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

Archive | August, 2011

Perry: ‘…This is what I’m supposed to be doing…’

By on 11 August 2011

Mark Halperin has a very odd interview (including video) with Texas Gov. Rick Perry that doesn’t focus on one single issue. It’s all touchy, feely, are you okay with the Bushes insider nonsense, which doesn’t speak to Perry’s politics and his outlandish religiosity.

This is the guy who’s supposed to unify the establishment, jettison slick Mitt, pacify the Tea Party pack and go on to beat Barack Obama? In the 21st century, this is the best Republicans can do?

What’s the difference between Perry’s evangelical extremism and Michele Bachmann’s? What makes Perry the go to guy, while Bachmann is a little too crazy? Now, don’t get me wrong, Bachmann’s politics are crazy, but no worse than Perry’s. What makes Perry acceptable is the man thing. Evangelicals don’t take to women running things; they like them on their knees. Or maybe it’s Marcus Bachmann who’s even too much for the wingnuts?

Pres. Obama and his team couldn’t possibly get this lucky.

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Romney Raised Taxes to Get S&P to React

(…and other disingenuous moves by Republicans meant to fake out the people)

By on 11 August 2011

As Republican presidential hopefuls descended on Iowa for their second major debate on Thursday in Ames, the return of Mr. Romney came at a turning point in his candidacy. His wait-and-see approach toward campaigning in Iowa has been complicated by the expected candidacy of Gov. Rick Perry of Texas, whose strategy includes waging a full effort in the caucuses early next year that open the nominating battles ahead. – With Return to Iowa, Romney Heeds Call of G.O.P. Strategists

We’re headed into some busy Republican 2012 days of action, with Iowa the focus and no one wants to be left out, because even though the White House is preparing to run against Romney, anything can still happen.

What you’ve got to understand about Republicans as they make their case is how they lie to the working class, and have been doing so for decades, in order to convince people to vote against their interests, while utilizing Democratic ideas themselves when it suits them. Sam Stein reveals Michele Bachmann’s hypocrisy on this score today.

A Freedom of Information Act request filed by The Huffington Post with three separate federal agencies reveals that on at least 16 separate occasions, Bachmann petitioned the federal government for direct financial help or aid. A large chunk of those requests were for funds set aside through President Obama’s stimulus program, which Bachmann once labeled “fantasy economics.” Bachmann made two more of those requests to the Environmental Protection Agency, an institution that she has suggested she would eliminate if she were in the White House. Taken as a whole, the letters underscore what Bachmann’s critics describe as a glaring distance between her campaign oratory and her actual conduct as a lawmaker.

But Bachmann’s just a sideshow, though she looks a lot better than Sarah Palin these days, who is once again yanking the chain of her adoring fans. Ames may be overblown in importance, but Sarah isn’t going to let the circus pass her by (after all she needs her Fox contract).

Ronald Reagan could relate to what Mitt Romney did as governor of Massachusetts to impress S&P. Of course, like Romney, Reagan would have a lot of trouble winning the Republican nomination today, too. From Politico:

“When I was governor, S&P rewarded Massachusetts with a credit rating upgrade for our sound fiscal management and the underlying strength of our economy,” Romney boasted. “That didn’t happen by accident. The president’s failure to put the nation’s fiscal and economic house in order has caused a massive loss of confidence that resulted in an embarrassing downgrade.”

But Romney’s case to S&P is a far cry from the anti-tax absolutism of the Republican Party he hopes to lead. Indeed, it bears a far closer resemblance to the right-of-center grand compromise rejected by House Republicans this year — dismissed because it would include new taxes and end tax breaks President Barack Obama described as “loopholes” — or the more modest compromise that passed, than to the Cut, Cap, and Balance plan Romney “applauded.”

The presentation to the ratings agency reveals that Romney’s administration made the case to Standard & Poor’s that his state was creditworthy because of both spending cuts — the current preferred GOP method — and new revenues, including fees he imposed and tax “loopholes” he closed. The presentation also prominently cited a controversial set of tax increases in the summer of 2002, which Romney, then a candidate, had opposed.

This is sound fiscal policy compared to what we’re hearing from all other Republicans. The Tea Party hates Romney already, so this isn’t going to make them feel any cozier toward him.

What’s at the bottom of Romney and Bachmann’s hypocrisy is shared by most of their colleagues, though they won’t admit it, because they’ve tied themselves to a false premise and for whatever stupidity they’re going to allow everyone else to pay for it.

It’s why if Pres. Obama and the White House has any game left they’d take Steve Benen’s advice, which has also mentioned by Chris Matthews.

Here’s the pitch: have the White House take the several hundred letters GOP lawmakers have sent to the executive branch since 2009, asking for public investments, and let President Obama announce he’ll gladly fund all of the Republicans’ requests that have not yet been filled.

This is perfect for Pres. Obama: he gets to give Republicans money for jobs programs that make them look good, with the threat of exposing them if they don’t ascent to creating jobs. It would also make the progressive case the best way possible and manifest what’s needed a lot more than anything else right now: economic growth through jobs.

There is no more important act needed today.

There are innumerable ways for Democrats and progressives to beat Republicans up on their risky economic schemes, but Benen’s is the best I’ve heard so far. However, it takes action to actually do something, not just give meaningless speeches.

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It’s Official, We’re Screwed

By on 10 August 2011

As McConnell and Boehner make their picks for the Super Congress, Pres. Obama must survey the land he helped create, while Democrats swallow hard that they’ve lost any chance to change the economic narrative and aid the working class.

The President is not a progressive – he is not what Americans still call a “liberal.” He is a willful player in an epic drama of faux-politics, an operative for the money power, whose job is to neutralize the left with fear and distraction and then to pivot rightward and deliver a conservative result. What Barack Obama got from the debt deal was exactly what his sponsors have wanted: a long-term lock-in of domestic spending cuts, and a path toward severe cuts in the core New Deal and Great Society insurance programs – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And, of course, no tax increases at all. [...] Unlike say Lyndon B. Johnson or Jimmy Carter, when his term ends he won’t be able simply to go home. He’ll need a big house in a gated suburb, with high walls and rich friends. And a good income, too, from book deals and lecture fees. He may be thinking about that now. The good news is: it won’t save him. For if and when he ventures out, for the rest of his life, the eyes of all those, whose hopes he once raised will follow him. The old, the poor, the jobless, the homeless: their eyes will follow him wherever he goes. – James K. Galbraith (via Gaius Publius at Americablog)

From Huffington Post:

On the Senate side, Sens. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.), Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Rob Portman (R-Ohio) will serve on the commission, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced. Reps. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), Fred Upton (R-Mich.) and Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) will represent House Republicans, said Speaker John Boehner.

All six Republicans have signed a pledge to Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform that they will not vote to raise taxes.

They will join Democratic Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.), whom Reid appointed to the commission on Tuesday. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has not yet made her appointments.

As for movement progressives, they have a choice and they need to decide what’s more important, Barack Obama or the middle class Democrats are supposed to represent but don’t anymore.

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Republicans Plummet in Popularity After Debt Ceiling Debacle

By on 10 August 2011

This isn’t easy to do: have a lower approval than Republicans during Pres. Bill Clinton’s impeachment.

So, the Tea Party, who gained in 2010, through Obama and Democrats caving on the Bush tax cut extensions last December, but also through the White House’s cut-cut-cut 2011 austerity budget, then the debt ceiling negotiations, have finally brought the Republican Party down where they deserve.

Both parties have earned the dubious distinction of turning off voters, but for Democrats only 58% think they should be thrown out of Congress, while it’s 64% for Republicans.

