Convention-al Wisdom: A Progressive Campaign Will Appeal To A Non-Neanderthal Electorate

"There's nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos." -- Jim Hightower

Here we go.  The experts, pundits and insiders are beginning to suggest that Hillary Clinton, having sewn up the nomination by tacking to the left, must now move to the right for the general election.  For example, The New York Times, "cites some Democrats" who are concerned that if Clinton embraces positions pushed by Bernie Sanders, it "could later hurt Mrs. Clinton and other Democratic candidates."  And who are these "some Democrats"?  We don't know because they aren't named.  The only source for this bit of conventional wisdom, comes from the founder of the "Third Way," the fiscally conservative, so-called centrist group that had far too much influence over the first President Clinton.

The mainstream media continues to yearn for a candidate who magically will unite the left and right by appealing to ordinary (white) Americans  -- a candidate who will eschew the polarizing effect of embracing such progressive concerns as climate change, economic inequality, Wall Street corruption, campaign finance, mass incarceration, immigration reform, reproductive rights and LGBT rights.  According to the conventional wisdom, Hillary's failure to hew to the right will not only endanger her candidacy, but it will be the singular cause of a dispirited electorate and increasing rancor and gridlock on Capital Hill.  As the always insufferable David Brooks warned a while back, Clinton's campaign will become destructive and divisive if she "dispens[es] with a broad persuasion campaign" that fails to attract the ever-elusive swing voter.

We will continue to hear more of this fact-free claptrap about the need to resist pressure from the Sanders campaign and move to the center; about how Clinton and her fellow Democrats must seek to attract moderates and independents rather than continue to engage in narrow and potentially divisive pandering to liberals. But this unquestioned conventional wisdom is sorely out of date. 

It ignores that the Republicans have moved so far to the right and are so ideologically extreme that the center is nowhere near where it used to be. 

It ignores that while the Republican Party is moving to the right, the electorate -- increasingly younger and less white -- is moving to the left.  Indeed, the underlying premise that liberal ideas are unpopular and inherently divisive is simply wrong, with recent polls consistently showing that Americans have shifted to more liberal positions on a variety of issues.

It ignores the outsized role that Americans who are angry and frustrated with the status quo will play in this year's election.  It is a fact that independents are no longer -- if they ever were -- the equivalent of middle-of-the-road, moderate voters.  They are, instead, reflective of those energized by the Sanders campaign who decry the corrupting influence of money in politics and the widening gap between the haves and have-nots.  Moving to the center is going to alienate, not engage them.

It ignores that Clinton's leftward-leaning campaign has done nothing to undermine her support with the various constituencies of the Democratic Party that she has energized and that what she now needs to do is engage the voters energized by Sanders. 

And it ignores that Clinton actually is pretty liberal.  Sure she had a bad patch of supporting her husband's horribly misguided policies in the 1990s, and there is no excusing her Iraq War vote.  But she does have long history of supporting core progressive positions on reproductive rights, on childhood poverty, on health care, on gun control and a host of other issues.  As pointed out at FiveThirtyEight, she was one of the most liberal members of the Senate when she was there and has a history of espousing liberal views.

So, here's some wisdom for the Convention and beyond that stands at odds with the conventional wisdom:  Clinton must unequivocally embrace a progressive party platform.  She must choose a running mate to her left.  At the Convention, Elizabeth Warren should be the keynote speaker, Bernie Sanders should nominate Clinton, and other progressives must play prime time roles.   

A campaign and candidacy that focuses on progressive themes and chastises Trump, Cruz/Fiorina or whoever runs on the Republican side for not believing in climate change, for seeking to undermine women's reproductive rights, for their hostility to LGBT rights, for inhumane immigration proposals, for insisting that tax cuts for the wealthy are always the cure for what ails the economy, for facile demagoguery in the place of foreign policy ideas, might alienate extremist Republicans.  But such an approach will appeal to the wide swath of non-Neanderthal voters needed to elect the next president. 

Thanks For Playing, Bernie

I would seem to fit the demographic that has come out full throttle for Bernie Sanders -- I consider myself very progressive in my politics and live in Berkeley, California, very comfortably among my fellow progressives; I am a (relatively) well educated, white, professional; I have been a big fan of Bernie Sanders since he was elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont in 1981, when I was in college there.

Yet, as I've written before, I just haven't felt the Bern.  To me, Sanders has been a great protest candidate who has invaluably raised the profile of critical issues about the root problems of our democracy and our economy.  He has no doubt pushed Hillary Clinton to take more progressive positions than she otherwise would have.  He has excited young (white) voters and drawn wildly enthusiastic crowds of progressive-minded people who will hopefully remain engaged in the political process.

But I have never viewed Bernie Sanders as a realistic candidate for President.  If his Congressional career and presidential campaign are any guide, he is far better at oppositional politics and protest than policy.  His proposals -- from single payer health care to free college tuition -- are wonderful, worthy ideas that lack any chance of getting through Congress. His overarching goal to stop money from corrupting the political system is righteous and admirable, but he has yet to realistically explain how he would make this happen. 

And, crucially, while Sanders' national poll numbers remain high, if he were actually seen as a threat to Republicans -- or if he were to actually win the Democratic nomination -- he would be swift boated and red baited faster than you can say "Joseph McCarthy" by an enormously well-financed Republican machine.  Sanders is a socialist Jew whose radical left wing past would provide endless fodder for devastating attacks. He honeymooned in the Soviet Union.  He sought conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War.  He has called for eliminating the CIA.  He served as an elector for the Socialist Workers Party at a time when it supported abolishing the military budget and seeking solidarity with revolutionary regimes in Iran and Cuba. These positions might not matter to progressives -- indeed, they may comprise a badge of honor --  but in a time where Republicans so expertly prey on American fears of terrorist attacks, they would be used to undermine his support among moderates and independents critical to a Democratic victory.  Look what they did to John Kerry, who actually served heroically in Viet Nam.

It surely has been dispiriting and frustrating to his legions of supporters to find that Sanders' candidacy has not been embraced by the wider Democratic Party and appears to have been undermined by the Party's Establishment.  But it is important to remember that Sanders is not really a Democrat.  He has long been an Independent who as a member of Congress chose to caucus with Democrats, and has joined the Party solely for his presidential run. 

Moreover, unlike Clinton, Sanders has not raised funds to support Democrats down the ballot -- a critical step for any candidate who hopes to lead his or her Party.  And, that's a fundamental problem for Sanders when it comes to winning the Democratic Party's nomination -- he doesn't want to lead the Democratic Party.  He wants to lead a left-leaning political revolution (not that there is anything wrong with that).  But the Democratic Party for better or worse (and often, for worse) put rules in place to limit the ability of insurgent candidates to win the nomination.  If Sanders wants to revolutionize the political system, perhaps he will be able to change these rules for the next insurgent.  In any event, while the Sanders campaign complains about the unfairness of Super Delegates, the bottom line is that Clinton is beating him handily when it comes to pledged delegates and the popular vote. 

And now that Clinton has won the New York primary so decisively, Sanders' very difficult path to the nomination has become nearly impossible.  Nate Silver puts Clinton's chances to win somewhere between 95 and 99.5%. 

