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"You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas." -Shirley Chisholm

Sunday Open Thread [12.16.12]

It’s Sunday, the Eagles are not playing (Go Ravens!) and many of us are still outraged, grieving and otherwise engaged with making sense of a country where freedom seems to mean being free to endure the mayhem of others.

I want to talk more about the “it’s the mental illness, not the guns” argument that still shifts and disregards the fundamental issue of safety for us all later. But here is a great piece that summarizes some of the facts of mental illness and violence. Go read the whole thing before indulging in the handwringing about mental illness:

– “Although studies suggest a link between mental illnesses and violence, the contribution of people with mental illnesses to overall rates of violence is small, and further, the magnitude of the relationship is greatly exaggerated in the minds of the general population (Institute of Medicine, 2006).”

Everyone who is interested in more gun control, take note — On Meet the Press this AM, not ONE of the pro-gun Senators would show their faces. Right? Even they can’t bring themselves to support the kind of mayhem that their polices inflect on the rest of us.

From the Atlantic — Guns, Parents and Sandy Hook: Time to Take The Bullet:

Whatever else it means, Friday’s tragedy is just another awful reminder of the disconnect that exists in America between the lengths to which we as parents (and teachers and school administrators) are always willing to sacrifice for our children when the bullets are flying and what we all are always unwilling to sacrifice for our children when the guns go silent. We rush to protect our kids from imminent death by gunfire but are content to allow thousands upon thousands of our children to die each year as a result of gun violence. […]
But it also would be foolish to dismiss the idea that the Sandy Hook shootings won’t change something. Our nation’s inability to protect our school children from gun violence is not just a basic failure of law and government. It’s a personal failure on the part of every adult — and especially every parent — in America. Nancy Lanza’s love of guns may have given her disturbed son an opportunity to use an arsenal of weaponry to slaughter a classroom of first-graders. But we all have enabled that love of firearms, have nurtured and protected it, at a terrible cost.

Via Occupy Posters — an interesting thought piece about guns being regulated the way cars are. The liability insurance is probably key here.

So there you have it. What interests you today?

Saturday Open Thread [12.15.12]

So how about some content for this thread? Once again, thanks so much to everyone who came out to celebrate the holidays with us last night. It really is fun to see all of you, and so great to know that we have such generous readers.

Everyone will have the shootings in CT on their minds for awhile now. I see lots of energy about pushing for a conversation about guns in our so-called civilized society. What I do know is that we won’t be able to claim the mantle of being “civilized” until the lives of our children are more valuable than our guns. It is odd that we are more ready to defend the right to “bear arms” at the expense of any right to the safety of your kids. That said, this is an interesting Twitter exchange with Rupert Murdoch:

The school shootings were not with automatic weapons, but the point is pretty clear — Murdoch could turn his entire propaganda machine towards this issue and make a real difference.

Last, I read an amazing article that does a better job than I’ve even been able to do in articulating just how silly the idea of keeping arms against the “tyranny of the government” is — you are out gunned by any stretch of the imagination and you are subject to a level of surveillance that will nip any of that in the bud, anyway. Your well-regulated militia will not kick anybody’s ass:

As a result, Americans maintain the belief that they will still be able to reform and/or defeat government on its soil using “The Second Amendment.” This clause of the Bill of Rights makes way for Americans to maintain armaments much in the same spirit of 1775, such that its citizens might once again rise up with muskets whenever necessary to Defeat Tyranny on Their Soil.

There is one major problem with this dangerously outdated assumption: the chasm between government weaponry and civilian weaponry is comically large. Like, from here to Venus large. So large that your defense of arming every schizophrenic and bipolar douchebag with AR-15s because you want to “prevent tyranny from taking root” is absurdly, ridiculously stupid.

Please go read the whole thing.

What interests you today?

Dear Santa — More of This Please in 2013!

The “fiscal cliff” negotiations (or at least they will be when the Republicans show up) have gone through a media roller coaster — they’re talking, they’re dealing, Medicare is on the table, Medicare of off of the table, they’re not talking, they’re not dealing, they are at an impass. The current story seems to be that Boehner still can’t get the President to negotiate with himself and Boehner still can’t get his caucus under control. But watching this has produced some satisfying optics. Optics don’t get you to good governing, but it is a pleasure to see Democrats playing offense for a change.

Let’s start with Minority Leader Pelosi — if there was one thing I’d ask President Obama for, it would be to keep his campaign team together to make her Speaker Pelosi in 2014. On Tuesday, Pelosi took to the pages of USATODAY to defend Medicare against the eligibility age changes the GOP want to enact.

