If Trump And Cuomo Were Wrong, There Is Only One Choice Left

The options do not include (d), "none of the above," or "all of the above."

Chronologically as argued: a) Donald Trump; (b) Hillary Clinton; and (c) Andrew Cuomo.  The correct answer must be a, b, or c.

We can eliminate from consideration candidate Donald Trump's "make America great again" because, notwithstanding the view of  Mr. Trump and of most of his supporters, the USA was not great but became a train wreck once the black guy was elected. Since being elected, Trump has, by fits and spurts, begun transitioning into"keep America great" but only because he is now President.

We come now to Andrew Cuomo, who as suggested by David Sirota (here, here and here) deserves little defense or support and no encouragement to run for President. Nonetheless, it was interesting when he stated

We have not reached greatness. We will reach greatness when every American is fully engaged.  We will reach greatness when discrimination and stereotyping of women, 51% of our population, is gone, and every woman's full potential is realized and unleashed and every woman is making her full contribution.

So Andrew Cuomo, fueled by consideration of the wide scope of American history, contends (until he backtracked) that the USA never has been great. He is attacked by a guy who became President with a slogan, "Make America Great Again," in which "again" shouts "it isn't anymore.". The media, regularly slammed for allegedly being anti-Trump, then turns a blind eye to rank hypocrisy.

Friday evening on Real Time, Bill Maher, Charlie Sykes, and Jennifer Granholm noted that Cuomo had been politically foolish (discussion beginning at 25:42 of the video below). Axios' Jonathan Swan, who undoubtedly would agree, added

I was covering the Democratic convention in 2016. I remember they had all these stands selling merchandise. They had these t-shirts that had Hillary Clinton that said "America is already great." I thought "who the hell is going to vote for that?"

There are only three choices: Donald Trump's notion of 2015 and 2016 that the USA is a hellhole; Andrew Cuomo's perspective that the nation cannot be considered great because of enduring discrimination against minorities; and Hillary Clinton's view that despite these contradictions, the USA has been a great country.

Evidently, not enough people in Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Wisconsin viewed this as a great country to get Mrs. Clinton across the finish line. However, that is what presidential elections are all about (other than voter suppression, Russian subterfuge on behalf of the other candidate, and the FBI throwing its weight behind that same candidate).

Donald Trump increasingly will proclaim that he has made America great again. Andrew Cuomo pointed to our national tradition of bigotry and tradition. The limb he stepped upon was then sawed off behind him. The remaining option is (b), and for that Hillary Clinton should be given at least a little credit.

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D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R

Poor Chris Christie.  Last week, he held several events in New Hampshire. This week, he already has "done lunch" with a St. Louis financier, a Repub donor and August Busch, the former chairperson of Anheuser-Busch, as well as addressing the 45th annual Conference on the Americas in Washington.

The guy who whines "my wife and I, who are not wealthy by current standards..." (because it's hard to get by on an adjusted gross income which falls just south of $600,000) still thinks he has a chance to have a chance to be the GOP presidential nominee.   But while he travels around the country to try to prove to GOP donors that he hates unions, workers, and the middle class more than does Scott Walker (formidable competition, there), New Jersey still is feeling the effects of having a singularly ineffective governor.   David Sirota (with charts from International Business Times/Hanna Sender), who should be famous for more than having known the late Murray Goldberg, writes

It was 2010, and Christie had just installed a longtime private equity executive, Robert Grady, to manage the state's pension money. Grady promoted a plan to put more of those funds into riskier investments managed by Wall Street firms. Though this would entail higher fees, Grady said the strategy would "maximize returns while appropriately managing risk."

Four years later, New Jersey has secured only half the promised results. The state has sent more pension money to big-name Wall Street firms like Blackstone, Third Point, Omega Advisors, Elliott Associates and Grady's old firm, The Carlyle Group. Additionally, the amount of fees the state pays financial managers has more than tripled since Christie assumed office. New Jersey is now one of America’s largest investors in hedge funds.

The “maximized returns” have yet to materialize.

Between fiscal year 2011 and 2014, the state’s pension trailed the median returns for similarly sized public pension systems throughout the country, according to data from the financial analysis firm, Wilshire Associates. That below-median performance has cost New Jersey taxpayers billions in unrealized gains and has left the pension system on shaky ground. Meanwhile, New Jersey is now paying a quarter-billion dollars in additional annual fees to Wall Street firms -- many of whose employees have financially supported Republican groups backing Christie’s reelection campaign.

This scheme was seen as dubious even when introduced. Sirota continues

Those who originally opposed the state's shifting of pension funds into hedge funds, private equity, venture capital, real estate and other “alternative investments” see the below-average returns as no accident but an inevitable byproduct of the strategy: The Christie administration has effectively taken money from retired state workers and delivered the cash to Wall Street money managers.

“All the leading players on the [New Jersey State Investment Council] were from the alternative universe and all of their decisions were driven by a political agenda and an investment ideology which had no relationship to facts on the ground. And the facts were that you simply couldn’t justify these investments on the basis of what they cost in fees to generate a dollar of new returns,” Jim Marketti, one of the few State Investment Council members to vote against the Christie administration’s transfer of pension money into alternative investments, told International Business Times. In 2011, Marketti warned the council that such investments would be “a roller coaster ride on which only the Wall Street professionals and insiders are the winners.”

