backstage

President Barack Obama waits in the Lower Press Office of the White House before the start of his press conference, Dec. 7, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

‘repugnant and reckless obstructionism’

Time: AFSCME President rips Republicans for putting “billionaires ahead of the needs of … America’s middle class” …. suggests sympathy for Obama’s decision.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Pres. Gerald W. McEntee made the following statement on the tax compromise:

“Unless Senate Republicans could keep the tax breaks for billionaires, they were willing to raise the taxes of every American working family. They put the interest of billionaires ahead of the needs of millions of unemployed workers and America’s middle class. Their repugnant and reckless obstructionism should now be clear to all. They were willing to do real harm to millions of families if they didn’t get their way. There are no easy choices facing us when GOP senators are willing to sacrifice the middle class in order to protect the interest of Wall Street and the very wealthy. We will continue the fight to require the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share.”

“i’m not going to play games with the lives of the american people’

is it a bird? is it a plane?

Nope: it’s Michelle Obama on the December cover of DC magazine

“When the first lady first sought to engage the nation’s creative community, she traveled straight to the heart of U.S. artistic endeavors: New York. In May 2009, she met with the country’s cultural elite at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Some argued that visiting one of Manhattan’s headiest outposts was a predictable move. But Mrs. Obama was on a mission. During that closed-door session, she gained inspiration for the White House series on music and dance. … From the first installment of the series, launched a month after the meeting, the jazz, classical, country, Broadway, Latino and civil-rights-focused music and dance events have paired celebrity talent with schoolchildren for daylong workshops and evening performances. The efforts have garnered coast-to-coast coverage. Diplomatic efforts with countries such as Russia have grown from relationships established through these East Wing undertakings.”

just a word or three

Hey people, just wanted to thank you all for your wonderful contributions today – a difficult day, it’s fair to say – whether they were comments or links: hugely, hugely appreciated.

After enduring – as you all have done – once Dem-supporting sites being over-run by haters, many with the most spiteful and questionable of agendas, it’s indescribably great to ‘meet’ up with a bunch of decent and smart people who refuse to surrender their optimism and – yes – hope in the face of all this venom. (Freaks! Nazi-like propagandists! Cultists!)

Don’t know about you, but I thought the President had fire in his belly in today’s press conference – it was beyond heartening that he took on both the extreme left and right, neither of which (as all the polls show) represent the vast majority of the American people. They shout the loudest, though, so the media gives them the most attention …. to the point where you’d actually think they spoke for America!

They don’t. And we all know that.

“Sanctimonious” purists, irrational ideologues, that’s all the extreme left and right are … they have so much in common.

Keep fighting the hate people!

rest in peace, Elizabeth Edwards

July 3, 1949 – December 7, 2010

BBC

 

presidential presser

“….this notion that somehow we are willing to compromise too much reminds me of the debate that we had during health care.  This is the public option debate all over again.  So I pass a signature piece of legislation where we finally get health care for all Americans, something that Democrats had been fighting for for a hundred years, but because there was a provision in there that they didn’t get what would have affected maybe a couple of million people, even though we got health insurance for 30 million people and the potential for lower premiums for 100 million people, that somehow that was a sign of weakness and compromise.

Now, if that’s the standard by which we are measuring success or core principles, then let’s face it, we will never get anything done.  People will have the satisfaction of having a purist position and no victories for the American people.  And we will be able to feel good about ourselves and sanctimonious about how pure our intentions are and how tough we are, and in the meantime, the American people are still seeing themselves not able to get health insurance because of preexisting conditions or not being able to pay their bills because their unemployment insurance ran out.

That can’t be the measure of how we think about our public service. That can’t be the measure of what it means to be a Democrat. This is a big, diverse country. Not everybody agrees with us. … that means because it’s a big, diverse country and people have a lot of complicated positions, it means that in order to get stuff done, we’re going to compromise.  This is why FDR, when he started Social Security, it only affected widows and orphans. You did not qualify. And yet now it is something that really helps a lot of people. When Medicare was started, it was a small program. It grew.

Under the criteria that you just set out, each of those were betrayals of some abstract ideal. This country was founded on compromise.  I couldn’t go through the front door at this country’s founding. And if we were really thinking about ideal positions, we wouldn’t have a union.

