The White House Has A Serious Bully Problem-- Even Beyond Standing Up For LGBT Youth

I know that not everyone has studied-- or paid attention to-- history and some people may look blankly on mention of the Sudetenland, the Munich Conference, Neville Chamberlain and Czechoslovakia. In Frank Capra's documentary, above, Hitler assures Europe that the sliver of Czechoslovakia bordering Germany is "the last territorial claim" he had to make in Europe. Watch Chamberlain-- now a universally despised and loathsome figure-- declaring he "had achieved peace in our times" by giving in to Hitler. History-oriented Democrats could not have helped but think of the scene when they saw Obama celebrating his capitulation to a laughable John Boehner Friday night. Though it's ironic that this comes in the midst of the White House's anti-bullying campaign, lets have a look, for example, at what Robert Reich had to say about the efficacy of placating bullies Saturday. Is there anyone who doesn't have a personal story like Reich's cupcake war?

When I was a small boy I was bullied more than most, mainly because I was a foot shorter than everyone else. They demanded the cupcake my mother had packed in my lunchbox, or, they said, they’d beat me up. After a close call in the boy’s room, I paid up. Weeks later, they demanded half my sandwich as well. I gave in to that one, too. But I could see what was coming next. They’d demand everything else. Somewhere along the line I decided I’d have a take a stand. The fight wasn’t pleasant. But the bullies stopped their bullying.

I hope the President decides he has to take a stand, and the sooner the better. Last December he caved in to Republican demands that the Bush tax cut be extended to wealthier Americans for two more years, at a cost of more than $60 billion. That was only the beginning-- the equivalent of my cupcake.

Last night he gave away more than half the sandwich-- $39 billion less than was budgeted for 2010, $79 billion less than he originally requested. Non-defense discretionary spending-- basically, everything from roads and bridges to schools and innumerable programs for the poor-- has been slashed.

The right-wing bullies are emboldened. They will hold the nation hostage again and again.
In a few weeks the debt ceiling has to be raised. After that, next year’s budget has to be decided on. House Budget Chair Paul Ryan has already put forward proposals to turn Medicare into vouchers that funnel money to private insurance companies, turn Medicaid and Food Stamps into block grants that give states discretion to shift them to the non-poor, and give even more big tax cuts to the rich.

There will also be Republican votes to de-fund the new health care law.

“Americans of different beliefs came together,” the President announced after agreement was reached. It was the “largest spending cut in our history.” He sounded triumphant. In fact, he’s encouraging the bullies onward.

All the while, he and the Democratic leadership in Congress refuse to refute the Republicans’ big lie-- that spending cuts will lead to more jobs. In fact, spending cuts now will lead to fewer jobs. They’ll slow down an already-anemic recovery. That will cause immense and unnecessary suffering for millions of Americans.

The President continues to legitimize the Republican claim that too much government spending caused the economy to tank, and that by cutting back spending we’ll get the economy going again.

Even before the bullies began hammering him his deficit commission already recommended $3 of spending cuts for every dollar of tax increase. Then the President froze non-defense domestic spending and froze federal pay. And he continues to draw the false analogy between a family’s budget and the national budget.

He is losing the war of ideas because he won’t tell the American public the truth: That we need more government spending now-- not less-- in order to get out of the gravitational pull of the Great Recession.

That we got into the Great Recession because Wall Street went bonkers and government failed to do its job at regulating financial markets. And that much of the current deficit comes from the necessary response to that financial crisis.

That the only ways to deal with the long-term budget problem is to demand that the rich pay their fair share of taxes, and to slow down soaring health-care costs.

And that, at a deeper level, the increasingly lopsided distribution of income and wealth has robbed the vast working middle class of the purchasing power they need to keep the economy going at full capacity.

“We preserved the investments we need to win the future,” he said last night. That’s not true. The budget he just approved will cut Pell grants to poor kids, while states continue massive cutbacks in school spending-- firing tens of thousands of teachers and raising fees at public universities. The budget he approved is cruel to the nation’s working class and poor.

