Political Ruminations

VIDEO: A Very Quick Look at President Obama's First Term Accomplishments

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30,000 Pro-America Protesters in Libya Attack Islamist Militia Compound

This makes my heart sing.

Via Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs comes a story of 30,000 pro-America Libyan protesters who attacked an Islamist militia compound in Benghazi on Friday, and took it apart, chanting things such as “We want justice for [Ambassador] Stevens" and "No more al-Qaida!",emphasis mine:

An amazing story from Libya today, where pro-America protesters staged a huge demonstration, and stormed and ransacked the base of the main radical Islamist militia: Libyan Demonstrators Wreck Militia Compound in Benghazi.

Hundreds of Libyan protesters forced members of the main Salafist militia out of their base in the second city of Benghazi Friday, setting fire to and wrecking the military compound.

The assault came as an estimated 30,000 people rallied against the influence of the militias in the city, drowning out a protest by radical Salafists angry over a film and cartoons deemed offensive to Islam.

“No to armed formations” and “Yes to the Libya army” read banners raised by protesters gathered at the city’s Tibesti Hotel before marching to Al-Kish Square, close to the barracks of several militia brigades.

“Our law is God’s law, not the law of the jungle,” women chanted.

Banners also paid tribute to U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens, who was killed along with three Americans on September 11 in what the White House now calls a terrorist attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi.

“Libya lost a friend” and “We want justice for Stevens,” signs read.

Make no mistake. This has happened because of President Obama’s foreign policy acuity. This is the kind of leadership we need not only in this country, but in the world at large.

The image is of “an armed Libyan man flashes the victory sign in front of a fire at the hardline Islamist group Ansar el-Sharia headquarters in Benghazi”, and the photo credit goes to Abdullah Doma-AFP.

Morning Quote: Jose Canseco on Romney

Professional baseball player Jose Canseco on Mitt Romney’s idiotic remark about how President Obama hasn’t ‘fixed’ the deficit:

“ Romney. This joker comes in saying that Obama has done nothing: ‘He hasn't fixed the deficit.’ Let me tell you something. Do you actually fucking believe that in four years you're going to fix the deficit? Are you kidding me? That's a lifetime project. ... It's amazing the bullshit that people believe.”

It should be noted by anyone with half a brain that no president “fixes” or has ever “fixed” the deficit. It should also be noted that President Obama, unlike his predecessors in the Republican Party , has reduced the deficit that they ran up by $312 billion. Fact.

New Obama Campaign Video

Watch:

Chart of the Day: Trajectory of Unemployment Claims 2007-2012

Steven Benen explains:

In fact, the new figures are the best since April 2008, and even exceeded positive expectations.

The number of Americans who filed requests for jobless benefits fell by 6,000 last week to 357,000, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had projected claims would total 360,000, seasonally adjusted, in the week ended March 31. Claims from two weeks ago were revised up to

Despite last week's annual revisions, the same metrics still apply: wh363,000 from 359,000. The average of new-benefit applications over the past four weeks, meanwhile, dropped by 4,250 to 361,750.en jobless claims fall below the 400,000 threshold, it's considered evidence of an improving jobs landscape, and when the number drops below 370,000, it suggests jobs are actually being created rather quickly.

And with that, here's the chart -- which reflects the revised, seasonably-adjusted data -- showing weekly, initial unemployment claims going back to the beginning of 2007. (Remember, unlike the monthly jobs chart, a lower number is good news.) For context, I've added an arrow to show the point at which President Obama's Recovery Act began spending money.

UPDATE

More good news on the economic front from The Washington Post:

Add Mark Zandi to the growing chorus of economists who believe that the U.S. is finally headed for a real turnaround. The chief economist for Moody’s Analytics just revised his outlook for 2012, and the biggest change to his forecast involves the unemployment rate. Back in January, Zandi predicted that the rate, which is currently at 8.3 percent, would stay above 8 percent through the end of the year. Now he says it “appears set to fall below 8 percent by year’s end” and believes it will fall below 7 percent by the end of 2013, as he explains in his latest note.

Text Transcript: President Obama on the Ryan Budget at the AP Luncheon

You can watch the video here.

