Obama to Governors: Public Employees Should Not Be Vilified

[stanmaxkolbe]

Obama to Governors: Public Employees Should Not Be Vilified
foxnews.com/politics/2011/02/28/obama-governors-public-employees-vilified/

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says public employees should not have their rights infringed upon as states look for ways to cut spending.
Speaking to the nation’s governors, Obama says he understands the fiscal challenges facing cash-strapped states and says everyone should be prepared “to give something up”. But he says that shouldn’t mean public employees are “vilified” during budget debates.

Obama’s comments come as Republican governors in Wisconsin and Ohio back bills that would end collective bargaining agreements for public employees.

The governors are in town for meeting of the National Governors Association.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Hey Obama, taxpayers shouldn’t be vilified either. Do we need to go back to all of his disparanging comments about “teabaggers” and people “clinging to their guns and bibles”?

 

[GratefulFred]

People’s passions flare when they think they are about to loose something that is very important to them. In Wisconsin the “people” are the public employee unions and also the voting public to whom the unions owe respect. You work for the people and just for yourselves.

The Legislature is where CIVILIZED, RESPECTFUL discussions should take place. In Wisconsin, that’s not happening. The Assembly members were angry and shouting. The Senate will not even talk, they left town.

Meanwhile the voters of Wisconsin elected a Republican majority. The Will of the People should prevail.

But we saw a Democratic House and Senate and President freeze out Republicans on any discussions of Obamacare and voted on pure party lines. Now we see the power is with the other Party and Democrats leave town.

The Republicans stayed in Congress and voted knowing they would be defeated. But also knowing that they would live to fight another day when the PEOPLE sent more Rs and fewer Ds to Congress. The Wisconsin Ds do not get that.

. . . Now, in trying to assign responsibility for the current impasse, is the above a vilification or just a statement of how I see things?

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Hey Obama, taxpayers shouldn’t be vilified either. Do we need to go back to all of his disparanging comments about “teabaggers” and people “clinging to their guns and bibles”?

Obama never used the term “teabagger.”

 

[mary_bobo]

It would be much more presidential if Mr. Obama would let the people in Wisconsin, and other states, work out their problems. But since he is so beholden to the unions for his election, he could hardly do otherwise. Since he is so quick to insert himself in state matters, perhaps he could tell us just how to balance a state budget. On the other hand, he has not made one wit of an effort to help balance the federal budget. For all his “brillance” he is driving our economy off the cliff.

 

[LCMS_No_More]

People’s passions flare when they think they are about to loose something that is very important to them. In Wisconsin the “people” are the public employee unions and also the voting public to whom the unions owe respect. You work for the people and just for yourselves.

The Legislature is where CIVILIZED, RESPECTFUL discussions should take place. In Wisconsin, that’s not happening. The Assembly members were angry and shouting. The Senate will not even talk, they left town.

Meanwhile the voters of Wisconsin elected a Republican majority. The Will of the People should prevail.

But we saw a Democratic House and Senate and President freeze out Republicans on any discussions of Obamacare and voted on pure party lines. Now we see the power is with the other Party and Democrats leave town.

The Republicans stayed in Congress and voted knowing they would be defeated. But also knowing that they would live to fight another day when the PEOPLE sent more Rs and fewer Ds to Congress. The Wisconsin Ds do not get that.

. . . Now, in trying to assign responsibility for the current impasse, is the above a vilification or just a statement of how I see things?

The Republicans threatened to filibuster if they didn’t get their way on health insurance reform. Frankly, I’d welcome a return of the good old-fashioned filibuster. I say we should let the Republicans explain themselves for themselves to the American people as to why they want to continue to say “no” to everything that’s not their idea.

These legislators don’t have the option to filibuster, so they choose to protest and represent their constituents in a different way. I fully support them!

 

[estesbob]

The Republicans threatened to filibuster if they didn’t get their way on health insurance reform. Frankly, I’d welcome a return of the good old-fashioned filibuster. I say we should let the Republicans explain themselves for themselves to the American people as to why they want to continue to say “no” to everything that’s not their idea.

These legislators don’t have the option to filibuster, so they choose to protest and represent their constituents in a different way. I fully support them!

Actaully they do have the right to filibuster-they just dont have enough members to sustain one And the Republicans did explain themsleves as to why they said no-that is one of the reasons for their overwhelming success last November.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

Obama never used the term “teabagger.”

He may as well have, the effect of his comments were similar.

 

[SamH]

Obama never used the term “teabagger.”

Source?

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

He may as well have, the effect of his comments were similar.

Close enough for government work:

Obama: “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care?”

This quote was made during the CNN abd MSNBC “Teabagger” frenzy that was perpetuated by Chris Matthews, Janeane Garafalo, Keith Olbermann, Anderson Cooper, Barney Frank, Charles Schumer, Bill Clinton, George Stephanopolis, Rachel Maddow, Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Bill Maher, et many al…

 

[qui_est_ce]

Obama never used the term “teabagger.”

