Political Quotes of the Day

[L.Wood]

.

Obama: Senate Will Not Vote On Health Care Before Brown Is Seated

President Obama told ABC News today that the Senate will not attempt to pass health care reform before Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R-MA) is sworn in.

"Here's one thing I know and I just want to make sure that this is off the table. The Senate certainly shouldn't try to jam anything through until Scott Brown is seated," Obama said. "People in Massachusetts spoke. He's got to be part of that process."

He also urged people to look at the "substance" of the health care bill.

"It is very important to look at the substance of this package and for the American people to understand that a lot of the fear mongering around this bill isn't true," he said.
.....
Asked about Obama's comments, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the White House still doesn't have a concrete plan on how to move forward with health care.

rest of TPM story here.




.

[Dardedar]

"...cloture activities have doubled since the GOP became the minority. The average annual filed cloture motions from 2001 through 2006 was 34, but jumped to 69 in the three years since; average votes on cloture grew from 27 to 50; and per annum invoked clotures ballooned from 13 to 33. Neither party plays well with the other, but the GOP is more likely to throw a tantrum in the sandbox.

Did Obama think his political philosophies or 2008 campaign rhetoric would be an antidote to this sort of obstructionism? Did he think that the hand he reached across the aisle would be shook rather than bitten? Did he think wishing for a post-partisan America would make it so?

As I wrote previously, there is little to no incentive for Republicans to vote along with the Obama agenda. The president was in a go-it-alone situation from the beginning. He was going to absorb all the blame or reap all of the credit no matter what happened with health care or the economy."

Five-Thirty Eight

[Dardedar]

"But now that the GOP has abandoned its opposition to deficit spending and solely opposes tax increases, it has abandoned one-half of the equation of fiscal responsibility. some estimates put our involvement in Iraq as costing us 1 trillion dollars by the time we leave, and that is all pure deficit, which the GOP did not oppose in the least. Barry Goldwater would be turning in his grave if he saw what the Republican party has become: we have this screwed up neo-con ideology dominating the GOP, where government spending is ok so long as it's on defense, even when that spending is completely feckless, unnecessary, and unproductive: like trying to spend billions on the F-22 when the F-35 already serves the combat functions we need, and the F-22's we already have haven't even seen combat duty yet. and yet, when it comes to domestic spending, they fight it tooth and nail. it is apparently more important that we build an F-22 that will sit in a hangar and never be used than it is to spend those billions providing health insurance to needy families via medicaid. sadly, this is precisely what Eisenhower tried to warn us about in his farewell address. The Military Industrial Complex now provides so many jobs that even left-leaning congressmen are afraid to cut defense spending."

Link

[Dardedar]

This is the guy that followed an abortion doctor to his church and shot him in the face. Check out these arguments from his defense attorney:

Scott Roeder GUILTY: Killer Of Kansas Abortion Provider Convicted

During closing arguments earlier Friday, Rudy urged the jury to reject the murder charge, saying, "no one should be convicted based on his convictions."

Rudy mentioned leaders who stood up for their beliefs, including Martin Luther King Jr. They were "celebrated individuals (who) stood up and made the world a better place."

"They leave their marks based on their words and deeds," Rudy said.

But prosecutor Kim Parker said Roeder is "simply guilty of the crime he has been charged with."

Link

[Dardedar]

Obama talked a little in his SOTU address about the disaster he inherited from Bush. Republicans don't like that but, as this quote reveals, they know it's true:

"In 1994, nobody had any memory of Republicans in power... Now they do, and it wasn't pretty. And so we have something to overcome that we really didn't in 1994."
--Representative Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), sizing up obstacles the GOP faces as they contemplate a return to power in 2010, Link

[Doug]

President Obama traveled to a House Republican retreat in Baltimore on Friday and delivered a performance that was at once defiant, substantive and engaging. For roughly an hour and a half, Obama lectured GOP leaders and, in a protracted, nationally-televised question-and-answer session, deflected their policy critiques, corrected their misstatements and scolded them for playing petty politics.