So my job is to make sure that we have a North Star out there. What is helping the American people live out their lives?  What is giving them more opportunity?  What is growing the economy?  What is making us more competitive?  And at any given juncture, there are going to be times where my preferred option, what I am absolutely positive is right, I can’t get done.

And so then my question is, does it make sense for me to tack a little bit this way or tack a little bit that way, because I’m keeping my eye on the long term and the long fight — not my day-to-day news cycle, but where am I going over the long term?

And I don’t think there’s a single Democrat out there, who if they looked at where we started when I came into office and look at where we are now, would say that somehow we have not moved in the direction that I promised.
Take a tally.  Look at what I promised during the campaign.  There’s not a single thing that I’ve said that I would do that I have not either done or tried to do.  And if I haven’t gotten it done yet, I’m still trying to do it.

And so the — to my Democratic friends, what I’d suggest is, let’s make sure that we understand this is a long game.  This is not a short game.  And to my Republican friends, I would suggest — I think this is a good agreement, because I know that they’re swallowing some things that they don’t like as well, and I’m looking forward to seeing them on the field of competition over the next two years.”

Transcript of press conference here

hey, call me petty….

….but if Fox are going Boehner orange-ish/red with rage over this deal, then it’s a monster-big thumbs-up from me

😉

‘agreement will create or save 2.2 million jobs’

Center for American Progress: Our analysis of the framework tax agreement that President Barack Obama announced yesterday, including additional tax cuts and an extension of unemployment insurance, finds that 2.2 million jobs will be the end result.

In this time of economic distress, millions of new jobs are, of course, very welcome. It is, however, unfortunate that these jobs have to come from an agreement that is a balance between large, unneeded, bonus tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans and the needed continuation of unemployment benefits, middle-class tax relief, and additional help for the economy for the rest of us.

While the terms of the deal are understandable given the effective veto power of conservatives, it is unfortunate that policies aimed at the vast majority of Americans and at boosting the economy were held hostage to wasteful tax cuts for the wealthiest 2 percent.

But the Obama administration clearly had its eye on job creation in its willingness to accept $133 billion in misallocated bonus tax breaks for the rich in exchange for policies to sustain the economic recovery and help the middle class.

We estimate that the deal as described would save or create 2.2 million jobs, excluding jobs associated with the extension of the broader-based portions of the Bush tax cuts on which all parties were agreed.

Read full article here

(Thank you for the link Rita Chakrabarti)

‘obama: president; mcconnell: sucker’

Andrew Sullivan: It’s been fascinating to watch the left’s emotional roller-coaster these past few weeks. It’s also been fascinating to watch Obama out-run them, and to observe their responses to the final deal in the last 24 hours. Krugman has gone from “Let’s Not Make A Deal” to “better than what I expected.” …

….this (deal) also clears the stage for a two-year fight over long-term fiscal balance … and that is the best context for serious reform … That’s the chance we now have, if Obama leads the way (as I suspect he will).

…And notice that Obama has secured – with Republican backing – a big new stimulus that will almost certainly goose growth and lower unemployment as he moves toward re-election. If growth accelerates, none of the current political jockeying and Halperin-style hyper-ventilation will matter. Obama will benefit – thanks, in part, to Republican dogma. So here’s something the liberal base can chew on if they need some grist: how cool is it that Mitch McConnell just made Barack Obama’s re-election more likely? Bet you didn’t see that one coming, did you?

… The GOP has won again on tactics, but keeps losing on strategy. More broadly, as this sinks in, Obama’s ownership of this deal will help restore the sense that he is in command of events, and has shifted to the center (even though he is steadily advancing center-left goals)….

….My view is that if this deal is a harbinger for the negotiation Obama will continue with the GOP for the next two years, he will come into his own.

…The more his liberal base attacks him, the more the center will take a second look. And look how instantly the GOP’s position has shifted. They have suddenly gone from pure oppositionism to dealing with the dreaded commie Muslim alien, thereby proving he is not what they have made him out to be.

… Now for the short-term benefits of resolving this tax-and-spend dilemma so swiftly. The president urgently needs to get the new START and DADT through the Senate …. If he can pull all this off by Christmas … the last Congress will indeed be viewed by historians as one of the most substantive (and liberal) in recent history. And Obama will have orchestrated it – while ending up firmly planted and rebranded in the center.

Meep, meep.

Read full article here