Month: February 2010

Backroom Deals

by digby

One of the things I’ve always admired about the Republicans, in a train wreck sort of way, is their ability to use the zeitgeist to their own advantage, no matter how counter-intuitive it might be. They always find a way to mendaciously twist a legitimate concern or issue into a political advantage for themselves, hypocrisy be damned.

Here’s the latest:

House Republicans suggested that the ongoing work by Democrats to resolve their differences would amount to a “backroom deal among the White House and Democratic leaders” that would “make a mockery of the president’s stated desire to have a ‘bipartisan’ and ‘transparent’ dialogue.”

They have taken the legitimate concern about the back room deals between the White House and the health industry and stretched it to include negotiations between the White House and the Democratic congress. Now any bill that isn’t bipartisan is a “backroom deal.” Brilliant.

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Fiscal Responsibility

by digby

Here’s an explanation of the scam so simple that Sarah Palin could almost fit it in the palm of her hand.

Dean Baker:

Next week dozens of honchos around Washington are going to be gathering to try to devise ways to ensure that ordinary working people pay for their incompetent management of the economy. This effort will pass under the guise of “fiscal responsibility.”

The basic story of course is quite simple. Geniuses like Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan and the rest of the country’s top economists and policymakers somehow either could not see an $8 trillion housing bubble or just thought it was cute.

When it collapsed and brought down the economy, as every competent economist knew it would, it also created a serious budget problem. Now, these elites are convening special sessions devoted to fiscal responsibility in which they will devise schemes to take away the Social Security benefits that workers have already paid for and to cut Medicare. Invariably they will praise themselves for having the courage to take part in these Wall Street funded sessions to plot ways to take money from ordinary workers.

And, they wonder why people hate Washington.

And these people will also very likely succeed in blaming “government spending” for the loss of the citizens’ future security. But then nobody’s telling them otherwise and the leaders in both the private and public sectors who created the mess are being well rewarded. What else are they to think?

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Classic Wolcott

by digby

The master recalls the famous Seinfeld episode where George uses crib notes on his hand to remember Jerry’s famous “move”:

I’m sure Sarah Palin never requires similar crib notes for the art of amour. Todd puts on the pirate suit, she pretends to be Rhonda Fleming, and the ocean waves heave to the rhythm of their rocking.

there’s more …

h/t to bb

The Cult Of the Cougar Goddess

by digby

Those who read this blog regularly know how I feel about adherents of Ayn Rand. But just to recap, I think they are the most immature political thinkers among us, seduced by Rand’s sexy Supermen (and the superwomen who love them) and her celebration of adolescent selfishness. Indeed, in all the recent eulogies for Salinger, it occurred to me that this country is made up of far too many people who stopped developing after they read Atlas Shrugged or Catcher In The Rye (the latter of which is at least a work of literary genius, unlike the former which is a turgid, overwrought romance novel.)

In any case, one can be sure that anyone past the age of 19 who adheres to the silly notions set forth in Rand’s novels cannot be taken seriously. Imagine my surprise (not) to find out that the blue-eyed, boy wonder of the new generation of Republicans is a very serious Randite:

Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) determination to privatize Social Security and dismantle Medicare — what he calls a “collectivist system” — comes, at least in part, from his longstanding devotion to the works of Ayn Rand.

Rand developed the objectivist philosophy, which values the self, capitalism and laissez-faire economics. Ryan, the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, reportedly requires staffers and interns to read her opus, Atlas Shrugged, and gives out copies as gifts.

In his keynote address to CPAC last year, Ryan said Obama’s policies sound “like something right out of an Ayn Rand novel.”

Fearing political suicide, Republican leaders have tried to distance themselves from Ryan’s “roadmap” budget proposal, which calls for privatizing Social Security. But Ryan is upfront about it.

At a 2005 celebration of what would have been Rand’s 100th birthday, Ryan called for reforming the “collectivist system” of Social Security by changing it to individual savings accounts.