So what's next for Sanders? 

He doesn't need to drop out of the race.  He should keep campaigning on his signature issues.   He should go to the Convention and push for changing the rules to make it less arduous for a grassroots candidate to win the nomination.  He should begin campaigning for Senate and House candidates in key races and urge his supporters to participate in local races where they could make an enormous difference.  Most of all he should stop attacking Hillary Clinton's judgment and character.  He needs to make absolutely clear to Hillary-haters, Ralph Nader dead-enders and Independents that Clinton is not the scurrilous enemy caricatured by the right -- that it is the Republican candidates who pose a real and present danger to our society and must be defeated. 

You say you want a revolution?  Let's elect a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate (think Elizabeth Warren as chair of the Banking Committee, the return of Russ Feingold, and other progressives in key leadership positions), more Democratic representation in the House, and more Democrats in state houses.  A Democratic President and Senate will lead to the confirmation of nominees to the Supreme Court (and lower federal courts) that will tip the balance to the left for the first time in decades, and transform the Court from the most corporate-friendly one since the 1930s to one that is far less deferential to polluters and Wall Street fraudsters, and far more protective of women's health and reproductive rights, LGBT rights, criminal justice, consumer rights, voting rights and civil rights.  Citizens United and other unprincipled decisions of recent terms can be overturned.

That might not be considered revolutionary, but I'll take it. 

Three Easy Steps For Democrats

The Republican Party is trying to cope with the overtly racist, xenophobic, misogynist, homophobic, climate-change-denying chickens that have come home not only to roost, but to crap all over the GOP Establishment.  Many high powered Republicans are threatening to bolt the Party or at least disavow Donald Trump, their Party's current frontrunner.  The most realistic alternative is the universally loathed Ted Cruz.  There is talk of a brokered convention that could result in a Party-shattering bloodbath and a possible third party challenge.  Meanwhile, particularly if Trump becomes the nominee, Republican candidates for Congress will have to decide whether to support him or run away from him, and thereby alienating either independents who will instead vote for Democrats or Trump supporters who will instead burn crosses. 

This fracturing of the Grand Old Party provides the Democrats with an incredible opportunity to restore some measure of sanity -- and humanity -- to the country's political institutions.  They have a chance to win the Presidency, reclaim a majority in the Senate, and reshape a Supreme Court that has been a conservative sinkhole for decades.  But being Democrats, they are equally likely to screw things up with their preternatural inclination to avoid partisan confrontation, move to the center, and misread the zeitgeist. 

I am not a political consultant, but I play one in the blogosphere.  And in that role, I want to suggest three inter-related steps that the Democrats must take to ensure a progressive victory in November and beyond.

1.  Supreme Court Matters.  President Obama must nominate an indisputably qualified, left-of-center candidate for the Supreme Court -- and soon.  One potential candidate, who is reportedly being vetted by the White House, is Judge Jane Kelly.  She is a former public defender from Iowa with a compelling life story.  Kelly currently sits on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, having been confirmed by the Senate in a 96-0 vote.  What makes her particularly attractive is the way her nomination will discomfort Senator Charles Grassley, the current Republican Chair of the Judiciary Committee and the ugly face of the obstructionist right, who strongly backed her confirmation to the federal bench in 2013.  

The inevitable Republican refusal to hold confirmation hearings for such an otherwise  unassailable Supreme Court nominee must then become a major political issue.  Obama should hammer the Republicans daily for their unprecedented refusal to abide by the Constitution and exercise their duty to give "advice and consent. Senate Democrats should hold their own mock confirmation hearings if the Republicans won't do their job.  This should be treated like Ted Koppel-style hostage crisis reporting (e.g., "This is Day 57 of the Republicans failure to hold confirmation hearings"). Democratic presidential and senate candidates must make this a central aspect of their campaigns, asking whether We the People really want Donald Trump (or Ted Cruz, for that matter) to choose the next several Supreme Court Justices.

Not only will this provide a perfect vehicle to illustrate Republican obstruction and hypocrisy, but it would shed a critical light on what should be a key election issue.  Democrats need to stress that a liberal majority on the Court can make an enormous difference in people's lives and what horrifying consequences are in store if a conservative majority is restored and then solidified.  It needs to be stressed over and over how the Court can be transformed from the most corporate-friendly court since the 1930s to one that is far less deferential to polluters and Wall Street fraudsters, and far more protective of women's health and reproductive rights, privacy, voting rights, labor and civil rights.  Citizens United and other unprincipled decisions of recent terms can be overturned.

2.  Stay to the Left.  Bernie Sanders' campaign has obviously resonated with a wide range of committed, enthusiastic voters and tapped into legitimate anger and frustration about the current state of our politics.  There is no question that he has moved the Party -- and Hillary Clinton -- to the left.  It wasn't that long ago that Democrats were afraid of being dubbed "Liberal," and now, thanks to Bernie, the two candidates are fighting over who is the true Progressive.  His calls for changing a rigged, corrupt political system and fighting the inequality it has engendered need to continue to be a critical aspect of a Democratic campaign no matter who is nominated. At the same time, the Democrats must confront and address issues uniquely faced by people of color whose support is absolutely necessary for a victory in November.  And they must focus on convincing women voters, including those unaffiliated with either political party, that their health, privacy, reproductive rights, and economic well-being will be at risk if a Republican wins the presidency.

(On a related note, Hillary and Bernie need to insist that Debbie Wasserman Schultz be removed as the head of the Democratic National Committee immediately. She has been an absolute disaster for the Party, and, as a shill for Wall Street, she is the exact wrong person to be hosting the Convention.  Her latest inexcusable stunt is the co-sponsoring a bill to delay and gut implementation of regulations developed by the Elizabeth Warren-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that would crack down on usurious payday lenders who prey on the poor.)

3.  Fear Itself.  It seems likely that Donald Trump will be the Republican Party's nominee, but we could end up with one of the other candidates who, with the exception of Ted Cruz, only seem less frightening by comparison.  But all of them are extreme right wing zealots -- and the Democrats need to scare the shit out of the public by explaining what this country would look like if they took power.  Racism, religious intolerance and misogyny have long been pillars of Republican orthodoxy but they are no longer shrouded in coded language and dog whistles. This makes it far easier expose the Republicans for what they really stand for.

Voters need to realize that the leading Republican candidates have little respect for or understanding of the Constitution -- they intend to round up immigrants and Muslims, build a wall on our southern border, engage in torture and other war crimes, and essentially create a White Christian Nation.  Seriously.  In addition, they all maintain extreme positions on abortion rights -- some more extreme than others -- and their Party's relentless war on women's health would only be ratcheted up by a far right Supreme Court majority that would certainly overturn Roe v. Wade.  Then there's their contempt for science and stubborn refusal to accept the reality of climate change, their promise to repeal Obamacare without an alternate plan to provide health care beyond the availability of emergency rooms, and their cynical economic plans that mainstream economists conclude will create enormous tax breaks for the wealthy while exploding the deficit.