It is impossible to fight bullies merely by saying they’re going too far.

But was Obama's back against the wall? Or was the celebrating actually real because this is the outcome he wanted all along? Today at noon, 5 of the Democrats from New York City who voted against Obama's and Boehner's compromise-- Jerry Nadler, Charlie Rangel, Carolyn Maloney, Eliot Engel and Anthony Weiner-- are holding a press conference on the steps of City Hall, along with civic leaders to "protest imminent federal spending cuts that will slash tens of billions of dollars from vital national programs, decimate funding for New York’s hardworking community organizations, cut jobs and services, and destabilize local neighborhoods during the ongoing recession. With the imposition of an extremist GOP social and economic agenda, local leaders will address the real world cost of the planned cuts... Among the hundreds of critical local programs that will be drastically cut are:
 

• Community Development Block Grants, which provide vital services to low and moderate-income families and communities across the city.  The grants fund career training, homeless shelters, assistance for victims of crimes, and help preserve affordable housing, among many other initiatives.

• Community Services Block Grants, which fight poverty, fund programs for youth, seniors, immigrants, and families, and spur community development.

• Workforce Investment Act, which provides job training and placement for tens of thousands of New Yorkers.

• Title I funding for Education for low-income kids.

• Head Start, which provides free childcare and educational programs for pre-school and kindergarten-aged kids.

• Child Care Development Block Grants, which provide childcare for low-income families.

• Women, Infants and Children (WIC), which provides food assistance, health care referrals, and nutrition education for low-income women, infants and children.

• Public Housing Capital Fund, which funds major capital needs for the New York City Housing Authority.

Are these Democratic leaders, each of whom is far more experienced politically than Barack Obama-- not to mention far more progressive-- correct? Or did Obama have no choice? Was he up against the wall? Even Charlie Cook, the voice of mediocre Beltway conventional wisdom, thinks the Republicans have overplayed their hand and alienated voters with their extremism, giving our famous poker-playing president a strong position... if he wanted it.

One of the biggest and most frequent mistakes in politics is for a party to misread its mandate. When it happens, independent and swing voters get angry and punish a candidate or a party on Election Day. Because American politics is a zero-sum game, punishing one party means rewarding the other party-- even when the latter is not necessarily deserving of support. Frequently, the party that benefits from the spanking mistakenly interprets it to mean that the public is embracing every aspect of its agenda. Republicans shouldn’t forget that their party had dismal favorable/unfavorable poll ratings last fall. They won because they weren’t Democrats.

There is no question that the Republican base, conservatives, and supporters of the tea party want to take a meat ax to government spending. When Republican congressional members return home and meet with their constituents, they are encouraged to vote against continuing resolutions and for deep spending cuts. These supporters have intensity, and they adamantly oppose any compromise with Democrats.

It would be a blunder, however, to think that such views drove the election. Republicans, conservatives, and tea partiers did not throw Republicans out of their House and Senate majorities in 2006, and they did not vote to increase the size of the Democratic majorities and elect Barack Obama president in 2008.

Independent voters were the ones who cast their ballots for Democrats by an 18-point margin in 2006 because they were mad at President Bush and upset about the war in Iraq, not to mention Republican scandals and the general performance of the GOP Congress. Two years later, these same voters were still angry at the president, were afraid of the financial crisis, and didn’t care for GOP presidential nominee John McCain.

In 2010, these independent voters were unimpressed by the economic-stimulus package, didn’t like cap-and-trade environmental regulation, and really didn’t like the Democratic health care package. Those over or approaching 65 years of age also feared that health care reform would erode Medicare benefits. Even those unaffected by the reforms rallied to defend Medicare.

Polling is very clear. Most voters want to see the federal budget balanced and spending cut. However, they don’t want Social Security, Medicare, or Medicaid touched, and, oh yes, they don’t want taxes increased. Now, anyone with an IQ over room temperature knows that all of this is impossible. Spending on Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, along with interest on the national debt, amounts to approximately half the federal budget.

