Tag: Barack Obama

Even before the ink was dry on the continuing resolution that will keep the US government open until March 18, President Obama was already caving to Republican demands:

The White House has released what amounts to an opening bid in budget negotiations for Fiscal Year 2011 with Republicans. They have offered an additional $6.5 billion in cuts below the baseline of the 2010 budget. This goes on top of the $4 billion in cuts that have already been signed into law….this briefing took place before the first meeting between the White House and Congress even began. So the compromises preceded the negotiation. And there are no compromises happening on the other side.

That was Friday. Then on Saturday in his weekly address to the country via You Tube, he not only confirmed this but stated he was willing to go further.

How much further is he willing to sell out the middle class, the poor and future generations? Well this weekend he sent our one of his “canaries” to test the “air”, Austin Goolsbee, who in appearance on Lawrence O’Donnell’s “Last Word” couldn’t answer a straight question about Social Security.

From Gaius Publius at AMERICAblog points out the worst of Goolsbee’s administration apologia:

The Goolsbee interview starts at 3:20; the Social Security discussion starts at 7:15. At 8:80, weasel words begin leaving Goolsbee’s mouth – and they just don’t stop

Kudos to O’Donnell (who’s a benefit hawk himself) for pressing this hard. Question: Are you open to small changes to Social Security benefits, changes that would not be called “slashing”?

Goolsbee: “We don’t have a specific plan” … we want an “open discussion” … the president won’t weaken Social Security “including especially ideas about privatization” … but he “will look at” things that “insure the solvency” of the program. Weasel. They still want at it.

And by “they” I mean Obama. The Bush tax cuts blow a hole, and Social Security benefits are the fix. Dems, Reps, doesn’t seem to matter.

Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV), to his credit, very clearly and concisely stated on Meat the Press in January that Social Security did not contribute to the deficit or the current budget problems:

DAVID GREGORY: Social Security– how does it have to change? (an assumption by Gregory, TMC) What they put on the agenda is raising the retirement age, maybe means testing benefits. Is it time for Social Security to fundamentally change if you’re gonna deal with the debt problem?

HARRY REID: One of the things that always troubles me is when we start talking about the debt, the first thing people do is run to Social Security. Social Security is a program that works. And it’s going to be– it’s fully funded for the next forty years. Stop picking on Social Security. There’re a lotta places–

DAVID GREGORY: Senator are you really saying —

HARRY REID: –where you can go to save money.

DAVID GREGORY:– the arithmetic on Social Security works?

HARRY REID: I’m saying the arithmetic in Social Security works. I have no doubt it does.

DAVID GREGORY: It’s not in crisis?

HARRY REID: The ne– no, it’s not in crisis. This is– this is– this is something that’s perpetuated by people who don’t like government. Social Security is fine. Are there things we can do to improve Social Security? Of course.

Why is Obama even bothering to say he’s willing to “negotiate” when we all know the real word is “cave”?  

h/t to Sam Pratt:

I invited you to please go to Wisconsin. You apparently declined.  Or didn’t get the invitation.  Ok.  I guess you forgot about this.

———

from The Dream Antilles

The Obama administration is still protecting US war criminals from prosecution in the International Criminal Court. A little noticed clause in the UN Security Council resolution that brought sanctions against Libyan dictator Moammar Gadafi and his regime forbids the prosecution of the mercenaries from nations which are not signatories to the International Criminal Court (ICC), which protects many of the mercenaries Gadaffi has hired to kill Libyan protesters.

“6. Decides that nationals, current or former officials or personnel from a State outside the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya which is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of that State for all alleged acts or omissions arising out of or related to operations in the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya established or authorized by the Council, unless such exclusive jurisdiction has been expressly waived by the State;

That clause was inserted at the insistence of the US and was a deal breaker if it was not included. Why would the US do that? After all. hadn’t US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice said that all those “who slaughter civilians” would “be held personally accountable”? Well, my dears, it is once again an attempt to prevent a precedent that would permit the prosecutions of Americans  by the ICC for alleged crimes in other conflicts.

So now while protecting US war criminals from justice. Obama is protecting the foreign mercenaries from countries who are not signatories to the ICC from accountability. Good going there, Mr. Rule of Law.

h/t Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma

Well, here I go again, oversimplifying, being idealistic, possibly ranting.  To all of these I plead guilty.  In advance.