“If we actually accomplish this goal of personalizing Social Security, think of what we will accomplish. Every worker, every laborer in America will not only be a laborer but a capitalist. They will be an owner of society,” Ryan said at the 2005 event, according to a profile written last year in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

In interviews, he has said Republicans should frame the choice between “collectivism” and capitalism as a moral choice.

“We have an opportunity to make a choice clearly once and for all in the next two elections, and we owe it to the American people to give them a clear choice: Do you want a collectivist welfare state or do you want to get back to being a free market? We need to make a moral, not just practical or statistical, case,” he told Reason, a libertarian magazine, in December.

In last year’s CPAC address, he claimed the White House had blamed the free market for the financial crisis, then used the crisis as an “excuse to impose a more intrusive state.”

And despite GOP attempts to frame these entitlement reforms as something other than privatization, Ryan has been clear on the point.

“Rather than depending on government for your retirement and health security, I propose to empower people to become much more self-dependent for such things in life,” he said in a speech to the Hudson Institute last June.

This thinking is exactly what brought us to the brink. Exhibit One, from the man who sat at the foot of the chain-smoking, dexi-popping cougar goddess of selfishness herself:

“I have found a flaw” in free market theory, Greenspan said under intense questioning by Representative Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the Government Oversight Committee of the House of Representatives. “I don’t know how significant or permanent it is,” Greenspan added. “But I have been very distressed by that fact.”

Pressed by Waxman, Greenspan conceded a more serious flaw in his own philosophy that unfettered free markets sit at the root of a superior economy.

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Greenspan said.

Waxman pushed the former Fed chief, who left office in 2006, to clarify his explanation.

“In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working,” Waxman said.

“Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan replied. “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”

He’s only 80 something, so it took him a while. But he finally looked away from Dagny’s heaving bodice long enough to notice that unbridled greed and selfishness makes people reckless. Good for him. Too bad for us.

But little Ryan is still in thrall to this puerile fantasy. (As is Rand Paul, GOP front runner from Kentucky who wasn’t actually named after the cougar goddess, but likes her a lot.)

To learn more about little Paul Ryan, this post at Down With Tyranny tells the tale. I too wonder why the Democrats think it’s ok to let this fellow run unopposed. With the Ayn Rand cult passing out millions of books to high schools every year for free to indoctrinate the young, it’s a mistake to underestimate the power of this sexually charged pseudo-philosophy, especially now.

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Prove It

by digby

Chris Matthews had former CIA operative and journalist Jack Rice and constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein on today in a failed attempt to educate himself on the basic tenets of the Bill of Rights. He simply doesn’t understand why, if we know that Khalid Sheik Mohammed is guilty, we should bother with a trial.

One of the two mentioned it in passing, but I think it’s worth noting more explicitly, that the government presumably always “knows” that someone is guilty before they indict him or her for a crime. At least it should. The point of the trial is to make them prove it. They have to put their evidence on the table and convince 12 people that it’s enough to take away someone’s freedom or, in this case, execute them. And because trials are public, this demonstration of proof creates trust in the justice system and the rule of law among the population at large.

Evidently Chris and many others see absolutely no value in proving to the American people, much less the rest of the world, that KSM actually did the crimes of which he’s accused. Apparently, the fact that everyone just *knows* that he’s a very bad man means that we needn’t go though the process or put the evidence in the record. Sure, there will be those who believe it’s all rigged, but at the very least, the country’s willingness to submit this man to a trial shows a degree of faith in our own system of law, which seems to me to be an important message to send to the rest of the world.

Chris is worried that there’s going to be some big Perry Mason moment in the trial where KSM stands up and makes a rousing pitch for jihad and inspires the whole Muslim world to invade America. That’s just silly. It’s not going to be OJ. It’s going to be a terror trial which is highly controlled and very, very serious.

In any case, the two experts were unable to convince Matthews. He’s convinced, as I assume many Americans are, that giving terrorist suspects rights and a fair trial is too good for them. Of course, that’s what the KKK used to say about blacks too when terrorism went by the more prosaic term “lynching.”

