Hullabaloo

The Kitten Nazis

2012-01-27T18:30:00.000-08:00

The Kitten Nazis

by digby

I haven't had occasion to adopt a cat for many years. They tend to adopt me and then live to a very ripe old age. My current furry friend abandoned his perfectly nice home across the street when they had a baby and moved in with us. He just wouldn't stay home and they finally gave up. (He's partially blind and very sensitive to noise.)

This would be his preferred spot these days:

I have however, gone with friends a number of times as they tried to adopt cats and kittens and this experience is common:

You might think adopting a cat would be easier than getting a dog. After all, the solitary, self-sufficient feline is the perfect pet for the working person. But I heard from people who were turned down because of the curse of full-time employment—the cat may ignore you, but you should be home all day anyway. Others were told they need to accept a pair of cats or get nothing. And don’t even think about telling the rescue people your cat might go outside occasionally. Lisa wrote to say that she rescues strays that live in her house but are allowed outdoors. When she was looking for another cat and explained this to the person at the shelter, they turned her away.

For any species, the outside world is full of dangers, even potentially deadly ones. Maybe we all should stay inside (and avoid bathtubs and stairs). I have one cat I can’t budge off the couch with a forklift. But the other bolts from between our legs when the front door opens and would be miserable contained in the house. I’ve had successive sets of cats for more than 30 years and have concluded the risk of them going outside is worth their happiness—and they’ve lived to ripe ages. Is it really sensible to keep rescued cats out of loving homes from which they may take an occasional stroll?

Kevin Drum says he's had similar experiences as well.

My friends are the type of pet owners who buy their cats expensive special food prescribed by the vet. They will spend however many thousands of dollars are required to determine that their little kitty's breathing problems are something she's already grown out of. They buy their furniture and bedding with the cats' comfort foremost in their minds. And they don't let them outside. Unfortunately, they also work for a living and aren't home all day. So there are some adoption groups that would not consider them worthy. It's sickening to see kittens left in cages because they can't be adopted by Ward and June Cleaver --- who don't exist.

The best thing to do is just lie. Say that someone is always home and that they will never, ever go outside and that you won't ever feed them table scraps --- whatever they want to hear. These people's hearts are in the right place but they've gone terribly wrong somewhere. Best to thank them for their generosity, grab your kitten and run.

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I miss Rick Perry

2012-01-27T16:30:00.000-08:00

I miss Rick Perry

by digby

"Live free or die. Victory or death. Bring it"

video platform
video management
video solutions
video player

It's hard to believe this guy didn't go farther. I miss him, I really do.

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The Brave New World of Citizens United by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-27T15:00:00.000-08:00

The Brave New World of Citizens United

by David Atkins

In the old days (i.e., just a few years ago), this would have mattered:

The DCCC has outraised the NRCC by $6.9 M for the last session of Congress, while Republicans still hold more cash on hand, $15.24 M to the Dems' $11.6 M.

With Citizens United, none of that matters. Corporations can dwarf those numbers on either side almost instantly.

On the other hand, given the DCCC's track record of taking donations only to help the most conservative Democrats, and then not terribly effectively, maybe it doesn't matter anyway.

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Go Elizabeth: Warren takes Mittens downtown

2012-01-27T13:30:00.000-08:00

Go Elizabeth

by digby

This pretty much says it all:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

She's awfully good.

This is an interesting article about Warren in the Boston Phoenix about the "Dr Phil years." Warren has been working to educate and illuminate about this disappearing middle class for decades. In the last one she decided to take her case directly to the people. She is not and ordinary politician or an ordinary academic.

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Room to regroup: Perlstein on Newtie and Perot

2012-01-27T12:00:00.000-08:00

Room to regroup

by digby

Rick Perlstein has a fantastic piece up today about Newtie, Perot and the Contract With America. It's really helpful to have a historian of the modern conservative movement weigh in on recent history. The press is simply dismal in this regard. The whole article is great, but this is the gist:

Gingrich and Co. were able to get away with it because the plain facts of what the Contract actually was (a strategic erasure of Republican conservatism) almost entirely escaped the political press – at the time, and ever since. A 1996 New York magazine article by Jacob Weisberg, for instance, about how "Ross Perot is back, in all his self-aggrandizing, wacky splendor," observed as evidence of said wackiness, "One minute Perot is making an important point about the unwillingness of the major parties to deal with the Social Security time bomb. The next he is off on a jag about how the Contract with America was actually his idea." (Imagine!)

A 2004 history of conservatism stated baldly that the Contract "epitomized antigovernment conservatism." The narrative was set: the Contract, and its consequence – the new Republican congressional majority – proved America was indisputably (to take the title of that 2004 history) a "right nation." This supposed truism underwrites the defensive rhetoric of, say, Barack Obama, who felt compelled to say in his State of the Union this week, quoting Abraham Lincoln, that "government should do for people only what they cannot do better by themselves, and no more."

(Yeah. I just wilted like a dead petunia when I heard that one.)

The point he's making about the GOP "co-option" of the Perot movement is truly important. When you look back at the context you will see that a big part of it was repudiation of failure (Daddy Bush) and the opportunistic ascendance of the conservative movement. It's a similar dynamic to the ascendance of the Tea Party after Junior Bush's failure. There's a reaction among a certain subset of the American public to GOP failure that leads them to an "independent" reform movement concentrated on political corruption, low taxes and deficit education. (With a good dose of flag waving and military fetishism thrown in for flavor.)All of which fits very nicely back into the GOP fold once they make clear just how committed they are to all those things. It's a nice scam --- it gives both the party and voters a place to go after failure to regroup and then come back together to fight the liberals.

Just as Newtie led the Perotistas back into the fold in 1994, they all went back in 2010. Works like a charm. And just like clockwork, Even old Ross himself came around and endorsed George W. Bush in 2000. (If you see some crazy, take a look at that transcript.It's really going to be hard to beat the 90s for sheer political lunacy.But they'll keep trying.)

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All American Entrepreneur: Ron Paul's savvy business plan

2012-01-27T10:30:00.001-08:00

All American Entrepreneur

by digby

So which is worse, being a closet racist or exploiting racism for money? It's hard to tell the difference, frankly. I'd guess it's possible that some slave ship owners were nice family men and had no personal beef with Africans --- but they profited handsomely from their misery nonetheless. Is there a moral difference?

I'm talking about this article in the Washington Post quoting the president of the Cato Institute saying that he'd had a conversation with Ron Paul in the late 80s about how to attract more customers for his newsletters:

Ed Crane, the longtime president of the libertarian Cato Institute, said he met Paul for lunch during this period, and the two men discussed direct-mail solicitations, which Paul was sending out to interest people in his newsletters. They agreed that “people who have extreme views” are more likely than others to respond.

Crane said Paul reported getting his best response when he used a mailing list from the now-defunct newspaper Spotlight, which was widely considered anti-Semitic and racist.

Benton, Paul’s spokesman, said that Crane’s account “sounds odd” and that Paul did not recall the conversation.

At the time, Paul’s investment letter was languishing. According to the person involved with his businesses, Paul and others hit upon a solution: to “morph” the content to capitalize on a growing fear among some on the political right about the nation’s changing demographics and threats to economic liberty.

The investment letter became the Ron Paul Survival Report — a name designed to intrigue readers, the company secretary said. It cost subscribers about $100 a year. The tone of that and other Paul publications changed, becoming increasingly controversial. In 1992, for example, the Ron Paul Political Report defended chess champion Bobby Fischer, who became known as an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier, for his stance on “Jewish questions.’’

I have long heard chatter about how the paleolibertarians consciously set out to build their faction by appealing to paranoid right wing racist elements. But this is the first I've heard that Paul's racist newsletters were actually a personal financial strategy.

I suppose those two things aren't mutually exclusive, especially considering Paul's libertarian take on civil rights. He truly believes that states' rights and property rights trump human rights in general so there's no hypocrisy in profiting from racist tracts. He is a man of principle. (Well, except for the lying about his knowledge of the racism in his newsletter, which was never believable and is even less so now.)

Other than that, though, he has stuck to his stated principles. He's a free market guy using racism to make a buck and build up his political career. What's more All American than that?

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Elder Scam: Fred Thompson has a lot of nerve

2012-01-27T09:30:00.000-08:00

Elder Scam

by digby

What an ass:

“I think it’s unfortunate that they go to these elder statesmen of the parties at their stage in life and solicit things like that,” [Fred Thompson] said. “I have my own opinion, I disagree with Bob Dole even though I respect Bob Dole very much.”

Asked by TPM whether his reference to that “stage in life” suggested Dole was too infirm to render sound judgement, Thompson clarified that he took issue with the Romney campaign’s effort to court the former presidential nominee.

“He’s been in bad health, he’s had bad legs,” Thompson said. “I hate it when people irritate folks like that…you know they shouldn’t be bugged and dragged into all this, but if they want to they’re plenty capable of making their own decisions.”

I guess he's an expert. After all, this is the guy who's out there conning the elderly into taking out reverse mortgages, something many observers believe is the next sub-prime crisis:

Thompson's new employer, however, has a troubled track record. Regulators in Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Washington State have cracked down on the firm for deceptive marketing and consumer fraud. In February, for instance, the Illinois attorney general, Lisa Madigan, sued AAG and its president for direct-mail solicitations that Madigan described as "extremely misleading." That same month, the state of Massachusetts temporarily banned the company from doing business in the state...

In AAG's case, putting a celebrity face on its mortgage products is at the core of the company’s marketing strategy. Before hiring Thompson, the company used the late veteran actor Peter Graves as its spokesman. And in August 2009, AAG president and CEO Reza Jahangiri explained that a large part of the company's national marketing campaign would revolve around a "celebrity spokesperson" who "adds that credibility and gets borrowers a little more comfortable with the company."

Nice. Kindly old Arthur Branch vouches for it so it must be ok.

Read the whole article for the full dossier on Thompson's employer's deceptive practices (and Thompson's history of shilling for con artists and elder scammers.) He really should be ashamed of himself. He can't need money that badly.

Update: And, by the way, Bob Dole was able to vigorously run for president when he was 73 years old --- and that was after a lifetime of dealing with war injuries suffered when he was mowed down by German machine gun fire in Italy in 1945. When Thompson ran in 2008 (at the age of 66) he couldn't cross the Iowa County Fairgrounds without using a golf cart. Just saying. He's an asshole.

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Cut to Cheer About by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-27T07:30:00.000-08:00

Cuts to Cheer About

by David Atkins

I'm sort of surprised that the planned Pentagon budget cuts haven't gotten more attention in progressive circles. There are some things to dislike, but a great deal to like as well.

On the positive side, the cuts are designed to move away from large-scale ground invasion capabilities in the model of Iraq and Afghanistan, and more toward nimbler operations like the one that killed Osama Bin Laden. By cutting those capacities, the Pentagon and the Obama Administration are making it much harder for a future Republican president to attempt an Iraq-style ground war in Iran, which was perhaps the greatest fear progressives like myself had about a potential McCain Administration. The war machine will also have to make do with a few fewer shiny toys, which is a good thing:

Next year’s Pentagon budget is to be $525 billion, down from $531 billion this fiscal year. Even though the Defense Department has been called on to find $259 billion in cuts in the next five years — and $487 billion over the decade — its base budget (not counting the costs of Afghanistan or other wars) will rise to $567 billion by 2017. But when adjusted for inflation, the increases are small enough that they will amount to a slight cut of 1.6 percent of the Pentagon’s base budget over the next five years.

Nonetheless, Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said he was working with about $500 billion less than he had anticipated having on hand through 2017, meaning that the Pentagon had to trim personnel and favorite high-profile weapons programs. “This has been tough work,” Mr. Panetta said at an hourlong news conference.

He said that the Army would be reduced over five years to 490,000 troops, down from a peak of 570,000, and that the Marines would be cut to 182,000, down from 202,000. (Ground forces would still be slightly larger than they were before 9/11.) The Pentagon initially will buy fewer F-35 Joint Strike Fighter stealth jets, which are not expected to be in service until at least 2017 and have the distinction of being one of the costliest weapons programs in history. In the Navy, 14 warships will be either retired early or built more slowly.

On the negative side, the cuts come at the expense of troop pay and retiree health benefits:

The Pentagon took the first major step toward shrinking its budget after a decade of war as it announced Thursday that it wanted to limit pay raises for troops, increase health insurance fees for military retirees and close bases in the United States.

Although the pay-raise limits were described as modest, and would not start until 2015, they are certain to ignite a political fight in Congress, which since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has almost always raised military salaries beyond what the Pentagon has recommended.

Increasing health insurance fees for retirees and closing bases are also fraught with political risk, particularly when Republican presidential candidates are charging that President Obama is debilitating the military.

That matters in areas with military bases, which provide a major stimulus boost to local economies. The Ventura County Star is already freaking out about potential local base closures here, and legislators as far apart as hardcore conservative Elton Gallegly and good progressive Lois Capps are united in attempting to prevent the base closures. Local Republican Buck McKeon, chair of the House Armed Services Committee, is on the drumbeat nationally. Politically, the proposed cuts make the job of electing Democrats in these difficult areas even harder, particularly in an environment where the eventual Republican nominee will be demagoguing the issue as much as he can. That is why Democrats like Carl Levin are opposing the closures of any domestic bases, preferring instead to focus on the no-brainer goal of bringing troops home from bases where hostile activity is less credibly expected:

There were already objections on Thursday morning, hours before Mr. Panetta made his public presentation. Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters that until the United States shut down some of its bases in Europe, “I’m not going to be able to support” closing bases in America.

Mr. Panetta has said that two armored Army brigades — as many as 10,000 troops — would come home from Europe over the next decade, leaving two brigades and some support troops behind.

All of which goes to underscore how important peacetime government stimulus is. The military-industrial complex is a huge source of government jobs. If progressives want to successfully make a dent in it, there will need to be credible "swords to ploughshares" programs to make up for the jobs that are lost.

Overall, however, the cuts are a positive development in shrinking the bloated defense budget, as well as moving away structurally from military operations designed to conduct long-term occupations in foreign lands, in a way that will tie the hands of Administrations to follow. That's something to cheer about.

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Scary post 'o the day -- thanks for the nightmares GP

2012-01-26T18:30:00.000-08:00

Scary post of the day

by digby

Who said this?

“I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career.We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.”

That's George Soros. Eeek.

Gaius Publius has even more:

Three short notes, then I'll leave you to your thoughts:

■ We've been warning on these pages about the risk of deflation for a while. It's likely that no one reading this has experienced such a world. To get a sense of life in a deflationary world, try this.

■ About the euro, is this why it bounced off of $1.26 and sits at $1.31 at the moment? (Euro chart here.)

■ About civil liberties and the mental "state of the nation," I offer this thought experiment.

Imagine that there were a second big terrorist attack sometime during Bush II's reign, in 2005 or 2006 for example. The response would have been to shut down the country even further. The experiment — how much further? If the "authorities" wanted to institute exit visas, for example, would the country have objected?

The point is this — the degree of loss of liberty we could experience is not a function of what the American people will tolerate. The American people tolerated Bush v Gore. It's a function of how much loss of liberty the "authorities" (Our Betters) are interested in imposing.

So what is that extent? What's the lower limit to the shutdown, in a world gone into the streets — Occupyers, homeless; browns and blacks; criminals, druggies, the terminally unemployed — in other words, all the Unpeople we have within us?

I'll leave you to read the rest of his post and ponder that question. I'll be hitting the tequila now. Enjoy.

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Hey Newtie -- the Prince of darkness would like to have a word with you

2012-01-26T17:29:00.000-08:00

Hey Newtie -- someone would like to have a word with you

by digby

When I was young, Bob Dole was known as the Prince of Darkness. Indeed, he was as mean as they came. By today's GOP standards, he's kindly old Kris Kringle.
Still, he's always had a very wicked sense of humor and he showed it today:

I have not been critical of Newt Gingrich but it is now time to take a stand before it is too late. If Gingrich is the nominee it will have an adverse impact on Republican candidates running for county, state, and federal offices. Hardly anyone who served with Newt in Congress has endorsed him and that fact speaks for itself. He was a one-man-band who rarely took advice. It was his way or the highway...

Gingrich had a new idea every minute and most of them were off the wall. He loved picking a fight with President Clinton because he knew this would get the attention of the press. This and a myriad of other specifics like shutting down the government helped to topple Gingrich in 1998.

In my run for the presidency in 1996 the Democrats greeted me with a number of negative TV ads and in every one of them Newt was in the ad. He was very unpopular and I am not only certain that this did not help me, but that it also cost House seats that year. Newt would show up at the campaign headquarters with an empty bucket in his hand — that was a symbol of some sort for him — and I never did know what he was doing or why he was doing it, and I’m not certain he knew either.

That made me laugh out loud.

*The bucket was an obscure symbol of outmoded congressional perks,referring to some patronage job to deliver ice well into the 90s. It was a typical cutsie Newtie gimmick and by the time Dole was running for President in 1996 it was already obscure and weird. Just like Newtie.

But then Newtie had been asking for some time if he "had to get into this thing" and nobody was saying yes. So I'd imagine he was more than a little miffed at old Bob for being chosen.

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Newtie's riposte

2012-01-26T16:30:00.000-08:00

Newtie's riposte

by digby

I wrote about Romney's attack ad against Newt this morning. Here's one from Newt.

I have to give this one to Newt. But then nobody knows more about being vicious than he does.

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Green Jobs and Tax Increases on the Rich are Popular by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-26T15:00:00.000-08:00

Green Jobs and Tax Increases on the Rich are Popular

by David Atkins
David Roberts has a good post on Grist today with a reminder of the obvious: green jobs and tax increases on the remain popular planks. Her analysis uses data from a Democracy Corps dial test focus group to reinforce what should already be self-evident:

Overall, there was a striking degree of unanimity, quite in contrast to the polarization in Washington. Reactions to the speech split along party lines on only a few issues. The most interesting split came during the section of the speech on energy:

This section received the highest sustained ratings of the speech from Democrats and independents, but it was also one of the few polarizing sections as Republicans reacted negatively to the President’s call for more support of clean energy (independents, like Democrats, responded very favorably). Overall, Obama gained 22 points on the issue, one of his biggest gains on the evening, as these voters endorsed his appeal to end subsidies for oil companies and instead focus those resources on expanding clean energy in America.

It seems the Republican attempt to drag clean energy into the culture war has reached only the conservative base. Independents outside the Fox-Limbaugh loop still favor it.

In other words, this is a powerful wedge issue that favors Democrats.

With the Wall Street Journal editorial page beating its chest, Politico making sweet, sweet love to the Solyndra non-scandal, and the Chamber of Commerce dumping money into attack ads, Democrats have gotten unduly spooked. They’ve started believing John Boehner’s trash talk, that energy is a wedge to divide unions from greens.

It’s an empty threat. The fact is, overwhelming majorities of Americans — across party, age, and regional lines — support clean, modern energy. A poll conducted by ORC International in November found that 77 percent of Americans, including 65 percent of Republicans, believe that “the U.S. needs to be a clean energy technology leader and it should invest in the research and domestic manufacturing of wind, solar, and energy efficiency technologies.” Last February, a Gallup poll offered a list of actions Congress might take. The most popular option, with an incredible 83 percent support, was “an energy bill that provides incentives for using solar and other alternative energy resources.”

And the data is clear on taxing the wealthy as well:

On to the second significant finding: Americans want to tax the rich.

These swing voters, even the Republicans, responded enthusiastically to [Obama's] call for a “Buffett Rule” that would require the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share. As one participant put it, “I agree with his tax reform — the 1 percent should shoulder more of the burden than the other 99 percent. He [Obama] talked about being all for one, one for all — that really resonated for me.” These dial focus groups make it very clear that defending further tax cuts for those at the top of the economic spectrum puts Republicans in Congress and on the Presidential campaign trail well outside of the American mainstream.

(See also this Sept. 2011 Gallup poll or this Oct. 2011 Bloomberg poll or this Oct. 2011 CBS News poll or many others).

What this shows is that the Occupy movement has won. Americans across party lines increasingly see things in terms of the 1 percent and the 99 percent. A Pew survey earlier this month found that “conflict between rich and poor now eclipses racial strain and friction between immigrants and the native-born as the greatest source of tension in American society.” Two-thirds of Americans now see “strong conflicts” between the rich and poor. Even Mitt Romney is using Occupy’s language.

These issues — clean energy and taxing the rich — are not unconnected. Properly done, clean energy is a populist issue. Big Oil perfectly symbolizes the 1 percent, and Americans are ready to redirect public resources away from oil and toward a wide network of home-grown cleantech innovators.

There won't be any excuse for blue doggy Dems and their Washington consultants to run away from these issues. The time for using the cop-out of stupidity or cowardice is well nigh at an end. The data is so strikingly clear at this point, that any Democrat who fails to highlight these issues has to be declared either corrupt or so incompetent that they don't deserve to hold office.

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The real Jesus' General goes back to West Point

2012-01-26T13:30:00.000-08:00

The real Jesus' General goes back to West Point

by digby

This is cracked:

In a statement issued to ThinkProgress, West Point’s Director of Public Affairs, Lt. Col. Sherri Reed, said the military academy stands by its decision to host Boykin and that the invitation is “in keeping with the broad range of ideas normally considered by our cadets”:
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point prepares cadets to be leaders of character with honor and consideration of others. In order to produce effective 21st Century leaders for our Army, and our Nation, cadets are purposefully exposed to different perspectives and cultures over the course of their 47-month experience at West Point.
The National Prayer Breakfast Service will be pluralistic with Christians, Jewish, and Muslim cadets participating. We are comfortable and confident that what retired Lt. Gen. Boykin will share about prayer, soldier care and selfless service, will be in keeping with the broad range of ideas normally considered by our cadets.
Sadly, the man who West Point has chosen as its representative of the Christian faith dangerously views our military conflicts as a holy war against Islam.