There is no doubt that significant budget cutting is necessary and that Medicare and Medicaid must be reformed. No one can doubt the courage or sincerity of House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis. But it’s little short of suicidal to drop a Medicare reform package-- even a voucher plan that would be optional for those currently older than 55-- into tough budget negotiations stymied over Republican demands for deep spending cuts. Democrats have some experience with older voters going ballistic, even with changes that wouldn’t affect them.

For many seniors, doing anything to Medicare that can’t be portrayed as an increase is essentially a cut, and they will fight it to their last breath. From a political standpoint, Medicare reform is very dangerous territory. House Republicans are not just pushing the envelope-- they are soaking it with lighter fluid and waving a match at it.

One can understand why Republicans are pushing so hard. Their base is demanding that they do so. And if congressional Republicans resist, many of them can look forward to primary opposition next year. But it seems that GOP members of Congress have become so consumed with pleasing their base that they are ignoring general-election voters and the independents who drive the wild gyrations in American politics.

Congressional Republicans would be well advised to pay attention to the results of the latest Pew Research Center poll (conducted March 30 to April 3 among 1,057 adults) that asked Americans whether they would prefer that their lawmakers stand by their principles even if it meant that the government would shut down, or whether they would rather have their lawmakers compromise on a budget even if they didn’t agree with it. Among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents who agree with the tea party movement, 68 percent said they would rather have a lawmaker who stands by his or her principles. But among all Republicans, only 50 percent said stand by their principles, while 43 percent said compromise. Among all adults, 55 percent said compromise; among independents, 53 percent said compromise, with 36 percent siding with the principles option.

The bottom line: GOP primary voters are very different from general-election voters. It would be a very shortsighted strategy for Republican members-- especially those in swing districts-- to focus too much on primary voters. A lot of Democrats did the same thing in 2009 and 2010. Many are now former members of Congress.

Perhaps Neville Obama Should Be Talking Reconciliation Instead Of Caving In To The Beast

You know the famous 1938 "Peace For Our Time" tableau of Conservative British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain returning from a meeting with Germany's right-wing populist, Adolph Hitler? That was on September 30 and Chamberlain made a speech about his successful talks with the Germans:

"My good friends, this is the second time in our history that there has come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. And now I recommend you to go home and sleep quietly in your beds."

The following day, October 1, German troops flooded into Czechoslovakia, occupied the Sudetenland as a prelude to devouring the entire country and subjecting it to a brutal, racist colonization.

After meeting with the Republican leadership on Tuesday, conservative President Barack Obama issued a press statement that included similar delusional optimism about a deadly and ruthless enemy that is no less determined to destroy democracy than Hitler was:

I just wrapped up a meeting with leaders from both parties. It was our first chance to get together face to face since the election to talk about how we can best work together to move the country forward.

It’s no secret that we have had differences that have led us to part ways on many issues in the past. But we are Americans first, and we share a responsibility for the stewardship of our nation. The American people did not vote for gridlock. They didn’t vote for unyielding partisanship. They’re demanding cooperation and they’re demanding progress. And they’ll hold all of us-- and I mean all of us-- accountable for it. And I was very encouraged by the fact that there was broad recognition of that fact in the room.

I just want to say I thought it was a productive meeting. I thought that people came to it with a spirit of trying to work together. And I think it’s a good start as we move forward.

I think everybody understands that the American people want us to focus on their jobs, not ours. They want us to come together around strategies to accelerate the recovery and get Americans back to work. They want us to confront the long-term deficits that cloud our future. They want us to focus on their safety and security, and not allow matters of urgent importance to become locked up in the politics of Washington.

So today we had the beginning of a new dialogue that I hope-- and I’m sure most Americans hope-- will help break through the noise and produce real gains. And, as we all agreed, that should begin today because there’s some things we need to get done in the weeks before Congress leaves town for the holidays.

