PELOSI AND HER HOUSE LEADERSHIP DROPPED THE BALL WHEN WRITING THE STIMULUS BILL AND CREATED ABSOLUTELY NOTHING BUT TROUBLE FOR THE NEW PRESIDENT
THE REPUBLICANS ARE IN A RUT. HERBERT HOOVER DIED OCTOBER 24, 1964 BUT THE FAR RIGHT OF THE REPUBLICAN CLIQUE CONTINUE TO EMBRACE HIS DO- NOTHING FREE MARKET ECONOMIC POLICIES THAT DROVE THE ENTIRE COUNTRY INTO THE MOST SERIOUS DEPRESSION IN OUR HISTORY!
With the most recent polls (2-09-09) only thirty-nine [39%] of Americans think the Republicans are cooperating with the President and the Democrats on this issue. Seventy-five percent [75%] approve of the way Obama is handling his job!
Bush is gone, but many of the right wing Conservatives and the Blue Dog Democrats (those primarily from old Dixie) have not been able to rescue their antiquated thinking from the well into which they fell last November. They are drowning in their own sputum and it is not a pretty sight.
I know that the Liberal wing of the Democratic Party has been frustrated for the past thirty years beginning with Ronald Reagan and ending January 20, 2009 when Barack Obama assumed the mantle of power inherent in the presidency of the United States of America.
Not only did they see the White House returned to the Democrats; back into hands of a man they respect and honor and out of man with only a 20% approval rate, but they also saw both the Senate and the House make major gains in the number of members belonging to the Democratic aide of the aisle in each chamber.
The economic crisis shaped by the mismanagement of both the domestic and international policies of the Bush Administration, fathered the economic mess that now faces the entire country and has impacted the economies of our trading partners around the world.
Without blinking an eye the “free market” profiteers that dominate the heart of the GOP voted for a tax cut for the very rich that stole untold billions from the American treasury, for billions for a war in Afghanistan that was a warranted and necessary response to an attack on World Trade Center in New York killing nearly 3,000 innocent people; and another war with entirely different dynamics--Iraq—i.e.an unjustifiable, preemptive attack of a nation based upon lies and miscalculations by the Bush Administration.
Now, back in power, some of Pelosi’s followers cluttered the proposed stimulus package with projects they have been denied for the past eight years. Considering the type of administration Obama promised to run, Pelosi failed to provide the leadership necessary to bring to the Senate a bill reflecting the President’s desire for a clean bill that immediately would support the banks presently on the edge of insolvency by taking the toxic paper off their balance sheets to give them the confidence to loan money to worthy companies and individuals , assist those whose houses are in or near foreclosure, to create new jobs for the nearly 3 million people out of work and to encourage companies and individuals to increase spending which is vital to rejuvenate the economy.
Rather than using her political brain, the Speaker handed the Republicans a brief case full of items in the bill that could be presented to the public as waste or if you wish to go back to the good old days ‘tax and spend” public policy. Pelosi handed the Republicans under the unskilled leadership of Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) all the ammunition they needed to waylay the bill in the Senate.
By passing a bill that included projects immaterial to the crisis the bill is intended resolve, she, further, gave them the stuff of which petty arguments could and would be made to the public at large in an attempt to cause the bill to lose the support of the people it is designed to rescue.
Pelosi failed and so did Boehner.
John McCain, Mitch McConnell, and a whole herd of conservative know-nothings began to punch away at the bill’s extraneous projects that represent only two percent of the entire package. McCain called it a “generational theft” and ranted about the perilous increase in the national debt, as if he had not voted unequivocally for the first $350 billion tranche requested by Bush without incorporating any limiting factors that would force the banks to loan out the money or curb the gross bonus’ the CEO’s and other key officers of these banks being bailed out from their sinking ship.
Remember this, every Republican voted “yes” to the bill Bush and Paulson submitted to Congress without limitations or requirements allowing the key officers to pocket massive bonus’ and for the banks themselves to use the billions they received from the taxpayers for purposes other than loans.
THREE F…ING REPUBLICANS IN THE SENATE ARE EXPECTED TO VOTE FOR THE STIMULUS PACKAGE, BUT NOT ONE F…ING REPUBLICAN MEMBER OF THE HOUSE VOTED FOR IT.
