Month: July 2012

They’ve got to be taught

by digby

Who could be a more appropriate role model for children than Andrew Breitbart:

In honor of the late Andrew Breitbart, EAGnews.org has created the “Annual Andrew Breitbart Memorial Essay Contest,” for K-12 students throughout the United States.

Each contestant will be asked to produce an essay answering the question, “What does America mean to you?” The contest will have three divisions – elementary (grades K-5), middle school (grades 6-8) and high school (grades 9-12).

Breitbart, a conservative commentator and founder of several popular national websites, passed away in March at the age of 43.

“Andrew loved America and loathed the ‘fundamental transformation’ that progressives are inflicting on our nation through our education system and other cultural institutions,” said Kyle Olson, founder and publisher of EAGnews.org and close Breitbart ally on educational issues.

“We were happy warriors with Andrew, and we believe students writing about their appreciation of America and all our nation has done for freedom around the world would have brought him great joy. His legacy will live on through this effort to challenge American children to more fully understand and appreciate their nation.”

Essays should be limited in length to 100 words in the K-5 division, 250 words in the middle school division and 300 words in the high school division. Entries may be submitted exclusively at EAGnews.org/Breitbart until 5pm EST Friday, August 10, 2012.

Here’s a little inspiration for the kiddies:

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Michele “McCarthy” Bachman

by digby

John Boehner shows a tiny bit of real leadership:

Q: Speaker Boehner, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann…specifically mentioned Huma Abedin, the deputy chief of staff to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and basically said that she had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood through her family and they also showed that the State Department’s policies have become more friendly to the Muslim brotherhood and other Islamic groups. Do you have this concern — do you think it’s appropriate that she and these members would ask for this letter, especially as a member of the House Intelligence Committee?

BOEHNER: I haven’t seen the letter, but — I don’t know Huma, but from everything I do know of her, she has a sterling character. And I think accusations like this being thrown around are pretty dangerous.

But not too much leadership:

Q: Would you consider taking her off the Intelligence Committee? Congresswoman Bachmann?

BOEHNER: I don’t know that that’s related at all.

Of course not. Why would a McCarthyite nutcase be unqualified to properly handle some of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence?

Still, baby steps.

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Something is very, very wrong here

by David Atkins

Hunter at Daily Kos encapsulates better than I ever could the core frustration of the Presidential race:

The current political riff over whether or not Barack Obama does or does not loathe businessmen and wish to do them harm is yet another in a long line of examples in which the narrative is, in variation after variation, centered on the titans of finance and what we can do for them. If the economy is suffering, it is because we have not appeased the titans properly. If there are no jobs to be had, it is because the titans are still too unsure of our intentions towards them. If there are still crooks on Wall Street, it is because entirely too many things have been declared to be illegal. Whether or not people have money to buy the things the titans are selling never comes up; it is implicit, in every debate, that the titans will decide whether we will buy things or not. When the economy crashed and things needed propping up, it was Wall Street that got propped up first. When the economy recovered, it was Wall Street that gained the largest share of the profits. According to current narrative, the entire world economy can be neatly encapsulated by the considering the desires and requirements of the top one percent of the top one percent; everyone else on the planet is a footnote.

The central banks all express alarm at unemployment; the central banks all do not a damn thing to combat it. The governments all express alarm at the behavior of the titans; the governments all do hardly a thing to forcibly reform them. And, in politics, we are trapped. The titans finance the elections, the titans underwrite the people who write the rules, the government looks to the ranks of the titans when seeking officials to lead the economic decision-making process. All of this four years after their recession. Their crash. Their failures. All of it just the same as during the four years before the collapse, or worse.

So now the current challenger for the presidency is a Wall Street financier, one who made his money by closing factories and shipping the jobs to cheaper places, or by taking control of companies, loading them with debt in order to pay his own company handsomely from that debt, and departing again—the kind of money-making that the titans think of as the most clever of all, because it extracts money from nothingness, but the kind that nearly everyone else points to as economic parasitism of the highest order. Gordon Gekko has come back to town, and by God and the titans, he’s been heralded as a diplomat, and a patriot, and a generally fine fellow.

Holy hell.

