WEDNESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* Could the timing be any worse? "The first major storm of the season in the Gulf of Mexico continued to disrupt oil spill cleanup and containment work on Wednesday, officials said."

* In related news, Alex is now a hurricane, and evacuations are underway in parts of Mexico and Texas.

* Taliban insurgents attacked a NATO air base in Afghanistan yesterday, in an attempt to breach the gate. They failed, and eight insurgents were killed. Two NATO soldiers received minor injuries.

* It seems extremely likely that Elena Kagan will be confirmed fairly easily to the Supreme Court. There are however, a few far-right senators trying in vain to cause a fuss.

* Speaking of confirmation, Gen. David Petraeus was approved today to serve as the new commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The Senate vote was 99 to 0.

* I hope folks will take a few minutes to read this terrific David Leonhardt piece on the economy. It doesn't break new ground, exactly, but it's a fantastic summary of the huge risk policymakers are taking around the globe, gambling that the fragile economic recovery can withstand austerity measures.

* The Senate leadership conceded today that the vote on Wall Street reform will have to wait until after the July 4th recess.

* Shouldn't this have been done a long time ago? "The Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday tightened restrictions against 'pay-to-play' practices in the municipal securities market."

* The majority has gone to ridiculous lengths to make Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) happy with this bill, but he still won't publicly commit to voting for it.

* Oh, AIG: "Reversing its oft-repeated position that it was acting only on behalf of its clients in its exotic dealings with the American International Group, Goldman Sachs now says that it also used its own money to make secret wagers against the U.S. housing market."

* No one should count on Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) to help pass an ambitious energy/climate bill.

* If the Kagan hearings accomplish nothing else, I'm glad to see the "umpire" metaphor generate serious pushback.

* CNN's Larry King is giving up his prime-time show after an extraordinary career.

* If "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is repealed, the right will rediscover its love of judicial activism.

* Conservatives' confusion over what Journolist was continues to amaze me.

* The nation should spend more on higher education because that investment will result in economic growth. But what if the truth is a little more complicated?

* Andrew Sullivan describes the contemporary right: "[N]o solutions, just anger, paranoia, insecurity and partisan hatred."

* Maybe the political world can get past blaming Bush for his spectacular failures a) after we're no longer dealing with the consequences of Bush's reign of error; and b) after Republicans stop blaming everything on Clinton.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

—Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)

CANTOR IS THE OPPOSITE OF A 'WONK'.... Politico ran a big piece today on House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and his "hyperambitious" motivations. It's filled with various tidbits of praise for the Virginian, including one House Republican who was serious when he said Cantor could be the "first Jewish Republican president."

Perhaps most strikingly, the article states, simply as a matter of fact, that "Cantor is a serious wonk."

Ezra Klein said he's "always been a bit puzzled" by Cantor, and hasn't "seen much evidence" of Cantor's interest in policy.

His policy positions range from "whatever the rest of the caucus is supporting," which makes sense given that he's part of the House leadership, to sort of wacky ideas, like his bailout alternative in which the federal government would insure all mortgages. At the health-care summit, there were plenty of Republicans -- Paul Ryan, Lamar Alexander, and Tom Coburn, among them -- who made compelling presentations. Cantor, as you can see in the clip atop this post, was the guy who brought props.

What Cantor does seem to be is an excellent fundraiser and messager... But maybe I'm missing something on Cantor and my readers can enlighten me. Is he known for mastery of a particular issue?

Ezra, you're not missing anything.

Eric Cantor has never demonstrated any working familiarity with any area of public policy -- ever. On health care, he had no idea what he was talking about, but pretended he did. On national security policy, Cantor is "divorced from reality."

In one of my favorite Cantor stories, the Minoroty Whip appeared at the Economist's World in 2010 conference late last year, and insisted that his Republican Party had plenty of "big ideas," especially on "jobs." The moderator responded, "What is the big idea? 'Jobs' is not an idea." Cantor replied, "The big idea is to get, to get, to produce an environment where we can have job creation again."

He then changed the subject.

When I chat with various aides on the Hill, and I ask about GOP leaders, folks seem fairly impressed with Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), but tend to laugh when Cantor's name is brought up.

So, how did Eric Cantor get a reputation as some kind of GOP genius? Part of it has to do with grading on a curve -- it's easy to look like a "wonk" given the stature of the current House Republican conference. It doesn't hurt that Cantor has an aggressive media/p.r. operation that helps build Cantor up, and papers over the fact that he doesn't appear to know anything about public policy.

But arguably the biggest factor is that Cantor has a near-obsession with Republican strategizing -- he's launched multiple rebranding and campaign-oriented gimmicks -- which in GOP circles, necessarily translates into an impressive intellect. After all, if the quest for electoral power matters more than substance anyway, the most laudatory "wonks" are the ones who spend the most time thinking about how to help Republicans win elections.

—Steve Benen 4:50 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (31)

THE GLOBAL ECONOMY ISN'T NEW.... Last year, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.), deeply confused about what a reserve currency is, was convinced that the Obama administration was trying to create some kind of "global currency." She had no idea what she was talking about -- every Bachmann tirade on the subject made her look just a little dumber -- and eventually moved on to other tantrum-worthy fantasies.

This week, for example, the nutty Minnesotan lawmaker is outraged by President Obama's interest in the "global economy." Here were Bachmann's remarks on a radio show a few days ago:

"If you look at the G20, what they're trying to do is bind together the world's economies. Look how that played out in the European Union when they bound all of those nations economies together and one of the smallest economies, Greece, when they got into trouble, that one little nation is bringing down the entire EU.

"Well, President Obama is trying to bind the United States into a global economy where all of our nations come together in a global economy. I don't want the United States to be in a global economy where, where our economic future is bound to that of Zimbabwe. I can't, we can't necessarily trust the decisions that are being made financially in other countries. I don't like the decisions that are being made in our own country, but certainly I don't want to trust the value of my currency and my future to that of like a Chavez down in Venezuela. So I think clearly this is a very bad direction because when you join the economic policy of different nations, it is one short step to joining political unity and then you would have literally, a one world government."

Bachmann did not appear to be kidding.

She actually seems to believe that President Obama came up with the idea of the modern global economy, in which there's some interconnectivity between international financial systems and the fortunes of one country can affect another. Does Bachmann even hear the words coming out of her mouth?

As for G20 meetings being a step towards a "literal ... one world government," Yglesias described this as "insane." That's as good an adjective as any.

I wonder what kind of leadership role House Republicans will give Bachmann if they retake the majority?

—Steve Benen 3:50 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (32)

ONCE MORE, INTO THE JOBLESS BREACH.... Late last week, when Senate Republicans once again refused to allow the chamber to vote, up or down, on extended unemployment benefits, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) vowed to give it another try.

And here we go again.

Last night, Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), the Senate majority leader and the head of the Senate Finance Committee, introduced a new unemployment extension bill. It is not actually strictly standalone: It includes an extension of the period in which homebuyers can close on a house and claim the homebuyer tax credit, a change agreed to in the House yesterday, and other provisions. [...]

Reid filed for cloture last night, and is working with Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to move the bill today, though Republicans have repeatedly objected to any measure that increases the deficit.

The new bill extends federal unemployment insurance benefits through Nov. 2010, and the closing period for qualification for the homebuyer tax credit to Sept. 30. It is technically a substitute amendment to the killed jobs legislation.

Annie Lowrey's summary is well worth reviewing -- the bill does more than just extend benefits for the jobless, but notice that it doesn't include aid to state governments, which would save thousands of jobs, but which Republicans continue to oppose.

What are the odds that the GOP will let the Senate vote on this smaller bill? Reid's office concedes it's unlikely. It was tough enough to overcome Republican filibusters when the Democratic caucus had 59 votes, but in light of the death of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.), and with Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) voting with Republicans, this is even more difficult.

Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) might be a possible pick-up vote, but he continues to oppose the measure, regardless of the negative consequences for his home state of Massachusetts. Instead, Brown is pushing his own alternative measure that would fund jobless benefits by taking money out of the Recovery Act.

What a transparent sham. Brown will only help the unemployed if he can undermine the economy? Because the deficit is that much more important than job creation?

—Steve Benen 3:20 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (13)

MORE EVIDENCE OF HEALTH CARE REFORM'S INCREASING SUPPORT.... We're not yet at the point at which we can characterize the Affordable Care Act as "popular," but for the first time in a long while, there's a fair amount of evidence that supporters out number opponents.

The health-care overhaul gained popularity from May to June, according to a new tracking poll.

The results suggest that the Obama administration's promotion of the legislation may be paying off or that the public may be warming to the law as early provisions take effect.

The Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that 48 percent of the public had a favorable view of the law in June while 41 percent had an unfavorable opinion. A month earlier, the split was 41 percent favorable to 44 percent unfavorable.

What's especially noteworthy here is that it's not just one poll pointing to the encouraging trend. Two weeks ago, a national Associated Press-GfK poll found that support for the Affordable Care Act was not only the rise, but had reached new heights -- health care reform's supporters outnumbered opponents, 45% to 42%. A week later, a Gallup poll found 49% of respondents agreeing that passage of the law is a "good thing," while 46% think it's a "bad thing."

In fairness, not all of the polls reach this conclusion. The latest NBC/WSJ poll found the public leaning in the other direction, 44% to 40%, though even here, support was on the rise.

But there are nevertheless three credible, national polls out this month showing supporters outnumbering opponents. Throughout the debate on the Hill, that simply never occurred.

Looking ahead, much of the Republican campaign strategy is built around the notion that Americans simply hate the new law. House Minority Leader John Boehner's (R-Ohio) office argued the other day that "the American people remain squarely opposed" to health care reform, and pointed to "the rising public backlash against the new law."

The evidence to support such observations is lacking.

—Steve Benen 2:40 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

BIDEN REFLECTS ON GOP PARTY DISCIPLINE.... Vice President Biden spoke at an event in his home town earlier, hoping to help raise some money for Chris Coons' (D) Senate campaign. Biden raised an interesting point about the chamber he served in for several decades.

VP Joe Biden on Monday accused Senate GOPers of holding their top members' votes hostage in exchange for ranking committee posts, assailing the GOP as sitting "on the sidelines" while the economy nearly collapsed.

"I know at least 7 [GOP] senators, who I will not name, but were made to make a commitment under threat of losing their chairmanships, if they did not support the leadership on every procedural vote," Biden said at a fundraiser Monday night.

"Every single thing we did, from the important to the not so important, required for the first time in modern American history, majority votes required 60 votes. All the sudden a majority became 60 instead of 50," the VP added, according to a pool report of the event.

The RNC said something about this being "a scurrilous accusation," though the party didn't exactly deny it, either.

Is it really so far-fetched? Back in October, when Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) was weighing how to vote on health care reform, word went out that the ranking member post on Senate Commerce Committee was up for grabs, and if Snowe wanted it, she had to toe the party line. One unnamed GOP senator on the committee told a reporter, "A vote for healthcare would be something that would weigh on our minds when it came time to vote" on which senator got the slot.

Two months later, Snowe filibustered a motion to proceed, filibustered to prevent a vote, and opposed the legislation -- and never could explain why.

Indeed, there are widespread rumors that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) shifted away from cooperation on reform and towards belligerence immediately after his Republican colleagues made it clear that his future committee assignments were in jeopardy if he worked with Dems to pass a reform bill.

It often goes overlooked, but it's worth remembering that the Senate Republican caucus, unlike Senate Democrats, have mechanisms in place to enforce party unity and discipline. When Democrats break party ranks on key bills, there are no consequences. Those who let GOP leaders down, however, know in advance that enticements like committee positions are very much on the line.

But this need not be considered criticism, though Biden almost certainly meant as such. Matt Yglesias explained that it's entirely "sensible" for a political party to "demand that its members support the party leadership on procedural votes."

Had the Democratic caucus adopted such a rule, the White House, the leadership, and the members themselves would have been spared an awful lot of headaches and the country would be in much better shape. After all, every member of the caucus puts some value on his or her ability to secure chairmanships of committees and subcommittees, so such a rule could very plausibly have swiftly led to the creation of a norm against filibustering your own party's initiatives. Vote "no" on final passage if you like, but vote with the leadership on process.

We should be so lucky.

—Steve Benen 1:55 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

QUOTE OF THE DAY.... Sen. Bob Bennett (R) of Utah, one of the highest-profile victims of the Republican Party's ideological "purge" this year, won't even be on the ballot in November, freeing him to be a little more candid as his Senate career comes to a close.

His party would be wise to take Bennett's concerns seriously.

Bennett told a Republican group the party could even take back the Senate soon but will lose both houses just as fast if the GOP continues to rely on slogans and not solutions.

"As I look out at the political landscape now, I find plenty of slogans on the Republican side, but not very many ideas," Bennett told The Ripon Society.

"Indeed, if you raise specific ideas and solutions, as I've tried to do on health care with [Oregon Democratic Sen.] Ron Wyden, you are attacked with the same vigor as we've seen in American politics all the way back to slavery and polygamy; you are attacked as being a wimp, insufficiently pure, and unreliable." [...]

"The concern I have is that ideology and a demand for absolute party purity endangers our ability to govern once we get into office," Bennett said.

I suspect many in the Republican Party will dismiss this as sour grapes. Bennett was rejected by his own state party caucus, they'll say, so he's just bitter now.

While I certainly can't speak to Bennett's motivations or state of mind, I think his observations about Republicans are critically important. The party that once liked to throw around the "party of ideas" moniker has become devoid of almost all thought. Indeed, in most GOP circles, ideas themselves are suspect -- they're probably the result of some kind of egg-head intellectual who reads books instead of watching Fox News.

Bennett has to be frustrated that his career his is ending because members of his own party were outraged that he tried to solve problems by working with other senators (i.e., his job). But the more important point is that the development itself is evidence of a Republican Party with a kind of reflexive sickness -- an allergy to substance, problem-solving, compromise, and reason.

It's not healthy.

Update: An emailer reminds me that Republicans have occasionally come up with policy ideas in recent years, but they end up opposing their own proposals once Democrats agree. Good point.

—Steve Benen 1:15 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (11)

PRESIDENT, DNC KEEP HEAT ON BOEHNER.... House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) handed Democrats another opportunity this week, arguing that sweeping Wall Street reform efforts are simply unnecessary. An unregulated financial industry nearly destroyed the global economy, but as far as Boehner is concerned, Democratic policymakers are "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon." Even Boehner's press office had trouble spinning this one away.

Dems are trying to capitalize on the Minority Leader accidentally saying what he really believes, since it fits so nicely into Democrats' larger campaign themes. CNN noted that "Boehner's comments couldn't come at a better time for Democrats, who are on the eve of passing the financial reform bill with little-to-none GOP support and are eager to portray Republicans as out of step with Main Street America."

To that end, the DNC has a new web video mocking Boehner, and more importantly, President Obama intends to emphasize the point at a town-hall event in Wisconsin this afternoon. According to the prepared text:

"As we speak, we're on the verge of passing the most comprehensive financial reform since the Great Depression -- reform that will prevent a crisis like this from happening again. It's reform that will protect our economy from the recklessness and irresponsibility of a few. Reform that will protect consumers against the unfair practices of credit card companies and mortgage lenders. Reform that ensures taxpayers are never again on the hook for Wall Street's mistakes.

"But most of our friends in the other party are planning on voting against this reform. In fact, just yesterday, I was stunned to hear the leader of the Republicans in the House say that financial reform was like using a nuclear weapon to target an ant. That's right. He compared the financial crisis to an ant. The same financial crisis that led to the loss of nearly eight million jobs. The same crisis that cost people their homes and their lives savings.

"Well if the Republican leader is that out of touch with the struggles facing the American people, he should come here to Racine and ask people if they think the financial crisis was an ant. He should ask the men and women who've been out of work for months at a time. He should ask the Americans who send me letters every night that talk about how they're barely hanging on.

"These Americans don't believe the financial crisis was an ant. They know that it's what led to the worst recession since the Great Depression. And they expect their leaders in Washington to do whatever it takes to make sure a crisis like this never happens again. The Republican leader might want to maintain a status quo on Wall Street. But we want to move America forward."

Presidential remarks like these will likely take the Boehner quote -- it's not a "gaffe"; he actually believed what he was saying -- to a new level. At a minimum, it will keep the story alive for another day, and likely put Republicans on the defensive, at least a little.

Will this have the staying power as Joe Barton's (R-Texas) apology to BP (another item Obama is scheduled to emphasize today) or John McCain's "fundamentals of the economy are strong" line? I rather doubt it. But as Democrats continue to push the theme that Republicans are on the wrong side of every issue that matters, Boehner's candor certainly helps.

Also note, by the way, that the campaign mode Team Obama entered recently is clearly in full swing now.

—Steve Benen 12:25 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (27)

WEDNESDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* Former President Bill Clinton shook up Colorado's Democratic Senate primary a little yesterday, breaking with party leaders and endorsing Andrew Romanoff's challenge to Sen. Michael Bennet. Some perceive this as a major fissure, but I think too much is being made of this -- Romanoff is a long-time Clinton backer who championed Hillary Clinton's campaign in Colorado, while Bennet backed Obama. Yesterday's endorsement -- which came in the form of an email -- appears to be evidence of gratitude, not a Clinton/Obama split.

* In Ohio's very competitive Senate race, a new Quinnipiac poll in shows Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher (D) with a narrow lead over former Bush budget director Rob Portman (R), 42% to 40%.

* Speaking of Ohio, while Quinnipiac shows incumbent Gov. Ted Strickland (D) leading former Rep. John Kasich (R), a new survey from Public Policy Polling shows Kasich up by two, 43% to 41%. [corrected]

* In California, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll offers some relatively good news for Democrats. It finds Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) leading Carly Fiorina (R) by four, 45% to 41%, and state A.G. Jerry Brown (D) leading Meg Whitman (R) by six, 45% to 39%.

* Freshman Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.), one of this year's key GOP targets, released his first re-election ad, and he's apparently "the first candidate of the season to smear his face with dust and dump coffee on his shirt for a campaign ad." If you watch it, this makes more sense.

* In Arizona, right-wing state Sen. Pamela Gorman (R) has launched an ad in her congressional campaign, apparently trying to argue that her ability to use multiple firearms is evidence of her qualifications.

* And in South Carolina, Senate "candidate" Alvin Greene (D) finally has a website, but it's not very good.

—Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (15)

'ON THEIR SIDE'.... About two weeks ago, hot on the heels of Rep. Joe Barton's (R-Texas) public apology to BP, the DNC unveiled a television ad, urging Republicans to "stop apologizing to Big Oil." Four days later, the DNC released another spot, tying together several Republicans and their collective efforts to put oil companies' interests above the public's.

The spots weren't bad, and for ads being thrown together quickly, they got the job done. But the ads weren't especially memorable, either. By late last week, the DNC had a more compelling message, but it was a "web video," not a televised ad.

To its credit, the DNC considered public feedback. The result is a video, called "On Their Side," that strikes me as the most compelling to date. As the DNC's Greg Greene said yesterday, "When Republicans in Congress head home during the Fourth of July recess, voters in their districts need to know where they stand: with big oil, health insurers and Wall Street."

The spot hammers home one of the stronger themes available to Democrats this year: on the major policy disputes of the day, Republicans are on the wrong side of the fight. On energy, as Barton helped demonstrate, the GOP is on the side of the oil companies. On health care, as Mitt Romney helped demonstrate, the GOP is on the side of the health care companies. On Wall Street reform, as Michael Steele helped demonstrate, the GOP is on the side of the banks and the industry that nearly destroyed the global economy.

The ad's tagline: "Republicans: This is how they would govern." It seems like a safe bet you'll be hearing this quite a bit, far more than even the "party of no" line that dominated Democratic rhetoric last year.

In the larger context, it's worth noting that a vulnerable incumbent party, facing broad challenges, tends to want to localize elections. Dems this year seem to be doing the opposite, which strikes me as wise -- the more the elections are nationalized, the more local Republican candidates can be connected to the larger trend of the GOP siding with powerful interests over the public good.

—Steve Benen 11:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (12)

KIRK BREAKS HIS SILENCE, TOO.... Yesterday, Nevada's Sharron Angle finally agreed to talk to a reporter about her positions on issues, but she wasn't the only one finally prepared to stop hiding.

Illinois' Mark Kirk, the Republican Senate candidate who's been caught telling a disturbing number of falsehoods, hasn't spoken to the media in nearly a month. Last week, after a speech, he literally ran through a hotel kitchen to evade journalists.

Yesterday, Kirk tried to put the ordeal behind him, and get back to attacking his opponent.

A month to the day after the first allegations surfaced about embellishments in his military resume, Illinois Rep. Mark Kirk (R) held a press conference in Chicago designed to re-start a Senate campaign that has gone badly off track.

"I was not thinking," said Kirk at the Chicago presser when asked about various misstatements in his military background including that he was once named the Navy's intelligence officer of the year. (He wasn't.)

"This was a carelessness that did not reflect well upon me and this is a high office," said Kirk, according to the Chicago Sun Times. "Going forward, you have to speak with great precision and detail."

Kirk's political motives in calling the press conference are fairly transparent: end the story once and for all and, in so doing, put the spotlight in the race back on state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias, the Democratic nominee.

Look, as strategies go, a vague mea culpa may impress some in the media. It may even help Kirk get past his self-generated mess (the next time a reporter asks about his falsehoods, he'll just say he "already held a press conference to discuss this, so let's move on"). But it's hard to imagine anyone seriously finding the "carelessness" excuse persuasive. An error or two is mildly embarrassing, but easily forgivable. Mark Kirk, however, lied repeatedly about everything from his military service to having been a nursery-school teacher.

That's not an example of being careless; that's an example of someone with an allergy to the truth.

What's more, Kirk didn't just invite reporters to ask questions, he packed the room with a "Hallelujah chorus'' of 100 supporters who "heckled reporters and shouted 'move on' when reporters pressed Kirk about his numerous mistakes." If Kirk was confident he could defend his record, would this really have been necessary?

—Steve Benen 10:45 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (22)

ANGLE SPEAKS.... Sharron Angle, the extremist Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, has been so afraid of media scrutiny, she's literally run away from journalists asking about her record. Angle's fear of answering questions, when coupled with her radical ideology, has made her something of a laughingstock.

But Angle ended her self-imposed media boycott last night, sitting down for a half-hour chat with Jon Ralston, arguably Nevada's highest-profile, and most esteemed, political journalist.

In her first mainstream media interview since winning the Republican nomination in the U.S. Senate race, former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle softened her rhetoric on "phasing out" Social Security and fearing the electorate would take up arms if conservatives didn't win at the ballot box.

But on other issues, such as abortion and her belief that unemployment benefits deter the jobless from applying for work, she stridently defended herself amid criticism from her Democratic rival, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, that her views are "wacky" and "dangerous."

Angle continued to call for the privatization of Social Security, though she's now wording it in a slightly more mild way, and she continued to state her opposition to extended unemployment benefits, insisting that "there are jobs that do exist" if only the unemployed would pursue them. She also rejects the notion of separation of church and state as a constitutional principle.

It was a startling reminder of the parallel universe Angle appears to live in.

But of particular interest was Ralston asking the right-wing candidate about her proposed "Second Amendment remedies." The reporter showed the candidate and viewers some of Angle's remarks on the subject, including this comment from January: "[I]f this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking toward those Second Amendment remedies and saying, my goodness, what can we do to turn this country around? I'll tell you, the first thing we need to do is take Harry Reid out."

Angle conceded that those last four words were "a little strong," adding, "That's why I changed my rhetoric to 'defeat Harry Reid.'"

But that badly misses the point. The issue here was not just Angle talking about "taking out" the Senate Majority leader; there's the larger point about Angle repeatedly speculating about the armed overthrow of the United States government. She'll no longer refer to "taking out" Reid? How nice. But what about her public remarks about armed insurrection?

When pressed further by Ralston about whether she'd gone too far, Angle said, "I think it's interesting that we're nitpicking on all the little topics that Harry is putting out there."

First, when U.S. Senate candidates speculate about a literal revolution, it's not "nitpicking" to ask for clarification. Second, as Ralston was quick to point out, "Harry Reid didn't put this out there. You put it out there."

—Steve Benen 9:55 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

CREATING THE RIGHT POLITICAL CLIMATE.... One would like to think the circumstances for a major new energy/climate bill are ripe. Indeed, between the massive environmental catastrophe and the size of the Democratic majorities on the Hill, we'll probably not see an opportunity like this for many, many years.