A new CNN poll sends a strong message to the Tea Party and Republicans, saying their priorities are not America’s:

According to the poll, 63 percent say the super committee should call for increased taxes on higher-income Americans and businesses, with 36 percent disagreeing. And by a 57 to 40 percent margin they say the committee’s deficit reduction proposal should include major cuts in domestic spending.

But cuts in defense spending get a mixed review: Forty-seven percent would like the committee to include major cuts in military spending, with 53 percent saying no to such cuts.

Nearly two-thirds say no to major changes to Social Security and Medicare. And nearly nine in ten don’t want any increase in taxes on middle class and lower income Americans.

We’ve known the people don’t support cuts in the social safety net for a while, but Pres. Obama won’t stand on that line.

So, this would be great news for Obama and the Democrats, showing them the way, but unfortunately the President bought into austerity a long time ago and won’t make the Democratic economic case. That means for 2012 we’ll have two candidates making the case for cuts, while Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid has no champion in either big two party, though we’ll hear plenty of hot air on “reforming” the social safety net, which won’t result in any good news for the working class.

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Wisconsin News: Democrats Win 2 out of 6

By on 09 August 2011

**UPDATED**

To update, The Fix has the whole story today. It wasn’t enough to take back the Senate, but it’s a beginning that could mean something very big by the time 2012 rolls around. I’ve got one thing to say about that: Run, Russ, Run.

Consider this an open thread. Good coverage from Ed Schultz, with Keith Olbermann and John Nichols good too.

Turnout sounds epic.

Results from the A.P.; also from Journal Sentinel (h/t David Nir).

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Scorched Earth is Nothing New for Obama

By on 09 August 2011

It’s panic at 1600. The daily Gallup is depressing by itself, but amidst the economic carnage and America losing our AAA status under Obama’s watch, which will make for a snappy negative GOP ad, everyone is girding their loins for the battle.

But really, folks, have people forgotten Alice Palmer? Remember Obama hinting Hillary was “Bush-Cheney lite”? ..and who can forget that South Carolina memo? If it takes scorched earth that’s what Obama will deliver, because he’s done it many times before.

Did people really believe Obama could get by this time on hope and change, the sequel?

I can’t believe people are shocked by the latest news, which comes in a politically titillating article at Politico:

In a move that will make some Democrats shudder, Obama’s high command has even studied former President George W. Bush’s 2004 takedown of Sen. John Kerry, a senior campaign adviser told POLITICO, for clues on how a president with middling approval ratings can defeat a challenger.

“Unless things change and Obama can run on accomplishments, he will have to kill Romney,” said a prominent Democratic strategist aligned with the White House.

The onslaught would have two aspects. The first is personal: Obama’s reelection campaign will portray the public Romney as inauthentic, unprincipled and, in a word used repeatedly by Obama’s advisers in about a dozen interviews, “weird.”

[...] The second aspect of the campaign to define Romney is his record as CEO of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm that was responsible for both creating and eliminating jobs. Obama officials intend to frame Romney as the very picture of greed in the great recession — a sort of political Gordon Gekko.

I’ve always believed that Obama would have to go hard and go dirty, whether the GOP nominee is Mitt Romney or some other guy. Romney, however, is their worst nightmare, even give his innumerable flaws. The only difficulty for Obama would be if a woman rose to the top, which isn’t going to happen now that Rick Perry and his maleness is in the on-deck circle.

Let’s also not kid ourselves that Obama and Romney are all that different. Neither are ideologues. Both believe in nothing but their own fortunes and futures. Either would sell their soul to make a deal that makes them look good. And both are willing to do anything to get to live in the White House. They’re craven egotists who believe in their own persona and the preciousness of their own man self.

As an insider Dem told me months and months ago, Obama’s never run against a competent Republican, so Mitt Romney scares the crap out of them. But now that people have seen Barack Obama in action, revealing he isn’t all his marketing says he was (as I warned), well, they’re up against it now, because the old Axelrod-Plouffe bs won’t fly this time.

Besides the fact that the entire Politico piece is a gift to Mitt Romney and assumes he’s the nominee, let’s just accept that in 2012 these two unprincipled political chameleons, no insult meant to chameleons, are perfect for the times. Maybe we’ll all get lucky and they’ll tear themselves apart, making way for something novel in 2016: an independent progressive candidate who actually stands for something, but more importantly, is willing to go down fighting for it.

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That 1979 Feeling

By on 09 August 2011

Ten years into our involvement in the war in Afghanistan, in the mountains southwest of Kabul in the Tangi Valley, an elite group of Army Rangers were pinned down in a fight, when they called in their “Immediate Reaction Force,” according to reporting by Danger Room. It would be another elite U.S. fighting force, Navy SEALS, who would respond, but would end up blown out of the sky. It’s not Desert One, this mission having an even more desperately reckless cast to it. What was worth risking our finest elite force, around 7% of the total according to some experts, in a country that continues to revert back to it’s origin of a tribal nation?

“The Taliban knew which route the helicopter would take,” one unnamed Afghan official tells AFP. “That’s the only route, so they took position[s] on the either side of the valley on mountains and as the helicopter approached, they attacked it with rockets and other modern weapons.” “It was a trap that was set by a Taliban commander,” the official added. – Did a New Taliban Weapon Kill a Chopper Full of Navy SEALs?

The Taliban Haqqani network, operating in the extremely dangerous Wardak province, includes the most brutal fighting insurgents in Afghanistan, so any mission against them is high risk. U.S. Navy SEALS, as well as their Afghan counterparts, a translator and a working dow, came in via a U.S. Army A Special Operations MH-47G Chinook helicopter, seen as the best among these fighting machines but incredibly slow, bulky and vulnerable when navigating in between steep terrain. There are no defenses to deploy when a Chinook is within range of an RPG, though there are speculations that a newer weapon was involved. It was the worst single day loss of life since entering Afghanistan in 2001, with reports saying many of the Navy SEAL Team 6 who took down Osama bin Laden perished this day.

As the latest and worst news from Afghanistan continued to sink in, late yesterday, Pres. Obama addressed the S&P downgrade as the stock market plummeted, finishing with words about the horrific carnage that happened over the weekend. With words coming out of his mouth invoking his belief in America, the President’s grim facial features belied the pep talk that was weirdly surreal. It turned into the Twilight Zone when he got to the end, invoking the spirit of the fallen heroes while using the word “succeed” in the same sentence as Afghanistan.

“Their loss is a stark reminder of the risks that our men and women in uniform take every single day on behalf of their country,” Obama said from the White House. “I know that our troops will continue the hard work of transitioning to a stronger Afghan government and ensuring that Afghanistan is not a safe haven for terrorists. We will press on and succeed,” the US president said. – US will succeed in Afghanistan: Obama

Last year in October, I wrote a piece entitled Getting that 1979 Feeling Again. Today this feeling is palpable.

Every time Pres. Obama comes out to speak now there is a vacuousness to his purpose that goes well beyond what words can hide. It’s like he doesn’t even believe himself anymore, as he babbles on without presenting a single plan. The least he could have done was call Congress back to Washington.

The crisis of economic confidence…

The out of touch talk about “We will press on and succeed” in Afghanistan…

It’s clear individual Democrats in Congress better take up the charge on jobs and growth, because Pres. Obama is acting politically paralyzed.

The good news for Obama is that his poll numbers remain decent amidst his floundering. Everything else, however, is reminiscent of the run-up to 1979 when America seemed incapable of acting like a great nation amidst economic, energy and foreign policy crises that were overwhelming the current occupant of the White House.

