Month: November 2010

As American As Apple Pie

by digby

Obama was on 60 Minutes and said many interesting things. But this was very unusual.

KROFT: No one at the news conference yesterday asked you about the Tea Party. According to the exit polls, four out of ten voters on Tuesday said they supported the movement. How seriously do you take the Tea Party, and will it make the task of finding common ground with the Republican Party more difficult?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it’ll be interesting to see how it evolves. We have a long tradition in this country of a desire for limited government, the suspicion of the federal government, of a concern that government spends too much money. You know? I mean, that’s as American as apple pie. And although, you know, there’s a new label to this, I mean those sentiments are ones that a lot of people support and give voice to. Including a lot of Democrats.

And so, the test is gonna be what happens over the next several years, when it’s not just an abstraction, but we have to start making serious choices. I’ve got a deficit commission that I’ve put forward that is gonna be releasing recommendations for how we can start reducing the deficit. And I don’t know yet what they’re gonna say, but I do know what the federal budget looks like. And if you eliminate all the earmarks. If you eliminate all the foreign aid. If you eliminate all the waste and abuse that people, you know, talk about eliminating — you’re still confronted with a fact that the vast majority of the federal budget are things that people really think are important. Like Social Security and Medicare and defense.

And so, you then have to start making some tough decisions about how do we pay for those things that we think are important? And you know, we’re not gonna be able to balance the budget just by slashing the National Parks budget, even if you didn’t think that was a proper function of government. We’re not gonna be able to balance the budget by, you know, eliminating the National Weather Service.

I mean, we’re gonna have to, you know, tackle some big issues like entitlements that, you know, when you listen to the Tea Party or you listen to Republican candidates they promise we’re not gonna touch.

I’m not sure I understand this. Is he positioning himself as defying the Tea Party by cutting Social Security and Medicare? Or does he really believe that Tea Partiers will stop cuts in Social Security and Medicare?

Whatever he is trying to do there, I think it’s awfully good of him to advance the idea that cutting “entitlements” is going to be required one way or the other. But then, it’s becoming more and more clear that they are taking a chance on the Clinton playbook working for them going into the election only this time, instead of Welfare Reform, they’re going for “entitlements” to prove that they aren’t really socialists after all. I just hope that’s because they see a similarly huge tech boom about to hit because otherwise it isn’t going to work this time.

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Atrios Fundraiser

by digby

Atrios is running a Fall fundraiser and he’s using some pretty low-down dirty tactics to get us to pony up.

Check this out:

At long last sir, have you no decency?

Seriously folks, if you are a fan of Eschaton (as all right thinking people are) it would be great if you could toss a couple of bucks into his tip jar. These are lean times for bloggers — just because there are more ads doesn’t mean we’re making more money.In fact, it’s quite the opposite. If you want to keep an independent, freewheeling blogosphere around, it’s going to take reader support.

Give now — or the kitties get it.

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Betraying Their True Agenda

by digby

Dave Johnson points out that the Republicans are already talking about rolling back the new banking regulations and asks an important question:

Last week, in Tea Party Members VS Tea Party Wall Street Funders, I pointed out that Tea Party supporters expect their politicians to do something about Wall Street bailouts, lawbreaking and “too-big-to-fail” domination of the economy, but Tea Party candidates were receiving a great deal of funding from that very same Wall Street. This set up a potential conflict between Tea Party supporters and Tea Party politicians. Now that the election is over, we’re all just waiting for what we think is coming, and asking: What will Tea Party members do when their politicians betray them?

I hate to say it, but I doubt they will see it that way. I’ve never gotten the idea that the Tea Partiers really cared about Wall Street reform. What they hated was the TARP because it was a government program, which they object to because they object ot all government bailout, emphasis on the government. The idea that the banks and Wall Street did anything wrong has never been a big part of their thinking. (When Tea Partier Pam Stout appeared on Letterman, she was very explicitly against “demonizing” business.)

