3 Long Term Obama Problems

The following three issues are the sort of bad, muted problems now that could cost him reelection four years from now, if and when it becomes a large enough problem that people find out:

1. Going all Bush on us when it comes to the power grab that Bush orchestrated and Obama is pursuing. This goes for the Obama admin's claims that it has the very same imperial powers that Bush claimed on matters of wiretapping or torture (even if Obama has stopped it in Guatanimo, they haven't said that the administration couldn't do it).

2. Following Geithner, Bush and Summers part 1: Obama's taking the plunge into the abyss by continuing this expensive and ineffective way of 'fixing' the banking industry, buying toxic assets at prices they aren't worth -- and now essentially guaranteeing through FDIC that if they aren't profitable to private investors, that the federal government will make it all better.

3. Part 2: here's what could really kill - the fact that Obama's going out of his way, through Geithner and Summers, to get banks involved by allowing them to avoid the limits on executive funds - creating middle men so the Government doesn't have to dole funds directly. If people find out that execs in Bank of America or Citi gave out bonuses or continue with lavish salaries despite new Congressional regulations for companies accepting federal assistance, Obama's now-fantastic approval rating could fall below Congress's.

I list these things not because they have to happen, but they will if Obama doesn't change course now. They won't hurt him today or tomorrow, but four years from now? It's just a matter of time. If he undoes these three policies, he very well could be the next FDR or JFK, but if he doesn't, he'll only earn the country's wrath. We can't continue to follow the old and ineffective ways of the past -- especially not when we elected a "change" President. Change. Now.

Can't Hurt to Ask, Right?

Here's one gift from George. Also, this post should win for most unlikely tags ever.

Hell hath frozen over

Not as cold as you'd think. My gosh.

Bad Policy

Is to trust the Bush administration on anything. Is anyone really surprised? $290 billion gone.

Yet for all this activity, no formal action has been taken to fill the independent oversight posts established by Congress when it approved the bailout to prevent corruption and government waste. Nor has the first monitoring report required by lawmakers been completed, though the initial deadline has passed.

To trust the Bush administration thugs was a serious mistake. The bailout bill should never have been passed, at least in anything resembling a Paulson plan.

Frightening

I don't know what's more scary, that half the world's stock markets fell close to 10% while we were asleep and our's looks to follow suit, or that the President is going to address the financial picture 40 minutes from now. For some mysterious reason, I doubt the President inspires confidence in the markets...

Back to the Drawing Boards

Anyone else cheering? Here's the bottom line: this bill was bad news. It didn't even accomplish the 'little things,' like capping executive pay and preventing "golden parachutes" as these executives are pushed out for basically ruining the entire economy. The execs who brought us this disaster don't deserve parachutes. They deserve to feel a semblance of the pain regular citizens have been feeling for close to a decade during the Bush economy, knowing that if the slightest thing goes wrong (health, job loss, etc.), they could hit the economic pavement from a thousand feet in the air, head first. This bill did nothing for proper oversight (do yourself a favor and read that link), ceding control over to the Bush admin and the people who were originally responsible for this failure, at least until Obama came in office - $350 billion too late.

Of course, we'll see another bill - and soon. Congress is not going home. My advice to Frank and Pelosi: focus on the Democrats, not the Republicans. There's 95 Democrats who voted against this thing. If they want this thing passed, they've got to get 70 or 80 of those Democrats on board. How does Frank and Pelosi manage to do that? Write a bill Democrats can be proud of. If the President were to veto it, it would only go to show that they clearly don't think this is a crisis. At that point, the Democrats have done their job and can feel guilt free in letting predatory lenders go bankrupt.

It shouldn't be too hard to get a majority in Congress just from within the Democratic Party. Make this a much smaller bailout that keeps the companies afloat while we seriously look at the industries needs - and prevent this from being just their last opportunity to raid the cookie jar. Obama can then come in and build a coalition from within Congress, without having to worry about Bush's veto pen.

