Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

QOTD: pink leather shorts edition

by digby

From Senator Scott “Playmate” Brown:

“Each and every day that I’ve been a United States senator, I’ve been discussing issues meeting on issues, in secret meetings with kings and queens and prime ministers and business leaders and military leaders talking, voting, working on issues every single day.”

The evidence is here.

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Dana has a comprehension problem

by digby

Via Adele Stan at Alternet I learned that Dana Milbank is at it again. Milbank described Van Jones’ speech earlier this week like this:

The Occupy movement is preoccupied.

In October, when liberal activists gathered in Washington, they had hopes that the nascent Occupy Wall Street movement would become the left’s answer to the tea party.

But this time around — the annual Take Back the American Dream Conference was moved up to June this election year — the Occupy encampments are gone, and participants in the conference were pondering what went wrong. Or, as activist Van Jones put it to them, what has become of “the voice that is missing.”

Jones, an Obama administration official who resigned under pressure because of his far-left positions, is a fixture at the annual gatherings and a fiery orator. But this version of his yearly pep talk was laced with disappointment. “I’m watching that movement that inspired the world . . . that stunned the world, in the moment of maximum peril now sit down,” he lamented at the opening session…

Milbank was obviously too busy playing Words with Friends to hear the speech (or too drunk to understand it) because according to Stan, Jones said exactly the opposite.

Jones essentially laid into the national liberal establishment — the institutions of the anti-war movement, the civil rights movement, the women’s movement, the environmental movement — for failing to act with gusto in the current presidential campaign, and for abandoning the recall effort in Wisconsin…

As a contrast, as examples of courage in the face of opposition, he used the examples of the “young people” of the DREAM Act movement, the anti-Keystone movement, the LGBT rights movement — and the Occupy movement:

Look at the young people who rescued America last year, coming out of that horrible August when the Tea Party put Congress in a headlock and said, “If you don’t do what we say, we’re going to blow a hole in the American economy; we’re going to destroy America’s credit rating.” And this whole town trembled in fear and gave in and said, “We’ll create a super-committee to do super damage to the American people.” And some young people and some strugglin’ folks — no pollsters , no lobbyists, no big grants — went down with some sleeping bags and some tents to the scene of the crime against their future, and occupied Wall Street, and turned this country upside down.

That piece has already been published in newspapers across the country and I haveno doubt that every Villager chuckled over the silly progressives and their silly, silliness.

Click over to Alternet to read the whole thing and it will also give you some email addresses to which you can send a nice polite note to the Washington Post about their dishonest coverage of the event.

The sad thing is that most people won’t hear what Jones had to say about the liberal establishment’s failure, which is truly interesting. But then that’s also something that would make the Villagers very uncomfortable so we can’t have that.

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King Romney comes first

by digby

Everybody’s going to have to sacrifice for Mitt Romney.(Well, rich people won’t have to sacrifice any money, but that goes without saying.)

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign asked Florida Governor Rick Scott to tone down his statements heralding improvements in the state’s economy because they clash with the presumptive Republican nominee’s message that the nation is suffering under President Barack Obama, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Scott, a Republican, was asked to say that the state’s jobless rate could improve faster under a Romney presidency, according to the people, who asked not to be named.

What’s unfolding in Florida highlights a dilemma for the Romney campaign: how to allow Republican governors to take credit for economic improvements in their states while faulting Obama’s stewardship of the national economy. Republican governors in Ohio, Virginia, Michigan and Wisconsin also have highlighted improving economies.

Scott should follow the advice of the Romney campaign and it won’t undermine his own message, said Mac Stipanovich, a political strategist and lobbyist in Florida.
“This is one of those situations where you could have it both ways and there’s enough truth in it that it would resonate,” Stipanovich said. “It would be better if everybody was singing from the same hymnal.”

It’s been obvious for quite some time that the Romney campaign was counting on a bad economy to push them over the finish line first. But I would guess that other powerful members of the party realized they would have to take a bullet in order for him to make the claim.