Chris Christie knows where his bread is buttered. Anything but stupid, the governor knows how to leverage his influence. Sirota finds

As previously reported by IBTimes, campaign finance records show that employees and others affiliated with firms managing New Jersey pension money made $167,000 worth of donations to New Jersey Republicans since 2009. Employees of those firms have also donated more than $11 million to the Republican Governors Association and the Republican National Committee. Christie is the chairman of the RGA and both organizations spent heavily to support his 2013 reelection campaign.

It's pretty slick, but evidently the governor is playing fast-and-loose with the law, given that

Despite federal and state pay-to-play rules restricting campaign contributions from employees of firms doing business with public pension funds, many of the donations were made around the time that pension investment contracts were awarded by Grady's State Investment Council. At least one of thosecontracts went to a venture capital firm after one of the firm’s partners made a $10,000 contribution to the New Jersey Republican Party. That sequence of transactions is now under investigation by New Jersey officials.

State workers (and women in need of preventive care) aren't the only people getting the shaft from Governor Christie. Now

NJ Transit wants to boost bus and rail fares by an average of 9 percent, starting Oct. 1, and eliminate some routes beginning in September, the agency said Monday.

The moves are designed to close a $60 million budget gap, the statewide transit agency said.

Fares were increased five years ago.  

 In 1988, Anthony Kennedy joined the Supreme Court; the St. Louis Cardinals became the Phoenix (now Arizona) Cardinals; the first night game was played in Wrigley Field; the awful ET was released to home video; Hussein won the Boston Marathon (look it up- April 18) Pan Am Flight 103 was downed over Lockerbie, Scotland; Michael Dukakis was tragically filmed in a tank. That was the year in which the gas tax was last raised in the state, which has the second lowest gas tax in the nation. As a result, transit riders have been called upon to repair New jersey's broken Transportation fund.  Thus

Since 2002, there have been four fare increases," said Janna Chernetz, Tri-State Transportation Campaign senior New Jersey analyst. "Meanwhile, a key source of revenue to replenish the TTF, the gas tax, has not been increased in 27 years. NJ's transportation funding structure is unsustainable and broken. It needs a solution now."

Assemblyman John Wisniewski, D-Middlesex, criticized Gov. Chris Christie's administration about the TTF, relying on borrowing and a decline in support for NJT operating expenses from the general fund for NJT operating expenses.

It's essentially a shell game being run by Chris Christie- and the  results were predictable. A year ago, Mark Magyar of NJ Spotlight explained

Despite his promise to increase pay-as-you-go financing for the Transportation Trust Fund, Gov. Chris Christie has relied so heavily on debt for four years that the program will run out of borrowing capacity a year early, leaving the Christie administration without the funding it needs to pay for highway, bridge, and mass transit construction fifteen months from now.

Christie, who complained during his budget speech about the rising cost of debt payments, not only increased transportation debt by $1 billion more than expected during his first four budgets, but also borrowed money at above-market interest rates in order to generate an extra $250 million in up-front bond premium payments to replace New Jersey Turnpike toll money he used to balance his budget.

Really, calling this character a "bully" is too kind. Far from the truth-teller he still is portrayed as in some centrist and center-right circles, Christie has run his administration first to pander to the moneybags in the Repub Party, and secondarily to the anti-tax fervor in the base. Early on, he eliminated the millionaires' tax and has subsequently consistently cut services while giving handouts to corporations as fast at a dizzying pace.  The sooner John Ellis Bush, Scott Walker, and Marco Rubio finish him off as a presidential contender, the better off his constituents will be.







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David Sirota Connects The Dots

The Daily Show's John Oliver on bankruptcy in Detroit (video, below):

But this bankruptcy still came as a surprise, especially since the city recently hired Kevin Orr as emergency manager to avoid this very situation... Yes, that does seem a little suspect. I mean, a bankruptcy lawyer that you hired suggests declaring bankruptcy. It's a little like hiring a demolitions expert to re-shingle your roof.

Not a surprise, especially because Michigan Public Act 4, under which the emergency manager was hired, gives the emergency manager widespread authority, including the right to sell off city assets and to renegotiate labor contracts.  But not, not oddly, to raise taxes.

Instead Detroit, as mandated by state law, cut taxes for both residents and non-residents, in return for which Lansing promised it revenue sharing.  The state did not keep up its end of the bargain.  Yet, that should not have mattered because, as we all know, cutting taxes revs up an economy, increases tax revenues, and puts smiles on the faces of children everywhere.   Alas, it did not turn out that way.

That has not stopped conservatives from blaming the declaration of bankruptcy on liberalism.  Blowhard-in-Chief Rush Limbaugh yesterday remarked Detroit is

the biggest city in the United States to ever go bankrupt.  And why?  Two things, that are actually under the same umbrella:  unions and unchecked liberalism have led to the bankruptcy of Detroit...