The following day, as ritually enraged as ever, the Republicans responded with what Andrew Sullivan termed their scorched earth policy,a threat to block everything that comes before Congress until their millionaire and billionaire supporters are given tax cuts that will devastate the middle class for years.

What we've observed these past two years is a political party that knows nothing but scorched earth tactics, cannot begin to see any merits in the other party's arguments, refuses to compromise one inch on anything, and has sought from the very beginning to do nothing but destroy the Obama presidency. I see no other coherent message or strategy since 2008. Just opposition to everything, zero support for a president grappling with a recession their own party did much to precipitate, and facing a fiscal crisis the GOP alone made far worse with their spending in the Bush-Cheney years. There is not a scintilla of responsibility for their past; not a sliver of good will for a duly elected president. Worse, figures like Cantor and McCain actively seek to back foreign governments against the duly elected president of their own country, and seek to repeal the signature policy achievement of Obama's first two years, universal healthcare.

I know it is the opposition's role to oppose. But the sheer scale and absolutism of the opposition, and its continuation in the lame duck session, even over such small but integral reforms such as the new START and DADT repeal, is remarkable.

The two parties are evenly spread in this 50-50 country, but only one can brook no compromise in its accelerating rush to the far right. And that is what it seems we have to contemplate for the next two years - total paralysis in the face of urgent problems as part of a game of cynical partisan brinkmanship. They simply cannot bear that another party might actually have a role to play in government.

This is not conservatism, properly understood, a disposition that respects the institutions and traditions of government, that can give as well as take, that seeks the national interest before partisan concerns, and that respects both the other branches of government and seeks to work with them. These people are not conservatives in this core civilized sense; they are partisan vandals.

Steve Benen, writing in the Washington Monthly summed up what everyone-- save perhaps Obama himself-- was seeing: "In practical terms, this means that the Senate Republican caucus will join arms and kill literally every piece of legislation in the lame-duck session-- New START, funding U.S. troops, the DREAM Act, etc.-- until the government is fully funded and they're satisfied with the outcome of the debate on tax policy."

Although Debbie Stabbenow bravely told Rachel Maddow that Democrats are ready to fight, even if it means letting all the Bush tax cuts expire, no one thinks the Democrats in the Senate have the balls to follow through-- or even necessarily the inclination. If they were they would simply pass the middle class tax cuts through reconciliation with a 51 vote majority and wouldn't even have to kiss up to reactionaries like Ben Nelson, the two Walton Family-owned Arkansans or the insidious Mainers.



The threat of reconciliation is what should have been front and center in all the newspapers today. It's what Limbaugh and Hannity and Herr Beck should have all been talking about, rending their hair and tearing their clothes. Instead, as usual, the rightists were setting the messaging tone which had the Democrats-- who control the Presidency, the Senate and the House, on the defensive and hiding under their desks while the Republican minorities go on a rampage. Sickening.

Not even 24 hours after President Obama met with senior Republican Congressional leaders and expressed hopes for a “new dialogue,” renewed partisan fury engulfed the Senate on Wednesday, as Republicans threatened to block any legislation until a deal is reached to extend the expiring Bush-era tax cuts, potentially derailing the Democrats’ busy end-of-year agenda.

The blunt threat was made in a letter to the majority leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, and signed by all 42 Senate Republicans. And it was reiterated by the Republican leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, in a speech in which he accused Democratic leaders and Mr. Obama of ignoring the midterm election results.

The move put Democrats in a vise and sharply heightened tensions on Capitol Hill, where administration officials and senior lawmakers from both the House and Senate opened the first round of talks in hopes of reaching an accord on the expiring tax cuts. Officials reported no progress in those talks, and the Senate Republicans’ threat suggested they had little appetite for compromise.

If Congress does not act by the end of the year, the lower rates expire for everyone, an outcome neither side wants.

The Republican maneuver came just as Senate Democrats seemed within reach of the votes needed to authorize repeal of the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on gay service members. The Republican blockade stalls debate on the military policy bill containing the repeal language, and it casts a long shadow over numerous bills awaiting action in Congress, including efforts to extend jobless benefits for millions of Americans about to lose them.

