Tuesday, October 12, 2010
"Now, as new laws and a major Supreme Court decision have removed barriers to corporate giving, Republican operatives have embraced the use of nonprofit issue groups that can keep donors’ identities secret." NY Times
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Friday, October 03, 2008
Here we go again - Dems cave to Bush and he gets what he wants after yet another administration SNAFU. Do they really believe the Bush - Paulsen team, with its great track record and prescience on the economy, the war, the environment, etc. on this? I remain skeptical as do many economists, as to how effective this policy of a government buyout of corporate toxic debt is really going to be. First results don't seem to promising. Per Barry Ritholtz
Wow, that's a nearly 450 point swing.Very surprising to see the bailout pass, and get signed into law, and then see the market fade.
Once again, I have to say -- I hate to read too much into intra-day action, as its mostly noise, but this is not a positive development .
The corporatists have been saved from themselves, but who saves the rest of the country from them?
They’ve Tanked the Economy, Trashed the Environment,
Wasted the Military, and Lied Us Into War.
Yippee, Elect Another Republican
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I don't forgive Biden for letting Palin get away with that "white flag of surrender bit". He should have taken that and jammed it down her throat. (not meant to be sexist - they should do the same with McCain). Why not say "this is beneath the dignity of a person who wants to be vice president. Are you saying that that anyone who opposes your policies is a traitor? Are you saying those Iraqi Veterans against the War are waving that flag? The Iraqis want us out, the American public wants us out and you and McCain want us in - your saying those who disagree with this policy of spending even more lives and dollars on a war that was based on disinformation to the American public and the world from the first, and for which even the Iraqi government wants a deadline on the presence of American troops, is in favor of surrender? I consider that to be an insult to to the American people and American principles."
But then again - Democrats.
They’ve Tanked the Economy, Trashed the Environment,
Wasted the Military, and Lied Us Into War.
Yippee, Elect Another Republican
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Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Sen. Harry Reid pulled the Senate Telecom Bill yesterday, after the opposition put up by Senator Chris Dodd and a few others (Sens. Russ Feingold, Barbara Boxer, Sherrod Brown, Maria Cantwell, John Kerry, Ron Wyden, Tom Harkin, Benjamin Cardin and Robert Menendez). Dodd had placed a hold on the bill to prevent it from being brought up because of its provisions for giving telecom companies complete retroactive immunity for having broken the law by illegally providing the administration with client information without court warrant or legislative authorization (see Glenn Greenwald for excellent reporting on the issue). Dodd also threatened to filibuster attempts to pass this version of the bill. He did this as a response to activity from netroots and grassroots opponents of the bill. Reid had the bill brought up nevertheless, ignoring the hold placed by his fellow veteran Democratic Senator, despite having continuously respecting the holds placed on bills by Republicans and administration supporters.
At this point, Reid’s pullback of the bill is a victory of sorts for those who have opposed the excessive surveillance and retroactive immunity provisions of the bill. However, it is only a temporary victory and the issue will come up again in January. And it seems clear that the Repubs and the Dem leadership will very likely be working on ways to overcome Dodd’s opposition and threatened filibuster. Be prepared – they will.
One suggestion I would make would be for those who are against this provision of retroactive immunity for illegal actions, who are registered to vote as Democrats, and who get mailers from the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee asking for contributions - send them back a note saying that you will be making contributions, but they will instead be going to Russ Feingold’s Progressive Patriot Fund. AND THEN DO IT. If enough people were to do that, who knows, it just might once again cause some Senators to take notice of a bit of dissatisfaction at the grassroots level.
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Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Over the weekend two elections occurred in far flung regions of the world. In oil rich Venezuela, which the Bush administration has derided as "a menace to democracy in Latin America" under the regime of Hugo Chavez, and in which the administration has been seen as having played a role in the attempt to overthrow by way of a military coup the elected government, the election concerned a series of constitutional amendments which would, among other things, have eliminated term limits for the President, and provided the office with additional administrative powers. Opponents criticized this as a grab for power and insisted that it would make Chavez a President for life. This would seem to be a bit far fetched since there are no term limits for most parliamentary chief executives, and even in the U.S. there were no term limits for the President until the 22nd Amendment which was adopted in 1951. After the election, the "undemocratic" Chavez accepted the outcome by all accounts in a conciliatory manner when it turned out that the changes he sought were being defeated by a margin of approximately one an a half percent.
In Russia, where Vladimir Putin rules, a man who’s soul George Bush claimed to have seen into, and presumably found good, and with whom the president has been said to have formed a close personal relationship, the elections were found to be fraudulent by a number of observers from within and outside the country.
