negotiations Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Podcast – Local Edge Radio with Bill Scher and Vonciel

Finally, I was able to catch up with Bill Scher from Liberal Oasis and Campaign for America’s Future for this podcast. (Please read Bill’s must-read post on how to get jobs back on the table.)Bill is one of the fabulous progressives. We discuss the fact that President Barack Obama appears to be holding the winning hand with debt ceiling negotiations coming up. We talk about Benghazi. Every time the Republicans try to make a big deal out of Benghazi, it seems to blow up in their faces. Such was the case with Mitt Romney and, most recently, Charles Krauthammer, who stated that Hillary Clinton had a case of Benghazi allergy, which is why she didn’t testify in front of Congress. Bill correctly points out that Benghazi is not a scandal. Instead, it shows the difficulty in balancing what an Embassy is supposed to do – security versus being with the people. One of the things that seems to be overlooked is that President Barack Obama is now promoting a foreign-policy that is fostering democracy in many countries that once were dictatorships. (I wonder why Fox News isn’t talking about this.) Listen to this podcast. It is extremely entertaining.

I would like to thank Bill Scher for being on the show and I’d also like to thank my co-host Vonciel for tolerating my Bogarting the microphone.

Local Edge Radio with Bill Scher [ 14:13 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

By ecthompsonmd|2013-01-07T21:51:52-04:00January 6th, 2013|Budget, Obama administration, Party Politics, Podcasts|Comments Off

Keystone Dead For Now

Just because it looks as if the Keystone Pipeline is dead, don’t think that this fight is over. Some very powerful people stand to make tons of money for this project to simply die. It will be back, I promise.

From The Nation:

For the second time in as many months, the Obama administration has rejected the Keystone XL pipeline—a hugely controversial project that would traverse the length of the country from Nebraska to the Gulf of Mexico, carrying heavy and dirty tar sands oil from deep in Canada.

You’ll recall that, following a summer of protests and civil disobedience, the administration announced in November that it was delaying the project for at least a year, until a less disruptive route around a key aquifer in Nebraska could be studied and proposed. (Many believe this delay would kill the project entirely).

But Republicans successfully revived the project during the end-of-year negotiations on the payroll tax cut and unemployment insurance. Democrats desperately wanted these measures, and the final bill included a provision that would force the State Department to issue a decision on Keystone within two months. (more…)

Oh, btw, I don’t buy the GOP argument that the pipeline would make 2500 or 100,000 jobs. Media Matters clearly shows how the media pumped up the jobs numbers.

By ecthompsonmd|2012-01-20T06:33:17-04:00January 20th, 2012|Energy|Comments Off

Our Constitution and some basic guarantees

It seems to me that our Constitution guarantees some basic rights for all Americans. (Now we can, of course, argue about whether Faisal Shahzad should have been allowed to become an American citizen.) These rights are not open for negotiations. Yet, we have some who have argued that alleged failed Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, shouldn’t have been afforded these rights. Why not? Doesn’t our Constitution work in good times and bad? If there is some reason that the Constitution doesn’t work, then we need to amend it. I think that this is really pretty simple, but it seems that folks don’t get it.

By ecthompsonmd|2010-05-04T23:13:11-04:00May 4th, 2010|Congress, Party Politics, Security, Terrorism|Comments Off