But Congress nevertheless seems reluctant to act, and as Jonathan Cohn noted this morning, lawmakers aren't facing much in the way of public pressure.

While Obama and congressional leaders obviously have some leverage at the margins, their most powerful weapon is the ability to make members of Congress fear constituent retribution. And that's simply not a threat they can make stick when members aren't getting an earful from people who care. [...]

[T]o be clear, it's not as if the environmental community is sitting on its hands. Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow and direct of climate change advocacy at the Center for American Progress, points out that organizations like CAP's Action Fund, the Sierra Club, and Environmental Defense Fund have been organizing everything from protests at district offices to Washington visits from military veterans pushing energy independence -- with more activism to come. That's all to the good. Even a scaled-back climate bill could make a difference, as my better-informed colleague Brad Plumer has argued. But the existing pressure doesn't seem strong enough to make it a reality.

Agreed. During the fight over health care, lawmakers were led to believe their votes on this issue would be a defining moment of their careers. Members were afraid that the wrong move on this once-in-a-generation opportunity to reform a dysfunctional system would carry dramatic consequences.

But on energy/climate, the activism hasn't been nearly as intense, prompting Congress to make the issue less of a priority. The polls look encouraging, suggesting the public is inclined to back the Democratic proposals, but that support hasn't translated into aggressive advocacy -- phone calls to lawmakers' offices, letter-writing campaigns, district meetings, sizable rallies, etc.

Cohn added that the president and his allies feel as though they've "hit the political limits of what they can achieve" on an energy bill, which is why they've been so prepared to make concessions.

If engaged constituents want more, Congress will have to feel considerably more heat than they are now.

—Steve Benen 9:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (11)

OPEN MIC CATCHES REPORTERS TELLING THE TRUTH.... Former half-term Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) spoke at a California university fundraiser last week, which generated some controversy due to her excessive speaking fees. Now, it appears the event has become controversial for an entirely different reason.

The local Fox affiliate overheard a variety of journalists reflecting on Palin's remarks on a live mic, with reporters unaware that they were being recorded. The result was some unexpected candor.

"I feel like I just got off a roller coaster, going round and round," one reporter is heard saying on audio captured by Fox40 News. "S--- flying out everywhere."

"She didn't finish a statement," another reporter says.

"Did she make a statement?" another asks, drawing laughs.

"I don't know how we're gonna make a story out of that," a voice is heard saying.

"Now I know that dumbness doesn't come from just sound bites," yet another reporter says.

It's unclear exactly which reporters were caught by the open mic, and the Fox affiliate issued a statement that noted, "Unfortunately, there's no way to immediately identify the photographers and reporters making commentary following Sarah Palin's speech."

Not surprisingly, some on the right are pointing to these remarks as "proof" of liberal media bias. I don't quite see it that way.

Remember, reporters are people, and though they're usually reluctant to say so publicly, they tend to know the difference between bright politicians and clueless ones. In private moments, or moments they think are private, they're even willing to say so.

In truth, Sarah Palin is conspicuously unintelligent. Objectively, that need not be controversial. For reporters to notice her conspicuous unintelligence isn't evidence of bias; it's evidence of reporters simply paying attention and noticing what is plainly true.

Indeed, let's not forget that in September 2008, Peggy Noonan was helping cover the Republican National Convention, and she was caught on a live mic questioning Palin's qualifications, and describing Palin's role on the GOP ticket as "political bullshit."

What's more, I think the right should also remember that in 1999, political reporters covering a presidential candidate debate openly mocked and jeered Al Gore during the event. Time's Eric Pooley wrote that during the debate, the reporters in the press room responded to Gore "in a collective jeer, like a gang of 15-year-old Heathers cutting down some hapless nerd." Another reporter added, "The media groaned, howled and laughed almost every time Al Gore said something."

If the Palin mockery is evidence the media is liberal, was the media's response to Gore proof that the media is conservative?

—Steve Benen 8:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)

GETTING WALL STREET REFORM BACK ON TRACK.... They didn't want to, but congressional Democrats re-opened the conference committee on Wall Street reform yesterday afternoon, to make one key change: how to pay for the regulatory overhaul. The move became necessary when Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) announced he was prepared to kill the entire legislative package over a small bank fee.

Conference committee members met, and in fairly short order, made the changes that should deliver the needed votes.

Conference negotiators voted to eliminate the proposed tax and adopted a new plan to pay the projected five-year, $20 billion cost of the legislation.

The new plan would bring an early end to the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the mammoth financial system bailout effort enacted in 2008, and redirect about $11 billion toward heightened regulation of the financial industry.

The conferees also voted to increase the reserve ratio of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, but specified that small depository institutions -- those with less than $10 billion in consolidated assets -- be exempt from paying any increase.

They also voted to permanently set the maximum deposit insured by the F.D.I.C. at $250,000 per account, a change that would further raise the amount banks must pay toward the coverage.

The partisan dynamic was a little awkward -- Democrats were voting to approve changes to satisfy some Republicans (Brown, Snowe, and Collins), while Republicans on the conference committee voted to reject the same changes because they oppose the entire legislation. In other words, Dems were making changes demanded by Republicans, which were then opposed by Republicans. House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) described himself as being "caught in the middle of an intra-Republican debate here."

It's also worth noting the oddity of the "moderate" Republican demands. Under the original financing mechanism, a modest fee would be imposed on banks over the next five years. To satisfy Brown, financing will now largely come from a shut-down TARP system. In effect, Brown insisted that the Wall Street reform initiative itself is paid for by taxpayers, instead of by banks.

But, you know, he sort of drives a truck, so he must be a man of the people.

In any case, unless Brown, Snowe, and Collins find a new complaint -- with these folks, you just never know -- yesterday afternoon's "fixes" seem to satisfy their concerns. Their votes would bring the total to 59, and if Sen. Maria Cantwell (D) of Washington votes with her party to overcome a Republican filibuster, Wall Street reform will be on track for final passage.

Indeed, the House is prepared to move forward with its final vote as early as today. Given GOP delaying tactics in the Senate, it's unlikely the other chamber will wrap this up before the July 4th break, but most insiders seem to believe passage won't be too big a problem when senators return.

Kevin Drum had a good item overnight on the bill, highlighting several of its key provisions. He concluded, "Given the alternatives, anyone who cares about financial reform should support this bill."

—Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (24)

TUESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* If the seas get too rough, the containment cap would have to be removed altogether: "Tropical Storm Alex is churning through the Gulf of Mexico as it threatens to become the first storm of this region's notorious hurricane season, forcing officials to delay efforts to double the amount of oil that can be siphoned from BP's damaged well."

* Day 2 of the Elena Kagan confirmation hearings.

* Consumer confidence took a sharp and painful turn for the worse in June.

* Maybe now would be a good time to focus more on economic recovery than deficit reduction: "No matter where they look, investors are seeing economic trouble. Stocks and interest rates tumbled Tuesday after signs of slowing economies from China to the U.S. spooked traders who were already uneasy about a global recovery."

* Gen. David Petraeus has another chat with the Senate Armed Services Committee, this time as part of his confirmation hearings for comamnd in Afghanistan. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, meanwhile, is retiring from the Armed Forces.

* They needed a two-thirds majority, and didn't get it: "The House of Representatives failed Tuesday to pass a bill that would extend long-term unemployment benefits through the end of November."

* Former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman's (D) controversial conviction will get a second look, thanks to a Supreme Court order.

* There's a huge dispute underway between Daily Kos and Research 2000, with the blogging powerhouse accusing the pollster of fraud. Kos expects a lawsuit to be filed "within the next day or two."

* President Obama will speak at the American University School of International Service in Washington on Thursday to emphasize the need for comprehensive immigration reform.

* Short of eliminating all filibusters, abolishing filibusters of conference reports seems like a no-brainer.

* Expanding the spectrum would bring some hope to frustrated cell phone users.

* Is the religious right still upset with Gov. Mitch Daniels (R-Ind.) over his proposed "truce" in the culture war? Um, yeah.

* Do state colleges and state prisons really compete for money? Well, sort of.

* And for all the recent hullabaloo about Journolist, it turns out there's "a private RNC-related listserv" -- and it has its leaks, too.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

—Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (12)

SHELBY BACKS BOEHNER ON INSIGNIFICANCE OF CRASH.... House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) argued yesterday that sweeping Wall Street reform efforts are simply unnecessary. Sure, an unregulated financial industry nearly destroyed the global economy, but as far as Boehner is concerned, Democratic policymakers are "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon."

How ridiculous was the argument? Let's put it this way: usually, Boehner's press flacks can come up with a semi-coherent spin to make his more outlandish remarks seem somewhat reasonable. Today, Boehner left his poor spokesperson sounding like a fool.

What's worse, some of Boehner's Republican colleagues seem to think he's right. ThinkProgress caught up with Senate Banking Committee ranking member and financial conference member Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) outside a D.C. fundraiser today.

TP: This morning, it was reported that Minority Leader John Boehner said that financial reform is too broad, it's basically like using a nuclear weapon on an ant. Do you agree with that kind of sentiment?

SHELBY: Well, I basically agree with that. I voted against it. We could have had a meaningful, substantive bill. There a few good things in it, but it's a broad reach of power, and you got to ask a question, the real question, "are we going to be better off because of this legislation?" And that's problematic.

Let's pause to note that, in the event of a Republican majority next year, Richard Shelby would be the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee.

It's really fascinating to see GOP leaders pursue this. The trick for Republicans has long been to work with Wall Street lobbyists to kill reform efforts while pretending to care deeply about accountability.

But now they're not even bothering to do that, dismissing a systemic crisis as being comparable to a small insect, and criticizing Democrats for trying to bring some oversight to the industry.

How bizarre.

—Steve Benen 4:45 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (16)

CONFERENCE COMMITTEE GETS BACK TO BUSINESS.... Late last week, members of a House-Senate conference committee worked through the night, wrapping up a 20-hour marathon session to complete their work on Wall Street reform. At 5:39 a.m. on Friday, before much of Washington was even awake, a final package was complete, and the goal of having the bill on President Obama's desk by the 4th of July was right on track.

Or so we thought. First, Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) died, depriving reform supporters of a key vote. Second, Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) decided to reverse course on the bill (for a third time). The Massachusetts Republican worked behind closed doors last week, secretly pushing a provision to exempt some major Massachusetts financial firms from new regulations. He ended up walking away anyway, complaining about a modest fee on banks that would have kept the deficit down.

Left with no choice, the conference committee that was done with its work is headed back to the table.

In an extraordinary move aimed at winning over reluctant Republican senators, the top Democratic negotiators on the Wall Street reform bill will reopen the conference committee Tuesday to swap out a controversial $19 billion tax on big banks, according to House and Senate aides.

The unusual development points to deepening troubles for Democrats in their push to finish the bill before the July 4 recess. [...]

The committee is expected to meet at 5 p.m., a Democratic aide said. And House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said that the emerging compromise would give Democrats 60 votes in the Senate for the package.

By all appearances, conference committee members will effectively have a single task: find a way to get $19 billion to pay for the reform effort that doesn't come from a bank fee. One possibility is shutting down the TARP program, and using unspent funds.

Some in the leadership would still like to have this done before the end of the week, but most seem to agree that the deadline may not be realistic. That said, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs agreed that while the work may not be done until after lawmakers return from their break, "I don't think there is now a question whether it will be done -- it's when it will be done."

—Steve Benen 4:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (15)

ANGLE ON IMPREGNATED RAPE VICTIMS AND 'GOD'S PLAN'.... Sharron Angle, the extremist Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, is hardly the only opponent of abortion rights running for statewide office this year. Indeed, her opponent, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), describes himself as pro-life, too.

But as further evidence of Angle's ideological rigidity, consider just how far she's willing to go on women's reproductive rights.

Since winning the Republican nomination in the Nevada Senate race Sharron Angle has drawn attention and controversy for a host of conservative policy prescriptions that seem well outside the political mainstream. Now, a Democratic source has passed along a radio interview she did back in January 2010 that could end up topping the list.

In a segment that has gone unnoticed since it first aired, the Tea Party-backed candidate told the Bill Manders show -- a favorable platform for Republican candidates -- that she opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest. A pregnancy under those circumstances, she said, was "God's plan."

Angle told Manders that "in her book," there's never a reason for a woman to terminate her pregnancy. When he asked about women who get impregnated by a rapist or by way of incest, Angle said, "You know, I'm a Christian and I believe that God has a plan and a purpose for each one of our lives and that he can intercede in all kinds of situations and we need to have a little faith in many things."

No wonder she's afraid of professional journalists' questions -- reporters are likely to ask Angle for her positions on key issues, and her views are rather terrifying.

—Steve Benen 3:15 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (46)

OBAMA 'VERY STRONG' ON CARBON LIMITS.... As promised, the White House hosted a key meeting earlier today with a large Senate contingent, all in the hopes of crafting a climate/energy bill that can overcome Republican obstructionism. The key question for many of us was pretty straightforward: can President Obama step up and push for cap-and-trade?

Yes, he can.

Leading Senate advocates of climate change legislation emerged from a White House meeting proclaiming that President Barack Obama offered firm support for including greenhouse gas curbs in the broad energy package slated for Senate debate this summer.

"The president was very clear about putting a price on carbon and limiting greenhouse gas emissions," Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said outside the White House after the roughly 90-minute meeting between Obama and a bipartisan group of roughly 20 senators.

Carbon pricing is shorthand for cap-and-trade or other methods for creating a cost for emitting greenhouse gases. "[Obama] was very strong about the need to put a price on carbon and make polluters pay," said Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), who authored a sweeping climate and energy bill with Kerry.

Whether the president's urging will translate into Senate votes remains to be seen, but it's heartening to learn that Obama isn't backing off. A couple of weeks ago, Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) told Roll Call, "At the end of the day, my guess is [the White House] won't push [cap-and-trade] that hard."

Today suggests otherwise. If the White House were prepared to scale back its expectations, and move away from cap-and-trade, that would have been apparent today. I obviously wasn't in the room, but according to senators who were, Obama did exactly what we needed him to do to keep the measure alive.

Of course, if Republicans stand united against any and all efforts on carbon emissions, it's a moot point -- Democrats simply won't be able to overcome GOP obstructionism. But with the president making the right push today, cap-and-trade is still very much on the table.

Update: Further confirmation from Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), a cap-and-trade supporter, who told Greg Sargent that the president "made it clear that a price on carbon is a very powerful instrument." The senator added that Obama "said it's a very important tool and one we should thoroughly explore," and that the president emphasized the issue "a number of times." Merkley concluded, "I don't think he would have done so if that wasn't very important to him."

On a related note, the White House issued a post-meeting statement, reiterating its backing for "putting a price on pollution."

—Steve Benen 2:35 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (27)

MAYBE SESSIONS SHOULD AVOID THIS SUBJECT ALTOGETHER.... The controversial Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United earlier this year established a sweeping new precedent. Laws prohibiting direct campaign support from corporations were deemed unconstitutional, clearing the way for, among other things, corporate-backed independent expenditure campaigns for and against candidates.

And as far as Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, is concerned, the laws restricting corporate intervention in U.S. campaigns were pretty similar to segregation. Seriously.

Last night, elaborating on his criticisms of former Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Sessions made the unusual comparison of Citizens United v. FEC to Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.

"[Marshall] was right on Brown v. Board of Education. It's akin in my view to the Citizen's United case. The court sat down and we went back to first principles -- What does the Constitution say? Everybody should be equal protection of the laws," Sessions told me after a Senate vote last night.

"Is it treating people equally to say you can go to this school because of the color of your skin and you can't?" Sessions asked rhetorically. "We've now honestly concluded and fairly concluded that it violates the equal protection clause."

How is that like Citizens United? "I think this Court, when they said 'Wait a minute! If you're talking about a precedent that says the government can deny the right to publish pamphlets, then we've got get rid of this one outlier case Austin -- 100 years of precedent -- and go back to what the Constitution [says].' I don't think that's activism."

So, the top GOP senator on the Judiciary Committee believes restrictions on corporate intervention in political campaigns is effectively the same thing as public schools segregated along racial lines.

Given Jeff Sessions' ugly and offensive history with racial issues, I can't say this is especially surprising, but I do think this is a subject the far-right Alabama senator would be wise to avoid in the future.

—Steve Benen 1:55 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

WHAT BOEHNER CONSIDERS AN 'ANT'.... In retrospect, maybe I buried the lede.

We talked earlier about House Minority Leader John Boehner's (R-Ohio) over-the-top interview with the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and noted some of the highlights, including his belief that Democrats are "snuffing out the America that I grew up in."

On further reflection, perhaps this was the most notable comment in the interview.

Boehner criticized the financial regulatory overhaul compromise reached last week between House and Senate negotiators as an overreaction to the financial crisis that triggered the recession. The bill would tighten restrictions on lending, create a consumer protection agency with broad oversight power and give the government an orderly way to dissolve the largest financial institutions if they run out of money.

"This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon," Boehner said. What's most needed is more transparency and better enforcement by regulators, he said.

Just to be clear here, what Boehner considers an "ant" was a severe economic crash that nearly collapsed the global financial system.

Jon Chait added, "Republicans have tried not to admit this, but Boehner pretty much spelled out what they think. The underlying problems in the financial system are minor ('an ant') and the main solution is just to hope regulators do a better job than they did before."

This, like a variety of other candid Republican moments of late, seems like the kind of quote that might matter to voters. Indeed, it's something of a bookend to John McCain's "fundamentals of the economy are strong" line from 2008 -- the GOP sees an economic crisis, the likes of which we haven't seen in generations, and Republicans just don't think it's that big a deal.

This was a crisis that led to 8 million U.S. job losses and $17 trillion in lost retirement savings and net worth. What's more, it was a crisis that could have been prevented had safeguards and accountability measures been in place to regulate Wall Street.

And now that Democrats want to approve such safeguards, Boehner's not only against the effort, he thinks the whole endeavor is unnecessary, since the crisis was just "an ant."

Ladies and gentlemen, the man who would be Speaker.

—Steve Benen 1:05 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (24)

EVEN A BILL ON HOMELESS VETERANS.... Sen. Patty Murray's (D-Wash.) bill on homeless veterans seems like the kind of legislation that should be approved rather easily. But in this Senate, nothing's easy.

As the senator's office explained, her Homeless Women Veterans and Homeless Veterans With Children Act would "expand assistance for homeless women veterans and homeless veterans with children and would increase funding and extend federal grant programs to address the unique challenges faced by these veterans."

It was approved in committee with bipartisan support, and Murray brought it to the floor this morning, seeking unanimous consent. She didn't get it -- Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) objected on behalf of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), who apparently was concerned about funding.

With an estimated 107,000 homeless veterans, this is pretty low, even for Republicans.

In a statement, Jim Manley, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said, "Republicans have their priorities backwards -- according to them, it's OK to give tax breaks to CEOs who send American jobs overseas, but not to help out-of-work Americans and homeless veterans. As we've seen time and again, Republicans just want to protect special interests instead of working with Democrats to stand up for the middle class and get our economy back on track."

For her part, Murray vowed to "continue fighting," and urged Senate Republicans "to end their obstruction and allow homeless women veterans across the country to get the support they have earned."

—Steve Benen 12:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (25)

TUESDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* Citing a long-gone filing deadline, officials in West Virginia announced yesterday that the special election to the late Sen. Robert Byrd (D) will be in 2012, not in November as Republicans had hoped. Gov. Joe Manchin (D) will have to select someone to fill the seat for two years -- former state party chairman Nick Casey appears to be a leading candidate -- while deciding whether to launch his own campaign in two years.

* In Ohio, a new Quinnipiac poll shows incumbent Gov. Ted Strickland (D) leading John Kasich (R) by five, 43% to 38%.

* Kentucky Senate hopeful Rand Paul spoke to Christian Homeschool Educators and was asked how old he believes the earth is. He declined to answer.

* In Wisconsin, the latest survey from Public Policy Polling shows incumbent Sen. Russ Feingold (D) leading right-wing businessman Ron Johnson (R) by just two, 45% to 43%.

* It's Rasmussen, so take the results with a grain of salt, but the pollster shows Sen. David Vitter (R) with a big lead over Rep. Charlie Melancon (D) in this year's race, despite Vitter's humiliating scandals, 53% to 35%.

* In Kansas, SurveyUSA found Rep. Jerry Moran up by 20 over Rep. Todd Tiahrt in the Republican Senate primary, 53% to 33%.

* Hoping for another "macaca" moment, the Democratic National Committee has launched its new "Accountability Project," a website devoted to "citizens uploading content from political events including audio and video -- a central resource to hold Republicans accountable."

—Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (9)

THE IRISH MODEL OF AUSTERITY.... The New York Times has a rather disheartening front-page piece today on Irish austerity measures, which I hope folks -- especially federal policymakers -- will read. Ireland responded to a sharp economic downturn with aggressive austerity measures -- which has made the country's economy worse.

Much of the world -- and domestically, all of the Republican Party -- believes the lesson to be learned is that belt-tightening and deficit reduction works. "Other European nations," the NYT, "including Britain and Germany, are following Ireland's lead."

Paul Krugman helps highlight the larger context.

The key thing to bear in mind about calls for harsh austerity in the face of a depressed economy is that such calls depend on two propositions, not one. Not only do you have to believe that the invisible bond vigilantes are about to strike -- that you must move to appease markets, even though right now bond buyers are willing to lend money to the United States at very low rates; you must also believe that short-term fiscal cutbacks will in fact appease the markets if they do, in fact, lose confidence.

That's why the Irish debacle is so important. All that savage austerity was supposed to bring rewards; the conventional wisdom that this would happen is so strong that one often reads news reports claiming that it has, in fact, happened, that Ireland's resolve has impressed and reassured the financial markets. But the reality is that nothing of the sort has taken place: virtuous, suffering Ireland is gaining nothing.

Of course, I know what will happen next: we'll hear that the Irish just aren't doing enough, and must do more. If we've been bleeding the patient, and he has nonetheless gotten sicker, well, we clearly need to bleed him some more.

Remember, here in the U.S., Republicans are desperate to do exactly what the Irish have done -- respond to an economic downturn by taking money out of the economy, focusing on the deficit, fearing inflation that doesn't exist, and taking steps to reassure investors -- that don't actually reassure investors.

It is, as Krugman noted yesterday, "the victory of an orthodoxy that has little to do with rational analysis, whose main tenet is that imposing suffering on other people is how you show leadership in tough times."

Postscript: I'd add, by the way, that if U.S. policymakers decide to follow Dublin over this easily-avoidable cliff, it will be after Dublin followed the U.S. over the last cliff. Henry Farrell had a great piece on this in the most recent issue of the Washington Monthly, highlighting the Irish's combination of crony capitalism and worship of American-style market fundamentalism -- and where it got them.

—Steve Benen 11:20 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (13)

BOEHNER GOES OFF, SAYS DEMS 'SNUFFING OUT' AMERICA.... House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) chatted yesterday with the Scaife-owned Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and apparently felt pretty good about himself.

House Minority Leader John Boehner, the Ohio Republican with his eye on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's gavel, said the tide is turning the GOP's way.

"The American people have written off the Democrats," Boehner said Monday in an interview with Tribune-Review editors and reporters. "They're willing to look at us again."

Well, "writing off" Dems seems more than a little excessive. More Americans consider themselves Democrats than Republicans; more Americans have a favorable opinion of Democrats than Republicans; more Americans trust Democrats to handle the biggest issues of the day than Republicans; and if one excludes Rasmussen, the generic congressional ballot looks pretty competitive for Democrats, too.

Boehner said the protests are emblematic of deep voter anger against Washington's leaders.

"They're snuffing out the America that I grew up in," Boehner said. "Right now, we've got more Americans engaged in their government than at any time in our history. There's a political rebellion brewing, and I don't think we've seen anything like it since 1776."

For a lawmaker who intends to be Speaker of the House, this is pretty irresponsible language. "Snuffing out"? Seriously?

The health care law passed in March "pushed most Americans over the edge," Boehner said.

Well, no, not really. Public attitudes towards the health care law have improved in recent months, and opposition has fallen. The Affordable Care Act may have pushing most Republican members of Congress over the edge, but not "most Americans."

Boehner proceeded to threaten to repeal health care reform, voiced his opposition to Wall Street reform, defended offshore coastal oil drilling and said Obama overreacted to the BP spill crisis, and voiced support for increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement -- in order to get enough money to pay for the wars in the Middle East.

