Month: August 2011

Boycotting OFA

by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

The Obama Administration’s cold war on the progressive base is getting hot. Here’s what OFA New Mexico Director sent to their email list:

Paul Krugman is a political rookie. At least he is when compared to President Obama. That’s why he unleashed a screed as soon as word came about the debt ceiling compromise between President Obama and Congressional leaders – to, you know, avert an economic 9/11. Joining the ideologue spheres’ pure, fanatic, indomitable hysteria, Krugman declares the deal a disaster – both political and economic – of course providing no evidence for the latter, which I find curious for this Nobel winning economist. He rides the coattails of the simplistic argument that spending cuts – any spending cuts – are bad for a fragile economy, ignoring wholeheartedly his own revious cheerleading for cutting, say, defense spending. But that was back in the day – all the way back in April of this year. […]

No, the loudest screeching noise you hear coming from Krugman and the ideologue Left is, of course, Medicare. Oh, no, the President is agreeing to a Medicare trigger!!! Oh noes!!! Everybody freak out right now! But let’s look at the deal again, shall we? […]

Now let’s get to the fun part: the triggers. The more than half-a-trillion in defense and security spending cut “trigger” for the Republicans will hardly earn a mention on the Firebagger Lefty blogosphere. Hell, it’s a trigger supposedly for the Republicans, and of course, there’s always It’sNotEnough-ism to cover it.

Given that Obama’s approval rating among self-described liberals is an anemic 72%, I don’t really see how this helps at all.

Paul Krugman is one of the most respected and intelligent figures on the Left. He had Obama pegged far earlier than most others did, as essentially no different in his neoliberal ideology from Bill and Hillary Clinton. Many of us wanted to believe he would be different from Clinton, but Krugman saw it early. He is also an extremely intelligent economic Nobel Laureate with double the intelligence and economic knowledge of a Tim Geithner or Larry Summers (actually, make that probably triple the intelligence in Summers’ case.)

The 28% of liberals who are annoyed with Obama aren’t just any 28%, either. They’re folks like me: people who are most passionate about politics and liberal causes. The sorts of people who make up the core of the volunteer base. The sorts of people who are dedicated enough to force GOP politicians into major gaffes.

OFA called me for fundraising yesterday. I respectfully declined, as I’m focused on progressive Democratic candidates who I know will stand up for my values. But yesterday I was open to giving to OFA, as I donate monthly to my state and local Democratic Party.

Today? I am encouraging all my friends to boycott OFA until this person is fired, and a public apology is made to Paul Krugman. Dismissing the most active 28% of the progressive base as well as our best and most influential pundit so blithely deserves the strongest possible rebuke.

I and others like me can focus our time and attention on state and local politics. If this is the official view of the Obama campaign, then they can count me out.

Metaphorically Deaf

by digby

I heard this the other day and wasn’t going to say anything because, well, there’s no point in jumping on everything. But it turns out that this is part of the stump speech — he said it again today — and that’s a problem:

If we’re willing to do something in a balanced way–making some tough choices in terms of spending cuts, but also raising some revenue from folks who’ve done very well, even in a tough economy–then we can get control of our debt and deficit and we can start still investing in things like education and basic research and infrastructure that are going to make sure that our future is bright. It’s not that complicated, but it does require everybody being willing to make some compromises.

I was in Holland, Michigan, the other day and I said, “I don’t know about how things work in your house, but in my house if I said, ‘You know, Michelle, honey, we got to cut back, so we’re going to have you stop shopping completely–you can’t buy shoes, you can’t buy dresses–but I’m keeping my golf clubs’–you know, that wouldn’t go over so well.”

