executive bonuses?

Long ago, my family was rescued by FDR. I have NEVER considered Republicans to be anything but my enemy, trying constantly, to diminish the quality of life for the average person and advance the fortunes of their friends at our expense.

F--K the Bozos!

CB

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Art Thieme
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 06:25 PM

I'm with C.B. on this.

He or she said it all.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Sawzaw
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 11:44 PM

Come on Amos, you have to put the shine back on your boy's halo.

So far the only thing he has come through on is signing an order to close Gitmo. Only problem is he don't know what to do with the detainees and he ain't about to let them go.

What is the difference between Obama spending money we don't have to redecorate when America is going broke and John Thain redecorating when BOA is going broke?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Feb 09 - 11:52 PM

Sawzaw, where were you and your mouth when the Republicans were spending borrowed money? And tell me, sir, what do we have to show for it?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 12:43 AM

What did Obama redecorate?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Amos
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 01:51 AM

Sawz:

You're simply making false satements, not providing sources, and flapping your oversized mouh, as usual.

What proposition are you making, if any? What facts are you reporting?

Your unreason is beyond dialogue, honestly.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 02:57 AM

Number of days 'Honeymoon' the President should expect?








100

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 03:41 PM

From the NYTimes today, comes this.... (there is a longer piece attached about the Republican guests and their bemusement at all this.....).

Now I am convinced Obama is toast. Does he really think cookies are going to warm up these zealots so as to forgo their idiotic grandstanding crap?


Obama Woos G.O.P. With Attention, and Cookies
By JEFF ZELENY
Published: February 4, 2009
WASHINGTON — Can the shrill tone of Washington be changed through a presidential act of contrition? Or, perhaps, an enticing platter of oatmeal raisin cookies?

This week, President Obama has already served up both at the White House.

To one set of visitors, a gathering of Democratic and Republican members of Congress whom he invited to watch the Super Bowl on Sunday, he carried around the freshly baked cookies as he mingled with his guests.....

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 10:50 PM

You mean politicians don't like freshly baked cookies? :)

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ron Davies
Date: 04 Feb 09 - 11:43 PM

"...these zealots..."

More ignorance about politics. Seems to be a cornucopia of it.

Obviously Obama won't get the support of all Republicans.   But he doesn't need that.   Just a few--like Susan Collins, Olympia Snowe, and a few others.   Just to put together a package which cannot successfully be filibustered.

Showing some interest in some people in the other party is big progress. Compare GWB's approach of preaching to the converted--stuff everybody else.

Good thing the originator of the thread has close to zero clout.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Donuel
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 09:19 AM

This morning Obama delivered what I consider to be a few brief remarks that were of Gettysburg Address stature and wisdom.

These remarks were made at the National prayer breakfast.
There was only one incidence of brief light applause.
I am left thinking if the audidnce was stunned, understood what was being said, or did not take in the truth of what was being said.

There will eventually be a transcript that can be posted here or elswhere, and then you may judge for yourselves the historical impact of those few words.

As for me, I heard the expression of all my feelings about religion condensed down to a sparkling gem.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 10:43 AM

"I'm not naive," President Obama says. "I don't expect divisions to disappear overnight, nor do I believe that long-held views and conflicts will suddenly vanish. ... But I do believe that if we can talk to one another openly and honestly, and perhaps allow God's grace to enter that space between us, then perhaps old rifts will start to mend and new partnerships will begin to emerge. In a world that grows smaller by the day, perhaps we can begin to crowd out the destructive forces of zealotry and make room for the healing power of understanding.
"This is my hope. This is my prayer."

February 5 Prayer Breakfast

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Riginslinger
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 11:21 AM

Absolutely the most discouraging thing I've seen in a long, long time.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 11:39 AM

You're easily discouraged.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 12:09 PM

This is the full text of Obama's prayer. Quite a bit of Niebuhr in it. It's kind of nice. It ain't Gettysburg. It doesn't exactly take the sting out of having a White House office of Faith-based initiatives, but it is something.....


Good morning. I want to thank the Co-Chairs of this
breakfast, Representatives Heath Shuler and Vernon Ehlers.
I'd also like to thank Tony Blair for coming today, as well
as our Vice President, Joe Biden, members of my Cabinet,
members of Congress, clergy, friends, and dignitaries from
across the world.

Michelle and I are honored to join you in prayer this
morning. I know this breakfast has a long history in
Washington, and faith has always been a guiding force in
our family's life, so we feel very much at home and look
forward to keeping this tradition alive during our time
here.   