Remarks by the President at the Associated Press Luncheon

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  (Applause.)  Please have a seat.  Well, good afternoon, and thank you to Dean Singleton and the board of the Associated Press for inviting me here today.  It is a pleasure to speak to all of you -- and to have a microphone that I can see.  (Laughter.)  Feel free to transmit any of this to Vladimir if you see him.  (Laughter.)  

Clearly, we’re already in the beginning months of another long, lively election year.  There will be gaffes and minor controversies, be hot mics and Etch-a-Sketch moments.  You will cover every word that we say, and we will complain vociferously about the unflattering words that you write -- unless, of course, you're writing about the other guy -- in which case, good job.  (Laughter.) 

Morning Quote:Vice President Joe Biden

“You can go back 500 years. You cannot find a more audacious plan. Never knowing for certain. We never had more than a 48 percent probability that he was there.”

- Vice President Joe Biden at a fundraiser, rightfully brags on the raid ordered by President Obama to kill Bin Laden in Pakistan last year.

Source: National Review (Conservative)

Adding....if you find yourself cringing over the smell of sour grapes re this quote at the National Review, just remember....their guy couldn’t do it in 8 years.

New Obama Campaign Ad: Made in America

Watch:

Bring it on, Mr. Romney.

Via Ashby

The End of Combat in Afghanistan

I missed this news yesterday, but it seems to me to be important to take note.

The war in Afghanistan is being brought to an end earlier than was scheduled, with the US combat role ending in mid-2013.

The US plans to wind down its war in Afghanistan a year or more earlier than scheduled by ending its combat role in the second half of 2013.

Defence secretary Leon Panetta said no decision has been made on how quickly to draw down American and other Nato forces, but that the shift away from fighting is being brought forward. At the same time, Nato is considering reducing the planned size of the Afghan army because of the cost involved.

"Hopefully by mid to the latter part of 2013 we'll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise and assist role," Panetta said.

Morning Quote: Andrew Sullivan on President Obama’s Job Performance

“On the economy, the facts are these. When Obama took office, the United States was losing around 750,000 jobs a month. The last quarter of 2008 saw an annualized drop in growth approaching 9 percent. This was the most serious downturn since the 1930s, there was a real chance of a systemic collapse of the entire global financial system, and unemployment and debt—lagging indicators—were about to soar even further. No fair person can blame Obama for the wreckage of the next 12 months, as the financial crisis cut a swath through employment. Economies take time to shift course.

But Obama did several things at once: he continued the bank bailout begun by George W. Bush, he initiated a bailout of the auto industry, and he worked to pass a huge stimulus package of $787 billion.

 

All these decisions deserve scrutiny. And in retrospect, they were far more successful than anyone has yet fully given Obama the credit for. The job collapse bottomed out at the beginning of 2010, as the stimulus took effect. Since then, the U.S. has added 2.4 million jobs. That’s not enough, but it’s far better than what Romney would have you believe, and more than the net jobs created under the entire Bush administration. In 2011 alone, 1.9 million private-sector jobs were created, while a net 280,000 government jobs were lost. Overall government employment has declined 2.6 percent over the past 3 years. (That compares with a drop of 2.2 percent during the early years of the Reagan administration.) To listen to current Republican rhetoric about Obama’s big-government socialist ways, you would imagine that the reverse was true. It isn’t.

 

The right claims the stimulus failed because it didn’t bring unemployment down to 8 percent in its first year, as predicted by Obama’s transition economic team. Instead, it peaked at 10.2 percent. But the 8 percent prediction was made before Obama took office and was wrong solely because it relied on statistics that guessed the economy was only shrinking by around 4 percent, not 9. Remove that statistical miscalculation (made by government and private-sector economists alike) and the stimulus did exactly what it was supposed to do. It put a bottom under the free fall. It is not an exaggeration to say it prevented a spiral downward that could have led to the Second Great Depression.

