Month: September 2011

Tsunami warning

by digby

Perhaps Boehner’s ploy today may not play out as well as he thinks it will and the country will be even more disillusioned with the House Republicans. Contrary to my earlier assertion that these things always work out for the GOP, Dday reminded me via twitter that this is most like the earlier FAA standoff, which the Republicans lost. The key here is for the Democrats to ensure that everyone knows about it.

As for the election overall, this is one of those moments when anything can happen. And history shows that the outcomes in such times are not always good, so I wouldn’t get too optimistic that this anti-incumbent tidal wave will necessarily result is a win for the good guys. Political instability often provides an opening for the worst guys to slip in.

House to House

by digby

Oh goodie. It looks like our next budget standoff is going to be between the House and the Senate:

By a bipartisan vote of 59-36 Friday, Senate Democrats and several Republicans tabled (read: effectively killed) House-passed legislation to fund the federal government beyond September 30. The development escalates a new round of brinkmanship with disaster aid for FEMA and a government shutdown at stake.

Democrats are enraged by a provision of the GOP legislation, which holds disaster aid hostage to partisan budget cuts.

They’re also unhappy with the amount of disaster relief money House Republicans included in their bill. Last week, the Senate passed legislation on a bipartisan basis that provided FEMA about twice as much disaster aid as the House bill, without requiring any offsets.

So with FEMA set to run out of funds as early as Monday, and the government set to shutdown in one week, we’re at yet another impasse.
[…]
“With FEMA expected to run out of disaster funding as soon as Monday, the only path to getting assistance into the hands of American families immediately is for the Senate to approve the House bill,” Boehner said in an official statement Friday morning.

Well, that’s not exactly true. The House legislation received only 36 votes in the Senate. As noted above, the Senate passed a stand-alone disaster bill last week, which the House could take up and pass instead of scattering to the four winds.

I can’t blame Boehner for doing this. It always seems to work, after all. It will be interesting, however, to see him play it out with the Senate rather than White House. I don’t get the sense that McConnell’s enjoying this all that much, but I’d never underestimate him. He’s the canniest of the bunch.

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Targeting the fat cats

by digby

Looks like the GOP members of the “Superduper Committee” have federal workers in their sites, but time. TPM got a hold of some Republican working papers:

TPM got a hold of what appears to be an internal GOP Super Committee wish list — a chart of working proposals for finding hundreds of billions of dollars in cost savings. A source recently forwarded the documents after finding them lying on a table outside the Speaker’s lobby at the end of August, just when members selected to serve on the joint-deficit panel were being announced.
Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) office confirmed that some of the papers originated from Republican staffers on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, whch Issa chairs, although Issa spokesman Frederick Hill would not speculate on who left them lying there.

A document containing a chart of different super committee proposals, Hill said, is just a list of options the committee has collected, not an exhaustive outline of proposals Issa has endorsed.

“Many of these things were an effort on the part of the staff to make a list for consideration of ideas that different entities have thrown out, including the bipartisan fiscal commission,” Hill said.

Most of the ideas focused on finding costs savings by reducing the federal workforce, eliminating cost-of-living increases for federal workers and increasing the amount federal employees contribute to their retirements and list either the bipartisan “fiscal commission,” the “House budget resolution” or the Congressional Budget Office as the source of the ideas.

This will, of course, create just a tone of confidence among the important job creators so it’s more than worth it to take more money out of the hands of middle class workers at a time of already low demand. And since the administration already put federal workers on the chopping block I’m fairly sure the Dems will go along. It’s part of that whole shared sacrifice thing.

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Reap what you sow
by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

Fun times:

House Republicans closed ranks just after midnight on Friday morning, and passed legislation to avert a government shutdown at the end of the month. The vote tally was 219-203.

