Battle Plan of the Republicans

Compromise. It's not a dirty word to Republicans: it's a battle strategy that can be used against the Democrats. That's how the GOP sees the so-called fiscal cliff -- a battle. The only side guaranteed to lose are the American people… they could have a big win, but the GOP refuses to do what's best for the country. Instead, the GOP will do what's best for its politicians.  

Case in point: we could solve some economic woes by allowing Bush tax cuts on the 2% to expire and return to Clinton-era levels, which would create immediate revenue. Instead, the GOP wants to raise Medicare eligibility age to 67. The Dems will probably agree because they know how to compromise. They'll take the bone of raising the top marginal tax rate to 37% in exchange for selling out two years of your Medicare. And they'll get blamed when the people are not happy, and the people won't be happy because neither thing is good.

The idea of the GOP's battle plan aside for a moment, let's ask: why do we have to compromise on this? The 1% largely doesn't care if their taxes are raised a minute percentage. Letting the tax cuts expire in a way that won't cause a recession is a no-brainer. Many of the uber wealthy have said publicly that they want the tax cuts to expire. The American people just voted for the man who said he'd let the tax cuts expire. 70% of polled Americans want the tax cuts to expire. The only people who don't want tax cuts to expire are a handful of Congresspeople with a 9% approval rating. 

© Washington Post

Why? Ask your Congressman. They're talking all kinds of crap about raising taxes causing a recession, but that is just not true when applied to the sector whose taxes are returning to Clinton-era rates. (And by the way, if you're hearing about the so-called fiscal cliff from Fox or other Murdoch-owned news sources or economists, you're hearing plenty of other things that are not true as well, because the GOP is playing the usual political games [with your future]. Here's what Rand Paul said Friday: "I will work with Harry Reid to let him pass his big old tax hike with a simple majority if that's what Harry Reid wants, because then (Democrats) will become the party of high taxes and they can own it." And you can bet the GOP will join in the credit when the plan works, just like GOP Congressmen -- like Paul Ryan -- decried the stimulus but lined up at the trough to take the money and then take the credit when the money helped their districts, all the while saying the stimulus failed.)

Oops, digressed.

So whose taxes are being raised? Well, mine will be eventually. I'm great with that. I didn't want the wars bought on a credit card, but I'm an American citizen and I need to pay for what my elected officials bought. (That's called responsibility, although the GOP appears to believe it's socialism.) The GOP hasn't asked me, though. Okay, who else? Well, Lloyd Blankfein's taxes will be raised. He's the CEO of Goldman Sachs. Goldman received the most taxpayer money of any bank during the 2008 bailout and from 2008-2011, Goldman gave executives $44 billion. That would be avarice from men who helped cause the recession with their unmitigated greed. Blankfein must not have been a Boy Scout, because that was not being a very good citizen. So, let's guess that Blankfein probably doesn't want his taxes returned to where they were before Bush cut them. We can conclude that the GOP would seriously rather listen to him than me (fine, he did give them a lot of money in their campaigns and I, um, didn't).

Raising the Medicare eligibility age to 67 is stupid. It's throwing pennies into the gaping maw of a huge debt. 

It does, however, directly impact lots of people, who will blame the Democrats for it. And when the economy doesn't improve as fast as it could because we did that instead of allowing tax cuts on the 2% to expire, lots of people will blame Obama. 

Really, it's very clever of the GOP. Good battle plan.

And if the Democrats go along, it will be because they are willing to compromise to get at least some growth going with just a tiny tax hike to the top 2% of Americans. That would be serving the people -- compromising for the sake of at least helping stimulate growth a little. 

When the options and outcomes are weighed, the GOP gets everything they want, including blaming Obama for the economy not growing fast enough and we the people having our Medicare eligibility age raised, while making themselves look like the party of fiscal responsibility ... when in fact they're the ones who spent us into this mess (and Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and W deregulated us into this mess).  

