I don't care if Obama loses in 2012

America's most powerful conservative

Against my better judgment, I’ve been commenting on stories on Huffington Post lately. Usually my comments are about how Barack Obama has failed both as a president and a liberal. There is little that distinguishes him from George W. Bush, save for some progressive rhetoric that is ultimately unaccompanied by action. Any honest and politically literate progressive knows this. The only supposed liberals who seem to really believe in Obama can be found on MSNBC or on the Washington Post editorial page—centrists posing as liberals, because they have allowed themselves to be dragged rightward by the craven corporate whores in the modern Democratic Party.

Even the liberal commenters on Huffington Post and Daily Kos have given up defending Obama with any degree of fervency. Most of them, anyway. A few die-hards remain, but their minds are impervious to reality, a la that infamous 30% of the population that was still approving of George W. Bush’s performance at the tail end of his second term.

Despite this widespread disappointment, I am frequently criticized for my Election Day 2012 plans, which do not include a trip to the polls, except perhaps to cast a Green for president and maybe a vote for my congressman. I voted for Barack Obama in 2008. I will not vote for him again. That much is certain. Even if I lived in a swing state like Ohio or Pennsylvania, I still would not vote for Obama. And it is here, for many liberals, where my need for “ideological purity” comes under fire. Whether it’s on the threads of HuffPost or when I’m having drinks with liberal friends, the specter of a Rick Perry/Michele Bachmann/Mitt Romney is always raised, as if failing to vote for Obama next year—despite my disappointment with him on almost every major issue—will haunt me until my dying breath.

Liberals insist that liberals must vote for Barack Obama because if we don’t, who knows what whackadoodle could be our next president, as if that outcome would be anyone’s fault but Barack Obama’s.

I for one am not going to allow myself to be scared into the voting booth at the mere mention of Rick Perry, Mitt Romney or anyone else. No doubt, however, that millions of other liberals certainly will. And that’s a problem. It sends a message to the Establishment-oriented Obama, and all other Democrats present and future, that to secure the “base” of the party, one need only frighten those in it with the prospect of a theocratic supply-side dystopia if Republican candidate X wins the election.

And maybe that’s true. Maybe that’s what we need in this country. Apparently, Bush didn’t make things bad enough in order for endless war, permanent tax cuts, and the trampling of the Bill of Rights to be deemed bad ideas by either party. After all, these buffooneries have continued apace into this so-called liberal administration, which has doled out trillions to the financial sector while destroying the savings of the general population, which eagerly awaits a jobs plan that they will no doubt be terribly disappointed by.

If Obama manages to win reelection, it would be a disaster for liberalism rather than a boost. Since Obama is not an actual liberal, his reelection would demonstrate that, electorally, core New Deal Democratic values don’t really matter on a substantive level, only at a very superficial rhetorical one. It would vindicate former press secretary Robert Gibbs’ dismissive assertion that only the “professional left” is disaffected with the president, meaning anyone who gives a shit about protecting America’s working class from corporate marauders, several of which populate the administration itself.

If Obama is defeated in 2012, the pundit class will proffer every explanation possible for the outcome, except for the correct one—that Obama is a centrist whose shamelessly pro-corporate policies failed to effect positive change in the lives of ordinary Americans during the worst financial crisis in 80 years.

- Max

Paul Ryan's proposes neoliberal junta budget

“We’re gonna get ridda your Medicare and you’re gonna like it. Capisce?”

I just finished perusing the Republican budget proposal for fiscal year 2012. It was unveiled at a news conference today by Wall Street bailer-outer Paul Ryan and about fifteen House Republicans; and with the exception of one woman, all were white men over the age of 40.

The GOP proposal is like something you’d find being advanced by a 1980s Latin American military junta hoping to win favor with the IMF and World Bank in order to obtain loans. The budget plan calls for $6.2 trillion in cuts over the next ten years, but still wouldn’t lead to a balanced budget until the late 2030s. Part of the reason is its insane call for huge permanent tax cuts for individuals and corporations, including drastically lowering both the top individual and corporate tax rates to 25% from 35%. The proposal would eliminate the 2010 health care reform law. Naturally, the Pentagon’s budget is barely touched, and the GOP proposal has essentially deferred to Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ budgetary recommendations. Most of egregious of all, however, is that the GOP plan eliminates Medicare. Of course, that’s not the word Republicans are using. They’re saying they’re saving Medicare by reforming it, but Republicans want to save Medicare in the same sense that Lieutenant Calley saved My Lai village by ordering it destroyed.

Here’s the crux of the GOP’s plan to eliminate Medicare:

Starting in 2022, new Medicare beneficiaries will be enrolled in the same kind of health care program that members of Congress enjoy. Future Medicare recipients will be able to choose from a list of guaranteed coverage options, and they will be given the ability to choose a plan that works best for them. This is not a voucher program, but rather a premium-support model. A Medicare premium-support payment would be paid, by Medicare, to the plan chosen by the beneficiary, subsidizing its cost.

The premium-support model would operate similar to the way the Medicare prescription-drug benefit program works today. The Medicare premium-support payment would be adjusted so that wealthier beneficiaries would receive a lower subsidy, the sick would receive a higher payment if their conditions worsened, and lower-income seniors would receive additional assistance to cover out-of-pocket costs.

This is interesting considering how similar it is to what Republicans call Obamacare. In the same budget proposal, Republicans are advocating the repeal of the president’s health care law with its sliding scale government subsidies allocated based on personal income levels, while simultaneously calling for the implementation of the same general plan for people who turn 65 after 2021. Even though this is the kind of idea that Republicans find worthy of the “socialist” epithet, they’re pushing this approach because it is much less socialistic than the current single-payer Medicare system.

