Do Liberals Really Feel Empowered?

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Monday December 23, 2013 · 10:08 AM PST

2013/12/23 · 10:08

From the news I consume I've been picking up lately that as 2013 ends liberals are feeling emboldened and empowered. I was thinking of writing about the questions I had when the Dante Atkins piece was posted on Sunday Kos. I count myself as a liberal and support the agenda advocated in the piece. However, at the end of 2013, with our do nothing, dysfunctional government we are left with a lot of mixed results and unfinished business and unfortunately for me, the optimism just isn't coming as naturally as it seems to be for others.
For starters, we still live with the Roberts court. They have refused to rest on their Citizens United laurels. They affirmed the ACA but in such a way to keep millions from getting coverage in partnership with GOP wingnut governors. Then they took it upon themselves to roll back the Voting Rights Act. The issue of GOP voter suppression is still very unsettled but is hugely important since it may be the one, and possibly only one, Republican answer to demographics. Given the political nature of the judicial branch I guess I feel the need for something other than just being right in order to prevail.
Moreover, 2013 began with a national push for gun safety laws that only amassed a mere ninety percent approval rating and to this day haven't happened. At the end of the year I'm still confused about how empowered liberals choose to fight. A majority of Democrats approved a deal that cut unemployment insurance. Out of curiosity, what did they think Republicans were going to do if they didn't agree to it? It's not like they would shut down the government over it. Right now there may be a brief window where the crazies are in check enough to not be so extreme and either way it's a political winner for Democrats which seems to be the important thing anyway. With this Congress a watered down immigration reform looks fifty-fifty at best and food stamps are being cut it just hasn't happened yet because they're arguing between five and forty billion. This was also the year we elected Terry Mcauliffe and Corey Booker and we were (mostly) glad to do it.
This is definitely a progressive, New Deal nation and as such, strengthening the social safety net and progressive structural reform are both majority views; they have been for decades. But we are starting our fourth decade where as a nation we have not been operating that way. This is not the part where I dispense the insightful solution, that's why I lack optimism I guess and by the way the specter of the Trans Pacific Partnership looms over all this. I have two things to offer that are more in the way of tactics concerning immigration and the social safety net. John Boehner could be made the pressure point on immigration in a very personal, specific way. He claims he doesn't have the votes to bring it to the floor and he is lying. Perhaps one way to go would be to make the pro reform campaign about him and demonstrating to him the votes are there. There is also stirring to strengthen, in a not euphemistic way, Social Security. I would like to see this put out there in such a way that national candidates had to discuss it as an issue. Just as Republicans had to go on record about the Ryan budget and good luck if you opposed it, Democrats could be put on record about this.

"Nothing, nothing at all"

edebs

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Tuesday December 11, 2012 · 1:12 AM PST

