Move Along; Nothing To See Here, Folks

Let's call it one of Rush Limbaugh's Greatest Hits. In this case, it is a lie we wish were true.

It was on June 22, 2011, when Limbaugh was reaching to discredit the Democrat elected President in 2000, that the former declared

So the climate hoax has blown up on Algore, so now he's moving to another discredited crackpot theory: Overpopulation. Which is a theorem that has been totally debunked. Now, again, the left lives in theory and utopia. It does not live in Realville like I do.

This, to Rush Limbaugh, is utopia:

Across Somalia, about 3.7 million people, half the population, are facing starvation, with an estimated 2.8 million of them in the south. The agency says an additional 6.3 million in other Horn of Africa countries are affected by hunger.

Limbaugh used the occasion of his show on July 21 to attack Gore both for the latter's activism on climate change and for the unspeakable crime of urging nations "to empower and educate girls and women." Rush, of course, failed to recognize the connection between the two issues. Nevertheless, it appears the crisis in Somalia may reflect a confluence of overpopulation in the third world- exacerbated by inadequate education of girls and women- and climate change. While civil war has taken its toll, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Somalia, Mark Bowden,

who recently met Somali refugees walking to Ethiopia, said the problem today is mainly one of successive drought, compounded by global warming.

"They are victims of drought. They are also victims of climate change. They're people who have lost everything after years of successive drought."

Overpopulation has been a problem in much of the world, and it's not lessening. But it is one intimately tied in with economics and birth control, two of the prime issues in which the conservative worldview is delusional. Still, it is notable when a talk show host says something ludicrous on its face and a few moments later reminds us of his farcical outlook:

People, they invest in this. Either it's their personality type or they're making money themselves off promulgating it or what have you -- and for somebody like me to come along and say we don't have an overpopulation problem, and to say it with ontological certitude as I do? Why, that just rubs people the wrong way.

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The Republican Media- No. 31

The more things change, the more they stay the same. In August, 2009- 17 months before General Electric relinquished majority ownership of NBC Universal to Comcast- Glenn Greenwald wrote

Having Richard Wolffe host an MSNBC program -- or serving as an almost daily "political analyst" -- is exactly tantamount to MSNBC's just turning over an hour every night to a corporate lobbyist. Wolffe's role in life is to advance the P.R. interests of the corporations that pay him, includingcorporations with substantial interests in virtually every political issue that MSNBC and Countdown cover. Yet MSNBC is putting him on as a guest-host and "political analyst" on one of its prime-time political shows. What makes that even more appalling is that, as Ana Marie Cox first noted, neither MSNBC nor Wolffe even disclose any of this.

Wolffe, who has been described by Digby as "Obama's stenographer," still is a frequent contributor on MSNBC programs. MSNBC was a cheerleader for the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, both pre- and post- nomination. Much of the network still is owned by General Electric, whose CEO, Jeffrey Immelt, was tapped early this year to head Barack Obama's Council on Jobs and Effectiveness.

But while MSNBC is now owned primarily by Comcast, Phil Griffin (Senior Vice President at NBC News) remains its president. And now, the network's host most critical of Barack Obama, Cenk Uygur, is out. Uygur, a graduate of Columbia Law School, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and the finest high school in the U.S., explained (video, below) his departure from MSNBC on his on-line outfit, The Young Turks.

Since he took over the 6:00 p.m. (Eastern) hour, Uygur argued (as can be heard on the video below) MSNBC's ratings have significantly increased in that time slot. Nevertheless, the "head of MSNBC" warned him "people in Washington told me that they're concerned about your tone" and "we're insiders. We're the establishment." Uygur stated the head honcho told him "you gotta tone it down and then he had me talk to one of their top contributors," who told him, in the host's words, to "tone it down" and have more Republicans" (which was fine with Uygur). A few months later, he was out, though he was offered "a different role."

No doubt, this came as no surprise to Greenwald or to the Daily Howler's Bob Somerby, who frequently has slammed corporate control of MSNBC. Still, pundits promoted by Fox News, CNN, and others will whine about the "liberal media." The more fair-minded of them, such as Michael Smerconish, instead will argue that there are Fox on the right, MSNBC on the left, and CNN in the middle.

