Howard Jones with Ringo Starr -- Things Can Only Get Better

Happy Fathers' Day to all the daddies out there!

I indulged myself into little funk last week, despairing over the the condition of the Gulf and the long-term consequences. I fed into my sense of hopelessness by being dissatisfied with Obama's address to the nation. But after engaging in the comments, I want to be clear about something: I feel strongly that it is my right and my responsibility to voice my dissatisfaction and to advocate for more progressive solutions. But not even in my darkest moments do I ever think that the political parties are essentially the same. And I believe with every fiber of my being that, given the current dual-partisan construct of our government, we will always be better off with Democrats in charge. Will they get everything right? Of course not. Will they be occasionally be feckless, corrupt and beholden to special interests? Yes. But hear me again: We will always be better off with Democrats in charge. That's not just me speaking, study after study show all the different ways things get better with the Democratic Party. Digby also addressed it this week:

I know the Democratic Party sucks. (It always has to one degree or another, by the way. Check out Roosevelt's policies on race. It's not like he didn't know they were bad --- it was his deal with the devil to keep the old confederacy in the coalition.) Sadly, that's true of every political party ever created. However, it is the only institutional governance vehicle we have for liberalism of any kind and it is the only viable tool our system provides to fight back the increasingly manipulative, nihilistic and fascistic conservatives.

Over time we must change the status quo and force them to be more responsive to their constituents and there are ways outside and inside the system to make that happen. But empowering the Republicans at the very height of their teabag madness isn't one of them --- the risk of it all going terribly, terribly wrong in ways we haven't contemplated in a time of crisis like this is far too great.

So keep that in mind as you look at the bobblehead, jockeying for position this Sunday.

ABC's "This Week" - White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., Bill Nelson, D-Fla., and Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; Rep. Joseph Cao, R-La.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Gov. Haley Barbour, R-Miss.; Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La.; Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Kenneth Feinberg, who will oversee BP's compensation fund to Gulf oil spill victims; former Shell Oil Co. President John Hofmeister.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Savannah Guthrie, John Heilemann, Rick Stengel, Helene Cooper. Topics: How Obama Can Take Charge of the Gulf Oil Crisis; Is the Rise of the New Right Making Regular Republicans Harder To Elect?

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sens. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - The oil disaster came to Washington this week. Fareed's take: we need to stop vilifying oil...because we're not going to shake our addiction to it anytime soon. Then, Fareed sits down for an exclusive interview with Afghanistan opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah. And, finally, John McCain wants President Obama to help bring about further regime change in the Middle East. How's that?

"Fox News Sunday" - Defense Secretary Robert Gates; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

Oops. I imagine this is a pretty uncomfortable situation for Bill Clinton, since Bill Halter served in the Clinton White House. The Halter campaign attributes it to a previous commitment to Lincoln, made before Halter entered the race:

A day after finishing ahead of Lt. Gov. Bill Halter by just 5,000 votes and being forced into a runoff, Sen. Blanche Lincoln announced she's bringing in a hefty campaign reinforcement: former President and Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton.

The Lincoln campaign said Clinton would campaign for her in the Little Rock area on May 28. Details of the stops have not yet been released.

"Blanche is fighting the special interests and standing up for Arkansas," Clinton said in a statement released by the Lincoln campaign. "She has written the toughest Wall Street reform proposal to help Main Street businesses. She has fought for Arkansas farmers, ranchers and foresters. Arkansas cannot afford to lose Blanche's leadership as Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee," the former president continued.

The move is squarely designed to halt the momentum Halter has gained by coming within two percentage points of the two-term incumbent. With 93 percent of the vote counted, Lincoln led Halter 44 percent to 42 percent. The little-known D.C. Morrison captured 13 percent of the vote.

"We understand President Clinton is fulfilling a commitment he made before Bill Halter entered the race," said Halter campaign manager Carol Butler.

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Jake Tapper on This Week interviews David Axelrod on the healthcare bill, pushing the right-wing narrative that people don't want this bill. Axelrod responds that when you push on into the details, the public supports the things this bill does:

TAPPER: David, pluralities, if not majorities of the American people do oppose this bill. Doesn't he have a point?

