Month: September 2013

A congressman’s “peers” are his constituents, not wealthy benefactors

by digby

Timothy B. Lee makes the case that congressmen should be paid more so they can feel equal to others of their elite social status:

Obviously, it’s hard for a taxpayer making $60,000 to relate to someone who views a $172,000 salary as inadequate. But members of Congress are part of America’s elite. Their peers are bankers, entertainers, corporate executives, doctors, and lawyers. The most successful people in all of these professions make a lot more than $172,000. They’re living in nicer houses, sending their kids to better schools, and taking fancier vacations than members of Congress are.

Of course, that income differential doesn’t justify members of Congress putting personal financial considerations ahead of the interests of their constituents. But it’s not hard to see how some members could persuade themselves that their long years of public service, at a salary dramatically below the incomes of their private-sector peers, justifies cashing out at a lobbying firm at the end of their careers.

But they’re not supposed to be “elites.” They’re supposed to be representatives of the people who voted for them, which means they should not think of their “peers” as bankers, entertainers, executives etc. (at least not most of them.) Perhaps if they spent more time among the former instead of the latter they wouldn’t feel so cheated and would have a better idea of who it is they should be identifying with. In fact, the problem may be that they actually make too much money which explains why they no longer understand the needs and wants of 95% of America.

I can’t remember where I read about it, but there is a theory that Europe managed to create a strong welfare state at least partially because its system of elections makes it easier for members of the working and middle classes to run for office whereas the US has always made their representatives into higher status “elites.” I don’t know if that’s the sole cause of our flaccid safety net, but I’m willing to bet that it’s contributed to it.

Moreover, it’s laughable that people who think they are underpaid compared to those they see as their peers will be appeased by a few hundred thousand dollars. If there’s one thing that’s obvious about human nature it’s that those who see money as a sign of their comparative worth will never have enough of it. There are always going to be people who are richer than members of congress no matter how much we pay them.

In the world of elites, the congressman’s power is his currency. And it’s worth more than money. They know that the minute they are ready to give up the prestige and celebrity of being a public official, they can go into the private sector and command many times $172,000 per year if that’s what matters to them. And so do their wealthy patrons.

Don’t feel too sorry for them.  They know exactly what they’re worth on the marketplace and they’ll be very handsomely compensated when they decide to cash in their chips.

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“The dung of evil”

by digby

I am anything but a religious believer and I tend not to care a whole lot about what the pope says.  But I can’t help but be impressed with what seems to be a change of emphasis in Catholic Church doctrine under this new pope. When he’s right, he’s right. Check this out:

Money sickens our minds, poisons our thoughts, even poisons our faith, leading us down the path of jealousy, quarrels, suspicion and conflict. It drives to idle words and pointless discussions. It also corrupts the mind of some people that see religion as a source of profit. ‘I am Catholic, I go to Mass, everyone thinks well of me… But underneath I have my businesses. I worship money’. And here we have the word we usually find in newspapers: ‘Men of corrupted minds’. Money corrupts us! There’s no way out.”

We can never serve God and money at the same time. It is not possible: either one or the other. This is not Communism. It is the true Gospel! They are the Lord’s words. While money begins by offering a sense of well being. Then you feel important and vanity comes. We read in the Psalm. This vanity is useless, but still you think you are important. And after vanity comes pride. Those are the three steps: wealth, vanity and pride.” 

“But, Father, I read the Ten Commandments and they say nothing about the evils of money. Against which Commandment do you sin when you do something for money? Against the first one! You worship a false idol. And this is the reason: because money becomes an idol and you worship it. And that’s why Jesus tells us that you cannot serve money and the living God: either one or the other. The early Fathers of the Church, in the 3rd Century, around the year 200 or 300, put it in a very blunt way, calling money ‘the dung of the devil’. An so it is.

I can’t help but laugh out loud just thinking about what must go through American conservative Catholics’ minds (like these fine folks who even oppose unionization) when they hear that.

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Do liberals really agree with the president on everything but financial reform?


by digby

Ezra has an interesting post up about how the Summers nomination was foiled because liberals don’t trust the Obama administration when it comes to financial regulation.  He says that on most matters, like health care, the stimulus and the fiscal cliff, liberals and the president mostly agree on the substance and differ over the tactics, but on this they have a fundamental disagreement on principle.

It’s a good post and well worth reading. But I disagree with the premise that financial regulation is the only area on which liberals and the administration disagree on principle.  The problem is that people know the president does not believe in strong financial regulations and they don’t trust that he agrees with them on those other issues either.  After all, the same people who promote a hands off approach to the banks and Wall Street also oppose direct government participation in health care (the public option), were opposed to more stimulus and, most importantly, they are the ones who have relentlessly demagogued the deficit, a project to which the president enthusiastically signed on as early as February 23, 2009, one month into his first term:

President Obama pledged Monday to cut the nation’s $1.3 trillion deficit in half by the end of his first term.

He identified exploding health-care costs as the chief culprit behind rising federal deficits during a bipartisan “fiscal responsibility summit” convened to discuss ways to restore fiscal stability without deepening the recession.

