Via Olbermann this afternoon at dKos:
We will be aiming for analysis and perspective for sure, but not to the point of carving this up into little soundbites. We will be running, as they say, “large chunks” and then cutting back to the studio to see which one of our jaws can drop the closest to the floor.
Parenthetically, I always said the actual “Prime Minister’s Question Time” on C-SPAN was one of my favorite tv shows but the thought of doing an American version gave me the mental image of all of our politicians running screaming into the streets after the first five minutes of questioning.
Apparently that would all but one of our politicians.
The event this afternoon, where Obama spent an hour and a half taking any and all questions from GOP House Members was, indeed, remarkable. As I tweeted at the time, “Can u imagine Bush ever doing anything like that? Ever?!”
If you missed it, we’ll try to get video, or links to it, posted here shortly. Apparently, tweets emptywheel, “so many people want to see Obama’s GOP talk that they’ve crashed CSPAN’s servers. Has that ever happened before?”
It was sober, reasonable, helpful and historic and Obama came across as extraordinarily reasonable and Presidential. It was little surprise then that Fox “News,” I read, cut away from the historic moment to…do something else.
[Update: Video of all 85 minutes of Obama’s “Question Time” is now posted here with transcript, and embedded in full at the end of this article.]
A few clips follow below, courtesy of TPM’s excellent coverage, along with an extended segment from their report. In one of the clips, for example, Obama tells the Republicans to portraying the “pretty centrist” health care bill as “some sort of Bolshevik plot”…
Obama said that the economy turned out to be even worse than was initially thought when the original estimates were made, and that this was from before he took office — a subtle jab at the prior Bush administration. “We had lost 650,000 jobs in December [2008] – I’m assuming your’e not faulting my policies for that,” said Obama. “We had lost, it turns out, 700,000 jobs in January, the month I was sworn in – I’m assuming it wasn’t my administration policies that accounted for that. We had lost another 650,000 jobs the subsequent month, before any of my policies had gone into effect,t so I’m assuming that wasn’t as a consequence of our policies. That doesn’t reflect the failure of the Recovery Act.”
Obama also returned to his point of how the polls have shown that individual stimulus components are popular, but not the total plan itself — pointing out directly how this relates to GOP members of Congress. “As I said a lot of you have gone to ribbon cuttings for the same projects that you voted against,” said Obama. “I say all this not to re-litigate the past, but it’s simply to state, the component parts of the recovery act are consistent with what many of you say are important things to do.”
“I am not an ideologue. I’m not,” Obama also said.”It doesn’t make sense if somebody could tell me you could do this cheaper and get increased results, that I wouldn’t say ‘great.’ The problem is, I couldn’t find credible economists that would back up the claims that you just made.”
Later on, Obama also said how health care reform had been demonized by the right, despite support from a wide variety of people such as Republican former Senate Majority Leaders Bob Dole and Howard Baker, and former Democratic Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle. “Now you may not agree with Bob Dole and Howard Baker, and certainly you don’t agree with Tom Daschle on much, but that’s not a radical bunch,” said Obama. “But if you were to listen to this debate, and frankly how some of you went after this bill, you’d think that this thing was some Bolshevik plot — (scattered laughter, stray applause) — I mean, that’s how you guys presented it.”
Obama also said the Republicans had ruined their own legislative leverage, if they wanted to see their ideas incorporated into legislation, by being overly combative with the administration and agitating their own base.
“So all I’m saying is, we’ve gotta close the gap a little bit between the rhetoric and the reality. I’m not suggesting that we’re gonna agree on everything, whether it’s on health care or energy or what have you. But if the way these issues are being presented by the Republicans is that this is some wild-eyed plot to impose huge government in every aspect of our lives, what happens is you guys don’t have a lot of room to negotiate with me. The fact is that many of you, if you voted with the administration on something, are politically vulnerable with your own base in your own party. You’ve given yourselves very little room to work in a bipartisan fashion because what you’ve told your constituents is this guy is doing all kinds of crazy stuff that’s gonna destroy America.”
UPDATE: All 85 minutes of Obama’s “Question Time” is now posted at the White House website. The text transcript is here. It’s now embedded below in full…
apparently Obama shoul have done this in Sept..I remember independent/conservative people telling me how impressed they were with Hill in the way she went toe to toe with folks in Pakistan. Apparently being seen sticking up for ideas without being hostile or engaging in personal attacks is a good thing.
I remember Tony Blair promoting Iraq war to parliament…he almost had me convinced sometimes…(not really, but he was good..and the setting seemed to work.)
Also – to all the GOP trolls out there, I do believe he had no teleprompter when answering questions, and audience was not hand picked by DNC or Obama admin
I couldn’t agree with the President more.
