And obviously 2012 is a ways off but I think if the Republicans go back to business as usual a Tea Party candidate... Rubio, Palin (yuck), Gary Johnson, Ron Paul could get as much as 10-15% of the vote. It is a nice thing to hold the GOP somewhat in check before they sign off on other massive spending bill.

Big news on replacing No Child Left Behind.

Obama's doing pretty good in this SotU.

I don't think anyone's ever accused him of being a crappy speaker

SI

He hasn't been doing so well for a few months until lately. Sounding more boring than inspiring.

Speech is pretty blah overall, but I do like having the two parties mixed together in the audience. Always thought the old arrangement was pretty ridiculous.

Earmarks!

*sigh* Earmarks are such a lame boogeyman

SI

Half of them probably don't know when to clap anymore.

I imagine weeks of planning have gone into the politics of when to clap and when to not.

Very disappointing to see him give in to the easy politics there.

One of the "analysts " mentioned this as well, that people were confused as far as when to clap.
I didn't realize there was rules.

I think they have an applause sign in each section that goes on and off for when to clap and not to clap. :)

Wouldn't it be great if the Applause sign was set with a background color to match whoever is supposed to clap and the strength of the color let's everyone know how hard to clap? Like a deep blue gets Dems clapping, a deep red for the Pubs, and then a pinkish mix for everyone?

Preschool fail.

Red and blue make...

Anybody catch Michelle Bachmann's Tea Party response?

Fox News has a video link.

Anyone know who this woman is shaking Obama's hand?

Looks like Penny Flame.

Looks like Penny's nipples.

She kind of has that wild eyed "I'm a clueless moron" like Michelle Bachman. But I doubt Bachman would know how to shake hands.

She doesn't know her history, so I think you might be right.

Not that I really care but you spelled her name wrong...

I think that's because she went to Glenn Beck U. :)



You are correct. I don't really make much of an effort to get her name spelled correctly. She doesn't even come close to deserving that kind of respect.

But it is kinda funny when you are pointing her out as some "clueless moron" to misspell her name :D.

I see your point, but, it's more about a complete lack of respect for her than trying to be correct. If that makes sense. :)

Oh and this is the person you are talking about, it's not the person I asked about.

I'm not sure who the person is you were asking about. I was just saying she had that crazy eyed look like Mrs. Loony Toons has. :)

I get that the US has to tread cautiously since Egypt is a relatively peaceful and pro-western, strategically aligned semi-partner, and we don't know who/what would be replacing Mubarak but we seem to be falling short of our democratic ideals -- reminds me of the Latin and South America dictators that we had to do business. The devil you know ...

Haven't seen anything from Hillary yet.

U.S. to Egypt: Don't 'stand pat' need 'real reform' - Politics - More politics - msnbc.com

Spoke too soon.

FoxNews.com - Clinton Heads to Haiti to Mediate Political Crisis

Ever wonder why we just don't "fix the situation" here? I think this, unlike other situations, is a function of money and troops. The crises is somali-like -why don't we send US troops (they'll be welcomed) leading a bunch of UN troops for the visual effect, collect money from Western powers and really start to coordinate the operations here.

I don't think anyone will really think we are trying to take over Haiti and protest.

When McCain's right, he deserves credit:

Well we occupied Haiti during the early part of the 20th century, so there's a precedent. It'd be hard to spin globally in any real way, even if there's a logical reason for doing it and I doubt Haiti's powerbrokers would ever accept any kind of third-party intervention instead arguing for a "give us your money and we'll deal with it" thing.

But no matter what, that place isn't going to get any better anytime soon and our policy towards them has never been as good as it ought to be given the fact that it just wouldn't cost very much to help them develop the infrastructure to be at least somewhat sufficient enough for the large Haitian diaspora to eventually come back and lead the country out of the doldrums of the past er...200 years or pretty much since they paid France reparations. I think they owe a debt of some kind here, but that'll never happen.

Not that there haven't been lots of mistakes since then by one regime or another.

I guess senators Lieberman and Collins liked how it worked so well in Egypt, they think it's a good idea for America to have it:

Internet 'kill switch' bill will return | Privacy Inc. - CNET News

Obama sure has been religiousy lately. Pretty much a full-fledged Christian sermon this morning. I don't think he's going to convince anyone who thinks he's Muslim, or Satan, to vote for him. But I'm surprised he doesn't get more praise from the religious portion of the right, and criticisms from the part of the left that had a problem with the last president being "guided by faith".

