Month: June 2008

Letting It Slip

by digby

I don’t know if this is purposeful or simply an felicitous accident, but it’s weird either way:

A GENTLEMAN’S WORDS DISAPPEAR: It begins to seem that Chris Matthews’ words have perhaps been disappeared. As we noted yesterday, Matthews offered an unusual recollection of his late colleague, Tim Russert, on Friday evening’s Countdown. In particular, he recalled a conversation he had with Russert as the U.S. prepared for war with Iraq. “It may be tricky to say this,” Matthews said, knuckling to his lack of impulse control. “And I’ll say it.” Matthews’ statement was “tricky” that night because it wasn’t a silly novel. Perhaps for that reason, it almost begins to seem that Matthews’ words have been officially disappeared. Due to the miracle of the net, you can still watch what Matthews said, and we recommend that you do so. (Just click here. The comments about Iraq start about 1:10 in.) But the transcript of this 8 PM hour seems to have disappeared. It’s absent at MSNBC.com (this transcript is from Friday afternoon’s coverage). It’s also absent at Nexis. At Nexis, an MSNBC transcript is posted for Friday’s 7 PM hour. The next hour doesn’t appear.
Matthews’ comment was worth considering. We’ll let you know if it ever appears

The comment was extremely worth considering. As Somerby points out there, Matthews has poor impulse control and he blurted this out at an inappropriate time (and in a stupid way.) But he was probably telling the truth. Russert was like the ‘average patriotic American” in that he believed that we had to invade Iraq because Saddam might have the bomb.

The problem, of course, is that he wasn’t the average American patriot. He was the Washington Bureau Chief for NBC News!

Russert told Bill Moyers that he wishes somebody had picked up the phone to tell him that the administration was lying. Don’t we all. But one could have hop[ed that the Washington bureau chief for NBC news would have at least realized that invading a middle eastern country on the “hunch” that they had a nuclear bomb might have some repercussions. Particularly after inspectors found nothing. Millions of the rest of us smelled a rat. You’d think the greatest newsman the world has ever known would have been a little bit skeptical.

But hey, maybe Matthews was talking crazy again. It wouldn’t be the first time. But there’s an awful lot of evidence that he wasn’t. Scrubbing his comment from the transcript (if that’s what happened) isn’t going to change things.

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An Incoherent Truth

by dday

Al Gore endorsed Barack Obama yesterday, and in his remarks he was fairly subtle in stressing the need for a Democratic President to solve the climate crisis and mitigate the worst effects of global warming. In fact, he gave muted praise to John McCain on this front:

…as Senator Barack Obama has said, John McCain is deserving of that respect. He has demonstrated bravery in war and as a prisoner of war, and has served in the House of Representatives and in the Senate for many years. Moreover, he has demonstrated a willingness to debate some critical issues, including the climate crisis, that many Republicans have refused to discuss at all.

But even as we acknowledge his long experience, we must and we will make our case that America simply cannot afford to continue the policies of the last eight years for another four.

This kind of statement in stuck in the mindset of the 1990s, when just “speaking out” about the environment, regardless of your policy proposals, is as important as any meaningful action. And it’s what McCain himself is hoping to capitalize on in November. He’s clearly picked climate change as the issue where he can show distance from President Bush, where he can burnish those moderate credentials that he’s already starting to lose amongst the voters.

Here’s his latest ad:

(Notice the new McCain slogan of “Reform. Prosperity. Peace.” I so called it.)

Sounds and looks powerful and clear-cut. Of course, McCain would have more credibility on this issue if he knew what a cap and trade system was.

Also from John McCain’s press conference this morning, the senator from Arizona once again makes it clear that he doesn’t really understand cap-and-trade:

QUESTION: The European Union has set mandatory targets on renewable energy. Is that something you would consider in a McCain administration? […]

MCCAIN: Sure. I believe in the cap-and-trade system, as you know. I would not at this time make those — impose a mandatory cap at this time. But I do believe that we have to establish targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions over time, and I think those can be met.

Which is, of course, completely out of line with his own proposal for a cap-and-trade scheme, both the plan he proposed with Joe Lieberman last year and his own presidential plan, released last month. They both would, by nature, be mandatory — hence the “cap” in the name. This isn’t the first time McCain has misunderstood his own policy on cap-and-trade. In the Republican debate in Florida in January, he also denied that his cap-and-trade program included a mandatory cap on carbon.

