barack obama

Face it - the GOP has a really bad memory. It became evident in January of 2009, when Republicans suddenly realized our economy was in serious trouble the day President Obama was sworn into office. They constantly ignored that the great recession had already been going on for over a year and anytime someone on the left tried to remind them, the Republicans stuck their fingers in their ears and shouted "na na na - I can't hear you. Stop blaming Bush!".

As matter of fact it has been so bad that the Republicans have either ignored or tried to rewrite a big part of this history of this recession - TARP. They constantly act like TARP was an Obama planned, enacted by him while in office. But here are the key facts around TARP:

• During the 2008 campaign, Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain took an unprecedented step to suspend his campaign to work on TARP.
• TARP passed the Senate in October of 2008, with both Senator Obama and Senator McCain voting for it.
• On October 8, 2008, President George W. Bush signed Tarp into law.

There were a number of Republicans in the House that voted against TARP (108 to be exact), so President Bush could have pulled out the veto pen, especially given the fact that the House was 20 some votes short of a veto-proof majority. But he didn't. Instead he signed it into law and became the President that actually enacted TARP.

Another interesting supporter of TARP was Paul Ryan. This is the GOP's man when it comes to budget and monetary policy. They always turn to him for guidance and plan, yet they ignore the fact that he supported a key piece of legislation that the GOP now opposes.

Since President Obama announced his support of gay marriage last week the pundits have gone into overdrive. Some are saying this could spell the end to his presidency, while others are saying it shows he embraces a future. A new poll out by CBS sheds a little bit of light into this:

A new CBS News/New York Times Poll shows a solid majority of Americans support legal recognition for same-sex couples - though not necessarily through the official act of marriage - and the number of people who do support full marriage rights for gay and lesbian couples is significantly higher among younger generations.

Overall, 38 percent of those who responded to the survey said same-sex couples should be allowed to marry, just like any other couple. Another 24 percent said civil unions should be used to grant same-sex couples legal rights similar to male-female partnerships. Combined, that means 62 percent - close to two thirds - of Americans believe that same-sex unions should be recognized by law.

Of all those who participated, 33 percent said there should be no legal recognition for same-sex couples.

What's really interesting is when you look at how public opinion has changed over the years:

(Click for larger view)

Today Matt Drudge is pushing this piece that links to Breitbart:

This is from President Obama's campaign kickoff in Ohio yesterday. The image apparently came from the Romney campaign directly. Here's what Breitbart says about it:

Barack Obama launched his campaign in unspectacular fashion today at Ohio State University, the largest college in the crucial swing state. A photo posted to twitter by Mitt Romney's campaign spokesman Ryan Williams reveals sparse attendance. The above image, according to Williams, was taken during the President's first official campaign speech.

But as PoliticsUSA points out, that photograph was apparently taken pre-rally. They have supplied numerous pictures and even a video showing a much different story.

Still, I didn't buy it 100%. Instead I decided to search out a better image and I ended up finding one. This is a panoramic image, but I decided to crop in and focus on one area, which is the same area as the photo being pushed by Breitbart.

Forget the good part of the 90's. It appears the Republicans are wanting to relive the bad part of them with bogus investigations into the President:

Now comes complainant Republican National Committee, snark firing on all cylinders, formally requesting that a government auditor look into whether President Barack Obama has been bilking taxpayers by billing them for what amount to campaign trips to battleground states. The White House immediately dismissed the suggestion of any impropriety.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus's letter to Comptroller General Gene Dodaro of the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the investigative arm of Congress, caps an escalating campaign of complaints by Republicans about Obama's election-year travel.

"On behalf of American taxpayers, I am writing to call your attention to a case of misuse of government funds," Priebus says in the letter's opening sentence.

Ahh yes - the never ending wave of investigations in 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. We've already seen tons of these go on through Darrell Issa and now the RNC as a whole wants to get into the game. This was the exact same tactic Republicans used in the 90's, including looking into the Clinton's Christmas Card list.

But what really amazes me is that the Bush administration lied us into a war that cost the taxpayers over a trillion dollars and cost us thousands of lives. Whenever Democrats talked about investigations the Republicans warned against them, saying that investigations into the President never works. Of course the yellow bellies of the left bowed down and obeyed. I wonder if they will do the same should anything similar happen in the future?