AXELROD: Well, first, let me note that Senator Brown comes from a state that has a health care plan that is similar to one that we are trying to enact here, and that people in his state are overwhelmingly in support of it. He voted for it and said he wouldn't repeal it. So we're just trying to give the rest of America the same opportunities that the people of Massachusetts have to get health insurance at a price they can afford.

This bill is important to the American people, Jake, and when you get underneath the numbers and you ask people, do you support giving people more leverage against insurance companies so that they -- if they have preexisting conditions, they can get coverage, so if they get sick, they don't get thrown off, so they don't have these huge premium increases of the sort we've just seen announced in states around the country, they say yes. When you say, do you want to give small businesses and people who don't have insurance through the job the chance to get insurance in a competitive marketplace where they can get it at a price they can afford and give them tax credits to help them do that, they say yes. And when you say, should we reduce the overall costs of the health care system over time, they say yes.

But that's the program. That's the plan. And it is important to the American people that we have the fortitude to go ahead against it, to leave the politics aside, to leave the partisanship aside, to resist the special interests and get the job done.

TAPPER: But according to polls, the American people do not agree with what you think--

AXELROD: The polls are split, Jake. I mean, one of the interesting things that has happened in the last four or five weeks is that if you look at -- if you average together the public polls, what you find is that the American people are split on the top line, do you support the plan? But again, when you go underneath, they support the elements of the plan. When you ask them, does the health care system need reform, three quarters of them say yes. When you ask them, do you want Congress to move forward and deal with this issue, three quarters of them say yes. So we're not going to walk away from this issue.

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Last week the Supreme Court – in the disastrous Citizens United decision – effectively opened up American elections to unlimited spending by foreign governments and corporations. President Obama rightly called the court out last night in his SOTU address:

With all due deference to separation of powers, last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests – including foreign corporations – to spend without limit in our elections. (Applause.) I don't think American elections should be bankrolled by America's most powerful interests, or worse, by foreign entities. (Applause.) They should be decided by the American people.

But not everyone was applauding. Justice Alito was busy shaking his head, pantomiming, and mouthing “not true” to no one in particular (watch here).

Not surprisingly, right-wing bloggers have jumped to Alito’s defense and accused the president of lying. They point to existing bans on electioneering by foreigners and foreign companies. But that’s only part of the story.

There aren’t any restrictions on US subsidiaries of foreign corporations or on foreign-controlled US corporations. And thanks to the Supreme Court, these companies can spend billions on electing or picking off American politicians at all levels of government. This isn’t just some little loophole, it’s a gaping breech in our democracy.

As Justice Stevens argued in his eloquent dissent, the court’s ruling “would appear to afford the same protection to multinational corporations controlled by foreigners as to individual Americans.” Amazingly, the same conservatives who go apoplectic over the slightest whiff of foreign influence – such as when Obama bows ceremoniously to a foreign leader – have embraced that view.

They don’t seem to mind that Lukoil (Kremlin Inc.), Citgo (Hugo Chavez LLC), Aramco (King Fahd and Sons Co.), and countless other multinational corporations – including those run as business arms of foreign governments – now have a free hand to influence the government from top to bottom.

In fact, the conservative justices raised and then summarily dismissed the issue in their opinion:

We need not reach the question whether the Government has a compelling interest in preventing foreign individuals or associations from influencing our Nation’spolitical process.

Truly incredible. They happily overturned over a century of precedent, but they worried that it might be presumptuous of them to limit foreign influence in American elections.

Now, there are naysayers out there who argue that foreign corporations won’t try to buy US elections because they’re required to disclose such activities and would risk alienating customers and creating controversy. Sadly, that’s wrong.

Corporations can now transfer money to trade associations (American Petroleum Institute), so-called advocacy groups (FreedomWorks), PR firms (Creative Response Concepts, the creators of swift-boating), or any variety of shell corporation/front group and spend unlimited amounts on attack ads, robocalls, direct mail, canvassing, etc. – all without any disclosure whatsoever.