Better yet, use Wall Street to solve Wall Street's problems - and make this bailout revenue neutral. Tax each transaction on Wall Street .25 cents a transaction and this government raises $350 billion a year, paying for whatever bailout Wall Street needs. That's the only way to make sure more wealth in this country isn't redistributed from Main Street to Wall Street, while also sending the investors who started this whole mess a message that they are going to be held responsible for it one way or the other. No, we're not going to let the economy go in the tank because of greedy scum who can't manage their way out of a paper bag, but neither are we going to pay for it, either. That's true accountability - and that's something the American people could rally behind.

Another Day, Another Bank

Thanks, President Bush, for your wonderful handling of the economy.

Don't Trust the Republicans

Seriously, what over the past 8 years has the Republican Party done to inspire trust? Ruin the economy? Get this country into a foolish war that it was destined to lose? Double (yes, double) the national debt? Am I going crazy here?

Now, we're supposed to trust these very same people to fix the economy with a massive bad debt bailout? No thanks, the Republicans created the deregulations that have led to where we are today, they now own them. If some of their precious corporate friends lose everything - too damn bad. That's what millions of Americans have been losing under all of these policies for almost a decade now.

The fact is that this bailout that seems destined to happen won't even address the underlying problem: people losing their homes. If we're going to bail out anyone, why not the American people? These people were told by these banks that they could afford these loans when they couldn't, or that they could get out of their subprimes if they needed to - when they couldn't. This bailout won't stop people from losing their homes, it's just that now these banks won't be responsible for taking on risky debt. This is absurd!

This is an absolute betrayal of actual conservative economic policy - some of which now even most Democrats subscribe to. Pay as you go. Don't take overly risky debt. Be accountable for your actions. These are all policies that the bulk of the Democratic Party now subscribes to, yet the Republicans are more than willing to abandon.

So, let's get this all straight: The free-market Republicans bought the country's two largest mortgage firms, Freddie and Fanny, meaning we now own more than 50% of this country's mortgages. Then we buy 80% of one of the largest insurance companies in the world, the 18th largest company in existence - according to Bob at BMG. Now, we're going to take on the entire banking industry's bad debt? Isn't capitalism supposed to be about companies taking personal accountability for their actions? Since when should government take all the risk - and the corporations all the profit?

The truth is, I'm not opposed to a little government intervention to help the economy. But this bailout plan is absurd. If we're going to bail out anyone, bail out the people. If we bail them out - we save the companies anyway. Along with the economy. If we don't bail out the people, but bail out the companies... maybe the stocks will be saved, but millions more will lose their homes - devastating this country's real economy (the people who must live with it). Things will get worse, not better, as companies are told it's okay to take on bad debt - the government will be accountable for you. Politicies this government creates should make sense for the people who live in this country, not just the corporations. Otherwise, we're not just a welfare state, we're a corporate welfare state - and that should offend all American taxpayers, many of whom get screwed in the process.

Senator Kerry on N. Korea, Bush Admin

“Progress on ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program is always tenuous and remains incomplete. But the regime’s nuclear declaration is the latest reminder that, despite President Bush’s once bellicose rhetoric, engaging our enemies can pay dividends. Historians will long wonder why this Administration did not directly engage North Korea before Pyongyang gathered enough material for several nuclear weapons, tested a nuclear device, and the missiles to deliver them. Now the President must not prematurely close the books on North Korea’s alleged uranium enrichment activities and nuclear exports. We must ensure there are credible verification and monitoring procedures to ensure North Korea is out of the nuclear business for the long term.”

Indeed.

Keep the Gas Tax, Bolster the Dollar

Senator Clinton isn't alone in thinking a gas-tax holiday is a good idea, but that doesn't actually make it one. Unfortunately, there's a very simple reason that explains most of why gas is going up - and it isn't even the war in Iraq (though, it's not helping). The largest factor in gas going up isn't even price gouging, or anything that oil companies are doing (though, again, they aren't helping).

The problem is this administration's contempt for the US dollar, which has fallen so drastically that of course it's going to be reflected in oil prices. The bottom line is that, if people want affordable gas under current circumstances, they need to elect more Democrats to push back on this President's disastrous policies that have quickly killed the dollar in Washington D.C. We need more Democrats in Congress, more in the Senate and especially a Democratic President to boot. That's the only way to reverse the Republican agenda and set this country back on the right course, which Democratic Presidents have a pretty darn good track record of doing.

