Personal Reaction to Obama's Speech

1) Obama did seem to go out of his way to shred Paul Ryan's tax-cut, social-service-cut budget proposal for 2012.  Which in my mind was the right thing to do.  Ryan's budget is not brave: it panders HARD to the Far Right's need to destroy Medicare and Medicaid, and it attempts to add even MORE tax breaks to corporations already swimming in massive profit margins (just how much a burden are the taxes on them anymore?).

2) Obama still played the game being played in the Beltway (and owned by the Far Right): the idea that cutting the deficit is paramount, and not the need to focus on job creation (which could add to the deficits in the short term, but should reduce said deficits in the long term).  So as a result, the possibility of more austerity measures (which ARE NOT WORKING in the European countries already playing this game) are there.

What the hell happened to discredit Keynesian economic policies at this time?  There's no way the Austrian or Chicago schools of thought should remain this dominant, and you'd think after the massive catastrophes of the 2000s that the libertarians would be even more discredited than Keynesians.

3) I was not at all surprised that the Republicans and their media enablers and brown-nosers dismissed Obama's speech, or accused him of making "personal attacks" (which in Ryan's case could be truth).  Outside of admitting he was born on Krypton and then resigning the Presidency to return to complete his Jedi training on Dagobah with Master Yoda, there is nothing Obama can do to convince the teabagger Far Right wingnuts (I know, redundancies) of anything.

4) The speech reads well, and Obama did a decent job presenting it.  Most important, Obama seems to be drawing a line in the sand here: that he will not accept any further extensions of the Bush tax cuts for the extremely wealthy (the top two percent, the ones earning millions of dollars), for example.  For the most part, this is Obama's opening salvo for his re-election campaign.  But it's also a promise he made on camera and one he's going to have to stick to for the far left base - and the Democratic Party in general - to hang their hat on.  It's kind of his Bush the Elder "Read My Lips" moment: if he fails to live up to the promise, if the Republican House gets him to back down again on what Obama promised this week, then Obama's support (which is decent but not overwhelming) fades.

And there's already two major battles just this year alone: the debt ceiling vote due in May/June and the Paul Ryan budget showdown.  The budget issue is the easier of the two: The Democratic-led Senate is in decent position to insist on stopping the more harsh elements of the Ryan plan from passing the whole Congress.  But the debt ceiling vote is different altogether: it can fail in the House if enough Republicans (and even some psycho Democrats) vote against raising the ceiling, and the whole system collapses.  There's more at stake with the debt ceiling, more possibility that the House GOP will hold it hostage to negotiate for everything they want (including pony rides at the circus!).  And even though Obama is calling on Democrats to insist on a "Clean" bill for the debt ceiling (meaning no deals with Republicans who will try to add their pet projects to it), this is too scary a situation to be playing chicken with the global economy.

The trick is making damn sure the Republicans swerve first.  It's doable, especially since the latest vote on the overdue 2011 budget still couldn't pass with enough Republican votes (meaning Boehner is facing a sizable faction revolt... the same faction that's eager to vote against that debt ceiling...)

Obama's given his speech.  He's made a good number of promises.  But now he's got to live up to them...

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Things I Want To Hear From Obama During This Afternoon's Speech

I originally posted this at Ta-Nehisi's house.  Hope he doesn't mind.

"If we want to be serious about reducing the deficits and reducing our debt, we NEED to look at how our government gets its revenues."

"We need to raise the taxes on those who can afford it: the millionaires and billionaires who still profited during these last three years of hardship while the middle class struggled to stay out of poverty. Not to raise such taxes as a putative measure, but to ensure that every American is paying their fair share into fixing our financial problems."

"We need to begin closing tax loopholes for corporations. Especially any tax loophole that benefits too few companies at the expense of the nation. And especially any loophole that does not hamper or prevent corporations from generating honest profit."

"Also, you all should really buy a copy of Paul Wartenberg's ebook. He needs the moneys. And some of the stories in that collection are pretty funny. Word."

"Also, I strongly suggest that every American hugs a puppy or kitten today. If you're allergic, perhaps a Pokemon action figure."

"One last thing. I wasn't born in Hawaii. I was born on the planet Krypton, sent here by my true father Marlon Brando to... wait, I already did this joke, didn't I?"

To dream the impossible dream...

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From Balloon Juice, All You Need To Know About Our Corporate Overlords

This is from a comment posted on a thread at Balloon Juice.  The bold text was my addition:

The last election cycle demonstrated that even if you allow Wall Street and the corporations dictate a large portion of the policy, they will still fund campaigns to destroy you because they don’t want their share or ten times their share, they want it all, all the time.They are never going to stop going after social security. They want every single dollar of the education budgets. They do not want to pay any taxes for anything. They do not want any regulation that ties their hands with respect to their workers, the environment, or any other external costs imposed upon the public by their business activities. Oh yeah, and if they screw up and take the economy down, they want the government to bail them out.