The Tea party is ostensibly anti-government (at least when it comes to issues outside the bedroom) and certainly anti-tax. They are social conservatives and they have a pretense of being “constitutionalists”whatever that means. But anti-business? Not unless thinking auto industry should go bankrupt in order to bust the union is anti-business.

They are not motivated by either a loyalty or hostility to business. Their “populism” is motivated by hatred of government,a loathing for liberals (and other assorted unreal Americans), love for the Bible, a cartoon constitution and a fantasy America in which everyone agrees with them and does exactly what they want. Tea Party Queen Michelle Bachman says clearly what the Teabag agenda is in this Youtube: lower taxes, reduce spending, repeal Obamacare, close the border and stop climate change legislation. (Despite her “hypnotic” dodging of the question, I’m sure that investigations are on the agenda along with God Knows What other wingnut chestnuts they can push to keep the rubes engaged.)

If the GOP balks at those items, there will be trouble. But with the exception of the Fed audit, which they don’t understand but recognize as something they are supposed to care about because Glenn Beck says the Federal Reserve is a communist plot, I don’t think they care at all about financial reform. We’ll see soon.

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A Measure of Poise

by digby

If you’re sitting around this lazy November Sunday afternoon looking for something interesting to read, look no further than Alternet’s Jan Frel’s interview with “Lawrence Goodwyn, historian of social movements whose books and methods of explaining history have had a profound influence on many of the best known authors, activists and social theorists of our time. Goodwyn’s account of the Populist movement, Democratic Promise, is quoted extensively by Howard Zinn in People’s History of the United States, and also in William Greider’s masterpiece on the Federal Reserve, Secrets of the Temple. You can find Goodwyn quoted in the first paragraph of Bill Moyers’ recent book, On Democracy, and cited in just the same way in countless other books and essays.”

It is a fascinating look at current events through the eyes of someone who takes the long view and therefore, sees the big picture. His observations about a world run by bankers is not to be missed.

Setting aside what I think is a completely unsupported view of Obama as the greatest president in history (already?) it’s a very enlightening look at the way things really work. Enjoy.

Update: I see Howie has a nice post on this as well.

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Cranking Up The VRWC Machine

by digby

I hate to say “I told you so” but I told you so:

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), who’s poised to head the House Government Oversight and Reform Committee, says an investigation of the administration’s alleged job offer to Rep. Joe Sestak would look at similar efforts made by former President George W. Bush’s administration.

“People in the Bush administration, W. Bush, said they did the same thing,” Issa said on “Fox News Sunday,” saying it was an “endemic problem.” “I think we have to bring that to an end, and I’m going to look for ways to expose it and bring it to an end.”

This was predicted at the time that stupid Sestak scandal blew up. The fact that he is including the Bush administration means absolutely nothing, of course. Bush isn’t in office and he isn’t running for election in 2012.

And in case you are wondering what else is going to be on-tap, a partial list is here.

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Mea Culpa

by digby

For all of those people who complain that I’m too hard on the poor conservatives, who are, after all, just like you and me except they want lower taxes, I want to apologize. Decent Americans like this deserve better from me and I pledge to be more reasonable in the future:

