Grover Norquist, Turncoats & the Embrace of Movement Politics

This past week, I made the case for why progressives need to spend at least some of our time pressuring Democrats to stand up for America's middle class. Doing this is critical to waging an ultimately more effective fight against our opponents on the right. Beltway Democrats, of course, aren't used to this - they are for the big tent, even if the tent has no boundaries whatsoever (see all the Democrats who have been selling out their party on core economic issues, yet who never face any consequences). But if you look at the most powerful conservative activist of our time, you will see that my case is well-supported by history.

The New Yorker has a new piece on conservative activist Grover Norquist, and how he realized the one of the keys to helping Republicans effectively fight Democrats was to pressure GOP moderates and thus unify the right. As New Yorker reporter John Cassidy notes, today Norquist "criticize[s] moderate Republicans, such as John McCain and Lindsay Graham, because they think the moderates are holding back the conservative agenda." In the states, Norquist is "attacking Republican governors and legislators who raise taxes. In the past few years, a lot of states and cities have been facing budget deficits, which they are legally obliged to close. You might think this justifies higher taxes, but Norquist doesn't. He's just brutal to Republican tax raisers."

I am in no way venerating Norquist's ideology, nor his penchant for going way to far in terms of sidling up to some very shady characters. But tactically, he is clearly onto something. He fundamentally understands that division makes not an effective fighting formula. And he understands that the movement politics that comes from pressuring turncoats is far more powerful than partisan politics. Create an movement based on principles and ideology, and you have created something much sturdier than loyalty to a party label - and besides, a real movement will benefit the party anyway.

GOP leaders inherently understand this. Unlike many "big tent" Democrats, they value Norquist's work in pressuring the capitulators within their ranks. They understand that Norquist's pressure on their turncoats helps the GOP keep their turncoats in line.

Instead of whining and crying with cries of "let's just all get along" for "get along's" sake, Democrats should take some tactical lessons from their enemies who have so thoroughly drubbed them and place some value in a progressive infrastructure that demands accountability within the Democratic Party. Norquist proves that such an infrastructure - not permissive capitulation as the Democratic Party allows now - is integral to helping parties achieve majority status.

The House-Senate List of Democrats' Ultra-Sellouts

In the interest of getting to a final comprehensive list of both House Members and Senators who are the Democratic Party's real problem,  let's take a look at which Democratic Senators are most consistently undermining their party by voting for corporate interests over middle-class interests. Then let's combine it with the list we already have amassed of the House sellouts.The first step towards fixing a problem is admitting we have one, and figuring out what it is - only then will Democrats really be on the road to the majority.

Eleven Senate Democrats voted this past week for the corporate-written Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) - that constitutes about a quarter of all Senate Democrats. These turncoats are:

Bingaman (D-NM)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Carper (D-DE)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Lieberman (D-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Murray (D-WA)
Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Wyden (D-OR)

To whittle down who among these sellouts can be considered an ultra-sellout I'll use the same standard as with House Members: which of these Senators voted for the credit card industry-written Bankruptcy Bill, and the bill limiting citizens' legal rights against abusive corporations?

On the Bankruptcy Bill, the key vote was on cloture, because that was where everyone knew the bill would either be killed or not, no matter how they voted on final passage. If cloture had been voted down, there would never have been a vote on final passage and the bill would have died. There were 6 total Democrats who voted for CAFTA and who voted for cloture on the bankruptcy bill (and thus in support of the bill): Carper, Lieberman, Lincoln, Bill Nelson, Ben Nelson, and Pryor.

On the vote limiting citizens' legal rights against abusive corporations, the list gets further whittled down to 5: Carper, Feinstein, Lieberman, Lincoln and Bill Nelson.

As I have said, the idea that any of these people had to vote for these things because they represent swing states is wholly without merit - there is simply no proof that selling out to corporate interests helps politicians win elections - in fact, there is proof that the opposite is true, and that standing rejecting this extreme economic agenda wins elections, while capitulating to this agenda loses elections.

But even if you subscribe to the ridiculous "swing state Democrats must sell out" theory and take out Senators who could have potentially tough re-election races like Lincoln and Bill Nelson, you still have 3 safe Senators who are consistently undermining their party: Carper, Feinstein and Lieberman.

Combine these Senators with the House Members I discussed in a previous post, and that gets us the final comprehensive list. There are 11 Democrats from both the House and Senate who are consistently undermining their party even though they win re-election easily, and thus have positively no excuse for their willingness to aid and abet the Republican Party/Corporate America's extreme agenda. They are:

Senator Tom Carper (D-DE)
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN)
Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX)
Rep. Ruben Hinojosa (D-TX)
Rep. Jim Matheson (D-UT)
Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY)
Rep. Dennis Moore (D-KS)
Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA)
Rep. John Tanner (D-TN)

These are the people who should, for starters, get absolutely no money or grassroots resources from organized labor or regular working people in general. And they are the people that should be high on the list when progressives think about which Democratic lawmakers need to know there are political consequences to selling America out.

UPDATE: In my intial post, I forgot to include Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) among those Democrats who voted for CAFTA. I have since fixed that - my apologies.

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Congress Creates Incentive to Gas Guzzle

This is really mind-boggling. At a time when we need to conserve energy and create more fuel-efficient vehicles, Congress has gone out of its way to encourage gas guzzling. First, it created a $100,000 tax break for people who buy large SUVs. Then it limited a similar tax break for those who buy fuel-efficient hybrids to just $2,000. Now, as part of the energy bill, Congress is actually limiting the number of hybrid tax credits that will be available - while leaving the SUV tax credit as an unlimited giveaway. We can blame the Saudis all we want for the high price of oil - but we also need to blame our bought-off politicians who categorically refuse to seriously address America's energy crisis.

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Will Labor Be a Glutton for Punishment, Or Finally Punish the Gluttons?

The Kansas City Star has a fascinating article exploring why Kansas Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore sold out his party and America's middle class by being one of the 15 Democrats who cast the deciding vote for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Basically, the article heroizes Moore for resisting the request by unions (who represent millions of hard-working Americans) to not sell out America. We are supposed to believe Moore is some sort of profile in courage, as if he took a gutsy stand against the big guys. But then, the article fails to mention that Moore actually sided with the big guys - Corporate America - the guys that grossly outspent labor by pouring millions of dollars into buying votes and passing the bill.

Perhaps more interesting about this article than the stuff about Moore, though, are the questions raised for the labor movement. We get a pretty good idea about why unions have lost so much political power. It is not only because corporations have used increasingly brazen union-busting tactics to drive down union membership, it is also because in the past labor has generously backed lawmakers who consistently stab them in the back. I want to be very clear: I'm not faulting labor for doing this in the past - they held out faith, like many of us, that these turncoats would eventually come around. But now it is clear that is never going to happen, and it's time for a wholesale change.

Just look at Moore. Here is a guy who, as the Star notes, "has supported every free-trade agreement since he has been in Congress" - even as America's trade deficit hits record levels and our well-paying jobs are shipped overseas. Yet, in 2004 alone, labor gave Moore almost a quarter million dollars. Unions likely gave him that money because he represents a swing district, and the conventional wisdom in Washington, D.C.'s Democratic circles is that Members of Congress who represent swing districts have to consistently kick working people in the face to get elected.

But as shown repeatedly, that premise is totally unsupported by any fact whatsoever. Voting against selling out American jobs, against letting credit card companies rip off consumers, and against stripping people of their legal rights does not cost anyone any votes in their districts, period. In fact, voting FOR these things has a better chance of costing a candidate votes, while voting against these things and embracing commonsense populism has proven to get candidates votes from all parties in all sorts of swing districts. And when politician try to claim the contrary, they know very well they are lying through their teeth.

Thus, the question for the labor movement right now is simple: will unions give people like Moore, who voted FOR all those things, another quarter million dollars this election cycle, or will they finally cut people like him off? In other words, will labor be a glutton for punishment from these sellouts, or will labor punish these corporate cash gluttons?

I certainly want to see the Democrats retake the majority - but more importantly, I want to see Congress start standing up for America's middle class, regardless of which party is in control. If that is labor's goal - as it should be - there are a lot better ways to spend a quarter million dollars than to give it to someone who consistently sells workers down the river. I can think of two right off the one of my head: give it to people like Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), or Pennsylvania Auditor Bob Casey, Jr., all of whom are considering bids for the U.S. Senate in 2006 and are strongly pro-middle-class. Or, if you don't like them, give it to someone else who has been a true people's champion in Congress - say, for instance, the Democrats who took a stand and courageously voted against CAFTA. But stop giving it to people who consistently stab workers in the back.

This strategy will make an immediate impact on the political system, and it is a strategy I believe the entire labor movement can agree on, as it has absolutely nothing to do with the recent internal differences between different groups of unions. The fact is, there is nothing controversial about making sure workers' hard-earned money that unions rightly use for politics goes exclusively to the lawmakers who stand up for workers, and gets withheld from those who sell workers out on the most important issues. Politicians who harm American workers should not consider labor their personal ATM machines just because they put a "D" behind their name. Labor should be targeting its money to specific pro-worker candidates as much as humanely possible.

To be sure, if labor plays this kind of hardball, some Democrats will whine and cry. But you better believe the Democratic Party as a whole will be far more unified in representing the concerns of ordinary working people than it is now. And in the long run, that will build a much sturdier and long-lasting Democratic majority than permitting consequence-free capitulation to corporate interests.

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How to Actually Defeat John Roberts & Not Just Whine About Him

In the debate over the nomination of John G. Roberts to the Supreme Court, Democrats are currently focusing on the White House's refusal to turn over various documents. There is no doubt that is troubling - but focusing on that is ultimately not going to defeat Roberts. The ordinary American casually observing politics will see that as just another cheap political tactic to make hay. The real way to go after Roberts isn't to uncover as-yet-unreleased documents, it is to pore over his very public record.

The fact is, Roberts is described by colleagues as Corporate America's "go-to lawyer." If you earn that reputation, you have most certainly defended some very shady behavior that would make most American's queasy. As just one example, the Los Angeles Times makes a mention of the fact that Roberts helped limit the Americans With Disabilities Act and prevent workers hurt on the job from getting any sort of accomodations for their injuries.

Roberts, of course, would argue that his work defending corporations that have abused ordinary people has nothing to do with his own views - and that's exactly where Democrats should want to corner him. Make him either defend his own career helping powerful interests hurt people, or make him admit he has no principles other than the pursuit of money, regardless of social cost. Either way, the guy will be exposed for what he really is: totally unqualified to be on the highest court in the land, where principles and respect for ordinary Americans is of the utmost importance.

Democrats have to elevate the battle to an argument that ordinary people can understand, not limit it to some partisan fight devoid of actual issues that people care about. Examining Roberts' long career defending monied interests is the way to get there - and it has the added credibility of playing into a narrative about the Bush administration Americans already believe is true: namely, that the White House is run by a bunch of people who regularly put corporate interests over people's interests.

It is true, Americans may grudgingly accept that all-too-close relationship between Big Business and politicians in the normal course of government business. But this is not normal government business - this is a lifetime nomination to the most powerful court in America. And if the case is made properly by Democrats, American public opinion would likely shift against Roberts and make clear there is no room for an unprincipled corporate shill on the Supreme Court.

The ball is in Senate Democrats' court. They likely know what needs to be done. The question is whether they have the guts to do it. Sen. Ted Kennedy (D) has been sounding some of these themes, so there are at least some courageous souls who are willing to go at Roberts' most disturbing traits. The question is will others follow, or will the weak-kneed within their ranks keep saying that Roberts' confirmation is essentially inevitable? Stay tuned.

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America's Populist Center

The battle for the soul of the Democratic Party rages on, after 15 Democrats sold out their party - and America's middle class - by voting for the corporate-written Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). It is clear that this kind of Republican-lite-ism has been an electoral disaster for Democrats over the last decade. And it is also clear that there is an alternative. If Democrats move towards America's populist center, they will finally find a tried and true road back to the majority. Read my latest entry on Huffington Post and this new cover story in the Nation magazine for more.

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Pelosi Steps Up & Demands Accountability

Roll Call has a new report up about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D) holding an emergency meeting of the House Democratic Steering Committee tonight to discuss formal sanctions against the 15 Democrats who sold out their party and voted for the corporate-written Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). Pelosi raised "the likelihood that defectors' committee assignments would be reviewed at tonight’s meeting of the Steering Committee." That's absolutely necessary - why should Democrats who undermine their party be given plum committee assignments over other, far more loyal and principled Democrats? Pelosi should be commended for her courage - and now she needs to back up her words with action.

The story goes on to note that "Several Democratic sources said Pelosi and other House leaders are particularly upset with New York Reps. Greg Meeks and Ed Towns, members of exclusive committees with safe seats, who voted for CAFTA."

Meeks had the nerve to say that he "voted my conscience" on CAFTA, despite his long history selling off his votes on trade to the highest corporate bidder. He also said while he "knows many of my colleagues are disappointed" he said he has been with Democrats "90 percent of the time" – yeah, except for on all the key economic votes that would allow the Democratic Party to actually paint the kind of serious contrast with the GOP that polls show the American people are waiting for. Roll Call goes on to lay the groundwork for supposedly "endangered" Democrats who represent swing districts to claim they had to vote for CAFTA for their re-election. But as I have earlier noted, that rationale is so dishonest it's hard to believe a Member of Congress could utter it with a straight face.

Read the whole article here. Then email Nancy Pelosi to thank her for trying to enforce some discipline among Democrats. And make sure to tell her to back up her words with action - the only thing that will change this kind of behavior in the future is if Democratic turncoats know there are real consequences when they sell out.

What Happens When Dems Play Offense

In Montana right now, we're having a bit of a problem with our public employee pension system like many other states. The fact is, the legislature in 2001 essentially underfunded the pension system to the point where, when investments in Wall Street went bad, the system developed a shortfall. The politics and policies in this fight are instructive for how Democrats can play offense.

First and foremost, this whole thing is an indictment of the GOP's privatization agenda, including the President's plan to privatize Social Security. Throwing people's retirement money to the market, without enacting adequate safeguards to shore up the underlying guaranteed system, can have disastrous effects.

Secondly, and perhaps more interestingly, is how Democrats are using this issue to highlight their strengths and play offense. Essentially, Montana Democrats are making the rock-solid and supported case that the Republicans who controlled things in this state played fast and loose with public employees money, and created this problem by not being more careful. Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) has said he will work to fix this problem that the Republicans created - perfectly and justifiably positioning himself as a solver of problems.

The Billings Gazette article from today highlights exactly what happens when Democrats play offense like this. The story quotes former GOP House Speaker John Mercer whining and crying about being blamed for the pensionlegislation he engineered that ultimately led to these problems. "It doesn't make any sense to engage in a blame game," Mercer said, as if you can almost hear the whine in his voice. "The people who recommended the increase could not have foreseen what happened to investment income."

Similarly, State Sen. Dave Lewis (R), the sponsor of the 2001 pension bill, tried to blame the markets - in effect, inadvertently calling into question his own Republican Party's advocacy of privatizing Social Security and other state pension funds. "The investment loss caused it," said Lewis, who was also the Republicans Lt. Governor nominee against Schweitzer in 2004.