This has become the biggest problem with Congress
The Us Vs Them attitude!
Just look how they attacked Senator Snow…
Before I get slammed. I do believe the biggest problem with Congress is the Corporate influence in most bills…
I would have loved to see the President come in to the “retreat” with a t-shirt on that said “this machine kills fascists” but we got what we got…not too damn bad. Could be worse.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHvazndll8M
all talk so far. until the decider visits at least the hague and the squid squirts back some of our own cash back at us, it’s all pretty talk. even jesse ventura sounds like he’s on the side of honest humans while he says idiotic hyperbolic crap about the truth that make honest humans sound extreme fringe.
hell next thing ya know al-cia-duh (al qaeda) will have osama running public service announcements (psy-ops) with accurate and factual analysis on the environment and the economy making the truth sound like something only terrorists believe. oh wait that happened today too.
Hmm. think there’s any correlation between the temperature in hell, OBusha’s sudden conversion to honest political stances and the CIA’s boogeyman’s sudden accuracy? Least they could do when playing us so beautifully is crank up some Fleetwood Mac the way Bill and HIll did in ’92. Don’t……….stop………..thinkin bout tomorrow…………..
Yeah, I laugh when OBL comes out with his evil liberal talking points, almost like Cheney is pulling those strings yet
trolls, where are the trolls
This is interesting:
All 3 news networks had the coverage LIVE, but FOX “news” cut away early, take a look:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/#35153362
It’s at the point where I question whether FOX “news” even cares or knows that everyone knows what they’re doing. I think slowly people are realizing what they’re doing because of it being pointed out as never before.
Don’t forget, if you point this out, you’re somehow a liberal or you’re biased or you’re an elitist or you just somehow shouldn’t be pointing this out…according to those who don’t want this pointed out.
The Republican Theocrats will have their panties in a wad over this all the way to the election. I feel like President Obama is finally doing what he should’ve done months and months ago in take point, being a leader.
We cannot allow the lies to continue and the Republicans are coming to understand that this man will box them into a corner they can’t get out of. The truth wins out now and always.
http://activecitizen54.wordpress.com/
fox cut away because they dont want the peops watching to see the truth about things…i esp liked when the pres talked about “vouchers” for medicare because it exposes the gop for what they r..the party of bad ideas
Karen at #8, why incite the trolls? Next thing you know, we’ll be hearing about Obama’s complicity in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
Jon, not trying to incite, actually, noted the lack of them…seems their factually incorrect things they typically sling have been taken from them…if someone wants to make really far fetched unprovable claims, fine, we can ignore them, but the constant drum beat of racist slurs about Obama’s supposed stupidity have hopefully stopped.
Although I noticed the some Repubs there said the “prez stuck to his talking points and didn’t answer the questions”…I guess if knowing everything about everything and presenting your honest policy ideas vs theirs and stating a well thought out alternate reads of the facts and data that countered their assertions is sticking to talking points and answering questions…so be it.
And I guess they are rapping him on arrogance, and his only moment of humility was admitted not all the healthcare negotiations were on Cspan(even tho there was more watch of Congress on the HCR bill than ever)…well if that was his only moment of humility, it is more humility than Bush ever showed. If Obama shows diplomacy and willingness to work with you, they smell weakness and fry him in scorched earth policy, if he shows some civil fight and spine, they say he is arrogant.
Obama’s handling of tax questions is laughable. As i’ve pointed out before here, if you’ve never run your own business with employees, you don’t appreciate how the double taxation of profits is killing jobs in this country. Cutting the corporate rate even by just 10% would be a huge boost.
Obama is smart like college professors are smart — that doesn’t mean he is wise or that he has any common sense.
At the end of the day, which would you rather have — an articulate Prez that can’t get anything done or a less theatrical, less self-centered one that figures out how to get what he wants out of Congress? This guy can’t even get a super-majority of his own party to vote with him.
The only idea any Puke ever had was presented to them as a talking point somewhere along the way.
There isn’t an original thought amongst them otherwise
@ Karen – no trolls because FOX cut away, Malkin isn’t linking to Brad with intent to ambush, and the GOP is regretting they ever bothered to air this. No trolls = facts contrary to the propaganda that must be roundly ignored OR No trolls = no talking points distributed to the raging, frothy, willfully ignorant masses.
I’m pretty sure if you ask a Teatard, they will suggest this presser never happened.
See Brook making the same tired tax argument one more that I’m pretty sure was given a sound thrashing in the last thread; once again insinuating that uninformed action is better than informed deliberation. While I happen to agree that the lack of action on Obama’s part is infuriating, I don’t buy the argument that dumber is better. Sorry, Brook.
