Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

DEMOCRAT Party Hypocrisy? Who’da Thunk?

By 22 Comments

Headlines Today:

“Historic Obama Inauguration will cost only $120 million”

http://abcnews.go.com/Business…

“Obama Spends $120 million on inauguration; America Needs A Big Party”

http://foolocracy.com/2008/12/…

“Citibank executives contribute $8 million to Obama Inauguration”

http://www.newsmax.com/insidec…

Until Mister-How-Great-I-Am burst onto the scene, George Dubya Bush’s 42 million dollar party was the record. I thought it was terribly excessive.

Bush’s excess pales in comparison to Mr. Obama’s. Oh, yeah, and didn’t Citi just get a bunch of bail-out dollars that came out of your pocket? Could I rightly conclude that Citi and Obama are partying on your tax dollars?

My, my. On the day of his inauguration, Obama shows his ass. More to come, stay tuned.

Best,

Chuck

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  1. KIRK:  Sulu, slow at the conn.  We need to investigate this anomaly.

    <

    p>SULU:  Aye, Cap’n.

    <

    p>KIRK: I’m not sure we’ve seen anything like this.  Uhuru?

    <

    p>UHURU: No communication in any recognizable Federation language.  Attempts at constructive dialog continue to go unanswered.

    <

    p>KIRK:  Is it friendly?  Hostile?

    <

    p>CHEKOV:  Cappen, it disn’t seem to have any internal coherence.

    <

    p>KIRK: What do we do here?  Bones?

    <

    p>McCOY:  Dammit, captain, I’m a doctor, not a linguist!  Blast by the whole thing.

    <

    p>CHEKOV:  Running relevance scan, captain.  I’m getting nothing.

    <

    p>KIRK:  Nothing?  As in zero relevance?  Scotty, are these readings right?

    <

    p>SCOTTY: I tell ya cap’n, her sensors are workin’ as fine as I can make ’em.

    <

    p>KIRK:  Curious.  Most curious.

    <

    p>–

    <

    p>KIRK:  Captain’s Log.  Encountered a baffling object today.  It lacked internal coherence and did not offer any recognizable attempt to communicate.  Scotty swears that the sensors are accurately reading this…phenomenon.  We have absolutely zero relevance across the sensor board, and most of the crew evinces that we are wasting our time investigating something with so little to offer.  Spock merely calls the whole business “without a shred of logic”.

    • Sound’s more like you’re from the school of “it all depends on who’s big fat ox we want to ‘Gore.’ Why are you ‘Kerry’-ing water for Citi, anyhow? Your lengthy comment about nothing makes my faux pas ‘Pale in’ comparison. But I’m so terribly crippled by yer salvo, sabutai, that I’ll have to use ‘Mah Cane’ just to walk.

      <

      p>Best,
      Chuck

      • … here is a real rebuttal:

        Here’s why using the $160 million number and comparing it with Bush’s 2005 costs represented a classic apples-and-oranges assessment: For years, the press routinely referred to the cost of presidential inaugurations by calculating how much money was spent on the swearing-in and the social activities surrounding that. The cost of the inauguration’s security was virtually never factored into the final tab, as reported by the press. For instance, here’s The Washington Post from January 20, 2005, addressing the Bush bash:

        The $40 million does not include the cost of a web of security, including everything from 7,000 troops to volunteer police officers from far away, to some of the most sophisticated detection and protection equipment.

        For decades, that represented the norm in terms of calculating inauguration costs: Federal dollars spent on security were not part of the commonly referred-to cost. (The cost of Obama’s inauguration, minus the security costs? Approximately $45 million.) What’s happening this year: The cost of the Obama inauguration and the cost of the security are being combined by some in order to come up with the much larger tab. Then, that number is being compared with the cost of the Bush inauguration in 2005, minus the money spent on security.

        In other words, it’s the unsubstantiated Obama cost of $160 million (inauguration + security) compared with the Bush cost of 42 million (inauguration, excluding security). Those are two completely different calculations being compared side-by-side, by Fox & Friends, among others, to support the phony claim that Obama’s inauguration is $100 million more expensive than Bush’s.

