"Obama...blah....blah....blah...indoctrination...blah...blah...blah...only doing it to get elected...blah...blah...blah...doesn't really care...blah...blah...blah...whine...whine...whine...destroying the Constitution...blah...blah...blah...pandering...blah..."
I can't wait to hear how FAUX NOOZ and Karl Rove will spin this into a negative to prove that Mr. Obama and his wife are America-hating, Ivy League elitist, election stealers. And then I'll wait to read all of the negative anti-Obama talking points on the rightwing blogs.
Meanwhile I'm happy to spread the good news about their worthy efforts to solve this problem and to bring it to America's attention. Kudos to both of them for the encouraging results.
"President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will receive the highest honor given to homeless advocates.
The Obamas were chosen to get this year’s Jerald Washington Memorial Founders' Award, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans (NCHV), and Barack Obama is the first person -- in history -- to receive the award more than once.
Barack Obama is tackling the issue with his 'Opening Doors: Federal Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness,' an initiative that aims to end chronic and veteran homelessness by 2015. He's working to meet this goal by mainstreaming housing, health, education and human service programs.
On any given night last January, 67,495 homeless veterans were sleeping on the streets, a 56 percent decline since the president took office, according to the Annual Homelessness Assessment Report to Congress.
'Under the leadership of President Obama, we are witnessing unprecedented national unity in the campaign to end and prevent veteran homelessness,' Patrick Ryan, Chairman of the NCHV Board of Directors, said in a press release. "The progress we have seen from the federal agencies, the Congress, the community partners NCHV represents, and the American people in just the last three years give rise to the expectation that this campaign will succeed."
Michelle Obama has been doing her part to address the range of issues veteran face, including homelessness, with the one-year-old initiative, Joining Forces, which she founded with Jill Biden."
This, of course, will cause no end of cognitive dissonance to those on the right who detest President and Mrs. Obama, because they won't be able to reconcile the fact that he and his wife can't possibly be America haters and at the same time work so earnestly to restore dignity to our veterans. This will disturb their narrative and make them extremely uncomfortable--truths can do that to people who practice avoiding them. But don't worry. They'll come up with some way to prove to themselves that this is NOT reality, that the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans, in honoring President and Mrs. Obama, was bribed or forced into acknowledging the "fake" support the president and his wife have given them, and somehow this is all election year nonsense.
It's all so predictable and all such a farce--something we'd see on a SNL skit and laugh at. This is what many wingers have become in their knee-jerk reaction to anything related to Mr. and Mrs. Obama--buffoons. The only intelligent reaction to such buffonery is to shake one's head and donate to Mr. Obama's re-election campaign. Each time I read or hear a nasty swipe at PBO, I donate to his campaign, and I encourage my family and friends to do the same.
Think of it this way, every time you or I counter a contemptible and scurrilous accusation thrown at POTUS and FLOTUS, a little right-wing devil loses its horns.
46 comments:
So true. Ironically, hawks like John McCain, ever eager to send our men and women off to wars, receives a "D" rating from veterans groups because he does absolutely NOTHING for them - consistently voting against all programs that would benefit them. But it is John McCain who is perceived to be the loyal American, the real patriot. Go figure.
I'm not surprised, Leslie. We all got a good look at McCain's "patriotism" when he proposed that Sarah Palin would make a terrific veep, and had the qualifications and intellect to step into the office of the POTUS if anything happened to him.
He has stuck by that stupid and dangerous decision even to this day and will never face the fact that it was a disaster.
He's all talk and no action, as you so perfectly point out.
I know why Obama's past is rarely visited.I bet we can dig up plenty on him bashing our soldiers and military. I knew he'd have to change his anti-American views or at least hide them once he became president although you can catch thinking sometimes as he filters his words as to not expose the real "Obama"
Normally, I'd delete the above troll's paranoid and baseless bullpuckey. But I prefer to leave it since the troll reacted to this post EXACTLY the way I predicted--like a buffoon.
