Home > Jay Bookman > Archives > 2009 > January > 10 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USCongress, Obama at odds? Great!
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Key measures of President-elect Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan are facing a barrage of criticism from some Senate Democrats, with one charging that the plan’s tax breaks were a return to “trickledown” economics. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, says many of the tax credits in the stimulus plan amount to “trickledown” economics.
During a lengthy closed-door meeting Thursday evening with Democratic senators on Capitol Hill, Larry Summers, chosen to head the National Economic Council, and senior Obama adviser David Axelrod heard complaints about the stimulus plan, according to two senior Democratic aides who attended the meeting.
“The concern seemed to be that people feel like the infrastructure projects are certain to create jobs and the business tax breaks are less certain to create jobs, and that’s what our focus needs to be,” one of the aides said.
In particular, members said they did not think the idea of giving employers a $3,000 tax credit for each employee they hire would work.
“I’d rather spend the money on the infrastructure, on direct investment, on energy conversion and other kinds of things much more directly and much more rapidly and much more certainly create a real job,” said Sen. John Kerry, D-Massachusetts.
That’s a great development, for a couple of reasons. First, the congressional Democrats are probably right. In an economy like this one, the goal is to inject a lot of money as quickly as possible and produce as many jobs as possible, and tax credits just won’t do that as efficiently. So anything they can do to push the administration in that direction is good.
Second, and perhaps more important, it means that Congress is going to insist on having its say with the Obama administration, and that the executive and legislative branches will once again operate as checks on each other, as the Constitution envisions. That didn’t happen for much of the Bush administration, and the administration — and the country — paid a heavy price for that groupthink approach.
Dissent is healthy. That’s what the country was built upon, and we shouldn’t be afraid of it.
Comments
By AJC/DNC Management
January 10, 2009 11:53 AM | Link to this
In particular, members said they did not think the idea of giving employers a $3,000 tax credit for each employee they hire would work.
Another goony kkkampaign promise thrown under the bus.
Heh, “dissent,” yeah, ok.
By Bud Wiser
January 10, 2009 11:55 AM | Link to this
Nancy and Harry have already made it clear that they intend to run things the next 4 years; the only thing undecided is who is really in charge.
Harry still stands at the Senate door, like George Wallace at the doorstep of the University of Alabama, blocking he admission of a legally appointed black man to a public office. The Democrats keep Jim Crow alive, but how are they going to blame this one on Bush? Hmmm.
Having John Kerry (loser, ‘04) try to decide things however, is a bit much. He has already been rejected by the American public as a whole, but the mindless tools of Massachusetts continue to return him, the lisping queen, and that drunk murderer (all accurate descriptions of unnamed - but you can guess - people) to Congress, so the country still has to listen to what these incompetents have to say.
Dissent is healthy, alright. Just wish we could have a little more of it allowed on this blog without censorship, except for the vulgar,uncontrollable and uncensored (from the left) personal attacks (on the right), which seems to permeate this column frequently.
But that’s okay.
Bud will still be able to point out the weaknesses, fallacies, idiocy and outright lies and attacks from the leftist loons.
I give better than I get.
Part of the benefit of a fully functional brain.
By Dept of Truth and Justice for All
January 10, 2009 11:57 AM | Link to this
Republicans do not understand the notion of healthy discourse. They only know buttock kissing. And, whining when not buttock kissing. Democrats must show Republicans other ways. Ways that work. The ways of the working. It works.
Democrats should create jobs, many jobs, many many inefficient jobs. They should create many, many, inefficient public jobs that businessmen can drive by and see and think about over beers with friends so they can talk about how poor a job these workers were doing and how they can do it better and how they WILL do it BETTER! After one more beer. Then, it’s off to the missus and the planning for doing it better, to be all that they can be. To be a better entrepreneur than the government. Yes, we can! Anyway, that’s what the government can do and should do to jump start the economy. Get a Republican to say, *Yes, we can!”
By Andy the Welcher
January 10, 2009 11:59 AM | Link to this
It’s healthy for there to be disagreements within any relationship. Unlike the republinazi’s who walked in lockstep for 8 years.
We now see what repressing disagreements will do, the rethuglicans were at each other’s throats and running as fast as they could from Dubya during the recent elections.
And… Andy’s a welcher. He honors his commitments about as well as HAMAS honors thier “cease-fire” agreements…
By AJC/DNC Management
January 10, 2009 12:04 PM | Link to this
Dissent is healthy. That’s what the country was built upon, and we shouldn’t be afraid of it.
Let’s just jump ahead a little bit, I think it is safe to say that nothing that was promised on the goony kampaign trail will ever come true.
And that Oblahmasan, who I ♥ dearly like the left ♥ our soldiers, is a stone cold pushover.
So this means that we have an ultra left wing liberal agenda rampaging through the Congress, with no checks nor balances.
Is this what America voted for?
Funny how all this was denied and hidden during the kkkampaign, ain’t it?
Suuuuuuuuuuuuckers.
By AJC/DNC Management
January 10, 2009 12:16 PM | Link to this
Since we know now that the kkkampaign lie about winning in Afghanistan is going to be trashed by the terrorist sympathizers in Congress, no matter how much Oblahmi, who I ♥ dearly like the left ♥ our soldiers, squeals, check out who the libs are going to surrender to-
MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) - Five of the Somali pirates who released a hijacked oil-laden Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a reported $3 million ransom after their small boat capsized, a pirate and a relative of one of the dead men said Saturday.
Half wit savages, bringing the United States of America to it’s knees, coming to a reality near you.
Got turbin?
By Slick
January 10, 2009 12:30 PM | Link to this
Jay,
Our economy is a vast system, consisting of multiple sources of inputs, a series of complicated and unknowable transformation processes, that produces multiple and unpredictable outcomes - all existing within a complex environment that exerts influences on every step in the entire series of interactions.
Government can be described by the same complex model with just as many variables, interactions, and influences.
