Month: January 2012

Dogwhistling the Inquisition

by digby

So Perry is out of the race. What a coward. It’s not as if it’s just a matter of not throwing good money after bad. The election is in a couple of days. He obviously just couldn’t face the humiliation of losing.

The failed “independent voter” strategy

by David Atkins

Remember this during the debt ceiling fight?

The question arises, aside from Obama’s chronically allowing the Republicans to define the agenda and even the terminology (the pejorative word “Obamacare” is now even used by news broadcasters), why did he so definitively place himself on the side of the deficit reducers at a time when growth and job creation were by far the country’s most urgent needs?

It all goes back to the “shellacking” Obama took in the 2010 elections. The President’s political advisers studied the numbers and concluded that the voters wanted the government to spend less. This was an arguable interpretation. Nevertheless, the political advisers believed that elections are decided by middle-of-the-road independent voters, and this group became the target for determining the policies of the next two years.

That explains a lot about the course the President has been taking this year. The political team’s reading of these voters was that to them, a dollar spent by government to create a job is a dollar wasted. The only thing that carries weight with such swing voters, they decided—in another arguable proposition—is cutting spending. Moreover, like Democrats—and very unlike Republicans—these voters do not consider “compromise” a dirty word…

The speech Obama gave on April 13 marked his conversion to fiscal centrism; to being the fiscally responsible Democrat. In that speech he stated that he wanted to reduce the debt by $4 trillion—thus aligning himself with the Republicans—but also asked for revenues to partly offset that reduction. It was all about reelection politics, designed to appeal to this same group of independents. “And that’s why,” I was told by the person familiar with the White House deliberations, “he went bigger in the deficit reduction talks; bringing in Social Security is consistent with that slice of the electorate they’re trying to reach.” This person said, “There’s a bit of bass-ackwardness to this; the deficit spending you’d want to focus on right now is the jobs issue.”

This all fits with another development in the Obama White House. According to another close observer, David Plouffe, the manager of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, who officially joined the White House staff in January 2011, has taken over. “Everything is about the reelect,” this observer says—”where the President goes, what he does.”

And now we have the opportunity to see the results of this bit of supposed brilliance by David Plouffe:

President Obama opens his re-election bid facing significant obstacles among independent voters, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll, with the critical piece of the electorate that cemented his victory four years ago open to denying him a second term.

As Mr. Obama moves toward a full-throated campaign, delivering a State of the Union address on Tuesday and inching closer to directly confronting his Republican challenger, a majority of independent voters have soured on his presidency, disapprove of how he has dealt with the economy and do not have a clear idea of what he hopes to accomplish if re-elected.

The swing voters who will play a pivotal role in determining his political fate are up for grabs, the poll found, with just 31 percent expressing a favorable opinion of Mr. Obama. Two-thirds of independent voters say he has not made real progress fixing the economy.

It’s shocking to think that voters would see a Presidency carefully tailored to please the most conflict-averse voters as aimless and ineffective. After all, the strategy was concocted by the most brilliant strategists in Democratic politics, so it must be quite skillful.

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Brace yourself for more austerity

by digby

The fallout from the Great Debt Ceiling Grand Bargain negotiations is upon us:

Top White House officials are warning liberal and labor leaders to brace themselves for President Obama’s budget proposal.

Gene Sperling, director of the National Economic Council, sought in meetings last week to lift the left’s gloom about Washington’s crackdown on spending by promising that the president this year will focus on job creation rather than deficit cutting.

Obama staffers sought to present their budget plan as a glass half full. According to sources familiar with the briefings, they promised that the president will focus on jobs and the economy, instead of deficit-cutting, which dominated last year’s debate on Capitol Hill.

Obama has signaled in recent weeks that he plans to run a populist reelection campaign. He will need to keep liberal activist and labor groups — important parts of the Democratic base — energized for his strategy to work.

In his first three years, Obama had a free hand to suggest spending levels for government programs in his annual budget blueprint. But that is not the case this year because the administration is constrained by the budget deal reached in August to raise the debt limit.

He must stick to the $1.047 trillion spending cap he agreed to with GOP leaders, which means he will call for less discretionary spending than he did last year.

Senior administration officials fear a backlash from the left and are trying to prepare their allies to expect a disappointing budget, sources say.

