I wish there was a “like” or “YES!” button on this site, because all I can do is agree.  Just one more example (if we really needed one) that a Republican saying “we care about the kids” is total bullshit.

Since this in Pennsylvania, clearly we need to inundate their state board of education with emails begging them to slash funding to a school district that wastes money like this.

#1 NobleExperiments -
I know you’re being facetious, but you have been hanging out here long enough to know that republicans allegedly care about fetuses, not actual living, breathing children.

Private donors raise $75,000 to bring a woman who likely earns three separate paychecks just for breathing.  (Or, more likely, having an employee breathe under her name.) The fundraiser she appears at earns several hundred dollars.

Sounds like a variation on the standard bigCorp/MBA business model to me: raise funds; apply most of the funds to CEO’s salary; allow CEO to bail out with golden parachute when much-hyped enterprise “shockingly” fails to meet goals.

It’s difficult to find a female conservative who’s as big a grifter as Meg Whitman was, but Palin never disappoints in this regard.

No doubt this is a Charter School, which, despite it’s private and religious aspects, thanks to Blue Dog Obama is still getting government support.

H’okay yet another instance of the Obama Administration supplying both it’s enemies with bullets, and discouraging Democrat voters.

This comment in the local paper on the Sarah Palin Cookiegate story:

“Meanwhile the Obama regime is prepping to tell grandma “that’s the way the cookie crumbles”: “Breaking News: Obama Debt Panel Recommends Cut in Social Security Payments, Eyes End to Mortgage Deduction”

Simple, by giving the money to Sarah Palin, you generate more useful indoctrination.

Well…uh…okay…oh fuck it.

Has Judybrowni always been a PUMA troll? I seem to remember her posts making a bit more sense in the past.

No doubt this is a Charter School, which, despite it’s private and religious aspects, thanks to Blue Dog Obama is still getting government support.
Comment #4: judybrowni on 11/10 at 06:27 PM

What on earth would make you think this sixty year old school Christian school is getting any government money or that Obama would have anything to do with it?

H’okay yet another instance of the Obama Administration supplying both it’s enemies with bullets, and discouraging Democrat voters.

This comment in the local paper on the Sarah Palin Cookiegate story:

“Meanwhile the Obama regime is prepping to tell grandma “that’s the way the cookie crumbles”: “Breaking News: Obama Debt Panel Recommends Cut in Social Security Payments, Eyes End to Mortgage Deduction”
Comment #5: judybrowni on 11/10 at 06:32 PM

Democrat voters? now you’re just getting sloppy and tipping your hand.

Jesse,

You’re an angry black man, so this is probably difficult for you to understand, but when Normal People make a lot of money, that’s just how Real America works.  It’s why W was let into Yale and Harvard Biz School and given companies to run into the ground and bailed out.  It’s why America bailed out the banksters and let them have their bonuses and claim that everything’s just fine now and there’s no need for criminal investigations.

Sarah Palin is worth $150K, so she cut her fee in half for these people!  Plus, they made a few hundred dollars of charity, which is really like soshulism anyway, so it’s good it wasn’t much more.

Having Sarah’s word salad replace green salad is a bargain any day of the week.  St. Sarah of the Grizzlies did those people much more good than $75 grand would have.  They wouldn’t know what to do with the money anyway, so it’s better kept by the Real Americans who can let it trickle down through their yacht purchases.

There’s always somebody willing to believe I’m a Puma based on no evidence whatsoever (or a typo.)

For the record, sigh, that Puma thing is so out-of-date as a paranoidy would-be insult. (I was an Edwards supporter before I switched to Obama, but I imagine there’s also some paranoid would-be insult attached to that.)

If memory serves, President Obama has supported government subsidies of some sort for Charter Schools and religious private schools (vouchers? whatever) which critics say pull students and funding and support from public schools, all meanwhile attacking teachers’ unions. (Such a smart Democratic vote-getter that, going after teacher and unions.)

And Our President also stocked the “Deficit” (read: Catfood) Commission chockfull of right wing crazies who’d been intent for decades on slicing and dicing the safety nets of Medicare and Social Security.

Social Security, which has been known as the Third Rail of American politics for decades on end for a reason (Politicians touch it, they die.)

I’ve also read that the President’s support of the Deficit Commission cut into the Democratic politicians’ ability to argue during this last election that Democrats would protect that safety net from Republicans.

That comment I quoted: apparently from Fox News. Our Glorious Blue Dog Democratic President has given Fox News the headline of their dreams (and our nightmare): Obama’s Debt Commission is Gonna Take Away Your Social Security and Mortgage Tax Deductions!

