Happy Hour Roundup
* In his pep-rally with Dem Senators, Bill Clinton went into extensive detail about his own health care fiasco, and counseled Dems to better explain to voters how procedural tactics can obstruct reform.
* He also seemed to take particular pleasure in tormenting public option enthusiasts.
* Clinton’s pitch did nothing to persuade Senator Mary Landrieu to allow the health care proposal to go to the floor for a debate. She’s still non-committal.
* Conservative bloggers say they’re embracing the Stupak amendment explicitly because it could kill health care reform. Moderate Dems, behold your allies…
* Marc Ambinder acknowledges that Obama’s Fort Hood speech sent a chill up his leg.
* Media figures took a lot of grief for dwelling on John Edward’s $400 haircut, but it turns out that particular factoid was dug up by Obama’s campaign opposition researchers. Which is to say the Obama campaign was certainly not above feeding, and benefiting from, the Freak Show.
* Republicans are pushing around the finding in the Gallup poll that 44% of independents would urge their member of Congress to oppose health care reform, and only 22% would urge him or her to support it.
* Still another blow to Don’t Ask Don’t Tell.
* It isn’t every day that Brit Hume fact checks Bill O’Reilly, but such are today’s times.
* Here’s proof that our WhoRunsGov political profiles are way better than Wikipedia’s. The Wikipedia entry on newly-promoted White House communications dude Dan Pfeiffer claims he’s an avid “apiarist,” or bee keeper. Totally false. Check out our profile instead.
* And here’s the Shocker of the Day: Senator Joe Lieberman has proven once again that he really enjoys saying things that make liberals mad.
Got anything else?
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Move over, Tweety.
Greg, last sentence needs correction, enjoy used twice by mistake I think.
fixed — thx.
Wow, wonder what qb would say to Marc Ambinder. I waxed hardly poetic at all after reading the transcript and got hammered for my Utopian colored glasses.
Breaking News Alert
The New York Times
Tue, November 10, 2009 — 5:42 PM ET
—–
Blackwater Approved $1 Million in Iraqi Payments After ‘07 Shootings
Top executives at Blackwater Worldwide authorized secret
payments of about $1 million to Iraqi officials that were
intended to silence their criticism and buy their support
after a September 2007 episode in which Blackwater security
guards fatally shot 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad, according
to former company officials.
Four former Blackwater executives said in interviews that
Gary Jackson, who was then the company’s president, had
approved the bribes, and the money was sent from Amman,
Jordan, where Blackwater maintains an operations hub, to a
top manager in Iraq. The executives, though, said they did
not know whether the cash was delivered to Iraqi officials or
the identities of the potential recipients.
Teabagger-promoted wannabe CA senator Chuck DeVore has put up a two-minute web ad attacking Carly Fiorina. Also getting a slight nod is Carly’s “fellow liberal” Barbara Boxer.
just added another link: Clinton’s pitch did nothing to sway Mary Landrieu to support bringing reform to the floor for debate.
She returns: http://twitter.com/SarahPalinUSA
Just about to post that Andy.
And to think that Traitor Joe REFUSED to investigate Blackwater………..
“”"when Blackwater security contractors killed 17 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in September 2007, Rep. Waxman immediately called hearings in the House and hauled in Blackwater Chief Executive Erik Prince to testify.
Waxman also released a lengthy report chronicling numerous cases in which Blackwater employees killed innocent Iraqis without being held accountable.
Lieberman, in explaining why he decided to sidestep the issue, said at the time, “You’ve got to set your own priorities and it was clear to me that other committees were going to pick this up.”
After the Blackwater shootings, Senate Democrats drafted legislation to set up a wartime contracting commission. Although the legislation had 28 sponsors and co-sponsors, Lieberman did not support the effort.
Explaining his relative disinterest in oversight, Lieberman told the magazine Government Executive in July, “We don’t like investigating. We like to do legislation. We don’t like investigating … just to see who is at fault.”
