Month: February 2008

There Can Never Be Wasteful Defense Spending

by dday

Yeah, I know, there’s an election or something today. But first, I have a little thing to get to, like, you know, the unabated rise of the defense-industrial complex, which apparently has never made a substandard weapon system:

Congress has yet to approve $102 billion left over from the supplemental for FY 2008. And so—in terms of how much Congress is being asked to authorize this year—that brings us to $713 billion.

But let’s delve into the Pentagon’s base line figure—the $515.4 billion that has nothing directly to do with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. What’s in there? Do the U.S. armed forces really need that much for the everyday maintenance of national security?

About a quarter of that sum—$125.2 billion—is for personnel costs: understandable. Another third—$180 billion—is for operations and maintenance of equipment (a bit more mysterious, since this is apart from the O&M costs brought on by the war). But a larger sum still—$184 billion—is for what the Pentagon calls “major weapons systems.” […]

What efficiencies is the Pentagon taking to accommodate these technological risks? The “Overview” section of the Pentagon’s budget document contains a section called “Program Terminations.” It reads, in its entirety: “The FY 2009 budget does not propose any major program terminations.” (emphasis mine)

Is it remotely conceivable that the Defense Department is the one federal bureaucracy that has not designed, developed, or produced a single expendable program? The question answers itself.

They are crackerjack over at the Pentagon. Apparently everything they make can pinpoint a terrorist at 2,000 yards, even the submarines!

We spend more on defense than every other country combined for absolutely no reason, and in fact, this is the great hole that is sinking our budget. Paul Krugman has some questions for those Republican deficit hawks:

Three words: defense, Medicare, Medicaid. That’s the whole story. Defense up from 3 to 4% of GDP; Medicare and Medicaid up from 3.4% to 4.6%, partially offset by increased payments for Part B and stuff. Aside from that, there’s been no major movement.

Behind these increases are the obvious things: the war McCain wants to fight for the next century, the general issue of excess cost growth in health care, and the prescription drug benefit.

So the next time Mr. McCain or anyone else promises to rein in runaway spending, they should be asked which of these things they intend to reverse. Are they talking about pulling out of Iraq? Denying seniors the latest medical treatments? Canceling the drug benefit? If not, what are they talking about?

The answer, of course, is that they’re not talking about anything, just making vague assurances about “stopping wasteful spending of the taxpayer’s money” but making sure boondoggles like missile defense don’t ever enter into the equation. Which also suits members of Congress fine, as the defense contractors are spread around liberally enough so that practically everyone is beholden to them (some, like John McCain, more than others. His warmongering feeds an economic boomlet in Arizona).

It’d be nice to see a little more talk about the defense budget, which is almost a QUARTER of the entire budget for FY2009. I recognize that this would require someone in the traditional media to read.

.

I Know, Let’s Make Voting Harder

by dday

I’ve been doing a lot of reporting from the ground in California for Calitics. My sense is that Clinton probably (though not definitely) has enough banking of early votes to withstand a late surge of momentum and hold on for a tight victory, although Obama is likely to win more of the delegates here. But I wanted to check in with this little barrel of fun that, considering how close the race seems to be out here, could have a legitimate impact on the race.

In Barack Obama’s final email to supporters, this little reminder kind of jumped out at me:

If you declined to select a political party when you registered to vote, you can still vote for Barack Obama if you request a Democratic ballot from the poll worker. Make sure you mark “Democratic” in the appropriate space or the vote might not be counted.

Vote might not be counted, ay? What’s this all about?

Turns out that in Los Angeles County, if a DTS voter requests their Democratic ballot and casts their vote, but does NOT mark “Democratic” in the appropriate space, the vote will indeed not be counted. The ballot will go through the scan-tron machine, not register as a counted vote, AND will not spit back out for the voter to fix. In LA County, they feed the ballot through the tabulator right in front of the voter, presumably to prevent errors just like this. But this one doesn’t get caught in all the tests.

This seems to me significant just as a voting rights issue. There are 776,000 DTS voters in LA County alone, which is ¾ of everyone who has voted in the first four Democratic primaries thus far. Setting up an additional hurdle for these voters if they want to participate in the Democratic primary, and then NOT INFORMING THEM if they fail to clear that hurdle, seems to me to be just completely unacceptable.

