Month: January 2011

Protest Management

by digby

BagNews is featuring a fascinating post about the Egyptian protest showing how up until this recent uprising the protests there were carefully controlled by the government. Here’s a photo from last Wednesday, showing how it was usually done:

The photographer, David Degner says:

“What is so significant about the photo from Wednesday is that it possibly represents the last vestige of the old paradigm, of the exploitative tactics with policemen in a circle letting a show of protest go on. As of now, that system is gone. You do have to walk around the tanks to get into Tahrir Square right now, but once you’re in, it’s a free game. You can say anything you want. You can lead chants. It’s completely different.”

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Setting The Boundries

by digby

Ezra Klein tweeted that Judge Vinson’s ruling today has a “Bush vs. Gore” feel to it. I’ll say.

In his post on the subject, he points out that Vinson uses a variant of the old “this ruling applies to this case only” that the Supreme Court majority so memorably used to validate their partisan bias without endangering the entire American electoral framework.

This is all interesting, and I suppose that there’s some use in having the public argument about the merits of the various cases and rulings. But in the end, this isn’t a public issue anymore, it’s an Anthony Kennedy issue. And while he may be subject to public opinion in his deliberations on some level I doubt it’s very significant.

But Ezra does point out one very interesting aspect of this. Vinson may have moved the goalposts:

Vinson’s ruling does not halt, slow, or otherwise impede implementation of the act. What it does do is speed the law’s route to the Supreme Court, which is where this question will ultimately be decided. It could also have the effect of making the Supreme Court more comfortable with adopting Hudson’s stance, under the theory that Vinson’s ruling makes a limited rejection of the individual mandate seem less extreme.

I wouldn’t be surprised. That’s how they roll.

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Pushing The Left

by digby

If you have any interest at all in having one of the two major political parties in the United States being something other than a brothel servicing the wealthy and fundamentalist know-nothings, then you should be interested in this Down With Tyranny post which features this little piece of advice from a Democratic politician:

“There was a lot of money spent against Democrats by Democrats. That contributed to the scale of our losses… I think if we had avoided that, we would have saved, maybe, six or eight more seats,” said Lynch. “I don’t think it would have stopped the overall result, but maybe six or eight seats” could have been held.

Clearing primaries for members and discouraging liberal groups from spending against incumbents should be a priority for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he said. “It would definitely help, I think. You need to talk to those groups.”

Lynch basically wants to put the Democratic Party up for bid to big business, telling labor and liberals in the party to get with the program or shut the hell up. The people shall have no say in who represents them. This shall be done solely by the powers that be.

It’s quite an interesting contrast to the GOP which really felt the lash of their Tea partiers and lost some long time stalwarts. Perhaps that’s because they won big anyway, but their public response has been pretty muted nonetheless. Of course, their uprising is being financed by the same people who currently call the shots in both parties, so I suppose any conflict is more cosmetic than anything. And they are rarely contemptuous of their activists the way Democrats are.

This is incredibly arrogant and stupid. I suppose that the Democrats believe that they can shut liberals and labor out of the nominating process because at the end of the day, they will have to come back home and vote for any anti-choice, right wing shill the party vomits up. But as I’ve said before, they’re playing with fire. This country is still polarized (at best) and they need every vote they can get.

After all, they lost the presidential election in 2000 by an extremely close margin in one state. We’ll never know if the people who voted for Nader in Florida would have voted for Bush, Gore or stayed home, but we know damned well that nearly a hundred thousand Florida liberals were disenchanted enough with the Democrats not to vote for their presidential nominee. Indeed, there were over two million of them across the country.

We also know that the disenfranchisement of African Americans in Florida had an effect and the latest news from the Republicans is that they are putting a huge emphasis on vote suppression going into 2012. It will undoubtedly have at least some effect, particularly since the Democrats already helped them destroy one of their most important voter outreach organizations.

