Smartypants

Progressive policies hiding in plain sight

2012-02-13T08:18:00.001-06:00

I'm beginning to see that if you want to find where President Obama is pursuing his most progressive policies, you need to look beyond the "outrage of the moment" coming from both the left and the right to find what he's hidden in plain sight - but no one is noticing.

Let me give you a couple of examples:

First of all, while the left was screaming about the lack of a public option in health care reform, the bill included the most massive expansion of public health care in our lifetimes - by making about 15 million more people eligible for Medicaid. In addition, there were things in the bill like the "bomb" Rick Unger talked about - medical loss ratios - which will challenge the very basis of for-profit health care.

Secondly, while the left was outraged about the 2 year extension of the Bush tax cuts, President Obama was getting another $383 billion in stimulus for the economy.

Finally, while everyone was just sure that President Obama had caved on the debt ceiling deal, we now know that he was laying the groundwork for the possibility of the largest reduction in military spending in our lifetimes.

So today President Obama will release his latest federal budget. I'm sure that all the talk coming from both the left and the right will be about his proposed tax increases for the wealthy and investments in infrastructure, education and jobs.

Those are all important policies. But what will likely go unnoticed is something I read about a few days ago.

The White House believes it’s figured out how to get more money for clean energy programs touted by President Obama without having it become political road kill in the wake of the Solyndra controversy: Put it in the Pentagon.

While details are thin on the ground, lawmakers who work on both energy and defense spending policy believe the 2013 budget request to be delivered to Congress on Monday probably won’t include big increases for wind and solar power through the Energy Department, a major target for Republicans since solar-panel maker Solyndra defaulted last year on a $535 million loan guarantee from the DOE.

But they do expect to see increases in spending on alternative energy in the Defense Department, such as programs to replace traditional jet fuel with biofuels, supply troops on the front lines with solar-powered electronic equipment, build hybrid engine tanks and aircraft carriers, and increase renewable energy use on military bases.

This strikes me as one of President Obama's most brilliant moves...the greening of the military. As I've said before, our defense budget is over twice that of the entire national budget of countries like Germany. If the military goes green, it will have a HUGE impact not only on global warming, but on clean energy development in general. And the military loves it because it contributes to their security should access to oil from unstable foreign markets be limited.

The military support for this means that most Republicans will be pressured to be on board. But they'll likely have to stay quiet about it in order to maintain their position of calling climate change a hoax.

Liberals tend to have a knee-jerk negative response to ANY military spending but will have a hard time complaining about this level of investment in clean energy. And so they will find themselves in a bit of a conundrum as well.

In the end, I don't expect this part of President Obama's budget proposal to get much attention - even as its likely to be the part that actually passes. But it will go down as one of the President's most progressive achievements that will impact all of us for decades to come.

All of the sudden McConnell believes in minority rights

2012-02-12T16:10:00.000-06:00

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Obama's rule requiring employer-based healthcare plans – even those sponsored by faith-based groups – to cover contraception infringes on the religious freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. The Kentucky Republican vowed to fight the policy until the White House "backs down."

"In this country the government doesn't get to tell you or your organization what your religious views are – and they could well be minority views – but the Bill of Rights is designed to protect the minority from the will of the majority," McConnell said on CBS's "Face the Nation."

(Emphasis mine)

Of course McConnell is terribly confused (or more likely lying) in that the Obama administration isn't trying to tell anyone what their religious views are.

But it kind of knocked me backwards a bit to hear him touting the Bill of Rights as protection of the minority from the will of the majority. That's not something you tend to hear from Republicans - ever.

As the older white heterosexual base of the Republican Party sinks into minority status in this country - perhaps we'll be hearing more of this kind of thing from them. I'd simply suggest that means also agreeing with Newark Mayor Corey Booker about how wrong it is to put gay marriage up for a referendum.

Chess Master or Pawn?

2012-02-12T10:32:00.001-06:00

This week I highlighted an article about Obama's presidency written by James Fallows because I found it to be one of the most balanced reviews I've read. I said I couldn't parse it and only suggested that folks read the whole thing. Now that I have a bit more time on my hands (yeah for weekends!), I'd like to take a closer look at it.

In the beginning, Fallows asks an important question.

In office as during his campaign—indeed, through the entirety of his seven-plus years as a national figure since his keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in the summer of 2004—Obama has maintained his stoic, unflapped, “no drama” air...The earnestly devotional HOPE poster by Shepard Fairey was the official icon of the Obama campaign. But its edgier, unofficial counterpart, a Photoshopped Internet image that appeared as an antidote to the panic over polls and Palin, perfectly captured the candidate’s air of icy assurance. It showed a no-nonsense Obama looking straight at the camera, with the caption EVERYONE CHILL THE FUCK OUT, I GOT THIS!...

Whether things seem to be going very well or very badly around him—whether he is announcing the death of Osama bin Laden or his latest compromise in the face of Republican opposition in Congress—Obama always presents the same dispassionate face. Has he been so calm because he has understood so much about the path ahead of him, and has been so clever in the traps he has set for his rivals? Or has he been so calm because...he has been so innocently unaware of how dire the situation has truly been?

This is the central mystery of his performance as a candidate and a president. Has Obama in office been anything like the chess master he seemed in the campaign, whose placid veneer masked an ability to think 10 moves ahead, at which point his adversaries would belatedly recognize that they had lost long ago? Or has he been revealed as just a pawn—a guy who got lucky as a campaigner but is now pushed around by political opponents who outwit him and economic trends that overwhelm him?

When Fallows gets to the point in the article where he critique's President Obama's performance, here's what he sees as the weaknesses.

Inexperience: that Obama’s own lack of executive experience left him reliant on the instincts and institutional memory of others—and since so many of his appointees came from the Clinton administration, he was also vulnerable to ’90s-vintage groupthink among them. This was particularly true, as we’ll see, during his response to the economic crisis in his first year in office, and then during his showdowns with Congress after Tea Party–inspired Republicans regained control of the House.