McCain has claimed that he was confused by the question, which means he’s confused by his own proposal. That’s because he’s trying to please two classes of voters at the same time. On the one hand he wants to prove his commitment to doing something about climate change. On the other, he has to keep the global warming denialists in his base, who have called him a “liberal Democrat” just for talking about the issue, at bay. So he calls a mandatory cap “voluntary,” suggesting that he has no interest in the policy whatsoever. And he’s paradoxically called for an end to the offshore drilling ban in coastal waters, a signal to the hard right that in the end, he values the oil companies over breathable air and a manageable climate.

When your Presidential campaign is powered by literally dozens of energy lobbyists, of course the policies that reward their clients will be foregrounded.

In fact, McCain is spending this week at big-dollar fundraisers in the heart of oil country in Texas.

McCain’s energy money makes no sense. He tries to differentiate his position with the President, then authors the same policies. He has a lukewarm cap and trade proposal (polluters under his plan get free permits, rather than Obama’s 100% auction which is used to fund alternative energy and relieve the burden of higher energy prices on low-income Americans), but doesn’t really understand what it means.

It’d be nice if Al Gore could say this out loud.

…check this out, CNN actually figured this one out and reported the story honestly. “Blow me down,” as Popeye would say. This isn’t perfect, but it’s progress.

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Hoyered By His Own Petard

by digby

From The Hill:

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) predicted Tuesday that there is enough support within the Democratic Conference to approve a contentious overhaul of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

“If the bill comes out as I think it will, it will pass,” Rockefeller said
before heading to a conference lunch.

The development comes after Rockefeller, Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo.), House Minority
Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and the Bush
administration reached an accord late last week to break a weeks-long stalemate
over balancing electronic surveillance with the right to privacy for American
citizens, according to several people familiar with the talks.

“Breaking the stalemate” can only be understood as caving in to the corporations. From what we can gather they’ve agreed to ask a court to issue an opinion as to whether the Bush administration told the Telcoms they were immunized. If so, then that’s that. It’s not a compromise. It’s an insult to the intelligence of the American people.

Glenn Greenwald:

It is now definitively clear that House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is the driving force behind a bill — written by GOP Sen. Kit Bond — to vest the President with vast new warrantless eavesdropping powers and to vest lawbreaking telecoms with amnesty. Even as his office dishonestly denies that he is doing so, still more reports yesterday — this one from the NYT and this one from Roll Call (sub req’d) — confirm that a so-called “compromise” is being spearheaded by Hoyer and the House Democratic leadership. The ACLU and EFF are holding a joint call tomorrow to denounce Hoyer’s “compromise” as nothing more than disguised guaranteed immunity for telecoms and, further, because “the proposed deal could be used to authorize dragnet surveillance of Americans’ communications in violation of the Fourth Amendment.” As a result, there is a major new campaign beginning today aimed at Hoyer and a handful of other key members of Congress who enable telecom immunity and warrantless eavesdropping. In order to raise as much money as possible for this campaign — far more than the $85,000 raised (and still being spent) in Chris Carney’s district as a result of his support for warrantless eavesdropping and telecom amnesty — we are working to create an alliance with numerous organizations and factions across the ideological spectrum which oppose civil liberties erosions, as well as with as many blogs as possible (modeled vaguely after the ideologically diverse alliance that has arisen in Britain in opposition to the sprawling and lawless surveillance state there). We hope to announce details about the participating individuals and groups very shortly, as well as the exact details of what we’re doing. But given the time pressures, it’s vital to be able to have as many resources as possible, as quickly as possible, for this campaign. The more money raised, the greater the disruptive impact will be. For the moment, contributions can be made here. All the money raised will be spent exclusively on ad campaigns aimed at the short-term vulnerabilities of those in Congress responsible for delivering this indescribably tyrannical package of surveillance powers to the President and the accompanying corrupt gift to lawbreaking telecoms. read on…

It’s a shame it has come to this, but there’s really no option. It’s impossible to get through to these people any other way. Steny Hoyer is the second most powerful man in the US Congress. He’s a leader in the Democratic party. And along with Rockefeller and other Dem stooges in the congress, he is selling out the constitution.

