Guess the whole change thing wasn't just rhetoric

[rich76]

Originally Posted by hork

actually much like i did with palin, i tend to hold executives to a degree of accountability. when one abuses one's power in an elected office by clearing going above and beyond the powers allocated to him/her then you bet i'm gonna call em out. difference between me and a lot of folks is i don't owe any party so much blind loyalty that i'm incapable of seeing scumbags on both sides of the aisle.

and I'm patiently waiting to hear your opinion of the Geithner mess.

[tymy]

[P562045]

Just a little while ago I got an e-mail from democrats about how old and tired republicans ideas really are.

This e-mail also went on and on about how republicans are not about change.

So let's examine what democrats care about and how long they have been caring about them in several areas they keep telling us there needs to be very significant changes in these areas.

Now democrats have us focused on a few things actually. The economy. Well that has been around for quite a while I must say and what have the democrats done to make this go even somewhat better really. Just remember democrats have controlled the congress since January of 2007 right? I am sure there are all kind of example of democrats making the economy so much better than during the Bush years since January 20th of this year right?

We also must focus on infrastructure. Democrats love to use the examples of roads and bridges being a part of the infrastructure that so need to be fixed by their buddies in unions I am sure. The Interstate System first started to be built in 1956 by President Eisenhower who was a republican.

Now moving right along to health care. I seem to remember that President Obama's Secretary of State Hillary Clinton first tried to "reform" health care just about sixteen years ago.

Moving right along to the environment. Now the first part of this movement at least at the federal level started in 1955 with the Air Pollution Control Act. How interesting I mentioned President Eisenhower a little earlier and he was a republican. Then we had to clean up the water as well with the clean water act or CWA of 1972. Is the air and water cleaner than it was before? The answer is yes. But what exactly is the definition when it comes to air and water when it should be considered clean. And what happens if certain areas are above those standards. Well it is a little something called revenue must be paid. I have mentioned several times before that the environmental movement is just as much about revenue generation as it is about saving the planet. There is another reason for the environmental movement as well. A relatively few people can make huge amounts of money off of this particular idea. That brings me to we of course so need a cap and trade scheme to save the planet. This will not save the planet no matter how much people promise it will. But this cap and trade will do something that is very important. It will almost certainly guarantee that energy prices will increase for one very important reason the theory goes. People will use less energy if the prices are higher. A good example of this happened just last year when for a while we were paying around four dollars a gallon for gasoline. This sure did do what I just mentioned which was to make sure we consumed less gasoline. This is just another part of this whole environmental movement.

Another thing I want to mention is education as well. Education has been going so good and kids are learning the basics to improve their lives latter on and be a successful member of society. I don't really care when unions really started taking over the educational system in this country. But I must ask a very important question about this. Whenever unions started to take over education has the quality of the education as a whole gone up or down. There will always be exceptions to the rule but I can honestly say I would not even want to know what a person is learing in high school when it comes to several key areas such as history and math.

Then this wonderful e-mail also mentions several key states when it comes to senate races as well. And of course republicans have ideas that are not about change at all. I have given several examples of really new ideas that the democrats want to promote. And please don't be fooled by such things as a "smart grid" just as one example. I was reading just yesterday even though it would be very difficult to hack into this new type of technology to deliver a source of energy it would not be impossible to do so. This could create all kinds problems including blackouts in extremely rare cases. Then there is the initial cost of this. It will be way more than what President Obama and his friends in the congress will be telling us. I think I remember the number of four and half billion dollars is what I am remembering the cost is going to be for now. I would dare say that is just the starting point. So it will cost us a lot more than that. And take a wild guess who I think will be paying the rest of the bill. It will be none other than consumers. I would like to mention one other thing. Now House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been a member of the House since 1987. Now Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was member of the House from 1983 to 1987 and has been a member of Senate since 1987.

As we all should know and remember this is very much change we can believe in.

I will just leave others do decide for themselves about all of this.

[P562045]

I even amaze myself sometimes. In my last post in this thread I pretty much have already covered the first one hundred days of President Obama in one key area over a month ago. Well I will in the next few days discuss the other key area that needs to be discussed as well about President Obama first 100 days in office. If a person reads my previous post it should be pretty clear what I left out of that discussion and what I left out is just as important as what I discussed late last month.

