Tag: TMC Politics

Michael Moore: Well, good to see you. Just a little advice for you next time, form yourself into a corporation.

Keith Olbermann: Exactly

MM: Then you can give to whoever, how much you want, nobody cares and if your bosses have a problem with it, they can take it up with Scalia.

President Obama in an interview with “60 Minutes” correspondent, Steve Kroft, said

So, ultimately, I had to make a decision: do I put all that aside, because it’s gonna be bad politics? Or do I go ahead and try to do it because it will ultimately benefit the country? I made the decision to go ahead and do it. And it proved as costly politically as we expected. Probably actually a little more costly than we expected, politically. . . . .

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, partly because I couldn’t get the kind of cooperation from Republicans that I had hoped for. We thought that if we shaped a bill that wasn’t that different from bills that had previously been introduced by Republicans — including a Republican governor in Massachusetts who’s now running for President — that, you know, we would be able to find some common ground there. And we just couldn’t.

Some how the talking heads in the MSM managed to interpret this as Obama’s didn’t negotiate with Republicans.

From NBC’s Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, Ali Weinberg *** Obama in defeat: To us, the most striking part of President Obama’s “60 Minutes” interview was his admission that that he and his administration didn’t compromise and work with the Republicans.

Where were these people over the last two years?

The truth of the matter is Obama failed because he tried to negotiate with the Republicans. Republicans asked and Obama gave in to them and the blue dogs with out batting a pretty eyelash and got nothing in return. That was Obama’s defeat.

This has to be the worst interview by a sitting president in recent memory

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Bob Herbert: The Impossible Dream

One of the most frustrating tendencies of mainstream leaders in the United States is their willingness, year after debilitating year, to embrace policies that have no hope of succeeding.

From Lyndon Johnson’s mad pursuit of victory in Vietnam to George W. Bush’s disastrous invasion of Iraq to today’s delusionary deficit zealots, the tragic lure of the impossible dream seems never to subside.

Ronald Reagan told us he could cut taxes, jack up defense spending and balance the budget – all at the same time. How’d he do? As his biographer Garry Wills tells us, the Gipper “nearly tripled the deficit in his eight years, and never made a realistic proposal for cutting it.”

President Obama is escalating the war in Afghanistan while promising to start bringing our troops home next summer, which is like a heavyweight boxer throwing roundhouse rights while assuring his opponent that he won’t fight quite as hard after the eighth or ninth round.

I don’t know if it’s the drinking water or the rarefied air at the highest reaches of government that makes so many of our leaders go loopy. Whatever it is, we need to put a stop to these self-defeating tendencies. The U.S. is in sad shape, and most of the policy prescriptions being tossed around by the movers and shakers are bad ones.

Peter Daou: On 60 Minutes, President Obama apologizes to America for being a Democrat

The title of this post is intentionally hyperbolic and provocative – I couldn’t think of any other way to express my shock at the things President Obama said to Steve Kroft.

First, some context: I’ve been insistent that the fundamental problem for President Obama and Democratic leaders is a lack of moral authority, a pervasive sense among the electorate that they don’t have the courage of their convictions . . .

The aftermath of the GOP’s midterm triumph perfectly illustrates this problem: Obama is falling over himself seeking compromise with Republicans, ceding to their frames, while Republican leaders say they will stick to their principles and try to destroy his presidency and legacy. Here’s how I put it a couple of days ago: If one side offers “compromise” and the other claims to stand firmly on principle, which one appears more principled to voters?

Astonishingly, in a 60 Minutes piece that just aired, Obama goes one step further. During the course of the entire interview he only once mentions having the courage of one’s convictions. And he attributes it not to himself or Democrats, but to Tom Coburn, a staunch conservative!

Eugene Robinson: Mr. President, some leadership, please

Last week, voters made a powerful statement about leadership: They’d like some, please. So far, there’s no evidence that either President Obama or the top Republicans in Congress were paying the slightest attention.

