I hardly think it matters to our CIC about the degree.  Him speaking is all about his message of hope.  This is a man who came from very modest background and is President of the United States. And yes, who had to work for all his degrees.  Carrying this message is powerful.  When I hear Michele carry her message, I am moved.  We have to people in the White House that understand what it's like to struggle, work for what you want.  I for one am so proud, they lead by example!!!  

But is Obama setting himself up for problems down the road? If this summer and fall ends up being bad again, then what happens to the credibility of the Obama economic team?
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Because the Obama Adminsitration has never said that everything would be all better by summer and fall, I do not see how this is a "credibility" issue at all.

Nice try though.

What do you do when your politics suck, your politicians have been repudiated and thrown out of office, all your ideas have proved disastrous, and the public hates you?

Well, if you had even the slightest shred of integrity, you’d apologize, fix your politics, and start all over again.

Of course, regressives in America don’t quite meet that latter test. So maybe I better rephrase. What do you do when your politics suck, your politicians have been repudiated and thrown out of office, all your ideas have proved disastrous, the public hates you, AND you don’t have even the slightest shred of integrity?

Ah, well that’s easy. You just start fabricating reality.

And that is precisely what regressives are now doing.

Of course, this is not exactly a news flash. Remember how Ronald Reagan defeated the Soviets and won the Cold War? Remember how “the adults were back in charge” when George W. Bush came to Washington?

Without deceit, about seventy percent of the content of right-wing politics would immediately disappear. (The other thirty percent is just pure bullying.)

Just the same, it’s remarkable the degree to which regressives have gone completely off the deep-end lately, and are now absolutely just making it up as they go.

As usual, Dick Cheney sets the gold standard. In this case, not only for telling tall tales, but also just for being such a completely tacky (alleged) human being. Cheney is even making George W. Bush look good by comparison, as the latter has had the decency (or is it fear?) not to attack the new administration in its first months. I guess Cheney, who went out of office with single-digit approval ratings, is seeking to determine just how utterly despised a politician can be (hint: Mussolini was shot, hung upside-down on meathooks, and then stoned by an angry public). Are negative numbers a possibility here? Can more people hate you than there are people? If anyone can do it, it would certainly be the Dick.

Nowadays the guy is running all over creation telling anyone who’ll listen that Barack Obama’s foreign and defense policies constitute a threat to American national security. The great irony here is that Obama is basically running the same set of ugly policies that the Bush administration employed, and sometimes even going them one better when it comes to shredding the Bill of Rights. True, Obama has said that he will close down Guantánamo – not that he is setting those prisoners free to go party in Vegas, mind you – but otherwise just about the only significant change I can see between the two administrations on security policy is that the current one seems to want to fight actual enemies of the United States, rather than fabricated ones sitting on top of oceans of oil.

Good grace dictates that Cheney should just shut up. More to the point for this discussion, however, when it comes to the substance of his assertions, he’s just making it up as he goes.

So is the latest right wing media freak du jour, Glenn Beck, who has been on a tirade of late telling his audience that Obama has a secret plan to take away their guns. Let’s leave aside for the moment the fact that we actually live in a country where it’s legal to buy assault rifles. And let’s leave aside for the moment the fact that even George W. Bush claimed he was opposed to that policy. All that aside, I am completely unaware of any actual evidence that the Obama administration has any plans to mess with gun control in America. Much to my chagrin, in fact, it seems pretty transparent that he has absolutely no interest in spending the enormous political capital that would be required to go after this issue, even if it was something that interested him, for which there is also absolutely no evidence that I’m aware of. This is even more embarrassingly stupid than the notion that Bill Clinton killed Vince Foster. There isn’t even a dead body to explain.

But it actually gets a whole lot weirder from here. Ralph Peters is a columnist for the New York Post and is described as a “strategic analyst” for Fox “News”. That’s pretty much all you need to know about the guy’s level of expertise. But his latest column provides an astonishing tour de force lesson in how to fabricate hysterically when the facts inconveniently don’t fit your politics.

Did you know that Barack Obama’s recent European and Middle Eastern tour was a complete disaster, and that he apologized for America everywhere he went? Did you know that Obama went to Turkey “on his knees” and “gave his seal of approval to a pungently anti-American Islamist government”? You know, the same government of the same country that has been a key US NATO ally for decades, and is one of Israel’s best friends? Did you know that Obama made “disdainful remarks” about George W. Bush? Did you know that “he told the Europeans that the global economic crisis is all our fault”? Did you know “He gave the Russians yet another blank check, too. (Meanwhile, in Moscow, Putin's thugs beat an aging pro-democracy dissident to a pulp.)”?

