Month: January 2010

Has The Senate Made A Deal With Stupak?

by digby

Jim Moran didn’t answer the question directly, but it sounds to me as if there’s a deal.

Ed Shultz: Is the Stupak coalition, those who made abortion an issue, are they standing in the way of the 218 vote total?

Jim Moran: Well the reality is that there won’t be any public funds paying for abortions. It’s going to be very difficult for young women to find access to reproductive services. But that’s just the reality.

I think we have to look at the larger objective of getting health reform and then we’ll have to look at getting it right for the women of America in that area.

Yeah, that’ll happen.

Moran did say that he thought health care generally was looking good and even said the public option was on the table. But the way he answered that question leads me to believe that they have found a way to appease Stupak, and the last I heard he would not vote for the Senate bill if it meant that he would have to settle for Nelson.

We’ll see.

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The Lilest Dirty Tricksters

by digby

It’s a lot of fun watching the right wing squirm over the Breitbart wiretap boyz down in New Orleans, but we should keep in mind that their operation did something very, very destructive to liberal politics by using that doctored, bogus videotape to discredit ACORN. They could disappear tomorrow and every person on the right could disown them but their lasting legacy is substantial.

The timorous Dems bolted like frightened gazelles when those stupid tapes came out and withdrew ACORN’s federal contracts with an unconstitutional Bill of Attainder. This was all over an amateurish right wing hit job designed to evoke racist stereotypes and the reaction proved how powerful those stereotypes still are.

For instance, did you know that the “pimp” in the tapes never actually appeared in the ACORN offices dressed that way? Apparently, they filmed those famous scenes of the costumed O’Keefe and his little miniskirted “ho” walking down the street (which were played on a loop all day yesterday and today) separately. They did not appear looking like that in the offices but I would bet you that most people believe they “fooled” the ACORN workers with those costumes, which makes them the dumbest people on earth.

And then there is the fact that the tapes were doctored, something people should keep in mind when they contemplate what they may have been up to with their latest little scam. (You can see the details of the doctoring, here.)

It’s disgusting that the media tickled that racist id with such extravagant glee when those silly tapes came out, but the way the Democrats reacted to it was a self-defeating scandal.

Update: David Shuster was very good today calling out Breitbart for his ACORN calumny, although Breitbart babbled incoherently over him throughout.

Update II: Emptywheel deconstructs Brietbart’s excuses in that piece here.

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Irresponsible

by digby

Somebody needs to tell Judd Gregg to lay off the stimulants. And then give him a bottle and send him to bed:

Contessa Brewer: Let’s bring in now Republican Judd Gregg a senator of New Hampshire, a top Republican on the budget committee and a ranking member of the Senate banking committee. What do you think about the money the president is preparing to spend on jobs and what Mark was just saying, that it has to go hand in hand with other programs, job training, professional skill and certainly educating very young people?

Judd Gregg: Well we’re running a 1.3 trillion dollar deficit this year. The government is going to spend over three trillion dollars. All of that deficit goes into the debt which will be paid by our children and our children’s children. I think somebody’s going to have to ask a more fundamental question. How are you going to get the economy going if you run up the debt to the point where we can’t afford our government? Uh, that is a much more fundamental question.

If you want to do something to energize this economy, I think you put in place some plans that control the rate of growth of government so that people can have confidence that this nation is not going to go into some form of fiscal bankruptcy in five to seven years. And that will cause people to be willing to invest and be willing to take risks and create jobs. Jobs are not created by the government. You know long term, good jobs are created by a vibrant economy and you don’t get a vibrant economy when the government and the size of the government and the debt of the government is overwhelming the capacioty of the economy to function right.

Francis: That’s good in theory Senator …

Gregg: That’s not theory! It’s not theory! Don’t tell me it’s theory!

Francis: tell me how to put it to work …

Gregg: No you don’t tell me it’s theory. What are you… How do you get off saying something like that?