President Obama’s made a few statements about the demonstrations in Wisconsin.  The most widely disseminated one is this one, reported in TPM:

Well I’d say that I haven’t followed exactly what’s happening with the Wisconsin budget. I’ve got some budget problems here in Washington that I’ve had to focus on. I would say, as a general proposition, that everybody’s gotta make some adjustments to new fiscal realities. And I think if we want to avoid layoffs — which I want to avoid, I don’t want to see layoffs of hard-working federal workers.

We had to impose, for example, a freeze on pay increases for federal workers for the next two years, as part of my overall budget freeze. You know, I think those kinds of adjustments are the right thing to do.

On the other other hand, some of what I’ve heard coming out of Wisconsin — where you’re just making it harder for public employees to collectively bargain, generally — seems like more of an assault on unions.



And I think it’s very important for us to understand that public employees, they’re our neighbors, they’re our friends. These are folks who are teachers, and they’re firefighters, and they’re social workers, and they’re police officers. You know, they make a lot of sacrifices, and make a big contribution, and I think it’s important not to vilify them, or to suggest that somehow all these budget problems are due to public employees.

So, I think everybody’s gotta make some adjustments, but I think it’s also important to recognize that public employees make enormous contributions to the well being of our states and our cities.

Sounds, feels, smells and looks like a politician.  It’s balanced.  It’s cautious.  It looks over his shoulder to wonder which side might ultimately win the Battle of Madison.  It sounds like he’d like to be on the winning side for 2012.  What it doesn’t sound like by any means is leadership.

Leadership would be going to Madison and linking arms and standing in solidarity with the demonstrators and union members against the reactionaries and would-be union busters.  It would be standing up to the Koch funded “movement.”  It would be explaining clearly to all who would listen that these unions are important to sustained high pay in Wisconsin and the nation, and that the antedeluvian effort to kill these unions must be defeated.  The Wisconsin football stadium might be a good place to hold the rally.

The President, however, hasn’t shown any signs that he’s ready to lead a fight for labor, his largest supporter.  It looks like he might still want to invoke politesse and refer to these union busters as “the right to work” advocates with whom he has a small disagreement.

These people don’t deserve that kind of deference.  They have ginned up a plan to destroy public unions and are inflexible about it.  They will not modify it or back off from it.  They plan to destroy public unions.  Period.  They have begun by trying drive a wedge between public workers’ unions. The teachers and highway workers and bureaucrats are ok to beat up on and they won’t be able to bargain, but those the cops and firefighters, which are more traditionally Republican, will.  

Today’s mock phone call with “David Koch” proved beyond all cavil that Scott Walker is the lead dog running a national union busting movement.  He doesn’t care at all about the state’s budget.  This is another item entirely.  This for Walker is only about destroying public unions.  Yes, it’s happening through the state legislatures, but this is a manifestation of an organized, well funded, nationwide movement to emasculate public workers’ unions.

That’s why the unions can’t afford to lose this battle.  And it’s why President Obama needs to organize an appearance in Wisconsin.  The unions have already conceded on the economic issues in this confrontation by agreeing to pay more for their health insurance and to contribute more to their pensions.  Those issues are not what’s keeping 14 Wisconsin legislators under cover in Illinois (or elsewhere).  No.  They are outside the state solely to protect collective bargaining.  It bears repeating.  What makes the confrontation persist is only one thing: the governor’s adamant refusal to drop his plan for withdrawal of collective bargaining rights for certain Wiaconsin public workers.  Plain and simple: the Governor insists on destroying these unions.

That’s why the national democratic leadership in Washington needs to go to Wisconsin.  And they need to go now.  This is a confrontation that can and should be won.  Obama and the national leadership have to stop playing Bert Lahr.  They have to show up in numbers, and they have to roar.

cross-posted from The Dream Antilles

Happy President’s Day. Some of you have a day off and you are not quite sure why. I know why I have the day off — 9 percent unemployment. On a personal note, things are looking up for me. But that’s not today’s point.

This is a subjective list of the ten most influential presidents in US history. To be clear, a president doesn’t have to be a good person to be influential. Indeed, some presidents on this list will make the liberal blood boil. So be it. A measure of influence is how much we feel the effects of the administration.

Read on. You might learn something.

This is mind bending. Faced with rising heating prices of oil and natural gas, the President wants to cut energy assistance for the poor by cutting $3 billion from LIHEAP funding. But, heaven forbid, we should cut from the sacred cow of defense spending or Homeland Security, or end the Bush tax cuts black holes of the budget deficit.

