I certainly am not a professional educator (government teacher), but I will do my level best answering your many questions. I promise to keep it civil, not exaggerate, backup my answers, and not use talking points.
[Point by Point:]
”I won comment”: The top congressional leaders of both parties met at the White House to discuss the size and shape of President’s Obama’s stimulus plan .The meeting was designed (as promised)to promote bipartisanship.
But Obama showed in an ideological debate, he is not averse to using a jab. He was challenged by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-AZ) over the balance between tax cuts and spending and giving a tax credit to people that do not pay income tax. Obama answered by saying these people pay sales tax, Social and Medicare tax, and sometimes property tax. The discussion got heated and Jon Kyl called Obama’s tax cut to the poor “welfare.” With these two words “I won” he let the GOP know that the debate was put to rest on November 4, 2008. Democratic and republican aides confirmed the exchange.
The Wall Street Journal Jan. 23, 2009 Jonathan Weisman
How many of us have heard a new boss have to use words similar to these; in order to restore the line between worker and management. I doubt the president will have to resort to this tactic anymore; the opposition knows he is the president and they are out of power.
Transparency: These are the exact words Obama had on his website during the campaign
Allow five days of public comment before signing bills: To reduce bills rushed through congress and the president (like the Patriot Act) before the public has the opportunity to review them, Obama will not sign any emergency bill (stimulus bill)giving the public the opportunity to review them and comment on the White House website..You are entitled to view this bill as a non-emergency bill but the president didn’t.
Earmarks: libertarians believe a box of pencils is pork, as well as some conservatives. This is the president’s definition of ear marks: The process of which a congressperson inserts pet projects without review. It is my opinion, tax revenues provided to rebuild our airport could amount to future revenues to the Treasury Department, so in my opinion ,worthy projects are not pork or an ear mark.
Ethics: Unlike the previous administration, no member of the president’s cabinet has been convicted for lying to a federal grand jury or being served a subpoena. The Treasury Secretary was confirmed 60-34 ,so I guess the advise and consent Senate did not think the Mr. Geithner’s tax mistakes were considered tax cheating or fraud.
Lobbyist: We agree on this point and I was disappointed when he opted out of campaign finance during the presidential race. He made a rookie mistake for thinking a cold turkey withdrawal from having lobbyist in the cabinet, is a reality. First, you cannot throw a rock in Washington without hitting a lobbyist, lobbyist are not necessarily bad, and that eliminates a lot of qualified people from serving our country.
Foreign Policy: We tried the" bringing them on" tactic and Iran is building a nuclear weapon, North Korea built one and al Qaeda and the Taliban are regrouping; let’s try carrots and sticks this time around.
Carville does not want Bush to succeed…Key word in the following from the Christian Science Monitor transcript, is that it was before the attacks when Carville made his statement…This is his whole statement…Carville’s comments were made at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast on the morning of 9/11, before the attacks.
The Monitor’s Dave Cook, who runs the breakfasts, has audio of the event, and he transcribed the relevant comments and emailed them to me. Carville was asked if Bush was politically vulnerable. Carville replied:
People basically like this president as a person and they want him to succeed, but they have some pretty serious doubts that have not crept in but are sort of there. You have almost half the country saying he is in over his head. Over half the country saying he is for the powerful. And as much as I would like for it or wish for it, they are not going to pull away completely from him months into his administration.
I don’t care if people like him or not, just so they don’t vote for him and his party. That is all I care about. I hope he doesn’t succeed, but I am a partisan democrat. But the average person wants him to succeed. It is his country, his life or their lives. So he has that going for him. There is a lot that is going to happen between now and next November. It is not that people don’t like him. It is not that people don’t want him to succeed but it is also not that he doesn’t have some serious underlying problems.
The rest are all GOP talking points the birth certificate, paying for someone else’s mortgage, total government health care, main street media coverage that have been disproved before.
