August 2, 2011
WASHINGTON – US Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) today voted against the debt deal because it lowers the deficit on the backs of working class Americans, demands no sacrifices from those who can best afford it, and could jeopardize our economy’s fragile recovery.
“I cannot in good conscience support a plan where soldiers, seniors, students, and working families must endure trillions in cuts, but oil companies, billionaires, and corporate jet owners are not asked to pay their fair share” said Senator Menendez. “I supported the Reid plan and previous efforts to reduce the deficit because I believe it’s important to stem our nation’s rising debt, but I believe that we must do so in a balanced way that calls for shared sacrifice, just as the American people have demanded. Such an unbalanced approach is not only unfair, but it could also jeopardize our already fragile economy.”
Senator Menendez took to the Senate floor yesterday to explain his opposition to the plan.
Showing posts with label George Bush. Show all posts
Showing posts with label George Bush. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Monday, November 1, 2010
Turn off the Hate. Get out the Vote.
George W. Bush. Extreme right-wing talk show hosts. Homophobes. Racists. All these people will vote and they hope you don't. Turn off the Hate. Get out the Vote.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Don't Forget the Bush History
Good column below that should remind people of what we are in for if the Republicans once gain control Washington - "Lest We Forget"
According to almost all media accounts, American voters are on the verge of rewarding the Republican Party for its determined efforts to block Democratic job-creating efforts and President Obama’s other modest reforms.
Amazingly, Wall Street leaders – after getting salvaged by government intervention themselves – are calling for more Republicans in Congress to prevent government initiatives to help other Americans get back on their feet.
There is a strange consensus emerging that, for want of a better phrase, “gridlock is good.”
So, is the United States about to take yet another flyer with “Reagan-Bush-ism,” the “government is bad” ideology that has dominated the nation’s precipitous decline over the past three decades?
Has the Right’s media power left Americans so confused that they have forgotten how the country emerged from the Great Depression and built the great American middle class, with a combination of government infrastructure-building and private enterprise? Have the painful lessons of the George W. Bush administration been forgotten already?
Philosopher George Santayana famously said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." But he surely didn't think that the people of a modern nation would forget their own history in less than two years.
That was one of the reasons for publishing the book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, which I wrote with my sons, Sam and Nat, in the final years of Bush’s reign. As difficult as it may be to relive some of that history, it is important to remember – or it will be repeated.
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. He founded Consortiumnews.com in 1995 as the Internet's first investigative magazine. He saw it as a way to combine modern technology and old-fashioned journalism to counter the increasing triviality of the mainstream U.S. news media.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
The Newark Star Ledger Sunday Editorial: Questions For Chris Christie
A high horse is a difficult thing to ride, as Chris Christie is finding out. After building his image as a white knight rescuing New Jersey from the dragon of corruption, Christie is showing some gaps in his armor.
The Republican candidate for governor is facing questions about a loan of $46,000 he made to an assistant when he was U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, and failed to report on his income tax and financial disclosure forms. He says it was a mistake and is filing amended reports. If there's no more to this story, it may blow over. Gov. Jon Corzine can't make much of it without reviving questions about the Democrat's own financial entanglement with former state labor leader Carla Katz.
Of more concern is the disclosure that, while New Jersey's top federal prosecutor, Christie spoke with Karl Rove, political guru to George W. Bush.
Christie says they never discussed legal cases; Rove says they talked about Christie's interest in running for governor. That raises questions about whether Christie took steps toward a campaign while still U.S. Attorney, in possible violation of the Hatch Act.
There's no legitimate reason for Christie -- or any U.S. Attorney -- to have spoken with Rove. While at the White House, Rove bulldozed the wall between the Justice Department and politics, rating U.S. Attorneys for "loyalty" and pushing to fire some who wouldn't mount politically motivated prosecutions. This has given new life to Democrats' claims that Christie unfairly subpoenaed U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) during his 2006 election campaign in a probe that did not result in charges.
Christie's record of winning convictions of more than 100 public officials is the key to his appeal. But that rests on the belief he went after bad guys wherever he found them, and that most happened to be Democrats because, well, those were the ones on the make and on the take.
To avoid any political taint, Christie should not have been talking to anyone -- especially Rove -- about running for office until after he left the Justice Department.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Quote of The Day: "...He obviously was not only thinking of running for governor, he was seeking input..."
"This to me puts to bed the claim that he did not think about running for governor until he left the U.S. Attorney's Office and had done a lot of soul searching before he made his decision...He obviously was not only thinking of running for governor, he was seeking input from the White House deputy chief of staff, George Bush's chief strategist."
