From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE…
A Brief Look Under the LaHood
Ray LaHood was President Obama's first Secretary of Transportation. LaHood is a Republican. I thought he did a decent enough job, and certainly didn't come off as anything resembling a teabagger.
He left the administration a couple years back. Then he wrote a book. And the hook he's using to get press coverage for his book is that his boss, President Obama, promised to be a bipartisan leader but pulled the rug out from the poor, caught-off-guard Republicans who just wanted everyone to get along:
LaHood told the Times that he was quickly disappointed after joining the Obama administration when Democrats pushed for an economic stimulus package without much support from Republicans. "I think they felt like they need to push this through quickly to get the economy moving," he told the Times. "And, boom, they made a decision that they were going to pass economic stimulus with just Democratic votes. That was the beginning of the end of bipartisanship.”
No, Ray...this was the end of bipartisanship:
Democrats have rounded on revelations about a private dinner of House Republicans on inauguration day in 2009 in which they plotted a campaign of obstruction against newly installed president Barack Obama. During a lengthy discussion, the senior GOP members worked out a plan to repeatedly block Obama over the coming four years to try to ensure he would not be re-elected. The disclosures---described as "appalling and sad" by Obama's chief strategist David Axelrod---undermine Republican claims that the president alone is to blame for the partisan deadlock in Washington. […]
[S]aid Kevin McCarthy, quoted by [author Robert] Draper: "We've gotta challenge them on every single bill and challenge them on every single campaign." The Republicans have done that, bringing Washington to a near standstill several times during Obama's first term over debt and other issues.
And his second term, too. Not just legislation but also nominees, judicial and otherwise, with unprecedented filibuster abuse. Lord only knows how much more quickly we’d have recovered from the crash of ‘08 if Republicans hadn’t thrown up every roadblock they could get their hands on.
I hope Mr. LaHood notes that in the paperback edition. And for the rest of you, whenever someone tries to shove this BS "Obama was mean to Republicans" revisionist history on you, shove it right back.
Cheers and Jeers starts below the fold... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Gong!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Monday, November 16, 2015
Note: For those of you cooking Thanksgiving turkeys weighing over 200 pounds, today's the day to pop 'em in the oven. Today is also the day to realize you're going to need a bigger oven.
By the Numbers:
Days 'til the Iowa caucuses: 69
Days 'til the New Smyrna Beach Kite Festival in Florida: 5
Weekly unemployment claims according to the Dept. of Labor, matching lows not seen since the early 1970s: 276,000
Amount by which Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, respectively, beat Jeb Bush in a general election matchup according to the latest McClatchy-Marist poll: 15pts. / 10pts.
Service members still unaccounted for from World War II, according to the Defense Department: 73,515
Minimum estimated size---the largest recorded---of the algae bloom in Lake Erie last August, according to the NOAA: 300 sq. miles
Amount that the guitar John Lennon used when he wrote many of his early classics fetched at auction: $2.4 million
Totally Random NFL Score:
New England Patriots 27 New York Giants 26
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Puppy Pic of the Day:
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JEERS to a day that lived up to its reputation. Just hours after word came down that the infamous Daesh (the mocking name for ISIS that the group hates) hero "Jihadi John" had gotten droned by the U.S. on Friday the 13th, the bombs and bullets started flying in Paris. Five hundred civilians were left dead or wounded in the wake of the coordinated attacks by a handful of Daesh operatives, followed by the usual ideological divisions in this country: thoughtful analysis and a recognition of the complexity of the situation from the left…and calls to bomb everything in sight, seal off the borders, and blame everything on Obama from the right. As usual in these situations, us mere peasants can only send our sympathies and positive vibes to the victims and their families, and wait to see how smart or stupid the official response is. And, also as usual, Saudi Arabia will be in the background snickering. Now here’s a tweet:
CHEERS to Kibbitzing in the corncrib. I don’t know if Saturday night is a better or worse time than a weeknight for a presidential debate, but Debbie Wasserman-Schultz said that was the way it was gonna be for debate #2 so SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP!!! Hillary, Bernie and Martin took to the stage at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. (Kudos to the fine and nimble-fingered live-blogging by McJoan here on Daily Kos 5.0.) On the agenda Saturday: corn syrup, corn oil, corn fritters, corn on the cob, cornpone, corn bread, corn dogs, corn cakes, corn dust, cornball, corn futures, Cornish game hen, cornmeal, creamed corn, candy corn, children of the corn, Paris, Wall Street, the minimum wage, is Kylo Ren really Luke Skywalker, and racial inequality. To keep things equal, we used the same drinking game from last week's Republican debate, which required us to take a swig every time we heard an idea that sounded workable, cost-effective and good for America. For some strange reason this time we ended up on the floor rotten stinking drunk.