Boykin is worse than that. He's certifiably nuts:

I stumbled across this video of Perkins, Joyner, Boykin and Frank Turek discussing the importance of Christians getting deeply involved in politics.

Perkins explains the absolute necessity of getting Christians into all levels of government while Boykin compared Christians today to the Spartan army and quoted King Leonidas by declaring "molon labe" ["come and get them"] when he and his army were told to lay down their weapons.

Likewise, Boykin declared "molon labe," stating that he will not be silenced and challenged those in Washington who are out to take his liberties, rob his grandchildren, and destroy America to just try to take them from him.

Finally, Joyner announced that Christians have more than enough people to take control, but they need to bind together and, as such, would soon be unveiling coalition called "300".

You're telling me that this freakshow is the only Christian ex-general they could find to do this? Really? But then again it's hard to see how he could do more harm by making this speech than he undoubtedly did in his final years in the Army:

From April 1998 to February 2000, he served as the Commanding General, U.S. Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. From March 2000-2003, he was the Commanding General, United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, N.C. In June 2003, he was appointed Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence under Dr. Stephen Cambone, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.

You'd think after all this time they'd have finally realized that they had a certified lunatic in their ranks, but apparently not.

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In your shoes, you know he'll lose? --- Mitt's new ad

2012-01-26T11:30:00.000-08:00

In your shoes, you know he'll lose?

by digby

I guess this is supposed to be tough, but is it really? It's a purely process argument saying that he isn't electable. Maybe it'll work. But if they really want to stop him, they should try this one:

"Ring fencing" --- some thoughts on the Schneiderman appointment

2012-01-26T09:44:00.000-08:00

Ring fencing

by digby

Dday has an important new post explaining that while there is still ample reason to be skeptical of the new financial fraud task force, there is a possibility that New York AG Eric Schneiderman may not have blindly walked into a trap or sold out --- apparently, there is room in the agreement for him to push the investigation in a positive direction. And according to dday's sources, Schneidermann has promised to ostentatiously walk out if it turns out that the administration is trying to "ring-fence" him. (Read his whole post for the full run down of how this could play out.)

Schneidermann has generally been known to be a rare savvy, but principled, politician so it's at least possible that he will be able to navigate these waters successfully. It's an election year, this is a volatile issue in some very important states, and Schneiderman signaling that he will be happy to walk away if that's what it takes is a very big threat.

Look, it is hard for me to believe this notion that Schneiderman, after everything, was angling for big wet kiss from the administration. None of that tracks with dday's reporting which says that the deal wasn't coming together at all as recently as last week-end and once Iowa AG Tom Miller publicly pulled the deal it was all over for the moment. The politics suggest to me that while the administration may indeed be trying to "ring-fence" Schneidermann, the real purpose is the glaringly obvious: to cover for their failure to settle this. (Isn't the truism in DC that when you can't get something done, form a commission?)The power in that scenario lies exactly where it did before the task force was announced --- with the state AGs, who as far as I can tell are more empowered not less. (See Kamala Harris'statement below.) I'm willing to suspend judgment for a while to see if that means Schneidermann is actually a corrupt chameleon who's taken progressives for a wild ride through his entire career in order to sell himself to the highest bidder or whether he believes he can affect this from his perch on the task force.

I don't see this as a sky is falling sort of thing just yet. There are very good reasons to be skeptical and you'd have to be a fool to buy into the premise at face value. But there are worse things than temporarily tabling a bad deal. And there actually are politicians in the world whose self-serving ambitions are dependent upon being perceived as crusaders rather than players. Everything I know of Schneiderman suggests that the former is the path he's chosen.

I guess, for me, it comes down to this: I don't think the administration is nearly as slick as people think and I don't believe that in an election year like this one they will go out of their way to make enemies of their political allies. Everything suggests that they are trying to make at least a rhetorical pivot to a populist(ish) campaign to face the out-of-touch fop*, Mitt Romney. It is what it appears to be: plastering lipstick on this pig of a negotiation and pretending they have a path to a cheap settlement in order to keep both the banks and the people on the hook through the election. They are not working with a strong hand.

And because of that, what dday says here is very true:

I...can see some path where this task force is not harmful and, in an absolute best case, helpful in bringing accountability and justice. The key for Schneiderman is to maintain his independence. A lot of people walk into Washington thinking they can outsmart people and work on their own terms. It doesn’t always work out. The grassroots will be a powerful spur in this. They need to not spike the ball in the end zone and continue to do what they have been doing, forcing the White House into uncomfortable positions and blowing up an insufficient settlement.

I suppose people may differ on how to do help Schneiderman maintain his independence. My feeling is that he should be given the benefit of the doubt at this point. Some people believe that the only thing that ever motivates human beings is pain, delivered constantly and without mercy, so maybe he's better "spurred" by being called a whore and a sell-out and abandoned by his progressive allies. We all have to follow our own instincts on that.

But regardless of where you fall on that point, dday's admonition to keep pushing is absolutely correct. Even if activists eventually vote for the president, they can cause huge headaches for the campaign in an election year, particularly in individual states. This is when they have maximum leverage and they should use it.

*h/t to greg sargent
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Kudos to CA Attorney General Kamala Harris by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-26T07:30:00.000-08:00

Kudos to CA Attorney General Kamala Harris

by David Atkins

With New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman likely being disempowered to stop the MERS whitewash, it's up to other Attorneys General to stand firm. Fortunately, California's Attorney General Kamala Harris appears to be doing just that:

Calif. Atty. Gen. Kamala D. Harris' office has called a proposed $25-billion settlement with the nation’s mortgage industry “inadequate.”

"We've reviewed the details of the latest settlement proposal from the banks, and we believe it is inadequate for California,” Shum Preston, a spokesman for Harris, said in a statement. “Our state has been clear about what any multistate settlement must contain: transparency, relief going to the most distressed homeowners and meaningful enforcement that ensures accountability. At this point, this deal does not suffice for California."

Many analysts consider California's participation to be key to a strong deal. Harris walked away from talks with the banks last year, saying not enough was being offered by the financial institutions for California homeowners.

Since then, certain terms have been added to lure the Golden State back to the table, and Harris has opened separate inquiries into the mortgage business.

State attorneys general have received drafts of a $25-billion settlement with the nation's biggest banks that would overhaul foreclosure and mortgage servicing practices. No deal has been officially reached among the states, federal agencies and the nation's five largest mortgage servicers: Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co.,Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc. Individual states must decide whether they will join a settlement or pursue independent lawsuits and investigations.

The proposed $25-billion settlement would cover only mortgages held by the banks privately and exclude those from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Hopefully Ms. Harris will continue withstand Administration pressure to cover up massive fraud on the part of the banks.

Please take a moment to thank her for her courage. When politicians do the right thing, they deserve our support.

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Woof! by tristero --- Santorum is barking up the wrong tree

2012-01-25T19:30:00.000-08:00

Woof!

By tristero

Man, that Ricky Santorum is barking up the wrong tree.:

I would say any type of sexual activity has absolutely no place in the military

I think it will probably come as a huge surprise to all those 18 year-olds in our armed forces to learn that a man who, incredibly, is considered by a many Republicans a very serious contender for the job of Leader of the Whole World believes that they took a vow of celibacy when they signed up to defend their country.

Good luck with that.

S. Carolina phony voter fraud: Zombies are eating election officials brains

2012-01-25T18:00:00.000-08:00

Zombies are eating election officials brains

by digby

Not that this will stop the wingnuts from their crusade but it should. Turns out that the South Carolina zombies weren't zombies after all:

A top state election official disputes a recent claim that more than 950 people who voted in recent elections could actually be dead. Of the six names her office was allowed to examine, all were eligible to vote.

But to hear some Republican officials tell it, you’d think that on Election Day in South Carolina, graveyards all across the state empty out and hordes of zombie voters lurch to the polls.

But dead people can’t vote. They’re dead.

This apparently needs some clarification, because during testimony at a Jan. 11 House hearing, S.C. Department of Motor Vehicles director Kevin Shwedo estimated that 950-plus dead people had voted since – well, since being dead.

So alarmed was Shwedo – who Gov. Nikki Haley appointed to the DMV post last January and who registered to vote here the following month at age 54 – sent the data to state law enforcement.

The reliability of that data, however, came into question today during another hearing on the issue where State Election Commission director Marci Andino testified that some of the voters the DMV data said were dead are very much alive – and were eligible to cast a ballot.

But you know this will be a rural legend throughout Real America. They are just determined to believe that a bunch of people are trying to steal elections. Because that's what they're trying to do.

In this case they seem to be more than a little bit confused. It was a Republican primary. I know these people think these Democratic zombies are stupid but do they think they're so stupid that they would commit fraud to vote for Obama in an uncontested election? Or is it that they want to elect ... Romney? Hard to figure either way.

Let's just say that this one doesn't make a lot of sense.

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Blood for oil? You've got to be kidding.

2012-01-25T16:30:00.000-08:00

Blood for oil? You've got to be kidding.

by digby

Something's fishy in Tripoli? Daniel J. Graeber of Oilprice.com:

Way back in early 2011, members of the U.N. Security Council had no problem getting a resolution through that authorized military force in Libya ostensibly to protect civilians from attacks by forces loyal to strongman Moammar Gadhafi. The year before, lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic were bickering over who did what and why in terms of the cancer-stricken Lockerbie bomber. This Scottish decision to release him, depending on which U.S. lawmaker you spoke with, was tied to a BP deal to drill for oil in Libya. Despite fractures in the new interim government in Tripoli and reports of renewed protests, a decision by the Italian government to quietly discuss trade relations suggests something isn't quite right in the way Western allies pick their fights.

Read on.

If it's questions are answered in the most obvious way it will end up being one of the quickest debunking of a casus belli in modern history. Not that anyone's too surprised, I'm sure.

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Pedal to the metal is the new normal by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-25T14:54:00.000-08:00

Pedal to the metal is the new normal

by David Atkins

It's remarkable that this is treated as humdrum news these days:

The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that it was likely to leave short-term interest rates at rock-bottom levels at least through late 2014, pushing out its easy-monetary policy even further into the future than previously indicated.

In a statement at the end of its two-day meeting, policymakers at the central bank acknowledged the recent improvements in the economy but said that they expected “economic growth over coming quarters to be modest” and the unemployment rate, currently 8.5%, to decline “only gradually.”

The decision was what many analysts had expected.

Since August, the Fed had said it was likely to keep the federal funds rate, which broadly influences rates on loans for businesses and consumers, at near zero “at least through mid-2013.” Financial markets, however, most recently have been betting that the shift won’t happen until early 2014.

People tend to forget that a zero federal funds rate is supposed to be an emergency measure. Low interest rates help people afford to buy houses and other investments, but they hurt traditional savers. People who speculate on homes and stocks do better, while people on wage income with CDs and savings accounts get screwed, further incentivizing the bubble economy. It's a pedal to the metal approach to keep asset values as inflated as possible while doing nothing about wages. But beyond even more "quantitative easing", there's no farther for the Fed to go on this front even to reinflate assets.

We've been at "pedal to the metal" for years, and we're apparently going to stay there with no end in sight.

That's not to say that a zero interest rate environment isn't necessary during a major recession. It probably is. But a zero-interest rate environment for years and years on end during a largely jobless recovery is more proof that the economy is broken. There's an argument to be had over whether the governmental and financial elites in this area are greedy, incompetent or both. But the notion that they deserve unquestioned respect as arcane priests of economic wisdom is ludicrous.

They're essentially throwing every asset-inflating policy against the wall to see what sticks, and praying something works.

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Laugh til it hurts: mayor quips that he will eat tacos to help the latino community

2012-01-25T13:30:00.000-08:00

Laugh til it hurts

by digby

We often say in these parts that conservatives don't have a sense of humor. But that's wrong. It's just that it's the kind of cruel stupid humor most of us get past before we're out of high school.

Here's the mayor of East Haven Connecticut:

Talk about digging yourself a hole ...

Here's the context:

Police Gang Tyrannized Latinos, Indictment Says

By PETER APPLEBOME

They were known as Miller’s Boys, police officers who worked the 4-to-midnight shift, patrolling the largely working-class town of East Haven, Conn., including the small but growing Hispanic community that has spread out in recent years from New Haven.

The officers were more than well known in that community; according to residents and federal authorities, they were feared. They stopped and detained people, particularly immigrants, without reason, federal prosecutors said, sometimes slapping, hitting or kicking them when they were handcuffed, and once smashing a man’s head into a wall. They followed and arrested residents, including a local priest, who tried to document their behavior.

They rooted through stores looking for damning security videotapes of how they had treated some of their targets, described by one of them on a police radio as having “drifted to this country on rafts made of chicken wings.”

And after it became known that the Justice Department was investigating the department, according to an indictment unsealed on Tuesday, a picture of a rat appeared on a police union bulletin board, and in the locker room, an ominous note: “You know what we do with snitches?”

On Tuesday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Sgt. John Miller and three of his officers — David Cari, Dennis Spaulding and Jason Zullo — on charges of conspiracy, false arrest, excessive force and obstruction of justice over what the indictment described as years of mistreatment of individuals, especially Hispanics, and efforts to cover it up.

Following on the heels of a scathing Justice Department report in December that found the East Haven police had engaged in widespread “biased policing, unconstitutional searches and seizures, and the use of excessive force,” the indictment portrayed a harrowing picture of arbitrary justice for Hispanic residents.

Just eat some tacos, it'll be fine.

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Civility: Henry Waxman gets told to STFU (basically) when he says "Koch"

2012-01-25T12:00:00.000-08:00

Civility

by digby

In a heated hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill, Democratic Congressman Henry Waxman called upon the billionaire Koch brothers to be subpoenaed over their alleged monetary interests in the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. Republican Congressman Ed Whitfield angrily cut off Waxman. “We’re not going to be subpoenaing the Koch brothers … because the Koch brothers have nothing to do with this project,” Whitfield snapped.

“Point of order!” Waxman exclaimed. “You cut me out in the middle of a sentence!”

“Your time was up, Mr. Waxman!” Whitfield shot back. “We are going to recess this hearing for ten minutes and then we’re going to come back.”

“Are you calling the Koch brothers during the recess?” Waxman sniped.

“If you want to talk about that, let’s talk about the millions of dollars the Obama administration gave companies like Solyndra and people like George Kaiser and other campaign bundlers,” Whitfield fumed.

“Why are you interrupting members and then you take unlimited time for yourself?” Waxman responded.

“I’m the chairman! And I’m telling you right now we’re going to recess for ten minutes!” Whitfield boomed, before storming out of the hearing.

For background on this, read this article in The Hill. The Kochs are a great symbol for the Democrats and they're smart to use it. But in case you think this is terribly uncivilized, get a gander at what the GOP has in mind:

In 1996, Republicans pivoting to the second year of control of the House realized they made a strategic error in aggressively thumping environmental regulations.

“Let’s stop shooting ourselves in the foot on that one,” House Speaker Newt Gingrich told his lieutenants, as chronicled by Washington Post reporters David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf in their 1996 book, “Tell Newt to Shut Up!”

“We kinda looked up one day and said ‘This wasn’t smart,’” recalled Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) in the book. The revelation spurred approval of major changes in 1996 to the Safe Drinking Water Act even as Republicans looked to knock off Bill Clinton from a second term in the White House.

In 2012, with Gingrich on the campaign trail and Republican front-runner Mitt Romney tied with Obama in a new CNN poll, Boehner, now speaker, and his House GOP crew aren’t second-guessing their agenda. Instead, they see energy as a wedge issue they can use to appeal to independent voters with a pro-jobs message, especially if gasoline prices start to increase this summer.

Nah, politics haven't moved right. Both sides do it, remember? It's a wash!

I do hope the Democrats aren't also forgetting the lessons of the past in terms of how this Solyndra pseudo-scandal is developing. The Republicans will spend as much money as it takes to get this to penetrate to at least "smell test" level. It's what they do and they're good at it. I don't know if it has the potency they think it has, but it will be a distraction and an annoyance if it takes off regardless --- and make the public question alternative energy as nothing more than a scam. Which is the point.

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Dirty laundry

2012-01-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

Dirty Laundry

by digby

This is just pathetic:

Tina DuPuy writes:

Mitt Romney’s hurdle in winning the love/respect/admiration/fear of his party can be summed up in one photo: It was taken by his son, Tagg (doesn’t Sarah Palin have a kid with that name?) and put on Twitter this week. It’s of Romney and his wife Ann, presumably in a hotel basement, side-by-side pouring detergent into washing machines. Mitt is, of course, wearing a starched button up shirt and jeans, which is what people who never do laundry think people would wear when they do laundry. (Personally, if I have a clean starched shirt and jeans that’s an indication I don’t need to do laundry yet.) “Nothing like the glamorous life on the road,” the intermittent front-runner’s son tweeted with the pic.

This photo comes in the same week as Romney’s tax return where we learned Romney doesn’t actually work. He is in fact, as he’s claimed, unemployed. His money…makes his money. Millions and millions. He pays a tax rate of 13.9 percent – far lower than your average laundromat owner.

Which leads me to ask: Why is Mitt being photographed doing his laundry? Were there no Dukakis tanks available?

Apparently pleased with his Average Joe “real street” cred, Romney happily explained the image to NBC News, “We do our laundry at least once a week, because we’ll be on the road for 30 straight days. Who else do you think is going to do our laundry?”

"We do our laundry at least once a week because we'll be on the road for 30 straight days?" Huh?

Maybe he should have Tagg do it for him. After all, he owes him big:

David Kay Johnston: The Romneys gave $100 milliion to their sons and paid not one penny of gift tax. They were able to take assets they have that are producing enormous income and, under the law, give that money to their children and not pay any taxes on it.

Sambolin: Is that something you specifically found in what has been released to you?

Johnston: Yes. I have suspected this and written about it in my column that this is what happened, and last night, Brad Malt, the attorney for the Romneys, confirmed to Reuters that we were correct. They have not paid a penny of gift tax. That's because Congress allows a very tiny group of people — the Romneys by their income are in the top 1% of the top 1% — to not count as having any value the real source of their income, something called carried interest, if they give it to their children.

Talk about dirty laundry.

I think it might be time to recycle this again.

Fooled again

2012-01-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

Fooled again

by digby

So, according to dday, New York AG Eric Schneiderman is either a whore or a dupe, as were those who initially thought it was probably good news that he was tapped for the president's new "financial fraud task force." Too bad. Even among the most rabidly cynical, Schneiderman had been touted as a smart person of integrity and one of the only powerful Democrats in the land on the right side of this issue. So much for that, I guess.

I will say this. It could have been worse. As long as no deal is reached, there's at least a chance that a better one can happen.

Banning fetuses in food: when morons are in charge of our laws by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-25T07:30:00.000-08:00

Banning fetuses in food: when morons are in charge of our laws

by David Atkins

Oh good lord:

A Republican state senator from Oklahoma City introduced a bill Tuesday that would ban the use of aborted human fetuses in food, despite conceding that he’s unaware of any company using such a practice.

Freshman Sen. Ralph Shortey said his own Internet research led him to believe such a ban is necessary and prompted him to offer the bill aimed at raising “public awareness” and giving an “ultimatum to companies” that might consider such a policy.

Shortey said he discovered suggestions online that some companies use embryonic stem cells to develop artificial flavors, but added that he is unaware of any Oklahoma companies doing such research.

In an e-mail to The Associated Press, U.S. Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Pat El-Hinnawy said: “FDA is not aware of this particular concern.”

The executive director of the anti-abortion group Oklahomans for Life, which has successfully pushed some of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the country through the state’s GOP-controlled Legislature, also said he had never heard of human fetuses being used in food research.

“I don’t know anything about that,” said Tony Lauinger.

"His own Internet research." If this sounds to you like your crazy right-wing aunt freaking out over bullshit in a chain email, that's because you're not that far off the mark. The only significant story in recent years about this apparently crucial issue is this bit of interesting science involving Pepsi and stem cells from last year:

A bizarre controversy is unfolding over an impending low-calorie soda from Pepsi (PEP), which the company is creating with the help of the biotech company Senomyx (SNMX). Numerous anti-abortion groups have started a boycott of Pepsi products because they say Senomyx, which develops new ingredients intended to enhance sweetness and other flavors, has done so using embryonic kidney cells that were originally taken from an aborted baby.

This accusation presents a two-fold problem for Pepsi. The first, most obvious one is that the beverage giant has now ardent anti-abortionists breathing down its neck. The second, and possibly more troubling, issue is that some of Pepsi's attempts to create groundbreaking and healthier products are now associated with fetal kidney cells.

Is this claim true? Neither Pepsi nor Senomyx returned calls, so we don't know the companies' side of the story. But a perusal of Senomyx's patents suggests that it may well be. All but 7 of the company's 77 patents refer to the use of HEK 293 (human embryonic kidney) cells, which researchers have used for decades as biological workhorses. (For the bio-geeks among you, these cells offer a reliable way to produce new proteins via genetic engineering.)

The company appears to be engineering HEK cells to function like the taste-receptor cells we have in our mouth. This way, Senomyx can test millions of substances to see if they work as different types of taste enhancers without subjecting human volunteers to endless taste tests.

To non-scientists this may sound a bit strange, but the reality is that HEK 293 cells are widely used in pharmaceutical research, helping scientists create vaccines as well as drugs like those for rheumatoid arthritis.

So Pepsi's research affiliates were using stem cells to test food substances the same way pharma companies test vaccines. Interesting and kind of cool. So naturally last year the nutcase womb police boycotted Pepsi; and now partly due to this ridiculous nontroversy, Pepsi has disaffiliated from Senomyx.

