Month: September 2013

Sure, just let Chris Christie have free rein. What could go wrong?

by digby

This is a fascinating profile in the Daily Beast of the Democratic nominee for Governor New Jersey, Barbara Buono, examining the power of shallow celebrity and how it shapes our politics:

The problem for Buono is that, unlike Booker, she isn’t a celebrity. Instead she’s running against one. And running against a celebrity may be more difficult today than at any time in recent American history. State and regional newspapers—the institutions that used to police campaigns and ensure some measure of equal time between candidates, while applying a degree of investigative scrutiny to powerful incumbents—are withering. “The Star-Ledger used to have great investigative reporters not that long ago,” Buono says, in the course of lamenting the—hint, hint—“waste, fraud, and abuse in state government.” Meanwhile, the relative demise of these papers has made it all the more important for candidates to speak directly to voters through social media—a medium that provides a huge built-in advantage to a politician who is already a celebrity. (Christie has almost 400,000 Twitter followers. Buono has under 6,000.)

[…]In fairness, it isn’t just the media that have frustrated Buono’s efforts to get traction. With Christie widely viewed as a shoo-in, few prominent Democrats have been willing to stick their necks out on her behalf. In New Jersey, many Dems have abandoned her, while national power players, including President Obama, have all but ignored her.

I wondered: what does it look like, up close, when a credible, politically reasonable—but largely unknown—person attempts to get a fair hearing for her rather popular ideas in the face of an unstoppable juggernaut like Chris Christie? And is it possible that, in the doomed, depressing campaign of Barbara Buono, there lies a broader cautionary tale about the way American democracy treats political celebrities?

[…]A lawyer who spent seven years in the state Assembly and 11 more in the state Senate (two of them as majority leader), she’s got a solid résumé. She’s a forceful speaker and does well on camera. Against another candidate, in another election, nobody would be writing her off.

But the Christie of 2013 is about the toughest opponent imaginable. That’s partly because his very public bromance with President Obama in the wake of Hurricane Sandy—just days before the presidential election—earned him a lot of good will with New Jersey Democratic voters. A week before the storm, according to a Quinnipiac poll, Buono trailed by 16 points. By late November, Quinnipiac had her down by 38. “No, she doesn’t have a shot,” says Monmouth University pollster Patrick Murray. “Before Hurricane Sandy she did have a shot.”

She is no longer 38 points down.

Here’s the thing I don’t get about any of this. Sure Christie may have a lock. But since he’s widely considered to be a top tier candidate for 2016, why not take this opportunity to bang him up a little? Why add to his luster as a “juggernaut”? (And the guy isn’t actually invincible, anything could happen.) Christie is especially horrifying to women and it would seem to me to be useful to the Democratic Party and its 2016 front runner to set that up as a salient issue as soon as possible.

Furthermore, judging by that polling, it’s at least partially President Obama’s fault that Christie got such a bump (certainly the second visit was pretty gratuitous) and you’d think for the sake of the Party he’d make some effort to mitigate it. I won’t even talk about the foolishness of the New Jersey Democratic Party that can’t be bothered. Buono is a progressive, fully in touch with New Jersey voters so naturally Democrats won’t waste any time or effort to help get that word out. The establishment is too busy recruiting Republicans to run as Democrats in quixotic races in Red States and spending lots of money to validate right wing talking points. We wouldn’t want to change that winning strategy. After all, having Democrats constantly move to the right has worked so well to moderate the Republican Party.

Politics is drowning in money right now. And the right is spending bucketloads of it to hold their base and expand their map. They are so out of touch with the needs and desires of average Americans that it isn’t easy to get it done but you can believe they’ll continue to do everything in their power to make sure everybody in American hears their message regardless. You’d think the Democrats would spend some of theirs on swing state elections at least to set the table for the future, particularly when it comes to seizing opportunities to pull the hide off a rising star of the opposition. Instead they’re giving Christie free rein to spend gigantic sums of money indoctrinating voters into thinking he’s a swell, regular Joe without any opposing views being given an airing. But then I’ve heard an awful lot of Democratic men extol his virtues as an honest guy they’d like to have a beer with, so I guess I’m not too surprised. Women not so much. Why? This:

That makes me so angry I can’t see straight. He speaks to her like a child. I’ve known too many macho bullies like him in my life not to recognize a misgoynistic scumbag when I see one. I’d sooner vote for George W. Bush than that asshole and I can’t believe the Democrats are appearing with him and letting him build his reputation because he’s a bro. It makes me sick.

