Smartypants

Photo of the Day: Obama v the Matrix

2013-05-19T09:47:00.001-05:00

;-)

Rep. Issa blows up GOP talking point on IRS

2013-05-19T08:34:00.000-05:00

Now that the attempt to create a controversy over the Benghazi story has pretty much fallen apart, the Republicans are going all-in on the IRS "scandal" to see if they can gin up something there that will hurt President Obama. We saw Nate Silver's takedown of Peggy Noonan's attempt to do that yesterday.

The thing that's making that difficult for Republicans is this statement in the Inspector General's Report.

We asked the Acting Commissioner, Tax Exempt and Government Entities Division; the Director, EO; and Determinations Unit personnel if the criteria were influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS. All of these officials stated that the criteria were not influenced by any individual or organization outside the IRS. Instead, the Determinations Unit developed and implemented inappropriate criteria in part due to insufficient oversight provided by management. Specifically, only first-line management approved references to the Tea Party in the BOLO [Be on the Look-Out] listing criteria before it was implemented.

Oops, there was no attempt by President Obama to target his political opposition. So the only "scandal" they have left to exploit is the old canard about "what did you know and when did you know it?" Trying to find some way to suggest that Obama administration officials knew about what was going on prior to last week but did nothing is the focus of most of the chatter about this one lately.

Enter Rep. Darrell Issa to kill the buzz on that one. Here's the story: Last summer it was Rep. Issa who requested that the IG look into IRS targeting of conservative groups. It was the imminence of them issuing their report last week that broke this story to the general public. But the fact that they were doing an investigation was no secret. As a matter of fact, it was reported on their web site.

In needing to brag about all this, Issa told Bloomberg Businessweek:

"I knew what was approximately in it [IG report] when we made the allegations about a year ago. This is one of those things where it's been, in a sense, an open secret, but you don't accuse the IRS until you've had a nonpartisan, deep look. That's what the IG has done.

Ahhhh...so "you don't accuse the IRS until you've had a nonpartisan, deep look." And that's EXACTLY what President Obama did. Once he'd seen the final report, he spoke out against the practice of political profiling and took action. And now AG Eric Holder is investigating whether any laws were broken.

Yet another "scandal" you can put a fork in.

The strange contours of Republican outrage

2013-05-18T10:23:00.000-05:00

Apparently Governor Bobby Jindal is going to give a speech to Virginia Republicans today and (surprise, surprise) Politico got a scoop on what he's going to say. A couple of quotes stood out to me.

“It won’t do to have a few lower-level staffers in the Tucson field office lose their executive washroom privileges,” he’s planning to say. “This is much bigger than that.”...

“The President of the United States must have the moral authority to go around the globe and call out tyranny when he sees it,” he’s slated to argue. “He must be able to be freedom’s evangelist. He cannot do that if he tolerates basic constitutional violations right under his own nose.”

I couldn't help but think that perhaps Jindal is referring to something like this:

But no, he's talking about how a few overworked IRS agents engaged in what might be best referred to as "political profiling" to determine whether or not a tax exempt organization could keep their donors a secret.

It comes down to the difference between manufactured outrage and the real thing.

Noonan vs Silver...its a rout!

2013-05-18T09:01:00.001-05:00

If there was a picture in the dictionary next to the term "pearl-clutching," it would have to be one of Peggy Noonan. She has perfected the art of "oh my, isn't it awful." But the veneer is only skin deep. Underneath she wields a brutality of lies and innuendoes based on the most extreme partisanship.

All of this was on display yesterday in her column titled This is No Ordinary Scandal. She comes out swinging with this opening statement:

We are in the midst of the worst Washington scandal since Watergate.

Yeah, right. I thought the Republicans were going to work on that "overreach" thing. Guess not.

Of course she engages about the scandal trifecta the Republicans are insistent on exploiting...Benghazi, AP/DOJ and IRS. But its the latter that she really wants to focus on. And she gets pretty creative in ginning things up.

The IRS scandal has two parts. The first is the obviously deliberate and targeted abuse, harassment and attempted suppression of conservative groups. The second is the auditing of the taxes of political activists.

What...you haven't heard about that second one? Peggy has examples for you. Four of them. Yes, four conservatives who have come forward to say that they had their taxes audited. And she claims that many more will come forward to say the same thing.

Riding in on his white horse to save the day is the man who so vexed the Republicans during the 2012 campaign by not scewing the polls towards a Romney win...Nate Silver.

The I.R.S. publishes data each year on the number of taxpayers it audits. In 2012, it conducted just shy of 1.5 million audits out of 144 million individual income tax returns...

The point is, however, that even with no political targeting at all, hundreds of thousands of conservative voters would have been chosen for audits in the I.R.S.’s normal course of business. Among these hundreds of thousands of voters, thousands would undoubtedly have gone beyond merely voting to become political activists.

