First Door on the Left

Congressman Murtha Dies

John Murtha

Representative John P. Murtha, the longtime Democratic congressman from Pennsylvania, has died at age 77.

His aides released a statement saying that he died shortly after 1 p.m. today at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, a suburb of Washington, D.C. Mr. Murtha had been placed in intensive care last week after complications from gallbladder surgery, his staff said then.

Mr. Murtha, who had an extremely close relationship with Speaker Nancy Pelosi, was chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on defense…

A former Marine, Mr. Murtha, his office noted, was the first Vietnam War combat Veteran elected to Congress. Throughout his years, Mr. Murtha paid particular attention to defense spending and to the Pentagon and the military.

When he called for bringing the troops home from Iraq in 2005, after having voted for the war, his proposal stunned many in Congress and added a powerful voice to the growing forces demanding immediate drawdowns and or deadlines.

Just this past Saturday, Mr. Murtha became Pennsylvania’s longest serving Member of Congress. He represented the 12th Congressional District, an area outside Pittsburgh that included the Johnstown region — where he had grown up, and that had been serious steel and coal country in the southwestern part of the state.

For his service in Vietnam, Mr. Murtha received a Bronze star and two Purple Hearts.

Our condolences to his friends and family.
 

Sarah Palin truly is the gift that just keeps on giving — to Democrats. I noticed a couple of gems from the Republican Associated Press this morning. First, this…

Palin says ‘absurd’ not to ponder presidential bid

WASHINGTON (AP) – Sarah Palin says it would be “absurd” for her not to consider running for president in 2012.

The former Alaska governor and the Republican vice presidential nominee in 2008 says she will run for president if she believes it’s right for the country and right for her family.

Palin was asked on “Fox News Sunday” if she knows more today about domestic and foreign affairs than she did two years ago. Her response: “Well, I would hope so.”

She says her focus has widened since she was governor of Alaska. Palin says she gets daily briefings by e-mail on domestic and foreign policy issues from advisers in Washington.

Palin appeared on “Fox News Sunday.” She is a paid contributor to Fox News.

So Sarah still considers herself a serious candidate for the presidency of the United States of America. Please, my Republican friends, make it so.

Also… why on earth would the former half-term governor of Alaska (a state whose entire population numbers less than the city in which I live) need to receive daily briefings on domestic and foreign policy issues from advisers in Washington? Wait a minute. Sarah has advisers in Washington? And she is receiving daily briefings on domestic and foreign policy issues from them? (Which naturally begs the question: From whom are these advisers getting their briefings?) This is now getting downright frightening.

Then there was this…

Palin: Obama could win votes by playing ‘war card’

WASHINGTON (AP) – Sarah Palin says that if President Barack Obama “played the war card,” he could improve his chances of being re-elected.

Palin says that declaring war on Iran or showing stronger support for Israel might convince voters that Obama is tougher than they think on national security and doing all he can to protect the U.S.

Otherwise, according to Palin, Obama won’t be re-elected if he continues on his current path.

Palin was interviewed on “Fox News Sunday” – the network where the former GOP vice presidential nominee is a paid commentator.

Sarah is now telling our President that the only way he is going to get reelected is if he starts another war. Remember, though, that she can see Russia from her house and she reads every newspaper and magazine currently published. And she is receiving daily briefings from her “advisers” in Washington. If she isn’t qualified to encourage our President to start another war (on top of the two we are currently fighting, thanks to George W.), why, I just don’t know who is.

The gift that just keeps on giving.

Finally, I’d like you to take a look at this photograph and tell me who is being exploited…

But enough about the beauty queen from Wasilla. You betcha.
 

President Obama braved the blizzard in Washington, D.C. this morning in order to address the Winter Meeting of the Democratic National Committee…

Now is not the time for sitting on the sidelines, or blocking progress, or pointing fingers, or assigning blame. Now is not the time to do just what’s right for your party or your poll numbers. Now is the time to do what’s right for the country. Now is the time to do what’s necessary to see us through these difficult times. Now is the time to do everything in our power to keep the American Dream alive for the next generation.

The full transcript of the speech as released by the White House follows the break.

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From the White House weblog:

In this week’s address, President Barack Obama said that America’s small businesses are key to rebuilding the economy on a new, stronger foundation and creating jobs. He called on Republicans and Democrats in Congress to pass – without delay – a series of proposals that will help American small businesses thrive. These proposals include using $30 billion in TARP funds to create a new Small Business Lending Fund to provide capital to community banks to increase lending to small businesses, offering a new tax credit for over one million small businesses that hire new workers or raise wages, and providing targeted support for the most innovative small businesses with the potential to export new goods and products.

Click below to listen to the audio only:

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The transcript of the president’s weekly address, as prepared for delivery, is available after the break.

