Another problem for the Catfood Commission - seniors vote.

Atrios writes:

The Democratic Party Self-Destruction Act

That's what Bowles and Simpson have submitted.

Conservative blogger Professor Bainbridge thinks Simpson and Bowles have submitted the Republican Party Self-Destruction Act:

Remember all those older tea party types who wanted the government to keep its hands off their Social Security and Medicare? Even setting aside opposition in the Senate and the White House, how does the House GOP cut old folk's entitlements without sending seniors running back to the Democrats for protection?

No sane political party will embrace the Catfood Commission. None ever would. It's DOA.

Speakng for me only

Krugman:

OK, let’s say goodbye to the deficit commission. If you’re sincerely worried about the US fiscal future — and there’s good reason to be — you don’t propose a plan that involves large cuts in income taxes. Even if those cuts are offset by supposed elimination of tax breaks elsewhere, balancing the budget is hard enough without giving out a lot of goodies — goodies that fairly obviously, even without having the details, would go largely to the very affluent.

Most of us knew the Catfood Commission was a Clown Show. This makes it official.

Speaking for me only

The first reports on the the Catfood Commission Report indicate that it has chosen to be a silly vanity project with no real world impact at all. The reason I say this is because it appears ready to recommend pie in the sky "think tank" style proposals that are politically DOA. Let's look at some of the specifics:

The proposed simplification of the tax code would repeal or modify a number of popular tax breaks — including the deductibility of mortgage interest payments[.]

Forget the merits of this proposal, the chances of this happening are precisely ZERO. So everything that follows from this (across the board income tax cuts) have no chance of being part of a deficit reduction plan.

Most of the reported recommendations strike me as right wing nonsense wholly unrelated to deficit reduction, including a full out assault on Social Security. I can not imagine a politician in the country embracing it. Maybe I am too sanguine, but it looks DOA to me. And thank goodness for that.

Speaking for me only

At Daily Kos, Bob Johnson wrote a diary asserting that President Obama was a Blue Dog Dem and always was. I think what Bob meant to say was that President Obama was a Clinton Democrat. As regular readers know, this was a constant theme of mine for the past 3 years.

At Balloon Juice, dengre takes exception:

Sillier yet is the whole fresh meme that President Obama is also a secret Blue Dog. His adversaries must think he is like Batman with a cave filled with strange costumes for every occasion[.]

dengre is right. Obama is not a secret Blue Dog. He is proud Clinton Democrat. Always was.

Speaking for me only

Meteor Blades discusses the decision of GOP governors to turn down federal money for rail projects and how that money should and can be transferred to states eager to fund high speed rail projects, which got me to thinking how the New Federalism could really be a boon to progressivism. Consider the rail money that Republican governors want to turn down, Texas' flirting with withdrawing from Medicaid and Oregon governor-elect John Kithaber's potential state based health reform within the framework of the Affordable Health Care Act.

If President Obama wants to package a structure that could be beneficial to progressivism while seeming to be a moderate conservative, this New Federalism could be the way to go.

Speaking for me only

I did not pay attention to Jon Stewart's rally for sanity or something because it was an example of the typical nothingness that passes for deep thought these days. Apparently, Stewart doesn't like all the anger out there. Whatever. But almost worse than the rally was Stewart's response to criticisms that his rally was about nothing:

Contrary to what people may believe, I do think the rally was about something - just not necessarily what they wanted it to be about or what they think it was about. If we were unartful in that message, we were unartful. I disagree with their classification of it. But I'm sure we'll all have a chance to clarify it on each other's programs for the next 10 years."

David Broder also insists his columns are about something meaningful. Saying it is does not make it so. So what exactly was Stewart's rally about? Apparently he'll need another 10 years to explain it. I suppose that's an improvement on Broder, who has had 50 years and still can't explain it.

Speaking for me only

I am just getting done with work and have an early court day tomorrow. Unfortunately, I haven't seen a bit of news all day.

