Month: June 2015

“We are at our best … when we have each other’s back”
by Tom Sullivan

It’s all Hillary Clinton all the time in the news this morning and, you can be sure, on the Sunday bobblehead shows later this morning. I was on the road yesterday, so I’m just catching Clinton’s Roosevelt Island speech on C-Span.

There’s no lack of snark. Politico calls the speech “the expected proto-State of the Union stuff.” But that’s not an unfair description.

Digby mentioned that Clinton’s line yesterday about not being a quitter is what makes her admired by those who respect her and frustrates those on the right who have spent a generation trying to knock her down. Like the those she asked yesterday to champion, she refuses to be knocked out. It was for that (not for any affiliation with Margaret Thatcher’s policies) that I suggested she is the Democrats’ Iron Lady. Weakness is the cardinal sin for the alpha dogs of the right, and something they try hard to pin on every Democratic candidate. With Hillary Clinton? Good luck with that.

John Nichols called the speech “short on populist specifics.” He calls for Clinton to go “all in,” as FDR did much earlier than the Four Freedoms speech Clinton’s Four Fights speech was meant to echo. Roosevelt went all in against “economic royalists.”

“There are two ways of viewing the Government’s duty in matters affecting economic and social life,” Roosevelt explained. “The first sees to it that a favored few are helped and hopes that some of their prosperity will leak through, sift through, to labor, to the farmer, to the small business man. That theory belongs to the party of Toryism, and I had hoped that most of the Tories left this country in 1776.”

Roosevelt called out the party of “trickle down” before the phrase existed, a phrase that drew strong boos when Clinton did the same yesterday. And indeed, most of the Tories — Royalists by temperament — did not leave the country after the Treaty of Paris, as I have noted here and at Scrutiny Hooligans:

Do you stand with the modern-day British East India Corporations and their masters (the Kochs, the Olins, the Bradleys and other royals that want to unmake the American Century and rig American democracy like they rigged the financial markets)? Or do you stand with the people in your community? Who do you serve?

It’s pretty clear who Gov. Scott Walker and the GOP leadership in Wisconsin serves. They and their brethren and industry ghost-written legislation in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana — in about half the states. To strip the collective bargaining rights of political enemies, to defund public schools (and teachers), to suppress the vote by requiring photo IDs (Jim Crow, Jr.), to dissolve elected local governments in a corporate coup d’état, to arrogate sweeping executive authority over state agencies in a single unelected … tzar(?), to transfer tax dollars from the poor and middle class to give tax breaks to corporations, the works — all supported by the same press-shy billionaire ideologues behind Americans for Prosperity and the American Legislative Exchange Council. As the fake “Koch” phone call demonstrated, they don’t care about your jobs or your economy, and they don’t care about you.

I’m thinking that is more of what Nichols would like to hear from Hillary Clinton. So would I.

But she got my attention with this line:

We Americans may differ, bicker, stumble, and fall; but we are at our best when we pick each other up, when we have each other’s back.

The right is defined by whose backs they’ve got and whose they don’t. It never ceases to amaze me how they give lip service to the military’s esprit de corps as what is best about America. Leave no man behind is a code of honor. For many on the right, that spirit ends at the post fence line. It is only for those they deem deserving. Only for the few, the proud, the well-connected, those sharing their ideology and faith. In the civilian world, you’re on your own. That selective view of Americanism is what Clinton needs to speak to if she wants to win.

The undeserving poor

by digby

You know, all those scofflaws who are eating lobster on your dime:

This would be why they are passing laws designed to humiliate and degrade food stamp recipients all over the country.

American exceptionalism


by digby

Huh:

The average American woman weighs 166.2 pounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As reddit recently pointed out, that’s almost exactly as much as the average American man weighed in the early 1960s.

Men, you’re not looking too hot in this scenario either. Over the same time period you gained nearly 30 pounds, from 166.3 in the 60s to 195.5 today. Doing the same comparison as above, today’s American man weighs almost as much as 1.5 American women from the 1960s. At 195.5 pounds, put five American guys in a room and you’ve gathered roughly half a ton of manhood.
[…]
The average American is 33 pounds heavier than the average Frenchman, 40 pounds heavier than the average Japanese citizen, and a whopping 70 pounds heavier than the average citizen of Bangladesh. To add up to one ton of total mass, it takes 20 Bangladeshis but only 12.2 Americans.