JEERS to verbal diarrhea. Speaking of debates, here are some additional corrections from last Tuesday's Republican event in Milwaukee:
• The "horrific" Planned Parenthood video doesn’t exist.
• Daesh hasn't won any land battles in America.
• Ronald Reagan didn't cross the Delaware with Washington.
• Trees aren't job killers.
• Sea levels aren't rising due to Democrats' tears.
• The "ghastly, grisly" Planned Parenthood video also doesn't exist.
• Benghazi is not in Cuba.
• The Bible doesn’t say that tax cuts will save your soul.
• Solar power doesn’t give you herpes.
• There’s no blood test to determine whose babies are baby Hitlers.
• The Planned Parenthood video “that will melt your face off if you watch it” also doesn't exist.
• Kim Jong Un and Ayatollah Khamenei don't play poker with Joe Biden and President Obama every Friday night.
• Guantanamo detainees aren't begging to stay in captivity.
• The Walton family doesn’t sleep in a cardboard box next to a city steam grate every night because of Obama's economic policies.
• The Michelle Obama "Whitey tape" also doesn't exist.
The next GOP debate is in mid-December, so that'll give us time to publish the other 492 corrections. And it almost goes without saying: no one onstage Tuesday night regrets the errors.
TALLY HO! to the man who would be king…or at the rate his mom is going, perhaps not. Britain's Prince Charles turned a bonny 67 on Saturday and is now eligible for a two shilling pension increase to help cover the rising cost of groceries and rent and whatnot. I got him his usual present on behalf of all of us at C&J: a fresh pair of commemorative Battle of Yorktown socks.
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Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
This is another edition of The One Word Answer Man. Over at Yahoo! Politics, Matt Bai asks: "Is Ben Carson an imposter?"
Yes.
Now back to Cheers and Jeers.
Gong! Gong!! BuddaBuddaBudda… GONG!!!
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CHEERS to the Gandalf the Grey of Bloggerland. C&J didn’t post Friday evening, so we’re saying a belated Happy Anniversary to Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo, which turned 15 Friday. You can re-live the birth of this progressive supernova in his early posts during the Florida 2000 recount, although it might cause your blood pressure to spike. Josh and his now-supersized crew provide no-frills original reporting with just enough analysis and snark to help us make sense of politics, and nothing the righty blogs offer comes close to TPM's objectivity, accuracy and speed. During election seasons TPM is a daily must-click destination, and it's been great seeing the site take off over the course of 15 trips around the sun. Of course, they're no Great Orange Satan...then again, no one's perfect.
CHEERS to home where the buffalo roam. Happy Birthday, Oklahoma! The "Hey, that looks like a skillet!" State officially nabbed the 46th star on the flag 108 years ago today. Incidentally, the state rock is "rose barite." I believe you'll find it in the greatest abundance between Senator James Inhofe's ears.
Ten years ago in C&J: November 16, 2005
CHEERS to universal disdain. Matching other polls, new Fox News numbers have President Bush at 36 percent approval. Only 72% of Republicans and---get this---26% of independents support him. Worse yet: 4-out-of-5 dogs say they'd pee on his leg.
P.S. New AP-Ipsos poll out this morning. 37% preznidential approval...and 57% believe the administration is cheating on its ethics tests. Don't they expel high school kids for less than that?
And just one more...
CHEERS to pasty-faced blasts from the past. So, uh, what were you doing on November 16, 1998? Oh, c'mon, think…THINK! You were walking by a newsstand and got a tingle up your leg when you saw the cover of Time magazine proclaiming "The Fall of Newt." It's a timely reminder that, no matter how many times the Sunday morning shows invite him on to feel their tongues licking his boots, he's just a failed grifter bumpkin:
Even as Gingrich set to sharpening the blades of the guillotine, his adversary [Bill Clinton] stayed on message, made peace in the Middle East, waved John Glenn back into orbit and watched the Dow follow close behind, as Gingrich produced an impeachment spectacle that left voters gagging, and a budget that drew the same response from his own party. By the time the routine midterm election had dissolved into a humiliating defeat Tuesday at the polls, it was suddenly Gingrich whose judgment was challenged, his party mutinous, his tenure as Speaker numbered in days. … If Clinton has always had a gift for turning weakness into opportunity, Gingrich has a gift for turning opportunity into rubble.
Exhibit A: thanks to his other spectacular fall---the one in 2012---today no one is calling him "Mr. President."
Have a tolerable Monday. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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