Quite an interview, to be sure.

—Steve Benen 10:45 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (30)

ANOTHER QUESTION FOR ANGLE (IF SHE'LL EVER ANSWER).... The New York Times has an item today about Sharron Angle, the extremist Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, and the lengths she'll go to avoid answering journalists' questions about her positions on issues. In one of the more notorious instances, Angle literally fled when a reporter asked about comments she made about an armed uprising against the United States.

The piece didn't necessarily draw any conclusions -- neither the candidate nor her campaign aides responded to inquiries; imagine that -- but Republican officials claim Angle will eventually get around to responding to questions.

That's something to look forward to. One of the newer questions is why Angle wants to deregulate the mining industry, given the recent Massey Energy disaster in West Virginia.

On May 26, a few weeks after BP's oil disaster began, U.S. Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R-NV) told a local media outlet that her solution to America's energy policy would be to "deregulate" the oil industry. While both conservatives and liberals agree that this catastrophe could have been prevented if BP had invested more in safety and if regulators had been more attentive, few, if any, have taken the extreme view at there is actually too much regulation on the oil industry.

However, last Wednesday, while appearing on the hate-filled website ResistNet's Internet radio station, Angle reiterated her position and explained that if elected, she would ensure that "government isn't over-regulating" the "oil and petroleum industry," as well as the "mining industry." Angle appeared to attack her opponent, Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), for supporting the Mining in the Parks Act, a law that prohibits mining in National Parks.

I realize that "regulation" is necessarily an offensive word to the far-right, but this really is crazy. Angle sees the BP oil spill disaster, which could have been prevented through regulation, and calls for deregulation. Angle sees the tragedy at Montcoal, which could have been prevented through regulation, and calls for deregulation.

Who are the voters who'll find this even remotely persuasive?

—Steve Benen 10:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

IS THERE ANY DOUBT HOW HATCH WOULD HAVE VOTED?.... Following up on the last item, Republicans spent a surprising amount of time yesterday going after a revered Supreme Court justice, the late Thurgood Marshall, as a way of undermining Elena Kagan. It's worth taking a moment to acknowledge a point that's probably pretty obvious.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) kept up the message of the day on MSNBC, taking a harsh tone towards the Marshall legacy. "Let's admire the man for the great things he did, but let's not walk over and wipe out the things that really didn't make sense as an obedient student of the practice of law," Hatch said, adding there was "no doubt he was an activist judge."

It prompted the Salt Lake Tribune's Thomas Burr to ask a reasonable question.

I caught up with Hatch after today's confirmation hearing to ask an obvious question: Would Hatch have voted for Marshall?

"Well, it's hard to say," Hatch said.

Hatch -- who, of course, wasn't in the Senate in 1967 when the vote took place -- said Marshall deserves "tremendous respect because he fought so hard for civil rights," and he should be honored for bringing about the transformation that allowed black Americans to be able to vote.

Still, he added, "When he got on the bench, there's no question that he at times went a very activist route. That can't be complemented [sic]. But you've got to compliment the man for the courage, and conviction and leadership he provided."

Let me give Hatch a hand with this. No, if Thurgood Marshall were nominated for the Supreme Court today, Hatch would probably filibuster him. It's not "hard to say"; it's easy to say. Marshall was a giant of 20th century liberalism, and today's Republican Party is practically hysterical in its conservatism. It's obviously speculative, but how can there be any doubt over how GOP senators would view Marshall?

Indeed, this can, and probably should, be taken much further. Would Hatch and his Republican colleagues have voted for Social Security? Or Medicare? Or the Clean Air Act? Or the parts of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that applied to private enterprise?

Would they have voted to confirm Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was approved on a 96 to 3 vote in 1993?

Would they have voted to nominate Ronald Reagan for the GOP presidential nomination? Or H.W. Bush? Or Eisenhower?

The answers to all of these questions seem pretty obvious. It's not "hard to say" at all. In each instance, the answer is "of course not."

—Steve Benen 9:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

WHAT DID THURGOOD MARSHALL EVER DO TO THE GOP?.... In early May, soon after President Obama nominated Elena Kagan for the Supreme Court, we learned that Kagan had clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, whom she considers a personal hero. Inexplicably, the Republican National Committee considers this an area ripe for attack.

In particular, Marshall had characterized the Constitution as having been "defective" as it related to issues like slavery. Republicans hoped to use this to attack Kagan, and the RNC's Michael Steele demanded to know whether Kagan's reverence for Marshall included "support for statements suggesting that the Constitution 'as originally drafted and conceived,' was 'defective.'"

When it appeared the RNC's line was indirectly pro-slavery, the party quickly dropped the criticism. But for some reason, Republicans haven't given up on their Marshall-bashing.

As confirmation hearings opened Monday afternoon, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee took the unusual approach of attacking Kagan because she admired the late justice Thurgood Marshall, for whom she clerked more than two decades ago.

"Justice Marshall's judicial philosophy," said Sen. Jon Kyl (Ariz.), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, "is not what I would consider to be mainstream." Kyl -- the lone member of the panel in shirtsleeves for the big event -- was ready for a scrap. Marshall "might be the epitome of a results-oriented judge," he said.

It was, to say the least, a curious strategy to go after Marshall, the iconic civil rights lawyer who successfully argued Brown vs. Board of Education. Did Republicans think it would help their cause to criticize the first African American on the Supreme Court, a revered figure who has been celebrated with an airport, a postage stamp and a Broadway show? The guy is a saint -- literally. Marshall this spring was added to the Episcopal Church's list of "Holy Women and Holy Men," which the Episcopal Diocese of New York says "is akin to being granted sainthood."

With Kagan's confirmation hearings expected to last most of the week, Republicans may still have time to make cases against Nelson Mandela, Mother Teresa and Gandhi.

I often find Republican ideology to be rather twisted, but it simply never occurred to me that GOP senators would spend the first day of the confirmation hearings condemning one of the most venerated Supreme Court justices in American history.

But condemn they did. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) declared Marshall "a judicial activist." So did Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) said Marshall's approach to the law "does not comport with the proper role of a judge or judicial method."

Better yet, this was a coordinated attack -- Republican aides circulated materials to reporters during the hearing detailing all of the things the GOP doesn't like about Thurgood Marshall.

Christina Bellantoni put together an interesting count -- while President Obama's name came up 14 times yesterday, Thurgood Marshall's name came up 35 times.

It's quite a strategy Republicans have put together here, isn't it? Unable to come up with a coherent line of attack to undermine this nominee, the GOP has decided to turn its guns on an iconic civil rights attorney and one of the more celebrated American heroes of the 20th century.

And the Republican Party's outreach to minority communities suffers yet another setback.

—Steve Benen 8:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (45)

WALL STREET REFORM IN PERIL.... It's not at all unusual for Congress, on the verge of a major legislative breakthrough, to start getting cold feet. Lawmakers start feeling antsy and decide they have disproportionate leverage, putting passage in doubt. Hill watchers have come to expect some 11th-hour wrangling.

That said, after months of work, a major Wall Street reform package, which seemed almost certain to pass, is now in very deep trouble.

The death of Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) instantly made passage considerably more difficult, given the non-existent margin of error. Democrats hoped Sen. Russ Feingold might make up for Byrd's passing by supporting the policy, but the Wisconsin Democrat announced yesterday he will vote with Republicans.

Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) said Monday he would vote against advancing Wall Street overhaul legislation. [...]

"As I have indicated for some time now, my test for the financial regulatory reform bill is whether it will prevent another crisis," Feingold said in a statement. "The conference committee's proposal fails that test and for that reason I will not vote to advance it."

To clarify, Feingold isn't just talking about opposing the legislation; he's also promising to side with far-right Republicans on a filibuster, preventing the Senate from even voting on the bill. The consequence of Feingold's support for GOP obstructionism may kill the legislation, leaving an industry regulatory structure in place that nearly collapsed the global economy. Feingold, in effect, prefers a broken status quo to a reform bill he believes doesn't go far enough -- which is exactly the outcome sought by the Wall Street lobbyists the senator claims to oppose.

Of course, it's not just Feingold. Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) is prepared to kill the bill over a modest bank fee that would help pay for the broader reform effort. Yesterday, Maine Sens. Susan Collins (R) and Olympia Snowe (R) said they're also prepared to walk away from the bill over the bank fee. Making matters even worse, Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) said he's "concerned" about the fee, suggesting his vote is far from secure, too. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), who supported the GOP filibuster last month, is non-committal, for now, as is Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who backed the filibuster but supported final passage.

Remember, to break a Republican filibuster in May, the majority had exactly 60 votes, which included three Republicans (Brown, Collins, and Snowe). Byrd's death puts the number at 59, meaning the majority will need to make up at least one vote somewhere. Instead, yesterday, the bill was losing votes, not gaining them.

The goal has long been to have the final bill on the president's desk by the 4th of July. That now appears increasingly unlikely.

—Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (53)

MONDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* This could get even uglier: "Federal officials are increasingly concerned that high waves from Tropical Storm Alex may interfere with the oil cleanup effort in the Gulf of Mexico, National Incident Commander Thad Allen told reporters in a Monday afternoon briefing."

* Major 2nd Amendment ruling: "The Second Amendment's guarantee of an individual right to bear arms applies to state and local gun control laws, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a 5-to-4 decision." More on this from Scott Lemieux, and at his brand-new, stand-alone blog, Adam Serwer.

* Sarbanes-Oxley also fared well at the high court: "The first group established by Congress to regulate the accounting industry survived a constitutional challenge on Monday, emerging only with its members' having a little less job security.... In its ruling, the Supreme Court unanimously rejected a challenge to the constitutionality of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which established the board and sought to reform corporate America after the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals." It may seem unrelated, but this matters to legal challenges to the Affordable Care Act.

* Not inspiring confidence: "Top officials in President Hamid Karzai's government have repeatedly derailed corruption investigations of politically connected Afghans, according to U.S. officials who have provided Afghanistan's authorities with wiretapping technology and other assistance in efforts to crack down on endemic graft."

* And in related news: "The chairman of a key House subcommittee said Monday that she would strip $3.9 billion in aid for Afghanistan from next year's spending bill over concerns about rampant graft in the country and alleged efforts by President Hamid Karzai's government to derail corruption probes."

* Shades of the Cold War: Russian spies arrested in the U.S.

* I'm genuinely delighted to see so many Senate Democrats dismiss the "umpire analogy" as it relates to the Supreme Court.

* Not encouraging at all: "Leaders of the world's biggest economies agreed Sunday on a timetable for cutting deficits and halting the growth of their debt, but also acknowledged the need to move carefully so that reductions in spending did not set back the fragile global recovery."

* Slightly improved: "Consumer spending in the U.S. rose in May more than forecast, a sign households are gaining confidence in the recovery and the job market." Personal incomes were up a little, too.

* Former Vice President Dick Cheney was hospitalized over the weekend for medical reasons, and was released earlier today.

* The White House hasn't given up on immigration reform.

* Sen. Daniel Inouye (D) of Hawaii becomes the new president pro tempore of the Senate.

* The Monthly's Daniel Luzer interviews James Kvaal, the next deputy undersecretary of education.

* For all the bizarre theories about the now-defunct Journolist, I can personally attest to the fact that the truth is far more mundane.

* In light of the Dave Weigel mess last week, some Washington Post insiders trashed in-house bloggers to Jeffrey Goldberg. Don't miss Greg's Sargent's beautiful response.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

—Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (27)

'THE LAST TIME ANY PRESIDENT DID THIS MUCH IN OFFICE, BOOZE WAS ILLEGAL'.... Last week, I mentioned in passing that President Obama's record of accomplishments, after just 17 month in office, is as impressive as anything we've seen in generations. It prompted Howard Kurtz to ask, "Will the Beltway pundits reassess Obama's presidency once he signs the banking bill? Don't hold your breath."

I agree; it's unlikely the Beltway pundits will pursue this. Indeed, the establishment consensus is pushing aggressively in the other direction. But I'm noticing the larger observation about Obama's historic record is nevertheless becoming at least a little more common.

Peter Beinart noted today that for all the challenges making life difficult for the president right now, "he keeps racking up the wins." Indeed, Beinart makes the compelling case that Obama has recorded more significant milestones in 18 months than the last two Democratic administrations achieved in 12 years.

[E]ven if Obama never manages another legislative victory, he'll already have pulled off one of the most impressive opening acts in American political history. [...]

The larger truth is this: Even as Republicans claim political momentum, the country is in the midst of a major shift leftward when it comes to the role of government. That shift is playing itself out from infrastructure to health care to finance and perhaps eventually to the environment. No one knows whether these shifts will revive the U.S. economy and lay the foundation for stable, broad-based growth, just as no one could predict the impact of the rightward turn in American policy in the early 1980s. Decades later, liberals and conservatives still disagree about whether Reagan's reforms changed America for good or ill. What they don't disagree about is the fact that they fundamentally changed America. Those changes made Reagan one of the most consequential presidents in American history. Eighteen months in, it's a good bet that historians will say the same about Barack Obama.

Beinart isn't the only one making this observation.

Take Rachel Maddow, for instance.

If you missed "The Rachel Maddow Show" on Friday, you missed a similar assessment, considering the Obama presidency in this larger context.

The clip is worth watching in its entirety, but Rachel's recitation of some of Obama's greatest hits revealed a pretty impressive list.

"Even before today's historic Wall Street reform agreement, President Obama, of course, did what politicians have been trying to do for more than 60 years. He passed health reform, which, for the first time, establishes government responsibility for the health care of American citizens. Consider also the stimulus bill. It didn't just throw a lasso around our entire economy and yank and yank it back from the brink, it also pumped about $100 billion into the crumbling embarrassment of our national infrastructure and transportation system. It was the largest investment in infrastructure since Ike. For solving our country's energy problems, something Obama has compared to man walking on the moon, it contained about $60 billion in spending and tax incentives for renewable and clean energy, also a historic investment. It also included an unheralded but giant investment in science and tech, amping up the budgets at NASA, the National Science Foundation, and an experimental energy research agency that was created under President George W. Bush, but never funded until now.

"President Obama also expanded state kids' health insurance to cover another four million kids. He signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act amending the 1964 civil rights act for equal pay for equal work. He signed a nuclear arms deal with Russia that would reduce both countries' arsenals by a third. He created a new global nonproliferation initiative to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists. He set forth an international way forward on that radical left-wing proposition of Ronald Reagan, a world without nuclear weapons.

"Then there are the legislative and policy achievements that don't just build on previously-set precedents, but set new ones. The Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. It had languished in Congress for years. The Food and Drug Administration permitted for the first time to regulate tobacco. Better late than never, he dismantled the scandal-plagued Minerals Management Service, broke it into three parts so that the folks who collect money from oil leases aren't the same ones regulating the industry. And now, it will actually investigate the industry that it was busy schtupping and doing drugs with during the last administration. Obama fired two wartime commanding generals in little over a year.

"He overhauled the astonishing stupidity of the student loan system in which banks were being subsidized to give loans that were guaranteed by the government anyway, a license to print money. That was ended in the savings put toward actual aid to students. He canceled a weapons program that was bloated, unnecessary and totally irrelevant to either of our current wars, the F-22. Why even mention the cancellation of a single weapons system? Because that never happens. Weapons systems never get canceled. The F-22 did, which is itself a miracle."

And Rachel didn't even mention the administration's successful efforts on China revaluing its currency, the advances on expanded stem-cell research, the national service bill, and the most sweeping land-protection act in 15 years.

Her conclusion rang especially true:

"In each of these achievements and in the list of things he has yet to do -- Don't Ask, Don't Tell, closing Guantanamo -- in each of these things, there is room for liberal disappointment. I sing a bittersweet lullaby to the lost public option when I go to sleep at night.

"But presidential legacies are complex. Not even the Reagan administration's legacy is pure as the conservative-driven snow. But Taegan Goddard at CQ Politics was right today about nothing this big happening since FDR. The list of legislative accomplishments of this president in half a term even before energy reform which he's probably going to get to is, to quote the vice president, 'a big freaking deal.' Love this administration or hate it, this president is getting a lot done. The last time any president did this much in office, booze was illegal. If you believe in policy, if you believe in government that addresses problems, cheers to that."

—Steve Benen 4:45 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (33)

WHAT DOES KYL HAVE AGAINST 'ORDINARY CITIZENS' AND 'UNDERDOGS'?.... The Senate confirmation hearings for Elena Kagan's Supreme Court nomination got underway this morning, and today has so far proven to be mind-numbingly dull a little slow. What we've seen are opening statements from Judiciary Committee members -- all of whom seem to have already made up their minds -- and nothing else.

But there are some gems to be gleaned from some of the mini-speeches senators have delivered. Greg Sargent, for example, highlighted some fascinating comments from Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R.), in which the right-wing Arizonan took on the very concept of judges looking out for the defenseless.

"Judge Sotomayor explicitly rejected the 'empathy' standard espoused by President Obama -- a standard where 'legal process alone' is deemed insufficient to decide the so-called 'hard cases'; a standard where the 'critical ingredient is supplied by what is in the judge's heart.'

"Perhaps because his first nominee failed to defend the judicial philosophy that he was promoting, the President has repackaged it. Now, he says that judges should have 'a keen understanding of how the law affects the daily lives of the American people ... and know that in a democracy, powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens.' [...]

"Kagan wrote a tribute to Justice Marshall in which she said in his view it was the role of the courts and interpreting the Constitution to protect the people who went unprotected by every other organ of government. The court existed primarily to fulfill this mission. And later, when she was working in the Clinton administration, she encouraged a colleague working on a speech about Justice Marshall to emphasize his unshakable determination to protect the underdog."

I suppose I'm not the target audience here, but this reads like praise to me. President Obama thinks jurists should have "a keen understanding of how the law affects the daily lives of the American people"? That sounds like a principle with real value. "Powerful interests must not be allowed to drown out the voices of ordinary citizens"? Sign me up. Looking at the courts as champions of those "unprotected by every other organ of government"? Preach it, brother. Thurgood Marshall had an "unshakable determination to protect the underdog"? No wonder he's a national hero.

Except, of course, Kyl meant all of this as a condemnation. What I perceive as compliments were intended as derision. Kyl was repackaging progressive principles and commitments to protect the defenseless as concepts to be ignored and rejected. Indeed, the subtext wasn't subtle -- to embrace these ideas makes one unsuitable for the bench, at least as far Kyl is concerned.

Maybe my perceptions of public attitudes are off, but I don't imagine most Americans would recoil at the notion of a federal judge looking out for the voices of ordinary citizens, before they're drowned out by powerful interests. Nor do I think the American mainstream's sensibilities are offended by Thurgood Marshall's interest in protecting the underdog.

—Steve Benen 3:50 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (18)

THE NEXT ANGLE/PAUL.... Nevada's Sharron Angle and Kentucky's Rand Paul are noteworthy because they're extraordinary -- it's simply not common for radical ideologues on the fringes of American political thought to win major-party primaries for the U.S. Senate. Candidates like Angle and Paul come around from time to time, and generate some extremist excitement, but cooler heads traditionally prevail. This year, Angle and Paul actually won their respective primaries, and may yet join the Senate.

But what's especially important right now is that while Angle and Paul collectively set the bar for painfully ridiculous 21st-century Senate candidates, there are others who may qualify for their right-wing contingent.

In Wisconsin, there's a case to be made that GOP Senate hopeful Ron Johnson fits comfortably in Angle/Paul fringe. In Florida, some have made the case that Marco Rubio is of their ilk. In Pennsylvania, former Rep. Pat Toomey is clearly hanging onto the far-right cliff of his party.

And there's Colorado's Ken Buck, who is arguably the strongest choice to complete a crazed triumvirate with Sharron Angle and Rand Paul.

He's questioned the constitutionality of Social Security, toyed with phasing out the federal student loan program and spoken of lowering the wall that separates church and state.

Meet Ken Buck, the Colorado Republican Senate primary candidate who looks like the next Rand Paul or Sharron Angle.... Like Paul and Angle, whose post-nomination rollouts were notably rocky, the upstart Weld County district attorney carries with him similar made-for-cable-TV political baggage. And like those two, Buck's more unconventional statements haven't received a full vetting yet.

Democrats promise -- and Republicans fully expect -- that will change if Buck continues his trajectory against former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton in the Aug. 10 primary contest.

Buck hasn't been shy about trashing Social Security, calling for the end of the federal student loan program, announcing his opposition to church-state separation, and even supporting "Birther" craziness.

Buck, of course, is being rewarded for his extremism. The Republican establishment recruited former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton into the race, and considered her the likely nominee. But Buck has struck a chord with the party's hysterical base, and appears well positioned to defeat Norton in the GOP primary.

Whether the statewide mainstream -- in any of the states with right-wing candidates -- finds this brand of extremism compelling remains to be seen.

—Steve Benen 3:05 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (8)

WILL SCOTT BROWN KILL WALL STREET REFORM?.... Sen. Scott Brown's (R-Mass.) record on the financial regulatory reform package is less than pretty.

In April, he said he simply couldn't support the legislation, in part because the bill is "going to be an extra layer of regulation." Brown was apparently unaware of the fact that an extra layer of regulation was the point of the legislation. The financial industry went unchecked and nearly destroyed the global economy. That's why the legislation is being considered -- to bring oversight and accountability through regulation.

Soon after, Brown was asked what kind of changes he'd like to see to the bill. He told a reporter, "Well, what areas do you think should be fixed? I mean, you know, tell me."

In May, Brown came around and voted to break a Republican filibuster and in support of final passage. The bill proceeded to a conference committee, which wrapped up its work on Friday, and final passage could come as early as this week.

Brown, however, is now weighing whether to try to kill the bill.

The Massachusetts Republican worked behind closed doors last week, secretly pushing a provision to exempt some major Massachusetts financial firms from new regulations. Democrats, needing Brown's vote, acquiesced.

Brown is now poised to betray his colleagues anyway, saying he can't vote for any bill that raises any tax on anyone or anything. Pat Garofalo flagged this CQ item.

On Friday, Brown questioned a provision added to the bill late in negotiations that would charge large banks and hedge funds a fee to generate as much as $19 billion to help cover the cost of the bill. "My fear is that these costs would be passed onto consumers in the form of higher bank, ATM and credit card fees and put a strain on lending at the worst possible time for our economy," he said in a press release. "I've said repeatedly that I cannot support any bill that raises taxes."

Just to be clear, Brown is prepared to kill one of the most important bills of this Congress, bringing accountability and safeguards to an industry that nearly destroyed the global economy, because it will include a modest fee on banks that pays for the legislation.

This from a guy who doesn't even seem to understand the legislation he's voting on.

With Brown balking and Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) having passed away, is the legislation actually in trouble? It's certainly possible. Last month, to overcome a GOP filibuster, Dems relied on four Republican votes -- Brown, Grassley, Snowe, and Collins -- which made 60. Without Brown and Byrd, that's 58, which is obviously two short of an absurd mandatory supermajority.

Of course, two Democratic senators -- Cantwell and Feingold -- voted with Republicans to filibuster the legislation, because they deemed it too weak. If they can be convinced to allow the Senate to vote on the legislation -- hardly an unreasonable request -- Dems would only need two of the four GOP senators who backed the bill in May to overcome the Republican obstructionism.

If not, passage that seemed obvious on Friday may be delayed for weeks -- all because Republicans won't let the Senate vote up or down to bring some safeguards to Wall Street. That voters are prepared to reward this party is a never-ending source of amazement.

—Steve Benen 1:55 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (18)

WHAT DOES BARBER MEAN BY 'WE'?.... Right-wing congressional candidate Rick Barber in Alabama's 2nd caused a bit of a stir two weeks ago, releasing a bizarre video in which the agitated conservative had an imaginary "conversation" with Sam Adams, Ben Franklin, and George Washington. It was rather painful to watch -- Barber came pretty close to not only calling for the impeachment of the president, but also for a violent uprising against the United States government.

Hoping to duplicate the "success" of the first ad -- Barber's video was widely seen, though mostly by those who found him ridiculous -- the right-wing Alabamian is back with another clip, and this time, he's having an imaginary "conversation" with Abraham Lincoln.

Barber says, "Hey Abe, if someone is forced to work for months to pay taxes so that a total stranger can get a free meal, medical procedure or a bailout, what's that called? What's it called when one man is forced to work for another?" The actor pretending to be Lincoln replies, "Slavery."

At that point, viewers are bombarded with images of slaves and concentration camps, including those from Nazi Germany.

