The Upside Down World of Rick Santorum

When I was growing up, my parents wanted me to go to college. Actually there was no question whether or not I would attend college. Of course, I would. It was the way to attain knowledge, power and higher income. Some kids chose not to go to college and decided to work in factories, or find a trade to pursue. But back then, there were plenty of jobs and the industry was local.

Today, with a college degree, it is hard to find employment. Today, without a college degree, those factory jobs don't exist.

So what did Rick Santorum focus on recently when he was criticizing President Obama? Santorum was outraged that President Obama should want all children in America to go to college. That's right, Santorum thinks Obama's comments are not only an insult to Americans but shows hubris on the part of the President.

“I was so outraged at the President of the United States standing up and saying ‘Every child in America should go to college.’ Well, who are you? Who are you to say that ‘every child in America go’? I mean, the hubris of this president to think that he knows what’s best for you. I have seven kids. Maybe they’ll all go to college. But if one of my kids wants to go and be an auto mechanic, good for him. That’s a good paying job. Use your hands, use your mind.

This is the kind of snobbery that we see from those who think they know how to run our lives.

Rise up America. Defend your own freedoms. And overthrow these folks who think they know how to orchestrate every aspect of your life.”

It's kind of amusing, even hypocritical that Rick Santorum would say that, "This is the kind of snobbery that we see from those who think they know how to run our lives." Really Mr. Santorum? What about you, do you want to run my life? Oh, yes you do.

As an example of Santorum's control issues, here are several statements that prove how ignorant, fanatical, heartless, and dangerous Rick Santorum is.

“Suffering, if you’re a Christian, suffering is a part of life. And it’s not a bad thing, it is an essential thing in life … There are all different ways to suffer. One way to suffer is through lack of food and shelter and there’s another way to suffer which is lack of dignity and hope and there’s all sorts of ways that people suffer and it’s not just tangible, it’s also intangible and we have to consider both.”
~Rick Santorum, saying that Americans should suffer because suffering is good.

“I believe that any doctor that performs an abortion, I would advocate that any doctor that performs an abortion, should be criminally charged for doing so.”
~Rick Santorum, advocating for arresting doctors that provide crucial medical services to women.

“If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything. Does that undermine the fabric of our society? I would argue yes, it does. It all comes from, I would argue, this right to privacy that doesn’t exist in my opinion in the United States Constitution. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That’s not to pick on homosexuality. It’s not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be. It is one thing.”
~Rick Santorum, comparing homosexuality to bestiality, and saying that we don’t have the right to have consensual sex. He’s also saying we don’t have the right to privacy.

“One of the things I will talk about, that no president has talked about before, is I think the dangers of contraception in this country. It’s not okay. It’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. [Sex] is supposed to be within marriage. It’s supposed to be for purposes that are yes, conjugal…but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen…This is special and it needs to be seen as special.”
~Rick Santorum, opposing contraception and frighteningly suggesting that he would make pre-marital sex illegal.

The chutzpah of Santorum thinking he can regulate my sexual preferences, practices or desires. Or that he can tell me what I can or can't do with my body, my life. If he wants to suffer, I say give it to him! "Rise up America. Defend your own freedoms. And overthrow these folks who think they know how to orchestrate every aspect of your life.”

Can Congress Pass Banking Reform?

Robert Reich says that since Wall Street is still out of control, that it would be a politically and economically smart move for President Obama to resurrect the Glass-Steagall Act and thereby break up the big banks.

Next week President Obama travels to Wall Street where he’ll demand – in light of the Street’s continuing antics since the bailout, as well as its role in watering-down the Volcker rule – that the Glass-Steagall Act be resurrected and big banks be broken up.

I’m kidding. But it would be a smart move — politically and economically.

Politically smart because Mitt Romney is almost sure to be the Republican nominee, and Romney is the poster child for the pump-and-dump mentality that’s infected the financial industry and continues to jeopardize the American economy.

Romney was CEO of Bain & Company – a private-equity fund that bought up companies, fired employees to save money and boost performance, and then resold the firms at a nice markups.

Romney also epitomizes the pump-and-dump culture of America’s super rich. To take one example, he recently purchased a $3 million mansion in La Jolla, California (in addition to his other homes) that he’s razing in order build a brand new one.

What better way for Obama to distinguish himself from Romney than to condemn Wall Street’s antics since the bailout, and call for real reform?

Economically it would be smart for Obama to go after the Street right now because the Street’s lobbying muscle has reduced the Dodd-Frank financial reform law to a pale reflection of its former self. Dodd-Frank is rife with so many loopholes and exemptions that the largest Wall Street banks – larger by far than they were before the bailout – are back to many of their old tricks.

It’s impossible to know, for example, the exposure of the Street to European banks in danger of going under. To stay afloat, Europe’s banks will be forced to sell mountains of assets – among them, derivatives originating on the Street – and may have to reneg on or delay some repayments on loans from Wall Street banks.

The Street says it’s not worried because these assets are insured. But remember AIG? The fact Morgan Stanley and other big U.S. banks are taking a beating in the market suggests investors don’t believe the Street. This itself proves financial reform hasn’t gone far enough.

