Daily Kos

Inspired by recent events in the Middle East and North Africa, and motivated by the newly installed Governor's moves to crack down on their collective bargaining rights, Wisconsin's public sector unions and their comrades have been colluding with teh Google to form a New World Order.

So far, the results have been mixed; but if all goes according to plan, the George Soros-funded agitators look poised to succeed.

In the end, though, the proof will be in the pudding.

Who better to defend Clarence Thomas from the scandals swirling around him than a truthy conservative stalwart like Stephen Colbert?

It is, however, deeply problematic that he failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars to his wife from right-wing interest groups, even though disclosure of such payments is required by law.

And it is also problematic that he, along with Justice Antonin Scalia, attended a secretive meeting of wealthy right-wing activists and power brokers funded by the Koch brothers. Now we've learned that he was actually compensated for attending by the Federalist Society, another right-wing organization.

In a slower news cycle (or if Justice Thomas were the target of the right-wing machine), these ethical question marks would be a national scandal. Calls for Thomas to recuse himself from political cases like health care reform are well-intentioned, but by all appearances, Thomas is so deeply compromised that the question shouldn't be about recusal, it should be about impeachment.

At a minimum, there needs to be an independent investigation. And if what appears to be the case actually is the case, Justice Thomas ought to be impeached.

More people need to be pondering the questions Joe Conason asks:

Among the mysteries of modern politics in America is why so many of our leading pundits and politicians persistently seek to undermine Social Security, that enduring and successful emblem of active government. In the current atmosphere of budgetary panic, self-proclaimed "centrists" are joining with ideologues of the right in yet another campaign against the program — and yet again they are misinforming the public about its purposes, costs and prospects.

Among the puzzling aspects of the crusade against Social Security is the zeal that animates its enemies, as if the present and future recipients of those monthly checks were somehow fattening themselves at the expense of future generations. Whatever drives these well-fed but poorly informed commentators, it isn't the facts.

He presents those facts: the benefits are very modest, averaging $1,170 a month, or about $14,000 a year (among the least generous retirement programs among all the developed nations); Social Security as is will be solvent until 2037, and the measures required to extend solvency beyond that are minor. As Conason says, there is no reason to panic, and "certainly no reason to consider wholesale changes in benefits."

Well, there is a reason, but only if your real aim is to destroy the system and replace it with something less useful but more profitable. Wall Street and its servants on Capitol Hill have lusted after Social Security's revenues for many years. And they regard the current uproar over the budget as a fresh opportunity to get their hands on a trillion-dollar bonanza. Given their record in recent years, it is all too easy to imagine how badly that would work out for everybody — except them, of course.

Yep.

Jibber your jabber

On Wednesday night, Daily Kos sent an email to our members in Wisconsin asking them to go to Madison and join the rallies. We received a lot of responses, but this one was my favorite:

As a long time State employee and proud union member I want to thank you for your support in our difficult fight. We all realize that if it happens here, it happens to hundreds of other hard working middle class taxpayers. While we are struggling to get out the message that this is a created budget situation and a State w/ a history of corporate welfare (2/3 pay no tax) that needs to stop being paid for by the middle class. It at least feels like people are listening. It's still a hard fight but it was so uplifting to see others rally around us. It really gives an old liberal hope.

And today, I received this email from a teacher in Chicago:

I'm writing because I was in Chicago at the North Dakota Study Group (a yearly progressive, politically oriented education conference).

At the start of today's session a W.I. teacher came to talk to conference and share pictures and stories from the last few days. At the close of his speech the group had been so moved, the people immediately began discussing scraping the days planned activities and driving to Madison to join the protest! (…)

Most of the conference decided to drive to Madison. We've heard that tea party folks are already there.

We've got two students we brought from our school, so this is their first time seeing actually political activism. They made signs and are ready for an adventure. This is the teachable moment you get into this work for.

Your support means a lot to the people on the ground, and what the people on the ground are doing is exciting others around the country. Please, chip in $14 to the Wisconsin State Senate Democratic committee to help keep the fight strong.

It looks like Rick Santorum won his argument about the conservative stool: CPAC, the American Conservative Union's annual conference, will no longer allow groups that support legal equality for gay Americans to participate their annual gathering, says group leader Al Cardenas:

“If you are a group, and this has got nothing to do with your orientation,” said Cardenas, “of straight couples, and you advocate gay marriage, that’s not within the scope of what we believe the three legs of the stool of the movement are.”