I concur.

Until the Greedheads responsible for all the disasters we've suffered over the last three eight thirty years are held accountable and shipped to jail... until all the goddamn Supply-siders get sued for Fraud and selling snake oil to the nation... we are well and truly fucked as a country.

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When Conservatives Attack: Their Amendment Ideas and How They Can Destroy America

One of the advantages of writing a barely-read blog is I get to go all out and toss some crazy amendment ideas into the global blogging forum: Hey, here' an idea for an Amendment, No More Lying!  Let's pass an amendment stating the President Is NOT Above The Law!  Wheeee, so much fun to be had.

But then the "professional" political hacks decide to get into the Crazy Amendment Idea arena, and it doesn't seem so fun anymore.

The media is all atwitter at the moment about Sarah Palin eye-rolling at a teacher, sorry, the media is all atwitter at the moment about Robert Gibbs dissing tree-hugging hippie leftists, whoops, the media is all atwitter about more of the Republican Party leadership coming out in favor of amending or outright repealing the 14th Amendment of the United States.

In particular, the Far Right wing of the GOP wants to get rid of the definition of citizenship.  Their public reason for doing so?  Getting rid of "anchor babies," the children that are born in our borders to pregnant illegal immigrants who then get to stay in order to raise said anchor babies as a means of circumventing the legalization process.  (Even though there is little evidence that "anchor babies" work as a tactic for illegals, and there's little evidence of a health care crisis because of it.) The right wingnuts got to this solution as yet another step in their ongoing war against Illegals in the United States, a complex and anger-fueled debate that has gone a long way toward driving Hispanic voters (the ones most directly affected by the anti-Immigrant outrage) into the arms of the Democratic Party.

There are a ton of problems with the current wingnut thinking on doing away with the Citizenship provisions of the 14th.  First: amending anything in the Constitution is a huge, mind-boggling and near-impossible attempt.  It takes two-thirds votes in both Houses of Congress and then two-thirds of all states (current 38 states) to amend (the other process - using national conventions - is so fraught with peril that it's only been used once to pass the 21st Amendment to repeal Prohibition and overturn the 18th Amendment).  In some respects, it's rather harmless to have the Far Right latch onto the amendment process as a means of winning their argument as it's next to impossible to achieve: what it DOES do, however, is build up the frustration of the Far Right to where they can and will lash out in other ways...

The second problem?  If they actually do make a serious attempt at removing the Citizenship Clause...

See, one of the ongoing issues with the crazed Far Right Wingnut crowd is how... emphatic they are about going after those they oppose.  Anyone who makes the Republican Party looks bad gets personally demolished by the next FOX Not-News cycle.  Anyone questioning the efforts of Republicans to lower taxes for the super-rich and deregulate every industry to the point that nothing will be safe or reliable will get demonized as SOCIALIST ZOMG.  And above all, the best way they can dismiss, ignore or invalidate anyone that wants to debate them?  All they have to do is point a finger and accuse their opponents of being "Un-American."

What could happen then in a world where Citizenship is not an automatic given based on birth but instead vulnerable to the whims and interests of whichever political party is in charge of Congress, the White House, and the Courts?  Nowadays the Republicans can call you "Un-American" and that would be just another insult.  If the 14th Amendment were gone... A Republican With Authority can call you "Un-American" and mean it... which would also mean no rights under the law, no protection from immediate arrest, no Habeus, no home, no life...  This is the true danger of what the Republicans are proposing to do by getting rid of the 14th Amendment.  They claim it'll be to get rid of unwanted Illegals... but also consider that the Republicans have no love of Muslims right now, and not much love for Blacks, and very little love for Liberals... and so on, and more, and also...  Repeal the 14th Amendment and NO ONE would be safe from the charge of being "Un-American."

Like I mentioned earlier, there's actual little threat to what the Republicans are trying to do against the 14th Amendment: the rules are stacked too well against any amending purge.  And even if they do get far enough to make even a half-hearted attempt?  The reaction from EVERY conceivable minority group - Blacks, Hispanics (especially the legals, the ones born here even five or six generations worth of family ties to this country would be threatened by this), Chinese and Japanese and other Asians, Indians and Pakistanis and Afghans and Egyptians and Algerians and Muslims, even Jews and Catholics and Hindus and Buddhists - will rise up to stop it (Native American tribes are protected under other laws, but even they could be affected by this).  And that's not even including the Euro-descended Caucasian Moderates and Liberals who will rise up as they too could get purged from the citizenship rolls just for the way they vote and think.  The only real scary thought is that the Republicans in power now are willing to even consider this...

