The Obama-Republican Party Deficit Deal: Hope and Cave?
From all accounts forthcoming from Washington, D.C.  late this afternoon, the media is reporting, with very little differentiation that a political resolution to the Republicans’ manufactured deficit ceiling crisis has been successfully negotiated between President Barack Obama and Senator Mitch O’Connell, the Senate Minority Leader, and with Majority Leader Harry Reid’s apparent consent. According to politicos in the know, this deal, if supported, will resolve the nation’s unprecedented budgetary crisis through 2013, after the elections, and should put the country on a fiscal footing that could avoid a downgrade in the U.S. credit rating.
But Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic Leader in the House is not rushing to embrace the plan sight unseen. As reported by Talking Points Memo this evening: “We all may not be able to support it,” she said. “And maybe none of us will be able to support it.”
Not all Americans are checked out and a very harsh verdict by Obama supporters, principally Democrats, is ricocheting around the Internet on Twitter: “#hopeandcave” has emerged from Obama’s base that is sizzling hot in its indictment of Obama’s apparent propensity to go more than half-way to meet Republican recalcitrant demands.
Adding more heat to an Internet that is burning up is the Califorina Democratic Party’s Progressive Caucus is calling for a primary challenge to Obama, which is sesmic–an earthquake sound shouted from the West Coast, reported by our colleagues at LGBT POV.
This is nothing to sneeze at. A front page story on the New York Times today titled “Rightward Tilt Leaves Obama With Party Rift” reports:
Entering a campaign that is shaping up as an epic clash over the parties’ divergent views on the size and role of the federal government, Republicans have changed the terms of the national debate. Mr. Obama, seeking to appeal to the broad swath of independent voters, has adopted the Republicans’ language and in some cases their policies, while signaling a willingness to break with liberals on some issues.
That has some progressive members of Congress and liberal groups arguing that by not fighting for more stimulus spending, Mr. Obama could be left with an economy still producing so few jobs by Election Day that his re-election could be threatened. Besides turning off independents, Mr. Obama risks alienating Democratic voters already disappointed by his escalation of the war in Afghanistan and his failure to close the Guantánamo Bay prison, end the Bush-era tax cuts and enact a government-run health insurance system.
 The New York Times’ conclusions are backed up by Salon.com’s Glen Greenwald in “Democratic Politics in a Nutshell,” who quotes Congressman John Conyers (D-MI), a member of the “Out of Poverty” caucus, who said this past week:
“We’ve got to educate the American people at the same time we educate the President of the United States. The Republicans, Speaker Boehner or Majority Leader Cantor did not call for Social Security cuts in the budget deal. The President of the United States called for that,†Conyers, who has served in the House since 1965, said. “My response to him is to mass thousands of people in front of the White House to protest this,†Conyers said strongly.
The Senate voted this afternoon to stop debate and move to final passage. Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid’s compromise intended to resolve the deficit ceiling budget crisis, but it failed to reach the magical 60 votes necessary. Reid has announced he will call a vote this evening after McConnell and the Republicans extracted more Democratic flesh in further cuts to entitlements, including Social Security and Medicare.
Greg Sargent from the Washington Post is reporting that the Republicans have gotten about 98 percent of what they have so obdurately pursued in lock-step–bottom line, no new taxes seems to have carried the day and about $2.4 trillion in undetermined cuts. Sargent explains:
By all accounts, it looks like a deal is about to be announced in which the debt ceiling is hiked in exchange for the promise of major spending cuts, including to entitlements, totalling at least $2.4 trillion.
Anything can happen, but it appears the GOP is on the verge of pulling off a political victory that may be unprecedented in American history. Republicans may succeed in using the threat of a potential outcome that they themselves acknowledged would lead to national catastrophe as leverage to extract enormous concessions from Democrats, without giving up anything of any significance in return.
Not only that, but Republicans — in perhaps the most remarkable example of political up-is-downism in recent memory — cast their willingness to dangle the threat of national crisis as a brave and heroic effort they’d undertaken on behalf of the national interest. Only the threat of national crisis could force the immediate spending cuts supposedly necessary to prevent a far more epic crisis later.
