Democratic Senators unanmously agree to reform fillbuster rules

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/cloturefilings.jpg

The above chart shows the unprecedented abuse of the fillbuster rules of the Senate by the Republican minority. As long as the present rules remain in place there is little to no chance that bi-partisan agreement will be reached as the present rules allow a stubborn, inflexible, partisan minority to stop all legislative work in Washington DC.



read full article: http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.truth-out.org%2Freturning-democratic-senators-unanimously-push-for-filibuster-reform66243&h=5a440

I'm Grateful for President Obama

Pragmatic Persistent Progressive Policies are the path to cementing our position

and self identification numbers among a significant percentage of the American electorate.


Liberal/Progressive ='s 20%
Conservative ='s 40%
Moderates ='s 40%

Until we gain self identification status (we already have majority support for our policies) among a majority of Americans we remain in a vulnerable political position opposed as we are against a monolithic, unified, motivated Republican/Tea Party.

And we must not lose sight of the fact that while the under 25 vote has went our way for the last three election cycles, this demographic is VERY resistant to labels and to considering themselves as a member of one party or the other.

We must control the message and point to the record ad nauseum until the 70 year record of economic accomplishment of the Democratic Party and the utter ineptitude of the Republican Party is as ingrained in the American Public's mind as is presently the falsehood that Republicans have planted that associates the word Liberal with Socialism and failure.

ECONOMIC RECORD: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/economic-record.html
JOB CREATION RECORD: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/job-growth.html
HISTORY OF RECESSION: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/history-of-recessions.html
NATIONAL DEBT: http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/national-debt.html

We are on the right and winning side of ALL the above issues. But you would never know it listening to the media and the deeply ingrained Republican Talking Points that have entrenched themselves into the American narrative like a bloodsucking tick. Until the record is known, we will continue to swim upstream.

Results matter, when they are known.

President Obama Holds the Highest Legislative Achievement Record in 50 Years

In his first year in office, President Obama did better even than legendary arm-twister Lyndon Johnson in winning congressional votes on issues where he took a position, a Congressional Quarterly study finds.

The new CQ study gives Obama a higher mark than any other president since it began scoring presidential success rates in Congress more than five decades ago. And that was in a year where Obama tackled how to deal with Afghanistan, Iraq, an expanding terrorist threat, the economic crisis and battles over health care.

Unprecedented Success Rate

Obama has been no different from his predecessors in that he's always ready to send a firm message to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue as he "urges members of Congress" to come together and act. All presidents demand specific action by Congress — or at least they ask for it. But when you look at the votes of 2009 in which Obama made his preference clear, his success rate was unprecedented, according to John Cranford of Congressional Quarterly.

"His success was 96.7 percent on all the votes where we said he had a clear position in both the House and the Senate. That's an extraordinary number," Cranford says.

The previous high scores were held by Lyndon Johnson in 1965, with 93 percent, and Dwight Eisenhower, who scored 89 percent in 1953. Cranford notes that George W. Bush's score hit the high 80s in 2001, the year of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. But Obama surpassed them all, Cranford says.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122436116

Breakdown of Obama Tax Compromise

The breakdown:

53.1% Middle Class AMT (OBAMA)
3.3% Expensing Provision (OBAMA)
4.2% Tax credits for working families (OBAMA)
6.2% Unemployment Insurance (OBAMA)
13.2% Payroll tax holiday (OBAMA)
6.6% Regular tax extenders such as R&D credit (Bi-Partisan)
13.5% High-Income tax cuts and Lincoln-Kyl estate tax to the top 2% (GOP)

Source: Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (www.cbpp.org )

Who Benefits From The Obama Tax Cut Agreement? -Primarily The poor and middle class-

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/taxdealbenefits_blog-011%20%281%29.png

http://blackwaterdog.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/details.jpg

Public/Private Job Creation Graph 1/2008 - 9/2010, nice work President Obama

http://www.polls.newsvine.com/_vine/images/users/nws/jhnwlk/5257756.jpg

President Obama took over at the depths of the George W. Bush Great Recession and immediately stopped the stunning increase in monthly job loss and reversed the trend. We have now witnessed 10 of the last 11 month's producing positive private sector job growth.
(October and November of 2010 also showed an increase in private sector job growth which makes 12 of the last 13 month's in positive territory)

President Obama's economic policies have created more private sector jobs in less than 2 years than George W. Bush's economic policies did in 8.

Real GDP Grows For 12th Straight Quarter

One should also note that in the very first quarter that President Obama was in office, the effects of the stimulus began to reverse the free fall he inherited from George W. Bush. In the ending of George W. Bush's Great Recession, we see the same pattern repeated: Republicans cause recessions, Democrats clean them up (see History of Recessions).

It took 6 months for President Obama's economic and tax policies to return GDP to positive territory. If we as a nation want to avoid the painful recovery from the climb out of economic holes we have to quit electing those digging them.




http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/gdp_large.gif

-Sarah Palin Rips JFK's famous religion speech, saying he "seemed to want to run away" from his faith."-

in her new book, "America, by heart."

