Month: March 2011

Who’s Having The Kookiest Public Meltdown?

by digby

I knew that the world was in one of its manic states last night when I watched back to back interviews with Charlie Sheen and Qaddafi. I was completely sober but felt dizzy and disoriented at the end. If you too had that hallucinogenic experience you might be qualified to takeNew York Magazine’s new game: It’s Time to Play ‘Sheen, Beck, or Qaddafi?’:

Clearly, February was a peerless month in the history of unhinged rants. Between Charlie Sheen, Glenn Beck, and Muammar Qaddafi, it was difficult just to keep track of who was saying which unintelligible thing at any given time. Really difficult, in fact. To demonstrate just what a struggle it is to distinguish between the mad ramblings of an entertainer, a despot, and a newsman another entertainer, we’ve put together this quiz. If you get them all right, you are some kind of savant.

I got ten right which proves, once again, that I really need to get a life.

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Middle Class Solidarity

by digby

Mike Elk has another fine report from Wisconsin that brings up an important point:

Last Friday, two van loads of United Steelworkers (USW) Local 7-669 members, who have been locked out of the Honeywell uranium facility in Metropolis, Ill., for nine months, traveled through the night to join the ongoing protest in the Wisconsin State Capitol.

“After all the support we have seen from around the country, it would be a disservice not to join our brothers and sisters in Wisconsin and give some of that support back,” said Darrell Lillie, president of the USW local. “Without collective bargaining rights, workers in both the public and private sector would be devastated and lose their voice in the workplace.”

The 228 union workers in Metropolis have waged what labor historian Joe Burns called the most high-profile labor struggle, as Honeywell’s CEO attempts to bust unions throughout the corporation. They have been at the forefront of defending the right to collective bargaining in the private sector, facing an adversary in the private sector as ideologically fanatical as Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker—Honeywell CEO David Cote.

The anti-union plutocrats have been doing a very good job of separating “unions” from public employees and trying to convince people that there is some sort of fundamental difference between them. Recall this blather from Gloria Borger on CNN:

One of the most level-headed public officials in all of this budget frenzy is Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels. He’s a grownup, having served both outside and inside Washington. Yes he also dealt with the public employee union issue, by signing an executive order ending collective bargaining for Indiana state workers, which cost him politically early on in his tenure.

Yet when state Republicans called for a vote on a proposal to weaken unions in the private sector — and Democratic members started heading for the hills — Daniels decided to lower the temperature and shelve the bill.

He’s not the only one who’s made this distinction Many Republicans have been trying to hedge their bets on this (probably recognizing a teensy vulnerability with the white working class)by saying that the private sector unions are clearly legitimate (even though they try to break them every chance they get.)

The best way to disabuse people of that notion is for the private sector unions to stand in solidarity, which they are. Every time we hear one of these slippery right wingers try to make a distinction between them, the other side should stop them in their tracks and set them straight.

This is an interesting labor fight and different than what’s happened before. It’s a middle class fight this time. I’m not sure the Republicans fully grasp what that means.

Update: Mike Elk writes in to tell me that my observations are not altogether correct. The building trade unions have been hostile to the public employees because they see their compensation as cutting into public works programs that would employ them. The oligarchs are smart to slowly drown government in the bathtub — it makes the working people fight each other over an ever decreasing piece of the pie.

Anyway, SEIU and the AFL-CIO are on the ground along with other union folks in Wisconsin so it’s not across the aboard. But it’s not a clear cut as I thought either.

Here’s Elk’s piece on the union feud.
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From The Give Em An Inch File

by digby

Here’s the latest on the government shutdown:

On Monday, the Obama administration finally entered the debate over a short-term continuing resolution, alerting lawmakers that while the administration appreciated a two-week measure that would include $4 billion in spending cuts, a month-long extension would be preferable.
[…]
And yet, a 30-day stopgap, which Senate Democrats have long argued is the ideal length of a short-term CR, remains skeptically regarded among House Republicans. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), speaking to reporters at a press conference at the Republican National Committee scoffed at the idea, though did not reject it outright.
[…]
The House is set to vote on the two-week CR and there is no indication that those plans have changed. Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) met on Monday night to discuss switching to a 30-day variation, which would simply extend the $4 billion in cuts to $8 billion. By Tuesday morning, neither office was showing its hand, though a House GOP aide, privy to the talks, relayed that if Republicans were to agree to a longer stopgap, they would demand even more cuts in return.

