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   Dan Savage, the brilliant and foul-mouthed sex columnist, has become one of the most important ethicists in America. Are we screwed?
 The federal government is supposed to issue new rules about debt levels for students in for-profit colleges. In the meantime, the states are working on their own regulations.
 Washingtons budget hawks want to decimate the federal workforce to shrink the deficit. It will have the opposite effect.
 There arent nearly enough counterterrorism experts to instruct all of Americas police. So we got these guys instead.
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September 30, 2010
THURSDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits: * White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel will leave his post tomorrow, in preparation for a mayoral campaign in Chicago. His post will be filled, at least for now, by senior adviser Pete Rouse, though he may be "interim" and may not want the job long-term. * A pleasant surprise: "New claims for unemployment benefits plunged by 16,000 last week to 453,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday, a steeper fall than had been anticipated in a sign that labor markets may be strengthening modestly." * The Senate managed to confirm two Federal Reserve Board governor nominees, Janet Yellen and Sarah Bloom Raskin. A third, economist Peter Diamond, was blocked by Republicans for no reason. Again. * Afghanistan: "Pakistan brought a critical NATO supply route for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan to an abrupt halt on Thursday after NATO aircraft crossed into Pakistan in a confused attack that killed three Pakistani paramilitary troops." * Revised totals showed that the economy grew at 1.7% in the second quarter, up ever so slightly from the previous 1.6% estimate. * AIG is paying us back, and will likely return a profit to U.S. taxpayers. * No progress on the Korean peninsula: "The first military talks in two years between North and South Korea ended Thursday with no apparent progress and no new talks scheduled, according to an official with South Korea's Defense Ministry." * The Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) staffer who published an item online saying "all fa**ots must die" has been identified and fired. * With Elizabeth Warren leaving the Hill for the administration, departing appointed Sen. Ted Kaufman (D-Del.) will take her place overseeing TARP for Congress. He's a strong choice. * Good: "J.P. Morgan Chase, one of the nation's leading banks, announced Wednesday that it will freeze foreclosures in about half the country because of flawed paperwork, a move that Wall Street analysts said will pressure the rest of the industry to follow suit. " * Congress' Net Neutrality bill dies. * Andrew Shirvell, a lawyer in the office of Michigan Attorney General, seems like a very odd man. * This is pretty scandalous: "Experts are now seriously questioning Pinal County Sheriff's Deputy Louie Puroll's much-hyped tale of being shot by drug smugglers in a remote part of the Arizona desert. But even if every detail of Puroll's story is true, it still does not square with many of the claims the Sheriff's office has peddled about the case." * President Obama gave a hearty plug to Jon Stewart's planned rally to "restore sanity" yesterday in Virginia. Describing the kind of folks who'll attend, Obama said, "They are just expecting some common sense. ... Having those voices lifted up is really important." * And maybe it's just me, but when I hear about a "Goldilocks" planet that appears capable of supporting life, I don't think, "Cool, maybe there are aliens there." I think "Cool, maybe we can move there after we've finished screwing up here." Anything to add? Consider this an open thread. —Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (27)
LYING ABOUT LYING IS NEVER A GOOD IDEA.... I didn't occur to me that Christine O'Donnell blatantly lying about her educational background would turn into a multi-day story, but it just keeps getting more interesting. The story started when O'Donnell claimed to have graduated with a bachelor's from Fairleigh Dickinson years before she actually earned a degree. It got worse when we learned that O'Donnell lied about having studied at Oxford, and lied again about post-grad work at Princeton. It got even worse when O'Donnell lied about a fellowship at Claremont Graduate University. By way of a defense, O'Donnell's poor campaign staff argued yesterday that the bogus claims were part of the candidate's LinkedIn bio, but O'Donnell wasn't responsible for that unauthorized bio and she shouldn't be blamed for its inaccuracies. That, of course, didn't make sense -- there have been media questions about information from that LinkedIn page for weeks, and neither O'Donnell nor her team ever questioned its veracity. Indeed, when reporters asked yesterday why the campaign never challenged the authenticity of the bio before, the staff couldn't answer. Just when it seemed the story couldn't get worse for the extremist candidate, it gets worse.
The only way that resume, with its patently false claims, could have been published is by O'Donnell posting it to the site. She had plenty of opportunities to correct it, but chose to leave the falsehoods in place. Worse, TPM found instances in which O'Donnell told similar lies on her MySpace page, 2008 campaign website, and 2006 campaign website. She included deceptive information about her education in court filings, and repeated related false claims during recent media interviews. This wasn't a typo or sloppy word choice. In other words, Christine O'Donnell lied, and then lied about lying. This, coupled with her suspected campaign embezzlement, suspected tax fraud, background in witchcraft, rejection of modern science, hatred of gays, anti-masturbation efforts, and hysterically extreme political worldview, makes her a U.S. Senate candidate who's literally hard to believe. Update: Wait, one more piece of evidence has emerged. Those working for the O'Donnell campaign probably aren't well grounded anyway, but this story is unspinnable. —Steve Benen 4:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (45)
NO RECESS APPOINTMENTS FOR YOU.... Congress, as you've no doubt heard, is done until mid-November, with lawmakers headed to their home states and districts to campaign for the midterms. Any chance President Obama might use the opportunity to fill some key vacancies with recess appointments? Actually, no. The two parties' Senate leaders -- Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) -- quietly struck a deal this week. The Minority Leader agreed to let the Senate do its job and confirm 54 non-controversial administration nominees. None of the confirmations applied to judicial nominees -- the court crisis continues -- and there are still several dozen pending nominees whose lives are on hold for no reason other than GOP pettiness, but in his majestic graciousness, McConnell agreed to let 54 qualified officials, all of whom had been blocked for months, go to work. The rest may or may not get a vote during the lame-duck session. And what did McConnell get in exchange? He had one demand: no recess appointments.
Dems, in other words, get something out of this. Some ambassadorial, U.S. Attorney, and U.S. Marshall offices now have officials in place, and other key nominees are still alive. But we're still dealing with degrees of Republican abuse -- the Senate GOP blocked votes on the confirmed nominees, is still blocking votes on many more nominees, and hatched a scheme to allow some progress on basic Senate procedure in exchange for blocking a legitimate presidential power. (Obama has one tool available to circumvent the broken Senate, so McConnell's "deal" made sure it was taken away, at least through mid-November.) Alex Pareene added, "This deal getting struck this time basically means that every future Senate minority leader will hold up every future president's nominees until getting the same deal -- which means that, in lieu of Senate rules reform, we've just seen the end of recess appointments." —Steve Benen 3:45 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (50)
SELECTIVE INTEREST IN THE DEFICIT.... The death of the TANF emergency fund was awful enough, but there was another jobs-related effort in the Senate yesterday that shouldn't be overlooked. Just hours before adjourning, Democrats pushed a long-sought measure on extensions of long-term unemployment insurance. It didn't go well.
This didn't come as a surprise, of course. But in explaining himself, LeMieux said that "all" senators are "certainly sympathetic" towards those who've been out of work for so long, but the country can't "put this debt on our children and grandchildren." He added, "Now, if we could only vote on $700 billion in deficit-financed tax cuts for millionaires...." OK, I made up that second quote, but the point is the same. LeMieux cited the deficit in blocking on extensions of long-term unemployment aid, but couldn't care less about the deficit when it comes to tax breaks -- which don't help the economy anyway -- for millionaires and billionaires. In other words, the deficit matters when it comes to helping those struggling to get by. The deficit doesn't matter all when it comes to lavishing even more tax breaks on the rich. Stabenow replied, "The reality for us in America is that we will never get out of debt with more than 15 million people out of work." That kind of reasonable, accurate argument clearly has no place in our contemporary discourse. —Steve Benen 3:15 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (6)
BIG GOVERNMENT FOR ME, NOT FOR THEE.... We've seen plenty of these anecdotes before, but I have to admit, I continue to find them endlessly entertaining. In this case, Matt Taibbi checked in with some of the folks attending a recent Tea Party rally.
If it seems like stories like these are common, it's because they are. There's the anti-government candidate who loved to accept federal farm subsidies. Or the guy who is active with Tea Party politics because he wants the government to spend less and get rid of public programs, but he loves Social Security, and when he lost his job, one of his first steps was contacting his congressman about available programs that might give him access to government health care. Then there's the woman who's considered a "star" right-wing activist in her efforts against government programs, but who loves the socialized medicine that comes with Medicare. And the activist who considers himself a hard-line libertarian, but his main source of income is taxpayer-financed disability checks sent to him every month by the federal government. Even one of this year's most breathtakingly ridiculous Senate candidates, Nevada's Sharron Angle, gets by on government-subsidized health care and a taxpayer-financed pension. The hypocrisy is obvious, as is the impressive cognitive dissonance. But I think Paul Waldman is right that the key here is understanding who benefits from government generosity: "Medicare? Well, that's for people like David and Janice, and their friends, so that's good. 'Welfare'? Well that's for shiftless, undeserving people -- not people like them. Chances are that most Tea Partiers have no idea exactly what the stimulus is paying for, but given their preconceptions about Barack Obama, they're pretty sure it's benefiting people who don't deserve it -- people who are not like them.... Being the beneficiary of government benefits doesn't seem to change some people's view about what sort of person gets government benefits. —Steve Benen 2:25 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (39)
R.I.P, TANF EMERGENCY FUND.... Readers probably got tired of my reports on one of the most effective federal jobs programs in recent memory, but it was my hope the Senate would find a way to keep it alive. As usually happens when counting on the Senate, those hopes were in vain. At issue is the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Fund, which should have been one of the most popular programs in Congress. A key component of the Recovery Act, the fund subsidizes jobs with private companies, nonprofits, and government agencies, and has single handedly put more than 240,000 unemployed people back to work in 32 states and the District of Columbia. Governors, including Mississippi's Haley Barbour (R), have sung its praises, and urged its extension. In July, CNN called the TANF Emergency Fund "a stimulus program even a Republican can love." Except, Republicans didn't love it. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) led the floor fight this week, and was even willing to accept a compromise: instead of a year-long extension that Democrats had requested, Durbin sought a three-month extension, at a cost of just $500 million, in order to keep the fund alive through the end of the year. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) refused to allow it.
Enzi either isn't very bright or he hasn't been paying attention. Dems first tried to reauthorize the TANF Emergency Fund in March, but Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) blocked it. Dems tried again earlier this month, but Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) blocked it. Dems tried again this week, but Enzi blocked it. Regardless, what difference does it make when and how often it's come up? If Enzi agrees that this is an "important social safety net program," then why the hell did he feel it necessary to let it die? This isn't some academic exercise -- by killing the measure, Republicans will force thousands of Americans out of work. The House approved an extension of the program (twice) but the Senate GOP just didn't care. As a result, the TANF Emergency Fund comes to an end tonight at midnight. Thousands of layoffs will begin quickly, and continue as we get closer to the holiday season. And we'll once again face an ironic dynamic: Americans will get frustrated with Democrats over more job losses, instead of the Republicans responsible for killing an effective program that kept tens of thousands on the job. Indeed, in a sane political world, the death of the TANF Emergency Fund would be a pretty big scandal, and Republicans would have been afraid to kill an effective jobs program with an unemployment rate near 10%. Instead, the GOP is counting on being rewarded by Americans for taking steps like these, and polls suggest that's exactly what's going to happen. Republicans will keep asking, "Where are the jobs?" and no one seems inclined to answer, "Your party got rid of them." —Steve Benen 1:25 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (34)
WANT FRIES WITH THAT NON-STORY?.... The headline on the Wall Street Journal front page raised eyebrows: "McDonald's May Drop Health Plan." So, too, did the lede: "McDonald's Corp. has warned federal regulators that it could drop its health insurance plan for nearly 30,000 hourly restaurant workers unless regulators waive a new requirement of the U.S. health overhaul." Politico labeled the article a "bombshell," and it's already caused quite a stir. That's a shame because the story is weak and misleading. At issue here is the medical loss ratio -- a new rule that forces health plans to spend 80% to 85% of premium dollars on providing actual medical care, rather than everything else (marketing, executive salaries, overhead, etc.). According to the report, McDonald's has told the administration it thinks that's a standard that the company won't be able to meet, which would lead it to drop coverage for up to 30,000 employees. HHS has already called the article "flat out wrong," and McDonald's has said the report is "completely false." But if you're like me, your first response to the article might have been, "Wait, McDonald's offers health insurance to workers behind the counter?" The answer is, sort of. Jonathan Cohn has a very helpful explanation of what's going on here:
While they're waiting, is there a chance the ACA will force a company like McDonald's to scrap the meager mini-med "insurance" plans these workers currently have? Not really. As Igor Volsky noted, the administration hasn't even come up with medical loss ratio regulations yet, and is already working with companies on phased-in exemptions and flexible standards to deal with issues until 2014. In other words, there's just nothing here. The freak-out among opponents of health care reform has about as much merit as all of their previous freak-outs. Update: Reader A.C. reminds me that the news, such as it is, isn't even new. The WSJ flubbed this in a big way. —Steve Benen 12:40 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (19)
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. * Rep. Mike Castle (R) has announced that he will not run as a write-in Senate candidate this year. The decision improves Newcastle County Executive Chris Coons' (D) odds over Christine O'Donnell (R). * After making crackdowns on illegal immigration a key part of her campaign, California Republican gubernatorial nominee Meg Whitman acknowledged yesterday she paid an undocumented worker to be her maid for nine years. * On a related note, Whitman trails Jerry Brown (D) in a new Time/CNN poll, 52% to 43%, though she leads the Democratic nominee by one in a Public Policy Institute of California poll, 38% to 37%. * Speaking of California, the new Time/CNN poll shows Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) leading Carly Fiorina (R), 52% to 43%, among likely voters. The Public Policy Institute of California poll also shows Boxer ahead, but by a smaller 42% to 35% margin. * In Illinois, the new Time/CNN poll shows Alexi Giannoulias (D) leading Rep. Mark Kirk (R) by one point among likely voters in this year's Senate race, 43% to 42%. Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones has 8% support in the poll. * And speaking of Illinois, the same poll shows Bill Brady (R) leading Gov. Pat Quinn (D) in this year's gubernatorial race, but by a smaller margin that most other recent polls, 40% to 38%. * In New York, Republican gubernatorial hopeful Carl Paladino yesterday accused Andrew Cuomo (D) of adultery, despite not having proof, and despite the fact that Paladino had a daughter with his mistress. This came shortly before Paladino threatened violence against a New York reporter. * How offensive is Sharron Angle's (R) anti-immigrant ad in Nevada? One of her own spokespeople, acting in her personal capacity, denounced the commercial. * In Florida's U.S. Senate race, the new Time/CNN poll shows Marco Rubio (R) continuing to expand his lead over Gov. Charlie Crist (I), 42% to 31%, Rep. Kendrick Meek is third with 23%. A new Quinnipiac poll shows Rubio with an even bigger lead, 46% to 33%, over Crist. * And while campaigns featuring write-in campaigns are notoriously difficult to poll, the new Time/CNN poll of Alaska's U.S. Senate race shows Joe Miller (R) leading Sen. Lisa Murkowski among likely voters, 38% to 36%. Democrat Scott McAdams (D) is third with 22%. —Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (6)
THE WHITE HOUSE WHITE BOARD MAKES ITS DEBUT.... It often seems as if Democrats would be more likely to win policy debates if the public actually understood what the debate is all about. It's tempting to think getting everyone into a giant classroom, and handing Professor Obama a sharpie and a dry-erase board would do wonders for the public discourse. As it turns out, the White House sees some value in this, too, and today unveiled the "White House White Board." The president's not in it -- and least not in this first edition -- but Austan Goolsbee, the new chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, has the pen and the dry-erase board, and he does a nice job explaining the debate over tax policy. It's fairly brief, and it's the kind of explanation that should be easily understood by most of the public. (I would have made it a little longer -- it's worth explaining why tax breaks for millionaires don't do much to help the economy -- but I can appreciate why the White House felt compelled to keep it as short as possible.) Here's hoping there will be many more of these. Trying to get a message out is obviously tricky -- speeches tend to be long; the media prefers quick sound bites; and few are willing to read policy papers -- but an explanation of a policy debate in a video that's under two minutes strikes me as a clever and worthwhile idea. —Steve Benen 11:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (21)
IT'S NOT JUST THE FILIBUSTER.... Not that we needed any reminders, this week offered several new examples to reinforce what has been apparent for a while: the Senate doesn't work, and its inability to function as a legislative body is seriously undermining the strength of the country. If this were just about filibusters, it'd be easier to understand (and explain). But Ezra Klein had a very smart item yesterday on the role of unanimous consent requirements for routine institutional functions, making it possible for a lone senator to effectively shut down proceedings. The dynamic "creates a dangerous incentive for individual senators: Given that the Senate cannot function without their consent, their consent has a lot of value. And that value can be traded for things they want."
Several months ago, Paul Krugman had a column on 18th-century Poland, which had a legislature, the Sejm, that allowed a single member to block literally anything with a single objection. Krugman noted, "This made the nation largely ungovernable, and neighboring regimes began hacking off pieces of its territory. By 1795 Poland had disappeared, not to re-emerge for more than a century." As should be evident after this week, the U.S. Senate is moving quickly in the Sejm's direction. Matt Yglesias added the other day that "it's worth observing that according to Hamilton & Madison, a Polish-style national legislation is precisely what they're trying to avoid." The American system, in other words, wasn't designed to work this way. It can't work this way. And when the Senate fails to function as a legislative body, the country's ability to compete, thrive, and respond to challenges effectively disappears. The status quo is simply untenable. —Steve Benen 10:50 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (15)
QUOTE OF THE DAY.... Last week, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) said talk of a possible government shutdown next year is "absurd," and the very idea is little more than "the left" and "the media" attempting to "create an issue that doesn't exist." With that in mind, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was asked yesterday about "the possibility of a government shutdown if Republicans get control of Congress." He replied:
The comment comes less than a week after CNN pressed House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on the issue of a shutdown, and he refused to answer. Remember, contra Gregg, this is an issue Republicans are taking very seriously. Recent talk of a government shutdown has been pushed by a House Republican leader (Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia); a Republican Senate candidate (Joe Miller of Alaska); a Republican House candidate (Teresa Collett of Minnesota); and a variety of prominent Republican voices (Newt Gingrich, Dick Morris, and Erick Erickson). Earlier this month, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) even demanded this his party's leadership sign a "blood oath" that they will gut America's health care system, even if the effort leads to a government shutdown. We're well past the point of "anything can happen," and clearly in the realm of "what's likely to happen." —Steve Benen 10:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (11)
IS BOEHNER SELF-AWARE?.... House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) will head to a conservative D.C. think-tank to speak on "congressional reform." By one account, the would-be Speaker intends to present, "his personal vision of how we need to reform Congress to restore trust in 'the people's House.'" What's less clear to me is how Boehner is able to address the subject with a straight face.
