Month: July 2012

How to save 250 million dollars per congressional district

by digby

Darcy Burner is one of the few candidates in this cycle talking constantly about the war in Afghanistan. She’s been holding town hall meetings all over the district with General Paul Eaton, offering a sophisticated and detailed plan to withdraw, explaining the stakes and the difficulties to her constituents. She’s very serious on these issues and anyone who has been to her presentations knows that she is highly informed about the issue. She says:

In 2003, when my son Henry was a few months old, my brother Jason marched into Iraq with the initial invading force. I realized that no set of choices I could make would give Henry the kind of life I wanted him to have if we didn’t change the direction of the country.

In 2007, I worked with retired Major General Paul Eaton to write A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, which was endorsed by more than 60 candidates for the U.S. House and U.S. Senate, including Congresswoman Chellie Pingree, Congresswoman Donna Edwards, Congressman Jared Polis, and Senator Jeff Merkley.

In 2010, I worked as part of the Afghanistan Study Group on their report called A New Way Forward which laid out why and how the U.S. needs to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops and the $100 billion per year we are spending there home. That is $250 million per Congressional District per year!

People are voting in Washington right now and top-two primaries are hard to predict. She can reach 25,000 potential voters with this succinct, straightforward message and needs to raise some money to do it.

You can contribute to Darcy’s campaign here if you’d like to help.

I wish more candidates would make this part of their message. There’s a common sense aspect to it to which I think a lot of people can relate.

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He just seems foreign

by digby

Colbert:

The Colbert Report
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This has to be the loudest dogwhistle since Willie Horton. I can’t believe he’s getting away with it. Why not just call Obama un-American and get it over with?

And at some point, some conservatives in Hawaii are going to have to speak up about this bullshit:

Rush Limbaugh:

How many people come from a background like Obama’s? “Half say Obama has the background and set of values they identify with”? Yeah? Where’s the hardscrabble life? Where’s the growin’ up in the Midwest? Where’s the numerous jobs as a boy with the hardscrabble life the parents had? There’s no life story that Obama has that has much in common with anybody in this country. Obama had a communist, bigamist, absentee father from Kenya. How many people in America can lay claim to that?

He was raised in Indonesia and Hawaii.

He never set foot on the US mainland until he was in college and went to Howard Johnson’s. He was a student of the radical left. His mentors were communists like Frank Marshall Davis and Saul Alinsky and Jeremiah Wright.

That’s just a lie. There’s a very famous vacation in 1971 when Obama was just 11, where he went to Disneyland and traveled all over the place on a Greyhound bus with his (very midwestern) grandmother. But so what if he hadn’t? Hawaii is a state of the union even if these throwbacks (I’m looking at you Cokie) insist that it isn’t really America.

But here’s where ole Rush gets tripped up:

Where’s the hardscrabble life? Where’s the growin’ up in the Midwest? Where’s the numerous jobs as a boy with the hardscrabble life the parents had? There’s no life story that Obama has that has much in common with anybody in this country.

Who’s the last president that describes? The one he hates more than any other president in the world: Bill Clinton. Of course, he was technically Southern, but Rush probably needs to be careful with that one. It sure doesn’t describe George W. Bush or his father. Or Mitt Romney. Or John McCain. It describes Ronald Reagan, but then he was born a hundred and one years ago when that “hardscrabble” story was a lot more common.

Go back through history and there are a whole bunch of presidents and presidential candidates who don’t fit that mold. But you know who does? Rush Limbaugh. Oh wait. No it doesn’t. He likes to think he’s a self-made job creator but he comes from a long line of lawyers, judges and politicians. Still, you have to give him credit. He became gazillionaire by being the most notorious demagogue of his generation. Nobody can say he isn’t an achiever.

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The misogynist’s analyst

by digby

You’ve already heard about this revolting tweet from Wall Street Journal writer James Taranto from David yesterday, but here’s a reminder.