No Fun League at it Again

While football commentary generally doesn't belong on this website, there are some very real aspects to the whole Pats-Colts game that shouldn't go unnoticed by any audience. Apparently, there may have been cheating again, but this time not from those dastardly Patriots, a team caught doing something the entire NFL has been doing for years now. This time it's the team representing the side of "good," the Colts (yes, I did read a sports column about how the Pats-Colts game was all about good vs. evil, but I'll spare everyone the link). But it's not like we're going to hear anything about it, because the "good" team can't possibly cheat - right? The Powers that Be only want to push the meme that the Patriots are cheating bastards, not just a team that's worked harder and longer at being better than the rest of the NFL. So, shhh, don't let that secret out of the bag.

What's stunned me as a person is how hateful the rest of the country has become toward something as trivial as a sports team, something that isn't altogether different than the political discourse going around for the past few decades. I don't know if we're more or less likely to pick up a column insinuating the Patriots ought to be renamed the Satanists, or hear Ann Coultershock claiming liberals are going to go to hell anyway, so we may as do the dirty deed now and get it over with. Seriously, would either of the two scenarios shock anyone?

It all gets me back to a discussion I had a few months ago with Lynne's husband on how some people - mostly conservatives - think differently. How these people have authoritarian minds. It doesn't matter if it's sports, politics, news or what's the best cookie recipe, a lot of the 'leading voices' on any of these matters all seem to think alike, even if the subjects they're interested in may be different. The Patriots were shown, in public, as a bunch of cheating scoundrels. In the case of the Colts game, NFL officials hushed up the nonsense and essentially said, 'go home everyone, nothing to see here, folks.' And, of course, they're doing many fans - with a certain kind of mind frame - a real service. Everyone else? Not so much. It's important to resist/ignore/deflate talking heads from around the country, because things that are right are often ignored, while the unimportant or trivial matters become the next Lacy Peterson story - all for the benefit of a few who would only be more than happy to be in charge of everything, yet can't be trusted within a hundred feet of a leadership position. Go Patriots!

So, Let's Get This Straight

Turkey's getting ready to amp up their attacks against the Kurds, in Iraq.

We're twattling away in that country, just itching to invade Iran.

Meanwhile, we're losing our grip in the one country we had a reason to be in, Afghanistan. Seriously, how could this administration ever allow the Taliban to regain steam - and why isn't this nation camping on the lawn of Bush's Pennsylvania Avenue address, screaming for something to be done about it?

Why aren't the Democrats standing up to him?

What is going on with this country?

Sacrifice

Keeping the effort afloat, women knew a lot about sacrifice during WWII.

For the past few nights, I've been watching several parts of a great documentary on PBS simply entitled "The War." In it, people learn about a whole host of issues coming from the vantage point of citizens from one of four different US communities during World War Two, such as Mobile, Alabama and Sacramento, California. What's astoundingly clear is that everyone - man, woman and child - sacrificed everything to ensure victory. Why? Because it was a necessary war.

People were saving the fat from their bacon because it could be used to make munitions. They were baking birthday cakes with neither flour nor sugar. They were working in factories 24/7, pumping out more planes than people could fly (which is a lot, considering dozens were lost every day). Meanwhile, almost an entire generation of men and women put their lives at risk, all around the world, as nurses and soldiers, to protect the globe from a very real - and potent - threat. United States citizens did anything and everything they could to win because they knew, in their heart of hearts, that Germany had to be defeated. Back then, the Axis really was an Axis of Evil, even if politicians of FDR's stripe weren't as practiced in using falsified fear and hyperbole.

Meanwhile, our politicians today are so convinced Iraq is just that they're willing to sacrifice a lot - after all, just think how much larger those tax cuts for the rich could have been! Politicians are so proud of their troops, they encourage none of their own sons and daughters to become Army Strong. (FDR's eldest son served in one of the most elite and dangerous Pacific fighting forces. Reportedly, one of Bush's twins is engaged to be married.) Our elected leaders show their support for our men and women who risk their lives every day by wearing stickers on their cars and making sure they don't have enough proper body and Humvee armor. Because, really, wouldn't paying for all that be cheating or something?