If you were to design a tailor-made plutocratic villain to run for the Presidency in the post-crisis Occupy era, you could barely do better than Mitt Romney. The guy quite literally has the very job and personality that Gordon Gekko’s character was based on.

And yet nothing in American politics has changed. The majority of the Left backs its own candidate in spite of various backslides toward neoliberalism. Conservatives rally around the plutocratic flag just as eagerly as ever, with the same racist and sexist phobias playing themselves out as usual. And the same old collected assortment of Perot, Nader and Ron Paul voters still stand holier-than-thou outside the system, declaring a pox on both houses and insisting that the whole thing is due to collapse any day now, with all the accuracy and relevance of those awaiting the Rapture.

The Republican Party couldn’t have done more to discredit itself from 2000-2008 if it had tried. Two wars lost, an economy crushed, a surplus squandered and an entire city drowned, and yet nothing really changed at the core of the country’s politics. The nation elected a Yankee African-American named Hussein, replete with a professorial and community organizing background. And still nothing changed: Barack Obama might as well have been playing out Bill Clinton’s 3rd term. The Republicans stormed back into office with one of the biggest midterm landslides in history. No change. Americans started occupying the streets in protest of record income inequality. Still nothing. And then Republicans nominated Gordon Gekko himself as their candidate for President, and still the Presidency hangs on the edge of a knife so sharp we might as well be living back in days of hanging chad recounts.

Things do eventually change, of course. Tipping points come, and then things tend to move dramatically. But if even the course of recent events has not been enough to budge the ponderous weight of the political system, it’s terrifying to think of the catastrophe it would take to force a real transformation of this dreary reality.

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America’s richest dynasty

by digby

Winding up my day of Romney and the aristocrats (I swear it wasn’t planned) I offer the day’s stomach churning factoid. I wonder what Toqueville would have thought about this?

Concretely, between 2007 and 2010, while median family wealth fell by 38.8 percent, the wealth of the Walton family members rose from $73.3 billion to $89.5 billion…In 2007, it was reported that the Walton family wealth was as large as the bottom 35 million families in the wealth distribution combined, or 30.5 percent of all American families.

And in 2010, as the Walton’s wealth has risen and most other Americans’ wealth declined, it is now the case that the Walton family wealth is as large as the bottom 48.8 million families in the wealth distribution (constituting 41.5 percent of all American families) combined.

Think Progress notes:

At the same time that the Waltons have amassed an ever larger fortune, Congress decided to cut the estate tax, a policy for which the Waltons have been pushing for years. And now that the estate tax cut is in place, conservatives are doing everything they can to ensure it doesn’t go away, allowing the Waltons to amass even larger amounts of wealth.

But don’t worry. They’re all good old boys and girls, just like you and me. Well, almost.

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Very Important Sycophants

by digby

Dear me…

Hello Ken,

I am writing a story about Ann Romney and her horse Rafalca for Deadspin.com as part of our Olympic coverage. I was wondering if you might allow us to use some of the photos from this story: http://www.dressage-news.com/?p=16317 to go along with our piece. We will of course give full credit for the photos to you and your site.

Thanks,
—
Tom Ley
Deadspin.com
210 Elizabeth St. #4, New York, NY 10012

Ken:

Afraid not. No permission is granted.

I don’t know Deaddspin.com.

KENNETH J. BRADDICK

Me:

We are a Gawker Media property with 2.3 million monthly readers. Here is a link with some information about who we are and what kind of an audience we have: http://advertising.gawker.com/deadspin/

If we were able to use some of your photos, it might help generate some increased interest in your site.

Thanks,
Tom

Ken:

I have twice your viewership. According to the latest market survey released end of June dressage-news.com is #1 equestrian Internet site in world in both viewers and credibility.

I spend a fortune covering equestrian events around the world.

I don’t know what your site will do to increase my viewership/credibility.

I think I know my industry well and do not want my images, acquired at enormous cost (I’ve been in Germany since July 2, heading to London tomorrow and will be there through the Olympics, my third trip to Europe this year) used for purposes other than the way I present them.

I do not sell my photos, so by implication don’t care about expsue to a “larger” audience.

Sorry

Right. Dressage-News.com has 4.6 million monthly readers. Sure it does.

