Steven Thomma - Obama to Frame Re-Election Themes Tuesday in State of the Union Address

President Barack Obama delivers an election-year State of the Union address Tuesday night at a moment when the country is worried about the economy and his own prospects for re-election are mixed at best. Americans rank the economy their top concern, and domestic issues are at their highest level on their priority list in 15 years, according to one new poll Monday. At the same time, Obama continues to win the approval of less than half the country — lower than the last two presidents heading into their re-election years and similar to George H.W. Bush in 1992, the last incumbent to lose his bid for a second term. One big difference: Bush's numbers were heading down; Obama's are lackluster but stable.

Obama hopes the speech will help him frame the coming election on his terms rather than the themes heard daily from Republicans in Congress and those on the campaign trail competing for the party nomination to oppose him.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/obama-frame-re-election-themes-tuesday-state-union-address-1327422339

Dean Baker - A Competitive Dollar: The Missing Link in President Obama’s Manufacturing Agenda

In his State of the Union Address last week, President Obama announced a renewed commitment to manufacturing in the United States. While the commitment to rebuilding the country’s manufacturing base is welcome – manufacturing has historically been a source of good-paying jobs for workers without college degrees – he unfortunately left the most important item on the list off the agenda.

President Obama failed to commit himself to restoring the competitiveness of dollar as part of his agenda for bringing back manufacturing jobs. The value of the dollar really has to be front and central in any effort to restore U.S. competitiveness since it is by far the most important factor determining the relative cost of U.S. goods compared with goods produced elsewhere.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/competitive-dollar-missing-link-president-obama-s-manufacturing-agenda-1328028595

Will Allen and Ronnie Cummins - What About the State of Our Planet, Mr. President?

In his state of the union address this week, President Obama talked about the American promise - the promise that if you worked hard, you could do well enough to raise a family, own a home, send your kids to college, and put a little away for retirement.

“The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive,” he said. “No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important.”

Climate scientists might beg to differ.

Most of the President’s speech focused on economic reforms. He proposed energy reforms almost exclusively in the context of adding jobs and growing the economy.

But what good is a healthy economy on a planet too sick to sustain human life?

Read More:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/27/what-about-the-state-of-our-planet-mr-president/

Dean Baker - A Competitive Dollar: The Missing Link in President Obama’s Manufacturing Agenda

In his State of the Union Address last week, President Obama announced a renewed commitment to manufacturing in the United States. While the commitment to rebuilding the country’s manufacturing base is welcome – manufacturing has historically been a source of good-paying jobs for workers without college degrees – he unfortunately left the most important item on the list off the agenda.

President Obama failed to commit himself to restoring the competitiveness of dollar as part of his agenda for bringing back manufacturing jobs. The value of the dollar really has to be front and central in any effort to restore U.S. competitiveness since it is by far the most important factor determining the relative cost of U.S. goods compared with goods produced elsewhere.

If the dollar is 20 percent above its proper value then it is equivalent to putting a 20 percent tariff on all of our exports. If the price of U.S. made goods are 20 percent higher for people living in other countries because of an over-valued dollar, we are not going to be able to export very much.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/competitive-dollar-missing-link-president-obama-s-manufacturing-agenda-1328028595

Robert Reich - The Republican Myth of Obama’s “Entitlement Society”

One of the few things Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich agree on is that President Obama is turning America into “European-style welfare culture.”

In his standard stump speech Romney charges Obama with creating a nation of dependents. “Over the past three years Barack Obama has been replacing our merit-based society with an entitlement society.”

Gingrich calls Obama “the best food-stamp president in American history.” What’s their evidence? Both rely on federal budget data showing direct payments to individuals shot up by almost $600 billion, a 32 percent increase, since the start of 2009. They also point to Census data showing that 49 percent of Americans now live in homes where at least one person is collecting a federal benefit – Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, or subsidized housing. That’s up from 44 percent in 2008.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/republican-myth-obama-s-entitlement-society-1328199765

Reelection rumblings for Obama

Recent economic reports could have the Obama White House worried. All of the reports suggest the pace of economic growth is still slow, and that unemployment could rise, and not fall, by the end of the year. To make matters worse for Obama, the reports come as his likely Republican opponent, Mitt Romney, gains strength from the drubbing he gave Newt Gingrich in the Florida primary on Tuesday. 

To be sure, things aren’t all bad for the White House. Unemployment dropped all the way to 8.5 percent in December, a trajectory that recalls Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Reagan was the last U.S. president to face double-digit unemployment, but the high jobless rate fell dramatically in the final half of his first term. On Wednesday, stocks soared on a report from ADP that found private companies hired 170,000 people in January. Construction spending also rose, sending the Dow Jones up more than 100 points in the morning. 

2012 has been a good year for markets so far, despite unease over Europe. Every major index reported strong gains in January, and the rally on Wednesday continued a good year. Improving 401(k) plans might put voters in more of a mood to give Obama four more years in November. 

Read More:

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/801-economy/208171-reelection-rumblings-for-obama

Mahboob Khawaja - Obama's Endless Global Warfare

Politics is a fantasy – more so in the United States mass media dominated culture, a combination of pretension, willful deception, institutionalized manufactured lies and individualistic propaganda and fear mongering suspicion of the disbelief to manipulate the common folks to manage the informed herd and exploit their patriotism to serve the multiple interests of the 1% ruling few elite. Despite its ambiguous claims the liberal democracy seemed at loss to provide any sense of moral or intellectual security to the 99% masses – the political engine of the democratic legitimacy.  The well paid corporate news media networks boost the self-crafted fear of wars - the agenda for continuous struggle as if peace is endangered specie even in utopian configuration. 

