Month: January 2014

Regular folks like a laundry list

by digby

I was out last night and only got to see highlights of the State of the Union address and hear some of the analysis. From the commentary, many of the President’s supporters seemed to be just a tad disappointed. They prefer the soaring oratory.

The instant polling suggests that the regular folk liked it just fine:

I have no idea how that stands up to the reactions to his earlier SOTUs and I’m not interested enough to check. But I do know that people tend to like State of the Union speeches generally and that the “laundry list” type like last night doesn’t throw them the way it does the cognescenti. It turns out that they like it when the president lays out specifics, even if they are “small bore” as I kept hearing last night.

I did manage to catch the end of the speech with the tribute to the wounded soldier which was very moving. You cannot be human and fail to feel for that person’s sacrifice. On the other hand, it’s a little bit cheap for politicians to reap any reward for that sentiment, in my opinion.

Other than that, from what I can tell by reading it, the speech was a standard issue SOTU. I hope he follows through the proposals to use his executive power to help whatever discrete groups he can help. (A hundred thousand people here, a hundred thousand people there, pretty soon you’re talking about real improvement…) He’s coming up against the lame duck wall pretty soon and this is probably his only option. And the issues that really animate him, obviously, are in the foreign policy realm. In fact, it’s always been his biggest ambition and if he hadn’t been saddled with the financial crisis and its fallout, it’s likely that would have been the focus of this presidency. If he gets a deal with Iran, it will certainly be a BFD, as Joe Biden would say.

All in all a fairly predictable second term so far. I’m just happy he didn’t go on about the need to cut the deficit this time.

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The President’s power to act on inequality isn’t limited to executive orders

by David Atkins

As the right moans and cries about the President’s planned use of executive orders to implement policy insofar as he can given the utter intransigence of Congressional Republicans, it’s worth remembering that the President’s options aren’t limited to executive orders.

Certainly, he should be applauded for using the power of the White House to increase the minimum wage for federal contractors. But the President can do much more than that to address inequality.

By far the most salutary thing the President could do is to instruct the Justice Department to prosecute misdeeds in the financial sector. While there are many problems facing the American economy, one of the biggest is that there is simply no accountability for people at the top of the financial food chain. Sometimes an institution pays a meager fine, but the players themselves never go to jail unless they were caught swindling even bigger fish above them.

Making an example of a few of the reckless, unaccountable criminal greedheads at J.P. Morgan, HSBC and similar institutions would drive up the President’s popularity, return at least some belief in basic fairness to the general public, and put a chill on financial sector excesses at the same time.

The power of the Justice Department is second only to the power of the Defense Department in the President’s bag of tools. It can and should be used to improve and enforce economic fairness and restore a sense of public trust.

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SOTU: pen and phone edition

by digby

From what we hear this is going to be the president’s “I guess I have to do everything myself” speech, which I frankly hope is what he says.  While they’ve used Executive Orders in the past, perhaps this time we’ll see a bit more action beyond the margins. He’s certainly been using them liberally and effectively in the realm of national security so we know the president’s pen has ink in it.

For those who can’t bear to hear the gasbags pontificate as usual about who wore what and how many times someone applauded, there’s an alternative: MoveOn, the AFL-CIO, and the radio show The Good Fight will be livestreaming a progressive response from AFL-CIO HQ right after the speech, co-hosted by Ben Wikler and Thea Lee, where they’ll talk to a number of labor and progressive folks. We might even learn something:

Update: Michael Moore had an interesting little factoid today that we should keep in mind as we watch the garment rending over the minimum wage proposal for federal workers tonight:

One hundred years ago this month Henry Ford began paying his workers a minimum of $15 an hour! (It was $5 for an eight hour day – which would be worth $116.48 now.) That’s right – in a much poorer America, one without TV, radio, phones or House of Cards on demand, Ford could afford it. In fact, Ford later said, he couldn’t afford not to: “The owner, the employees, and the buying public are all one and the same, and unless an industry can so manage itself as to keep wages high and prices low it destroys itself, for otherwise it limits the number of its customers. One’s own employees ought to be one’s own best customers.”