I didn't hear the thing this morning, but my guess is that it's because of where they were guided.

As an example:
Guided to help other countries=good
Guided to invade other countries=bad

It's less about the faith itself and more about the end goal.

Any country whose government doesn't either have one or isn't working on one has an extremely short-sighted government barely worth the name. Well, either that or the internet simply isn't remotely a factor in their country (I'm sure there are still a few of those out there).

The tricky part is making sure the "switch" remains in the hands of the right people.

I really don't like the specifics of the bill, especially the no judicial review bit, but the basic idea that we need a legal avenue for defense of act of war level cyberattacks on critical industries seems a no-brainer to me.

Totally understand that. Unfortunately, the exercise of that power seems to be too much for people in command/control to resist and will use it beyond what it was intended. I'd rather have it how it currently is than anything that is proposed in the bill.

That's where judicial review comes in. Status quo is fine as long as nothing happens, but there is a major vulnerability to a cyberattack on a critical industry. Right now each individual company would be responsible for defense and a coordinated defense couldn't happen at a reasonable speed.

How exactly would this bill fully restrict access in the case of such a critical 'cyber attack' though? - surely if its attacking a specific installation then removing that installation from the grid should be possible (indeed I'd query why it should be connected online at all if its that critical tbh).

If its taking down ISP's to control the internet then that will prevent access to main websites and connections - ie. prevent people surfing the web, but if its to protect hacking style access to specific computers unless there is no routing to that computer available (ie. its disconnected) this won't prevent 'cyber attacks' totally as you could still potentially connect to it .... unless of course this bill involves taking out the entire telephonic/satellite structure of the US in one go.

(and if it does then the biggest concern for me would be the chance some hacker finds a way to simply start this process to disable the net ....)

Isn't that the gist of the problem with this bill and other bills like the Patriot Act that are supposed to keep us "safe"? If there was a cyber-attack (and personally I don't think that is the real intent of the bill but I will go with it here) how hard would it be for Obama (or a future President) to get a judge to sign off on the shutdown? IMO, all this shit is trying to do is circumvent the system of checks and balances we already have in place. Sorry but I don't want one of Jon's guys or one of the guys Jon hates having that much authority.

Call me a cynic but if this passes I definitely can see a place down the road where the internet is being shut down for our own good. And just like the TSA, the Patriot Act, the endless Middle East wars, the war on drugs, the war on poverty... people will defend it saying they don't mind a partial internet shutdown if it is fighting fill in the blank (terror, child porn, extremism, pirating, online gambling, the Chinese...) just don't take away facebook and online shopping!!!

:+1:

The whole turn off the internet is being overplayed IMO. Imagine a coordinated attack on the power grid. Right now there is no legal authority for the government to coordinate a defense. Each power company would decide for themselves how to best handle the attack. That's clearly a terrible way to defend an act of war.

Like I said initially, the details on this specific bill are bad, but the need for a cyberdefense bill is long overdue.

So you trust a generic judge more than you trust a generic President? Not sure what that says about the role of chief executive.


I wouldn't disagree about the existence of that possibility. Pretty sure I'm not nearly as bothered by it as you are though ;)

I'm fine with it as long as people don't lose posts.

Well, much as I hate to do it, I'm going to have to agree with you on this one

SI

The key is that I trust neither. Which is why I want them checking and balancing each other.

Obama big donor appointee, Ambassador to Luxembourg ...

The Associated Press: Big Obama donor quits envoy job amid criticism

She raised $500K for Obama, got a plum assignment and screwed it up. I bet her side of the story will be interesting.

Health care law constitutionality questioned this past week. MSNBC had a nice writeup on the for/against.

Is the health care law constitutional? - Politics - More politics - msnbc.com


I'm not a legal person, there seems to be good arguments for either side. I guess this is why the Supremes get paid the big bucks. I'm rooting for constitutionality.

More like it (after 10+ days).

Obama signals displeasure with Mubarak's move - Politics - More politics - msnbc.com

Another one of those events that we'll be reading in the history books and the after effects. To be fair to Obama, I think this is pretty much how GWB would be playing it also.

It's sort of a tricky issue. Technically we can't force someone to buy it just by being alive, but we also have laws in place that don't allow us to turn down medical services. Doesn't seem like you can have one without the other.

Don't think Obama would be too worried about Ron Paul in 2012 but Mitt would be a good contender.
Ron Paul Wins Presidential Straw Poll at CPAC -- Again - FoxNews.com

I don't see a Mormon who advocated a mandate winning the GOP primary.

