White House nixes Death Star

By Mustang Bobby

The people of Alderaan can breathe a little easier today:

The White House says building a Death Star would be an out-of-this-galaxy waste of money -- not only because it's against government policy to blow up planets, but also because the United States already has access to a space station as well as a laser-wielding space robot.

Today's official statement on the Death Star issue, titled "This Isn't the Petition Response You're Looking For," was written by Paul Shawcross, chief of the science and space branch at the White House Office of Management and Budget. It comes in response to a "We the People" petition that called on the federal government to start building a "Star Wars"-style Death Star battle station by 2016.

"By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense," the petition read.

Among the reasons cited by the White House was [spoiler alert]:

• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?

But the Force will be with us, always.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Assault weapons ban?

By Frank Moraes 

Ed. note: Frank thinks I might disagree with him here, if only because he's shifting the argument away from assault weapons. I don't. While I do think assault weapons, which to me are weapons of mass destruction, ought to be banned, there ought to be broader gun control that includes restrictions on handguns as well as substantial waiting periods, among other things. Actually, I'm all for going much further than that, but I realize you have to be realistic if you want to get anything done. There's just no way the U.S. is about to enact the comprehensive gun legislation I'd prefer.

My only quibble with Frank's post is with his second footnote. To me, the Second Amendment does apply only to militias, not to private individuals, except insofar as it was assumed at the time that in the absence of a standing army militias would be made up of private individuals. ("If a well regulated militia be the most natural defence of a free country,..." wrote Hamilton in Federalist 29.) Just because the Supreme Court has interpreted it a certain way over time doesn't mean that interpretation is the right one, or that Madison et al. meant it that way.

As Justice Stevens wrote in his dissent in District of Columbia v. Heller (2008): 

The Amendment's text does justify a different limitation: the "right to keep and bear arms" protects only a right to possess and use firearms in connection with service in a state-organized militia. Had the Framers wished to expand the meaning of the phrase "bear arms" to encompass civilian possession and use, they could have done so by the addition of phrases such as "for the defense of themselves." 

The Framers knew what they were doing. And if they'd meant to enshrine an individual's right to bear arms in the Constitution, they would have said so.

The distortion of the Framers' intent in this regard is one of the most blatant ways conservatives have imposed their right-wing ideology on America.

-- MJWS

**********

Greg Sargent's The Plum Line blog is quickly becoming my favorite Washington Post reading, which is to say I turn to it more often than Ezra Klein's excellent Wonk Blog. Sargent just seems to write more about the stuff I'm interested in. Klein writes a lot more about economics, but I'm afraid I read a good deal too much economics elsewhere. Anyway. This morning Sargent was focused on gun control.

He noted a couple of articles about where the White House is regarding an assault weapons ban. The New York Times claims that they are planning to dump it and focus on background checks and high capacity magazines. But Sam Stein claims they are still pushing the ban on these guns.

I think the focus on assault weapons is misplaced. I understand that they look scary. On a recent trip to Mexico, seeing all the military with these kinds of guns was intimidating. But like syringes with drug addiction, they are just provocative and indicative, not the problem itself. To me, the thing that I most associate with assault rifles are the 30-round banana clips.

Read more »

Hot hot hot

By Mustang Bobby

It may be winter in the Northern Hemisphere, but that makes it summer in the Southern, and in Australia that they're adding new colors to their weather chart to indicate just how hot it is there:

As a record-breaking heatwave hovers over many regions and territories (which are in their summer months now), the continent's [sic] Bureau of Meteorology has added two new colors to the weather map to reflect the rising mercury.

The map currently shows the weather in orange tones at the top, which indicate temperatures 40 to 48 degrees Celsius. But forecasts are predicting off-the-charts weather. As a result, pink and purple will now cover temperatures over 50 degrees Celsius -- should it climb that high.

For those rusty on the temperature conversion, that is a sweat-inducing 122 degrees Fahrenheit.

But Al Gore is fat, so there.

Scary Jack Lew

By Frank Moraes 

Let us give a little thought to Jack Lew. Obama has nominated him to replace Tim Geithner as Treasury Secretary. The Republicans are afraid -- very afraid. How can Obama choose Jack Lew?! 

