On the Contrary

President Obama has sadly listened to the Beltway pundits again and is engaging in a push to work with other side. See his latest push for infrastructure investment that would be revenue neutral to make the Republicans happy. They won’t bite. What should be crystal clear at this point is that they aren’t going to do anything Obama. I doubt seriously if we are going to get anything but eye shadow for immigration reform, and forget anything gun related.

The ‘reasonable’ Senate Republicans now have six Senators who say they will filibuster background checks (more regulations). We have a nation poised for change and all the polls show the American people on the side of gay marriage, immigration reform with a path for citizenship, gun law reform including a ban on assault weapons and high capacity clips, and investment in infrastructure. None of it is going to happen because the Republican Party no longer accounts to what is good for America. Talk about a ground bargain is nonsense, and stupid by the way.

So one might ask yourself, why continue to play the game on the Republican’s court? Why not change your strategy from trying to accommodate the nonsense the Republicans are pushing (see the Ryan and Rand Budgets) with compromises they are never going to agree to, and go after them for the damage they are doing to the country. These are not fellow Americans with a different point of view. These are Americans who if they get their way, will take our country back hundreds of years and turn our society into the upper and lower classes. Call their policies what they are instead of trying to compromise with them, and move the fight to your court.

The conventional wisdom is that the nation is gerrymandered to keep Republicans in power so nothing much will change in 2014. And I believe that is true if Democrats do what they usually do and pander to polls instead of standing up for principles. But if you really understand what the Republicans stand for, the wealthy and disenfranchising everyone else (did you listen to the questioning by the conservative judges on the Supreme Court try to dodge the obvious?), then you understand what this is about. Republicans resist change in a changing world where change is the very foundation of survival and success.

So the strategy from Obama on down to the Democrat running for dog catcher is that they need to recognize that Republican policies are bankrupt and they need to be attacked head on. No more debt is the problem, we have to reduce the debt and invest, maybe we don’t need the assault weapon ban if we get background checks, and on and on. You are not going to get any of them. Go for the throat as the Republicans have been doing successfully to you. Attack their ideas and offer a different world view. If you want to move the country, you have to win the Congress, and to do that, you have to discredit conservatism. Compromise just lends credence to bad ideas and that is what Democrats have been doing now for 5 years.

It is a sin that borrowing right now is free (zero interest rate) and we have not put our people back to work because we bought into the home budget analogy of the Republicans. We let them control the debate focusing on debt which is not a problem instead of jobs. We keep dancing around cutting entitlement benefits when that is not the problem. We try to compromise on gun control, or immigration, or investment in infrastructure and we get nothing. What more do you need to realize we need to become the uncompromising party and fight for real change?

Let’s see. Yesterday Harry Reid dropped the assault weapons ban and ammo clip limit in a move he thinks is smart to get a bill moved. It is colossally stupid. Americans and the poor families from Sandy Hook have demanded a vote, and he just make the Democrats look like part of the problem, which apparently they are. What part of strategic thinking do they not get? Lose a battle and win a war in 2014. But it gets better. Here is what Gregg Sargent had today on their (Senate Democrats) stupidity in not reforming the filibuster*:

“Reid’s discovered that the agreement reached between the two parties as part of the weak filibuster reform deal earlier this year is not having the desired effect. And he’s threatening to revisit that deal. Steve Benen recaps just how little a difference that compromise has made:
‘What have we seen since? The first-ever filibuster of a cabinet nominee, a filibuster of a CIA nominee, and multiple threats of a filibuster against the Labor Secretary nominee. Republicans have filibustered judicial nominees they don’t like and judicial nominees they do like. GOP senators have promised to use filibusters to stop the Obama administration from enforcing the law as it relates to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and to stop the president’s nominee to lead the ATF and the EPA. [...]‘”

Now in Reid’s defense, which it kills me to do, there were other prima donna’s in the Senate Democratic Caucus who have not seen the light and maybe he could not get the 51 votes. But once again we would like to know who those were who are terminally out of touch with the dysfunction of the Senate. At any rate they are rattling sabers again about revisiting reforming the filibuster and as Gregg tells it:

“That’s good to hear, but look: If Dems are not going to revisit rules reform, just make that clear already. Empty threats just risk further angering Dem base voters who are already ticked about the filibuster reform punt earlier this year. Empty threats needlessly inflate expectations that Dems are finally going to take real steps to deliver to their supporters a functional Senate, one that is at least somewhat more capable of moving forward with the agenda so many of them worked so hard for in the last campaign.

