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Aaron Zelinsky: WWJD: What Would Johnson Do?

2010-02-10T05:42:36Z

The Senate is strangling the Obama administration. Everything from high profile legislation to mid-level appointees is held up, often because of little more than pet peeves. Many members of the GOP now practice obstructionism for the sake of obstructionism: They are, therefore they filibuster. In Washington, the Senate hold has become as commonplace as lobbyists and monuments.

It's time President Obama looked hard in the mirror and asked himself the question so many have asked before him: What would Johnson do?

At first blush, Lyndon Johnson may not seem like the best political guide for the present moment. The last thing Obama wants is for Afghanistan to become his Vietnam. But no chief executive knew the Senate better than Johnson, himself a legendary Senate Majority Leader. And Vietnam notwithstanding, LBJ produced domestic policy accomplishments that were lasting and substantial - exactly what President Obama aspires to.

Here are LBJ's lessons for Obama:

To Make an Omelet, You've Got To Break Some Eggs. LBJ understood that legislative majorities were fundamentally impermanent, and that political capital should be spent rather than dissipated. When he signed the Civil Rights Act, LBJ supposedly remarked that "we have lost the South for a generation." Regardless of whether he actually uttered these words, LBJ knew full well what he was doing. He decided that passing the Civil Rights Act was worth the future political hit.

Thus far, the Obama Administration has been reticent to spend political capital. The Democrats are like the car-enthusiast who spends all of his time working on his sports coup without ever taking it for a spin. No one cares how fast you can go from zero to sixty if you never leave the driveway.

Determine Who Will Play Ball. When Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act, he did so in the face of a fierce filibuster led by Democrats. In order to break the filibuster, Johnson turned to moderate Republicans. President Obama should recognize that, unless Harry Reid is willing to drastically change course, there isn't much this Administration can accomplish without at least a few Republicans.

In terms of appointments, there are many senators who believe in allowing executive branch nominees to receive an up-or-down vote. President Obama should talk personally with Senators Orrin Hatch, Olympia Snow, Judd Gregg, Lamar Alexander, Lindsey Graham, Richard Lugar, George Voinovich, and Susan Collins. Together, they can likely negotiate an end to filibusters on many of his appointments, most of whom are noncontroversial nominees whose confirmation is essential to effective government function.

Allow Your Opponents to Save Face. LBJ realized that those whom he courted needed political cover when they supported him. Johnson couldn't pass the Civil Rights Act without the Senate Minority Leader, Everett Dirksen. Rather than buy off Dirksen with pork, Johnson sought to co-opt him, instructing Hubert Humphrey to "let him have a piece of the action," and be sure to let him "look good all the time." When Dirksen introduced a substitute bill in the Senate to end the filibuster, LBJ let Dirksen take the credit for being a statesman, while he pocketed the legislative victory.

In Obama's case, the Louisiana Purchase and Cornhusker Kickback allowed Senators Landrieu and Nelson to "have a piece of the action," but these buyoffs didn't let them "look good all the time." The White House has to give fence-sitters plausible policy-based cover for changing positions. The easiest way to accomplish this is by negotiating pragmatic changes to pending legislation for which the fence-sitters can take credit.

Be the Head of Government, Not Just the Head of State. In the United States, the President is both the head of state and the head of government. LBJ recognized this fact, and he wasn't afraid to get down and dirty with the legislative branch, arm twisting, cajoling, and sometimes bullying senators to vote his way.

So far, President Obama has been a good head of state, speaking eloquently at home and rebuilding U.S. credibility overseas. However, Obama has not been willing to do the heavy-lifting of domestic legislative governance, the nitty-gritty of meeting with legislators to gain their support. Recent sessions with members of Congress regarding the jobs bill are a good start, but Obama needs to do more politicking, as personally distasteful as it may be.

At the end of the day, LBJ acknowledged how hard it was to be constructive, colorfully summarizing: "Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a good carpenter to build one." If President Obama wants to be an good carpenter, he must ask himself: What would Johnson do?

Tony Blankley: Palin Delivers Sparkle, Warmth

2010-02-10T03:44:01Z

"No new ideas." That was the most prominent of the criticisms of Sarah Palin's speech at MSNBC's too-cool-for-school Morning Joe on Monday. The more general critique of former Gov. Palin's future was that while she certainly had star power, she could never speak to more than a fraction of even Republicans. The proof of the latter point was made with the evidence that many important Washington Republicans could never support her for more than cheerleader to her marginal people.

They also pointed out that she had kept out of races in Massachusetts and Virginia, where it was thought she might not help. Gosh, a lack of ego paired with shrewd political judgment - that is surely not wanted in a leader. (In both those incidents, the president himself couldn't resist going in and contributing to his candidates' losses.)

If I hadn't still been lying in bed, I would have fallen over laughing at this summary rejection by the guardians of the existing order of the only national figure who both: (1) unabashedly but politely criticizes President Obama where it hurts him most; and, (2) eye-catchingly articulates the central values and objectives of the about 60 percent of the public that views the current administration's actions with slack-jawed horror and fear.

The American people have had a belly full of new ideas in the last year. The next winning politician and party will only have to offer two "new ideas": Stop it now! (and) Start rolling it back immediately! It may take decades just to execute those two new ideas.

Almost everything that is disturbing Americans about the current administration, domestically, can be found in one of the most shocking documents ever issued by the U.S. government - last week's 2011 federal budget. It not only shocked America, it even shocked the New York Times, which led, top right above the fold with David Sanger's spot-on analysis piece headlined: "Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power."

