Month: January 2014

QOTD: A typical Republican voter

by digby

Via Truthout and National Journal

The 63-year-old widower can’t remember the last time he voted for a Democrat, and he’s got nothing nice to say about President Obama. He’s also never had health insurance, although he started working at age 9. Since his wife’s death four years ago, he’s been taking care of their 40-year-old, severely disabled daughter full time. She gets Medicaid and Medicare assistance.

“I don’t have any use for the federal government,” Rupe said, even though his household’s $13,000 yearly income comes exclusively from Washington. “It’s a bunch of liars, crooks, and thieves, and they’ve never done anything for me. I’m not ungrateful, but I don’t have much faith in this health care law. Do I think it’s going to work? No. Do I think it’s going to bankrupt the country? Yes.”

Rupe sounds like he could be standing on a soapbox at a tea-party rally, but he happens to be sitting in a back room at the Family Health Centers’ largest clinic in Louisville—signing up for Medicaid. Rupe, who is white, insists that illegal immigrants from Mexico and Africa get more government assistance than he does. (Illegal immigrants do not, in fact, qualify for Medicaid or coverage under the Affordable Care Act.)

….”President Obama’s idea is taking from the working people to give to the people who won’t take care of themselves. It’s redistribution of wealth,” Rupe said. “I’ve always taken care of myself. You got these young girls who go out and get pregnant and then they get $1,500 a month for having a kid, so they have two.”

h/t to JH

They still don’t get it on inequality

by David Atkins

I suppose we should all be heartened that income inequality is on the mainstream political menu these days. But the tenor of the conversation shows that they really still don’t get it:

Democrats aren’t wasting any time tackling an issue they are convinced will help them this election year: income inequality.

One of the Senate’s first votes upon returning to Washington from their holiday break Monday will be on a bill reviving emergency unemployment benefits that lapsed at the end of 2013.

The vote marks the first concrete step by Democrats toward a populist economic platform ahead of the November elections. The inequality campaign will intensify later in the year with a push in the Senate to raise the federal minimum wage that will be synced with President Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech expected to dig heavily into the issue of economic disparity.

The focus on income inequality builds on the economic themes Obama successfully harnessed to beat Mitt Romney in 2012. Democrats believe they can win again by spotlighting the growing divides between the rich and poor and daring Republicans to oppose legislation aimed at benefiting low-income Americans.
“Our Republican colleagues should take note. Certainly we’re going to build on the progress we’ve made to reduce the deficit, but it is no longer the most important issue that we face,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) in laying out Senate Democrats’ agenda for the coming year. “Issues like job creation, minimum wage, and unemployment insurance are going to weigh on the minds of voters far more than Obamacare by the time the 2014 elections roll around.”

Obviously, raising the minimum wage and extending unemployment benefits are crucial not only to those affected but also to the broader economy. But even this misses the point. Income inequality isn’t just about the poor and those who are most vulnerable. It’s about the broad middle class, too, and the fact that the top 1% have hollowed it out.

The entire neoliberal project can be described as hollowing out the wage earning middle class to benefit the wealthy asset class, while throwing the destitute enough social safety crumbs to avoid starvation and riots. The difference between the neoliberal and the conservative, beyond social issues, is that the neoliberal wants those worst off taken care of enough to prevent bloody revolution, while conservatives count on fear of police and religion to keep the sick and starving poor in line.

The treatment of the poor and unemployed isn’t where the economic progressive line is drawn. Ensuring that the most vulnerable are well taken care of in society is a bare minimum standard. The energy behind the cause of income inequality is about increasing the negotiating power of workers across the spectrum while disincentivizing the hollowing out and rent-seeking of the economy by the parasitic asset classes. Progressive action on income inequality is about expanding Social Security, reinvesting in pensions, eliminating student loan debt, raising the capital gains tax, instituting a financial transaction tax, reinstating Glass Steagall, expanding labor unions, enhancing worker protections, and a host of similar issues designed to maximize middle class negotiating power.

Dealing with the long-term unemployed and the minimum wage only barely scratches the surface of the conversation on income inequality. It’s a conversation to which the comfortable asset classes would like to limit the conversation, because it allows them to wedge the middle class against the poor, when the real divide is between the 1% and 99%.

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Do funny things to some people: The Wolf of Wall Street

Stale lattes and cold drips

by digby

I think maybe poor old Newtie didn’t get the joke:

Unlike humorless right wingers, liberals can make fun of themselves.

Newtie’s trying to turn Mark Begich into Bill DeBlasio and I think that’s going to be a very long (triple espresso)shot. That tired old trope may have finally shuffled off into obscurity. After all, the “latte liberal” is kind of a silly notion in a country where open-carry gun zealots are hanging out in Starbucks like it’s their second home.
He needs to find a new way to express what he’s really trying to say: that city folk ain’t Real Americans. Some things never change.

