WSJ Offers More Proof Of Real Motives in UAE Port Scandal

A Wall Street Journal story confirms what I've written about the UAE port scandal: that it has everything to do with Big Money's efforts to prioritize the free trade agenda over national security concerns.

Here is the excerpt from the print edition (some of the excerpt is only in print and not online):

"Behind the scenes, business lobbyists are pushing for a compromise to resolve the Duvai deal without reopening the legislation that governs foreign takeovers at a moment when the issue is so hot politically...A number of lawmakers, among them Senate Banking Chairman Richard Shelby (R., Ala.), have called for the committee [that approves such deals] to operate with more transparency, and some have urged that the law be changed to allow Congress to override any deal. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business interests, backed by the administration, oppose such changes, arguing they could harm the climate for foreign investment in the U.S. and disrupt U.S. companies' ability to invest overseas."

Luckily, Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has already released details of legislation that he is going to be introducing that would force national security concerns to take precedent in trade and commerce negotiations. Incredibly, though, even the Bush administration's top national secuirty officials are toeing the corporate line. Here's White House National Secuirty Adviser Stephen Hadley quoted in the Wall Street Journal piece:

"What the Congress and the companies are able to work out, we'll support and cooperate with so long as it does not involve a summary decision by the Congress that blocks this transaction."

This is the second Bush security official to publicly prioritize the corporate agenda over national security (the first one being Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff). And their message is disgusitng: The supposedly "tough on terrorism" White House will only support Congressional national secuirty legislation as long as it doesn't mess with the administration's corporate agenda.

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Pundits Unite to Regurgitate Corporate Talking Points

As expected, the highest echelons of the punditocracy are uniting to try to distract us from focusing on the real issues in the UAE port security scandal. Here's what I mean.

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Schweitzer on CBS's 60 Minutes This Sunday

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) is being profiled on CBS's 60 Minutes this Sunday about his work pushing innovative energy solutions for America. Check your local listings to find out when the piece will air where you are. And go check out this preview of the piece.

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CQ: Senate Challengers Put Free Trade On Trial in 2006 Campaign

Check out this CQ Weekly column about how "free" trade is going to takevcenter stage as a political issue in the battle for control of the U.S. Senate in 2006. Both parties don't want to talk about the trade issue - but challenger candidates in the heartland are forcing the issue to the forefront, using a populist message to take on pro-free-trade incumbents. The result in 2006 will be not only heightened public consciousness about how free trade policies have sold America out, but a potential shift in the free trade balance of power in the Senate that could finally force a much-needed change in America's economic policy.

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Brown Becomes First Lawmaker to Tie Port Scandal to Free Trade

Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) became the first Member of Congress to publicly tie the Dubai port security scandal to America's corporate-written free trade policy. Not surprisingly, Establishment spokesmen like Tom Friedman are desperately trying to distract attention from free trade's centrality in this scandal. But thanks to Brown and his new legislation, Congress is going to have to deal with the issue - whether it wants to or not.

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NEW: Free-Trading Away America's Security

The San Francisco Chronicle published an op-ed of mine today that explores the free trade/corporate motivations behind the president's behavior in the port security controversy. Check it out.

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GAO Said Profit Motive Was Impeding National Security

The New York Times today points out that government investigators basically reported in September what I have been saying is at the heart of the current UAE port security scandal: the profit motive.

Here is the excerpt:

"In September, the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress, said the Treasury Department, as head of the interagency committee that reviews such deals, had used an overly narrow definition of national security threats because it wanted to encourage foreign investment...The report by the General Accountability Office in September included sharp criticism of the review process carried out by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, the committee created in 1975 to review foreign investments that could affect national security. The report said the committee, under the Clinton and Bush administrations, had often construed national security too narrowly, looking only at such factors as the control over technology exports, classified contracts and specific derogatory information about a company."

So there it is - corporate profits are more important to the political establishment than national security.

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State Tax Codes & Low-Income Families

See the details of a new report that shows how 19 states' tax codes persecute poor working families.

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Why Sunlight Was Necessary To Improve National Security

Posting will be light today and tomorrow as I will be traveling on business, but I wanted to point out an important story in Businessweek. Progressives have long been savaged for their attempts to reform intelligence and defense spending, and force a debate on those issues in general. One specific vote that has come up before and now come up recently was a proposal in the 1990s to declassify some of our intelligence spending. Some progressives voted for it - and have been attacked for it. But after reading the Businessweek piece, it becomes clear they were very right to try to expose some of the flagrant abuse that happens in those bills that are crafted in secret.

The piece details some of the abusive earmarks now-convicted Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) was able to put into the secret intelligence budget. It goes on to note that:

"The top-secret 'black' annex to the annual intelligence-spending bill is kept in a secure room. Only a few staffers are allowed to work on it. Even the members of Congress who vote it into law aren't allowed to read the bill unless they are deemed to have a "need to know," a status limited to a few dozen who oversee the Pentagon and spy agencies. Legislators with access to the classified portion of the bill can earmark spending for favored projects and technologies, say multiple sources. 'These guys can basically give money to whomever their heart desires, and we have no idea who's getting the money,' says Keith Ashdown, vice-president of the conservative watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense...In the hush-hush intelligence world, unearthing earmarks is all but impossible. But classified pork 'is just as wrong as any other earmark,' says Sen. John McCain (R-AZ). 'In fact, it deserves extra scrutiny now because Duke Cunningham was able to perpetrate some of his egregious crimes through exactly that vehicle.'"

That's exactly right - and the courageous lawmakers who were trying to get some sunlight into the process were trying to prevent exactly these kinds of abuses that were diverting money from critical intelligence priorities and putting it into pork.

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Getting to the Bottom of the UAE Port Scandal

A very nice reader of this blog taped the MSNBC interview I did tonight and posted it here. It was a pretty cool interview, I thought. Olbermann really was interested in the actual economic motives behind this scandal. I made a mistake towards the end (I meant to say relative to the rest of the world, our country doesn't do much trade with the Middle Eastern world - somehow I dropped the word "Middle East" and just said "world"). But all in all, I'm really happy to see that at least some media outlets are trying to dig deeper into this.

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Talking "Free" Trade & the UAE Port Scandal Tonight on MSNBC

I have been invited to be a guest on MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann tonight between 8pm and 8:15pm EST (6-6:15 pm Montana time) to discuss the UAE port scandal and the free trade motives behind the President's behavior. I'll be beamed in live from Helena, so if you have time, check it out.


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Corruption Digest - February 22, 2006

As my new book Hostile Takeover prepares to be released in the Spring, here is your February 22, 2006 briefing on how America's political system is being sold to the highest bidders. To sign up to receive the Corruption Digest in your email box, just go to www.davidsirota.com and enter your email address on the righthand side.

BREAKING NEWS
In a major new report released today, House Democrats meticulously explore how congressional corruption is costing average Americans living outside the beltway bubble. The report is entitled "America for Sale: The Cost of Republican Corruption" and was released by Rep. Louise Slaugher (D-NY). You can download it here.

CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION - BOTH PARTIES
A new report from Public Citizen shows that "the handful of representatives whose votes led to the narrow passage of the controversial Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) last year have since received a total of $2.8 million in corporate campaign cash." The massive payoff was clearly a major factor in the trade pact's pay-to-play passage...Knight Ridder explores how the lobbying and political world often meet through family and marriage connections...

CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION - REPUBLICANS
The Hill Newspaper reports that Ohio Republican Sen. George Voinovich "is warming to Democratic-backed proposals for public financing of federal elections." The article, however, goes on to state that passage of such a proposal in this Congress is still unlikely, in part, because (shocker) "the lobbying industry has not given its blessing to the marriage of campaign-finance and lobbying provisions." In a flagrant act of hypocrisy, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) - who had formerly bragged about supporting public financing - publicly said he is now against the proposal as he moves farther and farther to the right in his bid for the presidency in 2008...The New York Times reports that Sen. Arlen Specter (R-PA) is on the defensive, denying any wrongdoing "after the disclosure that clients of a lobbyist married to the [Specter's] staff member had received money through the senator's actions."

STATE CORRUPTION
The Idaho Statesman reports that Idaho House Speaker Bruce Newcomb (R) introduced bipartisan legislation designed to crackdown on lobbying abuses...The Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that Georgia Rep. Earl Ehrhart (R) is pushing legislation to intensify predatory lending by some of his biggest campaign contributors.

THE CORRUPTION INDUSTRY
The Washington Post reports that despite the high-profile corruption scandals, "the return on investment in lobbying is often so substantial that experts and insiders agree that Washington's influence industry will continue to thrive no matter how lawmakers decide to rein it in." The Post was backed up by a story in Roll Call that noted "despite stormy times for the Washington, D.C., lobbying industry, the top firms in town are reporting steady growth for 2005." Specifically, "the top 25 firms collected $397.9 million in lobbying revenues — a $36 million jump from the fees reported by the 25 largest shops the previous year" and "an 8 percent climb from 2004 to 2005."

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Bush Can't Hide True Motives Behind UAE Port Security Scandal

Try as it might, the media/political Establishment can't help itself from admitting that corporate interests are at the heart of the UAE port security scandal. You don't even have to read between the lines to see this is the case - it's now coming all out into the open. Here's what I mean.

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Red State Conservative Joins Anti-Corruption Efforts

Idaho House Speaker Bruce Newcomb (R) has joined the push to crackdown on lobbying abuses. Check out the details here.

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The Dirty Little Secret Behind the UAE Port Security Flap

Politicians and the media are loudly decrying the Bush administration's proposal to turn over port security to a firm owned by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - a country with ties to terrorists. They are talking tough about national security - but almost no one is talking about what may have fueled the administration's decision to push forward with this deal: the desire to move forward Big Money's "free" trade agenda.

How much does "free" trade have to do with this? How about a lot. The Bush administration is in the middle of a two-year push to ink a corporate-backed "free" trade accord with the UAE. At the end of 2004, in fact, it was Bush Trade Representative Robert Zoellick who proudly boasted of his trip to the UAE to begin negotiating the trade accord. Rejecting this port security deal might have set back that trade pact. Accepting the port security deal - regardless of the security consequences - likely greases the wheels for the pact. That's probably why instead of backing off the deal, President Bush - supposedly Mr. Tough on National Secuirty - took the extraordinary step of threatening to use the first veto of his entire presidency to protect the UAE's interests. Because he knows protecting those interetsts - regardless of the security implications for America - is integral to the "free" trade agenda all of his corporate supporters are demanding.

The Inter Press Service highlights exactly what's at stake, quoting a conservative activists who admits that this is all about trade:

"The United States' trade relationship with the UAE is the third largest in the Middle East, after Israel and Saudi Arabia. The two nations are engaged in bilateral free talks that would liberalise trade between the two countries and would, in theory at least, allow companies to own and operate businesses in both nations. 'There are legitimate security questions to be asked but it would be a mistake and really an insult to one of our leading trading partners in that region to reject this commercial transaction out of hand,' said Daniel T. Griswold, who directs the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based libertarian think tank."

Look, we've seen this before. Just last year, Congress approved a U.S. taxpayer-funded loan by the Bush administration to a British company to help build nuclear technology in Communist China. Despite major security concerns raised - and a legislative effort to block the loan - Congress's "free traders" (many of whom talk so tough on security) made sure the loan went through so as to preserve the U.S.-China free trade relationship that is allowing lawmakers' corporate campaign contributors export so many U.S. jobs.