And he is a scary guy, I can tell you that. Last year, Eric Cantor told Politico, "No one was more prepared and more in tune with the numbers than Jack Lew." This was in an article titled, "Jack Lew: A Liberal GOP Says It Trusts." So you know: this is Freddy Krueger scary. No. Wait. Not Freddy Krueger scary; Kermit the Frog scary. When it comes to Obama nominees, it doesn't take much to scare the Republicans. 

Jonathan Bernstein over at The Plum Line tells us that Jeff Sessions (fucktard from Alabama) is against Lew becoming Treasury Secretary. But not because Lew is a drunk or a philanderer. No, Sessions thinks he doesn't have the "gavitas" for the job. What this means is just that he's against him because that's what you do to all the nominations of a Democratic president -- especialla un oo's a colored. Bernstein is nicer: "Or, as Kevin Drum figures, it's just that Lew insists on using real math during budget negotiations." That's even worse: a edacated colored's nominee.

Bernstein argues that the real problem is that congressional Republicans have abandoned norms. Until Obama was elected, it was accepted that the president should be allowed to have the cabinet that he chose. But no longer. 

Read more »

Do the Reich thing

By Mustang Bobby 

It was inevitable that as soon as the Obama administration started sending up trial balloons as to what they would like to see in terms of new gun laws someone would bring up Hitler: 

Eventually, any conversation about gun control in America ends with someone, somewhere opposed to new gun regulations comparing the proponents to Adolf Hitler.

In the post-Newtown push for new gun laws, that day was Wednesday. Accusing gun control supporters of easing the country one step closer to fascism is a time-honored tradition in American politics and one of the tools the gun rights crowd uses to warn Americans away from talking about gun control in the first place. But with the country still reeling from the shooting deaths of 20 elementary school students, supporters of new gun control laws say the tactic is not going to work this time.

On Wednesday, the Drudge Report splashed an image of Hitler and Josef Stalin over a link to Vice President Biden's contention that the White House may consider using its executive power if Congress proves unable to act.

So far the only people who have stood up for the NRA are the loudmouths and the mildly entertaining gun advocates such as Alex Jones.

Read more »

GOP presidential hopeful Bobby Jindal proposes elimination of income and corporate taxes in Louisiana

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Times-Picayune reports:

Gov. Bobby Jindal is proposing to eliminate Louisiana's income and corporate taxes and pay for those cuts with increased sales taxes, the governor's office confirmed Thursday. The governor's office has not yet provided the details of the plan.

"The bottom line is that for too long, Louisiana's workers and small businesses have suffered from having a state tax structure that is too complex and that holds back economic prosperity," Jindal said in a statement released by his office. "It's time to change that so people can keep more of their own money and foster an environment where businesses want to invest and create good-paying jobs."

They've "suffered"? Really? And that's supposedly why the state economy has struggled? Bullshit. It's struggling, and will continue to struggle, for any number of reasons, but terrible education and health systems obviously have a lot to do with it.

He can spin it any way he wants, but all he's doing here is embracing the absolute anti-tax and pro-rich orthodoxy of the Republican Party, likely in anticipation of a run for president in 2016, shifting the tax burden down onto the lower and middle classes. Because higher sales taxes -- which would have to be really high -- would disproportionately impact those further down on the income scale.

Read more »

Without a prayer

By Mustang Bobby 

When Barack Obama was inaugurated the first time, he had the invocation read by Pastor Rick Warren, who, among other things, is noted for not being terribly sympathetic to the rights of all people.

Those of us in the gay community were not happy, but we figured, hey, he'll learn, and his attempt at being open to all points of view from the pulpit was well-intended if not well-handled.

So this time around, the invocation will be read by Myrlie Evers, the widow of Medgar Evers who was murdered 50 years ago for his work in civil rights in Mississippi. Well, that's a nice move; it represents a historical connection with the modern times and reminds us how far we've come to be inaugurating our first African-American president for the second time.

