Op-ed
Obama’s Enemies
During the very hour of President Obama’s swearing in ceremony, a group of senators and house Republicans were plotting to do everything possible to make him a lame duck president. This reminds me of the Senate in Rome secretly plotting to assassinate Caesar after the Gallic Wars because they did not like many of his social and governmental reforms. After the Gallic wars, Caesar declared himself emperor of all Rome. Caesar was a dictator, so I am not comparing President Obama to Caesar, but just to draw a historical parallel here.
The opposition to President’s Obama Policies has gotten so strange that even a man with the smallest IQ find this stuff puzzling. Take for example the Affordable Healthcare Act. The ideal was first peddled by the Heritage Foundation around 1989. Obama knew that it would be difficult to get universal healthcare, so he took many of the ideals which came out of the Heritage Foundation. He said that the act was market based and would cause less disruption to the economy.
According to Wikipedia:
“ The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act consist of a combination of measures to control healthcare costs, and an expansion of coverage through public and private insurance: broader Medicaid eligibility and Medicare coverage, and subsidized, regulated private insurance. An individual mandate coupled with subsidies for private insurance as a means for universal healthcare was considered the best way to win the support of the Senate because it had been included in prior bipartisan reform proposals. The concept goes back to at least 1989, when the conservative Heritage Foundation proposed an individual mandate as an alternative to single-payer health care. It was championed for a time by conservative economists and Republican senators as a market-based approach to healthcare reform on the basis of individual responsibility and avoidance of free rider problems. Specifically, because the 1986 Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (EMTALA) requires any hospital participating in Medicare (which nearly all do) to provide emergency care to anyone who needs it, the government often indirectly bore the cost of those without the ability to pay”
On June 28, 2012, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of ACA’s individual mandate as an exercise of Congress’s taxing power. Since 2012, Congress has voted over 40 times to kill ACA. Jim Demit, leader of the Heritage Foundation and a longtime Obama hater, said that he would primary any Republican who voted to uphold the act event though the Congressional Budget Office projected that the act would lower future deficits and Medicare spending.
Senate Passes Immigration Bill
On June 27, 2013 the U.S. Senate passed sweeping legislation to reform the Immigration Bill
The vote was bipartisan 68-32. The bill was drafted by four Democrats and four Republicans and the group became known as the “Gang of Eight”. Four Republicans in the Senate joined the Democrats to pass the bill. Speaker of the House John Boehner refused to bring up the bill in the house and said that they would come up with their own immigration reform bill. Well, we are still waiting for the GOP house to come up with there own bill. Given the fact that congress will be in session only 8 days before the end of the year, I do not think it will come up in congress this year.
The Nuclear Option
Harry Reed worked out an agreement with Mitch McConnell that Senate Republicans would not filibuster the president’s nominees to the courts. The Obama Administration faced unprecedented obstruction for his nominees. Over 200 judges were waiting for conformation. Chris Cillizza of the Washington post wrote: “When Senate Democrats invoked the “nuclear option” last week, they immediately did one thing: made this president — and future ones — much more powerful”. (for more information on the nuclear options use the blog search box)
Minimum Wage Bill
Senate Democrats are trying to work with Republicans in the Senate and the House to pass a minimum wage bill. Local economist met with the Senators in a closed door party lunch and told them that wages have not kept pace with inflation since 1968 when the $1.68 federal minimum wage presented 54 percent of Americans’ average hourly earnings. Republicans in the Senate and House has made it clear that they will not support a minimum wage bill. Since the Democrats cannot sustain a filibuster, we will not see any minimum wage bill passed in the near future.
Employment Non-Discrimination Act
On November 6, 2013 the Senate passed the Employment non-Discrimination Act. The purpose of the bill is to protect gay and transgender employees against discrimination. The bill passed with a vote of 64-32. John Boehner, majority GOP speaker, said the bill was too broad and unnecessary. He refused to bring the bill up for a vote in the House of Representatives.
