Right-wingers want to erase how George Bush’s "Homeowner Society" helped cause the economic collapse
December 21, 2010 No CommentPaul Krugman has been on fire and he’s not only taking names, but he’s beating back the myths. First, there was a widely spread housing bubble, not just in the United States, but in Ireland, Spain, and other countries as well. This bubble was inflated by irresponsible lending, made possible both by bank deregulation and the failure to extend regulation to “shadow banks,” which weren’t covered by traditional regulation but nonetheless engaged in banking activities and created bank-type risks. Then the bubble burst, with hugely disruptive consequences. It turned out that Wall Street had created a web of interconnection nobody understood, so that the failure of Lehman Brothers, a medium-size investment bank, could threaten to take down the whole world financial system. It’s a straightforward story, but a story that the Republican members of the commission don’t want told. Literally… read on He’s beating back the people whose policies helped destroy the world’s economy when George W. Bush was President. In another column called When Zombies Win, he then highlights the fact that all the people responsible for the meltdown in the first place haven’t been shunned, but instead are leading the charge to only make things worse. Simply f*&king amazing. There was a reason the GOP kept Bush off the airwaves until after the midterm elections: the man was so reviled. I wouldn’t doubt that Roger Ailes had something to do with it, but that’s just a theory. Anyway, the one and only panel I did with Andrew Breitbart was revolting for many reasons, but one of the biggest lies he told and is one often repeated by the zombies of the Tea Party (which took off after Rick Santelli gave them permission to do so on CNBC) — namely, that the greedy poor people created the mortgage meltdown because they had the audacity to become homeowners. Krugman explains away that nonsense and Digby reminded me again of Bush’s 2004 acceptance speech, where he bragged about his economic handiwork, and begged to turn America into the ultimate “homeowner society.” I’ve got yer history for yah right here. Here’ s one of those bleeding heart liberals at the 2004 Republican Convention: Another priority for a new term is to build an ownership society, because ownership brings security and dignity and independence. … Thanks to our policies, home ownership in America is at an all- time high. (APPLAUSE) Tonight we set a new goal: 7 million more affordable homes in the next 10 years, so more American families will be able to open the door and say, “Welcome to my home.” (Bush starts his “Welcome to my home” rant at the 3:36 mark of the above video) Now Americans are either packing their bags and fleeing from their homes without trying to pay their mortgages, or they’re trying to get HAMP assistance. Some are still being kicked out even when they follow the rules, or are not eligible for HAMP; others are just are foreclosed on anyway because they can’t afford to pay anymore. Way to go, Mr. Bush.
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enlarge Credit: Karoli Two years ago I had the worst holiday season I’ve ever had. I had been laid off from a job I loved on December 8th, had no money, B of A had sucked up nearly $1,000 in overdraft fees, leaving me owing them my last paycheck, and I had no prospects for any income until after the first of the year. I was depressed, hurt, angry, and proud. Finally one night I broke down on my blog and poured it all out in a post not asking for help, but just venting on my perceived helplessness. In my state of (somewhat irrational) grief, I viewed the breakage of my last vintage Coke glass as a symbol of my downfall. Seriously. The next day I received an email from a reader with a donation. The day after that, four vintage Coke glasses arrived on my doorstep from a long-time blog friend and reader. My then-14 year old daughter decorated the living room while I was out trying to scrounge up some money and left me a note telling me to get over it and get some spirit, since it wasn’t the money that mattered. Those gestures really turned around my whole outlook. How could they not? The kindness of strangers and family alike pulled me out of my funk and pridefest into a realization that money mattered less than the relationships I was (and am) fortunate enough to have. So with that, I share this story with you. Last week, Jenny “The Bloggess” offered $30 gift cards to people who needed them. From there, her effort snowballed into something bigger than all of us . In the past few days that post has gotten over 500 comments and so many heart-breaking requests were from people who need a small hand-up to buy food for Christmas dinner or from people who are planning on telling their children that there is no Santa because otherwise they wouldn’t understand why he didn’t come. You can’t read the comments and not ache a little because so many of us have either been there or see how easy it would be to be in their position one day. But