Or, put another way, CPAC doesn't care whether a group's membership is straight or not...the only thing that matters is that they be anti-gay.

Looks like the Koch machine is humming along in Wisconsin today. Here's something hot off the wire from some obscure group (explored by karoli at Crooks and Liars), the McIver Institute, which is breathlessly "reporting":

On Saturday, a group of men and women in lab coats purporting to be doctors were handing out medical excuse notes, without examining the ‘patients.’

“I asked this doctor what he was doing and he told me they were handing out excuses to people who were feeling sick due to emotional, mental or financial distress,” said Christian Hartsock. “They never performed an exam–he asked me how I was feeling today and I said I’m from California and I’m not used to the cold, so he handed me a note.”

Oh, noes! This regular old average American guy is being seduced into lying by awful liberal doctors, right?

Hardly:

Hartsock directed the undercover investigation video Teachers Unions Gone Wild which exposed sleaze and corruption in the New Jersey Education Association, earning the accolades of Governor Chris Christie, produced B-roll for James O'Keefe's and Hannah Giles' investigation videos that brought down ACORN, exposed anti-Americanism at the UN Climate Summit in Cancun and continues to work on investigative journalism videos. He's traveled to Iraq with Move America Forward to document the Iraq war and was profiled in CNN's documentary Right on the Edge a documentary about young conservative activists hosted by Abbie Boudreau. He currently writes for several news and commentary websites, including Big Government and Big Journalism, and is Editor-in-Chief of Political Vanguard.

This story is spreading like wildfire through conservative blogs and news outlets. When your wingnut Uncle Crazypants sends it along to you tonight in a capitalized, misspelled email, be sure to inform him—and all the other people on the receiving end of this garbage—about this "disinterested" witness at today's Wisconsin protests.

What's coming up on Sunday Kos …

• Chris Bowers will discuss how the new bipartisan Gang of Six that seeks to cut Social Security and Medicare is based on an imaginary theory of legislating that falsely pretends to force future Congresses to cut spending.
• Why not soak the the elderly rich? Joan McCarter will explore some of the hidden dangers of means testing for Social Security benefits.
• A panel at CPAC wondered if immigration will kill the Republican Party. Laurence Lewis will explain that the answer is revealed in the question.
• Was the bipartisan Social Security deal of 1983 all that wonderful? In an essay, brooklynbadboy will point out what a very bad deal it was.
• Mark Sumner will discuss how the GOP can't stand the idea that there are still workers in America getting the benefits they were promised.
• Dante Atkins knows he's been stuck on a theme for the past two weeks, but this week he's still wondering how many jobs will be created by defunding Planned Parenthood.

The low-income have been hit particularly hard in the recession and by the tax deal. Now low-income seniors could share a disproportionate amount of the sacrifice everybody but the really rich are being asked to make, if the Obama administration's budget proposals for 2012 are adopted.

The National Council on Again completed an analysis, reported by The Washington Independent, which "highlights what will hit low-income older Americans the hardest, emphasizing the 45 percent cut to the Senior Community Service Employment Program, a 45-year old program funded by the U.S. Department of Labor to help unemployed people over the age of 55 find part-time jobs for community service organizations. Eligibility is limited to 125 percent of the poverty line...."

The National Council on Aging predicts the cut would translate to 55,000 lost part-time jobs.

A recent report from the policy research group the Urban Institute (PDF) shows that 8.9 percent of Americans over 65 live in poverty — $10,289 for a single individual living alone at or over the age of 65, and $12,968 for a couple with at least one spouse at or over 65. The official federal poverty measure considers only pre-tax cash income, not out-of-pocket medical expenses that many older adults pay. The report found that 13 million out of 38 million Americans over 65 live in families earning less than twice the federal poverty rate....

The AARP, the loudest defender of senior rights, has been speaking out about the impact of some of the president’s budget proposals.

“AARP is deeply troubled … by the disproportionately large cuts in the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), which would mean that millions of Americans, particularly older Americans, would have a hard time paying their heating and cooling bills next year,” said AARP Executive Vice President Nancy A. LeaMond in a statement. “With heating costs rising for many this past winter, cutting $2.5 billion from this program is unfair and potentially dangerous, and would mean that millions of households wouldn’t get the help they need to keep their homes warm in the winter months.”