It's a tradition that I'm told actually began many years
ago in the city of Seattle. It was the height of the Great
Depression, and most people found themselves out of work.
Many fell into poverty. Some lost everything.   

The leaders of the community did all that they could for
those who were suffering in their midst. And then they
decided to do something more: they prayed. It didn't
matter what party or religious affiliation to which they
belonged. They simply gathered one morning as brothers and
sisters to share a meal and talk with God.   

These breakfasts soon sprouted up throughout Seattle, and
quickly spread to cities and towns across America,
eventually making their way to Washington. A short time
after President Eisenhower asked a group of Senators if he
could join their prayer breakfast, it became a national
event. And today, as I see presidents and dignitaries here
- 2 -
from every corner of the globe, it strikes me that this is
one of the rare occasions that still brings much of the
world together in a moment of peace and goodwill.

I raise this history because far too often, we have seen
faith wielded as a tool to divide us from one another – as
an excuse for prejudice and intolerance. Wars have been
waged. Innocents have been slaughtered. For centuries,
entire religions have been persecuted, all in the name of
perceived righteousness.            

There is no doubt that the very nature of faith means that
some of our beliefs will never be the same. We read from
different texts. We follow different edicts. We subscribe
to different accounts of how we came to be here and where
we're going next – and some subscribe to no faith at all.   

But no matter what we choose to believe, let us remember
that there is no religion whose central tenet is hate.
There is no God who condones taking the life of an innocent
human being. This much we know.   

We know too that whatever our differences, there is one law
that binds all great religions together. Jesus told us to
"love thy neighbor as thyself." The Torah commands, "That
which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow." In
Islam, there is a hadith that reads "None of you truly
believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for
himself." And the same is true for Buddhists and Hindus;
for followers of Confucius and for humanists. It is, of
course, the Golden Rule – the call to love one another; to
understand one another; to treat with dignity and respect
those with whom we share a brief moment on this Earth.   

It is an ancient rule; a simple rule; but also one of the
most challenging. For it asks each of us to take some
measure of responsibility for the well-being of people we
may not know or worship with or agree with on every issue.
Sometimes, it asks us to reconcile with bitter enemies or
resolve ancient hatreds. And that requires a living,
breathing, active faith. It requires us not only to
believe, but to do – to give something of ourselves for the
benefit of others and the betterment of our world.   

In this way, the particular faith that motivates each of us
can promote a greater good for all of us. Instead of
driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together
- 3 -
to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace
where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift
up those who have fallen on hard times. This is not only
our call as people of faith, but our duty as citizens of
America, and it will be the purpose of the White House
Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships that
I'm announcing later today.   

The goal of this office will not be to favor one religious
group over another – or even religious groups over secular
groups. It will simply be to work on behalf of those
organizations that want to work on behalf of our
communities, and to do so without blurring the line that
our founders wisely drew between church and state. This
work is important, because whether it's a secular group
advising families facing foreclosure or faith-based groups
providing job-training to those who need work, few are
closer to what's happening on our streets and in our
neighborhoods than these organizations. People trust
them. Communities rely on them. And we will help them.

We will also reach out to leaders and scholars around the
world to foster a more productive and peaceful dialogue on
faith. I don't expect divisions to disappear overnight,
nor do I believe that long-held views and conflicts will
suddenly vanish. But I do believe that if we can talk to
one another openly and honestly, then perhaps old rifts
will start to mend and new partnerships will begin to
emerge. In a world that grows smaller by the day, perhaps
we can begin to crowd out the destructive forces of
zealotry and make room for the healing power of
understanding.   

This is my hope. This is my prayer.   

I believe this good is possible because my faith teaches me
that all is possible, but I also believe because of what I
have seen and what I have lived.   

I was not raised in a particularly religious household. I
had a father who was born a Muslim but became an atheist,
grandparents who were non-practicing Methodists and
Baptists, and a mother who was skeptical of organized
religion, even as she was the kindest, most spiritual
person I've ever known. She was the one who taught me as a
child to love, and to understand, and to do unto others as
I would want done.   
- 4 -

I didn't become a Christian until many years later, when I
moved to the South Side of Chicago after college. It
happened not because of indoctrination or a sudden
revelation, but because I spent month after month working
with church folks who simply wanted to help neighbors who
were down on their luck – no matter what they looked like,
or where they came from, or who they prayed to. It was on
those streets, in those neighborhoods, that I first heard
God's spirit beckon me. It was there that I felt called to
a higher purpose – His purpose.   

