Questions.

Does the United States have any "settlements" that are, like, ongoing? Do our citizens use the word "settlements" to describe standard condo building? When U.S. real estate companies advertise their listings, do they print stuff like, "3 bedroom, 2 bath settlement, cheap"? Ever seen something like that?

Washinton Post writer David Ignatius' column is reprinted in the Beacon today. Demonstrating that he has earned his rightful place in the Village, Ignatius uses the word "settlements" twelve times, and the word, "settlers", twice, in a very short piece pooh-poohing that silly Obama for thinking he can stop the ongoing Israeli theft of Palestinian lands.

Words mean something. When you want words, like, stealing, or theft, to not be applied to what you are doing…..and you are familiar with the arts of deception…..you simply make up a new word to describe what it is you are doing….and then repeat it a zillion times. In the case of radical Israeli's continuing to steal Arab and Palestinian land, the words 'theft', and 'stealing', have been replaced with the more acceptable-yet-meaningless words, "settlements" and "settlers".

You see, radical Jews who confiscate Palestinian land to then build houses for Jews to live in…..are "settlers" moving into their new "settlements." Sounds like "Little House on the Prairie" doesn't it? Visions of covered wagons moving west to stake their "settlement" come to mind. All Norman Rockwell-ish.

Smugly dissing President Obama, Villager Ignatius says…

"He has a rare gift for seeking the middle ground — on race, on national security, even on abortion. But it will be hard to stay in the middle on this one."

Those sentences highlight the way of the Village. First comes the assertion that Obama is a centrist middle-grounder. In just a tad over four months, Obama has declared an end to Gitmo, the Iraq occupation, torture,…..led the Congress to pass an $800 billion stimulus, a huge budget, the Lily Ledbetter Act…..blazed a middle eastern reconciliation trail…..but all of that to Village Dave is part of Obama's "rare gift for seeking the middle ground."

Ignatius is a living, writing example of what's wrong with our corporate media-led discourse. Consider the reasoning here….

Obama said this….

"He has demanded that Israel freeze these settlements, including a loophole for "natural growth," as it's called. "Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward," he said last month at a joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

Ignatius says this…..

"But it will be hard to stay in the middle on this one (settlements)."

Reread Obama's words. Do those words sound like Obama is holding the "middle" position on the illegal theft of Palestinian lands? Does, "have to be stopped" sound like some centrist, 'I don't care one way or the other' viewpoint on the topic?

When Sec. of State, Hillary Clinton, says this about Jews stealing Palestinian land…..

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that the Obama administration wants a complete halt in the growth of Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory, with no exceptions.

President Obama "wants to see a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions," Clinton said.

….does Villager Dave Ignatius believe that Hillary is reflecting on a "stay in the middle" position concerning Jewish theft of land that doesn't belong to Jews?

No, Ignatius doesn't believe his own bullsh*t…..he just wants his readers to believe in it. Ignatius is representative of the blighted mindset of those in D.C. who have no idea how the world works. To Ignatius, no American president has been able to stop Israel from stealing Palestinian lands,…..Obama is a non-committal, lukewarm centrist without special distinction who can't take any firm positions….and therefore, no matter what he tells the extremist Jewish prime minister, Netanyahu…..Obama won't stop Israel's ongoing theft of Palestinian lands.

Thanks Dave….it's always fun to read about the incest-riddled thinking of the experts from Washington. The same thinking that led to unanimous Villager cheerleading for the historically-brilliant event of invading Iraq. Stay just as smart as you are….don't ever change.

Miss President Obama's press conference last night? Go here.

Last night, America witnessed something they have not seen in over 8 years…..an extremely intelligent and engaged President of the U.S.
A true American leader.

The Rumpelstiltskin press, awakened on Nov. 5, 2008 from their 8 year slumber and now fully rested and prepared to rip up another Democratic president…..got taken to school last night by the most intelligent and articulate American leader in my lifetime.

This is the same press whose bias recently has been seen in their amplification of Republican and conservative objections to Obama's stimulus/recovery plan……a press obsessed with some fictitious notion of bipartisanship…..a press basically silenced last night by President Obama's mastery of the issues and unvarnished descriptions of Republican obstructionism.

