Archive for category 2012 Elections
Obama Derangement: Let’s Make The Pie Higher
Posted by Richard Warnick in 2012 Elections, Barack Obama, Bush Administration, Economy, National Politics, Republicans, Tax Policy, This Blog, War, War Crimes on March 30, 2013
Media Matters gives us the short version: Liz Cheney: Get Over 2012 And Start Embracing Romneyism. Of course, it was President George W. Bush who originally said “We ought to make the pie higher.”
Cheney’s Wall Street Journal op-ed on Thursday un-apologetically recycles just about everything that voters rejected in 2012, and claims, without evidence, that “President Obama is the most radical man ever to occupy the Oval Office.”
This is from someone who was part of the Worst Administration Ever, that brought about truly radical right-wing policies from massive tax cuts for the rich to the torture of detainees and an outright war of aggression in Iraq. The Bush administration came close to wiping out the American middle class when the collapse of the financial sector caused U.S. households to lose about $16.4 trillion of net worth.
Jonathan Chait: Liz Cheney Is Even More Bonkers Than We Suspected
Even after four years of bug-eyed right-wing paranoia, Cheney’s op-ed stands out for its utter dearth of the slightest whiff of perspective or factual grounding.
This stuff is getting old. We had legitimate criticisms of the Bush administration’s actual radicalism, and Republicans dismissed it all as “Bush derangement syndrome.” Now prominent Republicans won’t stop ranting about their imaginary “radical” President Obama despite the fact he’s been center-right all along, even to the point of implementing Republican policies. At last year’s GOP convention Clint Eastwood presented a prime-time portrayal of the right-wing, yelling at an empty chair.
An Open Letter to all People Who Hate the President
Posted by Cliff Lyon in 2008 Election, 2012 Elections, Barack Obama, Bigotry, Conservative, Conspiracy theories, Racism on March 7, 2013
Reprinted in full from Progressive Press
“It’s fine to be a conservative who disagrees with Obama politically. He is a fallible human being. Like any politician, he deserves criticism now and then. Progressives criticize him all the time because his policies are more conservative than many thought he would be.
If you would say “Obama is wrong on this issue and here’s why”, I could respect that. But it’s something else to be a hard-core Glenn Beck parroting, Bush-was-God, Obama-is-Satan, damn-the-facts, anyone-who-disagrees-with-me-is-a-communist, conservative.
Sometimes it’s hard to comprehend the level of hatred you have for President Obama. This hatred is not about dissent and it began long before he even took office and doesn’t seem to stem from anything he’s done as president. Read the rest of this entry »
Can Republicans Take ‘Yes’ For An Answer? NO
Posted by Richard Warnick in 2012 Elections, Barack Obama, Deficit, Democrats, Economy, Federal Budget, National Politics, Party Politics, Tax Policy, Unemployment on February 27, 2013
Once again, President Obama is pressing for a “Grand Bargain” that basically gives the right-wing Republican Party everything they have been asking for. The President wants to implement cuts to Social Security and Medicare, coupled with across-the-board discretionary spending reductions (aka austerity budgeting), and tax reform. You may recall that Willard (“Mitt”) Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, talked constantly about a plan to eliminate tax deductions during the 2012 election campaign.
So, basically, Obama is telling the right-wing “Here’s something you want, and something else you want, and I’m not going to ask for anything that progressives want.” And the GOP answer so far is a big fat NO. They would rather take the blame for a partial government shutdown. Does this make sense?
Jonathan Chait tries to explain:
President Obama is offering up something — hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to Social Security and Medicare — that Republicans say they want and which (because of their unpopularity) they have proven unable to obtain even when they have had full control of government. They are instead undertaking a public showdown against a figure who is vastly more popular and trusted, who possesses a better platform to communicate his message, and whose message itself — spread the pain among rich and middle class alike, don’t cut retirement programs more deeply than needed in order to protect tax loopholes for the rich — commands overwhelmingly higher public support.
I think the Republican Party’s behavior can be at least partly explained, though not necessarily rationalized. The main thing that’s going on is that, in the face of cross-pressures, the party’s anti-tax wing has once again asserted its supremacy.
