Hullabaloo

Friday, September 16, 2011

 
Bad investments
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

As the Solyndra non-story picks up steam in the news media, it might be worth remembering this:

Osama al-Nujaifi, the Iraqi parliament speaker, has told Al Jazeera that the amount of Iraqi money unaccounted for by the US is $18.7bn - three times more than the reported $6.6bn.

Just before departing for a visit to the US, al-Nujaifi said that he has received a report this week based on information from US and Iraqi auditors that the amount of money withdrawn from a fund from Iraqi oil proceeds, but unaccounted for, is much more than the $6.6bn reported missing last week.

"There is a lot of money missing during the first American administration of Iraqi money in the first year of occupation.

"Iraq's development fund has lost around $18bn of Iraqi money in these operations - their location is unknown. Also missing are the documents of expenditure.

"I think it will be discussed soon. There should be an answer to where has Iraqi money gone."

And maybe more importantly this:

U.S. taxpayers spent a lot of money on the soldiers, but the Pentagon paid Halliburton to do the work. The company billed the military top dollar knowing that the brass would look the other way. The gravy train finally ground to a halt when two brave members of Congress inquired about the results of the internal audit.

Two, almost none of the money that American taxpayers provided for reconstruction was spent because the rules were too stringent for the CPA's taste.

And three, we dished out Iraqi money to companies like Halliburton like it was going out of style because the United States government knew that neither Congress nor the United Nations would ask us difficult questions about what we were doing with other people's money. Equally importantly, Bush officials were worried that the new Iraqi government might ask us difficult questions about their money once they gained any modicum of power. So they were eager to spend the money while they could.

Or this:

Excess billing for postwar fuel imports to Iraq by the Halliburton Company totaled more than $108 million, according to a report by Pentagon auditors that was completed last fall but has never been officially released to the public or to Congress.

In one case, according to the report, the company claimed that it had paid more than $27 million to transport liquefied petroleum gas it had purchased in Kuwait for just $82,000 - a fee the auditors tartly dismissed as "illogical."

A few lessons to learn from this:

1) Republicans scaring up the Solyndra while supporting the Iraq War, Vice President Cheney, and no-bid Halliburton contracts are pretty much tied for history's biggest hyopcrites; and

2) This is what happens when the government subcontracts private companies in the free market. Sometimes things go bust. Sometimes companies go under. Sometimes there may even be fraud involved, although there is little indication that deceit and fraud were operant in the Solyndra case.

3) We have learned what Republicans are willing to invest money toward. Perhaps the media might want to ask Republicans if the freedom to fail is also part of the free market. Evidently, big banks are allowed to implode the economy while getting free money from the government, but the government is not allowed to invest in green technology firms that might fail from time to time at a tiny fraction of the cost. When the NHS subsidizes testing for new pharmaceuticals that don't end up working, is that also a boondoggle of "government waste and abuse"?

God forbid any of the oil companies currently receiving lucrative tax-free subsidies go bankrupt. That would be waste on top of waste.

This sort of thing is probably where the media fails most to do its job: asking follow-up questions based on the implications of certain assumptions and talking-point-based attacks. Asking probing questions is part of my job description as a focus group moderator. It comes fairly naturally. Attorneys are even better than researchers at identifying logical contradictions or reductio ad absurdum implications of certain statements. But whatever they teach in journalism school these days, it isn't how to how hold people accountable for the sum total of their political worldview.

You can't talk about the Solyndra story while ignoring the epic scale of the Halliburton story that dwarfs it both financially and especially morally. You can't talk about the Solyndra loan without asking why the government is forced to invest in risky private companies to do the jobs that need doing in the first place. And you can't talk about the Solyndra loan without asking how and in what ways it fundamentally differs from government investments in risky industries that conservatives do support.


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thereisnospoon 9/16/2011 03:15:00 PM |

 
School for scandal

by digby


Ok. After having just watched the fourth breathless "Solyndra" piece on cable TV, I guess I have to just give up and accept that this stupid, trumped up, pseudo-scandal has got the typically braindead press corps all hot and bothered and it's not going away. There's just no end to this nonsense.

So, it's time to get educated on the damned thing because we're going to have to talk about it whether we want to or not. Here's a timeline of events from ThinkProgress, the five biggest lies about Solyndra by Dave Johnson and Joe Conason on Solyndra vs Whitewater.

And here's Kevin Drum's pithy explanation which serves as an excellent starting place:

Basically, Solyndra was working on a solar technology that promised to be cheaper than silicon, and at the time of the loan it looked really promising both to DOE and to private investors. But then the market turned: Silicon prices dropped, and China started producing super low-cost silicon PV. That spelled doom for Solyndra. They had a good idea, but it didn't work out.

In any case, Solyndra is a tiny fraction of DOE's green-energy loan program, and Solyndra's loan guarantees are dwarfed by those of both fossil fuel and nuclear companies, which range into the multiple billions. There was no scandal in the loan process, and there's nothing unusual about having a certain fraction of speculative programs like this fail. It's all part of the way the free market works.

This is one of the many ways the right --- with the help of well-meaning reformers and the press -- have managed to make any kind of government spending a huge risk for anyone who undertakes it. It started with the "fleecing of America" reports, in which stories about the government funding "the sex life of honeybee studies" and the like became common shorthand for government inefficiency and waste. Over time these stories took on a life of their own creating an image of liberal government run amock even to the extent that Bobby Jindahl mockingly referred to "volcano monitoring" as a ridiculous waste of government money.

This problem was obvious when the stimulus was being proposed. The administration was desperate not to have any of the money go to projects that didn't pan out because this kind of hissy fit would be the obvious result. (Remember all the shrieking that some of the money was going to public health programs and fixing the grass on the Washington Mall?) They weren't wrong to be worried and it's actually surprised me that something like the Solyndra failure hasn't come to light earlier. Of course some of the money was going to go to failed projects, particularly when the free market fetishists insist that they go to private enterprise, the very definition of "risky." Nobody bats a thousand and the fact is that the "success" of the program isn't the most important thing about economic stimulus in any case. Getting the money into the economy is.

So this goes, once again, to the problem of right wing tropes being the default standard because liberalism is the ideology that dare not speak its name. If people understood the role of government in economic crises as being something other than "please save us by cutting spending" this would not be the problem that it is. Unfortunately, the entire population has been indoctrinated into this concept (which I recognize is easy to do) and so they are extremely skeptical of something like stimulus to begin with --- and are quite ready to believe that the whole thing is a crooked game.

What makes it most delicious for the Republicans is their ability to manipulate the press into focusing on alleged Democratic corruption (not that it doesn't ever exist, mind you) while successfully obscuring and stonewalling the very serious, high dollar corruption of the GOP. It all works together like a well oiled machine to paralyze liberal action. And the centrists, like vultures, are there waiting to leap on whatever opening either side gives them to portray themselves as the "pragmatic" "moderate" "common sense" alternative, which somehow always seems to end up being that which benefits the wealthy status quo.


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digby 9/16/2011 02:00:00 PM |

 
Plane authoritarians

by digby

I haven't written about this awful "flying while brown" incident from last week-end, but James Fallows has covered it in depth and I highly recommend you read about it. It reminded me of an incident the last time I flew a couple of months ago.