And he’s not exactly a moderate:

New Jersey’s unemployment rate is the highest in the region, and yet he left $3 billion in federal money on the table when he canceled plans to build a tunnel under the Hudson River. The state’s credit rating has dropped on his watch, thanks to his habit of pushing costs to the future. New Jersey’s foreclosure rate is also among the highest in the nation, and the state’s response among the most inept…Christie opposes abortion rights and closed six Planned Parenthood clinics. He vetoed marriage equality. He vetoed a surtax on millionaires. He has retreated on climate change. And he removed the only black justice from the state Supreme Court.

If you’d like to support Buono so she can at least put some ads on the air to counter that creepy jackass’s hideous lies you can do it here.

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Your moment of zen with Dana Perino

by digby

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QOTD: Larry Summers

by digby

A big relief:

I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interest of the Federal Reserve, the Administration or, ultimately, the interests of the nation’s ongoing economic recovery

One hopes that the President doesn’t decide to punish Janet Yellen and the liberals who supported her by appointing someone else.

In case you are feeling sorry for Summers, don’t. He is going to make a boatload of money now. They always do.

A big thanks to the Democratic members of the banking committee, Elizabeth Warren, Sherrod Brown, Jeff Merkley and Jon Tester, for stepping up and making it known that they would not support Summers. The president knows better than to count on Republicans to help him so this shows that when Democrats use their clout they can get the job done.

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Who needs Dexter when you have the GOP Implosion Show?

by digby

I love the smell of Republicans imploding in the morning:

is advocating disruption on a grander scale, urging Republicans to wage what some in the party are calling a suicidal campaign to shut down the government unless President Obama agrees to defund his signature health initiative. Last week, Boehner (R-Ohio) cancelled another vote — this time on a plan to keep the government open past Sept. 30 — after the Club and other outside groups complained that it failed to undermine Obamacare.

“Every Republican ran on defunding or repealing Obamacare. This is a test of whether they’re actually going to do what they say they’re for,” said Club President Chris Chocola, a former congressman from Indiana. “What’s the more radical thing to do: Continue to spend more and borrow more from China? Or have the confrontation? It’s never going to get any easier.”

GOP leaders are reworking the measure while Washington braces for another round of white-knuckle deadlines. Meanwhile, Republican strategists are fuming, accusing the Club and its allies of dividing the party and toying with the U.S. economy in a cynical bid to raise cash.

“These are self-perpetuating entities, and if they stop fighting for a cause, the money dries up. So they have to drum up this outrage because it pays their salaries,” said former Arizona congressman Ben Quayle, the son of former vice president Dan Quayle. Ben Quayle narrowly lost his House seat last year after tangling with the Club. “It’s all about how to increase their fundraising,” he said.

Chocola is unapologetic. The Club’s mission, he said, is to advance “economic freedom, not Republicans.”

This is so much fun to watch:

Chocola came to the Club in 2009, just as the tea party was emerging. Under his leadership, the Club’s hand has been hot. In 2010, the Club not only chased veteran Arlen Specter (Pa.) out of the Republican Party — he eventually lost the Democratic primary and Toomey won his seat — but also took out Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah), who made the mistake of championing universal health insurance. Last year, the Club spent roughly $5 million to promote the long-shot Cruz over Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst.

And the Club vows to be more aggressive in 2014. It has set up a Web site, Primary My Congressman, aimed at crowdsourcing challengers to House moderates. So far, it has found one, to run against Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), a close Boehner ally.

The normally loquacious Simpson did not respond to requests for comment. But former congressman Steven C. LaTourette (R-Ohio), leader of the centrist group Main Street Advocacy, quickly vowed to defend him, calling the Club for Growth “a cancer on the Republican Party that prides itself on supporting rigid, divisive and obstructionist candidates.”

Yeah, I’d say the Republican Party prides itself on supporting rigid, divisive and obstructionist candidates too.  But apparently, these Club For Growth monsters are even worse.

By the way, who funds the Club for Growth?

Chaired by prominent Wall Street investors like Thomas Rhodes and Richard Gilder, as well as the wealthy and reclusive Howie Rich, the Club collects funds from employees of J.P. Morgan Chase and Goldman Sachs, while being buoyed by large donations like a $1.4 million contribution from investor Stephen Jacksons of Stephens Groups Inc. The hand-picked candidates of the Club claim to lead the tea party movement, even though polls show that 70% of self identified tea partiers want the government to help create jobs, and nearly half want government to rein in executive bonuses.

Also too:

Three others rank among the nation’s top 25 political donors, according to the center: Perry Homes founder Bob Perry of Texas, who died in April; private equity giant John Childs of Florida; and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, who helped bankroll the presidential campaign of then-Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.).

Sweet.