Tell THAT to anyone who says we can’t afford a minimum wage of $15 here in 2014 – 100 years later, in a country about eight times as rich per person. The CEOs will scream and weep now just like they did then, and just like then they’ll be wrong. Not only would it not destroy American businesses, it might be the only thing that can save them.

Also too, this. Just for fun:

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The pro-constitution campaign 2014

by digby

Politico reports:

Edward Snowden’s leaks didn’t just cause turmoil in the U.S. intelligence community, prompt international backlash toward President Barack Obama and revive a debate in Congress over civil liberties.

They spawned a whole new breed on the 2014 campaign trail: The anti-National Security Agency candidate.

Really? Is that what they are? Only insular Villagers would think that’s what this is about. No, they are not “anti-National Security Agency” candidates, they are pro-civil liberties candidates — or perhaps more accurately pro-constitution candidates.

Nobody is against the NSA in the abstract. It’s been around for a long time and serves an important function. Why even that commie traitor Edward Snowden defends the agency’s mission. The problem is that it is gathering personal information on everyone and storing it just in case the government might need it some day. That’s a big no-no under the 4th Amendment, which says that the government needs probable cause to seize personal communications. Up until now Americans thought that it was a bad idea for the government to keep dossiers on everyone. Had just a whiff of authoritarianism if you know what I mean.

But, regardless of Politico’s typically obtuse understanding of the issue, they are correct that we will see some races in which this issue will be debated. One I’m particularly interested in is the Senate race in Maine featuring former head of Maine ACLU Shenna Bellows challenging the bucket of lukewarm water named Susan Collins:

The Democratic candidate didn’t think much about running for Senate against the popular GOP Sen. Susan Collins — until the aftermath of the Snowden revelations prompted tougher restrictions on warrantless surveillance on the state level that she now wants to replicate in Washington. Bellows wants an end to the NSA’s bulk data collection program, along with the PATRIOT Act. She argues the country needs stronger whistleblower protections. She even believes Snowden deserves clemency.

“Constitutional freedoms is how I win the race,” said the 38-year-old Bellows, who headed the American Civil Liberties Union of Maine for eight years and now faces a very steep climb to catch Collins. “I think the erosion of constitutional freedoms exemplifies how Washington has become out of touch with some of the values that we share as communities.”

“She even believes Snowden deserves clemency.” Burn the heretic!!!

In a phone interview from Maine, Collins rebutted criticism that she has not done enough to protect against civil liberties, highlighting legislation she co-sponsored in 2004 that created the independent Privacy and Civil Liberties Board and her support for recent proposals to tighten oversight over the surveillance programs. But, she said, doing away with the ability of the government to collect phone records would cause great harm to the country’s ability to root out terrorism.

“We know that there were plots thwarted solely or partially by the programs, so doing away with it altogether would mean a less safe America,” said Collins, who sits on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and has supported the PATRIOT Act and legislation codifying broader electronic surveillance.

Actually, it hasn’t thwarted any plots and Collins should know that since the Privacy and Civil Liberties Board (which she was instrumental in creating) just issued a report saying so after reviewing all the documents. A profile in courage on this, she’s not.

The article goes on to discuss other races where the issue is coming up. I personally doubt it’s going to be a driver of votes — average folks have more immediate problems on their minds. But campaigns are one of the primary ways to politicians can educate the public about issues and I’m glad to see candidates debating this. Over time we may see that politicians will not be punished for taking a principled stand in favor of the constitution after all.

Shenna Bellows is a great candidate by the way. Blue America has endorsed her if you’d like to contribute to her campaign. We need some more strong civil libertarians in the US Senate. Lord knows the National Security State is already very well represented.

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Or he’ll do what?

by David Atkins

Leverage is a tricky thing. The first rule of leverage is that in order to use it, a person has to either have something to trade or some extra pressure they can apply. People who are in a maximally hostile position don’t tend to have political leverage over their opponents, because there’s nothing they will trade for, and there’s nothing they can do to their opponents that they’re not already doing.

