Blue America Is Looking For A Few Good Women And Men To Help Save Social Security From The Cluthes Of The DC Conservative Elites

Don't let the ruling elites get away with it. Fight back!

Unless I'm getting bad information, there really are some excellent things in Obama's budget, like universal pre-K paid for with a cigarette tax, a decent and long-overdue increase in the minimum wage and expanded Medicaid. It doesn't matter. Obama doesn't get to make it easier to eliminate Social Security by making it less deadly for politicians to tamper with it. Anyone-- from Nancy Pelosi to John Boehner-- to vote for Obama's Chained CPI scheme should be driven out of office. Social Security should remain the third rail of American politics.

In an OpEd at Truthout over the weekend, Robert Naiman is clear about what grassroots voters have to do to resist the DC elites: primaries. He even pledged to help recruit a candidate to run against Dick Durbin, his own senator, if-- as expected-- Durbin sells out on this.

The only thing that can stop President Obama from cutting Social Security now is Congress. Therefore, the only thing that can stop President Obama from cutting Social Security now is public pressure on Congress to stand up to Obama and say no. The pressure that has been exerted so far was not sufficient to stop President Obama from doing this. Therefore, public pressure against Social Security cuts must significantly escalate.

Let's be clear about what's not true. From the point of view of the interests of the 99%, there was no legitimate reason for President Obama to do this. The President's marketing strategy will be to say that Obama had to do this because it was necessary to get a deal with Congressional Republicans to raise taxes.

But from the point of view of the interests of the 99%, there is no urgency or benefit to getting a deal to raise taxes if Social Security cuts are the price of doing so. Raising taxes, even raising taxes on the 1%, isn't an intrinsic good. Raising taxes on the 1% is a good thing if it enables the government to do good things and avoid doing bad things. Raising taxes on the 1% is a bad thing if it enables the government to do bad things and avoid doing good things.

If there is no "grand bargain," then under the sequester, the Pentagon budget will be cut and Social Security benefits will be protected. If there is a "grand bargain"-- a "Grand Betrayal"-- Social Security benefits will be cut and the Pentagon budget will be protected. Thus, to be only a little bit crude, the "grand bargain" is about cutting Social Security to protect the Pentagon budget. Raising taxes on the 1% as part of a deal to cut Social Security and veterans' benefits and protect the Pentagon budget for wars and useless military junk is a bad deal for the 99%.

In general, liberals who follow budget issues know this. We are at a fork in the road: one branch of the fork leads to cutting Social Security to protect the Pentagon budget and the other branch of the fork leads to cutting the Pentagon budget while protecting Social Security.

The fact that cutting Social Security is even on the table, even though cutting Social Security is overwhelmingly unpopular among both Democrats and Republicans, and both Democrats and Republicans would rather cut the Pentagon budget and end the war in Afghanistan instead, is a barometer of 1% control of the political system. If not for the domination of the political system by the 1%, we wouldn't even be talking about cutting Social Security.

And therefore, if the chained CPI cut goes through, it's going to do more than unjustly cut the earned benefits of seniors and disabled veterans. It's going to be a body blow to the idea that we live in a democracy where the majority rules. If the #ChainedCPI attack on the 99% is successful, it's going to be even harder to engage the 99% in politics in the future than it is today.

How can we stop this? How can we escalate?

Of course everyone should sign every petition, send every letter, make every phone call, contact every newspaper, attend every demonstration. But so far these efforts have not been enough to turn back the 1%'s assault. How can we escalate?

What if we all looked each other in the eye and made a pact: every Senator and Representative, Democrat or Republican, who supports cutting Social Security and veterans' benefits by imposing the "ChainedCPI" cut is going to face a primary challenge. We'll do everything we can to recruit the richest and famous and most popular people to do it. But if we can't recruit the rich and the famous and the popular to do it, we'll do it ourselves. We'll pledge to do whatever we can to support the challengers: get them on the ballot, turn out the vote. It is a fact that it's extremely difficult to defeat incumbents in primaries, but it is not impossible. Ned Lamont defeated Joe Lieberman. Carol Mosely Braun defeated Alan Dixon. But beyond that, to compel an incumbent to face a primary challenge is to impose a real cost on them, regardless of whether they are defeated. And therefore, a primary challenge answers a key question: how can we impose a cost on incumbents for backing the agenda of the 1%, instead of the agenda of the 99%?

Primary challenges are definitely not the only answer to the question of how to impose a political cost on incumbents for doing the bidding of the 1%. There are definitely other answers. We could #occupy Congressional offices, for example. But it is certainly one answer, an obvious answer, and if we are going to ignore this obvious answer, we certainly should have a good explanation and justification. Why do Republicans take the Tea Party more seriously than Democrats take progressives? Because Republicans are afraid of the Tea Party-- afraid the Tea Party will primary them. Why are progressives less competent in our political engagement than the Tea Party?

Blue America has never shied away from tough primary battles. We went head to head with party leaders like Pelosi and Hoyer when we helped Donna Edwards end the miserable and corrupt political career of their despicable crony Al Wynn. And we helped Matt Cartwright vanquish the dean of the Pennsylvania congressional delegation last year, Tim Holden, who had Hoyer in the district campaigning for him... as though anyone but a bunch of criminal lobbyists cares about that kind of Beltway bullshit. We don't always win; but we do always fight. Any Democrat who votes for this Chained CPI piece of the Austerity Agenda that is destroying Europe's middle class makes himself or herself eligible for a primary as far as we're concerned. And right now we're recruiting House candidates all across the country.

We have a special page-- still in its infancy-- highlighting one thing, a single issue: opposition to cutting the earned benefits of seniors with tricks like the Chained CPI. This particular page is just for challengers, not for the heroic incumbents who are standing up to Obama and Boehner. Take a look at what the candidates who want to save Social Security have to say and please consider contributing to their campaigns.

Recall the message of the Grayson-Takano No Cuts letter they sent to Obama: "We will vote against any and every cut to Medicare, Medicaid, or Social Security benefits-- including raising the retirement age or cutting the cost of living adjustments that our constituents earned and need." I think they have around 40 co-signers-- out of over 200 Democrats in the House. We need more Democrats in Congress willing to stand up for working families, not to cater to special interests who finance their careers. Less Mike McIntyres, Jim Mathesons, Ann Kirpatricks, Patrick Murphys-- and more people like Raul Grijalva, Barbara Lee, Keith Ellison and Jerry Nadler. We found some-- and we're just getting started.

How Will Obama Fight Back Against Deranged Republican Charges?

Sometimes it almost seems like a conspiracy. Barack Obama is not just a mediocre president, he's been a reliable tool for Corporate America since the day he entered the U.S. Senate. And Big Business couldn't hope for a better friend in the White House. Wednesday evening we looked at why certain elements of that community oppose him, but sometimes I think it's just a great big game. Who would support Obama-- let alone enthusiastically support him-- outside of the context of the Republican alternative? The Party has been captured by the deranged brothers of one of the ardently fascist founders of the John Birch Society, the Kochs. They call the shots now and all the GOP candidates dance to their toxic tune.

When Rahm Emanuel counseled Obama that he could ignore progressives' demands for reform and for economic justice because the Republicans would offer such an untenable alternative that progressives would crawl on their bellies to reelect Obama, I scoffed. But Rahm was correct. I have no intention of voting for Obama... but I live in California, where he doesn't need my vote. What would I do if I lived in Ohio or Florida or Nevada? Of course I have no way of being certain, but I am certain that I'm sick of a string of mediocre presidents. There's never been a good one in my lifetime and I wonder if there ever will be. (I'm putting my hopes on Elizabeth Warren right now-- although she has to win her Senate race first.)

And, yes, of course I realize that mediocre is "better" than cataclysmically horrendous, examples of which we saw demonstrated Wednesday night at the final-- THANK GOD-- Republican debate in Mesa, Arizona. I always thought of Ron Paul as a crackpot; in fact, he clearly is. But he stood out as the relatively sane one next to Romney, Santorum and Gingrich. That's why Obama's going to win another term, a term that there is absolutely not a single reason to believe will be any better than the first one. In fact, there's as much of a reason to believe it will be even worse-- worse than the first one, not worse than a Romney or Santorum term. And even Republican strategists are starting to give up on that happening; they're just going to have to settle for a sane, conservative, corporate-oriented Democrat again.

In 2008, after Republicans were routed in the presidential and congressional elections, there was widespread consensus within elite GOP circles about the party’s structural problems: The Republican voter base was too old, too white, too male and too strident for the party to prosper long term in a country growing ever more diverse.

Four years later, many of the same GOP leaders are watching with rising dismay as the 2012 presidential campaign has featured excursions into social issues like contraception and a sprint by the candidates to strike the toughest stance against illegal immigration, issues they say are far removed from the workaday concerns of the independent voters Republicans need to evict Barack Obama from the White House.

To those Republicans, the probable result looks more and more like a general election fought on a much narrower band of turf than the GOP leaders assumed even a few months ago. As recently as 2010, when Republicans elected historic numbers of women and minorities to high office, a permanent expansion of the conservative coalition looked within the realm of possibility to party strategists.