You’d think, listening to the Republican debates, that Obama has raised taxes. Again, this is not true. Not only did he agree not to sunset the Bush tax cuts for his entire first term, he has aggressively lowered taxes on most Americans. A third of the stimulus was tax cuts, affecting 95 percent of taxpayers; he has cut the payroll tax, and recently had to fight to keep it cut against Republican opposition. His spending record is also far better than his predecessor’s. Under Bush, new policies on taxes and spending cost the taxpayer a total of $5.07 trillion. Under Obama’s budgets both past and projected, he will have added $1.4 trillion in two terms. Under Bush and the GOP, nondefense discretionary spending grew by twice as much as under Obama. Again: imagine Bush had been a Democrat and Obama a Republican. You could easily make the case that Obama has been far more fiscally conservative than his predecessor—except, of course, that Obama has had to govern under the worst recession since the 1930s, and Bush, after the 2001 downturn, governed in a period of moderate growth. It takes work to increase the debt in times of growth, as Bush did. It takes much more work to constrain the debt in the deep recession Bush bequeathed Obama.”

- Conservative-Independent, Andrew Sullivan, excerpted from a Newsweek cover story. The quoted portion of the article focuses on President Obama’s job performance in regards to the economy.

Quote of the Day on What’s Really at Stake in the 2012 Election

Bob Cesca in a post entitled “What’s at Stake in This Election?”, on President Obama’s mission to resurrect  America’s ailing middle class by reversing the doctrine of Reaganomics:

“President Obama is slowly rolling back the doctrine of Reaganomics. The long-term goal of the administration is to reverse this highly entrenched policy mindset. It’s a doctrine that mandates deregulation, “government is the problem,” lower taxes for the rich, a suffocation of the middle class and so forth. If Romney wins, that’s the end of that. Romney will be able to ride the progress of the Obama recovery and claim credit for it while simultaneously repealing and rolling back everything the president accomplished.”

Morning Quote: Andrew Sullivan on Obama’s Foreign Policy Accomplishments

“On foreign policy, the right-wing critiques have been the most unhinged. Romney accuses the president of apologizing for America, and others all but accuse him of treason and appeasement. Instead, Obama reversed Bush’s policy of ignoring Osama bin Laden, immediately setting a course that eventually led to his capture and death. And when the moment for decision came, the president overruled both his secretary of state and vice president in ordering the riskiest—but most ambitious—plan on the table. He even personally ordered the extra helicopters that saved the mission. It was a triumph, not only in killing America’s primary global enemy, but in getting a massive trove of intelligence to undermine al Qaeda even further. If George Bush had taken out bin Laden, wiped out al Qaeda’s leadership, and gathered a treasure trove of real intelligence by a daring raid, he’d be on Mount Rushmore by now. But where Bush talked tough and acted counterproductively, Obama has simply, quietly, relentlessly decimated our real enemies, while winning the broader propaganda war. Since he took office, al Qaeda’s popularity in the Muslim world has plummeted.

Obama’s foreign policy, like Dwight Eisenhower’s or George H.W. Bush’s, eschews short-term political hits for long-term strategic advantage. It is forged by someone interested in advancing American interests—not asserting an ideology and enforcing it regardless of the consequences by force of arms. By hanging back a little, by “leading from behind” in Libya and elsewhere, Obama has made other countries actively seek America’s help and reappreciate our role. As an antidote to the bad feelings of the Iraq War, it has worked close to perfectly.”

- Conservative-Independent, Andrew Sullivan, on Obama’s foreign policy accomplishments, from a really excellent cover story for Newsweek.

Adding........you should read the entire piece. It’s not only brilliant, but it tells the truth about the Obama presidency in a way that hasn’t been done before.  While I disagree with Sullivan on several points (the most egregious point being that Obama signed indefinite detention of American citizens into law. Indefinite detention of American citizens was not “signed into law” by President Obama, it was already law, a fact which Sullivan does not point out.)

Morning Quote: Andrew Sullivan

“To rid the world of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and Moammar Qaddafi within six months: if Obama were a Republican, he'd be on Mount Rushmore by now.”

- Andrew Sullivan, referring to President Obama's national security - foreign policy accomplishments.

Via Bob Cesca

Morning Quote

Via Steve Benen, Eli Lake on Twitter:

Eli Lake, a national security correspondent for the unabashedly conservative Washington Times and not exactly a fan of President Obama, raised a point on Twitter that the right probably didn’t care for. (via Zack Beauchamp)

“Worth noting. President Birth Certificate has done what Reagan and W could not: end Gadhafi's reign and kill bin Laden. #realkeeping”

Morning Quote: President Obama

President Obama on the term "ObamaCare" so beloved by Republicans:

“I have no problem with folks saying ‘Obama Cares.’ I do care. If the other side wants to be the folks who don’t care, that’s fine with me.”

