"It's time to take the radical step of privileging correct information over incorrect information." (Rachel Maddow, 2/6/2009)
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This is a better blog clipping service.
Results of the Research 2000 poll on Republican attitudes is below. A friend posted a link to the results on Facebook, and one comment was: "I'm sorry...I simply don't buy the accuracy of the poll." I have no idea why not. Research 2000 simply asked the questions everyone else is afraid to ask because they seem so ridiculous. Remember, Research 2000 did the "Keep gov't out of my Medicare" poll with the assumption was that must be a joke. R2000 polled it pretty carefully, and found a significant percentage (~60%, if memory serves) of repubs either agreed with "The government should not interfere with Medicare" or weren't sure. This result was later confirmed by other polling organizations after everyone first said "no way." Finally, over 75% of republicans only trust Fox as their source of news (and I would assume Rush and friends), and every one of the themes in the new poll are pushed by Fox. These are the people who select Republican candidates.
I can only conclude from this new poll of 2003 self-identified Republicans nationwide that between 20% and 50% of the party is either insane or mind-numbingly stupid.
Question
Yes
No
Not Sure
Should Barack Obama be impeached?
39
32
29
Do you believe Barack Obama was born in the United States?
42
36
22
Do you think Barack Obama is a socialist?
63
21
16
Do you believe Barack Obama wants the terrorists to win?
24
43
33
Do you believe ACORN stole the 2008 election?
21
24
55
Do you believe Sarah Palin is more qualified to be president than Barack Obama?
53
14
33
Do you believe Barack Obama is a racist who hates white people?
31
36
33
Do you believe your state should secede from the United States?
23
58
19
Should openly gay men and women be allowed to teach in public schools?
8
73
19
Should contraceptive use be outlawed?
31
56
13
Do you believe the birth control pill is abortion?
Yesterday, when Kos started leaking some of these results on Twitter, Greg Sargent noted, "Folks on the left are having fun with these poll numbers allegedly showing Republicans are crazy, but pissing on the GOP base isn't going to solve the Dems' political problems. Sorry."
That strikes me as both fair and accurate. It's very easy to review these stunning results and think, "The Republican Party is dominated by nutjobs." Whether that's true or not will have no bearing on whether those nutjobs elect like-minded candidates to help run the country. (Indeed, in the same poll, 83% of self-identified Republicans said they intend to vote in November.)
That said, the poll results are important for reasons that have nothing to do with their point-and-laugh quotient. Markos noted the practical implications: "Ultimately, these results explain why it is impossible for elected Republicans to work with Democrats to improve our country."
Exactly. When unhinged voters send far-right lawmakers to speak on their behalf, the result is a group of Republican lawmakers who a) are nowhere near the middle; b) disinclined to compromise; and c) have to toe the party line or risk punishment from the base.
I'd also note that Dems might be able to use numbers like these to characterize the GOP as having given up on the American mainstream. If independents and moderate Republicans begin to think that the GOP has fallen off a right-wing cliff, it's at least possible that fewer and fewer Americans will want to have anything to do with the party or its candidates.
Tennessee's lieutenant governor told a conservative group today that he's got his doubts on Obama's citizenship, too, but that birtherism isn't going to win the Republican Party any elections (via Nashville Post).
Ambers notes what the bitter old cynic said in 2006:
The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, senator, we ought to change the policy, then I think we ought to consider seriously changing it because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to.
Senator McCain, they just did.
Joint Chiefs expose McCain hypocrisy Feb. 2: Now that the Joint Chiefs chairman and Secretary of Defense have expressed their support for the repeal "Don't ask don't tell," Senator John McCain's earlier promise to respect the opinion of the military leadership on the matter has gone out the window. Rachel Maddow reviews the testimony (and hypocrisy) at Tuesday's Congressional hearing on whether to repeal "Don't ask, don't tell."
Not sure how many of you caught Hardball tonight, but the Family Research Council trotted out Peter Sprigg, another one of their odious spokesbots to rail against the repeal of DADT, and at the end of the piece, this little exchange happened:
Matthews: Do you think we should outlaw gay behavior?
Sprigg: Well, I think certainly..
Matthews: I’m just asking, should we outlaw gay behavior?
Sprigg: I think the Supreme Court decision in Lawrence v. Texas which overturned the sodomy laws in this country was wrongly decided. I think there would be a place in this country for criminal sanctions against homosexual behavior.
Matthews: So we should outlaw gay behavior?
Sprigg: YES!
No dog whistles there. They aren’t even hiding it anymore.
Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) painted an Orwellian vision of health care reform yesterday, claiming that critics of the Democrats’ plan could be denied coverage. Citing an unnamed Japanese man who supposedly approached her in Washington, Bachmann suggested that critics of the Japanese government are placed on a “list” and prohibited from receiving medical care under Japan’s universal health care system. Saying “a government takeover of health care is the crown jewel of socialism,” Bachmann insinuated a similar situation could occur in “our future”:
BACHMANN:He said that in Japan, to wait and get health care is almost impossible. You get on a list and you wait and you wait and you wait. But he said this is something people don’t know: in Japan, people have stopped voicing their opinion on health care. There are things that are wrong with Japanese health care, but people are afraid of voicing. ‘Well why is that,’ I asked. [He said], ‘Because they know that would get on a list and they wouldn’t get health care. They wouldn’t get in. They wouldn’t get seen. And so people are afraid. They’re afraid to speak back to government. They’re afraid to say anything.’ Is that what we want for our future? That takes us to gangster government at that point!