The truly frightening world view and policy positions of Trump, Cruz and their cohorts are so far being drowned out by the posturing, rhetoric and sophomoric insults that seem to comprise the sum total of Republican debate.  As we laugh at how crazy it is that these fuckers have actually resorted to dick jokes, we are in danger of losing sight of how dangerous they really are.
 
The roadmap for Democrats is pretty simple:  1) The Supreme Court; 2) A Progressive Platform; and 3) Fear.  Don't blow it.

[Related posts:  Justice Scalia Has Left The Building; Public Defender for Justice; Republicans Will Not Release Their Stranglehold On The Supreme Court; Schadenfreude Tinged With Fear As The GOP Devolves Into The Party Of Trump]

The Mainstream Media Has No Sense Of Direction: Hillary Clinton Must Go Left, Not Right

I feel like I'm flogging a dead donkey here, but it is crazy-making how the mainstream media continues to yearn for a Democratic candidate who magically will unite the left and right by appealing to ordinary Americans aka the White Working Class and Red State Democrats -- a candidate who will eschew the polarizing effect of embracing such progressive concerns as economic inequality suppression of voting rights, mass incarceration and immigration reform, not to mention reproductive and LGBT rights.  According to the conventional wisdom, Hillary's failure to hew to the right will be the singular cause of a dispirited electorate and increasing rancor and gridlock on Capital Hill.  Republicans, of course, bear no responsibility for their refusal to accept the legitimacy of any Democratic president since LBJ, their increasingly extremist (and unpopular) positions on these issues or their preternatural inability to govern responsibly.

An infuriating article on the front page of last Sunday's New York Times, heavily relied on the two most conservative Democrats in the Senate who expressed their dismay that Hillary is not wooing the voters in their bright red states -- North Dakota and West Virginia -- but has instead chosen to focus on states that she can actually win.  The article cautions that taking "liberal policy positions" might "fire up Democrats" but by foregoing "a broader strategy that could help lift the party with her" could mean "missing out on the kind of spirited conversation that can be a unifying feature of a presidential election" and leave her "if she wins, with the same difficulties Mr. Obama has faced in governing with a Republican-controlled Congress." 

This was followed by the insufferable David Brooks aka Moral Hazard's trolling about how destructive and divisive Hillary's campaign will be if she "dispens[es] with a broad persuasion campaign" that fails to attract the ever-elusive swing voter.  Ron Fournier, another favorite of the punditocracy, also weighed in that Hillary is taking the wrong path by pandering to the Democrats' "most devoted partisans" rather than appealing to the "broadest possible audience."  According to Fournier, the problem is that even if she wins, such "a polarizing, opportunistic candidate assumes the presidency with no standing to convert campaign promises into results."  Chuck Todd says basically the same thing, that campaigns that don't "engage in persuasion," but instead seek to come out ahead in in a polarized America "makes governing harder than it already was."

The underlying premise that liberal ideas are inherently divisive is simply wrong.  Recent polls show that Americans are shifting to the left on a variety of issues.  A campaign that focuses on the above-mentioned progressive themes and chastises Republican candidates for not believing in climate change, for wanting to deport the children of immigrants, for insisting that tax cuts for the wealthy are always the cure for what ails the economy and for seeking to disenfranchise voters, might alienate extremist Republicans but are hardly an anathema to swing and independent voters.

The problem isn't Democrats failing to reach for a middle ground.  It is that Republicans keep moving farther to the right.  Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institute accurately describes Republicans as a "radical insurgency—ideologically extreme, contemptuous of the inherited policy regime, scornful of compromise, unpersuaded by conventional understanding of facts, evidence, and science; and dismissive of the legitimacy of their political opposition."  Nancy Letourneau explains that "what makes governing harder . . . is that we have one political party that is catering to an ever-decreasing group of voters that completely rejects any form of compromise to their agenda."  As Christopher Ingraham reports, "political scientists have known for years that political polarization is largely a one-sided phenomenon: in recent decades the Republican Party has moved to the right much faster than Democrats have moved to the left."  He details data that measures political polarization showing "in the most recent Congress nearly 90 percent of Republican House members are not politically moderate. By contrast, 90 percent of Democratic members are moderates."

Nevertheless, the mainstream media continues to puzzle over where the polarization and gridlock originated.  Chuck Todd poses it as a chicken/egg question:  "What came first -- this red-blue campaign strategy we've seen since 2000, or America's political/geographical/ cultural polarization."

The notion that Republicans in Congress would cooperate with another President Clinton if only she would present a more inclusive approach to governance is insane.  They impeached her husband, for God's sake, a president who attempted -- much to the dismay of many a progressive -- to embrace inclusiveness and appeal to Republican concerns (e.g., welfare reform, stricter drug laws, DOMA).

Charles Pierce describes far better than I, "the great failure of our elite political media -- a complete disinclination to look at what is plainly right there in front of them. It is simply not considered good form among our political elites to note that one of our two political parties has lost its mind and that it has committed itself to wrecking our politics if it doesn't always get its way."

I've written before about reverse barometers.  The advice from David Brooks, Chuck Todd and Ron Fournier on how Hillary Clinton should run her campaign is useful only insofar as it shows that by doing the opposite she is really on to something.

Vermont's Finest: The Importance Of Being Bernie

"It's a little-known fact, but we reporters could successfully sell Sanders or Elizabeth Warren or any other populist candidate as a serious contender for the White House if we wanted to. Hell, we told Americans it was okay to vote for George Bush, a man who moves his lips when he reads."  -- Matt Taibbi, Rolling Stone Magazine

In the spring of 1978, during my freshman year of college at the University of Vermont, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield opened an ice cream parlor in a renovated gas station in downtown Burlington.  There was no Chunky Monkey in those days but the ice cream was incredible, and it wasn't long before Ben & Jerry's became a national sensation.  Significantly, Ben & Jerry's not only made great ice cream, but they capitalized, so to speak, on their success to give back to the community and fund many charitable works.

In my senior year, Bernie Sanders was elected mayor of Burlington, another progressive, socially conscious local phenomenon that has since gone national.  In 1990, after four successful terms as mayor, Sanders -- a self-described Democratic-Socialist -- won election to the House of Representatives as an independent.  In 2006, he was elected to the Senate and has been a passionate, eloquent -- often singular -- voice for the left ever since.

Bernie Sanders has been a tireless defender of social and economic justice since well before he or Vermont's finest ice cream became household names.  He has relentlessly spoken out against growing inequality (“Our middle class is disappearing. We have more people living in poverty than almost any time in the history of America.”)  But that's not all.  He has pointed to the destructive force that Big Money is having on our electoral politics, has strenuously called for stringent environmental regulations to combat climate change -- including strong opposition to the Keystone XL, has been an ardent advocate for gay rights, has insisted on expansion of not restrictions on Social Security, and has pushed for more effective regulations on Wall Street. 

His politics can be summed up with a question he asks on his website: “Are we prepared to take on the enormous economic and political power of the billionaire class, or do we continue to slide into economic and political oligarchy?” 