But then the inauguration committee stepped on the rake by inviting Pastor Louie Giglio of the Georgia-based Passion City Church to deliver the benediction. Mr. Giglio is on the record as being vocally anti-gay:

In a mid-1990s sermon identified as Giglio's, available online on a Christian training website, he preached rabidly anti-LGBT views. The 54-minute sermon, entitled "In Search of a Standard – Christian Response to Homosexuality," advocates for dangerous "ex-gay" therapy for gay and lesbian people, references a biblical passage often interpreted to require gay people be executed, and impels Christians to "firmly respond to the aggressive agenda" and prevent the "homosexual lifestyle" from becoming accepted in society.

Read more »

Here come the Clampetts

By Mustang Bobby

Matt Taibbi sums up the bailout of Wall Street:

It has been four long winters since the federal government, in the hulking, shaven-skulled, Alien Nation-esque form of then-Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson, committed $700 billion in taxpayer money to rescue Wall Street from its own chicanery and greed. To listen to the bankers and their allies in Washington tell it, you'd think the bailout was the best thing to hit the American economy since the invention of the assembly line. Not only did it prevent another Great Depression, we've been told, but the money has all been paid back, and the government even made a profit. No harm, no foul – right?

Wrong.

It was all a lie – one of the biggest and most elaborate falsehoods ever sold to the American people. We were told that the taxpayer was stepping in – only temporarily, mind you – to prop up the economy and save the world from financial catastrophe. What we actually ended up doing was the exact opposite: committing American taxpayers to permanent, blind support of an ungovernable, unregulatable, hyperconcentrated new financial system that exacerbates the greed and inequality that caused the crash, and forces Wall Street banks like Goldman Sachs and Citigroup to increase risk rather than reduce it. The result is one of those deals where one wrong decision early on blossoms into a lush nightmare of unintended consequences. We thought we were just letting a friend crash at the house for a few days; we ended up with a family of hillbillies who moved in forever, sleeping nine to a bed and building a meth lab on the front lawn.

And now AIG, one of the companies we helped get through rehab – and is running a PR campaign to say "Thank you" – is thinking about suing the U.S. government because their stockholders didn't get a pony. 

Digby says that's chutzpah. Wrong; it's typical.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Mike Huckabee is an idiot extraordinaire

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Seriously:

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee slammed the president and Democrats for their "war on women" campaign rhetoric — observing that Obama's second term Cabinet is likely to include few women.

"Now a lot of those females who supported Barack Obama are scratching their heads, and they're saying, 'Whoa! How come there is so much testosterone in the Obama Cabinet and so little estrogen?'" the Arkansas Republican said on his radio program Wednesday. "Because if you look around, all of these high-powered appointments that he is making are all white guys."

Since when is a right-wing theocrat like Huckabee, or really any Republican concerned about diversity, whether it's race or sex or anything else? And really, what women bring to the table is... estrogen?

Perhaps someone ought to remind him of the vicious Republican assault on Susan Rice.

More Republican immaturity

By Frank Moraes 

James C. Capretta wrote in the National Review on Monday, "The Budget Battles Ahead." He said that the Republicans are not going to do any negotiating with President Obama. Instead, they are just going to let the budget deficit get completely out of control and then blame it on Obama.

"Future generations of Americans will live less prosperously because of the massive debt and deficits of these years," he says. "And President Obama will rightly shoulder most of the blame for this colossal failure of leadership."

This is interesting in a few ways. First, it is wrong. The budget deficit is not going to be a problem for quite a while. What's more, it is already going down. It will become a problem as the economy gets better, but that will happen as the government gets more tax revenue. So this is just more conservative hysteria over invisible bond vigilantes.

Second, this is just the newest iteration of McConnell's plan to make Obama a one-term president. As I've written about a lot around here, Republicans don't have any ideas about how they want to govern outside of savaging the social safety net and cutting taxes on the wealthy. Given they aren't going to get either of those opportunities for the next four years, their plan is to make Obama look bad.

Read more »

Armed and dangerous

By Mustang Bobby 

John Cole has posted the interview that Piers Morgan conducted with gun enthusiast Alex Jones. Mr. Jones has started a petition to have Mr. Morgan deported because the CNN chat host advocates for gun control.