I was standing on the boarding line, long after all of us had passed through security, when a group of four TSA agents in uniform walked up and began examining the line of about 30 people, walking up and down, looking at us and our luggage. They pulled this young kid (looked about 17) in front of me out of the line and marched him over to the desk where they talked to him at length and looked all through his luggage. When he came back he was pretty shaken. His girlfriend asked what it was about and he said, "I don't know, but it's all pretty weird considering I'm Jewish." The guy standing right in front of him, who hadn't gotten any attention at all turned around and said, "and I'm Muslim." We all shared a nervous laugh and boarded the plane.

I only relate this to show how crude profiling is. In the case Fallows writes about, the plane had already landed and the only thing the people involved had done to raise suspicion was be seated together to precipitate a SWAT team style boarding of the plane and the suspected passengers being hustled off in handcuffs. It's the kind of thing I used to think of as an authoritarian scare tactic designed to make the populace paranoid and anxious. That couldn't happen here, right?

Just in case, I won't be laughing with my fellow suspected passengers anymore, though. This stuff works like a charm.

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digby 9/16/2011 12:30:00 PM |

 
Tim's Bay of Pigs

by digby

Perhaps you've seen this already:

A new book offering an insider's account of the White House's response to the financial crisis says that U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner ignored an order from President Barack Obama calling for reconstruction of major banks.

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, the incident is just one of several in which Obama struggled with a divided group of advisers, some of whom he didn't initially consider for their high-profile roles.

Suskind interviewed more than 200 people, including Obama, Geithner and other top officials for "Confidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and The Education of A President," which will be released Sept. 20. The Associated Press purchased a copy on Thursday.

The book states Geithner and the Treasury Department ignored a March 2009 order to consider dissolving banking giant Citigroup while continuing stress tests on banks, which were burdened with toxic mortgage assets.

In the book, Obama does not deny Suskind's account, but does not reveal what he told Geithner when he found out. "Agitated may be too strong a word," Suskind quotes Obama as saying. Obama says later in the book that he was trying to be decisive but "the speed with which the bureaucracy could exercise my decision was slower than I wanted."

Geithner says in the book that he did not recall that Obama was mad at him about the Citigroup decision and rejected allegations contained in White House documents that his department had been slow to enact the president's plans.

"I don't slow walk the president on anything," Geithner told Suskind.

"The Citbank incident, and others like it, reflected a more pernicious and personal dilemma emerging from inside the administration: that the young president's authority was being systematically undermined or hedged by his seasoned advisers," Suskind writes.

I haven't read the book but Susskind is a highly reputable reporter with a strong record. I have no reason to suspect his facts. So what would this mean? So far, as one would expect, liberals are gathering into factions. The defenders are saying it's all hogwash, don't believe a word of it and the super critics are saying it's a whitewash, excusing the President's leadership by saying it's his advisers who have led him astray.

As I said, I haven't read the book although I plan to. But if this passage is correct, I don't think it excuses the President at all. What it does is paint him as somewhat weak in his early days in office, which I don't find surprising. It's reminiscent of another young president who got swept along by the existing hierarchy and approved a fateful assault called the Bay of Pigs. The question is what happened next. In Kennedy's case, he learned to be extremely skeptical of the establishment and he relied on different advisors before making such decisions in the future.

It must mean something that Tim Geithner is almost all that's left of President Obama's original economic advisers. The only logical answer is that in spite of the above anecdote the President came to depend on Geithner to the exclusion of the others --- and that is very different from how Kennedy reacted. I'll be fascinated to read the book to get a sense of how that happened.



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digby 9/16/2011 11:00:00 AM |

 
That was the week that was

by digby

This came out yesterday, but it was so depressing that I didn't want to post it:

The number of people applying for unemployment benefits jumped last week to the highest level in three months. It's a sign that the job market remains depressed.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications rose by 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 428,000. The week included the Labor Day holiday.

Applications typically drop during short work weeks. In this case, applications didn't drop as much as the department expected, so the seasonally adjusted value rose. A Labor spokesman said the total wasn't affected by Hurricane Irene.
Still, applications appear to be trending up. The four-week average, a less volatile measure, rose for the fourth straight week to 419,500.

Applications need to fall below 375,000 to indicate that hiring is increasing enough to lower the unemployment rate. They haven't been below that level since February.
The economy added zero net jobs in August, the worst showing since September 2010. The unemployment rate stayed at 9.1 percent for the second straight month.
The job figures were weak because companies hired fewer workers and not because they stepped up layoffs, economists said. Business and consumer confidence fell last month after a series of events renewed recession fears.

The government reported that the economy barely grew in the first half of the year. Lawmakers fought over raising the debt ceiling. Standard & Poor's downgraded long-term U.S. debt for the first time in history. Stocks tumbled — the Dow lost nearly 16 percent of its value from July 21 through Aug. 10.

Businesses added only 17,000 jobs in August, which was a sharp drop from 156,000 in July. Government cut 17,000 jobs. Combined, total net payrolls did not change.
Unemployment benefit applications are considered a measure of the pace of layoffs.
The total number of people receiving benefits dipped 12,000 to 3.73 million, the third straight decline. But that doesn't include about 3.4 million additional people receiving extended benefits under emergency programs put in place during the recession. All told, about 7.14 million people received benefits for the week ending Aug. 27, the latest data available.

More jobs are desperately needed to fuel faster economic growth. Higher employment leads to more income. That boosts consumer spending, which accounts for about 70 percent of economic growth.

Higher gas and food prices have cut into their buying power this year. The economy expanded at an annual rate of just 0.7 percent, the slowest growth since the recession officially ended two years ago.

So, what to do? Well, even the IMF has weighed in on the lunacy of creating contractionary policies in this environment, so anyone with any sense would not propose that the government would do that. So naturally, the millionaire lunkheads in the Senate are gathering their forces:

Saxby Chambliss’ Gang of Six has grown to 38 U.S. senators from both parties, who on Thursday urged the debt reduction “supercommittee” to aim high and secure $4 trillion in budget savings.

The Georgia Republican was joined by Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., and a group too large to fit on the news conference stage to send a message to the 12-member joint committee created in the summer’s deal to raise the debt ceiling. The committee must devise a plan by November to reduce future deficits by at least $1.2 trillion, on top of $917 billion in already agreed-upon savings. Chambliss and his gang want to nearly double that, as most budget experts say a $4 trillion course correction is necessary to lasso the nation’s rising debt.

“As you can see, our numbers have grown significantly,” Chambliss said. “We’re not only bipartisan, but we stretch on both sides of the spectrum in our respective caucuses. That’s how serious we know this debt is.”

That's very impressive in its bipartisan idiocy, I'm sure.

But never let it be said that the House of Representatives is going to be left out of the insanity:

Two separate but related Republican efforts are increasing the odds that the government will shut down at the end of September, despite repeated assurances from both GOP and Democratic leaders that neither party has an appetite for another round of brinksmanship.

In a Thursday letter, over 50 House Republicans, led by Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), pushed Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) to make steep cuts to discretionary spending in the next fiscal year, reneging on the agreement the parties struck to resolve the debt limit standoff. That legislation set a cap on discretionary spending at $1.043 trillion and both Boehner and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) are committed to funding the government at that level for the coming year.

