Tag: code brown

Scott Brown’s Favorite Justice

Perhaps an ad should be made that superimposes Scott Brown’s self-professed man-love of Justice Antonin Scalia with these comments that Scalia recently made at the the AEI:

The death penalty? Give me a break. [The framers of the Constitution didn’t think it was unconstitutional and neither do I]. It’s easy. Abortion? Absolutely easy. Nobody ever thought the Constitution prevented restrictions on abortion. Homosexual sodomy? Come on. For 200 years, it was criminal in every state [and therefore it should ever remain thus].

Good ole moderate Scott Brown. Always willin’ to work across the aisle when it comes to restricting women’s rights, restricting who we sleep with, and (most of all) promoting government sponsored execution. I’m sure these and other positions he and his beloved Justice share poll very well here in the Commonwealth. It’s a textual thing, you wouldn’t understand.

A Vision of America

Matt Yglesias:

Loser liberalism, by implying that all fortunes are created equal, alternately goes too easy on scoundrels and comes down too hard on people who are merely prosperous. [Even “low” paid] folks working on Wall Street are making a living in an industry that’s systematically dependent on implicit and explicit government guarantees. Making a living as a patent troll is totally different from making a living as a genuine innovator. Dentists enriching themselves by blocking competition from independent dental hygenists and tooth whiteners aren’t the richest people around, but their income represents a healthy share of ill-gotten gains. A viable egalitarian politics needs to find a way to distinguish between “malefactors of great wealth” whose revenue streams need to be systematically reappropriated, and people who are just paying higher tax rates because of the declining marginal utility of income.

Reasonable people are going to disagree, of course, as to who exactly the malefactors are and what policy levers can and should be used against them. […] But there’s something deeply unimaginative, cramped, narrow, and – I think – fundamentally incorrect about this vision of America where everything is on the level, but people need to pay a top marginal income tax rate of 39.5% rather than 35%.

I’d say Yglesias has provided us with a rather trenchant distillation of just how warped our national political discourse has become.
Extending his example, the Republicans more or less universally call this potential 4.5% rise in top marginal rates on the richest of the rich “pure socialism,” or, at best, anti-American, anti-jobs, anti-whomever they’re talking to at that moment. That approach tends to be a conversation ender and the point at which the MSM says something along the lines of “we’ll leave it there.” And but also it’s unclear to me how you even address the broader issues in the economy that Yglesias rightly lays out without at least being able to have a semi-sane discussion about tax rates and revenues. If that 4.5% rise can be effectively dismissed using “socialism!” just how is a national candidate supposed to make the more nuanced and complex point?

I’d say it can’t be done in the current media environment. It is not possible. The slow motion implosion that is the GOP’s series of primary debates is a symptom, not a cause. The underlying rot is fundamental to the discourse itself; the growing and brazen willingness to use that rot for personal gain (e.g. by lying your ass off to score temporary political points even within your own party) is simply the work of our old friend the invisible hand. Fix the discourse and you’ll functionally eliminate the lying and its various outgrowths, such as but not limited to uniform one party partisan intransigence that the predominant national discourse inevitably blames on both political houses in Congress. A truly honest assessment could never reach such a illogical conclusion as that. Obviously one party is more to blame in any gridlock situation. Say so. You’ll put the Daily Show right out of business.

Considered relative to our long-term national health, the truly successful national candidate needs to disrupt the discourse itself. On the surface, this would seem a relatively straightforward thing for a President to do (despite the ineffective nature of Presidential speeches)…Obama did make some early feints in the direction of cutting off their air supply but ultimately (and predictably) chickened out. And, frankly, a frontal attack that simply refuses to speak to FOXnews (or similar organizations) will never work; journalists love nothing better than circling the wagons over perceived slights. You’ve got to destroy their memes by making them functionally irrelevant and you cannot do that by simply not talking to anyone but your chosen scribes.
If Obama really wants to be the modern TR, I’d say that’s where to start: with the discourse. Be smart. Explain, but not in novel form. Short, declarative sentences and concise paragraphs. Pick one thing; this cycle it’s going to be an outgrowth of what Yglesias is distilling above. Explain that. Repeatedly and in simple language. People already understand it in a deep sense, but they need you to give those feelings voice (Elizabeth Warren is proving the true power of such an approach; the application of the traditional GOP meme(s) actually increased her popularity). Explain. Say nothing else. If they want to show the President, some of this stuff will have to be included. Never leave that message behind, even for a second. Also provide it to your Congressional allies. Anyone who goes off script loses financial support, chairmanships, or whatever idiotic perks matters most to them. It’s our rotted discourse or the country. Choose one.