David Dayen argues that, among these proposed cuts, the energy assistance program is a bit of a red herring, since its budget is unpredictable and it always receives emergency supplemental funding as necessary. It makes it a mess of a program, with great uncertainty, but the money will probably be there eventually. But so many of these cuts, like to the employment program, to nutritional assistance, to public transportation, will hit the working poor and particularly low-income seniors disproportionately hard.

Well, well, well. Turns out Republicans do believe in spending taxpayer dollars on reproductive health care after all:

A Republican representative has introduced a spending bill amendment aimed at promoting the use of contraception – by horses.

Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.) introduced the amendment, which would control the population of wild horses and burros as an alternative to the costly practice of capturing the animals and holding them in pens, which the Bureau of Land Management currently employs.

The text of the amendment is innocuous enough:

Text of amendment:  H.R. 1 OFFERED BY: MR. BURTON AMENDMENT NO. 485: At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the following: SEC. ll. None of the funds made available by this Act may be used for the gathers and removals of free-roaming wild horses and burros, except for the purpose of fertility control.

Its purpose, a less costly and more humane way of controlling the wild horse population, is certainly worthwhile. But as Jodi Jacobson at RH Reality Check  notes, the push for contraception for horses came on the very same day that Burton and his fellow House Republicans are voting to to cut funding for programs that provide reproductive health care services -- including contraception -- to low-income women.

Burton has a long history of voting against health care for, you know, humans. And this amendment is coming from the same party that brought us the "Let Women Die" bill, because taxpayers should never, ever, under any circumstances -- not even life-and-death circumstances -- have to pay for women's reproductive health care because some taxpayers believe contraception equals abortion, and abortion is murder, and murder is wrong (if the "victim" is a fetus; if the victim is, say, a doctor, well, then it's debatable).  

Sure would be nice if Republicans were as concerned with the humane treatment of women as they apparently are with horses.

How Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker divvies up the world:

“We can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots,” Mr. Walker, a Republican, said in a speech. “The bottom line is that we are going to look at every legal means we have to try to put that balance more on the side of taxpayers.”

News flash: Public employees are taxpayers.

How the headline writers at the Wall Street Journal divvy up the world:

What's at Stake in Wisconsin's Budget Battle
Who's in charge of our political system—voters or unions?

News flash: Union members are voters.

Notice how it's never "Who's in charge of our political system? Tea Party Express OR citizens?"

This divisive framing about the Wisconsin protest is deliberate, not just a reflection of how conservatives don't understand the difference between sets and subsets. Setting up phony factions in the working and middle classes is the main strategy they use whenever there's a possibility of unification and concerted action not condoned by elites.

Fight it. Document it. Call it out. Every single time.

• "Mothers milk stirs unlikely political debate" is how CNN chose to describe the bunch of nutcase conservatives criticizing the First Lady for encouraging something as mundane and motherly as breastfeeding:

  First lady Michelle Obama found herself at the center of an unlikely breast-feeding debate this week when three prominent conservative women criticized her for encouraging the creation of a "nanny state."

  CNN never says what happened: The First Lady said something, a bunch of conservative woman criticized her for saying something she didn't say or advocate, and the First Lady didn't respond. No, no. To them, as soon as conservative says something, there is a "debate."
  

• The Associated Press  fawns over Rahm, notes he's pretty certainly going to win the election on Tuesday.
  
• Workmen fixing pipes in an El Paso home find a million bucks stashed in the wall. Apparently, this is  not uncommon :

  Unexpected discoveries of cash aren’t exactly bizarre in El Paso, as there have been five instances of $200,000-plus piles of money turning up in odd locations.
  

  There may be some life in residential real estate after all!
  

• Now this is a serious  immigration problem :

  Forget the budget. New York has another serious deficit -- a shortage of sexy models, Mayor Bloomberg warned yesterday.

  The situation is so dire that the Big Apple may lose its status as the fashion capital of the world, he said one day after the conclusion of Fashion Week.

  Bloomberg, who has an eye for vertically blessed women, said strict visa policies that keep models and photographers out of the United States may send the fashion industry fleeing.

  "What's happened is some of the fashion people can't get their models over here and they start to cancel," Bloomberg said on his weekly WOR radio show.

  "This industry could easily move overseas again," he continued.
  

  Two things: One, there are plenty of beautiful American models of any ethnicity one could name. More than enough to fill the needs of Fashion Week, so there is no need to outsource. Two, Anthony Weiner's  response tweet  "Great minds think alike...eventually" was spot on, but  methinks he's already fixed pretty good with his own beauty.
  