There is no better proof that our government takes its orders from corporate interests than these kinds of moves. That's what this UAE deal is all about - the mixture of the right-wing's goal of privatizing all government services (even post 9/11 port security!) with the political Establishment's desire to make sure Tom-Friedman-style "free" trade orthodoxy supercedes everything. This is where the culture of corruption meets national security policy - and, more specifically, where the unbridled corruption of on-the-take politicians are weakening America's security.

The fact that no politicians and almost no media wants to even explore this simple fact is telling. Here we have a major U.S. security scandal with the same country we are SIMULTANEOUSLY negotiating a free trade pact with, and no one in Washington is saying a thing. The silence tells you all you need to know about a political/media establishment that is so totally owned by Big Money interests they won't even talk about what's potentially at the heart of a burgeoning national security scandal.

Dems' Strong Moves on National Security Undermined By D.C. Elites

Yesterday, I explored how some Democrats are helping Karl Rove push the GOP's dishonest narrative about Democrats and national security. It was a depressing exploration, to be sure, especially considering the poll data that shows the public would be receptive to an alternative foreign policy that contrasts sharply with the neoconservative orthodoxy that has severely weakened our country's security. And today we see the follow up - Democrats are finally making some encouraging moves, and yet the D.C. Democratic Insiders Club is doing everything they can to undermine that progress.

In two stories, we see the Party try to move forward on national security in a serious way, and then in one other story, we see how the Washington, D.C. Establishment is trying to undermine those steps. This is the progressive vs. insulated insider fissure that is ripping the party apart - and it's now on full display.

First the good news. Today's Boston Globe reports that the Democratic Party is considering formally adopting former Reagan Assistant Defense Secretary Larry Korb's proposal to set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq. I have written about this proposal before, urging Democrats to embrace it. And it seems like the party may be on its way to doing that. Such a move would be a major step towards putting Iraq front and center in the political debate - exactly where it should be, considering it is the most pressing national security issue of the day.

The second piece of good news comes from the Toledo Blade. The newspaper's piece today is a follow up to the Blade's story yesterday about Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) being attacked for voting to reform America's intelligence apparatus in the 1990s. The original piece regurgitated the GOP's crass effort to convince the public to believe that those who voted to reform intelligence/defense spending in the 1990s basically are responsible for America being hit by terrorists on 9/11. As I noted yesterday, the storyline itself is filled with hypocrisy and inconsistency. In fact, those who voted to reform America's intelligence and defense apparatus before 9/11 were the visionaries trying to fix the clearly broken system before we got hit.

And we see in today's Toledo Blade that Brown is not just going to sit there and take the attacks on his national security votes - he's actually articulating how his position is the position to be proud of, and how those who didn't try to reform the broken system in the 1990s are the ones who have questions to answer.

"We wanted more oversight of what was happening," Brown said. "Intelligence gathering, they had a lot of money and were not using it well. And clearly in 9/11, the Bush Administration had intelligence they didn't use. We needed internal reforms in intelligence gathering...When they go after me on defense and intelligence and all that, I'm going right back at them. These guys are failing at [national security] every day. They're not going to get away with saying we're soft, because we're not."

That's exactly the way to turn the debate around - and it should be a model for other candidates. You don't wait for your opponents to hit you and then respond by pretending you didn't actually do what you did. You go right back at them, show how what you did was the right thing to do, and indict your opponents for not doing the same thing. This is especially simple on national security, where the images of fiery chaos in Iraq juxtaposed next to a taunting Osama bin Laden on the evening news keeps reinforcing that the GOP has weakened this country's national security.

Unfortunately - but not surprisingly - the professional election losers in Washington are still out there desperate to undermine the party on national security. This group of insulated foreign policy elites and so-called "strategists," sitting in the comfortable confines of their suites in Washington, are the ones who have pushed Democrats to obediently support the bomb-em-all-to-hell neoconservatism that has endangered America (they are partially described in Ari Berman's article entitled "The Strategic Class").

We see this strategic class rear its head in today's Roll Call newspaper, in yet another story where Democrats go to the newspapers to discuss their supposed "strategy" (question: how "strategic" for Democratic "strategists" to keep pitching stories to newspapers about Democrats lacing their decisions on national security with political considerations?). The story notes one Democratic aide saying "What’s going on is there’s a realization in the leadership of the party that there needs to be a focus on national security." That's terrific. But then the story notes that "sources say Democratic leaders know they will never find a singular Iraq policy around which to rally and campaign" and then - pathetically - that these sources claim that the party can win elections merely by "promoting strong military and security initiatives separate from, but not exclusive of, the war in Iraq."

This is even more pathetic than Rep. Rahm Emanuel's (D) past comments that Democrats will only have a position on Iraq "at the right time." Beltway Democrats finally know they need to make national security central to their 2006 campaign, but actually think they can do that without frontally addressing Iraq, the most pressing national security issue of our generation. How out of touch can you be?

There's more:

"'There’s been a strategic decision,' said a senior Congressional Democratic source. 'There will not be a unified position on Iraq...There’s a recognition, pragmatically, that [a unified stand on Iraq] ain’t there, it hasn’t been there, and isn’t going to be there.'...Another Democratic leadership source said individual Democrats will continue to talk about their own stance on Iraq, but 'we are not going to make a party position' on the war."

So there you have it folks. Iraq is clearly one of President Bush's biggest liabilities - but only if Democrats have the guts to take a serious position and make that serious position the official position of the party (and not just the position of individual - albeit courageous - lawmakers). The Boston Globe piece indicates that parts of the party may be starting to understand the need to do this, the Toledo Blade piece shows us an example of a candidate successfully redefining the national security debate in one of the most important swing states in America. And the Roll Call piece shows us that the insulated Democratic Insiders Club, wholly out of touch with reality, is out bragging to newspapers that they have made a "strategic" decision not to have a position on war, yet thinks they can still make national security a major focus of their election campaign. They are doing this even as polls have long shown the public is upset about the direction of the war, even as momentum builds to force the party to take a clear position, and even as courageous candidates are out there at the grassroots level trying to redefine the national security debate.

Who will win out in this contest? It's a good question - but you can bet on one thing: if those out there fighting the real, on-the-ground political battles by taking a strong position on Iraq and national security do not win and do not force the party to get serious, then 2006 is going to be another depressing election season. That may not make any difference to the comfortable-in-the-minority operatives in Washington, or to the consulting class of professional election losers, but it will mean another two years of arch-conservative domination in America; another two years of a misguided war enflaming anti-American passions throughout the world; another two years of putting our troops needlessly at risk; and another two years of policies that are weakening America's national security.

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PLAN Launches Website/Blog, Issues Major New Report

The Progressive Legislative Action Network (PLAN) today formally launched its official website and its new blog, and issued its first major report that entitled "The Battle for America's States." The report is also in article form on the cover of this month's In These Times magazine. Click here to sign up for PLAN's new email newsletter, the Stateside Dispatch, designed to keep legislators and citizens informed on what's going on in state legislatures. This is an exciting day for progressives - we are taking a major step in building the infrastructure necessary to start taking back our states.

Just in case you need proof that the right-wing is waging a vicious war in the states every single day, you need look no further than today's Atlanta Journal Constitution. The paper reports that on the heels of Congress passing the credit card industry-written bankruptcy bill, Georgia's "House Rules Chairman Earl Ehrhart (R-Powder Springs), the recipient of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the title lender who is pushing the new proposal, is offering changes that would lift the interest cap on loans backed by car titles, according to lawyers, lawmakers and consumer advocates who have reviewed the legislation." The legislation was formulated by Ehart with the specific help of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) – in fact it is modeled off an ALEC model bill. Georgia's automobile title lending law — "already among the least consumer-friendly in the nation — could become even harsher under an industry-backed proposal being considered by the General Assembly, consumer advocates say."

This is exactly the kind of challenge progressives face today in the states - an aggressive, well-organized, corporate-backed machine designed to use state policy to enrich Big Money interests. That's what PLAN is going to be fighting against, while putting forward a positive, progressive agenda of our own. It's time to start winning the battle for America's states.

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Santorum Nailed for Shady Financial Dealings

Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News opens up a whole can of whoop-ass on Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), exposing little Ricky as the unethical fraud we always knew he was. Check it out.

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Carbon Monoxide In America's Steaks

Having just read Fast Food Nation on my vacation, I found this Washington Post story to be both not surprising and nauseating at the same time.

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Who Is Really "Weak" On National Security?

Karl Rove has made no secret of his desire to try to ramrod the 2006 elections into a debate over who is "tough" on national security. And it seems more and more Democrats are frightened to actually have the debate. Oh sure, these Democrats wouldn't tell you that - in fact, many are posturing as tough guys even as they cower in fear of Rove. A few weeks back, it was Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN), self-servingly reinforcing Rove's dishonest storyline of Democrats as "afraid" (read: weak) on national security. And now today in the Toledo Blade, it's failed Ohio Senate candidate Paul Hackett's campaign.

Yes, you read that correctly. A week after Hackett got out of the race, Hackett's campaign - now in the process of closing down - leaked all of its "opposition research" on Rep. Sherrod Brown (D) to the Toledo Blade - opposition research that regurgitates the same Karl-Rove-esque "weak on national security" lies that have eroded Democrats' image over the years.

Clearly, the Hackett campaign's move is disgusting on many levels. First and foremost, is the sheer pathetic, sore-loserish quality of it. A week ago, it was Hackett who appeared on Air America radio saying: "I’d rather see Sherrod Brown as my next Senator [than Republican Mike DeWine]…Why do I want to hurt him if we can get him elected...I’m proud to say that I’m a team player...Everybody who is upset about this, get over it now and let’s work hard to get Democrats on the ticket elected." Now, this "team player" is out spreading dishonest GOP propaganda. Classy.

But the shameless disloyalty of Hackett's campaign isn't really what's interesting. The broader attempt by the right to create a storyline about "weakness" and "strength" on national security is. So let's just look at the Toledo Blade story and what it represents at a deeper level. Hackett's campaign tries to attack Brown for voting against the Patriot Act - even though polls show the public has serious reservations about the law, and want it to be changed (see question 19 of this USA Today/CNN poll from last month for reference).

But beyond the hyperbole on the Patriot Act - which lawmakers in both parties have now raised objections to - is the more pressing attack on Brown's votes to slightly reduce spending for intelligence in the 1990s. Like an obedient appendage of Rove's smear machine, Hackett's campaign says the votes essentially mean Brown is "weak" on national security. But let's just think about how truly ridiculous that line of reasoning is. The intelligence bills passed, the funding went through, and we still got hit on 9/11, even though we had overt warnings.

That makes something very clear: our intelligence apparatus in the 1990s was focused on outdated Cold War priorities - not on the new threats to America. Brown's votes were a courageous attempt to force reform - instead of simply throwing more money at an outdated apparatus that ultimately failed us on 9/11 because it hadn't been reformed earlier. If anyone is "weak" on national security, it is the people who blindly voted for these bills - not those who tried to force a debate that may have sharpened our intelligence system's focus on the real threats to America BEFORE they materialized.

Fortunately, the American public - who clearly wants its security protected - seems to innately understand that the national security spending decisions by the establishment need re-focusing. Take a look at the University of Maryland's poll from a year ago:

"A majority rejects the idea that net increases in the defense budget as a whole are necessary to fight terrorism...When presented most of the major items in the discretionary federal budget and given the opportunity to modify it, Americans make some dramatic changes. The largest cut by far is to defense spending, which is reduced by nearly one-third ($133 billion), followed by spending on Iraq and Afghanistan."