I can’t tell you how shocking I find this. Who would have ever thought the Republicans would be good at playing chicken?

I have heard that one of the big Democratic ideas is to just keep issuing continuing resolutions up until the 2012 election. If this is going to be the way they do it, the Republicans must be thrilled. By then, they will have dismantled everything but faith based programs, the border patrol and the Pentagon.

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Credit Where Credit is Due

by digby

I’ve been hard on Jon Stewart, but when he’s on, he’s really on — especially when he’s going after the right targets:

This attack on teachers has a very strange tinge to it. It was a traditionally female profession and I think it’s still more heavily weighted to women than men, especially in the lower grades. Watching a bunch of red faced, right wingers attacking them for being selfish, lazy fat cats is disturbing and I can’t help but wonder if the loathing for people like this runs a little deeper than politics:

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Koch Dreams

by digby

Lot’s of news from Wisconsin, which you are probably already aware of. If not, you should check out Dday and TPM. They are doing blanket coverage of events out there. The stand-off continues.

But I have to say that this amazing op-ed from David Koch in the WSJ, defending Scott Walker’s actions, is so perfectly representative of the Randian cult of self-love and class warfare that it’s almost a parody. (As dday tweeted, “is this Ian Murphy again?”) it’s well worth reading for its standard right wing petulant tone alone, but this is what really stuck out:

The Congressional Budget Office has warned that the interest on our federal debt is “poised to skyrocket.” Even Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke is sounding alarms. Yet the White House insists that substantial spending cuts would hurt the economy and increase unemployment. Plenty of compelling examples indicate just the opposite. When Canada recently reduced its federal spending to 11.3% of GDP from 17.5% eight years earlier, the economy rebounded and unemployment dropped. By comparison, our federal spending is 25% of GDP.

Well that’s one way of looking at it. Here’s another:

[T]he long-term budget problem is entirely the result of our broken private health care system. If our per person health care costs were the same as what people paid in Canada, Germany or any other wealthy country, we would be looking at enormous budget surpluses (in the “trillions”), not deficits. Of course, this would mean going after the drug companies, the insurance industry, the doctors’ lobbies and other health industry groups. Unfortunately, both the politicians and budget reporters are scared to cross these powerful interest groups.

That’s especially interesting in light of Koch’s further insistence that he’s trying to end crony capitalism in order to create “free markets” which are much more efficient. And it’s true that a “free market” in health care would undoubtedly find someone to cover the sickest people in the country — including the elderly. It’s just that it will cost them 10k a month. Or they will die. After all, sick and old people are very “inefficient” and add nothing to the economy:

Crony capitalism is much easier than competing in an open market. But it erodes our overall standard of living and stifles entrepreneurs by rewarding the politically favored rather than those who provide what consumers want. The purpose of business is to efficiently convert resources into products and services that make people’s lives better. Businesses that fail to do so should be allowed to go bankrupt rather than be bailed out.

But what about jobs that are lost when businesses go under? It’s important to remember that not all jobs are the same. In business, real jobs profitably produce goods and services that people value more highly than their alternatives. Subsidizing inefficient jobs is costly, wastes resources, and weakens our economy.

That’s pretty much all he has to say about jobs, although he does go on to say that a lack of “economic freedom” is harmful to the poor, which proves that he is a wonderful guy despite the fact that he thinks of workers as production units instead of human beings:

Our elected officials would do well to remember that the most prosperous countries are those that allow consumers—not governments—to direct the use of resources. Allowing the government to pick winners and losers hurts almost everyone, especially our poorest citizens.

Recent studies show that the poorest 10% of the population living in countries with the greatest economic freedom have 10 times the per capita income of the poorest citizens in countries with the least economic freedom. In other words, society as a whole benefits from greater economic freedom.

Even though it affects our business, as a matter of principle our company has been outspoken in defense of economic freedom. This country would be much better off if every company would do the same. Instead, we see far too many businesses that paint their tails white and run with the antelope.

By his own admission he isn’t “principled” enough to not accept subsidies, however. They have to in order to “compete.” And I’d be very interested to know what countries land on the list of “economically free” because if we follow this fellow we’ll be living in a full blown banana republic where “freedom” is defined as the freedom of the upper classes to fully exploit the desperate masses.

