We previously discussed the disconnect between Democratic leaders and liberal voters in the increasing complaints of leaders like Vice President Biden over Democratic “lethargy.” Democrats in Washington once again seemed shocked that voters are not eager to fight for their retention. Now, Biden has added the helpful advice to Democratic voters to “stop whining” about things that they did not get in Washington and to “buck up.”
The “buck up” comment was meant as an improvement over the “whining” comment. It turned out that “whining” was not greeted by voters as an improvement over “lethargy.”
Here is the latest statement:
“And so those who don’t get — didn’t get everything they wanted, it’s time to just buck up here, understand that we can make things better, continue to move forward and — but not yield the playing field to those folks who are against everything that we stand for in terms of the initiatives we put forward.”
By “everything [we] wanted,” I assume Biden is including the fulfillment of our treaty obligations to investigate and prosecute war crimes such as torture — which the Administration blocked.
I assume it includes removing the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, which the Administration is trying to preserve by asking a court not to impose a national injunction freezing the policy.
I assume it includes allowing dozens of privacy lawsuits to go forward against companies, which the Administration blocked despite evidence of unlawful surveillance by the Bush Administration.
I assume it includes allowing torture victims to seek review in federal court, which the Administration has successfully blocked.
I assume it includes protecting pristine areas along the East Coast from drilling, which the Administration has fought to open up for development even after the BP accident.
I assume it includes reducing the faith-based programs of the Bush Administration which raised concerns over the separation of church and state, which Obama expanded.
Well, it includes a lot of things that democratic and independent voters wanted. What they got was a Democratic majority saw power as the end to itself rather than the means to fight for principle. For civil libertarians, “those folks who are against everything that we stand” include the Obama Administration which has been a perfect nightmare in the adoption and expansion of Bush policies.
Yet, Biden wants civil libertarians, environmentalists, and liberals to stop whining and buck up. The Administration made a cynical calculation that liberals and civil libertarians and environmentalists have no where to go and that they have to support the Democrats regardless of these obnoxious policies. Now, they are simply shocked that voters are not enthusiastic about their continuing in power.
The Democratic leadership has conveyed that the only principle that they are committed to is their retention of power. All other principles — torture, the environment, privacy, free speech — are immaterial to that one overriding goal. They just do not understand why everyone does not see it that way.
Well, I am one of those whining, lethargic voters and I cannot get myself to buck up to support leaders who turned their back on such core values. Perhaps if enough Democrats are replaced, the party may rediscover the benefit of being principled and standing for something other than their own insular interests. They need to actually represent something other than “we are not as bad as those guys.” The problem for voters is that, by retaining these leaders, we reaffirm that they cynical calculation by the White House was correct. There is no reason why Democrats should fulfill their commitments in these areas if voters do not hold them accountable. I know some on this blog may disagree, but I personally think I will stick with the whining for now.
Source: Real Clear Politics
@Byron: Is that your only two modes of thought? You are free with zero responsibility or you are owned by the state?
What is WRONG with you? Can’t we just be adults with responsibilities? The country you live in is not the woods somewhere, you are not a naked hunter-gatherer living by his wits with a sharp stick he found. You are born into a found paradise that educated you (well, barely), and fed you, and protected you from being enslaved, poisoned, or killed by faulty products, buildings, criminals or any number of other dangers, including careening cars now restrained by traffic laws.
That society and infrastructure requires maintenance. The workers that provided all of that stuff were paid for by taxes paid by adults while you were growing up, and still need to be paid now that you are an adult. Whatever taxes you pay are your payment for the services being rendered to you.
If I pay a restaurant for a meal, they don’t OWN me. They SERVE me, and they deserve payment for that. Although I think our particular government is corrupt, in general governments provide a service at zero profit to anybody, which is as cheap as it gets, but it isn’t free.
Cops DIE to protect you from crime, and here you are pontificating about how you shouldn’t have to pay for it. Count yourself amongst the most self-centered, selfish fools on the planet.
I think the dishwasher should pay no tax of any kind, nor should the hedge-fund manager.
Individual rights are individual rights whether rich or poor, black or white, young or old.
How did government generate revenue prior to the income tax? Government spends the money because it has the money, there is no incentive for frugality.
By the way Ike created the interstate highway system for national defense-an appropriate and constitutionally sound use of government. He at least paid some respect to the document.
@Byron: Assuming you are talking to me, I detect you do not understand that the government needs funding. And if you DO understand that, explain to me how it is fair to take equal percentages of a dishwasher’s salary and a hedge fund manager’s income of millions per year.
The same percentage, say 20%, will cause severe hardship for the dishwasher, and zero hardship at all for the hedge fund manager. None. What is “fair” depends entirely on how one defines “fair,” and some people are smart enough to realize that numbers do not capture fairness at all. The way an intelligent person defines “fair” is in terms of roughly equal hardship, and that requires imposing different taxes on different incomes, and for very low incomes, no hardship at all.