These two huge systems influence and interact with each other at multiple levels and in many unpredictable and unknowable ways. Consequently…
It is very difficult to prescribe what specific actions government should take to solve the current economic crisis. It also should not come as a surprise that there are so many different opinions concerning what should be done, and who will do it - and to predict the final outcomes of any of the actions.
There are few, if any, absolute truths and cause-effect relationships that can be utilized to predict the desired outcomes from any specific actions.
We should beware of politicians (and blog posters) on both sides, who claim to “know and advocate the true answer.”
By AmVet
January 10, 2009 12:33 PM | Link to this
Only time will tell if my supposition is correct that Obama is just another corporate toadie for the military industrial complex.
It sure looks that way in the early stages.
That being said, he can only be a huge improvement over the deadly and bungling bozo who current occupies the West Wing.
Speaking of screw ups, I seriously doubt anyone anymore falls for the tripe that these bootlicking BushCo neoliths “support the troops”.
Their ridiculous claim of loving the troops is just one more pathetic lie to cloak the fact that they simply love seeing people get killed. ANY people. All people. Old people. Children people. Innocent people. US marines/soldiers/airmen/sailor people. You name it.
Bloodlusting emasculated Republitools.
Ten more days…
By getalife
January 10, 2009 12:39 PM | Link to this
The dems do not want to be a rubber stamp like the gop.
Rahm already flipped Feinstein and he will be busy with the dems.
You can count on them to stab Obama in the back like President Clinton.
By Dept of Truth and Justice for All
January 10, 2009 12:47 PM | Link to this
And, we should not try the same thing over and over with hopes of a different outcome.
And, we should not refuse to accept the possibility of one possibility because another possibility exists.
And, we should accept that doing nothing accomplishes nothing.
And, we should accept that the Republican policies of less regulation unleash more than creativity — it unleashes more greed and corruption.
And, we need to take away the extrapolate function from people that think that one can earn 20% returns forever.
And, we need to say Yes, we can!
By RW-(the original)
January 10, 2009 12:49 PM | Link to this
Dissent is healthy
As long as it’s only dissent over whether to be ultra liberal or uber liberal I guess.
I don’t think this talking point, that we now have checks and balances since we have an all Democrat government, is going to fly for long, Jay B.
By Redneck Convert
January 10, 2009 12:51 PM | Link to this
Well, we ain’t never going to get Trickle Down if these librul Democrats cut out the big tax breaks for business and rich people. I been waiting nigh on 28 years for Trickle Down to work, and just when it’s about to Trickle Down to me they are talking about getting rid of it.
What we need is another Bush tax cut. The big boys will get all that money and they will have to turn loose of some of it and let it Trickle Down to folks like me on account of they have been holding on to the first Bush tax cut and don’t have room for more money without a bulldozer to pile it up with. And bulldozers cost alot of money.
But no, we will probly get to see a bunch of make-work programs where nine people lean on a shovel and watch some guy do all the work. These librul Democrats won’t never learn. It’s as plain as the nose on your face. You got to give most of the money to big business and rich folks. Other people been doing without for so long they wouldn’t know what to do with some money if it was give away to them in jobs. They would probly just spend it on food and clothes and rent and a bunch of junk like that.
That’s my opinion, and even tho it may be a godly Republican opinion, it’s very true.
By drew
January 10, 2009 12:52 PM | Link to this
From the fully functional brain of Buttwiper:
“Bud will still be able to point out the weaknesses, fallacies, idiocy and outright lies and attacks from the leftist loons. I give better than I get.”
Hey Bud…a little full of yourself, eh?
Whenever I need a good chuckle I just go to the Bookman blog and read your’s and AJC/DNC’s daily rants. You guys are SO freakin’ funny! Keep ‘em coming. Fully functional brain! BWAH, HA, HA, HA…
And for the purpose of staying on topic, yes, dissent (i.e., checks and balances) is good.
By Dept of Truth and Justice for All
January 10, 2009 1:16 PM | Link to this
Those Republicans sure showed everyone what they are incapable of doing without Democrats to keep them in check. They couldn’t keep it in their pants until the swearing-in ceremony for Georgie. It was bad enough that they ran over Clinton every chance they got with stupid pandering to the masses by people like Newt Gingrich and that warmed over left-over from the Reagan days, Greenspan, and Newt’s contract on America and Greenspan’s “We don’t need no stinking regulations”. Now look at both of them — going on talk shows and saying how all wrong they were before like that’s enough to set things right. They had to go and sic that Athens “graduate”, Phil Gramm, on us in December of 2000 and make sure that derivatives (that includes things like credit default swaps for you uneducated Republicans) were unleashed in a completely hidden and unregulated way (part of that Shadow banking) on the world. And, don’t even get me started on the really bad stuff. Democrats! Go forth and find a Republican and dissent and when you are finished dissenting, just say, *Yes, we can!”, because we know how to fight without guns a blazing.
By AmVet
January 10, 2009 1:30 PM | Link to this
Five of the Somali pirates who released a hijacked oil-laden Saudi supertanker drowned with their share of a reported $3 million ransom after their small boat capsized, a pirate and port town resident said Saturday.
What a laugh. Lower than whale sh!t.
More laughs.
She messed up her first interviews, didn’t show much of a grasp of the issues and, dontcha know, had a speech pattern that was widely mimicked. Sarah Palin? You betcha.
Sister Sarah is non-stop b*** about the evil liberal media’s treatment of her delicate little booty and their “favoritism”.
Yeah, the media favors morons because they help their ratings. Thank gawd the electorate wanted no part of another mental midget near the White House.
Obama’s extended honeymoon will probably be quite extended because, people understand that after Shrub and his bootlickers it is going to take an enormous amount of work and some considerable time to undo the vast damage the neocons have wrought over the past 28 years.
01-20-09 Mission Accomplished
By Wyld Byll Hyltnyr
January 10, 2009 1:32 PM | Link to this
FJay,
“First, the congressional Democrats are probably right. In an economy like this one, the goal is to inject a lot of money as quickly as possible and produce as many jobs as possible, and tax credits just won’t do that as efficiently”, is that so?
