BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

Lofty Ideals are Only as Meaningful as the Backbone that Supports Them

Is it just me, or is anyone else curious about how the GOP managed to suspend the United States Constitution, thrust us headlong into a costly and unjustified war, ravage the global economy, and destroy America's moral credibility throughout the world, while the Democrats, even after being handed the White House and a huge majority in both houses of congress, can't even manage to pass a healthcare bill that would benefit every family in America?

If like me, you've been curious about this issue, scratch your head no more. The answer is screaming at us right before our eyes, but like the angry medicare recipient boisterously demonstrating against socialism, we simply refused to believe our lying eyes.   Read More »

Tell us or share with me your local papers new groups and fundraiser going on everywhere! Together we can make true democratic ideals a reality.   Read More »

On Tuesday May 26, 2009 Obama made history by nominating the first Hispanic to the supreme court. According to her critics she is a wide eyed liberal who hates white people and legislates based on race. I will handle each one of these charges and deal with the political implications for the GOP if they fight her nomination.

First, Sonia Sotomayor has more experience than any Justice appointed to the supreme court in a hundred years. Glen Beck, Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh has said collectively that she is a racist and should withdraw her nomination. One notable case of Sotomayor's would appear to back that statement. In New Haven, Connecticut, the city threw out a promotions test because not enough minorities did well on the test. Essentially throwing out the test resulted in no one being promoted. Without knowing the method of the test, I can say firmly that I disagree with the ruling and I disagree with a precedent being set that keeps one segment of the population from excelling because another segment of the population is failing. That is simply un-American in my estimation. That's the problem with affirmative action. It only addresses the inequalities on the back end and refuses to address it on the front end. This country will fail if we begin to equate equality with mediocrity . However, we can succeed as a country if equality is based on success. So, I contend that we need to prevent further problems by ensuring that everyone has access to the same amount and quality of education. You can't tell me that the people in Compton recieves the same type of education as those in Orange County. Whereas I disagree with Sotomayor on the ruling, I know first hand that minorities are less prepared than whites for these kind of exams. That is fact and non debatable. Still, I think calling her a racist is a bit much.

Next, Sotomayor wrote some ambiguous remarks about her life experiences. She said, "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." Now this is taken out of context. However, Lets start by being fair and acknowledging that if a white man said this in such a clear way he would be in trouble. With that said Justice Alito did say this to an extent and he is on the Supreme court today. This statement is not a wise one but one I can understand. My step father is a disabled veteran. If I am sitting on the bench and I am hearing arguments from a disable veteran who can not get any help from the federal government, than I would hope that I would be able to come to a better conclusion about the case than a person who doesn't know anyone who is disabled from military service. That doesn't mean that I will judge in the disabled veteran's favor; but it does mean I can approach a decision with a level of personal clarity that Law school couldn't provide. We all apply our personal experiences to our job in some way. We can not seriously believe that 7 male white justices from privileged backgrounds, a female white justice from the same kind of background, and 1 black justice from the civil rights era south is going to have the perspective of a Hispanic person who comes before the court with their issues. These are the same justices that decided that it was okay to strip search a troubled 13 year old girl in school. The one female justice on the court was shocked that these older men didn't understand why that was a problem. That is why the court must be diverse with people who are qualified to interpret the law.

Finally, we should take a deep breath and understand that the GOP is worried about politics and the base is worried about a Hispanic on the bench. The GOP knows that Obama killed them with the Hispanic vote in 2008's election against one of their more credible candidates with Latinos. If he hurts them anyomore with Hispanics, Obama will flip Texas from red to blue and the GOP will have as much influence as the Green Party. Hispanics are the largest minority group in the country and the GOP feels that Obama is trying solidify the Democratic majority. Let's be honest… The base of the GOP hates the idea of anyone liberal. Compile that with the fact that she is a women minority and its clear that they are dying inside. As well, they have that right. This is a free country and you can feel how you want to feel. Nonethelesss, let the process begin and lets challenge Sotomayor on her record and her judicial ability. Anything more or less is not suitable for our governmental system which is built on accountability.

Pew research: Obama, advisers are still vetting D.C. churches
By Margaret Talev, McClatchy Newspapers
Fri Mar 13, 2:55 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20090313/pl_mcclatchy/3188040

WASHINGTON — Nearly a year after a painful break from his Chicago church, President Barack Obama and his family are considering joining several churches of various denominations in the nation's capital but have yet to settle on one, and aides said that they're unlikely to decide before Easter.

The delay reflects how the economic crisis has crowded out some personal considerations since Obama's inauguration in January, but it also underscores the complexities of this personal decision by a public man.

Past presidents have grappled with how and where to worship, but Obama's pick is especially guaranteed to provoke interest and scrutiny.

