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patriotsnet · 3 years

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What Did Obama Say About Republicans

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What Did Obama Say About Republicans

Etymology Of Obama Republican

Fmr. President Obama Mocks Trump’s Middle-Class Tax Cut: âCongress Isnât Even In Sessionâ | NBC News

On February 12, 2008, Barack Obama mentioned Obama Republicans in his Potomac primary victory speech: “We are bringing together Democrats and independents, and yes, some Republicans. I know there’sI meet them when I’m shaking hands afterwards. There’s one right there. An Obamacan, that’s what we call them.” In another speech, he said, “We, as Democrats right now, should tap into the discontent of Republicans. I want some Obama Republicans!” In his call for Republican votes, Obama referred to Ronald Reagan, who he says “was able to tap into the discontent of the American people … to get Democrats to vote Republicanthey were called Reagan Democrats.”

RepublicansforObama.org was founded in December 2006 by John Martin, a US Navy reservist. The organization grew to include over 2,500 registered members from across the United States, and was featured in USA Today, The New Yorker and other media throughout the 2008 Presidential Campaign.

Republican And Conservative Support For Barack Obama In 2008

United StatesPresidentBarack Obama, a member of the Democratic Party, was endorsed or supported by some members of the Republican Party and by some political figures holding conservative views in the 2008 election. Although the vast majority of Obama’s support came from liberal constituencies, some conservatives identified in him shared priorities or other positive attributes. As in any election, voters can and sometimes do cross party lines to vote for the other party’s nominee. Republican and conservative Obama supporters were often referred to as “Obama Republicans“, “Obamacans” or “Obamacons“.

Republican and conservative supporters of Obama included elected officials, former elected officials, academics, commentators, and retired military officers. According to exit polls on Election Day, 9% of those who identified themselves as Republicans voted for Barack Obama, conflicting with polling data gathered by The Economist in October 2008 reporting 22% of conservatives favored Obama, up slightly from the 6% of self-identified Republicans who voted for John Kerry in 2004.

Moment Of Shame: Obama Calls On Republicans To Speak Out In Response To Us Capitol Violence

Former US President Barack Obama condemned the violence that took place at US Capitol on Wednesday and said history will remember the incident as one incited by the sitting President and it was a moment of great dishonour and shame for America.

Hundreds of Trump supporters entered the US Capitol in a bid to overturn his election defeat. The violence that followed led to the death of one woman. The Senate, which was disrupted in its process of certification of Biden as the winner in the November 3 election, resumed it soon after officials declared Capitol secure.

Heres my statement on todays violence at the Capitol, Obama tweeted.

Barack Obama

Read full statement:

History will rightly remember todays violence at the Capitol, incited by a sitting president who has continued to baselessly lie about the outcome of a lawful election, as a moment of great dishonor and shame for our nation. But wed be kidding ourselves if we treated it as a total surprise.

For two months now, a political party and its accompanying media ecosystem has too often been unwilling to tell their followers the truth – that this was not a particularly close election and that President-Elect Biden will be inaugurated on January 20. Their fantasy narrative has spiraled further and further from reality, and it builds upon years of sown resentments. Now were seeing the consequences, whipped up into a violent crescendo.

Read Also: Why Do Republicans Hate Planned Parenthood

Obama Says Republican Party Has Become Unrecognisable In Shift That Started With Palin

In this screengrab, Former president Barack Obama speaks during the Celebrating America Primetime Special on 20 January 2021

Expressing worry about Americas state of democracy, Barack Obama criticised the Republican party for being cowed into accepting positions that would be unrecognisable and unacceptable even five years or a decade ago.

In an interview with CNNs Anderson Cooper, the former president said when he left the White House, he thought there were enough institutional safeguards in place, including the Republican establishment.

He said he did not believe things would get this dark when Sarah Palin in 2008 brought the dark spirits such as xenophobia, anti-intellectualism, paranoid conspiracy theories, an antipathy toward Black and brown folks to the centre stage of the modern Republican Party.

I thought that there were enough guardrails institutionally that even after Trump was elected, he said.

The degree to which we did not see the Republican establishment say hold on, time out, not acceptable but rather be cowed into accepting positions that would be unrecognisable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago…, Mr Obama said.

In his memoir, A Promised Land, Obama blamed Ms Palin for ushering a shift in the Republican party towards populist sentiment at its centre.

He, however, lauded some Republicans including Georgia secretary of state Brad Raffensperger for being very brave and standing up to Mr Trump.

Ies Run Even On Key Issues

The Republican Party runs about even with the Democratic Party on three key issues: the economy, immigration and gun control. In recent years, neither political party has held a decisive advantage on these issues. The Democratic Party led on the economy through much of George W. Bushs second term and Obamas first year in office. But since 2010, about as many have favored the GOP as the Democrats.

Similarly, neither party has had a consistent advantage on dealing with immigration. The current survey finds opinion split evenly; Democrats held a slim advantage in late 2012, while Republicans held a slight edge in 2011.

And while the gun debate has drawn significant public attention over the past four months , it has not resulted in an advantage for either political party. In the immediate wake of the shootings in Newtown, Conn., Americans were divided over which party could better address gun control, and that divide persists today.

Independents are split over which party can do the better job on key issues. Overall, 38% of independents say the Republican Party could do the better job on the economy while nearly as many say the Democratic Party. Similarly, independents are divided over who can better address immigration and gun control . On all three issues, about a quarter of independents volunteer no preference between the two parties.

Recommended Reading: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans

Obama: More Moderate Republican Than Socialist

The president rejected criticism from conservatives that he is a socialist.

Obama: I Would Be Considered Moderate Republican in the 80’s

During an interview with Noticias Univision 23, the network’s Miami affiliate newscast, Obama pushed back against the accusation made in some corners of south Florida’s Cuban-American and Venezuelan communities that he wants to instill a socialist economic system in the U.S. The president said he believes few actually believe that.