Francis: (who is a conservative by the way) Because it is good in theory. Of course, it’s fantastic. Here’s your opportunity senator… let me finish .. to tell us all how it would be put to work. I’m all for small government.

Gregg: You stop the spending spree. You stop the government from growing so fast that you can’t afford to pay for it. You don’t increase the size of government from 20% of GDP to 25% of GDP in two years. You don’t add a trillion dollars of new debt to our kids back every year for the next ten years. You don’t pass a budget… the president doesn’t send up a budget that doubnle the debt in five years, triples it in ten years! You don’t say that you’re for fiscal responsibility and then propose a whole panoply of new programs that you can’t pay for. That’s not theory, that’s reality! That’s what we’re facing as a nation. This is the reality of a fiscal meltdown of our country which is going to have a massive impact on people’s lives and cost a lot of jobs in this country.

Contessa Brewer: So my partner Melissa, Senator Greg, is really asking for specifics. If you don’t believe that we should have a 1.3 trillion dollar budget, which programs are you willing to cut. Are you willing to tell schools, no money for you? And do you side then with those who say, when you look back at the great depression, economists say that we landed back into real problems in 1937 when people got onto cutting the deficit and a lot of government spending was pulled back before it should have been?

Gregg: Well first off, nobody is saying no money for schools. What an absurd statement to make. What a dishonest statement to make. On its face you are being fundamentally dishonest when you make that type of statement.

Brewer: We’re just asking which programs you would cut

Francis: tell us what to cut…

Gregg: Do you know how much money is spent on education in the federal governmen this year?

Brewer: Senator, you’re going to be asked to cut certain programs if you’re on the Senate banking committee. Which programs would you want to cut?

Gregg: Oh I have no problems telling you. I would freeze discretionary spending. A real freeze, not a freeze plus inflation. I would eliminate the TARP money which would get us close to 400 billion dollars. I would end the stimulus spending effective in June of this year, if not sooner, so we can recover all the money that’s going to be spent outside the window of this recession and we shouldn’t be spending it adding it to the debt. I would take a major effort to try to reform our entitlement programs. In fact we had a major vote yesterday to try to do that under a bill which I’ve proposed with Senator Conrad.

So I’ve made some very specific proposals and I’m willing to stand by them. The problem is that this administration’s view of governance is that economic prosperity is created by growing the government dramatically and then it gets misrepresented by people like yourself who are saying that if you do any of this stuff you are going to end up not funding education. That statement alone is the most irresponsible statement I’ve heard probably in a month.

Brewer: it wasn’t a statement, it was a question…

Gregg: And there are a lot of irresponsible statements made by reporters and that was the most irresponsible I’ve heard.

Francis: Senator, with respect, that’s not what she said, she was asking you what you would like to cut ..

Gregg:  =That’s exactly what she said! Go back and read your transcript.

Brewer: thank you for your time, Senator …

Gregg: You can’t be duplicitous about this! You can’t make a representation and then claim you didn’t make it. You’ve got to have some integrity on your side of this camera too.

Francis: She asked you what you would like to cut, she asked you if you would cut schools. You said no.

Gregg: You’re suggesting we should have a zero in education. Well of course, nobody’s suggesting that. Nobody’s even implying that. But in your introduxction to me you said that. That education funding would be cut. Well, education funding isn’t going to be cut.

Brewer: Well Senator, I’m sorry for any communication problems that we’v had, but as always, we appreciate your time …

I’ll let Gregg’s tantrum stand on it’s own. But I would just point out that it’s not absurd in the least to ask if Republicans would cut education. Indeed, it’s absurd to suggest otherwise:

President Ronald Reagan promised during the 1980 presidential election to eliminate the Department of Education as a cabinet post,[1] but he was not able to do so with a Democratic House of Representatives. In the 1982 State of the Union Address, he pledged:

“

The budget plan I submit to you on Feb. 8 will realize major savings by dismantling the Department of Education.[2]

”

Throughout the 1980s, the abolition of the Department of Education was a part of the Republican Party platform, but the administration of President George H. W. Bush declined to implement this idea.

