President Obama at daily White House press
briefing

Earlier today, President Obama made a surprise appearance at the daily White House press briefing. (Watch it and read the full transcript on DKTV or view it at the bottom of this post.)

Here's a brief summary of some of the major topics he covered:

Bipartisanship: During the briefing, President Obama offered his wholehearted embrace of bipartisanship, but before you go jump off a cliff, he made it clear that to him bipartisanship doesn't mean caving into Republican demands on every single issue. President Obama said bipartisanship meant finding common ground where possible, and not letting petty partisan politics get in the way of progress on important issues. He acknowledged that both parties won't always agree on substantive policy issues, and he said that was a healthy thing, but came down hard against politically motivated obstruction such as the abuse of "holds" on his administration's appointees. "I won’t hesitate to embrace a good idea from my friends in the minority party, but I also won’t hesitate to condemn what I consider to be obstinacy that’s rooted not in substantive disagreements but in political expedience," he said. "We talked about this as well, particularly when it comes to the confirmation process."

Recess appointments: President Obama condemned the abuse of "holds" on White House nominations, singling out Shelby's "blanket hold." President Obama criticized such practices as petty politics and said they were getting in the way of governing. If the practice does not cease, he said he would be forced to use so-called recess appointments to get around Senate obstructionism. "If the Senate does not act — and I made this very clear — if the Senate does not act to confirm these nominees, I will consider making several recess appointments during the upcoming recess, because we can’t afford to allow politics to stand in the way of a well-functioning government."

Deficits: President Obama continued his focus on reducing the budget deficit, but instead of buying into the Republican framework on "cutting spending," he emphatically pointed to the biggest long-term structural budget problem: health care. "Everybody out there who talks about deficits has to acknowledge that the single biggest driver of our deficits is health care spending," he said. "We cannot deal with our deficits and debt long term unless we get a handle on that. So that has to be part of a package."

Health care reform: President Obama said he remained committed to seeing health care reform pass into law, outlining his three key goals: (1) Reduce costs, both for government programs and families and business; (2) Provide consumer protections so that nobody can be denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition; and (3) expanding coverage to insure more Americans. Obama said he was willing to "start from scratch" in the sense that he would once again give Republicans the opportunity to offer proposals to accomplish those goals, but that without a serious plan to accomplish the goals of health care reform, Republicans would effectively be choosing to stand on the sidelines. "What I will not do, what I don’t think makes sense and I don’t think the American people want to see," he said, "would be another year of partisan wrangling around these issues; another six months or eight months or nine months worth of hearings in every single committee in the House and the Senate in which there’s a lot of posturing."

Watch the briefing (transcript):

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Today's Second Health Care Moment: A Complete
Oddity

It's like an alien land here. If you live in the northeast, or any place else that gets a fair amount of snow, you will be familiar with the words "flashing" "ice dam" "cascading ice gutters" and you'll be familiar with what my local world, and the past few days, involve....DC is closed for the week, including all of Congress. Here in the Philadelphia region we received the second largest snowfall on record, and we are expecting an additional 12 to 18 inches tonight. There is not a good place to put it, and not all the region is dug out from the weekend.

So having returned from a day of chipping, re-organizing snow piles, and calculating the approximate strength of the roof trusses relative to the snow stuck behind the chimney 30 feet up, I feel I've done everything I can so that my house will withstand one more blizzard onslaught. Maybe not, but I've done the best any vertically-challenged person can. 

So I sit down with my cup of great Keurig coffee and see something in my inbox I would never in my wildest dreams believed I would. The subject line read:

Republicans for Single Payer

I am not making this up. 

Tag line:

Single-Payer is a Conservative Value

Again, I am not making this up, you can view their site here.

If you look at their site, and you're familiar with Single Payer, you won't see anything new in terms of the reasons for implementation, nor the sources cited, except for the parts about Republican support. 

Gee, maybe there is a place for bipartisanship. 

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Steve Doocy, Gretchen Carlson, and Republican
Rerouting on the Healthcare Summit

BUZZFLASH NEWS ALERT
by Jeffrey Joseph

As President Obama prepared to watch the Super Bowl over the weekend, he presented a challenge to GOP leadership to meet with him on the subject of healthcare reform. Hoping that he was just posturing, FOX's Gretchen Carlson and Steve Doocy responded by maligning the president's efforts thus far in a preemptive attempt to undercut any potential summit.