“A senior White House person said we weren’t going to be happy with the budget, but they’re doing the best they can” given the spending caps set by the 2011 Budget Control Act, said one source.

Right. Because that had to happen.

But forget the politics and look at the economics. Or rather look at the UK to see just how idiotic this is:

UK unemployment rose by 118,000 in the three months to November to 2.69 million, official figures show.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the unemployment rate also rose to 8.4% from 8.3%, the highest since January 1996…

The figures support the picture of a flat UK economy, with other data released on Wednesday showing average weekly earnings, including bonuses, grew at just 1.9%.

The Prime Minister, David Cameron, said the figures were not good news: “Any increase in unemployment is disappointing and obviously a tragedy for the person who becomes unemployed – that is why we are taking action to get people back to work”.

He pointed to an increase in the number of people in work, to new private sector jobs and a small fall in the long-term unemployed.

But the figures showed the private sector was not compensating for job losses in the public sector, with the private sector creating 5,000 in the period, while 67,000 public sector jobs were lost.

Oy. What Atrios said.

Update: Also too what Atrios said here.

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Wanker of the decade

by digby

It just doesn’t get any worse than this, although it’s all too common. Behold yet another privileged, middle aged white male telling the silly women to stop being so hysterical about their damned liberty and start compromising with fundamentalist throwbacks because it’s just so damned icky and boring for him to have to listen to their whining. Ladies, just calm yourselves down and listen to the voice of reason:

In his latest column, Dana Milbank criticizes abortion provider Merle Hoffman for raising a ‘false alarm’ about the threat to reproductive rights in this country. He then goes on the cite the numerous marches and events that will take place on both sides of the debate over the next week as the country celebrates – or laments – the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in this country.

All of this attention troubles Dana Milbank. He writes, “if these groups cared as much about the issue as they claim, and didn’t have such strong financial incentives to avoid consensus and compromise, they’d cancel the carnivals and get to work on the one thing everybody agrees would be worthwhile — reducing unwanted pregnancies.”

He chastises the choice movement by telling us that “not every compromise means a slippery slope to the back alley.” He tells us to stop with the “sky is falling” argument and to acknowledge that the majority of Americans have legitimate concerns.

I guess Dana hasn’t actually heard about this. But then he probably thinks that’s ok too.

One more time, from my friend DebCoop:

For women ALL Roads to freedom and equality – economic equality and most particularly the ability to avoid poverty START with control of their bodies. If they can’t control how they get pregnant and when they will have a child then poverty is the result.

There is theory about something called the Prime Mover – the first action or the first cause. Well for women it IS reproductive rights. It precedes everything. It really is simple. Without the abilty to control your own body then you are a slave to everything else.

Frankly sexism, the need to control women’s lives by controlling their bodies and the things that arise from it, are endemic to any social structure. It is ever enduring and even when it seems to be quashed it returns in another form. That is the story in the modern era of women’s rights. One step forward after a long struggle – suffrage and then a step back. (And no way do I say that women are not complicit in their own subjugation. We are.)

I am reading The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin. In the epilogue he makes a point of saying that the loss of power and control is what the elite and the reactionary fear the most. More than a specific loss itself the fear the rising volcano of submerged anger and power. And for them it is most acutely felt compulsion for control in the “intimate” arena. That is the most vexing and disturbing of all.

It is why they want to control women. And controlling their reproductive lives is the surefire way to control them.

It is why abortion rights are absolutely central to every other kind of freedom.

This doesn’t seem to me to be too difficult to understand. But since it doesn’t affect Dana Milbank, he has no need to understand it. To him, it’s just a bunch of women blabbering like brainless magpies about an irrelevant topic he doesn’t care about. And he’s tired of it. Which is exactly why those who understand the implications have to keep fighting this conservative assault with everything we have — it’s quite clear we will receive no help from a fairly large group of privileged elites who know that they will never have to face the consequences.

Update: From the “don’t worry your pretty little heads” department:

A high-level [Pennsylvania Governor]Corbett administration adviser resigned his $104,470 position Tuesday after questions were raised about his outside role as editor of a conservative faith-based journal.

Along with disclosing welfare adviser Robert W. Patterson’s departure, the administration swiftly distanced itself from the views expressed in the journal he edits.

Patterson was hired in October by Welfare Secretary Gary Alexander as a special assistant to help set policy for services provided to millions of Pennsylvanians through the Department of Public Welfare (DPW).