In other words, Americans don't buy the Rove-Hackett storyline. They get that the defense/intelligence budget has, for years, been increasingly corrupted by bought-off politicians who have used it to enrich their defense industry campaign contributors. You have to look no further than the shenanigans of Reps. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) or Jerry Lewis (R-CA) on the Defense Appropriations Committee to know why Americans see the truth on this. In fact, it was none other than Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who tacitly acknowledged this reality when he recently advocated for military "transformation" - a program that included major defense spending cuts to outdated weapons systems that contractors were getting fat off of, but that weren't targeted to the War on Terror. And throughout the 1980s it was Dick Cheney who pushed repeatedly to cut defense spending, again citing the wastefulness of outdated programs. These two are clearly "weak" on national security because of their decisions to send us into a war that diverted resources from pursuing the perpetrators of 9/11 - but they are not "weak" on national security because of their previous (and now abandoned) efforts to refocus national security spending.

In a previous post, I wrote about how this country desperately needs to have the debate over national security spending that Brown clearly supported in voting the way he did in the 1990s. As former Reagan Assistant Secretary of Defense Larry Korb recently noted:

"Over $40 billion in savings from wasteful Pentagon programs could be achieved quickly – by cutting only the most egregious examples of misplaced priorities. These programs include the F-22 Raptor fighter jet and Virginia Class submarines, designed to achieve superiority over Soviet jets and submarines that were never built; missile defense, proposed when terrorists were not our primary enemy; bases in Asia, Europe and here at home that are irrelevant in today's geopolitical reality."

Sherrod Brown and the courageous lawmakers who voted with him in the 1990s were trying to bring this debate to the forefront. And had they been successful in forcing reform, our defenses against the real terrorist threats may have been stronger when we were ultimately attacked. This is why, instead of running scared from Rove like Evan Bayh, or reinforcing Rove's talking points as Hackett did, Democrats must go right at the Republicans on this issue. They must forcefully remind the public that progressives were trying to reform and refocus national security spending on the real threats to America in the lead up to 9/11, and that they are continuing to try to reform and refocus that spending today.

The public would clearly be receptive to this message. Americans are waiting for party to articulate this reality - they know that our national security resources aren't being spent properly. Whether we are diverting resources from the War on Terror in Iraq, or outsourcing port security to firms owned by countries with connections to terrorists - Americans see what's going on. And they are sick of dishonest opportunists like Rove using the veil of "national security" as a way to perpetuate budget policies that have weakened U.S. national security by blindly handing over billions of dollars to defense contractor campaign donors, regardless of whether those contracts will actually protect America against the threats we now face.

After DUIs, Should We Really "Presume" Cheney "Doesn't Drink?"

On NBC's Meet the Press today, Cheney advisor Mary Matalin claimed that the public should be "presuming what we all know, that [Cheney] doesn’t drink." I don't think we should presume that about anyone who has already admitted to drinking before the hunting accident in question. But I especially don't think we should simply "presume that [Cheney] doesn't drink" when what we do know is that Cheney has been convicted twice of drinking and driving.

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The Stealth Agenda of Earmark "Reformers"

PBS Now this week had a long piece on Congress's pork barrel spending habits. The piece attacked the rise of congressional "earmarks" under Republican control of Congress, quoting self-righteous lawmakers like Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) offering their moral indignation at earmarks. Strangely, however, no one really explained what the alternative to congressional earmarking is. And that's not by accident.

Think about what a congressional earmark is: it's a line in a big spending bill, inserted by a member of Congress, to direct federal funds to a specific project. If you outlaw earmarking, as many of these earmark "reformers" like Coburn seem to desire, you delegate the responsibility of directing that spending to the executive branch. And that begs the question: why is it better for unelected appointees in the executive branch to decide how federal money is spend than having your elected officials decide? It isn't - and that's the part of the story that's not being discussed. Earmark "reform," if done overzealously, is just one huge power grab by the executive branch over the last true power that Congress still retains: the power of the purse.

A Boston Globe article from 2005 gives us a frightening glimpse of what such a power grab might mean in the future. Usurping Congress's power of the purse would give presidents - especially aggressively partisan ones like George W. Bush - even more ability than described by this article to target federal funds on the basis of their political ambitions.

To be sure, it is no surprise that the Republican Party is trying to further strengthen executive power in all arenas. Such a power grab both improves the GOP's ability to use public policy for their partisan goals right now, and more broadly, centralizing power in the execuive branch is inherently less (small "d") democratic by virtue of the fact that it is a branch run by appointees, and not elected officials. We can see this in the GOP's recent efforts to politicize foreign aid, in its defense of the President's illegal wiretapping program, in its quest for a new Patriot Act, in its penchant for secrecy, and now, in its backdoor attempt to usurp Congress's power of the purse through earmarking "reform" (a topic that also, not coincidentally, distracts from the bigger problem of a campaign finance system that encourages pay-to-play shenanigans).

It is true, the rise of earmarking is a problem, and has fueled some of the corruption scandals as lobbyists use campaign cash to essentially buy earmarks from corrupt lawmakers. But the question should not be whether to ban earmarking or not - it should be how to make sure earmarking doesn't get out of control. Because again, the question of earmarking is really a question of who should get to decide how federal money is spent - Congress, or unelected appointees in the executive branch? There's a lot of talk in the PBS piece about the supposed outrage that congressional spending bills allocate money to different lawmakers, who get to direct that spending within their district. But there's no discussion of why that is so bad? Why, for instance, should we trust a bureaucrat - or worse, a political operative - at the transportation department to know what a congressional district's transportation needs are and not the elected Congressman who is supposed to be an expert on the needs of his/her district?

You might say that well, a lawmaker is going to direct that spending with their own partisan political agenda. And you are absolutely right - but again, why is a lawmakers' partisan political agenda any better or worse than the executive branch's? Because if you think the executive branch won't use earmarking "reform" to politicize spending on its own, then I have some real estate to sell you...

Solving the earmarking problem is indeed difficult, but not impossible. We have to explore what really is at the heart of the problem, and then go after the specifics. Having worked on the Appropriations Committee, I'll try to explain what I think are the two main problems, and offer some solutions:

- The spenders are also the directors: The first key problem in today's system is that the lawmakers directing the money through earmarking are also often the lawmakers deciding the overall spending levels. That means currently, the rise of earmarking naturally leads to an unbridled and intensified pressure to spend more taxpayer dollars. It would be one thing if the size of overall pots of money were set by one group of lawmakers, and another group of lawmakers got to decide the specific projects that money could be spent on. And remember, that's technically how it is supposed to work in Congress - there are authorizing committees that set the maximum amounts allowable to spend on given programs, and then there is the appropriations committee that actually decides how federal dollars are spent on a year-by-year basis. But the process has broken down, and "unauthorized" spending now regularly happens to the tune of billions of dollars. As just one example, this 1998 report by the Congressional Budget Office showed $25 billion in unauthorized spending in NASA and the Justice Department alone. Thus, setting new rules to make the authorization and appropriations process actually work would be a solid step.

- No disclosure allows abuse: In the PBS piece, some lawmakers do hit on an important point: many congressional earmarks - and especially some of the most egregious ones - are inserted into bills at the very last minute, with no disclosure of which Member of Congress authored them. Thus, we need new rules that would force the public disclosure of earmark authors and that would force Congress to provide enough time for the public (and other lawmakers) to read these massive bills. That would go a long way to creating some accountability, and bringing the system back under control. Lawmakers would be less likely to try to sneak in the most wasteful pork or most narrowly targeted special interest provisions if they knew their names would be publicly attached to it. Similarly, budget hawks in Congress would have a new tool to force a debate on egregious earmarks, and try to eliminate them through amendments (which, even in the dictatorial House, are still allowed on appropriations bills). That would be a lot more accountability than simply handing over all spending control to the executive branch, which already tries to hide many of its key spending decisions.

Remember - I am not defending the current abuse of earmarking in general, nor am I endorsing the specific - and truly ridiculous - "bridge to nowhere" projects that have come from earmarking. I've seen up close the abuse of this system when I worked on the Appropriations Committee and there is absolutely no doubt that the system that is supposed to provide some checks on earmarking has clearly broken down, and needs a fix.

But we shouldn't let the out of control abuse of earmarking by the GOP to become an excuse to pursue a truly dangerous goal of handing over more power to the executive branch. We cannot forget that earmarking as a concept is both value neutral and inherently political. The term is really just a euphemism for "deciding how money is spent." Making those decisions is why we have a government, and because our government is elected through a political process, those decisions are going to have politics surrounding them. The question is whether you have congressional earmarking whereby elected officials get to decide how money is spent, or you have executive branch earmarking whereby unelected appointees get to decide how money is spent? There is going to be politicization in both - the question is who should be vested with that political power?

As a small "d" democrat, I (like the Founding Fathers who gave Congress the power of the purse) would prefer elected officials to choose, especially if we can fix the system in pretty straightforward ways previously mentioned. Put those earmark reforms with a publicly financed system of elections that controls the pay-to-play nature of congressional politics these days, and we will have gone a long way to cleaning up Washington.

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Ohio's Largest Paper Tells the Real Story About Hackett

With the Paul Hackett story all over the blogs this week, I wanted to point out this story from the Cleveland Plain Dealer. It is a full post-mortem on Hackett's failed candidacy for U.S. Senate, and the piece confirms what I've written about this over the last few days. The story makes clear what should be obvious: Hackett was not "forced out" - he was outworked and outorganized by a better, harder working, more progressive candidate, Sherrod Brown. Hackett thought he should be able to walk to the nomination and not have to do the grueling, unglamorous work that it takes to be a candidate in a major statewide race - and when he found out that it wasn't going to be a cakewalk for him, he bailed.

Here are some key excerpts:

"Former Hackett aides say the biggest problem facing his campaign at the end was insufficient money. Hackett cited the problem himself in an interview with The Plain Dealer earlier this week. Despite his initial rant on party leaders, he said, the overriding reason for his exit was a realization that he couldn't raise the $3 million he thought he needed to win the primary...One of [the Hackett campaign's] biggest obstacles to banking that money, they said, was that Hackett hated fund raising. While most candidates share that feeling, people familiar with Hackett's campaign say he was especially resistant to efforts by aides to get him to use one of the most efficient but unpleasant fund raising techniques: sitting at the phone for hours, calling friends, relatives, and strangers to ask for money. Tension over the problem led in January to the departure of his finance director...Hackett, who prized his independent streak and proudly called it a family trait - he voted twice for Ross Perot for president and championed gun rights as well as gay rights - also chafed at having his schedule set by aides. On the weekend before he bowed out, aides say, he stunned his staff by refusing at the last minute to attend certain events - including appearances at several black churches - that had apparently been put on his schedule over his objections."

In other words, this had nothing to do with Hackett being "forced out" and everything to do with him not wanting to work. The piece also quotes former consultants to the Hackett campaign who tell it like it is:

"It's a very hard thing to make the jump to running for U.S. Senate," said Mark Blumenthal, a pollster who worked for Hackett's campaign. "There's a reason why people who have done it a lot of times are better at it - because you learn the hard way how hard is it to raise that money and how important it is to have experienced people around and to trust them."

Chris Cooper, a direct mail consultant who worked for Hackett's campaign, said he too has little doubt that internal pressures played a role.

"I thought and I still think that Paul Hackett had the right message at the right place at the right time. I looked at him as 180 pounds of pure potential," said Cooper. "But the reality of running a statewide campaign in a state like Ohio didn't quite match up to the potential because it's . . . a much bigger, more complicated affair."

