Tag Archives: Barack Obama

legal news, national news, political news

Clinton, Sanders differ on SCOTUS approach

hillary

Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Bernie Sanders differ on quite a bit these days.

One of the more intriguing differences is seen in how they want the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court to be filled.

Sanders would pull the nomination of Merrick Garland — who President Obama has appointed to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia — off the table if he is elected president in November. He then would pick someone of his choosing.

Clinton doesn’t even think that’s a topic for discussion. She said this week that Obama is president until January and he deserves to have his pick for the court considered by the U.S. Senate.

She also takes sharp aim at the reason Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell gives for obstructing this nomination, for wanting the next president to make the choice. McConnell said “the American people deserve a voice” in determining who that person should be.

Fine, said Clinton. “I was one of the 65 million people who voted” for President Obama’s re-election in 2012, she said, adding that McConnell is now trying to silence her voice, along with tens of millions of other voters who choose Obama over Republican nominee Mitt Romney.

You got that right, Mme. Secretary.

I, too, am among the nearly 66 million Americans who cast their ballots for the president. I don’t like being silenced any more than Clinton does. Nor should the rest of those who cast their ballots for the president.

Don’t we operate in a system that grants power to the candidate who gets more votes than the other person?

Yes, we have one president at a time. The man in the hot seat right now still has all the power entrusted to him by the U.S. Constitution.

Let this nomination go forward, Mr. Majority Leader. Americans’ voices have been heard.

International news

Commies are getting a taste of dissent

castro bros

Cuba’s ruling communists are getting a snoot full from the proletariat.

They’re unhappy with the way the commies are governing the country and are beginning to speak their minds. Even the commies themselves are griping openly.

The discontent comes in the wake of President Obama’s historic visit to Cuba, where he talked out loud about the virtues of freedom of expression and how everyone deserves the chance to express their grievances over the way the government is doing its job on the people’s behalf.

According to The Associated Press: “After months of simmering discontent, complaints among party members have become so heated that its official newspaper, Granma, addressed them in a lengthy front-page article Monday, saying the public dissatisfaction is ‘a sign of the democracy and public participation that are intrinsic characteristics of the socialism that we’re constructing.'”

How about that?

Dissent isn’t a bad thing, at least that’s how it’s viewed in societies that allow it.

Such open grumbling has been virtually unheard-of in nations such as Cuba, where the communists took over a government run by an iron-fisted dictator. The revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro promised “change” in Cuba. They delivered it, all right … except that it looked a lot like the old way, only under the communist banner rather than the fascist banner waved by the preceding governing authority.

The U.S. president brought attention to the need for greater freedom. Cubans responded enthusiastically to his message.

Now, even the communists who run the place are griping about what a lousy job they’re doing.

Ah, change is in the wind in Cuba.

Perhaps …

 

media news, national news, political news

Speaking of polls, take a look at this

PollingFundamentals

Now that public opinion polls have become a staple of American political coverage, it’s good to look at the latest survey of Americans’ views of the job the president is doing.

RealClearPolitics posts a national average of polls daily.

The numbers are instructive.

President Obama now stands at 2.7 percent approval-over-disapproval in the average of polls that RCP posts.

Why is this important? It’s important because most of the remaining candidates for president — Republican and Democrat — keep talking about polls and their relative standing among them.

Donald J. Trump bellows constantly when the polls show him beating fellow Republicans Ted Cruz or John Kasich. Cruz counters with favorable poll reports when they suit his cause. Kasich keeps saying the polls show him as the only GOP candidate who can beat Hillary Clinton.

Oh yes. Bernie Sanders keeps talking about the polls that show him “closing the gap” for the Democratic nomination with Clinton.

Polls, polls, polls …

Remember when pols said “the only poll that counts is on Election Day”? Not only longer. They keep yapping about the polls and the media keep reporting it.

Thus, they have become important.

Back to the RCP poll average.

