Month: March 2011

Groundhog Day

by digby

Dylan Ratigan is hosting a Townhall tonight at 5PM pst on energy. You can see it here.

Before you watch it you might want to read this excellent article in today’s NY Times:

IMAGINE a foreign policy version of the movie “Groundhog Day,” with Bill Murray playing the president of the United States. The alarm clock rings. Political mayhem is again shaking the Middle East, crude oil and gasoline prices are climbing, and an economic recovery is under threat. President Nixon woke up to the same alarm during the 1973-74 Arab oil embargo and declared Project Independence to end the country’s dependency on imported oil. President Carter, during the Iranian revolution, called an effort to reduce dependency on foreign oil “the moral equivalent of war.” President George W. Bush called oil an addiction. On Wednesday, in a nationally televised address, President Obama said, “We cannot keep going from shock when gas prices go up to trance when gas prices go back down. We can’t rush to propose action when prices are high, then push the snooze button when they go down again.” So, with Libyan and other North African and Middle Eastern oil fields jeopardized by political upheaval and Japan’s nuclear power disaster turning the energy world on its head, the alarm is ringing again. As gasoline prices rise and even the stability of Saudi Arabia is suddenly in question, energy independence is taking on new urgency. The path to that independence — or at least an end to dependence on the Mideast — could well be dirty, expensive and politically explosive.

Read on.

The Frontrunner

by digby

Here’s the latest on the GOP field:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee would go toe-to-toe with President Obama if he sought the presidency in 2012, according to a new Fairleigh Dickinson University survey. Among registered voters nationwide, 46 percent said they’d vote for Huckabee and the same number would re-elect the president.

That’s good. I think Huckabee would be a terrific president. In hell.

Huckabee has just been caught on video, at a Christian supremacist conference, stating that Americans should be forcibly indoctrinated at gunpoint. The organization which hosted the “Rediscover God In America” conference, United in Purpose, has edited Huckabee’s comment from footage of his speech, but not before People For The American Way’s Kyle Mantyla captured the unedited footage, in which Mike Huckabee states, “I almost wish that there would be, like, a simultaneous telecast, and all Americans would be forced–forced at gunpoint no less–to listen to every David Barton message, and I think our country would be better for it. I wish it’d happen.”

If you read this blog you are familiar with David Barton. So are all the Tea partiers who think of Barton as the Commander in chief of Glenn Beck’s Black Robed regiment. He is not just a socially conservative preacher. He’s a full blown propagandist who’s created an alternative history of the United States. It’s not a good one.

He’s a very dangerous man. And so, apparently, is Mike Huckabee.

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Rebalancing The Right

by digby

The Tea Party had a rally today in DC and hardly anyone showed up. I think it’s fairly clear that unless the astro-turfed groups provide funds and pay for logistics and Fox News relentless flogs it, the “movement” isn’t all that organized.

But it’s probably more than that. The Tea Party as a distinct identity was always going to be short lived. We have a two party system and these so-called non-partisan splinter groups tend to move back into the system after a cycle or two. In this case, it was a brilliant strategy on the part of the GOP and the plutocrats. They had to separate themselves quickly from the Bush legacy of failure so they jumped on/created a separate conservative strain they could portray as distinct from the party and mobilize it for 2010. The succeeded admirably, but they aren’t needed anymore. The energy is gone and they are going back to the party.

However, the far right is now and even more powerful bloc in the Party and one which the House Republicans can use very effectively in negotiations. (“I’m sorry Mr President, I’d love to help you, but I can’t do anything with these people.”) More importantly, they are convinced that their victory truly validated their extremism. One hopes that the public’s growing restiveness over this hubristic overreach will reach critical mass at the right time so they will be pulled back from the precipice. We have big problems in this country and having a bunch of extremist nutballs with enough political power to veto any rational solutions is dangerous.

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Cutting spending in order to raise it

by digby

John Boehner today:

We’re listening to the people who sent us here to cut spending so we can grow our economy.

