An Actual Derangement

With Newt Gingrich winning the South Carolina primaries yesterday, the path to the GOP nomination has become quite muddied. It looks like this one is going to go on for awhile and Mitt's inevitability is now seriously in question.

As I watched former Speaker Gingrich's acceptance speech, I chuckled. The right always seems to have a great propensity for characterizing their opponents weaknesses in such a way that they end up explaining their insanity much more clearly. Remember when Charles Krauthammer coined the phrase "Bush Derangement Syndrome?" Well, I think the right (as clearly seen last night in the form of Ginrgrich and his supporters) have some taken their warped perception of this Bush "derangement" and actually achieved more perfectly what Krauthammer was describing but with President Obama instead. Here is Newt's victory speech  in its entirety.


At about 12 minutes in, Newt starts talking about President Obama. He says that the "centerpiece of this campaign is about American exceptionalism versus the radicalism of Saul Alinksy?"

Uh...huh?

Who beyond right wing bloggers know what he is talking about? I suppose the Tea Party folks do as Saul Alinksy was required reading, not for "researching the enemy" but for their own organizational purposes.

"Radical left wingers and people that don't like the classical America?" What Obama is he talking about? The one who said this when he accepted his Nobel Peace prize?

The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. The service and sacrifice of our men and women in uniform has promoted peace and prosperity from Germany to Korea, and enabled democracy to take hold in places like the Balkans. We have borne this burden not because we seek to impose our will. We have done so out of enlightened self-interest -- because we seek a better future for our children and grandchildren, and we believe that their lives will be better if others' children and grandchildren can live in freedom and prosperity.

And has backed it up with actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Libya? I don't know who this Obama is that he is talking about.

"Food stamp president?" Is that the one added 2.3 million private sector jobs and has reduced public sector employment by 600,000 jobs? The one who averted another Depression after the mess Bush and the GOP left us in back in 2008? Again, I don't know who this Obama is that he is talking about.

"An american president who can create a Chinese-Canadian partnership is truly a danger to this country" This is so unbelievably ridiculous that I'm at a loss for words.

"President Obama is a president so weak that he makes Jimmy Carter look strong." Let's see...bin Laden=dead. Al Alawki=dead. Hundreds of sorties by drones in Pakistan. Gaddafi=dead. Al Qaeda significantly damaged with ongoing US attacks. And a back channel warning from the president to the Supreme Leader of Iran which was repeated later in public. “We made very clear that the United States will not tolerate the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz,” Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said. “That’s another red line for us and … we will respond to them.” Again, I don't know who this Obama is that he is talking about.

It's obvious that Newt and much of the right have created a fictional Obama...one that is all these things...because they can't run against the real one.  It's much more appropriate to characterize their's as derangement when you compare their fictional creation with the anger and frustration that formed over the very clear incompetence from the Bush Administration which ended up costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars of debt, it's not even a fucking contest.

He's Got Soul

This is so ridiculously wonderful I barely have the words.

Impressive!

Just in time for the presidential election this year, some fine folks have created a site devoted exclusively to the president's achievements since taking office.  This is a fairly impressive list that offers links after each one to explore the accomplishment further.

The Economy section is replete with items and one in particular caught my eye. This link is an excellent summary of how the president's policies have helped the economy. Some of the charts and graphs may look familiar as I have put them up in various posts here and there but this organizes them all in one central location. We can clearly see the GDP growth, private sector job gains, public sector job loss (good for you libertarian folks who want to shrink the size of government:)) and just how large of a hole we were in.

The last point is very important because there are many out there who continually harp on how the stimulus didn't work. It's goal wasn't to magically turn us back to the prosperity of the 1990s. Given the depth of the problem, which certainly required a greater period of analysis than just a few months, its goal was to prevent another Great Depression. It did that. Pay close attention to Part III of the report as it shows the estimates of what would've happened had there been no recovery act.

From now until Election Day, I will be referring to this site frequently as we explore why and how the president has done a good job and should be re-elected.