But I would like to discuss something that Bush the evil very much used to get his agenda through the congress. Well what are several key things that people would immediately identify having to do with Bush the evil.

Well the one I would like to discuss is his tax cuts back in 2001.

Now I must ask the question how did these get through the congress when the republicans never had sixty votes in the senate?

It is a procedure in the legislative process called budget reconciliation.

I would dare say this is how Bush got his first set of tax cuts through in 2001.

Of course democrats would never approve of tax cuts now would they. Now wait I seem to remember that part of the first stimulus bill that President Obama signed into law last February did have some tax cuts in it if I am remembering correctly.

And plus one of the dirtiest secrets in Washington is that tax cuts will generate more revenue plain and simple. I don't really care if it a business, individual, or couple if their taxes go up it is only natural for them to try to find ways to lower there taxes in a variety of ways.

Well back to the congress wanting to get their agenda passed but the important thing to realize is that if a budget reconciliation is used it needs a simple majority to pass in the senate.

Of course I have mentioned countless times the way that congress conducts it business and with this whole budget reconciliation process it appears to me that the democrats are very willing to act like republicans in order to get their agenda through the congress despite senate rules that are in place that has a procedure that would make it a requirement that sixty senators end the debate and then move on to a vote on the floor which is called cloture. Well that is not very convenient for democrats right now because they will never have sixty senators until January of 2011 so they need to use a different set of rules they started to create back in 1974. Now I wonder if we should thank Nixon or Ford for this bending of the rules to make the budget process easier to pass through the congress.

It never ceases to amaze me in my example here that democrats or republicans so pretend that they are not like the other side but in this particular case the democrats are very much acting like republicans in this particular matter when it comes to getting their agenda passed through the congress as easily as possible.

Story about how democrats want to get their agenda passed through the congress.

This next link sort of tells the story of budget reconciliation from a little something called the House Rules Committee. It sort of explains why this process is so need in the first place but not really.

House rules committee link here

P.S. So how has President Obama's foreign policy been going in his first 100 days or so?

P.S.S. Disregard all I just said except for when I mentioned Bush the evil because the democrats may have 60 votes in the senate whenever Norm Coleman finally gives up with regards to the senate seat in Minnesota.

Well there is no real story yet but it appears that Arlen Specter has decided he is a democrat at heart.

Now I wonder about Senator Collins and Senator Snowe as well?

[P562045]

Well not shocking at all especially when Senator Specter sided with democrats when it comes to the first stimulus package plan.

Story Here

As we should be very much aware of democrats agenda is so much different than the republican agenda. A person may want to read what I wrote over a month ago two previous posts to this one in this thread. The presidential election was so about the two sides are so different from each other just last year?

I can not wait until the realization of people that both of the main political parties are far more like each other than anyone that has taken a side would ever want to admit.

Well there is one key that both political parties can agree on they both want to remain in power right?

[P562045]

Well I find this to be an appropriate time to have an update on the Minnesota senate seat again. One word Spector.

Well this is going to the Minnesota Supreme Court and they have agreed to Norm Coleman's schedule so he will probably win. Well it would appear to me that is the way the particular author of this article wants their readers to think about it but Al Franken does have a lead of 312 votes as of this moment.

We could a little over a month away from what I have called before the magical 60 in the senate.

But a funny thing happened the last time this happened democrats had 60 votes in the senate and a majority in the house and a democrat president as well which was from 1977-1979 the democrats must have really screwed up because we eventually got a person with the last name Reagan to be our president.

And people must have thought I was crazy last year when I mentioned that a vote for President Obama was actually a vote President Palin and I also said someone even worse.

Now would someone like to discuss what the senate was doing in those years in the late seventies. I even have asked that question before without a response.

Minnesota senate seat story update

I can not quite figure out why this particular story does not go into a lot of depth about the wonderful things that the congress did back in the late 1970's. Maybe I should read what the 95th congress actually did and report back in a while.

We are about to have a magical 60 in the senate story

[rich76]

Originally Posted by rich76

and I'm patiently waiting to hear your opinion of the Geithner mess.

Originally Posted by tymy

I'm still waiting Ty...........

