Maybe It Really Is Time For the South To Rise Again-- But Without The Built-In Racism This Time

On Friday the House voted, 232-180 to admit Washington, DC-- which has more people than Wyoming and Vermont-- as a state. Every Republican-- ironically, the party of unadulterated and unashamed racism-- voted no, as did the most Republican of the House Dems, Minnesota Blue Dog Collin Peterson. There were 8 other Democrats who wanted top vote NO-- and in fact did vote with the GOP on their motion to recommit, but who felt their best strategy was to have it both ways, voting with the GOP on the motion and with the Democrats on the bill:

• Anthony Brindisi (Blue Dog-NY)
• Angie Craig (New Dem-MN)
• Joe Cunningham (Blue Dog-SC)
• Jared Golden (careerist-ME)
• Kendra Horn (Blue Dog-OK)
• Conor Lamb (careerist-PA)
• Ben McAdams (Blue Dog-UT)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Xochitl Torres Small (Blue Dog-NM)

McConnell already declared it DOA as far as the Senate is concerned, somehow deciding statehood for Washington is-- wait for it-- "socialist." So his virulent and disgusting racism had nothing to do with it at all. And if McConnell were to be hit by a car tonight and whisked off to his place in Satan's bed, Trump has already said he would veto it, although didn't mention he's the most racist president to ever occupy the White House. The District, by the way, is 49% African-American so, the thinking goes among racists like McConnell and Trump and, generally all the Republicans in Congress... why give them a House seat and two Senate seats?

So I asked myself why is there still so much racism in our country. Why is it still a thing? Inequality politically and economically are bad enough but what about in our hearts? Why?

Stuart Stevens, a Mississippi Republican had something to say about that yesterday at The Bulwark-- at least for part of the problem: My Confederate Past. Before we get to Stevens' reflections, a little news (beyond Faith Hill's call for Mississippi to get a new Confederate-free state flag): there's plan to do just that and that started today, a flag that was adopted in 1894 at the height of the white backlash to Reconstruction.

As of Friday at noon, the plan-- which several sources reiterated was “extremely fluid”-- is for the House of Representatives to begin the legislative process to remove or replace the flag on Saturday morning.

A resolution will be filed that would suspend the rules so that legislators could take up a bill to address the flag. This resolution is expected to be the most difficult part of the process because it requires approval of a two-thirds majority in each chamber (82 of 122 House members, 35 of 52 Senate members). And the resolution must be passed by both chambers before either chamber could actually begin the process of debating the actual bill. [It did pass the House today-- 85 to 35-- and Gov. Reeves announced he will sign the final bill into law if it passes the state Senate too.] UPDATE: Last in the day, the Senate passed it too!

If the two-thirds threshold to suspend the rules is met, a simple majority would be required to pass the actual bill (62 of 122 House members, 27 of 52 Senate members).

Sources close to House leadership say they have-- for now-- the two-thirds majority votes to suspend rules, but they stress the margin is very thin.

On the Senate side, reports are that the leadership is “close”-- within one or two votes-- to having a two-thirds vote to suspend rules. Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said the plan is for the House to move first.

...Many Republican lawmakers have for years opposed changing the flag, particularly without a popular vote on the issue. Some who want the Legislature to change it fear a backlash from constituents.

And  Republican Gov. Tate Reeves-- the de facto head of the state GOP-- opposes the Legislature changing the flag.

But that sentiment appears to be changing among some lawmakers.

Rep. Karl Oliver, R-Winona, in a 2017 social media post said that those who support the removal of Confederate monuments should be “lynched.” In recent weeks, he declined to comment on the flag issue.

But on Thursday, Oliver issued a statement that said: “I am choosing to attempt to unite our state and ask each of you to join me in supporting a flag that creates unity-- now is the time.” Oliver’s statement said the flag issue is growing “more divisive by the day” and “History will record the position I chose.”

A growing list of businesses, cities, counties and other groups have either stopped flying the flag or asked leaders to change it. Religious leaders have spoken out, saying changing the flag is a “moral issue.”  The NCAA, SEC, and Conference USA this month took action to ban post-season play in the state until the flag is changed.

"It’s difficult to explain to a non-Southerner," wrote Stevens, "the role the Confederate flag has played in our lives. I suspect that’s more so for a Mississippian than for someone from any other state as Mississippi is the most Southern of the states. Put it this way: If you have connections to the University of Mississippi-- the most Southern school in the most Southern state-- then your connection to the Confederate flag is what the shamrock is to Notre Dame. I was born in the 1950s to parents who met at Ole Miss. The role Ole Miss football played in my life was basically what the Catholic Church is to the Jesuits. It was both a belief system and the organizing principle of life. Saturdays in the fall were the Holy Days when the Faithful would gather and reinforce our devotion through the shared communion of ritual."

These were not football games but celebrations of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. Only this time our 11 soldiers on the field of battle more often than not emerged victorious. At halftime the band marched in Confederate battle gray uniforms while Colonel Reb led the cheerleaders in unfolding what was billed as the world’s largest Confederate flag. (Even as a 10-year-old I remember wondering, “How big was the second-largest flag?”) Cheerleaders threw bundles of Confederate flags into the stands. We stood and swayed together singing Dixie, always ending in the stadium-shaking cry, “The South Shall Rise Again.”

It was at halftime in the 1962 Ole Miss-Kentucky game at Jackson’s Memorial Stadium-- walking distance from my home-- that Governor Ross Barnett gave his famous speech calling for states’ rights. We beat Kentucky that afternoon and the next day in Oxford there began the last pitched battle of the Civil War. It took 30,000 troops to force the University of Mississippi to accept a single black student.

Today you’re more likely to get a student riot if a top-ranked black athlete committed to Ole Miss and then switched at the last minute to Alabama.

...Mississippi has the highest percentage of African Americans of any state in the country. I ask myself now why did it take so long for me to realize what it might be like for nearly 40 percent of my state to go to school and work under a flag that represented a cause dedicated to the right to own their ancestors? Why is it that I had written books about traveling through China, Africa, and Europe, fascinated by every cultural quirk I came across, before I looked up at my own state flag and thought about the dehumanizing brutality it represented?

I don’t have any good answers, most likely because there are none. I was given every opportunity in this life, an open door to the world, a chance at the best education in the United States and England, a family that supported my odd passions that I was lucky enough to turn into professions. I had passport stamps from 61 countries with different flags before I began to think about my own state’s flag. It wasn’t that I was actively for the flag . . . but that indifference was just as toxic as active support.