…Part of the confusion is that Republicans have been saying for months that they really just want to stop tax rates from raising. They’re happy — nay, eager — to make the rich pay more taxes by reducing their tax deductions. Certain conservative economists believe this as well. Since Obama is offering to increase revenue in exactly this way, his plan might seem inoffensive to Republicans.
…The answer to this piece of the mystery is clear enough: Republicans in Congress never actually wanted to raise revenue by tax reform. The temporary support for tax reform was just a hand-wavy way of deflecting Obama’s popular campaign plan to expire the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Conservative economists in academia may care about the distinction between marginal tax rates and effective tax rates. But Republicans in Congress just want rich people to pay less, period.
Robert Reich offers a better strategy for President Obama: Clear up all the confusion by taking on the Republicans’ big lies directly.
The first big lie is austerity economics — the claim that the budget deficit is the nation’s biggest economic problem now, responsible for the anemic recovery.
Wrong. The problem is too few jobs, lousy wages, and slow growth. Cutting the budget deficit anytime soon makes the problem worse because it reduces overall demand. As a result, the economy will slow or fall into recession — which enlarges the deficit in proportion. You want proof? Look at what austerity economics has done to Europe.
The second big lie is trickle-down economics — the claim that we get more jobs and growth if corporations and the rich have more money because they’re the job creators, and job growth would be hurt if their taxes were hiked.
Wrong. The real job creators are the broad middle class and everyone who aspires to join it. Their purchases keep economy going.
The Obama administration doesn’t have to play this crazy game of offering right-wing Republicans everything they say they want, knowing that they will refuse to take it. What they ought to be doing is explaining to the public that the right-wing is wrong, that they are lying.
UPDATE:
Republicans have run on big across-the-board spending cuts for literally decades.
…But here we are. For the first time I think in our history we are about to go over the precipice of genuine across-the-board spending cuts. And Republicans are completely freaking out. There’s no other way to describe it.
Obama 2.0: ‘I’ll Never See This Again’
Posted by Richard Warnick in 2012 Elections, American History, Barack Obama, Democracy, Equality, Global Warming, Mitt Romney, National Politics, This Blog on January 21, 2013
Sunrise this morning at the U.S. Capitol (UPI photo)
I’m enjoying the all-day MSNBC coverage of President Obama’s second inauguration, unlike Mitt Romney who says he won’t be watching today.
So far, it has been a refreshing does of patriotism, from the emotional Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir rendition of the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” to the President’s call for equality for “our gay brothers and sisters.” And he promised, “We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.”
I think the President’s intentions are good, even though I often disagree with his decisions. I think he wants to do his best for the voters who entrusted him with the office for another four years. From today’s reporting:
Departing the West Front of the U.S. Capitol after delivering his second inaugural address on Monday, President Obama wanted to take one last glance of the hundreds of thousands of Americans gathered to celebrate his second term. After all, it would be his last.
“I want to take a look one more time,” Obama said, lingering for a few short moments to savor the view as the crowd shuffled past him. “I’ll never see this again.”
I don’t think he was referring to Justice Scalia’s Renaissance-style hat.
UPDATE:
Obama Pushes Back On ‘The 47 Percent’: Entitlements ‘Do Not Make Us A Nation Of Takers’
UPDATE:
Obama condemns ‘perpetual war’ during inaugural address
UPDATE:
12 Ways Obama Smacked Down the Tea Party and the Right in Inauguration Speech
UPDATE:
Media Identify Mainstream Positions As Part Of Obama’s “Liberal Agenda”
Poll: 49% of GOP Voters Think That ACORN Stole The 2012 Election
Posted by Richard Warnick in 2012 Elections, Barack Obama, National Politics, Party Politics, Republicans on December 4, 2012
Public Policy Polling: Republicans not handling election results well
PPP’s first post election national poll finds that Republicans are taking the results pretty hard…and also declining in numbers.
49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn’t exist anymore.