The phenomenon of a party talking to itself-- rather than reaching out to new voters-- was on sharp display at a candidates debate here Wednesday night marked by nearly two hours of peevish and often confusing exchanges between Mitt Romney and his surging challenger, Rick Santorum

Have You Read The 15 Biggest Lies?

When Europeans start killing their plutocrats in the next few days, none should be allowed to jump to the front of the line and immigrate here

I hope you didn't miss Josh Holland's incisive book, The Fifteen Biggest Lies about the Economy: And Everything Else the Right Doesn't Want You to Know about Taxes, Jobs, and Corporate America. When I picked it up I wondered how he can possibly narrow it down to only 15 lies. And, sure enough, not even halfway through the introduction, he was laying them out-- and brilliantly. I don't think he's counting the meta-lies as part of the 15-- like how propagandists set out to pervert the meanings of words to make an unpopular position seem ordinary and acceptable to the very people it would prove most harmful.

In the spring of 2010, after a bitter yearlong debate over health-care legislation, congressional Democrats set their sights on financial reform. Most analysts agreed that new rules of the road were needed for the Wall Street high-flyers who had almost brought the global economy to a screeching halt in 2008.

Chris Dodd, the Democrat from Connecticut who chaired the Senate Finance Committee, offered up a package of rather mild reforms that most progressive analysts immediately criticized for not going far enough to rein in the banks. The bill would have created a new financial consumer protection agency, allowed the feds to dissolve insolvent banks in an orderly way, and created a new body that would oversee risky behavior on Wall Street.

As you might imagine, it didn’t sit well with the financial industry. The American Bankers Association-- the leading industry group-- released a statement calling the proposals “unwarranted, detrimental regulatory structures” and adding, “we are strongly opposed to the draft regulatory
reform proposal that... Christopher Dodd has advanced.”

Dodd’s bill came amid almost unprecedented public hostility toward Wall Street, so opposing the measure as some radical socialist endeavor-- the usual rhetorical strategy-- was unlikely to get much traction. But an unknown advocacy group calling itself (ironically) the Committee for Truth in Politics took a different tack. The group, organized by a former North Carolina Republican Party operative, started running a series of ads suggesting that Dodd’s reforms were, paradoxically, a gift to the banking industry-- a rich, undeserved bailout that only Wall Street executives could love. The reality, as FDIC chair Sheila Blair put it, was that the bill made bailouts “impossible,” as “it should.” She explained that lawmakers had “worked really hard to squeeze bailout language out of this bill... In a true liquidity crisis, the [government] can provide systemwide support in terms of... lending and debt guarantees-- but even then, a default would trigger resolution or bankruptcy.”

In technical terms, this particular lie might be called a classic example of “chutzpah.” But it wasn’t being uttered only by shady right-wing front-groups. Minnesota representative Michelle Bachmann, one of the most reactionary members of Congress and a darling of the Tea Partiers, had called an earlier version of the bill a “permanent bailout” for Wall Street. Soon after that, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-TN) made the rounds of the Sunday talk shows to spread the meme. All were playing off a script developed by Frank Luntz, the GOP’s super-pollster, who prepared a memo in early 2010 suggesting that opponents of the bill paint it as “punishing tax-payers” while rewarding the very “big banks and credit card companies” that were at that very moment furiously
trying to kill the bill.

It’s likely that nobody would even have thought of characterizing new regulations as a giveaway to the banks if not for the success the conservative movement (backed by corporate America’s deep pockets) has had in framing the economic issues of our day. When the ads went up, Mother Jones’s Kevin Drum commented,

And that, boys and girls, is how the game is played. Just portray a bill meant to rein in banks as a bill meant to bail out banks... Maybe suggest that instead of protecting consumers, it will remove consumer protections. Or that instead of regulating derivatives, it will set them free. Simple. Why bother making up complicated lies when simple ones will do just fine?

Turning reality on its head is nothing new for Frank Luntz, a key figure in the conservative message machine. He’s probably best known for penning an influential 2002 memo to then president George W. Bush suggesting that conservatives undermine the scientific consensus on global warming. He also played a pivotal role in popularizing the term “death tax,” which is much easier than explaining why ordinary Americans should oppose a modest inheritance tax on a few thousand of the richest families in the country.

In other words, the mendacity of the Committee for Truth in Politics was standard fare. And when you pause for a moment to examine this kind of spin, a few themes emerge. Every progressive policy is decried as a “job killer” or an act of wild-eyed social engineering. Almost without exception, those policies are painted as “radical.” Conversely, every measure that affects the wealthiest Americans is spun as an assault on the working class. Minimum wage increases, environmental protections, and even paid sick days “kill jobs,” and anything that impacts huge multinationals’ bottom lines is spun as an issue of vital concern to “small business owners.”

The message is clear-- the United States may be a hyper-individualistic country, but when it comes to our economic policies, somehow we’re all in it together. Bill Gates’s interests always dovetail neatly with those of Joe and Jane Six-Pack.

How do Republicans get away with it? Are people that stupid? Actually, many aren't. Yesterday President Obama's new budget proposed taxing dividends for the wealthiest Americans at a more equitable rate than conservatives prefer. So Republicans accuse him of being a "job destroyer." Most voters aren't buying this bullshit, which is clearly reflected in the 10% approval rating for the Republican-controlled Congress. In fact, many voters-- particularly progressives voters-- are unhappy with Obama's and the Democrats' half measures. Recall-- from the quote just above-- that most progressive analysts of Dodd's financial reform package "immediately criticized [it and him] for not going far enough to rein in the banks. It was the same with the health care bill-- hard to defend a half measure (or a quarter measure) that could just as well been the real single-payer reform the country needs if the cost of health care inflation is ever going to be solved. And did Big Pharma and the insurance industry really need the kind of sweetheart deal Obama tacked onto the bill? None of these "compromises"-- if that's what they were-- got him any more votes in Congress. They didn't stop the Republicans from making up lies and they didn't stop Wall Street from financing a multimillion dollar campaign against them. I bet if Obama proposed taxing dividends for the top 2 percent of income-earners at 60% instead of 39.6%, the Republicans would be happy willing to compromise at 39.6%. James Fallows' most talked about Atlantic piece last week, Obama, Explained concludes with the notion that Obama is getting better as a president. Makes sense. I still want to see him negotiate with the conservatives in such as way that he doesn't wind up giving away the whole store the way he has in the past three years time and time again. Then I'll go along with Fallows that he's on his way to chess master status.

Does Obama Have A Base Problem-- And Why His Camapign's Understanding of That Matters

It's childish to say that there's no difference between the two parties. There are very real, very significant differences, differences that make thoughtful people hold their noses while they pull the lever on election day for Democrats they know will disappoint them. As badly as Bush? As badly as Jim DeMint? As badly as John Boehner or Eric Cantor or Paul Ryan? Of course not. The Democrats aren't as bad as Genghis Khan, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin or Richard Nixon either. But it's 2011 and when will it be time to raise that exceedingly low bar?

Inside the Beltway types-- regardless of Party-- are in another world from the world Americans are in. And it's a very, very bad world. And it's a world they crafted; carefully. "Bad" was the wrong word. The word is evil. Or pernicious. Inside-the-Beltway Democrats have more in common with Inside-the-Beltway Republicans than they do with actual Democrats in America. They have corrupted democracy and brought it to its knees, right along with the Republicans. They may not be "the same" or "identical," but they both suck-- really, really bad.

Yesterday Benjy Sarlin at TPM reported that the White House is insisting they don't have a base problem. In America, we know very well they do-- and it's the same base problem they kept as many as half the Democrats and left-leaning independents home one year ago on election day causing catastrophic, but well-deserved, results for the Democratic Party. And if Team Obama is persuading itself that the good news-- good for 99%-ers, not especially for any political party-- out of Ohio and Maine Tuesday means people like Obama, they must be drinking from the same trough that Rick Perry drinks from before he goes on TV to debate the 7 dwarves. This smells like a disaster in the making:

Among Obama campaign staff, it’s an article of faith that talk of a “base problem” is a load of bunk. Touring campaign headquarters in Chicago last month, aides uniformly dismissed the notion there would be any issue bringing core Democrats back into the fold. A “Washington narrative,” as one person described it to TPM.

Here are some of the symptoms of delusion, from Sarlin's same piece:

A surge in youth voting, notoriously one of the hardest groups to get to the polls, was key to Obama’s 2008 win but lately there have been signs of trouble. The Occupy Wall Street movement, which the campaign is loathe to discuss at all, has unexpectedly taken off but there are strong undercurrents of disappointment in Obama’s leadership among its supporters. And the rough economy, Obama’s biggest overall vulnerability, is very real to recent college graduates, many of whom are having a tough time finding work and paying off their student debt.

While Republican opposition has blocked much the White House’s ambitious legislative agenda, the campaign thinks they’ve amassed an impressive set of accomplishments to convince young voters that their enthusiasm in 2008 wasn’t misplaced. The end of the Iraq War, the Affordable Care Act’s rapid expansion of insurance coverage for young adults, and the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell all are set to figure big in the President’s pitches.

