Of Thee I Sing*

*Today our President published a children's book dedicated to his daughters. The book covers various inspirational American characters from Georgia O'Keefe to George Washington. Congressional Quarterly printed a brief blurb about the book, which drew the strangest comments. One post said,"If he has enough time for this, he ought to mow the White House lawn." Get It. "Why doesn't he spend time running the country." But leave it to Fox News to turn this children's book like Obama's Study Hard speeches to children on opening day of school into something sinister. President Obama also included Sitting Bull as a person who was a great healer. Of course, this means he sided with a person who killed a U.S.General. That's just what a Muslim terrorist-loving President would do.

Meanwhile get ready for the real Hate Obama campaign from Rep. Issa, who called President Obama "one of the most corrupt Presidents in American history." He called the stimulus package $750 billion in "political walk around money", which Obama gave to his political friends. Issa claims this has to be explained. Of course, it's not true but that doesn't matters any more. Issa promises investigations into the New Black Panthers and ACORN, which he claims the President was involved with.

Pat Caddell and Douglas Schoen, the pretend Democrats, wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post calling for President Obama to declare he's a one-term President and this way he would get bipartisan cooperation. They clearly haven't looked at the Republicans lately.

The latest CNN poll has Obama at 48% approval and 50% disapproval. But most interesting is that 9% who disapprove believe he's not liberal enough.

Republicans are acting like they have a mandate. It's important to point out that historically it's rather freakish to take only one House of Congress. This has only happened once before in the last century in 1930. It's not like this time it was a rousing standing ovation for their brilliant ideas.

Republicans will rule the House as if they have a mandate like they did in 2000 after being awarded the Presidency by one vote on the Supreme Court. However, only 11% of Americans believe there is a mandate. 50% in a CBS poll say Republicans will just block Obama's initiatives. The majority also believe that political polarization will get worse. Most polls are showing buyers' remorse.

What are the issues that concern most Americans? According to the latest Gallup poll, jobs/unemployment 33% and the economy in general 31%. Only 9% are concerned about the deficit and only 3% about war. In the CBS poll, this is lower--4% on the deficit and 2% about the wars.

The military is unanimous in support for the New Start Treaty, which President Obama negotiated with the Russians. However,the Washington Post claims it is up to senator Kyl of Arizona, who knows nothing about these matters. President Obama wants it ratified in the lame-duck Congress. But I'm doubtful that Republicans will think about national interest.

Eric Cantor joined other Republicans like Joe Lieberman and John McCain when he told Benjamin Netanyahu he had Israel's back against Obama. Republicans used to complain about Nancy Pelosi and others on foreign trips being traitors in their conversations with foreign leaders. Fortunately, for both the U.S. and Israel, Bibi ignored Cantor's advice and accepted the latest American offer on Mideast peace.

Country Last McCain seems to be in a pissing match with his wife over DADT. It seems he pressured Cindy to roll back her objection to it after she appeared in a video against hate. McCain is miffed that the Pentagon survey of the armed forces shows that repealing DADT would not affect anything. McCain refuses to go along with this, claiming more studies need to be done. McCain once said that if the military asked for it to be repealed he would support the move. They have repeatedly and the courts have ruled against it. But McCain will filibuster.

At this point, Obama should just sign an executive order repealing it. It's clear that the Supreme Court has already signalled that they would overturn the 9th Circuit Court's ruling it was unconstitutional. Obama's reticience to pursue the executive order option is his fear that another President would reverse it. I think it highly unlikely that once open gays can serve in the military that anyone will rescind that right. Sign it, Mr. President.

The infamous Bush Tax Breaks debate has been heating up again. The GOP thinks it would be OK to compromise over their extension for another two years because they know that it would be much harder to repeal then. I think it's stupid to maintain them. It's stupid policy-wise and ruinous economically. But I have no dog in the fight ultimately.

But Moody's has a different view. They claim that if the tax breaks are extended it may affect the credit-worthiness of the United States and signal the country can not get its fiscal act together. They threaten to downgrade America's Triple-A rating.

Also of concern is the growing Republican sentiment not to vote to raise the debt ceiling. A few commentators have suggested that the Democrats should get this commitment linked to the extension of the tax breaks for the wealthy. Others suggest they throw in extension of unemployment insurance.

Republicans are signalling their readiness to compromise on the tax breaks but not on extending unemployment insurance. Some of the millionaire tax breaks mean over $100,000 to the wealthy individual. Quite a gift when you are asking others to sacrifice. The United States has never not extended unemployment insurance when the unemployment rate was above 9.5%. Has never happened but I guess it might for the first time.

The mid-term campaign drew alot of attention to candidates like Buck in Colorado, Miller in Alaska and Lee in Utah who said they wanted the 17th Amendment repealed. The 17th Amendment allows for the direct election of Senators. Off-beat, a little kooky? Yes, but along comes Fat Tony Scalia, who gave a lecture last week and advocated the same thing. Scalia went into Glenn Beck territory claiming that the original intent of the constitution got all out of wack starting with the Progressive period and that we need to reclaim it.

This raises a question that keeps cropping up with the new Republican crowd. I have lived my life during the period of history when the United States was at the zenith of its power, militarily, politically, and economically. Now teabaggers, Tony Scalia and Republicans are claiming that America somehow went wrong starting in the progressive period. This means that they would like to repeal the days of America's greatness. How do they think we became a superpower? This is the strange disconnect with the small, limited government imperialists. You can not square the circle without recognizing the contributions to America of progressive policies.

You're really going to enjoy the next Congress, over half the new Republicans have never, ever held any type of public office, even a member on the local schoolboard.


For those concerned with the national debt, the Commonwealth Fund published a study this week that the Health Reform bill will save $143 billion from 2010-2019 and then $1.2 trillion from 2020-2029.

