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How do you keep your legacy of Obamacare from being cut and left to bleed?
Easy. You turn Obamacare into a low priority for Republicans, by seriously challenging them on other things far more important, forcing them to drop the fight for Obamacare, because they have other battle to fight over…. Ones they will lose unless they become very lucky.
- You apply tremendous force to raise taxes on the top 1%
- You allow businesses the writing off capital investments the full amount spent.
- You keep benefits on Social Security, and raise the fee on top incomes.
- You do a Kennediesque moon challenge, but this time to it’s High Speed Rail connecting all major cities by 2025.
- You proceed with a challenge to find a way to capture coal CO2, making it eco-friendly.
- You push for keeping guns out of those who are mentally ill. Background checks and take on the NRA.
- You push for more union rights, and fewer right to work laws.
- You push for stronger controls on Wall Street.
- You push for more solar energy capture out west, more wind in the mid-west, and more tidal on both coasts….
You promise every American that if they vote for no Republicans in 2014, your goal for 2018 is that every American will be making $10,000 more than they are now.… Examples… If they are making $10,000, they’ll be up to $20,000. If they are at $40,000, the’ll be up to $50,000. And if they are making $100 million, they’ll be making $100 million plus $10,000 by the end of that time frame….
With a roaring economy, that is actually a conservative estimate…
The point is … as a lame duck president you have two options. One you can play defensive, and try to foil Republicans, the wealthy, Wall Street, and the backwards Tea Partiers, as they try and chip away at the edifice you have built of Obamacare. This I argue against, because this puts you in the position of looking weak, It puts them in the position of appearing to grow stronger… Just as does a football team which has a comfortable lead, and blows it by having their fourth string not play as aggressively as they would had they been playing a close game… The other team has nothing to lose, since they are already badly losing; therefore they play with a ferociousness unseen all previous season… This is what will happen to you….
Or..Two…. you can choose to run up the scoreboard. You can capitalize on how well the affordable health care will be received,(it’s reputation is starting to turn already). You can twist the knife in Republicans by showing how Democratic states are getting good health insurance cheaper than before, and how Republicans governors in Republican states, jerked around their constituents forcing them to pay more than are Democrats in neighboring states…. All you have to do is compare their numbers….
You can run up the scoreboards by filling up all court vacancies. You can run up the scoreboard by mandating environmental protections, by raising taxes on the top 1%. by Pushing for immigration reform, by floating the legalization of weak recreational drugs, by having them regulated and taxed as was done with liquor post-Prohibition.
You can run up the scoreboard by carrying the message to the American People that it is in everyone’s benefit if the top 1% are taxed and that money is used to pay for replacing a bridge that should fall, or a tunnel that will collapse into the river this decade or next.
You can run up the scoreboard by on every task, show that the Republican-way will hurt America, and the Democrat’s way will make it better….
Point is, you are a lame duck. You got nothing to lose… if you try all of these, you will no doubt be effective at some. And some you won’t…
But if you create the environment where the House is too busy playing defense to re-argue another case of the Obama bill, because Republicans are in a desperate fight for their very survival…. Obamacare will probably survive along with Obama….
The best defense is a good offense…Mr. President…. Let’s go run up that score….
The Golden Flush Award /Click Image for Past Winners
Usually this is an after thought…” Oh, wow, year’s over, let’s get a person of the year”… And then once we elect one, we go… “holy crap… we totally forgot so and so….”
So to try to stir up some old simmering coals of memory, both mine and others, and perhaps even to (heaven forbid) get some debate going in the blog sphere, I thought I’d make an initial run on Thanksgiving Week, and then add people into the nominating category as others mention various ones I should kick myself for forgetting.
It will also force me to review the year which is something I rarely do… because face it, as a human being, I am slave of the moment…. If I did this last year, come December 14th the entire world would have been turned upside down and all the old priorities of 2012, would in one day become trivial….
And so starting early gives me the chance to make the argument for each of those I decide to enroll with your kind recommendations included….