Our cause is so necessary that there's no point in even trying to come to a diplomatic solution, or reaching out to the world for help. Nope, we own Iraq and we're even willing to make our children pay for it, quite literally. That's how much it's worth sacrificing for, because, really, who can expect people to go without cell phones that can toast bread and televisions so advanced that they really do take you out to the ball game? Some sacrifices are too much to bear.

Here's the most important lesson from "The War." Unless a country is willing to sacrifice everything, it ought to think twice about waging a war in the first place. Where are all the war supporters demanding to pay higher taxes to fund it, or demanding the draft be instituted so their sons and daughters can risk their lives, too? Can anyone imagine the people who fought World War Two being willing to sacrifice just the same for similar justifications that brought us to Baghdad? Maybe they really were the greatest generation, after all. At least they were a generation of people who were only willing to wage wars they felt were so necessary that they'd sacrifice everything to win - because they had to win, or else.

If/Then Statements

Anyone remember if/then statements from when you were a little tyke? Well, someone probably taught them to you at some point, like when you were first learning basic algebra. One of the neat things about if/then statements is that they have an official name - conditionals. It's a simple concept, which basically means that if something happens, then there's a subsequent cause or effect.

For example, if I woke up late today, then I didn't get a blog out nice and early for all your morning readers. Or, if the plant is dead, then no one watered it. Better yet, if Ryan lives in the North Shore, then he lives North of Boston. (Don't worry, no if p, then q... and I'll skip the conserve for later.)

Unfortunately, sometimes conditionals aren't really conditionals. For example, if President Bush is in contempt of congress, then he'd be impeached. Since we know that he'll almost certainly not be impeached, it's sadly not a conditional statement. Here's one, though: if we had Republicans in Congress who observed the same morals they preached, then they'd vote to impeach President Bush for being in contempt of Congress. Therefore, we know we don't have Republicans in Congress who observe the morals they preach, because they aren't going to vote to remove a law-breaking liar from office. (Oops, I promised not to get into the converse statements.) The only conditional we know as true regarding impeachment is this: If a Democrat got a blow job in the Oval Office, then he'd be impeached - because that's what Republicans really care about.

Flowery Reports From Iraq

Rarely do I ever watch the telly. Rarer still do I watch the 6 o'clock world news. However, in spending some time with my mother this after, I managed to catch be forced into watching Charles Gibson do today's recitation. Another Republican, he says, has turned coat on Bush. But don't worry, as George Stephanopasdfolis reported, he's not going to do anything as extreme as risk cutting the funding. Meanwhile, after that two minute report, I was barraged with a full segment on how shiny and happy the kids are in Iraq with their new boy scout camp. That's right, a four day boy scout camp in the Green Zone gets about as much play on ABC as the actual length of the camp. Things are looking up. Boy, that surge is really working. Some boys get to go to camp and everything!

The last time I had the 6 o'clock national news on, I was watching Katie Couric. She was telling everyone how great the surge was going too. Her propaganda piece (let's be honest, that's what these are) was about how tough and courageous our troops were, hunting in dangerous areas of Iraq for al Qaeda. Sure, Couric reported, we were giving them a few day's notice in our plot to route them out, but we didn't actually think they'd leave or anything. No mention, meanwhile, of the fact that there would be almost no al Qaeda in Iraq if we didn't invade the country in the first place.

President Bush, Dick Cheney and their pals like to complain about how the media never plays any of the positive stuff going on in Iraq. Well, the past two times I've watched the news, the positive was the bulk of their coverage. Meanwhile, we're quickly moving towards 4,000 dead Americans and god knows how many dead Iraqis - the number is so high, no one can seem to get a firm count. Despite the plethora of propaganda coming from the world's 53rd most free media, Americans are still turning against the Bush administration. Sometimes the people are ahead of the politicians in knowing what's right for the country; it's amazing that can still happen despite just how hard the major networks seem to be trying to keep us in our quagmire with this shoddy coverage.

