What a refreshing change to see President Obama finally stand up to the obstructionist, Tea Party wing of the Republican party last night in his prime time address, announcing his intention to use executive authority to provide some relief to the millions of immigrants and their families in this country, who have been held in a state of unnecessary legal limbo and fear in a broken system that a broken Congress has refused to address for the past six years.

If you follow the game of politics, last night’s move by the President was a bold chess move in the political theater, one that has been sadly lacking in strategic thinking and courage among Democrats for some time.   Republicans have come away from their wins in the midterm elections bragging about how Americans have rejected President Obama’s policies and ideas, as if they have finally won over the approval they have always deserved.  Given the fact that their midterm wins occurred with the lowest voter turnout since 1942, it’s hard to think they actually believe their own hype about having political capital and a public supported agenda.  Given the fact that leading up to the midterms, Republican governors and state legislatures were methodically moving to suppress voter turnout through strict voter ID laws and other measures, it is reasonable to assume that they know there is no popular support for their ideas and policies.  It’s also no secret among political leaders of either party that the House of Clowns only enjoys its comfortable Republican majority because of extreme gerrymandering.

I’ve been very vocal in the past about how many Democrats are either too incompetent  to explain their case or too spineless to fight for what’s right, so I won’t rehash that now. But the President’s move last night should be understood in the context of how it came about.  Repeatedly, President Obama has tried to persuade Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform.  And repeatedly, Republicans have rejected moving on the issue.  This Republican rejectionism extends back to former President George W. Bush as well, who was blocked by his own party from immigration reform.  But what is most absurd, is that the Senate did pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill, which Speaker John Boehner refused to bring to a vote in the House, because he feared upsetting the Tea Baggers who might want his do-nothing job.  Apparently, the bill would have had enough votes to pass in the House as well.  But the political thinking became that Republicans could take back the Senate in the recent midterms, which they did, and the House could gain more seats, which they did, so why give the President anything that could be viewed as victory before the midterms, or risk “alienating” the anti-immigration wing of the party?  That was the Republican political thinking.  The Democrats’ losing thinking at the time was that if Obama did anything through executive order regarding immigration, it might be used against them in the midterms.  The Republicans chose obstructionism, and fearing having to fight or explain their position at all, the Democrats chose cowardice.

In the mean time, millions of hard working immigrants and their families, have had to continue to live in the shadows of a broken system.

Obama finally did what he has threatened to do repeatedly:  he is using his limited executive authority to do some of what Congress refuses to do.  As they wanted, Mr. Obama waited until his party of chicken shits had their midterm election, and lost, to finally pull the trigger.  And the phony outrage about President Obama violating the Constitution, abusing his power, becoming the tyrant dictator that enslaves freedom loving white people, is on full, predictable, laughable display.

Obama gave a simple, concise, answer to all the bullshit and ballyhoo he knew would follow:

“To those members of Congress who question my authority to make our immigration system work better, or question the wisdom of me acting where Congress has failed, I have one answer: Pass a bill.”

Now the Republicans will have do more that squawk.  In January, they will have the majority in both chambers, and the responsibility of producing instead of obstructing, of putting forth solutions instead of complaints.  Given the weakness and cowardice of their own leadership, such as Speaker Boehner, who can’t rally his own herd of Tea Party radicals, it will be interesting to see how this plays out.  Given Ted Cruz’s delusional presidential aspirations, it will also be interesting to see if Mr. McConnel can lead the Senate to pass another immigration bill.

For all their over the top, only to be taken seriously on Fox Propaganda News Channel hype, Republicans know that continuing to refuse to address our broken immigration system, or shutting down the government again out of spite, will hurt their chances of winning the next Presidential election.  It may play well in Mexican hating states of the Deep South on local election levels, but nationally, the Republican leadership knows too extreme of a response to President Obama’s reasonable and legal actions towards immigration, will only destroy their chances at making inroads to the Latin American voter community.  The next Republican nominee may have to go find a “binder full of immigrants” to replace the “binder full of women” that Mitt Romney hoped would win him voters.

