Obama Stands Firm On Cuts/Taxes

I don't know whether it's because he is tired of Republican obstructionism or because an election is coming up in a few moths, but recently President Obama seems to have re-discovered his backbone and is making good use of it. He is no longer willing to make "compromises" with Republicans that just result in social program cuts that hurt ordinary Americans and tax cuts for the rich.

Last year the Congress, with the agreement of the White House, appointed a "super committee" to agree on cuts and/or tax increases to reduce government deficits and debt. That agreement included across-the-board cuts to all government programs (including the military budget) if the super committee couldn't reach agreement on what to do. Well, they never reached any agreement, and now those cuts are scheduled to take effect starting in 2013.

But now the Republicans want to renege on the agreement they made last year. They want to break their word and violate the agreement they made last year because the agreement would make cuts to the military budget. They are afraid these cuts might affect some of their buddies in the military industrial complex -- corporations that are making a fortune producing unneeded weapons (some of which don't even work) at the expense of American taxpayers.

These Republicans are now whining that the military cuts, which they agreed to, will seriously damage the ability of the United States to defend itself. That is a ludicrous charge. The United States spends far more money on its military than is necessary for self-defense. In fact, the U.S. accounts for more than 40% of all the military spending by all of the countries in the world (and that doesn't include the money spent on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). The next 15 countries spending the most on their military don't match the military spending of the United States -- even when they are all added together.

Fortunately, the president is not buying the feeble argument of the Republicans. He says he will not accept any changes to the agreement -- unless those changes are accompanied by increased taxes on those making more than a million dollars a year. That means he will veto any effort to restore the military funds to the budget without some provision that the rich will pay more in taxes.

The Republicans claim to be the party that wants to reduce the deficit, but the restoration of these funds to the military budget will increase the deficit (or result in more cuts that punish already-hurting Americans). The president is right on this issue. His position to honor the cuts, or pass new taxes on the rich, will reduce the deficit without hurting the United States or its citizens.

No Help From That Bus

Political Cartoon is by R.J. Matson in Roll Call.

Americans Want An End To Afghan War

Readers of this blog will know that I am opposed to the war in Afghanistan. That is because I don't believe the goals of that war can be accomplished (elimination of the Taliban and terrorist activity in that area) -- no matter how long we continue to occupy that country. Several polls in the last few months have shown that a large and growing majority of the American people agree with me -- that the war should be ended as soon as possible.

That view has now been verified by a new poll. The recently released Rasmussen Poll says that two-thirds of Americans want the war over by summer of 2013, while less than a quarter of the population thinks the war should continue past that point. Here are the numbers:

AFGHAN WAR SHOULD END BY MIDDLE OF 2013
Yes...............67%
No...............22%
Not sure...............11%

The Shame Of Modern Humanity

This is enough to make one wonder if the human race even deserves to survive. Found at the blog of Yellowdog Granny.

76 GOP Delegates At Stake Today

The Republican presidential nomination race goes to two new states today. Those states are Colorado and Minnesota, and together they represent about 76 available delegates -- 36 for Colorado and 40 for Minnesota. Both are caucus states, so what they will actually be doing is picking delegates to larger party conventions in the respective states. But since the states are required by the national party, due to their caucuses being held before April, to give proportional representation, we will have a pretty good idea at the end of the night just how many delegates each candidate will wind up with from both states.

There is also a primary being held in Missouri today, but it is just a beauty contest. It will have no effect at all on delegate selection in the state. But that does not mean it has no importance. It will give an idea of how popular each of the candidates is in Missouri, and that could alter perceptions by many people, even in other states, on the viability of each candidates chances of becoming the eventual nominee.

I will try to post the outcomes of the vote in all three states on Wednesday -- assuming none of them display the same kind of amazing incompetence shown by Nevada party officials (where results were not posted until after midnight of the following day -- a delay of over 24 hours). Polls are currently showing that Colorado and Minnesota offer Rick Santorum the best chance to demonstrate the viability of his candidacy since Iowa, and that the popularity of Gingrich is falling. We'll see.

We're Number One !

