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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Archive | February, 2011

Alex Jones Takes Over ‘The View’

By on 28 February 2011

When your guest cites Col. Kurtz from “Apocalypse Now” you know it’s about to hit the fan.

It was meant as a segment to have the “radio talk show host” who had interviewed Charlie Sheen on “The View” to tell the story. What happened was quite different. A filibuster started the unraveling.

There’s more at Entertainment Weekly, with Newsbusters blaming Barbara Walters for letting Jones unwind.

Alex Jones went on a rant that ranged from defending his good friend Charlie Sheen, talking about how clean he is, then segued to “Torture! Secret arrests! America is turning into a police state!,” but also that Sheen isn’t the devil. Next he hoisted Charlie above George W. Bush while citing “a million dead in Iraq,” which freaked Elisabeth Hasselbeck out: “If you’re going to come here and go there, we’re asking you about your friend! Let’s stick to the topic!”

[Charlie Sheen is] tired of being judged and him being held up as the ultimate demon in this world. He didn’t kill a million people in Iraq. He wasn’t involved with the takedown of Building Seven here in New York. He thinks there’s bigger devils out there than himself. – Alex Jones, on “The View”

Then Jones went off on his favorite tangent about mind wars and economic disaster that caught Whoopie Goldberg and Barbara Walters flatfooted and left their mouths agape.

“Charlie says you have a right to kill him, but not judge him, as Colonel Kurtz.”

Someone on the staff of “The View” didn’t do their job. Screening guests is easy, especially when they come with a trail like Mr. Jones. But somebody was asleep, which allowed Jones to take center stage then run away with the show, leaving veteran Walters looking foolish.

The short clip above gives you some of the story, but watching it today I couldn’t help but wonder how Ms. Walters and her staff allowed Jones to take over their show and spout insanity. This is a man who has a record for crazy a search engine deep.

One thing you can bet, Charlie Sheen got the biggest laugh and for good reason. Alex Jones made a fool out of the ladies of “The View,” but also Walters and her entire staff.

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Olbermann Slaps Sulzberger Around

By on 28 February 2011

When I read the New York Times story last week about union bonds fraying, starting with the headline, it felt like one of those Politico stories with the set up in front. Keith Olbermann lays out the Times for it today.

Few news stories better spoke to the destruction of union solidarity and the realization that even those public employees collectively bargaining in Wisconsin were going to have to give something back, than the New York Times’ piece a week ago tomorrow titled “Union Bonds In Wisconsin Begin To Fray.”

The by-line was shared by no less than Arthur G. Sulzberger, the son of the publisher and official carrier of the Times’ family name. The piece ran prominently on the front page. Sulzberger himself interviewed the main ‘get’ in the piece. Beyond the mere reporting was the symbolism of the Times – even the sainted liberal media Times – throwing in the towel on the inviolability of unions, conceding that an American state could renege with impunity on a good faith contract with anybody, and that maybe the Right is right every once in awhile.

Problem is, A.G. Sulzberger’s featured disillusioned unionist interviewee…wasn’t in a union.

[...] This clear picture of a bunch of agendas happily coinciding – ‘Sulzberger! Find me a Wisconsin union guy who agrees with the Governor!’ – and to hell with the facts or the fact-checking or the spelling, with the truth coming to light only from – gasp! – an actual union guy (from the devil UAW itself!), has been reduced to a “PS, the publisher’s kid kinda screwed up on the most important domestic news story of the moment” instead of serving as the springboard for something fair, or even useful – maybe a front-page piece about the disinformation war being waged by Governor Walker and the Koch Brothers and the Tea Party in Wisconsin and whether or not this Hahan/Hahn was part of it, intentionally or inadvertently.

TinyRevolution (h/t Digby) caught the part that coincides with the Koch call that punk’d Gov. Walker. Read it, you’ll love it, but here’s a teaser from Jonathan Schwarz:

For me the best part of the Scott Walker prank call is how much he loves a New York Times article:

SCOTT WALKER: The New York Times, of all things—I don’t normally tell people to read the New York Times, but the front page of the New York Times, they’ve got a great story—one of these unbelievable moments of true journalism—what it’s supposed to be, objective journalism—they got out of the capital and went down one county south of the capital, to Janesville, to Rock County, that’s where the General Motors plant once was.

A great story about unions fraying. Only thing is it wasn’t “objective journalism” at all and the fraying being reported was really concocted. It was about the prince of the Times’ family wanting to co-opt Walker’s agenda to bash unions again.

Will the real liberals please stand up?

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Tina Brown Hires Sullivan

By on 28 February 2011

The Ann Coulter of blogging has a new job.

Given how Ms. Brown detests Sarah Palin this hire makes perfect sense.

There’s no way Brown and the Daily Beast would care about Sullivan’s pathological hatred of Sarah Palin or his fictional tales of fake pregnancy. His countless hit pieces on Palin fit Brown’s editorial policy perfectly.

Not that Sarah Palin isn’t deserving of a lot of incoming criticism. Who can’t wait for her foreign policy trip to India? The punch lines write themselves.

Tina Brown is a big Hillary Clinton fan, but this is not an issue anymore either, because she’s out of politics, so Sullivan doesn’t have Hillary to kick around anymore.

When Howard Kurtz and Ben Smith wrote about Andrew Sullivan’s hire by Tina Brown on Twitter during the Oscars last night lauding it, I could think on only one response. Needless to say, neither men responded, though Smith did mention Sullivan’s Palin hatred briefly on Politico: His status as a media property — driven by the fact that he almost undoubtedly has a larger audience than any other individual blogger in or around politics — also appears undented by his undisguised loathing for Sarah Palin, and Palin’s own unpopularity means that there’s little cost to the NewsBeast for taking on that bit of baggage. He also tweeted erroneously that if Palin were more popular Sullivan might have been passed over.

But Brown smartly wants eyes on the Daily Beast and isn’t worried about technicalities, so either way she sees it as a marketing win.

That Mr. Sullivan also wrote one of the most laughable pieces about Barack Obama, lauding his face, is something that people seldom mention anymore. That a grown man could be so utterly suckered to write such drivel is one thing. That it would turn out to be one of the worst pieces of political analysis is now election ’08 history. Sullivan’s vitriol at being duped was evident recently, though the only real embarrassment in the writing is that it took Andrew Sullivan until February 2011 to get a clue.

I feel about Andrew Sullivan the way I do about Ann Coulter, whose marketing and financial success defies the odds and good taste all the time. The sheer energy of output and never ending arrogance what keeps both afloat. Sullivan is not a political analyst, but a writer on speed with a great staff. However, you’ve got to admire anyone who can continue to make money, gain notoriety and success in a new media landscape that eats people up and spits them out daily.

Mr. Sullivan will be quite entertaining to read when Sarah Palin jumps to presidential candidate, though her latest numbers in Iowa spell big trouble in a state that she simply has to win.

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Let Republicans Lead, Economy Will Get Worse

By on 28 February 2011

Yet, that seems to be the Democratic plan.

The only sound idea is coming from Lawrence O’Donnell. From “Meet the Press” yesterday:

MR. O’DONNELL: They are. It looks like they’re going to avoid this Friday’s possible shutdown and, and have a two week extension. They seem to have agreed on that by John Boehner basically taking the cuts the president has identified in the future and saying, “Let’s start doing them now.” That, that’s the cut package that they will include in their ongoing resolution. But the problem with this dialogue is, it all begins after our failure on recognizing what the top tax rate burdens should really be. And, and keeping them down has created this much more serious deficit situation going forward. We’ve been ignoring for years the reality of what has happened in the super rich level of income in this country. We should have several higher top tax brackets. It shouldn’t stop at a couple of hundred thousand dollars. We have incomes, we have short-stops making $15 million who are paying the same tax rate as, you know, two UCLA married professors. This is outrageous. We have people on Wall Street in deals making $300 million in a day and they pay that same top tax rate as people making a couple of hundred thousand dollars. And so we’re ignoring this massive revenue possibility in the high end of incomes in this country.

