The Next Hurrah

Republicans Fail Again

by DemFromCT

The Republican crazies in the House will not be denied. It's more important to feed raw meat to the base than to engage in reasonable dialogue with a Republican Senate and a Republican White House. Isn't it interesting that one of the few times Bush proposes something worth discussing, it's the Republicans that balk?

As they prepare for a critical pre-election legislative stretch, Congressional Republican leaders have all but abandoned a broad overhaul of immigration laws and instead will concentrate on national security issues they believe play to their political strength.

With Congress reconvening Tuesday after an August break, Republicans in the House and Senate say they will focus on Pentagon and domestic security spending bills, port security legislation and measures that would authorize the administration’s terror surveillance program and create military tribunals to try terror suspects.

“We Republicans believe that we have no choice in the war against terror and the only way to do it is to continue to take them head-on whether it is in Iraq or elsewhere,” said Representative John A. Boehner of Ohio, the majority leader.

A final decision on what do about immigration policy awaits a meeting this week of senior Republicans. But key lawmakers and aides who set the Congressional agenda say they now believe it would be politically risky to try to advance an immigration measure that would showcase party divisions and need to be completed in the 19 days Congress is scheduled to meet before breaking for the election.

Cowardly House Republicans are afraid of doing what's right for America. After all, Lou Dobbs or Rush might yell at them. And we all know their job is to do what they know best - get reelected on bogus isses like flag burning and gay marriage no matter what real problems and real enemies confront this country.

People really seem to enjoy dumping on Democrats who aren't in power and have been frozen out of policy decisions. Dennis Hastert deliberately closes Democrats out of decision making - the consequneces of yet another failed opportunty for immigration reform falls squarely on Republicans in the House. And whether it's Social Security, energy policy, economic policy that leaves the middle class hurting, personal issues like Terri Schiavo or Iraq just add it to the list of Republican failure of governance.

Global Warming Walk: Five Qs&As with Bill McKibben

By Meteor Blades

I sure wish I were in Vermont this week. I could join writer/environmentalist/deep thinker Bill McKibben and whoever else shows up for a four-day walk seeking to kindle federal action against global warming.

Billed as "The Road Less Traveled, Vermonters Walking Toward a Clean Energy Future," the march will begin Thursday noon at Robert Frost's old writing cabin near Ripton, stop in cities along the way for Conversations on the Green, and end 43 miles up the road in Burlington. Knowing McKibben's work and the kind of people he attracts, I imagine those are going to be eye-opening conversations for participants and bystanders alike, a traveling teach-in, if you will. You can get a taste of this in my five-question interview with McKibben below.

Many, I know, downplay the value of a public demonstration, even public action of any kind outside the realm of lawsuits and legislation. Sooooo '60s, they say. Doesn't work anymore. If it ever really did. I couldn't disagree more. Perhaps the reason people say this comes from their being so comprehensively saturated with a megamedia caricature of the era. They don't believe most or any of what the megamedia tells them about the times they themselves live in, but they accept as gospel what's been told them regarding one of the periods of greatest social change since the Civil War.

The public intellectuals and other activists who spurred that change worked inside and outside the governing system, using whatever megaphone seemed proper at the moment to capture public attention and increase the pressure on public policy. What you mostly hear about that era today is the media-mediated version, a distorted fraction of the story. That's not my way of trying to sanctify the "protest" movements or say that we made no mistakes, no strategic blunders, or engaged in no counterproductive activism. Surely, we did more than enough of that and were paid for it with half-victories and outright defeats, some of them long-lasting. But, please, most of the focus, even most of the public events, had nothing to do grubby street demonstrations.

The Land Of Steady Habits Votes For Change

by DemFromCT

Ned Lamont defeated Joe Lieberman 52-48. Lieberman lost his home town, New Haven, to Lamont. Lamont was very strong in the small towns that Lieberman has been missing from.

Senator Joe Lieberman’s hometown, New Haven, went for Ned Lamont, 52.1 percent to 47.9 percent, according to the unofficial tallies. The Lamont campaign says it even beat him in his home precinct.

And as noted earlier, Mr. Lamont won among the Democrats in his hometown, Greenwich (which is heavily Republican). It was slightly more than we said in that earlier post: 68.3 percent to Lieberman’s 31.7 percent.

