President Barack Obama will stop in Midtown Manhattan this afternoon, which might mean traffic headaches.

The president, who met with British Prime Minister David Cameron this morning at the White House, will reportedly speak at three fundraisers.

One stop will include the Waldorf Astoria for a Democratic event.

The president’s entourage might signal traffic problems for the afternoon while he is here — his visit is estimated to last from about 3 p.m. until 10 p.m., according to the Daily News.

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Despite President Barack Obama’s pledge that Syria’s use of chemical weapons is a “game changer” for the United States, he is unlikely to turn to military options quickly and would want allies joining him in any intervention.

Possible military choices range from limited one-off missile strikes from ships – one of the less complicated scenarios – to bolder operations like carving out no-fly safe zones.

One of the most politically unpalatable possibilities envisions sending tens of thousands of U.S. forces to help secure Syrian chemical weapons.

Obama has so far opposed limited steps, like arming anti-government rebels, but pressure to deepen U.S. involvement in Syria’s civil war has grown since Thursday’s White House announcement that President Bashar al-Assad likely used chemical weapons.

After fighting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon is wary of U.S. involvement in Syria. The president’s top uniformed military adviser, General Martin Dempsey, said last month he could not see a U.S. military option with an “understandable outcome” there.

“There’s a lot of analysis to be done before reaching any major decisions that would push U.S. policy more in the direction of military options,” a senior U.S. official told Reuters.

That caution is understandable, given the experience of Iraq where the United States went to war based on bad intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. The Pentagon has made repeated warnings of the enormous risks and limitations of using American military might in Syria’s civil war.

STRIKES, NO-FLY ZONE

One form of military intervention that could to some extent limit U.S. and allied involvement in Syria’s war would be one-off strikes on pro-Assad forces or infrastructure tied to chemical weapons use. Given Syria’s air defenses, planners may choose to fire missiles from ships at sea.

“The most proportional response (to limited chemical weapons use) would be a strike on the units responsible, whether artillery or airfields,” said Jeffrey White, a former senior official at the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency and a Middle East expert who is now a defense fellow at the Washington Institute For Near East Policy.

“It would demonstrate to Assad that there is a cost to using these weapons – the problem so far is that there’s been no cost to the regime from their actions.”

It is not clear how the Syrian government would respond and if it would try to retaliate militarily against the U.S. forces in the region. U.S. military involvement would also upset Russia which has a naval facility on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.

Another option that the Pentagon has examined involves the creation, ostensibly in support of Turkey and Jordan, of humanitarian safe areas that would also be no-fly zones off limits to the Syrian air force – an option favored by lawmakers including Senator John McCain of Arizona.

This would involve taking down Syrian air defenses and destroying Syrian artillery from a certain distance beyond those zones, to protect them from incoming fire.

Advocates, including in Congress, say a safe zone inside Syria along the Turkish border, for example, would give needed space for rebels and allow the West to increase support for those anti-Assad forces it can vet.

Still, as officials, including Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, have warned, once established, a safe zone would tie the United States more closely to Syria’s messy conflict. Assad would almost certainly react.

“Once you set up a military no-fly zone or safe zone, you’re on a slippery slope, mission creep and before you know it, you have boots on the ground,” said Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst and Middle East expert at the Brookings Institution.

“Or you end up like Libya where you don’t really have a control mechanism for the end-game, should you end up with chaos.”

The U.S. military has also completed planning for going into Syria and securing its chemical weapons under different scenarios, including one in which Assad falls from power and his forces disintegrate, leaving weapons sites vulnerable to pillaging.

The U.S. fears anti-Assad Islamist rebels affiliated to al Qaeda could grab the chemical weapons but a U.S. intervention into Syria to get the arms would require tens of thousands of American troops.

Asked if he was confident the U.S. military could secure Syria’s chemical weapons stock, Dempsey told Congress: “Not as I sit here today simply because they have been moving it and the number of sites is quite numerous.”

IS THERE A WILLING COALITION?

Obama said on Friday that he would seek to mobilize the international community around Syria, as he attempts to determine whether pro-Assad forces used chemical weapons.

British and French officials have long made it clear their countries might be willing to join in any U.S.-led action under the right circumstances.

But Hagel warned last week that “no international or regional consensus on supporting armed intervention now exists.” Once a fervent advocate of foreign intervention in Syria, Turkey has grown frustrated with the fractured opposition to Assad and with international disunity.

NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has ruled out Western military intervention and U.S. Admiral James Stavridis, NATO’s supreme allied commander, cautioned last month that the alliance would need agreement in the region and among NATO members as well as a U.N. Security Council resolution – something that looks unlikely given probable opposition from Russia and China.

The Pentagon has focused over the past year on synchronizing defense planning on Syria, including with Britain, France and Canada.

It is also enhancing its military presence in Jordan by ordering some 200 Army planners into Jordan to focus on Syria scenarios. That would be a better group to coordinate any military or humanitarian action than the ad-hoc U.S. military team previously in Jordan.

Obama met Jordan’s King Abdullah at the White House on Friday and Hagel traveled to Jordan this week, as well as to Israel, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

“It seems increasingly clear that the Obama administration is feeling pressure to act,” said Mona Yacoubian, a former State Department official and now a Syria expert at the Stimson Center in Washington.

“But they will likely seek two things: conclusive evidence and multilateral support/participation in whatever action (they) choose, which I think would be limited, targeted air strike.”

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Federal agents arrested a Mississippi martial arts instructor on Saturday after his home and a former business were searched as part of an investigation into ricin-laced letters sent to President Barack Obama and two other public officials.

Everett Dutschke, 41, was taken into custody by U.S. marshals at his Tupelo home early Saturday morning without incident, the city’s police chief, Tony Carleton, told Reuters.

It was not immediately known if Dutschke has been charged in the ricin investigation.

Dutschke faces other charges related to an April 1 indictment for fondling three different children between ages 7 and 16, from 2007 to 2013, according to court records. He was released on $25,000 bond in that case.

Dutschke’s attorney, Lori Basham, did not return calls seeking comment but told Reuters earlier in the week that her client denied having anything to do with the ricin letters.

Agents from the FBI and the U.S. Capitol Police, as well as members of an anti-terrorist response team from the Mississippi National Guard, some wearing hazardous material suits, had searched Dutschke’s home on Tuesday and Wednesday, as well as the premises of a former martial arts studio Dutschke ran in the city.

Dutschke was cooperating with federal officials during the searches this week, the attorney said.

The agents had Dutschke’s home under surveillance on Friday afternoon and evening and moved to arrest him about 1 a.m. CDT (0600 GMT).

U.S. prosecutors dropped charges on Tuesday against another Mississippi man, Elvis impersonator Kevin Curtis, who was released from jail after a search of his home in nearby Corinth revealed no incriminating evidence.

Prosecutors said at the time that the investigation had “revealed new information” but provided no details.

The case has brought extra scrutiny on the FBI almost 12 years after a 2001 letter-borne anthrax attack in the wake of the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. It took investigators seven years to solve the anthrax case.

Letters addressed to Senator Roger Wicker, a Mississippi Republican, and Democratic President Barack Obama were retrieved last week at off-site mail facilities before reaching their intended victims. A state judge also received a ricin-laced letter.