These oligarchs are ideologues, to be sure. But make no mistake, their ideology is not driven by their civic duty or the common good. It is driven by their desire to accumulate as much wealth as possible for themselves and their heirs. Their “principles” all flow from that.

Here’s what he is trying to solidify and preserve:

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Hey buddy, can you spare a dime?

by digby

Susie Madrak at Suburban Guerilla is holding a fundraiser. If you can spare it, she could use it and she’s worth every penny.

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Villagers: Americans are too dumb to make decisions

by digby

May I present — The Village, via Hardball today:

Matthews: You poll people about what they want to see cut. They say foreign aid and general government expenses. They want to see more money in education, they don’t want any cuts in social security or anything like it. If you ask them they want to see government waste cut, they don’t want real cuts.

For example I was just out doing something for Alzheimers this past week out in Las Vegas trying to raise awareness out there with people who are doing research. magine telling people out there who have an Alzheimers victim in their house and they’re a caregiver, “oh by the way, we’re cutting spending on research.” They are going to face another 20 or 30 years of Azheimers hell in this case because they can’t solve the problem.

Do people really want those kind of cuts?

First, notice that the idea of raising revenue is never raised by wealthy pundits. Ever. But when you ask the American people, large numbers very much like the idea of raising taxes on the wealthy over cutting programs to close some of this revenue gap. I don’t think it’s any mystery why these celebrities don’t want to bring that up.

But get a load of this:

Jeanne Cummings of Politico: I think in addition to those challenges that you’ve just outline, there is an additional one for this congress and the white house if they want to do anything. And that is that there are sizeable majorities in the 60 percent in a recent poll by Kaiser who think we can fix Medicare and Social Security by just cutting the other parts of the budget.

So the public, while they may be coming around aren’t ready for this debate yet. There’s a lot of education that has to take place before Washington can move in a serious and fundamental way.

What struck me with the deficit commission in December was they made recommendations that would change social security for instance, they effect of those changes wouldn’t affect anybody until 2050! Ok? That’s a long time from now!

And yet they were criticized roundly from both sides of the aisle and nobody’s been willing to touch that one. So until they bring the public with them I think this will remain.They’ve got to educate the public but until they do that I think it’s got to be a very tough issue.

Really?

The public isn’t stupid. They know very well that there are saner ways to deal with a potential shortfall resulting in minor benefit cuts in 2037 than even bigger benefit cuts . We may be dumb, but we’re not that dumb.

As for people not being willing to cut Medicare, perhaps some of these villagers ought to talk to the Republicans and their puppet masters who ran millions of dollars worth of ads in the last election demagogueing the cuts in Medicare in the health care reforms. It’s funny how that’s the one time in history that the Democrats took on one of their base’s favored programs and didn’t get any credit for it. In fact, they got crucified by the hypocritical GOP and nobody in DC said a peep.

It’s not that the Village needs to “bring the public along” it’s that the public needs to stop listening to the Villagers altogether. They are a font of misinformation.

Oh, and by the way, the deficit commission didn’t issue any recommendations because they couldn’t get a consensus. There’s a reason for that if the oh-so-smug and secure establishment journalists cared to look into it they’d find it’s really not painless for working people after all.

But then, according to GOP hack Susan Molinari, nobody really needs social security anymore:

Matthews: So, if you’re 26 years old, this will affect you. That’s 39 years. I’m just doing the math.

GOP Hack Susan Molinari: 26 year olds? 52 year olds don’t rely on social security for our benefits. We’ve all grown up with the reality that we don’t think it’s going to be there for them.

What do you mean “we”, rich woman?

I hope they keep up that line. You might be able to persuade some 26 year olds that they can make up for the loss of Social Security by the time they retire, but try telling that to the 50+ crowd and they will have a fight on their hands the likes of which they’ve never seen. Especially all the middle class workers who are taking care of aging parents, college kids, have lost jobs, housing equity and their 401ks. (And, by the way, even most people who have recovered in this downturn are still counting on social security as part of their retirement income. Only the most well-off can afford to do without it at all.)

She went on to talk about Paul Ryan coming out with an awesome benefits cuts plan in a couple of weeks, and Matthews scoffed saying he will be very, very impressed if he ever sees a politician come out with real benefits cuts that people can read in the newspaper.

I assume they all piled into Chris’s limousine after the show and went out and had a lovely four star meal to talk over how very impressive that will be.

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