Depends on whether you want new jobs that exist for a finite term or jobs that have no definite end date. The truth is that building an infrastructue project lasts for a definite time and goes away. A job created by a growing company may be permanent.
While the MSM fawns all over PEOTUS and his infrastructure based stinuls program, it has not critically questioned his claims. Comparing the proposed stimulus to the Eisenhaower highway project is inappropriate. The creation of new highways not only produced jobs, but it altered and faciliated the flow and growth of the commerce system by creating a more efficienct, lower cost transportation system. Repaving the same roads, as proposed by PEOTUS, will not have the same comprehensive effects.
While, Jay may think the disagreement is good, at the core it is a test of PEOTUS’ leadership abilities. You see, a guy who has achieved and accomplished so little as PEOTUS has isn’t respected by Reid, Pelatio, Schumer, et al… I hope PEOTUS prevails, as the hopes of our great nation may rest upon his narrow shoulders.
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 1:33 PM | Link to this
*”We are spending more money than we have ever spent before, and it does not work. … I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. … I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started … and an enormous debt, to boot.” *
Who said this?
Hint: it was a member of FDR’s administration pointing out what a failure the New Deal had been.
Democrats just don’t get it. They are the uneducated MTV generation. Most of them can’t even recall the names of their congressmen and senators.
It’s very easy to sell them something just because it sounds good - especially by a slick salesman such as Obama.
You just register them to vote and then asked them to watch MTV to find out who to vote for. Free advertising.
And, as always, the democrats promise free ice cream to all the kiddies that vote for them.
Obama and the democrats see a way to seize a large chunk of the economy by nationalizing it with borrowed money (hey, I thought borrowed money was what caused all these problems to begin with).
So since we are intent on turning over our economy to the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac leadership crowd I hope we have a plan for creating wealth in the private sector or else we have no way to pay for these bailouts and no prospects to repay the money we borrow for these bailouts.
ans. Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the Treasury in testimony to Congress May, 1939.
By Bud Wiser
January 10, 2009 1:44 PM | Link to this
Drew, I am astounded that an idiot like you can even read!
That being said, I hope you learned something.
By Dept of Truth and Justice for All
January 10, 2009 1:58 PM | Link to this
Not only will the Democrats finally be able to start fixing the nightmares created by the Bush clan and their Republican brainless, they’ll also be able to start making the Republicans actually pay their way instead of pawning their share of the bills off on their little inbred brats that they keep locked up in their closets. Estate taxes, capital gains taxes, dividend taxes. Yes! Taxes on the deadbeat Republicans that would rather hire an illegal alien or buy a worker like a piece of merchandise than pay a reputable social-security-card-carrying American to mow their lawn. No more free ride on the back of the middle class. Taxes on businesses. That’s right, taxes on businesses. Why. Because businesses need to carry their share and people that buy their stuff can pay for whatever amount of those taxes that the businesses pass on to them. That’s right. Let the consumer of the product pay back those taxes and quit giving businesses a free ride and if they don’t like it, then they can leave. There are plenty of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian and other businesses more than willing to come into America and create jobs. So, any businesses that don’t want to pay their share can leave. Don’t let the screen door hit your sorry un-American buttocks too hard on the way out if you think you are too good to pay your share. Good riddance.
By Greg Mendel
January 10, 2009 2:05 PM | Link to this
“Direct investment” certainly sounds good. Unfortunately, we’ve already directly invested several hundred billion dollars without appreciable effect. In fact, we aren’t real sure where the money went, except to the same greedy incompetents who caused the problem in the first place.
We’d best accept the inevitability of the second Really Great Depression, because congress, who couldn’t say “no” to anything Bush demanded, has suddenly decided to obstruct the new Democratic president and the American people.
The solution to the mess we’re in requires overhaul and reform from top to bottom, including health care and education. It requires honestly facing facts and responsibly acting on them — and that won’t happen.
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 2:36 PM | Link to this
*By Dept of Truth and Justice for All *
You wrote:
Taxes on businesses. That’s right, taxes on businesses. Why. Because businesses need to carry their share and people that buy their stuff can pay for whatever amount of those taxes that the businesses pass on to them.
Well at least you understand that businesses don’t pay taxes, their customers do.
That’s right. Let the consumer of the product pay back those taxes and quit giving businesses a free ride and if they don’t like it, then they can leave.
They don’t and they do.
There are plenty of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian and other businesses more than willing to come into America and create jobs. So, any businesses that don’t want to pay their share can leave. Don’t let the screen door hit your sorry un-American buttocks too hard on the way out if you think you are too good to pay your share. Good riddance.
They already do come to America and open up shops that are non-union. Get enough of these workers out of the unions and you’ll never elect another democrat again.
You don’t like business but you sure do like the taxes they generate so your candidates can steal the money and buy the ice cream vote.
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 2:48 PM | Link to this
And the Beat Goes On
Bush DHS and Secret Service Ordered to Stop Destroying Records to Cover their A* in Abramoff Proesecutions
(Not available on MTV goshdarnit, you betcha)
Senate Dems once again fold as they get ready to seat Burris after Illinois S. Ct. orders Sec State to sign document. Senate Rethugs who made the same threat fold as well. As usual.
By Dept of Truth and Justice for All
January 10, 2009 3:04 PM | Link to this
Then, tax those Republicans that can do nothing but be critical of everyone else. They have nothing because they are nothing — nothing but whiners. Whine, Republican. Pay your taxes and whine. Sunshine rhymes with whine and it’s no wonder that he has nothing but remnants of thunder, the no-hit wonder. Get a job, whiner.
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 3:20 PM | Link to this
Dept of Truth and Justice for All
You are so deep.
By AJC/DNC Management
January 10, 2009 3:41 PM | Link to this
Jan. 9 (Bloomberg) — U.S. stocks declined, extending the market’s worst weekly slump since November, on concern an increase in the unemployment rate to an almost 16-year high signals the global recession is worsening.
