Daily Archives: December 4, 2012

December 4, 2012 · 12:10 PM

GOP Senator Gets Schooled On Obamacare: ‘You Lost The Election, Buddy’

Will they ever learn to accept defeat?

Think Progress

Political consultant Bob Schrum gave Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) a lesson in post-election politics on CNN Tuesday morning, when Schrum told the Senator to give up the dream of repealing Obamacare.

In the middle of a heated discussion about the fiscal showdown, CNN host Soledad O’Brien asked Johnson to give examples of what kind of spending cuts should be on the table. Johnson put the President’s signature health care reform law at the top of his list, saying that it costs more than people realize. “Not going to happen,” Schrum told Johnson, “You lost the election, buddy”:

JOHNSON: Let’s acknowledge that the primary driver of our debt and deficit is going to be health care costs. And we have a whole new entitlement — by the way, we’ve already got a trillion dollars of middle class, middle income tax increases cooked into the books under Obamacare. [...]

SCHRUM: This is fantasy land. It’s like saying Ronald Reagan invented the Apple iPad. Obamacare is not going to be on the table. [...]

JOHNSON: Zero to 610 is the vote total of the last three votes on [Obama's] last two budgets. Zero to 610. Do you think that’s a serious proposal? Here’s the bottom line: President Obama, show us a plan.

SCHRUM: He can’t show you a plan. He gave you a plan, and his plan is not to repeal Obamacare. Not going to happen. You lost the election, buddy.

Watch it:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) also proposed putting Obamacare cuts on the table. But if the goal of the fiscal showdown is to reduce the deficit, then Republicans seem to be taking the wrong approach: The Congressional Budget Office calculates that the health care law already reduces the deficit by billions of dollars in the next decade, and, in the decade after that, by more than $1 trillion.

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· 8:00 AM

Five Ridiculous ‘War On Christmas’ Myths

Thank you  of Addicting Info for writing this humorous article…

Addicting Info

It is that magical time of year again, where we see Wall Street executives in Santa costumes begging for bailouts, former Republican Presidential candidates roaming their mansions and playing in their car elevators, and pretty much every single television break being one continuous Zales Diamond and Lexus advertisement. Indeed, Christmas is a two-month free market orgy in which Americans show concern for their fellow man by trampling on him in the nearest ‘Buy Crap’ box store. Of course this is all done to purchase the latest state-of-the-art (soon-to-be-obsolete) piece of cheap, imported crap in the spirit of celebrating the birth of 40” Flastscreen TV. But it’s also a time where Fox News and the right-wing take time out of their hating the middle class, poor, and gays schedules and feign outrage over a supposed sinister “War on Christmas” being waged by godless liberals who have the audacity to say “Happy Holidays” at retail stores. Well, at least it’s one war that the Fox News hosts are actually willing to fight.

Let’s face it–religious right-wingers have been hopelessly fighting this war (preferably by Fox News proxy) for quite some time now and, though nobody really seems to care (even catholic priests), logic and factual polls have never stopped Fox in the past. Because if there’s anyone in this country who faces constant ridicule and persecution, it’s most definitely Christians. Even though the religious right really hates godless facts, it’s probably worth noting that Christmas is a Pagan tradition and was banned by the Pilgrims.

So let’s take a look at some of the most breathtakingly, phenomenally stupid ”War on Christmas” myths.

1. The American Family Association, for example, has been fruitlessly waging a pathetic and ill-conceived boycott war on Walgreens for having its cashiers wish its customers “Happy Holidays” upon checking out.

“It’s true!” bellowed the AFA. “At Walgreens, they advertise ‘Holiday Candy,’ ‘Holiday Gift Tags,’ ‘Holiday Gift Wrap,’ ‘Holiday Decor,’ ‘Holiday Accessories,’ ‘Holiday Nuts and Snacks’ and ‘Holiday Hats and Stockings.’ But no Christmas! In total, Walgreens used the term ‘holiday’ 36 times, rather than using ‘Christmas.’”

Apparently some entry-level schmuck at the AFA had to spend his days totaling the number of “holiday” salutations instead of, perhaps, devising strategies that help spread cheer to impoverished families.

