Dear Mr. President, Please Call Paul Krugman!

As usual, Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman was right.  President Obama’s jobs & tax cut bill (i.e. the stimulus) was too small.  Krugman, economist Dean Baker, Joe Stiglitz (also a Nobel winner) and some members of the Obama economic team (is this why Christina Romer left?) knew it at the time.  The President proved that when you’re cautious to a fault, you lose.  Today, the great Krugman gets a well-deserved “I told you so” moment.

The Fed Admission & Republican Sabotage

As Robert Reich has posted yesterday, the Fed’s injection of $600  million to keep long term interest rates down is an admission that the jobs & tax cuts bill (a.k.a. the stimulus) was too small.  The problem is that it won’t be effective since the current problem is not a lack of money to lend, but a lack of demand and credit-worthy lendees, for lack of a better term. 

What’s needed is more government spending in the short term and a long term commitment to reducing the deficit that doesn’t tamp down the recovery.  According to economist Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, we suffered a $2 trillion loss in annual demand (consumer, residential real estate and commercial real estate combined).  To make a substantial dent in that, we needed to get money in the hands of middle class consumers to the tune of $1.2 trillion in a year.

With growing income inequality, a lack of demand and banks flush with cash, we’ve set the stage for another bubble.  Yet the Republican House has every incentive to follow the tactic of the Republican Senate minority of 2006 to present — stop everything.  Their formula is to prevent any jobs bills from passing, wreak havoc on the middle class, let Wall Street run wild again, and hope that torturing the middle class and the poor while sucking up to Wall Street will lead them to victory in 2010. 

The problem is that the strategy is a formula for economic ruin, the kind of ruin that can lead to another lost decade and the decline of the United States into a second world nation.  We will never be Somalia, but if Republicans get their way, we might just get half-way there…not that they care.

Meghan McCain – what her father used to be

Like her dad, she’s an extreme conservative on most issues, but she’s liberal on some social issues, knows little about economics, is no fan of Karl Rove and is more than willing to take shots at fellow Republicans like Christine O’Donnell.  She’d probably be a better member of the House than any of the whack-jobs they put in office Tuesday.  It’s clear she is no fan of the Palin-Tea Party wing and it’s easy to imagine her following in her father’s footsteps in about 5 years.

Run, Nancy, Run!!!

Nancy Pelosi is running for Minority Leader! 

What Obama and the Democrats need is more toughness, conviction and courage.  Nancy Pelosi knows she did the right thing, pushing through an agenda to modernize America and make it more competitive in the world by having a health care system for almost everyone and an economic system that serves everyone, not just multinational corporations that will never get enough middle class blood.

Like 2002, this election proved that Democrats lose when they act Republican-lite.  Bill Clinton is often held up as an example, but no one can say that his signature act (the 1993 Recovery Act) was Republican in any way (not a single one voted for it) and he always fought for the middle class (sometimes expediantly dropping resistance to GOP efforts to make life tougher on the poor).

So I’m pulling for her 100% for minority leader.  And with the progressive caucus in tact while the Blue Dogs were crushed in the election, she just might win it!!!

Rasmussen = Republican

Rasmussen polling overestimated Republican performance in over three-quarters of its races Tuesday.  On average, Republicans performed almost 3.9% worse than Rasmussen predicted, by far the worst of all pollsters.  This confirms a long-held belief in political circles that Rasmussen’s polling has a substantial Republican bias.

Follow the Money

Here’s a partial breakdown of what the five Republican hacks on the US Supreme Court did to our democracy with their Citizens’ United travesty.  Secret, multinational corporate donors and anonymous radicals own our elections and a $250 million plus share of the Republican House of Representatives.  The total spending of this election will probably total over $4 billion, mainly funded by big multinational corporate interests and their executives including the oil industry, the insurance industry and Wall Street.  The total cost to the American people will be much greater since the investments wouldn’t have been made without the expectation of a return.  The question for the fools who fell for the tele-brainwashing is: what do you think they just bought?

