Tag Archives: George W. Bush

TGIF ….&some News

10/08/2010 Nativegrl77

My rant …sorry for the mis info this morn … the 60million dollar issue is addressed in an article on the blog …read it

Today we are not just talking about class war but the Republican Tea party has been able to stir up public dissent and obviously if given the opportunity will: put Corporations ahead of the people ,continue race baiting, using fear and hate to make points to win in November and it is starting to get under my skin. I know that this same crap happened when folks were debating how competent Palin was and if you were watching “the Media” played her as the spoiler ready to go. It was upsetting that so many had that same tingle going up their leg but with all the noise coming from so many places common sense prevailed. The question is will people come to their senses before making their final decision on Nov.2^nd or will we get played and succumb to repeal, replace, and an elimination of what America is. Will someone tell me what happened to our democracy that people would much rather vote for a looney tunes then those who truly have the people, the country in mind before profits and purity ideology….

When will Republican constituents finally get tired of do as we say not as we do mentally?

This morning while on the bus, I picked up on a possible shady move by Republican Governor Christie that should show all of us one of several reasons why we should not trust Republicans and why our economy has yet to improve. The money already spent and jobs lost from possibly killing the Hudson Tunnel project is an act that is reprehensible. The actions from Governor Christie plus major Corporations who seemingly are the ones who create jobs …are clearly holding out, outsourcing and refusing to be apart of the economic solution. They have quickly become an even bigger problem now that we are 2weeks away from the mid-term elections and if there is such a thing as fair and balanced all those who have dumped, solicited and took foreign money will be found out and be subjected to the rule of law. The Supreme Court, specifically Justice Roberts and the law he helped to enact which put Corporations on the same playing field as an individual seriously needs vetting. To continue …Since we only have a couple of weeks left before the mid-term elections the rants probably will be about the crap being said done or the videos being made by the Republican Tea Party that are questionable at best silly though not funny and offensive and racially moved. When i registered to vote it was to be a democrat, there was no question because my parents made it clear exactly which side of the aisle Republicans stand and why. It was clear then and now it has become even more apparent in this year of 2010 it is an American duty to vote for politicians that work for the greater good…People need to ask themselves what qualities are needed to do the peoples business not just a select few but for All Americans. The vote on November 2nd will be a vote for a Congress that will do more research before forcing a pre-emptive strike and going into war. someone open to new science…like stem-cell research, admitting that there are enough gays in congress and other parts of the political arena that the laws need to be changed, someone willing to say that women and men should be paid the same and change it, admit that minorities are not represented on all levels and change it , who have not lost compassion for others and are willing to stand up and speak out for the middle and lower class. The things we are going through are all non-partisan realities… we are living in a different world…one that requires us to come together and decide as a human race, not as democrats or republicans; at least that is what the American public use to think but after losing power to the Democratic Party in 2008 and having the first African-American President the Republican Tea Party has decided to go not just extreme but use discrimination as a threat to all those who are non-white i guess because I personally cannot think of anything else they can use. The mid-term elections were called the year of the woman, Republican Tea Party crazy women that is and got to say as a woman they not only offend me just exactly how Sarah Palin did back in 2008 with strange comments. It is offensive and apparently folks on the right of center would rather have the crazies in power and while the comments are outlandish and those of us with common sense say wow that is crazy but feel, no one could take this stuff too crazy. The fact is something ugly is going on out there and it is stirring up people to vote for a different party right in the middle of a recession just because the corrections have not happened yet. It is sad that folks think for even one moment that years of financial deregulation, Wall Street bets, and outsourcing would only take 2yrs to fix but when people actually start to believe that the Republican Party has more knowledge or trust to get us back on track we all have to wonder if people have lost their minds. I have to say -WTF because the house of Bush took office with a surplus and the end of his 2nd term he gave up his power with America just about ready to fall of the edge of a ditch. It is clear that folks just do not get that it will take time to fix our economy and right now if you are even paying attention the trickle down that Republicans talk about just ain’t happenin it didn’t then and it isn’t now … people need to understand that Corporations are holding back their funds until they get their way and who is suffering because of this -All Americans not just the democratic side of the issues. I cannot tell anyone how upsetting that states continue to lay off Teachers,firefighters, emts and the police …

What information do constituents of the Republican Tea party need …what will happen if they shut down the govt- what will happen to your family if they do repeal everything and more importantly what will your neighborhood look like when the chaos reaches your town.
im just sayin

“It is important to bear in mind that political campaigns are designed by the same people who sell toothpaste and cars.” — Noam Chomsky.