In different ways and different forms, it is that spirit
and sense of purpose that drew friends and neighbors to
that first prayer breakfast in Seattle all those years ago,
during another trying time for our nation. It is what led
friends and neighbors from so many faiths and nations here
today. We come to break bread and give thanks and seek
guidance, but also to rededicate ourselves to the mission
of love and service that lies at the heart of all
humanity. As St. Augustine once said, "Pray as though
everything depended on God. Work as though everything
depended on you."   

So let us pray together on this February morning, but let
us also work together in all the days and months ahead.
For it is only through common struggle and common effort,
as brothers and sisters, that we fulfill our highest
purpose as beloved children of God. I ask you to join me
in that effort, and I also ask that you pray for me, for my
family, and for the continued perfection of our union.
Thank you.   

##

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Riginslinger
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 01:01 PM

So we have all of these domestic and foreign policy issues, and the top level political leaders are standing around mumbling at their shoes.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 01:32 PM

The focus has shifted on the "faith based" thing. It now includes secular organizations as well...

Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 05:48 PM

It appears Mr. Obama has belatedly discovered that bipartisanship is not going to work. He seems to have discovered that he is a Democrat and won the election and the Republicans are completely bereft of any ideas but tax cuts. On the job training or what.

Next stop: Israel and the Palestinians may have problems sorting out their difficulties?

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 06:53 PM

I haven't looked further but surely, that wasn't Obama's prayer>? He is talking to the assembled group, not to a deity.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Riginslinger
Date: 05 Feb 09 - 07:54 PM

These people will mumble to anything!

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: DougR
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 12:41 AM

Obama is in WAY over his head.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Sawzaw
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 02:27 AM

America is going broke and Obama gets two new jets, but BOA gets criticized for trading in three small jets and a chopper for a single, more efficient small jet.

Thain gets criticized for hiring Michael Smith to redecorate his office when Michelle Obama hires him to redecorate their personal quarters.

And what did the new Obamamobile cost? Where is the transparency?

Obama's inauguration expenses are likely to be to the tune of over $150 million, overshadowing the $42.3 million spent on George Bush's inauguration in 2005 and $33 million on Bill Clinton's in 1993.

$11 billion for a new 23-ship fleet of Marine ones? Peanuts man, we gotta get this $900B stimulus package rammed through to get those hookers off the streets in Dayton.

Sameold sameold.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Barry Finn
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 02:42 AM

Well I must say Obama did make the jesture to reach across the aisle. No one wanted to take his hand. Now it's time to move on with out them.

Goodnight repubs, to put you to sleep

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: pdq
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 11:36 AM

It took President Reagan 8 years (1982-90) to raise the US National Debt by 1.6 trillion dollars.

Bill Clinton increased the same debt by similar 1.4 trillion during the 8 years for which he was responsible (1994-2002).

Obama was the driving force behaind the $700 billion "bailout package" and has more proposed. The new "stimulius package" is getting close to 900 billion and growing daily. He says that those who do not want his legislation passed are irresponsible.

Both parts of the "bailout/stimulus package" will totat 1.6 trillion dollars. Since we have "deficit spending" at the Federal level anyway, that 1.6 trillion dollars go directly on to our National Debt.

Great, Obama. You seem to want to top Ronald Reagan's 8 years of deficit spending and do it in a matter of months.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 01:22 PM

pdq, what do you propose as the solution(s) to our situation? Seriously.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Amos
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 01:25 PM

Sawz:

The Marine Ones and jets were ordered by the Bush Administration and were delivered, if memory serves, in January.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: CarolC
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 01:46 PM

Thain didn't get criticized for hiring Michael Smith to redecorate his office. He was criticized for spending 1.2 million to redecorate his office. The Obamas are spending $100,000 to redecorate their entire living quarters.

Rumors, lies, and distortions are cheap and easy ways of scoring points, but they are still rumors, lies, and distortions, and they say far more about the people who spread them than they do about those about whom they are being spread.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: pdq
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 02:07 PM

If anyone really wants my suggestions, I say...

Give each and every state as much as they need to pay their current deficits. That will preclude massive lay-offs. Does it seem too simple and logical to keep trained government employees working rather than to lay them off while the Federal fatbutts create a 3.5 million unit "make jobs" program. Nevada only needs about $2.5 billion to keep everything "normal" this year. Major victims of the impending firings are teachers. What's yer problem, Obama.