But what the hell do I know? I’ve only voted Democratic for 40 years, never third party, Libertarian or Nader.

I’m just a life-long Democrat from a family with four generations of Democrats (that we’re aware of, may be further back, too) appalled that the Blue Dog Democrats are giving away the farm.

A local business owner invited Palin to speak last year at a hospital. In Canada. Several hundred people wrote to the hospital asking them if they were aware of Palin’s position on universal health care, and why they would allow a fundraiser to run this event on their property. Letters were written to the local papers. Eventually, the hospital apologized and the business owner had Palin speak at another venue. Seriously though, does it get any dumber than that?

Ya know, it would be one thing if the Blue Dogs were giving the farm away for some sort of public good, such as Johnson losing the Dixiecrats through the Civil Rights Act.

However, the Blue Dogs, including our Glorious BD President, are giving the farm away—too small stimulus, ongoing wars, lack of transparency, refusing to extend unemployment benefits, giving away reproductive rights, not controlling health care costs or reigning in the financial institutions that caused the economic meltdown, no big jobs bills, and oh so much more to increase the general misery—only to make themselves less electable.

All while tromping on the Democratic brand, and issues important to the Democratic base.

By the by, Nancy Pelosi has come out excoriating the Debt Commission’s insane recommendations.

Our Glorious Blue Dog President? The silence is deafening, so far.

Judi ain’t a troll, she just gets caught wearing birkenstocks in a place where where cowboy boots are needed.

Sorry, but haven’t worn either birkenstocks or cowboy boots in the last 60 years. And am unlikely to buy either in the coming decades.

‘Fraid I’m not anybody’s stereotype, here.

I’d be interested in knowing ABC’s source for that $75,000 figure. Let’s hope it’s not the same people who estimated the costs of Obama’s trip to Asia.

In any case, it’s an effective trope: The mean, evil gubmint is trying to take your children’s cookies away. The woman is a genius at casting both herself and her supporters as victims.

One more thought: She’s all hot and bothered over cookies but probably doesn’t give a flying crap about NCLB, the “signature achievement” of the Dubya administration that is probably the most fucked-up, harmful, poisonous educational initiative ever fostered by the federal government.

@corwin

You will be a more effective troll if you actually bother to find a post written by Amanda before you attempt to insult her.

I hate to pee in the punchbowl, but I think the “several hundred dollars” thing is a typo.  There’s a video news report of attached to the article and the reporter says “several hundred thousand dollars”.  If that’s right then the transcript was incorrect.

Its still awful that she gets any attention at all, much less 75K for a lousy stump speech, but apparently it wasn’t a total financial flop.

This is how wingnut welfare works. The school is irrelevant except as a method for shoveling money at Palin.

Our Glorious Blue Dog President? The silence is deafening, so far.

““The President will wait until the bipartisan fiscal commission finishes its work before commenting. He respects the challenging task that the Co-Chairs and the Commissioners are undertaking and wants to give them space to work on it. These ideas, however, are only a step in the process towards coming up with a set of recommendations and the President looks forward to reviewing their final product early next month,” said White House spokesperson, Bill Burton.”

That was released today by the White House.  Pretty quick, especially considering

1) the report was released early and is not final yet

and

2) the President was likely asleep in Seoul when it was released this afternoon.

“Its still awful that she gets any attention at all, much less 75K for a lousy stump speech, but apparently it wasn’t a total financial flop.”

Whether any decent amount of money was raised or not isn’t what’s interesting about this.

The assholes who contributed money to get Wasilla Snookie to spew Reichwing bullshit (and maybe donate some for a good cause) would scream bloody murder if the same money (or less) was in the form of normal taxes.  They won’t contribute their portion of the expense of providing a functioning society, a society they benefit from tremendously, but will happily piss it away on useless people saying useless crap. 

Republican/Conservative/Libertarian/wingnut/teabagger logic in a nutshell.  And a great glimpse into why American society is circling the drain…

Thank you, Sjt.  The number of times I have to point out the President really did say X is enormous and annoys me to no end.  The President doesn’t have Pravda to issue his talking points.

Whether any decent amount of money was raised or not isn’t what’s interesting about this.

Agree, but I was just pointing out the error in the post.

@Sjt: not as quick as you think; remember that the President appointed the folks who are making this first draft of recommendations.  He’s pretty clear on what they’re gonna say.

Well what the hell. We can just hook kids up to coin-operated intravenous HFCS drips right at their desks.