And now those very benefits have killed the city of their birth, the birth of the health care benefit.  I mean, the chickens have come home to roost, in the famous words of Reverend Wright.  Is that not something?  The city where health care benefits were created have been brought down, essentially, by health care benefits and pensions and unions.

That, of course, is (to use the technical term) balderdash.  We all understand the impact of the decline of the American automobile industry on the fortunes of Michigan's largest city, once the bastion of the American middle class which is so loathed by Limbaugh and some fellow conservatives.  Less well understood is the role of "free" trade upon the auto industry.David Sirota explains

Detroit isn’t just any old city — it happens to be the biggest population center in the state hit the hardest by the right’s corporate-written trade agenda. Indeed, according to the Economic Policy Institute, the state lost more jobs than any other from NAFTA (43,600, or 1 percent of its total job base) and lost another 79,500 jobs thanks to the China PNTR deal. And that’s just two of many such trade pacts. Add to this the city’s disproportionate reliance on American auto companies which made a series of horrific business decisions, and Detroit is a microcosmic cautionary tale about what happens when large corporations are allowed to write macro economic policy and dictate the economic future of an entire city.

If told, this cautionary tale would likely spark a discussion about revising current trade deals, regulations, public investment and industrial policy in general. That is, it would spark precisely the discussion that the conservative movement and the corporations that fund politicians don’t want America to have. So the right works to make sure that discussion is short circuited by a narrative that focuses the Detroit story primarily on taxes and public pensions.

Money can be found by those who want to find it.  The same state government which appointed an emergency manager it expected to declare bankruptcy set up the Detroit Development Authority, which is tapping $283 million in property tax funds to help finance a new arena for the National Hockey League's Detroit Red Wings.  Sirota describes

... a straightforward conservative formula: the right blames state and municipal budget problems exclusively on public employees’ retirement benefits, often underfunding those public pensions for years. The money raided from those pension funds is then used to enact expensive tax cuts and corporate welfare programs. After years of robbing those pension funds to pay for such giveaways, a crisis inevitably hits, and workers’ pension benefits are blamed — and then slashed. Meanwhile, the massive tax cuts and corporate subsidies are preserved, because we are led to believe they had nothing to do with the crisis. Ultimately, the extra monies taken from retirees are then often plowed into even more tax cuts and more corporate subsidies.

We’ve seen this trick in states all over America lately.

Yes, yes we have.  Sirota mentions Rhode Island and Kentucky, though regrettably, not New Jersey, in which MSNBC's favorite governor and GOP presidential hopeful Chris Christie has raised the tactic to an art form.

There have been, obviously, other factors in Detroit's decline.  The 1967 racial riot, white flight, inept and corrupt local politicians, and sprawl have all played major roles. Still, as Sirota notes, the failure to consider "current trade deals, regulations, public investment and industrial policy in general... plays into the right’s push to enact ever more regressive tax cuts, protect endless corporate welfare and legislate new reductions in workers’ guaranteed pensions."   And that, he recognizes, is no accident.

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Inoffensive Cause


In the past week, we've gotten rare insight from David Sirota and Michelle Goldberg- not rare at all from them, simply insight that has come from perhaps no one else.

Sirota writes of the political confluence of gay marriage and economics; Goldberg speaks of the confluence of gay marriage and abortion.     Both arguments, however, provide greater understanding of the increasing acceptance of same-sex marriage and the related influence of corporate power.

New York Governor Mario Cuomo, to the delight of most liberals/progressives, pushed through a bill legalizing same-sex marriage.     However, he is not as favorably inclined to efforts by Democratic legislators to increase the state's minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $8.50 an hour, despite popular support that far outstrips that for gay marriage.       Sirota, a supporter of both, explains

As the New York Times reported, despite lukewarm public support, Cuomo was able to get the state legislature to legalize gay marriage after Wall Street financiers dumped cash into the campaign for equal rights. Knowing that marriage doesn’t threaten their profits, these moneyed interests opted to help their ally Cuomo notch a strategic win — one that allows the governor to preen as a great liberal champion to the state’s left-leaning voters, all while he simultaneously presses an anti-union, economically conservative agenda that moneyed interests support.

Now, of course, the situation is reversed. With New York’s recession-battered voters supporting a minimum wage hike, the greed-is-good crowd is firmly aligned against the initiative. Why? Because unlike gay marriage, which requires no corporate sacrifice, the modest minimum wage boost may slightly reduce corporate profits — and that’s something the fat cats in the executive suites never permit without a fight.

Knowing this, a hack like Cuomo — a guy who asks “how high?” when his campaign contributors say “jump” — is using his power to undermine the popular minimum wage initiative. In this case, he is cooking up a self-fulfilling prophecy about the measure being a political non-starter.

Alex Macgillis, writing in The New Republic of the sharp decline in support of hedge fund managers who had supported Barack Obama in 2008, quoted Barney Frank lamenting that so many, "after playing a pivotal role in supporting gay marriage in New York, are now shoveling money to help elect people 'who are making gay people miserable.'"

Sirota's post is not intended as a diatribe against New York's governor, whom rumor has it is a Democrat, given that it is becoming a clever strategic gambit of a portion of the privileged class.   Sirota identifies Colorado governor John Hickenlooper as a supporter of "same-sex civil unions, all while he loyally shills for oil and gas corporations" and Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein as Human Rights Campaign’s national spokesman for gay marriage while "failing to acknowledge" wrongdoing by the financial service sector.

