DownWithTyranny!

Blue America Welcomes Back An Old Friend: Darcy Burner

2012-01-28T10:00:00.000-08:00

NEVER GIVE UP!

At 11am PT today, Darcy will be over at Digby's Hullabaloo to talk with Digby about fixing Congress and answer questions from readers about her run for Congress. Back in 2006, when Blue America was just a young PAC, she, along with Donna Edwards and Sherrod Brown, seemed like our best hopes for progressive congressional candidates emerging from out of our own ranks, conversant with the way the new technology had merged with progressive politics. Many, in fact, saw Darcy as the first Netroots candidate. She was the brilliant former Microsoft executive who famously declared that she knew she had to step into the arena when she realized that she needed to leave a better world for her young son, Henry.

We endorsed her enthusiastically in both of her heartbreakingly close losses, in 2006 and 2008, and followed with interest her subsequent work in Washington, DC, with the Progressive Caucus Foundation. While there, she worked closely with Raúl Grijalva and Keith Ellison and learned the inside workings of Congress, built relationships and alliances with other progressives, and deepened her policy knowledge to truly impressive heights. Yet throughout it all, Darcy has closely maintained her connections to the Netroots and her commitment to the progressive movement we've been trying to build from the beginning. She was one of those rare people with the integrity and backbone to be in Washington without being of Washington.

Still, we couldn't be more thrilled that she is back home in the Pacific Northwest and ready to give it another go. We are proud to endorse her for the congressional seat in the new WA-01 district. We need people like Darcy in Congress more than ever, because, as she says:

We can’t fix what’s broken with our country if we don’t fix Congress. Our Congress is full of crooks who trade on insider knowledge, of people who have sold their souls to the very people who have broken our country. Even the good ones, the members who want the right things, too often give up too easily on important fights, or can’t figure out how to fix the deep structural problems that undermine us.

We need people there who are tenacious and who won’t give up when things get hard.

Indeed we do. And Darcy is nothing if not tenacious.

It's not going to be a cakewalk. She will be facing a primary from a self-funding caricature of the one percent who was lured into the race by consultants who have been ripping her off and by DCCC czar Steve Israel, who wants middle-of-the-road order-takers who won't give him a hard time and who have lots of their own cash. And the probable GOP opponent will be very well financed. (Aren't they all?) She's going to need our help. And here's the place to give her some.

Don't forget to surf over to Digby's Hullabaloo at 11 to meet her in person. We need people like Darcy to remind DC insiders-- of both parties-- about stuff like this, stuff they don't want to be reminded about:

It's Kind Of Courageous Of The Republican Candidates To Associate Themselves With Marco Rubio

2012-01-28T06:00:00.000-08:00

I doubt that even Rick Santorum, struggling to stay remotely relevant in Florida, would want an endorsement from spectacularly unpopular, even despised Gov. Rick Scott. No one else does. Teabagger junior Sen. Marco Rubio, on the other hand... they're all panting to get even a wink or a nod from him. But that's because the full Rubio story, the story of a degenerate party boy who thrived on corruption in Tallahassee, has yet to come out publicly. This week, though, Reuters did start the unraveling a tiny bit by explaining why Rubio will never be anyone's running mate, regardless of Gingrich's latest VP bullshit.

Rubio may not be as coveted as Gingrich or Romney would have it appear as they press for votes in Florida, where more than 450,000 Hispanics identify themselves as Republicans.

Despite his reputation as a watchdog over federal spending, Rubio, 40, has had significant financial problems that could keep him from passing any vetting process as a potential vice presidential choice, Republican and Democratic strategists say.

In some ways, the story of Rubio's finances is similar to those of hundreds of thousands of his constituents in a state where more than 40 percent of homeowners are "underwater," owing more on their homes than the homes are worth.

It is a crisis driven by falling property values and ill-advised home equity loans that drove up homeowners' debts.

Rubio owes far more on his $384,000 Miami home than it is worth. He bought the home in 2005 for $550,000 with a $495,000 mortgage. He soon had it appraised for $735,000 and took out a home equity line of credit for $135,000.

In 2008, despite earning a declared $400,000-- including his $300,000 salary from the Miami law firm Broad and Cassel-- Rubio failed to pay down the principal on his home for several months, according to Florida campaign finance disclosures.

During the same period he did not pay down the balance of a $100,000-plus student loan from his days at the University of Miami, the disclosures said.

Rubio's spending habits also have gotten attention in Florida.

Before joining the Senate last year, his name surfaced in an Internal Revenue Service investigation of the Florida Republican Party's use of party-issued credit cards. He frequently had used his party credit card for personal use, and later reimbursed the card company for about $16,000.

Rubio's handling of his personal finances contrasts sharply with the image of him on his Senate website, which highlights Rubio's efforts to prevent Washington from "piling up debt."

"We need a government that stops spending more money than it takes in," the website says.

Rubio's financial issues have led Florida Democrats to cast him as a hypocrite.

"Rubio campaigned on reining in government spending, but his own personal spending is out control," said Brannon Jordan of the Florida Democratic Party. "He says one thing but is doing another."

...Many Republicans believe the bilingual Rubio could help the party carry Florida in the presidential election by attracting support from Hispanics, who tend to vote Democratic.

Analysts say the party has good reason to be worried about its image in heavily Hispanic states such as Texas, California, New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, where Latinos now make up more than 30 percent of the population.

In a Latino Decisions tracking poll last year, 72 percent of Hispanic voters said Republicans either "didn't care" or were "hostile" to their community.

It is unclear whether Rubio is the right choice to fix the party's image. He has not endeared himself to Hispanic voters on several fronts, analysts say.

He opposed the so-called DREAM Act, which would have provided a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants, and he expressed support for a harsh immigration law in Arizona.

Rubio opposed President Barack Obama's Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotomayor, who is of Puerto Rican descent, and more recently blocked the confirmation of another Puerto Rican, Marie Carmen Aponte, as ambassador to El Salvador.

He also opposed Obama's healthcare overhaul, which is popular among many low-income Hispanics.

"He's on the wrong side on every issue that matters to Hispanics," said Fernand Amandi with Bendixen & Amandi, a political consulting firm in Miami that has been retained by the Obama campaign. "He's going to have to answer to those positions."

Despite holding moderate views on immigration as a state legislator early in his career, Rubio's position toughened as he gained national attention.

For example, in 2003 he co-sponsored legislation to allow the foreign-born children of undocumented immigrants to pay in-state college tuition fees.

Recently, however, he said, "If you're here in violation of the laws, you shouldn't benefit from these programs."

He says he would support such assistance for "a limited number" of undocumented students who had "exhibited good moral character."

Rubio also has urged the party to tone down its harsh rhetoric on illegal immigration.

"The Republican Party should not be labeled as the anti-illegal immigration party. Republicans need to be the pro-legal immigration party," he said.

Sunday Classics preview: Given the resources at his disposal, Vivaldi's musical storms may be the most remarkable of all

2012-01-27T21:00:00.000-08:00

This may not be quite the winter storm Vivaldi imagined, but we'll be hearing it in more traditional form in a moment.

by Ken

We began our exploration of storms imagined in music with the orchestral prototype, the thunderstorm embedded in Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony and the storm of all operatic storms, the opening of Verdi's Otello -- with the "Royal Hunt and Storm" from Berlioz's epic opera The Trojans thrown in. We have a gaggle of musical storms on tap for Sunday's post, but tonight I thought we'd backtrack and rehear some music we've actually heard before: the storm movements from three of Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

(We heard them in one of my favorite Sunday Classics posts, November 2010's "I wonder whether Vivaldi would be surprised by the still-growing irresistibility of his Four Seasons," in which we managed to encompass the entire piece -- all four concertos, all 12 movements. By the way, I've just upgraded that post, which included "what may be the only Four Seasons you'll ever need," to Internet Archive's new format for music files, even though it meant replacing the code for 50 music files.)

We'll talk more Sunday about the idea of capturing storms in music, but for now let's just note that Vivaldi was doing it without many of the orchestral resources that later composers -- even Beethoven -- would rely on for their storm depictions. All he had at his disposal was the modest baroque orchestra.

TO HEAR THE THREE FOUR SEASONS
STORM MOVEMENTS, CLICK HERE

Chris Christie's ignorance about the civil-rights struggle may not doom his political future, but his out-of-control mouth sure may

2012-01-27T18:00:00.000-08:00

The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King are among those at the head of the marchers crossing the Alabama River on Mar. 21, 1965, early in the five-day march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in support of equal voting rights.

“The fact of the matter is, I think people would have been happy to have a referendum on civil rights rather than fighting and dying in the streets in the South."

-- NJ Gov. Chris Christie, on Tuesday

by Ken

Most of us, I think, are accustomed to deriding political consultants and handlers who make a federal case of keeping their candidates ruthlessly "on messsage." The sad reality, though, is that the practical wisdom of this philosophy keeps being reproved.

And I think it's not so much because of the vote-gathering potency of said "message," although naturally those consultants and handlers do whatever they can to press buttons that have been shown to curry favor. No, I think the crucial component to keeping your guy/gal "on message" is minimizing the epic dangers if/when he/she goes off-message. Sure, you or I might think that that's when we find out what they really think, and might possibly get a glimmer of how they might behave if elected. In which case you and I aren't what the political-handling class has in its crosshairs.

Staying on message is no universal guarantee, because there are no guarantees in electoral politics. But there are strong tendencies and odds-tippers. And so while the zealous efforts of the elite corps of Willard Inc. handlers to keep their boy on message, or rather on messages as they try to find some that don't make him sound even more clownish, may not have kept him safe, think how bad things would be for him if he actually said what's on his mind. And in part his message problem stems from too much history of saying stuff -- much of which may actually have been "on messsage" in its time and place but sure isn't in this time, the year 2012, or place, the GOP presidential nominating carnival.

If you want the seeming exception to the rule of message fidelity which may prove the rule, consider Naught Gingrich, who on all evidence is pretty much self-managed and -messaged. It appears to be serving him well at the moment, but that's only because he's competing in such an isolated population segment and against a raft of such hopeless-nothing candidates. But Naught's history of self-destruction has a lot to do with his minimally managed mouth. As bad as the American system of passing on and receiving information is, in a case as crackpotted as Naught's, people do tend eventually to sort of get the idea.)

EVEN THAT BIGGEST OF BLOWHARDS RALPH KRAMDEN
AT TIMES ACKNOWLEDGED, "I'VE GOT A BI-I-I-IG MOUTH"

But Ralph never did anything about that big mouth either.

All of which is a rambling preamble to saying that suddenly I'm less worred about the prospect of a bright political future for one of my less favorite Republicans, "Hefty Chris" Christie, the take-no-prisoners first-term Republican governor of New Jersey. My sense is that the appeal for his own constituents is already starting to wear thin, as they start to measure his immoderate mouth against their inescapable daily reality. But I worried that he might be dangerous precisely for his potential appeal to prospective voters who don't have to experience his actual governance. And while I'm personally appalled beyond measure by this self-revelation of a depth of ignorance so extreme that it should disqualify him from participation in any form in government at any level, it has also given me a good measure of hope that his unmanaged or perhaps unmanageable mouth is likely to disqualify him from any larger electoral prospects.

As so often happens, it's what pols reveal about themselves when they're not speaking directly to the subject at hand that tells us most about what they know, what they believe, and how they think. Which I think is what happened to the Heftyman when he tried to remain true to the bigoted, hate-inspired values he does seem to share with his right-wing base, and thought he had found a slick, seemingly democracy-inspired stratagem to sneak through a bit of a public-relations obstacle course.

The obstacle course materialized when the truly tireless efforts of a lot of highly motivated, highly persuasive activists brought around enough hearts and minds in the state legislature to create the growing possibility that the governor is going to have a bill legalizing same-sex marriage land on his desk. He has already said unequivocally that he will veto any such bill, but he must be realizing that such a position is threatening to become more of a political liability than a vote-getter. Or to put it another way: Any votes that there are to be gotten with a line-in-the-sand position against equal treatment of all citizens are votes that are already in the bag for a right-wing candidate, but among the rest of the electorate it's increasingly becoming a losing proposition.

What to do, what to do? Especially with growing indications that the pro-equality forces have turned around not just a number of the Democrats whose recalcitrance led to the fiasco of the effort to pass a marriage-equality bill in the dying days of the Corzine administration, but if anything more importantly have helped a number of Republican legislators see the light. And what he came up with was what he described as "an alternate move" for marriage-equality proponents: the democratic-sounding proposal to put same-sex marriage rights to a vote. Let's let the people of the state of New Jersey (rather than, say, their elected representatives) decide! What could be fairer or more democratic?

DID NJ'S HEFTYMAN HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT

HE WAS REALLY TELLING US ABOUT HIMSELF?

Now, there are perfectly good reasons why this is not a good idea, having to do generally with the inadvisability of putting people's rights up for a vote. This is unfortunately very hard to explain beyond the concept that Thomas Jeffrerson enunciated so elegantly in the Declaration of "certain unalienable rights." Fortunately, though, thanks to the way Big Chris's big mouth framed the issue, he disproved his own point -- and, I'm suggesting, told us way more about his mind than he meant to, or than I would have imagined.

What he did, as suggested in the quote I've put at the top of this post, was to propose an analogy with the great civil-rights struggle of the '50s and '60s. As it happens, there is a body of quite specific history about this very idea of putting civil rights to a vote back then, when die-hard racists tried to make desegregation go away by means of just such a strategy. It was roundly rejected, as Duncan Osborne sets out in a terrific piece for Gay City News called "Christie Doesn't Like Ike."

But I think what Governor Christie revealed about himself goes way beyond ignorance of this particular. He told the world that he not only knows nothing about the civil-rights struggle -- i.e., what was at stake, who was on which side, and how that struggle played out -- but carries in his head a pack of delusions and lies about one of the most fundamental realities of American history and one of the most turbulent upheavals of the second half of the 20th century. He has announced to the world that he has no compunctions about grounding the way he sees the world in ideologically calculated lies.

Unless the man was just kidding, he actually believes that U.S. voters in the 1950s and '60s would have voted in favor of legal enactment and enforcement of full civil rights for Americans of all races. Which means that, unless he's lying (and I really don't think he is), his brain is totally ignorant of absolutely every single aspect of this crucial development in American history, and of the not-so-distant past, which is crucial to any understanding of the problems of the present. He either doesn't know or doesn't care that everything he thinks on this subject (at the very least) is 100 percent fiction-based.

Which isn't entirely surprising to me. What's surprising is that he was so politically maladroit as to make such a bald, incontrovertible announcement that he's, well, full of doody. Again, his hard-core right-wing home-state constituents and potential out-of-state ones won't care. After all, what's more central to all right-wing beliefs today than the worship of ignorance, hate, and delusion. Add economic predation and you've got the Core Right-Wing Agenda. But when the rest of the electorate is brought into the equation, I think you being to understand that people who believe what the governor has shown himself to believe normally speak, when they're speaking outside their hard-core "faithful," only in code.

Which brings me back to that mouth. I don't kid myself that gross ignorance of and insensitivity to the civil-rights struggle is going to incur any significant political price for the Heftyman. After all, the American body politic has worked hard to develop a convenient case of amnesia on the subject. But a mouth that's capable of dropping a bombshell like this one, even if this particular bomb doesn't do much damage, is almost certainly too uncontrolled to hold up to the rigors of the American media circus.

Chuck Grassley: Broadband Killer And Corrupt Hack

2012-01-27T14:00:00.000-08:00

Last year here at DWT we asked "Is Chuck Grassley Still Capable Of Working For The Good Of The Citizens Of Iowa?" You probably knew the answer to this question then, but if not, you will by the end of this post.

In that piece I looked at Grassley's Gingrinchian use of racial code words, such as his attack on and opposition to Elena Kagan as a Supreme Court justice, because she clerked for and was mentored by the civil-rights pioneer and first African-American Supreme Court justice, Thurgood Marshall.

Shameful, but not surprising. And his behavior since... has not changed. Grassley viciously attacked Office of Legal Counsel chief Virginia Seitz because he doesn't like an opinion of hers-- something even a former Bush appointee to this position, Jack Goldsmith, referred to as "name callling" and "misplaced."

He was so rude to the victims of the massacre in Tuscon a year ago that they sent him a letter demanding an apology. And recently the hacker group Anonymous saw him as such a corporate shill for SOPA and PIPA that out of all the corporate whores whose Twitter accounts they could have hacked they thought Grassley's made the most sense.

Perhaps one of the few true things to come out of John McCain's mouth over the past few decades was when he was heatedly discussing the Vietnam MIA issue with Grassley and Grassley asked him, "Are you calling me stupid," and he replied, "No, I'm calling you a fucking jerk!"

So this is who Chuck Grasssley is. But in his battle to smear a small telecommunications company approved by both the Bush and Obama administrations to provide more spectrum, more telecom competition and potentially create thousands of jobs, he's been acting crazy, even for him. I wonder why that is.

Without getting too much into the technical aspects of this fight, a small company, Lightsquared, wants to provide Americans with more options in their telecom choices. But major GPS players claim that their signal is being distorted by the Lightsquared signal, so they used the post-9/11 fear tactics we've gotten to know so well, warning Americans about "planes falling out of the sky" so they wouldn't have to participate in fixing this problem--and could make Lightsquared go away. Here is Harold Feld of Public Knowledge, a well-respected authority on spectrum challenges, on this problem:

So big GPS players such as Trimble and John Deere and their friends in the monopolized telecom business, who give generously to Grassley, have decided to just make this go away, even though, "the interference is a result of GPS devices receiving signals from outside of their designated frequencies."

So, once again it is GPS' fault, but they don't want to deal with it. So they have themselves their very own shill in Chuck Grassley, who has gone around telling lie after lie after lie about the project, to protect his bribers (more on that at the bottom) in the GPS and telco industries. He has even threatened the FCC's ability to function over this. Which I guess is nothing new from the obstructionist, deranged old crank.

You won't see Grassley asking why the tests on this GPS signal distortion-- which again is their fault-- were rigged against Lightsquared:

Exasperated by a government process that has left them scrambling to avoid bankruptcy, LightSquared filed a complaint with NASA’s inspector general’s office Thursday alleging that a key member of a panel that advises the government on GPS violated ethics laws.

Bradford Parkinson, second in command of a federal advisory board that has played an integral role informing the government’s views of the LightSquared-GPS controversy, “appears to have violated a federal conflict of interest statute” as a special government employee, the filing states.

Parkinson serves as vice chairman of the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Advisory Board, which advises the Defense Department, the Transportation Department and a host of other federal agencies on GPS policy. Parkinson has a multimillion dollar stake in Trimble, a GPS manufacturing company at the heart of a campaign to derail the broadband company from entering the market.

You also won't see Grassley the gainsayer questioning the well-planned PR smear campaign that has tried to turn Lightsquared into an example of Democratic "crony capitalism," in the words of walking embolism Michele Bachmann.

And you won't see him wondering why Deere & Co. seem to be bribing countries abroad, violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (perhaps it hits a bit too close to home for Grassley?). while Trimble partnered with a company that lobbied the U.S. Government to do business with Libya. But they're concerned about "planes falling out of the sky," right? What patriots!

Maybe this is the answer to the question (don't miss donors 4, 5, and 12):

Is Romney Cheating The American People On His Taxes?

2012-01-27T10:00:00.000-08:00

I hope you're not too bored with hearing about Romney's tax manipulations and offshore tax-dodging accounts to read a perspective from our favorite investigative journalist, Russ Baker. He makes the point that there are still a lot of questions that haven't been answered-- and a lot that haven't even been asked.

Can we expect to find anything crooked in Romney’s filings?

You kidding? Smart rich people hire smart accountants to keep them out of trouble. It’s not the illegal things they do, it’s how they manage to rig things so that they get away, metaphorically, with murder.

Should Romney’s tax returns be the way to judge him?

To be sure, they do reveal how capital gains tax rates are highly advantageous to the rich and penalize those who work for their living. And that’s an important point. But what we should be interested in with regard to Romney in particular is his values, as shown by the strategies and tactics of his companies.

Are Romney’s recent tax filings the most important ones?

Because Romney left Bain Capital way back in 1999 to embark on a political career, it is the earlier tax filings that would likely reveal the most.

His seasoned political advisers would have been all over him to exhibit exemplary behavior-- since ’99, and probably even earlier, when he may already have been considering politics. Also, as he was not actually working at Bain but just receiving passive income from it in recent years, we shouldn’t expect to see much that is worth assessing.

Thus, his 2010-11 release is definitely not very forthcoming.

Was Romney’s delay tactic part of a “limited hangout”?

One of the oldest tricks in the book is to resist disclosure, let anticipation build a bit, then release something that appears to answer questions, while not revealing anything very interesting. This pretty much ends debate.

Consider how long George W. Bush took to release National Guard service records, and how long Barack Obama took to release his birth records. In the end, these controversies fizzled, and people moved on.

Should Romney’s income from Bain even be treated as a capital gain?

No. He actually worked for that money, as a fund manager, plenty of hours every week. Thus, it should be taxed as normal earned income. But because of a loophole in the law (what a surprise!) engineered by the faithful lawyers, accountants and lobbyists of the one percent, it gets treated as capital gains, and therefore the lowest tax rate applies.

What’s with Romney’s having had money in the Swiss Bank UBS?

This looks pretty bad. (For more on UBS, its pernicious activities and how it gets its claws into politicians of both parties, see this, this and this.) There are very few legitimate, or public-spirited business reasons for having a Swiss bank account.

So why did Romney have that account? Someone should ask him. His trustee said he closed it in early 2010. That’s just a short time after UBS was forced to pay huge fines to the US government to settle a criminal investigation that established the bank had encouraged wealthy Americans to illegally hide their income abroad.

Could Romney have been one of those Americans? Possible, but doubtful, mostly because it would have been really dumb. Most of those caught doing that were largely in the “rich but dumb” category.

Could any of the tax shelter stuff turn out to be odious even if not illegal?

