Month: March 2010

Sluggish

by digby

In case you missed it:

The number of newly laid-off workers requesting jobless benefits fell slightly last week for the third straight time. But initial claims remain above levels that would signal net job gains.

New claims for unemployment aid fell 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 457,000, the Labor Department said. That nearly matched analysts’ estimates of 455,000, according to Thomson Reuters.

The four-week average of jobless claims, which smooths out volatility, dropped to 471,250. Still, the average has risen by 30,000 since the start of this year. That’s raised concerns among economists that persistent unemployment could weaken the recovery.

The average number of weekly jobless claims remains above the 400,000-to-425,000 level that many economists say it must fall below before widespread new hiring is likely.

Initial jobless claims are considered a gauge of the pace of layoffs and an indication of companies’ willingness to hire. High unemployment has persisted even though the economy grew in the second half of last year.

In a separate report, the department said consumer prices were flat in February. A rise in food prices was offset by a drop in gasoline and other energy costs. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, the core Consumer Price Index edged up just 0.1 percent last month, matching economists’ estimates.

The report adds to evidence that the weak economy has all but erased inflation. That allows the Federal Reserve to continue its efforts to revive the economy by keeping the short-term interest rate it controls at a record low near zero.

In another report, a private research group said its gauge of future economic activity rose just 0.1 percent in February, suggesting slow growth this summer. The gain in the Conference Board’s index of leading economic indicators was the smallest in 11 months.

I think I’ll have a drink.

Oh, in case you want to watch a bunch of assholes on CNBC “analyzing” these numbers for you, here they are:

I’ll bet you’d like a drink now too.

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Little Dutch GirlyMen

by digby

This is about as low as it gets:

A retired Marine general told senators on Thursday that the Dutch Army failed to protect the city of Srebrenica during the Bosnian war partly because of the presence of gay soldiers in its armed forced.

John J. Sheehan, a former NATO commander who retired in 1997, made his comments during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that bans gay people from openly serving in uniform.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led European militaries, including the Netherlands, to believe there was no longer a need for active combat capabilities, Sheehan said.

“As a result, they declared a peace dividend and made a conscious effort to socialize their military,” he said, noting that the Dutch allowed troops to join unions and enlisted openly gay soldiers. Dutch forces were poorly led and unable to hold off Serb forces in 1995, leading to the execution of Bosnian Muslims and one of the largest European massacres since World War II, Sheehan said.

Committee chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) asked Sheehan whether Dutch leaders blamed the presence of gay troops in later conversations.

“They included that as part of the problem,” Sheehan said.

Pressed by Levin to name names, Sheehan cited Dutch Army Chief of Staff Hankman Berman, who was fired by the Dutch Parliament for failing to protect Srebrenica.

So some loser general who was fired for failing to do his job blamed it all on the fags for, what, spending all their time oogling the poor straight guys in the shower so nobody noticed the genocide? I suppose the fact that there are gay Dutch soldiers serving in Afghanistan is the reason that nobody’s been able to catch bin Laden too.

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Movement Strategery

by digby

Contemplating Chris Bowers’ interesting discussion of the progressive bloc(k) strategy, Matt Yglesias points out what should be evident to anyone who’s ever done a negotiation: whoever can walk away always has more power. It’s just the way things work. That doesn’t mean that you can’t win if you want something more than the person with whom you’re negotiating. There are lots of strategies. You can ask for far more than you’re willing to settle for, you can play others against each other, you can try for a “win-win.” But in the final analysis, it’s always going to be much tougher to walk away from something everyone knows you really want and much easier if it doesn’t matter much to you. That’s life.

In the case of health care, as I wrote way back when, the congressional liberals were always going to be jammed at the end because the Medicaid expansion alone is something they desperately wanted for decades and couldn’t ever get (which doesn’t excuse why they negotiated with themselves the whole way along.) There was just no way that a progressive bloc strategy was ever going to hang tough with health care reform, although it was useful for them to work together to improve the bill and shape the negotiations with various threats and admonitions. (After all, there was no guarantee that it would end up with even the subsidies or Medicaid expansion at all.) Still, everyone knew from the beginning that as long as this bill covers many millions of the working poor they were not likely to vote against it in the end. Lifting up the poor is the holy grail for liberals.

