Megyn Kelly Officiates Debate Over Robert Gibbs Relatively Modest Salary

The Village: like Real Americans, but worth a lot more.
Out of Touch? Nah, They're Just Better Than Everyone Else by digby Begala and Matalin on Biltzer this afternoon: Blitzer: In an interview the other day with the New York Times, the president said about his Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Paul let me read it to you: He said "We've been on this ride together since I won my Senate primary in 2004 ... He's had a six-year stretch now where basically he's been going 24/7 with relatively modest pay." Now realtively modest pay has caused a bit of a st...

Gibbs Relatively Modest Salary
“He’s had a six-year stretch now where basically he’s been going 24/7 with relatively modest pay,” Obama told The New York Times. Gibbs makes $172,200 a year. Over at the linked article, people note the tone-deafness of this.  But I just want to point out the math here. So $172K is a “relatively modest Salary.”  By comparison, people making $250K are rich. Well, glad he cleared that up. Update: I barely finish posting this when I see this video of Me...

US adds 1.3 million private sector jobs in 2010, holds lessons for 2011 policy
The December jobs report showed the Unemployment Rate down to, 9.4 percent, the Lowest Level in 19 months. It showed that 103,000 jobs were added to The Economy, the 12th consecutive month of growth in Private Sector jobs that added 1.3 million Private Sector jobs, the strongest Private Sector job growth since 2006. Indeed, jobs have been added to the economy for just about every month since Obama got the stimulus program passed, reversing the decline in jobs that had occurred every month for Bu...

Good Morning Panama City, whose goose is going to get cooked?
I watched the news this morning on Fox News.  They were talking about the Budget problems the states have.  They had a map of the states that have Budget problems, and the states that were in bad shape were colored in red.  The entire USA was painted red except for Wyoming, Georgia, and one other state which I can’t remember. Fox had the usual panel of liberals and Conservatives that discussed this situation.  There is such a huge disconnect between liberal and conserva...

Obama: Gibbs $172,200 Salary Is Relatively Modest Pay
Obama: Gibbs’ $172,200 Salary Is “Relatively Modest Pay” Barack Obama told reporters yesterday that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ $172,200 salary was “relatively modest pay.” FOX Nation Perhaps it was the long flight back from Hawaii. But President Obama’s first full day back on the job suggested a slight case of tone deafness. In bidding a sort-of farewell to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, he noted the “relatively modest pay” for which Gibbs has

Barack Obama says that Press Secretary Robert Gibbs $172,200 Salary Is Relatively Modest Pay
More “Hope & Change”, Obama Modest edition: Isn’t this interesting and speak volumes of the mind set and hypocrisy of President Barack Obama … MODEST? Biden to Obama: Excuse me Barack, but isn’t it my job to say misinformed things and do verbal gaffes? Barack Obama told reporters  that out going Press Secretary Robert Gibbs’ $172,200 Salary was “relatively modest pay.” MODEST PAY? How out of touch with reality is this President and could Obama

Obama New Years Resolution Let Loose the Dogs of Campaign
The confetti has been swept up, new midterm “ins” have been sworn in, and the first week of 2011 shows the promise of yet another long, two year Presidential Campaign coming our way. While it can be said this particular POTUS has never left the Campaign Trail in his first two years, the staff changes already being implemented shows the not-so-novel slogan of “change” doesn’t apply to his favorite “dogs of campaign”. Spokesmouthpiece, Robert Gibbs, has s...

WH Hits Back At Liberal Critics of Bill Daley
It's not hard to understand why liberals are confused and angry over the choice of Bill Daley to be White House Chief of Staff. The President Obama they know and love spent the last two years bashing Wall Street executives, calling them "fat cats" and lecturing them for their "greedy" ways. Now, in a turn of events that has the Left Wing aghast, one of those fat cats will soon be setting policy at the White House. Daley, after all, spent 7 years at JP Morgan where he's believed to have earned a...

