Thursday Reads
Posted: November 18, 2010 Filed under: president teleprompter jesus, Team Obama | Tags: Barack Obama, Ben Nelson, Charlie Crist, George Soros, Jim Messina, Jim Morrison, Sam Stein, unemployment benefits 36 Comments
Woman Reading, by Marie Fox
Good Morning!!!
You’ve probably heard about George Soros’ remarks at a meeting for big bucks progressive donors on Tuesday. Sam Stein at Huffpo:
The Hungarian-American financier was speaking to a small side gathering of donors who had convened in Washington D.C. for the annual gathering of the Democracy Alliance — a formal community of well-funded, progressive-minded individuals and activists.
According to multiple sources with knowledge of his remarks, Soros told those in attendance that he is “used to fighting losing battles but doesn’t like to lose without fighting.”
“We have just lost this election, we need to draw a line,” he said, according to several Democratic sources. “And if this president can’t do what we need, it is time to start looking somewhere else.”
Michael Vachon, an adviser to Soros, did not dispute the comment, though he stressed that there was no transcript of a private gathering to check. Vachon also clarified that the longtime progressive giver was not referring to a primary challenge to the president.
Really? Hmmmm…. So um, who leaked the news from the secret meeting?
And there’s more:
Dissatisfaction with the Obama administration was not limited to Soros’s private gathering with donors. On Wednesday morning, Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina received several tough questions during his address to the Democracy Alliance. According to a source in the room, he was pressed multiple times as to why the administration has declined to be more combative with Republicans, both in communication and legislative strategy.
So Soros and pals are all hunky-dory with Obama? I’m not sure I buy that. Anyway this is being spun as simply a discussion about giving money to outside groups instead of directly to Obama–a change from 2008 when Obama directed his donors to funnel all money through his campaign instead of giving to groups like Move on.org.
Let’s look at some of the reactions to this political bombshell.
Dave Wiegel dismisses out of hand the notion that Soros is unhappy with Obama.
Soros isn’t actually a liberal Democrat — he has a diverse collection of interests, some of which (drug legalization) don’t move at all when Democrats win. There may be some millionaires who want to beat Obama in a primary, but there are more who want to activate the third party pro-Democrat groups that Obama wanted to evaporate in 2008-2010.
Soros, a billionaire who has been among the most generous donors to liberal causes over the years, has recently indicated he no longer intends to fund the kind of independent political advertising campaigns he backed in 2004 and that Republican allies used to bombard Democrats in the midterm elections.
During a private session Wednesday on the sidelines of a conference of major Democratic donors organized by the Democracy Alliance, Soros reiterated the position that wealthy liberals should focus their giving on groups that will push President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats on liberal legislative initiatives, rather than groups supporting individual candidates, according to a source in the meeting.
“George was talking about how, in the context of the election, progressives are disappointed, and that they should keep (the administration) focused on certain issues that we should be promoting,” said the source, who did not want to be identified because Democracy Alliance bars attendees from discussing its conferences.
New York Magazine responded with snark:
According to some loose-lipped folks that attended a private event for the Democracy Alliance in Washington today, the hedge-fund billionaire and longtime Democratic donor George Soros is very upset about the last election, not least because his plans to grow a crop of Maui Wowie in his front yard were stymied, and he hinted darkly that the president may not have his support for much longer.
I have to say I agree with Soros on the legalization issue.
In other news, unemployment benefits will soon expire for two million Americans, and since Congress won’t be in session next week (they get whole weeks off for holidays), they will have to do something soon or face the wrath of voters when they go home for Thanksgiving.
Currently five million people are receiving aid under two federally-funded programs for the long-term unemployed.
Yet no clear path forward has emerged in Congress for reauthorizing those programs. Aides have floated the idea of coupling the benefits with a reauthorization of the expiring Bush-era tax cuts for the top two percent of earners.
But it won’t happen if Ben “Scrooge” Nelson gets his way.
Sen. Ben Nelson, a Nebraska Democrat who sided with Republicans when they blocked the previous reauthorization for nearly two months this summer, said he doesn’t love the tax cut deal.
“That’s a mistake,” said Nelson, who has joined the GOP in opposing the extended benefits unless their deficit impact is offset with spending cuts. “Unless unemployment is paid for, I can’t support it.”