But as Yglesias says, there are plenty of issues where it can work. In fact we saw it with Grayson’s audit the fed initiative and earlier in the year they gave Pelosi and Emmanuel big, big headaches over the first war supplemental. There’s power in legislators working together across party lines and being willing to play hardball.

These “bloc” strategies are more complicated for movement progressives, however. Obviously lobbyists for special interests cut deals all the time and politicians are always prioritizing their various constituencies (especially those with $$$) against their agenda. Party functionaries care about being in power, period. But movement politics is different than legislative process and it requires a clear, values based consistency to last over time and create solidarity amongst its members. Votes come and go and the legislative process requires messy compromise and strange bedfellows by its nature. Movement politics are for the long haul and they must be built on broad principles not specific policies or they won’t outlast the ugly political process that gets us from A to B. Getting deeply entrenched in the legislative weeds by making by making common cause with adversaries for momentary advantage creates ideological chaos and compromises fundamental values. That’s special interest politics, not movement politics. (I’m not casting aspersions on special interests particularly, just pointing out that they are different animals. Some special interests are our friends.)

The health care debate has been a very instructive process for everyone and I’ll be interested in reading more from our movement thinkers about what it’s taught us. I’m glad to see it coming to an close, sorry that it isn’t more of what I would have liked or what’s necessary, but I’m satisfied that this isn’t the end because we have an ongoing progressive movement that will ensure that it isn’t. That’s why movements are necessary.

Grayson has the right idea. That guy never quits and that’s one of the main reasons why movement progressives look up to him.

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They’re Just Women

by digby

This doesn’t come as much of a shock, but Old Bart seems to have a little problem with women.

In two interviews yesterday, Michigan Congressman Bart Stupak revealed a great deal about himself, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, politics and the internal workings of our “pro-choice” Democratic party. First, in what shouldn’t be surprising to anyone, Stupak told Fox News that he doesn’t listen to nuns…According to Fox:

Congressman Bart Stupak, D-Mich, responded sharply to White House officials touting a letter representing 59,000 nuns that was sent to lawmakers urging them to pass the health care bill. The conservative Democrat dismissed the action by the White House saying, “When I’m drafting right to life language, I don’t call up the nuns.” He says he instead confers with other groups including “leading bishops, Focus on the Family, and The National Right to Life Committee.” [emphasis added.]

Good to know.

The last people any good Catholic should consult are nuns. What the hell do they know? Much better to listen to Bishops who cover up for pedophiles and people who believe men should take their sons into the shower to show them their big penises so they won’t be gay.

Those are just the people who should by making the decisions for American women.

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Doomsday Galts

by digby

As you all know, the Chamber of Commerce is spending many millions of dollars screwing over their members by opposing health care reform. Evidently, they are so ideologically blinded that they their membership companies want to be burdened by ever rising health care costs. How can we explain this?

I think the evidence is mounting that the American ruling elite has become faith based, whether it be through market fundamentalism, radical Randism or plain old white supremacy. Whatever their cult, they have lost sight of their own self-interest. In the case of HCR, unless they think the most promising market of the future is Soylent Green, these costs have to be contained and government has to be the instrument. Health care simply cannot function as a free market unless you are willing to have a great many people suffer and die. No other nation has been able to do it, and this Rube Goldberg contraption is about as market friendly as it’s possible to get. For them to oppose it is just plain stupid.

Anyway, these deluded cultists are putting a lot of money into their own destruction and they are, as required by their scriptures, doing it dishonestly. The NY Times reports:

According to the Chamber’s polls, the legislators’ constituents are not nearly so divided. In all the districts, the polls found large majorities opposed to the current bill. And the findings come with an implicit threat: voters are more likely to support their representative if he or she votes against it. That is about all The Agenda can say about the substance of the poll, however. As regular readers know, polls, especially those by interest groups, must meet stringent standards (pdf) before we can publish their results. These polls don’t. Instead of randomly selecting their respondents, the Chamber of Commerce sampled from voter lists, a practice The New York Times and many other media pollsters do not endorse because the lists are often outdated and are generally not representative — they do not include unlisted telephone numbers, for example. Moreover, the firm that conducted the surveys, Ayres, McHenry & Associates, identifies itself as a partisan (Republican-leaning) firm.