Tax cuts don’t create jobs. They made matters worse, especially if you’re looking at the deficit. If tax cuts worked we wouldn’t be in this mess, but it’s the only things both parties know how to do.

The latest news, however, is even worse for Republicans. Their fiscal fantasy would actually make things worse. From Politico:

Moody’s chief economist, Mark Zandi, projected that the House proposal would cut real GDP growth by 0.5 percent in 2011 and 0.2 percent in 2012. That, in turn, would lead to 400,000 fewer jobs being created than expected by the end of this year and a total of 700,000 fewer jobs by the end of 2012.

“While long-term government spending restraint is vital, and laying out a credible path toward that restraint very desirable, too much cutting too soon would be counterproductive,” Zandi wrote. The economy is adding from 100,000 to 150,000 jobs each month, he said, but until that number reaches about 200,000 on a monthly basis, “[i]mposing additional government spending cuts before this has happened, as House Republicans want, would be taking an unnecessary chance with the recovery.”

A Goldman Sachs analysis released last Wednesday also concluded that Republicans’ 2011 cuts would be detrimental to the economic recovery.

This doesn’t matter to Democrats, who are still giving Republicans a path to win the austerity contest, instead of demanding some smart tax shifting and raising for the very wealthiest Americans.

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The Movies and Wisconsin are Union Stories

By on 28 February 2011

When Wally Pfister, winner for cinematography for “Inception,” thanked his “fantastic union crew!” it was a moment of solidarity last night at the Oscars. Unions got applause elsewhere when mentioned as well.

Meanwhile, back in Wisconsin a small and important emotional victory:

In a victory — at least a symbolic one — for Wisconsin’s public employee unions, the Capitol authorities announced on Sunday that demonstrators could continue their all-night sleepovers in the building and would not be forcibly ejected or arrested.

The fight goes on.

“The whole world is watching! The whole world is watching!”

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Kathryn Lopez Thinks You’re a Stupid Slut

By on 27 February 2011

**bumped**

We’ve come to expect less for and from ourselves, and for and from one another. In part, it’s the fruit of the contraceptive pill. New York magazine recently observed in a cover feature: “The pill is so ingrained in our culture today that girls go on it in college, even high school, and stay on it for five, 10, 15, even 20 years.” That, of course, has had all kinds of fallout: a false sense of freedom, security. And it has ravaged women’s fertility, as it seeks to mute exactly what women’s reproductive power is all about. – Kathryn Lopez

Close your legs, girls.

Guard your fertility.

It’s your power.

Phyllis Schlafly must be so proud.

Kathryn Lopez is using progress against women, because it fits the fiscal insanity moment we’re all living in, but comes with a bonus: blasting the “contraceptive culture.” Yeah, because the back alley abortion culture was so good for us all.

Women’s sexual freedom wasn’t really about either, according to Lopez. It was a false sense of freedom and security, as she hallucinates history, because — wait for it — it “ravaged women’s fertility.” Get the collective horror we’re all living there? Try selling that in Africa where HIV is the norm. The Right’s anti-feminists don’t believe We Are the World. They’re America-centric in the 21st century of rolling revolution.

Lopez argues that the fight to defund Planned Parenthood, which can’t use one dime for abortion services, is really all because the evils of contraception, which quiets pregnancy by snuffing it out. According to Lopez, the goal of the sexual revolution and contraception was actually a conspiracy to “mute exactly what women’s reproductive power is all about.”

Oh, and just for good measure, in case you didn’t get the message, Townhall uses a picture of Hillary Clinton next to Lopez’s ramblings.

Writing under “contraception is not the solution,” she huffs and puffs really hard to try to make the point that… No, wait. She actually says birth control isn’t the solution to a problem that women don’t have and never did.

Modern women are organically aware of our biology from puberty and no pill can mute the power of our fertility, which society still promotes as the primary essence of a woman’s being. What Lopez can’t bring herself to accept is that each woman can now make the decision herself as to whether she thinks that is actually true for her.

The crux of the issue is that the Right doesn’t believe women’s choices are their true power. They still think the vagina is the magic entry into controlling men and the place where fertility secretly lies that females are avoiding through the wickedness of contraception, because of some make believe uncontrollable clitoral climate.

Pleasure is not a pursuit in and of itself for 20th century women like Lopez, whether sexual or economic.

Because it’s unavoidable, Lopez admits she wants to take us all backward.

That’s why I want to turn back the clock — to a time when we valued love and marriage and didn’t expect, support and even encourage promiscuity. Life and history don’t work that way, obviously, there is no actual rewind. But we do have opportunities to learn from our mistakes.

The spending fight over Planned Parenthood in Congress is about a number of things. It’s primarily about good stewardship, as so much of the spending debate is. But beyond legislation, beyond anything Congress can or should do, it is a call to arms for a new sexual revolution. It’s about wanting more for ourselves and for those whom we love. It’s about ending the surrender to a contraceptive mentality that treats human sexuality as just another commercial transaction.

As someone who spent quite a few years traversing the world of relationships and sexuality, any woman in the modern era who doesn’t think courting doesn’t begin as a “commercial transaction,” to use her words, is going to find herself with the fuzzy end of the lollypop for life.

The “Leave it to Beaver” era is long gone and it’s not coming back.

There are few things more dangerous than amateurs talking about sexuality, but what’s worse is a charlatan selling a world to women on the guise of history’s failings.

Modern women aren’t stupid.

We’re not sluts.

We have choices.

Contraception is one of the things that gave them to us.

Condoms don’t “ravage women’s fertility,” venereal disease does, and promiscuity isn’t a prerequisite for using birth control. Serial monogamy in a world where people live to be 90 is reality. It doesn’t mean you’re a whore.

Making a choice to delay pregnancy doesn’t “mute exactly what women’s reproductive power is all about.” It puts motherhood on pause and there isn’t one modern woman who in the 21st century doesn’t know what that means.

Next we’re going to hear that contraception causes unemployment, because if the bitch was at home birthin’ babies she wouldn’t be takin’ the man’s job in the first place.

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Oscar Liveblog Party 2011!

By on 27 February 2011

Oscar Liveblog: KEEP HITTING REFRESH..
7:10 pm CST: As we watch the red carpet and get ready for the ceremony here are some of my thoughts on Oscar tonight. Agree? Disagree?

Montage of great Oscar moments!
Continue Reading →

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Sunday Early Bird News Round-Up

By on 27 February 2011

Good morning and welcome to Sunday.

On this day in history, February 27th 1933, Germany’s parliament building was gutted by fire. Chancellor Adolf Hitler, blaming the Communists, used the fire as justification for suspending civil liberties.

I’ve rounded up some links so you don’t have to:

~In today’s NYT Nick Kristoff argues that contrary to some stereotypes, the Arab world is not “unfit” for democracy.