Obama Math
Your chuckle of the day, via Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit - "$250,000/year for a couple is 'rich,' but $172,000/year for a White House flunky is 'relatively modest'": In bidding a sort-of farewell to White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, [Obama] noted the "relatively modest pay" for which Gibbs has labored. In fact, he earns $172,200 in a nation where the average family income hovers around $55,000, Unemployment is high, record Foreclosures persist and wages for most folks are at best stagnant....

Megyn Kelly Fear Mongers About Public Employees Causing Deaths Across The Country
As we’ve previously reported, there’s a concerted effort to attack Public Employees, especially public employee Unions, afoot among the Right Wing - with Fox News right alongside in the trenches. Yesterday (1/5/11), America Live’s Megyn Kelly did her part for the effort with a segment designed to demonize New York City sanitation workers in which Kelly “asked,” “So now you’ve got CRIMINAL (her emphasis) potential Probes going on here into whether t...

New chief of staff says he did not push Robert Gibbs out of White House...
Bill Daley, President Obama's new Chief of Staff, said Friday that reports he pushed Press Secretary Robert Gibbs out of the White House are untrue. A story in the London Telegraph, which was also linked on the Drudge Report, said Daley would not come to work if Gibbs was allowed to stay in the White House as a chief adviser. But Daley said in a statement that Gibbs's name "never, ever came up once in any discussion I had with the president or staff about me coming to the White House." "In my v...

Robert Gibbs' Successor: How About a Woman as White House Press Secretary?
The White House is looking for a successor to departing Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and the top prospects -- as usual -- are men. But Politico's Mike Allen says new Chief of Staff Bill Daley would like a woman in the job. A woman as the face of this administration -- why, that would be something new and different. The most important qualities in a Press Secretary include access to the president, clarity of expression, ease on camera, and good relations with reporters. The names in the mix so f...

Obama Could Benefit from a Fresh Face to Replace Robert Gibbs
With the announcement that White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs will soon step down from his post, the big question in Washington is who will take his place? President Obama's choice could potentially send a potent message about the direction he plans to take over the next two years. And recent White House history may offer the president some guidance on what kind of replacement he should be seeking for Gibbs. When President Bill Clinton's first press secretary, Dee Dee Myers, left the post ...

Robert Gibbs was forced out?
It's being reported by John King on CNN right now that Gibbs wanted to be a presidential counsellor - something he's been putting about for quite a while - but William Daley, the new Chief of Staff, nixed this because he believed that too many cooks would spoil the presidential broth. So that's why Gibbs is out. You must login to comment. The Fox Nation is for those opposed to intolerance, excessive government control of our lives, and attempts to monopolize opinion or suppress freedom of though...

My $0.02: the Mona Lisa and War on Poverty edition
Another piece of historical trivia for January 8th… In 1964, LBJ declared a “War on Poverty” in the US. (Link takes you to an essay hosted on blackpast.org.) Who has taken up the call to fight the war on poverty today? Hillary spoke of and to “invisible” Americans when she ran in 2008, but the powers-that-be railroaded her and kept her powerful voice off the domestic stage. John Edwards tainted his “Two Americas” Rhetoric on poverty with his “narci...

Why did Gibbs quit?
It looks as though Robert Gibbs's departure from the White House may go a long way to explain why the Obama Administration has been pretty poor at communicating.  Gibbs was covering several jobs at once.  Certainly two big jobs:  adviser and Press Secretary.  According to the Washington Post, Gibbs was frequently unable to connect with the media at times when his presence would have helped.  Why?  Simply because he was "in a meeting." White Hou...