"We shed a lot of blood to stop that in the past, didn't we?" Barber adds. "Now look at us. We are all becoming slaves to our government."

The spot is a special kind of stupid, but let's just consider three quick points. The first is, what does Barber mean by "we"? Alabama didn't "shed a lot of blood to stop" slavery; Alabama shed a lot of blood to maintain slavery. Indeed, Barber is engaged in this "conversation" with the president Alabama considered responsible for "Northern Aggression." As Eric Kleefeld noted, "Indeed, it's quite interesting to see a Southern right-winger putting words into Lincoln's mouth on this subject."

Second, Lincoln was responsible for imposing the first federal income tax. If he considered the tax "slavery," Lincoln had a funny way of showing it.

And third, I'm sure there are some folks who'll find Barber's hysterics compelling, and consider tax rates to be "slavery," but tax rates are currently at their lowest levels since the days of Truman. I shudder to think how violent Barber might be prepared to get if Democrats proposed putting taxes rates back to where they were when, say, Reagan was president.

—Steve Benen 1:10 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (24)

SUPREME COURT MAKES THE RIGHT CALL ON DISCRIMINATION.... There was quite a bit of activity this morning at the U.S. Supreme Court, in what I believe is the last day of the session, and John Paul Stevens' final day as a justice.

The court's ruling on a Chicago gun law will get most of the attention -- we'll get to that one later -- but I was especially interested in a case called Christian Legal Society v. Martinez. The case may be familiar to regular readers of my "This Week in God" Saturday feature, but to briefly review, this was the year's biggest church-state case.

It's a pretty straightforward dispute. The University of California's Hastings College of the Law funds and recognizes student groups, but places limits on eligibility -- student groups can't discriminate on the basis of "race, color, religion, national origin, ancestry, disability, age, sex or sexual orientation."

The chapter of the Christian Legal Society refused to allow LGBT students to join -- the group's materials decry "unrepentant participation in or advocacy of a sexually immoral lifestyle" -- and required members to sign a statement of faith. Hastings said the Christian Legal Society could still hold on-campus meetings, but could not receive funding and official recognition.

The CLS filed suit, claiming "discrimination" against their conservative Christian beliefs. The school argued that it is not legally required to subsidize groups that show prejudice towards other students.

Today, the Supreme Court sided with the school.

An ideologically split Supreme Court ruled Monday that a law school can legally deny recognition to a Christian student group that won't let gays join. [...]

The court on a 5-4 judgment upheld the lower court rulings saying the Christian group's First Amendment rights of association, free speech and free exercise were not violated by the college's decision.

"In requiring CLS -- in common with all other student organizations -- to choose between welcoming all students and forgoing the benefits of official recognition, we hold, Hastings did not transgress constitutional limitations," said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who wrote the 5-4 majority opinion for the court's liberals and moderate Anthony Kennedy. "CLS, it bears emphasis, seeks not parity with other organizations, but a preferential exemption from Hastings' policy."

The court's conservative bloc -- Roberts, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas -- were less than pleased, and their dissent complained bitterly about "freedom of expression" being overridden by "prevailing standards of political correctness in our country's institutions of higher learning."

Many universities feared a ruling in CLS's favor would mandate subsidies for all kinds of fringe and extremist groups, and the decision may likely create new rules for campus groups nationwide.

It should generate a significant religious right freak-out.

The entire ruling is online here (pdf).

—Steve Benen 12:25 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (35)

MONDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* In Florida, disgraced former health care executive Rick Scott's (R) gubernatorial campaign is running into something of a "paradox." He wants to tout "his stature and experience as the get-things-done CEO of what was once the nation's largest for-profit healthcare company, while also trying to distance himself from Columbia/HCA's notorious legacy of fraud."

* While there are competing results out of North Carolina's Senate race, SurveyUSA shows incumbent Sen. Richard Burr (R) leading Secretary of State Elaine Marshall (D) by 10 points, 50% to 40%.

* In Massachusetts, the latest Boston Globe poll shows Gov. Deval Patrick (D) leading in a three-way race with 38% support. Charles Baker (R) is second with 31%, followed by Timothy Cahill (I) trailing with 9%.

* It's Rasmussen, so take the results with a grain of salt, but the pollster shows Sen. Patty Murray (D) tied with former state Sen. Dino Rossi (R) in the state of Washington, with both candidates at 47%.

* In South Carolina, Rasmussen shows Nikki Haley (R) leading Vincent Sheheen (D) in this year's gubernatorial race, 52% to 40%.

* Speaking of South Carolina, apparent Senate candidate Alvin Greene (D) is facing an ongoing criminal investigation. It's not clear if he can afford an attorney.

* I don't imagine he's happy about it, but Sen. John McCain has agreed to debate former Rep. J.D. Hayworth twice in advance of Arizona's Republican Senate primary.

* Rep. Larry Kissell's (D-N.C.) re-election prospects improved late last week when former Democratic congressional staffer Wendell Fant announced he will not run as an independent in the district.

* And in 2012 news, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, now a Fox News personality, apparently considers himself the frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination.

—Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (14)

A FORGIVING ELECTORATE IN THE BAY STATE.... Evaluating lawmakers tends to be a subjective endeavor, but when I take a look at Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), I see a senator who's gotten off to a very rough start after about a half-year in office. The senator has, to be sure, benefited from undue hype, but he's struggled badly with his actual responsibilities.

After all, we've learned this year that Brown doesn't understand the stimulus, doesn't understand financial regulatory reform, doesn't understand health care reform, doesn't understand economic policy, and doesn't understand energy policy.

He's voted with the far-right to strip the EPA of its authority on climate change; he's voted with the far-right on health care; he's voted with the far-right on extending unemployment benefits; and he's voted with the far-right on repealing "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." At one point, Brown reflected on a deranged Texas man who flew a plane into a building, and told a national television audience that the terrorist's motivations reminded him of his own Senate campaign.

By all appearances, Brown just isn't ready for prime-time. But what I can't help but find striking is that his constituents just don't seem to mind.

US Senator Scott Brown, who only months ago was a little-known figure even within the tiny band of Republicans in the state Senate, not only catapulted to national stature with his upset US Senate victory, but is today the most popular officeholder in Massachusetts, according to a Boston Globe poll.

After less than five months in Washington, Brown outpolls such Democratic stalwarts as President Obama and US Senator John F. Kerry in popularity, the poll indicates. He gets high marks not only from Republicans, but even a plurality of Democrats views him favorably.

For context, Kerry's favorable rating in Massachusetts is 52%, Obama's is 54%, and Brown's is 55%. That's not an approval rating, but is a gauge of personal popularity.

I guess this is a reminder that voting records and on-the-job performance are nice, but in politics, charm and appearance often matter more.

—Steve Benen 11:15 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)

PARTY OVER PLANET.... With the White House scheduled to host a meeting tomorrow with key senators over an energy/climate bill, it's worth considering how nearly impossible it's likely to be to strike a deal to address global warming. The problem isn't that Republicans have always opposed cap-and-trade; the problem is that those who've been reasonable in the past have changed their minds.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) co-sponsored a bill with cap-and-trade in 2008. Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) voted for cap-and-trade in the state legislature. Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) is on record supporting carbon limits on power plants. Sen. Dick Lugar (R-Ind.) has called for greater U.S. leadership on global warming. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) helped write the cap-and-trade language that Senate Democrats support right now.

And in perhaps the most dramatic example, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), during his national campaign less than two years ago, promised voters he would "establish ... a cap-and-trade system that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions." The official McCain/Palin position added, "A cap-and-trade system harnesses human ingenuity in the pursuit of alternatives to carbon-based fuels."

So, how many of these same lawmakers are prepared to consider a similar measure now? Apparently, none.

President Barack Obama needs a couple of Senate Republicans to play ball if he's going to pass a cap on greenhouse gases this year.

But few, if any, GOP senators seem willing to work with him on a plan their leaders have dubbed a "national energy tax" -- despite the fact that some of them have seemed supportive of the idea before. [...]

"No one in our conference supports a national energy tax," said Don Stewart, a spokesman for Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).

Lindsey Graham added, "In a partisan atmosphere, it's hard to help the other side without being accused of aiding and comforting the enemy."

So, our existing energy framework will continue to deteriorate; American competitiveness will suffer; and global climate change will become a more serious crisis ... but Lindsey Graham may not have to endure some name-calling for working with senators from the other party.

In order for our country to maintain the capacity to solve problems, we need two political parties, not one, that are prepared to work in good faith towards finding solutions to shared challenges. We have nothing of the kind -- and the consequences will likely be severe for all of us.

—Steve Benen 10:40 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (18)

SOMEONE GET CORNYN A COPY OF THE BUDGET.... Sen. John Cornyn (R) of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, was on CNN yesterday, sharing some thoughts about Democrats.

"Well, I am waiting for this administration to take responsibility for the job it volunteered for, and our Democratic colleagues who are in the majority and who run the show in Congress.

"The fact of the matter was that in 2008, the last year President Bush was in office, the deficit was 3.2 percent of the gross domestic product. Now it's about 10 percent. So it has more than tripled with $2.3 trillion of additional debt.

"People are tired."

I can't speak for "people" in general, but I know I'm tired of nonsensical talking points.

Cornyn's memory isn't just short; it's factually wrong. The budget deficit Bush/Cheney left for Democrats to clean up was $1.3 trillion. It's unclear exactly what this year's shortfall will be, but it's likely to be around $1.5 trillion. To suggest that the deficit has "more than tripled" is to suggest that John Cornyn is strikingly bad at arithmetic.

Just as importantly, for Cornyn to blame Democrats for the size of the deficit is demonstrably ridiculous -- Bush's policies are the single biggest factor in the budget shortfall, and will remain the single biggest contributor to the deficit over the next decade.

And even more important still, the deficit matters, but not as much as generating economic growth and creating jobs. Cornyn is obsessed with one of the messes he helped to create (the budget deficit), while ignoring the other mess he helped to create (a painfully weak economy and job market). Focusing on deficit reduction when the deficit is supposed to be high reflects priorities that are flawed to the point of comedy.

The whole argument is farcical. Cornyn wanted tax cuts for the wealthy, so he increased the deficit. He supported a war in Afghanistan, so he increased the deficit some more. He wanted a war in Iraq, so he increased the deficit some more. Cornyn backed a new national education policy and an expansion of Medicare, but he didn't want to pay for them, so he increased the deficit some more.

And now Cornyn wants Democrats to "take responsibility" and work towards balancing the budget? It'd be hilarious if it weren't so pathetic. He got us in this mess; he doesn't get to whine about the speed with which Dems clean it up.

—Steve Benen 10:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (37)

BARBOUR'S PRIORITIES.... Truth be told, I don't really expect all officials in leadership roles to necessarily curtail unrelated activities during a crisis. I don't care if President Obama goes golfing during the oil spill; I didn't care that President Bush cleared brush during two wars; I didn't even care about BP's Tony Hayward's recent yachting excursion.

If those in positions of authority are missing key meetings, or if unrelated activities are interfering with their duties, it's a problem. If not, folks can blow off steam however they choose.

That said, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R), who's done his level best to politicize the hell out of the ongoing disaster in the Gulf, seems surprisingly oblivious to appearances. Late last week, the right-wing governor, whose lobbying business took on oil companies as generous clients, continued to blast federal officials for not doing enough to address the crisis.

But as oil washed ashore in quantity along the Mississippi Coast, Barbour, who had boasted that oil would not reach his shore, wasn't even in his state. (thanks to V.S. for the heads-up)

Gov. Haley Barbour rushed back to Mississippi from Washington early on Friday upon news that large amounts of oil is threatening the Coast, and said his national political work is not distracting him from guiding the Magnolia State through the BP disaster.

Barbour on Thursday held Washington fund-raisers for the Republican Governors Association, which he heads, and for one of his political action committees, which is raising money for GOP congressional candidates. His fund-raising is receiving some national media attention and fueling speculation that he is already gearing up for a run for president in 2012.

"The most important thing right now is the 2010 elections," Barbour said. "We can't wait until 2012 to take back our country."

I'd feel better about Barbour's priorities if he thought the most important thing right now is dealing with the oil spill disaster and mitigating its effects on the region.

—Steve Benen 9:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (14)

WHAT KAGAN CAN EXPECT.... There's been some talk about delaying the start of the confirmation hearings in light of Sen. Robert Byrd's (D-W.Va.) passing*, but the Senate Judiciary Committee may well proceed this morning with Elena Kagan's Supreme Court nomination.

Senate Republicans have struggled of late to come up with a coherent line of attack -- though, as of yesterday, there was still plenty of rhetoric about a possible filibuster -- and today, a leading Republican senator trotted out a new argument.

Judiciary Committee member Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) wrote in a column Sunday evening that "it is reasonable to worry that [Elana] Kagan is a judicial activist simply because President Obama nominated her." [...]

"The president's judicial nominees over the past 17 months show an unmistakable determination to create a more activist federal judiciary," Cornyn writes of Obama's picks for lower federal courts.

I kind of like this, in large part because the argument reflects a certain degree of honesty. Why don't Republicans like Kagan for the high court? Because President Obama nominated her. Cornyn's concession makes this plain -- if the president chose her, she necessarily has to be considered suspect.

This kind of partisanship is the opposite of substantive criticism, but I do enjoy the argument's circular quality -- Republicans are inclined to oppose Obama's nominees because they're Obama's nominees.

Likewise, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) argued on "Meet the Press" yesterday that he's "disturbed" by Kagan's "obvious steadfast and even zealous opposition to military recruiters." Host David Gregory didn't inquire further -- except to ask, "Is that disqualifying?" -- and that's a shame. In reality, as has been discussed repeatedly and even acknowledged by other Republicans, McCain's argument is contradicted by reality.

It's going to be a long week.

* Update: It looks like the hearings will get underway today, as scheduled.

—Steve Benen 8:45 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (10)

SEN. ROBERT BYRD DIES AT AGE 92.... An extraordinary life and historic career came to an end overnight, as Sen. Robert Byrd (D) of West Virginia died in a Washington-area hospital. The accomplished 92-year-old senator was the longest-serving member of Congress in American history, and had an unrivaled knowledge of and appreciation for institutional history.

The Washington Post's obituary is well worth reading, and I'm also including a video put together by the Senate Democratic caucus last year, when Byrd broke the record as the longest serving federal lawmaker.

Starting in 1958, Mr. Byrd was elected to the Senate an unprecedented nine times. He wrote a four-volume history of the body, was majority leader twice and chaired the powerful Appropriations Committee, controlling the nation's purse strings, and yet the positions of influence he held did not convey the astonishing arc of his life.

A child of the West Virginia coal fields, Mr. Byrd rose from the grinding poverty that has plagued his state since before the Great Depression, overcame an early and ugly association with the Ku Klux Klan, worked his way through night school and by force of will, determination and iron discipline made himself a person of authority and influence in Washington.

Although he mined extraordinary amounts of federal largesse for his perennially impoverished state, his reach extended beyond the bounds of the Mountain State. [...]

He was known for his stentorian orations seasoned with biblical and classical allusions and took pride in being the Senate's resident constitutional scholar, keeping a copy of the Constitution in his breast pocket. He saw himself both as institutional memory and as guardian of the Senate's prerogatives.

By any reasonable measure, that institutional memory is simply irreplaceable. What's more, Byrd's passing represents the end of an era, and his stature and grace will be missed.

The day clearly belongs to the legendary senator, but given the larger circumstances on Capitol Hill, it's only natural to consider the implications of Byrd's Senate vacancy, as the Democratic caucus slips from 58 to 57 members (with two independents).

Byrd's replacement will be named by West Virginia's Democratic governor, Joe Manchin, but as Nate Silver noted yesterday, it's not entirely straightforward. Under state law, if the vacancy this year is declared before July 3 (this upcoming Saturday), West Virginia will hold a special election this November to elect a senator to fill the remaining two years on Byrd's current term. If the vacancy is declared after July 3, Manchin can appoint an interim senator who would serve through 2012, and there would be no election this year.

Complicating the political considerations, Steve Kornacki explained that Manchin will likely be interested in the Senate seat, though he has vowed not to appoint himself. It's in his interest, then, not to declare the seat vacant until after Saturday, after which point Manchin can name a placeholder until the 2012 election.

But regardless of those electoral consequences, Byrd's storied life and career are nothing short of remarkable. He will not soon be forgotten.

—Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

QUOTE OF THE DAY.... When President Obama explained this week why he was relieving Gen. Stanley McChrystal of command in Afghanistan, the president said the conduct represented in the Rolling Stone piece "undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system." He added that democracy depends on "respect for civilian control" over the "chain of command."

It was a good reminder about a bedrock principle of our system of government. Someone might want to remind Dianne Feinstein.

A senior Senate Democrat on foreign policy issues said on Sunday that the president's pledged July 2011 timeline for a troop drawdown in Afghanistan was malleable to the requests of military command.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Cali.), whose hawkish grounding has angered progressive in the past, likely facilitated that anger again, when she told "Fox News Sunday" that if General David Petraeus asked for more troops next summer, he should be granted them.

"I would say give it to him, absolutely," said the California Democrat.

The California Democrat added that Petraeus should also have influence in changing the civilian U.S. leadership in Afghanistan -- as she put it, "If the team isn't right I think Gen. Petraeus' views should be taken into consideration" -- and basically suggested the general should have control over practically the entire policy.

"I think we put all of our eggs in the Petraeus basket at this stage," Feinstein said.

Maybe the president's comments about democracy depending on "respect for civilian control" over the "chain of command" weren't quite clear enough?

Here's hoping Petraeus knows better than to believe the unrealistic hype.

—Steve Benen 12:45 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (23)

PANETTA EXPLAINS WHAT 'WINNING' LOOKS LIKE.... CIA Director Leon Panetta sat down for a pretty interesting interview this morning with ABC's Jake Tapper, who asked a question that often goes unasked: after nine years, what, exactly, does "winning" in Afghanistan look like?

"Winning in Afghanistan is having a country that is stable enough to ensure that there is no safehaven for Al Qaeda or for a militant Taliban that welcomes Al Qaeda," Panetta told host Jake Tapper. "That's really the measure of success for the United States."

"Our purpose, our whole mission there, is to make sure that Al Qaeda never finds another safehaven from which to attack this country. That's the fundamental goal of why the United States is there," he said. "And the measure of success for us is: do you have an Afghanistan that is stable enough to make sure that never happens."

That sounds straightforward enough. Indeed, it's always been the most compelling rationale against withdrawal -- we leave, the Karzai government falls, the Taliban seizes Afghanistan in its entirety, and al Qaeda renews its base of operations. In other words, as the argument goes, our departure would create an Afghanistan that was practically identical to the one that existed before October 2001. "Winning," then, is the opposite -- no Taliban rule, no al Qaeda safe haven. Got it.

But even if we put aside the fact that the Taliban already has control of much of Afghanistan, making "victory" that much more elusive, the measure of success is still dependent on a Karzai government that can function, deliver services with competence and without corruption, and be viewed as legitimate by Afghans. And by that measure, hope is elusive.

Fred Kaplan explained this week, "If the government is incompetent, corrupt, or widely viewed by the people as illegitimate, then a counterinsurgency campaign -- no matter how brilliantly planned or valiantly fought -- is futile.... The U.S. military is doing its part; the Afghan government isn't."

Take the ongoing campaign in Helmand province. In March, Gen. McChrystal moved 15,000 Marines into Marja, a Taliban stronghold in southern Afghanistan, with the goal of killing or sweeping out the insurgents, then moving in what he called "government in a box."

Two things went wrong: First, the Taliban, though initially swept out, kept coming back, especially at night. Second, and more to the point, the government-in-a-box never arrived. It never existed in the first place, in part because an Afghan government -- of which this was to be a mobilized chunk -- doesn't really exist, either.

Polls suggest that the Taliban are not popular among the Afghan people. They have made inroads in recent years, however, because they provide security, services, and justice -- cruel forms of all three, but that's more than the Afghan government has been able to offer.

It's not I disagree with Panetta's vision or goals. Indeed, I find them fairly persuasive. It's that his vision is predicated on a stable, reliable Afghan government -- which doesn't appear to exist, and which makes the notion "winning" rather hard to believe.

In the same interview, by the way, Panetta was asked about Osama bin Laden.

"He is, as is obvious, in very deep hiding," Panetta said. "He's in an area of the tribal areas of Pakistan, that is very difficult. The terrain is probably the most difficult in the world…"

"Can you be more specific?" host Jake Tapper asked.

"All I can tell you is it's in the tribal areas ... we know that he's located in that vicinity," Panetta said.

"The more we continue to disrupt Al Qaeda's operations -- and we are engaged in the most aggressive operations in the history of the CIA in that part of the world -- and the result is we are disrupting their leadership," he said.

"We've taken down more than half of their Taliban leadership, of their Al Qaeda leadership. We just took down number three in their leadership a few weeks ago. We continue to disrupt them. We continue to impact on their command and control. We continue to impact on their ability to plan attacks in this country," he said.

"If we keep that pressure on, we think ultimately we can flush out bin Laden and Zawahiri and get after them," the CIA chief insisted.

Our last good intelligence about bin Laden's specific whereabouts? "The early 2000s."

As for al Qaeda in Afghanistan, according to the CIA chief, the network is down to 50 to 100 members in the entire country. That's encouraging, of course, given al Qaeda's previous numbers, but the point, I suppose, is that those numbers would grow if the Taliban reclaimed control of Afghanistan.

—Steve Benen 11:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (48)

PELOSI'S UNDERSTANDABLE FRUSTRATIONS.... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, certainly more than other House Democratic leaders, is generally reluctant to publicly criticize the other chamber -- the one that has abandoned majority-rule, making the American legislative process unnecessarily difficult.

But once in a while, Pelosi's patience is tested more than usual.

The message Thursday as a slimmed-down package went down to defeat in the Senate over GOP objections it would add to the deficit, was quite different.

In back-to-back press conferences, Pelosi unleashed her full wrath on the Senate Republican Conference, blaming them for torpedoing unemployment benefits and leaving the middle class out to dry.

"What did middle-class families ever do to Republicans in the Senate that they would snuff out every opportunity for job creation that has been sent to them?" Pelosi chided at an afternoon press conference with Democratic women to drum up support for her remaining jobs agenda, much of it either unmovable in the Senate or the subject to stalemate in the House.

Some reporters seemed slightly taken aback by the House Speaker blasting the Republican Senate conference, but need Pelosi's question be considered an unreasonable one? Is it not fair to wonder what GOP senators have against the unemployed?

On a related note, I suggested the other day that it may be time for a discussion about whether GOP lawmakers are trying to deliberately sabotage the economy to help their midterm election strategy. Theda Skocpol seems to have come to a conclusion:

Republicans have figured out that if they undercut economic recovery and increase unemployment rates, they will gain in the 2010 elections -- and probably have a much better shot in 2012.... Republicans may or may not care about unemployed people, most of whom will not vote for them anyway, but Republican leaders know what they are doing strategically: slow-walking economic growth until they get back into office.

—Steve Benen 9:55 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (30)

JINDAL SHIELDS INFO ON SPILL RESPONSE.... We've been talking the past few days about Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), who has decided to send only a fraction of the available National Guard troops to the coast to aid in the response to the BP oil spill. Jindal has given two different explanations, both of which falter under scrutiny.

Complicating matters, Jindal is keeping public access to his spill-response records to a minimum. (thanks to carolerae for the heads-up)

Gov. Bobby Jindal has vetoed a bill that would have required his office and agencies to grant public access to state records related to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. [...]

Jindal for years has lobbied to preserve broad exemptions for the governor's office in Louisiana's public records law. The House bill would have cracked open a category of records related to the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the state's response.

"I'm saddened by his action, but not surprised," said Sen. Robert Adley, R-Benton, who amended Smith's public records bill to include the provision about the oil spill documents. "His excuse is he is afraid that BP would find out something Louisiana did, and I always thought justice was about the truth and facts."

In explaining the rationale for the veto, Jindal said Louisiana will likely be in litigation with BP and others, and access to public records "could impact the state's legal position."

I'm not really in a position to know whether that's true or not -- I'm not an attorney -- but if materials would be turned over to BP anyway through the discovery process, I wonder if Jindal might be more worried about what the public learns, not opposing counsel.

Either way, the result is the same -- the public wants access to spill-related records, state lawmakers want transparency when it comes to spill-related records, and Jindal prefers secrecy. In the larger context, it doesn't exactly inspire confidence.