It looks like the GOP's attempts to paint women as irresponsible nitwits that have no idea about their own reproductive health is really starting to pay off - for President Obama:

In the fifth Swing States survey taken since last fall, Obama leads Republican front-runner Mitt Romney 51%-42% among registered voters just a month after the president had trailed him by two percentage points.

The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney's support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group.

This is a huge shift and to show the gender gap now present:

Romney's main advantage is among men 50 and older, swamping Obama 56%-38%.

And it looks like Women are really abandoning the GOP as a whole:

While women typically are more likely to identify themselves as Democrats than men are, that difference widens to a chasm in the USA TODAY poll. By 41%-24%, women call themselves Democrats; men by 27%-25% say they're Republicans.

But I'm sure they don't know what they are talking about. They are just a bunch of dumb broads after all. Or that's at least what I'm sure the Republican brains are saying in a backroom somewhere.

It wasn't more than a couple hours after Andrew Breitbart's sudden death last week that the right wing conspiracy theorists started coming up with their stories. The biggest one was that President Obama had Breitbart assassinated because he was getting ready to release a career ending video he had obtained of Obama.

The mystery video was released last night on Hannity's show. What it show's is a 29 year old Barack Obama speaking at a rally at Harvard, saying "Open your hearts and open your minds to the words of professor Derrick Bell," and at the end showing Obama hugging Bell.

Bell was a champion for racial equality and Obama's ties to him have been no secret. This is from Wikipedia:

Bell reentered the debate over hiring practices at Harvard in 1990, when he vowed to take an unpaid leave of absence until the school appointed a female of color to its tenured faculty.[4] At the time, of the law school's 60 tenured professors, only three were black and five were women. The school had never had a black woman on the tenured staff.[3]

Students held vigils and protests in solidarity with Bell with the support of some faculty. One of these students was future U.S. president Barack Obama, who introduced Bell at a protest at Harvard Law School.[5] Critics, including some faculty members, called Bell's methods counterproductive, and Harvard administration officials insisted they had already made enormous advances in hiring.[3] The story of his protest is detailed in his book Confronting Authority.

Really - this is the coming right wing outrage of the day:

President and Mrs. Obama spent Valentine’s Day with the One Percent Tuesday, shelling out up to $300 for dinner for two at the high-end Vermilion restaurant outside of Washington.

Michelle just recently completed a three-day tour of the nation promoting her “Let’s Move” health and fitness initiative, during which she was depicted in a widely circulated photograph passing around a bowl of salad at an inexpensive Olive Garden restaurant.

But the press was not even permitted to take a peek at the Obamas last night as they feasted at one of the Washington area’s trendiest upscale joints.

What’s more, the Obamas warmed the earth a bit as their multi-car, fossil-fuel-burning motorcade roared out of Washington for a 25 minute trip to the Alexandria, Va. restaurant.

These people really need to grow the fuck up.

EMBRACE:

to take or receive gladly or eagerly; accept willingly: to embrace an idea.

That seems to be the word the GOP is using to describe President Obama's decision to accept Super PAC funds. Here are some examples:

Videos of Obama condemning Super PACs…which he now embraces (PJ Tatler)

Obama Embraces Citizens United: “Special Interest” Money to Bankroll Campaign (Verum Serum)

Obama embraces the super PAC (Politico)

But is Obama really "embracing" the super PACs, or is he rather trying to level the playing field? Here's what Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager, writes about the decision:

The President opposed the Citizens United decision. He understood that with the dramatic growth in opportunities to raise and spend unlimited special-interest money, we would see new strategies to hide it from public view. He continues to support a law to force full disclosure of all funding intended to influence our elections, a reform that was blocked in 2010 by a unanimous Republican filibuster in the U.S. Senate. And the President favors action—by constitutional amendment, if necessary—to place reasonable limits on all such spending.

But this cycle, our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it currently stands.

Over the last few months, Super PACs affiliated with Republican presidential candidates have spent more than $40 million on television and radio, almost all of it for negative ads.