Did you? Personally, I didn’t know any of this stuff! Possibly because it is completely untrue. When Peters refers to the dissident-beating thugs of this “Putin” guy, does he mean the same Putin whose eyes George W. Bush looked into and saw a good-hearted soul? That Putin? Now that was some tough, skilled diplomacy right there, babe.

All in all, this is really remarkable stuff. If Peters argued that Obama had actually gone to the Gamma Quadrant, rather than Europe, and apologized to American-hating, socialist aliens, his tirade couldn’t be any more hallucinatory than it is. It’s really quite astonishing. These guys are clearly starting out with the conclusion that President Obama is badly failing, and then scrambling to fabricate ‘facts’ out of whole cloth in order to support that assertion, since reality is inconveniently spitting in their faces. And they’re doing it on national television, no less.

Another wonderful example comes from some lunatic named William Murchison. He’s real unhappy that gay marriage is on the march in America. So unhappy, in fact, that he’s decided to simply fabricate it out of existence. He writes: “You really can't have ‘gay marriage,’ you know, irrespective of what a court or a legislature may say. ... The human race – sorry ladies, sorry gents – understands marriage as a compact reinforcing social survival and projection. It has always been so. It will always be so, even if every state Supreme Court pretended to declare that what isn't suddenly is. Life does not work in this manner.”

Believe it or not, it actually gets more bizarre from there. Fundamentally, Murchison argues that gay marriage cannot exist because it doesn’t serve the purpose of procreation, and he therefore even goes on to take shots at married heterosexuals who fail to reproduce, calling that “so odd a thing, to put the matter as generously as possible”.

Addressing the Iowa Supreme Court justices who disagree with him, he writes: “These learned folk tell us earnestly that the right to ‘equal protection of the law’ necessitates a makeover of marriage. And so, by golly, get with it, you cretins! Be it ordered that. One can say without too much fear of contradiction that people who set themselves up as the sovereign arbiters of reality are – would ‘nutty’ be the word?”

Get it? Because Murchison sees marriage solely for the purpose of procreation, not only does he get to decide who can marry, he even gets to pretend that there’s no such thing as other forms of marriage outside of his narrow, bigoted and historically inaccurate definition of the term. If the guy is willing to say there’s no such thing as gay marriage, why doesn’t he just get it over with and say there’s no such thing as gays? Or Democrats? Or presidents named Obama? I mean, if you’re going to do denial, why not do it right?

There is a whole lot more of this stuff, everywhere you turn. But I guess my favorite example is given to us by a guy you may have heard of before – a certain Karl Rove. Rove is really upset – and understandably so if you’re familiar with his gentle biography – at the notion that the Obama administration might actually use leverage, or remember who its friends are, when it comes to playing legislative politics in America. So upset, in fact, that he devoted his entire last column in the Wall Street Journal (natch) to a single heinously egregious incident of this. According to Rove, Representative Peter DeFazio got a taste of the presidential backhand when he voted against the stimulus bill. According to Rove, at a subsequent closed-door meeting Obama told fellow Democrat DeFazio, “Don’t think we’re not keeping score, brother”. Oooooohh! Ouch! Now that’s some rough stuff, eh?

Of course, we don’t know if Obama actually said that. And we don’t know if he said it in jest, either. But, just for the sake of argument, let’s assume that it all went down in the way Karl Rove reports it. Does that seem like a case of particularly tough politics to you? Does that seem like a president who is really playing some serious hardball? Does that seem like something that doesn’t happen every five minutes in Washington, and arguably should happen?

More importantly, does that seem like something that the Karl Rove that we’ve all come to know and love this last decade would really have a problem with? Does it seem like a tawdry, pugilistic, or despotic behavior, far below anything Rove himself could imagine employing? One answer to those questions comes from Ron Suskind, who wrote a piece about Rove in 2003. It’s worth quoting at some length:

“Eventually, I met with Rove. I arrived at his office a few minutes early, just in time to witness the Rove Treatment, which, like LBJ's famous browbeating style, is becoming legend but is seldom reported. Rove's assistant, Susan Ralston, said he'd be just a minute. She's very nice, witty and polite. Over her shoulder was a small back room where a few young men were toiling away. I squeezed into a chair near the open door to Rove's modest chamber, my back against his doorframe.

“Inside, Rove was talking to an aide about some political stratagem in some state that had gone awry and a political operative who had displeased him. I paid it no mind and reviewed a jotted list of questions I hoped to ask. But after a moment, it was like ignoring a tornado flinging parked cars. "We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!" As a reporter, you get around – curse words, anger, passionate intensity are not notable events – but the ferocity, the bellicosity, the violent imputations were, well, shocking. This went on without a break for a minute or two. Then the aide slipped out looking a bit ashen, and Rove, his face ruddy from the exertions of the past few moments, looked at me and smiled a gentle, Clarence-the-Angel smile. ‘Come on in.’ And I did. And we had the most amiable chat for a half hour.”