Sure, but you probably wouldn’t know unless you looked at, and compared, a whole bunch of different years’ tax filings. And so far, Romney has not agreed to provide that.

Can we trust Fred Goldberg’s clean bill of health?

When Romney released his tax filings, they came with a letter from former IRS commissioner Fred Goldberg saying he’d checked them out, and they looked…supah!

But who is Fred Goldberg? The same guy who, following an unscheduled visit from Scientology’s top leader, abruptly reversed policy to grant tax exempt status to the hyper-controversial, pyramid-style, service-selling enterprise. Worth taking a second look at this guy and why and how he is helping Mitt out.

Does the way Mitt released his taxes demonstrate good faith?

Definitely not. Though this was by far the biggest news out of his campaign on Tuesday, it was released the same day as the State of the Union address, guaranteeing that it would get second billing. Also, the campaign managed to bury it on their website, so much so that after a few minutes, I had still not found it there, and had to rely on the website of the Washington Post.

What about those domestic workers Mrs. Romney paid?

The filing, by Mrs. Romney (not Mr.), show that she paid around $20,000 in total during 2010 to four domestic workers. Sure would like to know more about that-- and what it tells us about the rich vs. poor. The Romneys have at least three houses, some pretty substantial places. Assuming they only employ regular help at their main Massachusetts house, $20k is still a paltry total. That’s an average of $5,000 a year to four people. Wonder how much work they did. After all, Mrs. Romney is known to struggle with MS, and it’s doubtful Mitt does much sweeping, dusting, cooking, etc.

The Romneys should be queried about why Mrs. Romney takes legal responsibility for reporting payments to the help (beyond unfortunate stereotypes about stay-at-home wives), and why no payments show up for 2011.

In any case, it’s not a very good ratio of income to job creation, for a guy who talks about creating jobs: the year the Romneys paid their staff $20,000, they earned $27 million.

The worst thing of all is that, depending on their total income, those domestic workers may have paid a much higher tax rate for their hard physical labor at Romney’s house than Romney did on the millions in investment income that piled in while he pursued his political dream.

And that just seems really wrong.

Romney's growing reputation as a shady businessman and con artist wasn't helped yesterday when the L.A. Times revealed his long overdue tax release attempts to cover up some of his monkey business with overseas tax shelters. Confronted with the evidence, Romney at first claimed it was a "trivial" discrepancy and "inconsequential." Trivial? Inconsequential? It's almost half a million dollars, and no matter how rich you are, that is neither "trivial" nor "inconsequential."

A review by the Los Angeles Times/Tribune Washington Bureau found that at least 23 funds and partnerships listed in the couple’s 2010 tax returns did not show up or were not listed in the same fashion on Romney’s most recent financial disclosure, including 11 based in low-tax foreign countries such as Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Luxembourg.

...Many of the funds are affiliated with Bain Capital, the Boston-based private equity firm Romney ran for 15 years. Several others are apparently unrelated offshore entities with mysterious names such as Babson 2006-1, which is based in the Cayman Islands, and Barracuda Investments, which has an address in Dublin, Ireland, but appears to be solely owned by Golden Gate Capital, a private equity firm based in San Francisco.

Among the assets omitted is a Swiss bank account in Ann Romney's blind trust that campaign officials said held $3 million of the couple's money until it was closed in 2010. The account was listed on a financial disclosure Romney filed in 2007, but it was mistakenly named as an asset held by the couple, not as part of Ann Romney's trust. The campaign said it is filing an amendment to the most recent report to reflect $1,700 worth of interest earned in the Swiss bank account in 2010, as well as another amendment to move the account to the appropriate category in the 2007 report... [T]he discrepancies between Romney’s tax returns and his personal financial statement speak to a broader challenge facing the longtime private equity chieftain: convincing voters that he can relate to their economic distress despite the incredibly complex architecture of his immense fortune.

It looks like President Obama was talking to Mittens in Las Vegas yesterday, don't you think? He even used the "Bill Gates does not envy the rich" line that just eviscerates Romney.

Centrist Looooooooozers

2012-01-27T06:00:00.000-08:00

Progressive winners

Suppose there’s a swing district you-- "you" being a Democratic Party committee or strategist or booster-- want to win, and you have your choice of two comparably strong candidates: one who is a "centrist," a polite way of saying a "conservative," and one who is a progressive. Which candidate do you run if you want to maximize your odds of winning?

If you want to win, you’re usually better off running the progressive.

The conventional wisdom in the Democratic Party is that if you want to win an election in a swing district, you should run a so-called centrist. The now-defunct DLC was founded on this idea, the DCCC reinforces it regularly, and political consultants all over the country repeat it as gospel. The problem is that the evidence shows they’re wrong.

In tough years in swing districts, candidates who appeal to their party’s base do better than so-called “centrists” or “moderates.”

In 2010, in swing districts all over the country Republicans ran Tea Party candidates who appealed to their base against “centrist” Blue Dog and New Democratic incumbents. The centrists lost because Democratic voters weren’t excited about them and didn’t show up; the Tea Party candidates won because Republican voters were motivated to show up and vote for them. The Blue Dogs lost roughly 60% of their races in 2010. By contrast, the Congressional Progressive Caucus held 79 of their 82 seats-- even in swing districts like Peter DeFazio’s in Oregon. Who shows up to vote matters, and voters from both parties are more likely to show up and vote for people who they believe will fight for their values.

Republicans, realizing that it’s a lot harder to elect "moderates," have essentially stopped doing so.

On our side, however, we seem to just keep throwing money at trying to elect them. Is that because leaders like Steve Israel, head of the DCCC, are themselves conservatives? Or because they're idiots? I'm still trying to figure that out. The answer is probably "both."

And speaking of money: It costs a lot more money to elect a “centrist” than a progressive. In August, the DLC’s think tank PPI published a study showing that it costs about twice as much to elect centrists than progressives.

It’s harder to elect centrists than progressives. They’re more likely to lose, and they’re more expensive to elect. So in what way, exactly, are they theoretically more electable?

If you want to win, support the progressive. How do you know who the progressive candidates are? Blue America doesn't endorse generic Democrats, let alone conservatives or Blue Dogs. We endorse progressives like Norman Solomon, Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin, Alan Grayson, Darcy Burner, Franke Wilmer, Bernie Sanders and Ilya Sheyman. You can find our list of House candidates here and our Senate candidates here. Tomorrow Blue America will be hosting a discussion with Darcy Burner (D-WA) about how to fix Congress over at Crooks and Liars at 11am (PT). Please join us.

A Mittens Morality Play

2012-01-26T21:00:00.000-08:00

The first time I read David Korten's most recent book, Agenda For A New Economy, it was for his economic insights. I reread it for more of that-- plus moral instruction. Like this:

We humans are living out an epic morality play of five thousand years' duration, that pits good, that which serves life, against evil, that which destroys life. Good is represented by the forces of mutual caring, cooperation and responsibility in the service of life. Evil is represented by the forces of domination, unbridled competition, and individual greed in the service of money.

Individual greed surely will be with us so long as there are humans, but if we are to survive and prosper, we must recognize that greed is a sin, not a virtue-- a form of addiction and a sign of psychological dysfunction. Any public subsidy of persons so encumbered should be limited to payment for rehabilitation services as part of a national health care program.

Romneycare, of course, comes to mind. I think most people saw Mitt Romney as a rather mild-mannered, relatively inoffensive middle-of-the-road politician with an outsize hankering to become president. Then came his lashing out against the American people claiming that everyone is envious of him. Really? Envious? He dropped 20 points in the polls after he made that remark. Let him shove his Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Islands and Luxembourg tax havens up his ass. If the Mormons are ever going to fulfill their dream of seizing the White House, it's not going to be by spending all their money on Mitt Romney. They ought to get him some of those rehabilitation services. Korten sounds like he could well have been describing Willard "Mitt" Romney to a t when he wrote these words:

The "genius" for financial innovation and risk management that Wall Street regularly touts as its gift to the world consists mainly of finding new ways for an unethical trader to capture the profits from questionable financial transactions and shift the risk to others. The consequences for society are a revealing lesson in the importance of positive moral practice.

Willard Inc. got paid HOW much to do WHAT?

2012-01-26T18:00:00.000-08:00

No, that $374,327 isn't in Monopoly money.

"Now is not this ridiculous, and is not this preposterous?
A thorough-paced absurdity -- explain it if you can."

-- the Dragoons, in Act I of G&S's Patience

by Ken

I think most of the numbers in the following paragraph have been pretty well circulated and digested, at least among people who are actually listening.

On Tuesday, Romney finally lifted a corner of the previously tightly sealed file containing his tax returns. The partial disclosure won't help him. He said his effective tax rate was "probably closer to the 15 percent rate than anything." That 15 percent is on investment income -- a huge perk for the very rich -- as opposed to the higher rates on wages and salaries -- up to 35 percent -- paid by most Americans. He also deprecated his speaking fees last year of $374,327 as "not very much."
-- Alexander Cockburn, in "Mitt Romney's Gingrich Nightmare"

And I don't mean to suggest that the numbers that have gotten the most attention aren't in fact the most important ones. But I look at this and you know what pops out?

"his speaking fees last year of $374,327"

Say what? $374,327? In speaking fees?

In the course of a single year, some collection of somebodies paid that man almost $375K to, you know, speak? Okay, I realize it probably wasn't in, like, $375 increments. But still.

It's possible to disagree about the quality of Willard Inc.'s, er, intellect. Noah and I, for example, have gone a round on this. His position (articulated in the "Stupid' is what the Republican voter craves (and Mittens could be that man!)" installment of "Selections from THE NOAH DIARIES 2011") is that the guy is a no-account dunce. Whereas I'm not at all sure of this. I'm quite prepared to believe that this is just another case of a person whose intelligence, such as it is, has been so devilishly misdeveloped that it's useful for certain functions, like economic predation (aka plundering and ravishing the masses of humans), and singularly unuseful for others, like understanding and communicating with people, especially people who are unlike himself.

Either way, however, I find it hard to imagine anyone who would advance the proposition that Willard Inc.'s useful skills include, you know, speaking.

In the rollingstone.com column from which I've been quoting endlessly, "What Mitt Romney Learned From His Dad," Rick Perlstein recalls: "I wrote a Los Angeles Times op-ed four years ago, just before Romney dropped out of the 2008 race, arguing that he would 'go down as the most robotic big-ticket presidential candidate in history.' "

When you try to listen to the man speak, between the doltishness of what he's saying and more particularly the hopeless bumblitude of the way he says it, you're likely to think, "Why, that man could never be elected to anything!" And yet he did actually get elected to one term as governor of Massachusetts. Yeah, I suppose the beefcake photos serve to, um, "humanize" him a tad, simply for the way in which so many of us tend to attach nonexistent pretty qualities to people who are pretty enough, but still . . . .

And yet, there the number stands. The Incorporated Willard may consider the that $374,327 worth of speaking fees "not much," but perhaps that's only because his frame of reference for what's "much" in income terms is the going rate for extracting billions of dollars from the economy for the private edification of the extractors. By any other standard, this is "ridiculous" and "preposterous" and "a thorough-paced absurdity." "Explain it if you can," indeed.

Unless, of course, the people who forked over that $374,327 weren't doing it in exchange for pearls of wisdom they expected to receive in return, but for favor they hoped to curry with an individual who already wielded a hefty amount of clout in financial circles and might one day soon wield even more clout on an even larger platform, and therefore stood to be in a position to generously return the favor. This would be utterly consistent with the precepts of market capitalism, wouldn't it? At least as it's practiced in 21st-century America, where the role of government is taken to be to further stack the deck in favor of the economic elites. Or, to borrow the motto of the Roberts Court, "Money makes the world go around, the world go around, the world go around."

I find that kind of depressing, though, and might prefer to go back to the "ridiculous," "preposterous," and "absurd" position, and leave it to somebody else to explain.

That's three hundred seventy-four thousand three hundred twenty-seven dollars. Presumably not in Monopoly money.

ONE LAST QUESTION ABOUT THE $374,327

Do we know if any of the ~~suckers~~ lucky speech-buyers subsequently asked for their money back? Just wondering.

Newt Can't Win Over Republicans Outside The Racist South, Right? Wrong

2012-01-26T14:00:00.000-08:00

I forget which MSNBC wag said it the other day, but someone did mention that Gingrich hasn't been using dog whistles in up-country South Carolina and the Florida Panhandle, he's using a fog whistle. And Republicans are hearing it all over the country. By and large... they love it.

I guess it's a tribute to Mitt Romney's typically savvy acquisition of Tim Pawlenty but Minnesota is going for Newt. Or, at least, not going for Romney. According to the latest PPP release, "Gingrich has a large lead in Minnesota... for the moment. Our weekend polling there found him with 36% to 18% for Mitt Romney, 17% for Rick Santorum, and 13% for Ron Paul... very good for Gingrich and very bad for Romney. Gingrich's favorability is a +34 spread (59/25) while Romney's is just +14 (50/36). Since PPP last polled the state in May Gingrich's favorability with GOP voters has increased by 40 points from its previous -6 (35/41) standing."

Gingrich's supporters are also more committed with 39% saying they'll definitely vote for him compared to only 27% who say the same for Romney. Among voters whose minds are totally made up Romney actually drops all the way down to 4th place at 15%, behind Gingrich's 44%, Santorum's 25%, and Paul's 16%.

If Santorum's out of the race by the time Minnesota's vote comes around it could work to Gingrich's further advantage. Santorum voters prefer Gingrich to Romney 44-20 if they had to pick between the two and overall Minnesota Republicans pick Gingrich 50-29 in a head to head with Romney.

Newt's winning with pretty much every key group in Minnesota. He's up 44-12 on Romney with Tea Partiers (Paul's at 18% and Santorum's at 14%) but he's up 33-22 with non-Tea Partiers as well. He's up 44-18 with men, but he's also up 28-19 with women. He leads Romney with Republicans (40-20) but he's also up with independents (26-15) who are likely to be a similar share of the electorate to what they were in Iowa. And Gingrich is winning every age group, although he's tied with Paul among young voters.

And the GOP Establishment is throwing everything they've got against him. Yesterday Establishment hack and notorious war criminal Elliott Abrams took to the pages of National Review to expose Gingrich some more, this time about his lies for having been best buds with Ronald Reagan, who in reality he barely knew. That hasn't stopped him, as Abrams points out, from dropping phrases like, “I worked with President Reagan to change things in Washington,” “we helped defeat the Soviet empire,” and “I helped lead the effort to defeat Communism in the Congress.” Abrams is blunt: "The claims are misleading at best."

As a new member of Congress in the Reagan years-- and I was an assistant secretary of state-- Mr. Gingrich voted with the president regularly, but equally often spewed insulting rhetoric at Reagan, his top aides, and his policies to defeat Communism. Gingrich was voluble and certain in predicting that Reagan’s policies would fail, and in all of this he was dead wrong.

...[Gingrich] voted with the caucus, but his words should be remembered, for at the height of the bitter struggle with the Democratic leadership Gingrich chose to attack [Reagan].

The best examples come from a famous floor statement Gingrich made on March 21, 1986. This was right in the middle of the fight over funding for the Nicaraguan contras; the money had been cut off by Congress in 1985, though Reagan got $100 million for this cause in 1986. Here is Gingrich: “Measured against the scale and momentum of the Soviet empire’s challenge, the Reagan administration has failed, is failing, and without a dramatic change in strategy will continue to fail... President Reagan is clearly failing.” Why? This was due partly to “his administration’s weak policies, which are inadequate and will ultimately fail”; partly to CIA, State, and Defense, which “have no strategies to defeat the empire.” But of course “the burden of this failure frankly must be placed first on President Reagan.” Our efforts against the Communists in the Third World were “pathetically incompetent,” so those anti-Communist members of Congress who questioned the $100 million Reagan sought for the Nicaraguan “contra” rebels “are fundamentally right.” Such was Gingrich’s faith in President Reagan that in 1985, he called Reagan’s meeting with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev “the most dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with Neville Chamberlain in 1938 in Munich.”

Gingrich scorned Reagan’s speeches, which moved a party and then a nation, because “the president of the United States cannot discipline himself to use the correct language.” In Afghanistan, Reagan’s policy was marked by “impotence [and] incompetence.” Thus Gingrich concluded as he surveyed five years of Reagan in power that “we have been losing the struggle with the Soviet empire.” Reagan did not know what he was doing, and “it is precisely at the vision and strategy levels that the Soviet empire today is superior to the free world.”

There are two things to be said about these remarks. The first is that as a visionary, Gingrich does not have a very impressive record. The Soviet Union was beginning to collapse, just as Reagan had believed it must. The expansion of its empire had been thwarted. The policies Gingrich thought so weak and indeed “pathetic” worked, and Ronald Reagan turned out to be a far better student of history and politics than Gingrich.

The second point to make is that Gingrich made these assaults on the Reagan administration just as Democratic attacks were heating up unmercifully. Far from becoming a reliable voice for Reagan policy and the struggle against the Soviets, Gingrich took on Reagan and his administration. It appears to be a habit: He did the same to George W. Bush when Bush was making the toughest and most controversial decision of his presidency-- the surge in Iraq. Bush was opposed by many of the top generals, by some Republican leaders who feared the surge would hurt in the 2008 elections, and of course by a slew of Democrats and media commentators. Here again Gingrich provided no support for his party’s embattled president, testifying as a private citizen in 2007 that the strategy was “inadequate,” contained “breathtaking” gaps, lacked “synergism” (whatever that means), and was “very disappointing.” What did Gingrich propose? Among other things, a 50 percent increase in the budget of the State Department.

Presidents should not get automatic support, not even from members of their own party, but they have a right to that support when they are under a vicious partisan assault. Today it is fair to look back and ask who had it right: Gingrich, who backed away from and criticized Republican presidents, or those chief executives, who were making difficult and consequential decisions on national security. Bush on the surge and Reagan on the Soviet empire were tough, courageous-- and right. Newt Gingrich in retrospect seems less the visionary than the politician who refused the party’s leader loyal support on grounds that history has proved were simply wrong.

Now it will be the job of Fox and hate-talk radio to get the message out to the morons and zombies who vote in Republican primaries. I doubt they'll want to do anything with this MoveOn video:

Thanks To The Insane Citizens United Ruling, Sheldon Adelson Can Try To Buy The Presidency. We Need To Know More About Him

2012-01-26T10:00:00.000-08:00

The Adelsons: bad news for America

What everyone already knows is that Sheldon Adelson and his wife are financing Newt Gingrich's bid for the White House and that he's an aggressively anti-Palestinian Zionist zealot and a cutthroat gambling-casino magnate with a lot of money. Fewer people know that he's the eighth richest man in America and the 16th richest worldwide. His current net worth is estimated at $21.5 billion. (By way of comparison... see that ".5" on the end of his net worth? Romney only has one half of that.) The son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants, Adelson was a door-to-door Fuller Brush salesman and a failed stockbroker.

He went to CCNY, a hotbed of socialism and progressive politics for first-generation Jewish Americans. When you think of CCNY you think of graduates like Nobel laureates Robert Hofstadter and Robert Hauptman, Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, financiers Henry Morgenthau Sr. and Bernard Baruch, authors Sidney Hook, Paul Goodman, Seymour Martin Lipset, Nathan Glazer, Ira Gershwin, Paddy Chayefsky. Bill Graham, Edward G. Robinson, Daniel Schorr and Stanley Kubrick were alums-- as was Sterling Morrison of the Velvet Underground. Sheldon Adelson? He dropped out early-- to chase money. In the film Wall Street, though, Gordon Gekko was a CCNY grad.

Once Adelson got involved in casinos, he turned virulently anti-union and fanatically Republican. He didn't want to pay taxes and he didn't want to pay a fair wage to workers. Those are still motivating factors in his life-- and help explain, along with the Israel thing-- why he backs Gingrich, even more strongly than he once backed Tom DeLay and George Bush. He owns Israel Hayom, the biggest newspaper in Israel, which he gives away free in order to push out a virulently right-wing anti-peace agenda. Adelson is notorious for taking vengeance against anyone who challenges him. He successfully sued the Daily Mail in London for pointing out his "despicable business practices" and having "habitually and corruptly bought political favour." There are no publications in the U.S. willing to write about his extensive collaboration with organized crime. Yesterday Robert Reich tepidly asked his readers to take a look at who Sheldon Adelson is and what Gingrich promised him. Not very hard-hitting when looking into someone who has already contributed $11 million towards Gingrich's campaign.

The Adelsons are billionaires. They might decide to put in another $5 million or perhaps $20 million into Gingrich’s Super Pac. The point is, there’s no limit.

Do you know who Sheldon and Marian Adelson are? Do you know what Gingrich has promised them, or what they think they’ll get out of a Gingrich presidency? I don’t. But if Newt becomes President of the United States, they’ll be singularly responsible. And we better find out, because Newt will owe them big time.

Forget the Lincoln Bedroom. The Adelsons and their kids will have the run of the White House, including the Oval Office. Hey, they’ll take over the Old Executive Building next door and turn it into a casino.

Never before in the history of American politics has a single couple given more money to a single candidate and had a bigger impact-- all courtesy of the Supreme Court and its grotesque decisions that speech is money and corporations are people under the First Amendment.

Good points, but Adelson doesn't care about visiting the White House or turning the Old Executive Building into a casino. As a friend of mine who is connected to the Mossad told me last night, "Adelson wants to turn Iran into a glass ashtray. That's the reason he'll pour whatever he has to into Gingrich." Justin Elliott at Salon came a little closer than Reich did. "The Adelsons," he writes. "once pulled their money out of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) because of that group’s putative softness on the concept of a peace deal with Palestinians." He quotes the infamous and exhaustive 2008 New Yorker exposé on Adelson extensively. Like here:

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was organizing a major conference in the United States, in an effort to re-start the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and her initiative had provoked consternation among many rightward-leaning American Jews and their Christian evangelical allies. … A short, rotund man, with sparse reddish hair and a pale countenance that colors when he is angered, Adelson protested to Bush that Rice was thinking of her legacy, not the President’s, and that she would ruin him if she continued to pursue this disastrous course. Then, as Adelson later told an acquaintance, Bush put one arm around his shoulder and another around that of his wife, Miriam, who was born in Israel, and said to her, “You tell your Prime Minister that I need to know what’s right for your people—because at the end of the day it’s going to be my policy, not Condi’s. But I can’t be more Catholic than the Pope.”