Lt. Governor Candidate Lorretta Weinberg reacting to the news that Republican candidate for governor Chris Christie, had conversations with White House deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove about running for governor of NJ while still acting as U.S. Attorney.
Monday, May 18, 2009
Burger Buddy
In the skit, George (Will) helps Dick Cheney (Darrel Hammond) prepare for his interview on Meet the Press. At one point during the interview prep, George says to Dick, "I wish I had a burger buddy" like vice president Joe Biden.
Very funny stuff!
Saturday, May 2, 2009
The Republican Political Hacks Of Middletown
by
Barabara Thorpe
This longtime resident of Middletown reads with interest the ranting,preposterous dribble from the republican political hacks of Middletown. This includes the current republican committee persons and all those among the ranks of the political patronage persons dependent on these so called representatives of the people.
History indicates a Republican administration. during Christie Whitman's years in office,is responsible for fiscal irresponsibility in N.J. leading to much of our current problems. The last eight years of George W. Bush's administration is responsible for fiscal irresponsibility in Washington,D.C. and the transgressions of 28 years of republican control in Middletown is responsible for fiscal irresponsibility in this township.
Expenditures for defending a committeeman from charges of misconduct (amount never disclosed as to the cost to the taxpayers),a convicted committeeman and former mayor,now serving a prison term for violating the public trust, are among the points that immediately come to the mind of this taxpayer and also the handling of the County ordered revaluation. Who knows what lurks in this township if a forensic audit were to be done by authorities able to supercede the efforts of the republicans to hide the facts from it's residents.
We need only to look at the last political campaign in this township to see just how low the republicans were willing to stoop to retain control of the township committee. Ask yourself WHY??? It's all about money,ladies and gentlemen.....and you pay the bills while patronage is alive and well in Middletown.
These politicians have no regard for the rule of law....all they care about is the rule of the republican party in this town. just scrutinize the appointments in this township and the township sewage authority. Take off your blinders,fellow citizens, and start really evaluating the facts of life in this township.....until you do,each and every taxpayer in this township subsidizes this madness !!!
Hypocrisy Is the name of the blame game played by the current majority.Everything wrong is someone else's fault. Try cleaning up your own act before pointing fingers at ANYONE ELSE
All intelligent people know that there are morally and integrity challenged politicians in BOTH parties. No,they are not ALL or ONLY democrats. Many are republicans...and some of them dot the landscape here in Middletown,serving only their own agenda and not the people they were entrusted to represent or serve.
Barbara R.Thorpe (unaffiliated voter)
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Editorial of the day: The Torturers’ Manifesto
April 18, 2009
To read the four newly released memos on prisoner interrogation written by George W. Bush’s Justice Department is to take a journey into depravity.
Their language is the precise bureaucratese favored by dungeon masters throughout history. They detail how to fashion a collar for slamming a prisoner against a wall, exactly how many days he can be kept without sleep (11), and what, specifically, he should be told before being locked in a box with an insect — all to stop just short of having a jury decide that these acts violate the laws against torture and abusive treatment of prisoners.
In one of the more nauseating passages, Jay Bybee, then an assistant attorney general and now a federal judge, wrote admiringly about a contraption for waterboarding that would lurch a prisoner upright if he stopped breathing while water was poured over his face. He praised the Central Intelligence Agency for having doctors ready to perform an emergency tracheotomy if necessary.
These memos are not an honest attempt to set the legal limits on interrogations, which was the authors’ statutory obligation. They were written to provide legal immunity for acts that are clearly illegal, immoral and a violation of this country’s most basic values.
It sounds like the plot of a mob film, except the lawyers asking how much their clients can get away with are from the C.I.A. and the lawyers coaching them on how to commit the abuses are from the Justice Department. And it all played out with the blessing of the defense secretary, the attorney general, the intelligence director and, most likely, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
The Americans Civil Liberties Union deserves credit for suing for the memos’ release. And President Obama deserves credit for overruling his own C.I.A. director and ordering that the memos be made public. It is hard to think of another case in which documents stamped “Top Secret” were released with hardly any deletions.
Read More>>> Here
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Lessons from the Bush Years
1. Presidents set the tone. Don't be passive or tolerate virulent divisions.
2. The president must insist that everyone speak out loud in front of the others, even -- or especially -- when there are vehement disagreements.