Thank you, Anonymous troll, for making my point. And honest, this is a troll and not a sock puppet's comment.
There is nothing to back up the troll's comment. It's nothing more than a knee-jerk reaction to the troll's cognitive dissonace.
The troll finds it EXTREMELY uncomfortable to process this evidence of Mr. Obama's caring for homeless veterans, so the troll makes up a fictive narrative to give itself a reason to contine to hold his/her negative views of PBO--even in the face of facts that dispute it's sorry little biases.
Thank-you, Anonymous troll, for making my post's prediction come true.
Anon, are you off your meds again? Please provide some links or evidence that factually explain the anti-American views you claim President Obama holds.
Otherwise, as my dad would say, zip it...
So true. Ironically, hawks like John McCain, ever eager to send our men and women off to wars, receives a "D" rating from veterans groups because he does absolutely NOTHING for them
Many on the right suspect that this is the real reason those on the left trumpet veterans issues: To score cheap political points.
Veterans issues should be a non-political issue, but unfortunately it has now become a partisan issue (in fairness, the President and First Lady are not to blame, but many others are).
The DAV (Disabled Veterans of America) is the gold standard for disabled vets. They are studiously non-partisan and put the vets first. As you move away from that center, the groups become more and more partisan and agenda-driven. Beware.
SF, what appears to me to be the problem is that to this Anonymous troll, even an organization like the DAV, [which you rightly point out is "studiously non-partisan,"] would not be enough to convince the troll that the POTUS and FLOTUS actually DO care about veterans. Hell, I see the problem here in Boston at the facility for homeless veterans just a half-mile away from where I live, and it grieves me.
This acknowledgement by the DAV would not stir up any controversy had Mr. Bush received the recognition. It becomes a suspicious act only when certain people on the right take what is a sincere concern on the Obama's part and attach partisan politics to it.
Shameful.
It is sad this is even a issue. The work being done by the POTUS and the FLOTUS is commendable.. Period.
Silver, have you ever gone on a conservative blog and defended President Obama and his wife like you just did here?
Unless and until more cogent bloggers like you and even RN, visit the raging conservative blogs and sites, the places like Lisa, Darth, Geeez, etc., and refute that President Obama is the most anti-American president in history, every issue will stay political.
It is just my opinion, but the extremists have made a decision not to attack policies, but the man himself.
Even a GOP lion like Brent Scowcroft, who served our country well under Presidents Ford and Bush I, is totally dismayed by this current strand of republican thought.
How typical of left wingers to bash people by calling them out and naming them publicly just like the president.
I bet Obama's adoring media would have preferred to be under his table at the Correspondence dinner nstead of at their own.
Dave: I do not defend the president because I disagree with almost everything he does and stands for.
I lament the politicization of this issue, but I see no evidence that the president or first lady are doing this.
Your comments on the GOP go for the rabid lefwing dems as well. Where are your Harry Trumans, Barbara Jordans and Daniel Patrick Moynihans today?
I said I was not going to comment here again. So please forgive me this one time for returning Shaw.
Silver, I do not agree with nor do I support most of President Obama's philosophy or agenda. My views are 180 degrees from the President's world view.
Having said the above I will state here, as I have on both RN USA and LCR, for those actually paying attention and understanding my words...
The current republican party poses the greatest threat to our individual liberties and our civil rights than we have ever faced since the McCarthy era. As misguided as I believe Obama is, most notably in a fiscal sense and his continuation of our interventionist foreign policy every republican on the national scene save Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman poses a by far greater threat than BHO does.
That is why I am voting my conscience and my principles. My vote will go to Gary Johnson when he is nominated by the Libertarian Party to run against BHO and WR IN THE 2012 general election.
Shaw, I thank you for allowing me this space.
Good day all....
So RN basically you are just voting for Obama
No, but believe whatever you will.
SF: "Many on the right suspect that this is the real reason those on the left trumpet veterans issues: To score cheap political points."
