Tag: senate

Crossposted at Daily Kos

From today’s meeting between President Obama and Senate Democrats today comes this gem . . . .

   

“If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression — we don’t tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don’t put in place any insurance reforms, we don’t mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they’re doing now because we don’t want to stir up Wall Street — the result is going to be the same,” he said. “I don’t know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place.”

    Middle class Americans, Obama said, “are more and more vulnerable, and they have been for the last decade, treading water. And if our response ends up being, you know, because we don’t want to — we don’t want to stir things up here, we’re just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don’t know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don’t know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.”

huffingtonpost.com

Bold text added by the diarist

   The question that inspired this response from our President and more below the fold.

From today’s meeting between President Obama and Senate Democrats today comes this gem . . . .

   

“If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression — we don’t tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don’t put in place any insurance reforms, we don’t mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they’re doing now because we don’t want to stir up Wall Street — the result is going to be the same,” he said. “I don’t know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place.”

    Middle class Americans, Obama said, “are more and more vulnerable, and they have been for the last decade, treading water. And if our response ends up being, you know, because we don’t want to — we don’t want to stir things up here, we’re just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don’t know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don’t know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.”

huffingtonpost.com

Bold text added by the diarist

   The question that inspired this response from our President and more below the fold.

As many of you have been doing, I am nervously monitoring the special election for Massachusetts senator.  By now, one would hope that no one needs reminding of the repercussions and consequences a defeat would portend both for the short term and for the long term, but one would hope also that its instantaneous impact would spur many to make long-deferred reforms.  To wit, Coakley’s defeat would make a powerful statement to residents in even the bluest of blue states.  To wit, liberalism must self-monitor and must fortify itself against a desire to snooze and slumber.  Nothing is owed to us in this world and a person is only as successful as his or her last triumph.  This realization can be applied well beyond the Democratic party and all the concentric circles of influence and power that feed into it.  Indeed, the ripple effects if Scott Brown wins will be felt across the country and will spawn a thousand prophets in the publication wilderness, each proclaiming that the end is nigh for a Democratic majority.  

Constipated activist organizations now tapping out a panicked SOS are profuse, but as is my want, I’d like to single out one in particular.  One can only hope that if, God forbid, Coakley were to lose, the mainstream Feminist™ organizations currently pushing for her election might be forced to concede that their strategies are out of date and their larger influence is negligible in the grand scheme of things.  Coakley’s detached Front Porch Campaign did not resonate well with voters inclined to distrust and thus to be turned off by on candidates who seem above kissing babies, shaking hands, and being highly visible to the prospective voter.  Though I do not welcome the sense of helplessness that might reverberate through many workplaces come tomorrow night, I know that sometimes people have to learn their lessons the hard way.  And in so doing, they have to sometimes have to learn them more than once.  Still, how many times do some have to be on the losing end of easily preventable catastrophes before they recognize that the problem is with themselves, not with external factors?  

Sloth and entitlement are usually fatal flaws in politics and activism, and at least one recent harsh blogosphere attack against the established players of Feminism™ was penned in an effort to shake them out of their old ways.  These organizations do have a function and I’m not advocating that they need to be dismantled, but they do need to step into the times and embrace new realities.  The true tragedy is that there are any number of highly qualified women who could be enlisted for the cause and be convinced to run for any number of high elective offices.  Instead, someone decides to earmark and denote a particular legislative office for a Female™ and then feels obligated to advance a candidate with the highest possible degree of name-recognition, regardless of whether she is a good fit for the office.  In addition to being bad policy, this is tokenism writ large.  Tokenism has never truly advanced anyone’s noble imperative.  What it has done is appease someone’s guilt and in so doing serve as a temporary concession rather than a desire to completely integrate women actively into the political process.  If we were really committed to the idea of equality, then such decisions would be a matter of course, not a conscious effort towards appeasement.    