An example: Mara Liasson of NPR, also seen on Fox Freaks and Friends, opened her question to Obama last night with a lie, and had that lie launched right back at her by a much more intelligent and quicker debater, Obama. Liasson, wringing her hands with pseudo-concern over the failure of Republicans to vote for Obama's stimulus bill, asked…."are you going to need a new legislative model bringing in Republicans from the very beginning?"

"Old habits are hard to break," Obama responded. "Now, just in terms of the historic record here, the Republicans WERE brought in early, and were consulted. And you'll remember that when we initially introduced our framework, they were pleasantly surprised and complimentary about tax cuts that were presented in that framework. Those tax cuts are still in there……but there was consultation, there will continue to be consultation."

But Obama didn't settle for just one bitchslap to Mara Liasson's obviously phony question….he took it one step further….

"People have to break out of their ideological rigidity….a prime example….when it comes to how we approach the issue of fiscal responsibility. Again, it's a little hard for me to take criticism from folks about this recovery package after they presided over a doubling of the national debt. I'm not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility."

See how simple it is? Obama not only slapped Liasson down for repeating a totally fictitious Republican talking point about how poor GOP'ers weren't consulted on the stimulus…… he also went on to review recent history for those in the room stricken by some weird amnesia. Republicans, contrary to Mara Liasson's frame, have lost credibility in the fiscal conservancy arena because of their "presiding over a doubling of the national debt."

As Obama closed his press conference last night, he said this, "Although there are some politicians arguing we should do nothing, there are very few economists who are making that argument. You've got economists who advised John McCain, economists who were advisers to George Bush 1 and 2, all suggesting that we actually needed a serious recovery package. And so when I hear people saying aww…we don't need to do anything…this is a spending bill not a stimulus bill…without acknowledging that, by definition, part of any stimulus bill would include spending. That's the point. Then what I get a sense of is that there's some ideological blockage there that needs to be cleared out."

Now, The Reverend has dealt with arterial blockage, requiring major surgery, and, like most everyone else, household drain blockage which required Drano or a roto-rooter. I'm thinking that the ideological blockage currently diseasing the Republican Party will require even more extensive electoral surgery, say, in 2010. After which, Republicans can rest comfortably and recuperate from their quiet spots on the sidelines.

Just what I'm thinking.

What are the Republicans doing with their incessant bitching about Obama's stimulus bill? What is the real point of Republican attempts to obstruct and block the passage of this legislation?

Yes, we can kick around the endless arguments about tax cuts versus government spending, what fiscal responsibility should look like, how money should be spent, if, indeed, we spend it, etc. But what's the larger picture here? What's really going on with this stimulus/recovery dispute?

To Republicans, the very popular president Obama is the enemy. The de facto leader of the GOP, Rush Limbaugh, said so explicitly. Republican party leaders are misguided along policy lines, but they're not completely stupid, especially about perception politics. The Republican party hasn't been this unpopular for quite a long time and Republicans are keenly aware of that.

In light of this unpopularity, the central thrust of Republican response to Obama's popularity, is to bring him down…..to discredit him, to make him less popular…..no matter how they have to do it. Everything is "on the table", as it were.

Republicans, though they come across as completely oblivious to history, know the history of Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal. Roosevelt, ask most any WW2 generation member, was beloved by Americans. His presidency brought systemic changes to America that have held up for over 60 years. Roosevelt was a Democratic giant and an American hero.

Today, Republicans fear most another Democratic giant. The GOP knows that if Obama is allowed to implement his agenda, beginning with the stimulus/recovery legislation, following through on structural financial industry reform, health care reform, foreign policy reforms, labor reforms, etc……chances are good that President Obama will become a giant, much like Franklin Roosevelt.

If Obama is successful in bringing about change, an already downward spiraling GOP, will become totally irrelevant.

That's what Republicans are faced with. And despite the illusion of calls for bipartisanship, despite pointless and often dishonest discussion about policy distinctions, what the GOP is working towards harder than anything else is to cripple Obama's presidency. The GOP is operating under a premise that goes like this: If Obama is successful, the country may very well get turned back from it's disastrous course, and Obama and the Democrats will get all the credit, insuring an even bigger Democratic majority in the future.

The problem here is that in our unique economic precariousness, if Obama fails, America will fail, disastrously. Apparently, the Republican Party is willing to take that chance with the nation their representatives take oaths to protect. Take a look at this new chart tracking job losses over the course of three recessions, 1990, 2001, and today…..

