This would be a huge deal if Bobo didn’t have Congress and the Media tied up and eating out of the palm of his hand.
The accusation has been that there is incredible potential for waste fraud and abuse with all the trillions being doled out, and Inspector Generals is one of the few lines of defense against. To call Americorp’s IG, Walpin, and give him an hour to resign or else is nothing but unchecked power.
Is the press afraid? I can’t believe they’re sitting on this for any other reason.
You are really reaching. He is a man who works at the Presidents whim. He was appointed by Bush and has recently been referred to an integrity council by another Bush appointee. Walpin’s dismissal is also supported by both the Chair and the Vice Chair(R) of the corporation.
No, that is a courtesy that all presidents give when they decide to fire someone who works at their whim. This is political appointees 101, you offer them the chance to resign before you fire them.
You didn’t read the article. He does not work at the President’s whim and it is not a courtesy particularly since he never even gave a reason when he was given that one hour ultimatum (an undisguised attempt to pressure him to resign and not cause a ruckus). Inspector Generals are charged with being a watchdog, ultimately on the President and Congress. And in the issue at hand, involving an Obama crone, the IG’s charges were found to be true and half of the money was returned. Obama’s cleaning house of anyone who has the power to stall his massive rush to unchecked power.
The only reason there isn’t more outrage about this is because almost nobody knows about it. People feel the press would say something. The media is the linchpin of his coup–and it can be called nothing less.
Honestly, I don’t know what the problem is. He fired a political appointee who had been referred to an integrity council by a Republican, and was an appointee of the previous President. Presidents throughout the history of the United States have hired and fired political appointees, because that is what Presidents do, and it is one of their important powers. Yet, for some reason, we’re supposed to feign outrage because the guy was the Inspector General of Americorps, and was investigating an Obama supporter.
Seriously though, It’s one thing to say that it is suspicious that he did so, which reasonable people could agree to. It is a whole other thing to go on a crazy ass right-wing rant claiming that Obama using a power that all Presidents have had is part of “a massive rush to unchecked power”, and to make up that the “ultimatum” is some sort of devious plot rather than SOP.
The difference between the two is the difference between being reasonable and having people listen to you, and being the lunatic on Youtube that people laugh at
Picture me laughing.
sure, right, nothing suspicious at all 
and the fact that the president provided no reasons for firing the IG, thereby deliberately ignoring the law (that he co-sponsored, no less) doesnt matter either, right? i mean, its only the law, who cares if the president of the united states has no respect for the law he is constitutionally bound to uphold? its just right-wing fearmongering
its always amusing how appologists of the status quo know no limits to their willful and deliberate blindness to reality.
The law requires 30 days notice and a reason. Not a good reason, or even a reasonable reason, just a reason. Nor can Congress do anything to stop or prevent it. Why? - Not because IG’s don’t serve at the presidents whim, but so the firing of an IG is made public and the President is forced into accountability. The law is a political law dealing purely with a procedural matter that leads to accountability, and that is it. Outside of the 30 day notice it has no policy impact, it doesn’t even allow for the IG in question to continue working for those 30 days.
The Walpin letter you quoted is exceedingly dense and exposed that the unintended consequence of the law is that instead of having an open discussion about why Walpin is being fired, we’re stuck having a dense dishonest hackneyed discussion about a law that does absolutely nothing.
Meanwhile Obama is plucking what moderates are left in the GOP for political appointments in foreign land, and right-wing zealots are too dumb to see that he is ensuring them a coveted spot as a fringe party while they bicker about stupid made up shit that just makes them look more fringe.
Your post read like a caricature, yet I’m quite unsure if it was ingenuous or not. That should say something about the state of the Republican party, or atleast Republican arguments on this site and in the mass media.
yes, the point is accountability. and the president tried to avoid that accountability by asking the IG to resign immediately and not following protocol, that he helped establish. and the fact that the IG is investigating individuals tied to obama (and has found hundreds of thousands of dollars in waste and fraud already) means nothing, then, im sure 
just one big happy family, im sure obama has no political conflict of interest or self-interested reason for wanting the IG gone. 
let me ask, why are you so set on painting this as anything but suspicious or intimidating behavior on the part of the president?
i mean, imagine if bush had done this intimidation tactic to a leftwing-appointed IG who was investigating individuals tied to bush for felony fraud; jesus christ the uproar wouldve been deafening, and everyone would be screaming CORRUPTION at the top of their lungs.