Here’s the ballot, and you can see that there’s virtually no reason to give people something else to screw up. There’s only one bubble to fill out, and it’s already been implicitly “filled out” when they asked for the ballot in the first place.

My friends in the Courage Campaign (who are trying to get the word out to DTS voters that they can actually vote in the primary) sent a letter to the Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters, noting that the law is pretty clear on the issue:

The statute is clear: voters who have already affirmatively requested a Democratic ballot and cast a vote for a Democratic candidate, but who inadvertently fail to mark line number 6, must have their vote counted. To do otherwise is contrary to the statute. We can find no statutory basis for requiring voters to mark additional boxes to indicate that they are DTS voters requesting a partisan ballot.

I’m trying to get a PDF of the letter up as well, but I’m all thumbs with this pesky technology, so bear with me. The point is that a lot of people tomorrow may not realize that their vote is in risk of not being counted. Which is terrible for democracy, regardless of preference in the primary race.

The full letter from the Courage Campaign lawyer is here.

.

The Beatles Of Blogging

by digby

I can’t tell you how delightful it is for me to exhort you to donate to Atrios’s fundraising drive today after all the years he’s so generously supported mine. He’s my blogfather, unfailingly generous to me and other bloggers and the hub around which the liberal blogosphere gathers. He is the ironman of blogging who has done this day in and day out seven days a week for nearly six years, which is the equivalent of working at a regular job for twenty at least. (And he doesn’t appear to have aged a day!) So go, now, give a little to support one of the best bloggers out there.

Waay back in the day, I wrote this about him, when I voted for him for best Blog in the very first Koufax Awards:

Atrios, for consistently having his finger on the pulse. He’s the Beatles of Blogging. It’s spooky the way he sees the trend before anybody else.

Whereas professional online news gathering entities like “The Note” capture the CW of DC and offer reams of information and items of interest, Atrios seems to feel what the wider reaction will be. He hones in on the salient points and brings various spins and takes to his page with a real narrative flair.

His own voice is casual and wholly unpretentious; the blog itself tells the story through the pacing and interaction of the posts, links and commentary of other bloggers and readers. He culls the best of the print and online world, usually linked in a series of short, pointed comments and punctuated by infrequent but incisive longer original pieces until a theme or story reaches critical mass. His blog, rather than simply being a vehicle for commentary serves as a conduit and a clearinghouse for the online liberal zeitgeist.

As true today as it was then.

.

The Lovers And The Fighters

by digby

I have often thought that the two parties could be described as two fundamental archetypes: The Lovers vs The Fighters. I don’t mean that pejoratively in either sense, but rather that temperamentally, we seem to be motivated by different impulses, both of which are part of all human beings, but which I can loosely characterize with these two terms. This has even been borne out by psychological studies:

As I watch the primary unfold, and see what looks increasingly like a deep desire among the Democratic rank and file to assert Obama’s positive, uplifting vision of politics, it looks like Americans may have the starkest choice between a Lover and a Fighter in my lifetime. The man the Republicans appear to be about to nominate is so combative that even his own party fears he’s going to knock their heads together as much as the other guy’s:

John McCain once testified under oath that a Senate colleague inappropriately used tobacco corporation donations to sway votes on legislation. He cursed out another colleague in front of 20 senators and staff members, questioning the senator’s grip on immigration legislation. And, on the Senate floor, McCain (R-Ariz.) accused another colleague of “egregious behavior” for helping a defense contractor in a move he said resembled “corporate scandals.”

And those were just the Republicans.

In a chamber once known for cordiality if not outright gentility, McCain has battled his fellow senators for more than two decades in a fashion that has been forceful and sometimes personal. Now, with the conservative maverick on the brink of securing his party’s presidential nomination, McCain’s Republican colleagues are grappling with the idea of him at the top of their ticket.

I think he’s going to turn that into the rationale for his campaign. He’s going to run as the only guy who can get the Democrats and the Republicans in line:

A former colleague says McCain’s abrasive nature would, at minimum, make his relations with Republicans on Capitol Hill uneasy if he were to become president. McCain could find himself the victim of Republicans who will not go the extra mile for him on legislative issues because of past grievances.

[…]

To McCain’s allies, his fiery personality is part of the “Straight Talk” lore, and a positive quality in a passionate fighter who will tell you to your face how much he dislikes an idea.

“When he’s arguing about something he believes in, he’s arguing about it,” said Mark Salter, a top aide to McCain. “It’s an admirable trait, the capacity to be outraged.”