Horse showing, whether it’s dressage or jumping or whatever is a perfectly fine sport that requires real skill. But don’t kid yourself. For every normal, decent horse lover there are 10 rich creeps and their hangers-on like this guy. This is the Romneys’ world.

Update: It turns out old Ken isn’t such a bad fellow after all. He was just having a bad day.

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Will they cave on the estate tax?

by David Atkins

One of the lesser watched games of chicken coming during the lame duck session is the battle over the estate tax. As The Hill reports:

Business and farm groups are making a determined effort to rein in the estate tax before it expands significantly at the end of the year.

Thanks to a deal approved in late 2010, the estate tax is among a long list of fiscal issues awaiting action from Congress, including the extension of the George W. Bush-era tax rates and budget sequestration.

With a legislative logjam forming for the lame duck, lobbying groups such as the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) and the American Farm Bureau Federation are reminding lawmakers not to forget about their issue…

Business and farm groups, and many congressional Republicans, would prefer to see the estate tax abolished.

But with that an unlikely scenario, at least this year, GOP lawmakers are instead pushing to extend the estate tax parameters included in the 2010 deal. That deal set the maximum tax rate at 35 percent with a $5 million exemption, indexed for inflation after 2011.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have prepared a broad tax-plan package that would return the estate tax to the 2009 levels of a 45 percent rate for estates, with a $3.5 million exemption, while extending Bush-era rates on family income up to $250,000.

That Democratic plan is expected to get a Senate floor vote perhaps as soon as next week, while the House GOP proposal that would extend all the Bush-era rates and the current estate tax parameters is likely to see a vote shortly before the August recess.

If lawmakers do nothing before year’s end, the estate tax will revert in 2013 to a $1 million exemption and a 55 percent rate, levels that independent analysts say would hit many more estates than either the current Democratic or Republican proposals. That would come just three years after there was no estate tax at all in 2010.

Remember that under this scenario, the 55 percent rate applies only to every dollar over $1 million. Not to the first million. As with so much else in the discussion of the Bush tax cuts, the best bet here is to do nothing at all. Let the Republicans whine about all the nonexistent “small businesses” it would harm, while the Democrats take credit for making multi-millionaires pay their fair share. Just like the American people want.

The only tax policy that Democrats should be championing is extending the tax cuts for people making under $250,000 a year. Continue that message all the way through the November presidential election. And then, if the Republicans object and take hostages like basic services or treaties, use Presidential authority to hold other hostages–say, military base closures in red states, big agriculture subsidies or other corporate welfare disbursements.

The Democrats needn’t give any ground on further tax breaks for the wealthy. All they need do is sit back and watch Republicans get nervous.

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Taunting Little Lord Mitt

by digby

They aren’t going to let up on this.

Josh Marshall wrote an interesting piece the other day making the case that Mitt is taking all this personally because, like his fellow Masters of the Universe, he just can’t believe anyone would think he is anything less than a stand-up guy and so much so that to even question it, much less demand proof, is beyond insulting.

This too tracks with the MOU’s view of themselves as modern nobility, quite above such inquisition from the polloi. Take, for example, this:

People always want to get more. And, you know, we’re putting out what is required plus more that is not required. And those are the two years that people are going to have. And that’s all that’s necessary for people to understand something about my finances.

Indeed. The people only need to understand “something” about his finances. Once you start giving in to their demands for details there’s just no end to it. You know how they are. Then he shook out his lace cuff, took a deep sniff of his finest snuff and dismissed the room.

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Can’t help lovin’ that man of his

by digby

The twitter is all atwitter today about this alleged Chris Matthews shark jumping moment, with conservatives having a field day condemning him for his blatant partisanship:

Yes, it is absurd, no doubt about it. But this isn’t about partisanship. He just loves him some presidential manliness. It makes him all breathless and excited, no matter who it is:

MATTHEWS: Let’s go to this sub–what happened to this week, which was to me was astounding as a student of politics, like all of us. Lights, camera, action. This week the president landed the best photo of in a very long time. Other great visuals: Ronald Reagan at the D-Day cemetery in Normandy, Bill Clinton on horseback in Wyoming. Nothing compared to this, I’ve got to say.

Katty, for visual, the president of the United States arriving in an F-18, looking like he flew it in himself. The GIs, the women on–onboard that ship loved this guy.

