The Democrats still haven't figured out that legislating as if their only priority is to keep their jobs is what makes so many voters want them gone:

The problem for Democrats is that voters have given them virtually no credit for these ambitious projects. The 111th Congress has the lowest average approval rating (19 percent) of any Congress heading into a midterm election since Gallup started tracking the measure in 1974. On key agenda items, Obama receives failing grades, with 38 percent of voters approving of his handling of the economy and 40 percent approving of his health-care approach, according to Gallup.

"They have the same problem as Republicans, which is, we're just trying to make it about Democrats," GOP pollster David Winston said. "And the public is saying, 'When is someone going to tell me what they're going to do?' The onus on both parties is: What is their plan to grow the economy and create jobs?"

Republicans have said they will not have a plan until late September, when they hope to unveil an agenda tentatively called a "Commitment With America."

And I'll bet it's just as awesome as the Contract On America!

Some endangered Democrats are thankful that there is no broad national agenda to answer for, preferring to run on local issues.

"We actually don't sit around talking about the national agenda," said Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (Ariz.), a second-term lawmaker whose election could turn almost entirely on the issue of border security. "A lot of the messaging that takes place in Washington doesn't make it 2,000 miles to Arizona."

Most Democrats want to focus the rest of this year and next on the economy, setting aside other issues, such as immigration reform, until job creation rebounds.

"Other major initiatives are in second place, need to stay on the sideline, until we get the economy back fully in gear," said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (Md.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

But Democrats find themselves in a box. Soaring annual deficits have made it fiscally and politically treacherous to propose another huge stimulus, leaving limited options for job creation.

Unless, of course, you saw it as part of your job to explain and lead... hah hah, just kidding!

So House Democrats are proposing less-ambitious proposals: a "Make It in America" plan, which closes tax benefits for businesses shipping jobs overseas and provides new hiring credits to local small businesses, and a proposal that would impose penalties on China for currency manipulation, the sort of measure that has often fallen flat in the free-trading Senate.

Obama and some Democrats also want to end the Bush-era tax cuts for the top 2 percent of income earners, which would save more than $600 billion over 10 years. But some senior Democrats, led by the Budget Committee chairman, Sen. Kent Conrad (N.D.), argue against raising any taxes while the economy is teetering on the brink of a double-dip recession. And the Democrats' plan to extend the middle-class portion of those tax cuts would increase deficits by around $3 trillion over the next decade.

I swear to God, their messaging on the subject of the deficit is abysmal. For instance: If you lost your job, would your family stop eating food to save money? How sensible would that be?

Deficit spending is a good idea when it's the right kind of spending. Chocolate bars and video games? Wrong kind. Gas in the tank to get to work? Right kind! Stimulus spending is gas in the tank.

It's really not that difficult -- assuming you're not an idiot, I mean.

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Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com gave his opinion today that this brief exchange on CNN this weekend encapsulated what the real opposition to this "mosque" business is all about. Eboo Patel, Executive Director of the Interfaith Youth Corps tried to get through that religious freedom and diversity is what America was founded on and all about.

Lemon: Don't you think it's a bit different considering what happened on 9/11? And the people have said there's a need for it in Lower Manhattan, so that's why it's being built there. What about 10, 20 blocks . . . Midtown Manhattan, considering the circumstances behind this? That's not understandable?

Patel: In America, we don't tell people based on their race or religion or ethnicity that they are free in this place, but not in that place --

Lemon: [interrupting] I understand that, but there's always context, Mr. Patel . . . this is an extraordinary circumstance. You understand that this is very heated. Many people lost their loved ones on 9/11 --

Patel: Including Muslim Americans who lost their loved ones. . . .

Lemon: Consider the context here. That's what I'm talking about.

Patel: I have to tell you that this seems a little like telling black people 50 years ago: you can sit anywhere on the bus you like - just not in the front.

Lemon: I think that's apples and oranges - I don't think that black people were behind a Terrorist plot to kill people and drive planes into a building. That's a completely different circumstance.

Patel: And American Muslims were not behind the terrorist plot either.