Another issue that the White House is emphasizing more recently: student debt. The President recently issued an executive order aimed at speeding up reforms designed to make student loans easier to pay off. Priorities USA, an independent group supporting Obama’s re-election, ran an ad in Michigan ahead of Wednesday’s Republican debate accusing the GOP candidates of trying to cut student programs.

Hispanic voters, another crucial plank of Obama’s 2008 majority, are another focus for 2012. A number of Latino groups have been extremely critical of the administration’s record, including its inability to get the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform past Congress and its hesitancy to slow a record-setting pace of deportations.

An Obama staffer stressed that Latino advocacy groups’ focus on immigration obscured the tremendous importance of the economy to individual Latino voters, an area where they feel their latest jobs push gives them an edge. While the campaign was counting on bringing the activist community behind them sooner, they’re enthused over a raft of polling showing Latino voters sticking with the president in head to head match-ups with his Republican challengers. A recent Univision poll, for example, showed Obama racking his 2-1 margins among Hispanic voters against Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Herman Cain, a number near identical to his 2008 victory. Romney has tacked hard right in his immigration rhetoric over the last few weeks to go after Perry, whose support for allowing illegal immigrants to receive in-state tuition has become one of his top vulnerabilities. And that’s nothing compared to Cain, who has suggesting building a lethal electrical fence around the border.

And yet you still have Beltway Democrats destroying the brand in the exact same ways they did to bring down the wrath of the base on them 368 days ago. You think an old "ex"-Blue Dog like Steve Israel is capable of learning any lessons at this point? Let me assure you-- he isn't. And he runs the DCCC. In fact, he's running it right into the ground.

By any measure, Ilya Sheyman is one of the Democratic Party's star recruits this year and slated to take back a suburban Chicagoland House seat from a GOP corporate stooge, Robert Dold. But that's not good enough for a conservative hack like Israel. He would rather lose the seat than see a progressive tribune of the people win it. Chicago Business broke the news this morning.

Announcing his candidacy by video on Thursday morning was healthy foods marketing consultant John Tree. He has almost no name recognition but a résumé right out of Central Casting in the politically moderate, heavily Jewish 10th District.

Mr. Tree, 45, is a graduate of the Air Force Academy who serves as a colonel in the Air Force Reserve. He said he decided to run when, while on duty at the Pentagon earlier this year, he was assigned to help plan ways to notify troops overseas that they wouldn't be paid because of a pending government shut down.

...All of that being said, Mr. Tree never has run for or held public or civic office. But serving as his campaign consultant is Pete Giangreco, who says he was urged to meet with Mr. Tree by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the national party's House political arm.

Also this morning the Sun-Times' Lynn Sweet blew the whistle on Israel's sleazoid tactics-- tactics he's using all over the country, in district after district, to quietly knife progressives in the back while pushing an array of Democrats who are, basically, just like himself. What was Pelosi thinking?

Illinois Democratic House hopeful Ilya Sheyman, running in the tenth congressional district, said the late entry of John Tree into the primary contest was a move by "Chicago political bosses."

Sheyman statement: "Even as Chicago political bosses launched a last-ditch, desperate effort to push another candidate into the race just weeks before the petition filing deadline, venerable Illinois Congressman Danny Davis added his name to the growing list of supporters of progressive community organizer Ilya Sheyman's campaign on Thursday."

Chicago political bosses? That's Rahm Emanuel, the ex-DCCC chair whose anti-progressive policies led directly to last year's disaster at the polls. Israel, fancies himself "Rahm without the potty mouth." Others have called him "Rahm without the brains." This is from a press release from Sheyman's campaign today:

In a clear indication that Sheyman has achieved front-runner status, Sheyman now has more support from federal elected officials and local leaders than any other candidate, and is the only candidate in the race with support from organized labor or national progressive organizations.

"It's becoming increasingly apparent that the old school, business-as-usual political establishment is worried about our campaign," said Sheyman Campaign Manager Annie Weinberg. "They're worried because they see our massive field operation, with over 350 volunteers out on the doors. They're worried because we've got broad-based support from local and national leaders like Rep. Danny Davis, Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., and former Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean. But really, they're worried because they know that Ilya is a candidate who they can't control or buy off. Ilya always been independent. He's never been afraid to buck the status quo. That's exactly what we've done in this campaign, and it's exactly how we'll win this primary and beat Rep. Dold in November."

Sheyman, a Jewish immigrant from the former Soviet Union and Waukegan-based community organizer, is running on the Democratic ticket to beat Republican Rep. Robert Dold in Illinois' 10th District.

"In my nearly 15 years in the United States Congress, I've rarely seen a candidate build as powerful a grassroots campaign as Ilya Sheyman's in the 10th District," said Rep. Davis. "Ilya shares my commitment to solving the jobs crisis, one of the most urgent and pressing issues facing our communities today. He's an exceptional leader and a real progressive, and he'll be an excellent addition to the Illinois Congressional Delegation as we fight in Washington to put the people of Illinois back to work."

Rep. Davis is one of the most senior members of the Illinois Delegation, having served the state's 7th District for over 15 years. He has been a leader in several Congressional caucuses, including the Congressional Black Caucus, the Progressive Caucus, the Urban Caucus and the Community Health Centers Caucus. He has also been at the forefront of the effort to solve the nation's unemployment crisis.

"Rep. Davis' endorsement today is another signal that this campaign is a moving train, and that national and local leaders are ready to get on board to beat Republican Rep. Bob Dold," said Sheyman, who last week was endorsed by Reps. Raul Grijalva of Arizona, Keith Ellison of Minnesota and Jesse Jackson, Jr. of Illinois' 2nd District. "Congressman Davis shares my dedication to creating good jobs and putting the people of Illinois back to work in these tough economic times. It will be an honor to serve alongside him in Washington."

In addition to Reps. Davis, Jackson, Ellison and Grijalva, Sheyman has the support of former Democratic National Committee Chair Gov. Howard Dean, as well as MoveOn.org, whose 12,000 members in the 10th District recently voted to endorse him. Sheyman has also been endorsed by Democracy for America, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, the Sheet Metal Workers Union, Local 73, the International Longshoremen's Association-- AFL-CIO, and Mike McGue, the president of the Lake County Federation of Teachers.

What's Driving Barack Obama's Trade Agenda? Just Asking...

The letters from readers-- and ex-readers-- asking when we're going to stop attacking the president is growing in volume. I ask the question myself sometimes! But the answer is always the same. We'll be able to concentrate exclusively on Republican fascism when Obama stops pushing his conservative agenda down America's throats. He may be running around the country trying out his new/old populist rhetorical roadshow this week, but he also sent over the job-killing, economy-crushing, Wall Street/GOP-pleasing trade agreements to Congress at the same time. He's on the stump howling about the jobs bill he knows isn't going anywhere while his own Administration is pressuring New Deal Democrats to join with the Republicans to pass more anti-Fair Trade bills.

The AFL-CIO and the rest of organized labor have given Obama a free pass on everything and will support his reelection drive. And he knows it. And because he knows it he can play footsie with Wall Street and Big Business and ignore the legitimate aspirations of working families to an extent he wouldn't dare if labor was less tethered to a Democratic Party that as disappointed its members again and again. This week the AFL-CIO explained what's wrong with these three awful trade bills Obama and Boehner are pushing.

• The Korea agreement is the largest off-shoring deal of its kind since NAFTA. If enacted, it likely will displace 159,000 U.S. jobs, mostly in manufacturing. And its glaring loopholes would allow unscrupulous businesses to import illegally labeled goods from China and possible even from sweatshops in North Korea-- potentially without any tariffs at all.

• In Colombia, one trade unionist is murdered nearly every week and almost none of the murderers are brought to justice. In 2010, 51 trade unionists were assassinated in Colombia-- more than in the rest of the world combined. So far in 2011, another 22 have been killed, despite Colombia’s heralded “Labor Action Plan.” Would we reward a country where 51 CEOs were killed last year?

• And the Panama agreement has many of the problems of the other two deals, like deregulating big banks and letting foreign investors bypass U.S. health, safety labor and environmental laws. Panama is also a tax haven: a place where tax-dodging, money-laundering millionaires and billionaires hide their money.

Human Rights Watch has found, unlike the Administration and it's shady allies, that there's been virtually no progress in getting convictions for killings that have occurred in the past 4 1/2 years. Republicans have publicly cheered this but why is Obama making common cause with these people. It's a disgrace and he needs to be called out on it. Maybe if we had been more forthright in calling out Bill Clinton when he pushed through NAFTA with the Republicans, we wouldn't be in the dire economic straits we're in today. Remember, Bush I couldn't get NAFTA passed. Clinton and Rahm Emanuel did it for Big Business. Bush II couldn't get these crappy deals through Congress. Obama is telling Big Business he can do it for them. The Communications Workers of America went deeper into explaining the monstrousness of the Colombia deal in particular. "The critical issue that must be addressed in Colombia," they write, "is how work is organized to prevent workers from forming unions."

The overwhelming majority of workers in Colombia are classified as “cooperativos” and contractors. This status means that 15 million of the country’s 18 million workers are not eligible for workplace protections and collective bargaining, nor can they receive government-backed health care and retirement benefits that are provided to “workers.” 