        However, buried in a recent New York Times article published one week before the controversy erupted over the cost of Obama’s inauguration, the newspaper reported that in 2005, “the federal government and the District of Columbia spent a combined $115.5 million, most of it for security, the swearing-in ceremony, cleanup and for a holiday for federal workers” [emphasis added].

        • Eric Blowhard’s column, too, Mr. Lynne, along with a rather large number of other left-winged missives cranked out by the usual suspects. What I didn’t see in any of them was any justification for such a massive party, when the country’s economy is so deeply in the toilet. What I also didn’t see was any justification for a huge bank, who just received a huge number of taxpayer bailout dollars, paying for a big chunk of the party.

          <

          p>What I DID see was wretched excess in a time of economic hardship. What I did see was a poor example of the positive change Mr. Obama has been promising.

          <

          p>And I did see something else, just as sickening. I saw notices in my CitiBank credit card statement, and my CitiBank-sponsored Home Depot credit card statement, increasing the minimum interest rates and fees by, in some cases, over one hundred percent. This is of no impact to me, as I pay my balances monthly, but what about the poor schmucks who are stuck with massive bills, right after the holiday season, who are barely making it, and who now are going to face even more misery in repaying debt they made in good faith at lower rates?

          <

          p>Perhaps this is Citi’s way of sticking it to the citizenry once again. After all, the money they gave the Obamarama has to come from somewhere, doesn’t it? So why not take it from those least able to afford it? I can’t stick it back to Citi, but I can, and did, cancel both accounts immediately, and shred their cards.

          <

          p>And finally, what I did see, and am continuing to see, is the Democratic paty Leadership’s hypocracy, as they continue to protest how very, very much they care about the little guy they continue, with their banking cronies, to stick it to. If this is an example of the kind of change Mr. Obama has in mind, then, with respect, he can KEEP the change!

          <

          p>Best,
          Chuck

          • The actual inauguration cost was paid mainly from money the Obama transition raised from private donors (including over the Internet), so why does it need to be “justified”?  People made their own individual decisions to contribute that money.

            <

            p>The main theme of these criticisms seems to be the apparent growth in public costs, due to security, but it turns out that this inauguration actually cost less in public money for security than the last one, even though a lot more people came.

            <

            p>Nevertheless, if that spending is what you’re objecting to, what’s your proposed alternative?  Telling everyone not to go to DC for the inauguration and hoping nobody shows up?  Yeah, that would’ve worked out great.

            <

            p>Or just not planning appropriately for the large number of people expected?

            • “The actual inauguration cost was paid mainly from money the Obama transition raised from private donors … so why does it need to be justified?”

              <

              p>Gee, Cos, good question. Tell you what, if you tell me why the Liberals raised liberal hell with the Bush Bash in 2004, a time of pretty darned good econometrics, I’ll tell you why the Obamarama needs to be justified when Americans are being forced out of their homes, and Citi is doubling their interest rates on Christmas spending encouraged by the Democrats as being at least patriotic?

              <

              p>It ain’t OK, Cos. Don’t pretend that it is.

              <

              p>Best,
              Chuck  

              • I’m speaking for myself here.  I raised no hell about the cost of the Bush inauguration, and if I made any criticism of it it that time (which I don’t remember doing) it would only have been in the general sense of “this is another way to lobby the president through money”.  Whoever criticised it at the time, I don’t know what their reasons were, but I sure don’t remember it being a big deal in the news and I don’t remember participating in such criticism myself.  Go yell at them.  Or better yet, ask them what their reasons were.

                <

                p>I don’t see any logical connections between the things you mention.  You just seem to be ignoring what I said.  You can assert “it ain’t okay” as often as you want, but I still don’t understand why you say that, and you’ve completely ignored all my questions and thoughts.  Why do you even bother responding?

          • One thing that has troubled me about inaugurations in the past, though, is the way they provide wealthy special interests yet another way to buy influence with an incoming administration.  By cutting out lobbyists & PACs from contributing to his inauguration, and by relying heavily on small donations on the Internet via his mailing list, Obama has gone a signficant way towards solving that problem.  In that respect, I’m much happier with the money spent on this inauguration than on past ones.

            • And so Citi, and George Soros the Gun Hater, and a host of other liberal special interests are not trying to buy influence?

              <

              p>I got some swampland in the Mojave I wanna talk to you about . . .

