Month: February 2011

State of play

by digby

It appears that the Obama supporters in the political establishment have awakened to the fact that he really does want to enact a Grand Bargain and that it’s highly likely that it will end up being a bad deal for Democrats. Dday has the scoop today on this much-discussed article by Johnathan Chait in The New Republic (an article that made me laugh because I recalled being jeered and dismissed for my Cassandra warnings for the past two years on this.)

Dday writes:

Chait goes on to say that this deal calls for ten times as much spending cuts as revenue increases, and that this would be a horrible deal for Democrats (to say nothing of the country). It would. But where has Chait been? This isn’t a surprise at all. The Obama budget has a mix of 2/3 spending cuts and 1/3 revenue. The Republican budget has all spending cuts and is almost impossibly cruel. Bowles-Simpson’s ratio, I believe, was 3/4 spending, 1/4 revenue. Split the difference and you’re up to 5/6 or 7/8 spending cuts. That’s not appreciably different than what’s coming out here. Democrats have always created severe imbalances in these “grand bargain” deals in favor of spending cuts, maybe because they think that’s what can pass or something, maybe because they (or more to the point, their wealthy donors) prefer spending cuts. I’d love to see just one Democrat come out and say, “You know, just letting the Bush tax cuts expire completely would solve the entire medium-term deficit issue. And we wouldn’t even have to pass anything. Were the Clinton-era tax rates so burdensome?” But to date, that hasn’t happened. So you get these monstrously bad spending-heavy “grand bargains.”

I think that’s definitional in this political environment. Even the vaunted 1983 social security deal — which really was anticipating a short term funding crisis — ended up being 65% cuts to 35% revenue. (That’s why I don’t get to retire until I’m almost 67 and neither does anyone else who’s younger than I.)

The Republicans have staked out the very fringe of the anti-tax argument as their final position while the Democrats come charging in with anti-spending rhetoric and proposing cuts to poor people to establish that they are acting in good faith — as if there’s any political advantage to that. Even the Villagers applaud such gestures and then promptly forget them. (What they truly desire is for the president to capitulate to the conventional wisdom that says Americans deserve to be punished for their bad, bad behavior with “tough love” which always stimulates aristocrats in interesting primal ways.) The “bargain” almost has to contain far more spending cuts than revenue hikes just from the starting positions alone. And I’m fairly sure the White House knows this — what they want is political credit for getting a “win” on the board. But I think that in the era of Citizen’s United what constitues a “win” is a much more fluid concept than it has been in the past.

As Ezra writes today, the Grand Bargain is basically about cuts to “entitlements” and “tax reform” both of which are essentially GOP issues, depending on how you define “reform” and I think the GOP probably has the upper hand in that. (The right will never agree to cut defense — unlike the administration they don’t seem to believe that the public is impressed when they give up their principles on the alter of making “tough choices.”) Cuts to Medicare and Medicaid are probably off the table for the time being after the bruising health care battle. So, Social Security is the best terrain for the Grand Bargain: it’s effects won’t be felt until the people making the deal are probably long dead (or comfortably ensconced in the taxpayer funded retirement), it will impress the only people who matter — the confidence fairies and bond vigilantes, and it allows the president to be Very Seriously Presidential in Winning The Future.

The problem is that the Republicans want to lay this off on the president so they can have it both ways by saying he didn’t do enough while their shadowy corporate supporters under Citizens United demagogue the cuts to senior citizens, thus insuring they will come out to vote against Obama in huge numbers. The president, on the other hand, needs the GOP to jump off the cliff with him so they can share the blame. What do you suppose the odds of the latter happening are?

Here’s an example of the state of play, via Andrea Mitchell today. Deficit scold David Walker, lately of the Pete Peterson Foundation and now head of his own catfood institution said this:

Mitchell: Did he punt on the budget as he’s accused of by the Republicans, or is it at least a first draft?