Of course, we could go on and on in describing the sort of hardball politics that Karl Rove used over and over again in order to win at all costs. Stuff that Barack Obama would never dream of touching. Stuff like creating rumors that Ann Richards was a lesbian. Stuff like spreading lies that John McCain had fathered a black baby out of wedlock. Stuff like scheduling the Iraq vote right before the midterm elections. Stuff like running ads against triple-amputee Vietnam vet Max Cleland, morphing his face into Osama bin Laden’s.

Stuff like that. When a guy who’s capable of this and so much more worries out loud that Barack Obama is a tyrant because maybe he made a mental note of a member of his party letting him down on a key vote, you really have to ask yourself what’s going on here. Clearly what isn’t going on here is that Rove and the regressive right have any sort of genuine concern about fair play and benighted sweetness and light in the practice of politics. Just as clearly, what is going on is that a political ideology that has exhausted its viability has now turned to wholesale fabrication in a desperate attempt to make the old voodoo work again.

Yep, it’s ugly out there, people. But there is good news in the land, nevertheless. First, what seemed false and idiotic and pernicious only to progressives five years ago now thankfully seems false and idiotic and pernicious to most Americans today. And it is therefore well that the practitioners of these gutter politics continue their practice. Indeed, the more their desperation compels them in frequency and in absurdity, the better our hopes of transcending the threat of regressive politics forever. Clearly, and finally, as Bush and Rove themselves demonstrate, they are their own worst enemies.

Second, like any good regressive should be expected to do, they have now pulled out their forks and knives and are busy eating their young. The regressive movement and its chief political agent, the Republican Party, have never been busier attacking each other and slashing each other to bits. Just last weekend the Virginia GOP had a civil war over what to do with their state chairman, truly a junior version of Michael Steele, and every bit as buffoonish. He’s now gone, and it probably won’t be long before Steele is gone as well, as Republicans seek to join the Know Nothings in the ash bin of history. Yes, as a matter of fact, it is Rush’s party now. I, for one, couldn’t be happier.

Finally, the public increasingly just has no use for these sick puppies. Go figure, eh? A lunatic in Pittsburgh killed three cops with his AK-47 the other day, because he believed that President Obama was going to take away his guns. Hard to figure why some folks might decide not to watch Glenn Beck henceforth.

A New York Times poll released this week shows that only 27 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party. Fifty-six percent have a favorable opinion of the Democrats, and, hey, those guys are weenies! When asked which party is more concerned with the needs of people like themselves, Americans picked the Democrats over the Republicans, fifty-seven percent to twenty-two percent. They trust Obama to make the right decisions about the economy, sixty-three percent to twenty percent for the Republicans. And, remarkably, they trust Obama over the Republicans even on national security issues, sixty-one to twenty-seven percent. Can you say “finished”? When the GOP is getting clobbered more than two-to-one even on their stock-in-trade scary-movie security issues, the show’s over, folks.

That doesn’t mean we won’t continue to see outrageous fabrications of the sort chronicled above, as the regressive movement writhes through its painful and self-inflicted death throes.

It just means that such a display will lean rather more towards the comical than – as in recent years – the catastrophic.

-David Michael Green, www.regressiveantidote.net

Yesterday was a slow news day, but then on Hardball, my worst person in the world, Pat Buchanan, faced off with one of my most favorite persons, Lawrence O'Donnell.  Lawrence sliced and diced Pat into small pieces.  Larry thinks smarter than Pan, and can, yes, out shout him when need be.  Not being a Catholic, I don't have a dog in this fight, but it seems to me that an open-minded institution would want to hear what our President has to say.  Debating thoughts and ideas are what universities are all about.  The conservatives may not like to debate, as they have no new ideas...  

As for giving our President an honay degree: Why not? Almost all of those who earned a degree from the university have personal opinions and beliefs that do not conform with doctrine.  I trust those who think like Pat will not embarrass Notre Dame. A peaceful demonstration of prayer may be appropriate.

On a lighter note:  Arrggh: Quiet and careful is how a responsible President should act.

'...Michele Bachmann called for an “orderly revolution” against Obama’s policies. (“We can't let the Democrats achieve their ends any longer,” she said.) Just five months after Obama’s decisive 53%-46% victory, we’ve got to ask: What is going on with some Republican elected officials? Are they watching too much Glenn Beck?....'


It's a sign of DESPERATION by Republicans
They've got NOTHING !!
That's why Conservatives are Freaking and calling Obama a 'Fascist' !!

REALLY ? A Fascist?
Conservatives have LOST IT !!