White House officials told the Huffington Post they were absolutely ecstatic. MSNBC's Luke Russert, who was on the scene in Baltimore, relayed that a Republican official and other GOP aides had confided to him that allowing the "cameras to roll like that" was a "mistake."

So effective was the president that Fox News cut away from the broadcast 20 minutes before it ended.

See here.

[Dardedar]

Obama calling out Republicans on blaming him for the deficit:

THE PRESIDENT: "Jeb, with all due respect, I've just got to take this last question as an example of how it's very hard to have the kind of bipartisan work that we're going to do, because the whole question was structured as a talking point for running a campaign.

Now, look, let's talk about the budget once again, because I'll go through it with you line by line. The fact of the matter is, is that when we came into office, the deficit was $1.3 trillion. -- $1.3 [trillion.] So when you say that suddenly I've got a monthly budget that is higher than the -- a monthly deficit that's higher than the annual deficit left by the Republicans, that's factually just not true, and you know it's not true.

And what is true is that we came in already with a $1.3 trillion deficit before I had passed any law. What is true is we came in with $8 trillion worth of debt over the next decade -- had nothing to do with anything that we had done. It had to do with the fact that in 2000 when there was a budget surplus of $200 billion, you had a Republican administration and a Republican Congress, and we had two tax cuts that weren't paid for.

You had a prescription drug plan -- the biggest entitlement plan, by the way, in several decades -- that was passed without it being paid for. You had two wars that were done through supplementals. And then you had $3 trillion projected because of the lost revenue of this recession. That's $8 trillion.

Now, we increased it by a trillion dollars because of the spending that we had to make on the stimulus. I am happy to have any independent fact-checker out there take a look at your presentation versus mine in terms of the accuracy of what I just said."
via Crooks and Liars

[Savonarola]

Obama calling out Republicans on blaming him for the deficit:

And it was all on a teleprompter, right? Because Obama's a moron and can't speak coherently without a teleprompter?

Republicans are idiots. They spend eight years worshiping a bumbling idiot who can't find subject-verb agreement with both hands and needs help via radio for debates but accuse the most eloquent speaker since... well, the last Democratic president, if not before, (who kicks their asses in live debates and rips their talking points to shreds on the fly) of needing a teleprompter.

And they wonder why they perceive vitriol from even moderates?

[kwlyon]

I think I know what the issue is...people elect idiots because they are, themselves, idiots. Ignorance begets ignorance. I am being censored (and likely ultimately kicked out of) Evolution Fairytale Forum despite my best efforts to be rational and, believe it or not, respectful. However I am perceived as a threat because I am more knowledgeable about certain topics than the moderators. They don't want to be made to look like idiots...thus....they keep what I say OFF the board. Then they insinuate that I was being vulgar or something and that is why I was censored. Those that watch Faux Nuuus will never know this occurred... because they will see to it they do not see it...not that it would matter...they would not hear anyways.

[Dardedar]

"Eliminationist Right-Wing Blogs and Fox News screechers may look like clowns, but that is their function. To stretch the Window so far to the Right that anything short of nuking the Middle East seems acceptable."



More...

[Dardedar]

"I told you yesterday, buckle up your seatbelt, America. Find the exit -- there's one here, here, and here. Find the exit closest to you and prepare for a crash landing. Because this plane is coming down, because the pilot is intentionally steering it into the trees!

Most likely, it'll happen sometime after Christmas. You're gonna see this economy come up -- we're already seeing it, and now it's gonna start coming back down again. And when you see the effects of what they're doing to the economy, remember these words: We will survive. No -- we'll do better than survive, we will thrive. As long as these people are not in control. They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered!"
--Glenn Beck Link

Basically Rush Limbaugh's shtick during the 90's, turned up several notches on the stupidity dial.