Coldness: that what looks serene in public can seem distant and aloof in his private dealings and negotiations.

Complacency about talent: that the disciplined excellence he demands of himself—in physical fitness and appearance, in literary polish of his speeches, in unvarying control of his mood and public presentation—has not extended to demands for a comparably excellent supporting staff.

Symbolic mismatch: that Obama’s personal achievement in rising to the presidency betokened, for much of the electorate, far more sweeping ambitions for political change than Obama the incrementalist operator ever had in mind.

And when it comes time to look at strengths, here's what Fallows says:

What I’ve concluded now is that Obama has shown the main trait we can hope for in a president—an ability to grow and adapt—and that the reason to oppose his reelection would be disagreement with his goals, not that he proved unable to rise to the job. As time has gone on, he has given increasing evidence that the skills he displayed in the campaign were not purely a fluke.

“Three of the most important things he has done are hardest to appreciate,” Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader and an early supporter of Obama’s presidential campaign, told me...

The first is a negative accomplishment: avoiding an economic catastrophe even worse than the one the United States and the world have been through...

The second is what Daschle called “the dramatic improvement in the American image abroad.”...

And finally, according to Daschle, the health-care bill that passed so narrowly and is so controversial will, especially if Obama is reelected, rank with Medicare in the list of legislative and social achievements by Democratic presidents.

I wonder if you see the same thing I do in these two lists. When it comes to weaknesses, they're all about personality and process. And the strengths all point to very real accomplishments.

I would suggest that this difference pretty much answers Fallows original question about whether or not President Obama is a chess master or pawn. Could it be that in assessing his personality and processes people like Fallows are simply focusing on and/or interpreting the wrong things? How did he get to those major accomplishments if his process was so lacking?

In the end, at least Fallows demonstrates that he's heard (and maybe even embraced) an alternative view of the process.

But those around him make the case that in addition to being very unlucky (in the circumstances he inherited) and very lucky (in the Republican field that chose to run against him), Obama also shaped his luck by being shrewd, in three significant ways. First, according to this view, he always kept his eye on what mattered most, namely avoiding another recession—and compromised and backtracked only when, in his assessment, the alternative would have been a greater economic risk. Next, he absorbed pummeling by Republicans not so much because he was weak or unsuspecting as because he recognized problems the over-reaching opposition was creating for itself, much as he had during the 2008 primaries (and much as Bill Clinton had in 1995). And finally, that while like all presidents he came in unprepared, he adjusted as fast as anyone could have expected and was increasingly in control of events as time went on.

In other words, the chess master continued to focus on his North Star, marginalized Republicans with his conciliatory rhetoric as ruthless strategy, and learned/adjusted as the situation developed...pretty much what we've been saying all along.

Suddenly I See

2012-02-11T17:09:00.000-06:00

The Republican view of inclusion

2012-02-11T10:23:00.000-06:00

We can deny women opportunities like equal pay for equal work and access to reproductive health services. But if the Democrats toy with nominating the first female presidential candidate, we'll give them a VP that has ovaries too.

We can accuse the first black president of being "Kenyan" and demand to see his birth certificate all while turning dog whistles into fog sirens about things like food stamps. But as Democrats actually elect the first black president, we'll give them a melanin-enhanced head of the RNC and toy with nominating one ourselves.

We can support immigration laws that put every brown-skinned person at risk of losing their civil rights and even have a melanin-enhanced candidate for the presidency talk about electric fences on our border. But when Latino voters start supporting the Democratic Party in droves, we'll trot out our own brown-skinned person of Cuban descent as the most likely VP candidate.

Is it any wonder that all Republicans see in things like affirmative action programs is quotas? They are so completely blinded by their white male privilege that they can't see the sexism/racism staring them right in the face. Then they pile it on by insulting the intelligence of women and people of color with a token.

Lawd have mercy...

All I can do with that is join in the prayer of Rev. Joseph Lowery - if only because he brings a smile to my angry heart about it all.

Blurring the line between contraception and abortion

2012-02-11T09:04:00.000-06:00

So this is what we've come to in 2012...an attempt by the Bishops in the Catholic Church and other conservatives to blur the line between contraception and abortion. Seriously.

Apparently that was the advice given by some folks yesterday at the CPAC conference.

Stop talking about birth control. That was the key message from some of the most prominent leaders of America’s anti-abortion movement, speaking Friday at the Conservative Political Action Conference. During a talk on how to advance the movement through messaging, an all-female panel discussed the Obama administration’s birth-control-coverage mandate and suggested that the best way to defeat it is by calling it an “abortion mandate.”

And this morning the breaking news is that the American Bishops have rejected President Obama's proposed compromise yesterday. In addition to continuing their call for a complete rescission of the directive requiring contraceptive coverage, they said this:

First, we objected to the rule forcing private health plans — nationwide, by the stroke of a bureaucrat's pen—to cover sterilization and contraception, including drugs that may cause abortion...Moreover, forcing plans to cover abortifacients violates existing federal conscience laws. Therefore, we called for the rescission of the mandate altogether.

You see what they did there? They first suggest some contraceptives "may cause abortion" and then say that this directive forces plans to cover abortifacients.

I've used several contraceptives over my lifetime - both for medical reasons and to prevent pregnancy. But for the last few years I've been at that stage in life where they're no longer necessary. So please excuse me if I haven't kept as current as I should have on how some of these alternatives work. The most recent addition to the list of options is what we call Plan B or "the morning after pill" and some people have suggested that it causes an abortion. What I had not taken the time to learn is how Plan B works. So here's a little refresher course.

All brands of the morning-after pill work by keeping a woman's ovaries from releasing eggs — ovulation. Pregnancy cannot happen if there is no egg to join with sperm. The hormone in the morning-after pill also prevents pregnancy by thickening a woman's cervical mucus. The mucus blocks sperm and keeps it from joining with an egg.