In his only interview since the GOP rampage, with Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes,” Obama was reasonable, analytical, professorial – but also uninspired and uninspiring. I’m just being honest, if not generous; when Kroft asked whatever happened to Obama’s “mojo,” the president gave the impression that he’s been wondering the same thing.

By uninspired, I mean there was no sense that Obama relishes the high-stakes political battles that are sure to come over the next two years. There was no hint, for example, that he looks forward to the opportunity to put Republicans on the spot about all the unrealistic budget-cutting they say they want to carry out. And by uninspiring, I mean that the president offered no vision of a brighter tomorrow. Instead, he sketched a future not quite as dim as the present.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Andy Worthington: No Appetite for Prosecution: In Memoir, Bush Admits He Authorized the Use of Torture, But No One Cares

With just days to go before George W. Bush’s memoir, Decision Points, hits bookstores (on November 9), and with reports on the book’s contents doing the rounds after review copies were made available to the New York Times and Reuters, it will be interesting to see how many media outlets allow the former President the opportunity to try to salvage his reputation, how many are distracted by his spat with Kanye West or his claim that he thought about replacing Dick Cheney as Vice President in 2004, and how many decide that, on balance, it would be more honest to remind readers and viewers of the former President’s many crimes – including the illegal invasion of Iraq, and the authorization of the use of torture on “high-value detainees” seized in the “War on Terror.”

As I fall firmly into the latter camp, this article focuses on what little has so far emerged regarding the President’s views on Guantánamo, and, in particular, on his confession that he authorized the waterboarding of “high-value detainee” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, which is rather more important than trading blows with a rapper about whether or not his response to the Katrina disaster was racist, as it is a crime under domestic and international law.

Nancy J. Altman: New York Times Columnist Peter Orszag Joins the Social Security Fearmongering Crowd

Former OMB Director Peter Orszag writes a tin-eared response to the elections, in his NYT op-ed, “Saving Social Security.”

Tuesday’s election gave expression to a deep frustration that Washington is not listening to Main Street. This frustration seems reasonable after reading the tin-eared response to the elections penned by former OMB Director Peter Orszag, in his recent opinion piece with its fear-mongering title, “Saving Social Security.”

Social Security is not in need of saving. It is the most fiscally responsible part of the entire federal budget. Its benefits are modest, averaging less than the minimum wage. It is extremely efficient, returning in benefits more than 99 cents of every dollar spent. At its most expensive, when the Baby Boom generation is fully retired, Social Security will cost half as much, in terms of percentage of GDP, that France, Germany and many other countries are paying for their counterpart programs right now, today. Its projected deficit, still decades away, is manageable in size – just 0.7 percent of GDP, about the same amount as extending the Bush tax cuts for the top two percent of Americans. (Paradoxically, Orszag recently penned a piece advocating the extension of those tax cuts)

Barry Eisler: The Definition of Insanity

Last month, the Washington Post published an op-ed by Jack Devine, former CIA deputy director of operations and chief of the CIA Afghan Task Force. When I read it, I thought it was perhaps the most insane op-ed I’d ever come across. But leave it to David Broder, “Dean of the Washington Press Corps,” to try to one-up it just three weeks later.

Let’s take Devine’s piece first. Devine argues that our top priority in Afghanistan must be capturing or killing bin Laden. Devine asks, “We have entered into two problematic wars and have expended a great deal of blood and treasure since Sept. 11. What was it all about, if not capturing bin Laden?”

I think I know now why invading Iraq was “problematic.” You see, bin Laden wasn’t in Iraq. No wonder we can’t find the guy. . . .

And now, Broder.

There’s less to say about Broder’s piece, but only because he expresses his insanity more succinctly than does Devine. First, he lays out his premise: war and peace are the only forces influencing the economy that the president can control. Second, his evidence: World War II resolved the Great Depression. Finally, his slam dunk conclusion: Obama should take America to war with Iran (Congressional declarations of war are so pre-9/11) because war with Iran will improve America’s economy.

