Please, please, please. Interview an actual liberal as to why they're upset before just assuming why they're upset.

If I see another story that talks about Democrats being upset because Obama isn't moving fast enough. Speed isn't the issue. First, an example of what I'm talking about:

He was making the point that once Obama achieved his ambitions -- passage of a health-care bill, financial reform, education reform, economic stabilization -- the carping from both the right and the left would fade.

It hasn't.

The president has succeeded in passing the bulk of his agenda over the strenuous objections of a resurgent Republican minority. But his critics, particularly those on the left, are still grumbling and unsatisfied. They say the president is not moving fast enough.

Actually there are a few fallacies in this piece.

That the President has passed the bulk of his agenda because he has passed a number of bills that bear the title of his agenda. It's really not the same thing. While a rose may smell as sweet under any other name, legislation is judged by its substance not by its title. Health Care Reform was a serious disappointment because the President simply didn't try to push for what he promised during the campaign. Just because he passed a bill is not sufficient reason for praise. We wanted him to at least try to pass the bill he promised us during the campaign. And he not only didn't get it passed, he didn't try to get it passed.

Same thing for the stimulus. Rather than fight for what he knew the economy needed, he opted for the path of least resistance because the goal was to pass a bill that could get 80 votes, rather than to pass the bill that had the best chance of helping the economy. Yes, a bill called "stimulus" passed. It wasn't big enough. We knew it wasn't big enough. But the President, for whatever reason, refused to fight for the amount he knew was needed. And now we're stuck with near 10% unemployment, the Fed is warning of another contraction, and we're about to lose control of the House in three months. I'm sorry, just not feeling laudatory.

Let's talk gay issues. Speed isn't quite the problem. It's more an issue of political homophobia, as Joe calls it. An irrational fear of gays and their civil rights, even when the 70% of the public is routinely on our side, as it is with repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." Rather than simply repeal the damn law, and institute a stop-loss order in the meantime to stop the discharges, the President continues to defend DADT in court, continues to end the careers of patriotic gay and lesbian service members, and now we're debating "repeal" legislation that does everything but repeal DADT. If you think this legislation repeals DADT, then ask anyone in the White House "under this legislation, when do the discharges finally stop?" Good luck getting an answer.

For some reason, the media, en masse, is fixated on this notion - perhaps fed to it by the White House - that the left is upset with Obama because we're all so politically naive that we just don't understand how hard it is to pass legislation. Well, I worked for five years a legislative attorney for Ted Stevens. I wrote and passed legislation. I think I understand how it's done, thanks. And it's not done by negotiating with yourself and by being afraid to take on your opponents.

People aren't ticked at Obama because of the speed of his legislative accomplishments. They're ticked about the substance, and the President's unwillingness to fight for what he says he believes in. And no amount of legislation with the right title and the wrong policies is going to change that. Read the rest of this post...

Scientists accused of only studying cute furry things, and ignoring the ugly

NYT:

Conservation researchers argue that only by being aware of our aesthetic prejudices can we set them aside when deciding which species cry out to be studied and saved. Reporting recently in the journal Conservation Biology, Morgan J. Trimble, a research fellow at the University of Pretoria in South Africa, and her colleagues examined the scientific literature for roughly 2,000 animal species in southern Africa, and uncovered evidence that scientists, like the rest of us, may be biased toward the beefcakes and beauty queens.

Assessing the publication database for the years 1994 through 2008, the researchers found 1,855 papers about chimpanzees, 1,241 on leopards and 562 about lions — but only 14 for that mammalian equivalent of the blobfish, the African manatee.

“The manatee was the least studied large mammal,” Ms. Trimble said. Speculating on a possible reason for the disparity, she said, “Most scientists are in it for the love of what they do, and a lot of them are interested in big, furry cute things.”

Read the rest of this post...