Colombia remains a dangerous and deadly place to be a union supporter. Violence and murder are used all too frequently to intimidate workers from organizing and bargaining for a better life. Over the past 25 years, nearly 3,000 union activists and leaders have been murdered in Colombia, more than in all other countries combined. Last year 51 trade unionists were murdered, more than in 2009. Yet, the Colombian conviction rate for these murders and other forms of violence against trade unionists is in the single digits.

The Obama administration developed the labor action plan to address areas ignored by the Bush administration when it negotiated this deal. But the Obama administration’s plan lacks accountability and the ability to enforce its call for workers’ rights. CWA has shown how Telefonica, the large communications multi-national firm, has taken no steps to address worker rights issues.

When Obama ran for office, he promised-- over and over and over-- to end the bogus "free" trade deals the Republicans and their financiers love so much. But he's been as bad as any of them in pushing them since being elected. You see what he's delivering? This is what he promised in 2008 (as part of Hope and Change):

• Articulates a vision that trade policies “are not sustainable if they favor the few rather than the many.”

• States that trade deals “must not come as blank checks,” and our support will only be “coupled with an insistent call for reform."

• Promise to reform key global institutions-- including the WTO and the G-8-- so they “will be more reflective of 21st century realities.”

• Specifically states the WTO “must improve transparency and accountability."

• Promise that consumer products coming in from other countries “must be truly safe,” with a requirement that the FTC protect vulnerable consumer populations.

• Promise to enforce trade laws that safeguard workers and farmers “from unfair trade practices–- including currency manipulation, lax consumer standards, illegal subsidies, and violations of workers’ rights and environmental standards."

• Promise of enforceable international labor and environmental standards.

• Promise that no future bilateral agreements “will stop the government from protecting the environment, food safety, or the health of its citizens; give greater rights to foreign investors than to U.S. investors; require the privatization of our vital public services; or prevent developing country governments from adopting humanitarian licensing policies to improve access to life-saving medications.”

• Promise to stand firm against bilateral agreements that fail to live up to these benchmarks, with commitment to strive to achieve them in the multilateral framework.

• Promise to amend NAFTA so that it works better for all three North American countries.

• Promise to modernize and expand Trade Adjustment Assistance.

• Promise of a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to create nearly two million new good jobs.

• Major Focus put on U.S. renewable energy infrastructure investment, especially the use government procurement policies to incentivize job creation.

• Repeated calls to use trade as a tool to leverage human rights, democracy, economic growth, job creation, and poverty alleviation.

• Repeated ties of trade to support for strong legislatures, independent judiciaries, free press, vibrant civil society, honest police forces, religious freedom, equality for women and minorities, and the rule of law.

• Promise to address climate change with “binding and enforceable commitments to reducing emissions, especially for those that pollute the most: the United States, China, India, the European Union, and Russia.” Promise to promote economic development in migrant-sending nations, to reduce the incentives for immigration

Is he planning on winning reelection without the support of working families in the Midwest? In Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, workers know exactly what these toxic trade deals do to jobs. This morning I asked Blue America-endorsed John Waltz, who's running against Free Trade job exporter (Whirlpool heir) Fred Upton, about these pacts and he didn't parse his words. "Since the creation of the North American Free Trade deal thousands of our nation’s jobs have been shipped overseas. Shortly after NAFTA was implemented my dad's General Motors plant was moved to Mexico. Most recently there has been bi-partisan support for expanded free trade deals in South Korea, Panama, and Colombia, which they are using the same destructive template as NAFTA. It is horrendous to even think we are proposing free trade deals in countries like Colombia given their history of union members who have been killed there. In a time of economic crisis we should be seeking fair trade deals and a renegotiation of all free trade deals to date. Obviously Fred Upton does not care what these destructive deals do to our nation, which is understandable considering his company Whirlpool has shipped all of their manufacturing jobs overseas. Michigan's Sixth District deserves better than this and I will stand up to anyone including my own party to stop the bloodshed of jobs going overseas."

Bruce Braley (D-IA) and Pete DeFazio (D-OR), co-chairs of the House Populist Caucus sent President Obama a scathing letter about his trade agenda and these three treaties in particular, reminding him of his 2008 commitment to oppose them. Here are some excerpts:

During your presidential campaign, you repeatedly stated your opposition to the Colombia and Korea agreements while pledging to “shut offshore tax havens” of which Panama is one the world’s most significant.

Given your past opposition to the FTAs with South Korea and Colombia, we are eager to understand the basis for your change in position. We recognize that your administration attempted to tackle some of the issues that you raised. However, the outcomes of these efforts have fallen far short of effectively addressing the serious problem that you rightly raised during your campaign. Thus, it is not surprising that most Democrats in the House of Representatives continue to oppose these deals.
 
In 2008, during a speech at the AFL-CIO convention in Pennsylvania, you stated that you were opposed to the Colombia FTA “because the violence against unions in Colombia would make a mockery of the very labor protections that we have insisted be included in these kinds of agreements." During the final presidential debate, explaining your opposition to the Colombia FTA, you said: “The history in Colombia right now is that labor leaders have been targeted for assassination on a fairly consistent basis and there have not been prosecutions... we have to make sure that violence isn't being perpetrated against workers who are just trying to organize for their rights.”
 
Yet, targeted violence against unionists continues to be a major problem in Colombia. Indeed, since you made that statement, the number of unionists assassinated in Colombia annually has grown. And, the evidence is gruesomely compelling that the “Labor Action Plan” that your trade officials signed with Colombia in April 2011 is not altering the reality on the ground in Colombia that you in the past deemed unacceptable for a prospective trade partner country. This year 22 labor leaders have been killed in Colombia. Fifteen of these assassinations have occurred since your administration’s Labor Action Plan was signed. Threats of violence continue to escalate. And, there is no turnaround with respect to the shameful record of impunity for the perpetrators of these attacks, with convictions in only six percent of the 2,860 trade unionists murder cases since 1986. Yet your trade officials continue to certify that Colombia is meeting its obligations under the Plan.

Given this grim reality, and, given violence against union leaders was a primary reason for your opposition, why have you changed your position on the Colombia FTA?
 
You have also stated your opposition to the South Korean FTA calling it “badly flawed” and noting that “the terms of the agreement fall well short of assuring effective, enforceable market access for American exports of manufactured goods and many agricultural products” in a 2008 letter you sent to President Bush. You have also stated: “As President, I will work to ensure that the U.S. again leads the world in ensuring that consumer products produced across the world are done in a manner that supports workers, not undermines them." As well, you answered “yes” to an Oregon Fair Trade Coalition candidate questionnaire stating: “Will you require new trade agreements to include core International Labor Organization (ILO) Conventions?”

Now you support the same South Korea FTA deal. Yet, it still includes footnote #1 of it labor Chapter inserted by President Bush in 2007 that  forbids reference to the ILO Conventions. You did not obtain the removal of this offensive prohibition during the administration’s 2010 supplemental negotiations on the Korea FTA. And, the only changes in those supplemental talks with respect to agricultural market access was not to improve it, but to extend for several years Korea’s tariffs on U.S. pork.
 
Nor did you remedy the FTA’s rules of origin which thus still allow various categories of goods, including autos and many categories of electronics, to have as much as 65 percent of their value produced outside the U.S. or South Korea and still obtain FTA benefits. Given South Korea’s close proximity to China, Vietnam and other cheap labor nations, corporations will likely use this loophole to flood the U.S. with cheap materials tariff free. This loophole is simply unacceptable and could decimate what’s left of the U.S. auto supply chain and undercut numerous other industries. In a time where we are struggling to reinvigorate our manufacturing sector, why are you supporting yet another free trade agreement that will send good paying American jobs overseas while boosting the bonuses of “cost–cutting” corporate CEO’s?

Late yesterday the House Ways and Means voted out all three of the toxic job-killing trade pacts. The worst of the three is probably the Colombia deal. It passed 24-12. All 21 Republicans on the committee-- Dave Camp (MI), Wally Herger (CA), Sam Johnson (TX), Kevin Brady (TX), Paul Ryan (WI), Devin Nunes (CA), Pat Tiberi (OH), Geoff Davis (KY), Dave Reichert (WA), Lord Boustany (LA), Peter Roskam (IL), Jim Gerlach (PA), Tom Price (GA), Vern Buchanan (FL), Adrian Smith (NE), Aaron Schock (IL), Lynn Jenkins (KS), Erik Paulsen (MN), Rick Berg (ND), Diane Black (TN) and Tom Reed (NY)-- voted YES. Only two Democrats-- but part of Rahm Emanuel's corrupt and conservative New Dem coalition, Joseph Crowley (NY) and Ron Kind (WI) joined them. All the other Democrats on the committee voted NO: Sander Levin (MI), Charlie Rangel (NY), Pete Stark (CA), Jim McDermott (WA), John Lewis (GA), Richard Neal (MA), Xavier Becerra (CA), Lloyd Doggett (TX), Mike Thompson (CA), Earl Blumenauer (OR), Bill Pascrell (NJ) and Shelley Berkley (NV). John Larson (D-CT) was absent.

The Panama vote also found all the Republicans in favor, but only 3 Democrats voted NO-- Pete Stark, John Lewis and Shelley Berkley. And the Korea vote-- with all the Republicans voting against American workers again-- found 5 Democrats opposed-- Pete Stark, John Lewis, Lloyd Doggett, Bill Pascrell (NJ) and Shelley Berkley.