Today many white Mississippians of my generation-- and even more of the younger generation-- are eager to change. Faulkner wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” We can’t undo what we didn’t do.

But my regret is mixed with a hope. Hope that perhaps we can take steps-- small and inadequate as they might be-- to face the truth of our Confederate past. And in doing so change the future.

It will never be enough. But I hope today we can take one more step out of the shadows of a bloody past into the brighter sun of a better day.

This morning, the NY Times released a poll by Siena that showed how out of touch Trump-- who reflexively and unceasingly stokes The Lost Cause and American divisiveness over race-- is on sentiments about race seem to be heading. 59% of voters, including 52% of white voters, believe the death of George Floyd at the hands of the police in Minneapolis was "part of a broader pattern of excessive police violence toward African Americans. Black Lives Matter is seen as favorably as the police as an institution is (44% for BLM, 43% for the police). "The numbers add to the mounting evidence that recent protests have significantly shifted public opinion on race, creating potential political allies for a movement that was, within the past decade, dismissed as fringe and divisive. It also highlights how President Trump is increasingly out of touch with a country he is seeking to lead for a second term: While he has shown little sympathy for the protesters and their fight for racial justice, and has continued to use racist language that many have denounced, voters feel favorably toward the protests and their cause."

Not A Coup, Just A Little Innocent Bloodletting-- Today's Massacre In Egypt

U.S. law states that if a democratically-elected government is overthrown in a military coup, U.S. aid stops until democracy is restored. After the Egyptian military coup against Morsi, Congress and Obama were complicit in breaking the law, while U.S. corporate media cheered. So who will arrest them all?

Californians were bedding down when the killing started. In DC everyone was fast asleep. In Europe people were just having their morning coffee. A speaker on stage in Raba'a pleaded with the army: "Don't kill us, we are not Israelis, we're not terrorists, we are Muslims, we are Egyptians." It didn't work. The massacre began, all entrances to and exits from the area carefully sealed with barbed wire, snipers strategically placed on rooftops. Early Wednesday morning, the Egyptian security forces made a move that has been anticipated all week-- they started murdering unarmed pro-Morsi protesters in Cairo-- with weapons U.S. aid provides them. The Nobel Peace Prize Committee should be especially proud of their premature award to Obama now. Corporate media reports made it sound a lot tamer than it was:

Egyptian security forces have begun clearing two protest camps in Cairo occupied by supporters of deposed President Mohammed Morsi.

Reports say 15 people have been killed as police cut off side streets and bursts of gunfire were heard.

Teargas is being fired and helicopters flew overhead as security forces moved on the camps in the east and west of the city.

...The interior ministry issued a statement saying security forces were taking "necessary measures" against the protest at the Rabaa al-Adawiya mosque in the east of Cairo and the protest in Nahda Square in the east.

Hundreds have been arrested and Egypt's rail system has been suspended and major highways into Cairo shut down to keep sympathizers from coming to the capital to help the penned-up protesters. Journalists are being brutalized and arrested by the security forces as well, of course. Egypt has an official story it wants to get out-- like "a policeman was killed," rather than the real story: hundreds of protesters were slaughtered and thousands injured-- and independent journalists are a nuisance. There are reports though that protests have flared up in Alexandria, Suez and Aswan.

The ministry announced protesters would not be hunted down and murdered like dogs, indicating, of course, that the military planned out an operation that included hunting down protesters and murdering them like dogs. Al Jazeera was reporting that bulldozers plowed into the camps. "Many people are being killed right now... What we can expect is only worse," said Laila, a member of Egypt's Anti-Coup Alliance, a pro-Morsi group. "What's happening now is a crime against humanity."

I've been following the discussion via #egypt on Twitter for the last several hours and shocked by the number of people who say "there are two sides to every story" as the security apparatus systematically massacres the protesters in a well-planned military operation. I'm not even talking about the myriad Egyptian coup stooges pushing state propaganda-- just the kinds of sad sacks who always say that kind of stuff about whatever happens anywhere. I learned long ago and now know better than to ever take any "official" description of events at face value. There is a reason the military immediately targeted the media today. They do not want any independent verification of their brutality and aggression. As for "pro-Morsi" forces on the attack-- or burning Coptic churches-- I'd be far more likely to look for Sisi agents provacateurs. And by the way, anyone heard from the last elected president of Egypt recently. Is he alive?

The West made a big mistake-- for which it is still paying dearly-- by pushing a coup against Iran's popular prime minister, Mohamed Mossadeq 60 years ago. Didn't the U.S. security apparatus learn anything from that unmitigated disaster. Does Obama understand what he's doing by siding with the military against Egypt's people? And now the military dictatorship has declared a state of emergency-- suspension of due process, martial law, ability to kill protesters with impunity-- for a month, which had something to do with the Arab Spring... since people were upset that Hosni Mubarak's state of emergency lasted 30 years.

Americans like democracy... at least in theory. When the results don't synch up with U.S. (i.e., corporate) interests-- screw democracy, especially in American client states! It would be so mean and paranoid to even think that Obama sent McCain and his sidekick Lindsey to Cairo to give Sisi the greenlight for today's massacre. Oh well, at least no one is being shot down like dogs in North Carolina... yet.

Did The DCCC Muck Up Jim Graves' Run In Minnesota... Again?

If you want to know how "Minnesota nice" sounds, call Jim Graves. He picked up the phone yesterday morning with the warmest, friendliest of greetings... and immediately said he isn't talking to the press until July first and suggested we talk about my upcoming trip to Tuscany instead. He suggested I spend time in Siena, long one of my favorite small European cities. As for questions around his dropping out of the congressional race in MN-06... not a peep, although he did follow up a few minutes later by sending this copy of the Bill Maher "the lights are a little bit dimmer in Crazy Town" video about Bachmann's withdrawal. Like me, Bill Maher will never be cited as an example of Minnesota Nice: "Michele Bachmann is out... still no word on her husband Marcus."

I think Jim likes Maher's interpretation of his leaving the field after vanquishing Bachmann. "Mission accomplished." But that wasn't his first reponse to Bachmann dropping out.

The morning that Bachmann suddenly announced she wouldn't seek reelection, Graves still seemed very interested in making the career leap from hotelier to congressman.

"I never ran against her. I ran for the people," Graves told KARE Wednesday morning.

He had been up late the night before watching the Minnesota Twins 14-inning game against the Milwaukee Brewers on TV, assuming he could sleep in for a change. His phone started ringing with media requests before 5:00 a.m.

