Eight Ways Obama Can Jam Through His Agenda Without Congress
The unilateralist manifesto.

Timothy Noah November 16, 2012

THE 2012 ELECTIONS were a little bit like Groundhog Day. After spending an estimated $5.8 billion on the House, Senate, and presidential elections, America woke up on November 7 to find that the president was still Barack Obama, the Senate was still Democratic, the House retained a slightly smaller Republican majority, and prospects for bipartisan cooperation remained as slim as ever. In a post-election statement, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called on Obama “to propose solutions that actually have a chance of passing ... and deliver in a way that he did not in his first four years in office.” Translation: “We still see no reason to cooperate with you.”

One circumstance, however, has changed. With the election over, the president can now take bolder action on a host of domestic issues that don’t require cooperation—or even input—from Congress. Though some of these actions might be controversial, that concern matters less now that Obama has faced voters for the last time. What follows are eight policies that the executive branch can carry out on its own, in many cases immediately. Obama will almost certainly do some of these. Others require a bit more gumption. He should do those, too.

Cut Carbon Emissions

HURRICANE SANDY lent urgency to the Obama administration’s stated goal of grappling with climate change. While cap-and-trade legislation may have died in Congress, the administration has several powerful tools at its disposal that would limit emissions. One would be to initiate a combined rule governing power plant emissions, the most concentrated source of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere. In March, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed new Clean Air Act regulations for carbon emissions from future power plants. It should link those regulations with a rule governing existing plants, too.

President Obama should also consider permanently canceling the Keystone XL pipeline, a project he put on hold last January. Keystone XL would transmit Canadian oil extracted from tar sands that would release vast amounts of carbon into the atmosphere. In addition, creation of the pipeline would require extensive removal of ancient, carbon-absorbing forest. The final product is, per unit of carbon released, “equivalent to burning coal in your automobile,” according to the NASA climate scientist James Hansen.

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http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/110227/eight-ways-obama-can-jam-through-his-agenda-without-congress?page=0,0

The Morning Plum: Left warns Dems not to cave on fiscal cliff
By Greg Sargent

So how far are Dems willing to go in making concessions on entitlements in the fiscal cliff talks? The general sense in liberal and labor circles is one of cautious optimism — tempered by an awareness that a cave is always possible.

A coalition of unions — SEIU, AFSCME, and the NEA — has released new ads today pressuring Dems not to give in to GOP demands for deep spending cuts. The ads — which target Dem senators Mark Udall, Michael Bennet, Claire McCaskill, Jim Webb, and Mark Warner in their states — make the key point that the best way to reduce the deficit is to invest in job creation and grow the economy, and they demand that the senators protect Medicare, Medicaid and education. They insist that Dems “continue to stand up for us,” rather than cut “programs that families rely on most.”

This comes as some self-described “centrist” Democrats are already making noise about not necessarily supporting the Obama plan to raise taxes on the rich. And the centrist group Third Way, in a message intended to generate inside-the-Beltway chatter, released a new poll supposedly showing support for a bipartisan deficit “deal.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/the-morning-plum-left-warns-dems-not-to-cave-on-fiscal-cliff/2012/11/20/5eb5e59a-32ff-11e2-9cfa-e41bac906cc9_blog.html


Q.59 Some Say Social Security and Medicare are in financial trouble. In your view, do Social Security and Medicare have major financial problems, minor financial problems, or no financial problems?

Major Problems 53%
Minor Problems 36%
No Problems 6%
Don't Know 6%

http://content.thirdway.org/publications/617/Third_Way_Memo_-_Post-Election_Poll_Obama_Voters_Say_Lets_Make_a_Deal.pdf

From the 2012 Exit Polls

Income Tax Rates Should Be...