In other words, what we have in Montana right now is the exact opposite of what we have in Washington. Democrats are showing guts, playing offense and fixing problems. Republicans, meanwhile, are running around crying. Even more hilariously, the best attacks they've been able to come up with against Democrats is that Gov. Schweitzer wears jeans (not exactly what I would perceive to be a liability in this state). This is the model Democrats should be working off of: stand up, fight, take no prisoners - and win.

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Why Dems Should Value - Not Shun - Accountability

There is nothing so pathetic as someone who undermines a team crying when they get called onto the carpet for disloyalty. But, as expected, that's what's happening with Democrats and CAFTA. I was met this morning with a few emails from Capitol Hill Democrats who don't like that I had the nerve to tell it like it is about last night's tragic vote. The whining and crying is the perfect image of pathetic thumb-sucking weakness that has hurt Democrats throughout the heartland.

Don't worry - I've been there before with this, and it is more than a little hilarious to criticize me for supposedly being disloyal to Democrats. I long toiled in the day-to-day trenches fighting the Republicans. And, unlike many of the whiners in Washington, I've actually left the Beltway and worked on winning campaigns. Still, it never ceases to amaze me how Washington, D.C. Democrats - unlike Republicans - have no understanding of why accountability will actually help them get back into the majority.

You've heard it before: Democrats don't like to talk about who is loyal to the party and who isn't. They would prefer that everyone just be quiet about divisions, even if those divisions undermine the party's ability to deliver a serious message. It's the big tent for big tent's sake - even if it means losing into perpetuity.

Clearly, many Democrats still haven't learned anything from people like Newt Gingrich, Karl Rove, or the current GOP leadership - even though it is those very people who have emasculated Democrats for the last decade. Their lessons were pretty simple: do everything possible to enforce unity around principles and policies. That allowed them to drive home a sharp message in 1994, and now ram legislation through Congress.

Whining Democrats, I ask you: do you think Newt Gingrich was nice to people within his party who undermined him in his quest to take back the majority? Do you think the current Republican leadership dislikes Grover Norquist's efforts to keep GOPers in line today? Do you think Karl Rove keeps winning elections by letting turncoats within his own party undermine the GOP?

The answer to all of these questions, of course, is no. Republicans understand the value of having an infrastructure that helps keep their troops in line - an infrastructure that makes it clear there are actual consequences for selling out. To most people in the real world, this kind of thing is really very elementary. But let me just spell it out for those who still don't understand: consequences are the only thing that makes sure someone who has undermine the team doesn't undermine the team again in the future. Some Democrats may not be comfortable with that kind of accountability infrastructure developing on our side - but they better get used to it.

Let me be clear: the majority of Democrats in Congress are courageous and honest people. The problem is, they are being undermined on a daily basis. It is the loyal foot soldiers that a strengthened accountability infrastructure will help, because without consequences for turncoats, the party will be undermined forever.

This is the way back to the majority for the Democratic Party - not rolling over and dying when turncoats within the party's ranks repeatedly undermine the party's effectiveness. Helping create accountability for those who sell out is not disloyal. On the contrary, it is the ultimate act of loyalty if you are seriously interested in seeing Democrats regain the majority. The people who are disloyal are those Democrats who pay lip service to the goal of winning back Congress, but in reality have become so comfortable in the minority they'd rather just sweep even the most self-destructive problems under the rug.


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Which of the 15 Dem Sellouts Should Start Looking For Another Job/Party?

We now know who the 15 Democrats are that each undermined their party and America's middle class by casting the deciding vote for the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). The bill passed by one vote, meaning each of the 15 Democrats cast the deciding vote. When 27 Republicans vote against their own party leadership as they did on CAFTA, Democrats have only these 15 sellouts within their ranks - and groups like the DLC that pushed CAFTA - to blame for the fact that the Democratic Party has been relegated to permanent minority status.

The 15 Democratic sellouts were:

Melissa Bean (IL)
Jim Cooper (TN)
Henry Cuellar (TX)
Norm Dicks (WA)
Ruben Hinojosa (TX)
William Jefferson (LA)
Jim Matheson (UT)
Greg Meeks (NY)
Dennis Moore (KS)
Jim Moran (VA)
Solomon Ortiz (TX)
Ike Skelton (MO)
Vic Snyder (AR)
John Tanner (TN)
Ed Towns (NY)

Let's be clear - all of these people should never get a red cent from labor unions or the progressive community again, and that goes even for the ones who represent marginal districts. The idea that this was a "tough vote" for a Democrat who represents a swing district doesn't hold water - no one is getting voted out of office over voting against CAFTA, and voting for American workers. Remember, polls show that Americans are sick and tired of Congress passing these corporate-written "free" trade deals that sell out ordinary workers.

But, let's further break this down. Which of these 15 Members has CONSISTENTLY been selling out the Democratic Party and America's middle class? The way we find that out is by looking at other recent votes on key economic issues, such as the Bankruptcy Bill, and the bill to limit citizens' legal rights and protect corporations that abuse Americans.

Starting with bankruptcy, we get the list whittled down to 12: Bean, Cooper, Cuellar, Hinojosa, Jefferson, Matheson, Meeks, Moore, Moran, Ortiz, Skelton and Tanner.

Moving to the bill that limits citizens' legal rights and protects corporations that abuse ordinary Americans, the list gets whittled down to 9: Bean, Cooper, Cuellar, Hinojosa, Matheson, Meeks, Moore, Moran and Tanner.

These are the 9 Democrats who are the difference between House Democrats being in the majority and the minority - they are the people who undermine the vast majority of honest/courageous Democrats who fight for ordinary people in Congress everyday. They are the ones who make it consistenly impossible for Democrats to deliver a message that they are the party that stands up for ordinary working people in this country. The fact is, if Democrats are going to be in the minority for the forseeable future, it would be better if these folks were defeated, because they do more harm than good to a party that desperately needs unity to let America knows what it stands for.

Again, while I have described why it is ridiculous to give a pass to any of these 9 because they represent marginal districts, even if you sort out for that the number barely changes. Winning with 55% or more of the vote is considered crushing an opponent - and only Melissa Bean falls under that threshold. The 8 others win by 55% or better, meaning they don't even have the pathetic/dishonest "I'm a marginal Member so I have to sell out American workers" excuse: Cooper (69%) , Cuellar (59%), Hinojosa (58%), Matheson (55%), Meeks (100% - unopposed), Moore (55%), Moran (60%), and Tanner (74%).

In an earlier post today, I mentioned that Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY) ought to be frightened of the Working Families Party and the progressive community in New York City. But he's not the only one on this list that better be nervous about their job as an insulated career politician. Rep. Jim Moran (D-VA), for instance, has been dogged by controversy throughout his career, including actually personally profiting from his previous sellouts to the credit card industry. Maybe this will be the vote that draws him the strong primary challenger needed to defeat him in his solidly progressive district.

To sum up - each of these 15 Democrats ought to pay a price at the polls for their brazen sell out tonight on CAFTA. They undermined their party and America's workers. And the 9 Democrats of these 15 that have been consistently stabbing the Democratic Party in the back - well, they have shown an unfathomable willingness to disregard anything other than corporate campaign cash. They are the reason why Americans are so cynical about the political process, why Democrats can't win key states like Ohio, and, in general, why Democrats are currently in permanent minority status.

VOTE ALERT: 15 Dems Cast Deciding Vote to Pass CAFTA

CAFTA just passed by one vote, 217-215 (a tie vote would have killed it). Fifteen Democrats voted for the corporate-written trade pact, meaning each of them cast the deciding vote. Meanwhile more than 20 Republicans voted against it. The sheer politics of this shows exactly why the Democratic Party, as it currently exists, cannot hope to be a majority party without a fundamental realignment of the way it works, and a fundamental rejection of the influence of groups like the DLC who pushed this bill. The fact is, parties serious about regaining political power do not lose votes when their opponents give them more than 20 votes. When the list of the 15 Democratic sellouts is posted at the official House of Representatives site, I will do some further analysis to see which of these Democrats have been selling out Democrats on other key economic issues - and which should thus expect to be targeted in primaries for defeat by labor and the progressive community as a whole.

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Which Dems Will Face Serious Primaries Over CAFTA?

The labor movement has let it be known that it is no longer in the business of supporting Democrats who sell out America's middle class. That declaration follows a similar groundswell of disgust from the progressive community for Democrats who consistently undermine the Democratic Party. And that brings up the question: which Democrats are in danger of facing a serious and well-funded primary should they undermine their party and help President Bush pass the destructive, corporate-written Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)?

The easiest way to whittle down which Democrats are in real trouble would be to look at those Democrats who have previously slapped working people in the face. To be sure, that is a big list. So let's whittle it down further and confine it just to 2005. Which Democrats have undermined their party and put a boot in the eye of the ordinary American?

The best place to look is in the 73 Democrats who voted for the credit card industry-written bankruptcy bill - a bill roundly recognized as one of the biggest sellouts in recent times.

Of these 73 Democrats - including many New Democrats whom I have criticized - many have said they are voting against CAFTA, bucking the elitists at the Democratic Leadership Council. That is a good thing, and will likely spare these Democrats from serious electoral retribution.

Still, there are some left. Which again raises the question - which Democrats are really in trouble if they vote for CAFTA?

I would look for the Democrats who voted for the bankruptcy bill who represent safe Democratic districts, and have gotten comfortable sidling up to business lobbyists because they don't expect a primary. I would then hone it down further and look among these Democrats for those who represent districts where there is an on-the-ground infrastructure that could put up a serious primary challenge.

One of the prime targets, thus, is New York City, where the Working Families Party (WFP) exists just for this purpose. WFP has become a major force in New York state politics, using the state's cross-endorsement/fusion system to help Democrats win in districts that Democrats have had trouble competing. They have done this by sticking to core economic issues.

WFP, however, has also shown a willingness to take it to Democrats in safe districts who think they can sell out working people in New York. This is a muscular organization that doesn't screw around - and my bet is if there are New York City Democrats who vote for both the bankruptcy bill and CAFTA, those Democrats are going to find themselves face-to-face with a primary challenge.

For instance, there's Rep. Greg Meeks (D-NY). Meeks is playing footsie with the Bush administration and Corporate America, threatening to undermine Democrats and vote for CAFTA. And he not only voted for the Bankruptcy Bill, he actually signed a letter to Republican House Speaker Denny Hastert demanding the bankruptcy bill be passed immediately. This from a Congressman who represents a safe Democratic, working-class district.

If I were Meeks - or any other Democrat with a WFP-like force in my district - I would think very hard about whether I really want to sell my soul on the CAFTA vote. Remember, the powerful grassroots group Moveon.org showed no hesitation in going after Democrats who voted for the bankruptcy bill. That highlighted the fact that labor and the progressive movement in general seems just pissed enough (and rightly so) that the political dynamic is fundamentally changing for those Democrats who think they can walk all over working people with no consequences.

To be sure, if progressives are willing to hold Democrats feet to the fire, we will undoubtedly see a much more unified and effective Democratic Party in the future. That is ultimately the point – you can't hope to build a Democratic Party that stands for something, yet continue to coddle party members who stand for nothing other than selling out to the highest big-money bidder. And as much as Democrats may whine and cry, this new kind of bare-knuckled, tough, and populist progressive politics is a good thing for the Democratic Party in the long run.

VOTE ALERT: Tell Congress to Reject CAFTA

The vote on the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) is expected in the next day - and Corporate America is saying they've bought the votes to pass it. That is classic trash-talking - and it's not true. Everyone expects this to be a very close vote, which means now is the time for Americans to make their voices heard. Call or e-mail your Member of Congress today and tell them to vote against CAFTA.

I have written a lot about this corporate-written atrocity. The CAFTA vote in the House of Representatives will show us whether the Democratic Party is serious about standing up for America's middle class, and thus winning elections, or whether it is going to continue to have its convictions bought and sold to the highest corporate bidder. Ohio Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) and a group of courageous progressives have fought this deal tooth and nail, but it is going to require every last Democratic vote to prevent this sell-out trade pact from passing.

Here are the basic reasons why CAFTA should be voted down:

CAFTA WILL DESTROY AMERICAN JOBS: Everytime a corporate-written trade deal is rolled out, bought-off politicians in Congress start telling America that it will create jobs. And everytime that trade deal passes, America has lost millions of jobs. It's not hard to understand why: when you open the border and allow Big Business to exploit third-world workers who have almost no wage or workplace standards, American jobs are shipped over to those third-world countries. That kind of trade deal – with no labor, human rights or workplace standards - actually creates an incentive for companies to troll the world for the most repressive regimes. And the idea that America will make up those jobs by selling products to the newly-opened third-world market is an insulting lie: are we really expected to believe that people who make $1 a day in Central America are suddenly going to be consumers of job-creating high-tech products from the United States?

CAFTA IS NOT FREE TRADE: For those free trade ideologues in Congress who don't care that CAFTA will destroy U.S. jobs, remember – as NY Times economics columnist Daniel Gross notes, CAFTA isn't actually free trade. There are hundreds of pages of rules and regulations in CAFTA that protect corporate interests. When Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) tried to extend those same regulations to protect workers, he was rejected.

CAFTA DOES NOT INCLUDE STRONG LABOR PROTECTIONS: The Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) is pushing CAFTA, claiming that it includes very strong labor and environmental standards. That is a deliberate lie. CAFTA includes almost no standards that protect workers from exploitation. Worse, when Democrats tried to add those standards to the pact, they were voted down. The Bush administration knows it is vulnerable on a debate about worker protections – it is why they tried to bury a Labor Department report highlighting the effects of CAFTA having little labor/workplace protections. And remember, the lack of labor protections not only exposes Central American workers to exploitation - it hurts American workers, because it forces American workers into an unwinnable competition with Central American workers who CAFTA allows to be exploited.

CAFTA WILL NOT HELP CENTRAL AMERICA: Because CAFTA has little to no labor, environmental or human rights standards, it will not help raise ordinary citizens' quality of life in Central America. It will, on the contrary, allow further exploitation of these citizens by Big Business. Additionally, corporate-written provisions in CAFTA will actually make things worse for people in Central America. As just one example, the pharmaceutical industry has made sure it can raise drug prices in Central America. This is why there has been such opposition to CAFTA in Central America – ordinary people there know this deal is a disaster for them.

CAFTA'S LAST-MINUTE PROMISES WILL NOT COME THROUGH: If your Member of Congress is still trying to negotiate a last-minute CAFTA deal with the Bush administration, they should know that those deals almost never come through. What always happens before a trade vote is the White House offers Members of Congress special gifts – gifts that never actually materialize once the trade deal is signed.

CAFTA UNDERMINES AMERICAN SOVEREIGNTY: Tough-talking conservatives enjoy railing on institutions like the United Nations because they supposedly usurp American sovereignty. Those same conservatives, then, should be opposed to CAFTA, because the pact includes specific provisions that actually allow other countries and unaccoutable foreign corporations to supercede American law.