While lamenting "bought-off politicians (who) employ social issues as an excuse to ignore economic justice," Sirota can be excused for not observing that the gay community tends to be well-educated, affluent, and not averse to voting.  

Those factors are largely absent with the community of individuals who have undergone abortions.      On Sunday's Up With Chris Hayes (video of segment, below), the host pondered the (gradual) decline in support of abortion rights (drastic decline in identification as "pro-choice") with that of the dramatic increase in support of same-sex marriage.    Goldberg, who has demonstrated an understanding of reproductive rights issues second to almost no one, responded

Part of that is that gay marriage ends in something to celebrate, a wedding once you kind of...get under, over the kind of underlying bigotry, there's, you know there's kind of just it's just good, whereas an abortion isn't something to celebrate, right, it's much more morally fraught and so it's not just I think kind of bigotry against women or patriarchy that makes people uncomfortable with abortion- the reason, my suspicion for why the numbers are going down in terms of identification with being pro choice, especially since they're not going down on a policy level.   It's not that more people want to criminalize abortion. We're so far away from illegal abortion in this country, you know, one reason I feel so strongly about this is I've spent a lot of time in countries where abortion is illegal and I've spent a lot of time in hospitals that are full of victims of botched abortions. For most people in this country, that's something lost to the mists of time.   They hear the question, do you like abortion, not do you want abortion to be criminalized...

One thing that the polling, the polling I think can't quite get at this, I think you're right that people have this idea that there are women out there having abortions, kind of willy nilly or as a form of contraception as they want to express their disapproval of this.  There will be exceptions for those women, people who do abortions or work in abortion clinics, will often say that everybody believes in three exceptions, rape, incest, and me. You often see people in clinics saying I don't really believe in abortion but you have to understand my situation.

Goldberg went on to argue there are "many women who have been arrested and imprisoned all over the country for trying to end pregnancies illegally."   But, she pointed out, "these are marginal peoples" and "the people going to prisons now are at the margins of society."

They are therefore not the subject of empathy for most affluent Americans and contrast sharply with gay friends and relatives.    Goldberg, in another segment, observed that, unlike that for abortion rights or women's rights, the thrust for same-sex marriage does not threaten the power structure.     It accounts for a portion of the recent success of the latter movement, and one that should give the left pause in its enthusiasm.

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Troubled By The 1960s

David Sirota sees hysterical GOP criticism of Occupy Wall Street as part of the ongoing Republican war against the 1960s. Rep. Paul Brown (R-Ga) calls OWS an "attack upon business, attack upon industry, attack upon freedom and I think that’s what this is all about;" House Majority Leader Eric Cantor slanders these Americans as "mobs;" and Mitt Romneydescribes it as "dangerous, this class warfare."

As Sirota noted in his book Back To Our Future, "the 1960s, a time of unprecedented social and economic process, has been successfully recast since the Reagan era as an era of tie-dye, not thin, ties; burning cities, not men on the moon; LBJ scowls, not JFK glamour; redistributionist War on Poverty 'welfare,'not universalist Medicare benefits." Many Republicans suggest "the 1960s brought about horrific changes, and that if we could just return to a time before civil rights, women's rights, environmental policy and antiwar accomplishments, America would be a better place."

But New York's Representative Peter King most vigorously tries to connect the protests to the 1960s when he argues

I’m old enough to remember what happened in the 1960s when the left-wing took to the streets and somehow the media glorified them and it ended up shaping policy.... We can’t allow that to happen.

This brings to mind these words from March 25, 1965:

I know you are asking today, "How long will it take?"....

I come to say to you this afternoon, however difficult the moment, however frustrating the hour, it will not be long, because truth crushed to earth will rise again.

How long? Not long, because no lie can live forever.

How long? Not long, because you shall reap what you sow....

How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Sirota notes that the comments of King- the congressman, not the fellow who "took to the streets in the 1960s"-

remind us that it’s not just the fringe of the fringe that still fundamentally opposes equal rights for minorities and women, voter enfranchisement, protecting the environment and ending adventurist wars, it’s the leaders of today’s Republican Party.

It might seem strange that contemporary Republicans would want to draw an analogy between Occupy Wall Street and the protesters of the 1960s, who helped to bring an end to the Vietnam War and were a primary impetus to ending legally-sanctioned racial discrimination. But it's part of their effort to demonize an entire decade and the Americans who helped shape it. And, then, this is today's Republican Party.

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The Obama Spell

Will they or won't they? After President Obama finalizes his debt agreement with House Republicans, House Democrats will have to decide whether they are all in with the President or are more committed to economic recovery. Radio talk show host and author/blogger David Sirota has already made his decision. Criticism of the President's track record on the economy has been met by himself, his aides, and his sycophants by complaints that the economy was in freefall when Obama assumed office and it really was worse than what he was led to believe. Sirota asserts

It is, dare I say, an audacious claim, especially coming from a candidate who asked us all to have the "audacity of hope" -- and it's more than a little insulting. After all, much of the complaints about the president have been about campaign promises that he didn't just fail to fulfill -- but that he refused to even try to fulfill.