Watch it (beginning at 0:50):
Other than one individual’s account, Bachmann provides no evidence to support her slur of Japan’s health care system, let alone any evidence to suggest that the same thing would transpire in the U.S. The Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Eric Roper “could not find evidence to back up the claim that Japan withholds health care from government critics.” He noted that a recent Washington Post article “describing the pros and cons of the Japanese health system makes no mention of it.”
Japan’s universal system has been able to keep health care costs far lower than those in the U.S., despite an aging population, allowing Japanese to visit a doctor nearly 14 times a year. Bachmann is also wrong when she claims that wait times make it “almost impossible” to receive care in Japan. As ABC News noted, “waiting lists are not a major problem” in Japan, and patients can even “go to a doctor without an appointment, but may have to sit for a long time in the waiting room.”
The Republican National Committee made a similar false accusation last August when it mailed a fundraising appeal that suggested that Democrats might use an overhaul of the health care system to deny medical treatment to Republicans.
More Bachmann staff flee Feb. 2: The press secretary for Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann has announced her departure to work for another member of Congress, the latest of more than a dozen staffers who have fled the service of the often-ridiculed legislator.
The Obama administration and the FBI are making a big push tonight to rebut criticism of trying Abdulmutallab in American courts rather than submitting him to torture and a military tribunal by revealing that he has been cooperating with investigators for days. The claim, which is not that surprising, is that it has been precisely the use of traditional and legal investigative techniques that they've been able to gain his cooperation. Indeed, the intervention of his family, has apparently been key.
"One of the principal reasons why his family came back is because they had complete trust in the US system of justice and believed that Umar Farouq would be treated fairly and appropriately," a "senior official" told ABC. "And that they would be as well."
It's definitely a full court press. Here are the write-ups in the NYT and from ABC.
As much as I find Matthews a shallow lightweight who only understands the optics of politics, this is a pretty good discussion of the optics of politics (in which he gets some actual substance wrong of course) . . .
Obama back to addressing Americans directly Feb. 2: Chris Matthews talks with Rachel Maddow about what appears to be a new strategy by President Obama to take greater care to keep Americans informed about his policies and to point out the dishonest obstinance of Congressional Republicans.
A new book by Eamon Javers reveals that the CIA allows its operatives to moonlight on Wall Street to supplement their poor incomes. The chatter is that the administration will have to put a stop to it, but I would guess there's no chance of that. After all, these people are so vital that they can't even be held responsible for breaking the law. In fact, we've been told that if anyone even launches an investigation they will just stop protecting Americans and let the terrorists kill us in our beds. What makes anyone think that they will allow the government to dictate how much money they can receive and from whom?
I've drawn the parallel before between that behavior and the behavior of the masters of the universe as they threatened to purposefully take down the entire financial system if they aren't allowed to keep their bonuses. It's an interesting mindset: let me get away with anything I choose or the country gets it. I guess that's why the right reveres them so much --- their patriotism.
John Cole, who is currently undergoing extremely painful physical therapy following major surgery for a shattered shoulderblade:I’d Rather Be In Physical Pain
Feeling a litle better this morning, so I flipped through the morning shows, and I can not believe that they are honestly quoting Republicans voicing concern about the size of the budget and the deficits.
Seriously. It is like the last thirty years never happened with our media. All the Republicans need to do is claim they are concerned about deficits and the budget, and our bobbleheads will repeat it without pointing out who caused the problem.
Nine months after he penned a memo laying out the arguments for health care legislation's destruction, Republican message guru Frank Luntz has put together a playbook to help derail financial regulatory reform.
In a 17-page memo titled, "The Language of Financial Reform," Luntz urged opponents of reform to frame the final product as filled with bank bailouts, lobbyist loopholes, and additional layers of complicated government bureaucracy.
"If there is one thing we can all agree on, it's that the bad decisions and harmful policies by Washington bureaucrats that in many ways led to the economic crash must never be repeated," Luntz wrote. "This is your critical advantage. Washington's incompetence is the common ground on which you can build support."
Luntz continued: "Ordinarily, calling for a new government program 'to protect consumers' would be extraordinary popular. But these are not ordinary times. The American people are not just saying 'no.' They are saying 'hell no' to more government agencies, more bureaucrats, and more legislation crafted by special interests."
...
Luntz does seem to acknowledge that the climate makes defeating regulatory reform a bit trickier. At the top of his memo he urges opponents (primarily Republican lawmakers) to "acknowledge the need for reform that ensures this NEVER happens again," He insists that "the status quo is not an option" and that members of Congress, when addressing the crisis, "never forget its impact on your audience." Luntz even advise his audience to promote themselves the agents of change.
But for the sake of winning the debate, he adds, it is vital to insist that such change does not include additional Washington-based regulatory powers.
In 2005, then-President George W. Bush decided to launch an ambitious proposal: he wanted to use his election mandate and Republican congressional majorities to privatize Social Security. It didn't go especially well -- American hated the idea, GOP lawmakers balked, and Bush's poll numbers dropped and never recovered.
Three years later, a global economic crisis began, and Wall Street went into a tailspin. It was reasonable to think, "At least we won't have to listen to Republicans talk up Social Security privatization anymore."
But they still haven't given up on the idea. Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Tex.) appeared on MSNBC's "Hardball" yesterday and highlighted, in the context of the new budget debate, how his party would cut the deficit. Specifically, he recommended cutting Social Security benefits and privatizing the system the way Bush/Cheney proposed five years ago.
And lest anyone think Hensarling was just freelancing on this, or that his remarks were atypical of Republican lawmakers, note that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, unveiled a budget plan yesterday that also calls for the privatization of Social Security.
