Streams Of Consciousness, Dec. 18

The Obama Administration definitely sees passage of the job-killing/Social Security-harming tax break for billionaires as a way station on the path to Obama's reelection. They're very much in tune with right-wing polemicist Charles Krauthammer, who has convinced himself that by turning sharply right and repeatedly spitting on the base that elected him in 2008, Obama is headed for a win in 2012. How anyone can fall for that in light of what happened in November to the House Democrats who played that game-- Blue Dogs like Bobby Bright (AL), Travis Childers (MS), Jim Marshall (GA), Zach Space (OH), Gene Taylor (MS), Michael Arcuri (NY), Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (SD), Kathy Dahlkemper (PA), Lincoln Davis (TN), Glenn Nye (VA), Frank Kratovil (MD), Betsy Markey (CO), Earl Pomeroy (ND), Harry Mitchell (AZ), Walt Minnick (ID) and plenty of others, plus conservatove fellow-travelers like John Adler (NJ), Suzanne Kosmas (FL), Tom Perriello (VA), Rick Boucher (VA), Michael McMahon (NY), Ann Kirkpatrick (AZ), Ike Skelton (MO), etc. Every one of them played that game-- voting for the anti-family Republican agenda and leaving Democratic voters high and dry-- and every one of them was defeated, some resoundingly, for the same reason: Democratic voters and left-leaning independents did not come out to vote. Republicans and right-leaning independents did-- but, of course, they voted for Republicans.

Idaho Blue Dog Walt Minnick, for example, has accrued one of the worst voting records of any Democrat in the House, voting far more frequently with John Boehner than with Nancy Pelosi on contentious and substantive issues. But it did him no good. Democrats were disgusted by him and refused to even show up to vote, and Republicans and independents flocked to an obscure and extreme teabagger, Raul Labador, who beat him decisively, 126,055 (51%) to 101,870 (41%) and destroyed him in 10 of the 11 counties in this district, including in Ada County-- the big one-- by 10,000 votes, and in Canyon-- the second-biggest-- by an even bigger margin!

This week Minnick said he wouldn't even bother to try to win his seat back. In a farewell interview with the NY Times, Minnick, like most of the defeated Blue Dogs, blames liberal policies for their political demise rather than their own shortcomings as political leaders. He whines about Democrats having voted for cap and trade but never explains why he couldn't even explain his "no" vote to his constituents back home.

"Very little went well in energy and the environment," the 68-year-old representative said in an interview last week. "That was an area where we had a particularly tin ear and where the solution to the biggest issue-- global warming-- proposed by the party ... got transformed by its opposition from cap and trade to cap and tax and became politically toxic almost every place in the country."

Minnick calls the political misjudgments that led to House passage of the "American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009" and the inability to then message the bill or have a fallback position "equally disastrous" to the way the Nixon administration tried to message Watergate.

The process, Minnick said, was an "absolute total failure."

..."It was a failure of Democratic leadership," Minnick continued.

In part that was due to the fact that the solution was so partisan and that there was no buy-in from the Republicans, he said.

Minnick faults Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for running the House in a top-down style similar to that of one of her predecessors, Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

Minnick is a former Republican-- who worked for Nixon in the '70s-- and although he changed his T-shirt color to blue after the Watergate scandal, in his heart he's always been a Republican, with a typically anti-egalitarian, authoritarian perspective that always puts Big Business ahead of society, ahead of individuals and ahead of liberty. He sees the Democrats as being driven by the extreme left, having little idea what that even means. Like his doofus colleagues in the decimated, clueless Blue Dog Coalition, America is far better off without him in Washington. Actually, he's keeping his place in DC-- and obviously hopes to get a job working for one of the corrupt lobbying firms he served so well while he was a Member of Congress.

Sorry for the tangent; back to the Obama-Krauthammer vision of a conservative consensus that is already a proven loser. "[W]ith his stunning tax deal, Obama is back. Holding no high cards, he nonetheless managed to resurface suddenly not just as a player but as orchestrator, dealmaker and central actor in a high $1 trillion drama." Krauthammer slobberingly describes him as even shrewder and more nimble than the triangulating Bill Clinton.

Remember the question after Election Day: Can Obama move to the center to win back the independents who had abandoned the party in November? And if so, how long would it take? Answer: Five weeks. An indoor record, although an asterisk should denote that he had help-- Republicans clearing his path and sprinkling it with rose petals.

Obama's repositioning to the center was first symbolized by his joint appearance with Clinton, the quintessential centrist Democrat, and followed days later by the overwhelming 81 to 19 Senate majority that supported the tax deal. That bipartisan margin will go a long way toward erasing the partisan stigma of Obama's first two years, marked by Stimulus I, which passed without a single House Republican, and a health-care bill that garnered no congressional Republicans at all.