Political Cartoon is by Tim Eagan at caglecartoons.com.

Texas AG Tries To Pull A Fast One

During the last legislative session, Texas Republicans tried to use their majorities in both legislative houses to create legislative districts that would unfairly favor the Republican Party. One of the aspects of the Republican redistricting plan would give the nearly all-white Republican Party all of the four new U.S. Congressional Districts the state got due to its population growth in the last ten years. In an effort to avoid scrutiny by the U.S. Justice Department, the Republicans then bypassed the Justice Department and asked federal courts to approve their redistricting plan.

That hasn't worked out too well for them. The federal court told them to work out a compromise plan with minority groups and the Democrats, or be subject to a plan imposed by the court itself (at least for the coming election). Yesterday, Texas Attorney General Abbott announced that a compromise had been reached. He said the compromise would create two new Hispanic-majority districts (and evidently leave the other two new districts as white-majority Republican districts).

The problem is that this wasn't a "compromise" at all. To reach his ballyhooed agreement, the Attorney General simply left out any organizations that didn't agree with his "new" proposal -- including the Mexican-American Legislative Conference, the Black Legislative Caucus, and the NAACP. The Democratic Party also refused to give its blessing to the Texas AG's "compromise", saying:

Attorney General Abbott issued a statement outlining an agreement reached with some parties regarding the ongoing redistricting legal fight. We were not involved in the discussions that produced this agreement, we are not in agreement to the maps released by the Attorney General, and we do not expect that these maps will be used for the 2012 election. 

We're greatly disappointed the Attorney General did not deal in good faith with all parties involved. 

For the Texas Democratic Party, any maps that do not have the consent of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, the Legislative Black Caucus, and other plaintiffs are nonstarters. 

The Attorney General is clearly terrified that the DC court will find that the state’s maps are discriminatory in both effect and intent. Until there’s a legitimate agreement among the parties, we support the court continuing to do its work.

I have to agree with those opposing the AG's new proposal. Let's look at a few facts about the population of Texas. While the state did experience significant population growth, nearly 90% of that growth was due to a growth in the minority population. It was primarily due to Hispanic growth, but the African-American sector of the population also grew by 22%. In fact, the non-Hispanic white portion of the Texas population actually decreased as a portion of the total population, and now makes up only 45.3% of it while minority groups make up 54.7%.

How can it be right for a decreasing portion of the population (one that only made up 10% of the growth at most) to claim ANY of the four new seats, let alone all or even half of them? The answer, of course, is that it isn't right -- or fair. If the Republicans wanted to be fair (a concept they have yet to master), they would have drawn up a redistricting plan that gave ALL of the new congressional seats to districts with a minority-majority population. I personally think it should be three new Hispanic districts and one new African-American district.

Gerrymandering is wrong. And gerrymandering to reduce the voice of minorities in government is much worse -- it is illegal. But that is what the Texas Republicans are trying to do. It is time for the federal courts to slap them down.

Stop Them !

Political Cartoon is by Michael Ramirez in the Investors Business Daily.

It Looks Like Voter Fraud Is Real

As you probably know, the Republicans around the country have been trying to pass Voter ID laws -- laws that would require a voter to show  a picture ID in addition to a voter registration card before they would be allowed to vote. Most people with a functioning brain know this is simply an effort to suppress the Democratic vote, but the Republicans still loudly proclaim it is an effort to stop widespread voter fraud. The problem with that is that Republicans have been unable to uncover any widespread voter fraud -- or small-scale fraud for that matter.

But it now looks like the Republicans may have been right -- at least on a small-scale basis. Courts have recently convicted a couple of people of voter fraud. Of course the most embarrassing thing for Republicans is that both of the recent convictions were of Republicans, and they weren't just rank-and-file voters either. The first conviction for voter fraud was in Maryland. Paul Schurick, chief of staff for former Maryland Republican Governor Robert L. Erlich, was convicted for arranging robo-calls to suppress the Democratic vote in that state.

