WSJ: Obama Breaks Pledge on Inauguration Donations
Friday, January 9, 2009 12:14 PM
By: Jim Meyers Article Font Size
A full 90 percent of donations to fund Barack Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration have come from well-heeled fundraisers — including Wall Street executives whose companies have received federal bailout money.
A total of 207 fundraisers have collected $24.8 million of the $27.3 million in donations disclosed by Obama through Thursday, according to an analysis by Public Citizen commissioned by The Wall Street Journal.
Slightly more than 2,000 donors accounted for the $27.3 million raised, but 378 of those people each contributed the maximum $50,000 allowed by Obama, raising almost 70 percent of the total, or $18.9 million, the analysis found.
Wall Street employees have been the largest single source of private donations, and many of the contributions have been channeled through financial-services executives who have put together bundles of donations worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
“The preponderance of large donors and the fact that so many come from an industry receiving government handouts comes as the president-elect has sought to keep his inauguration free of special interests,” The Journal observed.
Bundlers from the financial sector include executives from Citigroup Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., two firms that have accepted billions of dollars each in bailout money from the federal government.
Obama’s presidential campaign smashed all previous fundraising records, raking in more than an astounding $650 million from some 3 million donors.
They all eat at the same trough.....and now with a $1000.00 'tax credit' for middle class....it will look like we are involved in the 'process'.....yeah, right.....the only process we are involved in is whether or not to spend.......
I'm sorry did I forget to say.....baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa?????
It doesn't matter who Mr.Obama lines up with.......THEY ARE ALL THE SAME.......
BTW, that $1000.00 tax credit doesn't amount to much......for anyone.......
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
Hope, Expectations Soar Ahead of Obama Inauguration FOXNews.com Tuesday, January 20, 2009
WASHINGTON -- For most of the public on the National Mall Tuesday, their best view will be of a jumbo television screen. Hundreds of thousands had filled into the 2-mile stretch of parkland hours before Barack Obama was to take his oath of office.
The outpouring of so many people -- smiling people -- to celebrate the inauguration of America's 44th president by itself sends a signal about the expectations that will tug at Obama once he is sworn in Tuesday.
The president-elect throughout his campaign pledged to unite a country divided over the decision to invade Iraq, the handling of the economic crisis, religious beliefs, race and countless cultural wedges. And as Obama takes the oath of office outside the U.S. Capitol Tuesday, millions of people are prepared to give him that chance.
"This is the least partisan day of the whole year in this country," said Kasey Pipes, former speechwriter for President Bush. "In some sense everyone is pulling for Obama. It's a very unique moment in history and I think he's going to take advantage of it."
White House may put hold on offshore drilling plan Thu Jan 22, 2009 1:46am IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-] Text [+] WASHINGTON, Jan 21 (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama may order a hold on a proposal issued in the final days of the Bush administration to expand offshore drilling in previously banned areas, an Interior Department official told Reuters on Wednesday.
Shortly after being sworn in on Tuesday, Obama ordered all federal agencies and departments to halt pending regulations until they can be reviewed by incoming staff.
An Interior official said the department is waiting for clarification from the White House on whether a proposed draft of a five-year plan to lease areas in the Atlantic and Pacific waters for oil and natural gas drilling can go forward.
The preliminary plan would authorize 31 energy exploration lease sales between 2010 and 2015 for tracts along the east coast and off the coasts of Alaska and California.
Both presidential and congressional bans on drilling in most U.S. waters ended last year.
Separately, the Interior official said the department's plan to develop oil shale fields in the western United States may also be stopped by Obama's order. (Reporting by Ayesha Rascoe and Tom Doggett)
When Obama was campaigning he was all for drilling now he's caving in to the liberal left and banning drilling for oil off shore and in the west for shale oil. He's also going to be anti nuclear power so is this the change he was really talking about?
The Obama presidency: Here comes socialism By Dick Morris Posted: 01/20/09 06:12 PM [ET] 2009-2010 will rank with 1913-14, 1933-36, 1964-65 and 1981-82 as years that will permanently change our government, politics and lives. Just as the stars were aligned for Wilson, Roosevelt, Johnson and Reagan, they are aligned for Obama. Simply put, we enter his administration as free-enterprise, market-dominated, laissez-faire America. We will shortly become like Germany, France, the United Kingdom, or Sweden — a socialist democracy in which the government dominates the economy, determines private-sector priorities and offers a vastly expanded range of services to many more people at much higher taxes.
