Wow! Now Obama is getting it from standing democrats! In the house too, where he needs all the help he can get! This article brings us this gem:
The frustration with President Barack Obama over his tax cut compromise was palpable and even profane at Thursday’s House Democratic Caucus meeting.
One unidentified lawmaker went so far as to mutter “f— the president” while Rep. Shelley Berkley was defending the package the president negotiated with Republicans. Berkley confirmed the incident, although she declined to name the specific lawmaker.
It gets worse. He wasn’t the only one!:
Rep. Jerrold Nadler (N.Y.) was also overheard saying that “we can’t trust him” not to cave to Republicans and extend the tax cuts again in two years, according to a Democratic source.
Nancy Pelosi seem to have a mutiny on her hands here! If they are at odds with him now, this early in the battle, whats going to happen after just a few more of these many skirmish that are sure to happen in the republican controlled House?
National Opt Out day has been declared! November 24th, the day before Thanksgiving. The busiest travel day of the year! Everyone traveling that day is being encouraged to Opt Out of the body scan and instead request a pat down search. By now you know the story- travelers are being subjected to the stand up microwave scanners by the TSA and if they opt out, which the TSA insists they have the right to do, they are subjected to ever increasingly invasive pat down search by TSA agents. Many believe the more intrusive pat downs are meant to dissuade opt outs. I fully support the opt out. The airport is just the initial roll out of the pornoscan machines. If accepted there, they will shortly be at every courthouse, and required for every public event like a football game. There are no HIPAA type rights for the travelers, TSA personnel don’t even want to tell you you have the right to opt out. The groping by TSA agents is absurd. The choice a parent has to make is either subject their child to non FDA approved microwave scans administered by non medically trained TSA staff or allow a stranger to feel their bathing suit area, and explaining how it is ok. A horrible position to be in. Opt out day is 11/24, but it should be every day until the message is sent.
How does that relate to what we are covering? TSA is a department of the Department of Homeland Security. The head of Homeland Security is a cabinet level office. Janet Napolitano was appointed by President Obama and reports directly to him. He is responsible for the actions of DHS and the TSA under it. While he is president, he owns this policy, the buck stops with him. A lot of people are up in arms over this, with several pilots unions joining the protests. At the end of the day will they pin the TSA policy on him? That remains to be seen.
In the mean time, go ahead and tell the TSA to Shov…. considering the already intrusive nature of their searches, you might not want to give them any ideas- tell them you opt out of the body scan machine.
All reports I’m reading point to Nancy Pelosi retaining her lead of House democrats. This move will disappoint moderate democrats hoping for a leadership change. I personally am disappointed with the non-move. Many have the opinion that she has been a powerful leader for the House, but I see it another way. She may have forced the administrations agenda through the House, but none of it was on her terms. The bailout bill failed to pass in the House. The bill she pushed through was a Senate bill that passed with no change. The same thing happened with the Health Care legislation. The House passed their version, but all those items were discarded by the Senate when they passed their own version. It was known the Senate would only get one vote on the bill, they did not vote on the House’s version. Nancy then again forced the Senate’s version of a bill through the House so the Senate would not have to vote again after the two bills differences were resolved. A powerful tool for the administration maybe, or even the Senate, but for the House? She has not forwarded the House’s interests at all. She allowed the Senate to dictate to her, and she did as told. As House Democrat leader, I’d tell her to Shove it. Not only does she disappoint moderates, but she also has not been a champion for the House. We might as well just have one chamber of Congress and let the House stay home under her.
Here is another story that highlights the problems between the left of the party and the moderates. Again, the left thinks the administration has been to timid, and was held back by the Blue Dogs, while the moderates think the party has done too much and has swung too far to the left. This article looks at the unhappy left who are blaming the more conservative democrats.
“Democrats would be in better shape, and would accomplish more, with a smaller and more ideologically cohesive caucus,” Ari Berman, a writer for The Nation, argued in a New York Times Op-Ed in October. In an e-mail after the election, Jim Dean, who now runs the liberal group Democracy for America, founded by his brother Howard, told supporters that the progressive candidates who lost had been victimized by “corporate Democrats who refused to stand up and fight for real change.”
The theory here, embraced by a lot of the most prominent liberal bloggers and activists, is that centrist Democrats doomed the party when they blocked liberals in Congress from making good on President Obama’s promise of bold change. Specifically, they refused to adopt a more populist stance toward business and opposed greater stimulus spending and a government-run health care plan. As a result, the thinking goes, frustrated voters rejected the party for its timidity.
