The Week That Was

++President Obama is about to land at Andrews after a nine-day mission to the Pacific. Like his other visit to the Pacific, this really hasn't received much press attention except for his statement that he was going to create a Marine base in Darwin, Australia. The BBC noticed it, big time, even acknowledging that Obama was born on the Pacific island of Hawaii--something the right has been mocking him about referring to Hawaii as Asia--and would naturally have an inclination toward the Pacific. Before the trip, the right-wing news outlets mocked Obama for going to Bali while the deficit committee was meeting.

++While Mitt Romney is campaigning on being tough on China, President Obama quietly planted a flag in the region which China isn't ignoring. An observer called Obama's moves in Asia "cold and clever" as he said, "We're here to stay. This is a region of huge strategic importance to us."

++Besides nailing the largest aircraft sale for Boeing from Indonesia and negotiating a Pacific Free Trade Agreement, President Obama chilled the Chinese heart by saying,"And it's appropriate then for us to make sure that not only our alliance but security architecture of the region is updated for the 21st Century, and this initiative is going to allow us to do that."

++Meanwhile Hillary Clinton signed a new military pact with the Phillippines to bolster our naval forces, not something China who is bwent on creating a blue water navy wants to see.

++While in the region, the Secretary of State visited Burma in the first visit of a Secretary of State in 50 years and a sign that the United States is supporting the first signs of the country opening.

++The President was the first American President to actually attend the meeting of the Association of South East Asian Nations. Afterwards he had a private meeting with the Chinese leader.

++Apparently not one for declinism, President Obama said, " The economy in this area is going to be the engine for world economic growth for some time to come. The lines of commerce and trade are constantly expanding."

++In his weekend video address to the nation, President Obama stressed how his policies will double American exports by the year 2014 and he said we are on the way to achieving that goal. In fact, one of the few signs our economy is recovering is the slow expansion of manufacturing and last month's export figures, which are the highest in history.

++Meanwhile back in the States, the special debt commission looks like it will surrender tomorrow. Ezra Klein writes in the Washington Post how this is a great thing because if the Bush tax cuts expire and a whole lot of things expire then it cuts the deficit by $7.1 trillion. Of course, it might actually lead to a down-grading of our credit rating. But since Standards and Poors' jumped the gun on France, they aren't too credible.

++President Obama issued his Thanksgiving proclamation and it will infuriate conservatives. Isn't it great to have a President whose ancestors were actually at the first Thanksgiving? Obama's mistake was that he opens by mentioning the Indian tribes involved and how the Indians taught the Pilgrims how to survive in their bleak colony and how they invited the Pilgrims to the first Thanksgiving. The Christian Rght's view of our Pilgrims is that they were the new Israelites who came to the promised land and vanquished their enemies--who naturally were Indian tribes.

++ While the President was gallivanting in Asia, Newt Gingrich told Iowa audiences that the Left was attempting to "drive out of existence" traditional religions. Like my previous post, he pin-points this campaign to the mid-1960s, the end of Newt's golden era. He claims that the Left is imposing intolerance for those who hold traditional values--like fidelity in marriage. This is a popular line among the social conservatives but it runs right into reality. There are over 1,500 Christian radio stations operating 24/7 in the States, even more than right-wing political shows. The vast majority of them are fundamentalist. Religious institutions now receive hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government for everything from health care to anti-drug programs. And the Catholic Church through their Bishops is now trying to stop birth control being covered by health insurance plans. But newt says this attempt is a "moral threat to our civilization".

++Willard Romney finds himself tied with Newt in New Hampshire. If he loses there, he is toast. Willard is having a tough time explaining how all his staff bought their hard drives when he was governor for $60 and managed to take all the records of his time as governor with him. He blames Governor Deval as being an instrument of Obama to smear him. Mitt is getting testy. He was purposely excluded from the social conservative debate because the Religious Right wants a Christian.

++Herman Cain is still cooking. He says that if the Supreme Court rules against DOMA--the Defense of Marriage Act. He will over-rule it as President. Interesting idea but one shared by Newt Gingrich that he would ignore all Supreme Court rulings he disagrees with.