Thank goodness for thee Oblahmi, who I ♥ dearly like the left ♥ our soldiers, and his genius economic plan, because when Palin takes office in 2013 stocks will be bargain basement and I will be buying bunches of them!
We couldn’t do it with out you Oblahmi my ♥.
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 3:44 PM | Link to this
By Pedestrian Mandate
You wrote:
What’s funny is that the right has no answer for the new political tide. They write nothing. What is being spewed is vomit and bile and pea soup colored excrement from the mouths of the disinherited and dishonored and distasteful.
Well, we certainly don’t write anything as juvenile as that. Are you guys trying to set some sort of record to see who can stoop to the lowest bathroom humor today?
I see none of you has a coherent thought so I’ll go do my Saturday chores and check in with you later.
By getalife
January 10, 2009 3:46 PM | Link to this
w’s top ten moments
Did ya’ll know Andy welches on bets?
By Andy's a welcher
January 10, 2009 4:17 PM | Link to this
Lots of hopeful comments, hopeful that Obama fails. Which of course will hurt a whole lot of “conservatives” since thier typically blue-collar types (you know, uneducated trailer trash…) but not a single conservative posting here gives a flip, just so long as the collective pain they’re wishing for takes thier hated Obama down. Sick
ew
Funny thing is that Clinton’s good economy was really Reagans doing, and Dubya’s bad economy was really Clinton’s… So in the wingnut world if Obama actually proves to be successful then it’ll be Shrub’s doing…
ew
Andy’s a welcher
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 4:29 PM | Link to this
I have a coherent thought. S&T could be age 7 and write the same garbage.
Over 100 Bushies are now convicted and on their way to federal prison.
Bush DOJ loses battles in federal court every day as they did yesterday in D.C. Distict Court because Addington had ordered DHS’s Secret Service to destroy White House logs. They have been ordered to stop deleting.
The only way White House record destruction is going to stop is to move the slime out of the West Wing and the Naval Observatory.
10 more days and those particular chicken hawks will be gone.
We’ll begin reversing every Bush executive order beginning with embryonic stems.
Palin the moron—will never see the light of day in any office outside Alaska in your lifetime and hers. Take it to the bank—the ones that are still left that you don’t own.
By AJC/DNC Management
January 10, 2009 4:36 PM | Link to this
How I ♥ Thee Oblahmi, let me count the ways-
More impressively, an Iranian student group is pointing the finger at its own government. “Those who have armed and encouraged groups like Hamas … have innocent blood on their hands,” read a communiqué published December 30 in an Iranian newspaper and translated by the invaluable Middle East Media Research Institute. “Israel’s current crimes in Gaza are strongly to be condemned — but it is equally [important] to condemn the terror organizations that use kindergartens and hospitals as a shield against [Israeli] attacks.”-WSJ
Pitiful, ain’t it, that the terrorist countries themselves are calling out Hamas before the libs in America and their leader Oblahmi, whom I ♥ deeply much the way the pinkos ♥ our troops, did.
By Dept of Truth and Justice for All
January 10, 2009 4:39 PM | Link to this
Just like moonshine and blunder — wait ‘til someone else provides the real thought so it can come back and proclaim itself to be doing the world a favor with its italicized blathering of nothingness. Go drink some more of that kool-aid. Grape is your flavor, isn’t it, Guyana Grape. Just say you will. Give us some change we can believe in.
By Midori
January 10, 2009 4:47 PM | Link to this
Bush’s Lecture Circuit Future: “Minimal Interest”
couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy.
of course, if one wants mindless and incoherent blather, they can get it for free just by visiting this blog and reading the assorted wingnut screeds of doom and gloom.
By Pogo
January 10, 2009 4:51 PM | Link to this
Jay you are adrift. You don’t know what to believe in anymore with Bush leaving. You say something one day and contradict it the next. The simple fact is, without Bush to hate, you and your lefty followers (all 20 of them) are not going to know what to do. I predict you will become an excuse machine for the left’s blunders (which believe me, are going to have very LARGE consequences this time around) and any measure of rational thought will be left at the door. It is becoming more and more apparent that you stand for absolutely nothing. Offtopic, did anyone ever tell you that your photo on this pitiful blog makes you look like Mort Downey Jr.?
By Hillbilly Deluxe
January 10, 2009 5:03 PM | Link to this
Since Harry Reid got outwitted by Gov. Blago he really doesn’t stand a chance. Obama will have him for lunch.
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 5:06 PM | Link to this
LEFT NUTS
Is this a special day for all of you to wallow? I don’t think I’ve ever seen such breathless, confused, inarticulate rambling from you guys.
You spent eight years throwing a juvenile hissy fit over Bush. One would think that you’d get over it but one also needs to remember that you have an entitlement personality.
Any defeat in your tiny little minds is UNFAIR.
Sorry, but the world doesn’t spin for you.
Try to get on board before you are banned for lack of reason. Nobody likes a sore loser but an obnoxious winner is an accident waiting to happen.
Whom the political gods humble they first make proud.
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 5:22 PM | Link to this
PULLED
Please back it down a bit, Mr. Harris.
—JAY
By Midori
January 10, 2009 5:22 PM | Link to this
You spent eight years throwing a juvenile hissy fit over Bush.
opposed to the eight weeks your side has been throwing hissy fits over Obama?
Obama who has yet to assume office?
credibility has never been your side’s best virtue, right nut.
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 5:30 PM | Link to this
Midori—
If you see one post by a Wingnut that focuses on an issue or could represent anything more than a 3rd grade brain in a large adult lardass body, be sure and let me know. It’s never happened and it’s not going to.
The only reason I post Bush/Republican failures here (and there are many per day) is to let them go ask mommy what that’s about.
I’ve never seen any post focusing on the issues from S&T, Andy so called and pathetic BudMoron or the rest of the bigots who couldn’t graduate high school in a state unlike Georgia where anyone is promoted and graduated.