According to the Progressives, women cannot be “real women” if they don’t fit the Progressives’ script. Yep, if a woman doesn’t march to the Left’s horse dung definition regarding what “they” (whoever the heck “they” are) have determined constitutes a real woman, she is illegitimate. For instance, for the shemales at NOW and their misandrist ilk, a woman is not a woman, in their estimation: – If she’s not cool with killing unborn babies – If she’s not into hating men who act like masculine men – If she’s not into being a mannish lesbian – If she’s not into blaming every global ill on Old Glory – And if she’s not into worshipping big government Yep, ladies, you’re not a “real woman” if you do not agree with their garish political description of what it “really means” to own a uterus. BTW … I’ve got a question for some of the lesbians out there: If men “suck so bad” and are so “rank and vile,” why do you get a man’s haircut, lower your voice to sound like Sam Elliot and wear men’s Dockers? If you’re going to do gay, follow Portia de Rossi’s lead, por favor (that would make it much easier on the eyes and ears for us homophobes, okay?). No offense, of course. I’m just sayin’. Anyway… Here’s why I believe the dour democratic dames particularly dislike Palin. Check it out: 1. Palin’s hot and can rock a pair of heels, hunting boots, or any garment she dons. And you can tell she knows it and likes it. Most of the ladies on the Left, however, cannot—and we all know how jealous and petty some chicks can be when they’re aesthetically upstaged (cat fight). 2. They hate Sarah because she’s supposedly anti-intellectual. However, I’d love to see Tina Fey, Katie Couric or Joy Behag go mano a mano with her on any given topic and see who comes off looking like Snooki. 3. The feministas don’t dig SP because she’s had five kids (one of whom has Down’s Syndrome) and has never considered offing any of them in her womb. 4. She believes in the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and they hate Christians. 5. She’s a conservative, and they hate conservatives. 6. She’s insanely successful, and she did it without curtsying to their wacked weltanschauung. 7. Her husband’s not some prissy, manicured metrosexual man-child but an ass kicking Alaskan. 8. She hunts and fishes. Her motto: Shoot it. Stuff it. Hang it on a wall, baby. 9. She’s unapologetic to all of the above. 10. And finally, they know that if she ever makes it to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue that she’s going to hand the Dems their shriveled BB-sized cojones on a free market platter while the majority of the USA gives her a standing ovation.

Remember, when conservatives magnanimously reach out like this and you refuse to meet them halfway, you are the one who is intolerant, crude and disrespectful, not them.

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Rushing To Repeal

by digby

Those of you who were convinced that it meant nothing when nobody on the right challenged Rush Limbaugh for saying that he hoped for Obama to fail will undoubtedly think this is nothing either:

Although it sounds ridiculous, Rush is in the process of making his followers believe that the pre-existing condition provision in the health care reforms is something bad and shameful. The reason he’s doing this, of course, is because this is the most popular piece of the bill and the one on which the rest of it hinges. If they can divide people on that, the repeal of the plan will be much easier.

During the endless health care negotiations I wondered why the Democrats would so foolishly schedule a controversial program not to take effect until two elections had come and gone, but I was told by many very serious people that there was literally impossible that HCR could ever be repealed once it was passed. But while I think it’s fair to assume that Obama will veto any aisle crossing on this issue by Ben Nelson and Joe Lieberman, the other side is preparing for the day after the 2012 election. After all, at that point, nobody will have seen any of the benefits besides some help for kids. In this mean, austere era, I can easily see them repealing that too.

People thought it was insane for Rush to say that he wanted the president to fail. But he held the line and made the GOP come crawling for even suggesting that he was wrong. And the party just became more and more radical. They don’t see health care reform as sacred and they will feel absolutely no remorse about destroying it.

Far too many people thought that the Democrats had vanquished the GOP and that Obama, by virtue of his personal gifts alone, could persuade conservatives that history had passed them by. Instead, they discovered that they were the ones they’d been waiting for and they doubled down on their radicalism. Underestimating the Republicans is a fatal Democratic flaw — the only successful ones know exactly what they’re up against and plan accordingly. On health care they planned very poorly. It’s possible that it will stand up, but it won’t be because Republicans threw up their hands and accepted it.

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Saturday Night At The Movies

Double Feature: Of toxic loans and yellow cake

By Dennis Hartley

The legislative branch meets here: Inside Job

Rising up to break this thing
From family trees the dukes do swing
Just one blow to scratch the itch
The law’s made for and by the rich

-Paul Weller

I have good news and bad news about the documentary, Inside Job, director Charles Ferguson’s incisive parsing of what led to the crash of the global financial system in 2008. The good news is that I believe I finally grok what “derivatives” and “toxic loans” are. The bad news is…that doesn’t make me feel any better about how fucked we are.

