Despicable. From TalkingPointsMemo:


Then they adjourned in memory of Stonewall Jackson. On MLK day.

wow that is pretty damn pathetic-hope the national media picks up on it and hammers them for it.

Stonewall Jackson can't really help when his birthday happens to fall. Lee-Jackson Day has been celebrated in Virginia since 1904 and is now part of a 4-day state holiday weekend, having been merged as L-J-K day from 1983 to 2000 before it reverted back to being its own holiday on the Friday before the Monday.

Here in North Carolina the Democrats got the Lottery passed in part by holding a vote during what was supposed to be a non-voting informational session while 2 key Republicans were out of town. We did end up getting the House Speaker thrown in jail when they discovered all the corruption going on that led to that vote though...

So how many jobs did Obama create with that shindig last night?

For the record, I hate that we put on those kind of bashes regardless of the party in charge, I think it's overkill and a waste of money in this day and age. The way cities prepare for the conventions every four years shows how out of touch both parties are with the "average" citizen.

C'mon. The average citizen celebrates with lobster and bison.


I try to make it a point to have alcohol with every course of my meal.

Sarcasm aside, this isn't really any different from most Inaugural Dinners.

except that the total calorie count was something like 3000.

As always: Do as I say, not as I do.

Did you want them to order out Pizza Hut and rent out a Bennigans? It's an inauguration for the United States, the wealthiest nation in the world. We aren't Mexico.

I'm pretty sure every inauguration is the most expensive ever and every time some members of the losing party complain about the cost:

BBC NEWS | Americas | No expense spared at inauguration
Giving Bush a pass — again - Salon.com

If Michelle was known for constantly devouring 3000 calorie meals, then this would make some sense. Otherwise you're basically saying that if she tells people to eat healthy, she can never have a high calorie meal ever again, which is pretty ridiculous.

This is basically my position. I mean its an inauguration for the President of the United States. A super fancy dinner every 4 years to celebrate the inauguration seems ok to me. You really expect no pomp and circumstance from the office?

she should be having a 834 calorie meal.. just like the ridiculous school lunch standards.

:rolleyes:

Wow, people are complaining about this now? My biggest complaint is that i wouldn't eat a damn thing on the menu.

When the country wises up and elects me the inaugural dinner will be a traditional thanksgiving style feast with turkey and all the normal sides. Either that or cheese steaks. ;). Then maybe the largest LAN gaming party ever. Need to have some fun and let off steam before it's down to business.

Ew, turkey? Our nation deserves better from its president.

First: Bacon Cheese sliders.
Main: BBQ Spare Ribs, Country Style Baked Beans, Macaroni and Cheese
Dessert: Banana Pudding

Is 834 low for a kid? I'm not getting the complaint or what is ridiculous. Or why every single meal she eats for the rest of her life needs to fit within those standards.

Or is this just all pouting?

That desert sounds amazing.

'Cept for two things. The first is that, Constitutionally, spending bills have to originate in the House.

Which means the Senate can't just pass any old budget (even if the Republicans would agree not to filibuster). The House has to pass something first. The Senate can then pass something *different*, but they're still working off of the Tea Party's wish list.


Then there's that. No change in pay can take place until the next election of Representatives. You can't just dock pay at the federal level the way you can at the state level (California comes to mind, I believe). It's great red meat for the base who'll go "Yeah!! Dock their pay if they don't do their job!"

But the Constitution doesn't actually allow it. Primarily to avoid Congress voting itself instantaneous pay raises, but partly also to prevent one house from trying to punish the other for whatever reason.


The article I read earlier made me skeptical that's actually the case. The explanation it gave was that the debt ceiling would basically be retroactively raised in three months. The country goes about business as usual until three months from now, at which point, if the Senate has passed a budget, a vote is held to retroactively raise the debt ceiling to whatever the debt level is in three months, and another vote is held on a longer-term extension (with the idea that an agreement has been reached by then to avoid sequestration and to enact additional spending cuts).