2012/12/11 · 01:12

please read
I attended a demonstration for the Wall Street sales tax at Nancy Pelosi's office, one of about 20 nationwide, today and this was the response I got when I asked our representatives what they heard from her staff after their meeting. The deficit is a problem but by no means the biggest or most urgent one facing our country. Securing the social safety net and addressing the rampant, cancerous inequality in our economy are bigger and more urgent needs to be sure. The Wall Street sales tax actually accomplishes all three goals at once.
This president has been very clear that tax rates for the top 2 per cent will go up and I believe him. What I'm not so sure of is what he will give in order to get that on which he won't compromise. It is becoming increasingly clear that Republicans will concede on individual tax rates but the debt ceiling still looms and they have not hidden the fact that they intend to retake that hostage. I heard someone on MSNBC tonight say that sanity was the president's leverage in that negotiation. We're counting on sanity to save us from this GOP? That's like trying to bid at an auction with Confederate money, it holds no currency. President Obama has said he "won't play that game" when they (inevitably) move to hold the debt ceiling hostage, but what does that mean?
The country would be best served if Democrats came to the fiscal negotiations putting a Wall Street sales tax squarely on the table. It's great that the White House didn't begin this process by starting out with concessions as has been the usual pattern through the first term. It would be more appropriate though to start with actual solutions that have the benefit of pleasing one's base as well as getting the job done. Let's then hear the president say that if the GOP will release the debt ceiling hostage he will consider a 0.5 per cent Wall Street tax instead of a full per cent.
Rep. Ellison has proposed legislation to enact the Wall Street sales tax but discussion of this issue in the mainstream is far too scant. Democratic leaders are simply not stepping up in the way they sorely need to do. Ellison's bill has its flaws, it is in fact only a 0.5 per cent tax and actually goes less on derivatives which are typically so parasitic in nature they should probably be taxed more. However, right now the biggest problem with the bill is the lack of caucus members willing to sign on to it. FDR once famously told a liberal group lobbying him "you've convinced me, now make me do it." I guess that's what Congressional Democrats and this president are waiting for. To no surprise, the MSM is no help on this. It is with that in mind that I write this. I see this as the most important first step our government can take at this point in our history. There are many critical things that should get done but the progressive agenda begins with this.
I lack a lot of tech savvy and a diary like this really needs a link (or several that I can think of). To that end I want to leave with this link attempt to a diary from a few days ago here.

Campaign Commentary and a Late Response To Sunday

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Wednesday August 01, 2012 · 7:04 PM PDT

2012/08/01 · 19:04

I haven't posted anything in a while and today I want to address two largely unrelated points, a mash up except they will still be unrelated when I'm done. I'm talking , of course, about what has been the campaign's most critical day, June 15th, and a response to Hunter's as usual excellent post on Sunday.
I offer the notion, if I may, that Friday June 15th has so far been the critical day of the campaign. The four weekdays prior to this consisted of poor economic news with Romney trying to begin weaving the narrative that President Obama had simply failed on the economy. That Friday the president announced an executive plan to implement his own Dream Act and thus seized the initiative which he has held since. As an issue for the president, immigration is a compelling merger of good politics with good policy. The president's team has shown a masterful sense of timing in how this issue has been played politically at least. The president drove the agenda for the next week while Romney had nothing to say. This ran into a SCOTUS decision in the president's favor. This supplied a two day bump until the healthcare ruling. The president held the initiative while healthcare came to the fore and again Romney had nothing to say.
Since Romney had been finding himself with nothing to say it became easy and natural for the president to do some speaking for him. Thus came Bain, taxes, Cayman Islands etc. This should largely continue until the convention when the president can use his own rrecord and ideas as part of the ongoing effort to draw the contrast with Mr. Romney. The VP pick would give Romney a chance to reclaim the initiative but that thunder gets quickly stolen by the conventions.
I'll end this with a quick reminder of the 2010 lame duck session when President Obama made a much criticized compromise and many said he looked weak. He has had to play a long game by necessity. Obstinate resistance has been the GOP guiding principle so he has been forced to be strategic as opposed to using tactics. If the president looked weak in 2010 it was only because he was setting up a fight two years in advance. I'm just saying, everyone look around and check how they feel about where they stand on the issue of taxes now. The Democratic candidate would be happy to talk about taxes and foreign policy all the rest of the campaign. The GOP really just gave the president's team the best case senario by nominating a Latino hating one percenter such as Romney.

I enjoy reading Hunter's columns and I do so religiously.(no offense). On Sunday he wrote about the impunity with which Romney lies and the total lack of any calling to account for that. I'm sorry to overdo this word, but I would like to add what I feel is the critical point. No play-it -straight news person who is seen as representing a network newsroom can call out Romney as a liar and allow the corporate bosses to collect millions in ad revenue from him. I imagine telling GE I want to run a commercial for my skin cream on all its networks and I'll pay anything. I just want to tell people how it smoothes wrinkles, oh and it cures skin cancer. AS much as it might hurt GE, it wouldn't knowingly be a part of my fraud. With regards to politics, it gets around the knowing part by putting a lot of well paid people on the air to say dumb things while trying to look smart.

