Stop Already With The Red Line Drawing

The president has said that the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government would be a “Red Line” that once crossed would result in serious consequences.

There is now evidence that the Syrian government has in fact used chemical weapons against the rebel forces.

So where are the consequences?

The silence from the White House is deafening.

So is the saber rattling from the right.

Does anyone in our government remember Iraq?

Iraq was a civil war between Sunni and Shia with the Kurds standing in the wings.

Saddam had used chemical weapons against the Kurds.

Rumor was that he was going to sell similar weapons to terrorists who would use them against us.

So we unleashed the full force and might of the US military on Saddam.

Ten years later Saddam is gone…and where are we?

The violence in Syria is a secular conflict…Sunni vs. Shia.

Are we going to make the same mistake again?

The president drew a red line in the sand.

He should stop doing that.

Conspiracy Theories Abound

If you follow the conservative news outlets you know that when it comes to our Muslim, Kenyan, racist, gay socialist president, conspiracy theories abound.

From “Birthers” to Benghazi…background checks to border security… bigotry to bombing drones…there is no end to the alleged ulterior motives of the Obama administration.

The one that we find most fascinating goes something like this: 

“The Obama administration is implementing its socialist agenda with the explicit intent of bringing capitalism to its knees.”

When Barak Obama was sworn in as president on January 20, 2009 the Dow Jones closed at 8,077.

Yesterday the Dow Jones closed at a record high 15,105.  

Second Chances or Double Standard

Four years ago Mark Sanford was the very popular Governor of South Carolina.

He was considered a viable candidate for the White House.

Four years ago Mark Sanford disappeared for five days.

When he surfaced he said that he had been communing with nature along the Appalachian Trail.

It turns out that Mark Sanford was communing with his mistress in Argentina.

Four years ago Mark Sanford was forced to resign.

Yesterday Mark Sanford won a special election for the United States House of Representatives.

He won by 9 points.

William Jefferson Clinton served as our nation’s 42^nd president.

President Clinton was known to have some difficulty keeping his zipper zipped.

President Clinton had an affair with an intern.

He lied about the affair to the American people.

He lied about the affair in sworn testimony before the United States Congress.

He committed perjury.

President Clinton was impeached by the United States House of Representatives.

Today, former President Clinton is one of the most popular public figures in our history.

Newt Gingrich once served as the powerful Speaker of the House.

He was forced to resign for misappropriating $300,000 in public funds.

Newt Gingrich has been married three times.

He was having an affair with his now current wife while his now former wife was dying of cancer.

Newt Gingrich is a bestselling author and successful film producer.

He was a viable Republican candidate for the presidency.

Two years ago Anthony Weiner served as a member of the United States House of Representatives.

He was considered a rising star in the Democratic Party.

His wife served as the number one advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Two years ago it was reveled that Anthony Weiner had been emailing photos of his wiener to female admirers.

Anthony Weiner was forced to resign.

Today Anthony Weiner is running for the powerful office of Mayor of New York city.

They say we are a nation of second chances.  So we have to ask…

Would Nancy Pelosi have been elected the first woman Speaker of the House had she hiked the Appalachian Trail as Mark Sanford did?

Would she be Minority Leader if she had emailed photos of her “naughty bits” to ardent admirers?

If Hillary Rodham Clinton had followed her husband’s path, would she have ever been elected State Senator from New York? 

If she had communed with an Argentine lover would she have had a chance to challenge Barak Obama?

Would she have been appointed Secretary of State?

If Hillary Rodham Clinton had committed perjury would she be a serious contender to be the first woman president in our history.

Second chances...more like double standard.

  

Cut this...Cut that...Whoa don't cut THAT!

Republicans like spending cuts.  They like spending cuts almost as much as they like their guns.

If you want to cut the size of government…”shrink it down to where you can drown it in a bathtub”… Grover Nordquist and his boys have got your back.

Do you want to cut food stamps…John Boehner’s right there with you.

Do you want to cut Meals on Wheels…Mitch McConnell’s your wingman.

Want to cut Head Start…Paul Ryan’s got you covered.

Do you want to furlough a bunch of air traffic controllers…

I said, do you want to furlough a bunch of air traffic controllers…

Let’s try this…Do you want to close Yellowstone for the summer…

How about cancelling White House tours…

Hello!  Are you with me?  Where did everybody go?

Republicans like spending cuts.  As long as those spending cuts don’t affect well healed businessmen and tourists with enough dough to take a vacation. 

Pissed off because the FAA furloughs have you waiting a bit too long at the airport…John Boehner will take care of that for you.

Need those food stamps to survive…sorry ‘bout your luck.

   

It's Maddness!

70,000 people attended the NRA National Convention this weekend.

Their largest crowd ever.

They gave Sarah Palin a standing ovation.

Rick Perry’s introductory video showed him blasting targets with an AR-15 while Guns & Roses blasted in the background.

Wayne LaPierre ginned up the crowd.

 “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun…is a good guy with a gun.” 

“How many Bostonians huddled in fear wishing they had a gun?”

A 25 year old law student has produced a functioning plastic gun through the use of a 3D printer.  The gun uses 38 caliber rounds and can fire off six shots before losing its functionality. 

The inventor calls himself an anarchist.

Bra holsters were on display.

A pink pickup truck was tattooed with “Lipstick & Lead.”

The Heritage Foundation says that any immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship is too expensive and will hurt the economy. 

Deporting up 11 million “illegals” who work for next to nothing apparently will not.