But the bill received almost no Democratic support and faces an uncertain future in the U.S. Senate because Republicans have used the funding bill as a vehicle for disaster relief money, and insisted it be paid for by slashing funds for jobs programs Democrats support. Dems say the GOP legislation provides insufficient aid, and sets a dangerous precedent by requiring those funds to be offset with partisan budget cuts.

“The bill the House will vote on tonight is not an honest effort at compromise,” said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) in a statement anticipating its passage. “It fails to provide the relief that our fellow Americans need as they struggle to rebuild their lives in the wake of floods, wildfires and hurricanes, and it will be rejected by the Senate.”

A livid Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) told reporters Thursday night “We’re fed up with this…we’re sick of it, we’re tired of it.”

Since the cult of conservatism seems so enamored of forcing schools to close and bridges to crumble in exchange for emergency aid, here’s an idea: force the cuts to come only out of districts whose representatives voted for this legislative mockery.

As a responsible progressive, I understand that Democrats should do everything in their power to force this insanity to die in conference, and ultimately pass a bill without this provision.

But there’s a small part of me that would love to give the districts that elected these jokers exactly what they deserve.

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This week’s GOP debate cretinism

by digby

I guess we only respect the troops Republicans approve of. Good to know.

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Because killing them just isn’t enough

by digby

How long before they devolve all the way back to the bad old days. I’m sure they could dredge up some throwback legal experts to say “the United States doesn’t do cruel and unusual punishment”:

The Texas prison system abolished on Thursday the time-honored tradition of offering an opulent last meal to condemned inmates before their executions, saying they will get standard prison fare instead.

“Enough is enough,” state Senator John Whitmire wrote in a letter on Thursday to prison officials, prompting the move. “It is extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such a privilege. It’s a privilege which the perpetrator did not provide to their victim.”

The letter was in apparent response to the dinner requested, but not eaten, by white supremacist Lawrence Brewer before he was put to death on Wednesday night for the 1998 dragging death of James Byrd Jr.

Brewer requested an elaborate meal that included a triple-meat bacon cheeseburger, a meat-lover’s pizza, a big bowl of okra with ketchup, a pound of barbecue, a half a loaf of bread, peanut butter fudge, a pint of ice cream and two chicken-fried steaks.

When it arrived around 4 p.m. at Brewer’s cell, he declined it all, telling prison officials he wasn’t hungry.

Whitmire, who chairs the Texas Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, threatened legislation if the prison system didn’t put an end to the practice, which rarely results in the inmate getting exactly what is requested anyway.

But a new law won’t be necessary. Brad Livingston, executive director of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, replied that Whitmire’s concerns were valid and that the practice would halt immediately.

The prisoners will be served “the same meal served to other offenders,” Livingston’s statement said.

The idea of giving the prisoner a last meal of his choice is a nod to his humanity, acknowledging a little bit of basic compassion for him as a fellow human being, however guilty he may be. And when you lose that it’s a very short trip to the kind of killing spectacles we don’t see anymore in so-called advanced democracies.

But then capital punishment leads to barbarity in any case. If you’ve ever stood outside a prison when an execution is scheduled, you’ll almost always see total strangers hanging around, singing and joking — and cheering when the death is announced. It’s not personal. They just enjoy it. This primitive impulse still resides in a whole lot of people.

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Boehner’s developing a taste for tea

by digby

Well, not really. We know he prefers a mellow merlot. But he’s choking down the hated beverage anyway:

Instead of cutting a deal with Democrats to keep the government funded, and re-up FEMA’s disaster aid fund, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) is trying to build support by dangling carrots before reluctant Republicans and whacking Democrats with sticks.

As reported, about four dozen House conservatives don’t support the existing government funding bill or “continuing resolution” because it does not, in their minds, slash enough money from federal programs. Democrats oppose the bill en masse because it also includes a requirement that federal disaster aid be twinned with cuts to particular federal programs, in order to offset the cost — a highly unusual, and controversial requirement.
[…]
According to a senior GOP aide, Republican leaders want to amend the bill by cutting about $100 million from the loan guarantee program that extended funds to Solyndra.