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Just Can’t Stand The Sight of Them

by digby

I’m listening to gasbags on TV today talk about the new polls which show that people think that the bums should all be kicked out. And if a recent experience of mine is any indication, I think it’s probably true.

We had a young friend in from out of town a few days ago and we decided it would be fun to take her up to Hollywood to see Ringo Starr receive his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of the Capitol Records building. As you might expect, there were a lot of people there, very excited to see a Beatle up close and personal. As with municipal events like this in small towns and large cities alike, it brings out the pols. This was no exception. There was a succession of politicians there to bask in the limelight of the rock legend and give a little speech on their own behalf and that of the city. But, the only one anyone seemed to recognize was the mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa. And they nearly booed him off the stage.

Now granted, he had a bit of a sex scandal a while back (an affair with a reporter)and recently announced citywide layoffs due to the budget crunch. I’m sure that he’s unpopular for specific reasons among any number of constituents. But this was a bunch of music fans, not a political gathering, and from the comments I heard in the crowd most of them didn’t even know his name, much less have any particular reason for hating him. As far as I could tell it was a spontaneous show of loathing for politicians, not anything specific.

I think people just blame politicians and the government in general for the sorry state of the economy and their gut sense that things have somehow gone horribly wrong. It’s the story they hear from everyone, and on some level it’s even true. But it’s also a very broad brush critique of the problem that unfortunately validates the incorrect notion that the government is the only culpable party — and, worse,stopping it from operating is the only way to end the pain. In other words, this is the conservative message internalized by average people who don’t follow the details but feel the frustration and angst

It’s not that I blame them. Politicians of all stripes have been remarkably obtuse and since we ostensibly have a democracy, politics is the designated place for people to register their anger at the social, economic and political problems of the country, even if they ultimately believe that the government is a useless institution and that free markets are the answer to everything.

This is why it doesn’t pay for Democratic politicians to adopt neo-liberal policies that don’t work and benefit only the wealthy owners of the country. They’ll get blamed when things go wrong and get no credit when things go right. It’s lose lose.

I’m sure Villaraigosa is fairly typical. I would bet money that all most people in that crowd saw was another loathsome politician with a big white smile, trying to horn in on the glory of a beloved rock icon when he should be out there doing something about the horrible economic situation which his policies caused.

Update: Greg Sargent has an item making a similar point.

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Movements And Coalitions

by digby

There’s been a lot of chatter about an impending implosion within the tea parties centering on Sarah Palin’s lack of libertarian sensibilities and her desire to co-opt the movement for the GOP, thus opening up an opportunity for making common cause with the disaffected libertarians of the movement. This post from one of the many tea party organizations would seem to bear that out:

I am sending an alarm to the Tea Party membership! Be alert to turncoats and deceivers being herded into the Tea Party by usurpers from the weakened Republican Party for the sole purpose of capturing our populist movement. Our political ideals were once theirs and our immense growth has created a lusting for their good old days!

Sarah Palin’s well delivered speech and her attractive demeanor is little more than a veneer for her less attractive political philosophy. She seems more like a duck out of water among true Conservative Constitutionalists. Palin demonstrates her NeoCon flippant viewpoint and her naïveté as she seems envious of the swelled numbers of Patriots pledging their allegiance, to of all things, AMERICA and not to a kool-aid ridden political dinosaur.

What Republican wouldn’t want 10 million angry voters marching in the streets shouting, God Bless The Republican Party, where a few months before the same voices sang, God Bless America!

Sarah Palin is not dense or erroneous in her view of the Tea Party, just the opposite. She represents a growing insider’s attack to the heart of the Tea Party. Very much like a wolf in sheep’s clothing entering in at the gate as an ally, but for all intents and purposes there to seize and capture, not only one or two stray sheep, but the whole flock!

Instead of the Republican Party endeavoring to return to what made them great, it appears they are trying to take the low road, by attempting to commandeer someone else’s dream, the American dream forged by blood sweat and tears. Is the Faith of the Tea Party being replaced by folly and our Patriotism being replaced by Party-ism?