Walker: He punted on the structural deficit challenges. You know, he had a commission, the national fiscal responsibility and reform commission. They really tried to deal with the tough issues of the structural deficit. And frankly, their recommendations didn’t seem to get much consideration by the administration and its budget. You know, the president is the chief executive officer of the united states government.The entity that he leads has a deteriorating financial condition and it could have its own debt crisis within three to five years if it doesn’t change course. He needs to lead.

Mitchell: What about the argument that if he puts something out there, Savannah Guthrie was on the program earlier, and he said that their strategy is to play his cards close to the vest, my words, not theirs, and wait to see what the other side proposes, see if there’s anything that come to senate negotiation, bipartisan negotiation, and then come in, rather than having everyone taking pot shots at what he puts out there.

Walker: The chief executive officer has a responsibility to lead, no matter what type of enterprise it is.

Now, we’ll see what the Republicans come up with.They’ve now said recently that they might come up with some specific proposals as part of the house budget. We’ll see whether that’s the case. Realistically, we need to do the following.
There needs to be an agreement between the president and congress on short-term spending as part of the continuing resolution.

They’re arguing over the bar tab on a ship that’s headed towards an iceberg that could sink it. So they need to get perspective. Secondly, they need to end up focusing on the debt ceiling limit. We need to bring back tough budget controls with automatic enforcement mechanisms starting in 2013.

Mitchell: You know, there are some people, including fiscal hawks like my colleague, Lawrence O’donnell, who’s been making the case that you’re making. But he says we have to be very careful about not cutting too much during this weak economic period. That we can agree to cuts. I think my sense is that many people believe you should agree to something now that triggers in later. Would that do the trick?

Walker: We clearly need to recognize the difference between the short-term and the structural. Look, the real threat is not today’s deficits and debt. We can have more tolerance for spending and targeted investments in the short-term if we have a plan to deal with the real threat.What’s going on right now is a moral tragedy.We’re mortgaging the future of our kids and grandkids at record rates. But how we solve the problem involves moral issues as well.

Walker is explicitly helping the Republicans there, taunting Obama, saying he has a responsibility to “lead” on the destruction of the safety net. And Mitchell (and O’Donnell, apparently) are pushing the idea that “future” cuts are a-ok, which I think is probably the White House position as well. I suppose if they can convince Republicans not to run their usual slash and burn political campaign against them in 2012, it might even work. What do you suppose the chances of that are?

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Remember where he was just three and a half years ago

by digby

So another fringy wingnut weirdo is out there saying completely nutty stuff that nobody in their right minds would ever listen to:

Islam is not a religion. Islam is a totalitarian way of life and it starts with a legal system call sharia law. It is then a financial system, it is a military system, it is a government system, I mean it’s a geo-political system and that is hard for us to deal with, the fact that Islam is not a religion and does not deserve First Amendment protections.

In 2004, in Annandale, Virginia we discovered a false basement in a man’s home there. It turns out he was the operations officer for the Muslim Brotherhood in America. They went through all of the things in this false basement and they discovered a five-phase plan to take over America. And as you look at the plan, and it’s on the web, you’ll see that they are in the latter stages of phase three and moving into phase four very quickly. And they’ve done this just since the early Sixties when they came to this country and it is difficult for Americans, for Westerners as a whole, to understand that Islam is not a religion.

The Muslim Brotherhood was started in 1928 in Cairo. They didn’t do very well in the first decade, they only had about 800 members but then along came a guy named Adolf Hitler and Adolf Hitler began to fund the Muslim Brotherhood. That’s when he made the arrangements with the Mufti in Jerusalem and that’s why, during World War II, the Jews couldn’t return to that area because Hitler was funding the Muslim Brotherhood to keep the Jews from coming back.

Now I think as we look at the situation in Egypt today we need to recognize that the Muslim Brotherhood is very much at the root of this thing.

