Shameless Scolds - Updated

by: Rob Kailey

Tue May 03, 2011 at 15:00:47 PM MST

We've learned that the War on Terror continues, that al-Qaeda remains a threat and that airport security will remain onerous.  There is only response to such revelations.  All thanks to Captain Obvious and his reality rangers everywhere.  The killing of bin Laden can change many things emotional, but in practical terms not much has changed at all.  Being something of a stickler for owning what you profess, I wonder why the people so eager to tell us these things felt that most of us didn't already know them.  Wasn't the President on TV saying these very same things?

We have learned that we lost the War on Terror, and that Osama bin Laden won the war in death.  See, funny thing that. He's dead, and if you're reading this, you aren't.  I wouldn't even try to argue against the idea that our country has taken a radical turn for the worse since Osama's plan came to fruition.  In fact, many of the arguments Balko makes, I've made before.  Many many of us have.  But exactly how does that mean that bin Laden won, especially in light of the fact there are so many of us being reminded the war (whatever the hell that is at this point) isn't over?  Yes, we put an idiot and a greedy bloodsucker in control of the country, and they fell right into bin Laden's 'trap'.  The idiot is still an idiot, and the bloodsucker is now a remarkably powerless cyborg, and neither of them are in control of our destiny.  They damaged our nation, one whole helluva lot, in accordance with bin Laden's wishes.  Fine.  But the country is still here, isn't it?  You're still here, aren't you?  The Constitution has yet to be burned on the White House lawn, unless I missed the reality show event of the year.  Osama didn't win, except to those eager to say he did.  (I guess that's cool dude cred to say so.)  bin Laden took a couple of bullets to the left side of his head, and he's dead now.  Where we go from here is not up to him.  It's up to us, just as Radley felt the dire need to point out that it was up to us all along.

So what else have we learned from the 'Tubes today?  Well, we've learned that torture works, and we should assume the fetal position of shame.  Oh wait, we didn't learn that at all.  We should have learned that standard interrogation works.  At least we would learn that, if only the extreme right and the extreme left would follow facts instead of whatever agenda they're flogging at the time.

Now here's a factoid learned from the web-o-tubes today that actually feels good.  With bin Laden's demise, people are actually noticing that we shouldn't be in Afghanistan anymore.  Ya' think?  The White House has said that the timetable is still for a draw down of troops in July of this year.  That's a whole 2 months away.  How long can they drag this out? ...  If the death of bin Laden facilitates or accelerates that timetable, I am all for it.  I'm certain most of us are.  The long and short of it is this:  Obama accomplished in 2 years what the idiot son of an asshole couldn't and wouldn't do in 7.  Now is the time to leave Afghanistan.

But finally, we learn from the feet of the King of Scolds.  Shorter Glenn Greenwald:

You indecent vulgar barbarians behave in ways that nauseate me.  ~pshaw~  Take me unto the fainting couch, oh my ...

I won't link to the Montana websites that promote the same twaddle, but the message is clear.  There is a litmus test for 'decent', according to Greenwald, and we all fail because we don't accept his teacher's edition of the grading sheet.

It's already a Litmus Test event: all Decent People -- by definition -- express unadulterated ecstacy at his death, and all Good Americans chant "USA! USA!" in a celebration of this proof of our national greatness and Goodness (and that of our President). Nothing that deviates from that emotional script will be heard, other than by those on the lookout for heretics to hold up and punish.

Notice that the WATB Glennzilla (his supporters call him that) already covers his ass in the sympathetic woe that someone might disagree with him.

No Glenn, we hear you. We just think you're full of it.  A lot of us think you're full of it.  It isn't a matter of thinking you a heretic or that you hate America.  It's that you have little more than disdain and spite for Americans.  It is somewhat sad how many are willing to follow Greenwald into rather stupid condescension directed towards their fellow folk.  This kind, the Greenwald kind, of nanny scolding is no different from the talibangenical religious right.  The message is the same.  You are sinful and unworthy lest you pay homage to the one true path of decency.

If people want to swing from lampposts or shoot off fireworks at the death of a monster, who should really care?  I don't.  Most of us don't.  The sun will rise in the morning and most of the predictions coming from Greenwald and Sirota will be proven full of crap, not that the 'progressive left' will notice.  The American people are not bloodlusted up and turning to cannibalism against our own.  Ultimately, what we should learn from the Internets today is that Osama bin Laden is dead, and life goes on.  Some will celebrate, and more power to them.  Some will doubt, some will mourn and some will just nod in agreement or otherwise.  There is no prescribed reaction to this event, save among the extreme left and the extreme right.

Updates:  

1)  The best response possible to Glenn Greenwald is written by Steve M at No More Mr. Nice Blog.

I Love Being Reduced To A Cultural Stereotype By Glenn Greenwald.

2)  And, speaking of being reduced to a stereotype by the unthinking demagogue, Lizard at 4 & 20 Nannies projects his own behavior, virtually a habit for them anymore.  Having perused this post and not found what he looked for, he made it up out of straw men and regurgitated it to his chirping minions:

But as some fragile-minded people begin their smearing of anyone who dares to be skeptical about what went down,

Notice, please, that there isn't one thing in this post that smears people in anyway for being "skeptical" about the events of Sunday night, or the initial reports of them.  More power to those folk, if that's what trips their trigger.  This post, the one that actually exists outside of Lizard's head, actually chides people like him for telling others what they must feel, think and believe about the events of Sunday night in Pakistan, the death of Osama bin Laden.  Apparently, to Liz, facts only matter when you can make them up without anyone else noticing.  That strikes me as a lot more Michelle Malkin than it is Noam Chomsky.  (I give Lizard credit for being disingenuous as opposed to just not understanding clearly written English.  Is that bad?)  

