July 2014 archive

Right-wing obstruction could have been fought: An ineffective and gutless presidency’s legacy is failure

Thomas Frank, Salon

Sunday, Jul 20, 2014 07:00 AM EST

(A)ll presidential museums are exercises in getting their subject off the hook, and for Obama loyalists looking back at his years in office, the need for blame evasion will be acute. Why, the visitors to his library will wonder, did the president do so little about rising inequality, the subject on which he gave so many rousing speeches? Why did he do nothing, or next to nothing, about the crazy high price of a college education, the Great Good Thing that he has said, time and again, determines our personal as well as national success? Why didn’t he propose a proper healthcare program instead of the confusing jumble we got? Why not a proper stimulus package? Why didn’t he break up the banks? Or the agribusiness giants, for that matter?

Well, duh, his museum will answer: he couldn’t do any of those things because of the crazy right-wingers running wild in the land. He couldn’t reason with them-their brains don’t work like ours! He couldn’t defeat them at the polls-they’d gerrymandered so many states that they couldn’t be dislodged! What can a high-minded man of principle do when confronted with such a vast span of bigotry and close-mindedness? The answer toward which the Obama museum will steer the visitor is: Nothing.

In point of fact, there were plenty of things Obama’s Democrats could have done that might have put the right out of business once and for all-for example, by responding more aggressively to the Great Recession or by pounding relentlessly on the theme of middle-class economic distress. Acknowledging this possibility, however, has always been difficult for consensus-minded Democrats, and I suspect that in the official recounting of the Obama era, this troublesome possibility will disappear entirely. Instead, the terrifying Right-Wing Other will be cast in bronze at twice life-size, and made the excuse for the Administration’s every last failure of nerve, imagination and foresight. Demonizing the right will also allow the Obama legacy team to present his two electoral victories as ends in themselves, since they kept the White House out of the monster’s grasp-heroic triumphs that were truly worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. (Which will be dusted off and prominently displayed.)

But bipartisanship as an ideal must also be kept sacred, of course. And so, after visitors to the Obama Library have passed through the Gallery of Drones and the Big Data Command Center, they will be ushered into a maze-like exhibit designed to represent the president’s long, lonely, and ultimately fruitless search for consensus. The Labyrinth of the Grand Bargain, it might be called, and it will teach how the president bravely put the fundamental achievements of his party-Social Security and Medicare-on the bargaining table in exchange for higher taxes and a smaller deficit. This will be described not as a sellout of liberal principle but as a sacred quest for the Holy Grail of Washington: a bipartisan coming-together on “entitlement reform,” which every responsible D.C. professional knows to be the correct way forward.

…

What will the Obama library have to say about the people who recognized correctly that it was time for “Change” and who showed up at his routine campaign appearances in 2008 by the hundreds of thousands?

It will be a tricky problem. On the up side, those days before his first term began were undoubtedly Obama’s best ones. Mentioning them, however, will remind the visitor of the next stage in his true believers’ political evolution: Disillusionment. Not because their hero failed to win the Grand Bargain, but because he wanted to get it in the first place-because he seemed to believe that shoring up the D.C. consensus was the rightful object of all political idealism. The movement, in other words, won’t fit easily into the standard legacy narrative. Yet it can’t simply be deleted from the snapshot.

Perhaps there will be an architectural solution for this problem. For example, the Obama museum’s designers could make the exhibit on the movement into a kind of blind alley that physically reminds visitors of the basic doctrine of the Democratic Party’s leadership faction: that liberals have nowhere else to go.

My own preference would be to let that disillusionment run, to let it guide the entire design of the Obama museum. Disillusionment is, after all, a far more representative emotion of our times than Beltway satisfaction over the stability of some imaginary “center.” So why not memorialize it? My suggestion to the designers of the complex: That the Obama Presidential Library be designed as a kind of cenotaph, a mausoleum of hope.