What is surprising about the GOP’s proposed abolition of Medicare as we know it, is the brazen manner in which it’s being presented. Medicare is a very popular government program, even more so than private health insurance, which is remarkable considering that its only customers are people over 65—a demographic that can sometimes be difficult to please. Furthermore, everyone who is under the age of fifty-five right now would be affected by this change, which will have the surely anticipated effect of increasing out-of-pocket expenses. This is because there is nothing to prevent private health insurance premiums from continuing to rise at a rate that outpaces wage growth or inflation. Will the GOP’s premium-support model contain provisions for adjusting subsidies based on premium increases or will it be subject to a cost of living adjustment scheme that lags behind these hikes? Most likely the latter, since the whole point of “reforming” Medicare is for the government to spend less on it, and for the citizens to spend more. Even if this reality does not explicitly enter the minds of Americans under 55, they are still going to have some serious questions about gutting a program that has done well by their parents and other elderly loved ones. Frankly, I anticipate that the GOP’s Medicare proposal will be rebuked by the electorate with extreme prejudice.

On a related note, Ryan’s budget also contains a long-sought wet dream of the American right, federal tort reform. In this case, tort reform means placing a cap on damages rewarded by juries in medical malpractice lawsuits. By implementing a ceiling on damages, so the argument goes, malpractice insurers won’t have to pay out as much money in lawsuits, meaning the insurers could lower the premiums they charge doctors and hospitals, meaning the doctors and hospitals could lower what they charge to HMOs for providing those HMOs’ customers with care, meaning the HMOs could lower premiums for their customers, i.e., the American people. Notice that the American people are last in this wondrous chain of trickle down tort reform. Of all the entities in this relationship, patients are likely to benefit the least simply by virtue of being the furthest removed from where the reform is being initiated. That is, of course, unless you’ve been the victim of medical malpractice, in which case you’d be right in the thick of it, as you’d be unable to reap the kinds of damages you would have been under various state laws, which brings me to my next point.

Not a day goes by when some prominent Republican doesn’t decry increasing encroachments by the federal government on states’ rights and individual liberty. And yet one of the key proposals in Republican health care reform has been the enactment of a federal tort reform law that would supersede state laws pertaining to medical malpractice. I’m not quite sure how conservatives square that one.

As if these proposals weren’t bad enough, we come to Ryan’s not-so surprising take on the Pentagon’s budget, which defers to the Obama administration’s insistence that the decades-long boondoggle for military contractors is maintained:

Reflects $178 billion in savings identified by Defense Secretary Robert Gates, reinvesting $100 billion in higher military priorities and dedicating the rest to deficit reduction.

Nice try, but that’s not $178 billion in savings. It’s $78 billion in savings. Spending $100 billion on weapons programs X, Y and Z instead of A, B and C because you deemed the latter projects wasteful doesn’t mean you saved $100 billion; it just means you spent that money, but more wisely (you think). Of course, this is the Pentagon we’re talking about, which has seen it appropriate to spend more than the GDP of Australia to build thousands of F-35 fighter jets to fight al Qaeda’s nonexistent air force.

Obviously the Republicans don’t expect all or even most of their ideas to make it into whatever FY 2012 budget finally gets passed. Nonetheless, they are hoping to frame and control the nature of the budget debate. By putting Medicare essentially on the chopping block in their budget, the GOP wants this proposal germinate into something that they hope will soon become “mainstream,” or at least be seen as a viable policy prescription.

As far as the Obama administration’s response to this plan goes, anything short of derisive laughter, mockery, and criticism will not do. When it comes to Medicare and Social Security, the electorate is on the side of the Democrats, who historically have enacted and protected these programs. Whenever the Republicans win an election, they always seem to overreach. Whether it was George W. Bush after the 2004 election proposing the privatization of Social Security, the unpopular gutting of labor unions in Wisconsin, or the proposed elimination of Medicare, Republican economic policy is starkly at odds with what Americans want. Sure, the GOP can cite polls saying people want them to crackdown on wasteful spending or some other vague idea that virtually everyone can get on board with, but once you get into the specifics, once you start asking people if they want their Medicare or Social Security or unemployment benefits messed with, that’s when the GOP hits serious resistance. This budget proposal is no different and is pure folly, and if there is a shutdown of the government, Obama will be able to point to the GOP Medicare proposal and tell Americans that the Republicans are after their Medicare and soon their Social Security.

That’s assuming Obama doesn’t cave once again, but at this point who the hell knows?

- Max

Doesn't anyone care that Obama is bombing Libya without Congressional authorization?

Bye bye, Constitution. It’s been real.

The very first article of the United States Constitution enumerates the powers of Congress. Among these is the power

“To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water…”

Nowhere in the Constitution is the president given the authority to make war unilaterally. It is true that the president is the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, but that clause comes with an important qualifier:

“The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into the actual Service of the United States…”

As specified by Article I, calling the military into service falls under the expressed powers granted to Congress. Several presidents have ignored the Constitution in this regard, with Barack Obama becoming just the latest example with his initiation of military action against Libya (not to mention his predator drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen, but we’ll leave this aside for the time being.) For his part, George W. Bush waged war in Afghanistan and Iraq, but in each case had congressional authorization to carry out military action, however vague that permission was in the case of Iraq. Indeed, many gutless Democrats who in 2002 gave Bush wide-ranging discretion to handle Iraq’s WMD compliance/noncompliance as he saw fit, later claimed that they did not intend to give him the authority to order an invasion.

Establishment liberals can always be counted on to support a war if the justification for it is rife with enough fear-mongering or is couched in lofty rhetoric about human rights. Time magazine’s Joe Klein, for example, never tires of suckling at the teat of executive power. And when a president, whether Bush or Obama or whoever, says we need to send warships to wherever and fire up the fighter jets to bomb another race of brown people, the worst Klein can say about such an operation is that he’s “skeptical” about the mission’s potential for success, despite the occurrence of some “amazing diplomacy.”