And he points out Gingrich's transformation on the subject of Israel. "Gingrich was as recently as 2005 praising the Palestinians, referring to 'their ancestral lands' in historic Palestine, and, amazingly, inveighing against 'the desire of some Israelis to use security as an excuse to grab more Palestinian land.' ... Gingrich even used the phrase Israeli 'land grab' in that 2005 essay... Fast forward to the current election cycle, of course, and Gingrich has veered way to the right, famously questioning the very peoplehood of the Palestinians and blasting calls to end Jewish settlements as a 'suicidal step' for Israel. (Adelson, by the way, personally praised Gingrich’s claim that the Palestinians are an 'invented people.')"

Hard to imagine that hard-core Southern racists and teabaggers who are flocking to Gingrich's banner could take a close look at what Adelson is and not recoil in horror. For that matter, what real American wouldn't?

Pennsylvania Has A Candidate From The Democratic Wing Of The Democratic Party-- Meet Matt Cartwright

2012-01-26T06:00:00.000-08:00

In the 2010 cycle Blue America backed Sheila Dow-Ford against reactionary Pennsylvania Blue Dog Tim Holden. 2010 was a conservative year and Holden won. Since then, he has voted (on crucial roll calls) with the Democrats 31.96% of the time. That's right-- Holden has backed the right-wing agenda espoused by Cantor and Boehner 68% of the time. But something else has happened since 2010-- PA-17 was redrawn and is now a solidly blue district, with voters who back the kinds of progressive solutions to the problems conservatives like Holden have created in this country.

Holden was happy to get a bluer district, but the result, predictably, is a primary challenge from a real Democrat who stands for progressive values and principles. This year that candidate is Matt Cartwright, and Tuesday he announced his candidacy. Yesterday I spoke with Sheila-- who went to the University of Pennsylvania Law School with Matt-- and she is enthusiastic to see someone of his caliber challenge Holden... and on exactly the same issues she went to bat for two years ago. Tuesday, Matt's son Jack, a college freshman, made the case for his dad here at DWT. I had already spoken with Matt a few weeks earlier because of his opposition to SOPA. Holden was one of the more corrupt of the right-wing Blue Dogs who co-sponsored the Internet-stifling legislation. At the time Matt took off from his single-minded campaign theme of "jobs, jobs, jobs," to talk to me about SOPA:

In my opinion, SOPA is a bill so riddled with unconstitutional infringements on free speech and unconstitutionally vague criminalization of conduct that it is hard to believe its authors ever even read the one document that they swore to protect and defend.

That probably is a giveaway that Matt is an attorney, an attorney who takes the law very seriously. In fact, when I asked him what originally inspired him to run, he mentioned Glenn Greenwald's new book on civil liberties, With Liberty And Justice For Some.

If I still lived in Stroudsburg, I would be able to vote for Matt against Holden. Instead, I was happy to add Matt to the Blue America page dedicated to replacing right-wing Blue Dogs with progressives. (Please hit that link and consider helping Matt with a contribution. The primary is in April, and he needs all the help he can get-- and fast.)

The new district has moved north and east and now includes all of Schuylkill County and parts of Carbon, Luzerne, Lackawanna, Monroe and Northampton Counties, including the solidly Democratic areas of Lackawana and Luzerne. There are about 89,000 likely voters, people who come out for primaries whether there is a marquee fight or not. Of these, about 33,000 come from Lackawanna (Matt's home county), 17,000 from Luzerne (where Matt is very well known for his work as a public service lawyer on TV), 12,000 from Schuylkill (Holden's home county), and the remaining 26,000 are split among Monroe, Northampton and Carbon. It's important to remember that the only part of the new district that was in Holden’s old district is his home county, Schuylkill, so that means he's an actual incumbent in only 14% of the district-- and 86% of the district is new to him. And the new district is 56% registered Dems and 33% registered Republicans.

In his announcement speech Tuesday, this is what Matt had to say about the newly created district:

These are places where the people believe in the same values that I’ve lived by my entire life. These are the boroughs, townships, and cities where people live who I have represented and who I have fought for. These are the places that have made me who I am today; this is a new beginning, a new chance to be represented in Congress by someone who is going to go to Washington with just one plan, one priority, and one promise. To fight for the middle class.

Let's pick up from there and listen to how Matt introduced himself to the people he hopes will chose him over a career politician who almost always sides with corporate interests against workers, consumers and ordinary Pennsylvania families:

My name is Matt Cartwright and I am running to be the Democratic nominee for Congress. I am running to represent the middle class that is the heart and soul of the new Pennsylvania 17th Congressional District.

This is a new beginning, a new chance for the working families of this district to elect someone who truly represents them and their interests… not the interests of the banking industry, the credit card companies, the insurance industry, the oil and gas industry, or Wall Street investment firms.

This is a new beginning, a new chance for working families to have a representative in Washington who will vote to put the economic well-being of the middle class first. This is your chance to elect a representative who will vote for legislation that benefits the middle class… and not the corporate special interests that fund his congressional campaign.

Working families throughout the new 17th Congressional District, like working families all across the country, are hurting. For those that aren’t struggling with unemployment or underemployment, their incomes have been stagnant. Even as we struggle to emerge from the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, large corporate profits continue to go up, while middle class incomes go nowhere.

Why? Because incumbent congressmen continue to support policies and cast votes that put corporate profits over people. For too long, their priority has just been to get reelected, to protect their own jobs, so they wind up representing the deep pockets of the special interests instead of the people. It is wrong and it has to stop.

Working families in the new 17th Congressional District do not need a representative who votes against legislation making Wall Street and the big banks accountable for how they spend taxpayer money meant to prevent the collapse of our economy.

Working families in the new 17th Congressional District do not need a representative who, while the economy is still struggling, votes against legislation that helps distressed families keep their homes.

Working families in the new 17th Congressional District do not need a representative who votes for legislation that makes it harder for struggling families to get out from under crushing credit card debt.

Working families in the new 17th Congressional District do not need a representative who votes against legislation that makes medicine and health care more accessible to seniors and young adults, that allows coverage for people with pre-existing conditions and that also includes coverage for women’s preventative health care services.

To vote against legislation ensuring that taxpayer money in the TARP funds is used to benefit the economy and the middle class instead of stuffing the pockets of Wall Street executives-- that doesn’t represent middle class values or interests of working families.

To vote for legislation that makes it harder for folks to get a second chance in life… just so the credit card companies can squeeze their last nickel from them doesn’t represent the values of the middle class or interests of working families.

To side with the big banks… who helped create the economic crisis to begin with… and vote against legislation that helps avoid more home foreclosures doesn’t represent middle class values or interests of our working families.

To vote with big health care insurance companies and HMOs, doesn’t the interest of our seniors, young adults, people with pre-existing conditions and women.

I will stand up and fight for the middle class values and the interests of our working families.

There is an overwhelming feeling here in Northeastern Pennsylvania, that Congress is broken. When you look at the constant dysfunction, bickering and failure to act in Congress, it’s hard not to agree with that. But when a handful of representatives from the Democratic Party turn their backs on the middle class, and start voting like Wall Street Republicans, something is really wrong. Something even more fundamental is broken.

What’s broken is their promise to protect the middle class instead of the profits of big banks…or the oil & gas companies… or Wall Street. What’s broken is their promise to vote for bills that benefit the middle class and not loopholes that benefit special interests. What’s broken is their pledge to make decisions based on what’s best for the average family and not what’s best for the lobbyists contributing to their campaign funds. The pact of faith between our incumbent representatives and the people they represent is what is broken.

But I say to you, we can fix what’s broken. We don’t have to keep electing the same representatives whose voting records go against the values and interests of the middle class.

I’ve spent the last 24 years fighting for average people against huge corporations and insurance companies… fighting for middle class people against corporate greed… fighting for the most vulnerable people in our society against uncaring insurance companies… fighting for small business people victimized by predatory banks, and big business bullies.

And I’ve done this fighting right here in Northeastern Pennsylvania. This is all I do… all I’ve ever done. Fighting for what’s right. Fighting for the average person against those who are bigger and more powerful.

Now, this is my first run for public office. I may never have run in an election before, but I have won in the courtroom for families and small businesses I’ve represented over the years.

And I’m here to tell you-- I will bring that same fight to Congress on behalf of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s middle class.

We may start out as the underdog, I understand that the Republican majority in Harrisburg has already assigned us a Congressman, and they’re calling him the incumbent. It’s no easy task to defeat an incumbent. But I will say to you now: Our fight may start out as David vs. Goliath, but I will never give up and I will never sell out. I will work tirelessly to make sure that this district understands that, and on April 24th, we’re going to take the Democratic nomination. In November, we’re going to take this Congressional seat.

As a Congressman I won’t need campaign donations from special interest groups to know what the right thing to do is. I will already know what the right thing to do is.

As a Congressman I will not apologize for being a Democrat. As a Congressman I will not forget that the Democratic Party is the party of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. FDR considered his solemn duty to the economic royalist on behalf of the everyday citizens of this country.

I will fight to ensure that when taxpayer dollars are spent, they are spent to help working families first. I will fight to help working families keep their homes from foreclosure. I will fight to protect the environment. I will fight to help working families get a fair deal from banks and credit card companies. I will fight for economic policies that increase the incomes of working families first.

I will not break the pact of faith between representatives and the people they represent.

And so together, let’s seize this new beginning, this new chance for working families. Let’s seize this moment to begin changing the balance of power in Congress. Let’s elect a Democratic representative who will vote the voice of the people who live in his district… and not the voice of lobbyists speaking for HMOs, big banks, big business and Wall Street.

Let’s elect a Democratic congressman who votes like a Democrat. Let’s elect a Democratic Congressman from the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party.

I’m Matt Cartwright and I will be the new Democratic champion of the middle class in Congress.

You can't possibly have read that and not understood why Blue America is so enthusiastic about helping elect Matt Cartwright. Again, if you can, please consider contributing to his campaign.

Re-industrialization of the United States?

2012-01-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

Like any American who refused to ever buy into the shortsighted bipartisan corporatist de-industrialization of America by clueless, pie-in-the-sky Wall Street elites making their way blithely between banks and cabinet rooms, I was happy to hear President Obama at least acknowledge that these policies have to be turned back. You missed it? It was part of his State of the Union address last night, that little talk he gave that made Republicans so grumpy but that swing voters loved.

Scott Paul, the executive director of the Alliance for American Manufacturing sure picked right up on it. The President had barely finished speaking before his office blasted out his support. "Strengthening American manufacturing and growing manufacturing jobs will lay a solid foundation for a new middle class and economic security for the next generation. We commend President Obama for focusing on manufacturing in a way no president has for 25 years or more." Amen to that! These are some of the lines in the President's speech he was responding to:

Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs... Tonight, I’m announcing the creation of a Trade Enforcement Unit that will be charged with investigating unfair trade practices in countries like China.

We should start with our tax code. Right now, companies get tax breaks for moving jobs and profits overseas. Meanwhile, companies that choose to stay in America get hit with one of the highest tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and everyone knows it. So let’s change it. First, if you’re a business that wants to outsource jobs, you shouldn’t get a tax deduction for doing it. That money should be used to cover moving expenses for companies like Master Lock that decide to bring jobs home. Second, no American company should be able to avoid paying its fair share of taxes by moving jobs and profits overseas. From now on, every multinational company should have to pay a basic minimum tax. And every penny should go towards lowering taxes for companies that choose to stay here and hire here.

When President Obama talked about building an economy built to last, it could be interpreted as a direct swipe at Mitt Romney, whose vulture capital experience is the exact opposite: short-term financial manipulation for quick profits creating nothing at all. That's the record as a "businessman" Romney seeks to run on. After the speech the White released a document called Blueprint For An America Built To Last. Let me quote a section, the heart of it in my opinion, titled "A Blueprint To Create New Jobs Here In America, Discourage Outsourcing, And Encourage Insourcing." It's pretty specific, although some of those specifics-- particularly the bullshit about "free" trade-- are more the cause of the problem than the solution.

Take away the deduction for outsourcing, make companies pay a minimum tax for profits and jobs overseas, and reward companies for bringing jobs back to America: The President believes that we need comprehensive corporate tax reform that will close loopholes, lower rates, and eliminate incentives that make it more attractive to ship jobs overseas-- corporate tax reform that will:

• Remove tax incentives to locate overseas through an international minimum tax: The President is proposing to eliminate tax incentives to ship jobs offshore by ensuring that all American companies pay a minimum tax on their overseas profits, preventing other countries from attracting American business through unusually low tax rates.

• Stop letting companies take a tax deduction for moving overseas and instead provide a credit for moving jobs back home: The President wants to eliminate the tax deduction companies receive for the cost of shutting down factories and moving production overseas, and create a new tax credit to cover moving expenses for companies that close production overseas and bring jobs back to the United States.

Lower tax rates for companies that manufacture and create jobs in the United States:

• Create new incentives to increase manufacturing in the United States: At the same time he proposes to close special-interest loopholes, the President is proposing to ensure the next generation of manufacturing jobs is created here in America by reducing tax rates for manufacturers and doubling the tax deduction for high-tech manufacturers.

• Support companies that make new investments in the communities hardest hit by major job losses: The President is proposing a new tax credit that provides support for companies seeking to finance new factories, equipment, or production in communities that have been hardest hit by a company choosing to relocate or a military base shutting down.

Get tough on trade enforcement: The President has worked to ensure Americans can sell their products all over the world, and last year he signed into law new trade agreements with Panama, Colombia, and South Korea, helping to put the United States on track to reach the goal of doubling exports by the end of 2014. But the President refuses to stand by when our international competitors don’t play by the rules. To level the playing field by improving trade enforcement, the President is announcing:

• A new trade enforcement unit: The President announced the creation of a new trade enforcement unit that will bring together resources and investigators from across the Federal Government to go after unfair trade practices in countries around the world, including China.

• Enhancing trade inspections: The President called for enhancing trade inspections to stop counterfeit, pirated, or unsafe goods before they enter the United States.

• Putting American companies on an even footing: When competitors like China offer unfair export financing to help their companies win business overseas, the United States will provide financing to put our companies on an even footing.

Create jobs by using half of the savings from ending foreign wars to rebuild America: To help ensure we have the infrastructure so that companies can ship their goods more efficiently throughout the country and the world, the President is calling for new efforts to revitalize American infrastructure. The President’s plan will protect taxpayer dollars by fixing existing roads and by directing funding to the best projects instead of earmarks, and will continue investments in high-speed rail. To pay for these investments, the President is proposing to use approximately half of the savings that we will achieve from winding down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the 6 year period of the infrastructure plan with the other half going towards paying down the debt. The President also announced that within the coming weeks, he will sign an Executive Order clearing the red tape that can slow down new infrastructure projects, accelerating those projects that have already been funded.

Unserious right-wing obstructionists like the two up top and the cardboard cutout they had give the GOP rebuttal (right) may not have understood-- or cared to try to understand-- what the President is attempting to do to get the country back on the right track. But thoughtful members of Congress sure did-- all dozen of them. Brad Miller (D-NC), who won't be running for reelection in November (yes, you just read something no one else knows), was one of the first out of the box who did grasp what Obama was talking about. "I strongly support his commitment to bring back American manufacturing," he wrote.

For generations, factory jobs meant a spot in the middle class; jobs in the service economy or in retail often do not. Reforming the tax laws to reward companies for creating American manufacturing is an important step. Cracking down on unfair trade practices by China and others will level the playing field for American manufacturers. And extending the payroll tax cut will put money in the pockets of working and middle-class families so they can buy American manufactured goods.

"By axing parks, politicos are stealing the people's property" (Jim Hightower)

2012-01-25T18:00:00.000-08:00

Well, you say that I'm an outlaw,
You say that I'm a thief.
Here's a Christmas dinner
For the families on relief.

Yes, as through this world I've wandered
I've seen lots of funny men;
Some will rob you with a six-gun,
And some with a fountain pen.

And as through your life you travel,
Yes, as through your life you roam,
You won't never see an outlaw
Drive a family from their home.
-- from Woody Guthrie's "Pretty Boy Floyd" (as
published, not word for word what Woody sings here)

"A state sales tax on sporting goods, dedicated by law to help finance the people's parks will generate about $236 million this year and next. But the governor and his legislative henchmen raided this pile of revenue, filching two-thirds of it for the state's general fund so they could claim that they 'balanced our budget (without) raising taxes.' "

-- Jim Hightower, in his syndicated column, "By Axing
Parks, Politicos Are Stealing the People's Property"

by Ken

Here's how Jim Hightower begins this column, happily passed along by the invaluable Nation of Change:

"Sorry, we're closed." In one of the saddest signs of the times, this message is popping up all across the country, as governors and legislators are cutting off funds (and shutting off access) to one of the finest, most popular assets owned by the people of our country: state parks.

The logic is familiar by now: If God had meant for us to have amenities like parks, if he felt we deserved amenities like parks, he would have made us rich enough to afford amenities like parks -- and He would probably have probably come up with one of His famously mysterious ways to scam it so that somebody else paid for them. (Rich people just love it when they can get somebody else to pay for their stuff. And I'm sure they can direct us to any number of bought-and-paid-for clergyfolk who''ll explain that this too is part of God's mysterious plan.)

Jim takes a rather different view, as you might expect from one of those goddamn liberal class warriors. "Parks," he writes, "are a tangible expression of America's democratic ideals,"

literally a common ground for every man, woman and child to enjoy, learn, absorb . . . or just be. Especially for the middle class and the poor -- the great majority of our people who can't jet off to luxury resorts for a getaway for vacation -- these spaces offer a form of real wealth, something of great value that each of us literally "owns," knitting us together as a community and nation.

In the wonderful world of Austerity, however, it's a perfect time to hack away at this blatant waste of what should properly be Rich People's Money, the way most all money should be Rich People's Money, at least in the minds of Rich People, and goodness knows they've gone a long way toward making it so.

"Spiritually shriveled, small-minded and short-sighted" he calls the state officials who "are snuffing out this invaluable, uniting social force." (Come on, Jim, isn't any "uniting social force" by definition class warfare?)

The majority of states have been closing many of their parks, slashing hours and services at others or simply handing the public's asset to profiteering corporations. Idaho's governor has proposed eliminating the entire parks department; California shut the gates of a fourth of the state's parks last year; officials in Arizona and Florida intend to privatize their parks; Washington state has cut off most of its park funding; and Ohio has okayed oil drilling in its parks to replace state financing.

As Woody Guthrie said of outlaws, "Some'll rob you with a six gun/Some with a fountain pen." This is theft by the in-laws, the political insiders who're stealing The People's property -- stealing from America itself.

At least in the case of his home state, Texas, Jim isn't being poetic or metaphorical when he talks about those "spiritually shriveled, small-minded and short-sighted state officials" stealing The People's property." He's here to tell us a tale.

Things tend to be bigger here -- bigger hair and hats, for example, bigger money and egos . . . and bigger thievery by political con men.

Last year, the gang of GOP hucksters who control our state government pulled off a huge heist, covering it up with an equally huge boast: "We balanced our budget. Not by raising taxes but by setting priorities and cutting government spending," bragged the gang leader, Gov. Rick "Oops" Perry. How'd they fill the $27 billion shortfall that they themselves had created by their previous budgetary mismanagement? By stealing money from already poorly funded programs -- from education to parks -- that ordinary Texans count on.

People here are justly proud of their 94 parks, but many of these treasures are now understaffed, open fewer hours and in disrepair because the system's budget was whacked by 21.5 percent in order to spare the wealthiest families and corporations in this enormously rich state from paying a teensy bit more in taxes.

But that was only part of the robbery. A state sales tax on sporting goods, dedicated by law to help finance the people's parks will generate about $236 million this year and next. But the governor and his legislative henchmen raided this pile of revenue, filching two-thirds of it for the state's general fund so they could claim that they "balanced our budget (without) raising taxes."

To replenish some of the tax money taken by The Perry Gang, the head of parks for the Great State of Texas is now engaged in a shocking spectacle: public begging. In a video played at 11 December press conferences in state parks across Texas, the chief of a major state agency is reduced to shaking a tin cup, pleading for $4.6 million in donations. "Please act now to help keep our state parks open for all Texans to enjoy," he beseeches.

These right-wing politicians howl that they want to shrink government -- but they are the shrunken ones, and the narrowness of their vision is diminishing what it means to be American.

I want to quote again -- possibly not for the last time! -- a paragraph I cited the other day from Rick Perlstein's new rollingstone.com column, "What Mitt Romney Learned From His Dad," and indeed today go a bit further than I did before.

[George Romney's] vision of how capitalism should work was in every particular the exact opposite of the one pushed by the vulture capitalist he sired. (If George Romney's AMC was around now, Mitt Romney's Bain Capital would probably be busy turning it into a carcass.) A critic once said he was "so dedicated to good works his entrance into politics is like sending a Salvation Army lass into the chorus at a burlesque house." As a CEO he would give back part of his salary and bonus to the company when he thought they were too high. He offered a pioneering profit-sharing plan to his employees. Most strikingly, asked about the idea that "rugged individualism" was the key to America's success, he snapped back, "It's nothing but a political banner to cover up greed." He was the poster child for the antiquated notion that corporations have multiple stakeholders: the workers that breathe them life, the communities in which they are situated, and the nation to whom they owe a patriotic obligation – most definitely and emphatically not just stockholders, as Mitt and his defenders say.