This is where the #hopeandcave sentiments begin with Democratic Progressives. Another sentiment also emerging is that more and more calls to #primaryObama from the left in the past few weeks, initially recommended by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), which have been echoed on the pages of the Wall Street Journal by Peter du Pont, who has called for Hillary Clinton to challenge Obama, not surprisingly. Many Clinton supporters are waiting in the wings and have drafted a petition drive to draft her, praying that Hillary will tip her hand, resign her office and take a leap of audacity by challenging Obama, a sitting president, to a redux of a bitter fight in 2008.
Nonetheless, Democratic pundits have dismissed disgruntled liberals, essentially saying they have no other place to go, but as the details emerge on where the cuts will fall, don’t be so sure, that people who are really hurting in this abysmal economy  just might stay home in 2012. And if all else fails in the next two days, don’t count on Obama invoking the 14th Amendment to protect the country’s fiscal sovereignty. He and many members of his Administration have dismissed that course of action as not feasible.
Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.
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The White House has confirmed President Donald Trump is moving to push the controversial SAVE America Act further right — which could make it even easier for the left to reject.
Many were confused or critical when President Trump claimed on Thursday that the SAVE Act — a voter ID bill that critics say will disenfranchise millions of Americans — would reshape rules for sports participation and health care access for transgender people, which the current text of the bill does not actually do.
According to Trump’s Truth Social post, the bill requires voter ID and proof of citizenship to vote, and no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military, or travel. It also bans “men in women’s sports,” and “transgender mutilation surgery for children, without the express written approval of the parents.”
The president, after uproar from the right, dropped the parental approval portion and called to ban all transgender surgery for children.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was asked on Friday about Trump’s additions to the legislation.
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After declaring that he wants the SAVE Act passed “as soon as possible,” Leavitt acknowledged that Trump “has added on some priorities” to the bill in recent days, “namely no transgender transition surgeries for minors. We are not gonna tolerate the mutilation of young children in this country. No men in women’s sports. The president putting all of these priorities together, it speaks to how common sense they are.”
“These are all common sense priorities of this president that are backed by the vast majority of Americans and he wants Republicans to act on them as quickly as possible,” she claimed.
According to Democracy Docket, Leavitt’s comments “mark the first time the White House has publicly confirmed that Trump is pushing to attach anti-transgender policies to the SAVE America Act.”
Noting that even if the Senate were to pass the legislation with Trump’s latest priorities in it, the bill would have to head back to the House, Democracy Docket reported, “for another vote — a potentially difficult hurdle given the narrow margin by which it passed initially.”
But, even “without those additions, the bill faces long odds in the Senate, where most legislation requires 60 votes to pass and where Democrats have vowed to block it.”
Republican Majority Leader John Thune has said he opposes changing the Senate’s filibuster rules to help the bill’s passage.
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Image via Reuters
President Donald Trump and his administration are under fire for what critics say is a lack of planning for his war against Iran. The fallout is already being felt in the economy, from rising gas prices to sinking financial markets, and a myriad of other potential crises.
“I’ve seen a lot of Presidents fall short of their promises but I’ve never seen any President just doing the opposite of everything promised on purpose,” charged U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI). “Prices, Epstein, wars. Just absolutely racing to betray his voters.”
One hour later, he followed up, writing: “Did they think this through?”
The Atlantic’s Karim Sadjadpour earlier this week reported, “I have spoken with current and former U.S. officials privy to the decision making” on Iran, “who describe a total lack of planning and contradictory aims among those worried about the war effort and those more concerned about the war’s domestic political implications.”
Democratic National Committee (DNC) Chairman Ken Martin earlier in the week charged: “Trump and his incompetent administration had no plan to get Americans out of danger after their planned attack on Iran. Now, American citizens are stuck in an active war zone. This is a complete disaster.”
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On Friday, the State Department said that 24,000 Americans had returned from the Middle East, but thousands more remain. The “vast majority” of those who returned “were able to make their way home on their own through commercial means,” the Associated Press reported.
The rapidly rising price of oil and gas, and access to them, appear to be among critics’ greatest concerns.
“Apparently no one in the White House thought starting a war in the Middle East might affect oil prices,” lamented U.S. Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). “Now families are paying the price at the pump for pure amateur hour.”
Longtime journalist Jim Roberts delved even further.
“Listening to White House official Kevin Hassett this morning is making it crystal clear that the Trump administration had no plan for dealing with the disruption of energy supplies in the Mideast,” he wrote, adding: “And now the Pentagon is trying to figure out how to protect ships in the Strait of Hormuz.”