California needs close to $40 billion to keep things going smoothly this year, but that state has 40 million people!

Figuring that the US government should spend $1 thous. per capita, give that in a cash tax rebate.

Just some ideas. Nobody is paying me millions to fix anything.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 02:34 PM

That's not a bad idea, pdq. However, human nature being what it is... For instance, Alaska is a rich state with huge reserves. But it still is - and has been for many, many years - in there pitcing for their "fair share" of the billions being proffered.

I think it's disgusting. The difference between 'needs' and 'wants' has been lost.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: pdq
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 02:45 PM

In a state like California, the government would get the whole $1 thous/per capita I proposed. They need that much to save the government from bankruptcy.

In a state like Alaska, the $1thous/per capita would be given entirely to the taxpayers as rebate checks.

Other states that need "some" help to balance the budget (say, speding at last year's level plus 4%) would get that much. The rest would go citizens through state-issued rebate checks.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Sawzaw
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 02:55 PM

Obamas tax dodging HHS pick:

"Make no mistake, tax cheaters cheat us all, and the IRS should enforce our laws to the letter." Sen. Tom Daschle, Congressional Record, May 7, 1998, p. S4507.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Sawzaw
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 03:21 PM

Jan. 23 (Bloomberg) -- John Thain, the former Merrill Lynch & Co. chief executive officer ousted yesterday, spent $1.2 million redecorating his downtown Manhattan office last year as the company was firing employees, a person familiar with the project said.

Thain hired Los Angeles-based decorator Michael Smith, chosen by President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle to redecorate the White House, CNBC reported.

Obama today said the government should give more scrutiny to companies "that have received taxpayer assistance then going out and renovating bathrooms or offices or in other ways not managing those dollars appropriately." He didn't name any companies.

Smith's firm didn't return a phone call for comment. Merrill spokeswoman Selena Morris declined to comment. Margaret Tutwiler, who was Thain's spokeswoman at Merrill, said he wasn't available to comment.

Obama eats $100 a pound steak and turns up the heat in his office so high "you could grow orchids in there" while people freeze to death in Kentucky. Where was FEMA? Why didn't he show up in Kantucky like he did after Katrina for his campaign photo ops?

How long before the Mudcat Awakwning?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: pdq
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 03:39 PM

I know it is too long, but try reading this. It is about Japan's federal spending which had the same intent as the current US "stimulus package"...even has Geithner in it:


Japan's Big-Works Stimulus Is Lesson

By MARTIN FACKLER
Published: February 5, 2009

HAMADA, Japan — The Hamada Marine Bridge soars majestically over this small fishing harbor, so much larger than the squid boats anchored below that it seems out of place.

And it is not just the bridge. Two decades of generous public works spending have showered this city of 61,000 mostly graying residents with a highway, a two-lane bypass, a university, a prison, a children's art museum, the Sun Village Hamada sports center, a bright red welcome center, a ski resort and an aquarium featuring three ring-blowing Beluga whales.

Nor is this remote port in western Japan unusual. Japan's rural areas have been paved over and filled in with roads, dams and other big infrastructure projects, the legacy of trillions of dollars spent to lift the economy from a severe downturn caused by the bursting of a real estate bubble in the late 1980s. During those nearly two decades, Japan accumulated the largest public debt in the developed world — totaling 180 percent of its $5.5 trillion economy — while failing to generate a convincing recovery.

Now, as the Obama administration embarks on a similar path, proposing to spend more than $820 billion to stimulate the sagging American economy, many economists are taking a fresh look at Japan's troubled experience. While Japan is not exactly comparable to the United States — especially as a late developer with a history of heavy state investment in infrastructure — economists say it can still offer important lessons about the pitfalls, and chances for success, of a stimulus package in an advanced economy.

In a nutshell, Japan's experience suggests that infrastructure spending, while a blunt instrument, can help revive a developed economy, say many economists and one very important American official: Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who was a young financial attaché in Japan during the collapse and subsequent doldrums. One lesson Mr. Geithner has said he took away from that experience is that spending must come in quick, massive doses, and be continued until recovery takes firm root.

Moreover, it matters what gets built: Japan spent too much on increasingly wasteful roads and bridges, and not enough in areas like education and social services, which studies show deliver more bang for the buck than infrastructure spending.

"It is not enough just to hire workers to dig holes and then fill them in again," said Toshihiro Ihori, an economics professor at the University of Tokyo. "One lesson from Japan is that public works get the best results when they create something useful for the future."