Must Read for Montana Progressives

by: Matthew Koehler

Fri Apr 01, 2011 at 10:58:29 AM MST

http://www.thenation.com/artic...

Stay true

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Sep 11, 2010 at 14:07:31 PM MST

That physical rebirth {of the Ground Zero memorial} is cause for celebration on this anniversary. It is a far more fitting way to defy the hate-filled extremists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, and to honor their victims, than to wallow in the intolerance and fear that have mushroomed across the nation. They are fed by the kind of bigotry exhibited by the would-be book burner in Florida, and, sadly, nurtured by people in positions of real power, including prominent members of the Republican Party.

Or what Obama said:

...the highest honor we can pay those we lost, indeed our greatest weapon in this ongoing war, is to do what our adversaries fear the most -- to stay true to who we are, as Americans; to renew our sense of common purpose; to say that we define the character of our country, and we will not let the acts of some small band of murderers who slaughter the innocent and cower in caves distort who we are.

Naturally, I agree with both sentiments whole-heartedly. I've said it before, but the worst part of that day - as horrific and tragic as it was with the senseless, brutal loss of life - was how it was exploited to justify wars of aggression, domestic spying, rendition, and torture, and how it's now used to stoke our worst racist and xenophobic passions. This past decade is a black spot on America's history.

Our thoughts this day should be directed, not against the minor national security threat extremist Muslims pose, but against the much more dangerous impulse of fearfulness within our own selves that is so casually exploited by ideologues.

Which will it be? A faith that commands obedience? Or that promises liberty?

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Aug 16, 2010 at 08:36:31 AM MST

So it's not surprising that many on the angry right have long opposed the rec center from being built in lower Manhattan and have been attacking Obama steadily for making those remarks, despite Mark Halperin's plea for Republican sanity:

Yes, Republicans, you can take advantage of this heated circumstance, backed by the families of the 9/11 victims, in their most emotional return to the public stage since 2001.

But please don't do it. There are a handful of good reasons to oppose allowing the Islamic center to be built so close to Ground Zero, particularly the family opposition and the availability of other, less raw locations. But what is happening now - the misinformation about the center and its supporters; the open declarations of war on Islam on talk radio, the Internet and other forums; the painful divisions propelled by all the overheated rhetoric - is not worth whatever political gain your party might achieve.

Uh, Mark? Compared to the sh*t the GOP has pulled - the Iraq war, torture, politicization of the DoJ, not to mention obstruction of health care reform and climate change legislation - this would be small change. They've already shredded the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth Amendments, are talking about gutting the Fourteenth, and already have a long and stormy relationship with the First. And civility is not a strongpoint in the Republican party.

Of course, that's not to belittle the question of religious freedom in the country. I think Simon Schama's right on when he claimed that the First Amendment - the separation of church and state - enabled some of the most interesting and vibrant - and peaceful -- religious experiments the world has seen:

In the United States the Founding Fathers believed...that religious truth would best be served by keeping the state out of the business of its propagation; that the power of religious engagement would not just survive freedom of conscience but be its noblest consequence. It was a daring bet: that faith and freedom were mutually nourishing. But it paid off and it has made America uniquely qualified to fight the only battle that matters, not General Boykin's quixotic reenactment of the true god against the false idol, but the war of toleration against conformity; the war of a faith that commands obedience against a faith that promises liberty. That, actually turns out to be the big American story.

Ironically, then, Obama's principles actually enable rightwing Christian conservatism to flourish. The precedent of overriding private property rights and religious freedom would be disastrous to the same fringe elements that beat the drum against a Muslim recreation center near Ground Zero.

After all, the group whose views on the Manhattan rec center most closely resembles that of the right's is Hamas, a "co-founder" of which said the "mosque" "has to be built," seeing it in terms of religious competition. Mosques and churches and temples are the architectural equivalent of religious armies encroaching on enemy territory.

I say we turn our backs on Hamas and Pam Geller. Let the law of the land prevail.

Punching hippies

by: Jay Stevens

Tue Aug 10, 2010 at 09:57:36 AM MST

During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.

"I hear these people saying he's like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs said. "I mean, it's crazy."

The press secretary dismissed the "professional left" in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, "They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we've eliminated the Pentagon. That's not reality."

Funny, isn't it? At least it wasn't an "anonymous White House source," as usual. As Melissa McEwan points out, the president's and democratic party's political agenda has been essentially derailed by conservative obstructionism and the media's glamorization of an elderly fringe conservative movement, and Obama finally lashes out! At liberals.

Big Tent Democrat:

Talk about adopting Right Wing memes. So the President is going to be out there "politicking," trying to energize the base, and his Press Secretary is going to be taking right wing potshots at the base? Does anyone know how to play this game? Gibbs was a great campaign spokesman for the Obama campaign, but he's been a pretty lousy Press Secretary. No discipline.

It's not really my business - I'm a distinctly amateur member of the left, and I don't think Obama's done a terrible job...he's been decent, given the circumstances. That said, I suspect folks a little closer to home probably feel a similar anger towards local lefties, so...let's examine at the rage.