[…]

Many Tea Party members are concerned with the complicity of Big Business and Big Government, Wall Street Bail-outs and Mortgage Mogul sweet-heart deals. My concern grows as I observe the open and deliberate adulteration of the U.S. Constitution by those who proudly boast their allegiance to ‘Party’ principles. The difference is startling, the Tea Party places restoring the Republic and returning America to common sense government as our core platform…

Ron Paul himself would probably see this person as one of his original tea party adherents who is rejecting the neo-con worldview. After all, he sees through Palin and understands that she and the Republicans are trying to co-opt their movement. Seems like fertile ground for some progressive messaging about the Wall Street bailouts and the “Mortgage Mogul sweet heart deals.”

But I’m guessing it probably wouldn’t work short of some progressive concessions that would be unpalatable. The tea party patriot goes on to expound on what truly matters:

Has the Tea Party reached its zenith? Was all of our work, hope and fire expended to only stop Obama-Care?..

I can see the possible evisceration of the Tea Party by recent shifts in ideology. For example: Would the Tea Party knowingly endorse a candidate who believes in Amnesty masquerading as a “pathway to citizenship”?

Of course not! However, it is being considered!

What shall we do next? Turn a blind eye to the 20 million or more illegal aliens who demand citizenship because they believe they have earned it by nefariously entering our beloved nation and who continue to break the law by staying here?

The Republican elite say “Yes to amnesty!” But, I believe the Tea Party will not reward law breakers, especially with our most sacred commodity – ‘Citizenship in our beloved nation.’

Yet, Sarah Palin says, “Yes we can!” Proving my point is her endorsement of Open-Borders McCain. Why would any Tea Party member “want to be” on the same side of Obama-Amnesty?

Point well taken.

Has the Tea Party forgotten the tax hikes poised and ready to crush the American people? How can we fail to remember the unrelenting line of gun grabbing legislation continually snaking its way through Congress?

Yet, where is the outrage?

[…]

The Tea Party is famous as a movement of ragtag, unorganized independent, politically hungry libertarian style Patriots holding fast to a Conservative belief in America. The Tea Party is something fresh, unique and alive.

Did our march on Washington with over 1 million strong, Town Hall meetings in major cities and millions of Pink Slips with tens of Millions of Tea Bags, countless E-mails, and phone calls to our elected Representatives mean nothing?

So just what is this teabagger’s core set of beliefs?

Illegal Aliens are illegal.

Pro-Domestic Employment is indispensable.

Stronger Military is essential.

Gun ownership is sacred.

Government must be downsized.

National Budget must be balanced.

Deficit Spending will end.

Bail-out and Stimulus Plans are illegal.

Reduce Personal Income Taxes a must.

Reduce Business Income Taxes is mandatory.

Intrusive Government Stopped.

English only is required.

Traditional Family Values are encouraged.

Common Sense Constitutional Conservative Self-Governance is our mode of operation.

….and Yes, we are a Christian Nation!

Perhaps this person is an outlier. But I doubt it. I would bet that the vast majority teabaggers are only libertarians to the extent they believe in the no-taxes, no social insurance, no government spending (for others) portions of the platform — which pretty much defines the core of both right libertarianism and conservatism.

I’m not seeing a lot of daylight for progressive movement politics (as opposed to discreet legislative initiatives, which are always possible)to find common ground. The clear deal breakers of bigotry, nativism, and social conservatism aside, on what basis does the progressive movement ally with those who also believe fervently in deregulation, elimination of taxes and the destruction of the social safety net?

And aside from civil liberties, I don’t think progressives have much in common with right libertarians on much of anything but the government bailouts. And even on that, the issue is muddied because they hate the bailouts of the auto companies even more than the bailouts of Wall Street and have come to define the stimulus as a bailout as well. I’m not sure we are talking about the same thing when we rail against bailouts anymore. (And on civil liberties, it should also be noted that most teabaggers have absolutely no problem locking up and torturing anyone with skin darker than George Hamilton if they look at them sideways.)

