Those were the good old days when it was possible to accuse the president of playing the race card (as if racism was ever a gentlemanly card game), when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 still had some teeth, and when accusing the policeman of “acting stupidly” made Obama the butt of jokes and the target of righteous anger because he didn’t support law enforcement. The best thing we can say about that epsiode?
At least nobody was shot dead.
Little did the country know that the innocuous “Beer Summit” would be the last time that civility entered the conversation. Conservatives, and even a few liberals, thought that Obama had breached the wall of silence too quickly in his term. That he had to tread lightly and be careful because as the nation’s first African-American president, he had to stay above the fray and not remind polite society that we have a bit of a complicated history when it comes to race. And guns. And law enforcement behavior. Seems quaint, yes?
I believe that police officers, perhaps more than any other public service job, have the most difficult environment in which to work. The police have to be correct almost 100% of the time. I support effective, proactive, respectful, sometimes forceful police work. Recent events have shown, however, that many police officers, and the criminal justice systems in towns and cities across this country, have not been held accountable for their actions or have lied about what’s actually happened at traffic stops and crime scenes. This must stop.
I’m hoping that the Republican candidates in this week’s debates will address the issue and that we’ll hear more from the Democrats as well. But this needs to be done rather quickly because the real issue is trust. Right now, that level is dangerously low.
ASHLAND, NH - JULY 1: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) waits to speak at a town hall meeting at the American Legion Dupuis Cross Post 15 July 1, 2015 in Ashland, New Hampshire. Christie announced his presidential candidacy yesterday. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) – (Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)
Poor Chris Christie.
After five years of berating people on YouTube, telling teachers, members of the armed services and other assorted citizens of New Jersey who just want their voices to be heard to essentially shut up, and after creating this persona of a man who tells the facts as they are (not just as he sees them, but as the ARE), and furiously trying to cash in every available political, economic and questionable chip at his disposal, this guy can’t even poll 5% of registered Republican voters ahead of next month’s National Night Out Against Crime GOP Presidential Debate.
And he’s not even the loudest guy in the room. Donald Trump has taken care of that. And he’s still polling near or at the top of the Republican field despite having little, if any, chance at winning any of the primaries. Of course, many have said the same thing about Christie. The main difference is that Governor Christie also has a record he’s trying to run on, while Trump will make his headlines, fulminate on FOX come 8/6, then go back to making piles of money in real estate.
Meanwhile, the good governor will run on…what? The stagnant New Jersey economy? Remember that Christie thought he could buff his conservative bona-fides by cutting income taxes only to be met head-on by an economy that was still shedding jobs and a citizenry that still needed social services he had cut during his first years in office. He’s also trying to run on the idea that he hasn’t raised taxes, but if you live in the Garden State and try to access government services, you know that fees have gone through the roof from everything from new license plates to getting state certification for public jobs.
Now he’s being called to task for not approving the railroad tunnels that would have eased the congestion between New Jersey and New York, and in a week where train service was severely affected by the weather (the heat made the power lines sag, so the trains couldn’t run), the state’s media is again reminding voters what a terrible decision that was. Yes, the governor did say that the project might have cost taxpayers a lot of money, but he then took that same money and used it to fix the state’s roads so he wouldn’t have to raise the gas tax. Because Republicans cannot ever raise taxes. Even when it’s a pretty good idea. Like when gas prices are low. Like now.
Christie’s response? Absolutely laughable. He said that if he got elected president, he would push to have the tunnels built as long as all stakeholders paid an even share. Can you see the right wing GOP House approving such a measure? Neither can I. The hypocrisy is thick around here.
And if you thought Bridgegate was the only scandal in Trenton, here comes another one. It seems that a whistleblower has won his case that will force the government to unseal secret grand jury testimony alleging that Christie quashed an investigation into some of his political buddies. It’s really a small town issue, but the governor has made it into a potentially problematic case for his campaign. I’m sure the other 86 people running for the GOP nomination will remind voters of Christie’s clouds.