His former pastor the Rev. Jeremiah Wright's controversial sermons on institutional racism and American foreign policy imperiled Obama's presidential campaign last year and finally forced Obama's break with Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Even as the church controversy roiled, a small percentage of Americans continued to believe falsely that Obama was Muslim because of his late, estranged Kenyan father and his childhood in Indonesia.

   Read More »

Why Rush is Wrong
The party of Buckley and Reagan is now bereft and dominated by the politics of Limbaugh. A conservative's lament.

David Frum
NEWSWEEK
From the magazine issue dated Mar 16, 2009
It wasn't a fight I went looking for. On March 3, the popular radio host Mark Levin opened his show with an outburst (he always opens his show with an outburst): "There are people who have somehow claimed the conservative mantle … You don't even know who they are … They're so irrelevant … It's time to name names …! The Canadian David Frum: where did this a-hole come from? … In the foxhole with other conservatives, you know what this jerk does? He keeps shooting us in the back … Hey, Frum: you're a putz."

Now, of course, Mark Levin knows perfectly well where I come from. We've known each other for years, had dinner together. I'm a conservative Republican, have been all my adult life. I volunteered for the Reagan campaign in 1980. I've attended every Republican convention since 1988. I was president of the Federalist Society chapter at my law school, worked on the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal and wrote speeches for President Bush--not the "Read My Lips" Bush, the "Axis of Evil" Bush. I served on the Giuliani campaign in 2008 and voted for John McCain in November. I supported the Iraq War and (although I feel kind of silly about it in retrospect) the impeachment of Bill Clinton. I could go on, but you get the idea.

I mention all this not because I expect you to be fascinated with my life story, but to establish some bona fides. In the conservative world, we have a tendency to dismiss unwelcome realities. When one of us looks up and murmurs, "Hey, guys, there seems to be an avalanche heading our way," the others tend to shrug and say, he's a "squish" or a RINO--Republican in Name Only.

Levin had been provoked by a blog entry I'd posted the day before on my site, NewMajority.com. Here's what I wrote: President Obama and Rush Limbaugh do not agree on much, but they share at least one thing: Both wish to see Rush anointed as the leader of the Republican party.

Here's Rahm Emanuel on Face the Nation yesterday: "the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican party." What a great endorsement for Rush! … But what about the rest of the party? Here's the duel that Obama and Limbaugh are jointly arranging:

On the one side, the president of the United States: soft-spoken and conciliatory, never angry, always invoking the recession and its victims. This president invokes the language of "responsibility," and in his own life seems to epitomize that ideal: He is physically honed and disciplined, his worst vice an occasional cigarette. He is at the same time an apparently devoted husband and father. Unsurprisingly, women voters trust and admire him.

And for the leader of the Republicans? A man who is aggressive and bombastic, cutting and sarcastic, who dismisses the concerned citizens in network news focus groups as "losers." With his private plane and his cigars, his history of drug dependency and his personal bulk, not to mention his tangled marital history, Rush is a walking stereotype of self-indulgence--exactly the image that Barack Obama most wants to affix to our philosophy and our party. And we're cooperating! Those images of crowds of CPACers cheering Rush's every rancorous word--we'll be seeing them rebroadcast for a long time.

Rush knows what he is doing. The worse conservatives do, the more important Rush becomes as leader of the ardent remnant. The better conservatives succeed, the more we become a broad national governing coalition, the more Rush will be sidelined.

But do the rest of us understand what we are doing to ourselves by accepting this leadership? Rush is to the Republicanism of the 2000s what Jesse Jackson was to the Democratic party in the 1980s. He plays an important role in our coalition, and of course he and his supporters have to be treated with respect. But he cannot be allowed to be the public face of the enterprise--and we have to find ways of assuring the public that he is just one Republican voice among many, and very far from the most important.

All of this began even before Obama took office. In his broadcast on Jan. 16, Limbaugh told listeners he had been asked by a major publication for a 400-word statement about his hopes for the new administration:

I'm thinking of replying to the guy, "OK, I'll send you a response, but I don't need 400 words. I need four: I hope he fails." … See, here's the point: everybody thinks it's outrageous to say. Look, even my staff: "Oh, you can't do that." Why not? Why is it any different, what's new, what is unfair about my saying I hope liberalism fails? Liberalism is our problem. Liberalism is what's gotten us dangerously close to the precipice here … I would be honored if the Drive-By Media headlined me all day long: "Limbaugh: I Hope Obama Fails." Somebody's gotta say it.