Administration gagging scientists studying BP oil disaster

From ThinkProgress:

In an explosive first-hand account, ecosystem biologist Linda Hooper-Bui describes how Obama administration and BP lawyers are making independent scientific analysis of the Gulf region an impossibility. Hooper-Bui has found that only scientists who are part of the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process to determine BP’s civil liability get full access to contaminated sites and research data. Pete Tuttle, USFWS environmental contaminant specialist and Department of Interior NRDA coordinator, admitted to The Scientist that “researchers wishing to formally participate in NRDA must sign a contract that includes a confidentiality agreement” that “prevents signees from releasing information from studies and findings until authorized by the Department of Justice at some later and unspecified date.”

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'La Izquierda Profesional' ain't too happy either

I guess they need a drug test too:

President Barack Obama has lost the most trusted man in the Hispanic media.

Univision’s Jorge Ramos, an anchor on the nation’s largest Spanish-language television network, says Obama broke his promise to produce an immigration reform bill within a year of taking office. And Latinos are tired of the speeches, disillusioned by the lack of White House leadership and distrustful of the president, Ramos told POLITICO.

“He has a credibility problem right now with Latinos,” Ramos said. “We’ll see what the political circumstances are in a couple of years, but there is a serious credibility problem.”

Hmm, that sounds familiar. So do this:

The shift in tone among Hispanic opinion makers is helping solidify a narrative about Obama among Latino voters. They held great hopes for the president — given his promise in a May 2008 interview with Ramos to draft an immigration reform bill during his first year in office — but he has deeply disappointed them so far.

“Latinos voted overwhelmingly for President Obama, and they expected him to keep his promise and he broke his promise,” said Ramos...

And this sounds familiar too:

An administration official pointed to the president’s accomplishments on immigration reform — his work with senators on a legislative framework, pressing Republicans to step up and delivering the speech last month to restart the discussion. But until a few Republicans break ranks, the official said, Obama is stymied.

For years, they said, Democratic leaders told Hispanics to be patient; now, their patience has run out.

This is the way President Obama operates. At some point Democrats, including the crowd that still thinks Barack Obama is their boyfriend, need to wake up and realize that the guy we voted for isn't going to do squat unless we force him to. Read the rest of this post...

BREAKING: Lt. Col. Fehrenbach asks Judge to block his imminent DADT discharge

Via James Dao at The New York Times, a critical move by Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach and his attorneys at Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN) and Morrison & Foerster. Fehrenbach has gone to court to prevent his imminent discharge under DADT:

On Wednesday, Colonel Fehrenbach’s lawyers filed papers in Idaho federal court requesting a temporary order blocking his discharge. The petition contends that a discharge would violate Colonel Fehrenbach’s rights, cause him irreparable harm and fail to meet standards established in a 2008 federal court ruling on don’t ask, don’t tell.

For advocates of abolishing the ban against gay men, lesbians and bisexuals serving openly, Colonel Fehrenbach’s case has become something of a line in the sand. Though President Obama has called for ending the ban and Congress has begun moving in that direction, gay service members continue to face investigations and discharge, albeit at a lower rate than in past years.

Lawyers for Colonel Fehrenbach assert that his case is among the most egregious applications of the policy in their experience. The Air Force investigation into his sexuality began with a complaint from a civilian that was eventually dismissed by the Idaho police and the local prosecutor as unfounded, according to court papers. Colonel Fehrenbach has never publicly said that he is gay.

However, during an interview with an Idaho law enforcement official, he acknowledged having consensual sex with his accuser. Colonel Fehrenbach’s lawyers say he did not realize Air Force investigators were observing that interview; his admission led the Air Force to open its “don’t ask” investigation.

The request for the TRO was filed this afternoon in Federal Court in Boise, Idaho.

Fehrenbach's legal team is playing hard ball with the the Air Force, the Pentagon and the Obama administration -- and they should. If the TRO isn't granted, Fehrenbach could be discharged any day.

According to the memo accompanying the request, which is posted below, "The Court may issue a TRO to prevent “immediate and irreparable injury, loss, or damage [that] will result to the movant before the adverse party can be heard” at a hearing." Victor meets that standard. His discharge is imminent.