The morning-after pill can also thin the lining of the uterus. In theory, this could prevent pregnancy by keeping a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus.

For comparison purposes, lets take a look at how the birth control pill works.

The hormones in the pill work by keeping a woman’s ovaries from releasing eggs — ovulation. Pregnancy cannot happen if there is no egg to join with sperm. The hormones in the pill also prevent pregnancy by thickening a woman’s cervical mucus. The mucus blocks sperm and keeps it from joining with an egg.

The hormones also thin the lining of the uterus. In theory, this could prevent pregnancy by keeping a fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus.

When it comes to how these two alternatives actually work, the ONLY difference is the timing of when they're taken - one before sexual intercourse and one after.

Now I understand that the Catholic Bishops are not likely to make a distinction in how these contraceptives are different from abortion given that they have always maintained their objection to both. But really...the truth is that if Plan B is an abortifacient, so is the pill. And that will come as a BIG surprise to the millions of women who've used it over the years.

I myself an committed to the pro-choice position when it comes to abortion. I understand and support women's right to make that decision EITHER WAY. So I try to be understanding of women who would never make the choice to have an abortion themselves. That's why we fight for choice in that matter.

But seriously folks, this conversation has gone off the rails when people try to make the case that a drug that keeps sperm and egg from ever meeting is the same thing as an abortion.

I can't believe that I feel the need to write this kind of diary at all. But the fact that some people with influence in this country are so hell-bent on taking us back to the dark ages when it comes to women's health is a reality today. So write it I will!

Nixon the socialist

2012-02-10T19:24:00.000-06:00

I was reading an article by David Frum critiquing Charles Murray's latest book when something jumped out at me.

He provided a quote from Richard Nixon's State of the Union speech in 1971 when an unemployment rate of 6% was considered a national emergency.

We must do better for workers in peacetime and we will do better.

To achieve this, I will submit an expansionary budget this year--one that will help stimulate the economy and thereby open up new job opportunities for millions of Americans.

It will be a full employment budget, a budget designed to be in balance if the economy were operating at its peak potential. By spending as if we were at full employment, we will help to bring about full employment.

I ask the Congress to accept these expansionary policies--to accept the concept of a full employment budget. ...

With the stimulus and the discipline of a full employment budget, with the commitment of the independent Federal Reserve System to provide fully for the monetary needs of a growing economy, and with a much greater effort on the part of labor and management to make their wage and price decisions in the light of the national interest and their own self-interest--then for the worker, the farmer, the consumer, for Americans everywhere we shall gain the goal of a new prosperity: more jobs, more income, more profits, without inflation and without war.

I'm certainly not the first one to notice, but you have to wonder if the Republicans we're dealing with these days ever take a moment to reflect just how over the cliff they've gone when compared with their leaders of the past. Where have rational thoughts like "by spending as if we were at full employment, we will help to bring about full employment" gone? These days when President Obama says something like that they call him a socialist and claim he's out to ruin the country.

Sometimes I think that all those Republicans sitting home instead of participating in the primaries and caucuses just might be opting out because they don't recognize their party anymore.

Michelle Obama on Black History Month

2012-02-10T12:52:00.001-06:00

To commemorate Black History Month, First Lady Michelle Obama gives a shout-out to African American women heros - and not just the ones in the history books.

There is a natural "we-ness" to her message that stuck me as powerful. Previous First Ladies could have said something similar. But not the same thing. I guess that's obvious. But that doesn't make it any less important.

The Boss weighs in for Obama 2012

2012-02-10T10:29:00.000-06:00

According to Think Progress, this new version of the video was released just as the Obama campaign announced that the song would be on the list of those used on the campaign trail. I do love how it captures President Obama's message.

James Fallows on Obama

2012-02-10T10:08:00.002-06:00

In The Atlantic, James Fallows has written one of the most interesting analyses of the Obama administration that I've seen.

A few caveats are in order. First of all, its very long. So if you're going to take a look, give yourself some time. You have to stick with it because he examines many sides and its important to read it all the way through.

Secondly, if you're like me, you won't agree with some of the things he says. But what I appreciated about it is that he doesn't seem to have an ax to grind from either side. He's not trying to defend Obama or take him down. I'll admit that its rare to see an analysis these days that doesn't at least seem to have one or the other agenda - no matter how deep people try to bury it.

Anyone who reads here regularly knows that I'm a strong supporter of the president and I'll admit that much of my reason for having this blog in the first place is that I think its important for people like me to make the case about why I think he's the best president in my lifetime. But even folks like me know that President Obama is a human being and therefore not perfect. Its nice to read a piece like Fallows' that both addresses his accomplishments but also recognizes that humanity. Whether or not its an accurate balance, who knows? It will give you something to think about.

Finally, I'd like to give you a few quotes as a tease. But I really don't think that's possible without doing damage to the whole picture Fallows paints. I'll simply recommend that you read it.

In case you're like me and recognize Fallows' name but don't remember much about who he is, here's a little bit from the wiki about him.

James Fallows is an American print and radio journalist. He has been a national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly for many years. His work has also appeared in Slate, The New York Times Magazine, The New York Review of Books, The New Yorker and The American Prospect, among others. He is a former editor of U.S. News & World Report, and as President Jimmy Carter's chief speechwriter for two years was the youngest person ever to hold that job.

Fallows has been a visiting professor at a number of universities in the U.S. and China, and holds the Chair in U.S. Media at the United States Studies Centre at University of Sydney. He is the author of nine books, including National Defense, for which he received the 1983 National Book Award, Looking at the Sun (1994), Breaking the News (1996), Blind into Baghdad (2006), and Postcards from Tomorrow Square (2009).

There's a whole section in the article where Fallows describes in some detail the remarkable success President Obama has had in transforming the US relationship with China. Its a story I hadn't heard anyone else tell. Given Fallows experience there - that alone makes this piece worth a read.