Mr. Jones is pretty expressive, and John, along with a few others, is saying that he represents the extreme end of pro-gun advocates. But if you've been reading any of the blogs where gun control issues are being discussed, you'll find that Mr. Jones pretty much sounds like a lot of people on the side of unlimited access to guns. He's just louder.

As one observer noted, "Jones made a fool of himself, giving the left the perfect poster boy for their attempts to paint every logical conservative as an extremist nut job."

That's from Glenn Beck, who is himself an authority on extremist nut jobs.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

Coingate

By Carl 

I wanted to be the first to, um, coin that phrase with respect to the debt ceiling solution being bandied about (a quick Googling shows Coingate is already in use).

The platinum trillion dollar coin gambit is really intriguing and is a wonderfully bold move by the Obama White House, even if it's merely a trial balloon and likely a bluff.

But it does point out the humiliating lack of options the GOP is left with in terms of enforcing their agenda in the teeth of gale force winds of change blowing against them.

It seems weird that the GOP, despite having been outflanked time and time again by Democrats ever since the election, haven't sat down and decided "Fuck the Teabaggers. We have to do something to get into the game."

It's sort of like the Washington Generals benching their starting five agaisnt the Harlem Globetrotters and electing to send out a troop of Cub Scouts. At least the adults might score a few points, even if they'll still get outshined.

Read more »

A.M. Headlines

(CBS News): "Jack Lew to be nominated treasury secretary today"

(Washington Post): "Campaign tries to tilt views on firearms law"

(LA Times): "Obama hasn't reined in big money"

(The Hill): "Boehner takes flak from defense hawks on sequester stance"

(NECN): "This flu season worst since H1N1 outbreak"

A platinum way to blow Republicans' minds

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The Hill:

The White House on Wednesday declined to rule out minting a "platinum coin" to avoid default if Congress fails to raise the debt ceiling.

Press secretary Jay Carney on Wednesday said there is "no substitute" for Congress raising the borrowing limit but declined to explicitly rule out issuing new currency to pay the government's debts.

"The option here is for Congress to do its job and pay the bill," Carney said. "There is no Plan B, there is no backup plan. There is Congress's responsibility."

It is, but it's not really up to Congress, it's up to the Republicans, who have decided to hold the economy hostage over the debt ceiling, something neither party did until this band of right-wing terrorists took over the House and decided to use the filibuster to pursue its obstructionist anti-Obama agenda in the Senate.

So, there may not be a Plan B, but... it's possible, right?

And while it seems like a crazy idea, minting a $1 trillion coin... you know what, I'm all for it. With Republicans prepared to risk economic disaster, bluffing or not, Dems have to get a bit creative, and aggressive, and that means the White House keeping all options on the table.

Read more »

Robert Reich whistling in hell

By Frank Moraes 

I really value optimistic people. But I don't pay much attention to them. Two of my favorite political writers are Dean Baker and Eric Alterman, or as I think of them, the Depressing Duo. Or "Pessimistic Pair" if you prefer. Alterman perpetually looks like his first girlfriend just dumped him. Baker has transcended that and is on to that period when you are sarcastic about everything. But I read them because (1) they are brilliant and (2) they are right to be depressed. But sometimes, rarely, an optimist is right. So you have to pay attention.

There is an old Far Side cartoon I remember. It takes place in hell. Everyone is working very hard. There are all miserable. Except for one guy. He is pushing an over-filled wheelbarrow and whistling a happy tune. Two demons overlook the scene and one says, "I don't think we're getting through to that guy." That's how I'm feeling about Robert Reich today.

He posted an article that seems pretty compelling even if it seems on the far side of Pollyanna, "TARP is Over, But the Bailouts Will Continue Until the Big Banks are Broken Up -- And Washington Knows It." He notes that the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, Jeb Hensarling -- a Republican, of course -- wants to break up the banks. And so does the Dallas Fed. So he argues that all we need is one more big bank loss and we will get a better banking system.

Read more »

A simple explanation of the debt ceiling

By Mustang Bobby

The Republicans' next fight is the raising of the debt ceiling. You remember the last time we did this, don't you?  It was back in the summer of 2011 when the GOP and the White House went right up to the the debt ceiling and then hit it. Our credit rating was downgraded and they finally came up with the Fiscal Whatever that came home to roost last week. Good times.