Empty threats make Dems look weak and do nothing to discourage continued GOP obstructionism. If the status quo is really acceptable enough to Democratic leaders to forestall further action, they shouldn’t bother pretending otherwise. If this is the Senate we’re going to have to live with, Dems should just level with their voters on this point. No more feints and hints without real action.”

So far what I have seen from the Democratic leadership is pure incompetence and a total lack of political courage. It was their downfall before when they tried to be more Republican back in the Clinton/Bush years (12 years of Republican control of the House and Senate), and it will be again if they don’t learn to enter the fray and fight for their beliefs.

*The older members of the Senate still think it is a good old boy’s club where the other side will hold on to tradition like they do. So they think that by not invoking the nuclear option (51 votes on day one) to do a way with it, when the minority Republicans are in the majority they won’t either. Get a grip! What planet are you living on. Let me introduce you to Senator Cruz. It is not your grandfather’s Senate anymore and the Democrats, with this kind of thinking, just become more of the problem. Let’s face it, one side of the isle has become so far to the right and so ideological that compromise is no longer a viable option. The other side is in denial.

No there really isn’t. Turn on the news and you get the same things, gun politics, immigration politics, sequester politics, and nothing is changed, nothing. The Republicans are not moving on anything and have closed their minds. Oh, they might be slowly recognizing that maybe the DREAM Act might be a good idea, but what about citizenship? I am sure you have seen the polls today that say that by a large margin, Americans support the President on all these issues and there the Republicans sit blocking everything. (Plumb Line)

I mean think about it. How long has the Dream Act been out there (over a decade) and they are just starting to see the wisdom (economically and humanistically, or more realistically politically). It is the same with every other issue. And they are wrong on every one of those. And don’t give me the both sides have something to contribute. The solution does not lie somewhere in the middle of these two positions because the President already proposed a solution in the middle (see the Simpson-Bowles 2.0 nonsense).

We are fighting all these battles and artificially created crises because the Republicans have trained themselves to ignore reality and facts. See John McCain try to deal with these morons they created by feeding them false information in his Town Hall Meeting. Democrats and the majority of Americans are trying to pull us fully into the 21st century, and Republicans are trying to drag us crawling back into the 19th.

If Democrats don’t lose their courage, the ship may be slowly turning around. If the Senate can pass some reasonable legislation on all the above (Harry Reid screwed us when he did not reform the filibuster, but some Republicans really can read polls), then the House may be forced into action. If they block everything, they are done, and if more moderate Republicans in the House (there aren’t many) vote with Democrats, the lurch to the right is over. It is up to Democrats to stand up for what is right instead of some compromise that doesn’t fix anything and lets the Republicans off the hook. See the latest proposal to have all cuts, but let the President decide where they should be. It’s a trap to blame the President for all the cuts. We need to stick to the balanced approach option and add in some stimulus.

“Ten U.S. senators are urging the Supreme Court to overturn the rulings of multiple lower courts and to uphold a 1996 law that defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman and freed states not to recognize same-sex marriages from other states….House Speaker John Boehner, on behalf of House Republicans, has hired prominent Washington lawyer Paul Clement to defend the law, in a move that House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi criticized for costing taxpayers $3 million.”

YO! LOG CABIN REPUBLICANS. DO YOU FEEL STUPID YET? Oh yes, this is for sure the new reinvented Republican Party.