Ms. KAY: He looked great. Look, I’m not a Bush man. I mean, he doesn’t do it for me personally, especially not when he’s in a suit, but he arrived there…

MATTHEWS: No one would call you a Bush man, by the way.

Ms. KAY: …he arrived there in his flight suit, in a jumpsuit. He should wear that all the time. Why doesn’t he do all his campaign speeches in that jumpsuit? He just looks so great.

MATTHEWS: I want him to wa–I want to see him debate somebody like John Kerry or Lieberman or somebody wearing that jumpsuit.

Mr. DOBBS: Well, it was just–I can’t think of any, any stunt by the White House–and I’ll call it a stunt–that has come close. I mean, this is not only a home run; the ball is still flying out beyond the park.

MATTHEWS: Well, you know what, it was like throwing that strike in Yankee Stadium a while back after 9/11. It’s not a stunt if it works and it’s real. And I felt the faces of those guys–I thought most of our guys were looking up like they were looking at Bob Hope and John Wayne combined on that ship.

Mr. GIGOT: The reason it works is because of–the reason it works is because Bush looks authentic and he felt that he–you could feel the connection with the troops. He looked like he was sincere. People trust him. That’s what he has going for him.

MATTHEWS: Fareed, you’re watching that from–say you were over in the Middle East watching the president of the United States on this humongous aircraft carrier. It looks like it could take down Syria just one boat, right, and the president of the United States is pointing a finger and saying, `You people with the weapons of mass destruction, you people backing terrorism, look out. We’re coming.’ Do you think that picture mattered over there?

Mr. ZAKARIA: Oh yeah. Look, this is a part of the war where we have not–we’ve allowed a lot of states to do some very nasty stuff, traffic with nasty people and nasty material, and I think it’s time to tell them, you know what, `You’re going to be help accountable for this.’

MATTHEWS: Well, it was a powerful statement and picture as well.

He can’t help acting like a sophomore cheerleader at her first prom. He’s just a romantic at heart.

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Beware Grand Bargains in sheep’s clothing

by digby

If it’s true that Republicans are starting to realize that there are offers on the Grand Bargain table they would really like to take, they might just go along with this:

Senate Democrats — holding firm against extending tax cuts for the rich — are proposing a novel way to circumvent the Republican pledge not to vote for any tax increase: Allow all the tax cuts to expire Jan. 1, then vote on a tax cut for the middle class shortly thereafter.

The proposal illustrates the lengths lawmakers are going to in an effort to include new federal revenues in a fix for the “fiscal cliff,” the reckoning in January that would come when all Bush-era tax cuts expire and automatic spending cuts to military and domestic programs kick in.

Virtually every Republican in Congress has taken the pledge, pushed by Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, never to vote for a tax increase — a pledge both parties see as a serious impediment to a tax compromise. But if tax rates snap back to the levels of the Clinton presidency on Jan. 1, any legislation to reinstate some of those tax cuts — but not all of them — would be considered a tax cut.

“Many Republicans are starting to realize something important: On Jan. 1, if we haven’t gotten to a deal, Grover Norquist and his pledge are no longer relevant to this conversation,” Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, said this week in a speech at the Brookings Institution. “We will have a new fiscal and political reality.”

The idea inflamed passions on both sides on Tuesday, when fiscal issues careening toward Congress roiled hearings and deliberations and spurred political recriminations as Republican leaders accused Democrats of steering the economy back into recession.

Now, I’m all for this in isolation. Yes, by all means let the Bush tax cuts expire and propose better ones in the new congress. It’s absolutely the best thing. if the GOP wants to block tax cuts, well, let them …

However, don’t assume that this will happen in isolation. I am guessing they will see this as the big Democratic “win” which means they will have to let the Republicans have a “win” too or it just won’t be a Grand Bargain at all.

If you doubt me, look at this, from one of our progressive Democratic stalwarts:

Here’s how the argument is being framed at the Wall Street Journal

[T]he consequences of prolonged slow growth are profound. In just the period between 2017 and 2022, if the economy were to grow at its long-term average of 3.3% rather than 2.3%, it would produce $1 trillion in higher output, $904 billion in greater personal income, 1.1 million more jobs and an annual deficit $261 billion narrower. Average incomes for Americans, the study notes, would be “several thousand dollars higher.”