After much hemming and hawing about only wanting to “provoke discussion” he finally issued a lame mea culpa in which he says that the women can never repay the gift they were given so they must live good and happy lives.

I bring this up not to revel in the musings of a first class jerk for a second day, but because some of our readers responded to David’s exhortations to write to the Wall Street Journal and copied us on their letters. I thought this one was particularly good:

Mr. Taranto’s comment regarding the heroic actions of of the men who saved their loved one’s lives draws unwanted disrespect to your paper and insults your readers.

I’m a clinical psychologist who’s spent my professional career trying to understand incomprehensible behavior but the reason for his unfeeling remark continues to elude me. I guess I’ll give his thinking some analysis – mind you only the first and last lines would be actual ‘thoughts’, the panicked-reflexive-projection in between would be what he’s trying not to think of.

Those guys did in Auroroa something really brave
Would I have done that?
Who am I kidding – I would NOT have done that
Does that make me a coward?
I can’t be a coward
I’m not a coward
If I wouldn’t do that it must be someone else’s fault
My sucky girlfriend’s fault that’s whose fault
If she were worthwhile I would be brave
because obviously I’m brave
she’s not worth saving.

ERGO
I hope those chicks were worth saving.

Finally, his comment makes sense.

Heidi Perryman, Ph.D.
Lafayette CA

Sounds right to me.

So much of the right wing response, including the sociopathic clown Ted Nugent’s, seems to me to stem from this obvious insecurity. Ask any soldier and they’ll tell you that even with hardcore rigorous training, nobody knows exactly how they’ll react under fire and the idea that these armchair commandos believe they could have saved the day reveals a deep seated fear of their own impotence. These little men with big guns who are all pretending that they could have been the cowboy who saved the day says much more about them than they realize.

You want proof? Get a load of this:

BECK: Nobody I hear is talking about this except people like us: If you had more people carrying a weapon. If people had a gun in their back and they were — and they were licensed to carry it, that guy wouldn’t have gotten off more than four shots.

NUGENT: And I’m sure you’ve covered it because there was a shooting like that in a church in Aurora this year earlier.

BECK: Yep.

NUGENT: That was stopped because the guy had a gun. And I know the hysteria about teargas and it was dark in the theater. Glenn, I am not making this up. Last week my wife Shemane and I were filming a segment for our Spirit of the Wild show and we were shooting at watermelons surrounded by human silhouette targets just as kind of a competition and from 20 feet and from 20 yards and we were shooting from every imaginable angle, under SPACE cover, from sitting, from squatting, from prone position, from behind cover and from in the open, and we never hit an innocent and we never missed the watermelon. And I’m just a guitar player. If a guitar player can neutralize a watermelon from 20 feet — and this is with live fire, by the way.

We would shoot while the other would take the target shots. So there was that tension of live fire. And this was done in a scenario — and I understand it wasn’t real bullets coming at us and it wasn’t people screaming, running around.

GLENN: Please.

NUGENT: But dear God in heaven, doing nothing is not an option. Training, having a firearm to neutralize an evil gun maniac is a way to go, and we train for that. And I wish I would have been in the theater that day.

GLENN: So do I. So do I.

Sure, it wasn’t in the dark and there weren’t under live fire and there was no tear gas and no screaming, panicked people. But folks, he never missed the watermelon. Not once.

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Junior and the Mittster have something else in common

by digby

He speaks a tiny bit more clearly, but he’s just as big a clod on the international stage as George W. Bush:

The US presidential candidate Mitt Romney has questioned the readiness of London 2012, saying there have been “disconcerting signs” in the buildup to the Games – but said the focus would soon switch to celebrating the athletes.

Before meetings with David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband on Thursday, he told US television: “It is hard to know just how well it will turn out.”

Romney told NBC News: “There are a few things that were disconcerting. The stories about the private security firm not having enough people, the supposed strike of the immigration and customs officials – that obviously is not something which is encouraging.”

