Big Shakeup In An Illinois House Race-- Durbin Endorses Nancy Rotering, Not The DCCC Hack Candidate

When it comes to recruiting, the DCCC is always attracted to conservative ex-colleagues who have already lost to Republicans. We've talked about how Steve Israel and his crew of incompetents managed to lose the D+5 district centered around Syracuse, New York last cycle by running Republican-lite New Dem Dan Maffei after he had already been beaten in 2010. He road back into office on Obama's strong 2012 coattails, only to be thoroughly thrashed by the voters again in 2014 after 2 years of proving, again, he's not in the least bit progressive. Obama won NY-24 171,502 (57%) to 123,534 (41%) in 2014 while Maffei took 130,969 (48%) to beat Tea Party incumbent Ann Marie Buerkle's 118,578 (44%). Two years later, predictably, Democrats stayed away from the polls in droves and Maffei only managed to get 80,304 votes (40%) and lost to John Katko's 118,474 (60%). This is a blue district and its only the DCCC's ideological, anti-progressive interference that has saddled it with a Republican congressman again.

The story in IL-10 is similar-- except this is a D+8 district, the bluest district in the country with a Republican congressman. In 2012 Republican incumbent Mark Kirk gave up the seat to run for the Senate. The Democrats ran a conservative Democrat, Brad Schneider and, like Maffei in NY, he got into office on Obama's coattails. Obama beat Romney there 157,400 (58%) to 112,552 (41%) and Schneider-- after the DCCC helped him defeat progressive champion Ilya Sheyman in a close primary-- beat Bob Dold much more narrowly-- 130,941 (50%) to 128,423 (50%). And of course, again, quite predictably, Democratic voters saw Schneider in action and just didn't show up at the polls in 2014. Dold beat him 95,992 (51%) to 91,136 (49%).

So now Schneider wants back in again-- and, of course, the DCCC is trying to help him win, which is very possible since either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders could be expected to do very well in the north Chicagoland district. And, then it would be time for a Republican to beat Schneider again in 2016. Seems silly, huh? In NY-24 the likely nominee is a progressive Eric Kingson, who will break that cycle.

I've been worried about IL-10, where the DCCC is making every effort to disadvantage the more progressive primary challenger Nancy Rotering in order to bolster their New Dem loser, Brad Schneider, who used to throw fundraising events at his hold for Mark Kirk. High profile Democrats have been pealing away from Schneider in recent weeks. Jan Schakowsky had endorsed him and withdrew her endorsement after he backed the Republican move to undermine President Obama's deal with Iran. Adlai Stevenson III and Abner Mikva also withdrew their endorsements and then each endorsed Nancy. But yesterday there was an even bigger break in the DCCC pattern of inevitable failure. Illinois' senior senator, Dick Durbin, very publicly announced that he was on team Rotering. "Nancy, a working mom and skilled attorney, has the courage, leadership and determination to return the 10th Congressional District to the Democratic fold," he said.

Nancy brings to this race an extraordinary record for a first-time Congressional candidate. As Mayor of Highland Park she successfully confronted ComEd when local families were suffering from unreliable service, balanced the City budget five consecutive years and enacted real reforms. Her most noteworthy achievement gained national attention when she passed one of the nation's first local assault weapons ban and successfully defended the ordinance against an onslaught of gun lobby attacks all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. While the Republican-led Congress refused to respond to the nation's gun violence, Nancy Rotering and her City of Highland Park showed real leadership. Nancy combines fiscal responsibility with true progressive values.

The primary is March 15 and Durbin's endorsement must have shocked the DCCC hacks, not enough to make them up from their incompetence or corruption. But enough to discomfort them. This is a race Nancy can win-- both against Schneider and against Dold, two conservatives who shouldn't be presenting an area like IL10.

Reid Surrenders His Sword to Schumer; Caucus Concurs

Harry Reid (left, in red) surrenders control of Senate Democratic
caucus to Chuck Schumer (right, back to the camera)

by Gaius Publius

This is what happens when "party unity" or "caucus unity" trumps policy. We get Chuck "Wall Street" Schumer as the next Minority Leader — because Harry "But I promoted Elizabeth Warren" Reid helped put him there. So did "progressive" Patty Murray. And according to reports, so did nearly every other Democratic senator. (Does this mean Jeff Merkley? Sherrod Brown? Al Franken? Who knows — they haven't raised their heads.)

Washington Post a few days ago (my emphasis throughout):

Harry Reid endorses Chuck Schumer to succeed him as Senate Democratic leader

Senate Minority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) has endorsed Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to succeed him after he retires at the end of 2016.

"I think Schumer should be able to succeed me," Reid said in a Friday morning interview at his home in Washington's West End.

Reid predicted that Schumer, the No. 3 Senate Democrat in leadership and a close friend, would win the Democratic leader post without opposition. He said that the other likely contender, Senate Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.), would stand down for Schumer. ...

But what about that "Warren Wing"?

Seemingly comfortable with his decision to not run for re-election, Reid said the liberal wing of the Democratic Party should have faith in Schumer, whose ties to Wall Street fueled his fundraising prowess and helped Democrats win the majority in 2006 and expand it to a super-majority in 2009. Those ties have some liberals questioning whether Schumer should lead the party, but Reid said that Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) would serve as the torch bearers for the populist wing and hold the caucus's feet to the fire.

No snark from me; it's already in the quotes (look for the word "faith"). Reid wants to elevate the enemy of economic populists so the populists can be "torch bearers." But not to worry; they can "have faith" in Schumer while they hold those torches — and Schumer looks the other way.

Durbin and Murray Also Endorse Schumer

Dick Durbin is the ostensible number-two person in the caucus, after Reid, which means he's getting leapfrogged. Apparently he's fine with that:

But by mid-afternoon, Reid had endorsed New York Sen. Charles E. Schumer, no. 3 in the current hierarchy, as his chosen successor — and Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin’s office made it clear that the Illinois senator would also back his colleague and former Capitol Hill roommate. ...

Durbin, according to his spokesman, also has the support of Reid to seek another term as the party’s whip.

What about Patty Murray? She's the only woman in the Senate in a strong leadership position, and a senator who sometimes votes progressive (and sometimes not; she's an anti–Glass-Steagall senator after all).

[D]uring the budget session, Reid, for a time or two, appeared to be looking on as his three longtime lieutenants —Durbin, Schumer and Patty Murray of Washington — worked through the process of wrangling over amendments.

Turns out Murray is also a Schumer-enabler; she endorses Schumer and will not run against him:

Patty Murray Backs Schumer for Leader

Having won the backing of the entire leadership team, New York’s Charles E. Schumer might become the next Senate Democratic leader by acclamation.

Conference Secretary Patty Murray, D-Wash., has joined in endorsing Schumer for the top job when Nevada Democrat Harry Reid retires at the beginning of 2017, according to a Murray aide.

“Senator Murray spoke to Senator Schumer several times over the past few days and told him that she planned to support him for leader next Congress and looks forward to continuing to be his partner in Senate Democratic leadership,” the aide told CQ Roll Call.

Murray has long had a large portfolio within the Democratic caucus, and she’s likely to only expand on those responsibilities in the next Congress.

Thus Murray makes three. Any objection from anyone else? Hearing none — done deal. Don't worry about Murray, though. She has "long had a large portfolio" within the caucus, is "likely to only expand on those responsibilities." So there's that. Fair trade perhaps? She'd likely say yes.

Where's the Rest of the Caucus?

But don't let the rest of the Democrats off the hook. The same piece linked at the top tells us that Schumer "might become the next Senate Democratic leader by acclamation." And the Post earlier told us that Schumer "already has secured overwhelming support of members of the caucus." So it's on them all until one of them raises her objecting head and says, "But ... wait."

Party Capture by Insiders, Thanks to Harry Reid

This is what we get when we vote for Democrats. Party unity and hyper-"collegiality" way too much of the time. Women and men eager to sell out progressives and play "Follow the Neo-Liberal Party Leader." So long as their "personal portfolio" is expanded, of course. Good for Patty Murray. Not so good for us.