America ended up handing the country to Ronald Reagan, who ballooned the deficit, raised taxes over and over, and deserved impeachment after Iran-Contra, but got away with it because it was a different time and an assassination attempt had bonded Pres. Reagan to the people.

There is an out of control, out of touch, out of sync feeling Pres. Obama reveals every time he takes to the podium. He’s been incapable of leading the events playing out during his presidency, instead just reacting to them. Obama needs to change this perception and he has until Thanksgiving to do it.

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Vacationing in Tuscany While London Burns

By on 09 August 2011

Well, that’s come to an end.

For good reason, as the New York Times outlines the spectacle.

“Descent into hell,” said a front page headline in The Sun tabloid which, like other newspapers, published a dramatic photograph of a woman leaping to safety in the arms of police from a blazing building.

“Mob Rule,” said the page one headline in The Independent, showing a masked rioter in a hooded track-suit against a wall of flame.

On Tuesday, the violence seemed to be having a ripple effect beyond its immediate focal points: news reports spoke of a dramatic upsurge in household burglaries; sports authorities said at least two major soccer matches in London — including an international fixture between England and the Netherlands — had been postponed because the police could not spare officers to guarantee crowd safety. The postponements offered dramatic testimony to the pressures on Mr. Cameron and his colleagues to confront the dark shadow that the rioting has cast on plans for the 2012 Summer Olympic Games.

[...] For a society already under severe economic strain, the rioting raised new questions about the political sustainability of the Cameron government’s spending cuts, particularly the deep cutbacks in social programs. These have hit the country’s poor especially hard, including large numbers of the minority youths who have been at the forefront of the unrest.

The New Yorker has the genesis of what caused it.

Austerity in Tottenham isn’t going down well at all.

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Cheap Shot, But It’s Not Sexist

By on 08 August 2011

Michele Bachmann’s intensity is galvanizing voters in Iowa right now and Newsweek’s cover captures that. – Tina Brown

Female bloggers on the Right are pissed. Interesting that Elizabeth Flock from the Washington Post doesn’t even realize ignores that the picture of Palin in shorts came from Jon Meacham, via Runner’s World, though she does write it was before Tina’s time. She uses the Palin photo as an example of how differently she was covered than Bachmann.

Lois Romano’s piece in Newsweek about Michele Bachmann’s presidential run is not nearly as bad as this editorial cover. I felt like I was back watching “Sex and the City,” the episode where Carrie Bradshaw was on the cover of a magazine looking dreadful, because she didn’t show up on time for the photo shoot.

The title of Romano’s piece is even complimentary: Bachmann: Tea Party Queen – Why Michele Bachmann is riding high going into Iowa.

It’s a bad photo, but sexist? Hardly. As Politico reports, Mrs. Bachmann sat for the photo with Chris Buck, who’s also done George McGovern in a Speedo.

At Bachmann’s level, you never trust a photographer you don’t know, not ever.

Should Ms. Brown have run with it? That’s another question. But as her tweet reveals above, she was going for an editorial statement about Bachmann’s “intensity.” Its’ not like Newsweek readers don’t think of Bachmann as a bit wild-eyed.

Who knows, it might even give her a boost in Iowa with her fans who’ll sympathize with her against the lamestream media.

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Market Rout Continues – Dow Down Over 600 Points, Closes Below 11,000

By on 08 August 2011

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell over 600 points Monday after a one-two punch: the first-ever Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. debt, then the downgrading of govenment-backed mortgage debt. The Dow’s one-day drop of more than 600 points was its biggest point loss in a single day since December, 1 2008. The Nasdaq dropped 174.72 points, 6.9 percent for the day. – Dow Ends Day Down Over 600 Points, Closes Below 11,000

Obama had this to say today: “The U.S. will always be a triple-A country despite what rating agencies say…”

Mitt Romney also chimed in with a whole lot of nothing, but he did say something that will strike home to many people right now: “.. I’m afraid the president is just out of his depth when it comes to understanding how the private economy works.”

Slick Mitt’s a vulture capitalist of the second rate order, but Pres. Obama has tripped over the presidency and has damaged himself a great deal by creating a catastrophic situation that played into the hands of his adversaries.

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Rick Perry, The Response and the other, bigger gathering in Houston

By on 08 August 2011

Joyce L. Arnold: Liberal, lesbian, Independent, equality activist, writer.

The much mentioned prayer meeting at Reliant Stadium in Houston, “The Response,” took place on Saturday, August 6. Organizers said “more than 30,000” attended.

As expected, Texas Gov. Rick Perry – who initiated The Response – did not announce his candidacy for the Republican Party presidential nominee. But that he will soon announce is also expected, within hours or days, some say. For fundraising and nationally organizing purposes, it will have to be soon, if he’s going to do it.

Even Rick knew better than use what organizers insisted was a non-denominational (you could come, whatever your faith, but as promised, everything said was “in the name of Jesus”) and non-political prayer meeting to make such an announcement. In fact, while his time on the stage was fairly brief, his words included this, via the Texas Tribune:

… Perry said God’s agenda is ‘not a political agenda, his agenda is a salvation agenda.’ …

‘He is a wise God and he is wise enough not to be affiliated with any political party or for that matter, he is wise enough not to be affiliated with any man-made institution’ …

Also from The Tribune, Perry prayed:

Our heart breaks for America. We see discord at home, we see fear in the market place, we see anger in the halls of governments, and as a nation we have forgotten who made us. … We cry out for (God’s) forgiveness.

I actually have no reason to think Perry isn’t sincere in his praying. But I question his governing decisions in Texas, and based on those, I fear what they’d be in the WH. Maybe his heart is “breaking for America,” but watching the significant budget cuts to public schools, as one glaring example, makes me wonder what goes on deep in the heart of Perry.

While some 30,000 gathered in Reliant Stadium, an estimated 100,000 lined up at Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center. Via Burnt Orange Report:

The Houston Chronicle reports:

‘Some families camped out for hours to gain admittance into Houston’s first-ever, citywide back-to-school event … where free backpacks, school supplies, uniforms, haircut vouchers, immunizations and fresh produce were provided.

Unfortunately, many were turned away. Burnt Orange:

… School Superintendent Terry Grier posted a Twitter message Saturday morning that security personnel had estimated the crowd at 100,000. At about 10 a.m., officials made the call to close the doors.

Although planners didn’t know how many people would attend, they expected to serve at least 25,000 children, officials said.

Where are the gasping media reports of over 100,000 Texans waiting in the hot sun for school supplies and food? Where are the statistics about how Texas has some of the highest rates nationally of poverty and food insecurity in all of the breathless coverage of Rick Perry’s ‘Texas Miracle’?

Whatever The Response did, it got the attention Perry surely wanted. Of course, more media attention also means greater scrutiny. Or at least it should. From The Tribune :

The interest from news outlets might be greater than anything Perry has encountered in his nearly 30-year career in Texas politics. More than 230 members of the media, including representatives from all the major national TV networks and newspapers, have signed up for credentials, officials said.

I don’t know if Perry shares the more radical and extreme beliefs of those who took the stage (see Right Wing Watch for Fact Sheet on the organizer), but if he doesn’t, it just makes his willingness to associate himself with them that much more telling. If we’ve learned nothing else, it should be to pay very close attention to what presidential hopefuls actually do, as well as what they say, on their way to the WH. “Just praying” can be like “just words” – perhaps sincere, perhaps marketing, perhaps some of each.

For a year or so, I thought Perry was looking to 2016. I still think that’s in play, but maybe he decided he couldn’t afford to wait. First, because running now could be the obvious “setting the groundwork” step for next time around. And second, because the idea that Obama might be seriously challenged makes stepping in now more important. At this point, I still think Obama will win a second term, and so far, the Republicans are helping with that. I actually think some if not many of them would be okay with an Obama second term – 2014 mid-term election gain hopes, and a nation ready for another round of flipping back and forth between Rep and Dem in the WH; plus four more years of blaming Obama and Dems for all the problems.