The next day Graves apparently had a change of heart. He told reporter Eric Black of MinnPost that he was suspending his campaign for Congress. And furthermore, according to Black's MinnPost article, he would not be talking the other media about it.

"I think he then talked to some advisers, probably got some phone calls, talked to some of the folks he was expecting to get some campaign contributions from," Jacobs said.

He theorized Graves could no longer rely on national political money aimed at ousting Bachmann because she has voluntarily removed left the ballot. And the hotel executive has often said he had little interest in self-funding a campaign.

Notorious drunk Tom Emmer is running instead. Granted, it would be hard to get further right along the political spectrum than Bachmann, but ex-state legislator Emmer, currently working as a Hate Talk Radio host, is certainly not to her left... on anything. He's probably best known outside of Minnesota as the guy who Target had to apologize about contributing campaign funds to after Emmer's deranged homophobic mania became a campaign issue. (Target was probably so enamored of Emmer because one of the planks of his campaign platform was to lower the minimum wage.)

“I’m running for Congress to change the culture in Washington and restore Americans’ trust in our government,” Emmer told a group of about 100 supporters gathered Wednesday in his hometown of Delano, a Wright County community in the conservative heart of the 6th District. “Let’s get excessive regulation and taxes out of the way.”

He likely will face competition for the Republican endorsement, which he said he would respect.

State Sen. John Pederson of St. Cloud said he intends to file as a candidate by the end of the month. Former legislator Phil Krinkie, a 16-year legislator who now is president of the Taxpayers Leauge of Minnesota, and state Rep. Matt Dean have said they’re considering entering the contest.

However, Emmer, a former three-term state representative and the GOP nominee who lost to Gov. Mark Dayton in 2010, already has a base to build on.

“From the minute Bachmann got out, Emmer was in very strong position,” said political consultant Michael Brodkorb.

“He has a donor file, access to major fundraisers and the ability to pull together a team quickly," he said. "He lost a very close race for governor. It will make him a disciplined and hungry candidate who will assemble a team that will put him in a position to win.”

Emmer’s advantage as a seasoned campaigner is also his liability.

DFL Party Chair Ken Martin was quick to point that out in a statement: “In Emmer’s unsuccessful 2010 run for governor, he drained Republican Party resources and turned off the party’s major donor community. Many attribute his Ron Paul- and Sarah Palin-backed candidacy to sending Republican and independent votes Tom Horner’s way.”

Regular DWT readers probably don't need to be reminded that I tend to see Steve Israel and the DCCC lurking behind every door. But weeks before Jim Graves dropped out, we talked about how they had sabotaged his run in 2010. They decided to make up for it this year and named him a "Jump Start Candidate," on a par with Israel's most wretched zombie-like conservative candidates like Michael Eggman, Ann Callis, Gwen Graham, Kevin Strouse, et al.

Even before Bachmann dropped out, I started getting an inkling something was wrong. Rumors emanating from the DCCC were undercutting Graves' campaign and his relationships. One of the most corrupt DC organizations, the DCCC wanted to move their own band of incompetent crooks into the campaign so they could start pocketing the big cash the DCCC intended to spend there. With the DCCC, it's always about the rake off for the revolving door staffers. And then, on May 24, the Graves campaign sent out a press release slamming back at the DCCC:

Team Graves Running Independent Campaign

Following rumors reported in the national press from anonymous Washington “Democratic sources” that congressional candidate Jim Graves was pressured to replace his 2012 campaign team with Washington insiders, Graves released the following statement:

“We want to set the record straight. With all due respect to national figures rooting for our success, we are running our own campaign. One of the most valuable rules I have learned in business is ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.’ While Adam Graves, my 2012 campaign manager, decided to turn down the position of campaign manager for 2014 in order to focus on his life’s work as an accomplished philosopher and academic, he remains the closest advisor and strategist to our team. I promoted his deputy campaign manager, Aaron Wells, to manage the 2014 race.”

“Our 2012 team ran an extremely effective and efficient campaign to restore real leadership to our community. We place a high value on loyalty, particularly when folks work tirelessly and with great passion like our 2012 campaign team.”

When the DCCC moves into a campaign, they always try taking over so they can funnel the money into the pockets of their cronies. I can't think of a DCCC campaign where this hasn't happened. And Jim Graves won't be the first.

So, while we're on the subject of MN-06, who will the Democrats put up against Emmer? Thank goodness we haven't heard any stirrings from Elwin Tinklenberg. Tarryl Clark has been telling half the people she meets she's running again. Problem is, she's telling the other half she's not. Another would-be candidate is the anti-Choice mayor-- yes a Democrat-- of Sartell, Joe Perske. And then there's a "secret businessman" who's nosing around and who may or may not run. This one should be safe for the Republicans for another cycle.

Mainstream Republican Conservatives Battle Tea Party Nihilists In The U.S. Senate

Miss McConnell lays down with the GOP's 3 nihilist psychopaths

A few days ago, television personality Bill Maher was musing about the idea of Texas teabagger Ted Cruz running for president. Maher is certain that it's inevitable, pointing out that Cruz has "Newt Gingrich's ambition and ego mixed with the steely-eyed focus of a serial killer." Good description! And he added that Cruz has been "totally unwilling to compromise with liberals on anything, including eating with a knife and fork." NY Times political reporter Jonathan Weisman, might agree, but he takes Cruz more seriously and honed in on how he and a few other Tea Party Senate freshmen are gumming up the works in that body and forcing people concerned with the smooth function of government to confront deranged right-wing ideological nihilism that veers frighteningly close to outright fascism. And this is all inside the Senate GOP caucus!

In full view of C-Span cameras trained on the floor this week, Senators John McCain of Arizona and Susan Collins of Maine jousted with a new generation of conservatives-- Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah and Rand Paul of Kentucky-- over the party’s refusal to allow the Senate to open budget talks with the House despite Senate Republicans’ long call for Democrats to produce a budget.

It was the Old Guard versus the Tea Party, but with real ramifications, as Congress careens toward another debt limit and spending crisis this fall with seemingly no one at the steering wheel. The newer members say negotiations should go forward only with a binding precondition that a budget deal cannot raise the government’s statutory borrowing limit.

“I have tremendous respect for this institution,” Mr. Rubio said in an interview on Friday. “But I’m not all that interested in the way things have always been done around here.”