The fact that Ms. Noonan has identified four conservatives from that group of thousands provides no evidence at all toward her hypothesis. Nor would it tell us very much if dozens or even hundreds of conservative activists disclosed that they had been audited. This is exactly what you would expect in a country where there are 1.5 million audits every year.

SLAP::BAM::BOOM!!!!!!

It's a joy to belong to the side of this argument that has things like science, math and facts on our side ;-)

And while being ever-so-cordial in this Noonan take-down, Silver provides just a bit of "stick a fork in this one" at the end.

Ms. Noonan, and many other commentators, made a similar mistake last year in their analysis of the presidential election, when they cited evidence like the number of Mitt Romney yard signs in certain neighborhoods as an indication that he was likely to win, while dismissing polls that collectively surveyed hundreds of thousands of voters in swing states and largely showed Mr. Obama ahead.

Take a bow, Mr. Silver.

Umbrellagate

2013-05-17T14:16:00.001-05:00

The REAL reason why this picture should cause a stir...It deprived us of more images like this.

No more abuse of umbrellas Mr. President!

;-)

Wow, what a difference a day makes!

2013-05-17T10:50:00.000-05:00

Before moving on from scandal mania, I'd like to suggest that we all take a moment to think about how fast the narrative of a news cycle can change.

Just 48 hours ago, the headlines were all screaming about a White House in trouble! I don't need to go into detail about all that - do I? There were calls for heads on platters and everyone was just sure that the Obama administration was doomed.

The entire narrative has now flipped. It seems that everyone is talking about how the Republicans need to be careful about overreach. Yes, its too bad that things haven't flipped (yet?) to the fact that there's a real scandal about the media and the Republicans who lied to them to gin up much of this controversy.

But I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that Glenn Greenwald's wet dream about an Obama administration under attack from the media seems to have been a bit premature. And on the flip side of that same coin, Breitbart News (sorry, no link will be provided) - which had been previously been wall-to-wall coverage about Benghazi - now has NO headline stories on that one today.

No one should hold their breath waiting for any apologies from any of these people about how wrong they were. But I'm not above reveling in a little "I told you so" action. Whenever this kind of manufactured hysteria rises, we need to keep the "no drama Obama" frame in mind. We've had over 5 years of experience proving which side of the ledger it makes sense to bet on.

The real scandal is the state of our news media

2013-05-16T08:55:00.000-05:00

The AP & Benghazi stories are more abt media scandals than PBO
— Smartypants (@Smartypants32) May 15, 2013

That's what I tweeted yesterday morning. I'd like to unpack that a bit with how some in the media have disgraced themselves over the last few days. What's really been going on with all of this scandal-fest is a conflation of right wing media, leftist extremists and the village idiots in Washington D.C.

Let's take the whole Benghazi thing for a moment. This morning, Steve Benen rightly suggests that its time to put a fork in that one. But note the evolution of how this story reached the level of "scandal" in the first place.

...note that most sensible people realized the right's conspiracy theories were wrong, which is why the so-called "controversy" was relegated to Republican media, until last Friday's report from ABC News pushed the story into the mainstream. That ABC News report, we now know, was wrong.

As Benen said, for months this "controversy" was relegated to right wing media sites. Weeks ago the White House had provided Congress with administration emails circulated just after the attack that discussed the talking points that could be shared with politicians and the media. None of the members of Congress expressed concern about what they saw.

Then someone leaked what appears to be summaries (not the actual emails) to Jonathan Karl of ABC News. Trouble is - those summaries implicated that the administration manipulated the facts and thus a firestorm about "cover-up" ensued. Many people assumed that this particular scandal now had legs.

But then the White House released the emails and what do you know? Those summaries handed to Karl were cooked to make the administration look bad. There's no "there" there in terms of cover-up. And so the real story is - who leaked that false summary to Jonathan Karl and why did he run with it without verification?

On the AP story, I wrote my thoughts about the media's complicity in that one the other day. Yesterday BooMan (who is one of the very best sources on the internet when it comes to the CIA), added some information. First, he quotes stories like this one from CNN.

Sources later told CNN that the operative who was supposed to have carried the bomb had been inserted into al Qaeda's Yemeni affiliate by Saudi intelligence, and that the device had been handed over to U.S. analysts. One source said Saudi counterterrorism officials were upset that details of the operation had emerged in the United States because they had a network of agents inside the Yemeni branch who could have been compromised by leaks from Washington.

And then he adds this commentary.

My best guess is that we (or the Saudis) had to remove a bunch of agents-in-place who were giving intelligence on AQAP and trying to help us catch the bomb maker...

No matter how you look at it, the administration hadn't done anything wrong.

But they did have a skunk inside the tent who was willing to create huge problems for political purposes in an election year. And they had the AP lapping it up and dishing it out.

