Dumping Ground for Random Thoughts
by Kyle-Anne Shiver • August 7, 2009
Our esteemed new President, graduate of Columbia and Harvard, took his little show on the road this week. Thursday, he took $39 million in taxpayer money to Elkhart, Indiana, where of course, he made a little speech about the Crimulus Stimulus, the multi-billion dollar boondoggle that was supposed to save us from the economic conditions, which now persist despite it.
My question, after reading his remarks, was a bit cynical. How is it that a man, hailed from every liberal enclave on the entire planet as brilliant-beyond-brilliant, has utterly failed to master fourth-grade arithmetic? Unless, of course, his mouth, that organ of masterful oratory, is not, in fact, connected to his brain at all.
If the dear folks at the crashed-and-burned RV factory in Elhart, Indiana bought this little spiel from President Big Mouth, then there might be another explanation for their failed business than the horrible economy. Read this, but don’t weep. Just pass it around to your friends and see if they still think this President is a really smart guy:
“And let me just talk about the so-called stimulus package, or the Recovery Act, because there’s been a lot of misinformation out there about the Recovery Act. Let me tell you what it is and what it’s not.”
“The plan was divided into three parts. One-third of the money has gone to tax relief for families and small businesses. One-third of the money is cutting people’s taxes. one-third of the money was tax cuts. Another third of the money in the Recovery Act has been for emergency relief that is helping folks who’ve borne the brunt of this recession. So that’s the second half. First half, tax relief. Second half, support for individuals, small businesses, and states that had fallen on hard times. The last third of the Recovery Act — and that’s what we’re going to talk about here today — is for investments…”
Granted, there were a few other garbled sentences that filled in between the fractions, so that one who was not listening carefully, might have missed the President’s confounded sums.
However, just ask yourself this: If President Bush had delivered such a pitifully flawed summation of an economic package, would it not have led every major network’s primetime newscast?
When the press covers for this President every day, 24/7, I must begin to ask myself whether they are exhibiting condescending racism, the kind that honestly does believe a black man cannot be held as accountable as a white man in the same position, simply because he is racially disadvantaged by lesser intelligence. I have known many racists like this in my life, as have you.
Condescending racists pretend, often even to themselves, that they are genuinely lovely people, who harbor only the kindest thoughts and beliefs about African-Americans. But every time they cover for someone, just because he is black, they exhibit their true beliefs. Every time they fail to use the same standard of judgement for an African-American as the one they use for a European-American, then they demonstrate plainly and simply that they are racists to the core. Racism is the internalized belief that one race is genetically and inherently superior to others. Only if one truly believes that whites are superior to blacks will he use a lower standard to judge the words and actions of black citizens.
Whenever a white commentator covers for the missteps of our African-American president, they display one of the most disgusting forms of racism there is, the kind that portrays themselves as “nice,” while hiding purely vile racial condescension.
Racism, whether dressed in a white hood and burning a cross, or dressed in a suit and tie, and wielding an elite microphone, is just as ugly, just as vile, just as un-Christian as a thing could possibly get.
When our news media finally starts — if they ever do — pointing out, with consistent regularity, the foibles of President #44, then you’ll know they’re trying to be colorblind in the true MLK tradition. Until then, they’re just a bunch of racists with their blinders turned inside out.
By SHARON THEIMER, Associated Press Writer Sharon Theimer, Associated Press Writer – Wed Aug 19, 6:08 pm ET
WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama’s push for a national health care overhaul is providing a financial windfall in the election offseason to Democratic consulting firms that are closely connected to the president and two top advisers.
Coalitions of interest groups running at least $24 million in pro-overhaul ads hired GMMB, which worked for Obama’s 2008 campaign and whose partners include a top Obama campaign strategist. They also hired AKPD Message and Media, which was founded by David Axelrod, a top adviser to Obama’s campaign and now to the White House. AKPD did work for Obama’s campaign, and Axelrod’s son Michael and Obama’s campaign manager David Plouffe work there.