Notice that Limbaugh did not say: "I hope the administration's liberal plans fail." Or (better): "I know the administration's liberal plans will fail." Or (best): "I fear that this administration's liberal plans will fail, as liberal plans usually do." If it had been phrased that way, nobody could have used Limbaugh's words to misrepresent conservatives as clueless, indifferent or gleeful in the face of the most painful economic crisis in a generation. But then, if it had been phrased that way, nobody would have quoted his words at all--and as Limbaugh himself said, being "headlined" was the point of the exercise. If it had been phrased that way, Limbaugh's face would not now be adorning the covers of magazines. He phrased his hope in a way that drew maximum attention to himself, offered maximum benefit to the administration and did maximum harm to the party he claims to support.

Then, exacerbating the wound, Limbaugh added this in an interview on Sean Hannity's Jan. 21 show on Fox News: "We are being told that we have to hope he succeeds, that we have to bend over, grab the ankles, bend over forward, backward, whichever, because his father was black, because this is the first black president." Limbaugh would repeat some variant of this remark at least four more times in the next month and a half. Really, President Obama could not have asked for more: Limbaugh gets an audience, Obama gets a target and Republicans get the blame.

Rush Limbaugh is a seriously unpopular figure among the voters that conservatives and Republicans need to reach. Forty-one percent of independents have an unfavorable opinion of him, according to the new NEWSWEEK Poll. Limbaugh is especially off-putting to women: his audience is 72 percent male, according to Pew Research. Limbaugh himself acknowledges his unpopularity among women. On his Feb. 24 broadcast, he said with a chuckle: "Thirty-one-point gender gaps don't come along all that often … Given this massive gender gap in my personal approval numbers … it seems reasonable for me to convene a summit."

Limbaugh was kidding about the summit. But his quip acknowledged something that eludes many of those who would make him the arbiter of Republican authenticity: from a political point of view, Limbaugh is kryptonite, weakening the GOP nationally. No Republican official will say that; Limbaugh demands absolute deference from the conservative world, and he generally gets it. When offended, he can extract apologies from Republican members of Congress, even the chairman of the Republican National Committee. And Rush is very easily offended.

Through 2008 Rush was offended by the tendency among conservative writers to suggest that the ideas and policies developed in the 1970s needed to change and adapt to the very different world of the 21st century. Here's what he had to say about this subject in his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference on Feb. 28:

Sometimes I get livid and angry … We've got factions now within our own movement seeking power to dominate it, and, worst of all, to redefine it. Well, the Constitution doesn't need to be redefined. Conservative intellectuals, the Declaration of Independence does not need to be redefined, and neither does conservatism. Conservatism is what it is, and it is forever. It's not something you can bend and shape and flake and form … I cringed--it might have been 2007, late 2007 or sometime during 2008, but a couple of prominent, conservative, Beltway, establishment media types began to write on the concept that the era of Reagan is over. And that we needed to adapt our appeal, because, after all, what's important in politics is winning elections. And so we have to understand that the American people, they want big government. We just have to find a way to tell them we're no longer opposed to that. We will come up with our own version of it that is wiser and smarter, but we've got to go get the Wal-Mart voter, and we've got to get the Hispanic voter, and we've got to get the recalcitrant independent women. And I'm listening to this and I am just apoplectic: the era of Reagan is over? … We have got to stamp this out …

Here is an example of the writing Limbaugh was complaining about: The conservatism we know evolved in the 1970s to meet a very specific set of dangers and challenges: inflation, slow growth, energy shortages, unemployment, rising welfare dependency. In every one of those problems, big government was the direct and immediate culprit. Roll back government, and you solved the problem.

Government is implicated in many of today's top domestic concerns as well … But the connection between big government and today's most pressing problems is not as close or as pressing as it was 27 years ago. So, unsurprisingly, the anti-big-government message does not mobilize the public the way it once did.

Of course, we can keep repeating our old lines all the same, just the way Tip O'Neill kept exhorting the American middle class to show more gratitude to the New Deal. But politicians who talk that way soon sound old, tired, and cranky. I wish somebody at the … GOP presidential debate at the Reagan Library had said: "Ronald Reagan was a great leader and a great president because he addressed the problems of his time. But we have very different problems--and we need very different answers. Here are mine."

I wrote that in spring 2007. But you can hear similar words from bright young conservative writers like Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat, and from veteran Republican politicians like Newt Gingrich. Gingrich told George Stephanopoulos on Jan. 13, 2008: "We are at the end of the Reagan era. We're at a point in time when we're about to start redefining … the nature of the Republican Party, in response to what the country needs."

Even before the November 2008 defeat--even before the financial crisis and the congressional elections of November 2006--it was already apparent that the Republican Party and the conservative movement were in deep trouble. And not just because of Iraq, either (although Iraq obviously did not help).