If you want more evidence, consider the fancy footwork by Bank of America in recent days. Hit by a credit downgrade last month, BofA just moved its riskiest derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a retail subsidiary flush with insured deposits. That unit has a higher credit rating because the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (that is, you and me and other taxpayers) are backing the deposits. Result: BofA improves its bottom line at the expense of American taxpayers.

Wasn’t this supposed to be illegal? Keeping risky assets away from insured deposits had been a key principle of U.S. regulation for decades before the repeal of Glass-Steagall.

The so-called “Volcker rule” was supposed to remedy that. But under pressure of Wall Street’s lobbyists, the rule – as officially proposed last week – has morphed into almost 300 pages of regulatory mumbo-jumbo, riddled with exemptions and loopholes.

It would have been far simpler simply to ban proprietary trading from the jump. Why should banks ever be permitted to use peoples’ bank deposits – insured by the federal government – to place risky bets on the banks’ own behalf? Bring back Glass-Steagall.

True, Glass-Steagall wouldn’t have prevented the fall of Lehman Brothers or the squeeze on other investment banks in 2007 and 2008. That’s why it’s also necessary to break up the big banks.

In the wake of the bailout, the biggest banks are bigger than ever. Twenty years ago the ten largest banks on the Street held 10 percent of America’s total bank assets. Now they hold over 70 percent. And the biggest four have a larger market share than ever – so large, in fact, they’ve almost surely been colluding. How else to explain their apparent coordination on charging debit card fees?

The banks aren’t even fulfilling their fiduciary duties to investors. Last summer, after Groupon selected Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Credit Suisse to underwrite its initial public offering, the trio valued it at a generous $30 billion. Subsequent accounting and disclosure problems showed this estimate to be absurdly high. Did the banks care? Not a wit. The higher the valuation, the fatter their fees.

Just last week Citigroup settled charges (without admitting or denying guilt) that it defrauded investors by selling them a package of mortgage-backed securities rife with mortgages it knew were likely to default, but didn’t disclose the hazard. It then bet against the package for its own benefit – earning fees of $34 million and net profits of at least $126 million. So what’s Citi paying to settle this outrage? A mere $285 million. Its CEO at time (Charles Prince) doesn’t pay a dime.

I doubt the President will be condemning the Street’s antics, or calling for a resurrection of Glass-Steagall and a breakup of the biggest banks. Democrats are still too dependent on the Street’s campaign money.

That’s too bad. You don’t have to be an occupier of Wall Street to conclude the Street is still out of control. And that’s dangerous for all of us.

Congress would be smart to repeal the 1999 Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act and then resurrect the banking reforms found in the 1933 Glass-Steagall Act. Those reforms, which were in place for over sixty years, worked to control speculation. They also prohibited a bank holding company from owning other financial companies and as well separated commercial banking from investment banking. And for that, President Obama needs to demand the change!

Another Down-Side to Ponder

The closer you look the worse it gets...Debt ceiling deal does not include unemployment extension

There are some deals that look better the more closely you look at them. The debt ceiling deal is pretty much the reverse. The details that emerge upon closer inspection are things like this:

White House officials confirmed that there would not be an extension of unemployment benefits as part of the final package. The administration had insisted that an extension be part of the grand bargain it was negotiating with Boehner. But when those discussions fell apart, so too did efforts to ensure that unemployment insurance was part of a final package. A senior administration aide added that the president would push for an extension in the months, if not weeks, ahead.

Back when the Bush tax cuts were extended, an unemployment benefits extension was the big thing we were supposed to cheer—and it was important for millions of people who are out of work. But it broke historical precedent and in so doing set up a dangerous new precedent, as Joan McCarter wrote at the time:

Unemployment benefits have always been emergency spending and have always been extended, by Republicans and Democrats alike, and for longer periods than 13 months. Ceding its status and not hammering on the fact that the Republican position is radical is the first problem with this deal. The second problem is that it just kicks the can 13 months down the road, when the GOP will happily find another hostage (Social Security? Medicaid? Pell Grants? More food stamp cuts? It could be anything) to hold out on. And we'll be right back here again.

Under the current debt ceiling deal, Democrats have given away practically everything available and Republicans still have a much-needed unemployment extension to hold as a bargaining chip. In fact, an unemployment extension will be even more sorely needed as this deal craters the economy and puts more people out of work.

He gave away the House!

The Factoid Factor

Robert Reich knows that the Republicans are continually repeating the "The Big Lie" to the American people. He also know that unless Obama and the Democrats counter it strongly with "The Big Truth" then the public will believe that these lies are the truth. It goes like this.

Republicans are telling Americans a Big Lie, and Obama and the Democrats are letting them. The Big Lie is our economic problems are due to a government that's too large, and therefore the solution is to shrink it.

The truth is our economic problems stem from the biggest concentration of income and wealth at the top since 1928, combined with stagnant incomes for most of the rest of us. The result: Americans no longer have the purchasing power to keep the economy going at full capacity. Since the debt bubble burst, most Americans have had to reduce their spending; they need to repay their debts, can't borrow as before, and must save for retirement.