Responding to speculation that Social Security cuts- in the form of adoption of chained CPI- are being considered, Sirota writes

Inherent in that ideology ("a regime that believes it can say one set of things over and over and over again, and then do exactly the opposite") is the assumption that Americans -- and particularly Democratic voters -- are either too stupid to see the heist in process, or if they do see the heist, are too entranced by their president's power/fame/celebrity/charisma to want to do anything about it, even if what's being pilfered is Democrats' Social Security crown jewel.

The assumption, in other words, is that ignorance and fealty will permit a president to serve as an accomplice to the very grand larceny he was explicitly elected to office to oppose. Should the assumption prove true -- should Obama now be cheered on for doing to Social Security what no Republican president has ever been able to do -- the date on the calendar may say 2011, but it will really be 1984.

Reduction in Medicare and Medicaid- a key portion of Obama's wish list- is more than speculation and all the President's men expect to "be cheered on for doing" to those programs what Republican Presidents would have liked, but were unable, to do. Failure by his fellow Democrats to applaud as lustfully as will the mainstream media this attack on the poor and the middle class will bring upon the former considerable opprobrium, Sirota observing

But, then, merely citing this record brings accusations of treason, at least from Democratic staffers, pundits and activists in Washington. In an age of politics that has melded politicians with celebrity and activism with starfucking, to be a rank-and-file progressive and honestly examine a candidate's record during a reelection campaign is to risk being portrayed as a dangerous, seditious, ideologically zealous revolutionary.

In attributing Democrats' blindness to Obama's "power/fame/celebrity/charisma," Sirota covers it all. Or almost all. Recalling primary challenges to Democratic Presidents in 1968 and 1980, Digby speaks the nearly unspeakable:

I don't see that happening this time because there just isn't anyone in the Democratic party who will run against the first African American president. And you can't blame them. That designation has created a terrible backlash from the right and thus it offers protection by the party. It's understandable.

There are additional reasons there will be no challenge to Obama's re-nomination, and a desire to circle the wagons around a president who has been continually condemned by ideological extremists is understandable. What is also understandable, but completely unjustified, is the reluctance to do so because he is the first black President. Really, haven't we come a little bit farther in some 48 years?

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Pointing Us In The Right Direction


Bill Maher was on to something.

Following the President's State of the Union address on Tuesday, Bill Maher was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer. His nuggets of wisdom, included in the following portions of the discussion (video and text from Crooks and Liars):

BLITZER: I'm told, Bill, that the president of the United States has decided, despite what happened in Tucson, he will not specifically talk about guns in his speech tonight. He's going to do that down the road in a future speech in a few weeks. But, tonight, the word gun is not going to be there. You think that's a mistake, don't you?

MAHER: Oh, I do. That's a real shame.

And it's always down the road. And it's always finding common ground with this president. And that common ground always seems to be the ground where the Republicans are already standing on. So, no, that's a real shame, because this was again an opportunity, similar to the opportunity Ronald Reagan had in 1981, when he was shot.

At a moment like that, maybe people would be willing to go along with a -- sort of a different point of view. Even Dick Cheney said that. Dick Cheney seems to be to the left of Barack Obama on the gun issue. So, I guess it's true. He has moved to the center.

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BLITZER: Well, and it's helping him in the polls. There's no doubt about that. You can see, in our most recent job approval number, 55 percent. It was in the 40s, low 40s, not that long ago. So this move to the center, it certainly seems to be helping him with the American public.

MAHER: Well, we don't know what's helping him. Maybe it's the fact that there was a tragedy. People tend to rally around the president when there's any sort of a tragedy.

Remember, after 9/11, Bush's approval rating was 90 percent or something. I don't think that was because he got a lot smarter after we were attacked.

Maybe it's because -- Obama's popularity hiked because people have now seen the opposition. They got a good look at Boehner. Maybe they don't like that. Maybe people don't like someone who cries at the drop of a hat. People don't like a crier, Wolf.

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BLITZER: He's an emotional guy, John Boehner. You know, he's got -- he's got an incredible story. When you think about it, he was one of, what, ten kids growing up. His father had a little bar. They had a small House, one bathroom. And look, he's now the speaker of the House, second in line after the vice president to the presidency. So it's -- he's got an amazing story. And I can understand why he gets emotional.

MAHER: Wolf, first of all, get over it. That was a long time ago. It's America. Yes, we understand. People can rise up from places of humble beginnings and make something great of themselves. Most of that is anecdotal. Statistically, people don't do that any more.

America is not, I don't think, even in the top ten or maybe we're tenth in social mobility. Social mobility means the ability of one generation to do a little better than the generation that proceeded them, that spawned them. That used to be known as the American dream. That is the American dream. But we're like tenth in the American dream.

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BLITZER: The fact that they got -- they're going to be sitting Democrat and Republican together tonight, date night on Capitol Hill. Is that good or bad?

MAHER: Oh, I think it's going to solve all our problems, Wolf. Yes. When a madman kills people at the Safeway, the problem isn't guns or nuts. It's that we haven't been polite enough to each other.