To their credit, writers Chad Beck and Adam Bolt don’t stoop to “ripped from today’s headlines!” hyperbole (pandering to those steadily depressing, low down mind-messing, workin’ at the car wash blues that we’re already feeling as a result of this economic nightmare) but step back a bit to give some actual historical perspective to the whole affair. The filmmakers start at the very beginning-all the way back to where the seeds were sown-during the spate of rampant financial deregulation during the Reagan administration (aka, “morning in America”-remember that?). No POTUS (including Obama) who has led the country post-Reagan is let off the hook, either. The film illustrates, point by painful point, how every subsequent administration (Democratic and Republican alike) did their “part” in enabling the current crisis-mostly through political cronyism and legislative manipulation. The result of this decades long circle jerk involving Wall Street, the mortgage industry, Congress, the White House and lobbyists (with Ivy League professors serving as pivot men) is what we are now living with today.

The film is very slickly produced; it’s well-paced, nicely edited and Matt Damon’s even-toned narration helps to keep the somewhat byzantine threads of the story accessible. Ferguson was able to assemble a fascinating cross-section of talking heads, including financial insiders, economists, politicians, academics…and even a Wall Street madam (who, relative to the kinds of people she provides services for, is in all likelihood one of the most virtuous and forthright interviewees on board). In fact, the overall impression I came away with was that the entire financial system, taken along with its associative ties to lobbyists, legislators, economics professors and corporate-backed MSM lackeys, is nothing less than a glorified prostitution ring-ultimately funded by America’s working poor and middle class taxpayers (and we don’t even get to enjoy, er, “full release” for our pay-in). This brings me to the film’s one flaw. Ferguson is very good at getting you all riled up (and there’s plenty here to get pissed about)-but doesn’t necessarily offer a “release” (like maybe suggestions on how to fire up grassroots activism?). But I suspect that as a Hullabaloo reader, you already figured that out (that it’s up to “us”). Me? I’m kind of slow on this stuff-that’s probably why I just do movie reviews around these parts.

Previous posts with related themes:

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps
Capitalism: A Love Story
The International

Outed: Watts and Penn in Fair Game

And now, gentle reader, I would like to invite you along for a little stroll down memory lane…to a time, not so long ago, when we had this man in the White House who, well…went a little ‘funny’ in the head after a terrorist group attacked America. You know, ‘funny’ and what he did was, you see, he sort of…girded his loins to invade a Middle Eastern country that actually had very little to do with the specific group of terrorists who attacked America. Naturally, he first had to come up with a viable reason to do so. And what he did was, he convinced the Congress that the country in question was not only chockablock with evildoers, but evildoers who had weapons of mass destruction that surely would be wielded against America in the near future. Now, he couldn’t actually produce any photos of these Doomsday Machines, but they did discover some suspicious aluminum tubes. Oh-and they heard it from a friend who, heard it from a friend who, heard it from another that they had been messin’ around with a substance called “yellow cake” which can be used in the manufacture of WMDs. Again, no real evidence, but nobody in the Congress wanted to be labeled as unpatriotic or anything like that, so they all went “Booyah! Shock and awe!” and opened those bomb bay doors wide.

So, the invasion was going swimmingly for a spell, and even those Americans who may have been scratching their heads a little over the aluminum tubes and yellowcake and such were keeping mum, because they didn’t want to be labeled as unpatriotic, either. Besides, all the journalists on the TV were supporting the troops, too! And they wouldn’t lie, because they’re all purely objective about these kinds of things! But then, as the war began to drag on, and no stockpiles of WMDs seemed to be turning up, sleeper cells of not-so-patriotic grumblers could be detected all around America. However, as they turned out to be mostly aging, drug-addled old left-leaning hippie panhandlers and radical progressive pundits, the White House didn’t pay much mind to such gibberish-that is, until the summer of 2003. That is when a former Foreign Service officer and ambassador named Joe Wilson published an op-ed in the New York Times called “What I Didn’t Find in Africa”. Wilson had been sent on a fact-finding trip to Niger in 2002 at the behest of Vice President Dick Cheney, to investigate a report that Iraq had purchased some of the aforementioned yellowcake back in the late 1990s. The gist of the piece was that there seemed to be a credibility gap between what the guy in the White House (you know, the one who went, sort of ’funny’) was claiming regarding the alleged stockpiling of yellowcake in Iraq, and what Wilson had actually discovered. ‘Someone’ obviously lied.