Looking at that chart and then comparing it to what the Republicans have been doing to stop, or water down until ineffective, Obama's plan, leads me to only one conclusion. The GOP would rather our American standard of living be irreparably harmed, bringing huge swaths of our population down to near third world conditions…..RATHER THAN TAKE THE CHANCE OF ENDURING A SUCCESSFUL OBAMA PRESIDENCY.

As witnessed over the last eight years with the Republican Party….EVERYTHING….is always about them. Country be damned.

All the Villagers have banded together once again to worship their non-existent god…bipartisanship. Fearing that a successful "New, New Deal" from Obama and the Democratic Congressional majority will relegate GOP'ers to the dustbin of irrelevancy for a generation…..Villagers and conservative usual suspects everywhere are religiously chanting their magic obstructionistic word, bipartisanship. To listen to the chanting, and as I have blogged about previously, majority Democrats shouldn't be allowed to govern from a position of majority power…..Democrats should let the minority party have it's way in all legislation, or at least, some of it's way.

This is an odd phenomenon, really. Villagers, a group subject to radical bouts of amnesia, mysteriously, forgot all about their god of worship, bipartisanship, during the last 8 years. For example, instead of incessant braying for bipartisanship to end the Iraq quagmire, a position a majority of Americans have held for a couple of years, Knee Padders and GOP politicos stood, unmoveably, on the side of the minority position held by the neo-cons…..stay the course. Instead of calling for bipartisanship when Bush vetoed several popular Congressional initiatives, Villagers praised Bush for being resolute.

Karl Rove's buddy, Grover Norquist, explained in 2003 what the Republican view, and thus the Villagers view, of bipartisanship was…..

"We are trying to change the tones in the state capitals — and turn them toward bitter nastiness and partisanship," he tells the Denver Post. "Bipartisanship is another name for date rape." Link

Norquist, of the, "drown government in a bathtub", conservative family, in a candid moment, explained exactly how the GOP majority would govern during Bush's reign. The Republican majority would spike their cocktail policies with bullying, ram-rod provisions and then have their way with minority Democrats. No political foreplay necessary.

Keep in mind that Bush's "wins" in 2000 and again in 2004 were by margins MUCH LESS than Obama's recent big win in November. Also keep in mind that Republicans, during Bush, when holding a Congressional majority, held it with the slimmest of margins. That's not the case with the current Democratic majority. In 2008, the Democrats expanded their majority status in the House by another 25 new members, and went from 51-49 majority status in the Senate to 59-41.

Villagers remained silent about any bipartisanship talk from 2001-2009. That could be attributed to backsliding away from their god during those years….or….it could be that Villagers only call us to worship their invisible god when Democrats are leading the services.

Whatever the case may be, bipartisanship, the god, is back on the Villager front pages and on all the Knee Padder talking heads' programs.

What that means to Villagers is that the losing party's policies should still be taken as Serious, while the large majority Democrat's policies, including the know-nothing Obama, should be regarded as Unserious.

Ohio's own, and very Serious minority House leader, John Boehner, according to Politico, also very Serious, had these extremely insightful and profound bipartisan objections to Obama and the Democrats' economic stimulus plan.

“We expressed our concerns about some of the spending that’s being proposed in the House bill,” House Minority Leader John Boehner said after meeting with Obama.

“How can you spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives?” Boehner asked. “How does that stimulate the economy?”

Boehner said congressional Republicans are also concerned about the size of the package.

“Government can’t solve this problem,” he said.

Set aside for a moment the choice of words by Politico's odious Jonathan Martin….words like….contraceptives, stimulate, size of the package….coincidental words like that….and let those Boner words, "Government can't solve this problem," wash over you.

The free market financial industry created our current problem…..a problem they admitted they cannot solve. Serious bipartisanship participants like Boehner tell us that government can't fix the problem either. According to the Wise and Serious Republicans, then, the current crisis is unsolvable. That's bipartisanship to Republicans when they are in the minority……don't do anything. Republicans have traded in Norquist's "date rape" view of bipartisanship, temporarily, while in the minority…..for a new and even more Serious definition…..don't do anything unless the minority agrees.

Which brings me to Obama's, "I won", statement….

The top congressional leaders from both parties gathered at the White House for a working discussion over the shape and size of President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan. The meeting was designed to promote bipartisanship.