Anyway, all this talk about fiscal this'n'that and sequester and stuff can be pretty confusing to the point that most people just turn it off. It's too confusing, and everyone's trying to catch up with Downton Abbey or Honey Boo Boo anyway, right?

Okay, then, here's a simple explanation of the debt ceiling: it's our credit card limit. Since the government pays for everything on a credit basis, we need on occasion to raise the limit on the amount we're allowed to borrow in order to pay for the stuff we've already bought, like all the stuff that keeps the country running. It is not incurring new debt; we do that every day. It's how we operate.

Read more »

So long, teabaggers

By Richard K. Barry

Like it was our fault they started
calling you teabaggers.

So long you batshit crazy bunch of morons. Okay, they're not gone entirely, but considering that Rassmussen finds that only 8% now say they are Tea Party members, they're almost gone. And when you factor in that Rasmussen typically inflates all things conservative by about 50%, the number is probably closer to 4%: 

Views of the Tea Party movement are at their lowest point ever, with voters for the first time evenly divided when asked to match the views of the average Tea Party member against those of the average member of Congress. Only eight percent (8%) now say they are members of the Tea Party, down from a high of 24% in April 2010 just after passage of the national health care law.

On top of that, only 30% of likely voters have a favourable view of the silly bastards and 49% view them unfavourably.

All of this makes me wonder, what the hell was that all about? My guess is it really was just a lot of money making a handful of crazy people look like a political movement. The election is over. The money is gone.

The movement is kaput.

Government is not business

By Frank Moraes

Meet Greg Walden, the Republican representative from Oregon. He is an idiot. But he has lots of company. Like our "liberal" president. Do you remember when Obama said, "After all, small businesses and families are tightening their belts. Their government should, too." Well, Greg Walden is using the same flawed argument in his new bill to eliminate the "trillion dollar platinum coin" loophole.

He writes, "My wife and I have owned and operated a small business since 1986. When it came time to pay the bills, we couldn't just mint a coin to create more money out of thin air. We sat down and figured out how to balance the books. That’s what Washington needs to do as well."

That does sound reasonable, doesn't it? The problem is that it is totally wrong. People make the mistake of assuming a whole economy is like its pieces. But it isn't. Consider for a moment the paradox of thrift. In a family, you can balance your budget by spending less. This does not work in the economy as a whole. This is because my spending is your income. If everyone decides they are going to spend 10% less than they have been, then everyone will find that they are making 10% less than they have been. A family or business is not like the economy as a whole.

The same is true of the government. But it is a bit more complicated. If the government lays off an employee, they will save that money. But they will gain extra costs like unemployment insurance and other welfare programs. Plus, the employee will no longer being paying taxes to the government. And most of all, that person will not have as much money and so there will be less money in the economy to be earned and spent. Of course, this isn't the only or even the main reason that Walden's analogy is nonsensical.

Read more »

Disarming talk

By Mustang Bobby

Via Steve M, we see that Fox News is all over the news about the OBAMA BLUEPRINT FOR DISARMING AMERICA: 

The blueprint for how Americans would be disarmed during a declared civil emergency is contained in an Army manual that outlines a plan to confiscate firearms to prevent them falling into the hands of rioters or dissidents.

Given the imminent introduction of Senator Dianne Feinstein's draconian gun control legislation, which would instantly criminalize millions of gun owners in the United States if passed, concerns that the Obama administration could launch a massive gun confiscation effort have never been greater.

In July 2012, the process by which this could take place was made clear in a leaked US Army Military Police training manual for "Civil Disturbance Operations" (PDF) dating from 2006.

So Barack Obama wrote the U.S. Army Military Police training manual two years before he became president? How diabolically clever of him.

Fox sources this earth-shattering revelation to World Net Daily, which, as we all know, is never wrong. 