Other News …

**A NJ Gov killed the Hudson Tunnel project…after a visit from sec of transportation and has stated he will reconsider

**Gov Charlie Christie axes 60million dollars in projects

**a 6.4 earthquake in AK with several large aftershocks

**Cnn’s ed rollins says the hicky ad was an independent expenditure-the viewer/voter does not know, care or understand how that is suppose to explain away that stupid ad

**Paris decides to permanently ban burqa’s

**Tweetforpeace

**James Jones will step down as Nat’l sec adviser Donilon likely to replace him

**Facts: …95thousand govt jobs were lost -64thousand Private Sector jobs gained …unemployment is 9.6 for most …question is why are stocks doing so well, banks won’t lend, corporations outsourcing not being considered part of the problem

**Extortion …Cali Police have told JerryBrown that they have decided to hold their votes or will give their votes to Meg Whitman unless he changes his policy concerning their pensions

**Tennessee – Titanic Museum

**BankofAmerica and PNC have decided to put a moratorium on home foreclosures

**Tonite NYC Emmy Awards

**Cali…Knottsberry Farm -RollerCoaster accident

**Judge upholds President Obama’s HCR law

**Hurricane Otto forms in the Atlantic

CSPAN …

Supreme Court Oral Argument Snyder v. Phelps
Today

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) Remarks on Economy
Today

NPC Address by Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan
Today

Pres. Obama Remarks on Monthly Jobs Numbers
Today

Pres. Obama Remarks on NSA James Jones Resignation
Today

Georgetown Law Symposium on Justice John Paul Stevens
Today

Pres. Obama Signs 21st Century Communications & Video Accessibility Act of 2010
Today

Defense Dept. Briefing with Sec. Gates & South Korean Defense Minister
Today

Common Sense Media Press Conference on Online Privacy
Today

Supreme Court Group Photo
Today

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

NATIONAL SECURITY: GOP Divided On Foreign Policy

09/28/2010 Nativegrl77

Last week, the House Republican leadership released their “Pledge to America” in an attempt to outline the Republican plan for governing. Yet, despite being 45 pages long and having an entire section devoted to national security, “the Pledge” almost completely ignores the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In fact, the words “Iraq” and “Afghanistan” are mentioned only once and that was only in reference to Iran. The failure of the Pledge to address the wars exposes both a shocking disregard for those fighting and dying on the part of Republican-initiated wars, as well as a clear absence of any of the ideas about how to bring these conflicts to an end. It also demonstrates that the Republican Party is now completely divided on foreign policy. The emergence of the Tea Party movement may have energized the right-wing base, but it also has exposed a sharp split over foreign policy between nativist-isolationists and war-seeking interventionist neoconservatives. The only thing that seemingly unites the diverging groups is Islamophobia. The traditional Republican foreign policy establishment of national security realists, once the counter-balancing force to both these strains, have seen their influence in the party rapidly shrink. Much of the disarray is a result of the disastrous Bush years, which has seen national security increasingly emerge as a political strength for progressives, especially after progressives campaigned successfully against the war in Iraq in 2006 and 2008 and with President Obama polling higher on his handling of national security than on other issues. This poses a real challenge for the right. As the Center for American Progress’ Brian Katulis concludes, “The Bush administration’s ‘global war on terror’ and overall reckless approach to foreign policy may end up doing to Republicans what the Vietnam War did to Democrats for many years: leave them stuck in the past as they refight defense policies, internally divided and searching for a coherent message on national security.”

