Perhaps Washington plutocrats will take to eating the unemployed with fava beans and a nice chianti. God knows they show no interest in getting people back to work and are busy demonizing them as vermin at the same time:
So if lawmakers are wondering why consumer confidence and the stock market are tanking (the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index hit a new low for the year on Tuesday), they need look no further than a mirror.
The situation cries out for policies to support economic growth — specifically jobless benefits and fiscal aid to states. But instead of delivering, Congressional Republicans and many Democrats have been asserting that the nation must act instead to cut the deficit. The debate has little to do with economic reality and everything to do with political posturing. A lot of lawmakers have concluded that the best way to keep their jobs is to pander to the nation’s new populist mood and play off the fears of the very Americans whose economic well-being Congress is threatening.
Deficits matter, but not more than economic recovery, and not more urgently than the economic survival of millions of Americans. A sane approach would couple near-term federal spending with a credible plan for deficit reduction — a mix of tax increases and spending cuts — as the economic recovery takes hold.
But today’s deficit hawks — many of whom eagerly participated in digging the deficit ever deeper during the George W. Bush years — are not interested in the sane approach. In the Senate, even as they blocked the extension of unemployment benefits, they succeeded in preserving a tax loophole that benefits wealthy money managers at private equity firms and other investment partnerships. They also derailed an effort to end widespread tax avoidance by owners of small businesses organized as S-corporations. If they are really so worried about the deficit, why balk at these evidently sensible ways to close tax loopholes and end tax avoidance?
Because they are bought and paid for by greedy executives and individuals who would have the unemployed former middle class to have to dumpster dive and live on the streets rather than have to give up one dinner at a fine restaurant to help them keep body and soul together.
This is what the Democratic Party does; it's who they are. They're willing to feign support for anything their voters want just as long as there's no chance that they can pass it. They won control of Congress in the 2006 midterm elections by pretending they wanted to compel an end to the Iraq War and Bush surveillance and interrogation abuses because they knew they would not actually do so; and indeed, once they were given the majority, the Democratic-controlled Congress continued to fund the war without conditions, to legalize Bush's eavesdropping program, and to do nothing to stop Bush's habeas and interrogation abuses ("Gosh, what can we do? We just don't have 60 votes).
The primary tactic in this game is Villain Rotation. They always have a handful of Democratic Senators announce that they will be the ones to deviate this time from the ostensible party position and impede success, but the designated Villain constantly shifts, so the Party itself can claim it supports these measures while an always-changing handful of their members invariably prevent it.
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This is why, although I basically agree with filibuster reform advocates, I am extremely skeptical that it would change much, because Democrats would then just concoct ways to lack 50 votes rather than 60 votes -- just like they did here. Ezra Klein, who is generally quite supportive of the White House perspective, reported last week on something rather amazing: Democratic Senators found themselves in a bind, because they pretended all year to vigorously support the public option but had the 60-vote excuse for not enacting it. But now that Democrats will likely use the 50-vote reconciliation process, how could they (and the White House) possibly justify not including the public option? So what did they do? They pretended in public to "demand" that the public option be included via reconciliation with a letter that many of them signed (and thus placate their base: see, we really are for it!), while conspiring in private with the White House (which expressed "sharp resistance" to the public option) to make sure it wouldn't really happen.
In fairness, however, the Republicans do it to their base too. Given how many executive orders George W. Bush signed and decided, uncontested, that they had the force of law, he never signed an executive order making abortion a crime in all 50 states (which he could have done, and had illegal abortion the law of the land in this country at least until someone took it to the Supreme Court), he never signed an executive order legalizing open carry of guns in all 50 states, and he didn't sign an executive order banning gay marriage.
Arlen Specter appeared on Meet the Press this morning to grease his slide to the left and to remind us that his seniority is not a bribe for his defection, but an entitlement for his time served since 1980. Seems to me that if that were true that Joementum Lieberman would be able to keep his....um...nevermind....
Complaining about stacked decks and how he was doing it for the people of Pennsylvania, he was asked by David Gregory what his core beliefs are now; um, um, um....inspiration of his father, his record as being for the little guy; but the question remains, what the fuck has he been doing as Rome burned? This guy has as much experience in the old guard of Washington as anyone, and he stood by as a Republican while his party was gutted and the economy was destroyed, talking about rules and how he had to strengthen the party. He exclaimed along the way that he stood behind his party and wanted to grow it, but like all the other rats who aren't hanging onto the edge of the fringe, he abandoned ship. Indeed, Specter is a problem for both parties because he votes in what seems to be his own interest, all over the place. You can appreciate one vote, but the rest don't always line up. This makes me wonder who Arlen Specter really is.
Here in an interesting 2001 clip from CSPAN, Specter asks for a rule to prevent party switching. Odd in how this is exactly what he would do, not so many years later:
As Jill says here there is no allegiance or pattern to Specter's beliefs; its all about his own ass and his own job security. If the tattered remains of the Republican party wanted to vote Specter out as too liberal, then so be it, but don't come running to trade your seniority and votes for your job. This is the problem with these lifers; the country loses the ability to have ever-changing ideas and representation, as intended by the founders, because guys like this have done everything in their power to prevent new voices from being heard.
As he said to David Gregory "I don't expect the American people to agree with all of my votes, I don't even agree with them at this time!" I guess it would be more understandable if he hadn't just made a move that would secure his seat along the path of least resistance as opposed to standing up within his own party and fighting for the side that he represents. Are these the kind of Democrats we want?
As I watched the long, hideous process of the fall if the house of Bush, I kept saying that after we get to a safe place as far as fixing whats been done to the country, we need to shake out the dug-in, old-school, Dems who have been sliding by on name recognition and cronyism. We may need a majority right now, but the party has to be stronger in what we give away to these defectors. Arlen Specter, who has voted time and again against what the American people finally pulled their heads out of the sand long enough to remember and confirm, does not serve our long term. He will be forever considered a conservative democrat who will eventually be voting against his new party if it serves him.
Fuck inclusive politics! The Bush administration nearly destroyed us, and the jury is still out on what the future will be like and how much Obama can really do. This is a guy who sat there while Bush and Cheney tortured and killed people. Did he not notice what was happening? Why would he pick now, when his party needs his voice so badly, to defect? He has a history of switching parties along with the direction of the power, as he began his long journey as a democrat. For the democratic party, this is grabbing the low hanging fruit...we may need any fruit we can get, but lets stop messing around about the whys of this; its a business deal and it serves all involved; cue the senate dems to jump to their feet in applause when he next takes the floor.
After twenty six years of representing what was supposedly the less extreme part of the republican party, look where he left his party. I would venture to say that he has done a pretty piss poor job of promoting the balance that he talked about, and pretty much proved all those old memes of the crony's controlling things with their guaranteed positions in the power structure. I say that if its up to the American people, let us vote on it. So, lets fund and encourage any primary challenge to this rat. Here again, is the facebook page dedicated to that movement.
