Month: June 2015

Peking sitting ducks
by Tom Sullivan

So while most of the press is wondering when ISIS will kill us in our beds with their long, curved knives, or taking bets on how many clowns Republicans can fit into that car, I am watching this dispute over control of the South China Sea. It is the sort of thing that in the 20th century sometimes led to unpleasantness.

China has been rapidly building what is being called the Great Wall of Sand. Engineers and fleets of dredges have descended on the disputed Spratly Islands to construct artificial islands built from sand thrown atop reefs and capped with concrete and imposing buildings of unknown purpose. And a runway. Photos here. Worrisome yes, but militarily? Sitting ducks.

The Washington Post Sunday summarized what is going on:

For generations, the South China Sea was a regional common. Fishing boats from all of the surrounding countries would roam its waters, pausing now and then to trade cigarettes or potatoes or gossip.

But then Vietnam, followed by the Philippines, began staking claims to some of the islands, and now China is moving in, in a big way. Beijing is building up the outposts it has established, enlarging islands that it controls and claiming exclusive rights to fishing grounds.

Filipino fisherman are being run off their fishing grounds by gunmen in Chinese speedboats equipped with water cannons. With increased U.S. patrols and overflights, the Post reports, it seems as if the fishermen are being squeezed in “a geostrategic confrontation between the two great powers.”

The Philippines’ attempt two years ago to take China to court in The Hague over the fishing grounds came to nothing. China was a no-show.

The governor of Zambales province, Hermogenes E. Ebdane Jr., said he wonders what China’s ultimate goal is. “No one’s going to war over fish,” he said. His constituents, the fishermen, will have to find something else to do. But if this confrontation is about something bigger, Ebdane said, it’s unclear what role the Philippines might have.

China is clearly flexing its Great Power muscles the way the ascendant U.S. did after WWII and, no, it is unlikely anyone is going to war over fish. China is not one of those “crappy little countries” neocon chickenhawks are so eager to show who’s boss every ten years. Peter Beinart explains why the South China Sea dispute has not been a stump-speech topic for even the hawkish veteran, Sen. Lindsey Graham. Basically, it’s not good television:

Via the catchall of “radical Islam,” American politicians have transferred some of the anxiety sparked by ISIS to Iran: Today they have butcher’s knives; tomorrow, nukes! By contrast, China’s incremental moves to build islands in the South China Sea or even ram the occasional Filipino fishing boat produce far less drama. No matter how serious a challenge they pose to America’s role in the Pacific, they don’t appear to threaten American lives. And they won’t—until a confrontation between the Chinese and American militaries, in disputed ocean or airspace, raises the prospect of war. Until that happens, China’s challenge will remain on Page A17 of the newspaper.

For his part, James Fallows doesn’t believe these moves make China America’s “biggest threat,” which is something:

So let’s say that China is more important than the countries U.S. politicians spend the most time declaiming about—and important because of the potential benefits and the potential risks. That’s different from being the “biggest threat.” The United States needs people who think and talk more about China, not “more China hawks.”

Over the weekend, I caught up with what strategist Thomas PM Barnett (The Pentagon’s New Map) thinks about China lately. He has maintained that, over the long term, globalization would raise living standards across the world (including China) and reduce tensions, not raise them. We are too economically interdependent. China, for example, would not risk its biggest markets. Barnett still seems to believe that.[timestamp: 48:00 to 1:16:00]

Still, accidents happen, especially between great powers and on the high seas. The Enlightened-Self-Interested-Rational-Actors on Wall Street were not supposed to bring the economy that sustains them down on their heads and ours either. Sometimes it’s the lizard brain that makes the choices and the history. In the short term, never count out the lizard brain.

Why did he only see black kids?

by digby

I don’t know what else to say about this:

I just love the explanation to the young boys at the end, that they had made a choice to “join the mob” instead of going away. But remember at the beginning the cop was lecturing other kids that they shouldn’t run when they see a cop. Only the black kids. White kids were standing all over the place and not a word was said to them about anything.

