DREAMing Of Better Days

While Mitt Romney may have been avoiding immigration questions like the plague yesterday on CBS's "Face The Nation", many Americans are still talking about the Department of Homeland Security's official directive, announced by President Obama on Friday afternoon.

If you'd heard of the announcement at all, you may have only heard or read commentators talking about the new policy as Obama's own DREAM Act - which it really is not.

What the new policy is - in short - is a temporary easing of immigration policy towards younger undocumented immigrants, who were brought here by their parents as children and have basically grown up as Americans. These aren't new immigrants to America. They're kids who grew up here, and are now just becoming adults - young adults who aren't usually 'taking jobs from Americans' as anti-immigrant forces are crying about over their beers.

This new immigration policy isn't a "DREAM Act" - something the President stressed on Friday. It doesn't even put these immigrants-in-name-only on a path to full legal citizenship, as the initial bi-partisan DREAM Act attempted to do, or as the most recent Democratic version of the DREAM Act legislation proposed.

What the President's action does is give these young men and women a temporary reprieve, for a couple of years, so they don't have to worry about being deported. This also gives Congress time to figure out how to handle an issue they should have tackled long ago.

It was a near certainty that as soon as President Obama made his immigration announcement, the right-wing hacks and hyper-partisans would begin bashing and belittling him for it. This time, President Obama wasn't even finished giving his Rose Garden announcement when a right-wing wannabe journalist interrupted the President by shouting a biased question - one that the President did not have to answer, but did.

For now, we'll simply say that the guy who disrespected the office of the President so brazenly is an unprofessional hack - and we hope the White House Corespondent's Association bans him and his organization from the Press Corps immediately.

Other partisans followed close behind the interrupting fool - including Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who immediately claimed President Obama's actions on the immigration issue were politically motivated.

That claim is hard to see as anything other than sour grapes as the President's immigration action also mirrors closely the proposal of Florida Senator Marco Rubio, who praised the Obama plan on Friday. Further, Mr. Obama's action is supported by multiple legal scholars, including Republicans and conservatives, who say the President's action is well within the powers of his office.

This kind of bold action is exactly what many Americans - especially progressives - have been wanting to see from Obama for some time. It shows that if the Congress is not going to act, the President will, when he can.

This action may have been good policy - but it was also good politics, as it's now put Mr. Romney in a bit of a bind on the subject of immigration.

None of this back and forth will lessen the worries of the anti-immigration supporters, who continue to cry in their beers that illegals are taking over America.

It also won't solve the issue of young men and women who've never known another country other than America as their homes - and are in most ways, as American as you or I.

A Time For Visionaries

Normally, for our Friday edition, we try to publish something a bit lighter - and we certainly plan on returning to that tradition next week. That said, there are times when it's more important to look ahead, into the future, and make the hard choices now to deliver what will be needed down the road.

That's specifically the choice Warren Buffett has made recently - more than once - by investing deeply in the newspaper and media industry. Choosing to rescue important media outlets, and not let them fall down the proverbial memory hole, may not deliver the best return on investment in the short term.  However, his investors will almost certainly reap the wisdom of his decision in the future.

Buffett's actions are similar to the starkly obvious choice that was laid out for Americans on Thursday.

We can choose a President and Congressional representatives who make decisions based on incontestable facts. We can pick those who try to compromise and find a 'middle path' to get SOME of what their constituents want, rather than insisting on 'all-or-nothing' tactics. We can opt for those who don't delay or skirt their duties to the nation and its people.

Or we can choose the other option - those who boldly, offensively, and arrogantly lie to our faces; who promise all kinds of things, but give no real details on how we can achieve them; who insist they will get what they want, no matter what; and who will always put off the hard choices until sometime down the road.

Those are the two visions President Obama and Mitt Romney laid out on Thursday - and the President wasn't the one who lied, multiple times, in his address.

The President made it clear - this election will not be mostly about social issues. It will be about economic growth, jobs, and solving our long-term debt. It will be about the steaming pile of garbage Obama and the Democrats were handed from the previous administration, what they have done to help the nation recover from that "gift" - and what they've been restricted from doing, without legitimate reason, by Republicans in Congress.

It will also be about what Mr. Romney says he will do to and for this country.

In short, Mr Romney has not been specific about what, exactly, he will do. Romney has latched onto the Ryan Plan, which is filled with tax cuts and deregulation, as a model. But the Ryan Plan has few specifics - and as Mr. Obama pointed out in his speech, that's a problem, since major cuts to all kinds of things, from medical research grants to fight cancer, to education funding could be cut.

