Month: September 2013

They’re crazy about the kooks

by digby

For some reason liberals still seem to believe that it’s good for them that the Tea Partiers are crazy because then the sane Republicans will vote them out of office.  I dunno:

PPP’s newest national poll finds Ted Cruz is now the top choice of Republican primary voters to be their candidate for President in 2016. He leads the way with 20% to 17% for Rand Paul, 14% for Chris Christie, 11% for Jeb Bush, 10% each for Marco Rubio and Paul Ryan, 4% for Bobby Jindal, and 3% each for Rick Santorum and Scott Walker.

Cruz has gained 8 points since our last national 2016 poll in July while everyone else has more or less stayed in place. He’s made himself the face of a government shutdown over Obamacare, and the Republican base supports that by a 64/20 margin. It’s not surprising that Republicans identifying as ‘very conservative’ support a shutdown 75/10, but even the moderate wing of the party supports it by a 46/36 margin.

Cruz is leading the GOP field based especially on his appeal to ‘very conservative’ primary voters, who he gets 34% with t0 17% for Rand Paul and 12% for Paul Ryan. Voters who fall into that ideological group make up the largest portion of the Republican electorate at 39%. With moderates Cruz gets only 4% with Christie leading at 34% to 12% for Jeb Bush and 10% for Marco Rubio, but they only account for 18% of GOP voters and thus aren’t all that relevant to Cruz’s prospects for winning a Republican nomination.

Our numbers also suggest that Cruz is now viewed more broadly as the leader of the Republican Party. When asked whether they trust Cruz or GOP leader Mitch McConnell more, Cruz wins out 49/13. When it comes to who’s more trusted between Cruz and Speaker John Boehner, Cruz has a 51/20 advantage. And when it comes to Cruz and 2008 GOP nominee and Senate colleague John McCain, Cruz wins out 52/31. He now has more credibility with the GOP base than the folks who have been leading the party for years.

The problem isn’t that the Tea party is crazy. It’s that Republicans are crazy. Only 18% of them can be described a moderate.

I suppose the good news is that they are in a minority in the nation at large so they ae unlikely to succeed at national politics. But these people are in gerrymandered districts and very deep Red States where the crazy is concentrated. They’ll continue to act crazy as long as the lunatic Republican base — which is most of the party — supports this crap.

And don’t think for a minute that reality must bite one day and they’ll be forced to admit their folly. If they shut down the government or refuse to raise the debt ceiling and all hell breaks loose, they will not wake up one morning, look in the mirror and say to themselves that they went too far. That will never happen. They’ll just blame the hippies, the blacks, Obamacare or Big Gummint. They never, ever, ever blame themselves.

They just live in an alternate universe:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Mad Men (and I’m not talking about Don Draper)

by digby

In case you’re busy with important things, like watching The Real Housewives, and haven’t been following the detailed ins and outs of the latest Congressional brouhaha, Ed Kilgore gives you the upshot:

Originally John Boehner wanted to give his charges the chance for an extended temper tantrum about Obamacare timed to conclude when the moment arrived to keep the federal government functioning, perhaps with a bit less money. Nope, that wasn’t sufficient. So the GOP headed directly towards a government shutdown, until Boehner and company looked about two inches beyond their own noses and saw that the public was (tragically) more tolerant towards a debt limit default threat than a shutdown. So the House GOP leaders moved in that direction. But they soon discovered getting the entire House GOP to vote for a debt limit increase would require a measure that incarnated every conservative policy fantasy in sight, and they are still struggling to get the votes. So now they may throw some sand in the gears of the continuing appropriations resolution and perhaps generate a mini-shutdown as a tonic to the troops, and hope that between the appropriations and debt limit measures they can slake the destructive furies of the Republican Party and its often-caustic right-wing chorus, and maybe even mark up a victory or two if Democrats conclude concessions are better than economy-wreaking chaos.

Golly, I wonder what those concessions might be? It’s worked out so well before. It is chaos, but chaos can often accrue to the benefit of the crazies, can’t it?

Being completely out of control does create some leverage, particularly if the firebug is willing to set fire to himself (“When you are on fire,” Richard Pryor famously observed after nearly incinerating himself in a freebase cocaine accident, “people get out of your way.”). So people start thinking about making concessions they wouldn’t otherwise consider, or contemplating scenarios they wouldn’t otherwise entertain.

Indeed they do. And that’s from a starting point where this offer remains on the table.

