The Daily Beast: Lawrence Gelb: GOP Hates Barack Obama More Than a Nuclear Iran

Source:The New Democrat

Even through Senate Leader Mitch McConnell is the strongest and most powerful Republican in Congress and that includes the Speaker of the House John Boehner, who outranks him in the U.S. Constitution, being a stronger leader than John Boehner is not much of an accomplishment. And even though Leader McConnell is effective at bringing Senate Republicans and Democrats together to resolve some crisis that Republicans generally in the House caused, he doesn’t control the caucus in the sense that he can prevent one of his radicals from making a dumb and irresponsible move. Like telling Iran that Barack Obama shouldn’t be trusted, to use as an example.

Hate is a very strong word and probably the harshest word short of calling someone a mass-murderer or something like that. So it’s not a word I throw around and only use when I mean it to describe how someone feels about someone else. And I’m not a mind-reader obviously. I’m also not God or George Washington, incase that isn’t obvious enough either, but just going off the available evidence at hand I don’t know how else to describe how at least a large faction of Congressional Republicans, including all forty-seven Republican Senators who signed this letter to Iran and how they feel about President Obama. Other than Mitch McConnell himself, because he and the President seem to actually be able to get along.

There use to be this tradition in Washington that you fight the other side or team all day and then shake hands and work out a deal and perhaps even have a drink with at the end of the day. But you treat your opponents as exactly that and not as enemies, which is different. You hate your enemies, but we’ve all had opponents at some point in life that we actually like. And perhaps became friends after we started competing against each other. But with a strong faction at least in the House of Representatives, you would think Barack Obama plays for the enemy. Meaning the terrorists that would like to attack America and authoritarian regimes that would attack Americans if they felt it was in their interest. And based on this Congressional letter from the forty-seven Republican Senators, they seem to believe the same thing.

There great reasons why President Obama is not asking for Congress to weigh in on a final agreement with Iran when it comes to Iran’s nuclear program.

For one, this is not a treaty.

Two, Congress will get to weigh in later not on Iran’s nuclear program, but whether economic sanctions on Iran will be loosened or ended based on the Islamic Republic’s behavior. Which is something that Congress gets to do anyway when it comes to sanctions and something the President needs Congressional approval for.

Three, a political reason, but just important as the others. Congressional Republicans won’t support any agreement with Iran that is anything short of surrender on Iran’s part. Which means Iran completely gives up their nuclear program, or there’s no deal. But the whole point of compromise and negotiation is that neither side gets everything that they want.

These Senate Republicans know that the Obama Administration knows that they meaning these forty-seven Senators won’t support any deal that is anything short of complete surrender on Iran’s part. And Senate Republicans also know they can’t stop the President from negotiating with Iran. So what they’re trying to do, which to me is at least borderline treason is to tell the Iranian Government that they not only don’t trust Barack Obama, but they don’t like him if not hate him. “And neither should you” meaning Iran, “because this guy can’t be trusted.” And it violates all forms of proper protocol and how Democrats and Republicans are supposed to relate with each other.

The Nation: Richard Kreitner- 'FDR Signs The Emergency Act, Launching The New Deal: March 9, 1933'

Source:The Nation- 1930s America.

Source:The New Democrat

"Today in 1933 the newly inaugurated President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Emergency Banking Act, officially launching the New Deal. The act allowed the Federal Reserve to guarantee the assets of banks that Roosevelt had ordered closed a few days earlier. In its issue of March 22, 1933, The Nation ran the following front-page editorial note approving of the first two weeks of the Roosevelt presidency.
If you think President Barack Obama had it tough when he became President of the United States back in 2009, imagine being President Franklin Roosevelt when he became President in 1933. A country where the economy is literally in free fall. The economy shrinking at ten-percent or thereabouts, twenty or thirty-percent unemployment and about that or more people living in poverty. Without a functioning public safety net to help people who are going through these harsh realities. But that is what President Roosevelt inherited from Herbert Hoover and I’m sure people close to FDR were asking or at least thinking, “President Roosevelt, are you sure you still want to be President?” 

