Not as dramatic as Three Days Before The Shooting, but tomorrow at dawn I'll see whether my African-American female doctor can restore the sight in my left eye. She has the most amazing hands I've ever felt--she'll probably coax the sight back. And her sidekick is Chinese. I imagine my brother-in-law would run screaming down the street seeing both of the doctors. He's still afraid Obama is going to take his guns and he is furious at illegal immigrants but couldn't answer me when I asked him if they were deported, who would do his lawn on Marco Island. The pre-op exam at Johns Hopkins was spooky-another Doctor, who I believe was a Gypsy, rattled off how many times I had malaria, amoebic dysentary, and proclaimed my cardiac event two years ago a massive case of heart burn. That's before I started talking. Maybe the CIA is doing something useful like keeping tabs on my medical history since she could not have gotten it from any recent doctor of mine. Actually I'm confident the Great Dr. Scott will pull it off.
If America does decline in my lifetime, we might start the date of the decline with the impeachment of Bill Clinton, a thoroughly shabby affair with everyone behaving badly. I can't imagine someone spending nine years researching this episode but Ken Gormley did and has offered up about 800 pages in The Death of American Virtue: Clinton Versus Starr (Crown, 2010). All the seedy details are here with some of the tragic aftermath for players like Webb Hubbell and Jim McDougall. I urge no one be sucked into reading this tome because it gets addictive just like the real saga itself and you could spend your time more constructively thinking about the paintings of Agnes Martin.
After the impeachment, the timeline would go something like this: the 2000 Presidential elections and the Brooks Brother riots in Miami to stop the vote counting; 9/11; and the multi-year wind-up to the Iraq War; Hurricane Katrina and the destruction of New Orleans, and the vaporising of the global economy in 2008. Rush Limbaugh ridiculed Obama for calling this the lost decade. For Rush and Drudge and the right-wing echo chamber it was boom times, but for our country it was a time, as George Will wrote today, our luck ran out.
CPAC, the conservative political action committee, starts its meetings today with a unique co-sponsor--the John Birch Society. I guess now Bill Buckley is dead conservatives can feel free again to swim among the conspiracy theories. The meeting started off with Marco Rubio, conservative candidate for the Republican Senate primary in Florida, attacking Obama for using teleprompters ,while he used one himself. South Carolina's neo-confederate Senator Jim DeMint barely could contain himself when Rubio spoke.
There are wonderful workshops like "We need a Catholic teaparty." and " Nullification when we are faced with tyranny." Ken Blackwell, the Attorney-General in Ohio during the 1984 presidential elections, lamented "anti-Christian pogroms in the United States". Richard Viguerie slapped down the Mount Vernon Declaration of yesterday as "pablum". And for younger conservatives there are game rooms where you can punch Harry Reid and take target practice against Nancy Pelosi. They expect that celebrities like Joe the Plumber might surprise the younger folks during their games.
Yesterday, the Washington Post printed Justice Scalia's response to a screenwriter trying to work up a teabagging script, which would lead to nullification and secession. Scalia politely answered that he could be of no help on this issue since the Civil War ended the issue for the Supreme Court once and for all.
A South Carolina Republican has introduced a bill in that state's legislature to refuse any payments in dollars in the state. Rather the only currency would be gold and silver coins. Of course, this is all unconstitutional but when have conservatives cared about the constitution.
The Senate Republicans have been meeting with lobbyists to tell them they are even trying to kill a stripped down Jobs Bill because Harry Reid decided the larger one had too many tax breaks for the wealthy, corporations and those with large estates. Lobbyists expressed anger that their work had been in vain.
Brarack Obama finally had to create a Deficit Commission by executive order because the original Senate Republicans who sponsored the original bill had voted against it. His first nominees were former Republican Alan Simpson and Clinton administration official Erskine Bowles. Simpson sniped that if his party had been interested in deficits they could have vetoed something when they held the Presidency for eight years and Congress for six. Alan Simpson always had a great sense of humor. When challenged about a past youthful indiscretion in an election, he responded," I said I had experience. Some of it is good and others bad."
If you want a mind-boogling read, go into Andrew Sullivan's the Daily Dish and scroll down to Marc Thiessen's explanation to a Catholic news service how torture is in line with Catholic teachings and the theory of Just War. No one ever expects the Spanish Iniquisition! But even the Catholic Church has changed its tune since then. Apparently, Thiessen forgot.