Let's Ask Dan Dolan If Toxic Partisanship Runs Both Ways

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Sunday March 18, 2012 · 1:01 AM PDT

2012/03/18 · 01:01

I recently ran across the amusing and enjoyable story of Dan Dolan an Iowa Republican who wound up speaking at a Democratic state party convention. Thinking he was at the Republican state convention he gave a version of his typical stump speech. When he was finished, someone raised his hand and said, "I think you want to talk to the Republicans."
That was Dolan's third or fourth campaign stop that day and this was an entirely feasible mistake. However, I want to point out, this isn't the party that boos gay soldiers or cheers for executions. Dolan stumbled into the lion's den and was still treated with respect. The press would do well to give this more attention but heaven forbid they lose their "balance".

Liberal Feedback: Failure and Hope

edebs

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Thursday March 01, 2012 · 4:52 PM PST

2012/03/01 · 16:52

I wouldn't normally write something like this in a critical election year, but different unrelated events over the last week have upset me and when this post is done there is a constructive point to be made. Last week the president spoke about gas prices in such a way that belied the fairness and insight which I know he possesses. The defense that the government can't seriously impact gas prices is useful only as a way of avoiding an admission of how inadequate financial reform has been. Wall Street speculation drives up fuel costs because it can, regardless of market factors. Believe the stripper really is working her way through college before you believe a politician who says he or she can't really influence gas prices.
Back at the time President Obama should have been pushing for a larger stimulus, a Wall St. sales tax would have been appropriate to make it fundable and fair. This kind of thing also disincentivizes, somewhat, the short term act of speculation.
I'll get my money's worth on the rest of my two cents. The biggest failure of the president's first term, unfortunately, hasn't been Gitmo, renditions, or secret prisons, but rather the anemic response to the housing crisis. I am proud to call myself a liberal and I am proud to call Barack Obama my president but professed support and admiration is meaningless without honesty. The president has called for the Buffett Rule to provide fairness by treating different income the same. This rule could also have applied to treating different investments in a fair way. Warren Buffett himself made a sizeable investment in bailing out a Wall St. bank but he got equity for it whereas the US taxpayers got no such thing as a result of an even bigger investment. With taxpaying homeowners at the table making decisions a six month moratorium on foreclosures started before any of the last three winters would have been possible. The president was correct in his new drilling freeze after the BP spill just as he would be in respect to foreclosures. The banks can have the incentive that it ends when they get their customers loans restructured and lower the suffering and economic uncertainty.
Some on this site might be like me and enjoy a good political argument, just a hunch. My preference for such discourse has been with liberal or better yet, progressive, critics of President Obama and I mean that respectfully and sincerely. At least I recognize their planet of origin. Barack Obama is the best hope for the causes in which we invest ourselves and if we care about the state of such causes come 2016 we need to reelect this president now. The president is elected to govern and Democratic critics should remember that theorizing the perfect policy is not the definition of governing.
Going into the second term, the greatest hope of this presidency, fortunately, isn't President Obama's powerful rhetoric or his reasoned decision making, but rather may be the extreme irrationality of the Right. The GOP's rightward lunge allows the president to shift the center more to the left within our discourse. Ultimately, the choice in November won' t be about if we have a public option, or card check, but instead if we have such things as Medicare, or unions, or Planned Parenthood. Card check, though, is a case in point. Candidate Obama supported it and now in the face of opposition that seeks to eliminate unions outright, pushing this gets a lot more feasible. President Obama has the long game skill to successfully correct the change in tone and direction that Reagan wrought.

Barack Obama Is Better Than The Republicans

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Wednesday February 22, 2012 · 12:38 AM PST

2012/02/22 · 00:38

The Republican primary contest calls to mind a scene from Seinfeld, in which George and Jerry are discussing how to pitch their show, about nothing, to NBC. When Jerry mentions what NBC is paying Ted Danson George can't believe it.

"I'm as good as Ted Danson."

"No,you aren't ...you're worse."

