Friday, December 31, 2010

Still Missing Jon Swift

Seems hard to believe the blogger known as Jon Swift has been gone for less than a year. There's been so many times in the intervening months that I thought, "Jon would have skewered these idiots so perfectly had he still been with us," that it felt longer.

The gaping hole he left in Blogtopia(y!sctp!) will never be filled but big thanks to Batocchio at Vagabond Scholar for continuing Jon's tradition of linking to lesser known blogs. In memory of our lost compatriot, the "Jon Swift Memorial Roundup 2010" keeps Jon's spirit and generosity alive.

I was supposed to send in an entry, but time got away from me, so I left it in the comments and repost it here. The idea is for each blogger to pick the post they thought was their best of the year. Seemed appropriate to me to repost my eulogy, Blogging and Crying: RIP Jon Swift.

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Strict Constitutionalists

The Wingnut Wurlitzer has been piling on Ezra Klein for a couple of bland remarks he made about the GOP's silly gimmick of having the Constitution read on the House floor when they reconvene and he does some follow-up posts in the aftermath. Ezra makes a good point about Constitutional interpretation in light of the equally silly notion that adding a constitutional authority to all bills will make any difference:
To presume that people writing what they think the Constitution means -- or, in some cases, want to think it means -- at the bottom of every bill will change how they legislate doesn't demonstrate a reverence for the document. It demonstrates a disengagement with it as anything more than a symbol of what you and your ideological allies believe.

In reality, the tea party -- like most everyone else -- is less interested in living by the Constitution than in deciding what it means to live by the Constitution. When the constitutional disclaimers at the bottom of bills suit them, they'll respect them. When they don't -- as we've seen in the case of the individual mandate -- they won't.
He makes sense, which of course, set off another feeding frenzy on the internets.

Ezra was absolutely right to say interpreting the intention of the drafters is hard. For myself, I'd say the language was deliberately couched in ways that left it open to interpretation in the knowledge that they couldn't predict how society would evolve and meant it to be somewhat maleable to suit evolving circumstances. But for those "strict constitutionalists" who insist on seeing it as a static document, I'd suggest they can't really understand the drafters' intent unless they also live under the conditions that were prevalent at the time of its drafting.

So all those "strict constitutionalists" should immediately give up all technological improvements that have been made since it was signed in order to truly understand the Founders mindset. No cars, no airplane trips, no television, no radio, no internets, no household appliances, no central air or heat, hell just get off the national electric grid. And no ink pens either. Get out your quills and ink. And stay off paved highways.

No advanced medicine. No modern pharmaceuticals. And of course, no health insurance, Social Security or Medicare. No workplace safety rules and forget the 40 hour work week or overtime pay. Oh and no black guns anymore either. In other words, anyone who wants to "strictly interpret" a document written over 200 years ago needs to strictly live their lifestyle in order to truly channel their intent.

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Thursday, December 30, 2010

Quote of the Day

Best quote about the SNOMG blizzard of 2010, found on Twitter:
How are the Tea Partiers & libertarians handling the blizzard? Clearing the roads for themselves or expecting Big Government to do it?

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Indomitable Snow Man

Of all the stories told about the blizzard this weekend, Newark's Mayor Cory Booker came out the biggest hero. He turned his twitter feed into an emergency dispatch unit and hit the streets to aid his citizens, one by one. He literally dug people out of snowbanks, checked on the elderly and even helped deliver a baby.

In contrast, the conservatives' favorite bully boy, NJ Gov. Chris Christie rolled out of town for a trip to Disneyworld, and his Lt. Governor skulked off to Mexico, both just barely ahead of the storm. Unsurprisingly, they left it to a Democrat to deal with the mess they were leaving behind.
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Tuesday, December 28, 2010

SNOMG 2010 and other stuff

I saw a lot of pictures from this week's blizzard. This was the best one. Japanese Maple lit and frosted with snow.

And in case you somehow missed this timelapse video, this version is bigger than most and loads faster.

Also, this Ice Festival in China is incredible. They seem to make it bigger every year.

On a different note, my pal Pygalgia has some fine blue footed boobies.

If you have lots of time, the Met Museum posts more than 330,000 of their works online. See 20 new highlights every time you refresh (Warning: It's addictive!)

And not to neglect politics altogether, this is why I love the internets. Interesting retitling of chapters of Bush's book in the audio version, online.

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If it pisses off libruls...

Briefly broke my embargo this morning to see how her fellow cons were criticizing Palin's bashing of anti-obesity programs being promoted by the White House. That part wasn't that interesting but this is worth quoting:
Critics of the White House’s anti-obesity efforts say they could open the way to more regulations down the line, especially since Democrats’ healthcare reform law and its subsidies create added incentives for the federal government to cut medical costs by keeping Americans healthier.
Good Lord, we wouldn't want Americans to be healthier, especially if it's perceived as a win for the MarxistSocialistNaziFascistKenyanMuslimLiberal White House. And even worse, it might save money:
The epidemic also adds quantifiable costs to the nation’s healthcare system, perhaps as much as $147 billion in 2008, according to a recent study in the policy journal Health Affairs.
Tea Party patriots don't need no dang gummit telling them to cut down on the Krispy Kremes. But it's nothing personal, mind you.

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Monday, December 27, 2010

Recovery is spelled J.O.B.S.

Yet another piece on the debate over cyclical versus structural unemployment in The New Yorker. I don't have any deep insights on why the recovery remains so stubbornly jobless. Seems to me it's probably a little of both, but it strikes me that the obvious solution to either is -- create some jobs dammit.

I mean even if it's structural, the demo affected is largely older workers who will age out of the employment pool anyway so what they need are jobs for the next ten years or so. If it's cyclical, the way to create more demand is to give people jobs so they have money to spend.

Obviously, either way, the private sector simply isn't going to do it. But the government could, just as they did during the Great Depression and they could sell it as a means to get those "lazy" people off the dole and into the tax pool again. I'm willing to bet it would work a whole lot better than tax cuts.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Boss Hogg 2012 - Ha!

Politico shines some light on high-flyin' Haley Barbour's state jet use but don't click that link since Think Progress has the relevant quotes:
Much of the time, he has used the plane to go to fundraisers for himself and other Republican candidates and committees, to football games and to at least one boxing match — travel that has a less obvious connection to what Barbour, a former top lobbyist in Washington, has cast as his lobbying on behalf of his state. … The flight logs obtained by POLITICO indicate that Mississippi has spent more than $500,000 over the past three years on Barbour’s air travel. That total does not include security and other logistical costs associated with his trips. [...]