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)

A.M. Headlines

(Fox News): "Lawmakers outraged after AIG announces potential suit against US over bailout"

(ABC News): "Iran sanctions: Chuck Hagel vs. Obama, Biden, and Kerry"

(CBS News): "Biden's meetings spotlight gun control debate"

(Reuters): "Former representative Giffords launches gun control drive"

(The Star-Ledger): "Christie's State of the State speech draws support, criticism"

The anti-Christie party of the Tea Party

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Dana Milbank (@Milbank) tweeted at 10:36 PM on Tue, Jan 08, 2013: 

Tea Party members down to 8 percent, Chris Christie approval up to 73 percent. (link)

And yet the Republican Party is more and more the party of the Tea Party and its right-wing extremist ilk, while Christie is persona non grata, a traitor to the Republican cause.

I think that explains something.

P.M. Headlines

(Bloomberg): Biden task force plans session with NRA on gun violence measures"

(New York Times): "Why Hagel was picked"

(Washington Post): "Some in Obama administration push for only a few thousand troops in Afghanistan after 2014"

(Business Insider): "Senator Elizabeth Warren outraged that AIG is considering suing the U.S. government."

(Talking Points Memo): "NOAA: 2012 warmest year on record for U.S.; Second most extreme weather"

Worse than Nickelback: A sad statement on the state of American democracy

By Michael J.W. Stickings 

Jennifer Granholm (@JenGranholm) tweeted at 5:35 PM on Tue, Jan 08, 2013: 

Congress favorability rating lower than cockroaches & Nickelback. Don't worry, still higher than the Kardashians (link) 

Thank you very much:

-- decades-long right-wing assault on the federal government;

-- domestic terrorism of the extremist, absolutist, and obstructionist GOP; and

-- spineless cowardice of the Dems.

You're making the Founders ever so proud.

When you're worse than fucking Nickelback, you truly suck.

Political capital is a myth

By Frank Moraes 

Yesterday, Jonathan Chait metaphorically scratched his head: "Nominating Hagel Most Un-Obama Thing Ever." He can't understand this nomination given that (1) Hagel will be a hard sell and (2) Obama doesn't much listen to his advisers anyway. It is interesting speculation, but I wouldn't have even thought about it had he not written, "Why waste political capital picking a fight that isn't essential to any policy goals?"

This brought to mind something that has been on my mind for a while, as in posts like "Bipartisan Consensus Can Bite Me." I'm afraid that just like Santa Claus and most conceptions of God, "Political Capital" is a myth. I think it is just an idea that Villagers find comforting. It is a neat narrative in which one can straightjacket a political fight. Otherwise, it is just bullshit.

Let's go back to late 2004, after Bush Jr was re-elected. He said, "I earned capital in the political campaign and I intend to spend it." What was this thing that Bush intended to spend? It is usually said that political capital is some kind of mandate from the masses. But that is clearly not what Bush meant. He got a mandate to fuck the poor and kill the gays. But he used his political capital to privatize Social Security. One could say that this proves the point, but does anyone really think if Bush had decided to use his political capital destroying food stamps and Medicaid that he would have succeeded any better? The truth was that Bush's political capital didn't exist.

Read more »

The problem with John Brennan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The focus yesterday was on Chuck Hagel, whom President Obama tapped for defense secretary, but the president's nominee for post-Petraeus CIA director, White House insider and key Obama advisor John Brennan, deserves some attention as well, because it says a lot -- a lot that isn't good -- about Obama's national security values and priorities.

While I continue to object to Hagel's nomination, I don't object to Hagel himself. He's a conservative Republican, but his record on U.S. militarism over the past decade has been extremely good, turning on the Iraq War when it was rather unpopular to do so, particularly for a Republican, and proving to be an admirable realist in his approach to the military. (As something of a liberal interventionist, I find his realism admirable but hardly sufficient. But I'll take his realism over the right-wing militarism you find among the neocons. That's an easy call.)

Indeed, my problem with the nomination is not so much that it's going to Hagel but that it's going to a Republican when there are strong Democratic alternatives, including especially Michèle Flournoy, who would be just as good, if not better. As Jon Chait pointed out yesterday, the only thing that really sets Hagel apart is the fact that he's been the target of a vicious smear campaign led by neocon Bill Kristol. Although, to be fair, he does have other things going for him as well, including the fact that he's a vet and that he has a strong relationship with both Obama and Vice President Biden. 