Maybe the Democrats should recruit the new Republican member who ran against Obamacare but demanded to know yesterday why his congressional medical insurance didn't take place immediately. He wanted a temporary policy until he's sworn in.

Lawless Roads

*Graham Greene

Let's start with the good stuff before descending into the swill.

Andrew Sullivan artfully described the present scene yesterday:
"I see the rise of religious fundamentalism and the emergence of purely symbolic, policy-free movements to 'take our country back' as partly psychological expressions of loss in the face of modernity's complexity and diversity."

My favorite millenial diarist at the Daily Kos appeared again with some upbeat observations. His tag line is "pleasedon'tbeafake". He followed up his previous observations by saying that people under 30 give Democrats a 29% margin, while no other age group gives them double digits. He noted that this was only a 22% margin in 2006. He urges Democrats to make 2010 a realignment election more like 1934 than 1994. He points to an almost 75-90% support of the millenials for gay marrigae, immigration reform and climate change legislation. He calls millenials partisans, who should be mobilized. He outlined a brief plan of action that would urge millenials with the slogan "Vote every time." He promises a third installment on his plan and reminds us that millenials have alot of time on their hands in August. What's interesting is that Howard Dean ,appearing on Countdown, sounded alot of the same themes about younger voters not buying into the Republican lines. My instinct is that Dean is playing a more active role in broader Democratic, establishment politics than previously thought.

And if that doesn't motivate you to vote --our young people shaming us--then maybe this will. Tomorrow on May 1 , the religious Right is holding a rally here in Washington "to beg God to forgive America for having elected wicked leaders like President Obama" Sponsored by the America Family Association, the rally will be led by prophetess Janet Porter, who says that America is under the curse of God for having "made the choice of death by electing Obama" even though God warned us not to. The rally is supported by such luminaries as James Dobson , former director of Focus on (Your,Not My) Family, Randy Forbes, Trent ("Obama is an enemy of humanity" Franks, Louie "hate crime laws only protect pedophiles" Gohmert and Rep. Steve King, one of Iowa's best and brightest. At the rally, which will be attended by members of Congress, you will be given the new "Christian Manifesto", which provides a roadmap for America to return to its" bibical roots".

51% of Americans ,according to the Gallup Poll, support the Arizona immigration law. South Carolina under the leadership of the Love Governor wants a similar law but secessionist Rick Perry of Texas does not. The Republican candidate for Governor of Colorado wants to go farther and adopt a policy of racial profiling. The Republican Party is in the midst of a civil war over this issue. Illegal college students have trekked to Washington to be embraced by the Cuban-American Republican congresspeople. Rep. Connie Mack criticized the bill as "frontier justice" and said it echoed a time when the Gestapo picked up people in Nazi Germany. Then again, an Arizona Republican legislator said that the slight delay in its application had the purpose of "instilling fear" into the immigrants. And Chief Arpaio went on the prowl last night with his men dressed all in black to seize Spanish-speaking loiters. His criteria for an illegal immigrant is "they speak Spanish."

The more you examine the Arizona immigration bill the worse it is. For example, if United States citizens are stopped and can not prove their citizenship on the spot, they face six months in jail. Apparently, there are several hundred such people already in jails in Arizona that are citizens. One wag commented that conservatives claim Obama wants to create a European-style social welfare state, while they want to create a European-style surveillance state. Already two lawsuits have been filed challenging the law.

Rachel Maddow had on her show last night the head of FAIR, the immigration reform group, who claim credit for drafting this great legislation. The head of FAIR took the occasion to attack those "discredited smear artists" of the Southern Poverty Law Center, even though Dr. Maddow never mentioned them. The SPLC has been tough in examing the white supremacist roots of this group and their personnel. As I've written before, they are funded by the Pioneer Fund in New York City, which sponsors research and activities to prove the racial superiority of white people. FAIR has tried to distance themselves from these connections but one in particular stood out on the show. FAIR funded Proposition 200 in Arizona, which was very similar to the recently passed law. The Proposition was organized by a group named Protect Arizona Now, which was led by one Virginia Abernathy. Ms. Abernathy gained unwanted notoriety when she proudly proclaimed to the local newspapers that she was an "ethnic separatist". Her ethnic group declared as "European-American". I guess these people want to create the Bantustan structures of apartheid South Africa.

Mike Huckabee doesn't like the bill since America is like Disneyland, once you're in, you can go on all the rides--that's liberty.

From the ridiculous to the sublime, our own Attorney General the Cooch is sending out mailers extolling his historic role in suing the federal government on healthcare reform. Having been elected less than a year ago to our eternal shame, he's asking for your donations so he can continue the fight. The C in conservative stands for Cash.

Master wordsmith Frank Luntz has produced another meme against financial reform. First, you'll recall it was an endless bailout, then it was bad for Democrats. But now it will create a "checkbook tax".

"Hell no" John Boehner dismissed any talk of immigration reform this year. In fact, so did President Obama until he landed in Washington from his Midwest tour. Charles Schumer, Senator Menendez and Harry Reid within hours submitted the outlines of such a bill to the Senate. Watch the place explode over the next two months. As if to drive the stake in the GOP's heart, the House passed a bill calling for a referendum on the status of Puerto Rico.

And small government Gov. Bobby Jindal asked for federal assistance in cleaning up the oil spill that is engulfing the Gulf Coast, making the disaster several times worse than the Valdez. Drill, Baby, Drill.

Democrats shut down the Florida House yesterday in protest of the bill requiring ultrasound before an abortion.

And, surpise, Tony Scalia in the Washington case about whether anti-gay activists have to reveal their names in a dispute over who backed a referendum said," Democracy is not for crybabies. You can't hide your political positions." Wild.