Month: June 2010

Citizens Unite! Buy Your Own Ads For Progressive Candidates

by digby

Howie has a good idea:

Bully Boys

by digby

Greg Sargent:

Are you really, really, really angry at President Obama?

If so, The Weekly Standard is here to help. The mag is selling an “Obama stress head” doll that lets you take out your rage at the President by crushing his head in your hand.

As the mag puts it, the doll allows you to “crush those half-baked liberal ideas before they do any more damage.”

“Pin his ears back, turn that smile upside down,” the mag adds. Click below for a special preview of the “Obama stress head,” which can be yours for less than $10.

It’s fine to make fun of the president but why is it that conservative humor always has such a violent subtext? It’s just creepy.

.

Manhattan Island June 11, 2010

by tristero

That’s It, Chuckie, You Lost My Vote

by tristero

Earlier today Digby posted about some very obnoxious positions Schumer’s taken on the finanancial legislation (and the likely reasons why). If that isn’t a deal breaker for me, this most certainly is.

No way will I vote for that schmuck again. Bigotry is bigotry, and no Democrat has any business trucking in it for any reason, let alone to court votes from the far right. For Schumer to compound the offense by couching that bigotry in the language of elimationism is simply beyond the pale. The last thing we need is a Democratic senator playing the race card as enthusiastically as Rand Paul or Trent Lott.

Going After Young White Virgins

by digby

If you don’t understand what’s going on with all this, you need to read up on South Carolina’s favorite son Lee Atwater. Watch it with the sound off for the full effect:

A reader sent me this observation:

Remember that [Atwater’s] concept was to replace overt racism with covert racism. The Republicans, in their relentless pursuit of every line of attack on what seemed to be impregnable victory of Obama Democrats in Nov. ’08, hit on a brilliant variation: clown-like black political dupes who would stimulate the conscious & unconscious racism of voters. Michael Steele is the prince of these: his gaffes are not mistakes but subversions of Obama made by inverse mirroring of his strengths. Down at a grosser level they found Alvin Greene, & they did in the state where Lee Atwater learned his craft. Steele and Greene are new twists on the Willie Horton and McCain/black-baby scripts.

I don’t know if that’s true, but it’s an interesting thought. Regardless of whether or not it’s planned, I tend to agree that this has been the effect.

h/t to RP

Punk’d By A Grand Bargain Fantasy … Again

by digby

Can the Obama administration just retire the notion of “Grand Bargains” please? That sort of thing simply cannot work when you are dealing with a polarized electorate and an opposition party which has declared all out legislative war. To think they will negotiate in good faith is just ridiculous beyond belief

This article about Rahm’s strategy for the climate change legislation is fascinating. I continue to believe these guys get way, way too fine with this stuff and it just won’t work against political thugs who are committed using the hard, blunt instrument of obstruction. I don’t know what it’s going to take for them to get this.

In fact, Rahm, the supposed political genius, played right into their hands:

Dealing with the White House required a one-day-at-a-time, God-grant-me-the-serenity mindset, especially when it came to Rahm Emanuel. The chief of staff was an obstacle to climate action.

When corporate and environmental leaders from the U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP) went to the Roosevelt Room in the West Wing for a late spring 2009 meeting with Emanuel, they could see that he didn’t much care about climate change. What he cared about was winning — acquiring and maintaining presidential power over an eight-year arc. Climate and energy were agenda items to him, pieces on a legislative chessboard; he was only willing to play them in ways that enhanced Obama’s larger objectives. He saw no point in squandering capital on a lost cause. The White House could claim victory if Congress passed a beefy energy bill without a cap — and never mind that doing so could torpedo Copenhagen and delay serious greenhouse-gas reductions, perhaps for many years. At the USCAP meeting, Emanuel made his views clear: “We want to do this climate bill, but success breeds success,” he said. “We need to put points on the board. We only want to do things that are going to be successful. If the climate bill bogs down, we move on. We’ve got health care.” Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) had to move the bill out of committee before the White House would get in the game.

I guess that’s supposed to be brilliant. They only want to do things that are successful? Well, yes, although many people would define success as being more that “putting points on the board” when your job is to run the country. (Indeed, what he’s admitting to is that he has the mindset of a Wall Street baron — all that matters is tomorrow’s share price. It is very revealing.)