The short-term solution is for government to counteract this shortfall by spending more, not less. The long-term solution is to spread the benefits of economic growth more widely (for example, through a more progressive income tax, a larger EITC, an exemption on the first $20K of income from payroll taxes and application of payroll taxes to incomes over $250K, stronger unions, and more and better investments in education and infrastructure.)

But instead of telling the truth, Obama has legitimized the Big Lie by freezing non-defense discretionary spending, freezing federal pay, touting his deficit commission co-chairs' recommended $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase, and agreeing to extending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Will Obama stand up to the Big Lie? Will he use his State of the Union address to rebut it and tell the truth? Maybe, but so far there's no evidence.

In his weekly address yesterday, the President restated his "commitment" for 2011 "to do everything I can to make sure our economy is growing, creating jobs, and strengthening our middle class." He added that it's important "to look ahead - not just to this year, but to the next 10 years, and the next 20 years" to find ways to stimulate the economy through innovation. And that it is critical that the US discover ways to "out-compete other countries around the world."

Become more innovative? Out-compete? Who or what is he talking about? Big American corporations are innovating like mad all over the world, with research and development centers in China and India. And their profits are soaring. They're sitting on almost $1 trillion of cash. But they won't create jobs in America because there's not enough demand here to justify them.

In the Republican address in response, US Senator-elect Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) restated the Big Lie. "The American people sent us to Congress with clear instructions: make government smaller, not bigger," she said. Deficit reduction "isn't a Republican problem or a Democrat problem - it's an American problem that will require tough decision-making from both parties." And the way to shrink the deficit is to cut government. The extension of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts over the next two years, she said, was an "important first step" to jump-start the economy.

Starting Wednesday, when the 112th Congress convenes with a Republican majority in the House, we'll be hearing far more of the Big Lie.

George Orwell once explained that when a public is stressed and confused, a Big Lie told repeatedly can become the accepted truth. Adolph Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that "the size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed" and that members of the public are "more easily prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell big ones."

Only the President has the bully pulpit. But will he use it to tell the Big Truth?

PolitiFact has a tracked President Obama 's campaign promises and his actions.

Phase out exemptions and deductions for higher earners

The Promise: Promise Broken Restore the phaseouts of personal exemptions and itemized deductions for those making more than $250,000 (couples) or $200,000 (single), with threshholds indexed for inflation.

Update December 21st, 2010: Current tax rules continued for high earners

>> More

Freeze the 2009 estate tax law

The Promise: Compromise Freeze the 2009 estate tax law, which exempts the first $3.5 million and has a top rate of 45 percent.

Update December 20th, 2010: Obama agrees to lower estate taxes

>> More

Repeal the Bush tax cuts for higher incomes

The Promise: Promise Broken Repeal the Bush tax cuts for those making more than $250,000 (couples) or $200,000 (single)

Update December 20th, 2010: President Obama signs off on continuing tax cuts for high earners

>> More

Extend the Bush tax cuts for lower incomes

The Promise: Promise Kept Extend the Bush tax cuts for those making less than $250,000 (couples) or $200,000 (single)

Update December 20th, 2010: Obama gets extension for the middle-class tax rates

>> More

Extend child tax credits and marriage-penalty fixes

The Promise: Promise Kept Will extend aspects of the Bush tax cuts such as child credit expansions and changes to marriage bonuses and penalties.

Update December 21st, 2010: Tax compromise includes extensions of child tax credits and marriage-penalty fixes

>> More

Expand the child and dependent care credit

The Promise: Promise Broken Expand and make refundable the child and dependent care credit.

Update December 21st, 2010: No expansion for the child care tax credit

>> More

Increase the capital gains and dividends taxes for higher-income taxpayers

The Promise: Promise Broken Increase capital gains and dividends taxes from 15 to 20 percent for those making more than $250,000 (couples) or $200,000 (single)

Update December 21st, 2010: No increase in capital gains taxes for high earners

>> More

Eliminate capital gains taxes for small businesses and start-ups

The Promise: Compromise "Barack Obama understands that small businesses are the engines of our economy, and he will eliminate all capital gains taxes on investments in small and start-up firms."

Update December 10th, 2010: A short-term fix

>> More

Create a tax credit of $500 for workers

The Promise: In the Works Enact a Making Work Pay tax credit that would equal 6.2 percent of up to $8,100 of earnings (yielding a maximum credit of approximately $500). Indexed for inflation.

Update December 7th, 2010: Tax compromise may cut taxes for workers.

>> More

Change federal rules so small businesses owned by people with disabilities can get preferential treatment for federal contracts.

The Promise: Promise Broken "Barack Obama and Joe Biden would direct the Small Business Administration to amend regulations under the Small Business Act that provide preferences in federal contracting to small businesses owned by members of socially and economically disadvantaged groups to include individuals with disabilities."

Update November 19th, 2010: No sign of progress toward small business boost for Americans with disabilities

>> More

According to PolitiFact, Obama's scorecard for promises made during his Presidential campaign indicates that he has kept 128 promises, broken 28 promises and compromised on 40 promises. Also, 82 promises have been stalled and 225 are in the works.