Glenn Beck? No. Pamela Atlas? Uh uh. It’s this man:

He served at the Central Intelligence Agency as Deputy Director of Special Activities, and was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. He was later made Deputy Director for Operations, Readiness, and Mobilization when assigned to the Army Staff. From April 1998 to February 2000, he served as the Commanding General, U.S. Army Special Forces Command (Airborne) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. From March 2000-2003, he was the Commanding General, United States Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center, Fort Bragg, N.C. In June 2003, he was appointed Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence under Dr. Stephen Cambone, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.

That’s General Jerry Boykin, the crusader. He was there until August of 2007.

I don’t want to sound like a blame American firster or be accused of hating the troops, but just what in the hell was the US Military doing with this nutcase in the high command? (And he wasn’t the only lunatic running the asylum during that period.) Shouldn’t the military be asked about this? He’s now dismissed as just another kooky right winger talking on the radio. But when you recall who this fellow was and how much responsibility he once had it takes your breath away.

And imagine how these wingnuts hear what he’s saying on the radio — the guy comes with the credibility of the Big Brass of the US Military. And he sounds just like Glenn Beck.

Update: Holy smokes. I hadn’t seen this:

Dave Neiwert at C&L had been tracking Boykin’s marxist conspiracy for some time:

this was what Boykin saw as America’s biggest problem:

I’m a Special Forces officer, I’m a Green Beret and I’ve studied Marxist insurgency, it was part of my training. And the things I know have been done in every Marxist insurgency are being done in America today.

Among the signs that we are now on the verge of a complete Marxist takeover? — The bailouts, which Boykin says “nationalized” large chunks of the economy. — Gun control, which Boykin claims that Obama is pursuing by agreeing to a United Nations small-arms treaty. — The hate crimes law, which Boykin claims is about being able to silence pastors and other critics. And then, of course, the coup d’grace:

The final thing has been to establish a constabulary force, a force that can control the population. You say “well, we don’t have that.” Well, let me remind you that prior to the election, the President stood up and said that if elected he would have a nation civilian security force that would be as large as and as well-equipped as the United States military. For what? Remember Hitler had the Brownshirts and in the Night of the Long Knives, even Hitler got scared of the Brownshirts and killed thousands of them. So you say “are there any signs that that’s happened” and the truth is yes. If you read the health care legislation which, by the way nobody in Washington has read, but if you read the health care legislation it’s actually in the health care legislation. There are paragraphs in the health care legislation that talk about the commissioning of officers in time of a national crisis to work directly for the President. It’s laying the groundwork for a constabulary force that will control the population in America.

You’ll note that it’s the GOP Governor of Wisconsin who is siccing the law on Democratic legislators to drag them back to the capital and threatening to use the National Guard to replace unions workers. But I guess that’s different. It’s not “Marxist.”

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Go Bernie!

by digby

I think what’s most amazing about this is that we hear teabagger after teabagger talk about “spending” every day and we hear Very Serious Democrats talking about making “tough choices” but we almost never hear this perspective articulated despite the fact that millions and millions of people agree with it. Including me:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Next, we get another perspective on the debate over U.S. spending and budgets. It comes from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. He’s the longest serving independent member of Congress. He caucuses with the Democrats. And he serves on the Senate Budget Committee.

First off, tell us what your main impressions are of the president’s $3.7 trillion budget proposal for next year?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-Vt.): Well, Judy, I have got a lot of problems with the president’s budget. I think it’s bad.

But I think the Republican budget is a lot worse. And my job, along with other progressive members of Congress, is to help create a budget which is fair and which protects the most vulnerable people in this country at a time when the poverty rate now is higher than at any time since 1948.

JUDY WOODRUFF: So, what would you do to achieve that? What changes would you make in the budget blueprint the president sent forward?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, that’s a good question, Judy. And I think the answer is you have got to look at what’s happening economically in America.