Obama will accomplish his agenda of “reform” under the rubric of “recovery.” Using the electoral mandate bestowed on a Democratic Congress by restless voters and the economic power given his administration by terrified Americans, he will change our country fundamentally in the name of lifting the depression. His stimulus packages won’t do much to shorten the downturn — although they will make it less painful — but they will do a great deal to change our nation.
In implementing his agenda, Barack Obama will emulate the example of Franklin D. Roosevelt. (Not the liberal mythology of the New Deal, but the actuality of what it accomplished.) When FDR took office, he was enormously successful in averting a total collapse of the banking system and the economy. But his New Deal measures only succeeded in lowering the unemployment rate from 23 percent in 1933, when he took office, to 13 percent in the summer of 1937. It never went lower. And his policies of over-regulation generated such business uncertainty that they triggered a second-term recession. Unemployment in 1938 rose to 17 percent and, in 1940, on the verge of the war-driven recovery, stood at 15 percent. (These data and the real story of Hoover’s and Roosevelt’s missteps, uncolored by ideology, are available in The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes, copyright 2007.)
But in the name of a largely unsuccessful effort to end the Depression, Roosevelt passed crucial and permanent reforms that have dominated our lives ever since, including Social Security, the creation of the Securities and Exchange Commission, unionization under the Wagner Act, the federal minimum wage and a host of other fundamental changes.
Obama’s record will be similar, although less wise and more destructive. He will begin by passing every program for which liberals have lusted for decades, from alternative-energy sources to school renovations, infrastructure repairs and technology enhancements. These are all good programs, but they normally would be stretched out for years. But freed of any constraint on the deficit — indeed, empowered by a mandate to raise it as high as possible — Obama will do them all rather quickly.
But it is not his spending that will transform our political system, it is his tax and welfare policies. In the name of short-term stimulus, he will give every American family (who makes less than $200,000) a welfare check of $1,000 euphemistically called a refundable tax credit. And he will so sharply cut taxes on the middle class and the poor that the number of Americans who pay no federal income tax will rise from the current one-third of all households to more than half. In the process, he will create a permanent electoral majority that does not pay taxes, but counts on ever-expanding welfare checks from the government. The dependency on the dole, formerly limited in pre-Clinton days to 14 million women and children on Aid to Families with Dependent Children, will now grow to a clear majority of the American population.
Will he raise taxes? Why should he? With a congressional mandate to run the deficit up as high as need be, there is no reason to raise taxes now and risk aggravating the depression. Instead, Obama will follow the opposite of the Reagan strategy. Reagan cut taxes and increased the deficit so that liberals could not increase spending. Obama will raise spending and increase the deficit so that conservatives cannot cut taxes. And, when the economy is restored, he will raise taxes with impunity, since the only people who will have to pay them would be rich Republicans.
In the name of stabilizing the banking system, Obama will nationalize it. Using Troubled Asset Relief Program funds to write generous checks to needy financial institutions, his administration will demand preferred stock in exchange. Preferred stock gets dividends before common stockholders do. With the massive debt these companies will owe to the government, they will only be able to afford dividends for preferred stockholders — the government, not private investors. So who will buy common stock? And the government will demand that its bills be paid before any profits that might materialize are reinvested in the financial institution, so how will the value of the stocks ever grow? Devoid of private investors, these institutions will fall ever more under government control.
Obama will begin the process by limiting executive compensation. Then he will urge restructuring and lowering of home mortgages in danger of default (as the feds have already done with Citibank).
Then will come guidance on the loans to make and government instructions on the types of enterprises to favor. God grant that some Blagojevich type is not in charge of the program, using his power to line his pockets. The United States will find itself with an economic system comparable to that of Japan, where the all-powerful bureaucracy at MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) manages the economy, often making mistakes like giving mainframe computers priority over the development of laptops.