This is an unprecedented occurrance. You know how difficult it is to change horses in midstream... we saw that in 2004, didn't we?  But in the end, local neglect and desire for change won out.

The astounding nature of the win will only be slightly diminished by the margin of victory. The huge turnout (Presidential year levels) makes this difficult to dismiss as just a non-representative sample of vacationing Dems.

The local reporter for WTNH asked Lieberman on camera and live if he would concede that the big name Dems would desert him in Novemebr. The people won't, Joe said. We'll see if he means it, and we'll see if it's true.

Joe is not running as a Democrat. he's running as a party of one. I salute him for a well-fought campaign, and I suggest he get out of the race. But the seat will not go R, so whatever happens next is his doing. The message to DC incumbents has been sent, regardless. And the press has been given a wake up call they cannot ignore.

It's been quite a night.

Legacy of Katrina

by DemFromCT

What happens when the advocate of a policy is no longer trusted? What happens when it's a President? what happens is you get unexpected bipartisan resistance.

The nation's governors on Saturday launched a bipartisan drive to block a move to expand the president's authority to take over National Guard troops in case of natural disaster or homeland security threats.

At a closed-door luncheon on the opening day of the annual summer meeting of the National Governors Association, the chairman, Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), told colleagues that a provision in the House-passed defense authorization bill would end the historic link between the states and their Guard units.

Wouldn't you think a major shift of policy like that would have been discussed on the merits, especially if it's politically sensitive?

Under the provision, the president would have authority to take control of the Guard in case of "a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident or catastrophe" in the United States.

Huckabee said he does not know if President Bush wants that authority, but said "the administration is supporting this."

He and Vilsack said they believe the provision was a reaction to Hurricane Katrina, when Bush debated taking control of National Guard units from Louisiana and Mississippi to end confusion about who was responsible for security in storm-devastated areas.

Vilsack called that a "misguided reaction." He said he had long since proposed an alternative that would give command authority to a federal official at the site of any disaster, while retaining a governor's authority over troops in his state.

That's just not how this president does things.

Calls to a spokesman for the White House National Security Council staff, where the plan reportedly originated, were not returned.

Huckabee, who is considering a presidential bid in 2008, said Congress and the administration -- run by fellow Republicans -- have moved far from what he called the "traditional states' rights position" of conservatives.

In addition to the National Guard, he cited the new "Real ID" legislation, requiring states to ascertain the citizenship status of everyone seeking a driver's license. Huckabee said that, in effect, "they are trying to make every entry-level employee in our [department of motor vehicles] offices an immigration officer, and they're giving us no money to train them or hire them. It is a disaster in the making."

That's how this president does things.

Lamont's "Single Issue" Voters

by emptywheel

The Q-Poll shows that 44% of Lamont's supporters support him mainly because of Lieberman's stance on the Iraq war. And Markos anticipates a bunch of pundits frowning on the large number of "Single Issue" voters.

For a pundit to suggest the Iraq war is a "Single Issue" simply betrays their ignorance of the impact that war has and will continue to have on this country and the rest of the world.

Some are opposed to the war because they're opposed to 2,500 Americans dead, 18,000 Americans wounded, perhaps 100,000 Iraqis dead, untold wounded. Some oppose the war simply because it uses violence to solve problems that should be solved using other means.

Some are opposed to the war because it has ruined our military. Two-thirds of our active army and three-quarters of our National Guard face readiness problems because it needs to replace equipment used in Iraq. Extended deployments and lowered recruiting standards are having bad effects on the military, their families, and our mission. The Iraq war--sold as a way to make our country safer--has only exposed it defensively.

Some are opposed to the war because it has thoroughly destabilized Iraq, and threatens to destabilize the entire region. By almost every standard, Iraqi quality of life is worse today than it was under Saddam.

Some are opposed to the war because it has created precisely the problem that it was cynically sold as a way to prevent. Iraq is creating terrorists, at a time when the threat of terrorism remains very real.

Some are opposed to the war because it has turned us into an international pariah. Some countries no longer trust us. Others want nothing to do with our aggressive ways.

The Other "One Percent Doctrine"

Ron Suskind's new book "The One Percent Doctrine" deals with Cheney's idea that any threat that has even a 1% probability should be taken as seriously as if it were a certainty.  As soon as I finish the book, I'll do a long post on it.  But Cheney has another "One Percent Doctrine" that equally deserves attention, the idea that only the top 1% should prosper in the brave new GOP world. 

