Liberals have reason for concern

Dear Friends,

In light of today's terrible jobs report - net gain of 18,000 jobs and an increase in the unemployment rate to 9.2%, it is clearer than ever that we need a large federal stimulus to get this economy going and adding jobs.  Unfortunately, President Obama has bought into the Republican narrative that the deficit is the most important issue to address. 

There are two articles that say it all in The New York Times today and that you should read.  The first is an editorial entitled "Negotiating on a Knife's Edge" (here).  The editorial addresses the ridiculousness of the approach to the debt ceiling being taken by President Obama and the Republicans.  The second is an op-ed piece by Paul Krugman entitled "What Obama Wants" (here).  You should read the entire piece but here is just one paragraph:

But let’s be frank. It’s getting harder and harder to trust Mr. Obama’s motives in the budget fight, given the way his economic rhetoric has veered to the right. In fact, if all you did was listen to his speeches, you might conclude that he basically shares the G.O.P.’s diagnosis of what ails our economy and what should be done to fix it. And maybe that’s not a false impression; maybe it’s the simple truth.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame

Dear Friends,

The Obama Justice Department has decided to prosecute Ahmed Abdulkadir Warsame, a Somali, in a civilian court in New York.  At first blush that sounds good since the alternative apparently was a military tribunal.  What is scary about this case is the events and timing leading up to the unsealing of the indictment.   Based on an article in The New York Times (here), the facts of the case are as follows:

• Mr. Warsame is charged with nine counts of providing support to the Shabab in Somalia and Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
• Mr. Warsame is not charged in connection with any particular attack or plot.
• "The indictment says that Mr. Warsame has fought on behalf of the Shabab since 2007. Starting in 2009, it says, he began to work with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, providing money, training and equipment. It also alleged that he went to Yemen in 2010 and received explosives and other military-type training, and helped broker a weapons deal between the groups."
• Mr. Warsame was arrested in somewhere in the gulf region on April 19th and taken to US Naval vessel.
• Mr. Warsame was interrogated for two months before he was given his Miranda rights.
• The International Red Cross was notified of his capture and after two months of confinement on the US Naval vessel, the International Red Cross was permitted to visit Mr. Warsame.
• After being given his Miranda rights, Mr. Warsame's confinement and interrogation were continued on the US Naval vessel.
• Mr. Warsame was flown to New York on July 4th.  My guess is the irony of that timing is lost on many in the Obama administration.

You may think that you have some rights, but the Obama administration believes that it can call you a supporter of terrorism, confine you on a US Navy vessel for two months, fail to read you your Miranda rights for two months, fail to notify the International Red Cross until they timing suits them, then read you your rights while continuing to confine and interrogate you at sea in a US Naval vessel, and then bring you to the United States and expect to prosecute you based on the information that they gained while interrogating you at sea.

Can you imagine our outrage if Mr. Warsame were an American citizen and some other country did what our country did?  President Obama has already decided that he, as the head of the executive branch has the authority to order the execution of people including American citizens who he believes are terrorist without due process of law.  See my earlier post here.  Based on that authority, he could certainly do to an American citizen what he did to Mr. Warsame.

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

President Obama and Democratic Party Values

Dear Friends,

Much has been written lately about David Brooks' op-ed "The Mother of All No-Brainers" in The New York Times (here).  If you ignore the first few paragraphs, I certainly found much that I agreed with.  The following paragraph is particularly telling.

If the Republican Party were a normal party, it would take advantage of this amazing moment. It is being offered the deal of the century: trillions of dollars in spending cuts in exchange for a few hundred billion dollars of revenue increases.

Mr. Brooks is very clear that the Republican Party has been taken over by extremists which it certainly has.  I am not sure that Mr. Brooks has yet acknowledged that since the Republican Party is controlled by and obeys the commands of the extreme right wing of the Republican Party, that the Republican Party is an extreme party.   However, that is not the subject of this post.

How did we get to a position where a Democratic President and Democratic leaders in the House and the Senate are willing to compromise Democratic Party values and jeopardize the good of the country?  How did we get to a position where a conservative columnist could write that the Republicans have been handed such a good deal that they would be fools not to accept it and still have it be a real alternative that they will not accept it?

President Obama has lead the Democratic Party into accepting the narrative that we need to immediately take steps to reduce the deficit even though it will hurt the most vulnerable among us and stall or reverse the very weak economic recovery.

All the polls indicate that the American people are most worried about jobs.  All reasonable economists agree that we need job stimulation now and not deficit reduction.  Yet other than a too small stimulus at the beginning of his presidency, he has done little to promote jobs and has let the middle class and poor bear the pain of these difficult economic times.  Keep in mind that it was the actions of a portion of the very rich that caused these very difficult economic times.  President Obama has done nothing to hold those people that caused the problem accountable.  I fear that in President Obama's Justice Department, the best way to avoid being prosecuted is to be a Republican.  But I digress.

President Obama spent a day or two sounding tough about needing to get rid of some tax loopholes for the rich.  Unfortunately, then he turned again to betraying the values of the Democratic Party.  President Obama has signaled his willingness to impose significant cuts in Medicare in exchange for unspecified revenue increases that will occur as a result of an overhaul of the tax code. 

Our healthcare system is the most inefficient in the world because of our lack of a universal single payer plan.  Medicare is one of the most efficient parts of our healthcare system along with the VA system.  We need to address our healthcare delivery system but not by cuts to Medicare.  We need to address healthcare costs by joining the rest of the industrialized world by having a universal single payer plan subsidized by the government.

President Obama is once again playing into the narrative of the Republicans, and we can rest assured that the middle class and poor will bear the burden of his weakness.  Whatever happened to the traditional values supported by the Democratic Party?

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal

President Obama emboldens extreme Repbulicans

Dear Friends,

I have long thought that President Obama's unwillingness to actually take a clear position and strongly defend and argue for it to the American people as well as his incredibly bad negotiating style has lead to the ascendancy of the radical right wing Republicans.  Well apparently David Frum and Chris Hayes agree with me.

In case you are not familiar with David Frum, he is a Republican that worked for President George W. Bush.  Given that he is a Republican, he is a fairly rational one. He publishes the Frum Forum (here).   The following is from the transcript of "The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell" for July 5 (here).  Chris Hayes was sitting in as host.  They were talking about the debt ceiling.

DAVID FRUM, FRUMFORUM.COM: I am
astounded that we have come to where we are.
I mean, this is one of these August 1914
situations where we are heading towards a
crisis of unimaginable proportions, people like
me did not believe it would come to that, it
couldn‘t. You could see what lies from the
other side. And the behavior of the Republican
Party through all this has been pretty
shocking.

That said, it needs to be understood the
president‘s own weakness has invited a lot of
this problem. What he has done—the
Republican Party is a collectivity. It doesn‘t
have a single decision-maker when there isn‘t
a president. The White House has unity.

His weakness has empowered the most radical 
people in the Republican Party, and
disempowered people like John Cornyn, who
are deal makers. Now, John Cornyn has to
worry about primary challenges.

HAYES: Sure.

FRUM: And every time the president has
retreated in the way that he has, he‘s proven
John Cornyn‘s potentially primary challenger
right. So, John—and every time that—you ask
John Cornyn, OK, this is the best deal, this
deal that I‘m offering you today, this is the
best deal, there isn‘t a secret special price
behind this special price, this is my best deal—
you have to wonder what would my primary
challenger discover if there was a better deal,
what happens to me then?

HAYES: I think—despite my self, I kind of agree
with that. What do you think?

Thanks for reading and please comment,
The Unabashed Liberal