Obama last month:

I’m convinced that the only way we can make these investments in our future is if our government starts living within its means, if we start taking responsibility for our deficits. That’s why, when I was sworn in as President, I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term. The budget I’m proposing today meets that pledge—and puts us on a path to pay for what we spend by the middle of the decade. We do this in part by eliminating waste and cutting whatever spending we can do without.

When you see the two together it doesn’t really sound like there’s much to argue about does it?

I wonder how the average American hears them? The Republicans are simply saying that cutting spending will grow the economy, full stop. Obama is saying that we need to cut spending but spend more for the future. Do they know the difference? And if they do, does it make sense to them?

I guess we’re going to find out because the administration seems to be hooked on the idea that a message of cutting spending while also investing is something that people will instinctively understand — and more importantly that cutting spending in order to raise spending will work. Unfortunately, in order to make that case they think they can make a splashy future deficit reduction plan along the lines of the catfood commission stand in for their alleged dedication to spending cuts.

Once you’ve bought into the idea that reducing spending is the most important priority, it takes on a life of its own — and unfortunately validates the idea that cutting spending immediately will stimulate the economy. But if you want it to actually grow, you can’t actually do that. It’s going to be quite a show.

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Trading on the Tea Party

by digby

This just makes me laugh:

The Tea Party does not have a presence in Indonesia, where the term evokes cups of orange pekoe and sweet cakes rather than angry citizens in “Don’t Tread on Me” T-shirts.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

But a Tea Party group in the United States, the Institute for Liberty, has vigorously defended the freedom of a giant Indonesian paper company to sell its wares to Americans without paying tariffs. The institute set up Web sites, published reports and organized a petition drive attacking American businesses, unions and environmentalists critical of the company, Asia Pulp & Paper.

Last fall, the institute’s president, Andrew Langer, had himself videotaped on Long Wharf in Boston holding a copy of the Declaration of Independence as he compared Washington’s proposed tariff on paper from Indonesia and China to Britain’s colonial trade policies in 1776.

Tariff-free Asian paper may seem an unlikely cause for a nonprofit Tea Party group. But it is in keeping with a succession of pro-business campaigns — promoting commercial space flight, palm oil imports and genetically modified alfalfa — that have occupied the Institute for Liberty’s recent agenda.

Yes, well, the astro-turfed nature of the Tea Party is well known and nobody should be surprised by this. In fact, this next is just CW nonsense:

The Tea Party movement is as deeply skeptical of big business as it is of big government. Yet an examination of the Institute for Liberty shows how Washington’s influence industry has adapted itself to the Tea Party era. In a quietly arranged marriage of seemingly disparate interests, the institute and kindred groups are increasingly the bearers of corporate messages wrapped in populhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifist Tea Party themes.

There is no evidence that the Tea Party is anti-business. Reporters confuse the fact that they are against bailouts with skepticism about business. That’s backwards. It’s the government end of the bailouts they are skeptical of.

Pam Stout, one of the grassroots poster girls for the national Tea Party movement, said it on David Letterman when he asks her to explain why she thinks things are getting worse in this country:

I think [it’s] the fact that we demonize business … we have one of the highest tax structures” in the world.

Right wing populist isn’t particularly “anti-business” in the first place, but this Tea Party movement isn’t even close. They are far right Republicans who have been brainwashed to believe that wealthy people and businesses must be revered because they are the “innovators” who make this country great. They are, in other words, willing serfs.

It is not in the least bit surprising to me that their astro-turf groups are making tons of money trading on the name. But they’d better be careful. The Tea Party may worship big business and hate taxes like any other far right conservative — but they are very mistrustful of foreigners. A good many of them are undoubtedly particularly mistrustful of Muslim foreigners,which includes a whole lot of Indonesians. It’s a fine line.