Basically, under Air Force regulations, as explained in a footnote to the memo, when a servicemember is told that his case is being decided by the Secretary, it means that the Air Force Personnel Board has recommended a discharge -- and that's what just happened to Fehrenbach. His attorneys were told that his case had been referred to the Secretary's office:

On August 4, 2010, counsel fpr Lt. Col. Fehrenbach was informed that the Air Force Personnel Board (AFPB) had met and made a recommendation to Secretary Donley’s designee, Mr. Joe Lineberger. (Declaration of M. Andrew Woodmansee in Support of Application for Temporary Restraining Order and Preliminary Injunctipn at ¶ 13.) Pursuant to AFI 36-3206 Chapter 6.10, a recommendation by the AFPB that Lt. Col. Victor Fehrenbach should be retained would not need to go to the Secretary or his designee for further action. Under Air Force regulations, further action by the Secretary or his designee is required if the AFPB recommended discharge. Woodmansee Decl. at ¶ 13.

Hence, Fehrenbach knows the recommendation is for a discharge. Plus, the Pentagon admitted to the NY Times that "Fehrenbach’s case was under final review by the Air Force secretary." That's why this action was taken today -- to prevent that discharge from happening. It's a ballsy move by Fehrenbach, SLDN and his lawyers. Otherwise, one of these days very soon, Victor would be escorted off his base.

Because this is playing out in Idaho, the higher standards for discharge (must laid out by the Ninth Circuit in Witt v. Department of the Air Force should control. That works to Fehrenbach's advantage. Also, remember that in March of this year, the Pentagon imposed new "more humane" standards for DADT discharges earlier this year. That should also work to Victor's advantage as he was outed by a third party who wasn't considered credible by local law enforcement authorities.

A Federal District Court Judge in Boise should hear the request on Friday. The Department of Justice be on the opposing side and will have to argue against issuance of the TRO. Just weeks ago, the DOJ was arguing that the Log Cabin Republican's case against DADT shouldn't move forward because DADT was going to be repealed. Then, why discharge Fehrenbach?

You may recall that last year, at the LGBT cocktail reception on June 29, 2009, while so many of our "leaders" were enjoying their cocktails and reveling in their A-list status, Fehrenbach actually had a very important and substantive conversation with President Obama about his situation. According to Victor, who appeared that same night on Rachel Maddow's show:

[Obama] looked me right in the eye and he said, “We‘re going to get this done.” And then he continued to say, you know, everyone seems to be onboard. We‘ve got about 75 percent of the public that supports this. He said, but we have a generational issue. And so, there is some convincing to do, that there is a generational gap it seems and some of the senior leadership.

Well over a year later, it hasn't been done. And, Victor's lawyers know that his discharge is imminent.

So, this presents a conundrum. DOJ knows that there's a recommendation to discharge Fehrenbach on the desk of the Secretary of the Air Force. If they fight the TRO, Victor will be discharged. But DOJ told another judge that DADT is going to be repealed. So why would they want to lose a decorated war hero?

The next couple days will be very interesting. Can't wait to see how the DOJ responds.

And, while the decision to discharge Fehrenbach is on the desk of the Secretary of the Air Force, it might just as well be on the desk of President Obama, who is, after all, the Commander-in-Chief. The President has stated repeatedly that DADT presents a national security risk -- and he's vowed to end the policy. Obama said to Victor, “We‘re going to get this done.” Now is the time to do it.

I understand we'll see Victor on Rachel Maddow tonight.

Here are the Application for the TRO and Permanent Injunction and the Memo in support, which were filed this afternoon at the Federal Courthouse in Boise, Idaho:
Lt Col. Fehrenbach's TRO to prevent DADT discharge and memo. Read the rest of this post...

Biden's chief economic adviser: 'John Boehner wants a lot of people to lose their jobs'

From Jared Bernstein on the White House blog:

John Boehner wants a lot of people to lose their jobs.

We were awfully surprised to hear Rep. Boehner come out for killing jobs en masse in his own state and district by stopping the Recovery Act on last Sunday’s news shows.