Liz Cheney, the daughter of Darth Vader, now says that Clinton's trial of the first Twin Tower bombers in New York City subsequently caused 9/11.
Meanwhile, the Black Man continues to clean up with the capture of several of the top military leaders of the Taliban and more executions of Al Qaeda leaders by drones.
The Republicans continue in high dungeon with a concerted attack on the first anniversary of the stimlus package. As I've written before, the stimulus package was not big enough but was the only one possible given the politics of the time. Republicans, while bragging on stimulus projects in their own districts, claim the stimulus actually caused job loss. In fact, it saved or created 2 million jobs and will end up preserving 2.5 million jobs according to the Congressional Budget Office. But apparently the constant attacks are paying off. The Tea Baggers are now holding rallies that the stimulus actually caused the Recession. The Republicans are banking on people forgetting their own, pivotal role in creating what would have been the next Great Depression. Maybe with enough lying, they will convince the voters.
Meanwhile in the great Commonwealth of Virginia, our new Republican Governor has decided to gut educational programs for k-12 and eliminate mental health programs--started after the VTech killings--all for the purpose of saving the slight lowering of the car tax two years ago. No other purpose. Virginia will also be the first state to challenge in court the EPA's authority to monitor carbon emissions. Why? Because they can.
The great deconstruction continues. Tim Pawlenty, the Governor of Minneapolis and a born-again creationist, wants to project his national image by completely gutting the state's welfare and educational system. The local papers in Minnesota have warned voters that the very high standard of life in the state would be permanently damaged by these actions. Minnesota has always bragged about their enlightened policies to health care, education and mental illness. All of this built up over generations would be completely destroyed for one man's national ambitions.
The new Republican governor of New Jersey, Karl Rove's buddy, aims to make the state a model for the South. Without any consideration of alternatives, he has taken an ax to the state's budget with a special emphasis on eliminating education.
Finally, congratulations to Rachel Maddow for being named the Commencement speaker at Smith College. The announcement was greeted by shrieks of joy by the Senior class. Rachel Maddow is one of the few fresh faces in our media that provides sound and thoughtful analysis with a sense of humor. She deserves all good things.
Showing posts with label Jobs Bill. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jobs Bill. Show all posts
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
THE ALEXANDRIA AGENDA
Today conservatives release their Mount Vernon Declaration. They argue that our understanding of the Constitution has been distorted by our politics, culture and universities--in short by all America. I lack the literary imagination to envision our Founding Fathers as conservatives or imagine our current conservatives would have to the balls to rebel against Britain. The constitutional world they envision is agrarian,pre-civil war and equal rights for everyone regardless of race, creed or ethnic group. Their efforts were paid for by Coors Beer; I guess in honor of our great brewer George Washington.
Instead of blaming America first, the Alexandria Agenda is written a few blocks down from George Washington's survey office, Gadsby's Tavern, where the founding fathers ate and drank, and near the grave of the unknown revolutionary soldier, and accepts America as it is. There are no large corporate or foundation grants funding this historic enterprise. Since our Constitution does provide for the "general welfare", our Agenda is modest in scope and lacks all ideology. Our guiding founder is Benjamin Franklin, who believed in solving practical problems.
What kind of society do we want?
Health Care. We are the only advanced country without universal health care. Medical bills are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in this country. The equivalent of all the Vietnam War dead die every year from lack of health care. This is obscene and beneath our dignity. Health care costs are soon to become 20% of our GDP, a severe handicap to any future economic growth. We propose Medicare for all. Howard Dean has explained at great length how including the younger population in Medicare will dramatically lower its costs. However, given the political realities of Washington, we would accept passage of any of the health reform bills with the proviso that all lacunae be filled in later. Presidents starting with Theodore Roosevelt have tried unsuccessfully to adopt universal health care measure for the United States. It is a large unfulfilled piece of the national agenda.
Housing. There are an estimated 18.6 million empty homes in the country since the subprime mortgage crisis. There are now over 3 million homeless in the country with an increasing number of suburbanites. These empty homes have been written off by banks and now are a blight in our towns and cities. Local governments should make provisions for the homeless to occupy these dwellings to prevent further deterioration. A new Homestead Act should be passed to encourage younger people to re-settle the cities that have been devastated by the Great Recession. Sweat equity could form the down payment and suitable payments could be made to allow a younger generation to acquire some wealth.