In this same regard, a prior school of political theory and general leadership philosophy believed that in order to be taken seriously and to survive in a man’s world, women in positions of authority ought to strive to be as tough and as masculine as their male counterparts.  In effect, as the theory goes, they ought to adopt the pose and guise of a man for fear of seeming weak or being summarily discounted as ineffectual and ineffective as a leader.  One would think that thirty or forty years of this would have given us the ability to recognize that sexist and misogynistic attacks come from everywhere, at any time, for any reason.  Women who make no apology for “encroaching” into traditionally male spaces will find themselves insulted for any reason at all, really.  For example, in the past few days, Coakley has found herself the target of a bizarre remark implying that someone ought to sodomize her with an electrical appliance.  One can’t get away from the offensive voices, unfortunately, but one can advance the authenticity of self as an excellent counter-weight to push back against the name-callers and childish smears.  

I still recall how Hillary Clinton shed tears at a campaign stop shortly before the New Hampshire primary, showing not just a very human, vulnerable side, but also a very feminine side as well.  In so doing, she transformed what was expected to be a sound drubbing into an improbable win that gave her campaign new life.  Women voters related heavily with the gesture and cast their ballots accordingly; I’m not entirely dissuaded from the notion that some men might have been taken aback in a good way, recognizing that there was more to the candidate the icy, calculating stereotype that made her seem supremely unlikeable and at times threatening to the male voter.  If we are ever to live in a world where the content of our character is more important than both the color of our skin and our reproductive organs, we will reach the point that no one ever feels the compulsion to pass, assimilate, or modify one’s authentic self to seem more fitting to majority norms.  Humanity and with it authenticity is what voters crave more than anything.  Policy wonkery and strategy are lost on the average voter who seeks to identify himself or herself personally with the latest slate of candidates for elective office.  When we can see ourselves clearly in those who run, then we are compelled to pull a lever for them on Election Day.          

I voted, in part, for Barack Obama because I saw parallels between his life story and my own.  In particular, the description of his mother closely mirrors my own—a woman passionately devoted to a cause beyond herself who sought to see the world through an optimistic lens, even though many criticized her desire as foolish and a trifle naïve.  Others saw their own dreams mirrored in his rhetoric and the possibility of what he represented.  Though a year later reality has set in and we are far less enthralled with the President then we were then, we continue to find his policies more objectionable than who he is as a person.  Personality has limitations, but it can go a long way.  A politician who is disliked as a person must rely on the political atmosphere around him or her, and sometimes only maintains power when his or her opposition is reviled even more.  

Competence goes a long way, too, and I know that, speaking from a strictly women’s rights perspective, we can’t expect to not have reproductive rights compromised for the sake of passing a massive reform act if we are unable to break free from the scourge of tokenism.  Victories are won with a collection of smaller successes that, linked together, move closer towards ultimate triumph.  An occasional arm-twist, guilt-trip or, worse yet, established tradition of being granted an occasional “favor” in exchange for unwavering support are not going to get us where we need to be.  No one would ever confuse that for complete integration and total parity.  We should know instinctively what it will take to get there, but the question remains if we are willing to do the hard work on the ground to actualize it.  The ivory tower might be cushy and familiar, but it is a universe in and of itself, one wholly removed from any semblance of the actual lives of working people.  We have in front of us an opportunity to learn from what will be a debacle whether victory is won or lost.  Let’s not ignore it.  

So just after 5 pm here on the Left Coast, I get this email:

Subject: We Want Our Money Back

From: “Vice President Joe Biden”

To:  (my name, aka “Sucker”)

Yesterday, President Obama announced our proposed Financial Crisis Responsibility

Fee on the country’s largest banks:

“My commitment is to recover every single dime the American people are owed. And my

determination to achieve this goal is only heightened when I see reports of massive

profits and obscene bonuses at some of the very firms who owe their continued

existence to the American people…  We want our money back, and we’re going to get

it.”

The fee would recover every penny loaned to Wall Street during the financial crisis

and stop the reckless abuses and excesses that nearly caused the collapse of our

financial system in the first place.

But the banking industry — among the most powerful lobbies in Washington — is

already launching attacks to stop Congress from enacting the proposal.

Barack and I aren’t backing down. But to win, we’ll need the American people to add

their voice right away.