Inside/Outside Strategy-- Still A Must If You Want Real Progress Rather Than An Anarchistic Bloodbath

David Korten's book, Agenda For A New Economy sounds like it laid the groundwork for #OccupyWallStreet. "Leadership for transformational change must come, as it always has, from outside the institutions of power," he wrote on page 1. Of course, I'm so old I remember Bob Dylan singing "Don't follow leaders, watch your parking meters." (Watch the video up top; that's Allen Ginsberg with the tallis in the background.)

The amorphous "left" made a horrific miscalculation when a mainstream conservative in a Blue T-shirt talking a slick populist game was elected president to follow Bush. American voters empowered not just Obama but huge, unassailable majorities in both Houses of Congress. Progressive activists relaxed, more or less and did some Obama cheerleading. What could go wrong? If you've been reading this blog for the past couple of years, you know exactly the answer to that. Obama followed a mainstream conservative agenda-- obviously not the crazy right-wing, reactionary, fascist agenda pushed forward by the GOP at the behest of its Daddy Warbucks financiers, but... well many of those Daddies are giving warbucks to Obama and to more than a few congressional Democrats as well. A majority of Americans expect Obama to not win reelection, even if they personally feel a Republican would be much worse for the country.

Early yesterday Obama's reelection team issued a memo that indicates he's going to keep following the Elizabeth Warren populist approach to the voters. It's done wonders for her, as the second poll in a row shows her in a dead heat with Wall Street shill Scott Brown. But will voters believe Obama, after three years of playing footsie with Wall Street? And if, by some miracle, he is reelected, what does that campaign memo suggest about how he would govern during a second term? Absolutely nothing. Here's the memo itself:

From economics to immigration, Governor Perry, Governor Romney and the Republican field have embraced policies that the American people oppose. The campaign to win the Republican nomination has become a campaign to win the hearts and minds of the Tea Party. They would return to policies that have been tried before and done nothing to improve economic security for the middle class, rewarding special interests who can afford to pay for lobbyists instead of looking out for working families.

While the President is fighting to create jobs and put money in the pockets of middle class Americans, the Republican candidates have proposed extending tax breaks for large corporations and tax cuts for the wealthiest while allowing special interests to write their own rules.

The Republican candidates universally want to repeal the protections that the President put in place to prevent another financial crisis and instead allow banks to write their own rules, but an overwhelming majority of Americans-- Republicans, Democrats, and Independents-- favor strong oversight of Wall Street and an independent Consumer Financial Protection Bureau [Lake Research 7/11].

Governor Perry called Social Security a “Ponzi scheme” and continues to question its constitutionality and Governor Romney supports turning Social Security funds over to Wall Street. Yet even a majority of Republicans oppose a fundamental overhaul of Social Security [Gallup 9/15/11].

According to recent surveys, a strong majority of Americans favor asking the wealthiest to pay their fair share in order to create jobs and get our fiscal house in order. Seventy three percent support ensuring that people who make over a million dollars a year pay the same percentage of taxes on their total income as those who make less, and in a recent Gallup poll asking the wealthiest Americans to pay more was the single most popular proposal to reduce the deficit [PPP 9/22/11; Gallup 8/7/11]. Seventy three percent of Americans support repealing tax breaks for oil and gas companies [CNN Poll 7/21/11]. Yet none of the Republican candidates would ask the wealthiest to pay an additional dime and their economic plans maintain tax breaks for large corporations.

The Republican candidates have embraced Republican budget plans-- from the Ryan budget to the so-called Cut Cap and Balance plan-- that would end Medicare as we know it, erode Social Security, and eliminate investments in education and research and development. Fifty seven percent of Americans oppose replacing Medicare with a system in which government vouchers would be used to help pay for health insurance [Bloomberg Poll 9/12/11]. And recent surveys have all reflected support for the investments the President has proposed we make to create jobs and spur the economy-- from putting first responders and teachers back to work to rebuilding our roads and bridges-- rather than a retreat from them.

Instead of laying out a plan to promote America’s competitiveness, the Republican candidates have focused on what they want to dismantle. While the EPA has become the Republican candidates’ favorite punching bag, 71% of Americans believe we should continue to fund the EPA to enforce greenhouse gas emission standards and other environmental regulations [CNN Poll 4/10/11]. A majority of Democrats, a majority of Republicans, and a majority of Independents believe that the Department of Education should remain [CNN Poll 9/11/11]. But Governor Perry called “cutting back on the Department of Education” a “good idea,” and Representative Bachmann said we should “turn off [its] lights and lock the door.” 

While Americans oppose repeal by a margin of 52-37, the Republican candidates would repeal the Affordable Care Act, allowing insurance companies once again to refuse to cover preexisting conditions [Kaiser 9/12/11].

Americans don’t want to return to policies that haven’t worked in the past, and they don’t want to start doing away with sensible environmental safeguards and investments in education. They want a forward looking plan to take on our economic challenges, to create jobs and to ensure that America wins the future in a competitive global economy. The Republican field has become increasingly out of step on immigration. While 64% of Americans believe the U.S. should allow undocumented immigrants to become citizens under certain conditions, the leading Republican candidates oppose a path to citizenship for immigrants [Gallup 6/12/11]. And a majority of Americans have consistently supported the DREAM Act which the Republican candidates universally oppose at the federal level.

Fighting for a fairer economy that rewards hard work and responsibility has been at the center of this administration’s mission. Upon taking office, the President took immediate steps to address our historic economic challenges. He stood up to the banks and passed sweeping credit cards reforms ensuring that they couldn’t gouge consumers through deceptive lending practices, he ignored the pundits and extended a loan to the auto companies that saved 1.4 million American jobs, and instead of carving out tax breaks for large corporations, he cut taxes for small businesses 17 times in order to fuel the true engine of job creation.

America’s future will be defined by the success of our middle class, but the Republican candidates are positioning themselves as champions for large corporations and special interests whose plans would leave working families in the lurch.

So what's the takeaway? Whether Obama wins or loses, we need a strong progressive activist base working outside the system and a strong progressive cohort inside the system working for the same goals we're working for, not Blue Dogs and not New Dems or DLC hacks... honest to goodness New Deal Democrats, like Elizabeth Warren, Tammy Baldwin and Bernie Sanders in the Senate and like the progressive challengers Blue America has found who are running for House seats. We need both to get anywhere, regardless of Obama. Chris Donovan has been both an outsider and an inside player-- an SEIU organizer and the current Speaker of Connecticut's House. He's running for Congress and Blue America has endorsed him. He totally "gets" OccupyWallStreet. Here's what he told us this morning: "The Occupy Wall Street protests are a clear sign that Americans are angry about the lack of accountability for the Wall Street millionaires and billionaires that brought our economy to the brink of collapse. Now is the time to focus on bailing out Main Street by creating jobs, building bridges, roads, and rail, hiring teachers, nurses, and firefighters, and relieving the crushing burden of student loan debt.

"And we must reduce income inequality by instituting the Buffett Rule ensuring that billionaires do not pay a lower tax rate than their middle class employees. As we did in Connecticut, millionaires and billionaires should be asked to pay their fair share of an equitable economic recovery."


UPDATE: Advise... From An Ex-Teabagger

It's an interesting open letter about cooption and it brings up a lot of points worth considering. Keep in mind it comes from one person's perspective, a Paultard no less, for better and/or worse:

I don't expect you to believe me. I want you to read this, take it with a grain of salt, and do the research yourself. You may not believe me, but I want your movement to succeed. From a former tea partier to you, young new rebels, there's some advice to prevent what happened to our now broken movement from happening to you. I don't agree with everything your movement does, but I sympathize with your cause and agree on our common enemy. You guys are very intelligent and I trust that you will take this in the spirit it is intended.

I wish I could believe this Occupy Wall Street was still about (r)Evolution, but so far, all I am seeing is a painful rehash of how the corporate-funded government turned the pre-Presidential election tea party movement into the joke it is now. We were anarchists and ultra-libertarians, but above all we were peaceful. So, the media tried painting us as racists. But when that didn't work they tried to goad us into violence. When that failed, they killed our movement with money and false kindness from the theocratic arm of the Republican party. That killed our popular support.

I am sharing these observations, so you guys know what's going on and can prevent the media from succeeding in painting you as violent slacker hippies rebelling without a cause, or from having the movement be hijacked by a bunch of corporatists seeking to twist the movement's original intentions. If you think this can't happen, it happened to the Independence Party and the tea party movement. Don't let it happen to your movement as well.

Here's how they turned our movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Republican party rebranding astroturf, and this is how I predict they are turning your movement into a bunch of pro-corporate Democratic party rebranding astroturf. I believe many of these things are already happening, so take note.

1- The media will initially and purposely avoid covering your dissenting movement to cause confusion about what your movement is about within mainstream audiences. This is to enrage you and make you appear unreasonable, and perhaps even invisible.

