This video is a must watch especially the questions and answers. Obama had the facts the Republicans had the GOP false talking points.

The Revelations of Sheila Bair: Wall Street’s Power Grab

By Michael Hudson
January 20, 2010

You almost could hear the bankers heave a sigh of relief when Haiti’s earthquake knocked the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission hearings off the front pages and evening news broadcasts last week. At stake is Wall Street’s power grab seeking to centralize policy control firmly in its own hands by neutralizing the government’s regulatory agencies.  

Their strategy certainly made money for themselves–and they made it off those for whom the financial crisis “didn’t work out well,” whose bad bets ended up paying Wall Street’s bonuses. So when Paul Krugman poked fun at the four leading “Bankers without a clue” in his New York Times kcolumn,  he was lending credence to their pretense at innocent gullibility.

Recipients of such enormous bonuses cannot be deemed all that clueless. They blamed the problem on natural cycles–what Mr. Blankfein called a “100-year storm.” Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase trivialized the crisis as a normal and even unsurprising event that “happens every five to seven years,” as if the crash is just another business cycle downturn, not aggravated by any systemic financial flaws. If anything, Wall Street accuses liberal government planners of being too nice to poor people, by providing cheap mortgage credit to the uninitiated who could not quite handle the responsibility.

But the Wall Street executives were careful not to blame the government. This was not just an attempt to avoid antagonizing the Congressional panel. The last thing Wall Street wants is for the government to change its behavior.

The Wall Street boys are playing possum. Why should we expect them to explain their strategy to us? CONTINUED

The Revelations of Sheila Bair: Wall Street’s Power Grab – Progressive Democrats of America

The moral police strike again. This time they’ve become the subject.

James O’Keefe was riding high last year when he released a series of videos showing employees of community-organizing group ACORN offering advice to O’Keefe and a friend that seemed to endorse trafficking in children, among other illegal activities.
The undercover videos made O’Keefe a star in conservative circles and presumably helped him muster the courage for another high profile stunt – though this time, it seems, things went badly for the 25-year-old.
O’Keefe and three others – including the son of an acting U.S. Attorney, are accused of trying to manipulate the phones in Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu’s office in New Orleans. According to an release from the United States Attorney’s Office, witnesses say O’Keefe was in Landrieu’s office when two co-conspirators came in "dressed in blue denim pants, a blue work shirt, a light green fluorescent vest, a tool belt and a construction-style hard hat" and pretended to be there to repair the phones. (Here’s the affidavit.) CONTINUED

James O’Keefe, ACORN Foe, Arrested for New Stunt – Political Hotsheet – CBS News

Conservative leaders always find a way to extort from the ones that least can afford to be ripped off whether it is though tax policies, employment policies, or social policies.  Now they are co-opting a grass root movement that though misinformed as to what the administration had been attempting are for the most part decent people.

Tea Party Disputes Take Toll on Convention

By KATE ZERNIKE

Published: January 25, 2010

A Tea Party convention billed as the coming together of the grass-roots groups that began sprouting up around the country a year ago is unraveling as sponsors and participants pull out to protest its expense and express concerns about “profiteering.”

The latest on President Obama, his administration and other news from Washington and around the nation. Join the discussion.

The convention’s difficulties highlight the fractiousness of the Tea Party groups, and the considerable suspicions among their members of anything that suggests the establishment.

The convention, to be held in Nashville in early February, made a splash by attracting big-name politicians. (Former Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska is scheduled to deliver the keynote speech.) But some groups have criticized the cost — $549 per ticket and a $9.95 fee, plus hotel and airfare — as out of reach for the average tea partier. And they have balked at Ms. Palin’s speaking fee, which news reports have put at $100,000, a figure that organizers will not confirm or deny.

Tea Party events exploded last winter, as increasingly large gatherings protested the federal stimulus bill, government bailouts and proposed health care legislation. While they vary by name, specific tenets and relative embrace of anarchy, such groups tend to unite around fiscal conservatism and a belief that the federal government — whether led by Republicans or Democrats — has overstepped its constitutional powers.

Tea Party Nation, the convention organizer, started as a social networking site for the groups last year, a kind of Facebook for conservatives to “form bonds, network and make plans for action.” But its founders, former sponsors and participants are now trading accusations. CONTINUED

Tea Party Disputes Take Toll on Convention – NYTimes.com

It is imperative that we do not allow the GOP and their insurance company cohorts to change the true narrative. Keep getting the truth out.