On the other hand, nobody should be surprised by all this. Rush Limbaugh said it up front immediately after the GOP lost big in 2008: they wanted President Obama to fail. And they did everything in their power to make that happen. But it was bound to cause trouble for GOP high office holders who would run for re-election alongside of him. After all, they’re supposed to perform too.

Still, it takes a lot of nerve to tell someone to downplay their own “accomplishments” for the good of their leader. But that’s how aristocracies roll, and the GOP operates on that model.

*I should point out that the Democratic version isn’t much better. They prefer a Lord of the Flies organizing principle.

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The Ryan/Romney tax plan

by David Atkins

Class warfare:

Only one side is waging it. Most of the other side either can’t or wont because we don’t have a representative democracy. We have rule by legalized bribery.

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What was that you were saying about patriarchy?

Lisa McIntyre is a 45 year old mother of three, a lawyer and an elected official.

This is another form of gaslighting, which I’m sure most women have experienced at the hands of certain men. Nothing in my professional experience was ever as infuriating as this sort of thing, which I had to learn to suppress in order not to be seen as “difficult” or “hysterical.” But even today, years later, just reading that makes me feel sick inside — and very, very angry.

Treating women like children for speaking their minds is the most widely used tool in the misogynist handbook. Nothing short of physical abuse is more offensive.

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Mendocracy in action

by digby

I thought I was as cynical as it was possible to be about this sort of thing, but once again I learned that I was a naive old fool:

Advocates of unlimited secret political spending say it leads to a more informed electorate, but according to a new study, in reality it spreads more lies.

An examination of presidential-election advertising spending by the top four secret big-money political groups — all of them right-wing — found that 85 percent of their money over a recent six-month period went to ads that independent fact-checkers determined were in some way deceptive.

That’s spending against each other. Imagine what they have in store for their mortal enemies.

Wow. I don’t know what to say about this. We are about to be overwhelmed with lies on a level we’ve never experienced before. The media is fractured, but when it comes to campaign ads, which in many places is all that people ever hear about politics, it still washes over them in a big wave.

It looks like a whole lot of people are going to be a whole lot stupider before this campaign is over.

*Mendocracy

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Because they’re worth it

by digby

Via Andrew Sullivan. We’ve seen this story before, of course. It would be nice if we never had to see it again, don’t you think?

Thank goodness the wealthy job creators don’t have to put up with such indignity:

For anyone who has ever waited days or weeks to see the doctor, concierge medicine sounds appealing: For an additional fee, patients typically enjoy same-day appointments and 24-hour access, more face time with the doctor and extra preventative care. Doctors who offer concierge medicine say the practice frees them from the constraints imposed by insurance providers and allows them time to give patients the individualized attention they need. Skeptics argue that concierge medicine promotes a two-tiered system, improving health care for a few but worsening it for everyone else.

“It’s an attempt to formalize two-class medicine,” says Wharton professor of health care management Mark V. Pauly. “Those who can pay will get better treatment with a smile, and those who can’t will have to wait.”

They’re lives are just worth more, that’s all there is to it.

h/t to teacherken

Tom Friedman’s fact-free wager

by David Atkins

Thomas Friedman, serving again in his role as austerity cheerleader and reluctant Obama backer, issues the following fact-free postulate and wager:

What the president should have done is follow the advice of the Princeton University economist and former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder, namely lay out a specific “three-step rehab program for our nation’s fiscal policy.” Call it the Obama Plan; it should combine a near-term stimulus on job-creating infrastructure, a phase-in, as the economy improves, of “something that resembles the 10-year Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan — which would pay for the stimulus 15-20 times over” and a specific plan to “bend the health care cost-curve downward.” Obama has already offered the first; he still has not risen to the second and the third would be an easy extension of his own health care plan.

