HEARTLAND AMERICA STILL DOESN'T TRUST HIPPIES, SO TWELVE PEOPLE HAD TO DIE TODAY

In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre, Wayne LaPierre of the NRA did everything he could to offend and outrage people who don't agree with him short of breaking into the homes of the victims' families and defecating in their living rooms.

And yet even as LaPierre said outrageous and offensive things, poll after poll showed that the Americans continued to view the NRA more unfavorably than unfavorably. And recently, in Colorado, just before two state senators were recalled as a result of pro-gun outrage, we saw this:

The main elements of the new [Colorado gun] law -- requiring universal background checks and limiting magazines to 15 rounds -- have strong backing in Colorado polls, yet a recent poll found a slight majority opposed to the new law. "People want background checks yet they don't want 'gun control,'" said Jennifer Hope, a Denver activist in favor of stricter regulation.

People favor what's in the Colorado gun law, but oppose the law. People wanted specific gun control laws in the wake of Sandy Hook (and Aurora and Tucson and Virginia Tech), but they continue to look favorably on the NRA, which is not only unswervingly opposed to popular gun control measures but is offensive and boorish about it.

What's going on?

It's all part of the culture war we've been living through for at least half a century. Oh, sure, Americans support universal background checks, and want the likes of Aaron Alexis -- previously arrested for more than one gun offense -- not to be able to obtain guns effortlessly ... but "gun control" is something that comes from liberals and hippies and untrustworthy rootless-cosmopolitan city slickers like Mike Bloomberg. Whereas the NRA (despite being a Beltway lobbying operation) is identified with heartland America, so it's trustworthy and admired.

Heartlanders don't reject gun control because of how they feel about gun control proposals. They reject gun control because of who supports it. If we're for it, it's absurdly easy for the NRA to tell heartlanders they should be against it.

And that's why twelve people had to die at the Washington Navy Yard today.

Read More

FORCING US TO BE THE VICTIMS IN THEIR HERO FANTASIES

There's still a lot we don't know about the Washington Navy Yard shooting, but when right-wingers tell us that the problem is gun-free zones (as a couple of Fox commentators have already done, not to menion Alex Jones and his Infowars), what they're telling us is that we have no right to pursue policies that help make it possible for us to live, work, go to school, shop, travel from place to place, see a movie, and generally go about our business unarmed. They want to define any space where it's likely that all of the non-security people are unarmed as abnormal -- and not only abnormal, but run in an irresponsible manner. How dare you not have several armed, trained fellow employees, or fellow daycare center workers, or family members sitting around your living room! You're the problem! You're the reason we have mass shootings!

In short, gun zealots aren't standing up for freedom -- or at least they're not standing up for your freedom to live in a way they'd prefer not to. The gun-zealot movement is coercive. Gun zealots want to compel all of us to acknowledge, and arm ourselves against, the state of siege they perceive. They prefer to see the actual level of danger increase if it will make us pack heat.

They see themselves as the ones who understood before the rest of us did that society operates according to the law of the jungle -- even if the lawlessness and danger they perceive is something they helped create. They like believing that we live in a state of siege because they see themselves as the heroes in our war of all against all. They're going to save us -- not laws, not the cops. (They may say nice things about the troops or the first responders, but many of them are the same folks who have "Terrorist Hunting License" stickers on their cars. It's all about being a self-appointed hero.)

It's their fantasy. We just die in it.

Read More

GOTTA HATE SOMEBODY

Not that you care if you're a sane, rational person, but CNN has just released a new poll about the 2016 presidential race. Hillary Clinton is the overwhelming favorite on the Democratic side, of course (shockingly, all those shouts of "Benghazi!" haven't dropped her below 65% among Democrats), while the Republican race is more of a muddle:

Seventeen percent of Republicans and Independents who lean toward the GOP say they are likely to support New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, with 16% backing Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, the House Budget Committee chairman and 2012 Republican vice presidential nominee.

Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky is at 13%; former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 10%; Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida at 9%; Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas at 7%, and former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a 2012 Republican presidential candidate who battled eventual nominee Mitt Romney deep into the primary season, at 5%.

Marco Rubio ... remember that guy? Seemed to be riding the zeitgeist during that brief period when Republicans appeared to be embarrassed by their 2012 electoral performance, especially among Hispanic voters? Say, whatever happened to that Rubio guy?

Well, yes, his moment is over:

Rubio's number stands out. The first-term senator, considered a rock star among many Republicans, registered in the upper teens in polls of the possible GOP 2016 horserace conducted by other organizations earlier this year.

But Rubio's support of immigration reform -- he was a high profile member of a bipartisan group of senators who pushed immigration reform passage through the Senate this spring -- may have hurt his standing with many conservative voters opposed to such efforts.

Now, I'm sure he was thinking that it shouldn't be all that difficult to overcome Republican resistance to immigration reform and win the party's presidential nomination -- after all, John McCain did it in 2008. And Ronald Reagan, the party's god among men, signed an "amnesty" bill as president.

But McCain won the nomination when the vast majority of Republicans' hate was directed elsewhere. McCain stood for unswerving support of the Iraq War. In 2008, Republican voters had their hate focused on "Moo-slimes" (as they like to call them) and on anyone in America deemed an enabler of Islamic extremism (i.e., all critics of the Iraq War). So McCain could slide by. And prior to that, Reagan was the great scourge of the commies. So he got (and continues to get) a pass on immigration.

But we're in a moment when Republicans can't be enthusiastic about war, because any war-fighting is being done by the hated Kenyan Muslim socialist in the White House. So the hate turns to immigrants (a category many Republicans -- most? -- believe includes the president).

Sorry, Marco. Maybe you could run for president as a supporter of immigration reform in the future, when we're fighting a great patriotic (read: Republican) war against a Hitler-level evildoer (defined as any foe opposed by a Republican president), but we're not in such a moment now. Maybe you could run after President Christie or Cruz spends two terms screwing up in Iran?

*****

And a quick note on the CNN poll of the Democrats. Yes, Hillary Clinton gets 65% of the vote, but there's a fairly big gender gap:

In the potential Democratic battle, the survey indicates Clinton performing better with women (76%) than men (52%).

Men are somewhat resistant to a woman? Well, if you look at the crosstabs, you see that one candidate who does better among men than women is Elizabeth Warren (10% among Democratic men, 4% among women). So maybe more Democratic men than women (at least for now) are angry enough to want a progressive rebuke to this teabagger/banker era.

And there's this:

Biden scores higher with voters age 50 and older (18%) than those younger than 50 (5%).

Well, of course. Younger voters are rejecting the Biden they know best -- the Onion Biden. If he's serious about a 2016 run, that's the biggest hurdle he has to overcome. Seriously.

Read More

I'M NOT GOING TO CHEER UNTIL YELLEN IS NOMINATED (WHICH I DON'T THINK WILL HAPPEN)

Larry Summers haswithdrawn his name from consideration as Fed chairman. That's good news as far as it goes, though I doubt the president is going to pick Janet Yellen -- there are too many signs suggesting that he won't.

But I'll get to that later. First, I just want to respond to this quote from Brad DeLong in The Wall Street Journal. DeLong thinks Summers is misunderstood and would have been a good choice:

J. Bradford DeLong, a Summers backer at the University of California, Berkeley, said the decision to pull his name is "not something Larry would have done were he really the guy his adversaries claim he is."

Nonsense. One of the things the adversaries of Summers claim he is is a dick-swinging cock of the walk, someone who has to dominate every room he's in. A guy like that is damn well not going to allow himself to be humiliated by the U.S. Senate -- it would diminish his sense of authority. Sorry, but this is precisely what you would expect Summers to do.

So will Obama pick Janet Yellen? I doubt it. The Journal story tells us:

One leading candidate is Janet Yellen, the Fed's current vice chairwoman, who has garnered substantial support among Democrats in Congress and among economists. But the public lobbying on her behalf appears to have annoyed the president, say administration insiders, and may lead him to look elsewhere.