From The Nation

Within the first two-years a lot of the New Deal was already passed and I’m sure that had some positive effect towards the Depression, like putting money directly in people’s pockets who perhaps otherwise wouldn’t of had it. But the new infrastructure investment and the public works projects was where the real improvement in the economy started happening in the 1930s. Because those projects literally put people back to work with good jobs repairing and building the country. 

But to be completely accurate, it isn’t until the 1940s with World War II when the economy starts to completely climb out of the Depression and we start to see income and unemployment levels start to look like they were pre-Great Depression.

What the New Deal was and still is was the creation of the public safety net in America. We are still not like Europe and I imagine never will be as far as what the central government provides to the people as far as taxpayer-funded social insurance programs. But we’ll always have a public social insurance system, at least as long as we need it for people who truly need it. And have been knocked off their feet economically and need help getting back up. Which is where we should be as a modern liberal society that helps people in need, but also helps them help themselves so they can live in freedom. And not have to be taken care of indefinitely because they can take care of themselves.

AP Archive: Angela Davis- Radical On Trial

Source:Associated Press- Radical on trial.

Source:The New Democrat

Angela Davis should’ve never have been in jail, at least for what she was charged with here. Which was being involved in a Marin County court-house shootout in 1970. They had nothing on her other than the fact that she was legally involved and helping people who were accused in the case, like George Jackson. This was about the California establishment trying to take down a women that they were terrified of. Because she was fighting against racism, the prison industrial complex and wanted a different type of government and economic system. That was different from America’s liberal democratic capitalist system.

And to show you that California had nothing on Professor Davis, just look at the fact that she was found innocent. Even though I doubt she had the personal resources that she would’ve needed to defend herself. But had such a large following and different groups that wanted to help her, she was able to get the defense that she needed and deserved. I’m not a Socialist or Communist obviously. Just read this blog on a regular basis if you’re still not convinced. But I wish there were more Angela Davis’s today regardless of race or gender. People who are willing to take on the prison industrial complex that benefits so many wealthy people and business’s at the expense of everyone else. And will risk their freedom to fight the system.

California didn’t try to put Angela Davis away because she was a criminal, terrorist or did any other illegal activities. They tried to put her away because of her political views and what she was fighting for. Which was a different type of government and economic system for America. Which I would’ve opposed her on, but she has every right as a an American to advocate for it. As well as fighting against the prison industrial complex that puts non-violent offenders away for long periods of time. For committing minor offenses mostly on the so-called War on Drugs and things like shoplifting. It was fascists in California that tried to put Angela away simply because of her political views.
Source:AP Archive

Movie Clips: 'Free Angela & All Political Prisoners (2012)'

Source:Movie Clips- from the documentary Free Angela, which is about New-Left political activist Angela Davis.

Source:The New Democrat 

"A documentary that chronicles the life of young college professor Angela Davis, and how her social activism implicates her in a botched kidnapping attempt that ends with a shootout, four dead, and her name on the FBI's 10 most wanted list."  

From Movie Clips

Source:The New Democrat- from Free Angela documentary, which is about New-Left political activist Angela Davis.

Freedom of speech in America is not about the right to say things that most of the country already agrees with. Or the right to be friendly, or the right say non-controversial things that people don’t necessarily agree or disagree with, but haven’t thought much about. 

But freedom of speech is exactly that: the freedom to speak freely. Even if it may intend to offend others. Which is why I’m so against political correctness in America, whether its practiced by the Far-Left or Far-Right and I will defend the Far-Left’s and Far-Right’s ability to speak freely as best as I can. Because political correctness is illiberal and Un-Liberal Democratic, because it is a form of fascism.

That is exactly what this movie, Free Angela is about: one woman’s struggle a UCLA professor in Angela Davis who got that position in her mid-twenties, not just her age, but a young African-American woman in the late 1960s early 70s getting such an important position as a great school like UCLA. 

Professor Davis she was in a fight for her life to be able to speak against injustice in her community and America as a whole. And even use provocative if not extreme Far-Left rhetoric to express how she felt about America and the state of the African-American community. She didn’t and doesn’t still have the right to express her feelings about these issues because a lot of people agree with her. But simply because she’s an American with the right to free speech.

