Tag Archives: Barack Obama

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Handshake should be an ice breaker

The Obama-Castro handshake at the memorial service for Nelson Mandela has drawn plenty of chattering from the left and the right.

I’ve long thought the time had come for the United States to thaw its frozen relationship with a tiny island nation that no longer poses any serious threat to this country.

President Barack Obama shook the hand of Cuba’s President Raul Castro. It was a brief, spontaneous moment at the start of ceremonies honoring the life of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela. That’s all it was.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/12/11/the_obama-castro_handshake_dont_stop_there_120920.html

Republican pols bristled at the moment. Democratic pols loved it.

For more than five decades, American presidents starting with Dwight Eisenhower have ignored Cuba, a country taken over in a revolution led by communist despot Fidel Castro, Raul’s older brother. The Castros overthrew an equally despicable tyrant and U.S. officials thought initially life would get better for Cubans. It didn’t.

Fidel Castro cozied up to the Soviet Union, allowing the Big Bear to introduce intercontinental ballistic missiles to the island. U.S. spy planes discovered them, President John Kennedy quarantined the island and threatened to blow the place to smithereens if the Cubans and Soviets didn’t take the missiles down; the other side blinked and the crisis was over.

Then the Soviet Union disintegrated. Cuban remains a communist dictatorship. But what precisely is the threat that Cuba presents to this country? None as far as I can see.

The United States maintains diplomatic relations with nations with equally dismal human rights records as Cuba. The People’s Republic of China comes to mind; Vietnam’s human rights record is pretty abysmal. We still have relations with Zimbabwe, yes?

A fleeting handshake between two leaders doesn’t amount to anything in the context of where the greeting occurred. Nelson Mandela fostered a feeling of forgiveness and compassion when he came out of prison in 1990. He had been held captive for 27 years because he fought for the rights of the black majority in his country.

I think it’s time for the United States — which has left some travel restrictions to Cuba — to finally open the door to full relations with a country that poses no threat to the world’s greatest military and economic power.

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Yep, another federal budget deadline looms

Happy Monday, everyone. Welcome to the latest Week When All Hell Might Break Loose.

Here’s the good news: The work week ends on Friday the 13th, which is the day U.S. House and Senate budget negotiators are supposed to produce a budget deal that forestalls another government shutdown.

Any takers on whether they get it done?

Well, here we are yet again. We’ve been through one of these government shutdowns already. It lasted 16 days and Republicans took the big hickey on that deal. The “crisis” ended when all the parties agreed to convene a conference committee chaired by two serious lawmakers — Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin — to hammer out a new budget deal.

The stakes are big. Absent a budget deal, the government could shut down once more. We hear now about a major sticking point: whether to extend unemployment insurance for long-term jobless Americans. President Obama wants to extend the benefit; his “friends” on the Republican side in Congress, naturally, oppose it.

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20131207/DAAHG0F83.html

House Speaker John Boehner is actually making sense, suggesting Republicans could support an extension.

My guess is that the GOP has another — more pragmatic — reason to avoid a shutdown. It involves the Affordable Care Act.

You see, Democrats have lost their political edge over the ACA rollout. All that advantage they had over Republicans because of the shutdown dissipated when the ACA debut crashed and burned because of that faulty website. It gave Republicans loads of fresh meat to gnaw on. They’re still chewing on it and inflicting as much damage as possible on Democrats.

Do Republicans want to surrender that advantage? I don’t think so.

Therefore, I’m almost ready to suggest that the Murray- and Ryan-led committee just might cobble together a budget deal that heads off a government shutdown.

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Santorum defames Mandela’s struggle

I’ll admit I didn’t see this one coming.

On the heels of Nelson Mandela’s death this week in South Africa, we hear from a two-bit American politician who equates the great Mandela’s struggle against injustice and tyranny with Republicans’ effort to rid the United States of the Affordable Care Act.