It’s a new socialist agenda to try to encourage kids to eat properly? Because I remember this Time for Timer guy.

remember that the President appointed the folks who are making this first draft of recommendations.

He also appointed the other 16 freakin’ people who haven’t signed off on the plan, some of whom immediately objected strenuously to it.  Does that mean anything?

Our Glorious Blue Dog President appointed all the Catfood Commission advisors, which I’ve read are heavily weighted (like, a shit load of ‘em) toward the slice-and-dice Social Security crowd.

So it was a foregone conclusion what their “recommendations” would be, since these are the assholes who have been howling after all that money being wasted on senior citizens, for decades on end.

It wasn’t just a lucky coincidence the Cat Food Commission’s foregone conclusions would be dumped during a lame duck session when Our Glorious Blue Dog President wouldn’t have Democratic voters to answer to for a couple years (no, that was planned.)

However, it might be a lucky coincidence, or more of that 11th dimensional chess we’ve heard so much about, that now Our Glorious BD President will have a House full of Republicans to blame/collude with on the dirty work of dismantling the safety net.

All hail Our Glorious Blue Dog President!

Obama Packs Debt Commission With Social Security Privatization & Benefit Cut Supporters

“President Obama has packed the Debt Commission (also known as the cat food commission) with members who have an overwhelming history of support for both benefit cuts and privatization of Social Security…

the Obama White House has been interested in cutting Social Security right out of the gate. David Brooks reported that three administration officials called him to say Obama “is extremely committed to entitlement reform and is plotting politically feasible ways to reduce Social Security as well as health spending” in March of 2009…

What Wall Street wants is to wind up with a good chunk of the Social Security trust fund in its own coffers. Where that intersects with the objectives of the commission remains to be seen, but the fact is that Obama has packed it with people who have a strong history of supporting both reducing benefits and privatization. Even the token “liberals” like Jan Schakowsky have a history of abandoning their strongest principles when the President asks it of them, and Dick Durbin is now telling “bleeding heart liberals” to be open to benefit cuts for the sake of the fiscal responsibility.”

Check out the chart below: 15 of the 18 deficit commissioners have either made it clear they’re a solid yes on slicing up the safety net, or are likely slicers.

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/05/10/obama-packs-debt-committee-with-supportes-of-social-security-benefit-cuts-and-privatization/

But, of course, no one could have predicted…

I’d like some of whatever opiate is being smoked by those in this thread so that they can ignore the evidence of Our Glorious Blue Dog president’s plan to have the Democratic Party hump that Third Rail of Politics: screwing with Social Security and Medicare.

Like they usta say, only Nixon could go to China, and only a Blue Dog Democratic President could send the Democratic Party wandering in the desert for another 30 or so years because they cut holes in the safety net.

“[...] according to a new survey paid for by AARP and conducted by GfK Roper [...] finds that 85 percent of adults oppose cutting Social Security to reduce the deficit; 72 percent “strongly oppose” doing so.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/11/public-opposes-cutting-so_n_678374.html

I guess if you’re set on pulling a scam 85% of voters oppose, it is clever to try to pull it off when an election is as far off as possible: lame duck session, anyone?

There’s always somebody willing to believe I’m a Puma based on no evidence whatsoever (or a typo.)

For the record, sigh, that Puma thing is so out-of-date as a paranoidy would-be insult. (I was an Edwards supporter before I switched to Obama, but I imagine there’s also some paranoid would-be insult attached to that.)

Sorry. I’m hopelessly out of date about everything. Just regular a regular troll then.

And the hits just keep on coming:

White House Gives In On Bush Tax Cuts
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/10/white-house-gives-in-on-bush-tax-cuts_n_781992.html

But OGBDP Obama is taking his usual centrist approach: the rich will get tax cuts, and the rest of us will get Social Security cuts.

It’s only fair.

On threads such as these, Women of a Certain Age always get accused of being Pumas for some reason (now, what would that be?) if they have the nerve to criticize Our Glorious Blue Dog President, in any way shape or form.

I don’t even know why that’s supposed to be an insult, but the trolls insist it is, and they’ll take time out of their busy idol-burnishing schedule to deliver it.

Listen,

Goldman Sachs et. al. have taken all the money out of the housing market—i.e., all the middle class’s equity.

All that’s left is Social Security.  Then NEED that money.  Why shouldn’t old people eat cat food?  Just b/c Social Security isn’t adding to the debt and is fully funded for over 30 years is no excuse not to let the rich idiots who destroyed the economy have it!

Where are their ever increasing salaries, bonuses, and parachutes going to come from?