The idea of a "skunk" inside the tent trying to undermine the administration is exactly what I was referring to in my speculation the other day. The damage to U.S. relationships with Saudi (and British) counterterroism efforts as well as the network of agents working inside the Yemeni branch of AQAP is also probably what Eric Holder was referring to yesterday when he said:

Referring to the leaks of national security information, Holder said, "This was a very, very serious leak. I've been a prosecutor since 1976 -- and I have to say that this is among, if not the most serious, in the top two or three most serious leaks that I've ever seen. It put the American people at risk – and that is not hyperbole."

And so the real story is that AP got played by a "skunk" who was trying to do political damage to the administration. And in doing so, they put both intelligence assets and our national security at risk.

That pretty much sums up the media complicity in these stories. But according to Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei at Politico, the real story here is how the Washington D.C. village has now turned on President Obama. Funny thing is - they don't even try to use the fabricated scandals to justify the impending war on the administration. No, its not because they are taking the moral high ground on any issues - its because the President hasn't played their little "insider's game" enough.

Obama’s aloof mien and holier-than-thou rhetoric have left him with little reservoir of good will, even among Democrats. And the press, after years of being accused of being soft on Obama while being berated by West Wing aides on matters big and small, now has every incentive to be as ruthless as can be.

This White House’s instinctive petulance, arrogance and defensiveness have all worked to isolate Obama at a time when he most needs a support system...

“He has never taken the Democratic chairs up to Camp David to have a drink or to have a discussion,” the longtime Washingtonian said. “You gotta stroke people and talk to them. It’s like courting: You have to send flowers and candy and have surprises. It’s a constant process.

So longtime Washingtonians need to be courted...that's the message. It's how low that fever swamp culture that is supposed to be protected by our first amendment has sunk. I'd simply remind folks that it is that same duo - Allen and Vandehei - who recently felt the need to pre-emptively knee-cap a forthcoming book that threatens to expose that very same fever swamp. Could this war on the administration they just declared be yet another attempt to insulate themselves and their buddies from those revelations? You bettcha!!!!!!

Finally, I'd like to suggest that the Allen's and Vandehei's of the world are not the sum total of the media. Thanks to the internet and social media, we're not dependent on them to shape the story. There are plenty of folks out there who haven't caught the fever of the swamp and are busy telling the real story. We just have to be smarter about who we listen to these days.

This pretty much sums it all up

2013-05-15T21:16:00.000-05:00

I just finished reading around the internet to get caught up on the news I missed while being busy with other things. Having done so, I'm too tired and pissed to write much. But I did want to post this quote from Kevin Drum that I think sums up this whole news cycle pretty well.

...Benghazi is still the nothingburger it's always been, and everyone knows it; the DOJ episode is a policy debate, not a scandal; and it's vanishingly unlikely that Obama had even the most tenuous connection to the IRS targeting of tea party groups, the only genuine scandal in the bunch.

But apparently the village idiots of the D.C. media have decided to use all of this nonsense as an excuse to wage war on President Obama because he hasn't adequately stroked their oversized egos.

Please proceed, media idiots. I'm sticking with these guys!

No Drama Obama

2013-05-15T07:44:00.000-05:00

In case some folks might need a reminder - here's the kind of man we elected president...twice.

And so, as the beltway insiders convince themselves that this guy is down-for-the-count - just remember how many times over the last 5-6 years that has been the narrative they tried to peddle. They've always been wrong. Keep in mind that he's a counter-puncher.

We all know that President Obama isn't perfect. But he hardly needs advice from any of us at times like this because he's better at dealing with it than anyone I've seen (better by far than any pundits). And its not like he hasn't been here before.

More than anyone else, Michelle Obama knows what to expect from her husband at times like this.

Here's the thing about my husband: even in the toughest moments, when it seems like all is lost, Barack Obama never loses sight of the end goal. He never lets himself get distracted by the chatter and the noise, even if it comes from some of his best supporters. He just keeps moving forward.

Most likely those are all videos and quotes you've seen before. I just wanted to make sure that in case anyone out there is worried about any of this that THESE ARE THE MOMENTS we need to remember who it is we're dealing with.

One of the reasons why the beltway media responds to President Obama the way they do is that he doesn't give a shit about all their chatter and noise. As Michelle says - he's got his eyes on the end goal. I'd be willing to bet that right now he's more focused on things like immigration reform, a budget deal and what we're going to do about climate change than he is about all the so-called "advice" he's getting on how to handle the latest media-driven hysteria.

When we learn a thing or two from the President about that, we'll be on the road to becoming the change we want to see.

I've said this before - I've always thought this should be President Obama's theme song.

A little sister city competition

2013-05-15T06:50:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't know, the Twin Cities of Minnesota have always engaged in a little healthy (?) sister city competition (and no, that's not a chip you see on my shoulder as a resident of the smaller city that is often overlooked).