That became apparent again in July when calls went out to Lieberman’s committee to investigate former Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root whose alleged shoddy contract work in Iraq was blamed in the electrocution of more than a dozen Americans.
Lieberman, who at the time was campaigning heavily for McCain, did not hold a hearing on the issue.“”"
http://pubrecord.org/politics/923/as-oversight-chairman-lieberman-refused-to-probe-bush-administration/
Andy: Hmmm.  $1M sounds like a pretty paltry sum.
Here’s the interesting part of that Politico piece on Lieberman. Looks to me like maybe he is leaving himself a little “wiggle” room.
“Speaking of his liberal critics — some of whom are now securing pledges to back his challenger in 2010 — he said: “I’d ask them to hold back” pending the outcome of negotiations.”
Ethan, interesting about Lieberman and Blackwater, I’d forgotten all that. The guy clearly has no moral standards whatsoever. It’s hard to believe he was ever on the Dem. ticket now.
Rare Tea Party success:
http://www.tucsonteaparty.org/?p=611
via The Campaign Spot
lmsinca, I interpreted that Lieberman line as a threat — as in, “if you want there to be any prayer that I won’t filibuster, you’d better not attack me”
not quite sure if that’s what he meant, but it certainly wouldn’t be out of character if so, right?
@greg/lmsinca: I’d interpret that Lieberman remark to mean, “Negotiations will lead to a Senate bill that does not include a PO. I won’t filibuster that.”
Remember Jon Stewart’s send-up of last week’s election losers? Well, from Rupert Murdoch’s down-under neighbor comes this news:
More Lieberman: “I really want to vote for health insurance reform. I just think [if] you go back to last year and look and see during the debates if anybody in the presidential campaigns if anybody ever mentioned the words ‘public option’ or anything like it. They didn’t, this is an unnecessary add-on.”
“…I’ve got to use the right I have as a senator to stop something that I think is going to be terrible for our future, which is the public option, not health care reform. I want to vote for health care reform.”
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/56948
No sbj and Greg, I think I’m right on this one. The word “ask” is the giveaway as well as “negotiations”. I think he’s waiting to see what he’ll get for his half-hearted vote for the PO.
After Obama’s speech today I’m in an optomistic mood, even for such a sad occassion. I’ve been on an emotional roller coaster lately so I’m trying to enjoy the high while it lasts. The rabid dog in me for HCR is taking a nap.
Pick a charity sbj, if I’m wrong I’ll donate $50 in your name, even though I don’t know what it is.
” I think I’m right on this one. The word “ask” is the giveaway as well as “negotiations”. I think he’s waiting to see what he’ll get for his half-hearted vote for the PO.”
I tried that $50 bet on all of em and go no takers.
Either.
I obviously agree with you.
@lmsinca: Tell you what – let’s not bet. How about we both donate $25 to the American Cancer Society?
https://www.cancer.org/aspx/Donation/DON_1_Donate_Online_Now.aspx?from=hpglobal
We CANNOT forget Joe is a MAJOR flip flopper. He is not afraid to change his mind and apparently for no reason.
Above Ethan noted this:
“Explaining his relative disinterest in oversight, Lieberman told the magazine Government Executive in July, “We don’t like investigating. We like to do legislation. We don’t like investigating … just to see who is at fault.”
Last Sunday the AP reported this:
“By ALLEN G. BREED, AP National Writer Allen G. Breed, Ap National Writer – Sun Nov 8, 6:55 pm ET
FORT HOOD, Texas – A key U.S. senator called Sunday for an investigation into whether the Army missed signs that the man accused of opening fire at Fort Hood had embraced an increasingly extremist view of Islamic ideology.
Sen. Joe Lieberman’s call came as word surfaced that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan apparently attended the same Virginia mosque as two Sept. 11 hijackers in 2001, at a time when a radical imam preached there. ”
So when we don’t want to investigate we won’t and when we do we will. Get it… I am a US Senator and I will do what I want.