Barbour has reimbursed the state for a handful of flights, but he has more often scheduled obscure official business to coincide with the business of politics, according to the manifest and logs.
Nothing particularly new about this sort of scam. It's SOP for political execs, particularly corrupt southern GOPers, but I've shared Josh Marshall's amusement with The Village fascination over a potential run by Barbour. Seriously, from "the confederate flag signed by Confederate President Jefferson Davis near his desk," to his uncanny resemblance to Boss Hogg from the Dukes of Hazard, the man is the living image of a "Good Ole Boy Republican Fat Cat."

He plays well in Mississippi, but not even the relentless support of Fox Noise and the entirety of Teatopia could make him a national contender.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Sunday, December 26, 2010

This time they'll call it government over-reach

I always thought one of the stupidest battles in the health care reform fight was over the so-called "death panels" which was ultimately named "The Lie of 2009." It appears this very useful counseling will survive after all. It couldn't be enacted by law, but end of life counseling will be enabled by regulation starting January 1, 2010 2011.
Under the new policy, outlined in a Medicare regulation, the government will pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.

The final version of the health care legislation, signed into law by President Obama in March, authorized Medicare coverage of yearly physical examinations, or wellness visits. The new rule says Medicare will cover “voluntary advance care planning,” to discuss end-of-life treatment, as part of the annual visit.

Under the rule, doctors can provide information to patients on how to prepare an “advance directive,” stating how aggressively they wish to be treated if they are so sick that they cannot make health care decisions for themselves.
As Kay at Balloon Juice points out, this shouldn't be a big deal:
Advanced directives aren’t controversial. They aren’t new. Ohio’s law went in nineteen years ago. They aren’t frightening. There are provisions in all fifty states for anyone to draft an advanced directive, with or without a lawyer. All this rule change does is allow Medicare to pay doctors for a consult on the medical issues surrounding end of life care.
It seems only fair that doctors should be able to charge for their time for this sort of important consult. And everyone really should make their wishes clear well before the end of their life in any event.

I executed what in Massachusetts is called a living will, along with the required health care proxy, ten years ago myself. It costs a little to have a lawyer do it, but the forms are simple enough and likely available on the internet for free, so that anyone could draw one up themselves and simply pay a notary a couple bucks to witness the signatures.

[Thanks Mike, without your gracious linkage, this little blog would be nothing.]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Saturday, December 25, 2010

Merry Christmas

I have company from out of town, so I'm pretty much going off the grid for the day. Peace be with you all. And whether or not you celebrate, the music is always good, so my present to you dear readers, a few of my favorites.



Also, Judy Garland Merry Little Christmas. And Nat King Cole The Christmas Song. Or you prefer the classical, Beethoven's Gloria:

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Friday, December 24, 2010

Christmas Eve

Because I just found out this is on Youtube and I love it...



Hope you're all enjoying a peaceful and joyous Christmas Eve.

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The difference between liberals and conservatives

One of the big differences between liberals and conservatives is their perception of the working poor and the just plain poverty stricken. While conservatives tend to sneer at them as stupid and/or lazy, liberals largely empathize with their plight and understand that not everyone is lucky enough to be born into upper middle class families. Liberals also realize that being poor is very hard work and in today's world, there just aren't that many opportunities to break out of poverty.

SoBeale finds the perfect illustration of this phenomenon.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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In a sane world...

Sometimes Atrios says it so well that there's nothing to do but steal his post in its entirety:
The Way The World Doesn't Work

As Ireland lights another pile of money on fire, I'm reminded that another way to save the big banks and let rich assholes continue to receive absurd bonuses would have been to give people money to pay down their debts. Banks would have gotten their money, and people would have less debt. This would never happen because it would grossly unfair to help some people so we'll do the fair thing and just give money to rich assholes.
I'm pretty sure I have a post somewhere where I said just about this same thing back in 2008 about our Bankster bailout.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Thursday, December 23, 2010

Obama evolving

President Obama made a little speech yesterday before leaving for a much deserved vacation. He was modest about the stellar performance of the lame duck, claiming it as a win for the American people rather than himself. To this day, I still marvel at the contrast between him and our former Smirker in Chief. Even when I don't agree with him, Obama is a pleasure to listen to, in comparison.

Obama also expressed regret that the DREAM act failed, a disappointment I certainly share though I expected it. GOPers never have any trouble punishing innocent children for the sins of the parents. The most interesting point he made was about his evolving thoughts on gay marriage. He hints at supporting it in the future, so maybe he'll do something about DOMA down the line.

I am a little worried about this bit though:
“A lot of folks in this time predicted that after the midterm elections, Washington would be headed for more partisanship and more gridlock,” Mr. Obama said. Instead, he said, Washington politicians decided that it was time to find common ground.

“That’s a message that I will take to heart in the new year, and I hope my Democratic and Republican friends will do the same,” he said.
I'm not sure why the GOPers caved at the end here, but I doubt it's because they had a change of heart and decided to put the business of the people above their own partisan self-interest. What I'd like to believe is that the few sensible Republicans that crossed over did it just because it was the right thing to do and will continue on that track. But I figure it's more likely they realize the next session of Congress is going to be such a teabag slinging mess they wanted to help while they could. Thinking the GOP leadership is just regrouping to figure out new and more devious ways to sabotage civil society in order to tar Obama and regain the White House in 2012.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Don't count Dems out

A lot of breathless speculation today about the demographic shifts in the 2010 census count.
By that new count, Texas will gain four seats, Florida will gain two, while New York and Ohio each lose two. Fourteen other states gained or lost one seat. The gainers included Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina and Utah, and the losers included Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

“This teaches us how we’ve changed as a country,” said Robert Groves, director of the Census Bureau. “The trend is for a growth in seats for western and southern states.”
While the shift in electoral votes may amount to some trouble for Obama, the mitigating factor in the potential popular vote is much of those population gains came from Hispanics and most probably relocated Northern Dems, like me, who moved south to escape the cold. While my state stays the same and I'm still way outnumbered here in the little city, unlike real estate, location alone isn't everything.

The Republicans will make their best attempt at gerrymandering in the near term, but in the long run, liberals just might remake the south into a reality-based community.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Specter takes his parting shot at SCOTUS

I never had much use for the guy, but I admit I love that in his farewell speech to the Senate, Sen. Arlen Specter throws the judicial activist card down.
"Ignoring a massive congressional record and reversing recent decisions, Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito repudiated their confirmation testimony given under oath and provided the key votes to permit corporations and unions to secretly pay for political advertising - thus effectively undermining the basic Democratic principle of the power of one person, one vote," said Specter. Chief Justice Roberts promised to just call balls and strikes and then he moved the bases."
We tried to tell him that when he was voting to confirm these ideologues for a lifetime appointment. If only he had listened then, he might still have a job.