"European states expressed alarm over the outcome of Sunday's parliamentary poll after rights watchdogs said the campaign had been marred by biased media coverage and abuse of government resources in favor of Putin's United Russia.
But analysts said many European states now acknowledged that Moscow, whose cooperation the West wants over disputes from Iran to Kosovo, was increasingly impervious to outside criticism.
Sharper reaction came from German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, seen as less close to Putin than that of her predecessor Gerhard Schroeder.
"Measured by our standards, it was neither a free, fair nor democratic election," said spokesman Thomas Steg. Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier urged Russia to probe abuses."
Bush has often spoken of his policies as being supportive of democracy for all people, regardless of culture and background. This weekend’s elections, clearly, if somewhat ironically outline the quality and the integrity of both his judgement, and his commitment to democratic process.
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Friday, November 10, 2006
The defeat of the Repubs was pretty massive and might reflect the birth of a truly national Democratic party, and potentially the onset of a new realignment (that would be right on schedule if 1968 is considered the beginning of repub ascendancy). A really national Democratic party would actually be a somewhat new phenomenon, as even at its height during the 1930s to 1970s the party generally was an uneasy alliance of Northern Democrats and Dixiecrats. This coalition did not provide a strong foundation for progressive policy, and its most successful policy accomplishments took place either after the 1934, 36 or 1964, 66 elections, following national crises and landslide triumphs. More often, there was a marriage of convenience when it came to organizing the Congress, but on policy most Southern Democrats generally allied with fellow conservatives of the Repub party.
Nixon’s Southern strategy (borrowed from Goldwater) led to the shifting of the Solid South from Dem to Repub, to the point where the Dixiecrats became Dixie-cans, and from Thurmond to Lott, Sessions to Miller ad nauseum, they became Repubs in name as well as in policy. Yet the Repubs maintained and even extended their conservative bases in Western and rural regions, and in suburbia. The Party’s shift from Lincoln to Dixie-can, epitomized by Gingrich, Delay, Lott, Frist, etc, and its success across the country all worked because it picked up the South without giving much ground elsewhere. The Dems often successfully contributed to this effort with circular shooting parties, and failure to get beyond identification as a coalition of various self-interested population sectors without an overall all-embracing theme that could galvanize a broad movement across the country. Maps of the 2000 and 2004 presidential election outcomes, by state, thus, largely coincide with maps of states that allowed/prohibited slavery, but with partisanship reversed (blue states were those where slavery was prohibited of course). Key exceptions to this pattern were Indiana and Ohio. In addition, The New England/Middle Atlantic states retained a fair number of Republican districts where "moderate" repubs still reigned from Civil War days despite the shift of the party’s center of gravity southward.
The pattern in 2006 suggests that the second part of the shifting of parties may now be kicking in. New England Republicans largely wiped out in the House, Indiana and Ohio possibly in partisan transition (despite Lugar), and a number of Middle Atlantic rural, hereditary repub districts gone Dem. In addition, while the Dem victors from Red states (Tester in Montana, Webb in Va.) may not support "liberal" "social" issues (gun-control, same sex marriage) they do seem genuinely on board for a more equitable economic policy approach, and in resistance to the internal and external abuse of power that has become the repub raison d’etre. Thus, the foundation for a more national and potentially cohesive party grounded in the traditional "North" (and now including rural areas there), but focused on greater equity in economic policy and a more civil approach to internal and international politics, may emerge - if the party’s tendency to dissemble can be overcome and common ground among constituents emphasized. That of course is a pretty big if, but given the potential for abuse of power that the repubs have shown, their increasingly authoritarian and demoguogic tendencies in the context of an increasingly cabled and databanked society, the incentives for common sense and collaborative action are certainly augmented.
One other thing, despite the relatively large scale of the Dem triumph, given the utter corruption, incompetence, vindictiveness and clandestine authoritarianism characteristic of the regime, the victory isn’t really all that impressive. What will happen when progressives don’t have the Foleys, Neys, Delays Abramoffs ad nauseum, consistently breaking front page news - bam-bam-bam, while at the same time war deaths surge and intelligence reports show that the reasons for war were not only non-existent but that the war is counterproductive in terms of fighting terrorism, and the military papers all call for the Secretary of Defense's resignation the week before the election. Something to start considering now. Investigations may (and should) be held - this administration has talked about the concept of accountability more than probably any other (though they clearly meant accountability to apply only to those outside their tent) and there's much that deserves to be exposed. This would be good not only for the country, inasmuch as the country values truth and honesty, but also for the Dems as a party if investigations are done with a sense of fair play and openness. The Dems will probably come up with modestly appropriate policies re healthcare and insurance, Iraq, taxes, and not much will probably get done due to the divided state of government. But whether the second shoe remains fallen and a realignment occurs may depend on the success of progressives in establishing and maintaining some emotional and communicative connections with people who ultimately will never read those policy documents (though they might benefit from their implementation), and who will be getting much of their information from news conglomerates and TV ads.