It’s a huge political mistake for the Democrats to be telegraphing this attitude. But more importantly, it shows a total lack of respect for the democratic process. People have a perfect right to organize on their own behalf and try to gain proper representation in the congress. In our two party system this is done through the primary and caucus process. Since many Democratic politicians have made it quite clear over the past few years that they are unprepared to even consider arguing for progressive values in their campaigns and are instead merely using the Party as a convenient line on the ballot, primary challenges are inevitable.

The DCCC can “talk” all it wants to liberal groups but what’s it going to say? Please don’t run candidates against our corporate shills because then we won’t be able to have a majority that works with corporate shills on the other side to sell out ordinary Americans? That even with a Democratic president and a large majorities in both houses we couldn’t pass a public option or allow obscene tax cuts for the wealthy to expire, but we need even more conservatives and centrists in the congress? That’s not very persuasive.

We all face the dilemma of going into the voting booth for the general election and picking our poison. I’m not going to tell anyone what to do in that situation. I have more often than not picked the lesser of two evils because that’s how our winner take all system works. But I deeply resent this notion that we cannot even challenge incumbents in our own party and I think it deserves widespread condemnation. They might as well tell us to stop worrying our little heads about politics and go out any buy ourselves something pretty. This is the only electoral mechanism by which we can influence the party. If they want the left of the Party to split off and seek something outside the system, like third parties or nihilistic sabotage, this is the perfect way to go about making that happen.

I don’t know about you, but it makes me want to redouble my efforts to support worthy primary challengers wherever they may be, for the principle alone. Who do these people think they are?

If you’d like an example of how much this has seeped into the conventional wisdom, listen to Chris Cilizza a few minutes ago on Andrea Mitchell’s show, talking about how difficult it is for the President to stay on message when the world is full of crises:

Cilizza: There are just so many things that are distracting you at all times. We saw this in the run up to the 2010 election. The Obama administration kept wanting to talk about the economy and they got sidetracked by things like the “Professional Left”.

I seem to recall that the Professional Left was quite concerned about the economy while the administration insisted that happy days were here again. But perhaps I was dreaming.

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Breitbart Boo Boo

by digby

This made my morning. Apparently, even Fox has now been burned by a bogus Breitbart smear — about Fox. From Media Matters:

Yesterday, we noted that Fox Nation amplified Breitbart.tv’s paranoid suggestion that CNN “sabotage[d]” Michele Bachmann’s Tea Party response to last week’s State of the Union address. That’s a crazy conspiracy theory for any number of reasons, not least the fact that Fox News itself was responsible for the video feed in question. Now Breitbart.tv has noted Fox’s responsibility — and suggests that the right-wing cable channel may have sabotaged the right-wing congresswoman:

On the other hand, Breitbart will tout this as proof that he is fair and balanced. Fox Nation, however, has even less integrity than Breitbart. They simply said, “Breitbart changes his allegation.”

When you listen to phony Breitbartian conspiracies, embarrassment follows.

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When Republicans Take Over

by tristero

When Republicans take over, New York State Edition:

In the new session, 30 of the Senate’s standing committees will be led by Republicans; three will be led by Democrats. Twenty-nine will be headed by men; four will be headed by women. Nineteen will be led by senators from upstate; 14 will be led by senators from New York City and its suburbs.

But all the committee chairmanships share at least one characteristic in common.

Want to take a guess what that might be? Give that reader a kewpie doll!

“They’re all white,” said State Senator Rubén Díaz Sr., Democrat of the Bronx. “Everybody’s white.”…

True. But this is unfair:

The current group of 32 Republicans does not count a member of a minority in its ranks.

I don’t think the reporter did his homework. It could be there’s at least one Jew amongst them: Democrat Jeffry D. Klein (all committee chairs are appointed by the Republicans). Objectively speaking, Jews are as much a minority as any other in Our Christian Nation ™.

Hey! If we look hard enough, maybe we’ll even spot a Papist!

