Digby's Hullabaloo Posts

Inspiration

by digby

Representative Alan Grayson introduced legislation yesterday which will restrict executive pay in companies taking TARP money:

So far, taxpayers have spent over $500 billion in direct cash infusions into banks and financial institutions, with guarantees of trillions more. Yet, these companies are still paying their executives lavish sums for driving their companies (and the entire economy) into the ground.

I introduced a bill – the ‘Pay for Performance Act’ – to put an end to this theft. It’s on the House floor today. It bans unreasonable and excessive pay to employees of financial institutions that are running on taxpayer money. The bill is based on two simple concepts. One, no one has the right to get rich off taxpayer money. And two, no one should get rich off abject failure. If the government owns a chunk of a bank, that bank must pay its employees reasonably, and all bonuses must be performance-based.

But first, let’s be clear about what has happened. The government owns stakes in many companies through the TARP program, and Congress tried to put executive compensation restrictions on those companies. Big banks, though, were able to carve out an exception for any contract signed before February. AIG executives drove a truck through that exception and stuffed their pockets with our money. This bill closes that loophole.

Predictably, the Republicans’ eyes instantly rolled back in their heads and they began babbling incoherently about “socialism” and “Old Europe” which is a very, very bad comparison. Let’s just say that Old Europe has a different approach to dealing with these sorts of outrages:

Hundreds of French workers, angry about proposed layoffs at a Caterpillar factory, were holding executives of the company hostage Tuesday, a spokesman for the workers said. It is at least the third time this month that French workers threatened with cutbacks have blockaded managers in their offices to demand negotiations. Executives were released unharmed in both previous situations. The latest incident started Tuesday morning at the office of the construction equipment company in the southeastern city of Grenoble. The workers were angry that Caterpillar had proposed cutting more than 700 jobs and would not negotiate, said Nicolas Benoit, a spokesman for the workers’ union. They did not want to harm the Caterpillar executives, Benoit told CNN.

That’s one way to get their attention. And if these American executives keep acting like complete jackasses and whining to the press about not being treated respectfully. So far, in the US, all that’s happening is that people are tweeting their discontent and registering strong protests on their Facebook pages.

Even in the capital of our one true ally they are a bit more direct:

Police and protesters skirmished around the Bank of England on Wednesday as world leaders gathered for the G-20 Summit.

Thousands of anti-capitalists, anarchists, and environmental campaigners descended for protests in several locations in London, including its financial center around the Bank of England, Britain’s central bank.

Protesters broke several dark tinted windows of a Royal Bank of Scotland building and crawled inside. They also spray-painted the word “thieves” and the anarchist symbol on the side of the building.

The ailing bank has been the target of much anger following reports that its former chief executive was given a multi-million dollar pension payout despite overseeing record losses.

The American ruling class had better hope that Grayson is successful lest its serfs really start looking to Old Europe for inspiration.

Update: Zbigniew Brzeznskijust said, when asked about whether the G20 leaders care about these protests:

It is a signal to all of us, including them, that if the economic financial crisis is not brought under some constructive control we could have a repetion of this in many other parts of the world, including in the United States.

You know there is a potential rage, public rage, in the United States, at the unfairness and inequality that’s involved in the financial crisis and the financial scandal.

Seriously, these MOUs really need to stop their public whining and get behind some things like Grayson’s measure. They are fanning the flames of their own funeral pyre. It’s just dumb.

Update II: Jane Hamsher is liveblogging the circus …. er House debate on Grayson’s bill.

I guess the Republicans really are going to throw in their lot with the billionaires on this. It’s an awesome political miscalculation.

New And Improved, Now With Numbers!

by dday

Tired of all the mockery, Congressional Republicans today released a budget – OK, made a plan to release a budget.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell joined their colleagues, entering from the side, and addressed the gathered reporters.

After ripping the Democratic budget as too expensive, Boehner said that “Republicans in the House will offer a better solution that’ll be less on spending, less on taxes and a lot less on debt for our kids and grandkids.”