But it is the healthcare system that will experience the most dramatic and traumatic of changes. The current debate between erecting a Medicare-like governmental single payer or channeling coverage through private insurance misses the essential point. Without a lot more doctors, nurses, clinics, equipment and hospital beds, health resources will be strained to the breaking point. The people and equipment that now serve 250 million Americans and largely neglect all but the emergency needs of the other 50 million will now have to serve everyone. And, as government imposes ever more Draconian price controls and income limits on doctors, the supply of practitioners and equipment will decline as the demand escalates. Price increases will be out of the question, so the government will impose healthcare rationing, denying the older and sicker among us the care they need and even barring them from paying for it themselves. (Rationing based on income and price will be seen as immoral.)
And Obama will move to change permanently the partisan balance in America. He will move quickly to legalize all those who have been in America for five years, albeit illegally, and to smooth their paths to citizenship and voting. He will weaken border controls in an attempt to hike the Latino vote as high as he can in order to make red states like Texas into blue states like California. By the time he is finished, Latinos and African-Americans will cast a combined 30 percent of the vote. If they go by top-heavy margins for the Democrats, as they did in 2008, it will assure Democratic domination (until they move up the economic ladder and become good Republicans).
And he will enact the check-off card system for determining labor union representation, repealing the secret ballot in union elections. The result will be to raise the proportion of the labor force in unions up to the high teens from the current level of about 12 percent.
Finally, he will use the expansive powers of the Federal Communications Commission to impose “local” control and ownership of radio stations and to impose the “fairness doctrine” on talk radio. The effect will be to drive talk radio to the Internet, fundamentally change its economics, and retard its growth for years hence.
But none of these changes will cure the depression. It will end when the private sector works through the high debt levels that triggered the collapse in the first place. And, then, the large stimulus package deficits will likely lead to rapid inflation, probably necessitating a second recession to cure it.
So Obama’s name will be mud by 2012 and probably by 2010 as well. And the Republican Party will make big gains and regain much of its lost power.
But it will be too late to reverse the socialism of much of the economy, the demographic change in the electorate, the rationing of healthcare by the government, the surge of unionization and the crippling of talk radio.
I sure hope that these predictions are dead wrong because if they're not it may be the end of the ideals this country was founded on.
Barack Obama emphatically promised more than a year ago, "The first thing I'd do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act." Will he keep his word?
The Freedom of Choice Act is a sweeping bill that would abolish all pro-life regulations across the nation, from parental notification laws to bans on federal funding of abortions. The Office of the General Counsel for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops identified 13 categories of pro-life laws that would be stampeded and nullified by FOCA. As far-reaching as the decision of Roe v. Wade is into the states' jurisdictions and our lives, even it, for example, showed certain respect for state laws and limits on infringing regulations in the medical field. FOCA shows no such restraints; it nails shut the coffin on pro-life choices and safeguards.
And why has Obama pledged his allegiance to pass FOCA? Not only because he has the most passionately liberal pro-choice record of nearly any politician but also because, as he told a meeting of Planned Parenthood during his campaign, "it is time to turn the page" to a new day, when pro-life views and laws and debate on abortion are passé. And if he and the Democratic majority have their way, America will have that new day, one in which hundreds of thousands more abortions will be performed annually. (I still think it is utterly hypocritical that a president and a political party who pride themselves on providing and protecting minorities don't include the unborn among those minorities.)
The fight to pass FOCA is being waged despite a new nationwide survey revealing that about 4 in 5 U.S. adults would limit abortion's legality. About 1 in 3 would limit abortion to rape, incest or saving a mother's life. One-third also would limit abortion to either the first three months of pregnancy or the first six months. Only 9 percent said abortion should be legal for any reason at any time during pregnancy. These statistics are in stark contrast to the goals and objectives of FOCA, which would close the culture debate on abortion in an unprecedented way for any piece of legislation.
America doesn't need to "turn the page" on culture battles, such as abortion; it needs to reopen the pages of its history to our Founders' heightened views about the rights of all human beings in the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. And we need to revive and re-instill that value of humanity back into society, our children and our children's children.
Under our Constitution, the federal government should protect that right to life. But besides affirming that foundational human right, the details and debates of the laws governing abortion should be left to the states. Despite the Supreme Court's unconstitutional striking down of abortion laws nationwide in 1973 and instituting a completely unconstitutional federal right to abortion, there is still much we can do at the state level to protect human life by promoting pro-life legislation and education. That is, unless FOCA is enacted into law.
