PushBack Politics - Live Political Blog
Old Man John McCain the most bitter politician ever. See him attacking NBC Host David Gregory, VIDEO
Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) levied a series of wild accuastions Sunday morning when discussing the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi last September, accusing the Obama Administration of perpetrating a “massive coverup” and NBC’s David Gregory of not caring about the death of American diplomats.
McCain’s outburst came after Gregory asked McCain what, exactly, the Administration was covering up. Taking umbrage at Gregory’s skepticism, the Arizona senator grew confrontational:
MCCAIN: We have had a massive coverup on the part of the administration.
GREGORY: I’m asking you, a coverup of what?
MCCAIN: I’m asking YOU, do you care whether four Americans died? The reasons for that? And shouldn’t people be held accountable for the fact that four americans died — including a very dear man?
GREGORY: You said there is a coverup. A coverup of what?
MCCAIN: Of the information concerning the deaths of four brave Americans.
Watch it:
Teddy Turner takes on Ted Turner in S.C. House race
It’s not easy running for Congress in conservative South Carolina when you’re liberal media mogul Ted Turner’s kid.
Just ask his son Teddy.
He’s been trashing his dad every chance he gets to show voters of the 1st Congressional District he’s not some tree-hugging lefty — or worse yet, Jane Fonda’s son.
Turner the candidate is anti-tax, opposes same-sex marriage and questions whether global warming is real. In other words, everything his billionaire father is not.
“Yes, I’m Teddy Turner. You can’t pick your parents,” he introduced himself to a Republican gathering at Hilton Head Island recently, acknowledging up front what everyone in the room was thinking.
The same day in Beaufort, Turner joked about nightmarish Thanksgiving get-togethers and called out his father for his liberal environmental views — tweaking him as a hypocrite who drives a green car only to hopscotch around the country on his CO2-spewing private plane.
“I’m like, ‘Dad, you can’t drive the Prius to the jet,” Turner said.
And in an interview with Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, Turner joked that his father’s “take is that he owns a lot of trees so his carbon footprint is pretty limited.”
Turner says his relationship with his father is actually warm; any rancor between them is pretty much limited to politics. After his son ribbed him on Fox News, Ted Turner sent Teddy a note. “I saw your interview with Bill O’Reilly on Fox,” it read, “and I thought you did a great job! I’m really proud of you, and I hope you win. Best of luck. Love, Dad.”
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Hillary Clinton to speaking circuit
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will start giving paid speeches later this year, POLITICO’s Playbook reported exclusively on Monday.
Clinton, who has picked the Harry Walker Agency to represent her, is likely to start the paid speaking circuit in the spring and is expected to rake in fees that clock in at the six figure range — making her among the best-paid speakers “in the history of the circuit,” POLITICO’s Mike Allen reported.
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Israel To Award Obama Prestigious Medal In Visit
Israel will award President Barack Obama the country’s Presidential Medal of Distinction during his upcoming visit.
Israeli President Shimon Peres’ office said Monday that Obama will be recognized for his “unique and significant contribution to strengthening the State of Israel and the security of its citizens.”
Obama is scheduled to visit Israel in March – his first as president.
Obama has often had a tense relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the Jewish state’s West Bank settlement policies and the lack of peace process with the Palestinians.
Source: Associated Press
Thanks to ‘Lincoln,’ Mississippi Has Finally Definitely Ratified the Thirteenth Amendment
A middle-aged recent immigrant from India recently set into motion a series of events that eventually led to Mississippi finally retifying the Constitutional amendment banning slavery. The rousing finale of the movie Lincoln served as inspiration. It sounds like a joke, but it’s true. And even though it’s been nearly 150 years since that fateful day in the Capitol in 1864, Mississippi’s becoming the final state to officially ratify the Thirteenth Amendment serves as the final punctuation mark on a dark chapter in American history.
The circumstances for Dr. Ranjan Batra almost inadvertently inserting herself into Mississippi state history are accidental at best. After seeing Lincoln in theaters last November, he went home and did a little bit of Internet research only to discover the Mississippi never got around to actually ratifying the amendement. The state did vote to ratify the amendment back in 1995, nearly 20 years after Kentucky, the second-to-last state to ratify the amendment, held its vote. However, through an apparent clerical error, Mississippi never officially notified the United States Archivist of the ratification, meaning that they’ve officially been on the side of slavery for a century-and-a-half. (That sounds kind of sensational when you put it like that, but heck, you’d think the state would double check on an issue as big as this.) Batra and his friend Ken Sullivan reported the mistake up the chain of command, and this month, Mississippi finally sent in the paperwork to complete its belated ratification of the Thirteen Amendment.