Republicans made the failure of Senate Democrats to pass a budget a central talking point in the 2012 campaign, going so far this year as to pass legislation withholding Congressional pay if budgets were not approved this spring. Now, some Republicans say the fact that members of their own party are standing in the way of a House-Senate conference committee undermines their fiscal message.

“This to me is an issue of integrity,” said Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee. “We’ve pressed for a budget. We ought to go to conference.”

But the budget hawks have not budged, and they have even taken aim at their party in strikingly critical language.

“Here is the dirty little secret about some of those on the right side of the aisle,” Mr. Cruz said of his fellow Republicans. “There are some who would very much like to cast a symbolic vote against raising the debt ceiling and nonetheless allow our friends on the left side of the aisle to raise the debt ceiling. That, to some Republicans, is the ideal outcome.”

Mr. McCain called the demands of his Republican colleagues “absolutely out of line and unprecedented.” The Senate passed the budget before dawn on March 23 after a grueling all-night session, he noted, saying it was time to try to reach a final deal with the House in a negotiating conference.

“Will this deliberative body, whether it is the greatest in the world or the worst in the world, go ahead and decide on this issue, so we can at least tell the American people we are going to do what we haven’t done for four years and what every family in America sooner or later has to do-- and that is to have a budget?” he asked. Although few of Mr. McCain’s colleagues took to the floor to join him, many have expressed similar views.

Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri, a member of the Republican leadership, said that at this point, resistance had to give.

“I suspect senators have held back long enough on the decision to go to conference,” he said.

...House Republicans had envisioned a plan to reach a comprehensive deficit reduction deal predicated on a showdown in July over the debt ceiling. That showdown was supposed to drive both sides back to the bargaining table, but a rapidly falling deficit, rising tax payments and huge infusions of cash from the newly profitable, federally controlled home financing agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have scrambled those plans. Now, the debt ceiling may not have to be raised until October or November, in the next fiscal year.

Before then, unless a budget deal can be struck, Congress must pass bills to finance the government based on very different guidelines in the House- and Senate-passed plans. The House Appropriations Committee will have to draft a bill financing labor, health and education programs at $121.8 billion, a 19 percent cut from current levels even after the across-the-board cuts took effect. The bill to finance the Interior Department and Environmental Protection Agency cannot exceed $24.2 billion, down 15 percent from the current levels after the cuts.

“There is not a member of our committee, Republican or Democrat, who is happy with these numbers,” said Jennifer Hing, a spokeswoman for the committee.

The Senate has no intention of swallowing those cuts, so unless budget negotiators can meet and reach a deal, Congress will be headed back toward a crisis come Sept. 30, said Senator Patty Murray of Washington, the Senate Budget Committee chairwoman.

“They could create crisis by having a government shutdown or holding everything back until November and threatening a debt default. That would be to their political detriment,” Ms. Murray said. “I think the American people have had it with that kind of hostage-taking.”

Cruz may be the ringleader of mindless nihilism but his rivals for the worthless 2016 presidential nomination, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio can't cede the far right fringe of the party-- which completely controls the nominating stage in most states-- to get out ahead of them on the crackpot ideas the Hate Talk Radio-brainedwashed base loves so much. Rubio, in fact, claims he could be the last man standing on preventing a majority in the Senate to move forward. “I’m not sure this is an issue I can ever change my opinion on,” he said. Already grievously damaged in the eyes of the extremist for his collaboration with Democrats on comprehensive immigration reform-- which is vehemently opposed by the Canadian-borm Cuban from Texas, Cruz and which the Hate Talkers only refer to as "amnesty"-- Rubio is looking for an opportunity to be seen taking a kamakazi-like stand on behalf of... Alex Jones and Glenn Beck fans. He'll find Ted Cruz and Rand Paul already have those folks sewn up. Their grandstanding is pushing Harry Reid towards a Senate rule change that would allow for a majority vote-- something so detested by the demented Cruz-- which would deflate the Senate Republicans' ability to obstruct government to further their ideological and narrow partisan agenda.

How Long Before Half the Gays Will Vote Republican?

Very nice; not for me

There was a time when no self-respecting son of Ireland or Italy, not to mention the children of immigrants from Eastern Europe, would consider voting for he stuffed shirt party of richie rich Republicans. Republicans were class enemies and Democrats were working for the betterment of working families. Republicans backed busting their unions to keep them down, while Democrats helped expand the middle class by passing minimum wage laws, extending the franchise, outlawing child labor, mandating collective bargaining, writing legislation to protect employees at their workplaces, all things the GOP fought tooth and nail. And the result? Millions of the grandchildren of immigrants from Ireland, Italy, Russia, Poland, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany moved up the economic ladder into prosperity and many of them went with the instinct of pulling up that economic ladder with them and... voting for Republicans. It's a cycle and it's worked for the GOP for decades.

And one day, as hard as it is to believe for non-gays now, it will work with gay people as well. In the current issue of Out there's a prominent sidebar on their "Power 50" feature, The Conservative Gay Tipping Point by Jason Farago. "It's too soon to call the GOP gay-friendly," he acknowledges, "but the rise of the pro-gay marriage Republican is a sign of a shift."

The Obama administration’s recent briefs to the Supreme Court against DOMA and Proposition 8 attest to the huge progress gays and lesbians have made in our fight for equality. But another, more unexpected brief may reflect an even greater change. In February, more than 130 Republicans petitioned the court to strike down the discriminatory California amendment-- and asserted that there’s no contradiction between conservative principles and same-sex marriage.

Many of them seem to have had a recent change of heart. Jon Huntsman, the former Utah governor who opposed gay marriage when he ran for president last year, signed the brief. So did Meg Whitman, CEO of Hewlett-Packard, who during her campaign for governor of California said she’d voted for Prop. 8 due to her “faith and conscience.” Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s campaign strategist, is there too, as is Stephen Hadley, George W. Bush’s national security adviser.

The brief’s main engineer was Ken Mehlman (No. 32 on Power List 2013), the gay Republican investment banker who managed Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign, which you may remember for its vicious strategy of demonizing gay Americans to drive evangelical turnout. But with younger voters decisively in favor of gay equality, Republicans have no choice but to adapt, and Mehlman, a consummate GOP insider, is now in the vanguard of an effort to reposition the right as a tolerant force. He’s not the only power player. The lead counselor in the Prop. 8 case is himself a veteran conservative: Ted Olson, who successfully fought Bush’s side in the 2000 Supreme Court case that won him the presidency.