Meeting with the congressional leadership of both parties, as well as a range of business, academic, financial and labor leaders, Obama warned that the country cannot continue its current rate of deficit spending without facing dire economic consequences.

“I refuse to leave our children with a debt they cannot repay,” he said in remarks opening the one-day summit at the White House. “We cannot and will not sustain deficits like these without end. … We cannot simply spend as we please.”

The country, Obama argued, is already starting to face the consequences of greater deficit spending, noting that roughly one in 10 taxpayer dollars in 2008 went toward paying $250 billion in interest on the national debt.

Here’s what was happening as he said all that:

Why was he pounding on deficit reduction at a time like that? It’s not hard to conclude that the president believes in the whole Wall Street enchilada, not just the financial regulation piece. He’s been talking that talk from the very beginning.

It is a matter of liberal Village conventional wisdom that President Obama had the best of intentions but was blocked by Republicans and anyway, the executive branch is not very powerful so depending on him to advance a progressive agenda is a silly form of celebrity worship. The less charitable believe he is a bad strategist who was simply outmaneuvered.  And there’s something to all of that. But the fact remains that our government adopted a sort of soft austerity combined with an industry friendly private sector health insurance reform during the worst recession in over half a century. And it is also a fact that the president was promoting that program from the earliest days of his presidency, while still in the midst of a delirious honeymoon. To me, that speaks of someone who has a strong set of beliefs on these issues. And they aren’t particularly liberal.

It’s not surprising that liberals wouldn’t have a lot of trust in the economic judgment of someone who convened a “fiscal responsibility summit”  at a time of mass unemployment, is it?

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Full Metal Funeral


by digby

News of the weird:

When Boomer was lost on the battlefield in Taji, Iraq, his brothers in arms gave him a funeral. The tribute involved a 21-gun salute, and the awarding of both a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star Medal. All in recognition, according to a soldier who has worked with Boomer’s comrades, of Boomer’s heroism and of the many lives he had saved on the battlefield.

It was a funeral that was typical in every way but one: Boomer was a machine. He was a MARCbot, an inexpensive robot designed to seek out and disarm explosives. He — Boomer was, apparently, a he — saved soldiers’ lives as he tooled his way into dangerous zones, taking one for the team in the most selfless way possible. The tributes in Taji, be they figurative (the Bronze Star) or more literal (the firearmed salute), recognized all this. “Some people got upset about it,” the soldier recalls of Boomer’s improvised funeral, “but those little bastards can develop a personality, and they save so many lives.”

And some soldiers urinate on corpses of human beings.

I don’t blame these guys for holding this odd funeral. War — especially ridiculous, pointless ones like this one — is irrational in nearly every way. If this makes them feel better, why not?

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Blessed are the employers

by digby

Freeeeedom:

A widely-shared op-ed written by a union attorney tells the tragic story of Margaret Mary Vojtko, who died this month at the age of 83. According to the op-ed, Vojtko was undergoing radiation therapy for cancer at the time of her death, and she’d recently lost her job at Duquesne University, a Catholic-identified school where she worked for 25 years as an adjunct French professor. In that role, the op-ed claims, she received no benefits and never earned more than $25,000 a year. In her final year at Duquesne, she allegedly taught just one class and earned only $10,000.

Duquesne disputes at least some of these facts. It claims that Vojtko “was invited to live with us in the formation community at Laval House on campus,” although it has not specifically denied paying Vojtko such a meager wage or refusing to provide her with benefits. Moreover, the tale of Vojtko’s death is a subplot in a much larger battle of whether the university’s remaining adjunct professors can bargain fairly for an adequate wage. As the op-ed explains, “[w]hile adjuncts at Duquesne overwhelmingly voted to join the United Steelworkers union a year ago, Duquesne has fought unionization, claiming that it should have a religious exemption.”

Yes, Jesus was very much against unionization. Just like Ayn Rand. They had a lot in common. I thought everyone knew that.

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Progress on the video game front but for the wrong reasons

by David Atkins

Politico has a simultaneously gratifying yet depressing story on the issue of video game scapegoating in the aftermath of the Navy Yard shooting

In the wake of the Washington Navy Yard shooting this week, cable news hosts quickly honed in on the shooter’s obsession with playing military-style online games, repeatedly asking whether it was a factor in the mass shooting.

But that line of questioning was all but missing on Capitol Hill, where hardly a word was uttered about video game violence. Instead, Democratic lawmakers and anti-gun groups focused their efforts on the push for a vote on background checks legislation. It was a stark contrast from previous shooting tragedies and also a clear sign of the investment video game companies have made in making friends in Washington.

“I think you are going to have crazy people no matter what. The same argument was made when movies were invented, same with comic books, same argument that comic books are going to cause violence,” Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) told POLITICO. “I think people like to assign blame for something. Otherwise it’s hard to make it fit in their mind of why someone would do this. Sometimes I think bad things just happen.”