And what that’s about is that our middle class is collapsing. Our median family income has gone down. Poverty is going way, way up. And the gap between the very, very rich and everybody else is going wider.

So, I think, before you look at budgets or how you deal with the deficit, you have got to take that into consideration. For example, the top 1 percent today earn more income than do the bottom 50 percent. They earn about 22 percent of every dollar earned in America. And that gap is growing wider.

Meanwhile, what this budget includes are massive tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. So, you have a situation. The rich are getting richer. Their tax rates have gone down for many, many years. Their effective tax rate right now — people like Warren Buffett talk about this — at 16 percent, is lower than at any time in recent history, and yet we’re giving them huge tax breaks, while poverty in America is increasing.

We have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world for our children, and we’re cutting programs for those people. So, the first thing we have to deal with is revenue. And, as a nation, we have got to say, sorry, the rich are getting richer. They’re doing really well. Our friends on Wall Street, we shouldn’t have to worry about. They get huge amounts of compensation.

We cannot continue to give huge tax breaks to the wealthy, cut back on programs for the vulnerable. So, that’s the first issue I think we have to deal with.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, the president has talked about corporate — corporate tax reform. And he said, in two years, in — for 2012, he’s going to propose letting all those tax cuts expire that were allowed to continue in December.

You spent, what, eight-and-a-half-hours on the floor of the Senate in December in a — in a protest against that. Are you confident the president is going to let the tax cuts expire?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: No, of course I’m not. I mean, that’s what the president said when he ran for president. And yet, when the Republicans stood up to him and said, we want to give more tax breaks, extend the Bush tax breaks, essentially, the president gave in.

When the Republicans said that, we want to lower the estate tax, Judy, which appeals — which only applies to the top three-tenths of 1 percent — these are not rich folks — these the very richest people in America — the president gave into that.

So, the president may tell us that he has this in mind, but I think the record is that he has not fought for those principles. The American people want him to fight for those principles.

And I think what this whole budget debate is about is do we stand up and say, no, we’re not going to cut programs for those who need it?

The other issue that I think we have to talk about is, in the president’s budget, he talks about Social Security. And he makes me a little bit nervous, because I think, as many of our listeners know, the Social Security trust fund today has a $2.6 trillion surplus.

Social Security can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible American for the next 27 years. Social Security, because it is funded by the payroll tax, hasn’t contributed one nickel to the deficit.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Well, let me just interrupt you and point out, as you know very well, Republicans are criticizing the president for not tackling Social Security. In fact, some Democrats are saying he didn’t embrace what his own fiscal reduction — deficit reduction commission recommended.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: But that fiscal — that’s correct. But that reduction commission was made up of a conservative Democrat and a right-wing Republican.

Of course the Republicans have long wanted to privatize Social Security and destroy it. But Social Security has been the most important and valuable social program in the history of the United States. For 75 years, it’s worked perfectly. It can pay out every nickel for the next 27 years, at which time it pays out 78 percent.

JUDY WOODRUFF: But it’s not tackled in this budget.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, it’s mentioned. You’re right. It’s not tackled, but it’s mentioned.

And, in my view, when you have 16 percent of our people who are unemployed or underemployed, that’s an issue that we have got to deal with, not worry so much about a program which can pay out every nickel for the next 27 years.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I know one thing you’re concerned about, Senator, is the president’s cuts in the low-income families’ home heating assistance.

The president was asked about that at his news conference yesterday, and he said — he talked about the price of heating, of energy going down that makes it more possible to do this. But he went on to say, “Yes, I’m frustrated.” He knows people are struggling, but he said — and I’m going to quote — he said: “My job is to make sure we’re focused on the long term. And the most important thing I can do as president is make sure we’re living within our means, getting a budget that’s sustainable, investing in the future.”

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Well, first of all, if the president thinks the price of oil is going down, I invite him to come to the state of Vermont. Heating oil is going up. Of course, the price of gasoline at the pump is going up.