Cooper really had it right - Hackett had a lot of potential that could have been maximized in a different, smaller race. I wrote that previously and hope at some point he loses the sour grapes attitude and gets back into politics. Because it really is a disappointment to see a guy with obviously natural talent leave politics altogether. It's a waste. But as Ohio's Mansfield Journal noted in an editorial, successful politics requires a lot more than just talent - it requires a persistence and tenacity that Sherrod Brown has shown throughout his career, and which Hackett just did not display in this campaign:

"Paul Hackett, the rookie Democratic politician from Cincinnati who dropped out of the U.S. Senate race earlier this week, would do well to read the works of Irish-American journalist Finley Peter Dunne. If he did, perhaps Hackett would stop sounding like a whiner. In 1895, Chicago pub owner Martin Dooley, one of Dunne's literary creations, said, 'Polytics ain't bean bag. 'Tis a man's game; and women an' childer, and prohybitionists'd do well to stay out iv it.'...It came as no surprise to anyone paying attention to politics that support for Brown among party leaders would far outweigh support for Hackett. Brown is considered much more electable. Period. That's the goal of politics -- winning. When Hackett dropped from the race he complained with some immature bitterness that the pressure from party leaders had injured his fund-raising efforts and forced him out. But Hackett's own polls showed him trailing Brown by almost a 2-to-1 margin among Ohio Democrats. It should have been clear even to him that the party to which he often voices his loyalty is better served with Brown on the ballot...Now is the time for Hackett to stop complaining, throw his support to Brown and do all he can to help the Democrats defeat DeWine in November. Along the way, Hackett should look for new political opportunities of his own...And when he does, he would be well served to remember Dunne's words. Politics ain't bean bag. It's a contact sport that can only be played successfully one way - to win."

That's exactly what I've been saying - and if Hackett decides to abandon his sour grapes martyr routine and get back into politics at some point, he better learn these lessons, or he'll face a similar fate. As for the upcoming Senate race, after reading the Plain Dealer article, and after knowing what we all know about Sherrod Brown's stellar progressive record, it becomes very clear that Brown is the better nominee.

That Sound You Hear Is Joe Lieberman's Bowels Releasing

A new poll shows that Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) is in big trouble for his reelection in the Democratic primary in Connecticut. After you check out that poll, go read Matt Stoller's piece about Lieberman's primary challenger, Ned Lamont. It's getting interesting.

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New Fed Chair Smacks Right-Wing on Minimum Wage

Conservatives have long claimed that having a minimum wage supposedly reduces employment. They argue this even though statistics have long shown that's simply not true. And this week, under intense questioning, new Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke admitted that conservatives are lying.

That's right, in his testimony to the House Financial Services Committee, Bernanke had an exchange with Independent Congressman Bernie Sanders (VT) where he admitted as much. Here's the exchange:


SANDERS: Chairman Bernanke, should the Congress raise the minimum wage so that every worker in America who works 40 hours a week escapes from poverty? A very simple question, sir.

BERNANKE: I'm going to be an economist and give you the one hand, the other hand. On the minimum wage, it's actually a very controversial issue among economists. Clearly, if you raise the minimum wage, then those workers who retain their jobs will get higher income and therefore it helps them. The concerns that some economists have raised about the minimum wage are first, is it as well targeted as it could be? That is, how much of the increase is going to the teenage children of suburban families, for example? And secondly, does it have any employment effects? That is, do higher wages lower employment of low-wage workers?

SANDERS: And your response is?

BERNANKE: My response is that I think it doesn't lower employment.

So there we have it folks - a conservative Republican Federal Reserve Chairman, nominated by a conservative Republican president, acknowledges that the right-wing's rhetoric about minimum wage is a lie. Enough said.

Fox News Says Oil Profiteers Are Being Persecuted

Sometimes Fox News can't hide its total disdain for ordinary Americans and their basic economic concerns. One of those times was yesterday, when Fox's Neil Cavuto actually claimed the oil companies who are making record profits off high energy prices are being persecuted.

"The oil companies need no lobby," Cavuto said. "Sometimes I just wonder if they need something else: a fair shake."

Right, Neil. Because ExxonMobil making more money than any corporation in U.S. history is proof that oil companies aren't getting "a fair shake."

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The Questions That No One Wants to Ask

It strikes me that as all the whining and crying by supporters of Paul Hackett continues, there are a few questions that no one is asking - likely because no one wants to face the hard truth. So I'm just going to ask them.

So let's say it actually is true that Sens. Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer called a couple of big donors to tell them not to give any more money to Hackett and instead give money to Brown. Remember, they have denied doing that - but let's just take Hackett's conspiracy theory as fact for a moment. Here's a question: if Hackett was such a strong candidate building such a national movement with such devoted supporters as he purports - why would those donors listen?

I mean, come on folks - the idea that these Senators have that much control is terribly naive, especially at a time when most people admit that one of the big problems plaguing the party is not enough unity. Sure, they might have some sway - but again, if Hackett was such a strong candidate with such a fervent national following as people purport - why would those donors listen to a call from Schumer or Reid? The answer, as anyone who has ever worked in the political fundraising world, is that they wouldn't listen. And that means what really happened was Hackett didn't have the fundraising base he would need to begin with.

Second question: if people are angry about there now not being a primary, and thus voters aren't going to make the decision between Hackett and Brown, why are people upset with everyone other than Paul Hackett for that reality? Last I checked, he was the one who decided not to take the question to voters. So if people are going to be mad at anyone about the "let the people decide" issue, shouldn't they be mad at Hackett?

What I find particularly disgusting about all of the attention Hackett's decision got is the utter lack of issues being discussed. Its just disgustingly pathetic. There is no discussion of the two candidates' differing positions on Iraq, no discussion of the candidates records on issues that would be voted on in Congress - nothing. It's all horse race crap - and it is a sad, sad commentary that such a loud part of the supposedly progressive "base" is so comfortable following cults of personality, and appearing not even interested in the actual issues. For me, that's what this has always been about - issues. Here we have an extremely rare chance to put a proven progressive champion into U.S. Senate - Sherrod Brown, a guy who has championed the progressive agenda in Congress for years. And yet here we have many people in the blogosphere - people who purport to be part of a progressive base - simply uninterested in that. It is, in a word, pathetic.

Here's the cold, hard truth: Paul Hackett was going to get crushed by Sherrod Brown. Paul Hackett's internal polls showed Paul Hackett that right before Paul Hacket decided to leave the race.

Those poll numbers were not surprising - Sherrod Brown has been a progressive champion building grassroots support around Ohio for years, while Paul Hackett had been on the political stage for less than a year. That doesn't mean Paul Hackett isn't a good guy, with a lot of potential - it's just political reality.

Paul Hackett saw those poll numbers, didn't want to get embarrassed on election day, and bailed out. People shouldn't be bitter about that, and they shouldn't be sore losers. And Hackett supporters fueling a false media story about Democratic leaders "forcing out" Hackett do nothing but undermine a good, solid progressive who is still in this race against Mike DeWine.

Paul Hackett got beat, and he got beat badly by a better candidate and a more proven progressive who had far stronger statewide support and appeal. You can cry, whine, and make up conspiracy theories all you like. You can throw a temper tantrum, stomping your feet, screaming that "it's unfair!" It's a claim I used to make when I was 12 years old playing Nintendo against my brothers and they would beat me. I would claim the game was "unfair" - when in fact it wasn't - I just lost.

I sincerely wish Paul Hackett had decided not to get out of politics altogether so quickly - I honestly thought he had more mettle than that. I thought he would lose the primary, and then go on to run again. But he didn't and that's really sad. The the facts about why he decided to get out are the facts. They are reality. And you either come back to reality and we win this Senate seat, or you continue living in a fantasy world of your own creation.

Matt Brown, Rhode Island's Progressive Reformer

A while back, I wrote about how Rhode Island Secretary of State Matt Brown (D), now running for Senate, was one of the courageous leaders willing to put the Iraq War at the center of his campaign. And since I wrote that, I've been watching Brown, and looking at his record. It's very clear this is a guy who is a real progressive reformer in a state that has been at times plagued by insiderism and corruption.

Brown has been an outsider/reformer since he ran for Secretary of State. And his courage shows in his most high profile efforts to rein in the power of lobbyists in Rhode Island. In 2004, he took the bold move of publishing the names of lobbyists who were refusing to file their proper disclosure reforms, prompting anger from lobbyists and the establishment. At the end of that year, the Associated Press reported that Brown introduced legislation "to require lobbyists to disclose any money spent on politicians throughout the year, and, for the first time, to report campaign contributions."

Brown is clearly not the establishment candidate in the Democratic primary to take on GOP Sen. Lincoln Chafee - Sheldon Whitehouse is. However, Brown has pulled ahead of his opponent after Whitehouse said he supported an exit strategy from Iraq, but then refused to sign a petition supporting such an exit strategy.

Let's be clear - I don't know much about Whitehouse, so I don't want to disparage him. For all I know, he might end up being a very good nominee. But there's something very striking about Matt Brown that you can see in his record and when he talks to people: its a willingness to take on the establishment and reject the seemingly "politically safe" conventional wisdom. He's done this in concrete ways - and not just bloviated about it like other candidates with higher profiles across the country. And that has built serious momentum behind his candidacy, showing once again that progressive politics can be winning politics.

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Did Bush Deliberately Give Cheney the Power to Leak the CIA Operative's Name?

That is the question, because if you read this story and this story, it appears possible that President Bush deliberately gave the power to declassify information to Vice President Cheney so that Cheney could legally orchestrate the leak of CIA operative Valerie Wilson's name. Stay tuned...

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Corporate Execs Step Up War on Shareholders

When economist Jeff Faux writes about the Party of Davos in his new book "The Global Class War" he is truly describing a war. And it isn't just a conventional war between management and workers. It is a war where executives are also targeting shareholders - that is to say, corporate management is trying to undermine the actual owners of corporations who challenge executives' interests. I noted a previous Financial Times story where corporate executives said they were going to step up surveillance of "activist shareholders" - and a new story today shows they weren't kidding.

The Financial Times now reports today that "Merrill Lynch is poised to become the first investment bank to dedicate a team to advise companies on the growing threat of activist investors." Notice the terminology - shareholders are now being referred to as a "threat" to the people who run the companies they own.

As I noted earlier, corporate executives have a lot to be worried about. Workers own a tremendous amount of shares of stock in pension funds - and they are increasingly using that power to push positive change. Take the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) That fund recently used its considerable stock holdings to sponsor stockholder resolutions cracking down on CEO pay and perks; forcing drug companies to lower their prices; and protecting worker benefits from corporate rip-off schemes.

Not surprisingly, Congress has weighed in on the side of corporate executives. Led by then-Congressman Chris Cox (R) - now head of the SEC - lawmakers passed the Private Securities Litigation Act - a bill that made it much harder for shareholders to use the judicial system to stop company management from ripping them off. As one market analyst noted, Cox's bill "paved the way for corporate chieftains basically to lie without fear of being sued" by shareholders who own the company.

You might think President Bush would weigh in on behalf of shareholders, what with his purported support for an "ownership society." But - shocker - he's stayed quiet. And the corporate elite's class war is allowed to continue.

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My Open Letter to Tom Friedman

I posted an open letter to the New York Times' Tom Friedman. Go check it out.