As a person who hopes to become old someday (it’s marginally superior to the alternative), I don’t want the social safety net for seniors to be a one-off deal struck with the Boomers. On the other hand, where *will* we get the money from? These programs are our country’s largest expenditures. Olberman asked Wiener about a liberal alternative last night and he dodged. There is one, right? It’s time we faced the costs of going to war for decades, with anyone and everyone *except* the budding nuclear powers in our midst, and a return to previous rates of taxation for the top 2% would help, but will that effectively bridge the gap, or will some more unsavory choices have to be made?

Obama has nothing to do with charter schools in Pennsylvania.  He has nothing to do with the charter schools in Minnesota or Arizona.  He has nothing to do with charter schools, period.  Charter schools are public schools.  They predate Obama’s election to the Illinois state legislature, so I fail to see how his non-dictatorial powers not being illegally used to influence state and local school boards to completely eradicate charter schools becomes some sort of complete endorsement of their existence.

The commission to deal with government spending was loaded with all sorts of experts who knew all sorts of things and had all sorts of opinions about how to deal with increasing spending needs and the increasing debt.  Yes, some of them don’t even agree with Medicare and Social Security as they exist today.  What happens now is that the report gets issued, arguments occur, and the Congress, the President, and everyone else in the world gets to put their opinions forward.  Then nothing will happen again, short-term fixes will be made, Social Security and Medicare will be propped up with more taxes and borrowing, the deficits and debts will still grow, and all of this will just show that the people support Social Security and Medicare even if they think something better could exist, but that something better will continue to be elusive.

The fact will remain that Social Security is an incredibly successful program: it was never intended to be a retirement plan, but almost gets there for many seniors.  And the way the Republicans ran against the ACA with ads decrying the supposed “$500B in cuts to Medicare” shows that even that program is about the safest of the safe.

What’s missing from that commission and from the dialogue in general is jobs.  We need to lower, not raise, the retirement age.  We need to get more older, higher-paid workers to be able to let younger workers enter the workforce in greater numbers.  That involves healthcare issues, financial reform to keep the 401k industry honest, and it even involves the much overdue but missed by everyone (except Sarah Palin, who was of course wrong about it) move to make the dollar decrease in value so our workers and industries can compete globally.  We need jobs, not a strong dollar, no matter how appealing the idea of a strong dollar may be for those who are incredibly rich.  The best jobs we need to keep are those that make stuff we export, and this move will help that.  That is should have been done years ago is something that the knee-jerk anti-Obama crowd will helpfully point out, but it’s still a good move.

And that housing market?  That collapse was largely the result of Californians buying homes in Arizona and Nevada while simultaneously having to spend a lot of money so they could avoid paying taxes on the profit of the homes they sold.  Tax evasion always leads to great economic climates, and this was another case of that.  It led to serious overbuilding in many retirement areas, led to lots of people who didn’t care about prices, and then led to a bunch of people who couldn’t pay for what they purchased.  Now we still have a surplus everywhere but California (and the usual markets around big cities such as Boston, New York, Chicago, of course,) and prices might actually go to the usual benchmark of 2.5 Times the income level in places such as Tucson.  That would only half the price of the bubble, so it’s got a long way to go here.  Housing is a place to live, not an investment.  Take care of the first one, and the second concern is much easier to take care of.

Also, China now owns about 6% of our debt (about to surpass that owned by the scary Japanese.)  Rich Americans and American corporations and banks still hold almost 70% of it, so don’t let them fool you about who our real owners are.

Selena777 @ 42: To ensure the solvency of SS and Medicare essentially forever, all we have to do is make rich people pay those taxes on all of their income. Right now, anything you make above a certain threshold (about $125k if I remember right) is not subject to those taxes. So poor and middle class people pay a higher percentage of their incomes in SS/Medicare taxes than rich ones do. All we have to do is make them pay the taxes on their whole income. Presto: problem solved. If you think we HAVE to cut benefits in order to survive, then you’ve only been listening to the corporate media, who is owned by the same people who want our SS money for more cocaine, hookers and yachts.

“And that housing market?  That collapse was largely the result of Californians buying homes in Arizona and Nevada while simultaneously having to spend a lot of money so they could avoid paying taxes on the profit of the homes they sold.”

As a native born-n-raised Californian (3rd Generation), I call bullshit.

Wall Street went to the Financial Markets Casino and lost their shirt.  We bailed them out, and will probably do so again before the end of Obama’s second term.  When people are not accountable for their crimes…they commit them again, and again, and again…

Blaming the house-of-cards financial markets collapse on Californians (whether still in California or having moved elsewhere) makes as much sense as blaming it on a (very) few Black and Hispanic folks who just happened to get a little help buying a home.