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Struggles of the top 5%

by digby

How to sound like a total ass in one easy lesson:

At a town hall meeting in Polk County, Wisconsin earlier this year, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) was asked whether he’d vote to cut his http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif$174,000 annual salary. Duffy sort of hedged, and went on to talk about how $174,000 really isn’t that much for his family of seven to live on. Then he went on to say he supports cutting compensation for all public employees, along the lines of what Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) has proposed for the Badger State…

Duffy also said that he pays more in health care costs and retirement savings than he did when he was a district attorney before he ran for Congress. That said, Duffy said he’d support the idea of “public employees across the board” taking a compensation cut.

“Let’s all join hands together and say ‘I’ll take a pay decrease, absolutely,” Duffy said.

The median household income in his district was $50,520 in 2008. This guy makes more money than 95% of Americans.

I’m sure Congressman Duffy believes that he is a far superior person than those losers who can’t even manage to crack six figures so it’s not worth even comparing the sacrifices he makes. And in any case, he’s making less than he could if he worked on Wall Street or in some other elevated position (and undoubtedly will when he cashes in from his stint in government.) So really, he’s sacrificed quite enough already and it’s very generous of him to even consider giving up some of this 172,000 salary.

I’ve heard this same line many, many times, even from liberals who complain that their quarter million dollar salaries are barely enough to meet expenses. I heard one complaining a few years back that one simply can’t afford to live in LA on less that 300k a year (and even then you’d have to live somewhere horrible, darling, like Encino.) I hear this and I want to give them a brisk slap. They simply must not even see the hundreds of people they cross paths with every day of their lives.

Still, there’s something particularly smarmy about a politician who whines to his own constituents about barely getting by on three times their salary and then offering to “sacrifice” by taking a pay cut right along with them. Big of him. As if he will feel the same pinch as someone who brings home 600 bucks a week…

BTW: The GOP was so thrilled with that speech they had it up on their web-site until it was pointed out that their boy came off as Little Lord Fauntleroy.They are so far out of touch these days that they can’t even fake being human any more.

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Seriously, What Is Wrong With These People?

by tristero

From the great Mark Bittman, who has moved very deeply into food politics.

[The poor] are — once again — under attack, this time in the House budget bill, H.R. 1. The budget proposes cuts in the WIC program (which supports women, infants and children), in international food and health aid (18 million people would be immediately cut off from a much-needed food stream, and 4 million would lose access to malaria medicine) and in programs that aid farmers in underdeveloped countries. Food stamps are also being attacked, in the twisted “Welfare Reform 2011” bill. (There are other egregious maneuvers in H.R. 1, but I’m sticking to those related to food.)

These supposedly deficit-reducing cuts — they’d barely make a dent — will quite literally cause more people to starve to death, go to bed hungry or live more miserably than are doing so now. And: The bill would increase defense spending…

In 2010, corporate profits grew at their fastest rate since 1950, and we set records in the number of Americans on food stamps. The richest 400 Americans have more wealth than half of all American households combined, the effective tax rate on the nation’s richest people has fallen by about half in the last 20 years, and General Electric paid zero dollars in U.S. taxes on profits of more than $14 billion. Meanwhile, roughly 45 million Americans spend a third of their posttax income on food — and still run out monthly — and one in four kids goes to bed hungry at least some of the time…

“We shouldn’t be reducing our meager efforts for poor people in order to reduce the deficit,” [David Beckman] told me by phone. “They didn’t get us into this, and starving them isn’t going to get us out of it.”

I should mention that Mark Bittman has ratcheted up his writing on the politics of food in spite of my clear advice to the contrary. I’m beginning to suspect that he doesn’t read me.* However if this kind of full-throated advocacy is the result, I couldn’t be happier to be dead wrong.

*Special note to those in the commentariat who actually think that I believe that Mark Bittman, in fact, reads my posts: I was kidding.

(I do hope he reads Digby’s posts, however. He’s missing a lot if he doesn’t.)

The Daily Show on Libya:

by digby

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
America at Not-War – Obama Defends Military Action in Libya
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog The Daily Show on Facebook

I think Stewart has the right take — this is one of those things that just doesn’t scan.

