Berekeley, California radio station,KPFA, interviewed LegalSpeaks founder and legal blogger, Debbie Hines on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn case and the Casey Anthony case on the issues of the intersection of gender and race and the differences in the media’s handling of the two cases.  It aired on Monday, July 25 2011 at 1:00 pm and can be heard by clicking here:

White House Photo by Samantha Appleton

President Obama, once again took his case to the streets and the American people to demand that a compromise be made in the budget talks and that a deal be reached. We are still at a stalemate in talks. In speaking to the nation last night, the President made clear that “while the America people may have voted for a divided government, but they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government.” And right now dysfunctional is what we are seeing.

Avoiding a default crisis by paying our past bills is a path we have walked many times before.  What we are doing is raising the debt ceiling “to pay the bills that Congress has already racked up”. It is not to pay any new bills or buy new stuff.  And this is nothing new nor rocket science. Since the 1950’s Congress has always passed it and every President has signed it. Now, all of a sudden, with President Obama in the White House, the Republican Congress wants to change the way history has always led us—paying our bills.

Yes, the Republicans, this time, refuse to do what was done under Republican President Regan 18 times. Republican President George W. Bush raised it 7 times.  Instead, now the Republicans would rather see American default on all of bills, including Social Security checks, veterans’ benefits and government contracts, risk our credit rating and even deepen our economic crisis. That’s just the way the Republicans roll. And President Obama makes note that “it’s a dangerous game that we’ve never played before, and we can’t afford to play it now.”

And it’s a simple premise, one that many Americans are faced with each paycheck.  According to President Obama, “we’ve spent more money than we take in”. And we’ve not been using the money to pay our debt for the last 10 years but on trillions of dollars in 2 wars and new tax cuts for our rich Americans. The recession certainly hasn’t helped maters.

Republicans have said in the past that the only way they’ll agree to avoid a default is to agree to their deep spending cuts. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities President Robert Greenstein says “House Speaker John Boehner’s new budget proposal would require deep cuts in the years immediately ahead in Social
Security and Medicare benefits for current retirees, the repeal of health reform’s coverage expansions, or wholesale evisceration of basic assistance programs for vulnerable Americans. … If enacted, it could well produce the greatest increase in poverty and hardship produced by any law in modern U.S. history.” http://bit.ly/n99nrM

So where do we go from here?  President Obama is urging everyone to call their representative to get the job done.  Yet, there is still a path to avoid an economic catastrophe  before the deadline of   August 2, 2011. The US Constitution requires that America shall pay her debts. Defaulting is not an option under our Constitution, not even for a day.  A clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides, “The validity of the public debt of the United States…shall not be questioned.”

President Obama and his team of lawyers need to seriously consider making history by saving our country rather than making history to lose our world standing. I
urge President Obama to show exemplary strength by taking whatever path he can find to unilaterally raise the debt ceiling and pay our past bills, if the Bozo’s in
Congress can’t get the job done.

To listen to  the President’s speech, click here

Post Script: Congressional Sites crash after Pres. Obama’s speech.

Debbie Hines is a legal and political commentator who is frequently seen in the media. She founded LegalSpeaks, a progressive blog on race and gender in law and politics. She also writes for the Huffington Post and the Women’s Media Center. She has been featured in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Black Enterprise, among others.

In a fiery speech last night, President Obama gave Speaker Boehner and the Republican leaders a verbal shellacking, as he spoke about Boehner’s call to walk away from the debt ceiling talks, saying he’s ” been left at the altar now a couple of times”. In the past, President Obama has used childlike references to the GOP in saying it’s a eat your peas moment and do your homework on time. Yesterday, Obama spoke bluntly of the Republicans’ failure to lead the country.  And if you play childish games, you need to be spoken to and lashed out  like children.

The American people are looking for leadership, not political games, ploys or tactics. They are not looking for 2 year old adults who can only say no to everything. President Obama even asked last night, can they say yes to anything.  At present, it doesn’t appear so.  They walked away from a deal proposal that even a lot of Republican voters are puzzled as to why it couldn’t be done. Far from approval of the Democratic leadership and distasteful to many progressive Democrats, the Democrats were willing to engage in serious negotiations, “despite a lot of heat from a lot of interest groups around the country”, says Obama. Obama made clear the Democrats stepped up in ways to show that they’re willing to work on the tough issues that the Republicans ran away from.

Instead the GOP tactics put at risk 70 million checks, including social security, veterans, disability, business contractors providing services to the federal government and many more. And if 70 million checks are put at risk, “that is not going to be good for economic growth”. The Republican proposal wants to “essentially ask nothing of corporate jet owners, it asks nothing of oil and gas companies” and people who have done extremely well economically. Instead, the Republican plan wants to tilt our country’s revenues on the backs of the poor and middle-class families.

And so where does that leave us and President Obama. Obama summoned Boehner, Mitch McConnell,. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi to meet him at 11:00 on Saturday. The time has run out for playing games. Work must get done. If the Republicans can’t do the work, then give President Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling and take responsibility for it.  He’s willing to risk any political consequences for doing it  rather than the more adverse consequences to the country from not doing it.

President Obama’s bottom line is the debt ceiling must be extended through 2013. And that’s based on how difficult it is to get any deal done. We can’t keep going through this every 8 months or so. And if the Republicans want to lead, then they should lead instead of running away like cowards or bullies.

And if anyone should be saying no, it should be the voters in 2012.  No, to more Republican shenanigans and yes to Democratic leadership.

Debbie Hines is a legal and political commentator who founded LegalSpeaks, a progressive blog on law and politics focusing on race and gender issues. She also contributes to the Huffington Post and the Women’s Media Center. She is frequently seen and heard in the media addressing issues. on race and gender in politics and law.

Voter ID laws enacted now in over half the states, requiring voters to present some form of identification as a requirement to vote, are seemingly  simple in nature. But they will place unreasonable burdens on many women who may well be unaware of the difficulty they could face when casting their vote in the 2012 election.

Fourteen states require a government issued photo ID when voting in person. At the time of registering to vote, other states like Kansas and Alabama further demand proof of citizenship beyond the federal legal requirement that citizens swear they are citizens. During the 2011 legislative session, five states—Wisconsin, Texas, Tennessee, Alabama and South Carolina—joined Georgia and Indiana by enacting the strictest form of photo ID requirement for voters, and most of these newest changes will first come into effect for the 2012 elections.

Proponents of the laws argue that photo ID’s are a reasonable way to protect our elections and make them fair.  But far from harmless, the laws are complex and place unnecessary hardship on women—those who are newly married or recently divorced as well as senior citizens and low-income women.

To read more, see  the entire  exclusive article in the Women’s Media Center posted  on July 22, 2011.

Washington, DC based Debbie Hines is a legal and political commentator who is seen frequently in the media on issues affecting  women and African Americans. She also writes for the Huffington Post and Politic365.   Follow her on Twitter at LegalSpeaks.