In other words, the Joads didn’t cause the Great Depression, the Wall Streeters did.  Likewise I didn’t cause the Great Recession, the Wall Streeters did. 

Way to buy into what sounds like yet another Reichwing talking point to deflect the responsibility from those who well and truly earned it (and that was about the only thing they earned fair-and-square)...

Damnit, felagund, with your fast typy fingers.

Selena, SS is fully funded for over 30 years.  That means IT IS NOT A HIGH PRIORITY PROBLEM. 

As felagund says, raising the wage limit on taxing fixes it simply and fairly.  Why should poor people pay on 100% of their income while the rich get to pay on only a portion of their income?

More than that, SS is NOT a budget item.  It’s separate.  It’s self-funding.  It does not increase or decrease the deficit, and people who say that are either ignorant of how it actually works (understandable since the MSM keeps pushing lies) or are lying class warfare types themselves.

One more thing:

the average American makes slightly more than $50K/year.  That’s average, so many do worse.

The limit on SS (where you no longer pay) is more than twice that.

Most Americans pay SS tax on 100% of their income.  The rich do not, and they’d rather screw people out of the benefits they’ve been paying for (you paid into SS in order to get your payments at 65—making you wait is stealing money from you) than pay their fair share.  Yet another benefit to being born on third base.

Don’t forget that they want to “privatize” SS and do with it what they did with the rest of the market.  Where else will their golden parachutes come from?

The housing market was overly influenced by the Californians and their overpriced homes buying Arizona and Nevada homes at inflated prices so they could just stick their equity into something that wasn’t taxable rather than actually declare a profit.  It certainly happened, and it affected all home prices, and it was a factor in the bubble.

I wasn’t blaming that for the fact that many idiots who should have known better then took all the bad loans and bundled them up in all sorts of devious and irresponsible ways and nearly took down pretty much the entire world economy with their short-sighted greed once the pyramid schemes of their investment were revealed to have foundations of crap.  That was a banker thing, or a “bankster” act.

Bad loans were enough of a problem.  But the housing-based economic meltdown (which is not the same thing as the Housing Bubble) was created by greed multiplied by lies and obfuscation.  I don’t conflate the two, though it’s easy to see why many people do.  They’re related, but they different levels of responsibility toward the overall economy between the bad loan receivers and the bad loan investors is still a shocking testament to American gullibility.  That, or we just like to blame poor people for stuff, especially if they’re black.

Oh yes, these are definitely the people that should be in charge of our federal budget!  My eyes just rolled so far back I caught a glimpse of my own brains.  Any time these morons bring up conservative fiscal policy, I’ll remind them of this ridiculous incident.

judybrowni - do you actually know what a “Blue Dog” is?  Hint: Obama isn’t one.

It’s fair enough to say that Obama, along with the mainstream of the Democratic Party, is too conservative.  But the Blue Dogs are a very specific thing, and Obama is very clearly to the left of them.  The Blue Dogs are, specifically, House Democrats from conservative districts who are generally very friendly to business interests, and often pretty fairly socially conservative as well.  They were very skeptical of Obama’s health care reform, and generally either voted against it or had to be cajoled to vote for it.  Their attitude towards the climate bill was similar.  They are the kind of Democrats who ran away from Obama during the campaign season this year.

Obama may very well be too conservative (I think that, in general, he’s been about as liberal as one is capable of being in our fucked up political system, but I can respect arguments to the contrary - and if he embraces these awful deficit commission reports, I’ll have to reconsider), but he just isn’t a Blue Dog.  The whole idea of a “Blue Dog” only makes sense if it refers to Democrats who are significantly more conservative than the party mainstream.  Pretty much by definition, Obama’s positions *are* the party mainstream.  The party mainstream may, like Obama, be too conservative.  But it’s not blue dog.

Don’t forget that they want to “privatize” SS and do with it what they did with the rest of the market.  Where else will their golden parachutes come from?

Caren, you fool, the market is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And investment is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.

The assholes who contributed money to get Wasilla Snookie to spew Reichwing bullshit (and maybe donate some for a good cause) would scream bloody murder if the same money (or less) was in the form of normal taxes.  They won’t contribute their portion of the expense of providing a functioning society, a society they benefit from tremendously, but will happily piss it away on useless people saying useless crap.