This infighting and finger pointing after the loss the party just took seems a little ridiculous at a time when democrats need to band together. Do the liberals really think they would be better off without their party moderates? The article goes on to explain why the middle of the party was important, but as an appeal to liberals to tolerate them as useful tools, not in a way that indicates they balance the party out, which is somewhat dismissive and can only lead to more distance between the two. But can there really be that much internal distrust? Are the liberals truly telling the moderates to shove it? I would be hard pressed to believe that. It would appear to be more of a rallying cry. A motivational tool to fire up the middle; “Hey, you weren’t working hard enough on our agenda! You need to work harder!” An attempt to keep them in line with the left, before they can even think about siding with the newly more moderate Congress.
The Providence Phoenix has this great quick article on who might challenge Obama in 2012 for the democratic nomination and the precedent for it. It opens with the acknowledgement that party moderates and the left might be dismayed:
Even before the rout at the polls, Democrats were nervous about their President. The left felt sold out, and moderates were frightened. Now it’s payback time.
It even mentions the original Shove It:
Already, a fair portion of the party mainstream is alienated from the administration. The moderates have seen their congressional wing decimated. Many were upset when Obama went to Rhode Island on October 25 and refused to endorse the Democratic candidate for governor because independent Lincoln Chafee had backed Obama in 2008. And few need reminding that Obama barely won the nomination in 2008 over Clinton. More than a few Democrats are experiencing a bad case of buyer’s remorse.
It is a good quick read and worth reading in its entirety
Women tell Democrats to shove it
The Democratic erosion was perhaps most accentuated by the flight of women, who were among the party’s most enthusiastic supporters in 2006 and 2008. According to exit poll data, women essentially split their votes evenly between Democrats and Republicans on Tuesday. The last time that happened was in 2002.
White women in particular defected from Democrats, giving their votes to Republicans by an 18-point margin. Similarly, 57% percent of married women voted for Republicans, while unmarried women — a more liberal group — turned out in smaller numbers than in 2008
Not very surprising. The republicans had/have several proment women play major roles in the party this season. The democrats meanwhile have been doing their best to keep Hillary Clinton out of the spot light, out of the country for that matter. They might want to rethink that before more women tell them to Shove It next election
During his interview with Democracy Now! Alan Grayson speculates on why so many Democrats stayed home on election day.
REP. ALAN GRAYSON: I think it’s because the Democratic leadership has failed to deliver to core constituents of the Democratic Party the thing that the Democrats wanted when the Democrats had sixty votes in the Senate, 59 percent of the House, and control of the White House. That’s my view of it. We didn’t vote on the Employee Free Choice Act. We didn’t vote on immigration reform. And we controlled the agenda. This isn’t a situation where we had votes and loss them in the House or the Senate. We simply didn’t bring up these matters of crucial importance to various elements of the Democratic coalition, when we had complete control of the agenda and enough votes to pass anything.
He feels low turn out was not a rejection of the agenda pushed over the last two years, but disappointment that more wasn’t done. Usually, if your voters approve of what you did do, they give you more time to accomplish more instead of telling you to shove it. He did acknowledge they controlled the agenda, taking responsibility for that much at least.
Unemployment figures for October were released yesterday. U3 figures were constant at 9.6% and the U6 figure which includes people who have stopped looking & part time workers looking for full time work came in at 17.0%.
Shove this economy
Table A-15
29 million democrat voters told the democrats to Shove It this past election day. The apathy ran high with 18-29 year olds whose numbers were down from 18% in ’08 to 11% in ’10. David Chalian went into the numbers in This episode of PBS’s Newshour.
DAVID CHALIAN: One calculation, by the way, today showed that 29 million of his voters from 2008 didn’t show up, a 29 million voter drop-off from the Obama vote.
GWEN IFILL: Wow.
DAVID CHALIAN: But you’re right. The base voters, he was targeting very hard. Take a look at this in the Democratic base.
You have 18-to-29-year-olds over the course of the last three elections right — in 2006, the young people made up 12 percent of the electorate. In 2008, a presidential year, they jumped up to 18 percent — back down to 11 percent. So, it didn’t work there. Didn’t work with the African-Americans. They moved back down to 10 percent, their normal midterm turnout.
And Hispanics moved back down to 8 percent. So, that $30 million effort, Gwen, that the DNC put in to touch all those first-time Obama voters, young people, African-Americans, Hispanics, it didn’t not actually increase their participation from what we saw them do in 2006.
There was no talk of how they will get these voters motivated again in time for the 2012 elections.
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key addressed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton today as President Clinton. Opps! Was that a Freudian slip or an innocent mistake? Could the kiwi share the Shove It perspective?
John Key makes presidential mistake