New York Magazine channels the inside-the-Beltway resentment, offering a glimpse of why there's anger:

Obama has managed, despite the unprecedented permanent threat of a filibuster in the Senate, to pass health-care reform, financial reform, and legislation mandating equal pay for women. He's pulling out of Iraq like he said he would, and is in the process of ending "don't ask, don't tell." Oh, and he saved the auto industry from collapse and prevented the economy from a full depression.

And yet the liberals complain: Health care didn't have a public option! The stimulus wasn't big enough! The repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" is moving too slowly! Your position on gay marriage is confusing! Obama probably feels like Russell Crowe in Gladiator: "Are you not entertained!?!"

But instead of throwing a sword into the balcony where the professional left is sitting, startling them and knocking over their goblets of wine, he's having Press Secretary Robert Gibbs question their sobriety, and sanity.

Obama has done a decent job of setting an agenda and getting bills passed. But just passing legislation isn't enough. The laws probably should be good, too. Even Obama's cheerleaders admit most of this is a "good start" - especially on healthcare. But that begs the question, when do we finish up? To be fair, most of the blame falls on the shoulders of the Senate. But that doesn't mean Obama's continuation and expansion of Bush terror policies is excusable. An assassination program against American citizens without due process of law? I mean, come on!

The key problem here is that the administration - and especially the Senate - has been unwilling or unable to challenge political institutions, no matter how dysfunctional or destructive they are. But how do you reverse the recession, stop the growing divide between rich and everyone else, reinvigorate stagnant wages, halt irresponsible and economy-ruining Wall Street speculation, extract ourselves from Asia, slow rising healthcare costs, combat climate change, and reinstitute the value of the rule of law without challenging political institutions?

Here's a clue: not by devoting most of your time to tinkering with the Alternative Minimum Tax.

David Obey's biggest regret

by: Jay Stevens

Sat Jul 17, 2010 at 10:19:25 AM MST

But I leave more discontented when I came here because of the terrible things that have been done to this economy by political leaders who allowed Wall Street to turn Wall Street banks into gambling casinos which damned near destroyed the economy.

I think the more important thing was what was my biggest failure. I think our biggest failure collectively has been our failure to stop the ripoff of the middle class by the economic elite of this country, and this is not just something that happened because of the forces of the market.

H/t to Kevin Drum for the quote, who notes, "despite the legislative achievements of the Obama administration...this hasn't changed even modestly over the past few years." Except that the legislative achievements of the Obama administration have done nothing to disrupt the institutions or structure that abets this redistribution of income to the rich; their policies have only mitigated the damage done.

Still, I agree with Kevin that this is the biggest threat to our economy.

Searching for a third option

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Jul 15, 2010 at 11:09:00 AM MST

The air has gone out of the Democrats' balloon, not in a burst, but in a series of tiny, endless leaks. Now, we are treated to the same choice we've had in the past-voting for the lesser of two evils this November. So take your pick; it's either the wicked corporate-puppet Republicans or the supposedly slightly less wicked, corporate-puppet Democrats. The White House, too late, sees the writing on the wall. Unfortunately, it's in their own hand.

Or, as Greg Sargent put it in a beautiful riposte to the usual insider complaining about blogger and activist "lamentations...unhinged from historical context or contemporary political realities," "the White House has remained captive to a Beltway culture that fetishizes bipartisanship and has failed to seize this historical moment's potential to dramatically expand the boundaries of what's politically possible...."

There are political realities - like the Senate filibuster, Ben Nelson, and deep-pocketed lobbyists - and, given the context, the Obama administration has achieved much, from a DC perspective. Passing a health-care reform bill was nearly politically impossible - but then we ended up with a deeply flawed bill that doesn't address what's wrong with health care. Finance reform was difficult in the face of high-finance lobbying, but the bill only creates new regulations and a new regulatory agency, which will no doubt be under-funded and under-staffed. That is, no real reform happened.

These "victories" preserve institutions that shouldn't be preserved.

Good bye base of the Democratic party. The probable story of the 2010 midterms won't be the "Republican resurgence," although that will be the media line, it'll be Democratic indifference. We already saw that in the Montana primary, in Missoula county's state-low and anemic voter turnout numbers.

But retreat into personal change isn't the answer. Derrick Jensen:

At this point, it should be pretty easy to recognize that every action involving the industrial economy is destructive (and we shouldn't pretend that solar photovoltaics, for example, exempt us from this: they still require mining and transportation infrastructures at every point in the production processes; the same can be said for every other so-called green technology). So if we choose option one-if we avidly participate in the industrial economy-we may in the short term think we win because we may accumulate wealth, the marker of "success" in this culture. But we lose, because in doing so we give up our empathy, our animal humanity. And we really lose because industrial civilization is killing the planet, which means everyone loses. If we choose the "alternative" option of living more simply, thus causing less harm, but still not stopping the industrial economy from killing the planet, we may in the short term think we win because we get to feel pure, and we didn't even have to give up all of our empathy (just enough to justify not stopping the horrors), but once again we really lose because industrial civilization is still killing the planet, which means everyone still loses.

