Month: December 2011

New unemployment claims are the lowest they’ve been since April 2008, prior to the economic collapse. Meanwhile, the domestic auto industry is selling a lot of cars. Mortgage rates are the lowest they’ve been since 2003, and interest rates are at a 40-year low. All of this is bad news for Republicans, which probably explains why the House of Representatives wants to screw the middle class out of a $150 billion stimulus by opposing the extension of the payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance.

Our economy could catch a cold from Europe’s sovereign debt crisis, although that is starting to look less likely. The other major threat is that Congress will starve the economy of money, as the Tea Party demands.

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At least 63 killed in co-ordinated Baghdad attacks

BAGHDAD (AFP/BBC News) – Four car-bombs and 10 improvised explosive devices (IEDs) were detonated, officials told the BBC. A security spokesman in Baghdad, Maj-Gen Qassim Atta, said the attackers had not aimed at security targets.

“They targeted children’s schools, day workers and the anti-corruption agency,” he told the AFP news agency.

Iraq’s year-old power-sharing government is in turmoil after an arrest warrant was issued for Sunni Vice-President Tariq al-Hashemi on terror charges. The entire al-Iraqiyya group, the main Sunni bloc in parliament, is boycotting the assembly in protest. It accuses Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a Shia, of monopolising power.

Mr Hashemi denies the charges. He is currently in Irbil in Iraqi Kurdistan, under the protection of the regional government, but Mr Maliki has demanded that they give him up.

 « click for more photo’s
Baghdad after a series of blasts killed and wounded scores of people. (Hadi Mizban/Reuters)

OBAMA SAYS SITUATION NOT PERFECT

President Barack Obama acknowledged that the situation was not perfect, but said the US forces were leaving behind “a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq, with a representative government elected by its people”.

Baghdad explosions kill, injure more than 200 in first major violence since political crisis

Wave of bombings come amid renewed fears of sectarian strife

(Al-Jazeera) – At least 57 people died and 176 people were wounded in 12 bombings across the Iraqi capital on Thursday morning, health ministry sources told Al Jazeera.

The wave of bombings come amid renewed fears of sectarian strife following the withdrawal of US troops and a deepening political crisis over an arrest warrant issued for Tariq al-Hashimi, the country’s vice president and most senior Sunni politician.

The attacks largely coincided with the morning rush hour, and security forces cordoned off bomb sites, AFP news agency correspondents and officials said.

Iraqi officials said the bombs struck in the Allawi, Bab al-Muatham and Karrada districts of central Baghdad, the Adhamiyah, Shuala and Shaab neighbourhoods in the north, Jadriyah in the east, Ghazaliyah in the west and al-Amil and Dura in the south.

The largest explosion took place near the Rahbaat (Sisters) hospital and the Integrity and Transparency Directorate in Karrada district, sources told Al Jazeera. The blast caused great material damage and the bodies of those killed were laid out in the streets, eyewitnesses said.

Violence in Iraq has ebbed since the height of sectarian fighting in 2006-2007 when suicide bombers and hit-squads targeted Sunni and Shia communities in attacks that killed thousands and pushed the country to the edge of civil war.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki Puts Power-Sharing at Risk in Iraq

(NY TImes) – In a nearly 90-minute news conference broadcast on tape-delay, Mr. Maliki defied his rivals and pushed back on all fronts in Iraq’s deepening political crisis, threatening to release investigatory files that he claimed implicated his opponents in terrorism.

He also threatened the Kurds, valuable allies with close ties to the Americans, warning that there would be “problems” if they protected Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who fled to the semiautonomous Kurdish region in recent days to escape an arrest warrant on charges that he ran a death squad responsible for assassinations and bombings.

The escalating political crisis underscores the divisions among Iraq’s three main factions — Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds — that were largely papered over while the American military maintained a presence here. The crisis also lays bare the myriad problems left behind with the final departure of American troops: sectarianism, a judiciary that the populace views as beholden to one man and a political culture with no space for compromise.