Increased for all: 13%
52% Dems
44% Republicans

Increased for $250k+: 47%
70% Dems
29% Republicans

Not increased: 35%
23% Dems
75% Republicans

http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president#exit-polls

November 07, 2012

The Most Accurate Polls

A Fordham University study ranked 28 polling firms on how their pre-election national surveys compared to the results on Election Day. The ranking:

1. PPP (D)
1. Daily Kos/SEIU/PPP
3. YouGov
4. Ipsos/Reuters
5. Purple Strategies
6. NBC/WSJ
6. CBS/NYT
6. YouGov/Economist
9. UPI/CVOTER
10. IBD/TIPP
11. Angus-Reid
12. ABC/WP
13. Pew Research
13. Hartford Courant/UConn
15. CNN/ORC
15. Monmouth/SurveyUSA
15. Politico/GWU/Battleground
15. FOX News
15. Washington Times/JZ Analytics
15. Newsmax/JZ Analytics
15. American Research Group
15. Gravis Marketing
23. Democracy Corps (D)
24. Rasmussen
24. Gallup
26. NPR
27. National Journal
28. AP/GfK

http://politicalwire.com/archives/2012/11/07/the_most_accurate_polls.html

Mail-In Ballots: The Hanging Chads of 2012?
By REUTERS
Published: November 4, 2012 at 7:05 AM ET

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Sloppy signatures on mail-in ballots might prove to be the hanging chads of the 2012 election.

As Republicans and Democrats raise alarms about potential voter fraud and voter suppression, mail-in ballots have boomed as an uncontroversial form of convenient, inexpensive voting.

In the critical swing states of Ohio and Florida, more than a fifth of voters chose the mail-in option 2010. In Colorado, another battleground, the number was nearly two-thirds.

But there may be controversy to come. For a variety of reasons, mail-in ballots are much more likely to be rejected than conventional, in-person votes.

With the razor-close presidential election Tuesday between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney potentially riding on a few tens of thousands of votes in a handful of states, the election could be decided by election officials' judgments about mail-in ballot signatures.

Anti-voter bill

Published: Monday, May 9, 2011 at 1:00 a.m.
Last Modified: Friday, May 6, 2011 at 7:34 p.m.

The Legislature made needlessly damaging changes to Florida's election law last week. The governor should veto the legislation — one of many misguided measures approved by the Republican-dominated House and Senate — but instead he is expected to sign it.

Another change could affect citizens who vote by absentee ballot: The legislation declares such ballots illegal if the voter's signature on the certificate does not match the signature on record.

This can be an issue for voters who suffer from arthritis, strokes and other ailments that affect their handwriting. Those who fail to update their signatures in time would be out of luck. If election results are contested, circuit court reviewing the absentee ballot validity would not be allowed to "consider any evidence other than the signatures on the voter's certificate and the signature of the elector in the registration records," the bill states.

The Blackmail Caucus
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: November 1, 2012

If President Obama is re-elected, health care coverage will expand dramatically, taxes on the wealthy will go up and Wall Street will face tougher regulation. If Mitt Romney wins instead, health coverage will shrink substantially, taxes on the wealthy will fall to levels not seen in 80 years and financial regulation will be rolled back.

Given the starkness of this difference, you might have expected to see people from both sides of the political divide urging voters to cast their ballots based on the issues. Lately, however, I’ve seen a growing number of Romney supporters making a quite different argument. Vote for Mr. Romney, they say, because if he loses, Republicans will destroy the economy.

O.K., they don’t quite put it that way. The argument is phrased in terms of “partisan gridlock,” as if both parties were equally extreme. But they aren’t. This is, in reality, all about appeasing the hard men of the Republican Party.

If you want an example of what I’m talking about, consider the remarkable — in a bad way — editorial in which The Des Moines Register endorsed Mr. Romney. The paper acknowledged that Mr. Obama’s signature economic policy, the 2009 stimulus, was the right thing to do. It also acknowledged that Mr. Obama tried hard to reach out across the partisan divide, but was rebuffed.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/opinion/krugman-the-blackmail-caucus.html?hp