Oh, the horror!

By Mustang Bobby

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) responds to a question from a reporter from a conservative news service about the ramifications of the repeal of DADT in the military. (His reaction at 0:33 is classic.)

Clip of the Day

By Creature

Barney Frank is my hero. Just watch.

Obama, take off the gloves -- against your own party

By Edward Copeland

During the lengthy 2008 primary season, I didn’t immediately rush to Barack Obama’s candidacy. I began with John Edwards, but the longer it wore on, the more Obama won me over. He did it with one simple fact. It wasn’t an issue. It wasn’t the chance to make history. It was because he was the first presidential candidate from either party that I felt spoke to voters, i.e. me., as an adult, without that air of condescension you get from most politicians who talk down to you or the ones who are so partisan or dumb you feel as if you are listening to first-graders.

Alas, while this makes me feel good as an American and is why I still admire Obama as a president, I think it explains a lot about the many bumps in the road his administration has faced and continue to face six months into his tenure: He’s not dealing with a nation of adults and, even more importantly, he’s not dealing with a Congress populated by adults. Perhaps his lack of experience really was a problem. He didn’t spend enough time in the Senate to realize that the culture of incumbency among both Democrats and Republicans have created a culture of nothing but spoiled, whiny rich kids.

Obama does have the nickname “No drama Obama,” but he’s going to have to lose that moniker and shove an iron boot up the ass of his own party in Congress. He’ll have the American people on his side: They hate Congress. He has the power to call them into special session in perpetuity. Piss them off. Find new progressive candidates that he’ll threaten to support in primary challenges to them. Separate the true reformers from those who are bought and think they are above it all.

There is a reason that progressives, deprived so long from any access to power, want it all and want it right now, but they need to be reasonable as well. There’s always an excuse from Congress. When the Dems took over Congress in 2006, they couldn’t override a veto or stop a filibuster. Now, when they have “60,” it’s not really 60 since they’ve had ailing senators and erstwhile seat-fillers such as Specter and Lieberman filling those ranks. The bigger truth is that very few lawmakers on Capitol Hill have any principles beyond their own re-elections and goodies. Just watch their own sense of entitlement when someone such as Barney Frank is asked semi-tough questions by a reporter and goes ballistic, throws a hissy fit and storms off a TV interview time and time again.

Obama must start treating them as the spoiled brats that they are. He’s paying a price by letting them screw up the stimulus package and now health care. I had my own concerns, since I actually was satisfied with my health insurance and extremely dissatisfied with the system itself, especially hospitals and their billing practices. Obama made the mistake again by letting Capitol Hill lead the way and the mess has grown worse as polls are showing that those who have health insurance, except for the horror stories or those without any, fear getting what they know and have figured out screwed up by vague promises by multiple gangs that can’t shoot straight but who are bankrolled by health insurers, the AMA and pharmaceutical companies. They should have led with reform of the system. Tough love, my friends.

This week, he even let Democrats in the House remove from a defense appropriations bill the first step to ending Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.

The Republicans are flying around with lies and nonsense but they are doing it so incompetently that I think what the Democrats are doing is worse. Obama must stand up. He is the leader of his party. I noticed by a chance a few weeks ago the Senate voting on continued funding for Senate operations to the tune of more than $5 billion. Who knows what the cost for running the House is?

Obama needs his Sister Souljah moment and that Sister Souljah should be Democratic lawmakers. Don’t let them go home. Recruit fresh blood to run against the entrenched. Imagine if Obama backed Joseph Sestak against Specter in the Pennsylvania Senate primary. Specter only switched to survive and he’s 80 years old for God’s sake. Despite growing dissatisfaction with Obama’s policies, polls still find him personally popular and he only has popularity to gain by taking Congress to the woodshed.

Find someone to challenge Harry Reid as Senate majority leader, since he’s the worst we’ve had in quite some time. The last time a Democratic president let a Democratic Congress get away with whatever they wanted was during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. Barack Obama is too smart and skilled a politician to meet that same fate. He needs to embrace some of that Chicago-style politics to figuratively bust some heads for the good of the country and his party.

A Frank defense of ideological disagreement

By LindaBeth

There has been wide distribution of video clips and transcripts from Feb. 1's This Week (ABC), hosted by George Stephanopoulous, with guests Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Federal Express CEO Fred Smith, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), and Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). The show featured an ideological (some might say "partisan") battle between Frank and DeMint.

A few interesting tidbits to point out (transcript here):

• DeMint's attempt to cast the solution in terms of patriotism-nationalism:

DEMINT: Well, I think all of us support the fact that we need to do something. And all of us believe that the way to move our economy forward and protect jobs is to infuse more money so that consumers have more to spend, businesses have more to invest, buy capital equipment.