In total, Japan spent $6.3 trillion on construction-related public investment between 1991 and September of last year, according to the Cabinet Office. The spending peaked in 1995 and remained high until the early 2000s, when it was cut amid growing concerns about ballooning budget deficits. More recently, the governing Liberal Democratic Party has increased spending again to revive the economy and the party's own flagging popularity.

In the end, say economists, it was not public works but an expensive cleanup of the debt-ridden banking system, combined with growing exports to China and the United States, that brought a close to Japan's Lost Decade. This has led many to conclude that spending did little more than sink Japan deeply into debt, leaving an enormous tax burden for future generations.

In the United States, it has also led to calls in Congress, particularly by Republicans, not to repeat the errors of Japan's failed economic stimulus. They argue that it makes more sense to cut taxes, and let people decide how to spend their own money, than for the government to decide how to invest public funds. Japan put more emphasis on increased spending than tax cuts during its slump, but ultimately did reduce consumption taxes to encourage consumer spending as well.

Economists tend to divide into two camps on the question of Japan's infrastructure spending: those, many of them Americans like Mr. Geithner, who think it did not go far enough; and those, many of them Japanese, who think it was a colossal waste.

Among ordinary Japanese, the spending is widely disparaged for having turned the nation into a public-works-based welfare state and making regional economies dependent on Tokyo for jobs. Much of the blame has fallen on the Liberal Democratic Party, which has long used government spending to grease rural vote-buying machines that help keep the party in power.

But some Western economists who have studied Japan's experience say the stimulus accomplished more than it is now given credit for. At a minimum, they argue, it saved the economy from an outright, 1930s-style collapse.

Moreover, they say, any direct comparison of Japan and the United States is inevitably misleading, because Japan has spent so much more over the years on infrastructure. Having neglected its roads, bridges, water treatment plants and more over the years, the United States is bound to generate a greater payback for such spending than would Japan.

Beyond that, proponents of Keynesian-style stimulus spending in the United States say that Japan's approach failed to accomplish more not because of waste but because it was never tried wholeheartedly. They argue that instead of making one big push to pump up the economy with economic shock therapy, Japan spread its spending out over several years, diluting the effects.

After years of heavy spending in the first half of the 1990s, economists say, Japan's leaders grew concerned about growing budget deficits and cut back too soon, snuffing out the recovery in its infancy, much as Roosevelt did to the American economy in 1936. Growth that, by 1996, had reached 3 percent was suffocated by premature spending cuts and tax increases, they say. While spending remained high in the late 1990s, Japan never gave the economy another full-fledged push, these economists say.

They also say that the size of Japan's apparently successful stimulus in the early 1990s suggests that the United States will need to spend far more than the current $820 billion to get results. Between 1991 and 1995, Japan spent some $2.1 trillion on public works, in an economy roughly half as large as that of the United States, according to the Cabinet Office. "Stimulus worked in Japan when it was tried," said David Weinstein, a professor of Japanese economics at Columbia University. "Japan's lesson is that, if anything, the current U.S. stimulus will not be enough."

Most Japanese economists have tended to take a bleaker view of their nation's track record, saying that Japan spent more than enough money, but wasted too much of it on roads to nowhere and other unneeded projects.

Dr. Ihori of the University of Tokyo did a survey of public works in the 1990s, concluding that the spending created almost no additional economic growth. Instead of spreading beneficial ripple effects across the economy, he found that the spending actually led to declines in business investment by driving out private investors. He also said job creation was too narrowly focused in the construction industry in rural areas to give much benefit to the overall economy.

He agreed with other critics that the 1990s stimulus failed because too much of it went to roads and bridges, overbuilding this already heavily developed nation. Critics also said decisions on how to spend the money were made behind closed doors by bureaucrats, politicians and the construction industry, and often reflected political considerations more than economic. Dr. Ihori said the United States appeared to be striking a better balance by investing in new energy and information-technology infrastructure as well as replacing aging infrastructure.

Japan's experience also seems to argue for spending heavily to promote social development. A 1998 report by the Japan Institute for Local Government, a nonprofit policy research group, found that every 1 trillion yen, or about $11.2 billion, spent on social services like care for the elderly and monthly pension payments added 1.64 trillion yen in growth. Financing for schools and education delivered an even bigger boost of 1.74 trillion yen, the report found.

But every 1 trillion yen spent on infrastructure projects in the 1990s increased Japan's gross domestic product, a measure of its overall economic size, by only 1.37 trillion yen, mainly by creating jobs and other improvements like reducing travel times.

