Motley Moose – Archive

The President’s Weekly Address post is also an Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, the President highlighted the progress made protecting American consumers since he signed Wall Street reform into law five years ago, including an important new step taken by the independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau earlier this week toward preventing abuses in payday lending.

The President emphasized his commitment to fighting to advance middle-class economics and ensure everybody who works hard can get ahead, while opposing attempts by Republicans both to weaken the CFPB and give large tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans at the expense of the middle class.

President Obama spoke yesterday in Birmingham Alabama at Lawson State Community College. He mentioned that Congress passed a bill (insert shock emoticon here) but that they also released their budget. That budget gifts the richest Americans at the expense of middle and low income workers.

The emphasis of the speech was new rules to be issued by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) which will protect consumers from abusive payday lending practices.

We were hearing a story from some of the advocates who were working here in Alabama, a story about a family — the grandmother died, matriarch of the family.  She passed away.  They don’t have quite enough to pay for the funeral.  They go to a payday loan, borrow for the funeral; can’t pay back the loan in time; the family’s car gets taken away.  And the two folks who are the breadwinners in that family lose their jobs because they can’t get to work.  Right?  So what started off as a short-term emergency suddenly becomes a catastrophic financial situation for that family.

And you don’t need to be a math genius to know that it’s a pretty bad deal if you’re borrowing $500 and you have to pay back $1,000 in interest.  […]

The Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, the CFPB, announced today that it’s going to take important steps towards protecting consumers from getting stuck into these cycles of debt.  (Applause.)  

And the idea is pretty common sense:  If you lend out money, you have to first make sure that the borrower can afford to pay it back.  Don’t lend somebody money if you know they can’t pay it back.  

As Americans, we don’t mind seeing folks make a profit.  And if somebody lends you money, then we expect you to charge interest on that loan.  But if you’re making that profit by trapping hardworking Americans into a vicious cycle of debt, you got to find a new business model.  You got to find a new way of doing business.  (Applause.)  

He expressed his hope that Congress would support his initiatives and he left his audience with this:

We’re also a country that was built on the idea that everybody gets a fair shot and that we put laws in place to make sure that folks aren’t taken advantage of. When this country does not live up to its promise of fairness and opportunity for all people, we’re all hurt.  (Applause.)  When we do live up to those promises, all of us are better off.    

Back in 2008, I came to Birmingham as a candidate for this office, and I said, “There is nothing we cannot do if the American people decide it’s time.”  Seven years later, I still believe there is nothing we cannot do if we decide it is time. (Applause.)  We’re all in this thing together, Alabama.  We’ve been through some tough times together, but we’re coming back together.  If we decide this is our time, then together we’re going to write the next great chapter in this country’s history.

Congress did pass a bill and we can all applaud that. But the American people need to stand up and say “it’s time — time to cast aside the party of the have-mores and embrace living wages for everyone who wants to work hard”.

The March from Selma to Montgomery:

On 25 March 1965, Martin Luther King led thousands of nonviolent demonstrators to the steps of the capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, after a 5-day, 54-mile march from Selma, Alabama, where local African Americans, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) had been campaigning for voting rights.

Dr. King:

I know you are asking today, “How long will it take?” (Speak, sir) Somebody’s asking, “How long will prejudice blind the visions of men, darken their understanding, and drive bright-eyed wisdom from her sacred throne?” Somebody’s asking, “When will wounded justice, lying prostrate on the streets of Selma and Birmingham and communities all over the South, be lifted from this dust of shame to reign supreme among the children of men?” Somebody’s asking, “When will the radiant star of hope be plunged against the nocturnal bosom of this lonely night, (Speak, speak, speak) plucked from weary souls with chains of fear and the manacles of death? How long will justice be crucified, (Speak) and truth bear it?” (Yes, sir)

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, (Yes, sir) however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, (No sir) because “truth crushed to earth will rise again.” (Yes, sir)

How long? Not long, (Yes, sir) because “no lie can live forever.” (Yes, sir)

How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

From the White House:

Better with Obamacare:

On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed a historic law that has transformed the lives of millions of Americans.

On Monday, the Affordable Care Act will celebrate five years of significant progress. That’s a fact that people across the country can see in more affordable coverage, higher quality care, and better health, thanks to Obamacare.

Heck, why not? A Moose Straw Poll is probably at least as good a predictor as the Iowa Straw Poll which has not successfully picked the eventual nominee since 2000.

According to The Hill, there are 20 candidates who have thrown their hats near the ring … ready to nudge them in given even the slightest encouragement.