Actually, no Jeanine, there was no rebuttal to my argument that cutting corporate taxes will allow me to hire another employee. The response was that i simply have a moral obligation to pay taxes. I suppose so that Nancy Pelosi can fly around on her new corporate jet and drink cognac at a cost to the taxpayers of $ 120,000 per trip. Given that i already pay 50% of my income in taxes, one wonders what progressives consider fair?
Liberals simply cannot make the case that paying more taxes gives us better education or roads etc. If that were the case CA would have the best education system in the nation. What it seems to buy us is a more corrupt, arrogant, and out of touch federal government.
However, Jeanine, this is America and if you want to pay higher taxes to the government — no one is stopping you. Be my guest.
Brook:
First, thanks again for demonstrating that you and your fellow Tea Baggers are not “independents” fighting for the Constitution, but rather, Republican sore losers framing your rage against being out of power in some Quixotic claim to be fighting for “freedom”, “liberty” and the Constitution.
You, like them, are as phony in that regard as, say, a highly-doctored, illicitly captured hoax video tape hoping to frame ACORN for something they never did.
You wrote:
If “what he wants out of Congress” is what Bush wanted, and received, then I’ll take the articulate Prez that can’t get anything done, thanks. At least it’s less damaging to the Constitution and the very Rights and Freedoms that you and the Tea Baggers have convinced yourself (actually, been convinced by GOP operatives) that you believe in, even though Bush and the Republican Congress (with help from the Dems) stripped us all of so many of those freedoms in an unprecedented fashion over the last decaded.
Funny, but Bush’s draconian tax cuts for corporations didn’t really seem to be a “huge boost” to anything, did they? They resulted in record job loss, and no rise in wages for the middle class, especially measured against inflation, and especially measured against the unprecedented rise in corporate profits! (For the same corporations who received their huge tax cuts — go figure!)
The 12%, or so, tax rate that most corporations pay (those who pay any, at any rate), is already just about the lowest in the entire developed world. And, at that rate, they continue to be rewarded for moving off-shore, and out-sourcing their jobs to other countries in the bargain.
Those corporations have told you and middle-class America to fuck off. Oddly, you say, “Thank you, may I have another?”
Furthermore, Obama has already cut taxes for small businesses, but you continue to complain nonetheless. But here’s the good news, that I’d thought you’d have applauded, rather than try to bury (proving yet again you’re not an “independent” anything), from Obama’s comments to the GOP “retreat” yesterday. He said:
And yet, you come up with some nonsense to attack him nonetheless. Go figure. Have another cup of tea, Brook.
Finally, you wrote most embarrassingly:
Then you are either a dope, or a liar. Nobody pays 50% of their income taxes in this country. So, fire your tax man, or your propaganda supplier, Brook. You’re getting ripped off either way.
Take your disinformation elsewhere, please. It’s pathetic, and harming this country, not to mention sullying this blog.
Brook at #17 said:
So you are claiming that high state taxes in California create a more corrupt federal government. Sorry, Ross Perot is gonna have to show me a flip chart before I believe that one. In your trenchantly cynical view of the world, is there any way to make roads and schools better?
Brad at #18, as much as I hate to make a point for Brook, I think you misread one thing. She(?) said that she pays half of her income in taxes, not that she pays half in federal income tax. It could be that she makes very little and buys a lot of cigarettes. Or, she could be in the 35% federal tax bracket and living in California, where a person making over a million dollars a year pays 10.3% income tax. Add in a sales tax sometimes over 10% and things like payroll tax, corporate tax and property taxes, and it’s possible Brook really is paying over 50% of her income in taxes.
Of course, all of those taxes controlled federally have been trending downward, but I’m sure that won’t stop her from complaining.
Get everybody you know to watch this, especially indies, at least the excerpts but it’s all good. He mops the floor with them on so many levels. This will set the stage for November.
that’s really all we’ve been seeing since 1/09. Stage setting for 11/10.
What harder to see (except here – Thank you Brad) is OBusha reinstating the neoliberal policies that propped up vampires like Pinochet.
Given the legislating out of our constitutional rights (as though they were privaleges or gifts from our political/military leaders) by the current and last administrations, one might wonder how soon Kissinger, Brzenski and all of Rockefellow’s Trilateral Commission pals are planning on imposing a Pinochet on us all right here at home.
It is nice to see the neocons get handed their clearly labeled and undeniable lies for once. utter amazement at the fact that they’ll still deny them. sarcasm.
It’d sure be nicer if it were progressives doing the handing instead of neolibs who are ramming lies of their own down our collective throat.
