Month: April 2013

Time to make some calls people

by digby

Get ready to make some calls to congress when this event  is finished.  They need to hear from you.

Numbers for the Senate are here

Numbers for the House are here.

Don’t be afraid to call your Republican Senators and congressmen either.  And constituents calling their home offices are often more effective.

Also too: If you’d like to elect some candidates who will pledge not to cut Social Security, Medicare and medicaid you can do so here. We desperately need more progressives in the congress. It’s ridiculous that this has gotten this far.

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Taking unpopular stances is only OK when it hurts regular people

by David Atkins

Let no one say that politicians won’t support stupid, unpopular things:

New polling shows older Americans overwhelmingly resisting President Obama’s effort to pare back cost-of-living adjustments for seniors, veterans and the disabled as part of his budget overture to the GOP.

Nearly 70% of those age 50 and older oppose lowering the annual inflation adjustment, including robust majorities of Republican, Democratic and independent voters, according to a survey by an independent firm released Monday by the AARP, the powerful seniors lobby.

Seventy-eight percent oppose applying the reduction to veterans’ benefits.

Obama will propose the inflation adjustment tweak in his 2014 budget, which will be formally unveiled Wednesday, as he tries to broker a deficit-cutting deal with Republicans who have favored the move. The proposal will likely be discussed as Obama courts GOP senators at dinner this week.

It sort of puts into perspective arguments about why politicians need just a little more public help to support things like serious gun control or climate mitigation, doesn’t it?

The fact is that politicians on both sides are often willing to support very unpopular stuff that does damage to the economy. The bottom line, though, is that it can’t hurt rich people or big corporations. As long as it it’s grandma taking the hit, who cares?

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Out of the mouths of babes: “You’re not a scientist”

Media Matters has the whole story about the kid, a 19 year old science education activist Zack Kopplin, who so Pwnd Stephen Moore that he looked like a snail himself when it was over. He makes me feel hopeful about this sad old world.

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Poor Grover. Bobby let him down.

by digby

I wrote a bit about Bobby Jindal’s troubles (stemming from his dystopian hellscape budget) over the week-end. Here’s Benjy Sarlin at TPM with more details:

Grover Norquist, the intellectual leader of the anti-tax crowd in Washington, had praised Jindal’s plan as “the boldest, most pro-growth state tax reform in U.S. history.” He noted that it was particularly significant, because with Obama positioned to veto anything resembling the House GOP’s budget for the next several years, Louisiana might be Republicans’ best chance to show off their tax ideas on the state level.

“The national media and Acela-corridor crowd continue to focus on the bickering Washington, but they can learn what real tax reform looks like by looking to Louisiana,” Norquist said.

It didn’t turn out that way. Only 27 percent of Louisiana voters supported the plan in the latest SMOR poll versus a whopping 63 percent opposed. The idea didn’t even garner majority support among Republicans.

According to SMOR pollster Bernie Pinsonat, Jindal’s true approval is likely even lower than their mid-March poll indicated.

“The decline there came from his political style, his travel out of state, his budget cuts, additional talk of more budget cuts, and of course the tax plan,” Pinsonat said. “But after the survey, there were two or three major things that happened that absolutely would have made these numbers worse.”

Opposition to his plan expanded in early April as religious leaders joined advocates for the poor in complaining the sales tax increase would hurt working families. Jindal’s staff countered that they’d make sure the cost of the tax cuts would mostly fall on businesses instead of individuals, but that concession prompted the influential Louisiana Association of Business and Industry to come out against it as well. Meanwhile, an analysis by the non-partisan Public Affairs Research Council suggested that Jindal would need to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars more in revenue to make the numbers add up at all. With both the progressive left and pro-market right united against it, Republicans in the legislature began to rebel.

Today, Bobby made the only rational decision:

Lousiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) is pulling a plan to replace the income and corporate tax with a new sales tax amid an outcry from groups ranging from clergy to business lobbyists.

“I realize that some of you think I haven’t been listening. But you’ll be surprised to learn I have been,” Jindal will say in an address to the state legislature, according to prepared remarks released to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “And here is what I’ve heard from you and from the people of Louisiana — yes, we do want to get rid of the income tax, but governor you’re moving too fast and we aren’t sure that your plan is the best way to do it.”

No, they’re sure Bobby. They hate it.

I hope Grover’s enjoying today’s Thatcherfest because he’s got his work cut out for him. If the GOP’s dystopian hellscape won’t sell in Louisiana, I can’t imagine where it will.

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For this, we must cut Social Security?

by David Atkins

North Korea makes “threatening” videos. The results are hilarious:

The dog armies are sure to overwhelm us any day now, as are those impeccable gun safety techniques.

On a more serious note, this is the nature of the actual threats we face today on a military level. North Korea, and a shrinking Al Qaeda networks best managed as a targeted intelligence operation. A hot war with China would be unthinkable and pointless. Meanwhile, by far the biggest long term threat to America’s security is mass instability and migration caused by climate change.

The idea that we need to maintain a military operation that spends more than the rest of the world combined is insane. To cut Social Security in order to maintain it is insane. To cut Social Security as a way of avoiding cuts to that military as part of the sequester is also insane.