In 1996, the Republican Party made abolition of the Department a cornerstone of their campaign promises, calling it an inappropriate federal intrusion into local, state, and family affairs.[2] The GOP platform read:

“

The Federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the market place. This is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning.[2][3]

”

During his 1996 presidential run, Senator Bob Dole promised, “We’re going to cut out the Department of Education.”[3]
In 2000, the Republican Liberty Caucus passed a resolution to abolish the Department of Education.[4]
In 2008, presidential candidate Ron Paul campaigned in part on an opposition to the Department.[5]

And that brings us to the teabaggers:

Former Lt. Governor Jane Norton said she was spurred to try to win Colorado Democratic Michael Bennet’s U.S. Senate seat by what she sees as the dramatic expansion of government in the Obama era. In stump speeches, emails and interviews, she has vowed to work to cut federal spending as a way to end the “government takeover” of the private sector. One of the ways Norton proposes to trim spending is to eliminate the federal Department of Education…

Although she is the clear frontrunner in the race to unseat Bennet, Norton has not been the top choice among conservative grassroots voters in the state- a bloc of voters being increasingly influenced by the anti-tax anti-establishment Tea Party movement here. For that reason, events like the one at the Lamplighter may be much more attractive to the Norton campaign than the small number of attendees might suggest. Blogger and Tea Party organizer Randy Smith is exactly the kind of local opinion leader Norton would like to win enthusiastic support from to shore up the conservative base in the state while downplaying her deep establishment connections…

“She believes state and local control is better than having them taken over by the the federal government… She supports a return to a balance that has state and local jurisdictions as preeminent, empowering parents rather than bureaucrats,” he told the Colorado independent. The idea is not that radical, he said.

“Federal involvement in education is a matter of legislation, so now it’s a matter of rebalancing… States have rights under the Constitution. We got to this point through intrusive government… [through] rolling federal intrusions, just as we’re seeing in health care and with the Detroit automakers.”

So, not only was Brewer right to ask whether Gregg planned to cut education as part of a deficit reduction plan, there has been a very longstanding belief  among conservatives that they should not be funding education at all.

If there was anyone at fault for spreading misinformation and lies on television it’s Gregg with his irresponsible deficit fearmongering and  Hooverite prescriptions for the economy. God help us if he and his ilk actually get their way.

And you can’t help but scratch your head when you think that a year ago, when everyone knew that the economy was in deep trouble and would need a lot of stimulus, the administration actually named this guy to be Commerce Secretary, a department which Gregg had voted to eliminate as well.  That tells you a lot about their judgment at the time.

Update: Crooks and Liars caught the footage:

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A Good Man

by digby

You’ve all heard by now about the death of Howard Zinn, the great liberal historian and activist. Most of us have probably read his most famous work “The People’s History of the United States” and know him from his prolific writing over the years in liberal magazines. But here’s an interesting series of recent interviews from November 2008. This one is particularly interesting, considering the current populist upheaval around the bank bailouts:

More at The Real News

RIP

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I Hear Them

by digby

I’ve been getting some lectures about being derisive toward the tea partiers because they are decent people with valid complaints and it’s wrong to demonize them. And I’m sure some of them are. However, those who follow Glenn Beck, which most of them do, listen to crap like this day in and day out, so it’s hard for me to see why I should accord them any more respect than they accord to me:

Well, you see, the dirty little secret that communists, Marxists, and progressives don’t want you to know is their system has never ever worked.

And not only has it never worked, it has led to some of the most horrifying outcomes in history. You think that guy — you think that guy was the only one that did it? And you think this guy is from the right? Oh, yeah, really?