Verbatim!

Tracking the President

Gallup Tracking has a very cool app that I have been using for the past few months. I highly recommend picking it up for your smart phone if you are interested in seeing the latest polls. Of course, I have been following the president's numbers very closely and for a while there, it was pretty much the same. He'd get up to 44 or 45 percent and then drop back down to 41 or 42.

But then a few weeks ago, he shot up to 47 and his disapproval went down to 45. At first  I thought it was an aberration because it dropped again and toggled between 42 and 44. But then he shot back up and has now been toggling between 45 and 47 approval with his disapproval falling at the same time. In other words, he's been trending higher for the past couple of weeks and it seems to be sticking.

These are the same numbers that Rasmussen has had him at for the last several months but, even though they have been more positive for the president in comparison to Gallup, I still don't trust their polling because of how they do their sampling. So, I think it's a safe bet to say that 45 percent of this country approves of the job the president is doing. Not all that impressive but not as bad as it was a couple of months ago.

And it's important to note that are probably 2-4 percent of the "disapprove" folks that are teed off because he isn't liberal enough which means they are still going to vote for him. That puts him the upper 40s and from there it's all going to come down to the independents and who the choice is for the GOP. As I have said before, if it's "Not Romney," then the president wins by a large margin. If it is Romney, it's going to depend on less than a dozen key states.

Will He Win?

As we look ahead to this election year, one of the first questions that arises is will the president win re-election?  More importantly, do his accomplishments demonstrate that he deserves to win re-election? On this latter question, I say yes and this list (along with some other things I will be talking about over the next year) is why he has been a good president and should be elected to a second term.

I'll be talking about some of those 159 achievements over the course of the year and why they are significant but let's take a look at that first question: will he win? At this point, I really don't know.

I'd like to be optimistic and say that he will win considering the clown show that is currently going on with the GOP primaries. But I'm not sure I have that much faith in American's ability to overcome their fear and apathy, the two things that are currently working against the president. Of course, it certainly depends on the GOP nominee. For me, this simply comes down to Romney and not Romney.

First, let's take a look at the 2012 Electoral Map The interactive function allows you to click on the states and assign the votes to either party. Now imagine that any candidate besides Romney is the nominee. By my calculations, Obama wins 232 and Not Romney wins 184, leaving Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin,  Ohio, Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida as tossups. Likely a few of these will go Obama but I'm being conservative here. In looking at these numbers, all the president needs is 38 votes and he has it. This could come from winning the western states, Iowa and Wisconsin. Or the last two and Virginia and North Carolina while losing all the western states as well as Florida and Ohio. Obviously, he will not lose this many states so if it is Not Romney, the president wins handily.

But if the nominee is Romney, the map gets tougher for the president. Now, he has 196 and Romney has 195 with the Mittster taking Arizona out of tossup and winning it as well as putting Pennsylvania and Michigan into the tossup column. So, we're looking at 11 states that are going to be tighter than a frog's ass and where, I believe, the election is going to be won or lost. At this point in time, either candidate could win any of these states. Of course, I'm not taking into consideration conservative distrust/apathy towards Mitt Romney which will likely affect voter turnout in some of these states. But I am confident that the completely irrational hatred that people have towards the president will drive them to the polls.

Reset the map and tell me what you think. How will this all play out?

Racist?

Recently I had this link sent to me (from one of Kevin Baker's followers) which contained the following quote.

I know that Obummer is taking yet another multi-million dollar vacation with First Wookie to Hawaii on the tax-payer tab.

Is referring to the First Lady as a hairy, giant ape-like creature racist? Again, just checking my gauge to make sure I'm not race baiting.

Also Too Far?

Apparently, there's a Tea Party guy out in California named Jules Manson who has made quiet a stir on Facebook recently. On his page, he posted his displeasure with the president's signing of the Defense Authorization Bill (he's a Ron Paul supporter) and in a later comment he wrote

“Assassinate the fucking nigger and his monkey children”

Here's the image below that has since been removed.