Bernie Sanders is prepared to take them on.  He is running for President in order to do so.  This is great news.  Not because I think he can win.  And not because I'm not ready for Hillary Clinton -- (please read Scared Shitless Into Pragmatism for my reasons for supporting Hillary).  It is great news because it is critical for the Democrats to have a contested primary process that includes a candidate who will articulate populist, progressive ideas that might otherwise not make it into the national discourse.  Such a process will also pull Hillary leftward (a direction she appears already to be leaning, I'm happy to say, with her important speech on criminal justice reform and mass incarceration.)

As Robert Reich says, as "a strong voice to the left of Hillary Clinton, [Bernie Sanders will] give her room to be tougher on Wall Street and big corporations than she might otherwise be. More importantly, he’ll allow a national conversation about the savage inequalities that are destroying the fabric of American life, our economy, and our democracy – in contrast to the Republican clown car whose conversation for the next year and a half will be about the virtues of 'trickle-down economics' and the 'free market.'” 

Beyond how Bernie will help Hillary, Matt Taibbi makes a great point when he notes that the failure of the media to take Bernie's candidacy seriously "should really be read as a profound indictment of our political system, which is now so openly an oligarchy that any politician who doesn't have the blessing of the bosses is marginalized before he or she steps into the ring."  Taibbi is right that the mainstream media's "lapdog mentality is deeply ingrained and most Beltway scribes prefer to wait for a signal from above before they agree to take anyone not sitting atop a mountain of cash seriously."

The great irony is that Bernie Sanders could only be a legitimate candidate for president if we already had in place a political system that was not corrupted by Big Money and Big Media -- a system for which he is so passionately fighting.  Hopefully, his candidacy will help expose these flaws.  Hopefully, the power of his message will also force the media to grapple with a wider range of issues and solutions.  And hopefully, his ideas will help shape the Democratic platform. 

In any event, Bernie's candidacy is going to make the election season a whole lot more entertaining.

Government Is Not The Problem

Robbie Conal

Democrats have been on the defensive about the role of government at least since Ronald Reagan declared in his first inaugural address that  "government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem."  Reagan was so effective in portraying government intervention as nothing more than providing assistance to Cadillac-driving welfare queens that his successor, Bush the Elder, was able to  disparage his opponent Michael Dukakis merely by referring to him as a "liberal."  And when the Democrats finally took back the White House, it was Bill Clinton who boasted in his second State of the Union address that "the era of big government is over." 

E.J. Dionne argues in an excellent column today that we must "turn Ronald Reagan’s declaration on its head: Opposition to government isn’t the solution. Opposition to government was and remains the problem."

Decades of anti-government rhetoric have made liberals wary of claiming their legacy as supporters of the state’s positive role. That’s why they have had so much trouble making the case for President Obama’s stimulus program passed by Congress in 2009. It ought to be perfectly obvious: When the private sector is no longer investing, the economy will spin downward unless the government takes on the task of investing. And such investments — in transportation and clean energy, refurbished schools and the education of the next generation — can prime future growth.

Yet the drumbeat of propaganda against government has made it impossible for the plain truth about the stimulus to break through. It was thus salutary that Douglas Elmendorf, the widely respected director of the Congressional Budget Office, told a congressional hearing last week that 80 percent of economic experts surveyed by the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business agreed that the stimulus got the unemployment rate lower at the end of 2010 than it would have been otherwise. Only 4 percent disagreed. The stimulus, CBO concluded, added as many as 3.3 million jobs during the second quarter of 2010, and it may have kept us from lapsing back into recession.

So when conservatives say, as they regularly do, that “government doesn’t create jobs,” the riposte should be quick and emphatic: “Yes it has, and yes, it does!”

Indeed, our unemployment rate is higher today than it should be because conservatives blocked additional federal spending to prevent layoffs by state and local governments — and because progressives, including Obama, took too long to propose more federal help. Obama’s jobs program would be a step in the right direction, and he’s right to tout it now. But he should have pushed for a bigger stimulus from the beginning. The anti-government disposition has so much power that Democrats and moderate Republicans allowed themselves to be intimidated into keeping it too small.

As Dionne concludes, "It is past time that we affirm government’s ability to heal the economy, and its responsibility for doing so."

Hijacking The Wisconsin Uprising

Why Electoral Politics Sold Out the Popular Uprising in the Badger State -- and Why It’s Not All Over 

By Andy Kroll, cross-posted from TomDispatch

The revelers watched in stunned disbelief, cocktails in hand, dressed for a night to remember. On the big-screen TV a headline screamed in crimson red: "Projected Winner: Scott Walker." It was 8:49 p.m. In parts of Milwaukee, people learned that news networks had declared Wisconsin’s governor the winner while still in line to cast their votes. At the election night party for Walker's opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, supporters talked and cried and ordered more drinks. Barrett soon took the stage to concede, then waded into the crowd where a distraught woman slapped him in the face.

Walker is the first governor in American history to win a recall election. His lieutenant governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, dispatched her recall challenger no less decisively. So, too, did three Republican state senators in their recall elections. Democrats avoided a GOP sweep with a win in the sixth and final senate recall vote of the season, in Wisconsin's southeastern 21st district, but that was small consolation. Put simply, Democrats and labor unions got rolled.

The results of Tuesday's elections are being heralded as the death of public-employee unions, if not the death of organized labor itself. Tuesday's results are also seen as the final chapter in the story of the populist uprising that burst into life last year in the state capital of Madison. The Cheddar Revolution, so the argument goes, was buried in a mountain of ballots.

But that burial ceremony may prove premature. Most of the conclusions of the last few days, left and right, are likely wrong.


The energy of the Wisconsin uprising was never electoral. The movement’s mistake: letting itself be channeled solely into traditional politics, into the usual box of uninspired candidates and the usual line-up of debates, primaries, and general elections. The uprising was too broad and diverse to fit electoral politics comfortably. You can't play a symphony with a single instrument. Nor can you funnel the energy and outrage of a popular movement into a single race, behind a single well-worn candidate, at a time when all the money in the world from corporate “individuals” and right-wing billionaires is pouring into races like the Walker recall.

Wisconsin Post-Mortem

DonkeyHotey

"Money can't buy you love, but it sure can by you power."  As  Matt Rothschild says:

Walker raised seven-to-ten times as much money as Barrett did. The governor collected six-figure checks from a rogue’s gallery of the far right: Bob Perry of Swift Boat infamy gave $500,000. Sheldon Adelson gave $250,000, Richard Devos gave $250,000, Foster Friess gave $100,000.

A wrinkle in Wisconsin campaign finance laws, which allows for unlimited contributions to a candidate between the time recall papers are filed and the day that the election formally gets scheduled, gave Walker four and a half months to sit on the lap of every rightwing roofer in Missouri (two of whom gave him $250,000 checks), every conservative Wall Street financier, every reactionary Texas oilman that he could find.

On top of that, the Koch Brothers poured in millions through their front groups, and the RNC funneled money in, as did other Republican organizations.

Thus, John Nichols writes:

The Wisconsin result—which followed upon a campaign that saw Walker outspend his Democratic challenger by perhaps 8–1, as the governor’s billionaire backers flooded the state with tens of millions of dollars in “independent” expenditures on his behalf—should send up red flares for Democrats as they prepare for this fall’s presidential and congressional elections. The right has developed a far more sophisticated money-in-politics template than it has ever before employed. That template worked in Wisconsin, on behalf of a deeply divisive and scandal-plagued governor, and it worked.