As for Perry, and with apologies to Janis Joplin, I imagine Rick might be praying: “Oh Lord, won’t you buy me the presidency. My friends all say, ‘Rick, you look great on tv.’ God, Guns and Gays, with some oil to make me shine. Oh Lord, won’t you buy me the presidency.”

This last bit is about Perry, but not The Response, and mostly because I chose not to resist. I’ve no idea who to credit for this quote, or if it is remotely accurate in its implications, but I saw it in a tweet from JennTXDem: “Lord, going to LaGrange was much more important than grades at A&M. …” That’s a reference to the recent release of Perry’s transcripts from Texas A&M, which revealed a less than stellar academic record. If “LaGrange” doesn’t make sense to you, maybe you remember or have heard about the movie “Best Little Whorehouse in Texas”? It was based, loosely, on an actual whorehouse: The Chicken Ranch, in LaGrange, TX. Just up the road from Texas A&M.

(Photo via Think Progress)

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Axelrod Scores: It was a ‘Tea Party Downgrade’

By on 08 August 2011

Former White House adviser David Axelrod on Sunday pinned responsibility for the recent U.S. economic downgrade on the Tea Party movement, arguing that the group’s political “brinksmanship” during debt ceiling negotiations “brought us to the brink of a default” — and that, subsequently, “this is essentially a Tea Party downgrade.” – CBS News

Absolutely. The Tea Party beat the White House on the debt ceiling, even though the Tea Party won’t claim it, so they’ll have to take the downgrade review, too.

Bob Schieffer got the White House bull’s eye talking point, which hits an easy mark, I know, but at this point it’s still welcome. It has the virtue of being true and something everyone can recognize because we all saw this play out.

It goes along with something else that’s manifested.

The Tea Party has overplayed their hand.

Greg Sargent pointed to something on Friday that works as a foundation to this after going through Friday’s New York Times internal polling numbers.

Tea Party i.d. has cratered.

Just 18% say yes they’re a supporter; 73% say no. All through the spectacle that masqueraded as debate and negotiations, their intransigence was on display. Never mind that their ideological zealotry comes with a fiscal policy that will only makes things worse.

You get held accountable for what you do in Congress, especially if you can’t compromise on what’s actually needed to fix our problem economy. Ideological fortitude is certainly principled up to a point, but legislators are sent to govern and Obama and the Democrats served up a lot (wrongly, in my estimation).

There’s no doubt Pres. Obama blew the set up and the negotiations, while refusing to wield the power he could have used to stop the deal, but there’s nothing to be done about that now.

So, if the White House can make the “Tea Party downgrade” stick it has the potential of being a 90s Newt Gingrich moment for the Tea Party, which actually is quite plausible. Heaven knows Democrats are eager to hear the line, which is a natural applause getter.

Unfortunately, this could help Mitt Romney a lot more than Pres. Obama, given his capitulation to Republican economics on the debt ceiling deal.

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George W. Bush’s Economy was Even Worse than Obama Knew

By on 07 August 2011

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

As insults fly between political parties as well as the U.S. and S&P, with nations like China chirping in, all the rest of us are left to do is wait.

Republicans insisted on a disastrous debt ceiling deal, but it was Pres. Obama who allowed it all to play out as it did instead of demanding a clean debt ceiling and sticking to it or invoking the 14th Amendment. The White House showed no leadership at all.

But since what’s past is prologue…

It was a story entitled “Flying Blind” that drilled home the importance of funding our federal government properly to make sure lawmakers we elect have the information they need to run the place. As Lawrence O’Donnell lays out in the clip above, with help from Howard Fineman, as well as Robert Reich, when you don’t have the correct data it’s really hard to enact the proper policies. It’s what got Pres. Obama started on the economic path that is threatening to take down his presidency.

From The Economist earlier this month:

Output in the third and fourth quarters fell by 3.7% and 8.9%, respectively, not at 0.5% and 3.8% as believed at the time. Employment was also falling much faster than estimated. Some 820,000 jobs were lost in January, rather than the 598,000 then reported. In the three months prior to the passage of stimulus, the economy cut loose 2.2m workers, not 1.8m. In January, total employment was already 1m workers below the level shown in the official data.

We can’t know exactly how things would have played out in a world in which key policymakers had better data. If the true scope of the economic disaster in the fourth quarter had been clear, however, it seems certain that Ms Romer’s models would have shown a need for more stimulus, that the White House would have agreed to push for more (and perhaps a lot more), and that Congress would have been much more receptive to a bigger bill. A drop of 8.9% does seem much more terrifying, after all, than a 3.8% decline. Bigger stimulus would have reduced the economic deterioration in subsequent months. The Fed might also have been more aggressive.

[...] What’s striking to me is that as new data have revealed the true dimensions of the 2008 collapse, the public’s perception of events hasn’t much changed. Critics still jeer the stimulus for its failure to deliver promised results, despite the now-obvious inadequacy of the package. Few in Washington seem willing to discuss how drastically officials underreacted in 2009, and how the results of that underreaction are still with us, waiting for a more appropriate policy response. I don’t know which tragedy is the more troubling: the failure to see the true scope of the disaster when accurate numbers weren’t available, or the failure to see it now that they are.

Stop and re-read those numbers in bold above.

The discrepancy is not only staggering, but would cause any White House to react much differently. Obama’s people had the wrong numbers, so they were operating under a horrifically frightening misconception.

George W. Bush had left the economy in a much worse state than anyone had previously known.

Of course, Obama and Democrats came into power in 2009 not wanting to look back and because of it Bush enjoyed a sort of rehabilitation when his memoir came out. It’s a tragic mistake made by amateurs.

The disconnect, however, is that Pres. Obama, Democrats and Republicans are willing to waste the entire month of August on vacation while our country heaves and gasps for economic leadership.

The lack of coherent, determined and fearless leadership, that’s the scariest part of this entire saga and no one has the confidence this element will change any time soon.

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The Sunday Early Bird News Round-Up

By on 07 August 2011

Good morning and welcome to Sunday!

Quote of the Day:

“No risk of that, no risk.”

– Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner during an interview in April, discussing the risk of the U.S. debt being downgraded.

Some links to go with your morning coffee/tea:

~China, our banker, is angry at the U.S. about the downgrade. I guess more administration-China ass kissing diplomacy is in order.

~The Super Duper Debt Committee will just cause more problems than it solves, for obvious reasons.

~The biggest US single-episode loss of life in the Afghanistan War took place Friday as insurgents shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying 38 members of US special forces and 7 Afghan soldiers. More here.

~Also on Afghanistan- The International Crisis Group has issued a report which concludes that despite dumping billions of dollars into nation-building in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its allies have failed to stabilize the country. I think the billions of dollars they are talking about does not include the money spent on the actual war effort there-in other words, just the military and civil rebuilding and stabilization efforts.

~In today’s WaPo there is an article about the origins of the debt showdown and how Eric Cantor took advantage of the House’s new Tea Party recruits to turn the debt ceiling debate into a standoff over the role of government.

~The Wikipedia conference is currently taking place in Israel and the Wikipedia founder talked about how the community tries very hard to keep Wiki entries as neutral as possible. That’s not easy in an era where as soon as there is a political controversy, groups run to the site to get their version of the story out.