If the president is concerned — concerned about the long-term sustainability of our budget, then he should not have caved into the Republicans and provided huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires.

What I get a little bit frustrated about is, we’re giving money away to people who don’t need it, and then we’re really tough on students who are trying to get by on Pell Grants. You got the Community Service Block Grant. You know what that is? That is the infrastructure by which we protect low-income people all over America. The president has proposed a 50 percent cut in that.

So, I think what the American people understand is that, when we have such an unequal distribution of income right now, you don’t give more to the people who don’t need it and cut back on people who are hurting.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Senator, what about all those voices on the Republican side, and including in the Democratic Party, who are saying, all of you in government right now need to be worried about the debt about…

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Yes.

JUDY WOODRUFF: … the fact that within — we’re already borrowing so much more than the country can afford…

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Right. No, I…

JUDY WOODRUFF: … and — and so tough decisions have to be made about spending?

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: Absolutely, Judy. You’re absolutely right. And the deficit is a very serious problem. Please, do not mishear me to suggest that it is not.

The deficit primarily has been caused by two wars unfunded, huge tax breaks to people who don’t need it, an insurance-company-written Medicare Part D prescription drug program, and the bailout of Wall Street.

The cause of it is not hungry children in this country or people who are sleeping out on the street. So, we have got to deal with the deficit, but you do it in a fair and progressive way. For example, this year alone, we’re losing a hundred billion dollars in revenue because corporations, the wealthy, are stashing their money in tax havens in the Cayman Islands.

This year, ExxonMobil, the most profitable corporation in the history of the world, is not paying a nickel in federal income taxes, despite having made $19 billion last year. In 2005, one-quarter of corporation — large corporations in America making a trillion in revenue didn’t pay a nickel in taxes. You have got a military budget which in many ways is still fighting the old Cold War.

So, I believe that we have to move toward significant deficit reduction, but you don’t do it on the backs of the middle class and working families who are already suffering as a result of this Wall Street-caused recession.

You want to know the way to raise money? Put a transaction fee on Wall Street, so maybe we can curb some of the speculation and raise some money.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, we hear you. And we’re going to leave it there.

I so wish I could vote for this guy.

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Quote of the Day

by digby

Libertarian Nick Gillespie:

“Social security is one of the most immoral programs ever”

Read the whole transcript for more of delightful observations just like that. He later claims this is because it’s unfair to the poor. But that’s dishonest. This is why libertarians think social security it immoral.

How much, when, and in what form one should provide for retirement is highly individual–and is properly left to the individual’s free judgment and action. Social Security deprives the young of this freedom, and thus makes them less able to plan for the future, less able to provide for their retirements, less able to buy homes, less able to enjoy their most vital years, less able to invest in themselves. And yet Social Security’s advocates continue to push it as moral. Why?

The answer lies in the program’s ideal of “universal coverage”–the idea that, as a recent New York Times editorial preached, “all old people must have the dignity of financial security”–regardless of how irresponsibly they have acted. On this premise, since some would not save adequately on their own, everyone must be forced into some sort of “guaranteed” collective plan–no matter how irrational. Observe that Social Security’s wholesale harm to those who would use their income responsibly is justified in the name of those who would not. The rational and responsible are shackled and throttled for the sake of the irrational and irresponsible.

Those who wish to devote their wealth to saving the irresponsible from the consequences of their own actions should be free to do so through private charity, but to loot the savings of untold millions of innocent, responsible, hard-working young people in the name of such a goal is a monstrous injustice.

Social Security in any form is morally irredeemable. We should be debating, not how to save Social Security, but how to end it–how to phase it out so as to best protect both the rights of those who have paid into it, and those who are forced to pay for it today. This will be a painful task. But it will make possible a world in which Americans enjoy far greater freedom to secure their own futures.

Why do they feel the need to pretend their objection to Social Security is out of some altruistic concern for the poor?