But Obama showed that in an ideological debate, he’s not averse to using a jab.

Challenged by one Republican senator over the contents of the package, the new president, according to participants, replied: “I won.”

The statement was prompted by Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl of Arizona , who challenged the president and the Democratic leaders over the balance between the package’s spending and tax cuts, bringing up the traditional Republican notion that a tax credit for people who do not earn enough to pay income taxes is not a tax cut but a government check. Link

See the Serious Villager viewpoint here? Obama, not as Serious as those Republicans who are seeking to be bipartisan, shows that he isn't above throwing an ideological punch (so Unserious). Can you believe this new whippersnapper? This was supposed to be a meeting to promote bipartisanship…..which now means doing nothing unless Republicans can get their way…..and Obama insists that he won the election. The nerve.

Dday, over at Digby's, gives a rundown of the Serious Ones.

Krugman on more Serious phony arguments.

In the 1968 presidential race, Alabama Governor George Wallace ran his independent campaign appealing specifically to those who hated Martin Luther King Jr. and civil-rights leaders like him. Wallace, unbelievably, carried five southern states and won 10 million popular votes in 1968. That happened only forty years ago.

Today, America honors the righteous life-work of MLK. Tomorrow America inaugurates it's first black president, Barack Obama.

Yes. America. Can.

In honor of both…..if you didn't see HBO's star studded inauguration special yesterday….the following song by Bettye Lavette and Jon Bon Jovi was so moving it even brought a tear or two to The Reverend's eye…..

Obama's great DNC acceptance speech from August, 2008….

A brief review….

Since November 4th, last, the small group of Republicans left in Congress, their corporate media lapdogs leashed up tight, have gone about, non-stop, trying to diminish, discredit, and in some cases, delegitimize Obama's presidency and his larger Democratic majority in Congress.

It's been Governor Blago for weeks. The subliminal Sesame Street words each day have been "taint" and "dog", not-so-coyly suggesting that it was Obama who was tainted and would be dogged by reporters insisting he was….tainted. Simultaneously, came the rabid, mouthbreathing attempts to get the Supreme Court to rule that Obama was not really an American citizen and shouldn't be president, even though he won by nearly 10 million votes.

After the Hillary announcement for Sec. of State, it became balls-to-the-wall coverage of how she would run a parallel government, if confirmed. It would be too threatening for Obama…and then there's, you know, Bill. How would Obama guarantee that Bill would not have an erection during Hillary's stay at State? What would Obama do if Bill did, accidently or on purpose, sprout wood while he was carrying out his international charitable blackbag fund raising operations? Usual-establishment-suspects wrung their hands raw while speculating. Make your own mental pun….or perhaps not.

These are the same people, by the way, who automatically begin to clutch their pearls whenever a Democratic president is elected. These are the same people who told us for months on end that, "Obama has big trouble with white voters, Hillary voters, Pennsylvania voters, non-blues loving voters, midget voters, incest-victim voters, A-B positive blood voters, Bradley-effect denying voters and dead Appalachian voters."

Then came the "Obama is a centrist, almost conservative", horsepucky, after the president-elect kept Gates at Defense and invited Saddle-bareback, Rick Warren to offer a symbolic prayer at the inauguration. "The most liberal senator in the Senate", "a liberal's liberal", "a socialist", "a black liberation-theology Marxist"…..suddenly, and without warning or explanation….became a conservative centrist who realized that the nation was, in actuality, center-right.

Recently it's been brilliance-in-news-porn with tremendously responsible articles like, "What would Dick do?"…..instructing Obama on how he will have to keep some of The Dick's criminal policies on national and international activities…alive and well….if Americans are going to be kept, you know, safe.

Yesterday, at Eric Holder's confirmation hearings to become Attorney General, there was a brief case study moment on how the corrupt game between, primarily, conservative politicians, and establishment media lapdogs….really works….the warp and woof, if you will….

For several weeks, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) has been feuding with Patrick Leahy (D-VT) about when Holder's confirmation hearings would be scheduled. Specter wanted a delay, and began suggesting that there were a lot of unanswered questions about Holder, including the Marc Rich pardon, the Elian Gonzalez saga, and other real old stuff that nobody cares about anymore….except for obstructionist-minded Republicans and their Knee Pad Media partners.