Government Shut Down
If the Republicans and the Democrats cannot reach an agreement by Dec 13, the Country could be faced with another shut down. The Government will run out of money by January 15, 2014. Raising the Debt ceiling has been a routine act for most presidents in the past. President Obama stated:
With the debt ceiling issue caught in a political deadlock over how to reduce the deficit, Obama noted that raising the debt ceiling has been a relatively routine exercise for decades.
"Understand –- raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money," Obama said. "It simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up. In the past, raising the debt ceiling was routine. Since the 1950s, Congress has always passed it, and every President has signed it. President Reagan did it 18 times. George W. Bush did it seven times. And we have to do it by next Tuesday, August 2nd, or else we won’t be able to pay all of our bills." and
"Understand –- raising the debt ceiling does not allow Congress to spend more money," Obama said. "It simply gives our country the ability to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up. In the past, raising the debt ceiling was routine. Since the 1950s, Congress has always passed it, and every President has signed it. President Reagan did it 18 times. George W. Bush did it seven times. And we have to do it by next Tuesday, August 2nd, or else we won’t be able to pay all of our bills."
According to Politifact.com: Obama is correct that raising the debt ceiling has been an issue repeatedly tackled by Republicans and Democrats alike. President Reagan raised the debt ceiling 18 times and George W. Bush did it seven times. We rate his claim True.
Impeachment of President Obama
Believe it or not, Republicans on the far right is again raising the question of Impeachment.
ELIAS ISQUITH of Salon wrote:
“A prime example can be found in Tuesday’s House Committee on the Judiciary hearing, a spectacle of impeachment innuendo that laid bare Republicans’ current desire to find a way to unseat the president. Iowa Republican Steve King ominously and obliquely referred to “the word that we don’t like to say in this committee, and I’m not about to utter here in this particular hearing.” Texas Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold, said with evident disappointment, “We’ve also talked about the I-word, impeachment, which I don’t think would get past the Senate in the current climate.”
The Birther Movement
Many Republicans members on the far right have constantly push theories claiming that the president is not a US citizen. Wikipedia:
“Theories allege that Obama's published birth certificate is a forgery—that his actual birthplace is not Hawaii but Kenya. Other theories allege that Obama became a citizen of Indonesia in childhood, thereby losing his U.S. citizenship. Still others claim that Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen because he was born a dual citizen (British and American). Some political commentators have characterized these various claims as a racist reaction to Obama's status as the first African American president of the United States
“Such claims have been promoted by fringe theorists ("birthers"), some of whom have sought court rulings either declaring Obama ineligible to take office, or granting access to various documents which they claim exist, and which they claim would evidence such ineligibility; none of these efforts have been successful. Some political opponents, especially in the Republican Party, have expressed skepticism about Obama's citizenship or been unwilling to acknowledge it; some have proposed legislation which would require presidential candidates to provide proof of eligibility.”
The Tea Party Movement
Many of the birthers are members of the Tea Party. According to Wikipedia, there are around 114 members of the Tea Party; most of which are located in the Southern states. Even though a significant amount of opposition can be classified as Jim Crow racism, most of the opposition can be linked to Obama’s Liberal Progressive Politics.
Many members of various Tea Party factions in the South have not only question his citizenship, but called on him to leave the White House. Tea Party Member Larry Klayman, speaking at a veteran rally said that
The country was being
“ruled by a president who bows down to Allah," and "is not a president of 'we the people.” and further: "I call upon all of you to wage a second American nonviolent revolution, to use civil disobedience, and to demand that this president leave town, to get up, to put the Quran down, to get up off his knees, and to figuratively come up with his hands out".
They have also held rallies and displayed racist images of the president. No one in the Republican Party has come out and condemned these kinds of activities because they are afraid that someone in the Tea party will primary them
The Tea Party faction gains control in the Republican Party
When Obama came to the Presidency, everyone thought that history was ushering in a post racial society where Jupiter aligns with mars and peace and love would guide our planet, well, we were all very wrong. The Obama Presidency exposed the deep racial and political divisions which existed in post Civil War Society. Old political arguments such as “states Rights” and “Secession” once again become the rallying call of the far right forces in the Tea Party and the Republican Party.