But there was no budget. “Do you guys have a formal budget yet?” asked a reporter.

“Mr. Ryan will outline the Republican budget at 10:30 this morning. And yes we do have it,” replied Boehner, referring to Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.).

A silence followed, with reporters apparently unsure what to ask next.

I’m beginning to think the Republican Party is a giant episode of “Punk’d.”

What amounts to the alternative budget, seen here and described by Paul Ryan in the Wall Street Journal, consists mainly of those innovative and fresh ideas like cutting taxes on corporations and the wealthy, freezing spending in the middle of a recession, and drilling for oil.

* Deficits/Debt. The Republican budget achieves lower deficits than the Democratic plan in every year, and by 2019 yields half the deficit proposed by the president. By doing so, we control government debt: Under our plan, debt held by the public is $3.6 trillion less during the budget period.

* Spending. Our budget gives priority to national defense and veterans’ health care. We freeze all other discretionary spending for five years, allowing it to grow modestly after that. We also place all spending under a statutory spending cap backed up by tough budget enforcement.

* Energy. Our budget lays a firm foundation to position the U.S. to meet three important strategic energy goals: reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil, deploying more clean and renewable energy sources free of greenhouse gas, and supporting economic growth. We do these things by rejecting the president’s cap-and-trade scheme, by opening exploration on our nation’s oil and gas fields, and by investing the proceeds in a new clean energy trust fund, infrastructure and further deficit reduction.

* Tax Reform. Our budget does not raise taxes, and makes permanent the 2001 and 2003 tax laws. In fact, we cut taxes and reform the tax system. Individuals can choose to pay their federal taxes under the existing code, or move to a highly simplified system that fits on a post card, with few deductions and two rates. Specifically, couples pay 10% on their first $100,000 in income (singles on $50,000) and 25% above that. Capital gains and dividends are taxed at 15%, and the death tax is repealed. The proposal includes generous standard and personal exemptions such that a family of four earning $39,000 would not pay tax on that amount. In an effort to revive peoples’ lost savings, and to create an incentive for risk-taking and investment, the budget repeals the capital gains tax through 2010 for all taxpayers.

On the business side, the budget permanently cuts the uncompetitive corporate income tax rate — currently the second highest in the industrialized world — to 25%. This puts American companies in a better position to lead in the global economy, promotes jobs here at home, and strengthens worker paychecks.

In case you missed it, Ryan wants to drill offshore in order to fund clean energy. My head hurts now.

They also helpfully scored the competing budgets over a 70-year time-frame, and while I think they’re off a bit in 2072, you can plainly see that government under Robot Obama, who will be governing until he is 117, will explode in size.

Ryan also came up with a new health care plan while simultaneously cutting entitlements, a neat trick. (This shows that Republicans are deathly afraid of being left behind on health care reform, actually. It’s quite interesting.)… aha, I see how they pull this off, they actually phase out Medicare over time. Brilliant!

Ryan calls on the Administration not to sow fear over their alternative budget at the same time that Judd Gregg takes to the Washington Post to sow fear about the President’s budget. But it’s not working. Americans don’t mind investments in their future; in fact, they voted for them. And the Obama budget would actually reduce federal deficits by $900 billion dollars compared to current policies. The cuts are simply in programs and areas that conservatives don’t like, such as ending privatization in various forms, stopping cost overruns in defense, incorporating tax fairness, and pulling back on subsidies for rich corporations. The priorities are much more in line in their document. Why even have a phrase like “on the backs of the poor” if you can’t put something on them?

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The GFY Tour

by digby

Man, it seems like Dick Cheney is everywhere these days. He’s even giving interviews to bloggers. Not that I’m surprised. TD has assembled enough evidence to put him away for years — you can certainly understand why he’d want to get his story on the record.

Tedisco Inferno

by dday

In case you missed it, the race in NY-20 yesterday wound up with Murphy up by 65 votes out of over 154,000 cast. There are roughly 6,000 absentee votes to be counted, with potentially more on the way in the next few days (they have to be postmarked by today). As I mentioned yesterday, Tedisco had already filed a complaint to contest the election results before the polls even closed.