I didn’t go to Harvard. You know, I went to the school of hard knocks.

Scott Brown, describing his time in the urban hellscape that is the Medford campus of Tufts University. Later in life, he took on the mean streets of Boston College Law School. Chestnut Hill is about to get real.
Also worth noting that Harvard tuition is ~$39,849. Tufts: $42,962. Warren’s actual alma mater, University of Houston? That would set you back $9,211.

I’m not optimistic about [Wyden-Brown] going anywhere. The Affordable Care Act has taken on too much symbolism for the Republican base as something that must be destroyed. It doesn’t matter if Wyden-Brown actually gives Republicans what they’re asking for in terms of policy.

Adam Serwer is mostly right here, but the fact is that anything Obama wants has automatically “taken on too much symbolism” for the GOP to allow it to happen. By taking up a position as anything but against Wyden-Brown, Obama has absolutely doomed it.

Obama and his staff are still assuming that the facts matter. That a media exists to notice and discuss his sober position that essentially gives the GOP what they want on a key issue. That the serious people actually care about policy outcomes despite 40 years of evidence to the contrary. That the GOP movers and shakers will be seen doing anything, anything that even remotely agrees with a position the President has taken up. All of this is squarely why Wyden-Brown will fail, no matter how good or bad it might be: Obama wants it, and has signaled as much. It doesn’t stand a chance.

Letter to the President

This is how you are perceived:

Even before his unemployment checks ended, Dwight Michael Frazee’s days were filled with the pursuit of any idea that could earn him a buck. But few are working out, and now his nights are filled with dread.

[…]

Frazee, who is married and has a 5-year-old daughter, is in a financial free fall with no safety net.

“My life has been total stress. I sleep maybe four hours a night, worrying about money,” he said. “I understood the president and Congress had to stabilize the banks, get Wall Street going. I figured something would be done for middle-class Americans, that they couldn’t abandon us. But I was wrong.”

“President Obama talks a lot about making the victims of the gulf disaster whole, but what about the victims of this economic disaster?” Frazee said. “Nowadays, he seems mostly concerned with image. Now, he doesn’t want to be seen as a big spender. But people need help.

Please do note that at no point does Mr. Frazee mention the Republicans, "the party of No,” filibusters, Code Brown, and even deficits only come up tangentially.
When you lose control of the House come November, your advisers will most likely hide behind a lot of nonsensical crap along the lines of “the facts are on our side.” If you believe them, even for a second, then this is why you will fail. The facts do not matter; perception is everything.

You needed to be out there every day for over a year now framing the GOP as the obstruction to economic progress and primary engine of pain and suffering in the streets of America. That the GOP wants Mr. Frazee and everyone like him to Go Die in the Streets. Everyone in your party needs to be doing the same thing. None of you are, even now. None of you even seem vaguely aware of the issue in the abstract. This is why you fail.