~Up to 12 million people’s lives are under direct threat in the Horn of Africa as drought, famine and war take their toll. Much of the world looked away when the predictions of an extreme famine were first put forth. However, the terror group al-Shabab claims there is no famine taking place in Somalia but of course, that could be because the group is preventing humanitarian aid from reaching the men, women and children who are currently starving to death and as a result, they bear direct responsibility.

~A Navy vet and former defense contractor in Iraq explains why he is suing Donald Rumsfeld over the Bush administration’s torture policy- but here’s the thing- in a crazy twist, he was tortured by Americans in Iraq.

~In much of the media’s coverage about the S&P downgrade, there seems to be a tendency to ignore the impact of the refusal to add ANY revenue-generating provisions in the debt deal. There was plenty of blame to spread around to both parties, but there are some interesting tidbits in the S&P statement about revenues. It would seem that the GOP is giddy about the downgrade because throwing a Molotov Cocktail into our already depressed economy was always the GOP plan leading up to 2012.

~While the S&P is certainly correct that Washington is completely dysfunctional and getting them to do anything constructive for the good of the nation is a bit like trying to herd cats, there is no denying the politics of what is taking place. Firedoglake has a good summary of some of the things that may have actually been behind S&P’s decision to downgrade the US credit rating.

~So, how is Saudi Arabia doing on the human rights front? Really, really well. [/sarcasm]

~Despite a lot of people giving Obama props about being willing to put defense cuts on the table, the truth of the matter is that the Obama administration shows no interest in curbing out-of-control defense spending as evidenced by his new Secretary of Defense, Leon Panetta, publicly complaining all last week about how disastrous defense cuts would be. Once again, fear trumps reason. Interestingly, when asked, Leon Panetta can’t seem to articulate any reason why any proposed cuts would be so dangerous to our nation’s security:

~Over 300,000 people took to the streets in Israel this weekend to protest the high cost of living. Good for them. We need to do that here in the U.S.

~The Obama administration will likely squander yet another opportunity to take a serious stand on environmental issues. The Alberta tar sands pipeline is currently being reviewed by the State Dept. and the review itself has been mired in controversy from the start. The pipeline’s chief lobbyist is a former Hillary Clinton deputy campaign director and Secretary Clinton made the none-too-subtle remark long before the review process even started, that she was “inclined to support” it. That made environmentalists and even many Congressional Democrats hopping mad. Of course, the buck doesn’t stop there and environmentalists and congressional democrats are urging the administration to not approve the project. Good luck with that, the fix is in.

~Speaking of the environment, some say that the current Congress is the most anti-Environment since about the 1950′s. Impressive.

~All eyes are on Wisconsin which is in the midst of the largest number of recall elections in U.S. history. Huge amounts of cash have been flooding in to the state via special interest groups from both the left and the right. Some see Wisconsin as a dry run of sorts for what may happen in 2012, ie. did the Tea Party types go too far?

~Gov. Rick Perry’s prayer rally certainly won’t endear him to moderates or independents but I have a feeling that’s ok with Rick Perry.

~Things are still not well in Sudan/Southern Sudan. There is still a long, long way to go.

~The repressive, human rights-abusing Communist Chinese government continues to throw fuel on the fire of religious freedom with respect to Buddhists in Tibet. Even if Americans know very little about this right now, it is a very big issue and could lead to bloodshed when the current Dalai Lama dies. And when that happens, Washington will be forced to take notice but by then it will be too late.

~The death toll in Syria continues to rise as government forces continue the siege on Hama. As Assad’s forces continue to slaughter his own people, the Syrian foreign minister comes out and makes the ludicrous statement that the Assad government will allow free legislative elections by the end of 2011. Yeah, and unicorns are real.

~Both Palestinian and Israeli security forces are frustrated with the politicians in Ramallah, Jerusalem and Washington DC. This is something I have heard over and over again. The Israeli and Palestinian security forces have been training and had unprecedented security cooperation over the past 8+ years, with impressive results, while the politicians piss away every opportunity for a reasonable solution to the conflict.

~Sean Hannity thinks it’s wrong to require insurers to cover birth control but guess what he thinks they should cover…Viagra. Indeed.

~Fox News is out of control with race-baiting.

~Politico continues with its status quo hackery and prints an op-ed from GOP Representative Duncan Hunter, who fear-mongers about cutting defense spending. Ok, no problem there because people can write opinion pieces from various points of view. The problem is that a) he makes patently false claims about the role of defense spending in our current debt crisis and b) Politico knew, or should have known, that Hunter has a conflict of interest when it comes to defense spending given most of his top campaign contributions come from defense contractors. If Politico readers knew that, they might be a little bit more discerning when it comes to taking Hunter’s claims at face value.

~Demonstrations turned violent in Tottenham, England, as people marched to the police station to protest the shooting of a 29-year old man Mark Duggan by police last week. Racial tensions have historically been high in the Tottenham region and as of last night, the situation was still not under control.

~Some in Israel are concerned about a bill that is poised to pass the Knesset and which seeks to provide guidance to the courts such that they would be expected to privilege maintaining “the state as the Jewish nation state in ruling in situations in which the Jewish character of the state clashes with its democratic character.” Israeli journalist Noam Sheizaf and other critics of the pending legislation have argued that proponents of the bill seem to be saying that maintaining a Jewish state and upholding democracy are at odds. It’s an interesting debate.

~Donald Trump really embodies the corporate greed and entitled attitude that seems to have infected this nation. His most recent stunt is to vow to do everything in his power to prevent the building of an offshore wind farm in Scotland because it will obstruct the beautiful view from the golf course he is currently in the process of building.

~Whatever you do, don’t read Thomas Friedman’s silly editorial about the financial crisis in today’s NYT, it’s five minutes of your life that you’ll never get back which is why I read it for you. It’s loaded with dumb analogies and really obvious points like “[r]egarding growth, we surely need a much smarter long-term fiscal plan than the one that just came out of Washington.”

The End.

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Dyncorp, Sex Trafficking, the UN and ‘The Whistleblower’

By on 06 August 2011

The movie debuts this weekend, with “Morning Joe” and Jon Stewart among those helping get the word out. The buzz has been huge.

Kathryn Bolkovac is still fighting to get the U.N. to do something about what she proved. The story goes like this, from 2001…

A former United Nations police officer is suing a British security firm over claims that it covered up the involvement of her fellow officers in sex crimes and prostitution rackets in the Balkans.

Kathryn Bolkovac, an American policewoman, was hired by DynCorp Aerospace in Aldershot for a UN post aimed at cracking down on sexual abuse and forced prostitution in Bosnia.

She claims she was ‘appalled’ to find that many of her fellow officers were involved. She was fired by the British company after amassing evidence that UN police were taking part in the trafficking of young women from eastern Europe as sex slaves.

She said: ‘When I started collecting evidence from the victims of sex trafficking it was clear that a number of UN officers were involved from several countries, including quite a few from Britain. I was shocked, appalled and disgusted. They were supposed to be over there to help, but they were committing crimes themselves. When I told the supervisors they didn’t want to know.’

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Progressive Notes: Al Gore Calls on Us, New Progressive Alliance, Van Os Urges His Party to Wake Up, and Other Doings

By on 06 August 2011

Art offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.

Lonely Obama signs Budget Control Act

So much to discuss this epic week, a turning point for many activists. Kudos to Russ Feingold, Keith Olbermann, Rep. Cleaver and many other saying NO to this devil sandwich. Al Gore’s words on Olbermann are stirring. He says our system is totally corrupt, the media and too many pols. He urges people to get in the streets and resist austerity. He calls for a American Tahrir Square. Perhaps Gore’s time to lead is NOW:

We have the Israeli Spring breaking out. As Tel A’viv protestors let it be known:

A number of signs that were hung on Kaplan Street read “Resign, Egypt is here”.

