I’m seeing a series of ideas suggested involving major government intervention in the housing market, and these things are usually presented or sold as a way of helping homeowners stay in their homes. Then, when you look at them more carefully, what they really amount to is a bailout for financial institutions or Wall Street.
-Hank Paulson, former Treasury Secretary in the George W. Bush administration, February 28, 2008, quoted by The Cunning Realist.
I have never understood why every “middle” of the road Democrat isn’t so much a moderate but just seems to switch sides on issues to get re-elected or to get attention. Republican moderates always seem to have some sort of centrist beliefs. And we get stuck with the Joe Libermans and Harold Fords of the world. Colbert does a good job mocking Harold Ford below.
Cindy McCain, wife of Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain has made a big splash and come out in strong support of the right of same-sex marriage and against California’s Proposition 8. Good for her. If more Republicans actually supported liberty, as opposed to paying lip service to the concept, it would be a better country.
Her husband’s office released the following statement in response:
Senator McCain respects the views of members of his family. The senator chaired the effort to successfully pass Arizona Proposition 102, the Marriage Protection Amendment, and his opposition to gay marriage remains the same.
Would someone please explain to me how prohibiting same sex marriage in any way “protects” heterosexual marriage?
And, while you are at it, would someone please explain to me how President Obama has been supportive in any way of equal rights for gays in the year since he became president? Check out this article by Michelangelo Signorile, writing in Salon yesterday.
Obama’s coldness toward gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people upon taking office could have predicted that he wouldn’t get tough on the banks or show any passion for a public option. Gays were the canaries in the coal mine back on Day One of this administration. That was the day when Rick Warren gave the invocation at the inauguration. It signaled how easily this president would insult and sideline a loyal constituency in return for the false promise of bringing in people who will never support him.
Since then he has stepped on his LGBT supporters time and again, including that heinous Defense of Marriage Act brief filed by the Justice Department last June. In addition to pointing to a flowery speech here or there, apologists will tell you about the hate crimes bill or other “pro-gay” actions. But they are no-brainers; Obama has yet to spend any capital on gays.
After years of gays and lesbians hiding the closet, in the trials now going on in California and elsewhere, it appears that those opposed to marriage equality feel the need to hide. Check out this essay by Linda Greenhouse in the New York Times
At its private conference on Friday, the Supreme Court is due to consider whether to hear an appeal brought by an organization called Protect Marriage Washington. Under the slogan of “Preserve Marriage, Protect Children,” the group ran a successful petition drive to place on the state’s November ballot a referendum giving voters a chance to repudiate a new state law that granted enhanced benefits to couples registering as domestic partners. (The voters ended up reaffirming the new law, which took effect last month.)
Under Washington’s Public Records Act, the signatures on referendum petitions are public records, available for inspection and copying. The Public Records Act, itself the product of the public initiative process, provides as its rationale that “the people insist on remaining informed so that they may maintain control over the instruments that they have created.”
Last summer, Protect Marriage Washington filed suit to bar public disclosure of the names of their 138,000 petition signers. It won an initial victory, but the Ninth Circuit ruled on the eve of the election that the names were subject to disclosure. The members of the three-judge panel observed that “referendum petition signers have not merely taken a general stance on a political issue; they have taken action that has direct legislative effect.” The court held that the public interest in disclosure outweighed the “incidental limitations” that disclosure placed on the signers’ exercise of their First Amendment right to political speech and association.
The case, Doe #1 v. Reed, No. 09-559, obviously got the Supreme Court’s attention. In October, with only Justice Stevens dissenting,the court issued a stay of the Ninth Circuit’s decision in order to permit Protect Marriage Washington to prepare a Supreme Court appeal.
I have always found that Media Matters provides a good summary of what has been in the news over the last week or so. The sad part about this week is how little important news dominated last week’s news cycle.
Also, did Glenn Beck really ask if Tiger Woods was really O.J. Simpson? I new he had expressed extremely racist thoughts in the past, but I’m not sure I have ever heard him say anything so appalling.
(Update by Brant): By the way, Glenn Beck was recently “covered” on South Park.
After months of collaboration on President Obama’s attempt to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, the insurance industry plans to strike out against the effort on Monday with a report warning that the typical family premium in 2019 could cost $4,000 more than projected.
Color me surprised. In this country, with private healthcare we spend more than any other country in “overhead” costs for healthcare. This overhead includes the salaries of those private companies in handling the payments, as well as the high salaries of their management. Here is a comparison:
Medicare, the publicly managed plan for the elderly in the United States, spends 5 percent of each health care dollar on administrative expenses, compared with the 17 percent devoured by private insurers on average.
People keep saying that the economy is improving. Something along the lines of ”Thank goodness, we avoided depression era occurrences like bread lines and apple carts.” Well according to the Detroit News, this morning at Cobo Hall in the City of Detroit, they handed out applications for government assistance and several thousand people showed up. I wish the media and our society acknowledged that there is more to the health of our economy then the stock market and bank balance sheets.