Together, the world’s adult human beings added up to 287 million tons of biomass in 2005, according to the BMC Public Health study. But if every country had the same weight distribution as the U.S., the world would be 58 million tons fatter, an increase of 20 percent.

The article claims a lot of theories for why this happens but fails to mention the one that always stands out at me when I look at these charts. The weight gain really took off when “low fat” became the medical community’s prescription for the modest weight gain that came before.  I’m sure it’s more complicated than that. But you can’t fail to see some kind of correlation if not causation.

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A tour with an upright mammal

by digby

“Silicon Valley” fans will especially enjoy this Clickhole “tour” of Google headquarters, but it’s fun for the whole family. An excerpt:

The next stop on our journey is Google’s research and development center. Upright Mammal and I fight our way through a swarm of vengeful ghosts and enter an enormous, state-of-the-art laboratory.

“Here at Google, we’re always working on some sort of new and beautiful robotic sin in order to drown the world in a sea of convenience,” my guide explains to me. “Google proudly employs a dedicated militia of scientists to build our vicious gizmos.”

He leads me to an immense indoor driving course where several cars are parked. Scientists run back and forth, fiddling with various mechanical components.

“Behold!” exclaims Upright Mammal, “Google’s driverless car! The hideous miracle that will make driving old cars illegal!”

I turn my attention to the indoor racetrack where the driverless cars are parked. A scientist climbs into the backseat of one of the driverless cars.

“Okay, Google Car,” says the scientist, “take me around the track.”

With elegant, deliberate precision, the Google Car starts its own motor and makes a slow, controlled trip around the quarter-mile track. It comes to a perfect, gradual stop at the finish line. The door to the car opens and the scientist emerges. He now has the head of a falcon. He emits frightened birdlike shrieks from his new beak as he grasps in horror at his monstrous new head. Several paramedics rush onto the racetrack, grab the falcon-headed scientist, and usher him into the backseat of a driverless ambulance.

“Okay, Google Ambulance,” says one of the paramedics, “take us to the hospital!”

The driverless ambulance rockets vertically into the sky and explodes like a firework thousands of feet above the ground.

“The driverless cars are not working right now,” explains Upright Mammal. “Let’s look at a different miracle instead.”

He leads me to another part of the laboratory where, he says, the company’s top researchers work on the highest-priority sins. It dawns on me that I haven’t felt this level of enthusiasm since finally getting my femur removed.

“I have been called many things in my life – quitter wasn’t one of them”

by digby

That was perhaps the line in Hillary Clinton’s speech that reflects what people who like her respect about her. And it makes her rivals nearly apoplectic with frustration.

Her first major speech today was very Clintonesque. By that I mean is was a lot like those Bill Clinton laundry list speeches that all the Villagers hate but the people inevitably like. She’s no Barack Obama. But that’s ok. The Democratic agenda is quite popular which is why Bill Clinton always did it successfully.

I’m a terrible gauge of speeches because they rarely move me. Even Obama didn’t bring out a lot of emotion for me. So I can’t say I was particularly moved by this one. But I will confess, her closing got to me a little bit:

“An America where a father can tell his daughter, ‘yes, you can be anything you want to be, even president of the U.S'”

FWIW I felt the same way about the lines in Obama’s speeches when he referenced the breaking down of racial barriers. I know it’s largely symbolic and I don’t make my political decisions based solely on ending white male supremacy. I wouldn’t vote for Sarah Palin or Ben Carson. But it isn’t nothing. Not by a long shot.

Woman to her young daughter as Bill Clinton walks by: “That is Hillary’s husband.”

— Dan Merica (@danmericaCNN) June 13, 2015

Heh.
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Transparency Now! Says former lobbyist 

by Spocko

All I know about lobbying I learned from the movie “The American President.” (During which I determined that Mrs. Spocko was more attractive than Annette Bening.)

The movie shows everything people think they know about lobbying: getting the vote count right, educating congress people, making deals, trade offs and pay offs with different groups in exchange for current or future votes, the unusual bed fellows (literally) and finally dealing with the expectations of, and exposure in, the media.

I saw that movie three times, so clearly I’m an expert on what the lobbyists will do next following this current vote on TPP.

Luckily I have some friends who actually were lobbyists and I talk and listen to them to see what really goes on. I wanted to know what they did after a failure and what they think the pro-TPP people will do next.