2- While the obsfuscation is happening, stooges will infiltrate and give superficial support, focus and financial backing to the targetted movement. In the tea party movement's case, it was the religious Republicans and Koch Brothers. In this case, it's the Public Sector Unions (the organizations as quasi-human entities, not the members themselves) and Ultra Rich liberals who pretend to care, but frankly do not serve liberators and freedom seekers but rather the interests of those who run the Public Sector Unions and the Democratic Party. Democrat, Republican, these parties are all part of the same corporate ruling system. Case in point: http://www.debates.org/

3-The media will cover the movement only after this infiltration succeeds. Once the infiltration is completed the MSM will manufacture public media antipathy towards the movement by using selective focus on the movement's most repulsive elements or infiltrators on the corporate Conservative media side, while the corporate Liberal media will create a more sympathetic tragic hero image -- this is the flip side of the tea party, but same media manipulation tactics. I go into greater detail on this tactic: http://vaslittlecrow.com/blog/2011/09/08/how-the-media-and-ideological-groups-manipulate-your-beliefs/

4- Someone in the Democratic Party will feign sympathy for the movement and falsely "non-partisan" entities provide tons of funding and unwanted organization, just as was done with the tea party movement by Republicans. Once people assume that the pro-corporate government operatives are their friends, they will hijack the movement and the threat of your movement will be neutralized.

If this new Occupy Wall Street movement is to survive, here's what needs to be done.

1- Loudly denounce violence and disavow the violent rabblerousers of the movement. They do not help the cause.

2- Be image conscious. Present your best face and call out those who act like fools within the movement. People are more likely to pay attention to you in your Sunday dress and bringing homemade food, than when you are drinking a bottle of Snapple and chomping on Big Macs while you are looking like a slacker rich hipster/unwashed hippie stereotype.

3- Accept that you've already been infiltrated by the corporate-funded government, and work hard to say, and state what your movement is and is not about. "No, this isn't about unions or Liberals, conservatives or bored spoiled brats. This is about 99% of our population being exploited and manipulated for the sake of profit." "No we will not resort to violence." "Yes, all we want is for for the end of government collusion with corporate entities that are illegitimately recognized as people." And, so forth...

4- Don't forget who you are as the illusions are thrown at you. Corporatists are masters of illusions. That's the most powerful weapon they have. That's how they sell products you don't need and convince you to justify accepting atrocities for the sake of products Don't fall for it. Otherwise, your cause will be lost. Be wary of large donations from special interest groups or non-profit corporations that were not involved this movement from the inception. Special interests groups are not your allies. Non-profit corporations are still corporations, and unfortunately, too many of them care more about donations than doing the right thing. Killing a movement with kindness is easy.

5- Remain independent and focused. If you can, pick a face to represent your movement. Rosa Parks wasn't just a random lady in a bus. http://l3d.cs.colorado.edu/systems/agentsheets/New-Vista/bus-boycott/ -- She was chosen. You too can use the power of illusion against those who oppose you.

I wish your movement better luck than we had with the tea party movement before it got hijacked by the theocrats and corporatists. We used to be non-partisan too. We were the older version of you. But, I believe that as the media apparatchik and infiltrators start to twist your cause, you will understand the frustration us early adopter tea partiers felt and that we were not your enemy after all. A fascist oligarchy on the verge of winning is our common enemy. This should be your focus. Don't be dazzled by the illusion as we were. For the sake of our future, know who you are.

Thank you for reading. I would love to read your ideas on the subject. Correct me where I am wrong. Explain what is going right. This is ultimately your fight.

EDITS: To understand how movements get hijacked, check out this fantastic video that JamesCarlin shared: http://vimeo.com/20355767

If my essay seems too conspiratorial or tl;dr for your tastes, try Hibernator's excellent and much less paranoid sounding summary below:

"Someone starts a movement. It starts small, and there's a lot going on in the world, so the mainstream media gives it minimal coverage. Today's mainstream media is also understaffed, so they don't investigate and they wait for someone else to slap a label on it.

Eventually a sound byte X pops up above the noise and the mainstream media uses this to engage viewers and define the movement. This defining characteristic X spreads like a meme.

People in power now notice what's going on, and think to themselves "Hmm, this new movement is defined by X, and that's almost in line with my goals, so maybe I can use them to further my ends."

But people in power are all labelled as Democrats or Republicans, so now the media applies the polarizing filter of American politics to associate movement X with one of the parties.

The original movement has now been labelled X, and associated with a political party, and none of this happened because of any 'government conspiracy.' It just happened because that's what you get as output when you plug something new into the American political system."

Who's On First? Perry? Christie? The Mormon?

The most talked about political column in the last week, New York's In Praise of Extremism doesn't need such a provocative title to ask the question about the uselessness of Obama's determined bipartisan muddle. From the very beginning of his Administration the Dark Forces-- Emanuel, Messina-- have operated under the premise that liberals would have nowhere else to go so Obama could appeal ever rightward. They were counting on the Republicans nominating something so grotesquely outside the mainstream that even a mediocre Obama could scrape together a mediocre reelection. No one's imagination conjured up an image of an America where a bipartisan consensus was no longer achievable-- something Obama (perhaps delusional in his faith that “there’s not a liberal America and a conservative America, there’s the United States of America”) has been really, really, really either slow to recognize or slow to act on. "From the moment Obama arrived at the White House," writes Rich, "the Beltway elites have been coaxing him further down the politically suicidal path of appeasement and inertia even as his opponents geared up for war."

The election is still thirteen months away, but in certain coastal circles, the quadrennial wailing has erupted right on schedule: “If that man gets in the White House, I’m moving out of the country!” This time that man is Rick Perry, who might have been computer-generated to check every box in a shrill liberal fund-raising letter: a gun-toting, Bible-thumping, anti-government death-penalty absolutist from Texas. And this time the liberals’ panic is not entirely over-the-top. Perry isn’t a novelty nut job like Michele Bachmann. He’s the real deal. It’s not implausible he could win his party’s nomination and prevail in enough swing-state nail-biters to take the presidency. He could do so because the times and the politician are in alignment. A desperate and angry country is facing the specter of a double-dip recession with zero prospects of relief from a defunct Washington. Perry is the only viable declared candidate-- as measured by organizing savvy, fund-raising prowess, poll numbers, and take-no-prisoners gubernatorial résumé-- hawking an unambiguous alternative to the failed status quo.

...This is the harsh reality Obama has been way too slow to recognize. But in his post–Labor Day “Pass this jobs plan!” speech before Congress, the lip service he characteristically paid to both Republican and Democratic ideas gave way to an unmistakable preference for Democratic ideas. Soon to come were his “Buffett rule” for addressing the inequities of the Bush tax cuts and a threat to veto any budget without new tax revenues to go with spending cuts. When he tied it all up in a Rose Garden mini-tantrum pushing back against the usual cries of “class warfare,” it was enough to give one hope. No, not 2008 fired-up hope, but at least the trace memory of it. Should Obama not cave-- always a big if with this president-- he might have a serious shot at overcoming the huge burdens of a dark national mood and flatlined economy to win reelection.

So why can't the Republicans coalesce around a candidate? Romney is that compromise/compromised candidate Bachmann (and his wing of the party) keep warning about. And-- although no one mentions it in polite company-- he's a Mormon that large bigoted swathes of the Republican coalition will support on the same day they decide to support Satan. Perry has proven himself not just too extreme but too unprepared for prime time. Yesterday, his wife-- a woman who reportedly caught him porking Texas Secretary of State Geoff Connor-- was in Iowa trying desperately to fight back against a developing media narrative that Perry is toast. She... wasn't helpful to his cause.

The wife did acknowledge her husband’s lackluster debate performance.

“I think he would tell you that the other night was not his best performance,” she said. “But he’s only going to get better.”

“I think when you have seven arrows being shot at you, and you’re the one person in the middle, then 30-seconds rebuttal doesn’t give you a lot of time.”

Meanwhile, Perry also tried to allay any concern over the governor’s stances on illegal immigration. The Texas chief executive, his wife said, stands against illegal immigration, favors a “boots on the ground” approach to stem it along the U.S.-Mexican border and has fought against the flow of drugs and weapons across the border.

But the governor’s defense of a Texas law that provides in-state tuition rates to the children of illegal immigrants has irked many conservatives.

On that, the wife set about “setting the record straight.”

“Some have attacked Rick on this issue. ...so I want you to be armed with the facts,” she said. “In Texas, we only offer in-state tuition to residents of our state who have attended a Texas school for a minimum of three years and have earned a high degree. Children in the country illegally must be pursuing their citizenship in order to get an in-state rate. It is not a subsidy.”

Perry continued: “When Washington has failed to secure the border, has shown no sign of dealing with the millions that are here illegally, states like Texas are left with one of two choices: either we take care of those populations or they get on welfare which is a greater cost to our taxpayers. Or we give them the opportunity to graduate from a Texas school the opportunity to be a contributing member of society.”

And that brings us to the newest great white hope-- yeah, Herman "the Hermanator" Cain lasted about a minute and a half-- New Jersey loudmouth and bully Chris Christie who knows, if few Republicans know, that his record (on immigration and half a dozen other factors) would never hold up to the bloodthirsty fascist mob that boos and cheers like the crowd at a Roman gladiatorial circus. This Christie:



Is he really "reconsidering?" The Koch Brothers-- who can finance him and probably think they can reprogram the teabaggers in their deep pockets-- are sure he is.