After nearly a week of the crazy talk over getting rid of the 14th, saner heads are getting their say on the matter, most eloquently done via this Washington Monthly article:

Several former Bush administration officials, who, for all of their faults, weren't necessarily wrong about immigration policy, believe their party is making a big mistake.

[I]n recent days, former aides to both Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush, who pushed for comprehensive immigration reform, have condemned the calls by top Republicans to end birthright citizenship.
Cesar Conda, who served as domestic policy adviser to Cheney, has called such proposals "offensive." Mark McKinnon, who served as media adviser in Bush's two presidential campaigns, said Republicans risk losing their "rightful claim" to the 14th Amendment if they continue to "demagogue" the issue.
"The 14th Amendment is a great legacy of the Republican party. It is a shame and an embarrassment that the GOP now wants to amend it for starkly political reasons," McKinnon told POLITICO. "Initially Republicans rallied around the amendment to welcome more citizens to this country. Now it is being used to drive people away."

Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson, Bush's former chief speechwriter, added on ABC over the weekend, "That is the wisdom of the authors of the 14th Amendment: They essentially wanted to take this very difficult issue -- citizenship -- outside of the political realm. They wanted to take an objective standard, birth, instead of a subjective standard, which is the majorities at the time. I think that's a much better way to deal with an issue like this."

And that, sad to say, is coming from former Republicans leaders who have little in the way of directly affecting internal and external party dynamics.  But here lies the real serious problem: The current Republican leadership - made up by the likes of Palin, Gingrich, the House and Senate leaderships, primary challengers across the nation- is crazy.  And their interpretation of what the Constitution should read has been ill-informed, poorly thought out, and doomed with unintended consequences that would make things worse.

The 14th Amendment isn't the only part of the Constitution under attack by the Republicans.  They've been after the 17th Amendment - the direct election of US Senators - as well.  The wingnuts, obsessed with the idea of States' Rights, got it into their collective head that repealing the 17th Amendment will give more power back to the states.  Biggest problem with that?  It completely takes away a right now given to the individual voters themselves, which violates the Far Right's tenet of "giving the people more freedoms".  Which pretty much highlights how little the Far Right truly values an individual's rights.  The next biggest problem is that there's a very good reason the 17th Amendment passed: by the turn of the 20th Century the state legislatures in charge of placing Senators had become so corrupted by the practice that charges of bribery were rife, and some states got bogged down in the selection process to where one or BOTH Senate seats were vacant for years at a time (Delaware had NO sitting Senators between 1903 to 1905).  The Far Right's belief that repealing the 17th Amendment is a good idea merely demonstrates their ignorance of American political history, and their disdain for the rights of voters...  (oh, and one other thing the Far Right Republicans might want to consider: Democrats currently control 28 state legislatures outright compared to 8 Republican-held.  And more states are leaning Democratic day by day.  Letting the Democratically-controlled states to choose their Senators could well give the Democrats a 68-seat majority.  Say good-bye to the filibuster and cloture tricks.  NOW do you think that's a good idea...?)

And that's not all.  After 8 years of ignoring the matter during the Bush Spend-For-All Tenure, the Republican Party is trotting out their old warhorse issue of The Balanced Budget Amendment!  ...which begs the question why didn't they push this Amendment idea more back in oh 2000 or 2003 or 2004 or 2006 when they had the chance, but noooooo guess we can't ask them that.

The problems with supporting a Balanced Budget?  None, if you're serious about it, and the Republicans ARE NOT.  Their Budget Amendment idea would require a two-third super-majority in both House and Senate to raise taxes without a similar requirement for lowering taxes.  Thing is, we've got a perfect example of that in California: and any sane observer of the budgeting mess that state has gone through the last 30 years will tell you that transplanting that to the FEDERAL level is a swell idea!  /sarcasm off

There are more sensible methods of balancing budgets, but they include raising taxes at some point to you know ACTUALLY PAY FOR THINGS.  By knee-capping the ability of Congress to adjust the tax rates (going up as well as going down!) all this Balanced Budget amendment would do is kill whatever is left of FDR's New Deal: the forcible cutting back or eliminating basically every social safety net and government oversight our nation NEEDED TO CREATE to compensate for the damage that GREED and corporate incompetence caused from the 1870s to the Great Depression.

These are the Amendments that the Far Right Wingnuts want to pass:

• Eliminate the Citizenship Clause of the 14th Amendment (and get rid of everybody the wingnuts don't like)
• Eliminate the Voters' right to directly elect their US Senators (and have the state legislatures become even more corrupt than they are now)
• Eliminate the Federal Government's ability to raise taxes when there is no other way to maintain funding for things like oh the military, health care, social services, commerce and transportation, state funding for state-level services like roads, schools and child care (and basically end the United States as we know it)

And people want to vote these Republican psychopaths back into power?

(Slight Edit for grammar)

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