Libertarians can be for civil liberties. They can be opposed to government mandated morality. They can be opposed to punitive taxes (either make it illegal or legal, not partially legal). They can be opposed to government spending on their preferred version of morality, like anti-drug commercials or anti-obesity commercials. Libertarians can believe in limited government, and enforcing the constitution, and property rights and severe restrictions on “eminent domain,” and still believe there is a role for government to play and a role for public property and a role for regulations that prevent exploitation of employees, endangerment of consumers, and defrauding investors.
Libertarians believe in PERSONAL LIBERTY to do as they please with their own body or property as long as it does not endanger others, they do not have to be ideologues incapable of thinking in terms of anything but extremes.
Tony C:
“Oh, bull. Your “person” is who it is because it lives in a huge matrix of services and infrastructure paid for by others, often with their lives. The “sweat of your brow” didn’t build the Interstates or state roads you use for free, the “sweat of your brow” doesn’t keep your food and medicine and buildings safe, the “sweat of your brow” doesn’t keep your employer from beating you.
What a load.”
So we are all owned by the state then. I see you are a Fascist or perhaps a communist?
What keeps an employee from poundin his pud? In fact what keeps an employer from poundin his pud?
Puzzling:
what do you think about the statement that Libertarians are not necessarily against a progressive tax? Isnt that pretty much against the philosophy of Libertarians? I.E. that man is an entity unto himself and owns his own life.
Your thoughts please. I think that one cannot truly be a libertarian and be for a progressive income tax, the 2 are incompatible at least as I understand Libertarianism. If that is possible then Libertarianism doesnt really mean anything and whatever is desired by the individual is okey dokey and there are no standards or values.
Say it aint so Puzz.
@Swarthmore: I am not a libertarian, I do favor a progressive tax. I will vote for a libertarian judge, however. Some libertarians focus on civil rights, and I like them if they maintain that focus. A true libertarian believes in abortion rights, the rights of homosexuals to marry and adopt children, the rights of prostitutes to practice the profession of their choice, the rights of free speech, and civil rights in general.
Libertarians are not uniformly deluded into thinking that a flat tax is fair (it isn’t) or a national sales tax is fair (it isn’t) or that progressive taxes are evil.
I collaborate with two professors that call themselves libertarian but have no problem with a progressive tax, or the civil rights bill. They don’t like war, they don’t like the erosion of our Constitutional rights, and they don’t like the corporate control of the government, they don’t like government mandated health care. They aren’t running for office, but I could vote for them if they did.
Not all self-professed libertarians are bad, just the cartoon ones in the Tea Party.
Tony C You did not answer my question. How can you claim to be a libertarian who also favors a very progressive tax? You need to do more than spin to be convincing. You make no sense to me by insisting we need to punish Russ Feingold. Corporations are too powerful but that’s not going to change. The Supreme Court made that the case.
>> let’s look at health care:
The White House and DNC have incredible power in the Senate. By multiple independent reports, the White House, Rahm Emanuel and Obama *personally*, twisted arms to make sure no public option would pass. By multiple reports, Rahm and Obama cut a deal with the pharmaceuticals to protect them from importation of their own products from countries where they sell them at a third of the cost they sell to US Citizens, and THEN Rahm and Obama and Reid all threatened Democratic Senators with cut off campaign funding and ejection from committees and even funding of projects if they didn’t drop importation. I believe the reports that this action was taken, that there was illegal collusion. The same thing happened with the public option. Candidate Obama said on TV, “..any health care bill I sign will have to have a public option, it is the only way…” I believe the reports that President Obama, through Rahm, cut a deal with the insurance agencies to kill the public option, in return for an agreement on reduced campaign funding for the Republicans. I believe the reports that Lieberman and Nelson were given permission to be the stars of killing it. The White House could have twisted their arms and they would cave, exactly as they twisted the arms of others: Kucinich, for example. I do not believe we were 2 or 3 votes away from getting a public option, I believe we had it in hand and tossed it because corporate campaign money did not want it, and was threatening a nuclear explosion of financing for Republicans. The dog and pony show with Nelson and Liebermann was staged theatrics to create an excuse for killing it, but it was the White House that killed it and then tried to cover up the murder of the public option.
>> A hypothetical for you: How do you think the progressive quality of legislation would be affected if the Democrats held the House and the Senate and the Senate made a rule change to end the filibuster at the beginning of the next session?