With corporate industry being preserved at all costs by the people we put in power to combat that power, and individual action meaningless as social change, Jensen mulls another option:

The third option, acting decisively to stop the industrial economy, is very scary for a number of reasons, including but not restricted to the fact that we'd lose some of the luxuries (like electricity) to which we've grown accustomed, and the fact that those in power might try to kill us if we seriously impede their ability to exploit the world-none of which alters the fact that it's a better option than a dead planet. Any option is a better option than a dead planet.

The question is, how to go about the third option? Peter Shelton in this week's Indy gravitates towards Earth First!: "When the news spread last year about Tim DeChristopher's impromptu act of civil disobedience in Utah, I thought: Somebody is finally reviving the lost art of environmental monkey-wrenching."

Only those tactics didn't work before, and the media and industry has long since learned how to deal with acts of prankish civil disobedience. It's as good as doing nothing. Worse. This stuff got us Nixon and Reagan and the Bushes. Plus this kind of action is devoid of a coherent means to a goal and devoid of empathy or understanding. "Hope stands in the way of action," said a modern monkey-wrencher; "I don't like the human race," says another, described as expressing a "hard-earned misanthropy." Both attitudes show a fundamental ignorance of how desperate working-class families in rural areas are for work, usually provided by the extraction industry. There's a problem here, but targeting the working stiffs trying to pay the mortgage on the double-wide isn't the answer. So, yeah, count me out.

Other solutions seem equally fruitless. A third party? In winner-take-all elections? Recipe for marginalization and conservative radicalism. "Revolution" is naïve and violent and often produces results worse than the original problems, and chances are the "people" won't be with you.

Personally, I like the idea of finding and electing better people. I think one of the reasons we're stuck with the current political situation, is that the leftward shift of the electorate happened too quickly. There are still too many old-guard politicos in office, with seniority and entrenched insider notions about institutions and governing.

Discuss. What should we do? What should be our methods and goals and expectations?

I know some of you will take this opportunity to rant and rail against this blog, against the state's Democratic delegation, against the president, and against the efforts of honest people. Still, I challenge you: speak positively. What's the best way to turn things around?

Haters will hate

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Jul 12, 2010 at 12:39:22 PM MST

Not because he opposes the appointment. According to the report, Baucus "did not object" to the appointee, and said he "looked forward to working with the Medicare agency" under Berwick's tenure.

Nope. It's "principle":

"I'm troubled that, rather than going through the standard nomination process, Dr. Berwick was recess-appointed,'' Mr. Baucus said.

"Senate confirmation of presidential appointees is an essential process prescribed by the Constitution that serves as a check on executive power and protects Montanans and all Americans by ensuring that crucial questions are asked of the nominee, and answered,'' Mr. Baucus said.

The Finance Committee was still vetting Mr. Berwick and had not scheduled a confirmation hearing.

Which completely ignores that Republicans have been using secret holds and other byzantine and mysterious Senate procedural rules to block or delay confirmation of many of Obama's nominations. And completely ignores, as Jamelle Bouie notes, that the Senate confirmation system is essentially broken:

...there was a time when confirmations were fairly quick. In a 2004 paper, Marymount University political scientist Margaret Tseng found that the average time between nomination and confirmation has grown steadily since the 1960s. When President Kennedypresented a nominee, he could expect confirmation within a few months at most. By contrast, President Clinton waited upward of nine months before many of his nominees entered service.

While some of this is political -- high polarization has made the confirmation process a battleground for political advantage -- it's also true that the 100-member Senate isn't particularly equipped to deal with the sheer size of the executive branch. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Senate could expect to confirm a few dozen nominees. Now the Senate must confirm thousands of nominees, the majority of whom don't benefit from the full attention of the Senate. Republican obstructionism has compounded the problem, but even if GOP senators were more deferential to the president's choices, you would still have to contend with too little time and too many nominees.

So...why the fuss from Baucus? Does his cozy relationship with Chuck Grassley cause Baucus to contort in paroxysms of triangulation whenever the Iowa Republican winks? Or is Baucus' aversion to those pesky single-payer advocates who interrupt his committee hearings so great that any hint of "expressed admiration" for a government-run health care system cause Montana's senior Senator to lash out irrationally?

Or is Baucus really principled?

Ha-ha, joking aside, whatever Baucus' motivation, his joining Republicans in criticizing Obama is an ill-considered and untimely bit of rhetorical triangulation, to say the least.  

Whose side are you on, Jon?

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Jan 28, 2010 at 15:19:26 PM MST

Sirota:

Thus, if Giannoulias, it would be a clear disaster. He is literally the walking personification of all that the public clearly despises right now - an Establishment politician closely connected to the industry that has destroyed the economy.

With him as the nominee, Democrats could lose yet another senate seat, and more broadly, they could lose any national high ground they need to reclaim. At a time when the Democratic Party desperately needs to reclaim the populist economic mantle and prevent Republicans from being able to mount their own right-wing populist campaign, Giannoulias would become the face of a Democratic Party that has already become increasingly synonymous in voters minds with the most hated aspects of the financial industry.

Like Sirota, I've been railing against big business and its too-cozy relationship with government for...years? At least ever since I've had a blog to write on. And one of the most egregious abuses of taxpayer money was the recent bank bailout, in which the high-finance institutions that caused the recent financial crash with rampant and irresponsible investing after lobbying the government to deregulate its industry received billions. (Meanwhile, we can't even pass a health care bill that would give subsidies to people without health insurance.)