But CNN, Fox, and MSNC all promote insider wisdom, whether on the need to cut those evil "entitlements," tacit support for growing income inequality in the nation, or the educational "reform" movement (a favorite of MSNBC), proxy for privatization.

MSNBC never has been a predominantly liberal network, though it always has been aggressively pro-Barack Obama. Now that President Obama has taken on the values and interests of Wall Street, it's critical that their hosts, including the well-meaning but hapless and oft-confused Ed Schultz, heed the advice to "tone it down." This isn't a matter of tone of voice. Al Sharpton currently is hosting the 6:00 p.m.-7:00 hour; a discredited (think Tawana Brawley and Korean-American shopkeepers) loudmouth, he nevertheless is practically an Obama syncophant and will not "talk truth to power" as long as the latter occupies the White House.

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Stand There And Do Nothing

The Gang of Six is out with its proposal or, rather, a framework for a proposal. It would cut the deficit by approximately $4 trillion over twelve years with 76% of that coming from spending reductions and 24% from tax increases, most of which would hit primarily the middle class. President Obama, of course, signaled general support for its principles.

In what seems so long ago, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell proposed a "clean" debt bill, which would have saved the nation and the economy from devastating spending cuts, though it would have required the President to request thrice of Congress that it raise the debt ceiling. That was, however, unacceptable to the far right of the House GOP caucus and to Barack Obama, demonstrating once again that politics makes strange bedfellows. Or maybe not.

President Obama is itching for that Grand Bargain so that he can do something really, really BIG. He has been pushing an agreement to cut spending and eliminate a few tax loopholes, which he probably realizes would be transitory. But Republican members of Congress, nearly all of whom have signed the Americans for Tax Reform Taxpayer Protection Pledge, are cool to slashing spending because of the small tax increase (for corporations) which would be part of the package.

So the President is doing whatever he can to sweeten the package for those Republicans, frightened that any vote for anything vaguely resembling anything like a tax increase would bring down upon them the wrath of ATR's Grover Norquist, and a primary challenge.

But there appears to be a way out for a President who recognizes the need for revenue increases and is obsessed with cutting the national debt. The Washington Post editorialized Wednesday

With a handful of exceptions, every Republican member of Congress has signed a pledge against increasing taxes. Would allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire as scheduled in 2012 violate this vow? We posed this question to Grover Norquist,its author and enforcer, and his answer was both surprising and encouraging: No.

In other words, according to Mr. Norquist’s interpretation of the Americans for Tax Reform pledge, lawmakers have the technical leeway to bring in as much as $4 trillion in new tax revenue — the cost of extending President George W. Bush’s tax cuts for another decade — without being accused of breaking their promise. “Not continuing a tax cut is not technically a tax increase,” Mr. Norquist told us. So it doesn’t violate the pledge? “We wouldn’t hold it that way,” he said.

As the chart (from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities via businessinsider.com) below indicates, repealing the Bush-era tax cuts, extended six months ago by the Obama-GOP coalition, would dramatically reduce the national debt.

The deficit as a percentage of GDP would drop dramatically if these cuts expire on schedule in 2012, as the chart (from CBPP) below shows.

Expiration of the tax rates could spare the economy spending cuts which would further reduce consumer demand which, The Wall Street Journal has found, most economists believe is the key to persuading companies to resume hiring. It would also, however, reduce pressure for reducing entitlements, which the Gang of Six favors. And that would be very unpopular with the Obama-GOP axis which now dominates the nation's politics.

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A Good Thought, Disregarded

All indications are that Bill Clinton admires President Obama and he has been quite supportive of the latter, though it could hardly be otherwise when the wife of the former President is a cabinet secretary in the Obama administration. Funny how that works out.

True to form, in an interview with The National Memo's Joe Conason, Clinton criticized the congressional GOP for threatening to block a debt ceiling increase because "Well, we won the last election and we didn’t vote for some of that stuff, so we’re going to throw the whole country’s credit into arrears." When he faced off against House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1995 and the GOP considered (but rejected) using the debt ceiling as a tactic, Clinton notes, he commissioned an evaluation among legal experts of the constitutionality of ignoring the ceiling and plunging ahead. Despite- or because of- the wide range of views among the legal scholars, Conason reports,

Former President Bill Clinton says that he would invoke the so-called constitutional option to raise the nation’s debt ceiling “without hesitation, and force the courts to stop me” in order to prevent a default, should Congress and the President fail to achieve agreement before the August 2 deadline.