Last night Ezra Klein sat in for Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC’s The Last Word and the show kind of summed up all the things that we have wrong and what we should be doing. It was one of those rare instances where a journalist condensed our world into the important issues, and laid out for us to see, our actual reality. But I get ahead of myself.

President Obama laid out the important issues he wanted to tackle in his next term in his New Year’s Message and they were:

• Ending the War in Afghanistan
• Immigration Reform
• Addressing Gun violence
• Climate Change
• Education Reform

See Jobs anywhere? Yes, these are all extremely important things that need to get done, but from middleclass American’s perspective, jobs are number one and there is nothing in his agenda or the planning to do anything about jobs. With an average of 155,000 new jobs a month, it will be 2020 before we recover from this lessor depression and think about the lost lives which could further damage our future prosperity. Yes, some of these might help create a few jobs, but it is not his focus. Now that is where Ezra comes in because he laid out what is our only way forward for these issues and jobs in Washington.

Ezra started off the show with a discussion of the next cliff, another artificial cliff, the debt ceiling. He pointed out that the Republican threat of overtly crashing the country may not be hard line as their business base will desert them, and that President Obama’s pledge of not compromising over the ceiling may be also a weak kneed pledge, but then then he offered the real insight, neither the fiscal cliff compromise or the potential compromise around the debt ceiling helps the economy. In fact they are all about how big our austerity ought to be, not about how we get the economy going, which are at odds with each other.  All this cliff nonsense is noise and commotion and it is tilting at windmills. Now we get to real insight provided by Ezra, “What do we need to be doing about the economy if we strip away all the politics.”  Well I will let Ezra tell it:

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Now in all this is the obvious solutions to our problems that most everyone who understands economics agrees with, liberal or conservative. They include the following:

1. Job Creation Measures like tax credits for hiring and infrastructure spending
2. Implement deficit reduction measures like cuts and tax raises (even for the middleclass) when jobless rates fall to say 7% (Not now because right now the debt is not a problem no matter how many times we say it is (interest rates at lowest levels in decades and borrowing is not an issue))
3. Use the free money (low interest rates plus inflation makes this borrowing at no cost) to fund number 1 above until 2 occurs

It is almost a no brainer, but we can’t seem to get there with all the hysteria about the debt from those who don’t understand it, Democrats who have latched on to cutting as some perceived middle ground (Ed Rendell), and Republicans feeding the fire of debt hysteria so they can really dismantle government. They don’t really care about the deficit.  So why can’t we get there, and that was Ezra’s next segment about the dysfunction of the Republicans:

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 Those of you (probably none of my readers) who elected the Tea Party in 2010 are responsible for this mess.  When you elected people who hate government, are terrified of the debt, and are radicals, you are shutting down government, not making it more responsive, but ineffectual.  But that is what the Republicans want. The best part of this was the interview with Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein (It is Even Worse than You Thought), two bipartisan scholars who actually study the Congress, and don’t get their ideas about what make Washington work and not work from media cocktail parties (See Meet the Press is Insufferable), when they explain just how dysfunctional the Republicans have become.  At one point when Ezra asked the following Question, Thomas Mann made my point about Meet the Press and how bad it is:

Ezra Klein:  Well let me ask you this, one criticism of Obama is that he is just not LBJ, he is just not good at working Congress and if he was, could he do a better job in his second term?  How much blame do you put on him?

Thomas Mann:  Almost none in this respect. I think it is one of the silliest criticism that gets the attention of the press and of commentators more generally (Note this is what all the talking heads on Meet the Press agreed was the problem).  Leadership is contextual, you have to have a negotiating partner if you want to make a deal.  Republicans decided with Obama’s inauguration they would be opposed to everything even when he gave them what they themselves supported, that made such negotiations impossible.  It is a caricature of the past, but the present is different.”