Democratic Senator Patty Murray (WA)
playing "Follow the Neo-Liberal Leader"

Color me pained to be saying this, but there it is. Insiders helping insiders keep outsiders out — meaning us. It feels like progressives have just lost the Senate, thanks to Harry Reid. Is this "our" party? Doesn't look like it from here.

GP

Inequality Of Opportunity Will Lead Inexorably To The Demise Of Democracy… Just As Its Meant To

"When People Cheat, You Cannot As A Regulator Continue Business As Usual"

You probably know by now that a great deal of Elizabeth Warren's new book, A Fighting Chance, deals with creating the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. "I had no doubt-- zero-- that the banks should be held accountable for breaking the law," she wrote. "Would the banks ever be held accountable, and would they ever be forced to repair the damage they had done to so many families." At one point she was recounting how, in the process of setting up the bureau, she asked her team to keep in mind who they were there to protect.

I have no doubt that the majority of [people working in regulatory agencies] have the best of intentions, but let's face it; Given the way their jobs are designed, they spend most of their time talking to bankers. "Show me the books," they say. "Explain this practice." "comment of this new mortgage for or proposed regulation." All the while, they are inundated by a constant stream of push-back and pressure from industry people. In the normal course of things, banking regulators simply don't hear from many ordinary citizens. After all, someone who gets ripped off in a $40 credit card scam might call a consumer complaint hotline, but that person doesn't have access to the agency lawyers and investigators who supervise the banks on a day-to-day basis. Nope. Bank regulators spend a lot of time with bankers and and almost no time with bank customers.

…How could we ensure that someone working for the CFPB would spend most of her time working on behalf of the consumers who didn't show up at our door-- rather than the representatives of the banks did?

One answer was to run straight up the middle and hit the biggest targets, and that's exactly what Rich Cordray did. Rich was fearless, and he led by example. Among other things, he investigated Capital One for misleading customers about the costs of "free" add-ons to their credit cards-- "free" services that actually cost customers a total of $140 million. (He ultimately forced Capital One to send the hidden fees back to every customer-- and not one customer had to file papers or ask for a refund because the checks came automatically in the mail. Rich and his team also hit up the company to pay an additional $25 million fine.)

The keystone of corporate law is that shareholders can't be help criminally liable for the activities of the corporation. But what can't criminal managers? Well, they can… but they almost never are. Wednesday, Robert Reich explained to his readers why that is so so wrong-- and so damaging to America. "Who," he asked, "is legally responsible when a big corporation breaks the law? The government thinks it’s the corporation itself. Wrong… Corporations don’t do things. People do."

For a decade GM had been receiving complaints about the ignition switch but chose to do nothing. Who was at fault? Look toward the top. David Friedman, acting head of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, says those aware of the problem had ranged from engineers “all the way up through executives.”

Credit Suisse employees followed a carefully-crafted plan, even sending private bankers to visit their American clients on tourist visas to avoid detection. According to the head of New York State’s Department of Financial Services, Credit Suisse’s crime was “decidedly not the result of the conduct of just a few bad apples.”

Yet in neither of these cases have any executives been charged with violating the law. No top guns are going to jail. No one is even being fired.

Instead, the government is imposing corporate fines. The logic is that since the corporation as whole benefited from these illegal acts, the corporation as a whole should pay.

But the logic is flawed. Such fines are often treated by corporations as costs of doing business. GM was fined $35 million. That’s peanuts to a hundred-billion-dollar corporation.

Credit Suisse was fined considerably more-- $2.8 billion. But even this amount was shrugged off by financial markets. In fact, the bank’s shares rose the day the plea was announced-- the only big financial institution to show gains that day. Its CEO even sounded upbeat: “Our discussions with clients have been very reassuring and we haven’t seen very many issues at all.” (Credit Suisse wasn’t even required to turn over its list of tax-avoiding clients.)

Fines have no deterrent value unless the amount of the penalty multiplied by the risk of being caught is greater than the profits earned by the illegal behavior. In reality, the penalty-risk calculus rarely comes close.

Even when it does, the people hurt aren’t the shareholders who profited years before when the crimes were committed. Most current shareholders weren’t even around then.

…The truth is, corporations aren’t people-- despite what the Supreme Court says. Corporations don’t break laws; specific people do. In the cases of GM and Credit Suisse, the evidence points to executives at or near the top.

Conservatives are fond of talking about personal responsibility. But when it comes to white-collar crime, I haven’t heard them demand that individuals be prosecuted.

Yet the only way to deter giant corporations from harming the public is to go after people who cause the harm.

And, funny enough, speaking of Credit Suisse, their newsletter featured an interview with economist Joseph Stigliz yesterday of his book, The Price of Inequality. Editor Cushla Sherlock writes, in way of introduction, that "Inequality presents a major risk to human progress and carries a high economic price tag. A 'fragmented' education system, tax laws and corporate governance are some of the key causes of the problem in the United States-- one of the societies that scores worst on this measure in the developed world-- explains Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Winner for economics and leading economist. Professor Stiglitz discusses the future implications of inequality and explains why Scandinavian countries are some of the best in the world in terms of social mobility and equality of opportunity.

"Inequality," explains Stiglitz, "is not just a moral issue. High inequality results in a high economic price: our economy doesn't perform as well as it could, it doesn't grow as fast, it is less efficient, and it is more unstable. Inequality also undermines democracy and divides society… The life prospects of a young American are more dependent on the income and education of their parents than in virtually any of the other advanced countries, including old Europe, which we often think of as very rigid and lacking mobility. The US is completely lacking mobility. One of the reasons clearly has to do with our very fragmented education system. Basically, where you live determines the quality of education that you get. If you're poor, and you live in a poor neighborhood, chances are you will never get the kind of education that will allow you to move up the economic ladder." Then Sherlock asks him about what creates differences in levels of inequality around the world.

Inequality has grown enormously in most countries around the world, but not all. The fact that there are such large differences in inequality between the United States and many other countries-- in fact, some countries are actually reducing inequality, or at least preventing it from increasing-- highlights a very important lesson. That is, inequality is not just the consequence of economic forces, because the same economic forces are operating in virtually all countries, especially advanced countries. It's a result of policies and politics: what countries do to promote equality and equality of opportunity. Education is very important. Tax laws are very important: if you allow some of your richest people to pay much lower taxes than people who work for a living, which is what has happened in the United States, then obviously you're providing scope for increasing inequality. If you do not have good unemployment systems, social security systems, systems to help people who are in need, then again you're going to wind up with more inequality. Other factors also play a role. One of the most important sources of high inequality is the increase in what we call ‘rent seeking'. Here, people seek to become wealthy in one of two ways. One way is to increase the size of the national pie, make a contribution, invent a laser, a transistor-- something that really transforms our economy and society. The other way is to try to get a larger share of the national economic pie. Monopolies make their money by shrinking output and driving up price, not by making the economy bigger. Looking across the various sectors of the United States, there are many in which a few firms are dominant.

These are just a couple of examples of the ways in which inequality has been growing, with real implications for the future, because it carries momentum. The worry is that this greater inequality of income will lead to inequality of opportunity, and that will eventually feed back to even more inequality of income.

Tuesday, Illinois Senator Dick Durbin, chairing the Constitution Subcommittee looking into how to deal with the Supreme Court's determination to abolish restrictions on the rise of plutocracy, was correct when he said that "It’s increasingly clear that the only way to really reform our system is to pass a constitutional amendment to regulate how we finance our elections." Most regular, normal Americans agree. But the big money behind conservatism does not. In fact, they smell victory in their class war against the American people-- and they're digging in for a long fight. Clearly, even beyond a constitutional amendment, billionaires need to be taxed out of existence. That's what the progressive income tax they have paid politicians to wreck, was intended to ensure.

Crack Whips?

Yesterday someone asked me if Blue America is cracking the whip on the candidates we raised money for during the election cycle to make them oppose cuts to Medicare and Social Security. Cracking the whip? On who? Bernie Sanders? Tammy Baldwin? Elizabeth Warren? Alan Grayson? We didn't back candidates who need whips cracked to get them to fight to protect working families. We backed candidates who were running so they could protect working families. Let me start with our old friend, Matt Cartwright, who ran against corrupt corporate shill and Blue Dog Tim Holden and whipped his ass in the primary. Matt is now the Congressman-elect from PA-17. Matt is the quintessential example of why Blue America doesn't have to remind any of the candidates we backed to stand up for working families. This is why we backed him when others hung back and when Steny Hoyer was hysterical about "party loyalty." Please read what he told me this morning very carefully:

With every bit of respect, I will tell you that I don’t need anyone to remind me what my core values are. I’ve spent my entire life standing up for working families in courtrooms all over northeastern Pennsylvania.