I could go on, but I won't - this covers the basic lies about CAFTA, lies that are so obvious and pervasive that they shouldn't really surprise anyone. No matter what the rhetoric you hear about this trade deal in the coming day, remember: everyone in Washington, D.C. knows that CAFTA is about more profits for corporate executives, and nothing else. They will try to dress it up as good for workers, and a job creator here in America, but it is all a lie. And it's time Congress finally rejects those lies and starts going to bat for ordinary citizens.

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Labor Plays Hardball...And That's a Good Thing

The Hill newspaper reports that unions are playing hardball with Democrats over the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). What's funny is Democrats flailing around and crying foul - as if labor should just fork over money to any Democrat, no matter whether he/she sells them out on key issues. It's high time labor stops supporting Democrats who back corporate-written trade deals that sell American workers out. Democrats have gotten away with taking labor for granted for too long, voting for things like NAFTA and China PNTR and then going to unions with their hands out for campaign contributions. That has got to end.

Think of it this way - conservative groups aren't in the business of giving campaign cash to Republicans who sell them out, and that's part of the reason how the GOP has managed to hone its ideology and create unity within its party. Similarly, labor shouldn't be in the business of giving away workers hard-earned money to Democrats who stiff those workers in Congress. Maybe, just maybe, this will start to create some unity among Democrats, as there will finally be some consequences for Democrats who sell out America's middle class and their party.

Amen to the labor movement on this one.

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Feingold Shows There Is A Better Way

Sen. Russ Feingold's (D) op-ed today in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune provides a nice contrast to all the things I've been saying about the corrosive effect of the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) on the Democratic Party. Whereas the DLC has spent years using corporate money to Republicanize the Democratic Party, Feingold has been one of the loudest Senate voices for reforming this corrupt system. And his legislation to crackdown on the all-too-close relationship between lobbyists and politicians of both parties is a courageous move that challenges the seemingly intractable hold that Corporate America has over the Washington, D.C. Establishment. It is a move that echoes what reformers like Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) and New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch (D) have tried to do on a state level, and it this kind of populism - not more corporate cronyism - that is going to bring Democrats back to the majority in 2006, and could make Feingold a strong darkhorse in 2008.

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The Worst of Both Worlds

In business, if you have a policy or a strategy that brings you the worst of both worlds, then you will likely change course. For instance, if you are making a product that both hurts the environment and is losing gobs of money, you will probably stop making the product and do something different. The question for Democrats is whether that kind of commonsense will be a part of their political decisions in 2008?

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Bowing Down to Those Who Undermine

More food for thought about the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and the future of the Democratic Party...Can you imagine if an organization existed that purported to speak for Republicans, yet whose entire premise undermining the conservative base of the Republican Party? Do you think GOP presidential candidates would be flocking to address that organization's meetings? The answer, of course, is no, they wouldn't - and you can bet the GOP leadership would crush that organization before it ever got off the ground. But on the Democratic side, the story is far different.

Democratic presidential contenders go suck up to the DLC, an organization whose for the last two decades has done everything it can to undermine the Democratic Party - even going to great lengths to attack Democratic presidential candidates it doesn't like. Then, hilariously, these same Democratic politicians who genuflect to the DLC claim to be shocked - shocked! - that the public has no idea what the Democratic Party stands for anymore.

Just look at this Knight-Ridder story detailing the agenda the DLC rolled out yesterday - it reads like Republican talking points:

- Topping the agenda [DLC President Al From] wrote with former Clinton White House adviser Bruce Reed were several proposals on national security. "It's a toughness issue. We have to prove we're willing to pull the trigger," From said. In other words, the DLC argues that Democrats must show they are willing to indiscriminately bomb, kill and maim people in order to win elections, even though the public now fully opposes what we're doing in Iraq.

- The DLC wants to "allow military recruiters unrestricted access to college campuses." Again, the American people oppose what we are doing in Iraq, and the DLC's response is to push for more militarization and to push for more recruitment of young people to send them off to fight overseas in wars based on lies that the DLC helped justify.

- The DLC wants "to cut the federal budget deficit, they proposed cutting congressional and nondefense government staff by 10 percent." Cutting "nondefense" is a nice way of saying cutting things like health care, labor rights enforcement, housing, etc - cuts the GOP is already proposing. In other words, instead of talking about wasteful spending in Iraq, the DLC wants the budget debate to focus on plans to hack into the social progress that Democrats have fought for over the last fifty years.

And remember, this says nothing about the DLC's willingness to continually undermine every Democratic Party effort to make sure trade policy starts working for ordinary Americans.

I'd like to believe that the Democratic presidential candidates who came to make nice with the DLC yesterday only did so because they didn't want to be attacked for not kissing the Beltway gliterrati's rings. Because, frankly, the DLC has become the poster-boy for unprincipled stand-for-nothingism. Because of that, the DLC is becoming more and more of a political liability to candidates for national office, especially with the rise of the populist Democrats and the rise of alternative fundraising sources that allow candidates to circumvent the DLC's high-roller political donors.

Sure, the DLC will technically exist forever - there are always corporate funding sources available to preserve an insular Washington, D.C. organization that shills for Big Business and the Republican Party agenda. But politically, the DLC - and its constant undermining of the Democratic Party - is on its way out in terms of real relevance.


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The Fundamental Question Facing Democrats

The Los Angeles Times' Ron Brownstein has a new article about the Democratic Leadership Council's (DLC) annual meeting, where he quotes me describing what I think is the fundamental decision facing the Democratic Party:

"The fact is, the Democratic Party has to make a choice: is it going to continue to follow the DLC, be a wholly-owned subsidiary of Corporate America, and lose elections for the infinite future?" Sirota said. "Or is it going to go back to its roots of really representing the middle class and standing up for ordinary people's economic rights?"

You can read the whole article here for more but that really is the big question. It will decide whether Democrats continue to be a permanent minority, or whether they will ever start contending for majority status in national politics again.

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Chris Bowers Nails It

Chris Bowers is one of my favorite writers out there because of spot-on analysis like this.

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How the DLC Reinforces Dishonest Stereotypes

I've written before about how some people who claim to speak for Democrats seem to take pleasure in reinforcing dishonest stereotypes about the Democratic Party. The Democratic Leadership Council is no different - just read the headline of this article. Their whole case is based on the idea that Democrats do not back the military, which is so wildly dishonest it's beyond just a normal lie: it is a knowing lie. Democrats have consistently backed the military where the Republicans have not. That is a hard fact. But that doesn't fit the DLC's goals, which are to undermine the Democratic Party. Instead of working to debunk these right-wing stereotypes, these insulated Beltway snobs seem to only feel relevant if they reinforce the right-wing stereotypes parroted by Fox News and the Republican Party. It just shows that for Democrats who want to win - and not just preserve their status on the Washington cocktail party circuit - the DLC is really part of the problem, not the solution.

Let's be clear - the DLC has done masterfully in selling its snake oil by always claiming that Democrats need a coherent "positive" agenda. No one argues with that. The problem is that the DLC offers neither a coherent agenda, or anything positive.

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CAFTA: Lawmakers Shouldn't Be Fooled By the Offers

The Wall Street Journal reports that "as the House moves toward a vote this week on President Bush's Central American trade pact, the White House is trying to cut deals to shore up support." Specifically, "an administration team scouring the House for votes has been showing more willingness to entertain lawmakers' requests for special breaks." Those special gifts can often sound too good to be true - and usually, they are. Read this report to see how administrations regularly promise wavering lawmakers the moon, and then fail to deliver once the corporate-written trade deal has been signed.

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Community Ownership Is A Winning Agenda

The GOP's privatize-everything-no-matter-what agenda has met its match in the growing Community Ownership movement. Should free-market extremism always win the day? Or is there a place for communities to own certain economic institutions and share in the profits taxpayers help create? It is an important debate - and one progressives can win. Read here for more.

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Nominee John G. Roberts (R-Corporate Shill)

A few weeks ago I said the real way to tell how President Bush was going to select a Supreme Court nominee would be to see who the biggest corporate shill on the list of contenders was. And as John G. Roberts nomination shows, I was right.

At the beginning of the month, the Los Angeles Times reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was getting very involved in the Supreme Court fight. Specifically, "the Chamber forwarded to the White House its review of federal judges from each circuit, with ratings of each judge based on rulings that concern business." In other words, Big Business sent their marching orders over to President Bush.

Not surprisingly, the Los Angeles Times today reports that Roberts is Corporate America's golden boy, handpicked by - you guessed it - the Chamber of Commerce. "He was the go-to lawyer for the business community. They are very comfortable with him," said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who signed a letter in 2002 supporting Roberts' nomination to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. "He definitely is a friend of the chamber. Of all the candidates, he is the one they knew best."

As I said before, the media makes this stuff out to be all "liberal" vs. "conservative" when in fact the real paradigm is Corporate America vs. Everyone Else. This just proves it.

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A Crystal Clear View of Democrats' Problems

Now that I am back in Montana, I have some time to reflect on my trip to DC this week. I was really impressed with a lot of the people I met with - there seems to be an awakening among progressives there that we're at rock bottom, and we need to fundamentally rethink how we are going to move forward and start winning again. That said, when I read this article, I realize just how far a journey we have in front of us in making the Democratic Party return to its roots - and to its prominence.

The story is about the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) holding a three-day conference in Ohio about how to reverse conservatives' gains. The story quotes the DLC's ultimate Beltway insider Bruce Reed saying "If Democrats can't win in Ohio, we don't deserve to win the presidency." That's a true statement. But it's ironic coming from the head of the DLC, a group that has ardently pushed the very "free" trade policy that has destroyed Ohio's job base, and has pushed that policy at exactly the right time to stab the Democratic Party in the back.

As USA Today reported during the campaign, trade is one of the most important issues in Ohio. And yet the Beltway insiders from the DLC - the very people who have used corporate money to buy Democratic support in Congress for "free" trade - is arrogantly coming into Ohio to tell Democrats there the way to win is to support their agenda. This is the kind of arrogance and lunacy that could only come from Washington, D.C.'s corporate money circles - it is totally divorced from political reality, yet these well-heeled clowns over at the DLC still claim they have a model of success.

It will be interesting to see if, just as the DLC viciously attacked Howard Dean, the DLC will try to make life harder for people like Ohio's popular Congressman Sherrod Brown (D), should he jump into the state's U.S. Senate race in 2006. Brown has been a leader in pushing for fair trade, and in whipping up opposition to CAFTA - an opposition the DLC tried to undercut last week.

What's most funny/sad about this, is that these same DLC leaders told the Christian Science Monitor that they are worried that "voters know too little about what their own party stands for" - and yet absolve themselves from any blame for that. There is no awareness that when Democrats rhetorically claim to be standing up for the middle class, and then vote the DLC's way on fundamental economic issues, the public catches on and understands they are being misled.

The DLC also tells the Monitor that "If Democrats are smart, they also will avoid copying Rove's strategy of polarization, using controversial issues to whip up support from a loyal base of voters." How, may I ask, is that "smart?" Last I checked, Karl Rove has won almost every political campaign he's been involved in with that strategy, and now Republicans dominate every branch of government. How is it "smart" not to take some tactical lessons from him? I'm not saying we take our ethics lessons from Rove - but to say that he hasn't been politically successful in winning elections is beyond tone deaf: it's just plain stupid.

Maybe if I put it in corporate terms that the DLCers could understand, it would be more clear. Going to places like Ohio to tell Democrats to continue pushing the DLC's corporate "free" trade policies would be like being the guy who ran a company into the ground, showing up to give a presentation to the company's board, and telling the board that the company should keep doing exactly what its been doing, even it if means complete bankruptcy. The fact is, if you did that, you'd be fired. But in Democratic Party politics, these people aren't fired - they are venerated, as if they have the keys to success. And then we wonder why Democrats continue to lose, and lose, and lose, and lose. What's really amazing is that these professional election losers still can spew their drivel with a straight face.

DLC CEO Al From told the Monitor that there is "a lot of concerns in this country about the way Washington is run and about the arrogance of power in Washington." The same could be said about how the Democratic Party is still influenced by From and his corporate cronies, and about the arrogance of the DLC's corporate-cash power that continues to try to drive the Democratic Party into the ground.

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Guess What: They Don't Like You

The DNC and the DCCC have announced that they will marshall volunteers into Ohio-2 to help Paul Hackett's insurgent campaign. We can only hope they give these out-of-staters orange hats.

Here's a secret: no likes out-of-staters. The letters from Guardian readers to American voters didn't help. The deluge of Dean volunteers in Iowa didn't help. Sending New Yorkers into OH-2 isn't going to help. Because, guess what, all politics is local. The Republican Party realizes this and has been building a neighbor-to-neighbor program across the country. Instead, we try to nationalize a Congressional race that is competitive because of localized ethics issues. Now if they want to send in out-of-state folks to run support for the local volunteers, great. But it's about time that we start focusing on building a real grassroots operation, so that we have Ohioans contacting other Ohioans.

Because here's another thought: if you can't marshall enough volunteers in your own district, do we really have any reason to think that you'll really be able to marshall the votes?

--Matt Singer

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Making Gray Davis Look Ethical and Talented

I have to say when the Gropenator announced his campaign for Governor, I had my doubts. He's managed to confirm virtually all of them, with the exception that he has yet to be sued by a staffer for sexual harassment or sexual assault.

The conventional wisdom out there in California is apparently that Schwarzenegger will use Nixon's Vietnam strategy, declare victory and leave, to return to the world of acting where he is still a joke, albeit one who can command 8 figures as long as the word Terminator is involved (I'm not sure exactly how much he made for Jingle All The Way, assumedly it was too much). Let this be said about the Democrats and the Republicans: we've never talked about running Streisand for office. And we certainly haven't talked about amending the Constitution to get Bruce Springsteen into the Presidency.

Our Republican friends, though, have a real problem feeling emasculated (for more on this, read the Montana Republican E-Brief). Schwarzenegger's presence made them feel like the party of men again. Finally, they had a real live groper on their side.

The problem is that Schwarzenegger can't govern. And he somehow thinks it is OK to decry special interests while taking money from special interests and vetoing legislation that they oppose. Schwarzenegger is now less popular than George W. Bush in California.

Finally, we've found a politician who makes Gray Davis look ethical and makes Jesse Ventura look like more than a one hit wonder. We could hardly have asked for a better opponent. One could guess, even, that Schwarzenegger is a robot, sent back from the future, to lose.

--Matt Singer

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Yuan Seen Nothing Yet

(Consider this my official entry in the "worst post title" contest this year.)

China has moved to revalue its currency, alternatively referred to as Renmenbi or Yuan (although when I was over there, everyone called it Kwai). In the rest of the news, this is being downplayed, but it could be major news in the trade world, as Chinese imports will rise in price and US exports to China will become cheaper.

That said, it will take time for the implications of the changed valuations to have much of an impact on import and export markets.

Another concern is more immediate. Already, the Malaysians have also followed suit. No longer pegging means that these governments will be picking up fewer dollar-denominated assets. This may very well have some impact on things like interest rates at home.