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Monday, December 20, 2010

The trouble with Harry

Building a bit on my last post, Harry Reid is feeling victorious. And it's true he's has some successes to point to:
He ultimately won a fifth term — and a raft of legislative victories in a chamber best known recently for gridlock. Repeal over the weekend of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy barring gay, lesbian and bisexual members from serving openly in the military joined the economic stimulus package, the national health care legislation, new financial regulations and a huge tax-cut bill on a list of accomplishments that even Republicans can’t help admiring.
The trouble with this list is, outside of the DADT repeal, which I repeat ended up winning as a stand alone bill, the rest of these accomplishments were pretty much watered down and not nearly as effective as they could have been had he taken a harder line from the start instead of caving to the GOP's threats.

Nonetheless, he's looking forward to more victories as minority leader.
For his part, Mr. Reid predicted, “We’ll get some things done,” naming comprehensive immigration legislation as one possibility.

If Republicans’ vulnerability among Hispanic voters does not persuade them to compromise, he noted, “they have real problems with their mental capacity.”
Tough talk now and you have to love it. But let's hope he can walk it when the time comes to deliver.

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Lame Duck doesn't suck

In a move that surprised just about everyone, the Senate passed the food safety bill on a voice vote yesterday. I'm not sure it's that good a bill since I've seen some small buzz about provisions that could potentially hurt small and organic farmers. But the larger point is our broken Senate can get things done, if they want to.

In fact, DDay points out the lame duck Senate session has been rather productive:
So far in the lame duck, Congress has passed: the tax cut bill which includes a 13-month extension of unemployment insurance, the legislative repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the child nutrition bill, a settlement for black farmers and Native American trust accounts, a one-year doc fix, a telework bill, a long-awaited low power FM bill, the CALM Act, and now an expected food safety bill.

But that’s not all. In addition to the food safety move today, the Senate confirmed a couple more judges, meaning that 12 have passed Congress in the past week. And of equal consequence, Harry Reid filed cloture on the new START treaty, after the Senate rejected another amendment to the treaty today.
If only Harry had been this forceful for the last two years, we might have seen some real advances for a progressive agenda.

But one other thing that strikes me as I'm watching this unfold is most of this is being accomplished with stand alone bills. Which leaves me wondering if the easiest fix for what ails the "greatest deliberate body" isn't simply to require all bills to be stand alone. It's all the deal making over added, and all too often unrelated amendments, that slows the process down to a crawl, every time.

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"Failed" economics

Krugman wonders in a post today about how future historians will view the "strange triumph of failed ideas. Free-market fundamentalists have been wrong about everything — yet they now dominate the political scene more thoroughly than ever."

He reads the situation correctly, but I think he misses a key point about the dynamic. The failure of the "free market fundies" is only confined to the working class. It's been very good to the investor class who are still making more than enough money and then some. Since our investor class and our ruling class are one and the same, from their POV, this failure has been a great success.

As long as they can keep the pitchforks and torches at bay by selling their snake oil sloganery to the rubes, they'll continue their pickpocketing of the economy for as long as they can get away with it.

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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Cribbing the sincerest form of flattery?

Not sure how should feel about this. It seems this website, which appears to be conservative, has taken to stealing aggregating my posts. Then again I guess it's not so different from what I do with the cut and paste myself. And they do direct their readers back to my posts without giving away the whole thing. Not getting a ton of traffic from it, but I suppose I'll go with flattered that they think my stuff is worth copying.

It could also explain why I suddenly got a few right wing followers on twitter recently. I was wondering...

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Angry, bitter, old McCain

I'm so old I remember a time when I rather respected John McCain. It was many years ago when he seemed to act on principle and deserved his "maverick" status. All that's gone now. Losing the presidential race changed him and it's beyond mere partisan hackery now. His obvious bitterness at being denied the Oval Office and his sneering disdain for the man who won the contest has morphed into an evil thing. He's become a filthy cockroach skittering far from the fringe edge of civil society and feasting on the offal tossed in the gutters by tea party "patriots."

I didn't see his temper tantrum yesterday, but I have no doubt Steve Benen describes his metamorphosis well:
This isn't another "Whatever happened to the old McCain?" piece, which we've all seen too many times in recent years. Rather, this is to suggest McCain has done more than make the transition from "maverick" to petulant right-winger. Yesterday, the man waving his arms on the Senate floor was a misanthropic hack who's abandoned basic decency, and trashed any hopes he might have had about a respectable legacy.
Sad really that he embraced this dung strewn path. He could have been gracious in defeat and done much good in his waning years not just for his own legacy, but for our country. Instead he's become the kind of monstrously deformed creature that is so painful to view, we prefer to avert our eyes rather than be forced to acknowledge his presence among us.

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9/11 Heroes Health Care Bill Rises Again

This is sort of a surprise. It seems the 9/11 Heroes Health Care Bill isn't quite dead yet. New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand announced yesterday that the Senate is likely to pass it after all, now that they cut a new deal with the GOP on the funding. As ABC reports:

"They would like to vote for a stand-alone bill," she said. "There is general agreement on a new pay-for that we're going to offer, so the hope is to get to the bill as soon as the START bill is completed."

"I support the 9/11 health bill on the merits, and I have talked with Senator Gillibrand about the need for legitimate ways of offsetting its cost," Collins said in a statement on Thursday. "If the Majority Leader were to bring the bill to the floor with appropriate offsets, I would support the legislation."

The off-set in the House-passed measure would close tax loopholes for foreign companies, a move that Collins has objected to on the grounds that it would violate international tax treaties.
Of course, ABC adds no context, like a quote from an expert in tax law, indicating whether Collins is correct in that assessment. But here's the new trade-off.
Today Gillibrand said that the new off-set would be a 2 percent fee on procurement contracts for certain countries, combined with a visa fee.
No word on which "certain countries" would be subject to the fee and one suspects yet another visa fee will only hurt the US tourist more than less.

As I said in my previous post, there's no constituency the GOP won't sell out to protect multinational corporate welfare. And apparently, the Dems have no problem helping them do it. But at least the rescuers at Ground Zero will get the help they deserve, so there's that...

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What she said

Ha! Via Avedon from Susie Bright. May not be safe for work so keep the audio down low if you work in a conservative joint.