I live in a part of the world where we have a culture of standing up to the powerful forces that would make serfs of working men and women if they could. Permit me to quote one of my heroes, a trial lawyer named Clarence Darrow, who spoke these words almost 110 years ago, in February, 1903, to begin his closing argument on behalf of the miners in the Pennsylvania Anthracite Coal Mine Strike case of 1902-3:

I have listened for nearly three days to the arguments of counsel for the operators [mine owners]… I have heard my clients, one hundred and forty-seven thousand working men who toil while other men grow rich, men who go down into the earth and face greater dangers than men who go out upon the sea, or out upon the land in battle, men who have little to hope for, little to think of, excepting work-- I have heard these men characterized as assassins, as brutes, as criminals, as outlaws, as unworthy of the respect of men and fit only for the condemnation of courts.

I know that it is not true. I have too much respect for the State of Pennsylvania, I have too much respect for any body of my fellow men wherever they live, to believe that any great mass of them have turned into criminals and cut-throats, excepting for some cause that drives them to it. These are men, men like any others, men who, in the midst of sorrow, travail, and a severe and cruel crisis, demeaned themselves as nobly, as bravely, as loyally as any body of men who ever lived and suffered and died for the benefit of the generations that are yet to come.

We have had a six months strike. We have had a three months arbitration. We have had a condition in Pennsylvania where man was set against man, family against family, class against class. We have had a body of wealthy and respected gentlemen… who stood against the tide of progress and who boldly said to those in their employ, we will do nothing, we will pay you no higher wages, we will not submit your disputes to any body of men either secular or clerical, we will post our notices upon our doors and that shall be your contract. We give you notice that for one year your wages are so and so and that is all. We have seen, as a consequence of this act, one hundred and forty-seven thousand men lay down their tools of trade and we have seen seven hundred and fifty thousand men, women and children reduced to want and starvation for six long months.

Outside our courthouse in Scranton, the Lackawanna County Courthouse, where Darrow tried that case, and where I tried most of mine, we honor the mine workers with a magnificent statue of John Mitchell, who organized that strike, who helped get the children out of those mines, and who helped bring about the 8-hour day and the 40-hour workweek.

This is the place I’ve worked my whole adult life. Reminding me to stand up for working families is like reminding me to breathe.

Grotesquely corrupt New Dem, Joe Crowley, a new member of the House Democratic Leadership Team (Go Team!) co-authored a letter with committed progressives Raul Grijalva, Keith Ellison, and John Conyers insisting Social Security not be on the bargaining table in the Obama-Boehner Grand Sellout. He's now in a position to better undermine the progressive position. He's not the kind of candidate Blue America would ever recommend for reelection. He's the kind of candidate we'll trying to find a primary opponent for. Yesterday Obama's cat's paw in the Senate, Dick Durbin, was on Meet the Press insisting he's against raising the Medicare eligibility age. He probably is. But when push comes to shove, can there by any doubt-- any at all-- which way Senator Durbin will vote? If Obama needs his vote to raise the eligibility age, he won't have to ask twice. Dick Durbin has never been endorsed by Blue America-- and never will be. We endorse candidates who represent the interests of working families. That's it-- clear and simple. No Republicans and none of the corporate whores among the Democrats. Instead, we endorse candidates like Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH), who wrote in an OpEd in one of her district's newspapers "I will not vote to reduce Medicare and Social Security. You can bet on that." And we endorsed Bernie Sanders, whose entire political career has been predicated on defending working families against the greed-mad predators who run the GOP and have more and more influence over DC Democrats. And we endorsed Alan Grayson, who spent part of his Thanksgiving holiday protesting WalMart with Orlando strikers. CNN's Carol Costello asked him why.

COSTELLO: You attended a walkout at a Walmart in Orlando on Black Friday, and you showed your solidarity the night before by delivering bagged meals to Walmart employees who had to work on Thanksgiving, and that caused Walmart to call the cops. So tell us what happened.

GRAYSON: Well, we went to Walmart to hand out Thanksgiving dinners to them because they had to work on their Thanksgiving. They couldn’t be with their families. So we brought a bag; the bag had three things in it. A turkey sandwich, because it was Thanksgiving. A bag of chips. And a letter explaining to them their rights to organize.

COSTELLO: So the cops were called? What did the cops do when they arrived? Tell us about that.

GRAYSON: Well, it was the security staff. Walmart always has security staff around. Once they saw that we were handing out the bags, they objected to that, asked us to leave, and we left. The security staff simply escorted us, as they often do. But the important thing is we showed the workers, first of all, what their rights are, because Walmart tries to keep them in the dark. And we showed them that they’re not alone, that people actually care. That we want the working poor to have a better life in America.

COSTELLO: You posted a letter on your Facebook page and you wrote this: “Walmart accounts for more than 10% of all the retail sales in the United States. It is the largest private employer in the world, with more than two million employees. And even though those employees comprise barely ten percent of its cost of doing business, Walmart exploits them mercilessly. Now Walmart employees are starting to organize, starting to fight back.” I had a conversation at dinner last night with someone who says, “Hey if you don’t like working at Walmart, get another job.”

GRAYSON: Well listen, all the people who have those kinds of jobs suffer from the fact that we have 8% unemployment. But we all suffer from the fact that Walmart underpays its employees. The average associate at Walmart makes barely $1,200 a month. That’s $1,200 a month. Could you live on $1,200 a month? I couldn’t.

And the fact is that they don’t [live solely on that], because the taxpayers end up subsidizing them. Because Walmart underpays them, the taxpayers end up paying for their Medicaid. Because Walmart underpays them, the taxpayers end up paying for their food stamps. In fact, each Walmart associate costs the taxpayers over $1,000, and it is time to end that. Walmart needs to pay for its own employees, and give them a living wage.

The minimum wage needs to be higher. Walmart and other employers need to pick up the tab on health insurance and health coverage for their own employees, and stop handing that tab off to the taxpayers.

COSTELLO: When many of those protests happened on Black Friday, we noticed that not a lot of workers comprised the big crowds. It was mostly union people, community leaders, and a few Walmart workers. Some might say that really the unions are behind this, the employees aren’t behind this so much.

GRAYSON: Well, in fact, at one Walmart not too long ago, 200 Walmart employees walked out, and shut down the store. But the Walmart employees in general are afraid. They’re being intimidated. They’re being told in many cases, “If you even talk about a union, you’ll be fired.” Here in Orlando, one of the employees who talked about a union was fired. He came back a few days later just to talk to his former employees, his former staff, his former colleagues, and they led him off the premises in handcuffs, in a way that everyone else could see. So these employees are being intimidated. They want to help. They want to join. They want to make their lives better, but Walmart is doing everything it can to prevent that.

COSTELLO: Well, frankly it seems like Walmart is winning. It had one of its biggest Black Fridays ever. It didn’t stop people from shopping, these protests.

GRAYSON: The protests are not meant to stop people from shopping. The protests are meant to inform workers of their rights to organize under the law and under the Constitution. And to make sure that they understand that they’re not alone, and they will be protected if they exercise their rights. It’s not meant to raise prices. It’s not meant to interfere with shopping. It’s meant to organize people who desperately need to be organized, to make a better life for themselves.

2014 is a long way off, right? Not really-- and not far enough away for Blue America to start figuring out who we'll be supporting and who we'll be opposing. You want to guess who the first Member of Congress we endorsed for reelection is? We can see for yourself, right here.

Will Rural Chickens Come Home To Roost For The GOP Nov. 6?

Bye-bye Iowa?