Despite this, some on the right are gloating that Obama had been maneuvered into forfeiting his liberal base. Nonsense. He will never lose his base. Where do they go?

They just showed America where they will go-- they'll stay home. But Krauthammer and other creatures of the Beltway think the whole country functions like their incestuous little tiny world. They don't understand that ordinary American families are hurting and that the billions McConnell and Obama just handed to Republicans was like pulling the scabs off their wounds and pouring tabasco sauce on.

Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid understand that. For although both did their jobs and helped Obama pass his dreadful tax giveaway, neither showed up for the signing ceremony yesterday. They left that for Obama, Tiny Tim Geithner and their new pal, Miss McConnell. Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich wasn't there-- probably wasn't invited-- and he sees the travesty as non-stumulative to the economy and embodying the essence of Reaganomics.

A disproportionate share of the $858 billion deal will go to people in the top 1 percent who spend only a fraction of what they earn and save the rest. Their savings are sent around the world to wherever they will earn the highest return. 

The only practical effect of adding $858 billion to the deficit will be to put more pressure on Democrats to reduce non-defense spending of all sorts, including Social Security and Medicare, as well as education and infrastructure.

It is nothing short of Ronald Reagan’s (and David Stockman’s) notorious “starve the beast” strategy. 

In 2012, an election year, when congressional Democrats have less power than they do now, the pressure to extend the Bush tax cuts further will be overwhelming.

Worse yet, the deal adds to the underlying structural problem that caused the Great Recession in the first place.

Since Ronald Reagan was president, median hourly wages have barely budged, and America’s vast working and middle classes have taken home a steadily smaller share of the nation’s income (adjusted for inflation). The typical male worker today is earning less than the typical male worker thirty years ago.

Yet the richest 1 percent of Americans is now taking home a larger percentage of the nation’s income than at any time since 1928. And we recall what happened in 1929.

Unless the vast majority of Americans has enough purchasing power to keep the economy going without going ever more deeply into debt, the economy will eventually go over a cliff.

That’s what happened in 1929 and 2008.

START Stop?

The Senate Republicans have the Democrats in a pickle again. There are enough votes to overcome the great homophobic filibuster against repealing the shameful Don't Ask, Don't Tell, and today is supposed to be the day. Susan Coleman, Ben Nelson, Scott Brown, Lisa Murkowski and Olympia Snowe are grudgingly on board with the Democrats. But don't start the big coming-out party just yet. Obama is far more-- like way far more-- concerned with the START treaty, and die-hard anti-gay Republicans are now saying, in a last-ditch attempt to screw the gays (or screw the Democrats with that part of their base) that if they repeal DADT, the GOP will defeat START. This strategy has been thought up by two Republicans in trouble with their own reactionary bases back home: desperate closet queen Lindsey Graham and quasi-once-in-a-blue-moon-maninstream conservative Bob Corker. Apparently it smells sweeter in Lindsey's closet, but he and Corker are determined to show the yahoos in South Carolina and Tennessee that they can be hostage-taking assholes too, national security be damned.

"I felt like momentum was growing for START," Corker said, adding that since Reid announced he was holding votes on DADT and DREAM, it has had a "chilling effect."

"I'm watching support for the treaty erode, because of highly partisan political issues being brought up solely because activist groups in the Democratic Party want this done," he continued.

Corker said he wasn't issuing a personal threat, and was merely commenting on the reaction of his Senate GOP colleagues. When I pressed Senator Corker on whether Republican Senators would really base their decision on START on whether Reid held a vote on DADT, Corker didn't answer directly.

"That being thrown into the middle of this debate is causing many Republicans to want to see START pushed back and candidly is causing them to oppose it," Corker said. "This is hardening them against passage of this treaty at this time."

The House Took Other Votes This Week Too

On Thursday evening, the House took up S. 987, a widely popular bill meant to help protect girls in developing countries through the prevention of child marriage. It failed to pass under suspension (two-thirds needed), the 241-166 majority in favor falling short. Although a dozen Republicans crossed the aisle to vote with all but 9 (reactionary) Democrats, a baseless whisper campaign that discouraging underage girls from being forced into marriages would somehow increase abortions killed the bill. Anti-choice fanatics on both sides of the aisle did their worst, the repulsive likes of Lipinski Jr, Gene Taylor, Travis Childers and Rick Boucher joining forces with Michele Bachmann, Louie Gohmert and John Boehner to make sure the world is a far more miserable place in the future.

Fortunately, not even Boehner's best efforts were enough to kill S. 3874, the bill to reduce the level of lead in drinking water. Hard to imagine anyone would vote against this? Some industries want to keep polluting-- and they pay their congressional supporters well-- and besides, rich Republicans drink bottled water. The bill passed, on suspension, 226-109, only one scumbag Blue Dog, brine-taking champ Collin Peterson (MN), joining Boehner and his 109 GOP poisoners. Shockingly 31 Republicans just did not have the stomach to vote to kill their own constituents outright and crossed the aisle to vote with the Democrats and against Boehner and Cantor. Even knee-jerk right-wing kooks who never veer from the party line like David Dreier (CA), Frank Wolf (VA), Paul Ryan (WI) and Aaron Schock (IL) found this one too tough to vote against.