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 5:31 PM | Link to this
CHAD HARRIS
Well, we may all be slow but there is no question we’re way ahead of you.
If we’re 46th we all know who’s 47th or lower.
You’re not from around here, are you? LOL.
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 5:37 PM | Link to this
@ Jay—
Cox has the software. You can count. And you know that every one of these Wingnuts has not engaged in any issue. The only retort that they have toward your columns or any post on the issues is name calling invective.
I don’t know how long you have been in Georgia. I don’t know where you were educated.
But the fact remains—hit your own newspaper’s archives—Georgia is near last in SAT scores. These individuals who do nothing but fling invective are products of it.
I’ve brought up and been ready to discuss a wide spectrum of issues.
None of the Wingnuts have had the ability to do so.
Find me one post from Wiser, Andy, or S&T that even tangentially discusses an issue. You can’t.
So what you’re left with is this. You post. People who aren’t wingnuts discuss issues. And the wingnuts do nothing but fling invective. Not much of a comment section. Is that what you’re objective is?
By Midori
January 10, 2009 5:40 PM | Link to this
Chad,
you don’t know how much pleasure and how funny I think your slaps upside the collective moron’s heads.
maybe, just MAYBE, you’ll knock some sense into them?
NAH
Policy? Issues? ROFL!!!
The only policy these morons know is how to spread hate and lies.
The only issues these idiots know are those that are force fed to them by their failed and dishonorable heros, a la Coulter and Hannity.
Have you noticed that the closer we get to Inauguration Day, the more venomous and desperate they become?
I’m lovin it!!!
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 5:45 PM | Link to this
1990 is 18 years. The University of Pennsylvaina is a quantum leap different that UGA. That should be long enough Jay for you to have realized Georgia has never been greater than 46th in SAT scores. The individuals who do nothing but invective flining who are all Palin Partisans and so-called conservatives here are products of that educational and psychiatric environment—and it shows here.
You think the continual invective flinging without one scintilla of discussion of the issues is productive?
I haven’t seen any of your columns take that tone. I have seen your college Wooten’s columns take that tone frequently with a pseudo-aristocratic tone of condescension towards the poor, and people who are not white.
Tucker’s real opinion of Wooten would be interesting. It wouldn’t be favorable. For these people, it’s not about engaging the issues with a healthy discussion and difference of opinion. It’s repetitive and boring invective flinging.
Find me one constructive comment from a Right wingnut here. It can’t be done.
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 5:49 PM | Link to this
CHAD HARRIS
You wrote:
I’ve never seen any post focusing on the issues from S&T, Andy so called and pathetic BudMoron or the rest of the bigots who couldn’t graduate high school in a state unlike Georgia where anyone is promoted and graduated.
Well, not only are you outclassed but you have a reading comprehension problem. So sorry. When did you find out?
I do have a question for you and the rest of your ilk. I’ve asked this before but was completely ignored and then some of your comrades lied about ignoring me.
So two questions:
What should the maximum income tax bracket be for anyone: corporation, individual, anyone?
What should the minumum wage truly be?
If you don’t understand or need some help getting the syntaxes right, let me know.
Let’s see if we can start one of those issue discussions you think we are avoiding.
By RW-(the original)
January 10, 2009 5:53 PM | Link to this
I’ve brought up and been ready to discuss a wide spectrum of issues.
I wonder how Jay B would respond to that if AJC/DNC-M had decided it was his place to set the topics here. Nah, just kidding, I know exactly how he would respond. AJC/DNC-M would have the rest of the weekend off.
By AJC/DNC Management
January 10, 2009 5:57 PM | Link to this
By Chad Harris January 10, 2009 5:37 PM Find me one post from Wiser, Andy, or S&T that even tangentially discusses an issue. You can’t.
What’s up with the major malfunction^^, you’re not shelled shocked are you, chad?
geez.
I ♥ thee Oblahmi, I ♥ thee Oblahmi, I ♥ thee Oblahmi, like the libs ♥ our troops, I do!
By AmVet
January 10, 2009 6:09 PM | Link to this
Midori, I agree.
I’ve noticed the animosity going up dramatically here since the recent electoral bloodbath for the neocons. That’s two in a row for the mathematically challenged.
Not to mention their endless Palinesque whining about unfair treatment.
It is not unlikely that in the next ten days one of the handful of chickenhawks here will have a complete meltdown.
Kinda like the Christians and lions. Great spectacle…
I wonder if there will be a Great Schism in the Republican Party this year. Will the tiny number of moderates attempt to reclaim the party hijacked by the flat -earthers and those idiotic Reaganistas?
Outside of the South, they are truly a dying breed but the morons in charge seem to think they’re right on track. And they are. For extinction.
Maybe they’ll start their own Fire & Brimstone Party.
01-20-09 Regime Change
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 6:13 PM | Link to this
Midori—
One tangible result of the kind of mudslinging rhetoric that is a substitution for confronting the issues which is the Wingnut tone here and the McCain Palin campaign meme is political defeat.
Defeat was not about money, or the media (the most successful syndicated columnists who garner the highest paychecks and work for the most prestigious newspapers all rejected Palin as a fatal choice by McCain and they were correct). None of the radio/TV wingnuts like Hannity, Limbaugh could get hired for print media. Even Rupert Murdoch won’t hire his Fox TV on air personnel for WSJ or any other print media in the News Corp. emptire.
You probably profit by researching an issue before you comment. Anyone who is focusing on an issue will, and that’s productive. But no one is going to make a dent in these individuals. As long as they have a web connection and a keyboard/mouse every post they make is going to fling invective and ignore the substance or facts of an issue.
They can’t discuss or refute anything you say so the only MO they resort to is to go after the commenter who has made a point they don’t like usually about a fact they don’t like.