As you know, the DCCC gave Boehner a free pass to reelection-- they made sure he would have no opponent this year-- and he's spending campaign season getting drunk with lobbyists raising money for vulnerable Republicans and campaigning in their districts (since he has no need to be back in his own). This week he was in Iowa begging voters to return one of his closest cronies, 8 term conservative shithead Tom Latham, who's in a tight incumbent vs incumbent match-up with Blue Dog Leonard Boswell (also a shithead). Latham is a straight down the line Establishment Republican, a member of the crooked Appropriations Committee and a member of that committee's Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration. It's how he brings home the bacon for his constituents. But it's what could cost him his career in two and a half weeks.

Iowans are flipping out that Boehner and Cantor refused to even bring the Farm Bill, which has overwhelming bipartisan support, up for a vote before adjourning Congress. Boehner and Cantor decided to gamble that causing pain in rural America would hurt Obama's presidential chances more than it would damage Republican congressional incumbents. They may have miscalculated. [A new poll out this morning, for example, shows Obama with a strong 51-43% lead in Iowa.] Everyone knows it was Cantor bottling up the bill and desperate Republicans, including Latham, are publicly blaming him. Latham claims "Boehner is not the problem... Eric Cantor is the one who controls floor activity.” The farm bill has passed the House Agriculture Committee and has passed the full Senate but has been hanging in limbo ever since and whether you blame Cantor or Boehner or both, voters in farm states-- and farm districts everywhere-- know the problems they're having now are the fault of the GOP leadership. Here's a letter Dick Durbin (D-IL) sent to a farm district newspaper in Illinois, explaining the problem.

Since we can’t make it rain, the single most important thing Congress can do to assist producers impacted by this year’s drought is pass a farm bill. Most farmers will tell you they can survive one bad year, but right now farmers can’t plan for future years. Nearly three months ago the Senate passed a full five-year farm bill with overwhelming bipartisan support. It would reauthorize several expired disaster programs, extend several other programs to assist fruit and vegetable growers and dairy producers and expand crop insurance coverage. The Senate farm bill would also provide farmers with long term certainty in farm policy that will allow to plan out their recovery from this drought while still reducing the deficit by $23 billion. Unfortunately, the House won’t even bring a farm bill measure to the floor for debate. Instead, they offered an extension of a few disaster programs that do little to help Illinois farmers and producers that have struggled through this drought. Nearly 63 percent of the country is experiencing some level of drought. Every county in Illinois has been declared a disaster by USDA.

And while our first thought during a drought is the impact to crop farmers, these conditions have a serious impact on businesses and economic growth throughout the state.

About 1.5 million Illinois workers are employed in agribusiness industry which contributes more than $8.85 billion to the Illinois’ economy annually. It’s time for the House to take up and pass a farm bill with robust disaster assistance and the long term policy farmers need.  If the House can’t write a bill, they should at least call the bipartisan Senate bill for a vote as soon as possible.

And Democratic candidates have been turning their fire on Republicans who were unable to persuade Boehner and Cantor to act on behalf of farmers. David Gill in one of Illinois' most productive farming areas: "We haven't just had a historic drought in Illinois and across the Midwest, we've had a drought of leadership in Congress. House Republicans have refused to step forward and pass a bi-partisan Farm Bill to help keep our Heartland alive. It's Tea Party politics at its very worst."

Aryanna Strader is opposing Joe Pitts in southeast Pennsylvania's Lancaster and Chester counties. Even if he's sitting on his hands and babbling about abortions and gays, she's talking directly to the regions farming families. "Too often, members of Congress like Joe Pitts talk about having political courage. Well Joe Pitts has been in Washington long enough that he should be able to demonstrate some leadership to get his Republican colleagues to pass the Farm Bill... but he hasn't. As an Iraq War veteran I have seen true courage and it means standing up and taking real action, not just standing at a microphone and giving speeches. The Farm Bill means jobs and economic security in Pennsylvania and Congressman Pitts just sits there waiting for the recess gavel to come down."

Another Blue America-endorsed progressive, Nate Shinagawa, is seeking to represent one of New York State's most productive farming areas, the Finger Lakes and Southern Tier. He held a press conference to distance himself from Rep. Tom Reed's blasé attitude about the GOP blocking the bill and the resultant hardship for area farmers. “Congressman Tom Reed and the Republicans seem to neglect the fact that Congress has significant responsibility, whether it’s with the livelihood of our farmers or promoting job growth, and as the party in power, should be taking immediate steps to compromise on a full 5-year renewal.” Shinagawa noted the importance of a 5-year renewal after conversations with local farmers, saying it was critical to be able to “plan accordingly to develop a business plan. They need the long term stability to remain profitable.” He supports the Senate version of the bill, which has passed with bi-partisan support, because it “sustains critical subsidies for farmers, and also limits cuts to food stamp programs used by 1 in 7 Americans.”

In North Dakota, Democrat Heidi Heitkamp has deftly turned the issue against Republican freshman Rick Berg, who's running against her for an open Senate seat. Heitkamp called the lack of a new farm bill the “biggest failure of this Congress" and Berg has cravenly blamed his cronies in the Republican leadership. "We have a stonewall problem. I’ll agree. The House Republican leadership is a problem on the farm bill."

Yesterday the Des Moines Register tore into Boehner while he was in Iowa campaigning for Romney, Latham, Steve King and other Republicans.

Boehner, of Ohio, didn’t respond to questions about federal farm provisions that expired this month after lawmakers failed to reach agreement on a new farm bill before leaving the capital ahead of the general election.

...Boehner’s speech did not include specific legislative priorities for the next Congress. He didn’t respond to media questions, and his staff blocked him off from reporters.

Boehner and other congressional leaders have been criticized in recent weeks for dismissing lawmakers without touching the federal farm bill.

Just before Congress went into recess, [Rep.] Loebsack wrote a letter to Boehner, urging him to push for a vote on the farm bill.

“Americans elected Congress to get things done for the American people. I stand ready to work in bipartisan fashion to get a farm bill passed and again urge your attention to bringing up the farm bill for passage in the House,” Loebsack wrote in September.

There are a handful of House and Senate races where the Boehner/Cantor decision to once again put their partisan anti-Obama mania before the good of the country could wreck GOP chances to win key races.

The farm bill, which sets subsidies for everything from crop insurance to milk production, expired on October 1 after the Republican majority in the House could not muster enough votes to pass a new law.

No race demonstrates the Democratic strategy better than in western Iowa, where Christie Vilsack, the wife of President Barack Obama's agriculture secretary, Tom Vilsack, is stressing the farm bill in a bid to unseat conservative Republican Representative Steve King.

"The lack of a farm bill right now has the farming community up in arms," said Bryan Kruse, 34, who has two small farms and works for another farmer to pay the bills outside Ringsted, population 422. "We need to get something done."

Kruse wants to know if he can still get federal crop insurance to protect his corn and soybeans against disasters like this year's drought.

...Democrats are focusing on the farm bill in Iowa, Wisconsin, South Dakota, Colorado and Illinois. It is also a major issue in close U.S. Senate races in Montana and North Dakota, where Republican House members are seeking seats held by Democrats.

...Vilsack, whose husband also was Iowa governor, touts the fact that the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate passed a farm bill, but the Republican House did not.

Steffen Schmidt, a politics professor at Iowa State University in Ames, says most Democrats have done a poor job of explaining that, apart from farm subsidies, the farm bill includes food stamps, school lunches and rural development money.

"A big failure of the Democrats is they have not explained the farm bill has broader economic and social implications," Schmidt said. "Christie Vilsack has done better than other Democrats at making that point."

Progressive David Gill Beats Dick Durbin’s Corporate Shill

by John Laesch

As we sat down to watch election results Tuesday night, I wrote David Gill a quick text that said, "You're going to do what Cegelis and I couldn't. Pullin 4 ya."

In 2006, Dick Durbin and Rahm Emanuel pushed a corporate Democrat down the throats of Illinois’ 6th Congressional District, derailing grassroots progressive, Christine Cegelis. Cegelis lost by 1%.

In 2008, Durbin/Rahm backed multi-millionaire, corporate Dem, Bill Foster against me in a close election for Illinois' 14th Congressional District. We lost by half of a percent.

In 2010, the Democrats in Illinois and around the country lost badly because they failed to deliver any hope, change, or jobs. In two short years of governing, they joined Republicans in bailing out the banks and passed a healthcare bill that was written by the insurance industry, not doctors and patients. Even after the Wall Street occupation and the 2010 apathy-driven tsunami, corporate Democrats still don't get it.