When Texas Gov. Rick Perry, currently the front-runner in the Republican presidential nomination contest, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made a pilgrimage in June to a Colorado gathering of wealthy right-wing donors convened by billionaires Charles and David Koch, one man clearly impressed the brothers much more than the other.

Introducing Christie, who delivered the keynote address to the Koch Industries gathering, David Koch gushed. "With his enormous success in reforming New Jersey, some day we might see him on a larger stage where, God knows, he is desperately needed," said Koch, according to secretly recorded audio files of the event obtained by Brad Friedman of the Brad Blog.

...Uniting a small group of big-money donors, dubbed the "Draft Christie Committee" by New York Times reporter Nicholas Confessore, are two things: a hatred for labor unions and a desire for a Republican win in November 2012, something they seem unconvinced that either Perry or former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney can deliver.

There's little doubt that Christie is reconsidering his earlier decision to stay out of the presidential race. "It's real," former N.J. Gov. Thomas Kean told Robert Costa of the National Review Online. "He's giving it a lot of thought. I think the odds are a lot better now than they were a couple weeks ago." Kean, says Costa, is an "informal adviser" of Christie's. Yesterday, Christie hit the stump on behalf of Republican candidates-- something he does a lot-- in addition to traveling to California to deliver what was billed as major speech in Simi Valley last night.

When, during the question-and-answer session that followed the speech, an audience member asked Christie if he was running for the Republican presidential nomination, the governor first chided the audience for not getting to the subject until the second question, but refused to say he wasn't running.

He pointed them to the video above at Politico-- which is captioned that... he's reconsidering. Yesterday's Washington Post bit, pointing out that if he "isn’t a candidate for president or at least considering it, he’s doing a great impression of someone who is." They were impressed that he took a direct swipe at Perry-- and at a place he's most vulnerable among the right-wingers who have propelled him to frontrunner status-- going after Perry’s contention that anyone who opposes in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants is “heartless."

NY-9 Used To Be So... So, You Know... Liberal

It's 1921 all over again! That was the last time a Republican won in NY-9. This time Brooklyn voters decided to send President Obama a message-- or a hodge podge of messages-- by electing an out-and-out fascist, Bob Turner, to Congress. He won 32,446 (54%) to 27,669 (46%)-- although Weprin won in the Queens part of the district 51-48%. Hordes of Orthodox and Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn gave Obama a big thumbs down. In the 2012 midterms 67,011 Democrats voted; more than double the number who voted yesterday. If Obama thinks he's going to motivate Democrats and left-leaning independents next year, I can't wait to hear what he has in mind.

When Republican fascists attacked Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal-- which brought prosperity and dignity to millions of American working families-- they often spat out the word "Jew" as part of their derogatory description. It was before Christian right apocalyptic mania merged with militarism and Big Oil dictates to tamp down the overt anti-Semitism that was standard GOP fare until the 1980s. Since then, Jewish refugees have been a special class, almost as cherished and encouraged-- unlike when they were turned away by the thousands in the direst time of need-- as the Cubans. America has been taking in a hefty share of Russian and Eastern European Jews, some secular but some from bizarre post-medieval cults, the Hasidim.

One of the ways I disappointed my atheist father was by insisting I-- like everyone else in the 'hood-- get bar mitzvah-ed. When I was 12, living near Kings Highway and 17th Street in what is now New York's 9th congressional district, he offered to take me on a tour of Europe-- and pointed out I wouldn't have to go to Hebrew school-- if I decided to forego the bar mitzvah. In what I think was the last really über-stupid decision of my life I opted for the bar mitzvah. The one positive thing to come out of that was an opportunity to make some bank. The neighborhood shul had good turnouts on Friday nights and Saturdays but Orthodox Jews go to shul every morning to pray and according to rabbinical traditions, God doesn't hear the prayers unless there are at least 10 men present-- 10 men over 13. The neighborhood shul couldn't count on more than 8 on any given morning. So once I was bar mitzvah-ed (i.e.- a man) I could be part of a minyon (the quorum of 10). They gave me and my friend Stuie Cohen $25 or $50 a week each (I can't remember exactly-- only that it was a princely sum) to show up every morning at 7 on our way to school and sit there while they prayed. On mornings when only 7 of them showed up they would count the Torah as the 10th man and on morning when only 6 of them showed up-- they were all very old and frail-- they made due with the Black janitor. One of the old guys assured me he was a Falasha, an Ethiopian Jew, but I sensed I was being deceived and one day the janitor told me his family was from Dothan, Alabama, not Addis Ababa (let alone Gondar). That's probably the last thing I remember about being Jewish, other than the immense pride I felt at the role Jews played in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. In my last year of high school James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner (an African American and two Jews) were my heroes after they were brutally murdered by the KKK in Mississippi.

I haven't had a lot of interaction with Hasidics. They're very anti-assimilation. I feel uncomfortable writing about them; they're an easy target for bigotry with their ritual clothing and clannish behavior. And their racism... racism that would make the murderers of Chaney, Goodman and Schwerner proud-- racism that "shows," in the words of Brooklyn blogger Hasidic Rebel, "the mentality of those who, while living in America, have yet to learn the value of respect and dignity for all mankind."

Black slaves called themselves Israelites before Abraham Lincoln freed them, although they were wise enough to gravitate to the liberating message of Jesus even if they admired the Jews freeing themselves from Pharaoh's bondage. My limited experience with Hasidim makes me think that, except for their propensity towards non-violence and their non-aggressive nature (more like passive-aggressive), they'd be perfect for the KKK... if they'd cut the peyes, dye the robes white and ditch the beaver-skin hats for pillowcases.

If the rebbe says we all shop at Store A, they all shop at Store A. And if the rebbe says we all vote for the right-wing kook, they all vote for the right-wing kook. And yesterday they did. The Hasidim used to be working class and populist. Many still are. But in NY-9, there are lots of rich Hasidim living in McMansions. My sister says her old neighborhood, Manhattan Beach, is unrecognizable as Russian immigrants came in, bought up the properties and tore down the beautiful old character houses and replaced them with sterile McMansions with mezuzahs; and, this week, with Vote Bob Turner signs. NY-9 has been trending less Democratic of late. It's the only district in NYC that gave Kerry a bigger percentage of votes in 2004 than it gave Obama in 2008, something we saw all over the South but not much anywhere else. You can't blame it all on the Hasidim and the Orthodox Jews of course. There are 49,522 Jewish voters in the district, 29,123 Asian voters, 40,566 Hispanic voters, 35,265 Italian voters, and 26,238 Eastern European voters (some of whom are Jews). Jews vote in very high numbers. There aren't all that many Hasidim in NY-9 though, not as many as Orthodox Jews, who do not take orders from rabbis about who to vote for. And it should be remembered that progressives were also eager to send Obama a message. Sunday night PPP released data, though, that showed Obama sinking the party.

Republican Bob Turner is poised to pull a huge upset in the race to replace Anthony Weiner as the Congressman from New York's 9th Congressional District.  He leads Democrat David Weprin 47-41 with Socialist Workers candidate Christopher Hoeppner at 4% and 7% of voters remaining undecided.

Turner's winning in a heavily Democratic district for two reasons: a huge lead with independents and a large amount of crossover support.  He's ahead by 32 points at 58-26 with voters unaffiliated with either major party.  And he's winning 29% of the Democratic vote, holding Weprin under 60% with voters of his own party, while losing just 10% of Republican partisans.

...Weprin has been much maligned as a candidate but he actually has positive favorability numbers too with 39% of voters rating him positively and 36% negatively.  Over the last few years there have been very few races we polled where a candidate had a positive net favorability spread and still lost.  If Obama's approval in the district was even 40% Weprin would almost definitely be headed to Congress. He's getting dragged down by something bigger than himself.

The issue of Israel does appear to be having a major impact on this race.  A plurality of voters-- 37%-- said that Israel was 'very important' in determining their votes. Turner is winning those folks by an amazing 71-22 margin. With everyone who doesn't say Israel is a very important issue for them Weprin actually leads 52-36. Turner is in fact winning the Jewish vote by a 56-39 margin, very unusual for a Republican candidate.  This seems to be rooted in deep unhappiness with Obama on this issue- only 30% of voters overall approve of how he's handling Israel to 54% who disapprove and with Jewish voters his approval on Israel is 22% with 68 of voters disapproving. That has a lot to do with why Turner's in such a strong position.

Remember a couple weeks ago when Cuban-American fascist Marco Rubio claimed Social Security and Medicare had made Americans weaker? These very foreign residents of NY-9 are as in tune with America as Marco Rubio-- i.e., not at all. This is a district that was once the heartland of the New Deal. Sad what happened to it.

Will Obama Ever Figure Out That Americans Want Him To Be More Like FDR And Less Like George W Bush?

I'm hearing from more and more candidates lately who are telling me that they want to make sure voters know that, unlike Barack Obama, they're from the New Deal, progressive end of the Democratic Party. People thought Nick Ruiz, the central Florida candidate-- an ex-Green running as a Democrat against deranged teabagger Sandy Adams-- was radical when he was one of the first to take this tack. Now even more establishment Democrats are making it clear that they may wish Obama well and they may think he's a better choice than Romney or Perry but his corporatist policies are not what's behind their own campaigns. And yesterday I heard something similar from an unlikely source, the chairman of the Arizona Democratic Party, Andrei Cherny!