But many House conservatives want to go lower, and if they defect then House Democrats will have to pitch in to make sure it passes and avert a shut down.

It doesn't get any better than that for sheer foolishness. Setting aside the bad economics, you have to wonder if the Republicans are just hoping to suppress turnout to zero in the coming election with gambits like this.

Recall:

It is important to recognize how fragile economic perceptions were headed into the final stretch of the debt-ceiling negotiation. Along with Hart Research [Associates], we have been doing economic tracking roughly every quarter from 2007 through today for CNBC. Workers’ perceptions of their likelihood to get a raise, Americans’ confidence in the stock market, and homeowners’ perceptions of their home value were as weak or weaker in June 2011 than they have been at any point during this four-year period.

Americans’ attitudes about the debt ceiling are not only based on the actual outcome but are primarily derived from the manner in which this issue was debated and resolved. Their views about this process are clear, and are overwhelmingly negative.” McInturff contends, “The perception of how Washington handled the debt-ceiling negotiation led to an immediate collapse of confidence in government and all the major players, including President Obama and Republicans in Congress.

So let's start talking about another shutdown!

Oy. Thank God it's the week-end ...

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digby 9/16/2011 09:40:00 AM |

 
Using the Pulpit
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

Digby had a fantastic post yesterday about how the media doesn't even try to analyze whether claims made by various hacks are right or wrong, but simply does its stenographic duty and then reports on the public's perception of the misinformation they blithely helped provide:

Yes, he's accurately reporting what people inaccurately believe. He just forgets to present the real facts and correct their misapprehensions. And then goes on to praise presidential candidates for being savvy enough to flog the same misinformation.

We have a very serious problem with epistemology in this culture and a huge part of it is due to the press. I don't know how to fix it. But until we do, our politics are going to be distorted and dysfunctional.

That's true. Nor can we expect the media to change its stripes. What is going today is a partisanization of the media, rapid on the Right but also slowly gaining steam on the Left. That trend, while better than the misinformation masquerading as objectivity on display in the traditional media, isn't going to solve our epistemology problem. I know there is a cadre of strict deconstructionists who believe that true epistemic objectivity is impossible, and that only the exposure of isms and political agendas in all texts can hope to provide clarity. Thankfully, no one outside of an ivory tower actually believes that. (That sort of thinking is why I left academia.)

There is an actual reality out there. That reality happens to have a liberal bias most of the time. It would be nice if journalists attempted to stand by it and call out peddlers of misinformation, regardless of whether it meant that the journalist appeared to have a liberal slant. Objectivity is defined by adherence to the facts, not the artificial rejection of ideological appearance.

But the media is not likely to provide that. A few corporations dominate the media world; those who aren't bought off are afraid to upset colleagues or readers; there's a general culture of pseudo-objectivity; and an increasingly partisan media isn't really helping solve the problem.

But that's where the much-maligned "bully pulpit" comes in. When the facts are made increasingly irrelevant by a conservative opposition that simply doesn't care if it peddles outrageous lies to a pliant media, the only option left is to tell an alternative story. The truth lies not in attempting to refute the conservative's story through a dispassionate resort to facts, but rather in weaving the facts into a narrative that fits an ideology that makes sense in the context of the universe that actually exists.

That is why the President must be a partisan. A Democratic President's job is first and foremost to explain issues in the context of a progressive narrative. The job is to show why the conservative narrative fails to account for reality.

Telling that story in turn influences the media, who are forced to scribble down notes and dutifully act as stenographers for that story.

In a world where epistemology is dead, all that is left is competing narrative. The narrative that most closely fits the facts should win the day, so long as it is communicated emotionally and effectively. And that's what the bully pulpit is there for. No sane believes that the bully pulpit will help convince Senator X or Y to pass a specific piece of legislation. But it should be able to tilt the media playing field in a specific direction that makes the job of convincing Senator X or Y behind the scenes, easier to accomplish.


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thereisnospoon 9/16/2011 07:30:00 AM |

Thursday, September 15, 2011

 
Unpopular Bill

by digby

Well this is fun.

I'll just pile on with my own favorite Bill Daley story, which I think fits quite well with the emerging narrative:

This passage from Jeffrey Toobin's book about the 2000 election recount (in which Daley served as Gore's campaign chairman) probably illustrates how Daley will be advising the president better than anything else could:

Even though the automatic recount had cut Bush's lead dramatically in the previous three days, Christopher and Daley offered little hope that the margin could be eliminated completely. "Look you got screwed," said Daley, "but people get screwed every day. They don't have a remedy. Black people get screwed all the time. They don't have a remedy. Sometimes there's no remedy. There's nothing you can do about it...

Lieberman did not share the advisers' reluctance to push forward on all fronts. This became a recurring theme of the post-election period. The Connecticut senator always sounded like a warrior --- in private settings. (Much to the frustration of the Hawks on Gore's team he sounded much different before the cameras.)

Gore too railed against the prophesies of hopelessness he was hearing from Daley. He drew a series of concentric circles on the butcher paper to illustrate what he saw as his responsibilities.Inside the smallest circles were Gore and Lieberman; their closest supporters were in the next circle, then Democrats generally, finally the country as a whole. Gore said his actions had to serve all those groups not just those closest to him. An immediate surrender would be a violation of his obligations to all those who supported him, he said ---- all the people in the circles...

In the end Gore thought they shouldn't make "any momentous decisions." But it was clear that Daley and Christopher felt any victory for Gore was impossible even though more people had gone to the polls there intending to vote for the Vice President than for Bush. Gore and Lieberman couldn't wage the battle alone, of course, and their two principle deputies were telling them, in effect, to give up.

This Saturday had begun with Bush and Gore locked in a closer contest than earlier in the week.Indeed, the Vice President had made gains over the past three days. But the day ended with James Baker leading the attack --- and Bill Daley and Warren Christopher making the case for surrender.

Who ever could have guessed that he'd be the wrong man for the job?

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digby 9/15/2011 06:30:00 PM |

 
Michelle Obama's Marxist takeover of your lunch

by digby

So the domineering harpy Michelle Obama has once again pulled on her Prada jackboots and put them to the throat of business insisting they rip the Tollhouse cookies out of the hands of crying little children and replace them with slimy okra:

Calorie by calorie, first lady Michelle Obama is chipping away at big portions and unhealthy food in an effort to help America slim down.

In the year and a half since she announced her campaign to curb childhood obesity, Mrs. Obama has stood alongside Wal-Mart, Olive Garden and many other food companies as they have announced improvements to their recipes - fewer calories, less sodium, better children's menus.

The changes are small steps, in most cases. Fried foods and french fries will still be on the menu, though enticing pictures of those foods may be gone. High-sodium soups, which many consumers prefer, will still be on the grocery aisle. But the amount of sodium in each can will gradually decrease in some cases, and the taste of their low-sodium variety will be improved.

On Thursday, the first lady joined Darden Restaurants Inc. executives at one of their Olive Garden restaurants in Hyattsville, Md., near Washington to announce that the company's chains are pledging to cut calories and sodium in their meals by 20 percent over a decade. Fruit or vegetable side dishes and low-fat milk will become standard with kids' meals unless a substitution is requested.