I imagine Krugman will have some much more informed thoughts than mine soon.

--Matt Singer

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Getting Caught Up

For some reason, the coffee shop I was working in yesterday wouldn't let me access blogger. I've now traveled back in time at a different coffee shop to post the same things here that were already up at that other Sirotablog. More coming soon.

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More Points to Condi

Sirota recently pointed to Condi Rice as potentially a Rovegate player. Now Daxman at TPMCafe highlights a press exchange where Rice is really pushing the press to investigate how Wilson ended up in Africa.

Was the National Security Advisor involved in outing a CIA agent? That seems like news.

--Matt Singer

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Holier than Mao

Sam Graham-Felsen criticizes the Center for American Progress's recent Campus Progress National Student Conference in the pages of The Nation. As a participant in that conference, I feel a bit of a need to defend myself, but also a need to question Sam. See, Sam falls into one of the oldest traps of liberalism, which is grabbing and embracing a holier-than-thou line.

Sam criticizes his cohorts for giving President Bill Clinton four standing ovations during his hour long speech. I'll never be considered one of Clinton's greatest defenders, but my rough memory is that Clinton made at least four good arguments (he also rambled for a while, so I left the room for a bit). But Sam takes a bit of comfort in the fact that he was one of a handful who never stood for the President. Congrats, Sam, you have your purity.

But his criticism of Clinton gets downright petty. When Clinton tells people to talk to Red America (read: my state), Sam declares it another Clintonistic "mov[e] to the center." Nevermind that the way Bernie Sanders, no Clintonista, has won in Vermont is by taking his populist progressive message to every Vermonter. Of course, given the self-righteous tone, maybe we should be grateful that Graham-Felsen considers talking to people selling out the cause, it'll make it a lot easier to keep him away from the regular people all across America more bothered by progressive arrogance than by progressive policy.

Sam sneers at Paul Begala's invocation of faith. He denigrates the idea that progressives must show conviction and strength. Thankfully, Sam credits my panel with offering "a more diverse spectrum of opinion" than other forums during the day, but he can't even resist snidely maligning the Genocide Intervention Fund, the students organizing against genocide in Darfur, as their cause is not sufficiently partisan -- a pretty rich critique from a Clinton-basher.

The Conference was far from perfect, but the students (and many of the panelists) truly represented the broad range of progressive tought. We had Clinton and vanden Heuvel. We had Begala and Frank. We had Penniman and Teixeira. And virtually everone I talked to was upset with one panelist or the other. Some students weren't. Sam at least ends on a positive note, explaining that the full-range of students left the conference "energized and teeming with hope." Well, that's what matters, isn't it?

--Matt Singer

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Returning to Where it all Began

Well, you can say one thing about Bush: he does not forget his friends. With Bush announcing yesterday his choice of John Roberts for Sandra Day O'Connor's seat, Bush has once again proven that he will always put party before principle, but that he will reward old friends, too.Roberts is a partisan hack who went to bat in Florida 2000 for George W. Bush.

Chris Bowers notes that not only did Roberts work for Bush in Florida, but he's a former associate of Ken Starr.

But even sadder in this whole figure is that the Bush White House has essentially admitted that they moved their timetable up to cover up the Rove scandal. Now, the media is not only going along to get along, they are publicly admitting that they are doing something. If I publicly said that I was going to use smoke-and-mirrors to confuse you, wouldn't you put your guard up. And in the age of multiple 24 hour news networks, can't we cover two stories at once? Especially when their idea of Supreme Court reporting is to tell us that Roberts is ambidextrous? From what I can tell, ambidextrous in this case only means he can talk out of both sides of his mouth.

--Matt Singer

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Wino? Why, No.

The United Farm Workers need your help. They are one of the best unions in the country and they are in a pitched battle with Ernest & Julio Gallo. The Gallos tried to eliminate the union last year, but the state of California stopped them. Now, the Farm Workers are calling for a boycott.

I, for one, am joining them. If you want more information, check out GalloUnfair.com. If you want to join me in joining the workers, sign the petiion and join the boycott.

Not that I'm kidding anyone. My friends all know that I only drink wine out of boxes anyway.

--Matt Singer

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Where do they find these people?

Ohio's 2nd District is having a special election right now. The race will end up being closer than it should be in this traditionally Republican stronghold. If you haven't heard, Ohio's Republican Party is having problems.

Governor Bob Taft's approval rating is hovering in the high teens and over 3 out of 4 say they disapprove, including 71% of Republicans. Things have gotten bad enough that the Toledo Blade has nearly daily stories on various scandals. The most humorous (and still deeply serious) scandal has to be Coingate, where the Republicans invested millions in rare coins. $12 million disappeared. The issue has since gone beyond pure stupidity and corruption, to likely violations of state and federal election law.

So, in the midst of this scandal-ridden state, who do the Republicans tap to win a House seat? Jean Schmidt, whose list of ethics problems would make Tom Delay blush. Stephen Yellin has the list.

We've got standard pay-to-play fare. Schmidt went to a Bengals game and a restaurant on a $5,000 trip paid for by Chiron, Inc. Weeks later, she co-sponsored legislation for them.

We've got the Karl Rove streak. In a primary for State Senate (which she lost), she smeared the Hell out of her opponent.

We've got Ohio's own K Street Project, where she worked with a disgraced House Speaker to threatening lobbyists with punitive bills if they failed to donate money.

Meanwhile, her allies in the Ohio Taxpayers Association brutalized one of her opponents for anti-taxpayer stances that included voting for many of the same bills that she supported, while lauding her for her pro-taxpayer status. Sounds like Club for Growth without the lunatic idealism (shudder).

Meanwhile, the Democratic candidate, Major Paul Hackett, was in Fallujah with the Marines while Schmidt was being wined-and-dined by Chiron. He's a fighter, militarily and politically. Keep an eye on this race, it'll be an indicator of where things are headed over the next year. If Hackett outperforms 40% in this district, he'll be beating the snot out of expectations and Schmidt's ethically-challenged colleagues in DC might want to get nervous.

--Matt Singer

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Wait for the Frog March

Get this: President Bush is requesting patience and thoughtfulness when it comes to Karl Rove's malfeasance. The standard that wasn't good enough for war is good enough for the Turd Blossom. Where he earlier said he would fire the leaker of this information, he is now saying that he will only fire Rove if Rove is found guilty of a crime. Best. Ethics. Standard. Ever.

Of course, the question is, will that conviction come over the scandal or over the cover-up? Only one in four Americans think the White House is cooperating with this investigation. It's really not surprising, given the fact that Bush has now publicly flip-flopped. Apparently, our President never even thought it would go this far.

The Democratic Party has issued a press release with clipped editorials from around the country. The list of editorials enraged about the President and Turd Blossom is nearly as long as the list of National Security assets endangered by their actions.

--Matt Singer

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Are Even SCOTUS Conservatives Nervous About Bush? (by Matt Singer)

Sandra Day O'Connor has announced her intention to resign from the Supreme Court. Interestingly, though, has made her resignation effective upon the confirmation of a successfor. In that one move, O'Connor opened the door for Senate Democrats to use the filibuster. There is absolutely no concern about the Court being unable to do its business. This is different, then, from the openings on Circuit Court benches, where there are openings waited to be filled. No such problem awaits here. Republicans will still say that every nominee deserves an up-or-down vote. This is Senate-rules-turned-Calvinball.

Meanwhile, consider that speculators thought that Rehnquist was preparing to step down, based on word from "inside sources" on the basis that Rehnquist stepping down would throw a wrench into the gears for progressive groups fighting the confirmation battles. Two openings is a tougher fight to manage on our side. Rehnquist since said that he will stay on the Court this term and he got a bit snippy with reporters hounding him about a retirement. This all raises the question, if rumors of Rehnquist's pending resignation did not come from Rehnquist, from where did they come? Was the White House trying to nudge him to the door to improve their chances of having a victory in the confirmation fight? And is that part of the reason why Rehnquist is now saying he'll stay on as long as his health permits him to.

For any conservative jurist who wanted to give Bush the unfettered ability to appoint his replacement, it is tough to think of a better to time to resign than the present. But Rehnquist is someone who has a deep respect for the Court and its history. And O'Connor has for some time defended the Court as a bastion where politics do not rule supreme. These two justices gave Bush the Presidency. But it appears they are unwilling to also hand him the Court. That's a far wiser decision.

--Matt Singer

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Headed to the Beltway

I'm traveling to Washington, D.C. today for three days of meetings about the Progressive Legislative Action Network - Matt Singer from Left in the West and Progress Montana agreed to take the helm until I return on Friday. Give 'em hell, Matt.

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Costco Debunks Corporate America's B.S.

Read this New York Times article about Costco and you will realize that the rest of Corporate America's B.S. about needing to cut workers' wages and health care/retirement benefits while paying CEOs exorbitant salaries is just that: B.S. There are still some concerns, of course, about how stores like Costco hurt small business, but it's clear that in an age of globalization, Costco presents a much more sustainable/egalitarian vision of economic development than the rest of Corporate America.

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One Month Before Kickoff, ITT Profiles PLAN

One month out from our big kickoff event in Seattle, In These Times magazine profiles the Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN).

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Clues to Who Might Be At the Source of the Rove-Leak Scandal

I am not one who likes to engage in a lot of speculation, but the Karl Rove/leak scandal has really gotten me thinking: why won't they just fire Rove? The answer is not that Rove is innocent, or even that they can't because he's too powerful - I'm starting to think the reason is because while Rove was definitely involved and definitely deserves to face legal consequences, he wasn't the root. Somebody else was the root of this leak - and that somebody is likely a person the Bush administration can't just cut loose like they could even Rove, who is after all, a staffer. It must be somebody even higher up on the food chain.

Before I tell you who I think it might be, let's just go through what we know. Rove now admits he learned of the classified information from a journalist (which of course does not excuse him from going and confirming that information to another "journalist" like Bob Novak). It's very possible that person was Judith Miller, but that's not really important - what is important is that the journalist got the information from someone else...someone higher up.

Novak has given us a clue about who this higher up is. He says it was "no partisan gunslinger." Not that Novak's description should be taken as 100 percent credible - he is a partisan hack after all. But still, the question is who would someone like Bob Novak make that description of?

I'd like to think it was Vice President Dick Cheney, but even Novak wouldn't describe him in those terms, and I do believe Cheney is too smart and too keen to his own self-preservation to get himself directly involved in something like this. So again, who is an official who is up in the White House stratosphere that can't just be fired, that isn't a "partisan gunslinger?"

I'm thinking we need to start asking Condoleezza Rice some questions. Now, I say that having no proof at all that she was involved. I'm just trying to read what we do know. And if you think about it, Rice really should be on the hot seat. Here is a person who came out of academia and who might not have the appreciation for how quickly you can get burnt down for leaking classified info, and who might think that's all part of "how its done" in Washington's partisan battles.

Furthermore, Rice is not well known as a "partisan gunslinger" (even though she is). Also, she was the face of the Bush administration in the lead up to war - she was the front person in defending all the administration's WMD claims, she was talking to all sorts of reporters trying to make the WMD threat seem as menacing as possible. She was the one who allowed Bush's reference to Iraq supposedly buying uranium from Niger to get into the State of the Union address, and then denied it by laughably pretending she never read the intelligence reports debunking the claim - as if we are expected to believe that.

Then suddenly, Joe Wilson comes along and debunks the whole thing. That means Rice would have had not only a broad motive to defend the White House, but a personal motive to defend her own competence: Wilson's proof that the Iraq-uranium-Niger thing was bogus was a direct indictment against Rice, because she was personally supposed to vet the State of the Union address and the specific claims in question before they were aired. And, as we know, the leak of Wilson's wife's name came as a means to discredit Wilson's debunking of the Iraq-Niger claim.

Again - this is all speculation. I'm trying to use the skills I acquired as a child player of the board game Clue to try to figure out what's going on - and I have no proof that Rice was involved. But someone with her profile and position raises questions: she is someone who isn't known as a "partisan gunslinger;" she is someone that, because she is now Secretary of State, they can't just fire easily; and she had not only a broad ideological motive, but a very personal one. And now, at the end of the day, we find out that Rice's number two, Stephen Hadley, may be implicated in the scandal.

So the real question at the end of all of this is simple: Has anyone asked Condi Rice about her involvement in this scandal?

DLC Stabs Dems In the Back...As Usual

The Beltway-brain-rot insiders at the DLC have once again stabbed Democrats in the back, this time releasing a report defending the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in an effort to help President Bush attract enough peel-off Democratic votes to pass this corporate-wirten atrocity. I am on book deadline right now so I don't have enough time today to go into all the reasons that CAFTA is bad, except to say look here, here, here, and here. I also don't have enough time to go into how this just once again proves the DLC exists to help Corporate America corrupt the Democratic Party. But make no mistake about it: the DLC is doing everything it can to undermine House Democrats, who are trying to stand up for America's middle class and stop this corporate-written atrocity. Even the House New Democrat Coalition is against CAFTA - but apparently, that's not OK with Corporate America and its reliable allies at the DLC.

As if the DLC is just an arm of the Bush White House, the organization timed this release perfectly to coincide with Bush's final push for the legislation, as if they are just an arm of the Bush White House. Despite the DLC's pathetic, transparent rhetoric about wanting to "bring a spirit of radical pragmatism" to the debate, what the DLC is showing is that it is an organization devoted to urging Democrats to sell their souls to the highest bidder. That may sell well with the DLC's corporate funders in Washington, D.C., but out here in the heartland, that kind of gutless behavior only hurts the Democratic Party over the long run.

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Moveon, SEIU, Steelworkers Join PLAN in Seattle

The Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN) got a big boost today, as Moveon.org, SEIU, the Steelworkers and others announced their intent to co-sponsor PLAN's kickoff event in Seattle on August 16th. Additionally, Moveon.org founder Wes Boyd, among others, has agreed to serve on PLAN's governing board. This shows that all different parts of the progressive community are coming together to support this effort because they know that progressives can make a real impact in the states.

Check out the full press release here. For details on PLAN and its kickoff event featuring former Sen. John Edwards and Gov. Brian Schweitzer, see PLAN's event website at www.progressivestates.org.

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Will $80 Million Make Frist Care About the Uninsured?

NY Times writer Dan Gross notes that the stock of hospital conglomerate HCA took a giant hit yesterday. Why? It reported that its earnings would disappoint because of an unexpected rise in uninsured patients it treated. Why is this important? Becaue HCA was founded by Sen. Bill Frist's family, which still owns about 17 million shares of the company. Here's the question: will Frist now show some interest in expanding health insurance coverage and preventing cuts to Medicaid now that his family is $80 million poorer?

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VOTE ALERT: GOP Supports National Security Leaks

The Senate just finished up voting on the Democratic amendment to crackdown on high government officials who leak classified information and compromise U.S. national security. Incredibly, the self-described "pro-national security" Republican party voted down the legislation, apparently ignoring all of their previous claims to despise leaks. The GOP also voted down their own amendment, apparently realizing how ridiculous it really was. See the final roll call vote on the Democratic amendment here, and the GOP amendment here.