Those poor tea partiers. They are true believers who honestly think this agenda is good for America. They have no idea they’re being played by a bunch of rich pricks who want nothing more than to impoverish every last one of them. Too bad they’re taking the rest of us down with them.

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The greatest accomplishment of our time

by digby

Let’s party like it’s 2011:

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA:… We can’t negotiate around the debt ceiling. If Mr. Boehner has ideas about– how we can grow this economy, strengthen the middle class, put people back to work in a serious way– of course we’re happy to– you know, support the negotiations that are takin’ place between– the House and the Senate.

But my orientation here is real simple. I wanna make sure that we’ve got an economy in which Main Street’s winning. And what that requires is that we’re investing in education, early childhood, that we’re investing in transportation, that we’re investing in the things that we need to grow. If we’re gonna re– if we’re gonna continue to reduce the deficit, and I think a lot of people aren’t aware of the fact that the deficit’s been cut in half since I came into office, it’s continuing on a trend line of further reductions.

If we wanna do more deficit reduction, I’ve already– put out a budget that says, “Let’s do it.” I’m willing to reform entitlements. I’m willing to– you know, cut out additional waste that may be there. And I’m spending time, even without pressure from Congress, trying to figure out how we can cut out waste in the system.

But– I– what I also think we should be doing is eliminating– corporate tax breaks that nobody can defend– but keep on– reappearing each year in the budget. If we are serious about it, there’s no reason– that we can’t do it, and do right by–

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: How ’bout–

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: –by the– by the country.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: How ’bout beyond the deficit? You were, you know, reelected a little more than a year ago, 332 electoral votes.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Right.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: 51% of the vote.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Yeah.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: First president since Eisenhower to do it twice.

You put gun control at the top of the agenda, immigration reform, climate change. All of it stalled or reversing. How do you answer the argument that– beyond the deficit, this has been a lost year? And how do you save it?

Not that I’m blaming him for the lack of movement on immigration reform, climate change and gun control. But if he comes out of his two terms with health care reform and deficit reduction as his main policy accomplishments I wonder if he’ll feel pleased? I suspect so. If he can get them to take him up on his repeated offer to cut even more and especially the vital social security programs (when they actually need to be raised), he will have fulfilled his Grand Bargain agenda. He certainly seems prepared to grant that deficit reduction remains extremely important and bringing it down is one of his proudest a accomplishments. He can’t wait to do more of it.

I suppose that’s partly a negotiating stance but it’s hard to see how any of his yammering over the past five years about the need to cut “entitlements” has bought him any political good will. In fact, this obsession with the deficit has now stuck us with sequestration which is slashing the very areas in which he insists we must invest. Kids are losing their food stamps and Head Start, the elderly are losing Meals on Wheels. There’s no money for infrastructure.

But apparently we ain’t done yet. According to the president we need to cut even more. So you have to assume he believes in it on the merits.

BTW: The part on Syria was quite good and worth watching. As much as Stephanopoulos tried to get him to “admit” that he somehow screwed up by not being a big swinging Commander in Chief and declaring war on Vladimir Putin, he didn’t take the bait. His reasoning is sound.

I did find it amusing that he condemns the DC press corps for being obsessed with style over substance, though. It’s not as if this administration hasn’t benefited greatly over the years from that very obsession. But, he is right. The outcome is what matters and so far the outcome is that we aren’t dropping bombs and there is a dialog.

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Giving is the best communication

by digby

David wrote an interesting post last night about ethics and morals and philosophy. And he makes good points all around about our moral decisions being centered in the “gut” informed by many extraneous factors.

This old country blogger’s gut (and heart)is informed by this beautiful public service announcement from Thailand which illustrates the inate (gut) response to — goodness:

And they aren’t even exceptional Americans. Imagine that.

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A great game of ethics

by David Atkins

There are quite a few disadvantages to being homeschooled; under the wrong parents the results can be disastrous. But there are some incomparable advantages as well if it’s done right. One such advantage for myself and my brother was a training in rhetoric, dialectic and philosophy in our preteens that is usually taught, if at all, in college courses. Many educators would say that the young mind isn’t prepared for such things until at least high school, but that would be an error. What’s important is that the subject be taught in such a way that a growing mind can grasp it. Teenagers are more than capable of postgraduate critical thinking skills if educators believe they are.

For me, no philosophy was ever as interesting as the philosophy of ethics. Unfortunately, it’s hard to make the philosophy of ethics “fun.” The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals isn’t exactly light reading in any language. But there’s a great new flash game out there that can help introduce the subject in an interesting and accessible way. Not to spoil too much, but Socrates Jones: Pro Philosopher introduces some basic dialectical skills, then asks the player to use dialectics to poke holes in the ethical worldviews of a sequence of philosophers from Protageras through Kant. It’s very well done, and even seasoned ethicists will have fun with the dialog and inside jokes. I wasn’t expecting much when I first played it, but I couldn’t stop playing through it until I had finished it.

