WELCOME TO OPINIONS BASED
ON FACTS (OBOF)
&
THINGS YOU MAY HAVE MISSED (TYMHM)
YEAR THREE
Name
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Published
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OVERVIEW
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 14
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Dec
18, 2012
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 15
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Jan. 02, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 16
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Jan. 08, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 16 EXTRA
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Jan. 11, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 17
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Jan. 15, 2013
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OBOF & TYMHM
PART 18
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Jan. 22, 2013
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IN THIS
ISSUE
1.
Opening comments.
2.
My opinoin on guns.
3.
Filibuster.
4.
Obama's gamble on debit ceiling.
5.
Three (3) % cut in Social Security.
OPENING COMMENTS
I would imagine, that by now, you have
heard and seen all that you want to regarding the inauguration. Therefore, I am not going to say a lot about
it. The reviews that I have been reading
and seeing seem to think that Obama is laying down the gauntlet. I believe we are going to see a different side
of President Obama than we have seen during the past four years.
On the other hand, sometimes he makes
statements that sound like he will compromise on the big three, Medicare,
Medicaid, and Social Security.
Therefore, we all need to
watch closely as to what he says and does.
We will need to write him frequently to let him know we are supporting
him, so don't back down on the big three.
I will watch this very closely and keep you advised as to when I think
we need to get letters to him and to our Representative and Senators.
Of course, there are many other issues,
besides the big three, that we need to support him on, such as clean energy,
the problems with pipelines, relief for storm victims, reduction in the
military budget, etc. He seems to be
going in, what I think, is the right direction in appointments to his cabinet,
and that will go a long way in moving his agenda forward.
ONE MAIN THING WE NEED TO
KEEP IN MIND, IS TO ALWAYS PROVIDE SUPPORT, IN ANY MANNER YOU CAN, DIRECTED
TOWARD THE ELECTIONS IN 2014. THAT IS
GOING TO BE VERY IMPORTANT. WE MUST TAKE
BACK THE HOUSE AND STRENGTHEN OUR POSITION IN THE SENATE. SO, ANY OF YOU WHO HAVE A REPUBLICAN
REPRESENTATIVE and/or SENATORS, TRY TO GET BEHIND A DEMOCRAT IN YOUR DISTRICT
AND STATE THAT WILL WIN THOSE SEATS BACK
FOR US.
You see, I take it that any of you who
read my blog are Progressive Democrats, or you wouldn't be reading my
blog. SO, we have to start now to
recruit candidates now and start financing them now for 2014.
~~~
MY OPINOIN ON GUNS
By Floyd Bowman
Publisher
"Opinions Based On Facts"
Up to now, I have not written anything about guns. This is going to be my first and, I think, my last writing about guns.
The position of the NRA is absolutely
ridiculous and they have really gone over the line in this last ad, where they
referred to the President's daughters, and then to have the audacity, to say
that they did not mean, the President's daughters.
The statements that bugs me
the most, is when they, meaning anyone, refers to the President as a traitor,
because he has no respect for the second amendment and that he is going to take
away our guns. His plan has nothing in
it that, evenly remotely, is adverse to the second amendment. There is not one single part of his plan that
alters any part of the second amendment.
When the second amendment was passed,
there were no such arms as we have today.
There can be a number of different interpretations of the meaning behind
the phrase, "....the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not
be infringed." Personally, I don't
think they meant to bear arms to freely kill one another. Our founding fathers meant for your
protection, and for hunting for food (not hunting for a sport, as now.)
The President's plan says nothing about
taking the firearms away from what you have now. The plan fully allows for every type of
weapon you need for hunting, self-protection, and for target shooting. Those uses do not need automatic weapons with
30 to 100 rounds of ammo in a clip.
Anyone, who is in an uproar about the
President's plan, would be honest about what is in the plan all their arguments
would be gone. These high-powered rifles are made for one
purpose and one purpose only, to kill people.
~~~
Filibuster!
Thomas Magstadt
NationofChange
/ Op-Ed
Published: Tuesday 15 January 2013
At the end of 2012 we were hearing a lot of noises about
filibuster reform, remember? Noise from liberal pundits, noise in the liberal
press, noise from our newly elected insurgent liberal senators. What happened
to all the noise? The war cry is sounding more like a whimper lately.
Is the silence a signal? Is the issue dead – again? If
so, expect another season of partisan gridlock, political dysfunction, and
rising public discontent.
According to the
Supreme Court ruling in United States v. Ballin (1892),
changes to Senate rules can be made by a simple majority, but only on the first
day of each session. Like most everything that happens in Washington , D.C. America
Here's writer,
George Packer ("Senatus Decadens", The New Yorker, 1/4/13) on the very day
when what might have been – namely, the long-overdue death and joyful burial of
the filibuster – wasn't:
"Several proposals are circulating. The most
intriguing is the one introduced by Senator Jeff Merkley of Oregon (the same
Jeff Merkley who told me, back in 2010 when I was writing about the Senate, that he winces every time he hears the phrase
'world’s greatest deliberative body'”). [Senator] Merkley would simply require
filibusterers to be present on the Senate floor and speaking, just like Jimmy
Stewart or Strom Thurmond. No more waivers, no more silent filibusters, the
kind that take place multiple times every legislative week. (The Senate has
sunk so low that there’s a nostalgia for the good old days when southern
senators used to stand and read from the phone book for days on end…in order to
block civil-rights legislation.)"