Mrs. Obama said Darden's announcement is a "breakthrough moment" for the industry. The company owns 1,900 restaurants in 49 states, including Olive Garden, Red Lobster, LongHorn Steakhouse, The Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze and Seasons 52.

"I believe the changes that Darden will make could impact the health and well-being of an entire generation of young people," the first lady said.

I'm sure there's something horribly wrong with what Michelle Obama is doing. I'm just too tired to figure out what it is.

Meanwhile that lean and buff conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh, says she's fat.

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digby 9/15/2011 05:30:00 PM |

 
Hitting Back at the Do-Nothing Chorus
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

No sooner does President Obama finally go on offense than we see another pathetic attempt by blue dogs and their ideologically aligned Senators to attempt to derail him:

President Obama anticipated Republican resistance to his jobs program, but he is now meeting increasing pushback from his own party. Many Congressional Democrats, smarting from the fallout over the 2009 stimulus bill, say there is little chance they will be able to support the bill as a single entity, citing an array of elements they cannot abide.

“I think the American people are very skeptical of big pieces of legislation,” Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat from Pennsylvania, said in an interview Wednesday, joining a growing chorus of Democrats who prefer an à la carte version of the bill despite White House resistance to that approach. “For that reason alone I think we should break it up.”

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, has said he will put the bill on the legislative calendar but has declined to say when. He almost certainly will push the bill — which Mr. Obama urged Congress to pass “right now!” — until after his chamber’s recess at the end of the month; Mr. Reid has set votes on disaster aid, extensions for the Federal Aviation Administration and a short-term spending plan ahead of the jobs bill.

Republicans have focused their attack on the tax increases that would help pay for the spending components of the bill. But Democrats, as is their wont, are divided over their objections, which stem from Mr. Obama’s sinking popularity in polls, parochial concerns and the party’s chronic inability to unite around a legislative initiative, even in the face of Republican opposition.

Some are unhappy about the specific types of companies, particularly the oil industry, that would lose tax benefits. “I have said for months that I am not supporting a repeal of tax cuts for the oil industry unless there are other industries that contribute,” said Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana...

There are also Democrats, some of them senators up for election in 2012, who oppose the bill simply for its mental connection to the stimulus bill, which laid at least part of the foundation for the Republican takeover of the House in 2010.

“I have serious questions about the level of spending that President Obama proposed,” said Senator Joe Manchin III, a Democrat from West Virginia, in a statement issued right after Mr. Obama spoke to a joint session of Congress last week.

The "Democrats divided" storyline also contains a good old-fashioned hippie-punch at "shrieking" progressive DiFazio:

A small but vocal group dislikes the payroll tax cuts for employees and small businesses. “I have been very unequivocal,” said Representative Peter A. DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon. “No more tax cuts.”

His voice rising to a near shriek, he added: “We have the economy that tax cuts give us. And it’s pretty pathetic, isn’t it? The president is in a box.”

In many ways, this is a mess of the Administration's own creation. President Obama has chosen to align himself ideologically with the centrists and has given them undue power and influence over policy time and time again, including during the healthcare fight and the deficit reduction fight. So it's a bigger story than it should be when the Mary Landrieus of the world push back against him in the press on behalf of her oil company executive overlords. A story that should be good for an eye-rolling laugh in the same way as when Collins and Snowe disagree with Boehner, all of a sudden becomes some sort of serious intra-party fracture.

Also, the President has put himself in this bind by underselling the positive effects of the stimulus last year, and by making the stimulus over-laden with tax cuts in the first place.

Most importantly, the President put himself in this bind by giving credibility to the deficit hawks for the last year and a half. It's very difficult to spend all one's time saying the deficit is the nation's biggest challenge while hinting at cutting social security, and then turn around and say that we need to cut taxes and increase domestic spending on jobs. It's schizophrenic and its confuses voters, which in turn makes legislators in purple states and districts queasy.

That said, John Cole fairly accurately summed up the politics of the jobs fight a while back:

In the long term, assuming a plan gets through the House (it won’t), then we get to go through our usual drama of the blue dogs from Red States (Manchin, Nelson, Landrieu, McCaskill, etc.), Lieberman just so he can continue to be the world’s preeminent douchenozzle, and some others I am sure I am missing. They’ll cockblock it on the Senate side, moaning about the program being a deficit buster while conveniently ignoring the fact that each one of them represents a welfare state sucking at the federal teat. Finally, at the 11th hour, Snowe and Collins will swoop in and offer tax cuts for the ultra-rich as a sweetener and they will support it. At this point, Bernie Sanders or whatever progressive hero of the moment will claim he can’t support anything with tax cuts for the rich in it. This will bring things to a standstill for a couple more weeks until another shitty jobs report comes out, and the Senate, acting in the fierce urgency of when-the-fuck-ever will pass some piece of shit that is too small, unfocussed, and does nothing other than provide the left with another opportunity to fracture and start flinging shit at each other. Republicans will have spent the entire time using procedural tricks to slow things down while having Frank Luntz work on the framing of the issue so that by the time it is about to hit the President’s desk, they will already have a cute name, the talking points will be distributed, and we’ll all be hearing about the new “Porkulus” or “Obamacare” or whatever the fuck childish name they come up with. In three months time, when employment hasn’t picked up because we are actually in the same god damned depression we’ve been in since 2007, Rick Perry can claim that Keynesian ideology has once again been disproven. Because everyone hates the bill, Friedman, Brooks, and other members of the Centrist jihad will claim this as proof that the bill is great.

I think his characterization of progressives in this fight is deeply unfair. I would remind John that progressives, even Dennis Kucinich, did the right thing by voting for ACA in the end. There's nothing wrong with progressives using what little leverage we have to put our thumb on the scales for the middle-class insofar as possible, given all the inducements of corporate cash everywhere else. I would also ask John why Obama thinks using the bully pulpit to push the jobs bill is a good idea, if the bully pulpit is as useless as he often claims. But overall, his big picture of the these fights go is fairly accurate, especially here.

In the end, the jobs bill is unlikely to pass as a single entity, unless it's horribly watered down. The typical Obama Administration reaction to that would be to water it down to the point where the President thinks it might pass--at which point the GOP would use that dramatically weakened negotiating point to move the goalposts even farther to the right. Then, after two weeks of Fox News drumbeats, the useless blue dogs would shift to the right with them.

So it's heartening to see that the Obama Administration is going out on the road to push this bill anyway. Even though it likely won't pass. That's a good thing. Traditional analysis says that flogging a bill that ends up failing would make the President look weak. But in today's political environment, that's just not the case.

If the President moves forward, uses the pulpit to push the bill, shows anger at the do-nothing chorus in both parties that refuses to address the issue, and then reluctantly states that he is going to go after each item piecemeal due to the recalcitrance of the Republicans and even some Democrats, the President will gain support, not lose it. Congress is deeply unpopular, and what the people want is to know who is fighting for their values, and who isn't.

Even if the President doesn't get his jobs bill, fighting for it is the right thing to do. Let the do-nothing GOP and Blue Dog chorus whine and wail all they want: their intransigence will weaken the bill anyway and everyone paying close attention knows it. They might as well take a political hit for doing so while they're at it, and the President might as well get credit for being a populist champion who at least wants to create jobs, even if Congress won't let him.