Talk about cognitive dissonance. McCain's voting record on veteran's benefits is not disputable.
I find it commendable that the POTUS and FLOTUS are helping our Veterans. And I don't understand why anyone would condemn them. Anything we can do to help our Veterans is tops in my book. They deserve the best we have to offer.
What Conservatives are condemning them? Or need I ask?
Talk about cognitive dissonance. McCain's voting record on veteran's benefits is not disputable.
It is disputable if you get your information from unbiased sources. The ones who give him failing grades are the ones with political agendas.
My purpose is not to defend any individual politician, but to simply point out what I have already said. Beware biased organizations. There are plenty out there that are not.
Shaw,
the accusations of your posts and comments of your allies vs those comments from the conservatives that chose to comment on this issue are just further evidence of the scientific studies that the "right" has a better understanding of the left than the left has of the right.
Griper, what scientific studies are those?
Silver, I don't expect conservatives to defend him when they disagree with him.
What bothers me are the supposed principled conservatives who will let go unchallenged remarks, comments, and outright statements that President Obama is not an American.
I will say this knowing that it is going to set some on the right off and they will say I am calling them names, but here goes...
Calling President Barack Obama un American, or anti American is stupid. it is not right and only serves to divide America, not bring us together.
Contend against his policies, but Barack Obama is as much an American as former Presidents Nixon, Ford, Bush 1 and 2, Clinton Kennedy and all the other men who have held that office.
And like them, he has made mistakes, but those mistakes were not out of hate for America, or a desire to see her destroyed.
You and RN seem to understand that, even if neither of you will trumpet it on other blogs you frequent.
You mentioned Truman, Jordan, and of course Moynihan. Scowcroft, the man I mentioned, is a living lion of the GOP and there have been others.
I agree that the current Dem party is a far cry from the Dems of the 50's and 60's, as is the GOP.
But the current GOP is a far cry from the Reagan GOP as many of these lions have noted.
Maybe I am missing something, but what past Dem leaders are saying the Dem party is so far left that it is taking the country off a cliff and unwilling to compromise with the GOP?
Dave,
you can read of those studies here if you find the issue interesting enough to look up. The resources found here are but two that I know of at the moment.
Science studies
Griper, I disagree with your statement. Take a look at what these two men, who are very carful to be non-partisan, have to say about the present-day GOP:
"Congressional scholars Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein are no strangers to D.C. politics. The two of them have been in Washington for more than 40 years — and they're renowned for their carefully nonpartisan positions.
But now, they say, Congress is more dysfunctional than it has been since the Civil War, and they aren't hesitating to point a finger at who they think is to blame.
"One of the two major parties, the Republican Party, has become an insurgent outlier — ideologically extreme; contemptuous of the inherited social and economic policy regime; scornful of compromise; unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition," they write in their new book, It's Even Worse Than It Looks.
Mann is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Ornstein is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
Mann and Ornstein posit that democracy in America is being endangered by extreme politics. From the first day of the Obama administration, Ornstein says, our constitutional system hasn't been allowed to work."
You and other conservatives can pretend this isn't true, but I have seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears the veracity of what Mann and Ornstein have said.
The Republican Party IS the problem and it IS nothing like the Republican Party of even 20 years ago.
You need to do some self-reflection on this and not continue to live in denial.
(cont.)
"When we did get action, half the political process viewed it as illegitimate, tried to undermine its implementation and moved to repeal it," Ornstein says.
The authors make no secret of whom they blame for most of the dysfunction in Congress — the Republican Party. And Ornstein says some of his colleagues at AEI, which is known as a conservative-leaning think tank, "are going to be quite uncomfortable" with his position.
"We didn't come to this conclusion lightly," he says. He points out that he and Mann have been highly critical of both parties in previous works. For example, they called the Democrats "arrogant, condescending [and] complacent" after Democrats had been in the majority for 40 consecutive years up to 1994.
(cont.)