So you might remember that the other day I posted this picture from the Wabasha Bridge in St. Paul celebrating the passage of marriage equality.

Wouldn't you know it - Minneapolis had to one-up us last night.

That's the I-35 bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis (brand new after its collapse a few years ago) lit up to celebrate the passage and signing of marriage equality in the state.

Yes, once again Minneapolis out-did us.

But the truth is - we're all winners on this one!

Looking a bit deeper into the DOJ/AP story

2013-05-14T11:08:00.000-05:00

So now we know that President Obama is in for a rough ride with attacks from all sides - Benghazi on the right and the DOJ/AP controversy on the left. Oh, and a little IRS screw-up thrown into the mix. WOW!

As I said yesterday, I'm avoiding the whole Benghazi hysteria. So sue me - but this DOJ thing grabbed my attention. I think it deserves a look.

Perhaps one of the things that has caught my interest is that it seems to be separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to liberal pundits. Take a look - for example - at the measured response from people like Steve Benen and Greg Sargent. Then take a look at the hair-on-fire response from Michael Tomasky and Charles Pierce - both of whom jumped head first into the hysteria by calling for AG Eric Holder's head on a platter.

What makes the reaction of Tomasky and Pierce so hypocritical is that both of them excoriated the Obama administration for jumping the gun in firing Shirley Sherrod before all the information on her speech to the NAACP was available. You can't win with these guys - when the going gets tough, they are hysteria-mongers.

In following this story, its going to be important to watch reporters who are being fair-minded - that's because this story is about the press itself and the defensive posturing about it has already resulted in many of them making ridiculous statements about it. To understand how bad it is - one need only look at a tweet like this:

.@mama4obama1 Nixon administration targeted journalist D Elsberg over Vietnam/Pentagon papers.Obama admn targeted AP re Yemen.Sick.
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) May 14, 2013

The ignorance there burns! For example, D Elsberg was a military analyst - not a journalist. Not to mention that its a government leaker (ie, NOT whistleblower) that is the target here rather than the AP itself.

If you want a pretty good run-down on the whole AP phone records situation, please read the NYT story by Charlie Savage and Leslie Kaufman and the Think Progress story by Hayes Brown. Here's what caught my eye from the latter.

...by reporting the CIA’s involvement in foiling the plot, they put AQAP on notice that the CIA had a window into their activities. The AP’s reporting also led to other stories involving an operative in place within AQAP, and details of the operations he was involved in. That operative, it was feared, would be exposed and targeted by AQAP as retribution for siding with the United States.

What Brown is suggesting is that AP's leak exposed the identity of a CIA operative. Think about that for a moment...it comes awfully close to a government source leaking the identity of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. Any of you remember the months liberals spent demanding accountability for the person in the Bush administration responsible for that one? No one called that leaker a "whistleblower" because they weren't - just as this one isn't.

Finally, I'm going to end here with a good dose of speculation. So take it for what its worth.

For years now we've been hearing that the Obama administration has been going after whistleblowers. I think the same distinction I made up above applies to many of those cases. As we saw with the Bush administration leak about Valerie Plame (and loads of lies about Iraq and WMD's), there is a HUGE difference between a leaker and a whistleblower. As a matter of fact - they are probably opposite in many situations.

My speculation involves imagining what it might look like if a President came in to office trying to clean up the criminal culture that has developed over the decades in the U.S. military industrial complex - especially the CIA. Without risking innocent lives, much of that would have to be done away from the public eye. Given the kind of resistance that would garner from career employees and/or holdovers from the previous administration, you would certainly expect some blowback - most likely in the form of leaks meant to undermine the administration.

My question would be to wonder if that is exactly why the Obama administrations has decided to be so tough with the leakers - in an attempt to shut them down.

But I must admit that my heart skipped a beat when I read what BooMan wrote about this AP story. He speculates that John Brennan might be the target.

The purpose of the subpoenas was to identify the leaker and John Brennan was a suspect in the case and was interviewed by the FBI.

I will remind you of something I said when we learned that - as the head of the CIA - Brennan was going to end their drone program.

This is a big move on both President Obama and Brennan's part. And I'm sure the backlash in the agency is going to be brutal.

In the comments to that post, Tien Le asked what backlash from the CIA looked like. I didn't answer at the time - but I'd suggest we might be seeing it now. My guess would be that Eric Holder is not the one targeting Brennan - but he might be looking for who is.

As I said, I'll totally own that as pure speculation. But this is how that kind of thing happens. We'll be lucky if we ever know the whole story here.

Photo of the Day: Freedom to Marry Bridge

2013-05-13T19:12:00.001-05:00

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman tweeted this picture today along with an announcement that for this week he had renamed the Wabasha Bridge the "Freedom to Marry Bridge." Those flags are flying on the pillars along the bridge over the Mississippi River heading out of downtown St. Paul. How cool is that?!