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thereisnospoon 9/15/2011 04:00:00 PM |

 
Putting everything on the table

by digby

That race in NY this week featured a lot of talk about Israel and a whole lot of analysis about ethnicity and demographics. But one thing very few have noticed was an important piece ofstandard 2010 messaging.

Dave Weigel did:

In two robocalls, Koch promised voters that Turner wouldn’t cut Medicare or Social Security. The weekend before the election, Hikind said the same thing, and bolstered his case by saying Democrats were risking the programs:

“The president of the United States is now a member of the Tea Party!” said Hikind. “He said, in his own words, that there won’t be Medicare and Social Security for my children and your children and my grandchildren unless we address Medicare!”

That’s not really a wedge issue – it’s the slow death of a wedge issue. It’s the start of a problem for Democrats, who have gone from attacking the Ryan plans for entitlement reform to vouching support for some undefined “everything on the table” entitlement reform. There might not be any way for Democrats to dodge this, and there's no sign that they want to. And that leaves all of them in the position of Democrats in New York's 9th. Their traditional base, weary of the recession, not sure what Democrats have to offer any more, are ready to be wedged.

"This message will resound for a full year," said Turner in his victory speech. "It will resound into 2012."

There are zero reasons to believe they won't use this --- to good effect --- against Democrats and the president in 2012. Why would they? It's working.


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digby 9/15/2011 02:30:00 PM |

 
Making Us Stupid

by digby

If you want to know why we are so screwed as a nation, you can probably find a couple of dozen good reasons. But this, I say, is right at the top of the list.

From MSNBC, with Chuck Todd filling in for Andrea Mitchell:

Richard Stengel, managing editor of TIME magazine: I think [Rick Perry's] on to something. Do Americans really realize that there is no such thing as a social security trust fund? That it's a pay as you go program and when there are fewer paying in than what you get out? Are they're any people under 35 in America who believe that Social Security is going to be there as it is and was for their parents? So I think he's hearing something that maybe the other candidates aren't hearing.

Right. He's hearing you, spouting misinformation that's been spread by the financial services industry to make people believe that the Social Security system is going broke.

Yes, there is a trust fund. It's been conservatively invested in US treasury bonds. Current contributions and those bonds will keep the checks coming at their current levels for another 35 years --- at which point it will only be able to pay out about 80% of what it's paying today unless we do the only intelligent thing and ask people who make over 100k to pony up the same percentage of their income that everyone else does. That's it. That's the crisis.

If people under 35 think it won't be there for them it's because journalists like Richard Stengal don't do their jobs. Yes, he's accurately reporting what people inaccurately believe. He just forgets to present the real facts and correct their misapprehensions. And then goes on to praise presidential candidates for being savvy enough to flog the same misinformation.

We have a very serious problem with epistemology in this culture and a huge part of it is due to the press. I don't know how to fix it. But until we do, our politics are going to be distorted and dysfunctional.



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digby 9/15/2011 12:30:00 PM |

 
A Brave Journalist

by digby

I always admire the intrepid journalists like Richard Engel or Lara Logan, throwing themselves into the line of fire to bring home the story. They are brave, brave people and as much as I criticize the press, I consider these reporters to be heroes.

But there is no reporter alive as brave as Walter Shapiro:

It was a self-inflicted, eye-glazing marathon—50 hours in late August spent watching a full sampling of the Fox News lineup. Looking back, it seems like a nine-day hallucination of strident voices, blonde hair, and more pitchmen hawking gold coins than at any time since the heyday of King Midas.

Why did I volunteer for this ordeal when a rational person would have been at the beach? Not to belabor the predictable liberal lament that Fox News fails to uphold the high TV journalistic traditions of Edward R. Murrow and Eliot Spitzer. Rather, I wanted to know how the leading cable news network was deploying its unprecedented powers in its coverage of the 2012 GOP presidential race.

Few Republican voters outside Iowa and New Hampshire will glimpse a presidential contender on anything other than a TV screen. And that TV screen is apt to be tuned to Fox. According to a 2010 poll by the Pew Research Center, 40 percent of Republicans habitually watch Fox News. Bill O’Reilly alone regularly attracts 21 percent of Republicans. It is a safe guess (although Pew did not ask the question directly) that more than half the activists who will be voting in the GOP primaries are Fox faithful. There is no equivalent thumb-on-the-scales force on the Democratic side—not even if you combine MSNBC, NPR, and The New York Times. And, as it turned out, the lesson of my TV marathon was unambiguous: The Fox News primary already has a winner.

Shapiro got out alive, but I'm sure he'll never be the same. Nobody can survive something like that without sever psychological damage.

But the story he brought back is worth it. He's absolutely correct that this is how most Republicans will get their information about these primaries and Roger Ailes' preference is, therefore, extremely important. Read the whole thing to find out who that is ...


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digby 9/15/2011 11:00:00 AM |

 
Facts without context

by digby

I think it's great that newspapers have found the resources to employ fact checkers. But strangely, they often seem to have such a skeptical attitude that they become rather thick literalists and fail to take context into consideration.

For instance, the Washington Post is "debunking" the idea that the Tea Partiers "cheered" for the death of the uninsured during the debate the other night:

A few jeers? Yes. Heckles? No question. “Audience” cheers? No way.

The voices that can be heard in the video — perhaps two or three of them — don’t constitute an “audience” reaction. The episode is the clumsy work of a few loons or meatheads in the audience.

A fine headline would read: “Debate hecklers cheer death of uninsured.”

But look at the whole exchange:

BLITZER: Thank you, Governor. Before I get to Michele Bachmann, I want to just -- you're a physician, Ron Paul, so you're a doctor. You know something about this subject. Let me ask you this hypothetical question.

A healthy 30-year-old young man has a good job, makes a good living, but decides, you know what? I'm not going to spend $200 or $300 a month for health insurance because I'm healthy, I don't need it. But something terrible happens, all of a sudden he needs it.

Who's going to pay if he goes into a coma, for example? Who pays for that?

PAUL: Well, in a society that you accept welfarism and socialism, he expects the government to take care of him.

BLITZER: Well, what do you want?

PAUL: But what he should do is whatever he wants to do, and assume responsibility for himself. My advice to him would have a major medical policy, but not be forced --

BLITZER: But he doesn't have that. He doesn't have it, and he needs intensive care for six months. Who pays?

PAUL: That's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks. This whole idea that you have to prepare and take care of everybody --

(APPLAUSE)

BLITZER: But Congressman, are you saying that society should just let him die?

(Hecklers shout "Yeah!")

What was that applause just before Blitzer said "are you saying society should just let him die?" all about? Blitzer had been relentlessly framing the hypothetical as someone who needed intensive care for six months and didn't have insurance. Paul answers "that's what freedom is all about, taking your own risks" and the audience applauds.

It's not as if he was just saying "freedom is about taking your own risks" as a non-sequitor. It was in the context of a discussion about what should happen if someone gets sick and doesn't have insurance. Clearly, those people in the audience were sympathetic with Paul's belief that this fellow had freely taken a risk with his life ... and lost.