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QOTD: Henry Kissinger

by digby

From the new Wikileaks release “The Kissinger cables“

“The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer.”

This seems like a good day to remind everyone of this little discussed tid-bit from Bob Woodward’s State of Denial: Bush at War, Part III:

A powerful, largely invisible influence on Bush’s Iraq policy was former secretary of state Kissinger.

“Of the outside people that I talk to in this job,” Vice President Cheney told me in the summer of 2005, “I probably talk to Henry Kissinger more than I talk to anybody else. He just comes by and, I guess at least once a month, Scooter [his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby] and I sit down with him.”

The president also met privately with Kissinger every couple of months, making him the most regular and frequent outside adviser to Bush on foreign affairs.

Kissinger sensed wobbliness everywhere on Iraq, and he increasingly saw it through the prism of the Vietnam War. For Kissinger, the overriding lesson of Vietnam is to stick it out.

In his writing, speeches and private comments, Kissinger claimed that the United States had essentially won the war in 1972, only to lose it because of the weakened resolve of the public and Congress.

In a column in The Washington Post on Aug. 12, 2005, titled “Lessons for an Exit Strategy,” Kissinger wrote, “Victory over the insurgency is the only meaningful exit strategy.”

He delivered the same message directly to Bush, Cheney and Hadley at the White House.

Victory had to be the goal, he told all. Don’t let it happen again. Don’t give an inch, or else the media, the Congress and the American culture of avoiding hardship will walk you back.

He also said that the eventual outcome in Iraq was more important than Vietnam had been. A radical Islamic or Taliban-style government in Iraq would be a model that could challenge the internal stability of the key countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.

Kissinger told Rice that in Vietnam they didn’t have the time, focus, energy or support at home to get the politics in place. That’s why it had collapsed like a house of cards. He urged that the Bush administration get the politics right, both in Iraq and on the home front. Partially withdrawing troops had its own dangers. Even entertaining the idea of withdrawing any troops could create momentum for an exit that was less than victory.

In a meeting with presidential speechwriter Michael Gerson in early September 2005, Kissinger was more explicit: Bush needed to resist the pressure to withdraw American troops. He repeated his axiom that the only meaningful exit strategy was victory.

“The president can’t be talking about troop reductions as a centerpiece,” Kissinger said. “You may want to reduce troops,” but troop reduction should not be the objective. “This is not where you put the emphasis.”

To emphasize his point, he gave Gerson a copy of a memo he had written to President Richard M. Nixon, dated Sept. 10, 1969.

“Withdrawal of U.S. troops will become like salted peanuts to the American public; the more U.S. troops come home, the more will be demanded,” he wrote.

The policy of “Vietnamization,” turning the fight over to the South Vietnamese military, Kissinger wrote, might increase pressure to end the war because the American public wanted a quick resolution. Troop withdrawals would only encourage the enemy. “It will become harder and harder to maintain the morale of those who remain, not to speak of their mothers.”

Two months after Gerson’s meeting, the administration issued a 35-page “National Strategy for Victory in Iraq.” It was right out of the Kissinger playbook. The only meaningful exit strategy would be victory.

No one can deny this man’s influence on America for more than a half century.

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Some context on skin in the game

by digby

From Dean Baker:

President Obama Proposes a Bigger Hit to Seniors Than to the Rich

It might have been worth making this point in an article on President Obama’s budget proposal that tells readers of his plan to cut Social Security by reducing the annual cost of living adjustment. It would have been worth putting this proposal in some context, since many readers may not understand its consequences. 

President Obama’s proposal would reduce benefits by 0.3 percent for each year after a worker retires. After ten years benefits would be cut by 3.0 percent, after twenty years 6.0 percent, and after 30 years 9.0 percent. Over a twenty year retirement, the average cut would be 3.0 percent. 

This cut would be a bigger hit to the typical retiree’s income than President Obama’s tax increases at the end of 2012 were to the typical person affected. A couple earning $500,000 a year would pay an additional 4.6 percentage points on income above $450,000. This would amount to $2,300 a year (4.6 percent of $50,000). That is less than 0.5 percent of their pre-tax income and around a 0.6 percent reduction in their after-tax income. 

By comparison, Social Security is about 70 percent of the income of a typical retiree. Since President Obama’s proposal would lead to a 3 percent cut in Social Security benefits, it would reduce the income of the typical retiree by more than 2.0 percent, more than three times the size of the hit from the tax increase to the wealthy.

Funny, that doesn’t look like “a balanced approach” to me.

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A Correction

When compliments aren’t helpful


by digby

I think most professional women already viscerally know this, but it’s good to see some real data to back it up:

The study, released Monday by the Name It, Change It project, reveals that mentions of a woman’s appearance when she is running for political office — whether those mentions are flattering, unflattering, or neutral — has a negative impact on her electability. That includes “the horserace, her favorability, her likelihood to be seen as possessing positive traits, and how likely voters are to vote for her.”

The survey was conducted by asking 1,500 likely voters to read about two candidates, one male (Dan Jones) and one female (Jane Smith).