Julius Cephus: Particularly this one man organized and stopped an end run around the Port of Wilmington. The Kinder Morgan deal did not go through, and the Wilmington Port is bustling like never before… Kinder Morgan was to strip the union of power, and drop the rates of pay, further dampening the economy of Wilmington proper. It was also the first defeat of a Lavine-Markell development project, .. Fisker and Bloom had gone forward without a hitch. Julius and other’s push back resulted in a General Assembly motion that stated they, not the governor, had final approval. It was the first time we were exposed to the current Governor’s manipulations. They were to play a significant part across this year’s tapestry.
Steve Newton: A blogger who has written infrequently, but effectively. His piece on SB 51 is what alerted us to the end run being performed by Dave Sokola on lowering the current standards being used for educating teachers. It is brilliant. It took an evening of reading the legislation line by line and cross referencing it with Steve’s analysis, to understand the huge negative impact this bill would cause. By the time this was done, the Bill had already passed the Senate unanimously without comment, and with an friendly amendment added that was voted upon without even being read. Some public outcry was mustered within the House, both in committee and on the floor, but under the Governor’s direction, the Speaker of the House, pushed the bill to the floor before significant outcry could be mustered. Only 4 House members were not on record for it’s passing. Our educational schools now have to water down their teaching standards to meet the new law. Steve also has brought the Highmark story to Delaware. His research in the increase of medical costs in Western PA as a result of knocking out competition by unfair practices, leads one with a cold chill of what to expect in Delaware’s future. We are already there. As an insurer, Highmark is only paying medical claims in its own affiliated clinics. As the new Blue Cross/Blue Shield owner, that is a huge percentage of Delaware’s residents. None can go to any other hospital. He has properly fingered Karen Weldham Stuart for not catching this prior to implementation. Without Steve, this would have passed unnoticed. The News Journal still has not once mentioned the takeover of Delaware’s health field under one owner.
Ernest Lopez. If Kennedy were still writing Profiles of Courage, he should include this man. Ernest Lopez is a conservative, and voted with Libertarian values to pass the gun legislation recommended by Markell and Biden. Reflecting the views of his district, instead of taking the threatening message sent to him down from the NRA, he voted for his district. A very vocal minority, who is always vocal, and always in the minority, swore they would unseat him. He disregarded their idle threat, and voted both his and his constituents conscious. A major billboard was put up to call him out. His vote caused the passage of us now requiring background checks at public gun sales. Now a certifiably insane person cannot slap cash and get a gun. It is a no-brainer, and Ernie was the only Republican with brain enough to even know what a no-brainer is….
Cathy Cloutier: her vote allowed gays to marry. Again, she is a Republican who said enough is enough… Tired of voting against her conscious just so Sussex County would not flip over to the Democrats, she finally did not toe the line and voted along the lines of her own constituents, all overwhelmingly in favor of gay marriage. In doing so, she went against the entire grain of her party, who firmly feel that gays are second class citizens, even though most Republicans in office are closeted gays.
Bethany Hall Long: on the same vote, made a viable personal decision, and also voted for the legalization of gay marriage. Unlike Cathy’s vote, this was accomplished at great personal sacrifice, for all of those in her personal life, were solidly against this policy from taking effect. In voting for what was morally right, she had to contend against those whose influence she could not escape. She went with the correct vote, over the easy one. As a result, Gay marriage is now legal in Delaware.
Paul Baumbach: gave great ammunition against the fight for SB51, and later against HB 165. Both bills which will damage Delaware’s education for years to come. He was one of the four who put up a fight on the House floor. Paul also arranged for the meetings in Newark to discuss the new Power plant that figured in this past week’s election.
John Kowalko: also was against SB51, HB 165, as well, being against the power plant. In fact, John was the first person to sound the alarm over how big the power plant would be. Without his big voice, it may have slid through unnoticed. The power plant has defined northern Delaware politics since September.
Kim Williams; responsible for HB 40 which investigates Charter School’s meddling into our educational systems. She was as an acting state representative, allegedly refused entrance into a committee hearing on education, for fear she might say something damaging to the bill being rushed through…. She brought to the public’s knowledge, that the Charter School bill was drafted illegally without public input, and the charter group constructing it, was also under FOIA, to which the private group denied. The Attorney General backed up her assertion, that the bill was formulated illegally but their decision was moot, because the bill was passed both houses anyways. Kim Williams also in the HB 40 task force, led the group to realize that charter schools unlike public schools, do indeed filter those entering charters to weed out those who might lower their test scores….
