Foreign Policy: Imagine, for a moment, how difficult it would have been to land a man on the moon if half of the U.S. Congress had believed that the sun revolved around the earth. Or consider how the War in the Pacific might have progressed if half of Congress had still thought the world was flat. Or whether polio would have been eradicated if half of Congress insisted that the best cure was bleeding using leeches. Unfortunately, this was the situation the United States in January 2009, when Barack Obama assumed the presidency. The nation was trying to climb out of the deepest economic hole since the Great Depression, but the Republican Party had about as scientific an approach to the economy as medieval alchemists did to the periodic table.
Sometimes, mistaken ideas can be harmless or even humorous. But in a crisis, they can be downright dangerous. By the time Obama took office, Lehman Brothers had failed, and the Treasury was already trying to prop up banks and other financial institutions to prevent a complete collapse of the economy. In addition, the nation had undergone a tremendous fiscal transformation. Back in 2000, the United States had expected to rack up more than $4 trillion in budgetary surpluses over the coming eight years, but the Bush administration enacted tax cuts that brought the tax burden for upper-income Americans down to the lowest levels since the 1940s. These cuts, combined with two expensive wars and a short recession, sent the nation into deep deficits. The new president faced an enormous task to revive the economy — one that he could not complete without Congress’s help. Together, they would have to protect Americans from a prolonged economic slump while attempting to chart a course toward a more fiscally responsible future.
Not everyone in Congress was in a mood to cooperate. Stung by their electoral defeats and facing Democratic domination of both houses, the Republicans did everything they could to slow the new president’s agenda, from filibusters and procedural votes to delayed appointments and partisan bickering….
President Obama meets with the 2012 Intel Science Talent Search finalists in the Eisenhower Building
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Michael Tomasky on GOP Plans to Sink the Economy: Every month brings improved job news – and bleaker prospects for the Republicans in November. Which is why they’re contemplating economic sabotage as their only hope.
We’re just under eight months away from Election Day now, which means that the GOP is starting to run out of time to think up new ways to ruin the economy so that Barack Obama doesn’t get reelected …. There are three fronts – gas prices, jobs, and the budget…
….. By opposing everything Obama wanted with such ferocity; by saying all those thousands of times that he had no clue about the economy; by sending out a parade of presidential candidates, from the semi-serious to the clown posse, all of whose central criticism of Obama is that he killed the economy – in all of these ways the party has more invested in economic failure than any out-party I can remember in my lifetime. Its best hope for now is gas prices, but even they eventually get lower, usually by late summer. Beyond that, all the GOP has to rely on is Mitt Romney’s unstoppable charisma.
Marketwatch: U.S. stocks rose Tuesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 Index extending an advance into a fifth session, after retail sales climbed the fastest in five months in February.
“The rising sales were pretty impressive in that rising gas prices hasn’t hurt the consumer,” said Nick Raich, director of research at Key Private Bank in Cleveland …. The Commerce Department reported retail sales climbed 1.1% to $407.8 billion in February, while the prior two months were revised higher.
The upward revisions imply first-quarter economic growth could be “a bit stronger” than first estimated, noted Dan Greenhaus, chief global strategist at BTIG LLC in New York.
National Journal: More Americans trust President Obama than congressional Republicans to make the right decisions to bring down the price of gasoline, according to a new poll, although neither side commands a majority.
What’s more, as prices continue to rise and the specter of $5-per-gallon gas for the summer driving season looms over the political landscape, the latest United Technologies/National Journal Congressional Connection Poll shows the public slightly more supportive of the energy priorities of the Democrats and the president than those of the GOP.
Forty-four percent of respondents trust Obama more “to make the right decisions to help bring down the price of gasoline,” versus 32 percent for Republicans in Congress….
Deaniac (The People’s View): After Washington Post/ABC News put out their poll drastically over-representing GOP and Republican leaning voters, New York Times and CBS News have come up with brand new blunders of their own on their poll released late afternoon yesterday, showing the president at an approval rating of “all time low” 41%. This poll has the most glaring, dumbfounding proof that its sample is rigged staring at you in the very front page of the poll’s crosstabs.
