Saturday, December 13, 2008

Dodd condemns GOP vote

While there are occasions in which he perplexes me, I feel that overall Sen. Chris Dodd has done more good than harm. This is something I would hesitate to say about a lot of other senators.

Here he strikes the right note in discussing the obstructionist politics of the Senate Republican vote on the auto bailout, which Dodd indicated was "designed to create a political problem, rather than solve an economic one."

Video via FireDogLake:

8 comments:

Authentic Connecticut Republican said...

Not to defend those in my own party that can't control themselves when it comes to union bashing (it is after all one of our favorite pastimes and one I enjoy myself as well); *but* simply sending in cash won't help sell a single car or truck and that's what needs to happen.

Bob Symmes said...

Let me put it this way:

Suppose your friend wanted to borrow a hundred bucks, but 20% of your money is essentially worthless (or you can't figure out what it's worth). Would you lend your buddy that $100.00?

Until we figure our way out of the mortgage mess created by Wall St, we're spinning our wheels in the sand.

Or, to paraphrase the campaign slogan of a recent President, "It's about the mortgages, stupid!"

Bob Symmes said...

PS - Where's Anonymous with the comic relief when it's needed? That fool makes ACR look like a radical right-winger, and makes me look like ACR (with apologies to ACR)

verification: "econsux"? Hmmm......

Authentic Connecticut Republican said...

Bob Symmessaid...

>>.....makes ACR look like a radical right-winger....

Which clearly is not the case save for the military. *

In truth, on most social issues the more socially conservative members of my party consider me a "RINO".

I defined my own political perspective in my initial post a few years ago.



==============================

* Considering what we get out of military R&D I see no downside in maintaining massive spending there.
We get cool stuff in the long run and scare the hell out of bad guys in the short.
We can show up, innoculate half a population, feed them and provide tents usually before noon on almost any given day when our military is so inclined.
OR we can carpet-bomb someplace into oblivion.
Either way, we're sending over an Aircraft Carrier, it's up to the recipients as to how we unload it.

(Military spending, often "black budget) has gotten us the contact lens, the microchip, the internet itself, and a slew of stuff that while it's worked it's way into mainstream use, the original use remains classified (there's lot's of that - like the aluminum can for example, now the most recycled object in the world.)

Bob Symmes said...

Which Is why I gave apologies to you, ACR...

Aside from your "regrettable mistake in [choosing a political party] which clearly does not reflect your opinion", you and I have many points on which we agree.

Too bad Congress can't find the same type of middle ground -- a "regretable mistake" in which I ho;d the Democrats just slightly less culpable than the Republicans).

PS: the contact lens and the microchip were designed, created and implemented by NASA. Ccheck your history before you try an "O'Reilly" here.

As for the Internet: It was originally designed by NSA (in the late 1960's), and adopted by the Pentagon (in the mid 1970's, when I first used it as the ARCNET or the USENET). NEA in fact created the first Local Area Network (LAN) -- that was their goal -- but the Pentagon -- USING OPEN FUNDING --created ARCNET and later USENET. Al Gore's Senate Committee in 1985 or so made this system (and its operating language, whose grandchild is HyperText Machine Language HTML) available to the public.

NONE of your examples, then, came from "black budget" items.

Stop reading Tom Clancy...starting learning history.

Bob Symmes said...

CORRECTION: The NSA created the first LAN, not the NEA.

Authentic Connecticut Republican said...

>>the contact lens and the microchip were designed, created and implemented by NASA.

A well told tale.
A spiffy cover story none the less.

>>NONE of your examples, then, came from "black budget" items.

Well....uh.....I'm not going to get into anything deeply here.
However my own father was involved with the original creation of the aluminum can and I know who was working for at the time.
Same guys he was working for when he came up with a ceramic nosecone that would actually work for an air to air defense missile that became known as the "Sidewinder".
They had been messing around with various forms of early plastics, none of which was up to the job in the early 1950's.
(Years later he turned down an opportunity to work on the "Cruise" as he didn't see it as a defense device.)

I don't ever intentionally read fiction with the exception of the Hartford Courant and that only occasionally.

Anonymous said...

bob symmes if youre looking for a guy that can work with dems and repubs, joe lieberman is your man.