As a policy matter, privatization is as ridiculous now as it was in 2005. As a practical matter, I'm slightly amazed a major political party would have the gall to push this so soon after a stock market crash.
And as an electoral matter, the House Republican caucus seems to be doing the DCCC a pretty big favor. In the fall, Dems would love to let voters know that a Republican resurgence would mean a new crusade to privatize Social Security, and conservatives like Hensarling are making this easy.
* Sam Stein scores Frank Luntz’s latest memo, which advises GOPers to derail regulatory reform by slamming “Washington’s incompetence.” Best Dem response: Demonstrate competence, so Dems can convincingly point to — and separate themselves from — the incompetence of the previous ruling party.
* Wow: Joe Sudbay reports that your donations to the DNC may have funded ads praising Ben Nelson for watering down reform — perhaps not the goal you intended.
Update: DNC spokesman Hari Sevugan emails an explanation:
“We, the Democratic Party, were defending a Democratic senator from attacks from the health insurance industry and other special interests for his support of reform. Senator Nelson is not the first Democrat we have defended from these attacks and he will not be the last. We’ve spent money directly in support of House Democrats who have supported reform in the form of TV and radio ads and we’ve also worked with state parties to defend Democrats like Senators Nelson, Lincoln and Dorgan who have stood up to the insurance industry in support of reform.”
Dems think “you put us in power but we’re powerless” is a winning message.
Former McCain advisors go rogue Feb. 1: Rachel Maddow points out the latest GOP talking point, parroted by John McCain, attempting to blame the state of the economy entire on President Obama, and the two former McCain advisors who are not echoing the party line.
I got this note from someone with many decades' experience in national politics, about a discussion between two Congressmen over details of the stimulus bill:
"GOP member: 'I'd like this in the bill.'
"Dem member response: 'If we put it in, will you vote for the bill?'
"GOP member: 'You know I can't vote for the bill.'
"Dem member: 'Then why should we put it in the bill?'
"I witnessed this myself."
I wrote back saying, "Great story!" and got the response I quote below and after the jump. It is worth reading because its argument has the valuable quality of being obvious -- once it is pointed out. The emphasis is mine rather than in the original; it is to highlight a basic structural reality that has escaped most recent analysis of the "bipartisanship" challenge.
"BTW, that exchange I quoted is not really a great story. It is a basic story, fundamental to legislation -- a sort of 'duh!' moment -- and to the US Congressional system, and to the key difference between our system and a parliamentary system when it comes to bipartisanship. I'm astonished every pundit doesn't already get it, but many either don't or seem willfully to ignore it.
"In our system, if the minority party can create and enforce party discipline (which has never really been done before, but which the GOP has now accomplished), then OF COURSE there can be no 'bipartisanship' on major legislative matters, in the sense of (1) the minority adding provisions to legislation as the majority compromises with them, and (2) at least some minority party members then voting with the majority.
"In a parliamentary system, the minority party is not involved in helping write or voting for major legislation either. If you think about it, and as that exchange I quoted shows, that sort of 'bipartisanship' really can't happen in a parliamentary system on issues where the minority party has the power to tell its members to boycott the majority's major bills on final passage.
"Bipartisanship in the American sense means compromising on legislation so that a sufficient number of members of Congress from BOTH parties will support it, even if (as is typically the case) a few majority party members defect and most minority party members don't join. Bipartisanship consists of getting ENOUGH members of the minority party to join the (incomplete) majority in voting for major legislation. It can't happen if the minority party members vote as a block against major legislation. And that can happen only if the minority party has the ability to discipline its ranks so that none join the majority, which is the unprecedented situation we've got in Congress today.
"The way parliamentary parties maintain their discipline is straightforward. No candidate can run for office using the party label unless the party bestows that label upon him or her. And usually, the party itself and not the candidate raises and controls all the campaign funds. As every political scientist knows, the fact that in the U.S. any candidate can pick his or her own party label without needing anyone else's approval, and can also raise his or her own campaign funds, is why there cannot be and never really has been any sustained party discipline before -- even though it is a feature of parliamentary systems.
"The GOP now maintains party discipline by the equivalent of a parliamentary party's tools: The GOP can effectively deny a candidate the party label (by running a more conservative GOP candidate against him or her), and the GOP can also provide the needed funds to the candidate of the party's choice. And every GOP member of Congress knows it. (Snowe and Collins may be immune, but that's about it.)
"I've missed almost all the punditry this past week... but what I've seen seems almost like a lot of misleading fluff designed to fill the void that should follow an understanding of the foregoing, at least on the subject of 'why no bipartisanship?' There's really nothing more to be said about "why no bipartisanship," once one recognizes the GOP party discipline. On this issue, it's absolutely astounding to blame Obama or even the Congressional leadership (although Pelosi and Reid leave much to be desired otherwise). It's doubly astounding that the GOP did it once before, less perfectly, but with a very large reward for bad behavior in the form of the 1994 mid-term elections. Yet no one calls them on it effectively, and bad behavior seems about to be rewarded again...
"Ironically, the one thing that might lubricate some bipartisanship -- earmarks, or their functional equivalent in specific amendments of general policy -- is becoming unavailable just when needed, and when it might help. After the exchange I quoted (and observed), a Dem could run against that GOP incumbent by pointing out that the GOP opponent lost X or Y or Z project or policy benefit for his or her district or state by insisting on voting down the line with the GOP. 'Put his party above his constituents,' might be the charge, or 'Put Michael Steele above you and me.' But so far, the Dems don't seem to have cottoned onto this. They could go into the 2010 elections not just challenging the obstructionists in the GOP, but showing the electorate what the price of obstruction has been for real people back home."