In a funny way, Batra’s adventure fact-checking his state history is the opposite of what Connecticut congressman Joe Courtney’s fact-checking the movie. Courtney recently noticed that the movie showed a pair of Connecticut congressmen voting against the amendment, an unthinkable thing for a staunchly abolitionist state like Connecticut. Now, the congressman is wrestling with Steven Spielberg and the studio in an attempt to get the film fixed so that it doesn’t cast his state in poor light. But when it’s your state that’s already cast itself in poor light, like in Mississippi’s case, things get serious. Sullivan even got a certificate for setting this one straight.
When all was said and done, Mississippi state officials were pretty humble about their government’s little blunder. Said Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann, whose office filed the final papers this year, “It was long overdue.”
Source: Atlantic Wire
Boom or Bust: All Economic Indicators Say It’s Time to Choose
I’d bet everything I own that those things are:
The uncertain political circus that has evolved from extremists who took over the GOP after the election of America’s first black President and
The resulting turmoil in the economic and tax environment in this country after the economic collapse during the waning days of George W. Bush’s disgraceful presidency.
Companies like Apple, Google and Amazon are sitting on TRILLIONS in cash , but simply do not feel confident enough in the ability of our political leaders in Congress to spend it. These are some of the most dynamic companies in the world, but unless the entertainment companies that run the broadcast news organizations for profit stop encouraging and promoting political divisiveness in their quest for ratings, and start calling a spade a spade, we as a country are going nowhere.
Brinkmanship Is Killing the Goose Laying All the Eggs
Our economy is undoubtedly being held back by the deleveraging and hoarding of cash at both business and personal levels in such numbers that the resulting drop in demand is crushing economies across the planet. Austerity in Europe has broken the euro, China has exploding inventories in cotton, steel, and unsold property just to name a few. There simply isn’t any global demand outside of the U.S.
And yes, a lot of this is because of the 2008 financial crisis. But they are being reinforced daily by global uncertainty and worry that we in the U.S. do not have our own political house in order.
Why are the two connected? Because our tax, regulatory, pension and societal safety net frameworks are all in doubt–because of insane political brinkmanship– at the very time we need them the most, that’s why. Lack of effective regulations have enabled the wealthy and dishonest to steal the entire the U.S. Savings & Loan sector into bankruptcy. Repealing Glass-Steagall brought down the wall between Investment Banks and Commercial Banks, irreparably damaging both. And we seem to forget how devastated the real estate and wall Street collapse in 2008–under the same President that 9/11 took place–left our left our financial sector.
Add to that, The Sherman Anti-Trust Act and the ever-increasing damage from monopolies hasn’t been mentioned since Ronald Reagan began demonizing government and unions,and what you have is a very fragile and tenuous middle class that’s bordering on burn-out.
Investors, businesses and consumers are all holding back just enough cash for the growth and employment to remain stagnant with no robust, sustained momentum in sight without the demand that comes from a stable and confident workforce. With one percent of the population owning the only disposable income available, demand has no chance of increasing. Sure, the wealthy throw some money into the stock market if the only alternative is zero interest from bonds or banks, but it is not being cycled back into the economy with confidence that comes with long term strategies…instead, we get GOP quarterly debt-ceiling squabbles.
All Revved Up But No Roads To Travel On
It’s sad and it’s tragic. The feeling that the economy wants to take-off is palpable, but the GOP is sitting on the national squelch button with debt ceilings, fiscal cliffs, and bullshit economics that have never worked, while the American people have to sit on the sideline watching mommy and daddy fight instead of honoring their commitments to do what’s right for the country.
Americans can see firsthand that the highways are in disrepair. They’ve all heard that ten percent of our most-traveled bridges are structurally deficient. Twitter claims they have 175 million users. Go to #Economy and look at the comments.
The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, conducted in mid-January, found that Americans see some signs of improvement but that “just over half of those surveyed said they were less confident about the economy as a result of the budget negotiations.” Less confident, because our elected officials can’t act like respectable, and respectful, caring leaders.
The poll essentially indicates that this economy is Washington’s fault, and in a very tangible way, Washington is causative to the negative sense of what’s going to happen in the economy by their inability to simply do their jobs. The GOP seeks to rig the game rather than competing fairly. They spend all of their time trying to manipulate the media and stacking the decks, so that they can keep their jobs regardless of how many suffer.
Richard Curtin, who directs the Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan index of consumer sentiment, says that since August, the index has seen record numbers citing government paralysis as contributing negatively to the economy, including in the survey released Friday.
“People’s incomes are so stretched,” said Curtin, “that any additional uncertainty about how taxes or government spending might affect them has a big impact on their situation and how they plan for the future…There is real economic uncertainty out there.”
In addition, he said, historically, “people have always turned to Washington in times of economic crisis, but now they’re losing confidence in the government’s ability to reshape the economy, and that affects their buying and investing habits.”
How Do We Get This Train Moving?