It’s far too soon to call the GOP gay-friendly. Mehlman could find only two sitting members of Congress willing to join the Prop. 8 brief; only one Republican senator, Rob Portman of Ohio, is on the record as personally supporting gay marriage, and even he stopped well short of endorsing a constitutional right to wed. Conservatives still bridle at other political goals shared by many gays, from employment protections to AIDS research to transgender rights. All the same, the rise of the pro–gay marriage Republican is a sign of something: that in less than a decade, our relationships have won broad acceptance and that, at this rate, even the right will soon have more to gain from tolerance than from bias. That may be progress of a cynical sort, but it’s progress all the same.

Progress! Because half the gays would rather be Ward and June Cleaver than live the heroic bohemian life outside the cookie cutter mainstream inherent in what it meant to be gay to Jean Genet or John Rechy. Ah, alienation!

Conservatives say gays "choose" to be gay. That's not completely false. You may be born gay but to a good little Republican, the choice comes in on whether or not you open that closet door. A few days ago we looked at the tragedy of Mississippi Republican Congressman Jon Hinson, one of the dozens of closeted Republican elected officials whose lives were defined by the wrong choice, the only choice permissible for a conservative-- life in a dark, tortured closet. His miserable ending is the only permissible ending for a gay Republican... at least if they want to stay Republican (which really is a choice).

Let's go, Wally!

I acted on my unexplainable, mysterious biological feelings because-- at least in part-- I didn't want to be Ward and June Cleaver. Not ever. Not for one second of my existence. I would rather be an outlaw. I read The Thief's Journal and Querelle by Genet and my fate was sealed. I read Rechy's City of Night and Numbers, started supporting myself as a male prostitute and bought a VW van so I could drive across the country to L.A., specifically to Griffith Park (where, totally coincidentally, I live now). I would have been happy to screw Wally Cleaver when Barbara Billingsley and Hugh Beaumont were at church with Beaver but there was never a day in my life when I wanted to join a church, join an army or get married-- or be a Republican. Enjoy the video; there's no reason it's part of this post... except that it insisted on being included. So what the hell; it's good.

Worse Than Mark Foley-- Today's Thanksgiving Message

Bill Maher and Mark Foley have become friends and Foley has been a guest on his show a few times. I have no idea if Bernie Sanders and Foley ever met when the two of them were congressional colleagues; they traveled in different circles. In fact, when I spoke with Foley recently about switching parties, he had no serious problems with the Democrats' social agenda, but he couldn't hack the economic and fiscal one. He's not exactly a working family kind of guy. Fact of the matter is, I'd bet Bernie Sanders thinks that there are lots of worse things than Mark Foley as well... but that he'd take a different tack on defining what they are than Bill Maher. Bernie, acknowledging the big electoral wins for the Democrats two weeks ago, implores Obama and his party to "make it very clear that they will stand with the middle class and working families of our country. These are the people who, because of the Wall Street-caused recession, have seen a significant decline in their family income. These are the people who worry about whether they can afford health care and whether their kids will be able to attend college. The Democrats in the House and Senate must stand with these people-- not the millionaires and billionaires who are doing just fine."

Most important, in the coming weeks and months, the Democrats must demand that deficit reduction is done in a way that is fair-- and not on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. At a time when real unemployment remains close to 15 percent, we must also focus on creating the millions of jobs that our people need.

In America today, we have the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major country on Earth. Incredibly, the top 1 percent owns 42 percent of the nation’s wealth while the bottom 60 percent owns just 2.3 percent. In the last study done on income distribution, we learned that 93 percent of all new income generated between 2009 and 2010 went to the top 1 percent while the bottom 99 percent split the remaining 7 percent. This extraordinary unfairness is not only morally reprehensible, it is bad economics. It will be very difficult to create the jobs that our people need when so many Americans have little or no money to spend.

Congress must pass legislation to create a major jobs program to put millions of people back to work rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure. Throughout our country, we need a massive effort to improve our roads, bridges, water and wastewater systems, airports, rail, broadband and cellphone service. Rebuilding our infrastructure makes us more productive and internationally competitive-- and creates millions of new jobs.

In terms of deficit reduction, let us not forget that in 2001, when Bill Clinton left office, this country had a $236 billion surplus. As a result of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that were unpaid for, huge tax breaks for the rich, a Medicare prescription drug program put on the credit card and a significant decline in federal revenues because of the recession, we now have a $1 trillion deficit and a $16 trillion national debt.

Congress must address the deficit situation and the fiscal cliff, but we must do it in a way that is fair. At a time when the wealthiest people in this country are doing extremely well and their effective tax rates are low (think Romney), the people on top must pay their fair share of taxes to help us deal with the deficit. We must also end the outrageous loopholes that allow one out of four large profitable corporations to pay nothing in federal corporate income taxes. Further, it is absurd that current tax policy allows the wealthy and large corporations to avoid paying over $100 billion a year in federal taxes because they stash their money in tax havens in the Cayman Islands and elsewhere.

We must also take a hard look at wasteful spending in the Defense Department, where we now spend almost as much money as the rest of the world combined. Significant savings can be found at other federal agencies, too.

What we must not do, however, is move toward a balanced budget on the backs of the elderly, the children, the sick and the poor. Sadly, that is the approach that virtually all Republicans and some Democrats are advocating. As the founder of the Defending Social Security Caucus, I look forward to working with other members of Congress, the AFL-CIO, senior and disability groups and the vast majority of people in our country who want to prevent cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education and other programs vitally important to the working families of America.

In my view, if the Republicans continue to play an obstructionist role, the president should get out of the Oval Office and travel the country. If he does that, I believe that he will find that there is no state in the country, including those that are very red, where people believe that it makes sense to continue giving huge tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires while cutting Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. I have a strong feeling that when large numbers of constituents all across this country start calling and emailing their senators and members of Congress about this issue, the American people will win this fight.

The good news is that we are already beginning to see some Republicans make thoughtful comments showing they understand that elections have consequences. Bill Kristol, the conservative commentator and Weekly Standard editor, said Sunday that the Republican Party should accept new ideas, including the much criticized suggestion by Democrats that taxes be allowed to go up on the wealthy. “It won’t kill the country if we raise taxes a little bit on millionaires,” he said on Fox News Sunday. “It really won’t, I don’t think. I don’t really understand why Republicans don’t take Obama’s offer.”

Kristol is right. At a time when the gap between the very rich and everybody else is growing wider, common sense and justice require the people who are doing extremely well financially to help us in a significant way to reduce deficits.