If you’re new to the philosophy of ethics or have teenagers who don’t “get” philosophy, this will be a good eye-opener to an amazing world.

The only complaint I have is with the ending which I felt was something of a cop out, and I’m a little disappointed the game makers didn’t touch on evolutionary psychology, which is the biggest thing in ethical theory at the moment. But these are minor quibbles.

As for my take on the “answer” to the question of morals? While my view of basic human nature and government tends to lean Hobbesian, I don’t think a single philosophy of morals is capable of grasping morality because the morality of any given act depends on a variety of factors.

To my mind, evolutionary psychologists, Kant and Mill were all right in their own way. Most morality isn’t calculated–it starts and ends in the gut. (The so-called Trolley
Problem is the most famous illustration of this.) Few people sit there making complex calculations to maximize happiness or to align with universally applied moral principles. But that doesn’t make the gut instinct the right one. Morality is an approximation–starting in the gut, significantly shaped by culture, but checked and tempered by good intentions universally applied, with a calculated eye toward hopefully achieving good ends. An act that ends up doing good isn’t moral if it began with evil intent, nor can an act done with good intentions be considered moral if the actor could reasonably have foreseen that its consequences would be a net negative for the world. Culture helps shape many moral decisions in an inevitable way, but universal logical principles must override culture such that it is definitely possible for whole cultures themselves to be deemed immoral, at least in some ways. All of these principles play a part in the construction of morality.

The answer, in short, is that there’s no perfect answer. It’s a balancing act performed by imperfect people.

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Now the bitchuz are ruining football too? (Led by Michelle Obama of course)

by digby

Josh Holland has a great piece up over at Moyers’ place about NFL’s head injury scandal. And there’s a little bit of good news:

A lawsuit filed on behalf of 4,500 former players who face what they say are concussion-related health issues was settled last month by the league for $765 million. The NFL admitted to no wrongdoing, but the settlement may signal that the sport is finally coming to terms with research showing that repeated head trauma produces long-term impacts. Last year, the league announced that it was making a $30 million donation to the National Institutes of Health to study the phenomenon.

But this is about as ridiculous as it gets:

In the wake of the NFL settlement, a number of pundits have come out to defend the NFL and its $9 billion annual business. Some deny that there’s a problem. Others have attacked the messenger, or the former players themselves.

Writing at Townhall, Timothy Birdnow claimed that destroying the NFL is “the left’s end-game.” After scoffing that there’s “no solid evidence that the game is dangerous,” Birdnow blamed the “liberal sports media” for wanting to over-regulate the game – and for ruining childhood in the process.

There has been an increasing effort by the Progressives to straitjacket young children. Sports are one outlet they have targeted, with an increasingly regimented and organized approach to what were once thought of as children’s games. Michelle Obama may say “Let’s Move!,” but she wants all movement under her watchful eye.

While Birdnow may write from the fringes, a similar theory has gained traction among some mainstream conservatives — Rush Limbaugh also wondered recently if “the left” was intent on “banning football as we know it.”

And NewBusters founder Matthew Sheffield agreed that the “liberal media” poses a genuine threat, writing that while “it’s difficult to imagine Americans going along with government outright banning football,” he could easily see “”compassionate’ liberals and trial lawyers gradually destroying the sport through excessive regulation, government intervention and lawsuits.”

While it may seem unclear why anyone would want to destroy football, running underneath these complaints is an established narrative about the supposed “feminization” of American culture that people like Limbaugh have long embraced. Jeff Blevins, author of Confessions of a Mad Sports Addict, was explicit about this angle, writing, “I like to call it the feminization of the league. Emasculation is another good” way to put it.

Because brain damage is very masculine. (well ….)

If it’s so benign I think macho men like Rush and these Townhall writers ought to be out there getting their heads bashed in every day to prove the science is all wrong. Lord knows it won’t make their words sound any more stupid than they already do. That would be impossible.

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QOTD: Bill Maher

by digby

When he’s right, he’s right:

“Forget the Syria debate, we need a debate on why we’re always debating whether to bomb someone. Because we’re starting to look not so much like the world’s policeman, but more like George Zimmerman. Itching to use force and then pretending it’s because we had no choice.”