Make sure you tune in tomorrow. People wouldn’t support Mao and they wouldn’t be wearing a Mao hat if they knew they were endorsing somebody who killed tens of millions of people. That’s Anita Dunn — she said, you know, “One of the great philosophers that I think of most is Mao.”

She knows who he is, but most Americans don’t, because progressives tend to breeze past that little speed bump in history. I told you back in December that this program is going to change. Tomorrow is the first real step in that direction.

You see, progressives knew 100 years ago you can’t win a battle against our Founding Fathers. Progressives had to change the course of history by changing history itself. If you can convince people that killers are cool, and get them to wear a t-shirt, you’ll win their hearts and minds.

And then there’s this:

Beck: The traditional Democratic party is going up against the radical fringe left. I’ve been telling you that there’s a difference between Democrats and progressives from the beginning now but nobody wants to listen. Here it is. There are Blue Dog Democrats, but they are not socialists, Marxists radicals. They are more like your grand father’s Democrat. Most Democrats still love America, they love the founders and they love the constitution and believe in this country. But then there’s another group and they have infiltrated not just the Democratic party, but the Republican party…

How many times have I said they [progressives] are like a virus feeding on the host of republic?

The progressives are parasites inside the Democrat Party…

John Amato of Crooksandliars wrote on Huffington Post, “for Woolsey to holding a fundraising events for a known Blue Dog should be a firing offense for the CPC.” Progressive Democrats for America joined in, They started an online petition asking her to withdraw from the event. Woolsey said no. I don’t know how this story ends quite frankly — it’s California and it’s all going to end in a mudslide right into the bottom of the ocean eventually anyway — but let me tell you something. The last time the progressives were in this position and they started gobbling power and they exposed themselves, people caught on and hated them.

When the teapartiers repudiate this jackass, I’ll be polite to them. Until then, I have to assume they agree that I am a “parasite” and a “virus” and I’m just not inclined to excuse it or be politically “pragmatic” and seek an obviously impossible common ground. I’ll leave that to the Village which, I’m afraid, is far too willing to validate the spirit, if not the letter, of what Beck is saying as well.

Update: And then there’s this.

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Embarrassing

by digby

The White House says President Barack Obama was accurate when he took on a Supreme Court ruling in the State of the Union address, even though Justice Sam Alito mouthed, “Not true.”

Alito’s protest came when the president said: “With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests — including foreign corporations — to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) … And I’d urge Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to correct some of these problems.”

A senior administration official told POLITICO on Thursday morning: “There is a loophole that we need to address and are working with Congress to address. There are U.S. subsidiaries of foreign-controlled corporations that could influence our elections because of this ruling.”

The issue was raised by Justice John Paul Stevens in his dissent in the case, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission: “[I]t would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans.”

Stevens continued: “The Court all but confesses that a categorical approach to speaker identity is untenable when it acknowledges that Congress might be allowed to take measures aimed at “preventing foreign individuals or associations from influencing our Nation’s political process. … Such measures have been a part of U. S. campaign finance law for many years. The notion that Congress might lack the authority to distinguish foreigners from citizens in the regulation of electioneering would certainly have surprised the Framers.”

And on page 75, Stevens wrote: “Unlike voters in U. S. elections, corporations may be foreign controlled.”

The nonpartisan Citizens for Public Integrity has asked: “Will the Citizens United Ruling Let Hugo Chavez and King Abdullah Buy U.S. Elections? Supreme Court Ruling May Open Door to Foreign State-Owned Corporate Political Spending.”

Conservatives jumped on Obama’s comment. Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said on Fox News’s “Hannity” that Obama was “embarrassing our Supreme Court. … [T]his will be the huge take-away moment.”

Poor Sarah. They must not have gotten to the “activist judges” portion of her debate prep before her mind started wandering.

And anyway, I think that any justice who thinks that unregulated free speech for corporations is sacred while the speech of some kid with a sign that says “bong hits 4 Jesus” can be suppressed has already amply embarrassed himself.