Difficulty: the aforementioned filibuster. All it takes is one Republican who's confident that SCOTUS would throw out the 'no budget, no pay' clause who's willing to filibuster any budget that isn't ideologically similar to whatever comes out of the House.

Boehner gets his political cover since the Senate couldn't pass a budget, the Senate still gets paid because the pay clause is unconstitutional, and we face an umpteenth case of the Republicans holding the nation's ability to pay its bill hostage as a political football.

I'd like to think that the Republicans are being reasonable and giving themselves breathing space for a compromise both parties can live with to follow that sets the stage for the next four years.

I don't have any actual confidence that will happen.

Oh I know, but I will point out that "change" is 1/3 of this president's slogan (the other two being "hope" and "and").

And it's not just the dinner, this was a HUGE shindig, in the middle of what is allegedly a horrible recession.

I don't understand why Obama lives in such a lavish home.

Hope and change my ass.

Proof that people will bitch about anything. Get over it, this happens every 4 years and he didn't run on a campaign not to celebrate his inauguration as everyone else in (recent) history has. If you want to bitch about the fact that he hasn't changed a lot of things he has promised, I'm all about it, but this is laughable.

Maybe he should have had an extra value meal and gotten back to work. I'm sure you would have found something wrong with that as well.

Obama wears a suit just like Bush did.

and Hitler.

So I'm the only one that thinks we have "leaders" that are disconnected from the people, and that's a huge part of why we can't get anything fixed? That there's a certain amount of "let them eat cake!" going on here?

I'm also pretty sure I was specific that both parties are out of touch with events like this, this isn't an attack on Obama but on our government in general.

Yes, the populace and the media are far too enamored with the idea of having a royal family, and inaugurations tend to bring out the worst.

But you're the one that made the hope and change comment.

Well, I guess I'll scan through the threads to see your comments regarding every party thrown by those in office and how lavish they are.

I agree that all these idiots are out of touch, but having ribs for the inauguration dinner wasn't a platform of hope and change, nor is it really business as usual. It's apparently tradition and I'm not really sure it's fair to criticize the president over it.

Again, you're focusing on the meal which was brought up after, not the entire multi-day affair, with gushing over Michelle's gown (and what the girls were wearing), all the Hollywood stars, etc. Tons of money was spent on this event.

My initial comment was "how many jobs were created?". At least we'd get something out of that.

If you're going to search back, I've made comments on the conventions (cleaning up the city because heaven forbid they'd see what's REALLY happening), and most Olympic opening / closing ceremonies, for similar reasons.

It’s a plutocracy where the leaders in both parties laugh and have their lavish parties and then throw barbs out to the commoners about the rich (I love the "99%ers" who can look at Obama's inauguration guest list with a straight face and still think he stands for them) or guns and let them fight amongst themselves while they all rob us blind. Has been happening throughout history have no idea why anyone thinks it doesn’t happen in this country. Before Miked or somebody gets bent out of shape about Saint Obama the GOP Bush dynasty and others have done the exact same thing.

The Obama campaign did not take federal funds in either general election, so fuck them for saving the taxpayers any money there.

I'm not really bent out of shape over the whole Obama thing, I'm not really overly thrilled with much he's done, let alone anyone there. But let's not be silly and nitpicky over stupid shit. I understand it represents everything that's wrong with Washington, but let's not pretend this is against some hope and change slogan to have a party that everyone's had.

And the fact that you sarcastically refer to him as Saint Obama belittles your position. I can't find any reference to anyone calling him a saint and it makes you sound silly and petty.

You were going to do a thread search because you felt gstelmack was being too hard on him. I have a hard time believing any of what you posted in the first paragraph if you are willing to go to those lengths to "expose" gstelmack.

The recession ended in the summer of 2009.

Exactly. Obama made it end so that he can throw big parties.

Hitler also ended a recession...