As I have written many times, I don’t understand exactly why these people are so adamant about this issue and so unwilling to explain why. It makes it all the more suspicious. It isn’t just about money. The Telcoms can afford litigation and the congress could have come up with some sort of limited liability scheme if that’s what they were worried about. There’s something more to this and its incumbent upon us to keep the pressure up.

Dday posted more details on this yesterday, here. It truly is a disgrace.

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Hissy By Proxy

by digby

Fergawd’s sake. Here’ Chris Cilizza, dutifully ginning up a patented hissy fit for the wingnuts:

Using a mother and newborn (an emotional touchstone in our culture if there ever was one) to illustrate what McCain’s has said about Iraq is a powerful — and provocative — line of attack. MoveOn clearly knows that the ad will be controversial. A press release from the group notes that “preliminary testing” by a Democratic polling firm rates “Not Alex” as “more persuasive than any other ad we’ve tested before.”

Saying they “know” it’s going to be controversial is Cilizza projecting something onto the words “persuasive” that I don’t think people normally see. But he’s clearly shocked —- shocked! — that anyone would use a mother and child (by all that is holy, dear God, have they no decency!) to make an anti-war statement.

But lest anyone think that Cilizza is anything but concerned for Move-On’s reputation in this, he writes:

At issue is whether the ad’s obvious provocativeness eclipses or enhances its fundamental message.

There seems to be little question, judging from scads of polling data, that the American public has grown tired of the war in Iraq and wants American troops to begin leaving. So, MoveOn’s ad should land in fertile territory in that regard.

But by making the case against McCain and his past public statements on the war with such emotionally charged images, the ad also could turn off many of those same voters who agree with MoveOn on the substance but disagree with the group on how it practices its politics.

Emotionally charged images will turn off voters from those who agree on the substance but disagree with “how Move-On practices it’s politics?” Sez who? Who thinks this besides the quivering hanky wringers in the Village?

I’m sure the McCain campaign appreciates all the distraught town criers calling for the smelling salts on their behalf.

Here’s the ad. Be sure to grab a hold of the fainting couch before you watch it:

Oh Jesus. The Kewl Kidz are obviously busy on their little crackberries breathlessly sharing the news. The appropriate response was apparently signaled this morning by Chuck Todd on Morning Joe. I guess that stands to reason. He seems to be the frontrunner for Russert’s spot. Regurgitating conventional wisdom for the villagers to is the primary requirement for the job.

I doubt if the Republicans even have to prompt these guys to respond anymore. They’ve so thoroughly internalized this nonsense that they just automatically start clutching their pearls the minute the words “Move On” pass through their beautiful minds.

Update: John Amato says:

Well, well, well. I hate to say I told you so to all the bloggers that praised him, but in the blink of an eye the Villagers have turned on MoveOn. For all those that thought Chuck Todd was so cool—guess what? He’s going to stick with the Villagers every time. I’m not saying that he’s wrong all the time, but in the end, you’ll wind up with this. And the right wing doesn’t even have to engage them in the MoveOn ad because the Chuck Todd’s will never need any convincing to attack the left. They will instinctively do it to appease the right wing and demonstrate to them that “I’m not part of that crowd.” That’s why I focus on the media so much.

Geist: It might be fair, it might be effective, I just opposed dangling babies.

Todd: I think it was a borderline shameless ad, using a baby like that. It just seemed like a sledge hammer on the message…

Right. You wouldn’t want to be too aggressive when you’re talking aboutpeople dying in a fucking war. How unseemly.

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This Is Going To Be The Most Awesome General Election Ever

by dday

On sale at the Texas Republican Convention:

(h/t Open Left)

It’s certainly more direct than Pat Buchanan claiming Obama is exotic.

Somehow the Washington Post thinks that it’s only China where there is a “fascination” with Obama’s skin color. It’s not being used as an electoral strategy by a political party in the United States or anything.

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Hindsight

by digby

The Armed Services Committee is holding hearings this morning on torture. The ranking Republican member couldn’t make it. So he sent his faithful hound Huckleberry in his place.