Republicans were hoping for aquience from a weakened President Obama after the midterm losses.  Mitch McConnell’s stated goal in 2008 of making his party’s number one priority making sure that President Obama was denied a second term, failed, but not without a record number of fillibusters and a government shutdown as proof of effort.  Democrats’ strategy of rolling over for the Republicans at every term and then trying to sound like a Republican in the elections, also failed.  Obama’s capitulation and efforts at compromise to an extreme, obstructionist party also failed.  Now it appears that with nothing left politically to lose, he has found his courage, and voice again.  Let’s hope he spends the next two years fighting for what’s right, instead of having bourbon with Mitch McConnell and playing golf with John Boehner, hoping to find “common ground” in what has always been a wild goose chase in a party of haters.

 

It hasn’t taken long for the “business friendly” wing of the Democratic party to mobilize against the few good, progressive Democrats in office in an effort to quell any momentum towards what Wall Street and other uber wealthy, elite establishment power brokers call “populism.”

After last week’s loss of the Senate to Republicans and the gaining of more Republican seats in the House, the Clintonites and her Wall Street cronies that have corrupted and infected the Democratic party, are trying to pull a fast one.  After promoting disastrous candidates with some of the worst losing strategies employed in recent memory, such as Allison Grimes in Kentucky, the corporatists are moving quickly to override and silence the progressive wing of Democrats.  They fear that honest and accurate criticism among liberals who point out why the Democrats lost so big, could damage their chances of securing 2 years ahead of time, their already anointed puppet, Hillary Clinton.

Senator Elizabeth Warren has been winning the support of grassroots liberals and progressives for some time now, with her economic message of fairness for average Americans and her criticism of the financial industry and its criminals on Wall Street who wrecked the global economy, got promoted to President Obama’s cabinet, received tax payer bailouts, multi-million dollar bonuses, and quickly moved to gut any meaningful reform to prevent future Big Bank created crises.

Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont, an Independent who is considering a run for president as either an Independent or a Democrat, has also been inspiring hope in jaded voters who desperately hope that someone in mainstream politics is still willing to fight for average Americans and popular causes.

A quick list of what the mainstream media always calls a “populist” message, under  thinly veiled contempt for any candidate who dares challenge the corporate status quo of America’s decline into a Third World style economic system, include such radical ideas as:  raising the minimum wage, healthcare for all, strengthening Social Security, raising taxes on the wealthy and making corporations pay their fair share of taxes instead of domestic spending cuts for the working class and the poor, and less spending on the giant military industrial complex that has led to an endless “war on terror.”

It shows a real contempt for democracy when the media begins its propaganda campaign to smear candidates who gain recognition for their, gasp, “popular” ideas that resonate with voters.  The smear campaign usually starts out slowly, with phony admiration coupled with the subtle message of “they can’t win.”  This has been the case with such past candidates as Ross Perot, Ralph Nader, and Ron Paul, among others.  When the “popularity” of such candidates rises to an uncomfortable level among the corporate elites who run both political parties, the more overt criticism begins.  Candidates are then described as “protectionists,” “far right,” “far left,” “radical,” “isolationists,” or “crazy.”  If these labels fail to stick, the media then employs its tactic of a widespread media blackout.  The candidates are underreported, if reported at all, or ridiculed, and forbidden, of course, to participate in the presidential debates. This is done to maintain the illusion of choice, when the choice is among one of the two Big Business Party’s two choices.

In an article in the New York Times today titled “Spurred by Midterm Losses, Liberal and Moderate Democrats Square Off Over Strategy,” another strong progressive voice, Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio has this to say:

““Too many Democrats are too close to Wall Street, too many Democrats support trade agreements that outsource jobs and too many Democrats are too willing to cut Social Security — and that’s why we lose elections,” and “The message I heard from all of them was: the Democratic Party should fight for the little guy.”

And how have the Hillary zombies and puppet masters of the Democratic party responded so far?  They have created a new “position” just for Elizabeth Warren, which the Times article claims is designed to “help provide a bridge to liberals.”  Salon magazine today reports of Mrs. Warren’s new position as Senate Democratic Message-maker in an article titled “R.I.P., Elizabeth Warren ’16 fantasy:  Why she’s really (probably) not running for president now.”