Yes, if Barney Frank and Rand Paul are sharing an armrest, I expect all our problems to go away.

You know, of course, as always -- as always, Wolf, it's symbolism. That's all we know how to do. We don't know how to actually solve problems anymore. We just know how to attack it symbolically.

And also, I don't even think it's helpful on that level, because it's actually good to see the parties sitting apart from each other. Because then you see which one cheers or which one sits on their hands according to what the president says, and you get a real feeling for how they feel about him.

The irony- or disgrace- of Barack Obama publicly less sympathetic than Dick Cheney to gun control; people liking a President at the time of tragedy, and this President because of the abysmal quality of the opposition; Boehner's story increasingly atypical in an America with declining social mobility; "date night" as mere symbolism, and counter-productive at that. That's four-for-four, a good night even for Bill Maher.

Maher was wrong- briefly- when asked about the response to Obama Tuesday night by Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-MN.), Maher responded "I don't understand the decision by CNN to air it."

Pretty gutsy of Maher, criticizing CNN on CNN. But it was news, even if its sponsor, the Tea Party Express, is an astroturf operation. Better to have aired Bachmann's statement and explained that the Tea Party Express is headed by a GOP consulting firm of questionable ethics. But then, of course, CNN would have had to explain why it has agreed to co-sponsor with this Republican front group a GOP presidential primary debate.

And if the network had done so, the audience would have recognized that Maher was merely stating the obvious when he added

I mean, the Tea Party is the Republican Party. It's just a rebranding.

The Republican Party realized a couple of years ago they were very unpopular with the American public, possibly because all of their ideas had been miserable failures over the last 10, 20, 30 years. So they rebranded as the Tea Party.

Why don't you give equal time to the Democratic response, and then have Representative Anthony Weiner, who's from the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party, why doesn't he get some -- some air time?

As far as is known, CNN did not give air time to someone "from the more progressive wing of the Democratic Party" because no one from the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party stepped out and requested the opportunity. And a great opportunity that would have been, presumably to suggest to the American people that there is an alternative to the corporate world view embraced by the Repub Party and encouraged by President Obama.

That response might question the impact of trade deals on employment of Americans during an economic downturn, lowering of the corporate tax rate, or the President's boast that he has "ordered a review of government regulations. When we find rules that put an unnecessary burden on businesses, we will fix them." It might include the ideas of longtime consumer advocate Joan Claybrook, who on Tuesday on "Democracy Now!" explained that President Obama

has issued an edict that says that every government agency ought cut some regulations. Now, we’re not talking about some obscure thing. We’re talking about the environment, global warming, health, safety, pharmaceutical issues, auto safety, truck safety—all these issues that matter every day to Americans. And what that sends is a message. It sends a message to the civil servants who sweat to try and get these issues dealt with and to protect the American public that their president isn’t going to support them if they get into a controversial issue. And every regulation, almost, is controversial, because somebody doesn’t want it, particularly Big Business. And it sends a message to the business interests that they can go with impunity and oppose these regulatory programs, and they know that the President is probably going to clamp down on the people who are issuing the rules.

It need not have been a Democratic officeholder, who might fear retribution from the Obamites. Perhaps a widely-read and extraordinary blogger, David Sirota or one of many others, could have given a response to the neo-liberal vision of the President and the more gruesome one set out by Ryan/Bachmann. It would have been especially valuable, given that challenging Obama for the nomination in 2012 will not happen and could not succeed. Ours is, though, a President who responds happily to pressure and notifying the nation's voters that there is a Democratic opinion which contrasts with the center-right and far right viewpoints would have had a salutary effect on their outlook.

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No Need For Lost And Found

Progressive/liberal blogger and author David Sirota recognizes the "ubiquitous mantra," "I Want My Country Back," of the Tea Party movement as "one of the most transcendent idioms" alongside Nike's "Just Do It." Then he slices and dices said idiom, breaking it down into its three component parts:


"I Want" — Humanity's most atavistic exclamation of selfishness — and thus the appropriate introduction for a Tea Party motto — this caveman grunt may end up being the epitaph on the nation's tombstone. America once flourished by valuing what "we" — as in We the People — need (food, shelter, infrastructure, etc.). Conversely, today's America teeters, thanks to a Reagan-infused zeitgeist that reoriented us to worshiping whatever I the Person wants. High-income tax breaks, smog-belching SUVs, cavernous McMansions carved into pristine wilderness — it doesn't matter how frivolous the individual craving or how detached it is from necessity. What matters is that the "I" now assumes an entitled right to any desire irrespective of its affront to the allegedly Marxist "we."

"My Country" — In his quintessentially American ditty, Woody Guthrie said, "This land was made for you and me." It made sense. In a democracy, the country is We the People's — that is, everybody's. If, over time, our diversifying complexion and changing attitudes create political shifts, that's OK — because it's not "my country" or "your country"; it's all of ours. Apparently, though, this principle is no longer sacred. Following two elections that saw conservative ideology rejected, Tea Party activists have resorted to declaring that there can only be one kind of country — theirs.