Jobs. For those Americans over the age of 55 ,who have been unemployed for a prolonged period of time,they should be able to draw social security because the odds are great that they have paid in enough to qualify. This should apply to those who have held jobs that will not come back because of globalization. We must concentrate on the younger generation, which actually may experience a lost decade. The federal government should create FDR-like WPA to employ the young so that they are not lost for a generation.
Education. When state governments can not afford their obligations for public education, the federal government must intervene to stave off the sharp cut-backs in education funding and in education facilities. The government should adopt the Obama proposals to underwrite federal loans to college-age students and keep these loans out of the hands of bankers. The level of debt acquired by college age students is simply not sustainable, plaguing the young for years to come. Every nation, including developing ones, understands that education is the absolute key to progress and economic advancement.
Science. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson both were committed to the development of American science. Where the private sector fails to invest in scientific research and development, both the Federal and State governments must be obligated to underwrite such efforts. In this case, science must be kept free from politics and religious interference.
Debt. The most fortunate of us have profited from living in this country.The grave disparity of wealth in this country is a threat to the national welfare and stability. Efforts must be made to increase revenues from the top 2%, who have been the sole beneficiaries of the economics of the last ten years. Clearly, these people did not obey the "visible hand " Adam Smith wrote about, a prudent morality and self-control over the acquisition of wealth.
The manufactured alarm over Social Security can be alleviated by ending the cap of social security taxes and by making social security means-tested. With my proposal on 55 and older unemployed becoming eligible, these measures are needed. As it is, Social Security has the means to fully fund obligations until 2047. With my added measures, it will be permanently solvent.
Medicare will remain an issue but depending on whether it is extended down to younger people the means for solving it will be complex. With a passage of any of the present legislation, there will be significant savings in costs particularly in the second ten years.
The large remaining issue of debt is the national security budget that has been running over $1 trillion a year for the last several years. A national debate is necessary about our military commitments abroad and the role of the United States in the 21st Century. At our present rate, the United States resembles Brezhnev's Soviet Union bristling with military power but an empty shell of economic development. The United States will have to eschew its current imperial delusion if it is to adopt a balanced foreign policy that is within its means. Another aspect is to make defense procurement based on market-based economics. Currently, three major corporations dictate the costs of military procurements and have the advantage of veto power over cost-savings.
These modest proposals will have the long-term advantage of cutting our national debt and making us more secure against foreign domination.
Energy Self-Suffiency: Since the Nixon Administration, the United States has been acutely aware of its massive consumption of foreign oil and the foreign policy ramifications of such a dependency. Because of technological advances, there is no further reason for us to remain in this situation. Solar, geo-thermal, wind, nuclear and natural gas allow us the possibility of independence. Nano-technology is advancing so fast that solar costs will drop dramatically in the years ahead. Perhaps, there will be a day for nuclear fusion but even so energy indepedence can be achieved within ten years. For proponents of domestic oil exploration, additional reserves would only represent another year of our total needs. It simply is not an option. Whether one holds to climate change or is a skeptic, our national interest demands we advance in the use of alternative energy use.
Immigration Reform: With the exception of American Indians, we are all immigrants. Currently, there is an estimated 15-20 million people in the United States without legal status. They pay taxes and social security and provide cheap labor for American businesses. To imagine expulsion as the nativist dream is to envision a scale of human rights violations that would bring permanent shame on the country. An immigration reform bill already exists--the one proposed by Ted Kennedy and John McCain during the Bush years--that would provide the means that these people can regularize their status. However, imperfect, it should be passed as soon as possible so that we can clean up this national disgrace.
If these issues are addressed, the United States can make the transition back to its past position as an economic power in the world. The country is for all us. It is not just for some people with obscure ideologies that festihize our Constitution and privately harbor dreams of going back to a time before the New Deal and the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. The sooner we fight back against the new revisionism the better off we will be in advancing to a more prosperous, just future.
E Pluribus Unum
Instead of blaming America first, the Alexandria Agenda is written a few blocks down from George Washington's survey office, Gadsby's Tavern, where the founding fathers ate and drank, and near the grave of the unknown revolutionary soldier, and accepts America as it is. There are no large corporate or foundation grants funding this historic enterprise. Since our Constitution does provide for the "general welfare", our Agenda is modest in scope and lacks all ideology. Our guiding founder is Benjamin Franklin, who believed in solving practical problems.