Mrs. Clinton, and Democrat “centrists” – a term meaning further to the right and beholden to the needs of the top 1 percent instead of most Americans – believe that giving lip service to the concerns of voters expressed and championed by bold leaders such as Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Sherrod Brown, will be enough to ensure a Clinton, Corporate, War Machine nomination in 2014.  These cowards are attempting to bribe Mrs. Warren into not running by giving her a new bullshit title.  I sincerely hope voters of all political stripes see through this propaganda and support candidates with conviction, instead of the dynasty heads like Hillary Clinton or Jeb Bush on the Republican side of the Two Party Oligarchy.

 

This past Tuesday’s midterm elections were entirely predictable for a few reasons, but the interpretation of the results has been a mix of misguided blame by the losers, faulty logic from media pundits, and delusional misunderstanding from the jubilant winners.

Lets start with what was predictable.  Going on the historical record of the past midterm elections that have occurred in the sixth year of a two term president, the President’s party loses seats, and the opposition party gainst seats.  The reasons are easy to generalize, and the details need not be debated in these cases.  Most Presidents leave office with much less enthusiasm and a more negative approval rating than when they started.  Given the broken political system in the United States in which the will of the people is seldom carried out, regardless of which party wins  or has the majority, any hope generated is routinely destroyed by piss poor performance and the reality of the limitations of the presidency, as well as current events.

Of course the media has been telling voters for months who was going to win this time around, and who was going to lose.  Though predictable just from the historical record, the continuous drumbeat of the 24 hour news/propaganda cycle surely has some effect on voter turnout.  This is also routine in American politics.  The media tells people how they will vote, who will win, over and over again, assisting history to repeat itself with the extra nudge of self-fulfilling prophecy.  This is one of the media’s standard operating procedures in the vast propaganda system, and goes a long way towards explaining why public opinion polls continually show that Americans don’t trust either political party and say they would vote for a different alternative, but never do in any significant amount when there is a third option. Independent presidential candidates with credentials and popularity are not allowed in the presidential debates, and are virtually blacked out by all the media outlets for coverage, except for negative reporting and the repeating assurances by the media that it is only a contest between the democrat and republican, and any other vote is a wasted vote.

Given the role of the media coverage, Obama’s low approval ratings, and the public’s even lower approval rating of congress, the lowest ever in modern times, it is no surprise the the incumbent democrats lost.

It’s also no surprise that republicans are claiming  to have won a “mandate,” and that the election results are because of voters’ rejection of the President  and his party’s policies.  But this is not true.  What is true, sadly, is that polls continually show that large numbers of voters often don’t know where the candidate they support stands on issues.  This is also the intended result of the propaganda system.  Candidates are marketed with vague slogans like “reform” or “hope” or “change,” and in the end, the hope is not realized, there is no reform, and little changes.  The incumbents are punished by the losers of the last election who are more likely to turn out to vote to say “I told you so!” and vote out the incumbent, and the voters who supported the incumbent, already disappointed and reinforced by the media of the inevitability of losing this time around, are less motivated to even show up to vote.

But to say that Americans have rejected the stand of the President on major issues is far from accurate, and easily proven by any number of examples.  The press has been misinterpreting the midterm results with changes in voters’s political views on issues.  It is hard to believe that the tv pundits actually believe this falsehood, when numerous examples abound showing this is not the case.  One glaring example comes to mind immediately:  the ballot initiative on raising the minimum wage.

In all four states where the ballot asked voters to chose whether or not to raise the minimum wage in the state, the voters voted an overwhelming yes, by at least double digits in each state.  And these four states, Alaska, Arkansas, Nebraska and South Dakota, are all red states.  If there is one simple policy difference between the two parties that is right in front of voters’ faces, it is the minimum wage position.  Republicans are vehemently opposed to raising it, with some prominent republican lawmakers and pundits claiming we don’t need a minimum wage at all.  The republicans have filibustered and blocked the vote to raise the federal wage repeatedly, and recently.  I have argued that democrats should use this as an easily understandable position that should demonstrate which of the two parties gives just a little bit of a damn more about the plight of the working class and working poor.  Yet voters in the red state of Alaska, who not too long ago voted Sarah Palin as governor, went to the polls and voted by a whopping margin of 61 percent in favor of raising the minimum wage to 31 percent against.  Voters in the Southern, Obama hatin’ country of Arkansas, voted 65 percent in favor, 35 percent against.  With such large numbers in favor of raising the minimum wage in these red states, it is somewhat amazing that in the same voting booth, with the issue right in front of their eyes, these voters still support the party who never supports raising it.