By any reasonable measure, Boehner is almost a caricature of what's wrong with Washington insiders. He first gained national notoriety in 1996, when the chain-smoking conservative congressman, shortly before a key vote, walked the House floor distributing checks from tobacco industry lobbyists. More recently, Boehner has developed an unrivaled love of corporate lobbyists, with whom the GOP leader coordinates to try to kill jobs bills, Wall Street reform,health care reform, and energy legislation. We're talking about a long-time Capitol Hill veteran who literally meets in smoke-filled rooms to scheme behind closed doors with powerful interests, most of which have hired his former aides for maximum influence and impact. Can anyone seriously expect this guy to offer a credible vision "of how we need to reform Congress to restore trust in 'the people's House'"? Is this some sort of joke? No wonder the DNC released a biting new ad this morning, and the White House blog has already made a persuasive case that Boehner has no credibility on the subject. This really isn't complicated. If voters like the idea of House leaders handing over congressional power to lobbyists and wealthy donors, John Boehner intends to make that happen. When he speaks of "the people's House," Boehner neglects to mention that the only "people" he cares about are those who write big checks and travel with him on private jets to their next golfing getaway. —Steve Benen 9:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (16)
KEEPING THE LAWYERS BUSY IN 2011 AND 2012.... Last week, Taegan Goddard connected with former President Bill Clinton, who said a potential campaign issue is the prospect of congressional witch hunts launched by a possible Republican majority. If the GOP takes the House, Clinton predicted, Republicans would pursue "two years of unrelenting investigations." This realization, the former president added, "might shake up all these apathetic Democrats and get them to vote again." I'm not sure if that's true -- does the typical voter really understand the process that well? -- but let there be no doubt about the likelihood of these pointless investigations.
Keep in mind, when President Obama took office, there were a wide variety of calls for him to investigate Bush-era wrongdoing, holding the previous administration responsible for possible crimes. Republicans implored the Obama White House to instead ignore the past, and focus solely on policies affecting the president and the future. With all the country is facing, the argument went, this is not time to look backwards. Though it proved deeply controversial with many of his supporters, the president agreed and left Bush-era scandals, abuses, and crimes to the verdict of history. Two years later, the same Republicans who demanded that Democrats look forward, not backward, may very well take a congressional majority and spend most, if not all, of their time doing the exact opposite -- investigating manufactured controversies from before, gutting health care legislation that passed before, fighting for tax cuts that didn't work before, etc. Obama's reward for moving past Bush's controversies will be the polar opposite. As for the severity, I still don't think the political fully appreciates how ugly this would be. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said over the summer that endless investigations should be her party's principal focus. "I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another, and expose all the nonsense that has gone on," she said in July. To be sure, it was farcical on the Hill in the mid- to late-'90s. Rep. Dan Burton (R) of Indiana and his House committee on administrative oversight launched pointless investigations into every wild-eyed Clinton-related accusation unhinged activists could manufacture. And I mean "every" quite literally. In one instance, Burton held hearings -- for 10 days -- on the Clintons' Christmas card list. In another, Burton fired a bullet into a "head-like object" -- reportedly a melon -- in his backyard to test his conspiracy theories about Vince Foster. Over the last six years of Bill Clinton's presidency, Burton's committee unilaterally issued 1,052 subpoenas -- that's not a typo -- to investigate baseless allegations of misconduct. That translates to an average of a politically-inspired subpoena every other day for six consecutive years, including weekends, holidays, and congressional recesses. Issa wants to make Burton look like a tepid wallflower. As Paul Krugman noted recently, "[W]e'll be having hearings over accusations of corruption on the part of Michelle Obama's hairdresser, janitors at the Treasury, and Larry Summers's doctor's dog." —Steve Benen 8:40 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (20)
WHERE LANDRIEU'S LOYALTIES LIE.... It's maddening enough when conservative Republican senators abuse Senate rules and interfere with the government's ability to function. It's just as offensive when conservative Democrats do the same thing.
Keep in mind, Landrieu doesn't object to Jack Lew. On the contrary, she's described him as an "outstanding" choice to head the OMB, and would be more to happy to vote for his confirmation. It's just that she's looking for a hostage, and Lew became a convenient choice to exploit -- as soon as Landrieu gets what she wants, she'll be gracious enough to let the Senate vote on a key administration nominee. Until then, she just doesn't care about the consequences. In this case, those consequences aren't just minor inconveniences. The Office of Management and Budget is poised to start writing the 2012 budget, and it needs the administration's budget director. But there is no budget director, because Mary Landrieu, in a move that's been fairly described as "both absurd and irresponsible," has decided her demands are more important the administration's ability to govern. And what are those demands? She wants oil companies to start deepwater drilling again, as well as faster permits for shallow-water drilling projects. In other words, Landrieu won't even let the Senate vote on an important nominee until oil companies tell her they're happy. The country simply can't be expected to thrive in the 21st century with a Senate that's this broken. —Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (11)
September 29, 2010
WEDNESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits: * Terror threat: "Threats of a possible 'Mumbai-style' terror attack on Western interests in Europe are considered 'credible' and U.S. officials aren't ruling out the possibility that the plot could extend to the U.S., a senior U.S. counterterrorism official told NBC News. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said information about a possible plot emanating from al-Qaida-linked groups in northwest Pakistan was first picked up by U.S. intelligence several weeks ago and was believed to be aimed at targets in France, Germany or the United Kingdom." * It's not much of a surprise, but the House has officially decided to punt on the tax-policy debate until after the midterms. * Stem-cell research can continue for now: "A federal appeals courts Tuesday ruled that the federal government can continue funding human embryonic stem cell research pending the outcome of a lawsuit challenging the Obama administration's new policies on the controversial field of science." * Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), a constant source of crushing disappointment, went to the far-right Heritage Foundation today to endorse the Republican line on tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires. * In light of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel's imminent departure, Dave Weigel reviews why the left has never liked him. * Good idea: "Nine retired U.S. military officers are urging that the U.S. travel ban to Cuba be lifted." * Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) holds up millions of dollars in aid for Haiti earthquake survivors. Seriously. * On a related note, Coburn really will just block anything and everything: "A bill aimed at increasing enforcement of existing legislation to protect sharks was scuttled in the Senate today when Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), one of the chamber's chief obstructionists, objected to a unanimous consent request by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)." * Measuring what colleges do isn't easy. * As appointed Sen. Ted Kaufmann (D-Del.) prepares to wrap up his brief tenure, he makes it plain: "I don't know what the answer is. I don't know what to say about the system. The system is so awful." Anything to add? Consider this an open thread. —Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (19)
MELANCON GOES THERE.... Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana, despite humiliating scandals and a tragic voting record, is cruising to re-election this year, leaving his challenger Rep. Charlie Melancon (D) with very few options if he hopes to close the gap quickly. In something of a hail-mary pass, the Melancon campaign has unveiled this two-minute long ad that goes into Vitter's prostitution scandal -- the "family values" senator has been caught with at least two hookers during his time in Congress -- in quite a bit of detail. At first blush, the message may not seem like the kind of thing that will resonate. After all, Louisianans know about Vitter's betrayal of his family, but he's winning anyway. But the ad isn't about the prostitutes so much as it's about a senator getting away with criminal activities his constituents would face punishment for. The spot shows one Louisiana voter saying, "If you're writing the laws, you should abide by the laws," says one man identified as a retired firefighter. Another man argues, "For me, it's not about hookers or cheating on his wife. The man broke the law, and there ought to be consequences for that." That's the key here. People know about the affairs, and they don't care. But voters might resent the arrogant politician who begs for votes so he'll fight for "family values," goes to Washington and gets involved with hookers, and then faces no punishment whatsoever, legal or otherwise. It's pretty expensive to run a two-minute long commercial, but Politico reports that the ad "will initially run largely on cable — possibly during the New Orleans Saints or LSU games this weekend. It is expected to reach every market in Louisiana." If the clip looks familiar, it's based on a five-minute web video that was released over the summer, but which has since been edited down. I don't know if this will turn things around in this race, but if anything's going to cut into Vitter's lead, this ought to do the trick.
HOUSE FINALLY APPROVES ZADROGA 9/11 HEALTH AND COMPENSATION ACT.... A bill that should have been one of the year's most obvious no-brainers passed today, about three months later than it should have. The Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act would pay health care costs for 9/11 rescue workers, sickened after exposure to the toxic smoke and debris. The legislation was fully paid for, financed by closing a tax loophole for American companies that try to hide their headquarters at P.O. box in the Caymans. The GOP trashed the bill, calling the health care money a "slush fund." In July, it needed a two-thirds majority to pass, and it came up short -- nearly every Democrat voted for it, and nearly every Republican voted against it. Today, the House tried again, and this time it passed. The final vote was 268 to 160. Among the majority, 251 Democrats voted for it, while only three voted against it. On the other side of the aisle, 17 House Republicans voted for the bill, while 157 opposed it.
Just so we're perfectly clear, a month before national elections, 90% of House Republicans voted against health care benefits for sick 9/11 heroes. Seriously. This is the party that's expected to do extremely well in November. Indeed, the House GOP held the bill in such contempt, they tried to play yet another petty, partisan game with the legislation -- they pushed a poison-pill motion to recommit this afternoon, which would have repealed major parts of the Affordable Care Act and added the GOP's "tort reform" measure to the bill. What happens now? President Obama strongly supports the legislation, but it may very well die in the Senate, which wouldn't consider the bill until the lame-duck session, if at all. —Steve Benen 3:55 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (9)
RON JOHNSON'S BIZARRE POSITION ON CHILD-ABUSE VICTIMS.... It's been fairly obvious for a while that Ron Johnson (R), the strange far-right Senate candidate in Wisconsin this year, is hard to take seriously. On everything from economic policy to climate policy to Social Security, Johnson's positions have varied between wrong and ridiculous. Yet this one is shocking, even for a GOP Senate candidate.
Clearly not. Johnson instead told policymakers, I" think it is extremely important to consider the economic havoc and the other victims [the Wisconsin Child Victims Act] would likely create." In other words, if victims of child abuse seek justice, it might interfere with the economy. It's preferable, then, to make it harder for victims to go to court. In a dispute pitting victimized children and abusers, Johnson spoke out against a measure looking out for the former. Jed Lewison added, "The issue here isn't that just that Ron Johnson is opposing victims of predators -- it's that he's doing so to defend the interests of a tiny elite. If he can't even stand up for children -- sexually abused children, in fact -- who in their right mind believes he would stick up for the interests of everyday Wisconsin families?" Making matters even worse, Joe Sudbay notes that Johnson served on the Green Bay Diocese Finance Council, which was being sued for its role in the sexual abuse of children at the time of his testimony, putting him in an awkward position -- he urged state lawmakers to make it harder for victims to sue while at the same time helping a church at the center of an abuse scandal. (It's unclear if the legislature was aware of the potential conflict of interest at the time of Johnson's testimony.) I don't know if this is the kind of story that resonates with voters in Wisconsin, but it seems pretty awful. —Steve Benen 3:20 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (12)
QUOTE OF THE DAY.... Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), he of "terror baby" fame, is fond of wandering onto the House floor at odd times and sharing odd thoughts that pop into his head. Last night, Gohmert offered this gem:
He really said that. It's on video. I'm not sure quite where to start with this. I suppose the first question is whether Gohmert's Republican colleagues would be comfortable with Congress handing over large swaths of federal land -- for free -- to low-income Americans. Second, I'd like a definition of "welfare," since it really isn't limited to the poor. ExxonMobil receives all kinds of subsidies from the government. Is that "welfare," too? Dose Gohmert intend to having over "so many acres" to oil giants in exchange for the elimination of subsidies in the future? And third, I'd love to hear more about implementation. If a family is on food stamps in, say, Florida, and there's plenty of federal land in, say, Utah, does Gohmert envision a federally funded migration/relocation program? All in the hopes of eliminating food stamps forever? Walid Zafar concluded, "If any of this sounds familiar, it should. Gohmert's proposal has vestiges of the much-misunderstood 40 acres and a mule deal offered to former slaves after the Civil War or the relocating of 'undesirable' populations into predetermined plots of land." I shudder to think how many lawmakers will be in Congress next year who share Louie Gohmert's intellect and understanding of reality. —Steve Benen 2:35 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (37)
SENATE SHOOTS DOWN ENZI'S 'GRANDFATHERED PLANS' NONSENSE.... The Senate calendar is very limited at this point, before the chamber could wrap up their pre-adjournment work, members were forced to endure yet another ridiculous health care debate. This time, it was Wyoming's Mike Enzi (R), perhaps best known for negotiating in bad faith on a compromise package last year, and boasting to constituents that he only talked to Dems so he could force concessions on a deal he'd later try to kill anyway. His new scheme, considered on the Senate floor today, involved repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act dealing with insurance reforms. It's all about defining "grandfathered plans."
In a statement of policy, the White House explained, "By dismantling the (regulation) that set out the conditions under which health plans can qualify for 'grandfather' status, the resolution would limit individuals' and businesses' choice to keep the plan they had in place when the Affordable Care Act was enacted. Adoption of the joint resolution would result in significant uncertainty as to what kind of changes may be made to coverage without a loss of grandfather status." Regardless, the right loved it, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce demanded that Republicans support it. They did just that -- the final vote was 40 to 59, 11 short of what was needed, with every Senate Republican on the floor today voting with their party, and every member of the Democratic caucus voting against it. The so-called "moderate" trio of Snowe, Collins, and Brown went along with the far-right crowd. "This resolution is a political stunt," Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said. "It's an election-season effort to take pot-shots at the new health care reform law." I think that's entirely right, though the election-season scheme will very likely become a year-round crusade after GOP gains are reflected in the next Congress.
ENSIGN WANTS TO RUN AGAIN (IF HE'S NOT IN JAIL).... Nevada Sen. John Ensign (R) has no intention of letting a little thing like a criminal investigation interfere with his re-election plans.
CREW's Melanie Sloan recently noted, "Senator Ensign had an extended affair with a campaign staffer, who happened to be married to his chief of staff Doug Hampton, fired them both, and had his parents pay them off without properly reporting it to the Federal Election Commission. He then conspired to help Mr. Hampton to set up a lobbying business to lobby his own office, in violation of federal law." That's the long and the short of it. And with these scandalous details in mind, of course Ensign is thinking about re-election. Here we have a "family values" conservative Republican who had an extra-marital sexual relationship with his friend's wife, while condemning others' moral failings. Ensign's parents offered to pay hush-money. He ignored ethics laws and tried to use his office to arrange lobbying jobs for his mistress' husband. The likelihood of Ensign being indicted seems fairly high. He's already the target, not only of a Senate ethics probe, but also of an ongoing FBI investigation. Ensign probably doesn't mention while he's crisscrossing Nevada, but by 2012, he may be facing criminal conviction. But this ties in to what we were talking about yesterday: there's just no such thing as being "permanently disgraced" when it comes to Republican politics. It's why South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford (R) is considering future campaigns; it's why Newt Gingrich is a media darling considering a presidential race; it's why Dick Morris is a Republican celebrity; it's why Ralph Reed can host a well-attended D.C. confab; and it's why David Vitter isn't the slightest bit embarrassed running for re-election in Louisiana. It gives new meaning to the word "shameless." —Steve Benen 1:20 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (11)
GILLESPIE'S BAD ARGUMENT.... The Democratic campaign committees are no doubt pleased to have a financial advantage over their Republican counterparts, but that edge disappears when one considers the legion of well-funded, right-wing organizations -- taking in money hand over fist -- funding attack ads targeting Democrats. A Washington Post analysis recently found that 85% of the flood of money from "independent" groups is going to support Republican candidates. The Associated Press came to a similar conclusion, reporting yesterday that "groups allied with the Republican Party and financed in part by corporations and millionaires have amassed a crushing 6-1 advantage in television spending, and now are dominating the airwaves in closely contested districts and states." Former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie, who has partnered with Karl Rove for the well-financed American Crossroads project, concedes that Americans must not be allowed to know who's financing his attack ads. If the public knew who was trying to buy the elections for Republicans, the argument goes, those wealthy conservatives doing the financing might be subjected to public scrutiny. And the next thing you know, some liberal might be mean to them or something. It led Adam Serwer to raise a good point about the Palinization of the First Amendment.
Quite right. I'd add one other angle, though: whatever happened to the right's love of disclosure? For years, as campaign finance reform gained momentum, conservatives said any new legal restrictions were wholly unnecessary -- just mandate disclosure and the problem can take care of itself. If voters could see who was funding whom, the argument went, candidates would rise or fall accordingly. Caps, limits, and stand-by-your-ad phrasing constituted legally-dubious overkill. I've always been skeptical about disclosure as a cure-all, but Gillespie's spin suggests even the old Republican argument is now considered excessive. To hear him tell it, we can't have campaign-finance restrictions and we can't let the public know who's financing the ad campaigns that sway election outcomes. And once the Rove/Gillespie model proves effective by electing a whole lot of Republicans this year, it'll be duplicated for the foreseeable future. Voters will be in the dark, but I'm sure the secretive billionaires' favorites will write laws that benefit working families, right? —Steve Benen 12:35 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (13)
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. * New York's Republican gubernatorial nominee, Carl Paladino, has assembled a team of criminals to help run his statewide campaign. * Ohio's gubernatorial race is getting more and more competitive all the time. A new Reuters poll shows former Rep. John Kasich (R) leading incumbent Gov. Ted Strickland (D) by just one point, while a new New York Times/CBS News poll shows a similar result, with Kasich up 43% to 42%. * Ohio's U.S. Senate race, however, is not following a similar pattern. Former Bush Budget Director Rob Portman (R) with a double-digit lead over Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher (D) in the New York Times/CBS News poll, 45% to 34%. A Reuters poll shows Portman up by a similar margin, 50% to 37%. * Could a Green Party candidate in Illinois end up giving Republicans control of the U.S. Senate? Maybe. New results from Public Policy Polling show Rep. Mark Kirk (R) leading Alexi Giannoulias (D) in Illinois' U.S. Senate, 40% to 36%. Despite Giannoulias running as a progressive Dem, Green Party candidate LeAlan Jones garnered 8% support, and may help hand Kirk the seat by splitting the left. * Maryland's gubernatorial race appeared to be surprisingly competitive, but a new Washington Post poll shows incumbent Gov. Martin O'Malley (D) leading former Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R) by 11, 52% to 41%. * In Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race, the latest Suffolk poll shows Rep. Joe Sestak (D) gaining a bit on former Rep. Pat Toomey (R), with the Democrat now trailing by just five, 45% to 40%. * In Florida's U.S. Senate race, the Florida Democratic Party has released a fairly devastating new ad targeting Gov. Charlie Crist (I), highlighting some of the more conservative things he's said in recent years. With so much of Crist's support coming from Democrats, the ad is likely to hurt Crist's chances of catching up with Marco Rubio (R). * Speaking of Rubio, the Republican Senate nominee in Florida supports English-only policies. He's also running a new television ad entirely in Spanish. * Connecticut's Senate race is getting more competitive, and a new Quinnipiac poll shows the gubernatorial race tightening, too -- Dan Malloy (D) now leads Tom Foley (R) by just three, 45% to 42%. * And in Minnesota, a Minnesota Public Radio-Humphrey Institute poll shows former Sen. Mark Dayton (D) up by double digits over Tom Emmer (R) in this year's gubernatorial race, 38% to 27%. The Independence Party's Tom Horner is a competitive third with16% —Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (12)
FAKE RIGHT-WING PIMP SCHEMES TO SEDUCE REAL CNN REPORTER.... The problem isn't that there are far-right activists who engage in their brand of "investigative journalism." The problem is that these activists appear to be idiots. CNN, for example, is working on a documentary called, "Right On The Edge," intended to highlight the work of young right-wing activists and their larger collective efforts. Part of the project involved reaching out to a man who famously pretended to be a pimp, and who apparently had quite a scheme in mind for CNN.