The leading voice in the nation on the subject of torture, a living symbol of everything that is wrong with it, a man who cannot raise his arms above his head today because of the wounds he suffered under it, is out on the campaign trail today, ducking the subject. It seems his days of being a hero are long behind him.

Marcy Wheeler is live blogging it at her sites. Lots of interesting stuff, although most of it has been nicely compiled in Phillippe Sands’ book Torture Team. Huckleberry is decrying the use of torture while saying it’s all waterboarding under the bridge and there’s no need to air all this dirty laundry and SERE experts are going on the record saying they were sent to Iraq to instruct interrogators (and participate as interrogators, which I’d never heard before) and more. The picture of Donald Rumsfeld, unsurprisingly, emerges as a psychotic freakshow. Lieberman is dancing on the head of a pin trying desperately to maintain the fiction that he is the moral voice of the Senate while he excuses torturing innocent people for information they don’t have. (He, like his good friend Maverick, is going to hell for this.)

I think it may be particularly interesting to those who haven’t been following this super closely to find out that a bunch of big shots in the Bush administration personally went down to Gitmo to observe the torture techniques in 2002.

If this were a Greek morality play, the chorus would be whispering “war crimes, war crimes, war crimes.”

Here’s an excerpt from Carl Levin’s opening statement:

Just a couple of weeks ago I visited our troops in Afghanistan. While I was there I spoke to a senior intelligence officer who told me that treating detainees harshly is actually an impediment – a “roadblock” to use that officer’s word – to getting intelligence from them.
Here’s why, he said – al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists are taught to expect Americans to abuse them. They’re recruited based on false propaganda that says the United States is out to destroy Islam. Treating detainees harshly only reinforces their distorted view and increases their resistance to cooperate. The abuse at Abu Ghraib was a potent recruiting tool for al Qaeda and handed al Qaeda a propaganda weapon they could use to peddle their violent ideology.

So, how did it come about that American military personnel stripped detainees naked, put them in stress positions, used dogs to scare them, put leashes around their necks to humiliate them, hooded them, deprived them of sleep, and blasted music at them. Were these actions the result of “a few bad apples” acting on their own? It would be a lot easier to accept if it were. But that’s not the case. The truth is that senior officials in the United States government sought information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees. In the process, they damaged our ability to collect intelligence that could save lives.

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General Smackdown

by digby

I’ve always liked Wes Clark. Here’s why:

There’s a lot of talk that Barack needs to choose a traditional “white male” for VP. I’m not sure why. I guess some people think the Democrats need to “balance out” their black, femaleness. Whatever. The sociological politics of this race are a minefield and I’m sick of thinking about it right now.

But if it’s decided that they need to go this way, then Clark would be my choice over the others who are most often discussed. (For many different reasons, some of which are well articulated here, by Kathy G.) He’s proven himself to be a true blue progressive, tough as nails and selfless in helping fellow Democrats get elected. He’s also very smart, has about the best military resume for leadership you can think of, and he’s from Arkansas. He makes it very difficult for the Republicans to claim that the Democratic party doesn’t understand the military or foreign policy.

I’m agnostic on the VP choice. There are good reasons to pick a number of different people, including Clinton. The campaign will have to analyze their strengths and weaknesses and see what the landscape looks like when the time comes. But if they decide they need a guy whose worn some salad on his chest, this is the one, IMO.

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Bill Of Rights OK’d For Destruction By Independence Day

by dday

There’s not a lot more that can be said about this FISA abomination, but you may want to keep up with developments, so here’s the latest.

House and Senate leaders of both parties said negotiators were near a deal on extending the authority to track terror suspects overseas while protecting the civil liberties of Americans as spy agencies sift through cell phone calls and other electronic communications that did not exist when the surveillance law first came into being.

Senior Congressional officials said they hoped to seal an agreement early this week and quickly vote in the House and Senate on legislation that expired back in February, though the administration retained the authority to continue spying on terror suspects it already had in its sights. That power begins slipping later this summer.

Well, actually, no. The “power” would revert back to the FISA court, which has only rejected past warrants for surveillance on the technical grounds that the foreign communications go through a domestic switcher, and all that really would need to be done is a patch treating those calls as foreign communications. Off of that molehill is where we are building this mountain of crap.