And less than a year later, this embarrassing incident for America has trickled down into the fevered imagination of some elected moron in Oklahoma that people are being fed fetus parts on their dinner plates. So naturally he steps into legislative action based on his "Internet research."

Welcome to the heartland "values" to which we unAmerican coastal elites are supposed to give deference and utmost respect.

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Electric Teabag Acid Test

2012-01-24T18:00:00.000-08:00

Electric Teabag Acid Test

by digby

Dick Armey lets the cat out of the bag:

“I think the [Tea Party] movement, very broadly,” Armey began, “has forsaken the possibility of having a reliable, innovative, small government conservative emerge through the Republican Party’s process. So we put our focus on — ”

“What do you mean?” Banfield interrupted, “I thought that was Ron Paul, Congressman?”

“Well, Ron Paul, we– we sa– we don’t believe he will emerge, uh, as the candidate through this process,”

“So why aren’t you backing him?” Banfield asked. “And all your very strong Tea Partiers? I mean the numbers are in the hundreds of thousands, if not millions.”

“One of the things you have to understand about small government activists,” Armey explained, “is that we all, each and very one of us, individually, march to our own drummer, so there are many people in our movement that are backing Ron Paul, but there are some that are backing some of the others, as well,”

“But that means you don’t have sort of a block of power, if what I’m hearing is, uh…”

“We’re not about power,” Armey said. “That’s one of the things that’s confusing to a lot of people who are used to analyzing the behavior of real politicians that are in biz for themselves. We are about what’s good for the nation, individual liberty, personal freedom, and everybody being free to do their own thing.

If it feels good, do it baby Tune in, turn on, vote GOP.

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The "A" Team: Newt and Rick don't have anything to worry about

2012-01-24T16:30:00.000-08:00

The "A" Team

by digby

So we're going to have the Mitch Daniels Experience tonight. Feel the magic:

This guy and Christie, Jindal and Jeb Bush are the supposed "A Team" that didn't take the field in this cycle. I think they make Newtie and Santorum look like Churchill and Roosevelt by comparison.

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To Mitt or Not to Mitt by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-24T14:54:00.000-08:00

To Mitt or Not to Mitt

by David Atkins

I'm sure you've seen the numbers by now:

Mitt Romney’s campaign released hundreds of pages of tax documents on Tuesday morning, providing an inside glimpse into his sprawling investments, both in the United States and abroad, in an effort to dampen the attacks on his wealth that have become a central focus of the Republican presidential nominating battle.

Mr. Romney and his wife, Ann, had an effective federal income tax rate in 2010 of 13.9 percent, paying about $3 million in taxes on an adjusted gross income of $21.6 million, the vast majority of it flowing from a myriad of stock holdings, mutual funds and other investments, including profits and investment income from Bain Capital, the private equity firm Mr. Romney retired from in 1999.

The part of me that wants to see an easier win in November desperately wants Gingrich to win the nomination.

But the fighter in me wants to see Romney win this nomination so that we can have the tax the rich conversation undistracted all through November. Sadly, I don't get to choose. That's for the crazies on the other side to decide.
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From the stating the obvious files

2012-01-24T13:30:00.000-08:00

From the stating the obvious files

by digby

Friendly reminder:

The United States’ continued operation of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba is a “clear breach of international law,” United Nations human rights chief Navi Pillay said today, Reuters reports. Only six trials have been completed in 10 years, while eight detainees have died at the prison. “While fully recognizing the right and duty of states to protect their people and territory from terrorist acts, I remind all branches of the U.S. government of their obligation under international human rights law to ensure that individuals deprived of their liberty can have the lawfulness of their detention reviewed before a court,” Pillay said. “Where credible evidence exists against Guantanamo detainees, they should be charged and prosecuted. Otherwise, they must be released.”

Might as well be talking to a wall.

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The Earl of Romney

2012-01-24T12:00:00.000-08:00

The Earl of Romney

by digby

I think Atrios explains the problem with Lord Romney's taxes perfectly:

Romney has said he was unemployed. He's right. He actually does nothing to earn most of his income. He's just in possession of a giant pile of cash. He pays some people to do stuff with that giant pile of cash so it earns a rate of return. And because we are ruled by horrible people who think the lives of the 1% are more important than everyone else, the tax rate on any money that pile of cash earns is much lower than it is on the money earned by people who actually work.

Now the .01% like Romney will tell you that they work actually work much harder than the rest of us and as a result they should be allowed to keep all of their money. After all, if they didn't work harder they wouldn't be rich, right?

Indeed, Romney likes to say that his father gave him nothing and he pulled himself up by his bootstraps. If you believe that growing up with a very famous family name in both the world of business and politics --- in a world made up of other people with vast wealth and famous family names in business and politics --- counts as up from nothing, I suppose that might be true. But Mitt was born with every advantage, many more than his father who really did work his way up the ladder of success. It's insulting that he even tries to relate to average people in this way.

There's nothing wrong with being wealthy and running for office. But if you are nothing but a privileged plutocrat, without any sense of noblesse oblige, everyone will rightly see your self-serving policies for what they are: a chance to enhance your own wealth, that of your wealthy peers and, most importantly, that of your heirs. In other words you are just another in a long line of would-be aristocrats trying to game the system for your own.

We've had many wealthy presidents in America, but never one as rich as Mitt whose policies were so blatantly geared to make himself even wealthier at the expense of the rest of the nation. If he wins this election we will know once and for all that deep down, Americans really want to be subjects, not citizens.

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Patriotic self-deportation

2012-01-24T10:26:00.000-08:00

Patriotic Self-deportation

by digby

PATRIOTS FOR SELF-DEPORTATION
www.SelfDeport.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AUSTIN (January 24, 2012) The grassroots organization Patriots for Self-Deportation, formed last year in response to legislative inaction on the issue of birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants (also known as the “anchor baby” problem), announced today the launch of their website, SelfDeport.org. The group describes SelfDeport.org as a resource for patriotic Americans who wish to set an example of responsible citizenship by proving their own rights to remain in this great nation.
The group hopes the website and issue benefits from Republican candidate Mitt Romney's endorsement of self-deportation as a solution to the problem of illegal immigration, according to spokesman Stephen Winters.
"A surprising number of authentic patriots have found in their own genealogical searches that one or more of their ancestors came here or stayed here illegally, and yet continued to make a living in this country and have children who in turn became instant citizens," said Winters. "Some patriots, faced with this moral dilemma, have decided to set an example for others. Knowing that their own presence in this country is not on moral solid ground, they have decided to demonstrate the highest level of civic dedication and sacrifice, and engage in self-deportation."
In order to address the surprisingly large number of such cases, Patriots for Self-Deportation launched SelfDeport.org to support, inform, and assist those undertaking or considering a similar move. At SelfDeport.org, patriots can answer for themselves the following questions:
How can I know if ancestors of mine came here legally?
If I suspect that an ancestor should never have received citizenship, am I morally obliged to do something about it?
What support is available if I decide to self-deport?
If several of my ancestors came over illegally, how do I decide which country of origin to return to?
How do I go about self-deportation?
Patriots for Self-Deportation urges all patriotic Americans to visit SelfDeport.org for answers to these questions and more, and for testimonials by patriots who have chosen to live in accordance with their values. "We hope that this resource will help guide other patriots in carrying out this difficult but essential duty," said Winters.

The problem, as one wag put it, is "who want to take all our patriots?"

Update: Here's what "self-deportation" is rally all about.

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Newtie: bring back the circus

2012-01-24T09:00:00.000-08:00

Bring back thecircus

by digby

Newtie's upset:

“I wish in retrospect I had protested when Brian Williams took [the crowd] out of it because I think it’s wrong,” he said. “I think he took them out of it because the media is terrified that the audience is going to side with the candidates against the media, which is what they’ve done in every debate.”
Gingrich’s debate performances are widely viewed as having propelled him to an overwhelming victory at Saturday’s South Carolina primary.

His fiery performances often came at the expense of the debate moderators for questions he deemed inappropriate, and the conservative crowds often rewarded the former House Speaker with applause and even a standing ovation for his attacks against the media.

But NBC asked the crowd to hold their applause until the breaks, and moderator Brian Williams didn’t offer any opportunities for Gingrich to go after him.

As a result, some of Gingrich’s attacks that might have energized his supporters at previous debates seemed to fall flat. At one point Gingrich even seemed flustered, and paused in silence to collect his thoughts.

“We’re going to serve notice on future debates that we won’t tolerate — we’re just not going to allow that to happen,” Gingrich continued. “That’s wrong — the media doesn’t control free speech. People ought to be able to applaud if they want to. It was almost silly.”

Uh, no. Not silly enough obviously.

He's a cheerleader not a politician. Without the "fans" screaming for blood his allegedly brilliant debating skills fall flat.

As Alan Grayson said:

"The Republicans can't give them bread so they just give them circuses."

*Who knew Florida had become forced childbirth central? Santorum should do well once they find out about his macabre practices.

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The Wingnut Test of Wills by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-24T07:30:00.000-08:00

The wingnut test of wills

by David Atkins

Newt Gingrich has surged into the lead not only in Florida, but nationwide as well.

That means one thing: the GOP has about a week to discover who is more powerful: its establishment or its base. If Newt Gingrich wins an upset in Florida and proceeds to roll through to nomination in spite of all predictions, he will almost certainly lose the general election against a vulnerable President. The conspiracy-minded will declare that the big money men are pleased with Obama and are throwing the race to ensure four more years. But that assumes a level of coordinated puppeteering that doesn't likely exist. Even if one assumes that on certain issues the Parties don't differ all that greatly, there are a very large number of influential people who depend on the tendrils of power and influence that alter depending on whether a Democrat or a Republican holds the White House. There is simply no way that the vast bulk of the Republican establishment is lying down for four years, allowing its favored sons and daughters to languish while Democrats fill all the appointments in the White House's power.

No, the Republicans want to win in 2012. They have to. They've spent enough time, energy and money labeling the first African-American President a socialist, communist unAmerican professorial elite aligned with Black Panthers and food stamp cultures of dependency, that they can't afford to lose to him and still save face.

That's the danger of using ridiculous hyperbole to smear your opponents. If you lose, it means that the people either didn't believe the best lies your money could tell, or worse, believed them and didn't care.

The Republican establishment can't afford to see Gingrich win the nomination. But the base isn't about to let a Mormon governor from Massachusetts with a more moderate record be their standard-bearer.

In the next week, we'll find out if the GOP wizards are still in control of their monster, or if their monster is about to eat them alive. If the former, the monster won't exactly be happy about going back in its cage. If the latter, it could mean no less than the beginning of the end for the Republican Party: the year when its rabid base officially seized control, hastening the demise of a political party in rapid demographic decline.

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Debate night drinking game: #frankly (give your keys to a friend right now)

2012-01-23T17:45:00.000-08:00

Debate night drinking game

by digby

Drink on "frankly" and prepare for a massive hangover.

But it will be nothing compared to the hangover in the GOP if Newtie pulls this off:

SCHMIDT: Look, I think, not only are we not moving towards a coalescing of support by the Republican establishment for Newt Gingrich, we're probably moving toward the declaration of war on Newt Gingrich by the Republican establishment. And if Newt Gingrich is able to win the Florida primary, you will see a panic and a meltdown of the Republican establishment that is beyond my ability to articulate in the English language.

People will go crazy and you will have this five week period until the Super Tuesday states which is going to be as unpredictable, tumultuous as any period in modern American politics. It will be a remarkable thing to watch should that happen in Florida.

Sir, it gets better Sir!

2012-01-23T16:30:00.000-08:00

Sir It Gets Better Sir

by digby

I don't think anything can illustrate the change in our society better than this:

Mitt Romney, Uncreative Destructor by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-23T15:14:00.000-08:00

Mitt Romney, Uncreative Destructor

by David Atkins

Mitt Romney had a fascinating take on the foreclosure mess today. Dave Dayen and Digby have superb rundowns of Romney's comments particularly as they relate to strategic default and the Administration's foreclosure settlement, but I want to focus on a specific part of Romney's answer to struggling homeowners:

"The banks are scared to death, of course, because they think they're going to go out of business," Romney said. "They're afraid that if they write all these loans off, they're going to go broke. And so they're feeling the same thing you're feeling. They just want to pretend all of this is going to get paid someday so they don't have to write it off and potentially go out of business themselves."

"This is cascading throughout our system and in some respects government is trying to just hold things in place, hoping things get better," Romney continued. "My own view is you recognize the distress, you take the loss and let people reset. Let people start over again, let the banks start over again. Those that are prudent will be able to restart, those that aren't will go out of business. This effort to try and exact the burden of their mistakes on homeowners and commercial property owners, I think, is a mistake."

It takes a while to think through what Romney is saying here, but at its core what you get is a terrifying view of Romney's perspective as a vulture capitalist.

The single silver lining to the cloud of vulture capitalism is the principle of creative destruction. From a business point of view, creative destruction rests on the notion that while killing and carving up struggling firms may entail short-term pain, in the long run the economy benefits by freeing up capital and resources to function in smaller, more dynamic parts or even just the broader economy. It's not much of a silver lining to those who lose their jobs or to the towns that die when factories are closed, but a halfhearted case for the role of vulture capital in helping along creative destruction can be made by an economist.

So when Romney says to simply flush all the bad debt out of the system for both homeowners and banks alike, he's resting on this same worldview: that things will be better off once the current mess is destroyed, so that the housing market and banking market can be rebuilt from the ground up. It's the same perspective he had when he insisted that Detroit be allowed to go bankrupt. Creative destruction is the name of Romney's game. It also serves the Libertarian economic project fairly well, because the alternative to creative destruction is direct intervention, usually by a government entity.

But applying the principle of creative destruction to the entire housing and banking market is nothing short of terrifying. It's one thing to do it in the Rust Belt or Silicon Valley, where factories and offices can be liquidated so that mechanics and engineers can theoretically be assigned to more productive industries. It rarely works out that way, of course: usually the engineers and mechanics stay unemployed or are rehired at far lesser wages, even as the vulture capitalists make off like bandits. But at least there's a sound theory behind it.

Banking isn't like manufacturing or technology, though. Banks don't produce anything but loans and interest on investment. You can't take a banker and reassign her to a more productive type of finance, even in theory. Banks are less like factories themselves, and more like cogs in an economic machine that are allowed to take profits in return for the service they provide. Banking is a boring and often ugly business that is in many ways a necessary evil--so much so that most societies have historically placed stringent, usually religious rules or even bans on the activity, forcing social outcasts to provide the service. "Creativity" in banking is almost always a bad thing, as is financialization of economies. There's no "creativity" to be had in destroying banks; rather, the only reason for destroying banks is essentially to regulate them by limiting their power.

Homeownership is even less subject to the rules of creative destruction, unless one is literally leveling homes in a process similar to gentrification--which even then, obviously, has its own social costs. Homes are not an economic engine, or rather they're not supposed to be. They're places where people live, grow up, raise families and retire. Turning families out of their homes isn't like turning them out of a dead-end job with the hope of their landing a more productive, economically efficient job later. It simply means another transplanted or homeless family.

That the big zombie banks should be broken up rather than allowed to stagger on pretending their bad debts will be repaid is without question. That homeowners with no home of repaying their mortgage should have alternatives to walking away, such as own-to-rent or mortgage write-downs, seems intuitive.

But Romney's stated approach of simply allowing the housing market to bottom out and the banks to go under without government intervention is not only cruel; it's economically insane. It's not creative, just destructive. It's the approach of a man who understands only the business of vulture capital, not the business of running an economy.

It's proof that the last thing America needs in office is a businessman, or at least one who cut his chops in the financial sector.

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Mitt Romney socialist

2012-01-23T13:00:00.000-08:00

Romney the socialist

by digby

This is pretty amazing:

Richard Wood of Bradenton, Fla., told Romney he'd folded his title insurance company in October 2010. "I invested in some real estate, some rental properties, made what I considered to be very conservative investments during the boom times and right now I am negotiating with the same bank who has mortgages on each of those and an approximate $200,000 deficiency," he said. "We have been exploring the possibility of moving to another to another country where we might be able to live on our retirement and our Social Security."

"Yeah. It's just tragic, isn't it? Just tragic, just tragic," Romney said. "We're just so overleveraged, so much debt in our society, and some of the institutions that hold it aren't willing to write it off and say they made a mistake, they loaned too much, we're overextended, write those down and start over. They keep on trying to harangue and pretend what they have on their books is still what it's worth."

"Also, Gov. Romney, we got hit with a double whammy," Wood continued. "My wife, she's a Realtor -- she is in the process of filing for bankruptcy on some debts that she needed to take out in order to try and stay in business the past five years. I'm probably right behind her."

"That's tragic," Romney said. "In some cases, if the debt is not in something you can service, it's like you have to move on and start over away from those debts. It's helpful if you get an institution that's willing to work with you, but if you don't you have no other option."

The Sunshine State had the seventh-highest foreclosure rate of any state in 2011, according to RealtyTrac, an online foreclosure marketplace and data firm. All of the homeowners at the table Monday said they owed more than their homes were worth and that their banks wouldn't negotiate on modifications or refinancing. More than 22 percent of all residential properties in the U.S. are "underwater," according to housing research firm CoreLogic. In Florida, a full 44 percent of mortgage properties are underwater.

"The banks are scared to death, of course, because they think they're going to go out of business," Romney said. "They're afraid that if they write all these loans off, they're going to go broke. And so they're feeling the same thing you're feeling. They just want to pretend all of this is going to get paid someday so they don't have to write it off and potentially go out of business themselves."

"This is cascading throughout our system and in some respects government is trying to just hold things in place, hoping things get better," Romney continued. "My own view is you recognize the distress, you take the loss and let people reset. Let people start over again, let the banks start over again. Those that are prudent will be able to restart, those that aren't will go out of business. This effort to try and exact the burden of their mistakes on homeowners and commercial property owners, I think, is a mistake."

Wow. This seems to me to be a huge move in a very different direction than any politician in the race. He's supporting the concept of strategic default which until now has been considered something only very sophisticated rich people were allowed to do. The CW is that it's a huge moral hazard for the rubes.

In fairness, these people sound as if they were heavily involved in Real Estate speculation and weren't just your average homeowner screwed by the crash, so maybe it's not as unusual after all. But still, the language the "empathy" the idea that it's "prudent" for non-billionaires to get a restart are all anathemas to the 1%ers. I will be shocked if Romney doesn't walk this back if it's picked up by the press. It's a class betrayal of epic proportions.

That's if he means what he's saying which I very much doubt. This has all the hallmarks of Mitt's compassion chip misfiring and mistakenly saying what these voters want to hear. If it isn't, and he sticks with it, we will see Romney to the left of the administration on the foreclosure crisis, which is fairly shocking. After all, this is what's happening right now:

Rumor has it that on Monday, after months of negotiation with big banks, the White House may announce a settlement that would let the banks off the hook for their role in the foreclosure crisis -- paying a tiny fraction of what's needed in exchange for blanket immunity from future lawsuits.

We hope these rumors are untrue.

President Obama has the ability to stop and change the direction of this sweetheart deal. He should reject any deal that benefits the one percent and lets the big banks get away with their crimes. Instead, the president should stand with the 99 percent and push for real accountability and a solution that will help millions of people in this country.

Here are the hard facts about the housing crisis we face:

3.5 million Americans are homeless.
18.5 million homes sit vacant.
Since 2007, more than 7.5 million homes have been foreclosed.
Default and foreclosure rates are now several times higher than at any time since the Great Depression.

If President Obama is serious about solving this crisis, he must ensure three things:

First: The banks must pay a minimum $300 billion in principal reduction for homeowners with underwater mortgages and/or restitution for foreclosed-on families. This is essential. Every effort to date to reboot the housing market has failed because it has not done the most essential thing -- actually reduce the massive debt load carried by homeowners.

As it stands, the deal likely to be announced Monday would have the banks pay only $20 billion, an astonishingly small fraction of what's needed. Add up all the underwater homes in America, and there's an estimated $700 billion in negative equity in the country, according to a recent study. If banks fix what they broke and write down principals for all underwater mortgages, this would free up millions of people to pump billions of dollars back into local economies, create jobs, and ultimately generate revenue to help invest in things that will help our economy grow.

This was addressed on Up with Chris Hayes yesterday with Eliot Spitzer:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Florida has been ground zero for foreclosure fraud and the housing slump. It stands to reason that the GOP would be trying to find a populist appeal to the average people in the state. It will be especially helpful to them if the administration does their dirty work for them and they can run against this settlement. The politics are very, very stupid. On the merits, it's just plain wrong.

Update: Also too, this:

The nation’s top six banks -- Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs -- paid out $144 billion in bonuses and compensation for 2011, second only to the record $147 billion they paid out in 2007 at the height of the economic boom, according to a report released today by The New Bottom Line. Four banks – Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Morgan Stanley – were awarded record high bonuses and compensation in 2011, despite their bleak stock performance during the year.

“Even though top bank executives have claimed that bonuses are down as much as 30 percent for 2011, total compensation has not decreased at all,” according to The New Bottom Line’s report, “Pulling Back The Curtain: The 1% Behind The 2011 Big Bank Bonuses.”

Update: Dday has a detailed analysis of Mitt's comments. (I had missed the part where he praised Pam Bondi .. oy vey, he is confused.) His political analysis is the same as mine.

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Susie's hospital bills -- give a blogga a hand

2012-01-23T11:30:00.001-08:00

Help out a pal

by digby

Susie Madrak, writer, blogger extraordinaire had to have gallbladder surgery and it cost more than she has:

In addition to paying for the health insurance, I have a $5000 copay on the surgery and about $30,000 in assorted medical bills from when I was hospitalized previously. I don’t expect to pay all of that, but I will have to pay something.