That's it? That's the "most intriguing"
filibuster reform proposal being floated in the Senate? Uh huh.
Congress met on January 3 and (surprise!) the issue of
filibuster reform was conspicuously absent. But does that mean it's too late,
that 2013 is going to be a grim replay of the gridlock we've come to expect; a
permanent procedural paralysis that condemns the country to a fate "the
people" of no other self-respecting republic in the world would tolerate?
Not necessarily. Read on...
Who really gives a fig
about the Senate's rules? That's just dull procedure, right?
Wrong. For any serious deliberative body the rules of
order are the gateway – or roadblock – to policy. The U.S.
If the first day of each
new session of Congress really is the only time Senate rules can be changed it
would undeniably be the day that can make or break each and every national
election. It is (or would be) a particularly crucial day in the life of a
dysfunctional republic which will (would) continue to be dysfunctional so long
as the Senate neglects to change the most idiotic, anti-democratic rule ever to
enter the addled brain of a bibulous legislator, namely the filibuster.
Typically, on the first day the pre-existing rules of the
new session are adopted in part or in full by a simple majority vote. In other
words, rules do not automatically continue
from one session to the next. On this day, the Senate can abolish the
filibuster or place strictures on its use and abuse – what rightwing
extremists, who insist (against all logic and evidence) that a rule once made
remains in force forever, ludicrously refer to as the "nuclear
option". In Congress, however, the definition of "forever" (like
"first day") is purely a matter of political convenience, not
semantics or moral conviction, so anything and everything could change if and
when the Tea Party caucus, for example, or some other lunatic cabal takes
control.
The Democratic
majority in the Senate can abolish the filibuster at any time, but there is no
indication that so "radical" a move is being seriously considered. As
noted earlier, the insurgent position in the Senate, the one proposed by
Senator Merkley of Oregon and supported by several other self-professed
populists, including Elizabeth Warren, is to require a
filibuster-bent senator to be present and babbling in order to do so.
Present. As in not absent. In
other words, if you get elected to the U.S.
The Senate in its wisdom not only allows its members to
thwart the will of the majority with impunity but makes it super-convenient for
the heirs of Strom to obstruct the business of the most powerful legislative
body in the land. They don't even have to show up for "work" to do
it.
As things stand, a senator can prevent a proposed bill
(maybe to raise the debt ceiling or fund disaster relief for victims of
Hurricane Sandy) from coming to a vote while, say, cheating on his wife in a
secret hideaway across Key Bridge in Rosslyn or sitting in a bar in Key West.
Welcome to Fantasy Land USA
So here's where things stand. The most far-reaching change
the reformists in the Senate
can get behind is a "reform" that would require a latterday Strom
Thurmond (Mitch McConnell?) or some other Senate blowhard (Jerry Moran, Ted
Cruz, James Inhofe, among others, come to mind) to be present and blowing. You
wingnuts want to make a mockery of majority rule? You want to subvert the
election results? Sabotage the economy? Shut down the government? No problem.
But don't think you can get away with playing hooky. We're the Democrats, we
won, and we're in charge. This time around things are going to be different;
this time around if you want to walk all over us and trample on the
Constitution, fine!, but you'll have to come to Washington
It's clearly not
too late for the Senate to change the rules. The tattered old Constitution
says nothing about the filibuster. The hang-up is political, not legal.
Let's be honest: Democrats in the Senate don't want to
abolish the filibuster any more than Republicans and they're using filibuster
reform to camouflage this fact. Oh, they'd like to get some much-needed reform
bills passed; it would make them look good and help them get re-elected. But
they can imagine a time when the Republicans will be in the majority and then
what? Without the filibuster what will happen to the country? It's a scare
tactic, pure and simple.
Ask yourself this: What has happened to the country with the filibuster?
Senate Democrats would do well to consider what will
happen to them if they don't
get something done in the next two years. If they don't do right by the people
for a change (they've done quite enough for the plutocrats). If things look no
better in 2014 than they did in 2012. If they lose the next election and the
rightwing extremists who control the Republican party abolish the filibuster.
Let's send a
message to the Democrats in the Senate. Let's tell 'em this: A lot of us out
here in the real America
~~~
Why
Obama’s Gamble on the Debt Ceiling
Depends on the GOP Being More Sane Than it is
Robert Reich
NationofChange / Op-Ed
Published: Tuesday 15 January 2013
A week before his inaugural, President Obama says he
won’t negotiate with Republicans over raising the debt limit.
At an unexpected news conference on Monday he said he
won’t trade cuts in government spending in exchange for raising the borrowing
limit.
“If the goal is to
make sure that we are being responsible about our debt and our deficit - if that’s the
conversation we’re having, I’m happy to have that conversation,” Obama said.
“What I will not do is to have that negotiation with a gun at the head of the
American people.”
