Another Year, Another Attack

Jennifer Gonnerman of The New York Times writes of a New Yorker who is not dissimilar from many workers during this prolonged economic slump:

On June 25, 2010, Frederick Deare punched out for the last time from his job driving a forklift at the Old London factory in the Bronx. That summer, everyone at the plant was being laid off: the oven operators, the assembly-line packers, the forklift drivers, the sanitation workers. Total jobs lost: 228. Old London, the snack manufacturer that invented the Cheez Doodle, wasmoving its operations to North Carolina. At 53, Mr. Deare, known as Freddy or Teddy Bear to his co-workers, would have to find a new job.

After a period of unemployment, Deare found a new job, and got laid off again. But then he heard about a job opening: forklift driver at a coffee warehouse in Yonkers.

He got an interview, and the supervisor he met with sounded optimistic about his chances of being hired. But there was no formal offer. Day after day went by. For three weeks the wait stretched on. This time, however, he got the job. And it was a union job, with benefits. He started on April 11 — 290 days after Old London laid him off.

“You’re speaking to a happy man,” he said after his first day. “I am in my glory. I mean, today was wonderful.”

There was only one downside: The work paid $10 an hour, 40 percent less than he had made at Old London. After taxes, his paycheck was even less than the unemployment benefits he had been collecting. But he tried not to dwell on this. “I don’t let it bother me that I’m getting less, because of the simple fact I have something, and a lot of people have nothing,” he said. “You have to crawl before you can walk.” Four and a half months later, he is still on the job.

There are a lot of lessons here. Digby, for instance, comments

Everybody sees this, whether they're employed or not. And it's made working people very accommodating. Being scared you might never find a decent job again will do that to a person.

It's great for employers, though.

That might be one of the reasons there was no net job creation in August while corporate profits continue to soar. However, it also brings to mind comments of various Republicans during the debate last year over extension of unemployment benefits. Then-New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg contended unemployment compensation "encourages people to, rather than go out and look for work, to stay on unemployment" while to Sharron Angle, who would be defeated by Harry Reid, it was "this system of entitlement (which) has caused us to have a spoilage with our ability to go out and get a job."

Running, successfully, for a Senate seat from Kentucky, Rand Paul patronizingly remarked "As bad as it sounds, ultimately we do have to sometimes accept a wage that's less than we had at our previous job in order to get back to work and allow the economy to get started again. Nobody likes that, but it may be one of the tough love things that has to happen. Wisconsin's Ron Johnson, who would go on to be elected to the U.S. Senate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and former House Majority Leader and criminal Tom DeLay all maintained that unemployment benefits discourage work. The last even claimed "in fact there are some studies that have been done that show people stay on unemployment compensation and they don’t look for a job until two or three weeks before they know the benefits are going to run out.”

These "some studies" appear to be one 1990 study, largely debunked by a 2007 study (The Spike at Benefit Exhaustion: Leaving the Unemployment System or Starting a New Job?"), as Jonathan Chait explains here. Researchers David Card, Raj Chetty, and Andrea Weber found that when unemployment benefits ran out, individuals would discontinue submitting to the government the information which would have qualified them prior to expiration of benefits. No longer part of the unemployment compensation system, they would appear to have obtained work.

Most unemployment can be explained far more simply- more available workers than jobs, a 4.7:1 ratio at last accounting. Attention, however, has shifted to the tax, with many conservatives, posing as opponents of high taxation and sometimes even provoked to righteous indignation at mere mention of the word "tax," whining that too few Americans pay income taxes. Corporate loopholes remain sacrosanct in the drive to make the tax system "flatter." No one, they imply, should be spared having to pay income tax because of the child tax credit, earned income tax, 0r because they're elderly with Social Security their only source of income.

Republicans helpfully remind us that everywhere there are Americans collecting unemployment to avoid work or working without contributing to the "shared sacrifice" endured by those long-suffering "job creators."