But Republican leaders in Washington don’t seem to mind. In fact, they’re calling this a leveling of the playing field and a boon to the American middle class. It’s obvious that they expect the bulk of foreign cash will be spent on their behalf.

We can’t stand by as the GOP sells out the US to the highest bidder, foreign or domestic. As the president mentioned, there’s newly introduced legislation in Congress that would ban electioneering by foreign interests. We should pass it quickly, along with public financing of campaigns. But Congress can only chip away at the edges of the ruling. American democracy will be in grave danger until Citizens United is overruled by a constitutional amendment or the court itself.

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Here's Sam Alito's "Joe Wilson" moment during the State of the Union speech. When Obama cited the Citizens United v. FEC decision and voiced his concerns that it opened the nation up to the undue influence of special interests, watch Alito grimace and roll his eyes. He says something as well. John Aravosis, from whom we were tipped this video, reads it as "not true," although it's hard to tell from the angle.

Whatever the case, it was sweet to see all the justices sitting uncomfortably while all around them, the audience gave the President a standing ovation for criticizing them.

It's astounding to me, that California voters still remain so largely uninformed (or indifferent) about the root causes of the state's yearly fiscal crisis. Those who want to change things have an uphill battle:

Reporting from Sacramento - Backers of an overhaul of California's government, who hope to leverage disgust with Sacramento into support for changing how the state raises taxes and spends money, have a difficult path ahead, according to a new poll of California voters.

Major segments of the electorate see the state's problems as the product of unrestrained lawmakers driven by special interests to waste taxpayer money, and reject arguments that structural issues with the state's Constitution and government institutions are to blame.

Voters don't want the tax code overhauled in the ways that many fiscal experts promise would tamp down the wild revenue swings that have led to a constant state of budget crisis in California. They don't want the Constitution changed to allow a simple majority of lawmakers to push a budget onto the governor's desk, as most other large states allow. And they don't want the state to touch Proposition 13 property tax restrictions, even if residential property taxes would remain strictly limited.

Continue reading »

Just like we here outside the Beltway Bubble, sometimes you've just had enough and there's no more need for diplomacy:

President Barack Obama is “getting bad advice from… clowns” on Afghanistan and “sucking up to the wrong people” on health care, U.S. Rep. John Conyers told a Detroit radio audience this morning, according to show host Rev. Horace Sheffield.

Conyers, a Detroit Democrat, made the comments during a discussion about the effects of the economic recession on the urban poor, Sheffield said. The liberal congressman expressed frustration that health care legislation pending in Washington, D.C., was too solicitous of insurance companies and special interests, Sheffield said.

“He wasn’t angry. He was just deeply concerned that some of the issues being focused on don’t address the human reality,” said Sheffield, who hosts the program “On The Line” on WGPR-FM radio.

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Bill Moyers interviewed health care experts Marcia Angell and Trudy Lieberman about the Obama healthcare reform proposals this week, and their remarks are being quoted all over the blogosphere this weekend. Sounds like pretty depressing stuff - it has many bloggers upset. (Complete transcript here.) But read it carefully:

BILL MOYERS: Given what you've said, why the rush? Why not slow this down and give this very big issue more due deliberation?

TRUDY LIEBERMAN: It's really a political calculation. And I think that they believe that they have to act quickly, because it might not happen. Because the sooner you have the special interests going back home, during the August recess and holding town hall meetings and talking to people in coffee shops, they're going to find that maybe this isn't something that people really want or have doubts about.

MARCIA ANGELL: Well, I think we are in a hurry. I think that President Obama's worried, that what happened with the Clinton plan can happen with him. And I do have a feeling of déjà vu all over again. That this is like 1993. That the opposition is having a chance to mobilize. To march out these Canadians who say they had brain tumors and had to die. Or these ads that say 20 percent of Europeans drop dead.

TRUDY LIEBERMAN: And Harry and Louise are back.

MARCIA ANGELL: And I think he does. He is right to worry about that. And he is right to want to do it in a hurry. The problem is he is not doing the right thing.