According to a new 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll, most Americans think the United States should raise taxes for the rich to balance the budget.

President Barack Obama last month signed into law a two-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts for millions of Americans, including the wealthiest, in a compromise with Republicans.

Republicans, who this week take control of the House of Representatives, want to extend all Bush-era tax cuts "permanently" for the middle class and wealthier Americans. They are also demanding spending cuts to curb the $1.3 trillion deficit.

Sixty-one percent of Americans polled would rather see taxes for the wealthy increased as a first step to tackling the deficit, the poll showed.

The real issue is whether Obama will stand up for 'Truth' or allow 'The Big Lie 'to become a 'Factoid!'

The Model of a Modern U.S. President

It has been two years since President Obama won the election and became the 44th President of the United States of America. The Republicans have taken an opposing view to every position Obama has put forth. The Tea Party and the Libertarians have claimed that government is too big. The progressives are dissapointed with the direction or lack of direction of Obama's focus on issues. Given all the friction that Obama has faced, below is a comical and musical assessment of a modern U.S. President.

In the last two years including the last weeks of the lame duck session of 2010, Congress and President Obama have a few historic accomplishments including the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell; the passage of START, the reduction agreement with Russia; a health bill for 9/11 first responders; a food safety bill; middle class tax cuts and the extension of jobless benefits.

Of course, some say that the passage of the health bill for 9/11 first responders had help from Jon Stewart the host of the Daily Show. Will Bunch at Attyood calls Stewart the 44th-and-a half President of the United States. Apparently Robert Gibbs was looking forward to Stewart's persuasion on this issue.

Robert Gibbs, President Obama’s press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday that he hopes the Comedy Central host can persuade enough Republican senators to vote for a 9/11 health bill so it can head to the president’s desk.

“If there's the ability for that to sort of break through in our political environment, there's a good chance that he can help do that,” Gibbs said in his briefing. “I think he has put the awareness around this legislation. He's put that awareness into what you guys cover each day, and I think that's good. I hope he can convince two Republicans to support taking care of those that took care of so many on that awful day in our history.”

Will Bunch even gives his year-end prediction: "Our new leader, Jon Stewart, wins the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize for his successful work on behalf of 9/11 responders.

It just goes to show that common sense can prevail.

The Probelm is Power and Privilege at the Top!

Robert Reich explains in definitive terms, "Why the Tax Deal Confirms the Republican Worldview."

Republican worldview is to shrink the government

Apart from its extraordinary cost and regressive tilt, the tax deal negotiated between the President and the Republicans has another fatal flaw.

It confirms the Republican worldview.

Americans want to know what happened to the economy and how to fix it. At least Republicans have a story – the same one they’ve been flogging for thirty years. The bad economy is big government’s fault and the solution is to shrink government.

Economic growth and the middle class

Here’s the real story. For three decades, an increasing share of the benefits of economic growth have gone to the top 1 percent. Thirty years ago, the top got 9 percent of total income. Not they take in almost a quarter. Meanwhile, the earnings of the typical worker have barely budged.

The vast middle class no longer has the purchasing power to keep the economy going. (The rich spend a much lower portion of their incomes.) The crisis was averted before now only because middle-class families found ways to keep spending more than they took in – by women going into paid work, by working longer hours, and finally by using their homes as collateral to borrow. But when the housing bubble burst, the game was up.

Reorganize the economy

The solution is to reorganize the economy so the benefits of growth are more widely shared. Exempt the first $20,000 of income from payroll taxes, and apply payroll taxes to incomes over $250,000. Extend Medicare to all. Extend the Earned Income Tax Credit all the way up through families earning $50,000. Make higher education free to families that now can’t afford it. Rehire teachers. Repair and rebuild our infrastructure. Create a new WPA to put the unemployed back to work.

Pay for this by raising marginal income taxes on millionaires (under Eisenhower, the highest marginal rate was 91 percent, and the economy flourished). A millionaire marginal tax of 70 percent would eliminate the nation’s future budget deficit. In addition, impose a small tax on all financial transactions (even a tiny one — one half of one percent — would bring in $200 billion a year, enough to rehire every teacher who’s been laid off as well as provide universal pre-school for all toddlers). Promote unions for low-wage workers.

Money and bribery

But here’s the obstacle. As income and wealth have risen to the top, so has political power. Money is being used to bribe politicians and fill the airwaves with misleading ads that block all of this.

The midterm elections offered dramatic evidence. NBC news reported shortly after Election Day, for example, that Crossroads GPS, one of the biggest Republican secret-money organizations, got “a substantial portion” of its loot from a group of extremely wealthy Wall Street hedge fund and private equity managers. Why would they sink so much money into the midterms? Because they’ve been so strongly opposed to a proposal by congressional Democrats to treat the earnings of hedge fund and private equity managers as ordinary income rather than capital gains (subject to only a 15 percent rate).

Big government isn't the problem

In other words, the problem isn’t big government. It’s power and privilege at the top.

So another part of the solution is to limit the impact of big money on politics. This requires, for example, publicly-financed campaigns, disclosure of all sources of political spending, and resurrection of the fairness doctrine for broadcasters.

