Month: February 2012

Blue America Chat: Rob Zerban

by digby

Make it a Happy Valentine’s Day and KISS Paul Ryan Goodbye:

There is no congressional race anywhere in the country more important than Rob Zerban’s challenge to Wall Street’s favorite politician, Paul Ryan. They look at Ryan and they see the perfect sieve for their entire one-percent anti-democratic agenda. And they see a future senator and president. With virtually no help from the DCCC– which at least isn’t protecting Ryan the way they have in past elections– Rob is taking on the Republican superman who just reported the single largest House war chest in the country– over $4 million. Rob has something else: the tumult of Wisconsin politics and the realization among workers and ordinary families there that this is for real; we are fighting for our lives and our children’s lives. Please join us Tuesday (1pm, CST) at Crooks andLiars to meet Rob for yourself.

We’ve been following Ryan’s ride in Congress for longer than most, and, of course, what we all wanted to know from Rob was why this year would be different from all the past years, when Ryan trounced his opponents.

I often get asked, “how are you going to beat Paul Ryan?” Ryan has incumbency, money, I am told a boyishly pretty face, and of course, he is a party boss. Previous challengers have not performed well. People ask, “what will be different.”

A big shift has taken place in the way people feel about Paul Ryan. Social Security and Medicare are “the third rail” of politics meaning you get shocked if you touch them. This happened to Ryan. While Ryan has gotten 60% support in the past, he is now polling easily in the 40s after our message is heard. Independents prefer me by a 3 to 1 margin. Ryan will move even lower because national Democrats, including President Obama, have taken a strong stand to protect retirement security and our social safety net. The more Democrats focus their fire on Ryan, the more people in the district become aware of his radical agenda. It also doesn’t help that Ryan has presided over one of the most unpopular Congresses in history with 91% disapproval.

The reason Ryan has been able to win is because he hasn’t had a strong Democratic challenger. The First District of Wisconsin was, and is, a seat Democrats can win. This district was previously represented by Democrats including Les Aspin, Clinton’s Defense Secretary, and Peter Barca who is a leading legislator now in state government. The district also supported Obama in 2008 with 52% of the vote. Ryan had opponents before that raised less than $20,000. There is nothing wrong with good people running for office, but against someone like Ryan, it takes a much larger effort than anyone can do on their own. It will take progressives across this country to come together to defeat Ryan. I believe we could have won this election in 2008 against Ryan if we had tried. I am here to make sure we don’t waste that opportunity again.

Another reason we can win is that we are running a strong campaign. Our campaign has focused on drawing these contrasts and being accessible to the people. We have had great success so far. Already in my campaign in 2011, we have out-raised all previous challengers to Paul Ryan combined. We have over 7,000 supporters across the country and have earned great endorsements including that of the AFL- CIO, SEIU, and Senator Russ Feingold. I am focused on drawing clear contrasts, explaining my values, and showing voters how my plans will make their lives better.

The votes are here in Wisconsin, and I think with the recalls and our efforts to take out Ryan, we will have the energy to turn out the votes. My challenge is funding our grassroots volunteers and making sure that I take every opportunity to show contrast my ideas with Paul Ryan’s.

I don’t need unlimited money to beat Ryan. I need enough money to run my campaign. There is a big difference and I think we are on track to getting there. So far, we have raised over $500,000 from over 7,000 people. This is an incredible grassroots effort but we have a ways to go so we must grow.

I will beat Ryan because I understand what voters are looking for- experience and the right priorities. My focus is on drawing clear contrasts along both those lines. I grew up with a humble background and worked to build two companies and employ 45 people. Paul Ryan was born with many privileges and has spent a career in politics. I think people are looking for Representatives with real world experience in this economy, particularly business experience, and I have that and Ryan does not.

My focus is not just on personal qualities, but on values and priorities. Paul Ryan’s ideas are to benefit the ultra-wealthy at everyone else’s expense. Ryan wants and to slash our social safety net, including seniors programs, the environment, women’s health, education, infrastructure, and economic recovery efforts– all to give more tax breaks to the rich! My focus is on rebuilding the middle class by making critical investments into worker retraining, education, green energy, and research. I will pay for this by eliminating tax loopholes and the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy and by cutting war spending. I am on the side of 99% of Americans, and Paul Ryan is only a 1% warrior. He is a man with a lot of money and no friends.