On a related note, Jed Lewison has a good item, summarizing some of the revelations in yesterday's New York Times piece:

The basic story: Louisiana's spill response plan was inadequate, largely because the state failed to fully develop a plan. As a result, instead of following a methodical, well-prepared plan, Bobby Jindal winged it, pursuing grandiose (and politically sexy) schemes that most state and local officials as well as experts consider counterproductive, such as Jindal's proposed barrier islands.

Jindal and Republicans have worked aggressively of late to make it seem as if the Louisiana governor's office has been a model of competence and efficiency, all the while taking shots at the Obama administration. The media has largely bought into the narrative, but as more information comes to light, there's ample reason for skepticism.

—Steve Benen 8:50 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (14)

GOOD SEATS, STILL AVAILABLE.... In February, a right-wing group called Tea Party Nation organized its first national event, hosting a convention in Nashville, which wasn't well attended. About 600 attendees showed up -- less than half the total of the inaugural Netroots Nations events. For a "movement" ostensibly poised to change the American political landscape, this was underwhelming. (The attendees who did show up, by the way, gave the impression of being stark raving mad.)

But event organizers decided to give it another shot, scheduling another convention for July. Will this one generate a little more excitement? Not so much.

A National Tea Party Unity convention that was scheduled to be held in Las Vegas in July will now take place in October, according to organizers.

The event, organized by Tea Party Nation (a national Tea Party organization) and Free America (a conservative non-profit group) and other organizations, will still be held at the Palazzo Las Vegas Resort. But Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips confirmed to CNN Saturday that the date is being moved from July 15-17 to October in order to hold the event closer to the midterm elections.

"We concluded it would more advantageous to hold the convention in the middle of October just prior to the November elections," says Phillips in a statement.

At first blush, that spin may seem plausible. Maybe the far-right effort will be better off if activists leave their local communities a few weeks before the election, and head to a Las Vegas resort. I wouldn't think so, but organizers didn't ask me.

The more interesting angle to this, though, is what the report didn't mention -- the "National Tea Party Unity" convention is being postponed just two weeks before it was scheduled to kick off. I'm not an expert in conference management, but it seems to me that a national group doesn't organize a major gathering at a Las Vegas resort, lining up speakers and guests, and then scrap the whole thing two weeks before it begins unless no one was planning to show up.

Maybe Tea Partiers are having more trouble than we realized?

—Steve Benen 8:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)

NEGOTIATING WITH THOSE WHO OPPOSE THEIR OWN PRINCIPLES.... This week, a couple of key Senate Republicans said they would never agree to any compromise on energy policy if it included a cap-and-trade provision. If a proposal puts a cap on carbon emissions, and applies that cap to anyone or anything, anywhere, even a little, Republicans said they will kill the legislation and not allow the Senate to vote on it.

It led Mark Kleiman to raise a good point, and I hope he won't mind if I quote it at length.

Why, I'm so old that I remember when market-simulating pollution-control regulations -- polluter charges or cap-and-trade -- were the official conservative alternative to command-and-control regulation. I was sympathetic to that critique, and frustrated about the environmental movement's unwillingness to see reason.

But now that the enviros have embraced a GHG tax or its cap-and-trade equivalent as the way to deal with global warming, conservative support is nowhere in sight. They're all too afraid of Grover Norquist.

Remember this the next time a conservative explains how we ought to voucherize public education. The minute that happens, the conservatives will come back and decide that we need to means-test the vouchers. That done, they'll attack the remaining program as "welfare."

This is not a group of people it's possible to do business with.

This is important. Cap-and-trade -- any version of it -- has been deemed wholly unacceptable by Republicans this year. But given the intense opposition to the idea, it's easy to forget that Republicans used to consider cap-and-trade a reasonable, market-based mechanism that was far preferable to command-and-control directives that the right found offensive.

And I'm not talking about the distant past -- the official position of the McCain/Palin Republican presidential ticket, not even two years ago, was to support cap-and-trade. Not just in theory, either. The official campaign website in 2008 told Americans that John McCain and Sarah Palin "will establish ... a cap-and-trade system that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions." McCain/Palin's official position added, "A cap-and-trade system harnesses human ingenuity in the pursuit of alternatives to carbon-based fuels."

Even George W. Bush awkwardly endorsed cap-and-trade before leaving office.

Democratic policymakers could, today, endorse the policy put forward by the Republican ticket from 2008, and GOP senators would filibuster it. Republicans said they wanted cap-and-trade, but now refuse to take "yes" for an answer.

The goal posts are always on the move, which in turn makes substantive policymaking with Republican lawmakers practically impossible.

Indeed, after Kleiman posted his piece this week, plenty of others noticed how common the phenomenon is. Matt Yglesias noted:

Another major example I can think of is the Earned Income Tax Credit, once touted as the conservative alternative to welfare and/or restoring the real value of the minimum wage, but now supported almost exclusively by liberals while conservatives castigate the poor for not paying taxes. Section 8 housing vouchers, put forward as an alternative to public housing and then repeatedly cut by GOP congresses is another one. Of course this kind of consideration doesn't invalidate any given idea -- I think auctioned, tradable emissions permits actually are the best way to regulate most sources of pollution and that housing vouchers are superior to old-school public housing. But this kind of continual pulling away of the football by the conservative movement makes it quite difficult for us to reach stable consensus around decent policies.

Ezra Klein noted that Republicans used to support industry bailouts, but now consider them creeping socialism. Jon Chait noted that the Republicans "fervently embraced the logic of Keynesian stimulus in 2001," but now fundamentally reject the same idea.

In perhaps my favorite example, the concept of an individual mandate as part of health care reform was, in fact, a Republican idea. Now, the GOP considers it the single most offensive part of the Democratic policy.

The point isn't to point out Republican inconsistencies; that's fairly routine. The point is to demonstrate that Republicans are so fundamentally unserious about solving public policy challenges, that they'll shamelessly move the goalposts at a moment's notice. The party supports cap-and-trade, EITC, industry bailouts, housing vouchers, and mandatory health insurance -- right up until there's a Democratic president. Then, Republicans are no longer willing to even consider Republican ideas.

When the David Broders of the world lecture the dysfunctional Congress on the importance of policymakers working together in good faith, this dynamic tends to be overlooked entirely. Credible people who are serious about solving problems can formulate consensus solutions. But they'll invariably fail because Republicans have no qualms about fighting against their own proposals.

—Steve Benen 11:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (40)

IT'S NOT JUST RAND PAUL'S IDEOLOGY THAT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE.... When we think of Senate hopeful Rand Paul, we tend to think of his extreme, often-bizarre ideology. But it's worth remembering that the Kentucky Republican has shared some of his policy ideas with the public, and they're bizarre, too.

Republican Senatorial candidate Rand Paul wants to build a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border. It's a rather ho-hum proposition in the larger context of conservative ideas -- except that Paul wants that fence to be electric and he wants it built underground.

Among the variety of proposals to stem illegal immigration along the southern border, the construction of an underground electrical fence appears to stand alone on the extreme. There is little contemporary evidence of other Republican officials proposing such a project, even among the most conservative of the bunch. Indeed, when approached in the halls of Senate several weeks ago and asked about the idea (though not told who proposed it), National Republican Senate Committee Chair John Cornyn (R-Tex.) assumed it was a joke.

"I have not heard that," the Texas Republican said. "Underground? What would happen? How would that work?"

For a change, I can relate to Cornyn's confusion. Rand Paul's website boasts of the Senate candidate's plan to build "an underground electric fence," but no one -- not even Paul's allies -- has the foggiest idea what he's talking about. When asked about the proposal, campaign aides won't talk about it.

Does Paul mean some kind of electrified fence that would be shocking to the touch? If so, wouldn't burying it underground defeat the purpose? Or maybe Paul means some kind of invisible, electrified fence -- like those used with outdoor pets? If so, how does Paul propose getting human beings to wear the shock devices?

Maybe he means some kind of electric barrier that would zap people trying to cross? If so, wouldn't people just step over it? Perhaps Paul would want it to be really wide, but given that it's a 2,000-mile border, it would probably cost an enormous amount of money to construct this, if the technology even exists.

In what appears to be the only instance in which Paul elaborated on his idea, the Senate candidate said building the electric fence underground would help avoid the unfortunate symbolism of a Berlin Wall-like structure. That's true, but it doesn't explain how the contraption would work. Paul also said his plan would cost between $10 and 15 million dollars, which is fairly ridiculous on its face.

To the extent that policymakers will try to address immigration policy, the fact that Paul has a nutty idea probably doesn't matter much -- there are plenty of nutty ideas out there, and they're easily ignored. But this is nevertheless a reminder that Rand Paul isn't just an extremist on issues related to the role of government in society; he's even on the fringes of libertarian thought. The seriousness with which he approaches policy issues makes it very difficult to find him credible as a candidate for the U.S. Senate.

—Steve Benen 10:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (49)

THIS WEEK IN GOD.... First up from the God Machine this week is the new, faith-based response to the BP oil spill disaster in the Gulf: Days of Prayer.

Four Gulf Coast governors are calling on residents to set aside Sunday as a Day of Prayer to pray for a solution to the oil spill and for citizens impacted by the disaster.

Alabama's Bob Riley, Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, Mississippi's Haley Barbour and Texas' Rick Perry all issued proclamations calling on prayer for the spill, which entered its 66th day Thursday.

"Throughout our history, Alabamians have humbly turned to God to ask for His blessings and to hold us steady during times of struggle. This is certainly one of those times," Riley said in a statement.

Riley's proclamation reads in part, "Citizens of Alabama are urged to pray for the well-being of our fellow citizens and our State, to pray for all those in other states who are hurt by this disaster, to pray for those who are working to respond to this crisis, and to pray that a solution that stops the oil leak is completed soon."

Tomorrow's regional prayer day will, as Kyle at Right Wing Watch reminds us, follow Monday's prayer vigil in Louisiana for Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), where evangelical "intercessors" laid hands upon him.

Within a few days of Jindal's vigil, an accident dislodged the containment mechanism from the wellhead, and Tropical Storm Alex started churning in the Caribbean. The timing could have been better.

Also from the God Machine this week:

* More fallout from the devastating scandal surrounding the Roman Catholic church and the sexual abuse of children: "An extraordinary series of raids on the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium provoked sharp criticism from the Vatican on Friday, with the church expressing 'shock' a day after Belgian investigators interrupted a bishops' meeting at the church's Brussels headquarters, detaining clerics for nine hours, and opened an archbishop's grave at a cathedral north of the city."

* Remember, the Fellowship Foundation is a religious organization: "A handful of Members of Congress have accepted more than $100,000 worth of free international travel from the religious organization affiliated with the 'C Street house,' a Capitol Hill townhouse linked to recent Congressional sex scandals. While most of the Members have taken a trip or two from the Fellowship Foundation, also known as the International Foundation, Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) accepted foreign trips worth more than $50,000 over the past four years." (thanks to reader D.J. for the tip)

* Interesting controversy in Chicago this week: "The Illinois State Police has revoked the appointment of the agency's first Muslim chaplain, citing only information revealed during a background check. A national Muslim advocacy group this week blamed the move on Islamophobia."

—Steve Benen 10:10 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (22)

IF IT'S SUNDAY, IT'S JOHN MCCAIN DAY.... Bookers for the Sunday shows have shown admirable restraint of late. They continue to book Joe Lieberman, Lindsey Graham, and Newt Gingrich with painful frequency, but they've gone two whole months without inviting John McCain back on.

Don't worry; the Sunday shows just can't quit him that easily. "Meet the Press" made this announcement the other day:

This Sunday: Exclusive! Sen. John McCain

President Obama relieves Gen. Stanley McChrystal of his command in Afghanistan after his comments about the president's diplomatic team causes a firestorm in Washington and undermines the President's strategy in Afghanistan. How will Obama's decision impact the war going forward? Will McChrystal's replacement, CENTCOM Commander Gen. David Petraeus, be able to successfully lead the effort in Afghanistan? Plus, the upcoming midterm elections and the future of the GOP. We'll ask a man in the center of it all: fighting his own tight re-election battle to the Senate and serving as the Ranking Member of the Armed Services Committee, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ).

I especially enjoyed the "Exclusive!" with the exclamation point, as if this were a rare, special occurrence. It's not.

For those keeping score -- and you know I am -- this will be McCain's 22nd appearance on a Sunday morning talk show since Obama's inauguration. That's an average of 1.3 appearances a month, every month, for over a year -- more than any other public official in the country.

Since the president took office 17 months ago, McCain has been on ABC's "This Week" three times (9.27.09, 8.23.09, and 5.10.09), CNN's "State of the Union" four times (1.10.10, 10.11.09, 8.2.09, and 2.15.09), CBS's "Face the Nation" five times (1.24.10, 10.25.09, 8.30.09, 4.26.09, and 2.8.09), and "Fox News Sunday" five times (4.18.10, 12.20.09, 7.2.09, 3.8.09, and 1.25.09). His appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press" tomorrow will be his fifth since Obama's inauguration (6.27.10, 2.28.10, 12.6.09, 7.12.09, and 3.29.09).

Obviously, there's no reason for this. In the announcement, "Meet the Press" seemed to justify the invitation by saying it was a big week with regards to U.S. policy in Afghanistan -- and it was. But John McCain has never demonstrated any meaningful understanding of the war policy. On the contrary, he's been routinely confused. "How will Obama's decision impact the war going forward?" It's a good question, but McCain's hardly the best person to answer it.

McCain lost a presidential election; he's not in the GOP leadership; he's not especially influential with anyone; he's not playing an active role in shaping any legislation; and he doesn't appear to have any expertise in any area of public policy. The Sunday shows seem to book him out of habit. It's farcical.

—Steve Benen 9:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (29)

DOES JINDAL KNOW WHAT HE'S DOING?.... We learned something important and unexpected on Thursday night, when CBS News reported that Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R), for all his rhetoric about an insufficiently aggressive response to the BP oil spill, has chosen not to exercise his authority to dispatch thousands of National Guard troops to the coast. The Obama administration authorized Jindal to use 6,000 troops to respond to the disaster, but Jindal only dispatched 1,053 -- less than a fifth of the available total.

Asked to explain why he wouldn't want every available person on the scene working, Jindal claimed he's forbidden from deploying more because it's up to "the Coast Guard and BP" to "authorize individual tasks." That turned out to be untrue.

Yesterday, the governor came up with a new rationale.

Following a CBS News Investigates report that Gulf coast governors haven't been fully utilizing the 17,500 National Guard troops authorized by the federal government to help them with the oil spill, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's office offered a tart response.

In a statement sent to ProPublica, Jindal spokesman Kyle Plotkin said that Louisiana would "call up more National Guard troops as the Adjutant General tells us he needs them."

But this actually raises more questions than it answers. First, if Jindal is waiting for word from Louisiana's Adjutant General, why was the governor's initial response a different story altogether? Second, in Louisiana, the Adjutant General answers to Jindal, not the other way around. If the governor wants every available resource on the coast, helping with the response, why is Jindal waiting for a request that seems obvious, when it's within his authority to simply give the order?

The only rationale explanation I can think of here, is that the governor is afraid 6,000 National Guard troops working along the coast might discourage tourism, so he's willing to settle for a weaker, slower response to the spill. I'm not saying that is the reason, but I'm trying to imagine why the governor would deliberately choose not to send every available person, and this is the only thing I can think of. That Jindal is changing his story, and that his second attempt is hardly better than his first, is a bad sign.

If reporters covering the spill pursue this aggressively, it could be a major headache for Jindal.

On a related point, the New York Times reports today that the Louisiana governor, practically from the beginning of this disaster, has "often disregarded" his administration's "own plans and experts in favor of large-scale proposals that many say would probably have had limited effectiveness and could have even hampered the response."

It's starting to cast an entirely new light on why Jindal has been so aggressive in blaming others for an inadequate response -- perhaps he's trying to deflect attention from his own mismanagement.

Update: To clarify, the CBS piece refers to 17,500 National Guard troops, while the angle referring to Jindal points to the 6,000 figure. The larger total is the number the Obama administration has made available to the region, and the 6,000 is specific to Louisiana.

—Steve Benen 8:45 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)

BEWARE OF TERRORIST BABIES.... The right's campaign against birthright citizenship has been intensifying of late, but leave it to Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) to take the campaign to entirely new depths.

By now, the argument is likely pretty familiar -- the 14th Amendment says, in effect, that if you're born in the United States, you're a natural-born American. There's very little wiggle room in the language, and Supreme Court precedents are clear. Conservatives don't care for this, in large part because of immigration -- if a couple is in the U.S. illegally and have a baby, that couple's child is an American citizen. Many on the right have even called for a constitutional amendment to address this.

But for Gohmert, the issue isn't just related to immigration; it's also a national security issue.

Walid Zafar reports that Gohmert appeared on the House floor on Thursday, and presented the following case: "I talked to a retired FBI agent who said that one of the things they were looking at were terrorist cells overseas who had figured out how to game our system. And it appeared they would have young women, who became pregnant, would get them into the United States to have a baby. They wouldn't even have to pay anything for the baby. And then they would turn back where they could be raised and coddled as future terrorists. And then one day, 20, 30 years down the road, they can be sent in to help destroy our way of life. 'Cause they figured out how stupid we are being in this country to allow our enemies to game our system, hurt our economy, get setup in a position to destroy our way of life."

Let's pause to appreciate the irony of Louie Gohmert lecturing us about "how stupid we are being."

Is there any credible evidence that terrorists are using birthright-citizenship as part of attack plots scheduled for the year 2040? Not even a little. Gohmert appears to be making this up, in the hopes that he can use a ridiculous scenario to scare people into doing what he wants to do anyway.

Look, there's a genuine terrorist threat in this country, and one might even be able to make a plausible case that there's a credible link between border security and counter-terrorism. But the last serious terrorist plot involved some schmuck with exploding underwear. We should be afraid of a plot involving infants? Because Louie Gohmert says so?

Please.

—Steve Benen 8:10 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (40)

FRIDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* The news out of the Gulf always seems to be bad: "With a storm threatening to disrupt oil-siphoning efforts at BP Plc's blown-out Gulf of Mexico well, the U.S. Coast Guard on Friday said collection efforts would be suspended five days before the forecast onset of gale-force winds."

* The relief wells still seem to be on track for mid-August, but mid-August isn't exactly soon under the circumstances.

* Only 15 months after the White House first tried to fill the post, the Senate confirmed John Pistole as head of the Transportation Security Administration.

* Good summary of the final Wall Street reform package.

* Good summary of the DISCLOSE Act passed yesterday by the House.

* Someone seems to have trouble following the law: "An investigator has determined former Gov. Sarah Palin's legal defense fund broke state ethics law and said Palin has agreed to settle the matter by having the trust return more than $386,000 to donors."

* Jeffrey Goldberg took a cheap shot at Dave Weigel today; Adam Serwer responds.

* It's a shame the cuts to Army deployment times will take so long to implement.

* What's worse: the notion that Glenn Beck is touting Ezra Taft Benson without knowing who he is, or Glenn Beck touting Ezra Taft Benson and Beck does know who he is?

* What's happening to public colleges?

* Quote of the Day, from "Fox & Friends" co-host Brian Kilmeade: "It took the president a matter of hours to pick a commander in Afghanistan, so why is it taking months to plug the leaking oil?"

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

—Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (19)

DAVE WEIGEL GOT SCREWED.... I don't know Dave Weigel especially well. We've never met in person or talked on the phone, but we occasionally trade emails and tweets. And so when I express my deep, visceral disgust for what's happened to him this week, I approach this with a degree of detachment.

I've come to admire and respect Dave as one of the best political journalists in the business, but my anger is not personal. It's the result of a media professional who got screwed for no good reason.

When he arrived at a party on the Huffington Post's D.C. office roof-deck on Thursday evening, Washington Post reporter/blogger David Weigel felt secure in his job. Earlier in the day, the media-focused site FishbowlDC had published a series of off-the-record emails written by Weigel in which he had disparaged members of the conservative movement that he covers.

But after checking with the powers that be at the Washington Post, it was relayed to him that they found the material not consequential enough to be a firing offense. Weigel, a well-regarded chronicler of all things Tea Party, had been an immediate success at the paper, and his offer of resignation was seen as highly gratuitous.

By Friday morning, however, things had changed. Weigel made a call to the Huffington Post at roughly 10:15 a.m. to privately relay that he was, in fact, leaving the Post. A new set of off-record Weigel emails had been disclosed to The Daily Caller disclosing even more snide quips about major conservative players (as well as comments expressing hope that health care reform would pass Congress).

The conservative-leaning website was ostensibly making the argument that Weigel was no longer objective enough to cover his beat. The Post editors agreed. The resignation he offered the night before was now viewed as the best path forward. And by noon the final deal had been struck to end Weigel's three-month run at the paper.

Dave's off-the-record emails, which were written before he joined the Post, came on a listserv called Journolist, created several years ago by Ezra Klein (if it matters, I joined Journolist more than three years ago). Dave, like most members, came to think of the list as a safe place to throw around ideas, vent, ask questions, highlight news, and engage in spirited debate. On a few occasions, Dave, like plenty of others sharing thoughts on a private email list, shared some uncharitable words and opinions about others. What's wrong with that? Nothing; he was among friends.

Or so we thought. Someone -- it remains unclear who -- decided to try to destroy Dave professionally by leaking emails from the list. Tragically, it worked.

As much as the Post deserved enormous credit for having the good sense to hire Dave in the first place, the paper deserves equally strong blame for accepting his resignation today. For three months, he did exactly what he was hired to do -- cover the conservative movement -- and he did it better than anyone in American journalism. Was Dave let go because the emails brought his objectivity into question? If so, that strikes me as inherently ridiculous -- his left-leaning libertarianism wasn't a secret, and it helped shape the quality of his reporting.

Worse, I'm at a loss to explain the Post's approach to ideology. Marc Thiessen and Bill Kristol can publish dubious, morally-bankrupt nonsense, and remain contributors in good standing. Dave Weigel trashed Drudge and "Paultards" in a private email and has to go?

The whole fiasco just leaves me sad. Dave's out of a job; Journolist, which I've come to cherish and rely on, has been shut down; the Post loses one of its most important voices; and the bastard who leaked Dave's emails in the first place isn't facing any consequences at all.

It's not a good day.

For more on this, Greg Sargent, one of Dave's Post colleagues, has a very thoughtful, worthwhile piece, and Marc Ambinder makes a compelling case that the Post made the wrong call today.

—Steve Benen 5:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (47)

KYL STARTS WALKING BACK BOGUS CLAIM.... There was an odd dust-up earlier this week, with Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) alleging that President Obama had told him, privately and directly, that the White House would ignore border security unless it was part of a comprehensive immigration reform package.

In a video that made the rounds, Kyl said a town-hall meeting, "Here's what the president said. 'The problem is,' he said, 'If we secure the border, then you all won't have any reason to support comprehensive immigration reform.' In other words, they're holding it hostage."

The White House responded fairly quickly, coming awfully close to calling Kyl a liar, but the far-right senator stood by his remarks.

Every aspect of the senator's story seemed literally unbelievable, but conservatives ran with it, probably because Kyl told them a tale they wanted to believe.

Today, the far-right Arizonan decided to shamelessly walk back clarify the claims that never really made sense anyway.

Kyl tells us that the comments were "taken a bit out of context," and that the "they" he was referring to was the Left, "the president's base," and not the administration. "I did not try to start a fight...."

As Matt Finkelstein noted, "That's a far cry from Kyl's original claim, which pretty clearly implicates Obama." Quite right.

So, here's the question for Fox News and other conservative media outlets that heavily pushed Kyl's original story: will you be equally diligent in letting the public know about his revised version of the events?

—Steve Benen 4:25 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (13)

PRESIDENTIAL DOUBLE-STANDARDS, CONT'D.... I've been maintaining a list of some of the actions President Obama has taken that have been deemed "controversial," despite being quite common and routine amongst his predecessors. Al Kamen flags another one for the list today.

As is now well known, Obama hosted a meeting at the White House with BP executives last week, and persuaded the oil giant to create a $20 billion fund to bring relief to families and businesses victimized by the company's devastating oil spill. Instead of applauding the breakthrough, the right has casually thrown around words and phrases like "shakedown," "extortion," "illegal," "power grab," and "Chicago-style political shakedown." This week, some on the right have gone so far as to equate the White House's success with Hitler and the Nazis.