At Business Insider, we're told this about the chances of Obama picking Yellen:

Capital Economics' Chief U.S. Economist Paul Ashworth thinks the administration may not end up doing so....

The Obama administration has shown little, if any, enthusiasm for Yellen ... so we're not convinced she will necessarily get the nod. Summers candidacy was sunk by the opposition of many Senate Democrats, which would have made it hard, if not impossible, to get his nomination confirmed. Nominating Yellen now could make Obama look weak, kowtowing to the Democrats who have been openly campaigning for her.

I think I need to step outside. It smells like a locker room in here.

And DeLong worries about "the Obama administration tacking to the non-technocratic right in order to get Republican votes for confirmation."

I'm worried that Obama might pick former Fed vice chair Donald Kohn, about whom we learn this:

* James Kwak has written that Kohn was a proponent of the "Greenspan doctrine" that new financial instruments should be encouraged because they made institutions more "robust."

* In a speech at Jackson Hole in 2005, ... Kohn cited the repeal of Glass-Steagall as an example of successfully rolling back a regulation that stifled competition: "...at times rolling back regulation--for example, by lifting the Glass-Steagall restrictions on banking organizations--will benefit competition and help the financial sector deliver services more efficiently and effectively."

Yikes.

So I'm not opening any champagne just because Summers is out.

Meanwhile, on a trivial note, I love the insider-y way Chuck Todd slips and calls Summers "Larry" at 0:47 of this clip:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I assume we'll never hear Chuck Todd slip and call Janet Yellen "Janet," 'cause she's not a boy.

Read More

WHO CARES IF YOU LISTEN?

Jonathan Chait thinks President Obama has done an okay but not spectacular job of dealing with the financial meltdown, and thinks that Obama, despite the inadequacies of his approach, at least has some ideas for dealing with our ongoing economic weakness, unlike Republicans. Fine -- Chait won't get much of an argument from me. But Chait thinks it's significant that right-wing thinkers have apparently given up on defending right-wing economic ideas:

A few years ago, you could certainly find a lively intellectual defense for the GOP’s position. In September of 2008, conservative pundit and McCain campaign adviser Donald Luskin argued that the economy was in outstanding shape -- "on the brink not of recession, but of accelerating prosperity." In the spring of 2009, The Wall Street Journal editorial page declared that high deficits were already sending bond prices through the ceiling. In 2011, Megan McArdle made the case that income inequality may have peaked and was already falling....

But none of these arguments were true. And conservatives have made precious little effort to replace them with other arguments.

... Do conservatives still think cutting short-term deficits will increase rather than retard growth? Academic support for that position has almost entirely collapsed. I don't even see many conservative intellectuals defending it in columns. And yet the Republican Party marches on, opposing any effort to lift short-term austerity policies that economists almost all believe are holding back the recovery. It's as if the head of the austerity monster has been sliced off, but the body lurches forward regardless.

Well, this strikes me as analogous to what's happened after each of the last two presidential elections. After a fleeting moment when Republicans seemed to be licking their wounds and reexamining whether some of the positions they'd staked out were hurting them at the polls, the reformers were suddelnly dragged into an alley and the radical tea party types seized control of the party, declaring that trying to modify right-wing ideas to make them more palatable to the center was a loser's game, and the real way forward was to damn the torpedoes and be as right-wing as humanly possible.

We know what that sort of thuggery does to Republican politicians who have even a vestigial sense that compromise with centrists and liberals is sometimes worthwhile: they clam up and join the purist mobs on the far right, fearful for their jobs. Well, maybe right-wing pundits with a bit of intellectual integrity (though I'm reluctant to include McArdle, Luskin, and the Journal editorials in such a group) are afraid that they can be primaried, too. They don't want to be banished to the right's Siberia the way, say, David Frum has been, accused and convicted of apostasy. So if they can no longer bring themselves to defend the loony economic ideas of the wingnut zealots, maybe they say nothing.

But the major issue here, I think, is that far rightists don't think they need to persuade anyone other than fellow True Believers. They imagine that they can win in 2014 and 2016 through vote suppression, scandalmongering, and making the economy worse, then blaming the Democrats -- and please note that at least one recent poll says that's working.

So why bother to sell their ideas to the rest of us at all? Just fire up the base and discourage the center and right from voting. Who needs arguments when you think you can win with brute force?

Read More

RAND PAUL'S FAVORITE GUN GROUP SAYS, "FIREARMS ANYWHERE AND EVERYWHERE"

T-shirt promoted on the Facebook page of the National Association for Gun Rights (NAGR):





"Firearms Anywhere and Everywhere" -- taken literally, that would mean firearms in daycare centers, on international flights, even in your living room, whether or not you wanted them there. Because really, when you say "Firearms ... Everywhere," the literal meaning is that no one has the right to say, "Not on my property." And I know the gunners all claim to be good right-wingers who worship the notion of private property, but I'm not sure they're all willing to stand up for the right of a shopkeeper or bar owner or minister to say, "Not in my establishment," especially if the person in question is a dirty stinking liberal.

Rand Paul raises money for the NAGR, with ads like the one here, which claims that the UN Small Arms Treaty "would almost certainly FORCE the United States to ... Create an INTERNATIONAL gun registry, setting the stage for full-scale gun CONFISCATION" (emphasis in original).

The executive vice president of NAGR is Dudley Brown, who's also the executive director of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners (RMGO). In April, after Colorado enacted new gun laws, Brown engaged in some eliminationist-sounding talk:

He's promising political payback in next year's election that could cost Colorado Democrats their majorities.

"I liken it to the proverbial hunting season," Brown says. "We tell gun owners, there's a time to hunt deer. And the next election is the time to hunt Democrats."

Of course, some gunners couldn't wait until the next election -- two Colorado state senators who voted for the gun laws were recalled this week. Dudley Brown's response was about as tasteful as you'd expect:





But, well, what do you expect from a guy who held a protest march at a memorial ceremony for Aurora shooting victims, because Mike Bloomberg's Mayors Against Illegal Guns was one of the memorial's sponsors? (Brown, we're told "carried a .45-caliber pistol to the park" where the memorial took place, which was attended by Aurora and Sandy Hook survivors.)

Would it be irresponsible to speculate that this guy might be Rand Paul's pick to head the ATF? It would be irresponsible not to.

Then again, sometimes the propaganda put out by Brown's groups is just sad:





If that's what "family" means to you, Dudley, you have a very empty life.

Read More

OBAMA AND KERRY CAN'T SWIM

Tee-hee:





Needless to say, the story at the top is a bit more recent than the one below it:

The United States and Russia have reached an agreement that calls for Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons to be removed or destroyed by the middle of 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry said on Saturday.

Under a "framework" agreement, international inspectors must be on the ground in Syria by November, Mr. Kerry said, speaking at a news conference with the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey V. Lavrov....

Look, I understand -- the success of this is far from assured:

An immediate test of the viability of the accord will come within a week when the Syrian government is to provide a "comprehensive listing" of its chemical stockpile....

Security will be a major worry for the inspectors who are tasked with implementing the agreement; no precedent exists for inspection, removal and destruction of a large chemical weapons stockpile during a raging civil war. Mr. Lavrov said the agreement would require the cooperation of Syrian rebels and not just the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Much of the Syrian opposition is bitter about President Obama's decision to shelve the threat of military action and to negotiate with Russia, which is a major arms supplier to the Assad government.

"This is very, very difficult, very, very difficult," an American official said of the agreement. "But it is doable."

But we're here. We're here because Obama threatened an attack and because Putin thinks that threat is credible. He's pounding his chest like a Russian Donald Trump and that makes all the right-wing and centrist insiders in America get tingles up their legs, but he wanted an out, and now here we are.

No, the president and the secretary of state didn't walk on water -- far from it (it was more like a joint stumble) -- but even if they had, the center and right response would be ... well, see the title of the post. A typical right-wing response is the sniffy one from Jazz Shaw at Hot Air:

I've been watching some talking heads on CNN this morning trying to spin this as some sort of a win-win, but that sounds like an awful lot of lipstick to try to paint on one rather sickly pig. On the plus side, if you weren't interested in a war where we wind up helping one of several sets of bad guys, this clearly will be a win.