• See this week’s diary – Iraq 1 Day Old – Arrest Warrant VP al-Hashimi for Coup Plan

"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

Based on the reporting in this Yahoo News piece, Mitt Romney hasn’t been doing any legwork whatsoever in South Carolina. He has one office and three paid staffers working in the state. It makes me wonder what the hell he is doing with his money advantage. He traveled to South Carolina last Friday to receive the endorsement of the governor, but his overall level of endorsements in the Palmetto State has plummeted in comparison to four years ago:

The most telling sign of the uphill battle Romney faces in South Carolina is the skepticism he faces among many leading Republicans who backed his bid four years ago. At this point in the 2008 campaign, Romney had announced more than 100 endorsements among key public officials, political operatives and fundraisers in the state. By comparison, he has announced fewer than 10 endorsements in the state, including [Gov. Nikki] Haley’s, this year. And many of his key staffers from 2008 remain neutral.

Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich, who truly has no money to speak of, has nearly four times as many paid staffers in South Carolina.

Making predictions is a bit of fool’s game at this point. I mean, how better to make myself look stupid than to make some really bad predictions about what will happen in Iowa? What we’re seeing is a late surge from Ron Paul, who everyone recognizes has the premier ground game in the Hawkeye State. I’m inclined to go ahead and predict that he will do no worse than second place. Gingrich seems to be slipping and could fall out of the top three. Romney seems to be moving around in his usual range of 20-25%, but some polls show him as low as eighteen percent. And Rick Santorum is picking up some steam and could leave Hunstman and Bachmann in his dust. Rick Perry is a wildcard. He’s polling in the low double digits, and he could move up to third or drop down to sixth, or finish anywhere in between.

I’m a believer in late momentum, and on that score it appears that Paul and Santorum are the ones set to exceed expectations, while Gingrich and Bachmann are set to disappoint. Right now, I expect the following order in Iowa: 1. Ron Paul 2. Mitt Romney 3. Newt Gingrich 4. Rick Santorum 5. Rick Perry 6. Michele Bachmann 7. Jon Huntsman.

Even small news events can reshuffle the deck, and I expect plenty of news events, but this is my prediction as of tonight. So, what would this result do in New Hampshire?

Most obviously, it would kill all hope for Michele Bachmann and Rick Perry to do well there. It would also cause some erosion in Jon Huntman’s position, which has been on the uptick lately. Newt Gingrich would struggle to explain his collapse. Rick Santorum might get some new looks. And Ron Paul would create a full-blown identity crisis for the Grand Old Party.

The most compelling story lines would be:

1. Can Ron Paul be stopped in New Hampshire?
2. Will Gingrich’s twenty-point leads in South Carolina and Florida disappear if he can’t finish in the top two?
3. Will Jon Huntsman or Rick Santorum win third place?
4. Will Rick Perry drop out?

The answers, I suspect, will be ‘Yes,’ Yes,’ ‘Jon Huntsman,’ and ‘no.’

When things move to South Carolina, we should be dealing with a situation where the first two contests ended with Paul-Romney-Gingrich and Romney-Paul-Gingrich. Michele Bachmann will have dropped out, bolstering Santorum. And Rick Perry and Jon Huntsman will need breakthroughs to keep their campaigns alive.

Santorum’s Catholic brand of social conservatism in not as good a fit for South Carolina as Rick Perry’s, but Santorum will have more momentum and is a better campaigner. Romney and Paul are terrible fits for South Carolina, each for their own unique reasons. Romney hasn’t done the legwork and his Mormon faith and liberal past are suspect. Ron Paul has nothing in common with South Carolina’s martial spirit. I think Newt Gingrich has a real chance to win there and recover his mojo. If he does, he should win Florida as well. But the Nevada caucuses will be a big question mark. They could go to Romney based on the heavy Mormon presence there, or they could go to Ron Paul based on his strengths in caucus states and the appeal of his libertarian message in the Old West. If things go as I have described, with Romney only winning in New Hampshire, and losing in South Carolina and Florida, I think he will be desperate to win in Nevada. If he doesn’t, we could finish the first five contests with Ron Paul having won in Iowa and Nevada, Newt Gingrich having won in South Carolina and Florida, and Romney having won only in New Hampshire.