A handful of Republicans, of whom there are still four, made the forgiveable yet wildly misguided calculation that they belong in a league where they really don't. Bless their patriotic dumbass hearts.
Their candidates responded to improving economic news by pivoting to a campaign against birth control. They execute this loser of a strategy by obscuring the issue as a trumped up charge of attacking religious freedom. There is a level of rhetoric about religion that almost makes "death panels" sound like thoughtful analysis. Overall, the corporate media has been lame in calling out the right and keeping this from seeping into the fabric of the discourse.
The Treasury Department will release the president's plan for corporate taxes. It is a reasonable, fair approach that will involve lowering the tax rate and closing loopholes. The sole foundation of the GOP agenda, oppose Barack Obama, will require them to oppose fairness and reasonableness. (I guess it's a word.) When political suicide is your strategy you don't belong in the game at the highest level. President Obama has advanced policies that aren't as aggressive as some of us would like, but this has been from a lack of Republican cooperation, not from failing to see the right thing to do. The GOP opposition wants to eliminate unions and Medicare and slash Medicaid and food stamps while increasing military spending and waging on assault on women. I would be afraid to fly in the face of so much public opinion as well as the demographic trends. Well, maybe not if I could determine who actually got to do the voting at the ballot box. President Obama is still the candidate of hope because he is still campaigning against fear.

An Elite Snob Observes A Clown Show

edebs

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Thursday February 16, 2012 · 10:56 PM PST

2012/02/16 · 22:56

I certainly love politics, but as this is the art of the possible, it is necessary to realize that sometimes the asinine and the dangerous can still be possible. Enter the Republican primary contest. This started as a big let down as none of these candidates seemed to have any political skill. Since the start of the campaign, though, Santorum and Gingrich have really upped their demagogue game.
Rick Santorum is hoping to cash in on his so called blue collar appeal. If this appeal exists then he earned it by saying "manufacturing" more times than anyone else. His grandfather might have been a coalminer but he wouldn't be helped at all by a President Rick Santorum. Santorum actually proposes standard boilerplate trickle down economics. His concern, and he's right, is that there are some manufacturing execs who haven't made out as well as CEOs from some other sectors, and he can fix that. Workers, of course, will lose wages, benefits, and retirements. On the stump, though, he's starting to find his voice, in a race baiting, class warring, demagogue, us/them sort of way. He recently warned working class voters that they would be shocked at what "elite snobs" really said about them. I say they deserve a living wage and the rule of law applied equally to all. I say American gains in productivity need to start benefiting a wider part of our economy. This self righteous wannabe once accused President Obama of trying to advance "secularist values". These are the only kind of values a government really can advance. At least with this president fairness is one of those values.
The race, which has been a race to the bottom in many ways, feels like a final sprint to the finish. In other words, I'm not sure how much lower they can go. They're demagoging contraception, badly, but they're doing it. There may always be another GOP political suicidal crazy surge, I am frequently wrong about them. If it does happen my hunch is it will have something to do with immigration but for outrageous crazy this birth control is hard to beat.

And It's Called The Democratic Party, Thank You

edebs

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Thursday February 02, 2012 · 5:58 PM PST