3. A president must do the homework to master the fundamental ideas and concepts behind his policies.
4. Presidents need to draw people out and make sure bad news makes it to the Oval Office.
5. Presidents need to foster a culture of skepticism and doubt.
6. Presidents get contradictory data, and they need a rigorous way to sort it out.
7. Presidents must tell the hard truth to the public, even if that means delivering very bad news.
8. Righteous motives are not enough for effective policy.
9. Presidents must insist on strategic thinking.
10. The president should embrace transparency. Some version of the behind-the-scenes story of what happened in his White House will always make it out to the public -- and everyone will be better off if that version is as accurate as possible.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
President-Elect Obama's Weekly Radio/Web Address 11/22/08
WASHINGTON (AFP) - US president-elect Barack Obama announced Saturday that he had ordered his economic advisers to produce an economic recovery plan to create 2.5 million new jobs over the next two years.
Well be working out the details in the weeks ahead, but it will be a two-year, nationwide effort to jumpstart job creation in America and lay the foundation for a strong and growing economy, Obama said in his weekly radio address.
Obama, who has vowed to make the economy his priority when he takes office from President George W. Bush in January, said the effort should produce 2.5 million new jobs by January of 2011 and lay the foundation of the countrys economic recovery.
His announcement came two days after government data showed that new jobless claims had surged to a 16-year high, in a new sign that the worlds largest economy appeared to be sliding into a deep recession.
Saturday, November 15, 2008
High-tech industry sees Obama as an ally
Lobbyists for the high-tech industry see Barack Obama’s victory last week as a boost to their interests.
Advocates are encouraged by how the president-elect embraced technology in his own campaign — by using the Internet to set new fundraising records, for example — and for his support of open access to Internet networks and tax breaks for research and development.
“The Obama position is the government has a role in promoting technology. It is a breath of fresh air,” said Josh Ackil, president of the Franklin Square Group. Ackil, a former Democratic Senate aide, now lobbies for Apple, Google and other tech interests.
Advocates are encouraged by how the president-elect embraced technology in his own campaign — by using the Internet to set new fundraising records, for example — and for his support of open access to Internet networks and tax breaks for research and development.
“The Obama position is the government has a role in promoting technology. It is a breath of fresh air,” said Josh Ackil, president of the Franklin Square Group. Ackil, a former Democratic Senate aide, now lobbies for Apple, Google and other tech interests.
Tech lobbyists have largely been disappointed by the Bush administration, which failed to deliver on the president’s promise that every American household would have broadband access during his second term....
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Obama Calls For Middle Class Rescue Plan
The Hill - Leading the News
President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday laid out his plan for dealing with the snowballing economic crisis, calling for a “rescue plan for the middle class” amid reports of the highest national unemployment rate in more than a decade.
The Illinois senator, in his party’s weekly radio address, noted that President Bush remains in office for two more months, but emphasized his intention to hit the ground running.
“First, we need a rescue plan for the middle class that invests in immediate efforts to create jobs and provides relief to families that are watching their paychecks shrink and their life savings disappear,” Obama said.
“Then, we’ll address the spreading impact of the financial crisis on other sectors of our economy, and ensure that the rescue plan that passed Congress is working to stabilize financial markets while protecting taxpayers, helping homeowners, and not unduly rewarding the management of financial firms that are receiving government assistance.”
The Labor Department on Friday released a report showing that the unemployment rate had shot up to 6.5 percent in October and that the economy shed 240,000 jobs last month.
Obama also called for renewed emphases on clean energy, healthcare, education and middle-class tax relief.
In his weekly radio address, Bush said his administration is also focused on a smooth transition and the continuing economic strife.
“Yesterday, we learned that America's economy lost jobs in the month of October, and I will continue working hard to return our Nation to the path of prosperity and growth,” Bush said. “To help address the global financial crisis, my administration will host an historic international summit in Washington on November 15. We will also keep urging Congress to approve America's free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama and South Korea.”
President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday laid out his plan for dealing with the snowballing economic crisis, calling for a “rescue plan for the middle class” amid reports of the highest national unemployment rate in more than a decade.
The Illinois senator, in his party’s weekly radio address, noted that President Bush remains in office for two more months, but emphasized his intention to hit the ground running.
“First, we need a rescue plan for the middle class that invests in immediate efforts to create jobs and provides relief to families that are watching their paychecks shrink and their life savings disappear,” Obama said.
“Then, we’ll address the spreading impact of the financial crisis on other sectors of our economy, and ensure that the rescue plan that passed Congress is working to stabilize financial markets while protecting taxpayers, helping homeowners, and not unduly rewarding the management of financial firms that are receiving government assistance.”
The Labor Department on Friday released a report showing that the unemployment rate had shot up to 6.5 percent in October and that the economy shed 240,000 jobs last month.
Obama also called for renewed emphases on clean energy, healthcare, education and middle-class tax relief.
In his weekly radio address, Bush said his administration is also focused on a smooth transition and the continuing economic strife.