“I don’t know that there are a lot of Cubans or Venezuelans, Americans who believe that,” Obama said. “The truth of the matter is that my policies are so mainstream that if I had set the same policies that I had back in the 1980s, I would be considered a moderate Republican.”

See Also:

Obama’s comments come amid the contentious debate over how to resolve the “fiscal cliff,” in which the White House and Congress are trying to figure out whether to extend a series of tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year while staving off steep spending cuts to domestic and defense programs set to go into place at the beginning of 2013.

For years amid the brooder debate over taxes and the size of government, Obama has been characterized by some on the right as a socialist who wants to redistribute wealth. They cite Obama’s healthcare law in particular as a massive increase in the size of government.

Michelle Obama Says Gop Is Willing To ‘tear Down Democracy’ Urges Dem Turnout In Georgia Runoffs

“We cant just vote for President and think that our job is done,” wrote Obama on Twitter

In a series of tweets published one day before Georgia’s Senate run-off election, former First Lady Michelle Obama urged voters to turn out, saying a vote for the Democratic candidates would be “another step toward cleaning up the mess of the past four years.”

The eight-tweet-long thread offered a strongly-worded rebuke of both;Donald Trump and the Republican Party in general, which Obama said had amplified the president’s false claims about election fraud while ignoring the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

“Your vote is your voice. Its your power. And right now, from the President of the United States on down, were seeing and hearing just how desperate some are to take that power away,” Obama wrote. “They want us to believe that their pride is more important than our democracy.”

She continued: “And this is just unconscionable at a time when a staggering number of Americans are dying every day from a virus that was downplayed for far too long. Its unconscionable to focus on overturning an election rather than helping struggling families or distributing a vaccine.”

RELATED: Michelle Obama Recalls Putting Her ‘Anger Aside’ for Transition of Power to Donald and Melania Trump

“These runoffs will decide whether President-Elect Biden has a Senate that will work with him rather than just obstruct him at every turn,” Obama continued.

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The Affordable Care Act

In 2013, Senator Ted Cruz responded to the question “Why Donât We Impeach ?” with “Good question… and Iâll tell you the simplest answer: To successfully impeach a president you need the votes in the U.S. Senate.” That year, when asked if Obama had committed impeachable offenses on immigration and health care, Cruz said the implementation of the Affordable Care Act was “lawless”, and said of impeachment, “Thatâs a question for the House ultimately… My responsibility would be to render judgment.”

Congressional Opposition To Impeachment

Republicans react to Obama’s success

A number of prominent Republicans rejected calls for impeachment, including House SpeakerJohn Boehner, and Sen. John McCain. McCain said impeachment would be a distraction from the 2014 election, and that if “we regain control of the United States Senate we can be far more effective than an effort to impeach the president, which has no chance of succeeding.” Rep. Blake Farenthold said that impeachment would be “an exercise in futility.”

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Ways Obama Tries To Work With Republicans And Is Rejected

To President Obamaâs critics, he will never bring about the era of bipartisan cooperation that he campaigned on in 2008, but the facts prove otherwise.

The presidentâs nomination of conservative Republican Chuck Hagel to his cabinet is just another example in a long line of Obamaâs attempts to reach across the aisle and work with a recalcitrant Republican minority. Here are a few other gems, as we highlight some of Obamaâs most bipartisan gestures of his first term and the Republican response.

1) Keeping Robert Gates as secretary of defense

In January, 2009: Obama is inaugurated and immediately seeks out Republican lawmakers willing to work with his new agenda. He makes it a point to maintain Robert Gates as his Secretary of Defense. Some Republicans on the Hill even whisper that Obama was working with them more than Bush ever did.

Republican response in January, 2009: Rush Limbaugh welcomes the president with a hearty âI hope he fails.”

2) Obama meets with pro-choice and pro-life advocates

In May, 2009: Obama begins the first of several sessions meeting with pro-choice advocates and their detractors in order to help design legislation that protects both the lives of women and the unborn.

3) Obama listens to Republicans on health care

4) Obama compromises on 2010 budget deal

5) Obama compromises on “fiscal cliff”

Public Debate Over Impeachment Demands

In terms of background, U.S. public opinion widely opposed efforts made to impeach previous Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. CNN Polling Director Keating Holland has stated that their organization found that 69% opposed impeaching President Bush in 2006.

According to a July 2014 YouGov poll, 35% of Americans believed President Obama should be impeached, including 68% of Republicans. Later that month, a CNN survey found that about two thirds of adult Americans disagreed with impeachment efforts. The data showed intense partisan divides, with 57% of Republicans supporting the efforts compared to only 35% of independents and 13% of Democrats.

On July 8, 2014, the former Governor of Alaska and 2008 RepublicanVice Presidential nomineeSarah Palin publicly called for Obama’s impeachment for “purposeful dereliction of duty”. In a full statement, she said: “Itâs time to impeach; and on behalf of American workers and legal immigrants of all backgrounds, we should vehemently oppose any politician on the left or right who would hesitate in voting for articles of impeachment.”

Andrew McCarthy of the National Review wrote the book Faithless Execution: Building the Political Case For Obama’s Impeachment, which argued that threatening impeachment was a good way to limit executive action by Obama .

Also Check: How Many States Are Controlled By Republicans

Obama Explains His Remark About Punishing Enemies

After House Minority Leader John Boehner chided him for using the term “enemies”in a conversation last week with Univision Radio, President Obama offered an explication for his remark in an interview today with talk radio host Michael Baisden.