Tomorrow Governor Mark Dayton signs the marriage equality bill passed by the State Senate today - making Minnesota officially #12!!!!!

"Please proceed, Republicans"

2013-05-13T09:45:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't noticed, I'm not writing about Benghazi or the IRS.

At some point, perhaps I will. You never know. But right now it seems to me that we're all in hysteria mode...inflammatory charges followed by defensive reactions. I suspect the scandal-mongers are eating all that up.

Last week Steve Benen pretty much broke it down in referencing the Benghazi half of this hysteria.

I suppose, to this extent, it's become the latest in a series of political Rorschach test -- has Fox News convinced you that Barack Obama is an inhuman madman? If yes, then it stands to reason Benghazi is the most important story in the world. If no, this story is about a tragic attack that left four Americans dead, but it's about little else.

Another point about these stories to keep in mind is that President Obama is essentially the CEO of the federal government which employs approximately 4.3 million people. As any other CEO, he is accountable for what they do.

The worst that can be said in terms of what we know about these situations so far is that some of his employees have probably done some stupid things. It is his job to hold them accountable.

But other than that, I agree with BooMan.

They won't try to impeach the president over anything that is in the news right now. They will talk about it, but they won't do it.

The thing is, if they ever find something (no matter how flimsy) that really reflects quite badly on the president, they will impeach him for it. They won't care if only fifteen percent of the public agrees with them. They won't care if the offense is the farthest thing imaginable from a high crime.

What Republicans need out of this hysteria is something that will stick to President Obama. So far they have nothing but wild accusations.

I suspect that any African American who has had success in this country will be able to relate to what is happening to the President right now. Every single move he makes is scrutinized and if he ever shows his humanity by making a mistake, he is likely to face impeachment.

We should all think about that and let it sink in. I'm sure the President is very aware of that fact. He is cautious by nature and that is probably one of the reasons he was able to become our first African American president.

But in this context, caution is called for. He's carrying a lot on his shoulders...more than is possible for me to even imagine. What he needs from us now is to keeps our heads together, focus on the long game, and remember that "no drama Obama" has always been the winning ticket.

Let the Republicans be the party of hysteria. That's what a beast in its death throes does. And to paraphrase what the President said to Mitt Romney..."Please proceed, Republicans."

An open letter to Abercrombie and Fitch's CEO

2013-05-12T12:13:00.000-05:00

The other day I wrote about the love affair Abercrombie and Fitch has with exclusion. Today I see that a young woman named Amy Taylor has written an open letter to Mike Jeffries, their CEO.

I won't quote the whole thing. Here's enough to give you an idea:

Mike (can I call you Mike?), I’m not only a fat chick, I’m also a “not-so-cool” kid. Always have been, always will be. I’ve had 31.5 years to come to terms with that. Along the way I have been bullied, tortured, teased and harassed. Somehow I came out the other end better for it. In case you haven’t noticed, those not-so-cool kids are the ones who are passing people like you by–and doing some pretty amazing things. (You can read about a couple of them here and here and here.) Funny thing about wearing your struggle on the outside: it makes you stronger. It teaches you how to adapt. It forces you to dig deep and do more. And while people like you are sitting at the cool kids table intent on holding others down, the ragtag team of not-so-cool kids is busy pulling others up…and we’ve become an unstoppable force driving the world forward.

Now...go give Amy some love. Read the whole thing at the link on her name and tweet, facebook, share what she had the courage to say.

Which prior leaders does Greenwald want to hold accountable?

2013-05-12T10:26:00.001-05:00

Perhaps you've heard that a Guatemalan court found their former president - Gen. Efrain Rios Montt - guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity.

You might not be too surprised to see how Glenn Greenwald reacted to the news.

Fascinating that Guatemala could "look backward" to hold prior leader accountable for crimes but US could not

Of course he doesn't mention that it took Guatemala 30 years to try this criminal. Or that the trial has historic proportions.

Adama Dieng, the United Nations special adviser on the prevention of genocide, said last month that the case was the first in which a former head of state had been indicted by a national tribunal on charges of genocide.

But what I'd really like to know is what "prior leader" Greenwald is referring to when he talks about those in the US not being held accountable.

Perhaps he was referring to President Dwight Eisenhower - whose CIA manufactured coup in Guatemala in 1954 to oust a democratically elected leader and take care of the interests of the United Fruit Company is what set the stage for a long run of brutal military dictators in that country.

Or perhaps he was referring to E. Howard Hunt, the Watergate burglar who openly described his job in overseeing that manufactured coup as a CIA agent.