What kind of society do we want?
Health Care. We are the only advanced country without universal health care. Medical bills are the leading cause of personal bankruptcy in this country. The equivalent of all the Vietnam War dead die every year from lack of health care. This is obscene and beneath our dignity. Health care costs are soon to become 20% of our GDP, a severe handicap to any future economic growth. We propose Medicare for all. Howard Dean has explained at great length how including the younger population in Medicare will dramatically lower its costs. However, given the political realities of Washington, we would accept passage of any of the health reform bills with the proviso that all lacunae be filled in later. Presidents starting with Theodore Roosevelt have tried unsuccessfully to adopt universal health care measure for the United States. It is a large unfulfilled piece of the national agenda.
Housing. There are an estimated 18.6 million empty homes in the country since the subprime mortgage crisis. There are now over 3 million homeless in the country with an increasing number of suburbanites. These empty homes have been written off by banks and now are a blight in our towns and cities. Local governments should make provisions for the homeless to occupy these dwellings to prevent further deterioration. A new Homestead Act should be passed to encourage younger people to re-settle the cities that have been devastated by the Great Recession. Sweat equity could form the down payment and suitable payments could be made to allow a younger generation to acquire some wealth.
Jobs. For those Americans over the age of 55 ,who have been unemployed for a prolonged period of time,they should be able to draw social security because the odds are great that they have paid in enough to qualify. This should apply to those who have held jobs that will not come back because of globalization. We must concentrate on the younger generation, which actually may experience a lost decade. The federal government should create FDR-like WPA to employ the young so that they are not lost for a generation.
Education. When state governments can not afford their obligations for public education, the federal government must intervene to stave off the sharp cut-backs in education funding and in education facilities. The government should adopt the Obama proposals to underwrite federal loans to college-age students and keep these loans out of the hands of bankers. The level of debt acquired by college age students is simply not sustainable, plaguing the young for years to come. Every nation, including developing ones, understands that education is the absolute key to progress and economic advancement.
Science. Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson both were committed to the development of American science. Where the private sector fails to invest in scientific research and development, both the Federal and State governments must be obligated to underwrite such efforts. In this case, science must be kept free from politics and religious interference.
Debt. The most fortunate of us have profited from living in this country.The grave disparity of wealth in this country is a threat to the national welfare and stability. Efforts must be made to increase revenues from the top 2%, who have been the sole beneficiaries of the economics of the last ten years. Clearly, these people did not obey the "visible hand " Adam Smith wrote about, a prudent morality and self-control over the acquisition of wealth.
The manufactured alarm over Social Security can be alleviated by ending the cap of social security taxes and by making social security means-tested. With my proposal on 55 and older unemployed becoming eligible, these measures are needed. As it is, Social Security has the means to fully fund obligations until 2047. With my added measures, it will be permanently solvent.
Medicare will remain an issue but depending on whether it is extended down to younger people the means for solving it will be complex. With a passage of any of the present legislation, there will be significant savings in costs particularly in the second ten years.
The large remaining issue of debt is the national security budget that has been running over $1 trillion a year for the last several years. A national debate is necessary about our military commitments abroad and the role of the United States in the 21st Century. At our present rate, the United States resembles Brezhnev's Soviet Union bristling with military power but an empty shell of economic development. The United States will have to eschew its current imperial delusion if it is to adopt a balanced foreign policy that is within its means. Another aspect is to make defense procurement based on market-based economics. Currently, three major corporations dictate the costs of military procurements and have the advantage of veto power over cost-savings.
These modest proposals will have the long-term advantage of cutting our national debt and making us more secure against foreign domination.
Energy Self-Suffiency: Since the Nixon Administration, the United States has been acutely aware of its massive consumption of foreign oil and the foreign policy ramifications of such a dependency. Because of technological advances, there is no further reason for us to remain in this situation. Solar, geo-thermal, wind, nuclear and natural gas allow us the possibility of independence. Nano-technology is advancing so fast that solar costs will drop dramatically in the years ahead. Perhaps, there will be a day for nuclear fusion but even so energy indepedence can be achieved within ten years. For proponents of domestic oil exploration, additional reserves would only represent another year of our total needs. It simply is not an option. Whether one holds to climate change or is a skeptic, our national interest demands we advance in the use of alternative energy use.