[Doug]

" They are taking you to a place to be slaughtered!"--Glenn Beck

DOUG
Of course, the founder of FAUX NEWS and head liar, Roger Ailes, on This Week (ABC, Sunday) pretended to be clueless that Glenn Beck had said any such thing.

At least Ailes admitted that they aren't broadcasting to give the news, they are broadcasting to get ratings.

Ailes is willing to see his country go down in flames from his lies and misinformation as long as he makes money doing it.

[Dardedar]

"Benjamin Koellmann paid $215,000 for his apartment in Miami Beach in 2006, but now units are selling in foreclosure for $90,000. “There is no financial sense in staying,” he said.

“People like me are beginning to feel like suckers,” Mr. Koellmann said. “Why not let it go in default and rent a better place for less?”

NY Times

[Dardedar]

"But there’s no reason to panic about budget prospects for the next few years, or even for the next decade. Consider, for example, what the latest budget proposal from the Obama administration says about interest payments on federal debt; according to the projections, a decade from now they’ll have risen to 3.5 percent of G.D.P. How scary is that? It’s about the same as interest costs under the first President Bush.

Why, then, all the hysteria? The answer is politics.

The main difference between last summer, when we were mostly (and appropriately) taking deficits in stride, and the current sense of panic is that deficit fear-mongering has become a key part of Republican political strategy, doing double duty: it damages President Obama’s image even as it cripples his policy agenda. And if the hypocrisy is breathtaking — politicians who voted for budget-busting tax cuts posing as apostles of fiscal rectitude, politicians demonizing attempts to rein in Medicare costs one day (death panels!), then denouncing excessive government spending the next — well, what else is new?"

Paul Krugman

[L.Wood]

United States Court of Appeals FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

rules that Arkansas method of lethal injection "does not subject inmates to a substantial risk of serious harm."

Ruling is here. ( bottom of page 23)

[Doug]

Arkansas' method of lethal injection "does not subject inmates to a substantial risk of serious harm."

DOUG
Yes, if done properly the worst that could happen is...

[Doug]

As Long as They Aren't F'ing?
In her first Sunday show appearance, [Sarah Palin]...used her platform to continue a call for the president to rid himself of his closest advisers. On Attorney General Eric Holder, she labeled his handling of captured terrorists -- "allowing them our U.S. constitutional protections when they do not deserve them" -- a firing offense. On Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel, she said his comments calling liberal groups "f-ing retards" was "indecent and insensitive" and cause for his dismissal.

But the former governor went to great and sometimes awkward lengths to insist that when conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh used the same exact term to describe the same exact group, it was simply in the role of political humorist.

"They are kooks, so I agree with Rush Limbaugh," she said, when read a quote of Limbaugh calling liberal groups "retards." "Rush Limbaugh was using satire ... . I didn't hear Rush Limbaugh calling a group of people whom he did not agree with 'f-ing retards,' and we did know that Rahm Emanuel, as has been reported, did say that.There is a big difference there."
See here.

[kwlyon]

We hold these truths to be self evident, that all white christian people with penises are created equal.

[Dardedar]

[Palin] ...went to great and sometimes awkward lengths to insist that when conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh used the same exact term to describe the same exact group, it was simply in the role of political humorist.

DAR
Actually, Limbaugh said variations of "retard" and "retarded" over 40 times on that one show. Nothing to see here!

This woman is so goddamn stupid she has to write crib notes on her hand? And what does she write?

"Energy"

"Budget cuts"

"Tax"

"Lift American spirits"

WTF?



WTF?

http://thinkprogress.org/2010/02/06/palin-hand/

[Doug]

"Budget cuts"

"Tax"

DOUG
It looks like she crossed out BUDGET CUTS and wrote TAX under BUDGET. So she originally wrote BUDGET CUTS and then changed her mind to TAX CUTS. CUTS now refers to TAX.

Yes, she's very dumb. She can't memorize a list this short? A list of standard conservative talking points? It's not as if she had to memorize a set of economic figures or words in a foreign language.

Of course, this is the same woman that couldn't remember Senator Biden's last name...