Monthly Archives: January 2009

Conservative Crack-up News: Frank Luntz says Americans want more government

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When Republican pollster Frank Luntz came to Albuquerque four years ago, he was smug and snarky cuss. That was when the local NAIOP affiliate brought the GOP’s most notorious message manipulator (Contract for America, Clear Skies Initiative, Death Tax) to teach local sprawl developers how to re-spin and recast their image. “Never, ever refer to yourselves as ‘developers’,” he told them. It didn’t poll so well, he explained. Use the term “designers” and “creators” instead, he said.

Well, it’s 2009 and Luntz is stunned by the massive shift in public opinion regarding taxes and spending on infrastructure. Continue reading →

Give Thanks VIDEO

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On this Inauguration Day we give thanks that the tide is turning in our Nation. It is also a day to remember our ancestors and the leaders who paved the way for us.

A few months ago we produced a video that honored our leaders and today it makes sense to post it for all to view.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAORIJ-F4PI&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]

And so it is done…

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Barack Hussein Obama is now the 44th president of the United States.

Today’s inauguration of America’s first black president on the Washington D.C. Mall came nearly 50 years after another galvanic event on the same spot.

The echoes of Dr. Martin Luther King’s 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech, a stirring cry for equality among people of all races, were not lost on the millions who attended Obama’s inauguration today.

So it was fitting that the Obama inauguration’s final invocation was given by The Rev. Joseph Lowery, a former head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and one of the last of a dwindling pool of ministers and civil rights leaders who marched with the great Dr. King.

Lowery, a legendary figure himself, closed with the words he has used in many speeches over the years: Continue reading →

Neocon wet dreams and the judgment of history

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Sputtering to the finish line, George W. Bush will go on national TV tonight to give his farewell address. Based on his recent press conference and interviews, we’ve already gotten hints of how he intends to spin his legacy. As Tracy Dingmann put it, “He slumped, he squinted, he contorted his face and mocked his detractors with a fake whiny voice… In summing up his eight years in office, Bush was proudly unreflective.”

Ahh, but it wasn’t supposed to turn out this way. Certainly not the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And Bush’s foreign policy — that was to have been his supreme triumph.

Of course, that’s the way it wasn’t. Continue reading →

Bush: Slouching to Crawford

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As I watched George W. Bush speak to the media in what was billed as his last press conference ever, I was struck by how much the two-term president revealed.

Bush must have known this last appearance before the press corps would become a much-scrutinized part of history.

So what did he do? He slumped, he squinted, he contorted his face and mocked his detractors with a fake whiny voice. His rambling thoughts trailed off into nothingness or built to angry, self-pitying crescendos when he talked about anyone who dared criticize his actions or his motives. Continue reading →

What’s the big secret?

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So, the Treasury Department, under the threat of subpoena, finally agrees to release the contracts for institutions that are receiving bailout money or TARP funds to a senate subcommittee (link). But, Carl Levinson, the chairman of the Senate subcommittee on investigations, has made it known that he doesn’t plan on exposing them to the public but has yet to give a reason. Considering that the TARP program was meant to stimulate the financial sector and encourage increased lending, which hasn’t been happening, I do believe that it makes sense for the public to be aware of the conditions that these institutions are supposed to be held to.

See also TPM Muckracker.

Transparency, Got to Love It

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As I am constantly reading about the proposed $775 billion dollar stimulus package that is being developed by the Obama administration the word that immediately comes to mind is transparency. At this point, most seem to agree that drastic measures need to be taken, but the extent of those measures is up for debate. Obama, however, has done a very good job at rolling out compromises by attempting to include a balance between tax cuts and new spending. Continue reading →

“Clean” Coal Sludge

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With all the recent talk, commercials, and news about clean coal, it’s timely to see an event emerge involving the horrible happenings in the small Tennessee town of Harriman (TV spot) (TN coal disaster) The story here is that Tennessee Valley Authority’s Kingston Coal Plant, a coal-fired power plant that has been in the community since 1955, had a 40 acre holding pond break, and the heavy-metal enriched sludge that it contained spread throughout the underlying community.

To be exact it was 1 billion gallons, yes billions, of coal ash sludge which flowed so vigorously that three houses in its pathway now have been condemned and 42 other homes have been damaged. This sludge flow was so enormous that it now covers more than 300 acres and has risen up to heights of 65 feet in places! Continue reading →