Yep, according to former U.S. Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., the two battles stand as moral equals. That’s what he told Bill O’Reilly. Have a listen.

http://blog.sfgate.com/nov05election/2013/12/07/santorum-mandelas-fight-for-freedom-like-the-fight-against-obamacare/

I don’t know which offends more: Santorum’s equating the two fights or O’Reilly’s failure to call him out on his ridiculous comparison.

I’ll stick with the original offense, which would be Santorum’s asinine assertion.

Say whatever you wish about the ACA or about its chief benefactor, President Barack Obama, what is going on now in the United States bears no resemblance, none, to what Nelson Mandela endured as he led the movement to rid South Africa of its apartheid policy.

You remember apartheid, yes? It was the policy that required separate societies within South Africa, one for the white minority that governed the country and the other for black residents who comprised the overwhelming majority of the country’s population. The black residents, though, didn’t have the right to vote or to have any voice at all in the policies that suppressed them.

This was the battle Mandela fought and which cost him 27 years of imprisonment on Robben Island.

For a one-time U.S. senator who may run for president yet again to compare his party’s struggle against the Affordable Care Act with what Nelson Mandela endured is offensive beyond all measure.

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Biden or Clinton in ’16? Obama stays mum

President Obama faced a number of pointed questions this week in an interview with Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s “Hardball.”

The most pointed query was one he wouldn’t dare answer. Who’d make the better president: Joe Biden or Hillary Rodham Clinton?

Obama begged off.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/192274-biden-or-clinton-not-a-chance-i-am-going-there-says-obama

You’d better get used to it, Mr. President. The media are going to try to get you to answer a question you say you won’t touch with mile-long pole.

The president surely anticipated the question from Matthews. He seemed ready.

They both would bring strength to the White House, Obama said. He said Vice President Biden has been at his side for every key decision. The president said Clinton has earned her place among the top secretaries of state in the nation’s history.

Yes, the president has some hurdles to clear before he starts planning his exit and deliberates over how — or whether — he should campaign for his successor.

I’m not expecting the national media to let up, though, in pursuing angles looking for clues on whom the president prefers: Joe Biden or Hillary Clinton.

The constant hectoring over that issue might drive the president even nuttier than his dealings with congressional Republicans.

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Health care rollout no ‘mission accomplished’

ABC News correspondent Jon Karl sought to pin White House spokesman Jay Carney down on whether the tinkering of the once-crashed health care website produced a “mission accomplished” moment.

Carney didn’t take the bait.

Nor should he.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/12/02/abcs_jon_karl_to_carney_is_it_mission_accomplished_for_obamacare_website.html

The reference, of course, is to the famous photo op of President George W. Bush landing aboard the aircraft carrier in 2003 after the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been captured. Then the president stood before the world — and in front of a banner hung across the conning tower of the carrier — that declared “Mission Accomplished.”

It turned out the mission was far from accomplished. Many more Americans would die in battle before the Iraq War came to an end. Anyone with half a memory of that event knows the folly of declaring victory too quickly.

I’m quite sure the current president, Barack Obama, is aware as well.

The Affordable Care Act rollout was a disaster for the White House. The computer program meant to handle all those applications for health insurance crashed and burned. The White House took it down. Health officials throughout the administration began feeling intense pressure. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius could have done an honorable thing by resigning, given that it all happened on her watch. She has stayed.

The healthcare.gov website has been updated, tweaked, nipped-and-tucked and is working a lot better than before. Is it perfect? Has the administration accomplished its mission? No on both counts.

But the administration is making strides, which is about as good as it can get when you take on such a huge enterprise as trying to fix a broken health care system.

The mission is not accomplished — at least not yet.

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Presidential term limits need to go

Jonathan Zimmerman, a history professor at New York University, says it well.

Let’s repeal the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which limits presidents to two consecutive terms.

He wants to allow presidents to serve as long as the public can stand them.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/end-presidential-term-limits/2013/11/28/50876456-561e-11e3-ba82-16ed03681809_story.html

His Washington Post essay lays out the case quite well. As one who opposes congressional term limits, I understand where Professor Zimmerman is coming from. Term limits already exist, in the form of elections.