In the interview he also called into question whether the British people were behind the Games.

“Do they come together and celebrate the Olympic moment? And that’s something which we only find out once the Games actually begin,” he said.

What the hell is wrong with him? Does he have such a big ego that he has to put down other Olympic Games because they might interfere with his (largely phony) Olympics reputation? And does he have to do it on his way overseas to meet with foreign dignitaries?

Anyway, it didn’t go unnoticed:

The prime minister has hit back at comments from the US presidential candidate Mitt Romney querying Britain’s readiness for the Olympics, urging the country to “put its best foot forward” and ensure they are remembered as “the friendly Games”.

On a visit to the Olympic Park with the London 2012 organising committee chairman, Lord Coe, before Friday’s opening ceremony, Cameron said the Games were an opportunity to promote Britain despite the gloomy economic backdrop.

“This is a time of some economic difficulty for the nation, everyone knows that. But look at what we’re capable of achieving even at a difficult economic time. Look at this extraordinary Olympic Park, built from nothing in seven years,” he said.
[…]
But Cameron, who was due to meet Romney later on Thursday, said: “In terms of people coming together, the torch relay demonstrated that this is not a London Games, this is not an England Games but this is a United Kingdom Games. We’ll show the world we’ve not only come together as a United Kingdom but are extremely good at welcoming people from across the world.”

Cameron said he was going to make this point to Romney when he met him later on Thursday.

I won’t go into the fact that much of Britain’s current economic problems are the result of Cameron’s policies because Romney is dying to replicate them here in the US. But the fact remains that despite his alleged worldliness as a Master of the Universe, he’s often rude and somewhat ill-mannered. It’s not an attractive quality.

Update:

Bill O’Reilly asks social security recipients if they are “weak”

by David Atkins

Bill O’Reilly, smirking, smarmy and repulsive human being:

Anyone who can stand to watch that smug, self-assured pompous jerk tell the single mothers who work 50 hours a week and struggle to get by, or workers who take low-wage barista jobs after grad school because there are no decent thinking jobs left, or the unfortunate middle-aged Americans who get laid off at 55 years old after 30 years in the same field and can’t get hired again due to age discrimination and inability to completely retrain, or people who grew up in delapidated, unpoliced virtual war zones where joining a gang often seems like the best of way of protecting oneself, to simply pull themselves up by their bootstraps despite decades of wage stagnation even as all the productivity gains go to the top–well, much can be said of them but none of it good.

There is a good reason that fewer Americans were on welfare in the 1960s: a single income could support an entire family (which in turn led to fewer child care costs at the expense of women’s freedom), good jobs were available right out of high school, companies tended to provide lifetime careers with job security for workers, the pace of life and work was slower and carried fewer cost expectations (just about any decent job these days expects you to have Internet and a cell phone), etc. Oh, and minorities were treated as less than human and often lived in appalling conditions, too.

If over half of this country is suffering from such Stockholm Syndrome combined with racist animosity that they’re not repulsed by the arguments from this gasbag and those like him, then they deserve the grinding impoverishment they receive at the hands of the moneyed elite.

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Nice little country you have here …

by digby

… be a shame if anything happened to it.

From Reid Cherlin at GQ:

I asked a Democratic legislative staffer for a first-person description of the NRA’s power on the Hill. Here’s the response I got, on the condition that I not provide any further identifying information. It’s pretty breathtaking.

We do absolutely anything they ask and we NEVER cross them—which includes asking permission to cosponsor any bills endorsed by the Humane Society (the answer is usually no) and complying with their demand to oppose the DISCLOSE Act, neither of which have anything to do with guns. They’ve completely shut down the debate over gun control. It’s really incredible. I’m not sure when we decided that a Democrat in a marginal district who loses his A rating from the NRA automatically loses reelection. Because it’s not like we do everything other partisan organizations like the Chamber [of Commerce] or NAM [National Association of Manufacturers] tell us to…

Pandering to the NRA is the probably worst part of my job. I can justify the rest of it—not just to keep the seat, but because I believe most of the positions he takes are consistent with what his constituents want. But sucking up to the NRA when something like Colorado happens is hard to stomach.

