…why negotiating with the Republicans isn’t working, here’s a clue: they are nucking futs.
Boehner is Shocked, Shocked!
…to discover there are Goldman Sachs & JP Morgan corporate lobbyists at the GOP House Caucus retreat! Man, they’ll just let anybody into that thing, huh?
UPDATE: And then Senate Democrats turn right around and do the same damn thing. And at Miami Beach yet. Morons.
Column for 31 January, 2010
King’s X!
“Prepare your shields, both large and small, and march out for battle! Harness the horses, mount the steeds! Take your positions with helmets on! Polish your spears, put on your armor!”
–Jeremiah 46:3-4
It was a good State of the Union Address. But then, Barack Obama has always given good speeches; his problem has been on the follow-through. The President (finally) struck a defiant note, aggressively defending his record and reminding viewers of the mess he inherited on taking office, without going too far into buck-passing. And why not? Ronald Reagan got eight years’ of mileage out of his “failed liberal policies of the past” line. I appreciated the fact that he was willing to call out to their faces the five corporatist stooge judicial activists on the Supreme Court who just officially abolished the inconvenience of democracy for the free-market efficiency of plutocracy as well as the Just Say No to Everything Senate Republicans. He even managed some jabs at Senate Democrats, going out of his way to praise the House for taking action and urging the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body to follow suit, the political equivalent of your mother asking why you can’t be more like your brother. It would’ve been nicer, though, if the president had been willing to throw sharp elbows like this about six months ago. Obama outlined an ambitious jobs program; nice, but again, it would’ve been nicer about ten months ago. In fact, this late conversion to job creation (when the unemployment rate is at ten percent) shows in a nutshell what has been wrong so far with this Administration: squandered opportunity and momentum. Obama took office with soaring poll numbers and (as he himself noted) large majorities in both Houses of Congress. After two straight electoral drubbings in a row, the Republicans were (more…)
Into the Lion’s Den
My first take is that Obama’s decision to address the House GOP Caucus, then stun them by inviting cameras in for a Q&A session, was a good idea politically. It gives the appearance of “bipartisanship” while providing a platform to expose GOP obstructionist tactics and conspiracy theories.
UPDATE: And apparently House GOP aides agree with me.
Turnaround?
At least one poll (though admittedly from a Democratic firm) suggests that the SOTU resonated with Obama’s intended audience, namely independents. Stay tuned.
Attention, Mr. President!
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll shows that the public assesses more blame on the Republicans in Congress for “not finding solutions” to “the problems facing America” than on either Democrats in Congress or President Obama.
Meanwhile, in Oregon, voters approved a corporate income tax by referendum, the first time that has happened in more than 70 years.
Taken together, these suggest that the populist momentum is not exclusively a Right Wing phenomenon and that President Obama still has time to get out in front of the parade. Is anyone in the White House listening?
Column for 24 January, 2010
A Modest Proposal
“So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
–Revelation 3:16
Barack Obama could stand to take a lesson or two from George W. Bush. No, hear me out. It was exactly one year ago as I type these words that Obama was sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, winning the largest margin of any Democratic candidate in a generation and solidifying majorities in both Houses of Congress. The Republicans were shattered and in disarray. It should’ve been the Democratic Millennium, yet here we are just twelve months later with falling approval ratings, an increasingly grumpy electorate, a still sluggish economy and a Democratic Party so incredibly inept that they managed to nominate the only person in the entire state of Massachusetts who could lose the Senate seat of the iconic Ted Kennedy to a former nude model. What went wrong? Primarily, it comes down to Obama; more particularly, his touchingly naïve belief in his own campaign speeches about a “post partisan” era and a commitment to “bipartisanship” so great he has been willing to trade away his signature issue, health care reform, and possibly even control of Congress in pursuit of it. This, frankly, was the only reason I supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 primaries: she knows better. She knows that the Republic Party has not been the slightest bit interested in anything even approaching bipartisanship in the last 15 years. If Obama announced tomorrow that he was adopting the 2009 Republican Platform in its entirety and legally changing his name to Ronald Reagan, he would still fail to win a single GOP vote in Congress and Glenn Beck would immediately denounce it as Shining Path Maoism. They are not (more…)
I Got Your Message Right Here, Pal
Former Obama voters who supported Scott Brown say the Senate healthcare bill “doesn’t go far enough” by a 3-2 margin. Obama voters who stayed home in the special election, voting with their feet, agree 6-1. And an astonishing 80% of all voters still want a public option.
Is anyone listening?
I For One Welcome Our New Corporate Overlords
As anticipated, the US Supreme Court today officially abolished the inconvenience of democracy for the free market efficiency of plutocracy. Today’s ruling clears the way for large corporations (considered artificial citizens under the law) to pour unlimited amounts of cash (which equals “free speech” thanks to the disastrous Buckley v. Valeo decision) into electoral campaigns, drowning out the few pitiful remaining voices who spoke out against them. Look for future decisions to abolish disclosure requirements as well, so you won’t even know the names of the people who are buying your country out from under you.
UPDATE: On ongoing analysis of the decision from the Great and Powerful Kos.
UPDATE 2: Citizens United as judicial activism.
MLK: What Might Have Been
Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. would have been seventy-one eighty-one years old on Friday. Such anniversaries always make me wonder what might have happened if history had gone differently, if MLK hadn’t been assassinated on the balcony of a filthy Memphis motel in 1968. For starters, I imagine his journey into more radical views on economic justice would’ve continued, along with his opposition to the Vietnam War. Would he have endorsed anyone for president in 1968 or run himself? Doubtful, I think; my guess he would’ve seen electoral politics as involving too much compromise. In a reverse of reality, I can picture him breaking the news of RFK’s death to a shocked and saddened crowd. I can easily see him as Enemy Number One on Nixon’s list, increasingly isolated during the 70’s and perceived as “too radical” by white liberals. Maybe he would’ve accepted some sort of official or unofficial position in the Carter Administration? How would he fare in the Culture Wars, beginning in the 1980’s? Almost certainly he would have opposed Iraq Wars I & II, but how would he have viewed Bill Clinton? Barack Obama? Would he still be relevant today? Still doggedly calling for economic freedom and an end to war as an instrument of foreign policy? Or would he be seen as a relic of a bygone era?
The Local Crank