Joe the Plumber: A Republican misrepresentation of the US working class—and an alternative to him
January 27, 2009
by Robert A. Letcher, PhD
Well, after almost 2 years, the presidential election of 2008 is over. All that remains is to cheer the old president out of the White House, freshen up the place, inaugurate the new president — and exorcise Joe the Plumber from our collective consciousness. As you’ll recall, Joe is the guy who misrepresented himself as a plumber to our next President (Joe had no plumber’s license). Joe also misrepresented himself as a legitimate prospective buyer of the company where he worked (Joe had not sufficient financial resources to buy the small company). And, so, Joe misrepresented the basis for his interest in Obama’s tax proposal (Joe had not the $250 thousand-plus income that would have activated the immediately personal interest he conveyed himself as having in Obama’s tax policy).
Clearly, Joe as-is could have had some other accepted-as-legitimate reason for questioning Obama – for example, as a representative of a plumbers-oriented lobbying group or of a small-business policy think-tank, as a libertarian-leaning partisan, as a curious economics student, or simply as a responsible citizen carrying no brief. Instead, Joe chose to misrepresent himself as a plumber whom Obama’s tax proposal might dissuade from purchasing a small business. Read more
On Being “At” The Inauguration
January 26, 2009
by Robert A. Letcher, PhD
As I begin this essay, on the morning of my last full day of mourning over the choice my fellow Americans made for President in the two elections preceding the one whose winner will be inaugurated tomorrow, I find myself haltingly returning to practices that marked my life before those two elections gave us the President whose last full day this essay marks. I say “haltingly” because after eight years I feel a bit unsure whether my old practices will feel as good as I remember them, not to mention how difficult it is to think that tomorrow will actually come and the Emperor With Neither Clothes Nor Brains will actually go. Read more
A Weak Debate over “Weaknesses” in Science
January 26, 2009
by George Thomas
Newspapers all over carried a story on January 22, about the Texas Board of Education debate over one line in the official science curriculum. One side insists that Texas add verbiage about “weaknesses” in scientific theory — and of course this political issue involves evolution. The other side argues for keeping the verbiage about testing hypotheses and theories on the basis of empirical evidence.
The board, padded with Republican governor Rick Perry’s appointees, continues with fruitless squabbling over semantics. What’s conspicuously absent from this debate, as covered in the New York Times (”In Texas, a Line in the Curriculum Revives Evolution Debate”, Jan. 22), is the nature of science education itself. If well-taught, science education stresses skepticism, critical thinking, and the search for measurable evidence to support or refute hypotheses, modify and strengthen theory, and thereby advance scientific knowledge. Then, if another set of researchers can take the same question and apply similar measurable data to it, and come up with the same thing, the theory is strengthened. Read more
A GOP Nightmare - Everything they fear has come to pass. Lucky us!
January 26, 2009
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
Four days after the Inauguration, it’s clear to everyone that there’s a new sheriff in town. Obama has told the Pentagon to work on a safe way of getting the troops out of Iraq. He has ordered the Guantanamo Gulag to be closed within a year. (Yes, I would like it closed immediately, but the frightie-righties are terrified that people who have been imprisoned and abused for six years without trial or any promise of release might harbor some resentment against the scumbags responsible). He has lifted the execrable “gag order” against countries that provided abortions or American charities that aided those countries. He toughened up rules about lobbying members of his administration, putting an end to outright whorishness in the Bush White House, during which time nearly everyone in the West Wing made Monica Lewinsky look chaste. Obama has ordered an end to what was arguably America’s greatest disgrace under the Bush junta: the use of torture.
Bob Herbert of the NY Times wrote “[I]t’s called leadership. Mr. Obama has been feeding the almost desperate hunger in this country for mature leadership, for someone who is not reckless and clownish, shortsighted and self-absorbed…Mr. Obama has signaled loudly and clearly that the era of irresponsible behavior in public office is over.” Herbert noted that Obama had critics on both the left and right, and that’s certainly true. I’m strongly opposed to his plan to send another 30,000 into the quagmire of Afghanistan (Hello? The British Empire? The USSR? Big countries go to Afghanistan to die), and skeptical of his efforts to “reach across the aisle” to a pack of whiny, petulant cowards who want nothing less than their own way on everything. Read more
Guess Who’s Getting Stimulated
January 23, 2009
by Larry Sakin
All the pomp and circumstance of Barack Obama’s election to the presidency is over. Now, Mr. Obama and his administration are rolling up their sleeves getting down to the business of running the country.
Their first major initiative, the 2009 Economic Stimulus Package is now being picked apart by various House committees for a fine tuning before an early February vote. The package itself has some fine programs attached to it for working and middle class people but for the most part, it is tax giveaway to the corporations that paid for Obama’s campaign. Read more
So What Do I Do Now?
January 21, 2009
by Mary Lyon
This is a heckuva hangover. More than just the sun dawned on me on the morning
after Obama Day. I realized as I woke up following the Inauguration of Barack
Obama as the 44th President of the United States that I’m not sure how to behave
anymore.