The discovery added another layer of anxiety as authorities dealt with bombings at the Boston Marathon.

Ricin, which is made from castor beans, can be deadly to humans and is considered a potential terror weapon, particularly if refined into an aerosol form.

Dutschke’s name first surfaced in a federal court hearing on Monday for Curtis where his attorney suggested her client had been framed by someone. She mentioned a running feud between Dutschke and Curtis, albeit over a number of seemingly petty issues.

Suspicion had originally fallen on Curtis because of wording contained in all three ricin letters that appeared to incriminate him.

“Maybe I have your attention now / Even if that means someone must die,” the letters read in part, according to the affidavit. The letters ended: “I am KC and I approve this message.”

The initials “KC” led law enforcement officials to ask Wicker’s staff if they were aware of any constituents with those initials, and the focus of the investigation then turned to Curtis, according to an affidavit from the FBI and the Secret Service filed in court.

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U.S. authorities have arrested a suspect from Mississippi in connection with a letter that tested positive for the poison ricin that was sent to President Barack Obama, a law enforcement source said on Wednesday.

Original Metro stories below: 

Update: A letter sent to President Barack Obama that was intercepted at an off-site facility tested positive for ricin, according to the FBI.

The envelope, which was addressed to the White House, was immediately quarantined.

Original Metro story below:

Parts of the U.S. Capitol were cleared after suspicious packages were found on the first and third floors of the Hart Senate Office building, according to a report by CNN.

Suspicious envelopes were also found in the Russell Senate Office Building and at the office of Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama.

According to the report, a man with a backpack is being questioned after he raised suspicion with the content of his bag and the way he responded to police questions.

One of the officers said the man’s backpack contained more sealed envelopes.

According to a report by Reuters, a “suspicious substance” has been found inside a letter addressed to President Barack Obama at the White House.

A similar letter was sent Tuesday to Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker. Preliminary tests show the envelope contained the deadly poison ricin.

The letter was sent to a lab for further tests.

There is no connection between these letter and the attacks at the Boston Marathon on Monday.

“The investigation into these letters remains ongoing, and more letters may still be received. There is no indication of a connection to the attack in Boston,” the FBI said in a statement.

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President Barack Obama will visit Boston’s South End Thursday morning to speak at an interfaith memorial service at Cathedral of the Holy Cross, and will be joined by First Lady Michelle Obama.

The service is meant to honor the victims of Monday’s brutal Boston Marathon bombings, which Obama has described as an act of terror.

Gov. Deval Patrick and Mayor Thomas M. Menino first announced Obama’s visit during a media briefing Tuesday afternoon.

White House press secretary Jay Carney said he did not know yet whether Obama would visit any of the injured victims or tour the bombing site while in Boston.

Follow Morgan Rousseau on Twitter: @MetroMorgan
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Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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Brooklyn Judge Arthur Schack has heaped fees and fines on Christopher Earl Strunk for a lawsuit seeking to prove President Barack Obama ineligible as a candidate based on allegations that he was not born in the United States.

Schack called the 2011 lawsuit “fanciful, delusional, and irrational.”

According to the NY Daily News, Strunk is a “prominent birther,” and believes that Obama’s presidency is the result of a conspiracy hiding his true birthplace.

The judge blasted Strunk’s allegation of a ”massive conspiracy to defraud American voters [that] was perpetrated by hundreds of individuals, at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church and especially the Jesuits.”

Strunk has filed over 20 lawsuits and appeals in state and federal court, often, as in this case, naming Obama himself as a defendant.  New York’s Board of Elections is among a host of other defendants.

“If the complaint in this action was a movie script, it would be entitled ‘The Manchurian Candidate Meets the Da Vinci Code,’” wrote Schack.

Schack said the $167,707 in attorney fees, plus a $10,000 sanction, were for bringing a ’frivolous suit’ and wasting the court’s time, the Daily News reported.

The fees will go to the three law firms that opposed Strunk in the suit.

“I’m going to have this thing overturned and I’m not going to pay a dime,” Strunk insisted.

Follow Danielle Tcholakian on Twitter @danielleiat

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President Barack Obama has discussed his love for basketball on many occasions. As a former State Senator from Illinois he supports the Chicago Bulls. He even filled out a March Madness tournament bracket on ESPN.com.

The man loves the game, but can he play it?

In the past his basketball skills were described as “above average” but on a sunny day in April, President Obama was Two for 22.

Playing host to the annual Easter Egg Roll, President Obama shot some hoops with kids and some Washington Wizards. He hit the rim, he air-balled and he hit the dashboard. Only two shots went in.

It was so bad even little kids trashed talked him, the most powerful man in the United States.

“He couldn’t make one,” said Kahron Campell, a 10-year-old from Maryland who hit a lay-up after President Obama passed him the ball. “I had to help him out.”

The White House fielded a question about the president’s performance at the daily press briefing.

“The president probably doesn’t get to practice as much as he’d like to,” said press secretary Jay Carney.

Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

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President Barack Obama attempted on Thursday to inject fresh momentum into efforts to pass gun-control legislation, pleading with U.S. lawmakers not to forget those shot to death in Newtown, Connecticut three months ago.

Amid signs that he may have to accept a scaled-down version of gun legislation, Obama sounded a note of frustration in calling upon Americans to demand action from the U.S. Congress in the weeks ahead.

He said the legislation’s opponents, the powerful U.S. gun lobby led by the National Rifle Association, are “doing everything they can” to derail the effort barely 100 days after the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, in which a gunman killed 20 children, six staff members and then himself.

“The entire country pledged we would do something about it and that this time would be different. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten. I haven’t forgotten those kids. Shame on us if we’ve forgotten,” said Obama, appearing at the White House with mothers of children who had been shot to death.

The gunman in Newtown, Adam Lanza, fired 154 rounds in less than 5 minutes, selecting high capacity magazines from a home arsenal stocked with swords, knives and a cache of guns, officials said Thursday.

Despite events like this, a grassroots organizing effort by Obama supporters and a high-profile advertising campaign funded by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to keep up the pressure, gun legislation has been stalled on Capitol Hill in recent weeks.

The best chance of success for gun-control advocates is that Congress will approve universal background checks for gun purchasers and tougher penalties for gun trafficking.

Less likely to pass are bans on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition clips, two of the main proposals to emerge from Vice President Joe Biden’s gun violence task force, formed by Obama after the Newtown shootings.

‘JUST THE BEGINNING’

Biden seemed to acknowledged the challenge when he said on a conference call on Wednesday organized by Mayors Against Illegal Guns that the administration will keep pressing for action regardless of what Congress does in the immediate future.

“Let me say this as clearly as I can: This is just the beginning,” Biden said.

Obama had hoped at the outset of his second term to use his re-election mandate to make rapid progress on three major issues: gun violence, deficit-reduction and immigration reform.

All are moving slowly, however.

Immigration may offer the best prospect for action as Republicans seek to attract more Hispanic Americans who voted overwhelming for Obama and his Democrats in the 2012 elections.

Republicans insist that any pathway to citizenship for 11 million illegal immigrants be preceded by certification that U.S. borders are secure.

The biggest stumbling block to an immigration bill concerns creation of a guest-worker program to allow immigrants to cross the U.S.-Mexican border legally for temporary jobs.