Economists said the finding suggested that while infrastructure spending may yield strong results for developing nations, creating jobs in higher-paying knowledge-based services like health care and education can bring larger benefits to advanced economies like Japan, with its aging population.

"In hindsight, Japan should have built public works that address the problems it faces today, like aging, energy and food sources," said Takehiko Hobo, a professor emeritus of public finance at Shimane University in Matsue, the main city of Shimane. "This obsession with building roads is a holdover from an earlier era."

The fruits of that obsession are apparent across Shimane, a rural prefecture about the size of Delaware where Hamada is located. Each town seems to have its own art museum, domed athletic center and government-built tourist attraction like the Nima Sand Museum, a giant hourglass in a glass pyramid. The prefecture, with 740,000 residents, even has three commercial airports able to handle jets, including the $250 million Hagi-Iwami Airport, which sits eerily empty with just two flights per day.

In Hamada, residents say the city's most visible "hakomono," the Japanese equivalent of "white elephant," was its own bridge to nowhere, the $70 million Marine Bridge, whose 1,006-foot span sat almost completely devoid of traffic on a recent morning. Built in 1999, the bridge links the city to a small, sparsely populated island already connected by a shorter bridge.

"The bridge? It's a dud," said Masahiro Shimada, 70, a retired city official who was fishing near the port. "Maybe we could use it for bungee jumping," he joked.

Koichi Matsuoka, a retired professor of policy at the University of Shimane in Hamada, said useless projects like the Marine Bridge were the reason that years of huge spending had brought few long-term benefits here. While Shimane has had the highest per capita spending on public works in Japan for the last 18 years, thanks to powerful local politicians like the deceased former Prime Minister Noboru Takeshita, its per capita annual income of $26,000 ranked it 40th among Japan's 47 prefectures, he said. He said the spending had left Shimane $11 billion in debt, twice the size of the prefectural government's annual budget.

Still, local officials in Hamada warn that their city's economy will collapse without public works, though they recognize the spending cannot continue forever. They offered their own lesson to American communities in the Obama era: when you choose public works projects, be sure to get ones with lasting economic impact.

Among Hamada's many public works projects, the biggest benefits had come from the prison, the university and the Aquas aquarium, with its popular whales, they said. These had created hundreds of permanent jobs and attracted students and families with children to live in a city where nearly a third of residents were over 65.

"Roads and bridges are attractive, but they create jobs only during construction," said Shunji Nakamura, chief of the city's industrial policy section. "You need projects with good jobs that will last through a bad economy."

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 03:44 PM

Sawzall, your regurgitation is showing. Your standards are lamentably low.

Quick question: Which takes more energy: Obama upping the thermostat to 80 (We don't know the actual degree) or Richard Nixon in the midst of a Washington DC summer turning the air conditioner so high a fire in the fireplace was comfortable?

Or is that not pertinent?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 07:16 PM

Looks like the ritual picking of the nits. Invent a nit, blow it up to the size of a brontosaurus, then bellow like a wounded buffalo.

The ritual picking of the nits occurs every four years following the presidential inauguration.

(Bloody great yawn. . . .)

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Riginslinger
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 07:32 PM

"...what do you propose as the solution(s) to our situation? Seriously."


                Get all the illegal aliens out of the country and start jailing bankers.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 07:38 PM

Well, actually pdq has made a suggestion that the Repubs are now trying to get out of the proposed package: aid to the states...

I agree with pdq... Face it, 45 states are now ind deficit and that isn't a good thing and can only bring about lay-offs of state workers... Part of stimulating is stopping the bleeding and shoring up the sate budegets could save a couple more million jobs from drying up...

The Repubs in Congress don't see it this way... They want every dollar to produce a "new job"... We are a long way from that pie-in-the-sky wishfull thinking...

Stopping the bleeding needs to come first...

Basics 101...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: pdq
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 08:18 PM

I made that statement from my own opinions. I have no idea what the Republicans are doing right now and don't care. They have only about 32 votes remaining in the Senate if you weed out the RINOs.

I live in Nevada and hear alot about California since it is next door. I do know the debt these two states are facing and don't like the idea of letting thousands of fine people get fired in Nevada stare government while the fatbutt Feds look for make-work crap because they think they can get US to pay for it.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Bobert
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 08:22 PM

We're on the same page...

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: GUEST,Susu's Hubby
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 09:32 PM

You know...I'm not opposed to the fact that Obama got new airplanes and helicopters and cars. That's what presidents are afforded.