I do think President Obama deserves a little bit of credit here, though. He clearly wasn’t itching to bomb. (He’s more of a covert, drone war, kill list kind of guy.) It’s actually a bigger problem among the establishment politicians on both the right and the left. The right just likes to blow stuff up whenever possible. And once the establishment left starts wringing its hands over something it can’t think of any alternatives to some kind of shock and awe. You end up with some very manipulative, unctuous rhetoric that winds up sounding very much like the right wingers who like to blow stuff up. The first resort to bombing is a very bad habit on both sides. On this one I give the president credit for being willing to back off when the opportunities presented themselves. That’s not easy to do.

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The long shadow of torture

by digby

So, I read this horrifying story in Mother Jones about war crimes in the Syrian civil warand it turned my stomach. The government seems to be most culpable but the rebels are hardly paragons in this regard either. This is a very sick situation.

Unfortunately, the US is itself implicated in this in ways that should be reckoned with. This, for instance:

Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen, was travelling home to Canada from visiting relatives in Tunisia in 2002. While changing planes at New York City’s JFK airport, he was detained by U.S. authorities and then transferred secretly to Syria, where he was held for a year and tortured.

“It was so painful,” Maher Arar said of the beatings he endured, “that I forgot every enjoyable moment in my life.”

Released without charge and allowed to return home to Canada, Maher Arar received an apology and compensation from the Canadian government for its role in his treatment. But the U.S. government has failed to apologize or offer Maher Arar any form of remedy – despite its obligation to do so under the UN Convention Against Torture and other human rights treaties

Jonathan Bernstein wrote an interesting piece a few days ago discussing the fact that the administration’s refusal to openly deal with the torture question is partially responsible for the GOP finally losing its foreign policy establishment wing that could have normally been counted upon to work constructively on serious issues. He wrote:

Was it inevitable that Republicans would wind up behaving on foreign policy and national security pretty much the same way they behave on domestic policy? After all, politics has never completely stopped at the water’s edge. And some breakup was very likely after the Iraq War, just as the Democratic side of the foreign-policy establishment suffered a breakdown after Vietnam.

And yet … unlike the Democrats with Vietnam, the Republicans certainly could have blamed Iraq on just one faction within the party, and found a way to excuse and rehabilitate a large part of its mainstream foreign-policy community. But that didn’t happen.

The reason? I think a lot of it had to do with torture.

Republicans in the Bush administration didn’t just have to answer for a spectacular policy failure; they also were involved in war crimes. Or, they—and their friends outside the administration—had friends who were involved in war crimes. Leaving that situation unresolved was poison; it made re-establishing an “establishment”-type foreign policy/national security community dependent on, essentially saying one’s friends had not only been wrong on policy, but that they were also particularly heinous criminals. Much easier to simply ignore it—after all, the Democratic anti-torture president was ignoring it. But that meant that the torture apologists (and Muslim-bashers, and otherwise very much non-establishment folks) remained extremely visible voices of the GOP on national security. There simply were no grounds on which to rule out the worst voices without essentially saying that the rest of the lot probably should be in jail.

So there was no reckoning within the GOP. Even worse: with a Democrat in the White House, the Republican default complaint was often going to be “not tough enough,” and the people most likely to make that case, irresponsibly if necessary, were the exact same people most likely to be torturers or torture apologists. There’s nothing at all wrong with one party tending to emphasize force and “toughness” and the other to emphasize diplomacy (and, yes, I know that in actual fact the Obama Administration used or threatened to use force repeatedly); but in this particular situation that meant that the people in the GOP who counted were usually the ones who had been most discredited during the Bush presidency—so that, for example, John Yoo is the go-to Republican for questions about executive power. And, more to the point here, the ones most likely to have purely partisan reactions to new policy questions, rather than working with the Democratic administration.

I’m not entirely convinced that a torture accountability program like pardons combined with a truth and reconciliation commission as Bernstein proposes (and I’ve endorsed in the past) would have had this effect on the Republicans, but it certainly would have helped the US in the world.

The Syrian atrocities are not the fault of the United States. That responsibility rests squarely with the people who are perpetrating them. But the fact that the US failed to deal with its own problem of torture has  rendered its condemnations of other war crimes much more hollow than they used to be. And that weakens our ability to create any kind of framework to stop, much less punish, such actions. It wouldn’t be an easy thing to do in any case. But it’s harder now.

As Bernstein says, dealing with the torture question:

… would have helped restore the reputation abroad of the United States.

It’s simple: ignoring torture as much as he could has won short-term gains for Barack Obama in that he ducked a fight that could have been ugly … but at a much larger cost to his presidency over the long term. It’s too late to do anything about it before the Syria episode is resolved, but torture still casts a long shadow over U.S. policy, and over his presidency. It’s time for him to act.

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