President Obama already had decided against invoking the Fourteenth Amendment, despite the House's eagerness to refuse to pay for appropriations already approved. Besides recommending a strategy already rejected by the current President, Clinton added

The reason that raising the debt limit is so unpopular is that people think you’re voting to keep [increasing] deficit spending, instead of voting to honor obligations that were already incurred. I think [the Gingrich Republicans] figured I’d be smart enough to explain to the American people that they were refusing to pay for the expenses they had voted for when Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush were president. And that would make ‘em look bad.

The American people, as Clinton apparently understands, mistakenly believe that Congress is considering increasing deficit spending "instead of voting to honor obligations that were already incurred." Now if only we had a President who knew how to communicate to audiences- someone who, for instance, might have inspired people with such as:

You will be tested. You won't always succeed. But know that you have it within your power to try. That generations who have come before you faced these same fears and uncertainties in their own time. And that through our collective labor, and through God's providence, and our willingness to shoulder each other's burdens, America will continue on its journey towards that distant horizon, and a better day. (Boston, June 2, 2006)

Today we come to celebrate not a building but a man. And as that man called once upon the better angels of our nature, so is he calling still, across the ages, to summon some measure of that character, his character, in each of us, today. (Springfield, Illinois, 2005)

Well, I say to them tonight, there's not a liberal America and a conservative America there's the United States of America. There's not a black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there's the United States of America. (Boston, 7/27/04)

Somehow, that President hasn't seen fit to explain that we're not a deadbeat nation. We've already incurred the debts and have done so through a constitutional process that reflects the will of the American people through their democratically-elected representatives.

It would not be difficult for President Obama to evoke some of that stirring rhetoric and arouse the national audience to a recognition that a refusal to raise the debt ceiling would roil national, and probably international, markets and raise interest rates for the government, businesses, and consumers.

He could do that but has chosen not to do so. Opposition by voters to lifting the limit emboldens Republicans, the vast majority of whom want deep cuts- and thereby strengthens the hand of a President who also favors spending reductions. And when those cuts ensue, he can boast in them to Republican and independent voters while telling his base that his hand was forced, which Matt Taibbi characterizes as "an increasingly transparent lie."

Bill Clinton's advice is wise, but Barack Obama simply has different goals than the 42nd President or most of his party.

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Blinded, Following The Leader

But Dylan Matthews, wrong about Chip Cravaack, is right about a more important, immediate issue- the debt ceiling. Not fooled, he recognizes

it’d also be smart politics for Obama to insist on full elimination of the debt ceiling, rather than a temporary increase. The current setup means that every year he needs the House GOP to sign on to both a budget and/or continuing resolution AND an increase in the debt ceiling. That means two occasions every year where John Boehner has leverage to demand policy changes. Eliminating the debt ceiling would cut in half the number of standoffs like that.

Then again, it’s also possible that Obama wants Boehner to have leverage, as Obama’s policy preferences lie to the right of those of House Democrats, and giving Boehner more power allows him to sell cuts to his party that it otherwise would not support. In that case it would make perfect sense for Obama to not push to eliminate the debt ceiling entirely.

But why, oh why would Barack Obama, he of "change you can believe in" and "si, se puede" possess "policy preferences (which) lie to the right" of most House Democrats and strive to impart to a conservative Republican more power? Perhaps for the same reason that President Obama has rejected the suggestion that he invoke Section 4 of the 14th Amendment and declare the debt ceiling unconstitutional. It's completely consistent with President Obama's predictable, yet reprehensible, decision to pass over Elizabeth Warren as director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which led Matt Stoller to contrast the Harvard (busines) law professor and former chairperson of the Congressional Oversight Panel

with Barack Obama, a person who never fails to wrap his true agenda in gauzy opaque process jargon. Obama won’t back his own NLRB or Boeing workers, or even Boeing itself; he thinks that neither side should waste time in court. He won’t announce Social Security or Medicare cuts, he wants it to be part of a Grand Bargain for whom no one has to take responsibility. He demands an end to earmarks, or something, but we need an infrastructure bank or something. As a result, the Democratic Party is enmeshed right now in a guessing game about the true goals of their leader, paralyzed and unable to govern. When Warren is present, by contrast, the Republicans are able to argue strongly that they do not believe in government as an agent of good, while Democrats are able to articulate the opposite. It’s a real, open, honest debate. There’s no sliding around with 11 dimensional chess nonsense, it’s straight up democracy.

