My First Obama Rally (w/Brown & Boxer at USC)!

I don't get out much. Not because I don't want to, but because I don't have a operational vehicle of my own and haven't had one for years. I often work from home, and when I do go out it's either to the office or grocery shopping with the wife. For me this was big deal, a great big F-ing deal - and I'll remember it for a long time.

Video of Rally Via C-Span.

I went with my 60 70 year-old mom, who is a die-hard Obama supporter so obsessive she records as many of his television appearances as she can (and is actually a bit obsessive and hoarder-ish about it) but such is the intensity that Obama has inspired in many, particularly those of her generation - who grew up in the Jim Crow South and never thought they'd live to see a Black President.

Stop Freaking Out: Obama Always Promised to Cut Deficit Spending

And addressing deficit spending is exactly what he's doing with the "Sending Freeze". Frankly based on what was described yesterday by Jared Bernstein on Rachel Maddow, it's not really a "freeze" if the Stimulus and other job generating elements of the budget are exempt.



Let's all recall the Obama originally pledged to cut the Federal Deficit in Half by the end of his first term.

Obama also promised to cut the federal budget deficit by more than half in his first term. That now appears unlikely, given the spending on the stimulus and the billions of dollars spent on bank and auto company bailouts. The 2009 federal budget deficit hit a record $1.42 trillion, and the red ink in the first two months of fiscal 2010 was nearly 6 percent higher than the same period in 2009.

So what he's supposed to be unveiling tomorrow is actually a considerable walk-back from his original goal. Plua what he's being criticized for - "Hooverism" - isn't what's happening.

Time and time again Bernstein explains that this is really about reseting priorities with some items cut and other items increased in a deficit neutral manner, with the exception of Economic Stimulus, Education, Homeland Security & Defense.

Here's his first try:

BERNSTEIN: Well, first of all, not in the middle, because we‘re talking about a freeze that would take effect in 2011.

But I think the important thing, Rachel, that your comments didn‘t get to is that we‘re not talking about an across-the-board freeze. That entitles this president to comb through the budget and find policies that help to create jobs and boost the middle class—like the policies we announced today which is what I was going to talk about anyway here—and to cut back on spending on the wasteful stuff, stuff that accumulates over the years that Congress has a very hard time pulling back on, that the lobbyists love. So, we‘re talking about boosting the spending that helps the middle-class pushing back on the special interests.

So, for example, today, we talked about a set of programs that will be in the State of the Union, that will be in this budget, the very budget we‘re talking about—programs that nearly double the child care tax credit for middle class families, cutting much higher into the middle class than the current policy, retirement security policies, policies that help students facing burdensome debt from college loans, policies that help with elder care. All of those are policies that can be boosted while this freeze is pulling back on some of the wasteful stuff that is nothing to do with jobs in the middle class.

Then he tried again....

BERNSTEIN: What I‘m saying is that, that is an aggregate freeze but it‘s not an across-the-board freeze.

Let me explain what I mean. If you have an across-the-board freeze, you say, OK, folks. Every agency, everything goes down by 3 percent, end of story. It‘s real simple.

That‘s not what this is. Some things will go down. Some things will go up. More things will go down than will go up. That‘s how you achieve some of the deficit savings.

Now, on the other—there‘s also a bunch of emergency spending that‘s outside of this freeze. The Recovery Act will continue to create employment. By the way, that‘s one of the other things I wanted to talk to you about because I know you get this.

The Recovery Act saved or created 2 million jobs so far, on track to create or save another 1.5 million before it‘s done. That‘s going to be in effect, of course, the rest of this year and in 2011 as well. This freeze won‘t affect that at all.

New jobs initiatives that the president will be outlining in the State of the Union—those will also be accommodated under this program.

So, we‘re going to really shift our focus here to stuff that works and

to help stabilize what is truly a long-term, unsustainable budget picture,

by squeezing stuff that doesn‘t help.

That's didn't work either... so he tried a third time.

MADDOW: I have to tell you, it sounds completely, completely insane.

BERNSTEIN: Two hundred and fifty billion over 10 years, but—by the way, I think it‘s wrong that we‘re not talking about additional programs to foster job growth.

