Political Ruminations

Bill Clinton on Putting Americans Back to Work

14 million Americans unemployed.

In this week’s Newsweek, former president Bill Clinton on putting Americans back to work.

14 WAYS TO PUT AMERICA BACK TO WORK

Next week in Chicago, the Clinton Global Initiative will focus on America for the first time, inviting business and political leaders to make specific commitments in support of the former president’s jobs blueprint, which he details below.

1. SPEED THE APPROVALS

Harry Hopkins had nowhere near the rules and regulations we have now. (In 1933, Hopkins’s Civil Works Administration put 4 million to work in a month.) I don’t blame the people in the White House for problems in getting shovel-ready projects off the ground; sometimes it takes three years or more for the approval process. We should try to change this: keep the full review process when there are real environmental concerns, but when there aren’t, the federal government should be able to give a waiver to the states to speed up start times on construction projects. We gave states waivers to do welfare reform, so by the time I signed the bill, 43 of the 50 states had already implemented their own approaches. We need to look at that. [….]

Via Poltical Wire

Morning Quote: George W. Bush

Quotes by former President George W. Bush from Sept. 13, 2001 through March 13, 2002 regarding his intent toward Osama bin Laden:

Two days after the 9/11 attacks, on Sept. 13, 2001, George W. Bush said:

 “The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him.” source

Five days after the 9/11 attacks, on Sept. 16, 2001, George W. Bush said:

“My administration has a job to do and we're going to do it. We will rid the world of the evil-doers.” source

Three months after the 9/11 attacks, on Dec. 14, 2001, George W. Bush said:

Morning Quote: JFK

Former President John F. Kennedy on why the press is the only business in America to be protected by the Constitution during a speech to the American Newspaper Publishers Association in 1961:

Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive. That is why the Athenian lawmaker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment — the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution — not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants" — but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.

I wonder what he would say about the current state of our press/media. I doubt that  it would be anything complimentary.

Right Wing Trying to Paint Pres. Obama as a Wannabe Dictator

The right wing blogosphere is making a huge deal out of a remark made by President Obama, reported by the New York Times, and taken out of context by the right wing. The New York Times, emphasis by mmfa:

“Striking a very balanced, and in many ways, neutral approach is recognized by many people in the region as not being with them, or on their side," said J. Scott Mastic, the head of Middle East and North Africa for the International Republican Institute. "It's very important that we be seen as supporting the demands of the people in the region.”

How Mr. Obama manages to do that while also balancing American interests is a question that officials acknowledge will plague this historic president for months to come. Mr. Obama has told people that it would be so much easier to be the president of China. As one official put it, "No one is scrutinizing Hu Jintao's words in Tahrir Square."

As you can see from the screenshot, Fox Nation blew it all out of proportion.

Bill Kristol responds on the Weekly Standard blog:

Mr. Obama is right.

If you're president of China, people around the world who are fighting for freedom don't really expect you to help. If you're president of China, you don't have to put up with annoying off-year congressional elections, and then negotiate your budget with a bunch of gun-and-religion-clinging congressmen and senators. If you're president of China, you can fund your national public radio to your heart's content.

Ronald Reagan was the President of a Union

Former President Ronald Reagan, did not share his party's hatred of unions. From Think Progress, emphasis mine:

As the Main Street Movement of students, workers, and other middle class Americans erupts across America, many conservatives have invoked the legacy of former president Ronald Reagan to demand that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) not back down from his push to end collective bargaining for his state’s public employees. In a prank call with the Buffalo Beast’s Ian Murphy, where Murphy pretended to be right-wing billionare David Koch, Walker himself even fantasized about being just like Reagan.

Yet conservatives may be shocked to learn that their idol Reagan was once a union boss himself. Reagan was the only president in American history to have belonged to a union, the AFL-CIO affiliated Screen Actors Guild. And he even served six terms as president of the organized labor group. Additionally, Reagan was a staunch advocate for the collective bargaining rights of one of the world’s most famous and most influential trade unions, Poland’s Solidarity movement.

Founded in September 1980, Solidarity was formed in Soviet-occupied Poland as the USSR’s first free and independent trade union. By 1981, the union had grown to 10 million people and became a powerful force for demanding economic and political reforms within the Soviet Union. Solidarity began to use strikes to demand these reforms, and the Soviets responded by jailing their leaders and cracking down on their right to organize. During his Christmas address to the nation on December 23, 1981, President Reagan condemned the Soviet-backed Polish crackdowns on labor unions, promoting the “basic right of free trade unions and to strike”:

REAGAN: The Polish government has trampled underfoot to the UN Charter and Helsinki accords. It has even broken the Gdańsk Agreement of 1980 by which the Polish government recognized the basic right of free trade unions and to strike.

Watch:

Update on the GOP Battle Against the Affordable Care Act

I was embroiled in personal issues over the past couple of weeks, and consequently missed posting about several significant events in the Republican battle to repeal the the Affordable Care Act, which I think is definitely important enough to keep up with, thus, this catch-up post..

First, on January 20, the Republican controlled House voted unanimously to repeal the ACA, or as Republicans like to [falsely] call it, “the Job-Killing Health Care Law Act”. . HuffPost:

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans voted unanimously on Wednesday to fully repeal health care reform, though Senate leaders have said they will not take up the lower chamber's bill. Instead, the fight will move to the less glamorous arenas of funding and rule writing. The vote was 245-189, with three Democrats -- Dan Boren (D-Okla.), Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.), and Mike Ross (D-Ark.) -- voting for repeal.

This despite the fact that a majority of Americans do not support repeal, and many more would not support repeal had the GOP not engendered and publicized so many lies about the ACA, not the least of which is the so called job killing aspect of it [the truth is that insuring 30 million more people would create thousands of jobs in the health care industry], and the blatant lie that the law would increase the deficit. According to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the law would decrease the deficit, and repealing it would increase the deficit by 200 million. deficit  From the CBO blog:

Morning Quote: Bill Clinton

On MLK Day, former President Bill Clinton invoked the Arizona shootings:

Dr. Martin Luther King once wrote that nonviolence means 'not only avoiding external physical violence but also internal violence of the spirit.' Today as we honor what would have been Dr. King’s 92nd birthday a little more than a week after a shooter took the lives of six people and wounded 13 others in Arizona, including a member of Congress, we’d all do well to heed this message. While no one intends their words or actions to incite the violence we saw in Tucson – and it’s wrong for anyone to suggest otherwise – we live in a world where what we say and how we say it can be read, heard, or seen by those who understand exactly what we mean and by those whose inner demons take them to a very different place.

That’s not an argument against free speech, but a reminder that, as with all freedoms, its use carries with it responsibility.

Sadly, a lesson that may never be learned by the Right Wing, which seems unable to determine the difference between our right to speak freely, and the criminal behavior of shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre. And what else is the current state of our politics but a crowded theatre harboring a fuse always lit?