Tag: Politics

Nov 12 2014

The Nightmare on Wall Street

Attorney General Eric Holder claimed that the banks were too big and too hard to prosecute for the “massive criminal securities fraud” behind the high risk mortgage securities that led up to the 2008 financial collapse. Instead the Justice Department opted for civil settlements with large fines with no admission of any wrong doing.

Actually, it wasn’t. It appears that the Obama administration’s chief law enforcement officer chose not to prosecute despite all the evidence at his disposal. In his return to Rolling Stones, investigative journalist Matt Taibbi introduces Alayne Fleischmann, JPMorgan Chase’s $9 billion nightmare:

She tried to stay quiet, she really did. But after eight years of keeping a heavy secret, the day came when Alayne Fleischmann couldn’t take it anymore.

“It was like watching an old lady get mugged on the street,” she says. “I thought, ‘I can’t sit by any longer.'” [..]

Fleischmann is the central witness in one of the biggest cases of white-collar crime in American history, possessing secrets that JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon late last year paid $9 billion (not $13 billion as regularly reported – more on that later) to keep the public from hearing.

Back in 2006, as a deal manager at the gigantic bank, Fleischmann first witnessed, then tried to stop, what she describes as “massive criminal securities fraud” in the bank’s mortgage operations.

Thanks to a confidentiality agreement, she’s kept her mouth shut since then. “My closest family and friends don’t know what I’ve been living with,” she says. “Even my brother will only find out for the first time when he sees this interview.”

Six years after the crisis that cratered the global economy, it’s not exactly news that the country’s biggest banks stole on a grand scale. That’s why the more important part of Fleischmann’s story is in the pains Chase and the Justice Department took to silence her.

She was blocked at every turn: by asleep-on-the-job regulators like the Securities and Exchange Commission, by a court system that allowed Chase to use its billions to bury her evidence, and, finally, by officials like outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder, the chief architect of the crazily elaborate government policy of surrender, secrecy and cover-up. “Every time I had a chance to talk, something always got in the way,” Fleischmann says.

This past year she watched as Holder’s Justice Department struck a series of historic settlement deals with Chase, Citigroup and Bank of America. The root bargain in these deals was cash for secrecy. The banks paid big fines, without trials or even judges – only secret negotiations that typically ended with the public shown nothing but vague, quasi-official papers called “statements of facts,” which were conveniently devoid of anything like actual facts.

Matt and Ms. Fleischmann joined Democracy Now‘s hosts Amy Goodman and Juan González to discuss ow JPMorgan wrecked the economy and avoided prosecution.

The full transcript can be read here

Nov 11 2014

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Tim Hsia and Anna Ivey: Fix the New G.I. Bill

This Veterans Day there will be over a million students on college campuses in the United States who are using their G.I. Bill benefits. The Department of Veterans Affairs forecasts that the number of student veterans will increase by 20 percent in the next few years.

These student veterans are unlike the vast majority of their student counterparts, as more than 60 percent are first-generation students and almost half have children of their own. Much more needs to be done to ensure that they are getting the education they need to succeed in the modern economy. [..]

Perhaps the most troubling phenomenon returning veterans face right now is this: predatory for-profit schools that exploit their G.I. Bill funding and offer them – and taxpayers – very little in return. The schools in question are eager to access our veterans’ grants and loans, but they employ deceptive recruiting practices and achieve low graduation rates.

Dean Baker: Election Results Indicate Huge Mandate for New Trade Pacts

Apparently that is how the DC-insider crowd saw the elections last week. The elite media were filled with news and opinion pieces on how the election opened the door for the approval of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP). According to the purveyors of elite opinion, this is one of the key areas on which the Republicans in Congress and President Obama can agree.

That assessment is striking since few, if any, of the winning candidates in last week’s election made a point of running on their support of these agreements. Nor did President Obama highlight his work on these pacts in his re-election campaign. In fact, the last thing most voters probably remember President Obama saying about trade was his pledge to renegotiate NAFTA when he was running for president the first time, back in 2008.

The turn of the leadership of both parties and the centers of elite opinion to these trade deals shows the incredible contempt they have for the general public and the political process. We just completed lengthy and expensive campaigns where they had ample opportunity to push the case for these deals. Instead we got panicky commercials highlighting everything from the Ebola threat to ISIS beheadings.

But in the view of our political leaders that stuff was just for the kids. Now that we have the election out of the way, the adults are prepared to return to real business.

Lee Fang: Obama Can Reform Dark Money With a Stroke of a Pen

There’s a powerful solution for disclosing the secret-money sloshing around in our political system. It does not require an act of Congress or action from any of the effectively toothless campaign-finance watchdogs, like the Federal Election Commission. In fact, this solution could be passed in an instant, and the only requirement for action is political will.

President Barack Obama can issue an executive order today that requires government contractors to disclose their dark-money campaign contributions.

Why doesn’t he? And why don’t campaign-finance-reform organizations push for such a fix?