And then throw in the fact that Professor Davis was a Communist back then and even though she’s given up communism since and is a Democratic Socialist today, but back in the late 1960s and early 70s she was a Communist in the heart of the Cold War and she offended too many people. And the establishment in California decided that they can’t have a young African-American woman with that much power, that big of a platform and that big of a following loose on the streets. And came up with a bogus case to put her away in jail. Ultimately the good guys and gals won this case and Angela Davis was free in I believe 1971. But she should’ve never of had to go through that as an innocent person.

I’m not defending Professor Davis’s communist and now socialist views. Simply her constitutional right to express them, as a Liberal Democrat myself. I’m not nearly that far to the Left as a center-right Liberal and not a Socialist, but we do agree on the prison industrial complex. Which simply needs to be destroyed and replaced with a responsible and sensible criminal justice policy in this country. If we want to remain a liberal free society. 

But again Socialists on the Far-Left have as much right to express themselves in America, as Christian-Theocrats and Nationalists on the Far-Right. The constitutional right to be heard and express yourself. And that to me at least is what Professor Davis’s case was about.

Sam Seder: Philip Mirowski- ‘How Neoliberalism Survived The Financial Meltdown?’

Source:The Majority Report- talking about Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. (I presume)

Source:The New Democrat

“Professor Philip Mirowski author of Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste: How Neoliberalism Survived the Financial Meltdown, explains the intellectual history of Neo-liberalism, what Neo-liberals believe, making capitalists think differently, the role of think tanks in Neo-liberalism, the mythology of market supremacy, how Facebook teaches you to be a Neo-liberal agent, shaming and Neo-liberalism, how policy movements are built, climate and the affordable care act and Neo-liberal power and how the left can respond to Neo-liberal dominance.

From the 6/26/14 episode of the Majority Report

This clip from the Majority Report, live M-F at 12 noon EST and via daily podcast at:The Majority Report." 

From The Majority Report 

To me at least neoliberalism and libertarianism at least when it comes to economics are different things. Economic liberalization where you’re talking about decentralization of the central state and privatizing state-owned industries and companies and empowering people to own property. That is different from saying that the state should simply get-out-of-the-way and just worry about criminals who physically hurt innocent people and steal their property and that sort of thing.

And then move up to the mid and late 1990s economic liberalization has been about empowering people at the bottom and near-bottom and struggling working class to move up and live in economic freedom as well. Through things like education, job training, infrastructure, trade, targeted tax cuts to the struggling middle class and people in poverty. Eliminating unnecessary red tape and that sort of thing.

Today’s so-called ‘Modern Liberals’ who are really the New Socialists, people who aren’t Marxists, but still Socialists because of the amount of involvement they want government to have in the economy hate these policies. Because it means less power for the state and more freedom and choice for the individual.

The New Socialist or Social Democrat wants the power to be in the hands of the central government on behalf of the people to be used for everyone’s benefit. Under the theory when we are more collectivist less individualistic, we move better as a society, than when the people have the freedom to fail or succeed.

The American Prospect: Robert Kuttner: 'The Libertarian Delusion'

Source:The American Prospect-

Source:The New Democrat

Just to start off about the so-called free market and if we’re going to talk about the free market we might as well talk about Santa Clause since neither one of them exists. As much as Libertarians and so-called Conservatives talk about the free market, that is not what they’re talking about since their market wouldn’t be free. Sure, perhaps from government regulations, but non-regulated market is not a free market. Especially if government is subsidizing that market through taxpayer-funded subsidizes.

The other thing about the so-called free market is that business is just part of it. Government is another part, workers are another part and consumers perhaps the most important part of the market. Because without consumers where would business get the resources to do anything and pay their workers. Where would government get the resources to do, well anything. So when you say the free market should set wages, prices and anything else. Are you saying that government, business, workers and consumers should all come together like a Congressional conference committee and decide what the wages and prices should be? Or are you talking about something else.

When Libertarians or Conservatives talk about the so-called free market they sure as hell aren’t talking about bringing the whole market together do negotiate those key issues. They are talking about getting government out-of-the-way so business’s can make these decisions for themselves. Under their so-called free market there would be no such thing as organized labor or collective bargaining. Because again business would have the power and be free to make all of those decisions themselves. So as long as we’re talking markets free or otherwise let’s be clear and factual about what we are talking about.