U.S. labor unions, which worry such a program would lead to a loss of jobs for Americans, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have yet to arrive at a formula acceptable to both. Their agreement is considered crucial to bringing Congress along.

Obama has said he is encouraged by the progress, and he believes the dispute over the guest-worker program can be resolved. After first declaring the U.S.-Mexican border sufficiently secure, Obama now says it can be improved, a position that may permit him to make a deal with Republicans.

“I’m actually optimistic about this, in part because I think both Republicans as well as Democrats are now recognizing that it’s the right thing to do,” Obama told Univision, a Spanish-language network, in an interview on Wednesday.

Obama’s attempt to negotiate a “grand bargain” aimed at reducing the U.S. budget deficit is facing old-fashioned political gridlock and could collapse into a partisan sinkhole.

In a fresh round of schmoozing to discuss this and other legislative items, Obama will dine with a dozen Republican senators on April 10, the second such meeting he will have held in his attempts to engage his political opponents.

TAXING THE RICH

Lawmakers are still bruised from a fight over $85 billion in automatic spending cuts that went into effect a month ago despite Obama’s attempt to head them off.

Obama still wants what Republicans refused to give him in that budget fight, an increase in taxes on the wealthy by eliminating some deductions and loopholes. Republicans instead want to cut spending.

The White House struck a pessimistic note this week on the prospects for success given the Republican leadership’s refusal to agree to raise more tax revenues.

“As long as Republicans are saying we’re not going to ask the wealthiest and well-connected to pay a single dime to reduce our deficit, then it is hard to imagine that we’re going to reach a compromise,” White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said Wednesday.

The difficulties in gaining passage of major legislation reflects the continued grip partisan politics holds on Washington, with the White House and Senate run by Democrats and the House of Representatives controlled by Republicans. This makes the 2014 midterm congressional elections of increasing importance.

“Look, it’s what we all thought when Obama was re-elected,” said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. “There is just not going to be a lot of new legislation in Obama’s second term, unless he wins the House in 2014, and even then it looks very, very tough.”

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White House economic adviser Brian Deese is a leading candidate to become deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, according to sources familiar with the matter.

Deese, now deputy director of the White House’s National Economic Council, would join Sylvia Mathews Burwell, currently president of the Walmart Foundation, whom Obama tapped on Monday to be director of OMB.

Deese is a young, popular member of the president’s economic team who was closely involved with the administration’s bailout of the auto industry.

Deese coordinates policy at the White House on taxes, financial regulation, clean energy, and manufacturing.

If confirmed, Deese would help Burwell in executing the president’s budget goals of reducing the U.S. deficit while investing in areas that would spur U.S. competitiveness such as early childhood education and clean energy technology.

Prior to his time in the White House, Deese served as economic policy director to then-Senator Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.

He then became one of the rare Clinton staffers who landed in Obama’s orbit after her loss in the Democratic nominating contest that year, serving as deputy economic policy director in Obama’s campaign.

Deese is known within the White House for being able to explain complicated economic policy in layman’s terms. He has traveled with Obama on domestic trips as the president pressed for economic policy initiatives.

In January, Deese said Obama would seek “targeted and smart” investments in research and aim to use corporate tax reform to “level the playing field” for renewable forms of energy.

OMB and its leaders are likely to play a key role in the budget fight with Congress over spending cuts and tax breaks. Obama and congressional leaders failed to reach a deal last week to block or delay $85 billion in automatic spending cuts known as “sequestration.”

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President Barack Obama has reached out to Republican and Democratic lawmakers in search of a resolution to automatic across-the-board government spending cuts, a White House official said on Sunday, but Republican congressional leaders offered little hope for a quick solution.

House of Representatives Speaker John Boehner, the top Republican in Congress, and Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, both expressed confidence that there would not be a government shutdown at the end of the month amid the showdown with Obama over federal spending.

“I don’t think anyone quite understands how it gets resolved,” Boehner said on the NBC program “Meet the Press” as he put the blame squarely on Obama and his fellow Democrats.

“It’s time for the president and Senate Democrats to get serious about the long-term spending problem that we have,” Boehner said.

Obama late on Friday formally ordered broad cuts in government spending after he and congressional Republicans failed to reach a deal to avert the automatic reductions that could dampen economic growth and curb military readiness.

Government agencies now will begin to cut a total of $85 billion from their budgets from now through September 30 under automatic reductions known as “sequestration.” Half of the cuts will fall on the Pentagon.

Gene Sperling, director of the White House National Economic Council, said Obama spoke on Saturday afternoon with a select group of lawmakers to try to find a path out of the current fiscal crisis – a “bipartisan compromise.” He did not identify the lawmakers to whom Obama spoke.

“He’s reaching out to Democrats who understand we have to make serious progress on long-term entitlement reform, and Republicans who realize that if we had that type of entitlement reform, they’d be willing to have tax reform that raises revenues to lower the deficit,” Sperling said on the CNN program “State of the Union.”

Obama did not call McConnell or Boehner, Sperling said, noting that the president had met with them on Friday in a meeting that failed to resolve the issue.

McConnell played down the severity of the automatic cuts, describing them as modest.

“We’re willing to talk to him (Obama) about reconfiguring the same amount of spending reduction over the next six months,” McConnell said on CNN. “The American people look at this and say, ‘Gee, I’ve had to cut my budget more than this,’ – probably on numerous occasions over the last four years because we’ve had such a tepid economy now for four long years.”

Congress and Obama could still halt the cuts in the weeks to come, but neither side has expressed any confidence they will do so. Both Democrats and Republicans set the automatic cuts in motion during feverish deficit-reduction efforts in August 2011.

Democrats predicted the cuts could soon cause air-traffic delays, meat shortages as food safety inspections slow down, losses to thousands of federal contractors and damage to local economies across the country, particularly in the hardest-hit regions around military installations.

At the heart of Washington’s persistent fiscal crises is disagreement over how to slash the budget deficit and gain control of the $16 trillion national debt, bloated over the years by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and government stimulus for the ailing economy.

Obama wants to close the fiscal gap with spending cuts and tax hikes. Republicans do not want to concede again on taxes after doing so in negotiations over the “fiscal cliff” at the New Year.

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President Barack Obama saw firsthand how golf is played at the highest level on Sunday, teeing off with Tiger Woods, the world’s No. 2 golfer who is rebuilding a once-squeaky clean image tarnished by a messy 2010 divorce.

Obama, an avid weekend golfer, and Woods, who won his 75th title last month, played together for the first time at the exclusive Floridian Yacht and Golf Club, which was surrounded by a cordon of security.

“It’s good to see you play well again,” Obama told Woods, according to GolfDigest.com.

Less than a month after starting his second term, Obama is on a three-day golf getaway in Florida, while his wife, Michelle, and their daughters, Malia and Sasha, are skiing in Colorado. On Saturday he received instructional tips from Woods’ former swing coach, Butch Harmon.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Obama and Woods were joined on the course by U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and Jim Crane, the resort owner who also owns the Houston Astros baseball team.

Tim Rosaforte, a Golf Channel analyst and Golf Digest writer, broke the news, tweeting that Woods holed out from a greenside sand bunker on the first hole.

“Historic day in golf. Their first round,” Rosaforte said.

There was no word on how Obama played.