From what we do know of Romney's plans, they will not benefit most Americans. Romney has stated he wants a new $5 trillion tax cut - 70% of which would be given to those making over $200,000 a year, according to independent sources. Millionaires would get a 25% tax cut. All these tax cuts would be lumped on the back of the Bush Tax Cuts, that we already cannot afford.

Further, if Romney and the Republicans completely repealed the Affordable Care Act, 33 million Americans would lose their health care - and according to the middle-of-the-road estimate, 19 million more Americans would lose Medicaid.

While all of this was going on, one of Mr. Romney's favorite Republicans, Senator Mitch McConnell has now said Senate Republicans will sit on their asses and refuse to confirm any more Federal judges this year. This, while the military-industrial complex has begun to threaten to fire thousands just before the fall election, because Congress isn't doing anything - because the GOP-led House is on vacation. Again.

As we said previously, a starkly obvious choice was laid out before Americans on Thursday by President Obama and Mr. Romney.

We can be mature, deal with the tough issues now, and make tough compromises, while we plan and invest for the future.

Or we can lie, obfuscate, be vague, and have wealthy political donors attempt to buy the election for us now.

For our part, we'll follow the similarly wise lead of Mr. Buffett and invest for the future. We hope most Americans make the same decision.

Who's Laughing Now?

For more than four years we've been warning you about what would happen to elections in the United States, with respect to the Citizens United case. While our current online records don't go back that far, we have copies of Paul's cartoons and our commentaries in hard copies. Terrifyingly, virtually everything we and many others warned about is, sadly, coming true.

This will be the most expensive election season in history. It already has been, so far. As forecast, Wall Street and the wealthiest Americans are abandoning the pretense of donating to both major political parties, by giving to Mitt Romney and the GOP at a 7-1 rate, so far. In short, Wall Street has fully become the political Johns to the whores of the Republican Party.

Or maybe, more appropriately, Wall Street has become the puppeteer pitting the Middle Class against itself.

The latest example of this depraved behavior was the donation of $10 million on Wednesday by billionaire neo-con casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, to the Romney-affiliated 'Restore Our Future' Super PAC. If you're wondering about Mr. Adelson's specific political judgements, let us remind you that he's the same man who threw $21 million down the political rathole of the Newt Gingrich campaign during the GOP Primary races. Much of that was spent on ugly television ads, designed to cleave the center of the Republican Party from the far right.

Oh, yes. Oligarchy is alive and well in America again - and it was disgustingly evident on Capitol Hill Wednesday.

Jamie Dimon was in Washington, DC to testify - and nominally apologize - to Congress. Dimon, CEO of one of the largest financial firms in the world, JP Morgan, recently lost billions making risky bets, as we wrote about last month. Virtually every Republican on the Senate Banking Committee that Dimon was appearing in front of was expected to grovel at his feet - and they did not disappoint. The politicians at the highest levels of the GOP may be gutless and spineless, but they've long ago learned that sucking up to Wall Street - especially since Citizens United - will often get them what they want.

As Brian Beutler of TPM noted, "..with some notable exceptions, the senators themselves turned the cross-examination [of Dimon] into a coronation," with members of both parties showing deference to the latest idiot that could have destroyed the entire world economy.

Don't think the corporatism of the American political system stops there.

Mitt Romney himself, on a right-wing talk radio show on Wednesday proposed the idea that the Presidency - and in fact, all elected positions - should be treated just like the position of a CEO. If the elected official achieves his or her fiscal targets, they should get a bonus. If they don't, they wouldn't get a bonus. This idea might sound great, to some - or like an old Saturday Night Live skit to others. But what would happen when the official in charge isn't wholly responsible for meeting every goal? What if the official has to, for example, work with a legislative arm that wants them to fail - or work with private sector companies who don't care if the city, state, or country fails?

There is still one hope, oddly enough being discussed right now, probably as you're reading this, behind the doors of the U.S. Supreme Court - and courtesy of the Montana State Supreme Court.

As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg noted in February, when the Supreme Court first looked at the Montana case, “Montana’s experience, and experience elsewhere since this Court’s decision in Citizens United, make it exceedingly difficult to maintain that independent expenditures by corporations , ‘do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption.’”

The Wall Street wealthy think they've already purchased this election, at nearly every level. However, the same court that broke more than a century of precedent in Citizens United may be forced, by their own recent words, to admit their previous decision on this matter was less than just.

We'd recommend those corrupt rich folks stifle themselves for now. The last laugh may be on them, after all.