One last thing. The fact checker says that this question was particularly open to ridicule and cat-calling because it was a hypothetical. But as previously noted, Ron Paul's trusted aid died without insurance leaving a $400,000 bill behind him.

Society didn't just let Snyder die. He received a significant amount of intensive care based on the bill.

But his mother didn't have the resources to pay the hospital. Few mothers would.

Instead, as Gawker reported, Snyder's friends started a website to raise money to pay the bill. Often in cases like this, hospitals are forced to pass along as much of the unreimbursed costs to other, insured patients or to eat those costs.

One of the ironies of Snyder's case is that the former aide appears to have been a remarkable moneyraiser for Paul. Gawker reports:

In the fourth quarter of that year (2008), Snyder raised a stunning $19.5 million for Paul — more than any other Republican candidate had raised at the time.

Paul did stress that charity would always step in to pick up the slack but I guess he's too busy lecturing us all on personal responsibility to raise the money himself. Snyder's friends were able to raise less than 50k for him.

Paul should have explained that freedom to him means being able to wage quixotic multi-million dollar presidential campaigns without having to pay for the health insurance of the people who work for him --- or even help raise the money necessary to pay the hospital when one of them gets sick and dies. I wonder if anyone would have cheered for that?

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digby 9/15/2011 09:42:00 AM |

 
Nebraska. Very Different from Pennsylavnia.
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

On the heels of the GOP's attempt to overturn democracy in Pennsylavania by cynically distributing its electoral votes per assembly district, it appears that Republicans in Nebraska are trying to move Nebraska in the other direction. You may recall that Nebraska and Maine are currently the only states to split their electoral votes, and that one of Nebraska's electoral votes went to Obama.

Well, the GOP has a plan to fix all that. From the winger blog Objective Conservative:

The state tried to change this in the 2011 session but the Democrats have found a new ally in State Senator Paul Schumacher, also a Republican and a RINO who finds the idea of splitting the vote pleasing. Schumacher prevented the return to winner-takes-all from getting out of committee in 2011.

Having noted the above, we've learned that a resolution will be introduced at the September Republican Party State Central Committee to deal with so-called Republicans who refuse to support their party on what is truly a 'litmus' issue for the party. It reads as noted:

Whereas Nebraska is one of only two states that award electoral votes based on the presidential winner of congressional districts,

Whereas Nebraska’s overall clout in national elections is decreased by a procedure used in only one other state,

Whereas 48 other states refuse to allocate their electoral votes under such a plan because such plan dilutes the clout of their states and citizens in determining the election of the president,

Whereas the vast majority of Nebraskans and their votes for the president are not counted on an equal playing field with those of other states,

Whereas it is of the highest priority and interest to the Nebraska Republican Party and the citizens of Nebraska that the state returns to a “winner-takes-all” electoral vote plan,

Whereas the Nebraska Republican Party supports legislation that returns the state to the “winner-takes-all” basis,

And, whereas the Nebraska Republican Party believes that the “winner-takes-all” issue is a litmus test for those who would claim to be Republicans and seek the support of the Nebraska Republican Party,

Be it resolved that the Nebraska Republican Party will not support in any manner, financial or otherwise, any state senator who opposes the return of the state to the “winner-takes-all” electoral vote plan either by failing to vote for such in committee or on the floor of the legislature.

The resolution will deal with the likes of Schumacher who will become persona non grata next year if he prevents the measure getting to the floor. Certain, RINOs like Schumacher will never again see the support of the Republican Party and the party will find a candidate to replace him come the next election.

It would appear that moving Nebraska to a winner-take-all system hinges on a single vote of Nebraska's Government, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee.

The answer is obvious, of course, but it would be nice if the media would ask the GOP chairs in Pennsylvania and Nebraska whether each supports the other's plans. Also, if they could provide a specific rationale rooted in the Constitution, freedom and democracy, that would be great. Inquiring minds would like to know the Constitutional difference between the two states.


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thereisnospoon 9/15/2011 07:30:00 AM |

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

 
This hurts me more than it hurts you

by digby

Ok, it's been that kind of a day. I'm sorry to have to do this, but I'm afraid it's necessary:

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digby 9/14/2011 06:30:00 PM |

 
Popular Cuts

by digby

Per Bloomberg's poll this morning:

I am going to mention some changes that could be made to decrease the deficit. For each, please tell me if you favor or oppose the change.

Reduce Social Security benefits for high-income earners --- Favor:64%

Repeal the tax cuts for households earning more than $250,000 a year --- Favor: 54%

Raise the amount of salary subject to Social Security tax beyond the current limit of about $107,000 --- Favor: 52%

Gradually increase the Social Security retirement age to 69 --- Favor: 49%

Eliminate all tax deductions, including the home mortgage deduction, in return for lower tax rates for every tax bracket --- Favor: 48%

Let tax cuts for all taxpayers expire as scheduled and return rates to previous levels --- Favor: 48%

Cut defense weapons systems and reduce the number of armed forces personnel --- Favor: 41%

Replace Medicare with a system in which government vouchers would help participants pay for their own health insurance --- Favor: 37%

Increase co-pays for Medicare recipients --- Favor: 33%

Decrease the amount paid to hospitals and doctors who provide Medicare services --- Favor: 30%

Cut benefits by slowing the rate of automatic cost-of-living increases for Social Security payments --- Favor: 29%

Cut Medicaid, which is government help for medical care for low income people --- Favor: 21%

Just saying.


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digby 9/14/2011 05:00:00 PM |

 
The Paul Plan

by digby

Ron Paul's former campaign manager died in 2008, uninsured because of a pre-existing condition. That's right:

Like the man in Blitzer's example, the 49-year-old Snyder...was relatively young and seemingly healthy when the illness struck. He was also uninsured. [The Kansas City Star quoted his sister at the time as saying that a "a pre-existing condition made the premiums too expensive."] When he died on June 26, 2008, two weeks after Paul withdrew his first bid for the presidency, his hospital costs amounted to $400,000. The bill was handed to Snyder's surviving mother who was incapable of paying. Friends launched a website to solicit donations.

According to CNN they managed to raise $50,000 leaving the "estate" 350k in debt. When they asked Paul about this he insisted that Snyder wasn't denied care, which is true, but he evaded the fact that somebody has to pay this bill and the more likely outcome which is that the hospital and doctors who treated him will simply pass the costs on to those who are insured. (He pointed out that the hospital hasn't tried to collect from the mom --- which I guess means that he thinks the care was free.)

I suppose Snyder could have shopped around for a "better deal" while he was under the oxygen tent, but essentially the only way Paul's plan really works is if he and his friends had managed to find the 400k to pay for Snyder up front --- or if the hospital had thrown him into the street when it didn't arrive. That's Libertarian economics in action.

And that's the kind of thing those cheering Tea Partiers all believe in too. Unless it happens to them, of course. In which case the argument will be that, unlike all those freeloaders, they deserve to be cared for. Real Americans really are entitled.



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digby 9/14/2011 03:30:00 PM |

 
Out In the Silence

by tristero

Beth from Americans United passed on this link. If you're in Tupelo, please go!