We know Barack Obama wants to be a transformational president but, with his goals unclear, it's still somewhat uncertain what transformation he's aiming for. Nevertheless, there is little reason to put any faith in congressional Democrats exercising independent judgement once the President and congressional Republicans come to an agreement on how to sink the economy.

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Absentee Congressman

Oh, heck, it's only 1045.2.0 miles.

That's the distance between Lindstrom, Minnesota, where Rep. Chip Cravaack currently lives with his wife and two children, and North Branch, New Hampshire, where he and his wife are buying a house. Reports the (Twin Cities) Star Tribune of Minneapolis (or is it the Twin Cities?):

Cravaack and his family are leaving their Lindstrom home, and he is buying a new house in North Branch, spokesman Ben Golnik said Saturday.

Cravaack's move comes as he faces a tough reelection race in the Eighth District. Three DFLers -- former state Sen. Tarryl Clark, Duluth City Councilman Jeff Anderson and former Rep. Rick Nolan -- have announced that they will run against the freshman Republican.

The family move is likely to provide fodder for opponents in the 2012 campaign. Cravaack criticized Rep. Jim Oberstar in 2010 for being out of touch with his district, and the Minnesota GOP Party called Clark -- who lost to U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann in 2010 in the Sixth District -- a "carpetbagger" because she moved from St. Cloud to Duluth in order to be in the Eighth District and to run against Cravaack.

Golnik said Cravaack will maintain his congressional schedule in Minnesota, spending Saturdays and his district work time in the state. Cravaack will travel to New Hampshire to see his family on his Sunday off-days, Golnik said.

"He's committed to keeping up the same pace," Golnik said.

Cravaack's family is moving because his wife, Traci, works as an executive at a medical company that involved frequent travel to Boston. She got a promotion, Golnik said, and will now be based in Boston.

Cravaack, 52, had been a retired Northwest Airlines pilot and stay-at-home dad before he came to Congress, but this year he and his wife both have often been out of Minnesota during the week. Cravaack said in an interview with the Star Tribune last month that juggling his and his wife's travel schedules with taking care of their two preteen sons has been one of the toughest things for him since coming to Washington.

The enlightened Dylan Matthews, substituting for Ezra Klein, is encouraged:

People more or less assume that the spouses of politicians — particularly of male politicians — will uproot their professional lives for the sake of their partners’. That Cravaack acknowledges that his wife’s career is also important and worth accomodating is a sign that expectations are changing for the better.

One wonders: would the enlightened so swoon if the spouse were, say, a construction worker or a policeman, rather than a business executive? Given that Mr. Cravaack procures the tidy sum of $174,000- plus the generous benefits afforded congressmen- it's highly likely that the the two Cravaacks are continuing in their respective careers for psychic advantages that go well beyond the need to feed and clothe their family.

Representative Cravaack's acknowledgement of the importance of his wife's career and move to the low-tax state adjacent to that in which she will earn her impressive salary would have been impressive if he had taken one honorable, additional step: resignation.

As it is, Chip Cravaack will be moving roughly 1000 miles from his congressional district, 1,000 miles from the people whom he was elected to serve. He will have the luxury of a family income that includes that of an executive of a medical company, while enjoying the prestige, health and other benefits of a member of the United States Congress.

In a nation of over 300,000,000 million individuals, few are given the honor and power of a member of United States Congress, who comprise less than .00005% of the American people. It is nearly a unique position, held by so few and coveted by so many, glad to be living in the district they represent.

If Chip Cravaack, who was elected as a resident of Minnesota, doesn't take his job seriously- and obviously he does not- he can be lauded for taking his wife's career seriously. But he does not do that either, refusing to sacrifice his position for her benefit. For serious people to call this "a sign that expectations are changing for the better" is unserious.