Obviously, some of you are in the same leaky financial boat and the last thing I want is for my readers to donate to me when they’re in bad shape themselves. But for those of you who can spare a few bucks, and would like to support what I do, I’d really appreciate your help.

Click over to her page and throw in a couple of bucks if you have it. It's Ayn Rand's world and we have to live in it.

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The age of Citizens United: it's been with us for a while now

2012-01-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

The age of Citizens United

by digby

This is an interesting discussion on Up With Chris Hayes yesterday morning about campaign finance.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The disagreement between Eliot Spitzer and Melissa Harris Perry is instructive. It's clear that many of us are confused about Citizens United --- the fact is that nothing any wealthy individual like Sheldon Adelson is doing in this cycle is a result of that ruling. Citizens United lifted the restrictions on corporations and union spending in elections, period. It had nothing to do with wealthy individuals donating to PACs in order to support candidates. That has been legal since 1976:

The Supreme Court's ruling in Buckley v. Valeo (1976) held that expenditures made independently of a candidate's campaign could not be limited under the Constitution. If expenditures are made in "coordination" with a campaign, however, they may be regulated as contributions.

Citizens United brought about the SuperPAC in order to facilitate the newly legal unlimited corporate giving, but the huge donations from wealthy individuals to these PACs is something they always could have done. Indeed, the single largest donation to Romney's SuperPAC is "John Paulson, a billionaire and hedge fund manager who is, according to Politico, 'famous for [having enriched] himself by betting on the collapse of the housing industry.'" There was nothing stopping him from doing this before either.

So why the big change? I think it has to do with two things, one cultural and one economic. The first is simply that wealthy benefactors are willing to put their names on their politics. The overt lobbying for Randroid values among the super wealthy has been well documented. They are shameless.

The second, and probably more important, is that these wealthy people have so much more money than they had before. Adelson is the 8th richest man in the United States. The Koch Brothers are the 4th and 5th. And their wealth has grown exponentially in recent years as everyone else has been struggling:

When you have this much money, buying elections is a very cheap investment. It's these two factors --- the swashbuckling culture of wealth and income disparity that lie at the heart of our current problems.

This is not to say that campaign reform isn't useful. There are many groups out there coming together to try to overturn corporate personhood, Citizens United and demand public funding of campaigns, among other things. In this interesting analysis, Mark Schmitt concurs with Eliot Spitzer in the clip above about the potential dangers but posits that process could yield tangential results around the margins even if it fails to reach the intended goals. Schmitt likens it to the anti-abortion crusade on the right, in which the organizing ends up depending on the failure to reach goals to sustain itself, but I think there is a positive tangential result in terms of the cultural and social pressure such a campaign could produce. There will always be shameless rich people of course. But there's no reason society should allow them to celebrate their shamelessness. There have been many things that were once socially acceptable and no longer are --- it's hard, but not impossible.

Still, more campaign finance reform probably won't eliminate the total corruption of the DC institutions where 25 year old staffers are enticed by the early prospect of mid six figure lobbyist salaries and where everyone expects to cash out big. And it can't change the crumbling foundation of a nation that's perfectly willing to allow vastly wealthy individuals and institutions to evade the rule of law and brag about it while hoarding more and more of the nation's wealth for themselves.

In that Chris Hayes clip I think David Stockman probably has it right and it's a very uncomfortable observation. In order for our democracy to function as it should we may end up having to restrict free speech in some limited way around our elections. It's an appalling solution to an appalling problem. But until we can make a very substantial cultural shift that makes corruption shameful and an economic shift that redistributes some of this wealth back to the middle class, we're going to be seeing more and more ostentatious corruption of our democracy. That's a very tall order. I'm guessing we're going to have to come up with a way to do it all.

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@bwilliams Ask Ron Paul 2night if he thinks states (as opposed to feds) have right 2 pat down airline travelers

2012-01-23T09:00:00.001-08:00

State intrusion

by digby

It's good that Rand Paul is taking on the TSA's security theatre by refusing to comply with a pat down request. Perhaps it will lead to more discussion about why this is a ridiculous approach to anti-terrorism. When the authorities find themselves groping a US Senator's crotch in public without any suspicion of criminal activity, something's gone wrong.

Having said that, I cannot help but be reminded of the fact that his home state of Texas just passed a law that goes a good deal further: forced vaginal probes of women seeking an abortion. To me, that seems like at least an equally intrusive state action, but when asked about it his allegedly highly principled father replied:

When GOP presidential hopeful Ron Paul was asked today about Tuesday’s federal court ruling upholding an aggressive new sonogram law in his home state of Texas, the congressman said the requirement that women seeking an abortion first get a sonogram “should always have been a Texas state position.’’

“Like Roe v Wade should never have been heard in the Supreme Court,” he said after a midday speech and rally at the Columbia Metropolitan Airport at the Eagle Aviation Building...

This is the usual dodge. Paul could claim that since abortion would be illegal in Texas (as it surely would) there would be no need for intrusive sonograms. But in states where abortion is legal, if they wanted to pass this law, he would be perfectly fine with it.

Brian Williams should ask him tonight at the debate whether he would agree that a state government has the right to demand pat-downs at its airports. I'd be curious to hear the answer.

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Reading the Tea Leaves by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-23T07:30:00.000-08:00

Reading the Tea Leaves

by David Atkins

The latest poll out of Florida:

Newt Gingrich leads Mitt Romney by eight points in Florida, according to a poll conducted the day after the former House speaker won the South Carolina primary.

According to the Insider Advantage poll, Gingrich has 34 percent support, Romney has 26 percent, Texas Rep. Ron Paul has 13 percent, and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum garners 11 percent.

But there's just one problem: Newt has a +34 unfavorable rating with the American public. The latest PPP poll shows that 60% of Americans have an unfavorable opinion of Gingrich, compared to only 26% who like him. Ouch. Mitt Romney's, meanwhile, is only +18 unfavorable.

The President has only a +10 job disapproval, making him more popular than either leading Republican in spite of everything. If the economy continues to improve over the next year (no sure thing, of course), that number will only get better.

In a national matchup, President Obama beats Gingrich by 7 points, but only beats Romney by 5.

What does all of this mean? Watch for the long knives from the GOP establishment to come out against Mr. Gingrich over the next week. They know that Mitt Romney for all his 1% vulture capital warts, is the only one with a prayer of taking the White House in 2012.

And then watch in response as the Tea Party base spits fury at the Republican Party.

It's helpful in these situations to remember that Democrats aren't the only Party with a serious "base" problem. If anything, the Republicans have it worse right now.

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Suffocating lunacy

2012-01-22T19:30:00.000-08:00

Suffocating lunacy

by digby

Good God:

The owner of the Atlanta Jewish Times apologized for an opinion column in which he counted President Obama's assassination as among Israel's options in heading off a nuclear Iran.

"I very much regret it, I wish I hadn't made reference to it at all," Andrew Adler told JTA on Friday.

He said he would publish an apology in his next edition, and that reaction from readers had been overwhelmingly negative.

Fox News reported late Friday on its website that the Secret Service was investigating the column. In his interview with JTA, Adler said he had not been approached by the Secret Service.

In a Jan. 13 column, Adler, who is also the paper's publisher, outlined what he said were three possible responses by Israel to Iran's acquiring a nuclear weapon: a pre-emptive strike against Hamas and Hezbollah, terrorist groups that he said would be emboldened by a nuclear Iran; a direct strike on Iran; and "three, give the go-ahead for U.S.-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies."

He continued: "Yes, you read 'three' correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel's existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don't you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel's most inner circles?"

What in the world is wrong with people? I feel like I'm drowning in conspiracy theories coming from every direction. Ugh.

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Standoff politics

2012-01-22T16:24:00.000-08:00

Standoff politics

by digby

Gird yourself --- it looks like we're in for another standoff:

On Fox News Sunday this morning, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) told Chris Wallace that “We’re going to do everything we can to make sure the Keystone Pipeline is approved.” When Wallace pressed him whether Republican leadership would make the pipeline a condition for extending the payroll tax holiday, Boehner admitted, “We may,” adding (several times) that “All options are on the table.”

One can't help but wonder what would have happened if the administration and the Democrats had said "go ahead, make my day" when Boehner and the Destroyers first started this debt ceiling nonsense last spring. At this point it's hard to see how it's ever going to end.

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Fatuous rich guy quote of the day

2012-01-22T14:00:00.000-08:00

Fatuous rich guy quote of the day

by digby

A senior official at the Bank of Scotland explaining why they need to pay their CEO an obscene bonus:

If the chief executive turned down his bonus it would “demoralise” staff members and would send a signal that they now effectively “worked for an arm of the civil service or a utility, rather than for a bank”.

Yes, he has to take the money because the staff wants him to have it, so they can feel a part of the exciting and glamorous world of ... banking.

Update: Atrios sez:

And it isn't the Bank of Scotland, it's RBS, an almost wholly owned entity of the British government, and a very poorly performing investment so it's not entirely clear why any bonuses for top management are deserved at all.

Abortion in America

2012-01-22T12:30:00.000-08:00

Abortion in America

by digby

You don't see the argument made this openly very often and it's too bad. The capitulation to the idea that it's a horrible thing that can be eliminated if we only put our minds to ending unwanted pregnancy was a mistake. It is what it is, what it always has been. A reality, regardless of its legality.

As that video says, women should be able to exercise this right safely and with dignity. Instead, in many places, they have to run through a gauntlet of screaming protesters and even endure an unwanted, medically unnecessary vaginal probe with the express purpose of shaming them into childbirth against their will.

As that video points out --- most women who have abortions are already mothers. It's not as if they don't know what's at stake.

Update: This fascinating story of pre-Roe abortion is important reading if you give a damn about this topic. People weren't less moral then. But they had abortions. Lot's of them. They always have.

Update II:

"The most obvious thing was the 2010 election. While the headlines were all about the changing command in the House of Representatives, what we were seeing was a tidal wave of new pro-life legislators in state houses. When we saw this big wave come in, we were ready to grab the ball and run with it. Last year, 28 laws that we were involved with passed. It was breathtaking."

And here I keep hearing that we dizzy broads shouldn't worry our little heads about all this.

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Death by a thousand tax cuts

2012-01-22T11:00:00.000-08:00

Death by a thousand tax cuts

by digby

Fergawdsakes:

Elias Isquith observes:

Wow. Whatever is in his tax returns from before he started running for President (roughly 2006) must be really, really bad if Team Romney thinks trotting out this weak tea — which will of course not put the matter to rest — is preferable to simply following the norm and putting out around a decade of returns.

You either have to assume that or that Romney is an incredibly bad politician. I'd vote for both.

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Successful brainwashing

2012-01-22T09:15:00.000-08:00

Successful brainwashing

by digby

Take a look at the exit polls from South Carolina on the economy:

A majority of these voters believe that cutting the deficit is more important than job growth. It's possible that this includes only the people who are holding steady or getting ahead, but I doubt it. I'm guessing that it includes many of those who are falling behind --- arch conservatives who voted for Gingrich on the basis of his alleged economic "vision."

Considering the amount of propaganda out there, perhaps it's good news that only 57% think this.

Newt Gingrich, the Great Racial Uniter by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-22T07:30:00.000-08:00

Newt Gingrich, the Great Racial Uniter

by David Atkins

Fresh off his win in South Carolina, Newt Gingrich gave a redder than red, raw meat speech to the conservative base full of allusions to "Saul Alinsky radicals," "anti-religious bigots" and, of course, his now-signature "food stamp president" line. Those with the stomach for it can watch the full speech, or just cue it up to 15:10:

Let's be clear--and I know this makes some of the elite media nervous--President Obama has been historically the most effective food stamp President in American history. [Applause] I worked with Ronald Reagan to create jobs, and 16 million jobs were created by the American people in the 1980s. I worked with Bill Clinton, a Democrat, to create jobs, and 11 million jobs were created by the American people during the four years that I was Speaker. I would like to be the best paycheck President in American history. [Applause] And I want to go into every neighborhood of every ethnic background in every part of the country and say to people very simply: if you want your children to have a life of dependency and food stamps, you have a candidate: that's Barack Obama. If you want your children to have a life of independency [sic] and paychecks: that's Newt Gingrich, and I'll bet you we have votes everywhere.

Pundits across the land have pointed out the obvious racism of Gingrich's appeal to food stamps, culture of dependency and what not. Most progressives have called it a racist "dog-whistle" to his base. Peter Beinart believes that Newt doesn't understand how racist he sounds, while Frum figures that Newt just doesn't understand the universal necessity of the food stamp program.

None of these things are true. Newt Gingrich knows very well what he is doing and what he is saying, nor is it a dog-whistle. It's the open declaration of an alternate reality that used to be present only within the confines of the conservative mythos, but is now taking front and center position on the national stage.

Far from being an appeal to racism overt or covert, it taps into a delusion central to modern conservatism: that the only reason minorities hate Conservatives and Conservatism is not because of any racist tendencies or faults endemic to conservatives themselves, but rather to liberals tying down minority communities in a "culture of dependency." In this view it is rather conservatives who are the true egalitarians, rescuing minorities from the racist slavery of the welfare state.

It is this delusion that lies at the heart of attacks on the liberal welfare state as a form of neofeudalism: the Southern agrarian slave system was similar to feudalism in many ways, and by associating liberalism with feudalism, they also make an implicit association with Confederate slavery.

It is this argument, so preposterous to Americans outside the conservative bubble, that allows Glenn Beck to claim the mantle of Martin Luther King, Jr..

What Newt Gingrich is doing here, then, is not making a coded racist argument against Barack Obama and minority communities. He is, rather, presenting himself as the anti-Obama: the Great Conservative Racial Uniter, the man who can walk into minority communities, free them from the tyranny of the welfare state, and win back their love, re-uniting them in harmony with their Southern white brethren in defiance of the liberal media and government elites trying to keep them poor and indebted to government programs.

As with Romney's statement about firing people, the key to understanding conservative statements is often to look past the initial attention-grabbing phrase, and to watch for the context that comes afterward. In this case, the key for Gingrich lies not in his lines about "food stamp" or "pay check" Presidents. The key lies in his confidence that he is the one and only conservative who will be able to make minorities love Republicans again by freeing them from mental slavery.

Republicans are not only sensitive to allegations of racism. They also know in their hearts that in their current incarnation they face demographic extinction. The Fox News demographic is literally dying. They also know that simply putting minority faces like Marco Rubio on the same old policies won't work.

In order to survive without moderating their policies, they must subscribe to the belief that if only they eliminate every program that helps poor people (including minorities), minorities will suddenly wake from a deep sleep and learn to embrace conservatives through the power of tough love.

That's what Newt Gingrich promises them. He is their answer to Barack Obama, their Savior, their Great Racial Uniter. He speaks not ignorantly, schizophrenically nor in code. He and his base have leaped into this ideological gamble with open eyes, and are attempting to take the rest of the country with them.

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Saturday Night At The Movies -- Depression edition

2012-01-21T18:30:00.000-08:00

Dennis is digging himself out of the snow in Seattle this week and couldn't get out to the movies. So, in honor of the South Carolina Republican primary, I thought I'd re-run his list of Top 10 Depression films.

Saturday Night At The Movies

Dust Bowl XLIII

By Dennis Hartley

I’ve sure been hearing the “D” word an awful lot lately. They say that in times of severe economic downturn, people crave pure escapism at the movies. I say, screw that. I wanna revel in economic downturn, ‘cos there’s something else “they” say as well: Misery loves company. So, with that in mind, and in the spirit of a little cinematic aversion therapy, here’s my Top 10 Great Depression Movies. Study them well, because there’s yet one more thing that “they say”: Those who do not understand history are doomed to repeat it.

Berlin Alexanderplatz- When you think of the Great Depression in terms of film and literature, it tends to vibe America-centric in the mind’s eye. In reality, the economic downturn between the great wars was a global phenomenon (not unlike our current situation); things were literally “tough all over”. You could say that Germany had a jumpstart on the depression (economically speaking, everything below the waist was kaput by the mid 1920s). In October of 1929 (interesting historical timing), Alfred Doblin’s epic novel Berlin Alexanderplatz: The Story Of Franz Biberkopf was published, then adapted into a film in 1931 directed by Phil Jutzi. It wasn’t until nearly 50 years later that the ultimate film version would appear as Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 15 hour opus. It’s nearly impossible to encapsulate this spiritually exhausting viewing experience in just a few lines; I’ll just say that it is (by turns) the most outrageous, shocking, transcendent, boring, awe-inspiring, maddening and soul-scorching film I’ve ever hated myself for loving so much.

Bonnie and Clyde- The gangster movie meets the art film in this 1967 groundbreaker from director Arthur Penn. There is much more to this influential masterpiece than just the oft-mentioned operatic crescendo of violent death in the closing frames; particularly of note was the ingenious way that its attractive antiheroes were posited to directly appeal to the rebellious counterculture zeitgeist of the time, even though the film was ostensibly a “nostalgia piece”. Our better instincts may tell us that the real Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were nowhere near as charismatic (or physically beautiful) as Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty, but we don’t really care, do we? (Is it getting warm in here? Woof!)

Bound for Glory-There’s only one man to whom Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen must bow before-and that’s Woody Guthrie. You can almost taste the dust in director Hal Ashby’s leisurely, episodic 1976 biopic about the life of America’s premier protest songwriter/social activist. David Carradine gives one of his finest performances, and does a very credible job with his own singing and playing. Haskell Wexler’s outstanding cinematography earned him a well-deserved Oscar. The film may feel a bit overlong and slow in spots if you aren’t particularly fascinated by Guthrie’s story; but I think it is just as much about the Depression itself, and perhaps more than any other film on my list, it succeeds as a “total immersion” by transporting the viewer back to the era.

The Grapes of Wrath- I’m stymied for any hitherto unspoken superlatives to ladle onto John Ford’s masterful film or John Steinbeck’s classic source novel, so I won’t pretend to have any. Suffice it to say, this probably comes closest to nabbing the title as THE quintessential film about the heartbreak and struggle of America’s “salt of the earth” during the Great Depression. Perhaps we can take (real or imagined) comfort in the possibility that no matter how bad things get over the next few months (years?), Henry Fonda’s unforgettable embodiment of Tom Joad will “be there…all around, in the dark.”

Inserts- This 1976 sleeper from director John Byrum has been dismissed as pretentious dreck by some; it remains a cult item for others. If I told you that Richard Dreyfuss, Veronica Cartwright, Bob Hoskins and Jessica Harper once all co-starred in an "X" rated film, would you believe me? Dreyfuss plays a has-been Hollywood directing prodigy known as "Wonder Boy", whose career has peaked early; he now lives in his bathrobe, drinking heavily and casting junkies and wannabe-starlets in pornos that he shoots in his crumbling mansion. Bob Hoskins is memorable as the sleazy "producer", who is also looking for investors for his scheme-an idea to open a chain of hamburger joints (his nickname is "Big Mac"). The story takes place in 30s Hollywood, and as a wallow in the squalid side of show biz, it would make a great double bill with The Day of the Locust.

King of the Hill- Steven Soderbergh’s exquisitely photographed film (somewhat reminiscent of Bogdanovich’s Paper Moon) is a bittersweet rendering of A.E. Hotchner’s Depression-era tale about young Aaron (Jesse Bradford) who lives with his parents and kid brother in a decrepit hotel. After his sickly mother (Lisa Eichhorn) is sent away for convalescence, his kid brother is packed off to stay with relatives, and his father (Jeroen Krabbe) hits the road as a travelling salesman, leaving Aaron to fend for himself. The Grand Hotel-style framing device (offering glimpses of the mini-dramas unfolding in each room, here suffused through a child’s innocent perceptions) gives you an effective microcosm of the day-to-day struggles of those who live through such times. The film is full of wonderful little moments of keen insight into the human condition. The great ensemble includes Karen Allen, Adrian Brody, Elizabeth McGovern and Spaulding Gray.

Pennies from Heaven (Original BBC version)-I’ve always preferred the original 1978 British television version of this production to the Americanized theatrical version that was released several years afterwards. Written by Dennis Potter (The Singing Detective), it is rife with the usual Potter obsessions: sexual frustration, marital infidelity, religious guilt, shattered dreams and quiet desperation…broken up by the occasional, completely incongruous song and dance number (I really would not want to be in his head, ever). Bob Hoskins is outstanding as a married traveling sheet music salesman in Depression-era England whose life takes some, erm, interesting Potter-esque turns once he becomes smitten by a young rural schoolteacher (Cheryl Campbell) who lives with her widowed father and two extremely creepy brothers. Probably best described as a film noir musical?

Sullivan's Travels-A unique and amazingly deft mash-up of romantic screwball comedy, Hollywood satire, road movie and hard-hitting social drama that probably would not have worked so beautifully had not the great Preston Sturges been at the helm. Joel McCrea is pitch-perfect as a director of goofy populist comedies who yearns to make a “meaningful” film. Racked with guilt about the comfortable bubble that his Hollywood success has afforded him and determined to learn firsthand how the other half lives, he decides to hit the road with no money in his pocket and “embed” himself as a railroad tramp (much to the chagrin of his handlers). He is joined along the way by an aspiring actress (Veronica Lake, in one of her best comic performances). His voluntary crash-course in “social realism” turns into much more than he had originally bargained for. Lake and McCrea have wonderful chemistry. Years later, the Coen Brothers smugly co-opted the title of the fictional “film within the film” here: O Brother, Where Art Thou?

