Woman Of Valor Panel Discussion

CHARLESTON — A full week of children’s, youth and adult programs has been scheduled in advance of the grand opening celebration March 8 at the expanded Charleston Carnegie Public Library.

In addition, a mobile museum exhibit developed by the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield is scheduled to stop at the library on March 9-10 to continue the celebration.

The grand opening is intended to celebrate the construction of a new library wing, which opened in January 2008, and the renovation of the old library complex, which reopened in September.

A “Women of Valor” panel discussion about the military service of local women in World War II is slated for 7-8 p.m. March 5 in conjunction with the library hosting a related exhibit throughout the week.

Exhibit co-organizers Jeff Boshart and Dan Crews said the panel is so far set to include veterans Ethel Cline, Mary Farris, Florence Heyduck, and Connie Richardson, as well as Georgia Manes…

Republican Party: Party of “NO”

AFSCME and Americans United for Change nail it with this new cable TV ad:

This is a pretty good ad.  Kind of hard to explain why you refuse to give TAX CUTS 95 percent of Americans – isn’t it?

Sen Hutchison (R): Tax Cuts Create Revenue – Great Job Dem’s

Obama Family – The Winner: Portuguese Water Dog

Mrs. Obama says the family is looking for a rescue Portuguese water dog (something similar to above picture – not necessarily the same color) who is “old enough” and a “match” for the family dynamic.

“Temperamentally they’re supposed to be pretty good,” she says of the breed that Sen. Ted Kennedy has also lobbied for (he has two Water dogs of his own). “From the size perspective, they’re sort of middle of the road – it’s not small, but it’s not a huge dog. And the folks that we know who own them have raved about them. So that’s where we’re leaning.”

They family will get the dog in April after their spring break.  They are arguing over names already.

I don’t know about you but I always wait to see how the dog acts around the house before naming it.  That always sets the trigger giving a name.

Obama Promise: Out of Iraq Summer 2010/Residual Force Left Behind

Political pundits are making it a ‘big deal’ that President Obama will be changing his, get out of Iraq, date by 3 months.  They are also acting outraged by Obama’s plan to leave a residual force behind in Iraq.  I think maybe it’s time to remind them of what Obama actually said during his campaign.  The following is from Obama/Biden’s website during the campaign:

Barack Obama and Joe Biden believe we must be as careful getting out of Iraq as we were careless getting in. Immediately upon taking office, Obama will give his Secretary of Defense and military commanders a new mission in Iraq: ending the war. The removal of our troops will be responsible and phased, directed by military commanders on the ground and done in consultation with the Iraqi government. Military experts believe we can safely redeploy combat brigades from Iraq at a pace of 1 to 2 brigades a month that would remove them in 16 months. That would be the summer of 2010 – more than 7 years after the war began.

Under the Obama-Biden plan, a residual force will remain in Iraq and in the region to conduct targeted counter-terrorism missions against al Qaeda in Iraq and to protect American diplomatic and civilian personnel. They will not build permanent bases in Iraq, but will continue efforts to train and support the Iraqi security forces as long as Iraqi leaders move toward political reconciliation and away from sectarianism.

I really don’t see where talk show hosts think Obama is backing away from his promises.  Not having all the facts before you (just being a presidential candidate), I think Obama did a pretty darn good job of getting both the date and the residual force left behind plans –on target.

I would also like to remind those critiques that there are currently over 170,000 troops in Iraq.  Leaving behind 50,000 makes that more than a 2/3rd cut in forces there.  While nobody wants troops there at all, this has got to make our military folks and their families ‘very happy’.  They not only get to keep the area secure (protecting what they went their for), they will finally have more time to spend with their families.

My First Response To Pres. Obama’s Speech

In the beginning I was a bit bored (perhaps because I’ve heard or read every speech he’s made previously and this part was a copy of past speeches) but when he started adding humor to his speech, like when he announced he was putting Vice President Joe Biden in charge of a “tough, unprecedented oversight effort” of the fiscal stimulus plan. “Because nobody messes with Joe.” I suddenly woke up.

I especially appreciated his explaination for helping the ‘banks’ out and how he “get’s it” about how we feel about doing so.

His pointing out his historical tax cuts for 95% of Americans outweighed the announcement that he would allow the tax cuts for those making a quarter of a million dollars a year to lapse.  (more…)

Governor Jindal’s GOP Response to Obama’s Speech

The speech didn’t go over too well, even with Republicans.  They didn’t like the “don’t trust government” theme he used.

JIM LEHRER: Now that, of course, was Gov. Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, making the Republican response. David, how well do you think he did?

DAVID BROOKS: Uh, not so well. You know, I think Bobby Jindal is a very promising politician, and I oppose the stimulus because I thought it was poorly drafted. But to come up at this moment in history with a stale “government is the problem,” “we can’t trust the federal government” – it’s just a disaster for the Republican Party. The country is in a panic right now. They may not like the way the Democrats have passed the stimulus bill, but that idea that we’re just gonna – that government is going to have no role, the federal government has no role in this, that – In a moment when only the federal government is actually big enough to do stuff, to just ignore all that and just say “government is the problem, corruption, earmarks, wasteful spending,” it’s just a form of nihilism. It’s just not where the country is, it’s not where the future of the country is. There’s an intra-Republican debate. Some people say the Republican Party lost its way because they got too moderate. Some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and so he’s making that case. I think it’s insane, and I just think it’s a disaster for the party. I just think it’s unfortunate right now.