here’s the amazing thing…every time someone would leave a comment asking for help someone else would leave a comment asking to help. And that’s why as of Friday morning, every single person who asked for help here is matched up with at least one person who will be sending them a gift card. In fact, so many people offered to help that we were able to give out multiple gift cards to people who had a greater need. And when things seemed dicey and I was about to call for an end to comments a wonderful man emailed me and told me that he’s so enjoyed the community on this blog that he wanted to donate $1000, no questions asked. That was only the beginning. From her Sunday update: I still have another hundred emails to mail out before I can go to sleep but it looks like well over 800 gift cards will be sent out if everything goes through as planned. People have contributed in (and have been helped in) America, Canada, England, Germany, Australia, Asia…and they continue to help. Every time we get down to our last donor someone else steps forward. I wish I could share all the emails from people who felt that this gave them the hope to get through the next year and the strength to keep looking for a job or a place to work because they now had faith that people cared. There were even some who admitted later that they were considering suicide until this gave them hope. Some of those people considering suicide? Were the donors. This phenomenon will not be something that’s repeated. It springs from people needing to give and others needing to receive. It is the spontaneity of the thing that makes it so special. Not a program, not a charity, just people reaching out to others. As you will see from her post and the comments, it doesn’t touch even the edge of the needs out there, but it at least gives people an opportunity to cross a bridge and help those who need help most. It is hope that encourages me most: hope even for a small gesture. I hope your holidays are warm, bright, and offer a similar opportunity to reach or be reached.
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enlarge Credit: AP Blue America PAC, the group I’m involved with, never supported Jon Tester when he ran for Congress because he wasn’t a progressive, but at the time I didn’t want him to lose either. He seemed to have some common sense and decency, but in the end he turned out to be a Pat Buchanan wannabe when it came to helping kids with the DREAM Act. I wrote about him last week as I tried to persuade him to do the right thing: Sen.Tester, the DREAM Act is not Amnesty. He was clearly trying to score points with the nativists and that’s so sad because he’s hurting real children and kids. Markos writes: There are Democrats I expect to be assholes. I never thought Jon Tester would be among them. Anybody who votes to punish innocent kids is an asshole. Plain and simple. And while I expect it from Democrats like Ben Nelson and C-Street denizen Mark Pryor, I honestly thought Jon Tester was different. I was wrong. I am now embarrassed that I worked so hard to help get him elected in 2006. I feel personally betrayed. Not only will I do absolutely nothing to help his reelection bid, but I will take every opportunity I get to remind people that he is so morally bankrupt that he’ll try to score political points off the backs of innocent kids who want to go to college or serve their country in the military. To me, he is the Blanche Lincoln of 2012 — the Democrat I will most be happy to see go down in defeat. And he will. Nothing guarantees a Republican victory more than trying to pretend to be one of them. David Cantanese reports: “I think he’s alienated his base in the progressive Democrat circles and he’s going to definitely have a lot of explaining to do,” said Montana Democratic National Committeewoman Jean Lemire Dahlman, who dubbed his vote against DREAM “a grave mistake.” “I was surprised. It didn’t seem to jive with what I expect of him.” Dahlman, who doubted Tester would face any serious primary challenge from the left, conceded the vote “can’t hurt him with conservatives.” “What I want to do is talk to Tester or one of his representatives. I guess he, like all of us, is capable of miscalculating and making a mistake,” she said. Sometimes politicians have to vote with their heads and hearts and not with what polls say in their home states and obviously Tester did this to not lose any votes. When will Democrats understand that it doesn’t matter how they vote. The GOPoPaths will try to destroy you no-matter-what so do what’s morally correct when it comes down to a human rights issue. The PCCC sent out an email to its Montana supporters asking for their thoughts on Tester’s betrayal. Here are some of the responses I received from Adam Green: Ann Karp, from Missoula, Montana grocery store manager and PCCC member “This saddens me to no end. I have a young friend, whom I was tutoring in English at my local church, whose parents came illegally to the US when he was only a baby. His home is the United States; he does not remember Mexico. His younger siblings are citizens, but he