Speculation: Obama's First Hundred Days

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2191215/posts

The phrase “a hundred days” was coined by the Compte de Chabrol in 1815, referring to the time between Napoleon’s escape from Elba, and his defeat. Later, it was used to describe the 3-month honeymoon FDR enjoyed in 1933 with Congress, essentially dictating legislation from the Oval Office. Now, for better or for worse, we grade all of our Presidents on their First Hundred Days.

A lot can happen in a hundred days. Empires can be made and lost. It’s worth taking an early look at Obama’s first month to see what the first hundred could bring, even if the trends may be skewed by the learning-curve a one-term Senator might inevitably face in his new job:

- Joe Biden told the Russians we want to “hit the reset button” with them – ignoring a number of recent provocations on their part.

- Hillary Clinton tried showing off her intelligence – literally – by using sensitive information about North Korea as talking points during her current “listening tour” overseas.

- Secretary Gates and Ambassador Holbrooke publicly contradicted each other on what a rapprochement with the Taliban might mean for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

- Obama outsourced the rushed creation of a massive bill to his Party apparatchiks, and got handed a partisan and flawed result, whose final outcome depended on preserving the vote of a badly compromised Roland Burris, and hip-checking Judd Gregg with a Mephistophelian offer of a Cabinet position. In the meantime, the President’s campaign has failed to pay its debts.

- The Attorney General called Americans “cowards” for not addressing issues of race.

- The new Secretary of the Treasury got the Stock Market to plunge by revealing a mortgage bailout plan remarkable only for it’s lack of vision, theme, and details – which seems all too much a reflection of his own tax returns.

- The new Secretary of Transportation suggested a tax on the number of miles driven by car-owners, which the White House almost immediately repudiated.

- Numerous Democrat legislators warned darkly of resurrecting the Fairness Doctrine, which the President declined to support.

To any observer trying to decipher where this Administration is attempting to go, there’s no wonder that the only impression is incoherence and contradiction. Biden and Clinton seem intent on proving to our allies and adversaries that President Obama is not President Bush – but neither of them can say what that means. In the meantime, the Iranians are launching space vehicles, and building nukes. The Russians are flexing their muscle everywhere, and the Taliban is emerging from their caves.

At home, the only industry likely to be stimulated by the recent porkfest will be the lawyers who will file countless suits over whether the Federal government can force States to take money they don’t want, or whether a handwritten insert from a staffer or lobbyist truly constitutes “the intent of Congress” in the making of law.

Al Sharpton and North Carolina’s James Clyborn found new ways to feign outrage – Sharpton alleging a racial slur to the President as the writer of a bill with which he had almost nothing to do, and Clyborn alleging that refusing federal money (and the strings attached) was tantamount to racism. No wonder people are afraid to talk about race when even non-racial issues can turn up “the race card.”

Emboldened by the bailout of bad loans made by bad banks to bad credit risks, groups like ACORN are breaking into foreclosed homes and declaring squatter’s rights. The Stock Market continues to fall. What’s a leader to do?

Predictably, the President has embarked on the one thing he does best – hitting the road, shaking hands, and making promises. In short: he’s campaigning again, but this time Americans are asking for something more than vague promises of “change.” Several appearances have been annoyingly marred by dissent.

Karl Rove comments that, for as disciplined as the Obama campaign may have been in the past, his team is “winging it” on most issues now. In fact, nothing has really changed: no amount of discipline can offset the lack of a substantive message.

The time for campaign rhetoric is past, and the consequences of this lack of discipline and substance keep piling up. A lot can happen in a hundred days. Here’s hoping our President can figure out how to avoid marching all of us to Waterloo before the time is up.

Where Is The Outrage? Part The First

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5ihA0Z5ybW84SLeY3NQbodRanP0mwD96EH44G3

By BEN EVANS – 23 hours ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — The economic stimulus signed by President Barack Obama will spread billions of dollars across the country to spruce up aging roads and bridges. But there's not a dime specifically dedicated to fixing leftover damage from Hurricane Katrina.

And there's no outrage about it.

Democrats who routinely criticized President George W. Bush for not sending more money to the Gulf Coast appear to be giving Obama the benefit of the doubt in his first major spending initiative. Even the Gulf's fiercest advocates say they're happy with the stimulus package, and their states have enough money for now to address their needs.