The story is so remarkable, it reads like bad fiction. Boudreau reached out to O'Keefe, who was planning to star in a music video, and who was considering CNN's request to cover the filming of the video. O'Keefe set up a meeting with Boudreau in August, and asked that she meet him alone. Boudreau was led to believe they'd talk in his office, and she flew to Baltimore. When she got there, Izzy Santa, who helps run O'Keefe's investigative journalism project, explained that O'Keefe had set up the meeting for a boat, where he would try to seduce Boudreau.
As part of the scheme, O'Keefe would reportedly record a video on the boat, explaining his intention to "have a little fun," adding, "Instead of giving her a serious interview, I'm going to punk CNN. Abbie has been trying to seduce me to use me, in order to spin a lie about me. So, I'm going to seduce her, on camera, to use her for a video." James O'Keefe, the future of conservative political activism. —Steve Benen 11:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (44)
GOP SENATORS BLOCK NATIONAL WOMEN'S HISTORY MUSEUM, TOO.... When the Senate's two most right-wing members -- Sens. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) -- block the legislative process because they hate the Democratic policy agenda, their motivations aren't especially mysterious. But their decision to block the National Women's History Museum is just dumb. Gail Collins wrote about this the other day, noting that a simple bill clearing the way for the museum was already approved by the House, but like everything else, is tied up in the Senate. The proposal intends to sell an unused piece of federal land to a private group, which would use private funds to pay fair market value for the land and construction. If financing falls apart, the land property would simply revert back to federal ownership.
So, what's the problem? For Coburn, the argument rests in part on the notion that there are other "similar" museums, and this one would likely "duplicate" the institution. As proof, the senator's office pointed to the Quilters Hall of Fame in Indiana. Think about that -- Tom Coburn thinks the National Women's History Museum in the nation's capital is unnecessary in part because of a museum for quilters several hundred miles away. (Dear Tom, women have contributed far more to American life than just quilts. Sincerely, Steve.) As for DeMint, the religious right told him to intervene.
Noting the far-right senators' consistent opposition to measures related to women and women's rights, Kate Conway concluded, "The question is not why Senators Coburn and DeMint are blocking this no-brainer of a bill, but rather why we would ever expect a person who has scorned issues like mammograms and recourse for rape victims -- issues so immediate and vital to the well-being of American women -- to think that an institution dedicated to those women would be worthwhile." While this was supposed to be one of the non-controversial bills to be approved this year, there's now a fairly good chance Coburn and DeMint will kill the measure, and museum backers will have to try again next year. —Steve Benen 10:45 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (23)
O'DONNELL'S EDUCATION PROBLEM GETS WORSE.... Things looked bad yesterday when extremist Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell (R) got caught lying about her educational background. But the story got even worse for Delaware's GOP nominee last night. The story started when O'Donnell claimed to have graduated with a bachelor's from Fairleigh Dickinson years before she actually earned a degree. It got much worse when we learned that O'Donnell lied about having studied at Oxford, and lied again about post-grad work at Princeton. Making matters just a little worse still, Christina Bellantoni reports that O'Donnell claimed to have attended Claremont Graduate University, but a school spokesperson explained yesterday, "Claremont Graduate University has no student or education record for an individual named Christine O'Donnell." As it turns out, O'Donnell actually received a fellowship from a right-right think tank called the Claremont Institute, which has no affiliation with the Claremont Graduate University. The radical GOP candidate just pretended they were one and the same. (She also lied about the fellowship itself, characterizing it as "graduate" work, which it was not.) Yesterday, I made the case that all of this Mark Kirk-like lying is ironic, given that O'Donnell claims to be obsessed with truth-telling in all instances. But Ben Adler goes even further, noting that the elitism of O'Donnell's mendacity is ironic for cultural reasons, too.
Adler added that he'll look forward to Limbaugh's "denunciations of O'Donnell for being an out-of-touch coastal cosmopolitan," but I suspect we'll be waiting a long while for that one. —Steve Benen 10:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (27)
'OFF THE WALL'.... A couple of weeks ago, the National Republican Senatorial Committee launched its first ad of the cycle, going after Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway (D) over Medicare. The argument was convoluted and wrong, but the message to voters was nevertheless fairly straightforward: if you love Medicare, don't vote for the Democrat who supports Medicare. In retrospect, Republicans probably should have picked a different issue. In Conway's new ad targeting right-wing ophthalmologist Rand Paul (R), the Democratic campaign reminds voters of Paul's approach to seniors' care: "The real answer to Medicare would be a $2,000 deductible." The spot proceeds to show a series of seniors, all of whom are less than pleased by Paul's policy suggestion. One says, "I don't know what planet he's from." Another says, "Doesn't he know that we can't afford that?" Another says, "The more we learn about Rand Paul, the worse it gets." And then there's the memorable one: "Rand Paul is off the wall with a $2,000 deductible." Remember, Republicans, it was your idea to make support for Medicare the key issue in the race. Yesterday, Paul was livid about the ad, calling it, among other things, "a lie" and "dishonest." I have no idea what Paul is whining about. The ad simply airs a quote he repeated in public. Was it taken out of context? You be the judge -- here's what he said: "Medicare is socialized medicine! People are afraid of that because they'll say 'Ohhh, you're against Medicare.' No, I'll say, 'We have to do something different. We can't just eliminate Medicare, but we have to get more to a market-based system.' It's counter-intuitive to a lot of people, but you have to pay for things if you want prices to come down. So you really need higher deductibles. And the real answer to Medicare would be a $2,000 deductible, but try selling that one in an election. But that's the real answer." In other words, the ad shows Paul stating his beliefs. That's not "a lie"; it's the opposite of a lie. —Steve Benen 9:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (36)
THE MIDTERM GAP NARROWS.... Unlike Gallup's erratic generic-ballot tracking poll, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll has proven to be far more stable over a long period of time. With that in mind, when it shows the midterm cycle narrowing, and the enthusiasm gap shrinking, it offers some legitimate encouragement to Democrats.
Among registered voters, Democrats and Republicans are now tied on the generic ballot at 44% each. Among likely voters, a month ago, the GOP enjoyed a nine-point edge (49% to 40%), which has now shrunk to a three-point advantage (46% to 43%). According to the NBC/WSJ analysis, the gap narrowed thanks to "increased enthusiasm for the upcoming midterms by African Americans (who saw a six-point gain in high interest) and Hispanics (who saw an 11-point gain)." For Dems, that's the good news. There is, however, good news for Republicans, too. At its root, the larger national mood hasn't changed much -- voters are still deeply frustrated; the dislike of Congress remains intense; and younger voters, who tend to favor Democrats, are still prepared to sit out the midterm cycle. That said, while the general trends clearly point to a GOP-friendly climate, Republicans probably hoped to be hitting their stride right and pulling away right about now, and that's just not the case (at least not yet). The generic ballot is tightening; President Obama's numbers have ticked up a bit; the Democratic Party is still more popular than the Republican Party; and the most well liked politician in America is Bill Clinton, who's hitting the campaign trail for key Democratic candidates. Moral of the story: Dems are in a tough spot, but it's not over. —Steve Benen 8:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (16)
SHADES OF '08.... Some of the White House's political gambits of recent months have been smarter than others. ("Recovery Summer," for example, belongs squarely in the "what were they thinking?" category.) But whoever came up with the idea for a series of '08-style rallies in the campaign's closing weeks probably deserves a pat on the back. President Obama headlined an impressive event at the University of Wisconsin in Madison late yesterday afternoon, and if the goal was to capture some of the spirit of the presidential campaign, it worked like a charm.
According to local law enforcement, 26,500 people showed up for the rally, and before the gates opened, the line of people waiting to enter stretched over a mile. (A local report said the crowd was "exceedingly well behaved.") What's more, the event was simulcast online to 200 other campuses, as part of a not-so-subtle attempt to reinvigorate younger voters who gave Obama a boost in 2008, but who traditionally don't vote in midterm elections. In a message that seemed targeted specifically to those first-time voters from two years ago, the president said, "You proved that the power of everyday people, going door to door, neighbor to neighbor, friend to friend, was stronger than the status quo. You tapped into something that this country hadn't seen in a very long time. You did that. Every single one of you is a shareholder in that mission of rebuilding our country." That "shareholder" line seemed new and noteworthy -- it was a way of reinforcing the notion that those who helped elect Obama are literally invested in his success, and have an incentive to avoid a hostile takeover of what they created. Wisconsin, home to competitive gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races, was the first of four scheduled "Moving America Forward" rallies, with the next three scheduled for Nevada, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, each of which will also hold key gubernatorial and Senate races this year. Politico's report noted that Madison offered "proof that the president could still work his magic." I have no quantifiable evidence that rallies like these actually boost midterm turnout or affect the "enthusiasm gap," and with a struggling economy, I'm not sure how much of the country is even willing to listen. But if last night was any indication, the White House may want to revisit the schedule and hold a few more of these events over the next 34 days. —Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)
September 28, 2010
TUESDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits: * Something to keep a close eye on in Afghanistan: "The commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan said Tuesday that the Taliban are approaching the Afghan government and foreign forces about laying down arms after almost nine years of insurgency. US General David Petraeus, who commands more than 150,000 NATO and US troops in Afghanistan, said many small insurgent groups had already made "overtures" to NATO forces about quitting the fight." * Hoping to keep the government open: "The Senate voted 83-15 on Tuesday to end debate and move to consideration of a stopgap spending measure to avoid a government shutdown later this week. Senators could vote on final passage of the legislation Wednesday, then head out of town to campaign for the November midterm elections." * Another successful filibuster: "Senate Republicans on Tuesday blocked a Democratic plan to encourage companies to bring jobs back from overseas, as a united GOP caucus voted against a motion to debate the measure on the Senate floor." * I don't know if we're allowed to talk about this without being accused of class warfare, but the income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year "to its widest amount on record." * The DNC's ongoing "Boehnerization" of the Republican Party continues with a new web video contrasting GOP rhetoric with Democratic action. * Tragic shooting at the University of Texas. * On a related note, an interesting report about gun violence: "A study due to be released this week by a coalition called Mayors Against Illegal Guns uses previously unavailable federal gun data to identify what it says are the states that most often export guns used in crimes across state lines. It concludes that the 10 worst offenders per capita, led by Mississippi, West Virginia and Kentucky, supplied nearly half the 43,000 guns traced to crime scenes in other states last year." * When Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) talks about treating public colleges "like a business," he doesn't really know what he's talking about. * Sen. Mary Landrieu's (D-La.) fealty to the oil industry just doesn't seem healthy. * Wait, World War I isn't technically over? * Fox News' Stuart Varney, who presents himself as some kind of business journalist, is painfully confused -- even by the network's low standards -- about the basics of economics. What an embarrassment. Anything to add? Consider this an open thread. —Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (25)
DISPATCHES FROM THE CONTINENT.... This week, the Washington Monthly launched a fun little project called, "How's Europe Doing? Dispatches from the continent." It will feature posts from Steven Hill as he reports his five-week speaking tour of Europe -- visiting 12 countries and 20 cities. Here's an overview published yesterday by Hill:
And fortunately for us, Hill will be sharing those viewpoints at our new site. Take a look. —Steve Benen 5:10 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (2)
SHARRON ANGLE AND THE PUBLIC DOLE.... If there's one thing extremist Senate candidate Sharron Angle (R) hates, it's all of these big government programs providing social services to people. It's these wasteful, taxpayer-financed programs that, as she sees it, makes Americans "lazy" and encourages some insidious form of "socialism." It's precisely why Angle -- in the hopes of freeing us from "tyranny" -- will fight to stop protecting consumers from insurance companies, fight to eliminate Social Security and Medicare, and fight to free jobless Americans of the shackles of unemployment benefits. And while she continues to urge people to endorse her extremist anti-government worldview, Sharron Angle will also continue to take advantage of the generous benefits her family enjoys by way of the federal government.
Oh, poor Sharron. She's been tyrannized for years, and apparently didn't even know it. (That's how sneaky those awful federal bureaucrats can be.) Angle had the option of going without government-subsidized health care and a taxpayer-financed pension, but she and her family just kept accepting these generous benefits, unaware of the fact that she'd become a cog in an oppressive socialistic scheme. Break free, Sharron! It's not too late! Stop cashing those checks! Tear up those insurance forms and tell your family's physician that, from now on, if you need medical care, you'll be paying for it out of your own pocket. Sure, it'll likely undermine your family's finances, just as the Angle agenda would hurt middle-class families across the country, but it's the price of freedom. And can you really put a price on liberty? —Steve Benen 4:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (25)
CBO'S ELMENDORF TELLS REPUBLICANS WHAT THEY DON'T WANT TO HEAR.... I recall a David Brooks column from early last year -- the week of the inauguration, in fact -- in which the columnist insisted that President Obama is "going to have to prove the hard way that he meant what he said about being pragmatic and evidence-based. That means he won't sweep a C.B.O. study under the rug simply because the findings are inconvenient." The president and Democrats have proceeded, of course, to do nothing of the sort. Reports from the Congressional Budget Office have been taken very seriously by Dems on both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and often, legislation has been written entirely with CBO scores in mind. For Republicans, it's a little trickier. When the Congressional Budget Office tells the GOP what it wants to hear, the party loves the office and finds it credible. When analyses offer discouraging news, Republicans consider the CBO useless. With this in mind, I'd be surprised if Republicans didn't try to shut down the CBO entirely, or at least fire its director, after today.
Remember, Republicans tend to consider the judgment of the CBO the key factor in any debate involving the budget. And before the right dismisses this entirely, I'd encourage conservatives to consider a hypothetical: if the CBO chief had reached the opposite conclusion, and said the Republican proposal was a great idea for economic growth and fiscal responsibility, would the right consider it good news? If so, at least a modicum of intellectual consistency suggests today's testimony should not be dismissed out of hand. Nevertheless, I can only assume the Republican trashing of Elmendorf will commence immediately. —Steve Benen 3:50 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (12)
SEBELIUS GETS IN THE GAME.... HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has spent much of her time lately behind the scenes, taking steps to help implement the Affordable Care Act. But this week, her profile is a little higher than usual. Sebelius has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, for example, responding to some recent attacks from the far-right.
Lately, it's been reminiscent of Rep. Joe Barton (R-Texas) apologizing to BP at the height of the oil spill crisis. As Sebelius and other administration officials have been standing up to insurance companies, trying to keep premiums lower and get more families covered, Republicans have been standing up for insurers, demanding that the administration stop working so hard for the public. It's good to see Sebelius offer a fairly high-profile response to the GOP criticism. Also this week, the HHS Secretary took a rather direct shot at extremist Senate candidate Sharron Angle's public remarks about health coverage for children with autism.
In case it matters, I should note that cabinet secretaries getting engaged in the political process isn't especially unusual. In Bush's first term, the failed former president sent most of his cabinet out on the road, making campaign appearances in support of vulnerable GOP incumbents. They even broke new ground -- we'd never seen a Defense Secretary get involved in campaign politics before, but in advance of the 2004 race, Donald Rumsfeld, while avoiding Pentagon reporters, did 10 radio interviews in eight weeks, all with far-right hosts in battleground states. So there's certainly nothing wrong with Sebelius taking a strong case to the public before the midterms. —Steve Benen 3:10 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (10)
OBAMA PUTS FOX NEWS IN A HISTORICAL CONTEXT.... As part of a lengthy interview, Rolling Stone asked President Obama what he thinks of Fox News. "Do you think," the magazine asked, "it's a good institution for America and for democracy?" After reportedly laughing, the president replied:
Reporting on these remarks, CNN said Obama's comments "constitute the president's most direct attack yet" on Fox News. I think that badly misses the point. Obama's response wasn't a "direct attack," so much as it was an effort to put Fox News in a historical context. It's only an "attack" if you buy into the transparently ridiculous notion that the Republican news network is a fair-and-balanced outlet for objective news. I actually found this to be a rather forgiving explanation for a news organization that does so much damage to our public discourse, and causes so much confusion among its unwitting viewers. The practice of politically-neutral, dispassionate, objective outlets is, as Obama noted, a fairly new development in American history -- newspapers traditionally made no effort to hide partisan allegiances. Fox News stands out now, at least by 21st century standards, for its awful journalism, dishonesty, and lack of professional standards, but it's not breaking new ground; it's just returning to a media practice of a bygone era. Sure, the president called out Fox News for pushing a point of view that's "ultimately destructive," but that's the only criticism that makes sense. As Ed Kilgore noted, "As the President implied, telling Fox viewers the network isn't exactly 'fair and balanced' is largely a waste of time; ideologues view reality through an ideological prism in any event. Explaining that Fox's point of view is wrong and destructive is a more fruitful approach than imagining there is some model of objectivity to which all news sources should conform." Later in the Rolling Stone interview, the magazine asked about the kind of music Obama's been listening to. The president noted he tends to stick to the stuff he enjoyed when he was younger -- he iPod has "a lot of Stevie Wonder, a lot of Bob Dylan, a lot of Rolling Stones, a lot of R&B, a lot of Miles Davis and John Coltrane" -- but an aide has also exposed him to some more rap, so there's "a little Nas and a little Lil Wayne" on his playlist, too. Fox News responded with this headline: "President of the United States Loves Gangsta Rap." And in the process, Fox illustrated the president's point nicely. —Steve Benen 2:05 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (23)
A PASSIONATE PLEA.... President Obama sat down with Rolling Stone's Jann Wenner and Eric Bates two weeks ago, chatting for an hour and a quarter for a new cover story. The discussion covered a lot of ground, and led to some fascinating exchanges on subjects ranging from Fox News to Tea Partiers, health care to global warming. But the comments that ultimately may generate the most interest were the last ones. Obama had brought the interview to a close and left the Oval Office, but then quickly returned to make a "closing remark" that Wenner said was delivered "with intensity and passion."
It probably won't surprise regular readers to learn that I find this pretty compelling. Regardless, it raises an opportunity to make a distinction between different kinds of center-left critics of the president. Kevin Drum notes, "If you're, say, Glenn Greenwald, I wouldn't expect you to buy Obama's defense at all. All of us have multiple interests, but if your primary concern is with civil liberties and the national security state, then the problem isn't that Obama hasn't done enough, it's that his policies have been actively damaging. There's just no reason why you should be especially excited about either his administration or the continuation of the Democratic Party in power." Right. Glenn not only has a legitimate beef, I honestly can't think of anyone who's offered a persuasive argument to counter Glenn's criticism. I don't know, however, how large a group of voters we're talking about that disapproves of the president based primarily (but not exclusively) on concerns over the national security state. I'd argue that if Glenn's contingent represents one group of the disaffected, the other two general groups of center-left critics are (2) those who believe the president's accomplishments have been inadequate; and (3) those who are struggling badly in this economy, and expected conditions to be better than they are under Obama. For those in the "inadequate" camp, the president's pitch may or may not be persuasive, but I think it should be. We talked recently about the accomplishments of the last 21 months, so I won't rehash the list again, but I continue to believe it's a record that's as impressive as anything we've seen in modern times. What's more, I'm not at all convinced it was within the president's power to make these milestone breakthroughs any stronger. The accomplishments can and should go further, but for the Democratic base, that should mean getting more engaged, not less. Reaching that final group seems to be a tougher sell. The administration's economic policies have made a huge difference, but the status quo is still woefully unacceptable. It's not necessarily up to the president alone to grab hold of the economy and make it better, but there have been missteps and the frustration is understandable. I suppose the pitch Democrats can make to these voters is: it can and will get worse if Republicans win, and would have been much worse had the GOP gotten its way. Obama has taken steps to get us on the right track, and conditions have slowly improved, but the surest way to stop the progress, the argument goes, is to hand the GOP power and encourage Republicans to pursue their discredited economic agenda. Or, as Kevin concluded, "And the alternative? Well, if the prospect of ripping apart healthcare reform, shutting down the government, deep sixing START, slashing social spending, and reliving the glory days of investigations over Christmas card lists isn't enough to get you motivated, I guess I'm not sure what is." —Steve Benen 1:15 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (104)
CHRISTINE O'DONNELL'S MARK KIRK PROBLEM.... Extremist Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell (R) has a record of quotes and beliefs that make it awfully difficult to take her seriously. But the Delaware candidate has made an effort to boost her credibility by pointing to her associations with prestigious universities, including having "Post Modernism in the New Millennium" at the "University of Oxford." Greg Sargent reports on the problems with the academic claims.
