Rate & Discuss

consortiumnews.com — For anyone who has lived through the past several decades of Republican bullying – from Richard Nixon’s anything-goes politics through Karl Rove’s dreams of a “permanent Republican majority” – it had to be startling to hear House Speaker John Boehner complaining that President Barack Obama’s goal was “to annihilate” the GOP. During a private luncheon of the Republican Ripon Society on Tuesday, Boehner cited Obama’s progressive agenda as outlined in his Second Inaugural Address as representing an existential threat to the GOP. The Ohio Republican also claimed that it was Obama’s goal “to just shove us into the dustbin of history.” Of course, Boehner may be wildly exaggerating the Republican plight to shock the party out of its funk, raise more money, and get right-wing activists back to the barricades. Still, his comments marked a remarkable reversal of fortune, like the playground bully getting his nose bloodied and running to the teacher in tears.

more »

talkingpointsmemo.com — The big news is that Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell have agreed to a very modest set of Senate rules reforms (I can’t call them filibuster reforms, because they don’t reform the modern filibuster at all). It should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been following the story for the past few weeks. When the majority’s big stick is threatening to use the nuclear option to impose very modest reforms because the party can’t reach internal consensus on anything meaningful — well, it mean things aren’t going very well. But the filibuster remains a huge impediment to the majority doing what it wants to do, and thus distorts the public’s sense of who’s at fault for governing failures. It’s been a huge, and historically unprecedented problem for Democrats for four years. So why didn’t they take unilateral action for stronger reforms?

more »

robertreich.org — The richest 1 percent now own more than 35 percent of all of the nation’s household wealth, and 38 percent of the nation’s financial assets – including stocks and pension-fund. Think about this: The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million of us put together. The 6 Walmart heirs have more wealth than bottom 33 million American families combined. So why are we even contemplating cutting programs the middle class and poor depend on, and raising their taxes? We should tax the vast accumulations of wealth now in the hands of a relative few.

more »

Since the moment I began researching my book “Hostile Takeover” at the end of George W. Bush’s first term, I’ve been consumed with how America’s political vernacular is subtly skewed to prefer certain legislative outcomes and preclude others. We see it in the debate over social programs, where those committed to cutting Social Security are not only portrayed as working to strengthen the program, but also billed as “moderates” despite their position on the decidedly radical, not-moderate outskirts of public opinion. We see it in how President Obama’s inaugural speech is depicted as advocating a “leftist” agenda, despite polls showing that nearly every policy he advocated is supported by a majority of all Americans — not just those on the left. And, no doubt, we see it in how the Obama administration labels its liberal critics “fringe” even though those critics who are advocating policies in the mainstream center of public opinion. more »

washingtonpost.com — Republicans wanted nothing more than to summon Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Capitol Hill and grill her about the tragic fiasco in Benghazi. Sadly for them, they got their wish. Clinton’s smooth and confident performance at Wednesday’s Senate and House committee hearings was fun to watch. When her would-be inquisitors asked serious questions, she gave serious answers. But when Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), full of bombast and faux outrage, accused the administration of initially misstating the nature of the Benghazi attack, she responded with table-pounding thunder: “What difference, at this point, does it make?” And when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said that he would have fired her had he been president, she answered with an icy cut of her eyes that said: Fat chance.

more »

dailykos.com — No doubt you've seen Sen. Rand Paul's made-for-TV tantrum yesterday at the U.S. Senate's Benghazi hearing. Setting aside Sen. Paul's thickheaded and insensitive remark that the murder of four Americans in Libya is "the worst tragedy since 9/11"—worse, for example, than 4,000 Americans killed in a pointless and costly war—his tea party toadying, "Had I been president," should not pass without comment.
If Sen. Paul had been president, of course, the mess in Benghazi probably would've been a lot worse, as our embassy personnel would have had much less protection, given the GOP's deep cuts to Secretary Clinton's security requests. But he's not president, and here's why he shouldn't even open his pie hole to entertain the possibility.