There are times when I think the Republicans have suicidal tendencies. When a very popular president invited Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar to join him on a trip in Air Force One to hold a town hall meeting in Elkhart, Indiana--Lugar refused! Senators John McCain and Mitch McConnell were invited to the White House for a Super Bowl Party with several Senators, Congressmen and administration officials; they refused the invitation. What kind of gooks are these?
They were told today by the polls that only 37% of the voters like the negative approach the Republicans are taking on the stimulus package; not unlike the approach McCain took during his losing November campaign. My God, McCain don’t you ever learn.
Are your colleagues, Lindsay Graham, Senator from South Carolina, Tom Coburn Senator from Oklahoma, John Cornyn from Texas, John Kyl, Republican from Arizona, John Thune from South Dakota, Jim DeMint from South Carolina and other hopelessly fatal Republicans who are smarting from their widespread losses in the November election so helplessly out of touch with the average Americans who have lost jobs to downsizing, lost their homes to foreclosure, watched their health care insurance vanish with the jobs and; can no longer afford to send their children to college? If they continue to block every piece of legislation Obama proposes, you will see losses in future elections that makes the November, 2008 election look like a game of hopscotch.
President Obama truly attempted to strike a bi-partisan chord by visiting with Republicans on Capitol Hill, inviting Republicans to the White House to watch the Super Bowl game plus making an innumerable number of personal calls to Republican members of both Houses to shore up his promise of bipartisanship.
February 8, 2009, on This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Newt Gingrich looking at the world through his belly button said that there was no effort to bring the Republicans into the writing of the bill. That is true in House, and that is another Pelosi mistake, but the Senate compromise committee invited everyone who was interested to join in the effort to reach a reasonable compromise. Few key Republicans or Blue Dogs took the time to participate.
For his efforts, Obama potentially won over three moderate Republicans in the Senate and absolutely none in the House. The Conservative Republicans do not have an ounce of bi-partisanship in their mindset and it is doubtful that any of them can even spell the word. The only aim is to score points with their base which is one of the most unintelligent strategies I have ever see—they already have their base sewed up and it is no longer large enough in numbers to elect any Republican to office outside the Southeast and south; they seek only to gain an advantage over the Democrats. The word “pathetic” would be too kind especially when we are speaking of one of the most critical moments in modern history. I do not doubt their sincerity; I am doubting the soundness of their entire economic philosophy. It is nothing more than Bush warmed over, and that is what got us to the rim of catastrophe.
Boehner has pulled out his partisan masquerade with the devious plan of killing the bill. I listened to him speaking to the press yesterday and his knowledge of economics was moronic. As I wrote earlier in the week, surely Cincinnati, Ohio can find a Republican with a pinch of common sense to send to the House, or better yet, for once in this life time abandon the Taft newspaper and television combine and give the country a Democrat who I assure will be smarter than this a… h…..
I think the Democrats should seriously consider electing a new Speaker and a new President Pro Temp of the Senate. Pelosi and Reed are about as dynamic as a three legged dog with worms.
If the Speaker pulls another of these absurd, “We won the election, now give us everything we have wanted for the past eight years,” kick her ass out the door. This issue is too critical to be playing games with it. Have a simple, clean bill emerge from the Conference that can be easily communicated to the public. Instead of presenting a disorganized and confusing mess; in other words, keep on point.
This legislation must be about dealing with the banking predicament, get the contaminated mortgages off their books with the understanding that they will set government approved limitations on the executive compensation and that they will loan all of the money.
Place a government guarantee or renegotiate a lower mortgage interest with flexibility for those whose jobs are gone.
And begin the most aggressive job enhancement package ever undertaken by this government or any other. We have an infrastructure which every Republican administration since Eisenhower refused to recognize and fix. Now is the time! The public understands roads, bridges, highways, sewer systems, electric grids, etc and they will support it if is clear and simply conveyed.
Get people back on a payroll, get banks back to doing the only thing they should be doing—loaning money, rebuild our nation’s infrastructure, free this nation at last from our enslavement to foreign oil and make a huge investment in the environment and the alternative fuels that make our environment hale and hearty.
11:18:18 PM 
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