Taibbi on why he doesn’t listen to Obama any more

Echoing what many are thinking, here's Matt Taibbi, plain and simple, on why he tunes out anything President Obama says.

I'll let you read the lead-up story, in which Taibbi is forced to choose between hearing to Obama on CNN or sitting with marauding hordes of jacked-up children in a crowded Labor Day airport. Here's his bottom line (my emphasis):

I remember following Obama on the campaign trail and hearing all sorts of promises before union-heavy crowds. He said he would raise the minimum wage every year; he said he would fight free-trade agreements. He also talked about repealing the Bush tax cuts and ending tax breaks for companies that move jobs overseas.

It's not just that he hasn't done those things. The more important thing is that the people he's surrounded himself with are not labor people, but stooges from Wall Street. Barack Obama has as his chief of staff a former top-ranking executive from one of the most grossly corrupt mega-companies on earth, JP Morgan Chase. He sees Bill Daley in his own office every day, yet when it comes time to talk abut labor issues, he has to go out and make selected visits twice a year or whatever to the Richard Trumkas of the world.

Listening to Obama talk about jobs and shared prosperity yesterday reminded me that we are back in campaign mode and Barack Obama has started doing again what he does best – play the part of a progressive. He's good at it. ... But his policies are crafted by representatives of corporate/financial America[.] ...

I just don't believe this guy anymore, and it's become almost painful to listen to him.

I can relate. It's not just about Obama either, but about us — the awful death of something hopeful inside, in the face of something desperately needed.

We're at a turning-point; I think that's beyond question. Obama's failure is thus greater in comparison to the need and the opportunity. Yet he's hubristically determined to be no more than he's already been, or be even less. Tragic.

In that sense, his legacy is secure, second term or no. I wonder which New York bank will host his post-presidential library. Goldman? Chase? And will they get naming rights?

GP Read the rest of this post...

Judge sets hearing on AT&T; T-Mobile merger

We covered the proposed AT&T T-Mobile merger here; see that post for the dirty details and all the reasons not to allow this deal to proceed.

Which makes this announcement, per the New York Times, troubling:

The federal judge overseeing the case against AT&T’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of T-Mobile USA has asked both sides to discuss the prospects of a settlement on Sept. 21. ... The Justice Department filed its lawsuit on Aug. 31, saying that the acquisition of T-Mobile would “remove a significant competitive force from the market,” which would shrink to three big telecommunications providers from four. ...

While the government’s criticism of the deal was harsh, officials have also suggested that there was room to negotiate.

I don't think the problem is that the judge is asking the parties — the Justice Dept. on one hand, the corporate behemoths on the other — to discuss a pre-trial settlement. To my ignorant legal mind, it sounds like she's doing her job.

But note the willingness of the Justice Dept. to "negotiate." Acting assistant AG Sharis Pozen said on August 31, "[O]ur door is open."

What's to negotiate? The market is already too consolidated, in that interesting "restraint of trade" sense. The only negotiation my cynical mind can imagine is the size of the reward for a "sure, go right ahead" ruling. We'll see.

GP Read the rest of this post...

GOP debate live-blogging, via Twitter

Our compatriots at "AMERICAblog Elections: The Right's Field" will be liveblogging the GOP presidential debate, which starts at 8pm Eastern tonight. They're already tweeting, so you can start to follow the charter about the debate now.

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Al Gore: "Obama appears to have bowed to pressure from polluters" in his ozone-level decision

The ozone-level decision is the other environmental issue that's troubling Obama's (present and former) supporters. (The first is the pending sludge-carrying Keystone Pipeline approval, the one the Koch Brothers, among others, so desperately want.)

Obama's ozone decision was covered here. Basically, the 2012 campaigner-in-chief overruled his own EPA scientists (and, it seems, a court order) to give a nice gift to the corporate polluter community.

Now, from Al Gore's Journal:

Instead of relying on science, President Obama appears to have bowed to pressure from polluters who did not want to bear the cost of implementing new restrictions on their harmful pollution—even though economists have shown that the US economy would benefit from the job creating investments associated with implementing the new technology. The result of the White House’s action will be increased medical bills for seniors with lung disease, more children developing asthma, and the continued degradation of our air quality.

Obama says, "But ... jobs." To which I say, "But ... primaries."

Wonder what Mr. Gore says to that. Favorite son, anyone? Or something a little stronger?

GP Read the rest of this post...

How not to do blogger outreach

It's an interesting question as to how this differs from Candid Camera, or those commercials in which diners in high-end restaurants are served instant coffee and their surprise is at how good it is is caught on camera.  Still, I think I'd be pretty ticked - especially after some of the bloggers talked about food they don't eat, and it was served to them anyway.

NYT:

IN August, food bloggers and mom bloggers in New York were invited to dine at an underground restaurant in a West Village brownstone run, apparently, by George Duran, the chef who hosts the “Ultimate Cake Off” on TLC.