That’s kind of how I see things going right now. If I’m right, it should be a three-man race from that point on. Of course, Romney, Gingrich, and Paul are all incredibly divisive personalities within the Republican Party. None of them are even as broadly acceptable as John McCain, let alone Bob Dole. What I am seeing in my crystal ball is kind of a train wreck.

The president went shopping at PetSmart today with his dog. He got him a chew toy. He didn’t get one for himself because John Boehner is already serving that purpose. The administration is putting Boehner through the wood-chipper.

Here’s the goal.

1. Make it clear to as many people as possible that the Republicans are so radical that they can’t govern their own caucus, let alone the country.
2. Destroy the Republicans strongest and only remaining brand advantage: tax cuts.
3. Split the Republicans into factions so that Mitt Romney doesn’t know how to answer simple questions about where he stands because there is no longer one talking point he can rely on.
4. Make the Republicans’ most powerful politician look like a fool and set him up to be cannibalized by his own backbenchers during the heat of a campaign.

It’s all going quite well at the moment.

Now would be a time to offer no face-savng measures whatsoever and to simply turn the knife. The fight over payroll taxes and unemployment insurance will resume after the new year. It is best to so thoroughly whip the House Republicans now that they are not interested in a second beating later.

As for the Republicans, they ought to start planning their coups because John Boehner’s worth as Speaker and leader of their party is less than nothing.

Grumpy McSame seems to be in a perpetually disgruntled mood lately. He’s starting fights with Vladimir Putin. He’s even blasting House Republicans. I first noticed that Sen. McCain was suffering from butthurt when Obama announced the end of the Iraq War:

McCain, speaking from the floor of the U.S. Senate, said Obama’s decision on a full withdrawal — with no residual force behind — was timed to the start of the 2012 presidential election, and leaves Iraq vulnerable to terrorists and to anti-U.S. neighbors like Iran.

“I believe that history will judge this president’s leadership with the scorn and disdain it deserves,” McCain said.

I thought, “My, isn’t that about the most ungracious, ill-tempered, and petulant thing he could have possibly said? And from the Senate floor, too?”

Now he’s going after Joe Biden for saying that the Taliban aren’t our enemies.

“If [the Taliban] aren’t the enemy who has been shooting at us all this time,” McCain said on Fox News, quoting from a tweet he said he got from a member of the military. “For the Vice President of the United States to make a statement like that is an insult to the men and women who are serving today. … But also, what about the families of those who have been killed by the IEDs that Taliban have manufactured, the same Taliban that sheltered Bin Laden and was responsible for 9/11. What about all that? It’s just disgraceful.”

You have to be willfully stupid not to understand Biden’s point, which is that we didn’t invade Afghanistan so we could fight the Taliban for the rest of time. We went there to destroy the al-Qaeda network, and we can leave now (or in the near future) because the al-Qaeda network has been decimated by the Obama administration. But McCain doesn’t care. He’ll latch on to anything that can be politicized. He’ll take any hawkish angle he can. Why?

Partly because he’s just a dick. But partly because Putin is right. He has a few marbles loose. And he’s really bitter than he got his ass kicked in the last election and he can’t let it go. He should have retired with a shred of dignity. Now he’s just an empty husk that walks around the Senate where he has only two friends (Graham and Lieberman) and no prospect of accomplishing anything. When Lieberman leaves next year, he’ll be down to one friend. And he’ll still be shouting at clouds.

News came out this week that, on top of getting a mansion to live in and a $150,000 salary, Governor Rick Perry also gets a $92,000 a year government pension.

Wow!

The amazing thing about this is that it’s really not very unusual to see this sort of thing for people who work in and around government. For conservatives, this fact about Perry reaffirms two fundamental tenets: 1. Government is inherently wasteful and that’s why most of it should be eliminated. 2. Hypocrisy rules don’t apply to conservatives, so this is a non-issue for Perry.

But what are liberals and progressives to make of this massive pension going to a government official who is already getting a very nice full-time salary?

As much as I love what Occupy Wall Street has done to shift the debate toward inequality and away from deficits, there is a fundamental problem with looking at all public policy through the lens of 99% versus top 1%. And that problem is that, in many communities around the country, nobody in the top one percent lives there. Additionally, it is possible to be creating forms of inequality where, say the bottom 50% see their tax dollars going disproportionately to the top 20%.

