For Authors

As authors, you have exactly what you need to make it really big in social media."

That's a quote from Amy Porterfield, social media expert and co-author of Facebook Marketing for Dummies. It's also encouraging news for us authors, given how many of us still feel angst about social media. Fortunately, Amy shared with me exactly how authors should be using social media to grow our platforms. It's such valuable information, I wanted to be sure to share it with you.

First and foremost, which social media outlet should you focus on, given that there book deadlines to meet, businesses to run, jobs to do, and let's not forget, lives to live? Facebook, Amy says, "is the platform for true engagement." While Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and others can play important roles, Amy explains, Facebook is the one that allows you to really connect with your fans.
So what can you do to make your Facebook page the hub of social media buzz you hoped it would become? The first issue, Amy says, is that "most people give up way too soon," before they have a real chance of attracting fans. "You create a Facebook page. You're so excited about it. You don't see a lot of activity, so you give up." The simple fact is, she says, "you've just got to do the work."
It's not a matter of spending hours and hours each day on Facebook, Amy adds -- it's a matter of staying committed to updating it consistently and frequently, and, most importantly, using your fan page wisely.
There's a formula Amy uses -- one, I should mention, I've adopted for my own pages -- that is almost guaranteed to produce results. It's Amy's 3 C's -- Capture, Connect, and Convert. Here's how it works:
Capture: To get people's attention, you need to create a unique offer for a free "goodie," which can be a content-rich video series, eBook, recorded Webinar, or other. Ideally, you offer this free "goodie" on a custom tab on your Facebook page, and you absolutely must have your fans opt in by providing their email address, in order to get the prize.
At this point, you've gotten people's attention, so your next challenge is to build a relationship with them, which is why the next phase is both the longest and, arguably, the most important.
Connect: This is where you allow people to get to know you. You earn their trust, and become the author they're dying to hear from. This, Amy says, is where authors really shine. This phase is all about offering great content -- the very thing you, as an author, do so well.
The key to creating compelling content, she adds, is the three E's. "Educate, Entertain, and Empower... every single one of your posts should do at least one of these," she explains. "That's how you move a fan to a super fan."
As you create your content, your goal is not to showcase your expertise, but to start a conversation with your fans. Asking questions of your fans, and paying attention to their answers, is critical. People love talking about themselves, so be sure to give fans the attention they inevitably desire. For example, if your fans are repeatedly asking certain questions, or wanting your input on certain issues, create new content around those topic(s). The more you cater to your fans and treat them like friends, the more they'll want to follow you -- and then recommend you to their friends, family, and so on.
Throughout this phase, you also need to get your fans in the habit of interacting with you. While your content at this point is all still free, be sure to consistently make little demands of your fans. Ask them to subscribe to your newsletter, click here to watch your new video, sign up for your free Webinar, and so on. Getting them in the habit of following your lead primes them for the next phase, when you turn fans into customers.
Convert: However daunting this phase may initially sound, if you've invested sufficient time and resources in the Connect phase, this third and final phase is mostly about providing your fans with social proof -- ideally, testimonials.
Because you earned your fans' trust during the Connect phase, they already know and like you. At this point, they just need one extra nudge to pull out their wallets and buy your book, products, services, and programs. Testimonials are the perfect way to accomplish that because they demonstrate how well your products have helped others. Ideally, Amy says, you want to "put your testimonials on your Facebook page... and then tell [your fans] where to buy" your book or other products.
While your Website is your first hub, Amy says, Facebook should be "your number two," because it's where conversations happen. By making yourself and your content available through your Facebook page, you're making it that much easier for fans to follow you--and if my success is any indication, using Amy's three C's -- follow you, they certainly will!

Arielle Ford has launched the careers of many NY Times bestselling authors including Deepak Chopra, Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Neale Donald Walsch & Debbie Ford. She is a former book publicist, literary agent and the author of seven books. EverythingYouShouldKnow.com

 

Some place Special

When Lisa Nigro founded Inspiration Cafe in 1989, she borrowed her nephew’s red wagon and filled it with coffee and sandwiches.  A former police officer, Lisa pulled that wagon around the Uptown neighborhood of Chicago offering a little dignity and respect to the homeless men and women she encountered.  Over time, Lisa and other early supporters grew the Cafe beyond that red wagon, first turning a van into a kitchen on wheels and then converting a bus into a travelling cafe. 
Lisa’s idea, to cook and serve good food with a dash of hope, captured the attention of the Uptown neighborhood and the Chicago media.  She soon received a phone call from an Uptown building owner, offering her a six-month lease on a Wilson Avenue storefront for one dollar. 
The Cafe moved into the new space and became a restaurant for the homeless, where men and women could sit down, order off a menu and be served.  In the years that followed, Inspiration Cafe expanded its services beyond simply meals, to include case management, supportive services, housing, and our restaurant skills training program Inspiration Kitchens–Uptown™. 
Meanwhile, in other parts of town, The Living Room Cafe and The Employment Project were founded as organizations to serve Chicagoans affected by homelessness and poverty.  The Living Room Cafe, created by Jennifer Kihm, a former intern at Inspiration Cafe, offered meals and supportive services to the Woodlawn community on Chicago’s South Side.  The Employment Project, begun by Luke Weisberg, provided homeless and low-income Chicagoans with employment training, career counseling and job placement.  For several years, Inspiration Cafe, The Living Room Cafe and The Employment Project served Chicago’s homeless population side by side. 
As they grew, these organizations dreamed of creating a greater impact in the community.  In 2003, The Living Room Cafe and Inspiration Cafe joined together to become Inspiration Corporation, with the goal of providing meals and supportive services with streamlined and efficient administration.  As Inspiration Corporation, our volunteers and staff continued to provide the best services possible to Chicagoans in need.
Two years later, in 2005, Inspiration Corporation and the Employment Project merged to create an organization that provides holistic services to better serve the needs of our guests and participants.  By saving on administrative and fundraising costs, Inspiration Corporation could focus more resources on our mission:  leading homeless men and women towards self-sufficiency.
Later in 2005, Inspiration Corporation celebrated the opening of the Inspiration Kitchens™ restaurant and training center.  At Inspiration Kitchens, culinary students could hone their skills in a real restaurant and enter the workforce with the experience and confidence needed to succeed.  With Inspiration Kitchens, we’ve combined the core values from our past – great food and a commitment to improving lives.
In 2006, Karen Skalitzky, a long-time volunteer with Inspiration Corporation, wrote a book of great sensitivity and power, A Recipe for Hope: Stories of Transformation by People Struggling with Homelessness. In moving chapters punctuated with recipes from some of Chicago's leading chefs, the book shares first-person accounts of the struggles and triumphs of many of the people who have walked through the doors of Inspiration Cafe and The Living Room Cafe and found the courage to transform their lives.
Today, Inspiration Corporation has grown to serve 3,000 individuals a year by providing meals, supportive services, housing, employment preparation and vocational training, and free voice mail – serving as a catalyst for self-reliance. 
Although we’ve grown, we haven’t forgotten why we began our work 21 years ago.  We’re still committed to providing outstanding services in an atmosphere of dignity and respect.  We hope that you will join us in our work to end homelessness and poverty in Chicago.