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? - “Yowsa, yowsa, yowsa!” This richly decadent allegory about the human condition has to be one of the grimmest and most cynical films ever made. Director Sydney Pollack assembled a crack ensemble for this depiction of a Depression-era dance marathon from Hell: Jane Fonda, Gig Young (who snagged a Best Supporting Actor Oscar), Susannah York, Bruce Dern and Red Buttons are all outstanding; Pollack even coaxed the wooden Michael Sarrazin (the Hayden Christensen of his day) into showing some real emotion. Adapted from Horace McCoy’s novel.

Thieves Like Us-This loose remake of Nicholas Ray’s 1949 film noir classic They Live By Night is the late Robert Altman’s most underrated film, IMHO. It is often compared to Bonnie and Clyde, but stylistically speaking, the two films could not be farther apart. Altman’s tale of bank-robbing lovers on the lam (Keith Carradine and Shelley Duvall) is far less flashy and stylized, but ultimately more affecting thanks to a consistently naturalistic, elegiac tone throughout. Carradine and Duvall really breathe life into their doomed couple; every moment of intimacy between them (not just sexual) feels warm, touching, and genuine-which gives the film some real heart. Altman adapted the screenplay (with co-writers Joan Tewkesbury and Calder Willingham) from the same source novel (by Edward Anderson) that inspired Ray’s earlier film. Ripe for rediscovery.

"We thought it was a prop"

2012-01-21T17:30:00.000-08:00

"We thought it was a prop"

by digby

Things you only hear in LA:

Cops were also questioning neighbors in the region, including Brad Pitt's bodyguard.

The star and his wife, Angeline Jolie, have a house in the Hollywood Hills near where the body parts were found.

Dog-walker Lauren Kornberg, whose golden retriever, Ollie, discovered the head on Tuesday, said she initially thought it was a Hollywood stunt prop.

"Our assumption was that there was always people filming up there, and it was a prop," Kornberg, who was walking the pups along with her mother, told HLN. "We walked down the ravine and got closer and realized it was a freshly severed human head."

*For the record, LA's murder rate is the lowest it's been since the 50s.

Fanning the flames of the firewall

2012-01-21T16:30:00.001-08:00

Fanning the flames of the firewall

by digby

Ronnie and Nancy campaigning with Strom Thurmond in 1980

Newt's appeal:

Now don't you dare read anything into that. Just because Juan Williams is African American and was questioning Newt about whether he could understand why some people would see a teensy hint of racism in his comments doesn't mean that Newt was milking it in the state best known for its racial politics. Racism doesn't exist, you see, and it certainly doesn't exist in South Carolina:

In South Carolina [eleven] years ago, a whispering campaign suggesting that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black baby may have been a factor in sinking his presidential campaign. A mailer sent out during that period used McCain's actual daughter, who McCain adopted from Bangladesh in 1993, to support the fraudulent claim.

And Juan Williams isn't really black. His name is Juan, after all, which, when you think about it, is probably just as bad.

Waiting with bated breath by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

Waiting with bated breath

by David Atkins

Such a suspenseful night tonight. Who will win the battle for the hearts and minds of the most conservative voters in the most conservative state in the nation? Is it the animal-abusing vulture capitalist who pays a 15% tax rate with Cayman Islands bank accounts? More likely, is it the surging ethically challenged, openly racist serial adulturer with a hatred of child labor laws? The goldbug neo-confederate? Maybe the guy who wants to eliminate birth control?

It's like 31 flavors of toxic sludge. But don't hate the sludge: it is what it is. What concerns me most are the customers who can't get enough of it.

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Your moment of zen

2012-01-21T13:30:00.000-08:00

Your moment of zen

by digby

h/t to @chrislhayes

Stand and Deliver: a story of the confederacy

2012-01-21T12:00:00.000-08:00

Stand and Deliver

by digby

I'm not sure whether Ron Paul has a bigger beef with Lincoln for freeing the slaves without compensation to their "owners" or the issuing of "fiat money" to pay for the war, but he sure doesn't think the Union was on the right side:

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes:

I'd like to think that the Confederate Flag in the back was photo-shopped. At any rate, what's amazing is the frame here--It's not the firing on federal property that inaugurated the War, it's Bull Run, or some such. It's as if I punch you in the face and then accuse you of bullying me after I get the crap kicked out of me. Except worse.

Actually that's how Abraham Lincoln at the Cooper Union put it exactly:

Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer's distinction between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare majority of the Judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another in the reasons for making it; that it is so made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact - the statement in the opinion that "the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution."

[…]

Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action?

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, "Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!"

Some things never change in this country. This is one of them.

Oh, and here's a little known factoid from David Brock's book "Blinded by the Right"

Grover kept a pet boa constrictor named after anarchist Lysander Spooner. He fed the snake mice, all of them named David Bonior the outspoken liberal House whip.

Blue America: Alan Grayson in the house at 11pst,2est at C&L

2012-01-21T10:30:00.000-08:00

Blue America: Alan Grayson in the house

by digby

Howie sez:

Today, January 21, is the two-year anniversary of the absolute worst and most dangerous Supreme Court decision of our lifetimes, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. We decided it would be the perfect time to reiterate Blue America's enthusiastic support and endorsement of Orlando Democrat Alan Grayson and to invite him here to Crooks and Liars for a question-and-answer session.

Why Alan? He was one of the first victims of an unrestricted opening of the spigots of corporate money in a congressional race. According to a Politico article late in the campaign in 2010, almost 20% of all of the independent expenditures in House races in the entire country were deployed against Alan. His district was flooded with an unrelenting radio and television smear campaign by the corporations who didn't appreciate his hard work on behalf of consumers and workers. The average person in Orlando saw 70 negative ads against Grayson-- $2 million of which was paid for by the Koch Brothers, $2 million by the health insurance industry and another million from the NRCC. The cash that flowed into the district from the Chamber of Commerce and Rove's band of cutthroats was a direct response to Alan's reform efforts on the House Financial Services Committee and because he was the most effective national Democratic spokesperson in Congress. The DCCC, of course, offered him no help whatsoever in defending his seat.

Two years ago there were only two Members of Congress at the Supreme Court when the narrow 5-4 decision striking down the provisions of the McCain–Feingold Act that prohibited all corporations' and unions' unrestricted election spending on advertising was read out: Alan and Mitch McConnell. I can imagine McConnell squealing with delight. Grayson had quite a different reaction. He warned later that evening on Countdown that "if we do nothing, you can kiss this country goodbye." (See video above.) I don't think he actually meant the physical country itself-- just democracy, so loathed by the plutocratic elites, and all the benefits democracy brings with it.

Alan had gotten over 100,000 people to sign a petition to the Justices at SaveDemocracy.net, and he personally delivered the signatures to the Supreme Court. This was a new experience for the Supreme Court.

"Seeing it coming," he told me when discussing the ruling, "and assuming the worst, I had introduced four anti-Citizens United bills the week before, and introduced four more afterward. We called this our Save Democracy Platform. The core of three of these bills made it into the DISCLOSE Act." These were the bills Alan introduced:

The Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act (H.R. 4431): Implements a 500% excise tax on corporate contributions to political committees, and on corporate expenditures on political advocacy campaigns.

The Public Company Responsibility Act (H.R. 4435): Prevents companies making political contributions and expenditures from trading their stock on national exchanges.

The End Political Kickbacks Act (H.R. 4434): Prevents for-profit corporations that receive government money from making political contributions, and limits the amount that employees of those companies can contribute.

The Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act (H.R. 4432): Requires publicly traded companies to disclose in SEC filings money used for the purpose of influencing public opinion, rather than for promoting their products and services.

The Ending Corporate Collusion Act (H.R. 4433): Applies antitrust law to industry PACs.

The End the Hijacking of Shareholder Funds Act (H.R. 4487): This bill requires the approval of a majority of a public company's shareholders for any expenditure by that company to influence public opinion on matters not related to the company's products or services.

Blue America was urging Alan to run again even as the votes were being counted in 2010. And we are determined that this year he's going to be back in Congress-- and this time in a solid Democratic district (the new 27th based in Orlando). Please help us raise him the money he needs to beat back the Kochs and the Roves and the corporate special interests.

He recorded this for us last night:

Join Alan at Crooks and Liars this morning at 11 pst, 2est.

Stephen on the trail

2012-01-21T09:00:00.000-08:00

Stephen on the trail

by digby

And Chuck Todd's still on the fainting couch:

Heather at Crooks and Liars says it well:

Perhaps what bothers Chuck Todd the most is Colbert's challenge to HIS system: the Blackberry class Washington journalista cocktail party circuit, which Colbert shames. Stephen Colbert's actions today show that journalism and celebrity can be used in an attempt to actually make a difference. Meanwhile, Chuck Todd clutches his pearls and feigns worry over mockery of Congress (really) while covering "news" that happens only in areas with five phone bars and festooned carpeting. He and the rest of the Washington Life Magazine Power 100 ought to be ashamed.

South Carolina values by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-21T07:30:00.000-08:00

South Carolina values

by David Atkins

Since CNN has assured us that the South is "where values matter" in advance of today's South Carolina primary, it's worth considering just what South Carolina values are, courtesy Thomas Schaller in Whistling Past Dixie (pp.274-275)

Consider South Carolina, which has opposed or defied almost every beneficent social and political change in American history. To appease South Carolinian slaveholders, Thomas Jefferson removed language condemning slavery from the Declaration of Independence. Four years later, backcountry loyalists in South Carolina helped the British Army recapture the state in 1780 from the patriots. By 1828, Palmetto State native and vice president John C. Calhoun was agitating for state "nullification" of federal powers, generating secessionist calls a full generation before the outbreak of the Civil War.

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede; four months later Confederate forces in Charleston fired the opening shots of the Civil War on the Union garrison at Fort Sumter, and South Carolina even threatened to secede from the Confederacy because the other southern states would not agree to reopening the slave trade. Soon after the state's chapter of the Ku Klux Klan formed, "red shirt" Democratic rifle clubs used physical intimidation and ballot manipulation to alter results of the 1876 election. In the 1890s, Governor Ben "Pitchfork" Tillman--who earned his nickname by threatening to stab President Grover Cleveland in the ribs with said implement--served two terms as governor before embarking on a twenty-three-year Senate career during which he defended segregation as vigilantly as his fellow Edgefield County native, Strom Thurmond, later did for most of his career.

Well into the twentieth century, South Carolina's black citizens observed the Fourth of July mostly alone because the vast majority of whites refused to, preferring instead to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, May 10. State politicians repeatedly averted their eyes as textile industry executives employed children and quashed attempts by mill workers to organize for fair wages. In 1920, the South Carolina legislature rejected the proposed women's suffrage amendment and took almost a half century finally to ratify it, in 1969. In 1948, the same year the South Carolina legislature declared President Harry Truman's new civil rights commission "un-American," Thurmond's full-throated advocacy of racial segregation as the States' Rights Democratic Party presidential nominee helped him carry four Deep South states. Six years later, the Clarendon County school district--where per-pupil spending on whites was quadruple that for blacks--was pooled with three other districts in a failed defense of the "separate but equal" standard in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. And when Congress passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the law that finally banned the creative and vicious methods used to disfranchise blacks, South Carolina became the first state to challenge its constitutionality. By 1968 Harry Dent, the most legendary of Thurmond's political proteges and a key artchitect of the "southern strategy," was helping Richard Nixon translate racial antagonisms into crucial Republican votes, a victory in South Carolina, and a ticket to the White House.

If all of this seems like so much ancient history, consider that South Carolinians are still debating the merits of public displays of the Confederate battle flag. Indeed, more than a few pundits believe Republican David Beasley won the 1994 governor's race in part because of his pledge to support displaying the Confederate flag over the state capitol--then promptly lost his 1998 reelection bid later after a "religious epiphany" caused him to reverse position. After two decades of adverse judicial rulings, in 2000 Bob Jones University, the state's largest private liberal arts college, founded by its anti-Catholic namesake, finally ended its policy of prohibiting interrracial dating. Last year, South Carolina was sued for issuing "choose life" vanity plates while refusing the same option to pro-choice citizens, justifying its decision by claiming that the anti-abortion message constitutes protected government speech. Today, more than eight decades after women first won the right to vote, the South Carolina state legislature is the only one in America where women do not hold at least 10 percent of all seats.

Other Deep South states may stake their own claims, but South Carolina is America's most conservative state. From a strictly constitutional-historical standpoint, its legacy of firsts and lasts reads like a rap sheet: first to overturn a provincial government during the revolutionary period; last to abandon the Atlantic slave trade; first to call for nullifying the Constitution's federal authority; first to secede from the Union; last to abolish the white primary; first to litigate against the intregration of public schools and challenge the Voting Rights Act. Whenever America finds itself at some social or political crossroad and in need of direction, perhaps the best things to do is ask, "What would South Carolina do?" And then do the opposite.

I'm sure there are many wonderful people in South Carolina fighting the good fight, trying to turn their home state around and move away from the shameful legacy of South Carolina values. But in democracy, majority rules. And the majority of South Carolinians have made it clear exactly what those values are.

They are not American values, and CNN should be ashamed to imply that they are.

.

Feel good story of the day:Foxes!(the non-Republican kind)

2012-01-20T20:02:00.000-08:00

Feel good story of the day

by digby

They only weigh around five pounds --- half the size of my cat.

The Catalina Island fox has made one of the most remarkable recoveries known for an endangered species, rebounding in just 13 years from near extinction brought on by a distemper epidemic, wildlife biologists announced Wednesday.

The number of foxes has reached 1,542, surpassing the population of about 1,300 seen before the animals were ravaged by the disease that scientists believe was introduced by a pet dog or a raccoon from the mainland that hitched a ride on a boat or a barge.

"We're beyond proud," said Ann Muscat, president and chief executive of the Santa Catalina Island Conservancy. "It's a testament to what hard work, passion, money and the resiliency of nature can accomplish."

Newtie's Dream Act

2012-01-20T18:00:00.000-08:00

Newtie's Dream Act

by digby

Arizona's primary is February 28th. if he hangs in there, I'd imagine Newtie has a good chance to win it. Romney may appear to be more hardcore on paper, but Newt tickles the sweetspot with his emphasis on English only and making kids clean toilets to teach them a lesson.

In a page right out of Newt Gingrich’s alternate-history science-fiction wingnut-polygamy utopian epicCandyland Space Land, the school district in Tucson has completely banned Mexican-American studies, seized all the textbooks and even wall posters from the classrooms, and punished the students who protested by sentencing them to janitorial duty.

It's true. They're banning books about Mexican American history and making Mexican American kids clean up if they speak out against it. In America. Today.

Good thing climate change isn't true

2012-01-20T16:30:00.000-08:00

Good thing climate change isn't true

by digby

... or I'd be worried:

It's obviously another one of those NASA hoaxes, as usual, but still. Oh my God.

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Fainting couch alert: Colbert is making a mockery of a mockery

2012-01-20T15:00:00.000-08:00

Fainting couch alert: Colbert is making a mockery of a mockery

by digby

Oh dear me. Villager Chuck Todd is in a tizzy over Stephen Colbert making a mockery of the electoral system. (As if this wasn't enough.) It seems he's worried that Colbert is trying to tilt the playing field and hurt the Republicans. You know, because he pretends to be one and isn't really, so everything he does is designed as a partisan hit job.

Once again, the Villagers don't get it. Colbert is playing a conservative, true. But he's playing a conservative TV pundit. Like these two guys, or this one. And this one. You know, all the Fox News "pundits" who have had cushy sinecures while they waited to run again for president? On the right, being a conservative commentator and an active politician is pretty much the same gig. FoxNews as an official adjunct of the GOP made a mockery out of our political system not Stephen Colbert --- he's just taking his satire to its natural conclusion.

Moreover, Citizens United, the case that opened the door to this gusher of money coming into the system refers to a notorious GOP oppo outfit that goes all the way back to the 90s:

Trudy Lieberman wrote in the May/June 1994 issue of Columbia Journalism Review:
"Bossie, the twenty-eight-year-old political director for Citizens United, a conservative Republican operation, runs an information factory whose Whitewater production lines turn out a steady stream of tips, tidbits, documents, factoids, suspicions, and story ideas for the nation's press and for Republicans on Capitol Hill. Journalists and Hill Republicans have recycled much of the information provided by Citizens United into stories that have cast a shadow on the Clinton presidency."

"Bossie, who says he works sixteen hours a day on Whitewater, earned his Republican stripes as the national youth director in Senator Robert Dole's 1988 presidential campaign, and then moved on during the 1992 Bush campaign to become executive director of the Presidential Victory Committee. His boss, Floyd Brown, worked as Dole's Midwest political director during the 1988 campaign, but is best known for producing the Willie Horton commercial that helped sink the presidential ambitions of Democrat Michael Dukakis."

"Bossie was fired from his job as an investigator working for Representative Dan Burton (R-IN) on the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee in 1998" while "investigating Clinton-Gore campaign finances." According to a May 7, 1998, front-page article published by the Washington Post, Bossie was fired "after overseeing the release of recordings of Hillary Rodham Clinton's phone conversations with [imprisoned] Whitewater figure Webster L. Hubbell. The tapes were edited to create the impression that Clinton was involved in billing irregularities at the Arkansas law firm where she and Hubbell worked."

Note: According to an October 10, 2003, archived version of his Citizens United profile, Bossie said that he "was recruited to this position by then-Speaker Newt Gingrich and Chairman Burton to investigate then-President Clinton's illegal foreign money entering the United States to influence the 1992 and 1996 presidential elections. Bossie managed Burton's transition into the Chairmanship; managed a $10 million annual budget; directed personnel matters; and, supervised a 40-plus person investigative staff."

It was only a little over a decade later that Citizens United made "Hillary: the movie" which formed the basis of the court challenge that brought us to this hideous spectacle today. David Bossie is the Republican party's creature. And he kept up his campaign of dirty tricks and smears until he finally got a Supreme Court that would rule in favor of political lies fueled by big money being constitutionally protected speech. Feeling sorry for the Republicans because a satirist is hoisting them by their own very pointed petards is really rich.

Maybe Todd doesn't know all that history. And maybe it doesn't matter. But whining about satire polluting a political system that was poisoned long ago by big money and GOP machinations (with the willing help of a puerile mainstream media that lapped up what they gave them and begged for more) says everything you need to know about the sad state of political journalism. Satire is the only way we can possibly get to the truth.

Update: Froomkin calls bullshit.

Newtie and Ronnie: conservatism's common thread

2012-01-20T13:30:00.000-08:00

Newtie and Ronnie

by digby

Walter Shapiro has a nice piece up today about the GOP primary, and in particular the Newt phenomenon. It's worth reading completely but I think this is something that's overlooked:

The fact is, the former House speaker personifies conservatism much as Ronald Reagan did in 1980. With two thirds of the state’s GOP electorate older than 45 (based on 2008 exit polls), voters remember that Newt was the most important Republican of the 1990s. His triumphs in a bleak decade for the GOP earn him a degree of latitude that will never be granted to Romney, no matter what hard-right positions Mitt takes in the quest for the nomination.

He's not the genial side of Reagan, he's this side:

"There has been a leadership gap and a morality and decency gap at the University of California at Berkeley where a small minority of beatniks, radicals and filthy speech advocates have brought such shame to and such a loss of confidence in a great University that applications for enrollment were down 21% in 1967 and are expected to decline even further.

You have read about the report of the Senate Subcommittee on UnAmerican Activities-its charges that the campus has become a rallying point for Communists and a center of sexual misconduct. Some incidents in this report are so bad, so contrary to our standards of decent human behavior that I cannot recite them to you in detail.

But there is clear evidence of the sort of things that should not be permitted on a university campus.

The report tells us that many of those attending were clearly of highschool age. The hall was entirely dark except for the light from two movie screens. On these screens the nude torsos of men and women were portrayed from time to time in suggestive positions and movements.

Three rock and roll bands played simultaneously. The smell of marijuana was thick throughout the hall. There were signs that some of those present had taken dope. There were indications of other happenings that cannot be mentioned here.

What in Heaven's name does academic freedom have to do with rioting, with anarchy, with attempts to destroy the primary purpose of the University which is to educate our young people?"

The Newtie version:

“All the Occupy movement start with the premise that we owe them everything,” Gingrich said. “They take over a public park they didn’t pay for, to go nearby to use bathrooms they didn’t pay for, to beg for food from places they don’t want to pay for, to obstruct those who are going to work to pay the taxes to sustain the bathrooms and to sustain the park, so they can self-righteously explain they are the paragons of virtue to which we owe everything. That is a pretty good symptom of how much the left has collapsed as a moral system in this country, and why you need to reassert something by saying to them, ‘Go get a job right after you take a bath.’”

That's the heart of movement conservatism. And Romney has no feel for it.

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Open your legs America

2012-01-20T12:00:00.000-08:00

Open your legs America

by digby

The Daily Show's John Oliver explains why Gingrich's "swinging" past is actually a big plus:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Good Conscience Clause News: score one for the Prez

2012-01-20T10:30:00.000-08:00

Good Conscience Clause News

by digby

Hey, here's some very welcome good news coming from the administration today. It looks like the Catholic Bishops and the Forced Childbirth zealots are going to be disappointed: birth control must be available at no cost in all health plans. It was a very hard fought battle, but it would appear that the administration felt that keeping Plan B away from younger teenagers was going to have to be enough.

This isn't a huge change for the vast majority of health plans in the country already.28 states already have this requirement, although many of them allow co-pays and deductibles so that's a positive change even for them. This merely extends that concept across the country to all Americans.Evolution not devolution.

Think Progress frames the principle here very well:

This decision honors the conscience of these women over that of the institutions that employ them and ensures that cost will no longer be a barrier to accessing basic and essential preventive health services.