"When government is against the people, the people are against the government."

Today 1/4 the population of Israel are in the streets, over 300,000, protesting for cheaper housing, the end to government corruption and more. It is the “Israeli Spring” as they, like us, are fed up with their government too corrupt to solve their problems. A liveblog is here. Read more on Ha-Aretz here .

Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-Ca) is one of the few brave members of congress. She and Congressman Conyers founded the Out of Poverty Caucus. Lee voted against the authorization for war right after September 11th fearing we were rushing into something we could not get out of. Here she is speaking July 30th on the debt vote and how “the American dream has become a nightmare for too many”:

Obama’s debt deal has sunk with the public of course. And Wall St. isn’t in love either this week. In fact Kevin Drum shows a mere 10 percent back this deal with no new revenue and cuts to hundreds of programs. 10! Congress’ approval sits at 14pct. Another wave is sweeping towards DC again.

The Whitehouse met with liberal groups and got an earful about the debt deal fiasco and don’t worry, the Whitehouse blames the base for not fighting hard enough. Yeah right buddies!

Recall when Obama asked America to call their congress members to urge them to cut a deal and end the debt crisis? And the circuits at the Capitol shorted? Guess who it appears flooded congress? yep- the Tea Party according to Pew:

…some 66% of Republicans and Tea Partiers contacted an elected official during the standoff while only 5% of the rest did the same. This despite a direct appeal from President Obama to do exactly that.

As was the case in the midterm election, age was a crucial factor. Only 19% of 18-29 year-olds followed the story closely and 1% contacted an official versus 54% of those over 50 who followed the debate and 16% who contacted an official.

Gee could it be because Dems did not phone in because the deal included “everything on the table including SS and Medicare”?

Progressives have many crucial state level battles ahead and it is important we be engaged in them in Ohio, Wisconsin, Colorado, California and more. In fact in Colorado enough signatures were gathered to undo a freeze in tax rates and would raise the taxes to pay for schools. Lots to do, much more than in DC these days.

Tavis Smiley and Cornell West have launched a 15 city bus tour to highlight poverty in America and the poor are being criminalized. The bus tour hits key African-American, Latino and Native American communities suffering with intolerable double digit pct unemployment rates on top of massive poverty. Their first stop is Obama’s hometown Chicago and the goal is to not just highlight the poor but to show that criticism of this administration’s policies is not just ok but beneficial:

They’ll visit soup kitchens, public housing projects, and farms. They’ll stay with low-income families and along the way they’ll try to assess whether Obama’s policies are working.

“This is a way to galvanize as opposed to complain,” West said. “Both parties have rendered the poor invisible. The only thing we have left is to dramatize their plight.”

Lots of talk of how this debt deal is like FDR’s 1937. But there is a major difference, FDR aligned himself with progressives while Obama is conservative. Joe Nocera in a must read in the NYT points this out:

..One thing Roosevelt did right during the Depression was legislate into being a social safety net to soften the blows that a free-market economy can mete out in tough times. During this recession, it’s as if the government is going out of its way to make sure the blows are even more severe than they have to be. The debt-ceiling debate reflects a harsher, less empathetic America. It’s sad to see.

The deal is vindictive towards the less fortunate. It’s authors went to town against ordinary Americans by slashing at the safety net.

Famed economist Galbraith has a take on what we are seeing- make a Depression to help the rich:

Galbraith said he thinks some of the super-rich out there, sitting on all that cash, are actually hoping for the economy to crash and burn.

“The strategy of pursuing a deflationary strategy is a strategy that greatly benefits people with cash,” said Galbraith. “If you’re interested in deflating asset values, and you have cash with which to buy assets when things hit rock bottom, then you have a powerful interest in a deep depression.”

“That’s certainly consistent with the banks holding 1.4 trillion [dollars] of reserves, which is absolutely unprecedented,” said Pollin, who backs a tax on excess reserves. “That’s 10 percent of GDP.”

Speaking of FDR and throw backs to 1937 David Woolner, FDR historian from the Roosevelt Institute wrote a great piece on how Obama failed miserably on learning any lessons from Roosevelt. In fact after FDR realized his huge cuts contracted the economy he got passed a new stimulus which stabilized it at least. FDR was saved economically by WWII and thus his presidency.

The Progressive Caucus of the California Democratic Party passed a resolution this week calling for Obama to face a primary challenge for his rightward tilt and especially for the debt deal. Caucus members caught hell for saying out loud what many are thinking but the issue is injected into the political conversation in California. Read the resolution here .

After this catastrophic regressive debt deal we ask “where do we go f rom here as progressives?” I do not have a clear answer yet. Several orgs have piqued interest for me. One is the New Progressive Alliance. This org has a aggressive approach to try all things: primary Obama, if not then recruit delegates in places like Iowa to be non-pledged for leverage at the convention, if candidates do not uphold progressive values then vote third party. This new group is to organize progressives of all parties into one unit to push our pols and elect anti-austerity and anti-corporate folks.

This org has a platform. It is the 1912 Progressive Party platform which is great.

One more potent note on this debacle. In Texas, David Van Os, a well known name around here for Democrats, wrote a stunning indictment of how Obama is wrecking the party’s future. Van Os has been general counsel for AFL-CIO, former chair of the Travis Co. (Austin) Democratic Party, a precinct chair, counsel for ACLU, and many others. He was also nominated by Democratic primary voter to run for Attorney General here but lost.

His words have ignited a real discussion about Obama because he has been such a part of the party for so long:

…This president bears no resemblance to progressivism, populism, leadership, backbone, or to express Democratic Party values. I do not follow him, do not trust him, will not trust him, and will not follow him. To those who will inevitably say, “But oh my gosh, he is the only alternative to the right-wing conservative Republicans,” I say: “Give me an opponent who tells me straight up that he opposes me and doesn’t pretend otherwise. A Trojan horse pretending to my friend is the greatest danger of all because he co-opts my defenses and opens the city gates against me from the inside.” Grass roots Americans who supported this Trojan horse in the election of 2008 need to wake up to the truth about the political fraud that sucked them in.

Amen to that.

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Queer Talk: Measures of Success

By on 06 August 2011

Joyce L. Arnold: Liberal, lesbian, Independent, equality activist, writer.

Two different ways to measure LGBT equality success came out this week: the “Momentum Report,” by the Movement Advancement Project (MAP), and The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation’s (GLADD) “Network Responsibility Index.” That’s “network” as in television.

Before turning to those reports, something from Bayard Rustin’s Time on Two Crosses, in the essay, “From Montgomery To Stonewall.” For information in reports to be made real, we need words from people who fight the fight. Rustin was one of those people. Via Autumn Sandeen, at Pam’s Houseblend:

[T]he job of the gay community is not to deal with extremists … . Our job is not to get those people who dislike us to love us. Nor was our aim in the civil rights movement to get prejudiced white people to love us. Our aim was to try to create the kind of America … such that even though some whites continued to hate us, they could not openly manifest that hate. That’s our job today: to control the extent to which people can publicly manifest antigay sentiment.

The two reports help provide information about how well the task Rustin presents is being carried out.

In reference to the “Momentum Report,” by MAP, from Keen News Service:

The LGBT movement is making progress, but it’s being seriously outspent by opponents and still has ‘a long way’ to go to reach equality. That’s the conclusion of an in-depth analysis by an independent think tank devoted to studying how best to marshal the LGBT movement’s resources to speed advancement of equality … .