Left libertarians are already voting for the most liberal politicians and back liberal legislation. Most right libertarians are already voting for conservatives, and the few principled citizens who voted for Obama out of revulsion for the civil liberties abuses under the Cheney torture regime will never endorse progressive economics beyond a a distaste for bailing out wealthy banks. The teabaggers are obviously far right conservatives who are the least likely to vote for progressives of all. So, this proposed alliance and coalition is difficult for me to see.

Movements can be organized on the basis of single issues, of course. In fact, most liberal movements have been organized on that basis in the past, most recently the coalition that formed against the Iraq war. But they aren’t sustainable. Once the issue is resolved —- or loses its salience — the movement disappears. I believe that’s why the modern conservative movement has been successful where the modern progressives have fallen apart —- or fail to congeal in the first place: the conservatives have organized around common values and ideology, not issues. They band together out of a common belief system and worldview and as that tea party activist illustrates, that worldview remains strong even when the party to whom they’ve previously pledged their allegiance fails. It provides them the organizational structure to regroup and come back in the face of defeat and work as a bloc in party politics. (Of course, their wealthy benefactors and media machine help immensely…)

Their movement is as much a matter of identity and tribe as it is politics. This tea partier may believe that he’s part of something “unique” and “fresh” but the American far right is the same as it ever was: angry, resentful, bigoted, xenophobic and nativist, afraid of change, anxious to blame those who they perceive to be undeserving and the elites who defend them. Guess who those undeserving and elites are?

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A Terrifying Poll

by tristero

The great Joan Walsh is completely wrong when she writes:

the Washington Post released a poll showing a staggering 71 percent of Americans — and a majority of Republicans — don’t think Sarah Palin is qualified to be president

No, Joan, the number that’s staggering is that 26% of Americans actually think Palin is qualified to become the single most powerful human being in the world.

Think of it this way. As of 2009, the adult population of the United States – what the poll measured – was about 217.8 million. What this poll is saying, therefore, is that around 56,628,000 adult Americans are non compos mentis.

In extremis.

That is a staggering number.

And who, exactly, are all these Palin lovers? Well, here’s one of them. And here’s another:

The Massachusetts man charged this week with stockpiling weapons after saying he feared an imminent “Armageddon” appears to have been active in the Tea Party movement, and saw Sarah Palin, who he said is on a “righteous ‘Mission from God,'” as the only figure capable of averting the destruction of society.

As we reported yesterday, Gregory Girard, a Manchester technology consultant, was found with a stash of military grade weapons, explosive devices including tear gas and pepper ball canisters, camouflage clothing, knives, handcuffs, bulletproof vests and helmets, and night vision goggles, say police. They believe Girard, who pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, was “preparing for domestic and political turmoil,” and feared martial law would soon be imposed.

Girard’s wife said her husband had recently told her: “Don’t talk to people, shoot them instead,” and “it’s fine to shoot people in the head because traitors deserve it.”

Tristero, are you seriously suggesting that all Palin supporters are either intellectually dishonest Washington elites or rightwing militia-types with a Jones for apocalypse?

Of course not!

I’m fully aware that more than DC hacks and lunatic survivalists heart Palin. Indeed, there are many different ways to arrive at completely absurd, if not thoroughly insane beliefs, like the existence of a UFO in the tail of the Hale-Bopp comet or that Sarah Palin is qualified to be president. To be crystal clear: You don’t have to be a self-important villager or violent madman to love Palin.

She attracts all kinds, no doubt about it.

Wow

Watch this. If you are strapped for time, spool forward to about 11 minutes, to the segment in the school classroom.

And while you’re at it, in case you need to reinforce the points Jamie’s making here, check out the truly terrifying maps in this great Jill Richardson post.

Climate Disruption

by digby

Adam Seigel at Get Energy Smart Now, provides the ultimate smackdown of the ridiculous conclusion in the media (and apparently among our lawmakers) that the Big Snow proves global warming is a hoax.

I can’t believe science writers have to waste their time doing this, but … they do.

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