I know at least 7 [GOP] senators, who I will not name, but were made to make a commitment under threat of losing their chairmanships, if they did not support the leadership on every procedural vote, every single thing we did, from the important to the not so important, required (for the first time in modern American history) […] required 60 votes. All the sudden a majority became 60 instead of 50

Joe Biden, reflecting on GOP obstructionism.
I’d argue in a similar vein as Yglesias: it’s not remarkable at all that the GOP extracted this kind of stern loyalty. What’s remarkable is that The Democrat did not. Not even on procedural votes can Democratic Leadership count on the caucus voting in lockstep (and then being free to vote their conscience on final passage).
Likewise, such fealty is also not required on keystone issues such as healthcare insurance reform, or more recently on FinReg. Say what you will about whether or not Feingold is in the right by withholding his vote for FinReg (in favor of some theoretically better but functionally nonexistent “other bill”), the fact of the matter is that in so doing, he’s empowered Code Brown to set the agenda for FinReg, and The Democrat has dutifully sent the bill to the American Taxpayer instead of the largest banking interests in the world. And now will get to take the blame for it. Because, rest assured, the GOP will run on that. And won’t be troubled in the least by the facts that they were directly responsible for that change and many, many others just like it. The facts do not matter.

My sweet untouched Miranda

It occurs to me that people like Joementum, the Commonwealth’s own Code Brown, and apparently all of those in the media that slavishly cover them simply don’t understand what the Miranda warning even is.

Here’s what it’s not: conferring you any new rights

Here’s what it is: warning you of the rights you hold, by dint of being a living citizen of these United States and of which you may or may not choose to avail yourself (specifically, this boils down to the right to sit there mute unless and until you’ve spoken to counsel). Beginning to see why they so frequently put that word “warning” in there after the word Miranda?

How is it that these same folks that recite and (incorrectly) parse the Second Amendment ad nauseum (but inevitably, and notably verbatim) don’t understand the most basic concepts regarding what I would deem the single most fundamental right governing our interactions with our pre- and post-W.Bush-administration government?
Ironically, though, does it surprise anyone that gun ownership also happens to be the one Constitutional right that suspected terrorists get to keep under the GOP’s dream setup. Honestly, we should probably make it even easier for the suspected terrorist to buy guns; I’d assume this policy is best achieved through a wide-ranging program of blanket tax cuts.

So, once again for the truly slow and Brian Williams: Mirandizing someone simply ensures that they are fully aware of rights that are operative for all citizens no matter what; it doesn’t confer said rights, and neither do those rights magically begin only subsequent to their being invoked by rote recitation. Just like on all the cop shows!

STARTs and stops

Obama notes the recent progress in strategic arms reduction treaty talks with Russia:

“It cuts – by about a third – the nuclear weapons that the United States and Russia will deploy,” Obama said describing the agreement. “It significantly reduces missiles and launchers. It puts in place a strong and effective verification regime. And it maintains the flexibility that we need to protect and advance our national security, and to guarantee our unwavering commitment to the security of our Allies.”

He should have added:

and, despite “frequent communication with lawmakers from both parties” there is no way in hell that this gets 67 votes.

So, in light of this, my friends in the GOP caucus want me to remind everyone to, please, go die in the streets when Our Nuclear Armageddon comes; it will make cleaning out the remaining buildings that much easier and will eliminate any need for an unpleasant government takeover of nuclear-cremains and/or partially incinerated body-parts removal. This is why I’m proud to announce bipartisan agreement today that Halliburton has been selected out of a lengthy, no-bid process to provide for all post ONA nuclear-cremains removal and storage. God bless America. Goodnight.

Seriously, does anyone believe that any move by the President, no matter how important, no matter how useful, no matter how “unrelated” to domestic politics will garner even a single GOP vote, much less eight? Anyone? (Looking at you, Code Brown) And yet lots of pundits and bloggers seem to be rather sure that this time the GOP will set aside its whiny-ass titty baby shtick in favor of actual good governance. As if. They could care less. This will be yet another whirlwind for Obama to inherit. Period. And yet here we go again, walking blithely into the buzzsaw, no pre-messaging, no talk of any kind to inoculate the general public to the shitstorm that will inevitably erupt from this.

Carve it in stone: START is a dead letter if it needs to be ratified under a Democrat. Better plan right now for some sort of executive agreement sidecar, or however it is that one goes about reducing the nuclear weapons census by A THIRD in the face of uniform, unyielding, and certainly unthinking GOP obstructionism:

Maybe these egg-heads in New England “think tanks” and “colleges” who like to do things like “read” think it’s wise to reduce nuke-you-lar weapons by a third in the face of our 47 ongoing wars, but we here at the GOP want to increase them by 89%, which will pay for itself by cutting taxes on the rich. Hell yes we do! Hell yes we can!