But, as Nichols is quick to point out, organized money will not always beat organized people, and the anti-Walker forces had other disadvantages.  First, it must be noted, "they were let down by national Democratic players who never quite recognized that Republican National Committee chairman Reince Preibus and “independent” groups on the right were testing and perfecting strategies for November."

As Rothschild tells it, in contrast to the "rightwing moneymen and the Republican Party," who understood the importance of this election, "the DNC was stingy, and Barack Obama couldn’t find Wisconsin with GPS and a flashlight. Hell, he was in Minneapolis on Friday and didn’t even bother to drive across the Mississippi to set foot in Wisconsin. He never showed up. Neither did Joe Biden. All Obama did was send a tweet on election morning."

Another problem was the unpopularity of recall elections, generally.  Rothschild notes that exit polls showed that "60 percent of Wisconsin voters said recall should be used only for “misconduct” in office, and not for other reasons."

It is important to recognize, therefore, that Walker won not, as Republicans want us to believe, because of the popularity of their ideas, but because of their staggering financial advantage, because the organized right made Walker's victory a national priority, and due to legitimate concerns voters had about using the recall procedure. 

Nevertheless, as Greg Sargent states, "Scott Walker’s victory in tonight’s recall battle is a major wake-up call for the left, Democrats, and unions about the true nature of the new, post-Citizens United political landscape, and it should force a major reckoning among liberals and Democrats about what this means for the future."

Wisconsin Needs You

As Meteor Blades at Daily Kos puts it:

Wisconsin progressives have inspired us, invigorated us and built an aggressive fight against the right-wing's continuing efforts to smash unions, trash equal pay for women, give tax breaks to corporations, raise taxes on low-income people and make it harder for voters to actually vote. Today that battle culminates in the recall election against Gov. Scott Walker. But it's far more than just an effort in one state against one governor. Whatever its unique qualities, it epitomizes the struggle we face nationwide. Today, we progressives are all Wisconsinites.

If you're in Wisconsin, We Are Wisconsin has field offices around the state running canvasses you can participate in.  If you don't live in Wisconsin, you can still help get out the vote by clicking here and signing up for Friends and Neighbors, created by the AFL-CIO and Workers' Voice, which will put you in touch with Wisconsin voters you have already connected with online.

Wisconsin Recall: A Battle We Can't Afford To Lose

By Isaiah J. Poole, cross-posted from Campaign for America's Future

For the progressive movement, it's put up or shut up time in Wisconsin.

We said that we despise the agenda of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. We cheered the thousands of people who occupied the state capitol in 2011 to protest Walker's ramming legislation crippling public employee unions through the legislature. We celebrated when a legislature recall election led to the ousting of two of the state senators who backed the legislation. And we were bolstered when a record number of signatures put a Walker recall election on the ballot.


But now that it's crunch time, we are dangerously close to losing it all. And the consequences of a recall defeat are almost impossible to overstate. Imagine the gloating on Fox News and the right-wing blogs if Walker wins on Tuesday, and the claims that our insurgent movement for rebuilding the middle class is bloodied and can be left for dead.

If we are really serious about standing up against the unholy alliance of conservative extremism and corporate money that has imposed an austerity agenda on the working class while further enriching the wealthy, then we need to help the people in Wisconsin who are trying against the odds to win this Wisconsin recall.

We're asking people this weekend to sign up with Worker's Voice and contribute time to help get out the vote against Walker.

Workers' Voice is a new political action committee affiliated with the AFL-CIO that offers get-out-the-vote tools that leverage the power of your social networks with information in the voter file.
You can help identify voters, make phone calls, or send your own personalized direct mail to people you know. And you can do it all from home, no matter where you live. And in an election race that polls suggest could go either way, every phone call, every email, every knock on a door will matter.

What has me particularly fired up is an article progressive commentator Sally Kohn has posted on The Daily Beast, with a headline that claims "Democrats Lose Momentum in Wisconsin: The left has seemed more comfortable being angry than channeling that emotion into influence."

I respect Sally Kohn and think she's a smart political analyst. But I would really like to see her proved wrong.

Her sense is that grassroots progressives did a good job pulling together a movement based on opposition to Walker's policies—not just on labor rights but also on a budget that, like national conservative policies, cuts services vital to the middle class and poor while cutting taxes to the wealthy and corporations. But the momentum fell apart when it came time to take that energy and translate it into actual change at the ballot box.

"Progressives have had a far harder time yoking grassroots activism to electoral politics than conservatives, who quickly managed to translate Tea Party rabble rousing into political power," Kohn writes.

It is true that progressives need a more solid strategy for electoral and political gains in the face of how, with the aid of the Citizens United ruling, the right and its corporate backers have dominated the political landscape. That is a key focus of the Take Back the American Dream conference, where many of the plenary meetings and strategy sessions will be focused both on how progressives can score gains in the November elections and on how progressives can affect the course of economic policy during December's "taxmageddon," when Congress must decide how to handle the expiration of the Bush tax cuts, payroll tax relief and a deal on federal spending.

But, as The Nation's John Nichols told me in my interview with him today, people power has already accomplished more in Wisconsin than skeptics in either the left or the right expected. As he reminds us, the Capitol protests were supposed to quickly fizzle, but they didn't. The public was supposed to massively turn against supporters of public employees, but they didn't. The Walker recall was expected to flail in the midst of the harsh Wisconsin winter. It didn't.

So now we come to this moment, where it will become clear to the nation whether the 99 percent can in fact use people power to push back against the 1 percent and insist on government policies that restore a measure of prosperity to the majority of Americans, not just those at the very top.

Workers Voice is one way you can help, but it is of course not the only way. However you choose to get involved, this is the time to move from the sideline to the front line.

Then, at our Take Back the American Dream conference, we can do the work of building on a Wisconsin victory. That conference will feature Paul Krugman, Van Jones, Sen. Bernie Sanders, Ai-jen Poo, Sandra Fluke, Gov. Howard Dean, Melissa Harris-Perry, Chris Hayes and Katrina vanden Heuvel. (Click here to register.)


When you consider all that is at stake throughout the country, as conservatives continue their assault on worker's rights and economic security at both the state and national level, we literally cannot afford to lose on Tuesday.

What The Bain Debate Is Really About

By Terrance Heath, cross-posted from Campaign for America's Future

DonkeyHotey

The 2012 presidential election may go down as one of the strangest political seasons in recent memory, for the simple reason that the influence of the financial sector in politics, policy and the economy has caused Republicans to sound like Democrats and Democrat to sound like Republicans — usually with confounding results.

When Republicans sound like Democrats, like Newt Gingrich attacking Mitt Romney's record at Bain Capital, they tend to start arguments they can't win. When Democrats start sounding like Republicans, like Cory Booker defending Bain Capital, they tend forfeit arguments they could win. That's because, in both cases, the politicians are arguing about the wrong things, in order to avoid the real argument  — the one America needs to have, and Americans need to win; the argument over what kind of economy we will have going forward.