This whole thing brings to mind this article about the Madman Theory from a few years back:

One of the starting points for Cold War game theory was President Eisenhower’s proposed doctrine of “massive retaliation”: Washington would respond viciously to any attack on the US or its allies. This, the thinking went, would create enough fear to deter enemy aggression. But Kissinger believed this policy could actually encourage our enemies and limit our power. Would the US really nuke Moscow if the Soviets funded some communist insurgents in Angola or took over a corner of Iran? Of course not. As a result, enemies would engage in “salami tactics,” slicing away at American interests, confident that the US would not respond.

Cluster bombs, designed with “submunition” ordnance to set off a chain-reaction of explosions, became an important part of the US conventional military arsenal in the 1960s. In Southeast Asia, cluster bombs allowed the US military to inflict widespread damage on the enemy from the air, without resorting to nuclear weapons.
Video: The National Archives

The White House needed a wider range of military options. More choices, the thinking went, would allow us to prevent some conflicts from starting, gain bargaining leverage in others, and stop still others from escalating. This game-theory logic was the foundation for what became in the ’60s and ’70s the doctrine of “flexible response”: Washington would respond to small threats in small ways and big threats in big ways.

The madman theory was an extension of that doctrine. If you’re going to rely on the leverage you gain from being able to respond in flexible ways — from quiet nighttime assassinations to nuclear reprisals — you need to convince your opponents that even the most extreme option is really on the table. And one way to do that is to make them think you are crazy.

Consider a game that theorist Thomas Schelling described to his students at Harvard in the ’60s: You’re standing at the edge of a cliff, chained by the ankle to another person. As soon as one of you cries uncle, you’ll both be released, and whoever remained silent will get a large prize. What do you do? You can’t push the other person off the cliff, because then you’ll die, too. But you can dance and walk closer and closer to the edge. If you’re willing to show that you’ll brave a certain amount of risk, your partner may concede — and you might win the prize. But if you convince your adversary that you’re crazy and liable to hop off in any direction at any moment, he’ll probably cry uncle immediately. If the US appeared reckless, impatient, even insane, rivals might accept bargains they would have rejected under normal conditions. In terms of game theory, a new equilibrium would emerge as leaders in Moscow, Hanoi, and Havana contemplated how terrible things could become if they provoked an out-of-control president to experiment with the awful weapons at his disposal.

The nuclear-armed B-52 flights near Soviet territory appeared to be a direct application of this kind of game theory. H. R. Haldeman, Nixon’s chief of staff, wrote in his diary that Kissinger believed evidence of US irrationality would “jar the Soviets and North Vietnam.” Nixon encouraged Kissinger to expand this approach. “If the Vietnam thing is raised” in conversations with Moscow, Nixon advised, Kissinger should “shake his head and say, ‘I am sorry, Mr. Ambassador, but [the president] is out of control.” Nixon told Haldeman: “I want the North Vietnamese to believe that I’ve reached the point that I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about Communism. We can’t restrain him when he is angry — and he has his hand on the nuclear button’ — and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.

The problem is that the Tea Partiers really are mad.

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Your helpful insurance company

by digby

Funny story.  Yesterday I got a big packet in he mail from my insurance carrier laying out the benefits in my plan and giving me the bad news about my premiums going up. This happens every year. This year, however, was a doozy. When you open it up it says that my plan has been discontinued because of the Affordable Care Act but there is another one that is similar but will cost me 86% more. Because of the Affordable Care Act.  Seriously.

Now it’s true that if you read through all the fine print you’ll see that it kindly directs you to the exchange where you may find a different plan for which there could be subsidies.  They even point out that it could be one of their plans. They also prominently say that you can just stay with them. All you have to do is do nothing. And pay 86% more.

Now I should be clear that if you read it all the way through you’ll understand that you can go online to Covered California and find out whether you qualify for government help for these premiums. But it’s somewhat obscure.  And the very first thing you see is that your premium is going up to the stratosphere  — because of Obamacare.

Here’s how Michelle Malkin describes the notice from her insurer:

Like an estimated 22 million other Americans, I am a self-employed small-business owner who buys health insurance for my family directly on the individual market. We have a high-deductible PPO plan that allows us to choose from a wide range of doctors.

Or rather, we had such a plan.

Last week, our family received notice from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield of Colorado that we can no longer keep the plan we like because of “changes from health care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA).” The letter informed us that “to meet the requirements of the new laws, your current plan can no longer be continued beyond your 2014 renewal date.”

In short: Obama lied. My health plan died.