Mark Murphy, Rodel, Sweeney, Hefferman, and the Fake Educational Reform Establishment: I almost purposefully did not post this. Although the first person’s name is usually followed by explicatives whenever mentioned, it is unlike Voldermort’s, still getting mentioned. Mark Murphy was not put in his position based on his ability. He was placed there for his loyalty to the cause of corporatizing public education. Markell pulls the strings, Murphy figures how to get it done… It is hard to make a puppet the most influential person of the year… So I was going to skip him… But at the last minute, remembered that every time he or anyone of these make an op-ed, it resonates as gigantic news. The entire community rises up to counteract each op-ed, usually with the word “lies” thrown liberally about…. So, they do exert an influence. I looped all of them together, as the group of liars in a Greek play, who stand on the stair steps and taunt the protagonists. Well,… they are part of the play…….
Dan Short: Sometimes villains get noticed too. Primarily a single issue candidate, who personally supports the NRA, he actively campaigned and organized to create enough backlash so Markell’s gun laws could not get enough votes… Without him, there is a possibility that all four of Markell’s gun control pieces of legislation would have passed both houses of Delaware’s legislature. Dan Short should be given the credit for stopping them.
John Sigler: Single handedly by his very brief tenure as the re-elected head of the Republican Party, he pointed out through his pigeon shooting, just how inept the Republican Party was at everything else. With his leaving, all fissures cracking the Republican bedrock, were impossible to ignore. Blogs split. The IPOD’s split. Former candidates of the same party just months earlier, now not talking to each other. The Delaware Republican Party is dead; no it is past dead. More dead than a pigeon shot inside a box by John Sigler, former head of the Delaware Republican Party.
Nancy Willing: Her blog, the Delaware Way, is the go-to site for local information. Whether about Dover, about New Castle County, about any of New Castle County’s associations, Nancy combs all sources and puts them down in aggregate form. Heavily involved in the Power Plant controversy, The Delaware City Rail Yard controversy, Barley Mill controversy, the Woodlawan controversy, the Kinder Morgan controversy, the Charter School Controversy, the Common Core Controversy, Nancy has who is saying “what”, and links to “why”. One can expend less energy by using her blog to follow all the stuff the News Journal neglects, in a few quick empty steps.
Amy Roe: a head of the Sierra Club, who emerged from nowhere to lead the fight against the power plant, and give quite a run against the establishment candidate. Becoming the face the anti- power movement could coalase behind, she gave the anti power plant movement both dignity and grace. Coming up short only 115 votes, she has awakened Newark now politically as never before… The power plant if it goes forward, now has a strong group of Newarkeans against it. Hopefully they will be monitoring it regularly and helping authorities keep in in compliance with all local law.
Tom Gorden; although much quieter than his first term in office, Tom Gorden is rapidly rolling back the privileges the previous Clark administration handed over to our state’s top developers. The Barley Mill plaza which had a green light, is now parked at a red. In a big sea change, though handled quietly, community groups are now no longer persona non grata in county government. It is no longer accepted as a matter of course that the Woodlawn Trust will be gobbled up by developers. If enough fight can be mustered, it can be stopped. Furthermore, with Tom there is closer coordination with the City of Wilmington, than we have experienced anytime in our lifetimes. In the county, local policing has been stepped up, particularly in neighborhoods prone to crime…
Dennis Williams: Came in with grand expectations, which looked deliverable for a while. The tide is turning and his relevance on this list, is because every day, the headline reality in Wilmington’s streets, brings his electioneering boasts back to haunt him, like a sizzling hot branding iron. Time, Dennis, to say “Damn the torpedoes… Their punk asses are going in jail no matter which blowhard on City Council spouts off,before mine gets tossed in jail for impersonating a mayor..”
Alan Levin: Jack Markell’s second in command, he was instrumental in defending Markell’s position on Kinder Morgan and the port, as well as the new power plant for the data center. He also had a hand in keeping Dole in Delaware, and worked to slip the power plant past a slew of unsuspecting Newark City officials.