The Bipartisanship Trap

by digby

After the State of the Union address I mentioned the Frank Luntz “focus group” in which the Republicans and Democrats differed sharply on the need for bipartisanship. Dave Neiwert caught the clip and kindly transcribed it for us. Here’s the pertinent passage:

Sean, I want to go to one clip we did, because Obama talked a lot about bipartisanship, and yet the Republicans didn’t respond too favorably to that. The red line is Republicans, green line is Democrats. Watch how high the green declines and red falls when Barack Obama appeals directly to partisanship.

BARACK OBAMA, (D) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: New laws will only pass with support from Democrats and Republicans. We will move forward together or not at all, for the challenges we face are bigger than party, bigger than politics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LUNTZ: So the question is, what is it about this appeal to bipartisanship that those of you on the Republican side don’t like?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don’t believe it.

LUNTZ: Explain it.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He said that before. When he first got into office he was going to be the president to change everything, come across the aisle. It never happened.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It is phony.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What is bipartisan? Is it if you agree with me? I mean, we’ve got two sides here.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don’t want to use one of those curse words we can’t use. The Republicans didn’t. The first thing he said was I’m not going to work with him. I’m not going to work with you. That’s like throwing down the gauntlet.

LUNTZ: Hold on one second. Sean, you’ve got a question?

HANNITY: Yes, I do. Somebody said it. He said all of these things before. He said it last year, during the campaign. And this whole campaign it was only a couple months ago when he was calling Republicans enemies. They can sit in the back. For two years Republicans weren’t invited to the table.

So in that sense are we just reading words from a teleprompter or has he lost the ability because he has two years experience for people to belief him?

LUNTZ: So here’s the question, is it politics or principle that you heard tonight? Who would say politics, raise your hand. Who would say principle? You said principle, tell me why?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This president is doing the best he can at this point. He’s trying to be in the center. He’s not being — it is not that he’s trying to cause problems with the economy. He’s doing the best job he can do. I think he’s doing a great job. He’s brought unemployment down.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Experience, experience, and we are not making any progress whatsoever.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: In 2000 he said Bush is not the real president. And then they are yelling at him for the same thing. Everyone is saying the same things again, it’s 10 years later, the same thing, but we are worse off.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Two years of railroading legislation in Washington, rolling over Republicans, accusing them of being cynical. Now saying let’s come to the table, have a drink and work together. It’s nonsense.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Like getting romantic talk from Tiger Woods. Are you going to put your trust in him?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They got a lot done this lame duck session. When they did come together and pass bipartisan support, things got an accomplished. You have people probably to the far right who don’t want to see any time of compromise. When you have compromise, things get done, you get bills passed.

LUNTZ: Again, what is wrong with compromise? I want to understand.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You have to have some compromise. Give a little on both sides.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There’s nothing wrong with compromise. People have to talk about what is good for each side and take the good together. Not everybody is going to be happy.

LUNTZ: Is Barack Obama sincere about bipartisanship?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We don’t know.

(CROSSTALK)

LUNTZ: One at a time. Is Barack Obama sincere?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I think he is. And I think it should be the American people what they want. We are all-American, not Democrat, not Republican.

LUNTZ: I get it. Sean, the State of the Union is supposed to bring people together. It is supposed to appeal to all Americans, not just the Americans from your political party. I don’t think that has happened tonight. They are just as divided now as they were an hour and a half ago. Back to you.

This is the previously described “bipartisanship trap” in action— Republicans obstruct and then blame the president for failing to fulfill his promise of bipartisan leadership. When you govern as someone who will change process and extol it as higher purpose than policy and principle, you give the other side a huge weapon with which to beat you. Democrats seem to really love the bipartisan promise, but I’m guessing that a good part of that is simply following the president’s lead. They like it when he’s “successful” which means lots of good press and signing ceremonies and they trust him to look out for their interests. So the Republicans have all the leverage — and the President has every incentive to go along with them.

Here’s the whole creepy focus group (which I fully acknowledge was rigged. But it doesn’t change the upshot.)

