‘Put points on the board faster than Plutocrats can take them away’

by Zizi

The one thing the Professional Left (PL) and their Emoprog cohort don’t seem to realize about Pres Obama is that unlike them he KNOWS the depth of nihilistic destruction that the GOP and their corporate backers are prepared to unleash on this country.

Emos have no clue what the stakes are, being stuck as they are on the eras of FDR & LBJ. The Conservative movement has evolved into a more powerful malignant force since their defeats in the 1930s & 1960s. It is a force that continues to destroy whether their minions hold political power or NOT. Destructive force is easier to deploy than constructive building which liberals-Democrats try to do. Our societal building task is harder, less understood and prone to being demagogued by the conservative retrogressives. The PL is oblivious to the asymmetrical nature of our struggle.

We don’t have the institutional structures to fight the plutocrats mano-a-mano on their turf. We don’t! We can only fight them using guerrilla strategies & tactics. No amount of Bully pulpiting or screaming “progressive chants”, or “twisting arms a la LBJ” is gonna dent the power of the wingnuts’ backers. Those are the facts. They have the power and money and nihilistic bent to destroy us all without batting an eye.

The PL-Emos don’t realize that the $32 Trillion that the plutocrats have stashed in tax havens means that THEY DON’T CARE what happens to this country and the people in it. NADA. Unlike the barons of the gilded age who were at least propelled by some sense of nationalism, today’s plutocrats feel no allegiance to this country. It is only a place to exploit for $$$, and feudalize us against our will.

ah yes, the liberal media….

Steve Benen: The very first question in this morning’s White House press conference was pretty discouraging:

“On your jobs bill, the American people are sick of games – and you mentioned games in your comments. They want results. Wouldn’t it be more productive to work with Republicans on a plan that you know could pass Congress as opposed to going around the country talking about your bill and singling out – calling out Republicans by name?”

Towards the end of the event, another reporter asked the nearly identical question…. these questions make it seem as if it’s incumbent upon President Obama to change strategies – stop taking a compelling message to the public, stop trying to create conditions that would pressure Congress to do the right thing, and start asking Republicans if they might please consider working with him on some half-measures that probably wouldn’t do much good, at their convenience, if they don’t mind.

Have we not already been through this? The president has pleaded with congressional Republicans to work with him on good faith …. It’s proven to be pointless …. As he said this morning, “I’m also dealing with a Republican Majority Leader who said that his number-one goal was to beat me – not put Americans back to work, not grow the economy, not help small businesses expand, but to defeat me….”

…… And some White House political reporters want to know why Obama isn’t trying to negotiate with those bent on destroying his presidency? Seriously?

Full post here

‘putting the u.s. in to a corner’

ThinkProgress: Israeli opposition leader Tzipi Livni, during a Knesset debate ahead of the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN, characterized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition as engaging in “diplomatic stupidity” and warned that government’s position is putting “the United States into a corner.” She placed blame for the current predicament at Netanyahu’s feet, observing:

“The United States is making sure it won’t be singled out but how are we helping ourselves? We now need to initiate the political process. (Prime Minster Benjamin) Netanyahu tried to prevent this and now the Palestinians are at the United Nations.”

Livni emphasized the importance of Israel’s friendship with the U.S., especially in light of the growing regional isolation faced by the Jewish state. She warned:

“Next to all these enemies Israel has friends, and at the top of that list is United States, who is willing to guarantee Israel’s security. They don’t understand Israel’s policy, they don’t understand why the stubbornness over settlements, they don’t believe the prime minister of Israel when he says ‘two states’ but doesn’t do anything about it. And this saddens me because I am a citizen of the state.”

While blasting Netanyahu’s policies and his intransigence in the peace process, she urged him to reverse course and save an increasingly untenable Israeli position…..

Full article here

Thanks Fred

John Heilemann (NY Mag): Barack Obama is the best thing Israel has going for it right now. Why is that so difficult for Netanyahu and his American Jewish allies to understand?