Harmon, according to GolfDigest.com, said he saw the interaction between Woods and Obama on the range before teeing off. Obama congratulated Woods on winning the Farmers Insurance Open last month.

“The president said to Tiger, ‘The last tournament you played was fun to watch. It’s good to see you play well again,’” Harmon said.

The White House resisted appeals from reporters to allow the traveling press pool onto the grounds of the resort in order to record some part of the Woods-Obama round. Previous presidents have allowed some press access of presidential golf rounds.

The White House refusal prompted a protest from the White House Correspondents Association.

“Speaking on behalf of the White House Correspondents Association, I can say a broad cross section of our members from print, radio, online and TV have today expressed extreme frustration to me about having absolutely no access to the president of the United States this entire weekend,” said WHCA President Ed Henry, a Fox News correspondent. “There is a very simple but important principle we will continue to fight for today and in the days ahead: transparency.”

The White House said in response that the press access granted was “entirely consistent with the press access offered for previous presidential golf outings” and consistent with the access promised prior to Obama’s arrival in Florida on Friday.

Woods, who usually steers clear of politics, is the top-ranked American golfer and second in the world. He lives about an hour’s drive south of the Floridian club in Jupiter, Florida.

Woods’ image was tarnished after his extramarital affairs with other women came to light in 2009. He and his then-wife Elin Nordegren divorced the following year.

Like many of his predecessors, Obama has escaped the pressures of the Oval Office by taking to the golf course. He has played more than 100 rounds of golf as president and typically tees it up with a group of close-knit friends.

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The Senate voted narrowly on Thursday to block a vote on confirmation of President Barack Obama’s choice of Chuck Hagel as defense secretary, planning another vote for February 26 – when it is expected to pass.

The tally was 58-40, with almost every Republican voting no, falling short of the 60 needed to pass a motion in the 100-seat chamber to stop debate and allow a vote by the full Senate on confirming the former Republican senator to the post.

The Senate’s Democratic majority leader, Harry Reid, said the Senate would vote again on the motion on February 26, after it returns from a week-long recess. Republicans said they expected the motion would pass then, after they have had more time to consider the nomination, clearing the way for the full Senate to vote on Hagel’s confirmation.

With Democrats controlling a majority of 55 votes in the Senate, Hagel’s nomination is expected to win the simple majority of 51 votes it needs to be passed by the full Senate once such a vote is allowed.

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Many people love taking cruises. They prattle on endlessly about limbo contests, and their favorite Hawaiian shirts (never mind that they are going to Cancun,) and the endless shrimp bars. I, however, am not one of them. My skin crawls at the mere idea of being trapped on a ship with a few thousand strangers and a karaoke machine.

“Hello, Dante? I have another circle for you.”

The events of the past week have cemented my feelings. But I must say if the alternative is enduring another year of hearing how much Washington cares about the middle class, I may book a cabin and take my chances.

President Obama swept up much of the “middle class” vote in the last election, and as he plowed through his State of the Union address this week it was clear that he is not through with the subject. Time and again he has pledged his undying support to “the true engine” of the American economy, a “thriving, growing, rising middle class.” The only problem is, those folks have not thrived, grown, or risen much under his leadership no matter how much they may like and trust him.

When Barack Obama took office, about 133 million Americans were working. Today, about 1.2 million more people are employed. That is better than losing ground, but it is hardly the robust growth the middle class needs. On top of that, there is the persistent and equally damaging problem of underemployment. A recent study at Rutgers University found that more than half of the people who lost jobs and then found new employment, had to take pay cuts in the process.

I’m not putting all this at the president’s door. Certainly the big downturn started under George Bush. What I am saying is that for all the noise from Democrats and Republicans alike about how much they love the middle class, neither side seems to have any real ideas about how to help.

It is as if the middle class is adrift on a disabled ship, and all that the parties are really doing is watching from a distant shore.

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President Barack Obama sketched an ambitious second-term agenda in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday, challenging a divided Congress to back his proposals to create middle-class jobs and overhaul gun and immigration laws.

Obama entered the well of the House of Representatives for his address to a joint session of Congress at a time when he is again locked in a bitter battle with Republicans over taxes and spending, and this tussle cast a heavy shadow over his appearance.

Americans, said Obama, do not expect government to solve every problem, “but they do expect us to put the nation’s interests before party. They do expect us to forge reasonable compromises where we can.”

But many of his proposals may face a difficult path getting through Congress. He proposed raising the U.S. minimum wage for workers from $7.25 to $9 an hour. Republicans typically oppose increases in the minimum wage out of worry it will prompt businesses to fire workers.

He backed a $50 billion program to fund infrastructure rebuilding projects like fixing aging bridges, but many Republicans are adamantly against such stimulative government spending after Obama’s first term $787 billion stimulus did not lead to a dramatic reversal in the unemployment rate.

“Our economy is adding jobs, but too many people still can’t find full-time employment,” he said. “Corporate profits have rocketed to all-time highs, but for more than a decade, wages and incomes have barely budged.”

It was the kind of rhetoric Obama used to great effect during his re-election campaign when he appealed to the middle class, and he made clear he wanted to help those who supported him, to “reignite the true engine of America’s economic growth, a rising, thriving middle class.”

Seeking to use momentum from his re-election victory, the Democratic president urged Congress to increase taxes on the wealthy, overhaul U.S. immigration laws and enact tighter gun controls. He has about a year to get his legislative priorities enacted before Americans shift attention to 2014 congressional elections.

In a nod to Republican worries over what they see as out-of-control government spending on entitlement programs for the elderly and poor, Obama said he would back efforts to reduce health-care spending by the same amount over a decade as proposed by a bipartisan commission whose recommendations he had rejected.

While heavily focused on domestic policies, Obama’s speech had some crucial foreign policy elements.

He outlined steps to unwind U.S. involvement in the unpopular 11-year-old Afghanistan war and plans to announce that 34,000 of the 66,000 U.S. troops still there will return by early 2014.

He did not give details of what sort of residual American presence might remain in Afghanistan after 2014, when the U.S. withdrawal is supposed to be complete.

Obama’s speech came a day after North Korea conducted its third underground test of a nuclear device in response to what it called U.S. hostility.

“Provocations of the sort we saw last night will only isolate them further, as we stand by our allies, strengthen our own missile defense and lead the world in taking firm action in response to these threats,” he said.

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Forget registering at William Sonoma or Bed, Bath & Beyond — President Obama wants you to remember that there are more important things in life than asking your wedding guests to buy you ice cream makers and George Foreman grills — you know, like donating money to his re-election campaign.

That’s right, if you don’t want your guests spending money of you for your upcoming wedding, President Obama encourages you to ask them to spend it on him instead. His official website BarackObama.com has rolled out the “Obama Event Registry”:

Let your friends know how important this election is to you — register with Obama 2012, and ask for a donation in lieu of a gift. It’s a great way to support the President on your big day. Plus, it’s a gift that we can all appreciate—and goes a lot further than a gravy bowl.

Exactly. Support the President on your big day. It’s about him, not you guys. Don’t be selfish.

Critics took to the comment forum to voice their displeasure at the President’s registry proposal, though many comments have been deleted.

“Is this what the office of the President of the United States has come to? Pandering for wedding and birthday money?” one person asked.