Which brings me to my next point: after a unilateral decision has been made by a US president to bomb somewhere, the media has the awful tendency of examining the action’s efficacy, and not its legality or its morality for that matter. Talking heads on television delve into whether the war is worth the cost in terms of blood and treasure. Even decades later wars are discussed in such terms, as the case of Vietnam illustrates. The problem with that war, so Establishment wisdom goes, that the war simply was not worth the American lives and money. Never mind the fact that two million East Asians were mercilessly subjected to a holocaust of indiscriminate bombing by three successive presidential administrations, or the fact that the US essentially had to wage war on the South Vietnamese people so it could “defend” them from their own National Liberation Front. No, the problem with Vietnam was that policymakers didn’t have the foresight to know that half a million US soldiers and all the munitions tonnage the US could drop would not be sufficient for victory. Meanwhile the legality and altruistic intentions of US foreign policy are always taken for granted. And if someone like a Kucinich or a Paul gets out of line—as one surely will—pundits from the Right and the Left will be happy to impugn his patriotism and accusing him of not “supporting the troops.”

But what about the War Powers Resolution of 1973? That gives the president the authority to deploy the military as he sees fit, so long as he notifies Congress within 48 hours, and doesn’t keep forces committed for more than 60 days, 90 days counting the troop drawdown process. I’m no ConLaw expert, but I fail to see how Congress can just abdicate its constitutional war-making responsibilities. Every person who’s taken AP Government or History is familiar with the 1803 case Marbury v. Madison, in which the Marshall Court struck down a provision in the 1789 Judiciary Act that expanded the Supreme Court’s original jurisdiction beyond the scope of its constitutional authority. In providing a precedent for the vital concept of judicial review, Marshall wrote,

“Certainly all those who have framed written Constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently the theory of every such government must be that an act of the Legislature repugnant to the Constitution is void.”

Congress’ war-making powers have been usurped by the executive with such frequency that most people seem desensitized to the phenomenon. Indeed, some Obama apologists on Huffington Post (scroll down to the comments for attacks on Kucinich from Obama worshipers) and elsewhere have cited as evidence of the Libya operation’s legitimacy, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1973, passed 10-0 (with five abstentions), that authorized the implementation of a no-fly zone if Moammar Gaddafi did not agree to cease military operations against the rebels. No doubt the UNSC resolution has the force of international law, but the question here isn’t whether Obama’s/Sarkozy’s/Cameron’s war on Libya is legal under international law, but whether Obama’s decision to enter into the agreement and carry out its provisions is allowable under US law. Be advised that this has nothing to do with international law trumping domestic law, since international law is often a product of decisions made with domestic considerations, such as public opinion, and checks and balances in mind. Before ordering his ambassador, Susan Rice, to vote “yes” at the UN, and indeed, before he decided to commit American military resources to a bombing campaign in Libya, he could have, and should have, sought authorization from Congress. Besides, there was nothing preventing the Obama administration from approving UNSC Resolution 1973, while telling its allies that for the US to take part in instituting a no-fly zone, that Congress would first have to give its blessing.

Anyone who thinks that the Framers intended for the President to have sole discretion to engage the military in hostilities with no authorization is free to attempt to find evidence for this in Madison’s Notes on the Debates of the Federal Convention, the Federalist Papers, or other correspondence from the Framers. The truth, however, is that here the preponderance of evidence shows a disdain for unilateral executive war-making authority—a prospect that calls to mind the worst facets of monarchy. Via Glenn Greenwald at Salon, then future Supreme Court Justice John Jay made the case against such a scheme in Federalist No. 4:

“It is too true, however disgraceful it may be to human nature, that nations in general will make war whenever they have a prospect of getting anything by it; nay, absolute monarchs will often make war when their nations are to get nothing by it, but for the purposes and objects merely personal, such as thirst for military glory, revenge for personal affronts, ambition, or private compacts to aggrandize or support their particular families or partisans. These and a variety of other motives, which affect only the mind of the sovereign, often lead him to engage in wars not sanctified by justice or the voice and interests of his people.”

Barack Obama cares no more for the Constitution or rule of law than George W. Bush did. And the longer his administration goes on, the more I become convinced of a near-seamless continuity between the two.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Ron Paul vs. the Constitution?

Readers of this site know that I’m a Ron Paul fan. Even though I fundamentally disagree with him on fiscal policy, I appreciate the way he sticks up for the Bill of Rights, speaks out against American interventionism abroad, and votes his conscience. We need more honest people like him in politics.

That being said, the Texas Congressman has it totally wrong on the Obama administration’s decision to stop defending the ridiculously named Defense of Marriage Act in federal courts. In announcing the decision Wednesday, Attorney General Eric Holder said that DOMA “contains numerous expressions reflecting moral disapproval of gays and lesbians and their intimate and family relationships—precisely the kind of stereotype-based thinking and animus the [Fourteenth Amendment’s] Equal Protection Clause is designed to guard against.”

Paul penned a response critical of the administration’s position, saying in part,

The Defense of Marriage Act was enacted in 1996 to stop Big Government in Washington from re-defining marriage and forcing its definition on the States…I believe that marriage is between one man and one woman and must be protected.

I supported the Defense of Marriage Act, which used Congress’ constitutional authority to define what other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause, to ensure that no state would be forced to recognize a same sex marriage license issued in another state. I have also cosponsored the Marriage Protection Act, which would remove challenges to the Defense of Marriage Act from the jurisdiction of the federal courts.

First off, what Paul is essentially saying is, “Big Government in Washington defined marriage to stop Big Government in Washington from re-defining marriage and forcing its definition on the states.”

Apparently, Paul views DOMA as a preemptive strike against a future Congress that is run by gay-loving states’ rights haters who will define marriage as a union between any two persons. I don’t think he has much reason to worry about that happening in his lifetime.

Until today I did not know Paul’s position on DOMA, though I assumed he was against it because the legislation does two things that seem to be anathema to his principles. For one thing, DOMA defines marriage as “a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife.” Paul is personally opposed to same-sex marriage, but I had always figured that the idea of the federal government (Congress) defining marriage would thoroughly repulse him. Nowhere in the Constitution is Congress given the power—either expressly or implicitly—to define marriage, thus reserving it to the jurisdiction of the states.

But DOMA does something else, and this is the key to understanding Paul’s misguided position on the legislation. DOMA also declares:

No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.

