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.