but no, not with obama, everyone is far more interested in looking the other way and giving him the benefit of the doubt… its sad, really, what willing fascists weve become, sucking down the State party-lines as if it were all holy gospel, unqusetionable and unthinking a cattle. unable to even criticize our own president, appologizing for him, looking the other way guiltily as we try to convince ourselves that hes really the decent fresh optimistic smart guy that we voted for, never once admitting into our minds that we were conned into voting for someone with absolutely no experience or integrity and who is well on his way to dismantling the entire framework of the american economy as we sit here rationalizing away our brainwashed hypocritical blindness.
the letter was what, half a page long? not even? it wasnt dense at all. i dont know what youre referring to by that, im not sure if you read the actual letter like i did.
and you want an open discussion about why he is being fired? well, if that were true, you would be a bit irritated that the president is trying to skirt that open discussion by first trying to pressure him to resign, and second by just saying “well, i just dont like him” as is “reason” for wanting him gone.
what good is accountability, and the position of the IG for that matter, when he can just be intimidated and swept out of his position at the president’s whim when he starts to investigate things that the president doesnt want investigated? how is that accountability again…?
you have got to be kidding.
yeah that republican party, its so extreme, so right-wing, its not at all true that the vast majority of republicans are so-called “moderates” who have compromised just about every so-called value they had 
and “coveted position”? yes im sure obama has the best interests of the GOP at heart, and is just trying to give them an edge in the next election… really, i dont know wtf you are even talking about 
and what is this “made up shit” that theyre bickering about? the very few actual substantial conversations that are coming out of the GOP are highly and rightly critical of obamas various programs; or maybe the $2 trillion dollar deficit, or the nationalizing of one of the largest corporations in america, or the 7 trillion dollars that have just “wandered out the back door” of the fed never to be seen again, or the president of our country, who is supposed to represent us, appologizing to the rest of the world for our success and freedom, or obamas public goal to further nationalize 17% of the american economy (healthcare) and further cripple the us infrastructure and business climate by introducing cap and trade, maybe all that is just “made up shit”, i guess i could be wrong.
yes, a caricature, i see what you mean… the fact that this deliberate pressuring to intimidate the IG to resign, the inability to initially provide any reason for the decision, the suspicious fact that the IG was investigating people closely tied to obama, i can see how thats all just caricatures… oh wait, no its not, theyre all undisputed facts of this story.
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as for the state of the republican party, it could not be worse, mostly because of all the “moderates” (like yourself perhaps?) running around trying to appease and compromise everywhere because they dont have a backbone to stand on. not that the GOP stands for much anyways, of course. but their cowardice is pathetic even by their own standards, which is saying quite a bit; they dont even stand up for their own hypocritical values and half-ass principles that they claim to hold.
so, once again, i dont have any idea what youre talking about here.
Protocol is to offer them the opportunity to resign. That is what presidents do in regards to political appointees when they are about to be fired. They offer them the opportunity to avoid embarrassment and resign.
There are two ways this could have gone:
“We’re going to fire you, you have 1 hour to resign if you want”.
“Resign or we’ll fire you”
Either way the decision to fire was made before telling/giving him to resign, and either way it is SOP to offer them the ability to resign before you fire them. And either way this is political appointees 101 and SOP.
You are, like in your last post, chasing crazy ass tangents that don’t get to the point. Telling him to resign is irrelevant when the decision to fire him has been made. Yet, your rant requirse some sort of devious plot underlying what is actually long held and quite common practice, otherwise you have no point to start. But there in lies the problem because the fabricated canard of a starting point is where everyone stops reading, but is also what allows you to keep typing.
If you want to discuss the politics of firing someone who was investigating his supporters then we can. Otherwise, this is done because I’m not going to feign the ignorance required to even argue with your tangents. They are non starters.
That’s the bloody point, most Republicans are moderates, and the Republican elites are becoming increasingly extremist.
im not making up the facts, im commenting on what the article itself said. feel free to read it again if you are confused.
what evidence do you have for this increasing extremism among the party?
Your argument is fueled by a tabloid that is owned by Rupert Murdoch light which is commenting on quotes from an ultra-conservative probably crazy senator and Walpin himself. It has nothing to do with facts.
