The Senate held a vote tonight. The Republicans acted like assholes again. The Senate clerk will post[ed] the roll call here sometime soon. The president issued a statement in reaction.
Statement by the PresidentTonight, Senate Republicans chose to raise taxes on nearly 160 million hardworking Americans because they refused to ask a few hundred thousand millionaires and billionaires to pay their fair share. They voted against a bill that would have not only extended the $1,000 tax cut for a typical family, but expanded that tax cut to put an extra $1,500 in their pockets next year, and given nearly six million small business owners new incentives to expand and hire. That is unacceptable. It makes absolutely no sense to raise taxes on the middle class at a time when so many are still trying to get back on their feet.
Now is not the time to put the economy and the security of the middle class at risk. Now is the time to rebuild an economy where hard work and responsibility pay off, and everybody has a chance to succeed. Now is the time to put country before party and work together on behalf of the American people. And I will continue to urge Congress to stop playing politics with the security of millions of American families and small business owners and get this done.
Some people have been debating the worth and efficacy of the bully pulpit. I just mic checked the bully pulpit. Maybe you can mic check this to your social networks. Let people know that the Republicans are still looking out for the top one percent while everyone else gets to pay higher taxes.
And notice that the president adopted the Republicans’ deceptive practice of calling the expiration of a tax cut a “tax raise.” So, there’s some Luntz for you.
Excellent. More of this, please.
Manchin, Tester, and Sanders voted against it.
Susan Collins voted for it. 51-49 in favor, but the majority doesn’t rule.
Sanders? That’s odd. I’ll be interested to see what ideological grounds threw him into the same camp with Manchin and Tester.
Oh, did it involve a payroll tax cut extension? That would do it for Sanders.
Though if it was going to fly Sanders wouldn’t be the vote to stand in the way.
Sanders sees the payroll tax cut as undermining Social Security.
I think he’s right. And for my taste, too much of the stimulus money has gone to tax cuts and incentives and not enough to tangible, revenue-producing projects.
The minority obstructionists in the Senate refused to allow a tax cut for 100 million Americans from being voted on. Is this not an accurate description? I am sure the media will refuse to explain the actual process in their reports.
that is an accurate description.
So-called “progressives” never REALLY cared two shits about the magical bully pulpit. It’s just shit they say to emote their hatred of Obama. Nothing remotely intellectual about it.
The so-called “progressives” KNOW perfectly well that the problem is republicans. They simply DON’T CARE. They hate Obama with a zealotry approaching a religion, and no facts can ever influence that.
It’s just the way they are.
The problem is also the Democrats in Congress who have been sabotaging the platform they supposedly ran on.
When you talk about progressives, you have to make some distinctions. There are progressive independents of various left-wing tendencies who tend not to vote at all because they will not choose the “lesser of two evils”. There are progressives affiliated with a variety of third parties, who vote for those third parties and who have a vested interest in tearing down a Democratic president and the Democratic party.
And then there are the varieties of progressive Democrats. One group was very supportive of Obama’s election, worked hard with OFA, and thought of OFA as the movement that would carry the agenda forward after Obama was elected. They feel betrayed by the fact that Obama replaced Howard Dean with Tim Kaine (who was a miserable failure) and failed to use the political power of the organization they spent so much time building. Another group worked hard promoting the progressive credentials of Obama, thought that would give them the ability to influence the agenda, and were very put off when they were ridiculed and shut down. Another group keep the faith and tried the make me do it strategy, seeking to hold Congressional Democrats accountable for not supporting the President’s stated agenda, and were turned off when their actions were ridiculed as retarded by the President’s chief of staff; they concluded, rightly or wrongly, that they had been used by an ambitious politician without core values. Another group understood the divisions within the Democratic caucus in Congress and cut the President a lot of slack but saw the actions of the candidates that the Democratic committees supported as being foolish in 2010 for running away from the President’s positions–and predicted the electoral disaster that occurred as a result of marginalizing the President. Another group of progressive Democrats continues to support the President regardless of what they perceive as missteps. Another group of progressive Democrats has supported the President without qualification.