Wait -- isn't avoiding "a war where we wind up helping one of several sets of bad guys" the reason almost everyone on your side gave for opposing a military strike? And now we're there and you're sneering at that outcome? Is there no pleasing you people? (Oh, wait, I forgot: the president is a Democrat. I just answered my own question.)

But if you're monitoring the domestic and international politics and power plays in action, this wound up being nothing but a big old black eye for Barack Obama and John Kerry, while returning Vladimir Putin for a strutting turn on the world stage as a power broker.

Yup -- in response to a credible threa of force from Obama, which Putin feared.

Will this be quick, as the President demanded? Not hardly. There will supposedly be "a list" turned over within a week. Of course, you know how lists are... details, details. Things can change, ya know? And will there be severe repercussions if Assad fails to live up to the terms of the deal in an orderly fashion? Of course there will! But it will be more sanctions, which never seemed to bother him in the fist place.

I'm reminded here of the many people who've said an agreement is pointless, because we remember how Saddam played cat-and-mouse with us regarding his WMDs back in the 1990s. Except that we now understand that he actually shut down his WMD program in the 1990s, didn't he?

... In short, if this turns out to be a ploy and nothing in Damascus really changes, the UN -- with Russia's blessing -- is firmly on track to resort to some serious tongue clucking and speaking in lofty tones. That should show Assad who's the boss of him, eh?

And since the predominant Republican alternative was to do nothing, that would have a better outcome vis-a-vis Assad and his chemical weapons how exactly?

Look, this is, at worst, a pretty good outcome, and maybe it's better than pretty good.

****

And now on to what really matters:

Will U.S.-Russia deal on Syria arms change the way Obama is being covered? We'll tackle that on @MediaBuzzFNC tomorrow at 11 am ET

— HowardKurtz (@HowardKurtz) September 14, 2013

Yeah, that's the critically important question, isn't it?

Read More

THE CIVIL WAR: IT NEVER ENDS

For the love of God, Southerners, enough already:

A Florida school opened in honour of a murderous Ku Klux Klan leader is refusing to change its name despite a high-profile campaign by the community.

Nathan Bedford Forrest High School was named after the first Grand Wizard of the KKK who as a Confederate General during the Civil War reportedly oversaw the systematic slaughter of some 200 black soldiers.

The school opened in 1959 with white students only and was given the name because white civic leaders wanted to protest a court decision calling for the integration of public schools.

Today, however, more than half of the students are African American.

A petition with around 75,000 signatures is now urging the Duval County School District (DCSD) to change the name to help heal racial division in the community....

But the DCSD says the process for changing the name ultimately rests with the school board so it doesn't matter how many people sign the petition....

This isn't the fitst time an effort to rename the school has been shot down. It last happened in 2008:

After hearing about three hours of public comments, Duval County School Board members voted 5-2 to the retain the name of Nathan Bedford Forrest High School. The board's two black members cast the only votes to change the name....

Many urged a name change, saying the Forrest name was an insult.

"Nathan Bedford Forrest was part of the Ku Klux Klan, no matter how you put it. Nathan Bedford Forrest needs to be changed," said Stanley Scott, who is black.

But several spoke favorably of the general, saying the perceptions that Forrest was an evil man who ordered the massacre of Union troops were incorrect.

June Cooper, who graduated from Forrest in 1970, said some people wanted to wipe out Southern history.

"He was a good man," said Cooper, who is White. "He was a military genius."

A name change was also rejected in 1999.

Wikipedia reports that the name of the school was suggested in 1959 by the Daughters of the Confederacy. The Washington Post notes that this isn't the only school named after Forrest -- there's also one in Chapel Hill, Tennessee, his birthplace.

Removing Forrest's name from something can be a real struggle. Earlier this year, the city of Memphis voted to rename three city parks -- Confederate Park, Jefferson Davis Park, and Nathan Bedford Forrest Park. The vote had to be consducted in haste, so the city wouldn't run afoul of legislation at the state level that would have protected the names:

The "Tennessee Heritage Protection Act of 2013" bill, already introduced in the state legislature, would prohibit name changes to any "statue, monument, memorial, nameplate, plaque, historic flag display,school, street, bridge,building, park preserve, or reserve which has been erected for, or named or dedicated in honor of, any historical military figure,historical military event, military organization, or military unit" on public property....

But the names were changed. In response, the Klan held a rally in Memphis, and the city now faces a lawsuit.

Um, folks? You lost. Get over it. You're Americans now.

Read More

THE CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER POSED BY THE ENORMOUS GEOPOLITICAL INFLUENCE OF ... ALAN GRAYSON?!

Bill Scher, who blogs at Liberal Oasis and works for the Campaign for America's Future, sees a liberal menace in the Syria debate: the all-powerful ... um, Alan Grayson.

... While the Left has long been identified with the compassionate philosophy of pacifism, the debate over the past two weeks has shown a growing tendency on the Left to embrace the hard-hearted call of isolationism. If the isolationist trend continues, it not only makes Obama's immediate case for military intervention on humanitarian grounds a much harder sell, but over the long term it threatens the ideological underpinnings of liberalism itself.

A core tenet of liberalism is the belief that active government should take responsibility in alleviating or preventing the suffering of others. In turn, a liberal expressing pacifist opposition to a military strike in Syria would still accept responsibility for preventing genocide, and lobby for diplomatic and economic means to avert slaughter without risking the unintended consequences of violent force.

The Left's loudest spokesperson against a Syrian strike is Rep. Alan Grayson. His main argument is far colder: "This is not our problem."

Grayson's DontAttackSyria.com offers no alternative solutions, and instead frames a false choice between helping Syrians and helping Americans: "Our own needs in America are great, and they come first. The death of civilians is always regrettable, and civil war is regrettable, but no Americans have been attacked, and no American allies have been attacked." That petition language from Grayson has garnered more than 90,000 signatures so far.

Yeah, and? An online petition to demanding the deportation of Piers Morgan garnered more than 100,000 signatures. A petition urging the U.S. government to build a Death Star by 2016 garnered more than 33,000 signatures. Signing online petitions is easy. No one takes them seriously.

But to Scher, Grayson is liberals' "chief spokesman for rejecting military force," and he's "making an amoral case." And since Scher apparently assumes that every last one of Grayson's 90,000 online signers is (a) a fellow liberal and (b) an opponent of any and all engagement in foreign affairs -- I don't know if Scher has noticed, but there are a hell of a lot of right-wing attack opponents out there, most of whom have Internet connections -- that means that the entire left is going isolationist and amoral.

I don't even know for sure that Grayson himself opposes all engagement with the world. Sure, he said, "This is not our problem." And yes, there's this:

Grayson even went as far as embracing Sarah Palin, telling radio host Ed Schultz, "I think I'm in agreement with Sarah Palin. She said, 'Let Allah sort it out.'"

But that's just Grayson's act. He envies the ability of right-wingers to motivate followers with glib soundbites, so he responds with even glibber soundbites of his own. It's gotten him elected to a couple of terms in Congress (though there was one loss in there as well). But to treat this guy as some sort of Pied Piper of isolationationism is absurd. To assume he's even thought this position through is absurd.

Liberals have had a wide range of responses to this and other Obama-era foreign policy questions. Liberals cheered the killing of Osama bin Laden; liberal support for Obama endured, admittedly with quite a bit of grumbling, through drone strikes and a troop increase in Afghanistan and an engagement in Libya. On Syria, a lot of liberals are genuinely torn -- yes, chemical weapons are awful, but the solution seems likely to deal just as much death to civilians, though doing nothing seems callous, and, oh, wait, should we hope for a diplomatic solution now or is the U.S. being played by Russia and Syria?