In 2012, Durbin pushed progressive Dave Koehler out of Illinois' 17th Congressional District in favor of Cheryl Bustos. He was successful and Koehler backed out.

But the one man who wouldn't back down and finally defeated Durbin's corporate shill was Dr. David Gill. Tuesday night, David Gill beat corporate Democrat, Matt Goetten by a narrow margin of 143 votes. There is not a finer, more deserving progressive hero than Doc Gill.


David Gill first ran for U.S. Congress in 2004. I remember the sincerity in his voice when he explained that he made the decision to run the day after Paul Wellstone died in a tragic plane crash. David felt that if 100 progressives stepped up to run for public office, that we could somehow fill Wellstone's shoes. With very little political experience under my belt, I managed Gill's 2004 first campaign against Tim Johnson. In the following years, Gill lost his first wife to cancer and lost his 2010 campaign against the same winds that threw Democrats out of the majority in Congress. Most people would have quit trying, but David Gill is persistent. Gill is a fighter who truly believes that we can change our broken political system. He understands that inspiring people to volunteer on a campaign is more valuable than a contributor who can write a $2,400 check.

Gill has been an inspiration to a large number of people, including myself. For $400/month and a campaign office couch to sleep on, I spent seven months of my life working with all of the other people that he had inspired. Gill's volunteers are willing to go door-to-door in the snow, and they will walk in the blistering heat for a mile-long Fourth of July parade. Not only do they volunteer, they dig deep when they can't afford to. A month ago I got laid off. After paying the bills, we sent our last $38 to Gill’s campaign. When working for Gill, a woman who had health issues and was struggling financially on a meager Social Security check came in to make a similar $25 contribution. She wanted a better healthcare system and she spent the next 4 months volunteering. Students would make a $10 contribution and give up their weekends because they believed that Gill offered significant change to our broken political system.

In writing this piece, I thought I would interlace some of my own stories because anybody who has interacted with David Gill has one. Gill's progressive values are part of what inspires volunteers. The other category of die-hard Gill supporters know him as a compassionate doctor who treats people equally. When I ran his first campaign, past patients wrote glowing letters to the editor about how David Gill offered compassion to an aging parent or how he treated someone without insurance as an equally deserving human being. Gill is able to build strong bonds with people. He inspires trust and sets a high bar, encouraging others to achieve their full potential.

Gill inspires volunteerism because he himself has volunteered so much. Nobody volunteers more time than a candidate and, after running back-to-back campaigns myself, I can't imagine what 3 campaigns for U.S. Congress feels like on a physical and emotional level. What I do know is why David Gill does it. He kept running because he feels that Americans deserve better than what we have been getting out of our government. He does it because he understands the consequences of not standing up. Gill understands that both political parties have been bought and paid for by the 1% and he knew that his Democratic opponent, Matt Goetten, would follow in Durbin's footsteps and sell out to Goldman Sachs.

The final weeks of the election were telling. With a poll showing Gill in the lead, Goetten quickly started filling his campaign coffers with cash from corporate Democrats and their friends on Wall Street. He used that money to run a negative campaign against Gill. Goetten had no problem taking money from a corporate Democratic group that serves Chamber and banker interests. JOE PAC is cynically named, Jobs, Opportunities and Education PAC.

Goetten made it clear that he would join the corporate Democrats if elected when he accepted $10K in contributions from the New Democratic Coalition PAC. Follow the link to explore the long list of corporate sponsors and pharmaceutical companies behind the New Democrats.

Unfortunately, some labor groups also contributed. It is sad that labor keeps getting duped into supporting corporate Democrats like Goetten. As a member of organized labor, I keep thinking that labor would be better served if they spent some serious time and money trying to beat Rahm/Durbin instead of helping them.

Labor is not the only group of people who should be re-calculating how to make the best use of political resources. Gill could have used the support of the PCCC, DFA and Russ Feingold's Progressive Patriots. I keep scratching my head wondering how these folks make their political decisions. Regardless, it is now time for progressives to line up and support David Gill's recount effort.

With Gill's narrow 143 vote lead, progressives should expect the corporate Dems to encourage Goetten to seek a recount. For those who were not in Illinois on Election Day, all of the ballots were printed on paper that was slightly larger than the machine. While most election officials manually trimmed the ballots and sent them through the machines, Macoupin County (in IL-13)
election officials chose to hand count all of the ballots. In the precinct that I worked Tuesday (not in IL-13), election officials tabulated the election results before discovering a ballot that was stuck in the side of the machine. It is likely that this sort of thing happened elsewhere in Illinois.

For those who are evaluating the Gill race and wondering how and why he was successful, I have a parting thought that will hopefully help Mr. Sheyman. Myself, Christine Cegelis and now David Gill all have one thing in common. We ran more than once. For all of us, it took an entire election cycle to build name recognition and relationships throughout the district. I guess the only irony in this statement is that Dick Durbin himself ran for U.S. Congress three times before winning. You would think that someone with this background would be more supportive of grassroots progressives. Oh wait, there is that Goldman Sachs thing...


Postscript From Howie

So now that Dr. Gill has won the Democratic primary, the Democratic Party will step up and make sure he gets all the support he needs to win this swing district from vulnerable Republican Tim Johnson, right? Sure... and Steny Hoyer and Steve Israel will deliver that help on the back of a white unicorn. Wednesday Israel couldn't wait to add all the Illinois corporate shills the Machine had delivered to the DCCC's Red to Blue program. Every winning Democrat was added but one-- David Gill, the one progressive, the one anti-corruption candidate, the one candidate insisting on single-payer and insisting on thinking for himself instead of parroting the Beltway Democrats' claptrap. If we're going to get a Prairie State progressive into Congress this time, we won't be counting on DC Dems. This is something progressives and reform-minded citizens will have to step up to the plate for.

Dave Koehler (D-IL) Can Take Back A Seat That Should Never Have Gone Red In The First Place

Progressive Democrat Phil Hare won the western Illinois 17th district congressional seat after longtime incumbent Lane Evans retired in 2006. Hare won with 114,638 votes (57%) and he was a solid legislator. He was also one of the few progressives to lose his seat in the teabag tsunami in 2010. (In 2008 Obama took the district with 56% and Hare was reelected without the Republicans even running a candidate against him!) The deadly 2010 midterm saw Hare's share of the votes sink to an abysmal 43% (85,454 votes). Democrats just stayed home. Bobby Schilling won the seat and, predictably, has been a garden variety, undistinguished backbencher. The Illinois legislator just lopped off a couple of Republican parts of the district and made it bluer than ever. It's almost beyond reason to think he'll be reelected next year.

So, whomever wins the Democratic primary in a couple of months is probably going to be the next congressman for the district. Last time I checked there were 5 candidates running for the nomination. The two front-runners are state Senator Dave Koehler, a solid progressive, and Cheri Bustos, a more conservative, more "business-oriented" Democrat. People looking for actual change in Washington are looking for Koehler. And we don't have to worry about him abandoning his progressive principles when he gets to Congress. He's already proven himself willing to lead on our issues in the state legislature.
 
Dave's roots are in organized labor and grassroots action. He got his start as a United Church of Christ minister and community organizer working under Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Worker Ministry. He moved to Peoria in 1978 to work at the Peoria Friendship House and then became the first director of the Peoria Area Labor Management Council, whose mission is to stabilize labor-management relations by strengthening the collective bargaining process. 
 
It gets better: Dave was the main Senate sponsor of the Illinois civil unions legislation that passed this year. While it's not marriage, it's a strong first step in the right direction. And as an ordained minister, Dave has a unique voice to lend in the fight for marriage equality.
 
Meanwhile, Schilling voted to end Medicare and adamantly refuses to end the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. He backs continuing the discrimination of DOMA. He’s a rock-solid vote for John Boehner, and that just won’t fly in the new 17th-- home to Caterpillar, John Deere, and around 100,000 members and retirees of organized labor.
 
The important thing is that we get a progressive candidate through the primary on March 20. Dave Koehler is that candidate and if you can, please consider giving him some support here.