“Wont be long before we start seeing “IN LIEU OF FLOWERS, DONATIONS CAN BE MADE TO BO’s RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN OR ANOTHER PARTY WITH THE HOLLYWOOD ELITE FOR OUR CELEBRITY-IN-CHIEF AND HIS FAMILY,” another person added.

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As Republicans fought to win over Southern hearts and minds Tuesday, a pair of polls pointed toward a dramatic slide in support for President Obama, setting the Interwebs on fire with theories, complaints and cheers.

A New York Times and CBS News poll, the more drastic of the two, showed that the president’s approval rating had dropped to a 2012 low of 41 percent, down a precipitous 9 percent from the same organizations’ February poll. The apparent drop puts a crimp in the emerging narrative, as of the new year, that a handful of positive economic reports  had put Obama on track to improve his numbers and take the election in November.

Of course, the report set off the race to find out why exactly this poll decline had occurred. From the left, Jonathan Chait at New York Mag claimed a change in Obama’s rhetoric (specifically, use of the phrase “America is back”) might be to blame. On the right, The Daily Caller found a possible culprit in the ongoing national debate on reproductive freedom, which reporter Mickey Kaus perceived Democrats as clearly losing. There were many others: Political scientist Jonathan Bernstein attributed it to statistical noise, while the Post fingered a rise in gas prices.

But for our tastes, it doesn’t get much clearer than the revelation, brought to our attention by the good people at The People’s View, that the population samples between the two NYT/CBS polls diverged in one telling way:?The latter one included far more Republican primary voters, a group of people much likelier to oppose President Obama than the average voter.

Perhaps the takeaway is simply that polling — that great headline-generating beast — is actually widely misused and poorly understood. (Have any of our readers ever been polled? We haven’t.)?Expect more on this in the future.

Follow Brayden Simms on Twitter @metropolitik

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Fresh on the heels of the “Stop Limbaugh” campaign — backlash to the talk-show host’s use of mysogynistic rhetoric in the national debate on women’s health care — comes a report released Thursday by watchdog group Southern Poverty Law Center alleging an explosion of radical right hate groups since the election of President Barack Obama.

According to the SPLC, the growth in extremist organizations — specifically those of the so-called Patriot movement, which perceive the federal government as the most existential of enemies — can be attributed to the convergence of a pair of important national events: Economic dislocation following the 2008 financial collapse and the evolution of racial politics as the country, in that same year, elected its first black president and as minorities see their share of the U.S. population rise.

The Patriot movement, SPLC explains, had been on the decline in the years between 1996 and 2008.
“There’s a lot of populist rage out there,” says Mark Potok, a senior fellow with the SPLC. “Demonizing propaganda and conspiracy theories have been pushed into the political mainstream, often by politicians or other well known public figures.”

Each of the three leading Republican presidential contenders has made public comments framing Obama as some sort of “other” figure out to destroy America. Newt Gingrich lambasts the president’s “Kenyan, anti-Colonial mind-set.” There’s Rick Santorum’s recent comment on Obama’s “phony theology.” And Romney thinks the historic executive simply “doesn’t understand America.”

It’s no surprise that quotes like these would incite fear and detachment in the electorate. Look forward to even more of the same as Republicans pivot from attacking each other to taking down the president.

Follow Brayden Simms on Twitter @metropolitik

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While the Republican candidates battle each other over the dubious distinction of most likely to bomb Iran back to the Stone Age, and as they relentlessly — and, if we must say, factlessly — attack the president over alleged weaknesses in foreign policy, they ignore how the Obama administration has been busy radically rewriting constitutional powers of the executive.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder on Monday finally got around to explaining, sort of,  the president’s supposed justification for assassinating U.S. citizens abroad. “Due process” — the constitutionally enshrined right of Americans to basic legal protections, like not being killed by the CIA?in your sleep, for instance — is not necessarily the same as “judicial process,” he said. In other words, we are not actually guaranteed, as many had previously thought, the right to a fair trial before being judged guilty and terminated. Or, as Stephen Colbert parodied Tuesday night: “Due process just means there’s a process that you do.”

The administration simply wants us to trust that they will not abuse their newfound powers of execution. Bizarrely, the right wing is OK with this; or rather, judging from their public statements, they (the non-Ron Paul presidential candidates, at least) find the policy not quite extreme enough. Even more bizarrely:?Democrats don’t seem particularly stressed over it either.

Here we see how party loyalty distorts independent belief: If this was a Bush — or, God help us, a Romney, Santorum or Gingrich — trying to pull something like this, Dems would be frothing at the mouth. Instead, they cheer this erosion of individual liberty.

But Obama won’t be president forever. U.S. politics are reactionary: Even if Obama wins re-election, we’ll have a Republican executive soon enough. So while the GOP pushes the limits of extremism, let’s not lose sight of extremity in the White House. The next tenant may not be quite as trustworthy.

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We speak of late conservative media prankster Andrew Breitbart, who shook the political landscape with his “Big” Web exposes (bringing down, among other résumé highlights, Rep. Anthony Weiner in the infamously eponymous Twitter scandal) and then shocked the world with his sudden death last week. Breitbart had been planning more Big things before he died, and the website he founded, Breitbart.com, relaunched late Sunday with a new design, is proudly carrying his torch.

So it is that Breitbart’s editors have printed his final column, “The Vetting, Part I: Barack’s Love Song to Alinsky,” which they describe as “a story that should swing the first hammer against the glass wall the mainstream media has built around Barack Obama.” The site explains:

“Andrew wanted to do what the mainstream media would not. First and foremost: Andrew pledged to vet President Barack H. Obama.” Well, it’s about time!

Breitbart’s swan song focuses on Obama’s alleged connections with communist activists in ’90s-era Chicago; specifically his association with a play, “The Love Song of Saul Alinsky,” after one 1998 performance of which the then-senator participated in a panel discussion. The stated aim here is to shine some light on Obama’s “true political will,” which he claims “the American public remains largely ignorant of.” As such, he provides a detailed — and ostensibly terrifying — list of the other speakers on the panel that night, a group of communist individuals. In this way, he hopes to tarnish the Obama legacy as one of unabashed psychotic leftism.

Were that it was! But if Obama’s a communist, he must be pulling a long con. If anything, he’s proven himself to be frustratingly moderate, taking for instance a very conservative path toward health care reform — righties supported similar proposals before the president embraced them as a means of reaching concensus — and angering lefties in the process. Was it all an elaborate ruse for re-
election? If so, why not just enact his communist policies in term one? What long-term goal could disguising himself as a severely centrist executive possibly serve Obama’s supposed Marxist overlords?

Of course there is none, and no reasonable evidence to suggest that the president is some sort of secret radical. (Again, we wish.)

Then there’s this: Mitt Romney’s father, a former Republican governor, apparently liked Alinsky enough to work with him politically. How long until Breitbart’s media empire tackles the secret motivations of Big Romney?

Follow Brayden Simms on Twitter @metropolitik

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President Barack Obama will be speaking on Columbia University’s South Lawn at Barnard College’s commencement, the school announced on Saturday.

Barnard, an independent liberal arts women’s college, is one of the four undergraduate schools of Columbia University. President Obama graduated from Columbia in 1983.