OK, so when O'Donnell said she studied at Oxford, that appears to be a lie. When she said she had earned a degree before she actually had, that was a lie, too. When she pointed to post-grad work at Princeton, that was also a lie. I suspect O'Donnell is rather self-conscious about the fact that she's not very bright, and has very little working knowledge or understanding of any subject, so it becomes necessary for her to, Mark Kirk-like, fabricate a background that doesn't exist. It's kind of sad, actually. But I'd extend the larger context a little more, and note that O'Donnell has presented herself to the public as someone who's borderline obsessed with telling the truth in all instances. In one of her more notorious TV appearances, she insisted that "telling the truth is always the right thing to do, I believe, and that's what always gets you out of a situation." Asked if she would lie to Nazis during World War II who showed up at her door looking for homes harboring Jews, O'Donnell replied, "You never have to practice deception." Unless, apparently, you're trying to deceive people about your academic background. —Steve Benen 12:35 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. * In New York, former Rep. Rick Lazio lost his Republican gubernatorial primary, but he was nevertheless the Conservative Party's nominee. Yesterday, Lazio scrapped that campaign, presumably giving a boost to right-wing billionaire Carl Paladino's (R) campaign. * On a related note, Paladino has acknowledged having a daughter with a mistress under his employ, in addition to his children with his wife. Last year, he brought the other daughter and her mother on a trip to the Vatican with his wife's permission. * In Connecticut's U.S. Senate race, a new Quinnipiac poll shows state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal (D) leading right-wing wrestling executive Linda McMahon (R) by just three points, 49% to 46%. * In Pennsylvania's U.S. Senate race, the latest Muhlenberg College/Morning Call poll shows former Rep. Pat Toomey (R) leading Rep. Joe Sestak (D) by seven, 46% to 39%. * In New Hampshire's U.S. Senate race, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is investing the legal maximum in a coordinated campaign in support of former state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte (R). The DSCC has not yet made a similar commitment to Rep. Paul Hodes' (D) campaign. * In Texas's gubernatorial race, a poll from a consortium of Lone Star State newspapers shows incumbent Gov. Rick Perry (R) leading former Houston Mayor Bill White (D), 46% to 39%. * In one of the two U.S. Senate races in New York, a new Marist poll shows Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D) leading Joseph DioGuardi (R) by 11, 52% to 41%. * Vice President Biden appeared at a New Hampshire fundraiser last night, and told a group of about 200 Democratic activists and donors that the party base really needs to "stop whining." * In related news, President Obama noted in a newly published interview, "It is inexcusable for any Democrat or progressive right now to stand on the sidelines in this midterm election." —Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (29)
SECOND ACTS.... South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford's (R) term in office is nearing an end, and the Wall Street Journal ran a profile the other day that included this little gem:
My initial take was, "You've got to be kidding me." The right-wing governor and former congressman was nearly impeached after he lied about an adulterous affair, temporarily leaving the country (and his official responsibilities) behind in order to meet up with his mistress. State lawmakers were forced to brush up on the legal meaning of phrases like "gubernatorial negligence" and "abandonment of office." Worse, it appears that at least one of Sanford's trips to Argentina was financed by taxpayers, which made the "private, personal indiscretion" argument a tougher sell. Given this, and the fact that Sanford has presented himself as a "family values" evangelical, it's tempting to think his willingness to consider seeking public office again is, on its face, ridiculous. That, at least, was my first thought. My second thought was that it wouldn't be too big a surprise, since in Republican politics, there's nothing anyone can do to be driven from polite company. Newt Gingrich, Dick Morris, and Ralph Reed are all humiliated, disgraced figures, and yet all of them are prominent Republican players this year. Hell, Gingrich still thinks he could be president. So, Sanford hasn't ruled out another campaign? Of course not; why would he? —Steve Benen 11:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (19)
A 'UNILATERAL DECISION TO END LEGISLATIVE ACTIVITY IN THE SENATE'.... Stan Collender speculated over the weekend that Senate Republicans may very well try to shut down the pre-adjournment legislative schedule, and possibly even try to shut down the government, this week. As it turns out, Collender was onto something. Roll Call reports on a new GOP scheme that the newspaper accurately describes as "remarkable."
Roll Call added that aides from both parties were "stunned" by DeMint's stunt, which effectively amounts to "a unilateral decision to end legislative activity in the Senate." If he doesn't personally approve of a measure, DeMint will kill it. The Senate is still coming to terms with the practical implications, since the chamber was set to adjourn anyway on Thursday. But the Senate is set to consider, among other things, a "cloture motion to begin debate on a continuing resolution to keep the government funded when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1." In other words, senators may have to scramble to craft "a stopgap spending measure to keep the government operating past Sept. 30," and the death of several "non-controversial bills that both parties are looking to clear before Election Day." David Dayen has more on DeMint's "one-man government shutdown," including some procedural insights from David Waldman. —Steve Benen 10:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (36)
WHAT MCCONNELL CONSIDERS 'EXTREME'.... There's something Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the other day that continues to irk me. It's what he considers political "extremism" in 2010. Christiane Amanpour asked whether the Republican leader might be afraid of some of the extremist candidates who've won GOP Senate primaries this year, and pointed, in particular, to Sharron Angle's talk of armed rebellion against the United States government. McConnell replied that it's Democrats who are "extreme," and presented his indictment.
It came across as a little rehearsed because this was clearly something McConnell had given a lot of thought to. He wasn't just riffing off the top of his head -- this was McConnell's prepared pitch. And it's a pretty awful case. Just consider them one at a time: (1) the government didn't really "take over" the banks, so much as it bailed the banks out through TARP, which McConnell helped create and voted for; (2) the government didn't take over health insurance companies at all, and the private entities will still be providing coverage for the vast majority of Americans; (3) yes, the administration felt compelled to rescue the American automotive industry, but the initiative was a great success, it saved millions of jobs, and the companies involved are making a comeback; (4) the student loan industry wasn't nationalized -- we were already paying for it -- so much as the government made the system more streamlined and efficient, and will no longer needlessly give money to banks that could instead go to students. What's more, the national debt President Obama inherited was over $10 trillion. To hear McConnell tell it, it will be over $20 trillion in five years. That's not even close to true. So, Mitch McConnell's five-point indictment included four allegations that don't make sense. The fifth is one of the Obama administration's greatest successes. This, according to the Republicans' Senate leader, is clear evidence of Democratic "extremism." There's a very good reason it's impossible to take Mitch McConnell seriously on policy matters. —Steve Benen 10:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (16)
CHART OF THE DAY.... Perhaps the most important benefit that comes with the release of the House Republicans' "Pledge to America" is that we can start to see credible comparisons between two competing visions.  The Center for American Progress prepared an analysis of how the GOP plan would affect the federal budget, and more to the point, how it would exacerbate an already-large federal budget. The "Pledge" vows, "[W]e will ... bring down the deficit." We know reality suggests otherwise, but the CAP research helps drive the point home nicely. "The 'Pledge to America' budget would mean $11.1 trillion in deficits over the next 10 years, CAP reported. "By 2020, the federal budget deficit would be 6.3 percent of gross domestic product, the federal debt would exceed 93 percent of GDP, and interest payments on the debt would be more than $1 trillion a year. The budget deficit would be about $200 billion larger in 2020 under the 'Pledge to America' plan than it would be under President Barack Obama's budget, and over the next 10 years deficits would be $1.5 trillion higher than under the president's budget." Now, if Republicans were willing to increase the deficit as part of a larger effort to improve the economy, that'd at least be worth debating. But the "Pledge" intends to pursue policies that already failed to generate growth and create jobs. In other words, they intend to expand the deficit without anything to show for it. And in case that weren't enough, the GOP approach complains bitterly about the Obama administration's fiscal management, but Republicans have nevertheless presented a plan that would run larger deficits, for more years, than the Democratic president. Jon Chait adds that the CAP report is itself generous, since "it assumes that the huge cuts to domestic discretionary spending will be carried out" by Republicans, which seems rather unlikely. Anyone taking the GOP seriously on budget issues just isn't paying attention. —Steve Benen 9:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (11)
PICKING AND CHOOSING WHEN WALL STREET COUNTS AS A METRIC.... Over the first seven weeks of the Obama presidency, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, just one of many Wall Street indexes, dropped from 7,949.08 to 6,547.04. A wide variety of conservatives said this was necessarily evidence that the White House's economic policies were a mess, if not an outright failure, and that the president didn't know what he was doing. The Wall Street Journal ran an entire editorial on this in early March. The drop in the Dow, the WSJ insisted, was a direct result of investors evaluating "Mr. Obama's agenda and his approach to governance." Karl Rove and Lou Dobbs made the same case. So did Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Fred Barnes. John Boehner also pushed the line. It was one of Mitt Romney's favorite talking points for a while, too. That was last year. Yesterday, the Dow closed at 10,812.04, an increase of 65% over last March's low. Following Republicans' previous reasoning, is this evidence of President Obama's brilliance? Not so much.
As a factual matter, Varney's description of tax policy isn't even close to being accurate. But in this case, I'm more interested in this notion that Republicans deserve credit for the recent increase in stock values. Varney pushed this line on Fox News yesterday, while Neil Cavuto and the Wall Street Journal's Steve Moore pushed the same line last week. As the argument goes, the GOP, simply by talking about extending tax breaks for millionaires, boosted Wall Street. Even for the right, this is all terribly silly. Looking back over the last year and a half, the message seems to be that all Wall Street declines are the president's fault, but credit for more dramatic Wall Street increases should go to Republicans. To be clear, the value of a stock market index is hardly the best metric for measuring the strength of the economy. Indeed, it isn't even close. But the point is Republicans can't have it both ways -- a weaker Dow can't be evidence of Obama incompetence while a stronger Dow serves as evidence of GOP brilliance. Some shred of intellectual consistency should matter here. —Steve Benen 8:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)
HOUSE GOP PREPARES ANTI-CLIMATE CRUSADE.... A couple of months ago, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) said the main thing House Republicans should focus on, if they take back the majority, is launching endless investigations. "I think that all we should do is issue subpoenas and have one hearing after another, and expose all the nonsense that has gone on," she said in July. In context, Bachmann was largely referring to the White House, but some of her House colleagues intend to pursue a very similar course, and include global warming among the "nonsense." One leading far-right Republican said last week that attacking science would be near the top of his to-do list.
Jim Sensenbrenner, meanwhile, is prepared to play the role of Tweedledee to Issa's Tweedledum.
The Politico piece suggests there may be some simmering intra-party hostility between the two right-wing lawmakers -- they each want to take the lead in going after science and environmental policy -- but the point is they're both going to be launching anti-climate crusades. When we think about what to expect from House Republicans when it comes to investigations, we tend to think of comparisons to Clinton-era witch-hunts. And to be sure, we're very likely to see exactly that -- as Paul Krugman recently noted, "[W]e'll be having hearings over accusations of corruption on the part of Michelle Obama's hairdresser, janitors at the Treasury, and Larry Summers's doctor's dog." But it's also worth remembering that when the GOP isn't making up nonsense about the White House, it'll be holding ridiculous hearings and launching baseless investigations into other far-right obsessions, too. —Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (26)
September 27, 2010
MONDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits: * Afghanistan: "Evidence is mounting that fraud in last weekend's parliamentary election was so widespread that it could affect the results in a third of provinces, calling into question the credibility of a vote that was an important test of the American and Afghan effort to build a stable and legitimate government." * Netanyahu pushes peace talks to the breaking point: "Israel's decision this weekend to end its freeze on West Bank Jewish settlement construction sent diplomats on three continents into desperate activity on Monday as they tried to keep Middle East peace talks alive. And although the discussions covered many topics, in the end they came down to one stubborn goal: how to end settlement construction." * It never should have taken this for the bill to become law: "With Congress just about out the door for the remainder of the election season, President Obama on Monday signed a bill to aid small businesses, saying it will do 'two big things: It's going to cut taxes, and it's going to make more loans available.'" * Clearly not the headlines civil libertarians hoped to see: 1. "U.S. Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet" 2. "Money Transfers Could Face Anti-Terrorism Scrutiny" 3. "Critics Balk at Obama's Justification for Killing American Terrorist." * Responding to the headlines, Michael Crowley notes, "My hunch is that Obama could make an excellent argument against all these positions, and that it pains him to adopt them. But also that he gets constant and chilling briefings about the terror threat and would rather be accused of limiting civil liberties than of having been less than fully vigilant." * Glenn Greenwald is far less forgiving. * Sharp piece from John Harwood: it's the economy, not "empathy," that's driving down President Obama's political support. * The president spoke to college journalists today, and delivered a direct message to younger voters about the midterms: "You can't sit it out. You can't suddenly just check in once every ten years or so on an exciting presidential election and then not pay attention during big midterm elections where we have a real big choice between Democrats and Republicans.... That is a big choice. That has big consequences. So even though this may not be as exciting as a presidential election it is going to make a huge difference in terms of whether we are going to be able to move our agenda forward over the next couple years." * On a related note, the impact of the 2010 elections on American colleges really is significant, whether students fully appreciate it or not. * And finally, in a rare congressional move, Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) got so sick of attacks from Concerned Taxpayers of America that he decided to stop by the right-wing group's offices for a surprise visit. Anything to add? Consider this an open thread. —Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (25)
PENCE'S CONFUSION KNOWS NO BOUNDS.... I'm always glad when Matt Yglesias writes about House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence (R-Ind.). The well deserved repulsion just bleeds through the screen. Last year, Matt had an item that explained "Mike Pence is a moron, and any movement that would hold the guy up as a hero is bankrupt.... I would refer you to this post from September about the earth-shattering ignorance and stupidity of Mike Pence.... [I]t's really staggering. In my admittedly brief experience talking to him, his inability to grasp the basic contours of policy question was obvious and overwhelming." Today, Matt flags another Pence gem, reminding us that the House GOP Conference Chairman "gives every indication of being genuinely stupid."
Even after a lengthy debate on this, Mike Pence still doesn't have the foggiest idea what he's talking about. When he says this issue is "really lost on me," that's clearly the truth. We've been through this enough times that even a House Republican should be able to understand it. Different states regulate insurers in different ways, with restrictions ranging from strict to weak. As the GOP sees it, the model can and should follow the credit card industry standards -- let all the major insurers cluster in one state where the standards are barely existent. It's why this idea is generally characterized as promoting a "race to the bottom." Insurers would be told that they can set up shop in a state and write the rules to the industry's liking. The industry would go with the state that offered the sweetest deal -- which is to say, the worst, weakest, most lax oversight with the fewest restrictions -- and before long, it would be consumers' only choice. Why? Because every major insurer would move to that state, leaving Americans with no other coverage to buy. The insurance, under this approach, would probably be cheaper. It will also be awful. Pence may not care -- you and I already pay for his health insurance and that of his family -- and may even see this as preferable to the status quo, but the rest of us would suffer. In the Affordable Care Act, President Obama offers a better approach, which allows insurers to sell coverage across state lines, just so long as they meet minimum federal standards. It's these standards that prevent the race to the bottom. When Obama offered this as a compromise a year ago to Republicans, they balked, insisting that minimum standards would mean federal regulations imposed on insurance companies. And we can't have that because it would mean government looking out for consumers, which is, you know, bad. Or something. Democrats included the provision in the new law anyway, and insurers in states willing to operate under minimum standards can, in fact, sell coverage across state lines. (When Greta Van Susteren asks why we can't do this, she apparently doesn't know what the law says, either.) Unfortunately for Pence, policy tutoring isn't covered in any plan, and profound ignorance is considered a pre-existing condition. —Steve Benen 4:45 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (14)
KRISTOL OFFERS A PREVIEW OF WHAT'S TO COME.... When it comes to journalistic standards, policy understanding, political prognostications, and basic human decency, I don't consider Bill Kristol an especially credible figure. But his sources in Republican politics tend to be pretty solid, so when he talks about what Americans expect from the GOP next year, it's worth taking him at least a little seriously. Here, for example, was an exchange on "Fox News Sunday" yesterday about the widely-panned "Pledge with America" pseudo-agenda presented Thursday by House Republican leaders.
First, "putting on the brakes" when Democrats are finally dragging the car out of the ditch Republicans left us in seems like a bad idea. At the risk of straining the metaphor, if hitting the gas helped end the recession and started adding jobs again, why would Republicans want to slam on the brakes? Second, going "back to 2008 levels of discretionary spending" would lead to drastic cuts to education and essential public services -- the kind of cuts that would hurt working families at a time when the economy is already struggling. Third, if there are "not gonna be earmarks next year," there's no reason why GOP leaders felt compelled to leave this out of their plan. And fourth, if Paul Ryan "addresses entitlements," he's going to slash Social Security and Medicare with devastating consequences. That's his plan -- he's put in writing. Kristol might as well been offering a testimonial on behalf of Democrats -- vote GOP in November and the country will go back to Bush-era economic policies, coupled with drastic cuts to education, Social Security, and Medicare. That's not some liberal making the case; that's Bill Kristol telling Fox News how it's going to be. —Steve Benen 4:05 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (21)
COOPER PUTS THE CRAZY ON FULL DISPLAY (AGAIN).... There have been more than a few offensive attack ads this year, but right-wing congressional candidate Renee Ellmers took the discourse to new depths last week. In a television ad, the North Carolina Republican pushed the detestable envelope, using the words "Muslims" and "terrorists" interchangeably, while apparently basing her campaign on a Park51 plan nowhere near her state or district. On Friday, CNN's Anderson Cooper invited Ellmers on for a nine-minute interview, which is well worth watching. (If you can't watch videos from your work computer, the full transcript is online, though it really doesn't do it justice.) It was a reminder that unintelligent, extremist candidates, when subjected to even mild scrutiny, tend to fall apart pretty quickly. On Friday night, for example, Ellmers suggests Feisal Abdul Rauf might be a terrorist, before conceding she doesn't really know much about him. Challenging Ellmers' notion of "victory mosques," Cooper went on to press the Republican congressional hopeful on an interesting point: "Don't all religions do that? I mean, you're Catholic. Rome was conquered from the pagans and their altars destroyed so the Vatican could be built. Christian conquistadors and pilgrims to America all destroyed local religions and built their own houses of worship. Is the Vatican a victory church?" After hemming and hawing a bit, she replied, "I guess what I could ask you is, are you anti-religion? Are you anti-Christian in your thinking?" Cooper replied, "That's like the lowest response I have ever heard from a candidate, I have got to tell you." It's worth noting that Cooper may be creating a bit of a niche for himself. A month ago, he pressed Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) on his bizarre "terrorist babies" theory, and to his credit, Cooper kept his cool, tried to conduct a serious interview, and challenged the deranged congressman in a direct but professional way, leaving his guest looking like a fool. He did the same thing on Friday with the equally-nutty Renee Ellmers, with the same result. (The niche may not last -- I can only assume more ridiculous Republicans will simply stop appearing on Cooper's show, and rely exclusively on Fox News.) What's more, Paul Waldman raises a good point about the larger political context of Ellmers possibly joining the House of Representatives: "One might say, well, this one person seems to be a bigot and an ignoramus, but so what? She's just one person. That's true, but if things work out for the GOP, she could be one of the people making our laws. Whether the Democrats hold on to their majority in the House, one thing we can be almost certain of is that the number of members who combine breathtaking ignorance with shockingly radical views will increase significantly. How much damage this army of Gohmerts and Bachmanns can really do, we don't know. But there will be a lot more of them." —Steve Benen 2:50 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (34)
AGAIN WITH THE BALANCED BUDGET AMENDMENT?.... Good lord, do we really have to debate the Balanced Budget Amendment all over again?