We have entered a period that to make America great, the solutions are simple and straight forward.  Instead half our population supports radical crazies, terrified of debt that is not presently the problem (interest rates and inflation at extremely low levels), and wants to dismantle government.  For Progressives like me, it is almost insane that we can’t right our ship of state and are prevent by a fringe element.  What I can’t figure out is why our President and Democrats can’t lead here.  Put a plan together based on Ezra’s three things we know about the economy, and sell it as the only way forward, because it is.  Instead we are stuck with the Republicans setting the agenda on how big our austerity program ought to be.  We are in Alice in Wonderland Territory.

As a side note, no I don’t think we can convince most Republicans which is why I think we just have to push them out of the way as California did this election (Super majority of Democrats so we can move the State forward).  The reason I say this is because they can’t believe what they believe and really be or want to be informed.  My son related a conversation he had with two Republican friends, one of which was arguing that Dick Cheney served in the military.  I wonder if they understand the term Chicken Hawk?

I see where others in the Progressive cause have recognized what I have about the proposal for jobs (Opportunity Knocks for the Democrats).  Firedoglake.com ran this story which is my favorite: Obama Unsure on Whether to propose Jobs Ideas that Can’t pass or a Jobs Ideas that Can’t Pass.  Meanwhile E.J. Dionne was on Hardball recommending basically the same thing.  He could not see why the President wouldn’t lay out a plan that would actually create jobs because no matter what he does the Republicans are going to shoot it down.  Meanwhile I heard the Washington Media questioning Richard Trumka, head of AFL-CIO when he said the they would not support politicians who proposed half measures.  Their stock question is, but what’s the point if it can’t get by the Republican Congress.  The point was standing up for things we really believe in instead of what won’t work and won’t get by Congress anyway and giving voters a real choice in 2012.  Finally there is a ray of sunshine in political circles.  We can only hope Obama stumbles upon it.

Meanwhile on the N.J. front, there was another lesson for Obama if he is not buried in his I am the man of compromise bubble.  There was Governor Christie, who I rarely agree with or like, taking on the press on his handling of the Irene threat, showing who was in charge and being very, oh should I say it, Presidential.  It was clear who was in charge and what he believed when reporters asked him if he (government) over reacted, he took them on. He knows what he believes and is unafraid to stand for it.  It is everything Obama isn’t and needs to be if he is ever going to be an effective leader (Daily Beast).

The papers today indicated that Irene is going to be one of the top 10 costliest disasters ever.  Meanwhile more of the Republican morons are jumping on the band wagon of only paying for the repairs by stealing money from other programs instead of borrowing.  Think about it.  What is really happening is a disaster hits and it simply takes more money out of the economy and further depresses our recovery (both economic and from Irene).  Paul Krugman addressed this in purely economics terms to demonstrate how this is just basic bad economics in his blog (Disaster Relief Economics).  As he pointed out, where were they when we decided to go to war and wanted to pay for it with borrowing instead of cuts to other programs.

Dick Cheney, in the form of Darth Vader, is out there again reinventing history.  This is a very good thing for Democrats because he reminds a very fickle voting population about the mistakes that were made.  I found it interesting that he wears it as a badge of honor that he is a war criminal.  “He did what had to be done.”  Meanwhile Col Lawrence Wilkerson (Collin Powell’s Deputy) explained how “what had to be done” (torture) got them bad intelligence.  This remind anyone beside me of  Jack Nicholson in “A Few Good Men”?  When questioned by one interviewer on whether what they did in Iraq lowered the world’s esteem of the United States, he simply replied he did not believe that.  Like the rest of his brethren in the Republican party, facts are purely subjective.  He is truly an evil man who has little use for the law or democracy.

Finally, there is an editorial on controlling feral pigs where they have become a problem (Hawaii, Texas, California) (High above the Hog).  I could not help myself.  All I could think of was is this about feral pigs or piggy Republicans who are doing great damage to our country as they swill from the trough and make sure none flows over to the rest of us.  We need a national control program so that the damage they cause is greatly reduced (feral pigs and Republicans).  One suggestion from this article on feral pigs that we might want to listen to for Republicans is this:  “Most important, we must deal with the hunters who are helping pigs spread. Laws on the transportation and release of hogs should be toughened so that the penalties reflect the damage done.”  I read that as the corporations and monied interests who are controlling our politics today, creating the Tea Party (and then turning them loose), and owning the lobbyists.  You know we could learn a lot from nature if we would just pay attention.