is not. He is enthusiastic, hopeful, hard-working, kind, and ambitious. He would like to be a hospital administrator one day, but doesn’t know how to proceed. He strongly desires to attend college in the US but is grasping at straws to find a way. He is not able to work legally, but back in Mexico, he knows no one and would be alone, separated from his family here. I pray that a way opens for him and for all the hard-working, ambitious young people like him who have the potential to make such a difference in the world.” Petrus C, Martens, from Bozeman, University professor, has lived in Montana for 10 years, PCCC member “I am nauseated by this basically racist stand. I am an immigrant myself. One of my children is adopted from Russia.” Will Kipling, from Great Falls, 20 year old computer worker, PCCC member “Senator Tester’s vote against the DREAM Act is the ugliest kind of politics. He will go down in history as having been on the wrong side of this. I’ve lived in Montana my whole life, and to the best of my knowledge my family has been around here since before it was even a state. I do know many immigrants, some legal and some illegal. The one thing they all have in common is that they love this country as much as any who was born here does.” Jeff Smith, from Missoula, Development Director for a nonprofit organization, lived in Montana for 34 years, PCCC member “The guy is a former teacher! How does he sleep at night? We need educated people and this would have given immigrant children a way to get an education. It’s shameful he voted against it.” Roger Sherman, from Whitefish, 13-year Montana resident with Masters Degree in education, PCCC member “I have been a contributor and supporter of Mr. Tester and I can’t imagine he would vote this way. These people are here and have proven themselves. They are college grads and military…they want a better a life and have the HUNGER to achieve it. I have lived in Montana for 13 years. I have a Masters Degree in education with 35 years of experience. I have four friends who have immigrated here and have college graduate degrees. They have contributed to our state immensely.” You can survey Jon Tester here. I’m still always shocked when I here any Democratic politician make racist and factually wrong statements about minorities and women. I know, I know, I shouldn’t be, but I still expect certain things if someone doesn’t want to be part of the GOP. I don’t care if they are Blue Dog assholes in the House or ConservaDems in the Senate.
Continue reading …I’m going to focus on what’s happening over in Jolly Olde England to-day because I think it provides us with a future model for how to organize against inevitable attempts to cut Social Security in the near future. Let’s get started! So what’s going on in the UK? Well as you no doubt know, the recently elected Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition is enacting austerity measures that include gigantic increases to students’ university tuition fees. This has not gone over well with the young folks and they have very quickly organized a massive protest demonstration that has knocked the business establishment back on its heels. The Guardian has a thorough report that everyone should read: HSBC has joined the least desirable club in the business world. The bank yesterday became the latest target of a sudden surge in public fury over tax avoidance, as a guerrilla group of demonstrators under the elusive banner UK Uncut planned to occupy branches in London and Liverpool. A “sleep-in” at an HSBC in Covent Garden was intended to highlight government cuts to housing benefit. UK Uncut, which has capitalised on a wave of activism sparked by student tuition fees, claims such cutbacks could be avoided if companies such as HSBC, Vodafone, Topshop and Boots paid a fairer share of tax. HSBC is accused of seeking a deal with the Inland Revenue to lower its tax bill by £2bn, allegedly following in the footsteps of a dispute between Vodafone and the taxman in which the mobile phone company negotiated a disputed claim down to £1.25bn. Emi Summers, a spokesman for UK Uncut, claims businesses are securing “dodgy backroom deals” with the government: “These companies should be made to pay the full tax so we can save our vital public services from being slashed.” So what do you notice about this? Well first of all, you notice that UK Uncut has created a very clear and understandable narrative: “Your tuition fees are skyrocketing because a pack of greedheads aren’t paying their damn taxes.” This narrative is perfect and devastating because it draws a clear line between the Good Guys (the British middle and working classes) and the Bad Guys (wealthy British tax dodgers) and shows how the Bad Guys are getting away with robbery while the Good Guys foot the bill. Why else do I love this? Because it’s the antithesis of what too many of America’s liberals do. I’ve often found that many pundits in our elite liberal class create arguments like they’re trying to score points from debate team judges instead of persuading normal people. The most egregious recent