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Boosting the Presidency, Again

When hedge fund executive turned CNBC reporter Rick Santelli delivered his famous rant of elitism from the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade in 2009, it marked the beginning of the modern tea party movement. Although Republican politicians- most notably presidential candidate George Herbert Walker Bush- had supported altering the United States Constitution for almost anything, Santelli's rant prompted the mistaken idea that the far right of the Republican Party is especially fond of the United States Constitution.

Santelli claimed "I'll tell you what, if you read our Founding Fathers, people like Benjamin Franklin and Jefferson..... What we're doing in this country now is making them roll over in their graves." In March, 2010 The New York Times would summarize "the Tea Party movement has already added something distinctive to contemporary political discourse. It has made the Constitution central to the national conversation." The movement gave rise to losers such as Sharron Angle and Christine O'Donnell, but also to winners such as Mike Lee, who, after state conventioneers ditched incumbent Bob Bennett, eventually became the GOP's U.S. Senate nominee and was elected in November 2010..

Lee was representative of the victorious candidates actively supported by the tea party movement. As a candidate, he had supported amending the Constitution to mandate a balanced budget, impose term limits on members of Congress, and overturning the 14th and 17th Amendments (though conceding that the latter wouldn't be scrapped). When the 112th Congress convened in January, 2011, House Republicans, now in charge, began by reading the text of a constitution they found in so many ways lacking.

And now, this. Todd J. Gilman of the Dallas Morning News reports that GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry, onetime supporter of secession, wants to end lifetime tenure for Supreme Court justices. It would entail a measure so favored by the party of limited government, an amendment to the United States Constitution.

It may not be the worst idea for altering the Constitution. The Repub Party still is hot for a balanced budget amendment (a vote on which was guaranteed by the recent debt limit agreement), which in one of its incarnations former President Reagan domestic policy adviser Bruce Bartlett termed "quite possibly the stupidest constitutional amendment I think I have ever seen."

The real danger to an amendment limiting the terms of judges on the highest court in the land, however, might lie in what it would portend otherwise for a Perry presidency.

Soon after Barack Obama assumed the presidency, then-White House counsel David Craig, addressed what the NYT described as "an executive-privilege dispute over Congressional subpoenas of former White House aides to Mr. Bush over the firing of United States attorneys." "The president is very sympathetic to those who want to find out what happened," Craig explained. "But he is also mindful as president of the United States not to do anything that would undermine or weaken the institution of the presidency.".

True to the word of his aide, Obama has, Glenn Greenwald noted in July, "continued Bush/Cheney terrorism policies- once viciously denounced by Democrats- of indefinite detention, renditions, secret prisons by proxy, and sweeping secrecy doctrines." He has expanded that power "by waging an unprecedented war on whistleblowers, seizing the power to assassinate U.S. citizens without due process far from any battlefield, massively escalating drone attacks in multiple nations, and asserting the authority to unilaterally prosecute a war (in Libya) even in defiance of a Congressional vote against authorizing the war."

Support any or all of those policies- I have not been offended by most of the drone attacks nor the Libyan intervention (though the War Powers Act should have been invoked)- but is undeniably not only an expansion of the national security state but also of the powers of the Executive Branch, absolutely and relative to the other two branches of government. And now, witnessing an enlargement of presidential power neither anticipated, nor envisioned, by the Founders, Rick Perry argues "we should take steps to restrict the unlimited power of the courts to rule over us with no accountability."

The unaccountable Courts! It's as if Rick Perry, eager to be the standard-bearer of the party which ignores also the dominant role of the financial industry in nearly bringing this country to it knees, has not lived through the past twelve years.

It is all to easy to conclude that this is not about reverence for the Constitution, which Rick Perry supports dramatically altering with a balanced budget amendment, but about magnifying the power of an Executive Branch he hopes to lead in seventeen months.

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The Usual Leadership

President Obama's speech on job creation will not conflict with the GOP presidential debate to be held on Wednesday, September 7. After Speaker of the House John Boehner complained about the President addressing a joint session of Congress at the same time as the debate, Obama moved his speech to the following night, Thursday.

