Jack & Jill Politics

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President Obama sets priorities on tax-cuts

Perhaps the largest issue to face Congress during its lame-duck session will be that of tax-cuts. The tax-cuts previously set by President Bush are set to expire at the end of the year. The question, however, is whether Congress should extend those tax-cuts slated for America’s top 2%.

Republicans have made it clear that they wish to extend all of the Bush tax-cuts, including those for the wealthiest Americans. However, the President and Democrats have argued that extending the Bush tax-cuts for the wealthiest Americans would add hundreds of billions of dollars to the nation’s fiscal hole. Instead, Democrats have proposed that Congress let the Bush tax-cuts expire for those above the threshold of $250,000 per year. Democrats further point to what they see as a lack of preparedness and/or sincerity on the part of Republicans to offset tax-cuts for the wealthiest Americans with meaningful spending cuts in other areas of the national budget.

This week, President Obama used his address to lay out his priorities as far as tax-cuts are concerned. During a press conference earlier this week, the President made it clear that his top priority is to ensure that taxes don’t go up on middle class families – a statement that some see as a sign that he is willing to negotiate. This week the President further addressed that issue by reiterating his opposition to permanently extending the Bush tax-cuts for America’s wealthiest citizens – a move that he says will cost an additional $700 billion:

“But at a time when we’re going to ask folks across the board to make such difficult sacrifices, I don’t see how we can afford to borrow an additional $700 billion from other countries to make all the Bush tax cuts permanent, even for the wealthiest 2% of Americans. We’d be digging ourselves into an even deeper fiscal hole and passing the burden on to our children.

I recognize that both parties are going to have to work together and compromise to get something done here. But I want to make my priorities clear from the start. One: middle class families need permanent tax relief. And two: I believe we can’t afford to borrow and spend another $700 billion on permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.”

President Obama’s Weekly Address:

The President thanks his supporters.

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The First Lady and Dr. Jill Biden appeared on Ellen.
VIDEO: 1st & 2nd Ladies Dance and Talk Bullying & Military Families on Ellen

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I just think it’s important to celebrate and raise up when our folks beat the odds and assumptions about what we’re capable of. In past challenges, students from places like Harvard and MIT won this technical challenge. Check out the hotness:

AT&T is pleased to announce that Jonecia Keels and Jazmine Miller of Spelman College, a historically black liberal arts college for women, have won the 2010 AT&T Big Mobile on Campus Challenge^SM with their next generation e-learning mobile application, HBCU Buddy.

HBCU Buddy is a mobile application created to educate and inform users, including both prospective and current college students, about Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) across the United States. It is a fully-fledged mobile service application that provides detailed information about each and every HBCU in the nation and integrates all facets of college life.

The application opens with a directory profiling each HBCU with information on academics, admissions, research, student life, alumni, among other details. After selecting a school, students can navigate through the school – literally – by accessing virtual tours of buildings, on-campus videos, and local GPS and directions.

HBCU Buddy can also provide students with customizable social networking features to connect with each other, their school and community. The application connects to social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, and integrates tools such as chat and calendar to help students stay informed. Students can use the application to follow the latest on school club and campus happenings, local events, hot spots around the community, and more.

Jonecia Keels and Jazmine Miller were recognized and awarded a $10,000 scholarship (divided between them) and a mobile device of their choice each at the Higher Ed Board of Advisors Meeting in Miami, Florida, on October 7, 2010.

The President has been keen to foster stronger STEM education for all American students (science, tech, engineering and math) because the jobs of the future will require strong skills in these disciplines. Did you know that there’s a Chinese telecom company entering the U.S. market and they got 8,000 engineers working in one research and development facility in Shanghai? 8000! Where in the U.S. have we got 8000 engineers working on anything except for maybe Google? We continue to lose economic ground to foreign competitors and we need to turn this around to make sure our kids have bright futures in a prosperous nation.

Jonecia and Jazmine are living proof that innovation is not the exclusive domain of the white male geek. There are plenty of us black geeks out there too who need a little more support. Congrats to J and J — you deserve the recognition and that new iPad or iPhone.

Many thanks to Corey Ealons, formerly Dir of African-American Media Outreach at the White House for hippin’ me to this inspiring story…

What the Chamber of Commerce expects for their money.

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TGIF, and spend some of it here with us at JJP.

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hat tip-Black Celebrity Kids and ABC.com

This couple has been blessed 6 times over – whew!

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As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

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Elon James White says:

This week’s episode concerns former President George Bush and his thoughts on the low point of his presidency being rapper Kanye West’s commentary.

Jill says: This might be the most hilarious thing you’ll watch today. Seriously. Elon makes some good points about the disaster that was the Bush presidency, his compelling theory that George W. Bush is an alien and thus was effective in his secret plot to kill as many humans as possible and manages to skewer the media misinformation leading into the midterm election.