Bad Credit

Blame the GOP. The Republican Party is more interested in standing up for billionaires and rooting for economic failure than they are in actually doing something for the good of the country. The failure of the super committee is the most egregious example of GOP intransigence and radical recklessness to date. Here was a chance for a rational deal predicated on putting together a deal to place America on relatively sound financial footing, and Republicans arrogantly walked away. BY mpaul on 11/28/2011 at 17:10

So just a recap of what has happened since the Republican took control of the House.

Credit rating degraded..twice

DEBT and DEFICIT has increased

Unemployment has increased

wages have decreased

still no consensus on a budget

House voted to ELIMINATE Medicare

ALL Republicans have vowed their allegiance to Grover Norquist, NOT the constitution

Its a good thing that they will only be there for another year…one and done will be the NEW Tea Party motto

Super Failure!!!

Thanks a lot all you stupid middle class republican­s for voting these republican criminals in, and now your payroll taxes will rise by 50%. And doctors will see their pay cut by 27% when they treat medicare patients which means that they will not want to treat medicare patients! Thanks a
lot you stupid sheep. Hope you are happy....e­specially for your millionair­es and billionair­es...they'­re laughing all the way to the bank...whi­le you sit in your trailers.

Cuts in Education, No cares about the Children

Aristotle got it right when he said, “All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth.” Once upon a time America professed to believe in a strong public education system—at least for some children. And we still talk about public education as the great equalizer and pathway out of poverty but continue to fall far short in assuring millions of poor children, especially those of color, upward mobility.

As if children and families were not suffering enough during this economic downturn, many states are choosing to balance budgets on the backs of children and to shift more costs away from government onto children and families who have fewer means to bear them. That is a shameful trend in public education today. Even when students are in school, they’re getting less than they used to. Of the 46 states that publish data in a manner allowing historical comparisons, 37 are providing less funding per student to local school districts this school year than they provided last year, and 30 are providing less funding than they did four years ago. Seventeen states have cut per-student funding more than 10 percent from pre-recession levels, and four—South Carolina, Arizona, California, and Hawaii—have reduced per student funding for K-12 schools more than 20 percent.


These cuts have major effects on critical learning opportunities. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has found funding cuts in Georgia will mean shortening the pre-kindergarten school year from 180 to 160 days for 86,000 four-year-olds. Since the start of the recession, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Texas, and other states have cut funding from early education programs to help close budget shortfalls. New Jersey cut funding for afterschool programs. In a 2009 survey of California parents, 41 percent reported their child's school was cutting summer programs. Cuts limiting student learning time are likely to intensify in the coming year. An American Association of School Administrators survey reports 17 percent of respondents were considering shortening the school week to four days for the 2011-2012 school year and 40 percent were considering eliminating summer school programs. Summer learning loss is a major contributor to the achievement gap between poor and non-poor children. Districts across the country are beginning to cut extracurricular activities and to charge fees for supplies like biology safety goggles or printer ink.


These education cuts come at a time when American education is in dire straits. The United States ranks 24th among 30 developed countries in overall educational achievement for 15-year-olds. A study of education systems in 60 countries ranks the United States 31st in math achievement and 23rd in science achievement for 15-year-olds. More than 60 percent of all fourth, eighth, and 12th grade public school students in every racial and income group are reading or doing math below grade level. Nearly 80 percent or more of Black and Hispanic students in these grades are reading or doing math below grade level. A recent report by the Education Trust notes more than one in five high school graduates don’t meet the minimum standard required for Army enlistment as measured by the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT). Among applicants of color, the ineligibility rates are even higher: 29 percent of Hispanics and 39 percent of African Americans are ineligible based on their AFQT scores.


Children should be getting more quality instructional time, not less, to prepare to compete in the rapidly globalizing economy. Instead they’re being held back and provided less school days and hours by stopgap solutions to budget problems they didn’t cause. Too many adults seem to lack a moral, common, and fiscal sense context for making decisions about what to cut and what to invest in. The Children’s Defense Fund’s first publication in 1974 was on Children Out of School in America. We documented two million children not enrolled in school, including hundreds of thousands of children with disabilities. As we went door to door interviewing thousands of families in 30 census tracts for that initial study, we never thought to ask the question, “Is your child home today because her school is closed to help balance your district’s budget?”


At the Children’s Defense Fund we believe education is a basic human right and an essential tool for evening the odds for all children and promoting upward mobility for children left behind. Education gives you the tools to improve not only your own life but the lives of others and to leave the world better than you found it. How can we expect our children to create a better America if we don’t give them a good education? Cuts being proposed in Washington and in the states and localities around the country may be saving a few dollars on a balance sheet today—but they will cost us dearly tomorrow as a nation. How shortsighted we are. Where are our priorities? What are our values?

Occupy Washington

If Wall Street thought banning tents from Zuccotti Park was going to stop the 99%, then they're just as shortsighted now as when they wrecked our economy.
Because yesterday, the nation saw the biggest day of action since the Occupy movement began—with tens of thousands protesting in New York and at bridges, schools, and other examples of crumbling infrastructure around the country.
Meanwhile, a band of courageous protesters is marching from Wall Street to Washington to bring the 99% to where it's been missing—our government. Like the first protesters to lay down their tarps in Zuccotti Park, the marchers are matching their commitment to the moment across 230 long miles to our nation's capital. Marching 20 miles per day, through cold and wet November weather, with feet swollen and bloodied, they report the warmest reception from the neighborhoods hardest hit by the economic downturn.¹ As one protester said: "putting your body into something like this, I think it gives you the hope that there can be real change."²
The marchers are hurrying to D.C. to stop a terrible Super Committee deal that means more devastating cuts for the 99% instead of making the 1% pay their fair share.³ The risk is growing by the day. Democrats on the Super Committee have already offered huge cuts to Medicare benefits and Social Security, while Republicans demand even more—and if only one Democrat agrees, we're sunk.⁴ So let's make sure the Senate feels the energy of the 99% breathing down their necks.
The Super Committee's not likely to cut a deal the rest of the Senate won't support, so every senator—from true progressives to staunch conservatives—needs to be talking about how many people are calling them with the 99%'s message. Pick up the phone and call Senators Dick Durbin and Mark Kirk today and tell them: "We are the 99%. Don't cut our Social Security and Medicare benefits to protect tax breaks for the 1%."

Errors in print and eBooks

Actually, I read a statistic once that said *most* print books have at least a few errors as well. I've gone through traditiona­lly classic books before with a red pen and found spelling errors...I­'ve also gone through textbooks and found errors. They're incredibly common. People just do notice much sometimes much more.
There are numerous symbols used in spelling these words - not letters but symbols like on the shift level of a keyboard. It's odd, but I don't have any trouble understand­ing the context of the sentence. Actually, it adds to the exoticness of the book's local.