Jack Markell: had his hand in everything. He was behind Kinder Morgan’s takeover. He was behind SB 51 and HB 165. He was behind the illegal charter group, requiring HB 40. He also was the driving force for the four rational steps to gun legislation, 2 of which were passed. He was also the driving force behind the passage of gay marriage, signing the bill in the chambers just moments after its passage. He also supported the transgender bill in its travels through the labyrinth of Legislative Hall. He as behind keeping Dole in Delaware. He was behind changing an icon in Millsboro away from pickles, over to poultry. He pushed the bill to curtail Flowers. Despite your opinion over whether these were good or bad, they still showed a ubiquitous and wide reach across the state of Delaware. Seems like nothing got done that didn’t have his fingerprints all over it.
John Young: As head of Christina board, John Young led the board in standing up to Mark Murphy and Jack Markell, by refusing the RTTT funds slated for his district. Although some hired fools, (Jea Street) tried to paint Young into a corner, it served the opposite purpose and gave Young a platform. For the fist time, Common Core was getting publicly bashed. For the first time, many were finding that aligning themselves blindly to this sham of improving standards, was probably going to hurt them politically in the next couple of years. It was the fist salvo back, so the damage estimates were not high, but it did open eyes of many who had been on the sidelines of all educational issues, making them also become vocal in fighting Common Core. His blog Transparent Christina has channelled a lot of detailed information into the Delaware market, and had made Common Core an apprehension, instead of the savior it was supposed to be….
Kilroy: Kilroy has always been haranguing over education. In fact he was doing such a good job I left that issue alone for years, because other issues for me, like the economy and elimination of guns from the hands of the mentally ill, were more important. But as the issue has shifted back into the limelight, Kilroy’s hard hitting is making its mark… Kilroy is blunt, and right now, that is the language that needs to happen. Blunt descriptions of what takes place in the stratosphere of he academic field…. Kilroy often breaks stories before the News Journal, especially ones embarrassing to the Murphy/Markell cartel of education. If you have read Kilroy over the past couple of years, you would already know that Common Core is not the panacea we have been promised. It is a power grab for taxpayer dollars, financed by Wall Street itself…. If you think otherwise, you haven’t been reading a balanced reading list….
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That is what I have so far. In retrospect I am surprised that education has played so much, as even I have only come to that topic lately… But if one looks over the News Journal op eds, education really did dominate the discussion in the 2nd smallest state this year….
I may have forgotten some big ones. To reiterate, that is why I am posting this early, to catch those big mistakes as they get brought to my attention….
There is a reason the opponents of Obama care are racing the clock to defund it before October 1st. They know how popular it will become to the American people.
I just looked and Delaware does not have their worksheets up yet, but in the state offices, things are looking rather rosy for the citizens of Delaware… Most of you will save thousands per year on medical bills. Not all, but most.. Looking at the voting trends, those who vote often, will all save money with insurance.
Other states do have their insurance options up and I have been looking through them. The general trend is thusly. If you are young, you are going to incur an expense you have not had to yet pay. Sorry. That will come with sticker shock, as does a new car, as does your first house. However, it should allow you the confidence to get checked out sooner, and therefore live healthier in your golden years than you otherwise would today if you had to pay full expense for care.
Hopefully, since you have to pay for it anyway, you will take advantage of it.
But you! Oh you! Who are old? Who have pre-existing conditions? Who have suffered with poor coverage for so long? You are going to love what this does. You will be able to figure out medical costs to the penny across your future years with your financial planning advisor, no matter what happens to your body. The costs will be fixed, and a lot cheaper than you paying through the nose upon each occurrence.
One can describe it as buying a warranty. What, the initial questioners ask? You want me to pay money to this shop each month even when nothing happens? Yes and if something happens you get your car fixed for free. Some gripe about losing $150 a month, until they see their first bill at a hospital would have cost them $5,000…. Then … they finally understand.
And you with families? Especially you who have not taken your kids to a doctor because you couldn’t afford it? You’re kids can now go…
So yes, those with money to lose will spend it all on ads telling you horror stories and capitalizing on one or two exceptions they make up as to who will pay more…
but just wait till October 1st, when you see that you start saving thousands… EVERY SINGLE YEAR!