So, how does the country win back that extra percentage point of annual growth? Washington can’t provide the entire solution, but it certainly can provide a big part of it. That would require not just one “grand bargain” between the two parties—the kind that Democratic President Barack Obama and Republican House Speaker John Boehner tried to negotiate on the federal budget last year—but a whole series of them.

That’s right. Even after all we’ve seen and done, slashing the government is the solution to slow growth. He doesn’t explain why, it just is. It’s faith-based.

Here are some specifics of the Grand Bargains we will need to have to create growth:

• Corporate taxes: Democrats accept the need for a simpler tax code and lower corporate rate, Republicans the need to eliminate loopholes to make this lower rate revenue-neutral to avoid adding to the deficit.[Again, we are solving a debt crisis without raising revenue.I don’t know why anyone continues reading after that.]

• Balancing the budget: Democrats accept a meaningful reduction in the cost of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, and Republicans selected tax increases.

• Exports: Democrats accept that new free-trade agreements, particularly in the Pacific, are necessary, and Republicans that making those agreements politically palatable means helping displaced workers at home and attacking unfair trade practices abroad.

• Education: Republicans accept more spending on schools, Democrats that education funding must be lashed to a commitment to education reforms.

• Immigration: Republicans accept the need for higher immigration levels, Democrats that it should be tilted toward newcomers with higher skills and education.

This is a Third Way plan, by the way, not a GOP plan as you might have assumed. You can see where the “sacrifices” are. He says:

The moderate Democrats who consider Third Way a policy home could accept these kinds of bargains, as could plenty of Republicans. Continued paralysis, by contrast, likely means more subpar growth and the pain that would bring.

Right, no pain in those plans at all. Just soaring growth with all the boats rising so high we’re all dizzy from the steep ascent.

Once again, I’m stuck holding out for the wingnuts to obstruct anything that they consider commie Democrat ideas. Like ending “loopholes” and levying insignificant condemnations of unfair trade practices. And higher immigration levels for doctors and computer experts. They don’t know any better. Thank God.

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The Apple fell very far from the tree

Lee Fang, now writing over at the Nation points out how different it used to be:

The entire controversy might have been avoided if Romney had simply followed the path set by his father, George Romney, who took steps to clearly transition from his perch as the head of American Motors Corporation to public service. The elder Romney, who stepped down exactly thirty-seven years and a day before Mitt Romney’s announcement about heading the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in 1999, made a conscious effort to severe ties with his auto business.

On February 10, 1962, at a press conference with Mitt in downtown Detroit, George Romney announced his intention to run for Michigan governor as a Republican. Widely respected by both parties, George, even with minimum political experience, was seen at the time as a potential challenger to President John Kennedy. The GOP cheered a new leader—Governor Nelson Rockefeller (R-NY) celebrated the news as “a real contribution to the strength and vitality of the Republican Party”; shareholders lamented the loss of a successful businessman to the world of politics.

In fact, when George initially informed the board of his intention to resign and run, he was asked to take a leave of absence instead. Richard E. Cross, the American Motors Corporation legal counsel, told the Los Angeles Times that he was “obviously reluctant” to see George go, especially since company profits were surging with record sales of the AMC Rambler. George had been referred to back then as the “prophet of the compact car” for introducing the Rambler in 1950 as an executive at a company that later merged with AMC.

The Wall Street Journal, on Monday, February 12, reported that at 9:00 am, George planned to attend a company board meeting so that he could officially request a leave of absence as chairman and president of American Motors Corporation. It was “inconsistent with my principles that I become a candidate for public office and maintain my business responsibilities,” said George, as he explained why he planned to forgo his salary and bonus.

George, however, changed his mind and decided it would be prudent to officially resign as CEO. Before the end of the day, George had set up a management transition team. Roy Abernethy, the company’s executive vice president, would be promoted as president and chief operating officer, along with Cross, who would serve as AMC’s chairman.

The board elected George as vice chairman, but granted him an indefinite leave of absence without pay. He even had time left over to attend a political meeting in Lansing that same day. In November, after he won his election, George stepped down from his largely ceremonial role.

That’s quite a difference, isn’t it?