What will be interesting is to see what vermin come out of the woodwork to try and overturn the election in Tedisco’s favor:

The guy who held this seat before getting beat by Kirsten Gillibrand is John Sweeney, who led the famed Brooks Brothers riot in the 2000 election. If things get tough in this recount, Republicans may bring in a lawyer named Tom Spargo, who reportedly helped Sweeney with the Brooks Brother riot and other stuff in Florida. Spargo is also a former judge who got indicted for bribery a few months ago.

If this gets really tight—and it probably won’t, this stuff is usually orderly in NYS —we could see a whole cast of NYS crazies come out of the woodwork.

I’m telling you, that Brooks Brothers riot was like a nationwide American Idol casting call for GOP leaders. Ben Ginsburg, who ran Bush’s legal team during the recount, has popped up in Minnesota to run Norm Coleman’s recount.

Meanwhile, the NRCC, in a clever inversion tactic, is already raising money for the recount in an email entitled “Don’t Let’em Pull a Franken”.

We need your support to ensure we can overcome the Democrats’ legal maneuvers.

Democrats have almost succeeded in stealing the election in Minnesota and seating Al Franken. We cannot allow them to manipulate electoral results to seat another tax-troubled liberal.

We need your support to make sure the will of the residents of New York’s 20th district prevails in the final outcome.

I’m not so much interested in the outcome as I am seeing to what lengths the Republicans up there will go to win this thing. Clearly they blew this one on the ground in a district they should have won, given the matchup, and now they’ll try to fake their way to victory. They’ve learned well from the Coleman debacle, too.

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CNN’s Take On An April Fools Joke

by tristero

CNN:

A key Democratic senator said Tuesday that he’s not ruling out a controversial budget procedure to speed passage of President Obama’s health care and global warming legislation.

The House and Senate are expected to pass separate versions of the budget by the end of the week.

‘It could happen,’ said Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Montana, despite his repeated concerns that doing so would damage bipartisan cooperation in the Senate.

”

ROTFLMAO!

Assault On Children

by digby

In the great tradition of Republican leaders Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh, Governor Mark Sanford has put both feet in his mouth and bitten down hard.

Here’s Joan Walsh:

Remember Ty’Sheoma Bethea, the Dillon, S.C., girl who asked Congress for stimulus funds to rehab her dilapidated middle school? I thought she was an inspiration for America; wingnuts at the Washington Times thought she was “irresponsible” for asking government to solve her problems.Now her governor, Mark Sanford, has taken that line of thinking one step further: He told Fox’s great poet Glenn Beck that taking stimulus funds to fix schools like Bethea’s would be “fiscal child abuse,” while rejecting the funds helps kids. No, I’m not kidding.The folks at Think Progress have the video.

As Joan points out, it’s pretty hard not to wonder just how much race plays into this decision. There’s no doubt that the poorest kids in South Carolina tend to be African American.

Mark Sanford is going to run for president on the fiscal responsibility ticket. And it may just work. If the economy is better, he and his ilk will rant and rave about debt. If it’s worse, he’ll say the spending did no good. And who knows what the media narratives will be?

But he’s going to hell no matter what happens. Poor people in his poor state are going to suffer for his cynical political posturing and is sickening.

Tossing GWOT

by digby

Me Likee:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Obama administration has stopped using “war on terror,” breaking with the Bush administration’s terminology in describing the conflict with al Qaeda and militant Islam. “The administration has stopped using the phrase, and I think that speaks for itself,” Mrs. Clinton told reporters as she traveled here for a United Nations-led conference on Afghanistan. The phrase has been criticized as having inflammatory connotations in the Muslim world. Some Democratic officials believe it is better to describe more specifically whom the U.S. is fighting, such as al Qaeda or the Taliban.

It’s a good first step. But it would be even more meaningful if the Department of Defense would get with the program and stop issuing these:

This is actually a pretty important step and one that should be formalized. The GWOT was a “war” that justified all the outrageous unitary executive moves legalized by John Yoo under his “commander in chief in wartime is a functional dictator” argument. By declaring that war officially over, it would put another nail in the coffin of those unconstitutional rulings.