If he’s in the debates in August, and I’m assuming he will qualify, Christie thinks that policy will win the day. The reality is likely that he’ll get a few questions, but most of the attention will go to Bush, Rubio, Walker, Paul and Trump. Christie will be able to tell us all about how we need to slash Social Security and Medicaid, but that won’t separate him from the field.
He won’t even be the biggest big mouth in the room.
Donald Trump gestures while speaking surrounded by people whose families were victims of illegal immigrants on July 10, 2015 while meeting with the press at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, California, where some shared their stories of the loss of a loved one. The US business magnate Trump, who is running for president in the 2016 presidential elections, angered members of the Latino community with recent comments but says he will win the Latino vote. AFP PHOTO / FREDERIC J. BROWN (Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
(Photo credit should read FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images)
Remember the last couple of weeks of June, when the country seemed a bit more liberal after the Supreme Court had wondrously ruled in favor of marriage equality, the Affordable Care Act and housing? And then the Confederate flags came down?
Slap.
It didn’t happen overnight, but the country seems to have rebounded from that initial leftward-leaning stance and is now back in the throes of the Republican Party’s Krazy Nominatin’ Pizzazzle led by Donald Trump (still) and another thousand or so people who are hoping to be elected president in 2016.
Trump is not backing off his incendiary comments about John McCain’s service during the Vietnam War, doubling down on the idea that there were many uncaptured American soldiers who fought bravely for years but nobody remembers them, and chastising McCain for not only getting captured but having the temerity to be held prisoner for a long time. Trump probably thinks that if McCain was such a he-man that he should have escaped or something, rather than been tortured for real and not just because he didn’t get the skyscraper approval from the Brooklyn Borough Council. Presidential material for sure. The real test will be in the next poll of Republican voters. If Trump holds his place near the top, then the party is in worse shape than it was four years ago. Slippage will mean that, Ted Cruz notwithstanding (he refuses to criticize Trump no matter what he says), the party faithful know a fool when they see him. Or hear him. Or spot the hair coming their way.
If that wasn’t enough, it seems that support for marriage equality has slipped a bit since the end of June. On top of that, Republicans in the House have offered new laws that would exempt those people with religious or moral opposition to marriage equality from having to follow the law. I’m sure that President Obama would veto the bill, but this goes to show you that the Supreme Court can say what they want, but evidently that’s not the last word. In the end, those people who oppose and act on their opposition to marriage equality will likely be marginalized or will lose business or might even continue to succeed financially. The bias in the United States is towards more equality, not less.
The political pendulum swung left last month and is coming back to the right. That’s to be expected. How far to the right will determine how entertaining the political discussion will be between now and the first Republican debate on August 6.
In this photo taken May 20, 2015, Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., poses for a portrait before an interview with The Associated Press in Washington. For Democrats who had hoped to lure Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren into a presidential campaign, independent Sen. Bernie Sanders might be the next best thing. Sanders, who is opening his official presidential campaign Tuesday in Burlington, Vermont, aims to ignite a grassroots fire among left-leaning Democrats wary of Hillary Rodham Clinton. He is laying out an agenda in step with the party's progressive wing and compatible with Warren's platform _ reining in Wall Street banks, tackling college debt and creating a government-financed infrastructure jobs program. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Photo (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
Those of us who grew up in the era of summer reruns have had the most difficult time with both the new media and political environments. There just is no downtime anymore, what with 24-hour news cycles and the panicked reaction of the main television networks to phones, Netflix, YouTube and on-demand programming.
So it makes perfect sense that we will have a summer jammed to the gills with Donald Trump, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal, Rick Perry, Bernie Sanders and Martin O’Malley. Not that these candidates don’t have things to say, because they do. It’s just that come the fall, they’ll be off the headlines and back to being annoyances and debate fodder for the wealthier, more established name-brand candidates. It’s not fair and it certainly isn’t democratic, nor does it help the country when money determines your political life, but that’s the way it is, and has always been.