Salter scoffed at the idea that McCain is not fit to be president and said most stories about his temper are “wildly exaggerated.” He pointed to McCain’s success at “across-the-aisle cooperation” with Democrats as an example of how he would deal with Congress if elected president.

Those legislative wins include a major campaign finance law in his name in 2002 and a deal with 14 Democrats and Republicans in 2005 that broke Democratic filibusters on judicial nominees…

Assuming that most Americans agree that the Bush and Delay style of Republican governance has failed, the political culture is polluted and the nation needs a new start, my guess is that the campaign will boil down to whether or not independents believe that the way to fix a broken system is through inspiration or confrontation — in particular whether they believe that the radical Republicans can be tamed by inclusion and compromise or if it will take a metaphorical billy club.

McCain will make the case that he is a man apart, beholden to no one, the only person who can make both parties straighten up and fly right. He’ll run as the fighter for America. Obama is making the case that he’s a man apart, a leader of millions, who will make both parties work together for the common good. He’ll run as the healer of America. It will depend a great deal on a non-partisan voter’s personal temperament and worldview as to which one he or she will believe.

.

Fiscal Conservatism

by dday

This is the equivalent of Led Zeppelin setting fire to the hotel by pouring whiskey all over it. Bush wants to leave by trashing the place.

President Bush unveiled a $3.1 trillion budget on Monday that supports sizable increases in military spending to fight the war on terrorism and protects his signature tax cuts.

It amounts to an 8% increase in national security funding. See, defense spending comes from a magic pot of gold that sits slightly to the left of a rainbow. There is no spending in defense spending.

The spending proposal, which shows the government spending $3 trillion in a 12-month period for the first time in history, squeezes most of government outside of national security, and also seeks $196 billion in savings over the next five years in the government’s giant health care programs — Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor.

Even with those savings, Bush projects that the deficits, which had been declining, will soar to near-record levels, hitting $410 billion this year and $407 billion in 2009. The all-time high deficit in dollar terms was $413 billion in 2004.

This has it all – a near-record deficit, ridiculous amounts of largesse on the defense-industrial complex, putting tax cuts on the credit card for China and Japan to swipe and a big middle finger to the sick.

(Note: the whole budget is here)

And guess what, it has that signature Bush lack of responsibility for his own actions and fuzzy math!

Part of the deficit increase this year and next reflects the cost of a $145 billion stimulus package of tax refunds for individuals and tax cuts for business investment that Bush is urging Congress to pass quickly to try to combat a threatened recession.

Bush projects that the deficit will decline rapidly starting in 2010 and will achieve a $48 billion balance in 2012.

But Democrats said that forecast was based on flawed math that only included $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2009 and no money after that and also failed to include any provisions after this year for keeping the alternative minimum tax, originally aimed at the wealthy, from ensnaring millions of middle-class taxpayers. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that fixing the AMT in 2012 would cost $118 billion, more than double the surplus Bush is projecting for that year.

And what do the big hitters in the Republican Party say about this piece of effluvium?

“They’ve obviously played an inordinate number of games to try to make it look better,” Sen. Judd Gregg, the top Republican on the Budget Committee, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“Let’s face it. This budget is done with the understanding that nobody’s going to be taking a long, hard look at it,” said Gregg, R-N.H.

Stop looking at the real priorities of conservatives! You were not supposed to see that!

In one sense, this is the work of a President who’s basically gotten everything he wanted for seven years, trying to come up with a final act that’s as audacious as humanly possible. In another, this is really all the conservative movement can come up with. They rely on a media and a populace that doesn’t delve into the intricacies of the budget, and so they feel free to announce their spending priorities to the world. And this is what they are when everything has been stripped away. It’s theft on the grandest scale, a massive reshuffling of wealth upwards, a kind of corporate Marxism where those who deserve it least get the most. There isn’t anything new or groundbreaking here, just a naked grab for cash in the final year.

.

Dear Nick Kristof

by tristero

Dear Nick Kristof,

You write:

At a New York or Los Angeles cocktail party, few would dare make a pejorative comment about Barack Obama’s race or Hillary Clinton’s sex. Yet it would be easy to get away with deriding Mike Huckabee’s religious faith.