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Animals at the Dentist

by digby

Time for some animal pictures:

This hippo used to belong to Pablo Escobar!

Click here for a whole series of pics showing animals getting their teeth brushed. Who knew?

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Scary Nerds Taking Over The World

by digby

Sometimes you just have to love Glenn Beck, if only because he’s such a perfect example of right wing nuttiness:

[H]e’s warning his audience against looking up his conspiracy theories on Google…because Google might be a part of the conspiracy:

Who are they? Are they right? Are they left? Are they clean? Are they dirty? Are they front groups? I don’t know. May I recommend if you’re doing your own homework, don’t do a Google search. It seems to me that Google is pretty deeply in bed with the government. Remember, maybe this is explaining why Google is being kicked out of all the other countries. Are they just a shill now for the United States government? Who is Jared Cohen? Is he a private citizen or government operative? And isn’t this the second Google guy we’ve found? This is the second Google executive now being exposed as an instigator of a revolution.

Don’t tell Beck about this shadowy, international media figure who has donated more than a million dollars to a specific political party. I think it will finally make him dissociate completely.

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On Logan

by digby

I’ve been asked several times today why I’m “shying away” from the Lara Logan story, as if I have something to hide or am ambivalent about it. For the record, as a woman this story is particularly awful for me, since when I was a young teenager I was molested by a male mob in a large crowd, although it sounds as if I got off very easy compared to Logan. More importantly, as a human being, this kind of thing is so disturbing and dark that it makes you lose faith in your fellow man altogether.

Without knowing who the perpetrators were or what their agenda was, it’s hard to know how to think of this in light of all the talk of freedom and democracy talk in Tahrir Square over the past month. But regardless, I think it’s fairly clear that the idea of universal human rights for women isn’t yet at the top of the agenda — anywhere. I’ve been told by some American feminists that it’s wrong to question that — “cultural interference” or something. But I don’t know why that should be. Women make up half the world’s population so why their position in society should be ignored when people are celebrating liberty and democracy eludes me.

And anyway, judging from the comments about this awful event, America isn’t much better so I don’t think we can attribute this to “cultural” differences at all. Echidne has a rundown here. It’s enough to make you puke. This is a species problem.

Update: Media Matters has more on disgusting reaction to Logan’s assault, here. Ugh.

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Paranoid Xenophobe Demographic

by digby

Here’s a question for you. Is it that paranoid xenophobes watch Fox news or that people who watch Fox news become paranoid, intolerant xenophobes? Sarah Posner parses the numbers:

• Public Religion Research Institute is out with a new poll on Americans’ attitudes towards the hearings planned by House Homeland Security Committee Chair Rep. Peter King (R-NY) into what he claims is extremism in the American Muslim community. While the headline on the survey results is “Majority of Americans Say Congressional Hearings on Alleged Extremism In Muslim Communities Are ‘Good Idea,'” the data actually show not that many respondents had actually heard about King’s hearings. The group that was most likely to have heard about them: Fox News viewers. “Very few have heard about the King hearings,” said Robert P. Jones, president of PRRI. “Only one-third have heard anything at all, and 65% said they’d heard nothing at all.” The survey shows, said Jones, a “context of low information.” Although 56% said they thought the hearings were a “good idea,” seven out of 10 respondents said the hearings shouldn’t single out Muslim extremism. When asked whether hearings should focus on religious extremism, not just Muslim extremism, said Jones, 72% agreed. They “don’t want Congress to be bigoted,” he added. But of the 22% of respondents who believe “assertions that American Muslims want to establish Shari’a or Muslim law as the law of the land in the U.S.,” Jones noted distinct partisan divisions, much like distinctions between Americans who believe false claims that President Obama is a Muslim. Nearly one-third of Republicans believe the shari’ah law assertion, compared to 15% of Democrats. Jones noted a “significant Fox News effect,” pointing to his data that 23% of respondents identified Fox News as their “most trusted” source of broadcast news. Among those folks,” said Jones, “they’re much more likely to have heard about hearings, think they’re a good idea, and they are about two times as likely to affirm the statement” about shari’ah law (35%, as opposed to 22% of the entire sample). Broken down by religious group, said Jones, white evangelicals stand out: one-third of white evangelicals — who are also more likely than other religious groups to watch Fox — believe the statement about shari’ah law.

