Removing The Blockage

Before you read today's commentary, if you haven't yet read, watched or listened to the President's seminal economic speech on Wednesday, do it now. If you miss the President's talk, you'll be as clueless and unable to follow our commentary today as the tea party parasites on the back of the GOP.

Contrary to snarky Beltway criticism, or the partisan bellyaching of Boehner and Republicans, Wednesday's address wasn't just the President simply laying out a similar progressive economic plan to ones he's laid out previously. In part, this is because - as many in the media still don't seem to understand - President Obama's Wednesday stop at Knox College was just the first in a series of addresses, visits, and town hall meetings, across the nation, that President Obama is going to be heavily involved in over the next eight weeks.

In short, if more of our colleagues actually understood both what the President was saying, and what he wasn't saying, then they'd deduce that President Obama's speech was more like a doctor's declaration of war - both on the GOP's parasite of tea party extremism, as well as the festering failed right-wing policy ideas like austerity and trickle-down economics. As Greg Sargent put it, Obama is going to use the bully pulpit to break the austerity curse of the GOP. Or as E.J. Dionne put it, the President is going big.

Keeping in line with our own medical imagery, you might even say President Obama is going to finally lance the monstrous boil of obstruction on the backside of the GOP that has effectively ground this nation's progress to a halt.

Obama's address was billed as a policy speech, though if policy speeches are all about details, then Ezra Klein was right when he said that the speech wasn't long on policy. Frankly, it didn't have to be. Sure, the President's six part plan is clearly laid out on the White House website. But we believe part of his real goal was to light a fire under the cowering moderate Republicans in Congress, and their too-quiet Democratic colleagues, to let them know he's got their back.

Indeed, last night in the House, that group of centrists from both parties - obviously fed up with the obstructionist methods of the right-wing tea party extremists and old-guard "leaders" from both parties - staged a near-coup, of sorts. Progressive Democrat John Conyers, and libertarian-leaning Republican Justin Amash forced a vote on an amendment that would have effectively returned the NSA's powers back to pre-9/11 levels, in the collection of phone records. There were passionate speeches from both Republicans and Democrats, and some alliances that seemed quite odd.

Ultimately, the amendment failed - but only barely, 205-217. More importantly, what the exercise may have proven to members of the House is something Republicans in the Senate have already been finding: That they have plenty of common cause with members of the other party who actually wish to govern.

Let's hope both the President and those members of Congress who truly care about the success of all Americans, succeed in the next eight weeks at dislodging the barnacle of obstructionism.

As the President obviously believes, it's time we got America - including Congress - healthy, and back to serious work.

Point Blank Stupidity

Today, President Obama is going to be giving a major speech on the economy, politics, and economic inequality at 1PM Eastern. While we'll be covering the speech - which is really a kickoff to some major actions the President is planning to take with or without Republicans in Congress - the one thing we're certain of is that the President isn't going to self-destruct politically at the podium.

That may seem an odd thing to say, if it weren't for all the other politicians recently who've effectively been blowing their own political heads clean off. The number of fools on both sides of the aisle committing this act of stupidity these days is stunning, even to our staff of experienced journalists and political scholars.

Just yesterday, the major politicians who blew themselves away include Virginia's Republican Governor Bob McDonald, Republican Rep. Steve King of Iowa, former Congressman and current Democratic New York City Mayoral candidate Anthony Weiner, and current Democratic Mayor of San Diego Bob Filner. We're not even including the North Carolina state legislature, or the GOP in general, on issues like the debt ceiling and immigration.

With all these headless political hedonists running around, you'd think that when a controversy like the recent Zimmerman/Martin case centered around a singular state-level law, most states would want to look at their own laws, and see if they too were ripe for a similar explosive legal, political, and social disaster.

That doesn't appear to be the case in Florida, or any other number of so-called 'Stand Your Ground' states.