Following is Mr. Obama’s “enemies” quote from the Univision interview:

“If Latinos sit out the election instead of saying, ‘We’re gonna punish our enemies, and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us’ — if they don’t see that kind of upsurge in voting in this election — then I think it’s going to be harder. And that’s why I think it’s so important that people focus on voting on November 2nd.”

Here is what Boehner said about Mr. Obama’s use of the word “enemies” in prepared remarks for a speech Monday night.

Mr. Obama told Baisden that he should have used the word, “opponents,” rather than “enemies” . According to his language parsing, presumably some Republicans candidates are “opponents,” not “enemies,” of provisions, such as comprehensive immigration reform. Understood?

Obama: Gop Blocked 500 Bills

President Barack Obama is railing against congressional Republicans, telling a Hollywood crowd that the midterm elections are crucial because the GOP is willing to say no to everything.

The president, speaking at a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee event Wednesday evening hosted at Walt Disney Studios Chairman Alan Horns home, said Republicans have been obstructionist since even before he took office.

Their willingness to say no to everything the fact that since 2007, they have filibustered about 500 pieces of legislation that would help the middle class just gives you a sense of how opposed they are to any progress has actually led to an increase in cynicism and discouragement among the people who were counting on us to fight for them, Obama said of Republicans.

The conclusion is, well, nothing works, the president continued. And the problem is, is that for the folks worth fighting for for the person whos cleaning up that house or hotel, for the guy who used to work on construction but now has been laid off they need us. Not because they want a handout, but because they know that government can serve an important function in unleashing the power of our private sector.

Obama opened by saying that he is in trouble at home, because in 2012 he had told his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, that he had run his last campaign.

Also Check: Did Trump Call Republicans Stupid In 1998

Trump Says He Wants To Box Biden On 9/11

Former President Barack Obama said Republicans have been “cowed into accepting” a series of positions that “would be unrecognizable and unacceptable even five years ago or a decade ago,” telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper he is worried about the state of democracy in the United States in an exclusive interview that aired Monday.

Obama Says He’d Be Seen As Moderate Republican In 1980s

President Obama said his economic policies are “so mainstream” he’d be considered a moderate Republican in the 1980s.

In a Thursday interview with a Miami-based local television station, Obama said he thinks few people believe he wants to impose socialism on the country.

“I mean, what I believe in is a tax system that is fair,” he continued. “I don’t think government can solve every problem. I think that we should make sure that we’re helping young people go to school. We should make sure that our government is building good roads and bridges and hospitals and airports so that we have a good infrastructure.

“I do believe that it makes sense that everyone in America, as rich as this country is, shouldn’t go bankrupt because someone gets sick, so the things I believe in are essentially the same things your viewers believe in,” Obama said.

Conservatives frequently raise concern that Obama has turned the U.S. toward socialism, pointing to Obama’s healthcare law and the stimulus bill the president championed shortly after taking office.

After Obama won reelection, former GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin on Fox News said his win would be catastrophic for the U.S. economy because “Obama’s socialist policies” will “destroy America’s working class as he outsources opportunities.”

“I don’t know that there are a lot of Cubans or Venezuelans, Americans who believe that,” Obama said.

Here’s a full transcript of the interview with Obama:

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heathershomilies · 5 years

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Over and over again the attitudes of the US Republican party shock me. I just don’t get how they can even propose some of their policies, let alone enact them. From the point of view of the majority of the First World, the Republican party is simply cruel.

It doesn’t matter what area of policy we’re talking about; selfishness and greed seem to be the order of the day. Furthermore, this is the party that supposedly prides itself on its conservative morality, family values, and adherence Christian religious beliefs.

However, the area on which the Republican party prides itself the most is economic management. Their message is always that if you want to do well financially, you should vote for them. But again and again they make policy decisions that are not only deleterious to the US economy, but cruel or unfair to a sizable proportion of the population. Furthermore, almost always, a fairer policy would be better for the economy.

However, that fairer policy would not line the pockets of Republican politicians so well.

Healthcare

The most obvious area where this applies is healthcare. Recently, I wrote at length about what I see as the failures of healthcare policy in the US. In ‘The Benefits of a Single-Payer System‘ I outlined, among other things, the multiple economic benefits of a such a system.

The Democratic party has been trying to reform the US healthcare system so that the vulnerable don’t miss out for decades. It was one of the things Hillary Clinton was trying to do during her husband’s administration in the 1990s.

However, the proposal to establish a single-payer system in the US originally came from the conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. They were proposing a single-payer system a decade before so-called Hillarycare.

There was opposition within conservative circles because many didn’t think the government should be taking that type of role. But they had a good reason for suggesting it – it would save money.

Conservative Think-Tank Says Bernie Sanders’ Healthcare Plan Saves Money

During the 2016 election campaign, another conservative think tank did an analysis of the Bernie Sanders healthcare-for-all plan. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University calculated that the Sanders plan would cost US$32.6 trillion over ten years. The Republicans said paying for it would require more than a doubling of taxes.

But what they never said was that this was a more than US$2 trillion saving over what the US is currently paying in healthcare.

It was Sanders himself who made the claim of the saving, so Politifact did an analysis. They rate the claim only half true despite Sanders’ use of Mercatus’ own figures. They say there is no way of knowing what the actual result would be.

I would argue we actually have a pretty good idea. You just have to look at every other OECD country to see that the US is paying way over the odds for healthcare despite not covering everybody like other countries do. I suspect the savings would actually be higher than in the Mercatus study.

In my opinion, the reason the Republicans don’t want to change is they care more about what health insurance companies donate to their political campaigns than the millions who are suffering.

Statistics show that even Republican voters trust the Democratic party more on healthcare. I don’t think there can be any doubt that healthcare is likely to be a major issue in the 2020 elections. In my opinion, Republicans simply don’t want voters finding out how they’re currently profiting off the misery of some of their fellow USians.