Last week, The Inquirer began asking about Patterson’s side job as editor of The Family in America, published by an Illinois-based research center that advocates for the “natural human family . . . established by the Creator.”

In the journal, Patterson has weighed in on everything from what he called “misguided” programs that grew out of the 1960s War on Poverty – programs now administered by DPW – to what he described as a woman’s ideal role in society: married and at home raising children.

For instance, he wrote about research that he said showed that if women wanted to find “Mr. Right,” they should shun birth control pills; and if they wanted to improve their mood, they should not insist that their men wear condoms lest they miss out on beneficial chemicals found in semen.

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Keystone dead; all sides cheer for different reasons.

by David Atkins

Say goodbye to the Keystone pipeline project, at least for now:

President Obama, declaring that he would not bow to congressional pressure, announced Wednesday that he was rejecting a Canadian firm’s application for a permit to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline, a massive project that would have stretched from Canada’s oil sands to refineries in Texas.

Obama said that a Feb. 21 deadline set by Congress as part of the two-month payroll tax cut extension had made it impossible to do an adequate review of the pipeline project proposed by TransCanada.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the project is dead forever. As peak oil causes prices to rise over time, the political pressure to drill every drop of oil on earth will become unstoppable unless technically and economically viable alternatives are developed. That’s part of why cutting what little there is in the discretionary budget is so crazy.

For now, though, almost everyone gets what they want: progressives and conservationists get the pipeline blocked. Conservatives get an election-year issue on which to hammer the Obama Administration on rust belt jobs, which is precisely why they gave the Administration an impossibly short timeline in which to approve the project.

Everyone, it seems, but the Administration, which wanted to avoid getting roughed up by swing-state conservatives over it while not infuriating the progressive base too badly. As with so much else, the White House has taken the careful road by slow-walking the pipeline while giving lip-service to an “all-in” approach on energy.

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Kids say the darndest things

by digby

Gawker collected a few tweets from teenagers with late homework:

“How am I supposed to do homework tomorrow without wikipedia? Seriously how about Washington gets rid of SOPA, and President Obama of course”

“How am I supposed to study for my history final when fucking congress passed a bill that took down wikipedia?”

“Wikipedia banned by US Congress????”

Maybe there’s a lesson here, eh teachers?

The day the LOLCats Died

… along with Chris Dodd’s reputation. This is just sad:

WASHINGTON —The following is a statement by Senator Chris Dodd, Chairman and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) on the so-called “Blackout Day” protesting anti-piracy legislation:

“Only days after the White House and chief sponsors of the legislation responded to the major concern expressed by opponents and then called for all parties to work cooperatively together, some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging.

It is an irresponsible response and a disservice to people who rely on them for information use their services. It is also an abuse of power given the freedoms these companies enjoy in the marketplace today. It’s a dangerous and troubling development when the platforms that serve as gateways to information intentionally skew the facts to incite their users in order to further their corporate interests.

A so-called “blackout” is yet another gimmick, albeit a dangerous one, designed to punish elected and administration officials who are working diligently to protect American jobs from foreign criminals. It is our hope that the White House and the Congress will call on those who intend to stage this “blackout” to stop the hyperbole and PR stunts and engage in meaningful efforts to combat piracy.”

Jayzuz. That made Jack Valenti sound like a communist by comparison.

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How the web beat back SOPA and (hopefully) PIPA

by digby

Mother Jones has the story of what was supposed to be a done deal falling off the rails when the internets put up a fuss. It’s quite inspiring.

I particularly liked this:

Minds changed. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.), the chair of the powerful House budget committee announced on January 9 that he would oppose the bill (after taking nearly $300,000 from pro-SOPA donors). Ryan’s aspiring 2012 opponent, Rob Zerban, had raised tens of thousands of dollars through a Reddit campaign denouncing Ryan’s position on the legislation.

I guess 300k doesn’t go as far as it used to. Certainly not for Ryan who has collected gigantic sums of money from just about everyone.

Read the whole thing. This is just one small victory (half a victory actually, since the Senate version PIPA is still on the agenda) and these people won’t stop.

Here’s a video Hollywood will just hate:

It never fails to amaze me how shortsighted media companies are. If the government has the power to censor on your behalf they have the power to censor you.

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Sopa? What’s that?

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