WHAT WARS?: The Pledge’s failure to address the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is striking considering that just a few years after, Bush declared himself a “war president” and Republicans were more trusted on national security than Democrats. There now appears to be no unified GOP position on Iraq or Afghanistan, defense spending, or global engagement. The emergence of the Tea Party movement has exposed a split in which limited government libertarian conservatives clash with those seeking to expand the power and reach of the national security apparatus of the state both at home and abroad. The New York Times‘ Peter Baker writes in Foreign Policy, “When it comes to foreign policy, the unity of the Tea Party stops at the water’s edge. Its leaders are hopelessly divided over everything from the war in Afghanistan and counterterrorism policies to free trade and the promotion of democracy abroad. And with the Tea Party increasingly serving as the Republican Party’s driving force, the schism underscores the emerging foreign-policy debate on the American right. So recently united behind President George W. Bush‘s war on terror, Republicans now find themselves splintering into familiar interventionist and isolationist factions, with the Dick Cheney side of the party eager to reshape the world versus the economic populists more concerned about cutting taxes at home than spending them on adventures abroad.” Katulis notes, “The last time Republicans were so sharply at odds was the party’s debate with its isolationist wing before World War II.” He adds that “dissension in the Republican ranks was on full display in the conservative reactions to the Obama administration’s National Security Strategy this spring. Conservative foreign policy analysts couldn’t decide whether to accuse the Obama administration of plagiarism or treason. Some praised the strategy as a continuation of the Bush administration’s approach; others condemned it as a recipe for weakness and an appeasement of America’s enemies.” The split was also evident when Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele was ferociously repudiated by neoconservative torch-bearers after advocating not to “engage in a land war in Afghanistan.” Yet, as Baker notes, “when nearly half a million Tea Party supporters voted online to define their campaign agenda, not a single one of the 10 planks they agreed on had anything to do with the world beyond America’s borders.”

ISLAMOPHOBIA UNITES: In the eight points put forward in the Pledge’s national security section, there is no plan or concept for how to engage the world. Instead, the one area that appears to unite Republicans is nativist bigotry toward Muslims and Hispanics. Five of the eight points within the Republican plan on foreign policy actually have more to do with immigration policy and keeping people out of America. It is no coincidence that this past summer, right-wing Islamophobic protests emerged across the country, ginned up by a combination of Tea Partiers and neoconservatives. Groups like “Keep America Safe,” led by Elizabeth Cheney and the Weekly Standard’s Bill Kristol, sought to stoke fear and hate of Muslims over the Islamic community center in New York and other neoconservatives like Frank Gaffney at the Center for Security Studies claim that Sharia law is threatening to take over the U.S. As CAP’s Matt Duss assesses, “in order to reposition themselves to retake the reins of power, the Cheneys must rescue the ‘global war on terror’ from the ash heap of history, and they’re doing this by playing the one card they’ve got: fear. Their larger goal, then, is to resuscitate the neocons’ post-September 11 vision of a world in which the United States, unbound by rules or reality, imposes its will on friend and enemy alike.” These claims also play well off the conspiratorial fears of Tea Partiers who believe that President Obama is a Muslim who wasn’t born in the United States and of those that believe “their country” is being taken away from them by immigrants.

SHRINKING OLD GUARD: One group that is rapidly loosing sway within the Republican Party is the former old guard made up of traditional foreign policy realists. This group includes conservative stalwarts and the Secretaries of State of every Republican President in the last 40 years, including Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, James Baker, and Colin Powell. While skeptical of international entanglements, they also understand the need for America’s global engagement. Perhaps no other issue exposes how far much of the Republican party has moved to the right than the debate over the New START treaty with Russia. The treaty updates and extends a treaty that was negotiated by President Reagan and ratified under President George H.W. Bush by a senate vote of 93-6. After months of review, it is now likely that the New START treaty will be ratified if brought to a vote. Since the recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee vote which saw three Republicans Richard Lugar, Bob Corker, and Johnny Isakson vote for the treaty, it should have the support of enough Republicans to reach the 67 votes needed for ratification. While the committee vote on New START was seen as a shocking level of bipartisanship, the mere fact that the treaty has not moved more rapidly through the senate and the level of disagreement on the right is a sign of the declining influence of the Republican foreign policy establishment, which has almost unanimously come out in support of the treaty. New START has the support of Henry Kissinger, George Schultz, Colin Powell, James Baker James Schlesinger, Stephen Hadley, and the unanimous backing of the top brass of the U.S. military. Yet the Republican leadership in the Senate have yet to support it, and the Heritage Foundation,GOP Sens. James Inhofe (OK) and Jim DeMint (SC), and Mitt Romney have all opposed the treaty.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

When Republicans Attack

09/21/2010 Nativegrl77

Election Day is just 42 days from today and everything you and I care about is on the line.