The honor(?) of being the most recent person convicted of voter fraud goes to Indiana Secretary of State Charlie White (pictured above). White voted in a precinct he had already moved out of, and then lied about it while running for Secretary of State. He was convicted of both voter fraud and perjury. These are felony convictions, meaning he can no longer serve in that office.

But it gets even worse.  White went on Fox News a couple of days ago to try and defend his actions (which he knew he couldn't do on a real news station). He called his conviction a "miscarriage of justice" and claimed he hadn't done anything that Indiana's governor, Republican Mitch Daniels, hadn't been doing for "the last ten straight elections". He didn't elaborate, but we can only surmise that he's accusing Governor Daniels of committing voter fraud at least 10 times. Someone needs to check that out.

Now we know why the Republicans are so convinced that voter fraud is taking place -- because they are the ones doing it. Instead of imposing onerous voting restrictions on ordinary Americans, maybe they should just clean up their own party -- by instituting an ethical code of conduct for party officials.

Not A Typo

Political Cartoon is by Steve Greenberg at steve@greenberg-art.com.

Trump Claims Credit For Romney Win

(The above cartoon is by Steve Kelley in the New Orleans Times-Picayune.)

It seems that there is no limit to the ego of Donald Trump. The other day he flew to Nevada to endorse the presidential candidacy of Mitt Romney, and now he is taking credit for Romney's victory in that state. In an appearance on the Fox News Channel on Monday Trump said:

“There was a lot riding on that particular race in Nevada and it was interesting, because the numbers were much, much greater than you thought. And a lot of people are giving me credit for that. And I will accept that credit.”

He totally ignored the fact that the state's demographics made Romney a prohibitive favorite (since it had a high urban population and a large mormon participation in the primary). Last week I posted about the small effect (if any) that endorsement have on an election. A recent Pew Research Center poll showed that more Republicans would be turned off by Trump's endorsement than would be turned on (by about 5%).

A recent Politico Poll shows an even stronger negative effect. That poll, of 1000 Nevada caucus attendees, showed only 9.6% would have a more positive view of Romney due to Trump's endorsement, while 41.4% said it would give them a more negative view of Romney.

I hope Trump keeps reminding everyone that he endorsed Romney -- especially if Romney wins the Republican nomination. Among the general public, Trump's endorsement of Romney could give President Obama a nice boost.

Believing In America ?

From the excellent blog called Liberals Are Cool.

On To Colorado And Minnesota

The dust hasn't settled yet in Nevada, but the candidates now must move on to the next two caucuses. Those caucuses are in Colorado and Minnesota, and they are coming up fast. They will be held on Tuesday, February 7th. Nevada had a very pro-Romney demographic (with a large urban vote and a large mormon vote), but things will be a bit different in the next two states. Romney could well win them, but he want have the same advantages he had in Nevada.

Romney does have the lead in Colorado, but it is about 10 points less than the lead he took into last Saturday's caucus. And in Minnesota, the four candidates are all very close to one another in current support (which means any of the four could come out on top). The only seemingly sure thing is that Gingrich has lost support recently in both states, while Santorum has gained support in both. It's possible that Gingrich is now being replaced by Santorum as the anti-Romney candidate.

The numbers I'm talking about are from the newly released surveys from Public Policy Polling. Here are their current numbers for Colorado and Minnesota:

COLORADO
Mitt Romney...............40%
Rick Santorum...............26%
Newt Gingrich...............18%
Ron Paul...............12%

MINNESOTA
Rick Santorum...............29%
Mitt Romney...............27%
Newt Gingrich...............22%
Ron Paul...............19%

Remember, these are caucuses. That means that some candidates will over-perform and some will under-perform their poll numbers. That's because candidate enthusiasm and organization are more important than general support among the population. It doesn't matter how many people like a candidate -- only how many show up at the caucus site.

There is also a primary vote in Missouri on the same day as these two caucuses, but the Missouri primary will not have any effect on the eventual selection of delegates. It is just a beauty contest. It could be important for Paul, Santorum, and Gingrich though if they could do well in it, because it would make them look like more viable candidates.

Santorum Supporter

Political Cartoon is by Bill Schorr at caglecartoons.com.