Getting Away with It by Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. The Escape Artists: How Obama’s Team Fumbled the Recovery by Noam Scheiber Simon and Schuster, 351 pp., $28.00 Pity the Billionaire: The Hard-Times Swindle and the Unlikely Comeback of the Right by Thomas Frank Metropolitan, 225 pp., $25.00 The Age of Austerity: How Scarcity Will Remake American Politics by Thomas Byrne Edsall Doubleday, 256 pp., $24.95 In the spring of 2012 the Obama campaign decided to go after Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital, a private-equity firm that had specialized in taking over companies and extracting money for its investors—sometimes by promoting growth, but often at workers’ expense instead. So there was plenty of justification for an attack on Romney’s Bain record, and there were also clear political reasons to make that attack. Yet as we were writing this review, two prominent Democratic politicians stepped up to undercut Obama’s message.
What was going on? When Obama was elected in 2008, many progressives looked forward to a replay of the New Deal.
Barack Obama, the Great Deceiver. Barack Obama swept into office on a tide of giddy enthusiasm. His “Hope and Change” was a pledge to reverse Bush era policies, including socialism for the rich, adventurism in the Middle East, and attacks on civil liberties. He announced his intention to serve as a transformational leader, invoking Abraham Lincoln, FDR and Ronald Reagan as role models. Despite the frigid temperatures, people poured into Washington, DC to hear his inauguration speech, wanting to be part of a remarkable passage. It wasn’t simply that Obama was the first black president, but also that the economic devastation of the financial crisis opened up a historic opportunity to remake the social contract, to punish the reckless and greedy, no matter how lofty, and to build new foundations and safeguards for ordinary citizens. Obama, with his youthful vigor, his technocratic command of policy details, his “no drama” steadiness, his mastery of oratory, seemed uniquely suited to this time of need.
Ford is right. Barack Obama Has, on Average, Attended a Fundraiser Every Five Days in 2011. Zhang Jun/Xinhua/ZUMAPRESS.com On Wednesday, President Obama zipped up to New York City to attend three different fundraising events. Occupy Wall Street protesters greeted the president outside the Sheraton New York, the site of one of Obama's fundraisers, though New York police officers kept the demonstrators penned in what NYPD called "frozen zones.
" (More on that here.) But perhaps the most interesting item to come out of Obama's New York swing was this statistic, via CBS News' Mark Knoller: Sixty-nine fundraisers this year by December 1. Obama's fundraising activity surpasses that of predecessors George W. Here's that comparison in chart form: Prof. Obama's fundraising has more than paid off. Obama's pace exceeds his own fundraising in the early stages of his first presidential run, in 2007. Obama 'Internet kill switch' plan approved by US Senate panel. A US Senate committee has approved a wide-ranging cybersecurity bill that some critics have suggested would give the US president the authority to shut down parts of the Internet during a cyberattack. Senator Joe Lieberman and other bill sponsors have refuted the charges that the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act gives the president an Internet "kill switch.
" Instead, the bill puts limits on the powers the president already has to cause "the closing of any facility or stations for wire communication" in a time of war, as described in the Communications Act of 1934, they said in a breakdown of the bill published on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee website. The committee unanimously approved an amended version of the legislation by voice vote Thursday, a committee spokeswoman said.
The bill next moves to the Senate floor for a vote, which has not yet been scheduled. Cybersecurity technologies and services thrive on competition, he added. Obama’s and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph - Ezra Klein. Culture Connoisseur Badge Culture Connoisseurs consistently offer thought-provoking, timely comments on the arts, lifestyle and entertainment.
More about badges | Request a badge Washingtologist Badge Washingtologists consistently post thought-provoking, timely comments on events, communities, and trends in the Washington area. Post Writer Badge This commenter is a Washington Post editor, reporter or producer. Post Contributor Badge This commenter is a Washington Post contributor. Post Recommended Washington Post reporters or editors recommend this comment or reader post. You must be logged in to report a comment. You must be logged in to recommend a comment. Why hawks should vote for Obama. If you are someone who is inclined to favor hawkish responses to foreign policy problems, then your choice for president should be Barack Obama. Not because Obama is especially hawkish himself, or interested in prolonging costly and failed commitments in Iraq or Afghanistan. For that matter, his administration is making a modest and fiscally necessary effort to slow the steady rise in Pentagon spending, and they seem to understand that war with Iran is a Very Bad Idea.
(It is of course no accident that military action there is being promoted by the same folks who thought invading Iraq was a Very Good Idea. But I digress.) So why should hawks vote for Obama? The key to making this work, as Andrew Bacevich suggests here, is to insulate the vast majority of the American population from the effects of this effort. The first danger lies in the secrecy with which these activities are now shrouded. The second danger -- "blowback" -- follows from the first. A third danger is imitation.
Jeff Connaughton: Obama and the Rule of Law. Long silent and now contradictory, President Obama needs to deliver a clarifying speech about our financial markets and the rule of law. Speaking in Kansas on December 6, he said, "Too often, we've seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too weak and there's no price for being a repeat offender. " Just five days later on 60 Minutes, he said, "Some of the least ethical behavior on Wall Street wasn't illegal. " Which is it? Have there been no prosecutions because Wall Street acted legally (albeit unethically)? Or did Wall Street repeatedly violate major anti-fraud laws (and should thus find itself in the dock)? The President is confusing "legal" with "difficult to prosecute successfully.