NY AG Schneiderman on the foreclosure fraud settlement: "Sometimes people on the left have to take yes for an answer"

2012-02-09T20:07:00.001-06:00

After months of whispers about what might or might not happen, forty-nine state attorney generals today agreed to a $25 billion settlement with 5 major banks on a civil case about robo-signing in foreclosure fraud. The only state attorney general who didn't participate is Republican E. Scott Pruitt from Oklahoma. That means that liberal icons like CA Attorney General Kamala Harris, Delaware AG Beau Biden and NY AG Eric Schneiderman all signed on to the deal.

You can learn more about what's included by visiting the web site set up to explain the settlement. Ezra Klein collected the response of several experts to the deal and I found Jared Bernstein's (former adviser to Vice President Joe Biden and senior fellow at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities) particularly enlightening.

Here are two reasons why I like the mortgage settlement agreement just announced: It’s not voluntary and it doesn’t require Congressional approval.

I’ll elaborate in a moment, but first, the caveats: It’s a drop in the bucket. There’s something like $700 billion out there in negative equity, and even with the leveraging — another attractive attribute of the way this should work — the $17 billion for preventing foreclosures ain’t gonna solve this.

But neither is any other single idea. Along with the other interventions policy makers are working on — ones I also hold some hope for — there’s clear potential to help distressed home owners and the macroeconomy.

He's addressing one of the main critiques I've heard about the settlement. People keep pointing out those figures of $700 billion of negative equity and this deal only providing $17 billion of relief (the remaining $8 billion of the $25 billion will go directly to those affected by the illegal foreclosures, the states and the federal government). Those using that argument don't seem to have much understanding of the legal system.

As I've said over and over - this case was about the narrow issue of robo-signing during foreclosures. While the settlement has been designed to provide $ for people who are currently underwater with their mortgages (estimates are that it will provide relief to 1 million of the 11 million in that situation), the illegal practice of robo-signing is not the cause of that particular problem. The relief the banks are providing as a result of this case should be commensurate to the actions that led to the suit in the first place. It was never going to be possible to solve the entire negative equity problem based on this one issue involving foreclosures.

Today Greg Sargent interviewed NY AG Schneiderman about the deal and he made this point very clearly.

In an interview with me just now, Schneiderman — who has gained a national liberal profile for his insistence on true accountability for financial institutions — conceded the settment announced today was “small” in financial terms, given the struggles of underwater homeowners and people who lost their homes.

But he insisted that time will show that today’s settlement was a win — that it secured a framework that will ultimately result in a true accounting of the role big banks played in sparking the economic meltdown.

“This is a small step in an economy where we have $700 billion in negative equity, but it is a significant step,” Schneiderman said, in response to criticism that the $25 billion settlement was far too small given the injuries sustained.

“This is a down payment towards the overall goal of accountability, meaningful relief for those injured by the meltdown, and getting the facts out so we can ensure that this never happens again.”

When Sargent pressed him further on some of the reactions to the settlement from the left, Schneiderman picked up on the meme I've been talking about for the last couple of days.

Asked if progressives should be skeptical of the administration’s assurances, given the lack of accountability so far, Schneiderman insisted that Obama’s private and public assurances have left him convinced he is serious about a real accounting.

“He took ownership of this,” Schneiderman. “Sometimes people on the left have to take yes for an answer. The President is accepting the challenge. It’s time for progressives to say, `okay, he’s moving with us now, he’s using resources of government to aggressively pursue the malefactors of great wealth, as Teddy Roosevelt put it.’”

But ultimately, what Schneiderman might not be aware of is the chronic nature of Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS) with this crowd and that even though he was once deemed a hero by them, his actions today earn him a toss under the bus. From the ultimate bagger of fire herself:

We are especially disappointed in the “Justice Democrats” — particularly Attorney Generals Eric Schneiderman and Kamala Harris — whose complicity proves that any faith in their moral fiber or independence was misplaced. When Timothy Geither and the Obama White House pressed them to fold, they did so. At a time when America needs leaders to fight for justice and accountability, they chose to advance their own careers by protecting the corporations and bankers of the oligarch class — hoping that a few press releases filled with platitudes echoed through an expensive propaganda machine will fool a credulous public.

It does seem that I was quite premature in giving the Crybaby of the Day award to Matt Taibbi earlier for his inability to take "yes" for an answer about the changes underway on Wall Street. I apologize for that error. To correct it, I've reviewed the multitude of tantrums coming from folks who deem $17 billion in relief for 1 million Americans to be an outrage. But none tops Ms. Hamsher's aptitude for letting her ODS be persistent enough to accuse someone like Eric Schneiderman of selling out to "corporations and bankers of the oligarch class."

This one's for you Jane...

Matt Taibbi: Crybaby of the Day

2012-02-09T08:36:00.001-06:00

Its pretty amusing actually. Matt Taibbi read the same article I did in the New York Magazine about the emasculation of Wall Street and came away with a totally different conclusion. Surprise, surprise.

The basic take-away for me was this statement:

And yet, from the moment Dodd-Frank passed, the banks’ financial results have tended to slide downward, in significant part because of measures taken in anticipation of its future effect...Partly, this is a function of the economic headwinds. But the bill’s major provisions—forcing banks to reduce leverage, imposing a ban on proprietary trading, making derivatives markets more transparent, and ending abusive debit-card practices—have taken a pickax to the Wall Street business model even though the act won’t be completely in effect till the Volcker Rule kicks in this July (other aspects of the bill took force in December; capital requirements and many other elements of the bill will be phased in gradually between now and 2016).

In other words, due to the current "economic headwinds" and the reforms of Dodd-Frank, the Wall Street business model that led to the financial crisis has been destroyed. My reaction was to think that's a good thing.

All Taibbi seemed to hear was whinning bankers.