OK sbj, I donate to them about every three months anyway, so we can do another $25 right now. Where were you when Ethan, Tena and I were drumming up donations for Free Clinics?
Do you think I’m right about Lieberman or not?
@lmsinca: It’s the “at least a murderer” part that worries me. He’s a traitor. I’d like to see more teaching of the lesson that traitors are executed and a little less worry about jumping to conclusions. Right after a traitor kills 13 people is not the time to start worrying about how our reaction will impact diversity.
I only read Obama’s remarks but thought they were great.
sbj
Either way, murderer or traitor, he will face punishment for his actions. Is it a “postal” killing” or some kind of conspiracy, that’s what bothers me. Not you, but others from the right are equating the fact that he’s Muslim with some sort of “problem” in our Military. Sorry, I’m not buying that.
Let’s find out what his motivation is and if there are other’s involved before we define his agenda. I’m sure you don’t disagree.
And I’m glad you approved of the President’s speech today, I thought it was awesome and struck just the right tone for the military and the country.
Greg,
Are we seeing a double standard here? Two stories broke today about News Corp. One was Murdoch calling the president a racist and the other was a former employee suing the NY Post. I am finding very little if any MSM coverage of either. Are those non-stories?
When the WH made public that it had a beef with Fox News not only was it major news in the MSM but the MSM criticized the WH for calling out Fox. Double Standard?
Seriously, I just watched the video of the President’s speech this morning at Fort Hood, before I had only read the transcript. How in the world can anyone, anywhere, of any political persuasion not appreciate the comfort as well as the resolve in his words.
We are lucky to have a President who gets both the sacrifice and the heroism of our troops and anyone who doubts his dedication to our country is crazy, paranoid and living in an alternate universe.
“OK sbj, I donate to them about every three months anyway, so we can do another $25 right now. Where were you when Ethan, Tena and I were drumming up donations for Free Clinics?”
Great – I already donated. I don’t think I had any spare change for the free clinics at the time. And, if I recall correctly, ethan and tena were trying to make that a contest of some sort to prove liberal superiority – not my thing. I think that community clinics (and retail clinics) are a great, innovative way to combat some of our h/c problems. (BTW, this is a good example of the sorts of things that I think we can tackle on a bipartisan basis incrementally.)
“Do you think I’m right about Lieberman or not?”
I don’t think Lieberman will support a Pelosi-type PO; I take him at his word that he would filibuster a final vote. I don’t think he would filibuster a triggered PO. I don’t think the Senate’s final bill will contain a Pelosi PO.
“BTW, this is a good example of the sorts of things that I think we can tackle on a bipartisan basis incrementally.”
Agreed, and you know you’re my fav. also. Thanks for donating, you’re right it’s not a contest.
@sbj
“I take [Lieberman] at his word…”
Yeah…good luck with that.
The Senate version will not have the HOUSE version of the public option (calling it the “Pelosi” PO is such a petty wingnut tactic). It will likely have the same PO Sen. Reid has said it would…a slightly less robust public option with an opt out. That’s what’s going to the floor, and there are not 60 votes to change it.
All the arguments Sen. Lieberman is making against the PO are false and they will likely get resolved by the CBO estimate. If it does, he’ll probably start to back off, claim some minor victory and vote for cloture.
But, you know, in the meantime…go ahead, take Sen. Joe Lieberman at his word. That’s a strategy that’s sure to be successful! lol.
“Wow, wonder what qb would say to Marc Ambinder. I waxed hardly poetic at all after reading the transcript and got hammered for my Utopian colored glasses.”
Not at all. I commented on your statement that you are glad you chose hope over fear, in my view a simplistic and fatuous conceit.
It had really nothing to do with Obama’s speech, although I realize you folks treat every word from Obama’s mouth as if he were Moses or God himself. If Bush said the same words, you would damn him from every angle.
