Fox Business host Lou Dobbs pushed the extreme conspiracy theory that President Obama wants to destroy the Second Amendment as a first step in eliminating the entire Bill of Rights. But Obama has consistently voiced his support for the Second Amendment, including during the Monday press conference that Dobbs referenced on his show.There is reality; some executive orders that improve on background checks and some loopholes in the law. Then there is the fevered paranoia and lies of anti-American zealots like Lou Dobbs. Has anyone checked Dobb's birth certificate. He can't be an American. Real patriots stand up for what is best for the country and sensible gun safety regulations are just that.
During his program, Dobbs aired a partial clip of Obama saying at the press conference, "The issue here is not whether or not we believe in the Second Amendment. The issue is: Are there some sensible steps that we can take to make sure that somebody like the individual in Newtown can't walk into a school -- "
Dobbs responded by claiming that Obama is "so committed to constraining or dismissing outright our Second Amendment rights, it makes you wonder why he's not ridding the Constitution of the First Amendment as well." He later said, "You've got to wonder why the president doesn't double down in his assault on the Constitution, taking on not only the Second, but the First Amendment, the Fourth, the Fourteenth." Dobbs then suggested that the reason Obama has "begun with the Second Amendment" is because "[w]ithout our rights under the Second Amendment, removing the rest of our Bill of Rights would be a lot easier."
The context of Obama's comments clearly shows that Obama was not "dismissing outright" Second Amendment rights.
In response to a reporter's question about potential government actions to reduce gun violence, Obama said, in part, "I think that those of us who look at this problem have repeatedly said that responsible gun owners, people who have a gun for protection, for hunting, for sportsmanship, they don't have anything to worry about." He also said that he believes we can reduce gun violence "in a sensible way that comports with the Second Amendment."
And while Obama has not yet outlined specific executive actions he will take to strengthen gun laws, none of the possible executive actions reportedly offered by the Justice Department involve restrictions on weapons that law-abiding Americans may purchase.
Having succeeded in his smear campaign against UN Ambassador Susan Rice, John McCain has launched a second pre-emptive strike against another would-be Obama cabinet member, former Nebraska Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. But this time McCain's petty payback against a GOP colleague who supported Barack Obama for President in 2008 may run into tougher sledding. After all, thousands of Hagel's fellow veterans signed petition in his support last week, followed up by a Washington Post op-ed signed by a bipartisan group of former national security advisers including Brent Scowcroft. And as it turns out, back in 2006 John McCain endorsed as his ideal Middle East peace envoy another prominent Republican who opposed the Iraq surge, encouraged negotiations with Iran and riled some hardline supporters of Israel. That "smartest guy I know" was the man many neoconservatives call James "F**k the Jews" Baker.McCain's destiny is to go down in history of man who writes about honor, but has none. A man who serves the agenda of the radical right rather than an American agenda. A man so bitter over not becoming president he does not care how much he lies and smears others.
Are House Republicans – now summoned back to Washington by Speaker John Boehner — about to succumb to public pressure and save the nation from the fiscal cliff?
Don’t bet on it.
Even if Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell cooperates by not mounting a filibuster and allows the Senate to pass a bill extending the Bush tax cuts to the first $250,000 of everyone’s income, Boehner may not bring it to the House floor.
On a Thursday conference call with House Republicans he assured conservatives he was “not interested” in allowing such a vote if most House Republicans would reject the bill, according to a source on the call.
Democrats are confident that even if the nation technically goes over the cliff January 1, Boehner will bring such a bill to the floor soon after January 3 — once House Republicans have re-elected him Speaker – and it will get passed.
But this assumes Boehner and the GOP will be any more swayed by public opinion than they are now.
Public opinion is already running strongly in favor of President Obama and the Democrats, and against the GOP. In the latest CNN/ORC poll, 48 percent say they’ll blame Republicans if no deal is reached while 37 percent blame Obama. Confidence in congressional Republicans is hovering at about 30 percent; Obama is enjoying the confidence of 46 percent. And over half of all Americans think the GOP is too extreme.