Discussing the GOP approach to the bipartisan effort, Steve Doocy mentioned that Reps. John Boehner and Eric Cantor have already expressed a lack of interest in the healthcare reform process unless the president concedes to "start over." Rather tellingly, the FOX chyron briefly read "PRE-SUMMIT POSITIONING," which described the GOP predisposition toward circumventing any ideas but their own quite aptly. Yet while identifying a need to participate in some way in the meeting lest the "party of no" criticism rang too true, Carlson went on to say, "I understand that the Republicans want to start over and start from scratch because they were basically sidelined through the whole discussion initially."

read more

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So, if you want to follow the blog itself, then subscribe to the blog feeds. If you want to see what Joe and I are personally tweeting, including retweets of your favorite bloggers and others around the Netroots and beyond, follow our personal feeds, which personally I find a lot more fun. We only tweet a small amount of our own blog posts in our personal feeds, so best to subscribe to all.

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Rep. Deal says he’s not questioning
Obama’s ‘legitimacy’ while asking for his birth certificate.

While most right-wing public officials do not endorse the “birther” theory that President Obama was secretly born in Kenya, a handful of conservative leaders continue to demand that Obama release his long-form birth certificate, throwing fuel on the conspiracy fires. One such official is Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA), who is also running for governor of the state of Georgia. At a recent event hosted by the Georgia Christian Alliance, Deal was asked about his letter to the President asking him for his birth certificate. The congressman responded that while he’s “not questioning” the president’s “legitimacy to serve,” he still wants Obama to show his birth certificate:

DEAL: Well, I think it is a communication that, uh, deserves at least his response, first of all, which we have not received. But in essence what I have told him is this. When I am asked by opponents or constituents hard questions, I don’t shy away from those questions. I try to answer those questions. If I don’t have the information to answer hard questions, I have to go to people who have the answers. What I have asked him to do is tell me where I can ask my constituents to go to see authentic documentation that he says satisfy their curiosity … I know some folks will try to label this as ‘politically incorrect.’ Let me tell you something, political correctness is paralyzing our society. These kinds of things deserve straightforward responses. I think this ought to be put to rest. I’m not questioning his legitimacy to serve as President. I would think he’d like to clear this up in as unequivocal fashion as possible. That’s all I’m asking him to do.

Watch it:

video details and more

Georgia bloggers on the left and right who are fed up with Deal’s pandering to conspiracy theorists have started their own campaign to demand that Deal show his constituents his birth certificate (they are calling themselves the “proofers“). Georgia Liberal writes, “We have asked him, his Congressional Office, and his Campaign for proof that he is a resident of the state and meets the qualifications to be Governor … And still nothing. … Georgia Liberal does not shy away from the ‘hard questions.’”

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EXCLUSIVE: Sarah Palin's debut as a motivational
speaker: Houston attendees rate her a 'Fail'

After her Tea Party Convention speech this weekend, Sarah Palin flew to Houston to continue campaigning for herself. The news focused on her appearance at a Rick Perry rally, but Palin also appeared at another event in Houston: a "motivational seminar" at the Toyota Center at which she was the featured attraction.

As Richard Connelly reported:

The other event here was the motivational seminar at Toyota Center. The event seemed to be grossly oversold (Tickets were just $19 for entire office staffs to attend), perhaps because organizers thought people would only attend parts of the all-day event.

But no one told attendees that Palin would be speaking at 8 a.m., so bitterly disappointed fans standing in line at 10:30 a.m. weren't happy.

Palin presumably was, having pocketed her fee for a 30-minute speech.

C&L had one of its friends at the seminar: Josef Jarod is a reporter in Houston, Texas with a background that includes work for Fox and CBS News. He presently is on a "mystery" assignment in the Bayou City.

Here's Jarod's report:

"I wasn't motivated" one man said to me in the elevator as I left the speech, "she sounded un-prepared and erratic and focused an awful lot on her script."

It was 9:30 AM, and Just half an hour earlier Sarah Palin had wrapped up a "motivational" speech about "achievement" at the Toyota Center in downtown Houston. Though Palin was to be the headliner of the all day business seminar which featured a dozen other speakers like General Colin Powell and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. She was the first to perform.