Republican/Conservative/Libertarian/wingnut/teabagger logic in a nutshell.  And a great glimpse into why American society is circling the drain…

Actually this is where logic fails, we want to believe they’ll piss it away in charity as long we don’t tax them.  They don’t actually.  After studies were done the ultra-rich didn’t give less to charities when the taxes were at 95% they just didn’t save as much because at those levels the forced return on business was high enough that in a manufacturing based society they would succeed indefinitely…....I think I just found a journal topic.  I normally shy away from a strong political streak but I just may write it anyways.

Back on topic: Obama has largely run as a moderate liberal.  Hillary was more liberal than he and I was quite happy with either candidate.  Their policies were slightly different and it didn’t really make a big difference until Obama got into office and the republicans went hard-right repressive crazy when they were hard-right business crazy.

3-jon, California wasn’t the only place to suffer a run up in housing prices.  And they certainly weren’t buying the overpriced houses in Georgia and Florida.

jbrowni, of course you’re going to get called PUMA when you bring out that constant negativity and insults of Obama.  It may be that you’re right on the taxes - but you constantly harp and insult Obama for things he has not or could not do.  That’s stupid, and whining about being attacked when you do so is also stupid.  You’re taking a pessimistic position and therefore need to be a bit stiffer against the obvious slings and arrows.

Lastly, it’s hard to type with a cat asleep on one’s chest.

Oooooo poor President Obama, some commenter somewhere “insults” him for his hand in an economy where millions are suffering and he and his administration determined early on that they would only apply “incrementalism” rather than doing the hard work of what needed doing.

I was looking forward to a Democratic majority with hopes that they would govern, you know, Democratically.

Not overly high hopes, reasonable hopes. Hope that they’d govern so that the people of America could have the change not only promised, but needed, and that change would not only save us from financial disaster but insure that Democrats could be re-elected to office.

But I’m sure President Obama is grateful you’ve got his back, as he and his personally-appointed pirates raid Social Security needlessly in order to fund lower corporate tax rates.

Besides, mugging senior citizens has always been a Democratic vote-getter, so it’s a win-win.

I’ll be using a metaphor here (pointing that out for the literalists): in Catholicism, there are sins of Omission and Commission: perhaps some of Obama’s sins are those of Omisson, but that doesn’t make them any the less a sin, or less disasterous for the American people. No matter, appointing an overwhelming majority of those dedicated to destroying Social Security to the Catfood Commission is definitely a sin of Commission. (See? Even the same word.)

Another problem: the American people will be paying for President Obama’s “sins.”

But poor, poor President Obama, some commenter somewhere might “insult” him by pointing that out, and pointing out that it’s also a losing stragedy for Democratic politicians.

I wasn’t “whining” about being called a Puma, because I’m not even certain that’s an insult, or why it should be considered one (as I pointed out), even if I had been a Hillary supporter.

But the idol-burnishers consider it an insult, and it’s apparently supposed to shut up middle-aged women who have an opinion other than that President Obama is perfection personified.

Still talking: President Obama is governing as a Blue Dog, even when it makes no damn sense fiscally or otherwise, causes damage to the American populace, and loses elections for Democrats.

That’s the real stupidity.

I read somewhere that psychologists have determined that it’s the pessimists who have a more realistic view of the world, and so-called optimists are wearing rose-colored glasses.

But unfortunately, if we don’t deal with reality, reality will deal with us.

But you can be “stupid,” and “harp,” “whine,” and try to “insult” me, even though that’s as likely to elect Democrats as burnishing your idol with feet of clay.

“The deficit report put out by the commission’s co-chairs, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, had one striking omission. It does not includes plans for a Wall Street speculation tax or any other tax on the financial industry.

This omission is striking because the co-chairs made a big point of saying that they looked everywhere to save money and/or raise revenue. As Senator Simpson said: “We have harpooned every whale in the ocean - and some minnows.” Wall Street is one whale that appears to have dodged the harpoon.

There’s more:

In this context, it is worth noting that one of the co-chairs, Erskine Bowles, is literally on Wall Street’s payroll.<b> He earned $335,000 last year for his role as a member of Morgan Stanley’s (one of the bailed out banks) board of directors. Morgan Stanley would likely see a large hit to its profits from a financial speculation tax.”
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/11/11/919787/-Wall-Street-missing-from-the-deficit-commission-chairs-report

“<b>the salaries of two senior staffers, Marc Goldwein and Ed Lorenzen, are paid by private groups that have previously advocated cuts to entitlement programs. Lorenzen is paid by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, while Goldwein is paid by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, which is also partly funded by the Peterson group.