If a woman does not want to use birth control as a matter of conscience, that's her perfect right. But institutions, whether corporations or churches, aren't "persons" and they don't have "consciences." People do. Even women. The church will have to deal with them on an individual basis. If they can't convince their adherents that they should not use birth control that's their failure in their own realm. The state is in the business of guaranteeing liberty and justice, not individual morality.

Good for the President for standing up to the powerful Catholic Bishops on this. They are essentially a political organization affiliated with the Republican Party and have been for many years. There's just no margin in appeasing them --- and a huge advantage to standing up for women, who vote for Democrats far more than men do. It's good policy and good politics.

Update: Irin Carmon has a good piece on this at Salon:

Pro-choicers were worried that they would get their way, particularly when Archbishop Timothy Dolan sounded triumphant about a one-on-one meeting with the president. And they were outraged when the same Department of Health and Human Services on a decision that would make it easier for younger women to access emergency birth control. But it looks like sense and public health — and a little caterwauling — prevailed this time.

(Caterwauling refers to Dana Milbank telling silly female twits to stop worrying and learn to love the forced childbirth zealots.)

Update II: Sarah Posner writes that this isn't over --- they have a legal strategy already in place for turning this back. (Scroll down.) Of course they do.

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Wingnuts' little helpers

2012-01-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Wingnuts' little helpers

by digby

Over the years we have often discussed the idea of rightwing projection or co-optation of certain memes for the opposite purpose. It's very effective --- it confuses the opposition and twists conventional wisdom to whatever purpose works for them.

Here's a good example from just the other day, via Right Wing Watch:

This, again, brings us back around to the larger subject of this Occupy Wall Street, this astroturf movement that's been funded from [George] Soros down and from every other angle, taking a bunch of over-educated, over-indulged white youth and attempting to force change ... So we shouldn't be surprised that this group, this Occupy Wall Street movement, which has been endorsed by the Messiah himself, President Barack Obama, that they are now trying to infiltrate the schools and corrupt the minds of children.

I think the Occupy Wall Street movement, the larger movement, is anathema to the idea of American Exceptionalism. In fact, I would go so far as to say that many of those involved in this movement hate America as it was originally formed and founded as a free market country rooted in the Judeo-Christian ethic.

They take the term "astroturf" which correctly defines many of the Tea party events, and apply it to Occupy, throwing in Soros in place of the Koch Brothers. The meme is out there, he's just converted it to his own use. The infiltration of the schools tracks nicely with the myriad court cases insisting on teaching creationism and reintroducing prayer in schools. Then we go into straight up, old fashioned Godless Commie bashing, which apparently never goes out of style.

After observing this phenomenon for many years, I've come to believe that it's actually a thought process not a well thought out propaganda technique. They have a finely tuned sense of the zeitgeist, which they just naturally apply to their own philosophy. They fit the world around them into their own worldview rather than confronting the dissonance. It's the only way they can make sense of things.

I suppose we all do this to some extent, but the hardcore right is the only one to make a profit at it. Their well fed preachers and talk show hosts are human Prozac, reassuring their flocks that "everything's fine, everything's fine, don't worry, you're not crazy, they are."

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Republican Responses by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-20T07:30:00.000-08:00

Republican Responses

by David Atkins

Last night's GOP debate in South Carolina was a lesson in how to play to the conservative base. Here's Gingrich responding to the issue of his marital problems:

On the other hand, here's Romney answering a question about releasing his taxes:

Which just goes to show that when called out for bad behavior, a Republican knows that the right answer is shout at the liberal media and apologize for nothing. The base eats it right up.

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Today in politics

2012-01-19T19:43:00.000-08:00

Today in politics

by digby

Most of you probably wisely skipped the debate tonight and if you don't want to torture yourself by watching it on TiVo, just look at this and you'll get the gist.

I'll just link to this article from 1999, to provide some context that John King forgot to provide:

The speaker once again pledged to say during every public appearance that Americans have the right to know the truth about the Lewinsky matter and that the president is not above the law.

Whatever.

If you didn't catch our chat earlier today with Elizabeth Warren, you can see it here.

Here she is answering our questions:

It's not too late to donate to her money bomb (which has passed a million dollars in one day!)You can still do it here.

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Vox Gop: the real stars of the debates aren't the candidates

2012-01-19T17:30:00.000-08:00

Vox Gop

by digby

Howard Fineman says the real story of the debates "isn't on the stage; it's in the audience" and he's right:

The long string of debates have shown viewers a Republican Party in the raw, not in the words of the candidates but in the groans, boos, cheers and applause of crowds who blithely ignore halfhearted TV network admonitions to keep quiet.

The audiences have been loudly patriotic and enthusiastic about the campaign. But their outbursts have also uncovered a GOP id that cheers for Texas' vigorous use of the death penalty; cheers repeated attacks on the national media, even when it is embodied by Fox News moderators; boos at the suggestion that the federal government, not the states, should enforce immigration laws; boos at anything less than a send-them-all-back immigration policy; boos a gay soldier who asks a question about gay rights; cheers at the mention of waterboarding and torture as a means of interrogating terrorism suspects; and boos at an African-American reporter who asks repeated questions about race, poverty, inequality and racial stereotypes.

To a degree not seen since before the days of television (and the foundational Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960), candidate debates are now a theatrical exercise, in which the Greek chorus of the crowd plays as much of a part as the give-and-take among the candidates and the moderators.

[...]

The changing role of the "mainstream" media is one explanation for the vox populi tone. Facing conservative suspicion, some networks decided to partner with Tea Party, state party or other grassroots organizations to stage the debates, and part of the co-sponsors' price was to bring along a partisan audience. (Thursday night's CNN debate is co-sponsored by the Southern Republican Leadership Conference.)

Well, yeah. CNN has been especially whorish in this regard, not only sponsoring debates with the Tea Party but hiring their spokespeople as "analysts" and catering to them as Real Americans in contrast to everyone else. But nonetheless, I can't imagine anyone expected that these audiences would be quite as gratuitously cruel, crude and bigoted as they've been. And it's not just South Carolina, it's been in Iowa, California and New Hampshire too.

It's modern conservatism stripped down to its essence. This is who they are and they aren't embarrassed or ashamed of their throwback attitudes and retrograde politics. And why should they be? They've been validated by talk radio and Fox News and more recently by CNN and the entire GOP establishment. They aren't delusional in thinking that this behavior is thoroughly acceptable and mainstream. It is.

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Love it or leave it, hippie

2012-01-19T16:30:00.000-08:00

Love it or leave it, hippie

by digby

Mitt goes all mid 20th century on their asses:

The protester loudly shouts a question at Romney: What does he plan to do for the 99 percent, given that he’s part of the one percent?

Romney responds:

Let me tell you something. America is a great nation, because we’re a united nation. And those who are trying to divide the nation, as you’re trying to do here, and as our president is doing, are hurting this country seriously. The right course for America is not to try to divide America, and try and divide us between one and another. It’s to come together as a nation.

And if you’ve got a better model — if you think China’s better, or Russia’s better, or Cuba’s better, or North Korea’s better — I’m glad to hear all about it.
But you know what?

America’s right, and you’re wrong.

Translation: We need to come together as a nation --- so love it or leave it commie. And that includes the Kenyan president. Republicans really do believe that the nation needs to come together --- which means do what they say or shut the hell up.

I'm sure this will play well down there in South Carolina, but he's got a way to go before he gets a standing ovation for dressing down an uppity black reporter on national television. It's a high bar. I don't know if Mittens has what it takes.

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Loving v. Viriginia 45 years ago: a reminder of progress by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-19T15:00:00.000-08:00

Loving v. Virginia 45 years ago: A reminder of progress

by David Atkins

Hard to believe that Loving v. Virginia is only 45 years old:

Just 45 years ago, 16 states deemed marriages between two people of different races illegal.

But in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court considered the case of Richard Perry Loving, who was white, and his wife, Mildred Loving, of African American and Native American descent.

The case changed history - and was captured on film by LIFE photographer Grey Villet, whose black-and-white photographs are now set to go on display at the International Center of Photography.

Follow the link to see some of the beautiful photos of this brave family.

For a 31-year-old like myself, it's hard to comprehend that my parents grew up in a world in which people of different races weren't allowed to marry. I hope that my children will be able to say the same of a world in which same-sex couples were denied the same privilege.

It's another reminder of just how much progress has been made in the last half century on social issues. Social conservatives feel the acute sting of their defeats in this arena, which has done more than anything to accentuate culture wars and partisan divides in America.

Those culture wars in turn have been easy prey for the plutocrats in reversing the ground won by the New Deal and the Great Society. Reaganism would never have gotten off the ground without the cultural resentment of Nixonland.

Has it been worth the price? I would say so. Changes to economic structures can happen quickly, often with a single stroke of a pen. Social changes take much longer, require more effort, and cannot be pronounced through fiat legislation.

Hard-won gains in the culture wars may have been an inadvertent cause of the dark economic period in which we find ourselves. But this time, when we do take back our economic future from the plutocrats, we'll be able to do it for all our citizens, not just the straight white males.

And that will be a beautiful thing indeed.

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QOTD: Rush Limbaugh on why he needs disability. Hint: because he's obsessed with sex Or something.

2012-01-19T13:15:00.000-08:00

Quote 'o the day

by digby

Guess who?

So Newt wanted an open marriage. BFD. At least he asked his wife for permission instead of cheating on her. That's a mark of character, in my book. Newt's a victim. We all are. Ours is the horniest generation. We were soldiers in the sex revolution. We were tempted by everything from Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice to Plato's retreat, Deep Throat to no fault divorce. Many of us paid the ultimate price, AIDS, abortion, or alimony for the cultural marching orders we got. Hell, for all I know we should be getting disability from the government.

I just ... oh, whatever.

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Dogwhistling the Inquisition: On Perry, Galileo and swinging

2012-01-19T11:42:00.000-08:00

Dogwhistling the Inquisition

by digby

So Perry is out of the race. What a coward. It's not as if it's just a matter of not throwing good money after bad. The election is in a couple of days. He obviously just couldn't face the humiliation of losing.

On paper he was the perfect anti-Romney and everyone expected him to make it a real race. But he was a flop from the very beginning, his poor showing in the debates and obvious lack of basic knowledge made him too much even for the neanderthals. Actually, I think that was his real problem --- on a subliminal level he just reminded everyone too much of George W. Bush and that particular personality type was just too uncomfortable even for the folks.

To mark Perry's departure, Corey Robin reprises a post he did about Perry's bizarro statement comparing climate change denial to Galileo that I missed the first time out:

Alexander Stephens, vice president of the Confederacy, famously invoked Galileo in defense of the slaveholders’ conviction that “the negro is not equal to the white man” and “subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition.”

The comparison between Galileo and the slaveholder was as far-fetched as Perry’s, but like Perry, Stephens defended it on the ground that his position was a fugitive knowledge, a heresy that would one day become orthodoxy. “This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science.”

Other slaveholders (Josiah Nott, John C. Calhoun) made the same comparison; Calhoun also invoked Francis Bacon, Stephens also invoked William Harvey. Their point was that like those great heresies of early modern science, the southern science of race would one day triumph and be recognized the world over. It’s the way the white southerner has always negotiated his contradictory self-understanding of being both victim and victimizer. (read on...)

That's really fascinating. I'm beginning to think that virtually every crazy thing a white Southern conservative says is really some kind of dogwhistle. They don't even know they're doing it --- it's just the politician's subconscious speaking to the collective subconscious, totally cutting out the middle man: reason.

Speaking of white supremacy --- in my opinion, nobody is going to care that Newtie's wife said he wanted to swing. In patriarchal circles, let's face it, it's just one of the perks. (As Limbaugh said today: "everybody has an angry ex-spouse.") And in any case, they're liking what they hear about "food stamp president" and telling black kids they need to get a job cleaning toilets so much that they're probably going to overlook that ancient history. Newtie knows what's important.

The interesting thing about Newtie's surge is that until now South Carolina was supposed to be the firewall, where insurgents go to die. The GOP power structure is changing. And not in a good way for the country.

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Blue America welcomes American hero, Elizabeth Warren! Crooks and Liars 10am pst 1pm est.

2012-01-19T09:30:00.000-08:00

Blue America welcomes American hero, Elizabeth Warren!

by digby

That viral Youtube may be the most famous American cri de coeur of the new century --- a shot heard round the political world announcing that Elizabeth Warren was not just running for the Senate in Massachusetts, but that she was going to do it by redefining the political framework that's governed this nation for the past 30 years. Warren's message sent chills down the spines of the big money boyz and the political establishment -- and they reacted. Strongly. This is not a person they want in the Senate and they are going to do whatever they can to ensure she isn't elected.

As someone who has been fighting for the middle class for many years as a researcher and advocate, Warren is a rare politician who has knowledge of the way Washington works while not being of Washington. As her recent battles setting up the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau showed, the wall of resistance to her ideas is formidable and a lesser person would have done her work and gone back to her secure and happy life as a professor and lecturer, but those battles only made her more determined. But she's going to be the next Senator from Massachusetts if we have anything to do with it. And if her track record is any indication this ossified institution isn't going to know what hit it.

Elizabeth Warren is staking her race on a commitment to resist the lures of big money and special interests. Wall Street, for obvious reasons, has her in their crosshairs and will pour unlimited amounts of money into the race to defeat her and the GOP establishment is desperate that they do so. After all, her win could keep the Senate in the hands of the Democrats.

But despite all that, it's not impossible for her to win this, not by a long shot. There's a limit to what money can buy and Elizabeth's message resonating strongly as she crosses the state meeting people and she's consistently running ahead of her opponent Scott Brown. But she needs our help to stay competitive.

This week her campaign is running a big money bomb collecting donations from like-minded individuals all over the country who understand that Elizabeth Warren doesn't just represent the people of Massachusetts, although she does. She represents all of us who want to see the American dream restored and the middle class strong and thriving again in this country.

Howie, John and I were thrilled to have Blue America be among the very first to endorse her campaign and we couldn't be more excited that she's found a few minutes to join us at Crooks and Liars at 10am pst, 1pm est today.

And please give as generously as you can to her campaign.

The failed "independent voter" strategy by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-19T07:30:00.000-08:00

The failed "independent voter" strategy

by David Atkins

Remember this during the debt ceiling fight?

The question arises, aside from Obama’s chronically allowing the Republicans to define the agenda and even the terminology (the pejorative word “Obamacare” is now even used by news broadcasters), why did he so definitively place himself on the side of the deficit reducers at a time when growth and job creation were by far the country’s most urgent needs?

It all goes back to the “shellacking” Obama took in the 2010 elections. The President’s political advisers studied the numbers and concluded that the voters wanted the government to spend less. This was an arguable interpretation. Nevertheless, the political advisers believed that elections are decided by middle-of-the-road independent voters, and this group became the target for determining the policies of the next two years.

That explains a lot about the course the President has been taking this year. The political team’s reading of these voters was that to them, a dollar spent by government to create a job is a dollar wasted. The only thing that carries weight with such swing voters, they decided—in another arguable proposition—is cutting spending. Moreover, like Democrats—and very unlike Republicans—these voters do not consider “compromise” a dirty word...

The speech Obama gave on April 13 marked his conversion to fiscal centrism; to being the fiscally responsible Democrat. In that speech he stated that he wanted to reduce the debt by $4 trillion—thus aligning himself with the Republicans—but also asked for revenues to partly offset that reduction. It was all about reelection politics, designed to appeal to this same group of independents. “And that’s why,” I was told by the person familiar with the White House deliberations, “he went bigger in the deficit reduction talks; bringing in Social Security is consistent with that slice of the electorate they’re trying to reach.” This person said, “There’s a bit of bass-ackwardness to this; the deficit spending you’d want to focus on right now is the jobs issue.”

This all fits with another development in the Obama White House. According to another close observer, David Plouffe, the manager of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, who officially joined the White House staff in January 2011, has taken over. “Everything is about the reelect,” this observer says—”where the President goes, what he does.”

And now we have the opportunity to see the results of this bit of supposed brilliance by David Plouffe:

President Obama opens his re-election bid facing significant obstacles among independent voters, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, with the critical piece of the electorate that cemented his victory four years ago open to denying him a second term.

As Mr. Obama moves toward a full-throated campaign, delivering a State of the Union address on Tuesday and inching closer to directly confronting his Republican challenger, a majority of independent voters have soured on his presidency, disapprove of how he has dealt with the economy and do not have a clear idea of what he hopes to accomplish if re-elected.

The swing voters who will play a pivotal role in determining his political fate are up for grabs, the poll found, with just 31 percent expressing a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama. Two-thirds of independent voters say he has not made real progress fixing the economy.

It's shocking to think that voters would see a Presidency carefully tailored to please the most conflict-averse voters as aimless and ineffective. After all, the strategy was concocted by the most brilliant strategists in Democratic politics, so it must be quite skillful.

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Brace yourself for more austerity

2012-01-18T18:00:00.000-08:00

Brace yourself for more austerity

by digby

The fallout from the Great Debt Ceiling Grand Bargain negotiations is upon us:

Top White House officials are warning liberal and labor leaders to brace themselves for President Obama’s budget proposal.

Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, sought in meetings last week to lift the left’s gloom about Washington’s crackdown on spending by promising that the president this year will focus on job creation rather than deficit cutting.

Obama staffers sought to present their budget plan as a glass half full. According to sources familiar with the briefings, they promised that the president will focus on jobs and the economy, instead of deficit-cutting, which dominated last year’s debate on Capitol Hill.

Obama has signaled in recent weeks that he plans to run a populist reelection campaign. He will need to keep liberal activist and labor groups — important parts of the Democratic base — energized for his strategy to work.

In his first three years, Obama had a free hand to suggest spending levels for government programs in his annual budget blueprint. But that is not the case this year because the administration is constrained by the budget deal reached in August to raise the debt limit.

He must stick to the $1.047 trillion spending cap he agreed to with GOP leaders, which means he will call for less discretionary spending than he did last year.

Senior administration officials fear a backlash from the left and are trying to prepare their allies to expect a disappointing budget, sources say.

“A senior White House person said we weren’t going to be happy with the budget, but they’re doing the best they can” given the spending caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act, said one source.

Right. Because that had to happen.

But forget the politics and look at the economics. Or rather look at the UK to see just how idiotic this is:

UK unemployment rose by 118,000 in the three months to November to 2.69 million, official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the unemployment rate also rose to 8.4% from 8.3%, the highest since January 1996...

The figures support the picture of a flat UK economy, with other data released on Wednesday showing average weekly earnings, including bonuses, grew at just 1.9%.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, said the figures were not good news: "Any increase in unemployment is disappointing and obviously a tragedy for the person who becomes unemployed - that is why we are taking action to get people back to work".

He pointed to an increase in the number of people in work, to new private sector jobs and a small fall in the long-term unemployed.

But the figures showed the private sector was not compensating for job losses in the public sector, with the private sector creating 5,000 in the period, while 67,000 public sector jobs were lost.

Oy. What Atrios said.

Update: Also too what Atrios said here.

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Wanker of the decade: Dana Milbank

2012-01-18T16:30:00.000-08:00

Wanker of the decade

by digby

It just doesn't get any worse than this, although it's all too common. Behold yet another privileged, middle aged white male telling the silly women to stop being so hysterical about their damned liberty and start compromising with fundamentalist throwbacks because it's just so damned icky and boring for him to have to listen to their whining. Ladies, just calm yourselves down and listen to the voice of reason:

In his latest column, Dana Milbank criticizes abortion provider Merle Hoffman for raising a ‘false alarm’ about the threat to reproductive rights in this country. He then goes on the cite the numerous marches and events that will take place on both sides of the debate over the next week as the country celebrates – or laments – the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in this country.

All of this attention troubles Dana Milbank. He writes, “if these groups cared as much about the issue as they claim, and didn’t have such strong financial incentives to avoid consensus and compromise, they’d cancel the carnivals and get to work on the one thing everybody agrees would be worthwhile — reducing unwanted pregnancies.”

He chastises the choice movement by telling us that “not every compromise means a slippery slope to the back alley.” He tells us to stop with the “sky is falling” argument and to acknowledge that the majority of Americans have legitimate concerns.

I guess Dana hasn't actually heard about this. But then he probably thinks that's ok too.

One more time, from my friend DebCoop:

For women ALL Roads to freedom and equality - economic equality and most particularly the ability to avoid poverty START with control of their bodies. If they can't control how they get pregnant and when they will have a child then poverty is the result.

There is theory about something called the Prime Mover - the first action or the first cause. Well for women it IS reproductive rights. It precedes everything. It really is simple. Without the abilty to control your own body then you are a slave to everything else.

Frankly sexism, the need to control women's lives by controlling their bodies and the things that arise from it, are endemic to any social structure. It is ever enduring and even when it seems to be quashed it returns in another form. That is the story in the modern era of women's rights. One step forward after a long struggle - suffrage and then a step back. (And no way do I say that women are not complicit in their own subjugation. We are.)

I am reading The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin. In the epilogue he makes a point of saying that the loss of power and control is what the elite and the reactionary fear the most. More than a specific loss itself the fear the rising volcano of submerged anger and power. And for them it is most acutely felt compulsion for control in the "intimate" arena. That is the most vexing and disturbing of all.

It is why they want to control women. And controlling their reproductive lives is the surefire way to control them.

It is why abortion rights are absolutely central to every other kind of freedom.

This doesn't seem to me to be too difficult to understand. But since it doesn't affect Dana Milbank, he has no need to understand it. To him, it's just a bunch of women blabbering like brainless magpies about an irrelevant topic he doesn't care about. And he's tired of it. Which is exactly why those who understand the implications have to keep fighting this conservative assault with everything we have --- it's quite clear we will receive no help from a fairly large group of privileged elites who know that they will never have to face the consequences.

