Anonymous Democrats money

Why not? Republicans exploit it. The(ir) Supreme Court allowed it. Use it.


At the heart of the effort, introduced Friday morning, are two groups: Priorities USA Action, which will engage directly in electioneering backed by donors who will have to be identified but can give unlimited amounts, and Priorities USA, which will advertise about related campaign issues using money from undisclosed sources. The effort is modeled on the one Republicans started last year — with help from the Republican strategist Karl Rove — that attacked Democrats with a barrage of advertisements, mailings and phone calls. It was widely credited with helping the party to take control of the House and diminish the Democrats’ edge in the Senate last fall. One of those groups, Crossroads GPS, was set up under a section of the tax code that allowed its donors to remain anonymous, leading Mr. Obama to refer to such groups collectively as “a threat to democracy” for the way they had shielded corporate interests from view as they sought to sway elections.

Democrats can not be afraid or reluctant to hit back. Allowing the Republicans to play hardball and not doing the same is stupid.

Schizoid policies

Massachusetts House Seeks to Limit Collective Bargaining - who'd expect that, in the liberal bastion?
The bill, passed late Tuesday night in advance of planned labor protests, would let local officials unilaterally set health insurance co-payments and deductibles for their employees after a monthlong discussion period with unions. Leaders of the House said it would save cities and towns $100 million in the budget year that starts in July. While Republican-controlled legislatures in Wisconsin and Ohio this year have weakened the ability of public-sector unions to bargain collectively, and Republicans in other states have pushed for a variety of curbs on unions, Massachusetts is the first state where a Democratic-led chamber has voted to limit bargaining rights. 

In Florida, G.O.P. Help for Unions - in Florida? Republicans? Unions representing teachers, firefighters, the police and other public employees say they have persuaded nearly half of the Senate’s Republicans to oppose the bill by reminding them that in Florida, far more than in most states, organized labor has supported Republicans. Still; who wouldn't assume it'd be the opposite?

Where's my money?

As President Obama heads to Alabama in the wake of a tornado storm system that has left over 300 people dead, Texas Governor Rick Perry slammed the White House for not responding to his request on April 16 for a declaration of emergency as wildfires began to rage across the state, destroying two million acres of forests. "You have to ask, 'Why are you taking care of Alabama and other states?' I know our letter didn't get lost in the mail," said the Republican governor who has been known to criticize the government in the past. Two firefighters have died while fighting the blazes, and 900 buildings have burned down. A federal disaster declaration could reimburse Texas 75 percent of the cost of their emergency response.

Gotta hand it to this guy: he refuses stimulus money during a recession, but now wants the Feds to bail him out.

Obama and Wall Street

President Obama is in town today, bulking up his war chest with a fund-raising party at the Waldorf Astoria and a private reception for wealthy donors. The reception — which will be held at the Fifth Avenue apartment of the wife of former New Jersey governor (and ex–Goldman Sachs CEO) Jon Corzine — will be attended by about 70 thick-walleted supporters, each of whom will cough up $38,500 for the honor of kicking Obama’s reelection efforts into gear.

Pocket change, for these folks. What is the difference between campaign contributions and influence-buying?

Conspiracy theories

President Obama released his birth certificate today. However, the move did anything but end the chatter. Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck both said that they think the release today was timed to distract from Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s news conference. Beck said, “My theory: this is because Bernanke is speaking today.” And Orly Tatiz, the self-anointed leader of the “birther” movement, says she still has doubts about Obama’s past: “This is not Joe Schmoe. This is a guy sitting in the position of president of the United States…We need to know the answer to all of those questions." Meanwhile, the widow of Dr. David A. Sinclair, the doctor who delivered Obama according to the document, claims to have had no idea that her husband delivered a president. She calls the news “very exciting.”

How 'bout that? Beck and Palin agree.

GOP faces voter ire

In central Florida, a Congressional town meeting erupted into near chaos on Tuesday as attendees accused a Republican lawmaker of trying to dismantle Medicare while providing tax cuts to corporations and affluent Americans. At roughly the same time in Wisconsin, Representative Paul D. Ryan, the architect of the Republican budget proposal, faced a packed town meeting, occasional boos and a skeptical audience as he tried to lay out his party’s rationale for overhauling the health insurance program for retirees. After 10 days of trying to sell constituents on their plan to overhaul Medicare, House Republicans in multiple districts appear to be increasingly on the defensive, facing worried and angry questions from voters and a barrage of new attacks from Democrats and their allies. The proposed new approach to Medicare — a centerpiece of a budget that Republican leaders have hailed as a courageous effort to address the nation’s long-term fiscal problems — has been a constant topic at town-hall-style sessions and other public gatherings during a two-week Congressional recess that provided the first chance for lawmakers to gauge reaction to the plan.