I think they just cook the books as a matter of course these days — it’s become part of American business culture. One can only assume they are so sure that they will always be bailed out that they no longer believe economics are even relevant to their cause. Customers, company, industry, country, planet be damned. They are now a doomsday cult, and a very dangerous one.

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Who Will They Punch Now?

by digby

This is amazing:

A few hours after Rep. Dennis Kucinich switched his support to become a critical vote for the health care bill, he took to the House floor to ask wavering colleagues to join him. Astonished colleagues pointed to Kucinich (D-OH) darting from member to member on the House floor yesterday, saying privately they’d never seen him get so involved in whipping a vote. It’s not just progressives he’s targeting to keep in the fold, it’s everyone, a top Democratic aide told me. Members know that Kucinich – a staunch antiwar liberal long in favor of a single-payer system and often going out on a limb with his own agenda – is setting aside deep ideology to help get something passed. “It’s a totally new dynamic. People are realizing he’s doing it for history,” the aide said.

One thing you can say about Kucinich. When he’s in, he’s all in.

I’m sure this is very frustrating to the villagers, who want more than anything to blame the liberals for the failure to pass the plan. Kucinich is making that impossible. On the other hand, they will be able to blame the unpopularity of the plan on the liberals so that’s almost as good. After all, if Kucinich likes it, they know it must be bad.

Still, if the plan fails, the Democratic villagers won’t be able to blame it on Dennis the menace or the pro-choice Divas and that’s a problem. If Real Americas like Stupak and the Blue Dogs are the sole problem I don’t see how they hold it against the hippies — and I don’t think they know how to explain that.

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It’s All About Bart

by digby

Poor baby Bart Stupak is whining and crying to The Hill about how tough it’s all been on him. I wonder if he has any clue how tough it is for women to be forced to bear children against their will? Or do you suppose he has any idea how tough it is for the 30 million people who are uninsired?

Lot’s of people have tough problems right now, but Bart having to deal with some angry people because he’s willfully misrepresenting the health care bill for reasons that are impossible to defend in light of his fellow caucus member and fellow “pro-lifer” Dale Kildee’s admission yesterday that the Nelson Amendment is not what Stupak and the Catholic Bishops claim it is.

But none of that really matters because it’s all about Bart:

The ideal outcome, Stupak said, might be for the House Democratic leadership to get the votes they need without him and for the bill to pass.
“You know, maybe for me that’s the best: I stay true to my principles and beliefs,” he said, and “vote no on this bill and then it passes anyways. Maybe for me is the best thing to do.”

There’s a profile in courage for you.
I don’t know why anyone in his district should want someone this idiotic representing them. “I stay true to my principles while everyone else does the heavy lifting” doesn’t sound like much of a campaign slogan to me.
Personally, think Connie Saltonstall should just mail Bart’s interview to everyone in the district. His whining and crying and abject foolishness will embarrass anyone who is tempted to vote for him.
You can donate to Connie Saltonstall, here. God knows her district deserves someone better than this silly man. America deserves better.
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The Other Americans

by digby

Once again: wingnuts prove they have no empathy or compassion. They are simply, disgusting, horrible people:

Activists staged “competing rallies” outside of Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy’s (D-OH) district office yesterday, in a noisy, often confrontational attempt to influence the undecided congresswoman’s vote. At one point, a man with a sign saying he has Parkinson’s disease and needs help sat down in front of the reform opponents. Several protesters mocked the man, calling him a “communist,” with one derisively “throwing money at him.” “If you’re looking for a handout you’re in the wrong end of town,” another man said. Watch it (at approximately 0:51):

They are also just plain idiots.

David Kurtz at TPM has it right:

Those guys screaming about “handouts” would be perfectly at home at a rally in the 1990s, or the 80s, or the 70s and so on. This isn’t new, and it’s not original. The social and cultural currents running through this debate exist independent of the debate, and the anger can’t be tempered or avoided by procedural figleafs that few people inside Washington understand or by better messaging. At the end of the day, even abandoning reform won’t calm that kind of anger.

Remember how John Edwards used to say there were two Americas? This is the other one. And they are always pissed off when anybody else gets something they don’t have. Even if they don’t need or want it. You know the types.

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Lemonade

by digby

There’s still some hope that the Senate will step up and vote for a public option in reconciliation, but it’s becoming less and less likely as the whipping continues. That’s not to say it won’t happen, but it’s hard to see that anyone wants to upset the apple cart at this late stage.