To understand how outrageous this is, re-read the text of the Democratic amendment. This is not an exaggeration: the GOP is now on record voting in support of preserving the security clearance of a "federal employee who discloses or has disclosed classified information, including the identity of a covert agent of the Central Intelligence Agency." Unbelievable.

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Still Think It's Not a Right-Wing Media?

Check this out - if you didn't see the words "Washington Times" on there, you'd literally think it was a RNC press release. But it's not - it is a Washington Times "news" story. Remember, this is not just one news story that goes into the ether. The Washington Times knows that their stories get picked up by more mainstream television news shows, and get quoted by other pundits in the mainstream media. It is all a sophisticated way to force the latest - and most dishonest - right-wing spin into the political debate as it if is legitimately objective.

Still think the media isn't a right-wing echo chamber?

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VOTE ALERT: Dems Defend National Security...Will GOP Follow?

A few days ago, I said the most important thing Democrats could do right now is to demand President Bush revoke Karl Rove's security clearance, in light of revelations that Rove was involved in leaking sensitive information that compromised U.S. national security. And yesterday, House Democrats sent a letter to Bush demanding just that. Now today, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) is demanding to know whether the White House actually complied with previous executive orders that Bush himself signed about leaks. Meanwhile, Senate Democrats are stepping up with an amendment to the Homeland Security Appropriations bill that would force the White House to comply with Democrats' request to suspend Rove's security clearance. This critical vote is expected today.

Here is the text of the legislation, as forwarded to me by a source:

"No federal employee who discloses or has disclosed classified information, including the identity of a covert agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, to a person not authorized to receive such information shall be entitled to hold a security clearance for access to such information."

Based on Republicans past statements about their supposed disdain for national security leaks, this bill should pass the Senate easily. And it is a pretty fair request considering historical precedent in similar cases. That said, the GOP cares little about hypocrisy, so it may face a big fight. Keep your eye on the Senate today, on C-SPAN 2 or on the Senate's website where they post roll call votes. The vote on the amendment is expected today.

Will the GOP join Democrats in standing up to protect America's national security? Or will they permit our country's defenses to be weakened by allowing a national security threat to continue having access to the most sensitive material?

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Arnold Goes Out of His Way to Insult Workers

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) is an embarrasingly subpar actor and a tool of his big corporate backers - there's no surprise there. Still, it is a rare person who will actually go out of his way to insult ordinary working people just for the fun of it.

But that's what Schwarzenegger did today. While signing a massive, $117 billion budget, Schwarzenegger used his line-item veto power to eliminate $3.8 million for the University of California's Center for Labor Research and Education, a cut that will effectively cripple the program. That's right - out of all the programs in this massive budget, Schwarzenegger chose to eliminate a program smaller than the budget's rounding error just to stick it to unions.

Clearly, Schwarzenegger hates ordinary hardworking people. He's spent so much time at his ritzy Hollywood parties he thinks everyone lives the glamorous life, and likely looks down on people who have to get their hands dirty to make a living. Sooner or later, his arrogant out-of-touch attitude is going to catch up with him - and turn Governor Schwarzenegger into former Governor and once-again bad movie actor Arnold Schwarzenegger.

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Dean vs. Santorum Proves Media Bias

Last month when Howard Dean called the GOP a "pretty much a white Christian" party, the Beltway media went absolutely crazy. You couldn't turn on a television without hearing about it in some way, shape or form. Incredibly, though, the same can't be said for revelations that Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA) blamed the Catholic church's child molestation scandal on Massachusetts/Boston liberalism.

That's right, Santorum actually said "it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political, and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm." When Massachusetts Republican Gov. Mitt Romney said Santorum was out of line, Santorum's spokesman defended the comment by saying "It's an open secret that you have Harvard University and MIT that tend to tilt to the left in terms of academic biases."

This is sheer crazy talk from the #3 Republican in the U.S. Senate. And yet, beyond a few stories, it hasn't garnered nearly the same coverage as Dean's comments, which were, frankly, less inflammatory, and rooted in fact.

Don't blame the Democrats for not standing up and condemning Santorum. High-profile people like Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) have hammered Santorum very hard for his outrageous statement.

What we have here, however, is a media double standard. When a Democrat says something that pushes the envelope, it is a scandal. When a top Republican Senator makes an offensive statement worthy of an insane asylum patient, its barely news because the GOP is just expected to make crazy fringe comments like this. That's the media obstacle our side faces these days - and it is surely part of the reason why it is so difficult for Democrats to get their message out.

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Keep Your Eye On the Outfielders

When I was a kid growing up outside of Philadelphia, my family went to a lot of Phillies games in the summer. My dad always would remind me that when a batter hit a fly ball to the outfield, the best way to tell if it was going to be a homerun or not was not to watch the ball, but to watch the outfielders movement. If they start backtracking to the wall, it's going out; If they stand still or trot in, it 's going to be caught. In the Karl Rove/leak scandal, we have the same kind of accurate telltales.

In the game playing out in Washington, the outfielders are the Republicans on Capitol Hill. You can watch them to know just how politically dangerous this all is, and whether the candal will be the homerun for Democrats that it could be.

Most of the past controversies surrounding the Bush administration, have ended up like shallow pop outs. They came off the bat with a crack, but died in the air and nothing came of them. Republicans were quick to trot in and counterattack hard.

But as Americablog shows, the Rove/leak scandal looks different. Many of the most high-profile Republicans are keeping very quiet, figuratively sprinting back to the wall as this fly ball heads deeper and deeper into the outfield.

In the next few weeks, we'll see if this is just another fly out (albeit to the warning track), or whether it goes into the stands and Karl Rove gets pulled. Remember, though: keep your eye on the congressional Republicans because they are the best indicators of whether this thing is going to really break wide open.

P.S. Apologies for the bad metaphor, but sometimes its fun to excercise the creative part of the brain, even if it comes up with fairly cheesy comparisons.

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Top Dems Demand Termination of Rove's Security Clearance

Massachusetts Rep. John Tierney (D) just announced that all Democrats on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence today sent a letter to President Bush demanding that White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove's security clearance be revoked in the wake of revelations that he was involved in the leak of a covert CIA operative's name.

This is a major development - Democrats of all stripes on the committee are coming together to do what's right. And as I wrote yesterday, historical precedent shows that the absolute least the White House must do is make sure a security risk like Rove is not allowed access to anymore classified information. Let's see what President Bush's formal response to this letter will be.

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Why You Should Care About the Labor Movement

Big Business, the Republican Party and the corporate media all want you to believe that America's labor movement is only important to the 13 percent of workers who are actually in unions. It is a ploy to try to make you not care when they bash unions and limit union rights. The problem is, it is a lie - unions matter to everybody, whether you are in a union or not. Here's why.

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Rep. King: Credit Rove With 'Having Guts'; Shoot the Media

New York Rep. Peter King (R) is the latest example of how the modern-day Republican Paty is dominated by wild-eyed right-wing lunatics determined to hold onto power, no matter how indefensible their behavior is. On television and in newspapers, King is trying to make Karl Rove's treasonous leak of classified information into a positive for the White House, while once again resorting to making physically threatening statements about retribution.

As Atrios notes, on the right-wing cable show Scarborough Country, King said the media "who gave [Ambassador Joe Wilson] such a free ride...they're the ones to be shot." Right, we shouldn't thank Wilson for exposing the fact that the Iraq War, which has caused so many casualties, was based on lies. We should shoot reporters.

King went on to then say "maybe Karl Rove was not perfect [but] we live in an imperfect world, and I give him credit for having the guts." To out of touch hacks like King, people who sell out America's security, as long as they are Republican, should get "credit for having the guts" to compromise our national security as long as they are doing it to grind a political axe against somebody like Wilson who had the guts to tell the truth.

King followed up this disgusting screed with another one to the Washington Post. He told the paper that "Republicans should stop holding back and go on the offense: Fire enough bullets the other way until the Supreme Court [nomination] overtakes" the Rove story. Exactly: because there is absolutely no defense for Rove's behavior, Republicans are now admitting that all they can do is try to change the subject.

Let's not forget that all of these comments are once again laced with references to violence. That's a tactic the GOP has frighteningly resorted to more and more as its hold on power becomes increasingly tenuous.

E-mail or call Peter King - he's from the blue state of New York, and the blue region of Long Island. Tell this no-talent, no-principle, unpatriotic freakshow to shut his mouth unless he has something serious to say, and unless he is willing to stand up and say that compromising America's national security as Karl Rove did is unacceptable, no matter what party the perpetrator hails from.

Silent Now, GOP Used to Talk Tough on Leakers

With Republicans and the White House now refusing to answer questions about what should be done now that we know Karl Rove was involved in leaking classified information, it is instructive to go back and look at their previous ideas about how they claimed to despise national security leaks.

BUSH ADMINISTRATION SAYS IT WILL NOT TOLERATE LEAKS: "The president does have very deep concerns about anything that would be inappropriately leaked that could in any way endanger America's ability to gather intelligence information, and even that could harm our ability to maintain sources and methods and anything that could interfere with America's ability to fight the war on terrorism." - White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, 6/21/02

GEORGE H.W. BUSH CALLS LEAKERS 'TRAITORS': "I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the names of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors."
- President George H.W. Bush, 4/26/99

RUMSFELD SAYS THOSE WHO LEAK SHOULD BE JAILED: "[Leakers] are disgraceful. They're unprofessional. They're dangerous. They put people's lives at risk. I would also add that I think it's the obligation of people who find people leaking to tell responsible authorities because folks that do it and put people's lives at risk ought to be in jail." - Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 2/13/03

ASHCROFT SAYS LEAKS DAMAGE NATIONAL SECURITY: "Leaks of classified information do substantial damage to the security interests of the nation.” - Attorney General John Ashcroft, 12/14/01, upon creating a task force to investigate government leaks

One simple question: where are these tough talkers now when it comes to Karl Rove?

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GOP/Bush Back to Smearing Man Who Exposed Lies About the Iraq War

We've finally come full circle. The entire Karl Rove-CIA leak scandal started out as the White House's sick ploy to punish Ambassador Joseph Wilson for having the nerve to admit that the entire reason America went to war in Iraq - WMDs - was a flat out lie. Now - incredibly - though all of Wilson's assertions were true, and even after the GOP has tried to destroy his family by endangering his wife's undercover identity (and in the process, weakened America's natioanl security), the White House has come back to where it started: attacking Wilson.

As uncovered by Raw Story, the GOP is now handing out talking points on Capitol Hill urging Republican lawmakers to attack Wilson again as a way to distract from the fact that White House political guru Karl Rove compromised U.S. national security. Though the media would like you to believe a smear campaign is being run against Rove, the real smear campaign has always been run by Rove against one target: Joe Wilson and his family, all because Wilson had the guts to tell the truth about the lies that led us into war.

Contact your Senator or your House Member today and them today and tell them to stop attacking people who tell the truth about how this administration has led America into a disastrous war based on lies.

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CNN Claims Rove Is Victim of "Smear Campaign"

This is actually the most incredible thing I've yet to see in the ongoing Rove-Plame leak story. CNN's anchorperson Kyra Philips actually tried to make viewers feel bad for Rove, saying that there's "definitely a major smear campaign going on" against him. First of all, there is no "smear": we now factually know Rove was involved in compromising America's national security. But secondly, and even more ridiculously, CNN is actually trying to make viewers feel bad for Rove, even though he is the godfather of the modern-day political smear.

What's really going on here is fear: reporters are deathly afraid of challenging the White House, even in the face of evidence that top Bush operatives compromised America's security to grind a political axe.

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The Biggest Hack In American Journalism

Click here to meet, bar none, American journalism's biggest and most shamelessly partisan hack, who still insists on posing as an objective reporter.

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The Progressive Frontier

In These Times takes an in-depth look at how what's going on in Montana proves Democrats don't have to pretend to be Republicans in order to win - and that goes for Democrats even in the reddest of red states. Writer Matt Singer of Left in the West (who has guest blogged here) takes us on a tour of the 2004 campaign here, and outlines the lessons that Democrats everywhere can learn from the race. While Schweitzer, to be sure, is a dynamic candidate, he won the race on more than just his personal skills - he also had an important populist streak that helped him connect with voters that Democrats' faux "centrism" has alienated for far too long. Give it a read - it's a terrific piece.

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Precedent Shows Rove's Security Clearance Must Be Revoked

It is appalling that during an ongoing investigation, a White House adviser who has acknowledged helping leak classified information to the media still has access to the government's most secret information. That's right - Karl Rove still can peer into all the secret material he wants, maybe even to punish another honest opponent of the Bush administration. It's why critics are rightfully demanding that, short of firing Rove, President Bush must at least immediately revoke Rove's security clearance. And if the past is any guide, that request has historical precedent.

As a quick review of the last decade of news shows, the government has quickly revoked the security clearance of lower-profile figures that Rove when they have become embroiled in allegations of leaking or mishandling classified/sensitive material:

SECURITY CLEARANCE REVOKED FOR ALLEGATIONS OF PASSING CLASSIFIED INFO TO MEDIA: "Mr. Maloof's Pentagon career was damaged in December 2001, when his security clearances were revoked. He was accused of having unauthorized contact with a foreign national, a woman he had met while traveling in the Republic of Georgia and eventually married. Mr. Maloof said he complied with all requirements to disclose the relationship. Several intelligence professionals say he came under scrutiny because of suspicions that he had leaked classified information in the past to the news media..." [NY Times, 4/28/04]

SECURITY CLEARANCE REVOKED FOR REVEALING CIA SECRETS TO MEDIA: "Richard Nuccio, a former State Department specialist on Guatemala whose top-secret security clearance was revoked last year for allegedly exposing CIA secrets" to the New York Times. [AP, 3/20/97]

SECURITY CLEARANCE REVOKED FOR MISUSE OF SECRET INFO: "[Former CIA Director] Deutch's intelligence clearances were revoked last year because he had violated security rules by keeping classified information on computers at his house." [NY Times, 2/6/00]

These past examples were very serious matters. That's why the government moved to revoke security clearances - and that's why Rove's clearance also need to be revoked. Clearly, these past examples are in the same league of seriousness as a top White House official leaking classified information to the media and compromising national security in order to punish a political opponent. That's why the exact same response is warranted. No person - not even the President's top political guru - should be above the law, and above historical precedent in protecting America's national security.

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Unafraid to Ask the Tough Questions

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) is a lot of things - but shy isn't one of them. He's always willing to ask the tough questions - and today we see that gutsy attitude extends to national/homeland security.

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Karl Rove & The New Standard of Dishonesty

The revelation that Karl Rove helped compromise U.S. national security by potentially leaking the name of a CIA operative's identity raises a simple question: what, if anything, do you have to do to get fired by the Bush White House?

It seems there is no limit anymore to what abuses top government officials can engage in and still face no consequences. In fact, not only do they face no consequences, they get promoted. For instance, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice essentially perjured herself in front of the 9/11 Commission. Instead of being fired, she was promoted to Secretary of State. Similarly, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld lied to America by telling us "We know where [the WMDs] are - they're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." He was rewarded by being re-appointed Secretary of Defense.