After 35 years of ceaseless controversy since the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe v. Wade, some people think that abortion is an "old" issue better dropped. But as my friend and prolific author Randy Alcorn wrote in his small book "Why Pro-Life? Caring for the Unborn and Their Mothers": "Abortion has set us on a dangerous course. We may come to our senses and back away from the slippery slope. Or we may follow it to its inescapable conclusion -- a society in which the powerful, for their self-interest, determine which human beings will live and which will die."
Abortion is not about a woman's "right to choose"; it is about a more fundamental "right to life," which is one of three specifically identified unalienable rights in the Declaration of Independence (and the Constitution, through Article VII and the Bill of Rights). And it is a violation of government's primary purpose: to protect innocent life.
Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1809, "The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only legitimate object of good government." He was not, of course, writing about the America of today, with state-sanctioned and even subsidized abortion and a movement to promote the killing of the elderly through euthanasia. But he could have been. And his belief in what should be "the first and only legitimate object of government" still should stand, and that includes for the president of the United States of America. But if he and his administration won't protect the rights of the living (even in the womb), then who will? Pelosi? Reid? A left-leaning Congress?
All of our elected officials should uphold that pre-eminent objective of government and strive to get us back to the view of humanity that emphasizes the immortal worth of every human being. Without that, we never can believe that all people (including those in the womb) are created equal, that they have inherent, unalienable rights and that the protection of those rights is "the first and only legitimate object of good government."
And if our politicians won't protect unborn human life, then we must. With Sanctity of Life Sunday on Jan. 18, Obama's inauguration Jan. 20, the annual March for Life pro-life rally in Washington, D.C., Jan. 22 (the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision), and FOCA looming on the legislative precipice of Congress and the White House, now is the time to march and take action again to defend the unborn. (That's why I devoted an entire chapter to "Reclaim the value of human life" in my new cultural manifesto, "Black Belt Patriotism," and why my wife, Gena, passionately entreated for the unborn in our most recent interview, which you can watch online on GodTube.)
Please, before FOCA flies onto the congressional floor in the upcoming days, sign the online petition to fight FOCA (www.fightfoca.com), and then contact your representatives and senators to tell them how you expect them to vote on the bill. You can write to them online by simply going to http://www.capwiz.com/nrlc/issues/bills/?bill=9668701 and entering your ZIP code.
Chuck Norris' views on Obama's Presidency so far...Part 2.
Quoted Text
Lincoln's View of Obama's Inauguration by Chuck Norris
01/20/2009
With the 20-foot statue of Abraham Lincoln gazing from the Lincoln Memorial across the National Mall, I wondered, what would the Civil War president think about Barack Obama being sworn in as America's 44th president? Lincoln is obviously Obama's favorite president. But would America's 16th president return the same sentiment?
There's no doubt these two presidents from Illinois share some similarities. As Australia's Herald Sun noted, "Both were derided as too young and inexperienced to be President; both wrote best-selling books before running for the White House; both were lawyers and extraordinarily gifted orators; both came to power during a national crisis; and both were tall, lanky, self-made men determined to maintain contact with the citizens they served."
But some retort by saying every president since the 16th president has felt some sense of his legacy. Lincoln scholar and historian Harold Holzer, who has written 31 books on the Great Emancipator, said: "They all feel it. Everyone finds something in him." And, I would add, everyone finds their contrasts, too. "I think it is time to claim Lincoln as one of our own," Franklin Roosevelt said in the spring of 1929. "I'm a Ford, not a Lincoln," Gerald Ford once said. Obama even recently confessed, "There's a genius to Lincoln that is not going to be matched."
Obama and Lincoln, however, do share one gigantic thing in common above all others: a rare and historic symmetry. One served as a catalyst to end slavery, and the other demonstrates just how far that freedom has advanced in almost 150 years. There cannot be enough said about the historical magnitude of this presidential moment -- a true fulfillment of the American experiment, spirit and dream (an achievement embedded long ago in the equality clauses of the Declaration of Independence).
In the end, our 16th and 44th presidents have not only some positives but also some negatives in common. The latter includes:
-- They both believe imposing more taxes is the way to economic recovery. (Lincoln was dependent upon Southern taxes and initiated the first income taxes, which eventually would become law, in 1913, through our 16th Amendment.)