I've downloaded hundreds of books - free and purchased - onto my Kindle and have noticed some errors. But I personally don't think it's a big deal. This is a fairly new technology and there are bound to be problems. I think most people can overlook them and still enjoy the book they are reading.

I just paid to have Kindle at Amazon format and e-publish my novel, and the first thing I noticed was that if a new paragraph starts at the top of the page, it loses its indentatio­n. When I commented to Kindle service reps about this problem, I was given a snooty reply that "on the rare occasions" when this glitch happens, it doesn't interfere with the pleasure of reading on Kindle. Rare occasions? Try every freaking time a new paragraph starts at the top of the page! If the Kindle is having this technologi­cal glitch, then the device/for­matting shouldn't have been released to the public until it was fixed.

As for the big traditiona­l publishers proofing, I find mistakes all the time in their books. I just started a major non-fictio­n book published by Simon and Schuster, and I found two typos in the first 10 pages. Even I proofed my own book with higher standards. If I miss it, I expect the publisher to find it a correct the error or errors.

Blacks are Leaving

CHICAGO — Nearly seven decades ago, James Middleton was just a toddler when he watched a white man shoot and kill a black man in the little town of Lambert, Mississippi.
He had tagged along with his father to run errands and, giddy with excitement, sat in his daddy's Ford as they pulled up to a local restaurant. There was a commotion out front —a family friend arguing with the eatery's white owner, who had a pistol in his hand.
"You nigger!" Middleton recalls the white man shouting. "I'll kill you!"
The friend ran. Gunshots followed.
"I looked down and I could see this man, still trying to breathe, and blood was coming out of his chest," says Middleton. "I don't like to remember bad things. But it seemed like bad things were always happening to black folks."
Middleton's baptism in Southern violence was a consequence of being black at a time and place of cradle-to-grave segregation and senseless death. The specter of violence and inequality that his family endured eventually drove them more than 600 miles north to Chicago, making them a ripple in the wave of millions of blacks who fled the South in search of a better life.
They moved into a little place on Chicago's West Side with other working-class blacks. (The South Side, he said, was reserved for the more well-to-do and professional set). They joined a network of relatives, friends and other migrants.
The Middletons were among an estimated six million blacks to flee the South between 1915 and 1970, to northern cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, New York City, Detroit and Los Angeles in the west. They found work on automobile assembly lines or in manufacturing plants and factories in the industrial North. They laid roots, raised families and gave their children opportunities that many could never have imagined for themselves back home.
But today, generations later, amid higher costs of living, concerns over crime and what many perceive as too few job opportunities in those same cities, African Americans are returning to the South in the largest numbers since the first Great Migration, according to sociologists and those who have studied the new migration. During the 1940s, roughly 1.5 million blacks migrated to the North. Between 2000 and 2010, an estimated 1,336,097 blacks moved to seven major southern cities alone, according to the Brookings Institute, which compiled the most recent data from the U.S. Census.
THE NEW DEMOGRAPHICS
Former magnets for black migrants, including Illinois, Michigan, New York and California, all have had black population declines. Atlanta has even overtaken Chicago as the city with the second-largest black population behind New York City. The black population in Atlanta has grown in the past decade by 473,493. In Dallas it grew by 233,890, and in Houston by 214,928 over the same period. Today, 57 percent of the country's black population lives in the South, a 50-year high, according to the most recent census data.
Today's migrants are chasing the same things their forebears sought decades earlier, according to those who have studied the return migration. Others are retiring or returning to familial homesteads, reclaiming land their relatives never let loose.
"There are places like Harlem that no longer have majority black populations because many of the black folks who have lived there for the last 50 or so years have decided to cash in, and they are going to live somewhere more affordable, places that don't come with the urban baggage that maybe we didn't ever want but put up with because this was our best chance at a solid economic future," said Khalil Muhammad, director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, part of the New York Public Library and renowned for its collections of historic artifacts. "Those people are going to places that look just the way they want them to look. They are not going to be shackled by a political nationalism or the segregation of the past."
Meanwhile, Chicago has lost about 181,000 African Americans over the past decade, a drop of 17 percent. Many have fled to the Chicago suburbs. But to a greater extent, who is leaving and where they're going is difficult to determine, according to demographers. But Brookings Institute reports that these new migrants tend to be financially stable and more educated. Many are students, professionals or retirees.
James Middleton, who is 72, and his wife of 53 years, Barbara, have a grown son, now living in Houston, and a granddaughter in Chicago who is considering moving to the South or West, they say -- an indicator of just how much less promise many see in what was once the "promised land" of the North.
"At that time there wasn't a lot of differences between there and here, in terms of the way people took care of their families," Middleton says of Chicago when he first arrived. "It was simple. We stayed with relatives, and other relatives had relatives, so you were always around people that was concerned about you."
"It was a vast difference between how things are today and how things were then," he adds. "Then it was like that saying, it took a village to raise a child. Everyone chipped in, whether they were neighbors or not. Now the professionals, the school teachers ... they are trying to get away."
THE END OF EXILE
During the summers of her youth, Sherry Williams and her siblings relished the trips back "home" from Chicago to Inverness, Miss., where they ran free and spent lazy summer days by the local fishing hole, living, if only for a few weeks, an idyllic country life.
Those connections still run deep in Williams' family and in other families whose roots stretch back to the South.
"For the most part, most of the people who I know that have started to return to the South, their mindset is that they never were Chicagoans," says Williams, 51, who was born in Chicago but whose mother left Inverness in 1942. "They physically lived here, but really, they truly believe the South is home, and that this is just the place that they moved to seeking work and absolutely for the opportunity to vote, attend better schools and just better themselves."
She said that many of the children of those migrants found themselves financially strapped. "But back home, the family has always had that land, that 'heir property' that many people find themselves going to," Williams says. Her family still owns a home and some land in Mississippi, which a revolving cast of cousins has occupied off and on.
Williams' daughter, Joi Tucker, 20, a third-year student at Alcorn State in Lorman, Miss., said she chose to leave Chicago because life is "definitely a lot easier" in the South. She said she plans on staying there after she graduates to attend graduate school and find work there. She says she's "courting" Alabama, Tennessee and Atlanta.
"It's kind of like a sci-fi movie," Tucker says. "You go home and see people just disappearing."
"AIN'T GOING BACK"
Quinn Chapel A.M.E church is Chicago's oldest black congregation. During the Civil War era it played a pivotal role in the abolitionist movement and Underground Railroad. On a recent afternoon, more than a dozen men and women, many with graying hair, met for Bible study. Many were born in the South, in Mississippi, Georgia or Tennessee.
"Oh, I've seen the change, people moving back," says Dorothy Cunningham, 83, who was raised in Memphis but moved to Chicago with her family when she was 13.
Her church has seen its ranks dwindle amid generational and geographic shifts, as well as the closing of nearby public housing complexes. Cunningham has spoken with family or friends, and she says that they've told her that one downside to moving South is culture shock for the younger children and teens unused to the social mores and the slower pace of life there.
Still, while many African Americans have opted to return "home" to the South, there are still some who intend to stay in the North. They say they have left the Old South behind, and they're unconvinced the New South has much more to offer.
"I left a long time ago," says Mack Sevier, owner of Uncle John's Barbecue, a little no-table joint on the south side of the city. Sevier moved from Augusta, Ark., on May 18, 1962, the day he graduated from high school. "I ain't going back," he says.
Sevier says he found exactly what he was looking for: the opportunity to be his own boss. He occasionally goes back down South, he says, usually to pick up favorite foods, like the southern-grown sweet potatoes he uses to make his pies.
Bronzeville is a South Side neighborhood in Chicago that historians cite as the city's first black neighborhood, founded by former and fugitives slaves in the 1840s. On an unseasonably warm evening recently on Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, Arlander Wade, 63, stood on the sidewalk outside of his recently purchased condo in one of the area's huge, historic "gray stone" homes.
He pointed across the street to a parking lot where the Regal Theater once stood, a place where jazz and blues greats once sang or played. The street, running through the heart of historic Bronzeville, once was Grand Boulevard, a gem in the black community and home to people like Robert S. Abbott, the founder of the Chicago Defender, Daniel Hale Williams, one of the nation's first black surgeons, and Oscar Stanton De Priest, the first post-Reconstruction African American elected to Congress.
"It took me 63 years, but I finally made it to Grand Boulevard," says Wade, a retired postal worker whose mother was born in Georgia, his father in New Jersey. "I don't know why people are going. All these young people are moving because they don't know what they have right here. They are hoping for something better, but what they're running from, they're running to. Everyone they saw on 43rd Street last week will be waiting for them in Atlanta by the time they get there. They can have that. I finally made it."