Tonight on Fronline: The Confessions, the story of the Norfolk Four:

How could four men confess to a brutal crime that they didn't commit? FRONTLINE goes inside the incredible saga of the Norfolk Four -- a case that cracks open the justice system to reveal almost everything that goes wrong when innocent people get convicted.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

This post by Matt Yglesias is really funny to me:

Looks like Republicans aren’t going to back down on their threat to filibuster a defense appropriations bill unless it’s stripped of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell repeal legislation, and it looks like Democrats are going to cave. [. . .] Filibustering defense appropriations bills is politically risky. And to do it in order to support a hugely unpopular position on a related issue is a giant risk. [. . .] But not only are [the GOP] getting away with the filibuster, they’re turning their obstruction into a political winner by forcing the progressive community into circular firing squad mode.

(Emphasis supplied.) This is amazing. It is a political winner, AS IT ALWAYS IS, because it fires up the GOP base AND let's the populace know that the GOP actually stands for something and will fight for what it believes.

This reminds me of the silly theories forwarded by Beltway Bloggers that George Bush was unpopular because he would not compromise. That is just plain stupid. George Bush was unpopular because his policies sucked. Not because he rammed them through. The stupidity in the Democratic Beltway is a constant. The embrace of the Post Partisan Unity Schtick by the Beltway Dems is why progressivism in the Democratic Party cannot triumph. We need new blood in the Beltway Dem Party.

Speaking for me only

I defy anyone to defend the housing/foreclosure policy of the Obama Administration. It is a travesty. Full Disclosure - I've spent part of the week dealing with these policies for clients.

Open Thread.

Michael Kinsley beats Rachel Maddow in a 1 round KO (pun intended). Here's Kinsley:

MSNBC’s suspension of Keith Olbermann, which started out as “indefinite” and ended as two days, for making a few political campaign contributions is absurd in so many ways that it’s hard to keep track. If Olbermann had merely put these politicians on his show, representing a viewpoint he obviously shares, that would have been worth more than a campaign contribution of a few thousand dollars, but Olbermann would be considered blameless. Does anyone think that by suppressing the expression of his views (via these donations), Olbermann would have stopped having them? Does anyone doubt what Olbermann’s views are on politics in general and these races in particular? Most journalists try to suppress their biases — Olbermann gets paid to flaunt his biases. On a crude political scale, Olbermann is a left-wing liberal. MSNBC hired him to be a liberal and last week suspended him for the same thing. Or rather, not for being a liberal but for revealing it.

Maddow's position was that what makes MSNBC different than Fox is these absurd rules:

More thread.

Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki has surfaced in a video posted today calling for the death of Americans and blasting all Arab and Yemeni leaders as "corrupt." Not a smart way to gain friends and influence people when there's a kill target on your back.

Anwar al-Awlaki said no permission was needed to kill Americans as they are from the "party of devils".... "If the leaders are corrupt, the scholars have the responsibility to lead the nation."

Your turn. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

The New York Times reports liberal magazines like the Nation could see an increase in readers as a result of the recent elections.

Liberal magazines do well when the other side is in power:

The Bush years were good — very good — to The Nation. After operating in the red almost every year since it was founded by abolitionists in 1865, the magazine turned a profit in 2003. From 2001 to 2003, the magazine’s circulation leapt from 107,000 to 149,000 and kept growing. By 2006, it had reached its peak at 187,000.

I suspect (and hope) the same is true for blogs. [More...]

Via Colorado Independent:

Eighty-one percent of Latino voters in Colorado voted for Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet. Split the Latino vote down the middle between Bennet and Republican Ken Buck and Buck wins easily. Even if Buck had only received 30 percent of the Latino vote, he would have won the election.

Results here, from Latino Decision which reports 10% of Colorado voters are Latino. [More...]

For the past year, I've been writing about the sweetheart deal back in 1998 the DEA and DOJ gave David Headley, aka Daood Gilani, who this year pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago to his involvement in the Mumbai terror attacks. (McClatchy has as well.) It's good to see more of the mainstream media now following this aspect of the story. Three weeks ago Pro Publica and the Washington Post obtained some new details, mostly about an ex-wife of Headley's who had reported in 2005 after their break-up that Headley had terrorist leanings.

The New York Times today breaks more new ground , having obtained the transcript of his Nov. 16, 2001 hearing for early termination of supervised release. My favorite paragraph is the one describing what happened at the hearing, which took place one month after the first of three of Headley's ex-girlfriends/wives reported she suspected he had terrorist leanings: [More...]