Drug Costs

A subset of healthcare, drug costs is a case in point. This has been in the news in the US a lot recently. The crunch came when even middle-class people were suffering. During the government shutdown, there were workers who could no longer afford their insulin, for example, and so were rationing it at the risk of their lives.

(In New Zealand, this is an unimaginable situation. The most anyone pays for insulin is $20 per year. Many pay nothing. I’m sure those from other countries with single-payer systems have similar circumstances.)

As a result, the Democratic-controlled House Oversight Committee is doing an investigation into drug costs. On Monday (US time) we heard that Republicans are actually telling drug companies not to cooperate with the investigation.

Buzzfeed reports:

In an unusual move, House Republicans are warning drug companies against complying with a House investigation into drug prices.

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee sent letters to a dozen CEOs of major drug companies warning that information they provide to the committee could be leaked to the public by Democratic chair Elijah Cummings in an effort to tank their stock prices.

Cummings requested information from 12 drug companies such as Pfizer Inc., Johnson & Johnson, and Novartis AG in January as part of a broad investigation into how the industry sets prescription drug prices.

In their letters, Reps. Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows — leaders of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus — imply that Cummings may be attempting to collect the information in order to bring down the industry’s stock prices.

They write that Cummings is seeking sensitive information “that would likely harm the competitiveness of your company if disclosed publicly.” They then accuse Cummings of “releasing cherry-picked excerpts from a highly sensitive closed-door interview” conducted in an investigation into White House security clearances. “This is not the first time he has released sensitive information unilaterally,” says the letter. The authors say they “feel obliged to alert” the drug companies of Cummings’ actions.

Of course, accusing Congressman Cummings of such a dishonourable move is in itself downright insulting. On top of that, you have to wonder what the motives of the Republicans are for this move.

Democratic Response

On Tuesday (US time), Congresswoman Jackie Speier (D-California) made a response to the Republican move on MSNBC. Raw Story reports her comments from ‘All in With Chris Hayes’.

“The American people deserve to have lower drug prices,” said Speier. “The president even said so. And so two of my Republican colleauges [sic], rather than being on the side of their constituents trying to bring down the cost of drugs, are writing kiss-letters to the pharmaceutical companies telling them to be aware of what the chairman, Mr. Cummings is doing trying to lower prices. It really shows you where the two parties are in terms of drug pricing.”

“Chairman Cummings has gone out of his way to show that he wants to cooperate,” added Speier, but “they are going for the jugular. They have no intention to work cooperatively with the chairman.”

Speier made clear the stakes of this congressional inquiry.

“Four of the top 10 [drugs] in America since 2011 have seen a price increase of 100 percent,” said Speier. “Type one diabetes insulin, again, 3-4-500 percent increases. Epipens have gone up 500 percent. So the drug manufacturers are taking advantage of the opportunity to raise prices because they fear there might be controls placed on the prices of drugs. It’s obscene … this is a ripoff of the American people.”

I can only agree with her.

Tax Changes

There is widespread agreement, even amongst Republicans, that the recent changes to US tax policy benefit the wealthy much more than the poor and middle class. The general consensus appears to be that 80% of the benefits from the Trump tax changes went to the top 5% of income earners. That includes, of course, himself and his family.

Whether or not you think that is fair appears to be a decision that relies on your party affiliation rather than your income. While only 21% of Democrats with an income over US$75,000 p.a. think it fair they get most of the benefits, 68% of Republicans in that income bracket are of that opinion.

More puzzling to me, a majority of Republicans on lower incomes also think it’s fair that the wealthy are benefiting more than they are.

(Click graphic to go to source.)

I can’t help wondering if conservative religion plays a part in this. The idea that whether you do well or otherwise is because of God is deeply ingrained in some people. Suffering is seen as God’s will. Therefore, it’s God’s will that the wealthy are where they are.

When I was still a Christian I used to wonder what I’d done that made God want me to suffer so much. Those thoughts made everything else worse. When I realized there was no God, there was a lot less sadness in my life.

The Prosperity Gospel takes this to the extreme. A few years ago I made the (bad) decision to watch Creflo Dollar (just once!). He was telling his congregation that if they were following God’s laws and giving 10% to his church and they still weren’t prospering, then they should look at how much they were giving the church. Was it really 10% of all their income? Was it 10% of their gross income or their net income? Because it should be 10% of their income before tax.

Immigration Policy

The reaction of the Trump administration to what’s happening at the border with Mexico is an absolute disgrace. Not so long ago, Trump was ending his own deliberate policy of separating parents and their children. Now he’s bringing it back.

Worse, he’s implementing it in a way that will put any blame for negative results on vulnerable asylum seekers. They’re to be given two choices. One: stay with your kids and take your chances. Two: Separate from your kids and maybe you’ll go through the process more quickly.

Oh, and he’s trying to blame Obama too. I’ll let Stephen Colbert of ‘The Late Show’ settle that one:

TONIGHT: “President Obama separated the children,” Trump lied. #LSSC pic.twitter.com/jtyJGlHkMQ

— The Late Show (@colbertlateshow) April 10, 2019

On top of that, he forced his head of Homeland Security, Kirstjen Nielsen, to resign. Her fault? Refusing to break the law.

In a visit to border security staff, Trump also told them to break the law.

Trump’s not replacing Nielsen at this stage. Instead, alt-righter, white supremacist, and White House advisor Stephen Miller is to be given responsibility for border security.

This is another appalling situation as a result of electing Trump. But are Republicans saying anything in protest? Stupid question really. As long as Trump’s in the White House, they have power. They’re not giving that up for something like basic human decency.

Trump’s supporters are also excusing his actions. For example, his threat to deport those who were brought to the US illegally as children and babies by their parents and have known no home but the US, has the support of many in his base. “They committed a crime by coming here,” is their mantra. The fact they had no choice in the matter seems not to concern the cult.