...Barbara B. Kennelly, a former Democratic House member from Connecticut who heads the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said the commission’s staffing structure is “unprecedented” and casts further doubt on its fairness.

“Taxpayers fund the commission and they should work independently of Washington lobbyists and power brokers,” Kennelly said. “This is the type of shenanigans that average Americans are so upset about right now - that money talks and everyone else is left out.”

snip

Kennelly and other liberal-leaning critics say they are particularly troubled by the influence of Peterson, a billionaire and former investment banker who began a $6 million campaign this week urging lawmakers to cut the deficit. Peterson, co-founder of the Blackstone Group investment fund, paid for a series of town hall meetings this year that included participation by deficit commission members”

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/11/11/919766/-Staff-For-Catfood-Commission-Paid-By-Outside-Groups,-Including-Petersons-Groups

That’s who Our Glorious Blue Dog Democrat President has personally appointed to come to the foregone conclusion that safety net for senior citizens must be sliced and diced so the wealthy, Wall Street, and corporations can benefit.

And meanwhile OGBDDPresident is telling the critics in Congress of this disaster in the making to, well, shut up:

http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2010/11/obama-to-congress-stop-shooting-down-deficit-proposals/1

Maybe he should call ‘em all Pumas.

Still talking: President Obama is governing as a Blue Dog, even when it makes no damn sense fiscally or otherwise, causes damage to the American populace, and loses elections for Democrats.

That’s the real stupidity.

Yep, that comment certainly was.  (While 3letterjon is right in his definition, I’m gonna go him a little more specific:  Blue Dogs are Democratic politicians who oppose President Obama.  President Obama cannot do that.)

As I understand it, PUMAs are imaginary right-wing creations of liberals who hold so tightly to one ideal that they are willing to support the opposition in the event that the one ideal isn’t met (no matter that no ideals will be met by doing so).  It’s definitely gendered so I don’t really like it as an insult on the basis, but I cannot understand why it would be anything other that an insult.  Basically, by calling you a PUMA, commenters are claiming that you are such an over-the-top, ridiculous, right-wing caricature of a liberal that it is shocking you actually exist.

Hey, at least we are no longer “boomer punching.”  Now, we are “mugging senior citizens.”  What fun. Is that like taking candy from a baby, except with the added challenge of a (mostly) ambulatory target?

“The Democratic Blue Dog Coalition is a group of United States Congressional Representatives from the Democratic Party identifying themselves as moderate-to-conservative Democrats committed to financial and national security and favoring compromise and bipartisanship over ideology and party discipline.[1]”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Dog_Coalition

By that definition, President Obama is either staying true to his roots, or aping Blue Dog behavior to ridiculously sublime levels.

I don’t know if you’re personally mugging senior citizens (I should hope not), or don’t understand the meaning of metaphor: but either way, setting up a commission to (needlessly) slice up (another metaphor, dear) the Social Security “safety net” (yet another metaphor, dear) to fund corporate tax breaks is (in Atrois’ most awesome metaphor) The Democratic Party Self-Destruction Act. http://www.eschatonblog.com/2010/11/democratic-party-self-destruction-act.html

For the literalists, another definition:

met·a·phor   /ˈmɛtəˌfɔr, -fər/  Show Spelled
[met-uh-fawr, -fer]  Show IPA
–noun
1. a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance, as in “A mighty fortress is our god.” Compare mixed metaphor, simile ( def. 1 ) .
2. something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.

And by the by, President Obama “aping” Blue Dog behavior is another metaphor, dear.

Lastly, it’s hard to type with a cat asleep on one’s chest.

A heavy duty push-up bra, or just naturally perky breastesses, Crissa?

Perspiring minds want to know.

They would still be despicable, but if all the Blue Dog “compromises” had at least elected Democrats, that would be something.

Their “compromises” were despicable because they helped prolong America’s economic misery, which of course, is a major reason Democrats (but especially Blue Dog Democrats) got tossed.

50% of Blue Dog Democrats lost in the last election, while 99% of Progressives were re-elected.

If you think the President’s upcoming “compromises” on The Democratic Party Self Destruction Act (otherwise known as the Catfood Commission) will so anything but elect more Republicans and create more economic misery for our senior citizens, you, like the President, haven’t been paying attention.

Hmm, it seems I’m the pragmatic one here: urging Democrats to not only work for the common good, but do so because it tends to get them elected, and re-elected.

(Notice that President Obama didn’t run majorly on Blue Dog “compromises” while running for the Presidency, and woo hoo, he got elected!)