Update: From the "don't worry your pretty little heads" department:

A high-level [Pennsylvania Governor]Corbett administration adviser resigned his $104,470 position Tuesday after questions were raised about his outside role as editor of a conservative faith-based journal.

Along with disclosing welfare adviser Robert W. Patterson's departure, the administration swiftly distanced itself from the views expressed in the journal he edits.

Patterson was hired in October by Welfare Secretary Gary Alexander as a special assistant to help set policy for services provided to millions of Pennsylvanians through the Department of Public Welfare (DPW).

Last week, The Inquirer began asking about Patterson's side job as editor of The Family in America, published by an Illinois-based research center that advocates for the "natural human family . . . established by the Creator."

In the journal, Patterson has weighed in on everything from what he called "misguided" programs that grew out of the 1960s War on Poverty - programs now administered by DPW - to what he described as a woman's ideal role in society: married and at home raising children.

For instance, he wrote about research that he said showed that if women wanted to find "Mr. Right," they should shun birth control pills; and if they wanted to improve their mood, they should not insist that their men wear condoms lest they miss out on beneficial chemicals found in semen.

Keystone dead; all sides cheer for different reasons by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-18T15:08:00.001-08:00

Keystone dead; all sides cheer for different reasons.

by David Atkins

Say goodbye to the Keystone pipeline project, at least for now:

President Obama, declaring that he would not bow to congressional pressure, announced Wednesday that he was rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline, a massive project that would have stretched from Canada’s oil sands to refineries in Texas.

Obama said that a Feb. 21 deadline set by Congress as part of the two-month payroll tax cut extension had made it impossible to do an adequate review of the pipeline project proposed by TransCanada.

Of course, that doesn't mean the project is dead forever. As peak oil causes prices to rise over time, the political pressure to drill every drop of oil on earth will become unstoppable unless technically and economically viable alternatives are developed. That's part of why cutting what little there is in the discretionary budget is so crazy.

For now, though, almost everyone gets what they want: progressives and conservationists get the pipeline blocked. Conservatives get an election-year issue on which to hammer the Obama Administration on rust belt jobs, which is precisely why they gave the Administration an impossibly short timeline in which to approve the project.

Everyone, it seems, but the Administration, which wanted to avoid getting roughed up by swing-state conservatives over it while not infuriating the progressive base too badly. As with so much else, the White House has taken the careful road by slow-walking the pipeline while giving lip-service to an "all-in" approach on energy.

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Kids say the darndest things

2012-01-18T13:00:00.000-08:00

Kids say the darndest things

by digby

Gawker collected a few tweets from teenagers with late homework:

“How am I supposed to do homework tomorrow without wikipedia? Seriously how about Washington gets rid of SOPA, and President Obama of course"

“How am I supposed to study for my history final when fucking congress passed a bill that took down wikipedia?"

“Wikipedia banned by US Congress????"

Maybe there's a lesson here, eh teachers?

Despite these kids' er ... misapprehension, I don't think I'm being hyperbolic in saying that the internet is the greatest advance in education since the printing press and has the potential to eventually give every person on the planet an avenue to change their fate. It needs to remain as free and expansive as possible.

Update: Some people, no matter what their age,are hopeless, however:

Media Matters:

This argument, it should be noted, makes absolutely no sense and demonstrates the profound technical ignorance of a man with huge influence over tech policy.

But it makes enough sense for Fox News, which reported the absurd spin from its parent company on SOPA without noting their parent company's support for the bill.

The day the LOLCats Died

2012-01-18T11:30:00.000-08:00

The day the LOLCats Died

by digby

... along with Chris Dodd's reputation. This is just sad:

WASHINGTON —The following is a statement by Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) on the so-called “Blackout Day” protesting anti-piracy legislation:

“Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.

It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.

A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.”

Jayzuz. That made Jack Valenti sound like a communist by comparison.

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How the web beat back SOPA and (hopefully) PIPA

2012-01-18T09:30:00.000-08:00

How the web beat back SOPA and (hopefully) PIPA

by digby

Mother Jones has the story of what was supposed to be a done deal falling off the rails when the internets put up a fuss. It's quite inspiring.

I particularly liked this:

Minds changed. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), the chair of the powerful House budget committee announced on January 9 that he would oppose the bill (after taking nearly $300,000 from pro-SOPA donors). Ryan's aspiring 2012 opponent, Rob Zerban, had raised tens of thousands of dollars through a Reddit campaign denouncing Ryan's position on the legislation.

I guess 300k doesn't go as far as it used to. Certainly not for Ryan who has collected gigantic sums of money from just about everyone.

Read the whole thing. This is just one small victory (half a victory actually, since the Senate version PIPA is still on the agenda) and these people won't stop.

Here's a video Hollywood will just hate:

It never fails to amaze me how shortsighted media companies are. If the government has the power to censor on your behalf they have the power to censor you.

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SOPA? What's that?

2012-01-18T07:45:00.000-08:00

Sopa? What's that?

Claud Rains, please pick up the white courtesy telephone

2012-01-17T18:00:00.000-08:00

Claud Rains, please pick up the white courtesy telephone

by digby

I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked to find out that Michele Bachman was stabbed in the back by her pals, the social conservatives.

Rival presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s Iowa coalitions director, Jamie Johnson, sent out an email saying that children’s lives would be harmed if the nation had a female president. [...]

“The question then comes, ‘Is it God’s highest desire, that is, his biblically expressed will, … to have a woman rule the institutions of the family, the church, and the state?’ ” Johnson’s email said...

[H]e refused to back away from the substance of the email, saying “I was sharing my personal reflections with a friend…[T]hey were reflections on over 25 years of formal, theological study [based in] classical Christian doctrine.”

After Bachmann left the race, several of her advisers pointed to sexism as a contributing factor. “We did believe that sexism — I use the stronger word misogyny — was at play,” said Peter Waldron, her faith outreach coordinator.

Waldron said that several influential pastors called for her to drop out of the race, reasoning “that a female could not be a civil magistrate.” Johnson himself is a pastor at a central Iowa church.

Now where would they get an idea like that?

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Straight up racism, no dogwhistle necessary

2012-01-17T16:30:00.000-08:00

Straight up racism, no dogwhistle necessary

by digby

James Fallows has some reader follow-ups to an earlier discussion of Newtie's "food stamp president" quip. And they've made me rethink whether or not this is a real dogwhistle.

One of his readers says that it wasn't racist in the least, that it was simply a dry, philosophical point about the virtues of hard work. This, of course, is nonsense. I quoted this yesterday, but it bears repeating since this is all taking place in South Carolina, the home of Lee Atwater, who famously said this:

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

This brings me to the Fallows reader who changed my mind on this. This South Carolinian claims that Newtie's "food stamp president" isn't a real dogwhistle at all (which implies something designed to fly under the radar.) He says this is just straight up racist, and I think that's probably right.

If Newtie were saying this about a white president, it would indicate sympathy or pandering to African Americans, a standard slam against liberals. But the president himself is a black man, which changes the context considerably. After all, as Fallows points out he could have picked any number of ways to express the idea that he's been bad for the economy: "foreclosure president", "bailout president", "pink-slip president". Picking food-stamps goes directly to Atwater's comments above, where the questioner even brings up food stamps as a way to appeal to the Wallace voter.

Atwater thought these racist appeals would be totally abstract by now, and for many people it is. But when you have a black president in a time of economic turmoil in which millions of people have lost their jobs, using phrases like "food stamp president" isn't abstract at all.

Recall what Gingrich originally said:

More people are on food stamps today because of Obama’s policies than ever in history. I would like to be the best paycheck president in American history. Now, there’s no neighborhood I know of in America where if you went around and asked people, “Would you rather your children had food stamps or paychecks,” you wouldn’t [SIC] end up with a majority saying they’d rather have a paycheck.

And so I’m prepared, if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African-American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps. And I’ll go to them and explain a brand new Social Security opportunity for young people, which should be particularly good for African-American males — because they’re the group that gets the smallest return on Social Security because they have the shortest life span.

Foodstamps = African American. No daylight there. He couldn't have been more clear.

By Atwater's standards, we're going backwards.

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Uh oh by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-17T15:00:00.000-08:00

Uh oh

by David Atkins

This doesn't sound good:

Top White House officials are warning liberal and labor leaders to brace themselves for President Obama’s budget proposal.

Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, sought in meetings last week to lift the left’s gloom about Washington’s crackdown on spending by promising that the president this year will focus on job creation rather than deficit cutting.

Obama staffers sought to present their budget plan as a glass half full. According to sources familiar with the briefings, they promised that the president will focus on jobs and the economy, instead of deficit-cutting, which dominated last year’s debate on Capitol Hill.

Obama has signaled in recent weeks that he plans to run a populist reelection campaign. He will need to keep liberal activist and labor groups — important parts of the Democratic base — energized for his strategy to work.

In his first three years, Obama had a free hand to suggest spending levels for government programs in his annual budget blueprint. But that is not the case this year because the administration is constrained by the budget deal reached in August to raise the debt limit.

He must stick to the $1.047 trillion spending cap he agreed to with GOP leaders, which means he will call for less discretionary spending than he did last year.

Senior administration officials fear a backlash from the left and are trying to prepare their allies to expect a disappointing budget, sources say.

“A senior White House person said we weren’t going to be happy with the budget, but they’re doing the best they can” given the spending caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act, said one source.

On the one hand, the White House is doubtless correct on its face that its hands are tied by the constraints of the debt ceiling deal to reduce a discretionary spending budget that is already preposterously low.

On the other hand, it isn't as if the President didn't have a direct hand in ramping up the Grand Bargain deficit hysteria that led to the debt ceiling deal in the first place.

And the consequences?

Obama took fire from the left flank of his party last year after he unveiled his budget proposal.

Members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), including Illinois Democratic Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., ripped Obama’s budget proposal. CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) said at the time, “We cannot win the future by leaving our most vulnerable behind.”

Democrats accused the president of endangering the lives of low-income people.

“It would have real-world consequences for some pretty powerless people,” Rep. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) said. “People would literally freeze.”

I don't agree with those who say that President doesn't care if people freeze in their homes. But I do think the President has bought into the delusional asset-based economic model that freaks out over budget deficits lest the Bond Trader Overlords be displeased. He has also bought into the idea politically that if he plays it cool and lets the other side play the extremist hand, he'll end up looking like the adult in the room. I think he probably figured that he could use his personal charisma to reach a deal with Republicans that didn't involve people losing their home heating assistance.

The former has been a disaster for the economy. The latter has probably been fairly successful for the President politically speaking, as it was for Bill Clinton. That in turn may help keep the crazies out of absolute power for another four years.

But maintaining the status quo isn't exactly acceptable when the country is on a 30-year downward trajectory. We needed more than that. Instead, we're going to get cuts to the discretionary budget that may be unavoidable now, but weren't inevitable before the Grand Bargain talk got started.

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Mittbot and his daddy

2012-01-17T13:00:00.000-08:00

Mittbot and his daddy

by digby

Perlstein has a great piece on Mitt and his daddy in Rolling Stone that is not to be missed:

In my first weekly online column for Rolling Stone, I'm here to write about another loser and son: George and Mitt Romney – both almost-certain Republican presidential nominees. Pollster Lou Harris said late in 1966 that George Romney, then governor of Michigan, "stands a better chance of winning the White House than any Republican since Dwight D. Eisenhower." Then, just over a year later, he was humiliated with a suddenness and intensity unprecedented in modern American political history (of which more below). His son was 19 years old. What makes Mitt – né Willard – Romney, run? Much, I think, can be understood via that specific trauma.

I wrote a Los Angeles Times op-ed four years ago, just before Romney dropped out of the 2008 race, arguing that he would "go down as the most robotic big-ticket presidential candidate in history." I chalked it up to psychobiography: Even more than most kids, Mitt couldn’t help but view his dad as a messiah – because much of America did, too. George Romney's first appearance on the cover of Time, in 1959, came just before Mitt's twelfth birthday. As CEO of the Americans Motors Corporation, he had single-handedly set Detroit on its ear by calling its products "gas-guzzling dinosaurs." The first full biography of him came out in 1960. Soon after, he became Michigan's James Madison, heroically leading a bipartisan effort to redraft the state's messed-up constitution. By 1963, he was governor, a Republican in a Democratic state, a politician so beloved that John F. Kennedy was terrified at the thought of running against him in 1964. After his reelection in 1966, he ran 54-46 in a hypothetical 1968 match-up with Lyndon Johnson.

His calling card was his shocking authenticity; his courage in sticking to his positions without fear or favor was extraordinary.Read on ...

This is some fascinating history that, I think, probably gets closer to what makes the Mittbot tick than anything I've seen. The way he sees it is that daddy lost by being too principled. He is determined not to make that mistake:

Mitt learned at an impressionable age that in politics, authenticity kills. Heeding the lesson of his father's fall, he became a virtual parody of an inauthentic politician. In 1994 he ran for senate to Ted Kennedy's left on gay rights; as governor, of course, he installed the dreaded individual mandate into Massachusetts' healthcare system. Then he raced to the right to run for president.

Perlstein points out that the one area in which he seems to be utterly authentic is his fealty to wealth and capitalism --- and that's a reaction to his father too.

Read the whole thing. It's all good.

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Blue America contest: help a Real Progressive win $2,000

2012-01-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

Blue America Contest

by digby

Howie sez:

As you've probably read by now, New Jersey progressive candidate Ed Potosnak withdrew his challenge to Leonard Lance yesterday to take a job as the executive director of the New Jersey League of Conservation Voters. He was one of Blue America's favorite candidates, both in the 2010 cycle and again this year. We'll miss him, but we know he will accomplish a lot in his new job. Here's what he told me last night when he came up with the idea for this contest to help out a Blue America candidate.

Ed has some extra money in his campaign war chest, and he's offered to give the maximum amount allowable from one campaign to another, $2,000, to the Blue America candidate who gets the most contributions in the next 24 hours. So take a look at our ActBlue page and contribute-- whether a dollar or $1,000, it still counts as one "vote"-- and the candidate who gets the most "votes" will get a $2,000 dollar check from Ed's campaign.

The rules for this contest: Just contribute any amount to any candidate on this page and it will count as a vote for that candidate. And yes, you can vote for more than one if you want to. In 24 hours we count up all the votes (again, not the dollar amounts, but the votes), and the candidate with the most gets the check from Ed's campaign.

*I keep hearing that there are no progressives out there who are against the wars and for civil liberties. That's just not true. Look at the Blue America roster and you'll find a whole bunch of them.

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Retraction and contraction: why conservatives are scary

2012-01-17T10:30:00.000-08:00

Retraction and contraction: why conservatives are scary

by digby

Perhaps we should all stop for a moment and contemplate how an advanced nation can suddenly take this regressive turn:

In the three months since the Israeli Health Ministry awarded a prize to a pediatrics professor for her book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, her experience at the awards ceremony has become a rallying cry.

The professor, Channa Maayan, knew that the acting health minister, who is ultra-Orthodox, and other religious people would be in attendance. So she wore a long-sleeve top and a long skirt. But that was hardly enough.

Not only did Dr. Maayan and her husband have to sit separately, as men and women were segregated at the event, but she was instructed that a male colleague would have to accept the award for her because women were not permitted on stage.

Though shocked that this was happening at a government ceremony, Dr. Maayan bit her tongue. But others have not, and her story is entering the pantheon of secular anger building as a battle rages in Israel for control of the public space between the strictly religious and everyone else.

At a time when there is no progress on the Palestinian dispute, Israelis are turning inward and discovering that an issue they had neglected — the place of the ultra-Orthodox Jews — has erupted into a crisis.

And it is centered on women.

“Just as secular nationalism and socialism posed challenges to the religious establishment a century ago, today the issue is feminism,” said Moshe Halbertal, a professor of Jewish philosophy at Hebrew University. “This is an immense ideological and moral challenge that touches at the core of life, and just as it is affecting the Islamic world, it is the main issue that the rabbis are losing sleep over.”

The list of controversies grows weekly: Organizers of a conference last week on women’s health and Jewish law barred women from speaking from the podium, leading at least eight speakers to cancel; ultra-Orthodox men spit on an 8-year-old girl whom they deemed immodestly dressed; the chief rabbi of the air force resigned his post because the army declined to excuse ultra-Orthodox soldiers from attending events where female singers perform; protesters depicted the Jerusalem police commander as Hitler on posters because he instructed public bus lines with mixed-sex seating to drive through ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods; vandals blacked out women’s faces on Jerusalem billboards.

Without wading into Israeli politics, let's just say that this is disturbing on any number of levels. But one thing is clear: fundamentalist religious influence always leads to the repression of women.

And there's nothing that says a Western democracy can't go backwards. It's the whole point of conservatism. From Corey Robin's book The Reactionary Mind:

Despite our Whiggish narrative of the steady rise of democracy, historian Alexander Keyssar has demonstrated that the struggle for the vote in the United States has been as much a story of retraction and contraction as one of progress and expansion, “with class tensions and apprehensions” on the part of political and economic elites constituting “the single most important obstacle to universal suffrage … from the late eighteenth century to the 1960s.” Still, the more profound and prophetic stance on the right has been Adams’s: cede the field of the public, if you must, stand fast in the private. Allow men and women to become democratic citizens of the state; make sure they remain feudal subjects in the family, the factory, and the field.

The priority of conservative political argument has been the maintenance of private regimes of power—even at the cost of the strength and integrity of the state. We see this political arithmetic at work in the ruling of a Federalist court in Massachusetts that a Loyalist woman who fled the Revolution was the adjutant of her husband, and thus not be held responsible for fleeing and should not have her property confiscated by the state; in the refusal of Southern slaveholders to yield their slaves to the Confederate cause; and the more recent insistence of the Supreme Court that women could not be legally obliged to sit on juries because they are “still regarded as the center of home and family life” with their “own special responsibilities.”

Conservatism, then, is not a commitment to limited government and liberty—or a wariness of change, a belief in evolutionary reform, or a politics of virtue. These may be the byproducts of conservatism, one or more of its historically specific and ever-changing modes of expression. But they are not its animating purpose. Neither is conservatism a makeshift fusion of capitalists, Christians, and warriors, for that fusion is impelled by a more elemental force—the opposition to the liberation of men and women from the fetters of their superiors, particularly in the private sphere.

Perhaps women, racial minorities and other "traditionally" second class citizens can be forgiven for being somewhat appalled at the idea that these people could be empowered even more than they already are. It's really not all that abstract to them.

And to those who say the libertarian view precludes this, Robin explains why this is not so:

Such a view might seem miles away from the libertarian defense of the free market, with its celebration of the atomistic and individual. But it is not. When the libertarian looks out upon society, he does not see isolated individuals; he sees private, often hierarchical, groups, where a father governs his family and an owner his employees.

Devolution means regressing to traditional hierarchies. It's something those who were only recently second class citizens understand in their bones.

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Newtie: hates so good

2012-01-17T09:00:00.000-08:00

Hates so good

by digby

Here's some video of an arrogant white man lecturing a black man about what black people have a right to be offend by --- on Martin Luther King day:

I especially liked the laughter at his nasty, sarcastic "well, first of all, Juan..."

Those dogwhistles were so loud that my neighborhood dogs all started howling in unison. (It sounded like "Dixie".)

This is what they love about Newt and why he continues to do well in these debates. He just hates so good.

Also too: "Andrew Jackson had a pretty good idea about what do with America's enemies: Kill them."

He's a historian dontchaknow.

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Colbert's latest Super PAC ad by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-17T07:30:00.000-08:00

Colbert's latest Super PAC ad

by David Atkins

Stephen Colbert--or rather, the Super PAC totally not coordinating with him--is proving to be the master troll of the Republican presidential nomination. With Colbert unable to appear on the ballot himself or even to stage a write-in campaign, this latest ad is equal parts chutzpah and brilliance:

Even Republicans are starting to realize what a nasty piece of work Citizens United has turned out to be. True, it helps them over the long run, but there's more to even Republican politics than puppets dancing on the end of plutocrat strings. There are factions and kingdom-building egos aplenty who spend decades building up their careers, and might not enjoy seeing themselves put at risk if secretive and whimsical multi-millionaires decide they hold a grudge or would rather they were removed. Colbert is helping to make this point clear in a way that everyone can understand.

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Failing Up: Goldman's obscene bonuses

2012-01-16T18:00:00.000-08:00

Failing Up

by digby

If I didn't know better, I'd think these people were looting their own company in anticipation of a massive failure:

Goldman Sachs will stoke the fury over bankers' bonuses this week when it increases the proportion of revenues paid to staff despite what could be its worst year for earnings since 1999.

The bank – which will report its final results for 2011 on Wednesday – has already set aside 44 per cent of the $22.76bn (£14.89bn) of revenues it generated during the first nine months of the year to pay staff. The lion's share will be shared by a small number of elite level "partners".

If pay remains at that level in the fourth quarter, the final compensation ratio will show a significant rise over the 39.3 per cent of revenues handed out by Goldman in 2010, when the total pay out was $15.38bn.

Although the average salary for the first nine months enjoyed by Goldman employees is down to $292,397 from $370.056 in the first three quarters of 2010, that the bankers' share of revenue is rising will anger critics.

This would counter banking industry arguments that remuneration policies are set up to reward those who generate good performance for all the bank's shareholders rather than just to keep senior staff in the manner to which they have become accustomed.

You don't say. And here I thought these job creators had a claim to every last penny that's generated. Workers, shareholders be damned. Let them go out and loot somebody else's company. Isn't that how it's supposed to work?