Case in point: John Boehner threatening the President today about the use of executive orders.

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday delivered a blunt message to President Obama ahead of his plan for increased unilateral action: We’re watching you.

House Republicans urged Obama not to go around Congress, and Boehner warned that Congress would act if the president’s orders did not pass muster under the Constitution.
The House GOP “will continue to look closely at whether the president is faithfully executing laws, as he took an oath to do,” Boehner told reporters after a meeting of the Republican conference. “We’re going to watch very closely, because there’s a Constitution that we all take an oath to, including him, and following the Constitution is the basis for House Republicans.”

Or he’ll do what? What can he possibly do to scuttle the President’s agenda that he isn’t already doing?

Asked what the House would do if lawmakers determined Obama skirted the Constitution, Boehner said only, “There are options that are available to us.” Republicans, he said, would discuss them at their annual retreat, which begins Wednesday in Cambridge, Md.

That’s what I thought. A lot of nothing–or else options so disgusting and distasteful that he can’t tell the press about them.

They’ve already shut down the government, forced cuts to food stamps and denied long-term unemployment benefits. Short of impeachment (which would be a godsend for Democrats), what else is there?

That’s the problem with becoming the insane party. Once you’ve gone over that edge, there’s not much leverage left. A President’s calculus quickly becomes to ignore Congress completely and do whatever is possible through executive order. Nothing else is left.

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Iceland’s big problem: bringing 4% unemployment down to 2%

by digby

At one time there was a big debate about whether or not Iceland came out on top during our current depression, largely due to it’s hard core treatment of its banks. It was always pretty obvious that they made the smarter decision.  It looks even more obvious today:

Iceland let its banks fail in 2008 because they proved too big to save.

Now, the island is finding crisis-management decisions made half a decade ago have put it on a trajectory that’s turned 2 percent unemployment into a realistic goal.

While the euro area grapples with record joblessness, led by more than 25 percent in Greece and Spain, only about 4 percent of Iceland’s labor force is without work. Prime MinisterSigmundur D. Gunnlaugsson says even that’s too high.

“Politicians always have something to worry about,” the 38-year-old said in an interview last week. “We’d like to see unemployment going from where it’s now — around 4 percent — to under 2 percent, which may sound strange to most other western countries, but Icelanders aren’t accustomed to unemployment.”

The island’s sudden economic meltdown in October 2008 made international headlines as a debt-fueled banking boom ended in a matter of weeks when funding markets froze. Policy makers overseeing the $14 billion economy refused to back the banks, which subsequently defaulted on $85 billion. The government’s decision to protect state finances left it with the means to continue social support programs that shielded Icelanders from penury during the worst financial crisis in six decades.

We, on the other hand are making nearly 7% official unemployment (along with many millions not even being counted) the new normal. And we’re slashing our meager safety net, even food assistance. But our megabanks are doing very well which is what matters.

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Leave the poor billionaires aloooooone!


by digby

For those of you who haven’t seen the now infamous Tom Perkins interview on Bloomberg yesterday, here are a couple of the choicest bits.

Mr. Perkins apologized for his comparison of attacks on San Francisco’s wealthy to Kristallnacht. After all, he spoke with Abe Foxman, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, and repeatedly acknowledged that his use of the “awful” comparison was inappropriate.

But he then resolutely stood by his point: that a majority was intimidating a minority. He said that his late partner Eugene Kleiner, a refugee from Nazi Germany, would have agreed with the letter to the editor.

“When you start to use hatred against a minority, it doesn’t go well,” he said on the program.

Mr. Perkins doesn’t count himself among the richest Americans. He noted that he’s not a billionaire, only a multimillionaire. But he defended the wealthy as helping to lift the so-called 99 percent. Recent targets of class criticism, including high-rise buildings in San Francisco and Google’s shuttles, are actually part of the solution to helping spur the economy.

“I don’t feel personally threatened,” he said. “But I feel that an important part of America, namely the creative 1 percent, are threatened.”