Obama is not Hitler but Bush is a war criminal, Jon.

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Dean Baker: Erskine Bowles: Social Security’s Enemy No. 1?

Nearly everyone following the Social Security debate is familiar with former Wyoming Sen. Alan Simpson, the co-chairman of President Obama’s deficit commission. Simpson, the son of a senator, thrust himself into the national spotlight with an infamous, late-night email. In addition to displaying an ignorance of bovine anatomy, this email displayed open contempt for Social Security and the tens of millions of retirees and disabled people who depend on it.

While Simpson has seized the spotlight, it may prove to be the case that Erskine Bowles, his co-chairman, poses the greater threat to Social Security. The reason is simple: Bowles is the living embodiment of the rewards available to politicians who would support substantial cutbacks or privatization of the program

Jim Hightower: Surprise! The People Speak

The general public doesn’t want to balance the federal budget by putting Social Security on the chopping block.

Michael Duke is the Big Wally of Walmart. As CEO of the low-wage behemoth, he siphons some $19 million a year in personal pay from the global retailer.

How much is $19 million? Let’s break it down in terms that Duke’s own workforce can appreciate. While Big Wally’s workers average about $9.50 an hour, Duke’s pay comes to about $9,500 an hour. He pockets as much in two hours as Walmart workers make in a whole year!

But WalMart doesn’t give a damn about such gross pay gaps between privileged elites and the rest of us. As a spokesman scoffed, “I don’t think Mike Duke…needs me to defend his compensation package.”

Really? If not you, who?

Those who think that the hoi polloi don’t notice or care about America’s growing income disparity, should take a peek at a recent opinion survey run by the right-wing, corporate-funded Peter G. Peterson Foundation. This outfit intended to show that the general public backs the tea party’s agenda of slashing  government spending, which includes balancing the federal budget by putting Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block.

Marcy Wheeler: Let the Drones Begin

Fresh off exempting Yemen from any sanctions for its use of child soldiers and partly in response to this week’s attempted package bombings, the government appears to be ready to let the CIA start operating drones in Yemen.

   

Allowing the U.S. military’s Special Operations Command units to operate under the CIA would give the U.S. greater leeway to strike at militants even without the explicit blessing of the Yemeni government. In addition to streamlining the launching of strikes, it would provide deniability to the Yemeni government because the CIA operations would be covert. The White House is already considering adding armed CIA drones to the arsenal against militants in Yemen, mirroring the agency’s Pakistan campaign.

   [snip]

   Placing military units overseen by the Pentagon under CIA control is unusual but not unprecedented. Units from the Joint Special Operations Command have been temporarily transferred to the CIA in other countries, including Iraq, in recent years in order to get around restrictions placed on military operations.

   [snip]

   The CIA conducts covert operations based on presidential findings, which can be expanded or altered as needed. Congressional oversight is required but the information is more tightly controlled than for military operations. For example, when the military conducts missions in a friendly country, it operates with the consent of the local government.

   An increase in U.S. missile strikes or combat ground operations by American commando forces could test already sensitive relations with Yemen, which U.S. officials believe is too weak to defeat al Qaeda. Such an escalation could prompt Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh to end the training his military receives from U.S. special operations forces.

If Saleh is too weak (or ideologically compromised) to get the job done against al Qaeda, then why are we foisting our special ops training on him and the 50% of his military that are children (though the US insists that no children will go through our training)?

And I wonder what would have happened if we responded to the UnaBomber by dropping bombs throughout Montana?

A Connecticut judge has ruled that voters who desire to dress up as their favorite WWE wrestler can do so and will be allowed to vote. It seems that WWE CEO Vince McMahon whose wife Linda is the Republican candidate for the Senate, was concerned that voters wearing WWE themed clothing would be barred from voting because the clothing might be considered electioneering. So, Vince did what all red-blooded Tea Baggers do – he sued and No, we’re not making this up.

