Archive for March, 2009

Republicans Present Alternative Budget…Outline

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Legislation, Republicans

A lot of people are making fun of the fact the Republican plan (.pdf) doesn’t contain any numbers, and after all of the grief they’ve been giving Obama and Geithner for not providing the appropriate amount of detail, the scorn is deserved. Still, it’s what’s in the outline that’s important. First, they cut a bunch [...]

March 27th, 2009 | Permalink| 3 Comments »

Obama Shoots Down Legalized Marijuana Idea

By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Barack, Drugs

Looks like Obama’s “green initiatives” won’t include legalizing marijuana. Today, he shot down the idea. In a statement that’s sure to disappoint many of those who submitted questions to President Obama’s virtual town hall meeting, the president made clear Thursday he does not support legalizing marijuana as a means to spur economic growth. “I have [...]

March 26th, 2009 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

Obama to Announce New Afghanistan Troop Increase

By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Afghanistan, Terrorism, War

Looks like President Obama isn’t the reactionary pacifist some of his critics (and supporters) thought he was. Tomorrow, the administration is expected to announce a major increase in forces in Afghanistan. Confronting an inherited and faltering war, President Barack Obama plans to dispatch thousands more military and civilian trainers to Afghanistan by the fall on [...]

March 26th, 2009 | Permalink| No Comments »

Democrats Could Resort to Procedural Rule to Avoid Healthcare Filibuster

By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Congress, Health Care, Reid, Senate

Thanks to a little-known congressional budget procedure called “reconciliation,” Democrats could pass sweeping healthcare reform without fear of a Republican filibuster in the Senate. When President Clinton wanted to use the rule in 1993, Democratic leaders in the Senate decided they didn’t want to abuse Senate rules on such important legislation. Sixteen years later, things [...]

March 25th, 2009 | Permalink| 13 Comments »

Welcome To Crazytown

By The Pajama Pundit | Related entries in Economy

Population, this guy: Remember, it’s only been 64 days – 64 days – he’s been in office. Think about that for second. How much worse is it going to get over the next three-and-five-sixths years? We are going to be lucky to survive this despotic regime that’s determined to turn America into Zimbabwe (economic basket [...]

March 25th, 2009 | Permalink| 17 Comments »

Obama springs hope eternal

By donar | Related entries in Barack, Budget, Cartoons, Congress, Conservatives, Economy, Obama, Political Graffiti
March 25th, 2009 | Permalink| No Comments »

The Obama Press Conference

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Video

Presented here in full just in case you didn’t see it. Thoughts?

March 24th, 2009 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

Media Reacts To Obama Speech With Yawns

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Media, Partisan Hacks

I heard O’Reilly describe it as “boring” and even Anderson Cooper talked about people falling asleep. And then, of course the grandaddy hack of them all has this to say… I’m sorry, but when was it the media’s job to decide whether or not a Presidential press conference was exciting? And, by the way, when [...]

March 24th, 2009 | Permalink| 9 Comments »

Quote Of The Day – Media Outrage

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Media, Quotes

“If you want to be angry about something, get pissed at a media culture that goes beserk about bonuses one week and forgets all about them the next. And be worried, quite worried, about a society for whom anger is a form of entertainment.” – Joe Klein in his latest column Here’s the thing, we’re [...]

March 24th, 2009 | Permalink| 16 Comments »

Supreme Court Has Chance to Curtail McCain-Feingold

By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Civil Liberties, Money, Supreme Court

Today, the Supreme Court heard an important case that could greatly affect the McCain-Feingold campaign laws. It involves a movie highly critical of Hillary Clinton which was originally scheduled for release during the Democratic primaries but was stopped by judges concerned with its legality. This case illustrates the inherent problems with McCain-Feingold. Namely, it forces [...]

March 24th, 2009 | Permalink| 3 Comments »

Insurers To Waive Higher Pre-Existing Conditions Premiums?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Health Care

Looks like all of this talk about health reform has put the industry on notice…but the only stipulation here is everybody has to be in the system. From the AP: WASHINGTON -The health insurance industry offered Tuesday for the first time to curb its controversial practice of charging higher premiums to people with a history [...]