Remember, they initially gave that medal out to military which participated in the domestic “Airport Security Operation” after 9/11. Let’s just say they had a somewhat “expansive” view of the GWOT from the very beginning since they created a military medal for a US military operation on American soil. And it’s creepy. They should get rid of it.

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Pre-Emptive Strike

by dday

In New York today, the Republicans are dispensing with the election and going right to the overturning of the election results:

Republican Jim Tedisco may be running for the House in a district where Republicans outnumber Democratic voters by some 70,000, but with the polls closing in a matter of hours, Tedisco’s campaign is prepping for a loss.

An electoral loss, anyway.

The Dutchess County Clerk’s Office has confirmed to FDL that Tedisco’s people have filed an ex parte motion in order, the effect of which would be to investigate and overturn today’s election results, should the outcome not be to Republicans’ liking.

FDL is trying to obtain a copy of the motion and will post when available.

This filing come on the heels of a report that Tedisco’s own polling has him losing to Democrat Scott Murphy by a narrow margin.

Why not? It’s working for Norm Coleman. In fact, given that success I’d be surprised if Republicans acknowledge losing an election ever again.

By the way, I want to address somnething else about this race. There are definitely national implications to Tedisco losing this seat, in a Republican-leaning area, to a virtual unknown in the district, especially because the race has turned in many ways on Murphy’s support for President Obama’s stimulus package. And on taking joy in watching Republicans flail about and continue their losing streak I take a back seat to no one. However, I never asked readers to support Scott Murphy financially, only wrote about the race a few times, and whenever I did I included the caveat that Murphy has planned to join the Blue Dogs. And I completely agree with Chris Bowers that we cannot keep supporting Democrats just because of the D next to their name, especially after they announce their intentions to undermine our values.

We–participants in blog and email list small donor fundraising efforts–have to completely stop raising money for Blue Dogs. We should not give a single cent to any current member of the Blue Dog coalition. We should not give any money at all to any candidate who refuses to rule out joining the Blue Dogs once in Congress. If we hope to improve Democratic behavior in Congress, this break has to be as public and as thorough as possible.

In politics, money speaks a lot louder than either voting or public criticism. We can criticize Blue Dog behavior all we want, but as long as we keep funneling their members millions of dollars every two years in small, online donations, then we will actually be ratifying, not criticizing their behavior. We will be supporting their efforts to push the party to the right, not working to push the party to the left. We will be sending a clear signal of support for their votes, not working to hold them accountable for those votes […]

If we keep sending the Blue Dogs millions of dollars in small, online donations every year, then there is no incentive for Blue Dogs to ever change their behavior, or for Democratic candidates to not seek out membership in the Blue Dog coalition. Currently, being a member, or prospective member, of the Blue Dog coalition provides you access to a network of Hill staff, corproate lobbyists and their PACs, large donor fundraisers, and press releases back home to talk about how you aren’t like those other, dirty liberal Democrats. If we want to change Democratic behavior in Congress, we have stop adding even more incentives for Democrats to become Blue Dogs. Instead, we must offer strong disincentives for them to become Blue Dogs, such as a significantly reduced access to online, small donor fundraising.

Unfortunately, in Scott Murphy’s case, small online donors raised over $300,000 for him even after Murphy had stated he was applying to join the Blue Dogs. That has to stop. Before we raise money for other congressional candidates in 2009-2010, we have to extract promises from those candidates that they won’t join either the Blue Dogs (for House candidates) or Evan Bayh’s groups (for Senate candidates).

Blue Dogs derive their strength from their numbers, and their ability as a caucus to block progressive legislation. I support particular individuals in the Blue Dogs on particular stances from time to time – Patrick Murphy in Pennsylvania comes to mind. But I can’t support any individual who joins that group, which has been composed for the sole purpose of blocking progressive legislation. If we keep giving them money time after time we are being played for suckers.

