What happens when a couple of Democrats show up at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California? Well, the first thing is that they don’t go inside, because admission is $16 per person, and what sane Democrat would spend $16 to honor Ronald Reagan’s memory? But the outside of the Library is very telling, and of course they let you in the gift shop, because Republicans. We took photos that tell the full sordid story, so read on after the jump:
Tag Archive: Barack Obama
Outside the belly of the beast at Ronald Reagan Library
Messaging Maxim #6: Keep it Stupidly Simple
President George W. Bush announced his Medicare Part D prescription drug plan in his May 6, 2006 weekly radio address. In implementing Medicare Part D, the Republican Congress was all for extending deadlines for health insurance programs until President Barack Obama extended the March 31, 2014 Affordable Care Act signup deadline. But what was perhaps more striking about Bush’s announcement was its almost childlike simplicity of the language and delivery:
The average premium that seniors pay is a third less than had been expected, just $25 per month instead of $37 per month.
Thanks to this new coverage, America’s seniors are now getting the modern medicine they need at prices they can afford.
During George W. Bush’s presidency, Democrats made plenty of fun of Bush’s “Bartles and Jaymes” simplicity of speech. Before that, Democrats mocked the simplicity of presidential candidate and then President Ronald Reagan. But such simplicity often works. Indeed, Reagan became known as “The Great Communicator.” For these reasons, we now list Messaging Maxim #6: Keep it Stupidly Simple.
Republicans’ low profiling
Rally for Travon Martin at Univ. of Minnesota
On a recent ski trip, we noticed two types of profiling: First, the lift operators at the bottom of the mountain scanned the lift tickets of some skiers and snowboarders, but not others, to make sure they had purchased a ticket that day. It seemed like only younger and less affluent-looking snowboarders were being checked, while older, prosperous-looking skiers were not. That night, at a nice restaurant in town, the host told some younger, scruffier looking snowboard types that it would be an hour and a half wait for a table, and then told an older, affluent looking couple that they could get a table in just ten minutes.
Democrats need a theme for 2014
The Republican Party has a theme for 2014. We saw it in Bill O’Reilly‘s prosecution of President Obama in the form of an interview during the recent Super Bowl. The Republican 2014 election theme is: Attack Democrats on the Affordable Care Act, Benghazi and the I.R.S.
Liberal talk show host takes down Texas caller
This past Tuesday, Michelangelo Signorile, liberal activist and host of the “Michelangelo Signorile Show” on the Sirius XM Progress channel, obliterated a hateful conservative caller from Texas. Mike did such a masterful job that we asked him to make the audio of the call available, and he graciously obliged (see above). Here’s how the call went, with our breakdown of the juicy parts:
The party of “no chance”
“If one candidate is appealing to your fears, and the other one’s appealing to your hopes, you’d better vote for the person who wants you to think and hope!”
― Bill Clinton
Republicans just got punished in the Senate for saying “no” to an up or down vote on an unprecedented number of President Obama‘s Executive and Judicial Branch nominations. Now the Republicans are gearing up for the 2014 mid-term elections by running against the Affordable Care Act, rather than running for anything. That could prove to be a big mistake.
GOP caught putting party first during government shutdown
Republicans just got caught red-handed putting the interests of the Republican party over those of the country during their GOP government shutdown. First, as the video above indicates, Republican Senator Rand Paul was caught on a hot mic telling his colleague, GOP Senator Mitch McConnell:
I just did CNN and I just go over and over again, ‘we’re willing to compromise, we’re willing to negotiate.’ I don’t think they poll tested ‘we won’t negotiate,’ I think it’s awful for them to say that over and over again. … I think if we keep saying, ‘we wanted to defund it, we fought for that, but now we’re willing to compromise on this,’ we’re gonna win.
Then today, Republican Congressman Eric Cantor passed a memo to his colleagues urging a similar strategy to that expressed by Rand Paul, i.e., to say that President Obama and Democrats in Congress are “refusing to negotiate” during the GOP shutdown, and that Republicans are willing to negotiate. Cantor further urges his House colleagues to push for piecemeal bills to fund only parts of the federal government which are popular with the American people, such as reopening our national parks and funding veterans benefits.
Alas, the Republicans’ cynical strategy is now laid bare with evidence on video and on paper: take the United States hostage by shutting down the government, ask for ransom (defunding or delaying the Affordable Care Act that is the law of the land), then criticize Democrats for rightfully refusing to negotiate with the hostage takers. Are there any regular folks left in America who think the Republicans give a damn about them?
President Obama sells the Affordable Care Act
Chuck Todd of NBC News created a media firestorm last week when he blamed President Barack Obama “for not selling” the Affordable Care Act (“ACA“) a/k/a “Obamacare,” and said that media figures like himself had no responsibility to counter Republican lies about the ACA. Well, President Obama answered Chuck Todd and the Republican lie machine yesterday with a blazing speech at Prince George’s Community College in Largo, Maryland (see video above). Some of the highlights from President Obama’s speech were as follows:
As Bachmann quits, Dole and Snowe tell GOP it’s too crazy
As extreme right wing Republican U.S. Congresswoman Michele Bachmann of Minnesota announced today that she was quitting the Congress, former mainstream Republican U.S. Senators Robert Dole and Olympia Snowe both told interviewers that the Republican Party has veered dangerously off course. While Bachmann could end up with a broadcasting platform on Fox “News” or elsewhere, Republicans would do well to ignore her and listen to Dole and Snowe instead.
Time to go to war against the Republicans
When Osama bin Laden declared war on the United States twice in the 1990s, Americans didn’t react until the 9/11 attacks years later. That didn’t work out so well. Yet Republicans quietly, then more noisily, declared war on the Democrats years ago, and have successfully fought their war against the Democrats, and America, every day since then, with near-impunity. It’s time for Democrats to go to war against the Republicans.
