Archive for January, 2010

Obama Talks With GOP

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Debates, Democrats, Obama, Republicans, Video

I know a lot of folks are talking about how Obama “schooled” Republicans today, but let’s get past that. Yes, if you watch the following Obama comes off extremely well. But can we focus on whether or not this type of dialogue is good for the country? I’d say yes, yes, a thousand times YES!, [...]

January 30th, 2010 | Permalink| 11 Comments »

Economy Grew 5.7% Last Quarter

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Money

Jobs may not be coming back, but the GDP is. From Reuters: The first estimate put fourth-quarter gross domestic product growth at its fastest pace since the third quarter of 2003. The economy expanded at a 2.2 percent annual rate in the third quarter. Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast GDP, which measures total goods [...]

January 29th, 2010 | Permalink| 10 Comments »

Watch The State Of The Union Live

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Obama, Video

And away we go… So, what did you think? Tweet

January 27th, 2010 | Permalink| 27 Comments »

State of the Union Bingo

By Frank Hagan | Related entries in Politics

Cross posted to FrankHagan.com Tweet

January 27th, 2010 | Permalink| 1 Comment »

The Discretionary Spending Freeze And What It Means For You

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Barack, Economy, Fiscal Responsibility, Money, Obama

First, the relevant facts about the budget that’s set to be released on Feb 1… About $447 billion will be devoted to funding the government — the parts that aren’t mandated by law (the entitlements) or aren’t related to defense, intelligence, veterans or national security issues. Obama will promise to veto any budget that exceeds [...]

January 27th, 2010 | Permalink| 16 Comments »

Administration: Don’t like our message? No worries. We have a different message just for you.

By mw | Related entries in Banks, Budget, Economy, Fiscal Responsibility, Fiscal stimulus, Media, Politics

Yesterday, in a background briefing, the administration announced a three year spending freeze on portions of the budget. Since departments with the fastest growing government expenditures like Defense, VA, the State Department, and entitlements are excluded from the “freeze”, it will have a negligible effect on the ballooning deficit. One cannot help but wonder if the administration is trying to be all things to all people, and risks representing nothing to no one.

January 26th, 2010 | Permalink| 4 Comments »

NEWS ALERT: Media Gets Some Stuff Right About Independent Voters!

By Nancy Hanks | Related entries in Independence Party of New York, Independents, Massachusetts, New York City, News

The Massachusetts special election to fill Ted Kennedy’s seat continues to reverberate (or is that ricochet?) in the media [for a quick round-up of latest Charlie Cook in National Journal, Robert Reich on Huffington Post, Dan Balz in Washington Post and Kristi Keck on CNN, see today's Hankster] and independent voters remain center stage (the [...]

January 26th, 2010 | Permalink| 3 Comments »

Politicos Peruse President’s Populist Pivot

By mw | Related entries in Banks, Fiscal Responsibility, health care reform, Politics

The President is on the stump, giving speeches, sitting for interviews, and conducting town-halls in a media blitz supporting the financial system reform initiative. He campaigned on this reform and his administration has promoted several iterations of the bill since taking office. In the meantime, Democrats in the House and Senate are crafting reform bills that are inconsistent (if not incompatible) with each other and with the President’s promises.

January 25th, 2010 | Permalink| 8 Comments »

Healthcare: Now What?

By Frank Hagan | Related entries in health care reform

It’s been a bad week for Democrats. Republican Scott Brown won the special election for the Senate seat formerly held by Sen. Ted Kennedy, leading to predictions that the House and Senate will not be able to cram through their strictly partisan health care reform bill. To add to the nervousness already felt by the [...]

January 22nd, 2010 | Permalink| 16 Comments »

Lessons of Massachusetts from a National Organizer of Independents

By Nancy Hanks | Related entries in News

Jackie Salit, president of IndependentVoting.org issued the following statement yesterday: “The Obama team needs to learn a lesson from Massachusetts. If you don’t attend to the political dynamics in the independent movement, you’ll pay the price. That movement is in the early stages of its development and is subject to many pushes and pulls. While [...]

January 21st, 2010 | Permalink| 26 Comments »