Showing posts with label Republican Party. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Republican Party. Show all posts
Monday, September 3, 2012
President Obama: 'GOP Ideas Better Suited To Last Century'
President Barack Obama lampooned the just-completed Republican National Convention as better-suited to an era of black-and-white TV and " trickle-down, you're on your own" economics Saturday.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
President Obama: I'm Offering "A Path Forward" / "We Aren't Where We Need to Be" / Ryan Is the GOP's Ideological Architect / Romney Not Owning Up to Duties / Compromise Is Not "a Dirty Word" / Romney Is Locked Into "Extreme Positions" / Romney Doesn't Have a "Good Argument" / I'm Offering "A Path Forward"
President Barack Obama tells The Associated Press in an exclusive interview that his plan will help build a stronger middle class while Mitt Romney's will chiefly help the rich.
Thursday, October 13, 2011
Why The Lack Of Debate On Race?
Image by Getty Images via @daylifeDid you hear that sound during Tuesday night’s Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire? That was the sound of GOP candidates not talking about issues regarding race in America. Even worse, it was the sound of the debate moderators – journalists – not asking the candidates questions regarding race in America.
Only black Republican businessman Herman Cain and Texas Gov. Rick Perry have fielded numerous questions on race – Perry largely because of the unfortunate N-word name of the hunting ranch his family leased and Cain because of his initial criticism of the ranch’s moniker.
Other than Perry’s ranch problem and Cain opining that race isn’t a big deal in America anymore, it’s been almost a race-free zone for the candidates who’ve enjoyed an almost free ride from debate moderators on the subject. More stringent questioning on the subject might produce some interesting answers. CONTINUE....
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Why African-Americans Prefer Post-1965 America
Image via WikipediaFormer Senator Rick Santorum (R-PA) thinks that America was on point before 1965. Recently, the hardline conservative -- who just became a contender for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination -- expressed his sentiments at the Faith and Freedom Conference in Washington, DC. According to Santorum, things were just fine in the U.S. before the creation of the welfare state. And he claims that President Obama does not believe in American exceptionalism.
"Social conservatives understand that America was a great country because it was founded great," Santorum told the crowd. "Our founders, calling upon in the Declaration of Independence, the supreme judge, calling upon divine providence, said what was at the heart of American exceptionalism...'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights.'"
"He was talking about Medicare, Medicaid, and unemployment insurance, and it was in response to the Ryan budget," Santorum said, referring to Obama. "And he said this, talking about these three programs: He said 'America is a better country because of these programs. I will go a one step further: America is a great country because of these programs." CONTINUE....
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Forecasting A Nasty 2012 Presidential Campaign
Image via WikipediaAs many a would-be prophet can attest, predicting the future is one surefire way of making yourself look ridiculous. When your prognostication goes wrong, the only ones who look sillier than you are those who believed in the forecast.
Take, for example, radio Bible thumper Harold Camping, who whipped legions of evangelical Christians into a frenzy by claiming that the rapture, in which the faithful would be literally spirited up into heaven, was going to take place last Saturday. Lo and behold, we -- and he -- are still here. But instead of curing Camping of being a seer, that seemingly incontrovertible piece of evidence only forced him to revise his schedule. He now says the end of the world will take place on Oct. 21, and I hope he is right.
That's because the coming of doomsday this fall would spare us what I boldly predict will be the nastiest, most racially charged presidential campaign in decades, perhaps even since the Civil War. That's not because the developing field of Republican candidates is a pack of rabid race-baiters. Indeed, so far only one of them, the inimitable Newton Leroy Gingrich, has descended into that gutter with his charge that Barack Obama is "the most successful food stamp president in American history." CONTINUE....
Friday, May 27, 2011
Why President Obama And Herman Cain Are Praying For A Palin Run
Image via WikipediaSarah Palin has made some moves lately that signal she could enter the Republican presidential field. With the recent purchase of a $1.7 million home in Scottsdale, Arizona, a beefing up of her staff and the release of a feature film? about her stint as governor of Alaska -- with a debut set for next month in Iowa, of all places -- it sounds like Palin might be preparing to take the plunge into 2012 presidential politics.