I know we’re not supposed to compare good and decent Real Americans to Muslim extremists, but sometimes it’s impossible to ignore the irony of the fact that the same people who are worried about Shari’ah law are trying to institute laws that make it legal to kill someone who endangers a fetus. It’s true that they aren’t proposing to stone them to death, but I suspec t that’s just because they have so many guns at hand.

Seriously, these people are extremists and they are the tail that’s wagging the Republican dog. If they weren’t, the leadership of the GOP wouldn’t be so afraid to insult them by pointing out that Obama is not, in fact, a Muslim.

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On Wisconsin

by digby

I think most of us are riveted on the events in the middle east and the amazing idealistic hope that they will be able to establish democratic governments throughout the region without major bloodshed.

But I’m gobsmacked that some of this protest energy is showing itself in America too. Think Progress reports:

ThinkProgress has been following both Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) recent “budget repair bill,” which would effectively eliminate state workers’ right to collectively bargain, and his coinciding threat to deploy the National Guard to stop a walkout. Yesterday, the Super Bowl champion Green Bay Packers criticized Walker, saying that collective bargaining is “fundamental” to the middle class. Approximately 13,000 peaceful protesters flooded the state Capitol yesterday, including nearly 800 Madison East High School students who left school to protest Walker’s bill. Democratic lawmakers listened to testimonies from citizens for more than 20 hours, stretching into the early morning. Many people who hadn’t yet gotten to speak pulled out sleeping bags. Responding to his inappropriate threat to use the National Guard against resisting workers, Walker said last night on Greta Van Susteren’s On The Record that the National Guard has contingency plans for natural disasters, and a worker “walk-off is part of [the] contingency plan”:

VAN SUSTEREN: You have the Guard on alert. Why, if that is true? WALKER: No, in our case we have contingency plans that we put into place that are updated from where they were before. The National Guard is part of that. They would be part of that whether it is a snow emergency, tornado, earthquake, flood, anything else. And a work walk-off is part of contingency plan.

Walker also dismissed the huge numbers of protesters, saying that the number of participants (reportedly 13,000) was not significant because there are “about 5.5 million people in the state.”

I continue to be amazed that the Tea Partiers, who are allegedly willing to take up arms against the despotic socialsit government at the drop of a hat, are backing this fellow. If anyone has even a shred of doubt left that these so-called libertarians are nothing more than sad, confused, ideological drama queens, this should eliminate it. After all, what we are seeing in Wisconsin is a “leader” who is stating that he will bring in the army to stop American citizens from exercising their rights. This is the very definition of the “men with guns” libertarian boogeyman.

The good news is that Americans rarely get off their couches unless there’s a big sale at the mall, but this fine fellow seems to have found the formula to get it done. And it’s pretty inspirational. Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Algeria, Wisconsin … the US?

Correction: edited to say “major” bloodshed as people have, in fact, died and been wounded and died.