~Newt Gingrich gets on the crazy train during an interview with Newsmax and essentially claims that the administration’s failure to continue defending DOMA could constitute an impeachable offense. Apparently when the right disagrees with a Democratic President they turn to their old standby- impeachment. While I don’t in any way endorse such nonsense, it shows that the GOP is much more willing to go after their political opponents than the Democrats were during the Bush years (and also today). Think of all the wrongdoing that arguably should have resulted in some sort of legal accountability- the lies that led to the Iraq War (never seriously looked into), warrantless wiretapping, abuses of the PATRIOT act, torture, extraordinary rendition, the destruction of the CIA torture tapes, the outing of Valerie Plame (obstructed by Scooter Libby- the resolution of that was a joke) and on and on. In most of those cases, the Democrats not only didn’t call for serious investigations but they went along with the wrongdoing by legitimizing it afterward or by claiming that they just wanted to “move forward.”

~Iraq continues to be on incredibly shaky ground. Iraq’s largest oil refinery was shut down after bombs were set off in what is being described as a quite sophisticated attack. No one has claimed responsibility.

~Haaretz reported that German Chancellor Angeloa Merkel is none too pleased with Bibi Netanyahu right now. She apparently told him that he has not ‘made a single step to advance peace.’ Germany is a key Israeli ally and it’s getting harder and harder for Israel’s far-right government to claim that all its allies are trying to “delegitimize” it. While the U.S. continues, through it’s inaction, to quietly enable the ongoing expansion of settlements, Europe has made clear it will not toe that line.

~With each passing day, more news of the brutality of the Gaddafi regime surfaces. Gaddafi’s hold on power is weakening and the administration has finally stated unequivocally that it’s time for him to step down. The U.S. declared unilateral sanctions on Friday while late last night the UN Security Council imposed sanctions and referred Libya to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Secretary Clinton heads to Geneva tomorrow where she will address a meeting of the UN Human Rights Council.

Here is a map from the BBC that shows who controls which parts of Libya as of yesterday:

~More trouble for President Saleh of Yemen.

~How long before women rise up against the Republican War on Women? The blog Down with Tyranny calls out the DCCC for pandering to Blue Dog Democrats who signed on to defund Planned Parenthood and other women’s health initiatives.

~Unless the lineup has changed, there will be no union representatives on the Sunday Talk Shows. Go figure. Meet the Press will actually has Gov. Walker on- you would think that would necessitate a key figure in Wisconsin involved in the opposition to Walker’s union-busing. If you thought that, you’d be wrong.

~Candidate Obama called whistleblowers “patriots.” President Obama is using the DOJ to wage war against them. Why does President Obama hate Candidate Obama?

~Following up on the incredible Rolling Stone story about the alleged use of PsyOps on American lawmakers, Steve Clemons wants to know if General Caldwell used it on the President of the U.S. or any key members of his foreign policy team. Apparently, the WH press corp and the other members of the MSM and pundit class can’t be bothered with such trivialities.

~In case you missed it, the Israelis and Palestinians actually agreed on something! And to their credit, Israel allowed three hundred Palestinians to cross from Libya to the West Bank.

~Open season on the FLOTUS? Is it me or is this an obsession of the right? Whether one likes Michelle Obama or not, fighting childhood obesity, promoting organic gardening and championing the rights of military families is hardly uber-radical stuff. Was Barbara Bush constantly criticized by Democrats? Because I don’t remember that. Is this even a smart move by the GOP, at least in terms of independent voters?

~Hey you guys, remember when candidate Obama said this?: “And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself. I’ll walk on that picket line with you as president of the United States.” Hahahahaha! April Fool’s! Get it? He was just kidding. Here’s Cenk Uygur of MSNBC ripping into Obama for his pathetic non-support of unions. Clearly the strategy is “well, the unions will vote for us no matter what we do so we can throw them under the bus and make nice with big business.”

~Think Progress lists the top 10 worst aspects of the Wisconsin GOP that you’ve never heard of.

~MoDo talks car dashboards in today’s NYT (?)

~The Obama admin. meets with lobbyists on a property next to the White House known as Jackson Place, possibly in order to keep the meetings out of the Secret Service logs and thus hidden from the public. Candidate Obama believed in transparency. President Obama believes in talking about transparency while creating exceptions, excuses and tricks. Why does President Obama hate Candidate Obama?

~More nuclear setbacks for Iran. Boy, they are sure having some bad luck!

~It’s about time- The Southern Poverty Law Center has labeled Pamela Geller’s group ‘Stop the Islamization of America’ a hate group. Geller is a total bottom-feeder whose conspiracy theories make Glenn Beck look mentally sound. Her latest tin-foil hat claim? CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference )was infiltrated by the Muslim Brotherhood.

~I’m with John Aravosis on this one- calling the appointment of an openly gay man to fill the position of White House Social Secretary “historic” is perhaps setting the bar a wee bit too low. Chief of Staff, Supreme Court nominee or Secretary of State? Yeah, historic. But Social Secretary? Sorry, I’m just not willing to give them too much credit for this one. Yes, Obama has appointed several openly gay officials, the most important (status-wise) of which is John Berry as director of the Office of Personnel Management. But still, can anyone really claim that even within a supposedly liberal Democratic administration, being gay doesn’t disqualify someone from Cabinet posts or other super-high profile positons?

~Calls for protests against the Assad regime in Syria have cropped up on Facebook.

~While ordinary hardworking Americans are being asked to sacrifice on the altar of austerity measures, the largest corporations (Bank of America, Boeing, Citigroup, General Electric pay ZERO in federal income tax despite huge taxpayer subsidies. When Americans get financial help or subsidies it’s called welfare but when huge corporations that pay out hundreds of millions in executive bonuses do it it’s called Business As Usual.

The End.

[cross-posted over at Secretary Clinton Blog]

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Progressive Notes: Rally to Save the American Dream Draws Tens of Thousands

By on 26 February 2011

Texan4Hillary offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.

What began two weeks ago as a Republican measure in one small U.S. state has turned into what could be the biggest challenge to union power since then President Ronald Reagan fired striking air traffic controllers nearly 30 years ago. – Reuters

Progressive Caucus Shows Solidarity with Wisconsin and all American workers fighting to save union rights.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7RIpoGLWvE

A funny thing happened after Egypt: people around the world began protesting in the streets for their rights. In Egypt a day of solidarity has been declared by its labor organizations. The day of solidarity though is with the unions of Wisconsin and Ohio.

The tea party driven anti-worker G.O.P. took over Wisconsin big time in 2010. But now reality sets in as voters find out the details of the tea agenda. A majority of Wisconsin voters disapprove of Walker’s moves and it is killing his approval ratings in polls. So thousands are in the streets and have forced the Wisconsin GOP state house to shut down its own comment line. Yikes.

Wisconsin has deep progressive roots. It was settled by Scandinavians, a deep progressive and union rich culture. So now what Walker is trying to do is a seminal fight in American progressivism. We must fight with the unions in anyway we can.

The ability for a union to bargain for its members is essential, even for those who are not union members. The more folks in unions the better wages are for everyone. In F.D.R.’s time had it not been for 25 pct of America being unionized the New Deal programs would not have been as strong if at all. Unions after the war bargained for better pay and benefits and for 50 years across the board American’s pay went up and a middle class grew.

Those brave 14 Democratic state senators standing strong in Illinois to keep the GOP from having a quorum to pass the anti worker bill need all our help. Act Blue is fundraising for these guys so we can help get them food, lodging and so forth. Here is the LINK to donate. Solidarity with the people in the street fighting back against our oligarchy.

Thank the 14 Democratic heroes preventing the GOP from holding quorum to pass the right to work bill here.

AFL-CIO is urging all of us to sign this petition defending the right to unionize. The signatures will be delivered to every statehouse in America. LINK.

Great coverage on the AFL-CIO’s liveblog today. Here is the link to follow the events across America. On the front page is Labor Secretary Solis’ solidarity statement:

I’ve been following the developments in Wisconsin, and Ohio, and many other states across the country.