I know it’s rather gauche to put Chris Christie in with the varsity because most major publications and even dyed-in-the-wool Morris County, New Jersey Republicans are writing him off (no link; just a conversation I had with said woolen GOPer), but I’m not going to get on that train just yet. It’s true that he’s got the trifecta when it comes to negatives–a scandal, no record and a lousy personality–but the man does fight and with a frontrunner named Bush, this year is going to be a bit unpredictable on the right side of the spectrum.
Which brings me back to Donald and Bernie. Trump is blowing hot air and getting media traction for it, but it’s attention for all the wrong reasons. He’s got nothing to run on and no policy except outrage. As a matter of fact, he even makes Christie’s YouTube rants look like Bill Buckley on Firing Line (I’m trying to win the Most Obscure Reference award today. DraftKings has a daily game, you know). He’ll be off the radar by the time the first GOP debate comes around and I would be surprised if he’s even in it. Of course, if he is, then his campaign will really end there because people will see him for what he is.
Bernie Sanders is the anti-Trump; he has an actual message for the country and the far left is drinking it up because Hillary won’t dare say the same things on the campaign trail. Sanders is playing to large crowds, but again, he needs to raise money and run ads. He also needs to appeal to a larger portion of the Democratic electorate. Hillary will eventually need to fold in some of Sanders’ ideas if she hopes to keep the faithful in her corner, but I just don’t see him being a force after Iowa or New Hampshire. If anything, Clinton will be expected to win those races handily, so if Sanders is close then that will be the narrative. But a loss is a loss and money doesn’t follow losses.
Still, we should enjoy the summer fun because once the campaign turns serious, there’s no turning back.
Well, yes and no. Aren’t all presidential elections the most important election in history? It certainly feels that way, especially if you listen to the media buzz that emanates every four years. The future of the country is at stake. The direction of our foreign and domestic policies will be set by the voters in this election.
So it shall be in 2016, but this time there is some truth to the hype. We’ve just witnessed a few Supreme Court decisions that have profoundly changed the country’s political and social landscape. We are still suffering from the after-effects of the Great Recession. Race has roared back as a flashpoint issue. The world situation is critical (as it always seems to be). And by the end of this month, we’ll likely have over 20 people who’d like to run this government formally declare their intention to do so. Impressive. Or foolish.
Right now I would say that the edge in the race has to go to the Democrats, if for no other reason than they have a clear front-runner in Hillary Clinton and control of the electoral college map. The Republicans are far more split than the left and the remnants of the Tea Party are forcing some of the more moderate candidates to run farther to the right than they’d like. Of course, Bernie Sanders might have that impact on Clinton, forcing her to the left, but she has the advantage of being a known quantity for the past two decades. In addition, more of the Republican candidates are nationally known than are Martin O’Malley and Jim Webb, which means that it will be more difficult for their messages to find daylight.
The Republicans will have the burden to show that they can run the country more effectively than President Obama has during his term. The problem is that more Americans favor the Democratic position on most major issues. Most of the GOP candidates have come out against the court’s marriage equality ruling and want to enact religious freedom laws to protect those people who oppose that decision. These laws might be popular in certain states, but when Indiana tried to enact such a law in March, it met with intense opposition from the business community, the NCAA, and other groups who are committed to a diverse educational and workplace environment. Plus, moderates favor marriage equality, and the GOP will need those voters in key states if it wants to win next November. Rolling back the major civil rights issue of our day will likely be a self-inflicted wound from which the Republican Party will not likely recover.