Put another way: raising the Medicare age asks the most vulnerable citizens to pay more with little to show for it in terms of long-term deficit reduction or more affordable care, for seniors or anyone else. It increases health spending across-the-board. It takes money out of the pockets of a small slice of Americans.

Right. There’s no reason not to look at ways to constrain the cost grrowth of Medicare (and Medicaid, for that matter), but cost shifting is just plain stupid. And, for the record, bipartisan stupid is still stupid and it still breaks faith with our seniors.

Today, Leader Pelosi took to the floor of the House to rip into Republicans for their lack of support for passing the middle class tax cuts. Her discharge petition still lacks the tipping point number of signatures to get it to the floor, but I’d bet she’s plenty confident that if it did, it would pass. So it is great to see her reminding folks of the facts on the ground — namely that they’ve already voted for more than a trillion in cost savings to Medicare (plus those built into the ACA). The only people who haven’t given any ground here is the GOP. She brought this up during a debate on the floor to consider easy bills under a suspension of the rules while they wait for the GOP to come to the table re: the fiscal cliff. This shows Leader Pelosi calling for the middle class tax cuts to be considered under the suspension of rules.

The Hill has a small clip of Leader Pelosi calling out Rep. Sessions, which includes this bit:

Her remarks prompted a visible reaction from Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas), which led Pelosi to call him out on the floor.

“Do I detect your smirk to mean that you don’t think Republicans will vote for a middle-income tax cut, Mr. Sessions?” she asked. “Should I take it to mean you will continue to hold middle-income tax cuts hostage, giving tax cuts to the wealthiest people in our country?

“The unfairness of it is appalling,” Pelosi added. “The fact that it increases the deficit is disgraceful, and that it does not create jobs is a big mistake for us to make.”

And Leader Pelosi doing some expert anvil-throwing here:

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) scolded Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) in remarks to the press Wednesday for refusing to extend middle income tax cuts set to expire at the end of the year. Her message? Being speaker is hard, but figure it out for the good of the country.

“It’s tough. But you have to do it,” she told reporters in the Capitol on Wednesday. “Figure it out.”

Then we have Chris Van Hollen who is speculating to anyone who will listen that Speaker Boehner is slow walking any deal so he can save his Speakership.:

“I’m getting increasingly concerned that one of the reasons the Speaker is deciding to, I think, string out these discussions is that he wants to wait til January 3 when the election for Speaker takes place and he’s concerned that any agreement he reaches if it violated the so-called Hastert Rule could undermine support for him in his caucus and make it more difficult on January 3,” he told reporters at a Wednesday breakfast roundtable hosted by the Christian Science Monitor.

Excellent knife-twisting there.

All of this, of course, is about adding the pressure on Boehner and the GOP to just deal with reality and get this fiscal cliff deal done. Even though letting it go through achieves much of what the deficit hawks and spending handwringers want. And I dearly want to see more of this kind of thing next year as the Dems are likely to be on the right side of a number of big issues.

The Coolest Poll of the Year

Public Policy Polling was the third most accurate polling outfit this cycle (Behind Ipsos/Reuters and YouGov, according to this study). An awesome showing by a Democratic-leaning group that is making its name on delivering good data, rather than trying to move the news cycle. (Rasmussen came in 14th, so how about those false equivalency apples?) So who could blame them for taking their victory lap by providing a new comprehensive poll on Americans’ thoughts on Christmas?

I’m just going to cut and paste their blog post summarizing the results here:

Holiday Poll Results: Voters See Gifts from Santa for Obama, Romney

PPP’s new holiday season poll sees voters in giving moods towards both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney – voters believe both men will be receiving presents from Santa this holiday season rather than a lump of coal, with Romney perhaps getting some sympathy presents. Voters say Romney will get presents by a 63/37 margin compared to 51/49 for Obama. Some other findings:

– 44% of respondents said Santa was a Democrat while 28% say he is a Republican.

– 54% of voters said they were concerned that the looming “fiscal cliff” could cause Santa to cut back on his benefits.

– More voters than not (47/40) say there is a “War on Christmas”.

– Only 32% or respondents could correctly identify the number of days in Hanukkah, compared to 18% each who thought 7 days or 12 days.

– A majority of voters (52/45) said they believe in Santa Claus. 80% said they were on Santa’s “Nice” list to just 11% who said they were on his “Naughty” list.

– If voters saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus, 43% would tell Daddy, 40% would not and 17% weren’t sure.

– When asked, “If Grandma got run over by a reindeer, would you press charges against Santa?” 61% would not press charges, to 24% who would. 33% of Democrats would press charges compared to 19% of Republicans.