Why don’t you just switch parties, Ben, and take President teleprompter Jesus with you.
Jim Morrison
I love this story: The Charlie Crist wants to pardon Jim Morrison. For those too young to remember:
It was a classic skirmish of the 1960s culture war, pitting a nonconformist rock star and his bohemian fans against clean-cut defenders of acceptable behavior, the counterculture against the mainstream, and Jim Morrison against Anita Bryant.
Now the governor of Florida says he will seek to put an end to it by pursuing a posthumous pardon for two criminal convictions that Morrison, the frontman for the Doors, received after some very bad behavior at a 1969 concert in Miami.
I can get behind that. Why not give Morrison a posthumous Medal of Freedom too? And lets submit his name for the Nobel Peace Prize. Morrison gave me a lot more joy than I ever got from the latest Medal of Freedom winner or the Nobel Peace Prize winning War President.
“The more that I’ve read about the case and the more I get briefed on it,” Mr. Crist said in an interview on Tuesday, “the more convinced I am that maybe an injustice has been done here.”
For those on the other side, the passion has dimmed, but a sour taste lingers. The anger that once brought them to the barricades has dulled to an impatient pique at the notion that the fate of a dead rock star still commands attention 40 years later.
The fight began on March 1, 1969, when the Doors played a raucous concert at Dinner Key Auditorium in Miami. An intoxicated Morrison stumbled through songs like “Light My Fire” and “Break On Through (To the Other Side),” taunted the crowd and threatened to expose himself before fans mobbed the stage. A newspaper review said the singer appeared to simulate masturbation during his performance, and the concert was investigated by a Miami crime commission as six arrest warrants were issued for Morrison, including one for a felony charge of lewd and lascivious behavior.
I’ll end with a great Morrison song with some stirring lyrics that are very relevant today.
Five to one, baby
One in five
No one here gets out alive, now
You get yours, baby
I’ll get mine
Gonna make it, baby
If we tryThe old get old
And the young get stronger
May take a week
And it may take longer
They got the guns
But we got the numbers
Gonna win, yeah
We’re takin’ overCome on!
Except maybe we should change that to
“the rich get richer/ and the poor get angrier.”
So what’s on your reading list today?
peej
Carissa
ecocatwoman
mablue2
peggysue22
quixote
skydancingguestblogger
Mona (aka Wonk the Vote)
Sky Dancing 
This is how out of step I always am.
My solution, if the hold-up is paying for the unemployment benefits, would be to couple the benefits with a tiny tax increase for the top two percent of earners.
I’d rather have a huge increase on the top 2%.
same here … we should at least take them back to the Clinton Tax regime. There’s no indication that any of the Bush cuts really did what they were intended to do.
I agree. My point was all it would take to cover extended unemployment benefits would be a tiny tax increase on the top 2%.
Wait.
Is he saying if one wants liberal legislation like marijuana legalization that most elected Democrats don’t push, one isn’t a liberal Democrat?
Yes the times they are a-changin.
Either way that’s a lot of millionaires who want to withdraw funding from Oprecious.
After just two years.
My grandfather always said live a long time because the way things turn out can be a little bit funny.
Dave Wiegel is a libertarian, so I’m not sure why he is dissing legalization of drugs. It appears the old labels don’t mean much in the era of “progressives” who support Reagan Democrats like Obama.
Yeah, my point was that not so long ago if someone said he supports legalizing drugs most people would assume he’s a liberal Democrat, but now apparently it means one is not a liberal Democrat. Not even saying I disagree, just that times they are a-changin.
In Germany Google launches Street View despite “contraversies” (h/t juststoppingby).
“[S]ome polls showed that more than half of Germans oppose Street View” but “although the company blurred out most requests, some buildings that should have been pixilated still showed up for iPhone users.”
And take a look at the “blurred out” persons on view and then tell me again that they are unrecognizable!
Somewhat related Bill Clinton bans Twitter, Facebook and live-blog coverage for upcoming speech.
I say Good for him!
In Sweden the director of prosecutions has requested the arrest of Julian Assange “in his absence, suspected of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion.”
And in Norway this year’s Nobel Peace Prize may not be handed out.
Sometimes I wonder if giving people in prison this award doesn’t make it worse for them. I fully agree with honoring them, but… who knows, who knows?
Stealing body scan pictures is easy:
Yea, that’ll work. I’m SURE they will follow that rule and not bring their cell phones.
