Daily Archives: September 26, 2011

September 26, 2011 · 8:06 PM

Audience Member Asks Obama: ‘Would You Please Raise My Taxes?’

President Barack Obama addresses the House Dem...

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Of course some people think this guy was a “prop”, set up by the Obama campaign committee.   Most bloggers on the right seem to have that opinion.  Could it be because they can’t  possibly “handle the truth!”

Think Progress

Earlier today, President Obama  fielded questions from a town hall audience in Mountain View, California, hosted by LinkedIn.  At one point, a man stood and asked Obama, “Would you please raise my taxes?” He continued: “I would like very much to have the country to continue to invest in things like Pell Grants, infrastructure, and job training programs that made it possible for me to get to where I am.” In his response, Obama dismissed “class warfare” rhetoric and emphasized that everyone benefits from government investments that companies would not have made on their own.

Watch it:

After Obama spoke, the man — who said he is voluntarily unemployed after making a healthy return from investing years ago in a search engine start-up company (presumably Google) — pleaded with Obama: “Please!” “We’re gonna get to work,” Obama concluded.

UPDATE:   Mark Knoller tweets, “The man who asked Pres Obama to raise his taxes was Doug Edwards, former Dir of Consumer Marketing & brand management for Google.”
UPDATE:   In a recent interview, Edwards — author of “I’m Feeling Lucky: The Confessions of Google Employee Number 59″ — said, “It’s hard to see how real change is gonna come when money is still the largest voice in politics.”
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· 7:46 AM

The Phony Solyndra Scandal

Image representing Solyndra as depicted in Cru...

Image via CrunchBase

The New York Times – Joe Nocera

If Brian Harrison and W. G. Stover, the two Solyndra executives whotook the Fifth Amendment at a Congressional hearing on Friday, ever spend a day in jail, I’ll stand on my head in Times Square.

It’s not going to happen, for one simple reason: neither they, nor anyone else connected with Solyndra, have done anything remotely criminal. The company’s recent bankruptcy — which the Republicans are now rabidly “investigating” because Solyndra had the misfortune to receive a $535 million federally guaranteed loan from the Obama administration — was largely brought on by a stunning collapse in the price of solar panels over the past year or so.

The company’s innovative solar panels, high-priced to begin with, became increasingly uncompetitive in the marketplace. Solyndra didn’t have enough big commercial customers to create the necessary economies of scale. And although Harrison and Stover remained optimistic up to the bitter end — insisting six weeks before the late-August bankruptcy filing that the company was going to be fine — they ultimately failed to raise additional capital that would have allowed Solyndra to stay in business.

The Republicans are trying to make that optimism appear sinister, but if we’ve learned anything from the financial crisis, it is that wishful thinking in the face of a collapsing market is not a crime. Otherwise, Richard Fuld, the former chief executive of Lehman Brothers, would be wearing prison garb.

Continue reading here…

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· 6:19 AM

Monday Blog Round Up

The day after the straw polls.

The Republican Dislike For Our Soldiers

Fox News panel: Perry campaign near ‘total collapse’

Amanda Carpenter Blames Inhaler Issue On Obama, Lies When Caught 

MORGAN FREEMAN SAYS “TEA PARTY IS RACIST , THEY’RE OUT TO GET OBAMA” 

Perry Looking Worse than Donald Trump, as Christie Dreams Resurface

Fox Business Spends Ten Minutes Trying To Get Obama Impeached

David Gregory’s “Facts” On Buffett Rule Echo Flawed AP “Fact Check” And Right-Wing Talking Points

SNL Season Opener Pans Recent GOP Presidential Debates 

Obama On the Republicans and Their Candidates 

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· 6:03 AM

Women In The U.S. Military Being Raped By Commanding Officers! With NO Recourse! – Democratic Underground

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· 2:39 AM

Cops Tackle, Mace Wall St. Protesters for No Apparent Reason

Protesters to Wall Street and the corporate media:  Can you hear us now?

Gawker

Looks like the ongoing #OccupyWallStprotest against corporations got a bit tense on its eighth day, with lots of cops present for today’s march to Union Square and the official protest home page reporting at least 80 arrests.

Folks on the ground photographed several of the arrests—which, the New York Timesreports, were for alleged disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, obstructing governmental administration, and assault on a police officer. Some Twitterers reported that NYPD officers targeted protesters with cameras and people who tried to film the day’s events. Besides maybegetting a bit huffy with a cop (or talking with his hands too wildly?), taking photos seems to be the only “crime” committed by the young man in the above video—who was thrown to the ground while standing in what seems to be a non-threatening manner. Maybe he was much more intimidating in person? Maybe we’re missing something? Seems a bit excessive.