Where to begin. First of all, once again, he’s not actually talking about a “balanced approach.” If he were he’d be proposing to tax the living hell out of corporations and wealthy individuals, not asking for some token tip money in exchange for cutting a big hole in the safety net. It’s not “shared sacrifice” to ask wealthy people to give up money they will not even miss in exchange for asking 65 year olds to wait an additional two years before qualifying for Medicare. In some cases, that’s going to be the difference between life and death. Telling people they have to give up any part of the only real form of security they have in their old age when they can no longer work, in order to get millionaires to pay what they paid in taxes only a decade ago, is not “balanced.”

Be that as it may, we have a Democratic president selling the idea that it’s a big “sacrifice” for the wealthiest people to pay their fair share of taxes and I guess there’s no going back. But what can we say about that horrible analogy between his marriage and his dealings with congress?

I hate the family metaphor anyway, but this iteration of it — arguing over whether the little woman gets to buy shoes and dresses or not — takes the absurdity to a new level. Evidently the president thinks that these drastic cuts in discretionary spending — most of which hit the most vulnerable people in the nation — are comparable to a fashionista having to cut back on her trips to Bloomingdales. And worse, the problem with all this is when hubbie won’t give up golfing in exchange.

I think somebody’s been watching a little too much Mad Men lately. (Or I Love Lucy.) Who talks this way in America today other than rich Beverly Hills throwbacks with a trophy wife and a bad divorce? And the president is bizarrely identifying himself with these rich people.

Michelle Obama is an accomplished woman and the mere idea of her having to answer to her husband for her spending on “shoes and dresses” rubs me the wrong way. I’m sure he would explain that this is supposed to be a mutual kitchen table budget discussion, but the whole thing is so freighted with sexist 1950s stereotypes that what comes to mind is a Dagwood strip rather than anything recognizable in 2011. It reminds me of Bush saying that he sent Laura early to Crawford to “sweep off the porch.” Or more recently, Rick Perry apologizing for his wrinkled shirt and saying not to blame his wife. I wish all of them would stop.

Finally, let’s think about the way the President frames the Democrats in this argument as the wives who have reluctantly agreed to give up their frilly little dresses and the Republicans as the stern husbands who nevertheless insist that they get to keep their golf clubs. Ok, daddy’s a prick who won’t pitch in. But he’s also the Man of the House, who the little lady Democrats are pouting about not being fair — but giving in to in the end. Because he’s in charge.

Let’s just say it’s not a very appealing image.

I hate to make tooo big a deal out of this. It’s just a passing comment in a long speech. But this family metaphor is destructive enough without attaching a whole boatload of additional sexist and classist freight to it. Obama and his political advisors have always had a bit of a tin ear when it comes to this sort of thing and they need to get a handle on it if they don’t want to appear to be totally out of touch out there. This metaphor should go into the garbage bin immediately.

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Tarnished Tea Cozy

The Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.” Interestingly, one group that approaches it in unpopularity is the Christian Right.

Sweetening the Perry Beat

by digby

I am watching the DC press fall for Rick Perry’s macho swagger right before my eyes. And Democrats won’t do anything about it because it might offend someone who identifies with him, so it’s likely to go on for a little while, especially if he solidifies as the front runner.

This piece is getting wide attention tonight among media types who are very impressed with its allegedly nuanced take on the new “it” boy. It’s written by a reporter who’s been covering the southwest for The Economist for four years, who feels that Perry has gotten a bum rap for being dumb and extreme. The dumbness may be true for all I know — he wouldn’t be the first pol to cover his intellect with a good ole boy persona. But get a load of these examples proving that point:

In May, for example, Perry signed a bill that will require women seeking an abortion to have a sonogram beforehand. He had declared this an emergency priority for the session, and the legislation was fast-tracked. That’s obviously a staunch pro-life measure (although not really extreme: a handful of other states already had it on the books.) Consider, however, that Republicans hold every statewide office in Texas and they absolutely dominate the state legislature. If they had wanted to they could have passed a bill that would have required women seeking abortions to stand on Congress Avenue wearing a sandwich board soliciting comments on their decision.