Huffington Post

Unemployed and Other

Unemployment has been stuck near 9 percent since the recession ended more than two years ago. The jobs report for September on Friday sent the clearest signal to date that the crisis will last through next year's elections.
The pain isn't confined to the 14 million officially unemployed Americans. Among those hurt by today's 9.1 percent jobless rate are people forced to work only part-time and those who've given up looking for work in frustration.
Count many people with jobs, too. Their pay, home values and employment prospects have been diminished by the lack of good-paying, full-time work. Include, too, communities where services have been slashed, small businesses struggling with weak sales and young adults who can't find jobs to repay student loans.
The ailing job market is both a symptom and a cause of troubles elsewhere in the economy – from a depressed housing market to cash-short governments to sluggish consumer spending.
Here's a look at the wide-ranging consequences of chronically weak job growth.
___
WAGES:
A crippled labor market shifts bargaining power to employers. Workers have little leverage to seek raises. When adjusted for inflation, pay was nearly 2 percent less in August than it was a year earlier, according to the Labor Department.
"People are much more compliant and willing to take extra work assignments because they're afraid," says Carl Van Horn of Rutgers University's Center for Workforce Development.

___

Protesting Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street has captured the imagination and passion of millions of Americans who have lost hope that our nation’s policymakers are speaking for them. We support the protesters in their determination to hold Wall Street accountable and create good jobs. We are proud that today on Wall Street, bus drivers, painters, nurses and utility workers are joining students and homeowners, the unemployed and the underemployed to call for fundamental change. Across America, working people are turning out with their friends and neighbors in parks, congregations and union halls to express their frustration – and anger -- about our country’s staggering wealth gap, the lack of work for people who want to work and the corrupting of our politics by business and financial elites. The people who do the work to keep our great country running are being robbed not only of income, but of a voice. It is time for all of us—the 99 percent—to be heard.

As we did when we marched on Wall Street last year, working people call on corporations, big banks, and the financial industry to do their part to create good jobs, stop foreclosures and pay their fair share of taxes.
We will open our union halls and community centers as well as our arms and our hearts to those with the courage to stand up and demand a better America.
Wall Street and corporate America must invest in America: Big corporations should invest some of the $2 trillion in cash they have on hand, and use it to create good jobs. And the banks themselves should be making credit more accessible to small businesses, instead of parking almost $1 trillion at the Federal Reserve. Stop foreclosures: Banks should write down the 14 million mortgages that are underwater and stop the more than 10 million pending foreclosures to stop the downward spiral of our housing markets and inject more than $70 billion into our economy.
Fund education and jobs by taxing financial speculation: A tiny tax on financial transactions could raise hundreds of billions in revenue that could fund education and create jobs rebuilding our country. And it would discourage speculation and encourage long term investment.

The Left of Obama

President Obama is learning the hard way that you can't please all of your fans all of the time.

After riding a wave of liberal support into the White House three years ago, Obama has found that some of those same supporters are now among his most vocal critics.

In recent weeks, the president has been attacked by environmentalists over a clean-air rule; by Hispanic advocates over aggressive deportations; by labor unions over looming trade deals; by Jewish groups over Israel's borders; and by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) over soaring unemployment among African Americans.

Hardly apologetic, Obama has met the critics head on, telling them to "shake it off" and "stop crying." But the tough-love strategy could backfire, political experts warn, if it alienates the liberal base that will be vital to the president's reelection chances next year.

"The Left’s criticism and/or disenchantment with Obama is real and serious," Michael Mezey, political scientist at DuPaul University, said in an email. "Many of his actions (or inactions) have disappointed a large segment of the base and has provoked more than a little grumbling from those quarters. … Obama does need to make amends and he has started to do that, at least rhetorically."

Ross Baker, political scientist at Rutgers University, sounded a similar cautionary note.

"The president's problem with his base is not desertion or defection but demobilization," Baker said in an email. "No serious observer believes that Massachusetts liberals with PhDs would vote for Rick Perry or even Mitt Romney" – the leading GOP presidential contenders – "but they can exercise their right to stay home on election day.

"This is a nightmare grounded in reality," Baker added, "because that is what happened in 2008, especially with younger voters and African Americans."

Every president has trouble with his base, the experts note. In 1992, for instance, many Republicans frustrated with President George H.W. Bush "voted for Ross Perot and got Bill Clinton," former-Rep. Tony Coelho (D-Calif.), a one-time majority whip who served as campaign chairman for Al Gore’s 2000 presidential run, told The Hill.

But the sheer number of liberal factions – combined with Obama's campaign vows to appease practically all of them – have forced the president to manage a level of supporter discontent that the younger President Bush never had to.

Most Republicans didn't grumble, for instance, when George W. Bush tapped Americans' phones without a warrant. And there was no Tea Party mobilization when Vice President Dick Cheney said "deficits don't matter." Instead, conservatives largely held their tongues and reserved their fire for the Democrats.