But Obama's accomplishment is hardly without modern historical precedent.

Back in 1961, when President John F. Kennedy, fearing an inflation uptick, threatened to use steel stockpiles to lower prices if the steel industry didn't overturn a recent price increase, it was called traditional "jawboning."

Reaction, as is pretty much always the case, fell along party lines, with the party not in the Oval Office opposing the action. Economists criticized it as bad policy, Republicans criticized it as wrong-headed and unwarranted government intrusion. Democrats naturally hailed the move as an example of strong leadership and a fine use of the bully pulpit.

Lyndon Johnson, a veteran of Senate arm-twisting and cajoling, jawboned to forestall airline and railroad strikes and such.

Richard Nixon decried the Democrats' jawboning but then, with inflation getting out of control, said, "We will have jawboning." And we did, until Nixon tweaked the free market system ever-so-slightly by imposing a wage and price freeze.

Jawboning had become so ingrained as a presidential activity that, in December 1999, candidate George W. Bush criticized President Bill Clinton because he didn't "jawbone OPEC members to lower prices."

It's only "controversial" when it's Obama looking out for Americans' interests.

For those keeping score at home, here's the updated, running list:

* When other presidents pressure private industries in support of struggling Americans, it's routine. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

* When other presidents honor Memorial Day, but do not visit Arlington National Cemetery, it's fine. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

* When other presidents use teleprompters, it's hardly noticed. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

* When other presidents bow to foreign heads of state when meeting leaders where bowing is customary, it's routine. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

* When other presidents speak to school children in national addresses, it's of no consequence. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

* When other presidents rely on "czars" to tackle various policy areas, it's routine. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

* When other presidents are seen in the Oval Office without a jacket or tie, it's unimportant. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

* When other presidents criticize specific media outlets for unwelcome coverage, it's commonplace. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

* When other presidents encourage Congress to use the budget reconciliation process to pass legislation, it's ordinary. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

* When other presidents rescue struggling American industries and major companies, it's seen as necessary. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

* When other presidents intervene in specific elections, and even offer jobs to help coax candidates out of various races, it's customary. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

* When other presidents lead administrations that made terrorist suspects aware of their Miranda rights, it's just the rule of law. When Obama does the same thing, it's "controversial."

As always, these examples seem to come up often enough that I intend to keep a running tally going. Let me know if I miss any big ones.

—Steve Benen 3:55 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (21)

SOMEONE SHOULD PROBABLY MESS WITH TEXAS.... Over the years, thanks to Kevin Drum's keen eye, Political Animal has brought readers several reports on the truly hysterical -- in more ways than one -- platform created by the Texas Republican Party. It's one of the more astounding documents one will find in 21st century American politics.

I feel a certain responsibility to keep our coverage going, and noticed this week that the Texas GOP has released a 25-page proposal (pdf) intended to guide state Republicans for the next two years. It's not pretty.

The Texas Republican Party's new 25-page platform is chock-full of absurd policy prescriptions, many of which are based on the most absurd of conspiracy theories. While not particularly surprising for Texas, the platform does remind us just how outside the mainstream Republicans in Texas truly are. Political Correction sifted through the haphazardly written document and highlighted several sections that best symbolize the sort of conservatives who have political control in Texas.

It's hard to know where to start. I suppose, right off the bat, it's worth noting that Texas Republicans have a few problems with gay people -- the platform wants to make gay sex illegal, wants Congress to prevent federal courts from even hearing litigation on the issue, and wants it to be a felony for any judge to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple. Why? Because, as the platform argued, the "practice of homosexuality tears at the fabric of society" and "leads to the spread of dangerous, communicable diseases."

But, really, that's really just the tip of a deranged iceberg. The Texas Republican Party wants the 16th Amendment to be repealed, along with the federal minimum-wage. It wants Social Security to be eliminated, along with early-childhood-development programs. It's worked up about the Fairness Doctrine, the formation of a "North American Union," and "the implementation of one world currency" -- none of which is seriously being pursued by anyone. American foreign policy towards Israel should, the platform argues, be based on the Republican Party's interpretation of the Bible.

The good news? The Texas Republican Party used to demand a return to the gold standard, and now it doesn't.

Clearly, the Texas Republican Party is moving to the left. What a bunch of sellouts.

—Steve Benen 3:15 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (39)

JINDAL INEXPLICABLY RESISTS GUARD DEPLOYMENT TO GULF COAST.... Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's (R) criticism of the federal government has been loud and frequent as the BP oil spill crisis intensified, but CBS News ran a very damaging piece last night, noting that Jindal has the authority to dispatch thousands of National Guard troops to the coast to help with the response, but has chosen not to. (via Jed Lewison)

The video is well worth watching -- it's only two-and-a-half minutes long -- in part because Jindal's decisions have been so inexplicable. The governor asked President Obama two months ago to authorize the use of 6,000 National Guard troops for the disaster, and the president immediately agreed. Jindal, however, only deployed 1,053 -- less than a fifth.

When CBS asked why, Jindal said he's forbidden from deploying more because it's up to "the Coast Guard and BP" to "authorize individual tasks."

In reality, Jindal is either deeply confused about something he should understand, or he was lying. Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the national incident commander, said unequivocally that there is "nothing standing in the governor's way from utilizing more National Guard troops."

Indeed, before the CBS report aired, the governor's office conceded that Jindal has not asked for more Guard troops to be deployed to the coast to help with the response to the spill. The report did not offer an explanation.

This is potentially a huge revelation. President Obama, in his Oval Office address, specifically and publicly urged the regional governors "to activate these troops as soon as possible. " Jindal seems to have specifically chosen not to, can't justify the decision, and is telling falsehoods when asked about his decision, shifting the burden of responsibility dramatically.

Put it this way: imagine if Obama had the authority to send troops to help with the response to the spill, but for no apparent reason, declined to issue the order for more than two months. Do you suppose there'd be some political blowback?

As Jed added, Jindal has "argued that the federal government has denied him the resources he needs to fight the spill, but even though he's had thousands of National Guardsmen at his disposal, he's only used a tiny fraction of them, allowing more than 80% of the resources at his disposal to go unused."

Jindal has some explaining to do.

—Steve Benen 1:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (42)

WIDESPREAD GOP COMFORT WITH SOWELL'S HITLER COMPARISON.... There has been a little too much right-wing criticism of late about President Obama securing $20 billion in escrow for Gulf Coast victims of BP's oil spill. I realize that everything the president does must be opposed, regardless of merit, and conservatives tend to offer reflexive support for oil giants, regardless of culpability, but it's quickly becoming farcical.

This week, for example, prominent right-wing columnist Thomas Sowell said the president's efforts to get BP to create a relief fund for families and businesses in the region are comparable to the Reichstag making Hitler a dictator. The unambiguous headline read, "Is U.S. Now On Slippery Slope To Tyranny?"

It was a new low for the right, at least in this debate. Dave Weigel noted he considered Sowell's argument "un-endorseable."

I'd hoped the same thing, but this week, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R), a right-wing Texan, appeared on the House floor to endorse the Sowell piece. Today, former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin (R) used Twitter to do endorse it, too.

The right-wing Fox News personality had two tweets to get her message across:

GOP: Don't let the lamestream media suck you into "they're defending BP over Gulf spill victims" bs...

...This is about the rule of law vs. an unconstitutional power grab. Read Thomas Sowell's article: http://u.nu/6e4ec

Even for Palin, this is pretty crazy. Sowell compared Obama to Hitler -- and now Palin is encouraging her minions to read the piece, as if the unhinged argument has value.

Granted, Palin didn't personally compare Obama to Hitler; she "merely" endorsed an article that did. If she'd said, "Can you believe what this whackjob said about the president?" I wouldn't accuse her of endorsing a disgusting argument. But that's clearly not what happened here. Palin touted a truly outrageous piece of garbage because she agrees with the substance of the argument.

And the right slips a little further into hopeless insanity.

Update: Just as an aside, the "they're defending BP over Gulf spill victims" argument isn't b.s.; it's reality.

—Steve Benen 12:40 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (25)

FRIDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* How worried is Texas Gov. Rick Perry's (R) team about former Houston Mayor Bill White (D)? Nervous enough that Perry's former chief of staff paid quite a bit of money to try to get the Green Party of Texas on the ballot.

* In related news, former President Bill Clinton is giving White a hand, and endorsed the Democratic gubernatorial nominee yesterday. Clinton framed the campaign as a choice "between a proven, mainstream public servant, Bill White, and one of the most strident, divisive political figures in the nation."

* It's Rasmussen, so take the results with a grain of salt, but Democrats were thrilled yesterday when Rasmussen showed Sen. Richard Burr (R) with only a one-point lead -- 44% to 43% -- over Elaine Marshall (D) in North Carolina's Senate race.

* When voters consider various candidates this year, most will view an endorsement from former half-term Gov. Sarah Palin (R) as a clear negative. A plurality of Americans are "very uncomfortable" with candidates "endorsed by Sarah Palin."

* In the wake of revelations about his work in a sleazy infomercial, former Rep. J.D. Hayworth (R-Ariz.) apologized yesterday, calling it "a mistake." Hayworth is being hammered by John McCain's campaign, as the two face off in a Republican primary.

* In related news, a Magellan Strategies poll shows McCain leading Hayworth in the GOP primary, 52% to 29%.

* In Vermont, Rasmussen shows Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie (R) leading all five Democratic gubernatorial candidates, in margins ranging from 7 to 26 points.

* And at this point, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) probably won't endorse anyone in his state's open U.S. Senate race.

—Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (10)

NATIONAL SUPPORT FOR OIL DRILLING DOWN SHARPLY.... One of the biggest hurdles to passing an energy/climate bill this year is Republican demands for expanded coastal oil drilling. As it turns out, the policy the GOP insists upon is the same policy the public is quickly turning against.

A new Pew Research Center poll finds that the BP oil spill disaster has grown more serious, Americans' support for drilling has fallen dramatically.

Opposition to allowing more offshore oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters has grown dramatically in recent months as oil continues to flow into the Gulf of Mexico. For the first time since the question was first asked nearly two years ago, a majority (52%) opposes the government allowing more offshore oil and gas drilling in U.S. waters. That is up from 31% in February and 38% in May, shortly after the April 20 rig explosion that triggered the leak. In April 2009, 68% favored allowing more drilling in U.S. waters; 27% were opposed.

Support for offshore drilling has dropped across party lines, most sharply among Democrats and independents.

A majority of self-described Democrats and independents now oppose expanded offshore drilling, a sharp reversal of attitudes from earlier this year. By a nearly 2-to-1 margin, rank-and-file Republicans still want more drilling, though it's worth noting that even opposition among Republicans has grown from 19% in May to 34% now.

The results of the latest NBC/WSJ poll weren't quite as striking, but support for offshore drilling is down significantly since May in this survey, too.

This shift in public attitudes could influence political developments. If the principal obstacle in the Senate on energy policy is expanded drilling, the polls may stiffen bill proponents' spines, at least a little, knowing that public opinion is on their side.

For that matter, when it comes to the elections, Republicans probably shouldn't count on "drill, baby, drill" being an electoral winner for them.

—Steve Benen 11:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (27)

WHEN 'FULL REPEAL' DOESN'T MEAN 'FULL REPEAL'.... In Florida, Senate candidate Marco Rubio became a darling of the right-wing crowd by taking uncompromising, far-right positions on most issues, most notably health care. Rubio has been unapologetic in calling for a full repeal of all of the Affordable Care Act, regardless of the consequences.

But wouldn't you know it, as support for health care reform grows, and Americans welcome some of its popular provisions, Rubio isn't so sure about repealing the whole thing after all. Here's what the far-right Floridian told National Review and a few other outlets at a D.C. coffee shop yesterday:

He just mentioned that there are two parts within the Obamacare legislation that he doesn't want repealed. The first is the ban on insurance companies denying coverage based on preexisting conditions and the second is that he thinks that children up to age 26 should be allowed to "buy into" their parents' coverage.

So, Rubio wants to get rid of that health care law he just hates -- except the stuff that everyone seems to like.

His campaign later issued a clarification saying Rubio still wants to repeal "all" of the Affordable Care Act, though he approves of "some" of the ideas "lumped in with the monstrousity [sic] of the final bill."

There are a couple of problems here. The first is that the Rubio line isn't exactly coherent. If he plays a role in scrapping the entire law, that will get rid of the very provisions he now claims to support. Maybe he'd try to pass the "good" provisions in a new bill, but that would take a lot of time, and may ultimately fail. Ultimately, Rubio can't have a full and partial repeal at the same time.

The second is more substantive, and it's a lesson that Republicans simply refuse to even think about, no matter how many times it's explained to them. If you're prepared to ban discrimination on those with pre-existing conditions, then the policy must include an individual mandate. It's not that complicated -- if those with pre-existing conditions are to be protected, the mandate is necessary to keep costs from spiraling and to prevent the "free rider" problem.

Of course, if there's an individual mandate, then it's also necessary to include subsidies to those who otherwise couldn't afford coverage. And once you put this string together -- protections for those with pre-existing conditions ... which requires a mandate ... which requires subsidies -- what you're left with is the Affordable Care Act that right-wing politicians like Marco Rubio are so anxious to repeal in its entirety.

Shouldn't Rubio have done his homework before launching a Senate campaign?

Regardless, I don't imagine this will be the last time we'll see a far-right GOP candidate hedge on a "full" repeal. It's something to keep an eye on as November draws closer.

—Steve Benen 10:40 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (15)

RAND PAUL LEARNS HOW NOT TO ANSWER A QUESTION.... Senate hopeful Rand Paul has generally been loath to talk to reporters lately -- they keep asking pesky questions about his beliefs and background -- but the estimable Dave Weigel was able to chat with the Kentucky Republican yesterday.

In particular, Dave asked whether Paul supports the $20 billion fund President Obama secured from BP for victims of the oil spill disaster. Paul replied:

"Well, I don't think there are many people who don't believe in any regulations, myself included, and even my dad -- I don't think you'll hear him say he doesn't believe in any regulation. But I'm not sure I have the answer to that, sincerely. I think everyone in the country wants BP to pay for the clean-up, myself concluded. I've never had any argument with that -- it's amazing how you say things and they get blown into things you didn't say! I'm not even sure I can talk to some people anymore because they take things out of context."

Those are a lot of words loosely related to the fund, but it didn't answer the question. So, Dave tried again.

"There should be some regulations, but I want to do it in a rational, reasonable way, and ask: Did they obey the regulations? Do we not have enough regulation, and do we need two blow-out preventers from now on? These are the things scientists and inventors should tell us. Should we be drilling at that level? There are a lot of issues, but we shouldn't react in an emotional way and say no more drilling. I see some of that emotionalism happening because the president feels trapped -- his advisers say you've got to be tough, you've got to have tough language. I'm not sure that's a rational way to handle this."

Still unclear, Dave tried a third time, asking, "To finish up, though: Do you oppose the fund?"

"I was listening to some people on the Hill today, and they were looking for the justification for setting it up. I don't know what the legal justification is -- I'm not an expert in whether Congress has to give you authority or the president has authority to do it. Those issues take research and time, and I'm not going to make an off-the-cuff response.

I haven't spoken to Paul directly, but from what I can tell, he's an extremist, but he's savvy enough to know that extremists have trouble getting elected to statewide office. Paul holds radical beliefs, but he's not so detached from reality that he thinks his brand of radicalism is popular.

What's evident, then, is that Rand Paul has learned how not to answer questions. Given his bizarre and offensive worldview, it's a quality he'll have to cling to if he expects to prevail in November.

—Steve Benen 10:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (25)

MARATHON SESSION LEADS TO BREAKTHROUGH ON WALL STREET REFORM.... It wasn't easy, it wasn't quick, and it wasn't pretty, but seemingly-endless negotiations have produced a sweeping Wall Street reform package ready to be approved by both chambers.

Nearly two years after the American financial system teetered on the verge of collapse, Congressional negotiators reached agreement early Friday morning to reconcile competing versions of the biggest overhaul of financial regulations since the Great Depression.

A 20-hour marathon by members of a House-Senate conference committee to complete work on toughened financial regulations culminated at 5:39 a.m. Friday in agreements on the two most contentious parts of the financial regulatory overhaul and a host of other provisions. Along party lines, the House conferees voted 20 to 11 to approve the bill; the Senate conferees voted 7 to 5 to approve.

Members of the conference committee approved proposals to restrict trading by banks for their own benefit and requiring banks and their parent companies to segregate much of their derivatives activities into a separately capitalized subsidiary.

The timing is especially helpful for President Obama, who leaves today for Canada for a G20 meeting, and who wanted to be able to tell global leaders that the United States is poised to complete its work on financial regulatory reform. Now, he'll be able to do just that, and Obama spoke briefly to the press this morning to herald the legislative breakthrough, most notably the new consumer protection agency, and calling the larger package the "toughest" industry regulations in generations.

The NYT's report is worth reading in full, to get a sense of the changes that were made through the negotiations, most notably to the Volcker Rule. Note that while intense industry lobbying influenced the process, and produced "some specific exceptions to new regulations," by and large "the bill's financial regulations not only remained strong but in some cases gained strength."

The House and Senate are expected to bring the conference committee bill to the floor next week. Senate Republicans will very likely launch a filibuster -- they have no shame -- but leaders are confident the legislation will pass.

And in the larger context, this will add to an impressive list of historic accomplishments spanning President Obama's first 18 months in office, a list that will now include Wall Street reform, health care reform, student loan reform, economic recovery, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, expanded civil rights protections, expanded stem-cell research, new regulation of the credit card industry, new regulation of the tobacco industry, a national service bill, and the most sweeping land-protection act in 15 years, among other things.

Taegan Goddard noted this morning, "Not since FDR has a president done so much to transform the country." That's not a hyperbolic observation in the slightest.

—Steve Benen 9:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (22)

A PARTY OF BUNNINGS.... With Senate Republicans having killed an important jobs bill yesterday afternoon, it seems like a good time to take a quick stroll down memory lane -- to about four months ago.

The Senate was getting ready to approve a jobs bill that extended unemployment benefits to jobless Americans. It would have increased the deficit a little, but under the circumstances, that was considered routine and uncontroversial.

Sen. Jim Bunning, the Kentucky Republican who has occasionally seemed mentally unstable, took a bold, lonely, ridiculous stand -- there could be no jobs bill if it increased the deficit. Bunning launched what was, in effect, a one-man filibuster, which came to be known as the "Bunning Blockade."

The right-wing Kentuckian soon became the subject of widespread ridicule, and a symbol of all that is wrong with the modern-day Senate. It didn't help when Bunning flipped off a journalist who dared to ask the senator to explain his position, nor when Bunning told one of his colleagues, imploring him to be reasonable, "Tough sh*t."

After about a week, Bunning ended his little tantrum, the bill advanced, benefits to the jobless were extended, and thousands of furloughed workers Bunning had sent home without pay were able to get back to work.

But let's pause to appreciate what's become evident since -- Bunning's absurd behavior has spread like a cancer, to the point that every single member of the Senate Republican conference, and one confused conservative Democrat, is taking the exact same position he took in late February and early March.

We've gone from one erratic senator flipping off a reporter to an entire party caucus flipping off millions of Americans. We've gone from a seemingly unstable lawmaker telling a colleague, "Tough sh*t" to the entire Republican conference telling the whole country, "Tough sh*t."

In the late winter, Jim Bunning was something of a laughing stock. In the early summer, we have an entire Party of Bunnings.

—Steve Benen 8:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

SENATE REPUBLICANS KILL JOBS BILL.... For casual news consumers hoping to know what happened with the Senate's tax-extenders/jobs bill yesterday afternoon, perusing the headlines won't necessarily help.

The NYT's headline read, "Congress Fails to Pass an Extension of Jobless Aid." That's true, but incomplete. The lead paragraph told readers, "Senate Democrats and Republicans traded bitter accusations about who was to blame for an eight-week impasse," which doesn't actually convey who was responsible.

The WaPo headline read, "Senate again rejects expanded spending package," which also only tells part of the story. Worse, the lead paragraph doesn't mention the party responsible for rejecting the bill at all.

The LAT gets it right: "Senate GOP blocks jobless aid extension."

Senate Republicans on Thursday once again blocked legislation to reinstate long-term unemployment benefits for people who have exhausted their aid, prolonging a stalemate that has left more than a million people without federal help.

With the Senate apparently paralyzed by partisan gridlock, the fate of the aid, as well as tax breaks for businesses and $16 billion in aid for cash-strapped states, remains unclear.... Republican lawmakers -- joined by Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska -- maintained a unified front to sustain a filibuster of the $110-billion bill. The vote was 57 to 41; the majority was three short of the 60 needed to cut off debate and bring the bill to a final vote. [...]

"If there were ever evidence that this is the party of no, this is it," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), who added that several governors would be arriving in Washington next week to make the case for the bill to help states, businesses and those who have been out of work more than six months. [...]

It was the third time in two weeks that Democrats failed to circumvent unified GOP opposition, despite making a series of changes to accommodate complaints about deficit spending.

Here's the roll call. Note that Lieberman rejoined the majority; Nelson joined a unanimous Republican caucus; and Sens. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and Murkowski (R-Alaska) did not vote, and could not have shifted the outcome.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who helped add $5 trillion to the national debt during the Bush/Cheney years, said Republicans had to kill the economic legislation because the extended unemployment benefits, at a cost of about $30 billion, were deficit financed -- despite the fact that extended unemployment benefits are routinely deficit financed.

There's no real doubt, or even debate, about the consequences of failure here -- millions of jobless Americans will lose already-meager benefits, which will mean less spending and a weaker economy. Hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost. Businesses that were counting on tax breaks won't get them.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs issued a statement late yesterday, noting, "By blocking an up or down vote on this legislation, Republicans in the Senate obstructed a common-sense package that would save jobs, extend tax cuts for businesses and provide relief for American families who have suffered through the worst economic downfall since the Great Depression, even after Democrats offered multiple compromises to gain Republican support for the bill."

As for the next step, the bill, for now, is dead. If voters in Maine -- a state that will be particularly hard hit by Republicans' decision -- start making some phone calls to their senators, the bill may be brought back.

—Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (29)

THURSDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* The Senate is getting ready to vote, any minute now, on the tax-extenders/jobs bill. I'll have a report in the morning.

* The BP oil spill disaster shuts down more of the Gulf Coast.

* In a bit of a surprise, the House approved the DISCLOSE Act late this afternoon, 219 to 206. It passed with the support of two House Republicans.

* Slightly better, but not even close to good enough: "This morning, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that initial jobless claims fell by the largest amount in two months.... The new claims number dropped slightly more than economists predicted."

* I guess bipartisanship exists in some areas: "The Senate on Thursday approved tough new sanctions on Iran aimed at discouraging that country's development of nuclear weapons and support of terrorist groups." The vote was 99 to 0.

* President Obama welcomed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to the White House -- and to Ray's Hell Burger.

* High court ruling of note: "The Supreme Court Thursday restricted one of federal prosecutors' favorite tools for pursuing corrupt politicians and self-dealing corporate chiefs, and cast doubt on the conviction of former Enron chief Jeffrey Skilling."

* I didn't realize Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was in trouble, but he was replaced yesterday by Julia Gillard. It will be the first time the country's head of state is a woman. [Update: As it turns out, Australia's "head of state" is a bit more complicated than I'd realized. Apologies.]

* Former Vice President Al Gore was accused of sexual assault by an Oregon masseuse in 2006, but the matter was dropped by law enforcement officials for lack of evidence. Justin Elliott takes a closer look at the case and available information.

* BP is deeply unpopular.

* Fox News' Greta Van Susteren seems a tad confused about a) her responsibilities as a media professional; and b) the degree to which John McCain knows what on earth he's talking about.

* Taking a look at the efficacy of the nation's vocational programs.

* It's not a real campaign ad, but it's still the funniest campaign ad of the year.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

—Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

DEMS HOPE FOR ENERGY BILL MOMENTUM AFTER 'INSPIRATIONAL' CAUCUS.... With time running out, and expectations low, Senate leaders working on a energy/climate bill still hope to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and took the case to the Senate Democratic caucus room today with the hopes of firing up members. Participants left feeling encouraged.

Democrats put on a show of unity this afternoon, claiming a special caucus on energy legislation was an emotional and inspirational success of the first proportion.

Though they seem to lack the votes for a carbon cap, party leaders emphasized the "inspirational" nature of their discussion, attempting to throw some momentum behind legislation that has so far lacked it.