Not at all. That is the problem. The Senate isn’t going to make that rule change, they don’t WANT to pass progressive legislation. I don’t understand why you don’t SEE that. The Democrats aren’t STUPID. They have watched the Republicans and know exactly how to pass any legislation they really want; including tax reform and everything else, in budget reconciliation. It is simple, really, tie legislation to the budget and it gets an up or down vote. Want to repeal DADT? Make the legislation stop FUNDING of all DADT measures as a budget item, and get an up or down vote. Want to pass tax cuts for those under $250K and tax increases for those over? That’s easy, any tax measure is part of the budget process, and that is how the Republicans passed the Bush tax cuts in the first place. Want to stimulate the economy with infrastructure spending? Make it part of the budget. And on and on and on.
They don’t WANT to pass progressive legislation. Their corporate masters HATE progressive legislation, because it almost uniformly forces them to stop exploiting people, or endangering people, or destroying the environment for profit, or just doing whatever the hell they want, and that costs them profits. Progressive legislation costs money. A lot of money. It can create whole new classes of lawsuits. It demands more attention to management. It is a pain in the ass. They hate it.
>> Progressive legislation has never come easily
By DESIGN, Slarti! Now is the time for science: WHY has it never come easily? WHY is that? When the public option was described accurately back before the Tea Party Townhalls, over 70% of Americans of voting age thought it was a great idea. If a super-majority of Americans liked the idea, WHY should that be hard to pass? The answer is it shouldn’t, but insurance corporations and Wall Street investors hate to lose a cash cow, so they did everything possible to distort it, and everything possible to coerce politicians into voting against it, and THAT is why it was killed.
>> and to quit in disgust when we’re so close to victory on so many important economic issues is insanity to me.
I believe you feel that way, but we are ***not close to victory***. I believe you are duped, as I formerly was. We are not close to victory, we are being told by Obama the same lies as before, that he is going to be a good guy, that he has been a good guy. In the meantime, he has claimed the right to assassinate US citizens without charges, trial, or due process of any kind. Just kill ’em. Not on a battlefield, just wherever you find them. Kill them, because the President decrees they are terrorists, outside of any court, without any evidence, without any charges, he claims the right to impose the death penalty upon American citizens. Four of them so far, that we know of, because he also claims the Presidential right to keep these decrees secret.
>> Civil liberties are a different case, but in short I believe that the best strategy is to fight to hold and increase Democratic majorities
What good can that possibly do? Which Democrats are talking about Obama’s expansion of Bush’s torture regime (in Bagram) indefinite detention, his amnesty for all Bush war crimes, his newly claimed powers of assassination, his fighting an undeclared war in Pakistan? What Democrat (or Republican) is talking about impeaching the President for violating the Constitution and treaties he has explicitly violated?
>> rather than trying to reward or punish people for past behavior.
I see, and this is a scientifically considered view of yours, that people will not respond to rewards or punishment? Really? Sorry to be sarcastic, but it is the defining characteristic of humans (or any animals with a brain of any size, including mice, chickens and parrots) that we DO respond, in small ways and large, to both rewards and punishments, and these DO change our behavior. Humans (and other animals) also learn by example, and showing sitting Democratic Congressmen that getting too conservative will cost them their seat IS likely to change their behavior. If that makes them MORE conservative and more corporate toadies, then I (at least) have lost the battle, because nothing I do keeps them from getting more conservative and more toady.
>> I just care about a rational argument as to why your strategy would be more effective or more likely to succeed than mine – we’re both scientists, so let’s act like it.
I AM acting like it, I am looking at the evidence of the last 30 years and seeing a very clear pattern. Obama’s betrayal forced me to put aside my emotions and look at the data. I had made an error, I had been suckered, and when that happens to me my fallback position is cold analysis and reassessment. I do not have a naive understanding of how government works, I have actually read and understand many of the rules of the Senate. The liberal “heroes” are either dumb or duplicitous, because they never USE the rules to force the outcomes they champion. What has Feingold filibustered? What legislation has Grayson put holds on? Which of these men shut down the Senate and the Government until they got their way? Which of them has risked a loss of DNC campaign financing by bucking Reid or Obama on anything? Voting “NO” on legislation that has over 60 YES votes doesn’t cost them a thing, it is a symbolic move only. When have they used their power to force decisions to actually force a decision? Why did Kucinich let himself get rolled on healthcare after threatening to vote NO without a public option? My bet is, for campaign cash.
I am acting like a scientist. My best hypothesis is that Democrats are beholden to corporate interests and do not really want to pass any legislation that will financially hurt any corporation. My hypothesis is that they DO respond to reward and punishment, it is just that all the reward and punishment is being administered by corporations, and they know it, and so that is who they serve.
The health care bill as passed pays off the insurance corporations to make them stop defrauding customers, and pays them off with MORE customers that will now be mandated by law. Can you imagine a criminal telling a judge, “Your honor, I earn $200K a year defrauding people, almost $800 a day. If you just want to PAY me $200K a year, I can stop defrauding them. Deal?”