“We are lucky to have a President who gets both the sacrifice and the heroism of our troops and anyone who doubts his dedication to our country is crazy, paranoid and living in an alternate universe.”
You mean the way you and your friends here constantly claim that George Bush and Dick Cheney didn’t care about the country, and in many cases that they actually wanted to harm and destroy its foundations? How they didn’t care about soldiers, so long as they helped make Bush and Cheney’s oil baron pals money?
I don’t doubt Obama’s dedication to the country — to transforming and remaking it into something different, as he has repeatedly stressed is his goal.
But Bush hadn’t and didn’t and couldn’t in a million years say those very same words. That is the point.
“calling it the “Pelosi” PO is such a petty wingnut tactic)”
Sheesh – that was just a quick way to accurately convey the PO type I was writing about (there have been so many different versions of the “PO”). If the final Senate bill contains a PO of any type I expect that Lieberman will not be the only Dem/Indep joining in a filibuster.
That’s an interesting little Politico link which I give you credit for posting.
Those of us who weren’t in thrall to him always saw Obama’s down and dirty tactics and tricks. Now we see that he flat out lied to the reporter who asked him why he hired opposition researchers.
Not that it’s any surprise. Obama does frequently go for the big lie — the lie so transparent it can’t possibly be believed. He knows he can get away with it because the media always did and still does give him a pass and lets his narrative go forward undisturbed by inconvenient facts.
“But Bush hadn’t and didn’t and couldn’t in a million years say those very same words. That is the point.”
Bush II met privately with many many members of the deceased military. He was often praised for the comfort he brought to many in trying times. Did you realize that Bush and his wife visited Ft Hood last Friday evening? It was kept private and he didn’t try to turn it into a PR opportunity. The idea that “Obama is better at this than Bush” is just lunacy. They are two different people who operate in different ways.
“But Bush hadn’t and didn’t and couldn’t in a million years say those very same words. That is the point.”
= blah blah blah
No matter what he said you hated him and damned him. You weren’t even listening except to your own voices.
Public Option. God I wish the Democrats had someone of Frank Luntz’s caliber doing their branding. I think I can safely guarantee that if they did, there would be no “Public Option.” We’d be calling it something lofty sounding, like the Fairness Option or the Freedom Option…
It’s a fact that Republicans are as good at making their bad ideas sound good as Democrats are at making good ideas sound dull, or even vaguely threatening. It’s unreasonable to expect people to have no opinion on a subject even if they have no real idea what a term means. So it matters a lot what you call things and Public Option sounds about as attractive as public restroom.
Wow, qb’s back and all of a sudden we’re animated again. I give GWB credit on 3 counts, pulling the country together after 9/11, dealing in a great way with HIV/AIDS in Africa, and setting the clocks forward in March instead of April.
Am I missing something, anyone? And BTW qb, I never hated him but I definitely blamed him for a whole lot of cr@p. We are trying to pick up the pieces from a FAILED presidency and all you worry about is, OMG Obama is a community organizer and was educated in the early 80’s so he must have a hidden agenda.
I was educated in the late 60’s and early 70’s and so I guess I must be a hippie, radical, pot smoking, free s*e*x revolutionary.
We are all of us shaped by our education, experiences, family situation and religious persuasion. To assume that because you were somehow indocrinated by your elite professors that the rest of us can’t think for ourselves is a farce of the first order.
lmsinca:
“We are trying to pick up the pieces from a FAILED presidency ”
Indulge me a bit. Why, exactly, do you feel that Bush’s was a FAILED presidency?
I’m feeling pretty good since John Allen Muhammad got snuffed, so I won’t argue the points, I’d just like to know what your criteria for a failed Presidency is.
lmsinca:
“I was educated in the late 60’s and early 70’s and so I guess I must be a hippie, radical, pot smoking, free s*e*x revolutionary.”