If you ask anyone who works closely around state and local government these days, they will concede that ever increasing percentages of government budgets are going toward pensions and benefits to government workers. It’s considered indelicate for a liberal to bring this up lest it seem as though you are siding with Gov Scott Walker (no relation to me). The dirty little secret is that many government entities have largely become little more than government employee pension/benefit collection/distribution systems. Actual government services for citizens are becoming a secondary function for many governments.

And I’m not making this as a conservative argument for conservative measures. I’m saying that, as a liberal progressive who believes in the power of government to help communities and societies, we have to change the current government spending trend line. And the question is not on whether to spend less money. The question is are we going to spend money in a way that seems fair to citizens and actually makes communities and states more equal.

Here’s the big problem with government pensions theses days: no one else in the real world has them. Ya, I know the CEOS of big banks and publicly-traded companies have them, but how many real people do you personally know who have pensions? If they do, how many got them at large government regulated industries like insurance and the companies giving the pension phased them out for all new employees starting 10 years ago?

According to Mother Jones Magazine, if you exclude the top ten percent of income earners in America, the average income of an American is $31,000. So when someone struggling to lead a middle class existence (and has no pension) is asked to deal with public library closings and unclean city or state parks in order to pay for six figure pensions for former city managers (who have likely just moved to another city so they can get two paychecks), a clear-cut case can be made that this is government creating inequality. True, it’s not as egregious as taxing Federal tax dollars to bail out Goldman Sachs so that they can pay out $10 million bonuses to top 01 percenters. But taxing people who make $30,000 a year and redistributing the tax money in the form of pensions to former government administrators making $75k, 90k or even six figure pensions is creating relative inequality.

For those of us who are liberals, believe in equality and believe in government, this is a huge, huge problem. Increasing the percentage of government revenues that goes to pensions and benefits of government workers creates several negative ripple effects:

1.    It leaves less money and fewer resources to actually serve citizens.
2.    It creates more resentment toward government, and not just from conservatives.
3.    It creates tangible income inequality (I know, not as much as what happens on Wall street or the NBA, but why should we be in favor of government actually creating any income inequality)
4.    Political support for all things related to government evaporates and you wake up one morning to see that Scott Walker and Newt Gingrich have been elected to run things.

For too long, we liberals have heard conservatives say the words “deficits” or “government waste” and we reflexively dismiss this and then counterattack and then defend all government spending as sacrosanct.  Short term, this can work. Short term, we can throw Scott Walker out and keep Ron Paul or New Gingrich from entering the White House. But what about the long term? Voters trust in all government institutions continues to go down–and we can’t blame that all on conservatives trying to destroy government.

A part of what is destroying confidence in government is the fact that the people making the average income of $31,000 a year are increasingly resentful because they see their tax dollars going to government employees who have a “better deal” than they do. For the last 30 years, average citizens’ take home pay has been declining and their pensions have all but disappeared. At the same time, government employee unions have negotiated better and better deals for their members. And if we continue to pretend this is just an issue for right-wing zealots, we are going to sow the seeds of newer and stronger waves of conservative anti-government politicians sweeping into public office in the coming decades.

More info at the Dailynational (http://www.dailynational.com)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know: The Wall Street Journal, Scott Brown, and John McCain are all fretting that the payroll tax showdown is hurting the GOP politically. But tell me why I shouldn’t believe Dave Weigel’s theory that the GOP is going to win, as usual:

The cynic’s bet is that the story of GOP dysfunction won’t matter, so long as there’s eventually some compromise. Eyes on the prize: If the other side blinks, and it always does, what can Republicans get out of them?

Key phrase there: and it always does. When was the last time the Democratic Party didn’t blink?

…Yes, the Republicans are coming off as intransigent. But Democrats want to re-elect the president, so they’ll ultimately give up a lot to extend a tax cut and unemployment benefits. In the meantime, Republicans can figure out what leverage they have to weaken the welfare state. Despite how it looks right now, it doesn’t make sense to doubt them. After all, they’ve had a lot of practice at this.