The same is true, to a lesser extent, on the issues of health care and immigration. The American public is still split on whether the ACA is good policy, but most people want the law to be fixed, not repealed. That the Supreme Court saved the law will provide fundraising fodder for the right, but the GOP cannot afford to take health insurance away from those who already have it under the exchanges. They have floated a fix, but it would repeal the personal mandate, and that would cause havoc because those premiums are keeping the law afloat. And the health care industry is changing so rapidly because of the law that companies and hospitals would probably oppose anything that cuts into their profits or practices. Remember that the ACA was based on conservative principles. The GOP should recognize that. If they can’t find a way to fix the law, they might find that public opinion turns more to the left, and towards a public health care system that’s the dream of most Democrats.
Donald Trump notwithstanding, the Republicans have a big problem when it comes to immigration. Any candidate that echoes Mitt Romney’s “self deportation” policy in 2016 will lose badly. Marco Rubio supports an immigration plan that is more progressive than the other candidates and he’s paying for it by losing support among conservatives. One of the candidates is going to have to convince the faithful that a new immigration law is in the best interests of the party and the country. That candidate will then have chance at winning the general election.
The Democrats have their own problems because they can’t run too far away from President Obama, but they can’t be too close either. Americans like the idea of more forceful environment action, but don’t like executive orders. They want higher wages and less income inequality, but don’t want higher taxes or government regulation of the economy. And I suspect that most people don’t want the government to punish banks, as Sanders and Elizabeth Warren have advocated.
The Republicans need to present a more positive message to the country about what they’re going to do if elected, not continue to be against everything that the Democrats are for. They have to realize, as the Democrats did in the 1980s, that their policies are not connecting with enough voters for them to win a national election. This election, though, like most, will be fought on economic and security grounds. Again, the GOP is on the defensive as they are seen as the protectors of the wealthy and against spending on infrastructure, public education, and health issues. An arch conservative, like an arch liberal, will not win in 2016. Pragmatism and a vision to move us forward will.
Because this is the most important election of them all.
The same court that brought us corporations as people, unlimited political money, abortion restrictions, a step backwards in voting rights, and unequal pay has now thrown some serious bones to the left in the form of a stronger Affordable Care Act and a right to gay marriage. I’m sure that wherever they are, David Souter and Sandra Day O’Connor are smiling just as broadly as President Obama and millions of formerly marginalized United States citizens are across this land.
It just goes to show you that handicapping Supreme Court decisions based on the justices’ questions and demeanor during oral arguments is a dangerous, unpredictable sport. Remember that the Chief Justice asked only one substantial question during the health care arguments, but he surprised almost everyone by writing a rather forceful decision upholding the law. Justice Kennedy was widely seen as the bellwether on marriage equality, and he provided the fifth vote to recognize that dignity comes in many forms.
The Originalist Triplets from Different Mothers–Scalia, Thomas and Alito–certainly didn’t disappoint their right wing adherents by pointing out to us that laws should be read as written and that if marriage was a right, then why didn’t the nation recognize it until now? Never mind that the country didn’t recognize civil rights for African-Americans for over 100 years after the Civil War, and that was with an amendment specifically crafted to remedy that injustice. Justice Thomas’s career-defining quote about how slaves did not lose their dignity because the government allowed them to be enslaved was not only a jaw-dropping bit of incongruity, but also a shocking misunderstanding of what the word means.
But this is the danger of the originalist doctrine. It presumes to know exactly what the Framers meant not only in their time, but in ours. I’m no legal expert, but I’ve committed my professional life to teaching history and my reading is that those men who gathered in Philadelphia were a bit more flexible on legal interpretations than the originalists give them credit for.
Rather than be shocked at what American society has become, I think they would be pleased, perhaps even giddy, at the idea that we’ve become as multicultural, open, democratic and accepting as we are now. I would be disappointed if Madison, Washington, Hamilton or any of the others came to our century and said that we had completely misread the meaning of their words. After all, they included both the elastic clause and the ability to amend the constitution.