The last time Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu shared each other’s company, you could say that the encounter did not go well – if by “not well” you mean abysmally. This was on May 20, the day after Obama gave his big speech on the Arab Spring …. Obama was furious with Netanyahu, who in choosing to ignore the crucial qualifier about land swaps had twisted Obama’s words beyond recognition – the kind of mendacious misinterpretation that makes the presidential mental.

The senior most members of Obama’s team felt much the same. Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Bob Gates, Bill Daley, the former Mideast-peace envoy George Mitchell: All were apoplectic with the prime minister, whose behavior over the past two years had already tried their patience…..

…. The premise of Obama’s approach to Israel all along has been straightforward. Given the demographic realities it faces …. our ally confronts a fundamental and fateful choice: It can remain democratic and lose its Jewish character; it can retain its Jewish character but become an apartheid state; or it can remain both Jewish and democratic, satisfy Palestinian national aspirations, facilitate efforts to contain Iran, alleviate the international opprobrium directed at it, and reap the enormous security and economic benefits of ending the conflict by taking up the task of the creation of a viable Palestinian state –  one based, yes, on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed upon land swaps, with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

The irony is that Obama – along with countless Israelis, members of the Jewish diaspora, and friends of Israel around the world – seems to grasp these realities and this choice more readily than Netanyahu does. “The first Jewish president?” Maybe not. But certainly a president every bit as pro-Israel as the country’s own prime minister – and, if you look from the proper angle, maybe even more so.

Full article here

Thanks Loriah

‘exploiting accidental gop candor’

Steve Benen: This week, Politico quoted a senior House Republican aide …. commenting on why Republicans should reflexively oppose the American Jobs Act, the senior staffer said, “Obama is on the ropes; why do we appear ready to hand him a win?”

…. The quote did not go unnoticed at the White House. Here’s President Obama yesterday (see video above), touting his jobs agenda outside an Ohio high school ….. Note that Obama also made use of the same quote at a Rose Garden event on Monday:

…… the president seizing on this has also not gone unnoticed by Republicans. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor’s office sent an email to more than 60 top GOP aides urging them to “be very careful on our tone when it comes to jobs/the president.”

Too late.

Full post here

‘jeopardizing israel’s relationship with u.s.’

Jerusalem, July 2008

Jerusalem Post: Opposition leader Tzipi Livni slammed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu on Friday for “harming the relationship” between Israel and the US.

“Netanyahu spoke about consensus,” Livni said, “and if there is a consensus in Israel, it’s that the relationship with the US is essential to Israel, and a prime minister that harms the relationship with the US over something unsubstantial is harming Israel’s security and deterrence.” Livni added that such a prime minister should resign. “I am saying this loud and clear.”

“Israel’s deterrence and legitimacy in the world is directly connected to our relationship with the greatest power in the world, the US,” Livni said.

She explained that Obama’s speech on Thursday “is not reason enough” to challenge the US, and said that Netanyahu’s statements were political and meant to maintain the coalition.

“An American president that supports the two-state vision is representing Israeli interests and is not anti-Israel,” Livni said. The only way to stop the Palestinians from unilaterally declaring statehood, Livni explained, is to have the US “convince states that plan to support the decision not to do so, but to support negotiations.”

****

President Obama will deliver his AIPAC address at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, Sunday, at 10:35 a.m

just sayin’

Remember this?

And this:

(The first guy in the video is Peter Morici who wrote an article recently entitled ‘In Wisconsin, the governor is right, Obama is wrong’ – so you get the drift. The second guy, Carl Horowitz, is from the National Legal and Policy Center which, like lots of conservative groups, is funded by billionaire right-winger Richard Mellon Scaife – see here)

Just sayin’:

Detroit News: The United Auto Workers union says that by fall, General Motors Co. will recall the last 2,000 of its laid-off workers, clearing the way for new hiring at its U.S. plants.

Most of the recalls will be in southeastern Michigan, whose economy was devastated in the downturn.

GM declined to confirm the timeline, but Joe Ashton, UAW vice president in charge of GM, said Wednesday “those people will all be back at work in September. We will have full employment in September for the first time in a long time.”

The recalls are further evidence of the recovery of GM, and the auto industry as a whole….

