Blue America will say No to House Dems who said Yes to tax cuts

The progressive reaction to Obama's tax cut deal seems to be starting. Howie Klein has just announced that no House Democrat who voted Yes to the tax cut package will be allowed to fund-raise through Blue America. Klein (my emphasis):

Any Member of the outgoing 111th Congress wondering if they should apply for reelection help from Blue America for the 2012 midterms can consult this page from the House Clerk's official roll call on the Obama/McConnell job-killing/economy devastating tax giveaway to millionaires and billionaires. Any incumbent who voted YES-- and there were 139 Democrats who went along with this Conservative Consensus travesty-- should save themselves the trouble and the inevitable rejection of even asking for help. Get your payoffs from the millionaires and billionaires. ...

Sure you have your right-of-center political hacks like Jason Altmire (Blue Dog-PA), Suzanne Kosmas (FL), John Barrow (Blue Dog-GA), Zach Space (Blue Dog-OH), Melissa Bean (IL), Gabby Giffords (Blue Dog-AZ), Tom Perriello (VA), Artur Davis (AL), Heath Shuler (Blue Dog-NC), Baron Hill (Blue Dog-IN), Dan Boren (Blue Dog-OK), Jane Harman (Blue Dog-CA), Steve Israel (NY), the new head of the DCCC, Travis Childers (Blue Dog-MS), Ike Skelton (MO), Jim Marshall (Blue Dog-GA)... all the regular slime always eager to sell out working families on behalf of Big Business. But there are also many-- too many-- moderates and liberals who went along with the austerity shock doctrine.

It was very sad and disheartening to see progressive allies like Jan Schakowsky (IL), Melissa Schwartz (PA), Dennis Kucinich (OH), Chaka Fattah (PA), Dave Loebsack (IA), Niki Tsongas (MA), Paul Hodes (NH), Lois Capps (CA), Andre Carson (IN), John Sarbanes (MD) and others voting with Blue Dogs, ConservaDems and 138 right-wing Republicans to doom the American middle class.

There's more in Howie's post. Please read if you're so inclined. Looks like the progressive reaction has begun.

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Skiing, anyone?

Superior, Speed Fly from Marshall Miller on Vimeo.

I'm not a winter person and I could easily take a pass on skiing or gliding but these guys are impressive. Maybe a bit nuts as well, but a good kind of nuts. Read the rest of this post...

Frank Rich: The No Labels movement is a 'bipartisan racket'

I've been meaning to write for a while about the phony ginned-up campaign calling itself the No Labels 'movement' — as you'll see in a minute, it's a movement only in the sense that two corporate lobbyists and a billionaire went into a very small room and returned with a self-serving idea.

I was thinking of calling it the No Clue movement, but Frank Rich, bless him, beat me to it in grand style:

In its patronizing desire to instruct us on what is wrong with our politics, No Labels ends up being a damning indictment of just how alarmingly out of touch the mainstream political-media elite remains with the grievances that have driven Americans to cynicism and despair in the 21st century’s Gilded Age. ... Despite [marquee participant Michael] Bloomberg’s denials, some persist in speculating that No Labels is a stalking horse for a quixotic 2012 presidential run. At the very least the organization is a promotional hobby horse for MSNBC.

It gets worse. He derides the "movement" (my quotes) as encouraging "magical thinking", and then identifies the encouraging perps — two very highly placed corporate lobbyists who themselves exemplify why people deride politics (my emphasis):

Yet what’s most disturbing about No Labels is that its centrist, no doubt well-intentioned leaders seem utterly clueless about why Americans of all labels are angry: the realization that both parties are bought off by special interests who game the system and stack it against the rest of us. Indeed, No Labels itself is another manifestation of this syndrome. Its two prime movers are a political consultant, Mark McKinnon, a veteran of the Bush and McCain campaigns known for slick salesmanship; and a fund-raiser, Nancy Jacobson, who, along with her husband, the pollster and corporate flack Mark Penn, helped brand the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign as a depository for special-interest contributions.

I call that "hiding in plain sight" — Want even more bipatisanship? That tax "deal" is just the start.

There's much more in this great column, including this Citizens United connection: "No Labels has registered as a 501 (c) (4) and is not legally bound to release information about its contributors." Do read.

One final note — The column is called "The Bipartisanship Racket". An apt title, though his allotment of Times column inches didn't let him explain it.

A "racket" is actually a technical term for a kind of mob activity: "an illegal enterprise (such as extortion or fraud or drug peddling or prostitution) carried on for profit".

This "movement" isn't innocent foolishness, and shouldn't be treated as such — it's a fleecing operation, and if you don't see the sheep, look in the mirror (ahem, tax "deal").

Marine General Smedley Butler famously called war a racket, and defined racket:

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small 'inside' group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes."

I don't think Mr. Rich is unaware of this meaning. Again sir, we owe you for your insight.

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What if Joseph and Mary had Facebook and Twitter 2010 years ago...