Couldn't happen to a more DESERVING GROUP

You had YOUR CHANCE !!
YOU BLEW IT !!
Torture ?
Wire Tapping ?
Economic Meltdown ?
Worst Economy since the Great Depression ?
Make believe WMDs ?
War with Iraq ?
Record Deficits ?
DOUBLING THE NATIONAL DEBT ?
End of Haebeus Corpus ?
UNPRECEDENTED CORRUPTION ?

Sorry Mavericks !!
You got NOTHING !!

Hasn't accomplished enough?? He's president of the United States. Sheesh and I thought writing my thesis was a lot of work for a degree. I'm glad I didn't attend Arizona State.

"Presumably doing his best McCarthy impression, GOP Rep. Spencer Bachus said there were 17 members of the U.S. House who are socialists but didn’t name names, the Birmingham News reported. And that came after the always-controversial Rep. Michele Bachmann called for an “orderly revolution” against Obama’s policies. (“We can't let the Democrats achieve their ends any longer,” she said.) Just five months after Obama’s decisive 53%-46% victory, we’ve got to ask: What is going on with some Republican elected officials? Are they watching too much Glenn Beck? " - First Read
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While Glenn Beck is the flavor of the month, he is not alone.

This has been going on in the Republican Party for YEARS.

My only question is do most Republicans agree with these sentiments?

If they don't, why are they not being required by the media to "reject and denounce" the statements the same way President Obama was everytime anyone he had ever heard of, even if he had no relationship with them, made an inflammatory remark (like Farrakhan)?

Why the double standard corporate news media?

What does John McCain think of all this? How about Dick Cheney? These two get alot of air time to say whatever they want, so I know they will be eager to answer.

Don't know any Obama supporters in VA who will vote for McAuliffe. Myself included.

Anyone who watches glenn henpecked is totally out to lunch.  Glenn henpecked is the most disgusting, most venal liar of all time.  But it's good that the repugnant ones keep imatating him because it scares off the normal moderates who have been fooled by these liars before.  Glenn henpecked is so childish and fake in his little tirades of being a limpwristed conservative crybaby chicken little crying the sky is getting dark.  Hey Glenn those are rain clouds, no need to push the panic button.

I'm getting sick and tired of how childish the evangelical christian lunatic fringe are about gay marriage.  Your religious freedom does not allow you to be discriminatory and it's about time to pass that hate language bull and make gay bashing a federal crime as it should be.  Grow up and stop sticking your perverted noses into other people's bedroom business.

The idiot three repugnant one governors deserve to be rejected and denounced for their petty partisan politics of trying to refuse some of the stimulus money.  About time these fools of faith get a dose of reality that they are dead wrong.  Hopefully the voters in their states will get the message that they have self serving jerks who care only about their pathetic political careers and not the people of their states.  Wake up and smell the reality folks!

Impeach Palin Now!
Impeach Sanford Now!
Impeach Jindal Now!
Impeach Bachmann Now!

'...Helping Hillary -- and Mark Penn: Here’s another question: What’s going on with Hillary Clinton’s campaign debt...'

Does anyone have change for a nickel ??

Wow Kent - Thank you.  Very, very insightful posting.  Karl Rove is no better, if not worse than Cheney.  Again Kent, Thank You!

4 weeks ago president Obama told the american people to look at buying stocks if possible because now was a good time to do it. i promptly took the $16.000 i had and put into 10 stocks and now it is almost $21,000.
two weeks ago i started to look into a remortgage and got scared because even though i have been out of work since jan. i was worried that my wife a teamster could also go through a slowdown (by the way my wifes union salary qualifies her alone for the mortgage)
well i have decided to go ahead with the re-mortgage only because Obama said it is a good time to do it.
if the party of NO would start to listen to the presidents plan then this country will recover quickly. if you think MR. CANTER AND BONER have your answers then i am really sorry for you because not only do they not have the answers they don't have the power. is president Obama a salesman? yes!!! and i am buying everything he has to sell.
nickb  

Looks like Obama's recovery program is qworking and the banks are recovering some of their liquidity and profitability.  No one to credit except Obama and the Democrats for this wonderful turnaround of the bushwhacker's depression.  The Dopes of Nope will be told to buzz off when they try to take credit for something they kept saying no to.

I'm still puzzled as to why the catholic church would be crying about Obama going to notre dame to give a commencement speech.  They should be thankful that Obama has deigned to grace notre dame with His presence and that he is overlooking that he will be seen palling around with a bunch of catholic pedophile pervert priests.  Before the catholics go throwing stones at Obama they should first clean up their pedophile pervert priest problem that is once again growing!

All this talk of socialists is getting me sick and tired of the facists who keep this nonsense up.  We're all socialists and our society will always be a mix of capitalism and socialism because going extreme either way is wrong.  Stop being a bunch of limpwristed conservative crybabies and try coming up with some good ideas to get us out of your free market freeloader mess.

