Ugh. Why is it so difficult to find Democrats not eager to bow to the craven fear-mongering of Republican rivals? TPM:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has now spoken out on the Muslim community center in New York -- saying that while the organizers are free to construct the project, it should be moved somewhere else.

"The First Amendment protects freedom of religion. Senator Reid respects that but thinks that the mosque should be built some place else," said a statement from Reid spokesman Jim Manley. "If the Republicans are being sincere, they would help us pass this long overdue bill to help the first responders whose health and livelihoods have been devastated because of their bravery on 911, rather than continuing to block this much-needed legislation."

Fer cryin' out loud. Reid is running scared because of rival Sharron Angle's taunts that Reid is Obama's waterboy by the lizard brains who want to equate all Muslims with terrorism and 9/11.

"As the Majority Leader, Harry Reid is usually President Obama's mouthpiece in the U.S. Senate, and yet he remains silent on this issue. Reid has a responsibility to stand up and say no to the mosque at Ground Zero or once again side with President Obama---this time against the families of 9/11 victims. America is waiting."

And of course, he caves. Saying that they have a First Amendment right to build it isn't that revolutionary a stance to take. One would hope that the Majority Leader of the Senate has at least a cursory understanding of the Constitution (which is, by the way, more than we can say for Angle). But to say that they should move it is to play into the irrational hatred and bigotry of the lowest common denominator and something for which Reid should be wholly ashamed. Greg Sargent:

Despite Reid's reaffirmation of this right, his response is still weak and indefensible. And it leaves the President hanging after he took a big risk to do the right thing. Obama did not explicitly endorse the decision to build the center. But Obama did say that if the group does proceed with that decision, we must respect that decision, in accordance with American values.

Reid is not willing to say that. Rather, he's saying, in effect, that even if he supports the group's right to build the center, he's not willing to respect the decision to do so. That's unacceptable, and leaves Obama isolated at a very sensitive moment.

What's more, it's unclear why coming out against the plan in the manner Reid did is even good politics for Democrats at this point. Reid basically threw the whole Dem caucus under the bus: With the Senate leader at odds with the president, the media will press every Senate Dem to declare which side they're on.

Dumb, Harry. On every level. Even Republican advisers like Mark McKinnon think that pursuing this is a loser for Republicans. Why do you need to be a loser too?

Want to tell Harry that he needs to smarten up? Contact him here.

UPDATE: Haaretz is claiming that the Cordoba House has decided to move, something Cordoba House representatives are denying.

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Ah...the mark of Emanuel strikes again.

Rahm Emanuel, as the head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, famously decided that the best way for the DCCC to claim big wins in the 2006 was to focus his efforts on select safe seats and back candidates that would be easily persuadable to Emanuel in office. He flatly rejected Howard Dean's 50 State Strategy. As a result, the Democratic Party did pick up 30 seats in the House in the 2006 election, but lost some really great progressive candidates like Darcy Burner, because they refused to give them any investment. Who knows how many more they might have picked up (and how much further left of the DLC/Blue Dogs Emanuel backed) if they had went with Dean's strategy. Certainly, Axelrod and Plouffe went more with Dean than Emanuel in their presidential campaign strategy.

Unfortunately, it looks like DCCC head Chris Van Hollen and DNC chair Tim Kaine are listening more to Emanuel in this year's mid-term elections. Justin Coussoule, who is enjoying the full endorsement of Blue America, openly tells Chris Jansing that he has received no support whatsoever from the DNC or DCCC.

That's why your support of our Blue America campaign is so critical. The stupid Democratic Party just doesn't get it. Howie Klein has done an amazing job of vetting these fantastic PROGRESSIVE candidates and that's exactly the kind of people we need to see elected, not the malleable DLC types.

Please help Justin Coussoule as much as you can. We hope to put up even more ads in the 8th district as we near Election Day.