Now, after selling out America's national security, Karl Rove got himself appointed White House Deputy Chief of Staff.

The only people who get fired, it seems, are people who actually tell the truth. When White House economic adviser Larry Lindsey said the Iraq War might cost $200 billion he was fired. Likewise, when Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill told the truth about the effects of the President's tax cuts, he also was fired.

Can you imagine it the other way around? Can you imagine how loud the demands for firing would have been had a Clinton cabinet secretary committed perjury on national security issues before Congress? Yes, you can - which shows the hypocrisy of the relative silence about this affair.

The Rove-Plame matter really highlights how the lasting legacy of this administration will be to create a new standard of government dishonesty where the public is trained to expect everything that comes from official government sources to be lies.

Think about it: A top White House aide still has access to classified information even while he is under investigation for using that access to get back at a political enemy and thus endanger U.S. national security. Meanwhile, the White House press machine has repeatedly lied about this aide's role, with impugnity.

In short, we have come to the bottom of a bottomless pit of deception, where there ceases to be any standard of truth, and where even the hardest of hard facts can be distorted. The lasting effect will be the true erosion of our government's credibility both with its own people, and the world.

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REPORT: Zell Miller PocketedTaxpayer Money

Georgia political analyst Bill Shipp reports that former Sen. Zell Miller - the guy who piously brags about his own integrity - essentially stole $80,000 from Georgia taxpayers upon leaving office when he was governor.

According to Shipp, who was quoting a WSB-TV investigation, Miller "pocketed more than $60,000 in taxpayer funds earmarked for entertainment and other expenses at the Governor's Mansion." Miller "also picked up a check for more than $20,000 for 'unused leave' - a sum to which he was not entitled as a constitutional officer."

Hilariously, Zell explained himself by "say[ing] that he was technically eligible to take the mansion money as his own because no one said he could not." Of course, "every other living governor from Jimmy Carter to Sonny Perdue told [WSB-TV] that they did not consider the mansion money theirs - and that they would not have taken it. The cash was meant for use at the mansion, not for lining the occupants' pockets, they said."

In some sense we shouldn't be surprised: the same man who lied about John Kerry has now been proven to essentially be a thief - not exactly shocking. But still, Zell's willingness to rip off his own state is really stunning.

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Don't Worry, He'll "Clear Things Up One Day"

In two sentences, the New York Times shows how right-wing uber-hack Bob Novak gets to play by a different set of rules that the rest of America has to play by.

Here are the two sentences:

"Mr. Novak, meanwhile, has appeared to be under no threat of jail, for reasons that are not clear. He has said he will be able to clear things up one day."

Under these rules, I guess next time I get a speeding ticket I can not pay it, not face any punishment for not paying it, and then just explain that I will "clear things up one day." Truly ridiculous. This guy compromised U.S. national security, and he's allowed to get away with it by saying he'll "clear things up one day." What a travesty.

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"Compassionate" Conservatism In Action

Want to see what "compassionate" conservatism looks like in action? Check out the proposed budget cuts Republicans are ramming through Congress these days.

ome of this stuff is wasteful, sure - but much of it is not. For instance, "compassionate" conservatives propose huge cuts to the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which helps people pay for heating during the winter. They are also proposing cuts to the COPS program, which puts more police on our streets. And they are proposing to slash rural health care, and the Community Access Program, which provides grants to clinics that serve uninsured Americans.

Remember, any argument that we "need" to cut these programs because we don't have enough money is a bunch of B.S. Why? Because these cuts are coming at exactly the same time Congress and President Bush say we have enough money to make tax cuts for the wealthy permanent and to permanently repeal the Estate Tax - a levy that falls primarily on the wealthiest 2 percent of America.

This is the real story of "compassionate" conservatism: compassion for the super wealthy who fund the GOP's political campaigns, harsh and destructive conservatism for everyone else.

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CAFTA Holdouts Threaten to Undermine Dems

The Chicago Tribune today notes that two key Democrats are threatening to vote for the corporate-written Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) - a move that would undermine Democrats' up-until-now strong efforts to make this what it really is: a referendum on whether our government is going to continue selling out American workers and workers in other countries in an economic race to the bottom.

It boggles the mind that Democrats, who say they want to re-connect with the working-class in "red" America, are still wavering on this. To be sure, Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has done a masterful job of whipping together both Democratic and Republican opposition to this awful trade pact. Even the New Democrat Coalition has announced its opposition to CAFTA. But lately, you never know how many Democrats are going to undermine their own party, just to kiss up to the corporate fat cats that run Washington.

This vote is going to be quite close, and any Democratic defections could destroy a successful opposition. Keep your eye on this one - it is going to be a landmark vote for Democrats that will show us whether the party is serious about standing up for America's middle class, or if it is still just interested in paying lip service and then stabbing the middle class in the back.

These wavering Democrats - and all lawmakers - need to know that we are watching them on this upcoming vote. Contact your representative in the U.S. House today and tell him/her to start standing up for ordinary Americans, stop kowtowing to corporate special interests, and vote down this trade pact that sells out our country.

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Big Business Prepares to Buy the Supreme Court

Another day, another couple of stories about how Big Business is preparing to buy the Supreme Court, just like it has bought Congress and the executive branch.

The Washington Post reports that "business advocates are raising millions of dollars, plotting major lobbying campaigns, and quietly working to influence the president" in his choice to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. They have "told the White House that they plan to bankroll large-scale efforts to promote the president's choice."

The campaign has been going on for some time: "For 2 1/2 years, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business association, has privately funneled to the White House staff in-depth analyses of decisions rendered by federal appeals court judges -- the most likely pool of high court candidates." Meanwhile, CNN reports that some pro-business groups have already identified two judges they would favor "because both were once private practitioners who represented business interests."

The Post identifies two key areas Corporate America is looking to dominate on the Supreme Court. First, Big Business wants to "limit the amount that victims can collect from companies beyond the actual cost of the harm inflicted by an accident." In other words, they want to eliminate punitive damages - the damages awarded beyond the scope of an injury designed to punish a company for negligence. These damages are often large in order to create a deterrent for the company in question - and all other companies - from ever again engaging in the negligence outlined in the case. Without punitive damages, companies can go and harm people and simply write off the smaller cost of pain/suffering damages to customers as a minor cost of doing business.

Second, Corporate America wants "to impose national, as opposed to state, standards on a number of regulatory and liability matters." That is, they want to eliminate state governments' ability to pass pro-environment, pro-consumer and pro-worker laws by getting the Supreme Court to preempting them with federal laws. This is consistent with the Bush administration's previous efforts to preempt state laws, even though the GOP claims to support "local control" and "states' rights." A Supreme Court that ran roughshod over state sovereignty would affect almost every aspect of Americans' economic life - and not in a good way.

As I have said before, this is where the fulcrum of the Supreme Court fight is going to be: in the smoky back room where Corporate America dominates the corrupt politicians and political operatives in Washington, D.C. Despite the media's constant focus on left vs. right, the fault line is most often between Big Business and the Rest of Us.

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Why Tough Questions Must Be Asked Right Now

After any terrorist attacks, the political/media Establishment now expects/accepts two things: Republicans immediately use the tragedy for their own political purposes, while Democrats refuse to ask the tough national security questions that America desperately needs asked. Sadly, that dynamic is happening again after the horrible attacks in London.

For an analysis of it all, read this article in the New York Times Week in Review, which uses a blog post I did on Friday to look at the situation. When you are done reading the Times piece, and if you have time, read my follow-up thoughts over at the Huffington Post about why this post-attack political dynamic further endangers the security of our country.

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Why America Needs Less Mindless Conformity

Answering the question "What do I want to do with my life?" is difficult for everyone, especially with the incredible pressure to conform in almost every walk of life.

Think about it for a second. If you are in Washington, D.C.'s Republican/Democratic Establishment circles, it is considered nothing short of disgusting or fringe to think we should, for instance, set an exit strategy in Iraq, or renegotiate the corporate-written "free" trade deals that are wreaking so much havoc on our middle class. If you are in business, you are considered weird for keeping in mind anything other than the bottom line, no matter what laws and ethics you have to break. If you are in media, you are considered a freak if you suggest reporting on serious issues instead of Michael Jackson, if you suggest putting on air anyone other than the same tired, old, out-of-touch Beltway pundits who regurgitate the same idiotic talking points. But as San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford tells us, conformity is exactly what the powers that be want - and is exactly what we shouldn't give them.

Morford is always an engaging writer - and this piece is nothing short of one of his best. As I take a break from finishing up my book and head to Flathead Lake this weekend, I suggest you read his piece in full. It really explores how the powerful cocktail party class that dominates so many aspects our daily lives shuns those who try to constructively challenge the status quo. Worse, this same powerful class has created a conventional wisdom among even us ordinary folk that questions those who challenge the status quo - even though many of those "challengers" are often trying to improve things for everyone.

In the movie "The Usual Suspects," Kevin Spacey says "the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist." Likewise, the greatest trick the insulated Establishment and Corporate America ever pulled was convicing ordinary Americans they can't change things, they can't make a difference, and they must become just another cog in a directionless corporate system that ignores anything other than the quest for profit and the desire to make more "things" (whatever they may be). It just isn't true - and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we will be on our way to really addressing the fundamental challenges facing this country.

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What "Tough On Crime" Really Means

When you see a story like this, you realize that when the average politician says they are "tough on crime," what they really mean is they are "tough on poor citizens who commit crimes" and "easy on corporations that commit crime."

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Nevada's Red-State Conservation Coalition

WesternDemocrat points progressives to the new Nevada Outdoor Democratic Caucus - a group of Nevada Democrats devoted to fighting back against the GOP's anti-hunting/fishing/outdoorsmen agenda. As I've noted, this is the kind Red State Conservation Coalition that we need to see more of throughout America - and it's a great that it is taking root in Nevada, and is being led by people like Sen. Harry Reid (D), who has already introduced strong pro-hunter legislation in Congress.

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GOP Cranks Up Fear-Mongering; Dems Cower

You knew it was coming, didn't you? That's right - within 24 hours, the right-wing spin machine is up and working to transform the tragic London bombing into a way to attack progressives as weak on terrorism. Sadly, it is a tactic that continues to emasculate many Democrats, who still can't seem to find the guts to stand up to this nonsense.

Exhibit A is this morning's Wall Street Journal opinion page - the place that essentially re-prints talking points from the Republican National Committee. There James Taranto says that "certain people don't remember" that "an attack on a much worse scale happened in the U.S. less than four years ago." Really, James? Who are those people? Are you speaking of people who have become senile in that time?

No, Taranto says it is people like Vermont's Independent Congressman Bernie Sanders (I) who passed bipartisan legislation reforming the Patriot Act. Taranto, of course, has no proof that the provisions being reformed under Sanders' bipartisan legislation would have had any preventive value in the recent attacks, or in future attacks. Nor does he even make the case that the specific reforms would weaken national security. But to a hack like Taranto, proof or facts are not important - what's important is once again impugning the patriotism and "strength" of progressives.

This has been much the same tactic used over the last few years - and we see just how effective that tactic has been in emasculating Democrats. Even before the attacks and the subsequent fear-mongering, Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D) published a letter to the editor in the Wall Street Journal this week claiming he is outraged about the right-wing's hyperbolic attacks on Democrats in this vein. Yet, he then goes on to actually BRAG that Democrats helped "provided more than $340 billion to fund the war" - as if the party should be proud to have helped waste that money on sending our troops to die fighting a war based on lies.

Emanuel goes on to say that "it is long past time for a candid discussion on Iraq." In that he is right. Yet, the fact that he is simultaneously bragging about his complicity in the war, means he is not willing to have a candid discussion about the subject himself. In fact, the headline of his letter includes the statement "We Support the Iraq War" - proof positive that many top Democrats are still so spineless and so frightened of the right-wing machine that they can't even stand up against this atrocity with public opinion polls at their backs, and with the Bush administration's own CIA director essentially admitting that the war has made America less safe.

And remember, this letter was published before the attacks, before the right-wing has intensified its rhetoric. After the attacks it was much of the same - few, if any, Democrats actually had the guts to say what is obvious: that the Bush administration's national security strategy is an incompetent failure. Instead, as the Baltimore Sun reported, "many of the same Democrats who excoriated Bush last week for tying the war in Iraq to Sept. 11 reacted to yesterday's events with expressions of strong support for fighting terrorism and solidarity with the president." And then Democrats wonder why the public thinks they are flip-floppers and stand for nothing.

So in light of all of this, I'm just going to tell it like it is, to both sides.

Here's a dose of truth for the Republican Party in Washington, D.C.: your war-mongering policies and devotion to creating a constant state of panic/fear in this country has made America less safe, especially in light of your negligence on homeland security. Your heated rhetoric that indicts the strength and patriotism of progressives is a sad attempt to cover up your own pathetic failures.

Now, here's a dose of truth for the insulated Democratic establishment in Washington - an establishment that continues to lose elections, yet, incredibly, refuses to change: if you continue to pathetically cower in the face of all of this; if you continue to ignore the courageous lawmakers in your ranks who know the party needs to stand up; if you continue to defend the Iraq War in light of public opposition to it, in light of proof that the Bush administration lied about it and in light of proof it made America less safe; and if you continue to have positively no courage of any convictions and positively no ability to give voice to the concerns of the majority of Americans, then you will unfortunately continue losing elections far into the future.

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Brit Hume Says He Wants to Profit Off Terrorist Attack

Fox News' top anchor man, Brit Hume, went on national television today to tell the world he wants to use the London terrorist attacks to make himself some money.

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Fox Cheers Terrorist Attack; Bush Can't Hide His Negligence

The reaction to the awful terrorist attacks in London by both Fox News and the President of the United States show just how pathetically inane and incompetent both of these tools of the right-wing machine have become.

Fox News actually appeared to cheer about the massacre, saying it "works to our advantage." Meanwhile, Stuart Varney - Fox's designated corporate hack and one of televisions true morons - seems to salivate that the attack will mean the end of discussion about things that makes Big Business uncomfortable. "It takes global warming off the front burner," Varney frothed. "It takes African aid off the front burner. It sticks terrorism and the fight on the war on terror, right up front all over again."

Meanwhile, President Bush has moved the terror warning system up to orange for the nation's transit system. That is obviously a prudent move, and politically, it is designed to make it seem like he is doing something to defend this country.

In fact though, while the alert level change is necessary, it makes him look like the exact opposite when you really look at the situation. He is changing a meaningless color chart in the wake of an attack instead of adequately funding transit security over the last few years as experts have requested. It shows just how incompetent and negligent they really are over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They think changing a color is "doing" something - when in fact they've ignored actually doing something real over the last few years. You can change the warning system to magenta and it wouldn't do a fraction of the good that actually putting real resources into transit security would.