• I wonder what it is like to never have to count money. By that, I mean having so much money that you just don't bother to even look at restaurant bills, or ask "how much does this cost?" I dined with such a person this week, a very wealthy investor from Texas escorting his girlfriend around for Fashion Week. The gap between the wealthy and everyone else isn't just measured in dollar amounts. There is an entire attitude that separates them from ordinary people.
  
• Some pictures of gentrifizierung in East Berlin.
  

For two years, I've been doing this feature every week. Sure, I cheated with the occasional compilation, but I almost always had enough hate mail to fill this feature.

This week, I got ONE hate mail. One. I suspect moving the contact form to the bottom of the page made it impossible for the wingnuts to find. That, and instead of "contact us", we now say "general inquiries". They're probably too dumb to understand what that means.

So I'm skipping the poll this week, because it's definitely below average.

If this keeps up, I may have to retire this feature or move to a monthly schedule. Hoping things pick up in the coming weeks. See the one hate mail below the fold. At least it's a reasonably fun one.

The party of the "populist" teahadists is now figuring out how best they can continue to allow Wall Street to trample on the American people by  gutting the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

A House Republican on the Financial Services committee has introduced legislation that would make it easier for Congress to hamstring, or defund, the newly created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The Bureau is currently housed within the Federal Reserve and is guaranteed a percentage of the Fed's budget, with the option of asking Congress for more money. Rep. Randy Neugebauer (R-TX) proposes moving it into the Department of Treasury, where Congress would have complete control over its purse strings.

In a brief interview Tuesday, Neugebauer was pretty candid about this.

"Moving it on budget over to the Treasury where it's subject to appropriations, we can have some say-so on how big this organization gets and some of their activities," Neugebauer said. The goal, he said, is to enhance oversight, and limit the agency's size. "When it resides in the Fed, then, we really don't have that opportunity."

One of the most critical aspects of the CFPB is that it is not in Treasury, where it would be subjected to the political whims of a Congress that has more allegiance to Wall Street than Main Street. Its independence from Congress is the key to its success, a fact undoubtedly not lost on House Republicans.

There are two important takeaways from public polling on government spending. The first is that Americans hate the concept of “government spending” as an abstract generalization. The second is that Americans also strongly oppose cuts to virtually every type of government spending when those types are listed specifically. Recent polls by Pew and Democracy Corps (PDF) both hammer this point home.

If you want to cut spending, talk about it in the abstract. If you want to stop those cuts, talk about the particular programs being cut.

This also appears to be the case with unions. Recent surveys from Pew and Clarus (PDF) do not give unions, in the abstract, very high marks from the public. The Clarus poll is particularly brutal. However, when the abstraction is removed and the people fighting for unions are your neighbors, your friends and your children’s teachers, then people tend to side with the union.

This point is demonstrated by the first non-partisan poll to ask Wisconsin residents what they thought of Governor Scott Walker’s controversial plan for public sector unions. According to the poll, a majority of Wisconsin residents don't like it:

We Ask America, 2/17, 2,397 adults, MoE 2.0

”As you may know, Gov. Scott Walker has proposed a plan to limit the pay of government workers and teachers, increase their share of the cost of benefits, and strip some public-employ unions of much of their power. We’d like to know if APPROVE or DISAPPROVE of Gov. Walker’s plan.”

    Approve: 43%
    Disapprove: 52%

While non-partisan, We Ask America is actually a conservative polling firm, according to Nate Silver.

Granted, including the word “teachers” in the question likely increased opposition to the proposal. However, that does not make this a bad poll question. Rather, it’s an important reminder that in order to keep the public on our side, we must make this fight as specific and personal as possible. If this is about the rights of your neighbors and your kid’s teachers, we win. If this is about faceless government employees demanding more money, we lose.

The We Ask America poll also posed a question about the Democratic state Senators taking extreme measures to prevent the bill from passing:

It was reported today that Democratic state senators have left the capitol in order to prevent a vote of Gov. Walker’s measures. Do you think that the Democratic state senators should return to the state capitol to vote on the issue?

    Yes: 56%
    No: 36%

This isn’t surprising, since being viewed as skipping town isn’t going to be popular. However, if they return, the bill passes and all this effort will be for nothing. Further, their actions have allowed the protesters to become the top story in America, the kind of platform needed to carry this fight to the next level.

