February 2009 Archives

These guys are whacked out something fierce. (You can digg this video here.)

Whatever his problems were in 2008, Bill Clinton proves they were just temporary in this clip defending President Obama from the GOP attack machine:

Here's the key quote:

“He has reached across, and it takes two to tango. I find it amazing that Republicans, who doubled the debt of the country in eight years and produced no new jobs doing it — gave us an economic record that is totally bereft of any productive result — are now criticizing him for spending money. … This stimulus is our bridge over troubled waters. He did the right thing.”

I'm finally nearing the finish line on development work for DKTV. On Sunday, we entered into a new round of the beta cycle, and with any luck, we'll be done this week.

Probably the most visible improvement is new look for the DKTV video player, and a much easier embed method.

And what better way to show it off, I figure, than one of my favorite clips ever of Barack Obama, from way back in November of 2007.

...Preisdent Obama delivered this fantastic speech to honor the life of Abraham Lincoln:

President Obama understands what this nation needs from its leaders. The GOP -- typified by Judd Gregg -- has no clue.

The first comment on my post over at Daily Kos on Judd Gregg's decision to withdraw from consideration for President Obama's cabinet:

What a Dick!

Hard to disagree with that.

By the way, here's what what I wrote:

BREAKING: Judd Gregg's Bipartisan Spirit

Looks like GOP hyperpartisanship has claimed another victim: according to MSNBC television, Judd Gregg has just issued a statement saying that because of his opposition to the stimulus plan and his views on handling the census that he is unwilling to serve in President Obama's cabinet.

Big mistake, Senator Gregg. Not only are you skipping out on an opportunity to serve your country, you're putting a big target on your Senate seat in 2010.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist shows what bipartisanship looks like:

Republicans could learn a thing or two from Gov. Crist. Another poll or two, and they might figure it out. (Or not.)

I'll be posting the Q&A session shortly.

Here's a link to the prepared remarks.

Update (12:17PM): If you missed the Q&A, I've posted the full video at DKTV.

This post is a three-parter.

First, the new GOP chairman, Michael Steele tries to attack the stimulus plan for "creating" jobs (that's the whole point, Mr. Steele!):

(h/t: JJP)

Second, this video is posted from the new beta 2 release of Daily Kos TV. It's undergone a facelift, and more importantly, the video player is now more reliable. There's still more work to be done, but progress is being made. Let me know your feedback!

Third, on a totally different note, I'm not happy with the reported Senate compromise. Unfortunately, it very well could be the best deal that we could get from the Senate, given the requirement that 60 senators waive the budget act to allow deficit spending (not to mentiont he filibuster).

Hopefully, the bill well get better in conference, but it's virtually certain that the it won't do enough for the economy, and that it will force President Obama to go back to the well to boost things up.

The good news here is that the budget process ultimately does not require 60 votes in the senate, so while President Obama was hamstrung by the 60 vote requirement in this round, he won't be in the next.

Sounds like some sort of a deal has been reached in the Senate on stimulus. Some leakers say the price tag for the bill will be $780 billion over the next three years (a bit less than 2% of GDP).

Undoubtedly, when the legislation goes to conference, the overall stimulus package will grow, closer to the size of what the House passed.

Whatever the case, it's pretty ironic that the idiot Senators who want to reduce the size of the stimulus bill argue that they are increasing the stimulus bill.

Cutting spending to achieve more stimulus is like saying saying they want to see more scoring in football, so they are making the field 125 yards long.

I just saw Tom Coburn saying the solution for economic recovery is to "fix housing."

WTF does he mean? I hear this all the time from GOPers.

Do they mean that housing prices need to return to bubble-levels? Do they even think that's possible without tremendous inflation?

And if it were possible, wouldn't it just lead to a repeat of the mess we're in now?

To me "fixing housing" means putting in place policies that will prevent this from ever happening again. But the idea that we can return to the artificially high prices of the housing boom without ruinous economic policies is a complete and total joke.

There's a reason people like John Cole call Republicans clowns.

It's because that's just what they are.

From last night, President Obama talks up the stimulus to House Democrats, systematically dismantling the partisan Republican arguments against economic recovery:

This is the Obama that crushed John McCain during the campaign, and this is the President that will lead us out of the ditch the Republican Party has left us in.

After enduring an unrelenting partisan assault from Republicans on the economic recovery plan, President Obama is fighting back, reminding the GOP that in November the American people rendered their judgment on the GOP's failed economic dogma. "Now is the time to move forward," he said, "not back."

Bill O'Reilly and Bernie Goldberg propose beating a New York Times reporter with a baseball bat.

(Thanks to Meteor Blades at Daily Kos for catching this. I think he'll be posting it over at DK later today.)

This afternoon, President Obama echoed the same feistiness he displayed this morning during his speech before signing SCHIP.

President Obama's announcement of executive pay caps earlier today wasn't just notable for his new policy on compensation -- it was also the first time since the election that he's given Republicans a dose of what they've been dishing out on a daily basis.