And so forth.

On Jan 3rd, 2011, please do eliminate the filibuster using 51 Democratic votes and a ruling by Joe Biden. Don’t “look at it” don’t consider it, don’t reform it, eliminate it. Period. It’s precisely what the GOP plans to do the second they hold the Senate and the Vice Presidency. May as well get some things done in the meantime.

Jobs are PAMtastic

What a surprise:

The Senate easily passed a $15 billion jobs bill on Wednesday morning amid hope that the measure could provide a blueprint for other items on President Obama’s agenda.

The measure passed 70 to 28, with 13 Republicans joining 57 Democrats in support of the package. One Democrat, Sen. Ben Nelson of Nebraska, voted against it.

Stunning that so many in the GOP who so very recently were so opposed to this bill that they wouldn’t even let it come to a vote changed their minds on it. Thank Christ Scott Brown so bravely crossed the lines and let this bill come to an up or down vote such that these teeming hordes of Republican Senators, who so very recently were mortally opposed to it even being considered, could rethink their positions on jobs-creation. A victory for independent thinking!

Or: how the GOP sticks a fig leaf onto its blanket opposition to any votes on any matter, large or small, by letting Brown appear to break ranks, knowing that serially shit-canning jobs bills is tantamount to political suicide.

We report, you decide.

Memo to Code Brown 2: Judgement Day

Scott Brown, local imbecile, said through a spokesman yesterday that:

If the Democrats try to ram their health-care bill through Congress using reconciliation, they are sending a dangerous signal to the American people that they will stop at nothing to raise our taxes, increase premiums and slash Medicare. Using the nuclear option damages the concept of representative leadership and represents more of the politics-as-usual that voters have repeatedly rejected.

The problem is that using reconciliation is neither “the nuclear option” (that’d be this, a technique both invented and brandished by one Grand Old Party) nor is the use of said reconciliation in any way unprecedented, either in terms of budgetary measures (precisely the reason the damned thing was created in the first place) or healthcare reforms (which often are entirely or nearly entirely budgetary issues). NPR provides us with a partial listing of the many uses of reconciliation in recent years:

  1. 1982 — TEFRA: The Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act first opened Medicare to HMOs

  2. 1986 — COBRA: The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act allowed people who were laid off to keep their health coverage, and stopped hospitals from dumping ER patients unable to pay for their care

  3. 1987 — OBRA ‘87: Added nursing home protection rules to Medicare and Medicaid, created no-fault vaccine injury compensation program

  4. 1989 — OBRA ’89: Overhauled doctor payment system for Medicare, created new federal agency on research and quality of care

  5. 1990 — OBRA ’90: Added cancer screenings to Medicare, required providers to notify patients about advance directives and living wills, expanded Medicaid to all kids living below poverty level, required drug companies to provide discounts to Medicaid

  6. 1993 — OBRA ’93: created federal vaccine funding for all children

  7. 1996 — Welfare Reform: Separated Medicaid from welfare

  8. 1997 — BBA: The Balanced Budget Act created the state-federal childrens’ health program called CHIP

  9. 2005 — DRA: The Deficit Reduction Act reduced Medicaid spending, allowed parents of disabled children to buy into Medicaid

Conveniently left off that list are several that are specifically damaging to the GOP’s case for grievance here. Like both of the Bush tax cuts. Reconciliation. Additional oil drilling courtesy of W. Reconciliation. Medicare Part D (aka W Bush’s unfunded cost explosion). Reconciliation. Various W trade authorities. Reconciliation. And, of course, there’s this hypocrisy that’s never mentioned by the MSM:

the very senators who speak reverentially of the filibuster now, voted for reconciliation then. Judd Gregg, in fact, voted for reconciliation every time it was used in the Bush era.