"In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power.

"The first is the projected deficit in the coming year, nearly 11 percent of the country's entire economic output. ...

"But the second number, buried deeper in the budget's projections, is the one that really commands attention: By President Obama's own optimistic projections, American deficits will not return to what are widely considered sustainable levels over the next 10 years. In fact, in 2019 and 2020 - years after Mr. Obama has left the political scene, even if he serves two terms - they start rising again sharply, to more than 5 percent of gross domestic product. His budget draws a picture of a nation that like many American homeowners simply cannot get above water."

The truly shocking part of the budget is what was left out: a road map out of the economic calamity.

We have faced hard times before, but, with the possible exception of Jimmy Carter's "malaise" speech, never before has a president, essentially, thrown up his hands and not even offered a plan for how to fix a problem.

And yet, the 2011 budget proposes a budget that if carried out to the letter would assure "unsustainable deficits" (above 3 percent of GDP) forever. By unsustainable, economists mean that we would get steadily poorer as a country. Think of Spain in the 1700s - the richest country in the world then has steadily gotten poorer for the last 300 years - and counting.

Americans rightly believe that we can build anything that needs building and fix anything that is broken. And, that we can do that by living out our nation's founding principles and values: constitutional government, respect for private property and life, a free market - and the gumption of hard-working, inventive Americans.

Those are the principles and spirit that Sarah Palin articulated with sparkle and sincerity last weekend. Those are the principles that have brought the Tea Party movement into being. They are the same principles that inspired the conservative movement that arose in the 1950s-60s.

As an early foot soldier for Ronald Reagan (starting in his 1966 California primary campaign for governor against San Francisco Mayor George Christopher), I well remember with what bemused scorn the political establishment of both parties held for Mr. Reagan. Then moderate state Assemblyman Caspar Weinberger told the New York Times that "Christopher will do much better than Rockefeller did. Reagan will get the great bulk of the Goldwater support, but it does not represent much more than one-third of the party."

In the general election in which Reagan overwhelmed incumbent Democrat Pat Brown, years later Mr. Brown reminisced: "We thought the notion was absurd and rubbed our hands in gleeful anticipation of beating this politically inexperienced, right-wing extremist and aging actor."

Reagan was the Palin of his time. I am not equating the two yet. She still has much to prove to the public (as Reagan did in 1966).

But the smarty pants who have driven America into the ditch by discarding traditional American values and principles should be cautious in writing off the most effective national advocate for such values precisely at the time that leftist programs have so conspicuously failed and outraged the public.

Evan Handler: Reconsider. Think Again. Do More.

2010-02-10T03:15:10Z

Many commenters poo-pooed my earlier posts about Anthem Blue Cross's intention to dramatically lower reimbursement rates for Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, and Speech Therapy. Some said, "Physical Therapy? Who cares?" Others, of course, mocked my model in which the federal government might take any action to merely oversee or - gasp! - regulate the insurance industry (or any industry, for that matter; there are many who seem convinced that corporations are benevolent parents to us all).

I warned that Anthem's actions would be only the beginning of a terrible situation for everyone, and urged all readers to contact a number of Anthem and government officials, as well as print reporters. (Interestingly, while many of my posts here receive hundreds of responses, the one urging readers to take action received exactly 17.)

Now, Anthem Blue Cross is announcing raises in subscription rates of 30 to 39 percent, beginning March 1, 2010. That's after its parent company, Wellpoint, already announced record profits in 2009.

Lucky for Blue Cross subscribers, President Obama, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, Bart Stupak, D-Michigan, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are publicly demanding explanations from Anthem Blue Cross.

Unfortunately for us all, there is nothing the law allows them to do, other than try to expose the horrific greed and inhumanity associated with these rate changes, along with reimbursement reductions (so long as they're not applied "selectively" to only some customers).

Let me be as clear as I can: Should Anthem Blue Cross succeed (as they are doing), your insurance company is going to quickly do exactly the same thing - to you, to your company, or to your union, when you or they purchase insurance. If you think not, you are deluding yourself.

THIS IS ALL HAPPENING BECAUSE U.S. CITIZENS HAVE NOT UNITED IN HUGE NUMBERS TO DEMAND A COMPREHENSIVE HEALTH CARE OVERHAUL BILL THAT ENSURES THAT HEALTH INSURERS CAN'T GET AWAY WITH THIS KIND OF PRICE GOUGING.

In fact, the difficulty of passage of such a bill thus far has made it clear to them that they can do whatever they like.

Short of single payer, European-style health care coverage (which, regardless of those who say otherwise, is by far the most successful public health care strategy every implemented on planet Earth, and is by far our best protection against such corporate greed) a strong, competitive option to buy publicly guaranteed insurance is the only thing that will protect people here.

I'm not kidding. Reconsider, if you've been opposed. Think again, if you've had reservations. Get involved, if you agree. Do more, if you've done anything already. Make calls, if you've only passed on these posts. Write letters, if you've only made phone calls. Raise your voice now, if you think you might ever need to see a doctor in your life, or we're all going to sink like stones on this.

Oh, and since I've written these recent posts, my Anthem Blue Cross insurance has begun denying portions of my medical claims, requiring lengthy, costly delays and appeals, in percentages I've never experienced before. I'm hoping it's coincidental.

White House Takes Aim At Lobbyists Trying To Sink Student-Loan Bill

2010-02-10T02:51:04Z

The Obama administration has launched a final push to get one of the president's signature education reform initiatives, lashing out in unusually strong terms at the lobbying effort that threatens its passage.

