“So, let's get this straight: A Republican President is reelected in 2004 with 284 electoral votes and the pundits say he has the "political capital" to push an extreme right-wing mandate. A Democratic President gets reelected in 2012 with 303 electoral votes, and they're telling us he needs to "unite a divided country."
Nonsense.This election was a clear and unequivocal victory for the populist positions the president took on the campaign trail”. – Richard Eskow, www.Smirkingchimp.com blog
------
Listening to newly re-elected Prez Barack Obama a couple nights ago, one could forgive him for flighty, over-generous, fantasy rhetoric in the wake of his resounding electoral victory – which now lo0ks like it will conform with Nate Silver’s forecast of 332 electoral votes to 206 for Mittens. That is why we need to take with a grain of salt his oratory about “working with Mitt Romney” or any of the other Gooper Fiends who, if they’d won would have had THEIR way and all of us eating out of bird feeders and dumpsters. So, let’s drop the bipartisan bull shit one time. Those fuckers would not give one nanoscale crumb to us had they achieved the same result, and we owe them nothing!
While the rarefied rhetoric can be accepted – temporarily – it must not be the basis of any policy decisions, and certainly not in any pandering to the ‘pukes for any “Grand Bargain” of the odious form floated two years ago. With the Reptiles yielding maybe one fourth in revenues, with the other THREE-fourths in egregious spending cuts – including to Medicare and Social Security, i.e. the “entitlements” the ‘pukes have had a boner to cut since the year dot.
Boehner’s plea yesterday for “fiscal cliff compromise” based on yielding a wee bit of revenue in the form of closing some tax loopholes must therefore be spat upon, with large globs and laughed at – howler style. People in Ohio, Florida and elsewhere didn’t stand in line for eight hours – sometimes barely making it to the ballot casting – for the sake of bald appeasement and give away to these ass- suckers. No –they stood in those lines, wherever the lines were – despite the Repuke efforts to suppress votes- because they believed Obama’s campaign speeches were based on genuine populism - not cynical political manipulation which in the end would sacrifice the very self-interest the 60 odd million Obama supporters cast ballots for!
This is why – especially after the nasty lessons of the debt ceiling crisis of 2010, Obama must not give ONE inch to these turds! Let them sink or swim, or suck shit. That’s putting it as nicely as I can. (And, oh btw, I’m in a good mood today after seeing a hilarious video on one idiot Wingnut blogger’s website – which compensated for having to get dental work done!)
Let’s understand a few things here, which I hope Obama does: Boehner, McConnell and the rest of their Klan have nothing to stand on – no room to maneuver. THEY are the ones who most desperately want to avoid the so-called “fiscal cliff” because it will mean automatic repeal of all the tax cuts – including those for their millionaire beneficiaries. THEY are the ones that have the most to lose and are in the worst bargaining position, so it makes more sense to adopt Sen. Patty Murray’s “cliff diver” paradigm and go over!
If the asinine repukes don’t want that then let THEM cede the most – by which I mean at LEAST HALF in new revenues from pure marginal tax INCREASES, not just pissant loophole closings or “simplifications”. Then, Obama can reasonably consider a judicious spending cuts aspect. But…..let’s make this clear once and for all: the ¼ tax hikes and ¾ spending cuts formula is now passé. That was last time and 'pukes passed on it. THIS time the formula changes to ½ spending cuts and ½ pure tax hikes and at the marginal rates (at least) of the Clinton years – when, btw, 20 million new jobs were created.
There can be NO other deal and if Whiny Boehner and his Tea party crew don’t like it let them all take a long long walk on short pier.
As for the sequestration coming on Jan. 2, and the fear instilled in McConnell, Boehner and the other boneheads because of the imminent $600 b in military cuts – TOUGH SHIT! They brought it on by the failure of their members on the Supercommittee to deal, or compromise with the Dems. Now they must live with the fiscal consequences, humble as they are (the $600b is actually spread over ten years and merely reduces the rate of growth for the Pentagon, not in any sense an absolute cut in funding!)
As for the “fiscal cliff” itself, as Ezra Klein of the WaPo noted, it’s more a fiscal “bump”. All this hysteria is merely fomented by the corporate blow dried bimbos and himbos to try to frighten the policy makers into taking precipitous action. Meanwhile, the Wall Street sharks are using DOW nosedives as blackmail to try to get favorable action, i.e. extending ALL Bush tax cuts.
Sorry! This we cannot afford, if debt-deficit gurus like David Walker, Ernest Bowles, Alan Simpson and others are to be taken at their word. Yes, on average, the typical American Middle class family earning $60,000 will see a net increase of $2,200 in their bills to the IRS. But this is a small sacrifice to make compared to seeing their future Medicare cut in half, with premiums raised 100% or more and Social Security sliced by using a new COLA formula – with seniors losing up to $900 a year, every ten years. This would be catastrophic given that up to 55% of seniors are already living on only $21,000 a year and this is mostly coming from Social Security.
As for the Right’s warmongers, they also will be doing a full court press for Obama to attack Iran, prodded on by bellicose Israelis, but this he cannot do. For one, it will truly wreck the economy (unlike the mythical “fiscal cliff”) sending oil prices up over $250 a barrel. For another, the Russians will not sit back passively and watch as their investments go up in smoke and flames. To give in to the warmonger punks would therefore be the most colossal stupid thing ever done.
Once more the election delivered at least massive political capital to Obama. He needs to have the cojones to use it, not squander it by pussyfooting around with his sworn enemies, trying to make nicey-nice.
Sorry to burst your bubble, Mr. Obama, but we ARE divided by Red and Blue states! (One reason that secession of the 'Reds" may be the only sane and ultimate solution.) The sooner you acknowledge that fact and accept it, the sooner you will be the proud PARTISAN you ought to have been in your first term, and pave the way for being a genuine leader…..as opposed to a Wuss.
No comments:
Post a Comment