Well, that’s certainly nuanced. But the fact is that only 6 states in the nation require women to have sonograms before being allowed to exercise their constitutional rights to abortion. And just because the Republican office holders in Texas are anti-choice extremists doesn’t mean that Perry isn’t one as well. It’s scary as hell that this position is being accepted as fairly reasonable among DC reporters, who find this sort of observation “nuanced.”

But I’m sure this is comforting to all those people in the Village who don’t give a damn about social issues and just wish everyone would shut up about them:

My interpretation of this is that Perry simply doesn’t care that much about social issues. Of course he’ll throw some red meat to the base if it’s not too much hassle, as with the new sonogram bill. But it just doesn’t get him going. He rarely enterprises on these issues. He knows how to play to the base–as in last weekend’s prayer rally–but that’s because he’s shrewd, or if you prefer, opportunistic. As governor, social issues haven’t been central to his administration and I don’t think they would be if he were president, either.

Well that’s comforting. Let’s hope that in this one he’s a total phony because the religious zealots he’s associated himself with are the worst of the worst. Unfortunately, even if he doesn’t give a damn about any of this, his positions will inevitably lead the country further rightward if he were to win the election. And in case nobody’s noticed, the right to choose is under siege all over this country.

But what about economics? Is he really the no-tax, far right wingnut he’s reputed to be? Well, yes, but what’s wrong with that? He’ll diverge from his ideology for job creation, so what’s not to like?

His strongest ideological commitment is to small-government conservatism–although he’s not pure on that either, because he will engage in some tacit industrial policy if it’s a matter of boosting job creation. He is first and foremost a business conservative, and once you understand that about him, everything else makes more sense. That’s why, for example, he’s a big booster of renewable energy even though he’s a climate change sceptic and doesn’t want the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. That’s why he wanted to build the Trans-Texas Corridor and why he is so enthusiastic about tort reform. That’s why he seems to spend most of his workday trying to poach jobs from other states. That’s why he doesn’t have a very aggressive stance against illegal immigration. That’s why he’d rather cut education spending than close tax loopholes.

The virtues of this approach are, of course, debatable. I think the most compelling line of critique against Perry’s tenure is that his passion for the low-taxes, low-services model may have limited the state’s ability to make adequate investments in education, health care, and infrastructure. And those are areas where public spending may have long-term effects on economic productivity. But there are plenty of things Perry could say in response: that as we have seen elsewhere, budget discipline is necessary to forestall fiscal catastrophes; that you can’t spend your way into good outcomes; that the single best indicator of social welfare is the unemployment rate

That’s what passes for nuance these days, I guess. After all, a conservative reporter might not even grant that investments in education and health care and infrastructure could have long-term effects on economic productivity (which is, as we know the only true responsibility of government.) But she did say outright that we “know” that you can’t spend your way into good outcomes and the single best indicator of social welfare is the unemployment rate. (Texas is at 8.2% which used to be considered catastrophic — more evidence that the goalposts have shifted and nobody cares.)

This reporter thinks Perry’s positions on the issues aren’t extreme or ideological and those which she considers a bit beyond the pale are only done for effect. This story smells like a beat sweetener to me. Nuanced, not so much. What’s scary is that DC reporters would think it is.

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Yellow Journalism

by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

The The L.A. Times has a story up that deserves to

Veteran devastation

by digby

So Leon Panetta took defense cuts off the table the other day and said today that the military would be devastated if it even went back to 2007 spending levels.

But this is under consideration:

In a rare joint appearance with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at the National Defense University Tuesday, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirmed a CBS News report that the Pentagon is considering a dramatic plan to overhaul the military’s once sacrosanct retirement plan.

According to CBS, the plan “would eliminate the familiar system under which anyone who serves 20 years is eligible for retirement at half their salary. Instead, they’d get a 401k-style plan with government contributions.”

Panetta largely confirmed the report, with a key caveat.

“That report came as the result of an advisory group that was asked by my predecessor Bob Gates to look at the retirement issue,” he said.