Mitt's a horrible candidate. As JPhillips said, he's Mormon, and he also didn't just ADVOCATE a mandate, he signed a mandate. Add to that that the guy has ZERO core beliefs - he'll flip-flop on anything and say anything to get elected (as he did here in MA) - he'll drive away the hard-right with the mormonism and the mandate, and independents won't trust him at his word because he's proven to say whatever in order to get elected.

Most of the yearly RNC valentines are uninspired, but this one gave me a laugh.

:D

SI

$1.65 trillion deficit in a $3.7 trillion budget? Are these people INSANE?

But the Republican leadership are proposing to cut almost $100 billion!!! (heavy sarcasm intended)

Who would want a kook like Ron Paul that actually has ideas involving massive cuts including the military? Empires throughout world history always thrived on more and more military and endless money printing!!!

Dola:

But at least they are coming together on important issues!!!! :banghead:

Boehner says facts show Obama a Christian, citizen - Yahoo! News

WHO GIVES A FUCK!!!!

Well apparently a good deal of Republicans are crazy on those issues, so its good to see Republican leadership disassociate from that nutty faction.

Unfortunately a good portion of the GOP gives a fuck. At least ten states have birther bills pending. It's about time the GOP leadership put the crazies back in the closet.

Fixed that for you.

Seems like a good distraction to get their supporters debating whether or not he believes in baby Jesus while they do absolutely nothing they were elected to do. It's like someone who owes $8 million dollars on a $100,000 house taking out a new mortgage for $20 million but cutting back on their cable package and turning the heat down two degrees. God I hope a third party becomes viable at some point in this country.

And still isn't.

You're right as long as the banks, military industrial complex, and corporations can convince the GOP sheep that he isn't a viable candidate we will get 4 more years of Bush/Obama in 2012.

I'm not sure what Boehner answering questions on Meet the Press has to do with cutting the deficit. I'm sure in the 5 minutes they spent discussing that on the show he could've found $1.65 trillion in cuts, got it passed and signed by the president, chilled back with a cigar and called it a day.

Your outrage here is on the same ridiculous level of the "OMG the economy is failing and Obama is filling out March Madness brackets!!!" nonsense.

Or they could have spent 5 more minutes asking him a fucking meaningful question but you're right I was dying to know how Boehner felt about whether Obama is a secret NWO pawn sent in from Kenya to destroy the economy. (Seems like both the GOP and Democrats didn't need any help with that anyways)

I'd take the first 4 of Bush II over Paul's lunatic proposals in a heartbeat.

I'd also take the second 4, but that's kind of like choosing between ipecac & strychnine, still an easy call but neither is pleasant.

For every time Paul is right about something - say, immigration - he's so dead wrong on 3 other things that he's probably more disturbing a figure to me as President than the current fence-post turtle.

Obama is less disturbing than Paul? You are quite the conservative!

You forget, for as fiscally concerned as I may be, I'm far more conservative on other matters. I'm a social conservative foremost, he's far from it (and even manages to be 180 from me on my one non-traditional belief there, i.e. aborition). I'm probably roughly equal parts on fiscal & "other", things such as foreign policy.

His positions on drugs, national security, and foreign policy are consistently even worse than what we've seen from Obama to date.

Again, for every time he's right, he's so completely & utterly wrong on multiple other points that he's as unpalatable a candidate as I can imagine. Which is to be expected really, I'm a pretty well established authoritarian & view his version of "libertarianism" as little more than anarchy.

Fuck you Ron Paul for making me agree politically with Jon.

I'm in agreement in a sort of mirror image way from Jon. I prefer most Republicans to Paul. I'd vote for McCain/Romney/Huckabee over Paul.

There are alot of Americans who question Obama's religion and birthplace. Is it stupid and ridiculous? Yes. But those people are there, and they make up a pretty good % of Boehner's base. That makes it a worthwhile question to ask him in a Meet the Press interview.

I think it's just as ridiculous that same sex couples cannot marry. It shouldn't matter one bit. But it does matter because many people diagree. That makes it a worthwhile news topic.

And I just find the whole idea ridiculous that a politician doing one thing means he can't be doing the other, as if Boehner shouldn't be doing any single thing other than reducing the deficit 24/7.

Ron Paul actually seems to be very conservative socially he just doesn't feel it is government's job to force other people with a gun to have the same stances.

