Frontal Assault.
Rick Barber performs superbly in this campaign video that calls the healthcare bill the same as slavery. It is a reminder that the healthcare vote is still potent. The Democrats remain as vulnerable today as they were in March, and the summer season brings more gloom -- not only the oil spill, the hurricanes coming, the failure of the McChrystal appointment in ISAF, but now also the slowdown of the FinReg bill with the loss of the Byrd vote.
Byrd Exits.
Spoke Salena Zito, PTR, re the empty West Virginian Senate seat. The West Virginia governor, Dan Machin, a popular conservative Democrat in a GOP-leaning state, will wait until after July 3 to appoint a placeholder Democrat to serve out Senator Byrd's term until 2012. Machin wants the job for himself in the election of 2012. The challenge for Harry Reid is that he needs Byrd's vote to move the FinReg bill back from conference. Unlikely to get the seat quickly. And with Feingold and Cantwell still "no" votes, and with Scott Brown a "no" vote, the Democrats do not enjoy 60 votes. The White House believes it is buffeted by unpredictable events. I think of POTUS as unlucky. John Fund mentions that the White House may think it is in the Twilight Zone.
Rod Serling for President.
Since January, the White House has endured a run of bad luck. Scott Brown. Healthcare reconciliation. BP. Times Square bomber. Stanley McChrystal. Robert Byrd. POTUS desires a reliable calender to work his magic, but the presidency is not about legislation; it is also about crisis management. Does POTUS know American history? Sign post up ahead . . .
"... the healthcare vote is still potent."
Yes, it is. This is a far better strategy than running against Reid & Pelosi which, at first, seemed like at good idea. Then it didn't work so well in Murtha's old district.
It's kind of funny the way he shoulders the Abe Lincoln doll out of the way after he's done with him.
Sounds like he's on speed of some sort.
I completely agree with what Barber says, but I find him scary.
"Since January, the White House has endured a run of bad luck."
It's only fair, really. We the People have had bad run of luck ever since Obama won Super Tuesday in 2008. It's his turn now.
This was written by someone with the handle = General Mayhem. It is his/her work, and I like it.
You're now entering a dimension beyond what hope'n'change has stimulated, not to mention spoiled and squandered.
It is a dimension as unpopular as Obamacare and as untimely as cap'n'trade.
It is a middle finger raised between platitude & lassitude, and between a campaign that never ends and sound bites forever blaming Bush; and it lies between spin to allay Gulf fears and photo-ops with tar balls, all capped off by an Oval Office speech touting wind turbines, solar panels, and "energy-efficient windows."
This is a dimension of flimsy obfuscation and of Jones Act and EPA waivers long delayed. Beyond it are other dementia— the distraction of hoops and bogeys, a declining dollar and an ever-dizzy Dow, plus dimwitted vicissitudes from McCartney and Calderon.
You've moving into a dimension of both denial and delay, of ideas ignored and logical things undone. You have seen the signpost up ahead— it reads, "It took a spillage"— and you're just crossing over into . . . the Obama Zone.
From the beginning the Obama administration has been a lead balloon held aloft by wires, widgets and strange devices. The fact remains that lead balloons do not float. The moment cracks appeared in the suspension anchorage (in the form of poorly designed health care reform, stimulus; the University of East Anglia e-mail dump; foreign policy set-backs; deepening economic malaise; and, now, the Gulf oil spill – an apt metaphor) the balloon came crashing to the ground. Die-hard supporters of Obama’s Utopian vision were prepared for even this eventuality. They are now quite prepared to lower the ground.
"Mr. Obama is systematically diminishing the United States, effecting its transformation from what was once called 'the world's only superpower' to a nation subordinated to the demands of international consensus, organizations, 'peer competitors' and even rogue states." So writes Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. in a piece entitled, ‘The Obama Doctrine’.
Mr. Gaffney concerns himself primarily with international affairs, but the same ‘diminishing’ is going on domestically as well. It is largely uncertainty that is keeping the economy from roaring back. While much of it falls under the category ‘to be determined…’ (after elections), we do now have some idea of what the end game will look like (which we all know is not possible to achieve on American soil as it is presently configured).
Socialism is not what frightens us. It can be argued that we have been living under some degree of socialism for years. What frightens us is the specter of the step between now and then. In order for the seeds of socialism (or any new system) to sprout, the existing crop has to be plowed under. It is this we are now witnessing on a daily basis. In fact, the work has already progressed to the point of where it can no longer be stopped. Both the private sector and our government(s) are on the verge of collapsing.