But maybe he was referring to President Ronald Reagan who called Rios Montt "a man of great personal integrity...totally dedicated to democracy" while he funded his genocide and cultivated him as a reliable Central American ally in his battle against Nicaragua’s Sandinista government and Salvadoran guerrillas.

But then again, perhaps he was referring to George H.W. Bush who was president when the CIA was present at the horrific torture of Sister Dianna Ortiz - an American nun who worked in Guatemala.

Naw. Based on Greenwald's previous writing and the quote about "looking forward," one can only assume that he's referring to the fact that President George W. Bush wasn't held accountable for his crimes.

This is what pisses me off about the "johnny-come-lately" emos who try to pass themselves off as the one and only true holders of liberal principles. They don't seem to know their history.

Greenwald openly admitted that he supported the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq because he trusted U.S. presidents and was politically unengaged at the time. I personally can forgive him for that error. But its high time the guy learned that the American manipulation of other countries didn't begin with Bush and isn't restricted to countries in the Middle East. The Guatemalan coup was followed up by the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba (President Kennedy), and CIA sponsored coups in Brazil (President Johnson), Chile (President Nixon) and Argentina (President Ford) - with similar results. And of course that doesn't even begin to tell the story about what the United States did in Southeast Asia - or the Philippines (1899) and Mexico (1846) for that matter.

So yes, lets talk about holding U.S. leaders accountable. But lets do so with our eyes wide open to ALL of our history. George W. Bush represents an awfully long line of presidents who should be held accountable. And President Obama is hardly the first one to want to look forward rather than backward.

One Good Word

2013-05-11T11:00:00.000-05:00

Loaves and Fishes

This is not
the age of information.

This is not
the age of information.

Forget the news,
and the radio,
and the blurred screen.

This is the time
of loaves
and fishes.

People are hungry
and one good word is bread
for a thousand.

-- David Whyte
It's a good thing no one pays me to write anything important here. Because there are days I don't have anything important to say. Today is one of them.

Lately I've been trying to avoid writing about the "noise" that so often consumes our politics and focus instead on what I think is really important. From my perspective, almost everything I'm reading today is noise.

And so perhaps its a good day to step away from "the news, and the radio, and the blurred screen" and go look for some bread.

Along those lines, here's an interesting article I ran across recently about strength. It ends with a powerful quote from an unlikely source...Alex Karras.

It takes more courage to reveal insecurities than to hide them,
more strength to relate to people than to dominate them,
more ‘manhood’ to abide by thought-out principles rather than blind reflex.

Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles and an immature mind.

Of course, I always like a little music with my bread. So here's one of my favorite videos...just because.

The most important national security news this week

2013-05-10T08:05:00.001-05:00

No, it was definitely not the Benghazi hearings. And it wasn't about the neocons wet dream of invading Syria.

The most important national security news this week is actually the quiet talks that are happening amongst a few Senators and a hearing that is scheduled for May 16th in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Top senators in both parties have begun talks to revise the congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to lawmakers and aides involved in the discussions...

Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin (D-Mich.), and Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.) met recently to discuss the issue, the senators and their aides said.

Other senators involved in the talks include Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.). Corker is the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Levin has scheduled a May 16 hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee on the matter...

At stake is whether the 9/11 resolution is still relevant more than 12 years after it was adopted by Congress in the wake of the attacks by al Qaeda terrorists on the World Trade Center and Pentagon...

“We need to sit down among ourselves as senators and ask a very timely question. And that is whether the AUMF [authorization of use of military force] that we voted for in 2001 — every senator did who was serving at the time — whether that still serves America’s defense needs today,” Durbin told POLITICO in an interview.

It is important to note that Senator Durbin is perhaps President Obama's strongest ally in Congress. So we can be assured that if he is involved in these talk - they have the support of the President.

Regular readers here will know that for a long time now I've been trying to make the case that we need to end this indefinite war. While too many liberals and libertarians are caught up in droning on about the methods used to implement the war, I strongly believe that the most important thing we could be doing is to ask "When is this 'war on terror' going to be over?"

Those who support President Obama's execution of that war need to realize that its perpetuation leaves an incredibly dangerous precedent for future executives. Even if some magic fairy dust were found that would outlaw drones, the war would remain open-ended using other weapons. We have the best shot at ending that war with Barack Obama in the White House.

One of the major hurdles to accomplishing that has always been the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force which gave the president the authority to target individuals, groups and countries who posed a threat. To end the war means to end that authority and/or replace it with Congressional/Judicial oversight.

While I would share most liberal's concern about the involvement in this of Senators like McCain and Graham - who have consistently called for aggressive prosecution of the "war on terror" - the fact that this is even being discussed is a huge step forward in the right direction.

The question I have is "where are the liberal voices on this?" How about the ones who made so much noise about "standing with Rand" in outrage over the use of drones? Are we going to be silent when it comes time to stand up about the possibility of actually ending this war?

Once again proud Minnesotan!