Yet Republicans haven’t budged. The fact is, they may not care a hoot about the opinions of most Americans.
That’s because the national party is in disarray. Boehner isn’t worried about a challenge to his leadership; no challenger has emerged. The real issue is neither he nor anyone else is in charge of the GOP. Romney’s loss, along with the erosion of their majority in the House and Democratic gains in the Senate, has left a vacuum at the top.
House Republicans don’t run nationally. They run only in their own districts — which, because of gerrymandering, are growing even more purely Republican. Their major concern is being reelected in 2014, and their biggest potential obstacle in their way is a primary challenge from the right.
The combination of a weakened national party and more intense competition in primaries is making the Republican Party relatively impervious to national opinion.
This poses a large strategic problem for the Democrats. It could be an even bigger problem for the nation.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License
Robert Reich, one of the nation’s leading experts on work and the economy, is Chancellor’s Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. www.robertreich.org.
Fox News figures have tried to use an investigative panel's recent report on the Benghazi attack to congratulate their network on its coverage of the attack. But the report actually debunks several incorrect and misleading narratives Fox pushed about Benghazi.
On December 18, the independent Accountability Review Board, which was set up by the State Department to investigate the Benghazi attack, released their findings in a report that "sharply criticized the State Department" for oversights that led to insufficient security at the U.S. compound in Benghazi, as The New York Times reported.
During the December 19 broadcast of On The Record, host Greta Van Susteren asked Fox News contributor Sarah Palin for her thoughts on the report, and Palin answered, in part, "Kudos to Fox News for being the news outlet that stayed on top of this story. Americans deserve these answers." Van Susteren responded that she felt "some level of pride" for Fox's Benghazi coverage, because of "all the sort of heat we took from people, saying that it wasn't a story." She added, "[T]here's been a lot of resistance to my national security colleagues getting this information. So, I do take some pride with them."
Similarly, Fox contributor Kirsten Powers suggested on Special Report that the Benghazi report wasn't even necessary because of the program's coverage of the attack, saying, "Well, it's interesting that that report -- you could have known all that if you'd just watched this show. So, it's sort of funny that they had to do an investigation to figure all of that out."
In fact, the review board's report actually discredits Fox's coverage of the attack.
Fox figures spent ample time, for example, alleging that the Obama administration refused to send reinforcements to Benghazi during the attack, even going so far as to claim the administration made "a political decision not to rescue" Americans at the compound.
But the report determined there was "no evidence of any undue delays in decision making or denial of support from Washington or from the military combatant commanders," and continued, "Quite the contrary: the safe evacuation of all U.S. government personnel from Benghazi twelve hours after the initial attack ... was the result of exceptional U.S. government coordination and military response and helped save the lives of two severely wounded Americans."
Fox also hyped its "exclusive" report that requests for military back-up during the attack were twice denied "by the CIA chain of command" -- even though the CIA called Fox's claims "inaccurate" at the time. But as The Huffington Post pointed out, the Benghazi report debunks that claim. Quoting from the report, Huffington Post wrote, "[A] 'team leader' at the annex had 'decided on his own' to delay leaving the facility briefly to see if local security elements would arrive with reinforcements. After 'a brief delay,' and determining that they would not, the team leader made the decision to move some units toward the compound, the report said."
As the Washington Post's Erik Wemple noted, Fox's subsequent attempt to rebut the CIA's denial of their "exclusive" is also debunked by the report. While a FoxNews.com article claimed that "[t]rouble had been gathering for quite some time" near the compound in an attempt to cast doubt on the CIA's denial, the Benghazi report clearly showed that "[f]olks were winding down and things were quiet on the night of Sept. 11 just before the attackers descended," as Wemple wrote.
Even before the review board's report was released, Fox had been under fire for their false and misleading reporting of the events in Benghazi. Given the report's findings, Fox has no cause to take a victory lap.
News reports say the President’s proposed deal includes the “chained CPI,” which would impose drastic Social Security cuts and tax hikes for everybody but the wealthy. And HHouse Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi says that “Democrats will stick with the President," even as he capitulates to GOP tax proposals.