Greenwald:

That sums it up about as well as anything I've heard. Nothing related to Muslims should be near Ground Zero, because it was Muslims generally -- not the handful of extremists -- who flew the planes into those buildings. It's just amazing that that last point from Patel even needs to be uttered, but it does. This campaign is nothing different than all of the standard, definitively bigoted efforts to hold entire demographic groups of people responsible for the aberrational acts of a small percentage of individual members. Congratulations to CNN's Don Lemon for laying it all out in its naked clarity. This whole controversy is exactly that disgusting.

The article below is by Micah L. Sifry and is cross-posted from Tech-President.

Three years ago, we had a modest idea here at Personal Democracy Forum: that the internet could be a vehicle for transforming the presidential debates then underway. Instead of relying solely on journalists to determine the questions being asked of candidates; why not involve the public? Instead of giving the candidates 60 seconds to recite a canned answer, why not offer them unlimited time to prepare a serious response? And instead of letting candidates dodge questions during live debates, why not create a real feedback loop and let the public vote on whether they were satisfied with candidates' answers? Instead of debates tailored for (and constrained by) the demands of broadcast television, why not use the interactive and abundant nature of the internet to try something new and make debates far more participatory, content-rich, and accountable?

From that set of ideas was born 10Questions.com, a cross-partisan interactive platform for voter-candidate engagement that we are pleased to announce has been relaunched for the 2010 elections this week.

Continue reading »

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Rep. Gabby Giffords is the perfect example of why Democrats in Congress should shun Blue Dogs.

Howie Klein explains:

Giffords is looking like the point of the Blue Dog spear being thrust into the House progressive infrastructure. As we pointed out over the weekend, despite Pelosi's efforts to tamp it down, the Blue Dogs are going on the warpath against progressive Democrats, using Henry Waxman's interview with The Hill as an excuse. One thing we can always be sure of inside the Democratic Caucus-- well, two, actually: Blue Dogs will always put self-preservation above the party’s principles, and the DCCC will do whatever it can to help them get re-elected.

Giffords is emblematic of the tragic turn the House Democratic Party has taken. Over the weekend she launched a $350,000 ad buy in the Tucson media market that slams the principled stand Grijalva took against SB1070-- throwing him directly under the bus in order to make herself look sufficiently xenophobic for the bloodthirsty Know Nothing mobs. As you can see in the ad, she makes a solemn vow to fight “these groups” who have protested this unjust law by boycotting the state. “These groups” include Latinos, liberals, and citizens across the country who know an injustice when they see one. She's directly targeting Grijalva, Arizona's most progressive leader and the Congressman who most consistently stands up for those who are hurt by the right wing’s agenda.

We hear that other campaigns, pollsters, donors and politicians joined Grijalva's staff in futile attempts to show Giffords the obvious-- Democrats using other Democrats as punching bags is bad news for everyone. And when DCCC leaders, such as Vice Chair Wasserman Schultz, were approached with the argument that Giffords should not run the ad for obvious reasons, the argument fell on deaf ears. (Instead, they’re rewarding her behavior with close to a million dollars in independent expenditures.) It’s bad enough when so-called Democrats habitually vote against our agenda to save their seats, often with DCCC prompting. Now they're spending Democratic money to hurt real Democrats to save their seats.

Rep. Raul Grijalva is one of the true heroes in Arizona. He stood up against Arizona's odious and racist SB 1070 law when it was passed when most politicians remained silent. Howie, Digby and myself are supporting Grijalva's re-election bid because of his spine so we started an Act Blue page called: One America. We've raised over 4,000 dollars for him so far. Please pitch in if you can. The racism and xenophobia that we are witnessing is emblematic of the tried and true race-baiting tactics that the extreme right revels in and and it's seeping in to Democratic campaigning now too. Unfortunately for this great nation, our history is littered with this intolerable technique at the expense of minorities that live here. It's sad and embarrassing. The way to battle this kind of cancer is to point it out and expose it to the sunlight. Like all malignant ideas, bringing light to darkness always has a cleansing effect.

Howie talked to Grijalva before we started to run these stories and his latest quote nails the situation perfectly:

Continue reading »

I know we posted the Dr. Laura Schlessinger story on C&L a few days ago, but I wanted to make another significant point, if I may. In our book, 'Over The Cliff," we talk about how the Southern Strategy was used by the Republican party and how it evolved from outright racism to using code words to get the same points across. Chapter Six:

In 1981, political scientist Alexander P. Larris sat down for an interview with an anonymous Reagan strategist who outlined for him how the strategy worked:

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.”