If Bush was so committed to defending America, he would, for instance, back off his plans to eliminate the Estate Tax that falls on the top 2 percent of Americans in order to fund what's necessary to secure the nation's public transportation system. That is the true test of whether the talk-tough-on-terrorism Bush administration is more interested in protecting this country, or in enriching their campaign donors. I'm not holding my breath.

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Iraq, London & America's Homeland Insecurity

Ever since the media began admitting what we all knew was true – that the Bush administration lied about why we were going to war in Iraq – the White House has tried to repackage our Iraq operations as a way to prevent terrorism here at home. As President Bush said in October, "We are fighting these terrorists with our military in Afghanistan and Iraq and beyond so we do not have to face them in the streets of our own cities." Tragically, the terrible bombing in London shows we are now paying a horrible price for this silly, dangerous, short-sighted, and truly dishonest line of reasoning.

The idea that, because our troops are in Iraq, terrorists will only attack us there and not "in the streets of our own cities" is, first and foremost, an insult to our troops because it treats them as if their entire mission is to serve as bait for terrorists. That's not what our troops – or America – was told this was all about.

Secondly, are we really supposed to believe the same terrorists who masterminded the 9/11 attack can't walk and chew gum at the same time? I mean, maybe George W. Bush and the dolts around him are so intellectually impaired they can't do two things at once – but Al Qaeda sure can, and any sentiment to the contrary is idiotic.

But the fact that this line of reasoning insults our intelligence shouldn't be the biggest concern with it. The fact that this rationale has justified spending billions on a war in Iraq while shortchanging basic homeland security is what's really troubling. For years now, experts have begged the Bush administration to adequately fund key homeland security priorities - but they have been rejected at almost every turn.

Instea, the White House has knowingly left our ports, our borders and yes – our transit systems – totally vulnerable to terrorist attacks because they have refused to spend adequate resources, even as they have insisted on cutting taxes for the wealthy and plunging us into a war in Iraq. When Democrats have tried to reduce those tax cuts to pay for critical homeland security needs, they have been voted down. Meanwhile, GOP leaders in Congress have gone along: for instance, just a few weeks ago they gutted funding for transit security.

You can argue that London may not technically be "our own" city. But our special relationship with England means that, for a discussion of national security, it is for all intents and purposes.

And that's why today's tragic bombing frighteningly highlights just how misguided our entire national security strategy really is. First our government lied to us about why we were going to war in the first place. Then, when that dishonesty was exposed, we got fed another steaming pile of crap about how the war in Iraq was protecting us from terrorists because it was diverting terrorists' attention.

It is now painfully clear that those rationales were not designed to level with the American people – they were designed with one thing in mind: scaring us into supporting what should have been an unsupportable war, at the very time when we should have been focused on and scared about a far more serious challenge: securing the homeland after the worst terrorist attack in American history.

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How Congress Is Trying to Destroy Small Business

I've written before about how Democrats have an opportunity to make an issue out of defending small business interests in the face of Big Business interests. And if you read this New York Times piece today, you'll realize this small business/big business chasm doesn't only mean making an issue out of how Wal-Mart destroys local business.

As the Times reports, a study released today by the Kauffman Foundation found that "almost one in five Americans who filed for personal bankruptcy protection in recent years had operated businesses - small companies, home enterprises or start-ups - within two years of filing for bankruptcy." Here's the kicker: because many of them had incorrectly filled out their paperwork and because of a computer software oversight, the government mistakenly counted them as individuals, not businesses - and that means the entire public rationale that we were fed about the credit card industry-written Bankruptcy Bill is all but debunked.

You remember the arguments - bought-off Members of Congress of both parties kept telling us that we needed the Bankruptcy Bill to crackdown on what they portrayed as lazy deadbeats, even though the data showed that most people were forced to file for bankruptcy because of high medical bills, death in the family, job loss, or divorce. But as the Times reports, "instead of cracking down almost entirely on careless consumers who cannot pay credit card bills, the study indicates the legislation threatens to hobble untold numbers of entrepreneurs and small-business owners caught in financial setbacks." The bill could very well "have damaging ramifications for the nation's entrepreneurial culture."

So here we are, months after the passage corporate-written bill, and we finally see the real truth that most consumer groups warned about: Congress passed legislation to enrich its big-time credit card donors at the expense of everyone else. The only silver lining is that Democrats who courageously voted against the Bankruptcy Bill now have a chance to use their vote to make inroads with the small business community. The more our side exposes the GOP for their anti-small-business agenda, the better.

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Did Novak's Right-Wing Hackery Buy Him Freedom?

Though CNN keeps putting this traitor to country on air, Bob Novak still faces a simple question: has his longtime right-wing advocacy bought him freedom for his (and the White House's) unethical behavior, even while others go to jail?

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Challenging Corporate Ownership of the U.S. Senate

Looking across the political landscape over the next four years, there is a decent chance that Corporate America's ownership of the U.S. Senate may suddenly be challenged. Currently, there are only a very few Senators willing to stand up for the middle class in the U.S. Senate. But three key races could soon create a serious bloc of economic populists in Congress's most exclusive club.

As I've written about before, there is a solid chance to get Vermont's Independent Congressman Bernie Sanders into the U.S. Senate in 2006. A populist champion, he doesn't take corporate PAC money, and has been a voice against Corporate America's abuse of workers all over this country.

In Pennsylvania we could see the election of Bob Casey (D) to the Senate. Granted, his position on abortion is controversial. But this guy comes out of a blue collar, working-class tradition forged in Northeastern Pennsylvania. He has long been a critic of "free" trade deals like NAFTA, and a proponent of seriously improving workers wages - and he doesn't seem afraid to give voice to middle-class economic issues, even when the Big Business hacks don't like it.

And in Ohio, there's a chance that Ohio Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) will challenge incumbent Sen. Mike DeWine (R). Brown is currently the leading Democrat against CAFTA, corralling opposition to the Bush corporate trade agenda. He has also been an outspoken leader against the price gouging ways of the pharmaceutical industry. He is just the guy to notch a statewide win in Ohio, a place Democrats haven't had a top-tier statewide win in a long time.

Now imagine it is January 2007. Add these three economic progressives with the likes of Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold (D), Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy (D), North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan (D), California Sen. Barbara Boxer (D), Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D) and suddenly Democrats' weak-kneed corporatists have a serious challenge on their hands for control of the party's rhetorical direction. More importantly, ordinary Americans will have a solid voting bloc in the Senate who will stand up for their economic interests.

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GOP Senate Candidate Demands Lower Wages

Roll Call reports that the National Republican Party is recruiting Domino's Pizza CEO David Brandon as their candidate in the economically-hard-hit state of Michigan. The Wall Street Journal reported that after the 2004 election Brandon was the guy who said he is "counting on the president to counter any potential moves to increase the minimum wage" - even though the minimum wage is nearing a 50-year low in terms of purchasing power. Brandon, a longtime Republican donor, has many weapons at his disposal to make sure wages in his state stay low: Since 1998, Domino's has given the Republican Party more than $100,000 (see here and here for details).

And there is plenty of support among the Republican Party in Michigan to keep wages in their state low. The chairman of the Michigan GOP is Betsy Devos of the billionaire family that controls Amway. In 2004, she actually issued a press release claiming that "most of the economic problems in Michigan are a result of high wages." It was quite a thing to say to Michigan workers considering the Detroit News had reported one month before that "Michigan ranks dead last among the states and the District of Columbia in personal income growth since 2000."

But apparently for the GOP and its top-tier Senate candidates, wages in America need to be even lower than they are now, so that their corporate donors can buy their extra yachts. And what's interesting, is that there is now less and less of a distinction between GOP candidates and GOP donors - they are becoming one and the same. This year alone, two of their top-tier potential candidates are Brandon, and multi-millionaire Bentley-driving corporate executive Rich Tarrant in Vermont. With Senators like that, you can bet the GOP will get its way and fully eliminate the minimum wage for millions of workers.

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How Low Can They Go?

In the movie Grease, there is a great scene where everyone is dancing and a bandleader singing "How low can you go...how low can you go..." Sadly, this sounds like the appropriate themesong for congressional Democrats this week.

That's right, in the last week we have seen House Democrats criticize efforts to nail the GOP for being corrupt, and we now see Senate Democrats saying that Alberto Gonzales, the right-wing lunatic who authorized torture, is fit to be on the Supreme Court.

I consider myself a solid progressive who has worked my ass off over the years trying to help Democrats. That's why this is so troubling. I mean, seriously folks, what's next - a letter signed by all congressional Democrats endorsing Newt Gingrich for President in 2008?

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Exactly What's Wrong With Our Political System

Here is a quote that in one sentence describes what is wrong with America's political system today:

"[It is] bad policy because it...establishes that a state will dictate to businesses the type and level of health insurance they must provide for their employees."
- Maryland Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R) justifying his veto of a proposal to force Wal-Mart to provide bare minimum benefits to its workers.

That's right - in our bought-and-paid-for political system, the idea of making Corporate America fulfill any minimum responsibility to our country, such as making sure workers at the wealthiest company on earth aren't on welfare, is off the table. This, in a country that supposedly cherishes "family values."

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Wash Post: The Good, Bad & Ugly on CAFTA

The Washington Post fronts a story about the House wrangling over the Central American Free Trade Agreement(CAFTA) – and the piece offers us a smorgasbord of what's wrong with the Beltway culture.

First and foremost, we get the regular comments from faux "centrists" (aka. corporatists) who say voting against the agreement will hurt the party. For instance, former Christian Coalition official Marshall Wittmann, who now hilariously purports to speak for Democrats, says Democrats previously "used pro-trade positions to show moderate voters and business interests they are willing to stand up to their labor union backers..." There is no mention that those party leaders also helped undermine the party's ability to attract votes from working class districts - many of the same districts that have turned red over the last decade. And there is no mention that polls show Americans overwhelmingly want politicians to stop ramming corporate-written trade deals down our country's throat.

Then we get DLC CEO Al From, who – as usual – uses the most hyperbolically inflammatory and dishonest language possible to undermine Democrats (he has made a career in Washington's cocktail party circuit doing this kind of thing). He claims that being against corporate-written trade deals that sell out American workers will make "hard to assume national leadership" because it will mean Democrats have "a protectionist bent." That's his trick – anyone who opposes a trade deal because it includes no labor, human rights or environmental standards is "protectionist" – even though our country has already shown that you can actually craft trade deals with those provisions in them, if politicians decide not to just shill for Big Business.

We also get a fat juicy quote from former Democratic Rep. Dave McCurdy who says that voting against sellout trade deals somehow means Democrats are "retreat[ing] from global engagement." But we should expect that kind of hyperbole from a person who traded in his congressional career to go lobby for an industry trade group.

Finally, and possibly most disturbingly, the Washington Post makes almost no mention of why more and more Americans are opposing deals like CAFTA – namely, because these deals have resulted in massive outsourcing, a huge trade deficit, stagnating wages, and all sorts of other downward pressure on quality of life (aka. health care/pension benefits) for ordinary workers. It's the issue no one in the insulated Washington Establishment wants to talk about – because Washington is run by the Big Money that is reaped by these trade deals.

There is a silver-lining in this story that, granted, only gets a fleeting mention. But it is important: "House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) privately warned Democrats last month that a vote for CAFTA is a vote to stay in the minority." This is terrific – it shows that at least some top Democrats fundamentally understand how important it is for the party to reassert itself as the true party of the working/middle-class.

But it still is troubling that the mainstream media analyzes these important economic matters in the divorced-from-reality terms that Big Money interests like the DLC and corporate lobbying groups use. The real story is much more clear: both rank-and-file Democrats – and more and more Republicans – are hearing from ordinary people back home that they don't want America's economy sold out to the highest bidder. True, that might make bought-and-sold politicians uncomfortable. And yes, people who make their living in D.C. off of corporate funded think tanks/lobby shops may not like this. But the American heartland is not going to be fooled by their "free" malarkey any longer.

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The Case for a Western Democratic Primary

Few argue that the Democratic Party needs a shakeup - and former Montana House Speaker Dan Kemmis says there's no better idea than staging a Western Democratic presidential primary in 2008. It's time for some of the states in this region to play a pivotal role in shaping the party, and being a critical part of the presidential primary is just the trick.

Sure, this will threaten the consulting class in Washington that has made a career out of running the same tired campaigns in the same primary states. And sure, it might make the usual suspects who are mentioned as candidates in 2008 nervous - but that's the point. It's time for some new blood, and for some other states to make their mark on the Democratic Party.

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Santorum: Struggling Families Are Greedy

In his new book, Sen. Rick Santorum (R) essentially states that families who have two parents working are not struggling to make ends meet, they are instead just greedy.

Here is the excerpt:

"In far too many families with young children, both parents are working, when, if they really took an honest look at the budget, they might confess that both of them really don't need to, or at least may not need to work as much as they do... And for some parents, the purported need to provide things for their children simply provides a convenient rationalization for pursuing a gratifying career outside the home."

What's interesting is that while Santorum is essentially saying everyone is really wealthy and no one really needs to have a two-income family, he previously claimed that he was having trouble making due in his own one income family, even though that one income was $162,100 a year. He actually told the New York Times that "we live paycheck to paycheck, absolutely."

Now remember, Santorum has been in Washington hobnobbing with corporate lobbyists for a long time, and he now lives in the posh Northern Virginia suburbs - so his perspective is a bit skewed. He is totally out of touch with the economic realities facing millions of Americans, to the point where he has publicly said he supported "making people struggle" who were on welfare. Disgusting.

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House Dems Mum on Corruption?

There are some House Democrats who really understand what it is going to take to regain the majority. There are others, however, who don't.

The former are the lawmakers who know they need to make the GOP's corruption a major issue. The latter are those who want to shy away from talking about how our government has been overrun by Big Money interests. And unfortunately, these folks are trying to keep the Democratic Party quiet. The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports:

"Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean is trying to get voters to hold the Republican Party responsible for the 'culture of corruption' he sees in Washington, but Dean is getting virtually no help from fellow Democrats in the House of Representatives...House Democrats are victims of 'a kind of mindset that too often creeps in in Washington —to get along, go along,' Bell said in a telephone interview from his law office in Houston. 'There's not a more adversarial act you can take in the House than an ethics complaint, and some people just don't have the stomach for it.' Indeed, at the DNC's executive committee meeting in Washington in early June, Dean publicly acknowledged that some congressional Democrats had urged him to tone down his 'culture of corruption' rhetoric because they did not want to get caught up in the same ethics probe as [House Majority Leader Tom] DeLay..."

That this article shows just how pathetic some House Democrats really are goes without saying. How to change this attitude among Beltway Democrats and make them see that going after GOP corruption is a winning issue is much less evident: if they can't see it now - or are too afraid to see it - I'm not sure they will ever be able embrace the mantle of reform. I sure hope I am wrong.

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Iraq, Vietnam & the Insulated Elites Who Got/Kept Us There

The American Heritage Dictionary defines "insulated" as being "in a detached or isolated position." Sadly, that describes the state among both Republican and Democratic elitists in Washington, D.C. these days when it comes to Iraq.