So what type of market are we talking about if we’re not talking about a free market? We’re talking about the private market and private enterprise. Which is what produces most of the products that we all consume, pay for and generally enjoy and tend to pay for at affordable rates. And everyone whose to the right of a Marxist meaning the Democratic Socialist all the way over to the Libertarian on the Right believes in some form of a private market. It all depends on what type of private market and how big it should be. How much it should be regulated and how much it should be taxed. With the Democratic Socialist the market would be the smallest and most regulated. With the central government being the dominant player. With the Libertarian the private market would be the biggest and not regulated or taxed at all.

And since we all want a private market, well everyone except for the Marxist, it’s just a question to what degree. And for me as a Liberal I want a huge market with as much freedom and choice and consumers with money to spend as possible. That is regulated and taxed yes, but to protect consumers and workers from predators. And to provide government with the resources that it has to have to provide the services that only it can provide and that it does well. Security, law enforcement, regulations, education, infrastructure, safety net and job training for our low-income low-skilled adults so they can also live in freedom and off of government dependence.

The libertarian idea of the market is basically government go home. Other than protecting the borders and stopping criminals that hurt people. The social democratic idea of the market is that government provides most of the essentials that people need to live well in life. With private enterprise being for things that are more luxury items and things we would use recreationally and transportation. But that the central government provides us with most if not all the essential insurances that we need in life. That people would be free not to take responsibility over their own lives and not to have to make choices. I want an educated society that is protected from predators with everyone having the knowledge to be able to manage their own lives themselves both from an economic and personal perspective.
Source:Liberty Pen

The Nation: Alex Luhn- '50,000 March in Moscow After The Killing of Opposition Leader Boris Nemtsov'

Source:The Nation- free speech in Russia.

Source:The New Democrat

"50,000 March in Moscow After the Killing of Opposition Leader Boris Nemtsov" 

From The Nation 

"Russia's Interior Ministry says Boris Nemtsov, a leading opposition figure and former deputy prime minister, has been shot and killed near the Kremlin. (Feb. 27)" 

Source:Associated Press- Free speech in Russia.

From the Associated Press

I don’t know enough about the Russian opposition or Russian opposition parties to say that there’s anything looking like a real democratic opposition there that looks liberal or social democratic or even center-right, but the fact that the Putin Administration assuming their security forces took out Boris Nemstov one of the opposition leaders in Russia, tells me at least that there is a democratic opposition there at least of some sort. Otherwise why kill someone who isn’t that big of a threat to you, who isn’t famous that won’t bring any attention to your administration?

As a Liberal Democrat myself I would love to see a real liberal democratic opposition in Russia. Something that looks like what Venezuela has that may at some point with the continued collapsing of the Venezuelan economy under anti-democratic socialist control be able to take over that country from the anti-democratic socialist Maduro Regime there. 

I would love to see Russians taking to the streets and demanding to not have their country back, but have it in the first place. That builds a free society where all Russian citizens regardless of ethnicity and gender can succeed there. It is a country with an incredible amount of potential in people and resources.

America and Europe can help Russia develop their democratic opposition where it is liberal, conservative, social democratic or where three movements develop that are strong enough to take on Vlad Putin’s right-wing nationalist United Russia Party. The Putin Administration doesn’t believe in democracy certainly not liberal democracy and a free society where the Russian people would elect their own leaders and decide for themselves who represents them in Parliament and who is the President through federal elections that are free and open and where one party isn’t essentially guaranteed a large amount of power every time a so-called election is held.

Right now what America and Europe are doing to Russia as far as the Putin Administration is containing their military through economic sanctions. So Russia pays a heavy price for their invasion of Ukraine and any future invasion they may attempt. But these sanctions hurt the Russian people first who aren’t do very well under Putin because of his mis-management of the Russian economy. 

But things like communication and giving the Russian opposition a voice inside of their economy with things like Voice of America would empower the democratic opposition to take on their government through political means.