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Corporate America's Education Myth

The New York Times has a piece today on the latest myth being peddled by our government and the corporate interests who run it. It goes something like this: job outsourcing and declining wages is happening in America because Americans are getting more stupid, and thus the only way for America to stop the bleeding is to produce more students educated in science and math. This is a brilliantly crafted storyline because it both reinforces Americans' concerns about its public school system and, more importantly, distracts from the corporate-written trade policies that are really at the heart of America's economic problems. Oh yeah, one other thing - the storyline is also a shameless lie.

The Times' piece describes a new report showing that many major corporations - who continue to pocket billions in American-taxpayer-funded corporate welfare - are going to be shifting research and development jobs overseas to places like China and India. The Times obediently reports without any question at all that "the study contended that lower labor costs in emerging markets are not the major reason for hiring researchers overseas." We shouldn't be surprised at that - corporate executives are smart enough to know how to lie. And they are lying.

If you take 2 minutes and actually think about what's going on, you will realize the painful intellectual acrobatics it takes to try to claim otherwise. Low wages - and the trade policy that forces Americans to compete with low wages - is at the heart of this, nothing else.

Think for a moment about this education argument. The United States has the best universities in the world. While our education system certainly needs upgrading, the concept that we are not producing enough good graduates for R&D jobs is just silly. And the idea that India and China have better schools producing better-trained workers is also ridiculous. These countries may be quickly developing - but last I checked, most of the world's most prominent technical colleges and universities are here in the good old U.S. of A.

So now think like a corporate executive trying to maximize profits. You have one set of R&D workers here in the United States, and another set of less-skilled, less-educated R&D workers in the developing world. You can do one of two things - afford to pay fewer workers in America. Or, you can go to India or China, spend a fraction of what you'd spend here on wages, and be able to hire an army of researchers. Granted, each researcher overseas might be less-skilled than each researcher in the United States - but the sheer numbers of researchers you can get over there makes the economics of outsourcing work.

That is what this is all about - the huge gap between wages and education. Workers in the developing world might be less skilled, but they are far less paid than they are less skilled. That means it still makes economic sense for companies to exploit their low wages - because those companies can pay such low wages, they can often afford to hire more workers, and even train these workers themselves - and STILL lower their overhead compared to staying in the United States.

This is where trade policy comes in - you know, the trade deals like NAFTA and China-PNTR which included all sorts of restrictive protections for corporate interests, and were stripped of all protections for workers' interests. One of the pillars of the American dream has long been the idea that if you work hard and get educated, you can move up the income ladder. But by now forcing our workers to compete with workers in oppressive countries like Communist China who clearly don't have those same privileges, the American dream is undermined. Free trade creates a wage-cutting, race-to-the-bottom competition between workers for jobs - a competition that American workers cannot win, and shouldn't even be forced to try and win.

So yes, we should spend more to educate our workers in this country - better education is always good for society. But no, if the only thing we do is produce more and better-trained science/math graduates, and continue to refuse to reevaluate free trade orthodoxy, then outsourcing is not going to stop. I realize that's hard for some people who consider themselves benevolent liberals to accept. One of the threads that seems to run through many of the Democratic Party's and the "center-left's" economic thinking is this elitist idea that if workers just got smarter they'd be doing better. You can detect it in the DLC/post-Clinton elite circles, and in the pundits like Tom Friedman who serve as role models in those circles.

My bet is these folks see themselves as educated, look at themselves as having done well, and have concluded that if only more workers just had the tenacity to get as educated as them, those workers would do better. These people won't say this outright, of course - but the attitude is obvious in the education-equals-better-jobs argument. Meanwhile, that argument also provides these folks with a defense mechanism, allowing them to justify and feel better about the corporate-written free trade policies they have joined with Republicans in ramming down our throats - a trade policy that is now undermining American workers.

Here's the truth these folks don't want to talk about. We can spend more money and train more science/math graduates, but unless we also train those graduates to accept working at slave wages, free trade makes sure those graduates have to enter into a competition for jobs with oppressed workers in the developing world. That's an unwinnable competition - and one we must finally stop by reevaluating and reforming our trade policy for the long-haul.

Schweitzer Formally Rolls Out Lobbying Reform Initiative

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D), one of the leading voices for lobbying/ethics reform, formally rolled out his new clean government ballot initiative and legislative package today. Go check it out.

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For Those Still Whining and Crying

For those still whining and crying about Paul Hackett supposedly being "forced out" of the race, go read the Nation...then stop crying about some ridiculous conspiracy theory - we've got work to do in putting a progressive in the Senate.

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Days After SOTU , Bush Bails Out on Energy Promises

President Bush got a lot of attention for pledging to end America's addiction to foreign oil in his State of the Union speech. Too bad that was just rhetoric - the Helena Independent Record reports that his budget released a few days later guts funding for various clean coal programs, including coal-to-gas technology.

Whether you believe in using coal for energy or not, few - other than the President, apparently - would argue about the value of making all coal technologies cleaner. Furthermore, these programs could have helped move forward coal-to-liquid-fuel projects like the one being pushed by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D) - projects where we can make cleaner burning fuels out of the massive coal deposits we have right here in America. China is investing billions in these projects to get itself ahead of the energy crunch. Meanwhile, our president has decided to only pay lip service to America's serious energy crisis. Pathetic.

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My Take on Ohio

I was actually sad to see that Ohio's Paul Hackett decided not to run for the congressional seat that he almost won last year, and that instead, he is publicly whining about being "forced out" of the Senate race, and saying he's leaving politics. Here's my take on the situation, since I've written about it before.

Beyond who you liked in this potential Democratic primary, one thing is a truism: successful candidates - whoever they are - have to have the tenacity in order to be elected. I'm sure Paul Hackett has tenacity in parts of his life - hell, he went off to combat in Iraq. But its clear he doesn't have political tenacity. And successful candidates, when in office, will likely tell you that's the intangible you need. In fact, every successful candidate is - in one way or another - a walking example of political tenacity.

The need for such tenacity is especially critical in major, high-profile races like a U.S. Senate contest against an entrenched Republican incumbent. Primaries can be good places to see whether candidates have that tenacity - they tend to weed out the candidates who don't. And what we've seen here in Hackett's decision to get out and cry about being supposedly "forced out" is the system work. He clearly didn't have what it took to win. Whatever the reason for that - be it that he couldn't raise the money, he couldn't build the organization, he didn't really have the widespread support people claimed he had, he didn't like people asking him tough questions about his positions, whatever it was - he was weeded out.

In short, the primary process unfolds well before election day. And what we've seen with Hackett is that the primary process worked.

That's a good thing, not because I like Sherrod Brown - but because I want Democrats to win this seat. Someone who bails out in a primary claiming they got "forced out" clearly would not have had the mettle to win this race when the inevitable GOP onslaught came. Further, Hackett's behavior raises serious questions about what he would have been like in the Senate. When adversity struck - would he have picked up his ball and gone home? When he didn't like what the Democratic leadership was doing, would he have voted with Republicans? Thankfully, we won't know.
I'll try to sum up what I'm saying here by referencing the ironclad rule I've written about before: there's no crying in politics. The successful candidates are the ones who don't get forced out - who CAN'T get forced out because they've built up too solid a political organization, a message, and a winning operation in general. These are people who tell those trying to "force them out" that no, they are in. Such stubbornness usually comes because the candidate knows they have the operation that is ready to win. Alternately, the people who scream and whine about being "forced out" are the ones who knew they were going to lose anyway. The nihlistic outrage and conspiracy-theory claims over Hackett's announcement is really pathetic. I mean, come on folks, all contested seats are about one thing: trying to "force" the other guy out, whether through the ballot box or through other forms of political pressure. That's the VERY DEFINITION OF POLITICS - and a political candidate who says they are "upset" about political pressure is like a person being on a baseball team and then getting upset that they are asked to play baseball.

Frankly, I don't think Hackett even believes he was "forced out." Why? Because I think he is a smart guy, and to actually believe you got "forced out" is just too ridiculously stupid a concept for someone like him to actually subscribe to.

My guess is he saw his poor fundraising numbers, saw that he was going to get crushed in the primary, wanted the race handed to him, didn't feel like doing the hard, unglamorous work that candidates have to do in the modern era to be competitive, and got out. Then, to save face, he created this ridiculous martyr story that he got "forced out" - a concept, remember, that doesn't exist in this country. There are no people with bayonets preventing anyone from running or "forcing" candidates out of the race. That's Third World stuff. In this country, when someone says they've been "forced out" of a race, it really means they weren't ready for primetime, they knew it, and were desperate to save face.

Finally, one other word to those who are pissed at Sherrod Brown (for no reason) and using all sorts of uninformed hyperbole saying he's supposedly some insider, aristocratic member of the club. You can tell yourselves that to make yourselves feel better - but saying that kind of thing only makes you look incredibly stupid. A guy who has consistently gone up against Big Money interests on wholly unpopular issues in Washington like trade is not an "insider." The concept that the U.S. Senate - one of the most corrupt and conservative institutions in the modern democratic world - just loves someone with Sherrod Brown's progressive politics and that they "forced out" Brown's opponent because of that is so stupid its hard to believe that people could even think that, much less even imply it or utter it.

The truth is, Hackett and his supporters tried desperately to ramrod this primary into an "outsider" vs. "insider" or "progressive" vs. "conservative" dichotomy. And let's be clear - when that dichotomy exists, I support vigorous primaries to help the progressive win. But this wasn't the case at all in this potential matchup - especially not for Hackett. The outsider-insider dichotomy wasn't there, and on the ideological spectrum Hackett proved totally evasive on even the most basic issues, while Sherrod Brown was the known progressive champion.

That last point is not to be taken lightly. Sherrod Brown is not only a  known progressive, but a known progressive who has taken the tough votes when it wasn't the cool thing to do, when there was no blogosphere to support him or cheer him on for doing so, when the DLC ran the party and vilified anyone who actually stood up to power, when challenging the establishment was shunned even by Members of his own party. Brown's record is the kind that is all too rare for candidates for the U.S. Senate. That is why Sherrod Brown is such a formidable candidate. That is why Sherrod Brown was going to crush Hackett in the primary (and why Hackett ultimately got out). And that is why Sherrod Brown is going to be the next U.S. Senator from Ohio.

So my message to Hackett supporters is simple: If you are as serious about your progressive convictions as you say you are - and not just devoted to a cult of personality as you so vehemently claim - then shut up and stop crying. Let's go put a genuine proven progressive in the U.S. Senate.

TAKE ACTION: Vote to Challenge Right-Wing Democrats

Moveon.org today launched a survey asking citizens whether they believe the organization should support serious primary challenges to right-wing Democrats who sell out the progressive agenda. I support this wholeheartedly, as it is a way to finally start building a progressive movement, instead of trying to rely only on hollow partisan loyalties.

Moveon.org's interest in this strategy is extremely exciting. Go to Moveon's survey page and vote - it's time to build the progressive movement.

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Bush's "Culture of Responsibility" On Display

President Bush has talked a lot about his administration's supposed "culture of responsibility." That's a euphemism for "trying to get out of taking responsibility for anything." We've seen that in Iraq, on economic policy, and now even on the story of Dick Cheney shooting a man in the face. Yes, that's right - Knight Ridder reports that yesterday "the White House blamed the 78-year-old man whom Vice President Dick Cheney shot during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas for the incident."

Now, we see that along with blaming the victim, the White House is to laugh about it, even as the victim is still in the hospital. That's right, the Associated Press reports that "the White House has decided that the best way to deal with Vice President Dick Cheney's shooting accident is to joke about it."