And the average Republican Joes' blind party allegiance is going to further the GOP's battle plan to destroy Obama/Democrat credibility via the Dems' willingness to compromise. If you're on of those Republicans, take a hard look at what's actually being proposed. Take a hard look at what's actually going to happen if the Dems don't save the people from what the GOP are saying they want (no taxes; continue whacking spending -- we'd get another recession) and understand what the top leaders of the GOP are really doing: 

They're setting their party up to look good for the next election while impeding our recovery. That's the battle plan of the Republicans.

The tea party junior Congressmen really think they did the right thing with their pledge to serve Grover Norquist instead of the American people because they don't get economic reality and haven't studied economic history. Their leaders, however, know perfectly well what they're doing: playing battle games with out economic recovery and our Medicare and future health.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/07/the-fiscal-cliff-deal-comes-clearer-a-37-top-tax-rate-and-a-higher-medicare-eligibility-age/

National Defense Resources Preparedness: Wearing the Duncecap

Don't you hate it when you rediscover people from your past on Facebook and they turn out to be closeminded rightwing Fox-watchers? Don't you hate it even more when it's someone like, say, a teacher, and you discover that they don't read, but absorb Fox spew as gospel?

 Yep, happened to me today. A former teacher inserted himself into a Facebook conversation about the "National Defense Resources Preparedness" Executive Order signed by the President on Friday, and the teacher was clueless but opinionated (the two are never mutually exclusive with certain rightwingers). I hardly knew what to say... "Dear Mr. X: Please go finish the reading assignment before you try to participate in the discussion with the rest of the class." ?

 At any rate, frustration abounds everywhere this weekend as the righties go nutsies over this Executive Order, failing to notice that its basis has been in place for over half a century, and that it has been (again) essentially unchanged in its latest incarnation. A common complaint accompanying the sudden discovery by many that this EO exists is that the President can now seize property and conscript labor at his whim (including in peacetime): in fact, we've been living under that language for years, and though the peacetime part is true, the President's power is actually balanced by the Cabinet in this particular EO, so the whim part is rightwing Obama-fear. And further failing to notice in their horrified outrage over the (insert incendiary phrase of choice here, selecting from the following: fiat; Communist cabal; plot for dictatorship; Socialist thingie) Obama pulled off when signing this EO that Congress (let's call them government branch number one) passed the Defense Production Act in 1950, laying the groundwork for this Executive Order that President Obama, like W. Bush and Clinton before him, has signed.

And failing to find out that the Supremes (let's call them government branch number

two) have made rulings that cover what the breadth of a president's executive power is (with a key one, in fact, being made regarding Harry Truman's overreach of executive power in an Executive Order not long after Congress passed the Defense Production Act), and that it could likely be said that Congress has been implicitly approving the basis of this EO for decades.

 And failing to notice that the power vested in the Commander in Chief (let's go ahead and call him government branch number three) by Article II of the Constitution is, in any case, well balanced by the Cabinet in this particular Executive Order.

 Why let the facts get in the way of a good head of horrified steam occasioned by blind hatred of a President, though? (Hmmm.... because one is willing to believe this sketchy president will seize any opportunity to seize power in some kind of Executive Order coup?) Why read legislation from those boring, dusty old National Archives when one can crib from Fox News? Why go to the library when one can copy test answers from one's neighbor? But wait... Mr. X, you frowned on that back in the day, saying we needed to learn to think for ourselves. Sorry, but you need to wear the class duncecap today. Oh, and go read the assignment: Executive Order -- National Defense Resources Preparedness; National Archives; and Congress for Kids: [Constitution]: The Three Branches of Government.

Palin and Game Change: Vote For Me; I Know Nothing...

Sad, but true: "Since Palin, though, ignorance has become more than bliss. It’s now an attribute, an entire platform: Vote for me, I know nothing and hate the same things you do." (Via Richard Cohen's "Sarah Palin’s foolishness ruined U.S. politics" -- Washington Post, 3/12/12: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/sarah-palin-and-other-ignorant-candidates/2012/03/12/gIQAoOPG8R_story.html)