In Obama We Trust!

It seems quite clear that we have entered the era of the Manchurian Republicans ... Bachmann, Boehner, Limbaugh, Beck, Palin, Cantor, Jindal, et al., cannot possibly be in their natural, unaltered states.  No one can be this disconnected from reality unless someone has disconnected them.  

No doubt that confidence and optimism are musts for this young administration. But is Obama setting himself up for problems down the road? If this summer and fall ends up being bad again, then what happens to the credibility of the Obama economic team?
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Then one can say Nobel Prize winner paul Krugman was correct in saying more money is needed instead of the current amount. More than likely the public will be more inclined to realize less is not more; and not be persuaded by Republican Party any more.

Only the Republican Party of No "Robber Barrons" who have constantly begrudged and built this huge deficit will be be surprised if it does work.

Americans have put their trust in President Obama because the need is urgently now instead of the stupid repetition of later-- "let tax payers keep their money to grow the economy". The dumb "Party of No" who really haven't said much of anything will also see that...it takes money to make money.

Tuesday, April 07, 2009 - Rasmussen Reports

Republicans have pulled within one point of Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 40% would vote for their district’s Democratic candidate while 39% would choose the Republican. Support for Democratic congressional candidates fell two points this week, while support for GOP candidates gained one point to tie its highest level this year so far.

Great post Kent

President Obama hasn't accomplished enough for an honorary degree??
What do you have to do?
Anyone see this about Israel trying to limit U.S. talks with Iran about their nuclear program: http://www.governmentalityblog.com/my_weblog/2009/04/israel-again-attempting-to-bait-us-on-iran.html

nickb - I like your postings.  Simple and heart felt!  

Mr Obama is not a salesmen,and for you to talk down to him in a degrading way is more of the Staff beat down being applied to what ever Obama is trying to get done.If he was hoping the press would help him get his message,Not like Little George didn't play the press,Instead you come at what he trys to do with your angles,maybe time for a stress test at MSNBC.Here is a little help on what happen yesterday on wall street,and most cub reporters at your local high school saw what happen ,Wells Fargo had a good earnings report,why you say,because they didn't play around the housing market,they didn't jump on the greed train,they kept there books in order,and they are making money,Thats what turned the market up yesterday.So if the market goes up and down this summer that will be trouble for Obama,really,the market goes up and down EVERYDAY,but nice try at creating news.Bachmann calling for a revolution,this woman is a Rush repeater,she quotes Beck,she is out there,in space,the final frontier hoping she gets her mug on TV.I guess the GOP has excepted the fact that they are the party of no,no new ideas,no new leaders,no new direction,just the same tired old fear and smear game.The sad part is they still think it works.  

How do the people of Minnesota continue to elect that psychotic nut job and end of times Bachmann. Now she's calling for "ORDERLY REVOLUTION AGAINST OBAMA'S POLICIES" . Are you kidding me! Talk about sedition. If Democrats had said anything like that against Bush these right wing religious fascists nuts would have asked for arrest followed by waterboarding. They are no better than the anarchists in Europe during  G 20. The only difference is this nut Bachmann is in Congress whereby she has a platform whereby she can spout this garbage from her mouth.It no different than yelling fire in a crowded hall to get a response and/or narcisstic tirade by someone like Chavez in Venezuela. VOTE HER OUT OF OFFICE. She's female version of Eugene McCarthy.  

No honorary degree from ASU?
Their loss. The President does not need validation from ASU.

Protestests from Notre Dame?
They seem small minded, no? I thought colleges were places where ideas could be exchanged, not controlled.

Yesterday, First Read said much of President Obama's success was rooted in the failure of President George Bush.

Apparently, many of his problems start with President Bush as well - because it seems that many people in this country no longer know how to respect the OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENCY even if they despise the occupant of the office.

This may prove to be one of the saddest and most long lasting legacies that the Bush Admistration left us.

We should root out the fascists in the republican party since the opposite of a socialist is a fascist clown like bachman, rush, or beck...not only are they hitler wannabes but they simply aren't very bright or well educated either...

The 300 or so Tea Parteis in major cities acrossed the U.S. are to protest Obama's tax hikes and general disenchantment with the Chosen One's policies.

Rumors are flying that it will turn into a rebellion and eventually a revolution. People are ganging on.
Glenn Beck has to have police cars parked in front of his house due to liberal maniac threats. O'Reilly, who has been critized by his fellow conservatives for giving Obama a pass on most of his policies, also has been threatened.