"But for Republicans currently inside Congress, you have a new set of litmus tests and a new outlook that leads them in directions where you can't say that there is such a thing as climate change, you take positions on things like immigration that are simply off the rails, and if you compromise, you are basically defiling what the party stands for," Ornstein says.
"We're not exactly neutral or balanced, are we?" says Mann. But a central message of their book, he says, is that norms of nonpartisanship in the media and elsewhere sometimes do "a disservice to the reality.
"It disarms the electorate in a democracy when you really need an ideological outlier to be reined in by an active, informed public," Mann says.
Mann and Ornstein recognize that many people will likely be skeptical of the argument that things in Congress today are so much worse than they used to be.
Last year, Ornstein wrote a piece for Foreign Policy magazine about the 112th Congress titled "Worst. Congress. Ever." He says a lot of people wrote to him and said, "Oh, come on, what about the period right before the Civil War?"
"And I said, 'I'll grant you that. Do you really want to be compared to the period right before the Civil War?' You know, maybe we are better than we were in the period leading up to the Civil War, but that left us with a virtual fracture in our society. We don't want to see that happen," Ornstein says.
"The Republican Party IS the problem and it IS nothing like the Republican Party of even 20 years ago."
Like the Democrat party is the same? JFK would be rolling. Although the only thing that may be the same is the judgment of people by their color.
One man's opinion...
So what's the difference between calling people un-American and calling them an "insurgent outlier?"
They are all labels meant to place a group beyond the pale and thereby deem them unworthy of consideration or *Gaia forbid* debate.
We have a political divide in this country. Imagine that.
I'm not a big fan of Jennifer Rubin, but here is the other side of the Ornstein debate:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/ornstein-and-manns-op-ed-blaming-republicans-it-was-a-parody-right/2012/04/30/gIQABq0qrT_blog.html
Remember, my liberal friends, as you hastily tear the latest propaganda off of the teletype and run down the hall with it, there are always two sides to the story.
Everybody's got something to hide (or sell) except me and my monkey.
Anonymous: "Like the Democrat party is the same?"
The Democratic Party, [a perfect example of the GOP's childish disrespect] no matter how you try to spin it, has not veered to the EXTREME Left, the way the GOP has gone to the EXTREME Right.
It is the conservatives who are passing laws attacking women's rights. Not the Democrats. Pay attention.
"JFK would be rolling."
Believe me, I'm a Massachusetts Democrat. JFK would NOT be "rolling." You obviously know nothing about the Democratic Party if you believe that nonsense.
"Although the only thing that may be the same is the judgment of people by their color."
Of course. That's why 98% of people of color affiliate themselves with the DEMOCRATIC Party.
You're wrong on everything.
SF, you're ignoring the fact that Mann and Ornstein are acknowledged as non-partisan.
Rubin is not. She's a mouth piece for the GOP.
So her "other side" of the story is biased in favor of the GOP.
Sorry. I take Mann and Ornstein seriously, not her.
Shaw,
disagree all you want i can only report what science says thus you are disagreeing with them not me.
and as added I am not the first to report this. our friend, Repsac, had a post saying the same thing a long while back.
Griper, many conservatives disregard "the science" of global warming. Explain why conservatives believe this "science" and not the science on global warming.
Also, what exactly is the "science" on this poll?
More evidence of conservative intransigence:
WASHINGTON -- Harry Reid, as majority leader of the United States Senate, has done "a terrific job," according to the most celebrated historian of the institution in a generation. Robert Caro, author of "Master of the Senate," the Pulitzer Prize-winning volume of his Lyndon Johnson biography, said that Reid's opponents and their abuse of the filibuster have made running the upper chamber "near impossible."
Caro sat down for an interview with The Huffington Post in conjunction with the release of the fourth volume of his biography, "The Passage of Power," which covers Johnson's vice presidency and some of his presidency.
"Harry Reid as a majority leader operated in near impossible circumstances," Caro said. "The other side is intractable and it has the votes to stop legislation. That he has been able to get as much as he has -- as little as it is -- through the Senate is a tribute to him as majority leader. I think he's in near-impossible circumstances. I think he's done a terrific job."