I had a good time in Vegas, so I didn't spend a huge amount of time at NN, but I did spend enough time to take in the mood, and it was schizophrenic. About half the people there are some combination of angry, disappointed and bitter with Democrats in general and Obama in particular.

This group sees him as not a heck of a lot better than George Bush, and in fact the Democrat who extended some of Bush's worst policies, especially in civil liberties. This includes a lot of feminists (angry at what they see as betrayals on abortion), many Hispanics angry at the continued harsh enforcement of immigration laws, gays who feel Obama has betrayed clear promises on gay rights, anti-war activists saddened by escalation in Afghanistan and elsewhere, and a mishmash of folks who think health care reform was a dog's breakfast and that the general way the economy and financial reform has been handled is a disgrace.

Then there are the folks who would characterize themselves, in general, as hard-nosed pragmatists and "realists". These range from the "Obama is the greatest liberal president since FDR" types, who think that the Obama is just wonderful and those progressives and liberals who don't agree are simply delusional to those who feel that a lot of what he's done has been watered down pap in general but that it's certainly better than nothing and that those who are disappointed are unrealistic idealists who simply don't understand the constraints Obama and Congressional Democrats are working under.

As regular readers know, I tend to the first camp, but I'm not going to go into why, I simply want to note that this divide is very real. It's occasioning a lot of anger on both sides. The first sees the second as tribalistic sellouts, willing to excuse horrible things they would never excuse in Republicans so long as they are committed by Democrats and lacking an understanding of just how bad Democratic policy has been. These are folks who tend to sneer at the "wins" as either illusory or so underwhelming as to be a parody of the "lesser evil" argument. (Reminding one inevitably of the T-shirts which say "Why Vote for the lesser evil. Cthulhu 2008.") To many of these folks the other side are, crudely put, sell-outs.

The second side is angry at what they see as fairy-tale thinking and deeply unrealistic. "Obama couldn't fix everything immediately, but he's better than the Republicans will be if they get back in power" is their mantra, ranging from "really, he's wonderful and you're insane for thinking otherwise" to "well, yes he sucks but he sucks less than what the Republicans will do when they get in power." Either way, they see the attacks from what they consider the "purists" as deeply damaging. Democrats may or may not be a ton better than Republicans, but either way, they are better, and there is a moral case to be made for sucking it up one more time and working hard to elect, as the old progressive battle cry runs, "better Democrats". This is a two-party state, with those parties having an unbreakable oligopoly on power. Dissing Democrats just helps the even worse party win, at which point they will do even worse things. So get over your problems, whether they are with economic policy or Obama's continued shredding of fundamental civil liberties like Habeas Corpus, jump back into the trenches with your bowie knife or bayonet and fight for Democrats, not against them because by constantly bad mouthing Dems all you do is make it more likely that Republicans will win, and if they win, well, that will be baaaaddddd. Very, very baaaaaddddd.

To put it crudely and unfairly to both sides, it's the sell-outs without principles against the purists without realism.

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Ruh roh:

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.) will stand trial on ethics charges after a House panel accused him Thursday of multiple violations.

The veteran lawmaker will challenge the findings in an open hearing.

The news of Rangel’s trial comes at a bad time for Democrats, who are hoping to retain control of Congress this fall.[..]

A visibly frustrated Rangel on Thursday afternoon told The Hill that he did not know what the “alleged violations are finally going to be.”[..]

Rangel is facing a competitive and crowded primary on Sept. 14. In a poll released this week, Rangel attracted 39 percent of the vote, followed by State Assemblyman Adam Clayton Powell IV with 21 percent.

In all likelihood, Rangel’s trial will not start before his primary.

House ethics committee rules prohibit the committee from acting 30 days before a primary and 60 days before an election.

The House ethics rules also ensure that Rangel and his team of lawyers will have at least 15 days to review the allegations against him before the trial begins. [..]