"Karl Rove always advised Bush to keep the base happy and the Administration never did anything to alienate the base," Mezey said. "They didn’t compromise on tax cuts, consistently protected guns, never wavered on abortion, and, of course, their response to 9/11 and the Iraq adventure fit their worldview."

Julian Zelizer, political historian at Princeton University, agreed, arguing that Obama is still in search of a singular defining issue he can tap to energize his base.

"What Bush had going then was national security as a unifying rallying point – he had something – and I don't think Obama has that something," Zelizer said. "It's hard to counteract the frustration."

Obama this year has made a number of moves unpopular with the liberals who came out for him in droves in 2008.

Earlier this month, for instance, the president shocked political observers when he asked the Environmental Protection Agency to scrap its plans for stricter rules on smog-forming ozone – standards strongly opposed by Republicans and business leaders, who consider them a job-killer.

The move drew howls from environmentalists, who accused the president of caving on campaign vows to let science – not politics – dictate his policy initiatives.

Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth Action, said Friday that, with moves like that, Obama "runs the risk of depressing the vote" in 2012. Even those who do go to the polls, Pica warned, might be too discouraged to take the extra steps – like donating money or knocking on doors – needed to win national elections.

"He hasn't been willing to really fight on environmental issues," Pica told The Hill. "I'm hearing from a lot of donors that they're really ambivalent right now. They may vote for him, but that may be all he gets out of them."

On labor issues, Obama has ruffled some liberal feathers by endorsing free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea. On Monday, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka – one of Obama's most influential backers – sent the president a letter opposing the Colombia deal over that country's history of anti-union violence.

Trumka's message was not subtle: Attached were the names of 22 union leaders who have been killed in Colombia's labor wars.

Black lawmakers have also expressed frustration with Obama's handling of the struggling economy. Last month, for instance, CBC leaders wondered aloud why Obama's Midwestern jobs tour skipped over the urban areas hit hardest by the Great Recession. The lawmakers say they support the president fervently, but want to see him fighting harder for the Democrats' policy priorities – particularly when it comes to battling unemployment among African Americans.

“We love the president. We want him to be successful,” Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said earlier this month. “But does he feel our pain? Does he understand what's going on out here?”

Complicating life for Obama, GOP leaders – particularly those in the Senate – have adopted a strategy of opposing the White House even on some legislation Republicans support. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), for instance, raised eyebrows at the start of the deficit-reduction debate when he helped kill a bipartisan bill – a proposal he'd previously characterized as the “best way to address the [budget] crisis” – after Obama endorsed it.

"The single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term president," McConnell told National Journal last year.

The GOP's rigidity has forced Obama to the right in order to pass anything through Congress, which in turn has only heightened the backlash from the left.

In July, after Obama had signaled his willingness to compromise with GOP leaders and scale back benefits under Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, a liberal activist group, launched a campaign encouraging liberals to withhold financial and volunteer support for the president in 2012 if he stood behind those changes. The group gathered 200,000 signatures, which were delivered to Obama's campaign headquarters in Chicago. 

Some liberal lawmakers have even gone so far as to suggest that a Democratic primary challenge would be good for Obama.

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/parenting-back-to-the-script-george-wilder-jr/1104730000

New Book

javascript:showPicture('http://www.publishamerica.net/media/9781462623310.jpg')

http://www.publishamerica.net/product43444.html

Serial Liar

"Michelle Bachmann, the bastion of Republican family values and
Christian pulchritude, is nothing but a "Serial Liar". Her
"BIG LIE" began when she convinced herself that Marcus is a
straight guy, and went along with the cure the gays charade,
making sure she collected some of those gubmint dollars along
the way. That was the first one. Her whole life is a big lie.
She DID NOT raise 23 foster kids. Records prove the contrary,
yet she keeps repeating the same lie over and over on the
campaign trail, kinda like the "I said thanks, but no thanks to
that bridge to nowhere", by someone who shall remain nameless,
and who dept the money! If Obama is in trouble, then the whole
world is in trouble, if any of those people are elected. Perry
is a grifter, Romney is another liar. He could not care less
for the middle class and well paying jobs. His record proves
the opposite. I could go on, but the rest of them, like Cain
the hypocrite, will never make it."

Parenting Back to Script...A New Novel.

This is one not about politics, It is about one man's destiny to save as many children as possible, and maybe, just maybe from their own parents. A good read. A fast read. Click to download on your reading device. Highly recommened from http://www.amazon.com/ and http://www.barnesandnoble.com/

Is There Hope and Change

Democrats are expressing growing alarm about President Obama’s re-election prospects and, in interviews, are openly acknowledging anxiety about the White House’s ability to strengthen the president’s standing over the next 14 months.

Elected officials and party leaders at all levels said their worries have intensified as the economy has displayed new signs of weakness. They said the likelihood of a highly competitive 2012 race is increasing as the Republican field, once dismissed by many Democrats as too inexperienced and conservative to pose a serious threat, has started narrowing to two leading candidates, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry, who have executive experience and messages built around job creation.

And in a campaign cycle in which Democrats had entertained hopes of reversing losses from last year’s midterm elections, some in the party fear that Mr. Obama’s troubles could reverberate down the ballot into Congressional, state and local races.

“In my district, the enthusiasm for him has mostly evaporated,” said Representative Peter A. DeFazio, Democrat of Oregon. “There is tremendous discontent with his direction.”

The president’s economic address last week offered a measure of solace to discouraged Democrats by employing an assertive and scrappy style that many supporters complain has been absent for the last year as he has struggled to rise above Washington gridlock. Several Democrats suggested that he watch a tape of the jobs speech over and over and use it as a guide until the election.

'Frustrations are real' But a survey of two dozen Democratic officials found a palpable sense of concern that transcended a single week of ups and downs. The conversations signaled a change in mood from only a few months ago, when Democrats widely believed that Mr. Obama’s path to re-election, while challenging, was secure.

“The frustrations are real,” said Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, who was the state chairman of Mr. Obama’s campaign four years ago. “I think we know that there is a Barack Obama that’s deep in there, but he’s got to synchronize it with passion and principles.”

There is little cause for immediate optimism, with polls showing Mr. Obama at one of the lowest points of his presidency.

Obama to Congress: Pass this bill

His own economic advisers concede that the unemployment rate, currently 9.1 percent, is unlikely to drop substantially over the next year, creating a daunting obstacle to re-election.

Liberals have grown frustrated by some of his actions, like the decision this month to drop tougher air-quality standards.

1. Other political news of note
   1. 

      AP file
      NYT: Democrats fret over Obama's 2012 chances
      As Republican field narrows and economy shows new weakness, confidence in President Obama's re-election  shown by top Democrats a few months ago gives way to alarm.
   2. Florida set for big role in GOP presidential race
   3. Democratic Party fundraising slumps in August
   4. Updated 41 minutes ago 9/11/2011 1:44:09 PM +00:00 No more mail? What would Ben Franklin think?
   5. Obama jobs plan heartens frustrated blacks

And polling suggests that the president’s yearlong effort to reclaim the political center has so far yielded little in the way of additional support from the moderates and independents who tend to decide presidential elections.