NOT “Youth For Nixon”, then?
lmsinca I think you summed it up pretty well!
Gee, I don’t know B’man, maybe his bogus war in Iraq, or his tax cuts, or his Medicare part D which was never paid for, or his FAILURE to capture or kill OBL, or his failure to fund “no child left behind”, or his stupid “tax refunds” which did absolutely nothing to stimulate the economy, or his de-regulation (not entirely his fault) of the banking industry, or his not recognizing that the housing market was a house of cards, even though there were enough warning signs that even I knew it, or his lack of finesse in world affairs, I don’t know should I go on.
And no, I wasn’t part of the “Youth for Nixon” campaign, although my father did sign me up for DAR, and I was also forced into “Rainbow Girls”, they were after all a bunch of Masons.
Really, we all have our cross to bear and I was raised by a bunch of racist, functional alcoholic conservative gamblers. I’m not complaining because I loved them all and I am an awesome gambler, although I heeded my grandmother’s sound advice, don’t assume you’ll win and be humble if you do.
I don’t think Obama’s agenda is very hidden at all and never did. He certainly ran away from his record and tried to portray himself as something very different in the campaign, but that couldn’t have fooled anyone who was on the ball.
It is foolishness to think that college studies and professors don’t influence people. In fact, not just foolish but obviously ridiculous and untrue to anyone who has been to college. I saw lots of conservative and mainstream students radicalized by radical professors. Those radical ideas do influence people.
But it isn’t a matter of speculation as to Obama that he has radical views and objectives. It’s a matter of public record, and that public record is much easier to understand if you are familiar with the radical strains of thought to which he was almost certainly exposed. It’s just that simple. Whether he arrived thinking along those lines or was influenced in that direction or some combination thereof is not that significant. His agenda and views are those of academic radicals to whom he was undoubtedly exposed. I can look at his record and listen to his words and see the influence of neo-Marxist strains of thought and attitudes. Whether he learned it in a junior seminar is not that relevant.
Anyone who thinks and states that Sarah Palin is the real deal is most definitely not “on the ball”.
Imsinca,
A lot of your anti-Bush diatribe above is dubious, but I am curious if you have any specifics regarding these indictments:
“or his de-regulation (not entirely his fault) of the banking industry, or his not recognizing that the housing market was a house of cards,”
“Anyone who thinks and states that Sarah Palin is the real deal is most definitely not “on the ball”.”
Not sure what that is supposed to mean, but assuming it refers to me I always recognized Obama for the radical he was, so evidently I was on the ball.
Do not think that John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, or Martin Luther King Jr. died so that Obama could reenact the Jimmy Carter administration.
qb, just because a person is exposed to radical ideas and agendas doesn’t mean that person (you, me, or Obama) adopts them all or even part of them. Isn’t the “college experience” a learning experiment in how to think for yourself and form your own opinions.
Maybe it’s just me but that’s what I learned, and by BTW I raised 3 plus 2 more children who all took the best, and rejected the worst from college. We all have advanced degrees, not from elite schools, and all learned the most important lesson, think for yourself.
Maybe I can’t relate to Obama’s education because I got my Master’s from CSULA, a state college, but I don’t ever remember any professor saying you HAVE to believe this, everything was up for grabs.
Imsinca, you forgot, allowing the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Thanks Ancy, I don’t even know how I could have forgotten that. I am trying so hard to find something positive during the “Bush Years” that I have actually neglected the worst. My bad.
Sorry Andy not Ancy
qb
If anyone, including the Bush Administration and their minions, paying attention to the housing market couldn’t see the “house of cards” then they are lying. Either that or I’m a genius, which I seriously doubt.
Maybe it’s a West Coast, East Coast thing, but we saw it coming about 1 1/2 years ago and planned accordingly. Unfortunately, not everyone was as fortunate.
From April of 2008 regarding Bush, Paulson and deregulation. If you think Bush and Repub policies didn’t have a hand in our economic meltdown, you’re delusional, with all due respect.