What the debt ceiling crisis of the summer and the vote to consider the homeland the battlefield have shown is that the American political system is seriously corrupted and and made incompetent by the power of money. And that anyone who acts pragmatically within that context cannot do more than marginally prevent the further erosion of American democracy. The most important thing that President Obama can do now to show where he stands is to carry out his threat to veto the National Defense Authorization Act if it still contains the Levin-McCain amendment in any form. And veto on grounds that it violates the bill of rights, not that it limits presidential power.
The bully pulpit argument is now irrelevant. It is clear to most that unless the President pre-empted every single cable network there is no bully pulpit anymore and comparisons with past presidents ignores the growth of the narrowcasting cable industry. We progressives should now admit what we should have known. The bully pulpit of talking directly to the American people doesn’t matter if no one’s listening.
Okay, I split my side reading this shit.
If that’s fake, I’m jealous. Funny either way. OK, it’s a sadder world we live in if it’s real–if that’s possible.
Out of 330 million Americans, there’s got to be at least one Bennett.
Dude is such a fool.
Duh.
Check out the vote of Sen. Brown of Mass. Appears he is more afraid of tea baggers than he is of Ms. Warren.
Even Ben Nelson voted Yes. Wow, what is Tester doing? I do not understand his strategy when running for re-election.
“I just mic checked the bully pulpit. Maybe you can mic check this to your social networks.”
I know I’m horribly old fashioned but, what does that mean?”
It means this.
I figured that was what you meant, except that I’ve sometimes heard the occupy group use mic checks to shut someone down or change the subject. Like when a few protesters tried to apologize to John Lewis when Occupy Atlanta wouldn’t let him speak, it sounded from the video clips, anyway, like “mic checks” were used to try to shut down the apologies.
And Norquist has been talking about how it’s not an increase, it’s just letting a temporary cut expire. We’re through the looking glass, people.
“Now is not the time to put the economy and the security of the middle class at risk.”
HUH? What security?
Given the overall lameness of our political and economic system, I get the “need” for Obama and the so called democrats to politicize this issue- attempt to score points with the voters– that is, the voters who actually _ still show up_ on election day.
What I don’t get is political bloggers enabling/supporting the partisan charade/game.
We criticize front men like Luntz for his hyperbole/propaganda, propping up the current system– but obviously “progressives” are doing more or less the same thing.
You really think the voters outside of partisan bloggo world don’t see this and sneer?
Gimme a break.
Yeah but…what if the stuff that is said from that bully pulpit is total bullshit?
Read this again:
Now read this:
Read the rest of the article. Buy the book. Verrrry interesting.
Very interesting indeed.
Bet on it.
I repeat:
Yes, you do have to start asking those kinds of questions…or at least you should be asking those questions given “the outcomes we’ve all seen with our own eyes.”
But NOOOOOOooooo…he gets up there and makes yet another speech about how “Now is not the time to put the economy and the security of the middle class at risk. Now is the time to rebuild an economy where hard work and responsibility pay off, and everybody has a chance to succeed.”
Talk is cheap.
But then…leftinesses are cheap dates.
So it goes.
AG
P.S. Ron Paul
You have to ask those same questions about Ron Paul. What kind of Congress does Dr. Paul think he’ll be dealing with if he wins?
My social networks are clear who the Republicans stand for. Their uncertainty is who the Democrats stand for.
It’s nice that he said it. But to go all Luntz-y, it’s not what he says, it’s what the public hears.
Well, then you have missed the entire point of Booman’s post and what he’s trying to say here.
Or, more cynically, confirmed the worst unsaid implications of his post, instead. Take your pick.
I haven’t missed it. The statement was about my social networks. And my social networks are pretty diverse.
Don’t miss my point.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we had a 24/7 Wurlitzer to play this tune night and day?
Indeed it would.