Some GOP voters are so unhappy with the outcome that they no longer care to be a part of the United States. 25% of Republicans say they would like their state to secede from the union compared to 56% who want to stay and 19% who aren’t sure.
One reason that such a high percentage of Republicans are holding what could be seen as extreme views is that their numbers are declining. Our final poll before the election, which hit the final outcome almost on the head, found 39% of voters identifying themselves as Democrats and 37% as Republicans. Since the election we’ve seen a 5 point increase in Democratic identification to 44%, and a 5 point decrease in Republican identification to 32%.
The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) filed Chapter 7 bankruptcy two years ago, in 2010.
Republicans Reportedly Ready to Accept Mitt Romney’s Tax Plan
Posted by Richard Warnick in 2012 Elections, Federal Budget, Mitt Romney, National Politics, Republicans, Tax Policy, This Blog on November 26, 2012
The news media are excitedly telling us that (some) Republicans are announcing their readiness to keep all the Bush tax cuts in place in exchange for cuts to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. This has been portrayed as “a big concession,” “willingness to compromise,” and “softening their stance.”
Steve Benen points out what it really is: “[O]n the one hand, Republicans would get the tax rates they want. On the other hand, Republicans would also get the entitlement changes they want.”
House Speaker John Boehner said Republicans are interested in a deal that would include higher tax revenue “as a byproduct of a growing economy, energized by a simpler, cleaner, fairer tax code, with fewer loopholes, and lower tax rates for all.”
But this is the same as Willard (“Mitt”) Romney’s plan — cut tax rates, limit deductions and then assume that a surge in economic growth will magically produce higher revenue. A plan firmly rooted in Arthur Laffer’s fantasy land, where tax cuts pay for themselves. And Republicans think they deserve cuts to social safety net programs in exchange for agreeing to the Romney tax plan, which was just rejected by a majority of voters three weeks ago!
UPDATE: Josh Marshall:
The big ‘breakthrough’ of the day is the apparent willingness to put ‘revenue’ on the table in on-going tax, budget, fiscal cliff, whatever-the-new-name-is-today discussion. But only one caveat: they’re now willing to raise revenue, just not raise rates. This is silly.
…We’ve been doing this for a century. When you want to efficiently raise revenues, you raise rates. A major simplification of the structure, rooting out all the miscellaneous loopholes and special interest deductions, is probably also a good idea. But that’s for fairness and efficiency. Not what you do if the federal coffers simply need more money.
…President Obama holds all the cards on the Bush rates. Just let them expire. Once they do, if Republicans really want to take it that far, come back on January 3rd with the new Obama Middle Class Tax Cut bill. The House can pass it or not.
Our Multidimensional Crisis: Institutional Breakdown
Posted by Glenden Brown in 2012 Elections, Activist groups, Afghanistan, American History, American People, Bailout, Bush Administration, Climate Change, Conservative, Conservatives, Conspiracy theories, Deficit, Economy, Elections, GLBT issues, Iran, Iraq, Liberal, Poverty, Religion, Religious Fundamentalism, Republicans, Science, Society, This Blog, Tribalism & Blind Obedience to Authority, Unemployment on November 19, 2012
The signs are all around us – our crisis continues to deepen and to engulf us in its complexity.
Manuel Castells, in the introduction to The Power of Identity:
The Iraq invasion was the return of the state in it most traditional form of exercising its monopoly of violence, and it followed a major crisis of international governance institutions, starting with the United Nations, marginalized by the United States, and the apparent triumph of unilateralism in spite of an objectively multilateral world. [snip]
Not only was the United States drawn into protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as al-Qaeda wanted, but its inability to build a global governance system led to a multidimensional, global crisis of which the financial collapse of 2008 was only its most damaging expression.[snip]
. . .. in the long term the trends that characterized the social structure ultimately imposed their logic, but in the short term the autonomy of the political agency could oppose such logic because of the interests and values of the actors occupying the commanding heights of agency. When such is the case, as during the Bush-Cheney administration period, the discrepancy between structure and agency induces systemic chaos, and ultimately destructive processes that add to the difficulties of managing the adaptation of the nation-state to the global conditions of the network society.
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