Opinions and Letters

President wins this one

Why is anyone surprised that the supercommittee failed? Clearly, every Republican signed the pledge not to raise any taxes, any time, under any circumstances. Clearly, no Democrat on the committee could agree to a result without tax increases for the rich. Therefore, the committee was stalemated before it began to meet. What really surprises me is that the Republicans agreed to the backup legislation which gets rid of the Bush tax plan and enacts cuts in the bloated military budget, but no cuts in Medicare or Social Security.

The result is that the president won this round and refuses to back down. He has said he will veto any attempt by Republicans to renege on the agreement they negotiated.

President Dwight Eisenhower would have approved. He warned us about the dangers of the military-industrial complex. He also presided over an exceptional economy in which the rich paid as much as 90 percent tax.

Mary Louise Ambrose, Club Member,  Belleair Bluffs

Published in the St. Pete Times on Saturday, November 26

What Democrats Did In 21 Months (Policy over Politics)

Adapted and excerpted from the CFAF Newsletter of Nov 2, 2010

Rachel Maddow analyzes the Democratic record being judged on Election Day: "A lot of hard stuff done on hard problems in a short amount of time.": "The legislative agenda of the last 21 months was policy, not politics. It was designed to get stuff done for the country and in that sense, it's an investment in long-term political reward, not short-term political reward ... Hard votes with long-time horizons that don't translate into killing the other party in the next election."

Rachel Maddow analyzes the Democratic record being judged on Election Day: "A lot of hard stuff done on hard problems in a short amount of time.": "The legislative agenda of the last 21 months was policy, not politics. It was designed to get stuff done for the country and in that sense, it's an investment in long-term political reward, not short-term political reward ... Hard votes with long-time horizons that don't translate into killing the other party in the next election." Health reform already working, as small businesses expand coverage thanks to tax incentives. WSJ: "The number of small businesses offering health insurance to workers is projected to increase sharply this year, recent data show, a shift that researchers attribute to a tax credit in the health law ... According to a report by Bernstein Research in New York, the percentage of employers with between three and nine workers and which are offering insurance has increased to 59% this year, up from 46% last year." GM ready to gradually reduce government stake, as Treasury forces plan to maximize taxpayer investment. NYT: "The automaker is planning a three-for-one stock split that will bring its total outstanding shares to about 1.5 billion ... Through the offering, the Treasury Department, which gained a 61 percent stake in G.M. as part of its $50 billion bailout of the company last year, will sell about $7 billion worth of shares. That will cut its holdings in the company to just more than 43 percent ... Treasury intends to further reduce its holdings with subsequent stock sales over several years ... The company’s former government-appointed chief executive, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., had expressed a desire to sell the Treasury Department’s stake all at once if possible. But Treasury pushed back, seeking to maximize the price it fetched for its shares." Who turns out will make the difference. W. Post's E. J. Dionne: "Perhaps the likely voter screens are wrong and young voters will surprise the pollsters. Or the Democrats will have to go back and ask themselves if there was more they could have done to keep younger voters engaged. And the country will have to ask if it should be drawing excessively broad conclusions about the entire country from a midterm election in which older voters are vastly overrepresented compared with members of the rising generation." Third Way seeks to expand influence with Dems, attack "left-wing economic populism." Politico: "With cap and trade effectively dead in a Republican House, Third Way will release a 'Plan B”' for energy reform. On Dec. 7, it’s hosting a summit on nuclear energy — one of the group’s big causes — with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Obama energy czar Carol Browner. It will come out with a paper on the need for changes that could save Social Security, which it presents as a direct challenge to economist Paul Krugman."

Health reform already working, as small businesses expand coverage thanks to tax incentives. WSJ: "The number of small businesses offering health insurance to workers is projected to increase sharply this year, recent data show, a shift that researchers attribute to a tax credit in the health law ... According to a report by Bernstein Research in New York, the percentage of employers with between three and nine workers and which are offering insurance has increased to 59% this year, up from 46% last year."