Meanwhile, Scalia, Thomas and Alito (and sometimes Roberts) would roll back civil rights laws and would have us believe that the Fourteenth Amendment, the one that guarantees every citizen equal protection of the law, has nothing to say about guaranteeing LGBT Americans, well, the equal protection of the law. or that four words in the health care law were meant as grenades that would blow it up rather than mechanisms to guarantee that less-well-off Americans could get affordable health care. Scalia especially seems to believe that the only rights that Americans have are the ones granted in 1787. How thoroughly regressive.
It’s worth noting that another group, Confederates, also believed they knew the true meaning of the Republic. They wanted to live in a country that allowed states to decide almost all aspects of public policy, protect slavery and Jim Crow, and to nullify federal laws they didn’t agree with. That’s why they broke away and were almost successful in creating such a country. Their loss still resonates in the south and it’s time to bring that era to a close. We shouldn’t destroy every vestige of it, but it’s past time to take down the flags and statues (and put them in museums where they belong), and to rename some streets. We’ll be a better country for it.
What history will more likely remember is the rock-solid support for humanity and progress that the four liberals–Sotomayor, Breyer, Kagan and Ruth Bader Ginsburg–continue to fight for. Their opinions were subsumed under Kennedy and Roberts, but they should rightly be proud, and thanked, for their steadfast support for the citizens of this country.
As we move forward from last week, we need to remember that many states will be required to recognize marriages, but off the alter those states can continue to discriminate based on sexual orientation and use religious belief as a hammer against full equality. I certainly support religious values, but it’s time to recognize that Biblical prohibitions that discriminate, marginalize and promote hate are…wrong.
Bu that’s a discussion for the future. Right now I’m going to buy some rainbow sherbet, kick back, and celebrate America.
Politicians can talk all they want about how changes to the American education system such as the Common Core, new testing rubrics and teacher evaluation systems will vault us into the top tiers of learned nations over the next few years, but, really, that’s not going to happen if what’s happening in Arizona and other states doesn’t get fixed.
Consider:
At least 30 states spent less per student this school year than in the year before the economic downturn began, and 14 states, including Arizona, have cut per-pupil funding by more than 10 percent over that period.
The drop is not simply a reflection of state economies still struggling to recover. Experts say politics and policy have also played a role.
Of the seven states with the deepest cuts in education from kindergarten to 12th grade, six — Arizona, Idaho, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Wisconsin — also cut income tax rates, leading to a series of vigorous protests and public disputes between lawmakers and educators that are still playing out.
The Great Recession was terrible, but that part about cutting taxes and school funding is reprehensible. There is simply no excuse to give money back to taxpayers when the schools have a library that nobody can use or that run out of supplies before the end of the school year.
But that’s not the only problem. Here in New Jersey, Governor Christie recently did an about-face and said that he no longer supports the Common Core Curriculum Standards but does support the PARCC tests that are based on…the Common Core. This neat bit of contradiction, endemic to Republican politicians, not only makes no sense; it invites testing students on skills and content that they will not learn in their classrooms. Couple this with the Governor’s previous bashing of teachers and their association, and his severe education budget cuts and you have the scary proposition of someone sitting in the Oval Office who supports testing, but not the people who will be delivering a curriculum that is yet to be determined.
Christie has good company in another soon-to-be Republican presidential candidate, Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin. Not only did he and the GOP-led legislature end collective bargaining for public employees, now he’s proposing a bill that would significantly affect tenure in public colleges and universities. That law would repeal the idea of shared governance when it comes to tenure and is best explained this way:
Shared governance gives powers to faculty, staff and students over such matters as instruction, personnel matters and student services. The shared power is not the adversarial relationship many think of, Fair said. “It’s a conversation across the different bodies to reach consensus on what is best for the institution,” she said.
And while the employment protections conveyed by tenure can seem self-serving, Compas said, that is not what it is about.