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The Speech

by digby

I confess that I’ve always been strangely immune to the Obama speech magic for some reason, but he always puts at least one thing in them that I like. Tonight, it was this:

To Democrats, I would remind you that we still have the largest majority in decades, and the people expect us to solve some problems, not run for the hills. And if the Republican leadership is going to insist that 60 votes in the Senate are required to do any business at all in this town, then the responsibility to govern is now yours as well. Just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership.

The sermon about “change we can believe in” I could do without. Then again, I’m immune, so don’t listen to me. As I said earlier, these speeches are always considered clinkers by the gasbags and the people usually love them. So I would think that this will be well received.

And the Republicans looked like asses, as usual.

Update: David Brooks just said:

If you took out health care and the fights we’ve had the last year and just read the rest of the speech, you wouldn’t think it was a particularly liberal speech.There were a lot of tax cuts in there. There’s a spending freeze, there’s pay as you go, there nuclear power, there’s free trade pacts. I was struck by how moderate the speech was. If you took away all the fighting in the last year, and started with this, I think the atmosphere in Washington would probably be different.

Yeah, sure it would.

Update II: The Bizaarroworld State of the Union speech and the Bizarroworld congress and the Bizarroworld president are creepy. I’m glad I don’t live there.

Update III:

Sometimes, it just works its way to the surface and they can’t keep it in:

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Clinker

by digby

Mark Halperin just declared that on the basis of the excerpts of the upcoming speech, Obama sounds like Michael Dukakis and that nobody is going to be persuaded. Halperin says he’s simply got to do tax cuts or tort reform. Matthews characterized Halperin’s opinion as saying that the speech was “a clinker.”

I would just note that the gasbags almost always think these speeches are clinkers, but the public usually thinks otherwise. But I have to say that I haven’t seen the villagers so dismissive in advance since Clinton faced the congress in the immediate aftermath of the Lewinsky revelations.

I think I’ll reserve judgment until the speech is actually given. It’s odd, I know, but I’m old fashioned about these things.

Update: Spocko writes in to tell me that the drinking game tonight is one shot if he says “reach across the aisle” and two shots for “some on the left.”

I’m guzzling on “big government” and injecting 151 on “make the tax cuts permanent.”

Update II: It actually didn’t occur to me to put “capital gains tax cut” on the list. Should I drown myself in rubbing alcohol?

Update III: Gotta love the GOP failing to stand up for taxing the bankers. I hope the media at least mentions it tomorrow.

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Ashley And Jeff

by digby

Pat Buchanan said on Hardball today that Barack Obama is Ashley Wilkes. Cynthia Tucker was sitting next to him. I would say that was the most hamhanded statement of the day if it weren’t for the fact that the Republican response to the state of the union address is being held in the hall where Jefferson Davis was inaugurated.

I know. It’s hard to believe, but it’s true.

Just for fun, here are some excerpts of Davis’ speech. See if you can hear the echoes in McDonnell’s speech tonight:

When a long course of class legislation, directed not to the general welfare, but to the aggrandizement of the Northern section of the Union, culminated in a warfare on the domestic institutions of the Southern States – when the dogmas of a sectional party, substituted for the provisions of the constitutional compact, threatened to destroy the sovereign rights of the States, six of those States, withdrawing from the Union, confederated together to exercise the right and perform the duty of instituting a Government which would better secure the liberties for the preservation of which that Union was established…

The people of the States now confederated became convinced that the Government of the United States had fallen into the hands of a sectional majority, who would pervert that most sacred of all trusts to the destruction of the rights which it was pledged to protect. They believed that to remain longer in the Union would subject them to a continuance of a disparaging discrimination, submission to which would be inconsistent with their welfare, and intolerable to a proud people. They therefore determined to sever its bonds and establish a new Confederacy for themselves.