How many people, if any, might actually lose the assistance is difficult to determine. Officials were quick to point out that LIHEAP spending has grown significantly over the past several years as the government tried to keep up with rising gas prices. In 2008, the government spent $2.8 billion on LIHEAP. In 2009, thanks to the Recovery Act, better known as the stimulus bill, the figure jumped to $8.1 billion. So the cut from that high level restores LIHEAP to something close to where it was before Obama took office. Other circumstances, such as the weather and fuel prices, could effect the distribution of benefits.

Still, despite the uncertainties surrounding the proposed cut, it is dramatic. LIHEAP has been semi-sacred for most Democrats and many Republicans–a program that carries an emotional resonance as it was designed to keep poor people, particularly older poor people, cool in the summer and warm in the winter. “A lot of people in the Northeast are going to be unhappy,” an administration official briefed on the budget said.

This is what’s happening around the country;

N.H. gets additional $14m in heating aid; Maine to get another $23m

ROCHESTER – Thanks to help from the federal government, potentially thousands of New Hampshire and Maine households won’t be left out in the cold this winter.

On Tuesday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., announced the Granite State will receive an additional $13,924,612 in funding from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which provides heating aid to households in need.

According to a release from Shaheen, the funds are in addition to the $19,767,875 HHS has already released to the state as of Dec. 10, and bring New Hampshire’s Fiscal Year 2011 total through March 4 to $33,692,487 – nearly equal to the total it received during the same period last year.

Community Advocates, Entergy Employees Seek Sustained Funding to Help Low-Income Customers in Need Pay Energy Costs

NEW ORLEANS, Feb. 7, 2011 PRNewswire — Entergy Corporation employees and advocates for low-income residents are in Washington, D.C., this week to ask Congress for funding to help low-income families, the elderly and the disabled pay energy costs through the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

On Feb. 9, Entergy employees and nonprofit group representatives will be among more than 140 advocates from across the country participating in the National Fuel Funds Network’s Washington Action Day for LIHEAP. Entergy employees are there as part of their ongoing commitment to help low-income customers. LIHEAP is America’s primary tool to help working-poor families pay for home energy costs, especially those families with preschoolers, elderly or disabled members.

Frigid winter weather forces poor to choose heat or rent

Poor face crunch as utility bills soar when temperatures plunge

A mother had her electricity cut off this week even as more snow and cold headed for Nashville.

The working woman had the choice, “pay the rent or pay the utility bill,” after she got behind with a large December power bill, said Tanya Gray of the Martha O’Bryan Center, where the woman sought help Wednesday.

Colder-than-normal temperatures last month and in January have sent utility bills spiraling up.

Local agency will be able to help poor heat their homes after all

An organization will be able to continue to help low-income families stay warm in the winter after all.

One week ago Mid Michigan Community Action got a letter notifying it would lose more than $500,000 in funding.  The state said it was taking the money back effective January 31, 2011 because the federal government cut funding to the state’s low income energy assistance program or LIHEAP.

snip

Then, late Monday the state notified Mid Michigan Community Action it would not be reclaiming the funding after all.  The federal government reinstated funding after many voiced concerns such cuts could be deadly.

This President keeps trampling on those who can least afford it and his supporters will make excuses for him. This isn’t the way create jobs or solve the budget problems. Disgusting

This is a Live Blog and will be updated as the news is available. You can follow the latest reports from AL Jazeera English and Al-Masry Al-Youm: English Edition

The Guardian has a link to Twitter from their reporters in Egypt that refreshes automatically every minute.

Al Jazeera has a Live Blog for Feb 6

As you can see we now have the live feed from Al Jazeera English.

It has been reported in all the news media, President Barack Obama is supporting Vice President Omar Suleiman, the man that helped plan and oversee the CIA/US rendition/torture program in Egypt, to lead the transition government after Mubarak steps down. This should be not only unacceptable for the Egyptian people but for Americans, as well. As Jane Mayer points out in her article in the New Yorker, “since 1993 Suleiman has headed the feared Egyptian general intelligence service. In that capacity, he was the C.I.A.’s point man in Egypt for renditions, the covert program in which the C.I.A. snatched terror suspects from around the world and returned them to Egypt and elsewhere for interrogation, often under brutal circumstances.” That Suleiman has said he would not be a candidate in September is not an valid excuse for letting this man anywhere near a transitional government. As a former CIA officer, Michael Scheuer, who helped set up the practice of rendition, said, assurances that were made by Suleiman on behalf of the Egyptian government that they would not torture, “weren’t worth a bucket of warm spit.” Yet, Obama is willing to trust this criminal.

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma

Crossposted at Daily Kos and Docudharma