So, what to do? Alan Grayson has the answer and it’s so obvious and so right that I really hope liberals keep pushing for this until it happens. These next few years are going to be difficult as HCR comes online so slowly that it’s going to be in political danger and the populace is going to be very agitated. If this is in place, with plenty of co-sponsors, when the frustration hits fever pitch they might just get it done:

The bill would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services to establish enrollment periods, coverage guidelines, and premiums for the program. Because premiums would be equal to cost, the program would pay for itself. “The government spent billions of dollars creating a Medicare network of providers that is only open to one-eighth of the population. That’s like saying, ‘Only people 65 and over can use federal highways.’ It is a waste of a very valuable resource and it is not fair. This idea is simple, it makes sense, and it deserves an up-or-down vote,” Congressman Grayson said.

In fact it couldn’t be simpler. Here’s Grayson making the case:

I’m there. I think every progressive in the land should sign on.

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Not With Stupak

by digby

This is refreshing. An anti-choice Democrat tells the truth about the Nelson Amendment and admits that it will not result in more abortions or force anyone to pay for them against their will.

Representative Dale Kildee of Michigan is going to vote yes on HCR:

For those who know me, I have always respected and cherished the sanctity of human life. I spent 6 years studying to be a priest and was willing to devote my life to God. I came to Congress two years after the Hyde Amendment became law and I have spent the last 34 years casting votes to protect the lives of the unborn. I have stood up to many in my party to defend the right to life and have made no apologies for doing so. I now find myself disagreeing with some of the people and groups I have spent a lifetime working with. I have listened carefully to both sides, sought counsel from my priest, advice from family, friends and constituents and I have read the Senate abortion language more than a dozen times.I am convinced that the Senate language maintains the Hyde Amendment, which states that no federal money can be used for abortion. The Senate bill includes a “conscience clause” and allows states to ban plans that include abortion. I also disagree with the argument that the Senate bill would lead to abortions being performed at community health centers. Under existing law (42 C.F.R. § 50.301), community health centers are prohibited from performing abortions.We must not lose sight of what is at stake here — the lives of 31 million American children, adults, and seniors — who don’t have health insurance. There is nothing more pro-life than protecting the lives of 31 million Americans. Voting for this bill in no way diminishes my pro-life voting record or undermines my beliefs. I am a staunch pro-life member of Congress — both for the born and the unborn.”

It’s not altogether straightforward. After all, studies show that this bill will likely end up restricting women’s access to abortion, but at least he isn’t claiming that this bill is nothing but a fetus-killing free for all the way Stupak does.

Greg Sargent points out that this hasn’t moved everyone, however:

Kildee isn’t persuading all his fellow pro-life holdouts. Rep Marcy Kaptur of Ohio, for instance, is still strongly condemning the Senate bill.

I don’t know what the Catholic Bishops are holding over Kaptur, but as Kildee writes, there’s no reason for any “pro-life” member to vote against health care reform that contains the Nelson Amendment. This means that Kaptur is not being honest and is acting against the interests of all of her constituents in this very Democratic district in order to advance the political ambitions of the conservative Catholic Bishops. I don’t see how we can trust this person going forward. She’s voting “no” based on a lie.

Update: If nuns can defy the Catholic Bishops, surely Marcy Kaptur can:

On Monday, Catholic Bishops released a letter opposing the Senate health care reform bill because it didn’t contain the Stupak language. While they acknowledged differences with the Catholic Health Association, their message was clear: they were speaking as the official and authoritative voice of the Catholic Church.

This analysis of the flaws in the legislation is not completely shared by the leaders of the Catholic Health Association. They believe, moreover, that the defects that they do recognize can be corrected after the passage of the final bill. The bishops, however, judge that the flaws are so fundamental that they vitiate the good that the bill intends to promote. Assurances that the moral objections to the legislation can be met only after the bill is passed seem a little like asking us, in Midwestern parlance, to buy a pig in a poke.

In a clear break with the bishops, 60 leaders of religious orders representing 59,000 nuns have joined with the Catholic Health Association to support the Senate bill as written.

The letter says that “despite false claims to the contrary, the Senate bill will not provide taxpayer funding for elective abortions.” The letter says the legislation also will help support pregnant women and “this is the real pro-life stance.”

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