Listening to Wall Street whine about how it is misunderstood is nothing new. It’s been going on for years (often in that same mag). But if Sherman’s piece heralds a new era of Wall Street complaining about how it is not only misunderstood but undercompensated, you’ll have to excuse me while I spend the next month or so vomiting into my shoes.

Its true, Sherman did quote a couple of Wall Street folks talking about how the days of 7-figure bonuses were over. But I fail to see how anything in the article suggests that's a bad thing.

Taibbi seems obsessed with the bonus issue. I don't think that's uncommon for a lot of people in this country...its come to be the symbol of all that was wrong with Wall Street. But a symbol is - by definition - not the source of the problem. And what Sherman did was explain to us that the symbol is now gone because the root problem - over leveraging, proprietary trading, and mysterious derivatives - have been dealt with via Dodd-Frank.

Taibbi's other point seems to be that he REALLY wants to make sure that Dodd-Frank doesn't get any credit for the changes happening on Wall Street. Even though Sherman acknowledges that the current economic headwinds have had an impact, Taibbi wants to assert that any tamping down that's happening now is a result of the Euro crisis.

Now, Gabe Sherman barely even mentions Europe in his article, which is interesting, because the banks on whose behalf he wails so loudly in this piece have mostly all pointed to Europe as more or less the sole reason for their reduced revenues of late.

I'm certainly not well-versed enough in all of this to quantify the degree to which regulatory reform vs on-going stresses in the world markets have had on the changes we're seeing. But I can say this: first of all, its silly to simply dismiss regulatory reform as a contributor and secondly, the fact that these companies are having to change their business model as a result of the on-going failures we continue to experience from their past mistakes is a good thing - is it not?

But here's the most ludicrous statement of all from Taibbi on Sherman's article:

1. He’s wrong. See the above argument about Europe, QE, etc.
2. Even if he wasn’t wrong, which he is, his reaction to the "news" that Wall Street’s outsized bonuses are dropping is all wrong. If it were true, it would be good news, not bad news.

That #2 gets back to my original point. Yes, its good news! And that's how I read it from the beginning. Taibbi seems to suffer from the same malady I talked about last night...the inability of some folks to take "yes" for an answer. Is it too early in the day to give out the Crybaby of the Day award?

Some people can't take "yes" for an answer

2012-02-08T19:22:00.000-06:00

By now we all know that the Obama administration issued a directive requiring all employees to provide contraception as part of their health insurance plans. As the backlash from the Catholic Bishops and Republicans intensifies, the administration doesn't seem to be budging. As a matter of fact, they are mounting a pretty strong defense as is demonstrated by the fact that this comparison of the federal HHS rule to Romneycare was developed by the Obama campaign and posted on their blog yesterday.

But those who have watched Obama over the years know that it is very typical of him to want to keep communication open with the opposition until every avenue for resolution is explored. That's what Press Secretary Jay Carney indicated was happening today.

I think on this issue, from the very beginning we have said that we will listen and work with individuals who have concerns as we work to implement the law. As I said yesterday, on January 20th, when this decision was announced, Secretary Sebelius said: “We will continue to work closely with religious groups during this transitional period to discuss their concerns.”...

We want to work with all these organizations to implement this policy in a way that is as sensitive to their concerns as possible.

And then his very next sentence...

But let’s be clear. We are committed -- the President is committed -- to ensuring that women have access to contraception without paying any extra costs no matter where they work.

This idea of leaving the lines of communication open for possible resolution seems to drive some people a bit nuts as was demonstrated by a Daily Kos front-pager with her diary titled Time for the White House to end the contraception conversation with Catholic leaders. I'm not going to quote from it because the title already tells you all you need to know. Instead I think I'll give the author the Crybaby of the Day award...

...and suggest that she grow up and learn how to take "yes" for an answer.

Justice Sotomayor resolves age-old dispute

2012-02-08T15:30:00.000-06:00

Is that adorable or what?!

The sprinkling of Spanglish into the conversation reminds every little girl who hears/speaks it that impossible dreams can come true.

Why the Santorum surge now?

2012-02-08T07:57:00.000-06:00

Conventional wisdom for months now has been that this presidential election will hinge on the economy. As I've said many times, I don't tend to buy conventional wisdom. Life in this 24/7 news cycle is just too chaotic for one thing to dominate an election completely for that long.

So last Friday we had another great jobs report and it looks like the economy might be continuing the long slow slog towards recovery. Almost immediately I asked the question what will Republicans run on now? When you look at what they have in their bag of tricks, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out the few remaining things they have left. So first up...cultural wedge issues.

It should come as no surprise then, that the media is consumed with talk about the Obama administration's new rule on employer contraception coverage, the Komen fiasco, and now - in the days ahead - I assume we'll be hearing alot about the California circuit court ruling on gay marriage.

Enter Rick Santorum. No matter how hard he tried to bolster his bonafides on the economy and foreign policy during the debates, he's known for one thing...being a cultural warrior.

All those Republican establishment folks who thought Romney would be the man to take it to President Obama on the economy misread the situation on two counts. First of all, they misread the voting public's (both Democrat and Republican) distaste for a vulture capitalist at this point. And even more importantly, they assumed they could ensure the economy would fail despite Obama's efforts. Wrong!

Given all that, it should come as no surprise that Santorum won the 3 races that were held yesterday in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado.

But let me stipulate a couple of things. First of all, I don't think the Republicans can win on cultural wedge issues. It appeals to their base but not the general electorate. And secondly, I'm not saying that these things will dominate the race over the entire 9 months until election day. If we've learned anything from this primary its that the Republican base is volatile at this point. So I expect to continue to see swings. And I expect the Republican establishment to try their hand at turning the conversation to foreign policy before this thing is over. Their ace on that one will be developments in Iran. So keep an eye out for that one. The truth is that Mitt Romney has shown himself to be a total idiot when it comes to foreign policy. But that likely won't matter. Americans tend to take for granted that someone from the Republican establishment will be strong on that issue. So focus on Iran as the next big scary threat to America will likely play to his favor.