I've got no problem with the money, however much it was, for the first lady to re-decorate the White House. It will be their home for the next four years. They should decorate it however they want and it should be at taxpayers expense.

What I do have a problem with is the fact that there is an $800 BILLION package sitting before the senate that is trying to be sold as a stimulus bill when anyone with half a brain can read through the lines and see that's it's nothing more than construction paper smeared with fecal matter of the democrats that dream this crap up.

Someone explain to me, please, how giving $50,000,000 to the National Endowment for the Arts, $400,000,000 for global warming research will make life better on a day to day basis for a family of four in middle America with the parents out of work. At the same time, please tell me how giving the Smithsonian Institute $150,000,000 is going to help purchase clothes for the kids during the rest of the winter.

Please show me the genius in providing $650,000,000 on top of what's already been spent to help in the switch from analog to digital TV.

And certainly, last but not least, how is spending an additional $600,000,000 on top of the $3 BILLION that is currently being spent by our federal government on official vehicles going to help John and Jane pay for their home, while trying to put their 2 kids through college?

This is shaping up like a bad mastercard commercial.....

I can hear it now.....


.....and bankrupting America for the next 80 years......priceless.



Hubby

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: pdq
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 09:48 PM

From my post of "Date: 06 Feb 09 - 03:39 PM":


"In a nutshell, Japan's experience suggests that infrastructure spending, while a blunt instrument, can help revive a developed economy, say many economists and one very important American official: Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner, who was a young financial attaché in Japan during the collapse and subsequent doldrums. One lesson Mr. Geithner has said he took away from that experience is that spending must come in quick, massive doses, and be continued until recovery takes firm root."

This can be translated into "get an enormous amount of money as fast as possible...before the suckers know what hit them".

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 09:58 PM

I'd a helluva lot rather see the National Endowment for the Arts get that $50,000,000 than give it out without conditions as Bush did, so the CEO of some mortgage company who managed to screw his company into the ground after screwing thousands of people out of their homes can use it to vote himself a bonus.

And as to global warming research, damned well about time!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Don Firth
Date: 06 Feb 09 - 10:04 PM

The $350 billion that Bush gave out to the banks and financial institutions so they could make loans and get business running again? Nobody knows where the hell it went! They aren't making loans with it, they're giving themselves bonuses and paying dividends with it.

Molly Ivins used to say that Bush liked to throw parties for his friends, but I didn't know that's what she meant!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 02:21 PM

It appears Mr. Obama has finally smartened up and got his own message!

"We can't expect relief from the tired old theories that, in eight short years, doubled the national debt, threw our economy into a tailspin, and led us into this mess in the first place," Obama said.

"We can't rely on a losing formula that offers only tax cuts as the answer to all our problems while ignoring our fundamental economic challenges." (Reuters today).

Now that's more like it!!!!!!

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 04:57 PM

Ebbie: Oh yes, that is very pertinent.

Back when America did not pay $700 million per year to oil rich countries, his action of turning the AC lower took more energy than Obama turning the heat up.

Now what is your assessment of the comparison of these two actions?

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Sawzaw
Date: 07 Feb 09 - 05:03 PM

"The Marine Ones and jets were ordered by the Bush Administration and were delivered, if memory serves, in January.

Time for some Aricept Amos.

Washington Post March 17, 2008:

The first five helicopters are due in 2010, a year behind schedule, although the White House made compromises on the requirements to cut costs and speed delivery. Twenty-three more-sophisticated versions are to follow, at which point the current fleet and the first five craft would be retired. But the most recent target date of 2015 for these additional choppers has slipped to an unknown date.

The problems with the second batch have prompted the Pentagon to issue a stop-work order until it determines what to do and Congress provides more money. The Pentagon conducted a review of the project and considered 35 alternatives, but "none of these options meet the full set of White House requirements," Young said.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Sawzaw
Date: 08 Feb 09 - 11:47 AM

"$350 billion that Bush gave out to the banks and financial institutions"

TARP:

The first $350 billion TARP money was primarily used to buy preferred stock, which is similar to debt in that it gets paid before common equity shareholders....
....The original plan that Secretary Paulson presented was for the government to buy up the troubled (toxic) assets in insolvent banks and then sell them at auction to private investor and/or companies. This plan was scratched when Paulson met with England's Prime Minister Gordon Brown who came to the White House for an international summit on the global credit crisis. Prime Minister Brown, in an attempt to mitigate the credit squeeze in England, merely infused capital into banks via preferred stock in order to clean up their balance sheets and, in some economists' view, effectively nationalizing many banks. This plan seemed attractive to Secretary Paulson in that it was relatively easier and seemingly boosted lending more quickly....