Then remember the Republican party tried to run the economy over a cliff, twice, to stop these savings from coming to you…..
October 1st, it is almost here. About time for the pirated version to be leaked, don’t you think?
An old American was reprocessing his old studies of Brezhnev-Soviet-Military thinking and brought back interesting points of discussion that directly relate to Syria.
The old Soviets had a classification for different types of wars:
“Many of these—such as the categorization of wars in ideological terms (including wars between imperialism and socialism, civil wars between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, wars between bourgeois states, national liberation wars)—now appear quaint and irrelevant for understanding today’s (and perhaps even yesterday’s) world.”
There was one other: wars between the people and a regime of extreme reaction
“What they understood about these conflicts between a dictatorial regime and its opponents was that they were not conflicts between two parties, but among three”
“In wars between the people and a regime of extreme reaction…both communists and non-communists united to fight the dictatorship, with each group hoping later to establish its preferred form of government (dictatorship of the proletariat or republican democracy).
In these conflicts, once the dictator was overthrown, the Soviets knew they eventually had the upper hand because their supported group had outside support, whereas the moderates would be (abandoned by the United States who had been propping up the dictator) forced to fend for themselves. With all factors being equal, the extra force could make a minority within the initial revolt, grab power after all was done.
Back then, it was America supporting the regimes of extreme reaction; the Soviets were seen the revolutionaries. Today it is Russia and Iran, who support these dictatorial regimes, and moderates and a few islamists who are those engaged in making change.
The lesson taught was that once Assad falls, without America’s strong continued support of the moderates, the otherwise strong support of Saudi’s Sunnis behind the Islamists will tip the balance to their favor. For as in the past, when moderates took on an American supported regime of extreme reaction, and the communists joined in the fight, it became viewed as part of the bipolar tug of war between the Communists and Capitalistic USA. Therefore even though the moderates usually far outnumbered the splinter cells of Communists, because the ending conflict was deemed a Soviet victory over the US, the communists had tremendous clout and enough support to take over power.
This certainly makes Syria clear. In their battle against Assad, the Islamists supported by the Radical Sunni movements are few in number compared to the moderates who want a democratic republic after Assad leaves.
If Assad gets pushed out, the Islamists because of their unlimited funding and support can push themselves into power quickly, meanwhile the moderates sit around and try to figure out their next step. In that vacuum the organized faction always wins. The US then as now, could prevent this from happening by throwing its weight behind the moderates after the dictator is removed by being a counterbalancing force.
Our success in Western Europe after the Second World War by doing just that, never translated itself afterwards over to East Asia, Africa, or Central America. Instead of immediately inserting ourselves as a civilian presence when moderates and radicals toppled a regime, we sat on our hands, and only later would then send military hardware in our feeble attempt to contain the outbreak our own inaction created.
The lesson for the US is that we really need to not focus so much first on the war itself and then immediately extricate ourselves after the conflict when we are needed most, but we actually we need to use our debacle in Iraq as a self-taught lesson to create a civilian team we can move in at a moment’s notice with all the backing and assistance exhibited by the Marshall Plan, to quickly mend broken services, return to normalcy, and stifle the unrest that allows civil wars to fester and continue among both factions of winners long after the regime of extreme reaction is overthrown.
We need to focus on reacting immediately with ways to get a nation quickly back on its own feet as soon as the Dictator is disposed.
Our opponents of 40 years ago figured this out. If we can learn this, that may be the most valuable legacy the Brezhnev era can ever pass on to us.
Adolphus A. Busch IV, heir to the Anheuser-Busch beer fortune, resigned his lifetime NRA membership last night in a blistering two-page letter that called the gun lobby nothing but a corporate shill!
Acknowledging the NRA is nothing but a overused scummy prostitute, Mr. Busch asks these questions….
A) Why did the NRA reverse its original position on background checks?
B) How can the NRA disregard the overwhelming will of its members?
C) How do assault weapons and large capacity magazines have any role in the original NRA vision?
D) The NRA I see today has completely, unequivocally, and undeniably undermined the values upon which it was established….
E) Your current strategic focus clearly places priority on the needs of gun and ammunition manufacturers while disregarding as irrelavent the opinions of your 4 million individual members.”