Moreover, even by his own standards, he’s an abject failure. “Claiming victory” for passing Republican policies isn’t exactly getting them anywhere. And failing to pass policies that will deal with this recession and relieve some of the pain actual citizens are feeling isn’t buying them any love from anyone.

Obama’s stealth strategy had a fallacy at its core. The strategy assumed it was possible to be stealthy on this issue. It implied that if Obama didn’t elevate the issue, the opposition wouldn’t elevate it either. But the professional deniers — PR men and women paid to sow doubt and confusion on the issue — were getting louder every day. And Obama missed opportunity after opportunity to communicate on the issue.

When Waxman and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) brought the Waxman-Markey bill to the floor, they forced Obama’s hand. He began jawboning members, Al Gore worked the phones from Nashville, and Emanuel put aside his misgivings and mounted an effective whip operation. With an impressive last-minute display by Pelosi, the bill passed 219 to 212 — and then the momentum dissolved in the face of conservative opposition. Obama’s stealth strategy failed to take into account the vigor of denialism and opposition to cap-and-trade. It also failed to anticipate that unforeseen cataclysms could make climate legislation even harder to pass in 2010 and beyond than it had been in 2009.

It is a cruel irony that the epic disaster in the Gulf — a wakeup call to the need to reduce our dependence on oil — makes it harder to pass a bill that would help us do so. Expanded offshore drilling (and the revenue it would bring) was the chip Obama hoped to use to draw oil-state senators into a grand bargain that would also include subsidies for nuclear power and carbon capture and storage, with a modest carbon cap in return. The oil spill blew up that idea by taking expanded offshore drilling off the table, at least for now. With few chips left, Obama appears to be hoping that public anger over the spill can help drive a new version of the climate bill. Soon, we’ll know whether he really means it. Democratic leaders in the Senate have been floating the idea of an energy bill without a carbon cap — which would be yet another failure of nerve by a group of legislators badly in need of adult supervision. Passing a real climate bill will be excruciatingly difficult. Waiting will only make it harder. It’s time for Obama to intervene on the Hill, silence the naysayers inside his own administration, harness the public mood, and make good on his promise to fight.

Rahm seemed to think the Republicans were either irrelevant or could be bought off. What a fatal error. You can say a lot of things about them, but they are always thinking long term and about the Big Picture, however malevolent that long term big picture is. And they realized that Rahm’s flaw was that he would do anything to “win,” which meant they got to define what that meant — and then deny it to him anyway.

Everyone believed Rahm’s 2006 hype, but they were wrong. He’s incompetent. The Republicans knew it and punk’d him — and the country — but good.

Update: Here’s a tick-tock by McClatchy on the president’s action (and inaction) leading up to the decision to expand offshore drilling in the grand bargain. They forgot to mention the meetings where Rahm said it was a big loser and that they had to lick Lindsay Graham’s boots until the moment he betrayed them. No article has it all, I’m afraid.

.

Schumer, Grover and John Galt

by digby

Why is Chuck Schumer doing Grover Norquist’s dirty work for him by trying to sabotage the card swipe legislation in the financial reform conference?

This is one of the most obvious populist, consumer friendly pieces of the financial reform bill, such a political winner for both individuals and small business owners that it’s shocking that anyone would oppose it, much less a member of the Democratic Party leadership. It’s a perfect example of why the rank and file of the Democratic Party is about to explode with frustration. They can’t even defy the banks on this?

I don’t know why Schumer is taking this bizarre position, but I’m guessing it has something to do with this, don’t you?

New York’s Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is the leading recipient among the Senate conferees with $16.7 million in contributions over his career. Schumer has long been an ally of the New York-based financial industry, but has been remarkably quiet as Congress has focused on reforming Wall Street. Schumer remains in support of the bill despite hometown pressure from industry friends, campaign contributors and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

His support for the financial reform bill goes against a long history of supporting deregulatory actions for Wall Street. In the late 1990s and 2000 Schumer enthusiastically supported measures that ended the Glass-Steagall separation between commercial and investment banks and the enforced deregulation of derivatives trading.