In the video above [you can see it onsite if you really want to -- Ed.], today's Romney insists there is no reason to question the distribution of wealth in America except for envy of the rich -- did his rich dad question the distribution of wealth in America out of envy for the rich? -- and that it was a subject only appropriate for discussion in "quiet rooms." (His dad didn't talk about it in quiet rooms; he talked about it at a Sunday worship service at the 1972 Republican convention, praying, "Help us to help those who need help.")

By the year 2012, the erstwhile party of Governor Romney -- Gov. George Romney, that is -- had successfully redefined "those who need help" to mean America's Greediest, the deserving rich.

Our Family Values President

2012-01-25T14:00:00.000-08:00

by Noah

Running for President on laundered taxpayer money from Fannie & Freddie to the tune $1.6 million...

Running for President while being paid to spew your brand of irrational hate and delusional fantasies on a TV network owned by foreigners...

Drumming up racial hate by implying that it's African-Americans who use the biggest percentage of food stamps when, in fact, it is rural whites who had their livelihoods destroyed by Big Arigi-business...

Running for President on $11 million (so far) of gambling czar and personal patron Sheldon Adelson's money...

Sanctimoniously leading the impeachment of a President for doing the same thing he was doing.

Being ousted from your job as Speaker Of The House on ethics charges, by your own party!

Taking off the charts offense at questions about his character... priceless.

And-- while we're not taking sides in this pig-fest-- we did let Mitt chime in as well... Yes, Mitt, not one of his SuperPACs where he can claim some kind of faux-deniability:

With Democrats Like Artur Davis, Who Needs Republicans?

2012-01-25T10:00:00.000-08:00

Before he was thoroughly rejected by Democrats in the Alabama gubernatorial primary in 2010, Rep. Artur Davis, a conservative corporate shill representing one of the safest Democratic seats in the country, was being pushed by the Beltway Democratic Establishment as a future leader. In his last year in Congress he voted far more often with the GOP than with his own party. There are quite a few "Democrats" like that, and when you contribute to the DCCC that's exactly where your money goes. As we mentioned a couple weeks ago, Davis is getting ready to officially become a black Republican. Yesterday he was paying his dues by shilling for the Bush family in the National Review. He's giving his right-wing pals some friendly advice to help them defeat President Obama. When will he get his own show on Fox? He's fretting that "an Obama landslide would devastate conservatism enough that it might be irreparable for a generation" and making the case-- several cases-- for a Jeb Bush run.

One doesn’t have to subscribe to Gingrich’s Manichean rhetoric to concede that an Obama sweep would, for the first time in 76 years, institute government-centered, redistributionist economics as the country’s central governing philosophy. It would be, after all, the agenda that Obama and congressional Democrats had campaigned on, in contrast to the deliberately muted, ideologically vague platforms that elected Carter, Clinton, and Obama in 2008; or the growth-oriented, business friendly liberalism that JFK and LBJ embodied.

Second, Bush would have a pathway to victory in November. His brand of reform-oriented conservatism might actually be his party’s only pathway: Unlike Romney, whose leadership of Massachusetts produced one signature achievement-- a hodgepodge of a health-care law that he likely wishes he could take back-- Bush’s legacy is an issue that Republicans ought to own but are ignoring, education reform. He also turned Florida into a national laboratory for controlling health-care costs and reining in medical tort liability, both soft spots in Obama’s record.

At the same time, Bush has revealed a capacity for coalition-building that has eluded Gingrich. He is a hero of the conservative base who has had remarkable electoral appeal to Jewish and Hispanic voters. He combines support for a modified version of the DREAM Act with backing stronger border security-- a middle ground that is both tough-minded and assimilationist-- and happens to be entering his fourth decade of marriage to a Hispanic woman. It goes without saying that Bush gives Republicans the best shot of removing Florida from the Democratic column, and winning states with a strong Latino presence such as Arizona and Colorado.

The fact is that Jeb Bush bent Florida, a famously interest-group-ridden state, in a rightward direction; that’s an accomplishment Romney can’t begin to claim vis-à-vis Massachusetts. Bush is not just an authentic movement conservative, but a groundbreaker on an array of issues that drive votes, such as accountability for teachers and reining in the costs of private health insurance. While his record has blemishes that Democrats would exploit, from his stint in the Eighties lobbying for southern-Florida business interests to his ill-timed tenure at Lehman Brothers in 2007, this Bush is an adept, articulate campaigner who is unlikely to be tied in knots defending his history. Also, the statute of limitations seems to have expired on the ugliest sentiments around the last Bush presidency.

Jeb Bush should measure his reluctance against the risks looming for his party and, potentially, his country. The fact is that his party could be staring at an unavoidable disaster unless, in the interests of saving it, its best candidate comes out of retirement.

Last week the DCCC unveiled its "Red to Blue" list, the candidates whose elections they're prioritizing. In many cases, they picked staunch conservatives who are in primary battles against progressives. How many on it were just like Artur Davis politically? Far too many. In district after district, "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel forced the DCCC to back future Artur Davises who had already been endorsed by the reactionary, anti-Choice, anti-gay, anti-working-family Blue Dog caucus. The Blue Dogs have recruited right-wing candidates Rob Wallace (OK), Leonard Bembry (FL), Brendan Mullen (IN) and Clark Hall (AR), and they were immediately embraced by the DCCC, which is also backing defeated Blue Dogs Nick Lampson (TX) and Charlie Wilson (OH). Meanwhile Israel hops around the country whispering to Democratic donors to not help fund progressives like Darcy Burner so that he can slip more-conservative and easier-to-control candidates into nominations.

How to avoid future Artur Davises? Refuse to give any contributions to the DCCC until the Democratic Party reforms it and stops appointing degenerate corporate shills like Rahm Emanuel and Steve Israel. Instead, contribute directly to progressive candidates. Here's the best batch of them we could find, dedicated New Deal Democrats like Norman Solomon (D-CA), John Waltz (D-MI), Ilya Sheyman (D-IL), Eric Griego (D-NM), Nick Ruiz (D-FL) and Franke Wilmer (D-MT). Hit the link to view the whole list. Almost all of them have been studiously ignored by the DCCC.

All That Obstructionism And Negativity... Coming Home To Roost?

2012-01-25T06:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I read that the bottom has been falling out of Mitt Romney's popularity among white males-- his main audience. I think some see him as a wimp who can't stand up to Gingrich, while others see him as some kind of an alien being with lots of ill-gotten money he has stashed away in tax havens and Swiss bank accounts. Either way, he's looking very toasty and there are probably a lot of frantic calls to various big-name corporate shills-- from Jeb Bush and Paul Ryan to Mitch Daniels and even Bobby Jindal-- from the likes of Karl Rove, kind of the Republican version of the Elder of Zion.

Even more delectable, at least for me, with my obsessive interest in Congress, is the newest generic House poll showing Democrats up over the GOP by a startling 11 points. It shouldn't be startling for anyone who has paid close attention to the antics of characters like John Boehner and Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan and Fred Upton over the past two years. This is huge! When asked if they would "rather see the Republicans keep control" of the House or see "the Democrats win enough seats to take over control of the House," 48 percent of registered voters chose the Democrats, and 37 percent chose the GOP.

Obama also has an eight-point generic ballot lead in the poll, but House Democrats stretched that advantage by playing close to equal or even ahead of House Republicans among some key groups that are cool to the president. Where Obama loses whites to a generic GOP presidential candidate 49-38, the GOP advantage among whites shrinks to just two points, 43-41, in the House generic ballot.

In particular, House Democrats managed to beat the GOP among white men. Obama loses white, college-educated men by 16 points and white non-college men by 11. House Democrats run even with House Republicans among college-educated white men, 45-45, and actually beat the GOP 44-41 among non-college white men. That couldn't be more different than 2010, when House Republicans won 62 percent of the white male vote, according to exit polls.

That improvement explains why the poll shows Democrats even pressing an advantage in the South, 47 percent to 38 percent. By contrast, Obama loses to a generic Republican by five points, 46 percent to 41 percent, in the South.

Last night President Obama's State of the Union address, sandwiched between a spate of raucous, hateful Republican debates that saw Romney and Gingrich desperately tear each other apart, spoke to the better nature and most optimistic nature of Americans already sick of right-wing fractiousness and knee-jerk negativity.

Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we’re in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren’t so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded... The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What’s at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them.

...As long as I’m President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place. No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that’s built to last-– an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values... Let’s never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that does the same. It’s time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody.

I wonder if Romney took it personally. His Richie Rich persona exposed and bleeding all over the national consciousness, he's watching his last glimmer of hope to capture the White House for the Mormons fade away... rapidly. As Steve Benen reminded everyone after going through Romney's tax returns, there were good reasons for him to keep them away from the public-- even if he's too weak to even defend himself with any passion or vigor.

By any fair estimate, over $42 million in income over two years isn’t bad for a guy who jokes about being “unemployed.” Indeed, Romney would be in the top 1% based solely on the income he makes in one week.

Romney said last week that his rate was “closer to 15%,” but as it turns out, despite his vast wealth, he actually only paid a 13.9% rate last year-- lower than his political rivals who aren’t nearly as wealthy, and lower than most middle-class American workers.

And what about those overseas investments?
His 2010 return also showed that he had a financial account in Switzerland that was closed in 2010 and that he generated income from overseas investments. He also reported financial accounts in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.

...Why did Romney set up $100 million trust funds for his sons without paying any gift taxes? Were his accounts in the Caymans and in Switzerland created to avoid paying taxes? Was the closing of the Swiss account related to this IRS investigation? And given all of the questions surrounding Romney’s Bain-era work, why does the Republican candidate continue to insist he won’t disclose returns from previous years?

What’s more, following up on a point from last week, even if Romney argues that he’s simply playing by the rules-- taking advantage of existing tax loopholes to pay lower rates than much of the middle class-- this doesn’t explain why Romney is eager to exacerbate issues on tax fairness with his tax plan that makes the problem worse.

In a debate over tax fairness and income inequality, Romney is practically a case study for What’s Gone Wrong, but he can at least plausibly argue that this is a mess he benefits from, but didn’t create. Romney, however, prefers to believe the problem doesn’t exist.

Greg Sargent did a nice job capturing the larger political context:
I’m not sure the Obama campaign could have scripted this more perfectly. In a remarkable bit of good timing, President Obama is set to deliver a State of the Union speech focused on income inequality and tax unfairness on exactly the same day that Mitt Romney will reveal that he made over $40 million in the last two years — all of it taxed at a lower rate than that paid by middle class taxpayers. […]

Romney doesn’t just disagree with Obama on these fundamental issues; he personally symbolizes virtually the entire 2012 Democratic message. He is the walking embodiment of everything Dems allege is wrong with our system and the ways it’s rigged in favor of the wealthy and against the middle class. Yet this is the standard bearer the GOP seems set to pick.

I've been glum about the chances of the Democrats to hold the Senate. It;s going to be a stretch, but it's at least possible. As for the House... if only Steve Israel wasn't such a corporate shill and a conservative bonehead, it would be a complete lock. And the Democrats might pull it off despite him; the grassroots is aroused, and the zeitgeist, thankfully, never heard of Steve Israel.

Inequity On The March-- Bad For Your Health

2012-01-24T21:00:00.000-08:00

I was having a talk with Ken the other day about how so many businesses in his uptown Manhattan neighborhood had closed down and so many others are barely holding on. Here in L.A. discounters and low-profit margin stores are doing fine, as are stores that cater to the wealthy, but in the middle... not so good.

I came across a worrisome story in the Guardian yesterday about how struggling working-class families are eating less fruits and vegetables because of the economic downturn. That doesn't matter to an operation like Bain, focused on the quarter and no further, but for anyone worried about the long-term, this is very, very bad news for the health of the nation, whether it's the U.K. or the U.S. The one percent can eat all the fancy organic fruits and vegetables they want while working-class families are forced to consume the kinds of calories without nutrition that Big Agribusiness corporations thrive on.

Inner cities across America are devoid of grocery stores with fresh fruits and vegetables-- which has been correlated to a steep rise in obesity, cancer and diabetes, especially in children. According to The Urban Grocery Store Gap by Bruce Ferguson and Barbara Abell, the poorest neighborhoods typically have about 55% of the grocery square footage of the best-off neighborhoods. You know what a food desert is, right? "Food deserts are large geographic areas where mainstream grocery stores are scarce or missing. They are found predominantly in low-income areas, although not everyone living in a food desert is poor." To return to the Guardian report:

Lower income families in the UK have cut their consumption of fruit and vegetables by nearly a third in the wake of the recession and rising food prices, to just over half of the five-a-day portions that the government recommends for a healthy diet.

Households in the lowest tenth of incomes were buying only 2.7 portions of fruit and vegetables a day at the end of 2010, the latest year for which figures are available, while the average household continued to buy about four portions per person, according to statistics from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). For lower income households, that represents a 30% decline in purchases of fresh fruit and vegetables since 2006.

These rates are likely to have declined yet further in the past year, as inflation has continued upwards and households across the board have seen real incomes shrink. Women are likely to be the worst hit by the fall, as research shows mothers tend to deny themselves meals to give more to their children.

"It's very bad news that people on lower incomes are now even less likely to get their five a day. We urgently need to look at this-- food and nutrition are at the centre of our national life," said Mary Creagh, Labour's shadow environment secretary.

The deterioration in the diets of those worst affected by the recession will be highlighted on Monday in a parliamentary debate on food, called by Labour. Opposition MPs want faster progress on the proposed grocery code adjudicator, which they said would help ensure fairness among supermarkets, suppliers and consumers, and ways to put a brake on food price inflation.

...Creagh said a debate on food was urgently needed, as rising food prices and poorer nutrition for those in lower income households were problems the coalition government had ignored.

She said: "It's an utter disgrace that we are the seventh richest country in the world, and yet we are seeing hundreds of thousands of people going hungry."

...Purchases of fresh fruit and vegetables declined most between 2007 and 2010, according to the Defra figures, which were published shortly before Christmas. The report also found people were buying less beef, lamb and fish, but increasing their purchases of cheaper meat such as bacon.

The day before, the Guardian did a general story on how the middle class is being squeezed, a situation very much like what we're experiencing here in the U.S. Independent Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has been raging about increasing income inequality for a long time and has been warning the country that democracy itself is being threatened as the rich get ever richer, the poor get drastically poorer, and the middle classes move down the economic ladder. And in the U.K., the Guardian article warns, "Millions of people on low-to-middle incomes face years of declining living standards and are seeing their hopes of home ownership disappear, a major report will conclude this week."

The study by the independent thinktank the Resolution Foundation questions whether the new phenomenon of falling living standards and lower aspirations will be reversed, even when the UK economy returns to robust health.

The report, entitled Growth Without Gain?, will suggest that those in the "squeezed middle" are losing out in the post-boom era, as the highest earners take more and more from the proceeds of limited growth and so-called "middle-skilled" jobs are replaced by advancing technology.

As a result, the current generation of hard-working individuals is being left dependent on lower-paid jobs in retail, hospitality and care and can no longer expect, as their parents did, to see their living standards rise as output expands.

Sound familiar? It should. And until American voters start replacing millionaires-- and servants of millionaires-- in Congress with proud working-class men and women, we're going to continue to be screwed. Who do you think is going to serve your interests better, hereditary multimillionaire Fred Upton (of the job-outsourcing Whirlpool fortune) or ordinary working-class Kalamazoo blue-collar military vet John Waltz? You want a better America for your children and grandchildren? Help replace Fred Upton and others like him with John Waltz and others like him-- here.

One more thing. Did you know garlic is the #1 most effective cancer-fighting vegetable?

No, I'm not watching the SOTU -- I've been trying to get through Ryan Lizza's supposedly revelatory article about the Obama presidency

2012-01-24T18:00:00.000-08:00

How is it that all these new "revelations"
add up to what we already knew?

by Ken

There's been a fair amount of talk about Ryan Lizza's piece in the January 30 New Yorker, "The Obama Memos," which seems to think it's a behind-the-scenes look at the Obama administration which will explain all and make us see things anew, and as I started reading, I was hopeful. But after plowing through the thing cursorily, it all seems to come back to the things we already knew:

* Obama really seems to believe in his "postpartisan" nonsense, and was convinced there was a vast heaving 'middle" in the country waiting to be liberated from the polarized "extremes."

* Although Lizza doesn't seem to get it, what he documents over and over is how unreformist this self-styled reformer really is. Even as he's being shocked to discover how little power the president actually has, and is frustrated at not being able to pursue his "agenda," it becomes foggier and foggier what that agenda might be, except for not hurting the feelings, let alone the financial interests, of American big business -- like the insurance companies, for example, when it came to health care "reform." (So what kind of reform did he think he could do?)

The "new" perspectives that Lizza brings to his survey of the Obama presidency seems to me primarily: (a) an obsession with quantifying our era's polarization, which I suppose has some value, at least as long as it doesn't slip into the illusion that polarization is some kind of natural phenomenon that exists outside human agency, and (b) that Washington tends to pull all presidents in certain directions -- again true, but what excuse is there for being surprised?

In the end, Lizza acknowledges:

Obama made important mistakes in the first half of his term. He underestimated the severity of the recession and therefore the scale of the response it required, and he clung too long to his vision of post-partisanship, even in the face of a radicalized opposition whose stated goal was his defeat.

But when you're wrong about those things, what is there left to be right about? The people who assisted him in making those errors continue to be quoted as if they were sages.

But then Lizza can write with a straight face:

Obama didn’t remake Washington. But his first two years stand as one of the most successful legislative periods in modern history. Among other achievements, he has saved the economy from depression, passed universal health care, and reformed Wall Street.

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one, Ryan.

I hope to give the piece more concentrated effort, but stuff like this suggests it won't be easy or bear much fruit.

FIXED 18-YEAR TERMS FOR SUPREME COURT JUSTICES?
HEY, AT LEAST IT'S AN IDEA, OF SORTS

Meanwhile, in the same isssue, The New Yorker's Hendrik Hertzberg bids an only slightly unfond farewell to the candidacy of Rick Perry, noting that "It’s not as much fun without him."

At Rancho Perry, every day was Oopsday. Along the trail, he forgot how many Justices the Supreme Court has (eight is not enough); forgot the name of one of them (Sonia Sotomayor); placed the American Revolution in the sixteenth century; identified the voting age (fixed at eighteen four decades ago by constitutional amendment) as twenty-one; and suggested that the chairman of the Federal Reserve is a traitor, that Turkey (a NATO ally of sixty years’ standing) is governed by Islamic terrorists, and that Social Security is not only a Ponzi scheme but also a criminal enterprise, a monstrous lie, and unconstitutional.

But buried in the muck of the Perry campaign, probably not meant sincerely but nevertheless to be found among the candidates official positions, was what Hertzberg calls "Perry's Good Idea."

[T]here was more to Perry’s campaign than blunders. It was also a campaign of “ideas.” Few of them were good, alas. For example, reducing the salaries of members of Congress by half, to eighty-seven thousand dollars a year, is not a good idea. Neither is a tax cut that would net the richest one per cent more than five thousand dollars a week and the unrichest twenty per cent less than two dollars and fifty cents. Nor is there much to be said for reinvading Iraq, reinstituting torture, or unconditionally supporting new and bigger Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Yet at least one idea Perry embraced was, and is, very good indeed. It involves the Supreme Court. The Governor may be a little shaky about the Court’s names and numbers, but he knows what to do about it. Here’s the proposal, straight from his now moribund campaign Web site:
A Constitutional Amendment creating 18-year terms staggered every 2 years, so that each of the nine Justices would be replaced in order of seniority every other year. This would be a prospective proposal, and would be applied to future judges only. Doing this would move the court closer to the people by ensuring that every President would have the opportunity to replace two Justices per term, and that no court could stretch its ideology over multiple generations. Further, this reform would maintain judicial independence, but instill regularity to the nominations process, discourage Justices from choosing a retirement date based on politics, and will stop the ever-increasing tenure of Justices.

This ingenious idea has been kicking around in legal circles for decades. It tiptoed into wider view in 2002, via a Washington Post op-ed piece by two prominent law professors of opposite ideological and political leanings: Yale’s Akhil Reed Amar, a Democrat, a former clerk for Stephen Breyer, and a stalwart of the liberal American Constitution Society; and Northwestern’s Steven G. Calabresi, a Republican, a former clerk for Antonin Scalia, and a co-founder of the conservative Federalist Society. In 2006, Calabresi and his colleague James Lindgren fleshed the idea out in a long article in the Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy. Justices would still get lifetime appointments. After their eighteen years with the Supremes, they could choose to serve on other federal courts, bringing their experience and, in some cases, their wisdom to the appellate bench. Even if they didn’t exercise that option, though, their salaries would continue for life. If a Justice died or retired before his or her eighteen years were up, a substitute would be appointed via the usual process—Presidential nomination, Senate confirmation—to serve out the remainder. The interim Justice would not be eligible for reappointment to the Supreme Court, but he or she would have the same sweet post-Court deal. And what lawyer wouldn’t jump at the chance to be a Justice of the highest of high courts, if only for a year?

The Amendment—call it the Perry Plan—would solve any number of problems. From 1789 through 1970, the average tenure of a Supreme Court Justice was about fifteen years. For Justices who have retired or died since then, the average tenure has been twenty-six years. This isn’t just an artifact of longer life spans. As the Court’s importance has grown—Marbury v. Madison made it the only one of the three federal command posts that is functionally sovereign, and the polarized gridlock of the elected branches has only made it more powerful—and as it has become more “political,” aging Justices have tended to hang on well into senescence, especially when the sitting President is of a different ideological persuasion. Presidents, for their part, seek to extend their influence into the far-distant future, by finding the youngest nominee they can get away with. (Another incentive: while younger is not always wiser, it does make for a shorter paper trail.) The prospect that a Justice will be handing down decisions for close to half a century turns confirmation fights into political Armageddons. The randomness of openings abets the now-or-never mentality. Richard Nixon named four Justices during his five years in the White House; Jimmy Carter, during his four years, named zero. The Perry Plan would change all that. Voters would know that every President, every two years, would get to nominate someone for the Court.

