Tim's Favorite Blogs
Media Matters
Blog Directories
Tuesday, January 27. 2009
Hey Boehner, Obama Won
There was a great idea floating in my head earlier today, but instead of dashing over to the Trusty Mac … I stayed in the other room and watched TV on the BIG television. And I can’t even remember what was on. Never let a good idea go to seed.Thankfully, we have people like John Boehner, Republican of Ohio, who come on TV and say stupid shit like “contraception won’t save the economy.”
What he’s talking about is the Obama stimulus plan that includes about $300 million dollars for family planning. In the family planning is of course, a plan for contraception. What Boehner wants you to believe is that all of the money for family planning is for contraception, which is patently false. That part of the plan provides pre-natal care, health care for families who would not otherwise qualify for Medicaid and a host of other benefits that have little to do with actual contraception.
And what Boehner and his ilk are talking about when they mention “contraception” is not condoms and IUD’s, they’re really talking about abortion. For them, money for family planning, as defined by a Democrat, includes the availability of abortions.
Yet they are opposed to condoms and other forms of contraception as well because, in their religious views, “God” created sex solely for procreation and therefore we should only be having sex for the purpose of creating children — nothing else. On that alone I would have to oppose religion, but there are many other valid reasons to reject a belief in a supernatural being directing everything that happens in the universe, yet gives us free will to make our own choices … except that if we have free will, how does “God” direct everything in the universe? Or, how can we have free will if “God” already knows what we’re going to do before we do it? I’m getting dizzy just thinking about it.Some tangents ought to be left alone.
The funniest things I heard on Monday were the news people parroting Boehner’s objection to the stimulus bill. Norah O’Donnell on MSNBC cornered a House Democrat, Chris Van Hollen of Maryland and asked him about the provision for $300 million for contraception. He was the right guy to corner because he didn’t have the right answer so he replied the only way he knew how: he backed down from the family planning part of the stimulus package.Boehner also cites a report by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) that says the stimulus plan won’t pump money into the economy for years. What he fails to tell us is that the report he cites is the one the CBO did a few weeks ago for a different draft of the stimulus package, not the current plan that’s on the table. The CBO had to rush out a press release explaining that they had not written any such report for the current plan.
In fact, the CBO just released a report that says the latest plan would get 65% of the stimulus into the economy, including infrastructure spending, by the end of September 2010. That’s a far cry from what Mr. Boehner is claiming.
Lying is still lying and Congressman Boehner is real good at it. The reasons of course are purely political. He knows there’s not much he can do to stop President Obama and the Democrats if they want to pass the bill, they have the majority to do so and there are a few Republicans who will go along because they know their own constituents voted for Obama expecting the Democrats to change things. But, Boehner has to make the Republicans in Congress appear relevant because at the moment, they aren’t. At least not in the big picture.
The Republicans have no leadership to speak of, other than John Boehner. Their standard bearer in the elections, John McCain, has been lying in the weeds. Sort of. He was for the stimulus plan, but on Sunday he told FOX News he wouldn’t vote for the stimulus plan. He, in fact, admitted he lost the election in large part because the public wanted the Obama ideas for restoring the economy, not those of the Republicans.Later on Monday, Chris Matthews quoted Rush Limbaugh, as if Limbaugh was onto something honest and worthwhile, by parroting what the Oxycontin King said about the stimulus plan: it’s Democrat ploy to buy the votes of the poor people in America by giving us no taxes for ten years or more. Really. And people think I’m a cynical old bastard.
Okay, I am a cynical old bastard, but not that pessimistic!
The Republicans are making a politically risky move to challenge Obama, who is still at a 76% approval rating from the American public, to see just how bipartisan the president is willing to be, despite the fact that Obama and the Democrats have compromised, making 40% of the stimulus plan tax cuts. But opposing a president who has so much support from the public could backfire, considering that the American public gave the presidency and a vast majority of Congress to the Democrats because they, as Senator McCain admitted, didn’t trust the Republican plans for getting America back on track.
Which reminds me; it’s been a long time since I’ve heard any Republican claim that despite the vast majority in Congress and the presidency going to Obama, America is still a center-right constituency. I guess when they realized nobody was buying that nonsense they dropped it.
As President Obama said to Republicans when they first opposed his stimulus plan (about 10 minutes after Obama was inaugurated), “I won.”
Yes Mr. President, you did. By a large margin, so use that political capital and don’t cave into the Republicans. It’s time to call their bluff.
Karl Rove has been subpoenaed — again — by the House Judiciary Committee to give a deposition concerning his part in the firing of the U.S. attorneys when he was President Bush’s top advisor. The difference this time, from the last time when Bush was still president, is that Barack Obama is now president and Rove is not likely to get support from Obama on the position that former presidential aids can’t be forced to testify before Congress.Ain’t life grand!
Calendar
Quicksearch
Archives
Categories
AD Links
Referrals
Syndicate This Blog
Blog Administration
Powered by
TheForkesReport