President Obama’s poll ratings had been in the tank for most of his second term. They weren’t necessarily horrible; just flat, lingering in the mid-40 percent range. What’s most interesting is that his favorable ratings were usually significantly less than his unfavorable ratings.

Today, though, it’s different. His favorability rating, according to the RCP average, stands at 49 percent, nearly 3 percent greater than his unfavorable rating.

Two more quick points.

One is that the RCP average takes into account all the major polling results done. Conservative polling outfits are measured, along with liberal polling companies. They’re tossed in altogether and you get the average of all the polls.

The second point is that RCP’s average of polls about the job Congress is doing shows a 14 percent job approval rating.

 

 

media news, national news, political news

Media should challenge pols? Sure, except for one thing …

BBr384Y

President Obama has thrown down on the national media, which he said aren’t doing their job properly.

The current political climate, the president said, is due partly because the media haven’t challenged presidential candidates’ falsehoods, outrageousness and manipulation.

Obama spoke to a media gathering and said the rest of the world is dumbfounded at what’s happening to the “crazy politics” that has infected the United States.

Hold ’em accountable

Here’s part of what the president said: “A job well done is about more than just handing someone a microphone. It’s to probe and to question and to dig deeper and to demand more. The electorate would be better served if that happened. It would be better served if billions of dollars in free media came with serious accountability, especially when politicians issue unworkable plans or make promises they cannot keep.”

Got it, Mr. President.

But here’s the catch. The media are considered part of what’s ticking off much of the electorate.

The media have sought to hold the candidates “accountable,” as you suggest. They have challenge absurd assertions by a number of the candidates, only to be outshouted by the angry legions of voters who continue to stand by their candidates’ original absurd assertion.

As someone who’s still associated with the media, I happen to believe the president is correct to assert that the media need to do better. We always can do more to provide context and to check all the facts before running with them.

It’s the suggestion, though, that greater media scrutiny — in this particular climate — is going to flip the switch on in voters’ minds and make them see the light, the truth and the way.

Instead, they’re increasingly likely these days to “double down” on what the candidate says and then blast the media for “lying” about their guy’s message.

I believe we are in a classic “Catch-22” situation.

Thanks anyway for the advice, Mr. President.

International news

Pipe down, Fidel; your time is up

fidel

Fidel Castro apparently holds a grudge.

The former strongman/dictator/supreme leader of Cuba isn’t quite so keen on President Obama’s recent visit to the nation.

While many of Cuba’s current leaders — such as Fidel’s brother, Raul, the country’s current strongman/dictator etc. — have expressed pleasure at Obama’s visit, ol’ Fidel isn’t quite so enamored of the idea.

He lambasted President Obama’s visit, saying that Cuba doesn’t need gifts from “the empire” to succeed.

Obama didn’t visit Fidel while he was in Cuba. Perhaps if he had he could have charmed the irascible revolutionary leader who came to power in 1959 and only recently handed the reins of government over to his kid brother Raul.

Fidel Castro’s ironfisted rule outlasted 10 U.S. presidential administrations. All of them, until the current president, had decided to maintain the economic and diplomatic embargo on Cuba.

I agree with Fidel that the embargo was useless and irrelevant during the last quarter-century of its existence. Its practicality disappeared along with the Soviet Union in 1991; in truth, it really wasn’t a viable option for the United States predating that event.

It’s weird, though, to wonder why Fidel Castro isn’t yet willing to bury the hatchet in his on-going conflict with the United States.

Settle down, El Comandante. Life is going to get better in your nation now that we’ve resumed travel, trade and communication with Cuba. For that, you should be grateful.

 

national news, political news

‘Transformational’ takes on new meaning

Cruz_Trump_ap_img

There once was a time in politics when those who practice the craft sought to become “transformational” figures.

Barack Obama saw himself in that light in 2008. Ronald Reagan, too, was considered a “transformational” candidate. The Gipper reshaped the political landscape with his landslide victory in 1980. The jury is still out on Obama’s impact.