She probably wants the money to run for president….yes I think she’s that stupid.

Yet another poll repudiating the Cat Food Commission:

85% of voters polled are opposed to cutting Social Security.

2010 Midterm Voters support changing the Social Security tax cap over cutting benefits by 55% to 4%

Republicans, by a margin of 2 to 1, support changing the Social Security tax cap over raising the retirement age.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2010/11/11/919738/-DFA-poll:-Cutting-Social-Security-highly-unpopular

How much ya wanna bet Our Glorious Blue Dog Democratic President finds a way to “compromise” those 85% into an absolute fury at Democrats?

@judybrowni

Using rhetoric that makes it sound like you lack critical thinking skills annoys other posters and they tend to skip over your rants, dear.

Hence the comparisons of you to a troll.

Can we start this thread again?  fifty out of 66 posts being judibrowni, with about 20 anywhere near the real topic at hand is not a discussion.

@Ms. Kate

I’ll give it a try, although this in about the “big news out of this story” and not the efficacy of the fundraising/speaking fee.

From the linked article:

They [Pennsylvania State Department of Education] assert that there will be no “cookie ban” as [Palin] stated and that they will not mandate a limit on school parties.

It does sound like they are strongly suggesting, however, that parents make healthier options available and schools consider consolidating birthday parties to one per month.

While I understand, as a sensible adult who tries to eat healthy most of the time, the importance of healthier options, I remember that non-healthy things in the classroom are lots of fun for students.  Recommending healthier options, though, doesn’t really seem like government intervention at all so Palin is full of shit on that one (surprise, I know). 

However, the consolidated birthday party thing seems like one of the best ideas ever and not just for the nutrition thing.  I have a summer birthday and so growing up pretty much got either no recognition at school for it or a joint little party thing with all the other summer birthdays.  Both were fine, except for the sucky-to-a-kid part that meant everyone else got their own little party and I had to share.  Lumping all the kids into groups seems like it might benefit everyone nutritionally speaking, will benefit everyone in terms of more instruction time, and eliminates anyone getting left out just because their parents decided to get it on during the winter months.

How is this controversial?

@Dan

I think you nailed it, but for this one minor edit:

It was suggested that it be suggested by a liberal.

Seriously, the point at which the wingnuts get all up-in-arms seems to be moving earlier and earlier in the process (just like Christmas and the war which is waged upon it).

Obama is Walter Mondale with a less-droopy face.  Why people thought he was a black Michael Moore is something that others will have to explain.  I voted for a boring guy with a cool name, someone who wanted to do radical things in a boring way, and someone who has managed to break his promises only when the Congress didn’t go along with things such as closing Gitmo.  And in that instance, I still blame Bush for making that particular mess.

Would he be more of a leftist with a different Congress?  Of course he would be.  But his accomplishments are among the greatest of any modern President.  He’s another President Johnson with what he’s done.  (And yes, that includes that costly land war in Asia as well, to our collective misfortune.)

Nope, went back to the beginning of the thread and my first responses were organic: the Puma thing was the thread-jacking (which I wasn’t supposed to respond to, for some reason?)

Back during the first disappointments of the Obama administration, when it did a 180 degree turn in governance from the issues the President had been elected upon, liberals were being told that we should shut up because Blue Dog lack of ideals was what got us majority in Congress.

Now that Blue Dogs lost us Congress (the House certainly and such slim margins in the Senate that a couple flips and Republicans rule) I no longer see a reason to be quiet. And I’m not the only one:

Democratic base asks ‘Why don’t they fight back?’

“That’s the question I’ve been hearing from the Democratic Party’s stunned and dispirited base. For the past month, I’ve been on a book tour that has taken me to Asheville, N.C., Terre Haute, Ind., Austin and elsewhere. Everywhere I go, supporters of President Obama and his agenda ask me why so many Democrats in Washington don’t stand up for what they say they believe.

I confess that I don’t have a good answer. What I can say with confidence, however, is that the White House and Democrats in Congress ignore these grumblings at their peril. Call it polarization, call it conviction, call it whatever you like: These are not wishy-washy times. If you don’t stand for something, you get run over.

We saw this principle in action last week. Anomie among the Democratic base was not the main reason the party suffered what Obama called a “shellacking” in the midterms, but clearly it was a factor. Elements of the party’s traditional coalition - minorities, women, young people - voted in much smaller numbers than they did in 2008. The “enthusiasm gap” turned out to be real, and it had real consequences.”

http://www.americablog.com/2010/11/eugene-robinson-democratic-base-asks.html