It’s the same power and privilege that got the Bush tax cuts in the first place, and claimed the lion’s share of its benefits. The same power and privilege that got the estate tax phased out.

Tax cuts for the rich won't help

Get it? By agreeing to another round of massive tax cuts for the wealthy, the President confirms the Republican story. Cutting taxes on the rich while freezing discretionary spending (which he’s also agreed to do) affirms that the underlying problem is big government, and the solution is to shrink government and expect the extra wealth at the top to trickle down to everyone else.

Obama’s new tax compromise is not only bad economics; it’s also disastrous from the standpoint of educating the public about what has happened and what needs to happen in the future. It reinforces the Republican story and makes mincemeat out of the truthful one Democrats should be telling.

Truth be told, the rich get richer!

Isolationism is Obama's Problem

During the debate over health care reform, Obama did not stand strong in support of the public option. He basically gave up that point before discussions even began. Then, on November 29th, he proposed a two-year pay freeze for all civilian federal workers. And he has not taken a strong position on letting the tax extension of the Bush tax cuts expire for the rich. Frank Rich expresses a good point in his article, All the President's Captors.

Those desperate to decipher the baffling Obama presidency could do worse than consult an article titled “Understanding Stockholm Syndrome” in the online archive of The F.B.I. Law Enforcement Bulletin. It explains that hostage takers are most successful at winning a victim’s loyalty if they temper their brutality with a bogus show of kindness. Soon enough, the hostage will start concentrating on his captors’ “good side” and develop psychological characteristics to please them — “dependency; lack of initiative; and an inability to act, decide or think.”

This dynamic was acted out — yet again — in President Obama’s latest and perhaps most humiliating attempt to placate his Republican captors in Washington. No sooner did he invite the G.O.P.’s Congressional leaders to a post-election White House summit meeting than they countered his hospitality with a slap — postponing the date for two weeks because of “scheduling conflicts.” But they were kind enough to reschedule, and that was enough to get Obama to concentrate once more on his captors’ “good side.”

And so, as the big bipartisan event finally arrived last week, he handed them an unexpected gift, a freeze on federal salaries. Then he made a hostage video hailing the White House meeting as “a sincere effort on the part of everybody involved to actually commit to work together.” Hardly had this staged effusion of happy talk been disseminated than we learned of Mitch McConnell’s letter vowing to hold not just the president but the entire government hostage by blocking all legislation until the Bush-era tax cuts were extended for the top 2 percent of American households.

The captors will win this battle, if they haven’t already by the time you read this, because Obama has seemingly surrendered his once-considerable abilities to act, decide or think. That pay freeze made as little sense intellectually as it did politically. It will save the government a scant $5 billion over two years and will actually cost the recovery at least as much, since much of that $5 billion would have been spent on goods and services by federal workers with an average yearly income of $75,000. By contrast, the extension of the Bush tax cuts to the $250,000-plus income bracket will add $80 billion to the deficit in two years, much of which will just be banked by the wealthier beneficiaries.

Obama didn’t even point out this discrepancy — as he might have, had he chosen to make a stirring call for shared sacrifice rather than just hand the Republicans a fiscal olive branch that they could then use as a stick to beat him. He was too busy tending to his other announcement of the week: dispatching Timothy Geithner to lead “negotiations” with the Republicans on the tax cuts. This presidency has been one long blur of such “negotiations” — starting with the not-on-C-Span horse-trading that allowed corporate players to blunt health care and financial regulatory reform. Next up is a “negotiation” with the United States Chamber of Commerce, which has spent well over $100 million trying to shoot down Obama’s policies over the last two years. It’s enough to arouse nostalgia for the “beer summit” with Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the Cambridge cop, which at least was transparent and did no damage to the public interest.

The cliché criticisms of Obama are (from the left) that he is a naïve centrist, not the audacious liberal that Democrats thought they were getting, and (from the right) that he is a socialist out to impose government on every corner of American life. But the real problem is that he’s so indistinct no one across the entire political spectrum knows who he is. A chief executive who repeatedly presents himself as a conciliator, forever searching for the “good side” of all adversaries and convening summits, in the end comes across as weightless, if not AWOL. A Rorschach test may make for a fine presidential candidate — when everyone projects their hopes on the guy. But it doesn’t work in the Oval Office: These days everyone is projecting their fears on Obama instead.

I don’t agree with almost anything Chris Christie, the new Republican governor of New Jersey, has to say. But the popularity of his leadership right now is instructive. New Jersey has voted Democratic in every presidential election since 1992, with Obama carrying the state by a landslide margin of almost 15 percentage points. Yet Christie now has a higher approval number (51 percent) in the latest Quinnipiac state poll than either Obama or New Jersey’s two senators, both Democrats.

Christie’s popularity among national right-wing activists and bloggers has been stoked by a viral YouTube video where he dresses down a constituent in a manner that recalls Ralph Kramden sending Alice “to the moon.” But the core of Christie’s appeal at home is that he explains passionately held views in concrete, plain-spoken detail. Voters know what he stands for and sometimes respect him for his forthrightness even when they reject the stands themselves. This extends to his signature issue — his fiscal and rhetorical blows against public education. He’s New Jersey’s most popular statewide politician despite the fact that a 59 percent majority in the state thinks public schools deserve more taxpayer money, not less.

