The Democrat Thread

[bmags]

How did I miss this quote from the Bartiromo article?

[Balta1701]

Took too long and there's still some sort of national security loophole, but credit where credit is due.

The Obama administration plans to change White House policy by releasing the names of thousands of visitors whose comings and goings traditionally are kept secret by presidents.

 

President Obama said Friday the change follows a lengthy legal review. The policy change resolves four lawsuits filed by a watchdog group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), against the Obama and Bush administrations seeking details on White House meetings.

 

Until now, Obama had followed the Bush policy of keeping visitor logs secret. News organizations and watchdog groups had sought to make the records public to show who was influencing administration policy on health care, financial rules and other issues.

[BigSqwert]

About time.

[Balta1701]

On the Van Jones resignation...

"There’s an important general lesson here: If you want to say batsh*t-crazy stuff and still be treated as a respectable participant in the national debate, you’d better be a Republican."

 

Link to quote.

[Balta1701]

On another topic, there's a case coming up before the Supreme Court this week that we ought to keep an eye on. The court looks like there's a reasonable shot that it will declare all limits on corporate campaign finance spending illegal. That happens, and the joke of Joe Biden being D-MBNA becomes a lot closer to true for all 536 of them.

It's not. The court is considering eviscerating laws that have been on the books since 1907 and 1947 -- in two separate cases -- banning direct contributions and spending by corporations in federal election campaigns. Doing so would obliterate precedents that go back two and three decades.

 

The full impact of what the court could do in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has only begun to receive the attention it deserves. Even the word "radical" does not capture the extent to which the justices could turn our political system upside down. Will it use a case originally brought on a narrow issue to bring our politics back to the corruption of the Gilded Age?

 

Citizens United, a conservative group, brought suit arguing that it should be exempt from the restrictions of the 2002 McCain-Feingold campaign finance law for a movie it made that was sharply critical of Hillary Clinton. The organization said it should not have to disclose who financed the film.

 

Instead of deciding the case before it, the court engaged in a remarkable act of overreach. On June 29, it postponed a decision and called for new briefs and a highly unusual new hearing, which is Wednesday's big event. The court chose to consider an issue only tangentially raised by the case. It threatens to overrule a 1990 decision that upheld the long-standing ban on corporate money in campaigns.

[Balta1701]

Ok, that's pretty good.

 

[kapkomet]

Stuart can draw? Wow.

 

[mr_genius]

Ok, that's pretty good.

 

 

agreed

[Rex Kickass]

Stuart can draw? Wow.

 

Hes been doing that a lot, I remember him doing it on SNL in 1988.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Obama's Speech...

 

Where's the stuff about universal health care? Redistribution of Wealth? Communism? Socialism? Homosexuality? Gay Marriage? High Taxes? Social Liberlaism?

[HuskyCaucasian]

With all the ruckus about Obama's "indoctrination" speech today, I saw a headline on TPM that got my attention:

"Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) To Rebut Obama's Speech"

 

My first thought was, "really, they need to rebut a stay in school" speech. Then I clicked the link and saw it was in regards to Obama's speech TOMORROW about health care reform. Interestingly enough, the most well known Louisianian politician ("Chocolate New Orleans" Nagin not with standing), Gov. Bobby Jindal, will not be rebutting after his poor speech after Obama's last address to the join houses.

[HuskyCaucasian]

So, despite years of being in politics on both a local and national level, Obama was merely a "celebrity" according to John McCain. But apparently Curt Schilling is fully capable of replacing Ted Kennedy...

When former Boston Red Sox ace Curt Schilling started making noise last week about pursuing Ted Kennedy’s Senate seat, he said he had been contacted by several people about running — but he declined to say by whom.

 

It turns out one of those people was John McCain.

 

McCain’s spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan told CNN Tuesday that the former GOP presidential nominee – a friend of Kennedy’s – spoke to Schilling last week and encouraged him to seek the office.

 

McCain initiated the conversation.

Edited September 8, 2009 by Athomeboy_2000

[BigSqwert]

LOL

[lostfan]

So the whole point of the "Obama apology tour" was just to trash America, clearly. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090909/ap_on_...GxldXJvcGVhbg--

 

He would be doing so much better if he went to a foreign capital and just bragged about how awesome America was and talk about how everybody wishes they could be like us but never will, but try anyway.

[HuskyCaucasian]

School District That Bans Obama's Back to School Speech Buses Children to Hear Bush...

A prominent black Southern Baptist pastor says a Texas school district should explain why it did not allow President Obama's Sept. 8 speech on education to be shown live in classrooms, but is planning later in the month to send selected fifth graders to a similar message by former President George W. Bush and his wife, Laura.