As Chris Bowers expertly documents, polls show that Americans overwhelmingly want an exit strategy from Iraq that includes a withdrawal plan in the immediate future. Yet, a new poll of Beltway "insiders" who claim to represent Americans shows the exact opposite - these insulated operatives, who never have to face the battlefield consequences of thier policies, want to keep the war humming along as is.

Yes, there has been a vocal cadre of courageous lawmakers who oppose this Establishment pro-war consensus. But their efforts have been voted down at every turn. Meanwhile, Republicans attack as unpatriotic anyone who questions the war, and high-profile Democrats are, at best, able to muster muted criticism of the war's handling, but too gutless to really represent the desire for withdrawal that the majority of the country supports. These Democrats probably feel that if they voted for the war in the first place they can't be against it now - even though all they would have to say is the truth: they were lied to about why we were going to war in the first place.

This weekend, while taking a break from finishing up my book, I came upon the movie "The Fog of War" - it is a documentary interview of Vietnam-era Defense Secretary Robert McNamara. I didn't used to buy into the argument that Iraq was like Vietnam, but in watching this movie, I am not so sure anymore, both because of the worsening chaos there, and because of the similarities between the Vietnam-era political establishment and today's political establishment.

As the movie shows, Washington elites kept pushing the war on the grounds that we needed to create "Vietnamese freedom," in the words of Lyndon Johnson. Both political parties kept saying we couldn't withdraw for various manufactured political reasons - with almost no regard to the bloodshed and colossal misdirection the conflict was creating.

It is almost the same thing today. We have an entrenched class of Beltway elites in both parties who think they are the experts, and they therefore have every right to ignore the will of the people they are supposed to be representing, even if it means higher and higher casualties. I'm not sure how much worse things in Iraq need to become to wake these politicians up - but I do believe politicians' fundamental arrogance in ignoring the public's will in such a life-and-death situation is sowing the seeds of cynicism about our political system for years to come.

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Santorum Wants to Raise Retirement Age to Over 70

If you needed more proof that Sen. Rick Santorum (R) is the most radical extremist Senator in recent history, see this video.

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Progressives Profiled

In a page one story, the San Francisco Chronicle profiles the recharged Congressional Progressive Caucus. The article goes over the group's ups and downs - and how it plans to reassert its power within the House Democratic caucus. Check it out.

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The Growing Awareness of Economic Alternatives

At certain points in history, ordinary people have stood up to economically powerful and said enough is enough, we want a share in the wealth. Those moments are certainly rare - but they have happened. And today, we may be quietly heading toward one of those points on energy policy.

The New York Times reports that more and more oil-rich countries are demanding that private energy companies start forking over a share of the profits they are making off of natural oil deposits. The logic makes sense - those oil resources are the collective property of these nations, and therefore, at least some of the profits those resources create should go to helping the population.

This is not an isolated phenomenon happening only outside the United States. As noted on this blog, communities all over America are starting to press for publicly-owned power, so that energy companies are not allowed to gouge citizens.

Meanwhile, in Wyoming, the state has built up a massive budget surplus largely through taxes on mineral extraction, proving this isn't just something that's happening in "liberal" places. There, Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D) is sounding much of the same themes as have been heard in Latin America (though clearly in a different style). His point is simple: the surpluses should be used to help the working poor.

To be sure, in places like Venezuela this phenomenon has been coupled with authoritarianism - and that's not a good development. But it doesn't negate the fact that it seems people are slowly waking up to the fact that there are alternatives to having most of the population locked out of the profits that are derived from what should be public resources. And while there is a ways to go, and a huge amount of oil money that will fight this kind of movement, this awakening is a very, very good thing indeed.

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Novak's Colleague Demands Answers of Novak

Carol Marin is one of right-wing hack Bob Novak's fellow columnists at the Chicago Sun-Times. Today, she asks some questions that deserve an answer.

"I just can't figure it out. Why in the world is New York Times reporter Judith Miller headed to jail next week while my Sun-Times colleague Robert Novak is not? Why is a reporter who has written not one single word about a CIA operative about to be sent to the federal slammer while another reporter, the one who actually broke the story, isn't in similar trouble?...

"It was Novak who then wrote a column citing 'two senior administration officials' who cast doubt on Wilson's mission. They told Novak it was Wilson's wife, a CIA operative named Valerie Plame...Who were those 'two senior administration officials' and what business did they have outing a supposedly 'covert' CIA operative?...For 41 years, Novak built his career and reputation by asking the toughest of questions. Now, the tables turned, he refuses to answer them."

Bob Novak compromised U.S. national security - he needs to give us an answer as to why he did what he did. He also to tell us who in the Bush administration helped him so that we can rid the top reaches of government of people who are putting America's security at risk.

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Fed's Identity Theft Cop Gets Identity Stolen

AP reports that "the Federal Trade Commission helps millions of consumers each year battle identity theft" but "now the woman who runs the agency, Deborah Platt Majoras, finds herself a potential victim" after her credit card information was stolen at a shoe store. If she is forced into bankruptcy because of the theft, she can take up her plight with her fellow Republicans - they voted to make sure the credit card companies can still gouge you, even if you are forced into bankruptcy because of identity theft.

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Fighting Back Against the Energy Profiteers

It is no secret that Montana Power Company used GOP-backed deregulation legislation to rip off thousands of average citizens in Big Sky country. And what you learn quickly when in this state is that people here never forget when they are wronged. That's why the Wall Street Journal now reports that five Montana cities have come together in an effort to buy Northwestern Energy Corp.'s energy-delivery business and "reassert local control of Montana's biggest utility." If successful, "Montana Public Power would become the largest customer-owned utility, by geography, created in many decades." (If you don't have a WSJ subscription, see this AP story).

If ever there was a perfect example of the grit and determination of this hard-scrabble state to not get kicked around anymore by Corporate America, this is it. The move epitomizes a can-do spirit in this state - and a commitment to protect ordinary citizens from greedy companies that try to bleed them dry. And it has worked elsewhere.

Consider Los Angeles during the energy crisis. While the federal government let the state be devoured by the sharks at Enron, L.A. was able to fight off the profiteers because its power system was publicly-owned. That's the story we don't hear much about - because it threatens Big Business's ability to rip off ordinary Americans. It's time more states and localities fight back.

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LA Times on Big Business's Supreme Court Campaign

As a follow-up to my post yesterday, make sure to read this Los Angeles Times piece about how the corporate cabal that runs Washington is plotting to throw everything it can at the fight over the Supreme Court vacancy. One Chamber of Commerce official says they are working "to make sure that every part of the center-right coalition is correctly focused on why this [judicial confirmation battle] is important." He said "The same judge who will make Pastor Jones happy will make the Chamber of Commerce happy."

Here are some more key excerpts:

"[Anti-tax hack] Grover Norquist is urging executives and owners to recognize that socially conservative judges are likely to be pro-business overall...[The head of the National Association of Manufacturers] Engler has said he would like to see the Business Industry Political Action Committee, an organization created decades ago by the manufacturers' association and other groups to mobilize the grass-roots, engaged in federal judicial confirmations...

"BIPAC could quickly gear up to launch an educational campaign on a Bush nominee, provided that member companies agreed to the idea and were willing to fund the effort...he Chamber has forwarded to the White House its review of federal judges from each circuit, with ratings of each judge based on rulings that concern business...At both the Chamber and National Assn. of Manufacturers offices, officials said the decision [to campaign for a nominee] would be based on a candidate's overall fitness for the job. However, a candidate's past position on issues such as labor law, punitive damages, tort reform and regulation also would be reviewed."

This is going to be a nauseating fight - Corporate America sees its chance to finally fully take over our government. Will we let them?

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Comments Now At Working Assets

Reader comments on my writings/screeds are now going to be housed full-time at Working Assets. So if you want to sound off, head over there and just hit "discuss" on any entry...

Strengthening the Red-State Conservation Coalition

The Billings Gazette last week had a short piece about how Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) has been using his office to strengthen hunting/fishing access laws in Montana. I call this the Red-State Conservation Coalition - it is a way to bridge a gap between environmentalists (who demographically lean left) and outdoorsmen (who demographically lean a little right) - and unify them to fight for a common agenda.

Schweitzer has a lot to be proud of - he coaxed the Montana legislature into strengthening the state's conservation laws. For instance, he signed a bill "which made permanent the state's Habitat Montana program" - a program that "uses about $4 million a year to work with landowners to conserve game habitat on private land, including purchasing conservation easements."

He also signed a bill that "made permanent the state's Block Management program" which "pays landowners to allow public hunters on their land." And he signed a bill that "preserved the state's Fishing Access Enhancement Program" which "pays landowners for letting public anglers access state waters through private lands."

Finally, he signed a bill that "clarifies that counties cannot abandon a roadway or bridge that allows access to public land or waters unless they replace it with another access site that's just as good." The goal is to make sure hunters/anglers still can get to the places they recreate.

The best part of the story came when the Gazette noted that Schweitzer had held a press conference about the issue "dressed in fishing waders" just before he "planned on going fly fishing on the Missouri River near Helena after work."

This is the kind of progressive populism we need to see more of from Democrats. For more on this subject, see my earlier piece "Green + Red = Blue" in In These Times magazine. Also click here to watch an ad (in Quicktime format only) Schweitzer put on the air all over Montana during his campaign in which he talked specifically about these important conservation/outdoors issues - he is living up to his campaign promises.

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Help Stop the GOP From Buying A Senate Race

In what will likely be one of the most critical U.S. Senate races in the nation, the national Republican Party announced today that it has recruited one of the wealthiest people in Vermont to run for the seat being vacated by Sen. Jim Jeffords (I) in 2006. The Rutland Herald reports that corporate executive Richard Tarrant (R) has announced he will run for the seat, potentially pitting him against Vermont's Independent Congressman Bernie Sanders (if Tarrant wins the primary). According to Vermont's Dwinell Political Report, Tarrant "has let it be known that he will personally spend $5 million to buy the seat."

The contrast couldn't be more clear: Tarrant drives around Vermont in a $150,000 Bentley, and was a board member at Fletcher Allen (one of Vermont's biggest hospitals) when the executives he was overseeing started committing very serious crimes. Sanders, meanwhile, comes from a very modest background, prides himself on connecting with ordinary citizens through town meetings, and led the fight against Fletcher Allen's abuses.

Tarrant's annoucement came on the same day as the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor - which highlights just how important this race will be. Tarrant will undoubtedly toe the GOP line if he is elected to the Senate, helping confirm fringe-right-wing judges on the Supreme Court that could outlaw abortion, and roll back much of the social progress of the last 50 years. Sanders, on the other hand, has built up a strong record of effectively fighting the right-wing - in recent weeks, despite presidential veto threats, he authored and passed critical progressive legislation that stands up to conservatives.

Interestingly, Tarrant's own campaign treasurer admits that the GOPer will have trouble being so closely affiliated with George W. Bush and Republicans in Washington. "I don't think anyone who is closely associated with the Bush administration is going to win in Vermont," he said. But that is not going to stop him from trying to buy the election.

All of this means Sanders is going to need our help, especially because he refuses to take corporate PAC money. He is going to be relying on small contributions from ordinary people like us. So head over to www.bernie.org and make a donation if you can. It doesn't have to be big (although that would be nice) - Bernie has relied on small contributions of $25, $50 and $100 his entire career.

If you want to read more about Sanders, see this backgrounder. You'll quickly realize this is a guy who fights for ordinary people, which is quite real in Washington, D.C. Let's make sure the GOP isn't allowed to buy this seat, and let's send a real progressive to the U.S. Senate.

Sometimes We All Need Some Inspiration

With the Bush administration in power, it really can feel like there is no possible way for a government to actually represent ordinary people's interests, and not just the interests of Big Business. But at least one country is proving that's not true. For some inspiration, check out this story. Sure, the move is by no means perfect. But it at least shows that it is possible for a democratically-elected government to actually stand up for its people against the destructive greed of big corporations. It just takes some guts and some leadership - qualities that the insulated Beltway Establishment has been lacking for way too long.

UPDATE: If you are gullible enough to believe the pathetic spin that drug companies need to price gouge in order to make enough for R&D, consider two simple facts: the American government (aka. you the taxpayer) currently funds at least one third of all R&D for the drug companies, and drug companies spend far more on advertising and "administration" (aka. executives' salaries) than they do on R&D. In short, that means most of those exorbitant prices are not going to fund life saving research - it is going to pad the drug industry's bottom line.

Blog Comments Moving...

In the next week or so, the comments feature of the blog are going to be moved over to my Working Assets site. The comments feature on the Working Assets site are already up and running - so go over and check it out. In the next few days, the comments feature on this site will vanish - and commenting will be over at Working Assets full time.

VOTE ALERT: GOP Supports Government Lying

This is a new low: in a narrow vote, House Republicans voted down an amendment that would explicitly bar the federal government from lying to Congress. Nine Republicans and all Democrats voted for the measure - but the GOP leadership made sure that there were enough GOP votes to defeat the measure.

This legislation is certainly necessary considering the Bush administration's penchant for hiding information, and providing documents to Congress that are deliberately dishonest.

If you don't believe that this was all that the legislation in question would do, see the text of the bill for yourself:

Amendment to H.R. 3058, as Reported
Offered by Mr. Obey of Wisconsin

At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following:

SEC. ____. None of the funds made available in this Act may be used in contravention of that portion of OMB Circular No. A-11, section 22.2, entitled "Congressional testimony and communications" that states that in testimony before Congressional committees and communication with Members of Congress, witnesses will give frank and complete answers to all questions.

Apparently, the GOP is not interesated in ensuring that the Bush administration is allowed to break the law that prevents them from lying to Congress. See how your Member of Congress voted here.

A Pool Cue in Corporate America's Pocket

I wrote a little more at the Huffington Post about how aroused and excited Corporate America is at the prospect of putting one of their own on the Supreme Court. Check it out.

Karl Rove's Supreme Court Strategy

With Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's resignation today, I have a prediction: O'Connor and Chief Justice William Rehnquist will both retire...Karl Rove will have Bush put up one crazy, wild-eyed conservative lunatic in the John Ashcroft mold, and one hard-right winger who seems "moderate" compared to the crazy...the lunatic goes down to defeat, but the hard-right winger gets through, and Bush replaces the lunatic with another hard-right winger as a "compromise."

If just O'Connor retires, it will be much the same strategy - first nominate a wild-eyed lunatic. It's a win-win for Bush - either the lunatic gets appointed, or the lunatic loses, and then Bush puts up someone a shade less crazy - but equally as conservative - as the "compromise." The media will play along with this storyline, billing the second nominee as "moderate."

The entire effort will be backed up with a huge amount of corporate money. As the Wall Street Journal recently reported, Big Business has already announced its intention to push hard for an ultraconservative nominee, as the Court has increasingly weighed in on corporate issues. For instance, as the newspaper notes, "now for the first time, the National Association of Manufacturers, which represents big corporations, is creating a committee of executives to screen the business rulings of prospective nominees."

All of this will put massive pressure on the Senate to ultimately confirm a right-winger. Let's hope Democrats are ready for this two-step.