Taking aim at Sallie Mae, the largest student lender in the country and a driving force behind the lobbying effort, Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday accused the company of using taxpayer funds to lobby and advertise, and cast its executives as white-collar millionaires uninterested in serious education reform.

"Sallie Mae executives have paid themselves hundreds of millions of dollars in the last decade while teachers, nurses, and scientists -- the backbone of the new economy -- face crushing debt because of runaway college tuition costs," Duncan said.

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Duncan called the administration's plans to overhaul the student loan program by ending government subsidies for private lenders "a once-in a generation, maybe once-in-a lifetime" opportunity that Congress would be foolish to let slip away.

But slip away it may. Despite its common-sense appeal and its passage by the House of Representatives, the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act -- which would eliminate the role that private industry plays in originating student loans -- has gotten a tough reception in the Senate, in large part because private lenders have spent a boatload of money protecting their turf.

Last week, The New York Times reported that Sallie Mae had launched an intense lobbying effort to push the Senate's hand, including "sit-downs with lawmakers, town-hall-style meetings and petition drives to plead their case and stay in business." Over the past year, the company spent more than $4 million lobbying Congress, a review of campaign finance records showed. That was the equivalent of $25,000 for every day Congress was in session.

Asked about the lobbying campaign. Duncan replied: "I think banks have had a sweet deal. They're a powerful lobbying force, and working-class families don't have lobbyists working for them. They're just trying to make ends meet and pay to go to college. And so you have strong, entrenched interests that have lobbied and continue to lobby to this day, and they're running ads in states. And you have, on the flip side, millions of working-class families trying to do the right thing and go to school."

How the debate evolved to this is, in many ways, a reflection of the complications the legislative process has presented to the White House generally. Last fall, President Obama called the idea of removing the private industry's role in originating student loans a "no-brainer." Instead of giving private lenders federal subsidies and guarantees to make student loans (as is the case under the Federal Family Education Loan program) the government would simply do it itself. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that reform would save taxpayers about $87 billion over the next ten years -- money that would, in turn, be invested towards expanding Pell Grants for students in addition to other education initiatives. Smart politics, in short, begat even better political messaging. At least the House thought so, passing the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act this summer.

But in the Senate, the lobbyists have had better luck, successfully trotting out two basic arguments: That students would default more frequently with the government in the role of lender; and that reforming the student loan industry would result in substantial job loss in the private sector.

Supporters of the bill insist neither charge is legitimate. For starters, government is already chest deep in the loan industry, following the collapse of the financial markets and the decision of many schools to switch to direct loan programs. According to the Department of Educations congressional budget justification, more than 88 percent of federal student loan volume in the 2008-2009 academic year "was finance through capital provided by" the department. The remaining 12 percent is what the law would affect.

As for potential job losses, private industry would still be involved in servicing student loans -- making sure borrowers are making their payments on time, preventing default, and providing them with other services as well.

"I haven't found one [argument from Sallie Mae's lobbyists] that made sense yet," said Rep. George Miller (D-Calif.), chair of the House Education Committee. "We are now providing 88 percent of all the capital and over the next ten years we can save 85 billion dollars doing it a different way. And that money can be used to enhance the educational opportunities of millions of students in this country. It is a no brainer."

But conservative Democrats in the Senate, especially those with ties to the lending industry, have long been skittish on the issue. And their concerns, Capitol Hill aides say, have only deepened as the bill has been cast as a government intervention.

Miller, in an interview with HuffPost, insisted that the outlook still "looks pretty good" and that the likely avenue for passage in the Senate will be through a parliamentary procedure that allows a simple up-or-down vote. "It is in the reconciliation instructions today with the House," he said. "So that is done. And all the conversations I've had with the administration, the Senate, they will probably go together."

Duncan, likewise, spoke encouragingly about the bill's prospects. There is, he stressed, no parallel to draw between this legislative process and health care reform -- another Obama initiative that once seemed destined for passage. "I don't know if I agree with the analogy," he said. "The choice is so amazingly clear to me. You just stop subsidizing banks, and you save tens of billions of dollars of savings in education.

"We feel a sense of urgency in this," Duncan said. "It's a once in a lifetime, once in a generation opportunity. These kinds of opportunities don't come along too often. And we want to make sure we have a chance to invest unprecedented resources in dramatically improving education in our country."

Elizabeth Westling: The Freedom of Speech Versus the Tyranny of Greed

2010-02-10T01:21:11Z

Cicero wrote in his Dialogue, De Oratore that "speech matters in those forms of government where consensus is achieved by reasoned persuasion rather than by autocratic decree, and where political decisions are submitted to the crucible of argument and counterâargument in the public forum."

As Robert Pogue Harrison put it in his "Essay on the Human Condition," "thought must flower in speech and the public sphere must blossom with discourse. In the architectonics of the American political system, Congress is one place where we still have that public forum. And because that forum is representative of ALL the people, Congress must be the keeper of the flame of our freedom to speak."

But so, you ask, who has removed that freedom to speak? The majority opinion in Citizens United only opens the floodgates of speech to a larger group of speakers bound together by their corporate ties, their business interests. What could the harm be? And is that harm real or only imagined in the minds of those who disagree with the Court's opinion?