They should both think again.
The “chained CPI” is being offered as part of a “deficit reduction” deal, even though Social Security is forbidden from contributing to the deficit. Even if you accepted this unreasoned act, it remains morally unacceptable to reduce spending on the backs of the elderly, women, the poor, veterans, disabled Americans, and the poor.
It’s even more unethical to do it when other options available could save much more money, And it’s even worse when we see who isn’t “sharing in the sacrifice” – a list that includes hedge fund managers, Wall Street gamblers, billionaires, drug companies, defense contractors, and tax-dodging corporations.
Independent estimates say that the “chained CPI” will slash Social Security benefits by $122 billion over the next ten years. Here are eight solutions that will save more money—and really will reduce the deficit—without compromising either our ethics or our sense of fairness:
1. Close multiple loopholes in the capital gains law: $174.2 billion. (1.42x)
Lawmakers could save nearly one and a half times as much money as they’ll get from stripping seniors, the disabled, veterans, and children of their benefits—1.42 times as much, to be precise—by closing capital gains loopholes.
They include the “carried interest” loophole, which taxes hedge fund managers’ service fees at the low “investors’” rate; the ‘blended rate,’ which taxes some quick derivatives trades as if they were long-term investments; the ability to ‘gift’ capital gains to avoid taxation; a dodge for bartering capital gains; and the ability to ‘defer’ gains to future years.
A more aggressive approach—eliminating the capital gains altogether—ould yield more than $900 billion in savings, but that might affect middle-class families and seniors. By using the “chained CPI,” America’s seniors, vets, and disabled are taking a hit so that hedge fund managers can keep their loopholes.
(Source: Calculations based on figures cited by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.)
2. Refuse to compromise on the President’s $250,000 figure for increased taxation: $183 billion (1.5x)
The President’s initial tax plan—the one he and his party ran on, the one that voters endorsed—called for letting the Bush tax cuts expire for income above $250,000. That would bring in an estimated $366 billion in added revenue over the next ten years. Now, say reports, he and the Republicans will agree on a figure that’s “somewhere in the middle.”
If true, the deal’s deficit reduction impact will be reduced by $183 billion. That’s one and a half times as much as the “chained CPI” will take from seniors, the disabled, veterans, and their dependents. They’ll pay—so that people earning $250,000 and up don’t have to.
(Source: CBPP estimate, divided in half.)
3. Reduce the budget for US overseas military bases by 20 percent: $200 billion. (1.6x)
The United States maintains 702 military ‘installations’ in 63 foreign countries (it has 4,471 bases altogether), according to the Defense Department’s annual budget statement.
These figures don’t include bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re talking about our military presence in nations like Germany, South Korea, and Japan. While the total cost of these bases is kept secret, the best analysis I’ve seen estimates their ten-year cost at approximately $1 trillion.
A twenty percent cut in that budget is extremely modest under the circumstances, and would save 1.6 times as much as the “chained CPI” cut.
(Sources: US Defense Department; David Vine via Juan Cole and Tom Engelhardt.)
4. Allow the government to negotiate with drug companies: $220 billion. (1.8x)
Current law specifically forbids the government from using its negotiating power to obtain lower rates for Medicare prescriptions—even though much of the research behind the drugs involved was performed at government expense.
If we allow the government to negotiate with drug companies, that will save an estimated $220 billion. That’s 1.8 times as much money as the “chained CPI”—and it comes from the drug companies, not vulnerable Americans.
(Source: Outterson and Kesselheim, Health Affairs.)
5. Enact DoD-friendly cuts to military budget: $519 billion. (4.25x)
A defense think tank conducted an exercise to help the military prepare for the possibility of forced spending cuts under sequestration (the so-called “fiscal cliff”). It convened what it called “a series of strategic choices exercises,” using “experts from across the defense community,” in order to decide how best to cut $519 billion from defense spending cuts over ten years.
The participants were not peaceniks—most were in the defense community, while some were Congressional staffers—and the think tank’s staffed by ex-military and military-friendly consultants. Nevertheless, they were able to come up with options that seemed acceptable by balancing short-term readiness with long-term preparation.