These clearly aren’t gang members or street toughs. They’re just normal young teenagers going to a public pool on a hot summer day.

Can you believe it’s 2015?

.

Look who’s hit the ground running

by digby

This went out from Blue America this morning:

Last cycle we asked you to chip in and help Ted Lieu win the Los Angeles congressional seat from which Henry Waxman was retiring. With your support, Ted won a convincing victory. So, how do we know what’s going to happen after someone gets elected? In Ted’s case, his record of accomplishment as a state legislator was so overwhelming that we had a powerful feeling he would make an exceptional Member of Congress. We were right.

He’s been more than we could have hoped, getting elected freshman class president in his first week on the job and working effectively on one tough issue after another. 

The easy stuff is never where Ted puts his tremendous energies. Just as he did in California, Ted introduced the first federal ban on LGBT conversion therapy, which applies to adults as well as the transgender community. And, again, as he did in California, Ted introduced the Climate Solutions Act of 2015, which takes California’s successful approach to climate change and takes it nationwide. 

Last week he introduced and passed an amendment that cut the federal marijuana eradication/suppression programs in half and his amendment redirected the funding to help child victims of domestic violence and child abuse.  

Ted isn’t taking cautious nibbles around the periphery of problems. He was the first Democrat to oppose the proposal to send US ground troops back to Iraq. At the same time, he has been one of Congress’ loudest and most effective voices against granting Fast Track Authority to the White House on the TPP, a principled position that hasn’t endeared him to the Establishment. 

“One of the main reasons I ran for Congress,” he told us, “was to take on the NSA and our out of control spying-industrial complex. From bipartisan letters I have written to the NSA to my public speeches and comments to my advocacy in the press (such as on MSNBC with Chris Hayes), I have worked across the aisle inside Congress to reign in the NSA for the first time in decades. Although I don’t think the reforms went far enough, at least it is a good step in the right direction. And there is more to come.”
And that was just the beginning. “Another reason I ran for Congress,” he told us, “was to accomplish comprehensive immigration reform. I am also passionate about combatting poverty and am fighting to increase funding to poverty programs.” Below is from an OpEd Ted wrote with Hugh Evans, CEO of the Global Poverty Project:  

This year, almost 60 million primary school-age children will have no access to school. While the world has made progress to get more kids to school since 2000, the severe lack of financing for global education continues to waste global talent and inflicts a lifelong sentence of poverty for those without an education.  

…[I]mproving education worldwide actually helps American security. An uneducated child grows up to be an uneducated adult, and large adult populations that are uneducated and impoverished are destabilizing for countries and regions. With this in mind, our nation’s security increases when there is more stability in the world. 

Improving education worldwide also boosts the American economy. Just one year of primary school increases the future earning potential of a boy in a developing nation by 5% to 15%. The increases for a girl are even greater. Millions more educated children growing up to be educated adults would have a sizable impact on economies in the developing world, which means greatly increased global economic opportunity for America. 

This year is a historic opportunity for the movement to end extreme poverty. In September, world leaders will approve the Sustainable Development Goals, which we expect to target education with the objective to give every child 10 years of free quality education. Investing in education is a clear prerequisite to achieving all other sustainable development goals and ending extreme poverty by 2030… The United States must do more to help empower communities to lift themselves out of poverty. It’s good for children and good for America.

Ted, in fact, has been so busy doing the peoples’ business that he hasn’t spent the time the Leadership insists on raising money for reelection. Would you help Blue America help Ted make sure he closes out the fundraising quarter with a decent amount with a contribution here? 

–Howie, for the entire Blue America team

Saddest exchange of the morning shows

by digby

When you’ve lost Chris Wallace on taxes …

WALLACE: You wanted only two income tax rates, 10 percent and 28 percent. Tax capital gains at 12 percent. And corporate taxes at 17.5 percent.

