Ruth Marcus - Obama and Romney Exhibit Striking Similarities

The general election is shaping up as a contest between two remarkably similar men.

Not ideologically. Despite the Newt Gingrich-peddled notion that “there really is no difference” between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, the gulf in political philosophy is enormous.

Both men, left to their own devices, would occupy a centrist place within their own parties. But Obama envisions a far more muscular role for government in general and the federal government in particular. Romney’s faith is primarily — excessively, in my view — in the free market.

Still, assuming that Romney becomes the Republican nominee, the two candidates will share surprisingly similar temperaments and habits of mind. They are different from the standard-issue politician — both are more aloof than gregarious, more cerebral than impassioned.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/obama-and-romney-exhibit-striking-similarities-1328804179

Steven Thomma - Obama to Frame Re-Election Themes Tuesday in State of the Union Address

President Barack Obama delivers an election-year State of the Union address Tuesday night at a moment when the country is worried about the economy and his own prospects for re-election are mixed at best. Americans rank the economy their top concern, and domestic issues are at their highest level on their priority list in 15 years, according to one new poll Monday. At the same time, Obama continues to win the approval of less than half the country — lower than the last two presidents heading into their re-election years and similar to George H.W. Bush in 1992, the last incumbent to lose his bid for a second term. One big difference: Bush's numbers were heading down; Obama's are lackluster but stable.

Obama hopes the speech will help him frame the coming election on his terms rather than the themes heard daily from Republicans in Congress and those on the campaign trail competing for the party nomination to oppose him.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/obama-frame-re-election-themes-tuesday-state-union-address-1327422339

David Rosen - The Mass Psychology of Newt Gingrich

Are hypocrites born or made? Is false consciousness a social disease? These are among the unasked questions haunting the 2012 Republican presidential race.

The four surviving candidates are hypocrites. Mitt Romney is the guy-next-door everyman with a quarter-billion-dollars in his pocket; Rick Santorum is the blue-collar everyman who has learned to work the corporate con for self-serving ends; Ron Paul is the white everyman standing before a giant Confederate flag proclaiming that the South was right seceding from the Union; and then there is Newt Gingrich, the shameless everyman who sheds his past like a snake loses its old skin.

Gingrich is the most hypocritical presidential candidate in modern history. But the significance of his hypocrisy can only be fully appreciated in terms of his surprising Jan. 21^st primary victory in South Carolina. Approximately 40 percent of registered Republicans willingly accepting his fiction. This is the politics of false consciousness.

Read More:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/27/the-mass-psychology-of-newt-gingrich/

Steven Higgs - Rocky Anderson: “Overthrow the Dictatorship of Money”

Rocky Anderson is always deferential to Occupy Wall Street when asked about the movement, most recently in a Jan. 31 interview with the online environmental magazine Grist. Occupy has been a “very healthy thing in this country,” and there’s an “enormous convergence” between its concerns and his. But for inspiration, the Justice Party candidate points to Tahrir Square, not Zucotti Park.

“One of the great inspirations for us was what we saw in much of the Arab world, where people were intent on overthrowing their nations’ dictators,” he told Grist’s special projects editor Greg Hanscom during a wide-ranging Q&A. “… They put their lives on the line, utilizing democratized means of communication through social networking and engaging in classic grassroots organizing — and they succeeded.”

Read More:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/02/07/rocky-anderson-overthrow-the-dictatorship-of-money/

Robert Reich - The American Middle Class Is Becoming Poor, and Mitt Romney Doesn’t Realize It

January’s increase in hiring is good news, but it masks a bigger and more disturbing story – the continuing downward mobility of the American middle class.

Most of the new jobs being created are in the lower-wage sectors of the economy – hospital orderlies and nursing aides, secretaries and temporary workers, retail and restaurant. Meanwhile, millions of Americans remain working only because they’ve agreed to cuts in wages and benefits. Others are settling for jobs that pay less than the jobs they’ve lost. Entry-level manufacturing jobs are paying half what entry-level manufacturing jobs paid six years ago.

Other people are falling out of the middle class because they’ve lost their jobs, and many have also lost their homes. Almost one in three families with a mortgage is now underwater, holding their breath against imminent foreclosure.