If this is true, then there are two people who stand to benefit the most from the news -- President Barack Obama and Herman Cain.
A recent Gallup poll has an surprisingly strong showing for Cain, the former pizza magnate and Tea Party affiliate who has no experience holding political office. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads in the poll with 17 percent, followed by Palin with 15 percent; Texas Congressman Ron Paul with 10 percent; Newt Gingrich with 9 percent; Cain with 8 percent; former Wisconsin Gov. Tim Pawlenty at 6 percent, Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann with 5 percent, with John Huntsman, former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum with 2 percent apiece. Twenty-two percent remain undecided. CONTINUE....
Thursday, January 20, 2011
A Futile Exercise: GOP Repeals Health Care Law
Image via WikipediaWASHINGTON (AP) — Swiftly honoring a campaign pledge, newly empowered Republicans pushed legislation to repeal the nation's year-old health care overhaul through the House Wednesday night, brushing aside implacable opposition in the Senate and a veto threat from President Barack Obama. CONTINUE....
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Instead of Exploiting Ignorance, the GOP Should Get Focused
By: Tonyaa Weathersbee
Now, here’s a guy who either has too much time on his hands or who believes he’s hit upon a rational way to exploit the irrationality of a few voters.
Bill Posey, a freshman GOP congressman from Florida, recently announced a plan for curtailing any future questions about the authenticity of any future president’s birth certificate.
Because he’s received so many calls from constituents in his conservative, central Florida district who don’t believe that President Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen, he said he plans to introduce a bill that would require presidential candidates to submit their birth certificates before running for office.
On its face, Posey’s bill seems reasonable. That is until you think about the fact that it was prompted by unreasonableness and intolerance.
You think about the fact that Obama’s birth certificate has been scoured and inspected by several legitimate news organizations and fact-checking organizations, and all have concluded that it is authentic. Hawaiian officials have vouched for its authenticity. And judges have virtually laughed the idiotic lawsuits challenging Obama’s citizenship out of court.
The Obama campaign also posted a copy of his birth certificate on its Web site.
But rather than try to explain to these fools that yes, President Obama is indeed a citizen, and that it’s time they resigned from the black helicopter conspiracy club and folded up their tin foil hats, what does Posey do?
He feeds their fanaticism.
Instead of Exploiting Ignorance, the GOP Should Get Focused....
Thursday, March 5, 2009
How Sorry is the GOP?
Pretty sorry. When the chairman of the RNC apologizes to a talk show host, you know things are in bad shape.
By: Sophia A. Nelson
In a few words, Rush Limbaugh has lost it. Not only did he show up at CPAC last weekend to rile up the conservative GOP base, but he challenged the president of the United States to a debate on his show. Is this guy for real?
As for my friend and fellow Republican Michael Steele, who recently apologized to Limbaugh for calling him an "entertainer" with an "incendiary" show, he needs to take a step back and regroup. His apology was ill-considered, and his RNC political advisers are not serving him well.
Poor Michael. He is stuck in a party gone rogue, and we all know it. Caught between the conservative right and the moderate centrist American political temperament, Mr. Steele has to walk a fine line.
Let me be clear. As someone who wrestles daily with her affiliation in the GOP, Mr. Chairman, your job as the leader of the GOP is not to kiss up to Rush Limbaugh or to late-night political pundits. Your job is to build the party at the grassroots level and expand the party to become more diverse, open and focused on important policy matters like the economy. You missed a golden opportunity on D.L. Hughley’s CNN show when Rush Limbaugh’s name came up. Yes, you are the head of the Republican Party, but you made a bad fumble when you apologized to Limbaugh for simply stating the obvious.
Where is your heart? Why would you and others like Rep. Phil Gingrey apologize to a man who proudly proclaims that he [Limbaugh] is “talent on loan from God”?