And it wasn’t Mr. Wilson.

That’s why ‘someone’ involved with the White House became very cross with Wilson. As a result, ‘someone’ accidently-on-purpose allowed some confidential information about Wilson’s wife to get leaked. In fact, it was only 8 days after Wilson’s op-ed appeared that conservative journalist Robert Novak published an article in which he identified Valerie Plame Wilson as an “agency operative” (as in CIA). The Wilsons’ life became hell, and the question of whether or not ‘someone’ in the Bush administration was guilty of a criminal act (by outing a CIA operative) became a widely debated issue. Eventually, following a Department of Justice investigation, a member of the administration, Lewis “Scooter” Libby (former chief of staff for VP Cheney) ended up taking the fall in 2007, when he received a 30-month sentence for perjury and obstruction The President (apparently still feeling a little ‘funny’) commuted Libby’s sentence, 4 months after the conviction. You’ll note that I said Libby “took the fall”. I don’t want to name names, or put on a tin foil hat and suggest that there was a powerful cabal behind the smear, but in 2007, the Wilsons did file a civil suit against Messrs. Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Richard Armitage (it didn’t take). Ah-(*sentimental sigh*) those were the days.

Indeed, many “Kodak moments” from the BushCo era came flashing back as I watched Fair Game, Doug Liman’s slightly uneven dramatization of the “Plame affair”. Jez and John-Henry Butterworth based their screenplay on two separately written memoirs by the couple-The Politics of Truth by Joe Wilson, and Fair Game by Valerie Plame. Sean Penn and Naomi Watts bring their star power to the table as the Wilsons, portraying them as a loving couple who were living relatively low key lives (she more as a necessity of her profession) until they got pushed into a boiling cauldron of nasty political intrigue that falls somewhere in between All the President’s Men and 3 Days of the Condor.

Viewers who are unfamiliar with the back story could be misled by the Paul Greengrass-style opening scenes-complete with pulse-pounding music and hand held “shaky cam”. You get the impression that you might be in for a Bourne-style action thriller. The conundrum is that the part of the story concerning Valerie Plame’s CIA exploits can at best be only speculative in nature. Because of the sensitivity of those matters, Plame has only gone on record concerning that part of her life in vague, generalized terms, so what you end up with is something along the lines of Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (although I would think that Plame has slightly more credibility than Chuck Barris, no?).

The most important part of the story, however is what transpired for the couple once Valerie was “outed” by Novak, and how they ultimately stood up to the White House. The CIA, of course was no help; they dropped Plame like a hot potato once her cover was blown (essentially throwing her under the bus while wishing her best of luck). Although Valerie (the more guarded of the two) is initially reticent to go on the counteroffensive, Joe is able to convince her that there is much more at stake than merely salvaging their pride by pushing back. Liman wisely shifts the focus of his film to showing us how they weathered this storm as a couple, eventually becoming something greater than the sum of their parts once they decided to take Karl Rove and his merry band of ratfuckers head on.

In light of this past Tuesday’s depressing results, the timing of this film’s release could be seen as an unintentional bit of serendipity in some respects. We know from experience how ugly it’s going to get, and also learned that a bully is a bully until you start pushing back. So why not take a little inspiration away from this little political David and Goliath tale from our not-so-distant past? We’d best get in shape now. So…drop and give me 20!