And they have put together some thoughts, they’re supposed to issue, actually, a more complete report the latter part of this month. No decisions have been made with regards to that issue…it’s the kind of thing you have to consider in terms of retirement reforms in the broad form, but you have to do it…in a way that doesn’t break faith, again, with our troops and with their families. If you’re going to do something like this you’ve got to think very seriously about grandfathering in order to protect the benefits that are there.

Under the plan, drafted by the Defense Business Board, retired service members would have to wait until standard retirement age before touching their pensions. It would reportedly save $250 billion over two decades.

I suppose that one sure way to protect Wall Street from ever having to suffer catastrophic losses again is to put every last penny of everyone’s retirement benefits into it. Talk about Too Big To Fail.

But I hope they know what kind of buzzsaw they’re walking into by taking on veterans’ retirement benefits. It is a well organized group with a ton of political clout. Of course it’s possible they could slip this whole thing in under the Super Committee before anybody had a thing to say about it. That’s sort of the point.

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Welcome to the jungle

by digby

Wow. I hope you all have your own personal source of food and water — or enough survivalist supplies to carry you through a long nuclear winter — because the GOP frontrunner for president has a very, very, very bold agenda:

We’re calling today on the president of the United States to put a moratorium on regulations across this country, because his regulations, his EPA regulations are killing jobs all across America.

Should be fun:

Refuting Atwater

by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

As an illustration of how deceitful conservative talking points are– and the degree to which our national conversation is about race even when it seems not to be–this Lee Atwater quote is justly famous:

You start out in 1954 by saying, “Ni**er, ni**er, ni**er.” By 1968 you can’t say “ni**er” — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states’ rights and all that stuff. You’re getting so abstract now [that] you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I’m not saying that. But I’m saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, “We want to cut this,” is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than “Ni**er, ni**er.”

That quote should fill even the most hardened political cynic with revulsion, not just because of the use of the “n” word, but because of the nonchalant way in which Atwater describes the economic coding of racism.

But it’s still worth noting that what Atwater was trying to describe (in his own meager defense) overt racism was being tamped down was that through the use of economic coding. Atwater assumed that this subterfuge would eventually serve to eliminate racism over the time, and make politics more about theory than prejudice.

But the reality is that Lee Atwater was wrong even about that. Disguising race issues as economic issues doesn’t weaken racism. In fact, it makes it stronger through sublimation. Any psychologist would note that failing to address a problem head on only makes it fester and grow, and reveal itself in increasingly unpleasant ways in other aspects of life. Racism is no different. Now we have not only a race problem in America, but a massive economic one. And the two are so hopelessly intertwined at this point that it’s difficult to extricate them.

Meanwhile, fairly overt racism is starting to make a comeback. Case in point: the Koch / Tea Party effort to re-segregate schools in the South:

The stakes in the battle over the Wake County Public School System in North Carolina couldn’t be higher.

On one side are the billionaire brothers, Charles and David Koch, and the Tea Party and libertarian groups they fund. On the other, parents, students and community leaders who are bent on stopping measures passed by the conservative-led school board that they argue would re-segregate the county’s public schools, which had been a national model for diversity and integration.

Since 2000, Wake County has used a system of integration based on income. Under this program, no more than 40 percent of any school’s students could receive subsidized lunches, a proxy for determining the level of poverty. The school district is the 18th largest in the country, and includes Raleigh, its surrounding suburbs and rural areas. It became one of the first school systems in the nation to adopt such a plan.

But Wake County’s plan became a political flash point when five conservative candidates, bankrolled by Americans for Prosperity, a political activist group funded in part by the Kochs, were elected to the school board on a “neighborhood schools” platform that would dismantle the existing integration policy.