Thankfully, OFA supporters are already signing on to a bold statement of support:

“We want our money back — and we stand with President Obama to make sure we get

it.” You can add your name by clicking here:

http://my.barackobama.com/Banks3

The proposal is expected to recoup billions from the big banks, most of it from the

ten largest. As the President said, “If these companies are in good enough shape to

afford massive bonuses, they are surely in good enough shape to afford paying back

every penny to taxpayers.”

There is much more work to do to reform the financial system and create a new era of

accountability. But the Financial Crisis Responsibility Fee is a crucial step. And

with the banks already working to tear it down, I hope that I can count on you to

speak out to show that Americans stand with us as we take them on.

Click here to add your name to the statement:

http://my.barackobama.com/Banks3

Change isn’t easy, but it’s certainly worth fighting for. I’m glad you’re in this

fight with us.

Thank you for making it possible,

Vice President Joe Biden

Please donate: https://donate.barackobama.com…

Having passed a long-overdue Health Care Reform Act, expect the media to dust off long-composed narratives it kept in cold storage until this point.  The instant President Obama signs the bill into law in a massive ceremony full of important people, flashbulbs, and saturation coverage, there will be many who will seek to make the gravity of the event better understood by means of analysis and interpretation.  Contrary to what some may write, I am not entirely convinced that Health Care saved Obama’s Presidency, though it would certainly have removed the last of the luster around him had it failed.  There will be many contentious fights to come, but the passage of the bill will likely limit GOP gains in next year’s Mid-Congressional election.  It will provide momentum to force through other reform measures and will be a face saving device to aid vulnerable incumbents.  But like much of politics, the ultimate impact of it all is indebted to future understanding and events yet to come, of which none of us is privy.  

Also to be found in copious quantity are the requisite gross of stories lamenting the end of good cheer among legislators of different parties.  One would think that this health care bill has ushered in a golden age of distressing polarity, but it has not.  Most people are terrified of change.  Many will sign on to change in the abstract, but once the concrete is poured, their opposition hardens.  Trusting in the known is much like betting on the favored horse, but trusting in the unknown possibility comes with it 50-1 odds.  Most people are not riverboat gamblers, but if they were, they’d often reap the rewards of taking a chance for the sake of positive gain.  This truism has no allegiance to party or ideological affinity.  Nor is it an American institution.

While the Senate has always been structured to foster some degree of collegiality by its very makeup and its relatively small size, one mustn’t let the myth obscure the facts.  The Senate may be a family, but it is a strangely dysfunctional one, and the House equally so.  This is, we needn’t forget, the same collective body where Representative Preston Brooks savagely bludgeoned Senator Charles Sumner with a cane on the latter chamber’s floor.  At other crucial points in our nation’s history, decorum has been replaced by nastiness and I think perhaps our latest group of elected representatives do not remember or have not studied precisely what happens when measures this large and all encompassing are further hyper-charged by massive displays of public sentiment and outcry.  Regarding this subject, Senator Orrin Hatch strikes back at us in the blogosphere for daring to hold his feet to the fire as well as the feet of other legislators.  We ought to take this as proof of a job well done and aim to keep it going.  

I am also not particularly sympathetic to Representatives and Senators who have complained about the extended hours needed to pass this bill.  If they had resolved it in a more timely fashion, then this matter would have been dealt with long ago.  Republicans have used stalling tactics and obstructionist procedural measures, but as we all knew, the Democratic party itself was the real enemy at work.  Attempting to pacify various factions within itself to hold together a fragile coalition is what took so long to reach resolution.  Moreover, if this is what it takes to achieve true fairness and equality, I wish they’d be in session every year and even up until Christmas Eve, if needed.  It is, of course, true that Senators need to spend a certain amount of time campaigning, raising funds, and observing for themselves the nuts-and-bolts of the policy issues upon which they will propose and vote.  However, too often these are excuses cited for not being in session at all, especially when needed legislation is allowed to die a needless death or is tabled in committee with no re-introduction ever intended.

It is true that,

[f]or more than 30 years, the major parties – Democrats and Republicans – worked every angle to transform politics into a zero-sum numbers game. State legislatures redrew Congressional districts to take advantage of party affiliation in the local population. The two-year campaign cycle became a never-ending one.