Seems that the Kossacks and ACORN are doing a major smear campaign again. Beck will turn up the volume and O'Reilly, an independent, say he will continue to expose anyone or anything that is out of tune with what is right and just. And ACORN just got 2 million from the stimulus. Bad, bad Obama.

Maybe this is why Beck has shot to number three on Fox, behind O'Reilly and Hannity, while MSNBC dwells in the basement of cable news.

Tea, anyone?

I mirror cindy's response.  Great find, Kent.  Too many paragraphs for the opposition, though - so prepare to be bashed for taking up too much space.

Oh yeah, about Hillary's debt . . . I will gladly give as much as I can . . . so I never have to hear about this situation again.

Seriously.

P.S. Ditto what cindy from vegas said - great post from Kent (long but great).

The repugnant ones are like a bunch of wild children throwing immature temper tantrums.  As long as they cling to glenn henpecked and Fox and Freaks they will be the laughing stock of Mainstream America.  It's good to see MSNBC's ratings going up while those at Fox and CNN (Fox Lite) are going down.  What I see of Fox and Freaks and glenn henpecked on the liberal comedy shows and Keith Olbermann's Worst Person in the World segments is truly hilarious and makes me wonder how brain damaged the fools are that watch that and actually believe it.  Well you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can't fool all of them all of the time and people are showing that they are tired of being fooled by the christian conspiracy and immoral mminority.

Another great week here at First Read reading the great articles and enjoying the totally awesome comments by the Obama supporters.  Some really great comments this week from the Obama supporters that made me laugh at how clever they are.  Oh and you  dopes of nope keep up your pathetic drivel as it is so funny watching you limprwristed conservative crybabies are so impotent in your rage against Mainstream America.

Ha Ha the three little chicken little governors who were crying the sky is falling because Obama sent them a bunch of money are finding out that they are out on a limb and they're sawing themselves off for a big fall.  So satisfying to see state legislators of both parties just say no to these pathetic excuses of governors.  I guess they forgot to say "Read My Lips" first.  Still wonderful to see these three stooges of nope get their proper comeuppance from their own constituents.

In Obama We Trust!

geez, there is nothing more fun than exploring this beautiful country in my rv; but the list of states i now want to avoid is growing! i mean did bachus never watch the manchurian candidate? jon stewart said it best, "me thinks you are confusing tyranny with losing!"

"Tea, anyone? -Palomino"

So all the huff and puff is to protest a TWO PERCENT TAX HIKE that President Obama CAPAIGNED ON for TWO YEARS, which will take the upper tax bracket back to the level it was under Ronald Reagan?

Seriously?

Now even YOU don't believe that Palamino.

>>>*** Republicans Gone Wild, part II...Presumably doing his best McCarthy impression, GOP Rep. Spencer Bachus said there were 17 members of the U.S. House who are socialists but didn’t name names, the Birmingham News reported. And that came after the always-controversial Rep. Michele Bachmann called for an “orderly revolution” against Obama’s policies. (“We can't let the Democrats achieve their ends any longer,” she said.) Just five months after Obama’s decisive 53%-46% victory, we’ve got to ask: What is going on with some Republican elected officials? Are they watching too much Glenn Beck?
==========
While righties carp about teleprompters and sleeveless dresses, these goons are purposely inciting people to violence.  They can claim "freedom of speech" all they want, but they are well aware of the audience they want to influence.  The very audience that produced the man who kill three Pittsburgh officers because he was afraid Obama would take away his guns.

Like him or not, Beck speaks to the paranoia that afflicts the right-wing, and like all of his ilk, uses that paranoia to his own ends.  If it gets ratings for the Fake Noise Crapper, who cares if it drives some people off the deep-end.  You righties can say what you want about Keith O. or Rachael Maddow, but I don't recall anyone being influenced by them to shoot up their town.

http://jawillie.blog.com

What is up with cnn using the talking chowderheads over on faux news on their network? I was watching at the Y this morning and they showed clips of glen beck and sean hannity yapping away about something Obama said or did...this was right after they explored deep subjects like where's the WH dog and is Obama 'tough' enough to end the lifeboat farce off the coast of Africa...

"Tea anyone?"  

Ha.  More like kool-aid.  Grape or cherry?  

Looks like Obama's recovery program is qworking and the banks are recovering some of their liquidity and profitability.  No one to credit except Obama and the Democrats for this wonderful turnaround of the bushwhacker's depression.  The Dopes of Nope will be told to buzz off when they try to take credit for something they kept saying no to.


The "bushwacker's" depression?  Are you referring to Clinton?  Look at 3 laws.  The Community Reinvestment Act (subprime mortgages), Glass-Steagal repealed (leverage), and Commodity Futures Modernization Act (derivatives).  Clinton signed each of these bills.  Since it is popular to blame the President for all problems, shouldn't you be calling this the "stained dress depression?"  Of course Eric, I know you will not respond as it would take some thought on your part.