To say this provision is constitutionally on shaky ground is an understatement. Consider the Constitution’s Full Faith and Credit Clause which Paul mentioned above:

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

The purpose of this clause is clear. A legal contract entered into and legitimized in one state must be recognized as such in another. If you and your significant other get married in Massachusetts and move to Ohio, you don’t have to get married again, in Ohio, in order to get a another marriage license. The state of Ohio is obliged to recognize the license issued in Massachusetts. This much no one disputes. But DOMA tells states they can ignore the Full Faith and Credit Clause when it comes to marriage licenses issued to same-sex couples. Thus, under this law, Ohio does not have to recognize a legal same-sex marriage consummated in Massachusetts.

But can Congress simply deem certain state laws exempt from the FFCC? The Clause says that Congress “may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.” I’m not sure there is anything here that gives Congress the power to tell the states that they may ignore one another’s laws altogether, thereby rendering the actual full faith and credit part of the Full Faith and Credit Clause a mere suggestion.

Paul asserts that Congress has “constitutional authority to define what other states have to recognize under the Full Faith and Credit Clause.” But if this is the case, then why doesn’t the FFCC just say so? The word “except” occurs eleven times in the original Constitution. The Framers were not afraid to utilize this word for the sake of specificity. Indeed, one can easily imagine a wording of the FFCC that leaves no doubt as to its intent. If Paul’s reading is correct, why doesn’t the Clause say something like,

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State [except those Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings expressly exempted by the Congress]. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

Without additional wording of this kind, however, the FFCC is vague, and in such a manner that I don’t think can be construed as to allow Congress the authority to exempt certain acts which some states, or Congress itself, may find objectionable. The Clause only says that Congress may, but is not necessarily obligated to, prescribe how such acts and records are proved and what effects they have, not what if any acts and records are exempt from this provision altogether.

There are also Equal Protection implications of DOMA, as mentioned by Holder, but that is a whole other issue. Sufficeth to say conservatives hate the Equal Protection Clause, or at least the way in which it has been interpreted by federal judges for the last century, because states can no longer discriminate as freely as they once did against certain demographics. Perish the thought that federal government act as a guarantor of life, liberty, and property against the occasional anti-liberty machinations of the states.

Of course, all of this Constitution-parsing and legal wrangling—important though it is—takes away from one very fundamental fact: there is no good reason for opposing same-sex marriage. To be opposed to this is to be bigot. Ron Paul and millions of other Americans ought to be ashamed of themselves for their position on this issue.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Obama administration blocks UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements

I’ve seen some convoluted explanations in my time, but this one from the American ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, is at the top of the pile. Rice was on Al Jazeera (English) a few days ago trying to explain why the Obama administration last week had used its first veto at the UN Security Council to kill a resolution condemning Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank. The proposed resolution was defeated 14 to 1, or I should say 1 to 14 because being one of the five permanent members with veto power, the US was able to block its passage all by itself. The resolution, which you can read here, had more than 100 cosponsors.

Rice was clearly uncomfortable and occasionally hostile during the exchange. Asked why the Obama administration vetoed the resolution, Rice offered this:

Our goal is and must remain—as soon as possible—establishment of an independent Palestinian state. And we looked at the resolution in the light of whether it would advance that goal or harden positions and set it back. As I said today in the Security Council and as President Obama has said on many occasions, the United States strongly opposes continued Israeli settlement activity. So our objection was not on that point. On that point we were united with the rest of the Council. The question for us was, would this resolution and its adoption advance that goal of achieving an independent Palestinian state or cause one or both parties to dig in and make it even harder to resume the very necessary process of direct negotiations?

Rice then said that it is the administration’s position that the resolution would have encouraged the latter scenario, saying further,

We do not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement activity. There’s no question about that. We have been clear and unequivocal. But the question is, if you simply try to make declaratory statements, will that lead to the halt of settlement activity? No. In fact, it might even encourage increased settlement activity...I think perhaps there would have been more settlement activity had the resolution been adopted.

Rice went on to say that the resolution was an effort to “divert attention” from resolving the conflict.

Before I get into the substance of her explanation, I’d just like to point out to Ambassador Rice that a UN Security Council resolution is not a “declaratory statement,” but international law. Here’s the UN ambassador from the most powerful country in the world likening a binding international resolution to a mere “declaratory statement.” That tells us a lot about what the Obama administration thinks of the UN and international law. In fact, Rice said outright that passage of the resolution wouldn’t lead to a halt in Israeli settlement building (and might even increase it, but more on that in a moment), and this was the main reason she voted against it.

Now it’s probably true that passage would not have prompted Israel to halt its current settlement expansions. Indeed, Israel is currently violation of multiple UNSC resolutions, ignoring them with impunity. And the main reason is because it faces no negative consequences whatsoever. On this front, Obama is simply continuing the policy of his predecessors: pledge unwavering support to Israel with billions of dollars in annual foreign aid, block UNSC resolutions that are critical of Israel, and occasionally condemn Israeli settlement activity as “counterproductive” or “illegitimate” (but not illegal), while doing absolutely nothing about it.

Considered in light of these facts, Rice’s explanation is tautological: We vetoed the resolution because it would not have halted settlements and also because we refuse to encourage Israel to stop building them anyway. And one of the ways in which we refuse to do that is by vetoing resolutions critical of settlements.

But what about Rice’s other assertion that passage of the resolution would lead to an increase in settlement activity? What she’s essentially saying is, Israel has such contempt for international law and even its main ally, the US, that ratification of such an agreement would have prompted Israel to accelerate its settlement building just for the sake of defying the resolution. In other words, even if we voted in favor of it, Israel would have given us, and the international community, the middle finger by doing the exact opposite of what we called on them to do.

If that’s the case, then what the hell? If Israel is going to be unresponsive to US attempts to rein in its settlement building, then why continue supporting—politically and financially—this ally which clearly has no interest in heeding our calls to halt such activity?