I've long thought  that we should turn it around on the right wing, and use the term as a badge of honor.

Watch:

Quick Take: Obama’s Record on LGBT Concerns

I meant to post this earlier in the week, but forgot. Bob Cesca’s primer on President Obama’s record on the concerns of the LGBT community.

Romney Goes After Obama on Jobs

Watch Romney’s new ad all about teh jobs:

The problem with Romney’s jobs message is that Romney made his money by downsizing companies and outsourcing jobs. Stephen Colbert via Steve Benen, emphasis mine:

“You see, Romney made a Mittload of cash using what’s known as a leveraged buyout. He’d buy a company with ‘money borrowed against their assets, groomed them to be sold off and in the interim collect huge management fees.’ Once Mitt had control of the company, he’d cut frivolous spending like jobs, workers, employees, and jobs. Just like America’s sweetheart, Gordon Gecko.”

“Because Mitt Romney knows just how to trim the fat. He rescued businesses like Dade Behring, Stage Stories, American Pad and Paper, and GS Industries, then his company sold them for a profit of $578 million after which all of those firms declared bankruptcy. Which sounds bad, but don’t worry, almost no one worked there anymore.”

“Besides, a businessman can’t be weighed down with a bleeding heart, as one former Bain employee put it, ‘It was very clinical…. Like a doctor. When the patient is dead, you just move on to the next patient.’ See? Mitt Romney is like a doctor! [On screen: Dr. Kevorkian]”

Anyone who believes in Romney’s jobs message needs to rethink that scenario, cause Mitt Romney surely does love him some good, old-fashioned American jobs slashing.

Steve Benen on Romney’s jobs record, emphasis mine:

Complicating matters, during Romney’s only service in public office, his state’s record on job creation was “one of the worst in the country.” Adding insult to injury, “By the end of his four years in office, Massachusetts had squeezed out a net gain in payroll jobs of just 1 percent, compared with job growth of 5.3 percent for the nation as a whole.”

How bad is Romney’s record? During his tenure, Massachusetts ranked 47th out of 50 states in jobs growth.

Adding…….via Nancy Pelosi, the latest depiction of the jobs trend from 2008 of the George W. Bush administration, through April 2011 of the Obama administration.

Maddow on President Obama’s Accomplishments

Rachel hits another home run!

Watch:

Via Bob Cesca

Quote of the Day

Conservative, Andrew Sullivan, on Obama’s accomplishments:

Obama avoided a plunge into the second Great Depression. He saved the auto industry. His bank bailout may make a profit. He has withdrawn most troops from Iraq. He has ended the ban on openly gay servicemembers. He has appointed two women to the Supreme Court. He muscled universal healthcare through the Congress into law. He ended torture as the law of the land.

Abroad, since his Cairo speech, democratic revolution after revolution has occurred. From Tehran to Tunisia to Egypt, Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, the march of freedom George W Bush imagined has actually swept the region under his successor. Where Obama has failed - Israel/Palestine - he may still prevail.

But the capture and killing of bin Laden eclipses these. [......]

But the Firebagging Progs continue to be disappointed in this president.

Via Bob Cesca

VIDEO: President Obama's Remarks at the Signing of the DADT Repeal Act of 2010

Full transcript here. 

Compromise Version of the 9/11 Responders Health Care Bill Passes in the House and the Senate

The two obstructionists, Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), and Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) agreed to a compromise which reduced the total compensation package to $4.3 billion, down from $6.2 billion. The “time span was also significantly limited to five years each for the health treatment program.”

“I’ll stand in the way of anything that doesn’t make sense and doesn’t spend our money wisely, so you know, it doesn’t matter what the issue is, we’re in such a hole, Jon, that we don’t have the luxury of not getting things right,” Coburn told ABC News today after announcing the deal.

