Steve Benen: It appears that one of the day’s biggest political stories yesterday, at least on the right, had to do with a Labor Day speech Teamsters President James Hoffa Jr. delivered in Detroit. This has “manufactured outrage” written all over it ….
….here’s the context of the quote: “Everybody here’s got to vote. If we go back and keep the eye on the prize, let’s take these son of a bitches out and give America back to America where we belong! Thank you very much!”
In other words, he was talking about voting. This was not a call to violence - Hoffa wants to take the far-right politicians out of office, not out of existence.
… A paid CNN analyst said that if President Obama “doesn’t condemn” the comments, “he is sanctioning violence.” This is all pretty silly. If the right is comfortable with Rick Perry’s comments about Ben Bernanke, and Sarah Palin’s “reload” cliche, and Mitt Romney talking about “hanging” Obama, I think conservatives can probably stop clutching the pearls over Hoffa’s line about voting.
Business Insider: After all the speculation that Rick Perry’s threats against Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke would hurt his relationship with Wall Street, at least one banker is pledging his company’s support.
WGIR New Hampshire Radio’s Paul Westcott captures this clip of an unknown individual telling the Texas governor at a “Politics & Eggs” event in New Hampshire: “I’m from Bank of America and we’ll help you out.”
UPDATE: ZeroHedge identifies the Bank of America official as James Mahoney the Director of Public Policy for the bank. Mahoney is a member of the board of directors of The New England Council, one of the events sponsors.
It’s worth noting again that Perry threatened Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, and said any attempt by the Fed to print more money would be “almost…treasonous.”
UPDATE 2: Mahoney is not registered as a lobbyist, and a BofA spokesman tells POLITICO he works on policy …. Spokesman Lawrence Di Rita: “Bank of America does not endorse Presidential candidates. The reference was about following up on the substance of the speech about job creation and economic growth. Discussing policy issues that affect our company and our customers is something we do with policymakers of both parties routinely at the local, state, and Federal levels.”
ZeroHedge: Should we be surprised, frightened, disgusted or simply say “we knew it” …. At least we know now who is funding what, and whose interests potential future president Perry will be paid to defend.
NYT: Representative Nancy Pelosi today announced her three appointees to the special congressional committee tasked with finding ways to reduce federal budget deficits, even as a Republican member of the newly formed panel expressed an openness to consider possible tax increases.
Ms. Pelosi’s choices complete the 12-member panel, which is evenly divided between both the parties and the two houses of Congress.
All three members named by Ms. Pelosi hold leading roles in the party: Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, the No. 3 House Democrat; Representative Xavier Becerra of California, vice chair of the Democratic Caucus; and Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the House Budget Committee.
… One Republican member of the committee, Representative Dave Camp of Michigan, said today that he would not rule out possible tax increases - a central point of contention in the recent debt talks and something many economists contend will be a necessary element to any successful bipartisan proposal.
“I don’t want to rule anything in or out,” Mr. Camp told Reuters. “I am willing to discuss all issues that might help us reduce our short and long-term debt and grow our economy. Everything is on the table, until we as a group rule it out,” he said.
Ms. Pelosi, in her statement, described Mr. Clyburn as a consensus builder with experience on the Appropriations Committee; Mr. Becerra as a senior member of the Ways and Means Committee who “placed the interests of America’s working families first”; and Mr. Van Hollen as a Democratic leader in the deficit-reduction talks led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.
The three Democratic members will join three House Republicans, Jeb Hensarling of Texas and Mr. Camp and Fred Upton, both from Michigan, on the committee. The Senate will be represented by three Republicans, Jon Kyl of Arizona, Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania and Rob Portman of Ohio, along with the Democrats Patty Murray of Washington, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Max Baucus of Montana.
James Warren (The Atlantic): From his community organizing days to the Illinois State Senate, Barack Obama has always put pragmatic deal-making above ideology, even when it angered allies
As President Obama is pilloried by the left, including by bloggers and editorial writers, for supposedly selling them out during debt ceiling negotiations, a reality check is desperately needed.
Get over it, guys and gals, and remember whom you’re fuming over: a deal-making community organizer.