Politics, however, has always been a game of knees to the groin and leaps to the jugular.  When contentious matters and contentious times existed, collegiality was the first thing to be discarded and shed.  In times of plenty with few especially pressing matters, then party lines could sometimes seem obscured or unimportant.  The so-called “Culture Wars” are a partial explanation for that which we have been facing.  In truth, the Republican party began to take a sharp right turn beginning with the Contract with America in 1994 and then culminating in the election of George W. Bush.  When Bush played directly to the Republican base at the expense of the middle, this caused a correspondingly swift and sharp reaction in the left wing of the Democratic party, which the Progressive blogosphere correctly considers a call to arms.  Returning to the idea of truth versus saccharine sugarcoating, yet again, it is tempting for all of us to invent our own mythology, particularly when it suits our cause, but this is a compulsion we must never adopt for whatever reason may be.  The truth will set us free, but freedom is often pricey, especially when we remove it from circulation.      

Anger is flying at Mach 1,000 and everybody who isn’t a member of the Democratic leadership wants to punish the Democrats for their endless betrayals, broken promises, lies, and capitulations.  Well, I seem to remember someone posting ideas for how we can do something more than just bitch and complain.

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

Just thought I’d remind you so we can start holding discussions for how we can implement these ideas.

from the ConsumerWatchdog.org

(Click for Larger Image)

What the loss of the Public Option really Means …

Good bye competitive choice …

HELLOOOO … More of the Same!

I wasn’t sure Politico could stoop any lower than it did when it published seven highly subjective (to put it lightly) meta-narratives that the Obama Administration supposedly did not want to become public knowledge.   Widely ridiculed, the column caused the periodical’s credibility to take a severe hit, and unfortunately its turn towards right-wing distortion in opposition to fact seems to have continued.   While none of us knows for sure what goes on behind closed doors, in true Politico style if I had to guess before I knew all the facts, I’d conclude that someone must be pushing the notion that it must incorporate more content that appeals directly to conservatives into each daily edition.  Right-wing points of view have a place, but sloppy logic never does.

I do read Politico on a daily basis, if only to see media framing devices at work, and so yesterday I was incensed, to say nothing of dismayed to note that apologizing for rape apologists appears to be no big deal.   Since the media is comprised of human frailties, it frequently mirrors the frustrations and the flaws of its creators.   For example, an article published this week took Senator Al Franken to task for not taking questions from reporters and instead directing them to his own public relations manager.   Exclusive stories and one-on-one scoops are the Holy Grails of the profession and with the continued decline of the industry, so one can understand easily why disappointment and resentment might build if one of the most colorful and newest Senators might wish to refuse to play ball.

Politico portrayed the decision to avoid contact with the media as evasive and obstructionist by implying that the Junior Senator from Minnesota was too staff-driven and not the soundbyte machine that some had hoped he would become once finally sworn in to take his seat.   That the Fourth Estate would be surprised by his desire and strategy to be kept on a deliberately short leash strikes me as disingenuous at best.   Candidate Franken wisely restrained himself from drawing too much undue attention during the campaign and during the exhaustive recount process that immediately followed last year’s election made only short, safe statements while keeping largely out of sight until the situation was resolved.   This was a carefully crafted design that did him well before and abandoning it now doesn’t make much sense.   Once established and having achieved some degree of seniority, Franken will have the freedom to branch out and speak his mind without fear of serious backlash or threat of losing his seat, but for the moment the most sensible solution is to for him to learn the ropes and avoid stepping on toes in the process.        

The column critical of Franken’s media management style took special effort to note that the Minnesota senator is one of only a very small number of elected representatives who do not stand directly at the podium to make statements to the press or undergo question and answer sessions.   Reading between the lines, the column implied that perhaps the Senator had something to hide or was afraid of letting his true self and true concerns shine through.   It cited an anecdote where Franken very nearly answered a reporter’s questions before deciding instead to pass the inquiry along to his communications director.   The disappointment and let down inherent in the entire column was clearly palpable and I have to say that while a part of me wished also for more candor from him, I also understood the Senator’s dilemma and did not disagree with his choice of resolution.  

Returning to the column referenced in the beginning of this post, I cite a particularly revealing segment to reveal a better understanding of the full picture.