example is this Ezra Klein post saying that maybe Peter Orszag shouldn’t have cashed out at Citigroup, but hey, he’s the most honest and nice guy I’ve ever met and besides, he’s probably more interested in power than money at this point, so it’s not fair to say he did it for the money. The average person reading that post will have precisely no idea where Klein’s sympathies lie and will instead be befuddled that Klein would describe someone who just recently left a high-ranking government job to work as a liaison between Citigroup and the government as “uncommonly honest.” I was talking with an Australian guy at a Christmas party last night and he said that if someone in ‘Stralia had done what Orszag just did, the press would be howling about corruption. In this country? Meh. I’m sure it’ll be OK. Pete is uncommonly honest after all. I guess my point is this: The American left needs fewer Ezra Kleins and more Don Drapers who understand how to quickly and effectively appeal to peoples’ base emotions and gut reactions. The Tea Party crowd knows how to do this which is why they were so devastatingly successful in the last election. If liberals want to enjoy similar success we’re going to have to toss out our cleverly-constructed, caveat-laden arguments and actually talk to the Joe and Jane Average in clear, precise language about Why They’re Getting Screwed by our wealthy elites in both the government and business. “But how would this sort of thing translate into an American campaign?” you ask. Well, the first thing every activist should do is read David Cay Johnston’s ” Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich – and Cheat Everybody Else ” from front to back. Our tax code is a horrific mess that lets the rich get away with absolute murder. Just look at how companies like Google and Facebook funnel profits through multiple countries and end up costing the government $60 billion in revenue every year . Targeting big-name companies for their tax-avoidance schemes is how the UK protesters generated headlines. There’s no reason a similar strategy targeting our own corporate tax dodgers would not work here. What say the rest of you?
Continue reading …Kristol Claims DREAM Act Was Political Ploy by Reid and Obama to Make Republicans Appear Anti-Hispanic
December 20, 2010 No Comment
Click here to view this media Another Sunday, another week where Bloody Bill Kristol proves that he’s wrong about everything once again. This Sunday, he claimed that President Obama and Harry Reid were trying to get the DREAM Act passed just to make Republicans appear anti-Hispanic. Sorry Bill, but I think they’ve been doing a pretty good job of that all on their own. KRISTOL: Barack Obama and Harry Reid played politics with this. You know how many hearings there were in either house, in the House and the Senate on the DREAM Act over the past two years? Zero. This bill was brought to the floor of the House, no amendments permitted, passed, brought to the floor of the Senate, no amendments permitted, they failed to get cloture. Is that a way to pass serious legislation? Is this bill so perfectly dreamed up, so to speak, three years ago that we shouldn’t have a debate in committee on it and the normal mark-up and the normal testimony from different experts? It’s a complicated matter dealing with illegal immigration. It was a pure political gambit by Barack Obama and Harry Reid to try to make Republicans look anti-Hispanic and I don’t think it will work. WILLIAMS: It was a political deal by Republicans to absolutely make devils out of anybody who’s come to this country and this is a country of immigrants and the idea that children who were brought here by their parents and who have gone to school and served in our military are not allowed to become citizens. You know, it’s almost anti-American Bill and the reason they couldn’t discuss it was because the talk show hosts in America the right-wing talk show hosts, would beat up any Republican who supported a realistic effort. KRISTOL: Usually when legislation is passed there are hearings, mark-ups; there are expert witnesses… none of those. It was a pure political attempt to jam this through. As Think Progress noted, Juan Williams wasn’t the only pundit on the Sunday shows that pointed out how stupid it was for Republicans to have blocked the DREAM Act — Sunday Show Guests Assail Republicans For Blocking The DREAM Act . And here’s more from that post on why Kristol’s assertion is wrong. As usual , Kristol is wrong. As CAP’s Marshall Fitz noted , “this is not a new or complicated bill”: The basic elements of the DREAM Act are straightforward, well understood, and have been considered numerous times over the last nine years . It has been introduced every Congress since 2001. It passed the Senate Judiciary Committee by a 16-3 vote in October 2003. And it passed the Senate Judiciary Committee again in 2006 by voice vote as part of the McCain-Kennedy comprehensive bill, which passed the full Senate by a 62-36 margin. So it seems that Republicans like to blame process when they’re just simply on the wrong side of history.