Example: Royce Lamberth ordered D HS/Secret Service to follow the law and stop deleting the White House sign-in logs Friday. He ordered the White House to release the Visitor Logs now. He had already ruled that they were subject to FOIA requests on 12/17/08. It was part of a larger pattern where
Citizens for Responsibilty and Ethics Has Taken on the Bush Administration’s Illegal Secrecy and Defeated Them in Several Cases the Last Eight Years
The Wingnuts can’t change the court order. They can’t change the facts that the White House has been doctoring their logs mainly to hide cooperation with Abramoff and the now 50 Abramoff spinoffs who are all in federal prison.
So their knee jerk reflex is to do all they can do. They can respond and say you’re %%$#*&. They can’t comment on the issue. They didn’t have a clue the case was being litigated (it was never reported in *AJC who is about to lose their Washington Bureau.)
What Jay hasn’t commented on is that one positive upshot of AJC’s staff cutting and preparing to close their Washington Bureau is that Julia Wallace, Jay and the rest of the editorial staff have exponentially accelerated their reprints of the New York Times articles although it takes them as much as one week to get it done.
Maybe it would be a great idea for AJC to continue doing stories of local interest like Kessler’s columns on the evolution of the chef who has oppened Flip’s on Howell Mill and local color articles but just report the foreign affairs and national columns using the New York Times.
I just flipped through the last few days AJC—that’s precisely what’s happening anyway. And AJC is beginning to slowly reprint editorial opinions like Tom Friedman’s although one week later. One Tom Friedman’s column is worth hundreds of Wooten columns.
So what Wallace and the rest of the editorial board (Jay included) are doing is admitting that AJC has the capacity to do local interest news with an ocassional but has ceded the national and international coverage to newspapers that have the capability to do it.
That’s a healthy development. I don’t see any international news reported by an AJC or Cox employee. I understand Jay has won awards for columns on international or national news and maybe he will continue to do so.
But day to day AJC does not report items of national news or international news. They use syndicates like AP (which has its own quality problems) or Knight Rideresque services, or they reprint from the New York Times. They should contract to the New York Times, and just do the local interest stories on their own.
Perhaps that has already taken place.
[for someone who isn’t in Atlanta Sushine and yada but has covered its emergency rooms and practiced medicine for years here, I’d be willing to bet I know metro Atlanta and the surrounding counties in considerably more depth than you do). I’d rethink that local comment which is dead wrong.
By Midori
January 10, 2009 6:19 PM | Link to this
LOL, AmVet — let’s start a pool.
Which wingnut will have the funniest meltdown?
Betting on Andy would be a waste of time. He and reality went their own way a long, long time ago.
By AJC/DNC Management
January 10, 2009 6:19 PM | Link to this
By Chad Harris January 10, 2009 6:13 PM None of the radio/TV wingnuts like Hannity, Limbaugh could get hired for print media. Even Rupert Murdoch won’t hire his Fox TV on air personnel for WSJ or any other print media in the News Corp. emptire.
Blah, blah, blah, moonbat.
SEPTEMBER 19, 2008 Obama Is Stoking Racial Antagonism By RUSH LIMBAUGH- Wall Street Journal
I ♥ thee Oblahmi, I ♥ thee Oblahmi, I ♥ thee Oblahmi, like the libs ♥ our troops, I do!
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 6:21 PM | Link to this
The Chad Harris Book of Definitions
Invective: the tone of rhetoric one uses when one disagrees with Chad and only with Chad.
Invective flinging: What anyone who disagrees with Chad is guilty of.
example: “I haven’t seen any of your (Jay’s) columns take that tone. I have seen your college(sic) Wooten’s columns take that tone frequently with a pseudo-aristocratic tone of condescension towards the poor, and people who are not white.
You see when you disagree with Chad you are a vile, vituperative person not worthy of a forum upon which to voice your opinion.
Chad believes is free speech as long as that speech agrees with him.
BTW Chad I see you got dinged earlier. You should behave yourself. Even though I believe in letting it all hang out on these forums this one, after all, belongs to Jay.
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 6:27 PM | Link to this
Just to be clear Sunshine, I live in the heart of Atlanta, and have for many years. I was fortunate enough *not to have been educated at any of the Georgia schools. Neither was Bookman.
I’m not saying that UGA or other schools don’t have bright capable individuals on their faculty or as students. It would be ludicrous to claim that, and plain wrong. But I am saying that the level of high school education is reprehensibly bad, and that most students at Georgia state schools including UGA are way below average in any measurable or non-measurable criterion.
The AJC featured articles a couple months ago showing that although this state administers national tests to students for promotion, when they fail them the parents sqawk and blame the tests entirely, and the result is that their is no rule to say the principles have to pay any attention to the promotion criterion set up by the state’s Department of Education and the result is that whether they are illiterate, semi-literate, and have learned next to nothing, they are all promoted until they either drop out or are “graduated out” anyway. And many of these end up in Georgia state schools.
It dumbs down the schools and it dumbs down the population after they are finished with schooling.
By Midori
January 10, 2009 6:29 PM | Link to this
Chad,
that 6:19 is your exhibit A, B, C, and D.
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 6:41 PM | Link to this
RB—
It’s superficial to think that Democrats now completely control Congress or this government. There are a number of reasons why that isn’t true, and within the Democratic party, you are ignoring or didn’t realize the fact that the Blue Dog Democrats voted with Bush and the Republicans on every single issue this past few years.
They are still in place. Examples are any of the issues reported out of SSIC (Intelligence in the Senate—Rockerfeller’s Committee since Dems got the majority in the midterms of 2006).
Any talk about checks and balances being lost because Dems gained seats in the House and Senate is superficial.
The checks and balances discussion though is on point when it comes to Cheney’s Unitary Executive theory, and the massive and historical record number of “signing statements” where Bush essentially said he didn’t have to follow any laws Congress passed. There are nearly 800 of them.
There is a rash of Executive Orders Bush is rushing to institute and all of them are going to be reversed by Obama.
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 6:43 PM | Link to this
CHAD HARRIS
You wrote:
[for someone who isn’t in Atlanta Sushine and yada but has covered its emergency rooms and practiced medicine for years here, I’d be willing to bet I know metro Atlanta and the surrounding counties in considerably more depth than you do). I’d rethink that local comment which is dead wrong.
