Month: March 2010

Oh Blanche!

by digby

John Brummet at the Arkansas news has the goods on Blanche Lincoln’s bogus claims about Bill Halter here. It’s hard to believe she’d go here too, but she is:

Now, in an attempt to court the Obama voters she’s repelled throughout the past year, Lincoln is running ads on African-American radio in Arkansas claiming she “stood with our president to pass healthcare reform.” The ad continues: “Even though the Tea Party and insurance companies attacked Blanche Lincoln, she never abandoned our president, nor you.” The ads also take a shot at Halter’s main accomplishment as lieutenant governor–creating a state lottery to pay for scholarships for college, a popular program in the low-income state. “Bill Halter keeps talking about lottery this, lottery that,” says one man in the ads. “The lottery doesn’t give me access to healthcare.” In response, the Halter campaign began running this ad: “Who is Blanche Lincoln trying to fool on healthcare?” says the narrator. “Here’s the deal: she didn’t stand up to the special interests, she worked for them. She sided with those Republicans who tried to kill President Obama’s reforms unless insurance company profits were protected. Insurance companies and HMOs rewarded Lincoln with more the $800,000 in campaign cash…Senator Lincoln, my people aren’t fooled. Bill Halter is the one who’ll stand up for us.” In addition to the healthcare ads, Lincoln has been touting her “A” rating from the NAACP, which the organization’s Arkansas chapter takes issue with. “If I had to grade her even on health care reform she definitely wouldn’t get an A,” said Dale Charles, president of the Arkansas NAACP. “She’d maybe get a C minus.”

I’d give her an “L” for liar.

She deserves absolutely no support from her African American constituents. She voted for the Senate bill only after extreme coercion and we’ll never know if she would have voted for the final conference bill. She didn’t vote for the reconciliation fix, so I’m thinking probably not. In any case, she was an enemy of the kind of health care reform that her Democratic constituents preferred and made it more difficult to pass anything at all every step of the way. She certainly does have chutzpah, though, in trying to send this message under the radar. I suppose she thinks that her Republican rivals won’t use it against her because it’s playing on black radio stations. Good luck with that.

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Men In Costumes

by digby

Dave adds:

I had some trouble hearing Maddow, so I kind of blew a couple of the questions. To be clear:

— What I expect at the April 19 militia march on Washington is, essentially, a smaller Tea Party with guns.

— The main threat posed by the militias is not to average citizens but to law-enforcement personnel, who inevitably are the first people to have contact with these extremists that provokes violence. Inevitably, innocent bystanders will be involved as well, as they were on April 19, 1995. And the truth is, your average American is far more likely to be harmed by a right-wing domestic terrorist than an international terrorist.

But the chief reason to fear violent militiamen is the threat they pose to our law-enforcement officers, and from a broader perspective, the toxic effect their acts have on our society and the ability of average citizens to feel safe.

In some ways it’s just an extension of the 101st Keyboarder phenomenon in the early post 9/11 years — lots of macho posturing and delusions of heroism and bravery among immature men who want to play at soldier. Considering how many wars we have going, you’d think they’d join up. I’m sure the military could use some people who have a knowledge of weaponry and a desire to swear oaths to the constitution.

Of course, real soldiers don’t get to take off their uniforms at the end of the day and go home to their nice comfortable houses and sit in front of the TV to eat freedom fries and watch Beck froth about the enemy within. This is much more fun.

And can someone please explain to me the need among so many of the manliest men to dress up in costumes?

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Beating Blue Dogs of Kentucky

by digby

If you have a few minutes to spare, head over to Crooks and Liars to meet the best Democratic candidate for Jim “Cuckoo” Bunning’s Senate seat, Jack Conway.

The other day I got Jack on the phone and asked him to come by Crooks and Liars today to talk with the Blue America community about his primary race and his probable November run against Rand Paul. He’ll join us this afternoon at 5pm (ET/2pm PT) in the comments section below. Yesterday we posted a thumbnail rundown on the race here. Tomorrow Rand Paul and a mob of anger-stoked teabaggers have announced their intention to march on Jack’s office to demand that he join the right-wing Attorneys General trying to overturn healthcare reform, just as conservative Republicans went crying to the courts to try to kill Social Security when progressives passed that. Problem for little Rand and his band of kooks is that Jack not only supported the healthcare legislation, he’s already thinking of ways to perfect the bill and is one of the first Senate candidates I’ve spoken with who is excited about the Alan– not Trey– Grayson approach to cost controls by offering a Medicare-for-all solution to any American citizen who chooses to buy in.