So, Mr. Cravaack, move to your heart's content, to the idyllic surroundings of the upper New England countryside, where taxes are low and your constituents aren't bothering you with their petty problems. But when you do, leave your position behind to someone who doesn't believe it a burden to live among the people who have chosen him or her as their voice in Washington.

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With Or Without The Cuts

It has been known for some time, although Democratic leaders, Republican leaders, and the mainstream media all have been reluctant to acknowledge it directly. On July 6 The Washington Post/Bloomberg News determined

At a meeting with top House and Senate leaders set for Thursday morning, Obama plans to argue that a rare consensus has emerged about the size and scope of the nation’s budget problems and that policymakers should seize the moment to take dramatic action.

As part of his pitch, Obama is proposing significant reductions in Medicare spending and for the first time is offering to tackle the rising cost of Social Security, according to people in both parties with knowledge of the proposal. The move marks a major shift for the White House and could present a direct challenge to Democratic lawmakers who have vowed to protect health and retirement benefits from the assault on government spending.

“Obviously, there will be some Democrats who don’t believe we need to do entitlement reform. But there seems to be some hunger to do something of some significance,” said a Democratic official familiar with the administration’s thinking. “These moments come along at most once a decade. And it would be a real mistake if we let it pass us by.”

President Obama has been determined to effect an increase in the debt ceiling, but that hasn't been his only goal. The President sees cutting Social Security benefits- unrelated to the debt- and "reductions in Medicare spending" as part of the Grand Bargain he needs to be the transformative president he yearns to be.

It's hard to believe that Republicans would be averse to poking holes in the social safety net of elderly Americans. If given a chance to eliminate Social Security and Medicare (let alone Medicaid, which helps poor Americans) with no adverse reaction from the voters, the GOP would jump at it. No- they did happily try, when the House passed the Ryan Medicare Elimination Budget.

But the second ranking Republican in the Senate, Arizona's Jon Kyl, today conceded on ABC's "This Week" (transcript, with comment on page 4, here) with Christiane Amanpour

Republican leaders have made it clear that, if all else fails, if our efforts to adopt legislation to cut the deficit, put a straightjacket on it and balance the budget -- the so-called, cut, cap and balance -- I think that passes the House. But if that doesn't pass the Senate and if there is no other way to reach some kind of savings agreement then, at the end of the day, Republican leaders have made it clear that we will not be the ones who put the government into default.

It is unlikely that GOP scheme will pass the Senate; nevertheless, Kyl believes "at the end of the day, Republican leaders have made it clear that we will not be the ones who put the government into default." And the context makes clear that he was making no distinction between default and passing on raising the debt ceiling.

The real GOP base, corporate America, has made it clear: raise the debt ceiling. On July 13 The Daily Beast reported

"We believe it is vitally important for the U.S. government to make good on its financial obligations and to put its fiscal house in order," wrote the Chamber of Commerce in a letter signed by nearly 500 American CEOs that was sent to the White House and all Capitol Hill offices. "Now is the time for our political leaders to put aside partisan differences and act in the nation's best interests. We believe our nation's economic future is reliant upon their actions and urge them to reach an agreement."

The high-profile signers included Tom Donahue, the influential chairman of the Chamber of Commerce; Robert Koch, CEO of Koch Enterprises; and James Gorman, president of Morgan Stanley.

The message highlights a new fracture among conservative leaders, many of whom have pushed for Republicans to oppose a debt-ceiling increase without assurances from the White House that a deal would not include tax hikes.

But seeing the urgency of reaching an agreement, some Republicans have lowered their standard to ensure that a deal is reached prior to the hard August 2 deadline the White House has set.That would be Robert Koch of the Koch brothers, who rival Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes as forces in Repub Party politics. If deep, economically damaging spending cuts become part of a debt-ceiling agreement, the Democratic Party- and especially its leader at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue- will deserve a huge share of the blame.

That would be Robert Koch of the Koch brothers, who rival Rush Limbaugh and Roger Ailes as forces in Repub Party politics. If deep, economically damaging spending cuts become part of a debt-ceiling agreement, the Democratic Party- and especially its leader at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue- will deserve a huge share of the blame.

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