BILL MOYERS: Because?

MARCIA ANGELL: Well, the plan is not for all the reasons we've said. It leaves the bad guys in place. And it tries to kind of make concessions. And what the Clintons found out is they too wanted to keep the private insurance industry at the table. And maybe regulate them a little. And what the private insurance industry decided was, "Why should we take half a loaf when we can have the whole thing?" And that's what I'm seeing happen. Happening now.

TRUDY LIEBERMAN: We are having the same debate, almost, that we had in '93-'94. And it's something I've written about for the Columbia Journalism Review. It's actually the same debate we've had decades before. And it's the unwillingness to look at what we could learn from other systems. Single payer, multiple payers, as they have in Germany and Japan. Or even in the Netherlands, where there are private payers. What's really happening there?

So, I think there's an unwillingness on the part of politicians-- on the part of advocacy groups, some advocacy groups, to really educate Americans on what the possibilities are. And we at C.J.R. have been saying we really have not had a vibrant discussion about other possibilities.

MARCIA ANGELL: I think we have to start all over on this. I really do. I think we have to go for a single payer system. You could institute that gradually. You could do it state by state. You could do it decade by decade. You could improve Medicare. That is, make it nonprofit. But extend it down to age 55 and age 45 and age 35. It would give the private insurance industry a chance to go into hurricanes, earthquakes or something. To get out of the health business. It could be done gradually. I think that has to be done. And it's the only thing that can be done.

Okay, so the experts have looked at what's happening and they have their own recommendations. Now, let's look at this comment at Open Left in response to the Moyers piece:

And now, besides "starting over," what is the difference in the approach suggested by these policy analysts? "You could institute that gradually. You could do it state by state." I thought the gradualism was awful? And I thought the most vibrant version of the Bill moving out of the House HELP committee had an Amendment, passed bipartisanly, that makes provision for, makes the rules allowing, gives permission to: States Implementing Statewide Single Payer Systems.

They continue:

"It could be done gradually. I think that has to be done. And it's the only thing that can be done."

So except for "starting over" - they are in complete agreement with the present process. I think they want a title on the final Bill that says "We are moving to Single Payer, don't be too patient or in too much of a hurry." But otherwise, despite their trepidation, they have a descriptive laying out of congress's and the administration's arm-twisting, panderer-molifying, greed distracting, regionally diverse and constantly-attacked plan of action, as it appears to be moving through the tunnel of that resembles Hunter S. Thompson's description of "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side."

What they want is so close to what is happening as to be merely a description.

Sorry to sound like a broken record, but damn. No public plan until 2013? Yeah, that'll be a huge help to people like this. And in the meantime, lazy reporters write stories that are spoon fed to them by special interests:

WASHINGTON — The final installment of a three-part increase in the federal minimum wage is proving to be the most controversial.

Two previous wage hikes, one in 2007, the other in 2008, pushed the federal wage to $5.85 and then to the current $6.55 an hour. The third, which goes into effect Friday, will push it to $7.25 an hour.

That's not a life-changing raise — an extra $28 a week for a fulltime worker earning the federal minimum — though low-wage earners like Kendell Patterson in Oklahoma City, Okla., say it'll help.

Only someone who lives a relatively privileged life thinks $112 a month isn't real help. But then, our ladies and gentlemen of the media do seem to live in a world of their own!

But some economists worry that the wage hike is coming at the worst possible time and will only make the recession-battered job market tougher for the very workers it's intended to help.

"Some" economists? The story only mentions one, and guess what? She works for a front group, the Employment Policies Institute - run by lobbyists and funded by the usual suspects. From SourceWatch:

EPI has has been widely quoted in news stories regarding minimum wage issues, and although a few of those stories have correctly described it as a "think tank financed by business," most stories fail to provide any identification that would enable readers to identify the vested interests behind its pronouncements. Instead, it is usually described exactly the way it describes itself, as a "non-profit research organization dedicated to studying public policy issues surrounding employment growth" that "focuses on issues that affect entry-level employment." In reality, EPI's mission is to keep the minimum wage low so Berman's clients can continue to pay their workers as little as possible.