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Click to enlarge. Use the icons that will appear at the bottom of your browser window to control a slide show. Enjoy. (We do this here every Friday at this time.)

As always, our thanks go to the talented and observant cartoonists who, each week, help us smile through the pain.

Bonus video:

Saturday additions:

Republicans are always screaming for smaller government and lower taxes. The worst president of the twentieth century and hero of the conservative movement in the United States, Ronnie Reagan, is famous for saying that “government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.”

The citizens of Colorado Springs, Colorado are just about to find out exactly how big a problem government really is…

Colorado Springs cuts into services considered basic by many

COLORADO SPRINGS — This tax-averse city is about to learn what it looks and feels like when budget cuts slash services most Americans consider part of the urban fabric.

More than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark Monday. The police helicopters are for sale on the Internet. The city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops — dozens of police and fire positions will go unfilled.

The parks department removed trash cans last week, replacing them with signs urging users to pack out their own litter.

Neighbors are encouraged to bring their own lawn mowers to local green spaces, because parks workers will mow them only once every two weeks. If that.

Water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead, brown turf by July; the flower and fertilizer budget is zero.

City recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and a handful of museums will close for good March 31 unless they find private funding to stay open. Buses no longer run on evenings and weekends. The city won’t pay for any street paving, relying instead on a regional authority that can meet only about 10 percent of the need.

What conservative Republicans do not understand (and the people of Colorado Springs are about to learn) is the meaning of community and the necessity of sound and supported government. It simply is not possible to have thousands or millions of people living in close proximity to one another and have “every man for himself.” We’ve learned this lesson before. Looks like it is time to learn it again.
 

Last week, President Obama met with House Republicans. This morning, he met with Senate Democrats. He spoke to them and then with them, just as he did with the Republicans. The meeting lasted about 75 minutes.

Complete transcript follows the break.

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The days of discrimination in the United States military are numbered…

Defense officials’ testimony urges lifting of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy

The nation’s top two defense officials expressed strong support Tuesday for President Obama’s plan to end the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and announced that a high-level Pentagon working group would immediately begin preparing for a repeal of the controversial law.

But in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the working group would take the rest of this year to review the various issues involved in a repeal and produce an “implementation plan” containing its findings and recommendations. He said this lead time was necessary “to get this right and minimize disruption to a force that is actively fighting two wars and working through the stress of almost a decade of combat.”

In the meantime, Gates said, he is directing the Defense Department to quickly review regulations implementing “don’t ask, don’t tell” and recommend changes within 45 days on ways, within existing law, to “enforce this policy in a more humane and fair manner.”

Appearing with Gates before the committee, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said repealing the policy, which requires gay service members to keep their sexual orientation secret, is “the right thing to do.” He said he was personally troubled by a policy that forces service members to “lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.” He stressed that in endorsing a repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” he was “speaking for myself and myself only.”

Gates told the committee, “I fully support the president’s decision. The question before us is not whether the military prepares to make this change, but how we best prepare for it. We have received our orders from the commander in chief, and we are moving out accordingly.”

I don’t understand why you need a year-long study to determine how to stop discriminating. Seems to me you could just decide to do it and do it.

The Republicans are, of course, opposed. That is to be expected. They’re opposed to everything these days and they have always opposed equal rights for all Americans.
 

“The moral here is that right now the GOP literally has no ideas about how the nation should actually be governed.

And the scary thing is that lack of ideas seems to be a winning platform.” — Paul Krugman, Economist and New York Times columnist.
 

President Obama discusses the budget he sent to Congress today for the fiscal year 2011…

This morning, I sent a budget to Congress for the coming year. It’s a budget that reflects the serious challenges facing the country. We’re at war. Our economy has lost 7 million jobs over the last two years. And our government is deeply in debt after what can only be described as a decade of profligacy.

The fact is, 10 years ago, we had a budget surplus of more than $200 billion, with projected surpluses stretching out toward the horizon. Yet over the course of the past 10 years, the previous administration and previous Congresses created an expensive new drug program, passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy, and funded two wars without paying for any of it -– all of which was compounded by recession and by rising health care costs. As a result, when I first walked through the door, the deficit stood at $1.3 trillion, with projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade.

If we had taken office during ordinary times, we would have started bringing down these deficits immediately. But one year ago, our country was in crisis: We were losing nearly 700,000 jobs each month, the economy was in a free fall, and the financial system was near collapse. Many feared another Great Depression. So we initiated a rescue, and that rescue was not without significant cost; it added to the deficit as well.

One year later, because of the steps we’ve taken, we’re in a very different place. But we can’t simply move beyond this crisis; we have to address the irresponsibility that led to it.

Transcript follows the break.

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