Blue America officially endorsed Rob and added him to our Blue America page. And not just because Ryan is so execrable. Rob is a self-taught progressive with his head screwed on right, who wants to do the right thing for working families and who has the right instincts to be a fine congressman. Help us shock the GOP, Wall Street, K Street and the DCCC on election day.

Join us at Crooks and Liars at 11pst, 2est.

.

Newt, for you it should be over

by digby

Just watch it. You’ll cry. Laughing.

.

President Both-Sides-Do-It

by David Atkins

The budget drama of the day is that Republicans are “caving” on the payroll tax cut extensions. Recall that in the insane topsy-turvy world of modern Republican Objectivist politics, payroll tax cuts aren’t “good” tax cuts because they don’t go to real “producers,” so Republicans have to “concede” them to Democrats.

Why are the Republicans “caving?” Because Democrats would like to pass the payroll tax cut along with the commonsense Medicare doc fix and unemployment insurance extensions. Republicans oppose allowing the unemployed to eat and letting doctors get paid to take Medicare patients without ensuring draconian cuts in other areas. So they want to “compromise” by “acceding” to the payroll tax cut as a standalone bill, so that they can oppose the other two measures.

Democrats are, of course, objecting, demanding that the three provisions be tied together as previously agreed. Surely this is enough of an Alice-in-Wonderland situation that the President should have no trouble delivering a stinging and popular rebuke, right?

Here’s what the President’s spokesman Jay Carney had to say:

“Let’s just see how this process plays out. Extending unemployment insurance as well as the so-called doc fix is equally important — certainly very important, and very important for our economy. So the president supports extending all of it, and doing it in a way that is easily achievable if folks put ideological and partisan positions aside and just get it done for the American people.”

I give up.

.

Romney’s Realness

People are what they do, and part of what presidential candidates must do is project a fully integrated depth of being before multiple audiences. Romney’s political problem—his poor job performance as a professional politician—is that he has an almost poignant difficulty in managing to do that. His inability to merely fake the “realness” that people hunger for reminds me of what was once said about former Texas Governor, and Democrat turned Republican John Connally: he is the only man in the world whose real hair makes people think he’s wearing a toupee.

I hadn’t heard that before but I have often felt there was something really fake about Mitt’s hair.

.

“It was just a bunch of good ol’ boys out to have fun”

by digby

That is apparently going to be the defense of the Hutaree Militia:

“I’m going to fight it tooth and nail,” David Stone’s wife and co-defendant, Tina Mae Stone, said during a break in jury selection last week. “It was just a bunch of good ol’ boys out to have fun. We did survival stuff. I did it mostly to spend time with my husband. People tell me, ‘Good luck.’ I don’t need luck. I’ve got God on my side.”

The militia prepared for survival in case of domestic chaos or an attack on the United States, attorneys Todd Shanker and Richard Helfrick said in a court filing. They noted the group even had a website and promoted its weekend outings.

The indictment, however, describes a more sinister band. The government says the Hutaree, which the militiaclaimed means “Christian warriors,” was an anti-government group committed to fighting authorities who belong to a so-called “New World Order.” The defendants are accused of conspiring to someday ambush and kill a police officer, then attack the funeral procession with explosives and trigger a broader revolt against the U.S. government.

“The court will hear testimony and examine evidence concerning this particular group’s hatred for, and desire to do physical harm to, law enforcement,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Graveline said.

Hmmm. I’m certainly not sympathetic to armed wingnut militias in general and this group sounds like a bunch of real kooks. But I’ve always wondered a little bit about this case. Either they were dangerous idiots or plain old idiots and it’s never been clear to me which one. I guess the trial will clear that up. It’s telling that they have refused to take plea bargains.

.

Help Stop Keystone XL

by David Atkins

I’m not usually a fan of online petitions, but I’m making an exception here. Republicans are trying to attach funding for the Keystone XL pipeline to a highway funding bill in the Senate.