But no. To Scher, we are all sheep blindly following Alan Grayson. And that's means we've lost our souls:

Grayson, with plenty of poll numbers at his back showing little appetite for military strikes, is gleefully ducking the problem of offering constructive alternatives. That's all well and good as a congressional backbencher. Presidents, however, have to worry about not just poll numbers today, but also the effects of policies tomorrow. Democrats who want to retain control of the Oval Office need to have a bit more to offer than what Grayson is serving.

Furthermore, once you give up the essence of liberalism -- empathy for others -- you lose the underpinnings of all of your other liberal objectives. If suffering in someone else's country doesn't warrant our help, why should suffering in someone else's state or someone else's neighborhood?

Take a deep breath, Bill. Alan Grayson is just one guy -- even if he is a mouthy, camera-hogging guy. And a few names typed into his online petition don't commit the entire left to moral bankruptcy for all eternity.

Read More

BUT WHERE WILL MILLENNIALS TURN POLITICALLY IF EVERYONE LETS THEM DOWN?

Peter Beinart has written a very long essay arguing that the victory of Bill de Blasio in the New York Democratic mayoral primary is a sign that real change is coming to our national politics. Beinart thinks an older generation accepted the parameters set by Ronald Reagan and implicitly endorsed by Bill Clinton, both of whom took their parties rightward. Millennials, Beinart argues, are more tolerant of racial and sexual minorities, more dovish, and more inclined to back government intervention in the economy -- and the economy's failures in their adult lives have made them want more than what hard-right Republicans and "New Democrats" are offering them.

Beinart ultimately concludes that this means the 2016 Democratic presidential contest could be blown wide open by a truly progressive candidate, such as Elizabeth Warren.

I think he may have a point about Millennials and their dissatisfaction with having to operate within the boundaries set in the Reagan-to-Clinton era -- boundaries Barack Obama also seems to be operating within. I'd go further and say that this isn't just limited to Millennials. Note this result from a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll:

Americans continue to overwhelmingly dislike and distrust Wall Street five years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the ensuing financial crisis, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

Forty two percent said they have a negative view of the New York financial institutions while just 14 percent have a favorable opinion. The remainder of respondents had either a neutral view or no opinion. That is the lowest rating of any institution included in the poll. In comparison, 45 percent view President Barack Obama favorably while 25 percent expressed the same about the Tea Party.

The antipathy remains high despite record gains in the Dow Jones Industrial Average of more than 15,000 points, which is 3,000 points above than where it was when the market began its decline in 2008.

This is miles to the left of both political parties. And this is across the entire population -- it's not limited to one generation. (By the way, de Blasio didn't just win among Millennials -- in fact, exit polls show that he did somewhat better among older voters.)

But if we think Millennials in particular will want to push American politics left, we have to ask: What happens if the political system never yields the politicians they want? What happens if the system never improves their lives?

There's no reason to believe that Elizabeth Warren is actually running for president in 2016 -- unlike the Ted Cruzes and Rand Pauls, she's not popping up every few weeks in Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina. Yes, someone else with her views may emerge -- but what if the apparent champions of Millennial-style progressivism talk a good game but operate within the old parameters? Isn't that pretty much what Barack Obama has done?

I honestly don't think the economic powers that be will ever allow Millennials to live as comfortably as their elders -- the rich want more and more, they feel they're entitled to more, and they're simply not going to permit the political system, which they run, to reduce ever-increasing economic inequality.

I really believe that that kind of change will happen only under the threat of violence, as in the early labor movement. Is that what Millennials will turn to if the political system lets them down?

Maybe, but I doubt it -- we haven't had a real wave of political violence in this country for forty years, and we're not seeing one now, here or in the vast majority of the First World, despite plenty of reasons to be angry. More likely, the Millennials will just give up on politics (hell, if they stay left-leaning, the GOP will probably find ways to keep them from voting throughout their lives).

Maybe they'll turn to Alex Jones crackpottery, or its "respectable" counterpart, Rand Paul-ism. Or maybe they'll just conclude that the system is binary, and if things suck you may as well vote for the party that's not in charge, jut to get some kind of change. Elsewhere in that NBC/WSJ poll:

The Republican Party is gaining a public-opinion edge on several key issues ahead of the 2014 elections, as Americans question President Barack Obama's leadership on Syria and worry about the country's overall direction, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows.

Republicans are now rated higher than Democrats on handling the economy and foreign policy, and the GOP's lead has strengthened on several other issues, including dealing with the federal deficit and ensuring a strong national defense.

On topics such as health care, Democrats have seen their long-standing advantage whittled to lows not seen in years.

It should be noted that the GOP's numbers are up from very a low point, and are still quite low -- but they're up. And yes, this across the entire population, of all ages.

Why shouldn't we assume that Millennials will just fall into this same futile pattern? The only real alternative might be heading out into the streets.

Read More

WINGERS DEEM PUTIN ATTACK ON AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AN AFFRONT TO THEIR PATRIOTISM -- AND STILL PREFER HIM TO OBAMA

I was right this morning when I told you that Vladimir Putin's many fans on the American right would be grievously offended by his attack on the notion of American exceptionalism. I was wrong, however, that this would make them gnuinely angry at the guy. They're not. They're tying themselves in knots trying to explain why it's no big deal that the enemy of their enemy,who is therefore their friend, says such nasty things about the country they love.

Both Peggy Noonan and Rush Limbaugh had pretty much the same reaction to the exceptionalism passage in the Putin op-ed: Damn right we believe in exceptionalism here in America, because God, because liberty, because freedom, because individualism, and did I mention God?

Putin spits all over this notion, but it's OK, because -- and you should have known this was coming -- so does Obama.

Limbaugh:

Here is Putin's reference to it in his op-ed in the New York Times today. "I appreciate this. I carefully studied [Obama's] address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States' policy is 'what makes America different. It's what makes us exceptional.' It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation." Of course he would say that. He's a communist! He has always been a communist. The White House doesn't disagree with much of this, I'm sure. The American left doesn't disagree with much of what Putin said. In fact, the White House is happily accepting that Putin wrote this.

Noonan:

The irony of course is that Mr. Putin used the exceptionalism argument against Mr. Obama, who himself barely believes in the idea and no doubt threw it into his speech the way he often throws things like that in at the end: He thinks Americans like it, that the nationalist ego of the clingers demands it. But he doesn't mean it. Asked about American exceptionalism once, he said sure he believes in it, just as the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism. Thank you for that rousing historical endorsement.

Never mind the fact that, as The Atlantic's Terence McCoy points out, "exceptionalism" was a term coined by Joseph Stalin to refer to America's dearth of class anger and the resulting unlikelihood of socialist revolution here. It gained its present meaning as the Jimmy Carter years morphed into the Ronald Reagan era of we're-number-one! jingoism. Prior to that, patriotic American politicians didn't have proclaim loyalty to the notion.

But even if Limbaugh and Noonan think that the disdain for the notion of U.S. exceptionalism is shared equally by Putin and Obama, they've decided the two are identical in this and yet have essentially chosen to side with the Russian authoritarian rather than the head of our own country. (Noonan: "Still, in general, Mr. Putin made a better case in the piece against a U.S. military strike than the American president has for it." Limbaugh: "My God, we have the communist leader of Russia more proudly quoting the Declaration of Independence than our own president does!") And, well, that's no surprise, because hating Obama, all other Democrats, and all liberals is what conservatism means now. It's all that conservatism is about now.

Read More

BUT AREN'T THE STUDENTS WHO HECKLED PETRAEUS JUST DOING WHAT RIGHT-WINGERS WANT?

I see that right-wingers are appalled and horrified because of this:

Recent video shows former CIA director David Petraeus being chased down a New York City street by student activists at the City University of New York.

As BusinessInsider reported, Petraeus was on the way to teaching his first class at CUNY's honors college....

The students can be heard yelling "War criminal!" at the retired military officer....

"Petraeus out of CUNY" and "Fascist" were some of the other chants....

Hot Air complains about "the disrespect" and "the ferocity of harassment." Glenn Beck's Blaze harrumphs, "After Vietnam, didn’t we all agree that this was no way to treat military veterans?" On the Fox News program The Five, comments range from "I hate these kids" to "These people have no idea what fascism is, and they have no idea that this guy has fought for their freedom to act like d-bags.”