In Kentucky, Obamacare has been one of the country’s success stories, thanks in large part to the democratic governor who chose the medicaid expansion and set up the state’s own healthcare exchange, which helped them avoid the botched rollout that plagued the national healthcare exchange in the beginning.  Polls in Kentucky indicate that Obamacare is popular and appreciated by all of the newly insured citizens of the state – so long as they aren’t told or reminded that it’s Obamacare.  Senator Mitch McConnell was actually able to say during a debate with Allison Grimes that he wanted to repeal all of Obamacare, but that Kentucky could keep it’s “website” – the healthcare exchange operating under Obamacare.  He also said Kentucky chose to expand Medicaid, and could keep that too if they liked.  What he didn’t tell them that was the website wasn’t just a Kentucky magical “website” and that Medicaid expansion in Kentucky was funded mostly by the federal government as part of Obamacare.  This is yet another glaring example of voters seeming to not know what their candidate actually stands for, since they enjoy the new Affordable Care Act that Mr. McConnell wants to repeal all together, so long as it’s kept quiet that it’s actually Obamacare they are enjoying.

Polls also show most Americans like Social Security and Medicare and want to keep it.  Yet these same voters support the party that is salivating to dismantle both programs.

And now for the misguided excuses of the democrats who lost.

The simple answer that losing democrats are giving is that they lost because of President Obama’s approval ratings.  But these democrats defeated themselves.  With the republican narrative being that everything wrong in the country right now is the fault of the President and his party’s policies, losing democrats effectively agreed with this narrative by going out of their way to distance themselves from the President and try to show how unlike the rest of their party they are.  There could not be a more direct path to losing than by agreeing with your opponent that your party and President suck, that you have failed so far, but please come and vote for me.

The epitome, the poster child, the biggest embracer of this losing strategy by a Democrat this time around, is by far, the most pathetic and pitiful excuse for a candidate I have seen in a long time:  Allison Grimes of Kentucky.

I have ranted previously on this blog about how infuriatingly incompetent of a campaign that Allison Grimes was running, and that she deserved to lose.  Mitch McConnell was vulnerable, and it was her election to lose.  She did so with flying colors.  Instead of choosing to inform Kentuckians that all of the new benefits they were getting in healthcare coverage and protection, and the magical “website” and Medicaid expansion in the state, was in fact the Affordable Care Act known as Obamacare, she chose cowardice.  She ran a tv ad that started out with her saying “I am not Obama” and shooting a gun.  Did she think that would win over republican voters in her state, or the thousands of citizens in her state who were enjoying access to healthcare for the first time?  Apparently, she did.  One wonders if she was smoking crack with Canada’s famous crack smoking mayor before she chose to not answer the simple question of who she voted for.  She appears to have actually thought it was better to tell the media and voters that she prefered to keep who she voted for secret instead of stating the obvious, that she voted for Obama and voted for Democrats – you know, the party she belongs to and was running as to get elected.

An optimistic idiot from the New York Times wrote an article called “Midterms, for Clinton Team, Aren’t All Gloom.”  Towards the end of the article, she pointed out:  ” The Clintons worked hard on behalf of Alison Lundergan Grimes, a candidate for Senate in Kentucky, and Senator Mark Pryor of Arkansas, and were somewhat startled by their double-digit losses.”

That Mrs. Clinton and her team of experts were “startled” by their double digit losses, at least gives me hope that Hillary Clinton is more than vulnerable in the primaries for her presidential bid.  It should also be a wakeup call to progressives, liberals, and independents who don’t want a republican president in 2016.  Even if Hillary is elected, she is nothing more than a war hawk, neo-conservative, Margaret Thatcher clone, phony hope disguised as a democrat and as a person who actually cares about average Americans.

In contrast, the enthusiasm being generated by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, is the kind of enthusiasm that will actually motivate people to vote for them over a republican for president next time.  They are doing this by saying what they stand for, an elementary lesson that should have been obvious to the party known for it’s lack of spine.