On Wednesday US District Judge Janet Bond Arterton ruled that Nutmeg State election officials must allow voters to wear World Wrestling Entertainment-themed clothing to the polls.

Such garb cannot be considered political advertising for former WWE CEO and current Connecticut GOP Senate candidate Linda McMahon, said Judge Arterton

Riley Waggaman: @ Wonkette

BECAUSE DIDN’T THOMAS JEFFERSON WEAR A WIG?

Connecticut Voters Allowed To Dress Like Idiots At the Polls

In other “November is our N word” election news: CEO of fake wrestling and also Linda McMahon’s husband “Mr. McMahon” filed a very serious lawsuit because he was worried that teenagers wearing WWE spandex thongs wouldn’t be allowed to vote – you know, since people dressed like idiots might be considered “political advertising” for Linda McMahon. Anyway, Vince McMahon won his frivolous and pointless lawsuit. Yippee, feel free to dress up as the “The Ass Demolisher” or whatever those silly WWE spandex men are called. Clearly this is just another example of activist judges legislating from the bench. What’s next? Do the gay people in New York get to wear their assless chaps to the polls, even though this would obviously be illegal political advertising for Carl Paladino? Of course. In Barack Obama’s America, No means Yes and Yes means Assless Chaps.

So all you Nutmeggers can re-use those Halloween costumes on Tuesday but I want pictures.

Here is the argument for President Obama to appointment Peter Diamond, the Economics Nobel laureate, the Board of Directors of the Federal Reserve and make other appointments that have been blocked by the obstructionist Republicans and some blue Dog Democrats. Dr. Diamond’s confirmation has been blocked by Republicans, chief among them, Sen. Richard Shelby who had the audacity to call him “not qualified”.

Victor Williams, Assistant Professor at the Catholic University of America School of Law and an attorney, writing for the The National Law Journal makes the argument that the pro forma sessions every three days during recess are little more “than a game of separation-of-powers chicken”. There is nothing in the Constitution and Appellate courts have ruled that “there is no minimum recess time required for a valid recess appointment”.

But there is no minimum recess required under any law. The three-day minimum recess is fiction – as fake as are the Senate faux sessions. Better to begin with nonfiction – the Constitution.

In 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled: “The Constitution, on its face, does not establish a minimum time that an authorized break in the Senate must last to give legal force to the President’s appointment power under the Recess Appointments Clause.” In Evans v. Stephens, the 11th Circuit, following prior 9th and 2d circuit rulings, broadly affirmed the executive’s unilateral recess commissioning authority during short intersession and intrasession breaks.

Even the Senate’s own Congressional Research Service reports: “The Constitu­tion does not specify the length of time that the Senate must be in recess before the President may make a recess appointment.” . . .

The president’s constitutional appointment authority cannot be trumped, or even limited, by Senate scheduling shenanigans. In fact and law, the 111th Senate is now dispersed to the four corners for six campaign weeks. Gaveling open, and then gaveling closed, a half-minute meeting of an empty chamber is not a legitimate break in the recess. A Senate quorum could not be gathered; neither legislative nor executive business could be conducted. Constitutional law demands substance over form.

The faux sessions only further expose the broken institution and its failed, dysfunctional confirmation processes.

At bottom, recess appointments are a matter of presidential will. In 1903, Theodore Roosevelt set the standard when he recess-appointed 160 officials during a recess of less than one day.

Mr. Williams points out that George W Bush’s failure to call this should not be Barack Obama’s.

Perhaps it is George W. Bush’s fault that the media erroneously reported that Obama’s recess appointment authority is lost. When majority leader Harry Reid first used the pro forma tactic against Bush over Thanksgiving, 2007, the 43rd president failed to push back.

Bush did not recess appoint for the remainder of his term despite calls for him to call Harry Reid’s bluff. A commissioning of even one noncontroversial nominee to a low level position would have asserted the executive’s prerogative. His failure to do so may be mistakenly interpreted as setting a precedent. It does not.