Continue reading …Proving once again that partisan hackery is far more important than any sense of honor or national security, Sen. Lindsey Graham toes the party line and says he opposes ratifying the START treaty. After all, why should the fact that EVERY living Republican and Democratic Secretary of State and other national security experts urge Congress to ratify START or the verbal promise to address these issues of importance once they got their precious tax cut extension to the wealthiest 2% of Americans hinder a great opportunity to obstruct Barack Obama’s agenda yet again? And like Mitch McConnell and John Kyl, Lindsey Graham throws up a whole lot of nonsense to rationalize delaying the ratification of START : Graham had been considered one of the GOP senators likely to support ratifying the treaty. The Washington Post had reported earlier this month that Graham would allow a vote on START if the Democrats moved fast to extend the Bush era tax cuts , and he had voted to start debating the treaty , which was interpreted as a sign that he could support final ratification. But sounding vexed during the show, Graham seemed not only chafed by the Senate voting down a Republican effort to amend the preamble of the treaty; he also linked the START treaty to his resentment over how the current lame-duck session of Congress has turned out. Graham exclaimed how hard it was to pass a bipartisan compromise over extending the Bush era tax cuts, and expressed his disappointment over repeal of the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy banning openly gay service members. “If you want to have a chance of passing START, you better start over and do it in the next Congress, because this lame duck has been poisoned,” Graham told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer. “The last two weeks have been an absolutely excruciating exercise. ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ a controversial topic – some say the civil rights issue of our generation, others say battlefield effectiveness – was passed in the lame-duck session without one amendment being offered,” Graham said. Graham complained of other parts of the legislative agenda of the Senate Majority and outgoing House Majority: “The DREAM Act, we’ve had two votes on the DREAM Act. Controversial immigration, there was no efforts to find a common ground there, passed without the ability to amend, to try to make Republicans look bad with Hispanics. “We tried to fund the government by clean [continuing budget resolution bill] but we took a $1.2 trillion omnibus bill with 6,000 earmarks and it failed yesterday. We still haven’t funded the government. We haven’t had a serious debate on START. We’ve been fighting a multiple front war to try to do every special interest group’s bidding in the lame-duck session. That’s not a way to ratify a treaty that has importance to the country,” Graham said. Right. Everyone knows that the only thing a lame duck Congress should pass is an unfunded tax cut adding trillions to the deficit through reconciliation . Ironic that Graham voices his frustration with the DADT repeal when it was the Republicans that tied DADT to the START treaty in the first place to slow down the pace of the lame duck agenda. His concern trolling about how the START treaty would control our ability to develop missile defense? Another big fat whopper that Bob Schieffer doesn’t call him on . President Obama issued a letter to the Senate on Sunday pledging to fully develop a U.S. missile defense system in Europe, as part of a final offensive to relieve concerns about the nuclear arms pact with Russia as it moves toward a final vote. The letter reiterated administration policy but was an especially extensive and detailed statement on missile defense by the president. Parts of it were read aloud by Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) shortly before a vote on an amendment that could have killed the treaty. That amendment was defeated, 59 to 37. Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who has been leaning toward supporting the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), took to the floor to welcome the president’s letter. “A number of people on our side of the aisle have asked for it,” he said. But that’s not enough for Lindsey, no how. Maybe it’s because he’s read this op-ed at HuffPo: Any Republican Senator Voting for START Should Get a Primary Challenger The SDCC put out this memo debunking the complaint that the Dems are rushing the GOP into passing START without reading it. It is full of all sorts of awesome: A Few Things That Happened While Republicans Failed to Read the START Treaty Here are a few things that happened in the eight months since the New START Treaty was signed on April 8, 2010 . One thing that apparently did not happen: Republicans taking the time to actually review the treaty. · Chilean Miners trapped and released. · Lady Gaga debuted her meat dress. · Lindsay Lohan returned to rehab, was released, and went back in again. · Major League Baseball 2010 season began and ended. · LeBron James announced, “I’m taking my talents to South Beach.” · BP/Deep Horizon oil spill sprung and contained. · Donovan McNabb debuted with the Redskins, and was benched. Twice. · Spain won the World Cup. · The biggest overhaul of America’s financial laws in decades was debated and passed. · Prince William and Kate Middleton got Engaged. · Larry King announced his retirement. · Conan returned to Late Night. · Kanye West released his latest album and apologized to former President George W. Bush. · Former President George W. Bush released his memoir, Decision Points.