Only one president ever has been elected more than twice consecutively: Franklin D. Roosevelt won a third term in 1940. He was elected to a fourth term in 1944, but died shortly after taking the oath in early 1945. His cousin Teddy was the first president to seek a third term. He served two terms consecutively after becoming president in 1901, after President William McKinley was murdered. He was elected in his own right in 1904, then walked away in 1909. He sought the presidency in 1912 as the Bull Moose candidate, but the office went to Woodrow Wilson.

Zimmerman takes note of President Obama’s low poll standing. It’s highly unlikely, at this moment at least, that he would be elected to a third term if he had the chance. Indeed, most presidents burn out after two terms. President Reagan lamented late in his second term that he would have liked the chance to run again. President Clinton said much the same thing near the end of his presidency.

The 22nd Amendment was enacted in 1947 by a Republican-controlled Congress to head off what some feared would be an imperial presidency. They didn’t like that FDR served seemingly forever. But he was the voters’ choice — four elections in a row!

As Zimmerman notes, even the Father of Our Country, George Washington, disliked the idea of term limits. “I can see no propriety in precluding ourselves from the service of any man who, in some great emergency, shall be deemed universally most capable of serving the public,” Washington wrote to Marquis de Lafayette, according to Zimmerman.

Let these people serve until the voters say otherwise.

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Health care law faces huge day

There are big days … and then there are those days on which everything seems to ride.

The Obama administration is facing one of those “everything” days.

It’s supposed to get the healthcare.gov website fixed by the end of the day. This is the site that all but crashed in early October when millions of Americans tried to sign on to the federal exchanges set up under the Affordable Care Act.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/healthcaregov-tech-team-scrambling-to-create-workaround-for-site-before-deadline/2013/11/27/f5affc7c-577c-11e3-ba82-16ed03681809_story.html

Turns out the website wasn’t ready for prime time. Then came the cancellation notices that President Obama said wouldn’t come. He’d promised that we could keep our insurance plans if we were happy with them. That, too, turned out to be incorrect. Did the president actually “lie,” meaning did he make that promise knowing he couldn’t keep it?

I’m not proficient enough of a mind-reader to know that, unlike the president’s critics who’ve called him everything but the Son of Satan. Oh, wait a minute, come to think of it, I’m pretty sure he’s actually been called that too.

We’ll get to see now if (a) the administration’s computer geeks can deliver the goods on the website and (b) whether the critics will keep their mouths shut if the geeks actually make good on their promise to make the website user-friendly.

I’m cautiously optimistic on the first part; not so on the second.

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Share the credit over good energy news

Politics by definition is a competitive sport of sorts, with folks on one side trying to get the advantage over those on the other side.

So it is with the news about U.S. energy production.

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/191163-white-house-gop-battle-over-energy-production-surge

Republicans say they deserve credit for their hands-off policies that have allowed energy producers to explore for fossil fuels on private lands. Democrats hail their policies that have promoted more renewable energy resources, decreasing the demand on fossil fuels.

Who gets the credit for some good energy news?

Both sides deserve a share of it. Why not spread the good cheer around?

Oh, I forgot. Politics gets in the way.

My Republican friends here in the Texas Panhandle aren’t willing to give those blasted Democrats any credit for anything. They contend that Democrats have worked to stifle energy production by seeking to ban exploration on public lands and by creating a tax environment that makes it cost prohibitive for energy producers to, well, produce energy.

Some of that criticism is fair. Some of it isn’t.

Democrats, led by the president of the United States, have sought to incentivize exploration and production of alternative energy. Wind, solar and hydro power are replacing fossil fuel-driven energy plants.

Automakers are getting smarter about building more fuel-efficient motor vehicles.

It’s not that we’re no longer drilling for oil and natural gas. The Energy Information Administration reports that the U.S. energy producers developed 7.7 million barrels per day in October, which means that the country produced more oil than it imported for the first time since 1995.

All of this news, taken together, gives all the principals a hand in this relatively good news.

The Obama administration has helped it along with its push toward greater use of alternative energy sources. Republicans have done their part by pursuing greater exploration for domestic fossil fuel.