Predictable, and welcome, results.

Court allows contracts forbidding class-action arbitration

Businesses may use standard-form contracts to forbid consumers claiming fraud from banding together in a single arbitration, the Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday in a 5-to-4 decision that split along ideological lines. “The decision basically lets companies escape class actions, so long as they do so by means of arbitration agreements,” Brian T. Fitzpatrick, a law professor at Vanderbilt University, said. “This is a game-changer for businesses. It’s one of the most important and favorable cases for businesses in a very long time.”

Having recently finished Scorpions (Black, Douglas, Jackson, Frankfurter) and  Justice for all (Earl Warren), and just started reading an Abe Fortas biography, the Court is particularly of interest to me (now; for long it has been of interest for me).

A couple filed a lawsuit against AT&T Mobility seeking class-action treatment. The company, relying on the contract, responded that the case could neither proceed in court nor as a class action in any forum. But lower federal courts refused to enforce the arbitration agreement and allowed the case to go forward. They relied on a 2005 ruling from the California Supreme Court that barred class waivers as unconscionable.

The Gang of 5 (Scalia, Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and, alas, Kennedy, handed business a victory. Predictably. Just as predictably, AT&T in a statement on Wednesday, said the decision was “a victory for consumers.”

 A consumer loses, and the company calls it a victory for consumers. Surely the Gang of 5 would agree.

If he wins ...

The right wing of the Republican Party is jumping all over Trump, scared of his effects and on his popularity. Last night I saw Karl Rove on Greta VanSusteren's show (I was surfing the channels, looking for something to watch, so desperate I even stopped there for a moment), and he was denouncing Trump as a closet liberal. Once, years ago, it seems, Trump wrote a book (wrote it? maybe had it ghost written), in which he called for socialized medicine. So Donald Trump is a Socialist, Canada-style.

Yesterday, a columnist at MarketWatch.com wrote a piece berating the media for giving Doanld Trump too much ink (what is the digital equivalent of newspaper and magazine ink? digits?);  he did entitle it Trump for president? Don’t make me laugh, but his entire column centered on Donald Trump.

Obama eyes entitlements, taxes

In a major fiscal policy address later Wednesday, Obama, to the profound irritation of his critics on the left, is going along with the Republican notion that there have to be further deep cuts in government spending, even though he’s trying to balance it out with revenue increases. A Republican budget put out last week by Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan was so radical in its plan to dismantle Medicare and Medicaid that it made the recommendations from Obama’s debt commission — which seemed to have been consigned to the dustbin of history — look mild by comparison. So the president retrieved some of these ideas for his plan to counter the Republicans. Ryan has in all likelihood permanently damaged his credibility — even conservative economists ridiculed his unfounded assumptions, and a Heritage Foundation study used for his rosy economic projections was withdrawn for some remedial work. The bottom line seems to be that economic and fiscal policy that affects the lives and well being of every citizen in this country is being made by people who don’t really know a lot about economics.What we have instead are politicians who seem intent on scoring points.

Perhaps Ryan's Republicans colleagues simply let him walk the plank. Is it too simple to assume politicians are cynical, and will let anything be said, gauge the public reaction, then adjust their position accordingly?

Obama seems less interested in economics than in doing what it takes to win re-election next year. His compromise on the tax cuts at the end of 2010 took the wind out of Republican sails despite their November victories, and whatever gains the GOP wants to notch up from last week’s game of chicken, most people seem to think they blinked first.

Interesting: Ed Schultz, over at msnbc, speaking with Senator Bernie Sanders, charged that the Tea Party  won the first round. And, do we have to wonder that Obama is any different than other politicians in gauging his reelection his top priority?

So now Obama is taking on the debt ceiling and the budget for the next fiscal year, which starts in October. He is giving in on some more spending cuts and envisages some entitlement reform, earning more opprobrium from the left but less resistance from the right, despite all their loud protests. And in the meantime, the line of those Republicans willing to run against him in 2012 seems to be getting shorter and shorter.

Yeah, but Michelle Bachman is in the wings.

Anti-Debt crusader

in articles and in speeches like the one he gave last month over red wine and beef tournedos at the Metropolitan Club, Mr. Peterson has been pushing his plan to fix Social Security: gradually increase the retirement age; put in place an “affluence test” to reduce benefits for the wealthy; raise the cap on the payroll tax; and proclaim Social Security’s trust fund — which, he says, is filled with government IOUs, not cash — as having already been spent. The odd thing about the politics of the debt is that many of those in power agree with him and yet refuse — or are painfully slow — to act.

Politicians in office rail against evils they blame for everything they despise or know will get them votes, but move with glacial speed to act do anything of substance. Peterson has the advantage of not needing votes.