A Republican victory would unleash an agenda so extreme that it would make George Bush blush. Well, that’s not going to happen.

I’ve reviewed the DCCC‘s campaign plan. They have a smart, aggressive battle plan for winning this election based upon a carefully targeted media strategy and a Get-Out-The-Vote plan using sophisticated voter turn-out models that even our opponents say is second to none.

But, this plan depends upon a secret ingredient: Committed grassroots supporters like you. To launch into action, we must raise $278,451 more before Friday’s deadline to get money to campaigns before their Day of Action this Saturday.

Every dollar you give can mean the difference between victory and defeat on Election Day.

Contribute $5, $10 or more to Democrats’ Early Voter Action Fund before Friday’s deadline when we have to finalize our field plans. Your contribution will be matched 2-to-1 by a group of committed Democrats to help in even more close races.

The fact is more than 75% of the DCCC’s funding comes from individual donors like you. The DCCC knows how to put those dollars to work exposing radical Republicans’ promises to privatize Social Security, repeal health care reform and gut Wall Street regulations.

I’m asking you to step up right now and provide the financial resources we need to get out our message and turn out our voters.

The stakes in this election could not be higher. Its outcome will determine whether we continue to move forward with President Obama or return to the failed Bush policies of the past. I’m asking you to stand up and be counted by supporting House Democrats with as generous a contribution as you can afford.

Thank you.

Wesley Clark
General, U.S. Army (ret.)

P.S. Mobilizing our voters and getting them to the polls is the key to victory on Election Day. We need the financial support from committed Democrats like you to help lead the way. Contribute before Friday’s deadline and your support will be matched 2-to-1 by a group of committed Democrats. Thank you.

*Map includes absentee voting.

~ politics petitions pollution and pop culture

Bush Still Takes Brunt of Blame for Economy vs. Obama

09/19/2010 Nativegrl77

Obama sees more blame now than a year ago, but 51% assign him little to no blame

Gallup Poll

by Lydia Saad

PRINCETON, NJ — Nearly two years into his presidency, 51% of Americans say President Barack Obama bears little to no blame for U.S. economic problems, while 48% assign him a great deal or moderate amount of blame. More Americans now blame Obama than did so a year ago, but a substantially higher percentage, 71%, blame former President George W. Bush.

More specifically, the Aug. 27-30 USA Today/Gallup poll finds 24% of Americans blaming Obama a great deal for the current economic problems, 24% a moderate amount, 25% not much, and 26% not at all. By contrast, 37% blame Bush a great deal, compared with 10% assigning him no blame.

Bush fares poorly on this measure partly because a relatively high proportion of Republicans — 48% — blame him a great deal or moderate amount, as do most Democrats (89%) and independents (73%). By contrast, relatively few Democrats, 19%, blame Obama. These patterns are consistent with Gallup’s findings on the same question in April.

Bottom Line

Americans are far from charitable when it comes to their evaluations of Obama’s performance on the economy. Recent Gallup polling found 38% approving of the job he is doing in this arena — among his worst job scores on the nation’s top issues. However, that still exceeds Bush’s final approval rating on the economy of 27%, measured in February 2008. That was prior to the Wall Street financial crisis that rocked both the economy and consumer confidence later in the year, so Bush’s rating likely fell even further by the time he left office.

Obama’s overall job approval rating was 46% at the time of his latest economic rating, in early August, and continues to hover in the mid- to high 40s in Gallup Daily tracking. The gap between his approval on the economy and his overall approval may be partly explained by Americans’ tendency to believe that the enduring economic problems are at least not of his own making.

Survey MethodsResults for this USA Today/Gallup poll are based on telephone interviews conducted Aug. 27-30, 2010, with a random sample of 1,021 adults, aged 18 and older, living in the continental U.S., selected using random-digit-dial sampling.

For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.

Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones (for respondents with a landline telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell phone-only). Each sample includes a minimum quota of 150 cell phone-only respondents and 850 landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents for gender within region. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.

Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, education, region, and phone lines. Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2009 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in continental U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.

In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.

View methodology, full question results, and trend data.

For more details on Gallup’s polling methodology, visit http://www.gallup.com/.