Remember? Our president looked America straight in the eye and promised: “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health-care plan, you will be able to keep your health-care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”
House minority leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) also lied when she pledged: “Keep your doctor, and your current plan, if you like them.”

This isn’t just partisan business. It’s personal. Our cancellation letter states that Anthem is “not going to be selling new individual PPO plans.” When we asked whether we could keep our children’s doctors, an agent for Anthem told my husband and me that she didn’t know. The insurer has no details available yet on what exactly they’ll be offering. We either will be herded into the Obamacare federal health-insurance-exchange regime (launching October 1), a severely limited HMO plan, or we’ll be presented with costlier alternatives from another insurer. If they even exist.

My family is not alone. Across the country, insurers are sending out Obamacare-induced health-plan death notices to untold tens of thousands of other customers in the individual market. Twitter users are posting their Obamacare cancellation notices and accompanying rate increases:

Now, it’s entirely possible that Malkin will be paying more for her insurance next year simply because she makes a lot of money. Wingnut welfare tends to pay pretty well. (And that is part of the deal for some people and they are not going to be happy about it.) But those of us who have no wingnut welfare and make a normal middle class living can go to the exchange and find out, as I have, that I am going to be paying a little bit less for a better plan. I don’t know yet whether I’ll be able to keep my current insurer or whether I’ll switch to something else because the exchange isn’t open yet, but it’s pretty clear that no matter what, I’m going to come out ahead. But if I just looked at that packet from my insurer and din’t understand this whole thing fairly well, I could easily think that I’ve been royally screwed. And Michelle Malkin’s lies and omissions will pound that point home.

Malkin whines that she isn’t going to be able to keep her insurance company — as if anyone who’s ever changed jobs in America hasn’t faced that problem. And she doesn’t explain that regardless of the price of her premiums, she will be able to find a plan that will allow her to keep her doctors. In that sense, she’s better off than most people in employer plans — most Americans — who have far fewer choices.

Anyway, you can see what an opening these notices from insurance companies are giving these wingnuts to demagogue the hell out of Obamacare. I suspect that most people in the private market, as Malkin and I both are, will be self-interested enough to go to the exchange to see if they can find a cheaper alternative and find out if they qualify for a subsidy. There’s a lot of money at stake so most will do that. But in the meantime, the right wingers will be whining and crying and telling horror stories and the people who have their insurance through their employers, as most do, will assume this private market is a train wreck even though it really isn’t. Hopefully, over time, the truth will be obvious. But it’s going to be a very bumpy ride.

Nothing shows how extreme Republicans have become more than climate change denial

by David Atkins

Regular readers of progressive blogs have heard the refrain a million times by now: the Republican Party has gone far off the rails into cuckoo land. It’s true, but most of the proof is in the form of legislative tactics and empathy deficits. One could, in theory, chalk up wanting to cut Medicare and food stamps to a policy difference, and holding the debt ceiling hostage to extreme hardball politics.

But nothing puts the devil-may-care craziness of the Republican Party in perspective quite like the denial of the international consensus around climate change, which was reconfirmed by yet another UN report:

A United Nations climate science panel has concluded global warming is “unequivocal” and there’s at least a 95 percent chance human activities are the main driver of temperature increases over the last six decades.

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and since the 1950s, many of the observed changes are unprecedented over decades to millennia,” states Friday’s report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Human influence has been detected in warming of the atmosphere and the ocean, in changes in the global water cycle, in reductions in snow and ice, in global mean sea level rise, and in changes in some climate extremes,” the report finds. “It is extremely likely that human influence has been the dominant cause of the observed warming since the mid-20th century.”

“Extremely likely” in the UN’s parlance means at least a 95 percent chance. That’s greater confidence than the last big IPCC report in 2007, which found it “very likely” that human’s are the main cause, signaling at least 90 percent confidence.

There really isn’t any question about this anymore. There hasn’t been for quite some time, but every year the evidence becomes more definitive and enormous stakes become clearer.

Yet the Republican Party has grown increasingly defiant about not only climate change mitigation, but the very facts of climate change itself. This isn’t a policy disagreement rooted in philosophical differences about who deserves what in society. Whether you’re an economic royalist or a radical egalitarian, deeply religious or an atheist, you should be able to agree that letting climate change get out of hand with rising oceans, deserts, droughts, hurricanes, mass immiseration, crop shortages and inevitable war is a bad thing. Everyone should be able to agree on this, whether think think Wall Street tycoons are the heroes of Galt’s Gulch or fat cat villains. This isn’t really a question that’s subject to political philosophy. It’s a reality that we either deal with as a species in an intelligent way, or we don’t and watch the world burn.