Immigration Reform: With the exception of American Indians, we are all immigrants. Currently, there is an estimated 15-20 million people in the United States without legal status. They pay taxes and social security and provide cheap labor for American businesses. To imagine expulsion as the nativist dream is to envision a scale of human rights violations that would bring permanent shame on the country. An immigration reform bill already exists--the one proposed by Ted Kennedy and John McCain during the Bush years--that would provide the means that these people can regularize their status. However, imperfect, it should be passed as soon as possible so that we can clean up this national disgrace.
If these issues are addressed, the United States can make the transition back to its past position as an economic power in the world. The country is for all us. It is not just for some people with obscure ideologies that festihize our Constitution and privately harbor dreams of going back to a time before the New Deal and the Civil Rights struggles of the 1960s. The sooner we fight back against the new revisionism the better off we will be in advancing to a more prosperous, just future.
E Pluribus Unum
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Saturday Coffee--Zimbabwe
For months Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell taunted Barack Obama to create a bipartisan commission to deal with the deficit. Republicans like John McCain and Judd Gregg co-sponsored the legislation. And then when President Obama says he supports the plan, the Republicans abandoned ship and voted against it, killing the plan in the Senate. Today in his radio address, President Obama announced by executive order he was creating the commission.
Which leads to where we are in the state of the union. Presently over 200 House bills are languishing for action by the Senate. Taken together these bills would place adequate regulations on the financial industry, create a robust jobs bill, and give the American people a chance at an adequate health care system. Even if 50% of the provisions of these bills were implemented , America would be on the road to economic and social recovery from The Great Recession. The odds of them becoming law now are slim as Republicans in the Senate have officially embraced the idea that all major legislation needs a supermajority, something that even Senate rules do not agree on. Republicans have now used the filibuster a staggering 115 times--over twice the number of Democrats in the last year of the Bush Administration.
There is a method to their madness. By thwarting the President and the Democratic majority, Republicans want to present the image that Government is incapable to ameliorating the average American's problems. Unfortunately, they are succeeding because confidence in government after the Bush-Cheney years has fallen to a new low. To capitalize on the phenomenon they created, Republicans have embraced a radical right agenda against government itself.
President Obama has adopted many of the former Republican ideas. Tax breaks for the middle class, small business and the end of a capital gains tax on small businesses. Incredibly the Republicans have voted against all of these. As a result, polls show that only 15% of Americans believe Obama cut their taxes, more actually believe the Republican line that he has raised taxes. As he made it clear in his State of the Union address, he hasn't raised anyone's taxes, although he should.
President Obama signed into law the PayGo provisions that require Congress to either cut expenditures or raise revenues to pay for the programs they pass. The Republicans, who have blasted the President on fiscal irresponsibility, voted against this seemingly logical idea. We know it was highly successful during the Clinton years to produce large surpluses. The new Republican platform calls for balanced federal budgets, except in time of war. I always believed that post-9/11, to reinforce the idea of sacrifice Americans should have been asked to pay more taxes to fund the war effort and not for the rich to receive a large tax break. But no matter.
The new so-called bipartisan jobs bill was scrapped by Harry Reid for a more modest one. The $80 billion bill penned by Grassley and Baucus included such Republican favorites as the end to estate taxes. Right now, you have to pay taxes on an estate more than $7 million, an amount very few Americans will ever see. (Also added to the bill was a re-authorization of the Patriot Act.) The end of the estate tax will exacerbate the growing inequality of income distribution. Today, the United States has the most dramatic gulf between the richest and the poorest than any developed nation. We are actually falling into the realm of such discrepancy of wealth as El Salvador and other oil-producing states in Africa. For years, foreign policy analysts on both sides of the aisle ghave argued that such disequilbrium produces political instability.
The Harry Reid $18 billion effort looks puny and may not create any jobs.