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RFK announcing the death of Martin Luther King

2012-01-16T16:30:00.000-08:00

RFK announcing the death of Martin Luther King

by digby

I guess I've been listening to too many GOP candidates recently because I can't imagine a modern politician making a speech like this off the cuff. And then he too was shot down just months later.

Those good old days were mighty violent. It's one of the reasons why some of us are so stubborn at the idea of losing such hard won ground.

Ayn Rand or MLK: pick one by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-16T15:12:00.000-08:00

Ayn Rand or MLK: pick one

by David Atkins

MLK:

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is: 'What are you doing for others?'"

Ayn Rand:

If any civilization is to survive, it is the morality of altruism that men have to reject.

Conservatives get to claim one or the other. They can't have both.

And if they pick door #2, they can't have this guy, either.

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Mitt's firewall: La estrategia del sur

2012-01-16T13:30:00.000-08:00

La estrategia del sur

by digby

This takes some chutzpah. Or should I say "huevos":

On a day set aside to honor civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., Mitt Romney plans to tout his extreme immigration positions during a campaign stop in South Carolina today — with Kris Kobach, the author of Arizona’s and Alabama’s immigration laws, at his side. He will attack his competitors Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry for their softer immigration stances, which could resonate with South Carolina voters who support that state’s harmful immigration law.
“Mitt Romney stands apart from the others. He’s the only one who’s taken a strong across-the-board position on immigration,” Kobach said, and he told Fox News’ Neil Cavuto that Romney was much farther to the right on illegal immigration than his fellow presidential candidates.

That's nice. It looks like we've got a new form of the Southern Strategy in place. Recall Lee Atwater's famous quote:

Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry S. Dent, Sr. and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn't have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he's campaigned on since 1964 and that's fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster.

Questioner: But the fact is, isn't it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps?

Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."

Looks like they've found a way to avoid that abstraction --- screaming "illegal, illegal."

There's always a way for white supremacy to make its case, isn't there?

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Tasing 'O the Day

2012-01-16T12:30:00.000-08:00

Tasing 'O the Day

by digby

If you watch this you will note that he officers didn't even give this fellow 10 seconds to comply with their orders. When he falls out of the car (in which his wife and three year old child were also sitting) and runs, screaming in pain as any human would instinctively do, they arrested him for resisting arrest. The charges were dropped but the officers were also exonerated by the police department. Their behavior is considered perfectly ok.

Unfortunately for the citizens, aside from being subject to similar violence, the city ended up having to pay tax dollars to the victim in this case:

A 24-year-old Columbia man has received $50,000 to settle a lawsuit against the city police department and two officers over their stun gun use.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reported that Cadilac Derrick settled his federal civil suit earlier this month. The case was then dismissed from Missouri's Western District U.S. Court after it went to mediation.

Maybe if a few more towns and cities had to pay out money for this authoritarian brutality, police departments might find it in their best interest to curb this behavior. There's no excuse for it, but until someone, somewhere, is held responsible any one of us could be electrocuted in the front seat of our car for failing to properly respond to a police officer in less than half a minute.

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Government as political machine

2012-01-16T11:00:00.000-08:00

Government as political machine

by digby

Didn't we just go through something like this with the Bush administration?

I think an intelligent conservative wants the right federal employees delivering the right services in a highly efficient way and then wants to get rid of those folks who are in fact wasteful, or those folks who are ideologically so far to the left, or those people who want to frankly dictate to the rest of us,” Gingrich said in response to a question from a federal employee at the forum.

I don't think people ever properly understood what was going on with the Bush administration's manipulation of the government itself for partisan gain. For example, they turned normal non-partisan jobs into political appointments, purged departments of those who they deemed to be suspiciously liberal and unleashed the Department of Justice to intervene in elections on behalf of the GOP.That's not even counting the systematic takeover of the judiciary.

This is a hallmark of conservative movement goals, which seeks to transform the government itself into a partisan apparatus. It most closely resembles machine politics, with a full blown patronage operations devoted to installing like-minded and financially dependent operatives into the permanent machinery of the government.

We knew this, of course, after watching the Bushies over eight long years.But the Democratic administration came in believing they had vanquished this unseemly form of partisan warfare by the sheer will of Will.I.Am so there was no need to look in the rearview mirror to try to right what was wrong. No lessons have been learned as a result --- and presidential candidates feel perfectly free to campaign on the idea that they have a right to fire government employees who they don't see as being ideologically congenial. Considering that they think science and facts have a liberal bias these days, I think we can see the writing on the wall.

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Dr King and the conservatives

2012-01-16T09:48:00.000-08:00

MLK and conservatives

by digby

Judging by a cursory look at the news this morning I see that the right wingers are fully engaged in the annual airbrushing of their real relationship to Martin Luther King. It's sort of become a tradition.

Here's Perlstein to set the record straight:

When Martin Luther King was buried in Atlanta, the live television coverage lasted seven and a half hours. President Johnson announced a national day of mourning: "Together, a nation united and a nation caring and a nation concerned and a nation that thinks more of the nation's interests than we do of any individual self-interest or political interest--that nation can and shall and will overcome." Richard Nixon called King "a great leader--a man determined that the American Negro should win his rightful place alongside all others in our nation." Even one of King's most beastly political enemies, Mississippi Representative William Colmer, chairman of the House rules committee, honored the president's call to unity by terming the murder "a dastardly act."

Others demurred. South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond wrote his constituents, "[W]e are now witnessing the whirlwind sowed years ago when some preachers and teachers began telling people that each man could be his own judge in his own case." Another, even more prominent conservative said it was just the sort of "great tragedy that began when we began compromising with law and order, and people started choosing which laws they'd break."

That was Ronald Reagan, the governor of California, arguing that King had it coming. King was the man who taught people they could choose which laws they'd break--in his soaring exegesis on St. Thomas Aquinas from that Birmingham jail in 1963: "Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. ... Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong."

That's not what you hear from conservatives today, of course. What you get now are convoluted and fantastical tributes arguing that, properly understood, Martin Luther King was actually one of them--or would have been, had he lived. But, if we are going to have a holiday to honor history, we might as well honor history. We might as well recover the true story. Conservatives--both Democrats and Republicans--hated King's doctrines. Hating them was one of the litmus tests of conservatism.

The idea was expounded most systematically in a 567-page book that came out shortly after King's assassination, House Divided: The Life and Legacy of Martin Luther King, by one of the right's better writers, Lionel Lokos, and from the conservative movement's flagship publisher, Arlington House. "He left his country a legacy of lawlessness," Lokos concluded. "The civil disobedience glorified by Martin Luther King [meant] that each man had the right to put a kind of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval on laws that met with his favor." Lokos laid the rise of black power, with its preachments of violence, at King's feet. This logic followed William F. Buckley, who, in a July 20, 1967 column titled "King-Sized Riot In Newark," imagined the dialogue between a rioter and a magistrate:
"You do realize that there are laws against burning down delicatessen stores? Especially when the manager and his wife are still inside the store?"
"Laws Schmaws. Have you never heard of civil disobedience? Have you never heard of Martin Luther King?"

King was a particular enemy of Chicago's white ethnics for the marches for open housing he organized there in 1966. The next year, the Chicago archdiocese released a new catechism book. "One of the leaders of the Negro people is a brave man named Martin Luther King. ... He preaches the message of Jesus, 'Love one another.'" Chicago Catholic laymen, outraged, demanded an FBI investigation of the local clergy.

We know about the Chicagoans who hated King enough to throw bricks at him. We have forgotten that, while such hooliganism was universally reviled, the reviling establishment also embraced Reagan-like arguments about why that was only to be expected. Upon King's assassination, The Chicago Tribune editorialized: "A day of mourning is in order"--but this was because civil disobedience had finally won the day. "Moral values are at the lowest level since the decadence of Rome," the editors argued, but only one of their arguments was racial: "If you are black, so goes the contention, you are right, and you must be indulged in every wish. Why, sure, break the window and make off with the color TV set, the case of liquor, the beer, the dress, the coat, and the shoes. We won't shoot you. That would be 'police brutality.'" Another was: "At countless universities, the doors of dormitories are open to mixed company, with no supervision."

The conservative argument, consistent and ubiquitous, was that King, claiming the mantle of moral transcendence, was actually the vector for moral relativism. They made it by reducing the greatest moral epic of the age to a churlish exercise in bean-counting. Shortly after the 1965 Selma voting-rights demonstrations, Klansmen shot dead one of the marchers, a Detroit housewife named Viola Liuzza, for the sin of riding in a car with a black man. Vice President Hubert Humphrey attended her funeral. No fair! Buckley cried, noting that a white cop had been shot by a black man in Hattiesburg shortly thereafter; "Humphrey did not appear at his funeral or even offer condolences." He complained, too, of the news coverage: "The television cameras showed police nightsticks descending upon the bodies of the demonstrators, but they did not show the defiance ... of those who provoked them beyond the endurance that we tend to think of as human." (In actual fact, sheriff's officers charged into the crowd on horseback swinging rubber tubes wrapped in barbed wire.)

By now you may be asking: What is the point of this unpleasant exercise? Shouldn't there be a statute of limitations on ideological sins? Well, not every conservative wrong has been righted. It's true that conservatives today don't sound much like Buckley in the '60s, but they still haven't figured King out: Andrew Busch of the Ashbrook Center for Public Policy, writing about King's exegesis on just and unjust laws, said, "In these few sentences, King demolishes much of the philosophical foundation of contemporary liberalism" (liberals are moral relativists, you see, and King was appealing to transcendent moral authority); Busch (speaking for reams of similar banality you can find by searching National Review Online) also said that "he rallied his followers with an explicitly religious message" and thus "stands as a stinging rebuke to those today who argue that religion and politics should never mix"; and Matthew Spalding of the Heritage Foundation wrote in National Review Online that "[a]n agenda that advocates quotas, counting by race and set-asides takes us away from King's vision" (not true, as historians have demonstrated). Still, why not honor their conversion on its own terms?

The answer is, if you don't mind, a question of moral relativism versus transcendence. When it comes to Martin Luther King, conservatives are still mere bean-counters. We must honor King because there wasn't a day in his life after 1955 when he didn't risk being cut down in cold blood and still stood steadfast. Conservatives break down what should be irreducible in this lesson into discrete terms--King believed in points X, Y, and Z--but now they chalk up the final sum on the positive side of the ledger. But this misses the point: King alone among contemporary heroes is worthy of a national holy day not because he mixed faith and politics, nor because he enunciated a sentimental dream. It was because he represented something truly terrifying.

When King was shuttling back and forth to Memphis in support of striking garbage workers, Tennessee Governor Buford Ellington typified the conservative establishment's understanding of him: He was "training 3,000 people to start riots." What looks today obviously like transcendent justice looked to conservatives then like anarchy. The conservative response to King--to demonize him in the '60s and to domesticate him today--has always been essentially the same: It has been about coping with the fear that seekers of justice may overturn what we see as the natural order and still be lionized. But if we manage to forget that, sometimes, doing things that terrify people is the only recourse to injustice, there is no point in having a Martin Luther King Day at all.

And many of these people are still terrified. And angry. Which is why we have things like this happening just last year:

Had his homemade bomb gone off—one he had diabolically constructed using shrapnel coated with a substance meant to keep blood from clotting in wounds—Kevin Harpham would have undoubtedly caused the death and injury of many people at last year’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day Unity March in Spokane, Washington

When bomb experts from the FBI Laboratory reconstructed the device and detonated it, the results were sobering, Cleary said. “The shrapnel exploded with such a high velocity that some targets in the shape of humans were blown over, and a metal filing cabinet was perforated—it was filled with holes.”

“Harpham intended to use this extremely lethal weapon on individuals solely because of their race and perhaps their religion,” Cleary said. “His plan was to wreak havoc on a crowd of innocents.”

Instead, Harpham was eventually caught and recently sentenced to 32 years in prison for a hate crime and other offenses related to the attempted bombing. The case illustrates how a quick response by citizens and local law enforcement averted a tragedy, and how teamwork and time-tested investigative techniques led to the apprehension of an individual who has shown no remorse for his actions.

“Clearly he intended to detonate the device, cause mass carnage, and then survey the devastation,” said Special Agent Frank Harrill, who supervised the investigation. “Harpham was acting out against what he termed multiculturalism, but his hatred was firmly rooted in violent white supremacy. This was a prototypical hate crime.”

According to the SPLC Harpham was heavily influenced by the film Loose Change, which seems to be a favorite of the Alex Jones crowd. It's a production of the group We Are Change (unironically known as WAC) which harbors the usual compendium of wingnut fantasies:

Today, the group’s website frets about a looming “one world order” and says it seeks “to uncover the truth behind the private banking cartel of the military industrial complex” that wants to “eliminate national sovereignty.” Rudkowski now seems particularly worried about the alleged role in the supposedly imminent “New World Order” of organizations such as the Bilderberg group and the Trilateral Commission. These institutions have been targeted for decades as major global evildoers by Patriot groups and other far-right organizations, including several that are racist and virulently anti-Semitic.

Oy. It never ends completely. Vigilance is necessary.

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CA26 and Linda Parks: Proof that anti-partisanship isn't progressive by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-16T07:30:00.000-08:00

CA 26 and Linda Parks: Proof Anti-partisanship isn't progressive

by David Atkins

The passage in 2010 of a non-partisan redistricting law and a top-two primary system eliminating partisan primaries has led to some interesting developments in California's Ventura County. Longtime Republican incumbent Elton Gallegly retired after being redistricted out of his comfortably Republican seat. The new CA26 is very competitive, which has led to a myriad of candidates coming out of the woodwork to contest it, including Democratic 1st District Supervisor Steve Bennett and the hyper-conservative anti-tax crusader and State Senator Tony Strickland. This seat has quickly vaulted to national prominence as one of most competitive in the country.

But there's another candidate in the race as well, who is already becoming the darling of Broderist centrists everywhere. Her name is Linda Parks, a moderate Republican County Supervisor who has survived well-funded challenges against her supported by the local Republican party, including against Tony Strickland's own wife Audra.

Because of the new top-two non-partisan primary system, she gets to run without taking a party label--something she intends to do:

Supervisor Linda Parks of Thousand Oaks, vowing that she will be someone "who is not beholden to parties or special interests," on Monday announced she will be a candidate in Ventura County's new 26th Congressional District.

Parks is a Republican, but she made it clear that she does not intend to run as a partisan. She said in a statement that she intends to declare "independence from the party politics that are failing our nation."

Under the rules of the state's new top-two primary system, Parks has the option of declaring that independence on the ballot. The rules allow candidates to proclaim a preference for any qualified political party or to have their names listed on the ballot as having "no party preference..."

Parks has long been a political maverick unaligned with partisan interests in county political circles. During her 2010 re-election campaign for the Ventura County Board of Supervisors, in which she defeated former Assemblywoman Audra Strickland of Moorpark, she was opposed by the county Republican Central Committee, the hierarchy of her own party.

Parks is in the middle of her four-year term as supervisor, and thus can run for Congress this year without giving up her seat on the board.

She said she intends to highlight her independence in the congressional campaign, vowing not to accept campaign contributions from labor unions, political action committees or political parties. She will rely instead on individual contributions...

"Steve is backed by the Democratic Party and Tony by the Republican Party," she wrote. "The partisan slugfest hopefully will remind voters how wedge politics and hyper-partisanship has led to polarization, brinkmanship politics and the lowest ratings for Congress."

Mavericky shades of John McCain and Joe Lieberman, anyone?

The problem, of course, is that Linda Parks has to cast a vote for Speaker of the House. In an election year where control of Congress could well hinge on single vote, her vote might be the deciding one. She would almost certainly vote for Boehner or Cantor for speaker. Even in the unlikely event that she were to abstain, her vote wouldn't go to Pelosi, thus potentially gifting control of the House to the Tea Party crowd. Moreover, she would either end up toeing the Republican Party line in Congress, or she would be shut out of every important Committee and position of authority. She would also be denied funding for the district by the GOP Congressional hierarchy, which would make her an utterly ineffective representative to keep jobs in the county.

In terms of governance, she would be somewhere between a Blue Dog Dem and an Eisenhower Republican--the same thing these days, really (in fact, the Blue Dogs are almost certainly to the Right of the old Eisenhower Republicans.) She would be a reliable vote for economic policies that favor the 1%, but would temper that with safety net preservation, moderate environmental policies to maintain the status quo (a carbon tax would almost certainly be out of bounds), and moderately liberal social policy.

While that's better than a raging right-winger, she's also the sort of politician who won't do any heavy lifting to get the country out of this mess. She'd be as essentially useless on the GOP side as Joe Lieberman has been on the Dem side until his recent expulsion. Ironically, by seeming like such a breath of fresh air to the anti-partisans, she would be a legislator most likely to defend the status quo from incursions on the left or the right.

The interesting thing about the Tea Party Objectivists is that at the very least they understand, like progressives do, that the system is broken and needs change. Their version of change is horrifying, of course, but they have the same sense of times out of joint needing to be set right that progressives do. The increasingly partisan tug of war in this country is due to the fact that close observers can see the wheels coming off the wagon, and know that something has to be done about it. The very last thing the country needs is more politicians invested in the status quo, which is ironically what the anti-partisan Broderists would attempt to ensure.

Unsurprisingly, however, the media adoration has already begun, including from our local "progressive" weekly, the VC Reporter:

Just a few days after Gallegly’s announcement, Republican County Supervisor Linda Parks of Thousands Oaks stated her intention to run for the 26th District. The new district had already attracted a few known contenders, including progressive liberal County Supervisor Steve Bennett; conservative state Sen. Tony Strickland, R-Thousand Oaks, is expected to announce his run for the seat soon. But what makes Parks’ election campaign unique in comparison to, really, any other we have seen in the county, is that for a partisan seat, she has decided to declare “no party preference.”

Too many of us have relied on partisan politics to ensure that our ways of doing things remain steadfast on Capitol Hill and in Sacramento. As long as they were blue, red or green or whatever the preference, that’s where our votes would go. It didn’t matter exactly who the people were that represented us as long as their parties were clear. Over the years, though, more voters in general have begun to shift gears, some claiming that they have become fiscally conservative, yet socially minded, eco-friendly, etc. We were voting for whatever party best suited our moral compass because that evolution hadn’t been translated into politics. In June 2010, though, California voters did away with the two-party primary and replaced it with the two top vote-getters. Enter Parks. Taking advantage of the new law, it is pretty clear that Parks is geared up to fight the battle to best fill the position, not to be the best Republican.

It’s refreshing to see such a progressive stance in politics. While we are still wary that campaigning could get dirty, that it could turn into mudslinging instead of being about pride in accomplishments and future goals, we stand by Parks in her decision to put down the partisan mascot. We hope to see similar strides as the political atmosphere shifts into a truer representation of what and who Ventura County is.

Of course, Parks' run is neither a progressive nor positive development, nor is it truly in keeping with the values of Ventura County, which used to be solidly Republican, but has become much more Democratic in recent years and now has a voting majority of registered Democrats. Linda Parks would be a politician out of step with the views of the majority of Ventura County residents, who would be much better served by the likes of Steve Bennett instead.

But this is what happens when problems caused by pro-plutocratic policies get blamed on partisan infighting, and when supposed progressives get suckered into the rhetoric of anti-partisanship.

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Virtually Speaking 9est/6pst-- Culture of Truth and moi

2012-01-15T17:30:00.000-08:00

Virtually Speaking Sunday

by digby

Digby and CultureOfTruth discuss the developments of the week.

6pm PST, 9pm EST
Call in number to speak with the host (646) 200-3440

Listen to internet radio with Jay Ackroyd on Blog Talk Radio

The abortion bowl

2012-01-15T16:30:00.000-08:00

The abortion bowl

by digby

For those who are complaining that ~~Colbert's~~ The Definitely Not Coordinated With Stephen Colbert Super PAC's new ad against Mitt trivializes our elections, well I'm afraid that ship sailed when the Supremes ruled in favor of Citizens United. If you think Stephen Colbert is offensive, get a load of this:

Anti-abortion activist Randall Terry has been running graphic ads of aborted fetuses in key primary states, as my colleague Tim Murphy has reported. Now the gruesome ads are coming to the Super Bowl.

Nothing says "pass the dip" like a bloody fetus. Normally, Terry wouldn't be able to get these kinds of ads on television. So he's launching a non-serious campaign for president (running as a Democratic challenger to President Obama) in order to exploit a loophole in Federal Communications Commission rules that requires station to run campaign ads in the weeks ahead of a primary election—no matter how grisly they might be. In the 45 days ahead of a primary and 60 days ahead of a general election, candidates for federal office can run whatever they want on local stations, as long as they pay for the airtime.

Yes, the FCC can try to fine you a half-million dollars for a "wardrobe malfunction," but bundles of bloody body parts is A-okay.

Here's what you're going to be seeing:

The good news is that they can only run in states with primaries 45 days ahead of a primary, so anyone who isn't living in a Super Tuesday state should be spared. For now.

I wrote earlier about this creative campaign by Terry. They are very serious about using these new rules to proselytize and lie and there's not much anyone can do about it as long as it's "election related." Terry is recruiting candidates all over the country for the specific purpose of being able to run these ads.

You have to appreciate this worldview though. To zealots, nothing is more important than their own crusade and they just don't think about anything else. It must be nice to live in such a black and white world where the trade-offs are so obvious and everything is so simple.

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Mitt the Ripper by @DavidOAtkins

2012-01-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

Mitt the Ripper

by David Atkins

Stephen Colbert and his team are amazing:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

There are many layers of brilliance in this ad: a commentary on our campaign finance system, on our over-the-top attack ads, on Mitt Romney's duplicity, on Bain Capital, and on corporations themselves. It's genius.

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