“Each year, President Obama selects a small number of schools at which to deliver commencement addresses,” Barnard president Deborah Spar said in a letter. “This year, the president has chosen Barnard College.”

She said that President Obama’s visit will be “a thrill” and was a “testament to the collective achievement of all Barnard graduates.”

The college will present the president with a Barnard Medal of Distinction, the college’s highest honor, at the ceremony.

The college’s last three commencement speakers were Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, the actress Meryl Streep and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Jill Abramson, executive editor of The New York Times, was previously scheduled to be the school’s keynote speaker. The school has said that it plans to have her back at Barnard at a later date.

The president has until May 14 to perfect his address.

All of New York can listen to the commencement speech as well, as Spar has promised to make the commander-in-chief’s address available online.

Follow Emily Anne Epstein on Twitter @EmilyAEpstein

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The new plan proposes lowering corporate tax rates from 35 to 28 percent across the board. This alone doesn’t tell us much, however, because the current 35 percent figure is the nominal rate — the number on the books before all the deductions and subsidies are factored in. For instance, after accountants were finished punching the very last equals sign last year, total corporate taxes were only 12 percent of profits — significantly less than the nominal 35 percent rate.

Though the plan argues for lowering the nominal rate, it would also eliminate the multifarious loopholes and subsidies in the existing corporate tax code that are responsible for the massive gap between nominal and effective rates and have led, the administration argues, to economic “distortions that hurt productivity and growth.”

Strange, then, that the plan — in its very next paragraph — inexplicably proposes carving out a brand new subsidy/loophole that would create a special effective tax rate for manufacturing sector corporations, dropping the proposed 28 percent nominal rate even further to “no more than 25 percent.”

The inconsistency is obvious — “distortions hurt economy, subsidies create distortions; therefore, let’s create a new subsidy!” And not just any subsidy, but a subsidy for the manufacturing sector, which Republicans won’t hesitate to characterize as a payout to unions. Here, I’ll just do it for them to get it over with: “This President says he wants to stop distorting the economy, but he’s happy to distort the economy even further — so long as it helps his cronies in the United Auto Workers.”
So effective is the plan at exposing its own vulnerabilities that one begins to suspect it may secretly be the first step in a government takeover of criticism.

As a final insult, the plan concludes by promising to simplify tax filing for small businesses “so that they can focus on growing their businesses rather than filling out tax returns.” Thank you, Obama administration, for taking all the paperwork out of running a small business. Now I can finally throw away my reading glasses and replace all the sales contracts, invoices, loan documents, commercial leases and regulatory compliance logs with various gentlemen’s agreements, firm handshakes and unwavering eye contact.

Metro does not endorse the opinions of the author, or any opinions expressed on its pages.

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You’re trying to tell us that this is the panel, pictured below, assembled to discuss the
birth control mandate in President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act?

The lack of estrogen in this group makes is almost comical, if, you
know, it didn’t directly affect female health, in which case, it’s
depressing.

Here is what this group of men is discussion, via Metro’s Metropolitik columnist, Brayden Simms:

Republican politicians are making big noise about a mandate, connected
to Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, requiring employers to provide
preventative care for women. Because the Catholic Church has taken a
strong stance against this rule — claiming that their hospitals and
universities ought to be uniquely free of the employer requirement —
House Speaker John Boehner has promised to kill the “unambiguous attack
on religious freedom.

The Obama Administration later compromised with religious groups who
opposed the Act. Now, insurance companies will be required to provide
birth control coverage when an employer refused to include it on
religious grounds.

We’d like to point out that birth control is prescribed for medical
reasons other than preventing pregnancies. We know people who take it to
cure ovarian cysts and to regulate their menstrual cycles. We’re
willing to bet that a majority of women on birth control take it to ease
the pain caused by their periods.

Since none of these men in this photo has ever curled up at their desks
at work suffering from what feels like someone punching them in the
stomach with a hammer, all while trying to brush it off to their boss as just feeling “under the weather,” we cannot help but be upset.

2. Sex is as addictive as drugs

A video that the American Life League released tries to convince parents that Planned Parenthood is out to maliciously hook kids on sex, the same way a drug dealer hooks a junkie on drugs. We didn’t make up the analogy, they did. (The video was taken down from You Tube, but click here to read more about it.)

The gist of the video is that Planned Parenthood hooks kids on sex, so kids will have to buy birth control, then pay for an STD testing and of course, then pay for abortions. The reason? Cha-ching! This vicious cycle allegedly brings in big bucks for Planned Parenthood.

This video, which insultingly paints all girls as sluts, fails to make any sense whatsoever.

Excuse us, but even though these girls are on birth control, they’re all somehow getting pregnant. How does that work?

Also, the video attacks Planned Parenthood for providing information on its website about condoms, masturbation and all forms of sex.

Right, because everyone who wants to have safe sex, or (gasp!) explore their own bodies is clearly waving their freak flag.

3. Foster Friess, big-time funder to Rick Santorum, said the stupidest thing we’ve heard all week.

“Back in my day, they used Bayer Aspirin for contraceptives. The gals put it between their knees and it wasn’t that costly,” he said Thursday on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports.

Again folks, you can’t make this stuff up.

The conversation was about Santorum’s past statements about contraception.

Friess argues that the contraception is inexpensive. Since he’s not the one taking a birth control pill every day, let us do the math.

With insurance, a generic birth control prescription can cost $15 per month. That’s $180 per year. Without health insurance, a generic birth control costs $50 (folks, we are rounding down, because birth control can cost much, much more). $50 per month equals $600 per year.

Here are a few things I could do with an extra $600 per year.

1. Pay my rent
2. Take a vacation
3. Pay off my student loans

So how can you say contraception is ‘inexpensive,’ Mr. Friess?

At one point, Friess says, “We maybe need a massive therapy session so we can concentrate on what the real issues are.”

That’s one thing we can all agree on. After such an ignorant comment, excuse us while we call our therapists.

Follow Mary Ann Georgantopoulos on Twitter @marygeorgant

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The president’s proposal is a combination of spending cuts, tax hikes on the wealthiest earners and stimulus measures. “There is pretty broad agreement that the time for austerity is not today,” New White House Budget Director Jack Lew said. “We can’t cut our way into growth,” Obama reiterated yesterday.

The GOP, however, holding firm on its no-tolerance policy toward new taxes (meaning budget revenues must come exclusively from cuts to popular government programs like Social Security and Medicare) must not have gotten the memo. Republican Rep. Paul Ryan said Obama’s plan would result in “America drowning in debt” and “slower economic growth.” House Speaker John Boehner called it “a gloomy reflection of his failed policies of the past, not a bold plan for America’s future.”

Of course, everyone in Washington knows the Obama budget proposal has zero chance of actually getting passed as-is by the Republican-led Legislature. With most GOP politicians tied into the Grover Norquist no-tax pledge, assent on the budget issue would equate to professional suicide.

The Obama proposal can therefore be seen as a political tool, another weapon in the president’s arsenal as he takes his case to the American people for a second term. And the president needs all the arms he can muster: With experts predicting a nasty general election fight in which Wall Street dollars overwhelmingly favor whoever ends up opposing Obama, Big Money is set to play an outsized role in the November elections.

“We can’t have Washington stand in the way of America’s comeback,” Obama said yesterday. Perhaps, it would’ve served the president to also mention the competing visions of Wall Street and Athens.