Continue reading …PolitiFact Names The Lie Of The Year: "Government Takeover Of Health Care"
December 19, 2010 No Comment
PolitiFact, the Pulitzer Prize-winning fact check website of the St Petersburg Times has announced its choice for “Lie of the Year.” This year’s winner: ” the government takeover of healthcare ” In the spring of 2009, a Republican strategist settled on a brilliant and powerful attack line for President Barack Obama’s ambitious plan to overhaul America’s health insurance system. Frank Luntz, a consultant famous for his phraseology, urged GOP leaders to call it a “government takeover.” “Takeovers are like coups,” Luntz wrote in a 28-page memo. “They both lead to dictators and a loss of freedom.” The line stuck. By the time the health care bill was headed toward passage in early 2010, Obama and congressional Democrats had sanded down their program, dropping the “public option” concept that was derided as too much government intrusion. The law passed in March, with new regulations, but no government-run plan. But as Republicans smelled serious opportunity in the midterm elections, they didn’t let facts get in the way of a great punchline. And few in the press challenged their frequent assertion that under Obama, the government was going to take over the health care industry. PolitiFact editors and reporters have chosen “government takeover of health care” as the 2010 Lie of the Year. Uttered by dozens of politicians and pundits, it played an important role in shaping public opinion about the health care plan and was a significant factor in the Democrats’ shellacking in the November elections. But we don’t think this honor should be bestowed on only the lie. For the lie is just words. No, the dubious honor of the coining of the phrase “government takeover of health care” should indeed go to the man who conceived it in the blackness of his heart and avarice of his brain: Frankie “The Hair” Luntz. So Frank, with all the fanfare and attention we can possible muster for someone so Orwellian , so nakedly partisan and deceptive and so willing to sell his future children’s (should he ever find someone either mercenary or frankly, drunk enough) future away by creating these country-destroying lies, we dub thee enlarge Credit: Courtesy of Blue Gal King of the Liars May your reign be cursed and short.
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The digital war of position between WikLeaks and those who have something to hide got a bit more barbed as Bank of America, a likely character in the next WikiLeak drama, announced it will refuse to process payments to the site. Bank of America has joined with MasterCard, Visa and PayPal to deny funds to the open government organization. WikiLeaks has said its next big leak will be about the banking meltdown and the financial sector.
Continue reading …Good news, bad news. First, the good news: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said the Senate will take a final vote Saturday afternoon on legislation that would overturn the U.S. military’s ban on openly gay troops. The vote on ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy is set for 3 p.m. (2000 GMT) before senators turn to a nuclear arms treaty with Russia. Passage would send the military measure to the White House. Senators cleared the way for final action with a 63-33 vote earlier Saturday to move the bill ahead. Now, the really crappy news : A measure that would have offered provisional legal status to some adults who came to America illegally as children failed to advance in a Senate vote Saturday. Democratic backers of the legislation fell short of the 60 votes to move the DREAM Act legislation forward. Democratic Sens. Mark Pryor of Arkansas, Jon Tester of Montana, Max Baucus of Montana, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, and Ben Nelson of Nebraska voted against bringing the bill to the floor; Republican Sens. Richard Lugar, Lisa Murkowski, and Robert Bennett voted for it. The vote was 55-41. It’s a sad world when Lisa Murkowski has more political courage than Jon Tester. Well, at least progressives can start whittling down their list of which Democrats they will support in 2012.
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