2. Wal-mart banning “Merry Christmas” greeting

Not that I would ever defend Walmart, but the War on Christmas creates strange allies. For example, in 2005 a woman sent an irate email to Walmart after one of its employees was wishing her “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas,” thus begging the question: who are these morons and where do they find the time to engage in such totally frivolous nonsense? Naturally, the dyspeptic woman received a mild response, saying that, “Christmas traditions are rooted in Siberian shamanism and Santa is also borrowed from the Caucuses, mistletoe from the Celts, yule log from the Goths, the time from the Visigoth and the tree from the worship of Baal. It is a wide world.” Despite a planned boycott by the Catholic League, Walmart continues to have its cashiers greet customers with “Happy Holidays.” Oh, and the employee who sent the reasonable email was fired.

3. A Hospital bans Christmas CD for mentioning Jesus

It seems the Royal Edinburgh Hospital refused to distribute a CD of Christmas songs in its shop because evidently some of the songs mentioned Jesus. But much like with everything that comes out of the mouths of the right, it wasn’t true. After all, the first casuality of war is the truth. According to the Guardian, not only was the CD not banned, “it was actually made available at a hospital carol service that had mysteriously evaded the health authority’s attempts to stamp out Christmas.”

4. The John Birch Society

It’s not a state secret that the John Birch Society is a group made up of filthy rich oligarchs and plutocrats whose wealth comes from happening to be the spoiled offspring of workaholics. Its members, including the Koch brothers, have spent hordes of cash to prevent regulation of industry and legislation that seeks to benefit the middle-class. So it’s not especially surprising that in 1959, the John Birch Society warned America that it was under attack. So convinced this impending anti-Christmas menace, they distributed a pamphlet called “There Goes Christmas,” as well as an essay by Hubert Kregeloh saying that the “Godless” United Nations was planning to take the meaning out of Christmas, so that the Communists would win. It is now the year 2011, the Reds are dead, and the UN didn’t ban Christmas in American department stores. Again, “oops.”

5. Fox News and Right Wing websites declare Pilgrims would be outraged by today’s anti-Christmas treatment

Ah, always save the best the last. In its typical inflammatory fashion, the foxbots and mannequins over at Fox News Fox continue to manipulate the history of Christmas in America. For example, Laura Ingraham actually argued that the Pilgrims came to this country to celebrate Christmas, which is like saying that the slaves came here of their own will because they were big time fans of S & M. Not to burst the fantastically factless Fox News bubble, but history clearly shows that the Pilgrims, oppressive and rigid as they were, actually banned Christmas in Boston. It wasn’t until 1870 that Christmas was declared a federal holiday. Now watch out for those gingerbread suicide bombers.

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· 12:16 AM

Oops! McCain Once Offered Identical Assessment As Susan Rice On Benghazi Attack

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ)

It will be extremely interesting to see Senator McCain wiggle out of this conundrum…

Think Progress

Just three days after the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi, Libya, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said there were “demonstrations” at the U.S. diplomatic mission there and that the attackers “seized this opportunity to attack our consulate.” McCain also said during this Sept. 14 press conference on Capitol Hill that he wasn’t certain whether al-Qaeda perpetrated the assault.

Yet McCain has been leading a smear campaign against U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice for essentially making the same assessment two days later on the Sept. 16 Sunday talks shows. Making clear that a more thorough forthcoming investigation would provide better information for “definitive conclusions,” here’s what Rice said about the Benghazi attack on that day, from CBS’s Face the Nation:

SUSAN RICE: Based on the best information we have to date, what our assessment is as of the present is in fact what began spontaneously in Benghazi as a reaction to what had transpired some hours earlier in Cairo where, of course, as you know, there was a violent protest outside of our embassy — sparked by this hateful video. But soon after that spontaneous protest began outside of our consulate in Benghazi, we believe that it looks like extremist elements, individuals, joined in that — in that effort with heavy weapons of the sort that are, unfortunately, readily now available in Libya post-revolution. And that it spun from there into something much, much more violent.