Though we’re sure he didn’t know it, the Congressman is advocating to kill the expansion of the Butler County Community Health Center and bring some of the twenty-five highway projects across the district to a grinding halt. Across the state of Ohio, he said that approximately 4 million working families should get an unexpected cut in their paycheck as the Making Work Pay tax credit disappears, unemployed workers should go without unemployment benefits, and major Ohio road projects like the US-33 Nelsonville Bypass project and the Cleveland Innerbelt Modernization project should be stalled or stopped. Oh, and some of the more than 100 clean energy Recovery projects employing workers across the state should be shut down.

Read the rest of this post...

Kevin Drum explains the Google-Verizon anti-'Net Neutrality' deal

Kevin Drum:

[T]here are real benefits to providing routine, high-speed internet infrastructure to everyone. It means that small, innovative net-based companies can compete more easily with existing giants. It means schoolchildren can get fast access to a wide variety of content, not just stuff from Microsoft and Google. It means we have a more level playing field between content providers of all kinds. Sometimes universal access is a powerful economic multiplier — think postal service and electricity and interstate highways — and universal access to a robust internet is to the 21st century what those things were to the past. If, instead of an interstate highway system, we'd spent most of our money building special toll roads for Wal-Mart and UPS, would that have been a net benefit for the country? I'd be very careful before deciding that it would have been.

For now, then, count me on the side of a purer version of net neutrality, in which the backbone infrastructure stays robust because everyone — including the big boys — has an incentive to keep it that way. I'm willing to be persuaded otherwise, but Verizon and Google are going to have to do the persuading. And it better be pretty convincing.

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Rand Paul didn't kidnap young woman and try to force her to do drugs 'in a legal sense'

Glad we have that one settled. Read the rest of this post...

Gibbs stands by statements about 'the professional left'

From the Hill:

On Tuesday, deputy White House spokesman Bill Burton said Gibbs had answered the question about White House frustrations honestly.

Gibbs said "I would not contradict my able assistant" on that response.

So much for the not-really-an-apology. More background here. And more on Gibbs' comments today from Sam Stein. Read the rest of this post...

Flexing progressive muscle — Send Boehner home to stay

Digby is right to highlight this. Here's Ed Schultz with the Beat Boehner ad, two days in a row, along with post-ad commentary by Joan Walsh:



Digby adds (my emphasis):

Blue America and our partners at Americans for America are on our own with this. The DCCC had no intention of helping Justin Coussoule run a campaign against John Boehner and as far as I can tell no intention of taking any message national. So, if we want to keep this ad on the air we're going to have to pay for it ourselves.

I don't know independently that the bolded assertions are true, but they sound right. In any case:

If you'd like to contribute to the effort you can click here. I can tell you one thing --- Boehner hates it and the local press loves it.

Action opportunity — I strongly suggest funding this ad to take it national. Strongly. Handing a pink slip to "Eye of Tiger Woods" Boehner would not only put the ball on offense (for a change!) but it would send a stunning message about how serious progressives are about this generations-long battle we're in.

Ex-Representative Boehner. Has a nice aggressive ring to it, doesn't it?

Bonus point — When I went to the MSNBC site to see the Ed vid in situ, I was given 30 seconds of agitprop on the theme "Verizon loves you and your mobile device; look at these nice shiny pictures." It's starting, folks. Watch both Google and Verizon pour millions into making you disbelieve your eyes.

What can you do? Ditch Verizon — and tell them why. Then ditch Google Chrome and do the same. Google feeds on its ads — it's their Achilles heel — and Chrome lives to show them to you.

Proactively yours,

GP Read the rest of this post...

Lead religious right group wants no more mosques built in US, period

This is the "action" off-shoot of the group that led the failed boycott against Ford a few years ago (Joe and I beat them), the American Family Association. We tried to tell Ford, and every other company they try to bully, what big nuts these guys really are. And they just keep showing their true colors:

Permits should not be granted to build even one more mosque in the United States of America, let alone the monstrosity planned for Ground Zero. This is for one simple reason: each Islamic mosque is dedicated to the overthrow of the American government.