Such a question is rendered inapplicable by the fact that the US does not really care about settlements or the Palestinian right to self-determination. For more than three decades, this has been made clear through America’s actions and inactions regarding the Israel-Palestine conflict. The Obama administration’s veto is just the latest US enablement of illegal Israeli expansionism, which will surely continue for the foreseeable future, regardless of who occupies the White House.

– Max

max.canning@gmail.com

Congress is full of cowards and the Tea Party is full of shit

In a miscalculation yesterday, House Speaker John Boehner expedited a vote on three expiring provisions of the horrendous USA Patriot Act. Under the move, the renewals required a two-thirds vote (290 votes) to pass. They got 277. It will pass eventually because most of our congresspersons are gutless cowards who have no qualms about sacrificing liberty for merely the illusion of security. The Republican Party—supposedly the faction of “small government”—was the worst offender today, with 210 of them voting to grant Barack Obama’s wish of continued overreaching executive power.

Meanwhile, where the fuck is the Tea Party on this one? All we hear from those people is how government under the Obama administration is taking away our freedom, but they’re nowhere to be found on this issue. Show me a Tea Party rally against the Patriot Act, or the Afghan War, or the military-industrial complex. You can’t because there are none. And the reason there is none is because 90% of self-described Tea Partiers are statists. They’re the same people who rushed to line up behind Dubya and his military adventurism and Bill of Rights curtailments. They’re the same people who virulently trashed, as traitors, opponents of Bush’s “big government” policies. And they’re the same people, who right now, are doing jack shit while the Obama administration is about to be handed extensions on roving wiretaps, expansive surveillance powers, and warrants issued by secret courts. Why? Because they are authoritarians who simply don’t like the current Dear Leader in power. Sure, they’ll protest a health care plan or whatever, but anything that contributes to the security and glory of the State and it’s thank you sir, may they have another? One day, the Tea Party may very well get its dream president: a white man or woman who will return the Fatherland to the days of the Cold War and the nuclear family. And if the president has to start World War III to get there, so be it.

*****

Does Ron Paul ever not nail it when it comes to civil liberties? Guy’s like a one-man police state wrecking crew. Here he is before the vote to extend the three sunset provisions.

- Max max.canning@gmail.com

In New York Times, CEO rhetoric = unchallenged holy gospel

If you want to read a quintessential example of boilerplate political journalism, look no further than this canard-ridden New York Times article by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Jackie Calmes. The piece gives new unquestioned legitimacy to the idea that Barack Obama is anti-business, or is at least insufficiently pro-business because,

Nearly halfway through Mr. Obama’s term, the dearth of business and Wall Street types in his administration rankles many executives, if only as a proxy for their unhappiness with his policies and occasional antibusiness political speech.

I had to read this paragraph three or four times before I realized that these words, in this particular combination, actually existed. Before continuing, it should be pointed out that the only sources for this story are McGraw-Hill CEO Terry McGraw, Honeywell CEO David Cote (who actually serves on Obama’s economic recovery board), former CEO for a real estate development company and current Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, and an unnamed “Democratic lobbyist” who says of Jarrett,

“In the Clinton White House, people in the business community turned to someone like Bob Rubin when there was discussion internally….It’s not an anti-Valerie thing; I just don’t think they believe that there is anybody inside with that stature and that view.”

This is one of those pieces that is cumbersome to refute, not because it’s true, but because it is premised in an alternate reality. It’s like trying to disprove Glenn Beck after he’s spent a half hour outlining an elaborate shit-show on his chalkboard. By the time he’s finished, what you’ve got in front of you is such a clusterfuck of grade-A craziness it’s hard to know where to begin.

Let’s first recognize that just about every Democrat faces the “anti-business” label at some point in their careers. Usually this epithet is hurled by an opponent or some bigshot business executive. The threshold for the application of this terminology is usually very low, and is used to describe anyone who supports policies like Card Check, higher tax burdens on bailed out banks, tougher Wall Street regulation, or anything else that businesses don’t like. Notice how no politician on either side is ever forced to fend off accusations of being “anti-worker,” for the simple reason that no such epithet exists in American politics, which is highly instructive and tells us something about what constitutes acceptable political discourse.

Honeywell CEO David Cote, who is quoted in the Times article, was on CNBC this afternoon shortly after he and two dozen other leading business executives met with Obama at the White House. Cote was very optimistic and said the meeting was “productive,” and at one point commented that it’s been a rough couple of years for business. And that’s strange, since on Tuesday his company’s stock hit a 52-week high, and since Obama took office Honeywell is up 57%. But let’s take a look at the broader equities picture since Obama’s inauguration. Since January 20, 2009, the Dow has gone from 8,280 to 11,457 (a 38% increase), the NASDAQ from 1,466 to 2,617 (a 79% increase), and the S&P from 850 to 1,235 (a 45% increase). This is just in two years. What about inflation-adjusted earnings? Well as Zero Hedge pointed out, those went from $7 a share in January 2009 to $60 a share just this summer—an 857% increase.

Furthermore, corporate profits in the third quarter of 2010 were the highest ever. As Stolberg’s and Calmes’ own paper noted last month,

Corporate profits have been doing extremely well for a while. Since their cyclical low in the fourth quarter of 2008, profits have grown for seven consecutive quarters, at some of the fastest rates in history. As a share of gross domestic product, corporate profits also have been increasing, and they now represent 11.2 percent of total output. That is the highest share since the fourth quarter of 2006, when they accounted for 11.7 percent of output.

And two weeks later the Federal Reserve reported,

[C]orporate cash balances spiked to $1.93 trillion—a 38% increase since the first quarter of 2009—representing $530 billion. This significant increase indicates companies are still accumulating cash rather than redeploying it, according to Treasury Strategies, a treasury consulting firm.

“From our work with clients, as well as survey data collected this week, we see that corporations have experienced very strong growth in cash flow from operations. Given that total corporate cash continues to grow, these findings together tell us that corporations are still not comfortable with redeploying their cash,” says Cathy Gregg, Partner of Treasury Strategies.

And to top it all off, Wall Street executives are once again poised to collect tens of billions of dollars in annual bonuses.

