Posts Tagged ‘Barack Obama’

I laugh at Orly Taitz and her cadre of misbegotten fools because I find it both fascinating that human beings could so willfully delude themselves and funny as hell at the same time. It’s like some new cult made up exclusively of idiotic lemmings. And like all cult leaders, Taitz is more than willing to show them where the end of the cliff is, but seems troubled by the idea of actually going over the edge with them. But as the galactic case Taitz v. Reality rages on, it’s worth taking a moment to reflect exactly what is going on.

Hawaii has an admittedly obscure law that states official documents such as birth certificates are to be kept by the state. It’s somewhat of a strange law, but they provide the legal equivalent to any natural citizen which qualifies for any real purpose anyone who was born there should require; driver’s license, marriage license, etc. It’s called a “Proof of Live Birth” certificate.

Now it wasn’t until Taitz realized a black man was being elected to be the President of the United States that this law was even known about outside Hawaii. But since she got the attention of the media, more and more of Obama’s political opponents — all of them right-wing fringers — have taken to the stance of non-accusal accusations that Obama was actually born in Kenya. If that were true, Obama isn’t qualified to be POTUS because of the Constitutional requirement that they must be a natural-born US citizen.

And I am continually amazed by how little evidence it has taken to convince her little lemmings that he wasn’t born in Hawaii, and yet demand unequivocal evidence that he was. They’ve been presented with the Proof of Live Birth, they’ve been presented with archived copies of Barack’s birth announcement in the two newspapers of note, every state official in Hawaii has stepped up and said it is so. None of that is good enough.

Taitz has tried and failed on two separate occasions to bring suit against the federal government by representing soldiers who initially argued that they would not follow orders given by what they perceived was an illegal president. Threats of court martial and dishonorable discharges, and these people changed their tunes like a kid flipping through an iPod. Taitz herself earned the ire of a District Judge for continually bringing frivolous law suits and wasting the court’s time, and he slapped her with a $20,000 fine. She’s still fighting it.

But now a US Army Doctor, Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, has taken that final step off the edge of the cliff.

Formal court martial charges have been brought against Lt. Col. Terrence Lakin, the Army doctor who believes President Obama may not be a natural born citizen, for failing to follow orders, the military said today.

Lakin was charged Thursday “with one specification of a violation of Article 87, Missing Movement and four specifications of a violation of Article 92 (three specifications of Failure to Obey a Lawful Order, and one Specification of Dereliction of Duty),” said Chuck Dasey, spokesman at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where Lakin is assigned.

The court martial is likely to raise the prominence of what is already a cause célèbre among Birther adherents.

Okay, this has now reached the level of insanity that I would normally reserve for the criminally stupid — rapists and serial killers. Dear Birthers, and most especially Lt. Col. Lakin: You’re fucking insane. Go seek mental help because there is no proof on this earth that will convince you of the fact that Barack Obama is a natural born United States citizen. It’s a fact. You cannot escape it because you’re a fucking lunatic. You are severely deluding yourself at this point to where no one will ever take you seriously about anything.

A typical example, set sometime in the not-too distant future:

“Terry said it’s not a good idea.”

“Yeah, well Terry didn’t believe that Obama was born in the US.”

“Oh, right…he’s a fucking idiot.”

Water is wet…sun is bright…Barack Obama was born in Hawaii. Step away from the cliff and grow some goddamned common sense already.

Last night history was made. After a year of debate, political gamesmanship, stall tactics, obstructionism, sensationalized claims, rallies, and everything else that made this feel very much like a political campaign that just wouldn’t end, this was the scene at the White House as congress finally signed the bill that gave health care reform a starting point.

This is success. Not only for President Obama but also for millions and millions of Americans. When I saw this man speak for the first time at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, I thought he was amazing and hoped that I’d be seeing him in national politics. As it turns out he was responsible for the biggest sweeping change in social legislation since Medicare.