G.O.P. propagandists notwithstanding, Christie’s appeal does not prove that New Jersey (and therefore the country) has “turned to the right.” It does prove that people want a leader with a strong voice, even if only to argue with it.

No one expects Obama to imitate Christie’s in-your-face, bull-in-the-china-shop shtick. But they have waited in vain for him to stand firm on what matters to him and to the country rather than forever attempting to turn non-argumentative reasonableness into its own virtuous reward. It’s clear now the shellacking was not the hoped-for wake-up call. For starters, Obama might have robustly challenged the election story line pushed by the G.O.P. both before and after Nov. 2 — that deficit eradication and tax cuts for all are voters’ No. 1 priority. Repeating it constantly — as McConnell and John Boehner do, brilliantly — does not make it true. But the myth becomes reality if there’s no leader to trumpet the counternarrative.

In the summer before the election, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (of June 21) found that only 15 percent of respondents thought the deficit should be the government’s top priority (behind jobs and economic growth, at 33 percent); the Washington Post/ABC News survey just a week before Election Day found that only 7 percent chose the deficit as the most important issue influencing their vote (again well behind the economy, at 37 percent). After constant G.O.P. fear-mongering about the budget — some of it echoed, rather than countered, by Obama — deficit reduction did jump to first place in Nov. 2 exit polls as voters’ highest priority for the next Congress. The disciplined Republican message had turned the deficit into a catchall synonym for America’s entire economic health. But at 40 percent, deficit reduction still was neck and neck with “spending to create jobs” (37 percent). Cutting taxes was chosen by only 18 percent.

We’re now at the brink of a new economic disaster that will eventually yank a chicken out of every pot. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities calculates that the extended Bush-era tax cuts will contribute by far the largest share to the next decade’s deficits — ahead of the recession’s drain on tax revenues, Iraq and Afghanistan war spending, TARP and Obama’s stimulus. The new Congress’s plan to block any governmental intervention on behalf of 15 million-plus jobless Americans guarantees that the unemployment rate, back up to 9.8 percent as of Friday, will remain intractable too.

Obama should have pounded home the case against profligate tax cuts for the wealthiest before the Democrats lost the Senate. Even now Warren Buffett — not a socialist, by the way — is making the case with a Christie-esque directness that usually eludes the president. “The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we’ll all go out and spend more, and then it will trickle down to the rest of you,” he told Christiane Amanpour on “This Week” last Sunday. “But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.”

Everyone will have caught on by 2012, but that will be too late for many jobless Americans, let alone for Obama. As the economics commentator Jeff Madrick wrote in The Huffington Post, the unemployment rate has been above 7 percent only four times in a presidential election year since World War II — and in three of the four the incumbent lost (Ford, Carter, the first Bush). Reagan did win in 1984 with an unemployment rate of 7.2 percent, but the rate was falling rapidly (from a high of 10.8 two years earlier), and Reagan was as clear-cut in his leadership as Christie (only nicer).

But as Madrick adds, there has never been a sitting president over that period who has had to run with an unemployment rate as high as 8 percent — which is precisely where the Fed’s most recent forecasts predict the rate could be mired when Obama faces the voters again in 2012. You’d think he’d be one Stockholm Syndrome victim with every incentive to break out.

The Republicans like to peg President Obama as a Socialist or the most liberal President. Far from it! His actions are putting him right of center. Actually, the problem with President Obama is that he is an isolated President.

What we Really Need is Freedom from Intolerance

What came first...the chicken or the egg? In this case, it was an article dated 7/19/10 from Catholic Online by Randy Sly, Obama Moves away from 'Freedom of Religion' toward 'Freedom of Worship.' Then Glenn Beck picked up this theme on his radio program from 7/19/10 and went on a rant about President Obama using the term “freedom of worship” instead of “freedom of religion.”

The inference of both Sly and Beck is that President Obama is heading toward removing everyone's right to religious freedom. Both Sly and Beck are using misguided, misinformed and outright lies as a scare tactic for their followers.

Media Matters puts some perspective on this issue in their article, Beck’s “freedom to worship” rant undermined by the Gipper. You betcha, Ronald Reagan also used the term 'freedom of worship.'

On his radio show today, Glenn Beck went off on President Obama for using the term “freedom of worship” instead of “freedom of religion.” The two are not the same thing, Beck insisted -- the constitution of the old Soviet Union also referenced “freedom of worship.” This led to Beck ranting about the separation of church and state and how “freedom of worship” equates to not practicing your religion in public and that it really means “you can speak out against [religion] but you don’t really have a right to speak out for it.”

Just one little problem with Beck’s line of reasoning: Obama is far from the only president to have used the term “freedom of worship.”

Arkansas Democrat-Gazette religion editor Frank Lockwood did the footwork (well, Google work). It’s not just Democratic presidents who have used the term -- he found an instance of Franklin Roosevelt referencing “the freedom of every person to worship God in his own way” – but Republican presidents as well, including, yes, Ronald Reagan:

Speaking at the United Nations on Jan. 30, 1988, he condemned the Evil Empire.

