President Obama has just taken the step to welcome Republicans in Congress to a bipartisan summit on February 25, to be televised live.
This is a good step, and will test the Republicans as to whether there will be any cooperation by that party toward some form of health care legislation.
It will be interesting to see if the GOP tries to evade the summit, or will in some way, attempt to undermine it.
Stay tuned for the reaction by Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, Michael Steele et a!
Everyone rails against “unnecessary” and “excessive” government spending, including Republicans, Democrats, and Independents, and also the Tea Party and Freedom Works protest groups.
But dare to cut any particular state or district’s favorite programs or “earmarks”, and suddenly governors, senators, congressmen, and ordinary citizens bitterly complain!
Don’t cut the space program in Florida! Don’t diminish agricultural subsidies in Iowa! Don’t look for cost savings on military spending in Texas! Don’t dare to suggest that there must be long range cuts in entitlement programs, such as Social Security and Medicare! Don’t force a state or city into a crisis on crime prevention or education or health services! In other words, DON’T CUT anything except other programs elsewhere! 🙂
It is certainly obvious that this is the major problem in the budget process–that no one wants their programs or services cut, only others, and that goes around all fifty states and all members of Congress and all governors!
So we hear over and over again that we must cut spending, and yet there is no way to do so, without antagonizing and alienating different interest groups and voters and political leaders!
So the never ending problem: Government spending must be cut, but yet it cannot be in a reasonable way. Therefore, there is an hypocrisy about “excessive” government spending, and it not limited to just one group, but ALL groups and both political parties! 🙁
Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan was on Meet The Press this morning, and he accused Republican leaders of Congress of politicizing national security.
Brennan declared that he had fully informed the top Republican leaders of Congress–Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader; Ohio Congressman John Boehner, House Minority Leader; Michigan Congressman Peter Hoekstra, ranking member of the Intelligence Committee in the House of Representatives; and Missouri Senator Kit Bond, ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee–of the Christmas Airliner incident in Detroit, and told them that the FBI was using normal procedure, including reading the Miranda rights to the suspect, and that no objection was registered.
Now all of the Republicans are making it a political issue, he said, instead of recognizing that using the typical criminal methods of questioning the suspect through the FBI and Miranda rights was that always utilized by the Bush Administration during the nearly eight years of the War on Terror under that President.
Brennan said that the profesionalism of counter terrorism experts was being challenged in an unfair and destructive manner.
Is this anything new, that the Republicans are refusing to cooperate and support the administration? During the Bush Presidency, it was said to be unpatriotic and counterproductive if anything was criticized about the Bush approach to terrorism, which ironically was exactly what the Obama Administration is doing, regarding terrorism suspects arrested on American soil. Unfortunately, the answer is that there is no willingness to cooperate and avoid partisanship! 🙁
With the victory of Mitch Landrieu as Mayor Of New Orleans yesterday, new attention is being paid to the reelection campaign of Senator Mary Landrieu, his sister.
Their father, Moon Landrieu, was the last white mayor of New Orleans, leaving office in 1978. The fact that his son was able to win over a large portion of the African American population in the city, after 32 years of African American mayors, shows the dominance of this family, which could be called a dynasty, just behind the famous Longs–Huey, Earl and Russell, which influenced Louisiana politics for nearly fifty years.
Mary Landrieu is in a tough race for re-election to a third term, and has been seen as very moderate in her approach to issues, including health care reform, where she has been a critic of the Obama Administration, and has driven a hard bargain to gain advantages for her state in exchange for her vote.
It could be, however, that her brother’s victory is a sign that this race will be one of the most watched by both Republicans and Democrats this fall. And don’t give up on Mary Landrieu winning, as she is a tough politician who knows how to maximize her family’s advantages!