Really - there are no words. You can't even be outraged anymore when you read this kind of thing. It's so totally ridiculous that you think you are reading the Onion, only you're not - you are reading about the people who are leading this nation. So sad.

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Corporate Union Buster Heads Up New Extremist Group

Townhall.com - the official headquarters of the fringe right - sent out an alert today telling folks about the new so-called "Center for Union Facts." The site is so skewed, so over the top, so dishonest, I just had to check out who is behind it. Though UPI notes that the group is refusing to disclose who its donors on (shocker!), its executive director is none other than Rick Berman - one of the biggest corporate shills working in politics today.

Want to know a little bit about Mr. Berman? Here, chew on this:

HEAD OF NEW UNION BASHING GROUP IS LONGTIME ANTI-UNION CORPORATE LOBBYIST: "Berman has a history of representing tobacco firms, restaurant chains or beer distributors in fights against labor unions, consumer-health groups and efforts to raise the minimum wage." [Source: Detroit Free Press, 2/24/05]

HEAD OF NEW UNION BASHING GROUP FOUGHT AGAINST ANTI-DRUNK DRIVING LAWS: "A national campaign -- called MADDatGM -- has been launched with the backing of 17,000 bars, taverns and liquor stores to attack the automaker and Mothers Against Drunk Driving, mostly for their efforts to lower legal blood-alcohol levels...'We want to stop GM from contributing to MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving). We have a problem with GM money going to criminalize social drinkers. GM needs to recognize it is attacking legitimate businesses,' said Rick Berman, the high-powered Washington D.C. lobbyist running the MADDatGM campaign." [Source: Detroit Free Press, 2/24/05]

HEAD OF NEW UNION BASHING GROUP WAS CORPORATE UNION BUSTER: "Bensinger even received a handwritten note from Rick Berman, a powerful Washington lobbyist who used to plan union avoidance strategies at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce." [Fortune, 9/28/98]

So basically, the head of this new group is a corporate lobbyist so bought off he's willing to go out and attack Mothers Against Drunk Driving on behalf of his corporate clients. That's the kind of wild-eyed right-wing lunatic the conservative movement is breeding - people solely focused on using the nexis of money and politics to cash in, no matter how extreme and distateful they have to behave in public. With American workers having highly-paid extremist enemies like this roaming the nation's capital, it is no doubt that ordinary citizens' economic interests are regularly steamrolled in Washington, D.C.

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Time Magazine on Barack Obama

Time Magazine has a new piece and accompanying Q&A on Sen. Barack Obama. I'm mentioned in both pieces, and in the article I am inaccurately referred to as an "Obama critic, even though I consider myself nothing of the sort (the reporter acknowledged it was an error). I consider myself an Obama advocate - and what I've said about him in the past has always been constructive. The fact is, Obama has more talent to champion progressive causes than most lawmakers out there - and my hope is that he uses that talent to the max. I'm heading to Washington in a few weeks to sit down with Obama for a big story I'm writing on him for The Nation. Stay tuned.

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What Do the Free Traders Think of This?

Here's an interesting question to all the "free" traders out there who think we shouldn't have any sanctions/restrictions on the global market to protect anything other than corporate profits: What do you think of this?

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Pro-CAFTA Dem Gets Challenger

Jonathan Tasini this morning notes that Rep. Ed Towns (D-NY), who voted for the corporate-written Central American Free Trade Agreement, now faces a serious primary challenge. Towns has faced criticism for his vote in his district, and now that criticism seems to have boiled into a full-on challenge. That's great news.

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Back from the Aloha State

Got back yesterday from our vacation to Hawaii - and wow, what a vacation it was. I was struck by just how pristine Hawaii is. The state really seems to have a solid appreciation for protecting their environment and their open space. The highlight of the trip was the whale watch we went on with the Pacific Whale Foundation. As you can see from the picture at right, humpbacks were everywhere. It was terrific.

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Americans for Job Security Fighting Republicans Now?

One of the hidden stories that the media has largely missed in all of the Republican criticism of Democratic 527s is the presence of Republican 501c6s. Where 527s are supposed to be organizations that exist for the purpose of influencing elections (and are distinct from PACs in the language they can use to influence elections among other things), Republican 501c6s nominally exist to represent business interests in the issue sphere. In reality, a host of them operate like 527 "stealth PACs." The difference is that while 527s are clearly legal, the 501c6s may very well be violating their tax status by engaging in the level of electoral activity that they do.

And it now appears that at least one prominent stealth PAC may be nervous about getting called out on it. Americans for Job Security, as good an example of a 501c6 operating outside the bounds of the IRS law as you're likely to find, has been running ads targeting Republicans on asbestos legislation.

Theoretically, this organization should be spending the majority of its funding on lobbying expenses like this one, not on electoral pursuits. This may be AJS covering its ass for this fall, concerned that a revitalized Democratic Party may haul it in front of the auditors and render AJS powerless. This, of course, is just a guess as to the motive here. Because it is clearly a break with the past for AJS to engage in lobbying, much less lobbying that targets Republicans.

--Matt Singer

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A Couple Minor Media Points

When writing a story about how unions and their allies outspent Wal-Mart in the period before the Maryland health care vote, wouldn't it be worthwhile to note Wal-Mart's $1,000 a plate fundraiser for Maryland's Governor, especially given that Republican Governor Robert Ehrlich got free time in the story to accuse the unions of muscling through the legislation. Also, while I'm talking about this article what is up with Delegate Joseph Minnick (check the bottom of page two of the online story)? I'm sure the intentions were good, but the quote where he says he refunds Wal-Mart's money because he didn't vote with them makes it sound like he has a money back guarantee on bribes. Strange.

Meanwhile, if you haven't read about this yet, you should have. The AP has a big story about the relationship between Harry Reid's office and Jack Abramoff. It turns out that Reid's office met with Abramoff's folks repeatedly on a Marianas bill where Reid not only voted for legislation that Abramoff disliked, he co-sponsored it. Yup. Pretty corrupt. The rest of the story is that Reid went to bat against a couple Indian casinos. That's a surprise. Reid represents Western America's gambling capital. Of course he votes against competition. That's called his constituents' interest. This is the amazing thing about the scandals. Michigan's Democratic Senators are supposedly as corrupt for helping the Saginaw Chippewas as Conrad Burns is. The difference, of course, is that those Michigan Democrats represent the Chippewas and thus have a clear interest in, you know, representing them. A clear interest that doesn't involve $136,500 in campaign contributions. But, hey, let's keep in mind, this is a bipartisan scandal. Yeah right. It's as bipartisan as Bush's budget busting tax cuts. It's a farce perpetrated by GOP hacks.

Meanwhile, it's worth noting that while more Democrats are hopping on the public financing bandwagon, John "Bipartisan" McCain is attacking the idea.

--Matt Singer

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Former FDA Head Cashes In

Lester Crawford, the veterinarian appointed to head the Food and Drug Administration by President Bush who later resigned the post under a cloud of scandal due to his wife's massive pharmaceutical stock holdings, has now joined a lobbying shop that represents such upstanding clients as Altria (the new face of Phillip Morris) and PhRMA, the lobbying arm of big drugs.

Crawford left his post under allegations of a conflict of interest. He's now cashing in. Even worse, the Washington Post reports that neither Crawford nor his associates at the lobbying firm will comment on his new role.

The people who spend their lives trying to sway our public officials see public comment as beneath them.

What hypocrisy and what an insult to the American people.

--Matt Singer

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Rep. Richard Pombo (R-Corruption)

Rep. Richard Pombo (R-CA) may have just taken the cake for corruption. And, literally, watch the cake. This guy might really take it.

Pombo gained some notoriety for an amendment he offered last year that would have essentially given a big thumps up to mining interests all over the west. It turns out that three months before he introduced that amendment, he had a huge fundraiser hosted by...wait for it...the mining industry. What a surprise.

I also got these news clips (now only available through Nexis apparently) in my inbox today:

The East Bay Express reported in August of 2005 that Rep. Pombo ignored a pressing transportation project in his own district but managed to secure funding for a different project that would build a highway system right next to major real estate holdings held by Pombo's family, allowing for millions in gains from development.

This same guy also billed taxpayers $4,100 so he could rent an RV for his vacation with his family and I'm also hearing that he gave all his committee staff a month paid leave right before election time so they could fan out while still on the federal dime to help Republicans get elected.

This man needs to be out of the House now.

--Matt Singer

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Quality for Wall Street. Waiting for the Rest.

The New York Times hits the nail on the head in an editorial this morning regarding the peculiar priorities of the FAA and New York Port Authority. Apparently despite a recent round of cuts to screeners in the New York area, the PA supported a move to divert 16 screeners to a private heliport that will provide expedited service for rich people.

Meanwhile, the cattle herding at JFK airport is expected to slow down even more. I'm glad we're instituting these taxpayer-subsidized programs to help the rich out. After all, without federal subsidies, they may not be willing to work as much as they do and that would put all of their employees out of a job, right?

Or something.

The biggest giveaway that this whole exercise is laughable is the defense coming from the Port Authority: "'Well, why not?' asks Charles Gargano, the authority's vice chairman, who says the service will be 'selective' and help business."

We should also start building taxpayer funded port-a-potties with lavish treatment that require the swiping of a Visa Titanium card with a $100,000 credit limit just to take a crap in.

That'd be selective, too.

--Matt Singer

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Changing Washington, D.C.

Last month, The Nation editorialized about the War in Iraq and the upcoming Senate elections noting that who wins elections this fall could send a major sign to Washington and shake up the Senate and the Democratic Party.

The editors wrote: "But if Sherrod Brown wins in Ohio, where Republican Senator Mike DeWine is vulnerable, and Independent Representative Bernie Sanders wins Vermont's open seat, as now seems likely, two of the House's most articulate and savvy antiwar voices will be heard in the Senate. And if they are joined by others, like Minnesota's Wetterling, Montana's Tester or Rhode Island's Matt Brown, the Democratic leadership will get the message loud and clear: It's time to get out of Iraq."

Only a month has gone by, but major events have happened in two of these five races. In Minnesota, Patty Wetterling has dropped out of the U.S. Senate race. That's unfortunate. Although I've heard good things about the remaining Democratic frontrunner, Amy Klobuchar, Patty Wetterling gave progressive issues a strong voice.

But in Rhode Island, things are taking a turn in the exact opposite direction. The race there is between Sheldon Whitehouse, a former Attorney General, and Matt Brown, the current Secretary of State. Whitehouse has raised more money, but Brown, who has run a far more progressive campaign, is the one showing momentum. Where only months ago, Matt Brown was losing to Whitehouse by a 2-1 margin, Brown now leads in the primary 31-25. And where Whitehouse used to be considered the stronger challenger to Lincoln Chafee, Rhode Island voters are now signaling a different choice.

Brown comes within two points of defeating Chafee (38-36) while Chafee beats Whitehouse by 6 points (40-34). Additionally, while Chafee's numbers are moving up against Whitehouse, they've actually been falling against Brown and his bold agenda.

Meanwhile, the polls have been indicating strange things in Montana, where Rasmussen Reports released a poll last month showing Senate President Jon Tester evenly tied with Senator Conrad Burns while Burns beat State Auditor John Morrison by 3 points. Tester and Morrison are the two mainstream candidates considered to have strong potential heading into this fall's campaign against Burns. But like other centrist candidates across the country, Morrison has been placing his primary bets almost exclusively on an electability card.