GM ready to gradually reduce government stake, as Treasury forces plan to maximize taxpayer investment. NYT: "The automaker is planning a three-for-one stock split that will bring its total outstanding shares to about 1.5 billion ... Through the offering, the Treasury Department, which gained a 61 percent stake in G.M. as part of its $50 billion bailout of the company last year, will sell about $7 billion worth of shares. That will cut its holdings in the company to just more than 43 percent ... Treasury intends to further reduce its holdings with subsequent stock sales over several years ... The company’s former government-appointed chief executive, Edward E. Whitacre Jr., had expressed a desire to sell the Treasury Department’s stake all at once if possible. But Treasury pushed back, seeking to maximize the price it fetched for its shares."

Who turns out will make the difference. W. Post's E. J. Dionne: "Perhaps the likely voter screens are wrong and young voters will surprise the pollsters. Or the Democrats will have to go back and ask themselves if there was more they could have done to keep younger voters engaged. And the country will have to ask if it should be drawing excessively broad conclusions about the entire country from a midterm election in which older voters are vastly overrepresented compared with members of the rising generation."

Third Way seeks to expand influence with Dems, attack "left-wing economic populism." Politico: "With cap and trade effectively dead in a Republican House, Third Way will release a 'Plan B”' for energy reform. On Dec. 7, it’s hosting a summit on nuclear energy — one of the group’s big causes — with Energy Secretary Steven Chu and Obama energy czar Carol Browner. It will come out with a paper on the need for changes that could save Social Security, which it presents as a direct challenge to economist Paul Krugman."

 



"He has done what he promised. He's transforming our country"

I read dailyKos.  Daily.  I have a few favorite diarists, whose wisdom and/or warnings I share on Facebook or by email.

But this is such a moving summary - lots of photos and video - that I thought I'd share it here.

blackwaterdog is an unabased fan of President Obama.  Given the bashing he takes every day (and yeah, I complain that he isn't the strong progressive I would have liked, too), I look forward to the narrative bwd pulls together a few times a week in photos, videos, news bits, etc.  She reminds us of why we voted for Barack Obama.  Why we felt so hopeful.  And why we really, truly should not STOP being hopeful. 

BWD quoted Greg Sargent at the Plum Line:  (click on link to read full article)

Once Obama signs financial reform into law next week, he will have not only passed a stimulus package that helped pull the economy back from the brink; he will have also begun reshaping two major chunks of our economy: Health care and Wall Street. As many have noted already, he's probably done more than any president since FDR to transform our country.

and that was just her intro!  .... 

How Republicans Win -- and then some

[During] the last four Democratic presidencies – the Republicans did not behave as a loyal opposition but rather as a single-minded political enemy that viewed the White House as its birthright and Democratic control of the Executive Branch as illegitimate.

This quote, from a March 31 article in Truthout by Robert Parry, not only explains what we have been seeing with the all-out obstructionism from this current Congress, but reminds us that it started under Nixon.

the Republicans believe they can reclaim the lucrative levers of national authority by making the country as ungovernable as possible while a Democrat is in the White House, essentially holding governance hostage until they are restored to power. Then, the Democrats are expected to behave as a docile opposition "for the good of the country" (and usually do). The "destroy Obama" game plan tracks most closely with Newt Gingrich's strategy for undermining Bill Clinton 16 years ago. But today's strategy also traces back to Richard Nixon's sabotage of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Vietnam peace talks in 1968 and Ronald Reagan's October Surprise gambit against President Jimmy Carter's Iran hostage negotiations in 1980. ... ..."There is something I want to tell you," Arafat said, addressing Carter at a meeting in Arafat's bunker in Gaza City. "You should know that in 1980 the Republicans approached me with an arms deal [for the PLO] if I could arrange to keep the hostages in Iran until after the [U.S. presidential] election."

Obama Critics, Admit You Were Wrong

Lois Fries forwarded an interesting column by Frank Schaeffer, originally posted on the Huffington Post.   Schaeffer describes himself as a" white, straight, 57-year-old, former religious right wing agitator, now progressive writer and, given my background as the son of a famous evangelical leader, unlikely Obama supporter" and explains why he still ardently supports the President. Succinctly?  "Because he is succeeding."