Andrew Sullivan:

It was also odd for Jindal  to keep talking about the need for tax cuts – when Obama just announced a massive tax cut for 95 percent of working Americans. He gave no alternative proposal on the financial collapse; and tried to attack government spending simply because it’s government spending. In a deepening depression, grown-ups can take a slightly different view of such spending in the short term. But give him his due: he did in the end concede that the GOP currently has a credibility problem on the fiscal issues they are now defining themselves with. This matters – it matters for the future of the GOP and the possibility of minimal accountability after an age that disdained it.

The rest was boilerplate. And tired, exhausted, boilerplate. If the GOP believes tax cuts – more tax cuts – are the answer to every problem right now, they are officially out of steam and out of ideas. And remember: this guy is supposed to be the smart one.

President Obama’s Speech Before Joint Session of Congress

CNN after speech poll results:

68% of viewers said they had a positive reaction, compared to 24% negative. And an astonishing 85% said the speech made them feel more optimistic about the direction the country is headed in (though granted, feeling more optimistic than before might be a low bar), and only 11% said it made them more negative.

And 82% of speech-watchers say they support Obama’s economic plans as outlined in the speech, with only 17% against.

CBS after speech poll results:

62% of speech-watchers before the speech approved of President Obama’s plans for dealing with the economy. Afterwards, the number increased to 79%.

But this one is the biggie: Before the speech, only 35% thought Obama’s economic plans would personally help them. After the speech, that number jumped up to 52%.

Republicans Peeling Away from GOP in Congress?

In an interview with the Washington Times, the Republican governor of Utah on Monday said his party’s leaders in Congress’ lack of new ideas renders them so “inconsequential” that he doesn’t even bother to talk to them.

“I don’t even know the congressional leadership,” Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. told the paper’s editors and reporters. “I have not met them. I don’t listen or read whatever it is they say because it is inconsequential — completely.” Huntsman added that he would not reject any money from President Obama’s stimulus. While he criticized what he saw as misdirected spending in bill, he said Republicans had no credibility on fiscal responsibility.

“Our moral soapbox was completely taken away from us because of our behavior in the last few years,” he said. “For us to now criticize analogous behavior is hypocrisy. We’ve got to come at it a different way. We’ve got to prove the point. It can’t be as the Chinese would say, ‘fei hua,’ [or] empty words.”

Finally - we’re seeing honest Republicans come forward.  It’s this type of Republican, like Gov. Crist in Florida and Gov. Schwarzenegger in California that will benefit in the future with voters.  The ‘NO’ generation will fade away.

Karl Rove You’re Wrong and Too Late

Karl Rove, the political brain trust of former President George W. Bush, told Northwest suburban Republicans they can win back the state if they don’t rip the party apart in the primaries early next year.

“The people are looking closely at the quality of candidates you put forward,” Rove said. “You better not claw yourselves up and bloody yourselves up and cut yourselves up in a primary.”

That is crucial, Rove mentored at a Schaumburg fundraiser, because the time is ripe for a GOP comeback in the statewide 2010 elections, or a potential special Senate election, given the arrest of Democratic former Gov. Rod Blagojevich and scandal surrounding Democratic Sen. Roland Burris.

“It strikes me that you have a pretty easy message,” Rove told the several hundred attendees at the Schaumburg Marriott. “If you want change from the way things are then you ought to elect yourself a Republican governor.”

Republicans in Illinois ‘had’ their chance and blew it already Karl.  When Gov. Blagojevich was impeached for corruption and when Democrats allowed Senator Burris to be included in the Senate, Republicans had an open door to the governorship of Illinois.  Illinoisans were furious, some still are about those actions by the Governor and Senator Burris; but in 2010, it will be all about the voter’s pocket book Karl; You “the architect” of all people, know that.

You win an election by using the voter’s shame of their previous leadership, fear of losing money/benefits or by using voter’s fear of being physically harmed.

The only reason George W Bush won (by the skin of his teeth) the Presidency in 2001 was because of Bill Clinton’s impeachment and your campaign pushing the idea to the younger generation that they wouldn’t have any retirement when they retired — if social security wasn’t privatized soon.  The reason your team won again in 2004 was because voters still feared being attacked by the enemy and trusted republicans more to keep them safe.  It’s also pretty common for voters to not like changing administrations midstream.

Perhaps if the economy hadn’t tanked, national security would have continued to win out; but this time around it will be the money issue that gets the voters.  If the economy is doing better Democrats will benefit from it.  Not only because it is better, but because the GOP went on record as refusing to support the Recovery and Reinvestment plan (stimulus).  They even went so far as to refuse to give unemployed workers an extension of benefits during the worse economic crisis America has seen since the depression.

So Karl Rove — you are wrong.  It won’t be about scandals, it will be about the pocketbooks of Americans.  The GOP had best jump on the band wagon now or risk losing even more members of Congress in 2010.