I agree. Democrats don’t dare apply a domestic version of Nixon’s madman strategy — that is, they don’t dare say, “Well, we’re perfectly content to blow the whole thing up” — because they fear they’ll be blamed. And given the media’s relentlessly blame-everybody narrative — echoed on numerous occasions by President Obama — why should they have confidence that they’d avoid the blame?

So everyone will be called back between now and January and Republicans will start the hostage negotiations:

They want a few things. The House’s version of the one-year extension included reforms that Republicans plan to stick to. On unemployment, the GOP wanted to cut the maximum duration from 99 weeks to 59 weeks and add in some new requirements. Beneficiaries who didn’t have GEDs would have to try to get them. States implementing unemployment insurance could require drug tests….

Also among the House GOP’s demands: a hold on new EPA rules governing boilers, and an expedited decision of the Keystone XL pipeline….

Democrats aren’t going to play chicken successfully because playing chicken isn’t in their nature, because (unlike the snot-nosed teabag Republicans) they actually give a crap whether these benefits are extended, and because they’ve never spent any time building and communicating an Republicans-are-evil narrative that they can tap into right now. So, yeah, I think Weigel’s absolutely right about this.

(X-posted at No More Mister Nice Blog.).

I’m tempted to simply mock Americans Elect as another stupid Friedmanesque effort to pretend that what the country needs is for the right and left to pretend that they don’t have irreconcilable differences. But I now realize that they’ve already gained ballot access in twelve states and that they will probably succeed in gaining ballot access in most, if not all, of the other states. Even if their ticket only gets 1% of the vote, that can be enough to change the outcome in some of our more evenly divided states. I think we need to start thinking about some minutiae. In somewhat breaking news, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson has told his supporters that he is dropping out of the Republican race and will seek the nomination of the Libertarian Party. Gov. Johnson has a lot of the same appeal as Rep. Ron Paul, and he could become a magnet for Paul’s supporters if he winds up on Libertarian ballot line. We’ll probably also see a Green Party candidate who will leech votes from Obama. And then there will be a couple of other right-leaning parties on most ballots, including the Constitution Party.

In any case, in a close election, any ticket that can attract any percentage of votes has the potential to change history. So, how will Americans Elect select its ticket? The answer is that they will have an internet poll. Before the vote, though, they will have a vetting process.

Each proposed candidate must be certified by the group’s Candidate Certification Committee as capable of performing the duties of office. According to the bylaws, this is done using criteria of demonstrated achievements (developed by the committee) that are based on qualifications of past presidents and vice presidents. The members of the Candidate Certification Committee are appointed by the Board of Directors.

A decision of the Candidate Certification Committee can be nullified by a two-thirds vote of all registered delegates. Other than that, the bylaws do not provide any mechanism for direct or indirect representation of members or delegates in the certification of proposed candidates.

AE’s rules say any nominee must be “considered someone of similar stature to our previous presidents.”

So, presumably, you have to be at least as accomplished as Geraldine Ferraro, Dan Quayle, and Sarah Palin in order to have a chance to win the internet poll. What happens then?

When a candidate chooses a running mate, they must choose someone from a party different from their own…

…The organization intends to narrow down its field of candidates in April 2012, after which the remaining six candidates must choose their running mates. Then, in June 2012, Americans Elect will choose its final candidate through an internet based convention, a process open to all voters, regardless of party affiliation. The intent is to provide a more open nominating process, resulting in better choices during the election.

So, in April, six candidates will be announced. Those six candidates will then have to find running mates from some other party before the big online convention in June.

Now, it’s possible for a Democrat to pick a Green Party member or a Republican to pick a member of the Constitution Party, but that runs counter to the spirit of Americans Elect which wants to blur ideological differences.

This is a really easy way to get on the ballot for president all across the country without doing any legwork. It’s a quite attractive prize. So, who would want to pursue it? Can you think of six tickets?

You could have a left-leaning ticket of Russ Feingold and Lincoln Chafee. Or a right-leaning ticket of Pat Buchanan and Chuck Baldwin. Or, maybe, Evan Bayh could link up with Colin Powell.

I think the whole idea is moronic, but I suppose there will be six tickets to choose from.

Personally, I think CNN had it right when they teamed Eliot Spitzer with Kathleen Parker.