Obama Doesn’t Show in WI, But Asks For Money Post-Walker Win

I was thinking about what it meant that President Obama didn’t get involved in the Wisconsin Governor recall election today.  Obama reinforced the conclusion I came to: Obama cares about Obama in 2012.  Period.  No other candidate or issue is really on his radar screen: his reelection is all that matters.

All one need look at is this from an email sent by the Obama campaign this afternoon:

Republican Governor Scott Walker and his allies outspent the Democratic challenger nearly EIGHT to ONE — and one of the most unpopular governors in the country managed to hold on.

[...]

Please donate $15 or more to support President Obama and make sure people, not special interests, decide this election.

Obama didn’t stump for Walker’s Democratic challenger in the past month – in much the same way that Obama let 2010 slip by without getting engaged in races that would make a difference to his agenda.  As a result, Wisconsin is still led by a deeply unpopular right-winger and the recall election lead-up to the validated the right’s approach to burying opponents in money.

After refusing to stand up to the right in Wisconsin, Obama wants to use the election results to fundraise off of me and millions of other Americans.  That might be considered good politics in the insular world of D.C. politics, but it’s bad politics in my book.  I’ll continue to donate to and work for local candidates, thank you very much Jim Messina.  Obama and other establishment Democrats aren’t truly interested in getting money out of politics.  They’re interested in getting reelected so they stay in power.

Mike Rosen: Forgetful Or Deceitful?

I try not to pay too much attention to people whose view of reality is in stark contrast to obvious facts – Mike Rosen is one of those people.  His columns for the Denver Post are usually so absurd, I read them instead of the comics.

Today’s column crosses a line, however.  This is the linchpin of his argument today [emphasis mine]:

Another covetous complainer, disparaging “absurdly ridiculous” sports salaries, argued that Manning’s salary could, instead, have gone to pay for school buses, textbooks, free lunches, teachers’ pay and other societal needs. In fact, the degree of our compassion and commitment to governmental largess on such items is already measured by $15 trillion of federal debt and more than $100 trillion in unfunded government liabilities.

As usual, extremists like Rosen over-reach to “make their case”.  Rosen wants readers to believe in his fantasy that the $15 trillion of federal debt is 100%, completely due to governmental largess and compassion (Rosen invokes disdain of the mythological welfare queens here).

Really?

Isn’t it interesting that St. Ronnie, the patron saint of modern Teabaggerism, was responsible for $3 trillion of federal debt.  Not only that, but St. Ronnie charged up that debt in 8 short years, tripling the debt of the previous 200 years.  How much compassion and commitment to governmental largess did St. Ronnie have again, Mr. Rosen?

Furthermore, Bushes Sr. and Jr. threw their weight into the federal debt explosion that Teabaggers like Rosen want to pile onto the shoulders of Democrats.  Did Rosen ever write a column taking Bush Jr. to task for invading and occupying two sovereign nations without making sure the budget accommodated such activitie?  No, he did not.n  You see, it’s alright for Teabaggers to rack up $13+ trillion of federal debt.  It’s not alright for a Democrat to rack up $1-2 trillion of federal debt (Clinton was actually paying the debt down in the late 1990s).

Would it be nice to fund schools, textbooks and teachers (not administrators!) to the same tune of Manning’s recent contract?  Sure, it would.  It would have been even nicer if more Denver voters had felt the same way when they agreed to build Pat Bowlen (a 1%er) a new stadium for him with our hard-earned tax dollars.  Denver schools would have seen increased funding and Mr. Bowlen would have faced the choice of extorting another city’s taxpayers or staying in Denver and spending some of his riches to keep his stadium up to date.

Denver voters’ commitment to corporate largess is what we need to discuss.  But Rosen would much rather keep convincing readers that the 1%ers are the victims in our society.  Boo-hoo!

This comment by Rosen is simply disgusting to read:

There are only a handful of people on this planet who can do what Peyton Manning does on a football field. There are many millions of people in this country who can do what teachers do in a classroom.  That’s not to demean teachers, just to recognize an economic reality in a free society.

It’s fascinating to read honest statements from extremists like Rosen.  There are many millions of people who can do teachers’ jobs.  That’s exactly what Rosen believes and he sees nothing morally wrong with insulting them.  The difficulty of a job isn’t what we should discuss here either.  What should we discuss?  The value we place on a teacher vs. a quarterback.  Rosen puts zero value in a teacher and millions of dollars’ worth of value in a quarterback.  In his fantasy world, teachers are not needed and quarterbacks deserve the largesse they receive.  Because entertainment is far more important than education!

