Josh's blog

“ After years of being out-yelled by strident right-wing ideologues, too many in the Democratic Party still have a case of nerves, afraid of bold action and forthright principles… Politicians play in a rugged arena and are understandably obsessed about losing power. But that power needs to be used for something other than perpetual re-election. The next two years will challenge lawmakers of both parties to demonstrate that they came to Washington for a purpose. ”

“ [The Senate is] this embarrassing body that the entire world laughs at, you know. That’s what our senate is, it’s a laughing stock for the fact that nothing ever happens there. and on top that, it’s easily… from the things I’ve read… of any real democratic legislative chamber in the world, the one that gives the most minority party in there the most power to block anything from happening. I mean, it’s an embarrassment and they should be embarrassed. They’re pathetic. Look at what their approval rating is, you know, and Democrats don’t seem to care. They care more about their little turf than they do about the fact that they’re an embarrassing joke and that they’re losers, that they walk around and they lose all the time. Even when they’re in the majority, even when they’ve got everything on their side they find a way to lose. When Republicans are in the [minority] they find a way to win, when they’ve got everything against them. It’s pathetic. ”

“ Here we have one of the only opportunities in years to have a (relative) war skeptic and mild dissident on Israel and MidEast policy running the Pentagon - one who is uniquely situated and brave enough to voice those critiques given his status as combat hero - and liberals are really going to devote themselves to helping neocons destroy that nominee and, along with him, destroy this rare and otherwise unavailable opportunity? ”

“ These are not set to expire. For the rest of time people making under $450,000 are gonna have the Bush tax cuts which now should be called the Obama tax cuts. And they brag about that as though, like, We got you tax cuts. No, no, no, you knuckleheads, tax cuts are a Republican idea and we had them under Bush and they didn’t work. The tax cuts do not bring you a better economy, that is not how it works. We had the Clinton-era rates during Clinton, we had 22 million jobs created. We did tax cuts under Bush, we lost jobs. So it doesn’t work. Stop bragging about it; it’s not a progressive idea. ”