/sarcasm

Lobster's actually not that expensive these days. Lobstermen here in Maine are getting killed by the rock bottom prices. They're bringing back more each day than ever before, and hardly paying their expenses. So if Barack bought a whole bunch of them for dinner, kudos to him.

I can't wait until March when we can do the annual complaint about Obama taking a half hour to fill out on NCAA bracket, which is one of the few things even more petty than bitching about the inauguration.

If Obama had a very small inauguration, it certainly wouldn't change my mind one bit whether I felt he was in touch with people like me or not. I wouldn't suddenly think that Obama wasn't a millionaire. And I see no problem with a lavish celebration of the fact that we've had 236 years of peaceful turnover in this country.

Guess I'll stick this here under the reasoning that this kinda serves as the catch-all thread for matters D.C.

U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss to announce retirement | Political Insider

Not surprised.

Heh, I was waiting for that post.

One of the issues in having the Head of State being the Head of Government as well. Other countries tend to separate the role, whether its a Constitutional Monarchy (a la, the United Kingdom) or having the Prime Minister be Head of Government with a separately elected President with little power being the Head of State (a la, Germany).

When both are in one package, the pomp and circumstance that flows to the Head of State (after all, it is indicative of the desire for the representative of the country to be shown off in glory to make the people feel better about their country or to show off to other countries).

There's going to be a lot of bat shit crazy in that primary.

Over/Under on how many references to rape and women's reproductive rights and how many times they want big government to minimize interference in people's lives?

Al Qaeda Commander Killed for the Third Time - ABC News

It's about damn time we got tough on Al Queda and let them know we aren't going to let them off easy by only killing them once or twice.

I don't see why we are hesitating to help out the French with refueling tankers. Just as long as there are no combat troops on the ground seems like low risk, high reward (fighting AQ and building stronger ties with France).

The last paragraph is somewhat ironic about our campaign in Iraq.

U.S. Weighing How Much Help to Give France’s Military Operation in Mali - NYTimes.com

Time to go to plan B. The Drone-Strike Double Tap.

Well if the damned merchants wouldn't have fucked everything up for the aristocracy, we wouldn't be in this global corporate cocksucking mess we're in.

Well, in New Mexico they proposed a law to make getting an abortion be a felony for tampering with evidence. These guys just can't stop talking about rape if they glued their mouths shut. Let's not forget the doof from Georgia (who is an OB doctor) that said there was truth to what Akin said.

fifty.

You're talking in one debate right?

Because I figure over the length of the whole campaign it'll be at least...25x that.

For Their Next Trick, Democrats Will Turn Texas into a Blue State

Interesting read on Texas politics.

Good call, lets help them out (hate to not be able to visit Paris again because of increased AQ, terrorism).

US to provide aerial refueling for French Mali effort - World News

The hawk in me wants to call his bluff and escalate US involvement but also plan for it not being a bluff. This isn't for Israel, this is for "our interests" in the entire region. I do think GWB was right about this one being (figuratively) in the axis of evil.

Iran official says attack on Syria is attack on Iran | Fox News

Oh yes, I read about that. "Every sperm is sacred...". Yea, that OB just proves that you don't have to be smart to get a degree or a doctorate, just act normal long enough to pass all your tests and qualifications, then let the crazy out.

It's amazing how much rape is on the GOP minds. I mean, this is really getting to the point of it being extremely, extremely creepy.


Nice round number.

Difference is, Akin said "you can't get pregnant if it's legitimate rape blah blah"

The Georgia dude was talking specifically about ovulation - that if ovulation is due to happen, but hasn't yet, the stress of a rape environment tends to inhibit ovulation. That's not the same thing as YOU CAN'T GET PREGNANT IF YOU'RE RAPED HURR, if for no other reason than that such an explanation, however true or false, has nothing to do with victims of rape who have already ovulated and are fertile.

I mean, I don't want to be in the position of defending these dorks, and the Georgia guy really should know when to leave well enough alone, but there is a difference between Akin's blanket idiocy and the GA OB's "well, under this particular set of circumstances..."