It became clear following the release of the Rasmussen poll that Morrison's camp was shook up as they released an internal poll showing him beating Tester 39-20 in the primary with most of the electorate still undecided. Given that Morrison has won statewide office twice and Jon never, those numbers were actually weaker than many of us expected.

Jon Tester's main problem to date has been disappointing fundraising numbers. Despite those numbers, poll after poll has shown him making incredible gains against Senator Burns using a progressive message. He's also taken steps to strengthen his fundraising operation in recent months, stepping it up with national fundraisers and a larger in-state fundraising operation including some people with experience posting large numbers (his new in-state fundraiser comes to Montana from Paul Hackett's Senate campaign, which nearly outpaced Representative Sherrod Brown for fundraising in Q4).

Patty Wetterling's departure is a disappointment, but the signs from Rhode Island are positive in that they show that sometimes message and excitement do mean more than fundraising. Montana's still the wildcard of these races.

FULL DISCLOSURE: I used to work for Jon Tester. I no longer do.

--Matt Singer

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Too Good Not to Share

In my absence from Left in the West, one of my fellow contributors has offered some thoughts on Republican corruption that are too funny to note share. Enjoy.

--Matt Singer

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Did Tucker Even Watch Coretta Scott King's Memorial Before Criticizing It?

Tucker Carlson apparently thought it was appropriate for him to critique the "manners" of a civil rights leader speaking at Coretta Scott King's funeral. Fortunately, the Rev. Dr. Lowery slapped Carlson back down.

"So I’m comfortable with the fact that I was reflecting on Mrs. King’s tenacity against war, her determination to witness against war and to speak truth to power."

I'll say one thing. Tucker Carlson at least had the dignity to invite Dr. Lowery on to defend himself, which is more than most of the white commentators rushing to defend Mrs. King's honor from her old friends have done.

That said, when Tucker saw fit to criticize Paul Wellstone's memorial service, he hadn't even seen the service. I hope he at least bothered to watch this time.

Nonetheless, expect to see the cracker party get mighty enraged about the uppity negro at Coretta Scott King's funeral. This depspite the fact that out of 231 Republican Representatives in Congress, 230 just got F's on their civil rights voting score from the NAACP.

Tell you what, Tucker, you call out Pat Robertson for talking about racial suicide in Europe and maybe we can start having a conversation about what is an appropriate way to remember civil rights leaders here in America.

--Matt Singer

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Legacy of Kings

If you haven't read about it elsewhere, President Bush apparently looked a bit sheepish at Coretta Scott King's funeral service today. Why? Because two speakers had the gall to talk about the values the Kings stood for: fighting poverty, fighting racial division, standing up for working Americans.

ThinkProgress has a transcript of one of the speakers. The Rev. Dr. Joseph Lowery said, "We know now there were no weapons of mass destruction over there. [Standing Ovation] But Coretta knew and we know that there are weapons of misdirection right down here. Millions without health insurance. Poverty abounds. For war billions more but no more for the poor."

The main thing Lowery is skipping over here is the tax cuts. Otherwise, he has perfectly summed up the state of President's budget. Drudge Report (last time I checked) was already trying to foment conservative outrage.

I think we all remember the last time a progressive champion died and conservatives took political advantage of the moment. I won't be surprised if the Swift Boat crew tries to do to the legacy of the Kings what they have tried to do to the legacy of Paul Wellstone and of JFK.

But there should be no mistake. Those who spoke in rememberance of King today spoke because they shared the values of the Kings, just as those who spoke at Paul Wellstone's service shared his. The Reverend Lowery was not chosen by random. He was an ally of Dr. King, a man who was targeted by the right with, as Jimmy Carter noted, wiretaps, among other devices.

It speaks volumes about the progress this country has made that a white Republican sitting President is comfortable attending the funeral of Coretta Scott King. But those victories have been victories of the left. They have been the victories of people like Dr. and Mrs. King.

--Matt Singer

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Pat Robertson's True Colors

Pat Robertson stooped to a new low today, a low making it worthy of asking whether he's a man of the cloth or a man of the sheet.

MediaMatters caught him fretting nervously about the decline of the white race in Europe:

"But nevertheless, ladies and gentlemen, Europe is right now in the midst of racial suicide because of the declining birth rate."

What a dick.

--Matt Singer

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The Gross Generalizations of Free Marketeers

One of the most bizarre and common traits of the free marketeering crowd is a return to the most simplistic argument on the planet: the hasty generalization. "Look," they scream, "there are so many kinds of toothpaste due to competition. We have high cost brand name toothpaste that keeps your teeth clean and white and we have cheap generic toothpaste for people who just want to clean their teeth. It's brilliant. Markets work and they do amazing things always. Now let's privatize health care."

It's a little like these poor souls got beaten over the head with a free market stick when they were young and can now only see the positive results of competition and never its downsides.

It should be enough to point out that this simplistic inductive reasoning is deeply flawed. Pointing it out, though, never seems to work.

I was actually laughing about this over Christmas dinner with my family. A number of my family members are voting Republicans and economically are far more conservative than me. Someone ribbed me a bit about being a socialist at which point I declared my belief that our dinner that evening (and every evening) should be prepared by the government, a caricature of my view of the world that some people seem to believe.

The truth is, virtually none of us on the left are truly anti-competition or socialists. What we are is market cynics. We simply don't believe that markets really live up to all the grandiose promises that libertarians make about them. We don't think they always lower prices while improving quality.

But this morning I read just about as good of a parody view of the libertarian view as I had ever read, except that it wasn't a parody. It was a signed op-ed written by a staffer for FREE, a libertarian environmental think tank based out of Montana. Here's what John Downen writes after marveling at the wonders of modern luggage:

"What all this demonstrates, besides my ignorance of modern luggage, are the benefits competition brings to a market economy. Many fear that free markets and competition lead to Big Business monopolies and homogenization. In reality, competition fosters diversity -- more and better products with more features -- while constantly lowering prices."

The problem, of course, with this understanding of markets is that it is as fundamentally wrong as my joking belief that we would all be better off if government cooked our meals for us.

The problem with government cooking meals for us is that there is no way to centrally plan the meal preferences for 270,000,000 people. The individual preferences demand niche appeal and when every different restaurant and grocery market line is going to need the freedom to appeal to different people with different needs, there is no point in having an oversight bureaucracy that runs up costs. That and central planning would introduce incentive for corruption that would additionally limit choices and increase costs.

But the problem with people choosing their own, say, medical treatments all the time is that virtually none of us really knows what constitutes a good doctor, a reliable diagnosis, or a well-formulated treatment. Most of us don't even really know whether we should see a general care physician or a specialist. It's significantly different from buying luggage, where we face no such quandries. We know what kind of bag we wish to purchase.

Or consider the "market" for energy or roads. The infrastructure to sell energy or transportation (the "good" we seek when using roads) is massive and damn expensive. It's also particularly hard to have competition in these industries (imagine "competing" road systems in your hometown, complete with underpasses and overpasses to avoid companies "stealing" roadway from eachother). We call them natural monopolies because huge barriers to entry and declining marginal costs create an incentive structure that rewards economies of scale on a massive level. Two road companies would virtually always be better off merging into one. Monopolization is the way of the game, or would be in roads even if the government gave up its monopoly.

Energy is no different and actually contains pieces of both of these. True competition is unlikely and the complexity of the market leaves individuals at the whims of a relatively small number of companies. All of these realities make price manipulation and gouging possible. And when crime pays, it tends to occur.

The reality is that markets are extremely good at delivering low-cost, high quality goods in some market -- clothing, luggage, food, etc. In other areas, they tend to be acceptable -- electronics, etc. But in places, the results can be downright bad -- health care, energy, and transportation.

But, hey, what do I know? I'm just a socialist.

--Matt Singer

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The Real Cost of Bush's Budget

Surprise, surprise. Josh Marshall catches media outlets describing President Bush's new budget as deficit reducing. That claim is just laughable. The budget is comprised of basically three different blatant moves and two quiet ones.

The blatant moves are: 1) Slashing domestic spending on those awful programs like Medicare, Medicaid, education, community policing, student loans, and food aid. 2) Increasing funding for security budgets. 3) Making the tax cuts permanent.

Even with just these three pieces, it gets real tough to claim that this is as a budget to fight the deficit.

But it gets worse when you realize what else is happening. First, Bush still isn't including costs from Alternative Minimum Tax reform. He also is lowballing the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (still).

Sadly, some media outlets are still letting the White House comm operation get away with this tripe after five years.

What do we call this? Oh yeah, Stockholm Syndrome.

--Matt Singer

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Specter Lets Gonzalez Off the Hook

Despite referring to the Bush Administration's legal arguments regarding domestic spying as "strained and unrealistic" Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA) today let AG Gonzales completely off the hook by not requiring that Gonzales testify under oath today.

This is despite the fact that the Attorney General has already misled the judiciary committee on this very subject.

Lying to Congress doesn't help our National Security. Congress letting the Administration lie doesn't help our National Security.

--Matt Singer

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Good Morning (by Matt Singer)

This is Matt Singer from Left in the West. It's been a while since I've filled in for David, but it's a pleasure to be back and I'm happily awaiting some lively discussions in the comment threads.

I'm also in the mood for interesting tips this week, so if you see something that you think needs to be highlighted, mocked, or dissected, please let me know. My email address is just singer@leftinthewest.com.

There will be more posting soon. Just need to wade through my weekend email backlog first.

--Matt Singer

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Aloha Means Goodbye

I'm officially taking off now for vacation to Hawaii. Matt Singer of Left in the West fame will be taking over. Hope everyone has a good week - I need some rest.

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Boehner's First Move: Stop Lobbying Reform

That's right - House Majority Leader John Boehner's (R-OH) very first public move in his new leadership position is an effort to weaken the already pathetically weak GOP proposal for lobbying/ethics "reform." Read about it here.

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Debating Oil Industry Profiteering In Costco's Magazine

Costco's nationwide monthly magazine published an op-ed by me on oil industry price gouging. I argued for a windfall profits tax, and two experts from the Tax Foundation argued against it. You can see it here on Costco's website (on page 12), but I have also reprinted it here with links to source material, in case anyone has questions or wants further information.

SHOULD OIL COMPANIES PAY A WINDFALL PROFITS TAX?

By David Sirota

Most consumers appreciate low prices. But don't get too comfortable: Unless we halt energy profiteering and enact a windfall profits tax on oil companies, we might be kissing those low prices goodbye.

Salary.com reported that skyrocketing gas prices are swallowing many Americans' entire 2005 salary increases. And this winter, consumers face huge heating bills. A windfall profits tax is a first step in stopping this price gouging. It is a simple concept: It taxes oil profits above a certain level deemed excessive by economic experts. Not only would this tax raise $3 billion to $4 billion a year in public revenues, but, more important, it would punish oil companies that are trying to bleed consumers dry.

Just look at ExxonMobil to see what "swimming in cash" means. In just the third quarter of 2005, the company reported roughly $10 billion in profits. According to BBC News, that was more than any company ever reported in American history. Fortune magazine noted that Exxon executives, sitting on a $25 billion treasure chest, were worrying about "the headache of what to do with all that cash" – not about Americans struggling to afford higher energy prices.

A windfall profits tax, of course, would ensure oil companies remained financially healthy because it would kick in only when profits become egregiously excessive, as they are now. And let's be honest – it's time this industry started paying its fair share anyway.