Paul Buccheit: The Billion Dollar a Month Club: A Runaway Transfer of Wealth to the Super-Rich

Our national wealth has grown by an astonishing $30 trillion since the recession, but most of it has gone to people who were already wealthy.

We are living through a massive redistribution of America’s net worth to the beneficiaries of a financial industry that has used cunning and money and power to impose their version of economic “freedom” while deregulating any policies that might have stopped the incessant transfer of wealth.

It’s getting worse, by the year and by the month. President Obama’s claim that “We’ve recovered faster and come farther than almost any other advanced country on Earth” applies largely to the people whose wealth accumulation has dramatically pulled up the averages. The evidence is staring us in the face, but the super-rich are only watching their portfolios.

William Hartung: The Escalation of the War in Iraq Is Grounded in Fantasy

Of the many fallacies underlying the current U.S. military intervention in Iraq, the greatest may be the idea that the United States has a reliable partner in the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi. In his Face the Nation interview, President Obama tied the latest escalation of the war to his trust in the new Iraqi government: “Phase one was getting an Iraqi government that was inclusive and credible — and we now have done that.”

The idea that the Abadi government is inclusive will come as news to people in Iraq. In one of his most consequential decisions since taking office, Abadi appointed Mohammed Salem al-Ghabban, a member of the Badr Organization, as interior minister. The Badr organization is run by Hadi al-Amiri. According to a U.S. embassy cable released by Wikileaks, Amiri ordered the torture and killing of over 2,000 Sunnis between 2004 and 2006 during a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Baghdad. One of the torture methods involved using a power drill to pierce the skull of the victims. [..]

Government-sanctioned violence against Sunnis is not a thing of the past. In the aftermath of a series of successful counter-attacks against Islamic State (also known as ISIS) in Diyala province — attacks in which Amiri was given control of all Iraqi forces — Sunnis in the area suffered torture, executions, and the burning of entire villages at the hands of Shiite militias that had fought alongside Iraqi security forces.

Les Leopold: As Bad As You Think It Is, It’s Worse: Wage Theft Comes to America

In Denmark fast food workers make $20 an hour plus benefits, and the corporations who employ them are still profitable. Why there and not here?

The answer is simple and painful — wage theft. In America corporations are systematically stealing our wages. Virtually everyone in the bottom 95 percent of the income distribution now suffers from wage theft… perhaps, including you!

It starts at the bottom of the income ladder. Many undocumented immigrant day labors survive by standing on street corners and selling their labor to drive-by construction and landscaping contractors. Unfortunately, far too many contractors refuse to pay after the work is done, something experienced by nearly every day-laborer.

Nov 10 2014

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

New York Times Editorial Board: In Cuba, Misadventures in Regime Change

In 1996, spurred by an appetite for revenge, American lawmakers passed a bill spelling out a strategy to overthrow the government in Havana and “assist the Cuban people in regaining their freedom.” Helms-Burton Act (pdf), signed into law by President Bill Clinton shortly after Cuba shot down two small civilian American planes, has served as the foundation for the $264 million the United States has spent (pdf) in the last 18 years trying to instigate democratic reforms on the island.

Far from accomplishing that goal, the initiatives have been largely counterproductive. The funds have been a magnet for charlatans, swindlers and good intentions gone awry. The stealthy programs have increased hostility between the two nations, provided Cuba with a trove of propaganda fodder and stymied opportunities to cooperate in areas of mutual interest.

The United States should strive to promote greater freedoms on the island of 11 million people and loosen the grip of one of the most repressive governments in the world. But it must chart a new approach informed by the lessons of nearly two decades of failed efforts to destabilize the Castro regime.

Peter van Buren: What Could Possibly Go Right?

The latest American war was launched as a humanitarian mission. The goal of its first bombing runs was to save the Yazidis, a group few Americans had heard of until then, from genocide at the hands of the Islamic State (IS). Within weeks, however, a full-scale bombing campaign was underway against IS across Iraq and Syria with its own “coalition of the willing” and 1,600 U.S. military personnel on the ground. Slippery slope? It was Teflon-coated. Think of what transpired as several years of early Vietnam-era escalation compressed into a semester.

And in that time, what’s gone right? Short answer: Almost nothing. Squint really, really hard and maybe the “good news” is that IS has not yet taken control of much of the rest of Iraq and Syria, and that Baghdad hasn’t been lost. These possibilities, however, were unlikely even without U.S. intervention.

Trevor Timm: Obama is doubling down on an Isis war with no end in sight. Why does he get a free pass?

We have entered the fourth official month of the latest war without end in the Middle East, and the Obama administration has suddenly doubled America’s troop presence in Iraq – yet there is no approved declaration of war in sight. The so-called “moderate” Syrian rebels receiving millions in weapons are now being defeated, and those same weapons are ending up in the hands of al-Qaida – yet there is no public sign of dialing back in the fight again the Islamic State.