Gingrich's attack on Romney's record confused many conservatives, who equated it with an attack on capitalism itself. Newark Mayor Cory Booker echoed the concerns of confused conservatives when he called the Obama campaigns ads attacking Romney's record at Bain Capital a "nauseating" attack on private equity, labeling them a distraction. "It's either going to be a small campaign about this crap or it's going to be a big campaign, in my opinion, about the issues that the American public cares about," Booker said.

What Booker, Democrats like him, and conservatives now lauding his diatribe ignore or don't realize is that the issues affecting voters don't come much bigger and don't get much more real than the kind of capitalism Bain represents.

Bain Capitalism

As Digby said, if Romney is going to run on his Bain Capital record and tout his private equity background as his main qualification for the presidency, then his track record at Bain is fair game. I summed up that track record in my original post about his brand of "vulture capitalism."

A former managing partner at Bain, in an interview with the Los Angeles Times, made it clear that job creation was never the point at Bain.

Bain managers said their mission was clear. "I never thought of what I do for a living as job creation," said Marc B. Walpow, a former managing partner at Bain who worked closely with Romney for nine years before forming his own firm. "The primary goal of private equity is to create wealth for your investors."

Under Romney's leadership, Bain certainly created wealth for its investors, no matter what happened to the companies it acquired or the the people worked for them. The Wall Street Journal's revealing look at Romney's time at Bain shows that 22% of the companies Bain invested on under Romney's watch either filed for bankruptcy, reorganized, or closed their doors — sometimes with substantial job losses. As Pat Garofalo pointed out, that's nearly one fourth of the companies Bain invested in.

Robert Reich Explains How We Need A New Era Of Reform Based On Public -- Not Private -- Morality

Romney Has Public Morality And Private Morality Upside Down

by Robert Reich, cross-posted from his website



Mitt Romney’s reaction to J.P. Morgan Chase’s mounting losses from reckless trades is “the market will take care of it.” His spokesman says “no taxpayer money was at risk” so we don’t need more financial regulation. Romney has even promised to repeal Dodd-Frank if he’s elected president.

Yet at the same time, Romney has come out strongly against same-sex marriage. He’s also against abortion. He has no problem with government intruding on the most intimate of decisions a person makes.

He’s got private and public morality upside down. He doesn’t want to regulate where regulation is necessary — at the highest reaches of the economy, where public immorality has cost us dearly, and will cost even more unless boardroom behavior is constrained. Yet he wants to regulate where regulation is least appropriate — at the level of the individual, in bedrooms and other intimate spaces, where private morality should govern.

This is a dangerous confusion. It should be a matter of personal choice whom to marry and when to have children. But it is undoubtedly a matter of public choice whether big banks should be allowed to take the kind of risky bets that plunged the economy into the worst downturn since the Great Depression, and whether people with great wealth and should be able to buy our democracy with huge campaign contributions.

Please see the attached video and pass it on.

 Robert Reich is Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley.  He writes a blog at www.robertreich.org.  His most recent book is Beyond Outrage.

Occupy May Day

Eric Drooker

 By Sarah Van Gelder, cross-posted from Yes Magazine

If the mainstream media was confused about Occupy Wall Street in its early days in Zuccotti Park, they’re bound to be completely befuddled this May Day.

May Day already has a lot piled on it. In pre-Christian Europe, May Day was a time to dance, light bonfires, sing, and carry on in celebration of the changing seasons. May Day also marks the anniversary of the 1886 Haymarket massacre, which occurred during a Chicago strike for the eight-hour work day. Also called International Workers’ Day, it’s a holiday in more than 80 countries.

And most recently, the U.S. immigrants right movement has used May 1st for massive street demonstrations and strikes aimed at reforming laws and policies that result in imprisonment, deportation, and discrimination against undocumented people.

This May Day, the Occupy movement is getting involved, calling it “The day without the 99 percent.” What will May Day look like with so many traditions riding on it?

May Day Collaborations—from Bike Caravan to Free University

The way plans are shaping up, in at least some locations around the United States, it could be big, festive, and importantly, include elements of all the May Day traditions. And it could be profoundly different than the big days of action we’ve seen in the past. In the weeks leading up to May Day, various movements have been collaborating. And people will not only be protesting, they’ll be liberating spaces for education, the arts, general assemblies, and teach-ins.

There will be marches, of course. Some permitted, planned, and predictable. Others will be spontaneous, possibly disruptive. In spite of all the police planning (and collaboration with Wall Street private security forces) law enforcement will be kept guessing.

There will be fairs, free food, teach-ins, music, bicycling, marches, and fiestas.

In New York, occupiers are leading up to May Day by organizing 99 pickets in support of workers around the city, from jazz musicians to taxi drivers to laundry workers. The LGBTQTSGNC (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer, Trans, Two-Spirit and Gender Non-Conforming) contingent will be out in force. They’ll be a “Guitarmy” marching from New York’s Bryant Park to Madison Square Park, with 1,000 guitars.

At Madison Square Park, there will be a Free University, organized by students fed up with tuition hikes and a student debt burden that’s now reached $1 trillion. Educators will bring classes to the park, there will be skill sharing and workshops.

At Bryant Park, they’ll be a “free” market—where everything is actually free— as well as public art and “opportunities for action.”

In Los Angeles, bike and car caravans will travel to the city center from the four cardinal directions. Along the way, there may be union strike action, and there will be “flash occupations,” free food, and direct action along the way, targeting the foreclosure crisis. Tuition hikes, income inequality, immigrant rights, police violence, the criminalizing of the homeless—the Los Angeles caravans each will focus on some combination of these topics.

In the San Francisco Bay area, nurses and social workers have declared a strike. Bridge and transportation workers and occupiers will attempt to shut down the Golden Gate Bridge. There will be “flying pickets” to shut down banks and business associations.

In Seattle, the group Hip Hop Occupiers to Decolonize is inviting artists, families, and the general public to a day of music, dance, live art, and speakers. There will also be marches of immigrants, occupiers, and workers.

Seattle occupiers will be serving free breakfasts to get the day off to a good start, something that can get you fined in Philadelphia, where the mayor has made it illegal to feed the hungry in city parks.
In Portland, occupiers plan to occupy a vacant home and hold a block party.

In Kalamazoo, Mich., they’ll be camped out on the sidewalk in front of the Bank of America, and there’s a good chance they’ll be doing civil disobedience to stop the auction of public land for hydraulic fracking.

The list goes on and on, from small towns in Wyoming to the place where it all started, lower Manhattan.

This broad range of topics and tactics may bewilder mainstream pundits, but it reflects a transformation in activism as profound as anything that’s happened in social change over the past decades. People are moving out of their isolated interest groups and causes. They’re coming together in a shared analysis, demonstrating their agreement about sources of some of our biggest problems—the overwhelming power of Wall Street and big corporations and our society’s continuing struggle with exclusion of people based on their race, gender, sexual orientation, immigration status, etc. And they’re developing shared ambitious goals and bold strategies that add up to real power and real possibility.