Is Marco Rubio Really A Bigger Idiot Than Mark Pryor?

All day yesterday people were making fun of Marco Rubio for his idiotic comments to GQ about how old the earth is. Basically, he didn't want to get into that debate-- "I'm not a scientist"-- because Hate Talk Radio, Fox News and the Bronze Age religionist fanatics who control much of his political party will not countenance anyone veering from their fairytale about how the Earth was created in 6 days 5 thousand years ago. Personally, I was more interested in his unlikely comments about Public Enemy, Tupac and Pitbull:

But as Krugman pointed out on his Times blog a few hours later, Rubio's science and evolution denial is a serious matter... particularly for someone who's been in Iowa as much as in his home state recently.

As I like to say, the GOP doesn’t just want to roll back the New Deal; it wants to roll back the Enlightenment.

But here’s what you should realize: when Rubio says that the question of the Earth’s age “has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow,” he’s dead wrong. For one thing, science and technology education has a lot to do with our future productivity-- and how are you going to have effective science education if schools have to give equal time to the views of fundamentalist Christians?

More broadly, the attitude that discounts any amount of evidence-- and boy, do we have lots of evidence on the age of the planet!-- if it conflicts with prejudices is not an attitude consistent with effective policy. If you’re going to ignore what geologists say if you don’t like its implications, what are the chances that you’ll take sensible advice on monetary and fiscal policy? After all, we’ve just seen how Republicans deal with research reports that undermine their faith in the magic of tax cuts: they try to suppress the reports.

I’m belatedly reading Chris Mooney’s The Republican Brain; if truth be told, I was afraid that the book would be too much red meat for my own predispositions, and wanted to keep my cool. But Mooney actually makes a very good point: the personality traits we associate with modern conservatism, above all a lack of openness, make the modern GOP fundamentally hostile to the very idea of objective inquiry. If they want your opinion, they’ll tell you what it is; doubters of orthodoxy need not apply, and will in fact be persecuted.

But fret and laugh all you want about Rubio, in 2014 the most endangered Democrat up for reelection is a right-wing goofball from Arkansas with the same mentality-- but in a party where that mentality isn't de rigueur. Yes, Mark Pryor, the senator who at least admits that there's no IQ test required of Senate candidates. Watch this... it's as goofy as Rubio-- especially the very last frames when he suddenly remembers he's being filmed:

37... Our Right To Know What They're Feeding Us-- It's Not Soylent Green, Right?

Last week the L.A. City Council unanimously endorsed Prop 37, the one that would force food manufacturers to reveal whether or not they're sneaking genetically engineered ingredients into food being sold in grocery stores and other markets. “It's not often that the LA City Council votes unanimously to support a measure, but Prop 37 was a no-brainer. We have the right to know what's in the food we're eating and feeding our families," said Councilmember Paul Koretz. "I'm proud to be a part of this true grassroots campaign in our struggle against the biggest pesticide and junk food companies in the world." The L.A. City Council joined all the progressive elected officials in southern California, from Senator Barbara Boxer to Congressmembers Barbara Lee, Maxine Waters, Judy Chu, and Brad Sherman in endorsing Prop 37.

The Pesticide and junk food industries are spending over a million dollars a day on false and misleading ads and seem to be turning around public opinion and persuading low-info voters that they don't need to be told what kind of garbage and potentially dangerous crap they're being fed. The Yes on Prop 37 have finally cobbled together the money they needed to put together their own response ad (above) and they're up on TV too now. There's also the PSA that Bill Maher did (below) that's starting to get some TV play.

There have been persistent rumors about Dennis Kucinich moving to L.A. after this current session of Congress is over. His wife is an actress and he's going to honor her wish to live in L.A. The fact that his political action committee sent out an e-mail asking his supporters to back Prop 37 lends credence to the rumor.

You have the right to know what you're eating.

Why should big corporations get to decide what to tell you about the food that you and your family eat?

That's your right. And this election, you have a chance to affirm it. We need to pass Prop 37 in California.

Proposition 37 requires labels on all food made from plants or animals with any genetically modified ingredients. And it would prohibit marketing these foods, including processed foods, as "natural." It's giving consumers a choice, and it's simple and honest.

Throughout my career in Congress, I have been a leading advocate for regulating genetically engineered food. I have led the charge for over a decade with a steadfast commitment to consumer choice and awareness and the public's right to know. I was the original sponsor of the Genetically Engineered Food Right to Know Act-- a bill which would create national standards for labeling and a legal framework to ensure its accuracy.

Prop 37 is a step in the right direction for California and, like many initiatives, would set an example for the rest of the country.

The sad truth is that the United States is already far behind other nations in ensuring the safety of genetically modified foods and providing consumers with easy access to information before they purchase food.

Consumers deserve the right to know-- just like they do in the European Union, Japan-- even in Russia and China.

Proposition 37 respects the rights of consumers and places the public interests above the special interests.

It is no surprise that big business is aggressively funding a campaign to defeat Prop 37. They don't want consumers to make informed choices. Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative-- this should be a no-brainer for all of us: let the people decide what they want to buy, what they want to eat, and what they want to feed their families.

So, please vote YES on Proposition 37 on November 6. And if you are an absentee voter, make sure to fill out your ballot and return it to your local board of elections.

Remember, the corporations that oppose the right of consumers to know what's in their food are pulling every dirty trick in the book-– from inventing a false title for their top science spokesman (who is well known among actual scientists as a mentally unbalanced, greed-obsessed and deranged anti-science radical), to making up newspaper endorsements and even fabricating quotes from the U.S. government. These opposition ads have been rated “mostly untrue” and “misleading” by newspaper fact checkers.

German Style Austerity Has Failed In Europe... So Why Are Romney, Ryan And The GOP Trying To Import It Here?

Back in the 1930's there were dozens of Republican congressmen who looked at Hitler's achievements and Mussolini's achievements in Europe and wanted nothing more than to import fascism to the United States. Many American industrialists and plutocrats were willing to finance those endeavors. The extreme right in this country has always been fascinated by fascism-- and has always found oligarchs, from the DuPonts and J.P. Morgan to the Koch brothers to put up the cash to undermine democracy. And this treason has never been punished. It continues today because no one was ever held accountable. That's the way a system of, by and for the one percent works.