"I was also kind of amazed that they let her go first, I mean, we weren't even all seated yet when she started." Palin started her speech at 8:00 AM sharp, she was the first person out of the gates - there wasn't even a Master of Ceremonies. And given the fact that morning rush hour in Houston was exceptionally bad today, it meant there were going to be a lot of unhappy ticket holders(particularly as some paid as much as two hundred dollars.)

"She already gave her speech?!" One man exclaimed in the lobby after arriving minutes too late, "What the hell, I was stuck in traffic... why wouldn't they save the best for last?!" Several elderly women with Palin lapel pins who were trying desperately to hurry through security were also distraught when they heard the news, "Ohhh Noooooo! Nooooo!"

Sarah Palin had another engagement in California later in the afternoon and didn't have a minute to waste. The speech itself seemed more like a sermon, Sarah frequently attributed "God" and "Jesus Christ" to lifting her out of despair. She gave several long rambling examples of tough times in Alaska, during which she would occasionally lose her footing and immediately jump to praising the state for it's beauty.

She also focused heavily on her trade mark lines as a crutch. During one incredulous example of a way to get motivated describing a bed time fairy-tale she told to her daughter: "Last night Piper asked me to tell her a bedtime story and I said 'YOU BETCHA,' let me tell you about two brothers named Abel and Cain..."

The crowd was made up mostly of office-workers who opted to come to an "all day business seminar" instead of sitting in their cubicle and so the fanfare was minimal. As I gazed around the audience from my VIP seat - just feet away from the stage - I had the impression that most of those sitting near me were insulted. Sarah Palin was clearly still in campaign mode, but this wasn't a crowd looking for a stump speech.

She ended by spending several minutes with her head down reading from the podium and gave a very abrupt and final "God Bless America" before departing the stage. As she left one man with a thick country drawl leaned over to me and said "you know, she's not that impressive in person."

She's not that impressive on TV, either.

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John Brennan keeps it short, sweet and concise.
So even retarded republicans can understand.

I will say this with confidence - this White House is not going to get Cartered. They are not taking accusations of weakness in stride and just ignoring them.

Instead, they are pushing back with vigor and swinging a vorpal sword as they do so. Senior counterterrorism advisor John Brennan did a fine job of smashing the stupid back over the net on the Sunday chat-shows, and then this morning he has an op-ed in USA today, debunking the silly right-wing meme that this administration is somehow soft and clueless when it comes to battling terrorism, and citing the attempted Christmas day terrorism as somehow 'evidence' of their premise.

Brennan is not amused.

Immediately after the failed Christmas Day attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was thoroughly interrogated and provided important information. Senior counterterrorism officials from the White House, the intelligence community and the military were all actively discussing this case before he was Mirandized and supported the decision to charge him in criminal court.

The most important breakthrough occurred after Abdulmutallab was read his rights, a long-standing FBI policy that was reaffirmed under Michael Mukasey, President Bush's attorney general. The critics who want the FBI to ignore this long-established practice also ignore the lessons we have learned in waging this war: Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one's determination to resist cooperation.

It's naive to think that transferring Abdulmutallab to military custody would have caused an outpouring of information. There is little difference between military and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform. The suspect gets access to a lawyer, and interrogation rules are nearly identical.

He points out the nearly-identical circumstances between the Richard Reid "Shoe Bomber" case that drew no ire from the republicans then. He also points out that the shrieking of right-wing reactionaries that it is outrageous he is not being held and tried in a military court are baseless in fact.

The criminal justice system has tried and convicted 319 terror suspects.  

Military tribunals have convicted...three.

Then he opens his jacket and shows them the butt of his gun. "This administration's efforts have disrupted dozens of terrorist plots against the homeland and been responsible for killing and capturing hundreds of hard-core terrorists, including senior leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond - far more than in 2008. We need no lectures about the fact that this nation is at war."  [emphasis added]

I just wish he had added "by chickenshits like Mitch McConnell and draft-dodgers like Dick Cheney or that stupid bitch daughter of his."

But that's me, and that's why I could never be elected to anything, not even to pick up lunch.

And he finishes by mocking them for being pants-pissing cowards when it serves them politically. "Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. They will, however, be dismantled and destroyed, by our military, our intelligence services and our law enforcement community. And the notion that America's counterterrorism professionals and America's system of justice are unable to handle these murderous miscreants is absurd."