The harm is not so much in the ruling itself but in what it portends for this country. It is an unfortunate circumstance that in this 21st Century, the direct ties of the people to their representatives have either been severed or ignored. Congress was created as a place where the 'commonweal' was the business of the day and that wealth was supposed to include all people in the civil body politic. Rather than binding us each to each by our mutual loyalty and generosity, Congress, our principal public forum, has become a marketplace where ideas are bought, sold, and traded to the highest bidder, held hostage to the bribery of political fortunes. If it were indeed a place where many opinions could be aired, where speeches were clear, concise, and had a point, where generous understanding was the order of the day, then Congress could truly be said to be a public forum where speech could breathe free.

America in this century has become a voyeur society. We are lazy when it comes to participating in our political system. Television and film cannot take the place of a public forum. We have allowed ourselves to be engulfed by couch potato politics where the communication is always silent on one side of the screen. And if we are allowed to talk back to the screen it is usually only for a quick yes or no answer that satisfies only the voracious appetite of the pollster.

So, you ask again, where is the harm done by Citizens United? There is none if freedom to speak is not enslaved by the tyranny of greed or by the desire of a few to take over the voice box of the many. Whether tyranny is thrust upon us from outside or selfâimposed by our own lethargy and ignorance, it is tyranny nonetheless. The harm of greed will not come forward and warn the people of its intentions. Television will dutifully transmit it through cute and clever ads for products and services and the dumb pipe of our financial services will disguise its effects.

Corporate greed is not new or inevitable. America and the world at large have recently witnessed a showing of corporate greed that dwarfs the robber barons of the mid 19th Century. Our Congress seems to have lost its wayââit cannot see or hear or be touched by the misery of ordinary people. Congress is supposed to be the bridge, the tie that binds the people to that brand of democracy that is the hallmark of 21st Century America: one person, one vote. The people have lost patience with the representative democracy created by the Founders. We are not willing to wait for the right to catch up with the enforcement of democracy -- an enforcement that might follow as fast as circumstances should permit, as Abraham Lincoln once famously wrote.

Now more than ever, our elected representatives have to be hyperâvigilant and proâactive and not turn away from the face of corporate greed -- either foreign or domestic. And though our mantle of democracy may not fit our swollen representatives quite as well as it once did, our system of representative democracy requires our combined and collective goodwill for ALL the people. It is what the majority of the peopleââvoting through their elected representativesââwant that should be enacted and/or reâenacted into law.

I come back to Cicero. I want America to be a democracy where "speech matters"; where it is not just a rhetorical device used to obscure or trick people into thinking they are being heard. Words that contain hope can be bold; they can lift the veil that clouds the mind and hardens the heart. Words can become deeds. And our deeds will set us free.

New Mexico House Votes 65-0 To Move State's Money To Credit Unions, Community Banks

2010-02-10T00:45:54Z

New Mexico's House of Representatives voted Monday to pass a bill that allows the state to move $2 billion - $5 billion of state funds to credit unions and small banks.

The municipal funds bill was approved 65-0 (roll call - PDF), and is subject to a vote by New Mexico's Senate. Governor Bill Richardson told the bill's sponsor that he supports the legislation.

Credit Union Times, spoke to one banker who believes that the bill got a boost from Huffington Post's Move Your Money campaign:

The altered view of New Mexico lawmakers in favoring local control of state funds, officials said, follows national mention of the New Mexico effort in the "Move Your Money" campaign of New York pundit Arianna Huffington in her online Huffington Post columns.

"I think Huffington gave this bill a little traction," said Juan Fernandez, vice president of government affairs for the Credit Union Association of New Mexico

Move Your Money is a project started by Arianna and Rob Johnson that aims to spur financial reform at big banks by encouraging account holders to move their money to smaller credit unions and community banks. New Mexico currently keeps $1.4 billion in accounts at Bank of America.

New Mexico State Representatives Brian Egolf (D-Santa Fe) and Timothy Keller (D-Bernalillo) sponsored the bill, HB 66. Rep. Eglof told the Huffington Post in January that the legislation would "direct the New Mexico Department of Finance and Administration to 'give a preference to a community bank to act as the fiscal agent of the general fund operating cash depository account.'"

Steven Weber: Spin Art (A Small Minded Excursion Into Ideologically Driven Creativity)

2010-02-10T00:13:29Z

"My favorite low-brow bromide is that Sarah Palin "terrifies the Left." The truth is she (and her ilk) terrify all sensible, thoughtful people on the Left and on the Right, let alone every civilized nation on Earth. That a personality less qualified, less able, less educated should ascend so rapidly (and clearly with the help of an opportunistic media on both sides of the ideological divide) speaks to the depths this nation has sunk in terms of selecting viable, wise leadership. She is a Charlie's Angel's Republican wet dream, the bodice ripping heroine of all good Christian conservative chicken hawks. Terrified? You betcha."

No Longer Too Big To Fail? Credit Rating Agency Thinks So

2010-02-10T00:00:00Z

The giant credit rating agency Standard & Poor's issued a stark warning Tuesday to creditors of Citigroup and Bank of America, two firms that up until now had been considered "Too Big To Fail". The message: We're not so sure the U.S. government will bail them out again next time.

In the fall of 2008, the government ponied up $90 billion to rescue the two giant banks rather than risk the repercussions of their failure. Since then, the implicit guarantee that the government would backstop them has been hugely profitable to megabanks. For instance, they have been able to borrow money at cheaper rates because lending to them essentially carried no risk.

But now, Standard & Poor's is saying, the rules seem to be changing: "The outlook revision reflects our increased uncertainty about the U.S. government's willingness to provide additional extraordinary support to highly systemically important financial institutions in a way that benefits debt holders," the agency announced. "We previously stated our belief that the extraordinary support was temporary. We believe markets are beginning to stabilize and the U.S. government is seeking ways to reduce the potential for moral hazard and systemic risk associated with large financial institutions."

