While I have been disappointed by the direction of this Administration one thing remains true. When they took office our country was disasterously close to a Great Depression. A Depression wrought by the irresponsible policies of greed enacted during the Bush years of being rubber-stamped by an uncaring Republican Congress. While I personally feel the stimulus did go far enough, the Looney Tunes on the right are now deeming the whole bill a failure. Yes, talking heads like Glenn Beck may bark like a dog, but the facts show they are just licking their own butts.
Today President Obama came up with a proposal to create jobs and deal with his Achilles heel among Republicans, unemployment. Of course these same hypocritical Republicans seem to forget it was their policies and President that caused the hemmoraging of jobs in the first place, and America has a short memory.
You know, a while ago I wrote this diary about my Congressman, Exxon Ed Whitfield wanting it both ways. While he voted against the stimulus and Kentucky getting any funds, he wanted to whine about how many funds we were getting.
First before writing anything about this I would just like to apolegize to the whole Enlightened world for the prescense of Mitch McConnell in American government. As a Kentuckian I feel nothing but shame and humiliation that this elitist, out of touch, slave for the Chinese Communists and Corporate America is my Senator. In fact, nothing he does surprises me anymore my eyebrows actually raised when I saw this.
Democrats and particularly President Obama have been taking a lot of heat over the stimulus bill. Now, a lot of people that complain about the stimulus so loudly try to attribute the TARP bailout somehow to Obama too. Despite the fact that Obama was not President when the economy crashed and the banks were bailed out suddenly it is all his doing.
Exxon Ed Whitfield has a new video up of him requesting aid for those businesses that have been adversly affected by the lowering of water levels on Lake Cumberland because of the damage to Wolf Creek Dam. Follow after the fold for the vid and some thoughts about it.
We strive to be, if anything, a participatory space around here, and I’ve had a question come to my inbox that is very much deserving of our attention.
To make a long story short, our questioner wants to know why, on the one hand, despite the passage of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, also known as the “stimulus”), unemployment in the construction industry continues to increase, and, on the other hand, why there is such a giant disparity, on a state-by-state basis, in the cost of saving a job?
They’re great questions, and, having done a bit of research, I think I have some cogent answers.
Newt Gingrich seems to be suffering from a mass ailment among Repubicans, Tea-baggers, and Conservatives. It is called Mass Selective Amnesia, or MSA. Yes, with all their bluster and BS they have concurred a very bad case of MSA. It is usually caused by talking about the problems that have beset our country, including the economy and the huge unemployment numbers, but also occurs when talking about debt and deficits.
Although we still have quite a way to go, indicators in the last month or so are showing that our economy is slowly and sluggishly bouncing back. It may take a while longer yet for more ordinary Americans to feel it but the markets have bounced back from the Republican recession of 2008-2009. Today, the news is out that existing home sales have posted their highest gain in two years, since well before Obama took office.
All over the country right-wing folks have made a special effort to make it to various townhalls to protest- and make sure that anyone with positive things to say about the healthcare bill do not get heard. These folks are angry about many things, from what they percieve as a "government take-over" of healthcare, to the debt and deficits they see as being caused by Barack Obama, and most ridiculously to their parents and grandparents being put before Obama's "death panels" whose sole purpose they believe is to murder the elderly and sick children who are not worth the cost to keep alive.
Today, another sign came across the board that the economic crisis is abating. Long touted as a way to attack the stimulus by every right-wing radio hatemonger and politician the unemployment numbers will depress many on the other side of the aisle. Glenn Beck will cry. Rush Limbaugh will call the press Nazis. However, they did not get the 10% unemployment they were dreaming of.
Man, sometimes you really have to wonder just what planet Mitch McConnell and his ilk in the Republican Party are from. It seems to be some wild fusion of Alice's "wonderland" and Hitler's Germany. Mitch McConnell as a "leader" in his party has shown time and time again that he simply does not care about the fate of his country. His only obligation is to make himself and his handlers who have propped him up and made him rich more and more money, and to hell with everyone else. The man simply cannot be as stupid as he sounds, so one must that he really does not care about anything but protecting powerful interests.
You know, since the stimulus a funny thing has been happening. The very Republicans who dreamed up and enabled the very policies that crashed our economy off a cliff have been the ones the most critical of the efforts to fix it. Of course, in the sick twisted mind of the Republican a bailout for the bankers was perfectly justified, but the rest of us not so much.
Listening to Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi definately brings out a contrast in leadership. While Ms. Pelosi as Speaker of the House is trying in difficult situations to clean up a huge mess left behind by failed Republican Rule during the Bush years, and all Mitch McConnell can do is blame someone else for the problems he himself and his greedy, visionless party have created.
The current Republican hypocrisy on the Economy is simply mind-boggling. Foremost among a myriad of hypocrites in John Boehner, who is speaking on what he sees as the Democratic failure to rescue the economy. What he is not speaking on is the fact that were it not for his party's "leadership" and rubber-stamping the failed policies of the Worst President in American History, the economy would not need rescuing.
Today Americans learned what the total price of giving total control of our government to Republicans may be. While there is much self-righteousness and gnashing of teeth among Republicans now, the real unavoidable fact is it was Republican policies, enacted by Republicans during the six years of a Republican Congress with just enough Corporate Democrats and a Republican President that could and did do real, lasting damage.
The hypocrisy of the Republican Party seemingly knows no bounds. In the latest example, Senator John Kyl of Arizona would seek to cost his constituents hundreds of millions of dollars. Why?? Because he wants to attack President Obama about the Economic Stimulus his own rubber-stamping of the Bush Administration helped cause.
What is the best thing to do when your party rubber-stamped the failed policies of it's own failed President and collapsed the economy?? Lie and propogandize voters about it of course. Republicans in Congress while passing the de-regulation, and spend and spend policies that crashed our economy while they controlled the Congress and White House now smell blood in the water over jobs. Jobs they themselves eliminated.
You know, much adeu has been made of comedian Al Franken joining the Senate. Well, it comes to find out he is not the only jokester in this Congress. John Boehner's comments today are not only a joke, but they reek of serious amnesia. Maybe during the pounding his narrow-minded, visionless party took last year he could have taken a shot to the head or something.
All over the nation we just witnesses many tea parties. Tea meaning, Taxed Enough Already. In my own hometown of Paducah, Ky we witnessed one such spectacle. In the end we must ask ourselves just what did this really prove? These protests on spending and running up debt. Did all this fire and anger not spread up a little too late??