I guess what I'm wondering is am I playing the race card for calling him out in this? Just wonderin'....

Mea Culpa

Check this out.

The application was short, the premiums are affordable, and I have found the people who work in the administration office to be quite compassionate (nothing like the people I have dealt with over the years at other insurance companies.) It's not perfect, of course, and it still leaves many people in need out in the cold. But it's a start, and for me it's been a lifesaver — perhaps literally.

So this is my public apology. I'm sorry I didn't do enough of my own research to find out what promises the president has made good on. I'm sorry I didn't realize that he really has stood up for me and my family, and for so many others like us. I'm getting a new bumper sticker to cover the one that says "Got nope." It will say "ObamaCares."

I wonder how many more of these stories we are going to here over the next few months and years.

The Choice

The way I see it, conservatives have a choice right now and its pretty clear. President Obama has now presented his jobs plan and his plan to reduce the deficit. Both plans contain items that the GOP has said are needed and will help the economy. The question is...do they pass them? Even just the parts that they support?

Because if they do and the economy improves, the president will do better in next year's election. If the economy gets better, the president will probably win. According to Mitch McConnell, their number one goal is to "make Barack Obama a one term president." I don't think you can both help the economy and make the president a one-termer.

So, I'm putting the question to all my conservative commenters: what would you do? Help the economy by passing even the parts of the plans that you support OR do nothing which will be better for your election chances next year? What matters more to you?

Liberal commenters: please feel free to prognosticate if you so desire.

Three For Thursday (2)

Many of the Obama supporters I know are very worried about the president's low approval numbers of late (the low 40s). I'm concerned as well but when you consider that the question is "do you approve or disapprove of the way the president is handling his job?" there are clearly many liberals who don't approve.

Take one of my FB friends, Tim, for example. Here is his latest status update.

Barack Obama is a great Republican president ...for me to poop on.

Tim thinks that the president is a corporate shill just like Bush. He would be one of those who does not approve of the president.

The other reason Obama supporters shouldn't be as nervous about the poll numbers is this article I have been saving since last March.

The 2010 Census revealed that in the past decade the adult Latino population has nearly doubled in Nevada, Virginia, and North Carolina. Also, it's increased by 60 percent or more in two Midwestern battleground states, Indiana and Ohio.

Obama won all five of those states in 2008 — two of them by very narrow margins — and they are likely to be decisive in next year’s balloting.

National exit poll surveys in 2008 indicated that Obama won about two out of three Latino voters.Based on 2008 exit poll data, if Latino voters were subtracted from the total, Obama would have lost two of the states that he won: New Mexico and Indiana.

Since it's clear that the GOP is doing pretty much everything it can to alienate Latino voters, the president is going to benefit greatly from this demographic.

Three For Thursday (3)

Yesterday was a classic example of the 8 year old boy temper tantrum bullies on the right. President Obama's office contacted Speaker Boehner's office to let them know that the president wanted to address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday. Rather than say no publicly, before the official letter was sent, they said nothing. Obama's staff wrongfully assumed that this meant the night was OK.

But Boehner's staff was waiting for the opportunity to "prove" that they are the cocks of the walk by standing up, saying no, and putting on a show for their base. They got this opportunity when the president's office sent the formal letter. Boehner and his staff knew that the GOP debate was scheduled that night. They also knew they had an out with next Wednesday being the first day Congress is back in session for the fall. So, they issued their imperial NO and looked all that, marking the first time in our nation's history that a president has been told no to address Congress. It was "You lie!" on steroids.

President Obama, being the adult of the two, switched to Thursday and has now turned his attention to the actual reason he is going there: jobs and the larger issue of improving the economy. This whole episode is indicative of how GOP extremism is eroding our ability to get anything done. Of course, that's what they want (him to fail) so it shouldn't be surprising that they did what they did. What is surprising to me is that the president continues to operate under the assumption that he is dealing with adults.

He's not.