In Johnson's time, only 34 votes were needed to sustain a filibuster. Today, as a result of filibuster reform a generation ago, 60 votes are needed to break a filibuster and invoke what's known in the Senate as cloture. While the reform increased the number of votes the minority needed to hold to sustain the filibuster, it flipped the onus around: Pre-reform filibusters could be broken by a vote of two-thirds of those present, putting the onus on the minority to keep their troops on the floor. Today, a full 60 votes is needed to invoke cloture, as long as at least one of the opposing senators is on the floor.
And yet, with evidence from these sources, Mann, Ornstein, and Caro, men who have made their life work studying the House and the Senate, conservatives continue to ignore the reality: The present-day GOP is the most intransigent and obstructionist group in modern history.
And they have the cajones to blame Mr. Obama for their obstructive behavior that made it impossible for him and his administration to move the country forward.
History will not be kind to the GOP. Despite the people who come here and try to divert attention away from how the GOP's horrendous behavior has made our country's problems worse, history will be very clear on which party actually worked against our country's recovery for the sole purpose of defeating a duly elected president: THE GOP.
I do not respect the GOP and its efforts to keep Americans struggling only to keep one man from healing the nation and earning a second term.
Who could respect that?
shaw, i for one cannot respect the whiney-ass clowns who do nothing but obstruct and blame Obama for their failures...the only thing they're interested is destroying our country.
Congratulations to the President and the First Lady! Although the right-wing noise machine is more than capable of spinning this into something sinister, I think they'll downplay or flat out ignore it. Remember what happened when President Obama had the Q&A with Republican members of Congress at a GOP conference in 2010? When it became clear that the GOP was getting their asses kicked by the president, Fox "News" cut away from the live coverage.
Shaw,
the conclusions of your sources are based upon personal observation and that constitutes a conclusion of "personal opinion". personal opinion is always considered as a biased opinion by the scientific community. this is true regardless of partisanship
personal opinion is never given the credibility of scientific studies.
and if you had taken the time to check out the sources i gave earlier my statements are based upon accepted scientific studies not on personal opinion.
as to your question of conservatives beliefs i cannot speak for them. i don't even know how many of them even know about these studies so as to declare they believe them.
but the same question can be applied to you too. if you believe the science of global warming then why don't you believe this science?
Griper,
You're talking about something unrelated to the discussion. You've brought up a study [which you have no link to--how am I, or anyone, supposed to analyze it?] that supposedly states that conservatives know more about liberals than liberals know about liberals.
That has nothing to do with the fact that two respected non-partisan scholars have examined the current GOP and, with their years, and years of experience and study on our political system, have found that it is the GOP that is intransigent and extremist in its political dealings.
Your rejection of or, at the least, disregard for these scholars' interpretations of how the GOP has behaved over the last 20 years is on a parallel with those conservatives who refuse to see what is in front of their noses.
And yes, SF, we have a political divide in this country, but that is NOT what Mann and Ornstein have analyzed.
It appears both you and Griper are too uncomfortable with what those two men have written about the extreme obstructionist behavior of the GOP.
You both have not acknowledged anything they have written as having any truth to it, thereby proving their premise.
Here's an editorial from an Alabama newspaper:
"Make no mistake, Ornstein and Mann are not party hacks. Their employers operate near two ends of Washington’s ideological spectrum, with Brookings more in line with liberals and AEI friendlier to conservative causes.
The current state of affairs of the Republican Party, they point out, is decidedly not a conservative cause, despite what many in the party profess. The party “has become an insurgent outlier in American politics” that “is ideologically extreme; scornful of compromise; unmoved by conventional understanding of facts, evidence and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of its political opposition.”