Give Hate A Holiday


tristero 9/14/2011 01:52:00 PM |

 
Losers the Pink Collar Ghetto

by digby


On labor day I wrote a little post featuring my recollections of recessions past as a worker in the pink collar ghetto. I've been wondering how such workers have fared this time and E.J Graff has a good piece up today on the subject. Unfortunately it's not looking good:

Men lost more jobs and are still disproportionately out of work when compared to women. At the same time, men are starting—albeit just barely—to regain those jobs. Jobs disproportionately held by women, on the other hand, are not coming back. The Center for American Progress’s interactive graphic shows this by industry; click on “job losses” and then “play the timeline.” One reason: many “women’s jobs"* are government-funded. That includes teachers but also home health aides, nurse’s aides, child-care workers—all the jobs that make it possible for working families and single parents to show up for their swing shifts without locking the kids in the car for eight hours or leaving grandpa alone at home with a bedpan. Those jobs are paid for by state and local governments, which are still laying off workers. As Parramore puts it, “Women are the shock-absorbers for government budget cuts.”

There’s another reason, according to Bryce Covert and Mike Konczal at the Roosevelt Institute, that men are getting rehired and women are not, not just in the public sector but across private industries as well: office-support jobs are disappearing. Covert and Konczal say “support staff” positions often held by women—call them secretaries, office managers, administrative assistants—are being eliminated and not replaced. It’s part of the great speed-up: The rest are supposed to book our own travel, answer our own e-mails, schedule our own meetings. That leaves many office workers frantic—and a lot of women out of work.

That's a double whammy --- government jobs with decent pay, benefits and worker protections are being cut at the same time that many private sector jobs that are traditionally held by women are being eliminated.

Some of this could be alleviated by the Jobs Bill, which featured at least some money for states and localities to pay for government jobs that are often held by women. But it's probably unlikely that the pink collar ghetto jobs will come back. My recollection of the 92 recession was that the support jobs stayed consolidated and when the economy came back they just hired more high paid executives. I would imagine it's even worse now.

And yes, this leaves office workers frantic. But in a corporate world in which executive boards pay failed CEO cronies many hundreds of times more than the average worker, cutting labor costs to please Masters of the Universe has to come from somewhere. And it's only women for the most part so who cares, right?


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digby 9/14/2011 01:30:00 PM |

 
Indecent and Irresponsible

by digby

Seeing as even most liberals are on board with the whole "Stimulus now, but deficit reduction in the future" formulation (leading, unfortunately, to rash proposals to cut Medicare and Social Security in exchange for short term stimulus) this bracing dose of the truth from economist Richard Koo is very welcome:

Arguing need for longer-term fiscal consolidation is irresponsible
The insistence that fiscal consolidation is necessary in the longer term is like the doctor who, faced with a patient who has just been admitted to the intensive care ward, repeatedly questions the patient about his ability to afford the treatment. This is both lacking in decency and irresponsible.

If the patient loses heart after learning the cost of the treatment, he may end up spending even longer in the hospital, leading to a larger final bill. Completely ignoring the policy duration effect of fiscal policy and constantly insisting on longer-term fiscal consolidation was what prolonged Japan’s recession.
For instance, it was because Japan’s policymakers refused to give up the medium-term fiscal consolidation target of achieving a primary fiscal balance by 2011 that the government stumbled from fiscal stimulus to fiscal retrenchment and back again and, ultimately, was unable to meet its fiscal targets even once in the last 20 years.

That is why Japan’s recession lasted as long as it did and why the nation’s debt has risen to some 200% of GDP.

With some notable exceptions, most people still believe that that there will be a hangover of debt which will have to be dealt with at some point. But the confidence fairy died some time back and the only other reason for worrying about it at this point is to get some Shock Doctrine benefits out of the current situation. But as Koo points out, this actually hurts the economy even more.

If there is any psychology involved in economics, and one has to believe there is, then this constant fearmongering about the debt makes people even more nervous about the future than they already are --- and cutting government spending on programs they will need makes it worse. The government should just keep it simple. They just aren't all that good at finessing all these messages and policies about "sacrifice" and "stimulus" and are turning this situation into a massive case of free floating anxiety. So perhaps they should just return to the old fashioned "first things first" --- stimulate the economy and get people back to work. When that's done, the government can take a fresh look at revenues and spending in a healthy economy and make whatever decisions need to be made. Selling off tomorrow's security in exchange for today's prosperity is what got us into this mess in the first place.


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digby 9/14/2011 12:00:00 PM |

 
Balloons flying everywhere

by digby

This is still out there. I'm just hoping they aren't shooting it down so it will feel so good when it turns out not to be in the proposals:

The president’s fiscal plan is also expected to draw on options the White House had put on the table in talks with John Boehner, House speaker, over a “grand bargain” on fiscal reform. Those discussions eventually fell apart.

During those discussions in July, the White House had agreed to $425bn in cuts to Medicaid and Medicare – with $150bn extracted from Medicare providers such as doctors and hospitals, $150bn coming from Medicare beneficiaries, and $125bn coming out of reforms to Medicaid, administration officials said at the time. Among the menu of policy ideas to reach those targets were an increase in the eligibility age for Medicare.

Allowing Medicare more flexibility to negotiate drug prices with pharmaceutical groups and preventing special deals delaying the entry of generic drugs into certain markets could also be part of the plan.

Mr Obama’s plan could also feature a change in the way the US government measures inflation, switching to a less generous chained-consumer price index. The biggest impact of this measure – which could save between $250bn and $300bn over ten years – would be felt by recipients of Social Security, the retirement scheme.

During the failed July talks, the White House agreed to put that change in place starting in 2015, but with protections for low-income workers.

I hadn't heard that they were thinking about adding SS to this particular mix, so maybe this reporter is just adding that in on the basis of the July debacle. Let's hope so.

Aside from the utter foolishness of the policy, on a political level I think they'd do much, much better as the staunch protectors of the programs. The image is of someone who is willing to trade away long term benefits for short term gain and I don't think that helps. But it may be working, at least a little bit, to soften up Democrats. I'm hearing chatter from various supporters about how this is a "good trade" if the president can get his jobs program through and that raising the eligibility age isn't all that bad etc.

It would appear that after a few months of exposing people to the idea, what would have been considered inconceivable just a few months ago is now considered reasonable among quite a few people.

And here I thought the President didn't have any power to change minds.

Update: See that bully pulpit do its magic:

Which of the following approaches is more likely to be successful in growing the U.S. economy and creating jobs?

Spending cuts and tax cuts will give businesses more confidence to hire --- 57%


Government needs to keep spending at current level now because the job market is so weak --- 13%

Government needs to spend more to stimulate the economy --- 23%

Not sure --- 7%


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digby 9/14/2011 10:30:00 AM |

 
k.d Lang for Ed Potosnak

by digby

Howie wrote a good post yesterday about his days in the music business and his affection for k.d. Lang. And then he announced a new Blue America contest:

Aside for my love for k.d. and for her music, why am I bringing this up now? Glad you asked. k.d. is also one of Ed Potosnak's favorite all-time artists and, as you probably know, Blue America has endorsed Ed for the New Jersey congressional seat currently held by anti-health care reactionary Leonard Lance. See that platinum award disc up top? k.d. gave that to me after her album sold a million copies. This week she agreed to personally autograph it, not to me, but to whomever wins our Ed Potosnak contest. She's playing at the Mayo Performing Arts Center in Morristown, NJ on September 22. So... we'll pick a lucky random winner on September 20 and Ed will personally take the plaque backstage so k.d. can sign it to the winner. So, the obvious question: how do you enter?