Sarah Palin, the queen of incompetence and political malfeasance, is in the news again (just in time to help re-elect Obama) thanks to HBO's new film "Game Change," airing now on HBO and based on a

segment of the book by the same name. In watching "Game Change," I gave much thought to how vitriol and lies/half-truths entered -- nay, *roared* into -- conservative politics in a frighteningly new way with Palin. Giving her a national voice and influence by lending Palin his own respectability is a shame McCain will have to take to his grave: in Palin's polluted wake, our national conversation has deteriorated. Granted, that's not specifically her fault -- the populace was obviously ripe for a crazy, ignorant conservative and perhaps the candidacies of a woman and a black man on the Dem side fanned the fear in the GOP base to an inferno, the flames of which continue to birth bigoted, misogynistic GOP representatives -- but the film is a good reminder that we must *vote* in order to keep monstrously ignorant people out of office and to re-elevate our national conversation.

Worth watching, by the way, is Palin's delusional "Game Change We Can Believe In," her video rebuttal to the "Game Change" film. It's hosted on her .... site (hard to know what to call SarahPac.com, but while you're there, she handily provides a place where one can donate money to support her life... so perhaps best to just call it her begging area on the internet; her piece of the virtual sidewalk where she panhandles while holding up word-salad signs, fortunately located in the trailer park part of town where most of us seldom see her).

War On Women Update: Rick Perry's Texas Skirmish

So. Texas Governor Rick Perry decided to remove Planned Parenthood from Texas's Medicaid-funded Women’s Health Program (WHP) providers because three percent of Planned Parenthood's services are abortion. Because the governor of a state doesn't get to choose which doctor a woman sees (i.e. gives Medicaid dollars to), the federal government, which supplies 90% of Texas' WHP funding, then properly cut off Texas's federal funding for its WHP (via a rule regarding Medicaid accessibility that's been in place since W Bush). Did I miss anything there?

Medicaid’s Women Health Program gives Medicaid reproductive health coverage to women who aren't poor enough for the rest of Medicaid, basically. Texas's WHP provided services to around 130,000 women. Perry threw those women under the bus to make some anti-abortion point. Right?

So, to recap: Rick Perry violated federal law and caused a problem with Texas's WHP funding. Perry then tweeted, “Obama Admin ends #WHP via media conference call; @GovernorPerry pledges state will keep pgm going.” Other than the fact that "admin" is not a proper noun deserving capitalization, did I miss anything else?

Rolling Stone Rocks the Facts on the Economy

© Rolling Stone

"From the outset of the Obama presidency, in fact, Republicans have engaged in a calculated, across-the-board campaign to protect the tax privileges of the wealthiest Americans." ~ Rolling Stone

It's possible that I'm just a sucker for a good political piece published in Rolling Stone (I'm old enough to remember when being on the cover of the Rolling Stone was everything it was cracked up to be -- maybe it makes the mag I loved back in the day seem legit, and thus lends legitimacy to my personal sex, drugs and rock and roll phase). It's more likely, though, that I love this grittily good piece of hard news and investigative journalism delivered with just the right edge of eff you flair because it's good.

Michelle Bachmann: Clues That the CIA Doesn't Run the ACLU

Michele Bachmann's mind operates somewhat on the same level as does channel surfing. When flipping channels, you glean a little of this, a bit of that, and can get a small idea of the substance of the programs you're flipping past. This is a good thing when choices are comprised of an Alaskan ex-governor's daughter dancing versus Amateur Chef Smackdown.

Similarly, Bachmann surfs along the surface of life, snagging little bits of kelp while failing to dive into the substance of anything. She gleans a tidbit about any given issue and retains what she needs to back up her anti-choice, anti-worker, pro-nitwit stance of the moment, while discarding the rest as unworthy of her attention -- i.e. letting it sink. This usually works pretty well for her, considering that this shallow knowledge base has been enough to make her a senator and (God help us) a GOP presidential hopeful.

Welcome!

Welcome to the American Liberal blog! So glad to see you. I'm an American, through and through, and I'm a liberal with progressive views. I own a gun. I believe unemployment should be extended. I have ancestors who landed at Jamestown, and ancestors who fought in the American Revolutionary War; I am as patriotic as they come. I am a Democrat and am working hard to help Barack Obama be re-elected. I'm a mother, a parent, a worker, a homeowner, a volunteer, and a voter. I'm an American liberal.