The president, last month, talked about new jobs initiatives in areas of clean energy investment, building on some of the successes of the Recovery Act that you mentioned, but also considerable deep investments in clean energy, manufacturing for example, here in the United States, building the components of the new clean energy economy, education spending. The president talked about some favorable tax policies for small businesses. That‘s very much part of this targeted jobs agenda that you‘ll hear more about on Wednesday night and infrastructure spending—and, by the way, to that the president attached a number $50 billion.

So, we‘re talking about some serious investments in job growth to boost the middle class and I would again remind you about a set of announcements the president and vice president made today in the area of child care, elder care, student lending, retirement security, all part of new initiatives or expanded initiatives that you‘ll hear going forward—totally consistent with the freeze we‘re talking about.

The President is NOT going to be putting the brakes on job growth while attempted to implement a responsible budget.

I quoting so extensively because obviously Rachel wasn't listening, neither was Keith based on his program today which just completed.

Meanwhile Paul Krugman is freaking out. Robert Reich is freaking out - and somehow forgetting that when he was Secretary of Labor President Clinton cut the budget, cut deficit spending and reduced the overall Federal Workforce by an average of about 12% - and the Economy did pretty well during that time.

According to the tables current online at the OMB when President Obama came into office the Federal Budget Deficit was $1.8 Trillion, yet as of the start of this year the Budget Deficit for 2010 is - TADA - $1.2 Trillion which is a $600 Billion reduction.

The projection for 2011 is $900 Billion, and the 2012 projection is $575 Billion. That would be a more than a 50% reduction in the deficit over that time, pretty much what Obama said he was going to do. The primary reason for this deficit reduction isn't so much that President Obama has implemented a lot of spending cuts - the fact is that TARP, which alone was reason for about 30% of the huge 2009 deficit, has largely been Paid Back.

The government got $68 billion Wednesday from 10 financial firms eager to escape the curbs that came with taxpayer-funded capital infusions.

Repayment of the bailout cash J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and the other companies got under the Troubled Asset Relief Program essentially leaves them on their own to wrestle with the recession and financial crisis. Some firms said they plan to immediately start the tricky task of negotiating to repurchase warrants that the government received in return for the infusions.

Also the end of 2010 is when the Bush Tax Cuts Finally Expire injecting a huge amount of cash back into the Federal System and putting us back on track to the Balance Budget we had when Bush first came into Office.

Let's also recall that Obama still has about $300 Billion of TARP funds still under his belt which he can put forward toward direct SBA Loans, as well as Small and Community Banks to help small Business grow and hire more people. And not nearly all of the Stimulus has been spent yet - so it's not like the White House is putting on the spending breaks, their simply reseting their priorities.

It's not an issue of Big Government Vs Small Government, it's Dumb Government vs Smart Government.

So calm down.

Vyan

Born in the U.S.A! - Taking Down the Birthers Piece by Piece

Crossposte from Dailkos

Ok, this Birther - Barack is a Foreigner - stuff has jus plain gotten completely out of hand, now that 10 members of the house have actually proposed legislation to compell any future Presidential Candidates to prove that they are a natural citizen, as if their opponents wouldn't jump up and down all over any such allegations if they were legitimate?



If you have had, as I have, or expect to have an argument with a "Birther" - particularly since this has clearly moved from mere "conspiracy Theory" to an issue of potential legislation being driving by Repubs - IMO you need to read this diary.

Just to back Matthews up a bit here's a video from Cenk at Young Turks that goes much further into tearing this issue apart by using FactCheck.org to analyze Obama's documentation in detail.



As Cenk shows Factcheck goes through each and eery claim that the presented documentation is not authentic using the following close up pics to make his point.

Copy Provided by Obama


Showing the Folds.


Signature on the Back


The Raised Seal


Close Up of City of Birth


Unredacted Certification Number


Birth Announcement from Local Honolulu Paper filed by Obama's Grand Parents

Now, the funny thing about this, and the thing that keeps the Birthers coming back even when you do display all the above - as Matthews, Cenk and Fact Check do - is the fact this this document really isn't Obama's Birth Certificate.

Hey, stop throwing rocks... I'm serious.

No, I'm not supporting a Conspiracy Theory on Dkos - that would be a TOS violation, I'm just saying. as Yoda would - There is Another.

This document is Obama's "Certification of Live Birth", it is essentially the "Short Form" of his certificate and most states including Hawaii have another longer form which includes details such as Birth Weight, possibly even a footprint and such to help confirm the identity of the child. (Y'know the stuff that Identity Theft is made of...?)