One of the reasons (outside of Republican electioneering and short-sightedness) that the Keystone project failed the first time was mobilized, angry citizen activism.

It’s not much, but please take 30 seconds to sign the 350.org petition to stop the climate-killing Keystone XL pipeline. They’re looking for 500,000 signers in 24 hours, and this is as worthy a cause as exists.

We spend a lot of time here talking about economics, which does affect the quality of life of billions of people around the globe. And yet, reverberating effects and industrialization issues notwithstanding, the human race and the planet will generally survive either way.

But if we don’t take action on climate change, all of our efforts on taxes and economics will be washed away like so many sandcastles on the shore.

Please take a moment to sign the petition. Your great-grandchildren will thank you.

.

Charts ‘O the Day

These are from the Washington Post, via Mike Konzcal:

The left map shows laws restricting abortion in 2011. The light blue is some changes, medium blue is substantial changes, dark blue is major changes. The map on the right has Democratic control of government in blue, GOP control of government in red and yellow indicates divided government. The correlation is obvious.

In 2011, states passed 92 laws restricting abortion access, more than double the restrictions passed in any other year.

This all launched into high gear after the allegedly libertarian Tea Party election of 2010. If one believes that the Supreme Court is influenced by changes in the states in these matters, one can only assume that they are seeing those changes on the map as well.

I need this more than you do…

Not for lack of trying

by digby

You have to love this from Jake Tapper:

Obama’s Broken Deficit Promise

“This is big,” wrote White House director of new media Macon Phillips in a February 23, 2009 blog post, ”the President today promised that by the end of his first term, he will cut in half the massive federal deficit we’ve inherited. And we’ll do it in a new way: honestly and candidly.”

Indeed, President Obama did make that promise that day, saying, “today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited in half by the end of my first term in office. This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions and face challenges we’ve long neglected. But I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay — and that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control.”

The 2013 budget the president submitted today does not come close to meeting this promise of being reduced to $650 billion for fiscal year 2013.

If you read the whole article you’ll find no mention of the fact that the GOP has refused to take yes for an answer despite the president practically begging them to brutally slash all the programs they purport to hate. You cannot tell this story properly without that context.

I have always wondered why the libertarians almost always choose the right wing party in America, when theoretically, they could just as easily choose the left. I have variously chalked it up to hypocrisy, selfishness or greed, since when it comes down to it, most of them seem far more interested in property rights than individual liberty (or, at least, seem to define individual liberty as narrowly applying to their right to own property.) But that’s facile. I always figured there had to be more to it — I just don’t believe that the only thing that animates human beings in money, not even Randian libertarians. Humans are far more complicated than that, and there are much more primal motivators at work.

So far as Feminism seeks to adjust the legal position of woman to that of man, so far as it seeks to offer her legal and economic freedom to develop and act in accordance with her inclinations, desires, and economic circumstances—so far it is nothing more than a branch of the great liberal movement, which advocates peaceful and free evolution. When, going beyond this, it attacks the institutions of social life under the impression that it will thus be able to remove the natural barriers, it is a spiritual child of Socialism. For it is a characteristic of Socialism to discover in social institutions the origin of unalterable facts of nature, and to endeavour, by reforming these institutions, to reform nature….

Why do so many more libertarians join the right wing instead of the left wing? Because they care more about maintaining traditional, private realms of power than anything else. And that translates to dominance over women in the home and workers in the offices and factories. The people who are drawn to that ideology have no problem making common cause with social conservatives because ultimately, they care about the same thing, the social cons would just have the state enforce it. And as we’ve seen, Ron Paul and many of his followers are fine with that too — as long as it isn’t the centralized state doing the enforcing. Tyranny on a local, private level isn’t tyranny. It’s natural.

Update:Be sure to read Konczal’s piece and the ensuing argument over Mises’ “endorsement” of birth control. He endorsed it — for the husband/father to make women use if he didn’t feel it was financially viable to have more children. Rick Santorum wouldn’t agree with that. But in the end they can both agree on one thing: men are looking out for “the family” when they control women’s reproduction. What could be wrong with that?

.