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Saturday, December 18, 2010

Why the GOP killed the 9/11 Heroes Bill

I've seen quite a bit of establishment media coverage about the GOP's inhumane opposition to this and they all mention the Senate GOP's great concern about the cost of funding it. I haven't seen them mention the bill providing relief to 9/11 Ground Zero rescuers is paid for and the Republicans' real problem is where they found the money.
We also learned yesterday why Republicans have been so opposed to the measure -- the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has been quietly lobbying against it because it's financed by closing tax loopholes for foreign businesses that do business in the United States. The Chamber cares more about protecting the loopholes than caring for 9/11 heroes, so it's been successfully pressuring Republicans to kill the bill.
Today's GOP in a nutshell. Tax cuts for the wealthy trump the common good and simple humanity every, single, time.

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DADT is history - Updated

I'm celebrating along with all supporters of repeal that the Senate voted to end DADT today on a vote of "65-31, with eight Republicans crossing the aisle to support the measure." And this was a pleasant surprise:
The eight Republicans who voted for the repeal were Sens. Scott Brown of Massachusetts, Mark Kirk of Illinois, Richard Burr of North Carolina, John Ensign of Nevada, George Voinovich of Ohio, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, both of Maine.

The "yes" votes from Burr and Ensign were something of a surprise, since they had not voted earlier in the day to limit debate.
Seriously. The last crossover I expected was from my usually useless Senator Burr.

However, I admit I'm finding it a little sad we're celebrating the end of a legalized discrimination that never should have been enacted in the first place and we had to fight so hard to win this one. But hey, I'm willing to credit good behavior, so thanks Mr. Burr for doing the right thing and Joe Liberman for corralling the GOP votes. And good job to President Obama and Harry Reid. Feels like that eleventy chess thing again.

This is how society evolves and it's good to see "teh gay" becoming diminished as wedge issue. One can only hope this signals equal marriage rights for the LGBT community in the near future.

Update: Much as I hate to link to Politico, this statement by Burr about his vote is remarkable enough to make an exception to my embargo:
Given the generational transition that has taken place in our nation, I feel that this policy is outdated and repeal is inevitable. However, I remain convinced that the timing of this change is wrong, and making such a shift in policy at a time when we have troops deployed in active combat areas does not take into consideration the seriousness of the situation on the ground. But, the vote this morning to invoke cloture on this bill indicated that the broader Senate was prepared to move forward with a change, and despite my concerns over timing, my conclusion is that repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is the right thing to do.

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Thursday, December 16, 2010

Wrong message Mr. President

Some days it's harder to hold my empathy for our President than others. I mean, why did Obama say this?

I want to dispel any notion we want to inhibit your success,” President Obama told 20 CEOs this morning, according to a source in the room. “We want to be boosters because when you do well, America does well.
We? Speak for yourself Mr. President. If that was true, then wouldn't the economy be in better shape right now? As Digby points out, only Americans doing well are CEOs of the multinational corps. And median household income fell again this year.

Meanwhile, the CEOs weren't shy about issuing their ransom demands publicly:
CEOs discussed the need to increase exports through trade deals with South Korea, Panama, and Colombia; regulations they find burdensome; and needing more certainty in taxes – wanting, for instance, the research & development tax credit to be made permanent.

“We’d like to have longer visibility,” UPS Chairman and CEO Scott Davis told ABC News after the meeting. “We’d like to be able to see out three, four, five years to what policy is, that would help spur investment…. I think understanding tax policy, you know, not just tax policy, general, all policy helps when you are making investments. We make investments for long term. We make investments for 5, 10, 20, 30 years. You like to have a better feeling as to what’s the environment going to be out 5 years.”

Davis said one of the key reasons for the cash being stored away “has been coming through the financial crisis… Corporations are starting to feel more confident than they did a year or two years ago. So I think we will start to see more investments as we move forward...” [...]

UPS had $3 billion on hand at the end of the third quarter, after having eliminated 18,000 jobs in 2009.
In other words they want to be sure they'll be allowed to screw their workers and pocket the profits without any of "their" money being "stolen" for taxes to support the public commons, on which they themselves place the greatest drain. Because they got so scared by a financial meltdown they created themselves? And are still profiting on by scavenging on the ruins they left behind.

Obama should be telling these sociopaths to go to hell. Trouble is they really do have the means to crash the economy all over again. So basically we're all screwed. I wonder if the solution would be to break up the multinationals so they don't hold that kind of power. They did that sort of thing in the past, didn't they?

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Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Landmark protection for privacy

Congratulations to EFF for a big win on privacy rights:
In a landmark decision issued today in the criminal appeal of U.S. v. Warshak, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that the government must have a search warrant before it can secretly seize and search emails stored by email service providers. Closely tracking arguments made by EFF in its amicus brief, the court found that email users have the same reasonable expectation of privacy in their stored email as they do in their phone calls and postal mail.
This probably won't stop all of the warrantless eavesdropping enacted under Bush and continued and expanded under Obama, but it sets important case law that speaks directly to the government excesses in domestic surveillance. Big props to EFF for relentlessly working to protect our rights on the electronic frontier.

I believe EFF is non-profit so if anyone is looking to dump money at the end of the year on charitable donations for tax purposes, you couldn't find a better organization to support.

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Obstruction has consequences

While it surely would have been more useful if he had taken this tack from the start, it's good to see Harry Reid cracking the whip with an announcement that the Senate will have to work right up to January 4, 2011. Predictably the Republicans are whining about how mean he's being to make them, you know, do their job and work on legislation. But this complaint is priceless:
Mr. Kyl said that Mr. Reid’s effort to do too much was inconsiderate of the Senate as an institution and also of senators, staff and their families hoping to celebrate Christmas.

Mr. Kyl added, “ It is impossible to do all of the things that the majority leader laid out without doing — frankly, without disrespecting the institution and without disrespecting one of the two holiest of holidays for Christians and the families of all of the Senate, not just the senators themselves but all of the staff.”
So after slowing the Senate to a crawl with endless procedural roadblocks for the last two years, now the workload is too ambitious and mean old Harry is disrespecting the sanctimony of Christmas? Didn't notice him complaining that the Jewish members had to work through their high holy days. Not to mention the majority of Americans only get the one day off themselves. And gee whiz, our Congresscreatures are so overworked. I mean they only get a week or so at every federal holiday, the Easter break, the spring break, the summer break and the fall campaign break.