-- They both believe in regarding the Constitution as a living document (allowing them more flexibility and power for preferred political decisions and presidential autonomy).
-- They both believe in big government solutions. Lincoln once said, "The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot so well do for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities."
So where do these similarities and contrasts leave us in considering what Lincoln's view of Obama's inauguration might have been? About this we can be absolutely certain: Lincoln and his contemporaries couldn't even have imagined a day when America would elect a black man as president. Such an elevated position was simply out of sight from the social paradigm of their time.
Case in point: On the one hand, in August 1858, Abraham Lincoln affirmed the equality in humanity of blacks: "I have never said anything to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this, there is no reason in the world why the Negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. I hold that he is as much entitled to these as the white man. I agree with Judge Douglas; he is not my equal in many respects -- certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral or intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas and the equal of every living man."
On the other hand, just one month later, Lincoln questioned blacks' social and political equality: "I will say then that I am not nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races -- that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes nor of qualifying them to hold office nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races, which I believe will forever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together, there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race. I say upon this occasion I do not perceive that because the white man is to have the superior position the Negro should be denied everything."
Of course, as some propose, Lincoln could have had a change of heart over the next seven years, after experiencing the Civil War and his presidency. Others say, however, that the Emancipation Proclamation was merely a wartime measure and political document with no personal reflection.
No matter what the final verdict of Lincoln's degree of prejudicial blood, blacks were freed. And 144 years later, Obama is president. And those bookends in social history happened despite the fact that Abraham Lincoln, like many of us, retained some biases and still had room to grow.
What's most important now is not how Obama's and Lincoln's lives connect but how all of ours do. Any way you look at it, triumph or travesty, Obama's presidency is a colossal and culminating event according to any historical criteria. And all Americans would do well momentarily to drop our partisan politics and rigor and follow the advice given by Lincoln in his second inaugural address, which also is etched on his memorial:
"With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."
How destructive to the U.S. economy would a Barack Obama presidency be?
An exclusive Newsmax analysis warns: There could be a very rough time ahead.
Beneath Obama's flowery rhetoric lies a dangerous economic plan that will wreak havoc on the American economy.
Obama plans to return to the failed policies of high taxation coupled with an expansion of government spending.
Worse, Obama says he is absolutely committed to almost doubling the capital gains rate — something he will easily accomplish with a Democrat Congress.
In the coming months — when investors realize that Obama will raise the cap gains rate — there could be a stampede of asset sales as investors rush to take their profits now to avoid Obama's doubling of the tax rates next year.
All of these issues and more are explored in Newsmax magazine's special report "Obamanomics — the Coming Tax-and-Spend Nightmare," by Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund.
This Newsmax magazine special report gives Americans the first in-depth look at the Democratic president's likely strategies — and how they will affect not just the larger economy, but your personal wealth as well.
Indeed, Obama makes no bones about his plans to go on a tax rampage. Not only would he increase the capital-gains tax rate from 15 percent to as much as 28 percent, he wants to allow the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which effectively raises taxes on Americans by tens of billions of dollars.
He also wants to do away with the $102,000 FICA payroll tax cap, which means anyone making over $102,000 would pay an additional 7 percent in taxes on earned income.
And the loan dividend tax rate George Bush implemented? Under President Obama it will be DOA!
If you are concerned about your wealth and family's financial well-being — and that the American economy remains strong — you must read this special report and share it with friends and family.
The media ignored, downplayed, and sanitized Obama's relationships with Rev. Wright and Bill Ayers, while viciously attacked Sarah Palin for irrelevant issues like her wardrobe, but coddled Obama on anything and everything. Why Obama's may even make it more likely that conservative talk radio, and conservative books, will be stifled by a new Fairness Doctrine that is anything but fair. And let's not forget how Obama's supposedly post partisan campaign kicked reporters off his plane after their newspapers endorsed McCain.
Hmmmm....'change may just be coming' for obama after the media turns on a dime. Then the media frenzy honeymoon will be over!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Obama’s First Civility Test Is Pelosi’s Manners: Kevin Hassett
Commentary by Kevin Hassett
Jan. 26 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s electoral success has much to do with his grasp of the American mood. Democratic and Republican Americans coexist peacefully every day and are unanimously disgusted by the increasingly negative tone of our politics.