When I read Palomino's post that ended with "tea, anyone," I thought now some lib is gonna use the "Kool-aid" label.

Anna, you didn't let me down.

"If Peters argued that Obama had actually gone to the Gamma Quadrant, rather than Europe, and apologized to American-hating, socialist aliens, his tirade couldn’t be any more hallucinatory than it is."
-Post by Kent...

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But Kent, he can't get to the Gamma Quadrant without first reopening the wormhole near B'jor and making nice with the Cardasians! Just wanted you to know that someone here got your Star Trek Deep Space Nine reference.  

What is going on with some Republican elected officials? Are they watching too much Glenn Beck?
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Please keep shining a light on this, First Read.  Had Democrats been speaking like this against a Republican administration, Rush et. al. would be calling for the ultimate punishment for their "treason".  Heck, they DID screech that against anyone that dared question the reasons for going into Iraq.

These hypocritical rantings- and refusal to engage in rational dialogue- are exactly why many of us got as far away from the Republican Party as we could.  Kudos to Chuck Todd for his eloquent push-back on Karl Rove's nonsense re: the Pew poll.  Chuck accurately pointed out that the GOP #s are dwindling- while Independents are increasing- and the middle is where campaigns are won.

If the GOP leadership thinks they don't need to listen to moderate Republicans, they can enjoy the wilderness forever.

I just hope those idiots remember to bring a lot of tea.

The republican and neo-con critics are just amazing!  They are quickly losing any last shred of credibility they may have had.  They would even have something bad to say if Obama managed to singlehandedly capture Osama Bin Laden, parade him down Pennsylvania Ave by a leash, and then have him executed.  

Palomino (Sent Friday, April 10, 2009 10:04 AM)

ACORN just got 2 million from the stimulus. Bad, bad Obama.

Maybe this is why Beck has shot to number three on Fox, behind O'Reilly and Hannity, while MSNBC dwells in the basement of cable news.

Tea, anyone?
???????????????????????????????????????????????
Palomino:

When did ACORN get 2 million from the stimulus?

I doubt if you come out of your basement anyone would have tea with an uninteresting, uninformed, recluse.

FR: "If this summer and fall ends up being bad again, then what happens to the credibility of the Obama economic team?"
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When the market was going down, MSNBC deceitfully cropped stock market charts to make it appear the downward trend started when Obama took office even though the truth is that what happened after Jan 20 was simply the continuation of the long death spiral that began in a YEAR ago. Then they opined that maybe it was President Obama's fault or Geithner's fault that the market was doing so poorly.

But now that the market is showing signs of life again, First Read immediately issues the grim warning that Obama may lose credibility if the upward trend doesn't continue. Didn't you forget something guys? The upward trend just MIGHT have something to do with Obama's program or perhaps simply the fact that having a grownup in charge of the country once again has generated public confidence in the economy that's already having an influence on the market.

If it was fair to question whether Obama was responsible for the downturn, it's certainly fair to question whether he's responsible for the recent upward trend, too.

But you can count on the corporate media never being fair to Obama. They're all still sore that McCain didn't win. They were so looking forward to the free food and booze that McCain would have provided them at his gala barbecues he likes to throw to win friends and gain influence with the media.

After 6 years of George Bush and a Republican Congress

Bush DOUBLED THE NATIONAL DEBT !!

Bush DOUBLED THE NATIONAL DEBT !!

124 years of Civil War, WWI, WWII, Depression....
All the Accumulated debt was DOUBLED by George Bush and His Republican Congress

NICE WORK, MAVERICKS !!

GREAT JOB !!!

BUSH DOUBLED THE NATIONAL DEBT !!

Republicans gone wild. Yeah, I can relate to that.

Too many have just sat on their hands and watched Obama and company destroy this country with one radical agenda after another.

Just a few years ago James Carville, the ugliest Dem ever, put a can over his head saying the Dem party was in big trouble.

NOW the republicans have the can over their heads. Things changed quickly for the Dems and things can change quickly for the Republicans. Just start sounding off big time.

Palin is a fighter and the attacks on her and her family have been brutal but also expected. She's fighting back and the rest of the Repub base have to do the same. Everyone hits at once. With Americans in the streets to take this country back something will get done.

It one of those "we're not gonna take it anymore"
protests. Obama is always campaigning and over seas was an embarrassment to our country. He dissed Bush on foreign soil and the heads of other countries had to be wondering why. Many liked president Bush.
Obama is a pansy. He wants everyone to like him and will suck up to the enemy if he has too.

I don't believe one word he says and he's constantly talking, generally in vague terms so that he is able to blame everyone else for his failures.