Last night on CNBC, Coburn defended his obstruction of the bill and his insistence that it lavishes too much money on dying 9/11 first responders, saying “we’re spending four times as much money as we need to.” Coburn said that the actual cost of pre-deal bill would be $11 billion (he disputed the way the Congressional Budget Office scored it), and suggested that it was not paid for, saying, “we don’t have an extra $11 billion right now.” ....

Of course, the bill would not require an “extra” $11 billion. The bill is entirely paid for by offsets, some of which were changed at the GOP’s behest. As ThinkProgress has noted, these offsets — which at one point included a tax on foreign corporations — led the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to lobby against the measure. ...

The Senate passed a compromise version of the 9/11 first responders bill this afternoon. "The measure was passed on a voice vote with no one objecting after Democrats and Republican critics reached a compromise reducing the bill's cost from $6.2 billion to $4.2 billion." The House will vote on it later today.

I still feel pissed off that this did not pass with out Republican obstruction, in its original form, and with out making these responders fear for their futures. Taking care of these people who took care of us should have been something that we could all agree on.

Via Think Progress

History Made, START Treaty Ratified

President Obama becomes the first Democratic president in U.S. history to sheperd ratification of an arms-control treaty to its completion during his tenure. From Think Progress:

The New START Treaty was approved in the Senate by a vote of 71-26. Thirteen Republicans, a quarter of the Republican caucus, broke with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ). This is the first time an arms control treaty has ever passed without the support of the minority leader. As Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) said yesterday, “In today’s Senate, 70 votes is yesterday’s 95.”

A year ago, President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize for his vision of moving toward a world without nuclear weapons. The ratification of the START treaty is a small but important step toward this goal. It ensures that nuclear stability is maintained and lays the groundwork for future negotiations with Russia, paving the way for deeper cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal. While the START treaty has been called a modest treaty, the implications of its failure would have been anything but and would have caused dangerous upheaval in the post-Cold War nuclear order.

Morning Quote: President Obama on Signing DADT Repeal Act

       White House Photo, Chuck Kennedy

At the signing ceremony for the DADT Repeal Act this morning, President Obama:

We are not a nation that says ‘don’t ask, don’t tell.’ We are a nation that says ‘out of many, we are one.’ We are a nation that welcomes the service of every patriot. We are a nation that believes all men and women are created equal. Those are the ideals that generations have fought for. Those are the ideals we uphold today.

Would this have happened under a Republican president? Not in a million years.

RELATED:

• Full Transcript - President Obama's Remarks on Signing DADT Repeal Act

• VIDEO

UPDATE: It appears that the military is prepared to quickly move forward on the certifications. From Huffington Post:

Although several military service chiefs expressed opposition to repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell, President Obama has spoken to them since the measure passed, and they are all ready to move forward expeditiously on implementing and certifying the changes.

"The President called every single service chief separately, talked to them, and they are all about moving this forward very quickly," said a White House official who helped lead the president's DADT repeal effort. "They're soldiers; they understand this is the law of the land, and they're going to get this done. They went through a process that was beyond repute to show we can do this, and I think you'll see a very, very fast process."

In a press conference on Wednesday, Obama reiterated that point, saying they "all said that we are going to implement this smartly and swiftly, and they are confident that it will not have an effect on our military effectiveness."

 

 

Morning Quote: Rachel Maddow on DADT Repeal

Rachel Maddow’s comments to MSNBC News after the Senates vote on DADT repeal:

This is the president’s victory. This is something about which the President took a lot of criticism, a lot of abuse. Um, a lot of skepticism from his otherwise most loyal supporters on this. But this is an issue on which the President did not waver. He continually insisted that this was possible, that it would get done. It in fact was not possible for the President to do this through executive action. This is something that had to happen legislatively if it was really going to happen in a definitive way. The President did not waver. He did work on the Senate to make this happen. He insisted that it was possible against a lot of people, including me, saying it was not possible. This is a difficult promise kept. It's not just a promise kept. It was one that was hard to keep, that cost a lot of political capital, and a lot of work, and this is the President's victory today, and his base will reward him for it. [emphasis mine]

Very classy comment from Ms. Maddow.

Watch:

 

A Few Things to Note on DADT Repeal Implementation

Despite the passage of the DADT Repeal Act in both Houses of Congress, the DADT repeal won’t be implemented immediately, due to further requirements yet to be met, the most obvious being the President’s signing of the bill.