Person Of Paradox

By Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

July 22, 2014

(O)n the issue of the economy, and the people who wrecked it and then sold off the pieces, and then, by and large, got away clean, there were some things the president could have done, and didn’t do, that lead me to believe that, on this issue, Frank is more right than he is wrong. For example, there was no reason to involve Bob Rubin in the transition team, much less to staff the Treasury Department with Rubin-esque clones. Hell, Tim Geithner didn’t have to be Treasury Secretary. There was nothing stopping the president in 2008 from appointing a tough assistant U.S. Attorney to be an assistant secretary of the Treasury tasked with vigorously investigating the causes of the economic meltdown, and whatever crimes were involved therein. The Republicans would have raised hell, but they were going to do that anyway. It’s hard to see a Democratic Congress defunding the Treasury Department, but I admit there’s no telling what mischief Max Baucus might have concocted. The president faced unprecedented opposition employing unprecedented tactics. However, “looking forward, not back” on many issues was a conscious governing strategy.

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

So the story yesterday was Movistar and Astana setting a blistering pace that eventually delivered the stage win to Michael Rodgers, one of the oldest riders in the Tour and a Time Trial specialist, and protecting Vincenzo Nibali’s maillot jaune.  The defense of Nibali was a little less successful since it failed to drop either of the top 2 contenders much, but it left Tejay Van Garderen, the highest ranked U.S. rider remaining, in the dust and probably out of contention for a podium spot.  Thibaut Pinot was able to take a good chunk out of his 2 main rivals, Romain Bardet and ean-Christophe Péraud. The decisive move was up the Beyond Category Port de Balès where Rodgers and Thomas Voeckler had a minor exchange over whether Voeckler was doing his fair share of the pace setting.

On the stage it was Michael Rogers, Thomas Voeckler, Vasili Kiryenka, José Serpa, and Cyril Gautier tied at :09, Greg Van Avermaet (:13), Michal Kwiatkowski (:36), Matteo Montaguti (:50), Tom Jelte Slagter and Tony Gallopin tied at 2:11, Jan Bakelants (3:33), Florian Vachon (3:45), and Anthony Delaplace and Kévin Reza tied at 4:47.  Everyone else was more than 8 minutes behind.  In the General Classification it is Vincenzo Nibali, Alejandro Valverde BelMonte (4:37), Thibaut Pinot (5:06), Jean-Christophe Péraud (6:08), Romain Bardet (6:40), Tejay Van Garderen (9:25), and Leopold Konig (9:32).  Everyone else is over 11 minutes behind.  For Points it is Peter Sagan (402), Bryan Coquard (226), Alexander Kristoff (217), Marcel Kittel (177), Mark Renshaw (153), Greg Van Avermaet (147), André Greipel (143), and Vincenzo Nibali (134).  Everyone else is 29 points behind.  In the Climbing contest it is Rafal Majka (89), Joaquim Rodriguez (88), and Vincenzo Nibali (86).  Everyone else is 25 points behind.  In Team competition it is AG2R, Belkin (26:21), and Sky (39:19).  Everybody else is about 55 minutes or more behind.  In Youth it is Romain Bardet, Thibaut Pinot (1:34), and  Michal Kwiatkowski (6:22).  Everybody else is 55 minutes or more behind.

In today’s 77 and a third miles from Saint-Gaudens to Saint-Lary Pla d’Adet there are “only” 4 climbs, 3 Category 1 and 1 Beyond Category.  The Sprint Checkpoint is early, before any real climbing.

The Col du Portillon and Col de Peyresourde are nothing special as far as Category 1 climbs go, but the Col de Val Louron-Azet and Montée de Saint-Lary Pla d’Adet are very steep with a little over 3 km and 4 km respectively of 10% gradient each.  The Montée de Saint-Lary Pla d’Adet is also quite long and though it flattens a little at the very end is basically an up hill finish.

Why we don’t do I/P (without pre-approval) here.

Yup.  Always ends up like that.  Every.  single.  time.

Drones!

I think I’ll spare you Nancy’s two segments, but for tonight’s guests and the real news join me below.