Speaking of excessive, the video at left seems to show an NYPD officer spraying mace at a group of quarantined female protesters. This is what democracy looks like!       

One Twitterer wrote that that NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly paid a visit, most likely to ask where he could purchase a Guy Fawkes mask. Wonder what he’s going to say about these videos.

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· 2:29 AM

Drudge Seizes On Yet Another Opportunity For Race-Baiting Attack

I know we should all be used to the right-wing media with their exaggerations and falsehoods about the POTUS, but this one stands out as egregious as it can get…

County Fair | Media Matters

During his speech to the Congressional Black Caucus on September 24, President Obama said to African-American leaders: “I expect all of you to march with me and press on. Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining. Stop grumbling. Stop crying. We are going to press on. We’ve got work to do, CBC.”

Unsurprisingly, the Drudge Report used the speech as an opportunity for race-baiting.

Drudge highlighted the speech with this quote: “Obama to Blacks: ‘Put On Your Marching Shoes,’ ” and accompanied it with a photograph of what looked like black people protesting in front of the White House with their fists raised:

This would have been an innocuous enough photo if this had been any other media outlet. But this is the Drudge Report, a website that traffics in race. The fact that this was a photo depicting blacks with raised fists under what some have interpreted as “a dog whistle for race riots” tells its own tale. And this is a long-running theme with Drudge.

Gateway Pundit blogger Jim Hoft took it even further. In a post headlined, “Obama Puts on His Best Dialect & Tells Black Audience ‘Stop Complaining & Fight,’ ” he wrote:

Barack Obama told his black audience last night to “Put on your marching shoes.”

[...]

Barack Obama delivered the red meat to the big government socialists of the Congressional Black Caucus.

He was pushing his latest half trillion dollar stimulus that he insists will work… this time.

And, since he was speaking to the black caucus he broke out the black dialect.

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· 2:19 AM

Bill Maher makes fun of ‘job creators’

 

The Raw Story

After discussing Tony Bennett’s 9/11 comments, Bill Maher proceeded to poke some fun at those labeled as ‘job creators’ in the latest installment of Real Time.

The comedian first urged Americans once again to stop voting against their economic interests, or what he labels as the “Joe the Plumber syndrome.”

“The broke unemployed guy who hates it when you try and tax the rich, and whose candidate of choice is Donald Trump,” he said. “You just want to shake poor Joe and say ‘Trump is not one of you.’ The only thing you have in common is his hair looks like the stuff that clogs up the sink.”

Maher went on to say how he votes against his own financial interest, adding “I’m a millionaire, f–k yeah” before putting on a “Mitt’s The S–t” hat in announcing his appointment as regional fundraiser for Mitt Romney’s campaign.

And what about those job creators? Considering himself as one of them, Maher made sure to joke about his fellow elites complaining that President Obama would cause ‘uncertainty’ if taxes were raised on them.

“You don’t get how much ‘Uncertainty’ gives us job creators ‘the willies,’” he said. “It’s terrifying, like when you find out your private island has natives. Or when your wife notices the maid’s kid looks just like you. Or when the limo drivers tries to start a conversation.”

“So tax me at a higher rate, because you’re practically firing yourselves.”

WATCH: Video from HBO, which appeared on September 24, 2011:

 

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· 1:57 AM

Obama: Rick Perry Is ‘Governor Whose State Is On Fire, Denying Climate Change’

Barack Obama
Image by jamesomalley via Flickr

Needless to say that it’s about damn time!

Mr. President, that Mr. Nice Guy personna is no good when the opposition hates your guts regardless of what you do to appease them.  I hope you’re fired up and ready to go to help get jobs for the people that put you in office in the first place, because we’ve been ready…

The Huffington Post

President Barack Obama swiped at Texas Gov. Rick Perry, criticizing him as “a governor whose state is on fire, denying climate change.”

Obama also poked at the audience reactions at recent GOP presidential debates, singling out those who cheered at the prospect of someone dying because he didn’t have health insurance – and those who booed a gay service member.

The president said “that’s not reflective of who we are.”

He made the comments Sunday at a fundraiser at the Silicon Valley home of John Thompson, chairman of Symantec Corp.

—
More from HuffPost (quotes courtesy of White House pool report):

Obama hit back at the conservative media, urging supporters to “push back” on the “inadequate information” found on Fox News and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page.

Speaking to an audience full of supporters, he called the 2012 election “a contest of values.”

“This is a choice about the fundamental direction of our country,” he said. “2008 was an important direction. 2012 is a more important election.”

“We’re going to have a stark choice in this election,” he said. “This is a choice about who we are and what we stand for and whoever wins this next election is going to set the template for this country for a long time to come.”

Watch Obama discuss his jobs bill in his weekly address:

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