First, he sets a little context of the atmosphere in which Obama has had to operate since taking office:

Not since the days of the rise of fascism in Europe, the Second World War and the Depression has any president faced more adversity. Not since the Civil War has any president led a more bitterly divided country. Not since the introduction of racial integration has any president faced a more consistently short-sighted and willfully ignorant opposition -- from both the right and left. As the President's poll numbers have fallen so has his support from some on the left that were hailing him as a Messiah not long ago; all those lefty websites and commentators that were falling all over themselves on behalf of our first black president during the 2008 election. The left's lack of faith has become a self-fulfilling "prophecy" -- snipe at the President and then watch the poll numbers fall and then pretend you didn't have anything to do with it! ...Help from the Right? ...the reactionary white, rube, uneducated, crazy American far right, combined with the educated but obtuse neoconservative warmongers, religious right shills for big business, libertarian Fed Reserve-hating gold bug, gun-loving crazies, child-molesting acquiescent "bishops", frontier loons and evangelical gay-hating flakes found one thing to briefly unite them: their desire to stop an uppity black man from succeeding at all costs.

Representatives Kathy Castor and Kendrick Meek Consistently Support Progressive Legislation and President Obama;

Bill Young and Gus Bilirakis Regularly Say “No”

It is important to be aware of how our Congress members vote when they are in Washington. Recent analyses of congressional voting records highlight the distinct differences between the positive approach that Democratic Representatives Kathy Castor (District 11) and Kendrick Meek (District 17 and U.S. Senate candidate) have taken to solving our problems and the general negativism of Republican Representatives Bill Young (District 10) and Gus Bilirakis (District 9).

Congressional Quarterly, a nonpartisan, highly respected source, has calculated the percentage of the time that each member supported President Obama’s positions on the issues during 2009. It shows that Castor supported the President 96% of the time and Meek did so 94% of the time, contrasted with Young’s 32% and Bilirakis’ 31%.

Below are the specific votes of Castor, Young. Bilirakis and Meek on six key legislative roll calls during 2009 and 2010:

 

Date	Bill	Castor	Young	Bilirakis	Meek
2/04/09	Expand children’s health insurance coverage	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
2/10/09	Adopt economic stimulus bill	Yes	No	No	Yes
6/26/09	Pass clean energy/greenhouse gas emissions control bill	Yes	No	No	Yes
7/31/09	Adopt cash for clunkers auto program	Yes	No	No	Yes
11/11/09	Pass health care reform package	Yes	No	No	Yes
3/21/10	Pass health care reform and college student aid expansion and reform	Yes	No	No	Yes

Let’s all work to re-elect Kathy Castor to the U. S. House of Representatives, elect Kendrick Meek to the U.S. Senate, and elect Charlie Justice and Anita De Palma to the U. S. House of Representatives over “nay-saying” Bill Young and Gus Bilirakis. To check out congressional voting records further, go to Congressional Quarterly online at http://innovation.cqpolitics.com/media/votestudy2009. Hard copies of Congressional Quarterly Weekly Reports are available in the reference section of the Clearwater Public Library and provide even more information on what your representatives are (or aren’t ) doing.

Rich Piper, President, Largo/Mid-Pinellas Democratic Club

Are Democratic presidents smarter than Republican presidents?

Are Democratic presidents smarter than Republican presidents?  Largo/Mid-Pinellas Democratic Club member Charlotte Maas found an interesting piece on the topic by David Korn, a Politics Daily columnist. He makes an argument that Obama, Clinton and Carter certainly are. If you watched any of the recent health summit,  you might have wondered if George W. Bush could have led seven hours of complex policy discussion, much less with the aplomb of President Obama.  With no teleprompter!  You can read his article at Politics Daily "Are Democratic Presidents Smarter Than Republican Presidents?"

And speaking of ignorance being considered a virtue in conservative circles:  while checking out other blogs,  I came across this scary comment on a Sarah Palin presidency. "She's not the best candidate, that's for sure; she's a bit out of her league in national politics. But she has the proper values and I think she's smart enough to know that she's not smart enough to be able to run everything and will appoint competent people to do the actual work, while she just leads and guides with her values. So, I think her presidency would be solid."

Kathleen Jamison, Largo/Mid-Pinellas Democratic Club member.