At the peak of the Bush boom in 2007, the typical American worker was earning barely more after inflation than the typical American worker had earned in 2000. Out of those flat earnings, that worker was paying more for food, energy and out-of-pocket costs of health care. Political parties that do not deliver economic improvement for the typical person do not get reelected. We Republicans and conservatives were not delivering. The reasons for our failure are complex and controversial, but the consequences are not.

We lost the presidency in 2008. In 2006 and 2008, together, we lost 51 seats in the House and 14 in the Senate. Even in 2004, President Bush won reelection by the narrowest margin of any reelected president in American history.

The trends below those vote totals were even more alarming. Republicans have never done well among the poor and the nonwhite--and as the country's Hispanic population grows, so, too, do those groups. More ominously, Republicans are losing their appeal to voters with whom they've historically done well.

In 1988 George H.W. Bush beat Michael Dukakis among college graduates by 25 points. Nothing unusual there: Republicans have owned the college-graduate vote. But in 1992 Ross Perot led an exodus of the college-educated out of the GOP, and they never fully returned. In 2008 Obama beat John McCain among college graduates by 8 points, the first Democratic win among B.A. holders since exit polling began.

Political strategists used to talk about a GOP "lock" on the presidency because of the Republican hold on the big Sun Belt states: California, Texas, Florida. Republicans won California in every presidential election from 1952 through 1988 (except the Goldwater disaster of 1964). Democrats have won California in the five consecutive presidential elections since 1988.

In 1984 Reagan won young voters by 20 points; the elder Bush won voters under 30 again in 1988. Since that year, the Democrats have won the under-30 vote in five consecutive presidential elections. Voters who turned 20 between 2000 and 2005 are the most lopsidedly Democratic age cohort in the electorate. If they eat right, exercise and wear seat belts, they will be voting against George W. Bush well into the 2060s.

Between 2004 and 2008, Democrats more than doubled their party-identification advantage in Pennsylvania. A survey of party switchers in the state found that a majority of the reaffiliating voters had belonged to the GOP for 20 years or more. They were educated and affluent. More than half of those who left stated that the GOP had become too extreme.

Look at America's public-policy problems, look at voting trends, and it's inescapably obvious that the Republican Party needs to evolve. We need to put free-market health-care reform, not tax cuts, at the core of our economic message. It's health-care costs that are crushing middle-class incomes. Between 2000 and 2006, the amount that employers paid for labor rose substantially. Employees got none of that money; all of it was absorbed by rising health-care costs. Meanwhile, the income-tax cuts offered by Republicans interest fewer and fewer people: before the recession, two thirds of American workers paid more in payroll taxes than in income taxes.

We need to modulate our social conservatism (not jettison--modulate). The GOP will remain a predominantly conservative party and a predominantly pro-life party. But especially on gay-rights issues, the under-30 generation has arrived at a new consensus. Our party seems to be running to govern a country that no longer exists. The rule that both our presidential and vice presidential candidates must always be pro-life has become counterproductive: McCain's only hope of winning the presidency in 2008 was to carry Pennsylvania, and yet Pennsylvania's most successful Republican vote winner, former governor Tom Ridge, was barred from the ticket because he's pro-choice.

We need an environmental message. You don't have to accept Al Gore's predictions of imminent gloom to accept that it cannot be healthy to pump gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. We are rightly mistrustful of liberal environmentalist disrespect for property rights. But property owners also care about property values, about conservation, and as a party of property owners we should be taking those values more seriously.

Above all, we need to take governing seriously again. Voters have long associated Democrats with corrupt urban machines, Republicans with personal integrity and fiscal responsibility. Even ultraliberal states like Massachusetts would elect Republican governors like Frank Sargent, Leverett Saltonstall, William Weld and Mitt Romney precisely to keep an austere eye on the depredations of Democratic legislators. After Iraq, Katrina and Harriet Miers, Democrats surged to a five-to-three advantage on the competence and ethics questions. And that was before we put Sarah Palin on our national ticket.

Every day, Rush Limbaugh reassures millions of core Republican voters that no change is needed: if people don't appreciate what we are saying, then say it louder. Isn't that what happened in 1994? Certainly this is a good approach for Rush himself. He claims 20 million listeners per week, and that suffices to make him a very wealthy man. And if another 100 million people cannot stand him, what does he care? What can they do to him other than … not listen? It's not as if they can vote against him.

But they can vote against Republican candidates for Congress. They can vote against Republican nominees for president. And if we allow ourselves to be overidentified with somebody who earns his fortune by giving offense, they will vote against us. Two months into 2009, President Obama and the Democratic Congress have already enacted into law the most ambitious liberal program since the mid-1960s. More, much more is to come. Through this burst of activism, the Republican Party has been flat on its back.