Besides the increasingly incendiary rhetoric from leading Republicans across the board on issues as diverse as tea parties and the succession of Texas, we have a more direct indicator for those unable or unwilling to connect the dots. cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/06/10/ … index.html
A recent Poll asking republicans who the party spokesperson is came up with no clear answer. However, the elites that received the most votes were Limbaugh, Gingrich, and Cheney. All extremely conservative.
im not defending the washingtonexaminer, although i know that it is not owned by murdoch that i could tell, and it is NOT considered a tabloid in any sense other than it is a free-distribution circular, like many other political-leaning small publications; implying its the same as “aliens are landing!” Tabloids is deliberately misleading.
the article reprinted quotes from obama himself, from the conversation that took place, info on the legislation in question, and the entire letter from walpin, not to mention containing a lot of updates based on new developments that were taking place day by day. i would call it pretty factual… im not saying there isnt any bias, but i AM saying that it is cited and appears unbiased, and if you think it is biased or has “nothing to do with the facts”, then feel free to let us know what these facts are that apparently arent in the article. because thus far, you havent offered any other “facts” of the issue that arent already in the article itself, so your claim that it is not factual is just ranting with nothing backing it up.
and grassley actually ranks mid to below average on how conservative he is, compared to other republicans in congress… i have no idea why you call him “ultra-conservative”, other than that you want to discredit him without actually giving any reasons for doing so (such as calling him “probably crazy” without any reasons given for this)— are you always so run by your unsubstantiated emotional reactions? its pretty poor style to throw around such rhetoric and unbased emotional bias and try to pass it off as intelligent, rational discussion…
the only person ive heard talking about texas leaving the union is the texas governor. im not sure how you consider that “leading republicans across the board”, when only one guy is saying it, and that one guy is nowhere near a “leader” of the GOP.
the tea parties were a bunch of (mostly) middle class working adults coming together peacefully to vent about government spending, rising debt and taxes and other issues such as nationalizing healthcare… yes, how “extreme”, peacefully getting together to talk about some important issues of today. im sure they have nothing to worry about when the government is spending more money this year alone than the last, what is it, 10 years combined? that the deficit will approach 2 TRILLION dollars this year? that government wants to nationalize 17% of the entire american economy? sure, nothing to worry about… those people who PEACEFULLY got together to talk about it are just “extemists”, right? 
…just more misdirection and lies from you? can you actually say anything real or substantiated at all, or that actually pertains to, or contradicts, the article in the OP?
so much easier to label people based on some populist sentimental prejudice created by an elitist media; it saves you the trouble of having to actually think for yourself, or worry about supporting your statements with facts, evidence or arguments.
that article has nothing to do with the GOP itself. those people are not “ranking members” of anything in the republican party. republican congresspeople dont listen to limbaugh, which you would know if you know anything about him at all. he is a media figure, just like those others are now (except mccain, and no one is listening to him)… that article just refers to the fact that the republican party is disorganized, and that the american people dont know who the “leader” of that party is. that fact has no bearing at all on this thread.
And I’m done with this discussion because everything in your last post was either a straw-man, a misreading, or a lecture. None of which I care enough about to give more than a 1 line clarification response.
yes, when i show people’s hypocrisy and insufficiencies here on ILP they do tend to dodge the debate at that point. its ok, i really do understand.
i argue it because you brought it up. under your definition, any political circular freely distributed would be considered a tabloid, which (according to you) would automatically discredit it. i was merely pointing out the flaws in this line of reasoning.
indeed.
what does murdoch have to do with anything again…?
i used the official America Conservative Union website. feel free to post some of the surveys that you came across where he was a 100, and we can compare legitimacy between them.
ah, so it DOES come down to “intuition” (feelings); thanks for admitting it.
you used the point of texas succession to substantiate your claim about what leading republicans across the board are saying, therefore it is directly relevant for me to point out that using it for such substantiation is fallacious, because no leading republicans across the board have said any such thing.
have you ever taken argumentation in school? i suppose not, since you think that the evidence you provide for a claim can be insufficient/wrong with reference to that claim itself and still be “evidence”… or that you think “intuition” qualifies as an argument.
and as i showed, there is nothing ideologically extreme about their views of worrying over growing government spending, debt and expansion into the ecomony (you did not refute/counter my claims about deficit and debt spending— i can only assume that government spending over 10 trillion dollars in 6 months via debt and inflation-producing printing presses is of no concern to you).
if you think their views are extreme (those at the tea parties) then provide a reason for saying so. just calling them “extremists” because you “feel” like they are, isnt an argument for anything. and, since you have not come up with a single example as to why those at the tea parties are extreme ideologically, you just refute yourself (particularly because i have provided examples/reasons to the contrary, which you have not even attempted to refute)
where is this poll? i dont see it anywhere.
more unsubstantiated claims.
no it was not, because limbaugh et. al. are not the spokesmen of anything but a large number of american citizens; they are not spokesmen FOR THE PARTY, for the GOP. in fact, as i pointed out (and as you failed to refute or even address [dodge, again]), most republicans in the party do not listen to limbaugh at all.
youre right, im done too. on everything youve said (i havent skipped a single point youve made, unlike how youve skipped mine) ive proven you to be either a hypocrite or incapable of forming an argument with anything but either unfounded assumptions or your “feelings” to back it up.
and on top of that you either deliberately ignore or mischaracterize many of my points.