Anyway, my point is that whatever my concerns I can accept Hagel at the Pentagon. He'll be fine. Far more troubling is Brennan's appointment, which suggests once more that the president's objective is not just to continue the Bush-Cheney national security state but to extend and expand it (even if on at least one key issue, torture, he has pulled back).

Read more »

Obama can have Hagel, but...

By Frank Moraes

My colleague Michael J.W. Stickings makes what I think is the strongest case against Obama's pick of Chuck Hagel as secretary of defense, "Obama Misses Opportunity With Hagel Nomination." Basically, the optics are all wrong on this. Why is our Democratic president yet again picking a Republican as defense secretary? I think I know: Obama cares more about his legacy than he does the legacy of his party.

Despite decades of shrill and incompetent military policy from Republicans, the American people still consider them strong on national security. Of course, one could use this to argue that it doesn't matter who Obama nominates. If 9/11, Iraq, and Afghanistan weren't enough to change perceptions, what difference would a Republican defense secretary nomination make? But I think it does matter. The ineptitude of the Bush Jr years have made the Republican footing on national security much less firm.

Glenn Greenwald has been boosting for Hagel for a long time. In his most recent writing on the subject he deals with liberal displeasure with the (then) upcoming nomination, "Chuck Hagel and Liberals: What Are the Priorities?" He argues that there are two liberal complaints and that neither is very strong. First, there is the claim that Hagel is anti-gay. Greenwald rightly points out that this is long in the past and that he has apologized for it. The second is the optics concern of Michael's and mine. To this Greenwald points out that the current defense secretary, Leon Panetta, is a strong Democrat.

Read more »

A.M. Headlines

(Washington Post): "Nomination of Hagel and Brennan signal changes at CIA and Pentagon"

(AP): "Obama Defense pick faces rough going in Senate"

(LA Times): "With Hagel and Brennan, Obama picks longtime advisors he trusts"

(Reuters): "Supreme Court to hear same-sex marriage case in late March"

(Reuters): "Former President George H.W. Bush still hospitalized"

(ESPN): "Alabama routs Notre Dame, wins 3rd BCS title in past 4 years"

P.M. Headlines

(Reuters): For CIA chief, Obama taps advisor who defended drone strikes"

(Politico): "GOP sees political payback in Hagel pick"

(Mediate): "State Department welcomes Hillary Clinton back with some thoughtful gifts"

(New York Times): "After pinpointing gun owners, paper is a target"

(Pew Research): "Obama viewed as fiscal cliff victor; legislation gets lukewarm reception"

Mitch McConnell offers lesson in Republican bullshittery

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Mitch McConnell was on the teevee yesterday laying the groundwork for Republican entrenchment in the next round of budget negotiations:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) vowed on Sunday that Republicans would force significant spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling even if President Barack Obama had to be "dragged kicking and screaming."

"What we're saying is that the biggest problem facing the country is our excessive spending," McConnell told NBC's David Gregory. "We've watched the government explode over the last four years. We've dealt with the revenue issue, and now the question is will the president lead? Why should we have to be bringing him to the table?"

Gregory pointed out that trillions of dollars in spending cuts had been part of last year's Budget Control Act and Republicans had refused to accept significant cuts in entitlement programs as a part of a larger deals offered by Democrats going back to debt ceiling negotiations in 2011.

"You can re-litigate the past if you want to," McConnell laughed. "I wish the president would lead us on the discussion rather than putting himself in the position of having to be dragged kicking and screaming to discuss the single biggest issue facing our future. You know, until we adjust the entitlements so that they meet the demographics of our country, we can't ever solve this problem. The time to solve it is now."

Good for David Gregory to stand firm against this nonsense, or at least to point it out for what it is.

Let's go through the bullshit:

First, the U.S. does not have a spending problem, it has a revenue problem, and the budget deficit could be eliminated simply by establishing tax rates at normal historical levels, as we saw during the Clinton years. (As the Times noted last month, "[t]he average federal income tax rate is at its lowest in more than 30 years.") And if there's a spending problem at all, it's with military spending, which is way too high. In fact, under Obama federal government spending is rising at the lowest rate since the '50s, while discretionary spending as a percentage of GDP is the lowest it's been since the same decade. There's no exploding safety net either.