Here's what Fact Check Says about it.

The document is a "certification of birth," also known as a short-form birth certificate. The long form is drawn up by the hospital and includes additional information such as birth weight and parents' hometowns. The short form is printed by the state and draws from a database with fewer details. The Hawaii Department of Health's birth record request form does not give the option to request a photocopy of your long-form birth certificate, but their short form has enough information to be acceptable to the State Department. We tried to ask the Hawaii DOH why they only offer the short form, among other questions, but they have not given a response.

What all these Birther as clamoring for - Is the Long Form, not this one.

They argue, that they've found examples of foreign citizens who've managed to forge the short form and therefore the ability to commit such a forgery automatically de-legitimizes the form supplied by Obama. It's sort of saying that simply because someone can counterfeit a $20 Bill, every other $20 is therefore invalid.

Yeah, Right - Ok....

The problem that they have, and the answer to FactChecks unanswered question about the Long Form, is that the Short Form is all that All You Need to Prove Citizenship Under the Law

Per Hawaiian law, Statue 338.13, any certified copies of the original document can serve the same purpose as the original document.

"(b) Copies of the contents of any certificate on file in the department, certified by the department shall be considered for all purposes the same as the original, subject to the requirements of sections 338-16, 338-17, and 338-18."

Usually the certification is stamped and signed on the lower reverse side of the document and says "I certify this is a true copy or abstract of the record on file in the Hawaii State Department of Health."

Still, the Birthers demand access to the Long Form - however Hawaii State Law restricts access to the long form only to those with a tangible interest in obtaining it. Since the short form is legally valid, there is no "tangible interest" for those outside the Obama family, period.

But still they don't stop clamoring.

One of the issues that I felt trumped all of his was the issue that trumped this argument for George Romney who was born in Mexico and John McCain who was born in Panama. In both of these cases these candidates are still citizens because of the citizenship of their parents, so I figured So was Obama because of his American Born Mother - but as it turns out I was wrong.

* If you were born before November 14, 1986, you are a citizen if your U.S. citizen parent lived in the United States for at least 10 years and 5 of those years in the United States were after your citizen parent's 14th birthday.

This essentially says that prior to 1986, the U.S. Citizen Parent would have to be at least 19 years old in order for that citizenship to be automatically conferred onto their children who were born overseas. Barack's mother Ann Dunham-Obama was only 18 Years Old on August 14 4th, 1961 when he was born. This means that her citizenship IS NOT automatically conferred onto him.

Yeah, I thought Alan Keyes sounded like a complete lunatic when he made this statement but he's actually correct, he's just wrong about everything else.

The other thing that continues to drive the Birthers are Videos such as the following which includes a an interview with Baracks's Grandmother in Kenya.



She says "Barack is a Son of this Village" and this is shown captioned by the original BBC Report, however the edits added to this video attempt to claim that there is a Different translation of her statement and what she's "Really" saying is "Barack was Born in this Village".

Beyond the fact that this video disagrees with itself this claim exposes the absolutely weakest part of the entire Birther argument. In Order for Barack Hussein Obama Jr. to have been Born Anywhere - it had to be where is MOTHER was located

Is there any evidence, a passport, a visa, State Department or Airline Records that indicate that Ann Dunham-Obama left the United States just prior to August 4th, 1961? In order for these people to be correct an 18 year-old 9 month pregnant girl made an approx 15,000 Mile trip from Hawaii to Nyang’oma Kogelo, Kenya - did it without leaving a trace - and arrived back home making the 15,000 return trip with her infant son and arriving before the beginning of her next semester of College in September.

Are you Fracking Kidding Me?

Beyond the Short Form/Long Form issue, beyond the Parental/Age Citizenship problem, and the interpretion/translation of comments which may or may not have been made by his Grandmother there is STILL the physical realities of the situation.

Supposedly somebody snuck this girl out of the U.S., then snuck her back in again - to an ISLAND 3000 Miles out into the Pacific - faked a birth certification, faked a birth announcement, did it without leaving a paper trail or money trail and managed to fool everyone in Hawaii, the Clinton Campaign and the McCain Campaign without making a mistake?