Cherny a former White House speech writer, author of The Next Deal: The Future of Public Life in the Information Age and a former Arizona Assistant Attorney General, sent me an OpEd he wrote for the Washington Post last week, FDR's Lessons For Obama. It's a lesson Obama apparently doesn't want to hear-- and that the corporatist hacks around him are warning him against-- but it's a message of hope.

It has become a universally acknowledged truth in coverage of the 2012 presidential campaign, one repeated with increased fervor with each dismal jobs report, that no president has won reelection with an unemployment rate above 7.2 percent. But always there is the caveat: .?.?. since Franklin Roosevelt in 1936.

In the aftermath of Thursday night’s presidential address on jobs, that caveat should be more than an afterthought. FDR’s victory three-quarters of a century ago has important parallels to the situation in which President Obama finds himself and provides vital lessons if he is to be similarly successful.

While Roosevelt had been elected in 1932 during a period of economic collapse, four years later the economy was still struggling. Unemployment in 1936 was 16.6 percent. The moment of national unity that marked Roosevelt’s first hundred days had petered out, leaving behind a general dissatisfaction with large-scale, inefficient government bureaucracies and their stratospheric levels of federal spending and debt. Newspapers had coined the term “boondoggle” to describe the high-end dog shelters, city zoo monkey houses, safety pin studies and other New Deal projects that attempted to stimulate the economy. New entitlement programs such as Social Security had been passed, over strong opposition, but had yet to take effect.

While Obama might confront the propaganda machine of Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News, Roosevelt faced off against a relatively more powerful William Randolph Hearst and his newspaper empire. In 1936 two-thirds of Americans read newspapers, which were vociferously anti-New Deal. Today, the Tea Party and a network of organizations funded by the Koch family and others focus their attacks on Obama. In 1936, charges of creeping socialism and the savaging of the Constitution were launched by the Liberty League and its affiliated groups, funded by a flood of money from the du Pont family and major corporations.

And yet when Election Day arrived, Roosevelt won by a landslide of historic proportions.

The differences between Roosevelt’s era and Obama’s are too numerous to list. Nevertheless, Obama and his advisers have much to learn from Roosevelt’s triumph.

First, Roosevelt constantly underscored the contrast between his plan and his opponents’ fealty to the policies and ideas that, in the decade before his election, had led directly to the Great Depression.

Second, Roosevelt made clear to the American people where the battle lines had been drawn. After the first two years of his administration, in which he attempted to work in concert with the business community, Roosevelt shifted gears in the summer of 1935. He sought to pick a fight with the richest men in the country, moving to significantly raise their taxes in the Revenue Act of 1935. In terms of government operations, the legislation was ultimately insignificant — it produced an additional $250 million in federal accounts, the equivalent then of running the government for 10 days. But revenue was not the goal. “This is a hell raiser, not a revenue raiser,” as one congressman put it. Harper’s Magazine wrote in June 1936 that the tax hike caused “more resentment against the President than any other act of his administration.” Roosevelt did not shy away from that resentment from the wealthy elite. Indeed, when he asserted “I welcome their hatred” in the climactic speech of his 1936 campaign, it was because it worked to his political benefit. [See video above.]

Most important, in that summer of ’35, Roosevelt had the courage to rebuild his presidency almost from scratch. When the set of national planning programs that made up the first New Deal-- in particular, the National Recovery Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Administration-- proved ineffective and ultimately were ruled unconstitutional, Roosevelt changed course. His second New Deal instead emphasized putting Americans to work in the Works Progress Administration, building up the strength of unions and expanding the safety net with Social Security.

The policies of 1935 do not necessarily fit the America of 2011, but there are instructive political and policy lessons in the crinkling newspapers and crackling radio broadcasts of that era. The choice Obama confronts is not the one repeated ad nauseam by pundits in recent weeks: “Go big” and double down on stimulus policies to make a political point, or “go small” and seek to pass tiny, ineffective tinkers. Rather, it is one that Roosevelt faced in a similar moment: Offer new ideas or more of the same. As Obama moves from Thursday’s speech to laying out an agenda for a second term, it is that decision that will define the rest of his presidency.

Cherny's new book is a history of Roosevelt's battle with the deadly Big Business enemies of the New Deal. And this year those self-same Big Business enemies of working families and of American democracy itself, have an ugly cast of characters vying for a chance to take on the weak, conflicted, corporate-leaning Obama whose hope always seemed to be to come across as not as bad as the extremist Republicans. It didn't help last November when rank-and-file Democrats sat on their hands while Obama's House majority evaporated and it doesn't seem to be working in the special elections in NV-2 or NY-9 today. Is Rick Perry a monster? Sure. But a surprising number of progressives are willing to play chicken and tell Obama they will not come to his aid if he doesn't act-- not just talk, but act-- like a New Deal Democrat. As Robert Reich pointed out at the link directly above, voters don't always vote for the best financial interests.

Of all the nonsense Texas Gov. Rick Perry spews about states' rights and the 10th Amendment, his dumbest is the notion that states should go it alone. "We've got a great Union," he said at a Tea Party rally in Austin in April 2009. "There's absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that."

The core of his message isn't outright secession, though. It's that the locus of governmental action ought to be at the state rather than the federal level. "It is essential to our liberty," he writes in his book, "Fed Up! Our Fight to Save America From Washington," "that we be allowed to live as we see fit through the democratic process at the local and state level."

Perry doesn't like the Federal Reserve Board. He hates the Internal Revenue Service even more. He's even against federal income taxes. If he had his way, taxpayers would pay states rather than the federal government for all the services and transfer payments they get.

This might be a good deal for Texas. According to the most recent data from the Tax Foundation, the citizens of Texas receive only 94 cents from the federal government for every tax dollar they send to Washington.

But it would be a bad deal for most other so-called red states. On average, citizens of states with strong Republican majorities get back more from the federal government than they pay in.

Kentucky receives $1.51 from Washington for every dollar its citizens pay in federal taxes. Alabama gets back $1.66. Louisiana receives $1.78. Alaska, $1.84. Mississippi, $2.02. Arizona, $1.19. Idaho, $1.21. South Carolina, $1.35. Oklahoma, $1.36. Arkansas, $1.41. Montana, $1.47. Nebraska, $1.10. Wyoming, $1.11. Kansas, $1.12.

On the other hand, fiscal secession would be a boon to most blue states, those with strong Democratic majorities. The citizens of California-- hit harder by the recession than most-- receive from Washington only 78 cents for every tax dollar they send to Washington. New Yorkers get back only 79 cents on every tax dollar they send in. Massachusetts, 82 cents. Oregon, 98 cents.

In other words, blue states are subsidizing red states. The federal government is like a giant sump pump-- pulling dollars out of liberal enclaves like California, New York, Massachusetts and Oregon and sending them to conservative places like Montana, Idaho, Oklahoma, Arizona, Wyoming, Kansas, Nebraska and the Old South.

As a practical matter, then, Rick Perry's fight to save America from Washington would actually save blue states from red states. So is Perry a closet liberal?

Hardly. Perry's approach would also pit each state against another. That's already happening when it comes to competition for jobs. As a result, state money that might otherwise be spent on schools or infrastructure has been funneled to corporations.

As governor, Perry has so far doled out $440 million of Texas' tax dollars to companies that relocate to the state. His office says the cash subsidies have attracted almost 59,000 jobs so far.

This may be good for Texas but not for the states that lose the jobs lured there. Such handouts just rob Peter to pay Paul. Corporations are enriched by the state tax dollars that bribe them to relocate, but America as a whole doesn't gain new jobs. It's just a giant zero-sum game.

Worse yet, the tax dollars used in these kinds of bidding wars can turn into political slush funds for governors. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Dallas Morning News reported in October that more than $16 million of Perry's handouts had gone to companies with substantial links to some of his biggest campaign backers.

How responsibilities should be divided up among different levels of government is an important question. America has been struggling with it since our founding.

But one of the main reasons we rely on the federal government-- and don't pay attention to how much the citizens of our own state get back for every tax dollar we send to Washington - is the idea that we're all in this together. E Pluribus Unum.

Making states rather than the federal government the locus of public action would pull us apart. The only beneficiaries of such zero-sum games would be the biggest companies that can play one state off against the other.

Put more directly, House Republicans don't want to pass President Obama's new jobs proposal because they're "worried about giving Obama any victories-- even on issues the GOP has supported in the past."

And despite public declarations about finding common ground with Obama, some Republicans are privately grumbling that their leaders are being too accommodating with the president.

“Obama is on the ropes; why do we appear ready to hand him a win?” said one senior House Republican aide who requested anonymity to discuss the matter freely. “I just don’t want to co-own the economy by having to tout that we passed a jobs bill that won’t work or at least won’t do enough.”

Even with the presence of so many GOP-friendly provisions in Obama’s plan-- like trade agreements and small-business tax relief-- some senior lawmakers are pulling back...