Republicans Using Manufactured Scandals to Smear Obama

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Tuesday May 21, 2013 · 11:14 AM PDT

2013/05/21 · 11:14

The piece was first published on PolicyMic.com

On May 10, ABC News reporter, Jonathan Karl dropped a bombshell that sent the media on overdrive. Karl reported that ABC News "obtained" emails that purported to show that the White House sought to downplay the role that an Al-Qaeda affiliated group played in the Benghazi attack that killed four Americans, including the U.S ambassador, in Benghazi, Libya. He also reported that the White House tried to protect the State Department during the drafting of the talking points that was used to inform the public about what happened in Libya.

Benghazi is one of a trifecta of so-called scandals that completely consumed the media for many days. Shortly after Benghazi was deemed a major scandal by the mainstream media, two new controversies were quickly added to the list. In short order, the White House was under siege. After years of looking for a scandal that would severely damage the Obama administration, Republicans were gleeful; some conservatives even brought up impeachment. In less than a week, however, the evidence demonstrated that there was no impropriety on the part of anyone in the White House. Despite this evidence, Republicans still remain undeterred in their effort to paint Barack Obama as a corrupt tyrant.

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Monday October 01, 2012 · 12:09 PM PDT

2012/10/01 · 12:09

The piece was first published by PolicyMic

In an interview on 60 Minutes with Scott Pelley, Mitt Romney criticized President Barack Obama for slashing $716 billion from the Medicare program. When he was asked by Pelley that Paul Ryan, his chosen running mate, also cut $716 billion from Medicare, Romney declared “I’m the guy running for president, not him.”

It is, therefore, clear that Romney does not want to be defined by the proposal put forward by Ryan. Because the Ryan budget, especially his plan to turn Medicare into a voucher is so unpopular, Romney has decided not only to distance himself from those proposals but also to muzzle him.

Ryan has been prevented from pushing his ideas on the campaign trail because Romney has been reluctant to fully adopt the plan. Ryan, therefore, has been relegated to the background, thereby the intense interest that the media had in him in the beginning has faded. But even with his increasing disappearance, he has emerged as a political albatross for the Romney campaign, particularly among seniors.

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Tuesday July 03, 2012 · 10:11 AM PDT

2012/07/03 · 10:11

This article was first published by PolicyMic.com

As Christmas was inching ever closer, Brian Terry was getting ready to return to his hometown so that he could spend that special holiday with his family. After being away for three long years, Terry was ecstatic because he would get to spend Christmas with his nieces and nephews for whom he had bought many gifts. On December, 14, 2010, Terry’s life was cut short by an AK-47 bullet. He lost his life two days before he was supposed to go home. There is nothing that could be more devastating to any parent than the loss of a son or a daughter. Instead of celebrating the holidays with him, his parents and siblings ended up having a burial ceremony for their beloved son and brother.

Brian Terry was a U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) for only a few years before he got killed. His death had been linked to an operation that was dubbed Fast and Furious. According to Congressional Republicans and many news reports, the ATF had been running this operation, which allowed guns to flow to the Sinaloa Mexican drug cartel. In so doing, the ATF would be in a position to trace those guns thereby the agents would be better able to track down members of this dangerous cartel. However, this version of events has been severely undermined by a story that was published recently by Fortune magazine.

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Monday June 11, 2012 · 11:24 AM PDT

2012/06/11 · 11:24

This article was first published on PolicyMic.com

A year before the start of the Occupy Movement, there was an important development, which has had and will continue to have a tremendous impact on the political process for years to come. On January 21, 2010, the Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, removed any limit on the amount of money that corporations and wealthy individuals could spend on elections. Even before the decision, the corporate elite and the investor class could shape legislation through their paid lobbyists. This court decision would give them even more sway over elected officials. While the Occupy Movement is trying to push politicians to address growing income inequality, the top 1% has been even more empowered by this ruling to maintain the status quo. In the past few decades, money has been the lubricant that has allowed the political wheel to turn. Therefore, although the Occupy Movement has had a promising start by making economic inequality a major issue, the 1% is poised to have a much greater influence in the upcoming presidential election.

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Wednesday June 06, 2012 · 1:43 PM PDT

2012/06/06 · 13:43

This article was first published on PolicyMic.comContinue reading at PolicyMic.com

President Barack Obama took office in the midst of a financial crisis that had sent the U.S. economy into a tailspin. The two most pressing tasks of the incoming administration were to stabilize the economy and to restore economic growth. There was an intense debate among economists regarding the best way to deal with the crisis and to put the economy on a path to recovery.

Many economists argue that a stimulus would be the surefire way to ensure that the economy would regain its footing. Paul Krugman was an early and prominent advocate for a stimulus. He forcefully argued for a big stimulus. Other economists, particularly those of the conservative persuasion, criticized the idea of a big stimulus because they said that it would lead to inflation, hinder rather than facilitate economic recovery, and would spook the bond market, thereby making it more expensive for the U.S. to borrow money. They favored austerity as the best remedy for the ailing economy. Three years later, the verdict is in: Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, has been vindicated and the critics of the stimulus have been wronged, as none of their predictions had come to fruition

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