You would think the faces of the mainstream American press would start questioning the White House’s strategy of perpetual war, but you’d be wrong. The drumbeat seems louder than ever; the challengers of power are nearly silent.

Fresh off his party’s drubbing in the US midterm elections, Obama appeared Sunday on Face the Nation, as a meek Bob Schieffer of CBS News lobbed weak questions at the president on his Isis war policy. It was a quintessential example of how some in the mainstream American press have refused to ask critical questions about our new Forever War – even as the most important questions stare everyone in the face.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: US voter turnout is an international embarrassment. Here’s how to fix it

Americans should be embarrassed. The low voter turnout on Election Day last week in the United States was an international disgrace.

What has become of a democratic form of government that Abraham Lincoln said was “of the people, by the people, for the people“? Can we be satisfied with a “democracy” when more than 60% of people don’t vote and some 80% of young people and low-income Americans don’t either? Can we be content when poll after poll shows that most Americans can’t even name the political parties that control the US Senate and House – or who their member of Congress is?

Nationwide, preliminary indications show that the total turnout in the US midterms was only 36.6%. If these estimates hold true, 2014 will be the least representative election in modern American history. When billionaires and corporations tilt elections, conservatives suppress voting and crucial voters feel unengaged, what kind of example for the world is that?

Robert Kuttner: The Cure for the Democrats’ Woes — Goldman Sachs!

After the Democrats’ drubbing in the 2014 midterm elections, there have been fervent debates about whether the Party should embrace an economic populism to tap pocketbook frustrations — or move further to the center in the hopes of capturing more independents.

One thing the Democrats did throughout Obama’s nearly six years was move closer to Wall Street — from the economic team Obama appointed, to the administration’s premature embrace of deficit reduction promoted by financial moguls, to a bailout plan that shored up the biggest banks rather than breaking them up.

It was this coziness with big finance that allowed the far-right Tea Party movement to paint Wall Street and Washington with the same brush — and to capture much of the populist rage on display against Democrats in the 2010 midterms and once again on November 4.

So the last thing Democrats need going forward is an even closer affinity with Wall Street, right? Well, the Democrats may soon get even cozier.

Hannah Giorgis: Beyond ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’: what if there’s no indictment in Ferguson?

Black lives matter? It’s tough to keep saying something like that – to shout it in anything but protest – with this impending reality: At some point in the next few days, it’s likely that Darren Wilson will not be indicted, by the US justice department or the state of Missouri, for the extrajudicial killing of Michael Brown – an 18-year-old unarmed black man – in Ferguson, in broad daylight, three long months ago. [..]

But to understand a non-indictment in Ferguson as simply par for the course in the United States case is not to say that Brown’s life is unworthy of defending, nor that his death and its international aftermath are unworthy of redress. This reality check simply locates another officer in the context of the white supremacist law-enforcement apparatus that defends him in lieu of protecting its (black) citizens, that operates with impunity. And for the rest of us to view black life as worthy of defending, to unequivocally repeat that black lives matter in a world that insists otherwise, is a radical act – if a tiresome one.

The hard truth about no justice for Mike Brown is that we must reassess our standards for justice to create a kind of peace – for his family, for Ferguson, and for those of whose anger and grief emerge anew each time a black life is taken without consequence.

Nov 09 2014

Ripping the Pages Out of Text Books

In October, just before the election, the Gilbert Arizona school board voted to remove pages on contraception from the honors biology test book used used in its high school.

Gilbert Public Schools will “edit” a high-school honors biology textbook after school-board members agreed that it does not align with state regulations on how abortion is to be presented to public-school students.

Board members, backed by a conservative religious group, voted 3-2 to make the change, arguing that they are complying with a 2-year-old state law that requires public schools to “present childbirth and adoption as preferred options to elective abortion.”

Board President Staci Burk said she believes the district is likely the first in Arizona with plans to edit a book under the law.Gilbert Public Schools will “edit” a high-school honors biology textbook after school-board members agreed that it does not align with state regulations on how abortion is to be presented to public-school students.

Board members, backed by a conservative religious group, voted 3-2 to make the change, arguing that they are complying with a 2-year-old state law that requires public schools to “present childbirth and adoption as preferred options to elective abortion.”

Board President Staci Burk said she believes the district is likely the first in Arizona with plans to edit a book under the law.

That plan was aborted on election day when the people of this conservative Phoenix suburb decided to ax the page ripping majority.

So here’s one more bit of Election Nice Time: turns out that even in hyper-conservative Gilbert, Arizona, a bedroom community to the Phoenix metro horrorplex, it is in fact possible for a conservative school board to go to far. And it looks like the Gilbert School Board’s decision last week to razor out a page from an Honors Biology textbook in the high school – because it mentions the abortion pill – is what counts as too far: the good people of Gilbert elected two new members and reelected an anti-censorship member, replacing the Tea Party-leaning majority on the board with a new majority that is firmly against slicing out a page from a biology textbook out of fear that high schoolers will learn that abortion exists. There were other tensions between the board and the community, too, but the textbook censorship seems to have been the last straw.

