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At The Nation, Katrina vanden Heuvel writes, Elizabeth Warren's battle:

PhotobucketThe Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)—the people’s agency and cop on the beat to protect consumers—is now a reality. Its website is live, you can sign-up for updates, and check out a sleek Arrested Development-style video narrated by Ron Howard that explains the bureau’s mission.

“David beat Goliath, but make no mistake: Goliath is not down for the count. Families can and should be proud of their new watchdog, but they would be wrong if they take its future security and independence for granted,” said Warren. “Many of those who have opposed the CFPB are still trying to chip away at its independence by subjecting it entirely to Congressional appropriations without any dedicated funding from the Federal Reserve.”

Indeed Texas Republican Representative Randy Neugebauer has introduced legislation to house the CFPB in Treasury so that Congress can control its funding through Appropriations. That would be a disaster, potentially immobilizing the bureau.

“Politicizing the funding of bank supervision would be a dangerous precedent, and it would deprive the CFPB of the predictable funding it will need to examine large and powerful banks consistently and to provide a level playing field with their non-bank competitors,” said Warren.

This week, Warren and the CFPB will host a summit examining the impact of credit card legislation passed by Congress one year ago to cleanup the industry. Participants will include academics, industry leaders, consumer advocates, and government officials.

This kind of work is at the heart of the CFPB mission, as described by Warren: “We can do our part to help level the playing field, to cut out the tricks and traps, to make it possible to master a credit card contract or a mortgage closing without needing an army of lawyers.”

• • • • •

Marwan Bishara, senior policy analyst at Al Jazeera, writes Gaddafi's threats were no different from those of any foreign occupier.

conchita writes ACTION: Help Prevent Another Massacre.

lotlizard writes Eyes on Egypt & Region Liveblog #122 - Libya

• • • • •

At Daily Kos on this date in 2008:

Another day, another story of GOP corruption. In this case, the offender is embattled Arizona Republican Rick Renzi, now indicted:

Republican Rep. Rick Renzi has been indicted for extortion, wire fraud, money laundering and other charges related to a land deal in Arizona.

A 26-page federal indictment unsealed in Arizona accuses Renzi and two former business partners of conspiring to promote the sale of land that buyers could swap for property owned by the federal government. The sale netted one of Renzi's former partners $4.5 million.

Extortion, fraud, money laundering. That's quite a list, Congressman. Sure you didn't miss one?

Poll

Have you been following the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East?

32%482 votes
54%827 votes
11%166 votes
1%20 votes
0%10 votes

| 1506 votes | Vote | Results

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Tue Feb 22, 2011 at 11:00 PM EST

John Thune passes on 2012 White House bid

by Jed Lewison

John Thune

No John Thune in 2012:

For months now, my wife Kimberley and I have received encouragement from family, friends, colleagues, and supporters from across South Dakota and the country to run for the presidency of the United States...[but] at this time, I feel that I am best positioned to fight for America’s future here in the trenches of the United States Senate.

Translation: Thune didn't think he would win. He's spent his entire career in politics, either as an aide, an appointed official, state party chairman, or candidate for office. He ran for Congress at age 35 and has probably imagined himself as President since he was a toddler. In short: I can guarantee you that if John Thune thought he would win this campaign, he would have run.

The only question is whether Thune thinks the problem would have been winning the nomination or beating President Obama. Given how how much insider enthusiasm there was for him to run, I'm betting on the latter. Each of the top three candidates -- Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, and Mike Huckabee -- have serious flaws. Romney's is that he's an unprincipled hack, Palin's is that she's Palin, and Huckabee's is that he doesn't seem to be running.

Thune could have run circles around Tim Pawlenty, and he had an army of operatives just dying for him to make the bid. In fact, as of September, he'd all but announced he would be running:

Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the "Daschle slayer" who beat the Senate Democratic leader in 2004, is ramping up plans for a presidential run in 2012, associates say.

Thune, 49, spoke candidly about his plans for a cover story in The Weekly Standard — priceless exposure for an ambitious conservative. Senior Editor Stephen F. Hayes writes that Thune "is likely to run for president in 2012."