McCain has since blasted Rice for making this assessment. Here’s what McCain said on CNN last month during the height of his smear campaign against the U.N. Ambassador:

MCCAIN: It was obvious within 24 hours that the station chief from the CIA had said this was a terrorist attack. It was obvious to one and all that this was not a “spontaneous demonstration” because in real time, they saw there was no demonstration. … Everybody knew that it was an al Qaeda attack, and she continued to tell the world through all of the talk shows that it was a “spontaneous demonstration” sparked by a video. That is not competence in my view

But McCain’s analysis of what occurred in Benghazi in the days after the attack on Sept. 14 mirrors Rice’s assessment during her Sept. 16 Sunday show appearances, saying that the attackers took advantage of a demonstration at the U.S. diplomatic mission:

MCCAIN: It’s hard to know exactly what took place and how long it was planned, and — I don’t have that information. I know very well that there were demonstrations, that there was a group of either al-Qaida or some radical Islamists who — about 15 of them, armed with RPGs and other lethal weapons, that seized this opportunity to attack our consulate. And it was an act of terror. It wasn’t an act of a mob getting out of control. We should understand that. This was a calculated act of terror on the part of a small group of jihadists, not a mob that somehow attacked and sacked our embassy.

So both McCain and Susan Rice believed at roughly the same point after the the Sept. 11 Benghazi attacks that the terrorists took advantage of a spontaneous demonstration against an anti-Islam video at the U.S. diplomatic mission there. And like Rice, McCain couldn’t say definitively if it was al Qaeda. When asked if it was al-Qaeda during his Sept. 14 press conference, McCain said, “It certainly was extremist elements. If it’s not al-Qaida, it’s certainly one of the affiliated organizations.”

As is now known, on Sept. 16, Rice was presenting the assessment of what happened in Benghazi that was given to her by the U.S. intelligence community and that assessment turned out to be inaccurate. CIA officials initially thought that al Qaeda was responsible for the attack, but intelligence officials agreed that a more general term of “extremists” would suffice in Rice’s talking points.

The Arizona Republican has also claimed that Rice should have changed her assessment because shortly before her appearance on Face the Nation, a top Libyan official “said that this was an al Qaeda attack.” But in fact, the official, Mohamed Yousef el-Magariaf, didn’t give a definitive assessment and said only “a few of them” were connected to the terror group, and that others were “affiliates and maybe sympathizers.” But even if el-Magariaf had been more sure, it would have been irresponsible for Rice to endorse and share a view she knew to be inconsistent with what U.S. intelligence officials had provided.

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· 12:05 AM

Obama Rejects Boehner Fiscal Cliff Plan

This is the same old “perennial dance” played by the GOP during  fiscal cliff negotiations.   Speaker of the House John Boehner says his side is willing to give up some tax cuts (from tax loopholes only) in exchange for massive social security and medicare cuts.

Buzzfeed

“Their plan includes nothing new,” Pfeiffer says.

White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer rejected Speaker of the House John Boehner’s counter-proposal to avert the fiscal cliff in a statement to reporters Monday afternoon.

“The Republican letter released today does not meet the test of balance,” Pfeiffer said. “In fact, it actually promises to lower rates for the wealthy and sticks the middle class with the bill. Their plan includes nothing new and provides no details on which deductions they would eliminate, which loopholes they will close or which Medicare savings they would achieve.”

President Barack Obama has pledged to oppose any agreement that does not raise tax rates on the top two percent of wage-earners.

Pfeiffer continued:

Independent analysts who have looked at plans like this one have concluded that middle class taxes will have to go up to pay for lower rates for millionaires and billionaires. While the President is willing to compromise to get a significant, balanced deal and believes that compromise is readily available to Congress, he is not willing to compromise on the principles of fairness and balance that include asking the wealthiest to pay higher rates. President Obama believes – and the American people agree – that the economy works best when it is grown from the middle out, not from the top down. Until the Republicans in Congress are willing to get serious about asking the wealthiest to pay slightly higher tax rates, we won’t be able to achieve a significant, balanced approach to reduce our deficit our nation needs.

White House officials had said there woud be no further negotiations until Republicans presented their own proposal, which they did earlier Monday. But from Pfeiffer’s call to “get serious,” it doesn’t appear that the exchange has moved negotiations forward.

Boehner spokesman Brendan Buck said the burden now falls on the White House to provide a plan that can pass Congress.

“Republicans have once again offered a responsible, balanced plan to avoid the fiscal cliff, and the White House has once again demonstrated how unreasonable it has become,” he said, “If the President is rejecting this middle ground offer, it is now his obligation to present a plan that can pass both chambers of Congress.”

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