It later emerged that the strategist was a young South Carolinian and Strom Thurmond protégé named Lee Atwater, a former chief executive of the College Republicans who had worked on the Reagan campaign under political director Ed Rollins.

What we have happening now is that the extreme right wingers like Dr. Laura and Breitbart are actually throwing their dog whistles in the garbage because they figure that if they yell "nigger " enough times out loud to the world and hold their breaths then that vile word will no longer hold the same despicable meaning that symbolized Jim Crow in American history to the media and their acolytes. Cheap Labor Conservatives do hate to be called racists and they have been trying to shed their racist past, but now with the economy down, conservative propagandists are reverting to a pre-1954 mindset on racism. It's sad and sickening, but it's happening. I actually never thought that in less than two years, the right wing noise machine would be as emboldened as they are now over race. Limbaugh's openly racist rants began as soon as President Obama took office and then FOX News immediately jumped on the bandwagon to promote every phony New Black Panther type smear they could find. All Cheap Labor Conservatives better start loading up their Ipods with the top 100 songs of 1954. Can you name the number one song? It has something to do with the time of day.

And don't forget to buy our book.

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Straight from the Cold War, former ambassador John Bolton attacks Russia's decision to provide low-enriched uranium fuel to Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor. Unsurprisingly, he uses the situation to suggest that Israel (or the United States) should attack Iran's nuclear energy infrastructure prior to the insertion of the fuel rods into the reactor. The fact that Iran has agreed to turn over the spent fuel rods back to Russia after their use doesn't appear to be a part of the discussion. The Faux News anchor helpfully feeds Bolton the lines needed to sensationalize the story and slam the United Nations as a bonus. From Newsmax:

Bolton made it clear that it is widely assumed that any Israeli attack on the Bushehr reactor must take place before the reactor is loaded with fuel rods.

"If they're going to do it that's the window that they have," Bolton declared. "Otherwise as I said before, once the rods are in the reactor, if you attack the reactor you're going to open it up and radiation will escape at least into the atmosphere and possibly into the waters of the Persian Gulf.

"So most people think that neither Israel nor the United States, come to that, would attack the reactor after it's been fueled."
------------
The failure to demand it be shut down began in the Bush years, he said, and continues with the Obama administration "under what I believe is the mistaken theory that Iran is entitled to the peaceful use of nuclear energy."

"I don't think Iran is entitled to that, or I don't think we ought to allow it to happen, because they're manifestly violating any number of obligations under the non-proliferation treaty not to seek nuclear weapons. But this has been a hole in American policy for some number of years, and Iran and Russia are obviously exploiting it," Bolton said.

The attitude that Iran isn't entitled "the peaceful use of nuclear energy" is not one shared by the many non-aligned nations who are signatories of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It's also interesting that pundits like John Bolton and his Faux News cheerleaders always forget that it was the United States government that first encouraged Iran to develop nuclear energy.

No, this is just another opportunity for The Mustached One to get on his high horse and repeat his mantra on how Israel would be justified in attacking Iran, how Iran's threat is at least equal to the 9/11 highjackers, that containment and deterrence won't work on Iran and that only a pre-emptive attack will stop other Middle East countries from seeking nuclear weapons. He's quite mad, but the right wing still loves him.

As a side note, one might suggest to the Obama administration that it might consider abandoning the Bush administration's policy of not negotiating with Iran until it promises to abandon its nuclear weapons program and allow IAEA inspectors back into the country. Isolation tactics don't seem to work when countries with economic problems need to make deals with anyone willing to pay cash. A more nuanced (and sane) discussion of Russia's deal with Iran can be found at the Washington Post.

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John Cornyn is the gift that keeps on giving. In one day, he's managed to generate two delicious, juicy, sound bites of stupid. Beginning with his appearance on Fox News, where he tossed the First Amendment in the trash for the sound bite:

This is not about freedom of religion. I do think it's unwise to build a mosque in the site where 3,000 Americans lost their lives as the result of a terrorist attack.

My, how subtle. Carefully framed so that Muslim = terrorist to stoke up the fear. But beyond that, what happened to conservatives' deep and abiding respect for the Constitution?

I'll call this one what it is: A flip-flop. They were for the Constitution before they were against it, and they were for freedom of religion before they were against it, too -- at least, for Muslims. Christians, evidently, are a class unto themselves.