I wonder if anybody has a running count of how many days these folks are actually on the Hill in the course of a year? Taxpayers would likely get a better deal if we only paid them per diem for the days they're actually in session.

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Tuesday, December 14, 2010

Holbrooke's last words

Richard Holbrooke's tragic death is a great loss for our current foreign policy. He was one of the few voices calling for sanity in Af/Pak policy:
Family members said his last words before he headed into surgery were: "You've got to stop this war in Afghanistan," according to the Washington Post.
From his mouth to our President's ears.

I know Obama campaigned on escalating the occupation there, but I never expected him to adopt the same failed tactics of the previous administration, at least not for so long.

Meanwhile, if you want a refresher on Holbrooke's career, the NYT has a good obit with an interesting rundown of his multi-faceted influence on policy over his many years in public service. Rest in peace.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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A game changing book review

I was invited to participate in this “virtual book tour” for the paperback version of Mark Halperin and John Heilemann’s Game Change, their book about the "inside story" of the 2008 presidential campaign. If I could have written a review this good, I might have accepted the offer to review it myself. Then again, I might not have. I was afraid my blood pressure wouldn't be able to stand actually reading it.

Anyway, here's Thers opening line:
Game Change is a shallow and ultimately pointless book, but nevertheless irritating.
Read the rest at the link. You won't be sorry.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Monday, December 13, 2010

Out of the archives

News is slow so I'm clearing out my warehouse of very old links. Good way to put today's politics in context. It was only three years ago we were fighting against the elaborate secrecy claimed by Dick Cheney, and enabled by Bush, over Vice Presidential White House records.

The [Bush] White House pressured the EPA to weaken requirements that companies annually disclose releases of toxic chemicals.

Wexler was calling for impeachment hearings on Cheney.

Bobby Kennedy Jr. was pondering irrational Hillary hatred.

A Muslim man jumped to the aid of three Jewish subway riders after they were attacked by a group of young people who objected to one of the Jews saying "Happy Hanukkah."

Federal sentencing guidelines for crack cocaine were revised to bring them into line with penalties for powder cocaine.

And no link because it rotted, but the GOP presidential hopefuls held a debate in Iowa. The punderati talked more about the moderator and the style of the debate, which was to give each candidate the same question. I loved it; most everyone else hated it. Fred Thompson was still on the radar and Huckabee was the rising star in the field.

And no one ever talked about Sarah Palin. Sometimes I think I'm too pessimistic, but looking at this it's hard not to think things really have changed -- for the worse.

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History repeats itself

To quote my favorite pundit of all time, Yogi Berra, it's like deja vu, all over again. This could have been written yesterday.

Now, as Congress struggles to adjourn for Christmas, relations between House Democrats and their colleagues in the Senate have devolved into finger-pointing.

House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) accuses Senate Democratic leaders of developing "Stockholm syndrome," showing sympathy to their Republican captors by caving in on legislation to provide middle-class tax cuts paid for with tax increases on the super-rich, tying war funding to troop withdrawal timelines, and mandating renewable energy quotas. If Republicans want to filibuster a bill, Rangel said, Reid should keep the bill on the Senate floor and force the Republicans to talk it to death. [...]

Democrats in each chamber are now blaming their colleagues in the other for the mess in which they find themselves. The predicament caused the majority party yesterday surrender to President Bush on domestic spending levels, drop a cherished renewable-energy mandate and move toward leaving a raft of high-profile legislation, from addressing the mortgage crisis to providing middle-class tax relief, undone or incomplete. [...]

Their [the Congress'] support plummeted as the liberal base grew outraged over the Democratic inability to counter the president on any war issue, while moderates and centrists looking for bipartisan kitchen-table accomplishments instead saw partisan gridlock.
This was published exactly three years ago today. Bush was still president but Dems held the Congress. Nothing much has changed... except Congressional approval ratings have dropped even lower.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Pass on the ketchup

Ruth catches another instance of the multinationals unconcern for US workers:
Last Saturday, the CEO of Heinz, best known for ketchup production, told Maria Bartiromo that Heinz will not be hiring Americans this year (at 3:55). The reason he gave was the ‘uncertainty’ produced by the ‘inability’ of the government to decide on really important things such as the tax rate his business will pay. He announced at the same time on the same program that Heinz will be opening facilities and hiring in other countries, and concentrated on China where they make soy sauce.
As Ruth says, it's time for our government to penalize corporations that refuse to create American jobs and US consumers could send a message by boycotting their products. Of course since Heinz is so big, it wouldn't mean just giving up their ketchup. No more tater tots either. I'm pretty sure we'll never get Mark Knoller on board with that boycott, unless we can convince him the store brands are just as good. And usually they're not.

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]
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Sunday, December 12, 2010

Mental health break

I know I could use one and when I found this on twitter it reminded me of how much I love this guys and the blues.



It struck me as I was listening to this that I need more music in my life. Kind of fell out of the habit of having something playing in the background in the last couple of years.
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On the other hand...

Building a bit on my previous post, it's not that despite my relentless empathy for Obama, that I can't see the obvious political solution to the oligopoly and don't share the frustration of my less conspiracy prone friends. Contradicting everything I just said below, I also believe this to be true:
I've also said this before and I will say it again: All Obama has to do is threaten to veto tax cuts for rich people. Half the country approves of him doing this. Letting tax cuts return to Clinton levels requires Democrats to do nothing. It is in fact the very thing Democrats are best at doing and the easiest single thing for every member of Congress to do at their job. If they vote on nothing, agree on nothing, we return the horrible, monstrous economy of the greatest economic expansion since World War II and Republicans are responsible for taxes going up. Not only is this blatantly obvious to everyone, it is in fact what everyone has known for the last ten years. The Democrats literally fuck up doing nothing.
[Via Avedon who always has much more worth reading.]

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Extortionists

As I said in my previous post, I've long thought that a lot of the incomprehensible positions Obama has taken on economic policy have been a direct result of extortion by the Banksters. As in, "Nice stock market you have there. Would be too bad if something happened to it -- again." Clearly the Banksters have the tools to create another 2008 style crash.
On the third Wednesday of every month, the nine members of an elite Wall Street society gather in Midtown Manhattan. The men share a common goal: to protect the interests of big banks in the vast market for derivatives, one of the most profitable — and controversial — fields in finance. They also share a common secret: The details of their meetings, even their identities, have been strictly confidential.

....The banks in this group, which is affiliated with a new derivatives clearinghouse, have fought to block other banks from entering the market, and they are also trying to thwart efforts to make full information on prices and fees freely available.
These are the same guys still running the same Ponzi scam that created the 2008 meltdown and they're now back to profiting at record breaking levels from it. I mean, how is it even legal for them not to be required to disclose costs and fees on the derivative trades?