A Big Score for Small Business
Gene Sperling, who the president picked to head his National Economic Council, was the architect behind the Small Business Lending Fund, the administration’s initiative to provide community banks with cheap capital in order to increase lending to small businesses. The president’s host, Thompson Creek Window Co., is a poster child for the Obama Administration’s efforts to help small businesses through Tax Breaks. It used a tax incentive for hiring unemployed workers to expand its workforc

Bllomberg Picks Al Qaeda Lawyer for Top Job
Mayor Doomberg is at it again. You have to wonder when this fool is going to actually strap one on. Mayor Disaster who now rivals Mayor Lindsey in incomptence has become obsessed with advancing Islamic Supremacism in the capital of the Free World. If the Mayor spent less time trying to build and finance the Ground Zero mosquestrosity and more time actually managing the city ....... perhaps less people will die during the next Snow Storm. 'Qaeda 7' att'y eyes NYC job NY Post (hat ti...

'Al Qaeda Seven' Attorney Eyes NYC Job
(NewsCore) - An embattled former Obama Administration appointee -- who was part of a group of attorneys accused of being Terrorist sympathizers for defending "Enemy Combatants" -- is under consideration for a post at the US Attorney's Office in Brooklyn, the New York Post reported Saturday. Tali Farhadian was one of several private attorneys who created a rift between Conservatives and more-moderate Republicans last spring when President Obama assigned them to posts within the Justice Department...

Eric Alterman on America's "Kabuki Democracy"
Many of the issues raised in Alterman's new book demand the focus and attention of Progressives. Gridlock in governance, particularly the Senate, routinely prevents progressive change. The power of corporations has turned progressive organizations into anemic entities, which pose a miniscule threat to corporatist leaders in Washington. And, the need for reforming Elections and ensuring all Americans have Voting Rights has never been more urgent. But, unfortunately, Alterman chooses to suggest ...

Today in GOP health repeal follies
Watch a handful of members of the new House majority try to justify why they're willing for Average Americans to be denied Health Insurance when they've got some pretty good Taxpayer-funded Insurance themselves. First up is newly-elected Rep. Robert Hurt (R-VA), who campaigned on Repeal. HURT: I’ll support the Repeal. Okay, what else? TP: After you vote to repeal Health Care, will you also reject government-sponsored, government-subsidized health care given to members of Congress? HURT: ...

Still looking for your Job? Try looking overseas
In 2000 a wild night left Jesse asking Chester, “Dude, where’s my car?”  The following ten years were a wild ride in the Housing Market for many Americans.  Following the crash at the end of it, millions have been left asking, “Dude, where’s my job?”  Unlike Jesse, the answer for most will not be as easy as “behind a mail truck.”  That is, not unless the mail truck is in a foreign country. Recent news from the economic recovery ...

Obama: a $172,000 income is modest [Reader Post]
Nearly all Democrats insist that anyone making $250,000 a year is wealthy. They have incited anger and even violence over the issue. Venture Capitalist Garrett Gruener says “I’m rich, tax me more.” Warren Buffett, one of the wealthiest men on the planet, say the rich should pay more in taxes. Never mind that the top 1% of earners pays 41% of federal taxes. Never mind that about 50% of the country pays no federal taxes at all. (For a nice breakdown on this, visit here) Wealthy ...

A Penny for Scott, but Six-Figure Salaries for Some Staff
Multimillionaire Gov. Rick Scott is taking a single penny for his gubernatorial Salary, but he’s stocking his staff with people commanding six-figure salaries while promising to cut state spending as the state faces a $3.5 billion shortfall and 12 percent Unemployment. "I'm really not doing it for the Salary,” Scott said back in July when he first promised to work for next-to-nothing. In doing so, Scott is saving the Taxpayers about $130,000 in forgoing the usual statutory salary for...

Andrew Sum: Ringing Out the Lost Economic Decade of 2000-2010: Part Two
The long lasting economic troubles experienced by the Japanese Economy in the 1990s have frequently been referred to by Economists as the Lost Decade. In our previous blog, we argued that the past decade (2000-2010) was in many respects a "lost decade" for our nation's economy. The performance of the U.S. economy in producing additional real output (GDP), new Payroll Employment opportunities, or any employment for workers (16+) over the past decade was the worst in the past 70 years. Total pay...