Gun Safety

It’s because of the Republican party and the close financial relationship they have with the NRA that thousands of USians die needlessly every year. In a country that’s obviously crying out for better control of guns and who can get hold of them, the Republicans go out of their way to thwart any attempt at reform.

USians die as a result of guns while politicians say things like, “Gun control regulations don’t work.” I’d like to know why they think that when they clearly work in the rest of the world?

Four weeks ago, we had a gun massacre in New Zealand. To the shock and horror of most New Zealanders, the murderer was able to obtain the guns he used legally. A couple of days ago, changes to our laws were passed so that would no longer be possible.

In addition, magazines that hold more than ten rounds, and all equipment that could modify a gun into an automatic or semi-automatic, is also now illegal. I note that when a mass murderer made use of a bump-stock to make his gun fire like a semi-automatic in the US, lawmakers were unable to pass legislation to do the same because of (mainly) Republican opposition.

In order to try and ensure maximum compliance with the new law, the government is instituting a buy-back scheme. People can register their guns on-line with the NZ Police already, and they will contact them to arrange to collect them. This will cost many millions even in a country as small as ours. However, few are complaining; some things are more important than someone’s right to own an automatic or semi-automatic killing machine.

US political cartoonists have been making the above points for years. My collection of such cartoons on the topic is in the hundreds. There are dozens just about the relationship between the Republican party and the NRA. This is only a small selection of them:

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Environmental Policy

One of the most important of the Republican party’s failures to care for the people they govern is in the area of Environmental policy. The US Republican party is the only major political party in the developed world that denies the reality of global warming.

Democratic President Obama brought the US into line with the rest of the world. It was his actions that enabled the international agreement that led to the signing of the Paris Climate Accord. Most USians now recognize that Global Warming is a real thing, and something needs to be done about it urgently.

However, perhaps taking a cue from their political leaders, a majority of Republicans still need convincing. Going back two decades, there is plenty of evidence that senior Republican politicians used to be on board that global warming was a reality. Their change of heart appears to have come about as a result of money changing hands.

The Trump administration has been systematically reversing all of the work done by the Trump administration to try and reverse global warming. It is clear that this is being done because of the lobbying of the fossil fuel industry. Money is changing hands, whether personally, or as donations to political campaigns.

I wrote about Trump’s appalling first head of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Scott Pruitt over a year ago. His corruption forced him from office after just sixteen months. The current head, Andrew Wheeler, is still officially only acting in that position, but he’s been nominated. He’s a former lobbyist for the coal industry. Surprise, surprise.

Other Examples

There are obviously plenty of other areas I could go into. The appointment of Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary was one of Trump’s more appalling moves. I wrote about it at the time, and her actions have shown that the education of children is not her primary motive.

As an example, one of the policies she is pushing is tax breaks for those who donate to private schools. This at a time when public schools are crying our for more funding.

There isn’t a policy area in the modern Republican party that doesn’t appear to suffer the taint of money, greed, religion (which is illegal under the constitution), Trump, or a combination of the four.

I didn’t agree with the late Republican senator John McCain on a lot, but his death last year appears to have set the party free from any pretence at morality.

The party of morality couldn’t get any more immoral if it tried.

If you enjoyed reading this, please consider donating a dollar or two to help keep the site going. Thank you.

Is the Democratic Party Nicer Than Republican Party? Over and over again the attitudes of the US Republican party shock me. I just don't get how they can even propose some of their policies, let alone enact them.

#Barack Obama #Bernie Sanders #Donald Trump #Drug Costs #Gun Safety #Healthcare #House Oversight Committee #Immigration #Jackie Speier #Jim Jordan #Kirstjen Nielsen #Mark Meadoes #REligious Right #Single-payer healthcare #Stephen Miller #Trump Tax policy

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thespearnews-blog · 7 years

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Kiir not qualified to initiate national dialogue, says Lam Akol

New Post has been published on https://thespearnews.com/2017/09/06/kiir-not-qualified-initiate-national-dialogue-says-lam-akol/

Kiir not qualified to initiate national dialogue, says Lam Akol

A South Sudanese opposition leader who has been a leading critic of President Salva Kiir reaffirmed his belief Monday that Kiir would be unsuitable to call for a national dialogue in the country.

“I don’t think that Salva Kiir is qualified to call for dialogue because he dishonoured the peace agreement in July 2016 and caused the ongoing war. The call for dialogue by Salva Kiir is to cover up his military operations,” Lam Akol said in an interview.

The prominent politician, who is now the leader of South Sudan’s opposition National Democratic Movement (NDM), yesterday said his group was opposed to the national dialogue initiated by President Kiir.

He denied reports that they had accepted in principle to join the dialogue process. “We are saying that there is no need for the ongoing national dialogue in Juba,” he said.

Lam Akol, a former agriculture minister in Kiir’s administration, said the international community should create a new forum for peace in the country.

“Now there is no peace because the 2015 peace agreement had died and it was buried. So the international community should look for a new inclusive peace process,” he said.

Akol formed his armed movement in September 2016 after resigning from the unity government in Juba.

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apsbicepstraining · 7 years

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Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Are Wildly Unpopular. But Is This The Guy To Replenish The Void?

Between the racist world TV whiz guiding the GOP and an unsettled Democratic Party, “none of the above” could acquire a respectable number of votes right now when it comes to the 2016 ballot.

How about a libertarian whom beings haven’t is aware of?

Gary Johnson wants to find out. At this past weekend’s contentious Libertarian Party convention, he won the nomination together with his running teammate, former Massachusetts Gov. William Weld. A recent ballot indicated Johnson attracting 10 percentage of the legislative elections vote — a highly respectable amount for a comparatively obscure former minister of New Mexico. With continued success, he could get a begrudged spot at the presidential debates. The mainstream press is paying attention.