Politico, Knee Pad Extraordinaire Blogsite, led the way, starting December 10th….

Specter, a former prosecutor himself, said he was troubled that Holder did not stand up to President Clinton on the pardon of Rich, who was a fugitive living abroad at the time of the pardon.

…the Judiciary Committee Republicans are going to have a field day with the Rich pardon.

Following Specter's pulling of the Knee Padders chains about Holder early on in December, Padders went forward everywhere echoing Specter's deep and serious concerns.

Which led to Specter's comments at Holder's hearing yesterday….completing the Knee Pad Circle….

"Almost every major newspaper in the country has comment about the importance of questioning Mr. Holder. And as I said on the floor, I have an open mind but I think there are important questions to be asked and upon the questions to be answered.
The editorials have commented about the need for the questioning of Mr. Holder based upon some of the factors in his background. There's no doubt he comes with an excellent resume, but there are questions nonetheless. So says the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Philadelphia Enquirer, the Rocky Mountain News, and many other newspapers across the country." Link

The same lapdog, Knee Pad wearing, GOP appendages in the media who have been feverishly trying to discredit, smear, taint, and delegitimize Obama for months…..have their chains pulled by Arlen Specter, motivating them to stenographically repeat Specter's implications about Holder in newspaper columns and teevee news shows everywhere….resulting in Specter referring to those same Knee Pad pieces as the basis for why he has to be an asshole, challenging Holder as a matter of 'principle'.

A clearer example of how it all works couldn't be found. Republicans can't govern…..journalists can't report news…..but together they can mislead, manipulate, obstruct and propagandize with the best of them.

President-elect Barack Obama has caught hell this week from progressives over inviting Pastor Rick Warren to give the Inaugural Invocation next month. While I'm no fan of Warren, Obama's invite doesn't really surprise me.

The new president claims he is a believing Christian. I take him at his word. Christians, by definition, all believe in the same Jesus. Christians may disagree on many finer points of Christianity…..but they agree on the big doctrine…Jesus. Obama, a Christian, has invited Rick Warren, another Christian, to offer the opening prayer at Obama's inauguration. Kind of ecumenical. Brothers in Christ, and all that.

Many progressives, while realizing Warren's appearance at the inauguration will be, at best, symbolic, are still worked up because Pastor Rick holds fundamentalist viewpoints on abortion, stem cells, and homosexuality. Practicing homosexuals are prohibited from becoming members of Warren's Saddleback Church. Warren worked actively in support of Proposition 8 in California, which rolled back a California Supreme Court ruling correctly finding that denying gays equal marriage rights, was unconstitutional. This, now, has become the new "separate but equal" division line in America. Pastor Rick has also drawn fire because of his statements equating gay marriage with incest, pedophilia and bigamy.

When pressed, Obama has responded that, despite the fact that he and Warren disagree on stuff, Warren invited him to speak at his church in 2006, anyway. Now, Obama is responding in kind. Obama knows that Warren, unlike what we saw in the last generation's Moral Majority rigidness, is open to confronting the problems of poverty in America, as well as global warming. The new president often stated during his campaign that his starting point as president would not be division, not red and blue, but instead, one America.

The early betting line out there is that Obama is a pragmatist……a leader who will emphasize practical solutions to problems, rather than ideological solutions. That's all well and good as far as it goes. The proof that Obama is actually a progressive Democrat, and not simply a pragmatist, will come with his policy decisions. We shall see.

My problem with all of this comes from a wider lens view. Previously, I have criticized Obama for his planned retention of one of Bush's open-sores….his unconstitutional, one billion tax dollars, "faith based initiative". Obama, allegedly a constitutional scholar, thinks that when government gives tax-dollars to religious groups, it is not "establishing" religion. His only disagreement with Bush the Younger's initiative is religious discriminatory hiring practices by institutions who receive those tax dollars. Obama might call that pragmatism…..I call that missing the forest for the trees.

American government, if it is to be successful in a modern world, must grow up. When we're children we do childish things…..but when we grow up, we put childish things aside…..well…..we try. If Obama wanted to bring change to America, inspire it to grow up, he could not only deconstruct Bush the Younger's faith based programs…..but he could also honor our founding document by refusing to bring religion into his inauguration altogether. No opening or closing prayer to any gods, even if they are only symbolic.

But that would be too ideological, wouldn't it?