It won't hurt my feelings any if he lets the entire fucking cabinet off their leashes to attack the fuckers on every front where they are obstructing and vulnerable and everyone of them comes out swinging a vorpal sword. Let the heads of those who obstruct begin to roll.  


Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheyGaveUsARepublic-FrontPage/~3/nc2ddelc9kk/john-
brennan-keeps-it-short-sweet-and-concise-so-even-retards-and-republicans-can-understand

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Afternoon Edition

Afternoon Edition is an Open ThreadFrom Yahoo News Top Stories1 U.S. missionary in Haiti says trusts God to free herBy Joseph Guyler Delva, ReutersMon Feb 8, 5:31 pm ETPORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - A Haitian judge made no decision at a hearing on Monday[...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Docudharma/~3/zWzM2n4HG6c/afternoon-edition

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What Tea Partiers See-- and What They Don't

I don't see why Tea Party Patriots in Nashville paid Sarah Palin $100,000 for a keynote last week when, for no more than the love of country, they could have honored me, a living witness to the Boston Tea Party of December 16,1973.

I would have told them how I stood boldly that day on Boston's old Congress Street Bridge as the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission and Boston 200, a consortium of corporations including the Salada Tea Company, sent costumed National Guardsmen to dump imitation tea chests from a replica of the Beaver, one of three ships that colonial rebels had relieved of their cargo 200 years before.

The chests of 1973 were empty, but demonstrators organized by a "People's Bicentennial Commission" offset the lavish unreality of it all by dumping metal drums from the Beaver to protest big oil companies' complicity in the fuel crisis of that year, whose long gas-station lines I also joined, albeit involuntarily.

That counter-demonstration was choreographed, too. But so, actually, was the original one. And, honestly, now, who was closer in spirit of the tea partiers of 1773 -- the costumed guardsmen and the salespeople at Salada's on-site exhibit and gift shop that day, or the counter-demonstrators? I think that today's Tea Partiers know the answer, but that they talk about only half of it.

As Gordon Wood, the great historian of the American Revolution (he's mentioned by Matt Damon in "Good Will Hunting") told me this week, the original Tea Party was a rebellion not just against a tax but against government favoritism for a global corporation it considered too big to fail.

With 17 million pounds of unsold tea languishing in the East India Company's warehouses as other merchants' teas glutted the market, there were rumors that the British government might even revoke the company's charter and take over its management.

Instead, Parliament granted the company an exclusive license to sell tea; removed all duties; forfeited an annual payment the company had made to the government; and advanced a large loan.

Sound familiar? At least all these favors lowered the price of tea, underselling as well as barring Dutch tea smugglers and American tea merchants. "Poor Lord North [King George III's prime minister] thought he was doing the colonists a favor" by saving the company from bankruptcy and giving it a monopoly in America, Wood explains.

A modest tea tax remained, offending colonists' stand against taxation without representation. But Wood -- crediting Benjamin Woods Labaree, the authority on the Boston Tea Party -- notes that "Giving the monopoly was probably more important in arousing the anger of many small New England merchants than the tea tax."

Moreover, the few locals who were licensed to carry the company's tea included relatives of Massachusetts' royal governor, Thomas Hutchinson, who ordered ships not to accommodate populist pressure by leaving the harbor without unloading their tea.

"Samuel Adams and his radicals were looking for an issue to exploit," Wood notes, and Hutchinson's nepotism gave them and local merchants the hot button they needed to turn out the men who actually stormed the ships and dumped the tea.

Forgive me for asking, but had I been given the podium at Nashville instead of Sarah Palin, could I have admonished today's Tea Partiers to dump medicines sold by Big Pharma under the big Bush Administration prescription drug benefit plan that bars its providers from buying cheaper generic drugs in Canada?

Sure, that's awfully radical. Samuel Adams was too radical for his cousin John Adams, until the Tea Party made John exult, "This is the most magnificent movement of all. This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, ... and it must have so important consequences, and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as an epoch in history."

Will today's Tea Partiers give us a new epoch of independence? Trolling the Tea Party Patriots' website, I do find scathing mentions of oil companies, bankers, Big Pharma, and their lobbyists - but mostly in comments posted by wonderfully sincere, impassioned citizens.