Thus, the term was thought to constitute high praise.

These days, “transformational” seems to have taken on a new meaning.

And it’s not flattering in the least.

Donald J. Trump and Rafael Edward Cruz have “transformed” the political craft into something cheap, tawdry, childish, petulant and utterly without substance.

They’ve been bickering over social media about their wives.

And as the accompanying New York Times essay seeks to explain, they seem to treat women — even the women in their lives — as objects.

They’ve lowered the bar to new depths.

Yes, the candidates have quarreled over the Internet about insults, innuendo, threats and retribution against their wives.

It has been a disgraceful exhibition that in normal election cycles would have no place anywhere near two leading major-party candidates for the presidency of the United States.

I am quite certain the rest of the world is laughing hysterically at what has become of the formerly great political party known as the Republican Party.

The Party of Lincoln has become the Party of Chuckleheads.

Please, spare me the bleating by “true Republicans” that Trump isn’t one of them. He’s chosen to line up on the Republican side of the gate in this race for the White House, so the GOP must accept that he’s now one of their own.

And Cruz? His response to the Brussels terrorist attack was the Mother of All Doozys. He wants to beef up police patrols in “Muslim neighborhoods.” Yeah, boy. That’ll show them Muslims what we’re all about here.

Is there a greater Islamic State recruitment tool — other than Trump’s stated desire to ban all non-American Muslims from entering the United States — than this?

But instead of debating the idiocy of such a policy pronouncement, we’re left to wonder what in the name of political sanity has become of a party that features two men quarreling out loud about the nasty things being said about their wives?

This is the new definition of “transformational” politics.

We’ve transformed what the late Robert F. Kennedy used to describe as a “noble profession” into something not worthy of a middle-school food fight.

 

legal news

Can POTUS interpret Senate silence as ‘consent’?

checks balance

Who is Frederick W. Ford?

Never heard of him? Neither had I until I saw an article posted on LinkedIn. He’s a lawyer and mediator. I guess he’s pretty knowledgeable about constitutional law and related matters.

He has posited a fascinating idea for President Obama to consider.

Let silence be your guide. That’s his notion that the president ought to follow with regard to placing Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court.

The article is attached to this blog post. I encourage you to read it all of it. The crux of his argument is that the Senate has the constitutional duty to “advise and consent” to the nomination of federal judges. But what if the Senate remains silent on the issue? What if senators don’t hold hearings and don’t debate the nomination fully?

Ford said the president can take their silence as a form of tacit “consent.” He lays it out there in a lot legal mumbo-jumbo that, frankly, I don’t get; a lot of it is in Latin and I don’t speak the language.

I get the sense that Ford thinks Obama ought to do it. Just call a swearing-in ceremony and have the man take his oath — and then take his seat on the bench when it reconvenes this October.

Senate Republicans want to wait for the next president to make the appointment.

The current president doesn’t want to wait.

Wouldn’t that simply send the Senate into apoplectic shock if Barack Obama follows the advice offered by someone named Frederick W. Ford?

 

 

national news, political news

Sen. Moran stands up for integrity

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jerrymoran

I’m now going to salute a Republican member of used to be considered — maybe some folks still think it is — the World’s Greatest Deliberative Body.

Stand up, U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas. Take a bow.

You, sir, are standing on a critical principle, which is that Kansans sent you to the Senate to do your job and you are insisting that your senatorial leadership follows your lead.

Good luck with that.

Moran told a town hall gathering earlier this week that he wants the Senate to consider the nomination of Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court. He is bucking the edict handed down by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who says the Senate should wait until after the election this November to consider an appointment made by the next president of the United States.

Moran, a conservative Republican representing a blood-red Republican state, is in no serious danger of losing his Senate seat this fall. Still, to hear him say that his party’s Senate leader is wrong is, well, uplifting.

Moran isn’t endorsing Garland’s nomination. He told the town hall group that he cannot imagine President Obama ever nominating someone to his liking.

