political_talk

President Obama: With all due deference to the separation of powers.......

On January 27, 2010, in his first State of the Union address to Congress and the American people, President Barack Obama leveled a strong recrimination at the Supreme Court for the controversial ruling made in the Citizens United case, decided on January 21, 2010.View the video excerpt below. The full transcript, along with the full video of the SOTU is here.

With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections. Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that's why I'd urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that corrects some of these problems

Sen. Dick Durbin to Samuel Alito: Your record raises troubling questions about whether you appreciate the checks and balances in our Constitution...

Sen. Durbin's [D-ILL] prophetic comment to Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito during Alito's 2006 confirmation hearings.

Your record raises troubling questions about whether you appreciate the checks and balances in our Constitution -- the careful efforts of our Founding Fathers to protect us from a government or a president determined to seize too much power over our lives,

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Source: Associated Press

DAVID BROOKS Refutes the Myth of the Power of the Republican Talk Jocks

In his New York Times column, Republican columnist, David Brooks, on the talk radio jocks, and the myth of their power.

The rise of Beck, Hannity, Bill O’Reilly and the rest has correlated almost perfectly with the decline of the G.O.P. But it’s not because the talk jocks have real power. It’s because they have illusory power, because Republicans hear the media mythology and fall for it every time. [.....]

Robert F. Kennedy Quotation: The problem of power....

Robert F. Kennedy | Democrat 1925-1968

The conundrum of those who are public servants. 

The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use — of how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public.

Image Source: WikiMedia Commons
Tags: Robert Kennedy, power, public, men,
democrat,

The G.O.P. whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie.....

The G.O.P., whose ranks have now dwindled largely to whites in Dixie and the less-populated West, is not even a paper tiger — it’s a paper muskrat.

Frank Rich, Democrat, New York Times Columnist, 1949-

Source: 'The Guns of August' by Frank Rich, The New York Times, August 22, 2009