“Tenure doesn’t protect anyone who breaks university rules or doesn’t do their job. Instead, it is a cornerstone of academic freedom,” he said. “It provides protection for faculty to challenge conventional notions and present ideas that often are unpopular,” said Compas, who has tenure.
What Walker wants to do is to take tenure decisions away from the shared model and transfer authority to a state body that is–surprise!–appointed by the governor. I’m guessing that the makeup of the body will be sharply different than the people making tenure decisions now. And I can see great mischief in how it will be applied should this bill pass. Which it most likely will.
These are but three examples of how terribly education policy is made and implemented in the United States. After 2016, it could get even worse.
It’s getting a bit too easy finding contradictions and hypocritical statements in what Governor Chris Christie is saying these days. That must mean he’s running for president.
On his signature issue, pension and benefit reform, the governor went back on his promise to make a full payment for 2014, and his administration even argued in court that the 2011 reform bill is unconstitutional. These are both odd turns, but they are simply a matter of doing business under a man who shamelessly switches policy positions, excoriates those who disagree with him, and simply does what is politically expedient with no central philosophy or plan to guide him.
And through all of this hypocrisy, Christie has the nerve to say that he “tells it like it is.” As a keen observer of national and state politics, I can say with 100% confidence that people who rely on that phrase do not tell it anything near what it is and are, in fact, blowhards who like to hear themselves talk.
The latest example of Christie’s flip-flop road show occurred this week on the issue of the Common Core educational standards. Two years ago, the governor was all for the national standards and agreed with President Obama that the country would be better off with benchmarks on which all states could be evaluated. He even said that this issue should not be politicized.
“I have grave concerns about the way this has been done, especially the way the Obama administration has tried to implement it through tying federal funding to these things. And that changes the entire nature of it, from what was initially supposed to be voluntary type system and states could decide on their own to now having federal money tied to it in ways that really, really give me grave concerns. “So we’re in the midst of re-examination of it in New Jersey….It is something I’m very concerned about, because in the end education needs to be a local issue.”
Yes, he even used the word “grave” twice. This is a man who is definitely running for president.
The problem is that he is mistrusted among the conservatives who will decide two of the first three Republican popularity tests, Iowa and South Carolina, and is mistrusted in New Hampshire, the third test, because he has no record to run on. In fact, he’s running fourth among the early names being bandied about for the GOP nod, which wouldn’t be terrible, except that two of the four ahead of him, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, are competing for the same voters as Christie is. He’s going to have to muscle past those two, and they don’t have the scandals and YouTube rantings that he does. I would never count Christie out, but pandering to the right is not the road that “tell it like it is” Chris wants to navigate.
This also comes on the heels of a poll in New Jersey that shows the governor’s popularity and approval ratings at their four year lows. That’s not the political environment in which you’d like to start a national run, but that’s what the man has done since being reelected rather emphatically in November 2013. For a politician who says he knows how to safeguard public money, he sure has spent and wasted a great deal of political capital.
If Christie really wanted to reverse himself, I’d rather it be that he decides next week to build the third rail tunnel under the Hudson River. Or by fully funding public education. Those would definitely show that he knows how to tell it like it is. I’m not holding my breath, though.
My apologies if the image of Chris Christie in a swimsuit finds you eating a meal while reading this. It’s one of the hardships of the blogging trade, I know.
As mid-January hurries into late-January (a month of Mondays if there ever was one), we find ourselves confronted with news from the right side of the political spectrum as Hillary Clinton and any other would-be Democrats are seemingly taking the month off.
The big news, as usual, comes from New Jersey where the main question revolves around whether the Governor’s actions in Dallas last weekend dealt a fatal blow to his presidential hopes. The thinking is that Christie’s awkward embrace of Cowboy’s owner Jerry Jones while wearing an orange sweater, was akin to Michael Dukakis in a tank or Howard Dean screaming. That is, an unpresidential image so egregious that it renders a candidate unelectable. My sense is that, no, this did not end Christie’s run before it began (and it will begin later this month), but it did project Christie as the wanna-be he clearly is. And it also reinforces the notion that the man just doesn’t think before he acts sometimes. He believes that he is always right and his aides reinforce that daily. The Dallas escapade might not be the end, but it presages another event that will hurt him sometime down the road. Bank on that.