Of course he did everything in his power to water down the financial reforms too, especially this legislation designed to relieve small businesses from shouldering the burden of the Big Bank’s fat cat bonuses with these ridiculous card swipe fees. When that didn’t work, he simply went behind closed doors to finish the job in conference.

As Howie wrote over on Down With Tyranny:

This is an issue that pits Main Street businesses like restaurants and cabbies and hardware stores against the Big Banks. It will be interesting to see which senators and congressmen stand with Main Street and consumers and which– like Wasserman Schultz and Schumer– fight for the Big Banks.

It’s pretty clear that when it comes to fighting for average people against the big banks, whether represented by consumer groups, unions or small businesses, Chuck Schumer is on the wrong side. It’s important that the rest of the Democratic conferees shut him down.

The Republicans will be happy to take up the cause of the small businessmen again once the Democrats do their dirty work for them on this one. And frankly, the small business people will have no reason to believe the Democrats give a damn about their problems, so they’ll settle for the GOP agenda of low taxes and every man for himself. That’s pretty much all they can count on from the political class.

.

Sizzling Hot Teabagging On Bookshelves Soon

by digby

I think Ayn Rand’s position as the greatest right wing romance novelist ever may be in jeopardy. Glenn Beck’s new novel is hot!

Media Matters reports:

First, a quick summation of the plot, such as it is. The protagonist, Noah Gardner, works for an impossibly powerful public relations firm in Manhattan that has been the driving force behind pretty much every political and cultural movement of the 20th century. Their latest and grandest scheme is the culmination of a lengthy plot to change the United States into some sort of ill-defined progressive plutocracy, and the catalyst for this change is a nuclear explosion that will occur outside the home-state office of “the current U.S. Senate majority leader,” which happens to be at the same address as Harry Reid’s Las Vegas offices. The nuclear attack is to be blamed on the Founders Keepers, a Tea Party-like group — led by Noah’s love interest, Molly Ross — that is working to foil the plot.

1. Rule number one is: “Don’t tease the panther”

Noah and Molly find themselves in bed together early in the book after a harrowing experience at a Founders’ Keepers rally. They agree to sleep in bed together because Molly is too scared to sleep at home, but Molly insists that nothing sexual will take place. Noah agrees, on the condition that she “not do anything sexy.” She presses her cold feet against his legs, and Noah responds:

“Suit yourself, lady. I’m telling you right now, you made the rules, but you’re playing with fire here. I’ve got some rules, too, and rule number one is, don’t tease the panther.”

Read on — only if you are alone (or in a government office.)

I don’t know what the cover finally turned out to be, but this was an early choice:

Update: Oh God:

I don’t know about the rest of you, but after I kiss the girl of my dreams for the first time, the very next thing I want to do is discuss with her the virtues of the flat tax:

He bent to her, closed his eyes, and her lips touched his, gently, and again more urgently as he responded. He felt her arms around him, her body yearning against his in the embrace, a knot like hunger inside, heart quickening, cool hands at his back under the warmth of his jacket, searching, pressing him closer still. With everything to see and hear around them there at the very crossroads of the world, soaring billboards, scrolling news crawlers, bright digital Jumbotrons that lined the tall buildings and blotted out the whole evening sky, it all disappeared to its rightful insignificance, flat as a postcard. That place was left outside their small circle, and if asked right then he might have stayed there within it forever. But he felt her smile against his lips as they were brought back to where they stood by the brusque voice of a passing man, who advised in his native Brooklynese that maybe they should go and get a room.

A light drizzle had begun to fall, and down the block they found a coffee shop with two seats by the window where they could wait out the patch of rain. When he returned from the counter with their cups he found her sitting with a folded newspaper, not reading it but lost somewhere in her thoughts. It was a while before she spoke.

“Noah?”

“I was starting to worry you’d forgotten I was here.”

Molly took a deep breath and seemed to collect herself for a moment.

“I need to ask you something.”

“Okay.”

“If we hired you, your company, what would you tell us to do?”

He frowned a bit. “You mean if you and your mom hired us?”

“It’s more than just the two of us, you know that. A lot more.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “What is it you want to accomplish again?”

“We want to save the country.”

“Oh. Okay. Is that all?”

“That’s where we start, isn’t it? With a clear objective.”