But on Sunday, when a FoxNews.com story pointed out that Petraeus is in favor of a U.S. military strike on Syria, the comments from Fox fans read something like this:

Petraeus is another liberal has been. This Obama drone has NO credibility. Like Clinton, he lied to the American people and stills thinks he's relevant in America's foreign policy. Go far, far away you traitorous POS, you sold our military down the tubes because you lack intestinal fortitude. Middle finger salute to you "SIR".

****

One thing the Liberals Got Right ......His Name IS General Betrayus!

****

Who does Retired Army Gen. David Petraeus' girl friend back, that is what really matter. Another disgrace to the uniform!

****

Ah, didn't he also provide her with classified info? Didn't he also lie. Hell, he should just run as Clinton's running mate.

****

Well...., general, we can see that obama has still got you by the balz...., wonder what you did this time....? You have lost all respect and are nothing more than a obama POS.

****

Petraeus can pack up his uniforms and his girl friend and head over to Syria if he feels so strongly about fighting. Share a plane with McCain, Feinstein, Boxer, Pelosi and Reid.

****

Petraeus has NO weight. He's a disgraced officer.


****

I thought he and his mistresses left the country.

So which is it, righties? Is Petraeus a heroic fighting man who nobly served us in a war you unswervingly supported, against a world leader who never attacked us, but who was believed to have chemical weapons? Or is Petraeus a disgrace to the uniform who backs a military attack you unswervingly oppose, against a world leader who never attacked us, but who is known to have used chemical weapons?

Sorry, I have trouble keeping up.

Read More

NO, NO, NO, VLADIMIR, YOU'RE TROLLING OBAMA ALL WRONG
(updated)

Nervy move by Vladimir Putin: writing a New York Times op-ed in an effort to prevent a U.S. attack on Syria.

Foolishly, though, Putin alienates the Americans whose opinions matter most in this crisis, namely the wingnut GOP base and the elected Republican hypocrites the base votes for, folks who've now decided as a bloc that they hate war if a Kenyan socialist Democrat is in charge. They're the key plsyers in all this because they're the people who used to accuse war skeptics of treason; in the past, they cowed people who doubted that war was a wise course. By making war skepticism something we're allowed to talk about, they're allowing a generalized public skepticism to flourish.

So Putin should have pitched his op-ed to them. He should have given them something they could happily quote at length as they laughed at how the Russian leader was humiliating Obama. Instead, Putin wrote this:

The United Nations' founders understood that decisions affecting war and peace should happen only by consensus, and with America’s consent the veto by Security Council permanent members was enshrined in the United Nations Charter. The profound wisdom of this has underpinned the stability of international relations for decades.

No one wants the United Nations to suffer the fate of the League of Nations, which collapsed because it lacked real leverage. This is possible if influential countries bypass the United Nations and take military action without Security Council authorization.

U.S. wingnuts may be nouveau peaceniks, but they still hate the UN with every fiber of their being. They absolutely want the UN to suffer the fate of the League of Nations.

And Putin alienates the U.S. right further with this:

I carefully studied his address to the nation on Tuesday. And I would rather disagree with a case he made on American exceptionalism, stating that the United States' policy is "what makes America different. It's what makes us exceptional." It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.

Wrong -- U.S. right-wingers absolutely believe in American exceptionalism. God wrote our Constitution! Jesus loves us and thinks other countries suck!

The U.S. right just believes that American exceptionalism is impossible under the evil Obama -- but exceptionalism is still a very good thing.

This was Putin's chance to build on the U.S. right's infatuation with him. It was another chance for American righties to use him as a stick to beat Obama with, and to declare him more of a leader, more of a statesman, and more of a man than Obama. And I think Putin blew it.


****

BUT: Maybe I have this all wrong. In all likelihood, Putin's target audience is the mainstream punditocracy in the U.S., which doesn't give a crap what actually happens in Syria and is exclusively concerned with who's a big strong manly person with power and who's a pathetic girlyman with no power. Never mind the fact that Putin is clearly worried about an attack on Syria, and clearly fears a wider Middle Eastern war, as well as the possibility that chemical weapons will fall into the hands of Muslim rebels within Russia’s borders. In other words, never mind the fact that the credible threat of force moved Putin to do all this, which means that, however clumsily, Obama did use power effectively, as even the mainstream press has begun to acknowledge. The insiders’ preferred narrative is still shirtless macho man Putin makes Obama look like a wuss in mom jeans. So, in that respect, this op-ed works.

Read More

RICH PEOPLE: RESPECT OUR AUTHORITY!

Listen to wailing and gnashing of teeth:

They are startled and unsure how to react. "Terrifying," is how one banker put it.

Many in New York's business and financial elite, stung by the abrupt ascent of Bill de Blasio, an unapologetic tax-the-rich liberal, are fixated on a single question: What are we going to do?

The angst, emanating from charity galas and Park Avenue dinner tables, has created an unexpected political opening for Joseph J. Lhota, the Republican nominee, whose once-sleepy candidacy is now viewed by players in both parties as their last, best hope for salvaging the business-friendly government of the Bloomberg era.

... fear was palpable last Tuesday evening in the soaring Art Deco ballroom of the Waldorf-Astoria, where wealthy patrons gathered at a dinner for the National September 11 Memorial, the season’s first big charity gala, were agape at Mr. de Blasio's ascent.

The evening's honoree was Mr. Bloomberg, who was celebrated in a video screened for the audience. "Mayor Bloomberg should be the mayor forever!" one guest called out, and the room erupted in applause.

What do these people have their silk boxers in a twist? What's so terrifying? Well, de Blasio is proposing to fund universal full-day pre-kindergarten in New York by means of a tax increase on incomes over half a million dollars a year. How big a tax increase? A little more than half a percent -- .55%, to be exact.

Not quite a tumbrel, is it?

Oh, and the tax has to be approved at the state level, and many observers don't think that's likely. So the tax plan may be merely aspirational.

Of course, the rich aren't really "terrified." They're insulted. They've been the kings and queens of the last decade or two. They've come out of the economic downturn smelling like a rose; we now have levels of inequality not seen since the 1920s. And they feel entitled to more of the same. They think they deserve an exemption from criticism.

Salon's Blake Zeff says that's why Bloomberg lashed out at de Blasio in a New York magazine interview. I agree:

Michael Bloomberg is not enjoying de Blasio's campaign -- and there's a pretty good reason why: The Democrat's campaign represents one of the first sustained, publicly damaging attacks on his mayoralty that the billionaire has not been able to silence using an arsenal of personal relationships, political leverage and lots of money.

This is the same sense of entitlement that leads rich people to lash out at President Obama for remarks about themselves that have an inappropriate "tone" -- Obama, they say, is "villainizing success" -- even as success continues to be the default mode for the rich under Obama. They really don't believe anything should ever make them uncomfortable ever again. They really believe being shielded from discomfort is their right.

Read More

LIBERALISM IS STILL DEEMED INCOMPATIBLE WITH "REGULAR PEOPLE" VALUES
(updated)

So I guess gun control is the real third rail of American politics:

In the first recalls of state lawmakers in Colorado history, State Senate President John Morse and Senator Angela Giron were both removed from office Tuesday by voters upset with their stance on gun control.

Unofficial final results updated by the El Paso County Clerk at 10:02 p.m. showed 50.96 percent of voters in District 11 wanted Morse to be recalled....

Giron, who was winning in the first preliminary data, has also lost. Unofficial results show 56 percent of voters in District 3 in favor of recalling her....

Prior to the election, I was reading that the recalls might fail, or at least Giron's might, because voters generally disapprove of recalls:

For one thing, while a majority of Coloradans dislike the gun control law, a roughly equal number oppose the recall.

That's part of what saved Scott Walker when he faced recall in Wisconsin, remember?

Wisconsin voters had strong opinions on the merit of recall elections. Sixty percent told exit pollsters that recall elections are only appropriate when there has been official misconduct, and another 10 percent think such elections are never appropriate. Just 27 percent of Wisconsin voters supported holding recall elections for any reason.