Sotto Terra, the invitation said, was “an intimate Italian restaurant” where attendees would enjoy a “delicious four-course meal,” Mr. Duran’s “one-of-a-kind sangria,” and learn about food trends from a food industry analyst, Phil Lempert. The invitation continued that upon confirming — for one of five evenings beginning Aug. 23 — bloggers would receive an extra pair of tickets as a prize for readers and that the dinner would include “an unexpected surprise.”

The surprise: rather than being prepared by the chef, the lasagna they were served was Three Meat and Four Cheese Lasagna by Marie Callender’s, a frozen line from ConAgra Foods. Hidden cameras at the dinners, which were orchestrated by the Ketchum public relations unit of the Omnicom Group, captured reactions to the lasagna and to the dessert, Razzleberry Pie, also from Marie Callender’s.

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President Obama tied his own hands on job creation

Brian Beutler on President Obama's upcoming "jobs" speech to the nation, and the difficult of pivoting to job creation when the nation is now so fixated on deficit reduction:

To put things in starker relief, no less than his presidency and the economic fate of millions of Americans is at stake.

That's a tall order -- but it is, in part, one of Obama's own making.

In early 2009, Obama turned from stimulus to health care, and by insisting the reforms reduce deficits he locked his most effective recovery tools in a policy shed and handed the key to his political enemies. They were famously unpersuaded by the gesture, and instead (falsely) portrayed the bill as a budget buster -- an early salvo in a campaign to blame Obama and Democrats for soaring deficits, which of course were almost entirely attributable to the Bush-era financial crisis and recession.

By late October 2009, according to Gallup, 14 percent of the public thought the President's top priority should be the deficit, double what it had been at the end of Bush's term. The same poll found 41 percent of the country thought the economy should be his top priority -- down from 64 percent in 2008, before the stimulus had helped end the country's employment free fall. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and health care also bested the deficit. Other polls showed similar figures, though many asked questions in different ways, and still others asked respondents to name their top economic priorities. Jobs always trounced the deficit, but public concern was starting to bud. Prior to about 2009, the deficit wasn't even listed as an option on similar polls.

In his 2010 State of the Union, Obama announced a discretionary spending freeze. "[F]amilies across the country are tightening their belts and making tough decisions," he announced. "The federal government should do the same."

In the year and a half since, "stimulus" has fallen into political disrepute, jobs have remained a high priority for the country, and anti-deficit mania has climbed.

Brian is absolutely right.  I believe it was around the time of the one year anniversary of the stimulus that the President started pivoting to deficit reduction, when the economy was still not (obviously) out of the woods yet. Now he's trying to pivot back to jobs? Uh, no. Unless we're going to create those jobs with magic pixie dust, it takes money - money that can't be there if we're focused on cutting spending.

The really annoying thing is that this is the kind of thing lots of us noted at the time. Hell, I remember during our infamous blogger meeting with Jared Bernstein, around the one year anniversary of the stimulus, that Berstein talked about the political and fiscal constraints surrounding doing more stimulus. I told him that they were the same constraint, because the president had pivoted to deficit reduction, and refused to adequately defend the stimulus, so now everyone was focused on how much money we "wasted" in the stimulus and how the number one priority was now to cut spending.

Let me quote at length from my post of February 17, 2010:

I guess what struck me as most interesting about the meeting were two things. First, when Bernstein noted that, in trying to solve the country's economic problems, the administration faces "budget constraints and political constraints." By that, I took Bernstein to mean that the stimulus could only be so large last time, and we can only spend so much more money this time, because we're facing a huge deficit, so there's not much money to spend, and because the Hill and public opinion won't let us spend more.

That struck me as GOP talking points winning the day, and I said so (Professor Kyle wrote about this very notion the other day on the blog). The only reason we're facing a budget constraint is because we gave in on the political constraint. We permitted Republicans to spin the first stimulus as an abysmal failure, when in fact it created or saved up to 2m jobs. Since Democrats didn't adequately defend the stimulus, and didn't sufficiently paint the deficit as the Republicans' doing, we now are not "politically" permitted to have a larger stimulus because the fiscal constraint has become more important than economic recovery.

And whose fault is that?

Apparently ours.

Bernstein said that the progressive blogs (perhaps he said progressive media in general) haven't done enough over the past year to tell the positive side of the stimulus.

That was the meeting I was told I was very very mean to Bernstein for having pointed all of this out.  No, "mean" is having to live through 5 to 10 years of economic malaise because people in the White House aren't smart enough, or backboned enough, to figure out, fight for, and implement the right economic policies from the git-go.

President Obama is the one who decided to embrace deficit cutting mania long before the economy was out of the woods, and he has only himself to blame for why he now has very few, if any, politically palatable options for rescuing us from this economic disaster before he faces a very difficult re-elect next year.