Previous posts with related themes:

W.
Burn after Reading
The Good Shepherd/638 Ways to Kill Castro
Breach
Charlie Wilson’s War

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Ducking Tea Bags

by digby

Via Weigel, if you want to know how frightened the GOP establishment is of the Tea Party, this should give you a clue:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out an e-mail Friday morning urging donors to help U.S. Senate candidate Joe Miller… Sen. John Cornyn, the NRSC chairman, asked supporters to donate to help Miller with expenses during an anticipated “lengthy recount.”
“We need to get Joe the resources he needs to win the vote count. Because we need Joe to join our fight against Barack Obama,” Cornyn said in the e-mail.

“Write In” is leading the race at the moment, although nobody knows if all of them will qualify for Murkowski. But let’s just say it looks as though she’s going to pull it out. And yet the Republicans still feel they need to kow tow to the teabaggers, despite the fact that everyone knows they would have probably won a majority in the Senate if it weren’t for their lunacy.

In a rational world, one might think they’d be afraid to anger Murkowski, since a lot of Democrats voted for her and she could make an argument for going independent (and caucusing with the Dems) if they give her too much grief. But this isn’t a rational world, and what this signals is that the GOP leadership may do all kinds of anonymous sniping to Politico, but they aren’t going to publicly challenge DeMint. And they’re going to bring the hammer down on what’s left of their moderates whether they want to or not.

I wrote before that I thought there might be some party switchers, but I’m not so sure now. If Ben Nelson or Heath Shuler become Republicans it’s almost assured that they’d get a tea bag primary from the right. They might as well take their chances with the progressives.

This is getting very interesting.

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Nothing makes a gold digger hotter than a little noblesse oblige

by digby

The other day I posted a reader comment via Paul Krugman about the young guns on Wall Street being motivated by hookers and coke. Here’s some evidence for you:

Thursday night, a few hours after the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at a two-year high, 350 finance professionals and their guests packed into Simyone Lounge, an ultra-exclusive club in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District, for the annual Young Wall Street charity gala...The evening’s beneficiary was All Stars Project, an organization that runs after-school programs for inner-city youth. Last year, amid market unrest and negative public sentiment, Mr. Ritter and Mr. Hébert called off their annual benefit, sensing that a lavish Wall Street party – even in the service of charity – would be inappropriate. But this year, they decided to resume their efforts. According to Mr. Ritter, the pre-event fund-raising total for the All Stars Project topped $110,000, with more donations expected in the day and weeks to come.

But what about the hookers and coke? Well, the article doesn’t get explicit, but the general idea comes through loud and clear:

While philanthropy was certainly the night’s dominant note, packing a trendy nightclub with the young guns of finance produced another, less altruistic result. “Honestly, I think these guys started Young Wall Street to pick up girls,” joked Zack Schildhorn, an associate at Lux Capital, Mr. Hébert’s firm. “I mean, guys who make money are sexy. Guys who make money and give back? That’s hard to beat.” There was no glamour deficit at the gala, with scads of statuesque women and Hermes-clad head-turners all seeming to participate in some sort of tacit genetics contest. Your DealBook correspondent also believes he overheard the ultimate Wall Street “neg” – in pick-up parlance, a backhanded compliment meant to pique a woman’s interest – during a flirtatious conversation between a private equity associate and a tall, leggy blonde:

Male: “So, what do you do?” Female: “I work on the sales and trading desk at [firm].” Male: “Oh, cool! Are you a quant?”

All told, the night’s upbeat mood seemed to indicate that the twenty-somethings of Wall Street have returned to their pre-crisis mantra: work hard, play hard, and maybe do some good along the way.

Well, let not get carried away. As the pithy Kagro X quipped in an email,

350 Wall Street bonus babies raised $110,000 for inner city youth? Wow, thanks guys. A whole $300 each. You’re the awesomest.

Who needs government when you have sincere people doing philanthropy on this scale?

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