Enjoy…!

I haven’t felt this bad since 2004. I seriously had the blues for about a year after that election.

No other way to put it- the Democrats got shellacked, plain and simple.

For those of you who got out to vote, thank you. You can complain for the next 2 years. Those of you who sat on your behinds and had better things to do because you don’t think voting is important – STFU for the next 2 years.

Now, the GOP has to govern. They actually have to do something, outside of saying no. I went through a really vengeful mood for the past 48 hours, and couldn’t post until I calmed down. That said, I gotta say this:

For all you teabaggers running around talking about ’socialized medicine’ and ‘ Obamacare’, when the GOP brings up giving you a voucher for your Medicare services, STFU.

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Image to the left is a screen capture from CNN’s U.S. homepage yesterday. The “Zero African-Americans in Senate” is a truthful, shocking & disturbing stat we should be working as a nation to change. If we’re 12-14% of the population, that means there should be anywhere from 12-14 senators who happen to black. Not zero (0), ya feel me?

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I’m traveling so I don’t have as much time to react reflectively and in detail to the midterms as I’d like. Nevertheless, here’s a few of the brainwaves I’m thinkin’ bout in the wake of the midterms. There’s a lot of buzz about the Tea Party’s successes, but really they are just a grassroots uprising of Republicans looking to reform their party. Because of social media and modern online communications, people can self-organize much more quickly now. I think however that because of the economy, any President would have faced a strong challenge from the opposition in this election. Overall I thought the Prez and First Lady did a fantastic job engaging voters and explaining their vision and accomplishments more clearly to the American people. I’d like to see more of that.

Tea Party Winners and Losers — and What It Means for Black Folks

Rand Paul – Winner. We’re really going to need to keep an eye on this guy. This is the racist who encouraged America to question whether certain aspects of the Civil Rights Act were really necessary.

Carl Paladino – Loser. I’m sure some NY civil servants are sorry that they won’t get to received emails from the governor laden with racist, sexist “jokes” that feature bestiality, but I’m guessing most aren’t. While it’s true that Paladino seems to be an equal opportunity hater of anyone who isn’t of Italian descent, I definitely think it’s good for New Yorkers of color that he will have no power over their lives whatsoever. Thanks to everyone who voted for Andrew Cuomo.

Sharron Angle – Loser. Her nakedly racist ads featuring sinister brown people (many of whom turn out to be not illegal immigrants but actual citizens) and smiling white people really disqualify her from representing the diverse state of Nevada either as senator or dogcatcher

Ken Buck – Loser. This guy also pursued a race-baiting and divisive campaign and I’m not at all sorry he lost. Hopefully he can learn the true meaning of one nation undivided, invincible.

Jan Brewer – Winner. While not an official Tea Party candidate, she certainly became their darling with her draconian and racist anti-immigration laws. We will have to continue to fight for justice and tolerance in AZ.

Marco Rubio — Winner. Believe it or not, I actually don’t have that big a problem with Rubio. He’s the new star of the Tea Party and one of their only minority leaders. He managed to keep the racism down. He’s an example to me of someone I can disagree with but who doesn’t disgust me. He says he’d like the Republican party to be pro-legal immigration not anti-illegal immigrant. I can respect and understand that. Personally I don’t think this dude is really a Tea Partier at heart but a canny politician who tapped into resources and energy needed to win. Worth watching — I think we’ll see and hear more from him and will need to keep him in line.

People Who Needed To Win

Harry Reid – Whew! That was close, honey. I’m not the world’s biggest fan, but Angle was unacceptable.

Deval Patrick — go ‘head, brother governor. Making us proud….

Jerry Brown – again, not my favorite politician but unlike Meg Whitman, he’s actually qualified for this office and at his age, he’s got nothing to lose. This is it so he might as well go for broke and pursue the real reform and cutting-edge initiatives CA needs to survive & thrive now.

Kendrick Meek – I loved this guy and was sorry to see him lose in FL. He handled his candidacy with dignity and faced pressure for Dem politicos to fold with integrity. I hope to see him run again. FL deserves leadership like this. Take a minute to read his inspiring concession and thanks to his supporters.

People Who Needed to Lose

Meg Whitman – proof that you can just not vote ever in your adult life and then expect that $140 million dollars cannot buy you the governor seat in one of America’s largest states and one of the world’s largest economies.

Carly Fiorina – so unqualified, so corrupt, so conservative. One of the worst CEOs ever and seriously unpopular. Congrats to Barbara Boxer for putting Carly back to bed.

Christine O’Donnell – um, not a witch AND not a Member of Congress either. Thank you Chris Coons for keeping it classy in the face of the absurdity. Why did this chick get so much airtime?