Decisions that will haunt American taxpayers for generations have been made with hardly a debate. The federal government will pay more of the cost for Medicaid, it will expand the SCHIP program for young children, it will borrow trillions of dollars to expand the national debt to levels unseen since WWII. To stem this onrush of disastrous improvisations, conservatives need every resource of mind and heart, every good argument, every creative alternative and every bit of compassionate sympathy for the distress that is pushing Americans in the wrong direction. Instead we are accepting the leadership of a man with an ego-driven agenda of his own, who looms largest when his causes fare worst.

In the days since I stumbled into this controversy, I've received a great deal of e-mail. (Most of it on days when Levin or Hannity or Hugh Hewitt or Limbaugh himself has had something especially disobliging to say about me.) Most of these e-mails say some version of the same thing: if you don't agree with Rush, quit calling yourself a conservative and get out of the Republican Party. There's the perfect culmination of the outlook Rush Limbaugh has taught his fans and followers: we want to transform the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower and Reagan into a party of unanimous dittoheads--and we don't care how much the party has to shrink to do it. That's not the language of politics. It's the language of a cult.

I'm a pretty conservative guy. On most issues, I doubt Limbaugh and I even disagree very much. But the issues on which we do disagree are maybe the most important to the future of the conservative movement and the Republican Party: Should conservatives be trying to provoke or persuade? To narrow our coalition or enlarge it? To enflame or govern? And finally (and above all): to profit--or to serve?

Frum, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is editor of NewMajority.com.

URL: http://www.newsweek.com/id/188279
© 2009

THE DEATH OF NEO CONSERVATISM, THOUGHTS ON RUSH LIMBAUGH, AND THE REAL REASON FOR ALL OF THE RECENT BLUSTER-THE UPCOMING FIGHT OVER PRESIDENT OBAMA'S BUDGET



On Saturday, February 28, 2009, Mr. Rush Limbaugh gave a speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). He has been called the voice of the Republican Party and the heart of the conservative movement, and in my mind he is the apparent savior of the Neoconservative movement that dominated politics in the last 8 years, holding Ronald Regan as a sacred cow.

The focus of Mr. Limbaugh's speech was for Conservatives to take back the Republican Party and the Nation. Punctuating by jumping up and down, chest thumping, fist pumping, and heart slamming, his talk was about staying the conservative course in the Republican Party and being proud of Obstructionism and non-bipartisan politics. The tone of the speech has been called "mocking, bulling, full of contempt, harsh, unapologetic", and in some instances eerily "sinister." As is his tendency, there was very little substance, and there was a lot more playing to the crowd, attempting to energize the group. Unfortunately, he had very little substantially to say and his angry, insulting, rude and unapologetic message, considering the mess the Bush Administration and the Neocons left the American People with, was in appropriate.
"We conservatives have not done a good enough job of just laying out basically who we are because we make the mistake of assuming that people know. What they know is largely incorrect, based on the way we're portrayed in pop culture, in the drive-by media, by the Democrat party," the neoconservative talk show host told a mostly-young crowd of energized supporters.
His basic premise in his speech based on some basic tenants of conservative philosophy, sprinkled with a combative, begrudging tone about the recent political losses the movement had suffered as a result of the Presidential election,
"We want every American to be the best he or she chooses to be. We recognize that we are all individuals. We love and revere our founding documents, the Constitution and the Declaration of Independent. We believe that the preamble of the Constitution contains an inarguable truth, that we are all endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, among them life, liberty, freedom. And the pursuit of happiness."

That all sounds good Rush, but when you examine more closely what you had to say, the 'pursuit of happiness' is primarily reserved for the upper class, "achievers" and the rest of us will just have to wait. He went on to say that conservatives don't hate anybody, and since all people are created equal, we all start out the same, but what separates us is our will to succeed, our desire to be the best. He went on to say, that we must succeed on our own, without any government interaction. The people who do not accept the government's help are achievers and anyone who does is a loser. The losers fail because the government makes them passive people who do not strive to make their lives better and government intervention harms these people, making them soft, passive under achievers, that are done a great disservice by an overreaching, our of control government. Large, overextended government stifles our creativity, our entrepreneurship, and in doing so contributes to a welfare state, prolonging the war on poverty. Belonging to an American political party or movement makes you a contestant with the other guys, and the only choice is to pound them into submission, winners survive and losers be damned.