Opensecrets.org reports that since 1990 the oil and gas industry has donated almost $200 million in political campaign contributions. That cash makes sure the industry's tax rates are far lower than the average American's. Today, while the middle class's tax burden rises, major oil companies are raking in huge profits but paying just 13 percent in taxes. Meanwhile, Congress recently gave the industry billions in new tax breaks, meaning many oil companies may end up paying no taxes at all.

To be sure, corrupt politicians, oil executives and academic naysayers will oppose a windfall profits tax, telling us scary but unsupported stories about how it will supposedly mean disaster. But you need only visit your local gas station or watch product prices rise to know the real disaster will come if Congress does not enact this commonsense measure and refuses to protect American from the oil profiteers.

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Democrats Advertise Their Wimpiness

So let's see - we've now got two potential 2008 Democrats dishonestly reinforcing right-wing lies about the Democratic Party on national security. First it was Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D), now Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh (D) (otherwise known as Evan "Cure for Insomnia" Bayh).

Scott Shields over at MyDD shows just how stupid these Democrats really are:

"Representatives from Procter & Gamble don't go on CNBC and talk about the fact that the perception exists that Tide could do a better job of removing stains. They just show evidence to the contrary. This kind of message craft, starting from a negative assumption, is unheard of in the corporate world. It's a lesson Democrats need to learn if they're serious about winning the hearts and minds here at home."

I'll put it another way - these Democrats are really walking around like kids who were bullied on the schoolyard and now have psychological problems because of it. They have been beaten up for so long, they are now running around telling everyone what wimps they are. And by telling everyone they are wimps, they come off as even bigger wimps than before. It is really a pathetic cycle.


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Bush Gives Away Billions to Big Pharma

Knight Ridder has the sadly not-so-surprising story about how the Bush administration is using taxpayer money to "give drug companies up to $2 billion in extra profits this year because they're no longer required to pay rebates on drugs bought by the government for the elderly poor." Read the story here.

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Progressives Push Back on Sellout Democrat

Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) is facing a very stiff primary challenge by former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez (D-TX) - and right he should. As I wrote previously, Cuellar is one of the biggest sellouts in Congress - not just among Democrats. The guy literally casts votes that persecute ordinary Americans. And now he's getting serious blowback. Follow the coverage of this race over at Dailykos or Atrios. Making people like Cuellar feeling the heat is exactly how progressives are ultimately going to change the political dynamic in this country.

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Fighting Back on Taxes

Conservatives have performed a hostile takeover of America's tax debate to the point where they are draining away so much public resources that they really are cutting off the most basic government services. How can we fight back? There's some inspiration in the heartland. Check it out.

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Vacation Reading List

Next week I am taking a much-needed vacation. I recently finished the final editing phase of the book, and am positively exhausted. Matt Singer has thankfully agreed to hold down the fort here on my blog. While he's blogging here, I will be on a beach reading three books I've just picked up. My wife is complaining that reading these books means I am not on vacation - but I'm bringint them along nonetheless.

The first is Jeff Faux's The Global Class War. I've known Jeff's work for a while, and any book on globalization by a writer like him is a must read in my world.

The second is Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father. Interestingly, Obama and I share the same editor at Crown Publishers. But despite that coincidence, I've found Obama to be quite an enigma, frankly. The media has given him unanimously glowing reviews, and I agree that the guy has just an incredible amount of talent. But I still think it remains to be seen whether he is going to maximize that talent for the progressive cause. I am optimistic he will, because I do in my heart believe he has the right instincts. But the Senate is, bar none, the most corrupt institution in American politics - and it has shown that it can squash even the most ambitious progressive. Whether Obama can overcome that pressure system is the big question. I figure his book will give me some insights into how he thinks.

The last book is Tom Friedman's The World Is Flat. I'm not even going to link to the book, because I don't want to encourage anyone to buy it. In fact, I refused to buy this book, because I didn't want to add to Friedman's sales. Instead, I got a friend to give me a copy he had. I am prepared to be nauseated by this book, as I have read extensive excerpts and it is clear Friedman's whole objective in life now seems to be kissing the fat white ass of corporate power. But then, that's why I want to read the book - to get a good look in detail at all the pathetically hollow arguments the corporatists continue to make to perpetuate all of the inequities of the elitist economics they peddle. You have to know your opponents in order to fight back - that's the only reason I'm going to try to read Friedman's book.

If anyone else has any good recommendations for books, let me know in the comments here. I don't leave until this weekend - so I can still pick up another book.

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I'm Just Shocked Bush Would Lie About Energy Policy

Really, I'm shocked - just shocked! - that the President of the United States would lie so brazenly to us in his State of the Union speech on an issue of such importance to his oil industry backers (if you can't get the sarcasm in this post, go out and seek help - you need a sense of humor).

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Corruption Digest - February 1, 2006

As my new book Hostile Takeover prepares to be released in the Spring, here is your February 1, 2006 briefing on how America's political system is being sold to the highest bidders. To sign up to receive the Corruption Digest in your email box, just go to www.davidsirota.com and enter your email address on the righthand side.

WHITE HOUSE CORRUPTION
In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush refused to directly address the massive corruption scandals roiling Congress. His refusal comes even as the Los Angeles Times reports that "three Republican lawmakers Sunday urged President Bush to disclose who in the White House had met with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and what was discussed in those meetings." And today, Raw Story reports that one of Abramoff's clients gave $50,000 to the GOP after a meeting with Bush, Senator Trent Lott (R-MS), Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) and House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL).

CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION - BOTH PARTIES
The LA Times reports on how an entire industry has built up in Washington "pioneering a concept of lobbying that has become part of the warp and woof of Congress: Thousands of lobbyists now earn their keep by seeking rifle-shot appropriations for a particular client, rather than lobbying for programs and policies affecting an entire industry or sector."...The Washington Post reports "Republican and Democratic lawmakers are canceling their regularly scheduled meetings with lobbyists as the fallout from the Jack Abramoff scandal continues to roil Capitol Hill. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said it has ended its biweekly meeting between congressional chiefs of staff and lobbyists, and the Senate Republican Conference suspended one of its regular lobbyist cattle calls as well." Meanwhile, the Hill Newspaper reports "A growing number of lawmakers aren’t waiting around for new lobbying reforms to be enacted. Instead, they are imposing new limits on staffers’ contacts with K Street, seeking to cleanse the sudden stain of scandal from once-routine gifts and lunches."...Roll Call reports that "House lawmakers are expected to vote today on the first piece of an anticipated lobbying reform package, amending House Rules to bar former Members-turned-lobbyists from accessing the chamber’s floor as well as the exclusive Members’ gym."

CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION - REPUBLICANS
The Washington Times reports on how top GOP lawmakers are now actually going out in public and insisting there is no such thing as the K Street Project. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), who headed the K Street Project in the Senate, gets the smackdown for his denials by the conservative American Enterprise Institute...The Hill Newspaper publishes a report on which lobbyists are tied to which candidates running to replace Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) as Majority Leader. "The lists of the former staffers-turned-advocates could serve as a roadmap to which lobbyists have the most to gain from the outcome of the race for majority leader, as well as who will wield substantial clout in the field of government relations after" tomorrow's GOP leadership election...Roll Call notes that one candidate, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), is publicly opposed to banning lobbyists gifts and meals to lawmakers...

STATE CORRUPTION
In Colorado, the Rocky Mountain News reports that Democratic lawmakers are pushing legislation to "require lobbyists to disclose bills they are working on and whether they have a financial relationship with the lawmakers carrying the bill." The legislation also would "bar public officials and lawmakers becoming lobbyists for at least a year after they leave office, but a bipartisan vote killed that provision."...In Tennessee, the Associated Press reports "Both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly overwhelmingly passed ethics bills Tuesday that would limit cash campaign contributions, restrict lobbyists and create an independent ethics commission."...In New York, the Times Herald-Record reports "State lawmakers have scheduled a slew of fundraisers over the next few weeks. The legislators hope to pump cash into their campaign accounts while lobbyists and special interest groups hope to cash in on the legislative session." Blair Horner of New York PIRG said, "The fact that lawmakers are being lobbied during the day and hold fundraisers for those who lobby them at night is an obvious conflict of interest."

WHITE HOUSE CORRUPTION
In his State of the Union address last night, President Bush refused to directly address the massive corruption scandals roiling Congress. His refusal comes even as the Los Angeles Times reports that "three Republican lawmakers Sunday urged President Bush to disclose who in the White House had met with lobbyist Jack Abramoff and what was discussed in those meetings."

CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION - BOTH PARTIES
The LA Times reports on how an entire industry has built up in Washington "pioneering a concept of lobbying that has become part of the warp and woof of Congress: Thousands of lobbyists now earn their keep by seeking rifle-shot appropriations for a particular client, rather than lobbying for programs and policies affecting an entire industry or sector."...The Washington Post reports "Republican and Democratic lawmakers are canceling their regularly scheduled meetings with lobbyists as the fallout from the Jack Abramoff scandal continues to roil Capitol Hill. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said it has ended its biweekly meeting between congressional chiefs of staff and lobbyists, and the Senate Republican Conference suspended one of its regular lobbyist cattle calls as well." Meanwhile, the Hill Newspaper reports "A growing number of lawmakers aren’t waiting around for new lobbying reforms to be enacted. Instead, they are imposing new limits on staffers’ contacts with K Street, seeking to cleanse the sudden stain of scandal from once-routine gifts and lunches."...Roll Call reports that "House lawmakers are expected to vote today on the first piece of an anticipated lobbying reform package, amending House Rules to bar former Members-turned-lobbyists from accessing the chamber’s floor as well as the exclusive Members’ gym."

CONGRESSIONAL CORRUPTION - REPUBLICANS
The Washington Times reports on how top GOP lawmakers are now actually going out in public and insisting there is no such thing as the K Street Project. Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA), who headed the K Street Project in the Senate, gets the smackdown for his denials by the conservative American Enterprise Institute...The Hill Newspaper publishes a report on which lobbyists are tied to which candidates running to replace Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX) as Majority Leader. "The lists of the former staffers-turned-advocates could serve as a roadmap to which lobbyists have the most to gain from the outcome of the race for majority leader, as well as who will wield substantial clout in the field of government relations after" tomorrow's GOP leadership election...Roll Call notes that one candidate, Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), is publicly opposed to banning lobbyists gifts and meals to lawmakers...

STATE CORRUPTION
In Colorado, the Rocky Mountain News reports that Democratic lawmakers are pushing legislation to "require lobbyists to disclose bills they are working on and whether they have a financial relationship with the lawmakers carrying the bill." The legislation also would "bar public officials and lawmakers becoming lobbyists for at least a year after they leave office, but a bipartisan vote killed that provision."...In Tennessee, the Associated Press reports "Both chambers of the Tennessee General Assembly overwhelmingly passed ethics bills Tuesday that would limit cash campaign contributions, restrict lobbyists and create an independent ethics commission."...In New York, the Times Herald-Record reports "State lawmakers have scheduled a slew of fundraisers over the next few weeks. The legislators hope to pump cash into their campaign accounts while lobbyists and special interest groups hope to cash in on the legislative session." Blair Horner of New York PIRG said, "The fact that lawmakers are being lobbied during the day and hold fundraisers for those who lobby them at night is an obvious conflict of interest."

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Add Your Name to the No-Spy List

We had the Do-Not-call List, and now, thanks to Progress Now, we have the No-Spy List. Go add your name to the list and let the Senate Judiciary Committee know you don't want the President illegally spying on you.

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