Once the Tea Party grew in numbers and influence, they began to express outrage against taxation and big government. The organization’s political agenda started to gradually change once billionaires like David and Charles Koch and right-wing bigots started to gain influence in Tea Party factions. The Koch Brothers and others pumped millions of dollars in local organizations to elect right-wing libertarians and racist candidates who started to advance post civil war arguments. President Obama became a symbols of the “New Deal; ushering in a new era of liberal politics. More extreme elements of the Tea and Republicans Party branded President Obama as a socialist or communist.
Voting Suppression in the Southern States
After the civil war, voting rights became an issue because slave holders wanted to maintain political power in the South. They passed strict voting rules to keep newly freed slaves from voting. Today, over 36 states have passed voting suppression laws which are designed to make it difficult for minorities and others to vote. Out of all the states, North Carolina and Texas have the most restrictive voting rights laws in the Country. Attorney General Eric Holder has filed a law suit against both states. Here is a brief synopsis of North Carolinas voting rights bill taken from the
Justice s’ Department Website site:
“The North Carolina law includes troubling new restrictions, such as provisions that will significantly reduce early voting days; eliminate same-day registration during early voting; impose a restrictive photo identification requirement for in-person voting; and prohibit the counting of otherwise legitimate provisional ballots that are mistakenly cast in the right county, but in the wrong precinct. The Justice Department expects to show that the clear and intended effects of these changes would contract the electorate and result in unequal access to participation in the political process on account of race”.
Conclusion
In times of economic crisis, extremist views tend to grow and take root among the groups more impacted by the crisis. George Bush’s Secretary of Treasure Henry Merritt (Hank) Paulson said on November 20, 2008, during remarks at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library,
When the Stock Markets started to crash, Paulson panicked and started throwing money at the banks to cover bad loans lost in the housing markets.
One of the most affected groups, was Whites over the age of 50. Many joined the Tea party and became active members on the left and the right. The one thing that united all of them was big government and taxation which was stated above. They saw their standard of living falling and bought into the false arguments that minorities who were growing in numbers and the liberal policies of President Obama and others, were the cause of the crisis. They refused to deal with the fact that Secretary Paulson was making the crisis worse by throwing money at the banks with no guarantee to pay back the loans.
When President Obama came to office, he adopted many of Bush’s programs to keep the economy out of default without distinguishing how his programs were different. As a result, the waters got muddled and the president lost key support among his progressive base. Some of the more extreme Tea Party elements called for anarchy, while other called for drastic cuts in programs which support the poor. If President Obama wants to get congress to pass some of his legislation, he have to convince his key base, (adults under the age of 30 and minorities) to come out and vote in the mid-term election. The Republican and Tea Party members has made it quite clear, they will block any bill that comes before the house.
Sources:
Affordable Care Act
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act
Immigration Reform Bill
http://www.schumer.senate.gov/forms/immigration.pdf
Nuclear option in Senate makes president more powerful
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/if-the-senate-democrats-had-gone-nuclear-last-year-who-would-be-secretary-of-state/2013/11/24/4273b4a0-5524-11e3-ba82-16ed03681809_story.html
Obama say Reagan raised debt ceiling 18 times; George W. Bush seven times
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/jul/26/barack-obama/obama-says-reagan-raised-debt-ceiling-18-times-geo/
List of politicians affiliated with the Tea Party movement
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_politicians_affiliated_with_the_Tea_Party_movement
Remarks as Prepared for Delivery by Attorney General Eric Holder on the Lawsuit against the State of North Carolina
http://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/ag/speeches/2013/ag-speech-130930.html
Political activities of the Koch brothers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_activities_of_the_Koch_brothers
Henry Paulson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Paulson
Raymond Glenn
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