We know that many states are facing tough budget decisions. We know that there’s room for shared sacrifice.

And we’ve seen our brothers and sisters in the public employees unions willing to give there share, and to negotiate in good faith to help their states get through tough times.

But the governors in Wisconsin and Ohio aren’t just asking workers to tighten their belts, they’re demanding that they give up their uniquely American rights as workers.

These are our neighbors, our friends, our family. They teach our kids and risk their lives to keep us safe. And all they’re asking is to be treated with respect.

All these workers want is the opportunity to sit down at the table, like grown ups, and work together to solve problems.

That’s what collective bargaining is all about.

We know that sitting down together and working through problems doesn’t cause budget problems. In fact, that’s how we solve budget problems.

In every family in America, that’s what they do when times are tough. They talk. They negotiate. And that’s what these Governors ought to do.

Oh, and MoveOn has a site where you can replay and watch the events that happened across the nation. Go here. Photos are here.

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Queer Talk: “LGBT rights are workers’ rights”

By on 26 February 2011

That we need a “Rally to Save the American Dream,” occurring in every state today, tells us something significant about how the “dreams” of millions are in jeopardy, already gone, or, in truth, were never a possibility. Among the coalition of organizations involved in today’s 50 state rally are The Lesbian and Gay Task Force, and GetEQUAL!. Robin McGehee, Director of GE, writes:

Our movement should be working with allied groups to find intersections of inequality and to work together to win equality. … The rights of those who are working to provide for themselves and their families — regardless of income level, sexual orientation, or gender identity — should be protected at a federal level. Anything less is unconscionable.

The connections between labor unions and Queerdom are not new. In 2006, for example, in Wisconsin, labor unions joined in the fight against a proposed ban on marriage and civil unions between same gender couples. In 2009, a coalition of over 50 labor unions, along with another of faith organizations, joined in the efforts to invalidate California’s Proposition 8, which banned marriage between same gender persons.

A few years earlier, 2001, a book, Out at Work: Building a Gay-Labor Alliance , addressed the relationships between LGBT organizations and individuals, and labor unions through essays of various activists, policymakers, union leaders and academics. Those included U.S. Representative Barney Frank and then AFL-CIO president John J. Sweeney.

Although mainstream gay rights organizations have tended to imagine their community as primarily middle class, an overwhelming number of lesbians and gays are working class, and many are already union members. Indeed, most of the progress made toward improved workplace conditions for gays and lesbians has been accomplished by rank-and-file union activists.

Of course, the same general arguments made against unions, including that they are no longer needed, are sometimes heard within queerdom as well. Listening to arguments that unions are no longer necessary is like listening to someone argue that gender and race are no longer factors in, among places, where you work. Progress has been made, but the movements toward full civil rights are far from complete.

And as there are those in the LGBT communities who do not support unions, there have certainly been times when unions have not backed LGBTs struggles toward civil rights. But in general, there is a solid relationship.

One of the best reads I’ve found regarding what’s happening now is at Bilerico, with Joe Mirabella’s article, “Understanding the Significance of Wisconsin’s Unions & Why We Should Stand in Solidarity.”

The unions have a strong history with the LGBT communities. …
Not only do they stand with us symbolically, unions back up their support with money and people power when it is necessary. In Washington state, the unions provided both financial assistance and volunteer resources when we were fighting to protect our domestic partnership rights. Nationally, the unions stand with us for our push for an inclusive ENDA.

Another very good read comes from Keori, at Pam’s Houseblend, “Why LGBT Rights Are Worker’s Rights”:

LGBT rights are workers’ rights. Fair Wisconsin is in the thick of this. Executive Director Katie Belanger, along with Fair Wisconsin supporters, has been in the Capitol protesting, and calling legislators to let them know that it’s never okay to take away the rights of human beings for any reason. She appeared on MSNBC’s Ed (Schultz) Show on Friday night.

SCHULTZ: Katie, how do you see this unfolding as we go forward?

KATIE BELANGER, FAIR WISCONSIN: Well, I think that this is certainly about workers’ rights. But the larger issue is about people’s rights and the rights of citizens. And we’re an organization that is about standing up for not just the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, but about the people of Wisconsin. And we knew labor stood with us. Time and time again, every time we’ve had a challenge, they’ve been right there with us. And this was our opportunity to stand with them. BLOCK CLOSED

The movements toward equality, for full civil and human rights, are just that, movementS, plural. What else could it be, given the complexities of social, political and economic realities. But if the need to work together isn’t recognized now, well, I’m not sure what it will take.

One way the “working together” happens is what we’re seeing in Wisconsin and elsewhere – the literal gathering of diverse people demanding their rights. “Working together,” in general, includes a refusal to accept the stereotypical scapegoating efforts of the opposition – when public sector employees are painted as greedy, selfish; the Hispanic population is generalized as “illegals”; Black communities are labeled as lazy, dangerous. The “homosexuals,” of course, are a threat to all that is “traditionally” godly and patriotic.

Unions are a current focus of why joining forces is so important in, for me, the liberal movements. Call it progressive if that works better for you, no worries. The “together” part is complicated, but so is life in general. We figure it out, work at it, as we go. Among other things, joining forces does require prioritizing at times, like now, with the clear and present danger to unions. It also requires that specific needs and issues of specific members of coalitions are treated with equal importance. So when in Wisconsin the focus was on efforts to ban “gay marriage,” unions stepped up and worked with LGBT activists to fight it. Now, the need is for LGBTs to fight for the rights of unions.

Fair Wisconsin’s Katie Belanger says, “LGBT rights are workers’ rights.” Or to put it another way, as Audre Lorde said, “There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.” We really are in this together. Or at least, we need to be.

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My $0.02/Saturday Sequel: Solidarity from across These United States

By on 26 February 2011

Aaron Foster, Reclaimed License Plate Map. Click to view at uncommongoods.com

Good morning, news junkies!

Last Saturday, I rounded up some headlines state-by-state, in solidarity. Well, it’s time to supersize: This Saturday is set for a 50-State Solidarity March. MoveOn.org has organized gatherings, dubbed “Rally to Save the American Dream,” in front of every statehouse and in every major city, at noon local time today, to stand in solidarity with the workers of Wisconsin.

I don’t know about you, but a 50-state solidarity has my attention in a way that Dr. Dean’s 50-state strategy–to court “socially conservative economic moderates”–never did.

I’m not the biggest fan of MoveOn, given their timidity in the age of Obama, but if today’s rallies are the start of a concerted effort by everyone involved to–as Krugman and Wells put it at the start of the year–“delink their political fate from Obama,” then more power to ‘em.

Okay, so let me get started with my offerings to go with your morning brew.

New Deal 2.0′s Lynn Parramore put out a great read this week about Coolidge, Reagan, and Governor Walker, in response to the revisionist anti-union propaganda being promulgated by Amity Shlaes and other rightwing hacks.

Shlaes’ narrative is a hoot. According to this rightwing propaganda, Coolidge put himself on the national map by crushing unions and firing striking police officers in Massachusetts, which turned him into a hero and real man of the people. Soon enough Coolidge becomes Harding’s VP (Shlaes says that like it’s a good thing!) and then president himself. Union membership went down, and so did joblessness… apparently the birds started singing, the sun was shining…as Parramore quips, the way Shlaes tells it, it was “Morning in America” again. Thus, the code words “Boston Police” cemented the American principle that union causes do not trump others.

Are these people insane?

The money quote from Parramore’s response to Shlaes:

Coolidge got to the White House for crushing unions, where he slept ten hours a day and hopped on and off a mechanical horse in his underpants and a cowboy hat.

Here’s what America got: the Great Depression.