Another Significant Blow

As the tenth anniversary of the September 11th attacks approaches, I am very heartened to see that the people who attacked us on that day are being taken apart. One of the main reasons why I voted for Barack Obama was his promise to focus more heavily on AfPak (where Al Qaeda actually is) and alter the strategy for dismantling their operational capabilities. His policies have been tremendously effective and much more successful than his predecessor.

Osama bin Laden is dead and the data we seized from his compound that day has led us to strike another crippling blow to Al Qaeda. Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, Al Qaeda's #2, was killed in a recent missile strike in Waziritstan along with four other Al Qaeda members. From the article.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last month that al-Qaida's defeat was within reach if the U.S. could mount a string of successful attacks."Now is the moment, following what happened with bin Laden, to put maximum pressure on them," Panetta said, "because I do believe that if we continue this effort we can really cripple al-Qaida as a major threat."

Al Qaeda's defeat within reach? Amazing. There can be no denying that the Obama administration deserves the credit for this and I think that we may very well see Zawahari taken out by next year as well.

Once again, well done!

The Highly Skilled International Player

As I write this, the 40 year rule of Libya by Muammar Gaddafi is coming to a close. Once brutal and now psychotic, Gaddafi is the latest (and probably not the last) in a line of Arab dictators that have fallen from power. The fire of democracy is spreading in the Arab World and, at this point, there is nothing that can stop it.

Combined with the successful mission to take out Osama bin Laden, the president has clearly shown that he is very adept at foreign policy. His initial Libyan policy, criticized at the start by the usual collection of naysayers, has worked. One of the key elements that led the Libyan rebels to victory was direct assistance from US intelligence that led to pinpoint strikes against Gaddahi's forces.

The president has, once again, fully proven himself to be a highly skilled international player. The "Obamateur" narrative is now seen for all it was ever worth: a pile of shit.

Loving the Government

Michele Bachmann recently won the Iowa Straw poll so it's only fitting that we take a day to shine the spotlight on her and see if lives up to her tough words. Does she really mean it when she says that President Obama is engaging in "fantasy economics" and that, if elected, she would abolish the EPA? Is the federal government the anathema that she says it is? A closer examination of the available evidence gives us the answer.

Let's start off by pointing out that Ms. Bachmann has personally relied on federally subsidized home loans. In addition, her husband Marcus's clinic relies on Medicaid payments.  Straight away, we can see that the federal government isn't really all that bad.

Further, we see that she has sent several letters to Secretary Vilsack and Secretary LaHood requesting stimulus money for her district. You remember the stimulus aka the root of all evil? Here is a copy of one of those letters, asking for money for the Northstar commuter line. Hey, I guess there is a GOPer that likes choo choos...sweet!

In a private letter to Mr. Vilsack, she wrote, "Your efforts to stabilize prices through direct government purchasing of pork and dairy products are very much welcomed by the producers in Minnesota, and I would encourage you to take any additional steps necessary to prevent further deterioration of these critical industries, such as making additional commodity purchases and working to expand trade outlets for these and other agricultural goods."

Wow. Really? The government can make market's more efficient? Yes. Yes they can...especially if there is a crisis as there was with pork and H1N1 that year.

So, the government can and does help out in a wide variety situations. As President Obama said yesterday when he was visiting my home state:

Don't buy into this whole notion that somehow government doesn't do us any good; government is what protects us. The government is what built the Interstate Highway System. Government is what sent a man to the Moon. It's what invested in the research and development that created innovations all across this country.

He Is Not Hu Jintao

As the world watched the Dow plunge over 600 points today, most of the blame has centered on President Obama. This blame is coming from all sides of the political spectrum and, in particular, the left, who think that he needs to lead more strongly. The right is currently skipping with glee as their central mission (Obama must fail), in their eyes, is working. Neither of these perceptions are accurate reflect reality, of course.