Still, the Wisconsin Senate Democrats are going to take a hit for this. That’s another reason why what they are doing is so heroic, as they are potentially damaging themselves politically to stop this bill. They showing both real guts and real selflessness, and we need to be there to reward good behavior.

Please, contribute $14 to the Wisconsin Senate Democrats, $1 for each of these 14 heroes.

Update: We've passed 1,000 donors! You guys are amazing. Please, keep chipping in $14, and let's reach 1,400 donors!

Update 2: Zoom! Now we're over 1,400 donors. Please, keep chipping in--your solidarity is strengthening our side in this fight.

Update 3: And we are over 2,000 donors! Keep piling on.

Update 4: Really? We're over 2,500?  Keep. Piling. On.

If we want to win the global competition for new jobs and industries, we’ve got to win the global competition to educate our people. We’ve got to have the best trained, best skilled workforce in the world. That’s how we’ll ensure that the next Intel, the next Google, or the next Microsoft is created in America, and hires American workers.

Yup. Looks like we're winning the future again in President Obama's weekly address this morning. Today, we're winning the future through education, supplying high tech companies like Intel with the American workers it needs.

President Obama discussed the focus his administration is putting on education, including the "Race to the Top" initiative that he claims puts the initiative for innovation back on local schools. Additionally, he talked about the efforts being made by the federal government to hook up recent graduates with companies that need their skills:

We’re also making college more affordable for millions of students, and revitalizing our community colleges, so that folks can get the training they need for the careers they want. And as part of this effort, we’ve launched a nationwide initiative to connect graduates that need jobs with businesses that need their skills.

Intel understands how important these partnerships can be – recognizing that their company’s success depends on a pipeline of skilled people ready to fill high-wage, high-tech jobs. Intel often pays for workers to continue their education at nearby Portland State University. As a result, one out of every fifteen of Intel’s Oregon employees has a degree from Portland State.

Business-government partnerships are a favorite theme of this administration, and Intel really comes in for praise on this front from the president. The company's not just reaching out to young adults, the president said, it's reaching down into influencing youngsters:

In fact, Intel’s commitment to education begins at an even younger age. The company is providing training to help 100,000 math and science teachers improve their skills in the classroom.

The president finished his address by tying these efforts into a revitalization of the national economy on a larger scale:

We are poised to lead in this new century – and not just because of the good work that large companies like Intel are doing. All across America, there are innovators and entrepreneurs who are trying to start the next Intel, or just get a small business of their own off the ground. I’ll be meeting with some of these men and women next week in Cleveland, to get ideas about what we can do to help their companies grow and create jobs.

The truth is, we have everything we need to compete: bold entrepreneurs, bright new ideas, and world-class colleges and universities. And, most of all, we have young people just brimming with promise and ready to help us succeed. All we have to do is tap that potential.

That’s the lesson on display at Intel. And that’s how America will win the future.

The full transcript can be found beneath the fold and on the White House website.

Today's Interplanetary Society isn't a bunch of science-fiction readers dreaming about colonizing the solar system. OK, maybe they are! But they do more than dream, these guys are designing missions on cutting edge propulsion technology that could adorn the clipper ships of the 21st century:

“We are delighted that NASA has chosen our mission,” said Bill Nye, Executive Director of the Planetary Society. “Our spacecraft was built with donations from citizens all over the world. It’s the first solar sail spacecraft maneuverable enough to tack and increase its orbital energy while in Earth Orbit.”

• If you will be in DC around March 6, 7, or 8, and would like to volunteer to spend a day or two chatting with some congress people and staffers about space exploration, I have a friend you need to meet. Interested parents with an older child who is likewise excited about space travel and science, are welcome to bring the young man or young lady along to get a rare, intimate view of how our democracy works. More info here and in comments below.
• What can the rest of us non swamp-dwelling regular murikans do to preserve science? An NIH funded researcher has some points and suggestions on how to make the most of the three minutes it takes to Save Science funding:

  Get in the habit of going to your CongressCritter's website and using his/her online form. ... they don't pay any attention to CapWiz-generated or even direct emails anymore. Phone calls are always best but the web-form is the next best thing. Ok, moving on to Talking Points ...  

• Join one of the fastest growing groups on the new Daily Kos: Science Matters!. Yeah, I don't know how to use all the group functions yet either. But we'll learn baby, we'll learn.

Jibber your jabber