There's been some financial regulatory bills circulating in Congress - most notably Chris Dodd's, which, among other things, would create a Consumer Protection Agency intended to streamline bank and finance regulations and protect consumers from the predatory actions of lenders. (Hint: you can't have a "free" market without consumer access to information and protection from swindlers.) And in the SOTU speech yesterday, President Obama vowed to impose a "fee" on the high-finance institutions that caused the crash.

Here's the kicker, though. Jon Tester appears to oppose these regulatory reforms.

Tester is less enthusiastic about the administration's plan to impose a new tax on financial firms that received government aid through the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

"I'm very concerned that the tax could be passed on to customers," said Tester, who called for the idea to get close examination by lawmakers....

Proposals to create a new consumer financial protection agency aren't high on Tester's list of desired changes, though.

"Fundamentally, I'm not crazy about building another agency," he said, but added that the idea "wouldn't be a deal-killer on my part" and indicated that Senate lawmakers are debating whether the consumer-protection function might be folded into an existing agency, rather than assigned to a newly created one.

That's right. Our progressive populist Montana farmer is planning to use his Senate Banking Committee to...oppose consumer protection and a tax on big banks?

Let's be frank. Banks are not popular. And the Democratic party is quickly becoming identified with high financial interests, not only in Illinois, but apparently closer to home, in Montana.

And hasn't Jon seen the results of the Massachusetts special election? They weren't clamoring for more backroom dealing and a cozier relationship with corporate America. They voted against Coakley because she was seen as the establishment candidate. This position is electoral suicide. And it's bad policy.

Look, I'm fine with Jon being a one-term Senator...if he lost his seat fighting for his core values. But this? Defending huge, East Coast financial institutions' interests from the little guy?

You should see what words I mouthed...

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Jan 28, 2010 at 09:53:29 AM MST

"Last week, the Supreme Court reversed a century of law to open the floodgates for special interests- including foreign corporations- to spend without limit in our elections," Obama said. "Well I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. They should be decided by the American people, and that's why I'm urging Democrats and Republicans to pass a bill that helps to right this wrong."

Justice Alito was seen mouthing the words, "not true," during this passage. Reaction from the right is hilarious.

Sara Palin: "Obama was "embarrassing our Supreme Court. ... T]his will be the huge take-away moment." The Corner's [Bradley Smith called it "either blithering ignorance of the law, or demagoguery of the worst kind."

Politico's Randy Barnett:

In the history of the State of the Union has any President ever called out the Supreme Court by name, and egged on the Congress to jeer a Supreme Court decision, while the Justices were seated politely before him surrounded by hundreds Congressmen? To call upon the Congress to countermand (somehow) by statute a constitutional decision, indeed a decision applying the First Amendment? What can this possibly accomplish besides alienating Justice Kennedy who wrote the opinion being attacked. Contrary to what we heard during the last administration, the Court may certainly be the object of presidential criticism without posing any threat to its independence. But this was a truly shocking lack of decorum and disrespect towards the Supreme Court for which an apology is in order. A new tone indeed.

This is certainly somewhat different than previous outcry from conservatives about "judicial activism," eh? Especially when Citizens United was an actual example of judicial activism, where conservative SCOTUS justices saw fit to greatly expand the scope of a case brought before them to undo a century of precedent concerning the regulation of corporate money and politics. And as former SCOTUS justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, noted, Citizens United poses more of a threat to the reputation, independence, and efficacy of our judicial system than any paragraph in a speech ever could:

She added that last week's decision was likely to create "an increasing problem for maintaining an independent judiciary."

"In invalidating some of the existing checks on campaign spending," Justice O'Connor said, "the majority in Citizens United has signaled that the problem of campaign contributions in judicial elections might get considerably worse and quite soon."

But based on previous rulings by the SCOTUS' conservative majority - from Bush v Gore to rulings on voter ID laws to Citizens United - it appears that some justices think the law should align with corporatist Republican electoral strategy by discouraging voters from going to the polls and removing roadblocks on corporations to allow them to dictate policy.

Did the young vanish? Or were forgotten?

by: Jay Stevens

Sun Jan 24, 2010 at 17:42:34 PM MST

I do get sick of the way everything revolves around boomer narratives. We all joke about hippie-punching, but when Joe Klein goes off on the "far left" (or whatever he calls us now), that is what he thinks he's doing. And the electorate is polarized along age lines as never before (since the advent of demographically detailed exit polls), though the greatest divide is between those over 65 (who are too old to be boomers) and those under 30, not between Leno's generation and Conan's.

Wulfgar! mentions that a Boomer's been harassing him about how his generation could organize and "get things done," apparently contrasting that to how kiddies organize these days. I'll get to that canard in a moment, but first I want to touch on something similar I heard recently from a respected source, that young voters abandoned Obama "just like they did McGovern," and that his campaign was therefore essentially illusory.

Or, as Hunter S. Thompson said about the youth vote in 2004, "yeah, we rocked the vote all right. Those little bastards betrayed us again."

But here's the thing. McGovern, despite all the organizing around young voters, barely topped Nixon among 18 to 29 year olds, as Nixon carried 48 percent of that age group. Compare that to 2008 voting statistics: 18 to 29 year olds went sixty-six percent for Obama. And turnout for the young in 2008 was fractions of a percentage point from matching that generation's record-setting turnout rate in 1972, the first year that 18 to 20 year olds had the right to vote.