I have always understood that Al Gore’s victory in 2000 was the defining moment. Why this was so has never been clear to me, but I expect it was really just the culmination of the decades long quixotic attempt to appeal to rural white males. (Gun culture is pervasive throughout the country, of course, but these are the people for whom this issue is paramount.) I doubt their total and complete capitulation has bought them a single vote they wouldn’t have had anyway, but it’s part of conventional wisdom at this point that any attempt to even discuss guns will result in a GOP sweep so powerful that the Democrats will never again hold a majority.

I have always thought this was nonsense and what this trembling stillness under the NRA’s boot heel showed most Americans was simple cowardice, but I could be wrong. It’s so far gone at this point that lunatics dressed up in Robocop gear can mow down 75 people at a clip with legally purchased firepower that’s only appropriate for a warzone and all anyone can do about it is express sympathy for the victims and “move on.” It’s embarrassing. And sick.

The NRA’s hold over American politics is a perfect symbol of right wing politics in the 21st century. They’re thugs.

Update: Hiyo

Good for the president.

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Showdown over tax cuts

by digby

In case you were wondering if there was something more to the tax cut showdown in the Senate today than a set of competing spin points on the campaign trail, I think this is probably the tactical objective:

Wednesday’s development places the onus of avoiding the full expiration of the Bush tax cuts on House Republicans. They are expected to pass legislation next week to extend all of the Bush tax cuts — but the Senate has already rejected that proposition. That leaves the Senate Democrats’ bill as the only viable vehicle for preventing everyone’s taxes from increasing next year.

Republicans will object to House adoption of the Senate bill on technical grounds. It faces what’s known as a blue-slip problem, because the Constitution requires revenue-raising measures to originate in the House of Representatives. But the blue-slip problem is only an obstacle if House Republicans insist on making it one — and Democrats are confident voters will be receptive to the argument that the GOP is standing in the way of middle-income tax cuts until wealthy Americans get a tax cut too.

To that end, the White House announced President Obama’s strong support for the Senate bill. “All sides agree on the need to extend the tax cuts for the middle class,” reads a statement of administration policy. “[T]his legislation reflects that consensus, and should not be held hostage while debating the merits of another tax cut for the wealthy.”

Now, they will object on technical grounds of course. In fact, they’ll exhume the corpse of Robert Byrd and Henry Clay to prove their point if they have to. But when all is said and done, the Senate vote will stand as the one that passed when we get in to the nitty gritty negotiations of the lame duck session. As everyone faces the possibility of all the tax cuts expiring, this will be hovering out there like an angel of salvation if they want to grab it.

Upshot: don’t get your hopes up. But, as they say, it could happen.

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Glass-Steagall destroyer wants it back

by David Atkins

Via DSWright at Daily Kos, this is interesting:

Former Citigroup Chairman & CEO Sanford I. Weill, the man who invented the financial supermarket, called for the breakup of big banks in an interview on CNBC Wednesday.

“What we should probably do is go and split up investment banking from banking, have banks be deposit takers, have banks make commercial loans and real estate loans, have banks do something that’s not going to risk the taxpayer dollars, that’s not too big to fail,” Weill told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”

He added: “If they want to hedge what they’re doing with their investments, let them do it in a way that’s going to be mark-to-market so they’re never going to be hit.”

He essentially called for the return of the Glass–Steagall Act, which imposed banking reforms that split banks from other financial institutions such as insurance companies.