March 24th, 2009 | Permalink| 8 Comments »

Geithner Wants Broader Powers To Seize Non-Banks

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Bailouts, Business, Money, Regulations, The World, Transparency, Wall Street

And after the AIG mess, I say we give it to him. How we allowed one company to take down the entire system still feels unreal to me. How on earth could we allow that to go down? Crazy, crazy, crazy. But it did happen and we are suffering massive fallout as a result, so [...]

March 24th, 2009 | Permalink| 44 Comments »

Paul Krugman And Donald Marron Debate Geithner’s Plan

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Banks, Barack, Economy, Money, Video, Wall Street

Krugman doesn’t like it because it doesn’t punish the behavior that got us into this mess in the first place. And while I have a soft spot in my heart for that line of reasoning, his idea of nationalizing the banks is a non-starter. I wish he realized that, but nonetheless. Marron makes the point [...]

March 24th, 2009 | Permalink| 2 Comments »

Why Is Glenn Beck Still On The Air?

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Media, Partisan Hacks, Video

I didn’t know it was getting this bad. Yes, Beck is trying to position himself as a modern day Howard Beale, but the problem is he’s pushing crazy conspiracy theories instead of telling it like it really is. And Fox is letting it happen behind the guise of some crocodile tears. Former Bush speechwriter David [...]

March 24th, 2009 | Permalink| 2 Comments »

What Is Wrong With Bill O’Reilly?

By The Pajama Pundit | Related entries in Media, WTF?

Seriously. I just don’t get it Mr. O’Reilly. Let me see if I can follow this logic: You are alleging that Jeff Zucker of NBC News is part of a cabal of liberal meanies who are out to smear you (and other conservatives). ‘Far left bloggers’ are also part of this group of ne’er-do-wellers as [...]

March 24th, 2009 | Permalink| 4 Comments »

China Pitches New Reserve Currency

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in China, Economy, Money, The World

You knew the time would come when the dollar would fall out of favor, but did you think it would happen this fast? Actually, it’s not just the dollar that we’re talking about here. What China is proposing is leveling the playing field and including all world currencies in the reserve basket, which now only [...]

March 24th, 2009 | Permalink| 10 Comments »

Obama’s Army Not Very Effective

By Doug Mataconis | Related entries in Barack, General Politics

It doesn’t look like the Obama Administration’s efforts to capitalize on it’s army of campaign supporters to move the President’s agenda forward is having much of an impact: WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama’s army of canvassers fanned out across the nation over the weekend to drum up support for his $3.55 trillion budget, but they [...]

March 24th, 2009 | Permalink| 3 Comments »

What If Every State Had Used The District Method In 2008 ?

By Doug Mataconis | Related entries in 2008 Election, Barack, McCain

As I’ve said in the past, I am generally in favor of reforming the Electoral College system so that states allocate their voters based on what’s come to be called the District Method. Under this method, candidates get one Electoral Vote for each Congressional District that they win in a particular state and the candidate [...]

March 23rd, 2009 | Permalink| 17 Comments »

Obama Should Begin Scaling Back Proposals

By Alan Stewart Carl | Related entries in Barack, Budget

Barack Obama ran for president on a long list of program proposals, many of which addressed issues neglected (or perceived by liberals to be neglected) by George W. Bush. But with the financial turmoil and projected record deficits, will Obama have to scale back or abandon many of his planned initiatives? Here’s the problem with [...]

March 23rd, 2009 | Permalink| 3 Comments »

Home Sales Jump In February

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economic recovery, Housing

Some are positioning this as a bit of good economic news, and it is…but a bit of perspective is needed. Not everybody is suffering right now, and if folks can buy homes at a 20 to 30% discount with historically low interest rates, why wouldn’t they? There are a lot of bargains out there right [...]

March 23rd, 2009 | Permalink| 4 Comments »