"We're going to show young people how cool science can be"

2012-02-07T19:30:00.000-06:00

Today Steve Benen said this:

I can't think of a modern president who speaks as often and as enthusiastically about science as Obama.

Way back in the early days of his presidency, Obama signed an executive order ending the Bush-era restrictions on stem cell research. Here's what he said on that occasion.

"Promoting science isn't just about providing resources, it is also about protecting free and open inquiry," Obama said. "It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it's inconvenient especially when it's inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology."

As a way to promote science in education, a few months later President Obama launched the Annual White House Science Fair.

If you win the NCAA championship, you come to the White House. Well, if you're a young person and you've produced the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too. Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models, and here at the White House we're going to lead by example. We're going to show young people how cool science can be.

Today was the Second Annual White House Science Fair.

Someone is definitely enjoying himself. And its not just fourteen year old Joey Hudy who invented this extreme marshmallow cannon.

Ahhh...robots and stuffed chickens - what a combo!.

And yes, science is for girls too!

This is perhaps my favorite picture. What do you do when you have some time on your hands at the White House while you're waiting for the science fair to start?

I have a hunch that this 2 1/2 year old will be traveling to the White House Science Fair in no time.

Has Wall Street been emasculated?

2012-02-07T07:49:00.000-06:00

That's the cover of the latest New York Magazine with the cover story by Gabriel Sherman. It's long, but an absolute must-read.

The crash four years ago was shocking enough to the financial class. But what is happening on Wall Street now is even more terrifying. No doubt the economy itself—the crisis in Europe, the effects of the tsunami in Japan, America’s sputtering recovery—has played a large part in the financial industry’s struggles. But even the most stubborn economies improve eventually. The bigger issues are structural. The Dodd-Frank financial-reform act, much maligned, has already begun to change the shape of the financial system—even before a number of its major provisions are proposed to go into full effect this coming July...

A few years ago, the Masters of the Universe never could have imagined their industry being compared to big-box retailing. And yet, the model that had fueled bank profits has finally broken, as markets sputtered and new regulation kicked in. “Compensation is never really going to come back,” a Wall Street headhunter told me. “That is something entirely new.”

What is even more startling about this reversal is that few thought the much-vilified Dodd-Frank act would have much effect at all. From the moment it was proposed in 2009, the bill was tarred from all sides. Critics from the left, who wanted a return of Glass-Steagall, which had kept investments banks and commercial banks separate until it was repealed during the Clinton years, howled that Dodd-Frank wouldn’t go far enough to break up the too-big-to-fail banks... The too-big-to-fail banks, for their part, argued that the 2,300-page bill would create an overly complex morass of overlapping regulators that risked killing their ability to compete against foreign rivals...

By the time the bill passed, in July 2010, the legislation hadn’t found many new friends. Banks were especially upset by the inclusion of the Volcker Rule, which banned proprietary trading and virtually all hedge-fund investing by banks. Banks also complained about an amendment that slashed lucrative debit-card fees. They capitulated mainly because the alternative—breaking them up—was worse.

Part of the perception that the financial crisis changed nothing is that, in the immediate wake of the crash, the banks, buoyed by bailout dollars, whipsawed back to profitability. Goldman earned a record profit of $13.4 billion in 2009, as markets roared back from their post-Lehman lows. This dead-cat bounce was central to the formation of Occupy Wall Street and the neopopulist political currents that first erupted when the Treasury Department appointed Ken Feinberg to regulate bonuses for several TARP recipients...

And yet, from the moment Dodd-Frank passed, the banks’ financial results have tended to slide downward, in significant part because of measures taken in anticipation of its future effect. Since July 2010, Bank of America nosed down 42 percent, Morgan Stanley fell 25 percent, Goldman fell 21 percent, and Citigroup fell 16—in a period when the Dow rose 25 percent. Partly, this is a function of the economic headwinds. But the bill’s major provisions—forcing banks to reduce leverage, imposing a ban on proprietary trading, making derivatives markets more transparent, and ending abusive debit-card practices—have taken a pickax to the Wall Street business model even though the act won’t be completely in effect till the Volcker Rule kicks in this July (other aspects of the bill took force in December; capital requirements and many other elements of the bill will be phased in gradually between now and 2016). “If you landed on Earth from Mars and looked at the banks, you’d see that these are institutions that need to build up capital and that they’re becoming lower-margin businesses,” a senior banker told me. “So that means it will be hard, nearly impossible, to sustain their size and compensation structure.” In the past year, the financial industry has laid off some 200,000 workers.

Here's yet another example in our polarized politics where the real story of progressive reform is not being told because both left and right extremists have such trouble actually recognizing success. But thanks to President Obama and Congressional Democrats, Wall Street is being reformed without taking the entire US economy down with it.

The problem with labels

2012-02-06T18:06:00.000-06:00

As humans, we seem to have an insatiable need to label things. I partly understand why...it helps us sort the massive amounts of information that are available to us on a moment's notice. In politics, that turns into an attempt to compare/contrast people on our antiquated left/right continuum - just as the folks at voteview blog have done with presidents going back to WWII.

I'm sure they have a complicated mathematical formula for these results, but I'm really not interested in digging in to try to understand it. That's because, like Bob Cesca, I'd suggest it doesn't pass the smell test when they position Clinton to the left of Obama.

Clinton passed DADT. President Obama repealed it.

Clinton signed DOMA. President Obama stopped defending it in court and would sign a repeal.

Clinton flew 153,000 sorties into Iraq, bombed Iraq in ’98, attacked Afghanistan, Somalia and Bosnia. President Obama ended the Iraq War despite military pressure to stick around, and he’s in the process of wrapping up in Afghanistan.

Clinton repealed Glass-Steagall by signing the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act which established all of the financial institutions that crashed the economy. President Obama repaired the damage in part by passing an unprecedented $800 billion stimulus package with billions in “big government” spending.