Get ready for the largest GOP presidential field in recent history.

As many as 20 Republicans are taking a serious look at running for the White House in 2016. A handful of candidates have moved aggressively into the field, and others are expected to ramp up in the coming weeks, with several announcements expected in April.

According to the article, the field of declared candidates for the last election cycle never exceeded 10 and the largest group at a debate was 9 (in 2011).

The list is below the fold …

Welcome to The Moose Pond! The Welcomings diaries give the Moose, old and new, a place to visit and share words about the weather, life, the world at large and the small parts of Moosylvania that we each inhabit.

The President’s Weekly Address post is also an Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, the President called on Republicans in Congress to stop playing politics with law enforcement and national security and confirm Loretta Lynch as Attorney General of the United States.

Loretta is an independent, career prosecutor who deserves to be confirmed as soon as possible. She has proven herself time and again throughout her 30-year career, yet come Monday, the amount of time her nomination will have languished on the floor of the Senate will total more than that of the past seven Attorney General nominees combined.  

In his address the President asked Republicans in Congress to stop denying a vote on the nomination of Loretta Lynch and end the longest confirmation process for an Attorney General in three decades.

From The City Club of Cleveland

Transcript: Remarks by the President to the City Club of Cleveland

Introductory remarks:

Now, over the course of my presidency, one that began in the depths of a historic crisis, no issue has been more important than the future of our economy.  That’s certainly been of great interest in Ohio and in Cleveland.  No topic has weighed more heavily on the minds of ordinary families, and no subject is more worthy of a great, big, open debate.

Seventy-five years ago, another President came here to Cleveland to engage in this debate.  He was nearing the end of his second term, eight years in office marked by a devastating depression, a hard-fought recovery, fierce political divisions at home, looming threats overseas.  But for all the challenges of a changing world, FDR refused to accept the notion that we are anything less than the masters of our fate.  “We are characters in this living book of democracy,” he said.  “But we are also its author.  It falls upon us now to say whether the chapters that are to come will tell a story of retreat or of continued advance.” […]

Well, after 12 million new jobs, a stock market that has more than doubled, deficits that have been cut by two-thirds, health care inflation at the lowest rate in nearly 50 years, manufacturing coming back, auto industry coming back, clean energy doubled — I’ve come not only to answer that question, but I want to return to the debate that is central to this country, and the alternative economic theory that’s presented by the other side.

Because their theory does not change.  It really doesn’t. It’s a theory that says, if we do little more than just cut taxes for those at the very top, if we strip out regulations and let special interests write their own rules, prosperity trickles down to the rest of us.  And I take the opposite view.  And I take it not for ideological reasons, but for historic reasons, because of the evidence. […]

So when we, the American people, when the public evaluates who’s got the better argument here, we’ve got to look at the facts.  It’s not abstractions.  There may have been a time when you could just say, well, those two theories are equally valid.  They’re differences of opinion.  They could have been abstract economic arguments in a book somewhere.  But not anymore.  Reality has rendered its judgment:  Trickle-down economics does not work.  And middle-class economic does.

More …

President Obama on Vice News:

VICE founder Shane Smith interviews President Barack Obama, discussing a host of issues important to Americans, from foreign policy and marijuana legalization to global warming and political gridlock.

Fifty years ago today: President Lyndon Baines Johnson

At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.

There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed. […]

There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans-not as Democrats or Republicans–we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.

This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: “All men are created equal”-“government by consent of the governed”-“give me liberty or give me death.” Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives.[…]

Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law cannot overcome systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law that we now have on the books-and I have helped to put three of them there-can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it. […]

The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this Nation. His demonstrations have been designed to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change, designed to stir reform.

He has called upon us to make good the promise of America. And who among us can say that we would have made the same progress were it not for his persistent bravery, and his faith in American democracy.

For at the real heart of battle for equality is a deep-seated belief in the democratic process. Equality depends not on the force of arms or tear gas but upon the force of moral right; not on recourse to violence but on respect for law and order. […]

This is the richest and most powerful country which ever occupied the globe. The might of past empires is little compared to ours. But I do not want to be the President who built empires, or sought grandeur, or extended dominion.

I want to be the President who educated young children to the wonders of their world. I want to be the President who helped to feed the hungry and to prepare them to be taxpayers instead of tax-eaters.

I want to be the President who helped the poor to find their own way and who protected the right of every citizen to vote in every election.

I want to be the President who helped to end hatred among his fellow men and who promoted love among the people of all races and all regions and all parties.

The Voting Rights Act was passed and signed into law on August 6, 1965.