Answer: the right to screw you, even if you’re dressed like a really old version of (and have had one too many bottles of) Sam Adams.

DL Hughley - Tom Joyner Morning Show, 11/4/10

“Republicans took the Congress so it’ll be illegal to be black in about two months…I’m getting ready to leave.  I’m moving to Brazil.” 

Keith Olbermann – Countdown 11/3/10

Responding to Carl Paladino’s concession speech, which included the quote (while holding an orange baseball bat) ”"You can leave it untouched and risk having it weilded against you because make no mistake, you have not heard the last of Carl Paladino.”  “Next time we hear about him it may include the words ‘police allege’.

O’Donnell Blames Rove & Cornyn

Failed Republican Senate candidate thinks Karl Rove and Republican Senator John Cornyn cost her the US Senate seat she was thoroughly unqualified to hold.  She thinks she could have “closed the gap” with Democrat Chris Coons and that “If he (Cornyn) and Karl Rove had said, look, she is articulate on the issues as many people after watching our debates were able to say…there was verbal support they could have offered as pundits, so to speak, that they chose not to for whatever reason.” 

“She is articulate on the issues?”  If even Karl Rove can’t lie about that, what does that tell you?  It tells me that Christine O’Donnell really is a witch because  only the supernatural could cause me to agree with Karl Rove.

 There are three phases to think about: (1) the lame duck session, (2) the new Congress, and (3) the 2012 campaign (which starts now).

The Lame Duck Session

It’s likely that nothing big will happen, although it should if Democrats believe in their agenda.  Yesterday was no mandate for the Republican party, which is still held in low esteem by the public.  Furthermore, Democrats who lost their seats yesterday are now free from re-election concerns, those who held them are not facing an electorate for at least two years (six in the Senate) and there are still other Senate Democrats who either have four years before another election or may not be planning to run again.

Add the fact that whatever Democrats do will be overshadowed by 2012 by what the Republican House does, the state of the economy and the presidential candidates and you get the perfect conditions to build a railroad:

1.  Repeal don’t ask don’t tell.  Ending a serious injustice, improving military readiness, and supporting a reliable Democratic voting block makes for good policy and good politics.  Note to Carl Paladino and Dick Armey – America has moved on.  We’re post-Will & Grace.  Ellen is wholesome, popular and funny..and gay.  Dan Choi is a military role model…and gay.  And the homophobe of all homophobes just tripped over his baseball bat in New York.  Enough already.

2.  Extend middle class tax cuts for two years while letting those for income over $250,000 expire (saving $750 billion on the giveway to the rich alone and most of the $4 trillion price tag of a ten year full extension).  Let the Republicans mark their line in the sand.  If they cave, we save huge money on the deficit and take pressure off working families.  If they don’t, all the tax cuts expire anyway and the Republicans look like the corporate-owned subsidiaries they are.  Good policy, good politics.

3.  Employee Free Choice Act: let workers know who really stands with them and who stands against them.  Republicans will filibuster and will not let this pass, but we should fight for it anyway so workers can identify where each member stands.  This will not be brought to a House vote by the Republican House so it’s now or never.  No member should leave town without having to take a stand on worker rights.  Of course, Rand Paul opposes any federal mine safety regulations so it’ s no mystery where at least one newly elected Republican stands.  Pray to Aqua Buddha that Democrats bring it to the floor!

4.  Misc.  Whatever changes you want to make on taxing and spending issues: let loose.  Reconciliation is specifically designed for such things and Republicans will not have the votes in the Senate to repeal whatever you do.

The New Congress

1.  Above all else, reform the filibuster.  Republicans used it and its threat to stop the changes we needed to ensure a strong economic recovery, health care for everyone, the Employee Free Choice Act and stronger Wall Street Reform.   The filibuster has never been used as frequently in history and is not in the US Constitution. It has been reformed before and should be used only to lengthen debate where one side feels it has not had its say, wants more time to pull votes to its side or needs time to study amendments.  An ideal rule would be a three day delay on a vote where 60 members fail to vote for a cloture (or to start debate), another three day delay where 55 fail to vote for cloture (or to start debate) and finally a simple majority would be required.  Someday the Republicans will do this to avoid Democratic obstruction and Republicans will filibuster everything anyway (including Obama nominees for anything requiring Senate confirmation).  Beat them to it.