So for people like Dan Short, State Senator in favor of guns, as well as for those who sneak off to another state to shoot pigeons in boxes, here is the simple math….
Budweiser = real manly man.
Budweiser ≠ NRA
Real manly man ≠ NRA
Therefore NRA = sexless impotent men who wear Victoria Secrets finest under their pants.
Boo NRA people…. no one fears you anymore. You are just a concubine good for only one thing….
So bend over.
Tom Carper came out publicly for the end of DOMA and the support of same sex marriage.
Although some may snipe it is politically motivated, it isn’t. It just is what is right. Period.
Courtesy of Tom:
“As our society has changed and evolved, so too has the public’s opinion on gay marriage – and so has mine. I pray every day for God to grant me the wisdom to do what is right. Through my prayers and conversations with my family and countless friends and Delawareans, I’ve been reminded of the power of one of my core values: the Golden Rule. It calls on us to treat others as we want to be treated. That means, to me, that all Americans ultimately should be free to marry the people they love and intend to share their lives with, regardless of their sexual orientation, and that’s why today, after a great deal of soul searching, I’m endorsing marriage equality.”
Going against the platitudes one has been brought up under is always hard. It takes great courage to step out into nothing but air and hope the bridge forms under ones feet……
Thank you Tom for taking that step.
Editors Note: John C arney came out in support the day before. The entire Delaware Congressional Delegation is now anti- Conservative on this issue. Since fewer Conservatives exist today then there were domestic Marxists in the 1960’s, this should be interpreted as simply the mainstreaming of our current delegation.
We knew this but it is now being published… and so it is in the news.
The world is getting warmer… and we can now predict our climate by looking at map at 300 miles south and guessing what our weather will be from that…
Just as plate tectonics and Darwin’s origin of the species were able to lay the groundwork of reason for explaining puzzling observations, this simplifies what to expect from global warming rather startlingly.
Texas is now what we alway thought of when we considered the weather of Mexico; Oklahoma is now West Texas; Kansas is now Oklahoma; Nebraska is now Kansas; South Dakota is now Nebraska, North Dakota is now South Dakota: Southern Manitoba is now North Dakota…..
If West Texas had 3 days of rain, now Oklahoma is getting 3 days of rain; If it snowed 12 times in South Dakota, it is now doing the same in North Dakota… and so on.
So, to predict our heat, rain, winters, etc, our guide would be North Carolina. Longer growing seasons, some winters with no snow, hot summers…
However due to Global warming, the East Coast has a caveat. An anomaly so to speak and actually some relief from the North Carolina summer heat we would normally expect….
With the unprecedented melting of the Arctic and Greenland icecaps dumping its excess into the Labrador Current, that cold water drops South hugging the East Coast shoreline all the way down to North Carolina’s Outer Banks where it finally becomes neutralized… Therefore even though we have hotter air masses, the colder ocean temperatures creates a buffer against Global warming off the entire northeastern US.
Europe, Japan, and Alaska all experience the same mitigating effect, although with both Greenland and the Arctic Icecaps melting into the Labrador, the US East Coast gets a stronger volume of cold water. Call it our icy shower effect….
Once melting stops and the currents dry up, we return to the North Carolina scenario of the twentieth century….
Chart Courtesy of NOAA
So, we in Delaware really get the best climate on the East Coast. Warm winters, little or no snow, and cool breezy summers….. as well as a longer growing period, and… less dependence on fossil fuels for winter heating.
Gee, global warming isn’t so bad for Delaware after all…. Oh, the rising seas? There you go again… Why did you have to spoil the rosy picture I was painting?
It had been a long haul. Unemployment rates were finally at the lowest levels of the current President’s term. Manufacturing, after being down for years, had finally surged past it zenith prior to the collapse. The Stock Market was again, after 5 years, finally back in record territory.
The economic downslide appeared to be over. Consumer confidence was high. The bad economic times were behind us.
It was time to cut the deficit that had swollen during the bad years. The nation could not keep pace with the growth of interest. Now with good times finally approaching, it was time to whittle that problem away….
Big cuts were made across the board to cut back government spending…..
But wait. We are discussing 1937!