A couple of weeks ago there a brief buzz about the DoJ's purported "crackdown" on Wall St. fraudsters. I didn't need Bloomberg to tell me they were only netting small fry. What's disturbing is our supposedly internet savvy administration doesn't seem to realize they can't get away with this kind of smoke and mirrors PR effort anymore. Not while the internet remains even somewhat free. Which makes me worry about the future of the internets.

But that aside, it also leaves the question of what to do about the Banksters. I believe they could, and would, cause another meltdown if the White House goes after the big fish. It's not lik they couldn't weather another one. But I'm not so sure the rest of us little people could survive another one so soon.

I know I'm in tin foil hat territory here, but think about it. If this was the actual situation, and you were President, and really did care about the working class, what would you do? Me, I'm not so sure I wouldn't pay the ransom. Which I guess is just a long winded of explaining why I just can't quite shake my empathy for Obama's burden.

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Corporacrats to meet with Obama

I've been thinking for a long time that President Obama's economic strategy is largely dictated under threat by Big Business. On Wednesday, Obama will be hosting a get together with 20 CEOs of the nation's largest multinationals where they will presumably be making their ransom demands. As seems to be usual, the President's counter demand is small.
The administration wants to persuade U.S. companies to unleash some of the $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets they're hoarding in their treasuries. Cash as a share of total assets is at the highest level it's been in a half-century, the Federal Reserve said last week. Mr. Obama wants the nation's biggest companies to invest that money in expansion and new hires in the U.S.
Meanwhile, the ransom is high.
"Regulations have been a fault-line with business, so compromise on them would be a very welcome change," said Johanna Schneider, executive director of the Business Roundtable, composed of chief executives from the nation's biggest multinationals.
Compromise as a welcome change? For crying out loud, all Obama has done in two years is make concessions to this crowd, to the detriment of our nation's economic health and his own political fortunes. Needless to say, the CEOs are happy with the latest cave-in.
The tax compromise and the Korea deal made a big difference—there's a lot of respect, and the view that this could open the door to further compromises by the president and Congress," she said. Recent dire reports on the federal deficit also served to focus the executives on collaboration with Washington, Ms. Schneider said.
I don't expect us little people will get much out of it, with this as the meeting agenda.
Among the topics will be deficit reduction, an overhaul of the tax code, government regulation, export promotion, public-private investments in areas like technology and clean energy, and efforts to improve education and job skills, Ms. Psaki said.
Sounds like they're planning to fray the social safety net of the working class again to me. And of course this the the root of the CEOs heart's desire.
The issues of health care and financial regulation continue to roil relations with business because the administration now is writing the regulations for implementing both laws. And fights could loom over reducing deficits and simplifying the tax code, with industries poised to protect a raft of subsidies and tax breaks.
Somehow, I'm not expecting those subsidies and tax breaks to be put on the table as a means to reduce the deficit at this meeting. But I'd be happy to be wrong.

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Saturday, December 11, 2010

Sanders speaks for the people

Technically it wasn't a filibuster since there was no business of the Senate pending on the floor but in reading the reactions around the interwebs, Brian Beutler echoes my thought:
It's a filibuster as filibusters were originally intended -- and, as such, makes a mockery of what the filibuster's become: a gimmick that allows a minority of senators to quietly impose supermajority requirements on any piece of legislation.
Indeed, this is the simplest fix of any for the fillibuster, short of abolishing it altogether. A mere threat to endlessly continue the debate shouldn't be enough. Senators who so cutely block the normal up or down votes need to be required to make their case, in words, on the floor. I'm certain it would cut back tremendously on its use as a weapon of mass obstruction.

Easy to make the threat, but not so easy to do the deed. Sanders spoke for eight hours and thirty five minutes, nearly non-stop. Word has it he was clearly exhausted at the end. And as Steve Benen points out, Sanders' motives were pure:
He took to the floor yesterday, not because some lobbyist handed him talking points, not because he wants to be on television, not because he's driven by some personal ambition, but because he cares deeply about working families, and intends to fight to do what he can to help them.
He wasn't there just to run the clock. The Caucus has a clip of Sanders' opening remarks and some quotes like this:
Mr. Sanders also dismissed assertions that the tax cut deal was worthwhile because it will keep jobless benefits flowing to the long-term unemployed, saying that assistance should have been approved regardless of what happened to the Bush-era rates. “Let me be very clear,” he said. “In the midst of a serious and major recession, at a time when millions of our fellow Americans are out of work, through no fault of their own, but they have been out of work for a very, very long time, it would be, in my view, immoral and wrong to turn our backs on those workers.”
If only this argument had been made so dramatically months ago, we wouldn't be fighting over this stupid tax steal now.

Karoli has a clip of Sanders speaking of childhood poverty and rightly notes this speech, if nothing else, put the facts into the public record and maybe even planted it into the minds of those who don't normally pay enough attention.

And if you have eight hours and thirty minutes to spend, you can watch Sanders entire speech here in the CSPAN archives.

All I have to add at the moment is my applause and much thanks to Senator Sanders for a job well done. One hopes everyone inside and outside the Beltway learns something from this.

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Friday, December 10, 2010

Go Bernie Sanders

I was working and then dealing with a small family crisis, so I haven't seen a minute of it, but I'm hearing Bernie Sanders is rocking the chambers with an hours long argument for progressive policy.

Don't have a link and no idea if it's still going on, but wow! Last count I saw was seven hours. Can't wait for the youtubes.

Meanwhile, I'm off to twitter to see what he said...
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What Avedon said...

She doesn't post as much as she used to, so I've gotten out of the habit of checking her daily and thus have been very remiss in linking to Avedon lately. Even when I don't agree with all of them, she always has the must read links, but even better is when she takes the occassion to post her own thoughts. Been meaning to link to these two in particular that I very much agree with.