The main sticking point between the House and Senate has been President Bush’s demand that phone companies that cooperated in the wiretapping program after the Sept. 11 attacks be given blanket immunity from legal action by customers who claim their rights were violated by warrantless surveillance. The Senate went along with the plan but the House balked.

After weeks of talks, lawmakers have worked out a deal that would allow federal courts to settle the question of whether the telecommunications companies should be protected because they were assured their participation was legal.

No, they’re not going to allow federal courts to “settle the question.” They’re asking courts to rule on whether the Attorney General gave telecom companies a “Violate the 4th Amendment” permission slip. By confining the matter to one of paperwork, district courts will not be ruling on the legality of the spying but merely confirming that the executive branch said it was OK to spy. This is a pretext for a completely outraegous circumstance – the executive branch breaking the law, and then legalizing it by showing that they wrote down that they could break the law.

This, along with blank check funding for war into the next President’s term, is being given a deadline date by the House leadership, which always works out perfectly.

Lawmakers also have to get more serious this week about finishing up an overdue bill to fund combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The measure has been slowed by fights over an extension of unemployment pay, new veterans education benefits and general Democratic opposition to Bush administration war policy.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she wants the matter settled before Congress breaks for Independence Day at the end of next week, suggesting she is ready to bring the issue to a head.

“We want to pass a bill that will be signed by the president,” she said. “And that will happen before we leave for the Fourth of July. So the timing is sometime between now and then. I feel confident that that will happen.”

There’s even talk that the FISA bill and the war funding bill will be COMBINED. Which would certainly wrap up the craven nature of the action into a nice, neat bow, so there’s at least something to be said for it. The fact that the deadline is the date marking the birth of the nation gives it a little layer of irony.

CQ has a little more, noting that the compromise, which involves allowing district courts to decide the fate of immunity, was worked out WITHOUT the heads of the Judiciary Committees, or any of the party leadership on either side. This is Steny Hoyer and Jello Jay Rockefeller’s ballgame. CQ seems to think that this deal is not yet hardened in stone, but I’m not as sanguine. We need to fight this nonsense, of course, but more than anything this legislation is a slap in the face to those who have prolonged this debate until they are satisfied with the civil liberties and privacy protections. You get the feeling that Hoyer wants to say to the caucus “Can’t you let me finish off the Fourth Amendment and go away so we can move on to important items like naming more post offices? I made it LOOK like both sides will get their day in court, what more would you have me do?”

I’ve previously called for Sen. Obama to step in and put a stop to this nonsense, telling the Hoyer-Rockefeller axis that this undermines his own security goals and debases our ideals as a nation. If he doesn’t there really isn’t much hope of getting this halted. You can contact him at his Senate website, or at his campaign site.

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Jimmying The Narrative

by digby

The “Carterization” of Obama continues. I wrote about this earlier and the important thing to remember is that this is aimed at the gasbag crowd, not the public. The media Big Boyz carry the Carter narrative in their marrow, many of them coming up during that period and witnessing the ignominious coda to the liberal era during his presidency.

John McCain is out there calling Obama chicken for failing to agree to these town hall meetings. Fine. Nothing new there. All it really indicates is that this format is considered his strong suit and that he’s the underdog. They always want more debates.

But look at how this article frames the issue:

Debates still weren’t quite part of the presidential campaign tradition when Carter sought re-election in 1980. Besides the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960, only the 1976 campaign between Carter and Gerald Ford had featured head-to-head encounters between the candidates. But Carter had publicly credited his ’76 victory to those debates and very early on in his re-election campaign pledged to participate again. So did Ronald Reagan, who emerged as the Republican nominee. The trouble for Carter was that a third major candidate, Illinois Congressman John B. Anderson, entered the race as an independent, after his bid for the Republican nomination failed. A liberal Republican who was out of step with the Reagan wing of the G.O.P., Anderson was seen as far more likely to draw votes from Carter (even though polls would ultimately refute this notion). By early September, Carter and Reagan were running even in the polls, with Anderson drawing around 15 percent. That was enough for the League of Women Voters, which was then the chief facilitator of presidential debates, to invite Anderson to its first debate, on September 21. Carter, who derisively called Anderson “an invention of the media,” refused to participate. That posture played right into Reagan’s hands. One of Carter’s main liabilities was the perception of weakness, and now he seemed to be confirming it. “I’ve said from the very first that if Anderson is a viable candidate, he should be a part of the debate,” Reagan said. “I can’t for the life of me understand why Mr. Carter is so afraid of him.” By a 3-2 margin, polls showed that voters thought Carter was wrong to skip the debate, which went off without him. The television audience was small, but the mere fact that Carter didn’t show up was all that mattered. One pre-debate poll had shown Carter leading Reagan by four points. After the debate, the same survey had Reagan up five.