In order for the committee to move forward with the trial, Rangel had to waive his rights to settle and accept the ethics committee punishment, according to ethics committee rules governing the trial process. Sources told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that Rangel's attorney and the committee had failed to reach a settlement, which would have required an admission from Rangel that he broke ethics rules.

Public trials for ethics violations are rare and usually involve serious allegations against members, including censure and removal from office.

Rangel's characteristic bravado notwithstanding, there are reports that vulnerable Democratic congresspeople have already petitioned Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer to put pressure on Rangel to resign, rather than taint the entire party. Interesting that when you get the same kind of scandals on the other side, you don't see this same desire to get rid of the scandalized member; rather, they circle the wagons around them (see Vitter, DeLay, et al.). I'm not sure exactly what Rangel has done, but Jonathan Capehart at WaPo says good riddance:

The committee has had a lot to look into. But my favorite, hands down, is his amended financial disclosure forms that revealed not one but two checking accounts -- CHECKING -- with up to $500,000 in them. How that slips the mind of the man who at the time was the powerful chief of the tax-writing committee is beyond me.

"At long last, sunshine has pierced through this cloud that has been over my head for more than two years," Rangel said. This is classic Rangel. Trying to make a walk over hot coals look like a stroll on the Mall. I look forward to hearing whatever explanations he has for his violations. And I look forward to whatever penalties befall him.

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I am convinced that the reason that the Republican Party has not gone the way of the Whig Party is because they have excelled in what I call "bumpersticker politicking". That is to say, they create easily digestible soundbytes that sound right (as long as you don't examine them to closely) and keep the low-information focused on the smaller picture.

They can decry "deficit spending", "job killing", "tax cuts" and it sounds sensible. But as we've shown over and over, when you really look at it, it makes no sense. They are slogans over substance.

But thank the FSM we have Alan Grayson on our side. Because he can match these Republicans yahoos with easily digestible soundbytes and even more importantly, has the substance behind them. Note the nice little dig at presidential aspirant Newt Gingrich (proving once again that leaving the office in disgrace is no reason to fade away for the GOP):

I think that he‘s a disgrace. I wonder why anybody takes him seriously anymore. If he does to America what he did to his own personal life, we‘re all in deep, deep trouble.

Oh ouch. That one left a mark. Grayson makes no attempt to hide his disdain for the Republicans and their politicking around real people's lives. Grayson accurately likens their country club elite concerns to those ascribed to Marie Antoinette (not long before facing the guillotine): The poor can't afford bread? Let them eat cake.

The Republican Party is the party that doesn‘t want to help you. They either want to blame you, or they would try to want to convince that you somehow you‘ll be better off if nobody helps you.

Heather, our VideoCafe queen, made this mash up of the fantastic work Alan Grayson has done in the last couple of days advocating for the interests of the average American person instead of the uber-wealthy, who don't need the government's help to begin with.

On the floor of the House, Grayson soundly berated the Republicans for holding up the extension of unemployment benefits with a "May God have mercy on your souls".

Noting that his grandfather scoured the garbage dump for things he could sell to support his family in the 1930s, Grayson said, “That is the America the Republicans are trying to revive — the America of desperate straits and cheap labor.”

“I know what [Republicans] are th/inking: ‘Why don’t they just sell some stock? If they’re in really dire straits, maybe they could take some of their art collection and send it off to the auctioneer. And if they’re in deep, deep trouble, maybe the unemployed can sell one of their yachts.’ That’s what the Republicans are thinking,” Grayson said.

This is exactly the kind of rhetoric we need to hear from the Democratic Party--pushing back hard and clearly showing how out of touch the Republican Party is. Because I believe strongly that we need to reward this kind of behavior and send a message to weaker Democrats, if you can, send some scratch to Grayson here.