Do they have a Sam Adams in Sarah Palin? Is there a John Adams among their cheerleaders at Rupert Murdoch's global News Corporation?

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What Tea Partiers Do -- and What They Should Do

I don't see why Tea Party Patriots in Nashville paid Sarah Palin $100,000 for a keynote last week when, for no more than the love of country, they could have honored me, a living witness to the Boston Tea Party of December 16, 1973.

I would have told them how I stood boldly that day on Boston's old Congress Street Bridge as the American Revolution Bicentennial Commission and Boston 200, a consortium of corporations including the Salada Tea Company, sent costumed National Guardsmen to dump imitation tea chests from a replica of the Beaver, one of three ships that colonial rebels had relieved of their cargo 200 years before.

The chests of 1973 were empty, but demonstrators organized by a "People's Bicentennial Commission" offset the lavish unreality of it all by dumping metal drums from the Beaver to protest big oil companies' complicity in the fuel crisis of that year, whose long gas-station lines I also joined, albeit involuntarily.

That counter-demonstration was choreographed, too. But honestly, now, who was closer in spirit of the tea partiers of 1773 -- the costumed guardsmen and sales staff at Salada's on-site exhibit and gift shop that day, or the counter-demonstrators? I think that today's Tea Partiers know the answer, but that they talk about only half of it.

As Gordon Wood, the great historian of the American Revolution (he's mentioned by Matt Damon in "Good Will Hunting") told me this week, the original Tea Party was a rebellion not just against a tax but against government favoritism for a global corporation it considered too big to fail.

With 17 million pounds of unsold tea languishing in the East India Company's warehouses as other merchants' teas glutted the market, there were rumors that the British government might even revoke the company's charter and take over its management.

Instead, Parliament granted the company an exclusive license to sell tea; removed all duties; forfeited an annual payment the company had made to the government; and advanced a large loan.

Sound familiar? In 1773, though, all these favors actually lowered the price of tea, underselling as well as excluding Dutch tea smugglers and American tea merchants. No wonder that "Poor Lord North [King George III's prime minister] thought he was doing the colonists a favor" by saving the company from bankruptcy and giving it a monopoly in America, as Wood explains.

A modest tea tax remained, offending colonists' stand against taxation without representation. But Wood -- crediting Benjamin Woods Labaree, the authority on the Boston Tea Party -- notes that "Giving the monopoly was probably more important in arousing the anger of many small New England merchants than the tea tax."

Moreover, the few locals who were licensed to carry the company's tea included relatives of Massachusetts' royal governor, Thomas Hutchinson, who ordered ships not to accommodate populist pressure by leaving the harbor without first unloading their tea.

"Samuel Adams and his radicals were looking for an issue to exploit," Wood notes, and Hutchinson's nepotism gave them and local merchants the hot button they needed to turn out the men who actually stormed the ships and dumped the tea.

Forgive me for asking, but had I, and not Sarah Palin, been given the podium at Nashville, could I have admonished today's Tea Partiers to dump some of the medicines that are being sold by Big Pharma under the big Bush Administration prescription drug benefit plan, which bars its providers from buying cheaper generic drugs in Canada?

I know that that's awfully radical. But Samuel Adams was too radical for his cousin John Adams, until the Tea Party made John exult, "This is the most magnificent movement of all. This destruction of the tea is so bold, so daring, ... and it must have so important consequences, and so lasting, that I cannot but consider it as an epoch in history."

Will today's Tea Partiers give us a new epoch of independence? Trolling the Tea Party Patriots' website, I do find scathing mentions of oil companies, bankers, Big Pharma, and their lobbyists - mostly in comments posted by wonderfully sincere, impassioned citizens.

But is Sarah Palin their Sam Adams? Is there a John Adams among the tea partiers' cheerleaders at Rupert Murdoch's global News Corporation? Tea Partiers protest rightly that our government is coddling incompetent and dishonest corporations with taxpayers' money. But will they take direct action against these incompetent and dishonest corporations' control of government? Or will they just wear revolutionary-era costumes?

Addendum: I see that my challenge has also just been posed well by The Nation in an editorial, "Tea Party Hypocrisy." Let's see whether and how the tea partiers answer any of us who are challenging them to show what they're really made of.

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