"Back" — To underscore feelings of grievance and nostalgia, the slogan ends with a word deliberately implying both theft and resurrection. In Tea Party mythology, "back" means taking back a political system that was supposedly pilfered (even though it was taken via legitimate elections) and then going back to a time that seems ideal. As one Tea Party leader told the New York Times: "Things we had in the '50s were better."


I wouldn't go a far as Sirota in pressing the racial angle, wherein he maintains "the refrain has become a dog whistle to a Caucasian population that feels threatened by impending demographic and public policy changes." The racist charge is a little exaggerated by the left and the claim that Caucasians feel threatened by "public policy changes" is overly broad (most of that concern is probably not due to race). Moreover, if race is playing a more prominent role in American politics in the last oh, 16 months, it's an issue worthy of more thorough and wide-ranging discussion. (Uncomfortable truths for all might come seeping out.)

But Sirota's analysis of the slogan itself, not pressed by all Tea Partiers but emblematic of the movement, is brilliant. Heartening is an individual of the left criticizing rampant individualism and receptive to communitarianism. It wasn't so long ago- before they became the right arm of the Republican Party and its corporate-industrial complex- that members of the religious right themselves questioned narcissism and selfishness.

But a right-winger's determination to "take my country back" is especially curious. Back in the days of Bush 43 (selected, not elected, President of the United States), the left was angry, as conservatives continually maintain. Mostly, though, its advocates were opposed: to President Bush. To President Cheney. To Bush-Cheney policies. But not to the United States. Yes, there was an occasional Rosie O'Donnell and others outside of the rhetorical mainstream. But overwhelmingly, there was a sense and a sentiment that it was our country and it had not deserted us; its leaders had. And it had not deserted me and my interests; it had deserted us.

To plead "I Want My Country Back" presupposes that his/her country has gone somewhere. But our nation with its greatness remains with us as it has since its founding. If Tea Party members or others of the far right want to call for President Obama's resignation or impeachment, go ahead- knock yourselves out (figuratively). But to imply that the country has somehow been misplaced or gone missing says far more about the speaker(s) than it does about the country or its current leaders. The country has gone nowhere; maybe extreme conservatives are the ones who have left.

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Representing The Left

Where do they get these guys? Where does the mainstream media find these "liberals," who, where it really counts, sound like Republicans?

Oh, yeah. In one case, it would be "a Clinton administration political appointee and an adviser to the Democratic National Committee and the Obama-Biden campaign in 2008," as Jamal Simmons' 3/30/09 article in Politico describes him. In this article, Simmons sympathetically recommends

banking executives should follow Obama’s lead by explaining the connection between the health of the banking system and the health of their employer. A Bank of America executive told me recently that the company’s leadership began creating in-house videos for associates in banking centers to explain the bank’s position and offer its perspective on the news. Put these videos on YouTube for the rest of us.

Finally, the financial sector as a whole has a lot of making up to do with its customers and its taxpaying investors, but not all executives behaved like Bernie Madoff. While avid readers of the business press may know that some bank CEOs — such as Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and John Mack of Morgan Stanley — did not take bonuses this year, the rest of America does not. Highlighting responsible actions that contrast with the current narrative may not generate the kind of cheering that occurs in a Final Four game, but at least the crowd might stop throwing eggs at all the players on the court.

(By the way, how endearing to refer to the American people as a mob "throwing eggs at all the players on the court.")

The thrust of this Obama admirer seven months ago was a plea to the financial industry to manipulate its message more effectively. At least, though, Simmons does commend the executives in the financial industry who "did not take bonuses this year."

Apparently, not anymore. The Treasury Department next week will announce a plan to limit total compensation of top executives of the seven firms which received the amount of TARP money. In a characteristically brilliant post on Wednesday, Digby presents the transcript of tht day's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, in which Simmons and Repub strategist Mary Matalin warn against provoking the altruistic banking executives into leaving their current companies to work where they can make real money. Simmons claims

The thing is, I've talked to a lot of people in New York about this and people who are on Wall Street and what they will tell you is, if they can't work someplace and get rewarded, they'll go work someplace else.

Working on Wall Street in the financial service industry is neither brain surgery nor rocket science nor, for that matter, civil engineering. Memo to Simmons and Matalin: A lot of people can do the work they so admire, probably a few in your neighborhood or development alone. They, too, could drag the international banking stystem and world economy to virtual collapse. Or maybe not.

But if Simmons is nearly the most egregious example of the kind of liberal Democrat (chummy with people of wealth and power) the media brings on the air, the practice is fairly widespread.

Take Eugene Robinson. Please. Why, just last night Mr. Robinson and Mr. Matthews were on Hardball admiring the machismo demonstrated by President Reagan when he fired a bunch of middle class workers:

MATTHEWS: But presidents tend, if they are lucky, to get opportunities to show their strength and do it.

Ronald Reagan, whatever you think of union rights and collective bargaining, scored a big one when broke the PATCO strike, because it was a government employees union that broke its contract. It was a wildcat. And he fired them all.

ROBINSON: Mm-hmm.

MATTHEWS: And, in the Soviet Union, I understood they said, this guy is different.

ROBINSON: Right.

MATTHEWS: So, the word went out, this guy is somebody to deal with.