++Republican Senators are raising issues about whether Elaine Kagan should recuse herself from the health care bill because she cheered its passing. No mention was made of Tony Scalia and Clarence Thomas attending as guest of honor a dinner paid for by the lawyers arguing against the healthcare bill. Surprisingly, I heard Judge Stevens say that this doesn't matter.

++The United States is imposing more economic sanctions on Iran for the disclosure that it is working to developing nuclear weapons. These sanctions will be aimed at certain sections of their oil industry, particularly investment.

++An Hispanic man plotted to kill President Obama because he thought Obama was the anti-Christ. The right-wing news media tried to link him to the Occupy Wall Street movement because D.C. police searched their encampment. But alas he has no such relationship but you will never know it. Now Andrew Breibart is circulating a report that someone at Occupy San Diego requested a minute for silence for the arrested man. But how does that jibe with the assertions that President Obama is behind OWS.

++OWS or the 99 Movement has positively freaked out Washington. Even Paul Ryan this week produced a chart showing the increasing inequitity in wealth distribution in the country. Chris Hayes on his new show disclosed a memo from John Boehner's lobbying friends how to combat OWS because they fear an alliance with the tea party and that would affect policy for decades to come. For just $860,000 you can get their services. They will outline who the OWS leaders are and where they get their funding and suggest it is that Devil George Soros. When the OWS has leaders maybe they should just tell them.

++Newt suggested the OWS crowd get a job but take a bath first. For conservatives, the OWS is just another 60-style movement peopled by hippies and dope smokers. But Mayor Bloomberg, who is turning green at the gills, protests that the unions have coopted it. Bloomberg thought by cracking down on Zuccotti Park he would have ended the problem. Instead all the protestors marched up 5th Avenue en masse, took over the Brooklyn Bridge and surrounded the New York Stock Exchange. The most fun news is that OWS is creating a Drum Circle around Bloomberg's town house.

++Even Forbes magazine printed an article decrying the ham-fisted tactics of the police all over the country. The demonstrations have now moved to campuses because of the random pepper-spraying of students at the University of California. In D.C. , the Occupy movement has taken over abandoned buildings in protest of the lack of facilities of the homeless.

++Congress was spooked by the 60 Minutes piece on insider-trading by members of Congress. Members of Congress use information not available to the public in making stock trades. After the show, even Senator Brown of Massachusetts introduced a law to prohibit this by both members and staff. It is interesting to observe that a similar bill has been introduced every Congress since the 1990s and never gotten more than a handful of sponsors. Now it is generating considerable bipartisan support.

++He may be Mayor of Chicago but Rahm Emmanuel is hitting the huskings for President Obama's re-election. He gave a barn-burner of a speech to Iowa democrats at the Jefferson-Jackson dinner. He spent hs time contrasting the character and steadiness of President Obama to Romney's lack of consistency but his staunch defense of the wealthy. Emmanuel actually surprised me in the speech when he mentioned his work with President Clinton and reminded the audience that there had been no Republican votes for Clinton's economic plans that generated the boom in the 1990s. If you have a chance, try to google it. It was a powerful speech when few people in the Democratic party are staying on message.

++I had to sit through several speeches condemning President Obama on his policy on Syria and Iran yesterday. It seems Republicans--all of these served with W--can't get over the line "leading from behind". They even attacked Obama over Libya, say that he's not the President to deal with Syria and that he has totally failed with Iran. You would think these people might give it a rest. Except for attacking Iran, Obama has actually done what all these people have been saying. In fact Obama did it a year ahead of when these people suggested it. David Ignatius, writing in the Washington Post, suggested that for some reason Republicans have a tough time understanding that covert action means just that--covert, hidden, not seen. One of the speakers attacked President Obama for ending the war in Iraq. What did Rumsfeld say about dead-enders?

++ We can expect next week that the blame game will begin on the debt talks. As Kurt Vonnegut said, "So it Goes".