Replies to post #149313 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[StephanieVanbryce]

Jackson Jr. Stops Short of Crying Racism

Frederick Cosby Friday, July 29, 2011, 5:35 am


Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. said the nation’s first black president is the victim of “institutional bias.” (AP)

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. Thursday addressed the invisible elephant in the room – sort of – as to why President Barack Obama is having such a hard time getting Congress to grant him an increase in the federal debt ceiling.

The nation’s first black president is the victim of “institutional bias” because he hails from the south side of Chicago, Jackson said.

“And there is something else more fundamental, Mr. Speaker, that’s going on here,” Jackson (D-Ill) said during a floor debate on House Speaker John Boehner’s bill to cut federal spending and raise the debt ceiling, a bill that Obama and congressional Democrats strongly opposed.

“This president is being treated differently than other presidents. No other president has been shook up, shook-down or held hostage as president of the United States over this debt vote,” Jackson continued. “This fundamentally unfair, Mr. Speaker, to change the rules in the middle of the game.”

Jackson didn’t use the R-word. Instead, he chalked up Obama’s debt ceiling problems to “institutional bias.” In a written statement Jackson said “Treating President Obama differently than all past presidents reflects an ‘institutional bias’ against the Southside of Chicago!”

“Rep. Joe Wilson reflected the same institutional bias when, in an unprecedented manner, he called President Obama ‘a liar’ in the middle of his State of the Union address,” Jackson wrote. “Speaker John Boehner reflected a similar bias when he said he and the president had the same responsibility – equating his job as Speaker of the House (a legislative function) with the job of President of the United States (an executive function).”

He continued: “Doubting the birthplace of Barack Obama birthplace, doubting his Christian faith and experience, calling him a Muslim and a socialist reflects this same institutional bias. The Republican’s proposed Balance Budget Amendment (BBA) reflects a similar institutional bias – the only other place there’s a BBA is in the Constitution of the Confederate States of America. With a BBA, the Southside of Chicago can never be made equal to the Northside of Chicago.”

Jackson’s comments reflect what many black people across the country are saying: That race is playing a role in the high-stakes showdown that could lead to the United States defaulting on its loan obligations, which could send nervous domestic and international financial markets spiraling.

Georgetown University professor and talk radio show host Michael Eric Dyson summed up black sentiment on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show” earlier this month when he pointed out that 130 Republicans in Congress voted to raise the debt ceiling under former President George W. Bush.

“Is there any real reason to believe here, Ed, that one of the reasons Congress will not vote to put the economy in the black is because the economy is in the hands of the black?” Dyson asked host Ed Schultz.

As the congressional stalemate over the debt ceiling raged on, Jackson said Obama should act differently from other presidents and invoke an obscure provision in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and raise the ceiling by himself.

Added after the Civil War to make sure that former Confederate states wouldn’t avoid helping to pay for debts incurred during the war by Union states, Section Four of the 14th Amendment says that “the validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law ... shall not be questioned.”

“Use of the 14th Amendment is appropriate and justified when the current advocates of states’ rights are again asserting themselves,” Jackson wrote in his statement.

Jackson isn’t alone. House Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said invoking the 14th Amendment “will bring calm to the American people, and will bring needed stability to our financial markets.”

But White House officials have repeatedly poured cold water on the idea.

“There are no off-ramps,” White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said. “There’s no way around this. There’s no escape.”


http://www.blackamericaweb.com/?q=articles/news/moving_america_news/30836

[fuagf]

Which Republicans Might Support Reid’s Debt Bill?
By NATE SILVER .. July 30, 2011, 6:14 pm

Sooner or later, if the debt ceiling is to be increased, some kind of bill will need to be passed out of the Democratic-led Senate. Unless Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, is willing to take a procedural gamble, .. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_option .. it will need 60 votes to overcome a Republican filibuster.

Mr. Reid has 51 Democrats and two independents who caucus with him. Not all are guaranteed to support him: the moderate Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia, for instance, has criticized Mr. Reid’s bill .. http://www.news-register.net/page/content.detail/id/143203/Manchin-balks-at-Boehner--Reid-debt-ceiling-plans-.html?isap=1&nav=535 .. as well as Republican approaches.

Still, Democrats have behaved in a far more unified fashion on the debt debate than they do ordinarily. Most likely, Mr. Reid will be looking at somewhere between zero and two Democratic defections and will need somewhere between 7 and 9 Republicans to support him.

The first four Republicans who might support Mr. Reid are easy to determine: Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. They were the four Republicans who did not sign a letter .. http://mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=dd1a4769-7212-447b-a183-e8e8881d0ac0 .. spearheaded by Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, expressing opposition to Mr. Reid’s bill. (They also have among the most moderate voting records .. http://progressivepunch.org/members.htm?chamber=Senate&sort=overall-current&order=up&party=All .. in the Senate overall.)

But even if Mr. Reid could get these four senators on board, as well as persuade Mr. Manchin to approve some compromise bill, he’d still need three more Republicans. Who are the most likely candidates? I’d list them roughly in this order.

Mark Kirk of Illinois. Mr. Kirk has kept a low profile so far, but has a long track record of moderate and bipartisan votes in the House, where he served for 10 years. He is from a solid blue state and will not be up for re-election until 2016, meaning that he should have little to fear from a primary challenge.

Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas. Ms. Hutchison is retiring and might be more free to vote her conscience. She’s also been quite vocal about the need to reach a compromise.

Lamar Alexander of Tennessee. Mr. Alexander is on Democrats’ list of “gettable” votes. .. http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/democrats-eye-potential-gop-supporters-of-reids-debt-limit-bill.php .. And although his track record is not extraordinarily moderate overall, he is an old-fashioned deal-maker who sometimes makes exceptions on the most important votes. For instance, he voted to confirm .. http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=111&session=1&vote=00262 .. Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court in 2009. Mr. Alexander had expressed his support .. http://www.nooga.com/10271_alexander-voices-support-for-gang-of-six-deficit-reduction-plan/ .. for the bipartisan “Gang of 6? plan.

Bob Corker (Tennessee). Mr. Corker has offered some tepid praise .. http://wpln.org/?p=29289 .. for Mr. Reid’s bill. Like his colleague Mr. Alexander, his past voting record is conservative overall but has shown streaks of moderation. One complication is that he’s up for re-election next year, although a credible primary challenge has yet to materialize against him.

John McCain (Arizona). He’s not on Democrats’ target list. And his voting record, once quite moderate, has shifted back to being very conservative since the 2008 elections. But Mr. McCain is among the least predictable votes in in the Senate and has sharply criticized .. http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/27/john-mccain-vs-the-tea-party/ .. the Tea Party in recent days.

Charles E. Grassley of Iowa. Although Mr. Grassley’s voting record is quite conservative on the whole, he has represented a moderate state in the Senate for more than 30 years and has a reputation as a deal-maker: for example, having been part of the (unsuccessful) efforts to negotiate a bipartisan compromise on health care in 2009. Mr. Grassley, in between tweets about disgusting food .. http://twitter.com/#!/ChuckGrassley/status/97348434989826049 .. at the Iowa State Fair, has told reporters .. http://www.amestrib.com/articles/2011/07/28/ames_tribune/news/doc4e3206c17accb955533849.txt .. that he won’t support Mr. Reid’s bill as is, but sees hope for a compromise.

Richard G. Lugar of Indiana. Ordinarily, Mr. Lugar is among the most moderate Republican senators. He has bucked his party on many occasions in the past and, at 79 years old, he may be thinking about his legacy. The problem is that he faces an extremely competitive .. http://www.rollcall.com/news/Richard-Mourdock-Dick-Lugar-poll-Indiana-Senate-207680-1.html .. primary next year against Indiana State Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who has the backing of the Tea Party movement.

After that, things get very dicey. The three Republican members of the “Gang of 6? — Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, Tom Coburn of Oklahoma and Mike Crapo of Idaho — make some Democratic target lists. But Mr. Reid’s bill is not particularly close to the “Gang of 6? framework, and all three lawmakers are quite conservative by nature.

Of course, it is not necessarily the case that Mr. Reid will pass a bill by picking off Republicans one at a time. The House will need to approve any package too, and that means at least some level of buy-in will be needed from Republican leadership. If Mr. McConnell were to explicitly endorse a compromise effort at some later stage, for instance, Mr. Reid could quickly go from fifty-something votes to 70 or 80.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/which-republicans-might-support-reids-debt-bill/

[StephanieVanbryce]

The sticking point for Dems, Kerry said, involves detailed negotiations over an enforcement mechanism that would require Congress to act on entitlement and tax reform by a date certain or faces the consequences. Democrats want to ensure that such a trigger does not simply mandate severe spending cuts, but also includes tax increases -- the so-called "shared pain" Democrats have cited lately.

July 30, 2011, 7:23PM Sen. John Kerry
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/07/kerry-discloses-democrats-sticking-point-in-debt-talks.php

we're so screwed.........

[StephanieVanbryce]

Fareed Zakaria: Tea Party will blow up the country.

PollWatcher Sat Jul 30, 2011 at 07:18 AM PDT

Fareed Zakaria interview: [ http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/30/video-zakaria-on-tea-partys-influence/?hpt=ac_bn3 ]

Here's a summary of some of the points in the interview:

They'll blow up the country

They'll hold the credit of the U.S. hostage

Others say they are counter constitutional

They hijack the entire system

They don't understand the workings of democracy

They have not been elected as dictators of the U.S.

fundamentally anti-democratic, counter constitutional

extraordinary act of hostage taking

They've already damaged the good standing of the U.S.

Fareed Calls on Obama to invoke 14th Amendment

It's a national emergency almost like a war

Tea Party congressman relies on "magic" with their claims

When commentators speak from their heart, speak the truth, and reject the false equivalency that dominates the media, we need to thank them for their great work.

Here is a link to a feedback page for Anderson Coopers show. Thank him for having Fareed Zakaria, a most thoughtful commentator, on the show. We often need to give as much positive feedback as we do negative.

Anderson Cooper 360 feedback [ http://www.cnn.com/feedback/forms/form5.html?10 ]


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/07/30/1000683/-Fareed-Zakaria:Tea-Party-will-blow-up-the-country?detail=hide