I’ll take that bet.
You practice medicine? Oh no!! I hope I don’t get sick. Or maybe you are on this forum trying to drum up business.
You know, like the guy who the doctor pays a guy to stand out in front of the office and make everyone sick.
I’m glad you went to the University of Pennsylvania. I’m glad you feel far superior to us poor southern rednecks. I’m glad you know so much about Atlanta.
I hope you live long and prosper.
I say all these things because it is so obvious that you are a very unhappy person.
No one could be that bitter and be happy.
Oh, did you answer my question at 5:49?
For some reason none of you brilliant, esthetic, transcendental liberals want to tackle either one of those questions?
Is that above the course work at U. Penn?
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 6:47 PM | Link to this
*The Chad Harris Book of Definitions
Invective: the tone of rhetoric one uses when one disagrees with Chad and only with Chad.
Invective flinging: What anyone who disagrees with Chad is guilty of.
example: “I haven’t seen any of your (Jay’s) columns take that tone. I have seen your college(sic) Wooten’s columns take that tone frequently with a pseudo-aristocratic tone of condescension towards the poor, and people who are not white.
You see when you disagree with Chad you are a vile, vituperative person not worthy of a forum upon which to voice your opinion.
Chad believes is free speech as long as that speech agrees with him.*
NOPE Invective is what you do every time you post. You make sure you don’t discuss any issue. You always push your minotonous monotone view of why another commenter is worthless.
You have yet to engage on one single political issue. Every comment you make is about invective because it’s always about the shortcoming YOU AND YOU ALONE PERCEIVE in another commenter.
Invective is the focus by you on other commenters instead of the issue they are commenting about.
I haven’t seen one of your posts where you mention an issue. Not one.
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 7:10 PM | Link to this
CHAD HARRIS
Just to be clear Sunshine, I live in the heart of Atlanta, and have for many years. I was fortunate enough not to have been educated at any of the Georgia schools. Neither was Bookman.
We who were educated in Georgia share your loss. We would not wish that on anyone.
I’m not saying that UGA or other schools don’t have bright capable individuals on their faculty or as students. It would be ludicrous to claim that, and plain wrong.
You mean people such as my daughter who was educated at a public school in Georgia and then got accepted to pre med programs at Ivy League schools?
But I am saying that the level of high school education is reprehensibly bad, and that most students at Georgia state schools including UGA are way below average in any measurable or non-measurable criterion.
I’m sorry you feel that way. You don’t know a lot about Georgia high schools.
The AJC featured articles a couple months ago showing that although this state administers national tests to students for promotion, when they fail them the parents sqawk and blame the tests entirely, and the result is that their is no rule to say the principles have to pay any attention to the promotion criterion set up by the state’s Department of Education and the result is that whether they are illiterate, semi-literate, and have learned next to nothing, they are all promoted until they either drop out or are “graduated out” anyway. And many of these end up in Georgia state schools.
So, what you are saying is that government schools don’t work? Or just GEORGIA government schools don’t work?
Those tests are demanded by the Fed Gov. Why do we have a Fed Dept of Education, a State Department of Education and a local one?
In the Contract With America one of the things promised but never delilvered on (thanks to you liberals) was the dismantling of the Fed Dept. Our children would have been so much better off.
It dumbs down the schools and it dumbs down the population after they are finished with schooling.
What else are schools supposed to do? They have to follow racial quotas in their hiring and get accused of racism when they discipline students who disrupt. That doesn’t happen only to Georgia schools.
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 7:20 PM | Link to this
CHAD HARRIS
You wrote:
You have yet to engage on one single political issue. Every comment you make is about invective because it’s always about the shortcoming YOU AND YOU ALONE PERCEIVE in another commenter.
Son, I have asked the same political question over and over again with NO reply from you or any of your comrades. Yet you post lies such as the above?
Why do you people hide behind your aprons and then lie about what other people do?
I don’t know how anyone posting or lurking on this forum cannot assume that you are truly a prevaricator.
By david wayne osedach, san diego/ U.S.A.
January 10, 2009 7:28 PM | Link to this
The honeymoon hasn’t even started yet. And Obama still has incredible power.
Just wait until his bailouts go the same way Bush’s did: down the drain. Instead of a trillion - he’ll be lucky to get $500 billion.
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 8:18 PM | Link to this
@ S & T—
I mean that people like your daughter S&T who went to public schools here and were accepted to a “pre med” program at an Ivy league school are rare exceptions and I accounted for t hem in my statement above.
Your daughter wasn’t promoted when she couldn’t pass basic minimum national tests if they were given to her and she wsn’t promoted when she couldn’t read well. A lot of kids here are.
And I’ve seen a lot of kids—I hope your daughter isn’t among them—who never dug into a reading list of classics during their entire time in high school and can’t write very well who still got into Ivy league and top colleges.
Most of us who have been doing clinical medicine for a while have leaned heavily on med schools not to require a set pre-med curriculum because what your daughter is going to learn once she has about 10 or more years of day to day clinical medicine under her belt is that many of the analytical chem courses and developmental anatomy course that are pure memorization for the most part of facts that won’t help her practice medicine on people are worthless.
Most of the better medical schools have been doing away with a set requirement of pre-med courses so that we can allow people the chance to dip heavily into humanities courses including more literature courses. Whether it will make them better clinicians or not is always up for debate. But I can promise you one thing. For as long as your daughter practices medicine beginning with her first PGY1 year, assuming she doesn’t change her mind wherever she goes to school about going into medicine where the insurance headaches are going to continue to grow whatever plans get approved, she is going to have precious little time to read medically or otherwise outside her time spent on medicine and or on her family.
That’s why I emphasize a humanties oriented major rather than a pre-med major if pre-med means crammed with rather meaningless advanced biology or chem courses whose sole purpose is to weed out kids by seeing who can get A’s and B’s in them by memorizing cycles and chem equations and assorted laundry lists of useless information that they will not be called upon to apply whatever field of medicine they are in.