And to those who doubt the historical impact that this will have, realize that George W. Bush isn’t known for his attempt to privatize Social Security. I’d bet many of you barely remember it because it was such a colossal failure. He’s forever going to be known for his “Mission Accomplished” banner that was engulfed in anything but success in the war he started.

But I think the best summation of events comes from none other than Josh Marshall at TPM. His insight is nearly always right on the mark.

Today, when David Frum wrote that this was turning out to be the GOP’s Waterloo, he had two interlocking points — one focused on policy, another political.

The US has had several runs with major pieces of social legislation. And the record is that they don’t get repealed. They’re expanded and become embedded in the national political economy. That was what was at the heart of Bill Kristol’s famous (or infamous) memo on reform from 1994. Once Health Care reform is passed; the middle class will like it. And there will be no repealing or doing away with it. And its success would create a new generation of Democrats. That was his fear.

To that end, Frum’s policy point was, who cares if the Republicans take back Congress? Majorities come and go. But reform is permanent. For conservatives it’s a catastrophic development and if they’d actually been part of the dialog they probably could have gotten a bill much more to their liking. The second point is political, though he’s less clear in this case. Republicans, he says, are probably overestimating their chances this fall in any case.

To that last point I want to make a special note to watch the future ramifications of the Republicans’ decision to actively obstruct this legislation. Instead of putting forth a genuine effort to come together for the good of reforming a broken health care system, they instead banked everything on turning this into a political shell game with which they could reap the benefits of its failure. I know I’m called a cynic, but I’ve got nothing on this level of cynicism. And it’s all I could think about last night as I watched the final debate and the final votes. To the last Republican member, they flailed wildly, hoping upon hope that they could scare those few Democratic members who may at the last moment change their vote.

And then I saw a tweet from David Frum, who Josh linked above, who correctly noted that this all has and will continue to backfire on Republicans. It was at that point that I realized it was only the hyperpartisan who hadn’t yet realized it. Obama and Democrats invested the lion’s share of his overwhelming political capital that he had won in the 2008 election into this legislation. Don’t think for a moment that its success doesn’t mean they’ll win a great deal of it back. And the opposite is true as well; Republicans are going to ultimately end up losing more than they ever thought possible.

History will not remember the process, they’ll only remember the result. And though much of that process got extremely ugly on the part of the opposition just a day or two before the vote by protesters who called out racial and sexual denigrations towards members of congress, and held up signs threatening the use of violence if this bill passed, the result is what history books will tell.

That said: Yes. We. Can.

In an effort to win over the hearts and minds of the average Fox News viewer, President Obama agreed to do an interview with Bret Baier. What followed has now become somewhat of a controversy and also a shining example of everything that is wrong with Fox. By the count of the good folks over at Raw Replay, Bret interrupted Obama sixteen times. Watch the video for yourself.

Now I tend to agree Chris Hayes of The Nation; I like it when journalists really sink their claws into an interviewee. Those in power must be questioned. That’s a given. And while confrontational, Mike Wallace was infamous for his “going for the jugular” style of interviewing. The problem is, of course, Bret Baier is decidedly not Mike Wallace. As pointed out by Think Progress, Baier’s interveiwing posture differs greatly when he’s dealing with a Republican president. Who led us into war under false pretenses. Took a huge national surplus and plunged into into a huge national debt. Violated the Constitution …ah, you get my point.

Baier is clearly motivated by right-wing politics. That would be okay if he, or anyone else at Fox News, would simply admit it. Fox News was and always will be a channel of propaganda. They have an agenda and they have zero qualms about forcing it down the throats of the American people. They practically revel in it. And the Orwellian doublethink they employ that justifies their actions by stating they’re only being the answer to a liberal media, and then subsequently denying any bias in their vast content is just mind-blowing. Scarier are the millions of viewers who believe it every last word.