On that note, Clinton declared “the era of big government is over” and continued to foster small government, deregulatory Reaganomics. President Obama is ending Reaganomics and defending the role of government.

Clinton began the overseas outsourcing boom in part by signing NAFTA. President Obama is ending tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas.

Should I go on?

Nope...you don't need to go on. The case is made.

Many others have done a good job of critiquing these attempts to compare presidents on a left/right continuum. One of the key factors most site is that you have to understand the context in which a president operates - both in terms of world events and the Congress they've had to work with.

But I think there's another big factor we need to keep in mind when understanding President Obama...his long game. Towards that end, I've been thinking about the things he's set in motion that are likely to cause transformative change - but over time.

First of all, Rick Unger told us recently about the "bomb buried in Obamacare" - the medical loss ratios.

So, can private health insurance companies manage to make a profit when they actually have to spend premium receipts taking care of their customers’ health needs as promised?

Not a chance-and they know it. Indeed, we are already seeing the parent companies who own these insurance operations fleeing into other types of investments. They know what we should all know – we are now on an inescapable path to a single-payer system for most Americans and thank goodness for it.

Secondly, I've been thinking lately about what happens when you turn the world's largest military green. President Obama mentioned this in his State of the Union speech.

I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, working with us, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history -– with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year.

You can read more about that here, but the overall goals are astounding. For example, the navy's goal is to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent by 2020 and the army has set a goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.

The US military budget is over $1 trillion (over twice that of the national budget of Germany). If that entire apparatus goes green - imagine the impact not only on climate change, but the development of alternative energy sources.

Finally, I just read an amazing piece in the New York Magazine by Gabriel Sherman about how finance reform is changing how Wall Street works (more about that later). Here's just a taste.

The crash four years ago was shocking enough to the financial class. But what is happening on Wall Street now is even more terrifying. No doubt the economy itself—the crisis in Europe, the effects of the tsunami in Japan, America’s sputtering recovery—has played a large part in the financial industry’s struggles. But even the most stubborn economies improve eventually. The bigger issues are structural. The Dodd-Frank financial-reform act, much maligned, has already begun to change the shape of the financial system—even before a number of its major provisions are proposed to go into full effect this coming July.

Those are just three areas where President Obama's approach to the long game are set to have dramatic progressive affects on some of the major issues we face today. They might not show up in a formula designed to capture a politicians position on a continuum in any given moment. But they will be shaping the world we live in for decades to come.

What happened to the enthusiasm gap?

2012-02-06T09:10:00.000-06:00

Steve Benen has a post out this morning with some numbers I've been wondering about. It turns out that just 32,930 people participated in the Nevada Republican caucuses. But that's just part of the story.

Going into Saturday's contest, Nevada GOP leaders told reporters they expected in upwards of 70,000 Republicans to participate. The final tally shows the party failed to even reach half that total.

What's more, if Nevada were the only state that struggled, it'd be easier to overlook. Unfortunately for the GOP, though, the poor showing in the Silver State fits into a larger pattern.

The Republicans' primary in Florida last week, for example, showed a sharp decline in turnout (about 14%) as compared to 2008. In the Iowa caucuses, GOP turnout fell short of expectations, and in the New Hampshire primary, it happened again. Turnout in South Carolina was strong, but given the party's difficulties in the other four contests, it's proving to be the exception.

On twitter, Dana Houle adds an interesting reminder.

Note, btw, that in only primary w good turnout, Romney got only 27%, lost by 13 to Gingrich

Could Houle have identified the source of the problem with Republican enthusiasm...when it comes to Mitt Romney - they're just not into him?

Baseball vs Football

2012-02-05T16:53:00.001-06:00

On this day when loyal Americans are expected to worship our country's true religion (Superbowl ads - LOL), I can't help but think of George Carlin's hilarious bit about the difference between baseball and football.

Last night I started watching the initial season of Downton Abbey on Netflix. That's where you'll find me tonight. Think what you will about my patriotism ;-)

Superbowl Mayors unite against illegal guns

2012-02-05T15:08:00.000-06:00

Talking about common sense gun control has flown off the political radar these last couple of years. Following the Tucson shooting President Obama published an editorial on the subject calling for a dialogue on this issue "to seek consensus, to prevent future bloodshed, to forge a nation worthy of our children's futures." Other than the usual paranoid responses on the right, we heard nada.

Boston Mayor Tom Menino and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg used their rivalry in the Super Bowl today to let us know that they're also co-chairs of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Check out the site. Find out if your mayor is participating (mine is!) and see what they're up to.

Here's a sobering stat from their web site: 13,368 Americans have been murdered with guns since Tucson. That's more than a thousand a month. One would be too many - a thousand is nothing short of an outrage!

How the progressive blogosphere is changing

2012-02-05T12:12:00.005-06:00

I don't remember what got me going this morning, but I've been doing a little investigative work on the changing nature of the progressive blogosphere. I had a hunch that some of the initial big names in the business are faltering. And that does - in fact - turn out to be the case.

One source that turned out to be interesting is the Blogosphere Authority Index, (BAI) which has been tracking both liberal and conservative blogs on measures such as blogrolls, hyperlinks, site visits and comments since 2008. Since blogrolls and hyperlinks tend to measure inclusion in the "good ol boys network" and # of comments varies greatly, I'm most interested in site visits as a measure of impact.

The person who measures BAI (Dave Karpf) seems to need a little updating in his categorization of blogs as "progressive" or "conservative" since he has Huffington Post listed as one of the former and Little Green Footballs as one of the later. Those of us who have actually been watching know that both of these blogs have undergone huge changes in the last few years. I say that because on almost all measures Huffington Post is rated as #1. But I'm going to ignore it because I don't think its representative.