I think I have a reasonable basis for saying that. I did a premed major but added a whole other major to it in English. So I’ve took 20 hours of chemistry and 15 hours of biology in college along with 8 hours of physics.
While I definitely enjoyed organic, and found more appolication in organic chem to pharmacology than in any other single course, I believe that much of the biology and other advanced chem courses were a considerable waste of time as was much of the Physics course where the idiot lecturer spent an entire semester with handouts concentrating on two rocket ships X and X Prime in order to focus on relativity.
I understand the value of Einstein in many areas and recommend books on him enthusiastically, but focusing on memory courses before med school is a waste of time and produces what we have when they get out of med school. Bright kids who are totally inept at even the most basic medical clinical skills who have a steep learning curve during clinical medicine.
I could point out that I’ve seen some internists in the Emory system day after day who can’t handle/didn’t handle basic emergency situations, but that’s a whole other discussion and not for here.
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 8:28 PM | Link to this
I replied to your questions. I’m not your son. I take that as a demeaning comment from someone who feels so inadequate that he has to call someone son and just as insulting as when your racially bigotted friends call someone who is African American “boy.”
If my response didn’t show here it may be because I had a couple links in it and sometimes this primitive AJC version of html that they adopt with their stupid 5 minute delay doesn’t print every comment.
I also have better things to do tonight that hawk every one of your comments or questins. And you’ll get no responses from me if you continue to use the epithet son.
Save “son” for when you want to call your daughter. See how she likes it.
By Chad Harris
January 10, 2009 8:56 PM | Link to this
In fact Georgia is ignoring the federal requirements for testing, because after the tests are done in Georgia, they are completely ignored and there are no requirements to rely on them to promote kids here. And those federal requirements are implemented by Bush’s Secretary of Education.
All they prove is that Georgia public schools are among the worst in the countryamd the SAT scores are one far from perfect but reliable index of this. Georgia is 46th this year. I didn’t put them there. My SATs weren’t included in the averages. And when I was in high school we didn’t have kids promoted because parents objected to the test scores. They weren’t promoted if they couldn’t make the grades.
I’m a firm believer in local schools and local parents and effective families improing education. Unfortunately we have a large number of families in this state who are not effective. The father is long gone. The mothers weren’t given effective birth control instruction, and there are a large number of children with children who are raised by one grandmother. Jim Wooten seems to write about these families a good deal, but has no solutions for how to change the picture. They are not confined to one race or ethnicity.
By sunshine and thunder
January 10, 2009 10:19 PM | Link to this
CHAD HARRIS
You wrote:
Most of the better medical schools have been doing away with a set requirement of pre-med courses so that we can allow people the chance to dip heavily into humanities courses including more literature courses.
So it sounds like your medical school and many others have been dumbed down to accomodate the lowest common denominator.
Gee, where’s an educated doctor when you need one?
My daughter’s major is organic chemistry.
I think I have a reasonable basis for saying that. I did a premed major but added a whole other major to it in English. So I’ve took 20 hours of chemistry and 15 hours of biology in college along with 8 hours of physics.
Is that the English they teach at U. Penn? Believe me, my daughter could teach high school english (and probably french too).
I didn’t see any reply. Where is it?
Hey, it was you who ranted like a maniac that none of the conservatives on this forum would address any issues. I merely pointed out that we did indeed address issues by asking the questions I asked and waiting for a reply (which I never got). So add hypocritical to your list of attributes.
I use the word son because:
A. I assume you are male.
B. You rant and rave much like a very young man.
and
C. I’m probably a lot older than you.
By vuduchld
January 11, 2009 9:29 AM | Link to this
The stimulus package needs to be one where if jobs are created these jobs will be long sustaining ones. While it is necessary to create infrastructure jobs, we can’t lose sight of the fact that those jobs may not be long lasting ones. A lot of thought needs to go into forecasting viable, long term jobs needed for the 21st century and offering job training and other programs to get people back oj track.
As for the GOP, the only idea they have so far is to eliminate the Fairness Doctrine, so you know where their interests lie!
By catlady
January 11, 2009 2:25 PM | Link to this
Chad, one correction, I think, is in order. NCLB requires that Georgia test its kids, and show “progress”. I don’t believe it requires that they use the information in any REAL way to increase student achievement.
Folks say that if you fail CRCT you cannot go on, but the analysis of the AJC several months ago showed that is not true. Last year, at my school, about 100 3rd grade kids failed the CRCT. One child was retained. And only because her parents concurred.
It also does not improve instruction. Cut scores change from year to year (can be manipulated). The state DOE does not seem to have done any analysis that would demonstrate that passing the test at 37% correct (which 2 years ago was the cut point for 3rd grade math, I believe) means a kid is any more likely to succeed in 4th grade math than if he or she achieved a score of 50% correct. In addition, as we saw with middle school social studies last year, there can be a mismatch on what is tested vs what has been taught. Also, the test sometimes says it measures one thing when it actually has prerequisite skills that strongly influence the scores. (For example, a kid can be a math whiz but do very poorly on the CRCT after 2nd grade because the test is, first and foremost, a test of reading skill. All the problems are word problems so no matter how well you compute, if you can’t read pretty well, you are unlikely to show mastery of the math skill.) And finally, for the CRCT at least, there are, in addition to construct and predictive validity concerns, problems with not being able to replicate the scores. That is, if you give the CRCT form 1 on week a and you give form 2 the next week, you are unlikely to get scores that are very close. In addition, some items appear multiple times. Year before last, the form I read had questions relating to the state bird THREE times. (I was authorized to read it; I was testing sp ed kids who had that as an accomodation). One more thing: there are, occasionally, questions that a bright child could argue have more than one correct answer. Teachers are not supposed to read the test, for “security” reasons (cough, cough, cough) so unless you are one of the “read to” teachers, you might not know this.
At my school, using grades to decide about being retained would result in everyone going on, anyway, because our job is to provide “differentiated instruction” to “make” every student “successful”.