2013-05-09T16:40:00.000-05:00

This afternoon I'm thinking about how I felt during the winter of 2002.

Paul and Sheila Wellstone had recently died in a plane crash. Norm Coleman beat Walter Mondale - who had stepped up at the last minute to take Wellstone's place in the Senate race. Tim Pawlenty had just been elected Governor and President George W. Bush was in the midst of lying us into an unnecessary war.

Those were dark days.

A little more than 10 years later, Al Franken holds the Senate seat that was once filled by his friend Paul Wellstone. Mark Dayton is our Governor and Barack Obama just won re-election to the White House.

Today, the MN House voted to approve marriage equality. Its pretty clear now that by the end of the day Monday, Minnesota will be the 12th state in the country to allow gays/lesbians to marry.

I am once again proud to call myself a Minnesotan.

P.S. I just want to say that wherever you are Paul and Sheila - we still miss you terribly. But we know that you're celebrating with us today.

The toughest gig in political punditry

2013-05-09T09:13:00.000-05:00

The biggest challenge for political pundits these days is to try to explain the Republican position on the federal budget. If you're willing to hang in with me a while, I'll show you why.

Back in January the big thing Republicans were concerned about was something called "regular order." That meant that what they wanted was for both the Senate and the House to pass a budget and then go to conference to iron out the differences between the two. They were so very serious about all this that they passed legislation that tied Congressional salaries to its implementation.

Under the bill, Republicans will seek to raise the debt limit to allow government borrowing through mid-April — long enough, they say, to give both chambers time to pass a budget for the next fiscal year. If either chamber failed to adopt a budget by April 15, that chamber’s members would then have their congressional pay withheld.

So here we are in May and both Houses have passed budgets. But now all of the sudden, the Republicans are blocking "regular order" by being unwilling to appoint members to a conference committee.

What changed between January and now? Other than Democrats calling their bluff on the whole thing about "regular order" being a total smoke screen, deficit reduction as the primary end goal for Republicans has slipped right out from under them - so much so that the debt ceiling won't need to be raised again until October.

Yesterday Rep. Paul Ryan came right out and said that Republicans won't come to the table to negotiate on the budget without creating a hostage crisis over the debt limit.

Without that leverage, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said Tuesday, there is no point in opening formal budget negotiations between the House and the Senate, because Democrats have no reason to consider the kind of far-reaching changes to Medicare and the U.S. tax code that Republicans see as fundamental building blocks of a deal.

“The debt limit is the backstop,” Ryan said before taking the stage at a debt summit organized by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation in Washington.

Think about that for a moment...what Ryan is saying is that their political hand on these negotiations is so weak that they don't have a prayer of prevailing unless they hold the entire global economy hostage.

But even on that one Greg Sargent suggests that they are sending mixed messages.

Republicans are not willing to enter into fiscal negotiations without being able to wield the threat of crashing the economy to get their way — even as they have already revealed they are not willing to actually crash the economy to get their way. We already know Republicans are not willing to allow default. As you’ll recall, they caved during the last debt ceiling fight. More recently, John Boehner flatly admitted: “I’m not going to risk the full faith and credit of the federal government.”

In the end though, you have to ask what is the Republican goal for the hostage crisis they are pretending to want to create. The fact is...they don't know.

The GOP conference will meet May 15 to discuss the idea of linking tax reform to the debt limit, but early indications suggest that would be a tough sell with many in the party’s rank and file.

Some Republicans say that framework is insufficient and that they’ll need spending cuts as well as tax reform to raise the debt ceiling. Others in the conference say that only the full enactment of tax reform will be enough to raise the nation’s borrowing limit and that incremental progress toward completing tax reform is not enough.

In other words, Republicans can't figure out if they want to grow the deficit with tax reform or shrink the deficit with more spending cuts.

So if you're a political reporter who's job it is to explain the Republican position on the budget to the voting public, how in hell do you do that? My suggestion would be that you join those of us who are calling the Republican position post-policy. That might be the kindest thing we can say about it.

What is the case against immigration reform?

2013-05-09T07:57:00.001-05:00

Today the Senate starts committee hearings on immigration reform. I will guarantee you that lots of people will be blowing smoke about this one. But is there any actual fire? Lets look at the facts.

The Social Security Administration said that immigration reform will be a net gain for the trust fund. And studies show that granting legal status and citizenship to undocumented workers will grow the economy, create jobs and increase tax revenue.

BUT - say the Republicans - "we have to secure our borders!" Notice that this always refers to securing our southern border with Mexico. Not even the lunatic Republican caucus is suggesting that we need a fence along our border with Canada.

The truth is that over the last few years, net migration from Mexico has been zero.

So if there really aren't any hordes rushing to cross the border and granting citizenship to those that are already here would boost our economy - then what's the fuss all about?