Although it was good to see obama illuminate r’s on their empty rhetoric, until the doj stops covering up crimes of the past admin and his backing down to the israelis on this situation:
http://www.opednews.com/populum...?linkid=106020
I’m not impressed when facts are not applied to, or allowed to be seen by the public in all issues. Yeah, you can add voting systems, single payer, and the fed to the pile too.
Brad is getting dangerously close to exposing himself as radical fringe. Please do us a favor and educate yourself about corporate taxes. I’m taxed on corporate profits — then the individual salary i receive. That is double taxation. Obama’s offering 5K for one year to hire a new employee. LOL, only a progressive would consider that an incentive.
Unlike Brad, I have a calculator that works in my office, and I’ve added up the local, state, federal, FICA, sales, property, utility and every other hidden tax buried in hotel and car rental bills and I come up with 50% of my income in taxes as a middle-class wage earner. Higher income brackets are i’m sure kicking in 60% or more. So, again I ask the progressive movement to define a fair tax rate in this country. If 50% isn’t enough — how much higher do we go?
Jon # 19 — as you say i am complaining. 3 of the 4 governments i pay taxes to are deep in debt, so the issue is really extreme outrage about the mismanagement of taxes we are forced to pay.
When you read about a Dept of Education paying for offices in France, you understand how out of control this government is, and the absolute contempt they have for our tax dollars and us.
Hey Brook, if you are a middle class bussiness owner I think obama gave you a tax cut, and your anger would be better directed after reading this article:
http://www.truthout.org/article...y-income-taxes
And really, liberals don’t like how taxes are spent by the government either, but probably for different reasons…like over 44% on the military’s perpetual war effort.
http://www.globalissues.org/art...erUSpriorities
But who knows, maybe your sufficiently informed or sincerely christian enough to not like that fact either.
Obama qualifications to reform health care:
No birth certificate
Can not stop smoking
Difficulty telling the truth.
Narcissistic personality disorder
Therefore, I Igor produce Obama Birth Certificate at http://www.igormaro.org
Compare Obama Care vs Igor Care at Igor Care vs Obama care
brook said,
your salary is an expense so u do not pay taxes on it thru your corp…thats why u have to pay ind income taxes…i do agree the govt in general wastes a ton of money tho but i suspect my examples of waste would look different than yours for example when the police have enough man power to find 6 pot plants in a 1000 acre field,thats a waste
what do you think of bush stripping our manufacturing base so that small businesses have no consumers…because no business can profit w/o customers with disposable income
Brook, you’re illustrating one of the great cognitive self-contradictions of the political world in the last thirty years. Your premises are that governments are in debt, and governments are wasteful. But then your conclusion is that the federal government needs to lower taxes.
It’s simply not logical. Not only does the conclusion not follow from the premises, it’s actually contrary to both. Cutting taxes now will only create a greater tax burden in the future, and it’s therefore wasteful and irresponsible.
There’s also the issue of who’s taxing you, which I got after in my last post. You list “local, state, federal, FICA, sales, property, utility and every other hidden tax buried in hotel and car rental bills,” but only two of those–federal and FICA–are taxes Obama could lay a finger on. The rest are not federal taxes, and many of them are directly voted on by the taxpayers. Obama has lowered federal taxes, and yet you somehow see fit to continually accuse him of inaction.
Speaking of Obama cutting taxes, you first said that cutting the corporate tax rate by 10% would be a “huge boost”, suggesting that it would allow you to hire another employee. But then you skoffed at the idea of a $5000 credit for hiring another employee. In order to reconcile those two positions, we have to reason that that single employee would bring your company more than $50,000 in profit this year. If that is the case, what business are you in? I want to be in it, too. Also–and I hope this isn’t needlessly antagonistic to say–you’re a bit contradictory in your comments. Are you a salaried owner of a corporation, or are you a “middle-class wage-earner”? (And I didn’t think money paid out in payroll actually was hit with the corporate tax, since it’s not profit. I could be misremembering, though; it’s been a while since I needed a head for such matters.)
Your leap to blaming liberals and progressives is just astounding. As a true fiscal conservative–i.e., someone who believes in balancing budgets, not cutting taxes without heed of consequences–I can point you directly to the source of America’s current deficit disaster: the Reagan Devolution and the short-sighted neocon sloganeering it spawned. Reagan cut taxes and increased military spending, and he tripled the deficit. It got so bad so quickly that he had to turn around and raise taxes the next year . . . in the middle of a recession. It was the largest tax hike in history as a percentage of GDP, but still the deficit damage was done. Move forward a few years, some good conservative had balanced the federal budget, and then li’l Bush squirted into office. And he cut taxes and increased military spending, and the deficit soared yet again. Shocker, I know. (To be fair to Reagan, Eisenhower had also cut taxes and raised military spending, and the deficit had climbed, so maybe he was the one who really started the trend.)