Oh and a little personal aside to Dan Gainor of Newsbusters: You putzes are always big on sounding like big bad bullies and violence is always your answer for anyone you don't like, but you can't even fight your own battles. $100 to knock out Grayson? You overcompensating little man. And you're stupid too; have you any idea how big Grayson is? Dude, you are so overmatched, in size, in brawn, in brains, in compassion and in every other way that marks a real man. Give it up, you wimp.

On Meet the Press Sunday, born-again deficit virgins John Cornyn and Pete Sessions could not explain any steps they would take to stem the flow of red ink they helped produce. But this weekend, both Republican leaders were crystal clear about their nostalgia for the economic policies of George W. Bush. While Senator Cornyn gushed "President Bush’s stock is going up a lot" as people are looking back "with more fondness" on his administration, Rep. Sessions insisted "we need to go back to the exact same agenda that is empowering the free enterprise system rather than diminish it."

That refrain is music to Democratic ears. After all, a recent Time poll showed Americans not only prefer President Obama over Bush by a twenty-point margin, but blame Dubya for the economic disaster 61% to 27%. Last week's Washington Post-ABC survey revealed a staggering 73% have some or no confidence in Republicans' ability to make the right decisions for the country's future. And by a 42% to 34% margin, the public still trusts Democrats to do a better job handling the economy. But the larger truth about the free enterprise system trumpeted by Pete Sessions is this:

When it comes to GDP, employment, the stock market or just about any other measure of the health of American capitalism, the historical record is clear: the economy almost always does better under Democrats.

The verdict on President Bush's reign of ruin was pronounced even before Barack Obama took the oath of office. January 9, 2009, the Republican-friendly Wall Street Journal summed it up with an article titled simply, "Bush on Jobs: the Worst Track Record on Record." Just days after the Washington Post documented that George W. Bush presided over the worst eight-year economic performance in the modern American presidency, the New York Times on January 24 featured an analysis ("Economic Setbacks That Define the Bush Years") comparing presidential performance going back to Eisenhower. As the Times showed, George W. Bush, the first MBA president, was a historic failure when it came to expanding GDP, producing jobs and fueling stock market growth.

But it was the release of a Census Bureau report in September ("Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2008") which in 67 pages laid bare the economic devastation and human toll during the Bush presidency. As The Atlantic ("Closing The Book On The Bush Legacy") rightly noted, "It's not a record many Republicans are likely to point to with pride":

On every major measurement, the Census Bureau report shows that the country lost ground during Bush's two terms. While Bush was in office, the median household income declined, poverty increased, childhood poverty increased even more, and the number of Americans without health insurance spiked. By contrast, the country's condition improved on each of those measures during Bill Clinton's two terms, often substantially.

The table above (via The Reaction) provides a horrifying snapshot of the scope of the national calamity under George W. Bush. The extent of the failure by Jeb's brother was particularly glaring when it came to employment and job creation.

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Oh dear God, I hate admitting it when anyone over at the Corner is right about something but... AAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHH... Nicole Gelinas is right:

The financial system's failures made themselves obvious starting in 2007 in part because legislators and regulators thought that they could conjure up on command not only wisdom and competence but omniscience.

In the years leading up to the financial crisis, regulators allowed financial firms such as AIG to create derivatives that evaded the old-fashioned limits on borrowing and trading. The people in charge figured that the financial guys had figured out every angle and made these things perfectly safe.

Regulators, too, allowed banks to borrow far more than old-fashioned rules would have allowed on mortgage-related securities and other instruments rated AAA — because competent people had determined that such securities could never fail.

Finally, regulators allowed people to buy houses with no money down — even though we learned in the 1920s that it's not a good idea to let people borrow limitlessly to speculate that the price of something will continue to rise.

The lesson to be learned here is that we need borrowing and trading rules that apply to everyone and everything for those times when bankers, regulators, and tens of millions of ordinary Americans aren't right.

The bill offers no evidence that anyone in Congress has learned this lesson.