Here’s the problem: the Tax Policy Center said the middle class, on average, would save $4,000, while the top 1 percent taxpayer would save, on average, almost $350,000. And you would cut federal revenues by 40 percent.

Question: how do you pass, create, impose a flat tax that, one, isn’t going to gut the federal treasury, that’s going to raise enough money, and, two, isn’t going to be a bonanza for the top 1 percent?

SANTORUM: Well, first off, those numbers are based on a static model. That means that nothing is going to change in the economy if you create all sorts of incentives for people to grow the economy and for people to work with lower tax rates. And I just reject that. I mean, that’s just a flat earth way of looking at economic growth.

One of the things I believe in is that you —

WALLACE: But if you lower the tax rate, as much as you are for the top, they’re going to do a lot better than the middle class because they’re getting a bigger reduction.

SANTORUM: The whole idea is to treat everybody fairly. That’s the reason we’re looking at a flat tax. We’ll have provisions in there that make sure that lower and middle income Americans are not going to pay more taxes — in fact, pay less taxes.

The bottom line is, we have to create growth. You want to reduce the deficit. You want to grow — you know, you want to grow jobs in America, then you have to do something to create jobs. And that means economic growth. And that’s — means you create incentives for people who grow the economy.

So, yes, I am — that’s why I said that the Republican message is a good message on growth, cutting taxes, supply side economics, but we have to make sure we orient that growth in areas where people who are suffering in America today, manufacturing, energy, construction, those types of jobs that create opportunities for good-paying jobs for working men and women, that those jobs are created here in America.

Courtesy of John Amato who quips, “here’s a tip, Rick. Just saying you reject something doesn’t mean it’s so.”

In fairness to Santorum, his economic platform is really pretty standard. What have any of them come up with that’s any fresher?

.

ICYWW about that new voting case

by digby

This explains what the stakes are:

As the map and chart might suggest, there’s a strong negative correlation between share of eligible voters and share of Hispanic population. Of the 25 districts with the highest Hispanic population shares, 19 also are among the 25 districts with the lowest eligible-voter share. This is because so many Hispanics aren’t eligible to vote, either because they’re not U.S. citizens or because they’re younger than 18. By our calculations, only about 45% of the nation’s nearly 54 million Hispanics are eligible to vote. 

There also are clear partisan differences between districts with high and low shares of eligible voters. Of the 35 districts where less than 60% of the population are voting-age citizens, 29 are held by Democrats; Democrats represent 19 of the lowest-ranking 20. On the other end, Republicans represent 31 of the 42 districts where 77% or more of the population are voting-age citizens, and 16 of the highest 20.

What would happen if the Supreme Court were to rule in favor of the Texas appellants (who, it should be noted, already have lost at the district-court level) is unknown. One possibility is that districts with relatively few eligible voters would be redrawn to include more of them – that could mean bringing more whites and Republicans into what are now largely Hispanic, Democratic-voting districts, or combining such districts to bring up the eligible-voter population.

It’s pretty clear that Republicans have little faith in their ability to attract African American and Hispanic voters any time soon. If they didn’t they would not persist in pursuing these strategies that can only be read as insults to those communities and a plan to deny them (even their kids!) representation in the government. It’s obvious.

“Legislators represent people, not trees or acres…” Chief Justice Earl Warren. Actually they should only represent Republican voters.

.

Huckleberry’s coalition

by digby

Lot’s of good quotes from Republican hopefuls this week-end. Huckleberry is pushing the envelope in more ways than one:

Bash asked about Graham’s recent message to voters who are worn out by war: “Don’t vote for me.”

“You are basically promising that troops are going to go into that region,” Bash said on Sunday.

“Absolutely. I promise you that,” Graham said. “I don’t know how you defend the nation without some of our forces going back to Iraq to help the Iraqi army. This is our war too. I’m not going to outsource our national security to a bunch of armies that don’t know how to fight. How do you deal with Syria without forming an army in the region, and how do they win without us?”