It’s possible that Perry saw his endorsement of the Perry Plan as nothing more than a handy horsewhip for conservative Court-lashing. To him, the Supremes are a bunch of “Grand Ayatollahs” who have “wrested away from the people the power to decide what is right and what is wrong and, at the most fundamental level, how we should lead our lives.” He’s referring, no doubt, to rulings like Engel v. Vitale (school prayer), Roe v. Wade (abortion), and, of course, Lawrence v. Texas (homosexual “sodomy”). But liberals have their own complaints, among which Bush v. Gore and Citizens United v. F.E.C. are prominent. As the Court’s power has waxed, its reputation has waned. It could use a therapeutic dose of democratic legitimacy. The Perry Plan would give it one, without, as Perry’s Web site notes, endangering its judicial independence. The Governor isn’t big on earnest, high-minded good-government concerns. He’s no goo-goo. But, whatever his motives, by trying to move an admirable reform from the law library to the electoral arena he has taken a small step toward showing that he’s not just an oops-oops, either.

It's easy to dismiss the idea on the ground that it's politically impossible, even with some support on both the left and the right. Can we fathom what it would take to enact a constitutional amendment at this point in our history? Any constitutional amendment. Still, it's not all that "out there" an idea. It's something to think about, at a time when there seems hardly anything anymore to think about, except escape.

Ryan And Boehner Want A Second Shot At Destroying Medicare And Medicaid

2012-01-24T14:00:00.000-08:00

Not a day goes by on Twitter when the GOP noise machine doesn't puke out something like this (these are all from yesterday morning):

The biggest problem with passing the budget, of course, is that the GOP is using it to push forward their dangerous and radical right-wing social agenda (as even Newt Gingrich readily admitted, calling Ryan's budget "right-wing social engineering"; see video above). The Republicans seem convinced this is a winning issue for them-- ending Medicare and Medicaid. In fact, Boehner and Ryan are threatening to insert it into this year's budget again. Boehner was on Fox News Sunday citing how Ryan and Democrat Ron Wyden have a "bipartisan" idea of how to push forward the Republican Party's dangerous right-wing social agenda.

At a GOP strategy session on Friday, Ryan told the Republican House Members, many of whom are scared to death that trying to destroy Medicare may not prove to be a good idea in an election year, “We’re not backing off on the kinds of reforms that we’ve advocated, but we have to write it... We’ve done more to normalize the idea of premium support than anything at all. We’re confident that these are the right policies. There’s an emerging bipartisan consensus that’s occurring on doing premium support reform to Medicare is the best way to save Medicare." By bipartisan he means Wyden and a motley crew of reactionary and despised Blue Dogs.

Rob Zerban, Ryan's Democratic opponent, is far more in touch with what the American people are looking for than Ron Wyden and the mangy Blue Dogs. "Paul Ryan just announced he is taking a second swing at Medicare," writes Zerban. "His 'new' plan is devastating to Medicare as we know it, but the big difference is that he found one Democrat to help him!"

Here is what has been happening-- Paul Ryan has introduced a new plan to start the privatization of Medicare. He convinced a "Democrat," Ron Wyden, to join in this effort. Ron Wyden, like Paul Ryan, has raked in an alarming amount of lobbyist money from the health insurance industry.

Make no mistake-- this is no bipartisan effort! Almost all Democrats, including President Obama, are strongly opposed to this plan.

Here is what the White House Communications Director had to say: [this scheme could] "cause the traditional Medicare program to "wither on the vine" because it would raise premiums, forcing many seniors to leave traditional Medicare and join private plans. It would shift costs from the government to seniors. At the end of the day, this plan would end Medicare as we know if for millions of seniors."

It is clear what this plan is designed to do. Both Paul Ryan and Wyden admit that it will likely not save anyone any money! The only upside is a big giveaway to private insurance companies at the expense of our seniors. This is sham bipartisanship and the voters of Wisconsin are not fooled!

Ryan has to be stopped. Wall Street has every intention of making him president someday. The DCCC has studiously ignored him-- if not protected him-- for a decade. Rob Zerban is taking him on with zero help from "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel, the chair of the DCCC. Zerban just forced Ryan to switch his position and back away from supporting SOPA. He deserves our help, and you can give him some right here at the ActBlue Stop Paul Ryan page. (I should add that Ryan has probably taken more sleazy, corporate cash than any other Member of the House and currently has $4.6 million sitting in his campaign warchest, virtually all of it from corporate special interests.)

Matt Cartwright For Congress-- A Guest Post By Jack Cartwright

2012-01-24T10:00:00.000-08:00

Today my father, Matt Cartwright, announced his candidacy to represent Pennsylvania’s 17th Congressional District in the House of Representatives.

In a way, I can’t believe I’m saying that. Having been interested in politics and public policy for as long as I can remember, I thought I was as far away as I could get from the decision makers in Washington. Over the years I watched electoral and policy debates with my family, and year after year we continued to see a gap between what politicians said at home and what they did in Washington. I would talk to family, neighbors and friends about these debates and all I could sense was a growing cynicism about Washington politicians and their ways. I could tell that these people who were so close to me had lost faith in our system because of this political credibility gap.

This past year the Occupy Wall Street movement highlighted another kind of divide. Tax policies crafted in Washington designed to help the special interests and the super rich over the working class people have split us into two categories: the 99% and the 1%. Time after time, the special interests have triumphed over people. After the Citizens United decision, big corporations now have undue influence over our electoral system. The average C.E.O. makes 350 times the amount of the average worker, average hourly earnings haven't increased in 50 years, and the 1% owns 42% of the wealth in the United States. Their control extends to all areas of legislative business, including health care, economic policy, trade policy, environmental protection, etc.

For over 25 years my dad has stood up to the special interests in the courtroom. He has held corporations responsible for their offenses against the middle class people of Pennsylvania. He has sued polluters. He has won cases for unfair bank practices, and auditing malpractice. For several years he gave up his time giving nightly free legal advice to viewers on a local news station. He regularly volunteers at a free legal clinic in a local church. My father comes home every night, and I can tell how much he genuinely cares about the people he fights for every day. When I was a little boy I asked my dad, “Why are you a lawyer?” and he told me, “Because I want to help people.”

Helping people is what he does. After 9/11 he got his firm to take 7 cases representing the family members of victims for free in front of the Victims’ Compensation Fund in New York City to achieve just compensation for their losses. When two local judges got involved in a notorious local scheme to imprison “kids for cash,” he set up a Juvenile Defense Pro Bono Lawyer Project and was honored by the local bar association for it. Outside of the courtroom he has been a leader in our community. He was a District Governor of Rotary International and for many years organized a “Rotary Run Against Drugs.” He has served as a member of the executive council of the local Council of the Boy Scouts of America. As a member he has raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for local Scouting programs, and he was also a leader in my own Boy Scout Troop. He was on the board of directors of a local hospital. If you attend Divine Mercy Parish at the Church of Saint Joseph in Scranton, you might even
catch him doing a reading.

My father is a person who has been blessed with great success in his career as an attorney, but he always gives back to his community. Now he has an opportunity to help his community in an even greater capacity: by representing it in Congress.

He will have a tough race. It will require a lot of money, and grassroots organizing to be successful. The special interests will be against him, and he will need the help of every person who wants to see positive, progressive change in this country. It will be a battle of ideologies. My father’s ideology being that we need a government that looks forward, maintains a healthy economy, and protects the consumer from the deceptive practices of corporate America. His opponent’s ideology is of a limited government that is reactionary, one that makes deep cuts in spending, protects industries like the credit card companies and the big banks, polluters, and health care insurance companies.

This will be a primary fought on issues. My father believes that everyone in this country is entitled to health care while his Blue Dog opponent does not. My father believes that the government should protect the environment while his opponent votes with the Republicans to frustrate environmental protections. My father believes that we shouldn’t be making it harder for middle class folks to declare bankruptcy against credit card debt, while his opponent voted for that. My father believes that we need energy independence in this country without giving tax breaks to huge oil companies, while his opponent voted for the Bush-Cheney energy policy of 2005. His vote has had devastating consequences on the environment in Northeastern Pennsylvania. In the Bush-Cheney energy bill, the Halliburton Loophole allows fracking companies to dump chemicals into public water sources without the responsibility to inform residents of what is in their water. My father likes to say that he comes from the “Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party,” while his opponent votes with the Republican Party over 50% of the time. [According to ProgressivePunch, Tim Holden voted with the GOP against the Democratic position on crucial rollcall votes just over 68% of the time last year.]

This primary election takes place on April 24, 2012. It’s going to be a difficult fight, but what it comes down to is what my dad has been doing his whole life: helping people. For the future of this country, my father needs your help.

Here is a recent family photo. Let to right: My dad, my brother Matt, my mom Marion Munley Cartwright and me

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You can contribute to Matt's campaign at the Blue America BadDogs page.

Newt And GOP Establishment Panic

2012-01-24T06:00:00.000-08:00

Last night's GOP debate in Tampa may have been entertaining or even, for some, cathartic, but these theatrics hardly matter... and for normal people it was just a boring episode in a reality show that is starting to wear a little thin. The Republican Establishment long ago decided it was Romney's turn, and they don't care how much foot-stomping and breath-holding there is among the Republican base, it's all fixed anyway. The GOP is the Big Money party, and Big Money says "Mitt," so Mitt it will be-- or, if Newt succeeds in making him seem just too implausible, another cut-out hack just like him, a Mitch Daniels or something manufactured like that. But Newt? That's not going to happen.

They don't like him. They don't trust him. They know he would not just lose to Obama but would dash any hopes they have for taking the Senate or even holding the House. Newt Gingrich is toxic. Yesterday, before the debate, Michael Crowley at Time tried explaining Republican Newtophobia:

“The Establishment is right to be worried about a Gingrich nomination,” the winner of the South Carolina Republican primary declared Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press. “Because a Gingrich nomination means that we’re going to change things, we’re going to make the Establishment very uncomfortable.”

The Republican Establishment, such as it can be defined, is uncomfortable, alright. It is likely to re-mobilize, as it did in Iowa last month, to deflate his candidacy before Florida’s Jan. 31 primary, in which a victory could turn Newt from an upstart into the likely nominee. Establishment money will flow to pro-Romney SuperPACs. Establishment pundits and politicos will enumerate (again) Gingrich’s flaws and foibles.

But the Establishment isn’t striking back for the reasons Newt claims. In reality, Gingrich’s platform does almost nothing to threaten the Establishment’s core interests. It’s his candidacy that has the GOP powers that be gnashing their teeth. But as he tries to keep Mitt Romney from mounting a comeback after his South Carolina humiliation, Gingrich’s anti-Establishment pose might be the best thing going for him.

Before going any farther, it’s worth asking who this ‘Establishment’ really is. That’s tricky, but let’s stipulate that it roughly consists of a couple of hundred Republicans. They include the party’s most powerful (and wealthy) Washington lobbyists; its senior members of Congress; marquee television and newspaper pundits; and a gaggle of elected officials, financiers and all-purpose operators around the nation. More specifically, Newt’s key Establishment adversaries include the lobbyists Wayne Berman and Ron Kaufman, columnists George Will and Charles Krauthammer, elected GOP big shots like Chris Christie and Nikki Haley, and party elder statesmen like former President George H.W. Bush.

No one on that list is particularly threatened by a Gingrich presidency, at least not beyond the usual cost of backing the wrong candidate. Certainly not much in Newt’s past record suggests as much. Yes, as a Congressional back-bencher in Congress in the 1980s, Newt was impatient with his party’s more moderate, deal-making leaders (notably including Bush). His 1994 Contract With America did call for Congressional term limits, an idea despised by Washington lifers of both parties.

But since then, Newt has inarguably lived the good life of an Establishment man. As House Speaker he made no serious effort to take on the culture of Washington. Instead, he oversaw an expanded alliance between K Street lobbyists and congressional Republicans. And after he left Congress–purged by his colleagues, not for threatening their interests but for botching the politics of Bill Clinton’s impeachment–he settled comfortably into a life of lucrative speaking and influence-peddling.

What about his current platform? On Meet the Press, Gingrich detailed the case this way: “We’re going to demand real change in Washington, real audit of the Federal Reserve, real knowledge about where hundreds of billions of dollars have gone. And I think if you look at a lot of these guys, they have really good reason to worry about an honest, open candidate who has no commitment to them, who has no investment in them. And I think they should be worried because we intend to change the Establishment, not get along with it.”

Given that scores of Washington Republicans are already on record as supporting a Fed audit, Newt’s one specific argument above isn’t very persuasive. So what about the rest of his platform? Well, he favors huge tax cuts-- probably the Establishment’s top priority. He wants to cut regulations, slash entitlements, and kill off ObamaCare-- all sure fire applause lines at the American Enterprise Institute. True, his radical plan to rein in “activist judges” has drawn withering reviews from some certifiable Establishment men. But that’s not enough to explain the strong opposition to him in the sitting rooms of McLean, Virginia, which has become to the Republican Establishment what Georgetown once was to the Democratic elite (and where, incidentally, Newt himself lives). The bottom line is that Gingrich has more in common with Ross Douthat than with Ross Perot.

To the extent Newt threatens the Establishment, it’s because of his electability-- or lack thereof. The GOP’s mandarins see Gingrich’s nomination as a sure way to blow their chance of deposing Barack Obama. They see Gingrich as the political equivalent of a Fukushima nuclear plant worker, with polls showing him to be lethally irradiated by his negative approval ratings. Whereas Mitt Romney is running about even with Barack Obama in head-to-head polling, Newt loses by double-digit margins. Sure, those numbers could change if Gingrich beats Romney and wins the nomination, with all the accolades it entails. On the other hand, his grandiosity syndrome may kick in, as it has before, and render him a laughing stock. Hence the many Establishment Republicans now saying things like, “Newt means losing 45 states.”

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal, the unsigned lead Review & Outlook piece about the Republican Establishment's panic attack bitched that Republican nominees since Reagan have been "tongue-tied or timid" and that at least Newt knows how to put on a good show. Romney, they wail, is too cautious and "befuddled."

As for the GOP establishment, such as it still is, Mr. Gingrich's re-emergence is likely to cause a panic attack. They don't believe he is electable. Our advice would be to relax and let the voters decide. If Mr. Romney can't marshal the wit and nerve to defeat the speaker, then he isn't likely to defeat Mr. Obama.

If GOP office-holders had a better candidate, they should have rallied behind one to get into the race, and they still could if the primary contest drags on without a clear winner. In any case the record of elected GOP politicians in picking nominees is hardly inspiring.

Well... there's always this if they don't want Newt:

How Low Will A Deranged Republican Sink? How About Slaughtering A Pet Cat For "Politics"?

2012-01-23T21:00:00.001-08:00

The picture below is gruesome. Please do NOT scroll down if an explicit photo of a tortured, brutalized cat is going to upset you

I've always been more of a dog lover than a cat lover. I go for a walk every day and bring dried duck breast to feed Gabby, Murphy, Licorice and Louie, the neighborhood dogs. I always bring a couple of extra pieces in case I run into any other dogs. And I'm allergic to cats. But I was horrified yesterday at a note I got from Blue America-backed Arkansas Democrat Ken Aden about the ritual slaughter of his campaign manager's family cat. It made me sick. And it was a lot worse than Romney strapping Seamus to the roof of his car.

Aden has been making a great deal of headway against GOP plutocrat Steve Womack in Arkansas's most Republican district. So much so that Womack is starting to get worried. The press has been covering Aden's race, something that is pretty new for a Democratic challenger. So this weekend, when his campaign manager, Jacob Burris, got home from a long day on the trail, he found something pretty horrible: The family cat had been slaughtered, with the word "liberal" painted on the pet's corpse.

The Russellville Police Department is investigating, and a report will be made to the Federal Bureau of Investigation Monday morning.

Jacob Burris, who has served as Aden's campaign manager since late October, arrived home with his family Sunday evening, and his four children discovered the gruesome scene as they exited the family vehicle to enter their home.

The family pet, an adult, mixed-breed Siamese cat, had one side of its head bashed in to the point the cat's eyeball was barely hanging from its socket. The perpetrators scrawled "liberal" across the cat's body and left it on the doorstep of Burris' house.

"To kill a child's pet is just unconscionable," Aden said Monday morning. "As a former combat soldier, I've seen the best of humanity and the worst of humanity. Whoever did this is definitely part of the worst of humanity," he said.

"It is one thing to engage in civil political discourse, and for Republicans and Democrats to disagree with each other, which is an expected part of the political process. Taking it to this level is beyond unacceptable," Aden said.

While the campaign between Aden and incumbent Congressman Steve Womack has heated up in recent months, Aden said they did not believe the Womack campaign to be responsible. "Although we have certainly disagreed and engaged in a great deal of civil discourse, I do not believe in any way that Congressman Womack or his campaign had anything to do with this incident," Aden said. He noted that, before Christmas, KRUM Radio, a station owned by Womack's father, actually promoted a toy drive held by Aden's campaign for children in the Third District. "We suspect this is the action of a rogue individual or group of individuals who are the type of folks that stoop to the lowest common denominator instead of engaging in civil political discourse," Aden said. "It is unfortunate this has occurred, and we will await the results of the police and federal investigations," Aden said.

Was it politically motivated: I got this heartbreaking photo from Blue Arkansas:

There’s no doubting this was political. There’s no doubting it’s another hideous example of right wing terrorism. Personally I would hope that leaders on the right-- Steve Womack, the Arkansas Republican Party, etc.-- would step up and condemn this as strongly as possible. I would also hope that Steve Womack’s father, owner of a local radio station, would stop giving out the names, phone numbers, and addresses of members of the Aden team or anyone else for that matter on his radio program when ranting about Aden. The elder Womack has done that several times and Aden’s former press secretary got a death threat in the mail soon after her name was mentioned on the program. Clearly there is someone out there that doesn’t need anymore of that kind of information, much less inspiration to act on their hatred. I also hope that the Aden campaign will do whatever they can to up the security at some of their events, for the time being at least. Aden has said he’s going to put out a press release on the matter soon, and we’ll be following this and any developments related to it closely.

At least they didn't shoot a person again. If you'd like to, you can contribute to Ken Aden's campaign here.

Willard Inc. may be his father's biological offspring, but politically speaking, he's no George Romney

2012-01-23T18:00:00.000-08:00

Michigan Gov. George Romney and his son ~~Retard~~ Willard look out over the New York World's Fair grounds, May 18, 1964.

"Not only was George Romney, that loser, ironclad in his ideological commitments; his vision of how capitalism should work was in every particular the exact opposite of the one pushed by the vulture capitalist he sired."

-- Rick Perlstein, in his debut rollingstone.com column,
"What Mitt Romney Learned From His Dad"

by Ken

Oh boy, I've been meaning to get back all week to Rick Perlstein's inaugural rollingstone.com column, "What Mitt Romney Learned From His Dad," and since it was posted last Tuesday, I'm thinking we're only a day away from the arrival of another one.

Rick has a theory about sons-of-pols with political ambitions of their own, specifically sons of pols who suffer traumatic electoral defeats. He starts from this premise:

Here is a truism about the psychology of politicians: there is almost nothing so soul-definingly traumatic for them as losing an election. You believe yourself a great man, a figure of destiny. You love your job, or covet an even more important one -- and then suddenly one day it's gone, all because the public decides it doesn't love you any more. The trauma shapes future ideology: if you're a conservative, say, you might become more conservative. That was the case for two pioneers of the Democratic Party's long march to the right: Joseph Lieberman, who lost a bid for the U.S. House of Representatives, and Bill Clinton, who lost his reelection as Arkansas governor, both in 1980, a year of profound reckoning for Democrats who got blindsided by Ronald Reagan and his coattails.

But there is, Rick suggests, something worse, and that is being the son of such a traumatized pol. He has two such cases in mind, starting with --

a third pioneering Democratic corporate sellout, Evan Bayh, who managed the 1980 Senate reelection campaign in which his fighting liberal father Birch Bayh lost to baby Reaganite Dan Quayle. Thereafter, as governor and senator from Indiana between 1989 and 1997, the son hardly met a right-wing idea he couldn't embrace.

As far as I've been able to ascertain, the "lesson" learned in the Bayh family was exclusive to young Evan. Apparently Birch Bayh -- who was, as I've written, a political hero of mine -- has never made any such rightward move. And neither, I gather from what Rick tells us, did his other famously traumatized pol: Michigan Gov. George Romney, who came within a washed brain of riding a wave of almost unblemished popularity to the 1968 Republican presidential nomination. As you may know, George Romney had a bunch of sons, one of whom has long entertained delusions of presidential fitness.

I really don't want to preempt Rick's narrative, which as usual is laid out in rich, elegant, and ultimately eloquent detail. I just want to offer three blindingly stark contrasts he establishes with overwhelming eloquence between the Romney father and son.

1. THE "SHOCKINGLY AUTHENTIC"

GEORGE ROMNEY ON CIVIL RIGHTS

Rick writes about George Romney's "shocking authenticity."

[H]is courage in sticking to his positions without fear or favor was extraordinary. In January of 1964, for example, the second-year governor received a letter (downloadable here) from a member of the top Mormon governing body reminding him of the "teachings of the prophet Joseph Smith" that "the Lord had placed the curse upon the Negro." Drop your support for the 1964 civil rights bill, the elder warned, arguing that God might literally strike Romney dead for his apostasy: "I just don't think we can get around the Lord's position in relation to the Negro without punishment for our acts," the letter said. Romney only redoubled his commitment -- leading a march the next year down the center of Detroit in solidarity with Martin Luther King's martyrs for voting rights' in Selma, Alabama. In 1966, the Republican Party staked its electoral fortunes on opposing open housing for blacks. Romney begged them, unsuccessfully, not to. "This fellow really means it," an amazed Southern Republican said when Romney toured Dixie pushing civil rights in his presidential campaign; after America's worst riot broke out in Detroit under his watch, the governor said that America could respond with a crackdown on law and order – "but our system would become little better than a police state."

