This week I have a full court press at work and with the long hours I haven't had much time for much else. Waking in the middle of the night sucks and reading tripe like this on my congresswoman's Facebook page sucks, too.
If by "argue", Cathy McMorris Rodgers means putting forth an unsupported statement that we have a spending problem, then she argued brilliantly. But if she meant to "give reasons or cite evidence in support of an idea, action, or theory", then she failed miserably.
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Remember the Peter Principle from the sixties? "Employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence."
Nowadays it's more like the St. Peter's Principle. "Leaders rise far beyond their level of their incompetence."
The failed Pope admitted it--good news! Why can't failures like McMorris Rodgers, Pelosi, Boehner and Obama resign too? Just kickback into retirement and let competent people take over?
Obama claims he'll raise the federal minimum wage 24%, after he raised payroll taxes on workers by 47%.
Meanwhile, executive wages have soared throughout the recession, even the Twinkies CEO got a 50% raise. Wall Street felons got taxpayer funded bonuses and a get out of jail free card. Obama raised the top income tax bracket by only 13%.
Obama proposes a 9.00 minimum wage, when Washington State already has 9.13 and workers are going broke. That's what Democrats call "vision."
We'll more likely see more trade deals with low-wage, polluting markets than any real increase in US workers relative or absolute economic status.
Obama's nine dollar betrayal of the working class (who gave him the presidency) was predictable. So was his co-optian of global warming.
Remember that during the election that the President literally had the Green Party candidate tied to a chair and stuck in a warehouse, because he wasn't man enough to debate a woman about the issue.
Now Obama is Mr. Greenhouse Gasses, but what does he have in mind? Pro-corporate strategies like the Lieberman-McCain thingy that are unworkable precisely because they don't share the value of credits with low-level market actors. That is, with us.
Corporations and elites will get the profits (and there will be profits if cap and trade is done right) and we'll get stuck with the costs. More of the bizarre Obama negotiating strategy where he concedes 90% before the negotiations even begin, than another 9.9% after they start.
Either Obama is as corrupt as the Republicans or he completely lacks the bene pendentes required for the global warming fight.
The minimum wage in the sixties was worth $11 in today's dollars. After decades of income disparity and poor people bailing out the wealthy and fighting their wars, the best the elites can offer in return is 9 bucks minus huge deductions?
That's it?? We're supposed to cheer?
The meek are getting ready.
$9 would be OK for a start. But, why do Democrats only propose good programs when they know the Republicans can prevent them? Pre-school, wage boost, etc would have been good--and stimulative--programs four years ago when Democrats held big majorities in both House and Senate. Instead we got welfare-for-the-rich and healthcare reform that looks increasingly like a mandated handout to pharmaceutical and insurance companies.
The President is a better speaker, with better and more popular content, than the congresswoman (or Rubio). But, to what end?
I would have cheered four years ago. Now if I want great speeches I'll search youtube or watch Lincoln. I want results, something more than just a partisan desire to embarrass Republicans.
Not that they don't deserve embarrassment on the economy.
The missing word in the SOTU was "drones." I have to also wonder if Obama, realizing he's losing a small but imporant part of his party on the drone issue, isn't just throwing out whatever he can to distract them. Liberal media outlets are hardly mentioning a word about the fight over Brennan, with the fight over Hegel a convenient distraction. Both fights may be with few precedents, but elite Democrats must realize that it isn't just Republicans who question Brennan. Feinstein's praise of Brennan creeps a lot of people out.
That's the positive spin on SOTU, for me. That we get to talk about the paltry minimum wage as a bribe to not talk about drones. Obama seems more pointedly (and plausibly) contrasting troops versus drones, though without uttering the word, we can't really talk about the pros and cons of either approach. He's wrong to imply drones aren't warfare. That just kicks the reckoning down the road. Eventually we are going to be watching babies get killed in real time. Like, in a few weeks, the way cell phones are filtering out in South Asia. What then?
I'll give Obama's proposals zero chance of passing, with the possible exception of a small raise to the minimum wage, without indexing.
The daycare proposal is a unicorns and rainbows from drones, yep. But, it's also the opening gambit in the Democrats (Clinton's) 2016 campaign.
It's also a good idea, but there is no downside for Obama to suggest it, even knowing it's not going to happen.