So more than a year after a reckless Wall Street nearly brought down the U.S. economy, it appears the Obama administration and Congress have persuaded at least one credit-rating agency that taxpayers won't be there to support megabanks next time they screw up.

With its short statement, S&P put the market on notice that TBTF banks will no longer be able to enjoy the fruits of their risk-taking without having to suffer the consequences when their bets go sour.

And the markets reacted accordingly. The cost of insuring the debt of Citigroup and Bank of America against restructuring or default rose 2.2 percent each Tuesday, according to CMA Datavision.

In the 2008 crash, employees of Bank of America and Citigroup were laid off en masse and shareholders took a hit on their equity investments -- but the firms' creditors escaped as the bailouts preserved the value of their debt.

Last December, the House of Representatives passed a bill with zero Republican votes to ensure something like that never happens again. In short, should there ever be a situation in which a TBTF firm requires taxpayer assistance, the firm's bondholders will also take a hit -- a significant change from the present situation.

"I'm pleased to see that they're taking our efforts seriously," said Rep. Brad Miller (D-N.C.), a member of the House Financial Services Committee. Miller helped push through an amendment calling for a firm's creditors to suffer losses should it need government assistance. S&P specifically mentioned that portion of the bill.

"I hope we've made it clear that we're not going to stand behind the big firms forever," Miller said.

S&P also pointed to the Obama administration's recent efforts to curb TBTF, most notably its push to recoup taxpayer losses on the TARP program by imposing a levy on the biggest financial firms based on their leverage.

"The subsequently proposed Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee, which would impose a significant cost burden on the largest banks, further underscores the extent to which the political climate may affect bond holders of these companies adversely," S&P said in its statement.

"The rationale that S&P provided here is on the money, particularly the phrase about 'seeking ways to reduce the potential for moral hazard and systemic risk associated with large financial institutions,'" said a senior administration official.

"S&P is taking the moral hazard issue more seriously. They think the government is going to take stronger steps to deal with too-big-to-fail institutions, and they therefore see more risk," said Douglas Elliott, a former investment banker and currently a fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank.

"The more we see things like the ratings agencies assuming that a too-big-to-fail institution could cause losses to creditors, the better it is," Elliott said. "If the Street is starting to read this as lending to these institutions is not completely safe, that's a great thing."

He added: "These banks are highly-levered institutions. If debt holders start to care about their safety, that will translate into how management acts."

TBTF status brings a huge benefit to megabanks because the market treat their debt as fully guaranteed by the U.S. government. It's a massive taxpayer-funded subsidy.

For example, in a September study, Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and a colleague, calculated that since the failure of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 and the ensuing actions that enshrined TBTF, the 18 largest bank holding companies enjoyed significantly lower borrowing costs than smaller banks. He calculated the taxpayer-funded subsidy at $34.1 billion a year.

Court Keeps White House Spy Docs Secret

2010-02-09T23:54:57Z

A federal appellate panel on Tuesday blocked a court order requiring disclosure of e-mail between the White House, Justice Department, National Security Agency and Office of the Director of National Intelligence -- communications that paved the way for new spy legislation.

Stuart Whatley: The Tea Party Movement Is a National Embarrassment

2010-02-09T23:43:31Z

Last summer, when mass protests broke out in Iran following what was seen as a rigged election, Americans cried out in support of the uprising through all possible channels. Some commentators here went so far as to claim credit for the "revolution," as if it never could have happened without American political movements having already set the example. But despite the arrogance of that claim, the Iranian Green movement is indeed an exertion of democratic will that resonates closely with many Americans -- and for good reason.

America's rich history of successful social and political movements, from its genesis onward, lends profound familiarity to the Iranian uprising, most of which has remained nonviolent. The enduring American symbolic identity -- as a bastion of freedom and opportunity -- is mostly justified when one considers the relative success of the Civil Rights or Feminist movements of the 20th Century, or of the ongoing LGBT rights movement, which continues to make incremental gains today. American democracy, fueled by an active populace -- despite its numerous imperfections -- remains the gold standard around the world.

It is against this venerable historical backdrop that one must concede that the most well known, highly publicized American social/political movement today -- the Tea Party movement -- is a national embarrassment.

At its core, the Tea Party movement is rife with contradiction, incoherence and a willful contempt for facts or reason. It is but a parody of the legitimate movements for which American democracy has historically been held in such high regard. It is, in fact, the latest installment in quite another American tradition: The exploitation of frustrated, desperate, and susceptible people by monied interests and profiteers.

The impetus for the Civil Rights movement was centuries of racially based oppression at all levels of American government and society. The logic behind its call for equality was overwhelming. Now consider the Tea Party movement, whose foremost demand of a president who in his first month passed one of the biggest tax cuts ever...is for tax cuts. The movement's incoherence is only illuminated further when this demand is uttered in the same sentence as its call for deficit reduction.

Though the movement claims to have no defined leadership, there are public figures and entities who nevertheless carry that mantle, which has led to perhaps its greatest irony: A portion of the American populace who carries a populist banner against the coddling of greedy bankers is led by some of the country's most cynical and base profiteers.

When the movement was christened last April for a large tax day protest, it was derived wholesale from the efforts of a registered corporate lobbyist and a right-leaning cable news network, whose president recently pointed out that it's all about ratings. At the Tea Party's national convention last weekend, its keynote speaker was a former governor who quit midterm in order to peddle a book that she didn't write, but for which she collects most of the royalties. If this were Iran's Green Movement, these would be the people slinging marked-up green headbands on the street corner.