Textbook tearing crosses line for even reddest voters

Rachel Maddow reports that the school board that voted to tear out pages from the honors biology textbook to remove mentions of abortion has lost its tea party majority, leaving the censorship plan in question. ArizonaHonorsBiology.com remains, just in case.

Nov 09 2014

The People v “Oil”garchy

We all know that the Supreme Court decision Citizens United allowed corporations to flood the elections with huge amounts of money. A small example of this was the attempt by Chevron to buy the small city of Richmond, CA where it has an aging, unsafe oil refinery.

Big-money Chevron muscles local government election

Rachel Maddow reports on how Chevron is flooding local elections in Richmond, California to install politicians who are friendlier to the company’s agenda and less resistant to new projects.

On election day the people of Richmond weren’t cowed and elected the progressive slate of candidates that will force Chevron to clean up its act.

Voters Reject Oil Titan Chevron, Elect Progressive Bloc in Richmond, California

Tom Butt elected mayor and slate of progressive candidates all win city council seats after grim battle with corporate power

A slew of progressive candidates were elected in Richmond, California on Tuesday night in a resounding defeat of corporate power, after a multi-million-dollar opposition campaign funded by Chevron brought national attention to the race but failed to take control of City Hall.

Local politician Tom Butt, a Democrat, was elected mayor with 51 percent of the vote, beating the Chevron-backed candidate, Nat Bates, by 16 points. Richmond Progressive Alliance representatives Eduardo Martinez, Jovanka Beckles, and outgoing  Mayor Gayle McLaughlin also won three of the four open seats on the City Council.

Collectively, those candidates became known as Team Richmond.

Small victories, silver linings seen in lopsided election

Rachel Maddow reviews some of the small victories, silver linings, and notable first in which liberals and Democrats may take heart amid the heavy losses suffered in the midterm election, the outcome of which, at least, promises interesting political news.

It’s the issues, not the money and sometimes the 99% wins.

Nov 09 2014

Punting the Pundits: Sunday Preview Edition

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

The Sunday Talking Heads:

This Week with George Stephanopolis: There are no announced guests. The panels at the roundtable are Democratic strategist Donna Brazile; Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren; BuzzFeed.com editor-in-chief Ben Smith; and Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, managing editors of Bloomberg Politics.

Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer: Mr. Schieffer’s are: President Barack Obama and former President George W. Bush.

His panel guests are: Peggy Noonan, The Wall Street Journal; Bob Woodward, The Washington Post ; David Gergen; and Michelle Norris of NPR.

Meet the Press with Chuck Todd: The guests on this Sunday’s MTP are: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R); former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.); Sen.-elect Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Rep.-elect Gwen Graham (D-Fla.).

No idea who the panel guests are but most likely right wing hacks like “Bloody” Bill Kristol who will just make you want to start drinking way too early in the AM.

State of the Union with Candy Crowley: Ms. Crowley’s guests are Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE); Rep. Steve Israel (D-NY); Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-WI); Sen. John Thune (R-SD); Chris Murphy (D-CT); and a swarm of newly elected member of the House: Brendan Boyle (D-PA); Carlos Curbelo (R-FL); Ruben Gallego (D-AZ); and Lee Zeldin (R-NY).

Nov 08 2014

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

New York Times Editorial Board: Job Growth, but No Raises

The employment report for October, released on Friday, reflects a steady-as-she-goes economy. And that is a problem, because for most Americans, more of the same is not good enough. Since the recovery began in mid-2009, inflation-adjusted figures show that the economy has grown by 12 percent; corporate profits, by 46 percent; and the broad stock market, by 92 percent. Median household income has contracted by 3 percent.

Against that backdrop, the economic challenge is to reshape the economy in ways that allow a fair share of economic growth to flow into worker pay. The October report offers scant evidence that this challenge is being met. Worse, the legislative agenda of the new Republican congressional majority, including corporate tax cuts and more deficit reduction, would reinforce rather than reverse the lopsided status quo. [..]

The economy is not working for those who rely on paychecks to make a living, which is to say, almost everyone. Steady gains in the October jobs report, while welcome, do not change that basic fact. Nor will policies currently on the horizon.

Gail Collins: Republicans ♥ Pipeline

The Keystone XL oil pipeline is so popular! Ever since the Republicans won control of the Senate, it’s become the Taylor Swift of political issues. [,,]

If the Keystone project came up for a vote in the new Senate, it would probably draw enough Democratic support to hit the magic number of 60. Then it would be up to President Obama, who is constantly being criticized by Republicans for standing between America and a jobs-rich energy boom. This would be the same president who’s opened up massive new areas for oil exploration, increased the sale of leases for drilling on federal land and cut back on the processing time for drilling permits.