Sir, let’s not talk hypotheticals. I have discussed Michael Huckabee several times at New York parties. And I have derided Michael Huckabee at these events. I plan to do so again. And again. And again. Until Huckabee is pushed back to the margins of American discourse where he belongs.

Huckabee ignored court testimony in favor of right wing operatives and worked to release a serial rapist. Upon his Huckabee-engineered release, the rapist graduated to murder, possibly twice, before he was caught. Because of this incident, I have spoken with blistering contempt about Huckabee’s character.

Huckabee blamed everyone but himself for the release of this rapist/murderer, especially Bill Clinton and lied repeatedly about substantiated facts. Because of his failure to tell the truth about his mistakes, I have denounced Huckabee’s integrity numerous times.

During Huckabee’s reign as governor, Arkansas’ public schools regressed to a pre-modern attitude towards science, especially biology. This neglect was willful, and done with Huckabee’s knowledge and consent. Because of his ignorance, I have denounced Huckabee’s actions at every opportunity.

For reasons I don’t quite understand, you equate essential, virtually unmodifiable characteristics – a man’s race, a woman’s gender – with Huckabee’s chosen “faith.” And you take me, a liberal, to task for deriding it. Well, Mr. Kristof, let me be plain:

Any religious faith that glorifies ignorance, excuses lies, and encourages behavior as disgraceful as the release of a serial rapist to society based upon political calculation would deserve derision. But, of course, Huckabee’s religion teaches no such things.* So it is not I who derides Michael Huckabee’s faith, but Huckabee himself. I deride only Huckabee, who has said and done the stupidest, most repellent things, and then cynically deflected criticism by hiding behind priestly vestments.

Huckabee’s private beliefs are just that: private. I couldn’t care less whether he’s an atheist, a Buddhist, or a Southern Baptist. But Huckabee’s public actions are those of a ruthless rightwing politician with no scruples. They must be denounced, confronted, defeated. And they most certainly should be derided.

Unlike you, Mr. Kristof, I do not make the mistake of thinking Huckabee’s public actions are those of a Christian.

Love,

tristero

* Except for the ignorance of science, which is as shameful as other weird, destructive beliefs regardless of creed. Denial of evolution is on a par with flagellation, eugenics, and female genital mutilation. One can certainly be a liberal and find all of these behaviors deeply repugnant.

Saturday Night At The Movies

Pre-game movie marathon

By Dennis Hartley

This being Super Bowl weekend and all, I figured this would be as good a time as any to trot out my top ten favorite sports films (and the runners-up). As per usual, my list is arranged in no particular ranking order. So, gentlemen (and ladies)-start your DVD’s!

This Sporting Life (1963) – This movie was part of the string of “angry young man” dramas that stormed out of the U.K. in the late 50s/early 60s. Films like Look Back in Anger, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner were steeped in “kitchen sink” realism and youthful working class angst. This Sporting Life was an important watermark for both its director (Lindsay Anderson) and star (Richard Harris). Harris tears up the screen as a thuggish, egotistical young rugby player who has a gift for the game and subsequently becomes an overnight sports star. Criterion recently gave this one the deluxe treatment, including an excellent transfer.

Personal Best – When this film was first released, there was so much fuss made over a couple of brief (and tastefully done) love scenes between Mariel Hemingway and co-star Patrice Donnelly that many failed to notice that it was probably one of the most realistic, non-condescending portraits of female athletes to ever reach movie screens. Writer-director Robert Towne did his homework; his pre-production research included spending some time closely observing Olympic track stars at work and at play. The women in his story are shown to be every bit as tough and competitive as their male counterparts; Hemingway and (real-life pentathlete) Donnelly deserve credit for not sugar-coating their characterizations in any way. Scott Glenn is excellent as the women’s hard driving coach.

Fat City – This 1972 character study is one of John Huston’s lesser-known works, but IMHO it is one of his finest. Stacey Keach (in the role of his career) is an alcoholic, down-and-out prizefighter who becomes a mentor for a neophyte boxer (Jeff Bridges). Susan Tyrrell is a real standout as Keach’s love interest (she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination for this role). I’ve always preferred this film to Rocky because there’s no sentimentality or audience pandering. The song “Help Me Make it Through the Night” haunts the film, and has never sounded so bittersweet. A downer, but well worth a peek.