When we go back in time to January 2008, here are the top ten progressive blogs according to their site visits:

1. Daily Kos
2. Crooks and Liars
3. Think Progress
4. Talking Points Memo
5. Atrios
6. Firedoglake
7. America Blog
8. Washington Monthly (Kevin Drum)
9. Digby
10. Carpetbagger Report (Steve Benen)

Now lets look at the top ten in January 2012 (with changes from 2008 in parenthesis):

1. Fivethirtyeight (new)
2. Daily Kos ( -1)
3. Talking Points Memo ( +1)
4. Democratic Underground (new)
5. Think Progress ( -2)
6. Truthdig (new)
7. Crooks and Liars ( -5)
8. Firedoglake ( -2)
9. Balloon Juice (new)
10. Washington Monthly (Steve Benen - no change if you consider the author)

Blogs that dropped off the top 10 list since 2008:

- Atrios
- America Blog
- Digby
- Carpetbagger Report (shut down when Benen moved to Washington Monthly)

When I started blogging in 2005, the BIG names in the progressive blogosphere were Daily Kos, Atrios, Crooks and Liars, America Blog, Digby, Firedoglake and MyDD (later Open Left). Three of those have dropped off the top 10 list in the last 4 years. Daily Kos has lost first place to Nate Silver at Fivethirtyeight, Crooks and Liars dropped 5 places and FLD is -2 (and is basically even with Balloon Juice!).

In addition, what's not showing up since I'm only looking at the top 10 is that MyDD - which had ranked #13 in 2008 has disappeared off the top 25 list altogether and sunk into oblivion while Open Left - which was ranked #20 - shut down altogether.

Blogs added to the top 10 list since 2008:

- Fivethirtyeight (everybody loves Nate Silver)
- Democratic Underground (not sure what's going on here except it probably has to do with their forums)
- Truthdig (new home of the firebaggers?)
- Balloon Juice (pragmatic progressives on the move!)

Based on what I can deduct from a couple of different sources, BooMan Tribune and The Obama Diary (two of the very best pragmatic progressive sites) would rank somewhere between 25th - 30th place on this list.

In conclusion, I think the landscape is changing. Lets continue to get the word out about pragmatic alternatives to the poutragers. You can do that by visiting all of those great blogs over on the left and sharing their wonderful content with others.

The Power of Two

2012-02-04T18:13:00.000-06:00

This photo spoke volumes the minute I saw it this week.

Adding up the total of a love that's true
Multiply life by the power of two

IOKIYAR

2012-02-04T12:20:00.000-06:00

It's OK if you are republican

After months of hearing Republican presidential candidates tell us how the Bible and their particular brand of christianity should direct public policy here in the US - and decades of hearing the same from many conservatives in general - its particularly ironic how some of them reacted to President Obama's speech at the National Prayer Breakfast where he talked about how his faith informs his politics.

From The Root:

Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah blasted President Obama on Thursday, saying he's not Jesus, according to New York's Daily News.

The Republican was outraged by the president's remarks at a National Prayer Breakfast. In the speech, Obama said that raising taxes on the wealthy was rooted in Jesus' teachings of "for unto whom much is given, much shall be required."

"Someone needs to remind the president that there was only one person who walked on water, and he did not occupy the Oval Office," Hatch said during a speech he made from the Senate floor

He's outraged - I tell you - outraged that the president would claim to apply what Jesus teaches to his public policy positions!!! This is totally uncalled for in American politics. And we need to put a stop to it NOW!

Until its time for the Republicans to tell us what they think Jesus says about things like homosexuality, abortion, prayer in public schools, evolution, letting the poor suffer, etc.

After all, we are a "christian nation" and President Obama is waging a secular war on our faith.

< snark off >

My gawd, do these people ever actually listen to their ignorant selves?

Who is Wall Street's candidate for 2012?

2012-02-04T08:59:00.001-06:00

Contrary to what Michael Moore and others would have you believe, most Wall Street donors have picked their candidate and its not President Obama.

Wall Street has thrown its weight behind alum Mitt Romney for president, according to new campaign data for 2011...

No other candidate came close to the $12 million Romney's campaign raised directly in 2011 from individuals who work at financial firms and banks, which also includes cash from insurance and real estate companies, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

By comparison, Obama's campaign raised $5 million from people who worked on Wall Street last year, the Center for Responsive Politics reported.

Need I say more?

Yes, because even this doesn't tell the whole story.

To date, Romney has raised a total of just over $56 million for his campaign this round. Wall Street donations account for 21% of that amount.

In contrast, Obama has raised over $125 million and Wall Street donations account for only 4% of his total.

One other thing to remember is - as the article above indicates - these "Wall Street" donations come from individuals who work in financial firms, banks, real estate and insurance companies. And the most recent data from Open Secrets tells us that 9% of contributions to Romney's campaign came from small donors ($250 or less) where as that number is 47% for the Obama campaign.

Here are the top ten employers of donors to Romney's campaign (with totals):

Goldman Sachs $499,430
JPMorgan Chase & Co $322,400
Morgan Stanley $281,350
Credit Suisse Group $277,250
Citigroup Inc $267,050
Bank of America $213,650
Barclays $207,400
Kirkland & Ellis $206,701
HIG Capital $188,500
PriceWaterhouseCoopers $179,550

And here are the top ten for Obama's campaign (notice not only the lack of Wall Street firms that dominated Romney's list, but the smaller totals/company, indicating a much broader base):

Microsoft Corp $188,643
DLA Piper $151,375
Google Inc $139,030
Morgan & Morgan $127,895
Harvard University $126,962
University of California $125,880
Comcast Corp $114,950
Skadden, Arps et al $100,324
US Dept of State $87,995
Time Warner $80,062

The truth is, President Obama revolutionized presidential campaign finance. Some people were telling that story 3 years ago but now too many have forgotten. He has always relied on millions of people like you and me working together to combat the large contributions of the wealthy few. In other words, he's lived out the old saying about "when everyone does a little, no one has to do a lot."

It seems to be working. So let's all remember that "we're the change we've been waiting for" and do what we can to keep it up!