“Nevertheless, no one doubted (and many hoped) that the intention of any restructuring under this administration would be to achieve a net deregulation, a loosening of government demands on bankers and banks on the one hand, and an increasing of risk for individual investors on the other. This was, after all, what the administration had been achieving piecemeal for years, from kicking out the consumer-friendly Securities and Exchange Commission chair William Donaldson, to looking the other way as the housing bubble grew on the strength of a poorly regulated mortgage industry. The goal of Paulson’s 2007 launch was to achieve the same results under the seemingly neutral disguise of increasing efficiency and reform.”
Today we are experiencing the end results of seven years of benign neglect. And yet, after running through the problems with the current regulatory structure, Paulson in his speech said, “I do not believe it is fair or accurate to blame our regulatory structure for the current market turmoil.” In other words, Paulson says our regulatory structure isn’t at fault in the current crisis, but he still wants to spend a lot of time and resources completely reforming it, because what’s needed, ultimately, is more de-regulation, which will allow for more risk taking. Which is, of course, the reason Bear Stearns and a million-plus mortgages are imploding.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/04/01/opinion/main3985713.shtml?source=RSSattr=Opinion_3985713
Imsinca,
I don’t intend to get into a debate about it, but I asked about your banking deregulation and housing market claims because I was curious what you were actually talking about. Banking deregulation is a totally bum rap on Bush as far as I know, not to mention in not the cause of the credit meltdown. The housing market? Well, your party built the Fannie/Freddie house of cards and protected it from tighter regulation. (Obama personally helped foist that disaster on the country as an Acorn lawyer.) Really not sure what case you think there is for hanging any of that on Bush.
The above is for qb if he reads it.
Really qb if you mention Acorn we are so done it is not even funny. And BTW did you bother to read my post, I don’t entirely blame it all on Bush, actually we could go back to Clinton, but really Obama has absolutely nada to do with any of it much to your chagrin.
And if you don’t want to debate the issue that’s absolutely fine with me, we never get anywhere anyway. Hey, are we having fun yet?
Yes, I just read it. “With all due respect,” I don’t think you understand the first thing about economics.
But, that aside, you linked only a rambling and poorly reasoned opinion by a liberal commentator. He mixes so many apples and oranges, and throws in so many irrelevant jabs, that he really doesn’t even say anything coherent.
But even he doesn’t claim what you do — that Bush deregulated banking (let alone that his deregulation led to the “meltdown”). Democrats created and protected the system of giving incentives and forcing banks to make bad loans. We could talk about what happened with interest rates and housing values, and who all shares responsibility, but Democrats will never have any room to blame anyone else for the mortgage and financial crisis.
“Really qb if you mention Acorn we are so done it is not even funny.”
Whatever, Imsinca. How soon I forget that you have your own set of rules of etiquette and matters that are not to be mentioned.
Sorry you don’t like it, but Obama chose not only to work with Acorn but to represent it in litigation forcing banks to make bad loans as a matter of affirmative action in lending. It was organizations like Acorn, sponsored by your party in Congress, and lawyers like Obama who rammed this foolish and fraudulent system down America’s throat.
I know you try not to think about or even acquaint yourself with the more inconvenient facts about Obama’s record and history. But it doesn’t change the facts. He promised Acorn they would be helping set his agend as President. Now he likes to pretend he had nothing to do with them. But he did. Just like the other associations and affiliations he jettisoned as political embarassments. “Not the ___ I knew.”
But I’m the one who is “deluded.” Whatever.
Okay
So you’re in the blame it on the Dems camp. Fine, you’re entitled to your OPINION, and I’m entitled to mine. Since you guys were in charge for the last what 12 years or so Congress wise (minus maybe 3), go ahead blame everything on us.
Have you converted to cash yet? You probably should because the Dems are in charge. I know Freehold has and now has totally missed out on the market uptick.