As I have pointed out a time or two or a thousand, the structural failures of American government are the country's main problem right now. In this installment, we see that the US now has the drawbacks of a parliamentary system -- absolute party-line voting by the opposition, for instance -- without any of the advantages, from comparable solidarity among the governing party to the principle of "majority rules." If Democrats could find a way to talk about structural issues -- if everyone can find a way to talk about them -- that would be at least a step. And the Dems could talk about the simple impossibility of governing when the opposition is committed to "No" as a bloc.
This is absurd. The President is now an active impediment to passing HCR. Benen: COUNTING ON SUCCESS
The fate of health care reform is still very much in doubt. But as far as the Obama administration is concerned, officials aren't just expecting legislation to eventually pass, they're literally counting on it.
President Obama says he has not given up on major health care legislation, and his new budget backs him up. The $3.8 trillion budget released by the White House on Monday includes $150 billion in deficit reduction over 10 years on the presumption that a health care bill will be adopted.
As a result, it seems that the budget reflects multiple layers of optimism. First, it presumes that despite the bleak outlook at the moment, Democrats will figure out a way to get the legislation approved over fierce Republican opposition. Then, it presumes that the bill will truly reduce future deficits.
In a statement Monday night, Representative Anthony Weiner, Democrat of New York, said: "Hidden clue in budget documents -- health care reform is alive."
That the administration actually assumes that reform will come together in the end is at least a little encouraging.
Slightly less heartening was something President Obama said yesterday afternoon, responding to questions submitted to the public via YouTube. The very first question was about health care reform, and the president said, "It is my greatest hope that we can get this done, not just a year from now but soon." After noting the benefits that would come with reform, Obama added:
"[T]he way the rules work in the United States Senate, you've got to have 60 votes for everything. After the special election in Massachusetts, we now only have 59. We are calling on our Republican colleagues to get behind a serious health reform bill, one that actually provides not only the insurance reforms for people who do have health insurance, but also the coverage for folks who don't. My hope is that they accept that invitation and that they work with us together over the next several weeks to get it done."
The problem with this is it's putting the burden in the wrong place. If the White House believes reform is dependent on garnering at least some Republican support in the Senate, then reform is going to die. There are different approaches to getting this done, but the one that counts on GOP votes is the most likely to fail.
There's a better way -- the House passes the already-approved Senate bill, the Senate agrees to improvements through reconciliation. Americans can "call on Republicans to get behind a serious health reform bill," but the call has been and will be ignored.
Republican obstruction blocks own ideas Feb. 1: Congressman Barney Frank talks with Rachel Maddow about Republican refusal to participate in the legislative process even on bills that represent their own ideas or that they've supported in the past.
A proposal by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker to limit bank’s proprietary trading will be either be dropped or significantly modified in the Senate, lawmakers and staffers told dealReporter.
Senate Banking Committee ranking member Richard Shelby (R-AL) said he opposes the so-called Volcker rule and the Obama administration’s call to levy a USD 90bn tax on banks. His comments come as House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-MA) predicted the proposals outlined by President Obama could be law within six months.
Speaking to this news service on Thursday, Shelby said if Democrats push forward with the proposals they risk unravelling much of the bipartisan support already reached regarding the passage of financial regulatory reform in the Senate. Shelby said that the Obama administration risks losing Republican support for the bill if they begin to “politicise” the issue.
However, Shelby said he expects to hold a meeting with Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd (D-CT) regarding the way forward on regulatory reform in two weeks time. A Democratic banking committee staffer confirmed that the meeting between Dodd and Shelby will be critical as Dodd needs to determine the level of bipartisan agreement and the timing of bringing the bill through committee and on the Senate floor.
Not only will watering down the bill in the name of bipartisanship not give us the needed regulatory restructuring that we need, but it is also politically stupid in another way. Let the Republicans come out opposed to regulating the market and the bankers and then beat them to death with it in the fall. Passing a shitty bill with their support blurs the distinctions between the parties.
But then again, given that some of the Democrats are almost as beholden to corporate interests as the Republicans, there really isn’t much to blur, is there? There really isn’t anything quite as worthless as the US Senate, is there?
T-Paw is regarded by some as a moderate, even thoughtful Republican, with some policy heft. So check out his op-ed in Politico this morning. It's about fiscal responsibility. His answer to our fiscal crisis: tax cuts! Yes, the way to cut debt is to reduce revenue. Does he propose ways to cut entitlement spending and defense? Of course not. He's a borrow-and-spend Republican! Take it away, Bruce Bartlett:
Like all Republicans these days, Pawlenty wants to have it every possible way: complain about the deficit while ignoring everything his party did to create it (Medicare Part D, two unfunded wars, TARP, earmarks galore, tax cuts up the wazoo, irresponsible regulatory and monetary policies that created the recession that created the deficit, etc.), illogically insisting that tax cuts are a necessary part of deficit reduction, and never proposing any specific spending cuts.
The only specific thing Mr. Pawlenty is capable of proposing is a balanced budget amendment to the Constitution. It’s hard to know where to begin in explaining why this is such an irresponsible idea, but I will try.
Senate leadership aides have identified what they see as a key roadblock to passing a fix to their bill via reconciliation — and parliamentarians in the Senate and House are hard at work trying to identify a solution, aides say.
These efforts should give reform proponents both comfort and pause. The identification of this obstacle explains why the Senate leadership has been loath to publicly endorse the reconciliation fix, and the fact that parliamentarians are studying it so closely suggests a solution is possible. However, they have yet to solve this problem, aides acknowledge.
The problem in question has been noted before, but it’s gotten lost in the noise: Senate aides say they are unsure how to pass a reconciliation fix to the Senate bill before it’s signed into law, as some House Democrats want.