…GM spokeswoman Kimberly Carpenter: “We have announced several actions that will help people get back to work,” she said. Among them: adding a third shift of 750 to GM’s truck plant in Flint, a second shift of 600 in Lansing to build a small Cadillac and 1,550 workers being recalled to build two small cars at the Lake Orion assembly plant.

😉

Oh, almost forgot this:

Mlive.com: Flint Democratic lawmakers and UAW officials gathered this afternoon to celebrate a nearly $5,000 profit sharing check being given to General Motors’ employees this week.

The check, they say, is a sign of the progress GM has made since it filed for bankruptcy in June 2009.

President Barack Obama and the then-Democratic Congress made the right decision to bail out the automaker, said Norwood Jewell, Region 1-C director of the UAW.

“What would have happened to Genesee County? What would have happened to Flint,” he said of the government’s loans to the automaker.

***

Yup, a disaster.

‘the end of the new deal?’

Robert Shrum (The Week): …Barack Obama entered his presidency only months into the financial crisis. Compounded by the pressures of a hyper-media age, the public mood didn’t accord him many months before punishing him and his party in the midterm elections for a recovery that was taking hold but not fast enough, a recovery still more a statistical artifact than a fact of people’s lives. There are now more convincing signs of economic revival, which could yield decisive and Democratic dividends in 2012 — if the results of the 2010 elections don’t stall a reverse in growth and job creation.

…The GOP offered Americans a scapegoat in the recent campaign: A government doing big things in the face of a grave challenge was turned into the Big Bad Government. The very government that was preventing catastrophe was portrayed as causing it….

The wintry weeks of December did see a brief season of bipartisan compromise. But now the GOP, in the House and in newly captured state capitals, is marching relentlessly to the far right. That course won’t advance the economy…

In the House of Representatives, where John Boehner is less speaker than servitor of the Tea Party, the GOP has passed a budget resolution that begins the rollback. It slashes education; unemploys teachers, police, and potentially millions of others; and shreds the fabric of the safety social net, taking the most from those who have the least. The measure attempts to undo basic environmental, consumer, and financial regulation by defunding the regulators. Next on the chopping block, if Republican House budget guru Paul Ryan has his way, will be Medicare and Social Security, the heart of the New Deal legacy.

As economics, the reactionary spasm makes no sense. The evidence is already there. After two years of Obamanomics, forecasts for U.S. growth are being revised upward. At the same time, in the wake of sudden and sharp retrenchment in Britain, what’s rising is unemployment; growth is falling and house prices are predicted to plummet again. But as ideology, the Republican policy makes perfect sense — and presents a perfect opportunity for the true believers who were vanquished during the New Deal and decades afterwards. They lied about health reform — from nonexistent “death panels” to nonexistent cuts in Medicare benefits for the elderly. The Republicans opposed the bill and now propose to defund it. But what the House just passed goes far beyond that: It’s a draconian down payment on dismembering the architecture of social justice and corporate responsibility in America.

Full article here

Thank you Ladyhawke

the ‘failed stimulus’? oh yeah?

Time: President Obama is often mocked for failing to change Washington …. but behind the scenes of the Beltway perpetual-conflict machine, he has made quiet progress towards reforming Washington — not politically, but bureaucratically. The most important reform, launched two years ago today, was tucked inside his unpopular stimulus package, and inside his new budget, he’s trying to expand it.

The reform is a simple concept that certainly ought to be post-partisan: Harnessing the power of competition in the spending of taxpayer dollars …. Obama has tried to divert funds into competition-based, peer-reviewed, results-oriented grant programs that reward only the worthiest applications. The best-known is the Race to the Top education program, but the stimulus hatched similar competitions in energy, transportation, housing, health care and broadband. And Obama’s 2012 budget proposes new races to the top in everything from juvenile justice to workforce development to agricultural research.

….The $4.35 billion Race to the Top program … shows how competition can create laboratories for change. By setting clear goals and guidelines … the program encouraged 41 states to change laws or policies before the feds even spent a nickel … the impact of a program that amounts to less than 1% of the education budget will extend well beyond the twelve states that won grants….