2012/02/02 · 17:58

It's clear to any observer, one party, called the Republican Party, holds the other party, called the Democratic Party, and its top official, President Obama, in complete, utter contempt without the slightest hint of the faintest implication of the merest pretense of respect. Nobody wants to sound like a whiner, but e-freaking-nough already. The contemptuous delegitimization of their opponents has become for the GOP what the flag lapel pin was a few years ago; you can't go on tv without it. The Atty. General's testimony today was the final slap in the face before I stop being quiet about this.
The 2000 election was a serious sh*t sandwich for many of us to swallow, but being Americans we swallowed nonetheless. We said at the time that Bush shouldn't be president, and history books will bear this out forever. However, he was the president . He was recognized as such by both parties, not to mention the support he was shown after 9/11. The point is, despite getting the second most votes, Bush's very legitimacy wasn't challenged and thereby bringing in with it a total lack of respect. Then in 2008 Barack Obama was elected and this was pure gasoline on the fire that is the Republican collapse of reason.
Again, I'm not condoning whining, but we cannot go into a campaign year with governing and discourse taking place in such a context. The Republicans deny racism is behind any of this. This can't be entirely true, but in any event certain facts are inarguable. The Republican field of presidential contenders is weak because anyone with anything to lose didn't want to challenge President Obama. Moreover, the Republican Party has willfully placed themselves at odds with a majority of Americans on taxes, spending, defense, women's rights, and immigration. Plus, they do this in the face of worsening demographic factors. Their lack of respect for political opponents has spread into contempt for the entire political process and all its participants. Perhaps they feel free to be this way because they believe the myth that this is a center right, conservative country; this is a New Deal country, watch what happens when they try and run on the Ryan Plan. This nation is more Four Freedoms than it is Paul Ryan, and its more progressive than Austrian. And yeah, it is called the Democratic Party.

Schadenfreude, Thy Name Is Republican Politics

edebs

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Sunday January 29, 2012 · 3:11 PM PST

2012/01/29 · 15:11

The Republican Party is finding itself the victim of its own demagoguery, and frankly, I enjoy this in a way that can best be described as priapismic. They have adopted a grand strategy of marching rightward while obstructing anything that resembles governing. This has been sold the usual way, by peddling as much fear as possible and then offering anger as a way of dealing with that fear. Well, some of their scared chickens are coming home to roost. Now they find themselves in a disaster of a primary with an unpopular default frontrunner who is fundamentally flawed as the personification of the 1%. The alternative to the guy the party doesn't really like is the unhinged, and equally unacceptable Newton Leroy Gingrich. A thirty year rightward lunge, with a disdain for compromise, and the practice of fear/hate politics is how they got to this point. Of course, Citizens United helped too.
Newt made one of the truest statements in the cable reality show known as the Republican debates when he said " It's sad the news media doesn't report how the economy really works". In later episodes he attempted to start an honest, critical discussion of how our capitalist system works. Then like a good Reublican he offers solutions that would only serve to make Mitt Romney richer. I thought Rick Perry would be the Romney alternative but as a partisan I'd never turn down a gift like Newt. I'm not sure if he is constantly in Callista's line of sight because they are trying to remind me he is an untrustworthy, serial adulterer or not.
The Republican Party has taken to accusing the president of class warfare, which is the surest sign that he might be uniting the country. Americans, being the invented people that we are, have a union forged not by blood, but by values and ideals. The value of fairness is right smack in the middle of that and it speaks to all Americans in every economic class. President Obama's message is one that attempts to unite the country on a core value. This embodies leadership the way Newt embodies pompousness.

Why I Support Barack Obama part 2

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Wednesday January 04, 2012 · 11:24 PM PST

2012/01/04 · 23:24

President Obama has a personal story that is uniquely American and an approach to his office that is well suited to the times in which he governs. He took office at a time when the country was in crisis and Washington was to become more dysfunctional. Circumstances have put an even greater necessity on getting things done but in response the Republicans have taken these last three years to adopt a total stonewall in the way of governance.
While announcing his recess appointments the president repeated a new catchphrase and it actually tells you what you need to know. He uses the line, "this is a make or break moment for the middle class." These are in fact make or break times for the middle class and this will be the practical answer to whatever we decide about the role of government or the vision thing. This president gets it. Our politics is often a loud, confusing gaggle of noise so it is important to know that within that mess, the guy with the biggest megaphone understands what is being "discussed."
I can say that the president gets it while recognizing that the results thus far are less than we want. We are talking about President Obama, not King Obama. President Obama has been quoted as wanting a breakup of Citi and a Tobin tax or a financial transaction fee. This shows correct thinking on his part specifically, but if and when these things don't happen it hardly makes him a sellout or failure. He has no choice but to deliver change in the real world. Meanwhile, part of President Obama's practical answer is to make the needed recess appointments to keep the NLRB functioning and to recently expand the Fair Labor Standards to over a million more workers.
I'll conclude by mentioning one more way I don't understand Republicans. No matter who is the GOP nominee the choice in the fall will be to vote for the guy who killed bin Laden or the guy who wants to kill Medicare.