North Dallas Forty – Nick Nolte and Mac Davis lead a fantastic ensemble cast in this locker room peek at the lifestyles of pro football players and the machinations of team owners. Some of the antics are allegedly based on the real-life hijinx of the Dallas Cowboys, replete with wild parties and other assorted off-field debaucheries. Charles Durning (who scored a career achievement award from the Screen Actor’s Guild last Sunday) is perfect as the coach. Peter Gent adapted the screenplay from his original novel. This film is so entertaining that I can almost forgive director Ted Kotcheff for foisting Rambo: First Blood and Weekend at Bernie’s on us a bit later in his career…

Slap Shot – A puckish satire. Paul Newman skates away with his role as the coach of a slumping minor league hockey team in this classic, directed by George Roy Hill. When Newman learns about a possible sale of the franchise, he decides to pull out all the stops and start playing “dirty”. The entire acting ensemble is wonderful, and screenwriter Nancy Dowd’s riotously profane locker room dialog will have you rolling. Newman’s Cool Hand Luke co-star Strother Martin (as the team’s manager) handily steals all of his scenes. Lindsey Crouse is memorable as a sexually frustrated “sports wife” in a rare comedic role. Michael Ontkean performs the funniest “striptease” bit in the history of film, and the endearingly sociopathic “Hansen Brothers” have to be seen to be believed.

Bull Durham– Writer-director Ron Shelton really knocked one out of the park with this very funny, insightfully written and splendidly acted rumination on life, love, and oh yeah-baseball. Kevin Costner gives one of his better performances as a seasoned, world-weary minor league catcher who reluctantly plays mentor to a somewhat dim hotshot rookie pitcher (Tim Robbins). Susan Sarandon is a poetry-spouting baseball groupie who selects one player every season to take under her wing and do some, er, special mentoring of her own. A complex love triangle ensues. It’s sort of Jules and Jim meets The Natural. I miss whip-smart, “adult” comedies like this-they are sadly MIA these days.

Hoop Dreams – One of the most highly praised documentaries of all time, with good reason. Ostensibly “about” basketball, it is at its heart about perseverance, love, and family-which is probably why it struck such a chord with audiences as well as critics. Director Steve James follows the lives of two young men from the inner city for a five-year period, as they pursue their dreams of becoming professional basketball players. Just when you think you have the film pigeonholed, it takes off in unexpected directions, making for a much more riveting story than one might initially expect. A real winner.

Bend It Like Beckham – OK, so this is a shamelessly formulaic “feel good” flick-but only the most coldhearted cynics will be immune to its charms. Director Gurinder Chadha (she also co-wrote) whips up a cross-cultural masala that cleverly mixes the audience-pleasing elements of Rocky with some of the plot devices one finds in a typical Bollywood romance. The story centers around a headstrong young woman (Parminder Nagra) who is upsetting her traditional Sikh parents by following her “silly” dream to become an English soccer star. Chadha also weaves in a subtle subtext on the difficulties that South Asian immigrants face while assimilating into British culture. Also with Keira Knightley and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers (who plays a likable character for once!)

Downhill Racer – This frequently overlooked 1969 film from director Michael Ritchie examines the tightly-knit and highly competitive world of Olympic downhill skiing. Robert Redford is cast against type, and consequently delivers one of his more interesting performances as a talented but arrogant athlete who joins up with the U.S. Olympic ski team. Gene Hackman is outstanding (as always) as the coach who finds himself at frequent loggerheads with Redford’s contrarian demeanor (he makes John McEnroe seem like a lovable guy). The film has a cinema verite feel that gives the story a realistic edge.

Death Race 2000 – At first glance, Paul Bartel’s film about a futuristic gladiatorial cross-country auto race in which drivers score extra points for running down pedestrians is an outrageous, gross-out cult comedy. It could also be viewed as a takeoff on Rollerball, as a broad political satire, or perhaps a wry comment on that great, timeless American tradition of watching televised bloodsport for entertainment (Super Bowl XLII, anyone?). One thing I’ll say about this movie-it’s never boring! The film was produced by the legendary king of no-budget cult movies, Roger Corman. It was written by Charles Griffith (a Corman veteran), who also penned the original Little Shop of Horrors and Bucket of Blood. David Carridine is a riot as the defending Death Race champ, “Frankenstein”. Also look for Bartel’s longtime leading lady Mary Woronov and a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone. If you were able to stomach Eating Raoul, you’ll love this one.