On SCOTUS: What Now?

Brown v. the Board of Education isn't completely destroyed, but it's close to it. I don't see how programs that are completely race-based will survive, such as METCO. Segregation already exists throughout most of the country - heck, I don't think there was a single African American in my graduating class when I went to High School. I don't see how this country can get over things like racism if there isn't racial integration at a young age, just like it's impossible for many to get over homophobia without meeting someone who isn't heterosexual. It's in our interests for integration, but there's not much this country can do to protect it with the current President and Supreme Court. I guess we're going to have to be creative to use whatever wiggle room is left.

Remember All Those Harmless Signing Statements

Well, they clearly mattered. President Bush thinks he can sign law, then go on to make a little statement and proceed to ignore what he signed. It's one of the reasons why he's almost never vetoed anything (except stem cells and Iraq time tables, of course). Now, we have government agencies ignoring laws.

Federal officials have disobeyed at least six new laws that President Bush challenged in his signing statements, a government study disclosed yesterday. The report provides the first evidence that the government may have acted on claims by Bush that he can set aside laws under his executive powers.

So, what do we do about it?

Senator Kerry Iraq Forum: Leadership

If I could pick one theme from the Natick Town Meeting I attended yesterday, it would be Leadership - or a lack thereof. Senator Kerry laid out, in fairly clear terms, the need for Leadership in the:

• Executive Branch
• Legislative Branch
• Iraqi Government

However, we aren't getting that leadership today. President Bush has shown a complete unwillingness to do any of the steps necessary to ensure peace, a transition or a stable government in Iraq. Bush has run so rampant in that region, he "threatens the legitimacy of our country in almost every single regard," the Senator said.

Kerry wasn't there to mince words - and the people in attendance weren't there to hear anything except exactly what they wanted to hear: get out of Iraq, now. It's no joke, the people are frustrated. Some of those people took it out on the Senator, some of them were just Larouch types and were annoying for the sake of being annoying. However, that doesn't change the fact that the Senator gave a concrete, important exchange on exactly what needs to take place to change course in Iraq.

The verdict? Diplomacy, diplomacy, diplomacy. This country needs to start the dialogue between all the players in the region. Kerry said he's talked with all of those leaders and that a willingness exists, it's just that a certain President is too stubborn to try it out. That President was too stubborn to talk to Iran and to groups in Palestinian territory - and look how things have turned out because Bush's inaction.

Furthermore, until the day we go into those negotiations and set a time line for Iraq, the Iraqis are never going to be able to govern themselves. Right now, America is a "scape goat" for some of the factions in Iraq. I probably won't be able to put this as clearly as the Senator, but he made a very strong case: essentially, as long as we're there, we're providing cover for certain forces within Iraq to expect us to solve their problems for them... while they allow their militias to do whatever it is that they want them to do, instead of what needs to be done. If we left, the Senator explained, they'd start the job of actually Leading in Iraq.

Some of the frustration among the people there really came from what I think was anger toward the party for folding, not anything the Senator has done himself. One person, someone who was a "Veteran for Peace," attacked the Senator for standing up and saying the right things when he was younger... then running from them every day since. Kerry said he stands by all those statements today, as he did then, and made a strong defense: he's stood by a time line to get out of Iraq whether he had 5 people voting his way, 14, 48 or 51. Even when it wasn't conventional wisdom, he put his neck on the line and tried to do the right thing. He helped build that coalition to get to 51 - through his actions in the Senate as well as campaigning to get people like Jim Webb elected. He's right.

Obviously, like anyone, the Senator isn't perfect. Maybe during the Presidential election, he took the wrong direction on Iraq. He obviously regretted losing, because of how bad things have really turned out. At one point, when talking about a soldier's funeral he had recently attended, he was visibly upset. However, since losing, he's really been on the front lines arguing for sanity in that country: he, along with people like Senator Kennedy and Finegold, have been the ones pushing for a time line for years now.