Recognize this man? In a showdown with ideological enemies, he fashioned compromises which made some Democratic allies apoplectic. Republicans weren’t happy, either, with what he wrought but grudgingly realized there were few alternatives.
Throughout he exhibited a preternatural calm, always seeking some common ground among disparate interests as if compromise was a goal in and of itself, not any diminution of principle as some Democrats thought.
Yes, that’s our president, the man at the center of the improbable Debt Debate of 2011. But it was also State Senator Barack Obama a decade ago. The equally rancorous issue back then was the death penalty and the setting was the Illinois legislature. Not much about him has changed.
“His ideological inclinations are liberal but, as far as being a politician, he’s about getting things done. He was always pragmatic and about getting things done,” said Peter Baroni, a Republican attorney-law professor-lobbyist in Chicago who had a bird’s eye view of Obama while serving as legal counsel to Republicans in the Illinois Senate and to its Judiciary Committee.
James Fallows (The Atlantic): … (The chart) demonstrates the utter incoherence of being very concerned about a structural federal deficit but ruling out of consideration the policy that was largest single contributor to that deficit, namely the Bush-era tax cuts.
…. it identifies policy changes, the things over which Congress and Administration have some control, as opposed to largely external shocks - like the repercussions of the 9/11 attacks or the deep worldwide recession following the 2008 financial crisis. Those external events make a big difference in the deficit, and they are the major reason why deficits have increased faster in absolute terms during Obama’s first two years that during the last two under Bush. (In a recession, tax revenues plunge, and government spending goes up - partly because of automatic programs like unemployment insurance, and partly in a deliberate attempt to keep the recession from getting worse.)….
…. the policy that did the most to magnify future deficits is the Bush-era tax cuts. You could argue that the stimulative effect of those cuts is worth it (“deficits don’t matter” etc). But you cannot logically argue that we absolutely must reduce deficits, but that we absolutely must also preserve every penny of those tax cuts. Which I believe precisely describes the House Republican position…..
President Barack Obama talks with Counsel to the President Kathryn Ruemmler in the Oval Office, July 19, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
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Steve Benen: I don’t have high hopes for the legislation - the House majority is still the House majority - but the Obama White House’s support for the Respect For Marriage Act is the latest in a series of encouraging steps on civil rights….
…. it’s a heartening piece that fits into a larger mosaic. After two-and-a-half years, President Obama has successfully repealed the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law; expanded federal benefits for the same-sex partners of executive-branch employees; signed the Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law; cleared the way for hospital-visitation rights for same-sex couples; lifted the travel/immigration ban on those with HIV/AIDS; ordered the Federal Housing Authority to no longer consider the sexual orientation of applicants on loans; expanded the Census to include the number of people who report being in a same-sex relationship; and hired more openly gay officials than any administration in history…….
….I realize there are still a sizable number of people in the LGBT community who are unsatisfied with the pace of change, and consider President Obama someone who has ignored, and even betrayed, their interests. Some have even vowed not to lift a finger to help with the president’s re-election effort.
I suspect many social-conservative activists, furious with the steps Obama has already taken to advance civil rights for the LGBT community, must find this inexplicable.
Full post here
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Even GreenBeck is waving a white flag, abandoning his ‘Obama is a homophobe!’ hysteria. You can almost sense his despondency:
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President Obama walks to the podium to give an update on the ongoing debt ceiling negotiations at the White House, July 19
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Washington Post: Virtually all health insurance plans could soon be required to offer female patients free coverage of prescription birth control, breast-pump rentals, counseling for domestic violence, and annual wellness exams and HIV tests as a result of recommendations released Tuesday by an independent advisory panel of health experts.
The health-care law adopted last year directed the Obama administration to draw up a list of preventive services for women that all new health plans must cover without deductibles or co-payments. While the guidelines suggested Tuesday by a committee of the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine are not binding, the panel conducted its year-long review at the request of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Full article here
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MSNBC: …. most Americans want their political leaders to compromise rather stand their ground, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
…. nearly six in 10 favor President Barack Obama’s proposal to lower the federal deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years by cutting federal spending, raising tax revenue from the wealthy and reducing some Medicare spending.