PS And let's not forget, President Obama has a history of not fighting for his own proposals, and if past is prologue, will likely cave on most of what he claims he wants.  So this jobs proposal, already pretty weak tea, has little to no chance of passing unless the President actually fights for it; and even were he to fight for it (and he won't), it won't do much to improve our current situation because it's too little (and awfully late). Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, great proposal. Read the rest of this post...

Texas (of course) school shuns Al Jazeera reporter because of "what they did," presumably on 9/11

Who says Texas isn't a proud member of the South? From Gabriel Elizondo, an Al Jazeera reporter traveling across the US, interviewing people about the ten year anniversary of 9/11. This is what happened when he tried to interview folks at a local high school football game in Texas.

From Al Jazeera:

After the national anthem was over, I approached Mrs. Yauck.

“Hi, my name is Gabriel Elizondo. I am a journalist, I live in Brazil, and I am driving across the country to talk to people about the 10 year anniversary of 9/11. I randomly stopped in here in Booker and I would love to film a little of the football game and maybe see if anybody, like the parents, want to talk to me about their views of 9/11 during halftime.”

Mrs Yauck bounced up from her seat, approaches me warmly, and gives me a wonderful Texas hospitality smile and said something to the effect of “what an interesting project” I was doing.

She was all grins and good cheer. Could not have been nicer, really. I think her brain was still trying to process: Journalist. Brazil. 9/11. But that was understandable, as I am sure it’s not everyday that trifecta comes to Booker.

“So you will need to send me the link of this when it goes on the internet or whatever,” she says.

“Absolutely,” I say.

She said she was out of business cards, so I reached into my back pocket, pulled out my wallet, grabbed by business card, and handed it to Mrs. Yauck.

I don't think anything can wipe that double-wide smile off Mrs Yauck’s face. But my Al Jazeera business card does the job pretty quick.

“So you’re from Al Jazeera,” Mrs Yauck says in a sharp tone, still looking down at my card. Looking up at me, she adds quickly, “ So what’s your spin on this story?”

“I don’t have a spin,” I say, still smiling to try to ease any sudden tension. “What I told you is exactly what I want to do. Just talk to people, film a bit. That is it. Nothing more. Nothing less.”

“But you’re with Al Jazeera?”

“Yes,” I say proudly, still smiling.

But Mrs Yauck is again staring down at my business card.

“Our superintendent is here, let me just go talk to him and I’ll be right back.”

(A superintendent is like a CEO of a school district, the top boss).

I guess ‘my project’ is not quite as interesting anymore to her.

She then leaves, taking my card with her.

I sit down in the bleachers. And wait.

About five minutes later, a man comes walking up to me, alone, and he is clearly the superintendent. He just walks up to me and glares. It’s a sharp glare, like I intentionally backed up over his daughter’s puppy and laughed about it.

Needless to say, he is not smiling.

He doesn’t introduce himself to me, that I recall. But it doesn't take Julian Assange to figure out later he is Michael Lee.

So I tried my best: “So, I guess Mrs Yauck told you who I am. I am a journalist crossing the country doing random stories about the 10 year anniversary of 9/11 and I was hoping to talk to some people here about it at the game, and get some opinions.”

He then said something I could not entirely make out, because his voice sort of quivered from a combination of being obviously furious and nervous at the same time.

But I am pretty sure he said:

“I think it was damn rotten what they did.”

“I am sorry, what who did?” I say, not sure exactly if he was calling me rotten, the terrorists rotten, Al Jazeera rotten, or all of the above.

“The people that did this to us,” he says back to me with a smirk, still glaring uncomfortably straight at my eyes.

“Well, I think it was bad too,” I say. “Well, do you think, sir, we can film a bit of the game and talk to some people here about just that?”

“No. You can’t film, you can’t take pictures, or interview people.”

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Per Obama’s request, Dems on deficit committee now want more than $1.5t in cuts

There is an emerging consensus amongst the Democrats who will serve on the deficit commission (aka Catfood Commission 2, Electric Class Warfare) that the mandate of $1.5 trillion in deficit cuts is insufficient.

Democrats on the new joint deficit Super Committee will seek more than the $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction they’ve been tasked with finding, in order to help offset some of those costs.

“All of us would like to set as a target for ourselves even more than $1.5 trillion,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who’s also the top House Democrat on the Budget Committee, told reporters at a Tuesday Capitol press conference.

For those not paying attention, President Obama (after Warren Buffett said it in his much-linked NYT op-ed) called for the deficit commission to go beyond $1.5 trillion in cuts. The Democrats on the commission, including liberals like Xavier Becerra, have moved to be where the President has been saying the commission should go. When Obama gives a speech tomorrow night (and a subsequent one in following days, more specifically about deficit cuts), it will direct Congress as to where he thinks these cuts beyond $1.5 trillion should come from. Sadly, the answer seems to be Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

David Dayen points out that this is a pretty clear rebuttal to the notion that the President is not capable of shaping the course of legislative and policy debates, especially with regard to Congress as a coequal branch of government.