Raw Story: The Republican fight against health care rights for women may end up hurting the party on election day, according to a new poll. A Washington Post survey released Monday found that Democrats are perceived as caring more about issues that are important to women by 25 points, 55 percent to 30 percent.
The poll also showed that a large majority of all voters support the idea that businesses should be required to cover the “full cost” of contraception for female employees. Among all voters, 61 percent supported a mandate for birth control coverage, while 35 percent did not.
As MSNBC’s Steve Benen noted, 53 percent of voters were women in 2008 … “The gender gap was pretty enormous four years ago,” Benen wrote. “Don’t be surprised if it’s even bigger in November.”
Steve Benen: In Arizona, Democratic Senate candidate Don Bivens released a new ad yesterday, targeting Republican Rep. Jeff Flake, and hoping to take advantage of the controversy surrounding Rush Limbaugh. It’s probably not the last 2012 spot we’ll see highlighting the right-wing radio host.
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Liberal Librarian (The People’s View): According to Rick Santorum, I’m doubly un-American. I was born in New York City and lived there until I was 16, at which time my family moved to Los Angeles, where I’ve lived ever since. According to Rick Santorum, I have no values. I don’t know the worth of an honest day’s work. I don’t know the benefits of charity (in which he engages very sparingly). I don’t know the duties of good citizenship. My vote shouldn’t count, because as both a New Yorker and and Angeleno, I was never exposed to rock-ribbed, middle American values. I’m an other. And everyone who lives in my two cities are similarly lacking in American moral fiber.
Kevin Drum (Mother Jones): In the upcoming issue of the Washington Monthly, Paul Glastris has a cover story called “The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama,” a headline almost guaranteed to set your teeth on edge….
….. A sidebar to Glastris’ piece lists Obama’s top 50 accomplishments …. Better to pare it down to 10 really top achievements in order to highlight how many truly major accomplishments Obama has been responsible for. So I did. Except I couldn’t get there. I cut it down to 13 and got stuck. Here they are, in the same order as the original Washington Monthly list (see post)
…. These are all big deals. Big fucking deals, to quote our vice president. Unless you’re just bound and determined to sulk in your tent while insisting that health care was a sellout and the stimulus was too small and Dodd-Frank was feeble and the mini stimuli were more like micro stimuli, there’s just no way around the fact that this is a historically colossal set of progressive accomplishments, especially in the face of a historically hostile political environment.
….. Unlike Paul Glastris, I’m not ready to start chiseling Obama’s mug on Mount Rushmore. But unless national security is pretty much your sole obsession, I really have a hard time understanding progressives who are disappointed in him. Obama has gotten more done for the progressive cause than Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, JFK, or Harry Truman – and, on balance, nearly as much as LBJ, since he doesn’t have any epic disasters to weigh down his successes. For an actual, existing human being, that’s pretty damn good.
10:50: PBO meets with the 2012 Intel Science Talent Search finalists.
11:10: PBO will deliver a statement in the Rose Garden about a new effort to enforce U.S. trade rights with China.
1:00: Jay Carney briefs the press.
4:15: Michelle Obama hosts a mini-Olympics competition in celebration of the 2012 London Summer Olympics.
4:20: PBO and Prime Minister Cameron leave the W.H. for Andrews Air Force Base.
4:35: PBO and Cameron depart for Dayton, Ohio.
5:55: PBO and Cameron attend an NCAA Tournament game (live on truTV)
9:00: PBO and Cameron depart Ohio for D.C.
10:35: PBO and Cameron arrive back at the White House.
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Sign up here to get a link to the livestream of the film which will be shown on Thursday
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Bloomberg: The U.S. public’s economic outlook is turning from fear to hope with the presidential election campaign under way. More than twice as many Americans view the economy’s prospects as brightening as see them darkening, a reversal from nine months ago, when more people expected deterioration ahead, according to a Bloomberg National Poll conducted March 8-11.
“It’s starting to get better,” says survey respondent Kelsey Simeon ….. “Strip malls that were empty are starting to fill up. Everyone’s going out to eat more. People are spending more money on non-necessities…. ”
More Americans now say they are personally better off since President Barack Obama took office than worse off, the first favorable reading for the president on that question since Bloomberg began asking in December 2010.