But there you go -- that didn't matter in Colorado. You agitate in a liberal way by putting a union-busting governor on a recall ballot, and voters in the middle will punish you for your rudeness. But you do the same to a gun-control legislator, and that's not considered bad manners, probably because the gun lovers are so much better at wrapping themselves in the flag and the Constitution. They're not insolent, smelly hippies -- they're patriots. They can get away with being angry and shouty (see: tea party, as opposed to Occupy). aThey can get away with foisting recalls on regular folks.

Why is that? When the hell is liberalism going to start seeming like a branch of Americanism? How many more decades can the 1960s define what left and right stand for, in the eyes of middle Americans?

****

UPDATE BooMan's take:

The lasting legacy of this defeat will probably be a steady stream of recall elections all across the country, as Republicans realize that they have a much better chance of winning low turnout recall elections than high turnout general elections. Remember, they terminated California Governor Gray Davis while we failed to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker.

The lesson is that the Republicans don't have to accept the results of elections and can get a second bite at every apple.

That's true. If they could have petitioned to recall President Obama, they would have done so. They are motivated voters and Democratic voters often aren't; they are voters whose voting habits are largely unaffected by vote-suppression laws, while many Democratic voters aren't.

The GOP may never figure out how to overturn voting results at the national level, but they've got the rest of the electoral landscape pretty much custom-designed to suit their purposes. And centrist voters don't see anything wrong with how they operate, because they wave flags a lot.

****

AND: Alec MacGillis writes:

[Angela] Giron went so far as to tell me late last month that the future of [Mike] Bloomberg's [gun-control] group was riding on the recall: "For Mayors Against Illegal Guns, if they lose even one of these seats, they might as well fold it up. And they understand that."

Giron was a bit heedless in that assessment.

I don't think she was. Bloomberg has made this personal, and he's an easy target for ridicule -- liberals hate him for coddling his fellow plutocrats and for defending stop-and-frisk, right-wingers hate the gun-control efforts (and the earlier defense of the "Ground Zero mosque"), people across the spectrum mock his campaign to restrict large sodas. In my Twitter feed, hypocritical right-wingers -- Citizen United fans all, I assume -- whined that the NRA was outspent by the hated Bloomberg in Colorado. As MacGillis notes, other groups whose spending can't be tracked made up the shortfall -- but no one motivated pro-Morse and pro-Giron voters the way a desire to beat the hated Bloomberg motivated the pro-recall gunners.

Bloomberg has made himself a cartoon villain, diminishing his effectiveness. He should stop trying to be the face of this movement, because so many people don't like him, but his ego won't allow that. Yeah, he writes a nice check, but he's still a liability to this cause.

Read More

NOONAN NOT EVEN PRETENDING THAT SYRIA SITUATION IS ABOUT SYRIA FOR THE RIGHT

Peggy Noonan, in a pre-speech post:

So what will [President Obama] say? Some guesses.

He will not really be trying to "convince the public." He will be trying to move the needle a little, which will comfort those who want to say he retains a matchless ability to move the masses. It will make him feel better. And it will send the world the message: Hey, this isn't a complete disaster. The U.S. president still has some juice, and that juice can still allow him to surprise you, so watch it.

He will attempt to be morally compelling and rhetorically memorable....

The real purpose of the speech will be to lay the predicate for a retrospective judgment of journalists and, later, historians. He was the president who warned the world and almost went -- but didn't go -- to war to make a point that needed making.

Did you see an ego-tripping president tonight? I didn't. Did you see a president playing for the history books? Me either. If anything, I saw a president struggling to win over the public and doing this speech because everyone told him that he had to -- that he had to do something to change minds. He looked as if he was trying to turn public opinion around, but wasn't counting on much success (although the diplomatic opening that emerged in the past day or so gave the speech a ray of hope).

But I understand what Noonan is getting at here. When she, or one of her ideological soul mates, portrays an Obama speech as a way for the president to persuade himself and his fan base that he's a great speaker, that's just mirror-image projection: the righties think we're obsessed with Obama's rhetorical gifts, and that Obama is obsessed with his own gifts, because they, the righties, are obsessed with those gifts. They get physically ill watching him speak. They hate that anyone responds to him. And they care more about that than they do about any issue he's talking about, or any issue whatsoever, because their hatred for him, and for all Democrats, knows no bounds.

They don't care what we do in Syria. They have no firm opinion on this. If one of their favorites were championing the same course of action, and even making the same mistakes in the same order, they'd be 100% on board.

Incidentally, I don't think I've ever believed that Obama has "a matchless ability to move the masses." He's very good at moving people who are already favorably disposed toward him, or at least are persuadable; it's been clear since the '08 primaries, however, that some people are unmoved by him.

And as for how journalists and historians will judge Obama: I can't believe he could possibly imagine that his words are going to decide that. He's given a lot of fine speeches, and a lot of people still loathe him. He may have once said he was "LeBron" as a public speaker, but he's clearly had that sense of himself beaten out of him by events. It's been a long time since we've seen the cocky guy the right-wingers see. Then again, what they see is exclusively what's in their own heads.

Read More

MUDCAT SAUNDERS CAN KISS MY PASTY WHITE CITY-BOY ASS

Seriously?

Dave "Mudcat" Saunders, a veteran smash-mouth Democratic strategist, says he is supporting Republican Ken Cuccinelli for governor, branding Democrat Terry McAuliffe a "corporatist."

"What these corporatists have done to us in rural America and in urban America ..." Saunders said in a telephone interview. "I can't support a corporatist. I just can't. This guy is not my kind of Democrat."

... Saunders, from the mountains outside Roanoke, is a colorful operative who has urged his party to make a play for the increasingly Republican rural vote....

Yeah, I've heard of Saunders -- the nickname is memorable, and I know that his schtick impresses a lot of people:

Along the way, Saunders ... became a sought-after source for reporters covering the battle for the hearts and minds of so-called "NASCAR dads" -- the label pundits have attached to white, culturally conservative men who typically vote Republican in national elections....

Saunders told them all that a Democratic presidential candidate can appeal to those voters if they show respect for gun rights and avoid letting social issues define their campaigns. If Democrats can "get through the culture," they then can get rural voters to listen to their ideas about the economy, jobs and health care, Saunders argued.

Of course, in the last two presidential elections, America elected a black guy from Chicago via Honolulu who was widely perceived as a gun-grabber and who, in the last election, was unabashedly pro-choice and pro-gay, all while Saunders's guy from 2004, John Edwards, went down in flames in '08 after losing in '04.

Look, I understand opposing McAuliffe. But if you're a good Democrat, stay neutral -- don't endorse an extremist like Cuccinelli. It isn't just the extreme right-wing views on abortion, gay rights, and other social issues that are the problem. It isn't just Cuccinelli's vendetta against a climate scientist. It's the notion that Cuccinelli is somehow less of a corporatist:

The gubernatorial campaign of Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R) raised 40 percent of its more than $1 million haul from donors giving $10,000 or more, according to a campaign finance report filed on Tuesday. These large donations came from a collection of corporations, wealthy individuals and political action committees....

One contribution of note is the $50,000 given by Intrust Wealth Management, one of many corporations under the control of the billionaire industrialist Koch brothers. The company is a subsidiary of Intrust Bank, headed by Charles Koch. This is the second Koch contribution to Cuccinelli, who received $10,000 from Koch Industries in the first half of 2012.

Cuccinelli appeared as a featured speaker at more than one Koch-sponsored event in recent years.

In 2011, the attorney general flew to Vail, Colo., to speak at a Koch seminar titled, "Understanding and Addressing Threats to American Enterprise and Prosperity." ...

In 2012, Cuccinelli was enlisted as a speaker at a major fundraising event for the Kochs in Palm Springs, Calif....