UPDATE: Durbin Works His Magic

In national and senatorial politics Dick Durbin comes across as a stalwart progressive. In the grubby world of Illinois Democratic politics, he's a grotesque party boss. And today he forced progressive state Senator Dave Koehler-- by the way, the first federal candidate endorsed by the AFL-CIO anywhere in the nation this cycle-- out of his congressional race. The corrupt Democratic Party Establishment wants one of their own, Cheri Butros, in their rotten little club. The state AFL-CIO is flipping out and they're telling people the DCCC was as much to blame as Durbin.

Get Ready For Some Awesome Rumblin' From The 99%... This Weekend

This is just a heads up-- I'm allowed to give a heads-up-- about some important action for American patriots this weekend targeting, peacefully, of course, banksters-- related to the march on the homes of NYC plutocrats. You can count on some details here at DWT later this week... gotta wait for the 99% to give the final finger wiggle, but think "OccupyTheBoardRoom." And remember, we're an unprecedented coalition of labor, community, and netroots groups coming together to voice our legitimate anger at the 1%. And, oh, boy, are we gonna have some fun with the plutocrats! I call dibs on fascist greedball Paul Singer, although I expect many people will... for obvious reasons. Intrepid reporter Lee Fang explains:

The campaign the marginalize and destroy the growing 99 Percent Movement is in full swing, with many in the media attempting to smear the people participating in the “occupation” protests across the country. However, several of the so-called journalists deriding, and in some cases sabotaging the movement, have paychecks thanks to a billionaire whose business practices have been scorned as among the worst of the financial elite.

As the New York Times has documented, Paul Singer, a Republican activist and hedge fund manager worth over $900 million, has emerged as one of the most important power brokers within the GOP. Now, it appears that the reporters financed by Singer are at the forefront of efforts to tarnish the reputation of 99 Percent Movement demonstrators.

...As Singer-funded journalists make their best effort to diminish the Occupy Wall Street protesters as confused idiots unable to articulate a clear goal, it so happens that these journalists are funded by a man who epitomizes the crony capitalist behavior of the greedy one percent.

Singer, manager of a $17 billion hedge fund, earned the moniker “vulture capitalist” for buying the debt of Third World countries for pennies on the dollar, then using his political and legal connections to extract massive judgements to force collection-- even from nations suffering from starvation and violent conflicts. Singer and his partners have used such tactics in Panama, Ecuador, Poland, Cote d’Ivoire, Turkmenistan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In addition to squeezing impoverished countries with sovereign debt schemes, Singer speculates in the oil markets, a practice which can lead to gasoline price hikes here in the United States. The revelation that Singer engages in oil speculation, and also funds Republican lawmakers opposed to oil speculation regulations, was exposed by ThinkProgress using leaked government documents.

Singer’s political philanthropy is tied to his business interests. As Greg Palast has reported, Singer purchased near-bankrupt asbestos companies before his allies in Congress changed an asbestoas-liability law to make his investment incredibly profitable (at the expense, critics allege, of sickened workers). More recently, Singer has forged close financial ties to Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ), a little-known lawmaker at the forefront of efforts to repeal Dodd-Frank financial regulations on hedge funds like Elliott Associates, Singer’s firm.

The rise of Singer’s political profile can be traced to his work as a top donor to pro-Bush character-assasination groups like the “Swift Boat Veterans.” In recent years, he has quietly worked with the right-wing billionaire industrialist Koch brothers and Republican strategist Karl Rove to finance a fleet of anti-Obama organizations, including the shady attack ad nonprofit, “Crossroads GPS.” Singer also led a controversial group of Republican moneymen in a bid to recruit Gov. Chris Christie (R-NJ) into the presidential race, but shifted to endorsing Mitt Romney. Singer and Romney are already close; Singer’s hedge fund actually manages at least $1 million of the former governor’s personal investments.

Singer’s influence even extends to the Supreme Court. As ThinkProgress reported, Singer hosted Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to speak at his $5,000-$25,000 a plate dinners.

Just substitute Singer for Koch here, although the two plutocratic wings of the GOP are in a death match right now:


In a much-discussed column this past Sunday, Panic of the Plutocrats, Paul Krugman points out that the OccupyWallStreet movement has "elicited a remarkably hysterical reaction from Wall Street, the super-rich in general, and politicians and pundits who reliably serve the interests of the wealthiest hundredth of a percent. And this reaction tells you something important-- namely, that the extremists threatening American values are what F.D.R. called 'economic royalists,' not the people camping in Zuccotti Park."

Consider first how Republican politicians have portrayed the modest-sized if growing demonstrations, which have involved some confrontations with the police-- confrontations that seem to have involved a lot of police overreaction-- but nothing one could call a riot. And there has in fact been nothing so far to match the behavior of Tea Party crowds in the summer of 2009.

Nonetheless, Eric Cantor, the House majority leader, has denounced “mobs” and “the pitting of Americans against Americans.” The G.O.P. presidential candidates have weighed in, with Mitt Romney accusing the protesters of waging “class warfare,” while Herman Cain calls them “anti-American.” My favorite, however, is Senator Rand Paul, who for some reason worries that the protesters will start seizing iPads, because they believe rich people don’t deserve to have them.

Michael Bloomberg, New York’s mayor and a financial-industry titan in his own right, was a bit more moderate, but still accused the protesters of trying to “take the jobs away from people working in this city,” a statement that bears no resemblance to the movement’s actual goals.

And if you were listening to talking heads on CNBC, you learned that the protesters “let their freak flags fly,” and are “aligned with Lenin.”

The way to understand all of this is to realize that it’s part of a broader syndrome, in which wealthy Americans who benefit hugely from a system rigged in their favor react with hysteria to anyone who points out just how rigged the system is.

Last year, you may recall, a number of financial-industry barons went wild over very mild criticism from President Obama. They denounced Mr. Obama as being almost a socialist for endorsing the so-called Volcker rule, which would simply prohibit banks backed by federal guarantees from engaging in risky speculation. And as for their reaction to proposals to close a loophole that lets some of them pay remarkably low taxes-- well, Stephen Schwarzman, chairman of the Blackstone Group, compared it to Hitler’s invasion of Poland.

And then there’s the campaign of character assassination against Elizabeth Warren, the financial reformer now running for the Senate in Massachusetts. Not long ago a YouTube video of Ms. Warren making an eloquent, down-to-earth case for taxes on the rich went viral. Nothing about what she said was radical-- it was no more than a modern riff on Oliver Wendell Holmes’s famous dictum that “Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.”

But listening to the reliable defenders of the wealthy, you’d think that Ms. Warren was the second coming of Leon Trotsky. George Will declared that she has a “collectivist agenda,” that she believes that “individualism is a chimera.” And Rush Limbaugh called her “a parasite who hates her host. Willing to destroy the host while she sucks the life out of it.”

What’s going on here? The answer, surely, is that Wall Street’s Masters of the Universe realize, deep down, how morally indefensible their position is. They’re not John Galt; they’re not even Steve Jobs. They’re people who got rich by peddling complex financial schemes that, far from delivering clear benefits to the American people, helped push us into a crisis whose aftereffects continue to blight the lives of tens of millions of their fellow citizens.

Yet they have paid no price. Their institutions were bailed out by taxpayers, with few strings attached. They continue to benefit from explicit and implicit federal guarantees — basically, they’re still in a game of heads they win, tails taxpayers lose. And they benefit from tax loopholes that in many cases have people with multimillion-dollar incomes paying lower rates than middle-class families.

This special treatment can’t bear close scrutiny-- and therefore, as they see it, there must be no close scrutiny. Anyone who points out the obvious, no matter how calmly and moderately, must be demonized and driven from the stage. In fact, the more reasonable and moderate a critic sounds, the more urgently he or she must be demonized, hence the frantic sliming of Elizabeth Warren.

So who’s really being un-American here? Not the protesters, who are simply trying to get their voices heard. No, the real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth.