Washington Post: How much does the president have to do with the price of gasoline?
A lot, say American voters. According to oil experts and economists, not so much – at least in the short term.
Today’s oil prices are the product of years and decades of exploration, automobile design and ingrained consumer habits combined with political events in places such as Sudan and Libya, anxiety about possible conflict with Iran, and the energy aftershocks of last year’s earthquake in Japan.
“This notion that a politician can wave a magic wand and impact the 90-million-barrel-a-day global oil market is preposterous,” said Paul Bledsoe, strategic adviser to the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former Clinton administration official.
Steve Benen: Mitt Romney called in to a popular sports talk show in Alabama yesterday, a day ahead of the state’s Republican presidential primary. As interviews go, this seemed like a fairly easy one…. it’s not like Romney would go on the show, repeat his mistake from two weeks ago, and talk about being friends with millionaire team owners again, right? Wrong:
At one point, Mr. Finebaum asked Mr. Romney, as a New England Patriots fan, where he thought Peyton Manning should go as a free agent, and the candidate highlighted his friendship with football team owners – echoing comments in which he explained his affinity for Nascar by noting he knew the owners of Nascar teams.
“I’m surprised to hear that Denver’s thinking about him,” Mr. Romney said. “I don’t want him in our neck of the woods, let’s put it that way. I’ve got a lot of good friends, the owner of the Miami Dolphins and the New York Jets, both owners are friends of mine,” he added. “But let’s keep him away from New England.”
President Barack Obama greets neighbors outside the home of William and Endia Eason in Cleveland, Ohio, Jan. 4, 2012
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(Despite having the latest version, I can’t see these Videopress videos with Firefox any more, but I can with Safari. What’s up with Firefox?!)
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NYT: For the first time in many years, manufacturing stands out as an area of strength in the American economy.
When the Labor Department reports December employment numbers on Friday, it is expected that manufacturing companies will have added jobs in two consecutive years. Until last year, there had not been a single year when manufacturing employment rose since 1997.
David Rothkopf (Foreign Policy): …. the Obama track record on many fronts is much better than the administration gives itself credit for. They could be doing much, much more to tout what is an impressive litany of successes.
While the list of those successes is long and compelling-defeating Bin Laden, getting out of Iraq, helping to oust Qaddafi, restoring our reputation internationally, resetting our international priorities to better coincide with our long term interests (the “pivot” to a focus on Asia), producing meaningful healthcare reform, producing significant financial services reforms, stopping the downward spiral in the economy and laying the foundations of recovery, etc. – let me focus on three areas that deserve much more attention and appreciation ….. ** See article **
…. the president is actually doing remarkably well in the world’s toughest job right now, and he is and has been doing so under truly extraordinarily adverse circumstances. This is one of those circumstances in which the substance is better than the PR – and it’s time for the White House’s political and communications brain trust to get out a clean sheet of paper and begin to make new and better plans for claiming the credit the Obama team deserves.
Jonathan Cohn: Should President Obama use the recess appointment power when Republicans in Congress refuse even to consider his nominees? You better believe it.
Not only are Republicans blocking Obama’s nominations at a record rate. They are doing so in order to impose their own ideological agenda and, in some cases, to undermine duly passed laws they don’t like but can’t repeal.
That’s a modern-day form of nullification … Obama would be derelict in his duties if he did not use every inch of executive branch authority to overcome it.
…. based on a series of conversations today, I think Obama was within his rights after all.
TPM: Mitt Romney’s tax plan is more complex than those of his current and erstwhile primary competitors. But in broad effect it accomplishes the conservative goal of dramatically lowering taxes on the wealthy at the expense of the lower and middle classes.
Steve Benen: Every bit as interesting as the Obama administration’s big win today in a case challenging the Affordable Care Act are the judges who agreed with the White House’s reasoning:
A conservative-leaning panel of federal appellate judges on Tuesday upheld President Barack Obama’s health care law as constitutional, helping set up a Supreme Court fight.
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued a split opinion upholding the law. The court agreed to dismiss a Christian legal group’s lawsuit claiming the requirement that all Americans get health insurance is unconstitutional and violates religious freedom.