But even considering Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s high unfavorable ratings, it’s very difficult to reckon Johnson playing a consequential character on Election Day. Libertarian may learn an admirable register of trouncing budgets, urging foreign policy self-control and preaching for personal freedoms from gambling to drug use. But Johnson is also kind of an oddball( at least to report to other legislators) who is most at ease talking obsessively about his personal fitness.

In an interview with The Huffington Post’s “Candidate Confessional” podcast, Johnson talked about his 2012 White House run, exuding bitterness over the media’s failure to properly recognize his athletic feats.

“I operated a 2:48 marathon and they don’t even report on it! ” he proclaimed at one point , memo the coverage Paul Ryan and others had received for meters much less impressive.

At another point, Johnson “was talkin about a” the 500 miles he rode on his bike across New Hampshire over a five-day span. “Ron Paul, national news is that he go around a lake on his bicycle. And we travel 100 miles a epoch for five days, and the concept was, ‘What do you have to do to get some scrutiny around here? ‘”

At yet another point, he recalled the errands he took across Iowa for an annual motorcycle razz there.

“There is more coverage about[ Romney’s] girls doing one leg of the RAGBRAI than us riding RAGBRAI every day, ” he exclaimed.

Such unconventional notions of what constitutes campaign “moments” stir Johnson a particularly ticklish legislator to extend. How gravely do you report on presidential candidates who’s climbing mountains as frequently as he is issuing plan papers? When he ran in 2012, Johnson got a lot of attention from men’s periodicals. In September 2011, he emerged shirtless atop a motorcycle in GQ for a feature story that requested: “Is this the Sanest Man Guiding For President? ” The subhed wondered why balancing the budget as governor of New Mexico and clambering Mount Everest with a broken leg didn’t “at least give him a shot” at the GOP nomination.

The writer discovered that here was a brand-new version of John McCain’s Straight Talk Express. This version wore bike shorts. “Do not disorient his Zen-like quality for a lack of cojones, ” she wrote. “The guy has brass ones. He’s a five-time Ironman triathlete. He paraglides and hot-gas balloons.( Not hot air, red-hot gas .) He biked across the Alps. And from the right slant, he looks like Harrison Ford.”

But Republican voters didn’t interpret a Han Solo. If they riled to detect Johnson at all, they caught him flailing or making a gag about pup shit( yes, bird-dog shit ). Johnson accuses often of this on reporters who refused to cover him and TV exec who deterred him off most dialogue stages. But he also acknowledges he made some curious selects.

Early in the hasten, he spent the vast majority of his time — 90 percentage, he thinks — doing Internet talk radio because, well, it was free advertisement.

“A mid-4 0-year-old in the basement to hold the interview and … the only beings listening were his parents the next flooring up, ” was how Johnson described it. “It was just horrible.”

And then there was his first campaign stop. Rather than contain a rallying in his childhood hometown, Johnson took a few reporters with him as he clambered a mountain — Tuckerman’s Ravine on Mount Washington, to be precise. Simply, the conditions were downright treacherous.

“These guys are like, ‘What the fuck? This is serious. This. Is. Serious, ‘” he remembered. By the time they got down, they were thankful is still alive. “I remarked, ‘Should we do it again? ‘ And everybody looks at me and suggests, ahem, ‘No.’ And I supposed, ‘You know, you guys right now are claim. We are genuinely fortunate to be here in one piece.'”

These guys are like, ‘What the fucking? This is serious. This. Is. Serious.’ Gary Johnson, on clambering Tuckerman’s Ravine the day after announcing his 2012 campaign.

Johnson seemed to bumble at basic expedition capacities where he was simply trying to get some see for his core concerns. Formerly, he showed up at a poker tournament to capitalize on his advocacy for allowing online gaming, exclusively to have bouncers shadow him and the emcee try to keep him away from the players.

“It was demeaning, ” he spoke. “I didn’t get kicked out. But I might as well have been kicked out. I represent, it was just a slap in the face.”

Johnson had paid his own lane to the tournament.

Like most losing candidates, Johnson said he took lessons from his downfalls. He won’t be doing Internet radio again. And he seemed committed to not get quite so caught up in the media’s had failed to spotlight his athletic prowess. But while the 2012 expedition may have had it’s share of dishonours, his self-love remains firmly intact for 2016.

“It’s not a fair process. It is a manipulated process. That’s the reality, ” responded Johnson. “Am I forestalled? Not so much better annoyed as, I seem enlightened. I genuinely do feel enlightened. It’s the channel video games is played. Ok, alright. I’m a good games player. I got to tell you guys. I’m a good chess player. I actually am. I’d love to play Putin in chess. Insure how that turns out.”

This podcast was revised by Christine Conetta. Listen to it above or download it on iTunes . And while you’re there, please subscribe to , charge and review our establish. Make sure to tune in to next week’s chapter, when special guests will be Ron Klain, Al Gore’s lawyer and top aide-de-camp on the 2000 recount.