Not so well known or obvious, is the certification process by President Obama, and his top military advisors, who must certify that lifting the ban won't negatively affect the fighting ability of the troops.

Once the certification takes place, there is a 60-day waiting period prior to implementation by the military.

Thus, it will be a few months before we see the actual implementation of the repeal. Considering the struggle that it took to get to this point, not so long at all.

Andrew Sullivan, from his post entitled "Obama's Long Game: 65-31"

Like 2009's removal of the HIV ban, which was as painstakingly slow but thereby much more entrenched, this process took time. Without the Pentagon study, it wouldn't have passed. Without Obama keeping Lieberman inside the tent, it wouldn't have passed. Without the critical relationship between Bob Gates and Obama, it wouldn't have passed. It worked our last nerve; we faced at one point a true nightmare of nothing ... for years. And then we pulled behind this president, making it his victory and the country's victory, as well as ours.

We also know now what a McCain administration would have done: nothing. The disgraceful bitterness and rancor and irrationality that the Senator has shown these past few months reveal just how important it was to defeat him and his deranged, delusional side-kick in 2008.

Many of us appreciated his "long game" from the beginning. We understood that to use an executive order to enact civil rights for gays and lesbians serving in the armed forces would have been a stopgap measure, one easily overturned immediately upon the next Republican administration taking office.

Not to gloat, but I hope that those of you who have been burning the president at the proverbial stake because you doubted his "long game", are chastened. You should be.

Quote of the Week

President Obama, in his statement after  the Senate voted to repeal DADT:

It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed.

Well said sir. Well said.

It's DONE! Senate Votes for Repeal of DADT

Finally. And due to President Obama’s refusal to take the easy way which would have likely resulted in the reinstatement of DADT during the next Republican administration. From Think Progress:

Moments ago, in a vote of 63-33 the Senate invoked cloture on a bill to repeal the 17-year-old Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, paving the way for final passage in the coming days hours. The House passed the measure on Wednesday.

Democrats delivered eloquent speeches in support of open service. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) said, “I’m here because men and women wearing the uniform of the United States who are gay and lesbian have died for this country, because gay and lesbian men and women wearing the uniform of this country have their lives on the line right now in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places for this country.” Immediately before the vote, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT), who has been the strongest advocate of repeal in the Senate, urged his colleagues to repeal the ban, saying “We’ve come to a point in our history, I hope, where neither race nor religion, ethnicity, or gender, or sexual orientation should deprive Americans of serving the country as the patriots they are.”

Senate Passes the Food Safety Bill

From The New York Times:

WASHINGTON — The Senate on Tuesday passed a sweeping overhaul of the nation’s food-safety system, after recalls of tainted eggs, peanut butter and spinach that sickened thousands and led major food makers to join consumer advocates in demanding stronger government oversight.

The legislation, which passed by a vote of 73 to 25, would greatly strengthen the Food and Drug Administration, an agency that in recent decades focused more on policing medical products than ensuring the safety of foods. The bill is intended to get the government to crack down on unsafe foods before they harm people rather than after outbreaks occur.

The bill passed by a vote of 73-25, with all 56 Democrats and 15 Republicans voting in favor, 25 Republicans voting no, and 2 Republicans who didn’t vote. You can view the full roll call vote here.

Adding....yet another legislative victory for the Kenyan Muslim Socialists Obama and the Democrats!

Via Bob Cesca

SEC Creates HUGE Fund to Pay Future Whistleblowers

This action by the SEC was not taken out of any real desire to police Wall Street in a more responsible way, but rather is a result of the requirements of the financial reform bill passed in July almost solely by Democrats, and is yet another in the list of formidable accomplishments of the Obama administration.

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission says it has set aside about $450 million for payments to outside whistleblowers whose information results in successful cases and penalties collected from companies or individuals.

The SEC set up the program in accordance with the financial overhaul law enacted in July. It follows intense public criticism of the agency for the breakdown that allowed Bernard Madoff's multibillion-dollar fraud to go undetected for 16 years, despite numerous red flags raised by whistleblowers.

A report issued Friday by the SEC shows it has put $451.9 million into a new fund to pay whistleblowers, which must have a minimum $300 million.