Not saying it couldn't happen, but Texas Republicans do a much better job of catering to the Hispanic vote than the broader party. Rick Perry is pretty liberal on immigration policy and one of the senators is Hispanic and Republican. Not saying it can't happen, but the perceived antagonism isn't the same issue it is nationally. 94/94 in state elections since 94 is a thought track record to beat.

Actually, he said the woman's body has ways of shutting it down, which has no scientific basis. The stress of rape doesn't prevent ovulation and there are studies showing stress can induce it. It's faulty science and medicine from elected officials who serve on science and medicine committees.

There is a massive disconnect between the statewide offices and the local city/county offices. There just isn't any money made available to Democrats running for statewide office. Take for example in the last Governor's race, the Democratic candidate, Bill White. He'd been an extraordinarily successful mayor of Houston, winning 4 terms, with the last two of them garnering over 85% of the vote. But when it came to running for governor, he was massively outspent by Perry, and only got 42% of the vote.

I really like #2 -- awarding greencards to immigrants with advanced degrees in science, math, technology and engineering.

I never understood why US did not encourage the immigration of other countries best and brightest (assuming they pass some sort of background, security check and/or have some sort of limitation to national security companies/projects). These are the ones least likely to be a burden on US society and it helps US and hurts our global competitors.

Bipartisan plan targets 11 million illegal immigrants

You're missing the last part of '2' out however - it states "American University" ... which implies it'd ignore qualifications from other countries.

I don't think America has a big 'brain drain' problem (ie. people from the country leaving to work in other countries) - but obviously its not going to help with regards to a short-fall in specific areas as its written, its ironic really seeing as there is a specific exemption for low-skilled workers in areas where there is a big skill short-fall.

I like to think of it as the American University Recovery Act.

It sounds good, but I don't think the specifics are workable. Would an M.A. from an on-line only institution count? How are STEM programs defined? Doesn't this encourage colleges to develop low intensity science M.A. programs and fill them with full paying foreign students looking for access to the U.S.?

#4 will cover me. While I've got paperwork (most likely fake) on all my employees, I've let them know that if/when this passes, it's no more stupid BS. One guy lied to us about how many kids he has and now he's got a nice hefty IRS bill to pay.

That's how German immigration works I think. If you're not EU, you have to be educated and skilled.

It's hard to see it fly here because the party who's more pro-immigration generally also tries to position itself as the party of the poor and unlucky in life, it's hard to see a "discriminatory" immigration policy as part of their platform. It might be a smart strategy for Republicans though.

I'm okay with just a American University. I know its not equitable but it implies foreign students have the (1) likely motivation to want to stay in the US (2) have some financial means to stay in the US and (3) hopefully they become more attuned to US (for better or worse) culture, beliefs etc.

US does not have a "brain drain" problem as you describe but I do still consider it a "brain drain" because they come, get educated and return home and take their talent with them because of US immigration short sightedness.

Ultimately it would be great if we can be more like the Canadians on immigration, but I'll take this intermediate step over status quo.

Valid questions, don't know. But better than status quo - we have a wealth of US trained foreign talent taking their knowledge home with them.

I wonder what the effect of any half-ass "gun control" measures will be v. the huge gun industry boom that's going on now. Maybe Obama is secretly beholden to the gun lobby? (P.S., I don't think Obama is secretly beholden to the gun lobby, I'm just making fun of conspirators.) One thing I do believe is true though, the anti-gun culture backlash will result in more guns on the streets and more first-time gun owners. And actually, I think Obama and the more reasonable gun control advocates understand this risk and its part of why their approach has been much more measured and balanced than the more general hysteria and gun owner-bashing popular on message boards and amongst some commentators. The boom has been going on pretty much since Obama took office.

Gun makers, sellers in New England overwhelmed with orders for firearms, ammunition before new restrictions - Business - Boston.com

Our awesomist bestest friend allies are sweet. It's like the reboot of the Tuskegee Experiment or something.