The 2011 report

… notes that amid an accelerating rate of progress, LGBT people are facing an increasingly two-tiered existence, depending almost entirely on where they live. Committed gay and lesbian couples still have almost no legal protections in 30 states; hard-working (LGB) employees can still be unfairly fired in 29 states … while transgender employees can still be unfairly fired in 35 states; 32 states lack safe schools laws …; and 35 states lack similar laws based on gender identity. In addition, the federal government’s refusal to recognize gay and lesbian couples means that even couples who legally marry in their state are denied fundamental protections … .

Regarding their “Network Responsibility Index,” GLADD:

released its fifth annual … report that maps the quantity, quality and diversity of images of LGBT people on television. Primetime programming on the five broadcast networks was evaluated as well as original primetime programming on 10 major cable networks. …

Broadcast Networks:
The CW remains the top broadcast network with 33% of its primetime programming hours being LGBT-inclusive. Fox came in second at 29%, and both networks received a ‘Good’ rating this year.

ABC remained in third place in terms of its percentage of LGBT-inclusive programming hours (23%). ABC received a ‘Good’ rating because of the strong quality of its LGBT images, and the network broadcast the greatest total number of LGBT-inclusive hours (253).

CBS remained in last place with 10% LGBT-inclusive hours of primetime programming. After receiving their second ‘Failing’ score in a row last year … they improved enough to receive an ‘Adequate’ score this year. …

Cable Networks:
In addition to ABC Family’s [55%] ‘Excellent’ rating, Showtime (37%), TNT (33%), HBO (31%), Lifetime (31%), AMC (29%), and Syfy (22%) all received ‘Good’ ratings for the quantity and quality of their LGBT-inclusive original programming.

USA increased their LGBT-inclusive hours from 4% to 18%, which improved their score from ‘Failing’ to ‘Adequate.’

For the fourth year in a row, A&E (5%) and TBS (5%) both received ‘Failing’ ratings for their lack of LGBT-inclusive images.

One area in which all networks continue to struggle is the underrepresentation or misrepresentation of the transgender community.

Another measure of success comes by way of the American Psychological Association’s endorsement of marriage equality. Via AmericaBlogGay: “The policymaking body of the American Psychological Association unanimously approved the resolution 157-0 on the eve of the group’s annual convention … .”

Also about marriage equality, and first via Bilerico, The State, a South Carolina newspaper which in 1996 editorialized in support of a state constitutional amendment to ban “same-sex marriage,” this week printed the wedding announcement of William Hasty III and Gregory S. Smith, now living in New York. The State is their hometown newspaper. Second, from Box Turtle: “the Suquamish Tribal Council formally changed its ordinances to join Oregon’s Coquille in extending marriage rights to same-sex couples.”

Less happy, you can read about “Hateful Homophobic Statements From Boehner/GOP DOMA Briefs” at Bilerico.

Turning from marriage, but staying with the GOP, via AmericaBlog, news that the second GOP House member has joined the LGBT Equality Caucus (96 total members). Rep. Richard Hanna (NY) joins Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (FL).

GOP related – I’ll leave it to you if this is a plus or a minus. From Pam’s Houseblend, “American Conservative Union bars GOProud from co-sponsoring 2012 CPAC.” Also from Houseblend :

(the) Fred Karger for President campaign tells us the openly gay GOP Presidential aspirant is tied with Newt Gingrich in a newly released Zogby national poll.

The question the campaign presents is, will Fred be heard at the Iowa Presidential debates …?

In the “more work to be done” category, from Wayne Besen, in The Advocate, a call for an apology from NPR which

… aired a segment this week that inexplicably claimed, ‘The debate about the value of conversion therapy, also known as reparative therapy, has been raging in psychological circles for more than a decade.’

In reality, the debate began to ebb in 1973, when the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. In 2009 the American Psychological Association conducted an exhaustive study on the efficacy of ‘ex-gay’ therapy. The press release said it all: ‘No evidence that sexual orientation change efforts work, says APA,’… .

NPR did respond to the apparently significant amount of criticism they received regarding the story. The Advocate summarized their take on the response: “NPR Admits Some Mistakes, Stops Short of Apology.”

Finally, I opened with the powerful words of Bayard Rustin. I want to close with a powerful story. From The Advocate

The last known gay concentration camp survivor imprisoned because of his sexual orientation has died, according to Germany’s Lesbian and Gay Association.

Rudolf Brazda, who was held at the Buchenwald concentration camp for three years until U.S. forces liberated the camp in 1945, died Wednesday at the age of 98 … .

In a 2008 interview with the French gay magazine Têtu, Brazda spoke for the first time of his imprisonment since he made remarks at the dedication ceremony of a Berlin memorial to gay victims of the Third Reich. ‘The way Nazis treated the ‘pink triangles’ is unspeakable,’ Brazda said … .

After he was freed from Buchenwald, Brazda moved to France, where he lived for 35 years with his partner, who died in 2002.

Context and history: we can’t measure success without them.

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Dash of Dan: Dark Cherry Espresso Bites

By on 06 August 2011

Good morning everyone!

It has been quite a week and I hope this post finds all of you well.

Once in a while I need chocolate. I absolutely crave it. The recipe below fulfills my (and hopefully your) craving

A  small dark chocolate molten cake gets a kick with espresso and sweetness provided by fresh cherries.

* Preheat oven to 400 degrees

* Butter and sugar 9 cups of a standard 12 cup muffin tin, fill the other 3 with water.

Recipe:

4 tablespoons butter room temperature, plus more for tin

1/3 cup of sugar, plus more for tin

1/3 cup all purpose flour                                                                 1/4 teaspoon salt

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped                     3 large eggs

1 tablespoon instant espresso powder                                          1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1/2 cup of fresh cherries, pitted, stemmed, and halved (You can use frozen ones as well)

  1. Melt chocolate in a heatproof bowl and let cool (I prefer the double-broiler method, although a microwave will do the trick)
  2. Whisk together four, espresso powder and salt. With an electric mixer on medium-high beat together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
  3. Add eggs, one at a time and beat well after each addition. Add the flour mixture.
  4. Beat in the vanilla, chocolate, and the cherries.
  5. Using a 1/4 cup scoop and level batter, scoop into prepared cups. Bake 8-10 minutes until the batter doesn’t jiggle. (They might look under-baked, but don’t worry!)  Let cool on wire racks for about 10 minutes before removing.

Enjoy these bites alone or for an extra guilty pleasure, alongside some coffee ice cream.

Let me know what’s on your mind! Find anything interesting in the news? A favorite guilty pleasure or craving?

Consider this an open thread!

 

 

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A Friendly Rebuttal to David Sirota (from the ultimate outsider – a former Clintonite)

By on 05 August 2011

David Sirota has taken up the multi-dimensional chess argument for Obama, though in a different way than his loyalists and fan boys. David begins by excusing the results we’ve had so far as simply being that he isn’t a liberal. Well, that’s an understatement, but then he says Obama is a “bizarro FDR.” Sirota is as smart as they come, but he’s not the only one screwing up the Obama story. Here’s one snippet of his piece:

They usually stipulate that the president genuinely wants to enact the progressive agenda he campaigned on, but they gently reprimand him for failing to muster the necessary personal mettle to achieve that goal. In this mythology, he is “President Pushover,” as the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman recently labeled him.

This story line is a logical fallacy. Most agree that today’s imperial presidency almost singularly determines the course of national politics. Additionally, most agree that Obama is a brilliant, Harvard-trained lawyer who understands how to wield political power.

Considering this, and further considering Obama’s early congressional majorities, it is silly to insist that the national political events during Obama’s term represent a lack of presidential strength or will. And it’s more than just silly — it’s a narcissistic form of wishful thinking coming primarily from liberals who desperately want to believe “their” president is with them.