Young voters are still supportive of Democrats. According to a forwarded email from CIRCLE, young voters went for Coakley in the Massachusetts special election at a 58 - 40 rate...but only with a 19 percent turnout rate. But then Coakley didn't bother with any GOTV aimed at her biggest supporters.

The way I see it, is that Obama did a much better job organizing and appealing to the young than the McGovern campaign. I think Coakley's campaign illustrates that you still have to earn their votes every election. The lesson? Winning the youth vote - and elections - means pursuing good, progressive issues that impact the young, and rolling up your sleeves to get them to the polls.

Young voters are hardly the vanishing and illusory voting bloc that many long-time politicos believe...it's just that, for many establishment politicos, the work, creativity, and risk-taking policy agendas needed to woo them aren't worth the effort.

Obama's first year

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Dec 24, 2009 at 00:06:04 AM MST

For one, Kossak bacalove posted Professor Robert Watson's list of Obama's "90 accomplishments" during his first term. Watson claimed Obama's "first six months have been even more active than FDRs or LBJs..."

Sadly, though, Watson's list is peppered with meaningless items. Like #1: "ordered all federal agencies to undertake a study and make recommendations for ways to cut spending." Uh, call me a cynic... Other items are nice, but neither critical nor transformative, like #5, "families of fallen soldiers have expenses covered to be on hand when the body arrives at Dover AFB." Yes, it's a meaningful gesture to the troops and their families, and is likely to have positive effects on troop morale, but it's a service provided for a few, not a major "accomplishment."

Rethinking "Rethink 08"

by: Jay Stevens

Mon Dec 07, 2009 at 12:05:56 PM MST

Again, the genesis of the project from the Indy report:

During a visit to the University of Montana Oct. 8, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina spoke briefly about the political fire ignited among America's youth by President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. Their passion, sparked by the unconventional tools of the digital age, helped sweep Obama into office.

But Messina's comments painted a discouraging picture for the future of that movement. He said voters ages 18 to 29 continue to rally around the issue of climate change, but the enthusiasm generated by the Obama camp has cooled over the last nine months....

In the wake of Messina's visit, Bloomsburg and seven other UM journalism students grew increasingly puzzled about the change of heart during the first months of Obama's presidency. They began asking young voters in Missoula a compelling question: If you could recast your 2008 presidential vote, would you?

Rethink 08 seems to be based on certain assumptions. First, that young voters are disproportionately unenthusiastic about the president - falling into the old meme that the young are unreliable - and that this un-enthusiasm would manifest itself into a turn to the right, that voters might have opted for the other guy if they had the information in 2008 they possess now.

Stumbling toward the future

by: Jay Stevens

Fri Dec 04, 2009 at 11:56:28 AM MST

A look at key Democratic constituencies shows how demoralized the party's base currently is. Among African-Americans, just 34 percent are likely to vote, versus 54 percent unlikely to do so. Republican-leaning white voters clocked in at 66-29. Only 41 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds, a key constituency for Democrats in both 2006 and 2008, are likely to vote, compared to 49 percent likely to sit things out.

If these numbers hold for the next year, it won't matter what those generic congressional ballot questions say, nor will it matter whether Democrats can increase their performance with independent voters. If base Democratic voters don't turn out, like what happened in New Jersey and Virginia this year, Democrats will suffer at the ballot box.

Moulitsas attributes the drop in the base's enthusiasm to the moribund policies of Democrats, the endless wrangling in Congress over a less-than-stellar healthcare reform bill, the Afghan escalation, etc & co.  I think he's right on - up to a point. Let's face it: the majority of voters have only a passing familiarity, say, with the details of healthcare reform, and it's likely most support the president's decision about increasing troop levels in Afghanistan. Nor is the administration's foot-dragging on DOMA or DADT probably even familiar to most of the electorate. In short, I don't think it's policy alone that's dampened Democratic voters.

To understand the current mood of Democrat-voting citizens, I think you have to go back to Obama's campaign and its rhetoric. It was bold, and hopeful. A campaign for change! And while the hope and change were worded in vague terms to allow voters to project their own values onto the campaign, the overriding sense was that Obama's election would usher in a new post-partisan government, with mature, reasonable men and women working soberly to solve the country's most pressing problems: climate change, Iraq, the economy. We were - are - in a time of crisis, and Obama's election was meant to be a signal for maturity and action.

Obviously that hasn't happened.

I don't think voters necessarily blame the president. He still has high approval ratings, given the low scores voters give to, say, the direction the country's moving in, or the attitude towards healthcare reform. Instead, I think many Obama supporters look at DC, hear the rabid Beck-ian insanity on the lips of Republicans, see the gridlock in Congress and the paucity of legislation, and grow discouraged. We worked our *sses off to elect Obama and usher in a new era of politics - and nothing happened. Nothing's happening.

Not that Obama has helped much. It's easy to forget after the bold proclamations of the campaign season and the magnificence of the campaign itself in the way it was organized and run that Obama is essentially a legislator. Instead of a bold push for a legislative slate from the White House, we see the president hand over critical reform to Congress, letting Congressional committees draft tepid, overly compromised bills. Where's the Green New Deal? What happened to single-payer healthcare?