Each one is a potential jihadist recruitment and training center, and determined to implement the “Grand Jihad”...

Because of this subversive ideology, Muslims cannot claim religious freedom protections under the First Amendment. They are currently using First Amendment freedoms to make plans to destroy the First Amendment altogether. There is no such thing as freedom of religion in Islam, and it is sheer and utter folly for Americans to delude themselves into thinking otherwise.

Bottom line: it’s suicidal for America to allow terrorist training cells to crop up all over the fruited plain. And each mosque is an actual or potential terrorist training cell, as Anwar al-Awlaki has demonstrated.

American Muslims are being radicalized every single day in American mosques. We are sowing the seeds of our own destruction by allowing these improvised explosive devices to be established in community after community.

Funny how people who are bigots when dealing with gays are also bigots when dealing with other minorities. Who'd have prepared you for that? (H/t Political Correction) Read the rest of this post...

Shattered Expectations: My 2 Cents

I'm paraphrasing here, but a wise boss of mine used to say the way to lead was to "energize the base and inspire the middle," and instead, President Obama has been "alienating the base and confusing the middle."

I disagree with a lot of how the now well-read Hill write is framed, but I do understand the frustration many feel when it comes to the President's performance so far. He ran on this incredibly inspirational platform of hope and change. There was a real sense that Obama could be the guy to stop business as usual in Washington and redeem government. I know I'm not alone in believing he recognized the time had come to remind lawmakers whom they worked for - the people - and remind the people that government could be on their side.

However, it's been almost 2 years, and no one feels that way.

What permeates is the sense that the President has compromised his alleged values and backtracked on his campaign promises in a way that jaded insiders would say was to be expected but the general population hoped wasn't the case. We wanted to believe. We really did. I know I did.

Advocates embroiled in the fight for financial reform, marriage equality, climate change legislation, and host of other issues can offer their insights better than I can in those particular arenas. But my personal discontent stems from my experience in the battle for health care reform. I'm glad we got something done. I'm not convinced what passed was good enough. As of last month, my insurance premiums went up once again.

Had Obama run the first two years of his presidency the same way he ran his campaign - with guts and gusto - he would have solidified the full support of his base and the middle. They would have been ecstatic to get what they voted for. But when the President almost instantaneously cloaked himself in compromise and became the guy who just wanted to be liked, he showed a weakness that disenfranchised those of us who truly believed.

We don't want Canadian health care. We don't want the feds to run it all. After 8 years of feeling cast aside, we simply want things to get better. We voted for our elected officials to put our interests first, for civil rights to apply to all citizens, for government to work for us again, and for hope and change to have meant something.

I don't understand why the White House finds that so difficult to comprehend. Read the rest of this post...

Chinese News' take on the Jet Blue flight attendant flip out

You'll recall that the other day we wrote about a Jet Blue flight attendant who pulled a Robert Gibbs and creatively flipped out on the job, in this case after a passenger was rude to him. Well, it seems the story has made its way around the world, and now the Chinese news (I think) has it. The re-enactment of the scene is priceless. It's hard to imagine that this video won't make its way to Jon Stewart.

Read the rest of this post...

The Fed is worried about the economy

What? The economy isn't on the path to recovery? I do wish these professional Democrats would stop trying to undermine the President.

Federal Reserve officials, acknowledging that their confidence in the recovery had dimmed, moved again on Tuesday to keep interest rates low and encourage economic growth. They also signaled that more aggressive measures could follow if the job market and other indicators continued to weaken.

The Fed, led by Ben S. Bernanke, its chairman, has shifted away from its more optimistic outlook earlier this year. “The pace of recovery in output and employment has slowed in recent months,” said the Federal Open Market Committee. The statement added that the nation’s economic recovery was “likely to be more modest in the near term than had been anticipated.”

Read the rest of this post...

Wednesday Morning Open Thread

Good morning.

Congress is gone again. The House convened yesterday to pass the jobs bill, then left town to get back on the campaign trail. Speaker Pelosi has stayed truest to the progressive agenda over the past eighteen months. She's been the real leader. It sucks that she and her caucus are bearing the brunt of Democratic voter apathy. We need her as Speaker.