Via TAPPED's Ezra Klein, comes this quote from Paul Krugman's column about how the growth of the past few years has gone almost exclusively to the top 1%.  What happened to economic growth? 

The answer comes from the economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, whose long-term estimates of income equality have become the gold standard for research on this topic, and who have recently updated their estimates to include 2004. They show that even if you exclude capital gains from a rising stock market, in 2004 the real income of the richest 1 percent of Americans surged by almost 12.5 percent. Meanwhile, the average real income of the bottom 99 percent of the population rose only 1.5 percent. In other words, a relative handful of people received most of the benefits of growth.

You got that right.  The top 1% saw their real (inflation-adjusted) income rise by almost 12.5%, while the other 99% saw theirs rise by only 1.5%.  And that was without taking into account capital gains from the rising (since 2002) stock market.  And, for the first time even those between 95 and 99% are not seeing much in the way of income increases, and the real incomes of college graduates are falling. 

The media can't get its heads around the problem because they lack the rudimentary understanding of economics and statistics (or even arithmetic).  They trumpet the Administration's macro "growth" numbers as if they meant something for individuals.  It is the old problem of the difference between the mean and the median.  If Bill Gates walks into a room of 100 people, the average (mean) income in the room immediately rises by over a million dollars.  But the median creeps up from half way between the income of the 50th and the 51st richest all the way to the level of the 50th richest.  Ordinary people understand, even if the pundits don't.

In large part the gains by the top 1% are due to high compensation for management and other top earners.  But they are also the result of tax policies, especially the cut in the dividend and capital gains tax rates.  Suskind touched on that in his earlier book about former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, "The Price of Loyalty."  Recall when O'Neill realizes that the second round of tax cuts, which he had argued the country couldn't afford, are suddenly back on the table.  It was just after the 2002 midterms.  O'Neill tries to argue his points again, but Dick cuts him off.  "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter."  O'Neill was speechless.  "We won the midterms.  This is our due,"  Cheney says. 

How much more will they take if they win the 2006 midterms?

More Voodoo Economics

By Mimikatz

This morning President Bush was on TV trumpeting that this year's budget deficit would be an estimated $296 billion, down $22 billion (or a whopping  7%) from last year's $318 billion shortfall.  Bush touted this as a victory, because his budget office had earlier forecast a budget shortfall of $423 billion for this fiscal year, a game known in both the financial and politcal worlds as lowballing the estimates in order to makle the actual numbers look better than they really are.

Bush inherited a budget surplus of $284 billion from his predecessor.   In 2000 he promised that by 2006 we would have a surplus of $516 billion.   But his tax cuts and war spending soon sent us into deficit, and the deficit reached an all-time high of $413 billion in 2003.  His budget forecasters projected a deficit for 2004 of $512 billion .  Bush then promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his term, by January 2009.  Cut it from the $512 projection, that is, to $256 billion.  Now he claims he's almost there, three years early.  Leaving aside that doing better than an artificial projection is deceptive in itself, Bush's stress on the deficit obscures the real problem, which is the cumulative National Debt, now $8.4 trillion.   This is the result of piling deficit upon deficit for the past 5 years.  When Bush's first budget took effect, the cumulative (inherited) debt was $5.8 billion.  It has grown some 45% already during Bush's term.  (The surplus that Clinton ran at the end of his term just meant we weren't adding to the deficit that year; it didn't mean that we really has a surplus as the term is commonly understood.)  This debt, owed substantially to foreigners, will have to be repaid or refinanced, and the interest costs will be a drag on the economy for years..

Moreover, the budget picture looks better this year only because revenues have increased.  But the increased revenues are largely from higher corporate tax payments (due to high corporate profits) and income tax payments by the wealthy, reflecting that the gains as we came out of the last recession have entirely gone to business and the wealthiest taxpayers, not to struggling workers and their families.  In projecting that increased revenues will continue for the remainder of his term, Bush is making the same mistake Grey Davis made in California, when state income tax payments skyrocketed in 1999 and 2000 because of stock market gains and the exercise of options.  More likely, we are heading into a slowdown of undetermined magnitude in the second half of this year, which will depress tax receipts next year.  If that is the case, the deficit will rise again next year, and liekly to the end of Bush's term.