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Fire This Public Employee

by digby

Now we’re talking:

It’s everything that’s wrong with corporate power today: News broke last week that General Electric, America’s largest corporation, made $14,200,000,000 in profits last year and paid $0 in taxes — that’s right, zero dollars in taxes. At the same time, C.E.O. Jeffrey Immelt saw his compensation double. Now I hear that GE is expected to ask 15,000 of their unionized workers to make major concessions in wages and benefits. But what really adds insult to injury is the prestigious and influential position Jeffrey Immelt holds as chair of President Obama’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. That’s wrong. Someone like Immelt, who has helped his company evade taxes on its huge profits — and is now looking to workers to take major pay cuts after his compensation was doubled — should not lead the administration’s effort to create jobs… How can someone like Immelt be given the responsibility of heading a jobs creation task force when his company has been creating more jobs overseas while reducing its American workforce? And under Immelt’s direction, GE spends hundreds of millions of dollars hiring lawyers and lobbyists to evade taxes. All of this at a time when Fox News and the right wing are demonizing public workers, like teachers, as the cause of our economic problems. It’s time for policymakers to stop coddling corporate interests, and get to work creating jobs and wealth for Main Street. We shouldn’t reward wealthy CEOs and Wall Street for behavior that undermines the nation’s economy.

That’s Russ Feingold, calling for Immelt to be fired. Isn’t it pretty to think Obama might do it?

It would be surprising, however, considering how effectively the Masters of the Universe and John Galts have worked the refs over the past couple of years. They were so dedicated that they were willing to allow themselves to be seen a whimpering, drooling, crybabies over and over again whining incessantly about how mean the president was. They did this because they are egomaniacs, to be sure. But it was also in order to send the message that they wouldn’t be entertaining any donation requests any time soon if they were openly challenged.

Obama knows what’s going on:

“It’s almost like they’ve got — they’ve got a bomb strapped to them and they’ve got their hand on the trigger,” President Obama said on Thursday of the banks he’s chosen to bail out. “You don’t want them to blow up. But you’ve got to kind of talk [to] them, ease that finger off the trigger.”

Greg Sargent points out that this may not work for the president all that well going forward:

Feingold’s demand reflects a sense that there’s a large constituhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifency on the left that is fed up with the tendency of corporatist Beltway Dems to treat corporations with kid gloves because they’re “job creators.” Progressives like Feingold believe that Dems achieve far better organizational success and unleash more grassroots energy — as evidenced by events in Wisconsin — when they adopt a more confrontational posture towards corporations and the politicians who lend them aid and comfort, and unabashedly treat corporate America as the institution whose misbehavior and excess landed us in our economic mess.

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Crooks are Crooks

by digby

Oh my goodness, I think someone’s going to have to convene an investigative hearing:

ThinkProgress has discovered more troubling evidence that Issa may have blended his work as a lawmaker with his own business empire. After founding a successful car alarm company, Issa invested his fortune in a sprawling network of real estate companies with holdings throughout his district. One of Issa’s most valuable properties, a medical office building at 2067 West Vista Way in Vista, California, is called the Vista Medical Center, and was purchased in 2008 for $16.6 million. Described as “a long-term investment,” the property was bought by a company called Viper LLC, a business entity operated by Issa’s family that Issa has up to a $25 million dollar stake in. Around the same time, Issa made the Vista Medical Center purchase, the congressman began requesting millions of dollars worth of earmarks to widen and improve the highway adjacent to the building. In 2008, he requested $2 million to expand West Vista Way, the road in front of his “long-term investment,” but only received $245,000 from the government. The next year, Issa made another earmark request for improving the West Vista Way highway next to his building. He earmarked another $570,000, bringing his total to $815,000, to add parking lots, widen the road, add bus stops, improve the sewer system, and other utility work.

One of the things I love best about the Republicans is their remarkable ability to embody everything they purport to hate. It’s like a mass personality disorder.

Issa is, and was, a crook. It’s his defining characteristic. Why anyone thought it was good idea to put him in charge of an investigative committee is anyone’s guess. (Maybe they just didn’t have anyone better?)

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