Monday Open Thread [1.18.2016]
NATIONAL—NBC News/Wall Street Journal: Clinton 59, Sanders 34, O’Malley 2
NATIONAL—Economist/YouGov: Clinton 58, Sanders 33.
SOUTH CAROLINA–Augusta Chronicle: Trump 32, Cruz 18, Bush 13, Rubio 11, Carson 9, Christie 4, Kasich 3, Fiorina 3, Huckabee 2, Paul 2, Santorum 1
NATIONAL—NBC News/Wall Street Journal: Clinton 51, Trump 41 | Sanders 54, Trump 39
Frank Bruni rips off the “must we talk about Trump again?” Band-aide this week.
If your very candidacy and identity rest on your supposed talent for victory, can you survive a defeat?
Can you continue to call yourself a winner if you’ve been a loser — and if “loser” is your favorite way of closing the book on someone, your final word, the workhorse in your brimming lexicon of slurs, exiting your mouth so reflexively that it’s essentially your exhalation, your carbon dioxide: “loser,” “loser,” “loser.”
Donald Trump has a problem that the other candidates for the Republican nomination don’t…. Neither his image nor his ego leaves any room for a setback, any allowance for second place.
Ruth Marcus on how Carly Fiorina proved she can be as sexist as any man.
Carly Fiorina has dwindled to near- irrelevance in the Republican primary field, as illustrated by her demotion to the undercard debate. But Fiorina, piping up from the kiddie table Thursday, said something so calculatedly outrageous that it demands response: “Unlike another woman in this race, I actually love spending time with my husband.”
… In a campaign that has, so far, been blessedly free of sexism toward the Democratic front-runner, this was the most retro, sexist remark yet, at least where Clinton is concerned.
What’s it like to be a non-white person at a Trump Fascism Rally?
“So a person came up to me and said, ‘Aren’t you the wrong color to be here?’”
I’m white, so I never really had the experience of what it must be like to be a minority, any minority, let alone grow up with that experience as an everyday experience. Reading this article gives you an insight into how horrible that experience can be, and how evil it is reinforce that feeling through statements like that above. I really hate white people sometimes.
Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) contends that President Obama is the most “racially divisive” president since the days of slavery, BuzzFeed reports. So a Republican is blaming racism on the fact that Obama is black. That damn Obama, it’s his fault he is not white.
Politico Magazine’s “The Nation He Built” is definitely a lengthy must read for everyone, if only to understand just how much the President has accomplished in his 7 years in office so far. As I have said before, he has been the best President of my lifetime, besting Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan by far. And with his record of domestic policy changes, he rivals LBJ and could be the best President since FDR.
Over the past seven years, Americans have heard an awful lot about Barack Obama and his presidency, but the actual substance of his domestic policies and their impact on the country remain poorly understood. He has engineered quite a few quiet revolutions—and some of his louder revolutions are shaking up the status quo in quiet ways. Obama is often dinged for failing to deliver on the hope-and-change rhetoric that inspired so many voters during his ascent to the presidency. But a review of his record shows that the Obama era has produced much more sweeping change than most of his supporters or detractors realize.
It’s true that Obama failed to create the post-partisan political change he originally promised during his yes-we-can pursuit of the White House. Washington remains as hyperpartisan and broken as ever. But he also promised dramatic policy change, vowing to reinvent America’s approach to issues like health care, education, energy, climate and finance, and that promise he has kept. When you add up all the legislation from his frenetic first two years, when Democrats controlled Congress, and all the methodical executive actions from the past five years, after Republicans blocked his legislative path, this has been a BFD of a presidency, a profound course correction engineered by relentless government activism. As a candidate, Obama was often dismissed as a talker, a silver-tongued political savant with no real record of achievement. But ever since he took office during a raging economic crisis, he’s turned out to be much more of a doer, an action-oriented policy grind who has often failed to communicate what he’s done.