The obamanation has accomplishments - he has run up our national debt 100-fold in just three months; he signed the flagrant budget wih 8500 earmarks without anyone reading it; he has denigrated America and her citizens to foreign leaders and press; he can effectively speak with his 12 teleprompters; he has a cabinet and administration full of tax evaders, lobbyiest and borderline criminals and finally, he has broken every campaign promise!  However, he is perhaps one of the most hubris, inexperienced, naive and clueless individual ever to hold the office.  My question is, why is he still campaigning?  He needs to understand the duties of the president.  He needs to start leading - but then again, you have to have leadership ability and management skills, which he is totally devoid of.  The man is an embarrassment, and a fool.

Glenn Beck is a 'phenom' because the media fails to but Fox 'propaganda' News in check and it's having corrosive effects amoung the conservative populace in this country. Anyone see the Youtube rantings of his followers, it's frightening. A Democrat, black President set to remake the U.S. in his own image is too much for them to handle. Beck was a bootleg Hannity at CNN and he still is, he's just figured out how to make more money by becomming a complete sideshow.

Remember the Petraeus/Betray us ad from a couple years ago?  Remember the uproar and the outrage about it (completely justified, I might add)?  They had a vote on the floor of the Senate to denounce the ad, remember?  If you were a Democrat but didn't vote to condemn the ad then it meant you hated the troops and that you in turn hated America, remember?

Why can't we have a vote to condemn Glenn Beck?  What he has said day in and day out about the President is FAR worse than questioning David Petraeus' voracity.  He's said everything from Obama is a fascist dictator to Obama wants to take away your rights, none of which is based in reality.  But the GOP says NOTHING.  I find it extremely troubling that if a liberal think tank buys an ad in the NYT to critique a General, the whole government shuts down to decry the unpatriotic nature of it all but when dozens of far-right wackjobs go on TV night after night after night to try to foment a rebellion in this country, the GOP stands and applauds and helps them on their way.  This is disgusting.

Shouldn't that be Chia Pet in Chief?
Obama is a total loser.. Killing babies and murdering innocent people in Iraq and afganistan and asking $83billion more to do it

Palomino is perfect example of right wing idiocy. I wouldn't call him an idiot if he actually said anything that resembled common sense. These Tea Party's as it turns out is actually funded by a Conservative PAC's...mostly headed by Dick Armey. I can't remember the institution but check Thinkprogress. These are lobbyists and corporate elites...not to mention the conservative elits at Fox News attempting to jump on the band wagon for what will amount to small scaled Palin rallies. Yes, Palomino you will get your revolution...on your back porch. Just don't point your guns at neighboors.

Palomino

Great blog.

Bev doesn't know what she's taking about, or just plain lying. I heard on C-Span the other night about the 2 million given to ACORN. It's a fact, but one that all libs will deny.
What lib on this blog has the guts to admit the money given to ACORN?

Anna Molly might tell the truth. She's one of the more respected libs here by the conservatives, but don't count on it. They're all smear merchants.

"I hardly think it matters to our CIC about the degree.  Him speaking is all about his message of hope.  This is a man who came from very modest background and is President of the United States."
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We live in the greatest country in the world.  Our system of capitalism nurtures the enviroment that we live it.  It demands that that those who want to rise high in our ranks give their very best.

We are on a road to economic recovery, but the mess will surely get a little worse before it slowly gets better.

Obama needs to watch what he and his entire administration says in touting the economy. They don;'t want to get caught in the "fundamentals are strong" trap.

http://www.political-buzz.com/

Obama the Changemaster (Sent Friday, April 10, 2009 9:23 AM)

Not true, I spoke out against this yesterday and the day before.  This is appalling and I am not happy about it.  I have contacted the Whitehouse to express my concern and you should to:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

I encourage everyone to push back HARD.  This is a Civil Liberties issue and it needs to be addressed.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Tea It up And Hit It Long (Sent Thursday, April 09, 2009 5:43 PM)

I like your moniker; but you are failing to see the point.  I LOVE the fact that people are organizing to protest.  Involved citizens are a good thing.  We are just pointing out how misrepresentational it is to call it a Tea Party, since that represented something so completely different in our Nations history.  Plus, I think it is funny that some bozo keeps coming on this site saying how HUGE the tea party was in Ohio several weeks ago.  They were claiming over 5,000 people were there, yet when I found the ‘party pics’ – you would have been hard pressed to say 500 people.  Which is still a good showing; but then it reminded me of how the Repubs were so happy to claim 20,000 attendees at rallies there at the end when local authorities were saying it was more like 8-10K.  So, yeah, I guess some of us are just laughing at what appears to be pathetic attempts at attention seeking behavior.  Jon Stewart called it last night, “We think you are confusing tyranny with losing.”

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