The mankind lives in One World on One Planet. War waged by aggressors in one part of the planet, is a war against the whole of the mankind. Since the elected leaders faltered to deliver peace, they must be questioned for their treacherous role-play. There is no shortage of visionary, competent and intelligent people in the Western societies. Why not nominate intelligent, honest, proactive and responsible Americans rather than wasting time and opportunities on Obama, Romney and Gingrich. Perhaps, the 99% forceful voices of the people and changing fortunes of time signaling tangible shifts in thinking and political perceptions of the Western liberal democratic functionaries fearful of the unknown forces of change, time  and history will reinforce the demand to hire competent political leaders rather wasting money and efforts in electing sadistic egomaniacs persons pretending to be leaders. Those with credibility and chosen by the 99% masses could serve the interest of the people for peace, security and economic well being rather than waste money and hopes and disregard institutionalized political cynicism and bigotry - not Obama, not Mitt Romney, not Gingrich or Bush, not Cheney, not Blair – some have been fund guilty of “crimes against humanity” others are candidates in public perceptions for war crimes against humanity.

Read More:

www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28969

Gary Null's Response to President Obama's State of the Union Address

RESPONSE TO PRESIDENT OBAMA’S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS

1. Reinstate The Glass-Steagall Act.
2. Ban trading in commodities that are necessary to life:  Food, land, and water.
3. Stop trading in credit default swaps and derivatives.
4. Stop the Federal Reserve from giving any more no-interest loans to banks and corporations.
5. Declare a moratorium on home foreclosures.
6. Create a national food program to see that the 16 million hungry children in the US are fed.
7. De-ghettoize America’s program of food distribution, bypassing corporations and working directly with communities.
8. Create a program of reforestation, employing the youth to plant trees and hedge rows, and using skilled workers to repair bridges, levies, waterways and gas mains.
9. Forgive all student late fees and cap all interest on student loans at 1%.
10. Repeal the laws that prevent student loan holders from declaring bankruptcy.
11. Support senior citizens with free community hospital service and food coops.
12. Offer small businesses zero-interest loans with no repayment for 2 years providing that for each $1 million up to $5 million earned, the business hire 5 employees at a living wage of at least $20/hour.
13. Close and decommission all nuclear plants and shift investment to support geothermal, solar, and wind energy.
14. Ban all private funding of any election – take corporate money out of politics.
15. Demilitarize our forces around the world and close military bases.
16. Cease gas hydrofracking and all offshore drilling.
17. Audit the Federal Reserve, the Department of Defense, Homeland Security, and the CIA, reducing their budgets to what is actually necessary to protect America.
18. Allow all corporations that cannot be maintained to go through structured bankruptcy instead of a bailout.
19. Eliminate the entire income tax system.  Increase taxes on corporations with one payment and no deductions.  Institute a separate sales tax that states and cities implement.
20. Begin an independent audit of every bureaucracy in America.
21. Stop using the State Department to force Monsanto’s genetically engineered foods on other nations that we currently threaten with harm for resisting.
22. Ban lobbying from State and Federal offices.
23. Create a national health prevention program.
24. Include in every school curriculum in America a program on disease prevention.
25. Open up tent cities and halfway houses/camps for returning veterans.
26. Acknowledge the dangers of depleted uranium in all conflict zones where we use it, inform the public in those areas of danger, and begin a plan for its removal.
27. Include single payer health coverage under Medicare for the 55 million Americans who would qualify.
28. Disband the FDA, USDA, National Institutes of Health, CDC, National Institute of Aging, National Institute of Mental Health, and the Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.  Replace them with independent groups of scientists and oversight by lay citizen groups where any drug or food must be proven safe prior to approval.
29. Allow no money to come from any special interest groups into any Federal agency.

  30.  Examine our failed:

War on drugs

War on poverty

War on cancer

War on aids

War on obesity

War on terror

    31. Examine the overdiagnosing and drugging of our children.

Robert Scheer - Obama’s Faux Populism Sounds Like Bill Clinton

I’ll admit it: Listening to Barack Obama, I am ready to enlist in his campaign against the feed-the-rich Republicans ... until I recall that I once responded in the same way to Bill Clinton’s faux populism. And then I get angry because betrayal by the “good guys” for whom I have ended up voting has become the norm.

Yes, betrayal, because if Obama meant what he said in Tuesday’s State of the Union address about holding the financial industry responsible for its scams, why did he appoint the old Clinton crowd that had legalized those scams to the top economic posts in his administration? Why did he hire Timothy Geithner, who has turned the Treasury Department into a concierge service for Wall Street tycoons? 

Why hasn’t he pushed for a restoration of the Glass-Steagall Act, which Clinton’s deregulation reversed? Does the president really believe that the Dodd-Frank slap-on-the-wrist sellout represents “new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like this never happens again”? Can he name one single too-big-to-fail banking monstrosity that has been reduced in size on his watch instead of encouraged to grow ever larger by Treasury and Fed bailouts and interest-free money?

Read More:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/obamas_faux_populism_sounds_like_bill_clinton_20120126/

Robert Reich - The State of Our Disunion

Who should have the primary strategic responsibility for making American workers globally competitive – the private sector or government? This will be a defining issue in the 2012 campaign.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama will make the case that government has a vital role. His Republican rivals disagree. Mitt Romney charges the President is putting “free enterprise on trial,” while Newt Gingrich merely fulminates about “liberal elites.”

American business won’t and can’t lead the way to more and better jobs in the United States. First, the private sector is increasingly global, with less and less stake in America. Second, it’s driven by the necessity of creating profits, not better jobs.

Read More:

http://robertreich.org/post/16360998542