2. GEORGE VS. WILLARD ON

THE NATURE OF CAPITALISM

George Romney, a Republican governor who had of course been a fantastically successful corporate chief executive, had a "vision of how capitalism should work" that --

was in every particular the exact opposite of the one pushed by the vulture capitalist he sired. (If George Romney's AMC was around now, Mitt Romney's Bain Capital would probably be busy turning it into a carcass.) A critic once said he was "so dedicated to good works his entrance into politics is like sending a Salvation Army lass into the chorus at a burlesque house." As a CEO he would give back part of his salary and bonus to the company when he thought they were too high. He offered a pioneering profit-sharing plan to his employees. Most strikingly, asked about the idea that "rugged individualism" was the key to America's success, he snapped back, "It's nothing but a political banner to cover up greed." He was the poster child for the antiquated notion that corporations have multiple stakeholders: the workers that breathe them life, the communities in which they are situated, and the nation to whom they owe a patriotic obligation -- most definitely and emphatically not just stockholders, as Mitt and his defenders say.

In the video above, today's Romney insists there is no reason to question the distribution of wealth in America except for envy of the rich -- did his rich dad question the distribution of wealth in America out of envy for the rich? -- and that it was a subject only appropriate for discussion in "quiet rooms." (His dad didn't talk about it in quiet rooms; he talked about it at a Sunday worship service at the 1972 Republican convention, praying, "Help us to help those who need help.") Even if Mitt Romney is not the most right-wing candidate for the nomination, when he wins it, in a Republican Party becoming more extreme with every passing day, he may still be -- because the party won’t have it any other way -- the most right-wing nominee in the history of the country.

Rick draws a painful contrast between the signature "shocking authenticity" of George Romney and the palpable inauthenticity of Willard --

with, I think, an exception. Every time he opens his mouth on the subject of capitalism, he says what he sincerely believes, which happens to fit neatly with present-day Republican ideology: that rich people deserve every penny they have, and if people complain about anything rich people do, it's only because they're envious.

3. GEORGE ROMNEY ON THE LIES AMERICANS ARE
TOLD ABOUT OUR FOREIGN ENTANGLEMENTS

I've left for last the issue that cost George Romney not just his shot at the presidency but his political career: the Vietnam war, which he had supported through a visit to Vienam in 1965 but found himself beginning to question following a second trip in 1967. Asked in a TV interview about his apparent change of heart (Rick has the video posted with the column), he gave the answer that undid him: "When I came back from Vietnam in 1965, I just had the greatest brainwashing anybody can get when you go over to Vietnam." That, says Rick, is the line that everyone remembers.

But he continued with a devastating, prophetic, and one-thousand-percent-correct assessment: that staying in Vietnam would be a disaster. The public, and certainly the pundits, weren't ready to hear it. All they heard was the word "brainwashing" -- not in the colloquial sense in which Romney obviously intended it, but as something literal. Here was this weird dude accusing our generals and diplomats of Svengali-like mind control. The mockery was swift and furious. ("I would have thought a light rinse would do," William F. Buckley said -- hilarious! Only an idiot would criticize the Vietnam War!) Romney nose-dived sixteen points in the next Harris poll. As I wrote in my book Nixonland, on Vietnam a national brainwashing continued apace.

The gutter-brawling Richard Nixon didn't have to lift a finger to destroy Romney; the man had done it to himself. But as Rick underlines, amid all the mockery, Romney stuck to his guns (as it were), telling New Hampshire voters "that LBJ was 'spinning a web of delusion,' and that 'when you want to win the hearts and minds of people, you don't kill them and destroy their property. You don't use bombers and tanks and napalm to save them.'" And Nixon would proceed to get himself elected by: (a) conspiring to make sure that the Paris peace talks wouldn't produce, you know, peace, and (b) flat-out lying, saying that he had a "secret" plan to end the war -- so secret that he couldn't tell us what it was. In fact, when he became president, he didn't end the war, he escalated and widened it.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the "brainwashing" that Romney diagnosed would become a fixture of American political discourse, not just on the Right, but ultimately among self-serving pols almost across the increasingly narrow American political spectrum.

Rick has this shocking notion that understanding the past may actually enable us to see where we are and figure out where we may be heading. It is, in other words, the exact opposite of Newt Gingrich's perverted notion of "history," which consists of cherry-picking the past for bits and pieces that can be used to buttress your ideological prejudices and delusions. I can hardly wait to see what the next column brings.

Lou Christie Had 2 Faces; Chris Christie Has 3 Chins-- And A Hankerin' To Be Vice President

2012-01-23T14:00:00.000-08:00

This is just a guess, but the last time I watched Meet the Press was probably in 1965, before I left home and went off to college. Ned Brooks was still the host. Two of my friends, John and Roland, claim the show is somehow "relevant," but neither has ever explained why. If you tuned in yesterday-- I caught a bit online-- you might have thought you were watching the Food Network's soon-to-be-popular new show Fat Chefs. The culinary clash of the titans was between Chris Christie (straight from his endorsement by Meatloaf) and Newt Gingrich (straight from gorging himself at L'Auberge Chez François). Watch the clip above.

Christie didn't have to be pushed too hard by whoever that host is who took over for Ned Brooks. "We all know the record," he began his premeditated spiel. "He was run out of the speakership by his own party. He was fined $300,000 for ethic violations. This is a guy who's had a very difficult political career at times and has been an embarrassment to the party." He said "embarrassment" a few times. Florida Republicans know what that's all about.

Nor was the slob from Jersey the only Republican taking potshots at the big double-digit winner of the first of the Southern primaries. Romney and his whole team were out making noise. Yes, even the self-styled aristocrat himself got down in the mud with the hogs: “At the end of four years it was proven he was a failed leader, and he had to resign in disgrace-- how many of you knew that? He actually had to resign after four years in disgrace... He has not had a record of successful leadership. What's he been doing for fifteen years? He’s been working as a lobbyist and selling influence around Washington."

And then there was Santorum. Remember him? I don't think Willard has made a deal to give him the VP nomination or some other job because Santorum wasn't just attacking the Newtster but also going after him. At a parking-lot rally yesterday in Coral Springs-- featuring "giant posters warning voters that Mormons worship false Gods"-- Santorum said, "Trust is a big issue in this election. Look at the record of someone who was governor of Massachusetts and, well, didn't necessarily govern all that conservatively."

"You look at someone who was Speaker of the House, and again ... When Newt was Speaker of the House, within three years the conservatives in the House of Representative tried to throw him out ... and in the fourth year they did. Why? Because he wasn't governing as a conservative," Santorum said, to cheers in the audience.

"What we need is a strong conviction conservative," he said. "We don't need someone who sits on the couch with Nancy Pelosi," he said, which elicited great cheers of 'No,' from the audience.

...Santorum was introduced on stage by controversial African-American Rev. O'Neal Dozier, who has warned followers about the threats posed by Mormonism, Muslims and gay people, and whose hairstyle could only be described as Afro-Pompadour.

"I believe deep down in my heart that Rick Santorum will be the GOP nominee," Dozier said, then praying for Santorum and the other candidates. Santorum visited Dozier's church, Worldwide Christian Center, in Pompano Beach, earlier Sunday.

Before the rally, an African-American band sang reggae and jazz hits, including "Let's Get It On," then moving onto songs about how much they disliked Obama.

The feeling seemed to be a strong one in the crowd; voters waved signs warning of an Obama Depression. Strong feelings of dislike seemed to be everywhere in the rally: against Obama, Romney, moderates, media, socialists, and even Russian. The only feeling that didn't seem to be a strong one was over which candidate to actually support.

"Santorum would make a good vice president," said Doris Conolly, 82, who was holding a poster that read, "Americans, Beware. Mitt Romney is a lifelong Mormon."

Conolly, who appeared to be wearing pastel pink silk pajamas, said she remembered Gingrich as Speaker of the House, and that he was "tremendous," and that Santorum was "okay."

It's Mitt Romney that she truly doesn't like.

"Christians and Jews shouldn't vote for Romney," she said.

Scoop: Buck McKeon's Desperation To Get A Dicey Countrywide Loan Was His Impending Bankruptcy

2012-01-23T10:00:00.000-08:00

Courtesy of Darrell Issa's sweeping investigation into Countrywide Financial Corp., "Buck" McKeon (R-CA) was caught with his hand in the cookie jar after being issued a VIP loan in 1998 from the now-defunct lending agency. Crazy, we know, because the only other times we hear of McKeon taking his hand out of his pocket are to hold it palm up when he visits defense industry lobbyists.

Interesting new details are coming to light regarding his 1998 loan. It was a mortgage refinance of a home he purchased one year earlier in Stevenson Ranch (Santa Clarita), California. The strangeness of refinancing your mortgage after only a year also raises some interesting questions, probably answered by looking at his other finances. McKeon was one of five brothers who inherited Howard and Phil’s Western Wear in California. Howard and Phil's had 55 stores at its height, but filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1996 to avoid repaying millions to creditors. The business floundered over the next three years and finally liquidated with a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 1999, citing many debts, including about $400,000 in unpaid state sales taxes to California.

Some of McKeon's brothers declared personal bankruptcy in addition to corporate bankruptcy. McKeon too was on the verge of personal bankruptcy and desperately needed cash. But because of his bad credit and large debt, he wouldn't have been approved for a refinance the normal way everyone else would be, by going to a bank. Instead, he approached Michael J. Ferrell, shady head lobbyist for the Mortgage Bankers Association of America, who directed him to Angelo Mozilo, CEO of Countrywide. Obviously, he was in real financial trouble, after bankrupting the business he inherited and he needed money fast. A newspaper in McKeon's district, the Antelope Valley Press, obtained Countrywide’s phone logs subpoenaed by Congress and printed excerpts this week. The notes state, "Borrower [McKeon] is a bit difficult to deal with. He seems on the edgy side," and "Borrower wants to close ASAP."

Details emerged that Angelo Mozilo personally intervened in McKeon's loan by directing the loan officer to "take 1 point, no garbage fees, approve the loan and make it a no doc." One point off of a generally 1 percent of the loan, so that’s another $3,000. Mozilo probably didn't want any documentation because they knew McKeon wouldn’t qualify for the loan. "No doc" loans, which were extended to borrowers who had difficulty documenting their income, are termed "liars' loans" by banks because the applicant is trusted (or not) to enter accurate information on the documentation. Thus, no-doc loans are higher- risk and usually come with a higher interest rate. A person familiar with Countrywide's business practices told us that a loan of $315,000 at one point under market and without fees would have lost Countrywide around $12,000. The loan did not appear on McKeon's federal financial disclosures.

Yet McKeon claims he never knew he received a VIP loan or met Angelo Mozilo, despite signing a document indicating he was in the VIP program. Also, McKeon used to be chairman of the board at Valencia Bank and Trust. One would think someone on the verge of bankruptcy with prior executive banking experience would know if he was getting a "good deal" on a loan. We also find it hard to believe that McKeon never met Angelo Mozilo, who lived next to McKeon's district and employed more than 1000 people in the district's processing center. Additionally, Frank Visco, the developer of Countrywide's processing center, former California Republican Party chairman, and close friend of McKeon, was Mozilo's neighbor.

You have to appreciate McKeon's honest corruption when he defended himself in his hometown newspaper by saying, "If I had known we had got a good deal, then I would have gotten all my loans from Countrywide."

Another interesting coincidence is that right around the time of this loan and McKeon's financial problems, he put his wife to work on his campaign as treasurer, paying her between $78,000 and $110,000 per year, which basically means money directly from lobbyists into their joint checking account. USA Today reported McKeon's wife Patricia received the most campaign money of any family member in Congress up to 2006.

McKeon’s Democratic challenger, Dr. Lee Rogers, has called on McKeon to "release all documents relative to the loan so that the public can see the terms and determine for themselves if they believe McKeon when he says he 'had no inkling’ he was receiving preferential treatment.' " Rogers's campaign is picking up steam; we hear they'll have some good fundraising numbers to release for last quarter, but they're raising even more money now. After redistricting, the district is more in play than it has been. With 18% "decline to state" voters, Obama carried the district in 2008, as did Meg Whitman for governor, making it really a swing district.

We hear there are two local issues affecting the election. Cemex, a mining company authorized by the Bureau of Land Management, will be starting to mine for rock in Santa Clarita, threatening the air quality and clogging up roads with 1200 trucks per day. The mine is extremely unpopular locally, with 110 organizations from the Chamber of Commerce to the Sierra Club publicly opposing it. McKeon has refused to introduce a companion bill to Sen. Barbara Boxer's S. 759 to initiate a land swap with Cemex to stop the mine.

In an even weirder twist, McKeon’s campaign-paid spouse Patricia is running for state Assembly against a popular local Republican in the primary for AD 38. This Republican is Scott Wilk, who used to be McKeon's district director but left on not- so-amicable terms over the Cemex issue. The Republican base is fracturing into pro-McKeon and anti-McKeon camps, and there is even a devastating and popular new blog dedicated to Patricia McKeon and the family finances.

Overall, we think the race looks promising for Rogers, a famous doctor, running in one of the few remaining districts in Los Angeles County represented by a Republican in Congress. You can give him a hand here at the DownWithTyranny ActBlue page.

Florida, Here We Come-- Preparing For Tonight's Deadly Tampa Debate That Romney Was Pressured Into

2012-01-23T06:00:00.000-08:00

You think Scott Walker is hated? He is, which is why over a million Wisconsin voters signed petitions to recall him. But Rick Scott, the accidental governor of Florida-- he slipped into office with less than 50% of the vote-- has consistently polled as the most despised governor in the U.S. He's so hated in Florida that he's the only governor who all the Republican presidential wannabes have declined to ask for an endorsement. People with short memories wonder how he even got the nomination. After all, the Florida GOP Establishment had their Romney-like wind-up puppet, Bill McCollum, and Scott's criminal record as a Medicare swindler and Medicaid rip-off artist was well known. But the same deranged, Fox-watching, hate-talk-radio-listening imbeciles who made up the primary voters in 2010 will be the primary votes a week from Tuesday. Here's a good look at who exactly, statistically, they are.

Just after the Florida primary in 2010 I wrote:

Florida voters have been rejecting corrupt, right-wing ideologue Bill McCollum for many years. After two decades of disgracing himself in the House-- he was one of the leaders of the attempted coup against President Clinton-- he ran, unsuccessfully, for the Senate against Bill Nelson in 2000 and, in the GOP primary, against Mel Martinez in 2004. This month he was the favored candidate of the Tallahassee Establishment to replace Charlie Crist as governor. He lost again-- and not just lost; he lost to Rick Scott, a former Missouri donut maker who went on to national fame as a career criminal, defrauding Medicaid and Medicare of millions of dollars and incurring $1.7 billion in fines. He was kicked out of his company but somehow managed to avoid prison. He beat McCollum 47-43% in the primary...

Attorney General Bill McCollum was the favorite in the GOP gubernatorial primary, with a moderate record on immigration and strong support from Latino Republicans. His opponent Rick Scott, a political newcomer and self-funded multi-millionaire, decided to make a name for himself by riding the wave of anti-immigrant sentiment so popular with a segment of the Republican base. He emphasized his strong support for an Arizona-like immigration law in Florida and painted McCollum as soft on illegal immigration. Still, once McCollum started attacking Scott as a shady businessman, he regained the lead and was expected to win.

In what proved to be the fatal move of his campaign, McCollum introduced his own version of an Arizona-type law less than two weeks before the primary. McCollum called on the Florida state legislature to enact it in September and bragged that the bill was tougher than Arizona’s.

Turns out, McCollum’s strategy of trying to outflank Scott on immigrant bashing backfired. McCollum rapidly lost support from Latino leaders, and faced a backlash in the press. On Tuesday, many Latinos in Miami-Dade County stayed home. Turnout in what was expected to be a McCollum stronghold was less than 17%, while statewide turnout was 21%. Scott raced over the finish line and pulled off the come-from-behind upset.

Going into the race, Romney is way ahead, having already spent almost $8 million on TV and radio time pushing his candidacy (between his own campaign and the one he's illegally directing via Super PACs). And almost a quarter million Republicans have already voted early, in all likelihood overwhelmingly for pre-South Carolina Romney. Can post-South Carolina Gingrich ride the momentum into a state which is swingy and moderate overall, unlike blood red South Carolina, but has one of the most backward, racist and ignorant Republican Party memberships? Adam Smith in yesterday's Tampa Bay Times:

Mitt Romney is no longer coasting to the nomination, and Florida-- a much different contest than Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina-- should determine whether Romney’s campaign suffered a temporary setback or is in deep trouble.

...Losing Florida could be devastating to Romney, given the advantages he has. And it definitely could happen.

As important as money, television advertising and organization are here, momentum tends to trump everything else in widely watched presidential campaigns. Romney easily outspent and out-organized John McCain in Florida in 2008 and still lost. The nearly 200,000 votes already cast in Florida? That's about 10 percent of the eventual Republican primary vote in 2008.

For all the candidates, Florida presents a very different kind of campaign challenge: the first contest where only Republicans can vote; an enormous state with 10 different and diverse media markets; the first place with a significant number of Hispanic Republicans; and the first primary electorate that truly looks like America-- southerners, Yankees and transplants from everywhere else in the country, as well as urban, rural and suburban voters.

Here's the post-South Carolina bad news Romney has started to face as of yesterday:

1. Contrary to the received wisdom up until now, Gingrich is the favorite in the Sunshine State. Yes, Romney has the financial advantage. Yes, he has been on the air with ads for weeks. Yes, there has been early voting in Florida under way for weeks, during which time Romney’s air of inevitability will have given him an edge. But Florida is a closed primary, the first contest so far in which only registered Republicans are allowed to cast ballots. And the state’s GOP voters are far more conservative and anti-Establishment than many people understand. This is especially true in the panhandle of northern Florida, where Gingrich is likely to take up residence for much of the time between now and the vote on January 31. But watch for Gingrich to play hard for the state’s Hispanic voters-- and not just the Cuban-Americans who are thick on the ground in South Florida but also the polyglot Latino population around Orlando-- by emphasizing his stance on immigration, which is notably more moderate than Romney’s. Between all this and the wave of momentum and free media coverage he’ll enjoy coming out of South Carolina, the former speaker, I think, has the upper hand, though not by a lot.

2. To fend off Gingrich and regain his status as the frontrunner, Romney needs to “refine his message, not sharpen his knives,” as the influential conservative blogger Erik Erickson puts it. The Romney people, however, are instinctively inclined to do the opposite. Incredulous at the notion that anyone on God’s green earth could ever take Gingrich seriously as the Republican nominee, their plan is to step up their attacks on him, beginning at the debate in Tampa tomorrow night. There are two obvious problems with this strategy, though: (a) When it comes to wallowing around in the mud, Gingrich is King Hog, while Romney isn’t even a hog farmer in waders-- he’s the CEO of the agribusiness conglomerate that owns the place, worried about getting any flecks of dirt on his starched white shirt; and (b) Gingrich’s rise represents as much as anything a rejection of Romney, his themeless pudding of a campaign, and the Establishment support of it. At Romney’s final rally in Charleston on Friday [...] he ended his speech by declaiming, “I love this land, I love its Constitution, I revere its founders, I will get America back to work, and I’ll make sure that we remain the shining city on the hill.” It would be hard to conjure a stanza less suited to rousing the hot-eyed Republican base of 2012 than that.

3. Romney needs to get comfortable, and quick, in talking about money-- his, that is. In South Carolina, his handling of the calls to release his tax returns in South Carolina was something like a slow-motion train wreck. This morning, Romney quickly moved to defuse the issue by announcing he will release his 2010 returns and estimates for 2011 on Tuesday. This was smart and necessary, but does nothing to address the deeper problem, which is Romney’s obvious awkwardness when questioned about his personal wealth and, to a lesser extent, his background at Bain, and also the unfortunate appearance he gives of being out of touch with the lives of monetary mortals. From “corporations are people” and “I like being able to fire people” to, most recently, his comments that he made “not much” money in speaking fees when they in fact totaled $374,327 last year, Romney has done much to paint an image of himself as a combination of Gordon Gekko and Richie Rich. No doubt this will be a bigger problem in a general election (if he gets there) than in a Republican nomination fight-- but heading into Florida and Nevada, where the jobless rates are 10 and 13 percent respectively and the median income is roughly what Romney gets paid for one speech, no one should think it’s not a vulnerability with the increasingly blue-collar GOP electorate.

4. If Gingrich wins Florida, the Republican Establishment is going to have a meltdown that makes Three Mile Island look like a marshmallow roast. Why? Because the Establishment will be staring down the barrel of two utterly unpalatable choices. On the one hand, Gingrich's national favorable-unfavorable ratings of 26.5 and 58.6 percent, respectively make him not just unelectable against Obama but also mean that he would likely be a ten-ton millstone around the necks of down-ballot Republican candidates across the country. And on the other, Romney has shown in two successive contests-- one in a bellwether Republican state, the other in a key swing state-- an inability to beat his deeply unpopular rival. If this scenario unfolds, the sound of GOP grandees whispering calls for a white knight, be it Indiana governor Mitch Daniels (who, conveniently, is delivering the Republican response to Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday night) or Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan or even Jeb Bush, will be deafening.

5. No matter who wins Florida, the race is now destined to go on a good long time. Again, why? Because Romney has plenty of money (and can always pump in more of his own should the need arise) to go on all the way to June; because this is his last chance to be president, for there will be no third time around for a two-time loser; and because he believes that he alone has the organizational muscle and fortitude to go the distance. As for Gingrich, his near-100 percent national name ID and his magnet-like capacity to draw free media coverage will give him the ability to compete around the country even if his financial and organizational deficits remain. Also, his sense of himself as a man of destiny and world-historical significance-- who, as the Romney campaign cheekily pointed out, has compared himself to Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, Abraham Lincoln, Woodrow Wilson, Henry Clay, Charles De Gaulle, William Wallace, Pericles, The Duke Of Wellington, Thomas Edison, Vince Lombardi, The Wright Brothers, Moses, and “a viking”-- compels it. Oh, and also: the two men, Gingrich and Romney, are quickly coming to hate each other. So buckle up; this should be fun.