I'd like to point you-- again-- to the interview we did with North Carolina Congressman Brad Miller Saturday (highlights here) and remind you once again of his response to the question about Obama claiming that the Wall Street banksters committed no crimes, just bent some loopholes, a horrible distortion of what actually happened-- as Rep. Miller explained:

The allegations in civil lawsuits by private mortgage investors and insurance companies, if true, appears pretty clearly to be of criminal conduct. I've struggled with the issue of politics and criminal prosecutions. I think calls for "perp walks" can sound like an appeal to mob rule, but not prosecuting powerful people in the face of clear evidence of criminal conduct is a real problem for democracy. I think some may have discouraged prosecutions because they feared for our fragile banking system, but I fear for our fragile democracy if people believe that the powerful are immune. I think the lack of criminal prosecutions or even aggressive civil lawsuits has offended the sense of justice of many Americans, including me. [emphasis is from DWT]

I got an e-mail from netroots hero Alan Grayson yesterday asking where's my $50,000. "The Government Accountability Office (GAO)," he wrote, "says that our Government has handed out $16 trillion to the banks. Let me repeat that, in case you didn’t hear me the first time. The GAO says that our Government HAS HANDED OUT $16 TRILLION TO THE BANKS."

That little gem appears on Page 131 of GAO Report No. GAO-11-696. A report issued two months ago. A report that somehow seems to have eluded the attention of virtually every network, every major newspaper, and every news show.

How much is $16 trillion? That is an amount equal to more than $50,000 for every man, woman and child in America. That’s more than every penny that every American earns in a year. That’s an amount equal to almost a third of our national net worth -- the value of every home, car, personal belonging, business, bank account, stock, bond, piece of land, book, tree, chandelier, and everything else anyone owns in America. That’s an amount greater than our entire national debt, accumulated over the course of two centuries.

A $16 trillion stack of dollar bills would reach all the way to the Moon. And back. Twice.

That’s enough to pay for Saturday mail delivery. For the next 5,000 years.

All of that money went from you and me to the banks. And we got nothing. Not even a toaster.

I have been patiently waiting to see whether this disclosure would provoke some kind of reaction. Answer: nope. Everyone seems much more interested in discussing whether or not they like the cut of Perry’s jib.

Whatever a jib may be... The Government gave $16 trillion to the banks. And nobody else is talking about it.

Think about it. Think about what that means.

That's exactly, despite what Paul Singer's and the Kochs' p.r. agents are driving home with the corporate media, what the OccupyWallStreet Movement is talking about. Even Obama's #1 puppet in the Senate, Dick Durbin (D-IL) is now talking about it. He wants me to send an angry message to Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan by clicking on a link.

It's just outrageous. Last week, Bank of America announced it will start charging its customers $5 a month just to access their own money with a debit card.

If you're a Bank of America customer who doesn't appreciate being gouged with excessive fees, you should show Bank of America what a competitive marketplace looks like and find a bank or credit union that values their customers.

We can't let B of A get away with this-- and we've got to speak out, loud and clear, to show other banks that it is unacceptable to pad already excessive profits on the backs of hard-working Americans.

I see this ending up one of two ways:

Outcome #1: Bank of America gets an earful from so many customers and potential customers-- like you-- that it decides against making monthly fees the new "normal" for American debit card users.

OR

Outcome #2: Too few folks notice and speak up about the new fees, sending a message to other big banks that they can charge this monthly fee to their debit card customers, too.

Outcome #2 is completely unacceptable-- but I need you to speak out to make sure it doesn't happen.

In 2007, we sent thousands of emails to convince BP's CEO to give up his company's plan to dump more toxic chemicals into Lake Michigan. The DickDurbin.com community has proven that we can take on some of the biggest special interests around.

Now let's put that same kind of pressure on Bank of America's CEO to make sure he knows these new debit card fees are simply unacceptable-- and to make sure every single bank gets the message.

I sent Brian Moynihan the best kind of message for him to understand when I closed my BofA accounts. And Saturday... well, stay tuned... www.occupytheboardroom.org is in countdown mode.

Most Americans-- Outside Of The Rich Ones Who Dominate Congress-- Think Rich People Should Pay Their Fair Share

We are doomed

Let me try to tie two posts together-- yesterday's screed against the Gang of Six (and particularly Dick Durbin's embrace of über-conservative positions) and this morning's post on tax policy. The heavy lifting was done by Marist in a poll they did for McClatchy Media, a poll that shows most Americans think the best way to fight the deficit is by making the rich pay their fair share of taxes-- specifically, raising taxes on the rich. Very few people, other than in the extreme fringes of the GOP and in the U.S. Congress, think monkeying around with Medicare or Social Security is the way the deficit should be reduced. Wow! The American people are a lot smarter than the likes of Tom Coburn, Saxby Chambliss, Dick Durbin, Mark Warner, Kent Conrad or, obviously, Michael Crapo.

The Establishment has persuaded voters that the deficit is the boogie man but voters don't agree with the Establishment on what to do about it. "Alarmed by rising national debt and increasingly downbeat about their country's course, Americans are clear about how they want to attack the government's runway budget deficits: raise taxes on the wealthy and keep hands off of Medicare and Medicaid." And most people oppose raising the debt ceiling.

On tackling the deficit, voters by a margin of 2-to-1 support raising taxes on incomes above $250,000, with 64 percent in favor and 33 percent opposed.

Independents supported higher taxes on the wealthy by 63-34 percent; Democrats by 83-15 percent; and Republicans opposed by 43-54 percent.

Support for higher taxes rose by 5 percentage points after Obama called for that as one element of his deficit-reduction strategy last week. Opposition dropped by 6 points. The poll was conducted before and after the speech.

Americans clearly don't want the government to cut Medicare, the government health program for the elderly, or Medicaid, the program for the poor. Republicans in the House of Representatives voted last week to drastically restructure and reduce those programs, while Obama calls for trimming their costs but leaving them essentially intact.

Voters oppose cuts to those programs by 80-18 percent. Even among conservatives, only 29 percent supported cuts, and 68 percent opposed them.

Public views are more mixed on cutting defense spending, with 44 percent supporting cuts and 54 percent opposed.

One dividing line is education: College graduates want to cut defense spending by 63-36 percent. Non-college graduates oppose cutting the Pentagon by 61-36 percent.

No matter how the government tackles its deficits and debt, Americans don't want it to borrow any more. By 69-24 percent, voters oppose raising the legal ceiling for debt. That includes Democrats, who oppose it by 53-36 percent, independents, who oppose it by 74-22 percent, and Republicans, who oppose it by 79-16 percent.

Obama better get with the program or his approval ratings will continue to sink. The fact that the average CEO at an S&P company now makes over $11 million does not accrue to his benefit.

If We Can't Get Some Working Class Gang Members Into The Gang Of Six... How About A Reasonable Conservative Like David Frum?

Trump Change was on TV bragging the other day how he's much, much richer than Mitt Romney. All those bankruptcy restructurings worked out well for sleazy the blowhard. And Romney... being in the vulture-capital business brought in hundreds of millions of dollars. Most members of Congress are millionaires, even if not on a level of serial auto thief Darrell Issa (between $303,575,011 and $451,100,000 according to his 2009 reports). Does it make any difference what a politician is "worth?" You bet... but that depends how you define "worth." We talking about talent, intelligence, moral fiber? Or, the way worth is commonly used in our culture, financial assets? I was talking with someone-- a decent guy-- from the Wisconsin Democratic Party over the weekend. He was trying to convince me that a candidate with no record was good and the first thing out of his mouth was an assertion that the guy is wealthy. In this case, I don't think he was even trying to say-- as Trump Change had been insinuating-- that wealth in and of itself was an allure to the average voter. I think he meant the guy could finance-- between himself and his wealthy associates-- his own campaign.

Open Secrets asked the question rhetorically when they reported the net worth of members of Congress. "Why should Americans care about the personal finances of their federal lawmakers? There are several key reasons"

• Thousands of companies and special interests groups have business before Congress each year or lobby Congress directly. Some of these businesses may also find themselves the targets of congressional scrutiny for questionable business practices, accidents, even disasters. All the while, lawmakers themselves sometimes have stock holdings or other financial relationships with these corporations and associations, raising the specter of conflicts of interest.

• About 1 percent of all Americans are millionaires. In Congress, that number regularly hovers between 40 percent and 50 percent, meaning elected leaders generally need not worry about the economic pressures many Americans face-- from securing gainful employment to grappling with keeping a family financially afloat. Decide for yourself if these congressional millionaires are adequately representing your financial interests.