But he said he is obligated to do his job as a U.S. senator.  “I think the process ought to go forward,” he said.

He said it’s better for his constituents to tell him he “voted wrong on nominating  somebody than saying I’m not doing my job.”

Moran joins two other GOP senators

It’s one thing for a senator such as Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire or Mark Kirk of Illinois — who also have called for hearings and a confirmation vote — to say they’ll meet with Garland and want to consider his nomination.

It’s quite another for someone representing a safe Republican state — whose re-election this fall is a virtual certainty — to weigh in on the side of senatorial responsibility.

If only the obstructionist who leads the Senate would follow suit.

legal news, national news, political news

If only the VP hadn’t said what he said …

Supreme-Court-blue-sky

Vice President Joe Biden delivered a stern message today to some university students and faculty members

about the obstruction occurring in the U.S. Senate.

It’s threatening the core of our republic, he said. Senate Republicans must not obstruct President Obama’s effort to fill a Supreme Court vacancy; they must allow nominee Merrick Garland to have a hearing, then they must debate the merits of his nomination and they must then vote on it.

True enough, Mr. Vice President.

But what about those remarks you made in 1992 about whether President George H.W. Bush should be able to nominate someone to the high court in an election year? Today’s Republicans are seeking to block Obama’s pick because this, too, is an election year and they want the next president to make the selection.

The GOP has beaten the vice president over his remarks then.

What they don’t say is that Biden also declared that he would support a “consensus candidate” in an election if one were to be presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Biden chaired at the time.

Biden told the Georgetown law students and faculty members: “Dysfunction and partisanship are bad enough on Capitol Hill. But we can’t let the Senate spread that dysfunction to another branch of government, to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

It’s fascinating to me that then-Sen. Biden’s remarks now have become known as the “Biden Rule,” which has never existed.

I won’t defend Biden for making his remarks in 1992. He was wrong to suggest that a sitting president shouldn’t be allowed to perform his job if he had been given the chance to do so. President Bush did select a Supreme Court justice in 1991, when he nominated Clarence Thomas to take the seat vacated by the death of Thurgood Marshall.

However, I won’t condemn Biden for holding that view. He did, after all, add the caveat that he would support a consensus candidate for the Supreme Court.

The here and now stands on its own.

The vice president is correct to insist that today’s Senate should stop its obstruction and allow the president to fulfill his constitutional duty — and do its own duty to give an eminently qualified nominee the fair hearing he deserves.

 

legal news, national news, political news

Listen to the VP, senators, about doing your job

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biden

Vice President Joe Biden is going to lecture the U.S. Senate on something about which knows a thing or two.

He wants his former colleagues to do the job they took an oath to do, which is vote on whether to approve a nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Biden will deliver his message in remarks at Georgetown University.

At issue is the nomination of Merrick Garland to fill the seat vacated by the death of Antonin Scalia. Senate Republicans — many of them, anyway — are digging in on the nomination. They don’t want to consider a Barack Obama appointment, contending that it’s too late in the president’s second term. He’s a “lame duck,” therefore, the task of appointing a justice should fall on the next president.

That, of course, is pure malarkey.

Barack Obama is president until Jan. 20, 2017. He wants to fulfill his constitutional duty and he’s urging the Senate to do so as well.

Oh sure. The balance of the court is hanging here. Scalia was a devout conservative ideologue — and a brilliant legal scholar. Garland is a judicial moderate; he’s also a scholar; a man viewed widely as supremely qualified.

How does Biden — who served in the Senate for 36 years before being elected vice president — figure in this?

As vice president, he’s the presiding officer of the Senate. Of course, he votes only to break ties. He doesn’t actually run the place. That task falls on the majority leader, who happens to be a Republican, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

It’s been McConnell’s call to obstruct this nomination.

Biden, though, does have a number of friends in both parties who serve in the Senate. Is there any hope that he can get through to them? Probably not, but when you’re vice president of the United States, you have the bully pulpit from which to preach an important message to those who need to hear it.