Obama needs a second look from independents who could determine this election. To attract that second look will require a credible, detailed recovery plan that gets voters to react in three ways: 1) “Now that sounds like it will address the problem, and both parties are going to feel the pain.” 2) “That plan seems fair: the rich pay more, but everyone pays something.” 3) “Wow, Obama did something hard and risky. He got out ahead of Congress and Romney. That’s leadership. I’m giving him a second look.”

I’d bet anything that if the president staked out such an Obama Plan, Buffett and a lot of other business leaders would endorse it. It would give the G.O.P. a real problem. After all, what would help Obama more right now: Repeating over and over the Buffett Rule gimmick or campaigning from now to Election Day by starting every stump speech saying: “Folks, I have an economic plan for America’s future that Warren Buffett and other serious business leaders endorse — and Mitt Romney doesn’t.”

Has Mr. Friedman actually looked at any polling to see how Americans feel about cuts to Medicare, Social Security and critical discretionary spending during a recession? Has he asked himself why the Simpson-Bowles commission was dead in the water from the moment it was first unveiled, leading some Obama enthusiasts to hypothesize that it was an eleven-dimensional chess move to discredit the idea at arm’s distance from the beginning? Has he considered the actual demographic in America that would support both tax increases on “job creators” and significant cuts to America’s most cherished safety net programs?

Furthermore, has Tom Friedman asked himself just how many voters there are out there who are open to the idea of supporting a Democratic President who endorses tax increases, and also gives a damn what “business leaders” have to say on anything?

The constituency for such a thing is mostly limited to wealthy pundits like Tom Friedman. But he’d be willing to “bet anything” on its success.

I wish, in an alternate universe, someone really were able to take Friedman’s bet and have him risk his entire life’s savings and whatever is left of his credibility on it. Then when he lost, even Tom Friedman would be able to personally feel the pain of the austerity he so devoutly desires.

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Cheaters always prosper?

by digby

In response to Chris Hayes’ new book about the meritocracy, Karl Smith at Forbes writes this:

There is a lot I want to say, but I want to make sure I say that there is a more elemental reason why meritocracy produces a corrupt ruling class and it is this:

Cheaters may almost never win but, given equal opportunity and a large enough competition, the winners are almost always cheaters.

Why?

Well, no one cheats because they think if that even if they get away with it they will be worse off. No, they cheat because if they get away with it they will be better off. Cheaters are taking a gamble.

Even if the system is pretty good and the odds are stacked against the cheaters, if there are enough players then some of the cheaters will get away with it, nonetheless.

When they do they will gain an advantage. Now, imagine that life is a series of such competitions played over and over again. Each time some people will cheat and some will get away with it. Each time some will gain an advantage.

If the competition is immense, say it encompasses a country of 300 Million or a global population of 7 Billion, then by the Law of Large numbers some cheaters will be lucky enough to get away with it every single time. This means every single round they gain an advantage and slip ahead of the pack.

After enough rounds the front of the pack is completely dominated by cheaters.

That certainly explains Wall Street.

Also, aristocracy.

Speaking of Hayes, Dday hosted an fascinating discussion about the book with him this morning on Firedoglake. Check it out.

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Electoral Gold!

by digby

Who could have ever predicted that doing the right thing would be popular?

Sixty-four percent of likely voters surveyed after Obama’s June 15 announcement said they agreed with the policy, while 30 percent said they disagreed. Independents backed the decision by better than a two-to-one margin.

“At first I was really against it, but after sitting down and thinking about it, a lot of kids here are good kids,” Loretta Price, 65, a retiree and undecided independent voter from Ocala, Florida, said in a follow-up interview. “I think it was the right thing to do.”

It’s hard to believe sometimes, but when leaders lead on issues it often forces people to “sit down and think about it”. Certainly not the haters or the hardcore ideological opponents who will never vote for them anyway. But others, the people who aren’t quite sure, often find leadership to be a helpful guide.

It’s a simple formula that goes back a long way. I’m surprised more politicians don’t use it.

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