Hip boots, please.

Mr. Obama has no driving dream as a foundation, but is simply a formidable political performer that has the gift of oratory, which has become the facade behind which he stands. He can deliver the words, but has never cared about the deeds required to make those words manifest. He is a political actor, nothing more, which is why compromise is his tool, because he has no ideas of his own for which he’s willing to risk failure to pursue. It’s always about him, never you.

None of this, however, detracts from the fact “that Obama is a brilliant, Harvard-trained lawyer who understands how to wield political power.” But power for the sake of it, without purpose, is ultimately corrupting, corrosive and eventually calamitous.

What Sirota and the progressive cool kids are trying so hard to elucidate is that Obama is doing what he is because he wants to, getting the results he wants. So far, so good, but today Sirota takes it to a place that doesn’t sustain itself.

What he and others miss by a marathon is why this is occurring, though Sirota does get this right too: The president has the political muscle to enact a progressive agenda, but he doesn’t want to. Absolutely correct, as I’ve written for a long time, but not for the reasons he writes.

It’s in the polling, which is what guides the Obama White House and reelection team and is the only thing driving this president and it begins with Pres. Obama and his team knowing that Democrats will be on board no matter how mad you get about how horrific his capitulations and compromises are to the Right.

The reason he’s going to the Right is because they’ve got the momentum and he actually is too weak to make the counter argument, because he doesn’t want the fight as much as he wants the compromise, but also because he simply doesn’t care that much to wage the battle. Progressives like David Sirota have forgotten Obama’s revulsion to the battles of the 60s and the 90s; he wasn’t kidding.

Barack Obama will do anything to avert an ideological confrontation, but with the Tea Party caucus he’s been thrown the mother of all curves. Even during the Gingrich era Republicans weren’t willing to burn Washington down over the debt, deficit or budget. The reason he served up Medicare and entitlement “reform” is because Obama thought Republicans would jump at it. As conservatives said repeatedly, pre Tea Party they would. Pres. Obama and the White House never in a million years believed they’d stiff him on it, which is why he didn’t want the details leaked, because the White House isn’t stupid and knew the Left would go berserk. But when the Tea Party did what happened? He compromised again and again to get an outcome that would stop the madness, instead of something that would rectify the problem.

Barack Obama has never waged a fight for anything other than himself, which is what his presidential campaign was about. Now he’s trying to bring every voter he can to his side for his reelection, with Democrats and progressives assured, so he’ll do anything to make that happen, relying on polling to tell him what the public thinks, what they want to hear and what he should say to reach them.

The outcome truly doesn’t matter to him as long as most of the American people side with him in the end to give him a second term. Polls are his compass, not some passion for his Republicanism, which he chose because the mood of the country long ago started swinging Tea Party and Obama has no intention of taking them on, because he might alienate voters whom he’ll need, and Democrats no longer stand for anything, so they’ll just follow the leader.

It’s this Democratic weakness that set up Barack Obama in the first place, the genesis in the Clinton era, though Clinton’s compromises were mixed with a man who relished the battle and had lines he would not cross. When you take out that fighting for people character component the result is the Obama presidency, which has no Democratic compass at all.

The problem with compromising with political extortionists is that once they find out you detest an ideological battle and are willing to give them anything they want as long as they go away and things quiet down is that it’s a never ending saga.

Once again to Obama being candid back in 2007, something most people ignored, but I still believe was a seminal moment for understanding him:

“I think that I have the capacity to get people to recognize themselves in each other. I think that I have the ability to make people get beyond some of the divisions that plague our society and to focus on common sense and reason and that’s been in short supply over the last several years. I’m not an ideologue, never have been. Even during my younger days when I was tempted by, you know, sort of more radical or left wing politics, there was a part of me that always was a little bit conservative in that sense; that believes that you make progress by sitting down listening to people, recognizing everybody’s concerns, seeing other people’s points of views and then making decisions.” – Barack Obama (on ABC’s “This Week”) – May 2007

Pres. Obama is using F.D.R. as his Democratic template and his negotiating base. Everything progressives and the Professional Left bellyaches about is simply noise, because he has no intention of taking on Republicans to make the fight. Obama cedes control to Congress time and again, because he doesn’t want to be cloaked in their ideological mist. The White House always blame liberals for not making the case for Obama, because as they see it, you’re not going anywhere and he’s not changing, so shut up and get with the program. Obama’s got to make peace with a Tea Party nation, so he doesn’t need your crap.

That he has no ideological compass or foundation from which to make an argument for anything F.D.R.-ish should go without saying by now, so any notion he’s a “bizarro FDR” is absurd. He assumes people know that F.D.R. is the base from which he navigates, because he’s goddam Democrat.

The rest is about forging any compromise he can get and he isn’t about to take on the Tea Party and the Right, because he doesn’t believe in ideological fights, which he truly thinks is fruitless, as it upsets people and alienates them from him.

If it won’t help Barack Obama, he’s just not going to do it. Democrats should be grateful, because after all, he’s their leader and he’s, duh, #winning.

The problem that Pres. Obama and his advisers have created now, however, is that when you compromise with extortionists who are also wrong on the facts of the current economic disaster unfolding in America, as Europe’s financial volcano comes close to erupting further, and you have no ideological compass of your own on these matters, the purposeless floundering and dangerous compromises can boomerang.

Sure, you may be left standing, but the carnage piled around you will be catastrophically historic.

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ABC News: The Deserved Downgrade Cometh

By on 05 August 2011

**UPDATED**

From Jake Tapper:

A government official tells ABC News that the federal government is expecting and preparing for bond rating agency Standard & Poor’s to downgrade the rating of US debt from its current AAA value.

Pres. Obama makes more history, just not the kind he’d hoped. Quite an accomplishment for sure and one Republicans, but especially Mitt Romney, will run with all the way to 2012.

UPDATED 3 (8.6.11): Read Yves Smith. Here’s just one part that drives home my last line above:

That’s what Rep. Randy Neugebauer, chairman of the House Financial Services Subcommittee said on April 29, when he requested documents from the administration: Treasury officials “may have exerted too much pressure on S&P.” The Republicans were already laying the tracks for S&P’s defense in April.

Here are a few more dots to connect the timeline:

April 18: Mitt Romney: “The Obama presidency was downgraded today.”
April 20: Mitt Romney: “Standard & Poor’s, one of the rating agencies, just downgraded their view of the future for America…If you will, they downgraded the Obama presidency.”
July 15: WSJ — “The Obama downgrade.”

They’ve been cooking this one for a while.

[...] So even if S&P fails to land a body blow in the markets, its ploy has garnered press that seems certain to taint the Administration, and thus confirms the power of its reckless conduct. Thus the cost is not likely to show up in bond yields, but in something far more fundamental: in yet more destruction of the foundations of our society for short-term, selfish ends.

UPDATE 2: S&P proves they’re craven. From the Wall Street Journal:

Around 1:30 p.m., S&P officials notified the Treasury Department that they planned to downgrade U.S. debt and presented the government with their findings. Treasury officials noticed a $2 trillion error in S&P’s math that delayed an announcement for several hours. S&P officials decided to move ahead, and after 8 p.m. they made their downgrade official.

UPDATE: From S&P, but the nonsense coming from Republicans smells as bad as the downgrade, because they’re hardly pure in the debt ceiling debacle.

The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.
More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.
[...] The outlook on the long-term rating is negative. We could lower the long-term rating to ‘AA’ within the next two years if we see that less reduction in spending than agreed to, higher interest rates, or new fiscal pressures during the period result in a higher general government debt trajectory than we currently assume in our base case.

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