• Congressional members' personal wealth keeps expanding year after year, typically at rates well beyond inflation and any tax increases. The same cannot be said for most Americans. Are your representatives getting rich in Congress and, if so, how?

The self-selected Gang of Six-- Richard Durbin (D-IL), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Kent Conrad (D-ND), Tom Coburn (R-OK), Mark Warner (D-VA), Michael Crapo (R-ID)-- is trying to set the overall policy path for this country right now, even deciding whether or not to hang onto Medicare and Social Security in some form and who should be taxed and how much. They're all wealthy men, half of them fabulously wealthy.


Mark Warner is the second richest member of the Senate, with something north of $170 million in assets. Coburn reported his net worth in 2009 between $1,174,164 and $4,616,000-- #49th richest senator and just above fellow gang-member Kent Conrad ($1,456,035 to $3,376,000 ). Durbin might be a millionaire; hard to tell from his report. I'd feel more comfortable in the Gang was dominated by working class members instead of by men overly sympathetic to the wealthy. (Might be nice to have a woman or three in there too.) Over the weekend, conservative pundit David Frum wrote, from a conservative point of view, why shredding the social safety net-- as the House-passed Ryan budget would do-- is such a terrible idea.

Since the economic and electoral disasters of 2006-2009, Republicans have veered in a sharply libertarian direction. Why not put that new direction to the test of democracy? Perhaps Paul Ryan is right, and Americans (or anyway: voting Americans) have abruptly changed their minds during this economic crisis about their expectations from government.

I’ll admit: I’ve also changed my mind during this crisis, but in the opposite direction.

...The radical free-market economics I embraced in the late 1970s offered a trade:

Yes, there would be less social provision. In return, Americans would receive an economy that was simultaneously more dynamic and also more stable.

There would be less inflation (because the Federal Reserve would have one job: price stability).

There would be fewer and milder recessions (because the Federal Reserve would no longer have to extinguish the inflation it did not create).

The financial sector could finance faster growth with less risk (because risks would be cushioned by diversification rather than prohibited by regulation).

Economic growth would accelerate (because the reduced tax burden would induce entrepreneurial innovation).

Faster growth would raise incomes for all (because a rising tide lifts all boats).

More opportunity in the private economy would abundantly offset the curbing of welfare benefits (because the best social program is always a job).

More opportunity would end the caste-like isolation of the poorest of the poor by drawing them out of the underclass into paid employment (because all human beings respond more or less rationally to positive incentives).

This was the trade, and it was engineered jointly by Republicans and Democrats: in fact some of the most important elements of the trade were adopted during the Clinton years.

Some of the terms of that trade were honored. From 1983 through 2008, the US enjoyed a quarter-century of economic expansion, punctuated by only two relatively mild recessions. In the late 1980s, the country was hit by the savings & loan crisis, the worst financial crisis to that point since the 1930s – and although the S&L crisis did deliver a blow, the country rapidly recovered and came up smiling. New industries were born, new jobs created on an epic scale, incomes did improve, and the urban poor were drawn into the working economy.

But of course, other terms of the trade were not honored.

Especially after 2000, incomes did not much improve for middle-class Americans. The promise of macroeconomic stability proved a mirage: America and the world were hit in 2008 by the sharpest and widest financial crisis since the 1930s. Conservatives do not like to hear it, but the crisis originated in the malfunctioning of an under-regulated financial sector, not in government overspending or government over-generosity to less affluent homebuyers. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were bad actors, yes, but they could not have capsized the world economy by themselves. It took Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, AIG, and-- maybe above all-- Standard & Poor’s and Moody’s to do that.

In the aftermath of the catastrophe, the free-market assumption and expectation that an unemployed person could always find work somewhere has been massively falsified: at the trough of this recession, there were almost 6 jobseekers in the US for every unfilled job. Nothing like such a disparity had been seen since the 1930s. The young faced the worst job odds. But some of the most dismal outcomes were endured by workers in their 50s, laid off from middle-class jobs likely never to see middle-class employment again.

GK Chesterton once wrote that we should never tear down a fence until we knew why it had been built. In the calamity after 2008, we rediscovered why the fences of the old social insurance state had been built.

Speaking only personally, I cannot take seriously the idea that the worst thing that has happened in the past three years is that government got bigger. Or that money was borrowed. Or that the number of people on food stamps and unemployment insurance and Medicaid increased. The worst thing was that tens of millions of Americans-- and not only Americans-- were plunged into unemployment, foreclosure, poverty. If food stamps and unemployment insurance, and Medicaid mitigated those disasters, then two cheers for food stamps, unemployment insurance, and Medicaid.

Which does not mean that I have become suddenly indifferent to the growth of government. Not at all. Paul Ryan is absolutely right that the present trend is unsustainable and must be corrected. The free marketeers of the 1980s were right that taxes on enterprise must be restrained to leave room for private-sector-led expansion. Over-generous social insurance has all kinds of negative consequences. Private saving must be encouraged. Work must pay better than idleness. The job of designing the right kind of social insurance state is hugely important and hugely difficult, and the conservative sensibility-- with its respect for markets and less sentimental view of human nature-- is the right sensibility for that job.

Yet that same conservative sensibility is also properly distrustful of the fantasy that society can be remade according to a preconceived plan. We have to start from where we are, and we have to take people as we find them. Ronald Reagan liked to quote a line of Tom Paine’s, “We have it in our power to make the world new again.” George Will-- although a great Reagan admirer-- correctly complained at the time, “No, we don’t.”

I strongly suspect that today’s Ayn Rand moment will end in frustration or worse for Republicans. The future beyond the welfare state imagined by Yuval Levin will not arrive. At that point, Republicans will face a choice. (I’d argue we face that choice now, whether we recognize it or not.) We can fulminate against unchangeable realities, alienate ourselves from a country that will not accede to the changes we demand. That way lies bitterness and irrelevance. Or we can go back to work on the core questions facing all center right parties in the advanced economies since World War II: how do we champion entrepreneurship and individualism within the context of a social insurance state?

UPDATE: Dick Durbin Picks Sides-- And It Isn't The Same Side Bernie Sanders Is On

Yesterday I was reading some apologia about how six self-selected wealthy white men-- AKA- The Gang of Six-- was deciding the social and political future of America in the most profound ways. The only excuse the article could make about this not being a complete takeover by the wealthy was that one of them, Dick Durbin is "friends" with Bernie Sanders, a socialist. No one thought to have Sanders in the Gang. The fact that he speaks for the other 95% who the Gang doesn't speak for seems irrelevant. As irrelevant as Dick Durbin's "friendship" with him. Durbin has often been identified with some worthy causes and may liberals saw him as a more progressive successor to Harry Reid than Wall Street-dominated Chuck Schumer. I was always ambivalent. Until this morning-- when Durbin unmasked himself. Is this what he's always been down deep or did zombies capture him and suck out his brains and replace them with pig shit?

Senator Dick Durbin, D-Ill., says the bi-partisan group of senators working to find a way to reduce the deficit-- the so-called "Gang of Six"-- is near agreement on a plan that will chart a middle ground between the House Republican budget and the plan outlined last week by President Obama.

And while other top Democrats say Social Security should be untouched, Durbin says Social Security changes should be made now.

"You have the House Republican budget from Congressman Paul Ryan, who I know and like, which is going to be placed somewhere on the right side of the spectrum. You have the president's suggestion, which will be on the other side of the spectrum. And if and when we reach an agreement, it will be in the middle, a bipartisan effort, which I think has a chance to succeed," Durbin said in an interview for ABC News' Subway Series.

So now we have a "friend of Bernie" wanting to split the difference between Obama's very conservative plan and Ryan's wildly insane reactionary plan. God forbid anyone mention a progressive plan-- you know, like the only kind of plan that has ever worked to lift up this country and make it great and powerful and empower the middle class.

Durbin criticized a resolution put forward by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a liberal independent from Vermont, that says Social Security should not be cut under a deficit reduction plan. Durbin said he would not vote for such a resolution.

"I think Bernie is going too far with his language," Durbin said.