The essential problem with the financial reform package the Democrats have put together is that it relies far too much on the discrepancy of regulators and not enough on hard law. So instead of breaking up banks whose assets exceed a certain level of GDP, we have merely given regulators the ability to break up banks if and when they pose grave risks to the economy. As anyone who has followed the wacky hijinks of our government during the Bush years knows, regulators often suck, especially when they're sleeping with the people they're supposed to be regulating.

So here's how it's going to play out: At some point in the future, we will have a Republican president who will appoint Levi Johnston to head up the SEC or Treasury or the Fed. Levi will have all kinds of powers at his disposal, whether it's breaking up big banks, raising interest rates to curtail asset bubbles or enforcing strict leverage requirements. But instead of utilizing any of the vast powers at his disposal, Levi smokes dope and pleasures himself while watching porn all day long. Five days after taking office, the economy crashes again and Levi is trotted out in front of the cameras to tell us that "nobody could have predicted" this sort of thing would ever happen.

This is the sort of thing that happens when you put your faith in the competence of regulators rather than creating hard law. A real financial reform package would have held the banks to strict leverage requirements, would have forced them to stop prop trading if they wanted to retain access to the Fed's discount window and would have broken up the largest financial institutions. Instead we have a large complex nightmare that is riddled with loopholes that will allow the banks to behave just as irresponsibly as they've done in the past.

So take comfort, America. The only thing now saving us from another financial crisis is the wisdom and competence of Federal Reserve Chairman Levi Johnston. Huzzah!

It seems that, in the wake of the Supreme Court decision in Citizens United, which allowed uncontrolled corporate money into elections, that (surprise!) Republicans have a huge warchest from outside actors like the Chamber of Commerce:

On the left hand side of the chart is a list of ten Republican aligned institutions, ranging from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to the Family Research Council. Next to it is a column listing the amount of money each group has pledged to spend by Election Day. A third column on the right details what those groups actually spent in 2008 on federal elections.

The number at the bottom delivers the key message. If their pledges are fulfilled, these ten groups will unleash more than $200 million in election-focused spending -- roughly $37 million more than every single independent group spent on the 2008 presidential campaign combined. This time around, almost every single penny will be going to Republican candidates or causes.

So, how did this happen?

First, Democrats didn't make an all out effort to torpedo either Roberts, or more reasonably, Alito. With both on the Supreme Court, decisions like Citizens United were inevitable.

Second, when given a historic opportunity to break the power of the rich and corporations by not bailing them out, Democrats bailed them out. They did not make shareholders get wiped out (as they deserved, they took the profits from housing bubble fraud, after all) and they did not let the bondholders take their losses. Be very clear, this was never about saving the economy, the trillions of dollars used to bail out these corporations could have been loaned directly to consumers and businesses which needed loans. In fact, at this point, it is entirely likely that bailouts made things worse, not better.

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Peaceful G20 protest at Queen & Spadina from Meghann Millard on Vimeo.

You may ask yourself, why aren't lefties rioting in the streets because of the economy just like what we're seeing at the G20?

Digby has the answer: The Miami Model.

People keep asking where "the left" is and why they don't take to the streets in light of these neo-liberal policies wreaking havoc on working people everywhere. Where is the populist uprising from the left and why there isn't more direct confrontation of the corporatist mindset. It's a good question, but you have to wonder why we never cite these regular protests and why we don't bother to comment on the tactics that are used against them. Are we on the American left really not part of this? Do we philosophically disagree with the critique, even now, after everything that's been revealed during this economic crisis? Are these people wrong?

Now, I understand that these folks have gotten the reputation for being thuggish and destructive, largely based on the Seattle protests over a decade ago. But it's quite clear by now that this is a phony image, conjured up by the authorities to justify their police state tactics against the protesters:

They call it the Miami Model...read on

I'm going to do another post on this soon, but the shorter version is that beating the crap out of people after tasering them and then arresting them does put a damper on things.