Story of Obama’s life. He trots down the center, irritating his base, while Republicans scream at him for failing to do something that he’s actually been doing all along.

In the end it’s completely up to the president. But the story is really about the Republicans. They’re about to take over Congress and show us how they can govern. So the first thing they’re going to do is hand a windfall to the energy interests that shoveled nearly $60 million into their campaigns? Terrific.

Joe Conason: Beneath the Republican Wave, Voters Still Reject Right-Wing Ideology

In the wake of the 2014 midterm “wave election,” Americans will soon find out whether they actually want what they have wrought. The polls tell us that too many voters are weary of President Barack Obama, including a significant number who actually voted for him two years ago. Polls likewise suggest that most voters today repose more trust in Republicans on such fundamental issues as economic growth, national security and budget discipline. But do they want what Republicans in control will do now?

If they are faithful to their beliefs, the Republican leaders in Washington will now seek to advance a set of policies that are simply repugnant to the public-most notably in the Paul Ryan budget, which many Republicans have signed up to promote (though the caucus of ultra-right Republicans considers that wild plan too “moderate”).

Eugene Robinson: In Need of a Rebuilding Plan

All right, all right, I didn’t see the wave coming. All those margin-of-error polls seemed to suggest that Democrats would likely hold their own-probably not keep the Senate but make a respectable showing overall. Wrong.

All the caveats are true. It was a midterm, when the incumbent president’s party usually gets a comeuppance. The Senate losses were within historical norms. In other races, some of the high-profile Republican victories involved incumbents who managed to survive after the scare of their political lives, such as Govs. Rick Scott of Florida, Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Sam Brownback of Kansas.

But no, this turned out to be a genuine wave-one with serious implications for 2016 and beyond.

David Sirota: Tuesday Probably Meant Nothing for 2016

The dramatic, across-the-board victory engineered by Republicans in Tuesday’s elections would seem to bode well for the party’s chance to capture the White House in 2016. The GOP took full control of Congress, flipped at least four governor’s offices from blue to red, and prompted much talk of a resurgent Republican movement.

Not so fast. A more careful look at the returns significantly complicates the narrative that an American electorate, which recently tilted Democratic, has since shifted back to the Republican fold.

In fact, the 2014 election results appear to say more about who did not vote than who did: Younger voters and minority communities stayed home in large numbers, as is typical during a midterm election. If trends from the last two presidential elections hold, those same groups are likely to be far more energized during the next White House campaign, making Tuesday’s results of limited value in predicting 2016.

Richard Brodsky: Cuomo Wins!/Loses! III

Twice before in the last 60 days I’ve posted pieces with the above title. It was true then and it’s true now.

Normally a 13-point win in a down year for Democrats would be good news for the victor. But the Cuomo campaign and his overarching strategy of the past four years were political disasters of a kind you rarely see.

Remember 1) he raised close to $50 million, 10 times his opposition; 2) he had been widely praised for bringing functionality back to New York; 3) New York is reliably blue. One Republican statewide victory and 19 Democratic victories since 2000; 4) he had cajoled and bullied business, labor and the Legislature into submission; no one had ever heard of his opponent; and 5) going into 2014 his poll numbers were excellent.

In spite of all this, he ended up with a primary that was embarrassingly close, a general election that was 10 points worse than his last run and a resurgent progressive third party — the Green Party, of all things. Editorial boards either opposed him or explicitly held their noses and endorsed him. His campaign appearances were sour and depressing and voter turnout was the lowest in 85 years.

Nov 07 2014

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Richard (RJ) Eskow: 8 Hotly Debated Issues… From the Election That Never Was

Call it the Election That Never Was.

We’ve heard a lot of talk about this week’s election, but the election we needed is the one we didn’t see. The important issues, the issues that affected people’s daily lives, were never debated. Voters never heard a genuine exchange of views and never had a chance to vote on competing visions of the future.

It has been suggested that the Democratic Party can run and win on social issues in 2016, but that seems less likely after this year’s results. If voters can reject a personhood amendment and elect a far-right Republican on the same ballot, social issues aren’t likely to be the cure-all some Democrats are seeking.

It’s clearer than ever: If Democrats don’t offer bold solutions to some fundamental economic issues (we’ll offer eight of them, but there are more) then the implications for their party — and for the country — are profound, and dire.

Gary Hart: For Whom the Bell Tolls

For a political veteran, American politics has seemed disjointed and occasionally irrational in recent years. People are voting against their own interests. Campaign speeches are often ideological statements designed to appeal to a “base.” And most of all the money. In the past twenty or thirty years, we have managed to thoroughly corrupt our democratic system through the intricate network of a permanent political class composed of lobbyists, campaign professionals, fund raisers, and the media.

Every generation longs for a better past, often one that never was as good as it seems in memory. But there was a time when idealism triumphed over power and men and women of good will, often young, entered public service out of a purer motive of doing something for our country. [..]