I'm guessing this entire story was grounded in a press release from EPI, making it sound like an impending economic crisis. You'd like to think that a decent news organization like McClatchy would catch things like this, but I guess that's where parasitic blogs come in handy.

The increase will have minimal impact in most states. Eighteen states and the District of Colombia already have minimum wages that are higher or equal to $7.25 an hour. In nine more, the minimum wage is higher than $6.55 an hour and so workers in those states will see their wages rise by only a fraction of the 70-cents-an-hour increase, from four cents an hour in Florida to 40 cents an hour in Nevada.

That leaves 23 states where minimum wage workers covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act will enjoy the full 70-cents-an-hour increase.

Patterson, a 38-year-old child care worker with two children, can certainly use the extra cash. Most of her $262 weekly paycheck goes for food, utilities, her car payment and $650 per month rent.

Her oldest son,19, is taking a fast-food job to help with the bills, but Patterson is still looking for a second job on weekends to help make ends meet.

She tried to get food stamps, but her income was too high.

"How can a person who makes minimum wage make too much money?" she said.

Patterson also needs help with her medical bills. She has no health insurance and recently found four lumps in her breast. She also suffers from asthma and takes several anti-seizure medications.

One medication costs $500 for 30-day supply while the other costs $350, she said. Sometimes her parents help with the costs. Other times she simply goes without.

Patterson said the minimum wage increase won't help her very much, but even a little help is appreciated because times are so hard.

Working her ass off to stay afloat, and she's supposed to hang on until 2013 if she wants help with her healthcare bills. Yes, this is indeed an economic Katrina - and the boats will be here in 2013.

I spent a lot of time thinking about the metrics behind the article last week that Obama was upset at Democratic activists fighting for the public option. And there were two things that occurred to me: 1) first and foremost, any lede generated via Ceci Connolly should be taken with a grain of salt; and 2) we're getting under the skin of the congresscritters and making them very uncomfortable.

Think about it.

Here's the scenario as I see it: some moderate Democratic congressperson who has been trying to placate the special interests in their district--be it health insurance companies or lobbyists--complains to Obama that the calls they've been fielding are just not nice--after all, a huge majority of Americans want minimally a public option and are getting pretty testy at the corporatist response of the Dems. Obama pats the congressperson on the shoulder and commiserates, "Yes, I wish you didn't have to deal with those calls," without really addressing the substance of the calls. Constituents being nasty on the phone are a pain to deal with, even if their complaints are completely valid. That congressperson (or his/her aides) go running to the very eager Ceci Connolly to spin it that Obama wishes that these activists would leave the Beltway Bubble residents alone and voila! We have an article that claims Obama is irked by those pushing for Universal Health Care.

So what should our response be? I know what MoveOn, SEIU and Change Congress/PCCC have no intentions of cutting their ad buys pushing for a vibrant public option. Nor does Blue America. And you shouldn't stop demanding it either.

Courtesy of Lee Stranahan:

As inspiring as it was to watch Iranian citizens risk their lives and use new media like Twitter and YouTube to fight for better lives for themselves, it was also impossible not to have a sense that of self-consciousness about how lax and lazy we are in America about our own lives and political system. We’re not afraid of getting shot for expressing our opinions - we just have other stuff to do.

That’s exactly how the corporate owned media and lobbyist funded politicians want it, of course. They don’t actually want us too involved in the political system on issues. If we all have a general sense of helplessness and cynicism, we won’t bother to make phone calls to politicians…even on an issue as vital as health care.[..]

All of this hit me last week and I decided to do something about it. In the course of about seven days, I made 10 short videos about health care reform. I wasn’t hired to do it, I wasn’t asked to do it. I just did it because the issue is important to me personally, to my family and to my country. And I did it because I could.

More videos here.

Don't stop demanding that Washington listen to us. We ARE having an impact, even if they don't want us to know we are. We will not get what we want by remaining silent.