As I have noted on this site, Harry Reid appears to have gotten the better of George Bush; bluffing is a basic gambling skill for separation of powers and Texas Hold ’em.

Mr. President, you are a Constitutional Lawyer, starting the day after the elections, November 3, “buck up” and call the bluff.

Covering Up War Crimes

Late last night under cover of Friday darkness, the Obama DOJ filed a brief requesting that U.S. District Judge Robert Bates dismiss a law suit over its targeting of an American citizen for assassination in another country. The government claims that the case would reveal “states secrets”.

Government lawyers called the state-secrets argument a last resort to toss out the case, and it seems likely to revive a debate over the reach of a president’s powers in the global war against al-Qaeda.

Civil liberties groups sued the U.S. government on behalf of Aulaqi’s father, arguing that the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command’s placement of Aulaqi on a capture-or-kill list of suspected terrorists – outside a war zone and absent an imminent threat – amounted to an extrajudicial execution order against a U.S. citizen. They asked a U.S. district court in Washington to block the targeting.

In response, Justice Department spokesman Matthew Miller said that the groups are asking “a court to take the unprecedented step of intervening in an ongoing military action to direct the President how to manage that action – all on behalf of a leader of a foreign terrorist organization.”

Miller added, “If al-Aulaqi wishes to access our legal system, he should surrender to American authorities and return to the United States, where he will be held accountable for his actions.”

Now if that isn’t a “Catch 22”. . .

“The idea that courts should have no role whatsoever in determining the criteria by which the executive branch can kill its own citizens is unacceptable in a democracy,” the American Civil Liberties Union and Center for Constitutional Rights said.

“In matters of life and death, no executive should have a blank check,” they said.

Is this is the higher bar for keeping “state secrets” that that President Obama had Attorney General Eric Holder set just last year?

Bush and Cheney must be proud of Obama.

Up Date: Marcy Wheeler now has an article on the briefing itself at emptywheel:

Obama Doesn’t Know Why the Fuck He’s Entitled to Kill Al-Awlaki, He Just Is, Damnit

The most striking aspect of the government’s motion to dismiss  the ACLU/CCR lawsuit challenging the use of targeted killing is that the government does not commit to the basis for its authority to kill an American citizen like Anwar al-Awlaki with no review.

(my emphasis)

Up Date 2: Glenn Greenwald from Salon chimes in:

But what’s most notable here is that one of the arguments the Obama DOJ raises to demand dismissal of this lawsuit is “state secrets”:  in other words, not only does the President have the right to sentence Americans to death with no due process or charges of any kind, but his decisions as to who will be killed and why he wants them dead are “state secrets,” and thus no court may adjudicate its legality. . . .

But he’s not been charged with any crimes, let alone indicted for any.  The President has been trying to kill him for the entire year without any of that due process.  And now the President refuses even to account to an American court for those efforts to kill this American citizen on the ground that the President’s unilateral imposition of the death penalty is a “state secret.”  And, indeed, American courts — at Obama’s urging — have been upholding that sort of a “state secrecy” claim even when it comes to war crimes such as torture and rendition.  Does that sound like a political system to which any sane, rational person would “surrender”?

h/t lambert @ Corrente

See also Stopping Obama’s Targeted Assassinations

Now Cross posted @ FDL‘s The Seminal

Jon Aravosis @ AMERICAblog Gay points out that the DNC web site on its “Civil Rights” page,  no longer mentions the repeal of DOMA which was one of the top three promises made to the GLBT community by Candidate Obama.

#  Enacting the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which includes measures prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity;

# Ensuring full civil unions and federal rights for LGBT couples;

# Repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and our national security;

It the DNC now calls for “civil unions”. How about marriage guys?

And WTF does this mean?

Repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” in a sensible way that strengthens our armed forces and our national security

Meanwhile, Sen. Sen. Mark Udall (D-CO) and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) have written Attorney General Eric Holder to not appeal Judge Virginia Phillips’ ruling that DADT violates the 1st Amendment.