Here is an excerpt:
Detroit Police 2nd Deputy Chief John Roach said 150 officers on the scene have gotten a handle on the situation. “There was some pushing and shoving, and some people have fainted,” Roach said. “Given the fact that we have 15,000 people down there, I’m surprised things have been as orderly as they are.”
Roach said he helped a woman who suffered back spasms from waiting in line into his car. Then he went into Cobo and got her an application and drove her to her car.
It was difficult to estimate the crowd because lines snaked all through the convention center and outside along the building and down the parking ramp along Cobo Arena to the river. One police officer estimated the crowd at 50,000.
More than 25,000 applications were snapped up in less than three hours Tuesday at Neighborhood City Halls.
As the hate speech continues on the right, without apparently anyone responsible on the right coming down on it, GOP Congressman Trent Frank calls Obama the “enemy of humanity.”
Obama’s first act as president of any consequence, in the middle of a financial meltdown, was to send taxpayers’ money overseas to pay for the killing of unborn children in other countries. Now, I got to tell you, if a president will do that, there’s almost nothing that you should be surprised at after that. We shouldn’t be shocked that he does all these other insane things. A president that has lost his way that badly, that has no ability to see the image of God in these little fellow human beings, if he can’t do that right, then he has no place in any station of government and we need to realize that he is an enemy of humanity.
He has since “clarified” his remarks. He wants to make it clear that he meant that Obama is an enemy of “unborn humanity” not, I guess, born humanity.
A Newsmax columnist is now claiming that a military coup to handle the “Obama problem” is a realistic possibility. The wacko fringe is getting even crazier. Why does he think the military could take such a step?
Officers swear to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Unlike enlisted personnel, they do not swear to “obey the orders of the president of the United States.”
Top military officers can see the Constitution they are sworn to defend being trampled as American institutions and enterprises are nationalized.
They can see that Americans are increasingly alarmed that this nation, under President Barack Obama, may not even be recognizable as America by the 2012 election, in which he will surely seek continuation in office.
They can see the nation’s safety and their own military establishments and honor placed in jeopardy as never before.
They can see that the economy — ravaged by deficits, taxes, unemployment, and impending inflation — is financially reliant on foreign lender governments.
They can see this president waging undeclared war on the intelligence community, without whose rigorous and independent functions the armed services are rendered blind in an ever-more hostile world overseas and at home.
They can see the dismantling of defenses against missiles targeted at this nation by avowed enemies, even as America’s troop strength is allowed to sag.
They can see the horror of major warfare erupting simultaneously in two, and possibly three, far-flung theaters before America can react in time.
This type of “analysis” is dangerous and totally irresponsible. If someone believes that actions taken by the Obama administration are unconstitutional, the recourse (under the Constitution) is to the courts. It would be interesting to actually hear a cogent analysis of exactly what the President has done or proposes doing that is unconstitutional before even considering a coup. I mean, there has to be some limitation on claims that one considers legitimate, some facially substantive explanation of what could possibly warrant this type of action. I cannot fathom exactly what unconstitutional actions have been taken by this administration.
The drumbeat of voices attempting to de-legitimize the President is actually quite dangerous, a point highlighted today by Tom Friedman in the New York Times. He argues that the baseless claims made by the far right could provide a basis for a deranged individual or individuals to attempt to kill the President. Imagine the result if such were to happen.
Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush, president “41,” will be remembered as our last “legitimate” president. The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater “scandal.” George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess, and his critics on the left never let him forget it.
And Mr. Obama is now having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the right fringe. They are using everything from smears that he is a closet “socialist” to calling him a “liar” in the middle of a joint session of Congress to fabricating doubts about his birth in America and whether he is even a citizen. And these attacks are not just coming from the fringe. Now they come from Lou Dobbs on CNN and from members of the House of Representatives.
Again, hack away at the man’s policies and even his character all you want. I know politics is a tough business. But if we destroy the legitimacy of another president to lead or to pull the country together for what most Americans want most right now — nation-building at home — we are in serious trouble. We can’t go 24 years without a legitimate president — not without being swamped by the problems that we will end up postponing because we can’t address them rationally.
Update: Now Newsmax is desperately trying to backpedal on the column. It has been removed from their website and they claim that the author, John L. Perry, is merely an unpaid blogger. Not quite. He has been writing a column for them nearly every single week since November, 1999. Oh, and the full text of the original column remains available here.
I’m tired of Fox News complaining that Obama won’t agree to any interviews with the network. One of their most popular hosts has repeatedly called the President a racist. He has every right and is absolutely in the right to refuse to do interviews with the network. The video below is a great interview by Katie Couric of Glenn Beck where she won’t let him get away with not answering what he meant by saying Obama hated “white culture.”