To a certain degree, some people will always blame the president. Those that don't like him anyway didn't give him credit when the Dow surged over the time of his presidency so why would they now? It's ridiculously predictable that they will now blame him when it falls. He loses with these folks no matter what he does. The people that do like him seemingly want him to lead in a king like fashion and begin executing jobs plans as well as ordering a single branch overhaul of the economy.

Someone needs to throw some cold water on these folks and make them realize that the president is not Hu Jintao. People from the left and the right complain that he doesn't "have a plan." It's not his fucking job to have a plan. That's the job of Congress. The people on the right are doing it because it helps them in their mission to see him fail. The people on the left are doing it because they want more government control over our country. Again, neither can happen. Again, Barack Obama is not Hu Jintao.

We don't live in a centrally planned economy, folks. Oddly, both sides think we do.

This might be a good time to decimate the lie that has been floating around the right wing blogsphere that President Obama hasn't delivered a budget for the last two years. He has and the evidence for it is right here. Let me repeat this again for those that have trouble hearing. President Obama has delivered a budget every fiscal year since he has been in office. 

The problem with the budget is the same problem with our economy and it's a big reason why the stock market is falling off a cliff right now: Congress. In 2010, Congress failed to adopt a budget resolution because of political cowardice. That's on the Democrats. in 2011, Congress failed to adopt a budget resolution for 2012 because of the true believers running the House presently. That's on the Republicans.

So, Congress is a big part of the fucking problem, folks and, by extension, that means us. We all love our Representative but hate everyone else. Current approval ratings of Congress are in the teens but nothing will change. We can't vote for other districts. We can only work within our own which means Tip O'Neill was right: All politics are local. Until we stop loving our guy no matter what (AKA completely lacking in motivation to change), we should expect the same results.

Honestly, though, much of our economy is beyond the control of the government so Congress isn't the only reason why we are at fault. It is a free market, after all. A big part of our economy (nearly two thirds) is consumer confidence and that's very low at present. Yet we still can't offer this as a substantive reason for why things are all balls right now. So why do we blame the government?

Because we're lazy and we worship rich people. Nothing is ever our fault so why should we have to work to fix things? And being critical of the wealthy these days is tantamount to asking a black guy why he likes to hang out on the porch all day eating fried chicken and watermelon.Most of us lack the ability to seriously reflect on what has to be done to fix the problems we have. Blaming the president and, to a certain degree, blaming Congress for the Dow dropping over 600 points makes no sense when you consider these things, Essentially, we have become Frito Pendejo from the film Idiocracy.

Go away...'batin'...

About Time

Most of the time, I get nauseated when the left bitches about President Obama. They really have no fucking clue what kind of country we live in today. For the most part, this is especially true when they whine about the president not being tough enough.

But today, I have to say, I was very happy to see the president call the right on their bullshit during his press conference today. The position the right has taken on taxes is so ludicrous that it's embarrassing given reality. Thankfully, most Americans are not with them.

Politifact has an iPhone app, b to the w, which is pretty mega and only $1.99.

And check out this poll.

26 percent blame President Bush, 25 percent blame Wall Street, 11 percent blame Congress and just 8 percent blame President Obama. In all honesty, this poll is just about the right distribution for blame. The other 30 percent could probably be a variety of other sources including the American people themselves.

All of this tells me that the doom and gloom about the president and the Democrats losing in 2012 is terribly short sighted. Most Americans aren't buying the narrative that the GOP and other parts of the right are peddling. It doesn't add up. They simply don't have any solutions for our problems and it's very clear that their past efforts have completely failed.

All they really have left is the media which they fake scorn every chance they get. Without them, I doubt anyone would pay attention to what anyone says on the right. They'd have their own little world where they could blow bowels about fake problems and the rest of us can get on with actually making this country a better place.

Random Economic Thoughts For Friday

Economic bad news from a number of quarters today starting with the unemployment number going up to 9.1 percent. As expected, President Obama is getting all the blame for it. GOP front runner Mitt Romney says that the president is destroying our country and "we are only inches away from ceasing to be a free market economy." Here's why that is a load of shit. 

