Big Republican Gains in Congress. Is President Obama Secretly Celebrating?

Is Obama, in his heart of hearts, delighted at the results of last week's election? After all, it didn't take President Obama long to sell out the progressives in his first term when his cabinet picks didn’t include a single liberal and he extended, not to mention, expanded, many of the Bush administration's policies: from increasing drone strikes in foreign countries to drafting legal justification for killing U.S. citizens abroad to signing the Bush tax cuts into law to spying on Americans to deportation of immigrants. Unfortunately, President Obama has no problem helping his financial friends on Wall Street.

Now, Obama is very good at spouting liberal rhetoric and Fox News is very good at spreading the delusion that he's some extreme left-wing socialist, if one looks at Obama's actions, they clearly prove otherwise. Obama, as author and activist Cornel West said, is a "Rockefeller Republican in blackface."  

“AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to be with you. So we’re right here in the president’s city. In fact, he just flew out on Wednesday after his re-election. Cornel West, the figures—who is ahead? Who isn’t? As your book is titled The Rich and the Rest of Us.

CORNEL WEST: Well, one, I think that it’s morally obscene and spiritually profane to spend $6 billion on an election, $2 billion on a presidential election, and not have any serious discussion—poverty, trade unions being pushed against the wall dealing with stagnating and declining wages when profits are still up and the 1 percent are doing very well, no talk about drones dropping bombs on innocent people. So we end up with such a narrow, truncated political discourse, as the major problems—ecological catastrophe, climate change, global warming. So it’s very sad. I mean, I’m glad there was not a right-wing takeover, but we end up with a Republican, a Rockefeller Republican in blackface, with Barack Obama, so that our struggle with regard to poverty intensifies.

One thing is for sure: the Republican Congress and President Obama certainly agree on one very important issue: prioritizing and fast tracking the very secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), which virtually exempts multinational corporations from national laws.  In other words, even more protection for corporate profits..."NAFTA on steroids".

Fast-track legislation was introduced in January but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid would not allow a vote. Many Democrats fear that opening markets to countries with lower wages and standards will cost American jobs. Republicans tend to be supportive, because from the small leaks, since the TPP is negotiated mostly in secret, seem to indicate favoring US big business above overseas consumers (e.g entertainment, pharmaceuticals etc.)

After the election, when Mitch McConnell was asked what specific areas he could work on with President Obama:

“ Trade agreements. The president and I were just talking about that right before I came over here. Most of his party is unenthusiastic about international trade. We think it’s good for America. And so, I’ve got a lot of members who believe that international trade agreements are a winner for America. And the president and I discussed that right before I came over here, and I think he’s interested in moving forward. I said, "Send us trade agreements. We’re anxious to take a look at them." -- Sen. Mitch McConnell, November 5, 2014 

Links:

McConnell and Obama are Already Planning to Undercut Liberal Democrats in Congress

“Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Wednesday that he and President Barack Obama are already discussing plans to cut corporate tax rates and pass free trade agreements, following the GOP's major gains in Tuesday's elections.

...

“Obama has struggled to sell Democrats on the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a pact his administration is negotiating with 11 other Pacific nations. Leaked drafts of the text have sparked a host of liberal concerns. Consumer advocates are worried about potential restrictions on food safety and other regulations, environmentalists fear it will undermine environmental protections, and global health experts are concerned it will curb access to low-cost generic medicines.

U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman has a testy relationship with many Democrats in Congress and with many liberal policy organizations, who accuse him of making promises on key Democratic priorities and then retracting them as trade negotiations continue.

Large swaths of the Democratic Party are simply wary of free trade deals in the mode of the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement. Some studies have concluded that such deals exacerbate income inequality and depress wages. While the NAFTA and World Trade Organization treaties have helped to expand overall U.S. economic growth, many economists argue they have had substantial negative consequences for American workers.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, however, is a strong supporter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which has not yet been finalized. The pre-eminent American corporate lobbying group almost exclusively supports Republican candidates.

Trade and Income Distribution: The Debate and New Evidence

“Trade policy in particular has at times been hostage to the fears of some (including Ross Perot) that international trade and globalization are reducing living standards for American workers.

Stop TPP

Expose the TPP

Read more...

Cornel West Names Obama as 'War Criminal'

Princeton professor Cornel West says President Obama is not only "no messiah," he's a "war criminal." West, the prominent black academic and activist who has consistently been a harsh Obama critic, took issue with the White House's covert drone program, saying that "the chickens are coming home to roost." Appearing on Tavis Smiley's radio program on Thursday, West said: "We’ve been talking about this for a good while, the immorality of drones, dropping bombs on innocent people. It’s been over 200 children so far. These are war crimes.”

Expectations were very high in January 2009 when Barack Obama was inaugurated...too high. Barack Obama was/is not the world's savior. However, at the very least, the expectations were that President Obama would not carry on former President Bush's Constitution shredding and military industrial complex empowering policies. Closing Guantanamo Bay, ending the war in Afghanistan, restoring habeas corpus, reversing the power grab by the executive branch, and putting a halt to the all-encompassing "big brother" surveillance grid were just a few of his campaign promises. Yet, Guantanamo Bay remains open, habeas corpus is not even close to being restored, and the all encompassing "big brother" surveillance grid grows bigger everyday. Add to that, "kill lists", undeclared wars all over the world, an escalated drone program, his unprecedented prosecution of whistle-blowers, more Wall Street bailouts, and it's as if Bush never left office. I mean, just look as some of his cabinet choices, unaccountable/un-vetted/unconfirmed czars (often labeled as policy advisers, thus failing to fall under the Freedom of Information act, not required to testify before Congress), special advisor's, and 'officers' he has chosen to come to the White House to have direct access to him.