The problem with all of this is that the Neoconservatives have failed to recognize and take into account their role in our current situation, and according to Mr. Limbaugh have no need to apologize for it. Mr Limbaugh's little talk failed to take into account that the Neocons version of government caused this mess by deregulating banks, inducing people to refinance mortgages to what was called a fixed rate from an adjustable rate, in an elaborate bait and switch scheme resulting in doubling or tripling our payments. It did not take into account the unfettered spending the Neocons engaged in when they financed the War in Iraq, which was sold to the American People on the basis of a lie; that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and we must stop them or die. It failed to take into account how that lie lead to deaths of over 4,000 American, 100,000 Iraqis and the injury and mental maiming of 100,000 more American soldiers, then potential damages and costs of which we can only guess at today. It did not take into account the detainees at Guantanamo, who should have been afforded the rights of American citizens as we have allowed nationals in our country to possess in our criminal courts for years. It did not take into account the people in New Orleans who suffered from the natural disaster of Katrina, only to find their government uncaring, unconcerned and unresponsive to this plight. Nope, no apologies from old Rush; just more expressions of preserving wealth for the wealthy and yet another prayer than someday trickle down economics would finally save the day for the Republicans, the Neocons and disciples of Ronald Regan.

Mr Limbaugh instead said the democrat party (he refused to call it the democratic party) relied on big government to solve all of our problems, that we cannot rely on them to answer our prayers, because in doing so this makes us weak, mindless globs of underachievers, that blindly follow along to the beat of kindly, liberal fascists. Uh-huh? Here is what he didn't say. He didn't talk about how the Neocons had titled the table and screwed us. He didn't talk about how they had changed the climate in which we live and left us with a mess. He didn't talk about the tremendous costs of lie to us and leading us in a criminally fraudulent way into the War in Iraq, based of WMD. Not an expression of sorry we led you into that war, sorry about the trillion dollar costs, sorry about the loss of life and treasure. He didn't say he was sorry about the bait and switch mortgage crisis, sorry about the con game, sorry about you being unable to pay for your car or mortgage because we took advantage of you and in doing so, we sold all of your bad paper all over the financial world, plunging the entire world in to a near depression. He did not say that he was sorry the Neocons caused a financial crash as a result of their greed by tilting the free market of capitalism to such an extreme, that it has plunged the world into a recession bordering on a near depression.
He did not say that he was sorry that the little financial tricks threatened the student loan system, making it more difficult to get a student loan and in turn threatening millions of college educations. He did not say he was sorry Neo-conservatism made it hard to get sick, go to the doctor, or enter a hospital because we don't have health insurance. He did not say that he was sorry our last President had in effect suspended the Bill of Rights, wiretapping its citizens and insurgents alike, reading our e-mail, and violating our Right to Privacy. When Mr. Bush detained indefinitely insurgent suspects in Guantanamo, meaning on his whim and against any person he so choose to brand an enemy of the state, he in effect suspended all of our civil rights, like the right to bail, the right to know what you have been charged with, the right to counsel, the right to defend your self, the right to discover the prosecutions' evidence against you, the right to a speedy trial, the right to confront and cross-examine your accusers, the right against self-incrimination, (didn't Bush and Neocons say we don't torture?), the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty, the right to be convicted only by a standard of beyond a reasonable doubt, the right to trial by jury and the right to appeal. No, no tilting of nature and natural causes there that underlies traditional conservative philosophy.

No acknowledgement of what they did to our civil justice system either. One of the last things Mr. Bush did before he ran out the door was to make it harder to sue a long term care facility for negligence or gross neglect of elderly patients. So the least of us in our society has no legal protection either, but instead face dismissals of their cases under the guise of federal preemption? No right to bring a negligence action, no right to compensatory/punitive damages, no right to a jury trial, no right to address grievances? No protection for these people against abuse? The old, infirm, ill and sick are losers too? No apology for Katrina victims or the Bailed out banks who instead of lending money, have tried to help themselves to the governments (our) generosity to save them from ruin. What can be inferred from his little talk is that Mr. Limbaugh is in effect saying that winners can take advantage of losers. This reminds me of a line from the movie, Animal House, where one of the pledges lends his car to a frat brother, who returns it to him a complete wreck, and afterwards says, "hey, you f_ _ _ _ _ up. You trusted us."