If you listen to [Obama's] public statements, he clearly wants this tax cut and spending cut agenda to go forward. And now, his Democratic colleagues on the Catfood Commission, even the putatively liberal ones like Xavier Becerra, are mimicking him. That’s because a President has a lot of influence and power.

Take this as a reminder that President Obama is not weak and certainly not dis-empowered from pursuing the agenda he wants to pursue. Read the rest of this post...

Obama "jobs" proposal mostly continues what we’re already doing

$170bn worth of the new "several hundred billion" jobs proposal is simply to continue the same unemployment benefits and payroll tax holiday that's already in place. And while it's been estimated that if we don't continue the benefits, and the payroll holiday, GDP could take a 1% point hit, those policies are already in place (and expiring), so it's not like the economy is going to improve any more than it has already if we extend these (though it will be hurt if we don't).

We need something new, and fairly massive. The President's proposal is to continue doing what's already being done - and while that helps, it's not exactly new, and it's not exactly "more."

Not to mention, the extension of the benefits and the tax holiday should have been separate from this new jobs proposal. It should have been a given that the GOP had better continue those two policies in order to not sock GDP to the tune of 1% point. But now that the President is lumping everything together, he's giving them impression that the benefits and the holiday are "new" and thus negotiable.

The two central measures in the Obama jobs package are expected to be a one-year extension of the payroll tax cut and an extension of expiring jobless benefits, according to the AP. Those two initiatives would total around $170 billion.

In his speech on Thursday night to a joint session of Congress, Obama will also consider a tax benefit to those businesses that hire the unemployed, with a price tag of around $30 billion. Public works projects will be included, but the AP reports that this will be less than $50 billion of the package.

The president also will continue for one year a tax break for business that allows them to deduct the full value of equipment.

To put it another way: Even if the President gets everything he's asking for, the proposal won't do much of anything new to help the economy. It simply guarantees that the economy won't take another 1% point GDP hit (which is important), but doesn't do much to improve things from where they are now. And things pretty much suck right now, so why is the President simply asking for the status quo? Read the rest of this post...

Stiglitz: "I think they should be worried about the future of the euro."

During our interview with Nobel economist Joe Stiglitz in Paris on August, 28, 2011, Chris asked Stiglitz about the recent troubles with the euro. Here is the video (4 minutes and 21 seconds), and a partial transcript follows.

RYAN: Quick Question, since we're here in Europe, the euro, a lot of people are stressed - the French are stressed, the Italians, the Spaniards, people are really worried about the future of the euro.  What's your take on where things are going?

STIGLITZ: Well, I think they should be worried about the future of the euro.  When the euro was created there was a general recognition that it was not, what we call, an optimal currency area.  It was going to be difficult.  If one part of Europe faced, you might say, a greater shock than other parts, it wouldn't be any problem if everything is going well.  But it was in a period of economic downturn -- we are now facing that, and the problems that were anticipated have now come to the fore.

ARAVOSIS: A three-front war instead of a one-front war.

STIGLITZ: Exactly.  And the hope was, I think on the part of some, that when the further actions that were needed to make the euro work, that they would be taken, and that would require the creation of a European solidarity fund for stabilization.  Those actions, the framework has now been taken, but the concern is the magnitude of what is required may not be up to what they are willing to do, and the political process in Europe is very slow.  It has to be ratified by each of the parliaments.  So, the question is, given the speed with which the economic events are unfolding, whether Europe will be able to respond fast enough.  And, I think there is a resolve among the political leaders of most of the countries to make it work.  But that may not be enough, given the turbulence in financial markets....

I think that it is really too soon to say about whether, what will happen to the euro.

ARAVOSIS: And why should we care as Americans what happens, so the euro doesn't do so well?

STIGLITZ: The breakup in the euro, or even turbulence in the euro, is going to mean that the European economies, one of our major trading partners, will be doing badly.

ARAVOSIS: "Badly" meaning what?  Growth drops, banks go bankrupt?

STIGLITZ: Those are all possibilities.  Growth will clearly drop, and some banks may face real severe problems.  Many American banks are exposed to the risks of European banks.  We don't know how much because of the lack of transparency in American banking.  And that was one of the failures of the banking regulation, to make greater transparency.  There is concern that the banks are under-capitalized, and concern about bad accounting in American banks, a lot of the bad real estate mortgages are still on the books and have not been written down.  So financial crises in Europe could translate into financial problems in the United States, just like the financial problems in the United States, an economic downturn in the United States, was exported to Europe a few years ago.  They may respond in kind.

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