Obama revealed last January that he shared those feelings of disgust, in his masterful acceptance speech after the Iowa caucuses: “You said the time has come to move beyond the bitterness and pettiness and anger that’s consumed Washington; to end the political strategy that’s been all about division and instead make it about addition -- to build a coalition for change that stretches through Red States and Blue States.”
It is noteworthy and accurate that bitterness and anger consume Washington. The virtue of Americans is not in question; the virtue of politicians is.
A similar theme was the high point of Obama’s inaugural address: “On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”
While higher virtue is in itself a worthy goal, it has a practical reward as well. It is no coincidence that the tone of our government has degenerated at the same time as its performance. One could randomly select any corner of government today and find ample room for improvement, to say the least. There is nowhere an individual foolish enough, or an addict delirious enough, to design a government that works the way ours does.
Partisan Folly
There has been far too little wisdom in Washington. Obama recognizes the link between partisanship and folly.
This view is hardly new to world philosophy, foreshadowed as it was long ago by Aristotle, who wrote that “it is impossible to be practically wise without being good.” He added that “virtue makes us aim at the right end, and practical wisdom makes us take the right means.”
If there is a new spirit of hopefulness in this country, in spite of the terrible state of our national affairs, it may well have been kindled by Obama’s call to virtue. But such calls have been made before. George W. Bush himself became president because he had reached the same epiphany as Obama.
In his first inaugural address, in 2001, Bush restated a case that he had made throughout the election. “Some seem to believe that our politics can afford to be petty because, in a time of peace, the stakes of our debates appear small,” he said.
He went on, “Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos. And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to shared accomplishment.”
Bush’s Admission
When listing the failures of his presidency at a recent talk, Bush cited first his failure to restore civility. To succeed where Bush failed, Obama must recognize two truths.
First, civility begins at the beginning. In the next month, Obama will set a tone for Washington that will likely endure as long as he does. If he fails to live up to his rhetoric now, he will fail just as Bush did.
Second, civility begins at home. It is one thing to demand civility of one’s opponents, another thing altogether to demand it of one’s own party.
Obama faced an early test last week, when, in the midst of the debate over economic stimulus, Democrats worked to shut Republicans out of the policy process, then behaved boorishly when Republicans complained.
Democratic leaders responded with the political equivalent of a sack dance in football. “If it’s passed with 63 votes or 73 votes, history won’t remember it,” said Senator Richard Durbin, Democrat of Illinois.
Yes We Did
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi added to the mood by saying, “Yes, we wrote the bill. Yes, we won the election.”
There is still time for Obama to object to such behavior. If he wants to fulfill the promise of his rhetoric, he should take Pelosi to the woodshed and insist that she include Republicans, collegially, in the process. He should stand up to his party and threaten to veto a bill if it fails to make reasonable concessions to his friends across the aisle. He should advise his own staff to begin returning the phone calls of senior Republican aides.
If he fails to do that, there can be little doubt that government will fail to change and will continue to fail us. When times are good, one might be able to survive with a pitiful government. Today, we might not be so lucky. We are living in a fleeting moment where real change is possible. Aristotle is watching.
He went on, “Civility is not a tactic or a sentiment. It is the determined choice of trust over cynicism, of community over chaos. And this commitment, if we keep it, is a way to shared accomplishment.”
I believe this is called 'brainwashing'! Please someone hand me those rose colored glasses!! So I guess Mr. Obama is implying that if anyone has an opposition or concern regarding the government, it will be called 'uncivil behavior'!! Watch out folks....here comes a policed state!!!
Come on Mr. Obama...it is what it is!!
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
By Charles Krauthammer Friday, February 6, 2009; A17
"A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe."
-- President Obama, Feb. 4.
Catastrophe, mind you. So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared "we have chosen hope over fear." Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill.
And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn't understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.
The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn't what's illegal, but what's legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.
He'd been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he's not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don't get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.
At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal's private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he'd come to Washington to upend.
And yet more damaging to Obama's image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama's name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.
It's not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It's not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.
It's the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus -- and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress's own budget office says won't be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.
Not just to abolish but to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new. Turns out the "fierce urgency of now" includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.
The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.
After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.
I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.
After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.