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clubofinfo · 7 years

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Expert: Alternativism has given alternative media something to think about in America. The new regime in Washington DC has activated a veritable tsunami of grieving voices spitting hatred at their ‘populist’ billionaire President as he commences to re-shuffle his deck of cards. The new boss-man tweets his own superlatives in the small hours of the night revealing his indifference to the superlative-ridden cant of his predecessors. The ‘new broom’ possesses its own brand of cant which is currently being fed into an alternative lexicon…and it sure has lots of snap, crackle and pop. But what is it recycling? The election of the new broom is something that sticks in the craw of a vast swathe of peeved losers traumatised by the effects of defeat in one helluva contest. Thinking the election stolen by an imposter with yellow hair and small hands was too much for the ‘adorable’ class. The methods used by the alleged fraudster to separate them from their privileges were unforgivable. A political parvenu who had the audacity to vocalise his thoughts about America wasting its treasure in the Middle East had come amongst them. On closer examination, the superlative-ridden cant of the new ‘lot’ is strangely similar to the superlative-ridden cant of the old ‘lot’. Over time, the American two-party system had morphed into a binary cancer of sorts, pursuing progress through military conquest while sharing the same disciplines that control the public’s support for Empire building. Becoming ever more bellicose and pumped-up with greed and power, the so-called American democratic spirit died an ignominious death when the war-machine set about consigning country after country to a dystopian hell. The American democratic spirit was apparently disposable like everything else! The hollow men and women who ghoulishly occupied the institutions that curated disciplines that allowed money, militarism and media, unregulated licence to plunder the globe for profit, brought dystopia, not democracy, to millions of innocent people across the world. The millions of little brown bodies destroyed or maimed happened to be in the way, their resources were needed to afford more penthouses for blowhards back home! But ever since technology became the morphology de jure defining the relationship between public versus private space, the public (human kind) has been relegated to a passive role in a system that has become the property of the corporate world. Disciplines that control programmes conducted by the Pentagon, Wall Street, and now the media, are as self-serving as were those used by medieval oligarchies in their time. History teaches us that discipline…the sine qua non of leadership… when imposed from ‘above’ can soon morph into authoritarian rule when the public blindly follow the drift of suspect leadership. The corporate world has made us beholden to its planners, its consumer culture expropriating the innate artistry that makes individuality interesting. To merely passively consume, we expose ourselves to the danger of becoming intellectually obese and in possession of a false sense of heterogeneity. After being duped into believing that we would all be happy in the role of the mesmerised consumer, the technologists set about manufacturing ever newer forms of negative escapist therapies to bypass character development. By virtue of the packaged responses that are part of the modus vivendi of information technology, the sliced-bread aspect of designer-psychology is slowly coming into view. War has a different meaning to the people in the rust belt compared to the meaning it has in the beltway…the former who have been relegated to the role of hands-on automatons employed to do the heavy lifting, have become aware of their entrapment. The Wall Street heist and the Iraq war were digested very differently within these two settings. As capitalism produces ever more wares that stultify people’s ability to participate in any creative sense, the human spirit begins to rebel against the odium associated with pseudo realities that are propped up by lies. When the human spirit is denied oxygen it begins to wilt like the caged canary in the coal mine. Capitalism is not a country (it acknowledges no borders), rather, it is a system programmed to dishonour social contracts in its pursuit of profit, telling those that follow its programmes that they will be better served if they follow their lead. Everything goes, regime change, planned colonies in space, attacking defenceless people in foreign places, sequestering the wealth of nations, are all equally pursued for gain and the spoils are there to put more $’s in your pocket. The superlative-ridden cant of the American narrative is well understood in most parts of the world to mean ‘we come, we take your resources and we leave chaos behind us wherever we go’…we welcome you to be part of our enterprise if you abnegate love for justice and other forms of crap! Mucus bile is erupting from the intestinal parts of the American body politic after the surprising success the ‘new broom’ had in the recent presidential elections. There is no health system available on earth that can assist in relieving the painful rancour that devours the ‘old brooms’ now consigned to the anonymity of the historic closet. Nobody outside of America can understand the rage that possesses ‘America the Beautiful’ at this time, or the nature of its crisis…except to observe that the ‘new broom’ is dismantling much of the stuff the ‘old broom’ had put in place…which indicates that ends will remain the same, though means will undergo significant change. Eye-brows are raised in the world at large at the extent to which venom and spite has come into the national arena as a result of a defeat that has left America polarised. De facto fascism that took the form of dismantling other people’s countries had come to be accepted as America’s raison d’etre. Scant disapproval from the community at large allowed a succession of vainglorious leaders to take the country down the path of Empire building. With the election of the ‘new broom’, the crunch came when established alliances within the Anglo-USA-Zion ‘dealerium’ were subjected to a defrosting process designed to reduce the pace of continuous warfare…the dark $$$’s of the armament industry were not so much an issue as the fact that the arrangement was benefiting too few people. The binary pantomime of the two-party system has morphed into a state of irreconcilable spleen as the system splutters under the weight of its own malfeasance. The ‘deep state’ was recently challenged by the ‘deplorables’ who, upon waking from a deep-sleep, hightailed it to the voting booth to effect a collision between matter ($) and anti-matter. The sleeping giant of the rust belt…along with its many cousins consigned to misery in a dystopian system…surprisingly found their voices at the ballot box to become the countervailing force…the counterpunch…challenging the risk-takers running amok in a deregulated ‘America the Beautiful’, now open for mafia style business deals @postcodewallstreet.com Subsequently, the media seemed to draw information from a trove of quixotic tropes that purported to show the public the perilous situation America found itself in as a consequence of having elected the wrong ‘new broom’. ‘Reds-under-the-bed’, foremost in facilitating the sweep-to-victory of the ‘new broom’ had the most success because of its wow-factor. It pitted our set of spies (hackers) against their set of spies in a Hollywood take-all sort of way while keeping the tap running for the diehards to cry foul. 19/20 century Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud, founder of psychoanalyst was frequently mined for his perspectives pertaining to Judea-Christian mythology in the hope of capturing some innate pattern that might throw light on the-brute-within the new ‘new broom’…like he was an exception to an American rule of goodness that didn’t exist. Thoughts regarding the impending arrival of fascism were circulated like meteorological forecasts warning the public that the ‘new broom’ and his consorts were there to filch your democracy by stealth. Eulogies to ‘America the Beautiful’ kept apace of the cortege as the mourners went around in circles refusing to exit the stage. As time went by, it became obvious that the ‘old-brooms’ were crying crocodile tears for having been denied the opportunity to ride the ‘gravy train’ yet again. Their amnesia included forgetting that the sleeping giant of the rust belt…et al… was a force to be contended with. Having become the mesmerised minions of the Wall Street set, their fall from grace was doubly painful when they realised that they had no longer the ear of the sleeping giant on the one hand, nor access to their former paymasters on the other hand. Psychoanalysis may not have much traction in the rust belt, but perspectives from that quarter were likely to perceive the putsch-minded democrats as sore losers. The ‘sleeping giant’ of American politics must surely be the voice of those not included in the binge banquet of unregulated finance currently sundering the body politic. Awareness of alternatives came into view after the recent elections in America, suggesting that the purview of a social democratic matrix may exist in the voices struggling to escape the phlegm of neoconservative policies in places ignored till now. If the phoenix is to rise, it is likely to take to the skies from the rust belt rather than academia…a subject which of itself implies the need for more new brooming…and when on attaining a sufficiently elevated position in the sky, this bird of hope might…just might…as America’s first conscionable organ of truthful reportage become an eye-in-the-sky satellite transmitting reality back to base…inform its own people of the staggering amount of raw sewage that ‘America the Beautiful’ has deposited in so many parts of the world… isn’t any alternative to spouting the superlatives that mask the gibberish of propaganda long overdue? If the eye-in-the-sky Phoenix relayed the birth defects related to the use of depleted uranium in Iraq by its own military…now plaguing the citizens of Fallujah…to the American public, it would be a real history lesson. If it could show the extent of the deaths and maiming of children in Pakistan and Afghanistan as a result of drone warfare over there, or the plight of the ordinary people of Libya rendered destitute as a consequence of America’s intervention in their hapless country…then historic truth might very well have its moment in the sun! If the Phoenix relayed the truth about America’s military bases and why they are where they are, its citizens might come to understand that their country has a long history of de facto fascism. America needs to face up to the fact that its days of unmitigated mercenary adventurism are over. Its record abroad; Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria, to name but a few of the countries it has destroyed, attest to the fact that behind its facade of superlatives there lurks the perennial blowhard doing it for Uncle Sam. If you needed to know how bad the mess is that America has made in the many countries it has interfered in, you’d have to see it for yourself…historians give polished interpretations that fail to reveal the grime behind the façade of the narrative. If the ‘old broom’ swept us into nihilism with the aid of a corrupt media, blowhard military and bastard economy, the allegations now leveled against the man with the yellow hair and small hands are a bit rich. Capitalism spawns capitalists who forever lure the ‘folk’ into what can only be described as the ‘trap of superlativism’. Clearly this is the path we will follow until the penny drops and Main Street takes charge of the whole-deal. http://clubof.info/