“How do you fix a bill that hasn’t been passed yet?” one senior Senate aide asks me, stressing that reconciliation is different than the amendment process, which obviously does allow for bills to be fixed before passage. “That’s the fundamental problem.”
“This is a whole bill that would amend another bill that hasn’t become law,” the aide adds. “How do we do reconciliation before the House passes the Senate bill?”
Senate aides remain convinced that the House won’t be able to pass the Senate bill without the Senate fixing it first — so parliamentarians on both sides have been tasked with sorting out how this would be done.
I’m a bit out of my depth here on the procedural ins and outs of this, and am trying to learn more. But according to this senior Senate aide, this is a key reason for the current delay.
Here's the glitch: the House wants the Senate to approve some changes to its health care bill before the House votes on the package. The Senate can't, however, approve changes to legislation that hasn't been signed yet (in order to fix a law, it has to be a law).
Nevertheless, the relevant players are looking into their procedural/parliamentary options -- which in and of itself is evidence of progress. And by that I mean, people who are supposed to be talking to one another, working on finding a solution, are talking to one another, working on finding a solution. Optimism about reform proponents is more common than it was a week ago.
It's easy to lose sight of these developments, especially when we're caught up in the day-to-day fights over various political disputes, but the federal government has changed in some pretty dramatic ways over the last year. When we talk about the differences between Obama/Biden and Bush/Cheney, we tend to think about economic, national security, legal, and social policy.
But John Judis reminds us of regulatory policy, which on a day-to-day level, is just as important as the other policy areas.
[T]here is one extremely consequential area where Obama has done just about everything a liberal could ask for -- but done it so quietly that almost no one, including most liberals, has noticed. Obama's three Republican predecessors were all committed to weakening or even destroying the country's regulatory apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the other agencies that are supposed to protect workers and consumers by regulating business practices.
Now Obama is seeking to rebuild these battered institutions. In doing so, he isn't simply improving the effectiveness of various government offices or making scattered progress on a few issues; he is resuscitating an entire philosophy of government with roots in the Progressive era of the early twentieth century. Taken as a whole, Obama's revival of these agencies is arguably the most significant accomplishment of his first year in office. [...]
Republican presidents didn't just undermine scientific administration by making poor appointments; they also slashed or held down the regulatory agencies' budgets, forcing them to cut personnel. This was a particular problem in the all-important area of enforcement: If regulatory agencies can't conduct inspections and enforce rules, it doesn't matter how tough those rules are.... Now Obama is reversing these trends.
Judis added that Obama's regulatory appointments "could not be more different" from those we've seen in recent years, and "the flow of expertise into the federal bureaucracy over the past year has been reminiscent of what took place at the start of the New Deal."
These are the kind of changes that have an enormous impact on the public, but which few of us even consider when evaluating a presidency. We're dealing with obscure government officials in unseen government offices. When they do their jobs well, we have no reason to even notice. When they do their jobs poorly, it's probably because there's a Republican in the White House who's unconcerned about public safeguards.
It's the kind of detail few Americans consider before voting, but when a president takes office, he/she does more than just become the head of the White House and a political party; he/she also leads a large federal bureaucracy with vast regulatory power.
Over the last three decades, through Republican administrations, that regulatory power was deliberately stunted, favoring business interests over consumer interests. The bureaucracy has some discretion over which laws are enforced more vigorously, and the Bush administration, for example, chose a lax attitude when it came to consumer and worker protections,. Obama, in contrast, is using the executive branch in a very different, more progressive fashion, emphasizing strong federal oversight, and evidence-based analysis, with the public's interests in mind.
Progressive victories like these have occurred repeatedly over the last year, but they're largely under the radar, and don't generate headlines. But these regulatory changes nevertheless constitute change we can believe in.
We can only hope they last.
In 1993, Clinton, too, attempted to revive the regulatory agencies by appointing well-qualified personnel and increasing funding. But, after Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, they managed to cut Clinton's budget proposals and delay or block the implementation of regulations. If Democrats lose Congress this November, the same thing could happen again. In that case, what has been Obama's most significant achievement to date would come to naught -- and liberals would have yet another reason to despair.
Payback's a bank Feb. 1: Kenneth Feinberg, Special Master for Executive Compensation -and Pay Czar- talks with Rachel Maddow about progress being made by the Obama administration to recover the taxpayer money used to bail out major banks.
Hey you. You there in the Glenn Beck T-shirt headed off to the Tea Party Patriot rally.
Stop shouting for a moment, please, I want to explain to you why you're so very angry.
You should be angry. You're getting screwed.
I think you know that. But you don't seem to know that it doesn't have to be that way. You can stop it. You can stop it easily because the system that's screwing you over can only keep screwing you over if you keep demanding that it do so.
So stop demanding that. Stop helping the system screw you over.
Look, you can go back to yelling at me in a minute, but just read this first.
1. Get out your pay stub.
Or, if you have direct deposit -- you really should get direct deposit, it saves a lot of time and money (I point this out because, honestly, I'm trying to help you here, even though you don't make that easy Mr. Angry Screamy Guy) -- then take out that little paper receipt they give you when your pay gets directly deposited.
2. Notice that your net pay is lower than your gross pay. This is because some of your wages are withheld every pay period.
3. Notice that only some of this money that was withheld went to pay taxes. (I know, I know -- yeearrrgh! me hates taxes! -- but just try to stick with me for just a second here.)
4. Notice that some of the money that was withheld didn't go to taxes, but to your health insurance company.
5. Now go get a pay stub from last year around this time, from January of 2009.
6. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld for taxes in your current paycheck is less than the amount that was withheld a year ago.