"Thune allows that he's thinking about it seriously enough that he's gamed out his 'pathway to get there,' calculated the amount of money it would take to be competitive in early primaries, and even thought about the timing of an announcement," Hayes writes in "Dakota Dreaming: The Presidential Ambitions of John Thune."

Since that time, it's not like the GOP field has gotten any stronger. Romney hasn't gone anywhere except down, Huckabee is showing less interest than Mario Cuomo, and every time Sarah Palin opens her mouth, she turns off yet another swath of America. So if Thune wanted the nomination, it's there for the taking.

But while the GOP field has gotten weaker, President Obama has gotten stronger. In December and January he proved his political mettle, and despite the midterm results he's bounce backed in a big way. I'm not saying President Obama is a lock for reelection. If Republican spending cuts lead to a double dip recession, he might pay the political price. But at least based on his decision today, it seems clear John Thune wasn't willing to take a bet on that happening.

Discuss


It turns out Scott Walker has quite the history of screaming "budget emergency" to justify busting public worker unions. ThinkProgress explains:
As Milwaukee County Executive in 2009, Walker tried to get rid of the unionized  security guards at the county courthouse and replace them with contractors, which he promised would save the county money. The County Board rejected the idea, but in March of 2010 Walker “unilaterally ordered it,” claiming there was a budget emergency....Unfortunately for Walker and Milwaukee taxpayers, an arbiter later ruled that Walker had overstepped his authority, and ordered the county to reinstate the unionized workers, pay backwages, and pay tens of thousands of dollars in arbiter fees.

So even if we set aside the human cost of stripping teachers and maintenance workers and snowplow drivers of their bargaining rights, and even if we set aside the firesale of Wisconsin assets, this is what Wisconsin would have to look forward to a large-scale repeat of if Scott Walker gets his way:

So, the last time Scott Walker did something like this, in his desperation to get rid of employees who joined unions, he improperly fired them, he overestimated how much money that would save, and then he allowed for a private, foreign-based, butt vodka company to put a convicted criminal in charge of security at the Milwaukee courthouse and city hall.
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Obama signing ACA
President Obama signs the Affordable Care Act

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler has become the third federal judge to rule that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, and that Congress was within its constitutional authority to regulate health insurance under the Commerce Caluse.

"It is pure semantics to argue that an individual who makes a choice to forgo health insurance is not 'acting,' especially given the serious economic and health-related consequences to every individual of that choice," Kessler writes. "Making a choice is an affirmative action, whether one decides to do something or not do something. They are two sides of the same coin. To pretend otherwise is to ignore reality."

Kessler, however, rejected the argument that Congress had the authority to enact the Affordable Care Act under the General Welfare Clause because Congress "did not intend [the law] to operate as a tax."

This is a profoundly reality-based ruling, coming from the Clinton appointed judge. This case was brought by the American Center for Law and Justice, a Christian legal group founded by evangelist Pat Robertson, which argued that the law violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993. Kessler also rejected that argument, saying that "anyone who objects to having health care for religious reasons can choose to pay the penalty instead — as the lawsuit said all five plaintiffs plan to do."

The rulling is available here. Department of Justice spokesperson Tracy Schmaler provides this statement:

“We welcome this ruling, which marks the third time a court has reviewed the Affordable Care Act on the merits and upheld it as constitutional. This court found -- as two others have previously -- that the minimum coverage provision of the statute was a reasonable measure for Congress to take in reforming our health care system. At the same time, trial courts in additional cases have dismissed numerous challenges to this law on jurisdictional and other grounds. The Department will continue to vigorously defend this law in ongoing litigation.”

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Tue Feb 22, 2011 at 09:00 PM EST

Open Thread

by openthread

Jibber your jabber

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Vladimir Putin Watching Glenn Beck?

Last week it was Glenn Beck attacking Google for having fomented the Egyptian revolution. Bragging that he'd "exposed" a previously unknown Google executive "as an instigator of a revolution," Beck wondered if Google was just a "shill" for America and warned his audience against conducting searches through Google.

Even by Glenn Beck's standards, it was a pretty weird conspiracy theory, but now it looks like his ideas may have found a home...in the government of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Reuters reports:

Russia blames Google for stirring Egypt unrest: report

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's deputy blamed Google Inc in an interview published on Tuesday for stirring up trouble in the revolution that ousted Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak.