More bigger than Christie, though, is the news that Mitt Romney is strongly considering a third run for the White House. This would be a very bad idea because third time candidates tend to become parodies and, then, national jokes.
William Jennings Bryan ran for the Democratic nomination four times in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, matching the Buffalo Bills for important national losses. Bryan, though, will always be remembered for his Cross of Gold speech, where he attempted to tie the business-friendly Republicans to a policy that would increase the suffering of the lower classes at the expense of the wealthy. Sound familiar? Today, Romney would more likely make a speech saying that a Cross of Gold would be a sound investment.
Even Teddy Roosevelt lost some luster when he ran for a third time in 1912, but he had the extra added legitimacy of having previously been president for almost eight years, and for being a firm advocate for responsible corporate behavior and for his solid conservation record. You know those national parks that Romney wants to open for drilling, exploration and timber? Roosevelt made them happen. Romney can only dream of that kind of influence, even if he does manage to get out of the primaries. Which he won’t.
And finally, there’s Jeb Bush, who apparently is evolving as we speak. And for someone whose view on evolution is somewhat suspect, it’s refreshing to read that:
“There is an evolution in temperament and an evolution in judgment and an evolution in wisdom — and there is an evolution in his respect for others’ point of view,” said Al Cardenas, a longtime friend who insisted that Mr. Bush had “not changed his conservative values.”
Perhaps by the end of the campaign, Mr. Bush will evolve into a Democrat. OK, OK, I know, but a fella can dream, can’t he?
So there you have it: the early mid-January political report. By the end of the month I would suspect that Mitt and Chris will join Jeb in the money-raising competition and then they’ll all jump head first into the campaign sometime after the Supreme Court affirms the Affordable Care Act.
It took about 35 years, but the Republican Party is just where it wants to be. They have a Congressional majority and are flush with the optimism of a political movement that they believe has broad popular support. They are looking forward to perhaps winning the presidency in 2016 and finally being able to implement the agenda that Ronald Reagan gave voice to in 1980. Democrats are supposed to be on the run. President Obama is spent.
It’s a nice tale, this one. The problem is that it’s full of inaccurate assumptions and leaves out the fact that the Republican Party is split and the far right has so far given no indication that they are in any mood to compromise. They will pass bills and send them to the president, and he will veto most of them. Obama will propose legislation that the Congress will not consider. In many ways, the gridlock will continue.
But there is cause for optimism on both sides. The GOP knows that they will be burnt toast in 2016 if they can’t pass some kind of immigration bill that allows people to stay in this country with their families. They also know that they are on the wrong side of history when it comes to marriage equality and that very soon most southern states will be forced to recognize all marriages performed in other states. After all, this is the party that wants government out of people’s lives and wants United States citizens to be free to follow the lives that they choose to live.
On health care, the Republicans will vote one more time, probably within a week or so, to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Then they will need to get serious about how they would implement health care without taking it away from the approximately 10 million people who’ve bought it on the exchanges or qualified for it under the expanded Medicaid program. It is true that the party could wait until the Supreme Court rules in June on whether people who bought policies on the federal exchange qualify for subsidies, but I believe that they will be disappointed. Supreme Court justices read the news and they know that denying people subsidies would cause a mammoth disruption in the lives of millions of people. John Roberts will once again come to President Obama’s rescue and provide the fifth vote to uphold the law.
Democrats have essentially lost the fracking debate because not enough people are having their tap water catch fire to offset the millions of people who are now paying $2.00 for unleaded gasoline. Yes, Governor Cuomo outlawed fracking in New York State last year, but that will mean that upstate will remain an economic wasteland for years to come, but at least will have casinos so people with little money can lose it on their own rather than having to pay higher taxes.