Actually that doesn’t top it off. What tops it off is the Fed’s past, present, and future rounds of quantitative easing in which it allows secondary treasury dealers to front run and push up their prices, coupled with ruinous zero interest rate policies that are crippling American savers, but enriching the banks in what is essentially an ongoing bailout via monetary policy. After all, banks borrow money from the Fed at 0% to 0.25% and then lend that money out at rates of 5%, 10%, 25%, or whatever, and make some easy arbitrage. Sometimes when banks desire safer instruments, they’ll buy treasury notes with yields higher than the rate at which they’re borrowing money from the Fed, making the entire operation a giant taxpayer-funded farce.

What we have here are soaring corporate profits, record amounts of corporate cash on hand, tens of billions of dollars to be doled out in bonuses, a policy of bank-friendly zero percent interest rates, and rigged asset purchases in which Goldman Sachs and other secondary dealers can sell the Federal Reserve—the American central bank—American debt at inflated prices.

If this is anti-business activity, I don’t want to know what pro-business policies look like.

But what about the initial criticism—that there aren’t enough business executives physically in the Obama administration? The unnamed “Democratic lobbyist” quoted in the article laments that there isn’t a Bob Rubin in this White House to act as White House/business sector liaison. That’s the same Bob Rubin who advised Bill Clinton that the derivatives market should be turned into an opaque speculative casino where the only players who know the actual price of the securities are the brokers, while the actual buyers and sellers are left in the dark, meaning the price discovery mechanism—perhaps the most basic concept in all of free market capitalism—was completely absent. The brainchild of this Rubin-aided philosophy was the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000. Shortly thereafter, Rubin left government and received more than $120 million over the course of seven years from his subsequent employer Citigroup, which had lobbied for the CMFA because it just so happened to deal in massive amounts of derivatives.

That’s Bob Rubin’s main contribution to modern finance, and this is the kind of guy that the unnamed lobbyist in the article wants in the Obama administration. Wow. As Max Keiser would say, this guy must be smoking his own bellybutton lint. And don’t forget that Larry Summers was also in the Clinton administration and also advocated the passage of the CFMA. Summers of course, just resigned last month as Obama’s director of the White House Economic Council after nearly two years at the helm. And let’s not forget Tim Geithner’s Goldman connections.

I’ve written all this and I didn’t even mention the completion of TARP, TALF and the auto bailouts under Obama administration.

A lengthy retort to such insipid journalism should be completely unnecessary in light of the above facts which are well known, but unfortunately this “anti-business” mantra reverberates through the media echo chamber. Not because it makes sense, but because many reporters and editors are too eager put the words of important people to print no matter how ridiculous their claims. All it takes is a few CEOs talking on CNBC or giving an interview to the New York Timesto say, “Obama is anti-business,” and immediately the angle becomes a part of mainstream discussion. “Is Obama anti-business?” And off the pundits go all because a few billionaires said the president hasn’t sufficiently fellated them. It’s a sad state of affairs.

- Max

max.canning@gmail.com

ps: I’m not sure why, but I emailed this post to the authors of the New York Times article. I doubt I’ll get a response.

Salon news editor attacks media's false narrative on tax cut compromise and replaces it with one of his own

Standard vanilla beltway hack

Salon’s news editor, Steve Kornacki, has published a truly remarkable exercise in establishment liberal-centrist sophistry concerning Barack Obama’s tax cut compromise. To this point, the preferred media narrative about this is that by agreeing in principle to a temporary extension of all the Bush tax cuts, Obama has alienated his “liberal base.” The problem with that assessment, as I pointed out the other day, is that it completely ignores the fact that according to a CBS poll, a majority of Americans wanted the cuts to be extended only for those making less than $250,000 a year, and that 67% do not want the cuts extended for those making more than that. Since that post, Bloomberg—obviously a news organization that caters to wealthier readers—confirmed these results with a poll of its own which “shows that only a third of Americans support keeping the lower rates for the highest earners.”

Ignoring this data, Kornacki wrote a bizarrely titled apologia for the Obama administration, “Obama’s Silent Majority,” in which he attacks the media’s portrayal of the deal as a sellout of his liberal base. According to Kornacki, it turns out that not only did Obama not sell out the base, Obama didn’t really sell out anybody! Apparently, the only ones who are feeling left out in the cold after this compromise are “[l]iberal commentators and activists and interest group leaders.”

How does he know this? Because, “their rage has not trickled down to the Democratic voters (and, in particular, the Democratic voters who identify themselves as liberals), even though they’ve been venting their grief for the better part of two years.”

Kornacki then goes out to note how Obama’s approval rating among Democrats has remained static throughout 2010 before concluding:

Obama, in other words, seems to have developed his own silent majority. Rank-and-file liberal Democrats may not agree with everything he has done, but they do not share the sense of abandonment and betrayal that has defined liberal commentary throughout so much of his presidency. The party’s liberal base still very much likes him; it’s the elites who have turned on him.

The only poll numbers Kornacki cites are the president’s approval ratings among Democrats. He says nothing of the polls which demonstrate that a two-thirds majority of Americans—not just Democrats—do not want the tax cuts to be extended for those making over $250,000 a year. Given this fact, where exactly is Kornacki finding this silent majority? Or do two-thirds of Americans comprise those elites he was talking about?

Citing polls showing how Democrats have continued to support Obama even after he’s wussed out on a myriad of occasions—including closing Gitmo, caving on the public option, and extending the Bush tax cuts for the rich, among other capitulations and failed promises—does not impress me in the least. Democrats overwhelmingly favor closing Gitmo, favored the public option, and want the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to expire. On these latter two issues, Democratic opinion is in step with a majority of Americans in general. That Obama’s approval rating has remained steady among liberals suggests that either liberals aren’t paying enough attention to see the gap that exists between their ideas and the president’s policies, or, what is a more likely explanation, that liberals see no viable alternative. As such, they are often disappointed by Obama, but in the context of the American left/right paradigm, he looks good by comparison. At a time when the right is led by the likes of wackdoos Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck, it’s easy for Obama to seem like the last, best hope for American liberalism. He is after all, the president. But looking like a liberal compared to say, Mitch McConnell, is a hardly a noteworthy achievement. So Kornacki can point to Obama’s approval ratings among his “base,” but it doesn’t change the fact that more often than not, on major issues Obama has gone against them. Apparently, for Kornacki this is not relevant. What’s relevant is that Democrats endure one disappointment after another, only to keep coming back to Obama like an emotionally scarred woman who always goes back to her abusive husband because she’s convinced that he’s the only one who could possibly love her.