Avedon on tax cuts for the wealthy:
The facts are simple common sense: If there is not enough money in the economy because the wealthy are sucking it out of the economy and sitting on it, the way to restore the economy is to take that money back and inject it back into the economy where it will do the most good - at the bottom, where the people who need that money to spend live. Welfare checks, Social Security, food stamps, numerous public programs (like free education) and a host of mid-level public servants are one way we ensure that we have a lot of people who can spend that money in the real economy. "Austerity" means reducing the amount of money that is being put into the economy. It's really that simple.
And this speaks to my own frustation with the lack of focus in Leftopia:
Marcy Kaptur knows the rules of Let's Play Wall Street Bailout. I didn't see this when she stood on the floor to say it in September. Most of the sources I regularly check were too busy focusing on loony statements by right-wing hacks, I guess, to highlight something worthwhile that someone said. How does that happen? Why is it that when people like Louise and Marcy get up and talk sense, it never gets the buzz? You can't claim Kaptur is a boring speaker or "too nuanced" or any of that crap. The simple fact is that everyone is still letting the wingers set the agenda. Instead of worrying about whether Sarah Palin or some Teabagger said something stupid, we should have been calling our representatives to demand that they support Kaptur's proposal.
So we should have, and would have if the big bloggers had been keeping to their former role of informing us about the stories the MSM misses, instead of echoing the establishment media's wingnut coverage, even if it is to laugh and point. As I've said a million times now, sure it's fun and it drives traffic, but it doesn't really advance the progressive agenda in any way I can see.

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Corporate coffers continue to grow

It's the classic Catch-22. "Corporate America's cash pile has hit its highest level in half a century."
Rather than pouring their money into building plants or hiring workers, nonfinancial companies in the U.S. were sitting on $1.93 trillion in cash and other liquid assets at the end of September, up from $1.8 trillion at the end of June, the Federal Reserve said Thursday. Cash accounted for 7.4% of the companies' total assets—the largest share since 1959. [...]

The cash pooling up at companies has the potential to help the economy grow more vigorously and bring unemployment lower—if they start spending it on new plants, equipment and employees.
Of course they're not going to do that because no one has any money to buy their stuff. And no one is going to have any money to buy their stuff, unless or until they start creating some jobs. So their strategy is to dribble out a little bit to their shareholders or buy back their own stock to create paper profits, and sit on the bulk of their holdings until "opportunities might come up." Of course without economic growth to spur innovation, there won't be any of those opportunities any time soon.

But let's give them more tax breaks, cause you know, that's been working so well for the last ten years. Or maybe instead of tax breaks, the government could use that money to create more jobs instead, so there's enough demand that the private corporations can get over their "uncertainty" and start hiring too. And by a government jobs programs I mean, lots of jobs for ordinary and older and displaced workers. Something along the lines of the old CCC which after all, left a lasting legacy.

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Thursday, December 09, 2010

Runaway train (money)

I feel sorry for the citizens who didn't vote for the incoming governors of Wisconsin and Ohio, because they'll suffer the consequences too, but one hopes this will be a wake-up call for the slogan voters who put these two in office. In real life, that "small government" sound byte that sounded so good in the the teevee commercials means no high-speed railroad jobs for them.
The Obama administration is taking $1.2 billion in high-speed rail money away from Ohio and Wisconsin and awarding it to other states, congressional sources said Thursday.
Both Ohio and Wisconsin have elected incoming Republican governors opposed to the rail projects. The Department of Transportation plans to award their money to rail projects in California, Illinois, New York and other states, sources said. ...
Ohio Gov.-elect John Kasich apparently thought he would just use the money instead for "other transportation projects."
Lahood turned him down, noting that the law that authorized money for high-speed rail projects stipulated that it can’t be used for other purposes.
The delicious irony is the reason they made the rules so strict was in response to the GOPers wailing about how the stimulus money disbursement was going to be rife with graft and fraud. At the time ARRA was passed, I don't think anyone expected the GOP to make enough of a comeback in only two years to have shot at spending any significant amount of the "payola" themselves. [ via]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Tax cut compromise a great deal -- for billionaires

As I said in my previous post, if you look at the first two rows in Ezra's chart below, the tax cut argument was one that Democrats could have won if they had started this fight months ago instead of waiting until the last possible moment. Then look at the third row and somebody please tell me how this is even a compromise. What exactly do Dems have to point to here that could be considered a win? Hells bells, it would have been a better deal to just extend the cursed Bush tax cuts.




Ezra's take is, "All groups are getting more under this framework, but on an individual level, the wealthy are getting much, much more. The question, at the end of the day, is whether stopping them from getting it is worth cutting benefits for the unemployed, and tax cuts for middle-income Americans, and the Earned Income Tax Credit."

I'm not so sure Ezra isn't overselling the benefits here. The tradeoffs are looking worse to me as well. David Dayen notices that substituting the paltry payroll tax holiday for Making Work Pay tax credits ends up screwing public employees who have already been shafted by the symbolic and counterproductive pay freeze recently announced by our President.

And over at the Wonk Room, they post another chart showing the percentages of "wealthy" versus the unemployed in states represented by Republican Senators. And in this chart wealthy means earnings of $200K or more. Which makes you wonder how on earth these GOPers get elected in the first place, but more to the point, what advantage does this deal have politically for Democrats in 2012? I'm also hearing the UI benefits are only for the newly unemployed. Those who have reached the 99 week mark are still going to be on the street.

I'm back to saying no deal. The big winners here are still the millionaires and billionaires who are getting more than ever. The poor and the working class are shafted either way. Screw it. Let the damn cuts expire and make the GOP own whatever happens next.

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Wednesday, December 08, 2010

The tax cut deal

Guess I do have time for one quick post. I have more to say about this deal Obama cut with the GOPers on tax cuts, but two quick thoughts for right now. One, in processing the information as it comes out, it seems to me that a lot of the anger from the far left is about being cut out of the process. As Ezra says, it's an OK deal, but it was struck without any outreach to the base. As was everything so far in Obama's administration.
But the presidency of Barack Obama has been more inside game than outside game. The tax cut deal is yet another example. On the face of it, it's not a bad deal. Republicans gets $130 billion in tax breaks for the wealthy, and Democrats get about $300 billion in more stimulative, more progressive breaks and unemployment benefits. That's more than anyone thought Obama likely to get from these negotiations. But it was a deal struck in a back room, without buy-in from the president's base, and then sold at a press conference were Obama lectured liberals about the compromises required to pass Social Security, Medicare, and the founding of this country, and the dangers of "sanctimony." As you might imagine, that didn't go over too well with liberals, and now we're in another of the occasional flare-ups between Obama and his base.
My first inclination was to fight it but as John Cole points out if we kill the deal, and it's possible we could do it, then what? We're down to the eleventh hour before the GOP effectively takes over the Congress. So what's Plan B? How is the left going to get the GOPers and Blue Dogs to extend UI benefits for millions of Americans who would be otherwise left with no income in the dead of winter? Much less the other stealth stimulus provisions that were added to the deal?