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: GUEST,JTS
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 01:01 AM

Susu's hubby,

You need some basic education in macroeconomics. Basically the theory behind this stimulus package is if money is pumped into the economy, the economy will recover more quickly and everyone will be better off.

The money to the arts will put people to work right away and those people will buy coffee, gasoline, groceries and rent, thus allowing other people to keep their jobs.

Another feature of Obama's plan is investment in the future. Money spent on infrastructure such as highway and electrical grid improvements, education and energy efficiency will reap future economic and competitive benefits.

We need to spend a lot of money fast. Obama's priorities may not be perfect, but they are way better than any alternative I have heard.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Ebbie
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 01:38 AM

One analogy that keeps coming to my mind makes clear our dilemma.

"When your house is collapsing, which end do you prop up first?"

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 03:45 AM

While I think the stimulus package is a good idea, the problem with it of course is that it is a big whack of money, and with the bad bank package coming, there is going to be nothing else for anything for a long time. At some point, spending all this money has to be a big problem -- America didn't start out debt free. And they are pissing huge amounts of money away on the bloated military. None of this is good, economically.   It is not as if just jump-starting the economy is going to be enough. At some point this deficit spending on such a scale is going to be an even bigger mess.

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Susu's Hubby
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 07:14 AM

Here's a bright idea........

Give US the money.....Let US decide where it can best be used.......afterall it's OUR tax money!

If we want to give it to the arts then so be it.

If we want to give it to our children's schools then so be it.

If we want to use it to pay off debt then so be it.

Hell...we may even go off and buy a new car with some of it.

But I guess giving it to an artist who piles ham on a king size bed and call it "Art" is the right thing to do, afterall.


Shame on me for thinking otherwise.


Hubby

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Barry Finn
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 08:57 AM

"But I guess giving it to an artist who piles ham on a king size bed and call it "Art" is the right thing to do, afterall".

Hubby, you really have a good firm grip on the situation, don't you.

First off you are getting some of it, in tax cuts & rebates. You're also getting some of it in services, hopefully. Shcools & education will be in some form or another unless you want private schooling then you can spend from your own bank account.
I agree Peter about money's going to the military, I'd rather the bake cookies for sale & a fence from the Pacific to the Gulf along the border is a poor use of funds.
But Green Industry & a Climate & Enviormental direction within our manufacturing & industrial bases would be a giant leap in bailing us out aas well along with a push in the sciences, areas that the Bush people herded us back into the caves era with. Gene & cell developing is another place where we could drive a thriving business machine but also we've lagged there to & lost a lot footing money in, no thanks again to the Bushy bastard.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Peter T.
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 09:51 AM

The real "get in the ring and have an argument" question is whether governments can do any good. Right wingers think that individual decisions are always better, because the market is always better. The only area in which they think differently is the military, which is why they are so big on military spending (and in America it is the one social upgrading for the poor everyone seems to agree on).   

Where all the discussion points at the moment is that regulation is needed on the market. What is not being discussed is whether and when the pooling of money for the larger social good is not only good, but better than individual decision making. And clearly, there are huge ways in which pooling money for the common good is good for everyone -- schools, roads, public goods of all kinds, including and especially those things the market handles poorly -- like the environment.   

yours,

Peter T.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: Greg F.
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 10:31 AM

.....and bankrupting America for the next 80 years......priceless.
.
Hubby

The really amusing - or disgusting, depending on your point of view- thing is that these NeoCon Bushite types can't seem to grasp that the U.S. is currently bankrupt and in the toilet precisely BECAUSE of the agenda begun by the sainted Great Prestidigitator, Roonie Raygun and pursued by the NeoCon Republican administrations (and the liberal Republican administration of Bill Clinton) since.

Subject: RE: BS: Obama Honeymoon lasts 3 days
From: GUEST,JTS
Date: 09 Feb 09 - 01:59 PM

Its everybody's tax money. But it is being applied to a specific purpose. It is best only to apply the money to spending that furthers that purpose.

It was Bush's idea to give taxes back to those not in need. That plan drove up the debt to no avail and fueled the recent stock market and housing bubbles. The money needs to be invested long term in education, infrastructure and energy. We need to emerge from the Republican Depression stronger than when we went into it.