There. Share the credit.

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Senate needs ‘anti-bullying ordinance’?

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., is continuing to make the high-minded case that Senate Democrats have become “bullies” and that their changing the filibuster rules to take the teeth out of Senate Republicans’ ability to have their voices heard.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/11/21/rand_paul_harry_reid_is_the_dictator_of_the_senate.html

If that’s the case, then perhaps Sen. Paul can declare as well that if Republicans take over the Senate next year that they’ll give back to the newly minted Democratic minority the same weapons the GOP has been denied.

Democrats this week changed the rules to make it easier to end filibusters that have blocked several judicial and other appointments made by President Obama. The rule used to require a 60-vote majority to end a filibuster; now it only takes a simple majority of 51 votes. The new rule, by the way, will still require a 60-vote majority to end filibusters of Supreme Court appointments.

Why deploy the so-called Senate “nuclear option”? Democratic Leader Harry Reid said he’d grown tired of Republicans’ efforts to stymie the president’s ability to fill key executive and judicial spots.

Republicans have complained that Democrats simply have changed the rules to suit their own political agenda. They have cited the Founding Fathers’ intent to create a “cooling environment” in the Senate that would temper a more “populist” House of Representatives. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., says the Senate now looks just like the House, that it will be driven more by partisan anger than by reasonable discourse.

Please.

If that is as Republicans say it is, and if the GOP wins control of the Senate next year, then surely they’ll restore civility, collegiality and fairness to the body, yes? They’ll no doubt want to level the playing field for Democrats to show that they, Senate Republicans, are more fair-minded than their “friends” on the other side of the aisle.

That’ll happen, right?

Do not bet a nickel on it. Revenge will be the order of the day.

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Fallout expected from Senate ‘nuclear’ blast

U.S. Senate Democrats went “nuclear” today.

No one was hurt, at least not physically. There might be some political injury as a result. To whom, though, remains an open question.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/21/harry-reid-likely-to-go-nuclear-today/?hpt=hp_bn3

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid carried through with his threat to employ the “nuclear option” regarding filibusters. Before today’s action, ending a filibuster required 60 votes, out of 100 senators. Today, the rules changed. All it takes after today is a simple majority of 51 votes.

The aim is to push through some appointees whose confirmation had been held up by stubborn Republican senators. The appointees in question were picked by President Obama to sit on the D.C. Court of Appeals, the second-most critical federal bench, after the U.S. Supreme Court. Three highly qualified jurists’ appointments were held up by GOP filibusters.

It’s a pattern that the Republican minority has followed since Barack Obama took office in January 2009. The president today endorsed the Senate Democrats’ action — no surprise there — by declaring “enough is enough.” He noted that four of President George W. Bush’s five appointees to that court were approved by the Senate, while his appointees have been blocked.

Republicans objected — again, no surprise — by using high-minded language about the “tyranny of the majority,” declaring that Democrats were exercising “raw power” in seeking to deny the Senate minority a voice.

Two points need to be made.

First is that the Senate needs to function in its “advise and consent” role. Blocking judicial appointments, or any other presidential pick just because they can is not in keeping with the constitutional provision. Presidents, by virtue of their election to the nation’s highest office, deserve the right to select qualified individuals to serve. That’s a perk that goes with winning an election. Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said today that GOP objections to the D.C. court selections had nothing to do with the nominees’ qualifications. To “advise and consent” is supposed to allow senators to determine whether someone is fit for the office to which they’ve been appointed.

The second point is to question whether Senate Republicans are willing to stand by their noble objections should they gain the majority after next year’s election, which is no sure thing. If they believe in the right of the minority party to have a voice in determining the flow of business, would Senate Republicans — if they occupy most of the Senate’s 100 seats in January 2015 — be willing to return to the 60-vote filibuster-busting rule? Would they grant the new Democratic minority the same opportunity to block appointments that the GOP has had since Barack Obama took office?

The Senate has to work for the people. As for the second point, I am not holding my breath on Senate Republicans sticking to their principled objections.