It also complicates the chances of ratification of the New Start arms treaty with Russia that is a major priority for the White House, and it could prevent Mr. Reid from fulfilling a major promise of his re-election campaign, to try again to pass a bill that would create a path to citizenship for some illegal immigrants brought to the United States as children.

“For the past two years, Democrat leaders in Washington have spent virtually all their time ticking off items on the liberal wish list while they’ve had the chance,” Mr. McConnell said. “Here we are, just a few weeks left in the session, and they’re still at it. Last month, the American people issued their verdict on the Democrats’ priorities. Democrats have responded by doubling down.”

Mr. McConnell’s announcement of an all-out blockade came just a day after he applauded Senator Christopher R. Dodd, the retiring Connecticut Democrat, for a farewell address in which Mr. Dodd called for greater civility and cooperation among lawmakers. His announcement drew howls of anger from Democrats who said it was just the latest evidence of Republican obstructionism.

To emphasize their point, Democrats went to the floor and attempted to bring up numerous bills, including a measure to extend jobless benefits and a measure to promote clean energy. On behalf of his colleagues, Senator John Barrasso, Republican of Wyoming, repeatedly voiced objections, blocking the bills and prompting a furious speech by Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri.

“If anybody’s been paying attention, they would understand that our friends across the aisle have been blocking everything, including motherhood and apple pie for the last year,” Ms. McCaskill said. She derided Mr. Barrasso for accusing the Democrats of engaging in theater. “Theater is having 42 senators say we will not participate unless you do what we want to do today,” she said. “That’s theater.”

Ms. McCaskill added, “What you are seeing on this side right now is a healthy dose of indignation on behalf of the American people that are hurting.”

And this is the kind of psychosis dominating the debate on the far right, as mass e-mails like this flood the carefully built up propaganda lists:

The Daily Show's Jason Jones goes to "Pundit School"

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Pundit School

Barack Obama Interview
John McCain Interview

Sarah Palin Video
Funny Election Video

"It was a circumstance where I should have Wikipedia-ed Neville Chamberlain."

-- budding wingnut broadcasting megastar Kevin James (you remember him -- the guy who got publicly pantsed by, of all people, Chris "Tweety" Matthews), to Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones in Monday's "Pundit School" segment

"That guy's got great hair."

-- Jason Jones, in the same segment, the guy in question being star pundit Ann Coulter

by Ken

I know you folks out there live to watch video clips, so if you didn't see Monday night's Daily Show, I'm going to have to insist that you drop whatever it is you're doing and watch this clip. You're studying for a big test, you say? So is the test going to go away if you watch some stinking five-minute comedy clip? The baby is crying, you say? And he/she won't still be crying five minutes from now? Come on, people, suck it up!

I have to say that I'm not normally a great fan of Jason Jones among the Daily Show correspondents. But his investigation of an honest-to-gosh "Pundit School," produced by Glenn Clements and Asaf Kastner, ranks with the funniest and most brilliant pieces the show has ever done.

The focus is Kevin James, the guy who got himself the national spotlight by accusing presidential candidate Barack Obama of Nevile Chamberlain-style appeasement (after Obama said that he would talk to foreign leaders), then going on and having not a clue when Chris Matthews persisted in asking, "What did Chamberlain do?" As Jason, trying to find out from Kevin just how horrible his Hardball experience was, helpfully prompts him: "It looked like you got your pants pulled down and spanked on national TV."

It turns out, though, that Jason is wrong. Pundit school operator Jess Todtfeld sets him straight. To him, our Kevin's got it all: energy, enthusiasm, hand gestures -- you name it. "But he doesn't know anything," Jason objects. As Jess explains, that doesn't matter.

Then we see "Ado Annie" Coulter doing the Neville Chamberlain riff but turning it into a saturation bombing assault. This is obviously punditocratic greatness. Annie's got it all: great energy, action words, the whole ball of wax.

"I tell you what else is great," Jason says. "That guy's got great hair."

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