“The alarms have already gone off in the Democratic grass roots,” said Robert Zimmerman, a member of the Democratic National Committee from New York, who hopes the president’s jobs plan can be a turning point. “If the Obama administration hasn’t heard them, they should check the wiring of their alarm system.”

Conciliation translating to weakness At a gathering of the Democratic National Committee in Chicago this weekend, some party leaders sounded upbeat after they toured the Obama campaign headquarters. But others expressed anxiety that Mr. Obama’s accomplishments were not being conveyed loudly enough to ordinary people, that Republican lawmakers were making it impossible for him to get more done, and that Mr. Obama’s conciliatory approach might be translating to some voters as weakness.

“Now that they’re slapping him in the side of the face, he’s coming back,” said William George, a committee member from Pennsylvania. “He needs to start stomping his foot and pounding the desk.” At the White House and at Mr. Obama’s campaign headquarters in Chicago, officials bristled at the critiques, which they dismissed as familiar intraparty carping and second-guessing that would give way to unity and enthusiasm once the nation is facing a clear choice between the president and the Republican nominee.

Jim Messina, the campaign manager for the president’s re-election, said the criticism was largely a “Washington conversation” that did not match up with the on-the-ground enthusiasm for Mr. Obama among his network of supporters. Yet even without a primary challenger, the campaign purposefully started its effort early to allow concerns from supporters to be aired.

To reassure nervous Democrats, the president’s campaign aides are traveling the country with PowerPoint presentations that spell out Mr. Obama’s path to re-election. Their pitch is that Mr. Obama’s appeal has grown in traditionally Republican states like Arizona, where there are fast-growing Hispanic populations, and that Republicans have alienated independent voters with “extreme” positions on popular programs like Medicare.

“We always knew

Obama will try to sharpen his difference­s with Republican­s who insist on spending cuts in virtually every area and who refuse to let tax cuts expire, as scheduled, for the wealthiest­."

How can Obama run on this??? He didn't fight for letting tax cuts for the wealthy expire when he had not one, but two golden opportunit­ies. And he offered far more spending cuts than the Republican­s asked for (multiples­, in fact) while asking little in return. Worst of all, he put entitlemen­ts on the table, without having been asked for them yet.

Using this in his campaign would be, at least to informed voters, like saying "The Republican­s are terrible. They tried to cut 1/3 as much as I did in spending for the people's benefit and just ignored the huge spending cuts I offered (multiples of what they wanted). And they refused to accept the sacrice of your Soc Sec, Medicare, and Medicaid that I tried to take from you to offer them."

He would be reminding voters that he has been more Republican than Republican­s in offering to cut things necessary for ordinary citizens, and that he has made no serious attempt to get corporatio­ns or the rich to pay a fair share or to cut subsidies to huge, extremely profitable corporatio­ns. That horse won't win in this race.

He better come up with a better strategy than this or just pack up and go back to Chicago.
HANG IN THERE. AMERICA!!

Obama and Labor and 2012

With a poor out look on our economy and millions out of work, and Obama's big promise of change and hope that never happened, its no wonder Obama is in trouble. The simple fact is Obama made a promise he did not keep, and instead of putting his focus on the economy and jobs he instead put his focus on healthcare and Pelosi's agenda, and guess what Pelosi's agenda failed and in the process wasted billions. The only thing Obama has done since coming into office is point to the right, get us downgraded for the world to see, while ignoring the very promise that got him elected in the first place, and with millions still out of work, high gas prices, and of course a housing market in the toilet, while giving billions in foreign aide to places like Pakistan who hid bin laden, its no wonder Obama is in trouble, with a 71% disapprova­l rating, I am not surprised and as someone who voted for Obama, I too am shopping for a new President and I don't care which party that is because Obama has done nothing but cave in and point to the right and not once own up to his own mistakes. His flip attitude towards those out of work with comforting words such as "bumps in the road" and not so shovel ready" is all I need to say enough is enough.

The PROBLEM with labor is NOT the Democratic party or Obama, the problem with big labor is, big labor's leadership­, or lack thereof.

Organized labor is using a organizati­onal model that is based on the issues that effected workers in the last century. Big business has changed its business model and labor has failed to adapt. When organized labor could not get workers at a Target in a New York City suburb to vote to unionize, right then and there I knew organized labor had bigger problems than what Obama was or wasn't doing.

Why didn't the workers at a Target in New York vote to unionize.

The majority of workers didn't view working at Target as a long term career. So when the labor organizers came around with their talk about we can get you more money, like an extra 50 cents an hour. The talk was falling on deaf ears and rightfully so.

If the unions want to get back to some semblance of importance in the lives of workers again, they need to get their heads out of the butts of the people in the beltway.

The Unions need to use their vast resources to help small businesses and show them how to compete against these large corporatio­ns (who are not on the side of small business) while at the same time creating opportunit­ies for their members.

The unions need to change their marketing to emphasize a new mission for the Union worker. A union worker should be equipped with the skills to save companies and make them grow, and share in that growth. Not what seems to be the perception now that Union workers take advantage of companies, extract all the wealth out of companies and get more out than they put in. I'm not saying that is true, just that is the perception­.

Obama 2012??

New Book Below But First...

The unpopular debt-ceiling deal has significantly hampered President Obama’s effort to win over independent voters.
Since Democrats were thumped in the 2010 midterm elections, Obama repeatedly has sought to burnish his reputation with independents, often at the sake of his Democratic base.
Yet a Gallup poll this week found Obama trailing not only the two leading GOP candidates — former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Texas Gov. Rick Perry — among independent voters, but long-shot candidate Rep. Ron Paul (Texas) as well. The poll found that Obama leads Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), but only by a 6-point margin, 48 percent to 42 percent.