“Yesterday, we learned that America's economy lost jobs in the month of October, and I will continue working hard to return our Nation to the path of prosperity and growth,” Bush said. “To help address the global financial crisis, my administration will host an historic international summit in Washington on November 15. We will also keep urging Congress to approve America's free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama and South Korea.”
Friday, November 7, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
What World Needs From US: Economic meltdown, climate change top list of things that are in need of global dialogue
by Mitch Potter - The Toronto Star
MEMORANDUM:
TO: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
FROM: THE WORLD
We know you are not quite there yet. Whatever. The rest of the planet now has concluded you will be. Your honeymoon suite awaits with a euphoria that spans the globe.
A word of warning, however, before you snuggle in for that first group hug. There are bedbugs. And they bite.
A year of rising expectations is about to fall on your shoulders, with a thundering weight many now predict will buckle you.
Here in London, Simon Jenkins of the Guardian nailed the point, announcing the end of the bull market in Barack.
"Sell Obamas now," Jenkins advised his readers. "They are overpriced and the forward market has gone crazy. If he becomes president, the bubble will burst, I guess in the spring of next year."
Your era will begin with some immediate international advantages, it is true. Not least, the sheer glee that your name is not George.
"The first thing the world needs from America is the absence of George W. Bush," is how François Heisbourg, director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Studies, framed things in an interview with the Star. "That guarantees a tremendous advantage. And for Obama - I assume it will be him - it will be all the greater."
How bloated are the expectations? On the waterfront in Barcelona today, artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada and an army of volunteers are shaping a mountain of sand, earth and gravel into a giant portrait of you. This is not a joke.
"The piece is ephemeral, it is not designed to last," Rodriguez-Gerada told the Daily Telegraph, explaining the artwork, titled "Expectation," is intended not as praise for you but rather, as a commentary on how desperately the world lusts for the idea of you.
"Who knows if the euphoria surrounding Obama will fade away like sand or lead to something more permanent?"
Many anticipate your first step will be to reboot America's conversation with the world. A kind of "great cleansing," in the words of Charlie Beckett, director of POLIS, the journalism think-tank at London School of Economics.
"Right now there is an enormous residual 'turning off' when Americans speak. The feeling is that during the Bush era, 'They caused mayhem, they ignored the world, they didn't listen to us - so why should we listen to them.'
"Now the conversation will renew. Which is tremendously important for the world. Especially for those of us who believe in America's place in the world as a force for democracy and freedom."
That, of course, is the easy part, given your deft oratorical skills. But the going is almost certainly going to get messy soon thereafter, when talk collides with realpolitik. As Heisbourg notes, "America's national interest is not going to change just because the president changes."
We got a sense of this in Berlin earlier this summer. Up there on stage, all you could see was a throng of 200,000 people chanting your name. But where we were, down in the crowd, we felt a distinct chill when you spoke of a stepped-up effort in war-weary Afghanistan - a conflict that Germans have just about had their fill of. And the rest of Europe is not far behind.
But Afghanistan may in fact prove the least of your worries, given the cluster of global crises on your morning-after to-do list. Global economic meltdown, far and away, trumps them all. Yet the interconnected issues of climate change and energy burn close behind.
Add to that the whole series of other urgent global challenges, from bioethics to migration to nuclear proliferation, and the task ahead wildly exceeds the bounds of a single brain, even one as well-appointed as yours.
Where to begin? Many of your unofficial global advisers suggest the only way forward is a Herculean act of multitasking. You need to dispatch individual teams on every one of these problems, each with marching orders to map how the United States can lead in crafting - and crucially,obeying - a new global rulebook.
Take solace in two important facts as you go forward. First, know that for now, at least, your name is the gold standard of global goodwill. People want you to succeed. And, most importantly, know that however ridiculous the expectations may be, nobody truly expects you to have the all the answers.
"One of the ways to manage unrealistic expectations is to recognize that the United States doesn't have to do everything. It doesn't have to solve all the problems. It just needs to be a constructive global player," said Ian Goldin, director of the James Martin 21st Century School at Oxford University.
Goldin, a former World Bank vice president, said the next leader's greatest challenge would be to rise above national self-interest. To see the global forest despite the domestic trees, and to understand that what is good for the world will, ultimately, be very good for the U.S.
"It comes down to a question of accepting there will be global rules and to abide by them. The problem with a superpower is that when the world shows you the red card, do you accept the red card or do you play the global bully?" said Goldin.
"That's why there is so much optimism today. There is a view that the United States now will not only participate very actively in establishing the rules of the game. But also they will be responsible players."
superpower,
MEMORANDUM:
TO: PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA
FROM: THE WORLD
We know you are not quite there yet. Whatever. The rest of the planet now has concluded you will be. Your honeymoon suite awaits with a euphoria that spans the globe.