The new board touted their plan as one that would end busing and eliminate class, and subsequently race, as a factor for student school assignments. The “neighborhood schools” plan would assign students to schools closer to where they lived, meaning students from mostly poor and black communities would likely attend schools whose demographics were much the same. White children from well-heeled families would be more likely to attend schools filled with upper-middle class white children and enjoy more resources.

The elections led to heated protests. Under pressure from community groups and activists, the school board halted the plan for further review. It has since developed a number of alternative plans, though most of those would still have some re-segregating effect.

The NAACP filed a complaint with the Department of Justice in response, and there have been legal challenges based on the plan’s constitutionality.

Remember that this is happening in supposedly post-racial America, when we have our first African-American president. In reality, America is in many ways moving backwards on racial issues because the Tea Party, the Koch Brothers and their allies are treated as economic libertarians rather than as the racist crackpots they really are. With Lee Atwater’s help, they have sublimated their racism into economic issues, but ultimately the racism still comes to fore when the rubber meets the road–and often in fairly virulent forms. No one is using the “n” word anymore. But they don’t need to in order to destroy communities and re-instate de facto segregation.

Finally, the case illustrates how important it is that conservatives not be allowed to win elections at any level, and how important it is that every single race right down to dog catcher be partisanized. Many progressives may be upset with the Democratic Party as a general rule, but party affiliation is by far the easiest shortcut to determine the overall worldview of a candidate for non-partisan office. Asking voters to evaluate each candidate based on position statements is simply too much to ask of busy people who don’t obsess over this stuff. This is part of the reason we have political parties, and why they’re so useful in cutting through the clutter. Progressives regardless of party affiliation need to be focused on booting Koch-friendly Republicans out of school board and city council elections all across America so that the experience of the Wake County school system is not repeated elsewhere.

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Pay now, pay later

by digby

This doesn’t seem right.Verizon workers have gone on strike because the company is trying to extract onerous new concessions fromk them even as they rake in unprecedented profits.

Here’s the reasoning:

VZ management sent a message to all of its union-represented “associates” in the northeast, which informed them that they must pay more for their benefits now, thanks to Obama’s version of “health care reform.” Said Verizon:

“Under the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, an excise tax will be levied on healthcare plans with very generous plan design components (so-called “Cadillac plans”)…. This excise tax is projected to cost the company as much as $200 million in 2018 when the tax is imposed; however, Verizon is required to account for this cost now. Accordingly, we will need to modify plan designs to avoid the impact of this tax.”

Not surprisingly, Verizon’s tax-avoidance scheme requires shifting costs to workers. According to the company, its “current average annual medical coverage” expense is nearly $14,000 a year for each union member, which is “twice the average for comparable companies in the eastern U.S. whose employees make contributions toward their healthcare.” In addition, “99 per cent of companies now charge for family health coverage.” So this disparity needs to be corrected by forcing workers with dependents to pay $1,300 to $3,000 a year for such benefits. (Overall, the total, per employee, cost of all pay and benefit concessions currently sought by Verizon is $20,000, according to CWA President Larry Cohen.)

The president gave strong support for unions on his bus tour today saying that they are what built the middle class. The union would love to see him on the picket line. Mike Elk writes:

President Obama could release a statement saying it is wrong for companies to shift excise tax costs to workers (seven years before the tax goes into effect)—something Obama said would not happen when the legislation passed last year.

An image of President Obama standing on a picket line with workers fighting a profitable company demanding deep concessions could help Obama win re-election in 2012. By standing with Verizon picketers, the president could help heal an uneasy relationship with organized labor, which has been frustrated by Obama’s failure to push for labor law reform, his focus on lowering the deficit as opposed to creating jobs, and his push for free-trade agreements with Panama, Colombia and South Korea. Standing with striking Verizon workers could help capture some of the same energy unleashed by this year’s protests in Madison, Wis.

I’d like to see that too. But since they are using the ACA as an excuse to strong arm workers into taking a pay cut, I think it’s unlikely. Too bad. it’s a stirring image.

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We are the world