" Moreover, the President is misleading us when he says that Wall Street firms violate anti-fraud law because the penalties are too weak. The Obama Justice Department hasn't tried a single Wall Street executive in a criminal court. Why didn't this happen? What Happens in Yemen: The "End" of Citizenship and How We Got Here.
When Troy Davis was executed in Georgia, despite the recantation of seven of the nine witnesses who had testified against him and despite the lack of other material evidence implicating him in the murder for which he was convicted, it seemed like things could not get much worse for due process. Two weeks later, the US skipped the messiness of court hearings altogether and executed its own citizen, Anwar Al-Awlaki, with a unpiloted drone. The government and the mainstream media tried to rationalize what had once been unthinkable: the summary execution of a citizen without due process. Perhaps al-Awlaki was, as the State Department alleged, the operational head of Al-Qa’eda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) (proven totally false). Perhaps he was the abettor of many recent specters of terrorists-in-our-midst: Did he e-mail Major Nidal Hassan, the Fort Hood shooter, or meet with Christmas Day bomber Umar Faruk Abdulmutallab?
Cowboy Justice in the Neoliberal Era Returning to History. Obama’s War on Whistleblowers. Many comedians consider stand-up the purest form of comedy; Doug Stanhope considers it the freest. “Once you do stand-up, it spoils you for everything else,” he says. “You’re the director, performer, and producer.” Unlike most of his peers, however, Stanhope has designed his career around exploring that freedom, which means choosing a life on the road.
Perhaps this is why, although he is extremely ambitious, prolific, and one of the best stand-ups performing, so many Americans haven’t heard of him. Many comedians approach the road as a means to an end: a way to develop their skills, start booking bigger venues, and, if they’re lucky, get themselves airlifted to Hollywood. But life isn’t happening on a sit-com set or a sketch show — at least not the life that has interested Stanhope. Because of the present comedy boom, civilians are starting to hear about Doug Stanhope from other comedians like Ricky Gervais, Sarah Silverman, and Louis CK. The campaign against whistleblowers in Washington. Washington, DC - On January 23, the Obama administration charged former CIA officer John Kiriakou under the Espionage Act for disclosing classified information to journalists about the waterboarding of al-Qaeda suspects.
His is just the latest prosecution in an unprecedented assault on government whistleblowers and leakers of every sort. Kiriakou's plight will clearly be but one more battle in a broader war to ensure that government actions and sunshine policies don't go together. By now, there can be little doubt that government retaliation against whistleblowers is not an isolated event, nor even an agency-by-agency practice. The number of cases in play suggests an organised strategy to deprive those in the US of any knowledge of the more disreputable things that their government does.
The Obama administration has already charged more people - six - under the Espionage Act for alleged mishandling of classified information than all past presidencies combined. Silent state Fighting back. There is No High Ground in American Politics" Robert Reich: The Sad Spectacle of Obama’s Super PAC, by Robert Reich: It has been said there is no high ground in American politics since any politician who claims it is likely to be gunned down by those firing from the trenches. That’s how the Obama team justifies its decision to endorse a super PAC that can raise and spend unlimited sums for his campaign.
Baloney. Good ends don’t justify corrupt means. I understand the White House’s concerns. ... Romney’s friends on Wall Street and in the executive suites of the nation’s biggest corporations have the deepest pockets in America. ... But would refusing to be corrupted this way really amount to unilateral disarmament? Small donations would have flooded the Obama campaign, overwhelming Romney’s billionaire super PACs. One Obama adviser says Obama’s decision to endorse his super PAC has had an immediate effect. Exactly. The rules on campaign finance need to change. An Analogy. I mentioned this analogy in my Twitter feed and was asked to explain it in a bit more detail: that Obama’s Presidency is increasingly resembling James Buchanan’s Presidency.
Buchanan was the 15th President, holding office just before Abraham Lincoln and the outbreak of the Civil War. Historians of the U.S., especially specialists on antebellum history, are welcome to complicate, reject or deepen the comparison. But the rough outline that I see is that Buchanan was regarded by his political colleagues as intelligent, articulate and erudite in matters of law and political procedure. E.g., he wasn’t an inert dud or incompetent like some other antebellum or late 19th Century Presidents.
He’s nevertheless commonly regarded as one of the worst Presidents in American history because of the way he chose to deal with the deepening crisis over slavery, states’ rights and secession. Democratic politics in a nutshell - Glenn Greenwald. Let’s begin by taking note of three facts: (1) Three days ago, Democratic Rep. John Conyers, appearing at a meeting of the Out of Poverty caucus, said: “The Republicans — Speaker Boehner or Majority Leader Cantor — did not call for Social Security cuts in the budget deal. The President of the United States called for that” (video here, at 1:30); (2) The reported deal on the debt ceiling is so completely one-sided — brutal domestic cuts with no tax increases on the rich and the likelihood of serious entitlement cuts in six months with a “Super Congressional” deficit commission — that even Howard Kurtz was able to observe: “If there are $3 trillion in cuts and no tax hikes, Obama will have to explain how it is that the Republicans got 98 pct. of what they wanted,” while Grover Norquist, the Right of the Right on such matters, happily proclaimed: “Sounds like a budget deal with real savings and no tax hikes is a go.”
No matter how the immediate issue is resolved, Mr.