Drill, Baby, Drill

Remember how the right-wingers jumped up and down supporting Sarah on this?  Remember those conversations with your family and neighbors who said: "I'm for drilling off-shore if it lowers my gas bill?"  Remember that sinking feeling when Obama tried to be, you know, all bi-partisan and stuff and supported off-shore drilling?

Who was right?  The verdict is in.  Unfortunately.

Disaster Worse Than Exxon Valdez?

Or, as Keith Olbermann put it: "How's that whole Drill, Baby, Drill thing workin' out for ya now?"

Scott Brown: Trading the Pick-up for a Benz?

U.S. Sen. Scott Brown - the upstart GOP maverick who has threatened to filibuster the Democrats’ move to rein in Wall Street - raked in hundreds of thousands from investment banks blamed for the economic meltdown - including Goldman Sachs, according to a Washington, D.C. watchdog.

“What will be interesting will be to see whether he takes his cues from the working guy or if he represents the people on Wall Street,” said David Levinthal, spokesman for the Center for Responsive Politics which compiled Wall Street campaign contributions.

Brown spokesman Felix Browne promised to get back to a reporter, but never did.

link to Boston Herald story

Tongue-Tied?

Notice how quiet the Tea Party crowd is on financial reform?  Funny, huh?

Good News

Just as the insurance company rate hikes in California added a dose of reality to the debate on health care reform, the SEC charges against Goldman Sachs undercut Republican efforts to create their own reality on financial reform.

Poor Scott Brown.  He gets on national tv and makes some stuff up about job losses in Massachusetts and returns to Washington to discover that the Republican leadership is in full retreat.  I guess he missed the memo.

Financial Reform: The Next Battle

Now, unsurprisingly, these reforms have not exactly been welcomed by the people who profit from the status quo – as well their allies in Washington.  This is probably why the special interests have spent a lot of time and money lobbying to kill or weaken the bill.  Just the other day, in fact, the Leader of the Senate Republicans and the Chair of the Republican Senate campaign committee met with two dozen top Wall Street executives to talk about how to block progress on this issue.

Lo and behold, when he returned to Washington, the Senate Republican Leader came out against the common-sense reforms we’ve proposed.  In doing so, he made the cynical and deceptive assertion that reform would somehow enable future bailouts – when he knows that it would do just the opposite.  Every day we don’t act, the same system that led to bailouts remains in place – with the exact same loopholes and the exact same liabilities.  And if we don’t change what led to the crisis, we’ll doom ourselves to repeat it.  That’s the truth.  Opposing reform will leave taxpayers on the hook if a crisis like this ever happens again.

Barack Obama

President of the United States of America

link to White House Briefing Room

John Stewart: A Farewell to Arms

Fox News supports German annexation of Danzig--proof in the video!

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
A Farewell to Arms
www.thedailyshow.com
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Gail Collins Thinks Like Me

Thanks to the tax credits in President Obama’s stimulus plan and other programs aimed at helping working families, couples with two kids making up to $50,000 were generally off the hook this year.

According to the Gallup polls, 45 percent of Tea Party supporters have incomes under $50,000. According to a New York Times/CBS News poll, Tea Party activists are virtually the only segment of the population in which a majority feels its tax burden is unfair. 

Naturally, anti-tax groups held rallies to thank the president for doing so much to reduce the burden on the half of the country least able to pay. Not.

link to article