The Democrats thought they could control both sides of the drone debate, but Brennan's slimy testimony spun it out of the spooks' control.
Look, if the head of a US agency can't promise to refrain from murdering US citizens without process within the borders of the US--including US male teenagers at the least, and maybe any US child--and then smugly assume he'll get immunity for such acts...
Good lord, Obama has completely lost touch with reality and no amount of daycares and nurseries will redeem his presidency.
The Brennan nomination is in surprising deep doo doo. As the artist formerly known as 43 might say. And that dude knew how to pull off war crimes.
Now the Democrats keep doubling down on both torture and domestic murder, far beyond anything Bush or Nixon could have dreamed. Look at Feinstein and even Wyden, defending this totalitarian bigot that Obama has saddled them with.
Democrats-R-Drones.
The other problem is that the actual drone triggers are being pulled by relatively low-level chumps--exactly the kind of people this administration and the last allows to twist in the wind in war crimes investigations.
That's why the spooks and brass are inventing new service metals for drone warfare. They're scared. Look away from Nuremberg kids, here's a bright shiny metal!
Imagine Brennan's nerve! "I have the unilateral power to kill any American, without due process, anywhere in the United States. And your children too.
"But, we will pay their daycare until I do."
In an attempt to save his troubled nomination of John Brennan to direct the CIA, President Obama revealed in a Google Plus chat today that Brennan would actually take the title "High Goblin, Beastmaster of Drwns."
"Lulz," exclaimed the President, "I almost said the d-word! Get it? Cuz Americans deserve a transparent honest debate. Just not, y'know, in court or Congress or in the media or shit."
The President explained the new title for Brennan aimed for a "gamer-savvy, cuddly Hobbit, Game of Thrones kind of vibe."
Reached at her demolished home in Waziristan, a woman who called herself Ammi held the severed arm of a child and wailed.
The press continues to misstate Obama and Brennan's statements, from WaPo:
Brennan repeated assertions made by President Barack Obama that drone strikes would not be used by American citizens inside the U.S., and that they are not used if it’s possible to capture a suspect.
“This Administration has not carried out drone strikes inside the United States and has no intention of doing so,” he said.
"Has not" and "no intention to" are not "will not" or "is forbidden under the Constitution."
Also note WaPo perhaps intentional typo of "by" instead of "on"--which completely reverses the meaning.
Obama's statement was equally weaselly. Note the administration is using written forums, one of which, (gmail chat!) whis is completely deniable.
Why is the media not skeptical and demanding real answers?
Obama's Google statements are evasive to the point of bizarre:
"The rules outside of the United States are going to be different than the rules inside the United States, in part because our capacity, for example, to capture terrorists in the United States are very different than in the foothills or mountains of Afghanistan or Pakistan,"
Well, actually the rules are different here, Mr President, because we have a Constitution. And it was in Yemen that you killed an American teenager--far from Afghanistan.
Why not a real press conference on the assasination of Americans? How about an Obama interview with the ACLU?
When will Democrats say something convincing on drones (or anything).
I had not had a beer tonight. I had no intention of having a beer tonight.
"drone strikes would not be used by American citizens inside the U.S."
"By"? A typo that is still up 24 hours after first publication at the Washington f'ing Post?
Odd. The para is not supported by the Brennan quotations. Maybe there's more in the submitted testimony, but crappy reporting at the least.
Roll Call has the correct summary of Brennan:
http://www.rollcall.com/news/brennan_sidesteps_query_on_drone_kills_in_us-222485-1.html
"In written answers to Senate Intelligence Committee questions released Friday, CIA director nominee John Brennan would not say whether the U.S. could conduct drone strikes inside the United States — only that it did not intend to do so"
Exactly. Brennan is talking like a teenager here asking for keys to the car. Not convincing. Still no holds from Democrats, who are attacking "impolite" Cruz as a distraction. Paul has doubled down on his Brennan hold, noting that the question of Brennan's fitness is more important than Hagel's. Hagel's issues aren't Constitutional and I hope Rand drops that hold to focus on Brennan.
How bizarre to see a Republican shame Democrats on basic issues of human rights and the rule of law. Democrats once were outraged by assassination attempts on foreign leaders, but now they joke about killing American children, even in the US.
"You'll never see it coming."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWKG6ZmgAX4&feature
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