California used to the place where trends for the country were set.  Some that come to mind are a top-notch education system, great road systems, parks next to none, smoke-free workplaces, environmental standards superior to the most of the country, and an attempt to get a handle on global warming while others napped.  But lately we have been on a very bad trip that started back in the 80’s with the passage of Proposition 13 and the two-thirds majority voting requirement for any funding action.  I must also admit I am deeply embarrassed about the vote on Prop 8, banning equality for gays.  We spend less on students in school than 47 other states, our roadways are a mess as we focused on the automobile over mass transit, and now the state may soon be bankrupt.

The bankruptcy is no surprise as it has been coming for years as Californians want more and more and are willing to pay less and less.  The government is immobilized by the mandatory spending initiatives that passed, and the minorities’ death grip on any compromise with the two-thirds majority required to raise any taxes.  It has been a recipe for disaster for years and it is finally coming to pass.  Paul Krugman opined about it on Monday in the New York Times (State of Paralysis) and he correctly identified the problem but then made the logical leap of what could happen to the federal government if we let a small radical political party (the Republicans) stymie action in the Congress.  In California they will acccept no budget with tax increases.  In one bargaining session the Democrats agreed that for every cut in programs the Republicans would agree to an equal increase in taxes, tit for tat if you will.  There would be no deal because the Republicans stood intransigently mired in no new taxes.  Not much room to negotiate here so we have finally run out of smoke and mirrors and the ship of state is headed directly for the rocks.

After the last “deal” went down in flames at the polls, Arnold and his spokespersons have been repeating that they heard loud and clear from the voters and the message was all cuts, no new taxes.  Actually I don’t think that was what the message was.  The real message was that these propositions were smoke and mirrors, more borrowing and kicking the can down the road without a permanent fix and that is no longer tolerable.  If they had presented a real plan that put us on the road to financial stability again, that got rid of all the borrowing, raised taxes, but also limited many programs that were popular with the voters but needed to be trimmed to balance the budget, the voters would have swallowed hard and accepted it.  But that is not what we got.  It was not possible because we are held hostage by one-third of the state’s representatives who will not allow any revenue increases.

What may be good is that most people have no concept of the impact of the cuts that are coming or how that is going to further depress California’s economy.  It is time for a wake-up call to those that think everybody else’s programs should be cut but not theirs.  It is time to demonstrate how we are all connected and when we think that just those lazy government workers will get laid off, and then the ripple effect shuts down your small business, it is wake-up call time.  These are the people who don’t think they need to pay school taxes after their kids graduate.  Remember we are now 47th in that spending and declining.  I think the only way they are going to get on board with the real changes that need to be made in California governing is if the system finally collapses and I just think it might.

My own thought here is that as long as we expect the super majority (two-thirds majority) to make and go along with really tough decisions, it is never going to happen, especially when the opposition party has become so radicalized (that would be Krugman’s assumption extrapolated to the federal government also (filibuster)).  My experience trying to bring about change in government bureaucracies is that there is always about 40% who are invested in the status quo, never want change, and sabotage any effort for change.  So until California is allowed to totally fail and we get rid of the two-third requirement for funding issues and let a simple majority decide our fate, California will never fix its problems.  California is a shinning example of failure of populace governance as we have a State constitution with over 500 amendments.  It needs to be trashed.

One thought to those Republicans out there that are obstructing any change in Washington or California:  Why not let the Democrats try their solutions?  If you are right then they will fail, the country will be in a mess and you will be swept into office.  You will finally have your mandate.  Instead you keep trying to maintain the status quo and you are creating the deep mess we are in by obstructing any change to the path we are currently on, which by the way was your bright idea.  What’s the problem?  Are you afraid they will succeed?