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Oh heck. Another Isolated Incident

by digby

Now where would someone get ideas like this?

Roger Stockham, a 63-year-old Army veteran from California who was reportedly angry at the U.S. government, was arrested by police in Michigan and charged for allegedly threatening to blow up a Mosque in Dearborn.

Dearborn police allegedly found Stockham inside his vehicle outside the Islamic Center of America with a load of M-80s in his trunk and other explosives, the Detroit News reported.

Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Counsel on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), told the newspaper that police told him the suspect was drinking in a Detroit bar on Monday and threatened to do harm to a mosque in Dearborn. An employee at the bar followed the man outside and wrote down his license plate which he reported to police, Walid told the newspaper.

The 63-year-old grandfather is charged with one count of a false report or threat of terrorism and one count of possession of bombs with unlawful intent, according to the newspaper.

“He’s very dangerous,” Dearborn Police Chief Ron Haddad told the Free Press. “We took his threat to be very serious.”

Just to show how widespread this is, this fellow hailed from my neck of the woods. Of course, it also shows just how widespread ignorance is. He traveled to Detroit because of the large Muslim population but he could have saved the gas money. LA’s is the second largest.

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With Friends Like These

by digby

Howard Fineman has the unique capability of making people seem like even bigger assholes than they already are by damning them with his approbation. I’m sure you’ll all recall his famous encomium to Bush:

FINEMAN (11/27/01): So who are the Bushes, really? Well, they’re the people who produced the fellow who sat with me and my Newsweek colleague, Martha Brant, for his first interview since 9/11. We saw, among other things, a leader who is utterly comfortable in his role. Bush envelops himself in the trappings of office. Maybe that’s because he’s seen it from the inside since his dad served as Reagan’s vice president in the ‘80s. The presidency is a family business.

Dubyah loves to wear the uniform—whatever the correct one happens to be for a particular moment. I counted no fewer than four changes of attire during the day trip we took to Fort Campbell in Kentucky and back. He arrived for our interview in a dark blue Air Force One flight jacket. When he greeted the members of Congress on board, he wore an open-necked shirt. When he had lunch with the troops, he wore a blue blazer. And when he addressed the troops, it was in the flight jacket of the 101st Airborne. He’s a boomer product of the ‘60s—but doesn’t mind ermine robes.

So what he up to now? Well, get a load of this piece about Obama:

Among his other attributes, Jay Carney is a cool dancer. I know that because I saw him and his wife, Claire Shipman, getting down on the tented dance floor of a fancy Georgetown wedding years ago. Jay Carney, who went to Yale and was a foreign correspondent in Moscow, is — besides being smart, savvy, loyal and well-connected with the right sort — suave.

Why bring this up? Because by choosing him as his new press secretary, President Barack Obama has completed his swift and thorough transition from crusading outsider to shrewd insider as he prepares to deal with the wild folk of the Tea Party, Karl Rove and the Republican kneecappers, and an electorate still fearful that the world is spinning out of control.

Say this about Obama: He is adaptable, he is a survivor and he has a supreme desire to win.

He is setting up his reelection campaign back in Chicago, but that is an expensive piece of window dressing unlikely to convince people that he is somehow still, if he ever was, a guy from the heartland. David Axelrod and the gang will be back in the Windy City, but the operation will be run by a Chicagoan-cum-Washingtonian with national and even global ties — Bill Daley — and a cadre of the best and the brightest of the Clinton administration who came to the city to do good and stayed to do well.

Obama came to the White House in the manner of Jimmy Carter, with whom he was, early on, mistakenly compared. But while Carter never expanded his circle beyond the “Georgians,” Obama has, with stunning swiftness, retooled his administration to play hardball in the D.C. League.

I’m sure the President’s Villager status is greatly satisfying to the likes of Fineman. I’m not so sure that Obama’s political handlers would be so pleased to see him publicly extolled as such. “Insiders” aren’t quite as revered in the rest of the country. In fact, it’s the last thing most politicians would ever want, particularly now.