- Max Canning

max.canning@gmail.com

Obama capitulates on tax cuts and the media creates a predictably false narrative about it

Apparently, support of 67% of the American public doesn’t get you what it used to.

Today I watched Barack Obama’s quasi-impromptu press conference where he made a few canned remarks about his compromise in principle with Republicans on extending the Bush tax cuts for everyone for two years. Before I get into the media’s reaction, I want to highlight a CBS poll conducted a week ago. A whopping 67% of Americans say that the Bush tax cuts should either be allowed to expire for everyone, or expire just for those making more than $250,000 a year. Below is the exact breakdown. I have added the data in the bottom row which shows what percentage of Republicans, Democrats, and independents want (at the very least) the tax cuts for the $250,000-plus crowd to expire. This is done simply by adding rows three and four:

CBS Poll conducted 11/29-12/01	All	REPS	DEMS	INDS
Continue for all	26%	46	10	25
Continue for households <$250K	53	41	70	47
Expire for all	14	11	14	17
Expire for >$250K (at very least)	67	52	84	64

Most amazing of all, notice how a majority (52%) of self-identified Republicans think the tax cuts for those making over $250,000 should expire.

Watching the news, you would never know that two-thirds of Americans are in favor of not extending the tax cuts for these wealthier Americans. Meanwhile, a straight 53% say the tax cuts should be extended just for those making under $250,000. And you wouldn’t know this because every media outlet I have seen report on this tax cut compromise—whether CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, and so on—has presented this as an instance of Obama defying his “liberal base” and nothing more. See for yourself:

But it’s just the newest chapter of an old fight, and despite the liberal base’s fury, it’s evidence that Obama is trying to re-center himself before the 2012 elections.

CNN

He made clear he was willing to alienate his liberal base in the interest of compromise, more interested in crafting measures that can pass to the benefit of the middle class than waging battle to the end over principle.

New York Times

Even as liberals complain, White House officials believe independent voters will reward him if he’s seen as leading Washington to results.

Wall Street Journal

By cutting the deal they have, the White House has likely concluded that it is more important to cozy up to the middle than it is to keep it’s left-leaning base happy, probably believing that it has no where else to go and will, therefore, stick with Obama through 2012.

US News & World Report

As we just saw in the CBS poll, which merely confirmed similar results in previous polling on this issue (see here and here), two-thirds of Americans do not want tax cuts extended for anyone making over $250,000. And yet the American media would have us believe that in striking this deal, Obama dealt a cold serving of mainstream political reality to his überliberal critics. Except that unless Obama’s “liberal base” is that aforementioned two-thirds of the American population who are against extending the tax cuts for the wealthy, this analysis makes no sense whatsoever.

What this sorry episode shows is that our media is incapable of or unwilling to present serious political and economic issues in a way that goes beyond a convenient, narrow, and usually false left-right dichotomy. This narrative reminds me of the health care debate—based on the media coverage of which, you’d never know that 60% of Americans wanted a government health insurance option to compete with private coverage. Now once again, we are being told that the political realities being what they are, there’s just no possible way to extend tax cuts for the middle class while allowing them to lapse for the wealthy because only a majority of the American population favors it.

Perhaps this really does mean that a majority of Americans are in that “liberal base” the media keeps talking about.

- Max Canning

Long Overdue, Semi-Coherent, Profane-Laden Rant About How Fucked Up Our Politics Are Right Now

Get it off me!

Nowhere is insanity on fuller display than in the debate on whether to extend the Bush tax cuts passed in 2001 and 2003 and set to expire on December 31. On one side is the Republicans, who come January, will control one out of the three institutions (House, Senate, White House) needed to pass any extensions. They have indicated that they will not vote for any tax cut extensions that do not include cuts for those making over $250,000 a year—a group that accounts for two percent of the fucking population! Excuse me, but where in the holy fuck do the Republicans get off saying they won’t compromise on tax cuts? With what leverage are they making these crazy statements? Memo to John Boehner: you can’t do shit without the Senate and White House, neither of which you control. The tax cuts can expire with our without your regressive-ass governing philosophy. On the other side is the Democrats, and I will get to those fuckers momentarily.

If the GOP is so serious about reining in our massive budget deficits, why the fuck do they want the government to eat $700 billion over the next ten years, which is what extending the tax cuts for the upper 2% would cost? Standard bullshit answer: Because that 2% does the investing and job creating. Well suck my ass. I don’t know if any of these GOP empty suits have noticed, but America is having a bit of a capital flight problem at the moment. I know we don’t want to admit it, but the dollar is getting royally crushed on the Forex and our exports are still getting their asses kicked. The Fed’s second round of quantitative easing is underway and, woops, bond yields are rising. That’s ok though, at least those struggling bankers at Goldman Sachs are front-running on these asset purchases and selling the taxpayers bonds whose prices are unnecessarily jacked up. Way to monetize the debt you fucking FOMC assholes.

But back to these Republican douchebags. They don’t give a flaming fuck about deficits or the national debt. If anything, they want our situation to be even more fucked than it is so they can eliminate every social program there is, and spend all tax dollars on corporate subsidies, military Keynesianism, and expanding the police/surveillance state, which are the cornerstones of what passes for American conservatism these days. So they want to give back $700 billion to a bunch of people making over $250K and therefore by definition, don’t really need the money. And don’t tell me they’re going to invest their tax cuts in America or some such horseshit. Those rich people don’t earn that much money because they’re fucking stupid, and because they’re not fucking stupid that money is going to go overseas and in precious metals and commodities. The dollar is dead. Paper money is fucking dead. Might as well buy some hard assets with your worthless fiat toilet paper. Either that or equities so we can blow another bubble and watch it pop. That would be truly awesome.