When asked about the connection between gaming and mass shootings, other lawmakers pivoted to talk about mental health, background checks for buying guns and how government contractors obtain security clearance.

“The culprit is people aren’t getting either the help they need and then when they try to get help there is not a good reporting requirement,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said speaking to mental health issues when asked about the relation between video game violence and violent acts like at the Navy Yard. She also said she supported background checks legislation and that security at schools should be addressed.

The fact that the witch hunt against video games is subsiding is a good thing. As more and more video game players become reliable voters, playing Harold Hill in River City over video games will die as sure a political death as the scapegoating of dime novels, pool halls, comic books and Bruce Willis movies. The evidence is overwhelming and varied that video games do not in fact lead to significantly greater violence, the strongest of which is the obvious international comparison:

But the problem is that in Congress, it isn’t that cooler and more rational heads are prevailing. That would be a pleasant fiction. In reality, it’s the money talking.

Sales of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V just rocketed past $1 billion, vastly eclipsing any other form of entertainment and setting industry sales records. That kind of money doesn’t just indicate a significant number of voting customers; it means the ability to lobby and buy votes in Congress. Which appears to be exactly what’s happening.

In modern American politics, even when good things happen they often do so for the wrong reasons. The power of money tends to be absolute, for better and for worse.

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Moment of zen: Twerking with the Reaper

by digby

The brilliant and demented Stephen Colbert:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Video Archive

Authoritarians across the political spectrum, together at last

by digby

One of the characteristics of the right for the past 60 years of so has been its mindless adoption of much of the worldview of the enemies they purport to loathe. Here’s one demonstrating it once again:

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) on Friday responded to a constituent opposed to drastically cutting food stamps for the young, elderly and poor by citing a Biblical quote: “If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat.”

After House GOP leaders capitulated to conservative demands, Cramer on Thursday joined 216 other House Republicans in narrowly passing legislation to cut food stamp spending by nearly $40 billion over 10 years. A constituent, Kevin R Tengesdal, took to Cramer’s Facebook page to express his apparent displeasure by quoting some Biblical passages

He quoted Matthew 34-36:

Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

Cramer subsequently responded by citing a different passage from the Bible, one more favorable to his position on federally funded nutrition assistance.

“2 Thessalonians 3:10 English Standard Version (ESV) 10 For even when we were with you, we would give you this command: If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat,” he wrote.

This fine freedom lover would probably be surprised to learn about the company he keeps in quoting that line:

ARTICLE 12. In the U.S.S.R. work is a duty and a matter of honor for every able-bodied citizen, in accordance with the principle: “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”

That’s right. It’s Article 12 of the 1936 Soviet Constitution, also known as the “Stalin Constitution.”

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Chris Hayes: “this ad is a masterpiece”

by digby

Since he released his fabulous ad on Monday, Carl Sciortino’s campaign to fill Ed Markey’s seat in Massachusetts has shot to the attention of progressives all over the nation. It’s gone viral with hundreds of thousands of views on Youtube and tons of attention in the media.

Here’s Chris Hayes’ commentary on All In, which features the whole ad:

Sciortino needs help getting this ad on the air.  I think you’ll agree that it’s awesome and deserves to be seen by the voters in his district before the primary. Blue America, Alan Grayson, Jared Polis, Raúl Grijalva and Keith Ellison, People for the American Way Voters Alliance and the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ Progressive Action PAC have joined together to raise funds for it by sponsoring a contest to win an original Eric Clapton platinum award plaque for his Unplugged album. Please donate what you can — you’ll have an equal chance whether you donate $5 or $50 — and you’ll be helping get that fabulous ad on TV.

BTW: Chris Hayes is going to be on Bill Maher’s show tonight with Billy Crystal, David Frum and Joy Behar. Should be good!

Update: Here’s Carl and his Dad on Chris Jansing’s show:

Some firm action from the President on power plant emissions

by David Atkins

This is good news:

A year after a plan by President Obama to limit greenhouse gas emissions from new power plants set off angry opposition, the administration will announce on Friday that it is not backing down from a confrontation with the coal industry and will press ahead with enacting the first federal carbon limits on the nation’s power companies.

The proposed regulations, to be announced at the National Press Club by Gina McCarthy, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, are an aggressive move by Mr. Obama to bypass Congress on climate change with executive actions he promised in his inaugural address this year. The regulations are certain to be denounced by House Republicans and the industry as part of what they call the president’s “war on coal.”

In her speech, Ms. McCarthy will unveil the agency’s proposal to limit new gas-fired power plants to 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per megawatt hour and new coal plants to 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide, according to administration officials who were briefed on the agency’s plans. Industry officials say the average advanced coal plant currently emits about 1,800 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt hour.

“New power plants, both natural gas and coal-fired, can minimize their carbon emissions by taking advantage of modern technologies,” Ms. McCarthy will say Friday, according to her prepared remarks. “Simply put, these standards represent the cleanest standards we’ve put forth for new natural gas plants and new coal plants.”

It’s a small thing compared to the tar sands and the Keystone Pipeline, but it’s a significant move in the right direction.