Contrary to popular belief, 62% of respondents said their favorite part of the holidays was spending time with family. Cookies were the favorite holiday treat at 29%. The most popular holiday movies were It’s a Wonderful Life, 22%, and A Christmas Story with 20%. Santa is the clear winner for favorite holiday character at 40% followed by Rudolph at 20%. A majority of voters, 52%, said Santa is the most plausible out of various holiday-specific characters. Leprechauns came in second at 19% and Cupid third at 17%. When asked what the most annoying holiday song was, 36% said “The Chipmunk Song”; the runner up was “Santa Baby” at 13%.

I’m impressed that 3% of those polled claim Festivus as their primary holiday this season. I’m pretty disappointed that 47% think that there is a War on Christmas. But you can see the detail here. (pdf)

Late Night Video — EXXON Hates Your Children

The Other 98% has created this ad that sounds as though it will air nationally next week. It is meant to point out the absurdity of giving EXXON $10B in taxpayer subsidies while climate change is making itself felt. It also helps that this is circulating during the “fiscal cliff” BS — if John Boehner is looking for cuts to save money, here is one to start with.

Privatizing the Port of Wilmington

If you’ve been following the NJ over the past few weeks, they’ve done a couple of stories on work that Diamond State Corporation (the entity that runs the port for taxpayers) and DEDO have been doing to try to privatize (or get a private partner — not so sure of the difference between the two) the operations of the Port of Wilmington. Much of this discussion is being held outside of the public eye, something that should concern every taxpayer. Without public scrutiny or input, Diamond State has hired a management/financial consultant, put out a solicitation, received responses, shortlisted two potential investors (one a local group, the other not) and made a selection — Kinder Morgan.

Kinder Morgan is a huge organization and they mostly bill themselves as an energy transport company. They do have terminal operations as a business component, and they operate facilities throughout the Mid-Atlantic, including Camden, NJ; Fairless Hills, PA, Sparrows Point, MD and others in VA. Much of the news and growth of Kinder Morgan is in transporting fuels of all kinds — coal, natural gas, petroleum and petroleum products. There is much speculation that any expansion of the Port of Wilmington will include the development of a facility to ship natural gas from here, which would require a facility to liquefy the natural gas for transport. Some years back, there was a planned LNG facility in Logan Township NJ, and was scuttled largely because Delaware successfully argued in the Supreme Court that the water adjacent to this proposed site was the territory of the State of Delaware. Keep in mind that the largest LNG transport ships need a shipping channel of approx. 40 ft and the new shipping channel in the Delaware will be 45 ft.

It is hard to know what it is that Kinder Morgan and the State have in mind for this facility. Certainly they are looking at expansion of the facility as well as repair:

Wilmington’s best hope for a big piece of that action requires development of new pier and cargo-handling facilities on the Delaware River itself, a potential $500 million investment unlikely under a taxpayer financing approach.

Limited portions of the Wilmington solicitation indicated that the port had insufficient resources to meet tenant capital needs or to take advantage of opportunities created by an ongoing deepening of the Delaware River’s main shipping channel.

Interesting that the State can’t help this port fulfill its potential as an asset while throwing money at banks and other ventures. Especially since this port doesn’t have much opportunity to pick up and go to another state. But what is true is that this potential -$500M investment deserves a great deal of scrutiny. In looking for info on Kinder Morgan, I found that they know their way around doing deals with public money with little public scrutiny. We definitely need to know what kinds of operations Kinder Morgan will be restricted from doing. We need to know that under the table deals to circumvent environmental regulations are not being done (here is a report from the Sightline Institute on KM and some of their environmental record. I do not know how reliable this report is — posting a photo claiming that it shows coal dust contamination without sampling data is questionable to me). We need to know what kind of balance sheet support KM will be getting from taxpayers. We need to know that taxpayers will not be giving back money to Kinder Morgan if they run into a financial downturn (like the casinos). We need to know that Kinder Morgan will not destabilize the good jobs that are already at the port, and commit to more good jobs. We need to know that Kinder Morgan will not be making its money (or financing this operation) by asking employees to work more for less money.

This last bit is really key. Everytime the administration trots out another check for another firm, they tell us that they are investing in “good jobs for Delawareans”. In this instance, the good jobs with good middle class wages exist. We really need to know that this deal is not a hidden race to the bottom, with the current and future workforce the folks who get to pay the price for this privatization. We’ve heard some concerns from union folk about this deal and we’re prepared to share those concerns, but they’ll need to step it up here and get better and reliable information out to their friends who are just as concerned. And I’ll point out that unions really delivered for a number of candidates this election season and they’ll need to be pretty active in making sure that the folks they pulled out the stops for are reminded of their commitments. But in the meantime, I think that it would be smart to let your legislators know that this deal needs real public scrutiny — not just a perfunctory public hearing after the deal is made.