None of those Republicans, on the other hand, found it distasteful enough to vote against H.R. 5510, Marcy Kaptur's bill to aid families facing foreclosure. It needed two-thirds and only managed to win 210-145, not quite enough. Interestingly, 4 House Republicans from Boehner's own state of Ohio were among the half-dozen Republicans crossing the aisle on this one. But they were offset by 5 reactionary Democrats, conservative slobs John Adler (NJ), Dan Boren (OK), Jim Marshall (GA), Michael McMahon (NY) and Scott Owens (NY).

Oh, and there was this: Even if the House approved keeping more lead out of our drinking water, the Senate decided to make it eat-at-your-own-risk when it comes to food safety. Very sad that this is the quality of what passes for political leadership in our disintegrating nation:

Live-Blogging The Repeal Of DADT From Marrakech

Ron Wyden was on the Senate floor early this morning-- next week he gets the prostate cancer surgery-- and he said, quite sensibly, "Don't Ask, Don't Tell is wrong. I don't care who you love, if you love this country enough to risk your life for it. You shouldn't have to hide who you are. You ought to be able to serve. (Now there's a concept Miss McConnell, who was booted out of the Army after 10 days for groping a private's privates, Mark Kirk and Lindsey Graham will never understand. All three sickening, hypocritical closet queens are expected to vote no today.) "The history of our wonderful nation, continued Wyden, "is spotted with wrongs, but this institution is at its best when it corrects them. That's the opportunity we will have today." Speaking for the 3 closet cases, a nasty and bitter old John McCain grumbled on the floor of the Senate, "I'm aware that this vote will probably pass today... and there will be high fives all over the liberal bastions of America, and we'll see the talk shows tomorrow, a bunch of people talking about how great it is. Most of them never have served in the military or maybe not even known someone in the military."

No matter how bad much of a disappointment Obama has been, the only choice was between him and the bitter, nasty, bigoted creature quoted above. Bigoted conservatives have already defeated the DREAM Act. The only Republicans with the guts to do the right thing were William Bennett (UT), Richard Lugar (IN), and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska). Democrats running across the aisle in the other direction to vote with the GOP were Ben Nelson (NE), Max Baucus (MT), Jon Tester (MT-- big disappointment, but he's up for reelection and scared), Mark Pryor (AR), and Kay Hagan (NC). Gun-totin' macho man Joe Manchin (D-WV) hid under his, confused and desk trembling, and couldn't work up the courage to vote at all.

The repulsive Republican filibuster of equality for gay men and women in the armed forces was just defeated 63-33. George Voinovich (R-OH) and closet case Mark Kirk (R-IL) were the last minute GOP aisle crossers in favor. Now it will only take 51 votes to pass the bill and whoever is afraid to voted for equality can avoid it. The cowards afraid to vote on this one were Manchin again, plus Republicans who were expected to vote NO, Jim Bunning, Judd Gregg, and Orrin Hatch. I guess we should thank all 4 of them in a way. DNC Chair Tim Kaine, in an elegant slap at bitter old bigot John McCain, included the term "high-fives all around" in his congratulations statement. After the vote President Obama issued this statement:

Today, the Senate has taken an historic step toward ending a policy that undermines our national security while violating the very ideals that our brave men and women in uniform risk their lives to defend. By ending “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” no longer will our nation be denied the service of thousands of patriotic Americans forced to leave the military, despite years of exemplary performance, because they happen to be gay. And no longer will many thousands more be asked to live a lie in order to serve the country they love.

As Commander-in-Chief, I am also absolutely convinced that making this change will only underscore the professionalism of our troops as the best led and best trained fighting force the world has ever known. And I join the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, as well as the overwhelming majority of service members asked by the Pentagon, in knowing that we can responsibly transition to a new policy while ensuring our military strength and readiness.

I want to thank Majority Leader Reid, Senators Lieberman and Collins and the countless others who have worked so hard to get this done. It is time to close this chapter in our history. It is time to recognize that sacrifice, valor and integrity are no more defined by sexual orientation than they are by race or gender, religion or creed. It is time to allow gay and lesbian Americans to serve their country openly. I urge the Senate to send this bill to my desk so that I can sign it into law.

And they did. The final vote to repeal the heinous DADT was 65-31, two more than the vote to pass cloture and shut down the McCain hate-filled filibuster. Burr and Ensign were the two Republicans who switched sides and voted for LBGT equality at the last minute and once repeal was assured. More than Joe Manchin, still frozen in fear under his desk, did!