Following the surprise victory of Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R-MA) in last week’s special election, conservatives have attempted to paint the election as a rejection of healthcare reform and progressive policies more generally.

Appearing on ABC’s This Week yesterday, Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) said, “what happened in Massachusetts” shows that “people are alarmed and angry about the spending, the debt, the government takeovers [including health care].” Conservative Washington Post columnist George Will said on This Week that Massachusetts “really was a health care election.” “This was a referendum on a particular piece of legislation that is the signature legislation of the administration, and the people of Massachusetts and the country are hotly angered over its substance,” Will said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), on Meet the Press yesterday, said, “the message in Massachusetts was absolutely clear. The exit polls that I looked at said 48 percent of the people in Massachusetts said they voted for the new senator over health care.” McConnell added: “The people are telling us, ‘Please don’t pass this bill.’”

This “referendum” on health reform meme has become near-conventional wisom, with the media and even some Democrats echoing it. But a new Washington Post/Kaiser/Harvard poll undermines this assertion. The poll suggests that while the election was a “protest of the Washington process,” it was not a rejection of progressive policy. Only 11 percent of voters, including 19 percent of Brown voters, want Brown to “stop the Democratic agenda:”

- 70 percent of voters think Brown should work with Democrats on health care reform, including 48 percent of Brown voters.

- 52 percent of voters were enthusiastic/satisfied with Obama administration policies.

- 44 percent of voters believe “the country as a whole” would be better off with health care reform, but 23 percent believe Massachusetts would be better off.

- 68 percent of voters, including 51 percent of Brown voters approve of Massachusetts’ health care reform.

- 58 percent of all voters, including 37 percent of Brown voters, felt “dissatisfied/angry” with “the policies offered by the Republicans in Congress.”

A different poll, from Rasmussen Reports, cast doubt on the notion that Brown voters were primarily motivated by opposition to health care reform. The poll found that 52 percent of Brown voters said health care was their top issue, while an even greater percentage of people who voted for state Attorney General Martha Coakley (D) — 63 percent — placed it first.

And as the Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky noted, Brown “doesn’t make a very convincing messenger for opposing the policy behind health reform,” considering he voted for his state’s health reform legislation in 2006. “He promised to be the 41st vote against reform because Massachusetts had already passed its own health reform bill, arguing that the state shouldn’t pay for the national effort,” Volsky added.

More at the WonkRoom here, here and here.

Think Progress » Poll Confirms Massachusetts Election Was Not A Rejection Of Health Care Reform

Bill Gates made some interesting assessments that every thinking person would. Specifically, he states

• Support for fees on banks.
• Taxes need to be increased and entitlements moderated otherwise we cannot get into balance.

Now even the richest person in world is willing to do his patriotic duties and pay a fair tax.

Afghans turning against American soldiers mostly by being instigated by the Taliban was one of the reasons to disagree with increased involvement in Afghanistan. President Obama better me tough enough to get out expeditiously lest this is his Vietnam.

(AP) KABUL – Thousands of Afghans shouting "Death to America!" protested the killings of children Thursday, the latest in a string of controversial cases in which international forces have been blamed for civilian deaths.

U.S. Gen. Stanley McChrystal has ordered troops to use airstrikes judiciously and fire cautiously to reduce civilian casualties. Still, each new report of civilians killed unleashes raw emotions that highlight a growing impatience with coalition forces’ inability to secure the nation.

There are fears the problem could get worse with 37,000 U.S. and NATO reinforcements already starting to stream into the country as part of a military buildup.

More civilians die at the hands of insurgents, yet any time innocent victims are killed, the Taliban wastes no time in blaming foreign troops.

"Every time the Taliban kills civilians, nothing happens. There is no protest. There is nothing," said Hroon Mir, an independent political analyst in Kabul. "But whenever there are civilian casualties from NATO or Afghan forces, then there is a reaction."

President Hamid Karzai has not been shy about denouncing the deaths — sometimes even before investigations can conclude whether civilians or militants were killed.

In a meeting this week with political analysts, Karzai said he would speak out boldly on the issue at a conference on Afghanistan Jan. 28 in London.

"If you don’t care about civilian casualties, you should not think about victory," Karzai said he would tell the international community, according to Waheed Mozhdah, independent political analyst in Kabul who attended the meeting.

CONTINUED

New Civilian Deaths Roil Afghans

 Obama’s Doctrine. This is what a leader sounds like.

I continues to amuse me that all those opposing healthcare reform when confronted with what it would actually look like actually like it. If these guys were not so dangerous I would feel sorry for them.