He later added, “It’s absurd to demonize the rich for being rich and doing what the rich do, which is get richer by creating opportunities for others.”

It’s hard to know how to react to someone who so perfectly embodies the arrogance, the self-pity and the Randroid intellectual rot of our 21st century robber barons. He’s obviously convinced that he’s an oppressed minority who must be protected from the plebes. But he also hates the government and says it’s the instrument of his oppression. So I don’t know who it is he expects to protect him from the pitchfork mob. Does he think the Tea Party has an army?

Here’s the evidence for the horrific oppression of this brave, persecuted minority.  You can see why they feel this rhetoric is so darned unfair. 

The top marginal did go up a teensy bit in 2011 — back to where it was in 2000.

So you can see the tremendous burden that’s being placed on the “creative”  1% who are working themselves to the bone getting richer so we can all benefit.

Here’s the whole interview. You just won’t believe it …

Update: Here’s what he does for kicks

The largest privately owned sailboat in the world, the Maltese Falcon arrives under the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Owner Tom Perkins has brought her here to get outfitted for a submarine, his latest interest.

The Maltese Falcon mega-yacht is getting a new toy – a private, high-performance “flying” submarine. This is a deep flight personal submarine built for Tom Perkins Maltese Falcon yacht. Tom Perkins was there for the launch of his new private submarine, he’s the one in the black blazer.

Perkins sold the yacht in 2009 to a hedge fund owner from Cyprus.

By the way, everything I could find via Mr Google says that Perkins is a billionaire around 8 times over. But he denied it in the interview.  Which seems odd.

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A tiny historical note about government police power and freedom

by digby

A piece of Pete Seeger’s congressional testimony before the House Unamerican Activities Committee in 1955:

MR. TAVENNER: The Committee has information obtained in part from the Daily Worker indicating that, over a period of time, especially since December of 1945, you took part in numerous entertainment features. I have before me a photostatic copy of the June 20, 1947, issue of the Daily Worker. In a column entitled “What’s On” appears this advertisement: “Tonight-Bronx, hear Peter Seeger and his guitar, at Allerton Section housewarming.” May I ask you whether or not the Allerton Section was a section of the Communist Party?

MR. SEEGER: Sir, I refuse to answer that question whether it was a quote from the New York Times or the Vegetarian Journal.

MR. TAVENNER: I don’t believe there is any more authoritative document in regard to the Communist Party than its official organ, the Daily Worker.

MR. SCHERER: He hasn’t answered the question, and he merely said he wouldn’t answer whether the article appeared in the New York Times or some other magazine. I ask you to direct the witness to answer the question.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: I direct you to answer.

MR. SEEGER: Sir, the whole line of questioning-

CHAIRMAN WALTER: You have only been asked one question, so far.

MR. SEEGER: I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.

MR. TAVENNER: Has the witness declined to answer this specific question?

CHAIRMAN WALTER: He said that he is not going to answer any questions, any names or things.

MR. SCHERER: He was directed to answer the question.

MR. TAVENNER: I have before me a photostatic copy of the April 30, 1948, issue of the Daily Worker which carries under the same title of “What’s On,” an advertisement of a “May Day Rally: For Peace, Security and Democracy.” The advertisement states: “Are you in a fighting mood? Then attend the May Day rally.” Expert speakers are stated to be slated for the program, and then follows a statement, “Entertainment by Pete Seeger.” At the bottom appears this: “Auspices Essex County Communist Party,” and at the top, “Tonight, Newark, N.J.” Did you lend your talent to the Essex County Communist Party on the occasion indicated by this article from the Daily Worker?

MR. SEEGER: Mr. Walter, I believe I have already answered this question, and the same answer.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: The same answer. In other words, you mean that you decline to answer because of the reasons stated before?

MR. SEEGER: I gave my answer, sir.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: What is your answer?

MR. SEEGER: You see, sir, I feel-

CHAIRMAN WALTER: What is your answer?

MR. SEEGER: I will tell you what my answer is.

(Witness consulted with counsel [Paul L. Ross].)