By the way, here is how the most obviously scripted Reality Show on television dealt with it:

It’s chilling how “real” that is, isn’t it?

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Pastafarian freedom

by digby

God bless the Bill of Rights:

A unique style of headwear was present during newly-seated Pomfret Town Council member Christopher Schaeffer’s oath of office Thursday afternoon, but it wasn’t intended to keep his head warm.

Schaeffer wore a colander (a strainer typically used to drain water from spaghetti) while Town Clerk Allison Dispense administered the oath of office to him before the board’s reorganizational meeting. When the OBSERVER asked afterward why he wore a colander on his head, Schaeffer said he was a minister with an even more unique organization – the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

“It’s just a statement about religious freedom,” he said. “It’s a religion without any dogma.”

That makes it an unusual religion to be sure.

But there is one thing many of them have in common with it: funny hats.

Pulling hard on the left end of the rope makes the ones holding right end trip over themselves

by digby

I think it’s great that Reid will be pushing for a restructuring [of the Unemployment Insurance system.] It’s long overdue and Lord knows his Nevada constituents need it. But under current political restraints that is indeed going to be a heavy lift. Still, you have to start somewhere and these Dems finally recognizing that they only get right wing policies when they fail to participate in setting the terms of the debate is a long time coming.

But in order to properly offset GOP lunacy, we should probably have some Democrats in the states at least proposing a guaranteed minimum income or something. After all, that’s a completely nutty idea last espoused by that hippie communist Richard Nixon.

Waddaya know? Myerson did that and more, framing it as a Millenial fight. And boy did it get a reaction.

It just goes to show that when the left pushes the Overton Window the wingnuts’ heads explode. And that’s a good thing. If the leaders of the Democratic Party could learn to keep their cool and behave with a little bit of confidence instead of wetting their pants any time some right wing kook stages a hissy fit over a perfectly normal proposal or mainstream comment, they might be able to use this for leverage. That is assuming, of course, that most of them aren’t perfectly comfortable being led around by the nose by the Republicans and their common wealthy benefactors.

Still, the dynamic does seem to be changing a bit with different forces from both sides exerting some pressure on the status quo. And if there’s one thing the Obama years seem to have proved to Democrats it’s that being the “adult in the room” doesn’t bring all the political benefits they thought it would. So maybe there’s a little momentum building here. We live in hope.

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Keeping AUMFs handy just in case

by digby

So those birth pangs seem to be turning into something of a major medical emergency. In fact, the fetal heartbeat of democracy is very faint:

A rejuvenated al-Qaeda-affiliated force asserted control over the western Iraqi city of Fallujah on Friday, raising its flag over government buildings and declaring an Islamic state in one of the most crucial areas that U.S. troops fought to pacify before withdrawing from Iraq two years ago.

The capture of Fallujah came amid an explosion of violence across the western desert province of Anbar in which local tribes, Iraqi security forces and al-Qaeda-affiliated militants have been fighting one another for days in a confusingly chaotic three-way war.

Elsewhere in the province, local tribal militias claimed they were gaining ground against the al-Qaeda militants who surged into urban areas from their desert strongholds this week after clashes erupted between local residents and the Iraqi security forces.

In Fallujah, where Marines fought the bloodiest battle of the Iraq war in 2004, the militants appeared to have the upper hand, underscoring the extent to which the Iraqi security forces have struggled to sustain the gains made by U.S. troops before they withdrew in December 2011.

The upheaval also affirmed the soaring capabilities of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the rebranded version of the al-Qaeda in Iraq organization that was formed a decade ago to confront U.S. troops and expanded into Syria last year while escalating its activities in Iraq. Roughly a third of the 4,486 U.S. troops killed in Iraq died in Anbar trying to defeat al-Qaeda in Iraq, nearly 100 of them in the November 2004 battle for control of Fallujah, the site of America’s bloodiest confrontation since the Vietnam War.

Events Friday suggested the fight may have been in vain.

“At the moment, there is no presence of the Iraqi state in Fallujah,” said a local journalist who asked not to be named because he fears for his safety. “The police and the army have abandoned the city, al-Qaeda has taken down all the Iraqi flags and burned them, and it has raised its own flag on all the buildings.”

I don’t suppose anyone’s entirely shocked that things have deteriorated to this. Before we invaded the country there were no Al Qaeda but now it appears they have found a new home. Irony doesn’t begin to describe it.

And guess what? The good old handy Iraq Authorization for the Use of Military Force is still in effect.  Read Emptywheel here as a reminder of how that happened. Basically, we’ve kept it around just in case we need it. No need for any unpleasantness about whether the US could intervene if it deems it necessary. Much more efficient this way.