September 8 is opening night for the National Football League. The President was loathe to place football fans, some of them voters, in the position of having to decide whether to watch a presidential address or a football game , or instead figured most would opt for the latter. Presidential press spokesman Jay Carney pledged "I can assure all you football fans that he will be completed before kick-off."

Good sense of priorities that, because sports are far more important than a 9.1% unemployment rate. Sarcasm aside, though, the Packers and the Saints face-off may be as important as the plan likely to be announced by the White House. Obama, determined to give the GOP the ball at the 50-yard line, Monday admitted stated "These are bipartisan ideas that ought to be the kind of proposals that everybody can get behind, no matter what your political affiliation might be." Republicans are in no mood to cooperate (a mood going on its 32nd consecutive month) even with a President who, before the plan even has been announced, already has begun to compromise. Or maybe because he already has given it up. Politico reports

Some members of Obama’s economic team are pushing for aggressive proposals that reach well beyond what Republicans might support, arguing that the president needs to convey a vision, not a tactical legislative strategy, according to sources familiar with White House deliberations.

But there’s competing pressure for the president to make an offer that Republicans can’t reasonably refuse — by stacking his jobs bill with ideas they have endorsed in the past, the sources said. It would allow Obama to position himself as he did during the debt ceiling negotiations, as a realist anxious for compromise.

It's not as if the White House is proposing real solutions which might reverse the economic slump and result in the creation of reasonably well-paying jobs. "Members of Obama's economic team" are conceding, going in, that the President is more interested in appearing centrist ("a realist") than in effective measures. With the benefit of hindsight, they couldn't possibly believe that Republicans will see a jobs bill "with ideas they have endorsed in the past," accept the victory, and go home. And there is little reason the GOP should, as described by Michael Tomasky:

I hope—alas, against hope—that the White House is keeping a scorecard of this year so far. That scorecard reads Republicans 2, Obama 0 (the threatened government shutdown and the debt deal), covering a period during which the president’s approval ratings have sagged by about 10 points, and this even though he iced Osama bin Laden. What the Republicans are doing is working.

The last Democratic President (or the last time there was a Democratic president) once famously noted "it's better to be strong and wrong, than weak and right." Barack Obama has had the chance to be strong and right; so far, weak and wrong has been his preferred style.

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Limbaugh Nearly Correct

Rush Limbaugh has made it quite clear he traffics in race and in privilege (not in that order). And after Colin Powell told CBS' Face the Nation on Sunday that he hadn't decided if he would vote to re-elect President Obama, on Monday Rush Limbaugh commented (video below)

With General Powell saying that he's not quite sure that he would vote for Obama, that's gotta set off some warning bells in the Democrat Party, because as I say, if the titular head of the Republican Party is starting to have doubts about your candidate, you know that you are in trouble. Snerdley, you know I'm right here. In the end, Powell will vote for Obama. There's no doubt. The titular head of the Republican Party, the ideal model Republican will vote for Obama. Melanin is thicker than water, folks. That's what will happen.

There is no defending "melanin is thicker than water, folks." Lacking the requisite decency, honesty, or integrity- at least one applies- Limbaugh referred to "melanin," an inherited and racial characteristic, rather than contending simply that Powell would support Obama because both are black, which would have been less odious and easily dismissed. Melanin? The facial complexion of Barack Obama, the product of a racially mixed union, probably is closer to that of John McCain than to that of Colin Powell, the son of Jamaican-Americans.

As Werner Wolf would havc said, let's go to the videotape- or, in this case, the spoken word. In October, 2008 Politico noted that General Powell had declared on NBC"s Meet The Press the previous day his support of the election of Senator Obama, saying he was

"troubled" by the direction of the Republican Party, and said he began to doubt McCain when he chose Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

"Not just small towns have values," he said, responding to one of Palin's signature lines.

"She's a very distinguished woman, and she's to be admired," he said. "But at the same, now that we have had a chance to watch her for some seven weeks, I don't believe she's ready to be president of the United States, which is the job of the vice president. And so that raised some question in my mind as to the judgment that Sen. McCain made."