Same thing it always is...fear of "the brown" and opposition to anything that black guy in the White House supports.

Abercrombie and Fitch: Exclusion is cool

2013-05-08T08:39:00.000-05:00

This really pisses me off.

Anyone who’s been to Abercrombie & Fitch in the last few years has probably noticed that they don’t carry XL or XXL sizes of women’s clothing because they don’t want overweight women wearing their brand.

According to this popular teen clothing retailer, fat chicks will just never be a part of the “in” crowd.

A&F CEO Mike Jeffries explained it this way:

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely.

In case you're wondering, this policy only applies to women. The article points out that A&F carries XL and XXL for men "to appeal to large athletes."

Lately I've been spending some time enjoying the long musical career of Janis Ian. This kind of shit reminds me that some things haven't changed in 40 years.

Looks like Minnesota might become #12!!!!

2013-05-08T08:12:00.001-05:00

As you know, I usually write about national issues here. But this week, my home state of Minnesota is set to garner some national headlines.

You probably heard that yesterday Delaware became the 11th state in the country to legalize marriage equality. Its very possible that in the next few days, Minnesota could become #12.

Yesterday a bill that would bring marriage equality to the state passed its last committee hurdle in the state House. The Speaker - who said he wouldn't bring it to the floor for a vote until he was sure it would pass - plans to do so this Thursday. The state Senate - where passage is more assured - is likely to vote on it Saturday. And if you wonder what Governor Mark Dayton will do, check out what he posted on Facebook yesterday.

How we got here is important. In 2010, the state elected Democrat Mark Dayton as Governor following 8 years of Pawlenty. While that was great news, the same wave that affected the rest of the country during that mid-term election brought us a Republican House and Senate. Of course gridlock ensued and we experienced a government shut-down over the state budget.

But the 2012 election saw everyone come back to their senses. We reversed course and now have a Democratic House and Senate.

I say all that to give those of you laboring in states that have been struggling to throw off the yoke of the 2010 elections some hope. Only 6 months after Minnesotans made that change, we find ourselves on course to be #12 in the country.

Elections have consequences!

Meet a Muslim person

2013-05-07T10:33:00.000-05:00

Gotta love, love, love these guys!!!!!!

Elections have consequences: Immigration Reform

2013-05-07T09:38:00.000-05:00

Between 2010 and 2012, immigration reform suffered the same defeat in Congress that was meted out to anything President Obama proposed...total Republican obstruction. Not only did they fail to pass comprehensive reform, Republicans even blocked the Dream Act when it came up for a vote.

But here we are in 2013 and its not only Senators McCain and Graham that are promoting comprehensive immigration reform. Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio is its chief champion. And now Paul Ryan looks to be on board.

Why the change? Let's state the obvious...71% of Latinos voted for the candidate who supports comprehensive immigration reform in the 2012 presidential election. Knowing that Latinos are the fastest growing demographic in the country, these Republicans know that if they have any hope of a political future, they have to get on board with this issue.

That's how democracy is supposed to work.

It's true - we don't yet know the outcome of whether immigration reform will actually pass. But this issue - more than any other - is splitting the Republican Party in two. One need only look at the release of Jim DeMint's Heritage Foundation report yesterday as representative of the nativist wing and the pushback it got from the realist wing to see that.

As a matter of fact, the politics of this issue are so strong that even the nativists aren't arguing against the basics. They're left to delay tactics - hoping they can derail progress - and lying about the financial repercussions of reform.

That's what citizenship in a participatory democracy can do.

Carville blows the death hug

2013-05-07T08:11:00.000-05:00

Just as the 2012 Republican primary was getting underway, the Obama campaign perfected what political commentators called the death hug. That meant heaping all kinds of praise on candidates like Romney for his moderate positions. The thinking was that this would drive a wedge between the candidate and their base - who hate anything associated with President Obama.

We all know that political consultant James Carville is pushing hard for Hillary Clinton's 2016 candidacy. And so he tried his hand at a death hug recently when he praised Senator Ted Cruz as "the most talented and fearless Republican politician" in 30 years. But he totally blew it!

Everyone knows that if Cruz enters the 2016 presidential primaries he'll be the most extremist candidate in the race. What Carville just did was give that candidacy the imprimatur of credibility. Not a good move.

I've been saying all along that I'll be watching the Clinton crowd to see if they've learned anything from President Obama. This indicates that they haven't. Carville is the epitome of hardball politics. Perhaps you can make a case that that was necessary when the Republicans were pretty regularly coalescing around moderate candidates like Bush the 1st and Bob Dole.

But that's the Republican Party of yesterday. What Democrats need to do today is to continue to drive a wedge between the lunatics and the more moderate wing of the party. That's what a death hug is meant to do. It means playing smart as much as it does being tough. Folks like James Carville haven't learned that lesson yet.