Imagine if Head of MSNBC Had Done This

Bob Woodward reported in the Washington Post yesterday that Roger Ailes had approached General David Petraeus with some political career advice:

Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested.

Got that? Roger Ailes — head of the fake news organization that actually is the PR arm for the RNC — is not only advising Petraeus on what jobs he should take in the Obama Administration, but encouraging him to run for President. With an offer to leave Fox to run his campaign (while Rupert — and Petraeus refers to Murdoch by first name — separately offered to bankroll the campaign). There is audio of the conversation between Petraeus and the Fox emissary, too.

I’m not surprised by this — it is only a cycle or two before FOX tries to put up its own GOP candidate — but I haven’t heard the howls of outrage. Because, if Phil Griffin of MSNBC had done this, can you imagine that this news would have passed with little comment? Or demands for Griffin’s head? Or demands for Congressional investigations?

Discharge Petition is Filed

Nancy Pelosi. Giving no quarter as the petition is filed. For my money, this woman is not involved enough in the business of congressional governing. Do I have to say more? You can see progress on who has signed this petition here. I presume that they will refresh that list as Representatives sign on. You can see her introduce this here:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XRL5Y1BZFI[/youtube]

She is calling for bipartisan support — mainly because this does need Republicans to sign on to make it to the 218 number that will pass it. The Hill reports that if this does pass, the earliest it will come to a vote is Christmas Eve, though.

H.R. 15 is the bill they are attempting to petition out.

As of this writing, John Carney has not signed on, but I imagine he will. Would not hurt for his office to hear from a few of you to encourage him to do it.

Nate Silver Thinks POLITICO’s Political Coverage Is Dumb

As reported in a bunch of places, Nate Silver gave an interview with Bill Simmons over at Grantland and he responded to a question about Politico’s misguided dismissal of him and his prediction methodology. From the Business Insider:

SILVER: What’s remarkable for me is that you had some journalist for Politico who tweeted out “All Nate’s doing is averaging polls and counting electoral votes? That’s the secret sauce?.” Well, yeah, and the fact that you can’t comprehend that very basic thing, that says more about you than it does about me, right?

SIMMONS: It was like passive aggressive coming after you but they couldn’t find a good way to do it.

SILVER: Politico is a “who won the day” kind of thing, right? They’re trying to cover it like it’s sports but not in an intelligent way at all. They want to create noise, basically.

Their whole thing is you have to have a lead story about some gaffe that somebody made on the campaign trail. […] In politics, you can have a month where nothing of any import whatsoever happens. But you still have to have Politico produce a paper seven times a week and that’s when they’re trying to start trouble.

I love that — trying to cover sports but not in an intelligent way. We always call this “horse race reporting”, but it really isn’t. What kind of real horse race reporting could get away with filing a story on how one horse out of the entire field stumbled out of the gate as representative of what happened for the entire race? Or even calling a race as “too close” when one horse is persistently a length or so ahead of the pack?

According to TPM, Politico is trying to get an interview with Silver, but they are tightlipped on Nate Silver’s critique of them. Of course they won’t comment — Nate’s comment gets right to Politico’s business model. And Politico needs people outside of the DC Beltway to think that they are a credible political source.

You can hear the entire Grantland interview here, and its pretty good (but an hour long). Nate Silver was also at Google recently and talked to the Google staff about his new book, politics and baseball stats. This is about an hour long too, but worth it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYIgSq-ZWE0[/youtube]

Sunday Open Thread [12.2.12]

Sorry about no Open Thread yesterday, gang. It is 18 days until the Mayan-predicted End of the World, so I think we all in prep mode.

After meeting with Tim Geithner last week, is it fair to say that the GOP is in disarray? Seriously, they have no coherent response to the WH offer, and I’m heartened (just for today) by this:

Secretary Geithner was nonplussed when responding to Boehner’s shocked reaction to the White House proposal.

Geithner told Wallace, “[GOP leaders] are in a tough position now, they are trying to figure out where they go next, we might need to give them a little time to figure out where they go next.”

Geithner defended the initial White House deficit plan, during a blitz of Sunday morning talk show appearances.
“It’s a very good plan and we think it’s a good basis for these conversations,” said Geithner on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “What we did is put forward a very comprehensive, very carefully designed mix of savings and tax rates to help us put us back on a path to stabilizing our debt, fixing our debt and living within our means.”

I’m looking for daily signals that the WH is dealing from its genuine strength here.

Yesterday was the 57th anniversary of Rosa Parks taking a seat in the white section of the bus.