What he’s done is changing the way we produce and consume energy, the way doctors and hospitals treat us, the academic standards in our schools and the long-term fiscal trajectory of the nation. Gays can now serve openly in the military, insurers can no longer deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, credit card companies can no longer impose hidden fees and markets no longer believe the biggest banks are too big to fail. Solar energy installations are up nearly 2,000 percent, and carbon emissions have dropped even though the economy is growing. Even Republicans like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, who hope to succeed Obama and undo his achievements, have been complaining on the campaign trail that he’s accomplished most of his agenda.
“The change is real,” says Ron Klain, who served as Biden’s White House chief of staff, and later as Obama’s Ebola czar. “It would be nice if more people understood the change.”
Oliver Willis summarized some of those accomplishments in list form, but it is definitely not exhaustive:
1. 70 Straight Months Of Job Growth. Obama inherited an economy in massive decline, as THOUSANDS of jobs were being lost every single month. Since February of 2010, the second month of his second year, America has added jobs every month.
2. 18 Million People Got Health Insurance. The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, expanded health insurance coverage to 18 million people who didn’t have it before this president. Not a single Republican voted for it.
3. Ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell. Gays can now openly serve in the U.S. military
4. Banning The Pre-Existing Condition. Insurers can no longer deny health insurance coverage for adults and children with pre-existing conditions.
5. Tobacco Is Now Regulated By The FDA. President Clinton tried to get legislation passed that would regulate tobacco, but was unable to do so. Under President Obama, the industry that contributed so much to cancer is under government scrutiny.
6. Remade Student Loans, Helping Poor People To Go To College. The Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act was “a revolution in how America finances higher education.” The law transferred student loans from Sallie Mae and private lenders, resulting in a $36 billion expansion of Pell Grants which will send low-income undergraduates to college.
7. Hidden Credit Card Fees Are Dead. Credit card companies are no longer allowed to impose hidden fees on their customers.
8. Busted Diploma Mills. The Obama administration engineered a crackdown on unscrupulous for-profit diploma mills at a time when more and more people need alternative education venues.
9. Reduced Energy Use. A little noticed piece of regulation ruling the process behind commercial air conditioners will reduce U.S. energy use by 1 percent, all on its own.
10. Gas Prices Down, Oil Imports Down, Coal Plants Shutting Down. America’s importation of oil from foreign sources is down 60% from what it was in 2008, and a third of polluting coal plants are closing – yet gas prices have collapsed as America has gotten cleaner. U.S wind power is up 400% while 400,000 electric cars are now on our roads.
Charles Blow on the Other Obama Legacy:
[W]hatever else the president does or doesn’t do, his impact on young people of color will most likely be incalculable. … Obama is the first black President – and may well be the last, who knows – and that alone has a historical weight and impact on this generation that will play out for generations to come.
He has not been a perfect president. … But he has simply, miraculously, won the position (twice!) and successfully negotiated the space – so well, in fact, that race is tangential to his record. He has opened yet another door of possibility, erased yet another myth of inadequacy, expanded yet another plane on which children can dream.
Jonathan Alter says President Obama is going to be missed when he is gone, and he will be remembered as a good President and maybe a great one:
I had one overwhelming thought watching President Barack Obama give his final State of the Union Address:
We’re gonna miss this guy.
We’ll miss his graceful style and an undervalued record of achievement that – with a year to go — has already put him in the ranks of fine American Presidents.
Of course we won’t all miss him, but even many Republicans who despise Obama may look back with nostalgia at low inflation, low interest rates and low unemployment, with no American troops other than a smattering of Special Forces in combat abroad.
“Hours before Ted Cruz and Donald Trump were slated to appear here at a tea party gathering, Cruz unloaded on Trump, taunting him over his poll numbers and ratcheting up attacks on his conservative credibility,” Politico reports.
Said Cruz: “It seems Donald has a lot of nervous energy. It seems for whatever reason Donald doesn’t react well when he’s going down in the polls. I imagine he’s very dismayed by the latest Wall Street Journal-NBC poll that shows in a head-to-head…he’d lose to me. Knowing Donald, that’s got to drive him nuts.”
I like the belittling of the Fuhrer. Keep doing that, Cruz.
Great ad by Cruz.