The firms were hired by Americans for Stable Quality Care and its predecessor, Healthy Economy Now. Each was formed by a coalition of interests with big stakes in health care policy, including the drug maker lobby PhRMA, the American Medical Association, the Service Employees International Union and Families USA, which calls itself “The Voice for Health Care Consumers.”
Their ads press for changes in health care policy. Healthy Economy Now made one of the same arguments that Obama does: that health care costs are delaying the country’s economic recovery and that changes are needed if the economy is to rebound.
There is no evidence that Axelrod directly profited from the group’s ads. Axelrod took steps to separate himself from AKPD when he joined Obama’s White House. AKPD owes him $2 million from his stock sale and will make preset payments over four years, starting with $350,000 on Dec. 31, according to Axelrod’s personal financial disclosure report.
A larger issue is a network of relationships and overlapping interests that resembles some seen in past administrations and could prove a problem as Obama tries to win the public over on health care and fulfill his promise to change the way Washington works, said Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, a government watchdog group.
“Even if these are obvious bedfellows and kind of standard PR maneuvers, it still stands to undercut Obama’s credibility,” Krumholz said. “The potential takeaway from the public is ‘friends in cahoots to engineer a grass roots result.’”
White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said that Axelrod has had no communications with Healthy Economy Now or with Americans for Stable Quality Care, and his payments aren’t affected by the ad contracts. Axelrod’s son, a salaried AKPD employee, doesn’t work with either coalition “or stand to benefit from that work,” LaBolt said.
“David Axelrod has fully complied with the toughest-ever ethics rules for administration officials, including divesting from AKPD before the administration began,” LaBolt said.
Ken Johnson, a PhRMA senior vice president, said GMMB and AKPD were the only two firms working on the $24 million in ads. He declined to reveal how much each was paid beyond saying that each received a small percentage of the total. The coalition’s campaign team decided to hire the two firms, he said.
“In a perfect world, it’s a distraction we don’t need right now, but these are very gifted consultants who have done very good work,” Johnson said. “And it’s also important to remember that at the end of the day, the coalition partners determine the message.”
Healthy Economy Now spokesman Jeremy Van Ess said the two firms were hired because “they are the best at what they do. Period.” The coalition didn’t seek approval or direction on any of its activities from the White House, said Van Ess, a partner in a consulting firm that has worked on Democratic Senate election activities and a former speechwriter for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
AKPD and GMMB both proudly proclaim their connections to Obama on their Web sites.
AKPD has a full page on Axelrod that includes pictures of Obama. In one photo, Obama hugs Plouffe on election night.
“We are deeply honored to have been part of Barack Obama’s historic campaign to change America and the world,” GMMB says on its Web site. GMMB’s partners include Jim Margolis, a senior strategist for Obama’s presidential campaign.
Both GMMB and AKPD also have worked for Democrats this year. The Democratic National Committee paid AKPD at least $106,000 for polling, media production, communication consulting and travel costs from February through April. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee paid GMMB roughly $75,000 from February through June for ads. And GMMB took in at least $9,000 this year from Senate leader Reid’s political action committee for communications consulting.
Fri Aug 21, 2009 6:50pm EDT
By Jeff Mason
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration will raise its 10-year budget deficit projection to approximately $9 trillion from $7.108 trillion in a report next week, a senior administration official told Reuters on Friday.
The higher deficit figure, based on updated economic data, brings the White House budget office into line with outside estimates and gives further fuel to President Barack Obama’s opponents, who say his spending plans are too expensive in light of budget shortfalls.
The White House took heat for sticking with its $7.108 trillion forecast earlier this year after the Congressional Budget Office forecast that deficits between 2010 and 2019 would total $9.1 trillion.
Previous Entries
Categories
Tag Cloud
Blog RSS
Comments RSS
Last 50 Posts
Back
Void 
Life 
Earth 
Wind 
Water 
Fire