more »

prospect.org — The verdict from pundits is in: Barack Obama’s Inaugural speech signaled his ambition to be the “liberal Reagan,” and the Big Question about his second term is whether he’ll achieve that goal. Here’s the problem. Ronald Reagan wasn't really the Reagan of everyone’s imagination. So aspiring to be a “liberal Reagan” is chasing a fantasy. Worse than that—it’s a fantasy that can easily distract a president from the real things that he should be doing.

more »

economix.blogs.nytimes.com — Congressional Republicans are again threatening not to increase the ceiling on the amount of federal government debt that can be issued. On Wednesday, they agreed to postpone this particular piece of the fiscal confrontation, but only until May. The decision to turn the debt ceiling into a confrontation is a big mistake for the Republicans and extending the indecision is likely to prolong the agony of uncertainty and have damaging economic consequences for the country. I made these points at a hearing on Tuesday of the House Ways and Means Committee, but unfortunately the Republican majority seems determined to persevere with its destabilizing strategy.

more »

thedailybeast.com — What with everything going on these days, it wouldn’t surprise me to learn that Reince Priebus hasn’t been foremost in your mind lately. Well, this is your opportunity to correct that error, because I deliver tidings that the Republican National Committee is holding its winter meeting right now, starting yesterday, in Charlotte. A-Number-One on Chairman Priebus’s list, say advance reports, is figuring ways the GOP can attract more support among minorities. Well, they could. But they’d have to do things that would make them not the Republican Party anymore, and their base would never permit it.

more »

alternet.org — Three weeks after her release from a New York hospital with a blood clot on the brain – a health emergency mocked on the right as “Benghazi flu” — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave Senate Republicans their day of rage over the Sept. 11 Benghazi killings on Wednesday. From the intellectually underwhelming Ron Johnson of Wisconsin to the ever-angrier John McCain, with cameos by unimpressive 2016 hopefuls Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, Clinton stood up to the raging bulls with grace and fire of her own.

more »

juancole.com — Secretary of State Hillary Clinton let Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) have it in her testimony about Benghazi on Wednesday. It was not the only emotional or pointed moment. I share her frustration at the bad faith and conspiracy theories that underlay a lot of the question.

more »

prospect.org — The consensus around debt reduction is beginning to crumble. Some straws in the wind are more careful attention to the actual numbers, as well as public conversions by such key players as Larry Summers and Peter Orszag, two former top aides to President Obama, who only yesterday were key members of the deflate-your-way-to-recovery club. President Obama, in his second inaugural address, had little to say about deficit-reduction as some kind of panacea and more about broadly-shared recovery. Given the continuing obsession with the Republicans and the Fix-the-Debt lobby with deficit cuts, it would be good if President Obama were even stronger on the point that we’ve had all the deficit cutting that we need and that the economy can stand, and that health reform is whole other story. But at least the fiscal debate is starting to move in the right direction, the deficit-hawk echo chamber in the media is no longer mindlessly repeating the Peterson mantra, and that’s good news indeed.

more »

washingtonpost.com — To understand how Barack Obama sees himself and his presidency, don’t look to Franklin Roosevelt or Abraham Lincoln. Obama’s role model is Ronald Reagan — just as Obama told us before he was first elected. Like Reagan, Obama hopes to usher in a long-term electoral realignment — in Obama’s case toward the moderate left, thereby reversing the 40th president’s political legacy. The Reagan metaphor helps explain the tone of Obama’s inaugural address, built not on a contrived call to an impossible bipartisanship but on a philosophical argument for a progressive vision of the country rooted in our history. Reagan used his first inaugural to make an unabashed case for conservatism. Conservatives who loved that Reagan speech are now criticizing Obama for emulating their hero and his bold defense of first principles.

more »

prospect.org — The consensus around debt reduction is beginning to crumble. Some straws in the wind are more careful attention to the actual numbers, as well as public conversions by such key players as Larry Summers and Peter Orszag, two former top aides to President Obama, who only yesterday were key members of the deflate-your-way-to-recovery club. President Obama, in his second inaugural address, had little to say about deficit-reduction as some kind of panacea and more about broadly-shared recovery. Given the continuing obsession with the Republicans and the Fix-the-Debt lobby with deficit cuts, it would be good if President Obama were even stronger on the point that we’ve had all the deficit cutting that we need and that the economy can stand, and that health reform is whole other story. But at least the fiscal debate is starting to move in the right direction, the deficit-hawk echo chamber in the media is no longer mindlessly repeating the Peterson mantra, and that’s good news indeed.