“That’s right.”

“So?”

“Okay. Let me think for a minute.”

Molly had become deadly serious; this wasn’t party talk. She didn’t take her eyes from his as she waited.

“I guess;’ he said, “I’d begin by sitting down with all these different groups and trying to focus everyone on the things they agree on — the fundamentals. A platform, you know? Make it easy for people to understand what you’re about. Propose some real answers.”

“Give me an example.”

“I don’t know-start with the tax code, since your mom is so passionate about that. How about a set of specific spending cuts and a thirteen percent flat tax to start with? Get that ridiculous sixty-seven-thousand-page tax code down to four or five bullet points, and show exactly what effects it’ll have on trade, and employment, and the debt, and the future of the country.”

This actually makes Atlas Shrugged look good.

.

Protecting The Country From Liberal Mullahs

by digby

Contessa Brewer just interviewed an Oklahoma Senator named Rex Duncan about his bill to outlaw judges using Sharia Law to inform their decisions. No, it’s not a joke:

Duncan:Oklahoman’s recognize that America was founded on Judeo Christian principles and we’re unapologetically grateful that God has blessed America and blessed our state. State amendment 755, the Save Our State Amendment is a simple effort to insure our courts are not used to undermine those founding principles and turn Oklahoma into something our founding fathers and our great grandparents wouldn’t recognize.

Brewer: Do you believe that there’s imminent danger of judges using Sharia law when deciding cases?

Duncan: It’s not just a danger, it’s a reality. Every day, liberals and uh, just …

Brewer: Ok, and the reality has it happened in your state of Oklahoma that judges have…

Duncan: it has not. This is a pre-emptive strike to make sure that liberal judges don’t take the bench in an effort to use their position to undermine those founding principles that are international or Sharia law. the other part of the question is to prohibit all state courts from considering international or Sharia law when considering cases, even cases of first impression.

Brewer: I’m sorry, but Mr Duncan, less than 1% of your state is Muslim. So where would that threat come from?

Duncan: It’s a growing threat frankly. This again is a pre-emptive strike. They understand that this is a war for the survival of America, it’s a cultural war it’s a social war. It’s a war for the survival of our country. And other states have looked away and kow towed to political correctness, have lost the chance perhaps to save their state. I believe Oklahoma voters at a margin greater than 90% will approve this state amendment and when we do, other red states and maybe even some lesser blue states will decide their states are worth saving too.

Brewer: Are you worried about other kinds of religious fundamentalism creeping into the decisions judges make when it really should be based on secular law?

Duncan: It ought to be based on federal and state law, and any effort to do anything else — it’s frankly the face of the enemy and we need to call it what it is. Oklahomans are going to do that and they’re going to show other states what it looks like to take a leadership role in saving their own future and saving the sanctity of their own court system.

I would imagine they will vote for it. Somebody’s got to stop all those liberal judges from imposing ultra-conservative Sharia Law and stoning gays and women who stray from God’s path. Oh wait…what are we talking about again?

I’ve always loved this particular piece of conservative lunacy but it hasn’t been much in evidence recently what with the sacred-constitution-except-for-the-bits-I-don’t-like fetish of the teabaggers. But it’s always out there. It’s just an article of faith (no pun intended) that liberals are simultaneously godless libertines and allies of hard core fundamentalist wingnuts.

Meanwhile, it’s the conservatives in this country who, like the Taliban, argue that trying seven year olds as adults is moral. Go figure.

.

Big Relief

by digby

Good news everyone:

The global millionaires’ club expanded by about 14 percent in 2009 with Singapore leading the way, The Boston Consulting Group said.

The number of millionaire households increased to 11.2 million, according to the study released yesterday by the Boston-based firm. Singapore posted a 35 percent gain, followed by Malaysia, Slovakia and China. In 2008, the number of millionaire households fell about 14 percent to 9.8 million.

“Given the severity and magnitude of the crisis, I’m surprised at how fast global wealth has come back,” Bruce Holley, a senior partner in the firm’s New York office and topic expert for wealth management and private banking for the U.S., said in a telephone interview before the report was released.

We’re back baby! It must be time to cut some taxes and slash some services before any of that wealth trickles down and ruins everything.

.