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“You have such a stunningly superficial understanding of what went on that it’s almost embarrassing to listen to you.”

by digby

I’m sure that’s true. But he speaks with total conviction and that’swhat really counts:

The most amusing part, needless to say, is that Scarborough is talking to his co-host’s father.

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Why would an average citizen feel he deserves more money or more power at work?

by digby

Years ago I was suffering through Rush Limbaugh at my Dad’s house and heard a caller tell his idol that he was perfectly happy that his boss got a big raise that year and he didn’t because it meant the company would do better next year and then he’d be rewarded.

I don’t know if any of these people really believe this crap but they certainly feel they need to say it in the presence of their political tribesmen.

Barry Deutch Ampersand Cartoon via Leftycartoons.com 
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Law of unintended consequences: California’s top-two primary helps cement institutional intra-Party control

by David Atkins

In 2010 Californians enacted a top-two primary system, replacing the traditional partisan primaries with jungle primaries in which all primary contestants appear on the same ballot, and the top two advance regardless of partisan affiliation. The move was sold as a way to reduce the power of political parties in elections while giving independents a greater shot at elected office. It is the dream child of moderate Republicans who feel left behind by the Tea Party right, but are far too conservative to become even Blue Dog Democrats and now style themselves as “independents.”

It is a debatable question whether giving austerity-loving social moderates like Dan Schnur and Michael Bloomberg more political space to operate while weakening institutional political parties is a good thing. I would say it is not. But regardless of desirability of the intent, the results of the top-two primary have been counterproductive to that intent. No independents have been elected to state or federal office; very few even made it out of a state or federal primary. Meanwhile, elections have become even more partisan as a great many very partisan blue or red districts saw GOP-on-GOP and Dem-on-Dem battles all the way into November, leading inevitably to more polarized outcomes and greater special interest spending in elections. Political parties have also become more aggressive about forcing weak candidates out of primary races in order to avoid scenarios such as occurred in CA31, where two Republicans advanced to the general in what should have been a safe Democratic seat because seven Democrats split their votes. These problems with the top-two primary have all been widely reported.

But another largely unreported problem is also occurring that is reinforcing institutional control within the political parties at the county central committee level. To understand how, a small introduction to central committee structure is necessary.

Every Democratic and Republican county central committee has its own bylaws that govern who can be a member. Some committees are expansive and large, and some are very restrictive and small. In Ventura County, for instance, the Democratic central committee is approximately four times the size of the Republican one, despite nearly equal numbers of Democratic and Republican voters in the county.

A key feature of nearly every county committee, however, is the elected membership. America is one of the few countries in which elections for these political party offices appear on the public ballot at taxpayer expense. These individuals appear on the public partisan primary ballot in even years, elected either by supervisory or Assembly district, their number a function of the number of fellow partisan voters in that district. To again use Ventura County as an example, elected central committee members are voted in by the public in each of the five supervisory districts. Democratic primary voters get to pick six elected members in the heavily Democratic 1st district, but only four in the much more Republican 4th district. Registered Republican primary voters have the opposite skew.

Generally speaking, county committee members elected by the public tend to have privileges greater than those of other members on the theory that being elected by the public carries more weight than being selected in a back room. If a central committee becomes too staid and institutionally sedentary, one of the best courses for a populist activist is to run a slate of candidates for county central committee on the public ballot. Tea Party and progressive activists alike have done just this in counties all across America in order to refresh their parties and shake up institutional dead weight.

This is where the unintended consequences of the top-two non-partisan primary come in. Remember that partisan central committee elections can only take place in partisan elections: you can’t have Democrats voting for Republican central committee members and vice versa. But in California elections there are now no partisan primaries except for one race: the President of the United States, in which federal elections law supersedes state law.

But, of course, the President is only elected on four-year terms. Which means that in California midterms there simply is no partisan primary. Democrats, Republicans and non-partisan voters all receive the same ballot. That in turn means that intra-party central committee elections can no longer be held on 2-year cycles, since no county central committee can begin to fund the expense of a public election on its own.

So central committees of both parties all across California have been forced to quietly examine their bylaws and shift to four-year cycles for elected committee members due to the top-two primary. That in turn means that it’s twice as hard for populist activists to run grassroots campaigns to shake up machine-like county committees.

As a committee member elected on the public ballot in 2010 and again in 2012, that’s great for me personally: I don’t have to defend my seat again until 2016. But it also means that there’s less recourse to get rid of me if I become corrupted and entrenched. As a county committee political party chair I now have less public accountability than a United States Representative thanks to the top-two primary, empowering me as a political party official while disempowering the public.

California’s top-two primary was an ill-advised and ill-considered move on many levels, some of which are only now becoming apparent. It’s a mistake other states should definitely avoid.

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