I mean, geez, if that's the kind of thing Barack Obama Jr. is capable of - don't you think it's better having someone like that on our side?

I mean, y'now, if you're just plain NUTS that is...

Vyan

What Today Means....

Hope for a better future has come to America. We now have a chance to realize true change in our national character, a chance to finally become the country we always promised we can be, and sometimes pretended we already were.


Finally.

As an African American, I know that the enormity of the first black President taking office can not be understated. In less than an hour, A Black President will be sworn in on the steps of the U.S. Capital and live in the White House - both structures that were built using slave labor.

At the same time, I say to you all, the racial background of the 44th President, Barack Hussein Obama, is probably the smallest element of the profound change that today represents to America - but it is an element and we shouldn't ignore that.

So Ok, first let me get the "Black Thang" off my chest.

To African Americans, this is HUGE!

Let me rephrase that, this is Fracking Huge.

Like Crispus Attucks, George Washington-Carver, Jesse Owens, Vivien Thomas (First Open Heart Surgery), Guy Bluford (First African American Astronaut), Jackie Robinson, Mohammad Ali, Jimi Hendrix, Dr Martin Luther King, Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X) and so many thousands of others who'e paved the road - sometimes with their own flesh and blood - to this day, this is momentous.

But we have to be careful. We have to realize that the Hope that America is now beginning to truly feel, doesn't really come from Obama - it's coming from the rest of us. We have to recognize that his strength comes from his trust in the American people, not from any super-human abilities of his own.

We must resist the temptation to FETISHIZE him.

A virtual cottage industry of a million different Barack chotke's just might jump start the economy on their own (ok, ok, I doubt that too) - but we also have to not let Barack's enormous accomplishment become a high-water mark that all other prospective black men are expected to match or exceed before they are seen and taken seriously.

The FIRST in any field, often sets the standard and all others who follow are frequently compared favorably and unfavorably against that standard. It may seem strange to many people, I realize - but very often America has a tendency to make our first - our last. This is how it went with Dr. King. This is how it went with Hendrix. This is what happened with my friends in the band Living Colour.

Barack Hussein Obama will be the first African-American President today - we can not afford to let him become the only one. As we bask in today, we also have to look past today, to tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that...

That's what the election of Barack Obama means to me as a Black man, it is both a blessing and a challenge. A tremendous gift and a permanent curse.

"Look at what you can accomplish despite all the disadvantages and obstacles you have, and why aren't you halfway there already!?"

Fine, that's the way it is - many of us have been living through the burden of being judged against the statistics of our demographic group all our lives - so ok, bring it on.

But again as I said, that is in many ways the least important aspect of today.


JUST LOOK AT WHAT AMERICA DID!

We didn't elect a "Black Guy" - we elected The Right Guy, and frankly I think we did it for all the right reasons. We rejected fear. We rejected cynicism. We rejected all of the cheap political parlors tricks that have so many times dazzled and distracted us from doing the right thing at the right time. Just think about what stood against him, the odd arrogant incuriousness of Joe the Unlicensed Tax-Dodging Plumber/Pundit/Journalist: all the Hockey Mom's staring over at Russia waiting for Putin's head to appear.

Barack Hussein Obama has become President despite his funky name, despite being "too white" for Jesse Jackson and "too black" for Steve King, despite being "an Arab" who spent 20 years in the crazy Christian Church.

All of that stood against him, plus two wars and a Wall Street Meltdown, and how he won anyway - he won because America began to believe in itself again. We realized we could be our own better angels. We can fight terror without becoming terrible. We can end wars, and monger peace. We can prosper not by cracking the whips over the backs of the middle and working-class, but by lifting them up and protecting them - for they are us.

We have turned away from the Robber-Baron culture of corporate greed, making decisions based not on how they would help people, but based on how they help stockholders. We can rebuild ourselves, we can rebuild our infrastructure, we can rebuild our economy with Green Tech - possibly even remake the world - but we can't do any of that unless we try.

We Defeated Hate and we did it with courage, hope, optimism and love. We turned away from the past and have - permanently I pray - reached optimistically toward the future. We face enormous moral, physical and financial challenges - but like I said before - BRING 'Em ON!

THIS affects all of us. This new vision, renewing the American Dream and making it into a fresh new American Reality. We have become who we have been waiting for.

That's what today means...

Happy America Everyone!

Vyan