What happens if congress does not vote on extending unemployment benefits, especially right around the holidays? Do they expect this group of sufferers to be thankful for making “cuts in the budget” at their expense and come out in droves to vote in 2012? How insufferable is that decision when so many are at the end of their ropes with little relief or jobs in sight?
This is a country that seems bent on making matters even worse as they continue to sit on their fat assess, and equally fat bank accounts, who vote simply on party line and without empathy for those who need it the most.
And where or where is our Commander in Chief in all this? Looking to “make nice” with these pirates who have not intention of working for the common good. It is a sickening display of politics at its worst when the least among us must face the fact that there is simply no one who cares enough is fighting back.
When your allegience is to the wealthiest and the most influential, when your resolve is nothing more than to score political points, when you have all but forgotten the reason you were sent to serve, then the moral compass is broken beyond repair.
Let one of them have to walk in the shoes of another who has little hope left that things are going to ease up a little and perhaps there may be a change of heart. But don’t count on it.
Oh, Pat what is important is that Nancy Pelosi is in power to help Obama pass more Jane Crow Executive Orders for us wimmin folk because they feel a bi-partisan need to help out the Republicans in oppressing women and the working folks be dammed, their first priority are the.Bankers.
Interesting bit on Hillary from the NY Times.
Clinton Acts as Emissary to Congress
“WASHINGTON — When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walked out of a gilded room in the Capitol on Wednesday, after a breakfast with lawmakers, she said she was tickled to be back in familiar surroundings.
But the occasion was anything but festive. Mrs. Clinton was on a mission to save one of President Obama’s few foreign policy victories: an arms-control treaty with Russia suddenly jeopardized by the refusal of a single Republican to allow a vote on the pact in the Senate this year.
With eight years in the Senate, half in the minority, and a reputation for getting along with Republicans, Mrs. Clinton is well equipped to be an emissary to Congress, several administration officials said. But the blow to the so-called New Start treaty — despite two dozen meetings and phone calls by Mrs. Clinton — shows that her skills may not be enough in this combative political environment. ”
More at the link and an interesting read.
Earlier today this article with a picture was center of the front page online. It has now disappeared into the Global Edition. ummmh – did the W.H. call?
Like Grassley over health care reform, Kyl isn’t going to budge.
The next two years is going to be a nightmare.
Like a pack of wild dogs they smell weakness in the lion Obama and not even the great lioness herself will convince them to back down from taunting and humiliating the impotent king of the forest.
Yeah, it’s not going to be pretty at all.
Did you know that Grassley is on of the C-Street people?
no, I sure didn’t
Streets, streets, streets! OK, Wall St. is the financial sector, Main Street is you and me. What are K and C streets?
K Street is lobbyists.
C Street is short for The Fellowship or the Family, which is a politically well connected –THE politically well connected– Christian organization. They’ve very secretive and probably their best known public activity is the National Prayer Breakfast. It’s mostly right-wing but Hillary Clinton is reported to have been involved for several years and some say it’s one of the avenues through which she forged some of her important working ties with key Republicans.
Paycheck Fairness Act-
from Cynthia Ruccia’s new blog:
“So for these ridiculous and cynical political tactics pitting women against each other? Enough already!!!!!”
http://preview.tinyurl.com/paycheckfairness
woe is the silly man trying to guilt trip them in the comments.
Well, Soros can just forget about getting a Medal of Freedom then! Not like Buffet .. best medal money can buy
LOL! Hey votermom, thanks for the link at Corrente.
Quote of the Day:
I remember that he was quoted saying that back in 2008 too.
Carville’s the guy who wore puma sneakers at the convention, right?
I believe so.
LOL! I didn’t know that.
Love the ragin’ Cajun.
I’m glad he said it again, people are noticing now.
Carville said that back in 2008. But I’m glad he said it again.
OT, but it does go back to that link that Dak posted about the Nuns…
Ambivalent Attitudes toward Women in Late Medieval Europe: Misogyny and the Cult of Women
http://www.medievalists.net/2010/11/18/ambivalent-attitudes-toward-women-in-late-medieval-europe/
I am now fascinated by that!!! And nothing is EVER OT on morning threads!!! Everything is welcome!!!
I can’t find the book on Amazon.
I think it’s a web site, not a book.