1937? But I thought the Great Depression started in 1930 and lasted up until the war, 1941, That’s what we were always taught in school….
Ah. You didn’t let me finish…
One year later, the stock market would be at 50% of it’s value. Unemployment shot up from 14% back to 19%. Manufacturing slipped 37% down from the previous year. We were once again, indeed in the middle of the Great Depression.
It came because we tried to force austerity way too soon. The economy was only just rebounding, We were imposing the economic equivalent for a quadruple bypass surgery patient, a week after the operation, to be running in a marathon….
Exactly. Look what happened. As the government contracted suddenly, the shock wave rippled through every person who had gone through it at least once before. This time, they knew what to do. Get out of the market immediately. Stop spending immediately. Cut to depression staff levels immediately. They weren’t getting burned like the last time…..
Although it is impossible to say today is the exact parallel to the man-made continuation of the Great Depression, there are startling similarities.
What is most striking, is that we never heard about this bubble of good economic data in our history books. The result of misapplied austerity simply continued the Great Depression, so that those few good months just like we experienced, became quickly forgotten and swallowed up in the new upcoming crises.
Todays sequester and major cuts to spending, are our version of the austerity imposed upon the economy back in 1937…..
Chart Courtesy of Minyanville
Courtesy of Wikipedia
Courtesy of Wikipedia
Courtesy of Wall St. Pit
I just laid down a stinging rebuke over at Delaware Politics of the Right’s assertion that Obama caused the Sequester. The aim of their article was to blame President Obama for coming up with the sequester about to floor us on March 1st.. Nothing could be further from the truth… For in negotiations, it is not who comes up with an idea that matters, but who provides that idea with enough support, that it becomes so.
It appears that the sequester idea when it first appeared was nothing more than a leaf falling off a tree.
The sequester began in the budget crises of 2011. Here are the facts.
- For the first time in history, the Tea Party forces Republicans to put limitations upon the raising of the debt ceiling.
- On May 16 the US goes into technical default, but weaseling can extend the money until August 1.
- April 2011: Obama says debt limit must not be tied to any other deals.
- May 11th; Obama’s chief economic advisor writes that hobbling the debt limit would be “insane”.
- May 31st; 2011; Obama’s request for a clean debt limit is voted down in the House; All 236 Republicans vote no.
- Up thru August, Republicans were screaming “it’s gotta’ have catastrophic budget cuts” and Obama said “no”.
- Republicans caused Standard and Poors to collapse our rating. Republicans insisted they didn’t care and would still default.
- The White House asked: if we could “guarantee that cuts would occur in the future” would Republicans climb on board?
- They said” yes”; as long as it was solid law that the sequestration would eventually take effect, they would raise the ceiling
- Finally, when the Budget Control Act was passed, it was the Republicans who passed it. 218 voted yes for sequestration. It could not have passed without their support.
Bottom line, no matter who brought up the idea or where it came from, if Republicans had acted rational at any point along the way, we would not be on the edge of losing 700,000 jobs this March, 2013.
John Boehnor, and Delaware Politics spent much time saying that Obama is the author of sequestration….
Red State Politics disagrees….
Here is their quote…
“Republicans act as if the sequester is a natural disaster. They make no mention of the fact that they caused it and voted for it knowing that the sequester would take effect.... So why did they vote for it? None of them ever connect the dots and apologize for voting for it. The reality is that John Boehner said that he got 98% of what he wanted from the deal…..”
There you have it. If Red State proudly stands up and takes credit for engineering and forcing the sequester to tighten the vice grips upon the American economy, I certainly not going to stand in their way.
For Delaware Politics to go against Red State, and point their finger at Obama as originator of the “sequester”, can only show Delaware Politics doesn’t have the balls to be anything close to a real Conservative… They are Faux Conservatives at their best… or Ostrich Conservatives the rest of times, when they are not even close to being at their best.
Despite any words otherwise, Republicans own this sequester; good or bad.
Courtesy of Fine Art America; by Ed Welker
Robert Bianco’s poem enlisted and spoken at the inauguration was probably the high point, eclipsing the inauguration speech, and both the singing of Beyonce, and Carrie Underwood.
it was a poem of understatement. A simple description of the sun rising and shining over this nation on one day of its life. Bonding us all in the unity of experience we all undergo. No matter the differences of our upbringing, the differences of your heritage, the differences of our finances, we all wake up to one sun….
East or West, North, or South, one sun shines down on this country….
We are all Americans, based on the geography of where we live. Divisions do not becomes us. We all bask in the same sun.
New York and San Antonio, Miami and Seattle. All live and bask under the same sun. Different to be sure. But all Americans. All sharing the heat and warmth from the one sun, as the world turns underneath…..
It was the most emotional moment of the celebration. As camera’s panned the crowd one could see the emotion being experienced was not just inside ones self but in commoners and the elite as well…. Like it or not, we are all American. We have so much in common we probably take it too much for granted….
One, today.
One sun rose on us today,
Kindled over our shores,
Peeking over the Smokies,
Greeting the faces of the Great Lakes,
Spreading a simple truth across the Great Plains,
And Charging across the Rockies,
One Light.
Waking up rooftops,
Under each one a story,
Told by our silent gestures
Moving across windows,
My face,
Your face.
Millions of faces in morning’s mirrors.
Each one yawning to life,
Crescendoing into our day,
The pencil yellow school buses,
The rhythm of traffic lights,
Fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges,
Arrayed like rainbows, begging our praise.
Silver trucks, heavy with oil or paper, bricks or milk,
Teeming over highways
Along side us,
On our way,
To clean tables,
Read ledgers,
Or save lives,
To teach geometry,
Or ring up groceries,
As my mother did
For twenty years,
So I could write this poem for all us,
Today.
All of us,
As vital as the one light we move through,
The same light on blackboards with lessons for the
Day.
Equations to solve,
History to question,
Or atoms imagined.
The “I have a Dream”
We all keep dreaming,
The impossible vocabulary of sorrow,
That won’t explain the empty desks,
Of twenty children marked absent,
Today,
And forever.
Many prayers,
But one light,
Breathing color into stained glass windows,
Life into the faces of bronze statues,
Warmth onto the steps of our museums,
And park benches
As mothers watch children,
Slide
Into the
Day.
One ground,
Our ground.
Rooting us to every stalk of corn,
Every head of wheat,
Sown by sweat and hands,
Hands gleaning coal,
Or planting windmills,
In deserts and hilltops that keep us warm,
Hands digging trenches,
Routing pipes, and cables.
Hands,
As worn as my father’s,
Cutting sugarcane,
So my brother and I could have books,
And shoes.
The dust of farms and deserts,
Cities and plains,
Mingled by one wind,
Our breath.
Breathe.
Hear it through the days gorgeous din
Of honking cabs,
Buses launching down avenues,
The symphony of footsteps, guitars,
And screeching subways.
The unexpected songbird
On your clothesline.
Hear squeaky playground swings,
Trains whistling,
Or whispers across cafe tables.
Hear the doors we open,
Each day for each other.
Saying hello,
Shalom,
Bonjour-no,
Howdy,
Na me state,
Or, buenos dias
In the language my mother taught me,
In every language
Spoken into one wind,
Carrying our lives without prejudice,
As these words break from my lips.
One sky.
Since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed their majesty,
And the Mississippi and Colorado
Worked their way to the sea.
Thank the work of our hands,
Weaving steel into bridges,
Finishing one more report for the boss,
On time,
Stitching another wound, or uniform.
The first brush stroke on a portrait,
Or the last floor on the Freedom Tower,
Jutting into the sky,
That yields to our resilience.
One sky,
Toward which we sometimes lift our eyes,
Tired from work,
Some days guessing at the weather
Of our lives,
Some days giving thanks for a love,
That loves you back.
Sometimes praising a mother who knew how to give,
Or forgiving a father, who couldn’t give what you wanted.
We head
Home,
Through the gloss of rain,
Or weight of snow.
Or the plum-blush of dusk,
But always,
Always
Home.
Always under one sky,
Our sky.
And always one moon,
Like a silent drum,
Tapping on every rooftop,
Of every window of one country,
All of us
Facing the stars,
Hope:
A new constellation,
Waiting for us to map it,
Waiting for us to name it,
Together.
kavips 