Alvin Greene – ok, we’re all relieved that Alvin will remain in his dad’s basement. I think we can all admit that now although I still would prefer him to Jim DeMint. That said, it would have been pretty entertaining and weirdly kinda cool for someone like Greene to have become a senator. This is still America and apparently you don’t have to even really be rich, powerful, articulate or even campaign and still get around 30% of the people of South Carolina to vote for you. Crazy story, that one…

Ok, I’m first going to say that I admire and respect Kanye West as an artist. I love his music and I love how he visualizes that music in incredibly interesting, beyond booty-shaking videos that are a credit to the creativity and intelligence of his root culture. I loved his new tribute to MJ — the long form video Runaway which you should definitely watch.

And when Katrina went down, I think his incoherent and spontaneous protest on a live televised benefit actually captured pretty accurately the stunned outrage, sorrow, frustrated helplessness and profound disappointment in a government that failed to send troops, rescue personnel, medicine, water and food to needy people for days on end. And bitterness at a media environment that described hungry black people finding food as “looting” and hungry white people finding food as “finding food.”

His spontaneous protest was brave and compassionate. I’m posting that original video above so we all remember that moment in American history where – I don’t know about you — I thought I was losing my mind watching the lack of response to Katrina.

Since then — he has become one of the most irritating people on earth perhaps exceeded only by the man whose lack of action protested — George W. Bush. I kinda want both of these people to shut up and GTFOH.

Dubya’s feelings were hurt by Kanye back in 2005 (from E! Online of all places):

So just to double-click for a moment: “the misery in Louisiana affected me deeply as well”? Oh I’m glad that ALSO impacted you…! Heartless incompetent idiot. Oh and “it was a disgusting moment”? So I take that the incredulous outrage, sorrow and frustration of every black person in America and a whole lotta other Americans too at the unbelievable and complete failure to help people who happened to be mostly poor and black was “disgusting” to Bush? See this is why we as a nation came to hate you. It’s all about you. Why not just say — “look I can understand that people had strong feelings at that moment — I had them too and shared those emotions. I did the best I could — and it was obvious that my best wasn’t enough to alleviate the massive suffering.” Or something an adult would say. I will be so glad when someday that man is called to account for his crimes against humanity.

As for Ye’s own crimes against humanity, on the one hand, I actually admire him for attempting to take the high road. Again, from E!:

hat tip-Michelle Obama Watch
sorry. the original video I wanted to post has been removed by the author.
Here is a tour of the White House Garden by FLOTUS.

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As you go through your day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And always, have a peaceful day.

The President gave a press conference today to speak to media (and to us) about his thoughts and strategy in the wake of the midterm elections.

His mood seemed humble, hopeful yet determined. The Prez believes he’s doing the right things for the American people and is sticking to his plan to get us back on track. He’d like to try to work with Republicans where possible:

I think that making sure that families had security and were on a trajectory to lower health care costs was absolutely critical for this country.  But you are absolutely right that when you are navigating through a House and a Senate in this kind of pretty partisan environment that it’s a ugly mess when it comes to process.  And I think that is something that really affected how people viewed the outcome.  That is something that I regret — that we couldn’t have made the process more — healthier than it ended up being.  But I think the outcome was a good one.

With respect to the EPA, I think the smartest thing for us to do is to see if we can get Democrats and Republicans in a room who are serious about energy independence and are serious about keeping our air clean and our water clean and dealing with the issue of greenhouse gases — and seeing are there ways that we can make progress in the short term and invest in technologies in the long term that start giving us the tools to reduce greenhouse gases and solve this problem.

The EPA is under a court order that says greenhouse gases are a pollutant that fall under their jurisdiction.  And I think one of the things that’s very important for me is not to have us ignore the science, but rather to find ways that we can solve these problems that don’t hurt the economy, that encourage the development of clean energy in this country, that, in fact, may give us opportunities to create entire new industries and create jobs that — and that put us in a competitive posture around the world.

So he’s willing to sit down with Republicans who are cool and not crazy. Fair enough. He also said this:

Q    Thank you, Mr. President.  I want to ask if you’re going to have John Boehner over for a Slurpee, but I actually have a serious question.

THE PRESIDENT:  I might serve — they’re delicious drinks.  (Laughter.)

Q    The Slurpee Summit.

THE PRESIDENT:  The Slurpee Summit — that’s good, Chuck.  I like that.  (Laughter.)

Um, will they be orange or creamsicle slurpees? Which was a reference to this specific question (emphasis mine):

Thank you, Mr. President.  I wanted to do a personal and policy one as well.  On personal, you had a lot of fun on the campaign trail by saying that the Republicans were drinking a Slurpee and sitting on the sidelines while you were trying to pull the car out of the ditch. But the point of the story was that you said if you want to go forward, you put the car in “D”; if you want to go backwards, you put it in “R.”  Now that there are least 60 House districts that seem to have rejected that message, is it possible that there are a majority of Americans who think your policies are taking us in reverse?  And what specific changes will you make to your approach to try to fix that and better connect with the American people?