Regardless of one’s party, serious citizens concerned for our country’s future should be thinking seriously about where our politics are headed, not just left or right but forward or backward. Our founders repeatedly said that the greatest danger to the survival of the Republic they created was corruption, corruption being favoring special or narrow interests over the common good. We are there now and we are increasing the speed with which we become a totally special interest political system. And, even if my Party had prevailed in this election, I’d be issuing the same warning. Where the feared corruption is concerned, both Parties are equally guilty.

David Cay Johnston: Americans’ ownership of assets shrinks

Candidate George W. Bush promised an ‘ownership society’ in 2000, but his policies reduced Americans’ share in ownership

When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, one of his major campaign themes was creating an “ownership society,” in which a larger share of Americans owned homes, securities and other assets.

“Ownership in our society should not be an exclusive club,” he said at a Rancho Cucamonga, California, campaign stop. “Independence should not be a gated community. Everyone should be a part owner in the American dream.”

In 2003 he followed through on his promises by persuading Congress to cut tax rates on dividends by as much as 57 percent and reduce the top rate on capital gains from 20 percent to 15 percent, saying it would encourage more people to own stocks. [..]

So did his tax cuts and easy mortgage loans help make more Americans part-owners of the American dream? No. Instead what followed was a severe narrowing of ownership.

Home ownership last year fell to its lowest level since 1995, long before Bush took office. The rate is expected to drift further down because a weak job market and falling wages mean fewer people can afford to buy homes.

In the case of stocks and dividends, there has been an enormous concentration in the pockets of the richest Americans, my new analysis of official data from the Internal Revenue Service shows.  

Peter nas Buren: Shooting Ourselves in the Foot in Afghanistan

Did you know the U.S. war in Afghanistan is still going on?

While the American war(s) in Iraq and Syria are the Kardashian’s of geopolitics- can’t get them out of the news, don’t want to look but you do anyway- America’s longest war trudges on. We have been fighting in Afghanistan for over thirteen years now. The young soldiers currently deployed there were barely in elementary school when their dad’s and mom’s kicked off the fighting.

And we still haven’t won anything. The Taliban are still there and very potent and dangerous, a corrupt government still runs the country as a kleptocracy, “ally” Pakistan is still playing all sides against one another and the Afghan economy still relies heavily on opium production that finds its way back home here to America. Al Qaeda may have departed Afghanistan, but the franchise is still strong in its new home(s). Defeated? No, just relocated.

Paul Krugman: Triumph of the Wrong

The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet midterms to men of understanding. Or as I put it on the eve of another Republican Party sweep, politics determines who has the power, not who has the truth. Still, it’s not often that a party that is so wrong about so much does as well as Republicans did on Tuesday.

I’ll talk in a bit about some of the reasons that may have happened. But it’s important, first, to point out that the midterm results are no reason to think better of the Republican position on major issues. I suspect that some pundits will shade their analysis to reflect the new balance of power – for example, by once again pretending that Representative Paul Ryan’s budget proposals are good-faith attempts to put America’s fiscal house in order, rather than exercises in deception and double-talk. But Republican policy proposals deserve more critical scrutiny, not less, now that the party has more ability to impose its agenda.

So now is a good time to remember just how wrong the new rulers of Congress have been about, well, everything.

Howie Hawkins: America just took a wrong turn. It’s time to take a hard left

Double down on oil and trouble? Not so fast: fracking bans in oil country and common sense on infrastructure might turn the US a deeper shade of green between now and 2016

Sometimes it feels as if Sarah Palin won the last two presidential elections. We’re not quite living in “Drill Baby Drill” America, but by co-opting the other Republican energy slogan, a meaningless plan literally called “All-of-the-Above”, President Obama has opened up vast new areas to offshore drilling and pushed hydrofracking for oil and gas onshore. Even as the president says that “we are closer to energy independence than we’ve ever been before”, sometimes it seems like the US is becoming a repressive petrostate. [..]

But there were real victories this week for progressive alternatives on clean energy, economic security and social justice. The extremist blood bath may have painted the country more red, but there were more than a few important – and extremely promising – tea leaves of green. It was even enough to suggest a new, independent, hard-left turn in American politics is still very much possible.

Nov 06 2014

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

New York Times Editorial Board; In Red and Blue States, Good Ideas Prevail

The Democratic brand did not fare well, to put it mildly, in congressional and governors’ races on Tuesday. Most were contests of political blame, driven by ideological hatred for President Obama. But when the ballot offered a choice on an actual policy, rather than between candidates with a D or R next to their names, voters made notably liberal decisions in both red and blue states.

On at least six high-profile and often contentious issues – minimum wage, marijuana legalization, criminal justice reform, abortion rights, gun control and environmental protection – voters approved ballot measures, in some cases overwhelmingly, that were directly at odds with the positions of many of the Republican winners.