While Europe undergoes austerity, we here in the US cling to the belief that no matter how indebted we are, we can never be expected to lower our standard of living or rein in our global empire whose costs are at unspeakably obscene levels. Thank god the Republicans have retaken the House so we can start cutting costs, downsize the military and slash pentagon spending, and implement sensible tax policy.

Wait, what’s that? The Republicans want to do none of these things? What’s that? Their recipe for fiscal responsibility in a nation with a $14 trillion debt and a $14.5 trillion GDP is lots of tax cuts with a sprinkle of fucking earmark reform? Is this for serious? Who voted for these buffoons? Way to go teabaggers, fuck you very much.

As for the Democrats, holy fucking shit do you guys suck buffalo cock. What a clusterfuck your reign has been. Nice fucking health care bill that will necessitate a massive transferal of wealth from taxpayers to the criminialistic, anti-trust exempt, premium-jacking, coverage-denying, cocksucking HMOs for the indefinite future. Nice non-legislation allowing the government to negotiate bulk prices of pharmaceuticals under Medicare. Nice non-legislation allowing the reimportation of said pharmaceuticals. Nice fucking mandate that makes Americans purchase health coverage from private tyrannies.

Also, good job on reconfirming Ben Bernanke Fed Chair. Whereas sane societies would see him, Greenspan, Blankfein, Dimon, Cassano, and thousands of others in jail or motherfucking decapitated, the Democratic President and Congress bring him on board for another four years even though he couldn’t see a giant fucking real estate bubble stuck right in his goddamned beard. Homer Simpson once said that people with facial hair have something to hide, well, what the fuck is Bernanke hiding?

By the way Dems, what a bunch of legislative pussies you are. How many times is Obama going to cave? I think Obama—far from being a progressive—is actually a fucking Caucasian Reaganite supply-sider in blackface. How else do you explain an “extended period” ZIRP and multiple rounds of QE? Obama doesn’t fight for anything. He says he wants one thing and then settles for far less, and by the time its over the legislation looks like something that GHW Bush or Ford would’ve signed into law. Why the fuck are you letting Orangeman Bohner and Turtle McConnell lead you around by your balls? This isn’t fucking change I can believe in.

Oh well, Obama. At least you can always bomb Iran to boost your popularity with the warmongering faction of the American populace. Lindsey Graham, David Broder, and others inside the beltway are already calling for it, and as things continue to be shitty at home, the American people will need a distraction because American Idol and Biggest Loser can only keep the rabble amused for only so fucking long. I’ve already got the fucking name ready for the next bullshit American military intervention: Operation Persian Carpet Bombing. That oughta keep those ignorant American serfs busy for a few months. “Oh, you’re unemployed? Well at least the fucking mullahs won’t be slitting your throat as you sleep! We’re over there so we don’t have to fight them over here. Now sit down, shut up, and be scared shitless!”

Yes, it’s quite a fucking operation we’ve got going over here. The sane need not apply because the fucking nutbags are already running the asylum.

- Max

A Midterm Election Autopsy

Ever since election day, grossly overpaid media pundits who contribute little to intelligent discussion have been offering all kinds of reasons for why the Democrats got their asses kicked. The theories range from, “The Obama Democratic agenda is just too far Left” to “The Obama Democratic agenda is just too moderate,” and everything in between. But they all have the same theme: Democrats have done X, but the American people wanted Y. So Democrats were defeated on Tuesday because they spent the last two years doing one thing, while the American people wanted them to do another, and perhaps in a different way.

One great thing about these kinds of analyses, for pundits anyway, is that they lend themselves to endless possibilities in argumentation which amount to little more than quasi-educated spit-balling. The postmortem of the 2010 midterm elections, like all others, is a vague and subjective hazarding of guesses and proffering of pseudo-insight. It relies on this ambiguity in rendering a seemingly plausible but ultimately untestable and therefore useless explanation as to why one party won more seats than the other. Such analyses require amalgamating millions of voters from across the country into a singular entity with a coherent political ideology, or at least giving the American people a mathematically mean ideology which can be placed on somewhere on the Left/Right political spectrum. But this assumes that The American People have a coherent political philosophy, and care enough about it to vote their ideology regardless of whether they think the country is on the right track. This assumption is wrong. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald puts it well:

[W]hat voters care about are not cable-news labels, but results. Democrats didn’t lose because voters think they’re too “liberal.” If that were true, how would one explain massive Democratic wins in 2006 and 2008, including by liberals in conservative districts (such as Alan Grayson); were American voters liberal in 2006 and 2008 only to manically switch to being conservative this year? Was Wisconsin super-liberal for the last 18 years when it thrice elected Russ Feingold to the Senate, and then suddenly turned hostile to liberals this year? Such an explanation is absurd.

The answer is that voters make choices based on their assessment of the outcomes from the political class. They revolted against the Republican Party in the prior two elections because they hated the Iraq War and GOP corruption (not because they thought the GOP was “too conservative”), and they revolted against Democrats this year because they have no jobs, are having their homes foreclosed by the millions, are suffering severe economic anxiety, and see no plan or promise for that to change (not because they think Democrats are “too liberal”).

To Greenwald’s assessment, I would add that because we only have two parties that really matter, election results often furnish us with a skewed version of reality. In 2006, Republicans were voted out because their war in Iraq had turned sour. In 2008 Republicans were voted out because the economy was in the tank. In 2010 Democrats were voted out because the economy is still in the tank and they were replaced by the Republicans who were just recently thoroughly repudiated in the previous two elections. Notice that Americans don’t vote parties in; they vote parties out. Republicans took control of the House and made gains in the Senate last week not because Americans think they’ll do a good job, but because they’re still nervous about the economy and they don’t have any legitimate choices left at the ballot box.

- Max