Only 3 Republicans voted to pass this bill.

Three Republicans crossed the aisle to give Democrats the necessary 60 votes to end debate and to pass the bill. Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown voted for financial reform after a multi-billion dollar bank tax was removed. Maine Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins also voted for the bill.

Hey, can't tax the banks. They'll take away their support, right, Scott Brown?!

8 False Tea Party-Republican Memes to Talk About Before You Go to the Polls

1. The Tea Party is a grass roots movement.

REALITY: The Tea Party is a rebranding effort by the Republican Party, led by the billionaire Koch Brothers and their organization, Americans for Prosperity. Read this report, and don't forget to look at this fabulous graphic, which is worth at least 10,000 words all by itself. The corporate takeover of our government is in process.

2. The stimulus was a failure.

REALITY: Not only was it not a failure, but a huge number of Republicans not only had their hands out to grab the money while the "failure" word came flying out of their mouths at regular intervals, 114 of them took credit for the same stimulus that they voted against. Additionally, the stimulus cost $787 billion, not $1.2 trillion, and created 3.3 million new jobs, and prevented an even deeper recession.

3. The President is a Muslim Kenyan Socialist who has never produced his birth certificate.

REALITY: The President is an American Christian centrist who produced his birth certificate for public display when this ridiculous meme first began during the 2008 election. Socialism requires a more left wing point of view, and this president is not even center left, much less far left.

4. Nowhere in the constitution does it state that there must be a separation between church and state.

REALITY: It is important to understand that this meme was not born out of ignorance, but out of a desire to intertwine religion and government, and thus the Far Right has re-interpreted the first two clauses in the First Amendment to be more to their liking. Constitutional scholars agree that these clauses denote the doctrine of the separation of church and state. Because our SCOTUS is Far Right, it is a dangerous meme.

5. The health care reform bill enacted by Democrats hurt Medicare and recipients of Medicare.

REALITY: Not only did it not harm the Medicare program, it actually strengthened it.

6. There is no difference between union funding of election ads and funding by secretive Super PACs.

REALITY: The difference between them is enormous. Union funding comes from the workers, the people who belong to the unions, and thus we know who is funding these ads. Secretive Super PACs, on the other hand, are funded by anyone, including in some cases foreign interests or multi-national companies, and no disclosure is required. There is also NO limit on donor contributions. Individuals funding union pacs are limited to specific, and low, dollar amounts, and there is disclosure.

These last two are from Dave Johnson, in his words.

7. Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, and is "going broke".

REALITY: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.

8. President Obama tripled the deficit.
REALITY: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.

Please re-blog this post, email it, and link to it. This stuff matters.

Links to Obama Administration / Democratic Party Accomplishments:

~ Rachel Maddow recounts what the Democrats accomplished in the past two years, and in the face of unrelenting opposition from the Republican Party. Maddow says that the Democrats, who controlled both Housees and the Presidency, were about policy, not politics.

~ Crowd-sourced on Twitter, a well sourced listing of the achievements of the Obama administration.

~ WTF has Obama done so far?.com

And finally, go VOTE!

President Obama's Stimulus Act Created 3.3 Million Jobs

Yes, where the economy is concerned, I am looking at the glass as half full [emphasis added]. Via The Washington Post:

President Obama's much-maligned economic stimulus package added as many as 3.3 million jobs to the economy during the second quarter of this year, and may have prevented the nation from lapsing back into recession, according to a report released Tuesday by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

In its latest quarterly assessment of the act, the CBO said the stimulus lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 and 1.8 percentage points during the quarter ending in June and increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million. The higher figure would come close to making good on Obama's pledge that the act would save or create as many as 3.5 million jobs by the end of this year.

The CBO said the act also increased the nation's gross domestic product by between 1.7 percent and 4.5 percent in the second quarter, indicating that the stimulus may have been the primary source of growth in the U.S. economy.

Time for another stimulus, the Republican house-burner-downers be damned.

ht Bob Cesca

Obama Achievements

A new website went online yesterday.

Determined to change the media narrative to finally include the good works of this administration, a group of Twitter users got together under Shoq’s leadership and compiled a list of the achievements and promises of the Obama administration, with documented links to every item. It will be updated on an ongoing basis, as this President accumulates more successes and lasting reforms.