William Pfaff: How Ronald Reagan and the Supreme Court Turned American Politics Into a Cesspool

The dominating significance of the mid-term American legislative elections just finished has been the occasion’s dramatic confirmation of the corruption of the American electoral system. This has two elements, the first being its money corruption, unprecedented in American history, and without parallel in the history of major modern western democracies. How can Americans get out of this terrible situation, which threatens to become the permanent condition of American electoral politics?

The second significance of this election has been the debasement of debate to a level of vulgarity, misinformation and ignorance that, while not unprecedented in American political history, certainly attained new depths and extent.

This disastrous state of affairs is the product of two Supreme Court decisions and before that, of the repeal under the Reagan Administration, of the provision in the Federal Communications Act of 1934, stipulating the public service obligations of radio (and subsequently, of television) broadcasters in exchange for the government’s concession to them of free use in their businesses of the public airways.

Juan Cole; How a Republican Congress Could Entangle the U.S. Further in the Middle East

The midterm elections in a president’s second term have historically been a time when the president’s party lost seats in both houses of Congress.  Only a little over a third of the electorate typically votes in these elections, and they are disproportionately white, wealthy and elderly.  In short, a different country voted in 2014 than had voted in 2012, a deep red country.  It is not surprising, then, that the GOP gained control of the Senate.

How could the change affect foreign policy?  The president has wide latitude in making foreign policy and even in making war.  Nevertheless, Congress is not helpless in that realm.  It controls the purse strings via the budget and can forbid the president to spend money on some enterprise (that is how the GOP House blocked the closure of the Guantanamo facility).  The Republican majority now does not have to negotiate with Democratic senators in crafting bills, and it can easily attach riders to key pieces of legislation, making it difficult for the president to veto them.  That was how Congress made the Obama administration implement the financial blockade of Iran’s petroleum sales, by attaching it to the Defense Bill.

E. J. Dionne, Jr.: Worse Than 2010

For Democrats, the 2014 election was not the 2010 Republican landslide. It was worse.

Four years ago, the economy was still ailing and a new wave of conservative activism in the form of the tea party was roiling politics. This time, the economy was better, ideological energies on the right had abated-and Democrats suffered an even more stinging defeat. They lost Senate seats in presidential swing states such as Iowa, Colorado and North Carolina. They lost governorships in their most loyal bastions, from Massachusetts to Maryland to Illinois.

After a defeat of this scope, the sensible advice is usually, “Don’t overreact.” In this case, such advice would be wrong. Something-actually, many things-went badly for the progressive coalition on Tuesday. Its supporters were disheartened and unmotivated, failing to rally to President Obama and his party’s beleaguered candidates. And voters on the fence were left unpersuaded.

A dismissive shrug is inappropriate.

Robert Creamer: GOP Faces Dramatically Tougher New Battle Ground in 2016

It was certainly a tough night for Democrats. But if the GOP believes it has a mandate for the Tea Party agenda, it is sadly mistaken. Most Americans strongly support a progressive middle-class-first agenda. And most important, with the mid-term elections behind us, the 2016 political battlefield completely transforms the political high ground.

With the loss of the Senate and Republicans continuing to control the House, Democrats and progressives need to dig in for an epic battle with the Tea Party and the billionaires that are now in control of the Republican Party.

One bright spot — State referenda to increase the minimum wage passed everywhere they were on the ballot and in local jurisdictions like San Francisco that increased the wage to $15 per hour.

Robert Brosage: Debacle: Get Ready for the Real Fight

Debacle. Bloodbath. Call it what you will. Democrats, as expected, fared poorly in red states in an off-year election. Worse, unpopular Republican governors survived. This was ugly.

Yes, the electorate was as skewed as was the map. Many Republicans won office with the support of less than 20 percent of the eligible voters. Voters over 60 made up a stunning 37 percent of the electorate (up from 25 percent in 2012 or 32 percent in the last bi-election in 2010). Voters under 30 were only 12 percent of the electorate, down from 19 percent in 2012. Democrats won women, but lost white men big. Republicans lost ground with Hispanic voters, but in most of the contested states, they weren’t much of a factor.

The election was fundamentally about frustration with a recovery that most people haven’t enjoyed. Hysteria about ISIS and Ebola didn’t help, but wasn’t the central source of frustration. The Republican theme was to blame President Obama and tie Democrats to him, arousing their base. Democrats chose not to run nationally against Republican obstruction, assuming that technique and right-wing social reaction would mobilize their base.

Nov 05 2014

Punting the Pundits

“Punting the Pundits” is an Open Thread. It is a selection of editorials and opinions from around the news medium and the internet blogs. The intent is to provide a forum for your reactions and opinions, not just to the opinions presented, but to what ever you find important.

Thanks to ek hornbeck, click on the link and you can access all the past “Punting the Pundits”.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

George Zornick: Republicans Just Took Over the Senate-Here’s Why That Sucks

When Iowa and North Carolina were called almost simultaneously a little before 11:30 Tuesday night, the seemingly inevitable became official: Republicans will control the Senate and thus the entire legislative branch.

