Happy Hour Roundup
* Does the announcement via Twitter of Obama’s upcoming press conference constitute the latest violation of White House press corps protocol? There are already some bruised feelings in the media…
* Obama allies pummel Blue Dogs and centrist Dems with health care ads.
* Steve Benen’s take on the House Dems’ decision to forge ahead with a probe of the secret CIA program despite claims by Republicans that doing so would harm Dems politically:
It’s almost as if some Democratic leaders believe Republicans don’t really have their best interests at heart. Imagine that.
* Marcy Wheeler points out that the House Dems’ probe is likely to expand into what the CIA actually told Nancy Pelosi and when about torture. It’s gonna get mighty interesting.
* Here’s one interesting sign that the administration’s promise to ensure transparency with technology is working: The Department of Veterans Affairs has a new technological gizmo that’s enabled them to suss out and halt $200 million worth of faltering projects.
* Eric Cantor’s office throws Virginia’s job-loss stats in Joe Biden’s face.
* House Republicans vote in favor of the right of states to offer single-payer health care coverage, even though most oppose it on the Federal level. States’ rights trump opposition to single payer? How will conservatives react….
* If today’s demand by “centrist” Dem Senators that we slow health care reform sounds familiar, that’s because it is: Almost exactly the same thing happened in 1994, courtesy of then-centrist-Senator Bob Kerrey versus Hillarycare.
* And I won’t be posting this weekend, so please consider this an open thread. Back first thing Monday morning.
This blog’s homepage is here. RSS feed here. Twitter feed here. Email me here.
Can we now put the nail in the coffin about President Obama trying to get liberal and progressive groups to back off the ConservaDems? Also that was a pretty direct slap at them today when he said that we will not be slowing down on health care reform, no?
Oh, now they’ve done it. Those privileged, whiny little twits in the WHPC are going to stamp their feet and throw themselves on the floor, beating their little fists and kicking their feet in their childish tantrum. After that they slink off to their cubicles in sullen silence and whisper among themselves about how UNFAIR it is. They are going to think of a snarky question! Yeah! That’s the ticket!
Julie Mason, late of Houston Chronicle, now with one of the rightwing rags, sniffs:
.
“If the administration wants to have a twitter conference, then Twitter is the way to go. For a press conference? Notify the press,”
.
Get. Over. Yourself.
So Cantor the moron doesn’t realize that all of VA’s job losses are from the failed Bush policies that he supported?
The press has not yet realized President Obama is skippig the press and going directly to the people through mass media and free no question ask appearences on the 3 minor networks.
When Louis the 14th set up his monarchy he went directly to the poeple, the revolution in France Bonapart went stright to the people, the same in the former USSR. Louis also had a Rham, richluie (I thing) he made the gathering of taxes more efficient, but he needed more money to fund his programs so he raised taxes and set up leaders to represent him in different areas, sorta like czars. Now the people did not need local leader, government was centralized. He had the money to fund his programs, the right of coinage, control of the dispensing of justice, and a army to enforce the laws. Kind of like a new nation police force. It all rings of a monarchy to me.
Shakespear wrote 23 plays 10 had to do with the problems of kingship, one of Shakespears great worries, his other worry was his adorers. Might President Obama’s worries be the same?
The press has not yet realized President Obama is skipping the press and going directly to the people through mass media and free no question ask appearances on the 3 minor networks.
When Louis the 14th set up his monarchy he went directly to the people, the revolution in France Bonaparte went straight to the people, the same in the former USSR. Louis also had a Rham, richluie (I think) he made the gathering of taxes more efficient, but he needed more money to fund his programs so he raised taxes and set up leaders to represent him in different areas, sort of like czars. Now the people did not need local leader, government was centralized. He had the money to fund his programs, the right of coinage, control of the dispensing of justice, and an army to enforce the laws. Kind of like a new nation police force, the fed printing money wildly, stacking the court, making nuclear decisions without consulting congress, setting up over 30 czars covered by executive privilege. It all rings of a monarchy to me.
Shakespeare wrote 23 plays 10 had to do with the problems of kingship, one of Shakespeare great worries; his other worry was his adorers. Might President Obama’s worries be the same?
What the Blue Dogs and Senate Gang of Six don’t understand is that failure of healthcare reform is going to provoke great public disgust and anger, and that it is not going to attach to Obama. It will attach to them.
Investigation(s)…bravo. About friggin’ time. And perhaps an educative example of the need for the Dem rank and file to continue yelling and organizing as encouragement for the elected crowd to act with courage.
I’m sure most of you have read DeMint’s precise formulation of the Republican strategy for a better future…
“If we’re able to stop Obama on this it will be his Waterloo. It will break him,”
Now, it’s not as if we didn’t already know this (see Kristol’s modern iteration of his ‘93 memo on healthcare). Present Republican/conservative initiatives are almost entirely negative (that is, hurt/stop chances of administration successes in governance) and implicit in this ’strategy’ is the concession that they possess neither the ideas nor the personalities which might compel voters to choose them over Democrats. To put it another way, they are taking their moral and strategic cues from Tonya Harding – we can’t win on our own so we’ll just whack the opponent across the knees with a steel rod.
Ruy Teixeira (at the Dem Strategist) recently suggested that the Republicans do not understand how bad their situation is. That is, I think, manifestly evident. Ruy also said that the main problem for them is that “they really believe what they believe”. Indeed.
And, acutely relevant as regards the passing of Cronkite and the devolution of news broadcasting, Zach Roth has a must-read piece on the modern relationship between political figures and TV news operations. As he says at the end, it’s hard to know what to do about it… http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/07/nbcs_gregory_to_sanfords_office_meet_the_press_all.php?ref=fpb
“House Republicans vote in favor of the right of states to offer single-payer health care coverage, even though most oppose it on the Federal level. States’ rights trump opposition to single payer?”
What the hell? Leaving it up to the states will make a total mishmash of this because I can name the states right now that won’t offer it. It’s either federal or nothing because I know Texas, Louisisana, Oklahoma – they aren’t going to offer a public option. Texas cut the health care insurance it was offering to low income children all to hell.
*sigh*
“Louis also had a Rham, richluie (I think) he made the gathering of taxes more efficient, but he needed more money to fund his programs so he raised taxes and set up leaders to represent him in different areas, sort of like czars.”
Rahm Emanual as Cardinal Richlieu, the Grey Eminence. O that’s a good one…
PS – I wouldn’t compare Rahm to Richlieu to Rahm’s rabbi. Richlieu was a christian mystic and I don’t think that would go over so well in Rahm’s temple.
Bob H writes:
What the Blue Dogs and Senate Gang of Six don’t understand is that failure of healthcare reform is going to provoke great public disgust and anger, and that it is not going to attach to Obama. It will attach to them.
I agree, with the caveat that public option is itself a FAIL, and the only reason it won’t provoke great disgust and anger by the next Presidential election is that the Democrats have cleverly put off the implementation until 2013.
Rahm has Jewish bones, but no soul
Robin Hood is right because there are indications that the WHPC and others in the press are becoming more willing to probe him for hard answers to serious questions and that is something her fears. People will never be allowed to ask questions. See what happens here, and you’ll understand why:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/07/18/compelling-video-angry-voters-confront-congressman-who-voted-for-cap-and-trade/#more-9428