Few Americans base their vote in a presidential election on the vice-presidential selection, even if they rationalize it by maintaining that it is indicative of the candidate's judgement. With the vice-presidency largely a ceremonial post, the choice is suggestive largely of the presidential nominee's judgement as to whom would best facilitate his/her election. In retrospect, give Powell credit for identifying, by indirection, what now appears to be the best reason (along with Supreme Court appointments, also cited by Powell on NBC) to have Barack Obama rather than John McCain in the Oval Office. More comforting it is to have Joe Biden, rather than Sarah Palin, a heartbeat from the presidency.

But neither Palin nor the high court was the focus of the endorsement of Powell, who explained

I can't deny that it will be a historic event when an African-American becomes president. And should that happen, all Americans should be proud — not just African-American, but all Americans — that we have reached this point in our national history where such a thing could happen. It would also not only electrify the country, but electrify the world.

Powell continued

because of his ability to inspire, because of the inclusive nature of his campaign, because he is reaching out all across America, because of who he is and his rhetorical abilities — and you have to take that into account — as well as his substance — he has both style and substance, he has met the standard of being a successful president, being an exceptional president.

The General did not detail that "substance" which the first-term Senator possessed and was lacking in the 22-year veteran of the United States Senate, Armed Services Committee member, and highly distinguished veteran of the United States Navy. Obama's ideological stance (and presidential temperament) was superior, but it's tough to believe that the four-star general, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and former National Security Advisor and Secretary of State was more impressed by the "substance" of Barack Obama than that of John McCain.

The dominant factor was the "style" of the man who aimed to be the first black president of the country served by Powell in several positions. "Style" was the dominant factor, race a major element of that style, if not the dominant factor itself. It was the style of the man who aimed to be the first black president of the United States, though the "electrifying" nature of that election has been consummated, making re- election historically insignificant. With the "electrifying nature" of that election having been consummated, re-election is historically insignificant and Limbaugh's confidence that "melanin" will prompt Powell to endorse Obama again will be tested if the GOP nominates Mitt Romney. Previously, however, Limbaugh (rashly) declared Romney's candidacy bound to fail and culture, race, and melanin aside, if Michele Bachmann or Mitt Romney gets the party's nod, Rush's prediction will be borne out. Powell, not without fault, is at least serious and sober and not one one especially enamored of quirky personalities.

Alternatively, Colin Powell may have publicly endorsed Barack Obama for president in 2008, and may do so in 2012, because of commitment to ideological principle. However, that would presuppose that, at some point in his post-military government service, Colin Powell had exhibited dedication to some principle. Find that, and you may find also those weapons of mass destruction Secretary of State Powell vowed that Sadaam Hussein possessed.

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Useless Employees, Except When They're Not

Thursday, Chris Christie bellowed

If it continues on the current track, from a flooding perspective this could be a 100-year event. People should not take this lightly.

Friday, the New Jersey governor bellowed

You know I saw some of these news feeds upstairs of people sitting on the beach on Asbury Park. Get the hell off the beach in Asbury Park and get out. You’re done. It’s 4:30, you’ve maximized your tan. Get off the beach.

It's always comforting to see a governor who summons a team of experts, gathers all facts, and then acts decisively because he "saw some of these news feeds upstairs of people sitting on the beach." "Saw some of these news feeds" as in "watched television."

But the situation was severe, with more than a half million New Jersey homes and businesses still without power as of Monday evening. As of Monday morning, numerous highways and other roadways were still closed due to damage or flooding- including a major highway in the state's capital of Trenton. Closed were the governments of the city of Trenton, the county in which the state capital is located, and the garage providing parking for the executive and legislative members of the state government. On Tuesday, the Governor wrote to President Obama, requesting federal disaster aid.

Unsurprisingly, Governor Christie's message for private-sector workers on Monday was uncomplicated: "if you can stay home, stay home." On Sunday, the Governor, ever eager to lambaste government and state employees (other than himself), had remarked "philosophically, I believe government is too big, and I've said that many times." Monday, he told private sector workers "if you can stay home, stay home."