So what's a poor guy do but create a rock-and-roll band? To overcome the Senate stalemate, President Obama will have to use the process of reconciliation to pass his highest priorities. The Health Care Bill is already passed. Even if it can not be massaged as would be normal in a functioning democracy, the Democrats must move it anyway. The whole financial reform package, which would prevent another meltdown, needs to be passed the same way. The Democrats have to understand that even if the Republicans come roaring back in the 2010 elections, the new Congress would not sit until early 2011. As I wrote when I started this blog, Obama has only the first two years to achieve his domestic agenda. The rest of his time he will be engaged in rear-guard action.
The past week we have seen a very curious resurrection of Republican attacks on the Obama Administration concerning his anti-terrorist policy. Normally, this would be attributed to Republicans trying to maintain their national security mantle, which they believe is their greatest electoral strength. But these attacks are much more focused and coordinated than the attacks at the beginning of his administration. The lines of argument have changed. The argument that the gonad bomber is not like the shoe bomber is that the Bush Administration did not have their splendid torture apparatus in place yet. Marc Thiessen, a speechwriter for the Bush Administration and former Jesse Helms aide, blasted Obama for killing too many terrorists too quickly in Foreign Policy and then went on national television to say that the gonad bomber should have been subjected to interrogation by the intelligence community, not the FBI. (As a note, the FBI has routinely outperformed both Defense and the Intelligence community in this function.) He pointed to the great success in waterboarding that prevented the Los Angeles terror plot. As I wrote at the beginning of this blog long ago, the Los Angeles plot was stopped a year before the waterboarding of Sheik Muhammed because the FBI arrested an Al Qaeda member on a tip from Canada as he cross into the United States from Vancouver.
But Kit Bond in the blizzard made it to the local television station to blast the Obama Administration on not sending the gonad bomber to a military tribunal and using the existing apparatus for interrogating him. He cited as his good authority Mike Mukasy who "Voila!" produced an op-ed in the Washington Post the next day, saying that cases like Richard Reid and Jose Padilla happened because the "apparatus" was not in place at the time. Senator Bond went out of his way to say that trying terrorists in civilian courts revealed too much intelligence to the enemy. He claims Bin Laden turned off his cellphones after a New York trial. Again, false. He turned them off when Bush administration officials, including the President, kept saying we were monitoring Al Qaeda's cellphones. None of the information from any civilian trial had any effect on Al Qaeda's defensive measures.
Then we are treated to Bush speechwriter Mike Gerson lamenting the cost of Gitmo to our prestige but saying the cost of closing it is also too high.
So what gives? As Janes Meyer documents in the latest New Yorker, the Obama administration has a tug of war going on between Rahm Emmanuel and Eric Holder on the civil trial of the 9/11 plotters. The Republicans, in my opinion, are trying to exploit this fight but for a precise purpose. If President Obama continues to be successful with his anti-terrorism program, he undercuts the reasoning of the Republicans or the Bush Administration. But, more precisely, civilian trials are not a threat because of Al Qaeda propaganda but what the American people may in fact learn about the failings of the past Administration and their use of torture. For instance, we now know that the three detainees who allegedly hung themselves alone and in separate cells in Gitmo were actually tortured to death at Camp No, a small facility on the grounds of Gitmo in 2007, at least two years after Bush supposedly outlawed torture. One of the victims was the young Saudi son of a police officer, who was scheduled to be released and who had no potential charges against him.
The Republican argument for military commissions is strange because of the only 3 cases tried so far, two of the defendents went free. Of the over 300 civilian trials of terrorist suspects, none have gone free and almost all have been sentenced to maximum security prisons for life. When Bob Gibbs raised this on television, Chuck Todd weirdly argued that none have received the death penalty. And then he criticized Gibbs for promising KSM would receive a death penalty, thereby saying civilian trials would be kangaroo courts. But so far the military commissions haven't sentenced anyone to death either. Missing from the Republican arguments this week was the recent trial of the MIT-educated woman member of Al Qaeda.
The issue of what to do with the Gitmo detainees who might face charges--probably 54 in total--provides the Obama Administration with a keen dilemma. No one can underestimate the mess the Bush Administration left behind here. The so-called apparatus really doesn't exist. The so-called military commissions, which may not even be constitutional, are barely up and barely functioning. The lack of notifying New York on the Al Qaeda trials led to unnecessary political blowback, which will hamper moving forward. The Obama Administration have bent over backwards to prevent the prosecution of Dick Cheney, the torture lawyers and the CIA personnel who were involved in the "enhanced interrogation" program. The Republicans have blocked the appointment of Dawn Johnson to the Department of Justice because she is on record saying these cases need to be examined and charges brought if need be.