"I'm not saying there won't be a need in the future, but right now the focus is not on more money, it's on using what we have," said Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., who has criticized Democrats and Republicans alike over Katrina funding.

It's a significant change in tone from the Bush years, when any perceived slight of Katrina victims was met with charges that the Republican president who bungled the initial response to the disaster continued to callously ignore the Gulf's needs years later.

Just last summer, Democrats accused Bush of putting Iraq before New Orleans when he sought to block Gulf Coast reconstruction money from a $162 billion war spending bill. Bush was pilloried for not mentioning the disaster in back-to-back State of the Union addresses.

Former Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., who helped lead the fight for Gulf aid before retiring last year, said he was surprised over the lack of Katrina money in the bill, but figures lawmakers may be granting Obama leniency due to the magnitude of the country's current economic challenges.

"Any new president is going to have a little honeymoon," said McCrery, who is now a lobbyist. "I'd like to think that the tone would have been the same with any new president."

Thomas Langston, a Tulane University political scientist, said Democrats may be "playing nice" to keep in good favor. But dire needs remain, he said.

"Hopefully they've gotten some promises behind the scenes about longer-term commitments," Langston said. "Like most people down here, I would hate for anybody to get the impression that, 'We're good, thank you.'"

The federal government has devoted more than $175 billion to the region since Katrina ripped through New Orleans in 2005, and billions remain unspent. It's unclear how much more money will be needed, but nearly everyone agrees that the federal government should continue investing heavily in the region's levees and other infrastructure to prevent a repeat of Katrina's devastation.

Under the $787 billion stimulus bill, states will share more than $90 billion in infrastructure money. Gulf states such as Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama can use their funds for Katrina-related projects, but they'll get the same formula-based share that other states receive.

There was hardly a complaint as Obama and other Democratic leaders pieced together the package. Members of the all-Democratic Congressional Black Caucus, who have called Bush's Katrina funding a moral failure, said they were thrilled with the stimulus. Landrieu won several provisions that do not allocate new money but are aimed at cutting through red tape to free up existing funds.

"I think people looked at how generous Congress has been in the past," said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee. "(The states) have to demonstrate that they can be good custodians of the money."

Thompson and others say new funding wasn't necessary in the stimulus largely because billions of federal dollars remain bogged down in bureaucracy or tied up in planning. As a result, they said, Katrina funding doesn't fit with the quick-spending purpose of the stimulus bill, which is aimed at kick-starting the economy.

Ironically, Bush made similar arguments in recent years as Gulf advocates latched on to nearly any legislation they could find to pursue reconstruction money. For example, he routinely argued that Katrina funding didn't belong in war spending bills and that new funding wasn't urgent because unspent billions were already in the pipeline.

In part, the lack of criticism this year could reflect a stronger trust by fellow Democrats that Obama will follow through with his campaign pledge to rebuild levees and "keep the broken promises" to the Gulf.

Whether the grace period continues could hinge on how Obama addresses the issue in future spending bills.

Without discussing specific funding plans, White House spokeswoman Gannet Tseggai said Obama is "dedicated to rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast and looks forward to working with Congress to ensure they get the help they so desperately need."

I Started A Fight Today ...

The ladies on the black women's discussion list are amazingly thin-skinned.  They squeal like stuck pigs at the least little thing!

In the past, I have been accused by these women of hating black people, since I sometimes post messages critical of other black folks.  The pot boiled over when I posted a message in 2008 about a TV show on one of the MTV/VH1/BET/Blah-Blah-Blah channels.  This show featured well-to-do and spoiled Black teenagers.

"Can't you post something positive about black people once in a while?"  Nevermind that I often post positive --- in fact, glowing --- articles about black people all the time.  It pissed me off, and still does, because it implies that I am somehow not black (I'll tell that tale to the blog another day.)

So, I stumbled onto the TMZ story about Chris Brown beating up his girlfriend Rihanna hours before the Grammys, where they were both slated to perform.  I posted it with the subject "Talking Bad About Black Folks:  Chris Brown Beat Up Rihanna."  The text of the message:

Yes, yes, I know, I hate all black people.