2.  Immigration.  Corporate interests that want to retain or hire foreign workers will pressure Republicans to come to an agreement.  Republicans in more heavily Hispanic districts will also be under pressure to reform the system to create a path to citizenship for law-abiding workers who pay their taxes, learn English, and pay a fine.  It made sense to wait on this until after the midterms because unlike health care, the stimulus, credit card reform, and Wall Street reform, Democrats and enough Republicans can actually get this done together.  Politically, this will be a wedge issue within the Republican party since the xenophobes and isolationists will be at odds with their corporate funders. 

3.  Fight them on the numbers.  Let’s just wait to see the first Republican House budget.  They will either sorely disappoint their teabagging zealots or cut everything that benefits the middle class, seniors, children and the poor.  As long as the good guys have the Senate and the White House, none of it can pass and all of it will become a political target for progressives.  All these months of failing to say what spending they’d cut will end when the have to put pen to paper….and contrast it with tax gifts for corporations, estates of over $3 million and earnings over $250,000.  As Rev. Jim Wallis says, “a budget is a moral document.”  The good Rev has apparently never seen a Republican budget, which is anything but moral.

4.  Use what you built!  Obama still controls the regulatory agencies.  While House Republicans kill anti-pollution legislation, the EPA can undertake enforcement actions and pass regulations to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gases.  While Republican legislative kisses are blowing toward hedge fund managers (only to die in the Senate),  Elizabeth Warren’s financial consumer protection agency will be revving up to stop some of the abuses that lead to the crisis.  Health care implementation, tobacco regulation, and education reform can also go forward.

5.  Pass the Disclose Act in the Senate and keep pressuring Republicans to bring it to a vote in the Senate.  Americans don’t like corporate money in their elections.  They like secret foreign corporate money even less.  Make the Republicans defend the US Chamber of Commerce, which has solicited foreign corporate donations worldwide.  According to a GRIT tv report, an entity set up by the Chamber is both receiving foreign contributions and spending on US elections.  The organization’s tax i.d. number is the key to making the connection between its overseas and domestic activities.  That is flat out illegal.

6. Investigate non-profit corporations that are engaging in political campaigns.  One benefit of having non-profit status under the IRS is the ability to avoid paying taxes, in exchange for not advocating for or against political candidates.  That rule has almost certainly been broken and all such organizations should lose their non-profit status.

7.  Resolve Iraq & Afghanistan.  A tall order, but the right thing to do and it is an area where some Republicans (even Rand and Ron Paul) may be of some use.

8.  Campaign, campaign, campaign.  That’s about it.  The Republican takeover of the House means nothing else gets done for the next two years.  No legislative progress on anything until late January 2013 at the earliest.  That’s what Fool’s News viewers, those demoralized by lack of progress due to Republican filibusters (of which most are unaware), and those enthralled with the latest spasm of American xenophobism, understated racism, 2nd Amendment terrorism, and false populism voted for.  That’s what they’ll get.  A tw0-year campaign is the only option left if we are to restore the American dream.

The 2012 Campaign

Republicans will compromise on almost nothing.  The new Speaker said so just days ago.  Last night he said that the President is still sets the government’s agenda.  Translation: if the US economy fails over the next two years, it’s on Obama.  Consequence: “we Republicans will do all in our power to make that happens to the extent that it doesn’t do too much damage to Exxon, the Kochs, and the like since that the surest way to achieve Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s stated “#1 priority” of making President Obama a one-term president.”

The primary defect in Obama’s White House has been failing to fight hard enough for the reforms that would improve Americans’ lives.  The stimulus, health care, and Wall Street reform all fell short of progressive objectives and are less effective than they should be for it.  That can’t be changed now.