Some groups received descriptions of the candidates that did not mention physical attributes. Others received one of three types of descriptions for the woman:

Neutral description: Smith dressed in a brown blouse, black skirt, and modest pumps with a short heel…

Positive description: In person, Smith is fit and atractive and looks even younger than her age. At the press conference, smartly turned out in a ruffled jacket, pencil skirt, and fashionable high heels….

Negative description: Smith unfortunately sported a heavy layer of foundation and powder that had settled into her forehead lines, creating an unflattering look for an otherwise pretty woman, along with her famous fake, tacky nails.

When respondents hear the negative description of the female candidate’s appearance, she gets only 42 percent of the voters. When they hear the “flattering” description, she gets 43 percent (and there are fewer undecided votes overall, so her opponent gets an even bigger lead). With no physical description, Jane Smith gets 50 percent of the votes.

The same is true for all of her personal attributes; no matter the description, it affects her negatively.

It’s just not a good policy to comment on women’s looks in a professional context. It automatically puts her into a negative category, even when the comments are positive. I think it’s just too much of a subconscious reminder of female sex roles and the dearth of female leadership archetypes. (I suspect this doesn’t just apply to men either.)

But there is a way to combat this:

But the real point of the survey — and the most salient fact that came from it — is that pushing back on the comodification of a female candidate’s beauty can be just as impactful as the criticism itself. Some respondents heard a defense from Jane Smith, saying, “My appearance is not news and does not deserve to be covered. Rarely do they cover men in this fashion and by doing so they depict women as less serious and having less to offer voters.” Others heard a similar defense from Name It, Change It. In both cases, when they heard that, their votes flipped back. Indeed, Jane Smith gained her first lead of the entire campaign.

Of course, you will risk being called many unpleasant names if you do this. But that’s part of the tiresome responsibility of feminism.  Women standing up for themselves always results in some people saying they are strident and humorless. It’s an uncomfortable situation. But in the end, it’s worth it because over time it raises most people’s consciousness. And according to this study, it reverses the negative impact almost immediately, which is very good news. It gives women some ammunition in their arsenal when this happens.

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Punks on Thatcher

by digby

When I heard about Margaret Thatcher passing on, my first thought was to play this song. But then I saw that Dave Weigel had already assembled a compendium of anti-Thatcher music of the period. So boo, he beat me to it. Let’s just say it was a fertile period in British music.

I saw them open for The Clash in San Francisco in the early 80s and ruefully observed that American pop culture of the time seemed to be so utterly apolitical, despite a raging recession and a still fairly active left. There was no energy in it compared to the Brits.

Our 80s punks just didn’t hold a candle to the punk scene I first saw in England in the 1970s. And it went nuclear upon the election of Margaret Thatcher. Not that she wasn’t popular, but unlike our similar Reagan worship in the states, there was a very active cultural and political opposition to Thatcherism.

Even the mainstream had something to say: 

Not that it made much of a difference. Thatcher was in full control. I happened to be in London when she went to war in the Falklands and you would have thought she was Queen Elizabeth the first fighting off the Spanish Armada. I’ve seen some flag waving in my day — we Americans are damned good at it — but nothing like what the British can bring to bear when they’re on a martial tear.

Anyway, I’m not going to go on about Thatcherism on the day she died. Let’s just say her legacy lives on today (and on) and leave it at that.

Update: Oh God, Richard Quest on CNN is going on and on about her flirting with Ronald Reagan. This is going to be a long day.

Update II:  Greenwald objects to the notion of speaking no ill of the dead and makes a very salient observation:

To demand that all of that [history] be ignored in the face of one-sided requiems to her nobility and greatness is a bit bullying and tyrannical, not to mention warped. As David Wearing put it this morning in satirizing these speak-no-ill-of-the-deceased moralists: “People praising Thatcher’s legacy should show some respect for her victims. Tasteless.” Tellingly, few people have trouble understanding the need for balanced commentary when the political leaders disliked by the west pass away. Here, for instance, was what the Guardian reported upon the death last month of Hugo Chavez:

To the millions who detested him as a thug and charlatan, it will be occasion to bid, vocally or discreetly, good riddance.”

Nobody, at least that I know of, objected to that observation on the ground that it was disrespectful to the ability of the Chavez family to mourn in peace. Any such objections would have been invalid. It was perfectly justified to note that, particularly as the Guardian also explained that “to the millions who revered him – a third of the country, according to some polls – a messiah has fallen, and their grief will be visceral.” Chavez was indeed a divisive and controversial figure, and it would have been reckless to conceal that fact out of some misplaced deference to the grief of his family and supporters. He was a political and historical figure and the need to accurately portray his legacy and prevent misleading hagiography easily outweighed precepts of death etiquette that prevail when a private person dies.

Exactly the same is true of Thatcher.

Indeed.

I have always had a general rule not to say too much at all on the occasion of a political opponent’s death and I won’t break it now. But the fact is that a politician is not a private person and his or her legacy is open for debate whether alive or dead. That’s the name of the game and all these sanctimonious demands that everyone should be mindful of the family’s grief are dodges. And I doubt that anyone would be more dismissive of such demands that Margaret Thatcher. She was anything but a squish.

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