Abandoning earmarks is a silly and inconsequential gimmick, and we already have term limits -- they're called "elections." But Rubio and Buck talking up a constitutional amendment to require balanced budgets is just painfully dumb. That the message comes just days after House Republicans called for adding several trillion dollars to the debt makes it rather ironic. That it comes on the heels of a Republican White House and Republican Congress adding $5 trillion to the debt in eight years, and leaving a $1.3 trillion deficit for Democrats to clean up, makes the whole push almost amusing. Regardless, the proposed amendment is, as Bruce Bartlett recently explained, "a terrible idea." His item on this is well worth reading -- and bookmarking for future reference -- and it hits nearly all of the highlights, including the fact that a BBA would undermine the economy and is probably unenforceable anyway. But I'd just emphasize the fact that sometimes, running a deficit is both wise and necessary, and writing a prohibition into constitutional stone would tie policymakers' hands at key moments of crisis. Proponents have said the language would made exceptions in which deficits would be allowed -- wars, economic crises, etc. -- but at that point, there's no real point in having the amendment anyway. For that matter, if Rubio, Buck, or any of the so-called deficit hawks want a balanced budget, they can do us all a favor and present a plan on how to make that happen. That would take effort and intellectual honesty, so instead we get the easy way out -- instead of doing the hard work, they want to trot out a gimmick that will mandate a policy goal they can't figure out on their own. In other words, those who want a balanced budget amendment should make plain how they'd balance the budget. Otherwise, the scheme is just a silly political charade. Still, if Republicans make major gains in November, expect this to a key area of debate in the next Congress. —Steve Benen 1:55 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (20)
STILL WAITING FOR SERIOUSNESS.... Ross Douthat has an item on the House Republicans' "Pledge to America" today, and like nearly everyone else, he's not impressed. But there was one line in particular that stood out for me. Not surprisingly, Douthat's criticism isn't entirely in line with my concerns about the GOP agenda, and I think he's soft-selling some of the more obvious flaws. But he nevertheless concludes that the document "inspires very little confidence in the Congressional G.O.P.'s ability to unite around good policy."
It's a recurring theme when it comes to Republicans in recent years -- there's just no seriousness to what they do, how they think, or how they behave. Just a few months ago, the American Enterprise Institute's Norm Ornstein, not exactly a raging leftist, said House GOP leaders "are becoming the Bart Simpsons of Congress, gleeful at smarmy and adolescent tactics and unable and unwilling to get serious." Ornstein may have thought of that as a throwaway line, but I've considered it rather devastating. He didn't just say Republicans aren't serious; he said they can't get serious and don't even want to try. That's not only a powerful critique, it has the added benefit of being true. Early last year, as the GOP's descent into nonsense picked up steam, there was some rejoicing on the left, and I understood why. As Republicans took on the collective persona of angry, over-medicated children, it seemed highly unlikely American voters would reward them with power. The GOP was becoming a national embarrassment, progressives assumed, and would need to come to its senses before it could return to the big kids' table. But that satisfaction was misplaced. Sure, Republicans abandoned the pretense of credibility, seriousness, reason, and thoughtful policymaking, but they're nevertheless poised to make significant gains anyway. Voters care less about the GOP's radical recklessness and more about a struggling national economy. The result is the worst of all worlds. We're faced with daunting challenges, a dysfunctional political system, and a party poised to gain power despite being woefully unprepared for the responsibilities of leadership. —Steve Benen 1:20 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (15)
DON'T PRIVATIZE THE 'BEST CARE ANYWHERE'.... In a normal year, Ken Buck would be having a lot more trouble as a major-party U.S. Senate nominee. The far-right Coloradoan does, after all, support repealing the 17th Amendment, privatizing Social Security, eliminating the Department of Education, scraping the federal student loan program, and has talked about banning birth control and all abortion rights, even in cases of rape or incest. He's even said liberals are a bigger threat than terrorists. But as things stand, polls show him with a narrow lead headed into November. Of course, the more Buck talks, the more Colorado voters have a chance to understand his ideology. We recently learned, for example, that Buck thinks it makes sense to privatize VA hospitals.
For the Washington Monthly, this has been a long-time area of interest. In 2005, we published a Philip Longman piece on V.A. hospitals called, "The Best Care Anywhere." As Longman explained at the time, "Who do you think receives higher-quality health care. Medicare patients who are free to pick their own doctors and specialists? Or aging veterans stuck in those presumably filthy VA hospitals with their antiquated equipment, uncaring administrators, and incompetent staff? An answer came in 2003, when the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine published a study that compared veterans health facilities on 11 measures of quality with fee-for-service Medicare. On all 11 measures, the quality of care in veterans facilities proved to be 'significantly better.' ... The Annals of Internal Medicine recently published a study that compared veterans health facilities with commercial managed-care systems in their treatment of diabetes patients. In seven out of seven measures of quality, the VA provided better care." Yes, the taxpayer-financed, government-run V.A. hospitals are some of the finest medical facilities in the country. Buck thinks they'd be better off being privatized, but that's largely because he's popping off on a subject he doesn't understand. As his quote gained attention, the Buck campaign "clarified" the matter, telling reporters, "Ken said that private companies do a better job than the government.... Take a look at Walter Reed." That might make sense, if Walter Reed were a V.A. hospital -- it's not -- and if the government weren't already doing such a good job with actual V.A. facilities. In other words, Buck helped demonstrate that he doesn't know what he's talking about, and compounded the problem, by having his campaign spokesperson show he doesn't know what he's talking about, either. Voters may not care, but given the number of veterans we have deserve first-class medical care, they probably should. —Steve Benen 12:40 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)
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. * If Sen. Lisa Murkowski manages to win re-election in Alaska through a write-in bid, would she still caucus with Republicans? Probably, but she seems to like having "a little more flexibility." * In Kentucky's U.S. Senate race, the last Bluegrass poll published several weeks ago showed Rand Paul (R) leading state Attorney General Jack Conway (D) by 15 points. A new Bluegrass poll, published over the weekend, showed the Republican's lead shrinking to just two points, 49% to 47%. * In Ohio, Republicans continue to lead both of the key statewide races. The latest Cincinnati Enquirer/Ohio Newspaper Poll shows Rob Portman (R) leading the U.S. Senate race by 15, and John Kasich (R) leading the gubernatorial race by a much closer four-point margin. * In Florida's U.S. Senate race, the latest Mason-Dixon poll shows Marco Rubio (R) continuing to pull away while his opponents split the center-left. Rubio now leads with 40% support, followed by Gov. Charlie Crist (I) with 28%. Rep. Kendrick Meek (D) is a close third with 23%. * In California, the latest L.A. Times/USC poll shows Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) leading her re-election bid by eight, and Jerry Brown (D) leading the gubernatorial race by five. * Iowa's gubernatorial race is quickly turning into a one-sided contest, with former Gov. Terry Branstad (R) leading incumbent Gov. Chet Culver (D) by 19 points in the latest Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, 52% to 33%. * Massachusetts' gubernatorial race is heating up in a big way, with a new Boston Globe poll showing incumbent Gov. Deval Patrick (D) leading Charlie Baker (R) by just one point, 35% to 34%. Independent Tim Cahill is third with 11%. * On a related note, Cahill is shedding key staffers, but he's vowing to stay in the race. * The latest Star-Tribune poll shows Mark Dayton (D) leading Minnesota's gubernatorial race, enjoying a nine-point lead over Tom Emmer (R), 39% to 30%. Independent Tom Horner is a competitive third with 18%. support * And in Michigan*, former Rep. Tim Walberg (R), hoping to return to Congress this year, is apparently a Birther. Asked last week whether the president is a natural-born citizen, Walberg said, "You know, I don't know, I really don't know. We don't have enough information about this president." * fixed —Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (8)
IT MAY NOT HAVE CELEBRITIES, BUT IT MAY HAVE MERIT.... A month ago, Glenn Beck hosted an event in Washington drawing about 87,000 supporters, touting a message of ... whatever it is Beck and his minions say they care about. About a month from now, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert will host an event in Washington, which should draw at least as many people, in the hopes of "restoring sanity." But in between the two gatherings will be another rally, this one hosted by progressive groups that intend to "make the case that they, and not the ascendant right, speak for America's embattled middle class."
One of the key problems, at least for me, with Beck's rally in late August is that it lacked a clear purpose. Attendees like "freedom," but it wasn't clear exactly what it was they want. They spoke loud, but said little. With that in mind, what's the "One Nation" gathering all about? With a diverse group of liberals, it's not surprising that the message may appear a little vague. The New York Times put it this way:
I think the NYT gets this very wrong. To take issue with unprecedented legislative obstructionism, which both undermines the effectiveness of the government and kills worthwhile legislation, is not "unmistakably partisan." It's just a fact -- those who care about effective policymaking should have a problem with what's become of the painfully dysfunctional Senate. Nevertheless, here's hoping "One Nation" turnout is a success. Progressive voices are too often left out and unheard, and a sizable rally on the Mall may help send a larger message that the left still has something to say. The rally won't have any celebrities, but it may offer something more important -- a message with merit. —Steve Benen 11:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (14)
EFFECTIVE JOBS BILL TO DIE IN JUST A FEW DAYS.... For senators who claim to take job creation seriously, there's a terrific opportunity to prove it -- but they'll have to act very quickly. By most measures, the the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Emergency Fund should be one of the most popular programs in Congress. A key component of the Recovery Act, the fund subsidizes jobs with private companies, nonprofits, and government agencies and has single handedly put more than 240,000 unemployed people back to work in 32 states and the District of Columbia. Governors, including Mississippi's Haley Barbour (R), have sung its praises, and urged its extension. In July, CNN called the TANF Emergency Fund "a stimulus program even a Republican can love." If only that were true on the Hill. The TANF Emergency Fund expires this week. Democrats want to extend it; Republicans want to kill it; and because our legislative process is ridiculous, one of the most successful jobs programs we've seen in a while is likely to die in just a few days.
It's obviously not just Tennessee. If the emergency fund expires on scheduled on Thursday, 26,000 workers in Illinois will lose their jobs. So will 12,000 workers in Pennsylvania. Thousands more across the country will meet the same fate. The House has approved an extension of the program -- twice. It would cost about $2.5 billion to keep it going, which is a relatively paltry sum that has a considerable impact on helping struggling Americans get a job. But Senate Republicans don't seem to care. It's part of the stimulus, which means it must be killed, whether it's working or not. It's not too late -- Senate sources tell me Dems still might try to keep the TANF Emergency Fund alive for another year -- but no one seems to think a Republican filibuster can be broken. And we'll once again face an ironic dynamic: Americans will get frustrated with Democrats over more job losses, instead of the Republicans responsible for killing an effective program that keeps Americans on the job. Indeed, in a sane political world, the death of the TANF Emergency Fund would be a pretty big scandal, and Republicans would be afraid to kill an effective jobs program with an unemployment rate near 10%. Instead, the GOP is counting on being rewarded by Americans for taking steps like these, and polls suggest that's exactly what's going to happen. —Steve Benen 10:45 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (14)
PRESIDENT EYES GOP 'PLEDGE'.... Given what we've seen over the last few days, it looks like the "Pledge to America" is off to an awkward start. On the Sunday shows, for example, Republican leaders backed away from the idea that their policy agenda is actually a policy agenda. At the same time, the GOP base seems largely unimpressed, and Republican candidates haven't exactly been scrambling to associate themselves with the "Pledge." Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy In the meantime, leading Democrats don't seem especially afraid of the new agenda. President Obama sat down this morning with Matt Lauer for a discussion focused almost entirely on education policy. But towards the end of the interview, Lauer asked about the midterms and whether the president might change his "tone or your emotion in terms of pushing back" against the GOP. "I think that if you've heard me speak around the country over the last several months, I think that it's clear I've got a very sharp difference with the Republicans on a lot of issues," Obama replied. "And when I say 'Republicans,' I really should say 'Republican leadership' because I think there are lot of wonderful people out there who consider themselves Republicans or independents, who have maybe some criticisms of my administration, but basically recognize we've got to solve some big problems, we've got to be serious, we've got to base our decisions on facts. "What I'm seeing out of the Republican leadership out of the last several years has been a set of policies that are just irresponsible. And we saw in their 'Pledge to America' a similar set of irresponsible policies. They say they want to balance the budget, they propose $4 trillion worth of tax cuts, and $16 billion in spending cuts. And then they say, 'We're gonna somehow magically balance the budget.' That's not a serious approach. "So, the question for voters over the next five weeks is, 'Who is putting forward policies that have a chance to move our country forward -- so that our schools have improved, so that we have world-class infrastructure, so that we're serious about helping small businesses, we're serious about getting a handle on our spending -- and who's just engaging in rhetoric. And I think that if that debate is taking place over the next five weeks, we're going to do just fine." When the Democratic president seems a little more excited about the Republicans' agenda than Republicans, it's probably a big hint about the merit of the "Pledge." —Steve Benen 10:20 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (11)
STRUCTURAL VS CYCLICAL.... There are different kinds of unemployment crises. You've probably heard about "structural" unemployment, which generally refers to an economy with specific kinds of jobs to fill, but workers untrained to fill them. There's also "cyclical" unemployment, which tends to describe job losses that result from an economic downturn (fewer people with jobs means fewer people spending money means layoffs). The good news is, cyclical unemployment can be addressed through government intervention -- or at least could be if we had a functioning political system. In the meantime, those who oppose government intervention on ideological grounds keep pushing the notion of structural unemployment, because it becomes a convenient excuse for inaction. Paul Krugman's been blogging about this quite a bit lately, and it led to a helpful column today.
If structural unemployment were really the problem we'd see "major industries that are trying to expand but are having trouble hiring, major classes of workers who find their skills in great demand, major parts of the country with low unemployment even as the rest of the nation suffers. None of these things exist. Job openings have plunged in every major sector, while the number of workers forced into part-time employment in almost all industries has soared." To a certain extent, this should come as something of a relief. Structural unemployment is a far greater policy challenge, and it takes much longer to address. Cyclical unemployment can be addressed though additional stimulus and intervention from the Federal Reserve. But additional investment in job creation has been deemed unacceptable by congressional Republicans, and the Fed wants to sit on its hands. And so the jobs problem persists -- and will intensify just as soon as the GOP is rewarded for failure in the midterms. —Steve Benen 9:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (9)
THE TALKING POINT I'M STILL WAITING TO HEAR.... On "This Week" yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said we can't raise anyone's taxes "in the middle of a recession." He liked the phrase so much, McConnell used it four times during the interview. It's a weak argument. For one thing, we're not in the middle of a recession. For another, most economists agree that allowing the wealthy to start paying Clinton-era top marginal rates again would have little, if any, effect on the economy. (In recent decades, both Reagan and Clinton raised taxes during difficult economic times, and both saw the economy grow soon after.) But putting all of that aside, there's one talking point that happens be true, but which is seldom repeated: we shouldn't cut spending during difficult economic times, either. The flip side -- tax increases during tough times is outrageous -- is ubiquitous, but this talking point is generally nowhere to be found. I found this exchange between McConnell and Christiane Amanpour both fascinating and painful.
In McConnell's mind, taking money out of the economy during a difficult time would make the economy stronger. And why does he think that makes sense? He didn't say, but he went on to argue:
I realize McConnell's understanding of this is limited, but it's really not that complicated. We used public resources to create millions of jobs, and save many more workers who would have been laid off. They, in turn, had money to spend and invest, which then contributed to broader growth. It's why the economy started growing last year, and why the economy has added 763,000 private-sector jobs just this year. As McConnell sees it, the U.S. economy would be better off if those millions of Americans had lost their jobs, and not had income to spend. That's how we "get the economy going." I realize there are Americans who find this persuasive. I have no idea why. —Steve Benen 8:30 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (26)
VOTE FIRST, DETAILS LATER.... A few weeks ago, Linda McMahon, the wrestling company executive turned Republican Senate candidate, was asked how she'd approach entitlement policy if elected. McMahon replied that she'd like to talk about the issue, but "I just don't believe that the campaign trail is the right place to talk about that." It's an interesting approach to the political process. McMahon wants people to elect her to the U.S. Senate, and then she'll tell the public how she intends to use the powers of her office. McMahon could answer questions now, but voters may not care for the answers. It's preferable, then, to keep the public in the dark. This attitude was on display yesterday on the Sunday shows, too.
Boehner added that he wants to "have this conversation first," but that's not quite what he meant -- by "this conversation," Boehner was suggesting the campaign should be built around pointing to problems, not proposing solutions. So, on Thursday, House GOP leaders said they were presenting an agenda and providing a blueprint of how Republicans would use their majority. By Sunday, House GOP leaders were saying their agenda isn't really an agenda, and it's premature to "get to the potential solutions." When host Chris Wallace pressed further, looking for details on the kinds of cuts Americans can expect to see from Republicans, Boehner replied that specifics on this "invite all kinds of problems." Yes, "problems" like "losing." Look, we're not dealing with a complete mystery here. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) has released his budget blueprint -- which has drawn support from a variety of far-right members and candidates -- and it calls for radical cuts to Social Security and Medicare. It's the only way Republicans could even try to pay for their trillions of dollars in tax cuts, and it's an approach Americans would fundamentally reject. Which is exactly why Boehner doesn't want to talk about it. Instead, we're stuck with GOP leaders trying to convince Americans to take a leap of faith -- vote for the folks whose policies created this mess, whose numbers don't add up, and whose agenda will remain deliberately vague until they're in office and it's too late for voters to register their disapproval. And if the Democratic base is prepared to sit out the elections, Boehner's game plan will likely work pretty effectively. —Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (12)
September 26, 2010
NO MATTER WHAT, THE SENATE WILL STILL NEED FIXING.... Way back in January, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) expressed some frustration that Republicans obstruct the political process "with impunity." Raising an issue that was relevant again this week, Durbin added at the time, "Some of the votes [Republicans] cast -- we would be on trial for treason if we had voted against defense appropriations in the midst of a war." While that's a bit of an exaggeration, the underlying point is obviously sound. Democrats can be proud of some remarkable accomplishments over last 21 months, but they've been repeatedly stymied by obstructionist tactics unlike anything we've seen in American history. Legislation that should have passed easily was blocked and/or killed. Legislation that did pass was needlessly made worse because majority-rule has been replaced with mandatory supermajorities. Key government posts remained vacant because the nomination process is broken, too. This isn't new, of course, but the point came to mind after reading a good item from Matt Yglesias the other day.