Here's the video:

The President's remarks were more of a warning than open political warfare, but he did remind GOPers that the economic theories they are fighting for have been tested over the last eight years, and that they have failed. President Obama reminded Republicans that it wasn't just his opinion that their ideas have failed -- it was also the opinion of the American public, who on November 4th soundly rejected the conservative dogma.

It was the first time that President Obama invoked the results of the election in a public setting, and it was clearly intended as a reminder to Republican obstructionists that when they block progress on economic recovery, they are not only are they playing with the nation's welfare, they are also toying with their own political welfare.

Without saying it in so many words, he made it clear that if Republicans think he's going to roll over and not put up a fight, they are sorely mistaken.

Here's the key passage GOPers should contemplate:

Now, in the past few days I've heard criticisms of this plan that echo the very same failed theories that helped lead us into this crisis - the notion that tax cuts alone will solve all our problems; that we can ignore fundamental challenges like energy independence and the high cost of health care and still expect our economy and our country to thrive.

I reject that theory, and so did the American people when they went to the polls in November and voted resoundingly for change.  So I urge members of Congress to act without delay.  No plan is perfect, and we should work to make it stronger.  But let's not make the perfect the enemy of the essential.  Let's show people all over our country who are looking for leadership in this difficult time that we are equal to the task.

The bottom-line is that President Obama signaled his willingness to fight back if the Republicans decide they want to fight. He's bent over backwards to work with them, but if they won't reciprocate, then he's willing to do political battle with them.

And this much we know: anyone who would walk willingly into a political battle with President Obama is a fool. Just ask the Clintons, or John McCain, or Sarah Palin.

Yet if the GOP has demonstrated one thing over the last few years, it is that among those clowns, there is no shortage of foolishness.

Full remarks  below the fold:

Tom Daschle is grabbing the headlines (which isn't so bad, given that we're killing two tax problems today), but that's not the big story.

No, I'm not talking about the fact that Sarah Palin is still skipping out on paying the taxes she owes for per diems and travel expenses for her family paid for by Alaska, I'm talking about the GOP's hypocritical vote against infrastructure spending on the first Senate vote on an amendment to the economic recovery bill.

Here's the details:

The first attempt to expand infrastructure spending in the economic stimulus bill fell short in the Senate Tuesday as lawmakers turned aside a bid to push the total size of the bill over $900 billion.

A motion to waive a budget point of order for an amendment adding $25 billion in additional infrastructure spending to the bill drew a 58-39 vote -- two votes short of the 60 needed.

The amendment, by Patty Murray , D-Wash., would have boosted the bill's highway funding from $27 billion to $40 billion, its transit funding from $8.4 billion to $13.4 billion, and its water and sewer funding from $6 billion to $13 billion.

GOPers are hemming and hawing about how the issue was simply that they wanted to offset the infrastructure spending with cuts elsewhere in the bill. Funny, they don't seem to take the same attitude when it comes to tax cuts.

For days, if not weeks, we've been hearing from GOP leaders that they support the idea of economic recovery, but they want more infrastructure spending. And here they are, with their first chance to increase infrastructure spending, and what do they say? They say no.

And because of the strange rules of the Senate, which require a three-fifths majority for amendments like Murray's to pass the chamber, they get their way, even though only 39 Senators opposed the amendment (38 Rs + 1 loser Dem).

If you ever needed any more evidence to believe that just about every Congressional Republican is a lying, hypocritical hack, today they supplied it.

President Obama has done everything possible to reach out to these clowns. He's compromised with them, he's met with them, he's offered to work with them some more. And all they do is offer the back of their hand.

I wouldn't mind if they offered principled opposition to the economic recovery plan, and proposed something different. They wouldn't get their way, but at least they'd be honest. But all we're getting now are lies and hypocrisy.

It's not especially surprising. But at this moment in time, when there is so much at stake, it really is disappointing that they can't stop playing politics. There's work to be done to get this country back on track, but they seem intent on pulling out every political trick in the book to stop progress from happening.

For eight years, they screwed things up time after time after time. Can't they give it a rest for just a few months and give us a chance to make things right again?

On Saturday, I was unable to login to my TJR account or the origin server for Daily Kos TV beta. (The origin server is basically the source of content used by content delivery networks, also known as CDNs. CDNs enable large scale content delivery for things like video or highly trafficked sites like Daily Kos.)

After four hours of being unable to login, my web host (not the CDN) told me that my account had been hacked. That gave me quite a heart attack, but it just didn't seem right, in large part because there were no markings on the front page of the site to indicate a hacking attempt.

It turns out that, after all, I wasn't hacked. My web host simply changed some of its configurations and broke my blogging software.

Not exactly great timing, given that I'm still heads down on DKTV development work. But I finally figured out a workaround for their screwup (and to their credit they gave me a $100 free hosting credit after I told them how to fix the problem).

Anyway, I fully expect that this post will make it to the front page just fine, but I need to try out a test just to make sure.

I guess I got my fingers crossed, but if you're reading this, there isn't any real suspense.

Also, the impetus for getting things working right now is that the Republicans have done something outrageous today. I'll be posting on that momentarily, assuming this works out.