We’re proud of what this Congress and this Administration has done to put our country back on solid footing. There is still much to be done, but there are well over 400 significant documented achievements here already, and many more to come over the next two years of this very formidable administration.

Crowd-sourced, headed up by a couple of Top Progs, including Karoli, of CrooksandLiars.com, it documents the impressive achievements of the Obama Administration thus far. Check it out, volunteer to help, and/or share it with everyone you know.

Obama Announces an End to the War in Iraq, and Fulfills Another Promise

Are you paying attention, whiners? 

Yes he did.

Nearly eight years after he denounced what he called a “dumb war” in Iraq and nearly two years after he won the White House promising to end it, President Obama marked the formal conclusion of the combat mission in a country still finding its way in a new era.

As a candidate for president, I pledged to bring the war in Iraq to a responsible end,” Mr. Obama told a convention of Disabled American Veterans in Atlanta on Monday. “Shortly after taking office, I announced our new strategy for Iraq and for a transition to full Iraqi responsibility. And I made it clear that by August 31, 2010, America’s combat mission in Iraq would end. And that is exactly what we are doing — as promised and on schedule. [.....]

Despite the intense, and often unearned, criticism President Obama has received from some on the left, there is no doubt that Barack Obama is a very formidable President, as you will see when you view the compilation of his accomplishments to date.

Talking Points: A President who gets things done

This needs to be repeated, over and over, between now and November, as part of our mantra. Stuart Shapiro:

Earlier this week, Congress passed financial reform which will be signed by President Obama in the days ahead.  As Sheryl Gay Stolberg notes in the New York Times, this marks the third economy-wide statute that has been passed in a year and a half under Obama.

The financial regulatory bill is the final piece of a legislative hat trick that also included the stimulus bill and the landmark new health care law. Over the last 18 months, Mr. Obama and the Democratic Congress have made considerable inroads in passing what could be the most ambitious agenda in decades.

In a mere one-and-a-half years, Obama has pushed through Congress bills more far-reaching than any President since Nixon.  If he stopped now, his policy legacy would be the largest overall since Reagan and the largest domestically since Nixon or Johnson.

Hammer them with it.

Obama administration may create more jobs this year alone, than Bush did during his 8 years in office

There’s a GOP meme going round The Twitter concerned with who created more jobs……..Bush or Obama. As if. Hope this helps to clear it up. Via Think Progress:

While Steele is “almost confident” that Bush created jobs, the facts disagree. As the Wall Street Journal noted in the last month of Bush’s term — in an article that Burnett references on air while fact checking Steele — Bush’s job data “shows the worst track record for job creation since the government began keeping records.” A paltry 1 million jobs were created under Bush; that’s “a fraction of the 23 million jobs created under President Bill Clinton’s administration.” Even President Carter — who conservatives love to cite as the paragon of poor economic management, and who only served one term — created 10.5 million jobs. That’s more than three times as many jobs as Bush, in half as much time. More jobs may be created under Obama in this year alone than in Bush’s eight.

The Journal article doesn’t even account for the jobs lost after it was published due to Bush’s economic policy, and before President Obama’s began to take effect, as this chart demonstrates:

Someone tell me, please. Is it a requirement to be a liar in order to become a member of the GOP?

Historians rank Obama above Reagan

In spite of all the issues he has been confronted with, in spite of Republican obstructionism, and in spite of the fact that Obama is less than half-way through his first term,  historians rank President Obama among those they consider to be the best presidents.

Barack Obama’s presidency has been marked with historic milestones and various awards–including the one and only Nobel Peace Prize. Now, a survey by presidential scholars ranks Obama as the 15th best president the country has seen. Obama’s approval rating yesterday, when the study was released? Ironically, 45 percent strongly disapproved of the way he is performing his role as president.

Siena College’s research institute ranked Obama just below Bill Clinton (#13), but ahead of Ronald Reagan (#18). George W. Bush, however, was on the other end of the spectrum at number 39. He scored above the likes of Warren G. Harding and Andrew Johnson.

The top spot? Not surprisingly, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

It will be interesting to review his ranking at the end of his terms in office.