Oh, and here's an ALEC-posted video of Cuccinelli boasting about his anti-Obamacare campaign:





****

I do agree with Saunders that Democrats ought to learn how to talk to heartland whites. But my attitude is: don't bend over backwards to try to pretend you're a Bubba deep down inside. Instead, lead with economics at the human, kitchen-table level -- and then actually live up to your rhetoric by fighting for the little guy. That might impress Bubba more than waving around a gun.

Read More

WHAT'S THE DOMESTIC EQUIVALENT OF "ISOLATIONIST"?

I'm sure I don't have to tell you that the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll reveals that the public opposes an attack on Syria. Every poll shows that. But there's also this:

The NBC/WSJ poll also shows that a whopping 74 percent agree with the statement that it's time for the United States to do less around the world and focus more on domestic problems.

That compares with 22 percent who agree that America must promote democracy and freedom across the globe, because those efforts would make the U.S. more secure.

This is a significant change from the last time this question was asked in 2005, when 54 percent sided with focusing on domestic problems, versus 33 percent who wanted to emphasize democracy and freedom around the world.

The contemptuous response to poll results like this, especially from insider mandarins like Bill Keller, is that Americans are becoming dangerously "isolationist." Politicians who oppose action in Syria or elsewhere on the globe are equally "isolationist."

But what's the contemptuous term for politicians who don't do anything to solve the domestic problems that concern real Americans?

You can't blame three-quarters of Americans for feeling that domestic difficulties are getting short shrift from the political establishment right now -- the economic downturn never seems to end on Main Street, even if Wall Street is thriving. But a majority of Americans felt that domestic problems were getting short shrift even in 2005, when we were allegedly living through good economic times. Except they weren't good economic times for most people -- incomes for ordinary Americans remained flat, and if you weren't borrowing from home equity or a line of credit, you were probably running faster and faster just to stay in place.

And the political establishment didn't seem to care -- then or now.

What do we call politicians who give short shrift to ordinary Americans' real needs? If they want to retreat from the world, we condemn them as "isolationists." What do we say when they want to retreat from Main Street America, treating Americans' problems as something they shouldn't get involved with?

Why don't we have an insulting term for that?

Read More

WINGNUT DISGUSTED THAT CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS EXISTS, IS MADE UP OF BLACK PEOPLE

The stupidest man on the Internet, Jim Hoft, is the principal writer at the blog Gateway Pundit, but I guess he can't provide all the stupid his readers crave, and so we have this guest stupid at GP from Free Republic's Kristinn Taylor:

Obama's Jim Crow Foreign Policy? Segregated Syria War Meeting at White House with Congressional Black Caucus

President Barack Obama and his National Security Advisor Susan Rice, who like Obama is Black, are holding a classified meeting on Syria at the White House with members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) , according to reporter April Ryan, the White House reporter for American Urban Radio Networks.

While there are times that a meeting with the group that is a repugnant remnant of racial divisions in America might make sense -- such as how to get Black unemployment down from the double-digit Depression era levels it has been since Obama took office -- it is hard to see what the 'black take' on Syria is that differentiates the CBC from the rest of the country.

The only possible explanation is that Obama is making a special racial solidarity pitch with his soul brothers and sisters in Congress. Otherwise, the meeting would have been open to all members of Congress regardless of race.

Right -- the very existence of the Congressional Black Caucus is "a repugnant remnant of racial divisions in America," and no president should ever attend a meeting with the CBC without inviting white people to sit in as well (sorry, George H.W. Bush, you should have boycotted those meetings you used to have with the CBC -- and the same goes for your son). And when the president and national security adviser are black, and they meet with the CBC, then surely it must just be an excuse to sit around and eat fried chicken and watermelon while dancing to jungle music. In hoodies! And oppress white people, just by existing.

Read More

UTTERLY BAFFLED BY WHAT'S GOING ON, BUT IT MAY MEAN THE CORE OF OBAMA'S STRATEGY WAS SOUND

If Obama Admin orchestrated the Kerry-Putin-Assad two step, brilliant move. If not, Obama is the luckiest guy in the world today.

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) September 9, 2013

That's in response to this:

A new possibility for a diplomatic solution in Syria surfaced unexpectedly Monday as the war-torn country said it supported a proposal to hand over control of its chemical weapons.

But a key question loomed: Is that a viable option or simply a stall tactic as President Bashar al-Assad's government tries to stave off U.S. military action?

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem told reporters in Moscow that his nation "welcomes" a proposal by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during talks on Monday: put Syria's chemical weapons under international control to avert a U.S. military response over an alleged poison gas attack last month....

The comments came after Secretary of State John Kerry discussed a similar scenario, though the State Department stressed later Monday that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad could not be trusted to relinquish his country's chemical stockpiles....

The whole thing is making my head spin. It's being read as the Russians pouncing on a Kerry gaffe, and then the gaffe seeming not so gaffe-like the more it's examined. Or maybe it still is gaffe-like.

The Atlantic's Philip Bump:

Russia and the United States worked out a secret way to agree on a resolution to the Syria crisis, with Assad giving up his chemical weapons. Or maybe the Russians are trolling John Kerry again. As Monday evolved, it seemed increasingly possible that the first possibility was the accurate one.

Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking at the British Foreign Office, offered the idea in response to a journalist's question about how strikes on Syria could be averted. The Independent reports Kerry said:

"Sure, [Assad] could turn over every single bit of his chemical weapons to the international community in the next week -- turn it over, all of it without delay and allow the full and total accounting (of it), but he isn't about to do it and it can't be done."

Kerry's tone was largely dismissive of the idea, as the video on that page shows. The State Department also quickly declared the secretary's comments to be "rhetorical," CNN reports.

The Russians, however, appear to be taking the idea seriously....

The State Department has not yet responded to Lavrov's offer. That response will almost certainly be dismissive. (Update: The White House has [issued a response]; it was not dismissive.) If it isn't, perhaps this was an elegantly orchestrated plan, worked out over black coffee in a St. Petersburg hotel between anonymous representatives from the two countries -- a plan riding on Kerry's offhanded response to a posed question. The idea that Russia is trying to make things diplomatically uncomfortable for the United States -- trolling, in the common vernacular -- seems much more likely.

And yet as Josh Marshall says:

I’m not saying I think it will be easy or that the Russians are sincere. But getting all the regimes chemical weapons arsenal under international control would be no small achievement. Simply focusing on it would give the US something to apply leverage against (something it sorely lacks at the moment) and put the Russians in an awkward spot....

The key is that this potentially allows the US to reshuffle the deck and come at the problem on terrain which is inherently more favorable, given the Russian opening. Take the whole thing back to the Security Council. Have the Russians veto what they just proposed.

And Kevin Drum writes:

So was Kerry's statement a gaffe? In normal terms, sure. You don't toss out stuff like this without thinking about it, and most likely all it does is give Russia and Syria a handy excuse to play games for a while longer. However, in any terms more sophisticated than those of a five-year-old, it wasn't really much of a gaffe. Kerry's meaning was perfectly plain.

Still, what if the Russians aren't playing games, but are seizing an unanticipated opportunity? It's possible that for all their bluster, the Russians would actually like a way out of this that saves some face....

If all of this ended up with some kind of UN inspection force taking control of Syria's chemical arsenal, that would be a pretty good outcome for everyone. And it would make Kerry's statement sort of the opposite of a Kinsley gaffe. Instead of a politician accidentally telling the truth, it would end up being a politician accidentally solving a real problem.

Gaffe or no gaffe, the underlying Obama strategy created the possibility of a positive outcome. The Syrians (and the Russians) still think Obama might strike even if he loses in Congress. They still seem as if they'd like to avoid that outcome. Maybe the threat of force actually worked.

If we get to a deal that averts a strike -- and the administration does seem to be looking at this proposal seriously -- that demonstrates a key difference between Obama and Bush: Bush always wanted a war with Iraq. Obama really might walk away from military action.

Read More

GO RADICAL RIGHT, INFURIATE LARGE SEGMENTS OF THE PUBLIC, AND GET REELECTED ANYWAY

Quite a few very right-wing governors were elected in 2010, the tea party's Year Zero. A lot of them pushed through (or at least proposed) some very radical changes in their states. They were relentless in their desire to transform America, and they made a lot of headway. But at least we still live in a democracy -- right? If you go too far as an elected official, you alienate the public and destroy your chances at reelection -- right?