In the wake of Republicans filibustering a vote just to have a debate on funding the military this week, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) said institutional reform is now more likely. "I don't think a filibuster before has ever prevented the Senate from getting to a defense authorization," Levin said. "These filibusters on motions to proceed cannot be allowed to prevent us from getting our work done." He added that Tuesday's fiasco was "a very powerful argument for why we should change the rules." Clearly, that's true, and when the new Congress begins its work next year, I'd certainly welcome an effort to make the Senate functional again. But to Matt's point, I strongly agree that Democrats and the Democratic agenda have been damaged by GOP procedural tactics in ways that are hard to fully appreciate. It's not fair or just, but Republican obstructionism has too often made Dems look weak and ineffectual. The largest Senate majority in decades has been stymied by abuses, but that won't stop voters from rewarding those doing the abusing. If the midterms are largely a referendum on the economy -- and I suspect that's the case -- it's worth emphasizing that the inability to pass effective legislation has undermined growth and undercut job creation. It's the majority that gets the blame, even if it's the minority that deserves it. Dems were tasked with rescuing the country in the wake of devastating Republican failures, and then were told they couldn't act without at least some Republican approval -- approval that was nearly, if not literally, impossible to earn. Looking ahead, the events of this Congress have created a standard that no political system can endure -- mandatory supermajorities for literally everything. Key milestone victories notwithstanding, an ambitious renewal agenda wasn't even considered, because it was a foregone conclusion that the support a majority of the House, a majority of the Senate, and the White House is no longer enough to govern. What would I have preferred in terms of Dems "getting serious about procedural issues"? In addition to pushing meaningful reform efforts, I would have liked to see this as a focal point for political activism. Consider a hypothetical. Let's say Democrats ran the government for several years, and drove the country into a ditch. Disgusted, voters elected a Republican president with a huge mandate, gave Republicans the biggest House majority either party has had in 20 years, and the biggest Senate majority either party has had in 30 years. Then imagine that, despite the overwhelming edge, Democrats decided -- during times of foreign and domestic crises -- that they simply would not allow the GOP majority to govern. Dems ignored the election results and reflexively opposed literally every bill, initiative, and nominee of any consequence, trying to block anything and everything. In this hypothetical, despite two wars, Democrats rejected funding for the troops. Despite a terrorist plot, Democrats rejected the qualified nominee to head the TSA. Despite an economic crisis, Democrats rejected economic recovery efforts, multiple jobs bills, funding for unemployment benefits, and nominees to fill key Treasury Department posts. Now, in this hypothetical, what do you suppose the political climate would look like? Would GOP officials decide it's time to try "bipartisan" governing? Or would every single day be another opportunity for Republicans to be apoplectic about Democratic obstructionism? How many marches on Washington would Fox News organize, demanding that Democrats allow the governing majority to function? How ubiquitous would the phrase "up-or-down vote" be? Put simply, I would have liked to see Democratic leaders imagine what Republicans would do if the situations were completely reversed. Then they should have done that. As things stand, come January, I still think it's likely there will be a Democratic majority in the upper chamber, albeit a much smaller one. At that point, to pass any meaningful bill, Dems will need eight or nine Republicans to break ranks, instead of one or two. In other words, without institutional procedural reform, the most frustrating of the recent abuses will only get worse. —Steve Benen 1:50 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (38)
QUOTE OF THE DAY.... There were several noteworthy exchanges between Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Christiane Amanpour on ABC's "This Week" earlier, but I was especially struck by their discussion of pending Senate races. The host noted, for example, the Republican Senate primary in Delaware. McConnell replied:
Amanpour followed up by asking, "[W]hat is Christine O'Donnell's qualification for actually governing? What is Sharron Angle's actual qualification for governing?" McConnell replied:
The host asked whether the Republican leader might be afraid that these extremist candidates' "some might say, bizarre statements, their sort of fringe quality might actually turn people off." Amanpour noted, in particular, Angle's talk of armed rebellion against the United States government. McConnell replied that it's Democrats who are "extreme." The host tried one last time, asking if McConnell would agree that some of this year's fringe GOP candidates have made "bizarre" comments. The senator replied that the question might represent an "attack" on the judgment of primary voters. I often wonder how a clown like Mitch McConnell rose to such a prominent position in the first place. —Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (41)
IN DEFENSE OF EXPERTISE.... The strain of anti-intellectualism on the right isn't new, but it is getting worse.
Now, it's true that to hold public office, one need not have post-graduate degrees and years of broad policy experience. And that's fine, of course. But as a rule, the political system seems to be more effective when voters elect candidates who aren't idiots. This year, there seem to be an inordinate number of statewide candidates seeking key offices who've never taken a particular interest in learning anything about governing and/or effective policymaking. In some cases, they're even winning. Some, including Rubio, may find a certain charm in this. "Outsiders" who don't know anything about shaping federal policy are running for the high offices, and that's great -- what they lack in intelligence, understanding, and judgment, they'll make up for with real-world know-how. Or as Rubio put it this week, "I think the more you are in touch with the real lives of everyday people; the better you are going to be as a representative of those people in a Republic." Other than politics, there's hardly any aspect of modern life where this would be considered credible. If someone's car breaks down, they don't usually think, "Who needs an 'expert'? What I want is someone who can relate to everyday people." If someone needs medical attention, they don't usually think, "All these doctors with their highfalutin science; who needs 'em?" If someone needs to fly from one airport to another, they don't usually think, "I don't care if the pilot has years of training; I care if he/she is in touch with my values." But when it comes to government, this perspective is deemed irrelevant. With a candidate like Christine O'Donnell, voters are told that she has no background in government, knows nothing about federal policymaking, and has no working understanding of any of the issues she'd be working on -- but that's a good quality for a United States senator to have. —Steve Benen 10:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (50)
IT'S NOT JUST THE BUGS THAT STINK.... The Washington Post ran an item the other day that, at first blush, doesn't seem especially political, but is worth considering in a larger context. The issue is the spread of the brown marmorated stink bug through the mid-Atlantic states. They're harmless to people -- the don't bite, sting, or carry diseases -- but for the first time on the continent, they're doing significant damage to crops, ornamental shrubs, and trees. And as homeowners are discovering, as the bugs begin moving inside as temperatures drop, "when squashed or irritated, the bugs release the distinctive smell of sweaty feet." The insects reached the U.S. in Allentown, Pa., in 2001, apparently as stowaways in a shipping container from Asia. Now they're spreading, they have no known natural predators, and there's "no easy way to kill lots of the bugs at once." Complicating matters, "the invasion is only going to get worse." So, where's the political angle?
Of the 15 members who signed the letter, eight of them are Republicans -- all from states between West Virginia and New Jersey, and all fairly conservative members of the GOP caucus. The group of lawmakers are looking for "coordinated federal government assistance" from the Obama administration to help farmers and local economies deal with the bugs. In particular, the 15 lawmakers are eyeing a proposal to reclassify the species under federal guidelines to expand regulatory authority over the bugs. In other words, faced with a environmental problem, the first instinct from conservative Republican politicians is to ask the federal government to do something. Indeed, they're specifically asking for federal bureaucrats to sweep into action and use expanded federal regulations to help people. Hmm. There seems to be a bit of disconnect here between Republican ideology and real-world problems. On the one hand, conservative lawmakers like Bartlett hate "big government," the EPA, federal regulations, and government bureaucrats. This year, plenty of GOP candidates are talking about eliminating the EPA, firing parts of the federal workforce, scrapping regulations, and slashing spending on various agencies. Shouldn't conservative lawmakers, right about now, expect the free market to offer a solution to the stink-bug problem? Why hasn't the GOP offered everyone a tax credit for fly swatters and facemasks? Why aren't Tenthers running around demanding to know where, exactly, the Constitution empowers the federal government to deal with an insect infestation? As it turns out, the EPA, USDA, and scientists at a variety of regional universities (remember, conservatives generally approve of neither scientists nor universities) are working on possible solutions. Hopefully, they'll be successful. In the meantime, let this be a reminder to all of us -- the federal government can and does play a vital problem-solving role in American public life. Republicans know this, even when they pretend otherwise. —Steve Benen 9:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (25)
DICK MORRIS, REPUBLICAN CELEBRITY.... Is there anyone quite as sleazy and odious in the political world as Dick Morris? It was 14 years ago when Morris was forced to resign in disgrace from the Clinton White House after a prostitution scandal, but the conservative hatchetman never actually went away. After spending much of 2007 and 2008 using media platforms to try to destroy Hillary Clinton, and devoting 2009 to destroying President Obama, Morris is spending 2010 positioning himself as a leading Republican campaign surrogate for the first time.
A spokesperson for a Republican congressional candidate said, shortly before a scheduled Morris appearance, "There is tremendous excitement about his visit, lots of grass-roots buzz that he is coming to our district in such a competitive race." Morris, the campaign said, "will certainly energize our base." That says more than it should about the Republican base. Of course, Morris being Morris, the goal is not limited to electing right-wing candidates -- there's also money to be made. A deep-pocketed far-right outfit called Americans for Prosperity "has sent Morris to headline rallies in Colorado, Virginia and Arkansas," and he's appeared at the organization's events. Asked whether Morris is getting paid to do all of this, Americans for Prosperity wouldn't confirm, but said, "We are happy to pay people, in general, if we are happy with their message." Yes, and what a message it is. Zachary Pleat reminds us:
If only Republicans could show better judgment in choosing their celebrity heroes. —Steve Benen 8:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (18)
THE BASIS FOR HEALTH CARE REFORM CRITICISM.... In February and March, when the fate of health care reform was very much in doubt, many Democrats had to consider a political calculation: would legislative success make the policy more popular? One can only speculate about the effects of failure -- though I find it hard to imagine reform or its proponents gaining in popularity in the wake of the bill dying -- but it's safe to say those predicting improved poll numbers were mistaken. The expensive conservative crusade to make reform unpopular worked -- the public doesn't know what's in the bill, exactly, and Americans find the whole thing confusing, but they're pretty sure they're unhappy with the results. Politically, this leads many to assume the American mainstream agrees with the right about the size and scope of the Affordable Care Act. We're occasionally reminded that there's ample reason to question the conventional wisdom.
Obviously there are plenty of confused folks who've bought into nonsense. The AP talked with some guy in Arizona who's convinced health care reform is "a Trojan horse" for a "communist, socialist scheme." It's likely many Fox News viewers have reached the same foolish conclusion. But what matters here is how limited the right-wing attitudes are. Indeed, the results are striking in challenging assumptions about how the public perceives the entire reform initiative. The usual complaints about "a government takeover" aren't just at odds with reality; they're also at odds with what Americans are actually worried about. This is particularly important when it comes to the Republican campaign to kill the new law in 2011. The GOP looks at the polls and assumes the party has the public's backing on health care policy, but they're mistaken -- the vast majority of Americans didn't like the pre-reform status quo and consider Republican "reform" plans wholly inadequate. —Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (11)
September 25, 2010
OBAMA HITS GOP AGENDA AS 'AN ECHO OF A DISASTROUS DECADE'.... As the midterm elections draw closer, note the sharper tone of President Obama's weekly address. This morning's edition echoed the kind of rhetoric we've been hearing more of on the stump, and added a few timely new points we haven't heard from the White House before. The president began by noting the "official" end of the recession, adding that the announcement is pretty meaningless for those who've been struggling. Obama added that he's pushing a variety of measures intended to "keep pushing to promote growth that will generate the jobs we need." But the president then turned his attention to one of the key political stories of the week: the introduction of the Republicans' policy agenda, which features "the very same policies that led to the economic crisis in the first place, which isn't surprising, since many of their leaders were among the architects of that failed policy. "It is grounded in same worn out philosophy: cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires; cut the rules for Wall Street and the special interests; and cut the middle class loose to fend for itself. That's not a prescription for a better future. It's an echo of a disastrous decade we can't afford to relive." Of particular interest, Obama mocked one of the central GOP gimmicks: "The Republicans in Washington claimed to draw their ideas from a website called 'America Speaking Out.' It turns out that one of the ideas that's drawn the most interest on their website is ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas. "Funny thing is, when we recently closed one of the most egregious loopholes for companies creating jobs overseas, Republicans in Congress were almost unanimously opposed. The Republican leader John Boehner attacked us for it, and stood up for outsourcing, instead of American workers. "So, America may be speaking out, but Republicans in Congress sure aren't listening. They want to put special interests back in the driver's seat in Washington. They want to roll back the law that will finally stop health insurance companies from denying you coverage on the basis of a preexisting condition. They want to repeal reforms that will finally protect hardworking families from hidden rates and penalties every time they use a credit card, make a mortgage payment, or take out a student loan. "And for all their talk about reining in spending and getting our deficits under control, they want to borrow another $700 billion, and use it to give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires. On average, that's a tax cut of about $100,000 for millionaires." The president is hitting the road for a series of rallies this week, starting with events at the University of Wisconsin and in Albuquerque, New Mexico on Tuesday, followed by an event in Iowa on Wednesday. With the weekly address in mind, it's safe to assume Obama will remain on the offensive over the last five weeks before the midterms. —Steve Benen 11:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (43)
THE PRIORITIES OF A BLUE DOG.... When it comes to the debate over tax policy, there are two key contingents: (1) President Obama and much of the American mainstream, supporting permanent lower rates for the middle class, while allowing top rates for the wealthy to expire on schedule and return to Clinton-era levels; and (2) congressional Republicans, who prefer a package stacked to favor millionaires and billionaires, at a cost of $4 trillion. Blue Dog Democrats, claiming a mantle of fiscal responsibility, want to extend lower rates for the very wealthy, too. But unlike Republicans, Blue Dogs only want an extension of a year or two, and unlike Republicans, Blue Dogs don't want the cost to be thrown onto the deficit. So, are they to be applauded for pursuing a GOP policy in a less reckless way? Even by the soft bigotry of low expectations, it's hard to give Blue Dogs credit on this -- they want to pay for tax cuts for millionaires by cutting spending elsewhere.
Look, I'm glad Blue Dogs don't just want to cut taxes for the wealthy with more deficit financing, but their priorities don't make any sense. They want to cut spending (which improves the economy) in order to pay for breaks for the wealth (which doesn't improve the economy). And not only does this fail as a policy matter, but Blue Dogs have managed to thread a political needle in a way that runs counter to public attitudes twice -- they're fighting for tax cuts for millionaires the public doesn't support, and they'll pay for it with cutting programs the public does support. Kevin Drum asks, "Are the Blue Dogs congenital morons?" I'll assume that's a rhetorical question. —Steve Benen 10:45 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (27)
THIS WEEK IN GOD.... First up from the God Machine this week is the latest in a series of sex scandals involving Christian pastors who rail against gays. This week, the spotlight shined on Georgia megachurch leader Eddie Long.
Bishop Long has vehemently spoken out against gay rights throughout his career. He also leads a boys' academy that demands teens abstain from sex. Long, whose church's finances have been the subject of a federal investigation, strongly denies having sexual relationships with any of his four accusers, and is scheduled to deliver his first public message on the controversy in his sermon tomorrow. Ted Haggard, who has some experience with the subject matter, has publicly defended Long this week, though under the circumstances, his support may not be ideal for Long's p.r. problem. Also from the God Machine this week: * Pope Benedict XVI sparked outrage from atheists this week, after seemingly equating atheism with the Nazis. In an address in England, the pope spoke of "a Nazi tyranny that wished to eradicate God from society." He went on to urge the UK to guard against "aggressive forms of secularism." Richard Dawkins, among others, was incensed by the remarks, and desribed Benedict as "an enemy of humanity." * As expected, the Texas State Board of Education approved a resolution yesterday "warning textbook publishers to scrub their books of 'gross pro-Islamic, anti-Christian' bias." The final vote was 7 to 6. * The Army National Guard welcomed 1st Lt. Rafael Lantigua as a military chaplain this week. That wouldn't be especially noteworthy, except Lantigua will be the Army National Guard's first Muslim chaplain. Here's hoping conservatives don't hear about this. —Steve Benen 10:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (14)
ILARIO PANTANO'S CREATIVE EDITING.... One of the year's more controversial U.S. House candidates is Ilario Pantano, the Republican nominee in North Carolina's 7th district. You may recall Pantano's controversial military background -- in 2004, he killed two unarmed Iraqi detainees, twice unloading his gun into their bodies, and placing a "No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" sign over the corpses as a message to the local community. Pantano, who fired in upwards of 60 shots in total, said he was acting in self-defense, but the military accused him of premeditated murder. The charges were later dropped when a key witness's testimony could not be corroborated. Pantano's former primary opponent, also an Army veteran of both wars in Iraq, said it would be "dangerous" to elect Pantano. "To shoot two unarmed prisoners 60 times and put a sign over their dead bodies is inexcusable," Breazeale said, Pantano nevertheless hopes to parlay the scandal into a successful run for Congress. This week, we learned that he's already getting the hang of Republican rhetorical tricks. Ben Smith noted yesterday that Pantano has a campaign commercial featuring news stories about his background, which wouldn't be especially interesting were it not for some remarkable editing. For example, an NBC News clip originally told viewers:
Pantano took the clip, removed the context, and showed the same NBC segment in his ad, telling voters:
Similarly, there was another segment on his background that showed an interview with Pantano. As it aired:
Pantano took the clip, and decided to remove the part about his work at Goldman Sachs. The campaign yesterday claimed the segments had to be edited this way in order to "fit the time frame" of the 30-second spot. What a remarkable coincidence. The parts about the candidate's background as an accused murderer and Wall Street trader just happened to be the parts that didn't fit under time constraints. —Steve Benen 9:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (12)
LIFESTYLES OF THE RAESE AND INFAMOUS.... John Raese, the Republican Senate hopeful in West Virginia, was asked this week about his background. "I made my money the old-fashioned way, I inherited it," Raese boasted. "I think that's a great thing to do." He went on to say "a key part" of his platform is lowering inheritance taxes on multi-millionaires. In a state where the median household income is less than $38,000, it seemed like an odd thing for a Senate candidate to say. Nevertheless, with Raese, the heir to the Greer Industries fortune, crowing about all the money he's inherited, there's renewed interest in the Republican nominee's finances.