But with economics as with everything else, Bush knows what he knows, and facts (especially the fact that the cumulative debt will almost certainly double on his watch) are only for sissies.

The Wrong Answer

by emptypockets

A little over a month ago, I wrote that the New York State Court of Appeals was asking The Wrong Question about same-sex marriage. During arguments, they focused on whether children of opposite-sex parents turn out better than children of same-sex parents. That question, I said, was wrong because it judges individuals based on the class to which they belong. It is not different than asking if children of Christian parents turn out better than children of Jewish ones, or children of Democrats turn out better than children of Republicans. Not surprisingly, having asked the wrong question, this week the Court of Appeals arrived at the wrong answer.

They concluded that "there are rational grounds on which the Legislature could choose to restrict marriage to couples of opposite sex" (PDF), citing in particular the notion that children of opposite-sex parents turn out better. Confusingly, the justices go on to describe these "rational grounds" in terms of mystic sensations, anecdotes, and unsubstantiated dogma:

"Intuition and experience suggest that a child benefits from having before his or her eyes, every day, living models of what both a man and a woman are like...

Legislature could rationally proceed on the common-sense premise that children will do best with a mother and father in the home."

Intuition, experience, and common sense are dark-age surrogates for reason. Yet the court rejects social scientific studies because they have been "limited" and "do not establish beyond doubt that children fare equally well in same-sex and opposite-sex households." Why the state is not asked to show "beyond doubt" that opposite-sex parents are better, I don't know. In the absence of compelling evidence, I always take what evidence is available. The court rejects inconvenient facts and yields to intuition and dogma.

Deep Republican Rift On Immigration Exposed by Weakened President

by DemFromCT

A reminder: Dems are not running in a vacuum. Immigration is a Republican debacle.

On the eve of nationwide hearings that could determine the fate of his immigration bill, President Bush is signaling a new willingness to negotiate with House Republicans in an effort to revise the stalled legislation before Election Day.

Republicans both inside and outside the White House say Mr. Bush, who has long insisted on comprehensive reform, is now open to a so-called enforcement-first approach that would put new border security programs in place before creating a guest worker program or path to citizenship for people living in the United States illegally...

The House hearings begin Wednesday in Laredo, Tex., and San Diego and will continue throughout the summer. In the Senate, Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, will convene his committee on Wednesday in Philadelphia.

The meetings will undoubtedly expose the deep Republican rift just as the elections draw near, and some say they are simply a way to stave off legislation until after November. Democrats, eager to pick up Congressional seats, intend to use the hearings to drive home the idea that Republicans have failed to address illegal immigration, a tactic that could further complicate prospects for a bill before Election Day.

Any move to the right to placate the House blows up the bill in the Senate. And let me emphasize the difference between the Ds on Iraq (united for change but unclear on solutions, along with the American public) and Rs on immigration (complete disarray, running away from both Bush and the public, and alienating Latinos in the process) couldn't be starker because of one major fact: Republicans are in charge and are responsible in both cases for the mess we're currently in. In the case of immigration, Republicans (and Bush) are running away from the carefully crafted bipartisan Senate bill that Americans support. Bush is, if fact, running away from his own proposal. That's what happens when you can't govern.

Bolten's 5-Point Plan, 75 Days Later

by emptywheel

It's a testament to how messy my desk is that I just came across Mike Allen's article, from a week after Josh Bolten ascended to the Chief of Staff role, describing Bolten's plan to right the sinking ship of the Bush Administration. But the benefit of rediscovering it now is that what once appeared as an earnest plan now reads like humor.

So how has Bolten's five-point plan fared?

1 DEPLOY GUNS AND BADGES. This is an unabashed play to members of the conservative base who are worried about illegal immigration. Under the banner of homeland security, the White House plans to seek more funding for an extremely visible enforcement crackdown at the Mexican border, including a beefed-up force of agents patrolling on all-terrain vehicles (ATVs).

A great idea, Bolten, if only the National Guard weren't already so taxed as a result of long deployments in Iraq. As of last week, Bush was far short of his goal to have 2500 Guardsmen and women deployed by now (though Fox News says they're not). It seems a bunch of Governors saw the devastation of Katrina last year, and want to make sure their Guard is available for any summertime disasters in their own states.