To illustrate my point further, allow me to remind you of how Fox News treated Katie Couric’s interview or even Charlie Rose’s interview of Sarah Palin. You know, the one where she was unable to answer simple questions about how government works, the horrific policies of George W. Bush that she supported but couldn’t actually explain, or simply what magazines she read? The wingnuts out there thought that Couric and rose were being unfair. Yet I’m willing to bet they’re frothing at the mouth that anyone would dare question Baier’s constant rude interruptions of a sitting US President. I look forward to a similar treatment of Dick Cheney, but I think I’ll be ultimately disappointed. As usual.

America isn’t easy. America is advanced citizenship. You gotta want it bad, ’cause it’s gonna put up a fight. It’s gonna say: You want free speech? Let’s see you acknowledge a man whose words make your blood boil, who’s standing center stage and advocating at the top of his lungs that which you would spend a lifetime opposing at the top of yours. You want to claim this land as the land of the free? Then the symbol of your country can’t just be a flag; the symbol also has to be one of its citizens exercising his right to burn that flag in protest. Show me that, defend that, celebrate that in your classrooms. Then, you can stand up and sing about the “land of the free”.

That quote comes from the movie The American President, starring Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. I like the movie because it’s a great date movie and because President Andrew Shepard is the kind of person that most Democrats were yearning to have in the Oval Office from 2000 to 2008. It’s a sort of coming of age in the White House flick where the President picks the safe moves, advocates for the legislation that his Party backs and worries a great deal about his appearance so much that it ends up slowly eroding his efficacy as Commander In Chief in the public eye. Not to spoil it for you, but like all Hollywood movies this one ends with the President realizing that he has to stand up for what he really believes in and challenges all opposition to fight him on the merits of his arguments rather than mud-slinging rhetoric. In particular, his nemesis in the film is Senator Bob Rumson who routinely ends his speeches by saying “I’m Bob Rumson and I’m running for President!” More pointedly there is a fictitious crime bill in the movie that is so diluted with deals made in congress to make its passage possible that the actual spirit of the original bill is all but gone. Sound familiar?

Here is how President Shepard ends this impromptu press conference:

Tomorrow morning, the White House is sending a bill to Congress for its consideration. It’s White House Resolution 455, an energy bill requiring a 20 percent reduction of the emission of fossil fuels over the next ten years. It is by far the most aggressive stride ever taken in the fight to reverse the effects of global warming. The other piece of legislation is the crime bill. As of today, it no longer exists. I’m throwing it out. I’m throwing it out writing a law that makes sense. You cannot address crime prevention without getting rid of assault weapons and handguns. I consider them a threat to national security, and I will go door to door if I have to, but I’m gonna convince Americans that I’m right, and I’m gonna get the guns. We’ve got serious problems, and we need serious people, and if you want to talk about character, Bob, you’d better come at me with more than a burning flag and a membership card. If you want to talk about character and American values, fine. Just tell me where and when, and I’ll show up. This is a time for serious people, Bob, and your fifteen minutes are up. My name is Andrew Shepherd, and I *am* the President.

Okay, granted, if your a 2nd Amendment nut, than I’m sure that this really rubbed you the wrong way. But think for a moment that he was talking about a piece of legislation that you did support. Because the point I’m trying to make is that the American people, for better or worse, respect leadership.

And all I’ve seen coming from the White House and the Democrats in Congress is a great deal of back scratching, deal making, and compromises that add up to nothing. Specifically when it comes to the piece of legislation they’ve now officially wasted the past year working out not only with downright recalcitrant and borderline combative Republicans, but also with their ass-covering fellow Democrats: Health Care Reform.

I’ve been relatively silent on the matter in writing because, if for no other reason, the actual meat and potatoes of the bill itself kept changing. Sometimes on a daily basis. I wasn’t particularly pleased with the House version of the bill, but it had its merits. But by the time the Senate finished their own version, the result was downright embarrassing in form and mortifying in its construction. Senator Baucus of Montana eviscerated any chance of including a public option in his committee and Senator Nelson of Nebraska held out until he had the political equivalent of bread crumbs thrown to the people of Nebraska to finally get on board. Don’t even get me started about Joe LIEberman, the two-timing backstabbing son-of-a-bitch.