But wait! There's more.

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Cornyn is desperately trying to put lipstick on a pig with his lukewarm Tea Party endorsements. This one made me laugh out loud.

Look, I think, you know, these races are going to be decided based on how people feel about the economy, how they feel about spending and debt. In Nevada, for example, 14.2 percent unemployment, 70 percent of the home mortgages are under water. If you like the way things are going in Nevada, I suppose that people will vote for Harry Reid. If they don't, then I think they have a good alternative in Sharron Angle.

Because outright crazy is good for the economy? Just to reiterate, Sharron Angle thinks Social Security should be privatized like Chile's, and she bases her idea on the fear foundation that Social Security is going broke, which it's not. Her MO is to do nothing, vote No on everything, and tell us all we're a bunch of deadbeats for wanting to work for a living wage. She advocates armed insurrection, thinks abortion should be outlawed even in the case of rape or incest, and fantasizes about coked-up stimulus monkeys.

Yup, just what Nevada needs.

And then, just as a final parting gift, this little gem.

But we're going to try to get as many Republicans because we think that will force President Obama to the middle, for example, when President Clinton had a Republican Congress. And we think that would be a good thing for the country, forcing things back toward the middle instead of the extreme policies that we've seen coming out of Washington.

Forced to the middle? Really? I'm almost afraid to imagine what Cornyn's idea of the middle is.

Seeing Cornyn dance around his own party's hard turn right, divisive tactics, and takeover by the John Birch society is entertaining, but it also should unwind the constant drumbeat that Republicans are going to sweep in and win large majorities in November. The deep divides and constant shark-jumping does not inspire confidence in their policies, their candidates, or their message.

I would advise them not to count their votes before they're cast, even if they do use voting machines.

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Republican strategist and former Mike Huckabee and Kathleen Harris adviser Ed Rollins threw RNC Chairman Michael Steele under the bus on Face the Nation this weekend.

Here's more from Think Progress -- GOP strategist says RNC Chairman Michael Steele is a ‘disaster.’:

Michael Steele’s term as Republican National Committee Chairman has been riddled with controversial verbal missteps that have roused the scorn of his Republican colleagues. His most recent gaffe in mischaracterizing the Afghanistan war prompted an outcry among prominent Republicans who called for his ouster. Remarking on the appearance of “Shadow RNC” Chairman Ed Gillespie over Steele as the RNC mouthpiece, Face the Nation’s Bob Schieffer asked GOP strategist Ed Rollins today whether the GOP should “do something” about Steele. Rollins doubled-down on his dismissal of Steele’s efficacy, calling him a “disaster” who has “failed miserably” in his mission:

SCHIEFFER: But Ed Rollins, I want to ask you about this. I mean quite frankly, no offense to Ed Gillespie who I have been dealing with and know to be a good guy for years and years and years but he wouldn’t be here unless if the chairman of the Republican Party currently Michael Steele was willing to go on television. But he’s so immersed in controversy that he’s kind of in a bunker these days. Are Republicans going to have to do something about Michael Steele?

ROLLINS: Well, there’s no time. Obviously he’s been a disaster. You have three men on this show — not me, but the other three — who have all been party chairmen and very distinguished party chairmen. Michael Steele has failed miserably in the things you’re supposed to do — raise money and basically go out and articulate the message. It’s not going to matter though. In 11 weeks from now, what he says and does in the next 11 weeks is not going to matter.

So nice to see Republicans saying that what the head of the RNC does doesn't matter. Michael Steele is the gift that keeps on giving.

History Eraser Button: A few photos of stuff the same distance from the World Trade Center as the "Ground Zero Mosque. Hallowed Ground? How can I tell?

The Reality-Based Community: Prisons Without Walls

Whiskey Fire: I am aware of his work

slacktivist: There is no basis in law, principle, doctrine or morality for opposition to the free exercise of religion by Islamic Americans. And their proximity to the Temple of Mammon on Wall Street doesn't change that.

Rising Hegemon: Never Speak Ill of the Dead

OFF THE BEATEN PATH: Youandmedoweagree's Blog, Great Big Lies, Reverend Manny and the Twilight Empire

I couldn't agree more with Joan Walsh, who called Harry Reid a "tower of Jello" on the Islamic Community Center issue.

Open thread below...