Read More:

http://robertreich.org/post/17162027435

Emily Badger - Are Conservatives More Fearful Than Liberals?

The tone of this year’s Republican presidential primary (which now seems destined to last much longerthan Mitt Romney had been planning) seems sort of, well, fearful. One after the other, these would-be presidents have warned of looming threats — war with Iran, economic collapse, class warfare, social disintegration, illegal immigration — and have sought to position themselves as the best candidate for the job of protecting America.

Their political advisers must understand a psychological phenomenon that researchers have been studying for some time now: conservatives appear to be motivated by fear in a way that liberals are not. An expanding body of research suggests that Republicans and Democrats differ on some fundamental level in how they respond to positive and negative stimuli. A new study, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, adds even more evidence to the theory that these two groups quite literally see the world differently.

Read More:

http://www.miller-mccune.com/

Robert Reich - The Republican Myth of Obama’s “Entitlement Society”

One of the few things Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich agree on is that President Obama is turning America into “European-style welfare culture.”

In his standard stump speech Romney charges Obama with creating a nation of dependents. “Over the past three years Barack Obama has been replacing our merit-based society with an entitlement society.”

Gingrich calls Obama “the best food-stamp president in American history.” What’s their evidence? Both rely on federal budget data showing direct payments to individuals shot up by almost $600 billion, a 32 percent increase, since the start of 2009. They also point to Census data showing that 49 percent of Americans now live in homes where at least one person is collecting a federal benefit – Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, or subsidized housing. That’s up from 44 percent in 2008.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/republican-myth-obama-s-entitlement-society-1328199765

Reelection rumblings for Obama

Recent economic reports could have the Obama White House worried. All of the reports suggest the pace of economic growth is still slow, and that unemployment could rise, and not fall, by the end of the year. To make matters worse for Obama, the reports come as his likely Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, gains strength from the drubbing he gave Newt Gingrich in the Florida primary on Tuesday. 

To be sure, things aren’t all bad for the White House. Unemployment dropped all the way to 8.5 percent in December, a trajectory that recalls Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Reagan was the last U.S. president to face double-digit unemployment, but the high jobless rate fell dramatically in the final half of his first term. On Wednesday, stocks soared on a report from ADP that found private companies hired 170,000 people in January. Construction spending also rose, sending the Dow Jones up more than 100 points in the morning. 

2012 has been a good year for markets so far, despite unease over Europe. Every major index reported strong gains in January, and the rally on Wednesday continued a good year. Improving 401(k) plans might put voters in more of a mood to give Obama four more years in November. 

Read More:

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/801-economy/208171-reelection-rumblings-for-obama

Andy Borowitz - A Clarification from Mitt Romney About Poor People

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today released the following letter to the American people:

Dear American People:

Yesterday, comments I made about poor people made me look terrible.  This always seems to happen when I say what I really believe.

The fact is, I do care about poor people.  That’s because I’m poor myself, when you compare me to Mark Zuckerberg.

According to most projections, Facebook’s IPO should net Mr. Zuckerberg a personal fortune of $28 billion.  I couldn’t make a pile of dough-re-mi like that even if I fired people twenty-four hours a day.

Read More:

http://www.borowitzreport.com/2012/02/02/a-clarification-from-mitt-romney/

Robert Parry - The Ugly Words of Newt Gingrich

Most people probably think that scientists working on embryonic stem-cell research are committed to finding new treatments to help fellow human beings suffering from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, paraplegia and other terrible ailments – but not former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

To the Republican presidential hopeful, these researchers are engaged in what amounts to “the use of science to desensitive society over the killing of babies.” Just stop there for a minute. In Gingrich’s world, these researchers are using “science to desensitive society over the killing of babies.”

That comment on Saturday at a Baptist church in Winter Park, Florida, got the applause that he apparently was hoping for and maybe some votes from Christian fundamentalists who object to the experimental use of embryos, even ones destined for destruction at fertility clinics. However, in doing so, Gingrich put on display, again, his casual use of ugly language to demean fellow Americans.

Read More:

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/30/the-ugly-words-of-newt-gingrich/

John Nichols - Wisconsin Recall Drive More Popular Than GOP Presidential Candidates - Combined

America is almost four weeks into the voting stage of the Republican presidential race. The candidates are debating. The media is covering the competition 24/7, and in such minute detail that Rick Perry’s quitting of the contest was treated as news. And Republicans in three states have caucused and voted in numbers that party leaders, pundits and the talk-radio amen corner tell us are significant.