The results suggest that opposition to a second term for Obama is strengthening, and that even candidates considered too far outside the mainstream, such as Paul and Bachmann, would have a puncher’s chance against him in the general election.
Separately, Democrats disappointed with the debt-ceiling deal and other decisions by the White House have repeatedly blasted the administration during the August congressional recess.
Black lawmakers on a jobs tour led by the Congressional Black Caucus have accused the administration of not paying enough attention to their communities, while liberal Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) said the president should announce his jobs plan now rather than after Labor Day.
Ross Baker, a professor at Rutgers University who studies the presidency, said Obama didn’t strengthen his position with any identifiable constituency during the debt-ceiling debate.
“He lost his hero status with liberals, if he hadn’t previously with the extension of Bush tax cuts,” Baker said, referring to a December deal that extended all of the tax rates approved by former President George W. Bush. That bipartisan agreement was also seen as an effort to win over independents.
“His willingness not to press for revenues did not help him with persuadable GOP leaners, and he is just anathema to conservatives — and would have been, irrespective of the outcome,” Baker said.
The reason Obama has sought out independents is clear.
Obama won the independent vote in 2008 by 8 percentage points, but independents swung to Republicans in the 2010 congressional elections. Since then, the president has made a series of decisions intended to win back independent voters.
Obama broke his campaign promise to not extend the Bush tax cuts for families with incomes of more than $250,000, reasoning it was better for the economy to take a deal that extended all of the Bush-era tax cuts. Some Democrats would have preferred letting all the tax rates rise, and blaming the GOP.
Furthermore, the president showed a willingness to agree to entitlement reforms during the debt-ceiling talks, another effort thought to appeal to independents that angered the left.
A bus tour last week that traveled through mostly white, rural areas in three Midwestern states was also an effort to speak to independents. During the tour, Obama ripped Congress.
Jason Johnson, a political professor at Hiram College in Ohio, said the White House was correct in thinking that independents would value the deal. The problem, Johnson said, is that the public soured on the debt accord because it was quickly followed by the Standard & Poor’s decision to downgrade the U.S. credit rating.
“He ends up having a deal which the left is unhappy with, and you still get a downgrade, which is really the thing independents care about,” Johnson said.
The chances of Obama’s reelection are “going to be strongly influenced by the GOP nominee,” Baker said. “If it is someone who can be spun and framed as a fanatic, he can survive.”
Following the death of Osama bin Laden in early May, many political experts predicted that Obama would win a second term. At the time, Intrade, an online prediction market, set the chances of Obama winning in 2012 at 70 percent. Nearly four months later, Intrade now pegs Obama’s chances at 50 percent.

New Parening Book, Highly Recommended, Check It Out!!! New Book

PublishAmerica is proud to announce the recent release of George Wilder Jr.'s new book: Parenting, Back to the Script: for the 21st Century"!

 

Here's what the author says about the book: This is a parenting book unlike any other. It tells about the innocent children being preyed upon by predator parents. The book mostly talks about how not to be an extremely bad or a disengage parent of small and teenage children. It talks about how children who are born into this world knowing nothing at all about their parents, the environment, and the up bringing that will tell the entire story whether it's good or horrible. It talks about preventing any child from growing up and becoming a bad girl or the bad guy; soon to hurt another child or adult. Key points will be stressed again and again throughout this important book. http://www.amazon.com/

We are offering you an opportunity to secure your personal copy of George Wilder Jr.’s exceptional book today.  Please click here: http://www.publishamerica.net/product43444.html to secure your copy of the book*, then click Add to Cart. For an introductory discount of 20%, use this coupon code: Discount20.

Thank you for your interest in our author's wonderful achievement.

Have a great day!
PublishAmerica
www.publishamerica.com

http://www.publishamerica.net/

*Note: This message contains no virus; the link to your friend's book is safe. Your friend, our author, provided us with your email address. Our phone number is 301 695 1707 (business days, hours only).
PublishAmerica, a traditional book publisher headquartered in Frederick, Maryland, is the home of almost 40,000 talented authors. Our primary goal is to encourage and promote the works of new,
previously undiscovered writers. PublishAmerica pays advances and never charges any publishing fees.

New Book from George Wilder Jr.

PublishAmerica is proud to announce the recent release of George Wilder Jr.'s new book: Parenting, Back to the Script: for the 21st Century"!

Here's what the author says about the book: This is a parenting book unlike any other. It tells about the innocent children being preyed upon by predator parents. The book mostly talks about how not to be an extremely bad or a disengage parent of small and teenage children. It talks about how children who are born into this world knowing nothing at all about their parents, the environment, and the up bringing that will tell the entire story whether it's good or horrible. It talks about preventing any child from growing up and becoming a bad girl or the bad guy; soon to hurt another child or adult. Key points will be stressed again and again throughout this important book

We are offering you an opportunity to secure your personal copy of George Wilder Jr.’s exceptional book today.  Please click here: http://www.publishamerica.net/product43444.html to secure your copy of the book*, then click Add to Cart. For an introductory discount of 20%, use this coupon code: Discount20.

Thank you for your interest in our author's wonderful achievement.

Have a great day!
PublishAmericawww.publishamerica.com

http://www.publishamerica.net/

*Note: This message contains no virus; the link to your friend's book is safe. Your friend, our author, provided us with your email address. Our phone number is 301 695 1707 (business days, hours only).
PublishAmerica, a traditional book publisher headquartered in Frederick, Maryland, is the home of almost 40,000 talented authors. Our primary goal is to encourage and promote the works of new,
previously undiscovered writers. PublishAmerica pays advances and never charges any publishing fees.

HELL BENT

Obama is just bent on giving away social security, medicare, medicaid, and other vital programs that help people. He will not listen to the American people when they tell him to leave those programs alone. He is going to lose this because he will cave in to his republicans like all those times before and the seniors will lose big. Those programs are not his to give away, he didn't make them, he didn't start them. He was just a community organizer. Why is he gambling with the lives of the elderly, children, and disabled? He has lost my vote. I will give it to Senator Bernie Sanders.

Our Children

The Children’s Defense Fund has just released a new report, The State of America’s Children® 2011, which paints a disturbing portrait of child needs across our country. With rampant unemployment, housing foreclosures, homelessness, hunger, and massive looming federal and state budget cuts, children’s well-being is in great jeopardy. One in five children is poor and children are our nation’s poorest age group. Child poverty increased almost 10 percent between 2008 and 2009, the largest single year increase since data were first collected. Fifteen and a half million children are adrift in a sea of poverty, and every 32 seconds another child is born poor. As our country struggles to climb out of the recession millions of our children are falling further behind.
Although there are more poor White than poor Black or Latino children, worsening income inequality and continuing racial disparities have an extra harsh combined impact on poor children of color. Many are pushed off the path of healthy development and into the Cradle to Prison Pipeline. Poor children are more likely to live in fragile families, lag in early childhood development, suffer abuse and neglect, be uninsured and in poor health, be denied a quality education, and experience other gaps that put them far behind non-poor peers. Millions of Black children are facing one of the worst crises since slavery, and in many areas, Hispanic and American Indian children are not far behind.
In the face of these deeply disturbing and growing child needs, some of our political leaders are heedlessly and heartlessly proposing that children, who have no belts to tighten, sacrifice their food and Head Start and other survival needs while asking nothing in sacrifice from powerful billionaires and corporations. Policies, programs, and essential services that we know help children survive and thrive—Medicaid and CHIP (the Children’s Health Insurance Program), the Maternal and Child Health Block Grant, WIC (the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children), SNAP (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or Food Stamps), Early Head Start and Head Start, the Child Care and Development Block Grant, the Title I Education Program designed to help disadvantaged children, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act programs, Pell Grants, the Social Services Block Grant, and others—are all threatened with federal cuts and/or program changes that will further unravel the already porous safety net provided for poor children.
These looming federal cuts will compound cascading cuts in state and local funding for urgently needed early childhood development, K-12 education, higher education, mental health and other specialized treatment, and services for children in foster care and the juvenile justice system. Family stress has increased while family stability has deteriorated, with lost jobs, reduced unemployment compensation, restricted assistance and public health programs, and more scarce affordable housing.