The South Carolina senator also warned of a “cyber Pearl Harbor,” in which hackers could try to take down American financial systems, and called Russia a “totalitarian dictatorship.” But when asked about domestic issues—specifically, on the environment and transgender rights—Graham took a decidedly more moderate tack.
[…]

“If Caitlyn Jenner wants to be safe and have a prosperous economy, vote for me,” Graham responded. “I’m into addition. I haven’t walked in her shoes. I don’t have all the answers to the mysteries of life. I can only imagine the torment that Bruce Jenner went through. I hope he has—I hope she has found peace. I’m a pro-life, traditional marriage kind of guy. But I’m running to be president of the United States. If Caitlyn Jenner wants to be a Republican, she is welcome in my party.”

So basically he’s inviting transgender people to vote for him but telling people who aren’t enthusiastic about re-invading Iraq that he doesn’t want their vote.

He also pretty much declared war on Russia and said we have to cut Social Security and raise defense spending. And he said climate change is real and that if we can’t agree on abortion we should talk about cutting taxes.

Let’s just say he’s attempting to build an unusual coalition. I’m not sure who the transgender tolerant, low tax warmongering climate hawks are but he’s making a major play for them.

.

The front-runner

by digby

Scott Walker told Jonathan Karl that Governors are well tested leaders. They’ve been fighting ISIS one kindergarten teacher at a time.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker says he wouldn’t rule out a full-blown re-invasion of Iraq if he were to become the next commander-in-chief.

The likely Republican presidential candidate and early frontrunner in several polls said he would consider a re-invasion if it were deemed necessary to protect American national security at home and abroad.

“It would not be limited to anything out there,” Walker told ABC’s Jonathan Karl in an exclusive interview with for “This Week.” “Once we start saying how far we’re willing to go or how many troops we’re willing to invest, we send a horrible message, particularly to foes in the Middle East who are willing to wait us out.”

There you have it…

36 percent of a democracy
by Tom Sullivan

If as our messaging gurus advise, progressives’ goal should be to force opponents to publicly defend their noxious beliefs, then Hillary Clinton’s advocacy for automatic voter registration this week sets a tone we can only hope others from her party will echo going forward. If uber-patriots on the right believe America is the world’s greatest democracy, fine. They should support policies that encourage Americans to act as if that’s true, instead of locking in voting restrictions that help ensure we are only 36 percent of a democracy. Democracy is like freedom, isn’t it? More is better?

Writing for Washington Monthly, Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin believe a big hurdle to a more progressive politics is the mistrust of government Republicans have carefully cultivated:

Much of the blame can be heaped on an obstructionist right blocking policies designed to help working families and on the priorities of conservatives in Congress and state legislatures seeking to advance the agenda of the wealthy. But progressives’ own deficiencies in articulating a vision of government that links collective action to individual empowerment and opportunity, and in defending the institutions of government from the predatory influence of outside interests, has also contributed to the steep decline in public support for government.

Nancy LeTourneau (also at Washington Monthly), reminds us that those obstructionist policies aren’t given the sanitizing sunlight they so richly deserve. She quotes former Republican Hill staffer Mike Lofgren’s 2011 confessional:

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress’s generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner.

A deeply cynical tactic, to be sure, but a psychologically insightful one that plays on the weaknesses both of the voting public and the news media. There are tens of millions of low-information voters who hardly know which party controls which branch of government, let alone which party is pursuing a particular legislative tactic. These voters’ confusion over who did what allows them to form the conclusion that “they are all crooks,” and that “government is no good,” further leading them to think, “a plague on both your houses” and “the parties are like two kids in a school yard.” This ill-informed public cynicism, in its turn, further intensifies the long-term decline in public trust in government that has been taking place since the early 1960s – a distrust that has been stoked by Republican rhetoric at every turn (“Government is the problem,” declared Ronald Reagan in 1980).