Having said that ... the accusation is that nineteen-year-old Chris
Brown beat
the sh*t out of his girlfriend Rihanna (and why is there no "ex-"
modifier in front of that noun?) Sunday night.  Said injuries included:

• two bruises on her forehead that, according to police, looked
  like "devils' horns"
• bite marks(!!!) on her person;
  
  
• a bloody nose; and
  
  
• a busted lip.

This delightful example of masculinity apparently did his work with his
fists, the old-fashioned way.  What a man of his hands ... not!


Now, getting beat up by your significant other is bad, no matter who
you and no matter who they are.  Rihanna, however, makes her living
from her beautiful face and voice.  This sucks.


Now ... how long will it take for him to get the R. Kelly Scumbucket
Humanitarian Award?

The delighful denizens of the list immediately decided I had "racialized" the incident.  One of the women insisted that I had changed the header of an existing thread to racialize the incident.

Geez Louise!

If I had just reported the incident, I would have been accused of running down black people.

Maybe, the next time someone posts a negative message about black people, I should post Rodney Allen Rippy yelling "That's wraaaaacist!"



Okay, one day I will feel mischievous enough to do just that!

More On "Reuben James"

Before I post lyrics, I like to make sure I have the correct composer --- so many lyrics sites list the singer as the composer, which is usually very flattering to the singer.

So, I looked up the composer of "Reuben James," and found a Wiki article on the name Reuben James.  Seems there's the fictional one in the song, and another, who was a hero of the Marines' victory in the Barbary Wars.  (Lord, everything old is new again --- just saw a news story about the Navy and Marines training to take on Somali pirates.)

More on that later, maybe.  Right now, I'm interested in the song lyrics, and the fictional Reuben James.

Barry Etris, the man who wrote "Reuben James," is a white Southerner who wrote the song partly as a tribute to his own father, who plowed fields with a mule and was found dead in those self-same fields, the mule's reins still in his hands.

Mr. Etris is a visual artist, as well as an auditory one.  He has sketched his vision of Reuben James, the religious share-cropper in the song.

I have always loved this song ... it was one of the few country songs about a black man that I heard when I was growing up.  It's nice to know more about it.

Kinfolk In The White House

Lots of excitement about Michelle Obama's mother, Mrs. Marian Robinson, moving into the White House, at least for a while, to help the girls transition.

As a non-racist conservative, I think it's a great idea.  Though I never knew my maternal grandmother, and though I did know my paternal grandmother all too well, I'm told that there is no love like grandparent's love.  I would want nothing less for two little girls who must be a bit overwhelmed at all the recent changes in their lives.

Of course, hanging out on Free Republic, I have to confront the "I'm not racist, but I sure can whip out the ugliest JPEG of Aunt Esther in existence whenever the subject comes up" crowd.  (More on that next post.)  I couldn't believe that no other President ever had kinfolk move onto the third floor of the White House, so I did a little research.

I was right.

John Tyler (10th President, 1841-1845) apparently married well; his wealthy mother in law, Julianna Gardiner, paid for the redecoration of a goodly part of the White House when she got tired of its shabbiness.


The father-in-law of Benjamin Harrison (26th President, 1889 - 1893), the Reverend Doctor John Witherspoon Scott, lived with the Harrisons in the White House until the old gentleman died in 1892.

Andrew Jackson's whole blended family --- his dead wife's brother's three kids,  his dead wife's great-nephew, and the three kids he and his wife took in when they were orphaned, his daughter-in-law (married to one of the nephew-in-laws Jackson adopted)  --- fell in on the White House when Jackson served as President from 1829-1837.

U.S. Grant's father in law, Patrick Dent, a Southern sympathizer, hung around the White House for years. 

FDR's
thirteen grandchildren were around so often that Eleanor had a playground put in on
the South Lawn.

Truman's MIL lived with her daughter and son-in-law
when he was VP (and VP Truman had a five-room apartment then, not an
official residence); she went to the White House with the rest of the
family.  from all accounts, she was hell on wheels.

Eisenhower's MIL lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

Tipper
Gore's mother lived in a pool house on the grounds of the Naval
Observatory when Al was VP.

Laura Bush's mother stayed at the White
House for weeks at a time around the holidays.

And now, apparently, one more in-law is about to move in.  some conservatives would have it be the ruination of the nation.  Could it be the color of this woman's skin that makes all the difference?