 

The Arlington Independent School District was one of several across the United States that opted out of the live broadcast of the president's speech challenging students to take personal responsibility for their own education. Facing concerns on the part of parents and teachers that the speech might be used to promote a partisan political agenda, other districts responded by allowing individual schools to decide or to allow individual children to opt out of viewing the speech at their parents' request.

 

School officials in Arlington -- a large suburb located between Dallas and Fort Worth -- said students with appropriate parental notification could take a half-day excused absence to watch the president's address at an off-campus location like a home, church or community center.

[NorthSideSox72]

School District That Bans Obama's Back to School Speech Buses Children to Hear Bush...

Of all the flaws that either party tends to have issues with, the one that bothers me most is the bizarre desire of many recent-model conservatives to choose ignorance. I can't imagine why someone would prefer to know less and be exposed to less knowledge and experience, but that is what some of them are doing. It is choosing to be stupid, as if that were something to be proud of.

 

[Rex Kickass]

Of all the flaws that either party tends to have issues with, the one that bothers me most is the bizarre desire of many recent-model conservatives to choose ignorance. I can't imagine why someone would prefer to know less and be exposed to less knowledge and experience, but that is what some of them are doing. It is choosing to be stupid, as if that were something to be proud of.

 

There just seems to be this strong sentiment in opposition politics these days to not accept Obama's legitimacy. It's become a key strategy for the Republicans since 1992. It's not enough to be in the opposition, you have to actively be outraged by everything your opponent does these days - especially if he's in power. The left wing opposition does it too, but not nearly as loudly or effectively as the right wing's fringe. I wonder if it's always been this way (shouting rather than talking), or the hyperaware media state that has grown since the advent of cable and the internet has just made the extremes louder and drown out the people who just wanted to quietly make sense and govern.

[Balta1701]

Of all the flaws that either party tends to have issues with, the one that bothers me most is the bizarre desire of many recent-model conservatives to choose ignorance. I can't imagine why someone would prefer to know less and be exposed to less knowledge and experience, but that is what some of them are doing. It is choosing to be stupid, as if that were something to be proud of.

Those high education folks believe in communist ideas like evolution, global warming, environmentalism, birth control, women's rights, the metric system, etc.

[HuskyCaucasian]

And the Republican Sex Scandals Continue:

A California assemblyman is in some hot water after having a hot conversation picked up by a hot mic before a recent hearing. But he's not talking about sex with just anybody -- this is hot, steamy sex with LOBBYISTS!

 

"So, I am getting into spanking her," says the assemblyman. "I like spanking her. She goes, 'I know you like spanking me.' I said, 'Yeah! Because you're such a bad girl!'"

 

The lobbyists reportedly represent utility companies. Duvall is vice chairman of the Utilities and Commerce Committee. Bad assemblyman!

 

Local CBS affiliate KCAL9 had the scoop. Here's a YouTube video of their segment:

 

[BigSqwert]

And the Republican Sex Scandals Continue

 

Pointless to call out one party on things like this. It's human nature not driven by politics. People cheat on their spouses. Look at divorce rates.

[Balta1701]

Pointless to call out one party on things like this. It's human nature not driven by politics. People cheat on their spouses. Look at divorce rates.

Divorce rates are typically much higher in red states

[lostfan]

Yeah I find that really embarrassing, I really don't know what to do anymore other than to shake my head and pity them. I don't align politically with guys like southsider, kap, Cknolls etc. but at least when you argue with them or they challenge you, what they say has basis in fact (kap's occasional outbursts notwithstanding) and have ideas they actually understand. People who can't think critically and have no interest in doing so, but still parrot what other people say really irk me. That they are allowed to have brains is dangerous. They should just be lobotomized and have their brains replaced with computer hardware, and have the firmware periodically updated.

 

edit: this was supposed to follow Balta's previous sarcastic post but a few more posts followed

Edited September 9, 2009 by lostfan

[Balta1701]

In the interest of being fair and balanced...I'd like to note that I still am no fan of these sorts of manufactured political theater events, like the one we're going to see tonight, no matter who is at the podium. It'll be interesting to see the results perhaps, and the presence of a gifted orator might make it more interesting than usual, but still, I'm just blah about all of them.

[Cknolls]

With all the ruckus about Obama's "indoctrination" speech today, I saw a headline on TPM that got my attention:

"Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) To Rebut Obama's Speech"

 

My first thought was, "really, they need to rebut a stay in school" speech. Then I clicked the link and saw it was in regards to Obama's speech TOMORROW about health care reform. Interestingly enough, the most well known Louisianian politician ("Chocolate New Orleans" Nagin not with standing), Gov. Bobby Jindal, will not be rebutting after his poor speech after Obama's last address to the join houses.

 

 

Boustany is a heart surgeon.

[Soxy]

Women get more liberal after babies; men get more conservative.

 

And yes, I do read a science daily website. My life is like a rap video.