With the historic second inauguration of Barack Obama as President of the United States now in the history book, it's time to take a look at the GOP response yesterday.
While Republican leaders were in Washington urging a "come together" moment, the same wasn't true around the country. On Facebook alone I noticed countless Republican friends still complaining that Obama had won re-election. GOP officials around the country also seem to share the same sentiment. For example, The head of the Mon Valley Republican party in Pennsylvania decided to send out a common distress signal:
When asked about it, Brent Kovac, the head of the local party said he "don't regret it" because "our nation is in a horrible place."
In a horrible place? If it's so horrible, then why did Barack Obama win re-election so easily over his Republican opponent Mitt Romney and Democrats have a phenomenal election in the House and Senate? Apparently blame is to be placed upon the GOP by the people, and rightfully so.
But the people's will isn't what the GOP is concerned about. Instead they are worried only about their own party. Take this little stunt from yesterday as a perfect example of this:
While the eyes of the nation were turned toward President Barack Obama’s second inauguration on Monday, the Virginia State Senate managed to hurriedly pass a bill that would redistrict the state’s senate seats.
A series of alarming Twitter posts about President Obama appeared on Fox News’s Twitter account for political news early Monday morning, and the Web site for the cable television network said it was a victim of hacking.
The Twitter account, @foxnewspolitics, one of many operated by Fox News, claimed that the president had been fatally shot while campaigning in Iowa, but gave no source for the news. On Monday morning, FoxNews.com first posted a brief statement saying that the reports were incorrect, and that it regretted “any distress the false Tweets may have created.”
First off, this is an absolutely horrible joke. I don't care who is in the White House, making false claims that the President of the United States has been assassinated is absolutely horrible and the Secret Service even thinks so, as they have now launched a full investigation.
"We will be requesting a detailed investigation from Twitter about how this occurred, and measures to prevent future unauthorized access into FoxNews.com accounts," said Jeff Misenti, vice president and general manager of Fox News Digital.
There has been so much news lately of how much of a "valuable news source" Matt Drudge is. Let's look at this "valuable" information. Here's two headlines appearing at the top of his page right now:
The original story from Esquire is here. Interesting enough, when you read it you will notice how it is tagged:
Notice that last tag? It says 'humor'. In other words, this piece was a satire piece. Now this story has been up on Drudge for less than 2 hours (3:30pm est), but look at what was added to the article 3 hours before that:
It has become even more obvious that the GOP 2012 hopefuls only political platform is to oppose President Obama. Enter Newt Gingrich on the Libya issue. On March 7th, the presidential hopeful had this to say about Libya.
Exercise a no-fly zone this evening. … We don’t need to have the United Nations. All we have to say is that we think that slaughtering your own citizens is unacceptable and that we’re intervening.
Fast-forward 16 days and you get this:
GINGRICH: The standard [Obama] has fallen back to of humanitarian intervention could apply to Sudan, to North Korea, to Zimbabwe, to Syria this week, to Yemen, to Bahrain. … The Arab League wanted us to do something. The minute we did something, the Arab League began criticizing us doing it. I think that two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is a lot. I think that the problems we have in Pakistan, Egypt — go around the region. We could get engaged by this standard in all sorts of places. I would not have intervened. I think there were a lot of other ways to affect Qaddafi. I think there are a lot of other allies in the region we could have worked with. I would not have used American and European forces.
And this guy wants to be President of the United States. He changes his positions as much as he changes wives!
It all started early in this week. On the front page of Drudge was a big story saying that President Obama’s India trip would cost $200 million per day. By the next day it was being pushed by the GOP:
However, instead of answering that question, Bachmann wanted to talk about President Obama's upcoming trip to India -- and the insane amount of money he's spending each day.
"Well I think we know that just within a day or so the President of the United States will be taking a trip over to India that is expected to cost the taxpayers $200 million a day," Bachmann said. "He's taking two thousand people with him. He'll be renting out over 870 rooms in India. And these are 5-star hotel rooms at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel. This is the kind of over-the-top spending, it's a very small example, Anderson."
What Drudge did was post a link to some obscure India news outlet. Without fact checking it, Michele Bachmann takes the false story and runs with it. Here’s what a little fact checking would have shown:
Snopes.com, a website devoted to myth busting, noted that even if the Indian press has correctly reported the size of the president’s entourage – 3,000 – the cost would work out to $66,000 per person per day, “a figure that stretches credulity to the breaking point.” Factcheck.org noted that the entire war in Afghanistan costs $190 million a day.
Like many others, I have spent the last few days really contemplating what will happen in the elections this November. As much as I want to be optimistic, I just can’t bring myself to it. Democrats are looking at a very dark mid-term and, as Peter Daou puts it, these are “dark days for the left”.
But what happened? What caused the rapid fall from glory for President Obama over the past two years? When he was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama enjoyed one of the highest approval ratings in history. Now he is treading water to keep from hitting bottom. I believe there are three main factors that play into this; healthcare, economy and war. I want to take a minute and look at what happened with each of these issues and how it turned the base sour on the President.
She believes former President Bill Clinton is trying to "take me out."
"Because I'm using a statement like 'gangster,' I'm responsible for creating the climate of hate that could lead to another Timothy McVeigh and another Oklahoma City bombing," Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) remarked at a recent fundraiser, referencing an earlier comment she made in which she called the Obama Administration a "gangster government."
She continued: "I'm in my second term as a Congresswoman and the former president of the United States decides I'm important enough to take me out!"
Everyone is out to get Michele and now it’s Bill Clinton! Talk about a nut job.