Sunday Paul Krugman continued his attempt to educate NY Times readers about the abject failure of Austerity in Europe. Keep in mind that there's a reason why Krugman won a Nobel Prize for Economics and why Republican Budget Chairman and Ayn Rand disciple Paul Ryan couldn't win a debate in front of an 8th grade class about the same subject. Sunday his worry was with David Cameron's economically foundering Britain, which is foolishly "choosing to emulate both the United States and the troubled nations of Europe when it doesn’t have to-- all in the name of an economic theory that was foolish two years ago, and completely discredited now." But Krugman did an even better job last week destroying the underpinnings of German-style Austerity-- as practiced by, for example, failed Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker-- in an appearance on Bill Maher's Real Time. Watch Krugman eviscerate ridiculous right-wing ideologue Arthur Laffer:



Krugman explains all you need to know about Austerity and even Laffer, starts off acknowledging he was right before going off into a crackpot right-wing ideological fantasy that has proven itself inadequate to solve real world problems whenever it has been tried. Laffer: "Paul's completely right; we are in a depression. This has been the longest, worst recovery ever. It's just terrible." He should have quit right there because nothing else he said was worth a bucket of spit... and he gave Krugman the opportunity to remind everyone that Republicans and Gordon Gekko were wrong about greed being good. "The fact of the matter is, there's no evidence of that. Where was the productivity surge? It never happened. Where were the big gains for workers? That never happened. All that happened was that a few people-- some of them running for president-- made a lot of money... and a lot of that money came, effectively, from breaking contracts."

Yesterday, Krugman's Times column was all about big fiscal phonies, particularly Paul Ryan and Chris Christie.

The attack of the fiscal phonies has been mainly a national rather than a state issue, with Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, as the prime example. As regular readers of this column know, Mr. Ryan has somehow acquired a reputation as a stern fiscal hawk despite offering budget proposals that, far from being focused on deficit reduction, are mainly about cutting taxes for the rich while slashing aid to the poor and unlucky. In fact, once you strip out Mr. Ryan’s “magic asterisks”-- claims that he will somehow increase revenues and cut spending in ways that he refuses to specify-- what you’re left with are plans that would increase, not reduce, federal debt.

The same can be said of Mitt Romney, who claims that he will balance the budget but whose actual proposals consist mainly of huge tax cuts (for corporations and the wealthy, of course) plus a promise not to cut defense spending.

Both Mr. Ryan and Mr. Romney, then, are fake deficit hawks. And the evidence for their fakery isn’t just their bad arithmetic; it’s the fact that for all their alleged deep concern over budget gaps, that concern isn’t sufficient to induce them to give up anything-- anything at all-- that they and their financial backers want. They’re willing to snatch food from the mouths of babes (literally, via cuts in crucial nutritional aid programs), but that’s a positive from their point of view-- the social safety net, says Mr. Ryan, should not become “a hammock that lulls able-bodied people to lives of dependency and complacency.” Maintaining low taxes on profits and capital gains, and indeed cutting those taxes further, are, however, sacrosanct.

Tommy Thompson... Serial Apologist

Tommy Thompson, who's running for the open Wisconsin Senate seat, will have just passed his 71st birthday on election day-- if he gets through a cutthroat primary of extreme right wing zealots also looking for that career step. He's leading the GOP field-- although is the third choice among Tea Party Republicans-- primarily because Wisconsin Republicans remember him as their 4-term governor (1987-2001)... and for his role in creating the BadgerCare health system, anathema to modern-day Republicans of the Paul Ryan school of Law of the Jungle Republicans. Running against the pack of extremists-- who are packed by shady, big money, far right groups-- Thompson has been pushed uncomfortably to the right, much the way Romney was pushed ever rightward-- and is now unacceptable to mainstream Americans-- by Gingrich, Bachmann, Perry, Santorum, Cain, et al. Lately Thompson has taken to blasting President Obama for apologizing on behalf of the United States for the inadvertent burning of a Koran in Afghanistan by the American government.

As our friends at American Bridge pointed out to us, Thompson knows a lot about apologizing. Last time he ran for office-- president, I think-- he was forced to apologize for offensive comments to both Jews and the LGBT community. The President was fulfilling his duty as chief executive of the U.S. government in a diplomatic capacity. What was Tommy's excuse?

A faulty hearing aid, a cold, fatigue, a leaky bladder... anything but pandering to the nuts in his own party.

His Jewish problem stems from a 2007 series of clumsy boo-boos that offended Jewish leaders. He said making money is “part of the Jewish tradition,” called Israel Bonds “Jewish Bonds” and the Anti-Defamation League the “Jewish Defense League” at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism’s biennial Consultation on Conscience.

Ironically, though, it was one speaker’s botched joke about the stereotypical lack of poverty among Jews that ended up drawing a great deal of attention. Republican presidential candidate Tommy Thompson began his speech by saying that after 38 years in government, the former Wisconsin governor was for the first time in the private sector and earning money. That, he said, is ‘sort of part of the Jewish tradition, and I do not find anything wrong with that. I enjoy that.’ Once Thompson finished his half-hour talk, RAC director Rabbi David Saperstein alerted him to the crowd’s murmurings. Returning to the podium, the former Secretary of Health and Human Services said he didn’t "want to infer or imply anything about Jews and finances." He said, rather, that he was referring to "the accomplishments of the Jewish religion and the Jewish people. You have been outstanding business people and I compliment you for that and if anybody took what I said wrong, I apologize. I may have mischaracterized it. You are very successful. I applaud you for that."

He seemed bent out of shape when reporters questioned him about this later.

"I was tired, I made a mistake and I apologized," Thompson told a group of Politico reporters and editors in an interview.

"Have you ever made a mistake?," a testy Thompson demanded of this reporter.

Right around the same time, he was onto insulting gays and lesbians with his conservative stereotypes, claiming in a debate that employers who didn't like gays should be allowed to fire them without cause. That's patently illegal. As you can see in the video up top, he said it was because of a faulty hearing aid. The Associated Press also reported it was because he had to go pee-pee.

Tommy Thompson cited a dead hearing aid and an urgent need to use the bathroom in explaining on Saturday why he said at a GOP presidential debate that an employer should be allowed to fire a gay worker. Speaking to reporters after giving an address at the state GOP convention, Thompson also said he was suffering from the flu and bronchitis and had been admitted to a hospital emergency room three days prior to the May 3 debate. "Nobody knows that," Thompson said. "I’ve been very sick... I was very sick the day of the debate. I had all of the problems with the flu and bronchitis that you have, including running to the bathroom. I was just hanging on. I could not wait until the debate got off so I could go to the bathroom."