Between Shlaes and Glenn Beckistan, I wonder how much more warped the conservative reading of history is going to get. I’m sure it can *get* much worse, since there is no depth they won’t sink to (for the latest proof on that, see the Nebraska bill that would effectively legalize murder of abortion providers).

Still, it’s hard to imagine *how* their reading can get much worse. Harding and Coolidge were horrible presidents, remembered for corruption and corporate cronyism. The Harding and Coolidge “prosperity” of the roaring twenties existed side-by-side with quiet desperation, evidenced by the growing phenomenon of Hoovervilles. Is this really the history the right wanted to remind us of while we watch the current-day battle over unions play out? If the Republican overreach to annihilate public worker unions is astonishing, the conservative attempts to brand this move as Coolidgesque are utterly inexplicable.

(Then again, we live in an era where creative class progressives–the operative word there being creative–think Obama, an ostensibly Democratic president, being Reagan’s true heir is something to brag about. I’m reminded here too of the Heritage Foundation’s newfound interest in heeding the admonitions of FDR. We live in topsy-turvy times. But, more on that later.)

Parramore goes on to say:

Intuiting correctly that the public may not be on their side in this battle, conservatives have relentlessly pushed the deceptive idea that public employees enjoy higher salaries and better benefits than their private-sector counterparts. But this has been widely debunked. Careful research has shown that when you adjust for skill levels, public sector workers are not overpaid relative to private sector pay scales.

It’s the age old scapegoat story of the Little Guy falling for the lie that everything is the fault of the even Littler Guy, while the Too Big to Fails laugh all the way to the bank.

More from Parramore:

Governor Walker says he’s fighting for ordinary Americans. So why does he want to require unions to re-certify every year, but we don’t hear a peep about corporations being required to renew their charters every year? Why does he want to control the salaries of public employees, but doesn’t have any interest in controlling the salaries of grossly overcompensated corporate CEOs? Why does he call for sacrifices from hard-working people who have been screwed by the economy through no fault of their own, and none from the financiers who caused the crisis?

Maybe it’s because he has quite a bit in common with Coolidge and Reagan after all. In Reagan’s case, as in Coolidge’s, union-busting led to some of the biggest peacetime income re-distributions in modern history. Democracy got weaker, oligopolies got stronger, the rich got richer, and the rest of us got left behind.

I was born a couple months after Reagan took office, so all I’ve ever seen is “democracy getting weaker, oligopolies growing stronger, the rich getting richer, and the rest of us getting left behind.”

Except, of course, for that dreadful “pause” called the “Clinton nineties.” I so much prefer Obama’s rewinding back to Reagan over that icky pausing thing. Thanks for that, creative clueless class!

But, I digress. Parramore concludes:

The real lesson from Coolidge and Reagan is this: If Governor Walker and his Republican friends are allowed to crush the public unions, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

My takeaway from all of this is if Republicans want to follow in the footsteps of Coolidge and the Democrats want to follow in the footsteps of Reagan, perhaps we should all just call our efforts to secure all these human ‘luxuries’ we’ve been fighting for (i.e. jobs, food, shelter, education, healthcare, collective bargaining, etc.) a real nice try, declare it’s time for an “orderly transition,” and get in line at our local soup kitchens. Why prolong the inevitable. We need to do this as orderly as possible so we can ensure maximum “stability” for the too-big-to-fails!

Sorry to get so sardonic on a solidarity Saturday, but this is what we’re up against. We’re only to listen to FDR when it’s to crush unions, and both wings (D and R) of our Corporate party are chasing the corporate welfare ghosts of Coolidge and Reagan. It’s a good thing the Oscars are tomorrow, because bread and circuses is all we have left.

Anyhow, be sure to read the rest of Parramore’s piece when you get a chance. It’s a meaty and satisfying read.

There’s more, so go get your morning cuppa refilled, and then click to continue.

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Top Best Pictures of All Time?!

By on 25 February 2011

Originally posted In the News.

Sunday is Oscar night and we got a live blog Oscar party right here! I’m a mega film buff so this will be fun. Let’s take a quick tour down memory of some of the Academy’s best picture winners, which I think are the most memorable films ever made. Agree?

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Anti-Americanism on Parade: ‘Who’s going to shoot President Obama?’

By on 25 February 2011

The account of the incident makes it clear that the question could have been condemned on the spot and should have been condemned. Any person with any moral character at all would have done so. The people in the room who stood by laughing, laughing, are as guilty as the congressman who let it pass.

Rep. Paul Broun issued a statement to save his own ass. He’s simply not fit to be in Congress. However, these days that doesn’t seem to matter.

Tuesday night at a town hall meeting in Oglethorpe County, Georgia an elderly man asked the abhorrent question, “Who’s going to shoot Obama?” I was stunned by the question and chose not to dignify it with a response; therefore, at that moment I moved on to the next person with a question. After the event, my office took action with the appropriate authorities.

I deeply regret that this incident happened at all. Furthermore, I condemn all statements — made in sincerity or jest — that threaten or suggest the use of violence against the President of the United States or any other public official. Such rhetoric cannot and will not be tolerated.

Congress is a joke. They’re either in bed with corporations or sucking up to special interests, more worried about keeping their jobs than doing their jobs.

Once upon a time there was a show called “West Wing.” There aren’t very many lawmakers who fit the bill of the idealism the show projected.

How someone, anyone, could sit in an audience with this question asked about any president without causing a scene is beyond me.

But if you want to know the problem with this country, this episode reveals the root. We’ve decayed down to the core constituency. There is no heeling what is rotten without a revolution of spirit, which has absolutely no chance of happening today.

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Progressive Notes: Tea Nuttery, Democrats and Social Security Cuts

By on 25 February 2011

Texan4Hillary offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.

The cold-hearted austerity Tea Party freshmen in Congress have grand ideas on Social Security. The latest fool to come forward with his views will be a top target for the Dems and he should be in 2012 for this doozy.

The guy is Rep. Huzeinga. His comments on raising the retirement age on Social Security:

..Rep. Bill Huzeinga (R-MI) championed these regressive cuts to Social Security during an appearance on Fox News last week. During a discussion about the federal budget deficit, Huzeinga said that we “certainly” should be having a “conversation” about raising the retirement age for Social Security. He explained that at a recent town hall meeting, a constituent complained about these cuts, and that Huzeinga responded by telling him, “Look, I’m 42. I’ll be 106 When these recommendations, if we adopted them right now, would actually come into place. I’m gonna be okay”:

Oy vay. Did he just say that? Americans deserve better leaders. Way better. Selfish to the very core. What kind of a public servant is this creep? The video:

On the Hill there is trouble for the deficit nitwits like Senators Durbin and Warner. Senator Schumer has taken Reid’s lead and has come out firmly against any cuts in Social Security. Pelosi came out as well opposing any kind of deal on Social Security as did Rep. Van Hollen.
The Hill has more.

Meanwhile today key Democratic senators announced they want to put Social Security off the table in a lockbox. Senators Schumer, Sanders and Budget Chair Conrad spoke out to do this. Senator Conrad is critical as he is chair of the budget writing process and he says he wants Social Security not to be part of deficit negotiations- a sharp turnaround for him. Progressive today breathed a sigh of relief- for now. The lockbox of Gore returns?