A word of warning, however, before you snuggle in for that first group hug. There are bedbugs. And they bite.
A year of rising expectations is about to fall on your shoulders, with a thundering weight many now predict will buckle you.
Here in London, Simon Jenkins of the Guardian nailed the point, announcing the end of the bull market in Barack.
"Sell Obamas now," Jenkins advised his readers. "They are overpriced and the forward market has gone crazy. If he becomes president, the bubble will burst, I guess in the spring of next year."
Your era will begin with some immediate international advantages, it is true. Not least, the sheer glee that your name is not George.
"The first thing the world needs from America is the absence of George W. Bush," is how François Heisbourg, director of the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Studies, framed things in an interview with the Star. "That guarantees a tremendous advantage. And for Obama - I assume it will be him - it will be all the greater."
How bloated are the expectations? On the waterfront in Barcelona today, artist Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada and an army of volunteers are shaping a mountain of sand, earth and gravel into a giant portrait of you. This is not a joke.
"The piece is ephemeral, it is not designed to last," Rodriguez-Gerada told the Daily Telegraph, explaining the artwork, titled "Expectation," is intended not as praise for you but rather, as a commentary on how desperately the world lusts for the idea of you.
"Who knows if the euphoria surrounding Obama will fade away like sand or lead to something more permanent?"
Many anticipate your first step will be to reboot America's conversation with the world. A kind of "great cleansing," in the words of Charlie Beckett, director of POLIS, the journalism think-tank at London School of Economics.
"Right now there is an enormous residual 'turning off' when Americans speak. The feeling is that during the Bush era, 'They caused mayhem, they ignored the world, they didn't listen to us - so why should we listen to them.'
"Now the conversation will renew. Which is tremendously important for the world. Especially for those of us who believe in America's place in the world as a force for democracy and freedom."
That, of course, is the easy part, given your deft oratorical skills. But the going is almost certainly going to get messy soon thereafter, when talk collides with realpolitik. As Heisbourg notes, "America's national interest is not going to change just because the president changes."
We got a sense of this in Berlin earlier this summer. Up there on stage, all you could see was a throng of 200,000 people chanting your name. But where we were, down in the crowd, we felt a distinct chill when you spoke of a stepped-up effort in war-weary Afghanistan - a conflict that Germans have just about had their fill of. And the rest of Europe is not far behind.
But Afghanistan may in fact prove the least of your worries, given the cluster of global crises on your morning-after to-do list. Global economic meltdown, far and away, trumps them all. Yet the interconnected issues of climate change and energy burn close behind.
Add to that the whole series of other urgent global challenges, from bioethics to migration to nuclear proliferation, and the task ahead wildly exceeds the bounds of a single brain, even one as well-appointed as yours.
Where to begin? Many of your unofficial global advisers suggest the only way forward is a Herculean act of multitasking. You need to dispatch individual teams on every one of these problems, each with marching orders to map how the United States can lead in crafting - and crucially,obeying - a new global rulebook.
Take solace in two important facts as you go forward. First, know that for now, at least, your name is the gold standard of global goodwill. People want you to succeed. And, most importantly, know that however ridiculous the expectations may be, nobody truly expects you to have the all the answers.
"One of the ways to manage unrealistic expectations is to recognize that the United States doesn't have to do everything. It doesn't have to solve all the problems. It just needs to be a constructive global player," said Ian Goldin, director of the James Martin 21st Century School at Oxford University.
Goldin, a former World Bank vice president, said the next leader's greatest challenge would be to rise above national self-interest. To see the global forest despite the domestic trees, and to understand that what is good for the world will, ultimately, be very good for the U.S.
"It comes down to a question of accepting there will be global rules and to abide by them. The problem with a superpower is that when the world shows you the red card, do you accept the red card or do you play the global bully?" said Goldin.
"That's why there is so much optimism today. There is a view that the United States now will not only participate very actively in establishing the rules of the game. But also they will be responsible players."
superpower,
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Bush's clone wears a skirt
Countdown's Keith Olbermann aired a video compilation showing the similarity in rhetoric between George W. Bush in 2000 and Sarah Palin in 2008. Olbermann reported that “the people around [Palin] — the top-level campaign staffers crafting her message of change and reform — are almost all from the inner-circle of the same Bush campaigns and administration from which she offers that change.” He concluded, “Small surprise then that even in the very act of claiming her background, her experience qualify her to offer us that change from Bush, she does so sounding almost exactly like Bush.”
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