Can you believe it’s only been ten days since President Obama took office?

It’s remarkable: between the Leadbetter Act for fair pay, the order to close the Guantanmo Bay detention center, an outright rejection on torture…President Obama has been very busy rolling back the injustices and errors of the Bush Presidency, and he’s got a lot more work to do to get us out of the mess that he and his Congressional cronies (who continue to try and drive this country into the ground) got us into.

Isaiah Poole, writing for the Campaign for America’s Future blog, has a great rundown of the actions of the past 10 days:

The positives so far are sweeping:

* An executive order that commits the United States to closing the international shame that is Guantanamo Bay, and that will finally mean that Guantanamo detainees will receive legal due process—and that the United States has returned to respecting the rule of law.
* An executive order, and a clear statement from Obama’s attorney general-designate Eric Holder, that reject the Bush administration’s policy on torture.
* Repeal of the Bush administration order that banned funding to international family planning organizations that supported legal abortions, which means that vital women’s health services to poor countries will begin flowing again.
* President Obama’s signing on Thursday of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which will finally allow victims of wage discrimination a fair chance in the courts to get the justice due them. Ledbetter, who lost a conservative Supreme Court ruling that she could not pursue a wage discrimination claim because of an impractical statute of limitations, was able to witness the White House signing.
* A memorandum that allows California and several other states to impose tough auto-emissions standards, a move that a New York Times analysis suggests is the first step in a relationship with state governments of “progressive federalism.”
* Obama’s interview with the Al-Arabiya television network, in which he pledged a relationship of mutual respect with the Arab world, backed with the reminder that he has direct Muslim familial ties. The interview has immediately opened possibilities for diplomatic progress with the Arab world on a host of issues.
* Obama’s visit to the Pentagon this week to make clear his intention to follow through on his campaign promise of a safe and responsible withdrawal from Iraq and a refocusing of resources on repairing the Bush administration’s disastrous handling of the fight against al-Qaida in Afghanistan.

Then there is the economic recovery bill that dominated the news this week, a bill that my colleague Bernie Horn calls “the biggest and boldest progressive legislation in 40 years,” even with its concessions to business interests and conservative whiners. This bill makes a significant down payment toward addressing both the short- and long-term challenges of rebuilding the economy and assuring that prosperity is more broadly spread than it was under President Bush.

That’s the damned truth. I wouldn’t be naive enough to think that the conservatives and libertarians have learned their lesson and understand that progress and progressive policies are nothing to be afraid of (in fact, in a healthy democracy, conservatism would be the check that keeps progress to speeding too quickly and spinning out of control, not what the neo-conservative movement seems to think: that conservatism is to keep the country firmly entrenched in one place, or at best rolled back to a more privileged and preferable time for them and their friends), but I can hope that the American people have learned a lesson that we won’t soon forget.

I just wish we didn’t have to pay with our homes and our savings, thanks to the policies of conservatism. In any event, there’s cause to be happy and look forward, and we have a lot of work left to do, even as we absolutely must keep the memory of the effects of the past 8 years fresh in our minds. President Obama will need all of our help to make sure the vision he shares with us for a stronger, better tomorrow becomes reality.

[ What A Difference Ten Days Make ]
Source: Campaign for America’s Future

As a follow up to my last post, I think Bill Scher has a few choice words for the Republicans in the House who voted against the stimulus plan – and the ones in the Senate planning to vote against it:

You’re lying, and we all know it.

For example:

The House is debating the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on the floor as I write this. And the conservative minority is employing the same tactics that have led them into the minority: failed ideas wrapped in fresh lies.

The big lie/talking point being repeated on the floor is that their own alternative economic plan “will create 6.2 million new American jobs over the next two years, according to a methodology used by President Obama’s own nominee as Chair of the White House Council of Economic Advisors, Dr. Christina Romer.”

For the past month, conservatives have been distorting and misapplying Romer’s 1994 economic paper to claim that tax cuts offer a huge “multiplier” effect for the economy, and public investment offers nothing. Of course, the conservative claims have been repeatedly debunked, most prominently this past Sunday by Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman on ABC’s This Week, but also by Brad DeLong and Nate Silver

But being debunked hasn’t ever stopped conservatives before. So they released an alternative plan that is all tax cuts, no public investment, then used their fictional Romer formula to calculate it would create 6.2 million jobs.