Read more »

Obama misses opportunity with Hagel nomination

By Michael J.W. Stickings

So former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, still a Republican, is President Obama's pick to be the next secretary of defense (though his confirmation by the Senate is hardly a sure thing).

I must say, I'm disappointed. I wrote about the rumors a while back, objecting to Hagel, but I was hoping that it was just a trial balloon and that the president would instead nominate Michèle Flournoy, under secretary of defense for policy (the Pentagon's #3 position) from 2009-12 and one of Obama's chief campaign advisors and spokespeople last year.

It's not that I dislike Hagel. Though a fairly conservative Republican, he's a realist who broke with his party's warmongering militarism during Bush's misadventure in Iraq. And it's not that I think Flournoy is that much better. She's much more progressive, to be sure, but she's also a pragmatic policy wonk who is very much a part of the national security establishment. (What is needed, I think, is a reformer with progressive views and a pragmatic touch. Flournoy comes fairly close, which is why I like her.)

Read more »

A.M. Headlines

(Washington Post): "Obama to nominate Chuck Hagel for defense secretary, John Brennan to head CIA"

(LA Times): "Critics slam Hagel's likely nomination as defense secretary"

(AP): "White House, GOP draw red lines in debt debate"

(The Hill): "Democrats look for up to $1 trillion in new tax revenues this year"

(CNN): "Clinton set to return to work at State Department"

Worst Democrat of the Day: Heidi Heitkamp, pro-NRA gun nut

By Michael J.W. Stickings

When it comes to elections to legislative bodies, partisans often just count the numbers: Do we have more they they do? In a way, that's all that matters.

And so it was for Democrats back in November. We wanted to keep the Senate, and perhaps even to pick up a seat or two, and that meant supporting Democrats who weren't exactly progressive. It was the party affiliation that mattered, just like it is for sports fans rooting for the jersey.

Heidi Heitkamp, running to keep retiring Byron Dorgan's North Dakota seat on our side of the ledger, was one of those Democrats. She won, and we cheered her victory if only because it meant another Democratic seat, and even if she wasn't all that great, at least the Republicans didn't take it.

Now, to be sure, you have to put up with less progressive Democrats, or even anti-progressive ones, if you want to win in solidly red states like North Dakota. And furthermore, Heitkamp was preferable by far to her Republican opponent, the far-right Rick Berg -- I suppose even a generally conservative Democrat like Heitkamp is (usually) better than a Republican.

But that really doesn't make it all okay, and her comments about, and against, gun control this morning only serve to prove the point that there are some awful Democrats out there.

Read more »

P.M. Headlines

(Washington Post): "Lines drawn in gun-control debate"

(Reuters): "Newsmaker: Republican maverick Hagel formed bond with Obama over Iraq"

(National Monitor): "Obama scores another victory: Unemployment falls to 7.8 percent, hiring continues"

(Marketwatch): "McConnell: Tax issues over, spending cuts next"

(The Hill): Pelosi: More tax revenues must be a part of next deficit deal"

Media more conservative than public

By Frank Moraes

For years, I've been arguing that journalists are centrists in their political orientation. What's more, those that identify as liberal are generally only socially liberal; on economic issues, they are conservative. Up to now, I have based this on my observations; it wasn't based upon research. But I just came upon a study that Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) performed back in 1998, that shows exactly this.

There are two claims that conservatives make to justify their belief that there is a liberal media bias. The first is that the framing of news is from a liberal perspective. Eric Alterman in What Liberal Media? has destroyed this idea, but many others have as well. Still, the liberal media bias myth lives on with a second claim: most reporters are liberal. This is based upon surveys that show reporters tend to be registered with the Democratic Party. But Democrat hardly means liberal.

My focus is always on economic issues. I care very much about social issues, but as long as our economy is as unequal as it has been these last 35 years, social issues don't really matter. For example, the rich can always fly to France for an abortion, regardless of the law in the United States. Anyway, access to abortion or even birth control might be practically unable to the poor even if they are legal. My problem with most mainstream journalists is that they are upper and upper-middle class in income, and thus in their economic concerns. The situation is even worse than I had thought.

Read more »