more »

washingtonpost.com — House Republicans aren’t voting to lift the debt ceiling. They’re voting to suspend it for three months. It’s an entirely political, meaningless distinction, but it points the way towards an entirely sensible, overdue solution. Temporarily suspending the debt-ceiling raises some troubling technical questions. But it also sets a delightful precedent. Congress will have shown it can make the debt ceiling disappear. For three months, the debt ceiling simply won’t exist. And it won’t exist for exactly the right reasons. Republicans are admitting that when they choose to “suspend” the debt ceiling rather than raise it — this way, no one can accuse them of raising it, even though that’s exactly what they’ve done. The only problem with their plan is it doesn’t go far enough. We shouldn’t suspend the debt ceiling for three months. We should suspend it forever, completely eliminating the threat that this hard, unpleasant, confusing vote could go wrong and unleash economic havoc.

more »

motherjones.com — As legacy issues go, saving the planet from global warming would put all others in the shade. But can President Barack Obama do it? The question has two answers, one at home and one abroad. He is certainly reinvigorated in his determination to tackle climate change. In his first term, those wanting action were too often left parsing single sentences to divine the intentions of the president. Obama's inaugural speech on Monday left no room for doubt.

more »

washingtonpost.com — “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change we seek,” candidate Barack Obama said in 2008. At the time, his comments came in for criticism: They were narcissistic; they were tautological; they didn’t make a whole lot of sense. But in the aftermath of Obama’s 2012 reelection and his second inaugural address, his 2008 remarks seem less a statement of self-absorption than one of prophecy. There is an Obama majority in American politics, symbolized by Monday’s throng on the Mall, whose existence is both the consequence of profound changes to our nation’s composition and values and the cause of changes yet to come. That majority, as the president made clear in his remarks, would not exist but for Americans’ struggles to expand our foundational belief in the equality of all men.

more »

truthdig.com — As President Obama made clear in his inaugural address Monday, failing to confront the threat of climate change in his second term would be a betrayal of future generations. “Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science,” Obama said, “but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought and more powerful storms.” Actually, there are some who can avoid fires, drought and storms, but most of them voted for Mitt Romney. At a time of continued unemployment and Republican assaults on workers’ rights, the climate crisis may not seem like a pressing bread and butter concern. However it is vital for the president and his allies in Congress to remember that those Americans most defenseless against extreme weather and natural disasters form the backbone of the Democratic Party. That is the only conclusion one can draw from the draft of a new federal study on global warming’s growing impact on the United States.

more »

inthesetimes.com — Based on his inaugural speech—and a populist re-election campaign—President Barack Obama intends to pursue a more progressive direction in his second term. Pundits from across the political spectrum have already declared the president a bona fide, card-carrying progressive. On Fox News, Charles Krauthammer bemoaned the “end of Reaganism” that Obama’s speech signaled, and on progressive radio, Thom Hartmann said he agreed with Krauthammer. Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post said Obama laid out a “clear progressive philosophy” for the next four years. But for movement progressives, there are two important caveats and takeaways from the president’s newfound confidence in articulating a populist agenda. One brings validation—albeit combined with frustration. The other reinforces a worrisome tendency by the president and the Democratic Party.

more »

thedailybeast.com — It's clever from a pr point of view, I'll give them that. Pushing back the debt limit deadline until May makes them seem less nutso. And this "no budget, no pay" wrinkle is bound to be popular. You can read all about it here if you're unfamiliar with the details. But here's the rub. Paul Ryan is going to draft a new budget that will eliminate the deficit in 10 years. Remember his previous two budgets, the ones that ended up being pretty big political liabilities in the election because of their impact on Medicare and on domestic programs, the ones many middle-ground Americans thought were extreme? Well, they balanced the budget in 30 years. And now he's going to balance it in 10. How is he going to get there? Good question. Far deeper cuts to domestic programs and Medicare--exactly the problems with his prior budgets, now concentrated.

more »