That's because of President Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, which included more than $200 billion in tax cuts, including the one you're holding right there in your hand, the tax cut that's now staring you in the face. Republicans all voted against that tax cut. And then they told you to get angry about the stimulus plan. They didn't explain, however, why you were supposed to get angry about getting a tax cut. Why would you be? Wouldn't it make more sense to get angry at the people who voted against that Obama tax cut?
But taxes aren't the really important thing here. The really important thing starts with the next point.
7. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld to pay for your health insurance is more than it was last year.
8. Notice that the amount of your pay withheld to pay for your health insurance is a lot more than it was last year.
I won't ask you to dig up old paychecks from 2008 and 2007, but this has been going on for a long time. Every year, the amount of your paycheck withheld to pay for your health insurance goes up. A lot.
9. Notice the one figure there on your two pay stubs that hasn't changed: Your wage. The raise you didn't get this year went to pay for that big increase in the cost of your health insurance.
10. Here's where I need you to start doing a better job of putting two and two together. If you didn't get a raise last year because the cost of your health insurance went up by a lot, and the cost of your health insurance is going to go up by a lot again this year, what do you think that means for any chance you might have of getting a raise this year?
11. Did you figure it out? That's right. The increasing cost of health insurance means you won't get a raise this year. Or next year. Or the year after that. The increasing cost of health insurance means you will never get a raise again.
That's what I meant when I said you really should be angry. That's what I meant when I said you're getting screwed.
OK, we're almost done. Just a few more points, I promise.
12. The only hope you have of ever seeing another pay raise is if Congress passes health care reform. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insurance will swallow this year's raise. And next year's raise. And pretty soon it won't stop with just your raise. Without health care reform, the increasing cost of your health insurance will start making your pay go down.
13. I wish I could tell you that this was just a worst-case scenario, that this was only something that might, maybe happen, but that wouldn't be true. Without health care reform, this is what will happen. We know this because this is what is happening now. It has been happening for the past 10 years. In 2008, employers spent on average 25 percent more per employee than they did in 2001, but wages on average did not increase during those years. The price of milk went up. The price of gas went up. But wages did not. All of the money that would have gone to higher wages went to pay the higher and higher and higher cost of health insurance. And unless Congress passes health care reform, that will not change.
Well, it will change in the sense that it will keep getting worse, but it won't get better. Unless the problem gets fixed, the problem won't be fixed. That's kind of what "problem" and "fixed" mean.
14. Sadly for any chance you have of ever seeing a raise again, it looks like Congress may not pass health care reform. It looks like they won't do that because they're scared of angry voters who are demanding that they oppose health care reform, angry voters who demand that Congress not do anything that would keep the cost of health insurance from going up and up and up. Angry voters like you.
15. Do you see the point here? You are angrily, loudly demanding that Congress make sure that you never, ever get another pay raise as long as you live. Because of you and because of your angry demands, you and your family and your kids are going to have to get by with less this year than last year. And next year you're going to have to get by with even less. And if you keep angrily demanding that no one must ever fix this problem, then you're going to have to figure out how to get by on less and less every year for the rest of your life.
16. So please, for your own sake, for your family's sake and the sake of your children, stop. Stop demanding that problems not get fixed. Stop demanding that you keep getting screwed. Stay angry -- you should be angry -- but start directing that anger toward the system that's screwing you over and taking money out of your pocket. Start directing that anger toward fixing problems instead of toward making sure they never get fixed. Instead of demanding that Congress oppose health care reform so that you never, ever, get another pay raise, start demanding that they pass health care reform, as soon as possible. Because until they do, you're just going to keep on getting screwed.
And it's going to be that much worse knowing that you brought this on yourself -- that you demanded it.
Thanks for your time.
P.S. -- I didn't mention this because I'm trying here to be as patient with you as I can, but you might also want to keep in mind that in addition to screwing over yourself and screwing over your family and screwing over your own children by demanding that Congress oppose health care reform so that you will never, ever see another pay raise, by doing that you're also demanding that I never, ever see another pay raise, which means that you're also screwing over me, and my family, and my children. Not to mention the millions of poor and uninsured and uninsureable people I didn't even mention above because they don't seem to matter at all to you. And for that, let me just say the only appropriate thing that can be said to someone so determined to do direct, tangible harm to the welfare of my family: Fuck you, you fucking moron.
Last month, ThinkProgress revealed that health insurance companies, through a corporate front group specializing in state legislature policy called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), have been orchestrating an effort to undermine health reform in the states. Virginia Del. Bob Marshall (R) has seized upon ALEC’s template “Health Care Freedom Act” legislation, and introduced his own “Virginia Health Care Freedom Act” to declare an individual mandate — a cornerstone of reform — unconstitutional. In an interview posted today, Marshall said the mandate reminded him of mobsters, and that national reform efforts are “criminal activity“:
“Mobsters used to offer ‘protection’ to business owners, so when Congress says that if individuals don’t become customers of businesses that contribute to them, to me that crosses the line. For me, it is hard to distinguish what is going on in Washington, D.C., from criminal activity.”
Marshall, whose campaign is being supported by much of the Virginia GOP establishment and Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R), has fought bitterly to defeat reform. Speaking at a states’ rights rally in Richmond, Marshall declared, “this is a fight over whether you are a citizen or you are a serf”:
MARSHALL: This Obamacare is not a fight over health insurance. It’s not even a payback for political help. This is a fight over whether you are a citizen or you are a serf. It’s not your wallet that they want, it’s your soul, it’s your family. We are not going to allow this to happen. Don’t call these folks atheists, they believe in themselves.