Follow Brayden Simms on Twitter @metropolitik

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Obama got nailed pretty hard yesterday over his decision  to embrace super PAC donations for the upcoming November elections. Specifically, the president’s campaign manager, Jim Messina, urged supporters to contribute to Priorities USA Action despite critical comments the president has made about campaign finance and the  Supreme Court’s super-PAC-expanding Citizens United decision.
The backlash was fierce. Democrat Russ Feingold criticized the president as “dancing with the devil” in endorsing “what is effectively a legalized Abramoff system.” (Abramoff infamously served hard time for lobbying abuses.) Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for American Crossroads, the
super PAC run by Republican operative Karl Rove, called it “a brazenly cynical move.” (Readers are advised to take this latter analysis with a shaker of salt; American Crossroads is, after all, an organization whose sole purpose is smearing, and ultimately defeating, the president and other
Democrats in November.)

Cries of hypocrisy stem from disparaging remarks the president has made about Citizens United, most recently some feisty rhetoric from his State of the Union address last month when he said the 2010 ruling “reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections.” Similarly, in an August 2010 address, Obama urged Americans that “we can not allow a corporate takeover of our democracy.”

Messina addressed the above sorts of complaint in pointing out that Obama will be facing down hundreds of millions from opposing super PACs. “Our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it stands,” he wrote. And considering recent funding disclosures, the reality for Obama is not good. Though the president leads Mitt Romney in non-PAC fundraising, big-money donors on the right have outdonated their left-wing counterparts by almost four times, leaving Obama and his party vulnerable to attack.

Of course, Obama campaigned on ending the corrosive influence of money in politics. Four years later and he’s made no visible attempt to fix this problem. Now he needs more money.

Whether or not you hold Obama accountable for this concession to work within the system he has built his reputation on spurning depends partly on whether you value victory over ideals. The president’s campaign argues it’s more important to utilize the legal fundraising options that will be available to his opponents than to stake a claim on this important issue — and thereby die by it. Is the move hypocritical? Definitely, especially considering he’s already done the staking. But if Obama really wants to preside long enough to change this law, he’ll need to win re-election first.

Follow Brayden Simms on Twitter @metropolitik

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Mitt Romney’s electoral win in Nevada has allowed the former governor to take some of the rhetorical pressure off Gingrich and focus his message more clearly toward the true conservative goal of the 2012 elections: annihilation of the Obama presidency.

In his Sin City victory speech, “Gov. Mormon” (as CNN anchor John King accidentally addressed him that night) took aim at Obama’s economic record, criticizing the president’s stimulus for not bringing unemployment below 8 percent, among other specious failures, saying that “President Obama demonizes and denigrates almost every sector of our economy.” Be gone, devil!

Yet the message resonates. In a recap of the speech, the L.A. Times cites one Romney supporter, retired airline pilot Larry Bleitz, as saying the following: “I’d take anybody over Obama. The man is a traitor and an American hater.” Bleitz’s wife, Mieke, chimed in:?“Right now, I feel that the U.S. is actually more socialist than Canada.”

This sort of attack has been viciously employed from the moment our nation’s first biracial president assumed the presidency. Unfortunately, it’s complete nonsense.

Far it be from us to stifle legitimate Obama critique (for confirmation of our nonbias on this front, please see our weekend column, “Seeing through Obama’s transparency”), but the economic data simply refute these claims.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, Obama’s stimulus measures boosted the GDP and added millions of jobs. (Multiple analyses confirm this assessment.) GDP has had positive growth since 2009, payroll statistics show 16 straight months of job growth, and the unemployment rate is down.

All this while faced off with an opposition openly committed toward sinking the president’s re-election chances at the expense of the U.S. economy.

Look, we don’t love Obama, but it’s important to bring this conversation back to reality — where the only America-haters are those distorting the data and the true traitors want America, to fail.

Just how socialistic is Obama?

According to findings from the political analysts at Voteview, President Obama is actually the most moderate Democratic president of the post-WWII era, despite some very loud opinions to the contrary. By contrast, former President George W. Bush was found to be the most conserva-tive president in that same era. In a series on political polarization, Voteview data show how U.S. politicians have moved farther apart from each other in the past hundred-plus years, with the steady disappearance of true moderates.

Follow Brayden Simms on Twitter @metropolitik

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This turn was affected by a pair of timely circumstances. First:?During a discussion this week about the upcoming November presidential election, a pal made it clear that he wasn’t particularly enamored with President Obama; that he hoped for a change of leadership; and that he was unequivocally going to vote for a second Obama term.

This logical leap is a quirk of U.S. politics, where the two-party system ensures most people vote within the presumed cone of electability. If, as occurred most damagingly in 2000, a third-party vote ends up working in favor of the candidate one deems the less-acceptable of our two establishment evils, it is judged as having been wasted. Why, this dear friend asked, risk the election of a Romney or a Gingrich when we can rest safely in the dissatisfaction of another relatively-less-awful Obama term?

Which brings us to circumstance No. 2: The American Civil Liberties Union? this week filed a lawsuit against Obama administration agencies in an effort to learn the legal justification for the government’s policy of targeted assassinations of American citizens — including al Qaeda terrorist Anwar Awlaki and his 16-year-old son, Abdulrahman, in Yemen.

(Note that the ACLU has not attempted to subvert this sort of killing, but merely to discover the legal basis for its use, including, according to an ACLU blog post, “the process by which the administration adds Americans to secret government ‘kill lists.’”) 

Following drone strikes in fall 2011, the ACLU and others including The New York Times filed several Freedom of Information Act requests with the government, but to no avail. The Obama
administration, once hailed by the president’s press secretary as being “the most transparent … ever,” is, in the ACLU’s words, treating the “targeted killing program [as] so secret that they can’t even acknowledge that it exists.”

To many, this will all seem quite acceptable. Mercilessly attacking and killing our sworn enemies is nothing but the mission statement of America in a post-9/11 world.

B ut a difficulty arises when the enemies we’re clandestinely killing happen to be U.S. citizens. There may be no more distressing executive overreach than the power of the president to secretly select and execute Americans with absolutely no judicial oversight. Couple this with the fact that the president routinely trots these killings out as evidence of his leadership in the war on terror and you’ve got a contradiction more stark than Romney following up his “I’m not concerned about the very poor”?gaffe with an endorsement from Donald Trump.

Sure, these issues could actually get worse under Republican leadership, but honestly how much worse could it get? Obama wants to have his cake and kill it, too: to campaign as a liberal, lead as a moderate and reign as a tyrant.

Follow Brayden Simms on Twitter @metropolitik

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Obama bookends his policy proposals and congressional critiques with a glorification of American military efficiency. Praising advancement in the U.S. war on terror, Obama lauds the “courage, selflessness, and teamwork of America’s armed forces,” saying civilians could benefit “if we followed their example.”

Reality: U.S. citizens are not members of an elite fighting unit. Cooperation is nice, but it’s insane to project our rigid, hierarchical military structure onto a democracy where everyone has a right to individuality. Obama also overstates gains in Afghanistan and Iraq, where historic sectarian divisions threaten to put the lie to trillions in wasteful military expenditures.

Financial industry.