“Religious intolerance, particularly in the Soviet Union, continues to deprive millions of the freedom to worship as they choose.”

And here’s the Gipper, speaking at the Vatican after meeting with Pope John Paul II:

Perhaps it’s not too much to hope that true change will come to all countries that now deny or hinder the freedom to worship God. And perhaps we’ll see that change comes through the reemergence of faith, through the irresistible power of a religious renewal. For despite all the attempts to extinguish it, the people’s faith burns with a passionate heat; once allowed to breathe free, that faith will burn so brightly it will light the world.

And the Great Communicator, again, at the 1988 Republican Convention:

I know I’ve said this before, but I believe that God put this land between the two great oceans to be found by special people from every corner of the world who had that extra love for freedom that prompted them to leave their homeland and come to this land to make it a brilliant light beam of freedom to the world. It’s our gift to have visions, and I want to share that of a young boy who wrote to me shortly after I took office. In his letter he said, “I love America because you can join Cub Scouts if you want to. You have a right to worship as you please. If you have the ability, you can try to be anything you want to be. And I also like America because we have about 200 flavors of ice cream.” Well, truth through the eyes of a child: freedom of association, freedom of worship, freedom of hope and opportunity, and the pursuit of happiness — in this case, choosing among 200 flavors of ice cream — that’s America, everyone with his or her vision of the American promise.

Lockwood also pointed out that Obama has also frequently used the phrase “freedom of religion,” including in his 2009 speech in Cairo.

As State Department spokesman Andy Laine told Christianity Today, “the terms 'freedom of religion' and 'freedom of worship' have often been used interchangeably through U.S. history, and policymakers in this administration will sometimes do likewise."

Unless Beck wants to make the case that Ronald Reagan was some kind of commie -- and also wants to argue that Obama is sending some kind of coded message to his secret Muslim atheist friends -- he shouldn’t pretend that there’s a meaningful distinction between two words that have long been synonymous for pretty much everyone.

The shift in language to which Catholic Online refers to is found in four speeches of President Obama and three speeches from Hillary Clinton. There is an acknowledgment of the reference by Roosevelt. But no reference to Reagan.

Both Catholic Online and Glenn Beck never mentioned three important points of this discussion while they spewed their fear and lies.

The first is the right of "freedom of religion." The second is the right of "freedom of speech." Both of theses rights are granted to the citizens of the United Sates of America through Amendment I of the Constitution.

Amendment 1 - Amendment 1 - Freedom of Religion, Press, Expression Ratified 12/15/1791.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances

The third element is the process needed to amend the United States Constitution is no small task.

There are essentially two ways spelled out in the Constitution for how to propose an amendment. One has never been used.

The first method is for a bill to pass both houses of the legislature, by a two-thirds majority in each. Once the bill has passed both houses, it goes on to the states. This is the route taken by all current amendments. Because of some long outstanding amendments, such as the 27th, Congress will normally put a time limit (typically seven years) for the bill to be approved as an amendment (for example, see the 21st and 22nd).

The second method prescribed is for a Constitutional Convention to be called by two-thirds of the legislatures of the States, and for that Convention to propose one or more amendments. These amendments are then sent to the states to be approved by three-fourths of the legislatures or conventions. This route has never been taken, and there is discussion in political science circles about just how such a convention would be convened, and what kind of changes it would bring about.

Regardless of which of the two proposal routes is taken, the amendment must be ratified, or approved, by three-fourths of states. There are two ways to do this, too. The text of the amendment may specify whether the bill must be passed by the state legislatures or by a state convention. See the Ratification Convention Page for a discussion of the make up of a convention. Amendments are sent to the legislatures of the states by default. Only one amendment, the 21st, specified a convention. In any case, passage by the legislature or convention is by simple majority.

The Constitution, then, spells out four paths for an amendment:

• Proposal by convention of states, ratification by state conventions (never used)
• Proposal by convention of states, ratification by state legislatures (never used)
• Proposal by Congress, ratification by state conventions (used once)
• Proposal by Congress, ratification by state legislatures (used all other times)

It is interesting to note that at no point does the President have a role in the formal amendment process (though he would be free to make his opinion known). He cannot veto an amendment proposal, nor a ratification. This point is clear in Article 5, and was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court in Hollingsworth v Virginia (3 US 378 [1798]):

The negative of the President applies only to the ordinary cases of legislation: He has nothing to do with the proposition, or adoption, of amendments to the Constitution.

The founding fathers, in their wisdom, wrote into the Constitution which was later ratified by the Supreme Court, that the President of the USA can have no input into any phase of the amendment of the Constitution. Unfortunately what the founding fathers could not write into the Constitution was the 'right of tolerance.'

Protecting American Consumers

There is a battle brewing over who President Obama will choose to fill the position of Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. This bureau was created by the Wall Street reform legislation that passed recently in Congress.

David Corn points out that there is controversy over who will become the head of this agency.