Well and good. But what, exactly, is the President’s
strategy when the debt ceiling has to be raised, if the GOP hasn’t relented?
He’s ruled out an end-run around the GOP.
The White House said over
the weekend that the President won’t rely on the Fourteenth Amendment, which
arguably gives him authority to raise the debt ceiling on his own.
And his Treasury Department has nixed the idea of issuing
a $1 trillion platinum coin that could be deposited with the Fed, instantly
creating more money to pay the nation’s bills.
In a pinch, the Treasury
could issue IOUs to the nation’s creditors — guarantees they’ll be paid
eventually. But there’s no indication that’s Obama’s game plan, either.
So it must be that he’s counting on public pressure —
especially from the GOP’s patrons on Wall Street and big business — to force
Republicans into submission.
That’s probably the reason for the unexpected news
conference, coming at least a month before the nation is likely to have
difficulty paying its bills.
The timing may be
right. President is riding a wave of post-election popularity. Gallup shows him with a 56 percent approval
rating, the highest in three years.
By contrast,
Republicans are in the pits. John Boehner has a 21% approval
and 60% disapproval. And Mitch McConnell’s approval is at 24%. Not even GOP
voters seem to like Republican lawmakers in Washington
And Americans remember the summer of 2011 when the GOP
held hostage the debt ceiling, bringing the nation close to a default and
resulting in a credit-rating downgrade and financial turmoil that slowed the
recovery. The haggling hurt the GOP more than it did Democrats or the
President.
But Obama’s strategy depends on there being enough sane
voices left in the GOP to influence others. That’s far from clear.
Just moments after the President’s Tuesday news
conference, McConnell called on the President to get “serious about spending,”
adding that “the debt limit is the perfect time for it.” And Boehner said “the
American people do not support raising the debt ceiling without reducing
government spending at the same time.”
The 2012 election has shaken the GOP, as have the post-fiscal
cliff polls. Yet, as I’ve noted before, the Republican Party may not care what
a majority of Americans thinks. The survival of most Republican members of
Congress depends on primary victories, not general elections — and their likely
primary competitors are more to the right than they are.
The 3 Percent Cut to Social Security, Aka the Chained CPI
Dean Baker
Published: Tuesday 15 January 2013
According to inside Washington
Of course some
people may have heard Vice President Joe Biden when he told an audience in Virginia that there would
be no cuts to Social Security if President Obama got re-elected. Biden said:
“I guarantee you, flat
guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security. I flat guarantee
you.”
But that’s the way things work in Washington
While the politics of
cutting Social Security are bad, it also doesn’t make much sense as policy. In Washington
They don’t care that we are still down more than 9
million jobs from our growth trend; deficit reduction must take priority. These
whiz kids apparently also don’t care that the cuts that have already been made
are slowing growth and costing us jobs.
If we actually did have to
reduce the deficit it’s hard to see why Social Security would be at the top of
the list. After all, the vast majority of seniors are not doing especially well
right now. Our defined benefit pension system is disappearing and 401(k)s have
not come close to filling the gap. Retirees and near retirees have lost much of
the wealth they had managed to accumulate when the collapse of the housing
bubble destroyed much of their home equity.
From a policy
standpoint it would make far more sense to tax Wall Street speculation.
Congress’ Joint Tax Committee estimated that a 0.03 percent tax on each trade
could raise almost $40 billion a year. Such a tax would also make the financial
sector more efficient by eliminating a huge volume of wasteful trading.
It also is bizarre that Social Security would even be
considered in the context of the deficit. In law and in practice it is a
separate program, financed by its own designated stream of revenue. Cutting
benefits as part of a deficit deal means that we will be making cuts to Social
Security with zero quid pro quo in the form of increased revenue. That hardly
makes sense if the point is to protect the program.
What’s more the cut in fashion in Washington
And remember those pledges not to cut benefits for those
currently retired? Oh right, no one meant that to be taken seriously.
The benefit cutters argument is another nice piece of
D.C. humor. The argument is that the current index overstates inflation.
However, there is an experimental index produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics
that shows the current index actually understates inflation for seniors.
That is just an experimental index but if the concern
really is accuracy then the obvious answer would be to construct a full index
to examine the cost of living of the elderly. But that suggestion just draws
contempt from the Social Security cutters.
In order to avoid feeling too badly about their plan to
cut Social Security, many of the cutters want to protect some programs for
low-income people. For example, Supplemental Security Income (SSI) a program
for the disabled and low-income seniors will be protected. The word is that SSI
will continue to be indexed to the current inflation index.
If we believe the claim that the chained CPI is the more
accurate measure of inflation, this is a proposal to increase SSI benefits each
year by an amount that is 0.3 percentage points more than annual rate of
inflation. That may make sense to inside Washington
The bottom line is that President Obama and many leading
Democrats are prepared to give seniors a larger hit to their income than they
gave to the over $250,000 crowd. And the whole reason it is necessary is that
the Wall Street types who wrecked the economy say so. Is everybody happy?
~~~
If the good Lord is willing and the
creek don't rise, I'll talk with
you again on Tuesday, January 29, 2013
if not sooner.
God Bless You All
&
God Bless The United States of America
Floyd
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