Update: from digby

One way to do this is to support Blue America candidates. We learned the hard way some time back to get commitments on this and we don’t endorse Blue Dogs or those who are open to being Blue Dogs.

Like dday, I have nothing against Murphy and I’ll be happy if he wins, but the Blue Dogs have their own financing system and they can pay their own freight. I ask for financial support only for those congressional candidates whose values and positions on the issues are truly progressive. Somebody’s got to do that or there will never be anything but Blue Dogs in congress.

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Stop It

by digby

Rick Sanchez just asked Wolf Blitzer if the fact that Europe loves Obama will hurt him at home. (Blitzer said he didn’t think so.)

But I have to wonder: aside from a handful of neocon nutballs and the far right fringe of the Republican party, do villagers actually believe the rest of the country hates Europe? Really? If that’s the case, perhaps the better question is “who don’t Americans hate?” If Europe really is considered an enemy to the extent that Europeans liking our president is a liability, then I’m hard pressed to think of any country we could consider a friend.

CNN shouldn’t be feeding this idiocy and I have to wonder where it came from. Did somebody tweet Sanchez with the question?

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Izzies

by digby

Tonight is the night that Glennzilla and Amy Goodman will receive the first “Izzy” awards, for independent journalism from the The Park Center for Independent Media :

The Izzy Award is named after legendary maverick journalist I. F. Stone, who launched I. F. Stone Weekly in 1953 and exposed government deception, McCarthyism, and racial bigotry. Presented annually for “special achievement in independent media,” the Izzy Award will go to an independent outlet, journalist, or producer for contributions to our culture, politics, or journalism created outside traditional corporate structures.

Jeff Cohen of FAIR, who also runs the Park center, wrote this about I. F. Stone a few months back:

Before there was an Internet, Izzy Stone was doing the work we associate with today’s best bloggers. Like them, he was obsessed with citing original documents and texts. But before search engines, Izzy had to consume ten newspapers per day — and physically visit government archives and press offices, and personally pore over thousands of words in the Congressional Record. That’s how he repeatedly scooped the gullible, faux-objective MSM of his day in exposing government deceit, like that propelling the Vietnam War. Izzy was the ultimate un-embedded reporter. His journalism was motivated by a simple maxim that resonates loudly in our era of Cheneys and Rumsfelds and WMD hoaxes: “All governments lie, but disaster lies in wait for countries whose officials smoke the same hashish they give out.”

Month after month from 1953 to 1969 I.F. Stone’s Weekly (biweekly through 1971) exposed deceptions as fast as governments could spin them. His timely and timeless dispatches are gathered in an exceptional paperback, The Best of I.F. Stone….]Born of immigrant parents, Izzy was an American patriot who worshipped the Bill of Rights: “You may think I am a red Jew son-of-a-bitch, but I’m keeping Thomas Jefferson alive.” And he worshipped our country’s tradition of press freedom: “There are few countries in which you can spit in the eye of the government and get away with it. It’s not possible in Moscow.” But Izzy was never naïve about American traditions that threatened freedom, and he had a 5,000-page FBI spy file to prove it. Today’s muckraking bloggers are often belittled for working from their homes, far removed from the corridors of power. Izzy worked out of his home. If he were alive, he’d be applauding the Josh Marshalls and other independents, urging: Keep your distance from power.

I made no claim to inside stuff. . . I tried to dig the truth out of hearings, official transcripts and government documents, and to be as accurate as possible. . . I felt like a guerilla warrior, swooping down in surprise attack on a stuffy bureaucracy where it least expected independent inquiry. The reporter assigned to specific beats like the State Department or the Pentagon for a wire service or a big daily newspaper soon finds himself a captive. State and Pentagon have large press relations forces whose job it is to herd the press and shape the news. There are many ways to punish a reporter who gets out of line. . . But a reporter covering the whole capitol on his own – particularly if he is his own employer – is immune from these pressures.

I can’t think of anyone who better personifies the Izzy Stone tradition than Glenn Greenwald. Congratulations to him and to Amy Goodman for the well deserved recognition.