As often happens in the planning of a big event, some of the most important work began well before the actual day, with undocumented workers, union organizers, occupiers, and students coming together to plan events. They’re mixing it up across races, ages, backgrounds, and interests.

It’s a day without the 99 percent, say organizers. No work. No school. No housework. No shopping. No banking.

Even more than what people won’t be doing on May 1, though, the day is about showing up and protesting, but also building the world we want.

Why Does It Seem Everything Republicans Say And Do Is A Trick Or A Lie?

By Dave Johnson, cross-posted from Campaign for America's Future

DonkeyHotey

In today's Progressive Breakfast: Republicans say student-loan interest rates are high because of "Obamacare." House Republicans are trying to block the Violence Against Women act, using a ruse. They oppose the Dream Act and offer a false compromise to make it look like they support the concept. And that's just from today's news.

Why is there so much deception, propaganda, misdirection, distraction and general subterfuge coming from Republicans? Maybe its because they understand what We, the People would do if we understood their real agenda.

Some Of The Most Repeated Deceptions

Here are a few of the most-repeated deceptions that corporate conservatives and Republicans indoctrinate,m saturate and bombard us with:

Tax cuts increase revenue? This one has been around for a long time, and is completely false. Republican tax cuts have always caused deficits. This is the point, the plan, to force the government into debt and then claim we need to cut the things democracy does for citizens. This is why Bush said that it was "incredibly positive news" when his first budget took the country from a huge surplus to a huge deficit. (Yes, that is in quotation marks because it is a quote)

Obama tripled the deficit? (Bush's last budget had a whopping $1.4 trillion deficit - Republicans -- Fox, etc. -- tell people this was Obama's.) (Please click through.)

Obama made the recession worse? Mitt Romney has been repeating this one. These Three Charts To Email To Your Right-Wing Brother-In-Law show clearly how Obama's policies stopped the downward spiral where we were losing hundreds of thousands of jobs a month and and brought us back to (not nearly enough) job-creation.

A Long, Long List

How long would this list be? How many lies and deceptions can you think of, even just off the top of your head? Actually you'd go crazy trying to gather examples of all the deceptive propaganda we are subjected to on a daily, hourly, even minute-by-minute basis.

They are very good at it. They can afford to pay professionals to come up with stuff that really twists people's thinking. They can afford the best pollsters and focus groups to help come up with the best-sounding phrases that resonate with people's core understandings of things. And they can afford the constant repetition that actually forms people's core understanding of things to begin with.

What's a few hundred million spent on creating and disseminating deceptive propaganda, when you get back billions upon billions through tax breaks, wage cuts, offshoring jobs, gutting pension funds, privatizing public assets, killing efforts to get us off of oil and coal, and the rest of the plutocrat 1% agenda?

Why The Lies?

Why are they using deception, distraction, misdirection instead of honest, open, transparent, fact-based ? Why are we constantly bombarded with this nonsense? There is a simple answer: Republican policies are designed to help the 1% at the expense of the 99%. It takes a lot of effort to talk a blue-collar worker into accepting wage cuts and giving up a pension so the 1%'ers can buy a yacht and a private jet.

Progressive Lessons: Campaign Early And Often

Ilya Sheyman, the 25-year old former national mobilization director at MoveOn, ran an impressive grassroots progressive campaign to become the Democratic candidate for Congress in Illinois' newly drawn 10th Congressional District.

Sheyman mobilized more than 650 volunteers and nearly 20,000 individual donors. He garnered attention and support from progressives across the country and won the backing of the Progressive Change Campaign Committe, MoveOn and Democracy for America.  He was endorsed by former DNC Chair Howard Dean, progressive icon former Senator Russ Feingold, the Sierra Club, labor leaders from AFSCME to the Illinois Federation of Teachers and the Steelworkers, and many others.

He even out-fundraised his primary opponents and was leading in the polls up to election day.

But Ilya Sheyman lost in the Democratic primary to businessman Brad Schneider by eight points.  What happened?

 Amanda Terkel summed it up:  1) low turnout; 2) negative advertising, painting Sheyman's opponent as more conservative then perhaps he was, backfired; and 3) the flaws inherent in a 25-year old candidate who looked even younger than 25. 

Here's Sheyman's own analysis:

1) Late Money and Who Is the Progressive

We ran on the same platform from day one: Put people back to work through federal jobs legislation, restore fairness to our tax system, and invest in America.

Our main opponent entered the race as a self-described "pro-business" moderate. Eventually, we pushed the whole field of candidates to come out for an agenda that looked a lot like ours -- ending the Bush tax cuts, eliminating the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes, and letting Medicare negotiate bulk rates on prescription drugs.

Our opponent then defined himself first as the progressive in the race, through a direct mail program starting two months before Election Day. Meanwhile, we held off on any paid communication with voters for an extra four weeks -- not knowing about the windfall of contributions that would come in at the end, which would have enabled us to have run as aggressive a mail program as he had.

So the takeaway isn't that a progressive can't win -- our opponent won because he ran as a progressive, thanks, in part, to the power of our campaign's message.

2) Astonishingly Low Voter Turnout

For the second election in a row, voter turnout hit a record-breaking low, not only in the 10th District, but all over the Chicagoland area, throwing off some of our targeting plans and strategy.

Illinois has a problem when it comes to voter disenfranchisement and civic engagement. A big reminder from this race is that if progressives are going to win, we need to focus on turning that trend around and getting voters to feel a stake in the political process again.

3) Last Minute Smear Campaigns Work

In the 10th District, Jewish voters are a key bloc. I should know -- I'm a product of that Jewish community, where my family and I have lived since arriving in this country as Jewish refugees from the former Soviet Union in 1991.

Despite my personal history and my pro-Israel positions, something happened in the final week of our race.

Those who opposed my candidacy sought to cast a shadow of doubt over my commitment to a Jewish democratic homeland in the State of Israel, through a dishonest whisper campaign, the extent of which I may never fully know.

This highly targeted effort -- in robocalls, emails, and synagogues -- combined with the very low voter turnout in the election, undoubtedly had a disproportionate effect on the outcome, and came too late for us to respond meaningfully. It also proves the importance of early voter-to-voter organizing. We had the truth on our side -- but we didn't organize as effectively in that community -- my community -- to deliver the facts and counteract the dishonest attacks.

Sheyman was quick to point out that the lesson was not that progressive campaigns don't work or that young people can't run for office.  As he argues: 

If you've got an idea or a deeply held conviction, if you're going to run on progressive values, and work hard every day to build something real -- skip the line. Don't wait. Even if they say you're too young, or that it's not your turn.

The challenges this country faces are far too great to let something as arbitrary as age, or the conventional wisdom, stand in the way of you helping steer this country in a new direction.

A Progressive Budget Or The Ryan Plan: American Dream Or American Nightmare

 Who Pays The Bill For Wall Street's Mess?

By Robert Borosage, cross-posted from Campaign For America's Future

DonkeyHotey

Yesterday, House Republicans rolled out their budget plan in the Washington version of a Hollywood movie opening. There was a star turn for Budget Chair Paul Ryan at a conservative think tank. Gaseous rhetoric -- "liberties endangered, time to choose" -- fouled the air. There were dueling videos, and furious salvos of partisan messaging. And a backup document -- the "Path to Prosperity" -- festooned with tables for wonks to wallow in.

