Obama Announces More White House Picks

How will they deal with Valerie Jarret's fits of rage?

Sarcasm. She is freakishly calm to me -- sent from the future to sind Sarah Conner calm.

KT,

I note you have a stalker.. you post, pourmecoffee follows.

respected Capitol Hill insider

Many might consider that an oxymoron.

respected Capitol Hill insider
Can be relied upon to dish paydirt to us Village people

I am well within the court-ordered perimeter.

I've never heard of Phil Schiliro, but Rep. Waxman has been a force to behold in wonder--seems like he's done more oversight himself than the rest of the legislative body put together. So this is encouraging news that Obama's appointed a Waxman staffer to the White House.

I see Sen DeMint stated John McCain lost because he betrayed Republican primciples. Is there anyone out there who actually knows what the Republican prinicples are anymore? I was under the impression it was graft, corruption, incompetance, and $150,000 shopping sprees. Someone tell Senator DeMint that the Republican candidates did a fine job explaining their principles in this last election... it's just that the rest of American does not share those principles.

KT:

Are there any representative examples of legislation that Phil Schiliro has crafted, i.e. that obviously bear the stamp of his involvement of which you are aware?

nefloridian
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I hope and pray that ALL GOP members follow Demint's lead because the truth is exactly the OPPOSITE of what he said. He is complaining about McCain voting for the bailout without reflecting on the backlash that the republicans in the house caught when THEY voted against the bill and the stock market crashed. I know the bailout has become a joke now because of Paulson but I think most people blame Bush and Paulson for that, not the Congress and the congressional results this year bear that out. This idjust as well as most of the other Republicans dont get that doubling down on being azzholes about immigration is going to lose them the hispanic vote FOREVER. I wonder what they will do after they have more losses in 2010.

I was under the impression it was graft, corruption, incompetance, and $150,000 shopping sprees
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I think the least pejorative way to describe it is to say they believe the role of government is to encourage the formation of oligopoly and to reward capital holders at the expense of wage-earners and consumers.
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Another way to put it is they believe in privatizing profits and socializing costs. Not just in the form of giving taxpayers' tens of billions to a company that fraudulently issued insurance, which is what AIG did when they wrote "credit default swaps" without sufficient capital to cover the defaults they swapped for. I also mean building roads through national forests so lumber companies can cut down trees on public property more cheaply, letting GE dump tons of PCBs into the Hudson thereby ruining a huge fishery for generations, giving away broadcast spectrum, creating an entire military industrial complex designed expressly to enrich a small number of oligopolistic contractors, and on and on.
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In the paper this morning, there is an op-ed that restates the myth of the small government republican and the need for the party to return to that model. It's true they say that's what they're for, but it's way past time for people, especially the ones who write about this stuff for a living, to notice that they are lying. No republican congress, senate, president has ever proposed a budget smaller in the coming year than the one in the current. And when they finally got solid control of both houses and the presidency, it was Katie bar the door.

It's true they say that's what they're for, but it's way past time for people, especially the ones who write about this stuff for a living, to notice that they are lying.
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Well said.
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Part of the problem is that there are a whole bunch of well intentioned decent people who believe in the priciples of small government who are unaware of the fact that nobody's offering them any.

It's funny, Dirks, because I'm (and you too, I believe are) among those who would prefer smaller government, fiscal prudence and so forth. But, no, that is not on the table.
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Of course, I have this weird delusion that the military is part of the government.

What a concept! The government would be SO MUCH SMALLER without a military. How do we get rid of it?

Re: those who would prefer smaller government, fiscal prudence and so forth

Don't forget me...

[...] Phil Schiliro gets the nod for Assistant to the President for Legislative Affairs. [...]