By all accounts, Raese's home is in Florida, where his wife lives and his kids went to school, and where he frequently visits by way of his private jet. Raese isn't suspected of having done anything untoward with his riches, but stories like these create a narrative that will likely undermine his outreach to struggling West Virginia families. To be sure, there's nothing wrong with being extremely wealthy, just as there's nothing wrong with getting rich by accepting an inheritance. West Virginia's senior senator, John Rockefeller (D), comes from a wealthy family, too. The reason stories like these appear damaging, however, is two-fold. The first is that Raese's connection to West Virginia appears about as tenuous as Rick Santorum's connection to Pennsylvania in 2006 -- Santorum's home was in Virginia, just as Raese's home is in Florida. Voters tend to want officials representing them who actually live in their state. The second is that Raese's extreme, inherited wealth has led him to believe he should fight for other rich people. Rockefeller may come from a wealthy family, but he's spent his career trying to create opportunities for those on the other end of the economic spectrum. Raese is rich, and wants to go to the Senate to help people just like him. In one of the nation's poorest states, it's a bizarre pitch to take to voters. —Steve Benen 9:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (15)
MAHER WASN'T KIDDING.... A week ago, Bill Maher, who's had extremist Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell on as a guest 22 times over the years. aired a clip from 1999 in which O'Donnell explained that she "dabbled into witchcraft," and even had a date that included a "midnight picnic on a satanic alter" where there was "blood and stuff." In reference to his video collection of her appearances, Maher added, "I'm just saying, Christine, it's like a hostage crisis. Every week you don't show up [on my show], I'm going to throw another body out." As it turns out, he wasn't kidding. Last night, Maher aired another clip, this time from 1998, in which O'Donnell insisted, "You know what? Evolution is a myth." When Maher asked at the time, "Have you looked at a monkey?" O'Donnell replied, "Well then, why they -- why aren't monkeys still evolving into humans?" Remember, here we are in the 21st century, and Christine O'Donnell is the Republican Party nominee for the United States Senate in Delaware. Maher told viewers last night that the witchcraft story wasn't especially important. "But," he added, "this is someone who could be in the Senate, who thinks that mice have human brains and doesn't understand 'oh my God, that monkeys don't evolve in the time that it would take to watch them.'" I shudder to think what Maher might show us next week. Whatever it is, the larger problem -- aside from the fact that O'Donnell is painfully unintelligent -- continues to be the way in which these revelations keep slowly coming to light. Her reputation for lunacy keeps getting worse because humiliating examples of her extremism keep dribbling out, day after day, each generating a story reinforcing the Senate hopeful's radical qualities. —Steve Benen 8:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (27)
MAJ. MARGARET WITT FINDS JUSTICE IN FEDERAL COURT.... It can be challenging selecting the single most egregious example that exposes the tragedy of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," but if we were creating a list, Air Force Maj. Margaret Witt would have to be near the top. Long-time readers may recall Witt's story. The highly decorated Air Force officer had an exemplary 19-year military career, including having been awarded the Air Medal for her Middle East deployment and, later, the Air Force Commendation Medal. Witt received sterling performance reviews and, in 1993, the Air Force literally used her photograph in brochures used to recruit nurses. Witt was, however, drummed out of the Air Force because of her sexual orientation. She had assumed that under "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," as long as she didn't tell, she'd be fine. But a third-party tip prompted an investigation of her personal life, leading to her discharge. With the help of the ACLU, Witt filed suit. Yesterday, she won -- following a six-day trial, U.S. District Judge Ronald B. Leighton, a George W. Bush appointee, sided with the Major and ordered the Air Force to take her back "at the earliest possible moment." Leighton's ruling was surprisingly powerful:
It's worth emphasizing the overarching conclusion of the ruling: the court found that kicking Witt out of the Air Force hurt the military. Also note, the ruling comes just two weeks after a different federal judge found that the DADT law itself is unconstitutional. As for Witt's future, despite the treatment she's received, she's nevertheless anxious to rejoin her unit and return to treating injured troops. Here's hoping that happens sooner rather than later. —Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (14)
September 24, 2010
FRIDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits: * A "stronger-than-expected increase in orders for manufactured goods in August" signaled encouraging economic news. * The House probably won't vote on tax cuts before the midterm elections, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hinted today that the schedule is far from final. * Mahmoud Ahmadinejad argued yesterday that much of the world believes the U.S. government was responsible for 9/11. In an interview today, President Obama was not pleased: "It was offensive. It was hateful. And particularly for him to make the statement here in Manhattan, just a little north of ground zero, where families lost their loved ones -- people of all faiths, all ethnicities, who see this as the seminal tragedy of this generation -- for him to make a statement like that was inexcusable." * For those of us who eat food, the news from the Hill isn't good: "Sen. Tom Coburn objected again Thursday to bringing up a sweeping overhaul of food safety regulations, putting the future of the bill in doubt as the 111th Congress enters its final months." * The Justice Department feels compelled to defend the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" law in court, but the White House went out of its way to make clear that "the legal maneuver was a formality, not an indication of presidential policy." Press Secretary Robert Gibbs even issued a statement: "This filing in no way diminishes the president's firm commitment to achieve a legislative repeal of D.A.D.T. -- indeed, it clearly shows why Congress must act to end this misguided policy." * On a related note, when the DADT policy ends, Harvard will reinstate its ROTC program on campus. * In media news, Jonathan Klein is leaving CNN, and Jeff Zucker is leaving NBC Universal. * Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was asked today to identify some government program congressional Republicans would cut if they were in the majority. He couldn't name anything. * Does Fox News' lawsuit against Senate candidate Robin Carnahan (D-Mo.) have merit? No, actually, it doesn't. * If "Young Guns" is going to be a best seller, folks probably should check the comprehensive fact-check of the book. * The New York Times reports on Americans for Job Security really being a front for political operatives funneling corporate money for electoral ends. Of course, Washington Monthly readers learned all about this in our magazine six years ago. * The Tea Party crowd thinks it embodies the traditions of the Founding Fathers. That's absurd. * In case you missed it, Stephen Colbert testified -- mostly, but not entirely, in character -- before the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law this morning, speaking at a hearing on "Protecting America's Harvest." It was pretty amusing, but Fox News and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) really didn't think so. Anything to add? Consider this an open thread. —Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (23)
O'DONNELL'S BANDAID COMES OFF SLOWLY, CONT'D.... It's been days since a humiliating development came to light about extremist Senate candidate Christine O'Donnell (R), but the streak ended today. I'd heard this quote was out there, and even saw a partial transcript, but I just had trouble believing it was true. Alas, it's entirely legit. In this MSNBC clip, an activist in support of sexual health and education explained that he talks with young people about these issues all the time. Asked what he tells them, he said, "I tell them to be careful. You have to wear a condom. You have to protect yourself when you're going to have sex, because they're having it anyway. There's nothing that you or me can do about it." O'Donnell strongly disagreed, and suggested contraception isn't enough. When the other guest asked, "You're going to stop the whole country from having sex?" O'Donnell replied, "Yeah. Yeah!" Told that she's "living on a prayer," O'Donnell added, "That's not true. I'm a young woman in my thirties and I remain chaste." It's worth noting that the exchange was aired in 2003, which may seem like quite a while ago, but which came just three years before O'Donnell's first U.S. Senate campaign*. She was working, at the time, at a right-wing organization she later sued. I wonder how many viewers saw the segment at the time, and thought, "You know, it's only a matter of time before the Republican Party nominates this crazy person to serve in the United States Senate." * typo fixed —Steve Benen 4:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (33)
'POSTCARDS FROM THE PLEDGE'.... Many Democrats hoped to demonstrate yesterday that the House Republicans' "Pledge to America" is really little more than a rehash of old, tired, failed, and discredited ideas the GOP has been touting for years. But leave it to "The Daily Show" to help drive this point home with flare.
Pay particular attention to the conclusion: "Just to get this straight: Two years ago America broke up with you because you had badly mistreated her. And so you disappear, do some soul searching, get your head together. And you come back rapping on our door, hat in hand, and you say: 'Baby, I know you left me, but if we get back together, I pledge to you, I promise you, I will still try to f**k your sister. Every chance I get. It's who I am.'" —Steve Benen 3:10 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (15)
ROMNEY'S STRATEGY.... It often seems as if there's an assumption in the political world about the economy: any day now, we're start to see real improvements. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said this morning, for example, that he believes the economy is "getting ready to take off." I desperately hope he's right, but it's worth remembering that a real economic bounce is hardly inevitable. We just finished what was, by some metrics, a lost decade, and the pain may very well continue. The Fed doesn't want to act, and the breakdown of the political process, coupled with Republican gains in November, suggests additional steps to improve the economic outlook simply won't happen for the foreseeable future. If the economy is going to bounce back, it's going to have to do so on its own. That said, Frank's not the only one who's optimistic. Former one-term Gov. Mitt Romney (R), looking ahead to another presidential campaign, agrees that the economy will start to pick up in 2011, but thinks he can win a national race in 2012 anyway. In remarks to a gathering of capital financiers in Los Angeles this week, talked a bit about his strategy.
Romney added that the White House will take credit for a growing economy, but he can nevertheless take on Obama effectively because "the American people have established a perspective on the president which is going to be lasting -- that he has not understood the nature of America, in some respects, that the values I've described of love of liberty, of freedom, of opportunity, of small government -- that those values he doesn't share." A few reactions come to mind. First, I certainly hope Romney's right about the economy. Second, if Romney thinks he can beat President Obama when the economy's on the upswing -- by talking about "values," no less -- he's out of his mind. And third, Romney's talking points appear to be askew. Jon Chait explained, "[T]he interesting part of Romney's remarks is the implicit concession that government activism, including stimulus, can help restore the economy to health. I have no doubt that Romney understands this is true. But he seems to have forgotten the Republican line that the stimulus has either had no effect or made the economy worse." Well, that is the Republican line, but remember, Romeny was one of a handful of Republicans to approve of Obama's Recovery Act last year, and predicted that the Recovery Act would "accelerate" economic growth. He was right, though his party doesn't want to hear that. Those candidate debates sure will be entertaining. —Steve Benen 2:05 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (22)
SESSIONS THINKS GOP HAS BEEN 'TOO GENEROUS' ON JUDICIAL NOMINEES.... The Senate Judiciary Committee once again approved a batch of stalled judicial nominations yesterday, but not before Republicans vowed to take their unprecedented obstructionist tactics up a notch.
Oh really. Republican senators, according to the right-wing, borderline-racist ranking member, have been "far too generous" with nominees thus far. We're looking at a governmental landscape in which the judicial nominating process has been brought to a generational standstill, but Sessions would like to see it get much worse. Keep in mind, GOP senators are now throwing a fit over district court nominees -- would-be judges who have, even during previous eras of Republican hysterics, been approved with relative ease. (Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told his GOP colleagues yesterday, "Erecting a blockade for a district court nominee is a new threshold we will cross. Once that tiger is let out of a cage, it will never get back in.") Also note, Republicans are making no effort to hide the ideological warfare. Session conceded that he wants to block judges, not because of qualifications or temperament, because he disagrees with their philosophy. When Democrats considered a similar approach, Republicans were absolutely apoplectic, and screamed that Dems were tearing at the very fabric of our democracy. During the Bush era, Sessions, in particular, decried Democrats' "unprecedented, obstructive tactics," and demanded that every Bush nominee receive "an up-and-down vote," whether Democrats agreed with them ideologically or not. Look, I know this isn't the sexiest issue, but there's a crisis on the courts, and it's the direct result of Senate Republicans engaging in tactics that no one has ever seen before. It is no exaggeration to say the status quo is the worst it's ever been -- the Alliance For Justice recently reported that President Obama "has seen a smaller percentage of his nominees confirmed at this point in his presidency than any president in American history." Dahlia Lithwick said the ongoing fiasco may need to be renamed "a national judicial disaster or the global war on the judiciary." Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy recently noted the broken process, and argued, "It's important for the public to understand that the excellence of the federal judiciary is at risk." But there's a Democratic president, which means Republicans don't care. Indeed, as far as they're concerned, they've already been "far too generous" with their consent. —Steve Benen 1:10 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (29)
IF MCCONNELL WAS WORRIED, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A BIG HINT.... As you've likely heard, the Senate Democratic leadership officially punted on a tax-cut vote late yesterday, vowing to take up the issue again after the midterm elections. There's still a slight chance the House may act next week, but by all indications, nervous incumbents insisted they'd be better off not having a confrontation with Republicans over middle-class tax breaks before voters go to the polls. As for the behind-the-scenes wrangling, Greg Sargent reports that the current and former chiefs of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee both urged the leadership to hold the vote next week, but apparently weren't persuasive enough.
When the Republican leader doesn't want Democrats to do something before an election, that's generally a big hint that Dems should do precisely that. As for the larger caucus, it's not altogether clear exactly which Democratic senators were on which side of the fight, but the side that ultimately won out apparently concluded that the debate had gone well for Dems, and there was no need to "rock the boat." "People felt like, Why rock the boat on a good situation?" the Senate source told Greg. "People weren't sure how having a vote would effect that dynamic. We would have lost Democrats on certain aspects of the vote. Who knows if the media would cover that as Democrats being splintered? In a way the good polling gave people faith that we don't need to do anything on the issue because we're already winning." I've read this a few times, trying to understand the logic, but it eludes me. Dems could have forced a pre-election showdown with Republicans on an issue where voters are siding with Dems. The majority decided not to do the popular thing, though, concluding that supporting a popular idea but not voting on it is enough to curry favor with the public. Someone's going to have to explain this one to me. —Steve Benen 12:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (51)
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. * After losing his Senate primary last week, Delaware Rep. Mike Castle (R) appeared to be finished with electoral politics. Now, however, Castle is poised to poll his state about the viability of a third-party, independent, write-in campaign. A Castle spokesperson put the chances of him running as a write-in "under 5 percent." * It's not exactly encouraging that many militia activists in Alaska seem awfully fond of Senate candidate Joe Miller (R). * In Nevada's Senate race, a new Mason-Dixon poll shows Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) tied with extremist challenger Sharron Angle (R), each garnering 43% support. * Rep. Roy Blunt's (R-Mo.) Senate campaign presented Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan with a package of six proposed debates. Now Blunt has refused to participate if four of the six events he requested. * In New York's suddenly-interesting gubernatorial race, a new Marist poll shows state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo (D) leading Carl Paladino (R) by 19 points, 52% to 33%, with Conservative Party nominee Rick Lazio running third with 9%. * On the heels of a PPP poll showing a competitive Senate race in West Virginia, the National Republican Senatorial Committee is launching a new round of attack ads against Gov. Joe Manchin (D). * In Florida's gubernatorial race, the latest Mason-Dixon poll shows state CFO Alex Sink (D) leading Rick Scott (R), 47% to 40%. * In California's Senate race, a new Field Poll shows Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) increasing her lead to six points over failed former HP CEO Carly Fiorina (R), 47% to 41%. * In a veritable replay of last year's special election, Doug Hoffman will run again in New York's 23rd as the Conservative Party nominee against Democratic incumbent Rep. Bill Owens and Republican nominee Matt Doheny. * Don't expect competitive races in Idaho this year -- the latest Mason-Dixon poll shows Gov. Butch Otter (R) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R) with large leads over their Democratic challengers. —Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (8)
QUOTE OF THE DAY.... The open U.S. Senate race in West Virginia may prove to be far more competitive than Democrats had hoped, and both major party candidates will no doubt be working hard in the coming weeks to prove that they understand the concerns of hard-working, middle-class Americans. To that end, perennial candidate John Raese (R) may need to sharpen his message a bit. Here's the conservative candidate yesterday, appearing on a radio show:
First, insisting that getting rich through inheritance is "a great thing to do" doesn't exactly scream "man of the people." Second, if the inheritance tax was so onerous, then how is it Raese got to be so much wealthier than the typical West Virginian? And third, if Raese seriously believes regular folks will have new-found opportunities at wealth just as soon as the inheritance tax on multi-millionaires is eliminated, then he probably doesn't realize that 99.75% of Americans already pay no inheritance tax, and the current law doesn't affect anyone inheriting less than $3.5 million. Indeed, Raese may be confused, but there really aren't that many ultra-rich families in West Virginia, so making breaks for multi-millionaires "a key part" of his platform is probably a bad idea. Where does the Republican Party find these guys? —Steve Benen 11:25 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (22)
'CASH-AND-TRASH' MAKES A COMEBACK.... Earlier this year, around the one-year anniversary of the Recovery Act, the "cash-and-trash" strategy took shape in earnest. It went a little something like this -- Republicans would express their hate for the stimulus and "trash" it at every available opportunity, but at the same time, love the stimulus and grab the "cash" when it came to creating jobs in their own states/districts. The Washington Times, for example, found that more than a dozen Republican lawmakers, all of whom insisted that the stimulus was an awful idea that couldn't possibly help the economy, quietly urged the Department of Agriculture to send stimulus money to their areas, touting the investments' economic benefits. A week later, the Wall Street Journal found that more than another dozen GOP members, all of whom also said they loathe the Recovery Act, urged the Department of Labor, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Forest Service to send stimulus money to help their constituents and local economies. This week, the Wall Street Journal moved the ball forward a little more. (thanks to reader P.H. for the tip)
Now, the Republican response to questions like these is obvious, and at face value, it doesn't necessarily seem ridiculous. There's a whole lot of investment going on, the GOP argues, so it's only fair to ask for some of that money to help in their states/districts. They opposed the stimulus, the pitch goes, but if the funds are there anyway, it's not unreasonable to seek some resources for their constituents. And that's fine, as far as it goes. But there's a larger context to consider here -- the letters help show that Republicans know that stimulus funding works. For all their palaver about how government spending is simply incapable of creating jobs and generating economic growth -- or worse, that the Recovery Act actually hurts the economy -- we know they don't mean it. Indeed, we have the written requests for stimulus funds to prove it. As Rachel Maddow explained a while back, "It shows not only that Democratic policies work -- and when push comes to shove, in their home districts, Republicans know it -- it also shows that Republicans care so little about policy that they're O.K. with holding totally nonsensically contradictory positions on important stuff." After noting the dozens of Republican lawmakers who've sought stimulus aid to help the economy in their states and districts, Rachel added, "These Republicans are acknowledging, in writing, that the stimulus is good policy. That it works. Thus proving that they don't mean it when they denounce the stimulus as worthless." —Steve Benen 10:50 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (18)
MICHAEL STEELE'S MAGIC BUS.... The New York Times reported the other day that in the typical midterm cycle, the Republican National Committee would, right about now, be sending large checks to state parties to boost the party's electoral ground game. This year, however, "the party cannot afford to execute a robust voter turnout program." What's more, for "the first time in at least a decade," the RNC has "reduced the scale of its turnout and targeting programs." The party does have the resources, however, to send the RNC chairman on a bus tour.
Steele? Using his post for personal gain? Say it ain't so. I still think the odds of a Republican takeover of the House are very good, but the party's chances improve when the RNC invests in voter turnout. Instead, it's using scarce funds to send the party's buffoon-like chairman on the road. One state party chair told CNN the Steele road trip is "a colossal waste of time." The CNN report also noted several invited guests -- including Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley and Florida Senate candidate Marco Rubio -- chose not to show up when the RNC chairman showed up in their area. We'll see what happens in 39 days, but if the election results fall short of expectations on the right, Michael Steele's name will be reviled in Republican circles for many years. —Steve Benen 10:05 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (13)
QUANTIFYING THE ENTHUSIASM GAP, CONT'D.... Looking at the recent trend on the congressional generic ballot, it's tempting to think Republicans "peaked" in August and the landscape is getting more competitive. For Democrats looking for a morale boost with just 39 days until the midterms, this is a good reason not to give into despair. But I feel like the enthusiasm gap continues to be the one factor in this campaign that's likely to make all the difference -- if it doesn't close, Dems may very well lose everything; if it does close, the political world is in for a big surprise. The new Associated Press-GfK Poll, for example, reinforces what we've seen from other recent surveys -- Democrats are unpopular; Republicans are more unpopular. (In 1994, this wasn't the case.) What's more, Americans "overwhelmingly fault Bush more than Obama for the recession." But then there's that enthusiasm gap.
Similarly, the Pew Research Center released its latest report yesterday, and the results make this point even more clearly. When registered voters are asked which party's candidates they're more likely to support, Democrats actually lead by three, 47% to 44%, Among likely voters, there's a 10-point swing in the other direction, with Republicans up by seven, 50% to 43%. President Obama's remarks at a party fundraiser on Wednesday night ring true: "The single biggest threat to our success is not the other party. It's us. It's complacency. It's apathy. It's indifference. It's people feeling like, well, we only got 80 percent of what we want, we didn't get the other 20, so we're just going to sit on our hands." —Steve Benen 9:35 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (38)
PUSHING BACK AGAINST A 'WAR ON ARITHMETIC'.... Paul Krugman's column today does a nice job explaining that one of the nation's "great political parties" seems to have launched a "war on arithmetic."