Obama campaign press secretary Ben LaBolt sent this to reporters after Mitt Romney said in an interview that President Obama shouldn’t have written “a check first” to the auto industry:
“If Mitt Romney was President, there would not be an American auto industry. Industry experts have been clear: our auto companies would have faced liquidation if Mitt Romney had his way and more than 1 million Americans would have lost their jobs. Mitt Romney must explain to Michigan voters this week why he would have let Detroit go bankrupt. The loan package the President extended to the auto industry – combined with a restructuring plan – was essential to ensuring that the auto companies return to profitability and produce cars that will keep them competitive in the future.”
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Thanks VC
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Crooks and Liars: Multimillionaire Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney told employees at a steel fabrication plant on Monday that government employees “are making a lot more money than we are”.
….. “The tax payers shouldn’t have to have money taken out of their pay checks to pay people in government who are our servants who are making a lot more money than we are.”
…. The former Massachusetts governor has a net worth estimated at up to $250 million.
Steve Benen: We’ve been exploring for nearly a year the “sabotage” question: are Republicans trying to hurt the nation’s economy on purpose, simply to undermine the Obama presidency?
…. Pollsters, however, have shied away from the question — until very recently. Today, a new survey from Public Policy Polling, commissioned by Daily Kos and SEIU, put the question to respondents nationwide.
“Q: Do you think the Republicans are intentionally stalling efforts to jumpstart the economy to insure that Barack Obama is not reelected or not?”
Yes: 50%
No: 41%
Unsure: 10%
…. this is a rather striking shift.. We’re talking about the American mainstream accepting the idea that a major political party, for the first time since the Civil War, actively trying to undermine the strength of the United States in a time of economic crisis.
First lady Michelle Obama at the Riggs Library of Georgetown University where she delivered remarks and answered questions from students who participated in a day-long ‘immersion experience’ which included pairing with college mentors, taking campus tours, visiting classes and learning about the transition from high school to college.
First Lady Michelle Obama with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel at a South Side Walgreens today in Chicago
Chicago Tribune – Read the text of the First Lady’s remarks here – thanks Jovie
First lady Michelle Obama holds up a worm from a compost pile as she visits Iron Street Urban Farm
First Lady Michelle Obama and Mayor Rahm Emanuel greet Newt Gingrich in Chicago
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Denver Post: A new statewide poll released today to coincide with President Obama’s trip to Colorado shows the first-term Democrat is more popular than any of his major GOP presidential challengers, particularly among unaffiliated voters and Hispanics, two crucial groups.
…. “At this point in the presidential race, President Obama is running against himself,” Project New West president Jill Hanauer said today. “At the same time, the Republican field is not reaching a majority of Coloradans due to their extreme views in very centrist state where voters vote for the person not the party and the policy vision, not a political ideology.”
…. PNW’s poll showed that 49% of likely Colorado voters view the President in a positive light, compared with 45% who have a negative opinion of him. Comparatively, Mitt Romney has a 40/38 favorable/unfavorable rating, and Rick Perry is underwater with a 29/38 rating.
Importantly, the President is even more popular with unaffiliated voters, who constitute a crucial 29% of the Colorado electorate. 54 percent of unaffiliated voters have positive feelings about the president, compared with 37% who view him negatively. Romney (38/37) and Perry (24/33) have similar ratings among Unaffiliateds as they do with the broader electorate.
The President also remains popular with Hispanic voters, who made up roughly 12% of the Colorado electorate in 2010. Obama has a 59/36 approval/disapproval rating among Colorado Hispanics, compared to 31/35 for Romney and 28/39 for Perry.
Go to Political Correction to see an enlarged version of the graphic – ‘A Timeline Of GOP Economic Sabotage’. Thank you BWD.
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OMG! Ex-pat GG briefly left Brazil to visit America for an appearance on Maddow to promote his shiny new book! Awesome! It was a complete love-in – Rachel even wrote the huggy blurb on the back of the book! And she nodded knowingly when he went on about the elites who rule America (but she ran out of time before she could ask him about the Koch brothers and GG’s work for their CATO Institute).