Today, with fewer trumpets and less fanfare, the Congressional Progressive Caucus releases its budget plan -- A Budget for All.

Each of the two documents is designed to define a message. Their contrasts help clarify the real choices the country faces. Federal deficits exploded after Wall Street's excesses blew up the economy. The questions now are who gets the bill and when does the payment start? Ryan's Republican budget and the CPC's offer starkly different answers that would take the country in starkly different directions.

The Bathtub Fantasy

"My goal is to cut government... to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub." Grover Norquist.

Ryan's Republican budget, like a speedo bathing suit on a corpulent geezer, is revealing, but not flattering. Even by Washington standards, this is a remarkably dishonest document. It claims to be serious, but offers targets that are simply preposterous. It calls for leveling with the American people, but cravenly ducks laying out who will pay for top end tax cuts. It calls itself a "blueprint for American renewal" while systematically trampling the American dream.

Republicans have lined up like lemmings to sign Grover Norquist's infamous pledge never to raise taxes on anyone at any time. But turns out they even treat the quips of the conservative gadfly as gospel. As the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out, the Ryan budget, by its own numbers, assiduously pursues Grover's bathtub fantasy.

The Congressional Budget Office reports that under the Ryan budget, by 2050 most of the federal government would simply cease to exist. Ryan's budget would shrink all federal expenditures outside of interest payments, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and children's health to 3.75 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

To translate that arcane measure, CBO notes that "spending for defense alone has not been lower than 3 percent of GDP in any year [since World War II]. " Ryan and Republicans call for increasing defense spending -- so the rest of the government would have to be cut to bathtub size. Ryan argues that the "challenges this nation faces are among the largest in its history," but the budget target he offers is, well, goofy.

Occupy At Six Months

Eric Drooker

As the Occupy movement comes out of its winter hibernation, it is worth looking at its impressive record of achievement over its first six months.

As Travis Waldon puts it, "Occupy groups have shifted the national debate on taxes and inequality, helped homeowners stay in their homes, forced major policy issues to the forefront of debate at the state and federal level, and gotten the attention of the institutions they’ve challenged most forcefully."

Here is list compiled by ThinkProgress of Occupy's accomplishments:

Income Inequality: The 99 Percent movement refocused America’s political debate, forcing news outlets and eventually politicians to focus on rising income inequality. While debt and deficits were the primary focus of the media before the movement started, their attention after the movement began shifted to jobs, Wall Street, and unemployment. By the end of October, even Republicans were talking about income inequality, and a week later, Time Magazine devoted its cover to the topic, asking, “Can you still move up in America?”

Occupy Our Homes: The movement has drawn attention to many of the predatory, discriminatory, and fraudulent practices perpetrated by banks during the foreclosure crisis, and across the country, Occupy groups, religious leaders, and community organizations have helped homeowners prevent wrongful foreclosures on their homes. Activists in Detroit are working to save their fifth home, and similar actions have taken place in cities like Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Cleveland, and Atlanta. The movement has drawn so much attention that local political leaders and even members of Congress have stepped in to help homeowners facing foreclosure.

Move Your Money: On Bank Transfer Day, activists helped more than 40,000 Americans move their money from large banks to credit unions, and more than 650,000 switched to credit unions last October. Religious groups have taken up the cause as well, moving $55 million before Thanksgiving. This year, a San Francisco interfaith group moved $10 million from Wells Fargo and other groups marked Lent by moving more money from Wall Street. As a result, analysts say the nation’s 10 biggest banks could lose $185 billion in customer deposits this year “due to customer defections.”

Fighting For Positive Policies: Occupy groups have pushed for positive policy outcomes at both the state and federal levels. Occupy The SEC submitted a 325-page comment letter on the Volcker Rule, a regulation to rein in big banks. Pressure from protesters forced New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) to reverse his opposition to a millionaire’s tax, and activists fought Indiana Republicans’ union-busting “right-to-work” law, and have pushed big banks to stop financing destructive environmental practices like mountaintop removal mining in coal states.

Waldon notes that while "many of the camps across the country have been disbanded, the 99 Percent Movement isn’t going away," with organizers continuing to fight on the state level, "pushing back against banks on fraudulent foreclosures and other issues, and [turning] their attention to the 2012 presidential elections."  Meanwhile, leaders in New York "are developing high-tech ways to organize protests and keep the movement going" and "Occupy is starting to assert a political influence, pushing multiple candidates and even running for office themselves — in both Maine and Pennsylvania, former Occupy activists are running for public office."

Appreciating Dennis Kucinich

By Matthew Rothschild, cross-posted from progressive.org

Dennis Kucinich deserves a lot of credit for holding high the progressive banner in Congress over the past 16 years.

Kucinich lost his primary race against another progressive, Marcy Kaptur, the longest serving woman in Congress on Tuesday, by a 55-41 margin.

A man of courage and principle, he fought for all progressives—even when he was the only one doing it.
Kucinich was fearless in standing up to corporate power, in denouncing NAFTA and GATT and the WTO and the fallacy of free trade, in criticizing the Federal Reserve Board for not doing more about unemployment and for bailing out the banks.

He campaigned mightily for universal single-payer health care.

He bravely opposed the Iraq War.

Kucinich stood up for our civil liberties, voting against the Patriot Act and the Military Commissions Act.

He championed peace everywhere he went, and clamored for a new cabinet agency, the Department of Peace.

He was bipartisan in his criticism of illegal war-makers. He made the lonely but principled call for the impeachment of Barack Obama for the bombing of Libya. Kucinich noted that not only did Obama violate Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution, which says that Congress has the power to declare war; Obama also violated the War Powers Act more flagrantly than any previous President.

Wisconsinites are in Kucinich’s debt because last spring, he made a monkey out of Scott Walker when the Wisconsin governor testified before the House. Kucinich forced Walker to admit that his attacks on labor rights had nothing to do with saving revenue for the state of Wisconsin. This helped unmask Walker as someone who simply wanted to crush unions.

Kucinich also played a positive role by running for president in 2004 and 2008. Though the corporate media neglected him, Kucinich introduced millions of people to progressive ideas. He also won several debates, but you wouldn’t have known that by reading the biased media coverage.

Above all, Dennis Kucinich urged us to embrace our best selves. He constantly called on us as individuals, as a people, as a nation, and as inhabitants of the Earth to respect others, to act nonviolently, to preserve the environment, to love one another.

And whatever he does next, Dennis Kucinich will surely be carrying that powerful message forward. That’s what he does. That’s who he is.

Matthew Rothschild is the editor of The Progressive magazine, which is one of the leading voices for peace and social justice in this country.  He is the host of "Progressive Radio," a syndicated half-hour weekly interview program, and does a two-minute daily radio commentary, entitled "Progressive Point of View," which is also syndicated around the country.  Rothschild is the author of You Have No Rights: Stories of America in an Age of Repression (New Press, 2007)