Welcome to the White House Mr. Obama. Congratulations on being the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. And again.....I believe that he is way over his head!!! IMHO
When the INSANE are running the ASYLUM In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
“How fortunate for those in power that people never think.” Adolph Hitler
Oh....he's not way over his head.....ANY president in that position would be way over their heads.....the key is to find the right entertainment
(coliseum) or the perfect enemy..........or one goal......however,,this would put us kind of 'behind' unless it was the perfect blend.......future future future..........
...you are a product of your environment, your environment is a product of your priorities, your priorities are a product of you......
The replacement of morality and conscience with law produces a deadly paradox.
STOP BEING GOOD DEMOCRATS---STOP BEING GOOD REPUBLICANS--START BEING GOOD AMERICANS
STUDENTS QUESTION OBAMA'S PLAN Thu Feb 19 2009 09:46:55 ET
EAST VALLEY TRIBUNE Tim Hacker
A Dobson High School Advanced Placement government class with strong opinions about Barack Obama watched the president's speech Wednesday on a small, grainy TV in the corner of their classroom.
Some of the students attentively watched the speech, giving questioning looks and comments, shaking their heads and laughing at some of Obama's words. Other students listened, occasion ally glancing up to watch, while texting on their cell phones, reading a book or finishing school work.
The gymnasium's events were shown simultaneously in rooms throughout the Mesa school, and teachers were given discretion on whether to show the speech, the students said. The students in the class were hopeful things will work out but questioned whether Obama's plan would actually work to dig the country out of its economic woes. They also expected a longer speech.
Senior Syna Daudfar took some notes during the speech and was among the most vocally opposed to Obama's words.
At one point, when he talked about the costs of his stimulus plan, senior Maaike Albach and Daudfar looked at each other and said, "uh-oh."
"Overall I think it's a good idea, but he's not addressing the issues of the economic crisis," said Daudfar, a John McCain supporter who added he leans more toward being a moderate conservative. "The spending bill he just passed is just progressing the Democratic agenda rather than addressing the economic issues in the country."
Daudfar thinks Obama's plan is backward and deals with the "less important stuff" first. "Bailing out businesses" and "providing better regulatory systems for giving out money to businesses" should have been first, he said.
"If businesses can't afford to hire people, then people won't be able to work and pay off their mortgages," he said. "It's kind of like putting money into20a funnel." Albach, who is also a Republican, said Obama's plan sounds good but questioned how Obama can want to rely on "people's responsibility" when that is "what got us in this economic crisis in the first place."
"This puts us more into debt," said Albach, 18. "It's a horrible situation we're in."
Senior Brandon Miller wore a shirt with the words, "Hitler gave great speeches, too" above a picture of Obama.Miller said he had been an Obama supporter "because of his speeches," but after debating the issues in this class and looking more into Obama's policies, his vote was swayed toward McCain.
He showed a video on his camera he had just taken of the president's minutelong motorcade and talked about what a "great experience" it was to watch it. Miller had also spent a couple of hours in front of the school, hanging out and watching the protesters.
"Even though I don't support him, I think it's cool he's here," said Miller, 18. "I just don't believe all the things he's telling us. His goal is just too big and broad."
Miller wanted to hear more about the costs and guidelines the stimulus bill entails.
Senior Katelyn Meyer, who also leans more toward being a Republican, said Obama's plan sounds good, "but it's easier said than done."
"I like the refinancing part, and I like the part about mortgages, but I'm afraid we're going to put the money in but won't s ee any effect," said Meyer, 18, who still thought it was "cool" to say the president was at her school, even though she didn't get to see him live.
The students also questioned why Obama chose their school for his speech since he wasn't talking about education and wondered how much money the district spent on beautifying the campus while district positions and services are being cut.
District officials noted this week that the landscaping project completed over the weekend at Dobson was already in the works and was just expedited by the president's visit. Funding came from voter-approved bonds.
New sod was laid in front of the school Tuesday, and Daudfar said, "The joke at the school is they're going to take it away when he (Obama) leaves."
AP government teacher Jeff Sherrer said his students "feel very strongly about the issues, maybe more than the general population." He thought at least one of his students was outside protesting, and he had planned to take his students outside as a class project to show them what was going on but didn't get the chance.
"These kinds of kids really get into it," Sherrer said. "During the election we had lots of debates on the issues." These kids have a lot on the ball for their age.
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