This is Marge turns to Homer and say, "See all that stuff in there, Homer? That's why your robot never worked." You see, in Homer's mind, simply building something that looked like a giant robot should have been enough. Plop a tin bucket on a metal torso, give it a name, and the thing should just start working. It didn't occur to Homer that robots are very complex, and that the advanced technology that goes into the tin-bucket head actually makes a difference. In this little allegory, House Republicans are obviously Homer. They believe they have a policy agenda because they published a document they call a "policy agenda." Their tin-bucket head is empty, but they aren't quite sharp enough to realize that this matters. This isn't to say all Republicans have always been like this. Not surprisingly, I was never especially impressed with Reagan's supply-side agenda from 30 years ago, but credible economists had thought out a specific approach and could back up their ideas with data. The point, however, is that this new generation of GOP leaders just doesn't bother. They find pesky details like arithmetic to be annoying distractions. It leads to a desire to meet with the House Minority Leader and show him a real policy document. "See all that stuff in there, John? That's why your agenda never worked." —Steve Benen 8:45 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (31)
A NEW TARGET.... The headline on the AP analysis piece yesterday seemed a little silly, at least at first blush: "Could GOP be playing into Dem hands?" Right. Dems are struggling in the polls; their base is prepared to sit on their hands; their opponents have momentum and deep-pocketed corporate backing; and weak-kneed members on the Hill are crouched in fear ... so clearly Dems have Republicans right where they want them. But in fairness, the point of the AP piece -- that the Republicans' "Pledge to America" offers Democrats a big, new target -- really isn't silly at all.
You'll no doubt recall that Democrats have been trying to goad the GOP to go down this road for quite a while. The point was hardly subtle -- Dems wanted something to attack. Yesterday, Republicans proudly unveiled a bull's-eye, and with it comes at least a hint of an opportunity. After all, what's the underlying point of the Dems' election-year message? That Republicans are a far-right party pushing discredited ideas and the same failed agenda that got us into this mess in the first place. Yesterday, House GOP leaders offered in-print proof that the Democratic message happens to be entirely right. Though the quote has been taken slightly out of context, John Boehner probably hurt his own cause yesterday when he declared, "We are not going to be any different than what we've been." So, what do Democrats do now? It might help to take the offensive, demanding to know if Republican candidates nationwide have endorsed a governing strategy that would bring back Bush-era economic policies, increase the deficit, raise taxes on small businesses, and take health care away from tens of millions of middle-class Americans. Dems can start referring to the new agenda in media interviews as the Republicans' "controversial, widely-panned 'Pledge.'" They can even start mocking it, noting that Pledge is generally known for trying to put a new shine on dull, old surfaces. The AP report added that in Republican circles on the Hill, there's been a "private internal debate," with some in the party preferring not to release an agenda at all, "worried it would open GOP candidates to criticism." Why not prove them right? —Steve Benen 8:00 AM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (28)
September 23, 2010
THURSDAY'S MINI-REPORT.... Today's edition of quick hits: * The U.S. is looking for some partners: "Telling the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday that his efforts to engage friends and adversaries were beginning to bear fruit, President Obama called on Arab states to support fragile Middle East peace talks and warned Iran that it would face sustained international pressure if it did not negotiate seriously over its nuclear program." * Soon after, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told the General Assembly that most of the world believes the U.S. government was responsible for executing the Sept. 11 attacks. The remarks prompted U.S. and European delegations to walk out. * There were some hopes that the number of first-time filers of unemployment benefits would drop this week. That didn't happen: "Initial claims for jobless aid rose by 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 465,000, the Labor Department said Thursday." The uptick reversed a five-week trend. * Housing market: "Sales of previously occupied homes rose last month, but not enough to keep August from being the second-worst month for sales in more than a decade." * The author of the House Republicans' "Pledge for America" is a House GOP staffer "who, up till April 2010, served as a lobbyist for some of the nation's most powerful oil, pharmaceutical, and insurance companies." * Good news out of Florida: "A 30-year-old Florida law that prohibits adoption by gay men and lesbians is unconstitutional, a state appeals court ruled on Wednesday, and the state's governor said the law would not be enforced pending a decision on whether to appeal." Gov. Charlie Crist (I) applauded the decision and said the ban would stop being enforced immediately. * As if conservative Republicans weren't enough, conservative Democrats can screw up our system of government, too: "President Obama's pick to serve as head of the Office of Management and Budget looked headed for an easy Senate confirmation, until this afternoon, when Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) announced she will place a hold on the nomination until the Obama administration lifts a moratorium on deep-water drilling in the Gulf of Mexico." * It's a problem that's getting worse: "At a time of growing tensions involving Muslims in the United States, a record number of Muslim workers are complaining of employment discrimination, from co-workers calling them 'terrorist' or 'Osama' to employers barring them from wearing head scarves or taking prayer breaks." * New allies for for-profit colleges? * Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) knows someone in his office was responsible for publishing "all f*ggots must die" online, but he doesn't know who. * The House GOP leadership probably should have scheduled their "Pledge" event a little better -- it coincided with President Obama's remarks at the United Nations, and the news networks covered the president instead of John Boehner. * President Obama, talking to Democratic supporters last night: "The single biggest threat to our success is not the other party. It's us. It's complacency. It's apathy. It's indifference. It's people feeling like, well, we only got 80 percent of what we want, we didn't get the other 20, so we're just going to sit on our hands." Anything to add? Consider this an open thread. —Steve Benen 5:30 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (59)
STILL TRYING TO MAKE OBAMA 'THE OTHER'.... A couple of weeks ago, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) argued that Americans know less about President Obama than "any other president in history." He went on to say -- just as "an observation," of course -- that "there's not much known" about the president's youth. "We don't know any of the childhood things," Barbour said. Yesterday, a certain former half-term governor tried to push a similar line on Fox News, and even felt compelled to use the president's middle name.
No, Palin's capacity for conspicuous unintelligence hasn't reached its limit quite yet; thanks for asking. In case it's not obvious, it's worth appreciating how wildly wrong these arguments really are. Ta-Nehisi Coates noted this morning:
It's ironic that leading right-wing voices continue to suggest that Obama is some kind of stranger when in reality, we know more about this president than any in modern times -- his life has literally been an open-book. The larger point, though, remains the same, and it remains ugly. Far-right leaders are obsessed with characterizing the president as some kind of foreign "other" to be mistrusted and seen as illegitimate. It's absurd and offensive, but it remains at the center of conservative thought. —Steve Benen 4:45 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (29)
RHETORIC VS. REALITY ON SMALL BUSINESSES.... In their "Pledge to America," House Republicans reference small businesses 18 times. In case that was too subtle, John Boehner & Co. unveiled their plan at a small business in a D.C.-area suburb, suggesting it's outlets like the Tart Lumber Company that would benefit from the GOP agenda. It's a curious argument. Over the last 20 months, Democrats have approved eight separate measures intended to help small businesses, and Republicans opposed all of them. Indeed, in an ironic twist, House GOP leaders left a small business this morning to hustle back to Capitol Hill in order to vote against small businesses.
Of the 175 House Republicans to vote on the small business incentives bill, 174 voted against it. The GOP likes to talk about helping these entrepreneurs; it's the follow through where the party runs into trouble. Keep in mind, there are all kinds of small businesses that "put hiring, supply buying and real estate expansion on hold," just waiting for this bill to pass. That didn't seem to sway the congressional minority. It's especially interesting when one considers that Tart Lumber, which hosted the Republican gathering this morning, will now under the Democratic proposal be able to write off its first $500,000 in equipment investment next year, have access to expanded capital through the Small Business Lending Fund, have access to new loans through SBA lending programs, and investors in firms like Tart Lumber would receive zero capital gains on their investments. Oh, and in case it matters, the bill is fully paid for, giving Republicans one fewer excuses for opposition. Of course, they opposed it anyway. The legislation is now headed to President Obama's desk. He's expected to sign it into law on Monday. —Steve Benen 4:15 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (7)
DISCLOSE ACT DIES AGAIN.... The DISCLOSE Act (Democracy Is Strengthened by Casting Light On Spending in Elections) seems like such a modest proposal. It the wake of the Citizens United ruling, Democrats thought it made sense to require corporations and interest groups that pay for campaign ads to identify themselves -- allowing the public to know who's saying what. In the House, the proposal even had a Republican co-sponsor. In the Senate, Dems agreed to make changes Republicans wanted to see related to the way the legislation treated labor unions. But in July, every Senate Republican blocked the chamber from even debating the bill. Today, every Senate Republican did the exact same thing.
Democrats only needed one Republican to at least allow the Senate to debate the bill, but not one was willing to break ranks. Remember when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) was a champion of campaign-finance reform? He not only opposed the bill, he filibustered an attempt to have a debate. Remember when Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine), Susan Collins (R-Maine), and Scott Brown (R-Mass.) seemed like the kind of "moderates" who would support an effort like this? All three toed the party line. It was too late to make any difference in this cycle -- "independent" groups helping Republicans are already trying to buy the midterm elections for the GOP -- but it's the kind of common-sense step that would have helped in the future. But "only" a 59-member majority supports the move, which in our dysfunctional legislative system, necessarily means it dies. —Steve Benen 3:45 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (15)
RECONSIDERING RECONCILIATION.... Here was Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) in 2005, when he wanted to use reconciliation to allow ANWR drilling.
And here was Judd Gregg in March 2009, on the prospect of Democrats using reconciliation to advance its policy agenda:
A year later, Gregg was outraged by the very idea of using reconciliation on health care policy, because the legislative tactic shouldn't be used on "substantive" matters. But Gregg isn't above executing the rarely-seen flip-flop-flip, in which he supports reconciliation, then opposes it, then supports it again. This week on CNBC, Gregg was asked whether reconciliation could be used to "roll back some of the unpopular Obama policies." The senator replied:
Keep three things in mind here. First, just this year, Gregg said reconciliation shouldn't be used to make major, "substantive" changes. Now he's prepared to use the tactic on entitlements. Second, the whole point of reconciliation is supposed to be about improving the budget outlook. In context, Gregg is now talking about using the tactic to make the deficit much bigger. And third, it's a reminder as to why Democrats seem to lose arguments so often -- they care about intellectual seriousness and consistency. Their rivals do not. —Steve Benen 3:05 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (17)
FOREGOING THE PRETENSE OF FISCAL RESTRAINT.... Republicans' selective, intermittent passion related to deficit reduction is a sight to behold. When the GOP was in the majority, they decided "deficits don't matter" and it was "standard practice" for Republicans "not to pay for things." The GOP, as a consequence, turned a big surplus into a massive deficit and added $5 trillion to the debt in eight years. In 2009, they changed their minds. Deficit reduction, the GOP concluded, was paramount -- even taking precedence over economic growth and job creation. But in 2010, with Republicans poised to possibly win back Congress, wouldn't you know it, the deficit, once again, doesn't really matter. In their "Pledge to America," House Republicans only use the word "deficit" four times in 21 pages, and three of four were criticisms of the Obama administration. The fourth was a vow: "[W]e will ... bring down the deficit." No, actually, they won't. Andrew Sullivan called the agenda "the most fiscally irresponsible document ever offered by the GOP" and "an act of vandalism against the fiscal balance" of the country. If you think that sounds hyperbolic, that probably means you haven't read the document. As we talked about earlier, Republicans have decided to push for $4 trillion in tax cuts, which would increase the deficit; push for the repeal of health care reform, which would increase the deficit; and increase spending on missile defense, which would increase the deficit. But we can go even further and consider the fact that "the 21-page 'Pledge' omits any mention of a key Republican mantra: a ban on earmarks." And what about entitlements?
Here's a tip for the political world: never try to hold "an adult conversation" with dimwitted hacks who aren't ready to sit at the big kids' table. Just to be clear, I'm not a deficit hawk. If Republicans want to blow it off and focus on economic growth, that's fine by me. But that's what makes their proposal such a sham: the GOP claims it will embrace fiscal restraint, then presents a plan to do the opposite, then urges the country to help them lead "an adult conversation." There's something deeply wrong with anyone who falls for this farce. —Steve Benen 2:25 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (18)
DEPT. OF MISLEADING VISUALS.... As part of the House Republicans' "Pledge to America" pitch, the accompanying document includes this chart, which purports to show an increase in federal spending as a share of the economy.
As Alexander C. Hart noted, "At first, I looked at that graph and thought 'Holy cow -- President Obama is proposing to double the size of government!' But then I saw the numbers at the top and bottom of the graph. The increase in government as a share of GDP looks so large only due to the fact that the box only ranges from 17 to 24. With that scale, even a small increase looks huge." So Hart prepared an alternative, which adjusts the y-axis to go from 0 to 100.
Ezra takes this one step further, noting the data only goes up to the low-20s, and re-graphs the numbers this way:
Any way you slice it, we're talking about a modest 3.5% increase in government spending in relation to the size of the economy. And just to emphasize an element of this that shouldn't go overlooked, let's note that this increase makes perfect sense. In early 2009, when President Obama took office, it was necessary to boost spending to prevent an economic collapse. Indeed, by most measures, the increase should have been larger, not smaller. House Republicans, in other words, are peddling a dishonest graph -- with a grammatical error -- to raise an observation that doesn't make any policy sense. Other than that, it's fine. —Steve Benen 1:35 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (30)
THEY DON'T WANT TO HOLD THE DAMN VOTES.... As legislative strategies go, this one seemed pretty easy. President Obama's tax policy -- the one he ran on in 2008; the one polls find to be popular -- wants to give a tax break to the middle class, while letting top rates for the wealthy return to their Clinton-era levels. Republicans have threatened to hold that proposal hostage unless Dems agree to extend tax breaks to millionaires. The smart move for Democrats, it seems, would be to hold a vote on Obama's proposed middle-class tax breaks -- before, you know, the election -- and dare Republicans to reject it. But Senate Dems apparently don't want to do the smart thing...
...and House Dems aren't inclined to do the smart thing, either.
These reports, obviously, aren't official announcements, so I suppose there's still a chance Democrats will realize they're making a mistake, but all available evidence suggests both the House and the Senate will push the tax debate off until after the midterms. In other words, Democrats could vote for a middle-class tax cut before an election in which they're likely to do very poorly, but they're choosing not to, preferring to have the vote after the election. I was especially intrigued by the senior Democratic Senate aide: "We have a winning message now, why muddy it up with a failed vote, because, of course, Republicans are going to block everything." I think I know what he/she means -- that Dems have already positioned themselves as champions of the middle class, and losing yet another vote would be disheartening -- but it's still a deeply flawed strategy. Holding a vote gets everyone on the record; allows Dems to boast of their votes on middle-class tax cuts; and offers Dems a campaign cudgel to use against Republicans who hold those cuts hostage. It's an opportunity the majority is inexplicably willing to let slip by. —Steve Benen 12:55 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (71)
ANGLE TAKES BOLD STAND AGAINST FAMILY HEALTH CARE.... When it comes to reform proposals and the health care system, some ideas are obviously more popular than others. For politicians, then, it makes sense to castigate provisions that don't poll well. Sharron Angle (R), the extremist Senate candidate in Nevada, however, is inclined to rail against ideas that enjoy broad, bipartisan support. In this video, we see the Republican nominee at a Tea Party event, complaining about families receiving too much coverage, and demanding that policymakers "take off the mandates" that expand what treatments will be covered. "[Y]ou know what I'm talking about," Angle said. "You're paying for things that you don't even need. They just passed the latest one, is every, everything that they want to throw at us now is covered under 'autism.' So that's a mandate that you have to pay for. How about maternity leave? I'm not gonna have any more babies, but I sure get to pay for it on my insurance. Those are the kinds of things that we want to get rid of." So, vote for Angle, so health insurance coverage won't cover autism and maternity leave? If you watch the clip, also note that Angle uses air quotes around the word "autism," though I don't know why. In a statement, Reid campaign spokesperson Kelly Steele said, "Sharron Angle's extreme and dangerous agenda for Nevada has included some exceptionally callous rhetoric, including calling out-of-work Nevadans 'spoiled' by unemployment benefits and saying that rape victims should 'make lemons into lemonade' by having their attacker's child, but mocking those suffering with autism -- and in fact scapegoating their coverage for our nation's current health care woes -- is exceptionally cruel and represents a new low, even for Sharron Angle." —Steve Benen 12:25 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (37)
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. * The Texas Farm Bureau has decided not to issue an endorsement in the state's gubernatorial race, which wouldn't be especially interesting, except it's the first time in the bureau's history it hasn't backed the Republican candidate, signaling dissatisfaction with incumbent Gov. Rick Perry (R). * In New York, a new Siena poll shows Andrew Cuomo (D) leading Carl Paladino (R) in the state's gubernatorial race, 57% to 24%, and Sen. Kristen Gillibrand (D) leading Joe DioGuardi (R) in the U.S. Senate race, 57% to 31%. * A new Quinnipiac poll, however, shows Gillibrand up by only six points against DioGuardi, 48% to 42%. * In Delaware's Senate race, Chris Coons (D) leads Christine O'Donnell (R) in a new Time/CNN poll, 55% to 39%. * In Colorado's Senate race, Ken Buck (R) leads appointed Sen. Michael Bennet (D) in a new Time/CNN poll, 49% to 44%. * In Wisconsin's Senate race, Ron Johnson (R) leads Sen. Russ Feingold (D) in a new Time/CNN poll, 51% to 45%. * In Pennsylvania's Senate race, former Rep. Pat Toomey (R) leads Rep. Joe Sestak (D) in a new Time/CNN poll, 49% to 44%. * In California's gubernatorial race, a new Field Poll shows Jerry Brown (D) and Meg Whitman (R) tied at 41% each. * In Arkansas, Rep. John Boozman (R) leads incumbent Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) in a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, 53% to 39%. The 14-point margin is actually slightly more competitive that several other recent polls. * And the award for most detestable and offensive ad of the cycle so far goes to right-wing congressional candidate Renee Elmers (R), running in North Carolina, and basing her campaign on using the words "Muslims," "they," and "terrorists" interchangeably. —Steve Benen 12:00 PM Permalink | Trackbacks | Comments (12)
PUNISHING ALLIES, REWARDING FOES.... Senate Democrats successfully added a measure to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" to this year's defense authorization bill, leading to a Republican filibuster that Dems couldn't overcome. Frustrated by the outcome, Andrew Sullivan is blaming ... those who agree with him. Jason Mazzone made the case that the Senate GOP was prepared to kill the defense bill over the DADT measure, and there wasn't much Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) could do about it. Without elaborating, Sullivan replied:
I've read this several times, trying to wrap my head around it. I'm afraid I'm still at a loss. Reid successfully pushed for the repeal provision to be included in the bill and supports ending the dangerous, discriminatory status quo. Sullivan agrees with him. Angle is a crazy person who hates gays, and if elected, would fight to, among other things, keep DADT in place. Sullivan disagrees with her. But if given a choice, Sullivan would choose to vote for the borderline-insane candidate he disagrees with, because of the procedural strategy on legislative amendments Reid utilized? It's better to defeat a senator who you agree with and elect a senator who'll work against you? DADT should be repealed. Republicans, for now, have ignored decency, popular will, and the judgment of the president, the Defense secretary, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and unanimously rejected the repeal effort. Logically, then, those who support repeal should ... reward Republicans? I just don't see how this makes sense. —Steve Benen 11:25 AM Permalink | | ||||||||||||