Even after countless studies - including a fairly definitive version from Texas A&M, quoted by everyone from NPR to right-wing nutjob Glenn Beck's website 'The Blaze' - some politicians keep refusing to believe the data. Instead, they believe the propaganda pushed by groups like the NRA or ALEC, both of whom receive substantial financial backing from gun manufacturers. Often, those same politicians also benefit from NRA-related campaign donations.

That's why a growing number of artists and entertainers have decided to hit states and cities in a way politicians and residents of 'Stand Your Ground' states will likely pay attention to, whether they're personally pro-gun or anti-gun. The approach for these entertainers? An unending boycott of those 'Stand Your Ground' states.

Stars from Stevie Wonder to Madonna, and from the Rolling Stones to Usher have already cancelled concerts and appearances, costing cities and states potentially millions of dollars in lost tax revenues that won't likely be quickly or easily replaced.

While some who support the boycott lean Democratic, there are also some Republicans who deserve credit for looking at the facts and deciding 'Stand Your Ground' laws at least need a second look. Those people include Senator John McCain, who has called for a review of 'Stand Your Ground' laws nationwide, as well as Georgia's Republican Governor Nathan Deal - definitely not a long-haired hippie anti-gun politician.

No matter what your position on gun rights, the facts are clear that 'Stand Your Ground' laws should be re-evaluated in all states. The remaining question, especially if you're a politician responsible at the state level, is crystal clear: Do you really want to play the political version of Russian Roulette?

Hubris Under Glass

For our entire staff, and many others we know in the political and media worlds, the many novels of Stephen King have been, if nothing else, great entertainment over the last 30 years. One of Mr. King's more recent books, "Under the Dome," has even been made into a TV series this summer, that Nielsen watchers say has been summer ratings gold - even if the acting is less than stellar.

We honestly think Mr. King might have been able to make his disaster/sci-fi TV mini-series on a smaller budget, had he just filmed a series of documentaries about how Americans are faring under the all-too-real catastrophe of sequestration.

Yes, sequestration - the topic that makes every myopically focused, ratings addicted media executive scream in terror - is back in the news, for those who are done freaking out about the birth of the progeny of the House of Windsor.

From the military to the legal system, and from housing to Head Start, while much of the media has continued to ignore the effects of the sequester, the facts are clear that the sequester is already slamming those Americans who often work hardest and can afford these cuts the least. Meanwhile, Congress - and especially House Republicans - continue to remain safely under their own version of a dome, politically protected from most of the damage their near total incompetence has created.

Real cracks are beginning to show in parts of that dome though, as evidenced by the remarks of former U.S. Senator and current U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel on Monday, at the national convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Hagel admitted flat-out that the sequester is already destroying America's military readiness - and warned that things will get worse if Congress doesn't get off their asses and do something.

Sadly, as both Greg Sargent and Steve Benen have discussed for months now, this kind of sabotage governing - if it can be called governing at all - is about the only thing the extremist Republicans in the House will allow right now.

What's worse, as Sahil Kapur points out, in House GOP draft legislation for the 2014 budget, House Republicans are bullheadedly insisting that even more austerity cuts be made to nearly every corner of government, from the EPA, to the arts, to parks, fish and wildlife. Every corner, that is, except the ones that touch the fat asses of those who think they're protected under their own political dome.

For all those who still blame President Obama for not single-handedly rescuing the entire American economy, the fact is, President Obama can't do entirely on his own what's needed to get the American economy really humming again. That doesn't mean that he's not doing what he can, using the bully pulpit and the power of the Presidency this week to pivot the economy into the center of public discussion once again.

Congress, however - and especially the House Republican caucus - continues to remain blindingly ignorant of the fact that like Mr. King's summer mini-series, their own dome of political protection isn't going to last forever.

If members of Congress want to have something to show their constituents when they run for re-election in 2014, to prove that they can indeed govern, now would be the time for them to drop their ideological shields, in favor of very real compromise.

Will that happen? Not bloody likely.