And the Silver Medals go to (the next 10):

Rocky
Field of Dreams
Raging Bull
When We Were Kings
Breaking Away
Body and Soul(1947)
The Natural
The Hustler
The Longest Yard (1974)
Fear Strikes Out

And the Bronze Medals go to (the next 10):

Any Given Sunday
Hoosiers
Lagaan – Once Upon a Time in India
All the Marbles
Murderball
Without Limits
A League of Their Own
Running Cool
Caddyshack
Kansas City Bomber

.

Ronnie’s Playbook

by digby

I don’t know if your gorge rose like mine did as you watched the Republicans deify Ronald Reagan the other night, but this piece by Michael Kinsley today speaks to the absurdity of it all:

In the GOP debate at the Reagan Library on Wednesday, Sen. John McCain repeated his story about how he and other prisoners of war used to discuss this exciting new governor of California, using tap codes through the walls of a North Vietnamese prison. Like many of the great man’s own treasured anecdotes, it might be true. Unlike Reagan, McCain is a genuine war hero, so if he has over-polished this story a bit (it is almost word for word each time), he is honoring the great man by imitation if nothing else. In the debate, McCain repeatedly called himself a “foot soldier in the Reagan revolution.” He declared that Republicans have “betrayed Ronald Reagan’s principles about tax cuts and restraint of spending.”

Mitt Romney, meanwhile, kept repeating, inanely, “We’re in the house that Reagan built.” Reagan “would say lower taxes”; “Reagan would say lower spending”; Reagan “would say no way” to amnesty for illegal immigrants; Reagan would never “walk out of Iraq.” And, by the way, McCain’s accusation that Romney harbors a secret timetable for withdrawal from Iraq is “the kind of dirty tricks that I think Ronald Reagan would have found to be reprehensible.”

A problem: Reagan actually signed the law that authorized the last amnesty, back in 1986. Romney deals with this small difficulty by declaring: “Reagan saw it. It didn’t work.” He offers no evidence that Reagan had a change of heart about amnesty, and learning from experience was not something Reagan was known for. The proper cliche is McCain’s: “Ronald Reagan came with an unshakable set of principles.” And — pointedly — “he would not approve of someone who changes their positions depending on what the year is.”

All of this is what Democrats these days would refer to as a fairy tale. There is no evidence that Reagan was bothered by the rough and tumble of political campaigns. Mischaracterization of an opponent didn’t even qualify as a “dirty trick” to Reagan, because of his fantastic ability to believe anything helpful.

(McCain especially should really dial the Reagan worship back. He’s older than Reagan was when he ran, and we now know that Reagan’s delightfully optimistic daffiness was probably the result of early symptoms of Alzheimers.)

It’s on the economy where Kinsley really makes the point:

When Reagan took office in 1981, federal receipts (taxes) were $517 billion and outlays (spending) were $591 billion, for a deficit of $74 billion. When he left office in 1989, taxes were $999 billion and spending was $1.14 trillion, for a deficit of $141 billion. As a share of the economy, Reagan did cut taxes, from 19.6% to 18.4%, and he cut spending from 22.2% to 21.2%, increasing the deficit from 2.6% to 2.8%. The deficit went as high as an incredible 5% of GDP during his term. As a result, the national debt soared by almost two-thirds. You can fiddle with these numbers — assuming it takes a year or two for a president’s policies to take effect, or taking defense costs out — and the basic result is the same or worse. Whatever, these numbers hardly constitute a “revolution.”

McCain’s stagy self-flagellation, on behalf of all Republicans, for betraying the Reagan revolution when they controlled Congress and the White House is entirely misplaced. George W. Bush and the GOP Congress did precisely what Reagan did: They cut taxes, mainly on the well-to-do, but they barely touched spending.

I wonder when, or if, pundits or voters will internalize the fact that this is not an accident, but rather a conscious feature of conservative governance. They get into office, cut taxes on the rich and steal taxpayer money for their walthy contributors. Here’s Henry Waxman last night on Bill Moyers:

BILL MOYERS: You turned over a lot of rocks last year. Was there a pattern to what you kept discovering?

REP. HENRY WAXMAN: I think what we found that was most dramatic to me was that there has been a huge increase in the amount of activities that the government has contracted out. I-

BILL MOYERS: We call that outsourcing?

REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Well, outsourcing. And there’s nothing with it if we’re getting a better deal. Often times we can contract out the work and pay a lower price and get good quality. But we’re now at the point of four hundred billion dollars contracted out each year. Two hundred billion dollars of which goes to contractors without any competition.