The Bush Administration made a fundamental mistake from the beginning of their response to 9/11, which--for the record--they knew by 3pm that day Al Qaeda did it. They never consulted real national security lawyers, which exist in this town by the hundreds, about developing a process that was both constitutional and effective. By the time Bush admitted he wanted to close Gitmo, nothing had been done to even coordinate all the materials about the detainees so no cases could be made anyway.
Unfortunately, I am now leaning to supporting the idea expressed by the Washington Post of creating a national security court to handle terrorist cases. The immense damage done by the last eight years in this regard simply can not be overcome by the application of civilian courts. Such a court should have a limited duration.
Which leads to where we are in the state of the union. Presently over 200 House bills are languishing for action by the Senate. Taken together these bills would place adequate regulations on the financial industry, create a robust jobs bill, and give the American people a chance at an adequate health care system. Even if 50% of the provisions of these bills were implemented , America would be on the road to economic and social recovery from The Great Recession. The odds of them becoming law now are slim as Republicans in the Senate have officially embraced the idea that all major legislation needs a supermajority, something that even Senate rules do not agree on. Republicans have now used the filibuster a staggering 115 times--over twice the number of Democrats in the last year of the Bush Administration.
There is a method to their madness. By thwarting the President and the Democratic majority, Republicans want to present the image that Government is incapable to ameliorating the average American's problems. Unfortunately, they are succeeding because confidence in government after the Bush-Cheney years has fallen to a new low. To capitalize on the phenomenon they created, Republicans have embraced a radical right agenda against government itself.
President Obama has adopted many of the former Republican ideas. Tax breaks for the middle class, small business and the end of a capital gains tax on small businesses. Incredibly the Republicans have voted against all of these. As a result, polls show that only 15% of Americans believe Obama cut their taxes, more actually believe the Republican line that he has raised taxes. As he made it clear in his State of the Union address, he hasn't raised anyone's taxes, although he should.
President Obama signed into law the PayGo provisions that require Congress to either cut expenditures or raise revenues to pay for the programs they pass. The Republicans, who have blasted the President on fiscal irresponsibility, voted against this seemingly logical idea. We know it was highly successful during the Clinton years to produce large surpluses. The new Republican platform calls for balanced federal budgets, except in time of war. I always believed that post-9/11, to reinforce the idea of sacrifice Americans should have been asked to pay more taxes to fund the war effort and not for the rich to receive a large tax break. But no matter.
The new so-called bipartisan jobs bill was scrapped by Harry Reid for a more modest one. The $80 billion bill penned by Grassley and Baucus included such Republican favorites as the end to estate taxes. Right now, you have to pay taxes on an estate more than $7 million, an amount very few Americans will ever see. (Also added to the bill was a re-authorization of the Patriot Act.) The end of the estate tax will exacerbate the growing inequality of income distribution. Today, the United States has the most dramatic gulf between the richest and the poorest than any developed nation. We are actually falling into the realm of such discrepancy of wealth as El Salvador and other oil-producing states in Africa. For years, foreign policy analysts on both sides of the aisle ghave argued that such disequilbrium produces political instability.
The Harry Reid $18 billion effort looks puny and may not create any jobs.
So what's a poor guy do but create a rock-and-roll band? To overcome the Senate stalemate, President Obama will have to use the process of reconciliation to pass his highest priorities. The Health Care Bill is already passed. Even if it can not be massaged as would be normal in a functioning democracy, the Democrats must move it anyway. The whole financial reform package, which would prevent another meltdown, needs to be passed the same way. The Democrats have to understand that even if the Republicans come roaring back in the 2010 elections, the new Congress would not sit until early 2011. As I wrote when I started this blog, Obama has only the first two years to achieve his domestic agenda. The rest of his time he will be engaged in rear-guard action.