And just for some extra fun, and maybe to prove I’m out to get Bachmann, I just realized who she is. There was an episode of King of the Hill where the anti-government paranoid Dale Gribble has to work with a female exterminator, who also shares many of his paranoid views. I give you the unintended cartoon version of Michele Bachmann:
In July, 1798, Congress passed, and President John Adams signed into law "An Act for the Relief of Sick and Disabled Seamen," authorizing the creation of a marine hospital service, and mandating privately employed sailors to purchase healthcare insurance.
This legislation also created America's first payroll tax, as a ship's owner was required to deduct 20 cents from each sailor's monthly pay and forward those receipts to the service, which in turn provided injured sailors hospital care. Failure to pay or account properly was discouraged by requiring a law violating owner or ship's captain to pay a 100 dollar fine.
So unprecedented that they were only enacted by the 2nd President of the United States. I guess all those AGs suing over the “constitutionality” of the mandate didn’t really do their homework.
Adding….I think we can also safely assume that the Texas Board of Education will be meeting this week to remove John Adams from the history books also.
We archconservatives thought he was "one of ours." Yessir, ol' Lindsey Graham, who succeeded ol' Strom Thurmond in the United States Senate, seemed to have all the credentials: high ratings from the American Conservative Union (90 out of 100, a solid "A" most places) and to boot, he was one of the lead guys, when he was a House member, in trying to run Bill Clinton out of the White House with all that impeachment stuff. Big backer of John McCain for president.
And, we archconservatives trusted the people of South Carolina to pick and hold on to a good 'un. This is the state that gave us that congressman who shouted "You lie!" right at the president of the United States during a joint address to Congress, and elected Sen. Jim DeMint, who has called President Obama everything but a junkyard dog in the course of his tenure in the high chamber. Then there's Gov. Mark Sanford, the courageous conservative who told the federal government what it could do with its stimulus money, if you know what we mean. Well, OK, there was that situation where, as we prefer to put it, he went a little Clinton on us, but still the guy has been a fire-breather.
Alas, Sen. Graham has of late been flirting with statesmanship, and it's shocking, fellow archconservatives, just shocking. He has been seen talking to Democrats. He has worked toward compromise on climate change legislation. He voted to confirm Justice Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, for goodness sakes. He's suggested that Republicans need to reach out to minorities and younger people to bring them into a bigger tent.
This morning Michael Steele was quick to seize on any chance of slamming President Obama’s winning of the Nobel Peace Prize and even used it to drudge up a very old meme – the celebrity mantra:
“The real question Americans are asking is, ‘What has President Obama actually accomplished?’ It is unfortunate that the president’s star power has outshined tireless advocates who have made real achievements working towards peace and human rights. One thing is certain -– President Obama won’t be receiving any awards from Americans for job creation, fiscal responsibility, or backing up rhetoric with concrete action.”
The Republican Party has thrown in its lot with the terrorists — the Taliban and Hamas this morning — in criticizing the President for receiving the Nobel Peace prize. Republicans cheered when America failed to land the Olympics and now they are criticizing the President of the United States for receiving the Nobel Peace prize — an award he did not seek but that is nonetheless an honor in which every American can take great pride — unless of course you are the Republican Party. The 2009 version of the Republican Party has no boundaries, has no shame and has proved that they will put politics above patriotism at every turn. It’s no wonder only 20 percent of Americans admit to being Republicans anymore – it’s an embarrassing label to claim.
I guess they realized posting an article advocating for a military coup against the President of the United States isn’t such a great idea. Unfortunately for them we do have the internet time machine and you can still view the article there. Also I have attached a screen grab of the article for even better preservation of their advocacy of constitutional crimes.
As you may have heard the Democrats pulled a political punch yesterday in a resolution acknowledging the 50th anniversary of Hawaii as a state which also reads:
Whereas the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama, was born in Hawaii;
This was a major shot across the bow of the birthers, of which a lot are Ron Paul supporters. Now what’s interesting is that while the resolution passed unanimously, there was a few people who didn’t vote. One of those happens to be Ron Paul. So was Ron Paul absent yesterday, or did he just decide to protest by not voting? I would really love an answer to this.
I write this on the morning of the end of the once-mighty General Motors. By high noon, the President of the United States will have made it official: General Motors, as we know it, has been totaled.
As I sit here in GM's birthplace, Flint, Michigan, I am surrounded by friends and family who are filled with anxiety about what will happen to them and to the town. Forty percent of the homes and businesses in the city have been abandoned. Imagine what it would be like if you lived in a city where almost every other house is empty. What would be your state of mind?
And we have a new definition of dumb ass – Oscar Goodman:
Sin City's mayor wants President Barack Obama to apologize for saying companies shouldn't visit Las Vegas on the taxpayer's dime.
Oscar Goodman spoke after a regular scheduled meeting with tourism officials where he expressed concern that federal lawmakers might be discouraging travel to the city.
"What's a better place, as I say, than for them to come here," Goodman told KLAS-TV. "And to change their mind and to go someplace else and to cancel _ and at the suggestion of the president of the United States _ that's outrageous."
Obama made the remarks Monday during a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Ind., where the president traveled to muster public support for economic stimulus legislation.
{[}]amp;quot;You can't get corporate jets, you can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer's dime," Obama said.
Um it appears as if Obama was talking in the sense of going to Vegas for a nice little vacation and do some gambling. Goodman can have his tax dollars go for that, but I don’t want mine to. That’s what Goodman is suggesting – that bailout money be used for these luxurious vacations instead of opening the credit markets. Maybe someone should ask the mayor why he hates America so much that he wants to see our financial institutions fail.