But aggressive implementation can change lives as well as aggressive messaging can win a second term. 

While the media are perpetualy entralled with the various characters that make up what they suppose is the Republican base (Mama Grizzlies, NASCAR dads, guys driving pick-ups with gun racks & the battle flag on the back, teabaggers…all shorthand for fearful, middle-aged white people), they largely ignore the real Republican base: corporate donors.

They also ignore the only base that ever threw a modern presidential election: the Nader-voting progressives of 2000.  That base needs to be motivated to take on the real Republican base, the one that drives the crazy gravy train of Republican corporate politics.  

And exposing that gravy train so everyone can get a whiff of it will have a spillover effect on those suffering Republican Stockholm Syndrome.  It could even put congressional Republicans and their presidential candidate in the unwelcome position of defending the gravy train from thousands of charging, hungry Mama Grizzlies.

Supreme hacks in the Courthouse

Made Congress a whorehouse

Wall Street foxes from the penthouse

Got keys to the henhouse

They’re as clean as a pig’s house

Should be sent to the big house

Money changers in the steeple house

But now they own the people’s House

Obama stopped Bush’s depression

But GOP gridlocked recession

House trust busters sought progression

Senate filibusters scrapped the sessions

Can’t work with party of regression

We hope the Prez has learned the lesson

Fox news is Rupert’s nuthouse

Mirrors facts like a funhouse

Logic weak as a Tinker house

Dividing us like Lincoln’s house

Hannity’s insanity

Beck’s dreck, Bill’s vanity

Hosts dim as a haunted house

Lead voters to the slaughterhouse

Face flush, Fox feeds

Fear like a dealer’s safehouse

Like Rush, the addicted need

A half-way house

And if they take the White House

And make it the far right’s house

Constitution to the chophouse

USA beneath the outhouse

Nation to the poor house

Then they’ll come for your house

Democracy in the doghouse

America in a fog now

Remember this is our house

And power up your powerhouse

Defeat the far right’s house

Electrify your lighthouse

Now’s as good a time as any to start the mad rush to 2012! Republicans will win back the House tonight and probably take 9 of the 10 seats they need for the Senate.

It’s easy to imagine a Nelson & Joe L switching to the Republican caucus if it gets close enough to give the Republicans a majority.

Potential silver linings:

1. A Republican House makes it more likely that Obama will be re-elected.

2. A Republican House and the new teabaggers in the Senate will highlight just how far off the rails the GOP has fallen.

3. Large parts of Obama’s agenda (a mild stimulus, health care reform, credit card reform, pay discrimination law, the regulation of tobacco by the FDA, student loan reform, the US auto bailout, and Wall Street reform) have already been passed.

4. Some of the teabaggers will spark internal conflict with some more traditional Republicans. I suspect Trent Lott is right that Republicans will fully coopt the newbies, but I could be wrong.

5. None of the Republican agenda will make it past the Senate and the President.

6. Obama will be able to implement many of the reforms without Republican support.

7. A government shutdown, false reading of a lacking mandate and their natural authoritarian nature will lead the Republicans to consistently overreach and marginalize themselves.

8. If Democrats hold the Senate, various Obama nominees and any treaties should sail through regardless of what the nuts in the House think.

9. If the Democrats hold the Senate, filibuster reform should be seen as a must.

10. If Harry Reid loses, Chuck Shumer or another Democrat from a safe seat will have a chance to become leader. This is key since one problem with both Reid’s and Daschle’s leadership had been their need to cater to home constituencies in ways that damaged Democrats’ ability to get things done.

11. Campaign reform has never been more obviously needed and will become a bigger deal for both elected Democrats and progressive activists, if not for the public as a whole.