But there are two ways to do that, George. One is for the government to take it out of the private sector through taxes and then decide where it's going to go through political manipulation, as they've done in the House. The other is just to leave more money in the private sector for consumers to spend and businesses to invest.

And that's the American way. And that's -- that's the approach we're pushing.[...]

FRANK: [...] I regret Senator DeMint saying that this is the American way. Let's -- let's just agree that we're all Americans here, Jim, and that nobody's got the American way versus presumably the non-American way.

This isn't about patriotism (or the Republican's version--nationalism) but about solutions that will work.

• The incessant clinging to defining terms through political ideology:

DEMINT: But this plan is a spending plan. It's not a stimulus plan.

[...]

FRANK: Spending can be stimulus. I don't understand what you think stimulus is.

DEMINT: But this is the largest spending bill in history, and we're trying to call it a stimulus when it's just doing the things that...

[...]

DEMINT: ... you wanted to do anyway.

The repetitive characterizing of government spending as not stimulus is part of the public manipulation game being played by the Republicans. DeMint's ideology is that the only economic stimulus that counts are tax cuts. As I wrote previously, in this economic climate, it seems highly unlikely that any tax cuts will lead to more consumer spending, which is the only way that tax cuts stimulate anything.

• The approach to stimulus is ultimately an ideological one:

DEMINT: And so it really comes down to a basic argument: Do you want a government-directed plan or do you want the free markets to work?

This characterization of the options available is, in Obama's terms, a false one. This is part of the "socialism" scare of the campaign--the idea that any government direction is socialism, is anti-capitalism, and that the only capitalism possible is "pure" capitalism. In the discussion, Frank makes all the right points to indicate how our society has not traditionally operated under any sort of pure capitalism--bringing up roads, education, and firefighters as some of the things not brought about by tax cuts, as only brought about by government spending and "direction." This is not a matter of socialism vs. capitalism, as the Republicans would like to see it characterized.

And Frank rightly points out the hypocrisy of Republicans blasting government spending now in light of what Iraq has and will cost us.

• Finally, we need to not write off the battle between the Democrats and Republicans over the spending bill as mere "partisan bickering":

FRANK: Well, no, I differ -- differ with you on that. Please. Let's not obviate democracy. There are legitimate different philosophical differences between Jim DeMint and myself. Please don't treat them as some sideshow.

[...]

FRANK: They're important to democracy.

Sure, we need a bill, and soon. But we need the right bill. We need a bill that work in this particular economic context, not one that placates the ideological outlooks of both sides of the aisle. I appreciate Frank's acknowledgment that there's a time for tax cuts and a time for spending. We've had enough of the former; it's time for the latter. It's also time to say bipartisanship is nice, but not when one side is plain wrong.

(Cross-posted to Speak Truth to Power.)

BREAKING NEWS: House rejects bailout bill

By Michael J.W. Stickings

The House of Representatives a short while ago voted 228 to 205 against the bailout compromise worked out over the weekend. (It needed 218 votes to pass.). As CNN is reporting, "[a]bout 60% of Democrats voted for the measure, but less than a third of Republicans backed it."

Quick notes:

-- Kucinich was right.

-- Bush is apparently "very disappointed" with the result. Presumably much of his disappointment is directed at the renegades in his own party.

-- Boehner: "If I didn't think we were on the brink of an economic disaster it would be the easiest thing to say no to this."

-- Frank: "If we defeat this bill today, it will be a very bad day for the financial sector of the American economy and the people who will feel the pain are not the top bankers and top corporate executives but average Americans."

-- It's certainly a bad day for the markets. As of 2:55 pm, the Dow is down 552.68 (or 4.95%) and the Nasdaq is down 144.08 (or 6.70%).

-- I still think a bailout bill in some form -- if not this one, after some arm-twisting, then this one with some alterations to appease both sides and to make Congress appear to be more united than it really is -- will be passed sooner rather than later. The leadership of both parties is behind it -- the Democratic leaders more than their Republican counterparts -- and there will be increasing pressure on Congress to do something. (And, right now, this bill is all they've got.) Not least because the markets are tumbling.

-- And tumbling... It's now 3:00 pm. The Dow is down 552.04, the Nasdaq 147.73. At 3:02 pm, the S&P 500 is down 76.26 (or 6.29%).

-- Up here in Toronto, at 3:03 pm, our leading index, the TSX Composite, is down 853.38 (or 7.04%).

Stay tuned.