"A number of senators said this was the best caucus they've ever attended," Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) said at a press conference after the meeting. "It was really very, very powerful. It was inspirational, quite frankly."

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), who has made climate legislation his hallmark issue, said the meeting was one of the most successful he'd ever attended.

Indeed, Kerry's office sent out a press release this afternoon, quoting the senator saying, "I just left one of the most motivating, energized, and even inspirational caucuses that I've been a part of since I've been here in the Senate for 26 years."

Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), partnering with Kerry on the energy bill, added, "The Senate Democratic caucus that I just attended was absolutely thrilling. And by that I mean it was an uprising of the rank and file members of the caucus speaking with passion and purpose in favor of enacting strong comprehensive energy independence legislation this year."

This sounds great, and I'm glad members are feeling energized (no pun intended), but are we any closer now to regulating carbon emissions and combating global warming than we were yesterday? Probably not. The caucus seems largely united behind the idea of doing something -- which is, to be sure, good to hear -- but the challenge of putting together a worthwhile bill, and overcoming scandalous Republican obstructionism, is still daunting to the point of dejection.

A spokesperson for Harry Reid said that the final energy bill "will need broad bipartisan support" in order to come to the floor. Since exactly zero major pieces of legislation have enjoyed "broad bipartisan support" in this Congress, I'll continue to keep my expectations in check.

—Steve Benen 4:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (7)

STABENOW: REPUBLICANS 'WANT THIS ECONOMY TO FAIL'.... With Senate Republicans poised to kill the tax-extenders/jobs bill today -- it has 58 supporters, who will be denied a chance to vote, up or down, on the legislation -- Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) participated in a conference call this afternoon, and was understandably outraged by the GOP tactics.

"It is very clear that the Republicans in the Senate want this economy to fail. They see that things are beginning to turn around.... In cynical political terms, it doesn't serve them in terms of their election interests if things are beginning to turn around."

She added that she's "outraged about what has been happening," and described the likely defeat today as "extremely serious."

Of particular interest, Stabenow said Senate Republicans are "counting on the fact that no one knows what's going on here."

That's clearly true -- if the public realized the consequences of a successful GOP filibuster of this bill, I suspect there'd be quite a backlash.

But in some ways, that's the pernicious beauty of the cynicism, at least as far as Republicans are concerned -- they deny the Senate a chance to vote, the bill dies, the economy gets worse, and Democrats get blamed because they're in the majority. Americans suffer, but for the GOP, that's a small price to pay for a bump in the polls. Public confusion, coupled with inadequate media coverage, will mean rewards for those who were wrong, and punishment for those who were right.

I'm delighted this is starting to generate some real attention today -- alas, it's probably too late, unless voters in Maine and Massachusetts start calling Sens. Snowe, Collins, and Brown in huge numbers -- but I still don't think folks fully appreciate the consequences of failure here. As of tomorrow, 1.2 million jobless Americans will lose unemployment benefits. That number will grow by hundreds of thousands next week, and the week after, and the week after that. That's not only devastating for those immediately affected families, but it undermines the economy -- unemployment benefits tend to get spent, which makes them stimulative.

As a result of this bill dying, at least 200,000 jobs will be lost on just the measures in this bill related to Medicaid. The overall number is likely closer to 900,000 job losses. In a fragile economy, with a weak job market, it's unconscionable that 41 Senate Republicans and Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) have the capacity to save those jobs, and chose not to act -- indeed, they choose not to even let the Senate vote.

Republicans continue to insist that the country simply can't afford this legislation, but it's already been scaled back so severely, the entire thing is paid for except for the unemployment benefits, which not only constitute emergency spending, but generally have been considered emergency spending by Congresses run by both parties.

This is nothing short of crazy. I've been watching this for weeks, and part of me still can't believe it's actually happening.

WonkRoom, Suzy Khimm, Ezra Klein, Joan McCarter, and Annie Lowrey have pieces on this that are worth checking out.

—Steve Benen 3:35 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (47)

'ON THEIR SIDE'.... In recent months, we've seen Democrats push some campaign themes to describe Republicans, usually relying on "Party of No." Thanks in part to Rep. Joe Barton's (R-Texas) apology to BP, a new theme seems to be emerging.

The Democratic National Committee released this new clip today -- it's not a television ad, just a web video -- connecting Barton to a larger trend of GOP leaders siding with powerful interests over the needs of the public. The name of the ad is, "On Their Side."

If you can't watch clips from your work computer, the video starts with on-screen text that reads, "On The Side of Big Oil," followed by Barton's apology to BP's Tony Hayward. We then see, "On The Side of Insurance Companies," followed by a clip of Mitt Romney arguing that health insurance companies have nothing to do with health care being too expensive. The third hit says, "On The Side of Wall Street," followed by Michael Steele urging Americans to trust Wall Street to help the economy.

The wrap-up: "Republicans: This Is How They Would Govern."

It's not subtle, but it's effective. If the midterm elections are going to be nationalized, it's only reasonable to highlight who'll benefit from a GOP majority.

—Steve Benen 2:55 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (8)

'JOE BARTON IS NOT THE ISSUE'.... In one of the day's more entertaining media interviews, House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" earlier, and host Joe Scarborough asked a reasonable question related to last week's infamous apology to BP: "Why is Joe Barton being allowed to keep his job, when Joe Barton apologized to a corporation that is destroying my home town's economy, and is destroying the environment across the Gulf Coast?"

Cantor didn't seem especially interested in addressing the issue -- the first part of the interview dealt with Gen. Stan McChrystal being relieved of his command -- and the Minority Whip was reduced to repeatedly reminding the audience that Barton apologized. Cantor eventually tried to compare Barton's apology to Vice President Biden's occasional gaffes, which only led the co-hosts to point out that Barton's apology was written down in advance.

Scarborough, to his credit, did not let up: "This hurts the Republican Party. This hurts the Republican brand. Joe Barton is the most powerful Republican on the Hill when it comes to energy policy, and that shows his mindset."

At least twice, Cantor insisted that Barton "is not the issue." DNC spokesperson Hari Sevugan, oddly enough, agreed.

"We don't say this often, but Eric Cantor's right -- Joe Barton's not the issue," Sevugan said. "The issue is a broader Republican culture of not just apologizing to the oil industry, but defending them and their other corporate benefactors at every turn and at the expense of middle class families and small businesses. They proved that in their opposition to the President holding BP to account and in their opposition to the President's call for a new energy policy that ensures we are never again in a position where we are solely reliant on oil and oil companies.

"And just as Republicans showed their allegiance in taking the side of oil companies in the wake of the BP disaster, they proved it taking the side of the insurance companies in the health reform debate and big Wall St banks in the financial reform debate. So, Eric Cantor is right -- Joe Barton's not the illness, he's a symptom."

—Steve Benen 1:50 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (15)

THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT DRAWS THE LINE ON 'NURTURING FAMILIES'.... Ordinarily, the annual presidential proclamation on Father's Day goes by unnoticed. But this year, President Obama's proclamation included a sentence that a lot of conservatives didn't like at all: "Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by a father and mother, a single father, two fathers, a step father, a grandfather, or caring guardian."

Yes, Obama included "two fathers." He did the same thing in May in a Mother's Day proclamation, using nearly identical language: "Nurturing families come in many forms, and children may be raised by two parents, a single mother, two mothers, a step-mom, a grandmother, or a guardian."

It's hard to overstate what a fit the religious right is throwing over this.

A Christian group is denouncing Barack Obama's salute to families headed by "two fathers" in the president's June 18 Father's Day proclamation. [...]

American Family Association president Tim Wildmon says, "This is the first time in our nation's history that a president has used Father's Day as an excuse to promote the radical homosexual agenda and completely redefine the word 'family.'"

The Family Research Council is outraged, calling the proclamation a "detour to promote homosexuality," and adding, "Sadly, the real victims of [the president's] agenda are the children."

Focus on the Family sent a message to supporters arguing that Obama "seems bent on bowing to an agenda that ensures more children will be excluded from their best chance for stability and success -- a married mother and father."

That's quite a reaction from two innocuous words in a largely-unread, ceremonial presidential proclamation. It's almost as if the religious right's hatred for gay people leads the movement to wildly overreact to a sensible, mainstream observation about modern, nurturing families.

—Steve Benen 1:05 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)

FROM CHAIN-EMAILS TO BECK TO CONGRESS.... About a year ago, a right-wing chain-email started making the rounds, about an alleged nefarious scheme. As the story went, President Obama loaned $2 billion to a Brazilian oil company to drill for oil in Brazilian waters, to benefit China. Worse, the tale continued, George Soros was involved in some way, as an investor in the project.

The whole thing was debunked last year by, among others, FactCheck.org. In reality, it seems the Brazilian oil company, PetroBras, received a loan from the independent Export-Import Bank, approved by appointees of the Bush/Cheney administration. Soros is part of the project, but his investment came in 2008 -- months before the Export-Import Bank agreed to make the loan.

The Export-Import Bank agreed to the loan, by the way, in large part because PetroBras will use U.S.-made oilfield equipment and services on the project.

With this reality in mind, here was Glenn Beck's message to his misguided audience on Monday:

"Then Obama suspends the deepwater drilling at 1,500 meters. He says, 'He-ey, that's dangerous. 1,500 meters, that's crazy!' PetroBras is drilling at 2,777 meters. Obama knows it and loans $2 billion to? PetroBras. Last stop? PetroBras shareholders get rich. Oh my gosh, we're back at the beginning! Shareholder, PetroBras, getting rich. You getting screwed."

Beck added that the loan came "just days" after Soros strengthened his investment. None of this is true. The deranged media personality is just recycling nonsense from an old chain-email.

And yet, here's Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) the day after Beck's program:

"The thing that really is funny about this is we just sent $2 billion to Brazil so they could do offshore drilling.... We've got the energy here in the United States to solve these problems. We don't need to be sending Mr. Soros money in Brazil so he can make more money by doing offshore drilling with our taxpayers' money."

The problem here is not just that a House Republican is confused -- that's a daily occurrence -- but that GOP lawmakers believe they're getting actual, reliable information from Glenn Beck's program.

It's one thing to tolerate madness for entertainment's sake. It's even understandable for Republicans to cheer Beck on to keep the party base riled up. But actual members of Congress should know better than to rely on the self-described rodeo clown as a source of legitimate news, worthy of officials' interest.

—Steve Benen 12:40 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)

THURSDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D) second general-election ad in Nevada is targeting Sharron Angle's (R) opposition to Social Security and Medicare. The spot features commentary from a representative of the Alliance for Retired Americans, who described Angle's position this way: "This is crazy."

* On a related note, it's a Rasmussen poll, so take the results with a grain of salt, but the pollster finds Angle leading Reid in Nevada, 48% to 41%. Two weeks ago, Rasmussen showed Angle up by 11 points over the incumbent.

* In Florida's increasingly competitive Republican gubernatorial primary, state Attorney General Bill McCollum (R) is nervous enough to go after disgraced former health care executive Rick Scott in a hard-hitting new ad. Recent polls show Scott pulling into the lead.

* In Pennsylvania's gubernatorial race, a new survey from Public Policy Polling shows state Attorney General Tom Corbett (R) leading Allegheny County Chief Executive Dan Onorato (D), 45% to 35%.

* New Mexico's gubernatorial race looks very tight, with a new poll showing district attorney Susana Martinez (R) leading Lt. Gov. Diane Denish (D) by the narrowest of margins, 44% to 43%.

* In Iowa, far-right activists hoped GOP gubernatorial nominee Terry Branstad would pick Bob Vander Plaats as his running mate. He didn't -- Brandstad announced freshman state Sen. Kim Reynolds (R) is his choice.

* Carol Fowler, the South Carolina Democratic chairwoman, described Senate candidate Alvin Greene yesterday as "irrelevant to South Carolina voters and he is irrelevant to the fall campaign." Ouch.

* Dashing the hopes of some on the right, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) said he will not run for president in 2012.

—Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (12)

REPUBLICANS JUST DON'T LIKE THE UNEMPLOYED, CONT'D.... The evidence continues to pile up to suggest Republican lawmakers and candidates actively dislike -- on a personal level -- those who've lost their jobs in the recession.

Take Sharron Angle, the extremist Republican Senate candidate in Nevada, for example. Nevada recently passed Michigan as the state with the highest unemployment rate in the country, so it stands to reason that candidates in the state would be sympathetic to the plight of the jobless.

But Angle doesn't quite see it that way. This video, put together by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's (D-Nev.) campaign, highlights the Republican candidate's perspective on the unemployed, whom she describes as "spoiled." Angle added in a separate public appearance, "As your U.S. Senator, I'm not in the business of creating jobs."

This fits into a larger pattern for the party. One GOP congressman recently compared the unemployed to "hobos." In the House, GOP lawmakers tried to eliminate a successful jobs program. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) actually started pushing a measure to require the unemployed to take mandatory drug tests in exchange for benefits. Kentucky's Rand Paul wants the jobless to quit their bellyaching and "get back to work."

And this week, a unanimous Republican Senate caucus will apparently kill a tax-extenders bill that will, in turn, cut off unemployment benefits for hundreds of thousands of struggling Americans, and cut off state aid that will lead to hundreds of thousands of additional layoffs.

What did the unemployed ever do to offend the Republican Party this much?

—Steve Benen 11:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (40)

PUTTING PENTAGON SPENDING ON THE TABLE.... As we've seen repeatedly, the Pentagon budget has been deemed entirely off-limits for too many policymakers, despite the fact that the United States now spends about as much on defense as every other country on the planet combined. For a Congress so concerned about deficits that it's willing to let unemployment benefits expire for struggling families, it's hardly outrageous to think at least some budget savings can be found in the enormous Pentagon budget.

This week has offered a little encouragement on this front. Center-right Democrats, who've historically joined Republicans in holding defense spending sacrosanct, are starting to signal flexibility on the issue.

Now that opposition is softening amid rising concern about the nation's fiscal future and the fact that defense makes up more than half the country's discretionary spending.

"We are going to have to adopt the philosophy that nothing can be off the table," said Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho), one of the first members of the class of 2008 to be admitted into the Blue Dog Coalition. "And that is increasingly becoming the dominant view of the Blue Dogs."

Rep. Norm Dicks (D-Wash.), a centrist who is the House's top defense appropriator, believes his panel can reduce the Pentagon's budget top line somewhat without affecting military readiness, according to Dicks's chief of staff, George Behan.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) delivered a widely-noticed speech this week on the budget to the Third Way think tank, which also raised the specter of defense cuts, and which came and went without significant outrage from any of the usual suspects.

Not all of the news on this front has been heartening. Blue Dog Rep. Jason Altmire (D-Pa.) said he wants to leave exorbitant Pentagon spending alone, and instead look for "cuts to social programs."

But there are nevertheless signs of progress. Idaho's Minnick, arguably the most conservative Democrat in Congress, said more Blue Dogs were coming around to the notion that defense could not be considered a "sacred cow" by default.

Even Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the ranking member on the House Budget Committee, conceded this week, "The Pentagon's budget itself is not working right, so there are billions of dollars of waste you can get out of the Pentagon, lots of procurement waste. We're buying some weapons systems I would argue you don't need anymore."

I'll believe it when I see it, but there are at least some indications that Pentagon spending will be on the table the next time policymakers are looking at the budget with scissors in their hands.

That would clearly be a step in the right direction -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said, publicly and repeatedly, that the United States can't keep spending such vast amounts of money on the military indefinitely. If deficit hawks are going to be taken seriously, they'll eventually have to agree.

—Steve Benen 10:45 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (8)

WHEN THE POT CALLS THE KETTLE A 'PARASITE'.... In Missouri, a man named David Jungerman is drawing some attention for having placing a 45-foot-long banner on a tractor-trailer on his property. It reads, in all caps, "Are you a Producer or Parasite." The line below it reads, "Democrats -- Party of the Parasites."

Asked to explain his ugly message, Jungerman said he put up the sign to protest people who don't pay taxes, but who "always have their hand out for whatever the government will give them" in the form of social programs.

People, it turns out, like David Jungerman. (via Zaid Jilani)

The Raytown farmer who posted a sign on a semi-truck trailer accusing Democrats of being the "Party of Parasites" received more than $1 million in federal crop subsidies since 1995.

But David Jungerman says the payouts don't contradict the sign he put up in a corn field in Bates County along U.S. 71 Highway.

"That's just my money coming back to me," Jungerman, 72, said Monday. "I pay a lot in taxes. I'm not a parasite."

No, he's just the guy who's accepted nearly $1.1 million in taxpayer-financed farm subsidies over the past 15 years.

It's also worth noting that Jungerman and his backers may not realize it, but those "parasites" pay taxes, too. There are middle- and lower-class families who have been given a break on their federal income taxes, but they're still paying sales taxes, state taxes, Social Security taxes, and Medicare/Medicaid taxes.

When they get unemployment benefits or food stamps, they're just getting their "money coming back" to them, too.

But there's also an even more painful subtext to consider here. Jon Chait noted that the Producer vs. Parasite frame "is historically connected with white supremacy."

—Steve Benen 10:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (34)

GOHMERT ENDORSES SOWELL'S HITLER COMPARISON.... Prominent right-wing columnist Thomas Sowell this week not only complained about President Obama securing $20 billion in escrow for Gulf Coast victims of BP's oil spill, he compared the administration's move to Hitler's dictatorship.

As offensive as this was, it was all the more startling when Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.) endorsed the Hitler piece on the House floor.

Before reading directly from the piece at some length, Gohmert argued, "There's a brilliant man named Thomas Sowell. And, um, I didn't vote for Barack Obama in 2008, but I sure would have voted for Thomas Sowell. This man, well, his article says quite a lot."

He added that there are "useful idiots" in the United States who mistakenly urge us to make the president "a dictator for a little while." (Gohmert wasn't specific about who he was complaining about, probably because his target exists only in his imagination.)

Let's not brush past this development too quickly. A right-wing media figure compared the president to Hitler because Obama secured funding for the Gulf Coast -- a right-wing member of Congress found the comparison compelling enough to endorse it on the House floor.

There's something deeply wrong with the contemporary right, which will likely get worse if voters back its candidates in November.

—Steve Benen 9:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (34)

PASSING A SILLY MEDIA TEST.... I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I've become so accustomed to the inane chatter of talking heads that, while watching President Obama in the Rose Garden yesterday, it actually occurred to me to think, "What will the pundits complain about this time?"

After all, the recent chatter has been disparaging. The president held a White House conference, which was panned for reasons related to "emoting." Obama delivered an Oval Office address, which was panned for, in Chris Matthews' words, lacking a "sense" of "executive command."

What kind of complaining would we hear in response to yesterday's remarks about a change in military command in Afghanistan? Apparently, there isn't much -- the president seems to have satisfied the media's expectations. Here's Dana Milbank, for example, who often captures (shapes?) the media establishment's conventional wisdom.

It was 95 degrees in the Rose Garden. Reporters dripped with sweat. Vice President Biden's brow glistened. Defense Secretary Robert Gates's face was pink and Gen. David Petraeus's was red.

But the sight before them was rare enough to be worth the suffering: The commander in chief was being commanding.

Without benefit of his favorite transitional object -- the teleprompter malfunctioned at the start of his remarks -- Obama stood, preternaturally cool and dry, on the steps leading to the Oval Office and delivered some of the most forceful words of his presidency. [...]

For those craving strong presidential leadership, it was reassuring to hear unequivocal words such as "certainty" and "won't tolerate" on Obama's lips -- and even more reassuring that he was acting on those sentiments. The president, too often passive in the face of challenges to his authority, correctly recognized that McChrystal's insults to him and his advisers threatened to weaken his administration. For 36 hours, he flirted with a Carter-esque response -- expressing anger in words but not deeds -- before finally taking decisive action.

Slate's John Dickerson said the McChrystal affair was "a test -- more of a pop quiz, really -- of Obama's leadership skills" and the president "aced it." Obama, Dickerson added, "was resolute and commanding." [Update: To clarify, the Dickerson piece dealt only briefly with style-related issues, and was almost entirely about the substance of the Rose Garden remarks and the larger McChrystal decision.]

Time's Michael Crowley added, "The change of generals was the firm action of a hands-on executive. And a self-confident one, too."

Even Josh Marshall, who'd said earlier in the day that he was surprised Obama "had it in him," wrote last night, "When I woke up this morning I still couldn't quite see how President Obama could not fire McChrystal. But I also couldn't quite imagine him doing it. But he did. Showed me a different side of him. And what I really couldn't have imagined was that he found a way not just to acquit himself honorably and protect the office but actually enhance his prestige and standing."

The president doesn't seem to care much about media reactions when weighing major decisions, but I suspect many in the West Wing, who've no doubt grown tired of un-passable media tests, will be pleased that observers are finally satisfied with a presidential appearance, at least for now.

Postscript: The NYT has a fascinating tick-tock, by the way, on what led to McChrystal being relieved of command.

—Steve Benen 8:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)

GOP POISED TO KILL TAX-EXTENDERS BILL.... For weeks, Senate Democrats have tried to pass what's called the "tax-extenders bill" -- a key economic package that extends unemployment benefits, maintains popular tax breaks, protects doctors from Medicare cuts, and boosts state aid to prevent massive job layoffs in the states. The country needs this bill to pass, but Republicans won't let it come up for a vote.

In the hopes of finding a compromise, Dems have repeatedly scaled-back the measure, watering it down and removing worthwhile investments. The GOP has responded by insisting the reductions aren't enough, and that they still won't allow a vote.

It now appears Republicans are going to win this fight -- and Americans will lose.

Democratic leaders in the Senate have apparently failed to win enough support to overcome a Republican filibuster of a bill to help the poor, the old and the jobless, despite making a series of cuts to the measure over the past several weeks to appease deficit hawks.

"It looks like we're going to come up short," said a senior Democratic aide on Wednesday evening. "It looks like Republicans are prepared to kill aid to states, an extension of unemployment benefits, and ironically, the Republicans are prepared to kill efforts to close loopholes that allow companies to export jobs overseas." [...]

"Sen. Baucus and Sen. Reid did everything they can to try to pick up the handful of votes needed to overcome the Republican filibuster" said the Dem aide. Nebraska Democrat Ben Nelson has said repeatedly he would not vote for the measure unless its cost was completely offset, so Reid and Baucus focused on moderate Maine Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe, who demanded more cuts to the bill if they were to break the unified GOP opposition.

For Snowe and Collins, nothing was good enough. Democrats appear to have lined up 58 votes, but in the Senate, 42 is greater than 58, even when our economic health is on the line.

In the real world, this means millions of jobless Americans will lose their already-modest benefits, and hundreds of thousands of workers will be laid off over the next year, including teachers, police officers, and firefighters. All of this will happen because Republicans are more concerned about the deficit -- a deficit they created under Bush/Cheney -- than the economy.

It's unpleasant to think about, and I really hope it's not true, but it may be time for a discussion about whether GOP lawmakers are trying to deliberately sabotage the economy to help their midterm election strategy. After all, these same Republicans have supported deficit-financed tax-extenders before -- there's no credible reason to change course now. On the contrary, with the economy struggling to break through, the need for this package is more obvious, not less, if your goal is to actually improve economic conditions.

The vote is expected today.

—Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (45)

WEDNESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits:

* A painful setback in the Gulf: "BP suffered another setback in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday, when a discharge of liquid and gases forced the company to remove the containment cap that for three weeks had been able to capture a large portion of the oil gushing from its damaged well.... Live video from the seafloor showed oil and gas storming out of the well unrestricted."

* Part of the housecleaning: "The Mineral Management Service is no more. As of today, the agency in charge of overseeing offshore oil exploration-and the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon drilling rig-will be known as the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation and Enforcement. That's the Bureau of Ocean Energy, or BOE, for short."

* Housing: "Today, the Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes, well, went off a cliff after the expiry of the Obama administration homebuyer tax credits. In May, sales were at a rate of 300,000 a year. That is 33 percent lower than in April, when the rate was 446,000, and 18.3 percent lower year-on-year."

* Afghanistan: "June has become the deadliest month of the Afghan war for the NATO-led international military force. An Associated Press count based on announcements by the alliance and national commands shows 76 international service members have died this month. The total includes 46 Americans."

* Senate confirmation of Gen. David Petraeus to take command in Afghanistan is expected "within days." The chamber can move pretty quickly when it wants to.

* Elizabeth Warren came up with the idea of the consumer financial protection agency, and she's fairly pleased with how it's coming together.

