Obama’s Opportunity – possibilities and pitfalls of the next 2 months

Within hours of Obama’s reelection on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) interpreted the Obama win and Democratic victory in the Senate by declaring that the election is not a mandate for Obama’s policies and that Obama’s job now is to propose something that will pass the GOP controlled House. The next day, House Speaker John Boehner (R) declared, in conciliatory tones, that the high-income tax increases on which Obama ran and was reelected was a non-starter. Meanwhile, the “fiscal cliff” looms around the corner.  On January 1, 2013, the U.S. economy will be jolted by the convergence of the expiration … Continue reading this post

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512 Paths to the White House (Interactive Tool)

The NYTimes has an incredible interactive tool that graphically shows the paths to victory as you enter election results into the tool.  To start with, Obama has 431 paths to victory while Romney has 76 paths.  But as you select the winner/loser in each election, you see the remaining paths dwindle until a winner is certain. I’ll be using this live while watching election results.  I had put my own post together along these sames lines here, though it did not benefit from this high-graphics, interactive approach that the NYTimes has put together. Very cool!  

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Obama has reduced the deficit. Period.

We often hear (and will continue to hear) an incorrect assertion that President Obama has increased the deficit.  Mitt Romney’s own campaign website states, “Since President Obama assumed office three years ago, federal spending has accelerated at a pace without precedent in recent history.” This is a lie and based largely on counting Bush spending as Obama spending.  It has been fact checked thoroughly, but Romney and other Republican critics of Obama continue to use repeat this lie including in the first Presidential debate.  In fact, the deficit is lower in 2012 than it was when Obama took office, and once … Continue reading this post

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Obama’s Attempts at Bipartisanship: a Chronological Review

(Author’s note: This is the first in a two part series using a chronological review of media reports.  The second article will detail Republican obstructionism of most of the Obama agenda, particularly his jobs bills, a fact that refutes the criticism that Obama’s agenda – the same agenda that Republicans have blocked – has failed) We have heard the “Obama as radical partisan” canard from Republican critics since the first day of Obama’s first term, and the fog of history and rhetoric makes it difficult to objectively assess Obama’s record on bipartisanship.  Republican dogma says that Obama was the uber-partisan, … Continue reading this post

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