By comparison, only about a third of respondents prefer the House Republican proposal to reduce the deficit by $2.5 trillion over 10 years through cutting spending alone and not raising additional revenues.
….. As far as the differing approaches to raise the debt ceiling, 58 percent favor Obama’s approach to reduce the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years by cutting spending, increasing revenue through taxing the wealthy and lowering Medicare’s spending. Meanwhile, 36 percent support the House Republican proposal to reduce the deficit by $2.5 trillion through only spending cuts.
The poll also makes clear that the public is more open to raising taxes to balance the budget than it is making cuts and changes to entitlement programs.
Sixty-two percent support raising taxes on corporations and the wealthy if that’s the only way to get a debt-ceiling agreement in Congress. But 52 percent say they oppose making changes and cuts in Social Security and Medicare if that’s the only way to get an agreement.
…. Obama leads former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney by seven points in a hypothetical 2012 general-election match up, 48 percent to 41 percent. And he leads Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., by 15 points, 50 percent to 35 percent.
More here
ABC: ….By a wide 59-26 percent, the public sees congressional Republicans as more concerned than Obama with protecting the economic interests of Wall Street financial institutions, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds. Americans even more broadly, by 67-24 percent, put the GOP ahead when it comes to looking out for the interests of large business corporations.
The tables turn – albeit with much narrower margins – on other measures. Obama leads the GOP by 18 points in looking out for middle-class Americans, 53-35 percent. He also has a 10-point advantage, 47-37 percent, as being more concerned with the economic interests of “you and your family.” And he leads by 9 points, 48-39 percent, on protecting small businesses.
The president’s advantage on small businesses is particularly notable, given the GOP’s efforts to portray his policies as damaging to small-business job creation. While Republicans are fully aboard, independents, the linchpin of national politics, say by 46-39 percent that Obama cares more than GOP leaders about the economic interests of small businesses, a fairly close call but with a tilt in the president’s direction.
This poll finds that Obama also leads among independents by 19 points on aiding the middle class, 52-33 percent, and by 11 points as caring more about the economic interests of and “you and your family.”
More here
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lodinews: James Henderson was so dismayed that his class lacked enough pencils and paper that he wrote to someone he felt could do something about it.
His principal at Leroy Nichols Elementary School? No.
The Lodi Unified School District board? Too small a government.
Maybe the governor? Still not big enough.
James went straight to the President of the United States of America - and President Barack Obama wrote back.
….In his letter, Henderson told President Obama that he didn’t see how the government could continue to cut education funding when they lacked even the basics.
“I told him they were spending a lot more money on other things than school supplies,” Henderson said. “He told me people like me could change the country.”
The student thinks that could be the case if he puts his mind to it and follows his goals, he said, adding that receiving Obama’s letter was a great honor.
Remember yesterday’s posts by Steve Benen and James Fallows on how Al Gore’s Rolling Stone essay on climate change was being misrepresented by the media as an ‘Obama is a failure!’ attack by Gore? Yes, he criticized the President on some fronts, but also praised him on several others.
Gore himself wrote: “Even writing an article like this one carries risks; opponents of the president will excerpt the criticism and strip it of context.”
Fallows: “….. of course the immediate press presentation on the essays has been all “OMG Gore attacks Obama!”
Benen: “…..After writing several thousand words on the crisis itself, Gore actually praised President Obama, lauding the fact that the White House “included significant climate-friendly initiatives in the economic stimulus package he presented to Congress during his first month in office….. ” (more here)
Fallows: “The reaction to Gore’s essay illustrates the pattern: from his point of view, it’s one more (earnest) attempt to say ‘Hey, listen up about this problem!’ As conveyed by the press, it’s one more skirmish on the ‘liberals don’t like Obama’ front, and one more illustration of the eyes-glazing-over trivia and details about melting icebergs and scientific disputes.”
So, you gotta love the title of the video posted on YouTube by darling of the Professional Left, Cenk Uygur (you know, the guy who was a Republican right-winger until a few years ago).
White House.gov
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