Now, I'm not saying this wasn't the best way to get something done, that it isn't realistic or pragmatic. But it's also discouraging, ineffective reform. The president - and a lot of Democrats - seem completely unaware they can drive the media narrative, not just react to it with paranoia and skittish, scuttling side-steps to the right. The Bush administration got it. They were an inept, amoral, egoistical bunch whose policies were national disasters, but they understood how to control the narrative and push through an ambitious agenda. Why can't the president do that - but with good policies and ideas? Answer: he's a legislator, as is his CoS, Emmanuel. They think in terms of intra-legislative compromises and negotiations, of committeework and votes.

But we want to be inspired. We want to work for tangible and beautiful goals.

Are young people unenthusiastic about politics?

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Dec 03, 2009 at 18:58:23 PM MST

During a visit to the University of Montana Oct. 8, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Jim Messina spoke briefly about the political fire ignited among America's youth by President Barack Obama's 2008 campaign. Their passion, sparked by the unconventional tools of the digital age, helped sweep Obama into office.

But Messina's comments painted a discouraging picture for the future of that movement. He said voters ages 18 to 29 continue to rally around the issue of climate change, but the enthusiasm generated by the Obama camp has cooled over the last nine months.

The question of why (or if) enthusiasm for Obama among young people has declined intrigued some members of UM's journalism program, enough for them to start a seminar that "seeks to answer why youth enthusiasm is dwindling."

Counterpoint from Forward Montana's Chief of Stuff, John Bacino:

In general, the most common complaint heard so far is the pace by which change has occurred under the Obama administration, said Bloomsburg. Most had hoped for more immediate results.

"We need to keep in mind, even after so much effort by so many people, (government) still moves slowly," Bacino said.

While Bacino supports questioning the effectiveness of elected leaders, he thinks Rethink'08 may be asking these questions prematurely. It's only been a year, he said. And sure, some polls show a decline in Obama's approval ratings among young voters. But the highest declines are among other age groups, he said.

Asking what happened to the enthusiasm for the 2008 presidential election is like asking "what happened to the enthusiasm associated with last year's World Series," Bacino said.

IMHO, while Obama has made some very questionable moves - defending DOMA in Bush-ian language, compromising on Gitmo detainees, using Bush Doctrine language to support the Afghan troop escalation - blame for stalled or sputtering reform lies with Congress. From the Indy report:

"She's still very active in politics and still definitely approves of Obama," Bloomsburg says of [young voter Chavvahn]Gade, who interned in Obama's Senate office during the election. "Where she was disappointed really was in the Democratic Party itself, particularly [Sen. Max] Baucus. She feels like she worked so hard to get Obama into office and was very excited for it. Now that the Democrats control everything, she feels they should be getting more done."

So...has enthusiasm for politics among the young waned? Or is it enthusiasm for Obama that's waned? Or Democrats? Or will the young be back at election time?

According to the Rethink 08 website, there'll be on online discussion about these questions between Missoula city councilman Jason Wiener, U of M poly sci professor Jeffrey Greene, and poly sci grad, Ctibor Jappel tomorrow at 2pm...

But why wait? Let's kick off the discussion now...

The Afghan "surge"

by: Jay Stevens

Wed Dec 02, 2009 at 10:27:56 AM MST

Me? I'm not really sure I know what the right decision is. I really like Fred Kaplan's take on the war, not necessarily because of the suppositions, but because he honestly feels gross ambivalence about what to do:

Columnists are supposed to have firm views and express them with steadfast certainty. Since I write a column called "War Stories," the least a reader might expect from me is a clear opinion on whether the United States should escalate or pull out of the war in Afghanistan.

Recently, a friend told me that he couldn't quite figure out where I stood on the issue. I replied that I couldn't quite figure it out, either.

Personally, I supported going into Afghanistan. The Taliban - unlike Saddam Hussein - was connected to al Qaeda, and was harboring Osama bin Laden. Seemed the right thing to do. But now? It seems like our only goal is to keep the Taliban from returning to power. A fool's errand at which we keep throwing troops and money, hoping that the political and cultural system will somehow magically change while we're there. And while we all squabble over health care reform - you know, on programs that actually help people, that improve health and lives - we're throwing a sh*tload of money at a black hole of a war, without knowing why we're there, or what it is we're actually trying to accomplish.

Seymour Hersh was on Fresh Air recently, talking about the security of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. He had this to say in reaction the news that President Obama had demanded an "exit strategy" from Afghanistan from his national security team:

...this could be a...really important step for the president. Because many are concerned...about the fact that he delegated much of the war-making policy to the generals in the field...There isn't a general in the armed forces asked to do that would say, I can't win...So he put himself into a box, and he was very passive for a long time about it. That's why, if you had asked me four days ago about it, I would have thought he was going to make a political decision to do something, to send some token troops, because he doesn't want to lose more independents, he wants to show he can run the war, he can be a tough guy.

But what Obama's done - if he has done what he seems to have done - is he's telling the military, you know what? I don't think it's going to fly. This is huge, because he's basically saying, I'm not going to play politics with the war, I'm not going to do what other presidents have and continue fighting a war that I don't think we can win, and I'm just stalling for time until I can find a way out.

That's what I would have guessed three or four days ago.

Well, Obama's speech last night didn't exactly signal a break from the kind of politicking with the war that Hersh was hoping for - Rachel Maddow even compared Obama's rhetoric to the "Bush Doctrine", the radical rhetoric that endorsed pre-emptive war -   but he did set a kind of amorphous exit timeline, something that hasn't yet been discussed for Afghanistan. Still, it reeks of compromise and politics. Worse, all the support from the same folks who were egregiously wrong about Bush's foreign policy - Fred Barnes at the Weekly Standard, say, and other assorted righties -  should give us pause.