So, in other words, government debt and government inefficiency and even “high” taxes are all perfectly good things to complain about, but you are so intent on liberal bashing and playing Pin the Debt on the Donkey (to steal a joke from Maddow) that you’re ignoring the realities of fiscal policy and the historical facts of of our financial debacle.
No shit – I cannot believe all the morons here who are incapable of separating the rhetoric from the action.
@Brad #18 – nice reply….you should get a blog…you are good at this….
and at Brook – look at our tax structure in the 50s and 60s (high high upper income tax brackets, most corporations actually paid taxes back then, did not get tax break for offshoring, flat incomes) and the economic health of the middle class at the time…remember, this was a time when a guy with a HS education who showed up to a manufacturing job everyday could be the sole bread winner for a family of four, easily afford a house, a car, save etc..If taxes were so bad and so crushing to economic growth the 50s and 60s in US should have NEVER happened…but they did. Because of the “socialist” things FDR put in place in the 30s and the massive unionizing that went on in the bear market, in the 50s and 60s we had the must regulations on business and banks…remember when even airlines were regulated…we had the highest taxes and the flattest incomes (CEO, management, and lowest worker were much much closer in incomes, janitors, line workers, chemists, and CFOs all lived in the same neighborhoods).
Things are not as simple as you have been told, look at other countries, what they pay in taxes, what they get back, look in the history of US, before you rely on tired, refried talking points.
Bush lowered taxes immensely in 2000-2006 period for the rich, even while we were fighting two wars…did that lead to any prosperity…the only thing that did well was housing due to FEDs way low rates in 2003-2004 but you Repubs got exactly what you wanted with Repub congress and Repub prez from 2000-2006….maybe you forget…it was a FAILED expirement…so now you want to rush back to that…I’d perfer to try some else that has proven to work: the US in 1950 and 1960s
This time President Obama is right, By asking GOP and the Republican Party to share ideas of how to help those who are sick, this is why he got elected in the first place, it shows that he cares and is more concerned about what the people think about him then, GOP and the Republican Party thinks…
This Health Care Reform will not work until a job force is put into action, I would ask all who voted for President Obama or did not, to cast a vote to approve this Job Act Concept of Obama s and order GOP and the Republican s to help or stand down. You humor yourself with this statement of mine, I humored myself when it was stated that the people needed permission to voice opinion in the Health Care Bill….
Understand this I have a little gift and I have all ways been able to see the truth and lies in things, and President Obama did what was right, so if I was you I would help him rebuild America.
I have protested this Health Care Bill hard and long and I have gained the respect of a great many people, But now I ask for President Obama to put his faith into the people, and not into any Party.
The dirty little secret that Health Care Insurance Companies and certain Officials Of Government do not wish to be known is that the value of the dollar is more important then human life.
Out of all of the Government Officials only one opened a blogged at
The American Spectator . This company posted http://www.fascmovement.mysite.com on the net and Congressman Ryan dropped off his little blog. As a course of action. Where he stated because of all of the diversity between people that Governing Parties intervened
as a course of action needed. For days I worked the word diversity in my mind and it came to me that because of this it is not Americas weakness it is our greatest strength. And this is how I will show you.
Constitution-
Bill Of Rights –
The Declaration of Independence-
United under one forum, builds what is called the Trinity of the Protection Of Laws. This is because these Laws were built by people of faith who gave thanks to God for this wisdom. One would have to see and admire the simplicity of the three as one and at the same time they maintain their independence.
As for my views that the People Of the United States have the right to build a Health Care Forum with in the the working Institution Of the United States Government and place the task of Officials Building Security for the safe keep of this building block of ideas.
As I stated a long time ago, the age of Health Care Insurance Companies has ended, nature has selected them to be no more. Because of the failures within and the facts that the human life has no value over the dollar.
Insurance Companies and all of the Democrat and Republican Parties do not have the power to stop a United Health Care Forum within our Government, built by the people.
And this is why;
Tucker vs. Government page 33 at our site.
You see ,I do not and will not make the first penny off of this building block, I do not wish to meet any of theses Officials. I do not want anything but for this failed system out of my life, to go back to my world where I will watch and wait for Amendments of Law Against the People to be sought after again. I invite those who wish to try again, to do so in , Lets say 200 years from now and I will come back.
Henry Massingale
FASC Concepts in and for PAY It Forward
http://www.fascmovement.mysite.com on google