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Obama administration hiring more mercenaries than Bush

Change we can believe in. Who needs a two party system when it's hardly possible to tell the difference between Democrats and Republicans?

Without much notice or debate, the Obama administration has greatly expanded the outsourcing of key parts of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency wars in the Middle East and Africa, and as a result, for its secretive air war and special operations missions around the world, the U.S. has become increasingly reliant on a new breed of specialized companies that are virtually unknown to the American public, yet carry out vital U.S. missions abroad.

Companies such as Blackbird Technologies, Glevum Associates, K2 Solutions, and others have won hundreds of millions of dollars worth of military and intelligence contracts in recent years to provide technology, information on insurgents, Special Forces training, and personnel rescue. They win their work through the large, established prime contractors, but are tasked with missions only companies with specific skills and background in covert and counterinsurgency can accomplish.

Some observers fear that the widespread use of contractors for U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Horn of Africa could deepen the secrecy surrounding the American presence in those regions, making it harder for Congress to provide proper oversight.

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Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

You get a plethora of Senators on the shows today. You can almost ten percent of the Senate. And, as a special treat, the President of the Senate/Vice President, Joe Biden, is on NBC.

There will be a lot of talk about START with Kerry and Lugar on ABC. Expect some DADT talk from Levin and Lindsey, who are on CBS. (We think Lindsey must be very secretly happy that DADT is going away. He is, after all, in the Reserves.)

The full lineup is here. Best line in the article:

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co.; CBS is a subsidiary of CBS Corp.; NBC is a unit of General Electric Co.; CNN is owned by Time Warner Inc.; Fox is owned by News Corp.

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The Waitresses - Christmas Wrapping

In case anyone missed it, Joe was on CNN yesterday following the big victory yesterday. Well done Joe! I was following the Live Chat yesterday and hanging on every post during the process. After many years of hard work it had to be a rewarding day for everyone. As dysfunctional and disappointing as DC can be, there are moments when they get it right. Sure there's a lot of work ahead, but yesterday was a very big step along the way. Head over to AMERICAblog Gay to get a lot more details on the success.

And again, way to go Joe! Read the rest of this post...

WikiLeaks: Sudanese president stashing billions in UK banks

It's interesting to see this story today following Assange's remarks about "attacks" from banks yesterday. He listed "attacks" from banks in the US, UK (where Lloyds is based), Switzerland and Dubai. One of the previous WikiLeaks reports was about the Afghan VP arriving in Dubai with $52 million in cash. As we all know how these banks operate today, would it be so hard to believe a major bank would be somehow involved?

Once again, I fail to see how these stories are remotely dangerous to our democratic system. If anything, these are reports that the public has every right to know. The Guardian:

Omar al-Bashir, the Sudanese president, has siphoned as much as $9bn out of his impoverished country, and much of it may be stashed in London banks, according to secret US diplomatic cables that recount conversations with the chief prosecutor of the international criminal court.

Some of the funds may be held by the part-nationalised Lloyds Banking Group, according to prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, who told US officials it was time to go public with the scale of Bashir's theft in order to turn Sudanese public opinion against him.

"Ocampo suggested if Bashir's stash of money were disclosed (he put the figure at $9bn), it would change Sudanese public opinion from him being a 'crusader' to that of a thief," one report by a senior US official states. "Ocampo reported Lloyds bank in London may be holding or knowledgeable of the whereabouts of his money," the cable says. "Ocampo suggested exposing Bashir had illegal accounts would be enough to turn the Sudanese against him."

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New tax law will hurt 51 million Americans

Unless the working poor want to step up their campaign contributions they're going to have to move aside. This is the new Democratic Party that has different priorities than in the past.

Why is the payroll-tax cut not as beneficial to those workers? Because at lower income levels, a 2-percent decline doesn't add up to much.The Tax Policy Center, a non-profit, non-partisan research organization, estimates that 51 million households, including many making $40,000 or less, would do worse under the new law. (On the Tax Policy Center's table illustrating that point, see the fourth column from the right, in the row labeled "All," for the total number of households benefiting more from Making Work Pay than from the Social Security payroll tax cut; the number is in thousands, so add three zeros to it.)

With the Making Work Pay tax credit, individuals between $6,452 and $75,000, have been eligible for up to $400 a year. Couples making between $12,903 and $150,000 have recieved up to $800. But, as Roberton Williams, a senior fellow with the Tax Policy Center, points out, the 2-percent drop in the payroll tax doesn't yield $400 until a worker makes $20,000. So workers making less won't get as much under the new system.

To confirm the TPC's assertions, I checked with both Barbara Weltman, a tax attorney and author of J.K. Lasser's 1001 Deductions and Tax Breaks, and John W. Roth, a senior tax analyst with CCH Wolters Kluwer, publisher of tax information and software. Both agreed with the TPC's assertion. "The net will be a negative for the lower working class," Roth said.

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