Limbaugh may have 20 million listeners, but he is the “de facto leader” of nothing. He is a radio shock jock with a $400 million contract, who in the last several years has said some of the most offensive things about black people and our new president.
How Sorry is the GOP?....
Thursday, February 5, 2009
To Whom Does Steele Owe Thanks for His GOP Win? Barack Obama
By: Tonyaa Weathersbee
Better late than never, I say.
Nearly two decades after the Democrats anointed Ron Brown as the first African-American to head their national committee, the Republicans finally caught up. They recently tapped former Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele as their first black party chairman.
At this rate, I guess the GOP will nominate its first black presidential candidate by 2029.
Yet and still, the Republicans’ decision to tap Steele as their leader does, at least, show that they are dipping a big red toe into the new purple mainstream of American politics. This mainstream is one that is ethnically and racially diverse; one that defines itself on issues that it can build upon, not divide itself against.
It was that mainstream that swept Barack Obama into the White House – and Steele into the GOP party chairmanship.
So instead of just thanking the Republican leadership for his new job, Steele ought to be thanking Obama – because if his guy, John McCain, had won, he wouldn’t have had a chance against the guy who George W. Bush foisted on them.
Understand though, that Steele’s ascension doesn’t mean that the Republicans have suddenly unearthed their inner-Lincoln. His nomination, in fact, was hard-fought. Steele, who bills himself as a conservative but is moderate on issues like affirmative action and abortion rights, lobbied for the position for more than two months.
It took six ballots and a five-hour voting marathon before he was proclaimed the winner.
And while Republicans have been willing to trust black people with top positions – witness George W. Bush’s appointments of Colin Powell and later, Condoleezza Rice as the first black secretaries of states – they’ve also been known to expect acquiescence, and not attitude, from them.
It’s like they’re willing to give black people and minorities top jobs – with the understanding that they behave as slaves.
That has to change.
COMMENTARY....
Friday, September 26, 2008
GOP Official Quits Over Remarks About Blacks
By: Melanie Dabovich
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - The chairman of the Republican Party in New Mexico's most populous county resigned Thursday, nearly a week after saying "Hispanics consider themselves above blacks" and won't vote for Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
Fernando C de Baca's resignation as GOP chairman in Bernalillo County was announced by state GOP Chairman Allen Weh, one of several top New Mexico Republicans who had called for him to step down.
"Mr. C de Baca has worked hard on behalf of the party, and his contributions should be appropriately recognized," Weh said. "We are glad this matter has been resolved and wish him well."
GOP Official Quits Over Remarks About Blacks....
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Who's Racist Now? Republicans get a bad rap on race. But, Democrats may be the ones who have shown their true colors this political season.
BY ROBERT A. GEORGE
Sept. 2, 2008-- Republicans are trying to get their national nominating convention underway after deep worry about the effects of Hurricane Gustav, but the Grand Old Party faces other significant challenges, including an unpopular president and a country frustrated with both the economy and foreign policy. And a Democratic ticket—led by a charismatic African American that has enthralled much of the electorate—certainly doesn't help the GOP with its difficulties attracting black voters.
That said, the fractious primary contest between Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama demonstrated that the Democrats have their own thorny problems with race. True, the party put on a unified front in Denver. Bill and Hillary Clinton both said the right things in endorsing and making the case for Barack Obama as the next president. But the primary season was rife with racial tension. When Hillary won both Kentucky and West Virginia in later contests, pundits focused on the apparent racial resistance to Obama from white, working-class voters. And Hillary herself made no secret of her intention to play on their fears.
Stereotypical "redneck" voters may be easy targets. But, the most caustic criticisms of Obama came from a trickier camp to explain: liberal intellectuals and white upper-middle-class Democrats who, in supporting Hillary, displayed overt, often racially infused contempt for Obama.
This hostility seems to go far beyond political rivalry. It seemed to suggest a sense of entitlement that this young black politician should not have the right to move up so fast, without first receiving the blessing of white appointed leaders. Women were especially fierce in their attacks in a way that suggested more than just gender-related grievances. Hillary and her supporters, women who themselves often facing the "not experienced enough" assertion, used the accusation as a weapon against Obama.