I know, it’s really scary so you should probably just give up and emigrate to a country that offers more opportunity and doesn’t have a leader who went to an elite college (like you) and was exposed to “radical” community organizing skills.
Sorry, I know I’m being snarky, but qb, do you really think the dems are responsible for the economic meltdown? I just don’t see how you could be so dense. Sorry, because I really do hate to use that kind of language.
Could you tell me again how Acorn has helped set his agenda?
Are you kidding? You’re a lawyer right? Do your clients from a case years ago set your agenda? I guess I missed that memo.
And please, I am willing to acquaint myself with any “inconvenient fact” you can throw at me. So far I haven’t seen anything but opinion, which is fine, but don’t accuse me of being unwilling or unable to face an incontrovertible fact if I see it.
And BTW I can’t believe you are saying “whatever”, I have avoided that like the plague along with “dude”.
And also I know enough about economics to own two houses outright, one is rental income, and enough to own 27 acres in a desert area with competing investors in solar vs. wind. Gosh, we knew enough to liquidate our stock in 2007 and then buy back in early in 2009. I knew enough to suggest to our son he sell his house in 2007, rent for a year or so and buy a foreclosure. We knew enough to build our own warehouse on our property and move our business home. We knew enough to invest in our 3 kids college education, along with my niece and nephew. And we knew enough about economics to keep our business running for 30 years. Please don’t talk economics with me because I know enough.
One more quick thing qb, I know you didn’t think much of the article I linked and complained because it didn’t actually show the link between Bush and the “meltdown”, well guess what, that’s because the piece was written about 6 months before the “meltdown”.
Morning roundup posted, all:
http://theplumline.whorunsgov.com/political-media/the-morning-plum-9/
One of the problems is that you very often don’t read what someone actually says. You read everything through your lens in which conservatives are all unthinking whackos obsessed with conspiracies, or worse. And as a result you attribute positions we don’t espouse and attack straw men more often than not.
You said the economic “meltdown” was caused by Republican policies including Bush bank deregulation and tax cuts. I happen to think our economic troubles are caused by generally liberal, big government interventionist and redistributionist policies that have prevailed under both parties recently, more so the Dems but the GOP, too. Bush and the Republicans were not particularly “conservative” in their economic policies for the most part, other than passing limited tax cuts. They completely failed to restrain and cut spending. They were liberal spenders.
Bush didn’t deregulate banking. Banking is still heavily regulated, and the important deregulation that did occur was mainly under Clinton (and didn’t cause the mortgage or credit crisis).
You have a belief that Bush and Republicans — and more importantly conservative policies — are somehow to blame for the housing market and credit collapse, but you don’t actually support that with anything except the vague assertion that they didn’t see it coming and stop it. Those actually are the same thing. There were multiple factors involved in most people’s opinions, I think it is fair to say, but it is a fact that part of the problem — a large part — was the Fannie/Freddie system, which was protected from tighter regulation by Dems like Barney Frank. He is on the record in the years before the collapse saying there was no problem and no reason to tighten up requirements.
It is interesting that you easily blame the GOP for everything wrong because they had power during much of the recent time period. Of course, Dems controlled Congress during the latter Bush years, and I am pretty sure spending went up even more then, and that is also when the collapse occurred. Dems controlled Congress.
Currently, moreover, Dems have the largest majorities we’ve seen in many years plus the Presidency, and yet we hear constant carping about how the GOP, which is utterly powerless, is “blocking” and “obstructing” the enlightened Dem agenda. So again we have an absolute double standard. The GOP had very thin majorities but is responsible for everything bad that happened, and conservative policies are to blame even if policies followed actually were not conservative at all. But now Dems have essentially absolute power but the GOP is still to blame for preventing them from giving us the liberal polcies that alone can save us.