What I find amusing about all of this is these same people that are doing the blaming seem to forget that if he did more than he is doing then we would be slipping into a more centrally planned economy. There's not anything he can do about high gas prices or the tsunami in Japan, the two main reasons the job market is so weak, so why put the blame on him?

Simply put, people aren't spending money. Whether it's individuals or governments, no one is spending which means businesses aren't making money which means they aren't hiring. Public sector job losses are seeing the biggest hit with 28,000 job losses last month, the most since November of 2010. 18,000 of those jobs are in education.

The only good news out of all of this is that most economists think these are temporary setbacks. And I tend to look at reports like this with a grain of salt. These days, economic reports have the emotional balance of a 14 year old girl. One day, everything is amazing. The next, all is lost and we are drowning in a boiling pit of sewage.

Through all of this, we have the debt ceiling dithering. At this point, anything coming out of the mouths of the GOP is silly when you consider these 10 points.

1. Republican Leaders Agree U.S. Default Would Be a "Financial Disaster"
2. Ronald Reagan Tripled the National Debt
3. George W. Bush Doubled the National Debt
4. Republicans Voted Seven Times to Raise Debt Ceiling for President Bush
5. Federal Taxes Are Now at a 60 Year Low
6. Bush Tax Cuts Didn't Pay for Themselves or Spur "Job Creators"
7. Ryan Budget Delivers Another Tax Cut Windfall for Wealthy
8. Ryan Budget Will Require Raising Debt Ceiling - Repeatedly
9. Tax Cuts Drive the Next Decade of Debt
10. $3 Trillion Tab for Unfunded Wars Remains Unpaid

What about #5? Taxes are low and people still aren't spending their money. So the argument that taxes need to be cut more makes no sense. Corporate Taxes, as I demonstrated the other day, are in the negative in some cases. Yet they are still holding on to their cash. Why? Because of the evil gubmint? That makes no sense either. They have everything they want and no taxes.

Honestly, I'm not sure I have the answer. Part of it does have to do with the plutonomy we created but are people really that stupid to hoard cash when they know it will ultimately bring down the system they need to remain wealthy?

None of this makes any sense.

The Big Lie Crumbling?

The subject of the comparison regarding the right and Nazis has come up again in comments. How serendipitous then is this opinion piece from Walter Rodgers.

Let’s recall the herculean tasks Obama has already accomplished:

• He stabilized the worst economy since the Great Depression. Though unemployment remains stubborn, the stock market is basically back to where it was before the global economic meltdown. His stimulus bill kept America humming and saved hundreds of thousands of jobs, while his rescue of General Motors saved an industrial icon.
• His administration kept thousands of over-extended Americans from losing their homes by laboring mightily to forestall foreclosures.
• In spite of ferocious opposition, he passed long-overdue reforms of our health-care system that had eluded the reach of many past presidents.
• He signed into law a bold package of regulations to boost consumer protection and restrain Wall Street’s greed.
• He negotiated a historic nuclear-arms reduction treaty with Russia’s Dmitry Medvedev.

Forgetting these and other accomplishments, the public has regrettably bought into the corrosive and dishonest campaign to degrade Obama. Goebbels-style nihilism that rejects anything Obama does as odious remains a powerful narrative.

Add in killing bin Laden, repealing DADT, increased gun rights, increased security at the border, increased immigration arrests as well as a whole host of other things and any rational person would say he was a good president.

Sadly, we are not dealing with rational people.

Thoughts On The Speech?

President Obama certainly stirred up a shit storm this week with his "Arab Spring" speech. Israel denounced his call to return to the pre 1967 borders for land swaps as detrimental to its security even though Netanyahu (currently heavily engaged in the finest example of the two level game I have seen in a while) said the same thing himself earlier this week in a speech to the Knesset. Both Hamas and the PLO denounced it as "throwing dust in the eyes of Palestinians" and a slap in the face to their people.

All of this tells me he's basically on the right track:)