It was a surprisingly smart exercise—and it sounds like a very good way to build consensus around defense cuts (even though that was not its intent). A project leader described the exercise as “listening to the future,” while the report itself said that “Failing to recognize and make strategic choices is effectively a form of self-sequestration.”
We can listen to our future selves, since we’ll all need Social Security some day, and say: Make these cuts. That’s better than “self-sequestering” by letting politicians cut Social Security.
(Source: “Strategic Choices: Navigating Austerity,” Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments)
6. Enact Rep. Jan Schakowsky’s ‘Fairness in Taxation Act’ for very high earners: $872.5 billion. (7.15x)
In 2011 Rep. Jan Schakowsky introduced the “Fairness in Taxation Act,” which would have created additional tax brackets for very high earners. As Rep. Schakowsky noted at the time, today’s tax structure “fails to distinguish the merely ‘well-off’ from the ‘super-duper rich.’”
The bill adds the following tax brackets:
• $1-10 million: 45%
• $10-20 million: 46%
• $20-100 million: 47%
• $100 million to $1 billion: 48%
• $1 billion and over: 49%
It also taxes capital gains and dividend income as ordinary income for those taxpayers with income over $1 million.
The very wealthy would still be paying much less than they paid under Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower, when the top rate was 91 percent. For that matter, these rates are lower than those we had under most American Presidents of the last century.
This bill brings in more than seven times the “chained CPI” savings by asking the ultra-rich to pay their fair share, instead of targeting seniors and other Americans in need.
(Sources: Rep. Jan Schakowsky; Economic Policy Institute.)
7. Eliminate corporate tax loopholes: $1.24 trillion (10x)
A 2007 Treasury Department report (prepared under President Bush) concluded that “corporate tax preferences”—that is, loopholes—resulted in lost revenue of $1,241,000,000,000 over a ten-year period.
That number looks pretty good—especially when it’s stacked up against the “chained CPI” figure of $122 billion.
If we can’t afford to honor our commitment to America’s veterans and their families, or to our seniors, or to the disabled, we sure can’t afford these corporate tax loopholes – excuse me, I meant “preferences."
(Source: United States Department of the Treasury background paper.)
8. Create a financial transactions tax for high-volume Wall Street trading: $1.8 trillion (14.75x)
And here’s our grand prize winner: A financial transaction tax like the one they’ve imposed in the United Kingdom. The UK tax rate is tiny—0.25 percent of each transaction, levied on both parties—but the overall impact is substantial.
Not only would this tax bring in substantial revenue, it would also discourage the massive volume of ultra-high-speed computer-driven transactions that have turned the stock market into both an imperceptible ‘black box’ and a real-time mega-casino operating in nanoseconds.
‘Algorithmic trading’ and other forms of Wall Street speculation don’t build economic value or encourage wise investment. Instead they’re used to drive the kinds of speculation that’s driving out smarter investments – and brought our economy to its knees in 2008.
Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research estimates that a UK-style tax would bring in $1.8 trillion over ten years. It could also lead to healthier investment—and potentially might even help prevent another crash. More than 200 economists signed a letter supporting the concept of a financial transaction tax.
So the choice is clear: Tax the folks who ruined the economy, and protect the rest of us in the process, or ask seniors, etc. to sacrifice needed benefits. Guess which one they’re leaning toward right now?
(Source: Dean Baker, “The Deficit-Reducing Potential of a Financial Speculation Tax“)
Conclusion These figures don’t even include the tax hike that the “chained CPI” will impose on all but the highest levels of income. But even without those numbers, the public already hates the idea. Confirming our interpretation of polling data yesterday, a new Washington Post poll shows that 60 percent of the people polled found the idea “unacceptable” and only 34 percent found it acceptable.
Imagine how they’ll feel when they learn that’s it coming anyway – and that it’s being used to protect hedge fund managers, Wall Street tycoons, Big Pharma, military contractors, and tax-evading corporations?
Democrats should not “stick with the President” on this one—and the President should not stick with this proposal.