To which he responded:

Yes.  And I think, look, here’s the bottom line.  When I came into office, this economy was in a freefall, and the economy has stabilized.  The economy is growing.  We’ve seen nine months of private sector job growth.  So I think it would be hard to argue that we’re going backwards.  I think what you can argue is we’re stuck in neutral.  We are not moving the way we need to, to make sure that folks have the jobs, have the opportunity, are seeing economic growth in their communities the way they need to.  And that’s going to require Democrats and Republicans to come together and look for the best ideas to move things forward.

It will not be easy, not just because Democrats and Republicans may have different priorities, as we were just discussing when it came to how we structure tax cuts, but because these issues are hard.

The Republicans throughout the campaign said they’re very concerned about debt and deficits.  Well, one of the most important things we can do for debt and deficits is economic growth.  So what other proposals do they have to grow the economy?  If, in fact, they’re rejecting some of the proposals I’ve made, I want to hear from them what affirmative policies can make a difference in terms of encouraging job growth and promoting the economy — because I don’t think that tax cuts alone are going to be a recipe for the kind of expansion that we need.

From 2001 to 2009, we cut taxes pretty significantly, and we just didn’t see the kind of expansion that is going to be necessary in terms of driving the unemployment rate down significantly.

So I think what we’re going to need to do and what the American people want is for us to mix and match ideas, figure out those areas where we can agree on, move forward on those, disagree without being disagreeable on those areas that we can’t agree on.  If we accomplish that, then there will be time for politics later, but over the next year I think we can solidify this recovery and give people a little more confidence out there.

Among other things, he hinted at ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell in the military during the lame duck session before Congress changes hands. Which is ok by me — it’s way past time to end the unnecessary, unpatriotic and unpopular discrimination.

Anyway, read all the Prez’s remarks here — it’s worth it…

I wish my second trip to the White House was under better circumstances.  The fact that the results of last night’s elections left a nasty taste in my mouth that three cocktails couldn’t erase (while Politico’s coverage might be questionable, they do know how to throw a party).

I was invited back to attend the POTUS’ press conference this afternoon.  By now, everyone’s hashed, sliced, diced, assigned blame and everything under the sun regarding the midterms.  We took some painful hits.  Russ Feingold – GONE.  Alan Grayson – GONE.  Kendrick Meek – screwed over by his own party and now GONE.  It was very clear that Meek’s staying in the race had no effect on the outcome – I did the math and even if he had gave up to the oil slick known as Charlie Crist, the Tea Bag candidate was still winning by a 2-to-1 margin.

And I know many of you groaned when you heard the POTUS say he wants to work with the ReThugs in charge  come January.  There was something else, so subtle, that many of you, while groaning, probably missed it all together.

The last POTUS I saw humbled to this extent was Bill Clinton, back in 1994, when the machinations of the Democratic Leadership Council cost the Democrats BOTH HOUSES OF CONGRESS, and ushered in Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” which was more like a CONTRACT on AMERICA.

President Obama compared himself to Clinton and Ronald Reagan (though Reagan didn’t seem to have too much trouble dealing with a Democratic Congress – he still deregulated every damn thing), and I couldn’t help but wonder is he going to respond the way Clinton did?  What I mean by that is, “Will the POTUS stop playing nice and start challenging his foes, since they are so hell-bent on making sure he’s a one-term POTUS?”

From where I sat, it  seems like the POTUS has nothing to lose at this point.  He might as well go for broke, and refocus his energies on what we sent him to Washington to do.  While Health Care Reform was a major accomplishment, the priority of accomplishing it was probably off.  It was more about the economy than anything else, and to hear him ponder on the economy, (he kept repeating it like “Why didn’t someone tell me?), I got the feeling the POTUS’ inner circle set him up to fall in craptacular fashion.  He is bravely assuming the blame and taking the hit, while those who helped him to charter this course have slimed away like the slimy bastards they are (cough, Rahm, cough).

So when the POTUS said, “If the Republicans don’t like my ideas, let’s see what they bring,” everyone heard it.

And missed what he meant.

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WASHINGTON – OCTOBER 31: First lady Michelle Obama and U.S. President Barack Obama greet trick or treaters and their parents at the White House October 31, 2010 in Washington, DC. The Obama’s greeted children and military families at the North Portico to celebrate Halloween and to trick or treat across the North Lawn.
—-Brendan Smialowski/Getty Images

As you go through the rest of your day, don’t forget JJP.

Drop those links. Engage in debate. Give us trivia and gossip too.

And continue to have a peaceful day.