Yet at the same time, those same party leaders, pundits and radio talkers continue to dismiss the movement to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker as a false construct with little real hope of prevailing.

Fair enough, let’s compare.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/wisconsin-recall-drive-more-popular-gop-presidential-candidates-combined-1327849443

Robert Reich - Why No Responsible Democrat Should Want Newt Gingrich to Get the GOP Nomination

Republicans are worried sick about Newt Gingrich's ascendance, while Democrats are tickled pink.

Yet no responsible Democrat should be pleased at the prospect that Gingrich could get the GOP nomination. The future of America is too important to accept even a small risk of a Gingrich presidency.

The Republican worry is understandable. "The possibility of Newt Gingrich being our nominee against Barack Obama I think is essentially handling the election over to Obama," says former Minnesota Governor Tom Pawlenty, a leading GOP conservative. "I think that's shared by a lot of folks in the Republican party."

Pawlenty's views are indeed widely shared in Republican circles. "He's not a conservative -- he's an opportunist," says pundit Joe Scarborough, a member of the Republican Class of 1994 who came to Washington under Gingrich's banner. Gingrich doesn't "have the temperament, intellectual discipline or ego control to be either a successful nominee or president," says New York Republican representative Peter King, who hasn't endorsed any candidate. "Basically, Newt can't control himself."

Read More:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-No-Responsible-Democra-by-Robert-Reich-120126-841.html

Robert Reich - The State of Our Disunion

Who should have the primary strategic responsibility for making American workers globally competitive – the private sector or government? This will be a defining issue in the 2012 campaign.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama will make the case that government has a vital role. His Republican rivals disagree. Mitt Romney charges the President is putting “free enterprise on trial,” while Newt Gingrich merely fulminates about “liberal elites.”

American business won’t and can’t lead the way to more and better jobs in the United States. First, the private sector is increasingly global, with less and less stake in America. Second, it’s driven by the necessity of creating profits, not better jobs.

Read More:

http://robertreich.org/post/16360998542

Andy Kroll - How Rick Santorum Ripped Off American Veterans

Like any good presidential candidate, Rick Santorum heaps praise on America's soldiers and veterans. He's pledged [1] to "make veterans a high priority" if elected president, adding, "This is not a Republican issue, this is not a Democratic issue, it is an American issue." But as a US senator, Santorum engineered a controversial land deal that robbed the military's top veterans' home of tens of millions of dollars and worsened the deteriorating conditions at the facility.

The Armed Forces Retirement Home, which is run by the Department of Defense, bills itself as "premier home for military retirees and veterans." The facility sprawls across 272 acres high on a hill in northern Washington, DC, near the Petworth neighborhood. The nearly 600 veterans who now live there enjoy panoramic views of the city—the Washington monument and US Capitol to the south, the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception to the east. At its peak, more than 2,000 veterans of World Wars I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War lived at the Home.

Read More:

http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/01/how-rick-santorum-ripped-off-american-military-veterans

Mitt Romney’s TOP FIVE Tax Giveaways to the Rich

While much attention has focused on Mitt Romney’s own shockingly low tax rate — a 15 percent rate far lower than that paid by millions of middle class Americans, less attention has been paid to the details of his tax plan. It’s a plan that would slash taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations, while actually increasing taxes on the middle class. What’s more, as the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Michael Linden and Seth Hanlon wrote last week:

Nowhere in Romney’s 59-point economic plan does he identify a single corporate loophole or tax break he’d eliminate. 

Here’s a rundown of some of the most egregious tax loopholes and giveaways Mitt Romney preserves in his tax plan.

Read More:

http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/romney-tax-exploiter/?mobile=nc

Bush and Cheney Endorse Obama

Randy Credico channels G W Bush, Dick Cheney and Pat Robertson as they stump for Obama's reelection. Find out how Obama can realize the dreams (nightmares?) of the Republican Party. Impressions by Randy Credico, written and produced by Randy Credico and Barry Crimmins, video by Dave Channon.