ROBINSON: Mm-hmm. No, that's true. It was-and it happened early in Reagan's administration, right at the beginning. And it did set a certain tone, like, we don't know what this guy is going to do.

Breaking the back of a union and tossing workers onto the unemployment line, the move started the spiral of declining wages and decline of the middle class in the U.S.A. From that point on, employers were emboldened to resist union organizing and wage hikes and encouraged to cut health and other benefits. However, that history is neglected by two of Barack Obama's greatest admirers, often identified as "liberals," who ignore the crushing burden of totalitarianism, the favorable impact of the Solidarity labor movement and of the Polish Pope John Paul II, and the policies of nine postwar presidents (including Reagan) in bringing down the Soviet Union and ending the Cold war.

We have heard this before from Eugene Robinson, who on January 30 pretended "The point isn't to revisit the merits of the strike or the wisdom of Reagan's hard-line stance" and then went on to praise it:

The point is that the controllers' union failed to realize that the dawn of the Reagan administration represented a rare fundamental shift in American politics. Under Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford or even Richard Nixon, the controllers might well have won their strike. Under Reagan, they had no chance -- not only because of his stubborn resolve but also because American voters had given him a broad mandate for change.

But posing as a Democrat, allowing the media to feign balance, goes back even further for Mr. Robinson (and Mr. Matthews). As Bob Somerby repeatedly has noted, Robinson stood by for years as Bill Clinton and Al Gore were savaged by the mainstream media, including Robinson's own Washington Post and Chris Matthews.

The list of liberals, including Thomas Frank, Robert Reich, David Sirota, and Dean Baker, who are willing and able to support progressive economic ideals is long. Resorting to pundits who have gotten too cozy with the corporate elite is damaging. But maybe that's the idea.

Article Of The Week

Don't go to salon.com and read David Sirota's "Obama crushes Democratic dissent." Not that Salon isn't worth reading regularly and certainly not that Sirota's piece isn't worth reading. It's only that he links to it in his 9/27/09 post, "Denver Post: Obama Aide Messina Caught trying to But Off" Primary Challenger, on openleft.com. And then you can get two for one.

In Salon, Sirota notes the effort of the Obama administration to block primary challenges to: New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Hillary Clinton's replacement; Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, who became a Democrat when he realized he would not survive a primary challenge as a Republican; and Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, supporter of a public option now that he faces a primary challenge from the left. Sirota recognizes

this Colorado example is a replica of that now-famous Illinois contest in 2004. Bennet, like one of Obama's toughest opponents back then, is a millionaire who has never run for public office. And as in 2004, that millionaire is being propped up by the establishment against an Obama-esque state legislator who has oodles of experience and grass-roots support. The hypocrisy, of course, is that Obama is now backing the tycoon instead of his former self.

No doubt, if I devoted this column to any of that history, presidential aides would respond (if at all) by saying Obama is only aiming to preserve Democratic Party strength. And then I would publish an even easier-to-write follow-up reminding those aides that last year, Obama said primaries like his 2008 presidential campaign have helped the Democratic Party because they have "engaged and involved people like never before."

But Sirota sees at work something more serious and damaging than standard hypocrisy:

At a moment when Obama's agenda is acutely threatened by congressional Democratic recalcitrance, the president's anti-primary posture tells all Democratic incumbents he will defend them, regardless of their position on issues. And that message blunts Obama's most powerful instrument of legislative leverage: fear of contested elections.

Without vigorous primaries forcing Democratic legislators to face Democratic voters, those legislators feel free to defy the president's Democratic agenda. Alternately, with primaries, Democratic lawmakers typically compete to show who is more committed to the Democratic agenda. As two examples, Sens. Specter and Bennet went from mealy-mouthed equivocation to strong support of the public healthcare option immediately after opponents announced primary challenges to them.

Hence, in trying to prevent or weaken primaries against incumbents, Obama is not merely signaling a royalist's disdain for local democracy. He is exposing a corrupted pol's willingness to prioritize country club etiquette over policy results. If his agenda ends up being killed, that cynical choice will be a key cause of death.

The Denver Post (to which Sirota links from the openleft post) suggests that "Jim Messina, President Barack Obama's deputy chief of staff and a storied fixer in the White House political shop" dangled the possibility of a job in the administration to Andrew Romanoff, when rumors began that the latter was considering a primary challenge to Bennet. Romanoff reportedly declined, announced his candidacy, and the following day Obama endorsed Bennet.

Sirota accurately, if grammatically awkwardly, summarizes this as "the power-worshiping, incumbent-protecting country-club etiquette at work" and identifies the main culprit as "President Emanuel" (are the quote marks really necessary?). Sirota makes no excuses for the guy who technically is Emanuel's boss: Emanuel would not be throwing his weight around if it did not meet with Mr. Obama's approval, in a Washington version of good cop- bad cop. Which brings to mind a statement Howard Dean recently made at an appearance in Philadelphia, Pa. The physician and former governor, expressing optimism that meaningful bill health care reform will emerge from Congress, assured the sympathetic audience "Barack Obama is from Chicago." Unfortunately, Rahm Emanuel is from Chicago. Barack Obama is from Hawaii.