The fact that Republicans cannot seem to muster even an ounce of concern about the clear scientific consensus is a canary in the coal mine. If they’re this intransigent about matters of life and death that aren’t properly subject to political philosophy, just how extreme are their stances on more disputable matters?

We’re well beyond simple partisanship at this point. To be a Republican official in early 21st century America is to belong not to a political party so much as a cult of big business and religion that allows no evidence to sway its belief system and no crisis to alter its principles.

That’s a very dangerous thing, and it goes far beyond politics as usual. Every action the Republican Party takes, whether it be to take the debt ceiling hostage, threaten government shutdown over healthcare legislation they themselves had recently championed, or implement institutional rape by forced transvaginal ultrasound, needs to be seen in that light.

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Moment of zen Part II

by digby

Oh my …

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Moment of zen — Get Lucky

by digby

Allen West humiliates himself again

by David Atkins

Remember when Allen West was the “good black guy” darling of the Right? Then he lost his Congressional election and got hired by Pajamas Media. Now he’s in trouble there, too, for anti-Semitic remarks:

Former Congressman Allen West is leaving his job at Pajamas Media after an altercation with a female staffer in which he allegedly called her a “Jewish American princess,” BuzzFeed learned on Thursday.

“In order to focus on political interests, Allen West will transition from his full-time role as director of programming for Next Generation.TV to a twice-a-month contributor of written commentary on PJMedia.com, effective October 1, 2013,” PJ Media financier Aubrey Chernick wrote to staff in an email from Sept. 16. “I wanted our staff and consultants to have this information first. However, PJ Media is not announcing this publicly for several weeks, so please do not share this news with anyone outside of the company until you see our public announcement.”

In a message to staff, West wrote: “Shortly, I will be giving up my position as director of programming at Next Generation.TV to get back on the front lines to expand the message of constitutional conservatism across our country.”

Two sources familiar with what happened told BuzzFeed that West had gotten into an argument with a female employee and called her a “Jewish American princess” while telling her to “shut up.”

There should be a reckoning at some point for people who promote the likes of Allen West to places of national prominence. But there won’t be because “balance” and “media bias.”

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“You will rule or ruin in all events”


by digby

Rich Yeselson (@yeselson) has been tweeting about the 1861 Democrats and drawing comparisons between them and today’s GOP.  He’s right, of course. It’s uncanny.   I’ve been observing this for a while myself. And it reminds me that it’s well past time to feature some excerpts of Lincoln’s Cooper Union Speech again. He saw it in 1859:

And now, if they would listen – as I suppose they will not – I would address a few words to the Southern people.


I would say to them: – You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us a reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to “Black Republicans.” In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of “Black Republicanism” as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite – license, so to speak – among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify.
[…]
You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper’s Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper’s Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need to be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.


Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper’s Ferry affair, but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were not held to and made by “our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.” You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor … In your political contests among yourselves, each faction charges the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood and thunder among the slaves.
[…]
Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.


This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer’s distinction between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare majority of the Judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another in the reasons for making it; that it is so made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact – the statement in the opinion that “the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution.”
[…]
Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action? 


But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!”


To be sure, what the robber demanded of me – my money – was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.


A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one with another…Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.


Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them, if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.


The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.


These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly – done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated – we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas’ new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

Some things never change.

Chasing that white whale let loose a terrible monster

by digby

Matt Yglesias points out that the CW (which I believe as well) in which the WH ends up “negotiating” with Republicans over the debt ceiling the way mothers of children having a tantrum in the grocery store negotiate with them by giving them a candy bar, can no longer be operative in light of the “santa list” they put together yesterday.

The draft legislation House leaders were circulating to lobbyists yesterday and to their members this morning shows why that’s wrong: The one thing Obama absolutely cannot do under any circumstances is negotiate over the statutory debt limit.

The reason is that Republicans are essentially asking for an end to constitutional government in the United States and its replacement by a wholly novel system.

From Jonathan Strong’s report at NRO, what Republicans want in exchange for agreeing to not default on the national debt is a one year delay of Obamacare, Paul Ryan’s tax reform, the Keystone XL pipeline, partial repeal of the Clean Air Act, partial repeal of bank regulation legislation, Medicare cuts, cuts in several anti-poverty programs, making it harder to launch medical malpractice lawsuits, more drilling on federal land, blocking net neutrality, and a suite of changes designed to make it harder for regulatory agencies to crack the whip.

