1.29.2009

Dick Armey lives up to his first name

Since Dick can't discuss an issue - ever, he berates - when Salon's Joan Walsh tried to educate him on an issue during a segment of Wednesday's Hardball, Dick decided to be one.

(9:45 in the video)
"I'm so damn glad that you could never be my wife, 'cause I surely wouldn't have to listen to that prattle from you every day." - Dick Armey

This from a former member of Congress? Well, they don't call him Dick for nothing.

And shame on Chris Matthews for not calling Dick out.

1.28.2009

Conservative Talkers pull a WMD with stimulus package

The hard right wing has been flogging a CBO report that (they say) proves that Obama's stimulus package would have no real effect and wouldn't even kick in for 2 years.

ThinkProgress has found that since the AP’s report last Tuesday, the CBO report has been cited at least 81 times on Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, the Sunday shows and the network newscasts in order raise questions about Obama’s recovery plan.

Turns out the REAL CBO report says something entirely different. Reports Kevin Drum:

Overall, then, it looks like the spending part of the bill is maybe 90% clean as short-term stimulus. And on the supply side, nearly 100% of the tax cuts are allocated during the next 18 months.

Colbert "Coors Light"'s O'Reilly with his own words.

Splicing in tape of Bill (a la the Coors Light commercials), Stephen Colbert trips up Papa Bear using his own words about rumormongering.

Obama playing rope-a-dope with Rush

Michael Wolff has written an article claiming Obama is setting Rush Limbaugh up. Since Rush's "I hope he fails" claim of last week (saying that more jobs will help Democrats in elections **more later**) Obama has reminded the GOP that you can't govern by listening to Limbaugh.

Right now Rush is being played. The Obama dinner with conservative columnists, 
shortly before his inauguration, was as much about excluding Rush as coddling the columnists. Not 
only did the conservatives fawn, but Rush fumed. It got under his skin. Indeed, the rumor that he might in fact be there (likely coming from the Obama camp), and then his evident lack of an invitation, highlighted the slight. He’s tried to make it out to be a political point ever since, but mostly he sounds like a guy who’s hurt he didn’t get invited to the hot party.

Then, there was the president’s throw-away line suggesting that Republican lawmakers, in the midst of the greatest modern financial crisis, were glued to their radios listening to Rush rather than hard at work. It was deft suggestion, not so much about ideology but about seriousness. Rush isn’t.

He’s out on a limb, Rush. His current themes are about Obama’s radicalism, which, with every day of the new administration, seems a less and less sellable image.


** How in the hell can this fat windbag sell out his country? He is outright saying that he hopes we go in the tank for 4 more years so the Republicans can get back into power.

Two points: One, it's the GOP (and Bush, for whom Limbaugh famously claimed to be "carrying water") that got us into this. And two, 4 more years of this and there IS NO AMERICA to govern. We're gone. Obama would be the last POTUS. It's hubris of the highest order thinking The United States Of America cannot fail.

Why does the GOP hate women?

And why do Republican women seem to hate their own gender, especially House Republicans?

Only three House Republicans (none of them women) voted for final passage of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 (roll call vote here). Stunning, just stunning.

When the Senate passed the bill, every woman in the Senate voted for it, which makes sense. The bill ensures women cannot be discriminated against in the workplace.

How in the hell, in 2009, can anyone still support discrimination? Is this an attempt to define themselves as anti-Obama? If so, good luck. I don't see how a party can survive on this type of nonsense.