In a chamber where relationship-building is seen as critical, some GOP senators question whether Franken’s handling of the amendment could damage his ability to work across the aisle. Soon after Tennessee GOP Sens. Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander co-wrote an op-ed in a local newspaper defending their votes against the Franken measure, the Minnesota Democrat confronted each senator separately to dispute their column – and grew particularly angry in a tense exchange with Corker.

People familiar with the Corker exchange say it was heated and ended abruptly – a sharp departure from the norm on the usually clubby Senate floor.

As rendered, the entire story reeks of false concern and shame.  It is certainly true that the Senate as an entity is an elite club where partisan differences are often merely for show and bi-partisan friendships help grease the wheels of legislation, but a reliance on deep background sources to make a damning point always raises alarm bells to me.   Nebulously defined sources of information remind one of celebrity gossip more than hard news.   Some outlets, it needs to be mentioned, won’t even use anonymous sources because they leave a column’s veracity quite understandably open to question.  Without credibility, a news article reads as fiction, defeating its entire purpose for existing.  

Here is what actually happened.   Here is how Senator Franken dared to create this supposed maelstrom of ill-will and resulting uncouth broach of decorum.   In particular, note the first sentence of the paragraph and how it prefaces what follows afterward.

Franken, who declined to be interviewed, has said previously that the measure was inspired by the story of former KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones, who alleges that she was drugged, beaten and gang-raped at age 19 when stationed in Baghdad. She fought the arbitration clause in her contract, and in September the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that Jones’s sexual assault allegations were not “related to” her employment, allowing her to proceed in court. KBR is fighting the ruling.  

Yes, how dare Senator Franken not add a few choice bon mots to flesh out the interpretation of a contemptible act that one would think speaks quite sufficiently for itself.   As for the he said/he said conflict, we are told that it didn’t end up with F-bombs being dropped or with personal attacks being levied on the floor of the chamber itself, quite unlike the conduct of certain other Senators from a party that shall remain unspecified.   The left-wing blogosphere has become a convenient target for Republicans and Trusted Media Outlets™, particularly if and when they get thoroughly bored with blowing spit balls at each other.   People familiar with the exchange say their anger was heated and ended abruptly—a sharp departure from the norm.

“I don’t know what his motivation was for taking us on, but I would hope that we won’t see a lot of Daily Kos-inspired amendments in the future coming from him,” said South Dakota Sen. John Thune, No. 4 in the Senate Republican leadership. “I think hopefully he’ll settle down and do kind of the serious work of legislating that’s important to Minnesota.”

Silly me.   I wasn’t aware that the act of rape or violence were a bipartisan matter that might be best resolved by compromise.  Could we say that a rape only traumatizes 3/5ths of a person while we’re at it?  Seems fair enough to me.  You really confuse me, Senator Thune.   You remind me of the mainstream media and its attitude towards little old us out here in the blog realm.  First you say that the blogosphere isn’t an objective source of news or information and is of no real consequence, but then you throw darts at us as though you were really paying attention all the time.   One can’t be on two sides of an issue at once, even though as a politician I’m sure you’d like to present that concept.   One can be either one way or the other, but not both simultaneously.

[Franken] Aides point out that despite attacks on Republicans by liberal commentators like Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann and on blogs such as Daily Kos, Franken never appeared on any of the shows or on the blogs to make a partisan argument about the matter, saying that the senator turned down entreaties to do so. Also, they point to the 10 Republicans who voted for the amendment as proof that it wasn’t a partisan measure.

Yet again, we are encouraged to believe that Senator Franken is somehow cowardly for not going on the defensive or bolstering his claims by directly speaking out in favor of them.   While the blogs and the increasingly ravenous media love a contentious argument, the Minnesota Senator is wise to not draw undo attention to himself.   Those who hog the spotlight risk taking the focus off of the reform measure that desperately need to be enacted and serve as an unnecessary distraction.   One person is a much easier target than a collective group of people with similar goals.   In addition to being common sense, this is also Public Relations 101 and the fact that Politico is either unaware of it or instead determined to provoke an exchange reveals that a once noble profession acts increasingly like a drowning man.   Ignore those who are unhappily going down with the ship, because their spite and desperation reveals everything about them and almost nothing about us.