“I’m suggesting that they be broken up so that the taxpayer will never be at risk, the depositors won’t be at risk, the leverage of the banks will be something reasonable, and the investment banks can do trading, they’re not subject to a Volker rule (the Volcker rule explained), they can make some mistakes, but they’ll have everything that clears with each other every single night so they can be mark-to-market,” Weill said.

He said banks should be split off entirely from investment banks, and they should operate with a leverage ratio of 12 times to 15 times of what they have on their balance sheets. Banks should also be completely transparent, Weill said, with everything on balance sheet. “There should be no such thing as off balance sheet,” he said.

This is the same guy who played a key role in getting rid of the crucial law separating normal banking activities from speculative casino games:

Sitting in his office on the 46th floor of the General Motors building in Manhattan, he is surrounded by reminders of a lifetime on Wall Street. The space is breathtaking with floor-to-ceiling windows and views stretching out over Central Park. One wall is devoted to framed magazine and newspaper articles chronicling his career. A Fortune magazine clipping from 2001 declares Citi one of its “10 Most Admired Companies.”

On another wall hangs a hunk of wood — at least 4 feet wide — etched with his portrait and the words “The Shatterer of Glass-Steagall.” The memento is a reference to the repeal in 1999 of Depression-era legislation; the repeal overturned core financial regulations, allowed for the creation of Citi and helped feed the Wall Street boom.

“Sandy took advantage of changes in the industry to build a financial colossus,” says Michael Holland, founder of Holland & Company, a money management firm. “In the end it didn’t work, and we are now paying for that as taxpayers.”

It’s obvious to any thinking person that we need to bring back a high Chinese wall between regular banking and speculation. Ideally it would have global reach so that bankers couldn’t simply move their dangerous and destabilizing operations to less regulated nations and less regulated markets. But a domestic law would be a good start.

The power of FIRE sector money to buy elections is the only reason it hasn’t already happened.

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Schoolhouse Mock

by digby

Courtesy Mark Fiore, a video well worth sharing:

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They can’t handle the truth

by digby

Tim Murphy at Mother Jones reports that the gun nuts refuse to accept the idea that their insistence on allowing every lunatic in the country to get his hands on automatic weapons and Robocop protective gear has resulted in a massive death toll of innocent people. So, they are creating conspiracy theories to explain away their own responsibility:

Larry Pratt—the president of Gun Owners of America, a far-right Second Amendment group that’s backed by prominent people like Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)—has a different theory. Pratt believes the timing of Holmes’ rampage, which left 12 people dead and 58 wounded, seemed designed to coincide with the upcoming negotiation of the United Nations Small Arms Treaty. A press release sent out to radio bookers on Tuesday advertising Pratt’s availability noted that, “In an article posted at The New American…one expert even outlined a theory that Holmes didn’t act alone, but was possibly ‘enlisted’ to carry out his violent act.” Pratt, the publicist stated, was free for interviews on Holmes’ “impeccable” timing.

The email sources the claim to a blog post by a writer for the New American, the official publication of the John Birch Society—which, in turn, directs readers further down the rabbit hole to a website called Natural News, which breaks it down:

All this looks like James Holmes completed a “mission” and then calmly ended that mission by surrendering to police and admitting everything. The mission, as we are now learning, was to cause as much terror and mayhem as possible, then to have that multiplied by the national media at exactly the right time leading up the UN vote next week on a global small arms treaty that could result in gun confiscation across America.

…In other words, this has all the signs of Fast & Furious, Episode II. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover someone in Washington was behind it all. After all, there’s no quicker way to disarm a nation and take total control over the population than to stage violence, blame it on firearms, then call for leaders to “do something!” Such calls inevitably end up resulting in gun confiscation, and it’s never too long after that before government genocide really kicks in like we saw with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao and other tyrants.

You have to give them some credit here. We have a mass murder on our hands, with the blood of innocents splashed all over them. And they are evoking Hitler and Stalin. It would an admirable bit of jiu jitsu if it weren’t so incredibly sick.

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