The president claims to have put “in place new rules to hold Wall Street accountable, so a crisis like that never happens again.” And later says he “will not go back to the days when Wall Street was allowed to play by its own set of rules.”

Reality: Legislators have not gone nearly far enough to ensure that we don’t suffer another financial crisis down the line. This shouldn’t be terribly surprising due to a deadly pair of conditions:?the disinclination among most politicians to upset the apple cart and legislate against the interests of their Wall Street donors; and, perhaps more inflammatory, the irrational trust bestowed upon financial industry veterans — who, under Obama as under previous presi­dents, hold high advisory roles allowing them to manipulate reform law. (The much-bally­hooed Dodd-Frank legislation naturally ignores the structural causes of 2008’s collapse.)

Deficit reduction.

“When it comes to the deficit, we’ve already agreed to more than $2 trillion in cuts and savings. But we need to do more.”

Reality: Contrary to the Tea Party push to “cut, cut, cut”, most influential economists agree that spending is the sure path toward growth. The president weakens his ability to fix the economy when he repeats the unfactual rhetoric of the right. Think of government spending as a student loan for the betterment of America’s future: Students must take on debt to increase their earning potential; later, after putting loan monies to good use, they will be in a position to pay down that debt. Government needs to provide more stimulus to create jobs and prosperity. Once that is achieved, we can safely deal with the debt issue.

Follow Brayden Simms on Twitter @Metropolitik

Metro does not endorse the opinions of the author, or any opinions expressed on its pages.

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Here are some key quotes from the speech:

Taxes/Buffett Rule

“Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule: If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes. And my Republican friend Tom Coburn is right: Washington should stop subsidizing millionaires. In fact, if you’re earning a million dollars a year, you shouldn’t get special tax subsidies or deductions. On the other hand, if you make under $250,000 a year, like 98 percent of American families, your taxes shouldn’t go up.”

Housing

“While government can’t fix the problem on its own, responsible homeowners shouldn’t have to sit and wait for the housing market to hit bottom to get some relief. That’s why I’m sending this Congress a plan that gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3,000 a year on their mortgage, by refinancing at historically low interest rates. No more red tape. No more runaround from the banks. A small fee on the largest financial institutions will ensure that it won’t add to the deficit, and will give banks that were rescued by taxpayers a chance to repay a deficit of trust.”

Payroll tax

“Right now, our most immediate priority is stopping a tax hike on 160 million working Americans while the recovery is still fragile. People cannot afford losing $40 out of each paycheck this year. There are plenty of ways to get this done. So let’s agree right here, right now: No side issues. No drama. Pass the payroll tax cut without delay.”

Construction

In the next few weeks, I will sign an Executive Order clearing away the red tape that slows down too many construction projects. But you need to fund these projects. Take the money we’re no longer spending at war, use half of it to pay down our debt, and use the rest to do some nation-building right here at home.

Financial crimes

“Some financial firms violate major anti-fraud laws because there’s no real penalty for being a repeat offender. That’s bad for consumers, and it’s bad for the vast majority of bankers and financial service professionals who do the right thing. So pass legislation that makes the penalties for fraud count.”

Clean energy development

“There’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation. So far, you haven’t acted. Well tonight, I will. I’m directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power 3 million homes.”

Immigration

“We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.”

Insider trading/Congress

“Send me a bill that bans insider trading by members of Congress, and I will sign it tomorrow. Let’s limit any elected official from owning stocks in industries they impact. Let’s make sure people who bundle campaign contributions for Congress can’t lobby Congress, and vice versa – an idea that has bipartisan support, at least outside of Washington.”

Iran

“Let there be no doubt: America is determined to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, and I will take no options off the table to achieve that goal. But a peaceful resolution of this issue is still possible, and far better, and if Iran changes course and meets its obligations, it can rejoin the community of nations.”

Afghanistan

“From this position of strength, we’ve begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. Ten thousand of our troops have come home. Twenty-three thousand more will leave by the end of this summer. This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, so that it is never again a source of attacks against America.”

Government gridlock

“We should all want a smarter, more effective government. And while we may not be able to bridge our biggest philosophical differences this year, we can make real progress. With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions that help the economy grow. But I can do a whole lot more with your help. Because when we act together, there is nothing the United States of America can’t achieve.”

Tuition

“At a time when Americans owe more in tuition debt than credit card debt, this Congress needs to stop the interest rates on student loans from doubling in July. Extend the tuition tax credit we started that saves middle-class families thousands of dollars. And give more young people the chance to earn their way through college by doubling the number of work-study jobs in the next five years.”
Tax Inequality
“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”

Obstruction

“The state of our union is getting stronger. And we’ve come too far to turn back now. As long as I’m president, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.”

Auto industry turnaround
“We bet on American workers. We bet on American ingenuity. And tonight, the American auto industry is back.”

Manufacturing

“We have a huge opportunity, at this moment, to bring manufacturing back. But we have to seize it. Tonight, my message to business leaders is simple: Ask yourselves what you can do to bring jobs back to your country and your country will do everything we can to help you succeed.”

Tax Code

“We should start with our tax code. Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it. So let’s change it.”

Corporate taxes

“No American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here.”

The post Key quotes from Barack Obama’s State of the Union address appeared first on Metro.us.

Monday night the four Republican presidential hopefuls still left standing met in Tampa, Fla., for the 18th debate of the campaign cycle, and we’re sure it was a doozy. Former front-runner Mitt Romney, buffeted by attacks from the tricky Newt Gingrich, must take control of the narrative and go on the offensive. We predict a rumble.

However, the debate runs too late for our analysis, which will instead run tomorrow. Today we’re going to address a New Yorker article by reporter Ryan Lizza that chronicles the death of hope in President Obama’s first three years of rule as the Chicago newcomer’s much-ballyhooed post-partisanship crashed headfirst into the messy realities of Washington gridlock.

In this analysis, reformer Obama grossly underestimated the nature of U.S. two-party politics, in which a win for one party — and perhaps the country at large — may be perceived by the opposition party as a big loss (and therefore scuttled) regardless of its potential to improve the lot of regular Americans; and in which a hyperpartisan national media infrastructure can effectively motivate negative public opinion in support of special interests.

In short, the system — as we all now, irrespective of party affiliation, seem hopelessly aware — is broken at the core. When potentially beneficial legislation is viewed in Washington through the prism of future electoral chances; when, in other words, good ideas are killed off solely owing to the perception that they could aid rival politicians come next November; when elected officials weigh their own upcoming contests more heavily then the general welfare of the American people; what we get are politicians looking to benefit not “we the people” but “me the candidate.”

Obama, of course, did not create this system, but he does seem to have run aground of it. And if he wants to win re-election, he’ll have to work with it.

Slip of the tongue, or straight talk?

“If I’m fortunate enough to become president, I’ll care very deeply about it getting better in a big hurry.”

Mitt Romney on the economy yesterday. Some have pointed out that Romney’s diction here implies that he’s not particularly interested in the economy improving in the meantime, which makes perfect sense:?Romney is running on a platform that President Obama has failed to improve the economy.

Follow Brayden Simms on Twitter @Metropolitik

Metro does not endorse the opinions of the author, or any opinions expressed on its pages. 

The post Metropolitik: Crossing the aisle was Barack Obama’s mistake appeared first on Metro.us.