The President has a meeting this morning with his national security team to discuss the situation in Iraq. Let's hope they're really talking about winding down the U.S. presence in that country. Of course, according to Robert Gibbs, those of us who want to end the war in Iraq really just want to shut down the Pentagon -- or something like that. It's disturbing how disdainful the professional Democrats in DC (electeds, long-time staffers, consultants) are towards those of us who expect politicians to keep their promises.

I just watch NBC's ace reporter, Jenna Bush Hager, interview George W. Bush on a trip to Haiti. I guess that's why NBC hired her in the first place. It was, as you can imagine, an awesome interview. Just awesome.

And, one more thing: Servicemembers United Action Fund has begun airing ads in target states that challenge the opponents of DADT repeal. And, there's a new website: militaryreadiness.org. Here's the first ad:
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Digby on Gibbs

Digby:

It's embarrassing to have David Frum point out the obvious --- that the Republicans fear their base and the Democrats hate theirs, but it has been so since I was a kid --- a long time ago. At some point they are going to realize that their demanding activist base is the way it is and that they need to figure out a way to deal with it rather than rail against it. You cannot browbeat people into loving you and you can't argue them into being enthusiastic. Certainly characterizing them in cartoon terms by saying "they want to eliminate the Pentagon", they are on drugs and --- worst of all --- suggesting they are not part of America --- isn't going to get you there.

On the other hand, if they just want to use them as doormat as a way to appeal to "the center" then they take their chances that their activists won't turn out to volunteer --- or worse. Sometimes all it takes to lose is a quixotic third party bid, 535 disputed votes in Florida and Antonin Scalia. Why would they ask for that kind of trouble?

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Stephen Hawking: Our only chance at long term survival, past next 100 years, is to colonize space

I do wish these "professional Democrats" would stop trying to undermine the President's message of hope.

The audio is only a few minutes long.
Read the rest of this post...

Greenwald on Gibbs' outburst against the Democratic base today

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs went off against the Democratic party base earlier today in an article by The Hill. I responded here. And here is some of Glenn Greenwald's response:

So, to recap: (1) The Professional Left are totally irrelevant losers who speak for absolutely nobody, and certainly nobody in Real America who matters; but (2) they're ruining everything for the White House!!! And: if you criticize the President, it's only because you're such a rabid extremist that you harbor a secret desire to eliminate the Pentagon -- that's how anti-American you are! You're such a Far Left extremist that Dennis Kucinich isn't far enough Left for you, you subversive, drug-using hippies! As David Frum put it today: "More proof of my longtime thesis, Repub pols fear the GOP base; Dem pols hate the Dem base." The Democrats have been concerned about a lack of enthusiasm on the part of their base headed into the midterm elections. These sorts of rabid, caricatured, Fox-News-copying attacks on the Left will undoubtedly help generate more enthusiasm -- more loud clapping -- for the Democrats. I know I'm eager to go canvass and clap for Democrats after reading Gibbs' noble, inspiring vision. If it were Gibbs' goal to be as petulant and self-pitying as possible, what could he have done differently?

Perhaps one day the White House can work itself up to express this sort of sputtering rage against the Right, or the Wall Street thieves who destroyed the American economy, or the permanent factions that control Washington. Until then, we'll have to satisfy ourselves with White House explanations that the Real Culprits are not (of course) them, but the Professional Left, that is simultaneously totally irrelevant and ruining everything. I'll give credit to Gibbs for putting his name on this outburst: these are usually the things they say anonymously and then deny afterward on the record that it's what they think.

UPDATE: On September 9, 2008 -- roughly two months before the election -- Barack Obama addressed a large, enthusiastic crowd and said: "As president, I will lead a new era of accountability in education. But see, I don't just want to hold our teachers accountable; I want to hold our government accountable. I want you to hold me accountable." In 20 short months, we've gone from "hold me accountable" to "get drug tested," you wretched ingrates.

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