No, there was no acknowledgement of the problems created by Neocons in the last 8 years, no admission of mistakes, no accountability, no apology and let's move on talks. No, there was not even a bipartisan tone to the talk, in fact it was just the opposite.
"Bipartisanship occurs only after one other result. And that is victory," he said. "What they mean is we check our core principles at the door, come in, let them run the show, and then agree with them. To us bipartisanship is making them agree with us after we have cleaned their clocks and beaten them, and that has to be what we are focused on." (emphasis added). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khxpmGLxPEM

So desperate are the Neocons to preserve what they believe is status quo, that Mr. Limbaugh once again reiterated that he wishes for President Obama to fail. Never mind that if the President fails, our country might fail too. Damn the torpedoes and the consequences, the Winners like Rush have to be in power. Comparing the remark to his desire to see the Arizona Cardinals "fail" in this year's Super Bowl game against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Limbaugh defended his comment without denying it. "This notion that I want the president to fail, folks, this shows you a sign of the problem we've got," he said. "What is so strange about being honest and saying, I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation? Why would I want that to succeed?" he said, bringing the crowd once again to its feet. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6N1tTdpuAU

See the winning and competing thing is very, very big to Rush. Mr Limbaugh here is a clue for you. First of all given the situation we're in, these are extraordinary times, which call for extraordinary measures. President Obama has said that these measures are not the norm, but immediate action needs to be taken, or the situation will get much, much worse. A lot of economists and experts agree with him. This is not a normal liaise faire, leave the market alone business cycle, but one artificially induced by the outside greedy forces the Neocons allowed to do as they pleased. Second, me thinks you protest too much. The American people made their choice in November; it is time for a change, the old trickle down, Ronald Regan theories of good government have not worked. Your movement has seen its day and it is over. You've failed. Take responsibility, be accountable for the wrongs and adjust. Comparing the outcome of the stimulus bill or the new upcoming budget that addresses many of the issues like employment, education, healthcare, and basic civil rights is not an athletic contest. There is much more at stake here. To argue to drag your feet, beat our brains in, win at all costs attitude is not helpful. Campbell Brown from CNN put it best in response to your article in the Wall Street Journal, and your criticism of the a reporter from that network who disagreed with you, "Mr. Limbaugh…the histrionics and the name calling, they undermine anything constructive that you have to say… our country is in desperate straights right now, and we need ideas. But what we don't need is nasty rhetoric, and useless noise. This does not help anyone get a job, keep a job or feed their family. If there ever was a time to put the meanness behind us and focus on real dialogue and real solutions, this is the time."

BENEATH THE SPIN • ERIC L. WATTREE

The Republican Party--a Threat to America

One of the Republican Party's most enduring talking points is that the Bush administration has kept America safe since 9-11, but what evidence do we have of that? Even as the Bush administration bragged about their security efforts, they left both our front and back doors wide open. The two primary entry points into the United States are all but short of a welcome sign.

In testimony before the Senate Finance Committee on September 27, 2007, Greg Kutz of the Government Accountability Office testified that GAO investigators were able to cross into the United States from Canada with a duffle bag filled with contents resembling radioactive material on three different occasions during the fall of 2006. He went on to testify that they did so without encountering even one law enforcement official. And as everyone knows, our Southern border is an absolute sieve. If Jose Garcia can simply walk across the Mexican border into the United States, what's to prevent Osama Abdul from doing exactly the same?   Read More »

"This is my hope. This is my prayer."
Thursday, February 5th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog_post/this_is_my_prayer

"The particular faith that motivates each of us can promote a greater good for all of us," President Obama said this morning to a crowd of several thousand people gathered for the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton in the nation's capital. "Instead of driving us apart, our varied beliefs can bring us together to feed the hungry and comfort the afflicted; to make peace where there is strife and rebuild what has broken; to lift up those who have fallen on hard times."

A dozen foreign leaders attended, including former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who delivered the keynote address.

Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R-MO) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) read from Scripture, Rep. Ike Skelton (D-MO) delivered a prayer for national leaders, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) delivered a prayer for world leaders, and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) delivered the closing prayer. Casting Crowns, a Christian rock group, performed at the event.

The National Prayer Breakfast, currently co-chaired by Reps. Vern Ehlers (R-MI) and Heath Shuler (D-NC), is a yearly event held in Washington, D.C., on the first Thursday of February each year. The event has taken place since 1953 and every U.S. president since Dwight D. Eisenhower has participated in the breakfast.

The President is set to sign an executive order regarding the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, which we'll have more on later today.

Read the President's remarks below.

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A Prayer for the Nation and Our Next President, Barack Obama
By The Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire
Opening Inaugural Event
Lincoln Memorial, Washington, DC
January 18, 2009
http://www.nhepiscopal.org/artman/publish/article_750.shtml

Welcome to Washington! The fun is about to begin, but first, please join me in pausing for a moment, to ask God’s blessing upon our nation and our next president.


O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will...

Bless us with tears - for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women from many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.

Bless us with anger - at discrimination, at home and abroad, against refugees and immigrants, women, people of color, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

Bless us with discomfort - at the easy, simplistic “answers” we’ve preferred to hear from our politicians, instead of the truth, about ourselves and the world, which we need to face if we are going to rise to the challenges of the future.

Bless us with patience - and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be “fixed” anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.