I feel that in my whole life I have never done anything of any conspiratorial nature and I resent very much and very deeply the implication of being called before this Committee that in some way because my opinions may be different from yours, or yours, Mr. Willis, or yours, Mr. Scherer, that I am any less of an American than anybody else. I love my country very deeply, sir.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: Why don’t you make a little contribution toward preserving its institutions?

MR. SEEGER: I feel that my whole life is a contribution. That is why I would like to tell you about it.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: I don’t want to hear about it.

MR. SCHERER: I think that there must be a direction to answer.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: I direct you to answer that question.

MR. SEEGER: I have already given you my answer, sir.

MR. SCHERER: Let me understand. You are not relying on the Fifth Amendment, are you?

MR. SEEGER: No, sir, although I do not want to in any way discredit or depreciate or depredate the witnesses that have used the Fifth Amendment, and I simply feel it is improper for this committee to ask such questions.

MR. SCHERER: And then in answering the rest of the questions, or in refusing to answer the rest of the questions, I understand that you are not relying on the Fifth Amendment as a basis for your refusal to answer?

MR. SEEGER: No, I am not, sir.

Seeger was held in contempt for this testimony and sentenced to one year in jail. He finally won on appeal after years of legal wrangling.

Fortunately, human beings have now evolved to the point at which something like this could never happen again. Whatever information the government obtains today about one’s political affiliations and activities is perfectly safe because they’ve assured us it will never be used for anything except finding and rooting out enemies of the United States.

Which is what they said then. But that was different. Obviously.

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Where have all the flowers gone?

by digby

My favorite Pete Seeger song:

I remember hearing this one when I was a young kid. It moved me to tears even then. It perfectly captures the insane, futility of war.

RIP Pete Seeger, a Great American.

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The majority of people on food stamps have jobs

by David Atkins

Let me say up front that when it comes to the social safety net, it shouldn’t matter at all whether you have a job or not. Employment is increasingly hard to come by in an economy ravaged by outsourcing, deskilling and mechanization, and those with jobs are very often underemployed.

Still, if only in the service of debunking yet another right-wing lie, let it be known far and wide that most people on food stamps do have jobs. For whatever that’s worth, since the “jobs” the free market sees fit to provide them don’t pay enough for them to survive without government assistance:

In a first, working-age people now make up the majority in U.S. households that rely on food stamps — a switch from a few years ago, when children and the elderly were the main recipients.

Some of the change is due to demographics, such as the trend toward having fewer children. But a slow economic recovery with high unemployment, stagnant wages and an increasing gulf between low-wage and high-skill jobs also plays a big role. It suggests that government spending on the $80 billion-a-year food stamp program — twice what it cost five years ago — may not subside significantly anytime soon.

Food stamp participation since 1980 has grown the fastest among workers with some college training, a sign that the safety net has stretched further to cover America’s former middle class, according to an analysis of government data for The Associated Press by economists at the University of Kentucky. Formally called Supplemental Nutrition Assistance, or SNAP, the program now covers 1 in 7 Americans.

The findings coincide with the latest economic data showing workers’ wages and salaries growing at the lowest rate relative to corporate profits in U.S. history.

President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday night is expected to focus in part on reducing income inequality, such as by raising the federal minimum wage. Congress, meanwhile, is debating cuts to food stamps, with Republicans including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., wanting a $4 billion-a-year reduction to an anti-poverty program that they say promotes dependency and abuse.

Economists say having a job may no longer be enough for self-sufficiency in today’s economy.

“A low-wage job supplemented with food stamps is becoming more common for the working poor,” said Timothy Smeeding, an economics professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison who specializes in income inequality. “Many of the U.S. jobs now being created are low- or minimum-wage — part-time or in areas such as retail or fast food — which means food stamp use will stay high for some time, even after unemployment improves.”

Many people don’t want to admit it, but this is the new normal. And it will stay the new normal until enough Americans get angry enough to force through major policy changes to increase wages and make sure that everyone has enough to live on in dignity regardless of whether the “free market” deigns in its infinite wisdom to make decent jobs available or not.

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