On a variety of fronts, this new alignment is going to be hugely problematic for progressive governance-perhaps for governance, period. These will be the major flash points. The last one is the most important because it’s how the GOP will force Obama’s hand on most of the rest. [..]

8. Keeping the Government Open.

This is the big one, and the mechanism through which the GOP might be able to get many of the aforementioned policy wins. Before, the House GOP wasn’t able to clearly put forward its goals, particularly on things like the Ryan budget, because it got all garbled up in conference negotiations with the Senate. House members who wanted to avoid this conversation were fond of telling hard-liners that “we’re only one-half of one-third of the government,” so they had to compromise.

But that’s no longer true. With a deeply red Republican Congress and the word “mandate” dancing through the heads of many elected GOPers-and members of the media-it will be easy to force a simple showdown with Obama. Maybe Republicans go full-Ryan budget, which Obama certainly rejects, and there’s a government shutdown. Maybe they are smart about it and pass a really bad budget that’s just good enough for Obama to sign. Either way, it’s bad news for progressives.

Trevor Timm: Mark Udall’s loss is a blow for privacy, but he can go out with a bang: ‘leak’ the CIA torture report

The outgoing Senator and champion of civil liberties has one last chance to read the truth about American atrocities out loud, for the world to see – before it’s too late

merica’s rising civil liberties movement lost one of its strongest advocates in the US Congress on Tuesday night, as Colorado’s Mark Udall lost his Senate seat to Republican Cory Gardner. While the election was not a referendum on Udall’s support for civil liberties (Gardner expressed support for surveillance reform, and Udall spent most of his campaign almost solely concentrating on reproductive issues), the loss is undoubtedly a blow for privacy and transparency advocates, as Udall was one of the NSA and CIA’s most outspoken and consistent critics. Most importantly, he sat on the intelligence committee, the Senate’s sole oversight board of the clandestine agencies, where he was one of just a few dissenting members.

But Udall’s loss doesn’t have to be all bad. The lame-duck transparency advocate now has a rare opportunity to truly show his principles in the final two months of his Senate career and finally expose, in great detail, the secret government wrongdoing he’s been criticizing for years. On his way out the door, Udall can use congressional immunity provided to him by the Constitution’s Speech and Debate clause to read the Senate’s still-classified 6,000-page CIA torture report into the Congressional record – on the floor, on TV, for the world to see.

New York Times Editorial Board: Negativity Wins the Senate

Republicans would like the country to believe that they took control of the Senate on Tuesday by advocating a strong, appealing agenda of job creation, tax reform and spending cuts. But, in reality, they did nothing of the sort.

Even the voters who supported Republican candidates would have a hard time explaining what their choices are going to do. That’s because virtually every Republican candidate campaigned on only one thing: what they called the failure of President Obama. In speech after speech, ad after ad, they relentlessly linked their Democratic opponent to the president and vowed that they would put an end to everything they say the public hates about his administration. On Tuesday morning, the Republican National Committee released a series of get-out-the-vote images showing Mr. Obama and Democratic Senate candidates next to this message: “If you’re not a voter, you can’t stop Obama.” [..]

In theory, full control of Congress might give Republicans an incentive to reach compromise with Mr. Obama because they will need to show that they can govern rather than obstruct. They might, for example, be able to find agreement on a free-trade agreement with Pacific nations.

But their caucuses in the Senate and the House will be more conservative than before, and many winning candidates will feel obliged to live up to their promises of obstruction. Mr. McConnell has already committed himself to opposing a minimum-wage increase, fighting regulations on carbon emissions and repealing the health law.

Michelle Goldberg: People Voted for Republicans Last Night-That Doesn’t Mean They Like Them

Well, that was hideous. It was clear from the start that Democrats were going to have a bad night, but in the end it was worse than most expected. In North Carolina, Senator Kay Hagan, who was polling slightly ahead, lost to Thom Tillis, a candidate who once declared the necessity of getting citizens to “look down at these people who choose to get into a condition that makes them dependent on the government.” Iowa is sending Joni Ernst to the Senate, a woman who wants to abolish the EPA and has warned of a UN plot to forcibly relocate rural Americans into urban centers. Odious Republican governors like Rick Scott and Scott Walker kept their jobs, and the GOP won gubernatorial races in blue states like Massachusetts, Maryland and Illinois.

The strange thing, though, is that while the election was an overwhelming victory for conservatives, it really wasn’t a conservative mandate. That’s not just progressive spin — it’s hard to think of a single actual policy issue on which voters gave their endorsement to Republican plans. Voters are desperately unhappy with the economy, worried about chaos in the Middle East and the spread of Ebola at home. The mood of the country, if it’s possible to generalize, is sour, anxious and suspicious, and many, particularly the white male voters whose overwhelming backing pushed Republicans over the top, hold President Obama responsible.

Load more