What we learned from liberals at Netroots Nation

By KATIE GLUECK, Politico

7/20/14 10:09 AM EDT

At a high-profile gathering of progressives this week, Hillary Clinton was tolerated, Barack Obama was pitied, and Elizabeth Warren was treated like a hero.

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Candidates hoping to harness this crowd’s enthusiasm will need to embrace that pugnacious stance toward big business, not just talk about creating more opportunities for the middle class. Attendees here see Wall Street as a deeply damaging force in American politics and they want the kind of retribution Warren promises.

Netroots attendees hail from the most liberal corners of the Democratic Party. To them Clinton is simply too conservative on fiscal and foreign policy matters. They see the former New York senator as tight with Wall Street, and she doesn’t strike them as willing to fight for working people the way Warren does.

Yet interviews with several attendees suggest it’s not a lost cause for Clinton. If she distances herself from big business, highlights her support for labor – a point that came up several times here, given the big union representation at the conference – and demonstrates she cares about the struggles of ordinary Americans, she could go a long way with this group. What it really comes down to, activists say, is a shift in what Clinton emphasizes.

“She would have to have Elizabeth Warren’s message,” said Cindy Pettibone, an activist from the Washington, D.C., area. “Against big banks and corporations, for the little guy, restoring the middle class and unions.”

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Even though grassroots activists acknowledge that Clinton is the most electable Democrat on the radar right now, they don’t want a Clinton coronation.

And if Warren doesn’t run, they are hoping another left-leaning candidate will challenge Clinton so that the party will have to engage in a full-throated debate about where it stands on economic issues. They also believe that regardless of whether other candidates are viable, a contested primary would push Clinton to the left.

Potential alternatives some cited include Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a self-described socialist. There’s also Vice President Joe Biden, whose keynote speech Thursday was well-received. Though some activists said they don’t view Biden much to the left of Clinton, they love that he pushed (if only inadvertently) President Barack Obama to endorse gay marriage in 2012. And they perceive him as slightly less hawkish than the president.

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The president has had a tumultuous relationship with the Netroots crowd.

They loved him during his nomination fight ahead of the 2008 election, but many of these activists have grown disillusioned at seeing the White House fail to produce much of the change they felt they’d been promised.

Dem base: Fine with Hillary Clinton, pining for Elizabeth Warren

By KATIE GLUECK, Politico

7/18/14 4:31 PM EDT

Netroots draws the most liberal elements of the Democratic base – but they are also among the most politically active, and Clinton will need to inspire enthusiasm among them should she run. And it’s not as if that sentiment is nonexistent: Several people said they see her as a trailblazer for women in politics. But many others also described the former secretary of state and first lady as too close to Wall Street, too conservative on national security issues and as an insufficiently fiery champion for the middle class.

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“Does she connect with people? Can she articulate [their struggles]?” Wherley said. “Elizabeth Warren speaks regularly about that. Hillary Clinton does not. … Elizabeth Warren intends to lift up the middle class. I don’t know what Hillary’s vision is for doing that. Would she cross bankers? Payday lenders?”

…

Clinton is “fairly close to Wall Street, she’s less aggressive about standing up,” said Derek Cressman, who just lost a bid for California secretary of state. “On economic populism, Warren is stronger. Credible and stronger language, standing up to banks, standing up to Wall Street.”

The Elizabeth Warren Fantasy

By BILL SCHER, Politico

July 17, 2014

Her traveling road show powerfully demonstrates why. Warren blows past any Beltway skittishness over “class warfare.” In her recent appearances alongside Kentucky’s Alison Lundergan Grimes and West Virginia’s Natalie Tennant, she portrayed the options before voters as “a choice between billionaires and students” or between someone who will “stand up for Wall Street” or “stand up for the families.” She name-checked Citibank and Goldman Sachs as among the Wall Streeters who already have “plenty of folks in the United State Senate who are willing to work on their side,” suggesting they don’t need to hold on to eager recipients of financial industry campaign cash like Sen. Mitch McConnell or Rep. Shelley Capito. And she used her signature student loan bill that would pay for refinancing by closing tax loopholes, filibustered by Republicans but embraced by the two Appalachian Democrats, as a case study of whose side each candidate is on.