The low gas prices will also make the XL Pipeline a moot point. There is little need now to push for more oil when oil producing states will be experiencing budget crises over the next year or so. If anything, many Republican lawmakers will need to hope that gas prices moderate a bit so they can pay for the services their constituents sorely need. That was a joke, by the way. In the end, though, low gas prices will provide a nice boost to the economy and another boost to American foreign policy, which will see much more pain for Russia, Iran and Venezuela.
What the GOP cannot argue, thought, is that much of this optimism and hope will greatly help President Obama. The economy is already improving and having people spend less on gas will help it more. Does the right believe that people will give the president no credit? If Russia and Iran have to pull back their dastardly initiatives because of falling revenue, does the GOP believe that they will get credit for that? Of course not. The president gets the blame when things go wrong and the credit when things go right, and an expanding economy is the number one issue on most Americans’ minds.
Perhaps this is the moment when both parties realize that they do need to work together if they want to achieve anything, and activists on both sides will need to recognize that they will have to give something up in order for legislation to move forward. I can confidently say that there will be no broad tax cut this year, nor will an immigration bill contain a path to citizenship. There will be no carbon tax or an increase in the gasoline tax. The Common Core is not going away. Neither is Social Security or Medicare.
Our country was born of compromise. It’s the only way we will move forward.
Is it just me, or does it still not feel like the holidays yet? Perhaps the warmish, wet weather we’ve had here in the Northeast is partly to blame, or maybe it’s that the calendar has jammed the buying season into one less week this year because of a late Thanksgiving. Yes, yes, Chanukah, for once, is neither early nor late, which is rare for a Jewish holiday, but I think there’s something more than this going on in the country that’s partly clouding the season.
We have other things on our minds. Ferguson. Staten Island. ISIS. Oil prices. Wages. Equality issues relating to gender, age, sexual preference and orientation. Supreme Court arguments over worker disability rights and whether someone can post noxious, threatening dreck on Facebook, call it rap, and never mind the effect on the intended target. Even sports won’t let us relax and enjoy, what with players being suspended, unsuspended, arrested, concussed and, heaven forbid, involved in some of the aforementioned social issues. Why can’t they just be like Mike and play the game?
It seems as if the country is a bit more serious than normal this holiday season, weighing the price of our freedoms against the responsibilities that come with them. We’re looking at race and wondering why we still have problems and why whites and African-Americans still have such differing perspectives on how they are treated by police, the courts, storekeepers and mall security. We’re looking at income inequality and wondering why companies that make billions can’t lead by example and pay workers what they are worth, which is a wage that allows them to live a decent life. We’re looking at who is an American and how we can make sure that people who live here and contribute to their families and communities can stay here without the fear that the government is going to deport them because of a long-ago action. In short, we’re looking at justice and trying to make sure that everyone gets it because more than any other freedom afforded us, justice must be applied equally at all times.
In the end, I think this makes us stronger, and makes the season of giving that much more important. When we discuss, protest and even engage in some civil disobedience, we are reminded that we have given ourselves the greatest gifts of all: to live in a free society where we can air our concerns and make others realize that many groups in the United States are uncomfortable and unwealthy and insecure, and that each of us is responsible to make sure that every citizen is safe. That way, we can give other gifts, the material ones, knowing that we have done our part to make this a better country. The holidays we are about to celebrate are religious, but we need to remember that our national religion is democracy, and as such, we must all practice it.
So although it might not feel like the holidays just yet, I’m a little more optimistic that this season will see us do more good for ourselves and our neighbors.
The formation is referred to as a
Fallstreak Hole. It happens when ice particles form in a section of clouds, causing that section to fall below the surface if the rest of the cloud.
But for some residents in the Gippsland area of Victoria, the strange formation had people thinking the rapture was about to happen.
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