Watch it:
Despite Marshall’s inflamed rhetoric in the former Confederate capital, the Massachusetts health system, which covers 98% of Bay State citizens and enjoys support from Republicans like Mitt Romney and Sen.-elect Scott Brown (R-MA), has an individual mandate.
In a six-day span just before the US Senate election, Republican Scott Brown collected nearly $450,000 from donors who work at financial companies, a sign the industry is prepared to spend heavily in the upcoming midterm elections to beat back new controls and taxes President Obama wants to impose.
The donations, from hundreds of financial executives, far exceeded what Brown received from doctors and others in the health care industry in the final days of the campaign. While Brown saw donations from all quarters explode in mid-January, as polls showed him closing fast on opponent Martha Coakley, the donations from financial workers coincided with several key developments that would affect their companies.
This wasn't a "kill health care" Senate seat purchase. This was a "preserve my $100 million bonus" Senate seat purchase.
The news of just who was most invested in getting that seat flipped to the R-side of the aisle comes on a day when Americans United for Change launches a most appropriately themed ad in the DC market:
There's a helpful reality check in the NYT today on the health reform debate. Among the two most common GOP "alternatives" to health reform in the centrist bill the Senate has passed were tort reform (good idea but trivial in terms of cost control) and the ability to buy insurance across state lines. I think tort reform should have been in the bill and that Obama should be open to a stand-alone bill adding it. But the other issue is already in there:
Mr. Obama, in an exchange Friday with Representative Tom Price, Republican of Georgia, said he had considered many Republican ideas and pointed, by example, to a proposal to allow insurance companies to sell policies across state lines. “We actually include that as part of our approach,” the president said.
“But the caveat is, we’ve got to do so with some minimum standards; because otherwise what happens is that you could have insurance companies circumvent a whole bunch of state regulations.” After the session, Representative John Shadegg, Republican of Arizona, took issue with Mr. Obama’s comments, saying the president “got his facts wrong.” ... But in a report comparing the health care bills passed by House and Senate Democrats, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service wrote: “Both bills would allow states to form compacts to facilitate the sale and purchase of health plans across state lines.”
Read the whole piece and you realize just how centrist Obama's proposals are and just how insane the current GOP leadership is.
The nation owes a substantial debt to Justice Samuel Alito for his display of unhappiness over President Obama’s criticisms of the Supreme Court’s recent legislation—excuse me, decision—opening our electoral system to a new torrent of corporate money.
Alito’s inability to restrain himself during the State of the Union address brought to wide attention a truth that too many have tried to ignore: The Supreme Court is now dominated by a highly politicized conservative majority intent on working its will, even if that means ignoring precedents and the wishes of the elected branches of government.
Obama called the court on this, and Alito shook his head and apparently mouthed “not true.” His was the honest reaction of a judicial activist who believes he has the obligation to impose his version of right reason on the rest of us.
The controversy also exposed the impressive capacity of the conservative judicial revolutionaries to live by double standards without apology.
The movement’s legal theorists and politicians have spent more than four decades attacking alleged judicial abuses by liberals, cheering on the presidents who joined them in their assaults. But now, they are terribly offended that Obama has straightforwardly challenged the handiwork of their judicial comrades.
More columns like this, and less Media Village Idiot chatter, and we’d have to stop calling it the Kaplan Daily.
* Chuck Todd says the unsayable: The only way for Dems to secure bipartisan cooperation is to completely embrace Republican proposals and nothing more.
* But Tea Party chieftain Dick Armey tells GOP: Not so fast, you want to be our partner, you do it our way.
* Zinger of the day: Frank Rich says Harry Reid is the “face of Democratic fecklessness in the Senate.” Again: Pass the health bill, and Dems get a thousand articles about the new law. Fail to pass it, and they get a thousand columns about how feckless they are.
* Hindsight is 20/20, but…if Dems hadn’t gotten snookered by the GOP’s play-for-time strategy, delaying health reform over the summer in the futile quest for bipartisan support, they would have had a health care bill by now. Maybe Dems might learn from this?
* Hmm, one can hope: Los Angeles Times says despite public demurrals, Dems are in fact working seriously behind the scenes to pass the Senate health bill with a reconciliation fix.
As nihilist Republicans, weak-kneed Democrats and the MSM CW patrol the capital city desperate to kill healthcare reform, the drama is not over yet. Jon Cohn has a must-read on the latest developments in a strategy to save something real. Try not to let your eyes glaze over at times - this is parliamentary politicking and policy-making at its most arcane. But it seems clearer and clearer to me that Obama is deadly serious about getting this done - more so than some of his advisers:
Continuing a theme from yesterday, I think it’s more important than is generally acknowledged that most people have no idea how congress works. Consider, for example, the following hypothetical scenario. The Green Team has 13 Senators on the Senate Energy Committee and the Brown Team has 10 Senators. The President also belongs to the Green Team and he promised in a speech to pass a bill banning the use of puppy-burning power plants. The Brown team hates that idea. Then along come two Senators from the Green Team who offer an amendment saying, well, as long as you don’t burn more than three puppies a year you can do it. Then the committee takes a vote and the amendment is adopted, 12-11, with the 11 “no” votes all coming from the Green Team. Then the overall puppy bill comes up for a vote and it passes 13-11 on a party-line vote.
What happens next? Well, typically what happens is you start getting liberals complaining that the Green Team voted for a weak-ass sellout bill. Unanimously. They have the majority, they control everything, and this is the best they could do? Why didn’t they really fight? Meanwhile, the Brown Team complains that it’s been shut out of the process and the Green Team is passing these costly bills that put the interests of puppies ahead of the interests of people and that doesn’t even really stop puppy-burning anyway!