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Grand Bargain Risingby digby
I’ve been getting an unusual amount of criticism lately because of my skepticism toward the Democrats and the President on deficit reduction and “entitlement” reform. The main problem seems to be that I supposedly hate Obama and don’t understand what a hard job he has and that I never see anything good in anyone. But what really seems to bother a fair number of my readers and correspondents is that I keep harping on the fact that while Obama has always wanted to be seen as transformative in the Reagan mold, he forgot that Reagan was a hard-core ideologue who didn’t just tweak some processes but radically changed the prevailing conventional wisdom. Unfortunately, Obama is actually extending the Reagan consensus, even as he pursues his own agenda of creating a Grand Bargain that will bring peace among the dueling parties (a dubious goal in itself.)I’ve been writing about the Grand Bargain since the minute I read about it before the inauguration. It struck me as a perfect illustration of Obama’s stated desire to “bring people together” by killing liberalism as we’ve known it. Others have recently been revisiting the topic since Obama’s fabulous success in extending the Bush tax cuts in exchange for the Republicans agreeing to do what they were already going to do.
Dday reports on the latest:

I noticed a fair bit of good Democrats and Obama defenders throwing cold water on what Elizabeth Drew reported in the New York Review of Books about back-channel negotiations aimed at a “grand bargain” on the budget, tax reform and even entitlements. Jon Chait didn’t like the sourcing. Neither did Kevin Drum. At least Steve Benen acknowledged that there have been bipartisan talks happening in the Senate since at least December, but he doubted much would come of them. A day or so later, the New York Times reports on… back-channel negotiations aimed at a “grand bargain” on the budget, tax reform and even entitlements.

The White House has already opened back-channel conversations to test Republicans’ willingness to negotiate about the soaring costs of Medicare and Medicaid, Social Security’s long-range solvency and an income-tax code riddled with more than $1 trillion a year worth of loopholes and tax breaks. The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, all but invited Mr. Obama on Tuesday to start huddling about the issues, and a bipartisan group of senators held a third meeting to write debt-reduction legislation based on the recommendations in December of the majority of a bipartisan fiscal commission established by the president […] While no budget summit is imminent, Mr. Obama said he and Republican leaders are “going to be in discussions over the next several months.” He said moving forward required “a spirit of cooperation between Democrats and Republicans. And I think that’s possible.”

And the Washington Post basically had the same thing.

“This is not a matter of ‘You go first’ or ‘I go first,’ ” Obama said. “This is a matter of everybody having a serious conversation about where we want to go and then ultimately getting in that boat at the same time so it doesn’t tip over.” In the Senate, where the December deals were forged, Republicans were receptive to that message. But they argued that Obama missed a chance in his budget to send a signal that costly entitlement programs are on the table. “Entitlement reform will not be done except on a bipartisan basis with presidential leadership,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told reporters. “I’ve been inviting the president to have that conversation since he took office two years ago,” he added. “It doesn’t have to be in public. We all understand there are some limitations to negotiating significant agreements in public.”

More from CNN.

Those of you who follow this blog already know what this likely entails, but click over to dday for a very nice primer if you are unclear. Basically what it means is extending Reaganomics for another generation — and all that that entails. And sadly for Obama, his great dream of having everyone in the country love him for ending all the partisan bickering and bringing everyone together is highly unlikely to happen.

In fact, as I have pointed out before and had Dday reiterates today, the Republicans are very anxious to lay the blame for cutting popular entitlements, particularly those that affect the elderly, at the feet of the Democrats. After all, seniors are their fastest growing demographic at the moment and in the last election they had absolutely no problem demagogueing medicare cuts, despite their own decades-long antipathy toward the program. They don’t just desire this — it’s a necessity if they hope to win majorities and the presidency. They aren’t going to get there with the young, browner America that’s coming up. But their ideology depends upon anti-government sentiment. If they can get the democrats to do their dirty work for them, it will be a huger win that benefits them greatly for the next couple of decades as the most dependable voters in the country — the elderly — become hard core Republicans. That’s the baby boom, in case you’re unclear. And there is no reason in the world why that demographic should go Republican.

This is really happening. And if it works, liberalism may never recover. In fact it will be the final triumph of Reaganism. Progressives should not be complacent about this.

Dday has more on what this means for Social Security. The president has not sold out Social security in his speeches and his budget. But he hasn’t taken it off the table either. The administration is using some very specific language (no “slashing” of benefits) that is wide open to interpretation.

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