Why is the Democratic Party the party of the little man.?.Go back to the presidential debates and see how many times the GOP mentioned the middle-class. It was always Bush tax cuts for the rich, and corporate tax cuts…Check the record and see who championed minimum wage hikes, and the Equal Pay for Equal work bill which granted equal pay for women and the extension of unemployment benefits during these trying times. Who championed the Federal Family Leave etc….It‘s works not words in this case.
What is that message that Wall Street is trying to send the president? Does the last four days factor in that message?The Dow is not exactly a barometer for an economic forecast these days.
Most of your commentary can easily be disproved with reputable resources, but this is a free country that gives you the right to publish them, but I also have the right and duty (IMO) to debunk them.
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Comments
maryann
March 14, 2009 at 11:08 p.m.The reason I do not have any real rebuttals to your blogs or points of view, is your preparedness.
You quote from reputable sources…ESCR is a good example…The fact that scientist say that that ESC have some unique properties that need to be explored, is all I have.
I am sorry but I do not agree with your assessment of Mr. Aparicio column…I just don’t know why a profession, intelligent person would write such a crappy column based on lies, distortions, and flat out lies that can be easily be disproved. If fact they have..In fact I am thinking of a sequel to answer his other questions using factcheck.org to discredit his charges.
Tafoer
March 14, 2009 at 10:48 p.m.We cannot talk to the al Qaeda; they are brainwashed, fundamentalist terrorists We cannot talk to Hamas or Hezbollah for the same reason.
The Taliban make up 60% of Afghanistan so we must try to bribe them or be the lesser of two evils and make it clear we will not occupy their country no longer than we need to make sure it is not a safe haven for al Qaeda General Patreaus wants our troops to protect the civilians, not interfere with Sharia laws, even thou it violates all the human rights that we naturally want to enforce .We are making a deal with the devil but by protecting the civilians, they will be less likely to kill our troops We are talking to Iran since they helped us we got rid of the Taliban the first time ..War and protecting our troops is never left or right talking points.
Mike, I would like few things more on this topic than if Mr. Aparicio would "appear" and you and he could have a well-reasoned, factual, and productive discussion on his column. Sound like you guys are up on the latest details.
March 14, 2009 at 9:50 p.m.On these political (non-social issue) matters, per se, I can see the forest, but not the trees, as my interest doesn't carry me in that direction.
Just curious Mike, what do you think that the Taliban and Al-Qaida want? What will make them happy? Please, no history lesson, bashing the right, or left talking points. How would you deal with them?
March 14, 2009 at 9:49 p.m.Legion357
March 14, 2009 at 7:03 p.m.You are obsessed with this but we are still on that budget until Sept. 2009 and I don't know why those on the right cannot understand simple economics...Stimulus = spending ,the worse the economy, the more you need to spend...It is almost stabilizing and the checks are just now getting to the states.
I think we need another stimulus.
Ok Mike, since you did not see it on the other thread, I will post it here.
Comment From: legion357 (Report this comment as a violation)
Fri Mar 13, 2009 17:54:34 CDT
Mike,
Using the same source you did, if you read ALL of it.........
Funding for Each Operation. According to CRS estimates, Congress has
appropriated about $864 billion in budget authority (BA) from FY2001 through the
RECENTLY passed FY2008 Supplemental for DOD, the State Department and for
medical costs paid by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (P.L. 110-252). CRS
estimates that this total includes about....
$657 billion for Iraq (76%),
! $173 billion almost all for Afghanistan with a small amount for
other counter terrorism operations (20%),
! $28 billion for enhanced security (4%), and
! $5 billion that CRS cannot allocate (see Table 1).
SO 657B total from 2001 (thru the bill you used as a example)July 2009, 90 months, let's go ahead and knock of say the 2009 part, 84 months, and let's go ahead a knock off another year just for fun, 72 months, 657,000,000,000. divided by 72 =9,125,000,000.
Even giving some leeway, and using THE SITE YOU REFERENCED, it only comes out to 9.125 billion a month. per month of the Iraq war.
March 14, 2009 at 6:16 p.m.