He turned the frivolous law suit-crazed anti-healthcare fanatics down flat, saying that what they’re asking for is “a Republican Party gimmick” that “makes for good Tea Party politics but is based on questionable legal principles.” Unfortunately, his anti-Choice/anti-gay Democratic opponent, Mongiardo, is on the same page as the Republicans! He seems to be getting his campaign slogans from the same place as Trey Grayson, straight from Mitch McConnell’s office. They’re all talking about trashing the healthcare bill and “starting over,” a pure GOP talking point.

They’re chatting right now. Check it out.

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Playing Chess With People’s Lives

by digby

This is just ridiculous:

Wanda DuVall has been collecting unemployment benefits since she lost her job back in February 2009, saying that she filed her most recent claim on Monday. On Wednesday, she did not receive the deposit she expected and called the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation to find out what happened. “They informed me that, unless a miracle occurs in Congress, my unemployment benefits would end. The 19th would be the last check,” said DuVall, 69, a former employee of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. DuVall had been receiving Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits, which provide up to 53 weeks of federally-funded compensation on top of the initial 26 weeks provided by states. The program will lapse on April 5 — after that date, people like DuVall will lose eligibility for additional “tiers” of benefits after their current tier expires. Last week, Republicans and Democrats in the Senate played a game of political chicken with a temporary extension, failing to extend eligibility for another month before adjourning for a two-week break. Republicans took a stand on deficit reduction, blocking a Democratic measure to extend benefits on an emergency basis without paying for them; Democrats voted to adjourn, gambling that people will simply blame the GOP for the lapse.

Why would they do that? They’ll blame the people in charge, of course — the Democrats. (Why does everyone believe average people think like Machiavelli?) In fact, here’s what Wanda DuVall actually thinks:

“They just failed to pass it and they went on their vacation,” said DuVall.

Evidently, this problem will be rectified. But every time this happens, a little teabagger gets her wings. And for good reason: the government seems like a bunch of Keystone Cops who either don’t care about the suffering of their constituents or who are too ineffectual to fix these problems. Either way, it’s just plain dumb.

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Today Is Connie Saltonstall Day

by digby

Howie Klein notes that today is the day you receive all those desperate emails for end-of-the-quarter donations from the Democratic party committees — and that the money will almost certainly be spent on preserving the seats of Blue Dogs who vote against everything you care about. It’s more than a little bit frustrating.

But there’s something you can do about it. You can Send the Democrats A Message They Can Understand.

Howie says:

As you may know, Blue America has a page dedicated to sending Democrats a message and contributing to Connie Saltonstall’s primary campaign against Stupak is a music it is very healthy for Inside-the-Beltway Democrats of all stripes to hear. This morning I spoke with Connie and asked her if she’d do a guest post about why her race is more important than ever, even though pressure from Democrats forced Stupak to eventually vote for the healthcare reform bill. This is how she put it:

We all know by now that Bart Stupak finally gave in, dropped the ‘Stupak Amendment,’ and voted for the healthcare bill. While I applaud his vote, it does not change my determination defeat him in the Michigan primary on August 3rd.

Representative Stupak’s reluctant support of healthcare reform came at a very high cost. Mr. Stupak’s dogmatic insistence on inserting his own religious views into the legislative debate and threatening to deprive his constituents of needed healthcare reform eroded people’s trust in him. Throughout the debate there was the sense that our Congressman let us down and that sense has not disappeared with the change in his vote. For me and so many of his constituents, he crossed the line with his grandstanding.

My campaign is about getting past the kind of political obstruction that marred the healthcare debate. I look forward to working in Congress to represent the Democratic values of the First District– affordable, accessible healthcare for all, healthcare that allows women the opportunity to make responsible life decisions for themselves and their families, protecting our Great Lakes and other precious natural resources, and fighting to put people in our district, so hard hit by this recession, back to work.

Since announcing my candidacy I have been overwhelmed and humbled by the enthusiasm, support and outreach for my campaign, both nationally and locally. People from all over the district are calling daily offering to donate and do anything they can to help. Political pundits like to say that someone from the lower peninsula cannot win in Michigan’s First District. I don’t believe that. I have heard from people all the way from Gogebic County in the Northwest of our district to Bay County in the southeast of our district. We are all Michiganders and our commonalties are far more important than our differences. I am here to give the people of Michigan’s First District a choice!

And Blue America wants to help her do just that. Please consider helping Connie, not because this is the last day of the quarter, but because we just have to save the Democratic Party and our country from characters like Bart Stupak.