I always find it amusing that ordinary Dems and liberals make these impassioned arguments for liberal economic policies as somehow being more conducive to growth and prosperity. Liberal economic policies in general aren’t about growth and prosperity, they are about leveling, redistribution, and, sadly, penalizing success. The growth and prosperity arguments you all make are a set of rationalizations developed to package anti-growth policies as growth policies. I don’t think too many liberal academic economists, for example, actually believe higher taxes are somehow conducive to growth and prosperity. They just want big government and redistribution but need to make them more palatable and salable. So they develop rationalizations that get repeated by liberals as if they actually make sense. Yes, Ethan, if you are watching, that is my opinion. How dare I.
Yes, I am a lawyer. Clients pay me to represent them. But I am not an activist or “cause” lawyer. When Obama decided to represent Acorn in litigation against banks in the 1990s, on the other hand, it was as a “cause” lawyer. Surely you can copmrehend the difference. He didn’t get brainwashed by Acorn when they suddenly came to his law firm to hire someone to represent them. He always allied and aligned himself with Acorn and Gamaliel and like groups and causes, and that’s why he chose to represent Acorn when he became a lawyer.
Moreover, it isn’t my inference from his legal representation that they helped set his Presidential agenda. He TOLD an Acorn convention DURING his Presidential campaign that they would be on the inside with him helping set his agenda. Go look up the video if you want, but in any event STOP with the straw men already. You say you acknowledge inconvenient facts, but you consistently refuse to do so. He now claims he had nothing to do with Acorn, and that is flatly untrue.
As to Obama and his “elite” college education, you obviously didn’t read and understand what I said. I’m not going to waste more time explaining when you obviously have no interest in doing more than attacking straw men. For the record, I didn’t go to what I would call an “elite” college, just a pretty good one.
You didn’t link a news article. You linked an opinion column, which you claimed showed that Bush deregulated banking and thus caused the credit collapse. It neither claimed nor showed either and was little more than a set of rambling, ad hoc criticisms. But it did concede that a regulatory overhaul of the kind the author claims Paulson and Bush favored might have been worthy of consideration. Not exactly the devastating expose you suggested.
Guess I should have said: That was all in answer to Imsinca’s late night posts addressed to me.
“When Obama decided to represent Acorn in litigation against banks in the 1990s, on the other hand, it was as a “cause” lawyer. Surely you can copmrehend the difference.”
I would think as a lawyer you would be able to comprehend the differnce between litigation against banks and Motor Voter Registration at the DMV.
I happen to think our economic troubles are caused by generally liberal, big government interventionist and redistributionist policies that have prevailed under both parties recently, more so the Dems but the GOP, too.
An intriguing history-free reading of our economic history. Wild economic swings were far more prevalent prior to the Great Depression, back when things were done as qb still wants them to be done.
(intriguingly)
Right winger “quarterback”: “You read everything through your lens in which conservatives are all unthinking whackos obsessed with conspiracies, or worse.”
That’s a significant portion of the right wing’s base, yes.
But more pernicious are the very smart right wing predators that con the right wing’s base into working against their own interests.
The right wing movement, as much as they talk about ‘individualism’, is a very top down, hierarchical authoritarian movement.
While individual teabaggers may have genuine concerns, they’ve allowed themselves to be manipulated by a very tiny elite minority who have very specific agendas.
Usually those elite right-winger’s agendas are economic agendas that HURT the right wingers that support them.
In return the right wing base gets thrown some outlandish feel-good rhetoric and an occasional “social” victory.
While the right wing elite walk off with the vast majority of economic productivity gains that America has made the last 30-40 years, the right wing base gets to outlaw gay marriage, or gets to legalize biggers guns, or gets to chip away at a women’s freedom to make her own choices about when to have a family.
It’s a suckers game. And yeah, the majority of right wingers got suckered.
But the right wing cons at the top get to walk away with the BIG prize: They get to drink your milkshake (and your kids’ milkshake, and your grandkids milkshae….)