(heres a hint: in argumentation, when you ignore an opponents point, it becomes a fact of the debate)— it also makes you look like you have no idea wtf youre talking about
nice job 
youve proven my point better than i ever could.
carry on, keep “fighting the good fight” of one more useful idiot, lol 
Funnily enough, the ACU is just a lobbyist group, but your seeming implication that they are an authority of some sort comes into conflict with your claims that Limbaugh is not a spokeman when you consider that he was infact the keynote speaker at the ACU’s most recent CPAC convention.
But, then again the fact that the 3 most recognized official voices of the Republican party, according to Republicans, are Gingrich, Limbaugh, and Cheney isn’t really contradicted by the claim that they aren’t “actually” the spokesman of the GOP. Well because the lack of party discipline and strength in the US political system makes the “perceived spokesman” the “actual spokesman”. Did I also mention that the RNC chairman apologized to Limbaugh for calling him an entertainer…really doesn’t help perceptions does it.
No, I used the example, which I said was but one, of the Texas succession to substantiate the claim that Republicans are using increasingly incendiary rhetoric across the board.
The claim is that republicans are using increasingly incendiary rhetoric…the evidence of this was a republican using incendiary rhetoric…the fact that it was about texas succession is irrelevant except for it being an example of incendiary rhetoric.
They are protesting taxes right after the largest middle-class tax cut in history, and critisizing “socialism” when the vast majority of Americans are part of the social security system, and use medicare/medicaid. They were not some sort of organic movement, but a highly publicized and organized top down charade aimed at mobilizing a fringe base through fear, while catching a few moderates in the process If you cannot see the tea baggers for what they were, that’s your problem.
So stay ignorant of it instead of doing a 5 second google search.
Thus is the nature of discussing political current events. It requires one to actually follow current events, otherwise we get the ridiculous demand for “evidence” when the argument proceeds only when both participants have prior knowledge that they use to express opinions.
hey, youre back, i thought you were leaving 
wb
yes, god forbid that we take an admittedly conservative organization’s word on “how conservative Politician A is”, its not like they know what theyre talking about— better of course to trust some left-wing or otherwise interested party to tell us who is conservative; i mean, what would a conservative organization that has been around for 30+ years know about conservatives anyways??? and its not like they would have an incentive to paint conservatives as accurately as possible, for the sake of their image among conservatives… oh, wait…
still waiting for those other surveys you mentioned…
i never said limbaugh wasnt an open conservative. i said that he isnt directly connected to the republican party leadership, and that most republican congresspeople dont listen to him hardly at all (he gets bashed by his own party as much as by the libs, for being “extreme”, )
well when youve got most so-called conservatives listening to you, you tend to get appologies from politicians, who want to pander to those conservative individuals, when they publicly diss you (if they know whats good for them, that is; most do not).
where does this show that limbaugh is a leader of the GOP again? and why does it matter to the OP here? i forget
“leading republicans across the board” does not equate with “one no-name republican governor”. when you use evidence to back up a claim X, that evidence should relate to claim X…
the claim was about “leading republicans across the board”, not “republicans”. and even if youre going to water-down your claim now (i can see why you would want to, your first was pretty absurd), youre still going to have to show that more than ONE republican said X in order to use X as evidence for a claim on “republicans” (plural means more than one, btw)
as a side note, why is it a bad thing that texas wants to leave? if most of her citizens voted to, why would you care, wouldnt you throw a party or something for the US shedding much of its redneck racist whitetrash ultraconservative christian-extremists?
whats that again?