Michael Grunwald at Time writes this righteous rant about the press ignoring the GOP’s shear stupidity on the fiscal cliff negotiations.

It’s really amazing to see political reporters dutifully passing along Republican complaints that President Obama’s opening offer in the fiscal cliff talks is just a recycled version of his old plan, when those same reporters spent the last year dutifully passing along Republican complaints that Obama had no plan. It’s even more amazing to see them pass along Republican outrage that Obama isn’t cutting Medicare enough, in the same matter-of-fact tone they used during the campaign to pass along Republican outrage that Obama was cutting Medicare.

And let’s not pretend that the GOP knows that the press will treat them with kid gloves — it is why they keep saying the most remarkable BS. Who will call them on it?

What interests you today?

QOTD — Should Sandra Fluke Be Considered as Time’s Person of the Year?

She’s in Time’s finalist group (sorry, this is presented as serious click bait) — a group that included Gabby Douglas, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Sheldon Adelson (!?), Paul Ryan (!?), Joe Biden, The Higgs-Boson, Malala Yousafzai , among others. Conservatives are having fits that Fluke is included, with this bit being fairly representative:

In a post on his Gateway Pundit blog, Jim Hoft wrote that Time “nominated Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown law student who demanded you pay for her $10 a month birth control pills, as person of the year.” Hoft wrote that the nomination “will put her up there with Adolf Hitler and Yasser Arafat.”

Right. Of course she belongs on this list. Sandra Fluke did something that women don’t do enough of anymore — remind people that women’s issues were not just important, but that there were massive forces aligned to roll back women’s rights. Rush Limbaugh taking so much time and energy to demonize her — well after it was clear that this was hurting him and really helping her — made it really clear what was at stake. When the mouthpiece of the GOP is so invested in working on minimizing reproductive rights as a major issue, you know that the usual forces are gathering. And when they are done, women everywhere will have lost much hard won ground. Not that there hasn’t been ground lost already.

Whether she deserves to win is another QOTD. I’d vote for The Higgs-Boson or Malala Yousafzai. I think.

So what do you think? Should Sandra Fluke be on of the Time Person of the Year finalists? And who would you vote for?

QOTD 2 — Lunch with Obama and Romney, What Do You Think They Will Talk About?

Today, President Obama and failed Presidential candidate Mitt Romney are having a private lunch. During his acceptance speech on Election Night, President Obama noted that he would meet with Mitt to see if there is a way forward together. One of the things I like the best about Barack Obama is how easily graceful he is when he really doesn’t have to be. I could learn alot from this. In any event, there will be no press (not sure about statements after), but what do you think they’ll talk about? There is speculation in some quarters that President Obama may offer him some cabinet position — yikes and bad idea, if true. What do you *hope* they’ll talk about?

QOTD — Who Should Be In Obama’s Second Term Cabinet?

So we know that there will be some departures from the first term — Secretary of the Treasury Tim Geithner is out; Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is out (after doing a spectacular job); Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta; Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank (acting); Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar; Press Secretary Jay Carney; Attorney General Eric Holder (maybe not going for a year or so) look like they are at the top of the list to go. Other possibilities include:

  • Chief of Staff — Jack Lew rumors include Secretary of the Treasury and National Security Advisor
  • Department of Homeland Security — Janet Napolitano is a possible replacement for Eric Holder
  • Secretary of Housing and Urban Development — Shaun Donovan is a rumored replacement for Jack Lew, Chief of Staff
  • Secretary of Energy

Positions that look like they will retain their leadership:

  • Secretary of HHS — Kathleen Sibelius will be spiking the ball on Obamacare
  • Secretary of Transportation — Ray LaHood
  • Secretary of Education — Arne Duncan
  • Secretary of Labor — Hilda Solis is criticized for being too close to Labor, but doesn’t look like she is going anywhere

So who do you think ought to be the new cabinet? I am hoping that President Obama goes for competence, learns some lessons from the first time (Tim Geithner), and gives some young heads time in leading these departments. The latter is especially important for grooming the next generation — especially, I think for the DOD, State, NSA and Treasury Departments.  I provided a clean list of the positions, so you could cut and paste, then add your nominees. Pundits mulling over the rumor mill are all over the internet, so I’ll let you google that if you are looking for names. But this is a chance to think more progressively than we’ll likely end up with, so go to town.

Secretary of State —

Secretary of the Treasury —

Secretary of Defense —

National Security Advisor —

Secretary of Commerce —

Secretary of Interior —

Attorney General —

Department of Homeland Security —

Secretary of HUD —

Secretary of Energy —

Chief of Staff —

Press Secretary —