Other than abortion, I'm having a tough time finding him on the record as being conservative about much of anything. Gay adoption maybe, but certainly not crime/punishment nor drugs nor DADT (which he gave lip service to but then voted opposite).


{shrug} We largely disagree on that point, back to the whole authoritarian thing.

I don't think you are following me. He is very conservative in his personal life. He has all the "family" values that Republicans preach about. He just doesn't feel like it is the role of the federal government to not allow gays to marry or to fine people for smoking marijuana or to invade other countries to instill our values.

As a side note: I don't recall him giving any lip service to DADT. He was one of the only Republicans for a while that wanted to repeal it.

I follow you here and concede your point that there are many issues the media can ask questions about though I contend the media throws 99% softballs. (they may ask a tough question but when the politician gives the standard partisan answer they never follow-up with a question of why or how) I would disagree though about your last sentance, his number #1 (and pretty much only priority) should be getting our deficit in line. But what do I know half of my friends and coworkers have ridiculous credit card and personal debt, why should be expect anything different from these guys?

Right, and I'm pretty sure that if Ron Paul was a state legislator, he'd be pretty huge into instilling those conservative social values in the state law.

His unwillingness to support those through law, in the absence of adequate morality on a national level, is in direct opposition to the support of those values. In short, "live & let live" doesn't cut it, not by a long shot.


Perhaps I've overstated it but "I think the current policy is a decent policy" is a long way from voting to overturn it too. He doubletalked his way through the rest of his answer, almost certainly knowing that given his opening statement his follow up of "if there is homosexual behavior in the military that is disruptive, it should be dealt with" would be interpreted as at least supporting DADT since all homosexual behavior in the military IS disruptive (along the conservative viewpoint).

Yeah, but his gay marriage position, for example, isn't really that liberal. He wants to remove federal court jurisdiction and return the matter to the states. This would be devastating. For example, if Paul had his way, Prop 8 would be on the books and there would be no way to challenge since the CA SCOTUS upheld the initiative.

Paul's position is not much better than most Republicans. So he won't introduce a federal amendment banning gay marriage and he'll support the DADT repeal, but he will allow gays to continue to be treated like second class citizens under the guise of supporting states rights. I can't stomach that, and that's why I'll never support Paul.

I don't think it's a guise. I think his feelings about the federal government are stronger than his feelings about gay marriage. Most politicans/citizens tend to group their opinions on social issues and government structure together (they meld the latter to fit the former) - I would give Paul credit for being one of the rare few that doesn't, one of the rare minds in Washington that is willing (or able) to consider those things independently of each other.

That was probably a poor choice of words. My point was essentially that while Paul presents himself as being different than Christian conservatives on this issue, his policies would still be bad for gay rights.

He may be a conservative in his life, but he's a libertarian politically. Jon is not a Libertarian and many Republicans aren't either.

I'm all for cutting military spending massively. It's Ron Paul's other crazy ideas that I can't get behind.

I guess this is as good of a place as any, but Wisconsin's new governor has proposed legislation that would strip the right of state employees to collectively baragain their benefits. Wages can still be collectively bargained, but any increase is capped to inflation.

Oh, I forgot to mention that Walker has exempted unions that supported his election campaign from this legislation.

edit: That might be misleading, not all police and fire fighting unions endorsed Walker.

Anyway, this is causing quite the firestorm in the state with Walker threatening to call up the National Guard if state workers go on strike.

So the National Guard is going to be working the DMV?

Andrew Sullivan, one of President Obama's biggest and most visible conservative* supporters, Does. Not. Want. the President's budget:


*Yes, we could get into a whole side conversation about whether Andrew Sullivan is a conservative. Instead, let's just agree that it depends on your definition of conservative and leave it at that.

dola:

To me, the President's proposed budget has several critical flaws:

(1) Practically, it does nothing to actually reduce the long term deficit or the debt in any meaningful way.

(2) Politically, it buys into the myth that the budget can be balanced without raising taxes, cutting SS, cutting Medicare, or cutting defense. Bullshit. And by pretending that it is not bullshit, you add to the idea that we could balance the budget if only some guy in Cleveland somewhere that you've never met just found a job and got off welfare. This myth helps the GOP in the long term much better than the Democrats.

(3) Related to point #2, it gives the GOP a short term opening to be the party of actual fiscal responsibility. Now, nothing that I have seen from them makes me think that they will take the opening. But it does give them that chance.

(4) I'll just say again, it does not address the actual problem facing the country.