              <

              p>Best,
              Chuck

          • Why was CitiBank able to raise these rates so easily?

            <

            p>On one side, there’s a Reaganesque libertarian conservative position. By that view, one might expect regulation to have some bad effect like:

            • Smothering the credit card industry so that there are no credit cards.
            • Distorting the market for credit cards so that only very affluent people would end up getting them
            • Causing some kind of black market in alternative credit instruments.

            By that view, letting CitiBank do whatever it wants with rates and fees is part of making sure the market is healthy and making sure that Chucks, Chimps, and Chumps can all continue to afford credit cards. This view, I should emphasize, is the conservative view.

            <

            p>The problem is that the “usual suspects” in the Democratic Party have climbed aboard this view. Part of it, of course, is that campaign contributions (which conservatives also oppose regulating!) reward otherwise liberal Democrats for having Neanderthal right-of-center views.

            <

            p>So yes, this is a problem with Democrats. If only we had enforced greater liberal orthodoxy on our Congressional caucus, this never would have happened.

            <

            p>My apologies.

            • “By that view, letting CitiBank do whatever it wants with rates and fees is part of making sure the market is healthy and making sure that Chucks, Chimps, and Chumps can all continue to afford credit cards.”

              <

              p>I do not hold the view that Citi cannot do whatever they want with their credit card rates. I do not even hold the view that Citi cannot do whatever they want with these rates right after a Christmas that saw liberal Democrats encouraging the Great Unwashed to spend it like they had it, in order to revive a faltering economy.

              <

              p>I hold instead the view that Citi slapped those least able to afford being slapped, when, immediately after a Christmas that saw those same least able folks following the liberal dictate, Citi suddenly, after slopping at the public trough in order to be bailed out, decided that it would raise the funds to cover its Obamarama donation by slapping them.

              <

              p>Citi just lost any business I will ever give anyone. Now that isn’t much, in the great scheme of things, but its a start. And while the Chucks, Chimps and Chumps under my roof can afford credit cards they pay off every month, and while even those who got slapped with the increased interest on their Christmas spending they couldn’t completely pay off in January suffer and struggle under the increased debt load that Citi imposed to pay for their share of Obamarama, I think Citi deserves to lose a hell of a lot more than just my business.

              <

              p>It is my devout wish that they do.

              <

              p>Best,
              Chuck

          • Eric Blowhard for Eric Boehlert.

            <

            p>”…a rather large number of other left-winged missives cranked out by the usual suspects.”

            <

            p>May I suggest that you show a bit more respect for people who got the war in Iraq right, who predicted unlike Kudlow (“bubbleheads” anyone”?) the housing bubble?

            <

            p>Your team has been shamefully and gleefully wrong on a host of issues including but not limited to North Korea, regulatory affairs, the economy, and a very expensive war. It does not reflect well on you at all to continue this style of smug wrongheadedness that leads us to Research 2000’s results:

            PartyFavorableUnfavorable
            Demcoratic57%36%
            Republican34%57%

            You guys screwed up. The country would have been much better off had the “usual suspects” been heeded.

            • “May I suggest that you show a bit more respect for people who got the war in Iraq right”

              <

              p>Last I heard, the war in Iraq was pretty much settled. We won.

              <

              p>And, the last I heard, General Petraeus and his team were winning the peace. This, in spite of everything the liberals could throw under the wheels and treads of their military vehicles, trying to stoop the victory.

              <

              p>And your friends Nancy and Hillary and Barak may have in mind snatching defeat from the jaws of victory, but it will be a bitter defeat indeed, for the brave men and women who won the war before the liberals decided to capitulate!

              <

              p>Hope you can all sleep with this after the next 9/11.

              <

              p>Best,
              Chuck

              • Now, I understand!

                <

                p>The Bush Administration after years of being able to define what victory means has finally decided what it means.

                <

                p>It means anything that makes Democrats look bad.

                <

                p>As is typical, subtle understanding of political of manipulation married to poor understanding of policy, in this case Iraq.

  2. At least these millions were going into peoples pockets (paying police, security, organizers, cleaning companies etc etc etc) rather than disappearing down the big bank black hole that our legislators have taken a liking to tossing money down these days.  

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