Month: November 2011
Abramoff Calls Out Gingrich for ‘Corruption’
People who come to Washington who have public service, and they cash in on it. And they use their public service and their access to make money, and unfortunately Newt Gingrich is one of them who’s done it. I don’t know if he’ll survive this, to be honest with you … Because he is doing and engaging in the exact kind of corruption that America disdains. The very things that anger the Tea Party movement and the Occupy Wall Street movement and everybody who is not in a movement and watches Washington.
— Former jailbird Jack Abramoff, commenting on Newt Gingrich’s work for Freddie Mac to NBC’s David Gregory on his “PRESS Pass” program.
Lazy Lying Republicans – Obama Calls U.S. Corporatists ‘Lazy,’ GOP Falsely Claims He Was Referring to All Americans
In the art of political warfare, if you’re on defense, you are losing. After being pilloried by the press and even among their own party’s establishment for a series of stoopid gaffes, outright lies and displays of monumental ignorance over the past month or so, Republican presidential candidates and the party’s propagandists are now desperately trying to get off defense by breitbarting Pres. Obama over a comment he made at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting over the weekend.
“[There] are a lot of things that make foreign investors see the U.S. as a great opportunity — our stability, our openness, our innovative free market culture. But we’ve been a little bit lazy, I think, over the last couple of decades. We’ve kind of taken for granted — well, people will want to come here and we aren’t out there hungry, selling America and trying to attract new business into America.”
– Pres. Obama
– Pres. Obama
In a Q&A with Boeing CEO James McNerney at the APEC CEO Business Summit, Pres. Obama said that corporate leaders have “been a little bit lazy” in their efforts to recruit new foreign investments in manufacturing in the United States. He went on to cite his administration’s efforts to address the corporate sector’s laziness in attracting new business through its SelectUSA program which “organizes all the government agencies to work with state and local governments where they’re seeking assistance from us, to go out there and make it easier for foreign investors to build a plant in the United States and put outstanding U.S. workers back to work.” (Emphasis added.)
Deploying a deceptive tactic out of the playbook of racist provocateur Andrew Breitbart, Republicans, including candidates Rick Perry and Mitt Romney and propagandists like the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer, have taken the president’s comment out of context, implying that he was criticizing the American people as being lazy.
Here’s the transcript of the president’s comment, in context:
Lobbyists Ensure Pizza Remains a Vegetable
$5.6 million
Amount spent by food industry lobbyists to ensure that the U.S. Department of Agriculture did not change the designation of pizza from “vegetable.” Wrote the USDA: “While it’s unfortunate that some members of Congress continue to put special interests ahead of the health of America’s children, USDA remains committed to practical, science-based standards for school meals.”
Cain is Truly the Sarah Palin of 2012
Note to any presidential contender: Don’t even come to Florida unless you understand wet foot/dry foot policy.
Second note: If reporters try to help you out by explaining the policy, take them up on it.
How to Shoot Down Republican Anti-Obama Arguments
The GOP talking points memo is out, and here’s the line: The deficit is Obama’s fault and Republicans are simply trying to squeeze some fiscal responsibility from Washington.
When you hear this meme repeated on FOX News or even from legitimate outlets, keep this little dose of reality in mind.
When Obama was elected in 2008, he wasn’t trying to shrink the deficit, he was trying to fix the ECONOMY. The economy was on the skids after eight years with no oversight as Republicans gutted regulatory policies, and their buddies at the top of the income ladder raided the resulting cash. The economy also struggled under the ever-increasing costs of providing employees with health care insurance.
If Republicans took deficit reduction seriously, they’d be open to closing tax loopholes and ending the Bush tax cuts
When Obama crafted a stimulus effort in 2009, he wasn’t trying to shrink the deficit, he was trying to decrease unemployment. Unemployment was up because of a years-long trend to increase profits by offshoring American jobs and importing manufactured goods from China and other developing markets. The stimulus was acknowledged by credible economists as keeping the country from sliding into a depression.
The Occupiers, Unoccupied
The place didn’t have anywhere to go potty,
And after three months, it was starting to get grotty.
But when police came with billy clubs
And sani-workers came with soapy suds,
There was nothing left but to say, “So long, Zuccoti!”