That's easy: just donate to Ed's campaign here-- any amount; after all, we're not Republicans-- and one winner will be chosen at random to get this very special Thank You from Blue America. We did a similar kind of contest for a signed Green Day guitar and raised over $5,000 although the winner just gave $10. Make sure you contribute between now and September 20th, either on the linked ActBlue page or by check to Blue America PAC, PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027.

But, apart from wanting a memento of k.d.'s incredible career, why donate to Ed's campaign? We've written about him many times before but you can get to know more about him from thisguest post he wrote in July. Ed's a science teacher and yesterday he told me that "our future is in today's classrooms. All across our nation great disparities exist between the educational experiences of some students and others. Not only is it not fair, these inequities hurt our future. Republicans have shown their disregard for our future time again by slashing aid to schools, teacher bashing, and cutting support for our colleges. For America to remain economically competitive in the global economy, Congress needs educators like myself to make sure every child is treated fairly and has access to a high quality education." Equality of all kinds is a hallmark of Ed's campaign. He also said that "our nation's diversity is one of our greatest strengths and in Congress I will work every day to ensure every American is treated equally. It is not acceptable to allow discriminatory policies to be on the books. As an openly gay man, I have experienced institutional discrimination and am committed to making sure it ends for all our communities."

Again, you can contribute to a stalwart and dedicated New Jersey progressive, Ed Potosnak,here at the Blue America page, and we'll enter you in the running for the k.d. lang RIAA platinum award for Ingénue.

If you like progressive candidates and k.d. lang, throw a couple of bucks toward Ed Potosnak. You literally can't lose.

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digby 9/14/2011 09:15:00 AM |

 
Changing the Rules
by David Atkins ("thereisnospoon")

If the GOP is looking to ignite riots and a 2nd American civil war, this would be one way to do it:

Republican state legislators in Pennsylvania are pushing a scheme that, if GOPers in other states follow their lead, could cause President Barack Obama to lose the 2012 election—not because of the vote count, but because of new rules. That's not all: there's no legal way for Democrats to stop them...

Each state gets to determine how its electoral votes are allocated. Currently, 48 states and DC use a winner-take-all system in which the candidate who wins the popular vote in the state gets all of its electoral votes. Under the Republican plan—which has been endorsed by top Republicans in both houses of the state's legislature, as well as the governor, Tom Corbett—Pennsylvania would change from this system to one where each congressional district gets its own electoral vote. (Two electoral votes—one for each of the state's two senators—would go to the statewide winner.)

This could cost Obama dearly. The GOP controls both houses of the state legislature plus the governor's mansion—the so-called "redistricting trifecta"—in Pennsylvania. Congressional district maps are adjusted after every census, and the last one just finished up. That means Pennsylvania Republicans get to draw the boundaries of the state's congressional districts without any input from Democrats. Some of the early maps have leaked to the press, and Democrats expect that the Pennsylvania congressional map for the 2012 elections will have 12 safe GOP seats compared to just 6 safe Democratic seats.

Under the Republican plan, if the GOP presidential nominee carries the GOP-leaning districts but Obama carries the state, the GOP nominee would get 12 electoral votes out of Pennsylvania, but Obama would only get eight—six for winning the blue districts, and two (representing the state's two senators) for carrying the state. This would have an effect equivalent to flipping a small winner-take-all state—say, Nevada, which has six electoral votes—from blue to red. And Republicans wouldn't even have to do any extra campaigning or spend any extra advertising dollars to do it.

Nebraska and Maine already have the system the Pennsylvania GOP is pushing. But the two states' small electoral vote values mean it's actually mathematically impossible for a candidate to win the popular vote there but lose the electoral vote, says Akhil Reed Amar, a constitutional law professor at Yale University. Pennsylvania, however, is a different story: "It might be very likely to happen in [Pennsylvania], and that's what makes this something completely new under the sun," Amar says. "It's something that no previous legislature in America since the Civil War has ever had the audacity to impose."

And it's not just Pennsylvania.

It doesn't necessarily end there. After their epic sweep of state legislative and gubernatorial races in 2010, Republicans also have total political control of Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, three other big states that traditionally go Democratic and went for Obama in 2012. Implementing a Pennsylvania-style system in those three places—in Ohio, for example, Democrats anticipate controlling just 4 or 5 of the state's 16 congressional districts—could offset Obama wins in states where he has expanded the electoral map, like Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado, or New Mexico. "If all these rust belt folks get together and make this happen that could be really dramatic," says Carolyn Fiddler, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which coordinates state political races for the Dems.

Democrats would not be able to retaliate. The only states that John McCain won where Dems control both houses of the state legislature are Arkansas, Mississippi, and West Virginia. West Virginia is too small for splitting the electoral votes to have much effect, and Mississippi has a Republican governor. That leaves Arkansas, another small state—and one where McCain won every district handily in 2008.

For now, the Democrats'—and Obama's—only real way of fighting back is political. "The political solution if there is one is going to have to come from getting people outraged about this," Amar says. "This is not American fair play, it's a partisan steamroller changing the fundamental rules of the small-d democratic game for purely party advantage. Trying to structure the world so that even the person who wins the state loses the state's electoral vote: that is new under the sun." He adds, "This is big."

The article is actually incorrect on one point: there is a way for cooler heads to fight back from a legal perspective, and that way is to push for the National Popular Vote act to be ratified in states totaling at least 271 electoral votes.

But beyond that, the Republicans know their goose is cooked long-term, from a demographic perspective. Most of the tea party and Fox News base will be gone or senile within a generation. With Latino population growth and unabated GOP racism, Texas will be a blue state within 10-15 years or even sooner. That by itself spells doom for the Republicans at the Presidential level as they are currently constituted. Congress won't be quite as problematic for them and yes, it's true as I have argued before that that doesn't mean permanent majorities for Democrats in a binary system. But the basic demographics do make the road that much tougher for Republicans to take the White House now and on into the future.

Increasingly, the GOP is going to need to turn to blatantly dishonest gimmicks like this to remain viable at a presidential level. But there's a big problem.

If the GOP-controlled "blue states" do this, and if President Obama wins the popular vote by a few million votes and would have won the election under the current rules but "loses" to Rick Perry under the GOP rules, I can practically guarantee mass civil disobedience. It would ignite hot flashes in what is already a cold civil war. In 2000 Democrats took the theft of the election lying down, mostly because the 1990s had been a fairly comical time politically speaking, political tensions except among the activist classes didn't run nearly as high as they do today, and even most Democrats figured that Bush wouldn't be so bad. The sort of acquiescence we saw in 2000 won't happen again. It would be the beginning of the end of the current system.

Unfortunately, the only thing scarier than contemplating riots and a potential 2nd civil war, is what the reaction of a President Rick Perry would be to such a scenario. You don't exactly have to guess.


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thereisnospoon 9/14/2011 06:41:00 AM |