Well, maybe not in Florida, according to the Orlando Sentinel:

Rick Scott is no longer a long shot for re-election

When Rick Scott won a bruising battle for Florida's governorship three years ago, he inherited an economy in disarray. He ostracized allies with his stubborn streak, emboldened foes through his slash-and-burn budgeting and was dubbed by pollsters "America's least popular governor."

It's still a political eternity until the Republican former health-care CEO stands before voters again. But the crosswinds have shifted in ways that make his re-election in 2014 much less of a long shot than Tallahassee prognosticators once expected.

... there are growing signs that Scott ... will be a formidable contender next year.

As the national economic recovery has taken hold, Florida has seen its unemployment rate shrink -- from 10.9 percent when Scott took office to 7.1 percent in July, with 342,000 moved off the unemployment rolls -- though state economists attribute nearly half that reduction to people dropping out of the labor force. State revenue is up....

Republicans are banking on voters giving the governor full credit....

Democrats still outwardly sound like they're licking their chops, fed by the governor's still-low poll numbers. The July Quinnipiac Poll showed that 43 percent approved -- but 44 percent disapproved -- of his performance. But that's up nearly 10 points from his 2011 ratings....

Yeah, he's still ten points behind Crist in that poll. But he's gaining ground. And it's not clear that Crist will be the Democratic candidate (the sentinel story says uncertainty about who's running on the Democratic side is freezing Democratic fund-raising, while Scott sits on a massive personal fortune).

The point is, Scott's reelection is possible. And elsewhere in in teabag-held territories, Scott Walker seems likely to win reelection in Wisconsin unless Russ Feingold is his opponent, in which case the race is a toss-up. John Kasich is favored to win reelection in Ohio. Rick Snyder has been struggling in Michigan, but his numbers went up around the time Detroit went bankrupt, and he's beating his most likely Democratic rival in one poll. Hell, even the nutjob in Maine, Paul Le Page, is running more or less even with his nearest rival in a three-way race. Of this crowd, only Pennsylvania's Tom Corbett seems to be doomed for 2014.

I bring this up because the teabag formula -- go radical early in your term, make big changes before opponents know what hit them -- is clearly the template for what a Republican president with a Republican Congress would do in 2017. And now we see that it's not political suicide.

At the national level, this means that the Republicans could usher in a Paul Ryan-style economic order in a blitzkrieg of first-year legislation, then possibly go on to be reelected. In the teabag states, once-skeptical moderates seem just to accept the new normal, while right-wingers cheer it on. Outrage is generated, but the left and center can't sustain it (whereas right-wing partisanship remains at a permanent fever pitch). If it happens nationally, we're in deep trouble.

Read More

OBAMA'S NEXT MISTAKE: APPOINTING RAY "STOP-AND-FRISK" KELLY AS HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY?

You know what actually could undercut the president's solid support among African-Americans (as well as further reduce his support among liberals, me included)? Appointing Ray Kelly to replace Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary. Is this a sign Obama's going to do it?

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly played down a shoutout from the vice president Friday during Janet Napolitano’s sendoff as secretary of Homeland Security -- a job some have said the city's top cop is suited for.

Biden, after his remarks, walked the edge of the stage to give Kelly a fist-bump of solidarity, quietly asking him if he was "doing OK."

... After Napolitano announced her plans to step down in July, top New York lawmakers called on President Obama to tap Kelly for the post.

Days later Obama called Kelly "very well-qualified for the job."

Sources say Kelly wants it, but skeptics note that the NYPD's stop-and-frisk program, now subject to federal oversight, and its post-9/11 surveillance of Muslim communities could hurt his bid....

Napolitano's last day on the job was Friday, and Obama still hasn't named a replacement. Compare that with secretary of state: John Kerry's nomination was announced more than a month before Hillary Clinton left office. I know Obama can drag his feet in making appointments, but this is a high-profile position. What's the delay?

It may be that Kelly is waiting to see whether he'll keep his current job. The two Republican mayoral front-runners here in New York both say they want to keep him on, but the Democratic front-runner, Bill de Blasio, wants to replace him, as does one of his top challengers, Bill Thompson. (The other leading challenger, Christine Quinn, would keep him on.)

If no one is named to replace Napolitano between now and November, or at least between now and, say, a series of polls showing de Blasio clearly headed for victory in the general election, that means it's going to be Kelly. And that would be another unforced Obama error.

Read More

"CREATIVE DESTRUCTION" OF HUMAN LIVES
(updated)

The Washington Post explains how the D.C. government enables some of the worst people in the world:

On the day Bennie Coleman lost his house, the day armed U.S. marshals came to his door and ordered him off the property, he slumped in a folding chair across the street and watched the vestiges of his 76 years hauled to the curb....

All because he didn't pay a $134 property tax bill.

The retired Marine sergeant lost his house on that summer day two years ago through a tax lien sale -- an obscure program run by D.C. government that enlists private investors to help the city recover unpaid taxes.

For decades, the District placed liens on properties when homeowners failed to pay their bills, then sold those liens at public auctions to mom-and-pop investors who drew a profit by charging owners interest on top of the tax debt until the money was repaid.

But under the watch of local leaders, the program has morphed into a predatory system of debt collection for well-financed, out-of-town companies that turned $500 delinquencies into $5,000 debts -- then foreclosed on homes when families couldn't pay....

Coleman, struggling with dementia, was among those who lost a home. His debt had snowballed to $4,999 -- 37 times the original tax bill. Not only did he lose his $197,000 house, but he also was stripped of the equity because tax lien purchasers are entitled to everything, trumping even mortgage companies....

This is what you get as a result of the absolute disappearance of economic liberalism as a centerpiece of the Democratic Party's thinking. This is what you get when the public is so beaten down by economic predation that no progressive organizations ever fight back effectively.

Notice that this program started in 2001 -- the moment when we'd all become cheerleaders for capitalism, when liberalism had come to mean rooting on the "New Democrat" economics of Bill Clinton (yes, a tax increase on the rich, but also welfare reform and the end of Glass-Steagall). So it's fitting that when this program went into effect in 2001, an article in the Washington Business Journal sold it as a swell investment opportunity:

With the stock market down and venture capitalists sitting on the sidelines, the District is offering investors an alternative with double-digit returns.

Tax liens.

A guaranteed 18 percent profit looks pretty tempting right now to investors licking their wounds from the dot-com carnage. That's the interest District government charges on unpaid property taxes. And beginning July 16, tax liens can be bought like any other commodity -- and the interest just keeps compounding....

"The clock doesn't stop once a tax lien is sold," says Herbert Huff, D.C.'s deputy chief financial officer. "A lot of investors are in this just to get the 18 percent." ...

The scumbags doing this aren't the big Wall Street names, but this is still evil:

One 65-year-old flower shop owner lost his Northwest Washington home of 40 years after a company from Florida paid his back taxes -- $1,025 -- and then took the house through foreclosure while he was in hospice, dying of cancer. A 95-year-old church choir leader lost her family home to a Maryland investor over a tax debt of $44.79 while she was struggling with Alzheimer's in a nursing home.

A sane society would regard the parasites who do these things the way we regard child rapists. A sane society would reserve its worst prisons for them. But that's not us, is it?

****

UPDATE: BooMan adds:

People probably know that ACORN registered people to vote, but that's about all they know about the former community organization. Registering voters was never more than a sideline. They actually contracted the whole thing out to PROJECT VOTE. The main thing ACORN did was fight back against this. When you walked into an ACORN office, the people at the desks manning the phones and meeting with people were spending 95% of their time trying to help people avoid losing their homes or advising them how to navigate all the predators in the housing market. What's been going on in Washington DC is only a particularly nasty form of something that was rampant in the 2000's.

... ACORN fought on this battlefield. But they got smooshed like a bug.

Read More