The GOP’s pivot to the far right has been more responsible for this paralysis than the Democrats for sure, but The President, every President, wants desperately to succeed. As a country, we need for him to be successful in figuring out a way to make his plan happen. Has it been tough? Hell yes it’s been tough and it could get a lot tougher.
But he owes it to himself and to the country to make one more good shot at working at getting the waste and inefficiencies out of the government. He wanted this job and we backed him, twice, to get it. So get it done.
We need fairer investment and tax reform more than we need him trying to pummel the Republican Party, in the hope of winning the House back for the Democrats in 2014. He had the House in Democrats’ hands for two years and they got lazy and stupid in 2010 and now we’re paying for that too. Harry Reid had a chance to reform the filibuster and chose capitulation instead. That’s pure laziness.
I don’t think getting the House back will be easy either. The effect of rampant GOP gerrymandering and poor Congressional Democratic has seen to that.
But if President Obama could make some sort of headway with avoiding the myriad traps and pitfalls the Republicans are constantly putting in his way, I think he still has a majority of Americans behind him.
But he has to use his smarts, his organization, his connections, and his personal popularity to keep pushing. Pushing on badly needed improvements for infrastructure, pushing on early childhood education and pushing on a trade agreement with the European Union.
He’s got to utilize the support he has to find a way to force through a comprehensive package in three major areas:
New investments must be made that would merge instantaneous jobs in infrastructure with long-term growth-stimulation like a badly needed upgrade of electric and nationwide high-speed broadband capabilities. And he’d have to give some ground on fiscal streamlining and common-sense, written into law, which slows the growth of both Social Security and Medicare imbalances. Massively profitable medical care is crushing Medicare, and the removal of the cap on earnings subject to immediate Social Security and Medicare taxation needs to come before income tax increases. Corporate tax rates are too high, but loopholes and subsidies for hugely profitable industries need to end.
Our choice at this time, in this stage of the economic cycle is not austerity, or governmental timidity. That is the very same set of circumstances that led to the Great Depression. And austerity versus spending is a straw man argument promulgated and exploited by both extremes. We need a specific yet gradual, well-thought-out, long-term plan that balances our need to protect the most vulnerable in this generation while funding the most opportunities for the next generation, while creating an atmosphere of growth. We simply can’t protect two generations in full anymore. We have sufficient resources and capabilities to provide support for babies and grandparents, but everyone must contribute fairly.
Some sort of Big Picture Agreement now, rather than the meat-cleaver that an across-the-board sequestration castration would provide steadiness for the long-term and maybe even bring some of those huge dollars parked on the sideline into the real economy. It’s the one thing that consumers and investors are aching for—a government aggressively working as a dependable unit toward the betterment of the entire country, rather than which party or which people will get credit for it.
After the ass-kicking the Republicans took in the recent election, there seems to be a growing, but fragile group of Republican politicians and C.E.O.’s who could stomach meeting President Obama in a mutual middle ground.
If President Obama makes the effort and again gets shafted by the GOP, he’ll have to endure some rabid “I told you so” jabs from his base. But if he gets enough Republicans this time, in this atmosphere, to meet him half way on a “Grand Bargain”, it would split the GOP like the Red Sea between the remaining sane conservatives and the nutjobs that are shooting themselves in their bare, selfish, and hardhearted feet on a daily basis.
And we’d all be better for it.
Marco Rubio Has Sold More Than 3100 Water Bottles, Raising $100,000
When Marco Rubio paused to take a sip from a water bottle during his response to the State of the Union this week, it become an instant viral sensation. The Florida Senator has now capitalized on the moment to raise more than $100,000 for his Reclaim America political action committee by selling branded water bottles.
A source close to Rubio tells BuzzFeed that the water bottles, which were sold on the senator’s PAC website to anyone who makes a donation of $25 or more, sold like hotcakes. In the period since they went on sale Wednesday, more than 3,100 of the PAC’s “Marco Rubio Water Bottles” have been sold.
“Send the liberal detractors a message that not only does Marco Rubio inspire you…he hydrates you too,” the donation page reads.
Rubio has made light on the incident in interviews following his speech Tuesday saying during an appearance on Good Morning America that “God has a funny way of reminding us that we’re human.”
Source: BuzzFeed
Jindal: GOP Has ‘Fallen Into A Trap Of Believing The World Revolves Around Washington’
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) told a group of Republicans in St. Louis on Saturday that the GOP has been spending too much time obsessing over government bookkeeping and not enough time emphasizing the party’s message of economic growth.
From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
“We must not become the party of austerity. We must become the party of (economic) growth,” Jindal said. “We have fallen into a trap of believing the world revolves around Washington.”
Jindal delivered a similar message at the Republican National Committee’s meeting in Charlotte, N.C. last month.
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Source: TPM
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