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Monday, November 06, 2006
The robot calls tactic was precisely the sort of last minute surprise that I think might have been expected from the decadent remains of the party of Abe Lincoln. Remains to be seen how effective it will be, but clearly it comes straight from the RNCC, and displays clearly the ethic of the party in power. In a sense, its the extenuation of machine politics, which have so often pervaded this country at the local level, to National status.
My feeling for the past several years, and one which I find pretty unsettling, is that increasingly this political era is coming to combine both the worse of the pre Civil War era, with its its incompetent hacks in political leadership, Southern control of Congress through demogoguery on behalf of privilege, all completely supported by a reactionary supreme court; and the post Civil War guilded age that enshrined the robber barons and sold out the freedmen , once again supported by a reactionary court. Unfortunately for the country, the ante-bellum politics proved utterly incapable of dealing in any kind of legitimate moral/political way with the overiding issues of the day -e.g., slavery, and the attempts to cover this up would only disintegrate into war. The post Civil War era for years after then demogogued politics into a cultural affair, largely a political replay of the civil war, in a way that enabled the political system to ignore more substantive issues and reforms that it might otherwise have had to deal with.
It will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow, but I suppose it may give a clue as to how successfully machine politics have now been transported to the national level. On the other hand, however, I've always felt that the 1968 elections, with the election of Nixon, were the beginning of a new political realignment, which ushered in a conservative era that has ultimately developed into the political reaction that we've seen in recent years. By that standard we're about due for a new realignment, they have generally tended to occur every 35 to 40 years. The two types of realignment which have historically been seen to have occurred have been the reenforcing realignment, in which the party in power gains a stronger hold on power on the basis of its manipulation of political symbology in a way that creates a new supporting coalition (the machine succeeds as in 1896), or else the reforming realignment which tosses out the reactionary party and attempts mild reforms (the New Deal). We may get a glimpse of which way the country goes over the next couple of days, but even if the Repub reaction is ultimately defeated, the legacy it leaves, in terms of more terrorism, incompetence, deficits, etc., is one that will probably not easily be erased even under the best of conditions. And it certainly seems open to question whether the Dems, if successful, are even capable of providing much in the way of a real change of course, with their tendency towards opportunism and dissembly.
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Wednesday, October 27, 2004
What a perfect example of Bushco's cultural and national security savvy - 38 tons of super explosives left unguarded while the oil depots are kept well protected in a war touted as one of liberation and "self-defense" - this all pretty much reads like the work of an author with a great and truly ironic imagination. Every war has unintended consequences - the hunch I shared with many other opponents of this war before it started was that we were unnecessarily opening up a Pandora's box that would lead to greater risks to our security than then existed. Arms inspectors and the IAEA were on site at the time and planning to stay, and the arms problem was under surveillance in a manner that was, as is now clearly apparent, more effective than what was to follow.
The "Al Qa Qaa" affair, however, goes well beyond what I had conceived of as possible even for this administration. OK, it really shouldn't have required an advanced rocket science degree to realize that invading Iraq would be a recruiting bonanza for terrorists across the Middle East, and put us in an untenable position as Western occupiers of an Arab land where religious, cultural and economic dissimilarities would grate and very likely ignite. Anyone who has looked at historical cases of terrorism would have some idea that even in cases where outsiders have gone in for "good" and supposedly "humanitarian" reasons, the situation often backfires. In Northern Ireland, for example, the British troops were originally sent to protect Catholics from the Pro British Unionists, but it didn't take long before they became targets for the IRA. And in the French attempts to preserve their imperial aspirations in Algeria, the elimination of terror was never accomplished despite the elimination of the leaders of the underground. New leaders emerged like mushrooms in response to their occupation.
Still, I have to admit I never expected the degree of arrogance and recklessness that led our government, in the face of warnings of the IAEA that dangerous dual use explosive detonators were under seal at Al QaQaa, to simply ignore the warnings, disregard the information, and in fact, to prevent the UN people from continuing their task of keeping track of Iraqi weapons. And then, just leave these materials unguarded? Bush never ceases to surprise. Or to pass blame. The attempt to spin criticism of a policy that led to losing track of materials used by terrorists and pass it all off as some sort of an attack on the armed forces is simple demagoguery. The buck stops where the policy was made, not with the guys who were following their orders.
Unfortunately, this is a level of arrogance that could come back to haunt. Have American service people have been killed or wounded with the help of these explosives? Will they be used in future terrorist attacks? These are questions we as Americans should ask, and deserve to have answered.
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