No sooner had President Obama and his congressional Democrats achieved victory in passing Wall Street reform legislation last week when an internal catfight broke out over who would lead the new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection created by the bill. The Wall Street reform package is a mixed bag. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich calls it "a mountain of legislative paper, a molehill of reform." Progressives, though, have generally cheered the new consumer protection board, which will possess the independent authority to pursue and punish abusive lenders, including credit card companies and mortgage firms. But how this outfit operates will partly depend on who runs it. And that's the fight at hand.

An obvious choice.

The obvious candidate for this new financial sheriff position is Warren, the Harvard law professor who first proposed such an agency in 2007 -- before the Wall Street meltdown. As head of a congressional panel overseeing the TARP bank bailout, she's been an outspoken and plain-speaking foe of Wall Street and the big banks. She has denounced shifty credit card companies and shady mortgage lenders. She deserves this position. And progressives love Warren. But Geithner may not. Last week, the Huffington Post, citing one "source with knowledge of Geithner's view," reported that Geithner was opposing Warren for this position.

Geithner's statement.

That story created a firestorm within the world of people who care about such things. The Treasury Department quickly put out a statement: "Given her strong leadership on consumer protection, Secretary Geithner believes that Elizabeth Warren is exceptionally well qualified to lead the new bureau, and, ultimately, that's a decision the president will have to make." But this was only an endorsement of her qualifications. You didn't have to hold inside information to know that Geithner prefers another contender for the post: Michael Barr, an assistant secretary of the Treasury, who was one of the architects of the Wall Street reform measure. Barr fought against GOP efforts to weaken the consumer agency and could well be a strong head of the bureau, but he does lack the prominence and communications skills of Warren, who has already proved herself a media-savvy consumer champion.

Warren, a thorn in Geithner's side.

That Geithner would not be hot on Warren is no surprise. As head of the bailout oversight panel, Warren has fiercely called out Geithner and Treasury on a number of fronts: for providing a backdoor bailout to AIG, for botching homeowner relief programs, for failing to get mega-banks to resume lending. Moreover, she's an articulate and thoughtful populist, who applies a Main Street-first perspective toward financial matters and who has been a scourge of credit card companies and banks. Geithner is a member of the Big Finance establishment; he's no crusader. Whether or not he's actively lobbying the White House against Warren, he obviously would be far more keen on Barr, his department colleague. There's also a third candidate: Gene Kimmelman, a Justice Department official who's worked for numerous consumer organizations. (He'd be a good pick, too.)

Progressives are worried.

This whole dust-up has progressives worried. (MoveOn, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and the Project on Government Oversight have each called on the White House to nominate Warren.) On Friday, White House senior adviser David Axelrod told reporters, "Elizabeth Warren is a great, great champion for consumers. She's obviously a candidate to lead this effort." But he didn't refer to her as a leading candidate, and he made it clear there were other well-positioned contenders. And while the Treasury Department was officially praising her qualifications last week, a Geithner aide, speaking on background, said that Treasury has "some concerns about a nomination fight," should Warren be appointed.

Arguments for and against Warren.

That might be Geithner's best argument against Warren: The banks and many Senate Republicans do not like her and a Warren nomination could turn into a battle royal, akin to a contentious Supreme Court fight. But this is also an argument for Warren.

Presently, Obama's economic policies are made and sold by people like Geithner and Lawrence Summers, Obama's chief economic adviser. How many Americans really believe these guys are looking out for them? The president's economic team is short on non-Wall Streeters who can connect with folks at home. Placing Warren in a high-profile position would show that Obama recognizes that protecting American consumers is as important as bailing out big banks and auto companies. He would be adding a vital and clear voice to his administration. And in an election season -- when Obama cannot do much to create 8 million jobs to make up for the ones lost before and after he became president -- waging a fight against the banks and GOPers on behalf of a passionate consumer advocate would have political benefits.

Obama vs Progressives

Though Treasury has tried to downplay the Warren drama, this is an important moment for Obama. Progressive reformers are already defining a potential rejection of Warren as a White House betrayal. Simon Johnson, the former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, writes,

This can now go only one of two ways.

1. Elizabeth Warren gets the job. Bridges are mended and the White House regains some political capital. Secretary Geithner is weakened slightly but he'll recover.

2. Someone else gets the job, despite Treasury's claims that Elizabeth Warren was not blocked. The deception in this scenario would be nauseating -- and completely blatant. "Everyone was considered on their merits" and "the best candidate won" will convince who exactly?

He adds, "Failing to appoint Elizabeth Warren would be the straw that breaks the camel's back. It will go down in the history books as a turning point -- downwards -- for this administration."

If Obama dumps Warren, the White House will justifiably enrage reformers and progressives -- that is, part of its base. If Obama nominates Warren, the White House will have a major fight with banks and GOPers. "That may be a fight worth having," a Treasury Department official says, "but that's up to the White House to decide." It's a mighty big decision.

Public Citizen believes that Warren is the correct choice.

A real reformer will have the power to crack down on predatory mortgage loans, hidden bank fees, college loan traps and much more. Under a lesser leader, the new agency will quickly degenerate into just another part of the Washington bureaucracy.

There's no doubt who would be the most effective leader of the new bureau: Harvard law Professor Elizabeth Warren.

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