It’s not fair to dismiss all elected Republicans as know-nothings who have embraced an uncompromising anti-science/anti-reason platform in an all-out war with opponents. While some more extreme Republicans fall into those ranks, we suspect many others are merely too politically nervous to challenge the zealots within their party. Their silence in the face of irresponsible and dangerous notions about government, science and war may keep them in office — at least until the winds of politics shift — but it ultimately does damage to their nation and their own political party.
This collection of quiet Republicans must summon the strength to call out extremism within their own ranks. The nation didn’t put a man on the moon with anti-science politicians running the show. It didn’t produce the world’s leading economy by crank notions about economics. And it didn’t provide more of its citizens a pathway out of poverty with nothing but a scornful sneer and a miserly budget.
The voters hold the cards, write Orstein and Mann. “If they can punish ideological extremism at the polls and look skeptically upon candidates who profess to reject all dialogue and bargaining with opponents, then an insurgent outlier party will have some impetus to return to the center. Otherwise, our politics will get worse before it gets better,” they write.
We shutter[sic] at the notion of U.S. politics becoming more dysfunctional."
As a real example of GOP extremism, we have a US Representative, Alan West, publicly stating, without any evidence whatsoever, that there are 80 members of the Communist Party in the US House of Representative.
I don't recall one politician in the GOP condemning that McCathyism tactic by this politician.
It was slander, and apparently those in control of the GOP are happy to wallow in it. This is another example of the GOP's extremism--as well as other elected members of that party who have no scruples about calling Mr. Obama's citizenship into question even after all this time.
That is because that non-issue still appeals to the crazy extremists on the Right, and many of the sensible politicians have still not had the honor or courage to say ENOUGH! This president is as American as apple pie.
That the birther issue is still a noxious cloud over the GOP is another indictment of how low that party has sunk in its disdain for decency.
Shaw,
i provided a link in the comment as a response to Dave's question of me just before yours that declared you disagreed with my statements.
apparently you overlooked that comment when you responded to me the first time.
Griper, according to the link you provided, there is a reason for the GOP survey takers knowing more about what Dems stand for than do the Dems know what GOPers stand for:
"The partisan gaps in knowledge are at least partly a consequence of demographic differences. On average, Republicans are older and more affluent than either Democrats or independents, and both of these are associated with knowledge about the parties’ positions and leaders.
That is changing rapidly. I don't see what that survey has to do with the article by Mann and Ornstein.
You claim the survey by Pew is scientific. That survey measures what the two political party adherents and independents KNOW about the positions of said parties.
Mann and Ornstein's article is about the damage the GOP intransigence and obstructionism is doing to the country.
Your claim that it is only "opinion" does not undermine the conclusions these two scholars who have studied the parties for decades come to.
SF, you're ignoring the fact that Mann and Ornstein are acknowledged as non-partisan
Acknowledged by whom? Other liberals?
Saying it don't make it so.
And anyway, this standard you've just set invalidates everything any partisan says. Think about that.
You display a textbook case of selection bias. You pluck out things you agree with and engage in the logical fallacy of appeal to authority while ignoring that which conflicts with your world view.
Shaw,
like i said previously, disagree if you want but i notice you are not saying anything about the link to the interview with the psychologist Jonathon Haidt and his findings which would be considered as consistent with the findings of the Pew institute.
my links was to validate my accusation not dispute your sources.
knowlege is knowlege, Shaw, and demographics only explains why there is greater knowledge on the right. it doesn't dispute the difference.
SF: "You display a textbook case of selection bias. You pluck out things you agree with and engage in the logical fallacy of appeal to authority while ignoring that which conflicts with your world view."
No. I'm reporting on an article written by two very reputable scholars whom you disagree with because their essay make you very uncomfortable.
I've also seen where you argue from authority when it suits you, SF.
It's an opinion article, not scholarly research, so I'm not accusing you of dishonesty, but rather of relaying the opinion of two people who don't like republicans. Ho hum...
And Rubin's rebuttal was a good one, giving instances where dems were just a guilty, so to me it is pretty much a was. We have a deep political divide. no news there...
Rubin's rebuttal, opinion as well?
Of course it is!
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