Didn’t Environmentalists Cheer the Demise of the Keystone XL Pipeline?

Yes, yes environmentalists did cheer the demise of the Keystone XL pipeline.  By stopping a Republican amendment earlier this year, the decision on whether to build the pipeline from Canada through the central US was left in President Obama’s hands, which was “rejected“.

It turns out that both the “rejection” wasn’t really a rejection and the cheerleading probably happened too soon.  I say that because today, Obama pushed for the southern branch of the pipeline to be finished faster than originally projected.  Many of the same environmentalists who cheered the original “decision” (read: delay) are the same ones who are now decrying this latest call.

I would put more stock into those complaints if those environmentalists hadn’t spent so much time and energy earlier this year trying to convince me that Obama’s “decision” was really and truly final and Keystone wouldn’t get built.  I argued then, and was proven correct today, that Obama’s “decision” really was a delay – it was enough action to get the topic out of the headlines in an election year when he can’t afford to piss off elements of his base too much.

The pipeline was always going to be and in fact will be built in the US.  The part that people should be paying attention to is this: the fossil fuels the pipeline delivers will not be sold in the US – it will be sold overseas because it can fetch a higher price that way.  In return, the “environmentally conscious” President who “cares about the economy” will gladly oversee an increase in deliverable fossil fuels to a largely unregulated, subsidized marketplace which will result in higher fuel prices for every American.  Those fossil fuels will be burned faster than they otherwise would have been and the resultant global warming forcing will be left to future generations to deal with.

But please vote for President Obama in November because who knows what would have happened to the Keystone pipeline if a Republican was in office – it might have gotten built or something horrible like that!  It will be better to get just a little tiny bit of what you want instead of more of what you want if you stop voting for politicians who take your interests for granted.

Obama Administration: We Can Kill American Citizens Overseas Whenever We Want

The Obama administration says they have the Constitutional authority to kill American citizens overseas if they think those Americans are in the process of planning attacks on American soil.  No courts; no due process.  And most Democrats don’t bat an eye in response – which is troubling news for our “democracy”.  An obvious question: Would those same Democrats have voiced their displeasure if President Bush said the exact same thing?  Absolutely they would have been.  But see – it’s okay since Obama is a Democrat.  What Obama says goes.  Even though those same Democrats spent years insulting Republicans by calling them mindless drones for accepting whatever Bush said just because.

For too many in this country, Party if more important than Principle.

Brief Comment On Insults & Apologies

At least 28 people have been killed and hundreds wounded since Tuesday, when it first emerged that Bibles and other religious materials had been thrown into a fire pit used to burn garbage at Dover Air Force Base, a large U.S. base near Dover, Delaware.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and other Iranian officials have apologized for what they said was a mistake in handling the Bibles, but their regrets have not quelled the deadly protests.

I can’t imagine what people might be upset about….  Certainly not bad policy and certainly not failed execution, right?

Americans Don’t Think Employer Belief Should Impede Their Access To Insurance Coverage

A solid nominee for the “Duh!” moment of the day: polling shows that Americans think they should have unfettered access to insurance coverage – that procedures and treatments should be available to those who are insured.

Put another way – why should employers get to decide what insured Americans get access to?  The Teabaggers didn’t think that the government should have that ability (not that the recent health insurance legislation ever proposed doing so), so why should it be okay for employers to restrict access, as Republican politicians are advocating?

All that said, this whole thing wouldn’t even be an issue if universal health care was enacted instead of forcing millions of Americans into the for-profit insurance industry.

What Journalistic Integrity?

When you see graphs like the one below, you realize most journalists and journalism entities are led around to ridiculous lengths.  I’ve seen the graph before but haven’t written about it – until I kept hearing about the nonsensical witch hunts being perpetrated by House Republican Teabaggers like Darrel Issa and Fred Upton.  The activities they pursue would qualify them for immediate removal from office in a country with values.

On a related note, I’m sure glad then-Speaker Pelosi decided not to investigate the Bush Administration’s handling of the Iraq and Afghanistan invasions and occupations.  No, investigating that would have destroyed the comity of the House.  Real waste, fraud & abuse?  Swept under the rug by Democrats intent on maintaining power.  Fake waste, fraud & abuse?  Ratcheted up to conspiratorial heights by Republican Teabaggers and abetted by the corporate media.