One-hundred billion dollars is chump change compared to the $1.043 trillion bill they’re debating. But this particular cut allows Republicans to crow more about Solyndra, and, as an ancillary benefit, attack any Democrat who votes against the CR as voting to protect the Solyndra slush fund (or whatever they’ll call it). That could entice some House conservatives into Boehner’s camp, and could even scare more Democrats into voting for the bill as well.

If it passes tonight, Senate Democrats will have to decide whether to dig in, as Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has promised, or to fold. Senate Dems want more disaster aid than the House bill provides, and they don’t want to help Republicans establish a precedent of using disasters as leverage to force partisan budget cuts.

The government shuts down on September 30th if they don’t get this passed.

Considering how the press has been greedily slurping up all the dirt the GOP’s been feeding them on Solyndra, I expect that they’ll be subject to the Republican frame that the Democrats are trying to protect their buddies. And that will probably scare the Democrats.

At this point it’s probably important for everyone, including me, to stop thinking that Boehner has a desire to do anything but keep his caucus together. He would rather destroy the country than work with Democrats against the Tea Party. And there’s a reason for it — the Tea Party is funded by the 4th richest men in America and they are prepared to run primaries against those who diverge from their agenda. In that sense the establishment Republicans are just as spooked by what Citizens United unleashed as anyone.

I can’t imagine that this will go to the wire as it did with the debt ceiling. But the dynamic hasn’t changed. You have people who are not only willing to shoot hostages, they are itching to do it. It’s a problem.

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The Cult of Conservatism
by David Atkins (“thereisnospoon”)

The cult of conservatism at work:

People who believe God is very engaged in their everyday life tend to see conservative economic policy as an article of faith, according to a study published Tuesday by Baylor University.

Paul Froese, co-author of the Baylor Religious Survey, says that those who believe in a more hands-off God tend to believe in more than one way to fix America’s economic woes. But those who believe in a more active God tend to believe there is “one truth” when it comes to fixing the economy.
The study also found that 20% of Americans believe God is in control of the economy. According to Froese, those who believe God is in control also tend to believe that a hands-off approach is the economy’s only possible fix.

“Lack of government regulation, low taxation,” he said. ” That kind of conservative economic world view, for people with an engaged God, is almost synonymous.”

This coupling of belief systems began in the 1980’s said Froese, when the Republican Party began to court values voters who selected their candidates based primarily on social issues. Over time, the value voters began to go along with the economic teachings of Republican leaders of the time.

“Those kinds of voters who are driven by their faith tend to think that there are these ultimate truths out there and that everything else is wrong,” said Froese. “If you find a part of a leader you are in agreement with on these faith statements, then their discussion on the economy must also be right.”

In a way, this sort of thinking goes all the way back to the Calvinist ideology that arrived in America via the Mayflower. Yet even the Puritans, who very much believed that success on this earth was proof of God’s favor, nonetheless possessed a spirit of collective well-being best evidenced in John Winthrop’s classic City on a Hill. The modern conservative marriage of Calvin and von Mises is one of the most deadly ideological brews in the nation’s history, and it’s a fairly recent development.

This evidence is pretty much conclusive proof of a couple of key points progressive advocates have been making for years now:

1) Per Drew Westen and George Lakoff, voters cannot be reached at the level of individual policy. This is an argument about values. A failure to clearly differentiate progressive values from conservative values leads to the universal acceptance of conservative values, which in turn makes it impossible to implement commonsense legislation. Discussing individual policy in this context without having an almost theological discussion of core values is a recipe not only for failure at the ballot box, but more importantly for failure at the level of policy implementation.

2) There is a large segment of voters out there whom the progressive message will simply never reach. The amount of contortion necessary to try to win their votes would be do far more harm than good. The Democratic Party’s effort to win back the “values voter” has essentially been a counterproductive waste, as the few Blue Dog Democrats who do sneak in under these auspices are so damaging to the party brand as to make them more trouble than they’re worth, particularly considering the huge amounts of money the DCCC spends each year to make them viable.