He also said he's deaf in one ear and the hearing aid in the other ear went dead. What a mess-- just like his campaign. He soon withdrew... without a ripple. So now he wants to run for the Senate seat left open by retiring Democrat Herb Kohl. Kohl immediately endorsed Rep. Tammy Baldwin, who-- if she wins in November-- will be the first woman to hold a Senate seat from Wisconsin and the first openly gay person ever elected to the U.S. Senate from anywhere. If you'd like to make sure it's Tammy who holds that seat-- and not lumbering old Tommy Thompson, you can contribute to her campaign at the Blue America ActBlue page here.

Here's the ad the far right Club For Growth Is currently running in Wisconsin:

Alan Grayson Today

I'm not a huge Bill Maher fan, although I liked Religulous a lot. I wasn't a huge Anthony Weiner fan, although I liked his partisan fighting spirit, even if I distrusted the underlying ideological commitment. And I'm not a big fan of money bombs. I'm glad that Alan Grayson's money bomb this past weekend was hugely successful, even surpassing his goal. He surpassed his goal because... well, Bill Maher got it right in the video above. "He's got big ones. It's what we need someone to yank the debate back to what the center should be. And that is Mr. Alan Grayson." Maher hit it out of the park on that one. And I very much do trust Grayson's underlying ideological commitment. I don't like money bombs because I don't like manufactured deadlines. I don't even like birthdays or Christmases or Valentine's Days. I LOVE giving presents to people, but not on predetermined days. I give them presents when I'm moved to do so.

Blue America operates because people contribute when they're moved to contribute, rather than because of a phony DCCC deadline or a slightly less phony FEC deadline or because of a fun money bomb deadline. Watching Maher's comments about Grayson's ability to yank the debate back towards the center, reminded me again how important it is to elect Alan and other strong progressives to the House and Senate, not just because the Republicans have hijacked the center and moved it over the right field fence... and into the dump beyond, but because President Obama is so conflicted and so ill-advised (Rouse is way better than Daley, but a random dog off the street would be way better than Daley, a contemptible 1%-er and Rahm's perfect successor) that he could be the worst political negotiator in American political history.

Maher may be dreaming that Grayson runs for the White House some day. I'm less ambitious. Power inside Congress is all I'm asking. (How ironic it would be for a bold and aggressive progressive like Grayson to be the first Jewish Speaker, something Rahm always coveted, as does the female version, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, each of whom would be just another garden variety tool of the 1% holding down the legitimate aspirations of working families. In other words, the opposite of what Alan Grayson is all about.

Yeah, so his money bomb is over-- but his campaign for Congress has another 364 days to go. Please help if you can. Yesterday there were reports of progressive life on Capitol Hill, exactl;y the kind of thing we need Grayson driving. I'll believe this when I see it all the way through but...

Democratic leaders are signaling to worried colleagues and their party’s base that they are now in charge of deficit-reduction talks and will be tougher negotiators than President Obama.
 
Senate Democratic Policy Committee Chairman Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) made it clear that congressional Democrats would not accept what they consider a “bad deal” from the supercommittee.

...Many Democrats, especially liberals, have a dismal view of Obama’s negotiating skills after he cut a deal in December to extend virtually all of the Bush-era tax cuts and another in August to slash spending by $900 billion and set up the deficit-reduction supercommittee.
 
Democratic leaders are telling GOP leaders that they’re not going to win this time by digging in their heels.
 
“This is all about political will. Everyone knows where cuts and revenues can come from. You’re never going to convince the Republicans to summon the political will to buck Grover Norquist unless you stare them in the eyes and say you’re not going to blink first,” said a Democratic leadership aide, referring to conservative activist Grover Norquist, president of American’s for Tax Reform.
 
Nearly every Republican in Congress has signed Norquist’s Taxpayer Protection Pledge, which requires them to oppose all legislation that raises taxes.
 
“They’ll rethink their position that they can just wait us out. We make no apologies on insisting on a balanced deal,” said the Democratic congressional aide. 
 
Obama appeared poised to stare down Republican leaders during talks in late July to raise the debt limit. He dressed down House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) at one meeting and warned him bluntly: “Don’t call my bluff.”
 
In the end, however, the president agreed to a deal that many Democrats saw as a big giveaway.
 
Obama agreed to nearly $1 trillion in cuts and set up a joint select committee to find another $1.2 worth of savings in exchange for raising the debt limit-- a routine action in previous Congresses. Former President George W. Bush raised the limit seven times with little pushback from Congress.
 
House Republicans were left chortling in victory.
 
Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he got “98 percent of what I wanted.”
 
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Republicans called Obama’s bluff and won.
 
“President Obama reportedly warned Republican leaders not to call his bluff by sending him a bill without tax increases. Republicans in Congress ignored this threat and passed a bill that cuts more than a dollar in spending for every dollar it increases the debt limit, without raising taxes,” Ryan wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Aug. 3. “Yesterday, Mr. Obama signed this bill into law. He was, as he said, bluffing.”

Robert Borosage, co-director of Campaign for America’s Future, said the debt limit deal “was an unbelievable set of concessions” from Democrats.

“It had $900 billion in cuts, no revenues and no growth. It set up a committee to do more. All at a time when we thought you should be arguing about jobs,” Borosage said, reflecting the view of many liberal activists.

Obama has stayed away from the supercommittee’s deliberations and Democratic congressional leaders are now hewing more closely to what members of their party want.

Leaders have demanded that Republicans on the supercommittee agree to substantial tax increases and are refusing to back down.
 
At the same time, they are pounding Republicans on the issue of jobs. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has forced Republicans to vote several times on jobs legislation-- including funding for teachers, first responders and infrastructure-- paid for by slightly increasing the tax rate on income over $1 million.

Granted, liberal activists and labor leaders were not happy with the compromise offer from Democrats on the supercommittee, but that was a trial balloon floated to show that Republicans were staunchly opposed to raising taxes in exchange for entitlement reform.

Mike Lux, a Democratic strategists who works with liberal and labor groups, said Democrats are now more unified than they were during negotiations to raise the debt limit or extend the expiring Bush tax cuts.

“I think Democrats are now united in playing tougher and being tougher negotiators with the Republicans. There was difference of opinion about how things were done in the past,” said Lux. “I think it’s great that Democrats have come together and said we’re going to be tough negotiators.”

I think Bill Maher and I (not to mention Lux) could find common ground on this-- if Grayson were part of these negotiations, he'd stiffen a lot of spines on the side of working families-- and that's something Democrats in Washington desperately need.