I hope every DWT reader has already gone through The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin at least once. Robin hammers home the point about how reactionaries thrive on the sense of loss. In the South, especially, the sense of near-martyrdom, and passionate hatred, is palpable among the Republican faithful. Unlike Gingrich, who practically wrote the book on it, Northern Republicans like Willard and most of his inner circle are clueless about using language that animates Southern Republicans. As one wag on Twitter put it yesterday, "It wasn't lack of tax returns, it was lack of grievance" that won Gingrich ever single up-country county in South Carolina. Romney held his own along the coast and won five counties in the relatively sane part of the state. But up-country South Carolina is the Heart of Darkness, the soul of the Old Confederacy and the most backward, poorly educated and hate-filled, satanic area of America. The whole section of the state has been cursed.

We won't be just sitting around eating popcorn and laughing, though. So far there are four outstanding progressives running for Congress in Florida. Alan Grayson and Nick Ruiz have already been endorsed by Blue America; Dave Lutrin is next; and then we'll deal with Lois Frankel.

There Is A Senator Running For Reelection Who's Earned Our Support-- Bernie Sanders

2012-01-22T21:00:00.000-08:00

I'd like to help the Democrats keep control of the Senate. And Blue America has a Senate page. But the Democrats running in a lot of the most vulnerable states, Missouri, Nebraska, West Virginia, Virginia, Nevada, Montana... these aren't people I could even vote for, let alone contribute money to! Instead, we have Tammy, Elizabeth and Bernie; let's just concentrate on them and let the DSCC try to work the "but we're better than the Republican" angle for their worthless and mostly indefensible candidates.

Saturday Bernie did an op-ed, We must stop this corporate takeover of American democracy, and it was like a companion piece to our live chat with Alan Grayson Saturday. They both understand full-well that Citizens United opens the floodgates-- quite consciously by five corporate hacks in black robes-- to a complete takeover by the one percent. Early Saturday, John McCain and Russ Feingold issued a joint statement that states flatly that "the Court charted a course for legalized bribery." Grayson said we either figure out how to overturn this disastrous mistake or we can kiss democracy good-bye. Bernie has been tireless in his critique:

The corporate barbarians are through the gate of American democracy. Not satisfied with their all-pervasive influence on our culture, economy and legislative processes, they want more. They want it all.

Two years ago, the United States supreme court betrayed our Constitution and those who fought to ensure that its protections are enjoyed equally by all persons regardless of religion, race or gender by engaging in an unabashed power-grab on behalf of corporate America. In its now infamous decision in the Citizens United case, five justices declared that corporations must be treated as if they are actual people under the Constitution when it comes to spending money to influence our elections, allowing them for the first time to draw on the corporate checkbook-- in any amount and at any time-- to run ads explicitly for or against specific candidates.

What's next… a corporate right to vote?

Don't laugh. Just this month, the Republican National Committee filed an amicus brief in a US appeals court contending that the natural extension of the Citizens United rationale is that the century-old ban on corporate contributions directly to candidates and political parties is similarly unconstitutional. They want corporations to be able to sponsor candidates and parties directly while claiming with a straight face this would not result in any sort of corruption. And while, this month, they take no issue with corporations being subject to the existing contribution limits, anyone paying attention knows that eliminating such caps will be corporate America's next prize in its brazen ambition for absolute control over our elections.

The US Constitution has served us very well, but when the supreme court says, for purposes of the first amendment, that corporations are people, that writing checks from the company's bank account is constitutionally-protected speech and that attempts by the federal government and states to impose reasonable restrictions on campaign ads are unconstitutional, our democracy is in grave danger.

I am a proud sponsor of a number of bills that would respond to Citizens United and begin to get a handle on the problem. But something more needs to be done-- something more fundamental and indisputable, something that cannot be turned on its head by a rightwing supreme court.

That is why I have introduced a resolution in the Senate (introduced by Representative Ted Deutch in the House) calling for an amendment to the US Constitution that says simply and straightforwardly what everyone – except five members of the United States supreme court-- understands: corporations are not people with constitutional rights equal to flesh-and-blood human beings. Corporations are subject to regulation by the people. Corporations may not make campaign contributions-- the law of the land for the last century-- or dump unlimited sums of money into our elections. And Congress and states have broad power to regulate all election spending.

I did not introduce this lightly. In fact, I have never sought to amend the Constitution before. The US Constitution is an extraordinary document that, in my view, should not be amended often. In light of the supreme court's Citizens United decision, however, I see no alternative. The ruling has radically changed the nature of our democracy. It has further tilted the balance of power toward the rich and the powerful at a time when the wealthiest people in this country have never had it so good.

At a time when corporations have more than $2tn in cash in their bank accounts, make record-breaking profits and swarm Washington with their lobbyists 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for the highest court in the land to suggest that there is just not enough corporate "speech" in our system defies the bounds of reason and sanity. The ruling already has led to plans, for example, by industrialist brothers David and Charles Koch to steer more than $200m-- potentially much more-- to conservative groups ahead of election day 2012. Karl Rove has similar designs.

Does anybody really believe that that is what American democracy is supposed to be about?

I believe that the Citizens United decision will go down as one of the worst in our country's history-- and one that demands an amendment to our Constitution in order to restore sovereign power to the people, as our nation's founders intended.

If we do not reverse it and the culture of corporate dominance over our elections that it has exacerbated, there will be no end to the impact that corporate interests have on our campaigns and our democracy.

Bernie told me he expects the Citizens United crowd to dumps millions of dollars in corporate PAC money into Vermont against him this year-- the way they did against Grayson in 2010. If you'd like to help him build a strong defense, please consider a contribution to his campaign here.

Urban Gadabout: A lovely post-snowstorm gad about the formerly marshy nether region of Brooklyn's Park Slope

2012-01-22T18:00:00.000-08:00

The Carroll Street Bridge over Brooklyn's super-toxic, Superfund-designated Gowanus Canal (seen on a very different day from today's post-snowstorm one), is one of the country's few remaining "retractile" bridges -- the bridge actually retracts on the rare occasions nowadays when it's opened. (I note in the official NYC Dept. of Transportation caption for this photo that the bridge "opened to traffic in 1889.")

by Ken

It was good to get out on the pavement again. I'd been carrying around the voucher for a free Municipal Art Society walking tour which I got with my membership renewal. It's only good for "walk-up" tours -- i.e., those where everyone pays at the tour, as opposed to the ones where everyone has to preregister. Which is fine with me, because while I'd grown to love preregistering, I've also taken plenty of walk-up tours. (People always thought the "preregister"-type tours were "better," but as I understood it from the now-departed director of tours, Tamara Coombs, that wasn't the case -- the idea was to balance the needs of different types of tour-takers.)

Several times I'd arrived at a tour prepared to use the voucher, but found such a crowd that I walked away. For example, Francis Morrone was doing a tour of Forest Hills Gardens which sounded really interesting, and I managed to get there on time that Sunday directly from a cruise up Newtown Creek which left me at South Street Seaport, on a day when I had to get to and from the seaport without the services of the Fulton Street station of the A subway (closed, as it frequently is on weekends, for construction work on the already way-over-budget and way-behind-schedule Fulton Street transit hub). As I say, I actually made it there on time, but held back turning in my voucher as a crowd assembled, and when the crowd grew large enough, I simply headed back toward the subway station, counting the day a "win" for (a) the very satisfying Newtown Creek cruise (not to mention getting there on time, no easy feat on a Sunday coming from Washington Heights in way-northern Manhattan without the benefit of the A train), and (b) then making it out to Forest Hills, with even enough time to get a some interesting buns at an Asian bakery-type shop.

I'd only just had the experience of doing a tour in Francis's ongoing East Village series (he had, for professional reasons, done some heavy-duty lot-by-lot research on the area, and has been trying to make use of all that acquired knowledge in the form of MAS tours), which was by preregistration only, but which in the transition between MAS tour directors had been severely oversold, making for an unmanageable group trying to snake around the narrow streets around the Bowery. Before the end of that tour, between the ongoing struggle to keep close enough to hear and some really painful complaining from my legs (about which a bit more in a moment), as we walked down Second Avenue and I realized just a couple of blocks ahead, at Houston Street, lay my version of an oasis at that moment, the F train subway station, I headed, or rather hobbled, for daylight.

Then there was another tour of Francis's, one focusing on Antonin Dvořák's New York -- whatever there is left to find remaining from the great Czech composer's several years as director of the newly established National Conservatory of Music in the city. This is something I've never really looked into, and as Sunday Classics readers are aware, the music of Dvořák is one of the great loves of my life. Another reason I bestirred myself for that tour was my fear that, with a classical composer as the tour subject, I was afraid Francis would find himself nearly alone, and I figured the least I could do was make it nearly-alone-plus-one. But not hardly. By the time I got there, there was already a huge crowd waiting, so again I turned around and headed in the opposite direction. An excellent instinct. The next time I saw Francis, at the December rescheduling of another of his East Village tours, the one that had been wiped out the weekend of Hurricane Irene, he mentioned that the Dvořák in New York tour had drawn 72 people!

Clearly part of what was at work in the crowds was making those tours "walk-up" with Francis's reputation deservedly so strong that people who felt they'd always been shut out of his usually preregistered tours that they all flocked to these. In fact, in the November-December MAS schedule, I didn't find anything to preregister for, and became so gun-shy about the crowds I was encountering at walk-up-type tours that I gave a pass even to a few in December that might have interested me.

I can't exclude the personal factor. My knees are in really bad shape, and while I think that all the walking I've done in the last year helped me retain and even to an extent regain function, it's become increasingly difficult to get myself to tip in the "awright, let's do it" direction anytime I've been faced with an optional activity. In fact, in November and December the only walking tours I did were several that were prepaid, like the one I did do with Francis. Even though the prepayment was only the MAS member price of $10, that may be enough to motivate me. Then there were a couple of New York Transit Museum tours, also preregistered, and at a considerably steeper tariff, even at their member price.

I actually formulated a "plan" for MAS tours that might wind up so heavily attended: I would arm myself with a self-guided tour, ideally in the same vicinity -- for example from Michelle and James Nevius's wonderful book Inside the Apple. (As I wrote, I had a wonderful time on a tour that James led of what can be pieced together in lower Manhattan of the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam.) I haven't actually done it yet, but it still seems to me a pretty good plan.

Yesterday I had really meant to bestir myself to an MAS tour exploring the past, present, and future of "South Hell's Kitchen," led by Laurence Frommer, with whom I've done several tours devoted to the two present and one possibly future NYC-designated "cultural districts." But it was snowing yesterday, and as I mentioned, it doesn't take much to tip me the "not doing" way in a choice between doing and not doing. I just stayed shut in my underheated apartment.

Today, however, I figured that the whopping 2-4 inches of snow we got yesterday could work on my favor, holding down the crowd for another tour of Francis Morrone's -- the first of a three-part series devoted to Brooklyn's Park Slope, the area sloping down from what's now Prospect Park to the bottomland where the Gowanus Canal was built. This was a near-must for me, because I had missed this first part, devoted to the poor lower, northwestern part of the Slope, the last time Francis offered this series. I was actually registered for it, and if I'd taken it, that would have been my first tour with Francis. However, I brazenly left town (which I do maybe once a year), kissing that $10 good-by, something I don't do easily, and so the second tour in the series, devoted to the northeastern section of Park Slope, the ritzy part, what Francis calls "the gold coast," from Seventh Avenue to the park, from the northern edge of the park down to about 10th Street.

That can't have been much more than a year ago, and in that time I can't count the number of tours I've done with Francis -- lots of tours with other guides too, but about a zillion with Francis. And now finally I got to catch up on the first part of the Park Slope series, and now that I've seen so much more of the city, I may try to do the second and third parts again, when they're offered in the spring, according to Francis.

Sure enough, the cold presumably kept the group to manageable size, and I had a great time, not least because Francis is such a jolly companion on a post-snowstorm Sunday. Along with this enormous store of knowledge, he's got a special style of humor that I can only describe as "laugh-out-loud droll," as when he observed, well into the tour, that it seemed to have turned into "My 31 Years in Park Slope," because much of what he was describing to us in the economically less favored lower reaches of the Slope had changed so much since he moved into the neighborhood (you guessed it) 31 years ago. He recalled, for example, how desolate the thoroughfare of Fifth Avenue had been back then, having never been part of the "quality" part of Park Slope, which had never extended much below Seventh Avenue. Now, he noted, Fifth Avenue is the hottest part of what is probably still Brooklyn's hottest neighborhood.

It was also fun having Francis speculate, at the site on the eastern shore of the Gowanus Canal, where Whole Foods has been threatening since, like, 2005 to build one of its larger NYC stores, whether shoppers -- assuming the company gets the latest variance it's requesting at a hearing this coming Tuesday, and assuming the store gets built on the new announced schedule of 2013 -- are going to be eager to buy produce at a store standing on that scenic bank.

It was also fun recovering ground I've covered on previous tours. For example, we crossed the Gowanus Canal first on the Carroll Street Bridge and then back on the Union Street Bridge, which I'd done on a canal-focused tour with Matt Postal on a brutally hot day -- I remember how we tried to find shelter from the sun. The canal was notably more pungent in the heat, but even in the dead of winter that strange shade of green that the water is looks mighty eerie. (I don't suppose the canal water, with all the fearful stuff lodged in it, freezes easily.) To the west of the canal lies Carroll Gardens, which I'd visited both on that tour with Matt and on one with Francis devoted to Carroll Gardens. (That one was special because it had somehow been scheduled at some hour like 11am, although, as Francis explained, his tours are always scheduled for 2pm -- as indeed today's was. He kept apologizing for his disoriented state that day, telling us he kept starting sentence and didn't know where they were going. I thought it was wonderful in a special way.)

It was a really fine afternoon, and a nice reminder of what a sensational year I've had with MAS. I'm glad I actually had a chance to tell Tamara how those tours had changed my life. We don't always, or even often, get to thank people who've done that for us. I was pleased and not surprised to learn that that wasn't the first time she'd heard that.

I'm hearing that MAS may be returning to a heavier concentration of preregistered tours, I'm gathering with price increases that are probably long overdue. I mean, $10 for members and $15 nonmembers -- what is that? Still, I can't begin to recount the extraordinary things I've seen because they were only $10.

I might add that my legs held up okay too. Like I said, it was a fine afternoon.

[For information about MAS tour offerings, go to mas.org.tours.]

Afghanistan-- Time To Say Good-Bye... In Fact, Long Past Time

2012-01-22T14:00:00.000-08:00

I spent a lot of time traipsing all over Afghanistan in the '60s and '70s. What a spectacularly beautiful and unique country! And what terrific, hospitable people! Because I also operate a travel blog, people are always asking me if it's safe to visit Afghanistan yet. And I always tell them the same thing: Maybe your grandchildren will be able to someday. Although Afghanistan was only ranked #7 last year among the world's worst failed states... well #1 is Somalia, and Afghanistan was named the second most dangerous place to visit, right after Somalia.

And these days, it's not even safe, or especially not safe, if you're heavily armed and trained to kill. The Afs want their country back and they want the occupiers out. They've always been like that, and they always win in the end.

American and other coalition forces here are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report obtained by the New York Times.

A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan.

Underscoring the danger, four French service members were killed and a number were wounded on Friday when a gunman wearing an Afghan National Army uniform turned his weapon on them, according to an Afghan police official in Kapisa Province in eastern Afghanistan where the incident occurred and a Western official in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press. The Afghan police official, Asdullah Hamidi, said the shooting happened in Tagab District, an area that is viewed as dangerous and dominated by insurgent forces.

The gunman is in custody, a NATO official said.

The violence, and the failure by coalition commanders to address it, casts a harsh spotlight on the shortcomings of American efforts to build a functional Afghan Army, a pillar of the Obama administration’s strategy for extricating the United States from the war in Afghanistan, said the officers and experts who helped shape the strategy.

The problems risk leaving the United States and its allies dependent on an Afghan force that is permeated by anti-Western sentiment and incapable of combating the Taliban and other militants when NATO’s combat mission ends in 2014, they said.

One instance of the general level of antipathy in the war exploded into uncomfortable view last week when video emerged of American Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters. Although American commanders quickly took action and condemned the act, chat-room and Facebook posts by Marines and their supporters were full of praise for the desecration.

But the most troubling fallout has been the mounting number of Westerners killed by their Afghan allies, events that have been routinely dismissed by American and NATO officials as isolated episodes that are the work of disturbed individual soldiers or Taliban infiltrators, and not indicative of a larger pattern. The unusually blunt report, which was prepared for a subordinate American command in eastern Afghanistan, takes a decidedly different view.

“Lethal altercations are clearly not rare or isolated; they reflect a rapidly growing systemic homicide threat (a magnitude of which may be unprecedented between ‘allies’ in modern military history),” it said. Official NATO pronouncements to the contrary “seem disingenuous, if not profoundly intellectually dishonest,” said the report, and it played down the role of Taliban infiltrators in the killings.

The coalition refused to comment on the classified report. But “incidents in the recent past where Afghan soldiers have wounded or killed I.S.A.F. members are isolated cases and are not occurring on a routine basis,” said Lt. Col. Jimmie E. Cummings Jr. of the Army, a spokesman for the American-led International Security Assistance Force. “We train and are partnered with Afghan personnel every day and we are not seeing any issues or concerns with our relationships.”

The numbers appear to tell a different story. Although NATO does not release a complete tally of its forces’ deaths at the hands of Afghan soldiers and the police, the classified report and coalition news releases indicate that Afghan forces have attacked American and allied service members nearly three dozen times since 2007.

Two members of the French Foreign Legion and one American soldier were killed in separate episodes in the past month, according to statements by NATO. The classified report found that between May 2007 and May 2011, when it was completed, at least 58 Western service members were killed in 26 separate attacks by Afghan soldiers and the police nationwide. Most of those attacks have occurred since October 2009. This toll represented 6 percent of all hostile coalition deaths during that period, the report said.

“The sense of hatred is growing rapidly,” said an Afghan Army colonel. He described his troops as “thieves, liars and drug addicts,” but also said that the Americans were “rude, arrogant bullies who use foul language.”

...“If you get two 18-year-olds from two different cultures and put them in New York, you get a gang fight,” said Anthony H. Cordesman, a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington who has advised the American military on its Afghan strategy.

“What you have here are two very different cultures with different values,” he said in a telephone interview. “They treat each other with contempt.”

The United States soldier was killed this month when an Afghan soldier opened fire on Americans playing volleyball at a base in the southern province of Zabul. The assailant was quickly gunned down. The deadliest single incident came last April when an Afghan Air Force colonel, Ahmed Gul, killed eight unsuspecting American officers and a contractor with shots to the head inside their headquarters.

“U.S. soldiers don’t listen, they are too arrogant,” said one of the Afghan soldiers surveyed, according to the report. “They get upset due to their casualties, so they take it out on civilians during their searches,” said another.

The Americans were equally as scathing. “U.S. soldiers’ perceptions of A.N.A. members were extremely negative across categories,” the report found, using the initials for the Afghan National Army. Those categories included “trustworthiness on patrol,” “honesty and integrity,” and “drug abuse.” The Americans also voiced suspicions about the Afghans being in league with the Taliban, a problem well documented among the Afghan police.

“They are stoned all the time; some even while on patrol with us,” one soldier was quoted as saying. Another said, “They are pretty much gutless in combat; we do most of the fighting.”

Stoned all the time? You bet. Gutless? Not on your life. They fight differently, but Afs are anything but gutless and probably have similar feelings about Americans... or maybe consider them terminally reckless. But since the first day of the invasion I've been saying that this is a place America doesn't belong, will never understand and can never defeat-- short of nuclear carpet bombing. And even the Russians couldn't bring themselves to do that. The AP reported that the U.S. puppet leader there, Hamid Karzai, met personally with Hizb-i-Islami insurgents.

Hizb-i-Islami is a radical Islamist militia that controls territory in Afghanistan's northeast and launches attacks against U.S. forces from Pakistan. Its leader, powerful warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, is a former U.S. ally now listed as a terrorist by Washington.

Based over the Pakistan border, Hekmatyar has ties to al-Qaida and has launched deadly attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Fighters loyal to Hekmatyar also have strongholds in Baghlan, Kunduz and Kunar provinces in the north and northeast Afghanistan.

The other main insurgent group is the feared Haqqani network, which maintains close ties to both al-Qaida and the Taliban and commands the loyalties of an estimated 10,000 fighters. The Haqqanis have been blamed for a series of spectacular attacks, including suicide bombings inside Kabul.

Sunday Classics: Which mainstay of the chamber music literature was first heard in 1855 in, of all places, NYC?

2012-01-22T10:00:00.000-08:00

Violinist Isaac Stern, cellist Leonard Rose, and pianist Eugene Istomin play the first 10 minutes of the opening movement of the Brahms B major Piano Trio, Op. 8; the last 1:10 of the movement is here. We're going to have the second-movement Scherzo in the click-through. (No, the sound isn't great. I would recommend keeping the volume level moderate.)

The noble B major Trio of Johannes Brahms . . . possesses the distinction -- alone among the acknowledged masterpieces of the standard chamber repertoire -- of having been given its world premiere not in Germany, not even on the Continent, but in the benighted backwoods: the United States.

It was 1855. Franklin Pierce was in the White House, and an unknown young lawyer named Abraham Lincoln had just been defeated in the Illinois senatorial race. And that November 27 the Brahms Op. 8 was given its first performance anywhere in a Manhattan auditorium called Dodsworth's Hall, on Broadway at 11th Street -- an area which was then the nerve center of New York musical life.
-- James Lyons, editor of The American Record Guide, in his liner notes for RCA's third volume of performances by the Boston Symphony Chamber Ensemble, published in 1969

by Ken

As James Lyons is quick to point out, though, "the Op. 8 introduced in New York was not quite the Op. 8 we know," and in the click-through we're going to have his explanation and description, and we're going to hear the version of Op. 8 that would have been heard in Dodsworth's Hall in 1855 along with the revised version Brahms produced some 36 years later, which has become a mainstay of the literature.