Warren’s Wall Street bashing has a good chance of boosting Tennant and Grimes because no matter what shade the state, people hate Wall Street. Already this year, Rep. Eric Cantor lost his job in part because Tea Party conservatives felt he was too close to big banks. After that Virginia primary, pollster Greenberg Quinlain Rosner conducted a national survey showing that 64 percent believe “the stock market is rigged for insiders” and 60 percent support “stricter regulation” on financial institutions, reflecting support that spans across the partisan spectrum.

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Obama doesn’t neglect the populist critique of a system skewed toward the top one percent. But he stops short of embracing Warren’s us-versus-them framework. “Wall Street,” or its unpopular representatives, are never mentioned by name. Obama prefers the word “everybody,” as when he declared in Colorado, “we’re fighting for the idea that everybody gets opportunity” with robust investments in infrastructure, energy and education, along with a higher minimum wage and increased workplace flexibility. Clinton is singing from the same hymnal, reportedly using the line “we’re all in this mess together” when discussing her thinking on economic issues in recent speeches.

Le.  Tour.  De.  France.

Enjoy your rest day?  I sure did.  So Stage 15 was a big disappointment for Jack Bauer who led for most of the way only to be caught out by Alexander Kristoff in a classic sprint finish.  Almost forgotten by the english speaking media (Bauer is from New Zealand) is Martin Elmiger who was the second half of the 2 rider breakaway that nearly led from start to finish.

On the stage it was Kristoff, Heinrich Haussler, and Peter Sagan who led a group of 69 riders that shared the lead time including almost everyone of note and about 99 riders were within a minute at the finish.  The last rider, Cheng Ji, the only rider from the People’s republic of China finished in a group of 17 riders a mere 12:20 behind.

In the General Classification there is therefore not much change, Vincenzo Nibali, Alejandro Valverde BelMonte (4:37), Romain Bardet (4:50), Thibaut Pinot (5:06), Tejay Van Garderen (5:49), Jean-Christophe Péraud (6:08), Bauke Mollema (8:33), and Leopold Konig (9:32).  Everybody else is more than 10 minutes behind.  For Points it is Peter Sagan (402), Bryan Coquard (226), Alexander Kristoff (217), Marcel Kittel (177), Mark Renshaw (153), André Greipel (143), Vincenzo Nibali (134), and Greg Van Avermaet (115).  Everyone else is 28 points behind.  There were no points awarded in the Climbing contest so it is Joaquim Rodriguez and Rafal Majka tied at 88 with Vincenzo Nibali at 86.  Everyone else is 37 points behind.  In the Team competition it is AG2R, Belkin (12:42), Sky (38:32), Astana (46:10), Movistar (47:44), and BMC (51:01).  Everyone else is over 1 hour behind.  In Youth it is Romain Bardet, Thibaut Pinot (:16),  Michal Kwiatkowski (14:34), and Tom Dumoulin (47:46).  Everyone else is over an hour behind.

Today’s 148 mile stage is the start of the Pyrenees and has 2 Category 4s, 1 Category 2, 1 Category 3, and 1 Beyond Category climb.  It is also the longest stage.

The big climb is Port de Balès which is not only long but has 2 very steep sections with over 10% gradient.  The Sprint Checkpoint is after the 2 Category 4s and it’s just as well because we won’t be seeing the sprinters for the rest of the day I’m thinking though the finish is on a steep descent.

So we could see some crashes as people attempt to make up time in the final 20 km though we’ll more likely see riders drop out under the load.  There have been 10 withdrawls since Fabian Cancellara- Andrew Ralansky, David Del La Cruz Melgarejo, Alexander Porsev, Janier Alexis Acevedo Calle, Arthur Vichot, Daniel Navarro Garcia, Dries Devenyns, Rafael Valls, Rui Alberto Costa, and Simon Yates.