Obama '08?

Cycloptichorn wrote:

[How do you know they just didn't dislike the candidate? This carries at least as much weight as the policies involved.
Cycloptichorn

I think the short answer is that heither of you knows the answer beyond doubt. However the weight of the evidence shows that broad political questions were at least a major factor in the outcome.

EXECUTIVE ORDERS AND "RECONCILIATION" bypass Congressional checks and balances! Can we wait for 2010 elections?

The president's proposal, which is still being written, will be posted on the Internet by Monday morning, senior administration officials and Congressional aides told the New York Times.

By piggybacking the legislation onto a budget bill, Democrats would be able to advance their HealthCare Bill with a simple majority of just 51 votes, averting a Republican filibuster in the Senate!

The White House signaled Thursday that "an aggressive, all-Democrat strategy for overhauling the nation's health system remains a serious option," even as Obama invites Republicans to next week's televised summit to seek possible compromises.

"It will be a reconciliation bill," the Times quoted a Democrat aide as saying. "If Republicans don't come with any substantial offers, this is what we would do."

The administration's stance could set the stage for a political showdown, with Democrats struggling to enact the president's top domestic priority and Republicans trying to block what many conservatives see as government overreach.

Obama's plan, like the House and Senate bills, would expand coverage to some 30 million+, require most Americans to carry insurance or face financial penalties, and block insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical conditions, the Times reported.

Obama Administration Denies Public Access to Fannie and Freddie Documents

Judicial Watch has been digging hard into the scandals behind the collapse of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and their role in helping trigger the global financial crisis. A key component of this investigation involves the role political corruption played in the failure of adequate congressional oversight and the catastrophic collapse of these "government sponsored entities" in 2008. That's why we filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Obama administration to get hold of documents related to Fannie and Freddie's campaign contributions over the last several election cycles.

We figure since American taxpayers are on the hook for trillions of dollars, potentially including $400 billion alone for Fannie and Freddie, we deserve to know how and why this financial collapse occurred and who in Washington, D.C. is responsible. Unfortunately the Obama administration disagrees.

Just last month the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), the agency responsible for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, responded to our FOIA lawsuit by telling us that all of the documents we seek are not "FOIA-able"!

Here's the exact language the Obama agency used in its recent court filing: "...Any records created by or held in the custody of the Enterprises reflecting their political campaign contributions or policies, stipulations and requirements concerning campaign contributions necessarily are private corporate documents. They are not 'agency records' subject to disclosure under FOIA."

So there you have it. You and I are paying the tab for the collapse of Fannie and Freddie, but we are not allowed to ask any questions about why it happened. The Obama administration is saying, in effect, "None of your business."

This is an outrage!

Obama administration officials and their lawyers can argue until they are blue in the face that Fannie and Freddie are not federal agencies. But their reasoning is straight out of Alice in Wonderland. Remember how all of this went down?

Hello All---
This evening [2/18] I received the following message from a conservative reporter......
________________________________________

Hi there!
I am a Conservative Blogger and I am working on the Joseph Stack story for Right Pundits - several of the media outlets have made the accusation that Stack was a member of the Tea Party and even the Austin Tea Party. I would like to know if you would like to make a statement about it that I can include in my story.
________________________________________
Here was my response:

I can say with affirmation that Joseph Stack was not a member of the Austin Tea Party nor was he a member of The Tea Party Movement. Within Mr. Stack's own writing, one can see clearly that are no shared values or principles with the Tea Party.

After reading Mr. Stack’s February 18, 2010 statement, it is evident he supported anarchy. The Tea Party movement does not advocate anarchy. The Tea Party movement believes in our founding principles so eloquently written in our Constitution.

Mr. Stack repeatedly showed disdain for free-market principles in his statement. The Tea Party movement knows that every American success is rooted in the freedom of our capitalist principles.

Mr. Stack did not believe in paying taxes. The Tea Party movement believes in taxes for the defense of Our Great Nation; however like the majority of Americans - be they Democrat, Republican or Independent - we all believe in reform of the current tax structure. We only differ on the type of reform that is best.

Mr. Stack saw churches as corrupt entities and called them “monsters of organized religion.” He spoke of being “brainwashed to believe that there is freedom” and declared “violence is the only answer." The Tea Party movement believes in God, and we know the valuable contributions our churches make each day to our communities across this land.

Thousands of Tea Parties have been held nationwide, a million Tea Partiers marched in our nation's capital, and not a single act of violence was ever committed by a Tea Party supporter.

There is a common thread that ties every Tea Party across this country to the Austin Tea Party, and that thread is our eternal optimism in America. Tea Partiers believe in the American Spirit, the American Dream and the freedom of the people to peacefully assemble and use the powers granted in the Constitution to restore our nation. Mr. Stack was void of optimism. It is ironic that some members of the media are void of integrity and would try to make an association where one does not exist, as spelled out by Mr. Stack himself.

Thank you,

Heather Liggett
Stay at home mom and Austin Texas Tea Party Organizer

Ours is the only country deliberately founded on a good idea. ~John Gunther

Come off it Cyclo ! Are you willing to accept the burden of proving that local issues were certainly dominant? Of course the defects in Coakley's campaign are clear - in retrospect. That is always the case with losers. Of course there are national political issues that influenced the registered independent voters who so influenced the outcome. How do you propose to draw the line between these two influences with certainty?

You rather childishly (in my view) attempt (unsuccessfully) to impose standards on others here that you fail to meet yourself.

I have thought for a long time that this phenomena helps explain why Republicans seem to have a tougher time holding together coalitions in Congress.

Obama may also merely be posturing to satisfy the zealous "progressives" in his party to assure them that he "tried" -- using the method he appears to rely on most.... speeches.

I'm inclined to agree; he is a great orator.

Sadly, this appears to be merely a staged political gambit, possibly designed to appease his most rabid supporters by a President and Democrat leaders in Congress, who appear chronically unable to rise above the internal politics of a failing political party.

Democrats will finish their health reform efforts within the next two months by using a majority-vote maneuver in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said.

Reid said that congressional Democrats would likely opt for a procedural tactic in the Senate allowing the upper chamber to make final changes to its healthcare bill with only a simple majority of senators, instead of the 60 it takes to normally end a filibuster.
"I've had many conversations this week with the president, his chief of staff, and Speaker Pelosi," Reid said during an appearance Friday evening on "Face to Face with Jon Ralston" in Nevada. "And we're really trying to move forward on this."

The majority leader said that while Democrats have a number of options, they would likely use the budget reconciliation process to pass a series of fixes to the first healthcare bill passed by the Senate in November. These changes are needed to secure votes for passage of that original Senate bill in the House.

"We'll do a relatively small bill to take care of what we've already done," Reid said, affirming that Democrats would use the reconciliation process. "We're going to have that done in the next 60 days."

The move would allow Democrats to essentially go it alone on health reform, especially after losing their filibuter-proof majority in the Senate after Sen. Scott Brown's (R) special election victory in Massachusetts...

...Reid said that the final Democratic bill is likely to be unveiled Monday night.

Are you predicting that the Democrats will attempt to pass one of the existing bills through the reconciliation process?

Do you also predict that it will succeed?

As I recall, you also predicted that the President would sign a Health care bill, with a government option, by October 2009.