BREAKING NEWS (RealityBurg, ObviousLand): We just spent eight years trying to create jobs and grow the economy with only tax cuts and no public investment. It was a colossal flop, no matter how you interpret one aide’s academic paper from 15 years ago.

Of course, that was only one of the lies spluttered out during the course of debate.

The whole piece is absolute gold.

[ If At First You Don't Succeed, Lie, Lie Again ]
Source: Campaign for America’s Future Blog

The saying goes, “The House does what the House does,” but this is exceptionally remarkable.

After a stinging election and an utter and complete rebuke of the Bush-era economic policies and the same policies that dominated a Republican-dominated Congress, congressional republicans still don’t get it.

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, commonly referred to as “The Stimulus Plan,” passed the House of Representatives with an overwhelming majority – just without a single Republican vote, even after Barack Obama personally went to visit Republican leaders to seek their compromise and agreement on the bill.

I had hoped that in the spirit of unity and collaboration that followed the election of Barack Obama, and the stinging lesson that the American people had previously given the Republicans by taking them out of the majority in both sides of the Legislature in 2006, that they would understand that we see through their lies, we know who they’re really out to protect, and if they’re really interested in the well being of the American people, they’d lift their heads up and start using them – but apparently that’s far from the truth.

As usual, the Republicans feinted against the bill complaining there’s too much spending and not enough tax cuts – the kind of tax cuts that Bush favored, the kind that benefit the wealthiest Americans while the middle class and poor wallow in debt and lose their homes. The kinds of tax cuts that got us into this mess.

The Republicans even went to the point of rewriting history and claiming that The New Deal didn’t work, so we shouldn’t spend money now. They claimed they didn’t have input into the drafting of the bill, when the committee meetings and working groups and the visit by the President prove that’s anything but the truth.

The Republicans claimed that this wouldn’t create jobs and stimulate the economy fast enough – the fast part is the critical one, they don’t debate that the bill will stimulate the economy and create jobs, it’s the speed they care about. What they carefully choose to omit is the fact that most economic indicators say that this recession could be long and difficult.

That means that a quick jumpstart followed by an absolute lack of funding for projects that will keep people employed and create new industries that America can invest in and lead will essentially get us back to the same place we are now. Obama’s plan would get America back to work quickly, while simultaneously building next-generation industries that will employ Americans for decades, and give our children new areas in which to train, find their passions, and find work.

Instead, Republicans are complaining, and want a plan that doesn’t invest in America’s future in any way. No money to retrain workers, no money for educating our children in next generation industries, no money for green jobs and new energy technologies that will benefit us and our children. They just want tax cuts for their buddies who are already sucking at the Treasury to save their businesses.

How short their memories are: when Congress gave us all tax rebates and sent us Treasury checks in the mail, we learned how temporary that kind of tax-based, short-term stimulus can be. We had money in our pockets – many of us saved it, many of us spent it, and the economy delivered an uptick that was widely agreed worked as planned. But what happened? The economy turned south again as the people who got those biggest checks drove our major financial institutions into the ground.

So much for post-partisanship, so much for a new bi-partisan era, and so much for Republican promises that they understand the American people want them to “stop bickering and get back to work.” Instead they sit like defeated bullies, whining that they didn’t get to have their say on one element or another, or their amendment was voted down, all tantamount to “we didn’t get what we want, so we’ll claim you’re not listening to us,” behaving like elementary schoolers rebuffed by a teacher.

Hopefully Obama will have better luck in the Senate, and I sincerely hope so – for the Republicans’ sake. If this bill passes, and it will, and it does the trick, like it will, and the Republicans are caught fiddling while America burns and the Democrats come in with the fire extinguishers, the American people will never forget it. And rightfully so.

[ House Passes Obama's Stimulus Plan (With Zero GOP Votes) ]
Source: AlterNet

The Republicans are furious right now. They’re tired of being viewed as the party of hatred; the party that opposed voting rights for Black Americans, civil rights and anti-discrimination laws, affirmative action, and in general is tired of being viewed as the party whose chairman is perfectly comfortable sending out hateful CDs to his colleagues with songs like “Barack the Magic Negro” on them.

The only problem is that their solution to that little problem, as it has always been, is not to actually do something about the real problem, to reach across the aisle and work with the people who may disagree with them, or do something to break down the veneer of hatred that’s surrounded the GOP. Their preferred solution is to find as many minorities that agree with them on one principle or another and trot them out in front of the cameras to prove that they can’t possibly be racist or hateful.