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Gathering up every minute of happiness.. despite the negative news reports. And my painting of Our New President. Happy Inauguration Day Everyone!


I think there is something to be said for getting away from it all. And what better time to step away from our day to day routine than right now in our present economic and world condition. I have to admit, I am one of these people who likes,.ok,..NEEDS to be in touch with daily NEWS. When we first brought the baby home and we were running on little sleep, and I was nursing, well, a lot. I lost track of time, and daily news. It made me feel out of touch, not watching my daily news supply. And Im still like that. I have the news on, off and on throughout the day. Or I check online news sites if I don�t listen to the news. And despite the terrible economic news that pumps forth from our tv�s and every other imaginable source, I still need and want to listen to the daily news. I need to be in touch with reality. That being said,..I also am finding it helpful to STEP AWAY from the constant drum beat of chicken little screaming that the sky is falling. Don�t get me wrong,..I know the realities of our worlds present condition, I don�t choose to ignore it. But I do choose to STEP AWAY FROM IT NOW AND THEN. Actually Im not sure if Im choosing to step away, or it�s just a form of preservation. If you have read my blogs before, you know I believe in the law of attraction and it�s principles. With that in mind I don�t want to spend too much energy getting my emotions too engrossed in the fears that the media is spreading like a plague. So Im trying to live with and accept the reality of where our world currently is, without becoming consumed by the worries so many of us have. And sometimes I get it right. Like the past few weekends. One day my toddler and I spent time with my parents, feeding ducks at the local zoo, getting apple slushy�s and fresh cookies at a local orchard�s market. And Daddy went to play some golf. Just being together and thinking only of the moment we were in,..enjoying each other. And then on another weekend, my husband and I and our toddler went to our larger Zoo in St. Louis. And if you want to forget about the world around you, take a toddler to a zoo! You feel their excitement, and their happiness when the miniature train choo choo�s on by. Doesn�t matter that you have been here before, and that the elephant is too far away to get a good look. Nothing matters except that you are all together, and it�s just a perfectly imperfect day with your family. Memories made. Tired feet. And a sleepy toddler latter. We are ready to go home and feeling,.. could it be,..refreshed? Mentally that is.

Yes, a day at a large zoo walking all over with a toddler left us feeling happy ( ok except during the occasional toddler melt down). So I say, what ever your �toddler at the zoo� thing is,..just do it. Step Away From The Current World�s Realities for a while. And refresh.. I say current because I do believe the experts out there are right. This too shall pass. Our world will get back to a more familiar healthy normal. Perhaps a new Happier normal. But it will get there.

And a prayer for everyone out there who is feeling the crush of the reality of the circumstances that our world is experiencing.

But take heart and have faith, as we are now entering a period of change with our New President Barack Obama! Happy Inauguration !
Tiffany
Also if you would like to view my newest President Obama oil painting please go to my web site http://www.tiffanybeane.com
Or go directly to the paintings web page at http://www.tiffanybeane.com/mainbusinesswebsite/sale_obama_Head_oil_.html

Obama launches grass-roots campaign
By PHILIP ELLIOTT, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 43 mins ago [Sat Jan 17, 2009 12:01 pm CST]
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090117/ap_on_el_pr/obama

WASHINGTON – President-elect Barack Obama, who rode an extensive grass-roots organization to fundraising records and the White House, announced plans to pair a campaign organization with the Democratic Party to push his agenda with an eye toward re-election in 2012.

Days before he even takes the oath for his first term, Obama said Saturday that the newly created Organizing for America would enlist community organizers around the country to support local candidates, lobby for the president's agenda and remain connected with his supporters from the campaign. The entity will operate from the Democratic National Committee headquarters but will be independent in structure, budget and priorities.

"As president, I will need the help of all Americans to meet the challenges that lie ahead," Obama said in a video message to supporters. "That's why I'm asking people like you who fought for change during the campaign to continue fighting for change in your communities."

Obama's campaign organization has some 13 million e-mail addresses that cut across the political spectrum. Obama's top advisers had considered transferring that list — from which Obama raised $745 million — to the Democratic National Committee. In the end, Obama's top aides decided the list should remain separate in keeping with a theme of post-partisan rhetoric.

"Volunteers, grass-roots leaders and ordinary citizens will continue to drive our organization, helping us bring about the changes we proposed during the campaign: a solution to our economic crisis, an end to the war in Iraq, affordable health care for all and new sources of energy to power our economy and protect our environment," Obama said.

Millions of small donors pushed Obama's fundraising to record-shattering amounts and the candidate tapped into the Internet to spread his message. The joint statement from the Obama team and the DNC said more than 500,000 Americans completed surveys following the election describing their goal for the organization, and more than 4,200 hosted house parties.

 

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