Something is also going on at the White House as well. O.M.B. Director Jacob Lew and Economic advisor Furman this week have made public remarks and op-eds distancing the White House from the deficit commission’s recommendations on Social Security

HuffPo talks to White House economic advisor Furman and Axe. This is a very different tone here:

Furman . . . insisted that talk of Social Security reform “is not one you care about” if “you are worried about our long-run fiscal future.”
“The reason you care about it is because you want to strengthen Social Security,” Furman added in a speech at the progressive nonprofit group NDN. “It is such a critical part of our social insurance, the bedrock of retirement security for senior citizens, one of the leading anti-poverty programs for children, critical support for people with disabilities. And for all those reasons and the fact that its solvency … is another 26 years, till 2037, the real motivation is strengthening the program.”

Those remarks are a strong reflection of growing defensiveness on the White House’s part in response to calls to reform the longstanding entitlement program. During this year’s State of the Union address, Obama said he would “speak out against” plans to “target” Social Security should they materialize in Congress. Top adviser David Plouffe likewise said the president would neither slash nor reduce benefits While in office.

Furman’s comments are more assertive in their framing. Rather than merely ruling out drastic changes to the entitlement program, he is arguing that Social Security has no place in a debate over the deficit — a position directly at odds with the conclusions reached by the chair’s of president’s own deficit commission.

Lew, Obama’s O.M.B. director, writes in USA Today words we and the nation need to hear:

The budget put forward by President Obama last week is a blueprint for how we can live within our means and win the future. As this begins the budgeting process in Washington, we need to be clear about the causes of the pressing fiscal problems we face. Specifically, looking to the next two decades, Social Security does not cause our deficits….

Lew separates Social Security from the budget deficit as well. This is opposite of the deficit commission recommendation:

For years, the surpluses in the Social Security trust fund have helped to mask our deficits elsewhere. Now that we are paying Social Security back, the problem is not with Social Security, but with the rest of the budget. In 2001 and 2003, Washington cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans and later expanded Medicare without paying for it.

Blaming Social Security for our fiscal woes is like blaming you for not saving enough in your checking account because the bank lost all depositors’ money.

The problem is not Social Security; the problem is the mismatch between outlays and revenues in the rest of the budget. Closing that gap and paying down our debt will take tough choices, and the president’s budget makes them. Strengthening Social Security is an important, but parallel, issue that needs to be addressed as quickly as possible. But let’s not confuse it as either the cause of or a solution to our short-term fiscal problems.

Hmm… Something is going on here. The White House has changed its tune this week in a concerted, very public effort. Let’s hope this means a course change here on the issue from the Obama administration.

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If Only Candidate Obama Would Show Up

By on 25 February 2011

The groups, including MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, USAction, the Service Employees International Union and People for the American Way, plan to hold “Save the American Dream” rallies in 50 state capitals on Saturday. “Instead of creating jobs, Republicans are giving tax breaks to corporations and the very rich and then cutting funding for education, police, emergency response and vital human services,” the groups declared in their call to action. “The right to organize is on the chopping block. The American Dream is slipping out of reach for more and more Americans, and we have to fight back.” – Liberals to stage Tea Party-like revolts against GOP spending cuts

White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer said recently about Gov. Walker’s union busting strategy that “This is a Wisconsin story, not a Washington one.” Unfortunately, there never seems to be a “Washington one” for the Obama White House, which was echoed by some in the Wall Street Journal yesterday.

If there is a more clueless, damaging Democratic message I haven’t heard it. This was in response to Republicans flooding the zone that Pres. Obama is “butting into Wisconsin’s business,” to quote a Newsmax blast this week. But if Pres. Obama isn’t going to fight for the middle class what good is he to the Democratic Party? The Left doesn’t have an answer for that question.

Once upon a time, Barack Obama did have an answer. In fact, the words still live on BarackObama.com. But that was before he got the job to which he applied. Daily Caller pulls out the video today.

When I am President, I will end the tax giveaways to companies that ship our jobs overseas, and I will put the money in the pockets of working Americans, and seniors, and homeowners who deserve a break. I won’t wait ten years to raise the minimum wage – I’ll raise it to keep pace every single year. And if American workers are being denied their right to organize when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes and I will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States.

Mother Jones lays out why the union fight in this country is so critically important to the middle class. It’s because America doesn’t have one anymore.



I’m sure Pres. Obama didn’t mean to make the Republicans’ job easier for them, but that’s what he’s done. I have no doubt that Barack Obama’s heart is in the right place when it comes to workers. It’s just he doesn’t have the ideological instinct for when he’s being suckered, while his staff has the collective wingnut I.Q. of 2. They’ve also so fetishized Independent voters, as has the entire traditional media, that they don’t know a trap when it’s being laid.

No one has been a bigger sucker for austerity than Pres. Obama.

He was the right man for 2008, but it’s clear that the ideological battle brewing going into 2012 makes him a weak spokesman for what Democrats need, but he’s all they’ve got. So what’s going to happen as the Right takes aim at the heart of what Democrats are all about: supporting the working, middle class against all odds through policy? So far all Obama’s done is yield the field to the Right, which is why we’re now seeing an assault on public unions.

The Obama White House still hasn’t figured out how the Right, in whatever party it lives, wages political warfare. Look at health care and how they targeted women on reproductive services. Both Obama and Pelosi gave Stupak-Pitts the power to serve women up, which culminated last week with Rep. Mike Pence taking the Right’s war on women to target Planned Parenthood, while states like South Dakota and Nebraska tout “justifiable homocide” bills.

Maybe this all started when Sarah Palin beat Pres. Obama on health care messaging when she squealed about “death panels.” The lack of fight was evident, because Obama preferred making the deal with big pharma and private health insurance companes, instead of fighting for the public option in the open. The Right sensed he didn’t have the steel for the battle, which is turning out to be any battle at all.

One of the biggest moves from Pres. Obama that legitimized the austerity craze came when he authorized the deficit commission, teasing a bipartisan solution in the midst of all out ideological war coming from the Right. He even teased he’d put Social Security on the table.

Listening to Rush Limbaugh talk about “busted” unions and “Armageddon” for the labor movement this week, there can be absolutely no doubt the battle in Wisconsin is an ideological fight.

Same with Gov. Walker, who basically said on “Morning Joe” that it doesn’t matter what concessions Wisconsin unions serve up, he wants to break their ability to collectively bargain, which would make the public sector unions obsolete. Walker also said that any taxes would be wrong, including those for the wealthiest Americans. That’s likely because they’re the people who paid for Walker’s ride into office.

This tax message was aided by what Pres. Obama and the Democrats said in December when they extended the Bush era tax cuts. Coming after Obama’s deficit commission, the message Obama sent to the Right was that he was buying that the deficit was the main issue, but more importantly that the primary way of dealing with it is through spending cuts and tax cuts, basically adopting the Republican economic message that got us into this mess in the first place.

It was the set up for what’s happening in Wisconsin and beyond, with Republican governors and legislatures across the country primed to take unions out. The midterms were a Right rout, which is why I kept emphasizing the state houses turned over & the number of seats lost after November’s elections. There was simply no way Republicans would gain such an advantage and not use it through policy.

The minute Pres. Obama embraced the Right’s economic world view, as well as their austerity craze to cut spending, he emboldened Gov. Chris Christie, Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican Right to attack government spending as the only problem and make taxes the enemy of the public good, which Obama and the Democrats aided by extending the Bush tax cuts, but also by buying into the notion that the deficit should be handled through spending cuts alone, instead of including tax increases on multi-millionaires and billionaires.

Pres. Obama has miscalculated horribly by handing the Republican Right the biggest advantage on economic policy since Ronald Reagan won in 1980. Through the deficit commission and extending Bush era tax cuts, he handed the Right the only thing they needed to further threaten and weaken the Democratic Party worse than what the Tea Party did in the midterms.