BILL MOYERS: How can that happen? Why no competition?

REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Well, when we first asked that question about Halliburton’s activities in Iraq, they said, “Oh, we didn’t have time to have competition.” We later found out that some of the potential competitors complained that they would have like to have bid. And they could’ve bid for the work. And if we had competition we would have had better price and better quality. But it got to the point where the government was contracting out the– trying to figure what work should be done. And then they wanted to contract the work itself. Now, they needed to oversee whether the money was being used effectively. So, they wanted to get a private contractor to do that as well. Well, that’s an invitation to a lot of fraud, waste and abuse of–

BILL MOYERS: Did you find fraud, waste and abuse in that process?

REP. HENRY WAXMAN: Yes. We found billions of dollars that cannot be accounted for. That cannot be justified. And it’s a scandal.

Yes, but it’s no longer logical to assume that it’s not intentional. You know, fool me once … won’t get fooled again.

The Reagan Myth makes it difficult to make that connection and convince people that the so-called “failed” presidents are actually standard conservative politicians doing what conservative politicians always do. As long as he’s seen as some sort of “special” politician whose sunny optimism and adherence to bedrock American values brought the country together, we’re going to be fighting on their ground.

This is a lot closer to the truth than the Reagan Myth:

H/T to Jonathan Schwarz at ATR.

.

Boo Hoo

by digby

Now we’re having some fun:

A defensive Rush Limbaugh, one of Senator McCain’s biggest detractors, just delivered what he called a “non-concession speech” in response to Mr. McCain’s win in Florida Tuesday. “Yeah, it looks like McCain’s pretty far down the line now to having wrapped this up,” he said on his popular conservative radio show today. At times, the talk host still seemed to have some fight in him. At other times, he seemed ready to move on. “There’s going to be another election in 2012,” Mr. Limbaugh said at one point. “There’s a lot of anxiety among a lot of conservatives about Senator McCain. It’s simply indisputable,but there was no figure in our roster of candidates who rose up to challenge him or to galvanize conservative support. All the candidates on our side, for various reasons, are uninspiring or worse and so just as I predicted the base has fractured. Some going here. Some going there,” Mr. Limbaugh said as he explained Mr. McCain’s victory in Florida Tuesday night. “Senator McCain has been able to cobble together enough votes to win in a few states. Fine. He deserves credit for that. But to pretend that Senator McCain is the choice of conservatives when exit poll data from every primary state show just the opposite–he is not the choice of conservatives as opposed to the Republican establishment, and that distinction is key,” the conservative talker said. “The Republican establishment, which has long sought to rid the party of conservative influence since Reagan, is feeling a victory today as well as our friends in the media, but both are just far-fetched and wrong.”[…]
Mr. Limbaugh warned the mainstream press not to interpret Tuesday’s results as the demise of the Reagan movement. ” The Reagan coalition is not breaking up,” he said defensively. “The Reagan coalition is going in different directions because there isn’t anybody from the Reagan coalition in the Republican roster of nominees…..Those of us in the Reagan coalition have not lost anything.” The talk radio host insisted that Mr. McCain is being supported by “a veritable list of the old country club blueblood establishment.” That claim is debatable, since only 12 Republican senators have endorsed him and many others nurse grievances against him over his crusades against pork and in favor of tighter campaign finance and ethics laws.

Heh. Looks like Rush still doesn’t want to admit that he IS the “blue-blooded” Republican establishment and he and his pals are the reason voters are rejecting hard core conservatism. Even Huckabee and Romney aren’t doctrinaire Republicans. In fact, the only one who was, was that magical vote getter, Fred Thompson.

So, Republican voters understand, even if their establishment leaders like Limbaugh and Coulter don’t, that they can’t win after Bush by being far right. They are choosing between a rich flipflopper from Taxachusetts and a grizzled maverick from Arizona. Clearly, voters, at least, see the value in being pragmatic in the wake of the Bush catastrophe. As well they should. They will be lucky to pull out a win under any circumstances, but it is nearly impossible to imagine they would be able to do it with the tired, standard Limbaugh/Bush line.

Limbaugh and company are upset at losing influence. But they shouldn’t be. Old time movement types like Richard Viguerie understand this much better than the entertainment conservos like Limbaugh and Coulter.