Washington Post

In an interview with Alter on November 30, Obama offered that Republican opposition to the stimulus “helped create the** tea-baggers **and empowered that whole wing of the Republican Party where it now controls the agenda for the Republicans.”

 

[estesbob]

Close enough for government work:

Obama: “Does anybody think that the teabag, anti-government people are going to support them if they bring down health care?”

This quote was made during the CNN abd MSNBC “Teabagger” frenzy that was perpetuated by Chris Matthews, Janeane Garafalo, Keith Olbermann, Anderson Cooper, Barney Frank, Charles Schumer, Bill Clinton, George Stephanopolis, Rachel Maddow, Maxine Waters, John Conyers, Bill Maher, et many al…

If that doesnt constitute calling someone a teabagger I dont know what does. However we need to acknowledge that holding up signs comparing politicians to hitler and attacking journalists is OK now-as long as it is done at a Democrat rally

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Source?

Every speech he’s ever made. Not once “teabagger.”

If you can cite a speech he’s made where he uses that term, please do so.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

Washington Post

I stand corrected, Christine.

 

[qui_est_ce]

I stand corrected, Christine.

The power of Google.

I wanted to agree with you that Obama didn’t use that term. I’m frankly surprised he did. He’s usually more eloquent than that.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

The power of Google.

I wanted to agree with you that Obama didn’t use that term. I’m frankly surprised he did. He’s usually more eloquent than that.

I prefer the term “politically savvy”.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

The power of Google.

I wanted to agree with you that Obama didn’t use that term. I’m frankly surprised he did. He’s usually more eloquent than that.

Exactly. I presumed he knew better than to use a term that the TeaPartyists themselves used until they found it had a specific meaning in the gay community, making that term unusable except in that context. No eloquence or, as Scott LaFrance put it, political savvy, indeed.

 

[qui_est_ce]

Exactly. I presumed he knew better than to use a term that the TeaPartyists themselves used until they found it had a specific meaning in the gay community, making that term unusable except in that context.

I think you are wrong about this. Some Teapartyists started referring to themselves teabaggers in response to the MSM critiques and had buttons printed up “Proud to be a Teabagger.”

It’s kind of like people accusing prolifers as “antiabortionists” because they aren’t activists against the war in Iraq or the death penalty. Okay, the left wants to redefine terms, fine, I’m anti-abortion! No problem.

 

[Rich_Olszewski]

I think you are wrong about this. Some Teapartyists started referring to themselves teabaggers in response to the MSM critiques and had buttons printed up “Proud to be a Teabagger.”

We can agree to disagree, Christine, but unless I’m having a Senior Moment I seem to remember it being used first by the TeaPartyists:

"On his MSNBC show Countdown, host Keith Olbermann reminded the teabaggers, who just now seem to have figured out what the name means, where the term teabagger came from. Hint: it wasn’t Maddow or Olbermann but the teabaggers themselves who coined the term.

Olbermann said, “It is as useful to remind them anew of how the term originated and with whom. A TV news report aired last March 14 (2009) in which a correspondent described the original protest act, ‘take a teabag, put it in an envelope, and mail it to the White House.’ He added, ‘reteaparty.com has a headline Teabag the Fools in D.C. on tax day.’ Thus the verb to teabag was invented by the teabaggers themselves, and the correspondent who put it on TV was a Griff Jenkins of Fox News. Send your complaints to him.”

The teabaggers coined their own name, without realizing what it also means, and then they blamed their critics for their stupidity. By the way, why did it take them so long to figure out what a teabagger is? Why has this outrage on their part flared up recently?"

Basically, it doesn’t matter who used it first in a political context. IMO.

 

[Scott_Lafrance]

We can agree to disagree, Christine, but unless I’m having a Senior Moment I seem to remember it being used first by the TeaPartyists:

"On his MSNBC show Countdown, host Keith Olbermann reminded the teabaggers, who just now seem to have figured out what the name means, where the term teabagger came from. Hint: it wasn’t Maddow or Olbermann but the teabaggers themselves who coined the term.

Olbermann said, “It is as useful to remind them anew of how the term originated and with whom. A TV news report aired last March 14 (2009) in which a correspondent described the original protest act, ‘take a teabag, put it in an envelope, and mail it to the White House.’ He added, ‘reteaparty.com has a headline Teabag the Fools in D.C. on tax day.’ Thus the verb to teabag was invented by the teabaggers themselves, and the correspondent who put it on TV was a Griff Jenkins of Fox News. Send your complaints to him.”

The teabaggers coined their own name, without realizing what it also means, and then they blamed their critics for their stupidity. By the way, why did it take them so long to figure out what a teabagger is? Why has this outrage on their part flared up recently?"

Basically, it doesn’t matter who used it first in a political context. IMO.

The play on the name was made popular by Anderson Cooper.