The experiment instituted by our revolutionary fathers, of a voluntary Union of sovereign States for the purposes specified in a solemn compact, and been perverted by those who, feeling power and forgetting right, were determined to respect no law but their own will. The Government had ceased to answer the ends for which it was ordained and established. To save ourselves from a revolution which, in its silent but rapid progress, was about to place us under the despotism of numbers, and to preserve in spirit, as well as in form, a system of government we believed to be peculiarly fitted to our condition, and full of promise for mankind, we determined to make a new association, composed of States homogenous in interest, in policy, and in feeling.

True to our traditions of peace and our love of justice, we sent commissioners to the United States to propose a fair and amicable settlement of all questions of public debt or property which might be in dispute. But the Government at Washington, denying our right to self-government, refused even to listen to any proposals for a peaceful separation. Nothing was then left to do but to prepare for war…

Fellow-citizens, after the struggle of ages had consecrated the right of the Englishman to constitutional representative government, our colonial ancestors were forced to vindicate that birthright by an appeal to arms. Success crowned their efforts, and they provided for their posterity a peaceful remedy against future aggression.

The tyranny of an unbridled majority, the most odious and least responsible form of despotism, has denied us both the right and the remedy. Therefore we are in arms to renew such sacrifices as our fathers made to the holy cause of constitutional liberty. At the darkest hour of our struggle the Provisional gives place to the Permanent Government. After a series of successes and victories, which covered our arms with glory, we have recently met with serious disasters. But in the heart of a people resolved to be free these disasters tend but to stimulate to increased resistance.

To show ourselves worthy of the inheritance bequeathed to us by the patriots of the Revolution, we must emulate that heroic devotion which made reverse to them but the crucible in which their patriotism was refined.

With confidence in the wisdom and virtue of those who will share with me the responsibility and aid me in the conduct of public affairs; securely relying on the patriotism and courage of the people, of which the present war has furnished so many examples, I deeply feel the weight of the responsibilities I now, with unaffected diffidence, am about to assume; and, fully realizing the inequality of human power to guide and to sustain, my hope is reverently fixed on Him whose favor is ever vouchsafed to the cause which is just. With humble gratitude and adoration, acknowledging the Providence which has so visibly protected the Confederacy during its brief but eventful career, to thee, O God, I trustingly commit myself, and prayerfully invoke thy blessing on my country and its cause.

That particular American tribe has always had a huge chip on its shoulder: they are bullies who believe they are victims. Same as it ever was.

Update: Ho boy

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The Party Of Ideas

by digby

I see Ron Paul on TV virtually every day now, sometimes making interesting points about things like the Fed. Far more often he’s speaking idiotic nonsense. But the conservative Mandarins are starting to pay close attention, since he’s a hero among the teabag faction. Here’s Tony Blankly taking up a Ron Paul brainstorm:

As an early 1960s vintage member of the then-new conservative movement, I remember us focusing on the 10th amendment during the 1964 Goldwater campaign. It has been a staple of conservative thought, and the continued dormancy of 10th amendment enforcement has been one of the failures of our now half-century-old movement.

But just as the Tea Party movement in so many ways seems to represent the 2.0 version of our movement, so I again thought about the 10th amendment anew. After about 10 seconds’ thought, it struck me that the best way to revive the 10th Amendment is to repeal the 17th Amendment — which changes the first paragraph of Article I, Section 3 of the Constitution to provide that each state’s senators are to be “elected by the people thereof” rather than being “chosen by the Legislature thereof.” (As I Googled the topic, I found out that Ron Paul and others have been talking about this for years. It may be the only subject that could be proposed and ratified at a constitutional convention with three-fourths of the state legislatures.)

That’s a fabulous idea. Let’s let the much cheaper local whores do the bidding of the corporations. These poor companies are going to have to spend a lot more money if they expect to buy 435 House seats and endless local and state offices, so any break they can get would be good for the economy.

But as long as we’re going for constitutional amendments, why not get rid of the House of Lords altogether?

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