This coming from she who ran away from her commitment to the people of Alaska. The 1/2 term Alaskan Chillbilly could learn a thing or two about persistence and courage by studying the life history of John F. Kennedy.

Example: after the well known heroics of JFK on PT 109, while recuperating from serious back injuries, he volunteered to rescue stranded sailors. The stranded sailors were at an island so remote that if the mission were successful in reaching and rescuing the sailors that Kennedy's PT boat would not have enough fuel to make the trip back to base. He volunteered, rescued the sailors, and brought everyone back alive.

Dopey Dan Quayle was foolish enough to compare himself to JFK but leave it to Snarky Sarah, the vicious grifter from the land of the midnight sun, to have the gall to question the faith of JFK. If she was required to meet truth in advertising standards in this work of fiction she should have named her book, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants On Fire."

http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/2010/11/sarah-pali...

mike kohr

HOLY HYPOCRITE!
Freshman Republican Pitches A Fit When He Finds Out His Government Health Care Does Not Start Until January 2011.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/11/freshman-goper-hey-wheres-my-health-care.php?ref=fpa

Maryland physician Andy Harris (R) just soundly defeated Frank Kratovil, one of the most endangered Democrats on Capitol Hill going into the November election. And he did it in large part by railing against 'Obamacare' and pledging to repeal Health Care Reform. But when he showed on Capitol Hill today for an orientation for incoming members of Congress and their staffs, he had a different question: Where's my government health care?

According to Glenn Thrush of Politico, Harris created a stir at the orientation meeting by demanding to know why he had to wait a month after he was sworn in in January for his government-subsidized health care to kick in. After responding in a huff, he even asked if there was some way he could buy into the government care in advance, seemingly thinking there might be a government program similar to the so-called 'public option' championed by progressive Democrats in 2009.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1110/45181.html

According to an unnamed congressional staffer quoted by Thrush, Harris stood up at the meeting "and asked the two ladies who were answering questions why it had to take so long, what he would do without 28 days of health care."

During the campaign, Harris told voters, "the answer to the ever-rising cost of insurance is not the expansion of government-run or government-mandated insurance but, instead, common-sense market based solutions that ensure decisions are made by patients and their doctors."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This on the first day of orientation! It's going to be an interesting 2 years. Can't wait until they get swore in.

Republicans Set To Kill Middle Class Hostage In Their Quest To Preserve +$100,00.00 Give-A-Ways To Millionaires

As the George W. Bush tax give-a-ways to the rich are set to expire there are two proposals on the table. Republicans are unwilling to allow President Obama to give tax relief to working class people unless the deficit exploding tax give-a-ways to millionaires are preserved.

Both the Republican AND Democrat plans give tax cuts to all income brackets. But as the graphic below demonstrates the Republican plan gives massive breaks to the richest 5% of Americans. With no spending cuts to offset this give-a-way this plan will add over $700 billion to the national debt. It is this kind of Voo Doo Economics that have led to the last 3 Republican Presidents adding $9.2 trillion to the National Debt since 1981. Advocates of Trickle Down Economics have promised increased job creation and increased tax revenues, two promises that have NEVER been fulfilled (see also National Debt & Job Creation).



-double click graphic for larger image-

We Are Witnessing The Biggest One-Year Reduction In Deficit Reduction In American History

DEFICIT SHRINKS FROM LAST YEAR'S RECORD.... Deficit hawks probably won't be pleased with the total, but they should at least be pleased with the direction.

The federal government budget deficit shrank in fiscal 2010, but the big gap was only $122 billion lower than the record high set a year ago.

The U.S. spent $1.294 trillion more than it collected in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, the Treasury Department said Friday.

The deficit amounted to 8.9% of gross domestic product. That's down from fiscal 2009, when the deficit of $1.416 trillion was 10.0% of GDP.

Spending fell and revenues rose in fiscal 2010 as the economy recovered from the deep recession that contributed to the nation's troubled fiscal condition.

If this sounds familiar, it's because the Congressional Budget Office reported on its estimate of the federal budget deficit for FY2010 would just last week. Today's Treasury report is the official deficit tally, though as it turns out, the CBO projection was almost on the nose.

The $1.294 trillion shortfall is smaller than last year's total; it's slightly lower than the deficit President Obama inherited from his predecessor; and the final figure was smaller than projections made by the administration and the CBO earlier this year.

Want to have some fun? Ask your favorite Tea Partier whether the deficit they claim to care so much about is higher or lower now than when Obama took office. They won't care for the answer, but it's true.

What's more, as Stan Collender recently noted, the $122 billion improvement on the deficit "is the biggest one-year nominal drop in the deficit that has ever occurred." We probably won't see headlines blaring, "U.S. achieves biggest one-year deficit reduction in American history," but that just happens to be the case.

read full article:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_10/026151.php
by: Steve Benen

----------------------pop quiz----------------------------------------------
Which of the following will make up a majority of the deficit in the next decade?