"Look what they have done in Egypt, those highly-placed managers of Google, what manipulations of the energy of the people took place there," Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin told the Wall Street Journal.

Such strong comment from one of Putin's most trusted deputies is a clear signal of growing concern among Russian hardliners about the role of the Internet in the unrest which has swept across the Arab world.

So Vladimir Putin, Hosni Mubarak, and Glenn Beck can all agree on at least one thing: Google is evil. But doesn't that tell us more about them than it does Google?

Discuss
Goal Thermometer

The battle for Wisconsin is hitting the airwaves. Greg Sargent reports that a group partly funded by the billionaire Koch brothers is about to run some ads:

Here's something else that will ratchet up the stakes in the Wisconsin standoff and fuel suspicions about the real goal behind the push to roll back public employee rights: The well-funded conservative group Americans for Prosperity is set to start running ads in Wisconsin, I'm told.

"We're planning to run TV and radio ads in Wisconsin starting tomorrow, as well as host a few events across the state later this week," Americans for Prosperity spokesperson Mary Ellen Burke emails. "Things are happening quickly as the news story in Wisconsin progresses."(…)

Americans for Prosperity, of course, was partly created and bankrolled by the secretive billionaire Koch brothers, who are also major financial backers of Governor Scott Walker.

The arch-right-wing Club for Growth is already running ads in the state, according to an email on Saturday from the Wisconsin Senate Democrats.

Our side is not silent, however. The Wisconsin AFL-CIO, in conjunction with AFSCME, SEIU, the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association, has made a significant buy in Wisconsin promoting this:

At Daily Kos, we're going to get the protesters' backs and start running some ads of our own. We are going to run $2,000 of Facebook ads across the entire state of Wisconsin urging people to watch the awesome video of the protests set to the music of Arcade Fire. The goal will be to have as many Wisconsinites as possible see the real faces of the protests, not the distorted images that Fox News will show.

Facebookad1r
Facebookad2

Contribute to Daily Kos on Orange to Blue to help us run these ads. We are going to run two ads a day, putting $500 behind each ad. The second day, we'll keep the ad that performs the best, and cycle in a new one.  The ads we're opening with are on the left. If we raise more than $2,000, we can keep going for more than two days.

In addition to contributing,  you can help out by posting the video onto your Facebook wall, and by liking the video when you see a friend post it on his or her wall. The embed code can be found on either YouTube or Vimeo. By combining the buzz that is already around the video with both volunteer action and paid ads, we can create a real multiplier effect to help the people of Wisconsin see the true face of the protests.

Once again, here is the video we are promoting:

Please, contribute $10 to Daily Kos to help us run these ads.

Discuss

Tue Feb 22, 2011 at 07:15 PM EST

Late afternoon/early evening open thread

by Jed Lewison

Stephen Colbert laments Rick Santorum's web search problem:

Discuss
shutdown

Today on a conference call with reporters, Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer blasted House Republicans over their refusal to negotiate on spending cuts. It left a strong impression that America should prepare itself for a government shutdown on March 5th.

The call was held as a response to Republicans shooting down Harry Reid's offer to keep the federal government operating for 30 days at 2010 spending levels while negotiations over deeper cuts take place. If federal government funded non-discretionary, non-defense spending at 2010 levels during 2011, it would result in a total of $41 billion in spending cuts.

Some highlights of Reid and Schumer's remarks:

  • Above all, Reid and Schumer decried the House GOP for demanding pre-conditions (aka, specific cuts) to any negotiations. They repeatedly described the GOP demand for pre-conditions as unserious, bad faith, and not adult. "Next they will be negotiating over the size of the conference table," Schumer added.
  • Reid said Senate Dems were willing to go along with deeper cuts than the $41 billion proposed in his continuing resolution. However, since even those cuts were very difficult for the Democratic Senate caucus to accept, any further cuts needed to be worked out in negotiations with Boehner. He would not negotiate through the press by specifying which cuts he would agree to beforehand.
  • Schumer said that many Republicans, such as Sarah Palin, wanted a government shutdown. He said they are trying to use "the threat, and God forbid, the actuality, of a government shutdown to get their way."
  • Schumer said John Boehner was a reasonable man, but that he needed to stand up to Republican freshman in the House who were not in Congress during the 1995 shutdown.
  • Reid said that Senate Democrats would not go along with the numerous riders that House Republicans had attached to their spending bill on matters like abortion. "How do they expect us to go along with that? We're not going to."
I've heard Harry Reid speak on a number of occasions, and this was most strident I've ever heard him. It gave me the sense that something similar to Wisconsin may be coming to the whole country, and soon.
Discuss