But for public employees, whom the Governor repeatedly has implied are of little value, there was a different, sarcastic, message: "Folks sat in traffic this morning, my apologies. Toughen up and get to work."

The sky is falling, Chris Christie said Friday. And Saturday. And Sunday. And Monday. And Tuesday. Workers in the private sector, for the benefit of their safety and to facilitate response to emergencies throughout the state, ought to stay home. But for those overpaid, pampered, and generally worthless government workers, the governor roared "get to work."

We knew Chris Christie was bellicose, belligerent, and self-consumed. Add hypocritical to the list.

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Not That Message, For Sure

The Center for American Progress reports that Representative Michele Bachmann has remarked

I don’t know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We’ve had an earthquake; we’ve had a hurricane. He said, ‘Are you going to start listening to me here?’ Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.

Not to worry, though, because her campaign manager now says "obviously, she was saying it in jest." Hopefully, the Bachmann camp is lying, because otherwise a member of the United States Congress believes joking publicly about God's influence on the course of human affairs is great sport.

Bachmann, though given to saying things hardly anyone even modestly informed would believe, probably was dead serious about her Irene comment, though she may have decided to make a point by exaggerating. About God.

The GOP presidential contender should have stuck with her original comment because, accidentally, she may- may- have been 50% accurate. Back in an earlier time- three days before an earthquake chose the unlikely target of the northeastern quadrant of the U.S.A. and nine days before a hurricane in the northeastern U.S.- The New York Times observed

Normally, three or four weather disasters a year in the United States will cause at least $1 billion in damages each. This year, there were nine such disasters. They included the huge snow dump in late January and early February on the Midwest and Northeast, the rash of tornadoes this spring across the Midwest and the more recent flooding of the Missouri and Souris Rivers. The disasters are responsible for at least 589 deaths, including 160 in May when tornadoes ripped through Joplin, Mo.

These nine billion-dollar disasters tie the record set in 2008, according to a report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The total damage done by all storms, tornadoes, flooding and heat waves so far this year adds up to about $35 billion. The National Climatic Data Center says it estimates the costs in terms of dollars and lives that would not have been incurred had the event not taken place. Insured and uninsured losses are included in damage estimates and are likely to change as assessments become more complete. With four months to go in 2011, this year’s total amount of damage is likely to rise. Forecasters are already predicting further meteorological mayhem as hurricane season intensifies.

Predictably, Times reporter Katherine Q. Seelye did not address any possible impact of climate change, lest global warming deniers raise howls of protest against the "liberal media." While Hurricane Irene was not caused by climate change, Joe Romm notes that warming makes hurricanes more destructive because sea level rise makes storm surges more destructive, the increased water vapor in the atmosphere increases rainfall and the risk of flooding, and water vapor and higher ocean temperatures help fuel a storm, making it more intense and bigger.

A day before Irene hit landfall, Michael D. Lemonick of Climate Central explained

.... sea-surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean are higher now than they used to be, thanks to global warming, and ocean heat is what gives hurricanes their power. All other things being equal, a warmer ocean means a more powerful storm. It’s hard to say that all other things are exactly equal here, but it’s certainly plausible that Irene would have been a little weaker if precisely the same storm had come through, say, 50 years ago.

What we know for sure, however is that thanks largely to climate change, sea level is about 13 inches higher in the New York area than it was a century ago. The greatest damage from hurricanes comes not from high winds and torrential rains — although those do cause a lot of damage. It’s from the storm surge, the tsunami-like wall of water a hurricane pushes ahead of it to crash onto the land. It was Hurricane Katrina’s storm surge, not the wind or rain, that destroyed New Orleans back in 2005.

And now that we have had back-to-back extreme weather events in a densely populated area of the nation, the Repub presidential contender says the Lord is trying "to get the attention of politicians" because "government is on a morbid obesity diet and we’ve got to rein in the spending.” TPM's Alex-Seitz Wald notes "It’s ironic that God would use a hurricane to send a memo about cutting government spending, considering that the damage it causes it likely going to increase government spending."