Robert Fisk - The 'invented people' stand little chance

Thank goodness we don't have to hear Newt Gingrich for a while.

His statement that the Palestinians were an "invented people" marked about the lowest point in the Republican-Christian Right-Likudist/Israel relationship. So deep has this pact now become that you can deny the existence of an entire people if you want to become US president. It's time, surely, to take a look at this extraordinary movement, to remind ourselves – since US "statesmen" cannot – just what its implications really are.

When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the UN General Assembly in New York on 23 September, few noticed a quite remarkable reference in his speech. In refusing Newt's "invented" people's request for statehood, he made an extremely unpleasant remark about "the insatiable crocodile of militant Islam". But far more disturbing was this: "In 1984, when I was appointed Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, I visited the great rabbi of Lubovich. He said to me ... you'll be serving in a house of many lies ... remember that even in the darkest place, the light of a single candle can be seen far and wide."

Read More:

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-invented-people-stand-little-chance-6289516.html#

Dominique Moisi - Democracy in Distress

Is democratic time too slow to respond to crises, and too short to plan for the long term?

At a time of deepening economic and social crisis in many of the world’s rich democracies, that question is highly relevant. In Italy, for example, Prime Minister Mario Monti has the necessary and legitimate ambition to carry out comprehensive reform. He is both competent and honest, but faces a quasi-structural impediment: whereas leaders once had three years to convince voters of their policies’ benefits, they now have three hours to convince global financial markets to back their approach.

Caught between Italian legislators who, deep down, do not understand that change and markets in quest of near-immediate certainties, can Monti transcend his natural prudence and act with sufficient clarity and decisiveness?

In the United States, too, the political system is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. The political philosopher Francis Fukuyama goes so far as to say that “vetocracy” could triumph over democracy, regardless of who wins the 2012 presidential election. The separation of powers, a principle established by the US founders under the influence of philosophers such as Montesquieu, is leading today to near-paralysis.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/democracy-distress-1326636494

David Michael Green - Geriatric Obfuscating Pathology: Is The GOP Self-Destructing?

I took a busload of students to New Hampshire last week to observe the Republican primary campaign process up close and personal. 

Alright, alright, I know what you must be thinking:  “Damn, Green, you sure must be a dedicated professor to do that!”  As it happens, you’d be partly right and partly wrong.  In fact, the students are great, the trip is fun and a little unpredictable in nice way, and there really still is a wee bit of genuine candidate accountability remaining in the New Hampshire retail politics process. 

That said, however, it’s absolutely true that the field of GOP candidates is stunning in its sheer capacity for selfishness, dishonesty, and plain old meanness, and that listening to them for too long without wearing noise-cancelling headphones could surely burn off both of your ears.  It’s the political equivalent of staring at the sun, and the cult-like gaga-bots one can observe among these audiences seem to have spent quite some time doing just that.  If you know just a bit about history, just a bit about context, or just a bit about the dark arts of rhetorical legerdemain, listening to a speech by Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney will leave you wanting to pop up just about every half-sentence and loudly disclaim “That’s a lie!”, “That’s wrong!”, or “That’s complete bullshit!”  It’s a truly painful experience in that regard. 

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/17-1

Robert Reich - Free Enterprise on Trial

Mitt Romney is casting the 2012 campaign as “free enterprise on trial” – defining free enterprise as achieving success through “hard work and risking-taking.” Tea-Party favorite Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina says he’s supporting Romney because “we really need someone who understands how risk, taking risk … is the way we create jobs, create choices, expand freedom.” Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donahue, defending Romney, explains “this economy is about risk. If you don’t take risk, you can’t have success.”

Wait a minute. Who do they think are bearing the risks? Their blather about free enterprise risk-taking has it upside down. The higher you go in the economy, the easier it is to make money without taking any personal financial risk at all. The lower you go, the bigger the risks.

Wall Street has become the center of riskless free enterprise. Bankers risk other peoples’ money. If deals turn bad, they collect their fees in any event. The entire hedge-fund industry is designed to hedge bets so big investors can make money whether the price of assets they bet on rises or falls. And if the worst happens, the biggest bankers and investors now know they’ll be bailed out by taxpayers because they’re too big to fail.

Read More:

http://robertreich.org/post/15978350528