On Super PACs and “Conservative” Columnsists

I’m going to revisit a writer whose work continues to demonstrate how non-conservatives conservatives have moved.  The Denver Post’s David Harsanyi opines on Super PACs and, according to his title, “free will”.  Like most other “conservatives”, he argues that free speech is critical to our way of life and the Supreme Court “conservatives’” pre-meditated choice to issue a decision that didn’t even deal with a case that was brought before them somehow increases free speech (in the form of money, of course).  He continues by lamenting that citizens don’t have this same freedom because they have to file reports with the federal government when they join with at least 11 other citizens to donate money to political campaigns.

The crocodile tears shed for citizens sounds good until you think about which citizens have the most money: those already contributing to Super PACs.  I don’t have a single friend or activist acquaintance that has the financial ability to donate tens of thousands or millions of dollars to any campaign or issue of their choice.  Therein lies the problem with the argument: do super-corporations (especially those based over-seas) have more freedom of speech than a citizen of the United States?  Should they have more freedom than we do?  I don’t think so.  But “conservatives” today do.

Note further that “conservatives” wouldn’t be extolling the virtues of Citizens United if their elite-blessed candidates weren’t expected to be the primary beneficiaries of the decision.  Such is the reality in the hyper-partisan environment those same “conservatives” have spent 50 years creating.

And how much does this columnist actually believe in “free will” anyway?  If the belief was consistent, free will would extend to all personal choices, including what women decide to do with their own bodies.  That is the crux of the matter: too many partisans – on both sides of the aisle – are only willing to push for “rights” and “freedoms” when it’s convenient for them to do so.  Consistency is another casualty of today’s hyper-partisanship.

Sen. Mark Udall’s “Bipartisanship”

How well did Democratic Sen. Mark Udall’s idea that Democrats and Republican Teabaggers sit next to each other during the 2011 State of the Union address?

By any common sense approach, it was an abject failure.  Sure the Senators intermingled for one evening.  Then the Republican Teabaggers threatened to filibuster a record number of bills, nominees for posts were needlessly held up for months on end before being overwhelmingly approved once they allowed votes to come up.  Oh, there was also a “little hiccup” in the economy when those same Teabaggers threatened to not allow a vote to increase the federal debt ceiling, which resultedin a downgrade of the US credit rating.  That’s correct: the same targets of Udall’s goodwill took our economy to the edge of disaster for purely political reasons: if the economy tanks, President Obama would be unlikely to win reelection this year.

So how does Sen. Bipartisanship respond?  By re-issuing his silly call for Senators to sit together again this year and show Americans they can get along.  The Republican Teabaggers want to shut down the government and the economy, Senator Udall.  What is it going to take for you to accept that basic truth?

Senator, if you want to prove to Americans you and your colleagues can do your jobs, pass a jobs bill; pass a federal budget on time; let the Bush tax cuts expire as designed; confirm or deny nominees but make the votes happen.  Somehow I think running a campaign ad that one of your accomplishments was calling for Senators to sit together during a speech while tens of millions of Americans remained underemployed, losing their households and savings and health care and hope for the future, won’t win over too many voters.  Do something tangible, Senator.  No more empty gestures.  No more searching for the Holy Bipartisanship Grail.

Update on OH Democrats

The other day, I ran across a story regarding OH Democrats’ incompetence in the redistricting task for that state and wrote about it here.  They wasted time using volunteers to get petitions signed when a professional outlet was available and ready for work.  But it gets worse than that: Democratic legislators ended up accepting the extremely gerrymandered Republican Teabagger map!  So the volunteer effort was doubly wasted!

Once again, I’ll recap: the map virtually ensures that 16 Republican Teabagger Congresspeople will be elected in 2012 while only 4 Democratic Congresspeople will be similarly elected.  This in a state which decidedly elected President Obama in 2008 – it’s not a Teabagger state at all.  So the good people of Ohio don’t get the appropriate representation for the next decade.  But I guess that’s no big deal.  Do you know why it isn’t a big deal?  Because the fools in charge of the Ohio Democratic Party get to keep their positions!  They remain in power of their moribund establishment while Ohio citizens get screwed!

The problem with all of this, of course, is that the Democratic voters won’t dispose of their party officials.  They’ll buy into the crap that they did everything possible and it was more than enough that “they shined light” on the gerrymandered maps.

Pathetic.