As I wrote yesterday, Stupak got punk’d by the lobbyist for the Catholic Bishops — a Republican ally to such a degree that they were willing to deny millions of the working poor access to health care in order to help the GOPs cynical obstructionist agenda. Stupak was either too stupid to see it or too cynical himself to care. Either way, his behavior should not be rewarded.

I realize he’s now being vilified by the very people he worked so hard for, but that doesn’t make him a hero. Indeed, it calls his judgement into serious question. For the sake of people everywhere who care deeply about a woman’s fundamental human right to her own bodily autonomy, I can’t think of a better message to the Party than if Bart Stupak lost his seat to Connie Saltonstall.

You can donate here.

Too Fine

by digby

I have the sinking feeling that the old administration arrogance is back. And that’s not a good thing. Brad Plumer reports on the administration’s bizarre decision to open offshore drilling:

Back in 2008—during peak “drill baby drill” season—Congress let the federal moratorium on offshore drilling expire. Now this move pushes drilling slightly closer to reality. So what’s Obama thinking here? One possibility is that he’s looking ahead to the climate-bill debate in the Senate. A number of conservative Democrats and even some Republicans like Lisa Murkowski have said that new drilling has to be a key part of any big energy legislation that tackles carbon emissions. (A separate bloc of coastal Democrats, meanwhile, has warned that drilling would be a dealbreaker for them.)

Still, it seems bizarre to fork over this bargaining chip before the bill is even released. What kind of negotiating tactic is that? Especially since this move is going to infuriate environmentalists—the folks you want pushing for your climate bill. Note that the administration did the same thing with nuclear power, another item that could lure swing senators. Back in January, the White House proposed a massive expansion of the nuclear loan guarantee program without getting anything tangible in return from pro-nuke Republicans. John McCain still wanders around complaining that the administration’s not “serious” about nukes. Now, maybe that’s the point—offer an olive branch and watch Republicans swat it down and look unreasonable. Right on cue, John Boehner’s already whining about Obama’s drilling plan. Not sure that strategy makes sense, though.

Another possibility, meanwhile, is that this move isn’t focused on the climate-bill debate and is geared more toward public opinion. According to the EIA, gas prices are expected to go up quite a bit this summer (probably shooting north of $3/gallon), and the administration may want to step out ahead of the inevitable teeth-gnashing and garment-rending over the issue. So this could be more about the midterms than rounding up votes in the Senate. Though, granted, this drilling announcement won’t affect summer gas prices in the slightest.

I think the White House is believing their own hype again. Somehow, the health care bill passing is now seen as the result of brilliant messaging and legislative tactics when in fact it was an ugly war of attrition that only passed because the Democrats had no choice but pass a bill as a matter of survival. It’s a huge mistake to think it was a matter of great strategy because it wasn’t. They barely got out alive and they should be very, very humble about their ability to play even one dimensional chess at this point.

I’m guessing they think they can work with Huckleberry Graham and that he can deliver. Dear Gawd. Even if he had the desire to be the GOP’s bipartisan poster boy (for target practice), the neanderthals he represents in the South Carolina Republican party will yank his chain like he’s a misbehaving pit bull. The likelihood that he is acting good faith is close to zero.

And if they still believe that offering up gestures of good will will work with these Republicans going into the election the Republicans believe they are going to win because of their obstruction strategy, they are cracked. The only way they will win any Republican votes is by forcing them into it because the GOP leadership is certainly going to be doing everything in their power to force them not to. They’ve proven that there is no such thing as a brave Republican willing to buck their party anymore.

One of the problems with “The Best and the Brightest” fellows is that they always get way too fine with their strategic planning. There really is no nuance with this GOP. You need to be a Grant, not a McClellan. I would have hoped they’d learned that lesson, but it appears they’re going to give Lucy the football one more time.

Glad to be wrong about this. Don’t think I am.

BTW: On the merits, this decision is crap. They must know that much. And it won’t make one bit of difference with oil prices this summer, so any idea that they can manipulate public opinion with this decision is a joke. People go nuts over gas prices when they go up, period. Saying you’ve agreed to offshore drilling isn’t going to change that.