To be fair, the article also discusses Bush Sr dealing with the “chicken George” thing in 1992, but the whole point of this is to portray Barack as being a Carteresque loser. The McCain campaign is flogging it knowing the gasbags need to find a shorthand to understanding Obama. As this long hot election year summer kicks into gear, this looks to be one they’re going to road test.

The Obama campaign is taking some savvy steps to block this from taking hold, with an article in the NY Times saying that his management style is “big picture.” They know that each time Carter’s presidential style is discussed, like a bunch of trained seals, every bloviator in Washington immediately trots out the tired trope that Carter’s downfall was his tendency to get mired in minutia. Putting this out is a very clever way to disrupt the emerging Carter narrative.

We’ll see how it plays out. It’s worth keeping an eye on, anyway. If they can find an easy, off-the-shelf narrative to use, they will. It’s a lot easier than coming up with a new one.

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Congratulations Fellow Citizens

by digby

As dday notes below, today is a big day in California. For the first time ever, gay citizens are going to be allowed to marry. It’s hard to believe that anyone thinks they shouldn’t be able to, but then I don’t understand why people think the private lives of other consenting adults is any of their business in the first place.

It seems to me that it is inevitable that this will become an accepted legal right, probably in my lifetime, which is quite an amazing achievement. But, we should not be complacent that everything will settle into normality and the issue will have been resolved. We thought that was true back in 1973 when Roe vs Wade was decided and it has been a fight ever since then. This, like the legal right for women to have agency and control their reproductive destiny, is a big social change and there are always reactionary and revanchist forces who will be energized by it. I’m not trying to rain on anyone’s parade. I think this is a great step forward in human progress and I’m thrilled to be seeing it unfold. But these things are never easy and we’ll have to be prepared for the repercussions.

It’s interesting that this is happening at the same time that the progressive political party is making a serious play for socially conservative voters, for whom this particular issue is of deep moral consequence. They are reaching out on issues of poverty and global warming, but it will be interesting to see if the tent really is big enough to accommodate gay marriage and this, from Talk To Action:

The Kampala Monitor reports:

Dr [Rick] Warren said that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. “We shall not tolerate this aspect at all,” Dr Warren said.

Warren was speaking in support of Ugandan Anglicans who intend to boycott the forthcoming Lambeth Conference, and this harsh rejection of tolerance for gays and lesbians may have serious consequences in a country where homosexuals face harrassment and and the threat of imprisonment.

Warren’s comment is of a piece with his support for Martin Ssempa, the Ugandan evangelist who has been a keynote speaker at a Warren conference, and who has received US global AIDS prevention funds. As I wrote in August, Ssempa wants to ensure that homosexuality remains illegal and that gays and lesbians are identified in the public mind as sexual abusers. Ssempa calls for media censorship against opposing views and the dismissal of dissenting academics, and last summer he organised a rally with the theme “A Call for Action on Behalf of the Victims of Homosexuality”, at which he railed against “molestation and sodomy.”

It’s hard to see how you can have a party that believes in both equality for gay people and that, but it looks like we’re going to see.

In the meantime, to all you gay couples who are going to marry soon here in the sunshine state: Mazeltov!

Oh, and thanks to Gavin Newsome for being a real liberal and getting the ball rolling on this. I hope he runs for Governor. He’s my kind of Democrat:

San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom is considering a 2010 run for governor – a campaign that would embrace many of the same divisive causes he has championed as mayor, including same-sex marriage, universal health care and protections for illegal immigrants, The Chronicle has learned.

If he runs on that platform and wins then we know we have entered a new progressive era.

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