- The House passed a $643 billion defense spending bill. It faces uncertainty in the Senate (CNN): http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/18/politics/house-defense-bill/index.html?hpt=hp_bn5
- Ex I.M.F. head Dominique Strauss-Kahn faces a new round of sexual assault charges (Yahoo!): http://news.yahoo.com/french-prosecutors-probe-strauss-kahn-rape-accusations-074122576.html
- Groups of protesters angry at N.A.T.O clash with police in Chicago (ABC News): http://abcnews.go.com/US/nato-summit-protest-anarchists-clash-cops-vets-return/story?id=16390087#.T7ohO9xPomE
- President Obama out-raised GOP candidate Mitt Romney in April by nearly 2-1 (CBS News): http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-57438050-503544/president-obama-rakes-in-more-campaign-donations-than-mitt-romney-in-april-fec-reports/?tag=stack
Curious what people's views/opinions on this article are:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2012/05/21/opinion/zelizer-congress-polarization/index.html?hpt=hp_bn7
This kind of "reporting" is absolute baloney. Zelizer is trying to claim it's one side of the aisle, but, when you look at reality, it's both.
DeleteThis blog has pointed it out numerous times. The hyper partisan junk that is going back and forth in our government is the fault of both parties. Why is Zelizer not highlighting how Obamacare was passed with a rush vote before Scott Brown was sworn in. That's compromise? That's how government works. Hey guys, let's go ahead and rush this so we can cheat because we know the democratic system we have established will kill our bill with Brown gets seated.
Is Zelizer calling out the democrats for their "we won't even look at the houses' bill?" or their "I will veto it when it gets on my desk?"
This is just another example of shoddy reporting on CNN's part. They pass this bull as news and few Americans know the difference. If he can give examples in his liberal puff piece about the GOP being the cause of gridlock, I can give just as many counter examples of this coming from the democrats.
And one last thing. Obama was supposed to be the great unifier. Is he? Can he still claim that? Is he really that good? It seems the country is more divided than ever. If he wants to blame the GOP for his failure he is silly. You can't claim "I will do this," fail at it, and then excuse the hell out of it by saying, "well, the other side stopped me."
This author loses all credibility when he said:
ReplyDelete"The first is with the kind of brinksmanship budgetary politics that has now become normative. Last week, House Speaker John Boehner once again threatened that Republicans would not vote to increase the debt ceiling unless Democrats agreed to certain tax and spending policies sought by the GOP. Republicans have used this tactic repeatedly in the past few years, each time bringing the nation closer to the brink of default."
THIS IS WHAT COMPROMISE IS. Is the author nuts? He is saying the republicans are at fault for not compromising, yet gives a situation where they ARE? What does he want, the democrats to have it their way 100% of the time? The republicans are saying "if you give us some of what we want, we will give you some of what you want." He is saying this is a bad thing?
Good morning RKen - thank you for bringing this up. I love when people post news articles in here for debate/discussion. That's the whole point of these :-)
ReplyDeleteI can definitely see Texas Tea's point, and I want to take it a step further. I think it is absolutely true that CNN is rhetoricing (studied this in college... the use of mass blasted info to sway people's opinions) and it's starting to get out of control. You've even pointed it out yourself that it seems CNN has more "left" opinion writers that "right" ones. The balance is very skewed. Rhetoricing comes in when it's constantly in the headline. You don't even have to read the article. Just open up CNN.com and what do you see? You literally see: "Zelizer: Blame GOP for gridlock." It doesn't even claim to be an opinion piece. Most Americans don't realize this. They just see the headline (and again, it happens over and over and over) and their minds can be swayed. To me, the problem is that CNN passes this as "news" (they are supposed to be a news site, not an opinion site) and there are way more left than right.
For the article itself, I agree with Anna's opinion, and of course, there are more ways to look at it that she (and Texas Tea) does.
LME has a point. I've pretty much agreed with it through the life of this blog. The media's as he calls it rhetoricing is pretty sad. On top of the piece rken brought up, when you go to CNN's homepage, look at what else you see
ReplyDeleteGOP problem: Their voters are dying off
GOP, DYING - more negative words
= rhetoric
= swaying minds.
I especially like how Julian brings up the budget and fails to mention that the Democrat led Senate hasn't passed one of those since 2009.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/may/16/democrat-led-senate-votes-down-4-gop-budgets-for-1/?page=all
The Senate on Wednesday rejected every single budget being offered this year, leaving the chamber — and therefore the federal government — without a plan to address Medicare, Social Security and the other major entitlement programs that are driving deficits and debt.
In repeated votes, Democrats who control the chamber defeated four Republican proposals, including a plan that passed the House in March. The entire Senate also unanimously rejected President Obama’s 2013 budget, voting 99-0 against it, following a 414-0 vote against it in the House earlier this year.
“A stunning development for the president of the United States in his fourth year in office,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions, Alabama Republican.
Congress is required by law to pass a budget by April 15, then write the annual spending and tax laws to carry out the budget’s targets.
But for the third straight year, Democrats didn’t offer a plan of their own in the Senate. The last time it did pass one was in 2009, when Democrats controlled all the levers and wrote the measure that paved the way for them to pass Mr. Obama’s health care law.
So when the Senate Democrats don't even offer a budget for THREE straight years, is that the GOP's fault too?
The Dems always like to say the Repubs are the party of NO. Ironically, it is the Senate Dems that have said NO to every GOP budget, NO to 0bama's budgets, and have NO budget of their own. At what point do they become the party of NO?
A little off subject here, but a perfect example of the insane hypocrisy of the left. Last week David Letterman made a joke about Romney and his wife spending the weekend climbing to the top of their money. The funny thing is it would take Letterman LONGER to climb to the top of his money than it would Romney. Letterman is reportedly worth $400 Million and Romney worth $230 Million. Why is it OK for Letterman to be even more filthy rich than Romney but it's bad for Romney to be half as rich as Letterman? I find it amazing how multi-million dollar salaries are fine for liberal actors, liberal comedians, liberal news anchors, liberal ambulance chasing lawyers, liberal singers/rappers but heaven forbid someone own or run a profitable business and make millions.