On this blog we have been focusing on the private sector. Most of us are paying roughly 50% of our earnings to sustain government. Even at that rate, the government cannot survive. As taxes are increased, the private sector shrinks in same measure. There will be even less money to sustain government. The conservative drumbeat to shrink government is also no solution. The first thing cut will be the services we have come to rely on. This will also create problems for the private sector that depends on the continued maintenance of various forms of infrastructure while, at the same time thrusting more people onto the welfare rolls. Government and the private sector are entirely codependent. Cuts in either one end up harming both.
We have entered a lose-lose situation. The only way out of it is to encourage a robust private sector to mop up government excess. The private sector, however, is no longer robust. Government has grown too large and oppressive. It has smothered any hope of sustained economic expansion. We have in effect hit a wall.
The plowing under of the old crop has become inevitable. The kind of seeds we plant will be our next major decision. If we choose to go with the same old crop, the soil will end up even more depleted. There are alternatives, however. We can plant something different that will revive our soil; or we can let the land lay fallow. In any case, we’ll have to resign ourselves to a long wait for the new seeds to sprout, for the stalks to grow. I would not advise anyone to hold their breath.
http://peterkoelliker.blogspot.com/
Great Ad, Lincoln is still a powerful figure in American history. Bush tax cuts expire soon don't they?
Healthcare, Wall St. and Pension bailouts are inflaming the taxpayers, and noone in Washington appears to give a hoot.
California layoffs of police are a scare tactic, government thugs always cut necessary services and never cut the social programs or community programs. I doubt the town and city halls in California have cut any staffs.
As for Rod Serling, no-one would elect a chain smoker nowadays. If someone cannot control their nasty personal habits, they do not deserve to be our President.
If Senator Byrd were a Republican, NBC would be showing burning crosses and Klan rallies. Last night NBC called him a "complicated" man, and NEVER mentioned his recent use of the "N" word. Just like Ted Kennedy, his drunkenness, womanizing, sexual abuse, and murders were glossed over.
Sen Byrd is currently "laying in State" on the Senate Floor, on the Lincoln Catafalque! Who approved of a Klansman lying in the Capitol and on the Bier of Lincoln? Shocking on too many levels!
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2010/07/01/us/01byrd2-cnd/01byrd2-cnd-hpMedium.jpg
Will he be buried in Arlington too? The Funeral will be in Arlington, Virginia. Thousands lie there to free the slaves and Senator Byrd wanted to lynch Blacks and Catholics!
I practically gave myself a case of carpal tunnel in my vain attempt to attempt to figure out what on earth you meant by your reference to Robert Byrd’s “murders,” not to mention the womanizing, sexual abuse, and drunkenness that you saw fit to charge him with. Has the genius of Sergei Brin let me down, or am I correct in my impression that you simply made these accusations up?
Unlike such Republican “heroes” as John McCain, Robert Byrd at least demonstrated a modicum of concern for this country's well-being by his opposition to both the Iraq War and amnesty for illegal immigrants.
Nor did he make any secret of his desire to use his political clout to send Federal money to the impoverished common people who sent him to Washington, thereby proving that he at least possessed the old-fashioned virtue of loyalty, a basic human trait utterly unknown to the bestial neocons now in control of the GOP.
Why, sometimes Senator Byrd even seemed to recollect, albeit in a dim, sclerotic fashion, that America used to be a Republic, and that she once had a Constitution that was not merely—in George Bush’s words—“just a goddamned piece of paper.”
I do not know whether we face some sort of judgment after we die. If so, then Robert Byrd, who presumably possessed the weaknesses of ordinary men, doubtless has much to answer for regarding the temptations that he faced during the ninety-two years he spent in this sublunar sphere.
But he served America more conscientiously than have many of his detractors, and deserves better than to be spat on by pygmies.
I agree with most of what you've said, and I don't intend to "spit on" the late Senator Byrd. However, he did vote for Health Care Reform, twice, and that particular law is perhaps the largest single breach of our constitutional liberties in the history of the United States. So, I don't give him a pass on that one, even if he were 100 years old. Age is no excuse for socialism. It's not OK to fight for liberty for 90 years and then throw in with the Socialists when you're 91. So, I don't spit on him, but I don't forgive him for what he did, either, any more than I forgive any of the other 60 Senators who voted for that travesty.
I said it at the time, and I'll say it again, and I'll say it until the day I die: I hope all the legislators who voted for Health Care Reform burn in Hell.
Fair enough. Even I don't exactly think that Senator Byrd's likeness belongs on Mt. Rushmore, although I would rather have his countenance up there instead of bloodthirsty Abraham Lincoln's.
I'm reminded of the underrated Who song "Slip Kids":
"Keep away old man, you won't fool me
You and your history won't ruin me.
You mighta been a fighter, but admit you failed!
I'm not affected by your blackmail.
You won't blackmail me.
Slip kids slip kids second generation only half way up the tree
Slip kids slip kids realization I'm a soldier at 53
No easy way to be free....
No easy way to be free...."