Of course, the Tea Party is not without its whistleblowers. The $500 per plate entry fee to last week's convention almost led to it being canceled altogether. But the exodus of reasonable elements will only homogenize the movement further towards a particularly polarizing worldview that opens itself to continued profit-driven exploitation.

In Authoritarianism & Polarization in American Politics, a revealing work of political science published last year that unfortunately went somewhat unnoticed, Marc J. Hetherington and Jonathan D. Weiler describe a specific worldview -- authoritarianism -- which they argue lies at the heart of political polarization in modern American politics. (It should be noted: their use of the term is not related to the more quotidian and overly negative connotation associated with despotic regimes; rather, it describes a particular lens through which certain people view the world, based on a wide range of scholarly work spanning the fields of psychology, sociology, political science, and other cognitive sciences.)

According to Hetherington and Weiler, authoritarians tend to rely more on emotion and instinct in decision-making, view politics in black and white, resent confusion or ambiguity in the social order, and are suspicious of specific groups who they believe could alter that order (typically gays and immigrants). The difference between authoritarians and nonauthoritarians, according to the authors, becomes far more pronounced during tumultuous economic or social periods when there are more perceived "threats". During such times, authoritarians in particular lose accuracy motivation and, "become much less interested than nonauthoritarians in seeking information that [is] balanced in its approach, and much more interested in pursuing one-sided information that reinforc[es] existing beliefs." Or in other words, they are highly susceptible to misinformation campaigns, the likes of which pervaded the health care reform debate last summer.

Most every characteristic of an authoritarian worldview lends itself well to the impassioned rhetoric of the Tea Party movement and the shrewd players operating behind the scenes and atop the soap box. The movement's overly simplified, often-confused solutions to complex problems align with authoritarians' Manichean worldview. That Tom Tancredo's anti-immigrant laced speech at last weekend's convention was well received comes as no surprise. And that this is the group who so often embraces proven falsehoods and spin-narratives to defend its anti-administration agenda should speak for itself with regards to accuracy motivation.

Despite the criticism it receives, the Tea Party continues to be praised as a political force. It is loud, passionate, and generally unconcerned with pesky things like facts or reasoned, practical solutions to the country's problems. This bodes ill for 2010's political environment, and it is a shameful representation of what constitutes an American political or social movement. While the Tea Party may alienate some who see it for the profit-machine that it is, others who share the fearful, intolerant authoritarian worldview that it is increasingly coalescing around will be lured in and pitted against the very people in power who could actually help them. That this movement has grown political legs is too bad, and by Hetherington and Weiler's account, it means even more polarization is yet to come.

Richard Shelby: Chris Dodd 'Is Gonna Go With His Bill And Go It Alone'

2010-02-09T23:40:28Z

Senate negotiators are at an impasse over the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Banking Committee, told the Huffington Post Tuesday night.

After talking with committee chair Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Shelby said: "I'm sure at this juncture that he's gonna go with his bill and go it alone. We don't believe he can pass a bill without us. To pass a meaningful bill it's going to have to be, in my judgment, a bipartisan bill."

HuffPost asked Shelby if Dodd had confirmed to him on the floor that he was moving ahead with an independent Consumer Finance Protection Agency.

"Well, that's been our biggest split, okay, and it's still at impasse there," Shelby said. "But we're talking."

Dodd, after the Senate floor conversation, also said that the talks would continue, but not forever.

"We're down to a couple of issues here that we need to work on and I'm determined to continue to work on those over the next few days to see if we can put something together. If not, then we'll go forward with a bill. And there may be another day in this process before we're at that point, but we're working on it," Dodd said, predicting a committee vote in the next few weeks.

Asked if he specifically told Shelby he was moving ahead with an independent CFPA, Dodd said: "No, I didn't say that. I said the door was open."

"We've gone a great distance in major areas in my view. Obviously, nothing's done until everything's done," he said.

Shelby recently gained national notoriety by placing a "blanket hold" on 70 Obama nominees in order to win a defense contract for a European company that hires non-union labor in his home state of Alabama.

Andrew Tucker Avorn: Should Senators Vote to Filibuster?

2010-02-09T23:20:19Z

Legislation in the Senate is filibustered by default every day. A simple change in debate rules could preserve the Senate's deliberative tradition, but more accurately reflect the true purpose and political reality of the filibuster. 41 Senators should vote to extend debate, instead of 60 voting to close it.

Right now, 60 senators must vote for cloture to end debate and bring a bill to the floor for a vote, which requires assembling a "filibuster proof majority" before a filibustering coalition even materializes. Requiring 60 Senators to vote to close debate functions less to protect the minority party's right to express its views than to let watch from the sidelines while the majority hamstrings itself attempting to muster 60 votes. The filibuster exists to let the minority block legislation, but rule actually works to hamper the majority from passing it.

This simple rule change could maintain the minority's ability to block legislation, but would make them accountable for doing so. Instead of requiring 60 votes to close debate, The Senate should require 41 votes to keep it open. The founding fathers deliberately set a high bar for passing legislation in The Senate, and the rule change would not alter that calculus, but the current Senate's constant threat of filibuster requires a procedural tweak to ensure that the rules and traditions of the Senate are not used to hold legislation hostage without anyone lifting a finger. The same 41 Senators who can now prevent legislation from coming to a vote would maintain that power under the new rule, but they would actually have to vote to use the Senate's most powerful procedural rule instead of letting the filibuster happen automatically.