It’s gotten so bad that last week on “Real Time” with Bill Maher, CNBC’s Michelle Caruso-Cabrera said that Social Security was one of the biggest problems we have today, while actually lauding Sharron Angle for saying it should be privatized. At one point John Heilemann looked at Bill Maher and said that maybe it was time to realize that Pres. Obama just doesn’t think the same things as many Democrats do is all that important, because he agrees with Republicans. It was the first time I heard someone in the traditional media world say what I’ve been writing since 2007.

It’s clear Pres. Obama has no intention of countering the austerity craze to tackle the deficit. The only hope is that the Left will see this as their own Tea Party moment and force the issue into reality. The super wealthy aren’t paying their fair share, because nobody in either party is asking them to.

It’s time to ask the comfortable what they can do for their country.

However, anyone waiting for candidate Obama to show up to do just that is going to be very disappointed.

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Wisconsin Crank Call Rocks Union Story

By on 24 February 2011

Sen. Chris Larson, D-Milwaukee, said he expects three Republican senators to come forward in the next day or two to end the stalemate and request that the budget repair bill be withdrawn, though he wouldn’t name the trio. “They may be ready to step forward,” Larson said. “That’s the way we can see this ending now. There are Democratic senators who are trying to talk to them and encourage them to step forward and say publicly that they don’t want this bill. We hope a few of them stand up and be brave.” – Wisconsin State Journal (via Huffington Post)

Wisconsin papers flooded the zone this morning with the news about Gov. Walker getting punk’d. That’s because it’s big news, no matter how it was done, which was well beyond the scope of what traditional journalism teaches, which hardly matters in the new media world.

Doesn’t anyone remember Sarah Palin getting punk’d? You’d think that would have taught politicians to be more careful, if George “macaca” Allen’s moment didn’t.

The Kochs and Gov. Walker are now linked forever. It’s the Right’s George Soros moment. From David Weigel:

[...] How did the Kochs become the villains of Madison? They have, for decades, bankrolled libertarian think tanks and programs, and they help put on conferences where conservative ideas are spread. Among the ideas they end up spreading are drug legalization and opposition to the Patriot Act. The Tea Party was the first movement funded in part by the Kochs that really took off.

So why credit everything that Republicans are trying to do now to Kochs’ influence? Partly because they do have some influence, and partly, as the Assembly Democrats kept goading Republicans, because they are shadowy “New York billionaires.” A complicated fight over public-sector unions can be broadened into a stand against secretive malefactors of wealth, who can be connected somehow to every conservative victory or idea. And the fear and paranoia grows, because, theoretically, they could be spending more than anyone knows. If Citizens United lets conservatives spend more money secretly, it has a hell of a side effect.

It’s put the Right on defense, which means the story has turned dramatically against Walker, no matter what conservatives think of him. Just look at the wingnut list from Memeorandum earlier today.

Michelle Malkin: Video: CWA union thug strikes young female FreedomWorks activist. Her latest blog post title I won’t even write on this blog.

Red State: Bad Jew!

Townhall: New Tone: Democratic Congressman Urges Union Protesters to “Get Bloody” With Tea Partiers.

Last night, Jeffrey Sachs made a critical point that’s been playing out slowly in the media. It’s about collusion and coordination between Walker and the Kochs. On Obama, Sachs has it exactly right, so I’ll let the video from Lawrence O’Donnell’s show do the rest. It speaks for me.

Where is Pres. Obama? Where he usually is, on the sidelines watching.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Afghanistan for Dummies

By on 24 February 2011



From Rolling Stone’s Michael Hastings:

Under duress, Holmes and his team provided Caldwell with background assessments on the visiting senators, and helped prep the general for his high-profile encounters. But according to members of his unit, Holmes did his best to resist the orders. Holmes believed that using his team to target American civilians violated the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which was passed by Congress to prevent the State Department from using Soviet-style propaganda techniques on U.S. citizens. But when Holmes brought his concerns to Col. Gregory Breazile, the spokesperson for the Afghan training mission run by Caldwell, the discussion ended in a screaming match. “It’s not illegal if I say it isn’t!” Holmes recalls Breazile shouting.

If you want to cut the budget, start with Afghanistan.

It was worth it when Pres. Obama came into office, but since McChrystal’s implosion proved the strategy had failed, the latest news from Hastings renews the need for courage to stop our engagement there.

This comes as former Gov. Mike Huckabee becomes the latest Republican to doubt the end game in Afghanistan.

That’s because we don’t have one.

Since I was a strong supporter of Pres. Obama’s Afghanistan policy from the start, but especially what Sect. Clinton is doing there, if McChrystal’s implosion didn’t do it, which was my own personal tipping point, and if Hastings’ latest revealing the desperation of the policy’s continued failure isn’t enough, I have to ask what is it going to take for others to see the futility of our policy at this point and do something about it?

If the Right could ever agree that conservatism means austerity on foolishly long foreign engagements they actually might find themselves in the majority. Because with all the Blue Dogs on the Left, it doesn’t seem like it’s going to come from Democrats.

Oh, and just so we’re clear on what Michael Hastings has reported. What Caldwell is doing is not just wrong, it’s illegal.

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Media Static Meets Obama as Potential Hostage Negotiator

By on 24 February 2011

Officials analyzing Moammar Gadhafi’s rambling speech are concerned that the Libyan strongman is so untethered to reality he may “burn down the house with him,” as one put it, putting the Lybyan people — and hundreds of Americans — at risk, and prompting President Obama to carefully calibrate his words. In his first public remarks on the crisis Wednesday, President Obama didn’t mention Gadhafi’s name, not wanting to personalize the crisis and feed into Gadhafi’s megalomaniacal worldview of this crisis as a showdown between him and President Obama. – Jake Tapper

Dana Milbank has penned a brutal piece today entitled: Jay Carney: Mouthpiece for an inscrutable White House. Not exactly the way anyone wants to start their new job.

“So it’s fair to say we are in the midst of, sort of, changing, reworking our Middle East policy?” asked NBC’s Chuck Todd.

Carney retreated to more talk about timeless principles. And that’s about the best he can do — until the president devises a policy for him to talk about.

This comes at a time when the White House is caught between a murderous, rampaging Libyan thug, a roiling Middle East, and news that Moammar Gadhafi considers “unauthorized media” as terrorists. From the State Dept. this morning, a “Notice to the Press”:

In meetings with senior Libyan government officials, U.S. diplomats were told that some members of CNN, BBC Arabic and Al Arabiya would be allowed into the country to report on the current situation. These same senior officials also said that some reporters had entered the country illegally and that the Libyan government now considered these reporters Al Qaida collaborators.

The Libyan government said that it was not responsible for the safety of these journalists, who risked immediate arrest on the full range of possible immigration charges. Foreign journalists already in Libya who are not part of the approved teams were urged to immediately join the approved teams in-country.

Be advised, entering Libya to report on the events unfolding there is additionally hazardous with the government labeling unauthorized media as terrorist collaborators and claiming they will be arrested if caught.

Pres. Obama’s statement yesterday is not pacifying anyone.

I’ve also asked Secretary Clinton to travel to Geneva on Monday, where a number of foreign ministers will convene for a session of the Human Rights Council. There she’ll hold consultations with her counterparts on events throughout the region and continue to ensure that we join with the international community to speak with one voice to the government and the people of Libya.

We have entered a moment in time where the United States is not able to impact a situation of grave threat and danger. It’s an uncomfortable situation made worse by the reality that U.S. citizens are inside Libya, stuck at present due to weather conditions, according to Reuters.

On Libya, it’s not clear what Pres. Obama’s critics expect him to do. But given our cowboy country something tells me the Right has Ronald Reagan in Grenada dancing in their heads, even though Libya is as close to Grenada in comparisons as Yonkers is to the moon.