…most of them LIKE bush (hypocritically, i might add)
i was at a tea party. were you? hm.
americans are forced into SS and medicare/medaid, so saying that because they are a part of it makes them hypocritical for criticizing the ideological base from which those programs arise is fallacious.
next… i agree they were planned. leading conservative voices threw around “spontaneous” and “grassroots” a lot, and the tea party i went to mentioned it quite a lot too. of course, its impossible that such a nation-wide movement just “popped into existence” on its own. im sure some key figureheads behind the scenes organized a lot of it… but, what does that mean, really? its not like its somehow wrong/bad to organize a national movement; of course, when you are deceptive about its origins in order to make yourself look better, then it becomes a bit disingenuous. but hey, these are politicians were talking about here.
and ill admit that its interesting that they (conservatives, or the party figureheads) have such an aversion to be seen as “organizing” in any real way. i mean most conservatives tend to be pretty individualistic, but why demean yourselves by attaching a negative stigma to your own movements if they are deemed “centrally organized”? i personally dont get the appeal of the whole “grassroots” thing, but i get why conservatives like it. just more pandering.
maybe fear was a mobilizing factor (im sure it was), but people have A LOT to fear these days, about the future and the government’s direction in america. have you decided to take up my claims on the massive government debt and economic meddling yet? obama’s wonderful plans to “save” the american economy by bailing out the banks (oops, now where did that 7 trillion dollars run off to?), or “saving” GM and chrysler (eh, yea, well, about that…), or reducing the federal deficit like obama promised in his campaign (oh what was that, largest in history? about 15% of the US GDP in one year? my bad…) :-"
im not sure why i need to reference your sources for you. if its so easy, why not post evidence backing up your statements? is it because you are not as confident in them as you are in shouting about it here and hoping that no one bothers to call you out?
so why is it my job to check your facts for you again? 
yes, this prior knowledge, of the “crazy republican” type. im sure i should just have that same liberal schema as you do, where even the mention of a republican would set my blood boiling, but sorry to say, i remain free-thinking and unindoctrinated, by either “side” of the system.
current events are ripe for sourcing, in case you didnt know. its far easier to source/cite evidence relating to CURRENT events than it is for other aspectrs of social sciences; thats why theyre called current events, they are current, and a quick online search will yield you plenty of websites to link to here to demonstrate that you arent just blowing smoke out your ass…
…unless you ARE just blowing smoke out your ass. in which case, you would make some disparaging comments about “prior knowledge” and “opinions”, as if there were no hard facts in politics or news, or that everyone just magically “knows” everything already (when youre a part of the fine-tuned emotional left-wing machine, everything is already preprogrammed to generate a certain key response/tone, so i guess from your perspective, it does seem like i should have the “prior knowledge” [i.e. prior bias] that you do).
but really, id just as soon prefer to deal in facts and figures and statistics and openly-documented news sources, if its all the same to you.
Wasn’t the point of the quote, infact, it had nothing to do with the quote. If you’ll notice the quote said nothing about the group being conservative, and it certainly did not focus on addressing the ACU’s credibility, but rather mentioned it only in passing. Do you even read what I say?
Again, not the point. The point was your denial of Limbaugh’s role as spokesman when he was the keynote speaker not only for an organization that you quoted as an authority, but at a convention populated by Republican presidential hopefuls, and Republican rank and file. and btw, party leadership is comparatively non existent in the U.S. political system, so the change of your position from “not spokesman” to no “literal leadership” is not only an equivocation but probably nonsense.
Calling a radio jock an “entertainer” is not a diss, it is a statement of fact. yet he still apologized, the RNC chairman. That is not pandering to his audience, that is pandering to him.
Like I said in the original quote, it is one example. And the guy is the governor of texas for fucks sake, he is the leading Republican from a very important electoral state. But, atleast your not telling me I said something that I didn’t anymore, you’re just denying the basic facts, and absuviely asking for more evidence when the statement was conditioned with “for example”.
Because your ignorance is not my problem, and your demands for “evidence” misunderstand the nature of this discussion.
Yes, yes, yes, ask someone for sources on something that is public knowledge and you can figure out for yourself in 5 seconds. Also, ask someone for facts on a political argument when it’s inappropriate because that particular argument is based on reason. Do you even know where you are right now? Are you awake?
This isn’t a goddamn thesis, it is people with common interests coming together to discuss current events. It only works if both people are doing it in good faith and actually follow current events. Otherwise we get self-righteous garbage about how one party needs sources, and the other person has to be their mommy and help them play catch up. It bogs down the discussion and makes it unenjoyable for the person who actually follows current events. Be assured, if I present a fact that is obscure I will cite it, but I’m not going to cite something that has been plastered all over the news for the past week and can be found in 5 seconds by the person whining.
Please see update on this story @ “Obama politically courageous…but…”