Danny Doom’s Booze Cabinet

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I highly recommend this video as an insight to what happens when the spin is gone and lies can be challenged and answered without any shouting heads. This is how it should be. Fantastic. They should do it once a month, or once a week. This is the guy I voted for, able to speak and go back and forth and, yes, school those who are distorting his words and actions.

A New Year’s Eve pic of the old Stella, ah, she was a good one, yes indeed.

I just got in and happened to see the very end of something quite amazing. I don’t know what the deal is, and I will look for the whole thing to go back and see it, but President Obama was talking with the House Republicans, having an open and honest discussion. I’ve only seen Sullivan’s take:

I’ve just watched the president address the Republican retreat in Baltimore. Address is not quite the right word, because it was a genuine – and remarkable – conversation between Obama and his political opponents – transparently on CSPAN … But here’s the key thing: Obama is best at this. He is best at defusing conflict; he is superb at engaging civilly with his opponents.

Whatever it was, I thought it was…unheard of. And great. But anyway, I’ll have to see what all happened and get back to it.

UPDATE:

I just love the sound of this:

In a sometimes-barbed exchange, he said some in the audience have attended ribbon-cutting ceremonies for projects funded by the stimulus package they voted against. Obama also questioned why Republicans have overwhelmingly opposed his tax-cut policies, which he said have benefited 95 percent of American families.

“The notion that this was a radical package is just not true,” Obama said. “I am not an ideologue.”

GOP lawmakers pressed the president to pledge to support a line-item veto for spending bills and across-the-board tax cuts. Obama demurred, saying billionaires don’t need new tax cuts.

UPDATE II:

This has to be a good sign…in looking around for a story on this I couldn’t help but notice that Drudge has absolutely nothing.

UPDATE III:

Here’s a good account of it:

It was amazing television – watchable, interesting, feisty and even a little dramatic … Today, at the caucus meeting, he went right after Republicans on their turf and, in my opinion, owned them.

UPDATE IV:

Ha ha! This just gets better:

So effective was the president that Fox News cut away from the broadcast 20 minutes before it ended.

One other thing, about the Supreme Court being called out by Obama in his speech the other night: some have bitched about the legitimacy and prestige of the court being harmed by the exchange, but, let’s be honest, those qualities were damaged severely in 2000 with the interference of the election process. And with right-wing hacks like Alito now on board, well, what do you expect?  Whether the ruling is good or bad or what, I like that Obama said it in front of them. Screw ‘em.

A quick reaction to some of the speech’s highlights, for me:

At the beginning of the last decade, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. That was before I walked in the door.

Way to lay it out there. Sad that people need to be reminded; even sadder that they won’t listen.

To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills.

Um, yeah. That can’t be said enough, loudly enough, again and again. Grow a pair.

I know that there are those who disagree with the overwhelming scientific evidence on climate change…

Nice. A jab to the lower right abdomen.

Do not walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let us find a way to come together and finish the job for the American people.

A little more force would be useful here. It must be done!

We will have all of our combat troops out of Iraq by the end of this August.

Not soon enough!

This year, I will work with Congress and our military to finally repeal the law that denies gay Americans the right to serve the country they love because of who they are.

Just make it happen, this is silly.

The more that TV pundits reduce serious debates into silly arguments, and big issues into sound bites, our citizens turn away.

Yeah, they turn to FOX. The number one cable channel! Ah, depressing… Anyway, we just have to ignore the nuts and get the dummies to do something for once. Let’s get it done!

This is big. I think I finally found something that will please both NFL puritans and gnome-lovers…who’s on board with this one? Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

That’s right. I was a standby juror for today. Called the number and they said I wasn’t needed. Sweet! Anyway, I wasn’t sure which one of these pix I liked more, so I’m just gonna put ‘em both up. Dos Equis. The old Double X.

In what universe must someone be living to believe that the Democratic Party is controlled by “the Left,” let alone “the furthest left elements” of the Party?

- Glenn Greenwald

Oh, no need to get into it all, just another common theme that needs to be shattered on a regular basis. Getting tired of this…

The very idea that an administration run by Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel and staffed with centrists, Wall Street mavens, and former Bush officials — and a Congress beholden to Blue Dogs and Lieberdems — has been captive “to the Left” is so patently false that everyone should be too embarrassed to utter it.

Yet no one seems to be! It’s one thing for the usual right wing nuts to run with it but to hear the conservative Democrats…ah, I don’t know what more to say about it. This is the real kicker though:

All that said, and as horrible as the Democrats have been all year, the most amazing — and depressing — aspect of all of this is how Americans have so quickly forgotten how thoroughly the Republicans, during their eight-year reign, destroyed the country.

It’s sad, but I pretty much agree with what this person wrote to Sullivan:

I can’t remember the last time I felt such overwhelming rage toward a group of people as I have felt toward the Republican Party and the conservative movement since President Obama’s election…I simply cannot grasp what motivates these people, what compels them to thwart even the smallest attempts to clean up the enormous destruction they wrought under Bush and Cheney. Irresponsible, hateful, mendacious, sleazy, destructive – these words do not even begin to describe them.

Maybe not rage, but certainly great frustration at the system and its ability to impede progress. But really, as much toward the Democratic party and its amazing inefficiency.  This election in Massachusetts tomorrow appears to be a nail in the coffin of health care reform, and if so, well, it’s really a pathetic epilogue to the death of Ted Kennedy. Talk about spinning in the grave…

With a candidate like–what’s her name? Coakley?–and a party as testicle-challenged as the Democratic Party, Obama needs no enemies. Or, as Jon Stewart just said  as I typed this (paraphrased): It’s not that the GOP is playing chess and the Democrats are playing checkers; it’s that the GOP is playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse’s office because they glued their balls to their leg again.

It’s good to be informed. I say this for those who go outside in the wintertime and wonder what happened to global warming. I know there are people who do not want to believe it for political reasons, but those people are hopeless, so we can count on their ignorance (media sources have no excuse for being that dumb). But as long as the vast readership of this Booze Cabinet is informed, I’ll feel better about it–and I assume that you are, of course. But in case you aren’t…here’s nine minutes of simple science.

Two more lame games yesterday. Let’s hope for some action today! Come on!

UPDATE:

More lameness. Boo!

Cardinals vs. Saints, I’ll take New Orleans to win.

Ravens at Colts, gimme Indy to win it!

Never too early for a Bloody and a beer chaser. This is from the Twisted Spoke–one of the finest Bloody Mary’s you will find in our fair city. Only the Silver Cloud comes close to this masterpiece.

I didn’t know that Dennis Hopper is apparently on his deathbed? Sounds tabloidy, but yet real. Bummer, man. Makes me wanna watch “Apocalypse Now” again.

The man’s enlarged my mind. He’s a poet warrior in the classic sense. I mean sometimes he’ll… uh… well, you’ll say “hello” to him, right? And he’ll just walk right by you. He won’t even notice you. And suddenly he’ll grab you, and he’ll throw you in a corner, and he’ll say, “Do you know that ‘if’ is the middle word in life? If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you”… I mean I’m… no, I can’t… I’m a little man, I’m a little man, he’s… he’s a great man! I should have been a pair of ragged claws scuttling across floors of silent seas…

Wow, is Leno in on the joke or is Kimmel just blasting him right there on his own show? Either way, I love it. Screw Leno. I can’t believe he’s going to get away with this.