This is partly what has been happening throughout President Obama’s first term: in an effort to appeal to “independent” voters who have been brainwashed into this conservative cult, the President has done significant harm not only to his base, but to the promotion of the sort of rhetoric that can serve as antidote to the conservative ideological poison.

When Obama is talking, he is always talking about looking at anything that works: ‘I want to make compromise. I want to do things that pragmatically have immediate results,’” he said.

In contrast, Froese said the rhetoric of candidates like Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry is shaped by their belief in an involved higher power.

“’“Have faith in God. Don’t regulate. Lower taxes. There you are seeing a distinction in the almost philosophical outlook and how you understand economic theory,” he said.

Dr. Froese is elegantly saying in a clinical way what many Administration critics have been pointing out for months. Modern conservatism is a cult. Neither it nor its voters can be reasoned with. Attempting to pragmatically compromise with them in the hopes of
deflecting criticism, “changing Washington” and winning “independent” voters is a waste of time.

Thankfully, the Administration seems to be taking a more combative approach of late, with an increased willingness to go toe to toe with the conservative cult. That’s what it will take for the nation to survive, and vaccinate itself against this particularly nasty ideological virus.

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Keeping hope alive

by digby

Here’s the president yesterday:

The bridge behind us happens to connect the state that is home to the Speaker of the House, with the home state of the Republican leader in the Senate… Mr. Boehner and Mr. McConnell, those are the two most powerful Republicans in government. They can either kill this jobs bill, or they can help pass this jobs bill…

There is no reason for Republicans in Congress to stand in the way of more construction projects. There is no reason to stand in the way of more jobs. Mr. Boehner, Mr. McConnell, help us rebuild this bridge. Help us rebuild America. Help us put construction workers back to work. Pass this bill!

Now, some folks in Congress have said, `Well, we don’t like how it’s paid for.’ It’s paid for as part of my the larger plan to pay down the debt. That plan makes additional cuts in spending. We already cut a trillion dollars in spending. This makes an additional hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts in spending. But it also asks the wealthiest Americans and the biggest corporations to pay their fair share in taxes…

There’s a lot of people saying, “this is class warfare.” Well, if saying that billionaires should pay the same share in taxes as a plumber or a teacher is class warfare, then you know what? I’m a warrior for the middle class. I will fight for the middle class…. But the only class warfare I’ve seen is the battle against the middle class.

The big question, of course, is whether or not he’ll follow through with any of this if he gets re-elected. All I can say about that is that we know for sure that Rick Perry and Mitt Romney won’t.

Of course I’m one who thinks that rhetoric matters. Even when politicians fail to follow through on policy there is value is saying the words, getting it into the ether, keeping the ideas alive. Ronald Reagan is a great example of that. He raised taxes and cut deals and constantly undercut his own ideology in dozens of different ways. But his influence beyond his presidency simply cannot be overstated. And it wasn’t his example of negotiating that influenced, it was his rhetoric and philosophy, which was always aggressively conservative.

I would prefer that President Obama fully commit himself to these ideas and I wish I believed that he would. The past three years have made me very skeptical of that and as a matter of fact, I’ve come to believe that what he’s actually a fiscal conservative at heart. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t good for him to win reelection on the basis of these left-populist ideas. It may be that he’ll convince himself of their merits but, perhaps more importantly, he’ll have taught a lot of Americans to think differently about these issues and at some point maybe the right wing tropes about big government and low taxes and all the rest will no longer be the default conventional wisdom among the citizenry. In any case, there’s no chance it will ever change if nobody ever even articulates the other view.

So, good for Obama. I hope he means it. But even if he doesn’t, I’m still glad to hear it.

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Sad day for the American middle class

by digby

This is what the modern GOP extremists will do everywhere they get the power to do it.

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