[Bill Shaw]

Originally Posted by P562045

Well not shocking at all especially when Senator Specter sided with democrats when it comes to the first stimulus package plan.

Story Here

As we should be very much aware of democrats agenda is so much different than the republican agenda. A person may want to read what I wrote over a month ago two previous posts to this one in this thread. The presidential election was so about the two sides are so different from each other just last year?

I can not wait until the realization of people that both of the main political parties are far more like each other than anyone that has taken a side would ever want to admit.

Well there is one key that both political parties can agree on they both want to remain in power right?

It's all about remaining in power. Specter is polling 20+% behind Toomey here, and that was unlikely to improve. More likely to worsen.

Dude is an opportunist, pure and simple.

He could be a Republican in 6 (or 12 years), if it served his purpose, and few people would be surprised.

Remember, he is not switch to the Democratic party. He is switching back to the Democatic Party.

[P562045]

Originally Posted by Bill Shaw

It's all about remaining in power. Specter is polling 20+% behind Toomey here, and that was unlikely to improve. More likely to worsen.

Dude is an opportunist, pure and simple.

And people may wonder why I am so cynical of congress this is a perfect example of why.

And people may have wondered as well about my recent comments when I said that we have two political parties that are much more worried about themselves than the country as a whole.

That to me is one of the great dangers the country faces and not this back and forth crap between the two parties that is little more and I have called it this before "noise" which express purposes are not to move the country forward in any meaningful way but to one distract people and two help the party try to hang on to their power no matter what happens to the country.

I must go back to what George Washington said back in 1796 in his Farewell Address. Of course George Washington says it a little differently than I do but we basically mean the same thing when it comes to what I mention in my last paragraph.

George Washington's Farewell Address

[P562045]

What has been the greatest change in Washington in the last one hundred days?

"Fans swooning over the First Family's every move, wall-to-wall media coverage and one pampered pooch: the Obamas are the planet's hottest rock stars busy revamping the image of the US presidency."

"In the 100 days since President Barack Obama and his family arrived in the White House there has been no sign of any let-up in the Obamania which swept the globe during the 2008 campaign."

"Magazine editors fight for the coolest image of the new president and his wife, Michelle, whether digging in the new organic garden, showing off their honed muscles, or romping with the First dog, Bo."

"And even though the United States is in the grip of its worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s, it seems the Obamas can do no wrong."

"This is Camelot the Sequel,"

"We didn't tire of Camelot for well over two years and we still haven't really yet."

"The family images, while all carefully controlled, 'help humanize the new president, help him govern, after all how many families are there out there struggling to bring up kids in this economy?' Watson added."

So why would the Obamas feel the need to control what photos their adoring public sees in the first place.

"And unlike the Kennedys, the Obamas come from ordinary, middle-class families, born without the advantages of privilege and wealth."

"It is exactly this image of the family next door, which so many Americans as well as people around the world, find both endearing and inspirational, analysts argue."

"It's almost like they represent a new way of how we should be thinking about ourselves, and that is the way people respond to them."



"He highlighted the highly personal and emotional speech given by Michelle Obama to schoolgirls in London, in which she urged them to be true to themselves and draw from her example of what you can achieve in life."

"You see them giving people a sense of hope about themselves, and this is a radically different kind of inspiration," Anthony said."

"He highlighted Michelle Obama's authenticity and her down-to-earth nature, seen in the way she mixes chain store clothes with designer outfits."

"The First Lady, who only last year was criticized as an "angry black woman," has reinvented her image as mom-in-chief, focusing on family issues and often seen hugging and laughing with children."

"Washingtonians have been lapping it up. Restaurants graced by the Obamas, see seats booked up for weeks ahead afterwards."

"Washington is in a real golden age. The Obamas have brought a level energy and enthusiasm into the city in the last couple of months," said Garrett Graff, political correspondent at The Washingtonian."

"While such slavering over the Obama's good looks might seem slightly distasteful, their image of being both hip and cerebral protects them from ridicule."

Well it sure would appear to me P that we have celebrities that can do no wrong.

So I guess the Obamas real purpose is to entertain us and make us feel good about ourselves again?



Story that tells the real purpose of the Obamas