But I was assured by fellow progressives and Dems that having the Senate bill merged with the House bill would give us a great foundation to work on and get immediate relief to a good portion of the American people. I wasn’t happy with the prospect, but I’m willing to go along.

Then came the Massachusetts Special Election. One in which both parties fielded an idiot for a candidate and the lesser of the two evils was chosen. (Sweet fucking CHRIST, she called Curt Schilling a Yankee fan?!) This was mostly due to the fact that campaigning in the General Election was obviously several levels below janitor work for one Martha Coakley. But what also became impossible to ignore was that populist anger over perceived inaction for the people who were suffering because of a lopsided economy and a +10% unemployment…and a health care bill that was getting more unpopular by the minute from folks of all political persuasions.

The hurried debate over what to do with the House/Senate reconciliation of the health care reform bill started just days before the Massachusetts Special Election when it became clear that Coakley couldn’t just phone in this election. What most generally agreed to was that the House should be prepared to vote for the Senate version of the bill verbatim, thereby avoiding the filibuster promised by the soon-to-be-anointed 41st Republican Senator. But to the shock of many, after he was declared the winner of the election, more than a few Democratic members of congress came forward to declare Health Care Reform dead. Most notably liberal Anthony Weiner of New York and Barney Frank of Massachusetts.

Just this morning, the biggest ray of hope for any of this legislation to see Obama’s desk went dark when Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi stated, “I just dont’ see the votes for it at this time.”

So now I’m pissed. And the funny thing is that I’m pissed about something I shouldn’t be that pissed about. I didn’t even like the Senate bill. Yet with the blessing of every single Democrat on the Hill, they gave up on even that hunk of crap. It’s apparently implausible for Democrats to muster the votes to pass legislation that has been compromised into oblivion. They threw multiple bones at both Republicans and conservative Democrats and they didn’t even vote for it after they got what they wanted.

Republicans win elections by making all kinds of promises that appeal to conservative voters and then run things into walls with a stunning lack of long term vision. Democrats win elections only to then try to legislate by trying to get a consensus they can never get and think so far into the future that they neglect the present.

I’ve fucking had it with both of them.

President Barack Obama had better start leading this country. Or he’ll go down in history as the most popular and yet ineffectual Presidents ever. He needs to take a firm stand for his beliefs, come through on even the simplest of campaign promises or be the man who tried to govern by consensus and wound up being a one-term lame duck.

Sorry Dems, that’s the truth. I know it’s hard to hear, but it doesn’t make it any less true. It’s time to demand more from our elected officials, be they Democrats or Republicans. Get loud and get obnoxious. Apparently it’s the only way to get through to these people.

The recent hullabaloo over the White House calling out Fox News has been entertaining for most, I would hope. Anita Dunn stated that Fox is like “a wing of the Republican Party”. Not to let a ratings cash cow go, Fox immediately let loose their insatiable pack of dogs upon the White House, all screaming about how unfair it was.

Now you have opinion columnists crawling all over each other, most of them making the argument that the White House is being “small and petty” for “pick[ing] such a silly fight.” Granted. However it wasn’t a fight until Fox made a stink about something that is, by and large, accepted as truth for anyone who has tuned in to Fox News. The rest of the media lined up right behind Fox, because they’re apparently used to that perspective on coverage judging by the ratings, and sounds eerily like they’re defending Fox News. Keep in mind that no one appears to be arguing that Fox isn’t a wing of the Republican Party because it clearly is. They are all but unapologetic for their heavily right-wing slanted coverage.

Another item of note is the lack of appearances by the last administration on MSNBC or CNN. There was no wall to wall coverage of that media snubbing, and it happened fairly regularly. Bush and Cheney wouldn’t be caught dead answering actual questions. Hell, Bush couldn’t even hold a town hall without handpicking the people who attended.

But that Obama has such thin skin. Apparently he can’t “take the heat”. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go see a doctor about my eyes rolling so far into my head they need to be surgically corrected.