12. Given Republicans’ abuse of the filibuster, one early test for whether whoever controls the Senate will be whether they reform or eliminate it. If they really want gridlock, expect no reform. If not, they’ll do it. I’d support the elmination of the filibuster no matter who runs the chamber as being good for democracy. It’s not in the Constitution and it prevents the dynamism the US needs to compete in a fast moving modern world. Let the people who work on campaigns, are active citizens and vote Senators into office see the fruits of those efforts come to fruition – for better or worse. And if it’s really about big money, let’s make that obvious too.

In advance of the upcoming Supreme Court nomination process, Professor Geoffrey Stone has written an excellent piece rejecting the recent recasting the role of a Supreme Court Justice as “umpire” and demonstrating how the conservative Rehnquist/Roberts Court has performed a function opposite to that set forth by the Framers of the Constitution.

Justices are jurists, have a special role in protecting people from the abuses of power, and must take the effects of their rulings into account.  Umpires have no such responsibilities.  The Supreme Court is a check on power, not the enhancement to corporate power that it has been under Rehnquist  (at least since the appointment of Justice Thomas) and Roberts. 

Truly excellent and well worth the read.

What should be done to an organization that engaged in illegal, unethical electioneering on behalf of a successful presidential candidate in a swing state that made all the difference? Defund it? Prosecute it? Make a documentary?

How about all of the above? And would it make a difference if the story involved the Republican National Committee’s voter suppression efforts in Ohio during the 2004 election?

Detailed works by both Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Professor Mark Crispin Miller demonstrating fraud in Ohio (and elsewhere) and claiming that John Kerry actually won there (and Ohio alone would have put him in the Oval Office) were dismissed as sour grapes after the 2004 election.

But the grapes have ripened as the story aged.  These new revelations give emphasis to the point that we still have a problem (the “we” of us who want clean elections, that is).

For the media, confirmation that there was caging should give more credence to Kennedy’s and Miller’s charges of other illegalities that turned the election. Since investigative journalism is nearly dead in the US, progressives will have to force this story to the front if the electoral system is to be improved.

Especially since five Supreme Court reactionaries declared that corporations are citizens too (with every right short of voting directly), the need for comprehensive election reform is clear. And any Republican who complained about ACORN’s actions (which were never shown to be widespread and certainly did not change the result of the 2008 landslide) should have to answer for opposition to reform.

Interesting footnote: if Kennedy and Miller are right, then while a Republican strutted around the White House, a Republican has not actually won a presidential election since 1988. Citizens United, leftover problems from the Bush Era, the history of opposition party success during mid-term elections, the disproportionate representation favoring small rural (conservative) states in the Senate, and the electoral college system (favoring the same states) give Republicans reason for optimism in the the coming elections.

But changing demographics and the possibility that Republicans have not legitimately won the White House in five straight tries do not bode well, especially since Fox and right-wing radio refuse to give them permission to move to the center.

Whatever the results of future elections, it is axiomatic in a democracy (or democratic republic, if you prefer) that elections be clean.

Lucky those “family values” voters contributed to the Republican Party.  Now, they get to see what they got in return: strippers.

Beyond the irony, it’s clear that the family values folks got ripped off.  When corporate lobbyists contribute to the RNC, they don’t get topless dancers, they get a political red light district.  Why the second class treatment for family values voters?

You know how the pros do it.

Don’t want health reform?  Senator Grassley’s in window 3.  Don’t like regulating Wall Street even after the world economy nearly collapsed?  Senator McConnell’s in window 6.  Need an all-purpose reactionary Supreme Court Justice?  Spend a little time with Senator Hatch.  And so it goes.

So the next time that middle-aged, white, suburban, fundamentalist, Dr. Laura-listening mother of six gets her bimonthly fundraising appeal from the RNC, may she send it back with nothing but one word scrawled in red across it: “Strippers?”

One can be criticized for making policy disputes into good versus evil dichotomies, but the Republicans make it so easy!  When one side resorts to terrorism (attempting to achieve political ends through violence or the threat of violence in a civilian context), racism, and over-the-top hate-speech, what else can one conclude?

The bad guys have self-identified.