Sometimes a loss for the Republican Party is a gain for conservatives. Often, a little taste of liberal Democrats in power is enough to remind the voters what they don’t like about liberal Democrats and to focus the minds of Republicans on the principles that really matter. That’s why the conservative movement has grown fastest during those periods when things seemed darkest, such as during the Carter administration and the first two years of the Clinton White House.

Conservatives are, by nature, insurgents, and it’s hard to maintain an insurgency when your friends, or people you thought were your friends, are in power.

Rush should relax, play some golf, take a little trip to the Dominican. They’ll be back. And the Republicans in congress will be able to successfully use their power as a regional minority party to hold the line.

Update: Rush needn’t worry. His style of politics never gets old with some people.

Here’s an email I just received:

Hillary linked to “Electile Dysfunction” in crucial Swing Voters Bill is not the only one Hillary does not turn on … Angry, dishonest, bull dyke persona does not cut it with voters. Some homos like her for her S&M qualities

Larry Sabato comments on Hillary’s problems with voters:

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2007/06/the_hillary_dilemma.html

They’re always out there.

.

Just Shut Up We’re Winning

by dday

As it turns out, the myth of progress in Iraq is starting to wither, even on the terms of those who celebrate the surge. I’m talking about security gains, which up to this point had been dramatic in the last few months, but are starting to backslide.

Iraq security statistics over the past 13 weeks, obtained exclusively by The Washington Independent, tell the tale. In Baghdad, improvised-explosive device (IED) detonations explosions in Baghdad have ticked up slightly to 131 in January from 129 in December—and the last week of January is not included in these latest figures. Countrywide, there was an increase in IED explosions to 2,291 in December from 1,394 in November, followed by a dip to 1,270 in the first three weeks of January. But the week ending on January 25 saw seven suicide explosions Iraq-wide, the most since the week ending Dec. 21, 2007.

It is too early to conclude that the security gains of the surge are unwinding. But they’re being put under stress in a manner not seen since the so-called “Surge of Operations” began in mid-June. Some speculate that the insurgency, knocked on its heels by the changing tactics of U.S. forces in mid-2007, is beginning to adjust, a few months before the surge draws to a close. “I think there’s some credibility to that argument,” said Brian Katulis, a national-security expert at the liberal Center for American Progress. “It all begs the question of what’s the grand endgame.”

Today’s double-bombing in Baghdad won’t help those numbers, either.

Of course, this is all besides the point in one respect. The goal of the surge, as has been said over and over again, was to provide breathing space for a political solution. In the meantime it’s very positive that less people are dying, but without a reconciliation those positive steps will be illusory, violence will continue and probably uptick, and absolutely everyone looking at this thing agrees with this assessment. And after a few weeks of touting this obviously flawed de-Baathification law, one of the only ostensibly tangible points of political progress, war defenders are going to have to come to terms with the fact that it won’t even become law.

Iraq’s Presidency Council is unlikely to ratify a new law that would give thousands of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party their old jobs back, Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi said on Thursday […]

Hashemi, a Sunni Arab, said the bill passed by parliament was flawed because it meant many people given jobs after the U.S.-led invasion to topple Saddam in 2003 would be forced out so ex-Baathists could return.

“We cannot regard this law as a step in the national reconciliation process. The spirit of revenge is so clear in many articles of the law,” Hashemi said in an interview.

“It is not only me who objects to signing it, but the whole Presidency Council.”

The surge is about to come to an end, and so too will much of that breathing space for political progress. And there hasn’t been any. It’s absurd to expect a continued involvement in the same way given this scenario. The relative success or failure of the surge has to hinge on the success or failure of the country as a whole. The data is very clear on this point. And it’s also clear that this war, which has cost thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of dollars, is hurting our national security.

The U.S. military isn’t ready for a catastrophic attack on the country, and National Guard forces don’t have the equipment or training they need for the job, according to a report.

Even fewer Army National Guard units are combat-ready today than were nearly a year ago when the Commission on the National Guard and Reserves determined that 88 percent of the units were not prepared for the fight, the panel says in a new report released Thursday.

The independent commission is charged by Congress to recommend changes in law and policy concerning the Guard and Reserves.

It can’t be denied that Iraq is the reason for this. It was an unnecessary war of choice that has resulted in decreased security, lost global authority, a more volatile Middle East, and too many dead.

.