Israel admits Ethiopian Jewish immigrants were given birth control shots - Salon.com

But the Holocaust happened so you can't question anything the Israeli government does or else you are siding with Hitler and evil. Just like this story from the other day. Somehow since the Holocaust happened you can't make a political cartoon about the misdeeds of the modern (two/three generations removed) government.

Murdoch apologies for "offensive" Netanyahu cartoon - Yahoo! News

Agreeed. It's quite possibly my single largest frustration with American foreign policy.

And I am quite aware that the United States alliance is based as much/more on access to energy and the Middle East as it is to the Jewish plight but I get really frustrated how any discussion involving Israel always boils down to anti-semitism whenever it goes against them. (Very similar to racism cries here in the United States but that is a whole other can of worms)

The fuck? Some people are Chosen, but some people are more Chosen than others.

Big surprise in MA. Scott Brown says he won't run in the special election to fill Kerry's seat.

Where's the forum's "Like" button? :)

At worst I thought he was even money to take Kerry's seat. I guess he's decided to cash in on being a Senator as a lobbyist or speaker.

And all that work McCain and Graham did to open up that seat for him goes to waste.

I'm guessing they would have to be accredited universities.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/02/01/inve...ets/index.html

The Dow is 200 points from its all time high. Man, that Obama has been horrible for the economy ;).

right.. and all of the Americans who have dropped out of the labor force. I'm sure they agree with you.

America's Main Street is different than Wall Street.

So why is not that great when it was everything in economic performance in the 90s and 2000s?

Gas has increased in price about 5 of the last 10 days I've worked. But yay corporations!

So is the complaint now that Obama's policies have been more effective corporations than the middle to lower class Americans? I'd probably be sympathetic to that argument, but it's pretty much the exact opposite argument we've heard for the last 4 years.

I think if you're going to try to tie Obama (or any president) personally to either the positives of the stock market, or the negatives of the job market, or really anything economic, you need some specific action or inaction to support the tie-in. The U.S. is not like some big text sim that the president controls every detail of.

Obama boosted the economy by mandating that every single last gun not privately owned be purchased immediately.

Those people aren't going to get their jobs back. They've been replaced by machines. There's a strong part of me that wonders if we are better off stopping machine jobs to make sure people have money to spend. Machines seem to be great at helping to save money but they don't spend any and that's going to be a major issue going forward.

The problem isn't the machines, it's that people wised up on how to use them & how easily humans could be replaced.

We don't have a job shortage, we have excess population.

Time for Soylent Green?

Wasn't that more of a food shortage issue than a population control issue?

I think was both, but, I need to see the movie again. Been a while. :)

Someday we'll have a moment of global awareness and we'll realize than an army of robot slaves doing all our work for us is actually a great thing. Fuck jobs.

Maybe we need to start exporting people to countries that need labor. ;)

(Or colonization. Whichever works.)

Machines should work. People should think.

And living space too I think. Every nice apartment doubled up with a significant other.

I don't think its excess population.

Unfortunately, its a group of people that was not able to (or didn't want to) learn new, different or improve skills needed. The economy has moved past them and they can't catch up.

Don't forget the ammunition. I think all 9mm and .223 were bought up also.

Here's a recent AP piece on both the jobs-machine angle and the challenges the pace of technological change is creating for the economy: http://news.yahoo.com/ap-impact-rece...--finance.html. It paints a somewhat pessimistic picture of the future for many existing industries, especially those providing so-called 'middle class jobs.'

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/poli...icle-1.1255014

And John McCain shreds the little bit of dignity he had left.

Not good. There will be endless "short-term" patches. I don't think any progress has been made at all since early Jan.

Obama calls for short-term fix to imminent spending cuts - CNN.com

I dunno. I've never heard monkey being used to refer to an Arab. It appears McCain was calling Ahmadinejad a monkey because he considers him a fool.