Things like this do happen. The British system of government used to feature a ruling monarch who was checked in limited ways by two houses of parliament. Over time, those houses of parliament leveraged their control over tax hikes into overall control of the government. On a somewhat slower time frame, the elected House of Commons nudged the House of Lords out of almost all of its de facto political power. And that’s the House’s proposal here. The president should become an elected figurehead (not dissimilar to the elected presidents of Germany, Israel, or Italy) whose role is simply to assent to the policy preferences of the legislative majority.

That’s the logic of bargaining over the debt ceiling, because this isn’t really a bargain at all. A bargain is when Obama wants something the GOP doesn’t want (universal preschool, say) and then the GOP says “look we’ll do it, but only if you do X, Y, and Z for us.” Increasing the debt ceiling isn’t like that. It isn’t a pet policy priority of Obama’s and it isn’t something House Republicans oppose. It’s something both sides agree is necessary to avert a legal and financial disaster.

The absolute worst mistake Obama has made as president came back in 2011 when Republicans first pulled this stunt. At that time, Obama desperately wanted a bargain over long-term fiscal policy. So he tried a bit of too-clever-by-half political jujitsu in which GOP debt ceiling hostage taking became a pretext to start negotiations over long-term budgeting. All manner of evils have fallen forth from that fateful decisions, including an economic weak patch in 2011 the ongoing mess of sequestration, and worst of all the setting of a precedent for future crises. The good news is that the White House recognizes they made a mistake, and the last time Republicans tried to pull this they didn’t give in. And they can’t give in now. Not even a little bit. A terrible monster was let out of the box in 2011 and the best thing Obama can possibly do for the country at this point is to stuff it back in and hopefully kill it.

Yes, that was a huge mistake. In fact, that’s an understatement.

I sure hope Yglesias is right and the White House is on the same page as he is now because if it isn’t it’s hard to see how this can end in anything but a catastrophe. I wish I had more faith in the administration to see that and act accordingly but they’ve ended up giving away the store one too many times in their hunt for the White Whale of a “long term fiscal” deal for me to feel confident that they’ve given up on the idea completely. Maybe Crazy Cruz have finally awakened them to the reality of what’s really going on here.

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Elite reform

by digby

The problem in a nutshell:

“She’s Yale, Harvard, Oxford – she worked on Wall Street,” says Paul Doughty, the current president of the Providence firefighters union. “Nobody wanted to be the first to raise his hand and admit he didn’t know what the fuck she was talking about.”

That’s from Matt Taibbi’s latest on “pension reform” also known as “stealing from public workers.” It’s a truly depressing tale. It’s bad enough that government no longer have the ability to keep taxes at level that would support a robust public sector and civic life, but the money they have managed to set aside to support their public workers is now being scammed by the Masters of the Universe to keep for themselves. Of course.

The “Yale, Harvard, Oxford” in question is Gina Raimundo, the former venture capitalist and treasurer of Rhode Island:

Soon she was being talked about as a probable candidate for Rhode Island’s 2014 gubernatorial race. By 2013, Raimondo had raised more than $2 million, a staggering sum for a still-undeclared candidate in a thimble-size state. Donors from Wall Street firms like Goldman Sachs, Bain Capital and JPMorgan Chase showered her with money, with more than $247,000 coming from New York contributors alone. A shadowy organization called EngageRI, a public-advocacy group of the 501(c)4 type whose donors were shielded from public scrutiny by the infamous Citizens United decision, spent $740,000 promoting Raimondo’s ideas. Within Rhode Island, there began to be whispers that Raimondo had her sights on the presidency. Even former Obama right hand and Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel pointed to Rhode Island as an example to be followed in curing pension woes.

What few people knew at the time was that Raimondo’s “tool kit” wasn’t just meant for local consumption. The dynamic young Rhodes scholar was allowing her state to be used as a test case for the rest of the country, at the behest of powerful out-of-state financiers with dreams of pushing pension reform down the throats of taxpayers and public workers from coast to coast. One of her key supporters was billionaire former Enron executive John Arnold – a dickishly ubiquitous young right-wing kingmaker with clear designs on becoming the next generation’s Koch brothers, and who for years had been funding a nationwide campaign to slash benefits for public workers.

Read the rest. It’s an amazing story.

I confess that lately I’m beginning to cringe every time I hear the word “reform.” It’s been co-opted by the wealthy, Wall Street and Big Business and used as a primary mechanism to destroy what’s left of middle class.

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