How can this still be true, 79 years later to the day?
FDR warned us in 1936, that Republicans would try to gut federal programs that help people and make America great. It’s as if we have a haunting by Santayana‘s Ghost, on Social Security, unemployment insurance, job training, job creation and budget deficits:
Update: Shorter excerpt of speech, leaving out the parts I really wanted; the video originally featured is not available. Rats.
In New York and in Washington, Government which has rendered more than lip service to our Constitutional Democracy has done a work for the protection and preservation of our institutions that could not have been accomplished by repression and force.
Let me warn you and let me warn the Nation against the smooth evasion which says, “Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them — we will do more of them, we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.”
But, my friends, these evaders are banking too heavily on the shortness of our memories. No one will forget that they had their golden opportunity—twelve long years of it.
Remember, too, that the first essential of doing a job well is to want to see the job done. Make no mistake about this: the Republican leadership today is not against the way we have done the job. The Republican leadership is against the job’s being done.
Is there any rational person in the world who really views the world this way?
I had thought this a minor deal, until I saw the denials on the news a few minute ago. You might explain it. But deny it?
Transcript of his remarks on September 17, from AmericanBridge:
Mitt Romney at a secret donor meeting:
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.
“[M]y job is is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
A TWEET of the DAY. RT @Crutnacker Did you see the Romney sex tape where he completely screws his campaign?
In New York and in Washington, Government which has rendered more than lip service to our Constitutional Democracy has done a work for the protection and preservation of our institutions that could not have been accomplished by repression and force.
Let me warn you and let me warn the Nation against the smooth evasion which says, “Of course we believe all these things; we believe in social security; we believe in work for the unemployed; we believe in saving homes. Cross our hearts and hope to die, we believe in all these things; but we do not like the way the present Administration is doing them. Just turn them over to us. We will do all of them — we will do more of them, we will do them better; and, most important of all, the doing of them will not cost anybody anything.”
But, my friends, these evaders are banking too heavily on the shortness of our memories. No one will forget that they had their golden opportunity—twelve long years of it.
Remember, too, that the first essential of doing a job well is to want to see the job done. Make no mistake about this: the Republican leadership today is not against the way we have done the job. The Republican leadership is against the job’s being done.
A week of school out of the way, perhaps. One convention down, one to gird up for. Last long weekend of a mosquito-plagued summer. Enough rain to quench the wildfire danger, perhaps, while washing away the town outside the levees.
Millard Fillmore bathed here: Fillmore helped build this house in East Aurora, NY, in 1825, moving in with his wife Abigail in 1826. They lived here until 1830. It is the only surviving residence of Fillmore, aside from the White House. Good image created and copyright held by Yoho2001 Toronto, ON. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Whatever the justification, a good stack of stuff for a good, long soak.
Who was the business consultant who said, of bringing in a “fireman” to fix company problems, “A fireman has two tools, an axe and a hose; call him in, you’re going to get one?” Did Mitt just warn us he plans to bring in a fireman? Did he warn us that he thinks he is that fireman?
Sacrificing 750,000 Americans to stop a dozen cases of ID fraud. Voter ID laws don’t even touch 90% of voter fraud, ID can’t prevent it. This is lunacy.
Worse than lunacy: Pennsylvania’s voter ID law is evil.
Pray for success of the ACLU challenge to this miscarriage of justice.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Registered voter in Texas? Remember to vote today in the Texas primary. Twice delayed due to the shenanigans on biased redistricting by the Republican Lege, we finally get going on voting — after the precinct and Senate district political conventions have already occurred (just two weeks from the Texas Democratic State Convention).
Flags fly at the Texas Capitol; fly your flags today for election day (Photo credit: jmtimages)
Happy to see the Texas Democratic Party sending out notices that voters won’t be turned away from the polls for identification issues. Texas’s Jim Crow Voter Identification Hurdle Law has been stayed in litigation separate from the redistricting law suit. It’s a clear effort to deflate the voting discouragement campaign of State Attorney General Greg Abbott, Gov. Rick Perry, and the Republicans of the Texas Lege.
On Monday, the polls will open [TODAY] for early voting for the May 29th Democratic Primary Election. We’ll be selecting the Democratic nominees who will lead the charge towards taking back our state in 2012.
Use the same documents that you’ve used in the past to vote.No photo ID is required! The photo voter id legislation is not in effect for this election. All you need is:
Did the Republicans inform their voters of the ID requirements, or do they want to discourage even Republican voters? They keep booting me off their lists. Anybody got a similar letter from them, especially one showing how the Texas Voter Identification law does not apply to this primary election?
_____________
* The elections were delayed by federal court orders. Texas is a place that historically discriminated against minority voters, and so under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, reapportionments by the legislature must be approved by the Justice Department or a federal court as complying with the nondiscrimination laws. AG Abbott tried to do an end run around Justice, suing for approval as a first step. As part of its War on Democracy, the Texas Lege wrote a spectacularly Gerrymandered reapportionment plan, depriving Texas Hispanics from new representation despite the dramatic increase in their populations. Consequently the federal courts balked at quick approval. Instead, they asked for more information.