But first, what do WE do after success? One of my least favorite phrases after a victory or semi-victory is, “Now the hard work begins.” Screw you Negative Nelly! Bite me Pragmatic Patrick! Piss off Realist Rick!

I say, “Give the fighters a pat on the back!  Give ’em a raise.  Take a bow people who worked so hard to educate!”

Then everyone should hug the helpers and friends. Smile and laugh and drink and tell funny stories.  We MUST enjoy and celebrate victories. In the past I didn’t. Post victory I went right into the next project with no down time. Big mistake. My body knew better and usually I’d get the flu.

So now’s the time to look at what worked, what didn’t. What did we do right? What could we do differently next time? How do we build on success? Can we create future barriers for the opposition? What barriers to our success can we bring down now for next time?

I wanted to know, “What do my lobbyists friends do after a losing campaign?“

They regroup. Take a break.  Yes they lost, but they still got paid. They explain to the client how this is really a victory. They explain how it sets the stage for the next campaign. They tell the story of how this loss is really an opportunity to change things for success next time, based on what was learned. They just need more money to make it happen.

They determine what the landscape looks like now, then start again.

As we saw from the net neutrality fights, when the people close a door the lobbyists open a window. The second they fail on one front they cry,

“And we would have won too if it wasn’t for those meddling kids!”

Then they look for new ways to win.

Lone Wolf attack

by digby

Everyone says that the authorities are completely panicked at the prospect of these Lone Wolves staging individual attacks, so they need expanded police powers to stop them. Then we will never have to fear people like this man. And these women and we can live safely in America.

Here’s one now:

The suspect in an attack on Dallas police headquarters is believed to be dead after a police sniper shot at him early Saturday.

So far, though, authorities had not been able to approach the vehicle safely to confirm that he had been killed. They were working to make their way into the vehicle with the assistance of a robot, and they alerted the public that some planned detonations might be heard as they tried to gain entry.

Police had spent hours trying to negotiate with the man in the armored vehicle he used during his assault on the headquarter before he led dozens of squad cars on a chase that ended along Interstate 45 in Hutchins.

ISIS? Al Qaeda?

No one was injured by the man, who identified himself as James Boulware, a 50-year-old with a history of family violence.

Dallas police Chief David Brown said Boulware had blamed authorities for his losing custody of his son.

Boulware’s mother, Jeannine, declined to comment Saturday morning when she was reached at her Dallas home by phone.

“I don’t want to talk to the media. I want to talk to my son. I want my grandson to talk to his father. Do not call this number again,” she said.

The suspect’s father, Jim Boulware of Carrollton, said his son had blamed police for losing custody of his own child, who is now in middle school.

But despite previous threats of violence, he said he never expected anything like Saturday’s events.

“He blames the police for taking his son away from him,” Jim Boulware said. “I tried to tell him that the police are just doing their job.”

Never mind. His plot wasn’t motivated by Islamic terrorism so it’s not a big deal. It’s just the old All American violence we live with every day.  Carry on.

Reclaiming the heartland
by Tom Sullivan

At Washington Monthly, a worthwhile examination of the conservative (and not so conservative) mindset extant in the American heartland and what progressives might do to reclaim the politics there. Driving across country with the radio on, it is easy to conclude that the heartland is a monolithic, Rush-fueled sea of conservative rage. Not so, writes Andrew Levison as part of a Washington Monthly/The Democratic Strategist roundatable on Stan Greenberg’s “The Average Joe’s Proviso.” To begin, Levison quotes Rutgers University political scientist, Lilliana Mason, on how it is that people who support some liberal policies elect Republican candidates:

Alaska elected a Republican senator and passed a recreational marijuana initiative, along with an increase in the minimum wage. North Dakota elected a Republican congressman and rejected a Personhood amendment. Arkansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota elected a Republican senator and governor, and passed a minimum wage increase. This led Zachary Goldfarb to write: “Americans will vote for Republicans even though they disagree with them on everything.”

My research suggests a key reason why this happened: our partisan identities motivate us far more powerfully than our views about issues. Although voters may insist in the importance of their values and ideologies, they actually care less about policy and more that their team wins.

Democrats are seen as representing alien ideolgogies, Levison believes. It is often not so much that heartland citizens embrace Republicans as much as they have been taught to loathe Democrats. Understanding how the heartland works is key to cracking it. Levison writes:

In non-heartland areas, such as the formerly industrial regions of the East and Midwest, however, there were also countervailing value systems in working class life as well. Trade unions, precinct level Democratic clubs and liberal catholic churches provided support for an alternative value system that supported New Deal liberalism.