The past week we have seen a very curious resurrection of Republican attacks on the Obama Administration concerning his anti-terrorist policy. Normally, this would be attributed to Republicans trying to maintain their national security mantle, which they believe is their greatest electoral strength. But these attacks are much more focused and coordinated than the attacks at the beginning of his administration. The lines of argument have changed. The argument that the gonad bomber is not like the shoe bomber is that the Bush Administration did not have their splendid torture apparatus in place yet. Marc Thiessen, a speechwriter for the Bush Administration and former Jesse Helms aide, blasted Obama for killing too many terrorists too quickly in Foreign Policy and then went on national television to say that the gonad bomber should have been subjected to interrogation by the intelligence community, not the FBI. (As a note, the FBI has routinely outperformed both Defense and the Intelligence community in this function.) He pointed to the great success in waterboarding that prevented the Los Angeles terror plot. As I wrote at the beginning of this blog long ago, the Los Angeles plot was stopped a year before the waterboarding of Sheik Muhammed because the FBI arrested an Al Qaeda member on a tip from Canada as he cross into the United States from Vancouver.
But Kit Bond in the blizzard made it to the local television station to blast the Obama Administration on not sending the gonad bomber to a military tribunal and using the existing apparatus for interrogating him. He cited as his good authority Mike Mukasy who "Voila!" produced an op-ed in the Washington Post the next day, saying that cases like Richard Reid and Jose Padilla happened because the "apparatus" was not in place at the time. Senator Bond went out of his way to say that trying terrorists in civilian courts revealed too much intelligence to the enemy. He claims Bin Laden turned off his cellphones after a New York trial. Again, false. He turned them off when Bush administration officials, including the President, kept saying we were monitoring Al Qaeda's cellphones. None of the information from any civilian trial had any effect on Al Qaeda's defensive measures.
Then we are treated to Bush speechwriter Mike Gerson lamenting the cost of Gitmo to our prestige but saying the cost of closing it is also too high.
So what gives? As Janes Meyer documents in the latest New Yorker, the Obama administration has a tug of war going on between Rahm Emmanuel and Eric Holder on the civil trial of the 9/11 plotters. The Republicans, in my opinion, are trying to exploit this fight but for a precise purpose. If President Obama continues to be successful with his anti-terrorism program, he undercuts the reasoning of the Republicans or the Bush Administration. But, more precisely, civilian trials are not a threat because of Al Qaeda propaganda but what the American people may in fact learn about the failings of the past Administration and their use of torture. For instance, we now know that the three detainees who allegedly hung themselves alone and in separate cells in Gitmo were actually tortured to death at Camp No, a small facility on the grounds of Gitmo in 2007, at least two years after Bush supposedly outlawed torture. One of the victims was the young Saudi son of a police officer, who was scheduled to be released and who had no potential charges against him.
The Republican argument for military commissions is strange because of the only 3 cases tried so far, two of the defendents went free. Of the over 300 civilian trials of terrorist suspects, none have gone free and almost all have been sentenced to maximum security prisons for life. When Bob Gibbs raised this on television, Chuck Todd weirdly argued that none have received the death penalty. And then he criticized Gibbs for promising KSM would receive a death penalty, thereby saying civilian trials would be kangaroo courts. But so far the military commissions haven't sentenced anyone to death either. Missing from the Republican arguments this week was the recent trial of the MIT-educated woman member of Al Qaeda.
The issue of what to do with the Gitmo detainees who might face charges--probably 54 in total--provides the Obama Administration with a keen dilemma. No one can underestimate the mess the Bush Administration left behind here. The so-called apparatus really doesn't exist. The so-called military commissions, which may not even be constitutional, are barely up and barely functioning. The lack of notifying New York on the Al Qaeda trials led to unnecessary political blowback, which will hamper moving forward. The Obama Administration have bent over backwards to prevent the prosecution of Dick Cheney, the torture lawyers and the CIA personnel who were involved in the "enhanced interrogation" program. The Republicans have blocked the appointment of Dawn Johnson to the Department of Justice because she is on record saying these cases need to be examined and charges brought if need be.
The Bush Administration made a fundamental mistake from the beginning of their response to 9/11, which--for the record--they knew by 3pm that day Al Qaeda did it. They never consulted real national security lawyers, which exist in this town by the hundreds, about developing a process that was both constitutional and effective. By the time Bush admitted he wanted to close Gitmo, nothing had been done to even coordinate all the materials about the detainees so no cases could be made anyway.
Unfortunately, I am now leaning to supporting the idea expressed by the Washington Post of creating a national security court to handle terrorist cases. The immense damage done by the last eight years in this regard simply can not be overcome by the application of civilian courts. Such a court should have a limited duration.
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