~ my 2cents ..., ~ Recent Post

TGIF …&some News …

09/17/2010 Nativegrl77

Today the President will announce the appointment of Liz Warren, will set-up the Consumer Agency in charge of financial regulation. That is my take on it.

My question for all you mostly sane people today is: what would your neighborhood look like without Teachers, Police, EMTs, Firefighters and other public workers that might be unemployed if the Democratic Party had not passed HR1586. Do you have families that are Public Service Employees if so; you should be outraged that folks like Bachman, Boehner called HR1586 a bailout. Republicans are using Americans as pawns to gain back control of Congress and make no mistake they are willing to throw All of us under the bus. FYI that includes their own constituents who seem to be complacent about it all -which by definition is: To be content and satisfied with your life and surroundings, even when something which may destroy these conditions is imminent.

We have all been watching a lot of election propaganda over the last few months and the biggest shock for me is that old-style southern rhetoric usually held mostly from people from the South is now coming from states all over the country. Have people lost their minds? I have faith that there are enough people who believe the extremists running for office are unqualified and have no place in Public Service.

I was surprised to see so many people on the Gulf Coast willing to stick with their republican representatives with all the bad governing going on over the last decade or more. The catastrophe of Katrina and now the BP oil disaster responses by local government would have made me do a total about face but it seems like that is not the case for the residents in the South. I know that the Southern States lean toward the right but some have made a choice to move even more toward radical leadership. There are many examples but with folks like Rubio; the so-called front runner according to the polls it is quite disappointing that folks in the South have yet to break out and away from Republican ideology because life there would change for the better in my opinion. We still have time to change the way things are. We all need to stop standing on the sidelines watching and waiting for more progressive attitudes, for new policies, new leadership in parts of country that are now anti-government, possibly more racists than we all thought, against health care reform, against comprehensive immigration and gays. We can combat the crazies but it is time to get serious and get out the vote and put more Democrats in Congress in the mid-term November elections.

It is not lost on me that Americans need a push into the 21st century. The leadership we need will think about how to better all our current positions in life; globally, environmentally, emergency response personnel who are not only educated about the area they oversee but are compassionate, allow stem-research, respect a woman’s right to choose, equal wages for women, health care for all families. The fact is President Obama has gotten Congress to pass legislation that will be good for middle class families but to get the change 53% of we voted for we need more true democrats on the floor of Congress. It is important that we do not repeat history by understanding the past. The house of Bush led us into 2wars that we definitely needed to change direction on but could not afford to just pickup and leave. Then we were all forced to live differently…clearly 9/11, Katrina and so many other issues have changed our lives and if you are paying attention some of those citizens have yet to actually get their lives back and that is something President Obama is and will continue to work on with those willing, able in partnership to get All Americans back to work

Yes, we continue to go through non-partisan realities and while it would have made more sense to work on change not as democrats and republicans but as we the people with different opinions, different values but with knowledge that we need to accept our differences make compromises, fix the corruption in politics, accept people as they are by enforcing our Constitution to reflect our 21^st Century living. The idea that folks should be able to control how you live whether a person is gay straight is absurd but now folks have been abusing our constitution daily, using the gay life style as an excuse to hurt and or otherwise commit criminal acts, allow immigrants to immigrate based on fair legal means a path that acknowledges that most that work pay into our social security system and they should be recognized, respect our elderly and realize that major corporations are using the house of bush moving work overseas getting labor for cheap prices… we must stop outsourcing jobs, stop Republicans from being the Political Party of NO or step over them because their actions have made living hard on the American family.

Other News …

**President Obama will be at the Black Caucus luncheon or meeting on Saturday.

**Fed-ex states the economy is improving but they are still laying of 1700 people

**Key Senate committee passes nuke arms deal

**Clinton asks for WBank settlement moratorium

**Hurricane Karl is not just churning it is on the move toward Mexico Gulf Coast

**The President will be announcing Liz Warren to her appointment 1:30pmET

**Seattle Storm Wins 2nd WNBA title 3-0,celebration at Key Arena tonight 7pm

**BP completes relief well on the Gulf Coast

**Stewart/Colbert announce rallies on the National Mall 10-30-10

CSPAN …

Pres. Obama Announcement on “Educate to Innovate” Initiative