Just a few examples:

John Holdren, science czar, a neo-Malthusian who advocates for population control using the most extreme measures, such as mandating the number of children Americans can have. He is also a proponent of 'de-developing' the US, sending its agricultural practices and technology back to the 19th century, and suggested that infants and chronically ill elderly do not fit his definition of 'human,' and therefore can be expendable.

Timothy Geithner, and Larry Summers, both deeply involved in crafting and implementing the policies that led to the 2008 meltdown. This is when I knew we were in trouble the minute Obama appointed his economic team.

Gene Sperling, a Goldman Sachs adviser appointed head of the National Economic Council, replacing Larry Summers who made millions as the economy tanked in 2008. According to the Huffington Post, "[he] has overseen monumental deregulation of the financial sector, but has also collected hefty paychecks from its leading firms."

John Brennan to be CIA director.

"I’ve known John Brennan since 1990. I worked directly for John Brennan twice. I think that he is a terrible choice to lead the CIA. I think that it’s time for the CIA to move beyond the ugliness of the post-September 11th regime, and we need someone who is going to respect the Constitution and to not be bogged down by a legacy of torture." -- John Kiriakou

There is no doubt that the Republicans have been reprehensible from the very beginning of his presidency, but he did start out with a super majority in the Senate, not to mention, it's very clear that on many issues, such as bank bailouts, social spending austerity, war and human rights violations, Obama has been front and center, pushing the hard right agenda, which, of course, the Republicans, who love to criticize Obama, stay silent.

Is he the worst president in recent times? No, but probably the most disappointing because he seemed to embody his message of "Hope and Change." But what has really changed? The rich keep getting richer, the poor keep getting poorer, and the middle class continues to shrink. In other words, keeping the wars and the profits going.

"This White House openly brags about its “Terror Tuesday” meetings in which US special forces and drones have been dispatched to and from dozens of undisclosed countries to kidnap, torture or murder thousands of people, in the case of drone strikes mostly innocents, to the cheers and jokes of cruise missile liberals like Ed Schulz and Bill Maher, who calls Obama the “black ninja president.” The potent symbol of a black face in that high place has normalized the conduct of lawless aggressive war and secretive state murder among parts of the population which had no trouble calling a crime a crime when committed by a white Republican. In that sense, the First Black President is a little bit unlike, but mostly very much like his nefarious predecessors.

It's worth noting that in the debates between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, kill-at-will drone wars, the militarization of Africa, Wall Street's immunity from prosecution, and the push to privatize and charterize public education were points upon which both candidates were in complete agreement. But if Mitt Romney were president today wouldn't many more of us be in the street about these things? Black apologists, as Davey D notes, try to shut criticism of this president down in the misguided name of black unity, and some white activists stay home because they don't want to be seen as racist whites hating on the black president. -- Bruce A. Dixon

Read more...

Are We Living in a Post Racial America? Or, Jim Crow Junior America?

After all, as the New York Times claimed, the election of President Obama into the White House, swept "away the last racial barrier in American politics with ease as the country chose him as its first black chief executive". Really? Then, why are the African Americans suffering more than any other group of people at this time? Remember, many of the white supremacy members said they voted for Obama to send the country into a tailspin...foment a race war.  One former member, Tim Zaal, said, "The faster this country falls, the sooner white revolution will arise." 

"Could it be that the nomination of Obama finally sparks a sense of unity in white voters? I would propose that this threat of black rule may very well be the thing that finally scares some sense back into complacent whites." -- Neo-Nazi, with the pen name, "LastOfMyKind"

For instance, under Mayor Bloomberg, the NYPD’s practice of “stop and frisk” - — practice of officers stopping city residents on the street and searching them- increased to 600,000 stops performed last year. "87% of those stopped last year were black or Hispanic, a number disproportionate to their share of the population. And just 7 percent of the stops resulted in arrests, meaning the vast majority of those stopped committed no crime. The NYPD argues the practice reduces crime, but it has been coming under increasingly intense criticism in recent months".

Read more...

Read more...

Occupy Wall Street:: Astro-Turf Rallies?

Is Occupy Wall Street (OWS) the work of the Serbian contract revolution organizers, the Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies [C.A.N.V.A.S] and Otpor!? Is this the elite power structure replacing one corrupt system with another, even more corrupt system? Are they channeling the energy of a fed-up American public to nowhere? To usher in an even more destructive banking system?

The mainstream media's coverage of this "occupation", the lack of severe injury and/or fatalities, President Obama's endorsement, the lack of clear demands, and the services of a glitzy public relations firm makes it hard to believe otherwise.

Read more...

Read more...

Dr Cornel West letter to President Obama on Poor and Unemployed

Cornel West "Barack Obama Is The Black Mascot Of The Wall Street Oligarchs"

Read more...