* This was the first earthquake I've ever felt in my entire life.

* It's almost as if House Republicans are trying to appear ignorant about health care policy.

* All kinds of interesting media moves today, including the estimable Spencer Ackerman moving from the Washington Independent to Wired; Ron Fournier making the transition from the AP to National Journal; and CNN hiring Eliot Spitzer and Kathleen Parker for a new primetime show.

* Apparently SAT preparation is so popular that it's now showing up in some unexpected places.

* I really don't like it when Glenn Beck talks like this: "I think we're headed for a civil war."

* John Cole noted yesterday what he doesn't understand about contemporary movement conservatism: its proponents are "simply operating in their own made-up fictional universe in which history and the English language mean different things to them than to anyone outside the cult." I have the same thought, literally every day.

Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.

—Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (32)

GERSON'S MISPLACED HATRED FOR AL FRANKEN.... Our first hint that Washington Post columnist Michael Gerson really hates Al Franken came two years ago this week. Gerson, George W. Bush's former chief speechwriter, drew upon some of Franken's satirical work to insist that Franken would push our "political discourse ... toward vulgarity and viciousness."

It seemed like an odd complaint coming from a man who foisted George "F**k Saddam" Bush and Dick "Go f**k yourself" Cheney onto the world, but we nevertheless know with the benefit of hindsight that Gerson's fears were unfounded. Al Franken has been an exceptional senator, bringing a degree of intelligence and seriousness of purpose that the institution sorely needs.

Nevertheless, we were reminded of Gerson's Franken hatred again today, with a column about the Minnesota senator's recent speech on conservative judicial activism at a gathering of the American Constitution Society.

One of Franken's points often goes unsaid: the "balls and strikes" metaphor popularized by Chief Justice John Roberts is badly flawed. As the University of Chicago's Geoffrey Stone explained in a terrific piece in April, the metaphor fundamentally confuses the responsibilities of a jurist: "Constitutional law is not a mechanical exercise of just 'applying the law.'"

The law defines bedrock freedoms in ambiguous ways, and the Constitution did so deliberately -- the "framers fully understood that they were leaving it to future generations to use their intelligence, judgment and experience to give concrete meaning to the expressed aspirations."

For Franken, the problem is that conservative judges claim to be calling balls and strikes, while consistently using their power to side with corporations and powerful interests over the needs of the public at large.

Gerson was outraged.

Franken mocks Roberts's description of the role of a judge as an umpire, applying rules he does not create. "How ridiculous," Franken says. "Judges are nothing like umpires."

No, in Franken's view judges should be more like the Committee of Public Safety during the French Revolution -- an unelected group of super-legislators who issue binding verdicts based on their advanced conceptions of justice and class warfare.

Of course, Franken said nothing of the kind. Gerson just got a little hysterical and let his imagination run wild.

The columnist added, "Franken is attempting to be serious, but he should not be taken seriously. A judge who does not think himself an umpire may end up an autocrat."

Jon Chait replied, "Really? Anybody who acknowledges that judicial rulings sometimes involve interpretation rather than merely discerning objective fact is not only wrong but doesn't deserve to be taken seriously?"

Apparently. Perhaps the more important lesson is that columnists who perceive judges interpreting ambiguous 18th-century legal frameworks as little more than robots are the ones who "should not be taken seriously."

—Steve Benen 4:40 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (27)

WHEN IT DOUBT, THE RIGHT GOES WITH THE HITLER COMPARISON.... After President Obama successfully secured $20 billion in escrow for Gulf Coast victims of BP's oil spill, the right tried a variety of attacks. By now, they're familiar -- it was a "shakedown"; it was "extortion"; it was "unconstitutional."

But Thomas Sowell kicked things up a notch, taking the right-wing whining about the president fighting for small businesses and struggling families to a whole new level this week.

[D]uring the worldwide Great Depression, the German Reichstag passed a law "for the relief of the German people." That law gave Hitler dictatorial powers that were used for things going far beyond the relief of the German people -- indeed, powers that ultimately brought a rain of destruction down on the German people and on others. If the agreement with BP was an isolated event, perhaps we might hope that it would not be a precedent. But there is nothing isolated about it.

Yep, we've moved past the "shakedown" phase, and have entered the "Hitler-esque" stage. Oh good.

Likewise, Matt Yglesias noted today, "In addition, I note that yesterday noted fascism scholar and moron Jonah Goldberg observed that there's a slippery slope from infrastructure projects to Auschwitz."

Of course there is.

Far-right rhetoric is routinely exasperating, but this Nazi preoccupation holds a special place in the lexicon. Remember when Obama's efforts to rescue American auto manufacturing were compared to Hitler? And how many times did Republicans compare health care reform to the Nazis? Or how about the time a Republican congressman compared Obama to Hitler over national-service opportunities? Let's also not forget Newt Gingrich's recent assertion that Obama and his backers are actually worse than Nazis.

On its face, the fact that so many conservatives rely on Hitler comparisons so often is a reminder of an unfortunate truth -- much of the discourse on the right has gone hopelessly insane.

But I'm also reminded of the time some anonymous contributor posted a homemade video to MoveOn.org's website comparing Bush to Hitler, without the group's knowledge. MoveOn pulled the submission, but to this day, far-right voices use the incident -- "See how extreme liberals are? MoveOn compared Bush to Hitler!" -- to dismiss the left, even though the attack is baseless.

But if the left is radical because some random guy compared Bush to Hitler, what does this tell us about the right, which routinely compares Obama to Hitler?

—Steve Benen 3:50 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (35)

ANOTHER REPUBLICAN, ANOTHER CHICKEN, ANOTHER COSTLY MISTAKE.... Lately, when we think of Republican campaigns making chicken-related mistakes, we think of Nevada's Sue Lowden, who suggested trading poultry for medical care made sense. The comments likely cost Lowden the race.

Now, Republicans have another chicken-related controversy to worry about.

The first line of Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland's campaign biography boasts the Democratic governor is "the son of a steelworker" who "never imagined he'd be able to go to college."

Indeed, Strickland's humble upbringing is just the type campaigns love to highlight, and never more so during an economic climate that still hasn't shown signs for recovery for many Ohioans.

But the campaign of Strickland's Republican opponent -- former U.S. Rep. John Kasich -- is causing a stir for attacking the same simple origins Strickland celebrates.

Kasich spokesman Rob Nichols said in a statement Tuesday Strickland is a poor manager of Ohio's cities because the Democrat was raised "in a chicken shack on Duck Run."

As if that weren't enough, the Kasich campaign also mocked Strickland's modest upbringing the day before, saying the governor doesn't care about urban areas because he was raised "in a chicken shack on Duck Run."

Is this really where the Republican campaign wants to go? After John Kasich left Congress, he split time between Fox News and Lehman Brothers ... and now his campaign wants to insult the governor based on his modest upbringing?

DNC Chairman Tim Kaine appeared in Cleveland today, and defended Strickland: "I noticed that the other campaign yesterday ridiculed him for 'growing up in a chicken shack on Duck Run Ohio.' I don't know why they thought that's a bad thing, but maybe that's how it looks from the perspective of a Lehman Brothers consultant."

In the 21st century, it's rare, even for wealthy Republicans, to go out of their way to run a pro-elitist statewide campaign. It's curious move for a candidate whose polls seem to be moving in the wrong direction, and we'll see if this strategy works out well for Kasich.

Postscript: It looks like Kasich's campaign spokesperson apologized this afternoon, saying his mockery of the governor's upbringing wasn't meant "pejoratively."

—Steve Benen 3:05 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (33)

'I WELCOME DEBATE AMONG MY TEAM, BUT I WON'T TOLERATE DIVISION'.... President Obama spoke in the Rose Garden this afternoon, flanked by Biden, Gates, Mullen, and Petraeus, to announce that he "accepted the resignation" of Gen. Stanley McChrystal -- who was not at the event -- but did so with "considerable regret," but with "certainty" that the decision was the right move.

After heralding McChrystal's "remarkable career in uniform," the president added, "But war is bigger than any one man or woman, whether a private, a general, or a president. As difficult as it is to lose General McChrystal, I believe it is the right decision for national security."

And then Obama explained exactly why.

"The conduct represented in the recently published article does not meet the standard that should be set by a commanding general. It undermines the civilian control of the military that is at the core of our democratic system. And it erodes the trust that's necessary for our team to work together to achieve our objectives in Afghanistan."

In case there were any ambiguities, the president added that "our democracy depends upon institutions that are stronger than individuals -- that includes strict adherence to the military chain of command, and respect for civilian control over that chain of command."

Highlighting the practical effect of McChrystal's and his team's remarks to Rolling Stone, Obama went on to explain:

"I believe that this mission demands unity of effort across our alliance and across my national security team. And I don't think that we can sustain that unity of effort and achieve our objectives in Afghanistan without making this change. That too has guided my decision.

"I've just told my national security team that now is the time for all of us to come together. Doing so is not an option but an obligation. I welcome debate among my team but I won't tolerate division.

"All of us have personal interests. All of us have opinions. Our politics often fuels conflict. But we have to renew our sense of common purpose and meet our responsibilities, to one another and to our troops who are in harm's way and to our country.

"We need to remember what this is all about. Our nation is at war. We face a very tough fight in Afghanistan. But Americans don't flinch in the face of difficult truths or difficult tasks. We persist and we persevere."

As for Petraeus, it appears he's giving up his role at CENTCOM to replace McChrystal in Afghanistan. It will require Senate confirmation, which I suspect won't be much of a problem. Indeed, whatever temptations Republicans might have had about trashing the president for relieving McChrystal of his command quickly disappeared with the Petraeus announcement.

As for whether the president made the right call today, his remarks seemed to resolve any questions nicely -- McChrystal did more than just engage in locker-room-style bravado, he signaled the kind of division the president simply couldn't tolerate.

—Steve Benen 2:25 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (22)

OBAMA RELIEVES MCCHRYSTAL OF COMMAND.... This morning's schedule offered a pretty big hint. President Obama met with Gen. Stanley McChrystal for only 20 minutes in the Oval Office, and the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan then departed -- before a scheduled meeting of officials to discuss the ongoing war effort. If McChrystal was going to stay at his post, it seemed the four-star general likely would have stuck around.

He didn't for a reason. The Commander in Chief relieved McChrystal of his command today.

President Obama today fired embattled Gen. Stanley McChrystal from his position as the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan after the general made disparaging comments in a magazine story about top administration officials.

In a striking development, McChrystal will be replaced by Gen. David Petraeus, the current CENTCOM commander. It's unclear, at this point, if Petraeus will try to take on both tasks at the same time, but the shift from McChrystal to Petraeus is stunning and unexpected. At a minimum, it signals something of a doubling down -- by tapping Petraeus, it's clear Obama isn't changing course in Afghanistan.

More soon.

—Steve Benen 1:45 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (27)

DEAR JOE BARTON: STOP DIGGING.... Rep. Joe Barton (R) has done a fair amount of apologizing lately. It started with a public apology to BP, which was soon followed by an apology for the apology. The right-wing Texan privately began apologizing to Gulf Coast Republicans, and apologized to his caucus this morning for all the trouble he caused.

And with that last apology, the House Republican leadership decided to let Barton off the hook, treating the whole fiasco as oil under the bridge.

But some of us cynical types can't help but wonder if maybe Barton isn't quite sincere about his regrets. Dave Weigel noted this morning that Barton has apparently reversed course on his half-hearted repentance.

Hours after getting a respite from House Republicans, Rep. Joe Barton (R-Tex.) has cheekily responded to criticism over his "apology to BP" by tweeting a link to an American Spectator article titled, "Joe Barton was right."

The article by Peter Hannaford is a robust defense of what Barton said, knocking the Obama administration for "Alinsky" tactics and hatred of business.

Let me try to put this in a way Barton will understand. When a lawmaker is sincerely sorry about an ostensible mistake, and believes he was wrong, he doesn't turn around hours later to boast publicly that he was right. It's the kind of move that suggests his apology was made for the sake of political expedience.

Interestingly, Barton's office scrambled to remove the tweet -- it has, of course, been captured with screen-grabs -- and the right-wing American Spectator piece is either currently unavailable or has also been removed. It reinforces the notion that Barton probably realizes he's screwed up -- again.

And in the larger context, by one measure, it appears Joe Barton has now unapologized for apologizing for his apology.

Remember, this guy is the leading House Republican on matters related to energy and climate policy. Seriously.

Update: Greg Sargent put it this way: "It's a head-spinner: Barton apologizes to BP. Then he apologizes for his apology. Then he unapologizes and says he was right all along. And now he's trying to expunge any sign that he unapologized. Maybe Barton should just stop talking. Plug his damn hole already."

Second Update: A member of Barton's staff is now willing to take the blame for the misguided message on Twitter.

—Steve Benen 1:05 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)

HEALTH CARE REFORM'S POPULARITY GETS ANOTHER BOOST.... Last week, a national Associated Press-GfK poll found that support for the Affordable Care Act was not only the rise, but had reached new heights -- health care reform's supporters outnumbered opponents, 45% to 42%.

Now, we have another poll with similar results. A new Gallup poll shows support inching up, with supporters topping opponents -- 49% of respondents said passage of the law is a "good thing," while 46% said it's a "bad thing." That's a modest shift in the right direction from a few months, but it's a shift nevertheless.

Of particular interest, though, were the breakdowns by age group.

On the basis of age, the largest well of opposition is found among seniors, 60% of whom call passage of the bill a bad thing, similar to the 57% in April. By contrast, attitudes are more favorable than unfavorable among young and middle-aged adults.

The Affordable Care Act is quite popular among Americans aged 18 to 29, with 57% believing the new law is a good thing. Among those 30 to 49 and those 50 to 64, support isn't quite as strong, but supporters clearly outnumber opponents in both age groups, and the favorable attitudes have increased since April.

It's the older folks who aren't happy -- opposition is nearly 2-to-1, and it's the only age group where opposition has gone up, not down, since April.

This tell us a couple of interesting things. The first is that right-wing efforts to scare the elderly -- the constituency that's generally skeptical of Obama anyway -- have been largely successful. Seniors love their government-run socialized medicine, and they're worried about Democrats finding cost-savings in unnecessary Medicare spending. The second is that those who are likely to be affected most by the new law are those most likely to approve of it.

Regardless, in the bigger picture, one of the keys to the Republican midterm strategy is predicated on the notion that Americans just hate the Affordable Care Act. Indeed, just this morning, House Minority Leader John Boehner's (R-Ohio) office insisted, without evidence, that "the American people remain squarely opposed" to health care reform, and recognize "the rising public backlash against the new law."

Boehner may want to consider updating those talking points; they're both stale and wrong.

—Steve Benen 12:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (21)

WEDNESDAY'S CAMPAIGN ROUND-UP.... Today's installment of campaign-related news items that wouldn't generate a post of their own, but may be of interest to political observers.

* As expected, state Rep. Nikki Haley (R) cruised to an easy victory in yesterday's South Carolina Republican gubernatorial primary runoff. She'll face Democratic state Sen. Vincent Sheheen, with Haley positioned as the heavy favorite.

* The party establishment backed and recruited Cal Cunningham in North Carolina's Democratic Senate primary, but Democratic voters stuck with North Carolina Secretary of State Elaine Marshall, who easily won yesterday's primary runoff. Marshall will take on incumbent Sen. Richard Burr (R) in November, who Dems continue to consider vulnerable.

* Tea Partiers got what they wanted in Utah, as right-wing attorney Mike Lee won the Republican Senate primary, edging businessman Tim Bridgewater.

* Speaking of Utah, Blue Dog Rep. Jim Matheson (D) easily won his first primary challenge, dispatching educator Claudia Wright by a 2-to-1 margin.

* In South Carolina's 1st congressional district, Tim Scott easily defeated Paul Thurmond in the Republican primary, and will likely be the first African-American Republican elected to Congress since Oklahoma's J.C. Watts. It is curious, though, that the NRCC didn't include Scott in its "Young Guns" program.

* The closely-watched Senate race in Pennsylvania couldn't be any closer. The latest survey from Public Policy Polling shows Rep. Joe Sestak (D) and former Rep. Pat Toomey (R) tied at 41% each.

* It didn't take long at all for John McCain's (R) campaign in Arizona to make an attack ad out of primary challenger J.D. Hayworth's (R) background as a pitchman in a controversial infomercial.

* And despite Rep. Mark Kirk's (R) apparent allergy to the truth, he's very likely to benefit from Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones splitting progressive votes with Democratic state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias.

—Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (10)

GOP LETS BARTON OUT OF THE DOGHOUSE.... As recently as Monday, the "vultures were circling" around Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas), following his groveling apology to BP during a public hearing last week. Democrats pounced, and several leading Republicans took pains to distance themselves from the right-wing Texan.

But Republican humiliation appears to have faded, and Barton is apparently off the hook.

House Republicans who condemned Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) and threatened to yank his position atop the Energy and Commerce Committee have backed off and will let Barton remain the party's top lawmaker on the panel.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio), who rebuked Barton for his BP apology last week, told the House Republican Conference Wednesday morning in a closed door meeting that it's time to move on.

"Joe has done the right thing by apologizing -- it's time to move on," Boehner told his Republican colleagues, according to multiple sources in the room.

As far as I can tell, Democrats couldn't be more pleased. If Republicans threw Barton under the bus, removed him from his committee post, and guaranteed he wouldn't be the next committee chairman next year, the majority party would have had a slightly harder time exploiting the controversy. But for whatever reason, the GOP has done Dems another favor -- Barton apologized to BP, and Republicans aren't going to do anything about it.

Indeed, he's also apparently welcome back on the fundraising circuit -- Barton will be in Florida next week, helping Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) raise some money.

So, it's back to business as usual for the Party of BP.

—Steve Benen 11:20 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (10)

THE COMPANY VITTER KEEPS.... When looking ahead to this year's most competitive Senate races, most observers tend to overlook Sen. David Vitter's (R) re-election campaign in Louisiana. At first blush, that seems odd -- after all, Vitter ran on a right-wing, "family-values" platform and then got caught with prostitutes. He's also spent the last six years fighting on the wrong side of almost every issue.

The polls, for now, show Vitter leading anyway. That may soon change.

For one thing, Vitter has chosen to fight for BP and oil companies, which might not go over well in Louisiana under the circumstances. For another, Vitter has kept Brent Furer on the payroll.

Who's Brent Furer? He's the Senate aide who allegedly held his ex-girlfriend hostage, "threatening to kill her, placing his hand over her mouth, and cutting her in the hand and neck."

After drinking at a restaurant, the two returned to Furer's Capitol Hill apartment, the report says. Furer "would not let her leave." He "pulled on her coat, which caused it to rip," then "pulled out a knife and stabbed [her] in the hand," the police report says.

Charging documents allege that Furer became angry when he found phone numbers for other men in her blackberry. He smashed her phone when she tried to call 911, the records say, and he shoved her to the floor when she tried to leave, then held his hand over her mouth and threw her on a bed.

Demopoulos told police Furer "uttered the words to her, 'Do you want to get serious.'" Then, the arrest warrant states, Furer "grabbed an unknown object and held it under her neck. The suspect asked the complainant, 'Do you want to die?' The complainant replies and she stated, 'No, I don't want to die.'"

After a 90 minute standoff, Furer made her promise not to call police, and then allowed her to leave. She fled to a friend's house, and was taken by ambulance to the hospital. A slash on her chin took eight stitches to close, the police report says.

Brent Furer now receives taxpayer money to oversee women's issues for Sen. Vitter. I wish I were kidding, but there's nothing funny about this.

Vitter is well aware of Furer's transgressions. Vitter is also well aware of the fact that Furer has been arrested on four other occasions -- three times for DUI, and once for cocaine possession. Indeed, at present, Furer remains wanted on an open warrant in Baton Rouge.

The ABC News report noted, "Those who have had encounters with Furer say his presence on Vitter's payroll raises serious questions about the senator's judgment."

You think?

Update: That was quick -- Furer resigned this morning.

—Steve Benen 10:40 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (29)

STEELE URGES 'TRUST' OF WALL STREET.... We talked yesterday about Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele's appearance on CNBC, where he argued in support of George W. Bush's job-creation efforts -- apparently unaware of how spectacularly those policies failed.

But as it turns out, Steele had another interesting insight to share during the same interview.

RNC chair Michael Steele defended Wall Street as the creators of wealth in a combative interview today while urging the Obama admin not to "demonize" and "demagogue" against a system that plunged the economy into recession.

In a stop on CNBC's "Squawk Box," Steele attacked government spending and the admin, all while urging more trust in Wall Street.

"Don't trust the federal government to get it done. We're here on Wall Street. We are on Main Street. Trust those people who built the economy in the past. The federal government has never created one job that is sustainable long term."

"Good luck telling the American people to trust Wall Street to create jobs," shot back host Erin Burnett.

Good luck, indeed. I haven't the foggiest idea why Steele says things like this. Steele may not remember 2008, but it was an unregulated Wall Street that brought the global economic system to its knees. Americans bailed the financial industry out, and then the industry hired legions of lobbyists to work with Republicans to kill efforts to bring some safeguards and accountability to the system.

Michael Steele wants us to "trust those people"? Does he not realize that the public is generally not fond of Wall Street right now?

There's also, of course, the larger matter of where Republicans' loyalties lie. When it comes to the BP oil spill disaster, Republicans side with the oil industry. When it comes to the economy, Republicans side with Wall Street. When it comes to health care, Republicans side with insurance companies. When it comes to energy policy, Republicans side with polluters.

I've seen the polls, and I know which way the partisan winds seem to be blowing, but this has to be the strangest election-year message I've ever heard.

Postscript: Just as I finished typing this, I see an item from Sam Stein noting that Steele is slamming the Obama White House today for not "cracking down on Wall Street" enough. This comes less than a day after Steele slammed the Obama White House for being too tough on Wall Street.

Our political system would be so much more effective with a serious, credible opposition party. What's become of Republicans is genuinely sad.

—Steve Benen 9:50 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (27)

A DELAY IN ENERGY TALKS.... For those closely watching developments on the energy/climate bill in the Senate, today was poised to be a big day. The White House had convened a meeting with congressional leaders, and President Obama reportedly hoped to make at least some progress on putting together a deal.

The scheduled meeting has, however, been postponed.

The White House on Tuesday abruptly canceled a planned energy summit between President Barack Obama and a bipartisan group of Senate lawmakers, citing a scheduling conflict.

Obama had been scheduled to meet with Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), their respective leadership teams, and the chairmen and ranking members of relevant committees Wednesday morning. According to Senate aides, the meeting was planned to discuss the chances of comprehensive energy legislation.

The time the president was going to spend with lawmakers he'll now spend with Gen. Stanley McChrystal.

The positive side of this is that it gives the various leaders involved in the process time to continue to work on possible avenues of compromise. The far less encouraging side is that the Senate is simply running out of time, and delays make success less likely.

The meeting has reportedly been rescheduled for early next week.

—Steve Benen 9:20 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (1)

THE GOP PURGE CLAIMS ANOTHER VICTIM.... Arguably the most significant election result yesterday wasn't found in one of the statewide contests; it was an incumbent Republican congressman getting trounced in a primary runoff.

South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis has been bounced from his longtime seat by a well-known prosecutor after challengers questioned the Republican's conservative credentials.

Trey Gowdy of Spartanburg won the GOP primary runoff Tuesday.

Inglis has always scored well with conservative organizations. But his challengers this year painted him as a liberal who voted for Wall Street and banking bailouts in 2008.

It wasn't close -- despite having represented the area for 12 years, Inglis lost by a ridiculous 42-point margin, 71% to 29%.

Given the one-sided nature of the results, it's tempting to think Inglis must have been caught up in some devastating scandal, since incumbents in good standing just don't get humiliated like this often. But Inglis' only crime was taking on a moderate, pragmatic tone, which led Republicans to revolt.

I emphasize "tone" because Inglis had a very conservative voting record, and scored well among the far-right organizations that grade lawmakers on their positions.

But Inglis expressed a willingness to work with Democrats on energy policy; he urged his constituents not to take Glenn Beck too seriously; he thought Joe Wilson was wrong to heckle the president during a national address; and he said his main focus as a lawmaker was to find "solutions" to problems. Last year, Inglis said the Republican Party has a chance to "lose the stinking rot of self-righteousness" and "to understand we are all in need of some grace."

And as a result, Republicans turned on Inglis an