In the delay, the Washington courts ordered the federal court in San Antonio to draw up a more fair plan, giving at least three new seats to districts where historically minority voters hold broad sway.
Litigation against the Texas Jim Crow Voter Identification law is separate.
Early voting for the twice-delayed* Texas primary elections opens this week. The election is set for May 29.
Happy to see the Texas Democratic Party sending out notices that voters won’t be turned away from the polls. It’s a clear effort to deflate the voting discouragement campaign of State Attorney General Greg Abbott, Gov. Rick Perry, and the Republicans of the Texas Lege.
On Monday, the polls will open for early voting for the May 29th Democratic Primary Election. We’ll be selecting the Democratic nominees who will lead the charge towards taking back our state in 2012.
Use the same documents that you’ve used in the past to vote.No photo ID is required! The photo voter id legislation is not in effect for this election. All you need is:
I’d be interested to see that the Republican Party in Texas is doing something similar. They keep booting me off their lists. Anybody got a similar letter from them, especially one showing how the Texas Voter Identification law does not apply to this primary election?
_____________
* The elections were delayed by federal court orders. Texas is a place that historically discriminated against minority voters, and so under the 1965 Voting Rights Act, reapportionments by the legislature must be approved by the Justice Department or a federal court as complying with the nondiscrimination laws. AG Abbott tried to do an end run around Justice, suing for approval as a first step. As part of its War on Democracy, the Texas Lege wrote a spectacularly Gerrymandered reapportionment plan, depriving Texas Hispanics from new representation despite the dramatic increase in their populations. Consequently the federal courts balked at quick approval. Instead, they asked for more information. In the delay, the Washington courts ordered the federal court in San Antonio to draw up a more fair plan, giving at least three new seats to districts where Hispanics hold broad sway.
Litigation against the Texas Jim Crow Voter Identification law is separate.
Former Sen. Alan Simpson told Charlie Rose that he’s grateful President Obama didn’t offer the Simpson-Bowles budget balancing plan, since Republicans would then have to oppose every part of it, reflexively, as part of their “hate Obama completely” policy.
Pat Bagley uncoded the formula, too.
Pat Bagley, Primordial gas politics, Salt Lake Tribune, May 3, 2012
The danger? The danger is Obama will propose something to save America, and the Republicans will oppose it in a knee-jerk fashion. Some say it’s happened already.
And all of a sudden, you find yourself naked, cold and wet, and stuck in a swamp. Can you console yourself that the flies are tasty?
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Just after Limbaugh lashed out at Fluke, a Georgetown professor attended a reunion at a Catholic school in Queens. An elderly nun asked her, “Do you know that girl?” She added, “That awful man should be fired for what he said. How’s she holding up?”
A lot more serious, good thought in that article by Margaret Talbot, “Taking Control,” billed as a discussion of the real reasons for the recent conservative attacks on women.
Tip of the old scrub brush to Frank Milewski, off in the wilds of Michigan.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Okay, I’m giving up trying to figure out the Republican race, and Republicans.
Once upon a time you could count on getting the ear of Republicans with a wave of the U.S. flag, a reference to patriotism, and an appeal to time-honored values, like telling the truth.
But no more.
In the last round of the Debate-That-Never-Ends, Mitt Romney in essence called Rick Perry a liar. Romney even offered to give Perry $10,000 if Perry could prove the smear he’d just made on Romney.
Perry, knowing he’d been caught red-handed in a lie, refused to take the offer.
For free, Romney showed Perry to be a liar. And Romney gets the heat?
Just to confuse things further, Republicans aren’t voting for Perry, either.
Literacy test, hell. We need a sanity test for these guys — the Republican voters included. Republicans are close to reason only in the dictionary, and even there they are not on the same page.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Wisconsin voters are going to the polls today to make history and recall the Walker 6. Those six are Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) closest state Senate allies who spearheaded his move to take away the collective bargaining rights of public employees and ram through a budget devastating to working families.
Would the AFL-CIO attract more voters if they noted the six Republicans are part of the Tea Party team that drove America’s financial future off the cliff? Wisconsin voters could send a message to Congress today, were they so inclined.
Spread the word; friends don't allow friends to repeat history.
Or, until that account is unsuspended by the forces supporting Donald Trump: Follow @FillmoreWhite, the account of the Millard Fillmore White House Library
We've been soaking in the Bathtub for several months, long enough that some of the links we've used have gone to the Great Internet in the Sky.
If you find a dead link, please leave a comment to that post, and tell us what link has expired.
Thanks!
Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control.
My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it.
BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah
Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona
JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
Posted by Ed Darrell 
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 