I know we still have musical storms to deal with, carrying over from last week's Sunday Classics post, and we'll get to that. (That too is turning out to be not as simple as I had imagined.) I felt a schedule adjustment was necessary following Friday night's "flashback" post, into which I slipped what I thought was a pretty swell bonus: a complete performance of Schubert's Trout Quintet, to add to the complement of recordings included in the January 8 Sunday Classics post on the quintet, from the early years of the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, established during the still-underappreciated music directorship of Erich Leinsdorf. It's a terrific performance, featuring the orchestra's string principals at the time (concertmaster Joseph Silverstein, violist Burton Fine, cellist Jules Eskin, and double bassist Henry Portnoi, with "guest artist" Richard Goode, early in his distinguished career. (He would have been about 25.)

As far as I know that recording has sunk without a trace, along with all three three-LP BSCP sets RCA produced in the period 1966-68. I could hardly fail to notice that this same set included a performance of an even mightier chamber masterpiece than the Schubert quintet: Brahms's Op. 8 Piano Trio -- again with Joseph Silverstein, Jules Eskin, and Richard Goode. Not having heard it in goodness knows how long, I decided to listen to it, and as long as I was going to listen to it I might as well make digital files of it -- and as long as I was making digital files of it, I thought the least I could do was share them.

So today's subject is none other than the Brahms Op. 8 Trio, and since I'm really going to have very little to say about the piece today, I think we might as well plunge right in, which is what we're going to do in the click-through, leading off with that Boston Symphony Chamber Players performance.

TO HEAR THE TRIO, THEN HEAR IT SOME MORE,
INCLUDING THE 1854 VERSION, CLICK HERE

Will The DCCC Blow The Democrats' Chances Of Re-Taking The House?

2012-01-22T06:00:00.000-08:00

Those gloves are meant for progressives.

Friday we saw what a farce the DCCC claim to neutrality is when it comes to primaries between progressives and reactionaries. They always come down on the side of the more conservative, less grassroots candidates. After Rahm Emanuel left, Chris Van Hollen dialed this back a bit, but the new chairman, "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel, is, if anything, even worse than Emanuel. And he's also either much stupider than Emanuel... or something far worse.

As you probably know, the DCCC released the cycle's first iteration of its "Red to Blue" list. It could have been worse-- I suspect that Donna Edwards and Jared Polis being on the committee ameliorated the worst and most aggressive tendencies of Israel and his cronies to lard the list up with all conservatives. But it's still plenty larded up with the kind of crap that, if they get into Congress, will proceed to vote with the Republicans. Like #1 on the DCCC's Front Line list, John Barrow (GA). Barrow has voted 75% of the time on crucial rollcalls with Cantor and Boehner and against the Democrats. Yet that's where the DCCC puts its cash. And in this new list, they've embraced every slimy corporate crook the Blue Dog caucus demanded they endorse. Worse yet, in his mania to destroy the Democratic Party from within by dragging it to the right (where he has always been), Israel is ignoring any real shot at winning back the House for the Democrats. In fact, Israel's strategy precludes any possibility of winning a majority in the House.

As Joshua Grossman from ProgressiveKick pointed out when the "Red to Blue" announcement was made last week, there are over two dozen swing districts where they haven't bothered to do anything at all, not even put a candidate on what I call their phony-baloney "Emerging Races" or "Emerging Districts" list. "When we say 'Swing District,' " Joshua told me, "it's an assessment of the district itself, not the strength of the incumbent in the district. Some of you will look at these districts and scoff, saying they're unwinnable. Sabato's Crystal Ball has only 154 seats rated as Strong Dem (similar to our ratings). If we don't target these districts, Democrats could win every toss-up race in the USA and still come up short of the 218 seats needed for a majority."

Joshua's list includes districts where Democrats have a really good chance to win, like four in Florida-- FL-10 (where they seem to be waiting for Charlie Crist to jump in or something), FL-16 (where clueless plutocrat Tom Rooney could be vulnerable to a well-financed challenge from progressive Dave Lutrin), FL-24 (where Nick Ruiz is battling teabagger extremist Sandy Adams), FL-25 (where incumbent David Rivera is always just one small step ahead of being indicted). Other excellent targets on the list include Charlie Upton (MI-6), Mike Rogers (MI-8) and Frank Guinta (NH-1), being challenged by, respectively, progressives John Waltz, Lance Enderle and Carol Shea-Porter, independent-minded grassroots Democrats whom Steve Israel fears.

As long as we're talking about targeting, Brad Johnson at ThinkProgress Green pointed out the 40 House Republicans who make up the Koch Caucus. Each had a perfect 100% score last year from the Koch brothers’ astroturf group Americans for Prosperity.

AFP judged Congress on their votes to protect the Koch brothers’ right-wing petrochemical empire on such issues as the repeal of President Obama’s new health care law, pre-empting EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases, Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget to end Medicare, ending ethanol subsidies, several Congressional Review Act resolutions of disapproval to overturn new regulations, and the fiscal year 2012 appropriations bills.

The list is below; you can click on it to enlarge it. The DCCC isn't going after many of them, although some, like Tim Walberg (MI), Patrick McHenry (NC), Scott Garrett (NJ) and Steve Chabot (OH). would be obvious targets if the DCCC wasn't being led by someone as clueless as Israel.

South Carolina Primary Fun

2012-01-21T21:00:00.000-08:00

On Friday, reading the polls , seeing all the talking of Willard's collapse, and sensing a Gingrich win-- read: a defeat for the Republican Establishment's pick-- GOP kapo Eric Cantor indicated it was time to wrap this crap up and, presumably, fall in line behind Romney. Santorum had a great South Carolina Web ad about falling in line, the best ad last week, if more subtle than the Sheldon Adelson sledgehammers against Bain. Take a look; I don't think Cantor did:

Conservatives love rallying around a victim, and Newt played his exposure as an open-marriage philanderer perfectly, attacking the media with the kind of pomposity and scorn South Carolina Republican males thrive on.

Newt Gingrich heads into South Carolina election day as the clear front runner in the state: he's now polling at 37% to 28% for Mitt Romney, 16% for Rick Santorum, and 14% for Ron Paul.

Gingrich's lead has actually increased in the wake of his ex-wife's controversial interview with ABC. Although one night poll results should always be interpreted with caution, he led the final night of the field period by a 40-26 margin. One thing that continues to work to his advantage are the debates. 60% of primary voters report having watched the one last night, and Gingrich has a 46-23 lead with those folks.

...The skepticism of Republican voters toward the media is helping Gingrich as well. Just 14% of likely voters have a generally favorable opinion of the media, while 77% view it negatively. Gingrich's attacks on the media have clearly played well with the party base.

Gingrich is leading with pretty much every key segment of the Republican electorate. He's up 41-21 on Romney and Santorum with Evangelicals, he has a 52-18 advantage on Romney with Tea Partiers, he leads Santorum 44-21 with 'very conservative' voters with Romney at 20%, and he's up 39-26 with men.

Yes, South Carolina Republican males-- white bigots. On Saturday morning over at Digby's place David Atkins reminded us once again how horribly lame CNN is, noting that they introduced the last debate by calling South Carolina a state "where values matter." That's true, of course, but they didn't describe the values that matter to South Carolina Republicans. Tom Schaller did, in his great book Whistling Past Dixie:

Consider South Carolina, which has opposed or defied almost every beneficent social and political change in American history. To appease South Carolinian slaveholders, Thomas Jefferson removed language condemning slavery from the Declaration of Independence. Four years later, backcountry loyalists in South Carolina helped the British Army recapture the state in 1780 from the patriots. By 1828, Palmetto State native and vice president John C. Calhoun was agitating for state "nullification" of federal powers, generating secessionist calls a full generation before the outbreak of the Civil War.

On December 20, 1860, South Carolina became the first state to secede; four months later Confederate forces in Charleston fired the opening shots of the Civil War on the Union garrison at Fort Sumter, and South Carolina even threatened to secede from the Confederacy because the other southern states would not agree to reopening the slave trade. Soon after the state's chapter of the Ku Klux Klan formed, "red shirt" Democratic rifle clubs used physical intimidation and ballot manipulation to alter results of the 1876 election. In the 1890s, Governor Ben "Pitchfork" Tillman--who earned his nickname by threatening to stab President Grover Cleveland in the ribs with said implement--served two terms as governor before embarking on a twenty-three-year Senate career during which he defended segregation as vigilantly as his fellow Edgefield County native, Strom Thurmond, later did for most of his career.

Well into the twentieth century, South Carolina's black citizens observed the Fourth of July mostly alone because the vast majority of whites refused to, preferring instead to celebrate Confederate Memorial Day, May 10. State politicians repeatedly averted their eyes as textile industry executives employed children and quashed attempts by mill workers to organize for fair wages. In 1920, the South Carolina legislature rejected the proposed women's suffrage amendment and took almost a half century finally to ratify it, in 1969. In 1948, the same year the South Carolina legislature declared President Harry Truman's new civil rights commission "un-American," Thurmond's full-throated advocacy of racial segregation as the States' Rights Democratic Party presidential nominee helped him carry four Deep South states. Six years later, the Clarendon County school district--where per-pupil spending on whites was quadruple that for blacks--was pooled with three other districts in a failed defense of the "separate but equal" standard in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case. And when Congress passed the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the law that finally banned the creative and vicious methods used to disfranchise blacks, South Carolina became the first state to challenge its constitutionality. By 1968 Harry Dent, the most legendary of Thurmond's political proteges and a key architect of the "southern strategy," was helping Richard Nixon translate racial antagonisms into crucial Republican votes, a victory in South Carolina, and a ticket to the White House.

By now you know that Romney lost today in South Carolina, a shocking collapse. Newt won 41 counties and Romney won only 5.

Suddenly, Romney’s claim to be the GOP’s inevitable nominee looked dubious. Romney had arrived in South Carolina as the apparent winner of the first two GOP contests and faced an electorate that seemed open to his message that only a Washington outsider could restore free markets and sensible spending.

And yet he was beaten by a man who had been the ultimate Washington insider.

At the same time, the victory in South Carolina seemed to validate Gingrich’s new model for a presidential campaign-- which held that his own strong debate performances could overcome Romney’s edge in advertising and money.

Here, it finally worked.

About two-thirds of South Carolina voters said that the debates-- in which Gingrich blistered his opponents and the moderators-- were an important factor in their decisions.

“The momentum as of tomorrow morning will be pretty decisive,” Gingrich told Fox Business News’s Neil Cavuto in a phone interview from South Carolina Saturday night. He said he looked forward to campaigning in Florida, where the next GOP primary will be held Jan. 31. “In the end, sooner or later, it’s going to become Romney versus Gingrich, and then the natural conservative Republican Party is going to repudiate a Massachusetts moderate whose actual record is, frankly, pretty liberal.”

Across South Carolina on Saturday, voters had said they liked Gingrich’s aggression in debates-- believing it would make him the best Republican to take on President Obama in the fall.

Romney has never served in Congress, having been defeated in his one run for the Senate, when he tried unsuccessfully to run to the left of Teddy Kennedy. Gingrich, on the other hand, led the GOP to some real glory days as he helped them forge a new radical right identity and win the majority. Before being fined for corruption and shamed into resigning, he was even the Speaker. So it's noteworthy that only two members who served with him in the House, corrupt right-wing fanatics Joe Barton (TX) and Jack Kingston (GA), are backing him this year. Some right-wing newcomers have endorsed him, including extremist (and closet queen) Trent Franks (AZ), who originally backed Bachmann but went for the Newtser when she backed out. In all Newt has 9 members of Congress behind him, all racists, bigots and far right fanatics. Romney has 72 members, including 14 senators, including almost all of the closet cases (Aaron Schock, Patrick McHenry, Mark Kirk, Dana Rohrbacher) and, obviously, most of the Republican Mormons (Rob Bishop, Jason Chaffetz, Jeff Flake, Wally Herger, California swindler Buck McKeon, Mike Simpson and Sen. Orrin Hatch).

All of the self-proclaimed "moderates" flocked to Willard-- like Mary Bono-Mack, Charlie Bass, Nan Hayworth, Robert Dold, Leonard Lance, Judy Biggert, John Duncan, Brian Bilbray, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen-- but so did deranged extremists-teabaggers like Sandy Adams, Steve Womack, Virginia Foxx and Rove protégé Tim Griffin.

Forget the elections, and SOPA, and all that trivial stuff -- we're talking HOT CHOCOLATE!

2012-01-21T18:00:00.000-08:00

You can watch Anthony Sasso, the chef at Mario Batali's Bar Jamón in Manhattan's Gramercy Park neighborhood, make his signature spiced (and spicy) hot chocolate here. The recipe is below. From DNAinfo.com's "How to Make the City's Best Hot Chocolate."

by Ken

It's not just Anthony Sasso's hot chocolate at Bar Jamón that's highlighted in Andrea Swalec's DNAinfo.com article. She also offers information from:

* Manhattan's Otto Enoteca Pizzeria in Greenwich Village, which offers "gianduja calda," or "hot hazelnut chocolate," according to pastry chef Meredith Kurtzman, who combines melted Italian hazelnut chocolate with milk that's had hazelnuts soaked in it.

* master chocolatier Jacques Torres (of Jacques Torres Chocolate, now at five locations in Manhattan plus Harrah's in Atlantic City -- not counting the Ice Cream Shop in Brooklyn, currently closed for the season), who stresses the importance of the highest-quality ingredients, explaining, "I wanted [the hot chocolate] to be like when you go to a little salon du thé in Paris and get a little drink and a croissant."

* Max Brenner ("First Food, Then Chocolate"), off Union Square in Manhattan (with locations in Boston, Philadelphia, and Las Vegas, plus Australia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Israel). The New York location, at least, serves "eight styles of hot chocolate drinks," made with dark, milk, or white chocolate -- including " 'choco-pops' hot chocolate with crispy chocolate wafer balls, Italian thick hot chocolate with vanilla cream, and Swiss hot chocolate that's whipped."

Still, the only actual recipe we get is Anthony Sasso's spiced version.

The chef at Gramercy Park's Bar Jamón begins his signature hot [chocolate] by grinding together bittersweet chocolate, cayenne pepper, chili flakes, cinnamon and nutmeg.

Anthony Sasso then melts the spicy chocolate mixture, combines it with steamed milk and serves it up alongside Spanish-style churros at the cozy Mario Batali-owned tapas and wine bar at 15 E. 17th St.

"Spaniards drink really strong coffee, and it's the same with their chocolate," he said. "When they want it, they want it with a nice kick."

[You can click to enlarge the recipe card.]

Did We Learn Anything New From Thursday's Debate?

2012-01-21T14:00:00.000-08:00

The video above is a brilliant ad from the DNC based largely on Thursday's tragically flawed, distorted GOP debate. It's pretty devastating for Romney-- maybe not with brain-dead Republican primary voters in the Old Confederacy, but with normal people across the country. Watch the whole bits it was based on below. After the debate last night I listened to a Terry Gross interview with Scott Helman and Michael Kranish, authors of a new book, The Real Romney. They're both longtime Boston Globe reporters who have delved into all the places where Romney doesn't want any delving.

Romney can seem detached in political settings, they write, and often struggles to connect outside of his closest confidants. Though his political career strongly mirrors that of his father, George, the former governor of Michigan, it also differs in significant ways: "If George Romney shot from the hip, his son, before he shoots at all, carefully studies the target, lines up the barrel just right, and might even fire a few practice rounds," write Helman and Kranish.

They start their biography by examining Romney's ancestors, many of whom played crucial roles in the development of the Mormon faith.

"I really felt that the ancestral story [of Mitt Romney] was very important because through that story, you can really understand the story of Mormonism as well," says Kranish. "And Mitt Romney doesn't want to talk about this extensively, but if you're writing a full-scale biography like we set out to do, you need to go back in history and explain where this family [came] from, how they [came] to the United States, what made them tick."

Using genealogical records, Helman and Kranish learned that Romney's great-great-grandfather Miles immigrated to the United States from England, after hearing a missionary from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints preach. Miles became a prominent leader in the Mormon faith, and later designed several historic buildings in Utah. His son, Miles P. Romney, a colleague of Brigham Young, had five wives and more than 30 children. He founded a Mormon colony in Mexico in the 1880s after being forced to flee from the United States for practicing a polygamous lifestyle.

That's an interesting sideshow, but it's not going to be what the presidential election is-- or should be-- about. (If for no other reason than comedy, though, I do wish Republican primary voters, especially in the Deep South, understood that the Mormons revere the Mayan and Aztec feathered-serpent deity Quetzalcoatl as the resurrected Mormon version of Jesus Christ.) What the election will be decided on is the judgment of the swing voters about which man is best equipped to lead the country out of the economic mess the Bush regime created and Obama's tepid, moderate policies haven't cured yet. Clearly, Obama should have spent more time in the last three years listening to Nobel laureate Paul Krugman than to the band of clueless conservative, near-Republican Wall Street insiders he hired as his economic team. But he didn't, and now he's stuck with a record that will bolster his reelection prospects only if Democrats manage to get this across:

But Krugman was helping with that as well, even if he wishes Obama had taken his advice for a more muscular, populist approach to the country's fiscal and economic mess inherited from Bush and the Republican ideologues. Right after the South Carolina debate, Krugman was sticking pins in Romney's pious baloney about tax policies:

A further thought about the proper calculation of tax burdens on very high income Americans: if you remember past debates, it’s kind of peculiar to see conservatives jumping up and down to say that Mitt Romney does too pay reasonable taxes if you include the profits taxes on the corporations in which he invests. Because if memory serves me, just a few years ago conservatives were denouncing the “flypaper theory” of tax incidence, arguing that much of the burden of corporate taxes really falls on labor, not on stockholders. Is it just my imagination?

No, it isn’t. They really did make this argument. Repeatedly.

And the truth is that I always took this argument semi-seriously; enough to make me hesitate about placing too much emphasis on the Piketty-Saez calculation (pdf) showing a huge cut in taxes on the rich since the 1960s.

The point is that there is a strong sense of trying to have it both ways. When people raise questions about big tax cuts for corporations, we’re told not to worry, because corporate taxes mainly fall on labor, not on stockholders. When people raise questions about low taxes on the very rich, we’re told not to worry because once you include all the taxes corporations have paid on their behalf as stockholders, their taxes aren’t really that low.

Funny how that works.

Isn't it?

Blue America Welcomes Back Alan Grayson

2012-01-21T10:00:00.000-08:00

Today, January 21, is the two-year anniversary of the absolute worst and most dangerous Supreme Court decision of our lifetimes, Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. We decided it would be the perfect time to reiterate Blue America's enthusiastic support and endorsement of Orlando Democrat Alan Grayson and to invite him to Crooks and Liars for a question-and-answer session.

Why Alan? He was one of the first victims of an unrestricted opening of the spigots of corporate money in a congressional race. According to a Politico article late in the campaign in 2010, almost 20% of all of the independent expenditures in House races in the entire country were deployed against Alan. His district was flooded with an unrelenting radio and television smear campaign by the corporations who didn't appreciate his hard work on behalf of consumers and workers. The average person in Orlando saw 70 negative ads against Grayson-- $2 million of which was paid for by the Koch Brothers, $2 million by the health insurance industry and another million from the NRCC. The cash that flowed into the district from the Chamber of Commerce and Rove's band of cutthroats was a direct response to Alan's reform efforts on the House Financial Services Committee and because he was the most effective national Democratic spokesperson in Congress. The DCCC, of course, offered him no help whatsoever in defending his seat.

Two years ago there were only two Members of Congress at the Supreme Court when the narrow 5-4 decision striking down the provisions of the McCain–Feingold Act that prohibited all corporations' and unions' unrestricted election spending on advertising was read out: Alan and Mitch McConnell. I can imagine McConnell squealing with delight. Grayson had quite a different reaction. He warned later that evening on Countdown that "if we do nothing, you can kiss this country goodbye." (See video above.) I don't think he actually meant the physical country itself-- just democracy, so loathed by the plutocratic elites, and all the benefits democracy brings with it.

Alan had gotten over 100,000 people to sign a petition to the Justices at SaveDemocracy.net, and he personally delivered the signatures to the Supreme Court. This was a new experience for the Supreme Court.

"Seeing it coming," he told me when discussing the ruling, "and assuming the worst, I had introduced four anti-Citizens United bills the week before, and introduced four more afterward. We called this our Save Democracy Platform. The core of three of these bills made it into the DISCLOSE Act." These were the bills Alan introduced:

The Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act (H.R. 4431): Implements a 500% excise tax on corporate contributions to political committees, and on corporate expenditures on political advocacy campaigns.

The Public Company Responsibility Act (H.R. 4435): Prevents companies making political contributions and expenditures from trading their stock on national exchanges.

The End Political Kickbacks Act (H.R. 4434): Prevents for-profit corporations that receive government money from making political contributions, and limits the amount that employees of those companies can contribute.

The Corporate Propaganda Sunshine Act (H.R. 4432): Requires publicly traded companies to disclose in SEC filings money used for the purpose of influencing public opinion, rather than for promoting their products and services.

The Ending Corporate Collusion Act (H.R. 4433): Applies antitrust law to industry PACs.

The End the Hijacking of Shareholder Funds Act (H.R. 4487): This bill requires the approval of a majority of a public company's shareholders for any expenditure by that company to influence public opinion on matters not related to the company's products or services.

Blue America was urging Alan to run again even as the votes were being counted in 2010. And we are determined that this year he's going to be back in Congress-- and this time in a solid Democratic district (the new 27th based in Orlando). Please help us raise him the money he needs to beat back the Kochs and the Roves and the corporate special interests. He recorded this for us last night: