More Proof that Democrats have no Political "Strategery"

After weeks of howling from not-yet-a-republican-presidential-candidate Donald "The Donald" Trump, President Obama made the incomprehensibly idiotic move of releasing his long form birth certificate.  I'm not sure how old Jim Messina (Obama's 2012 Campaign Manager) is, but someone should check his birth certificate to make sure he wasn't born yesterday.  At the very least, they should take a lesson from Leslie Knope and make a "pros" and "cons" list the next time they make a big campaign decision.  Here's what one might have looked like if they had.


Releasing President Obama's Birth Certificate

Pros:
uhm...we'll come back to this one


Oh, I know, it will put the issue to rest once and for all (how did that go dummy?)


Cons:
It's not going to change anyone's mind
-Birthers will be birthers.  A PDF of a birth certificate is only going to give them more things to talk about
-People who claim Obama is an illegitimate president aren't going to vote for him even if a video is released showing the live birth taking place on the steps of the Hawaii State Capitol


It gives new life to the story


It shows Obama gave in to Trump's public pressure which
a) Makes Obama look weak
b) Gives Trump's demands appear legitimate


It opens the Administration up to criticism for spending money to fly someone to and from Hawaii to get the document


The GOP look like a bunch of lunatics calling for his birth certificate...any of them that are serious rivals for the general election will suffer in the primaries if they denounce the birthers.




Had his advisors taken a few moments to look at the pros and cons, I don't understand how they could possibly have agreed to do this.  It simply shows, once again, that Democrats have the worst strategists.  It's a really good thing that the GOP field is so full of unelectable candidates or the White House would probably go back to them in 2012.

The People have spoken

From the moment the mid-term election results started coming in, Republicans have been repeating their new mantra that the people have spoken and the Democrats and their policies have been rejected.  With that in mind, the Democrats should stop trying to so hard to fix so many of the problems that are of the GOP's making.

First off, unemployment benefits.  My guess is that not everyone who is out of work today voted for Democrats in the recent mid-terms.  Perhaps it's time for them to learn what a Republican led Congress feels like.  Their unemployment benefits have expired and the GOP does not want to renew them without staggeringly irresponsible tax cuts for the ultra wealthy.  It's time for the Dems to stop protecting Americans from themselves and let them go into the new year with Speaker John Boehner and no more unemployment benefits.

Then there's the tax cuts.  To be more precise, a continuation of the tax cuts from 2001 and 2003.  Since the GOP rejected extending middle class tax cuts a few weeks ago, let the American people now see all their taxes go up because the Republicans want to give people like Bernie Madoff (before he was arrested) millions of savings on their tax bills.  Remember middle America, the Republicans didn't want middle class taxes to remain the same UNLESS the top three tenths of one percent of Americans could get a break on their estate taxes.  That's right, 99.7% of all Americans pay no estate taxes but the GOP is willing to put the economic well being of 98% of the country at risk in order to secure a lower tax rate for the top 0.3% of the population.

By rushing to the aid of the country that scorned them, the Democrats are merely setting the stage for things to improve under Speaker John Boehner.  If a majority of the country wants Republican leadership then let them have it.  Let them watch as the economy shrivels even more without the hardest hit receiving unemployment benefits.  Let them watch state governments are forced to lay off police officers, fire fighters, and teachers because of budget shortfalls.  Let them watch as China continues to fly past us in their super high speed trains carrying green manufacturing and the jobs that go with them.  Maybe by 2012 the American people will realize that they "made a huge mistake."  Or, maybe they'll just double down on their 2010 misjudgment and elect President Palin.

President Obama: "This is the public option debate all over"

In his pathetic defense of caving in on the tax cuts issue President Obama brought up the criticism he faced from the left over his abandonment of the public option.  He was fielding a question about compromising too much and his defense was that while the health care bill did not include the public option it had so many other things that Democrats had been fighting for.  The problem with his memory or interpretation of those events is that the public option was not a holy grail for Democrats.  It was a watered down substitute for what we really wanted and that was a Single Payer Option.  But since the President and the Democrat super-majority Congress was too weak willed to push for that plan, the result was compromising on the compromise.

Now that the tax cut deal has been back-roomed to placate the GOP and their ultra-rich benefactors, similar criticisms are coming out that he did not negotiate tough enough and did not stick to his principles or his campaign promises.  The Republicans, meanwhile, get to hold up their banner of stubborn obstructionism and celebrate yet another capitulation by the spineless Democrats.

Again the fault for this travesty lies with the Blue Dogs in Congress who had threatened to vote against a tax cut for the middle class bill in the lead up to the elections, and to the Obama White House that did not push Congress to act before the midterms, and to the fickle electorate that somehow thought that putting people in Congress who care only for the rich would somehow help the country.

The next time you hear a Republican complain about losing their unemployment benefits, or about increasing deficits, remind them that 700-900 billion more dollars were just added to the deficit so that Sean Penn, Susan Sarandon, Michael Moore, and Keith Olbermann can save some money.

Peace in the Middle East Part 1 - Stopping Israeli Settlement Construction

There has been a lot of talk lately, of the Obama administration's conflict with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the issue of settle construction in the West Bank. The most irritating thing about this entire discussion is the ease with which the Obama administration could put an end to settlement construction if they really wanted to. It is cases like this that prove that America is not some independent arbitrator between the Israeli and Palestinian people. America has so much leverage over the Israeli government that it is blatantly disingenuous for an American President to ever claim that despite trying everything possible Israel will not relent on some issue, whether that issue is bombing civilians in the Gaza strip, or building illegal settlements in the West Bank.

In 2007 alone, America gave Israel more than two and a half billion (with 9 zeros) dollars, most of which was in the form of military aid. If President Obama really wants the settlement construction halted, all he would need to do is tell Mr. Netanyahu that America will not give another penny in military aid until the settlement construction stops completely. In fact, this tactic could be used, if the President truly wanted peace, to finally establish a two state solution to the Israeli debacle. The fact that no President has ever threatened to stop the copious amounts of American tax payer dollars that go to Israel, every single year, shows the lack of will in America for peace in the middle east.

C'mon New York - be better than California

I couldn't decide whether to write about the gay marriage storm that's brewing in New York at the moment, or the tragic death of Dr. George Tiller, a brave man who provided professional medical services to women in need. As you may have guessed by the title of this post, I'll take a stab at the gay marriage issue in New York first, and maybe later post about Dr. Tiller's untimely death.

Both subjects, however, show the need for us, as humans, to divorce ourselves from these cave dwelling superstitions we call religion. If not for the primitive "need" of so many people to believe in physics defying feats, whether they be burning bushes that produce no heat, or people walking on top of water, then Dr. George Tiller would likely still be alive today, and the gay marriage opposition would have died long ago.

The more the issue is discussed in the media, the more we are shown the faces of opposition like that of New York's Maggie Gallagher and her "National Organization for Marriage." Like all innocent sounding political action groups, this is not a pro-marriage organization since it seeks to limit marriage and does nothing to protect marriages that exist today. While it would be easy to rest of the fact that she is an objectively ugly person who holds ugly ideas, what needs to be focused on are those ugly ideas.

In their most recent television ad NOM once again employs the tried and trusted tactic of trying to scare heterosexual couples, particularly parents, about what their kids might learn in school. This is a truly repulsive message disguised as protecting a parent's rights with regards to their children's education. The notion that it is wrong to teach children to accept homosexuals or same-sex marriage is no better than complaining if they are taught racial tolerance in school. If a teacher takes the time to show students that there are people of many different races and cultures, it doesn't mean that they are advocating their students to change their race or culture. So why do these people think that if their children are taught to tolerate homosexuals it's going to magically make them all run out and become gay?

The most obvious answer might lie in the types of people who are most adamantly opposed to same-sex marriage or homosexuality to begin with. Since so many prominent opponents to the rights of gays have themselves been shown to be closeted homosexuals, like Senator Larry Craig, perhaps the anger towards same-sex marriage, and fear of its toleration stem from those "family values" organizations' members uncertainty with regards to their own orientation. It seems to me that whenever you see the spokespeople for these groups on CNN or FoxNews, they're always speaking about same-sex marriage or homosexuality as if the only thing keeping them from running off to an airport bathroom stall or taking up permanent residence in San Francisco is their devotion to Christianity.

I really hope that the New York State legislature, aided by Governor Patterson's realization that he's not getting another term, will allow this initiative to succeed and New York can be the 6th state to legalize same-sex marriage and the 2nd to do so through the legislature and not just the courts. What the opponents of same-sex marriage legislation don't seem to understand, or don't care to think about, is that the same arguments they are using today to oppose the marriage between two men or two women, is so similar to the language used to prevent blacks from entering certain restaurants, or bi-racial couples to marry. The fact that they cannot see the line of history they are on is sad, not only for them, but I would imagine it will be a point of shame for their descendants since being the children or grandchildren of bigots cannot be a pleasant experience.

Finally, I am grossly dissappointed with President Obama for maintaining his view that he is ok with civil unions but not same-sex marriage. As a lawyer, he should know that the two terms carry a different status with regards to federal and state benefits for couples. While a same-sex domestic partnership may grant you the same benefits as married people in one particular state, that may not carry over to another state, nor will federal benefits be awarded to couples with civil unions.

The answer seems obvious. Make all state and federal unions between two people, whether they be same or opposite sex, into civil unions, and allow the churches, synagogues, mosques or house of superstition safeguard the word "marriage." Until we can all get past this attachment to believing in things no more ridiculous than a spaghetti monster, these archaic teachings will continue to divide us based on the ridiculous principles dreamed up over 2000 years ago.

Cheney says...oh wait who cares?

In a recent interview with CNN former Vice President Dick "the dick" Cheney asserts that President Obama has made America more vulnerable to a terrorist attack because he's treating the war on terror as a law enforcement issue.  Whether or not the very minor changes President Obama has enacted are actually making us more vulnerable or not, let us ask the more important question.  What really makes us more likely to be hit by a terrorist attack?  Not torturing people with little to no actionable intelligence, or creating tons more terrorists by inciting anger in the muslim world?  

Throughout the Bush II administration terrorist recruiting has been handed a number of boons from the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, to the revelation of torture of detainees.  These specific and enumerable acts have contributed far more to recruitment of potential terrorists than anything President Obama has done in his 60 in office.  Not only that, but Vice President Cheney's office also hampered the CIA (supposedly one of our frontlines against terrorists) by reveling Valerie Plame to the world as a CIA agent.

Now, the even more important question is why is CNN interview Cheney and giving him a mouthpiece to spew his unpleasantness?  After the damage the Bush administration did the country both financially and in regards to our image throughout the world, nothing Bush or Cheney have to say should be given any attention.  We've suffered through their moronic idealogy and actions for the past eight years and we should be spared any further injury that their words can cause.  

Don't touch our bananas

President Obama has just signed a new spending bill that eases some of the restrictions W put in place concerning travel and remittances to Cuba. Unfortunately it is still restrictive to those of us without family on that warm, beautiful and SAFE island. This nearly 50 years embargo on a tiny island country will most certainly go down in history as the stupidest, most ineffective and possibly most vicious economic attack on a civilian population in our nation's history.

After nearly 50 years of encouraging Cuban democracy through executive orders, the "Cuban Democracy Act" or the "Cuban Liberty and Democracy Solidarity Act" America has been the opposite of successful in bringing democracy to the island of Cuba. The executive orders and the official laws (passed in the 1990s) that have prevented Americans from traveling to Cuba or purchasing Cuban goods (like Cigars) have done nothing to end the Castro regime making it less effective than old age at changing a government.

The fact that this oppressive policy was born out of the greed of our fruit companies is even more embarrassing for the American people and shameful for the American Presidents that have maintained and at times strengthened this attack on civilians. Sadly, President Jimmy Carter was the only President to have the courage to not renew elements of the embargo that allowed Americans to go to Cuba and spend American dollars there until Reagan reinstated it in 1982.

It's time to end this pathetic bullying of a tiny neighbor that poses no threat to America and is no less democratic than one of our largest trading partners (that's China just in case you thought I meant Canada) and there are dozens of countries with dictators and without elections that Americans are free to travel to and spend money in. This policy is a joke and you must end it President Obama. Just think of how much Sean and Rush will cry when you do, it'll be a kodak moment.

Socialism and other scary words Part 1

While the windbags of the right continue to brandy about the "socialist" label on President Obama, they are either too stupid to remember the past or they are deliberately ignoring it. Take for example all the hullabaloo about taxes. President Obama is promoting the idea that we should roll back the tax cuts on the top income earners to what the rates were under Bill Clinton, that big pinko commie socialist. Forget for a moment all you've seen on FoxNews about how Bill Clinton was Lenin and Stalin's love child and look, intelligently and rationally at the fact that his top marginal tax rate was 39.6%. Under Republican presidents Ford and Nixon it was in the 70s. Under President Eisenhower, who it would be pretty hard to call a Socialist, the top marginal rate was in the 90s.

What this goes to show is what a farce it is to actually believe President Obama is a ramming his socialist agenda on America through a "massive" hike in the top marginal rate. President Obama is no more a socialist than Rush Limbaugh is a decent human being. I wish that we could get ourselves a real progressive candidate into the White House one of these days, but unfortunately, there are so many ignorant, uneducated piles of garbage voting these days that still get goosebumps when they hear words like Socialism because they don't realize that Socialism doesn't mean the government spying on your phone calls; kidnapping and torturing people in secret prisons; or even coming between you and your doctor concerning medical matters.

No, those are all things that are happening and have been happening during that oh so capitalist President George W. Bush. Socialism means your kids can finally go see a doctor when they cut their foot on some rusty metal in the trailer park, or you can go and start that business you've always wanted without worrying that your family might get sick. It means you can send your kids to school and they'll get a good education and you won't have to sell your house to afford it. It's time that America got over its irrational fear of the S word and started fearing the real bogeymen like Rush, Sean and all the others who shout about standing up for the little guy that they then proceed to piss all over.

President Obama is not a socialist, but I really wish he was.