As the President and Congress struggle to find a way to lower the budget deficit and to raise the debt ceiling before we default on our debt for the first time in history, I hope this new report on the perilous state of millions of our children will deter them from further cuts in essential food, health, education, and other supports children need. And I hope they will remember that children did not cause the budget deficit and hurting them will not solve it. They need to address the unjust federal tax benefits enjoyed by the wealthiest corporations and individuals, some of whom pay not a penny in taxes and enjoy tax rates lower than working families whose modest incomes do not allow them to make ends meet.


We know that poverty impairs children’s emotional, intellectual, and physical development and ends up costing our nation billions of dollars in lost productivity and increased health care costs. We know how to give children a healthy start, rescue them from the wolf of hunger, and keep them well-nourished. We know how to give children a head start to help them get ready for and be better able to achieve in school. We know how to provide children a quality education. Yet how pound foolish to cut early childhood programs, school days, recess, and teachers they need to succeed. We know how to prevent child abuse and neglect, find permanent families for children in foster care, and keep children out of our costly and ineffective juvenile justice system. How foolish to cut the investments that could keep children out of trouble and of jail. To paraphrase what our mothers and grandmothers taught us, if you know better, you should do better. What is it going to take to get our leaders to get it?


Our vulnerable children must not be sacrificial lambs on the altar of adult politics. As CDF’s faith allies gather at the Annual Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute for Child Advocacy Ministry at CDF-Haley Farm, the urgency of resisting misguided budget choices is reflected in our theme this year, “Justice, Justice Shall You Pursue: Answering God’s Call to Protect Children.” Every person of faith should revisit the prophets and the gospels and the tenets of all great faiths that require us as individuals, congregations, and communities to answer God’s call to nurture and protect all children. I hope our public officials will think hard, too, about what they value and whether their choices will contribute towards a more a helping society.

Marian Wright Edelman

Lord Help Us.

On its current course, the United States is four weeks away from defaulting on its debt for the first time in its history. If that happens, businesses will fail. Financial institutions will fail. Home values will decline. Mortgage rates will skyrocket. Spending and investment will all but disappear. Social Security checks will stop being mailed. Everything from military pay to food inspection will be compromised, if not fully cut off. The millions upon millions of Americans who are unemployed or underemployed will be joined by millions more.

Across the world, America’s second financial collapse in three years will drag down already fragile economies in Europe, Latin America and Asia, potentially creating a “worldwide depression,” as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid described it. In short, we would be thrown back deep into economic turmoil—only this time with even fewer tools to crawl our way out.
In theory, this is unthinkable, and it will be remedied by reasonable political parties making reasonable concessions across the negotiating table. But Republicans have been negotiating in bad faith, unwilling to compromise even an inch on their extremist and absolutist positions. Some are no longer willing to come to the table at all.
With that backdrop, President Obama may find that there is only one course left to avoid a global economic calamity: Invoke Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment, which says that “the validity of the public debt of the United States … shall not be questioned.” This constitutional option is one that the president alone may exercise.
If the Aug. 2 deadline arrives and no deal has been made, Obama could use a plain reading of that text to conclude—statutory debt ceiling or not—that he is constitutionally required to order the Treasury to continue paying America’s bills. In that sense, this is not just a constitutional option, it is a constitutional obligation, one even the Tea Party will have trouble denying.
There are reasons why such a solution is less than ideal. There ought to be some concern about executive overreach; the very idea of the president deciding which laws are and are not constitutional has disturbing ramifications. And to the extent that the goal of the move is to prevent market panic, it remains an open question as to whether it would succeed. But market panic will surely come with the failure to reach a deal altogether. The consequences of default are simply too severe—and too long-lasting—to take this option off the table. It may not be ideal as an elective choice, but as an option of last resort, it is a necessity.
Editor's Note: Read the full text of Katrina's column here.

Like this blog post? Read it on The Nation’s free iPhone App, NationNow.

Katrina vanden Heuvel

July 6, 2011  

• Share550
• |
• |
• 
• |
• Recommended by 0
• |
• Text Size A | A | A

• Email
• |
• Print
• |
• Share
• |
• Single Page
• |
• Web Letter (2)
• |
• Write a Letter
• |
• Take Action
• |
• Subscribe Now

If you like this article, consider making a donation.

make a donation

Reprint this article. Click here for rights and information.

reprint information

More Economy

As Unemployment Spikes, Obama's Got a Bigger Problem Than the Debt Ceiling (Are Republicans and Democrats the Same?, Barack Obama, Economic Policy, Presidential Campaigns and Elections, Economy, Politics)

Driving While Immigrant (Labor and Immigration, Racism and Discrimination, US Politics)

Invoke the 14th—and End the Debt Standoff (Economy, Politics)

The Tea Party and Goldman Sachs: A Love Story (Economics, Economic Policy)

Nation Media

Katrina vanden Heuvel: Invoke the 14th Amendment and Avoid a Default Crisis

Murdoch's Media Empire Crumbling?

Driving While Immigrant

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: Why Is Tim DeChristopher Going to Jail While Massey Energy's CEO Walks Free?

Also From The Nation

Betty Ford: Feminist, Social Liberal, Republican (Are Republicans and Democrats the Same?, Gender Issues, US Politics, Gender and Sexuality, Reproductive Rights, Sex and Sexuality, Conservatives and the American Right, Presidential Campaigns and Elections, Politics)

The WikiLeaks News & Views Blog -- Special Weekend Edition!

‘God Has Created You for Heterosexuality’: Clinics Owned by Michele Bachmann’s Husband Practice Ex-Gay Therapy (Gender and Sexuality, Politics)

As Unemployment Spikes, Obama's Got a Bigger Problem Than the Debt Ceiling (Are Republicans and Democrats the Same?, Barack Obama, Economic Policy, Presidential Campaigns and Elections, Economy, Politics)

Ad Policy

Standard Right

• Most Read
• Most Commented

As Unemployment Spikes, Obama's Got a Bigger Problem Than the Debt Ceiling
Invoke the 14th—and End the Debt Standoff
On the West's Moral Panic Over 'Multiculturalism'
The Worst Things in Life Aren't Free
With Rupert Murdoch's Empire in Crisis, What of Fox and His American Project?

Obama: 'It's Only Fair' to Ask Rich to Give Up Tax Breaks
What Michele Bachmann and Her Teapot 'Patriots' Do Not Know About America
Invoke the 14th—and End the Debt Standoff
As Unemployment Spikes, Obama's Got a Bigger Problem Than the Debt Ceiling
Bernie Sanders to Obama: 'Do Not Yield to Outrageous Republican Demands' on Taxes, Cuts, Deficit Policy

Ad Policy

Ad Policy

Right Promo block