Mark Riley Media

Why Barack Obama DESERVES Re-Election (Part 1)

Mark Riley — Thu, 24 May 2012 00:37:26 +0000

Re-elect Barack Obama

Let me say at the outset that I don’t agree with everything Barack Obama has done as president. Yet I’ve never in my life agreed with everything any president has done.

For that matter, I didn’t agree with everything my mom and dad did!

From both a pragmatic political and idealistically progressive standpoint, however, there’s no doubt this president should serve another four years.

I have heard from progressives I respect about their disappointment with aspects of his time in office. It’s time to get realistic about what Barack Obama has done as president, and what four years of Mitt Romney will mean for those already struggling (and who progressives are and speak for).

How about we start with President Obama’s appointments to the US Supreme Court.

I know most voters don’t pay attention to this, but think for a moment who John McCain might have appointed, and who Barack Obama actually did. Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan are both solid jurists. The alternative would likely have been a 6-3 conservative court rather than the 5-4 we now have.

Oh yeah, and when before in US history have three women sat on the highest court in the land together?

How about we take a look at the Affordable Care Act?

Was it perfect? Nope. Yet when all is said and done, double digit millions of Americans will be covered by health insurance. Also, that habit the insurance companies had of dropping your coverage when it suited them is now gone. Plus, parents can keep their kids on their plans to age 26. But here’s the most important thing. Barack Obama took the first step in taking us down the road to universal healthcare. That would be where everyone is covered. The first president who tried to get healthcare legislation passed in this country was Teddy Roosevelt. None of us remember him.

It’s time to stop carping about whether that’s the first thing Barack Obama should have done, and whether it’s good enough.

It is.

Political pragmatism is something it seems Republicans do better than Democrats. When the time came to try to gut this president’s agenda, they stood together. It’s time for us to stand together the same way.

Barack Obama has governed well, and those who those who think this country should be run like an investment firm know this. In the days, weeks, and months ahead, we’ll be bombarded with polls, ads, responses to the ads, talking heads, gasbags, and wannabees.

Know this. The man to bring this country back to some semblence of economic normalcy isn’t Mitt Romney. The man to do that has already sits in the White House.

As we move forward, we’ll be writing about other things Barack Obama has accomplished for you, me, my kids, and this country. Let the naysayers do their best.

We’re better, and so is Barack Obama.

The Mark Riley Morning Show Tune in weekdays www.wwrl1600.com Live 6am-9am EST.

Progressives…Time to Stop Playing

Mark Riley — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:01:07 +0000

The signs are everywhere, from North Carolina to Indiana to the hallowed halls of Congress.

North Carolina votes NO to gay marriage

Those who want to take America back to the 19th century are girding their loins for the battle ahead. Their endgame is obvious, and has been for some time.

The question that remains is whether those who call themselves progressives are ready to put aside their differences and prepare to “throw hands” (metaphorically, you understand).

The stakes are as follows. If we want to have any hope that the more than 12 million Americans currently out of work will ever have decent jobs again in their lifetime, we’re going to have to play politics to win.

That won’t be easy for progressives.

We pride ourselves at being somehow better, more high minded than our opponents. We won’t engage in certain tactics that they take for granted to win elections. Maybe we don’t have to. But we do have to have a clear idea of what we want to accomplish this and every election cycle. And yes, we may have to be ruthless in order to get it done. For the sake of our kids, if ruthless is what it takes, so be it.

Our political aim should be threefold.

You may not think he’s done everything he should have, but electing Barack Obama to a second term is essential. So too is widening the margin of the Democratic majority in the Senate. The third priority is to turn just 25 Republican seats in the House to Democrats.

Why are these three goals important? The GOP minority in the Senate just killed (for now) a bill to freeze the interest rate on college student loans. In Indiana, a decent, long serving Republican US Senator just got his head handed to him by a Tea Partry Neanderthal. In North Carolina, a referendum just passed defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

These are three recent reasons progressives must be ready to stand and fight this election cycle. Another will be evident to anyone who has passed over or under a bridge, an overpass, train trestle, whatever. Folks, our infrastructure is falling apart.

The same people who think corporations are people tell us we’re too broke to fix our roads. How many able bodied Americans could be trained and put to work creating the steel that upgrades these structures so central to our lives? Who will mix and lay the concrete that replaces the foundations that have rotted away from years of neglect?

Oh yeah, and before I forget. Right now the nation’s unemployment rate stands at 8.1%.

If it ever got back down to where it was when Bill Clinton was president (3.9%), we’d all breathe a sigh of relief. I want to go one better. I want every able bodied American who wants to work to have a job. Then those don’t will have to come up with a really good reason why they can’t work like the rest of us.

And while I’m at it, I want universal health care, quality education for all Americans, and the end of the mess that has become our immigration system.

The President dropped his “to do” list on Congress the other day.

You’ve just read mine, and what progressives need to do to reach these lofty goals.

What’s your “to do” list? Can progressives get it done?

Land and Nugent- American Idiots

Mark Riley — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 00:47:24 +0000

Perhaps Perhaps we should have expected that as the presidential race got clear and focused, we’d be hearing more nonsense coming from those who want to see Barack Obama lose.

Trouble is, these surrogates (as opposed to supporters) can’t even get their crazed rants straight.

Two of the latest are the aged rocker Ted (my next hit song is coming) Nugent, and the alleged religious broadcaster Dr. Richard Land. In a way, their demented ravings have a lot in common.
Nugent goes off at the National Rifle Association convention, calling the President, Vice President, and Secretary of State criminals.He then opined about America’s defiance of kings and emperors. “We are partriots, we are bravehearts”, says Nugent. Never mind that the Braveheart saga was a movie that purported to deal with historical events in SCOTLAND! Why let facts get in the way of insanity? Or is Nugent crazy like a fox? Since the basis of these rants is pure speculation, suppose Ted Nugent, surrogate of Mitt Romney, said what he did in order to foster a revival of his long dead rock career? Just asking.

Just as bad is Dr. Richard Land, a religious broadcaster and major domo in the Southern Baptist Convention. He decides to speculate that President Obama’s experession of concern about the killing of Trayvon Martin is somehow linked to a plot to turn out the black vote in November. His evidence? OOOPS, he doesn’t have any. But that doesn’t stop him any more than it stopped Ted Nugent. Yet Land went one step further. He plagarized large amounts of his on air rant from an editorial in the Washington Times. Unlike Nugent, Land did apologize, for the plagarism, and for what he said about the Martin case (which really wasn’t his original idea anyway).

You can bet this type of slander is just the tip of the iceberg of what we’ll see between now and November. Notice also, as my friend Jonathan Capehart pointed out in the Washington Post, that as of Wednesday morning, Mitt Romney has yet to be Velcroed to the remarks of either Nugent or Land, as Barack Obama was to the remarks of Democratic strategist Hillary Rosen about Ann Romney. American idiocy comes in many shapes and forms, races and creeds. It’s not limited to the left or right of the political spectrum. I simply choose to point out the nonsense of the latter. There’s a whole media hemisphere that does the opposite.

Let them justify these remarks. I can’t. Can you?

Listen to me Monday through Friday 6 AM to 9 AM on WWRL AM 1600. Follow me on Twitter @MarkRileyMedia.