The election of Michael Steele – former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland (I should know, I voted against him, twice, once when he ran under Robert Ehrlich who became governor literally because the former Lieutenant Governor, Kathleen Kennedy Townsend absolutely failed to run a campaign. No, I’m not saying she didn’t campaign well – I can’t say that because she didn’t campaign at all. I voted against him the second time when he tried to run for an open Maryland US Senate seat, and was glad he lost.) and failed US Senate contender – to the chairmanship of the Republican National Committee reaffirms the GOP’s desire to do essentially what Steele did: talk a lot about being a party of inclusiveness and cooperation, and do very little to back up that talk.

The plan is obvious: Steele has a compelling personal story (Republican congressmen who voted simply couldn’t stop talking about his personal story) that could give them a serious national political contender with charm power like Barack Obama who also happens to be black. They saw how Barack Obama galvanized the Black American community, and they’re trying desperately to find a way to reproduce it. It’s a standard play from their playbook, a day late and a dollar short, and trust me, when they tried it in Maryland, the black community saw through it.

In any event, I don’t envy Steele. He has a huge job ahead of him: unifying a party that secretly, truly, and openly hates him. He’ll be trying desperately to bring the Republican party out of the wilderness, all when the majority and base of the party would rather dismiss him outright at best, or send him to the back of the bus at worst. (No, at worst you’d get the folks who would happily string him up at worst, but I’ll continue to hope and pray that those folks are on the fringe…even if mounting evidence proves otherwise.)

But on to Juan Williams, a commentator whose opinions I rather enjoyed on NPR when he happened to be on until he started slipping in his own political bias whenever possible – something that likely wound up getting him expelled (I would hope) from NPR to the point where I don’t have the displeasure of hearing his voice anymore. (There was a time whenever a Morning Edition host would utter the words “Black Americans” that I knew that Juan William’s voice would be drooling from my speakers in the next 30 seconds)

Juan really lost me when he broke a “study” that claimed that Black Americans could legitimately be considered “two different races,” which in reality had more to do with the fact that sociopolitical opinion in the Black American community stratified based on class when it came to certain issues – an assumption that likely wouldn’t hold true today, and was highly in doubt back then.

In any event, Williams has retreated to the safe haven of Fox News, where he’s the effective “yessir” commentator, parroting back agreement anytime someone like Bill O’Reilly says something imminently racist or inflammatory. For example:

Williams has, over the years, found it very hard to dissent from Fox News’ unregulated hatred of black people. His ability to remain at the service of his bosses has earned him a special place in O’Reilly’s and Hannity’s hearts. A frequent analyst, he is prone to say what he feels is compatible with Fox News’ racist identity. As the African American go-to guy for black-bashing, immigrant-bashing, Iraqi-bashing, Williams knows his role and plays it well. A couple of nights back, on the O’Reilly factor, Williams showed why he’s, after all, Fox News’ golden black boy.

Speaking with the avowed racist-host, Bill O’Reilly, Williams mentioned that Michelle Obama is a cause of concern for President Obama. On the subject of “liabilities for President Obama,” Williams said the first lady was “right there.” Further characterizing her as “Stokely Carmichael in a designer-dress,” Williams would go as far as stating that Michelle Obama’s “instinct is to start with this ‘blame America,’ you know, ‘I’m the victim [narrative].’ ”

The slow-witted pundit had some assistance from O’Reilly, who followed up, saying that such a step would signal death for Michelle Obama. For many readers, O’Reilly’s strong analysis invokes an eerie feeling, as one who, earlier in the ‘08 presidential race, promised to investigate Michelle Obama’s patriotism, and thereafter, decide if a “lynching party” was appropriate for her.

This is the part where I have the exquisite opportunity to remind you that no individual black person has the right to or the authority to speak for everyone of their ethnic group, racial group, or any other self-identified group. Christians get in arms when evangelicals claim to speak for them, for example, there’s no reason to think that one Black person – or even a handful – have the right to speak for an entire community, or are even in sync with the opinions of an entire community.

The sad thing is that as people like Michael Steele and Juan Williams continue to make their appearances and continue to nod their heads at the racism in their own ranks, White Americans who see this and self-identify as conservative will slowly become more and more entrenched in their own racism and their own privilege, if for no other reason than a Black face is on the television telling them essentially, “It’s okay, you can hate me, I totally see why you would.”

[ Fox News Is Using the Obamas to Perfect Its Racist Attacks on Black America ]
Source: Alternet