I’m not sure what “narrative” they think they’re selling, but this isn’t a good one:

Axelrod believes that a campaign is a “narrative.” Carney, who wrote and reported plenty of cover stories for Time, knows all about the craft and the power of narratives — and, presumably, will be more willing to spin them out in public than the cautious Gibbs seemed to be.

There are few better-connected couples in the Washington media and social scene than Carney and Shipman. Their children attend the Sidwell Friends School with the Obama girls. They are the kind of well-liked, Ivy-credentialed insiders who make the Tea Party boiling mad. But why should Obama care?

Gibbs, meanwhile, will go out on his own, where he can go on the soundbite attack, but do it from the aw-shucks stance of a guy who comes from the part of the country where people tend to cling to their guns and their religion.

Gibbs, the son of teachers at Auburn University, liked to celebrate Auburn football victories by wrapping White House trees in toilet paper. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Jay has done or will do that for a victory over Harvard.

I’m about as far from the Tea party as you can get and I live in one of the most Democratic cities in the country. And that just about made me hurl.

Everything that’s wrong with politics is in that one passage.

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The Map Of Their Imagination

by digby

Funny:

I have no idea if this is real, but it certainly reflects their view of how the Middle East is organized.

If you think that’s unfair, read this.

Update: This map is real.

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The Day The World Began

by digby

Apparently, the world was invented when Barack Obama was elected president:

The advocates in Indiana, which national Tea Party groups say has the most organized of the primary efforts, point to Mr. Lugar’s push for the New Start nuclear treaty, which the Senate approved in December; his sponsorship of the Dream Act, which would grant a path to citizenship for limited groups of illegal immigrants; and his votes for President Obama’s picks for the Supreme Court, Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

“The senator would call it bipartisanship, but we think you’re siding with the other side,” said Greg Fettig, a Tea Party supporter in Indiana.

Another, Mark Holwager, said, “He may have been a conservative at one time, but he definitely leans to the left now.”

It must be galling for a stalwart conservative like Lugar to realize that he didn’t exist before the Tea Party came to power. These Know-nothing are going to oust him because he crossed the aisle on START and DREAM, two issues that were thoroughly bipartisan until five minutes ago and he voted to confirm Obama’s two choices for the Supreme Court, something that used to be done as a matter of course.

His entire career is irrelevant:

In Indiana, several Tea Party supporters met with Mr. Lugar last month, and he argued his conservative credentials. Unconvinced, they announced that they would pursue a primary challenge, and that the first step would be to unify behind one Republican. Potential candidates include a state senator, Mike Delph, and the state treasurer, Richard E. Mourdock.

At the meeting this month, the Tea Party organizers signed a letter that “with deep gratitude and respect” asked Mr. Lugar to resign. With the rise of conservative awareness in America, “the emergence of the modern day Tea Party, and your own more social-liberal perception on issues, we find ourselves at odds,” they wrote.

Mr. Lugar won his last term with 87 percent of the vote after Democrats declined to challenge him. He says he intends to run aggressively, and not change his positions.

“A lot of conservatives believe you have to kowtow to the Tea Party,” said his spokesman, Mark Helmke. “We reject that premise.”

Mr. Holwager argued that there is a disconnect between Tea Party supporters and many of their representatives in Washington.

“Heartland America doesn’t feel the same way as people in the cities,” he said. “We do believe in religion, we go to church all the time, we shoot and fish, and love our families. Some of the time you wish folks in the cities would come live with us and see how we live.”

That’s fine. But until they change the constitution to be more to their liking, they still share the nation with us city folks. And there’s a whole bunch of us. Can they wrap their minds around that? And what that means in a democracy?

Good for Lugar. He may end up winning with Democratic votes if he keeps that up. Which is too bad — it means the goalposts have moved so far to the right that it doesn’t even matter anymore.

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