The Israelis bombed a weapons facility in Damascus, Syria. 

The weapons were made in Iran…

...sold to Syria…

...intended for Hezbollah in Lebanon

…to use against the Israelis.

The Karzai government is universally known to be corrupt.

NYT reports say that the CIA has been delivering plastic garbage bags full of cash to the Karzai government for decades.

Karzai invested millions of dollars in Dubai. 

When Dubai went belly up so did Karzai.

In a weekend press conference Karzai said that the hopes the media reports about the CIA money will not stop the money from coming. 

“We need the money…We hope that this flow of money will continue.”

Nineteen US soldiers were killed last week as the Taliban “Spring Offensive” kicked off in Afghanistan.

It’s madness!

   

Toomey Tells The Truth

“In the end it didn’t pass because we’re so politicized.  There are some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it.”

                                  Senator Pat Toomey (R. Pa.) Co-author of the failed legislation on background checks

It is hard to find common ground when the people you are dealing with are motivated by a spiteful vendetta rather than the common good.

“The single most important thing we want to achieve is for Barak Obama to be a one term president.”

Since the day Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R. Ky.) uttered those infamous words Republicans have done everything in their power to thwart the president’s agenda.  They have used obfuscation, demagoguery and outright lies to paint this president and his policies as “un-American.”They have not allowed opinion polls, public pressure or facts to stand in their way.

In some respects they have been rewarded for their efforts.  They took back control of the House in 2010 and gained additional seats in both chambers in 2012.  Their game plan has worked on a local congressional level.

But it has been an utter failure in the general elections.  Republicans have lost the popular vote in 5 of the last 6 national elections, and Barak Obama defeated his Republican opponents by a landslide in each of the last two.

Republicans have flatly denied that they have become the party of “No.”  They say that their disagreements with the president are “philosophical” and their unwillingness to support his agenda is “supported by the will of the people.”

Whatever the rationale, their “philosophy” and polarizing rhetoric has served to significantly weaken the Republican Party’s influence in national politics.  Thanks to firebrands like Ted Cruz and Rand Paul women, gays, Asians, Hispanics, and students are turning away in droves. 

The Republican response to the massive erosion of support among these groups…

…“Our policies are sound…we just need to talk to them as if they are our equals.”

                                                                           Reince Preibus, Chairman Republican National Party

Republicans view the world from a windowless room.  Their party platform has but one plank…stop Obama.

Senator Toomey did not tell us anything that we didn’t already know.  But the fact that he said it speaks volumes.

Kudos to Senator Toomey for speaking the truth!

       

              

Plenty Of Blame To Go Around

The president held a news conference yesterday to mark the first 100 days of his second term.  The reviews are in…and they are not good.

According to the pundits the president came off as “defensive,” “weak” and having lost his “juice.”  By all accounts this president is in full lame duck mode.

To some extent they are correct.  The president has taken some pretty big hits of late and in spite of his protestations to the contrary, rumors of his demise are NOT greatly exaggerated.  He took a big hit on the sequester cuts and another one on background checks.  Just the other day congress ran over him and sent the air traffic controllers back to work.  And the last thing he expected 100 days into his second term is to be answering questions on why he hasn’t been able to close Gitmo.  For a guy that just came off a resounding general election win he seems spending a lot of time on defense rather than offense.

The president likes to point the finger of blame at congress; and they have certainly been a key partner in the gridlock that has brought Washington to its knees.  (We’ll get to congress in a minute.) But if the president is honest with himself he has to know that some of the blame falls on his shoulders.

The president and his supporters thought his landslide re-election would pave the way for passing his second term agenda.  Perhaps they believed that Republicans would simply lay down their swords.  Quite the contrary!  Republicans have shown that their resolve to stay the course holds true.  They will continue do anything they can to stop this president…even to the extent of voting “No” on issues supported by 90% of the country. 

We have written many times before about the president’s distaste for the nuts and bolts of Washington politics.  He is loath to get down in the weeds and participate in the wheeling and dealing that makes Washington work.  He prefers to work from the stump and the podium rather than the smoky backrooms and musty hallways.  He prefers to let the voters do the heavy lifting.  Thus far that strategy has failed.  It’s his job to find a way to make it work.

When people talk about the president’s unwillingness to get his hands dirty when dealing with congress they like to bring up the past.  They like to talk about the good old days when LBJ and Ronald Reagan would do whatever was necessary to get congress to do their bidding.  (Count us among those who would like to see a little more LBJ type smack down in this president’s approach.) 

But in fairness, LBJ and Reagan didn’t have to deal with a Senate that requires 60 votes to order lunch.  They didn’t have to deal with a Congress willing to vote “No” on issues favored by 90% of the voters.  And LBJ and Reagan didn’t have to deal with the racism, bigotry and outright hatred that this president deals with every single day.

The president still has time to turn the tide and cement his legacy.  He can still get a bill on background checks through congress.  He can get a budget deal done.  And he has a very good shot at immigration reform.  Add those initiatives to passing comprehensive health care, saving of the auto and banking industries, turning around the economy, bringing an end to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and the elimination of bin laden; this president has a legacy that will stand the test of history.  It is his job to find a way to get it done.

We assume that this president will continue to favor the podium over the poker game.  We assume that his opponents will continue to do everything in their power to stop him.  The ultimate victor will be decided in the mid-terms.  If the president has successfully made his case then his party will wrest control of both chambers on the hill.  If he fails then his second term agenda is toast.  In the meantime the finger pointing will continue and gridlock will prevail.

There is plenty of blame to go around.