Thats the first time I've EVER seen an American politician even mention that the defense spending is part of the problem - kudos to him ...

You are right and for some reason neither party can get past (2). To steal from President Clinton it is the defense budget stupid.

I will add...
(5) People re-electing politicians from both parties who have never done anything in the past to fix these problems do not address the actual problem facing the country.

Hate to bring up Ron Paul over and over but there are actually plenty. You just haven't seen them because the media (who in some cases have outside interests in the military) doesn't ever interview them.

Here are the ones who voted against the Afganistan war last year...

Campbell, Duncan, Johnson (IL), Jones, Paul. These are the Democrats: Baldwin, Capuano, Chu, Clarke, Clay, Cleaver, Crowley, Davis (IL), DeFazio, Doyle, Edwards (MD), Ellison, Farr, Filner, Frank (MA), Grayson, Grijalva, Gutierrez, Hastings (FL), Jackson (IL), Jackson Lee (TX), Johnson E. B., Kagen, Kucinich, Larson (CT), Lee (CA), Lewis (GA), Maffei, Maloney, Markey (MA), McDermott, McGovern, Michaud, Miller George, Nadler (NY), Napolitano, Neal (MA), Obey, Olver, Payne, Pingree (ME), Polis (CO), Quigley, Rangel, Richardson, Sánchez Linda T., Sanchez Loretta, Schakowsky, Serrano, Speier, Stark, Stupak, Tierney, Towns, Tsongas, Velázquez, Waters, Watson, Welch, Woolsey.

As long as there's no possibility of the two parties agreeing on a serious budget compromise there's no chance of a budget that gets substantially closer to balanced. We can talk all we want about courage and leadership, but if Obama submits a budget that cuts the deficit in half he'll get killed. The Dems won't go along with it and the GOP will run against the spending cuts.

The only way we solve the deficit is if enough people in both parties agree that any realistic solution is going to be a mix of cuts and tax increases.

Andrew Sullivan is not a politician. Politicians proposing defense cuts get crucified as being unpatriotic and lose elections. See the flack Kerry received from slimeball Zell Miller , who claimed that Kerry wanted to arm the troops with spitballs.

And how about the future revenue projections? It appears the budget assumes we're about to enter a spectacular boom period over the next 5 years - a 40% increase in total revenue.

Funny but I thought they were all elected by the public. Hard to blame the politicians if they can get away with doing nothing and keep getting reelected. I do understand you are saying that in reality this will never happen but I guess I say we have nobody to blame but ourselves.

I will use your Obama example. How about he cuts the deficit in half and then gets killed? Wouldn't he be doing it for his country instead of doing it so his party can get relected? It's time for some policitians with some balls. I know you aren't a big fan of Rand Paul but I have to say I have been impressed so far.

What's the point of proposing to cut defense in half when it won't happen? Even if by some miracle it did happen the election in 2012 would just put things back the way they were. Balls don't matter much if in the end you haven't accomplished anything.

I'm not really happy with the timidity of the budget. I'd like to see a big push to get a tax increase/cut compromise, but the budget probably isn't the way to make that happen. It would be too easy to pass the cuts and not the tax increases and dare Obama to veto. Somehow there needs to be an agreement to pass both cuts and tax increases together or it won't happen until we're truly in a crisis.

edit: I should add that of course it's the public's fault. The major issues the GOP ran on last year were opposition to Medicare cuts, tax cuts and a balanced budget and they won a landslide.

To be fair, I don't think Obama is the guy anyone, including his supporters, thought would be the one to finally get serious about government efficiency and fiscal responsibility.

The buzz now is that the President and the GOP leaders are working on actual budget reform behind the scenes, but that these are super-secret meetings so that they can actually get work done without the media disrupting things.

Meetings so secret, I guess, that no one can really disprove that they are happening. Convenient, that.

The idea of super-secret meetings strikes me, really, as wishful thinking. The people writing the articles just cannot believe that Boehner, McConnell, Obama, Reid, Pelosi, etc. are so selfish/obtuse that they would really let the economy crash on the rocks rather than tell Americans the truth.

Well . . . based on what do we believe that? I have not seen anything to make me think that we have enough adults in the government to lead the people where we need to (but do not want to) go.

Hell, I'd love to be coming back to this thread in three months saying "I was wrong. The President and the GOP really have worked together to help strengthen the Republic, and God bless them for it." But I doubt it.

Sad, really.

Especially considering one of Obama's campaign promises was more transparency.