……At his Cabinet meeting today, Biden will present the good news of the Recovery Act, which helped avoid a depression, reduced the unemployment rate by 2%, cut taxes for 95% of Americans, bailed out every state to prevent mass layoffs, funded over 75,000 projects to upgrade roads, parks, sewers and just about everything else, and made unprecedented investments renewable energy, health information technology, broadband, the smart grid and much, much more — with no earmarks and virtually no fraud. But to Washington Republicans it’s the “failed stimulus.” That was their story in 2009, when they opposed it en masse, and after their sweeping victories in November, it’s hard to see why they would want to change it. Anyway, most Americans believe it…..

Read the full article here

gop? you were saying?

WH: Before and after the Affordable Care Act became law, many opponents of reform predicted that Medicare Advantage plans – a type of Medicare health plan offered by a private company that contracts with Medicare to provide benefits to seniors – would be severely damaged by health reform.

Today, the Washington Post (‘Medicare Advantage provision going smoothly’) looks at the reality and finds that the dire predictions were unfounded and Medicare Advantage is going strong. Under the headline “Medicare Advantage provision going smoothly” the Post reports:

“One of the most significant savings envisioned in the new health care law – limiting payments to the private health plans that cover 11 million older Americans under Medicare – is, so far, bringing little of the turbulence that the insurance industry and many Republicans predicted.”

“Whether the payment changes are warranted was a contentious subplot in the protracted debate over the legislation. Democrats argued successfully that the private plans were being overpaid and could withstand the changes. Republicans warned that such plans would raise prices, lower benefits or cause defections from the program, stranding the elderly people who rely on them.

“Early clues to the actual effects have now materialized, as elderly Americans may sign up for a health plan for 2011 during an enrollment period through the end of the year, and the warnings of swift, serious damage to the program are not borne out. Fewer health plans are available for the coming year, but the decrease is largely for reasons unrelated to the new law. Premiums have not jumped substantially, and benefits have not tended to erode.”

President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and senior staff, react in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, as the House passes the health care reform bill, March 21, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

“america, you know not what you have”

America – He’s Your President for Goodness Sake!

By William Thomas

Extracts – full article here

There was a time not so long ago when Americans, regardless of their political stripes, rallied round their president. Once elected, the man who won the White House was no longer viewed as a republican or democrat, but the President of the United States. The oath of office was taken, the wagons were circled around the country’s borders and it was America versus the rest of the world with the president of all the people at the helm.

Suddenly President Barack Obama, with the potential to become an exceptional president has become the glaring exception to that unwritten, patriotic rule.

Four days before President Obama’s inauguration, before he officially took charge of the American government, Rush Limbaugh boasted publicly that he hoped the president would fail. Of course, when the president fails the country flounders. Wishing harm upon your country in order to further your own narrow political views is selfish, sinister and a tad treasonous as well.

….At some point, the treatment of President Obama went from offensive to ugly and then to downright dangerous.

The health-care debate, which looked more like extreme fighting in a mud pit than a national dialogue, revealed a very vulgar side of America. President Obama’s face appeared on protest signs white-faced and blood-mouthed in a satanic clown image. In other tasteless portrayals, people who disagreed with his position distorted his face to look like Hitler complete with mustache and swastika.

Odd, that burning the flag makes Americans crazy, but depicting the president as a clown and a maniacal fascist is accepted as part of the new rude America.

In President Barack Obama, Americans have a charismatic leader with a good and honest heart. Unlike his predecessor, he’s a very intelligent leader. And unlike that president’s predecessor, he’s a highly moral man.

What America has in Obama is a head of state with vitality and insight and youth. Think about it, Barack Obama is a young Nelson Mandela. Mandela was the face of change and charity for all of Africa but he was too old to make it happen. The great things Obama might do for America and the world could go on for decades after he’s out of office.

America, you know not what you have.

The man is being challenged unfairly, characterized with vulgarity and treated with the kind of deep disrespect to which no previous president was subjected. It’s like the day after electing the first black man to be president, thereby electrifying the world with hope and joy, Americans sobered up and decided the bad old days were better.

Please. Give the man a fair, fighting chance. This incivility toward the leader who won over Americans and gave hope to billions of people around the world that their lives could be enhanced by his example, just naturally has to stop.

(Thank you to blackwaterdog for the link)