The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson warned, “By April, energy experts say, the Iran War could be a full blown energy crisis.”
Citing reporting from the Financial Times, macroeconomist Philip Pilkington wrote that the “Trump administration forgot to refill its Strategic Petroleum Reserve before launching Total War in the Middle East.”
Patrick De Haan, the widely cited head of Petroleum Analysis at Gas Buddy, referencing President Donald Trump’s remarks about the price of gas rising, warned: “it doesn’t appear the admin is yet aware there’s actually a problem, so that means there’s nothing yet to fix. I do hope this changes soon.”
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Image via Reuters
Washington Post readers are pushing back against the paper and an op-ed that laments what its author sees as a shortage of evangelical Christians in the “halls of power.”
“Evangelicals are 23 percent of U.S. adults and one of the most loyal Republican voting blocs, with 81 percent backing Donald Trump in 2024,” writes author Aaron M. Renn. “Yet despite six of the nine Supreme Court justices being appointed by Republican presidents, there are no evangelicals on the Supreme Court.”
The Supreme Court “is just one of the many elite institutions in which evangelicals are absent or underrepresented,” he continues. Declaring that evangelicals “have excelled in politics,” he points to U.S. Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) and House Speaker Mike Johnson as examples.
Arguing that evangelicals “are also prominent in well-run and profitable businesses with relatively low cultural impact, such as food processing (Tyson Foods) and retail (Hobby Lobby),” he says that “they are all but absent from the leadership of prestigious universities, major foundations, Big Tech companies, leading financial firms and large media companies.”
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“A stronger evangelical presence in elite institutions could strengthen them while addressing polarization and public mistrust,” he continues. “The lack of evangelicals in the halls of power contributes to anti-institutional public sentiment. It also deprives those institutions of an important pool of talent.”
Washington Post readers scorched the op-ed and the paper.
“The author remarked, more than once, of the lack of formal education among the vast numbers of evangelicals,” wrote one reader. “He then questions the lack of said evangelicals on corporate and college boards and in executive offices. Am I the only one seeing a connection here?”
“Is this not a request for a new DEI program to benefit evangelicals?” asked a reader.
“I am an evangelical Christian,” said a critic. “Please don’t hold up Mike Johnson or Josh Hawley as an example of what Christ calls us to be. Perhaps the reason for our absence in the halls of power is the fact that the majority chose to elect an amoral, corrupt narcissist to be president. We should be absent from that depth of depravity.”
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One reader encouraged the author to “go see the musical Godspell and see just how far off the mark the American Evangelicals are.”
“Since when did adherence to fundamentalist religious beliefs become a litmus test for government or institutional leadership?” asked a reader. “Aren’t we currently bombing a country based on that system? This ‘newspaper’ is devolving into an internet forum.”
“So now MAGA wants DEI for Evangelicals,” said one reader. “This is fantastic stand-up comedy material.”
“In some cases, not all, the author is confusing evangelical with fundamentalist,” wrote one critic. “The author is also narrowing the meaning of evangelical by using a political frame, not a theological frame. Many evangelicals define themselves via strict adherence to Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (or the Plain) … I wish the author had explored at least modestly the increasing breadth of what the designation ‘evangelical’ represents in Christianity, not on Capital Hill.”
“Do you expect to be trusted in fields of science when you deny evolution?” asked a reader.
“Evangelical Christianity is the antithesis of intellectual pursuit, science, and progress,” wrote a reader.
And one critic, appearing to refer to “The Handmaid’s Tale,” charged: “Dreaming of Gilead, are you?”
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Image via Reuters
‘Dreaming of Gilead?’ WaPo Hit for Op-Ed Mourning Lack of Evangelicals in ‘Halls of Power’
‘Flashing Red’: Jobs Report Sparks Expert Warnings of Recession — or Even Stagflation
‘Pure Amateur Hour’: Trump Slammed for ‘Absolutely Racing to Betray His Voters’
White House Confirms Trump’s Shift That Pushes SAVE Act Further Right
White House Confirms Trump’s Shift That Pushes SAVE Act Further Right
‘Pure Amateur Hour’: Trump Slammed for ‘Absolutely Racing to Betray His Voters’
‘Dreaming of Gilead?’ WaPo Hit for Op-Ed Mourning Lack of Evangelicals in ‘Halls of Power’
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