The procedure for closing debate could look like this: after a bill has been debated sufficiently, the majority leader could move to close debate, and debate would automatically close, unless 40 senators voted to keep debate open (after the minority has had sufficient time to muster enough votes). If the minority does successfully vote to keep debate open, then a 60-vote supermajority would be required to close debate.

The effect of this modest change would be to make the minority party accountable to Americans for asserting their right to extend debate on legislation. Senator X's constituents would know that she voted to extend debate on the healthcare reform bill, for example, instead of only that she did not vote to end debate on it; if she has a good reason for voting that way, she has the chance to explain it. The vote to extend debate would place the burden of asserting the minority's veto power on the senators that want to protect their constituents' interests. Besides making debates more efficient, this rule change would decouple votes on closing debate from votes on the merits of policy. A filibuster is a potent political tool. Shouldn't senators have to stand up and vote for it?

Email the author at AndrewAvorn@gmail.com, or follow him on Twitter @AndrewAvorn.

Kim Davis: The President's Health Care Reform Symposium

2010-02-09T23:18:28Z

Elections are about making promises and making friends; governing is about making choices and making enemies. If President Obama wants health care reform then, both for political and policy reasons, he needs to start making some real enemies on his left because the strategy of conditioning passage on an all-liberal-with-a-few-moderates strategy will not work.

The President should begin the upcoming February 25 symposium on health care reform by reaffirming his unwavering commitment to universal access, higher quality care and controlling costs. Next and as importantly he needs to acknowledge the real lesson of both his health care reform efforts to date and the failure of Hillarycare which is that neither our political system nor the majority of American think it is a good idea to have Washington redesign our entire health care system in one fell swoop...and for good reason. It requires a special combination of ignorance and arrogance to believe that a bunch of politicians and their staffs can redesign a large chunk of the economy without massive unintended consequences and thus incur the potential risk that the outcome could be a worse system than we have now, not a better one.

We should be ambitious about our goals and modest about our confidence that they can all be achieved immediately. Incremental reform is not a great political slogan, but it can be the basis of thoughtful change.

Three areas of incremental reform should be included as part of the upcoming symposium debate: 1) Most favored nation pricing for drugs which would require US pharmaceutical companies to offer US citizens the same pricing that they negotiate with other governments such as Canada. We don't need to re-import drugs from Canada; we just need them priced at the same levels as in Canada; 2) tort reform which would focus on faster and more predictable resolutions of medical malpractice allegations (using a combination of specialty health care courts and arbitration proceedings). This kind of reform would also require complete transparency in these proceedings so that we can create a constant information feedback loop to the medical industry. Only this kind of quick and comprehensive information flow about mistakes will provide the basis for a system of continuous quality improvement; and 3) a national reinsurance pool that would provide subsidies which would extend the reach and affordability of health care insurance to citizens who either can't afford it or have preexisting conditions which preclude them from obtaining it.

If the President is calculating that his symposium will allow him to bludgeon Republicans and moderate Democrats into supporting the existing health care legislation, he will be sorely disappointed. On the other hand, if he uses the forum to seriously consider incremental changes that use a combination of market mechanisms and government regulation to begin transforming our health care system into one that provides more coverage at lower costs with higher quality, then he will go down in history as the President who led the way on providing the American people with the health care system they deserve.

Leslie Griffith: Saint Sara at the Bully Pulpit -- Never Underestimate a Beauty Queen

2010-02-09T23:07:27Z

Reporters used to laugh when beauty contestants began saying they wanted to someday be television "anchorwomen." They did not say "reporters." They wanted the lights! They wanted the camera! They wanted the action and attention that comes with "anchoring."

No one is laughing now, except for those former beauty queens occupying those chairs. Most are smart enough to take the catapulting beauty queen experience off their resumes. Consider this: would you be willing to don a bikini, stiletto heels and tape your body into perkiness just to parade in front of lusty crowds fawning for attention?

Giving away power and agreeing to be objectified from the "get go," as Sarah Palin might say, is a form of ambition taller than the Transamerica building. The comparison is intentional, because it was here in San Francisco that George W. Bush was handed a wedge issue that helped him get re-elected. And, Palin is all about wedges... one in particular.

She's playing the "Sarah the Saint" card, ready and willing to tear an already torn apart county into shreds with an issue that should never be politicized to begin with.

Before getting to that, let's take a stroll down memory lane. It's November, 2004 and George W. Bush wins Ohio, pushing the electoral college count in his favor. Here's what the New York Times wrote: "Proposed state constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage increased the turnout of socially conservative voters in many of the 11 states where the measures appeared on the ballot on Tuesday, political analysts say, providing crucial assistance to Republican candidates."

In Ohio, residents began coming to the polls just before they closed, spurred on by watching gay marriage ceremonies on the nightly news. Those images of men and women rushing to marry their same sex partners got Ohioans fired up and primed to punch any chad located next to Republican names.

Fast forward to Friday as Sarah Palin delivers a mean-spirited address to the all-white, middle-aged Tea Party crowd. Following the manic hiccups and incomplete thoughts, she came right down to her own wedge issue -- abortion. It's an oldie. But, in terms of stoking passionate fires, it's a goodie.

In a new book -- "Game Change" -- Palin is re-named "Saracuda." The book describes a woman fighting hard not to look like what she is -- a woman way over her head and certainly not ready to be president. In the book, Palin is often quoted as saying, "I know, what I know, what I know."