While this is a step in the right direction for Indiana working families, it certainly put Gov. Mitch Daniels between a rock and a hard place:

Gov. Mitch Daniels signaled this afternoon that Republicans should to drop the right-to-work bill that has brought the Indiana House to a standstill for two days and imperiled other measures.

Daniels told reporters this afternoon that he expects House Democrats will return to work if the bill dies. It would be unfortunate if other bills are caught up in the turmoil, he said.

He will not send out state police to corral the Democrats, the Republican governor said.

... because on one hand, a continuing standoff à la Wisconsin is a political loser for Daniels, while on the other sending any 2012 presidential aspirations he had down the toilet. On the bright side (from a progressive perspective anyway), he did manage to toss Scott Walker under the bus while doing so.  

Of course the big question is, will the Republican legislators listen to him?

Discuss

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos (MoE: ±3.1, 2/17-20, registered voters, Obama trendlines 2/11-13, all others 2/3-6):

FAVORABLE UNFAVORABLE NET CHANGE
PRESIDENT OBAMA 49 (49) 46 (46) 0
APPROVE DISAPPROVE NET CHANGE
PRESIDENT OBAMA 46 (47) 49 (48) -2
JOHN BOEHNER 30 (28) 32 (30) 0
NANCY PELOSI 28 (29) 56 (54) -3
CONGRESSIONAL DEMS 34 (37) 54 (49) -8
CONGRESSIONAL GOP 33 (32) 51 (52) +2
DEMS GOP NET CHANGE
GENERIC BALLOT 42 (45) 45 (41) -7
RIGHT DIRECTION WRONG TRACK NET CHANGE
RIGHT/WRONG 28 (33) 62 (57) -10
Most of the numbers here have held steady from previous weeks - you'll recall that we ask the Obama questions weekly, but all other questions get asked in alternating weeks. The most notable changes are the Dem drop in the generic ballot, along with a corresponding drop in Congressional Dem approval ratings. Independents gyrated the most on the generic ballot question, moving from +7 in favor of Dems to -10 against in just two weeks' time. There was also a pretty big fall in the right direction/wrong track question, but it was Democratic respondents, not independents, who showed the steepest drop.

Situations like this always make poll-watchers scratch their heads, but it seems like we just wound up with a particularly bearish group of Dems this week. On the RD/WT question, two weeks ago, Dems felt things were headed in the right direction by a 62-24 margin; this week, only 48% do, and 36% don't. That's a very steep decline in the absence of any obvious external factors, especially compared with much smaller drops among GOPers and indies.

Or it may just be that the Dems PPP talked to two weeks ago were feeling particularly cheerful - a month ago, they were 55-33 on this question, right in between the last two findings.
As for those indies? At the end of January, they were -15 against Dems on the generic ballot, so you could call this week's test something of an improvement, despite the more recent drop. With things bouncing around like this, it's hard to get a precise sense of what the mood of the Democratic and independent electorate is, but needless to say, we'll be watching it very carefully.

Discuss
USA Today Gallup Poll

USA Today:

The public strongly opposes laws taking away the collective bargaining power of public employee unions as a way to ease state financial troubles, according to a new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll.

The poll found that 61% would oppose a law in their state similar to one being considered in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law.

So Scott Walker's plan isn't just unpopular with the workers whose unions he's trying to bust, it's also deeply unpopular with the public at large. Busting up unions, destroying workers' right to organize is not just a bad idea—it's a bad idea that nobody wants.

The poll also found that 53% oppose reducing pay or benefits from government workers and that while 47% favored cuts in government programs, 48% opposed such cuts.

Discuss
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