It's Perry vs. Romney

edebs

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Monday December 26, 2011 · 4:27 PM PST

2011/12/26 · 16:27

In the course of human events presidential campaigns are some of the most interesting things that happen and this time, despite the ridiculousness of the Republican field is no exception. This race will soon crystalize into a two way contest between Rick Perry and Mitt Romney which was all it could ever be. The party's primary contest is to find an alternative to President Obama by way of finding an alternative to Mitt Romney, the default frontrunner.
The party isn't going to reject Romney in favor of a different Mormon who worked for President Obama in China. People like Richard Land will quickly denounce calling Mormonism a cult but will just as quickly deny that it is a Christian church. What they leave unmentioned is the fact that the people they talk to will not consider voting for a non Christian for president. After the NH primary Huntsman will go home, root for President Obama, and prepare for 2016. Let's be serious, the nominee was never going to be a black man and if you are a woman not named Palin then you too need not apply. Rick Santorum though, is a curious case. He's been a principled and consistent conservative which explains why he won't get my vote but not why he won't get the nomination. What's most curious about him is that he served two plus terms in the Senate and isn't personally any richer than he is. Evidently he hasn't been willing to sell enough influence and access to satisfy his fellow Republicans.
This leaves Newt and Ron Paul who are both wholly unacceptable to Republicans but for different reasons. Newt is completely unpalatable but not because of adultery and the three marriages. Nor is it because of the massive fine for ethics violations. Nor is it because of the many policy flip flops. Nor is it because of the cartoonishly large ego. It isn't even because he was a lobbyist for Freddie Mac. Newt lost spectacularly to Bill Clinton and now the disgraced former Speaker wants a chance to take on the guy who upset the Clinton machine. As much as I want to be wrong about this, Newt will not be the nominee, nothing has been that easy for President Obama so far and there is no reason to expect that to change now. Ron Paul can forget it, no matter what happens in Iowa, because he is simply too radical. This isn't about foreign policy, where he actually speaks for most Americans. On domestic issues though he proposes to totally undo our way of life. The entire industries of energy, transportation, food and healthcare exist as they do because of public spending. His belief in really walking the conservative walk is precisely why he is too far out of the mainstream and unelectable. This is why the party likes Paul Ryan so much; he's an extremist nut but at least he knows to try and soften it up and not scare people so much.
So Rick Perry can find himself the default alternative to the default frontrunner. Romney will likely win Iowa but the other story out of the caucus will be the surprising strong showing of Rick Perry. Ron Paul likely gets second but he may win. By doing well now when he is so unelectable he is really only giving Perry more time to regroup. Gingrich and Paul are hopeless for reasons already stated and I reject the notion that Perry has blown it due to some flubbed lines in some debates. Herman Cain went up in the polls after he ran the numbers on how he would screw the poor and the middle class. Perry may be running because he was pitched the idea by some self serving consultants and operatives but they were not wasting their time on a bad choice for today's GOP. Romney makes the stronger general election candidate but that might speak to nothing. Romney wants to replay 1980 and Perry has the potential to replay 1964. Romney's problem is going to be that Jimmy Carter didn't kill bin Laden.

Defeating Boehner

edebs

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Thursday December 22, 2011 · 10:07 AM PST

2011/12/22 · 10:07

First, a question, and I apologize if it sounds ignorant, but first an honest question and then some thoughts about my congressman, the top Republican politician in the country. The House is trying to pass a bill concerning taxes that the Senate already passed. Did there used to be a requirement for tax legislation to start in the House? Anyone feel free to please advise me, I'm sure if there were a real problem one of the many Constitutional scholars running for the GOP nomination would have addressed it.

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