Barack Obama did fulfill another campaign pledge. He made the application for Federal Student Aid simpler as he promised. I just finished this year's; last year's was worse than doing my taxes. But as I told my son, the prospects are not good. At least this year's didn't have a Family Contribution Number like last's. I would owe him his college education and a new car if we went by that.
Next up are the taxes. Hopefully, I could gain a few thousand with the largest tax cut given the middle class in history. That's the one all Republicans voted against.
The Tsunami is about to hit Hawaii and an emergency alert has been sounded. Hopefully, people will listen to the local authorities and stay out of the way. The ocean is scheduled to roll one mile in land. But what will happen to Obama's birth certificate now?
Van Jones, the former Green Jobs Tsar, received a NAACP image award last night. His is actually an interesting story of how someone evolves from a militant to someone interested in creating jobs for his community. After Glenn Beck accused him of being a Communist and a 9/11er, both not true, he resigned from the Obama administration. His speech applauded Obama for agreeing to be the Captain of the Titanic after we struck the iceberg. And we still haven't sunk, he joked. And he called out Glenn Beck saying he loved him and that Beck can't stop him from expressing that love. It was well done. Van Jones now has joined a Washington think-tank.
Newt Gingrich has re-surfaced. He claims that Obama is trying to "mug" the American people (nice code words "Newt") and is acting like Hugo Chavez by embracing majoritarianism. Newt's certainly a senior citizen and now rich enough to qualify for the GOP sweepstakes. He's also a Southerner, the base of the Party now, and a racist. So he has a good shot. Not really. There is still alot of bad blood around in conservative circles about Newt's womanizing and how he blew his chance as House speaker.
Some blogger pointed out that Newt's previous charge that Obama was like the German Social Democrats ran against the right's charge Obama was Hitler. This guy pointed out that the German Social Democrats formed a resistance to Hitler. Spoil Sport.
You would think the Houston wealthy would be pouring funds into the GOP coffers. Turns out that Houston money is actually pouring into the Democratic Congressional funds. They're probably banking on getting refugee status when Perry secedes from the union. This is actually a state to watch this year because the Democrats are actually going to wage a strong campaign for the state house.
Snopes.com has a new one about the right-wing e-mail allegedly going around by Lee Ioccoca lambasting Obama. The entire text was taken from his memoirs and it was his litany of grievances about George W. Now the right has re-written sections and are circulating it against Obama. But what he said about Bush was devastating. I get these e-mails daily. The last was one how Obama is the Manchurian candidate and no one ever knew what he did at Columbia. Then it cites known Columbia graduates allegedly saying they never saw him on campus or heard about him. Of course, all the famous names listed are made up and never said anything of the sort.
By this afternoon, there had been no follow-up discussions by either the Senate or House Republicans with Obama about healthcare reform. In fact, Mitch McConnell after the summit called the GOP stance "gold" for the 2010 elections. Don't expect anything from them. They believe their policy of "No" will bring them back.
I don't know where the triumphalism of the GOP comes from. Besides normal congressional losses by the Democrats, this supposed tsunami comes from a party that still has approval ratings below water. One can pick and choose what Obama numbers you want but all the GOP leaders rate at least 50% lower in approval ratings and the congressional GOP has slipped up a point or two to a little over 20% approval. Boehner himself has an approval rating half of Pelosi's, while Mitch McConnell is still about ten behind Reid, who is the Democrat with the lowest. They are banking on the public's disdain for Congress to sweep them back into power. But a majority of Americans blame the GOP for obstructing any progress. We'll watch as the year goes on but I'm puzzled. The GOP also has big troubles with Hip-Hop Steele, who has been spending money like water, giving Democrats an enormous financial lead at this stage. He must think the corporations are going to come roaring in but if they don't, the GOP will be at an enormous disadvantage financially.
Marco Rubio, the darling of the Right, has been using the GOP's American Express card like Meghan McCain. This guy is charging all his personal expenses to the local party and it's just beginning to break as an issue in Florida.
The Starve the Beast syndrome is permeating the GOP. But one of the largest causes of our national deficit were the Bush tax-cuts to the rich, which are double the cost of the entire health reform bill. Small government Republicans--all of tham have converted from big government conservatives--the doctrine of Bill Kristol--will run into brickwalls on wanting to cut any federal funding. John McCain claims his opposition now to Obama's deficit commission was that it will probably recommend raising taxes and he wanted one that would cut taxes more. But then John has 14 homes and a wife who owns the state of Arizona so he doesn't care.
The corporate media is great. They never question the GOP talking points. Obama is going to "ram through healthcare by reconciliation". What people don't say in the media is that health reform has passed the Senate with 60 votes and the House by large margins and that now you reconcile the bills from both houses of Congress, which is what you do with anything having to do with budget expenses. But the beltway will be the last to know. What Obama has to make sure is that key provisions take effect this year and the next and not have the whole thing wait until 2014 since the GOP will revert to their talks about death panels and killing grandma.
Obama does have a real problem when it comes to the 192 detainees remaining in Gitmo. Congress is trying to whip up opposition to court trials for these men despite testimony of Eric Holder and Bob Gates to the contrary. Obama needs to convene a bipartisan team of real national security lawyers--not the amateurs from the last Administration--to develop ways to deal with the situation of so many detainees being held and who can not be tried because either we tortured them or we never kept appropriates files on their cases. I've written before how the whole Gitmo situation was a mess when the new Administration took over with no complete case files. Having lived through the Algerian situation where they ended up with thousands of detainees without any procedure to deal with them, I know this is a major issue, particularly in a country that still hopes to abide by the rule of law. I would just release all the Uighurs and then transfer everyone to the Navy Brig in Charlestown, South Carolina. Gitmo would be closed and then the real work can begin on developing real procedures for the remaining detainees.
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