They are still obstructing, as Jonathan Bernstein reported for Bloomberg. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell continues to block the president’s appointments, “slow-walking dozens of judges, ambassadors, members of government boards and everybody else”:

This isn’t about the specific nominees. Mostly, this is just an expression of contempt for the man in the Oval Office — and, really, contempt for the Constitution and the senators’ oath of office.

It is the Senate’s duty to defeat judicial nominees it believes (within reason) are outside the mainstream, and it absolutely should exercise the leverage it is given by the Constitution to secure influence over executive branch departments and agencies through confirmations. That’s not what’s happening here. McConnell and the Republicans are undermining the constitutional order by simply ignoring their responsibilities. That’s a big deal, and the press and anyone who cares about a functional government should be angry.

As Anat Shenker-Osorio said recently, problems have a source. If we don’t provide an origin story for voters, people will fill one in for themselves. That is what Lofgren was getting at. (And what I hear regularly from relations: it’s all “dirty politics.”)

Stanley Greenberg explains that Democrats will not be able to win back control of Congress unless they can woo back working-class whites and white unmarried women. Voters are well aware of how screwed up things are in Washington. They want it fixed:

What really strengthens and empowers the progressive economic narrative, however, is a commitment to reform politics and government. That may seem ironic or contradictory, since the narrative calls for a period of government activism. But, of course, it does make sense: Why would you expect government to act on behalf of the ordinary citizen when it is clearly dominated by special interests? Why would you expect people who are financially on the edge, earning flat or falling wages and paying a fair amount of taxes and fees, not to be upset about tax money being wasted or channeled to individuals and corporations vastly more wealthy and powerful than themselves?

We have arrived at a tipping point at the outset of the 2016 election cycle, where the demand to reform government is equal to or stronger than the demand to reform the economy. More accurately, reform can make it possible to use governmental policies to help the middle class. In short, it is reform first.

But included as part of that narrative is the message that the people best qualified to fix Washington are not those committed to monkey wrenching it. As long as the public believes nothing will change, we will still remain 36 percent of a democracy.

Pretzels and beer. Soup and sandwich. New York City and police corruption. Some things seem to naturally go together. Not that police corruption is exclusive to the Big Apple, but there is something inherently cinematic about the combo. Serpico …based on a true story. French Connection …based on a true story. Prince of the City …based on a true story. Cop Land, Bad Lieutenant…mmm, could happen (I think you get the gist).

.

Republicans may try to pass a temporary patch for the subsidies, packaged with something like the repeal of the individual mandate, in hopes of drawing a presidential veto — so Republicans can then try to blame Obama for failing to fix the problem.

Today, the Wall Street Journal editorial page helpfully confirms that this idea is very much in circulation, urging Republicans to carry out this strategy. The editorial suggests Republicans rally behind plans such as the one offered by GOP Senator Ron Johnson, which would temporarily grant subsidies to those who lose them. Of course, conservatives may oppose any fix for the subsidies, because that constitutes government spending to expand health coverage and keeps Obamacare going. The Johnson plan would include repeal of the mandate, presumably to get conservatives to support it. Then the grand plan would unfold this way: 

President Obama may refuse to sign any subsidies-for-deregulation deal, and he and Hillary Clinton may think they can win by refusing to compromise. But in that case the Johnson plan gives Republicans an answer that is easy to sell and understand, and liberals would then need to explain why they’re willing to deny health insurance simply because they want more political control over insurance.  

If Obama vetoes the plan, Republicans have an “easy” way to prosecute the battle that will follow: Claim they offered a reasonable “compromise” designed to spare all those millions of people from getting thrown off of insurance, while lamenting that Obama refused to go along with it, all because of his intransigent refusal to let go of the throbbing black heart of tyranny at the center of his law.

There’s more…