In the conservative heartland regions these countervailing institutions did not exist and, as a result, the four traditional value systems [the church, the military, small business and the school system] seemed entirely hegemonic. They were not and are not visualized as “conservative” or even particularly “political” ideas by working people in these communities but rather as obvious, self-evident truths that ought to be completely apparent to anyone with even a modicum of “simple common sense”.

Levison explains:

The substantially increased role of negative partisanship in American politics leads to a profound difference between the way daily political life operates in the conservative heartland and non-heartland areas today. In the non-Heartland areas individual political loyalties are indeed often just as intense as in the heartland areas but within local community and daily neighborhood life politics is nonetheless understood and accepted as contested—at little league games and church socials Democratic and Republican white workers are friendly to each other and socialize together comfortably despite their deeply different political views. They accept the idea that some of their neighbors think differently than they do and that some yard signs in their neighborhood will support candidates other than their own.

In the conservative heartland areas, on the other hand, politics is simply not contested. Every single yard sign in many neighborhoods and communities will support candidates of the Republican Party leading to what sociologists call a “spiral of silence”; people with dissenting views decide not to express their opinions in public while advocates of conservative opinions loudly and confidently dominate daily social life.

Levison argues that outside Howard Dean’s “50 State Strategy” Democrats have failed to contest the prevailing orthodoxy in the heartland. There has, however, been a tendency (Dean resisted) to simply write off the area as too difficult and to focus on turnout in friendlier areas of the country. But this leaves Democrats in the heartland starved of funds and permanently weak. Levison (and Dean, I’m sure) considered this strategy shortsighted and “morally and socially distasteful.”

This has left Democrats with a bi-coastal electoral strategy that (as someone else said) depends on securing the populous blue states on each coast and hoping to hit a triple bank shot somewhere in the Midwest to pick up enough electoral votes to win the White House. Plus, it leaves Democrats permanently ceding a large swath of the Senate to the thinly populated heartland states. As I say, if you don’t show up to play, you forfeit.

Levin recommends organizing on single issues of a nonpartisan character, or by supporting independent, “genuine grass-roots white working class candidates who depart in some respects from the GOP’s rigid free-market economic orthodoxy and bitter social intolerance while still exhibiting authentic ‘real American’ cultural traditionalism” as a way of loosening the GOP’s grip.

Independent candidates have the potential to increase the divisions and conflicts between the extremists and the moderates within the GOP, an outcome which would be profoundly healthy for the future of America. In some cases it may be possible for Democrats to throw their support to independent candidates with whom they judge they can work with in the legislature on some issues as an alternative to splitting the vote three ways on election day and insuring a GOP victory. In other cases, the threat posed by independent candidates may allow moderates within the GOP to break the control the extremists now hold over the primary process. Right now, the extremists who participate disproportionately in GOP primaries can force all candidates to embrace their agenda because the candidates know that, regardless of how much they have to grovel and pander to the extremists in order to get the nomination, they can then be confident of winning the general elections in their heavily Republican states or districts. With the threat of third party independent candidates potentially depriving them of a majority in the general election if the primary process forces them to move too far to the right, more moderate GOP candidates will be forced to fight for control of the local parties once again.

This makes sense as a longer-term strategy, as does Dean’s 50 State Strategy. But the left faces its own impediments to implementing it.

Like evangelicals, the left has its own Last Days tendencies, only now centered around climate change. We too believe The End Is Near, and that we will all burn … in the UV fires of Sol. The same urgent, apocalyptic, short-term thinking that afflicts some on the religious right prevents the left from taking on longer-term projects like re-capturing the American heartland, just the thing that might be required to put the brakes on climate change (or corporate hegemony) over time.

When every election is “the most important in our lifetime,” when every year might be the point of no return for the planet or for our democracy, there is no psychic bandwidth for efforts that require longer-term political organizing. Even for a renewed 50 State Strategy so many of us would like to see. Overcoming that might be as daunting a task as reclaiming the heartland itself.

He was born to rock

by digby

Yeah baby!!

The two-year-old son of Redditor gabew101 enter full-on, stank-faced beast mode upon hearing “Bulls on Parade” on Guitar Hero—the first time he’d ever experienced the righteous oblivion brought on by Zack, Tom, and co., according to his dad.

Rock and roll will never die …

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