So, I was a little taken aback when a few people in the crowd took his 'we need to leave the country in a responsible way' for meaning we need to keep troops in Iraq. The Senator was slightly ambiguous on that one point, but it had more to do with style than content. He should have just simply said, "We have more than 160,000 troops in Iraq. You can't just withdraw them at the snap of a finger, you need some kind of plan."

I'd imagine the people at this forum are just like the people attending these forums across the country, be they at Walnut Hill School or some random town in Kentucky with a population of 200. People want out of Iraq, Republicans and Democrats, and they want out soon - so soon that no words of "responsibility" or "negotiations" will coax them into slowing down.

What the Senator must do is find a way to target this anger into something useful: passion. Like Governor Patrick says, 'if you want something, come and get it.' The people want to leave Iraq - bad - and will work for it, if we have a leader. There are more than 40 Republican Senators who need to be convinced to leave Iraq and hundreds of millions of Americans who should be spearheading that effort. Senator Kerry has helped channel the efforts of an anti-war movement before, when he was a twenty something returning veteran. Now, a powerful Senator with a lifetime of experience, he needs to be that person again. No one is as positioned to be the leader in this country to get us out of Iraq, in a responsible way, than Senator Kerry. I call on him, as my Senator, to be that Leader once again.

John Kerry: Living in Bizarro Land

Having only finished the first paragraph of this non-stunner, I've come to a very sad conclusion. But first, the paragraph that prompted the thought.

Senator John F. Kerry voted for the Iraq war resolution in 2002 after weighing the political ramifications and being told by his future campaign manager that he would never be elected president in 2004 unless he sided with President Bush on the issue, according to a forthcoming book by Kerry's former strategist.

Only in Bizarro Land could John Kerry - an honored veteran, turned important operator of peace on his way home - become a pro-war candidate. How sad it is this dimension we call home is in fact Bizarro Land, where insane things that just don't make any sense happen every day.

And what a shame it is. John Kerry could have been the man to have ended this war two years ago - if he just stood up and spoke his mind when he had the chance. Instead, we've suffered two years under Mad Man "Mr. 28%" Bush - with another two years yet to come.

If Kerry had just stood on his principals during the presidential election, hundreds of soldiers would be saved and the billions we've poured into Iraq could have been used on something productive - like health care for every child in this country.

Yet, here we are today - in the middle of another Presidential campaign. The leading candidate, Senator Clinton, is a war hawk. She wants to get us out of Iraq about as badly as Senator Joe Lieberman claimed during his last election - which is to say, she'll pay it lip service, but behind the scenes will vehemently oppose it. The candidate with the second largest chance, Senator Obama, isn't much better.

Democrats will do well to learn from Mr. Shrum, Kerry's former strategist and pretty much the worst thing to ever happen to democrats ever. If he thinks it's a good idea, run away - far away - from whatever that position is. People want out of Iraq - and they want it now. No more of this center-right bullshit; the rise of the progressive movement has long since arrived.

OMG: Bush Threatens to Veto Anti Discrimination Bill

Even I didn't think he'd go that far. It's amazing that this man can still shock me.

Please, Democrats, pass this bill. Make Bush and the Republicans veto and uphold that veto - just to show the country how out-of-touch, meanspirited and fucking evil those asses are. How could anyone - other than the most utterly homophobic dickheads - support the right of businesses to fire people merely for being gay? That's the kind of basic legislation we're talking about here.

And before anyone comes and says something stupid like "a crime is a crime is a crime," don't forget that Republicans had no problem protecting people of faith from hate crimes. And don't forget that under current federal law, businesses can fire people merely for being gay - unless their states have come to the rescue (which is only about half the country, sadly).

This is exactly the kind of utter hatred many glbt people have to deal with on a daily basis. Do we really want this kind of putrid nonsense aired during a ballot initiative? The same people pushing Bush and the Republicans to stop something as simple and basic as an anti-discrimination bill that protects gay people are going to be the ones pushing the efforts to repeal marriage rights in Massachusetts. Take this lesson as motivation to crush the Vote on Marriage peeps in this ConCon season.