For eight years I’ve felt like a hostage. This might as well have been a lesser
version of Gitmo from where I stood. It’s been sheer torture watching America
taking its cue from the George W. Bush way of operating and literally devolving. I’ve spent eight years gritting my teeth when a view of the White House flashed across my TV. I could never look at that view without thinking how that house had been stolen out from Al Gore and all the rest of us. I’d think about the
occupant within and find it impossible even to refer to him as President. I just couldn’t. Still can’t, if you really wanna know. He just was never The President, to me. Didn’t win fair and square the first time. The results the second time are sufficiently questionable in my mind that I couldn’t warm up to him then, either. And considering the ham-handed behavior of the bullies and goons surrounding him at all times, there was literally nothing to convince me otherwise. Read more
Text of President Barack Obama’s Inaugural Address
January 20, 2009
as prepared for delivery and released by the Presidential Inaugural Committee.
January 20, 2009
Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States:
“My fellow citizens:
I stand here today humbled by the task before us, grateful for the trust you have bestowed, mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors. I thank President Bush for his service to our nation, as well as the generosity and cooperation he has shown throughout this transition.
Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath. The words have been spoken during rising tides of prosperity and the still waters of peace. Yet, every so often the oath is taken amidst gathering clouds and raging storms. At these moments, America has carried on not simply because of the skill or vision of those in high office, but because we the people have remained faithful to the ideals of our forebears, and true to our founding documents.
So it has been. So it must be with this generation of Americans.
That we are in the midst of crisis is now well understood. Our nation is at war, against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred. Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
These are the indicators of crisis, subject to data and statistics. Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land — a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights. Read more
They’re Just Not That Into You, George
January 18, 2009
by Mary Lyon
Mr. Bush, you shouldn’t have bothered. It wouldn’t have mattered what you said on your last Thursday evening as White House occupant. I’m sure many Americans did tune in out of curiosity as to how you were going to try to talk your way out of your mess this time. You used the same familiar tricks – that right eyebrow cocking in unison with just a trace of smirk, suggesting that this is just all kinda funny and, hey, there were a few little bumps in the road but so what? Love me anyway. It didn’t work. The results, not surprisingly, were underwhelming. Thirteen minutes of “I did TOO do a good job” loaded with vague nothings, every sentence of which made you stop, scratch your head, and say “huh???”
It really made me stand back a moment and marvel. The final public address by the man departing the Oval Office, especially after eight long years there, ought to have received a bigger fanfare. For example, although we were pretty tired of Ronald Reagan too, by the end, people still made a big deal out of his finishing touches. Quite the opposite for the feckless Dubya, except maybe among the dwindling number of denial-steeped extremists who still love him, of course. I couldn’t help noting how decisively his important farewell speech sank from the top of the average evening newscast – almost faster than that US Airways jet sank out of the sky into the Hudson River. Irrelevance, anyone? Read more
It’s Showtime - The lights dim, the curtain rises…
January 18, 2009
by Bryan Zepp Jamieson
The New York Times had a poll today that strongly suggested that not only did people have high hopes that Barack Obama could lead the country out of the deep Republican mess it was in, but understood that it would take years to undo the damage, and were prepared to be patient, provided they saw evidence that Obama was moving in the right direction.
This is important because an economy – any economy – is, in the end, based on the faith of the people. The dollar is worth only what we collectively agree it is worth. Consumers base purchases on need first, and probity second. Food and shelter are necessities. So, in our spread out cities, is transportation. All else boils down to two questions: can I afford it?, and do I need it? One reason the crash of the American economy is so steep and so jarring is because much, perhaps most of it was based on people buying things they didn’t need and usually couldn’t afford. When the floor came up and hit them in the face, people stopped doing that. If the economy is to recover, people need to have faith, not just in the value of the money, but in the honesty of the banks and major companies (now sadly lacking) and the ability of government to make sure there is still food on the table and a roof over their heads until conditions improve. Read more
The Bush Administration Must Be Prosecuted (and why it will not happen)
January 17, 2009
by Anthony Wade
David Corn once wrote that George W. Bush doesn’t just lie, he mugs the truth. He assaults it. He violates it. The same can be said for the law. Bush has spent the past eight years ignoring, exploiting, and violating the law. He doesn’t just break the law, he mugs it. The amazing thing is he does it broad daylight and often brags about it. Last night he came before the American people and smirked at them about breaking the law; or as he called it – “making the tough decisions.” This is the reality disconnect Bush has always had as President. When faced with the reality that he is breaking the law, he merely renames it – recasts it in a light that makes him look like he had to because of his job. Water boarding and torturing people as policy becomes a “tough decision” he just had to make. Hey – you may disagree with me but you must agree that I made the tough decisions… Read more
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Bob's Bail Out Plan by bobl-tlm
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How Do You Like Deregulation Now? graphic politics by Dicky Neely