A) Social Security
B) Medicare
C) The National Park Service
D) PBS
E) George Bush's tax cuts

Give up? The answer is E -- George Bush's tax breaks for the rich.
Of course the Debt Commission focussed all its concerns on A), B),C), and D). They would rather turn Medicare into a voucher system, surrender "fair and balanced" news reporting to Fox News, decimate the National Park System and have working Americans drop dead on the job from old age.

Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I remember.

LIES, HALF TRUTHS, AND FALSEHOODS

Last week the Bureau County Republican's Editor Teri Simon lauded the positive campaigns of Sheriff John Thompson and his challenger Bill Rosenow but warned that in-spite of their professional and admirable example there were those that wished to drag this campaign into the gutter. The last minute, full page attack ad ran against Sheriff Thompson on Thursday, in papers all across this county validated Teri’s warning.

The ad against Sheriff Thompson and the letter to the editor, trashing the service of County Board member Rick Wilkin, were timed to cast a raft of half-truths, falsehoods and scurrilous innuendo before the voting public just days before the election. It is crass and craven tactics like this that make people hate politics and discourages those willing to serve the public. But then we’ve seen this all before, coming from some of the same crowd, defenders of a past Sheriff that had turned our county into a national laughing stock. The good people of Bureau County saw through these tactics before. I am convinced they will recognize them for what they are once again.

Respectfully,
mike kohr
Bureau County Board, district 18

‎7 REPUBLICAN LIES FOR ELECTION DAY:

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first reduced that to $1.29 trillion, repeating the pattern of President Clinton's glide path to fiscal sanity.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes for 95% of Americans the lower 95% to be exact.

3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.

4) The stimulus didn't work.
Reality: The stimulus worked. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.

5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.
Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, tax cuts not so much.

6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.
Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.

7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, and is "going broke,"
Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit. But make no mistake, the Republicans and Tea Partiers will kill Social Security if given the chance, just ask George W. Bush. In his new book he lists not privatizing Social Security as his biggest dissapointment. If you think the Bush ers stock market crash was bad just think how devastating it would have been if our Social Security money was wrapped up in the stock market.

Best Campaign Ad Of 2010

Here is a link to the Best Campaign Ad of 2010

Governor Pat Quinn Rocks The House!!!!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyxUnQbVJZY

Strongest Job Recovery In Decades is Underway

9 of the last 10 recessions occurred under Republican economic policy, including todays George W. Bush’s “Great Recession,” the deepest economic downturn since Hoover’s “Great Depression” of 1929. President Obama has not only halted the staggering job loss of over 780,000 per month he inherited from George W. Bush but President Obama’s “Bubble Up Economic” policies has reached positive increase in monthly job creation with unmatched speed.

Source: Chris Isidore from CNNMoney.com

The economic pain being felt today is a result of the depth of the hole that was dug by the Republican “Trickle Down” policies of the Republican Party. The nation suffered a loss of 8.4 million, or 7% of all jobs, in George W. Bush’s “Great Recession.” This compares with a loss of 3.1% of all jobs lost during George W. Bush’s first recession of March–November of 2001, and 1.9% of all jobs lost during George H.W. Bush’s recession of July 1990-March of 1991. -The deeper the hole, the longer the climb out of it- If Americans wish to avoid the pain of recovery from recession, we need to quit electing the people digging the holes.

Payrolls May Have Climbed for Fifth Month

Employment probably grew in May for a fifth consecutive month, pointing to gains in wages that will help U.S. households ride out the turmoil in financial markets, economists said before reports this week. Payrolls may have climbed by 508,000 workers last month, the biggest increase since 1997, according to the median estimate of 64 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. The gain reflected a surge in government hiring of temporary help to conduct the census and a 180,000 rise in private employment, according to the survey. Other reports may show the economic rebound is broadening beyond manufacturing as service providers, including retailers and construction firms, see a pickup in demand. General Electric Co. is among companies hiring, saying the European debt crisis is unlikely to derail the recovery from the worst global recession in the post-World War II era. “The labor market is clearly improving,” said James O’Sullivan, global chief economist at MF Global Ltd. in New York. “At this point, there’s enough momentum in the economy to outweigh the drag from the turmoil in Europe.” Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=alc...




i260.photobucket.com
i260.photobucket.com

WHY DO REPUBLICAN ECONOMIC PRINCIPLES EXPAND THE NATIONAL DEBT?
-The answer is simple mathematics. Reduced revenue + increased spending ='s increased debt-
The two biggest promises of "Trickle Down Economics" are it's greatest failings. Proponents of "Trickle Down Economics” claim that tax cuts, skewed to the rich, will create jobs and increase tax revenues. The graph above disproves the latter claim. Job creation plummets under "Trickle Down Economics (http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/job-growth.html )and nine of the last ten recessions have occurred under Republican leadership ( http://bureaucountydems.blogspot.com/p/history-of-recessions.html ).

Two things are certain to grow when a Republican is in the White House, unemployment and the National Debt.

By contrast, "Bubble Up" economnic priciples practiced by Democratic Administrations put people to work, rev up the economy, and balance the Nation's ledger books. Every time. No exceptions.