PUMAs ("Party Unity My Ass")—a group of disgruntled Hillary voters, primarily made up of Democratic, upper-middle-class, white women—arrived in Denver still aggrieved, some vowing to vote for McCain. Since Hillary Clinton formally ended her campaign, the PUMA Web site has been filled with angry, racially-tinged comments on how "vicious" the Obama campaign is. He is sarcastically described as the media's "golden boy"—with a dismissive "Oops, was that racist?" line added.
Former vice presidential nominee Geraldine Ferraro, of course, caused a major stir when she declared that the only reason Obama was leading the race, was, well, because of his race. On the last day of the convention, as Obama prepared his acceptance speech, Ferraro printed an op-ed piece explaining what Hillary supporters want: Recognition from Barack Obama that Hillary was a victim of media sexism—and to denounce it.
Who's Racist Now?....
Monday, September 8, 2008
Commentary: Great, There’s a Woman on the GOP Ticket – Too Bad She’s the Wrong Woman for the Job
By: Deborah Mathis
For all their controversy, identity politics may be the most natural, the most instinctive politics of all. And, oddly, the most complicated, misread and mismanaged, as John McCain has proven anew.
There is no real intrigue behind it. The reason you want a person of your gender, your race, your religion or your economic standing in a position of power or esteem is because you assume that person shares your sensibilities, your experience and your interests and will act accordingly.
You assume it because the country’s social structure has a history of divisions along race, class and religious lines, and those segregated enclaves produced collections of experiences and perceptions that are in many ways peculiar to each subdivision. Only someone who’s lived it -- whichever “it” it is -- can really get it, goes the thinking. Then, you expect them to represent.
But, when a person entrusted with that presumption proves that he or she, in fact, does not share your interests, he or she bears no more attraction for you than anyone else and, perhaps, less. The allure -- the advantage -- of identity vaporizes.
COMMENTARY....
Friday, September 5, 2008
Commentary: Their V.P. Nominee’s Kin Proves the Hypocrisy of Republicans’ Stance on Sex Education
By: Judge Greg Mathis
When Republican senator and presidential nominee John McCain named Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate, he not only made history by selecting just the second woman to run on a major party ticket and the first Republican to do so, he also exposed the deep hypocrisies of the Republican party.
Palin recently admitted that her unmarried daughter was five months pregnant. The self-professed party of "family values," Republicans rushed to support Palin, her daughter and her decision to not only keep the child but to marry the teen-aged father.
While the high schooler’s choice was a difficult one to make it, along with her privacy, it should be respected. The Republican Party, however, does not get off so easily.
Now that one of its own has fallen victim to the abstinence-only education it supports, the GOP should finally admit that its sex-education curriculum is not only limited but harmful.
COMMENTARY....
Thursday, January 24, 2008
THE BUSH ECONOMIC STIMULUS PACKAGE
With the economy verging on a recession which would increase public anger with his administration and the Republican Party, President Bush this past Friday bowed to political pressure and proposed a nearly $150 billion stimulus package aimed, he said, at giving the economy "a shot in the arm."
The Bush proposal basically consists of tax rebates.
What does the proposal mean for American Blacks? In dollars terms, it could mean as much as $800 in tax rebates for individuals and $1,600 for families.
The Democratic controlled Congress must still have its say but if differences in approach can be worked out quickly, Blacks (along with other Americans) could start getting their rebate checks as early as this coming April or May.
The battle will probably center around Democratic demands for less focus on business tax breaks and a greater concentration on tax breaks aimed at the middle class (Those making less than $150,000 a year).
Democrats are also expected to insist on an extension of unemployment benefits. Bush increased the likelihood that differences will be quickly resolved by dropping his demand that his previous tax cuts be made permanent.
Some Democrats and Civil Rights advocates have derisively labeled those cuts "tax cuts for the rich."
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