The reality is that any justification for us going into Afghanistan in the first place is long gone. We're there to baldly protect our own "national" interests, which obviously have more to do with the exchange of commodities than they do with national security or democracy or anything like that. And while there's a commitment to an exit, I guarantee we'll see this whole debate again when it comes up again in a year-and-a-half, at which time we should expect another "compromise."

But...did Obama promise us anything else during the election? Isn't this exactly what he said he was going to do?

Postcards from Bizarro World

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Nov 19, 2009 at 14:30:26 PM MST

PPP's newest national survey finds that a 52% majority of GOP voters nationally think that ACORN stole the Presidential election for Barack Obama last year, with only 27% granting that he won it legitimately....

Belief in the ACORN conspiracy theory is even higher among GOP partisans than the birther one, which only 42% of Republicans expressed agreement with on our national survey in September.

Un-freaking-believable. Only twenty-seven percent of Republican voters thinks ACORN didn't steal the presidential election for Obama? Seriously?

Man...I don't know what to say. It's one of those polls that really challenges your faith in the human race. What's going on over there on the right? I mean...it's like an alternate universe over there, a place hardly impacted by reality.

On the DNC/OFA Boycott

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Nov 12, 2009 at 10:32:40 AM MST

There's plenty of discussion among LGBT circles right now about whether or not the Obama Administration is doing a good job of moving civil rights policy forward, or if they're willfully stalling or even dismissing the community. It appears that many in the LGBT blogosphere are joining in on a boycott organized by the founders of AmericaBlog in an attempt to push resolution on a list of about thirty grievances directed at the Administration.

From the announcement by AmericaBlog writer John Avarosis:

Joe and I are launching today a donor boycott of the DNC. The boycott is cosponsored by Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towle Road, Paul Sousa (Founder of Equal Rep in Boston), Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler (ED of the Equality Campaign, Inc.), Bil Browning for the Bilerico Project, and soon others.

It's really more of a "pause," than a boycott. Boycotts sounds so final, and angry. Whereas this campaign is temporary, and is only meant to help some friends - President Obama and the Democratic party - who have lost their way. We are hopeful that via this campaign, our friends will keep their promises.

Chris Geidner, a lawyer living in Washington DC writing for the legal blog Law Dork, has a different take on the boycott:

This is ill-informed to the point of recklessness, and all equality advocates should be offended that John Aravosis would use his influence, such as it is, to attack the most pro-equality environment we've ever seen in this country.

Was the DNC right in failing to provide much-needed financial support for the No on 1 campaign in Maine? No. Should people sit down and find out what happened and why and publicly demand accountability? Yes. Is President Obama right in maintaining his campaign position opposing marriage equality? No. Should the LGBT community continue to push the president to fulfill his campaign promises that would advance LGBT equality? Of course.

Equality is black and white. We are either treated with the same respect and opportunity to uphold the same level of dignity as every other citizen, or we are not. The path to equality isn't as clear, but I don't accept that equal rights can be produced by the grey middle. I fight the middle, I resist it out of instinct because it can so often be two steps forward and another back.

In just the last month we saw fully inclusive federal hate crimes legislation signed by the president, the repeal of housing discrimination against gay and lesbians utilizing HUD services, the repeal of the HIV travel ban, the announcement that gays and lesbians will be counted in the 2010 Census, the first Senate hearing on a fully inclusive ENDA and the strong promise by DOJ officials that they'll make ENDA one of their top legislative priorities. There were extraordinary provisions included in the House health care reform bill that impacted the LGBT community and people living with HIV/AIDS. I'm forgetting some others, I'm sure of it.

I agree, mistakes have been made by the Administration, by the Democratic National Committee, and Organizing for America on LGBT issues. But that list of what's been done right, and the growing national momentum on equality, means so much to someone living in a state where a gay man can be denied the right to visit his partner if they are dying in the hospital, a trans community facing the daily threat of being fired for blurring the lines of gender, and a lesbian who spent years and thousands of dollars in the courts for something as simple as joint custody of a child she helped raise since birth. And I, for one, and possibly others, am extraordinarily grateful for what is happening in America today.

At this time I just can't see why I should support this boycott.

On the DNC/OFA Boycott

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Nov 12, 2009 at 10:30:40 AM MST

From the announcement by AmericaBlog writer John Avarosis:

Joe and I are launching today a donor boycott of the DNC. The boycott is cosponsored by Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towle Road, Paul Sousa (Founder of Equal Rep in Boston), Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler (ED of the Equality Campaign, Inc.), Bil Browning for the Bilerico Project, and soon others

On the DNC/OFA Boycott

by: Jay Stevens

Thu Nov 12, 2009 at 10:27:33 AM MST

From the announcement by AmericaBlog writer John Avarosis:

Joe and I are launching today a donor boycott of the DNC. The boycott is cosponsored by Daily Kos, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Dan Savage, Michelangelo Signorile, David Mixner, Andy Towle and Michael Goff of Towle Road, Paul Sousa (Founder of Equal Rep in Boston), Pam Spaulding, Robin Tyler (ED of the Equality Campaign, Inc.),