My second thought, which was actually my first reaction, is the Democrats could have and should have cut a much better deal than this. They should have held out for not just the UI benies, but also at least DADT and START and forced those votes first. And they could have, if they had this fight in May. But they wanted until it was too late and the bitter reality is this is the best we're going to get at this time. Killing the deal, imperfect as it is, won't gain us anything and in fact leave us with nothing just as the GOPers are about to take over with an even stronger hand.

I hate it but there it is. Thinking the strategy now is for liberals and progressives is to regroup and figure out why we aren't more effective in swaying our legislators so they can make the president do what we want.

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Internet issues

My internet wasn't working. By the time it resolved I had to conduct some personal business first and now I have to work again this afternoon. Don't want to jinx it, but hoping posting will resume at a somewhat normal pace tonight.
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Monday, December 06, 2010

Why don't Dems pass their own damn tax cuts?

Ezra answers a question I've been wondering about, that being, "Why aren't the Democrats using reconciliation to pass the tax cuts?" The answer is damn depressing.
1) They already used it: ...You can only use reconciliation once a year, so that's that.

2) They passed a rule making it impossible to use reconciliation for bills that increase the deficit: ...This provided Democrats with precisely no protection against the charge that they loved deficits, and it'll likely be changed back as soon as Republicans retake the Senate, but for now, a rule's a rule.
In other words, the GOPers outplayed the Democrats -- again. If they listened to the dirty hippies that -- you know -- voted for them and worked like hell to get them elected, the Dems could avoid these embarrassments. Assuming they actually want to avoid them, and maybe, win a test of wits once in a while. Which increasingly becomes an difficult assumption to make...

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Burn Notice

Sorry folks. Suffered a bit of burnout this weekend. Lost yet another friend to an aggressive, fast moving cancer. This is the only thing I posted, RIP, Irma Golden.

Adding, I'm working this afternoon, so posting won't resume until early this evening.
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Friday, December 03, 2010

Talking points

If the situation was reversed, you can sure that Republicans would be using this statistic as a talking point:
Meanwhile, there’s a real deficit issue on the table: whether tax cuts for the wealthy will, as Republicans demand, be extended. Just as a reminder, over the next 75 years the cost of making those tax cuts permanent would be roughly equal to the entire expected financial shortfall of Social Security.
Instead our Democratic party is "negotitating" ways to give the GOP every cursed policy blunder they want, and without any guarantees that the GOP will deliver on their promises. In fact, recent history suggests they won't.

As I said at DetNews, the least the Dems could do, if they're intent on caving like a bowl of melting Jello, is demand the trade-off votes get taken first. As a "good faith" gesture.

[Big thanks to The Atlantic Wire for the kind link.]

[More posts daily at the Detroit News.]

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Thursday, December 02, 2010

Dear Harry Reid - Watch and Learn

Nancy Pelosi shows the Senate how's it done. She used their own tricks against them, and forced the GOPers into a floor vote.
Using a wily procedural maneuver to tie Republican hands, House Democrats managed to pass, by a vote of 234-188, legislation that will allow the Bush tax cuts benefiting only the wealthiest Americans to expire.
Defectors on both sides:
The Republicans who opposed voted for the bill were Reps. Walter Jones Jr. (N.C.), Ron Paul (Texas) and John Duncan (Tenn.). Several Democrats who hail from wealthier districts as well as a number of Democrats who lost on Nov. 2 were among the defectors.
In other words mostly sour grapes Blue Dogs. And of course, the House minority leader was not pleased at being outmanuvered. Incensed by Pelosi's brilliant procedural blockade of his obstructionism, Boehner called it chicken crap. Which the media merrily reported without a single cluck about the impropriety of such language on the House floor.

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Wednesday, December 01, 2010

A (GOP) Christmas Carol

Sorry millions of little children of unemployed parents, Senator Ebenezer Scott Brown says no presents for you. And no tree. And probably no heat since there will be no money to pay the utility bills.

And all you shivering, starving urchins had better wise up quick, there is no free lunch at school either.

No happy ending in this version.

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GOP Transparency

Ezra posts a good timeline of GOP bipartisanship since the election. As he says, they've stuck to the same game plan for the last two years. The plot of this story was nothing if not predictable.

Less than two weeks ago, Harry Reid boldly assured us he would force the Republicans to vote on tax cuts for only the middle class. The events of today suggest the GOPers will once again succeed in walking all over him.

In response to GOP's notice of permanent obstruction, Reid's spokesman said:
Republicans have simply put in writing their political strategy which they have pursued over the last two years: obstruct and delay action on critical matters, and then blame the Democrats for not addressing the needs of the American people. This strategy is very cynical but very obvious and transparent.”
All true, but the point is -- it's working. For the GOP.

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Bipartisan Compromise

Hard week to support the Democratic party. Yesterday was the big White House bipartisan lovefest. President Obama emerged from the meeting to announce a new spirit of compromise and good faith negotiations. Today via a letter signed by all 42 Senate GOPers, McConnell smugly announced GOP is taking the Senate hostage. They will block all legislation until they get their tax cuts for the wealthy. At which point, they will find some other cockamamie reason to prevent the business of the Senate from going forward. Unless of course, they're rubberstamping the GOP wish list.

So what's next for the White House, I wonder? Maybe Obama could announce they've reached a bi-partisan agreement to repeal health care reform and forget about reforming the financial industry. Or maybe they could agree to pre-pardon all foreclosure fraud? Privatize Social Security? I mean, the possibilities of this new spirit of bi-partisan negotiation are endless.

Meanwhile, the Dow soars today. Experts attribute it to a good jobs report, 92K created, biggest gain in three years, and other postive economic indicators, but as Atrios pointed out on twitter, market always seems to react happily to news that rich people are going to get more free money.

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The Revolving Door

Sigh. This is why our government bailed out the banksters and no bigwig responsible for the meltdown will ever go to jail.
Citigroup Inc., recovering from its $45 billion bailout in 2008, is in advanced talks to hire former White House Budget Director Peter Orszag, people with knowledge of the matter said.

Orszag, 41, may take a job in the New York-based firm’s investment-banking division, the people said, declining to be identified because the discussions are private. An announcement may come as early as today, one of the people said.
Treasury Department still owns 11 percent of the bank. So it's all very cozy and one expects Mr. Orzag will receive compensation in keeping with his experience, or shall we say, inside connections to the powers that currently hold the White House.

Also, too, not too difficult to predict which bank might be saved if another worldwide meltdown occurs. Not necessarily such a remote possibility considering the mess in Europe.

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