Pres. Obama’s plan to “join with the international community to speak with one voice” is understandable given we can’t do anything to change the situation inside Libya. The problem is that it puts the American President in a passive position of waiting and watching, which doesn’t translate well from Jay Carney’s perch.

The problem Milbank is channeling through his typical fit, however, hits on a major presidential problem that is the core of who Barack Obama is as a politician, which is coming to a head. Libya may be the fulcrum right now, but it lies on a lazy Susan of issues where Pres. Obama prefers not to lead but be dragged.

AP Radio’s Mark Smith pointed out that “since your briefing began, West Texas crude topped $100 a barrel. Is this just a matter of watching, or is there anything the U.S. government can do?”

Carney opted for the former. “I don’t want to speculate about where prices will go, or any other potential things in the future,” he replied. “We’re just monitoring it.”

[...] Carney even portrayed as a passive gesture the administration’s announcement that it would no longer defend in court the Defense of Marriage Act. “The administration had no choice,” he said. “It was under a court-imposed deadline to make this decision.”

Clear direction and decisive action is not what Obama does, see health care, but also how he was moved to create a deficit commission through pressure from the Right, adopting their silly austerity line. Obama’s lack of true political north has been weighing him down for a very long time. The press is finally getting restless about it at a time when the world is on fire, which has traditionally been when the U.S. leads the world, not simply seeks to speak “with one voice.”

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Walker’s Choice

By on 23 February 2011

**UPDATED – BUMPED**

I’ve been out of the office this morning, but when my BBerry started going off I laughed so hard I almost dropped it. This is just too priceless. From Mother Jones, with more at Huffington Post:

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s office confirms that the recording of a call between the governor and an alt-weekly writer posing as David Koch, one of the billionaire GOP financier brothers, is real and that it is actually Walker on the recording. The governor’s office has released a statement:

The Governor takes many calls everyday,” Walkers spokesman, Cullen Werwie said in a statement. “Throughout this call the Governor maintained his appreciation for and commitment to civil discourse. He continued to say that the budget repair bill is about the budget. The phone call shows that the Governor says the same thing in private as he does in public and the lengths that others will go to disrupt the civil debate Wisconsin is having.

___________________________Original Post Below____

You can’t serve two masters.

Gov. Walker’s big contributors are forcing a choice. Either Mr. Walker will have to choose what’s best for middle class workers, like Mitch Daniels and Gov. Rick Scott have done, or he’ll go down with the Koch Bros., who after giving him money may cost his state plenty.

Republican governors have serious choices and it remains to be seen if they’re up to making practical decisions.

From Sam Stein:

Budget referees and transportation officials in Wisconsin have informed Gov. Scott Walker (R) that if he were to pass his controversial anti-union legislation into law, he could be forfeiting tens of millions of dollars in federal funds for transportation.

Under an obscure provision of federal labor law, states risk losing federal funds should they eliminate “collective bargaining rights” that existed at the time when federal assistance was first granted. The provision, known as “protective arrangements” or “Section 13C arrangements,” is meant as a means of cushioning union (and even some non-union) members who, while working on local projects, are affected by federal grants.

It also could potentially hamstring governors like Walker who want dramatic changes to labor laws in their states…

If Republicans think breaking unions is a winner they’re wrong. Short-term gain won’t save them in a country that believes fairness should be the guide.

But the real problem for Gov. Walker is that for the unions, after giving in on medical and pension benefits, collective bargain is the whole ballgame. That means they won’t give in, something that Gov. Walker may find is a lot more painful for him.

This post was bumped from 9:11 a.m. today.

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Obama DOJ: DOMA Unconstitutional; To Stop Fighting It In Court

By on 23 February 2011

Originally posted In the News.

Via Pam’s Houseblend, news from Jonathan Capehart at the WaPo:

A well-placed and trusted source tells me that, any minute now, Attorney General Eric Holder will issue a statement announcing that it will no longer defend so-called Defense of Marriage Act lawsuits in court. The source believes DOJ had come to the conclusion that heightened scrutiny would apply, and that these cases cannot be defended in court. A 530d letter has been sent to Congress informing it that, if it wants to defend the statute, it is free to do so. A case is pending now that has a filing deadline of March 11.”

Joe Sudbay at AmericaBlog says: “This is welcome news from the Obama administration. Finally, some fierce advocacy. The President thinks Section 3 of DOMA, which DOJ has been defending, is unconstitutional. … The key point is that the U.S. government will continue to defend DOMA, but thinks that cases involving sexual orientation deserve stricter scrutiny, not just the rational basis test.” ( http://gay.americablog.com/ )

Official DOJ statement:

Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Statement of the Attorney General on Litigation Involving the Defense of Marriage Act

WASHINGTON – The Attorney General made the following statement today about the Department’s course of action in two lawsuits, Pedersen v. OPM and Windsor v. United States, challenging Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage for federal purposes as only between a man and a woman:

In the two years since this Administration took office, the Department of Justice has defended Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act on several occasions in federal court. Each of those cases evaluating Section 3 was considered in jurisdictions in which binding circuit court precedents hold that laws singling out people based on sexual orientation, as DOMA does, are constitutional if there is a rational basis for their enactment. While the President opposes DOMA and believes it should be repealed, the Department has defended it in court because we were able to advance reasonable arguments under that rational basis standard.

Section 3 of DOMA has now been challenged in the Second Circuit, however, which has no established or binding standard for how laws concerning sexual orientation should be treated. In these cases, the Administration faces for the first time the question of whether laws regarding sexual orientation are subject to the more permissive standard of review or whether a more rigorous standard, under which laws targeting minority groups with a history of discrimination are viewed with suspicion by the courts, should apply.

After careful consideration, including a review of my recommendation, the President has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny. The President has also concluded that Section 3 of DOMA, as applied to legally married same-sex couples, fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional. Given that conclusion, the President has instructed the Department not to defend the statute in such cases. I fully concur with the President’s determination.

Consequently, the Department will not defend the constitutionality of Section 3 of DOMA as applied to same-sex married couples in the two cases filed in the Second Circuit. We will, however, remain parties to the cases and continue to represent the interests of the United States throughout the litigation. I have informed Members of Congress of this decision, so Members who wish to defend the statute may pursue that option. The Department will also work closely with the courts to ensure that Congress has a full and fair opportunity to participate in pending litigation.

Furthermore, pursuant to the President ‘ s instructions, and upon further notification to Congress, I will instruct Department attorneys to advise courts in other pending DOMA litigation of the President’s and my conclusions that a heightened standard should apply, that Section 3 is unconstitutional under that standard and that the Department will cease defense of Section 3.

The Department has a longstanding practice of defending the constitutionality of duly-enacted statutes if reasonable arguments can be made in their defense. At the same time, the Department in the past has declined to defend statutes despite the availability of professionally responsible arguments, in part because – as here – the Department does not consider every such argument to be a “reasonable” one. Moreover, the Department has declined to defend a statute in cases, like this one, where the President has concluded that the statute is unconstitutional.

Much of the legal landscape has changed in the 15 years since Congress passed DOMA. The Supreme Court has ruled that laws criminalizing homosexual conduct are unconstitutional. Congress has repealed the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Several lower courts have ruled DOMA itself to be unconstitutional. Section 3 of DOMA will continue to remain in effect unless Congress repeals it or there is a final judicial finding that strikes it down, and the President has informed me that the Executive Branch will continue to enforce the law. But while both the wisdom and the legality of Section 3 of DOMA will continue to be the subject of both extensive litigation and public debate, this Administration will no longer assert its constitutionality in court

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