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History was made at the Grammy Awards tonight…
No amount of right wing hatred will erase what was accomplished this night.
SNL’s depiction of the last Republican “presidential” debate is a must see. In case you missed it…
Difficult to distinguish this from the real thing. Am I not right?
Medal of Honor for Staff Sergeant Salvatore Giunta…
In need of something to occupy your mind on a quiet Saturday afternoon? Try this:
Not satisfied with U.S. history, some conservatives are rewriting it.
In articles and speeches, on radio and TV, conservatives are working to redefine major turning points and influential figures in American history, often to slam liberals, promote Republicans and reinforce their positions in today’s politics.
The Jamestown settlers? Socialists. Founding Father Alexander Hamilton? Ill-informed professors made up all that bunk about him advocating a strong central government.
Theodore Roosevelt? Another socialist. Franklin D. Roosevelt? Not only did he not end the Great Depression, he also created it.
Joe McCarthy? Liberals lied about him. He was a hero.
Recommended. Click the link.
Tomorrow we remember Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal offices and banks will be closed.
President Obama visited the Vermont Avenue Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. today. Our president has given us several great speeches during his campaign and his young administration, but I think this one will probably be remembered as one of his best.
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The transcript of the president’s address is available after the break.
The Republicans are working very hard to rewrite history. It is good for the American people to be reminded from time to time what really happened. It truly is amazing how quickly many are to forget. David Axelrod, senior adviser to President Obama, takes right wing revisionist Karl Rove to task in a column in today’s Washington Post…
What Karl Rove got wrong on the U.S. deficit
For its Topic A feature last Sunday, The Post invited a panel of political operatives to offer their advice to the Democratic Party on strategy for 2010 [Sunday Opinion, Jan. 10]. Improbably, one of the operatives asked was Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s longtime chief strategist.
Rove has some impressive campaign victories to his credit. But given the shape in which the last administration left this country, I’m not sure I would solicit his advice. And given the backhanded advice he offered, I’m not sure he was all that eager to help.
Of all the claims Rove made, one in particular caught my eye for its sheer audacity and shamelessness — that congressional Democrats “will run up more debt by October than Bush did in eight years.”
So, let’s review a little history:
The day the Bush administration took over from President Bill Clinton in 2001, America enjoyed a $236 billion budget surplus — with a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion. When the Bush administration left office, it handed President Obama a $1.3 trillion deficit — and projected shortfalls of $8 trillion for the next decade. During eight years in office, the Bush administration passed two major tax cuts skewed to the wealthiest Americans, enacted a costly Medicare prescription-drug benefit and waged two wars, without paying for any of it.
To put the breathtaking scope of this irresponsibility in perspective, the Bush administration’s swing from surpluses to deficits added more debt in its eight years than all the previous administrations in the history of our republic combined. And its spending spree is the unwelcome gift that keeps on giving: Going forward, these unpaid-for policies will continue to add trillions to our deficit.
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Why do Republicans hate America?
C-SPAN recently asked 65 “historians or professional observers of the presidency” to rank 42 holders of that office based upon ten leadership characteristics. (C-SPAN 2009 Historians Presidential Leadership Survey)
The top five were Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Theodore Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman. John F. Kennedy came in at number six and William J. Clinton at number fifteen.
The real surprise was number 36: George W. Bush. In the collective opinion of these 65 historians, there were six presidents who ranked below George W. Bush. (Mr. Bush did rank 40th in Economic Management and 41st in International Relations.)
In the words of one of the right wing bloggers I read this morning: Let’s get some perspective here! I mean, come on. How can anyone possibly believe that the United States has had the misfortune of having six presidents worse than George W. Bush? I’m sorry, but that is just not within the realm of possibly.
It just isn’t.