By that she hopes to highlight what she considers her instincts for relating to the people. What Palin knows is that her anti-abortion comments got the most raucous ovations of the night. The beauty queen with the "special needs" child -- Saint Sarah -- who implies she would have continued with her pregnancy in spite of any dangers related to her advancing age, and no matter how "special" her child's needs might be. The reasoning is Palinesque, taking huge leaps in logic to get to the coveted wedge. Why? Because no one ever knows for sure why such intensely personal decisions are made, but a beauty queen can spot a wedge and an advantage like a Neiman Marcus store. (Palin apparently had Neiman Marcus bags full of clothes all over her hotel room during the campaign.)

Make no mistake; she's willing to use whatever it takes. She's already signed up with Fox News. So, she's already got the conservative bully pulpit and the coveted anchor chair.

Writer Len Colodny, who co-wrote The Forty Years War: The Rise and Fall of the Neocons, From Nixon to Obama said recently on C-SPAN, "Sarah Palin is George W. Bush in drag." I took that to mean, ambitious without the brainpower, and therefore, easily used by the Dick Cheneys and Karl Roves of this world. The names will be different, but they'll use her up as "Saint Sarah" and then likely throw her away. From the ridiculous to the sublime:

Sarah -- the renegade -- is really just another rote.

Carl Levin: Filibuster Could Fall 'After Massive Conflict On The Floor'

2010-02-09T22:56:31Z

Senate Republicans made a persuasive case for abolishing or reforming the filibuster on Tuesday night when they blocked a routine nomination to the National Labor Relations Board that had been held up since April.

The GOP was joined by Democrats Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas in defeating President Obama's nominee, Craig Becker, by a vote of 52-33. The 52 votes were in favor of Becker, while the 33 were in opposition. In today's Senate, that's enough to block a nominee.

"I'm in my thirty-sixth year. I've never seen anything like it," said Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), noting that no previous Republican Senate leader would have allowed his party to filibuster such a routine nomination.

Leahy said that the overuse of filibusters by the GOP was leading Democrats to consider ways to modify it.

Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), another long-serving member, said that abuse of the filibuster is unsustainable. "I think it will either fall of its own weight -- it should fall of its own weight -- or it will fall after some massive conflict on the floor, which has happened in the past where there have been rulings from the chair that have led to reform," Levin told the Huffington Post, adding that the filibuster should be restricted to major issues.

Vice President Joe Biden will be sitting in that chair in January when the Senate next has a chance to modify its rules, and is studying the issue of the filibuster.

Leahy said he recently conferred with former Sen. Walter Mondale about filibuster reform. Mondale led the charge that last changed the rule in the 1970s. "He said it was just inconceivable to anybody at that time" that it would be abused as it is now, Leahy said. "The reason the filibuster rule has been supported all these years is people have used it responsibly...this is unprecedented."

The GOP went to great intellectual lengths to find a reason to oppose Becker, a labor lawyer. Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, the highest-ranking Republican on the committee that approved Becker, presented a novel argument. He noted that Becker had answered hundreds of questions that Republicans had submitted to him, and then used that fact to make the logical leap that he was a questionable nominee.

"If a nominee garners a greater level of public scrutiny and larger than usual volumes of questions, we should ask why. This unique scrutiny should be a signal that the individual has raised a great level of concern and controversy," Enzi argued from the Senate floor.

Enzi also argued that the nomination, which was first made in April 2009, was being rushed through the Senate.

Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) responded that not even a "half dead" organization would consider that pace anything but lethargic.

In a fiery floor speech, Brown accused Senate Republicans of McCarthyist tactics for highlighting Becker's connection to someone who had once worked for the embattled community organizing group ACORN.

For decades, Brown said, Republican presidents have nominated pro-management people to serve on the National Labor Relations Board and Democrats nominated pro-labor individuals. The GOP, he said, had thrown out the rulebook with its historic filibuster of a nominee to the board.

The Huffington Post asked Nelson prior to the vote if he thought the president had a right to nominate pro-labor people to the NLRB. "He does," said Nelson. "And I have a right to oppose them." Newly-minted Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) voted against the nomination.

WATCH Sen. Sherrod Brown's floor speech:

UPDATE: Organized labor is responding with outrage at the obstruction of Becker's nomination.

"Working families across America today learned that the Republican Party and some Democrats would rather sit on their hands than serve the interests of the people who put them in office in the first place," said Service Employees International Union President Andy Stern.

"Craig Becker is as qualified and brilliant a nominee as they come, someone who is respected by management and labor-side attorneys, by academics, liberals and conservatives alike. But when it came time to voting to even debate his appointment to the National Labor Relations Board, Congress forgot -- or ignored -- the needs of the people they were elected to serve, and thwarted the will of the majority of the Senate."

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said that he'd welcome a recess appointment, which both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Obama have floated recently as a way around the GOP blockade. President George W. Bush's first nomination to the NLRB, after all, was made by recess appointment.

"It is reprehensible that a minority in the U.S. Senate has blocked an up-or-down vote on Craig Becker, nominated seven months ago by President Obama to serve on the [NLRB]. Once again, a Republican-led filibuster has put political interests over the needs of America's working families. For more than two years, the NLRB has had only two of its five members. Without a fully staffed NLRB, working families face a major disadvantage in winning justice in the workplace," said Trumka.

"We support President Obama's expressed willingness to make recess appointments of critical posts in the federal government if that's what it takes to get around minority delay and obstruction. There are currently more than 60 political nominees being held up by the Republican minority in the Senate -- at this point in the Bush Administration, only four nominees were still in limbo."