It's also highly unlikely, given the message-"I'm sending earthquakes and hurricanes because you're spending too much money- is extremely cryptic." I might as well contend that I'm posting this blog so you know to get a haircut this week. There is no connection, other than the ironic one identified by Seitz-Wald, whose message would be the opposite observed by the Minnesota psychic.

But there is at least a chance that Michele B. is partially right. Perhaps God is displeased, as well as perplexed, that a sizable number of politicians (the vast majority from the congresswoman's party) continue to deny the reality of human influence upon the climate. Preferring something more subtle than a baseball bat applied to the cranium of the corporate stooges who aren't listening, the Almighty might prefer the succession of blizzard, tornado, and flooding events this nation alone has endured of late. The alternative explanation is "the wholly human origin of all that is human," as Camus put it.

Either way, two things are clear: any message from above is not the one Michele Bachmann wishes it were; and Michele Bachmann's campaign is lying.

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Wrong Approach

Really, Chris, don't do their dirty work for them. We already have President Obama for that.

On Thursday and Friday evenings, substituting for Lawrence O'Donnell, Chris Hayes took up the idea of Florida Governor Rick Scott to test welfare recipients for illegal drugs. Concluding on Friday, Hayes cannily observed

What we`re seeing instead is that the category of welfare queen has simply expanded to now include the working poor, and those unlucky enough to lose their jobs during the Great Recession.

That observation not only is accurate but captures a fundamental shift in GOP philosophy and tactics. As it is no longer safe to go after minorities (directly), the party has subtly transitioned to casting aspersions on the great mass- the non-wealthy- of Americans. The tax system must be flattened, we are told. The rich pay too much while some of those pesky middle class folk get away with paying no income tax. Payroll, sales, property, and all manner of excise and user fees and taxes just will not do.

Despite this GOP tactic, Chris Hayes- the Chris Hayes of The Nation- on Thursday commented

But actually, there is one way I could support a plan to drug test welfare applicants. It comes from Mike Konczal, a fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, who writes for one of my favorite economics blogs, RortyBomb. He`s been a guest on the program. He wrote not too long ago, "I think I can support this idea, that is testing welfare applicants for drugs, if and only if it is also required that people who claim a mortgage interest tax deduction are also required to take a drug test."

I mean, after all, we don`t want to subsidize people`s drug habits. And welfare is welfare is welfare. Am I right, homeowners of America?

Though the tax deduction for mortgage interest paid is enjoyed by the wealthy, it is viewed by the public (the electorate) as one dedicated to the middle class. And in fact, no gun is pressed against the head of members of Congress preventing them from exempting interest on huge mortgages ($1,000,000, $500,000 or whatever) from its benefits.

But Hayes did not recommend restricting the mortgage interest tax deduction, preferring to take a swipe at "homeowners of America" (code for "middle class"). Instead, he lumped drug users in with the middle class, probably not a way of drawing sympathy for your ideological persuasion from the majority (electorate) of Americans who are of the middle class and the vast majority (electorate) who believe they are of the middle class. Or, for that matter, the vast majority of Americans who own a home or are working 1, 2, or even three jobs at a time in order to be able to become a full-fledged, property tax-paying homeowner like their parents are.

Not smart, Chris and not helpful to the progressive/liberal cause. And that is especially the case when we have an IRS code that taxes capital gains at a lower rate than ordinary income and contains other goodies for the well-healed. Hayes could have decried a tax system, or even a culture, which favors wealth acquired by moving money around over that earned by labor- what once was called the "sweat of one's brow," though nowadays is more likely to have been earned by exuding less perspiration.

There is no reason to adopt GOP strategy. Republicans already effectively set the middle class against the poor, just as they set whites against blacks during the last quarter of the twentieth century. It is an ongoing strategy, one damaging to the nation (which Hayes seemed to understand the following night, on Friday), and one which is better left to the right, for which it is almost raison d'etre.

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