Protesters were beaten with tear gas, sticks, rubber bullets . . . You can watch police stun cowering protesters with Tasers on YouTube. Last year, the city agreed it had trampled citizens’ right to free speech by forcing marchers back from planned protests and settled out of court with Amnesty International.

The above video shows protesters singing 'Oh, Canada,' and for no reason at all the police open fire and viciously attack them. It's safe to say that they have been emailed the Miami model and are implementing it quite nicely. Now they can add "singing" to their long list of actions that are forbidden by law enforcement when they encounter protesters.

The past week has brought a lot of heat if not light to the ongoing battle over health care reform in the United States. On Tuesday, President Obama unveiled a "Patients Bill of Rights" touting new consumer protections. Meanwhile, even as polls show the Affordable Care Act is becoming more popular, House Minority Leader John Boehner pronounced it a failure despite its provisions having not taken effect. But as a new Commonwealth Fund study revealed, the bottom line is unchanged. The United States' health care system is still the worst among industrialized nations. And, as it turns out, its performance is most pitiful where Republicans poll best.

Back in 2000, the U.S ranked a dismal 37th in an eye-opening if controversial World Health Organization assessment of global health care. Then in 2003, a Commonwealth Fund report revealed America ranked last across virtually every category of health care cost, access, efficiency, quality and lifestyles compared to Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany and New Zealand. Three years later in 2006, another Commonwealth Fund study ("U.S. Health System performance: A National Scorecard") of 19 industrialized nations ranked the U.S. 19th in infant mortality, 15th in preventable mortality and 14th in the use of electronic medical records, all despite spending far and away the greatest percentage of GDP on health care. Relative to other comparable countries surveyed, the U.S. has the greatest incidence of medical and prescription errors, highest emergency room waiting times and ranks near the bottom in duplicate medical tests. The U.S. spends 7.3% of its health dollars on administration and insurance, compared to just 1.9% in France, 2.6% in Canada, and 3.3% in the UK.

Now, in "Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: How the Performance of the U.S. Health Care System Compares Internationally, 2010 Update," the latest Commonwealth Fund assessment finds little has changed:

Among the seven nations studied--Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States--the U.S. ranks last overall, as it did in the 2007, 2006, and 2004 editions of Mirror, Mirror. Most troubling, the U.S. fails to achieve better health outcomes than the other countries, and as shown in the earlier editions, the U.S. is last on dimensions of access, patient safety, coordination, efficiency, and equity. The Netherlands ranks first, followed closely by the U.K. and Australia. The 2010 edition includes data from the seven countries and incorporates patients' and physicians' survey results on care experiences and ratings on various dimensions of care..

The most notable way the U.S. differs from other countries is the absence of universal health insurance coverage. Health reform legislation recently signed into law by President Barack Obama should begin to improve the affordability of insurance and access to care when fully implemented in 2014. Other nations ensure the accessibility of care through universal health insurance systems and through better ties between patients and the physician practices that serve as their long-term "medical homes." Without reform, it is not surprising that the U.S. currently underperforms relative to other countries on measures of access to care and equity in health care between populations with above-average and below-average incomes.

The table above (and the accompanying Commonwealth Fund chart pack and interactive comparison) summarizes an the critical condition of the grotesquely expensive and shockingly underperforming American health care system.

While not highlighted in this report, the Commonwealth Fund has detailed elsewhere the tremendous disparity in health care performance within the United States. Unsurprisingly, health care is worst in those reddest of red states, especially in the South.

In October, the Commonwealth Fund released its 2009 state health care scorecard. There, too, Mississippi led the Republican south in providing dismal health care. Again, while nine of the top 10 performing states voted for Barack Obama in 2008, four of the bottom five (including Arkansas, Mississippi, Oklahoma and Louisiana) and 14 of the last 20 backed John McCain. (That at least is an improvement from the 2007 data, in which all 10 cellar dwellers had voted for George W. Bush three years earlier.)

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