Democrat’s Loss Of Super-Majority Causes Dow To Fall 268 Points!
With the swearing in of Scott Brown today, panic swept through America and people sold their stocks, fearing the worst. Democrats no longer have the super-majority needed to pass even the most trivial of legislation.
Our country is in serious trouble. Just to keep running, the government needs to borrow $14.3 trillion dollars. The federal debt is now at over $12 trillion, thanks to the irresponsible tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, the two wars, and high unemployment that has greatly reduced revenues, not to mention the over $400 billion dollars a year we pay to interest on the debt.
When Bush’s first fiscal year began on Oct. 1, 2001, the federal debt was $5.8 trillion. At the end of his final fiscal year on Sept. 30, 2009, the debt was $11.9 trillion. He increased the federal debt by some $6.1 trillion, more than doubling our debt.
Of course, the Republicans have a history of radical fiscal policies. Reagan more than tripled the debt. It went from a modest $900 billion to $2.8 trillion during his tenure.
So it’s understandable that people would be concerned about the economy with another Republican in Congress. This might be a good time to go short in the market.
Note: the European debt problems and worse than expected jobs report may also have contributed to the stock market drop today.
Obama Visits House Republican Retreat – Ruins Their Vacation
As promised in his State of the Union Address, President Obama met with House Republicans for a question and answer session. The Republicans used all their talking points and lies and Obama knocked them down, one by one. Even after a year of dealing with the skunks, Obama still has hope that everyone can work together in peace and harmony. What he doesn’t realize is that right-wingers have nothing to offer but fear and hatred, so they’re not going to try to work with Democrats on anything.
Anyway, here’s the video… (The audio gets better after a minute or two)
President Obama Full Q&A
Thanks To The SCOTUS Decision, Hugo Chavez Can Now Run Political Ads In The U.S.
Yep, Hugo Chavez can now pour millions of dollars into political campaigns in United States elections. If there’s a candidate who’s unfriendly to Venezuela, Chavez can run commercials on TV bashing him or her in an effort to influence the election.
CITGO was purchaced by the Venezuelan government-owned Petróleos de Venezuela in 1990, and since corporations are entitled to free speech, CITCO can finance political campaigns promoting the candidate of their choosing or to defeat candidates they don’t like.
The Saudi government also owns companies in the U.S, so they have the same rights of “free speech.” Same for China and many other countries.
The issue was raised by Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissent in the case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: “It would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans.”
As President Obama said in his State of the Union address the other night, “With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections. And I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.”
Sometimes it takes a radical push from one side to get real reform. Maybe we’ll get some real campaign finance reform as a result of this radical ruling from the activist right-wing Supreme Court judges.
Elizabeth Warren: Change We Can Believe In
Barack Obama had a pretty mediocre first year, mainly because he continued many of the Bush administration policies and tried to work with the obstructionist Republicans, whose only desire is bringing down the Obama administration.
It’s not too late for Obama to get on track, but that means real change. Timothy Geithner needs to go for one, and Elizabeth Warren would be a great replacement. She would also be a good fit for Chairman of the Federal Reserve, since Ben Bernanke confirmation is up in the air.
I’ll write more on Warren in the next few days.
Obama’s First Year As President
Barack Obama took office during the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. He got off to a good start in February when he signed the $787 billion stimulus bill. The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has created or saved 800,000 to 2.4 million jobs. This is probably his greatest accomplishment so far.
In March, he signed into law major changes to the credit card industry, but we’re still not back to where we were before deregulation by the Bush administration.
He eliminated some wasteful spending, such as the F-22 Raptor program. He signed some equal rights protection bills, expanded SCHIP, protected wilderness areas, and improved transparency in government. He also eased restrictions on federal money for embryonic stem cell research.
But he could have done a lot more. Where is the major reform of the banking industry? Where is the trust busting? Why is Geithner still head of the Treasury? Where are the tax increases on billionaires to bring down the deficit? And where are the prosecutions of the Bush crime family?
As Shakespeare wrote: “Be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them”.
Obama had the opportunity for greatness, but instead he chose the path of least resistance. What that got him was venom from the right-wing and disillusionment from the left. Few people are happy with Obama, but it’s not too late for him to be the real progressive we voted for.
We’ll see what he has to say about it this evening in his State of the Union address.
Obama Administration Gets Good Grades For National Security
While there are still problems with the Homeland Security structure created by the Bush administration, Obama has received several ‘A’s and ‘B’s on their report card. From the report:
| Conduct a comprehensive review of the domestic program to secure dangerous pathogens. | A |
| Develop a national strategy for advancing bioforensic capabilities. | A |
| Propose a new action plan for achieving universal adherence to the Biological Weapons Convention. | B+ |
| Strengthen the nonproliferation regime. | B |
| Review cooperative nuclear security programs. | B+ |
| Designate a White House principal advisor for WMD proliferation and terrorism. | A- |
| Create a more efficient and effective policy coordination structure by restructuring the National Security Council and Homeland Security Council. | A- |
| Practice greater openness of public information so that citizens better understand the WMD threat. | B- |
The report card also gave a few Fs for failures to correct problems by the Bush administration — problems that the Bush adminstration failed to address, even after they allowed our country to be attacked, and that they had over seven years to address. Read more here.
Note: this post is as “fair and balanced” as the coverage Fox “news” gave this report card. 
Obama: “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president”
Barack Obama told ABC’s World News anchor Diane Sawyer that he’d “rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” Source
Let’s take a look at Obama’s first year accomplishments.
After some two trillion dollars in bailouts including the 700 billion dollar TARP giveaway, there has yet to be any real banking regulation put in place to prevent another collapse. Obama should have immediately pushed for the reinstatement of the Glass-Steagall Act, which was repealed in the late 90s. Its repeal allowed banks to become high-stakes gamblers.
There were numerous laws broken by the Bush administration, yet there has been no action taken. Obama claimed he didn’t want to look back. Well, we are a country of laws and criminals need to be prosecuted.
The push to get the costs of health insurance reform down was a noble cause, but the current bill being considered will do little to reduce costs and is really just a giant giveaway to the insurance industry. All the work trying to get a few Republicans on board was a waste of time and ruined any chance for real reform. Republicans have no desire to reform the health insurance industry. Their only objective is to bring down the Obama administration, just like they did with Clinton.
The “too big to fail” corporations that were bailed out have gotten even bigger. They are reaping record profits while the rest of the country suffers. There needs to be some trust busting going on to break up these banking giants.
There has yet to be any election reform, which is desperately needed to assure honest elections. Now, with the recent SCOTUS right-wing activist judges’ ruling, our democracy is in even greater peril.
And where’s the leadership we thought we were getting? The general public responds to rhetoric. Ronald Reagan was one of our worst presidents, but because of his powerful speaking skills, people consider him to be a great president. He was a horrible president but a great orator.
So far, Obama has been a very mediocre president. I guess he’s shooting for a second term.
Cowardice and Politics
To know what is right and not to do it is the worst cowardice.
~Confucius
The Democrats are cowards and the Republicans don’t know what’s right. So where does that leave us? Up shit creek without a paddle, that’s where.