Anyways, this kind of thing happens all the time. Things happen because a small fraction of centrist Democrats side with the vast majority of Republicans, but then the overall legislative vehicle ends up being moved on a party-line vote. This leads to people criticizing “the Democrats” for doing things that only a tiny minority of Democrats actually did, and Republicans run around acting like they have nothing to do with outcomes even though they’ve actually been decisive in shaping them.
I've never held House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) in high regard. But I couldn't agree more with something he said this morning.
Despite White House overtures for congressional Republicans to work with Democrats, the top GOP official in the House said Sunday that such opportunities are limited.
"There aren't that many places where we can come together," House Minority Leader John Boehner of Ohio said on the NBC program "Meet the Press."
Republicans were elected to stand by their principles, and those principles are different than the "leftist proposals" offered by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, Boehner said. [...]
"Leadership is about standing on your principles and opposing those policies that we believe are bad for the country," Boehner said.
What's wrong with that? Absolutely nothing (except the part about President Obama pushing "leftist proposals," which is a silly assessment).
While I didn't see the exchange, if this report is accurate, Boehner argued that Republicans intend to push their ideas, and oppose the policies they find offensive. The goal for congressional Republicans isn't to find "common ground" or "bipartisan solutions" with those they completely disagree with; their goal is to fight for what they believe in, opposing the majority's agenda.
The remarks should make it pretty clear that Republicans have no interest in working with Democrats on finding solutions to pressing policy challenges. But here's the thing that so often gets lost in the discourse: Republicans are the minority party, which means it's their job to oppose the majority's agenda.
"There aren't that many places where [the two parties] can come together"? Well, no, of course not. Democrats and Republicans perceive reality in entirely different ways, and advocate for wildly different solutions to various problems (they don't even agree on which problems exist).
But if Boehner's right about this -- and I believe he is -- then why in the world is it incumbent on the Democratic majority to work with Republicans to find "bipartisan" answers to every question? If Boehner has no intention of "coming together" with Dems in the middle -- a reasonable, albeit rigid, position -- why must the political establishment maintain the fiction that the governing majority is doing something awful unless they bring the discredited minority on board with every proposal?
We are operating in what amounts to a parliamentary system without majority rule, a formula for futility.
In some respects, it's even worse than that. In nearly all modern democracies, parties that win elections get a shot -- they're able to do what they want to do, putting their party platform to work. If the policies are effective and voters are satisfied, the parties are rewarded. If not, they're punished.
The job of the minority party (or minority parities) in modern democracies is not to stop the majority from governing. Indeed, the very idea is practically absurd. Rather, minority parties consider it their job to criticize the majority, tell the electorate how they'd be doing things better, and hope voters agree when the next election rolls around.
But we're dealing with expectations and procedural tools in the U.S. that are inherently foolish. We can elect one party to lead, and then give the minority party the ability to stop the majority from leading. Worse, the political establishment tells voters -- and the public agrees -- that the majority is doing something intrinsically wrong if they advance policies that the minority disagrees with.
Boehner left no doubt this morning that he and his party don't want to work with Democrats on shaping legislation. That's fine. But with that in mind, can we let go of the ridiculous notion that Democrats are on the wrong track unless Boehner likes their ideas? And more importantly, can we abandon the absurd procedures that allow a small minority party to prevent the legislative process from functioning?
It really is sick that an organization like FOX even exists. Even sicker is having to explain to conservatives the difference between FOX and CNN, or FOX and the NYT. They quite literally don't get the difference between trying to be objective and trying to be Republican. To paraphrase something a friend said years ago about a different topic, FOX is lucky that we don't live in the kind of country it's trying to create, because it would be the first to go.
Dana Milbank had a column the other day about how it would be great for Obama politically if Republicans gained control of Congress. It was pretty typical TNR-style contrarian wankery, though since this was the first time that anything has ever been good news for Obama, maybe I shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Now, I have no idea if Republicans will get control of the House—it seems like a longshot, since they have to pick up 40 seats to do, but I’m no Nate Silver, so what do I know?
It seems worth asking: what would Republicans do if they gained control of the House? Presumably, there would be a lot of absurd, numberless bubble-chart proposals, for sure, but I don’t think anyone would pay much attention to them. My guess is that politically, the biggest thing would do is start lots of investigations. What do you think they would investigate? Anita Dunn and Van Jones, probably, but what else? Would they delve into Obama’s pre-presidential years? Would they hold hearings on his birth certificate? Would they impeach him? Would the press go along with all of this the way they did with Whitewater and Travelgate and Socksgate? My gut feeling is that the answer to the last three questions is “yes”.
Update. A friend who is a bit more knowledgeable about Congress writes:
But weren’t the wheels already starting at the Clinton White House by this time? Clinton entered office with a Flowers and Whitewater (they were both campaign issues IIRC) and then the WH Travel Office issue broke in the first or second year of his term.
Obama has nothing right now, other than maybe the little bit of land, and that was clearly not a real issue. He hasn’t lied about it, either. Plus, he seems to be really committed to his wife and family, and his wider family is both small and seem pretty sane.
Republicans need at least a 20 vote majority to impeach, plus the right kind of zealots on the Judiciary Committee. Not every Republican on the Judiciary committee is willing to wipe his/her ass with the Constitution just for political benefit.
And there’s no special prosecutor law anymore. Starr did all the legwork for the Clinton impeachment.
I'm just some guy who reads blogs that privilege correct information over incorrect information. Consider this a better-blog clipping service of my favorite stories.