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Populist Neocon Princess

by digby

Ed Kilgore:

Today neoconservative patriarch Norman Podheretz appeared on that estimable right-wing bulletin board, the Wall Street Journal editorial page, to smite unnamed conservative critics of Palin, utilizing the Big Bertha of latter-day Republican rhetoric, the memory of Ronald Reagan:

Now I knew Ronald Reagan, and Sarah Palin is no Ronald Reagan. Then again, the first time I met Reagan all he talked about was the money he had saved the taxpayers as governor of California by changing the size of the folders used for storing the state’s files. So nonplussed was I by the delight he showed at this great achievement that I came close to thinking that my friends were right and that I had made a mistake in supporting him. Ultimately, of course, we all wound up regarding him as a great man, but in 1979 none of us would have dreamed that this would be how we would feel only a few years later.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds as arrogant and condescending toward Reagan as anything I’ve read. He’s talking about 1979, after all, just a year before he became president. He sounds nearly addled (which is pretty much correct.) Moreover, the reasons for Podhoretz and his friends thinking that Reagan was “a great man” are not spelled out, leaving one with(I think the correct) impression that they simply decided Reagan was a great man on the basis of his political success. And I would suggest that it’s the same with Palin. These folksy bozos are
useful to these guys. They can’t win without the teabag contingent — and after all, they do genuinely share their loathing of liberals:

Podhoretz goes on to suggest that liberal contempt for Palin is of a piece with liberal contempt for Reagan, and thus should never be echoed on the Right. This is all interesting because it’s the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party–heavily focused on foreign policy, disproportionately led by people who are secular, Jewish, or both, and suspicious of the influence of the Christian Right and of right-wing “populism” generally–where disdain for Palin is most visible. Podhoretz is trying to rein that tendency in. And it looks like his argument is already getting traction. In its “Arena” feature, Politico asked a bunch of prominent gabbers, most of them conservatives, to react to Podhoretz’s piece, and they generally said he was right (with the occasional condescending reference to Palin’s need for a little more seasoning).

This is completely predictable. Remember, Palin is the creature of Podhoretz’s partner in neocrime’s spawn, William Kristol.

It reminds me of this excellent example of intellectual dancing on the head of a pin, when all the right wing had to explain whether or not they believed in evolution. It wasn’t pretty, but they did it. Here’s our newest little apostate’s pas de deux:

David Frum, American Enterprise Institute and National Review

Whether he personally believes in evolution: “I do believe in evolution.”

What he thinks of intelligent design: “If intelligent design means that evolution occurs under some divine guidance, I believe that.”

How evolution should be taught in public schools: “I don’t believe that anything that offends nine-tenths of the American public should be taught in public schools. … Christianity is the faith of nine-tenths of the American public. … I don’t believe that public schools should embark on teaching anything that offends Christian principle.”

It ain’t easy being a teabag intellectual. In fact it may not even be possible. Frum, after all, has been drummed out of the corps.

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Swift

by digby

If anyone’s wondering how it was that former Mistress of the Universe Carly Fiorina was able to run HP into the ground, it appears that it may have been because she and the people she hires are a bit slow on the uptake. Laura at DKos has the latest:

Carly Fiorina continues to break new bread ground in campaign hilarity with this Passover email to supporters (emphasis added):

Passover is a time of remembrance and thanks. This festival provides us all – Jewish, Christian and all faiths – an opportunity to reflect on the challenges we have faced and the triumphs we have achieved together. It is also a reminder of the resilient spirit that has carried people through trials of every kind through every generation. This week, as we break bread and spend time with our families and friends, I hope we also take a moment to say a word of thanks for our freedom and for those who have given their lives in freedom’s name. Let us also look ahead with hope to the opportunities to come.

One of Passover’s major distinguishing features, of course, is that you don’t eat any bread during it.

Fiorina’s campaign was forced to explain:

We meant all bread, leavened and unleavened, and matzo is just unleavened bread so that’s what we meant by that.

Uh huh.

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Goldilocks Blueprint

by digby

No wonder Beck is calling his book The Overton Window:

Last night on CNN, Larry King discussed the rise of the tea parties with a variety of guests and featured footage from last weekend’s lobbyist-organized Tea Party Express rally in Searchlight, NV…King noted that programs like Social Security are mandatory and asked if the tea parties would like to “do away with” that program as well. Both tea party organizers enthusiastically said “yes, absolutely” and added that a compromise would be at least privatizing the system:

KING: Would anyone turn away Social Security now? Would you do away with it?

LOESCH: I would, yes.

KING: You would?

LOESCH: Yes, absolutely.

KING: Would do you away with it, Wayne?

ROOT: I’d certainly like to. At best, I do away with it because I could find better ways to spend and save my own $15,000 a year.

Silly teabaggers. Silly us.

But here’s the thing. Until now we haven’t had anyone around who wanted to abolish social security. Now we do. The liberals, of course, want to leave it alone. I’d guess that means the social security commission which is stacked with people who want to cut benefits will be juuuuust right.

*I do think it’s interesting that these people who are railing about mandating people to buy insurance seem fine with a compromise which mandates that they buy mutual funds. But then intellectual consistency isn’t their strong suit.

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