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apsbicepstraining · 7 years

Text

Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Are Wildly Unpopular. But Is This The Guy To Replenish The Void?

Between the racist world TV whiz guiding the GOP and an unsettled Democratic Party, “none of the above” could acquire a respectable number of votes right now when it comes to the 2016 ballot.

How about a libertarian whom beings haven’t is aware of?

“I operated a 2:48 marathon and they don’t even report on it! ” he proclaimed at one point , memo the coverage Paul Ryan and others had received for meters much less impressive.

At yet another point, he recalled the errands he took across Iowa for an annual motorcycle razz there.

“There is more coverage about[ Romney’s] girls doing one leg of the RAGBRAI than us riding RAGBRAI every day, ” he exclaimed.

Early in the hasten, he spent the vast majority of his time — 90 percentage, he thinks — doing Internet talk radio because, well, it was free advertisement.

“A mid-4 0-year-old in the basement to hold the interview and … the only beings listening were his parents the next flooring up, ” was how Johnson described it. “It was just horrible.”

These guys are like, ‘What the fucking? This is serious. This. Is. Serious.’ Gary Johnson, on clambering Tuckerman’s Ravine the day after announcing his 2012 campaign.

“It was demeaning, ” he spoke. “I didn’t get kicked out. But I might as well have been kicked out. I represent, it was just a slap in the face.”

Johnson had paid his own lane to the tournament.

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apsbicepstraining · 7 years

Text

Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Are Wildly Unpopular. But Is This The Guy To Replenish The Void?

Between the racist world TV whiz guiding the GOP and an unsettled Democratic Party, “none of the above” could acquire a respectable number of votes right now when it comes to the 2016 ballot.

How about a libertarian whom beings haven’t is aware of?

“I operated a 2:48 marathon and they don’t even report on it! ” he proclaimed at one point , memo the coverage Paul Ryan and others had received for meters much less impressive.

At yet another point, he recalled the errands he took across Iowa for an annual motorcycle razz there.

“There is more coverage about[ Romney’s] girls doing one leg of the RAGBRAI than us riding RAGBRAI every day, ” he exclaimed.

Early in the hasten, he spent the vast majority of his time — 90 percentage, he thinks — doing Internet talk radio because, well, it was free advertisement.

“A mid-4 0-year-old in the basement to hold the interview and … the only beings listening were his parents the next flooring up, ” was how Johnson described it. “It was just horrible.”

These guys are like, ‘What the fucking? This is serious. This. Is. Serious.’ Gary Johnson, on clambering Tuckerman’s Ravine the day after announcing his 2012 campaign.

“It was demeaning, ” he spoke. “I didn’t get kicked out. But I might as well have been kicked out. I represent, it was just a slap in the face.”

Johnson had paid his own lane to the tournament.

The post Donald Trump And Hillary Clinton Are Wildly Unpopular. But Is This The Guy To Replenish The Void? appeared first on apsbicepstraining.com.

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0 notes