That is precisely what happened with the health insurance companies. They were defrauding consumers, and to get them to stop that, we paid them off with **mandated** insurance. The pharmaceuticals are still defrauding Americans by overcharging for drugs. You have it backwards, we don’t have an imperfect bill that can be incrementally perfected as time goes on, my bet is that we have an imperfect bill that will be toothless in twenty years EXCEPT for the provisions that benefit corporations, because that is all that matters to politicians anymore. A facade of reform. They think if they ***call*** it reform they will get credit for reform. Unfortunately they are right.
I suggest YOU act like a scientist, and look at where the “relative evil” strategy has led us, down a slippery slope of greater and greater evil. The corruption is literally, in cash, profitable for politicians, and every time they get away with some of it, they take an incremental step for more of it. This has progressed to the point where Republicans have learned they can spout complete nonsense and STILL not be called on it. Simultaneous tax cuts and deficit reduction without touching Social Security, Medicare or Defense? Go for it! We cannot imprison terrorists in Illinois because they are supermen that will escape and kill us all? Go for it! With Harry Reid right there with them, saying on TV, “You can’t bring them [Guantanamo Prisoners] into the United States without releasing them.”
O.M.G! What I want to know is this; how much did Reid get his rich buddies to put into Angle’s campaign to get that crazy whacko on that ballot with him so he could beat her?
I don’t believe the democrats are stupid, or incompetent, or cowardly, or courteous, or collegial, or whatever excuse you want to give them for not exercising their power even when lives are at stake. I believe they are coldly calculating, cynical, corrupt liars serving corporations. I see no other explanation that comes close to fitting the facts available to me, and I refuse to help reelect corrupted liars.
“Democrats agree to block Obama nominees
By John Byrne
In a stunning alliance between Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans, Senate Democratic leadership quietly agreed Wednesday evening to block President Barack Obama from making recess appointments while senators return home to campaign for midterm elections, according to a Congressional newspaper. …
“Under the law, the president can only make a recess appointment if the Senate is adjourned for more than three consecutive days,” Bolton wrote. “By scheduling pro-forma sessions on Mondays and Fridays, lawmakers can take away Obama’s ability to make recess appointments.”
Obama has more than 100 executive and judicial nominees pending for Senate confirmation. Scores of other positions also remain vacant.
According to Bolton, citing a top GOP aide, Republican leadership forced the Democrats’ hands by threatening “to send Obama’s most controversial nominees back to the president if Democrats did not agree to schedule pro-forma sessions.”
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/09/democrats-agree-block-obama-nominees/
**
From FOX (2004) regarding Bush nominees to the bench:
“Senate Dems to Block All Nominations”
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,115339,00.html
But even FOX had to state that the Dems had approved the “vast majority” of Bush appointees and only rebelled after recess appointmets were used to instal 2 (of 6) rejected Judges to the Federal bench.
**
The Republicans have blocked 60% of Obama nominees and appointees up to this point. Over a hundred. The Dems cave to ‘save’ a couple? Does the law of diminishing returns kick in somewhere around 100/2? At what point does the public price become too great for the substantive gain? Who says that if the Dems played heir cards right the loss would be greater than their gain or that there would be any loss great enough to make further capitulation a virtue?
Obama should have just been able to recess appoint ALL of his nominees and make the Senate have the fight- obviously from the example we just watched (impeachment) there isn’t enough time for the Senate to hold hearings and reject them all and carry on other business. He might have had an opportunity to get some of those hundred + two actually appointed just to save time. As it stands that’s off the table. Because the Republicans are being allowed to frame the battle-space and dialogue, public and private.
This makes me sick. Literally. Makes my stomach hurt. No politician(s) that makes me sick deserves my allegiance. That’s just the way it is.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bryan-fischer-values-voter-summit Why should we stay while fundamentalist christians are being urged to get out and get control of government?
Elaine I gave my contribution to Feingold yesterday. A new rasmussen has him down by 12. The right wingers are really enjoying taking him and Grayson down.
Continued from my last comment:
Interview with Sen. Russ Feingold
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/radio/2010/09/14/feingold/index.html
(Feingold): I also quickly realized that two cautions were necessary, and I raised them on the Senate floor the day after the attacks. The first caution was that we must continue to respect our Constitution and protect our civil liberties in the wake of the attacks. . . .
The second caution I issued was a warning against the mistreatment of Arab Americans, Muslim Americans, South Asians, or others in this country. Already, one day after the attacks, we were hearing news reports that misguided anger against people of these backgrounds had led to harassment, violence, and even death. . . .
The Founders who wrote our Constitution and Bill of Rights exercised that vigilance even though they had recently fought and won the Revolutionary War. They did not live in comfortable and easy times of hypothetical enemies. They wrote a Constitution of limited powers and an explicit Bill of Rights to protect liberty in times of war, as well as in times of peace.
Swarthmore mom,
I know Tony likes Glenn Greenwald who, by the way, has encouraged his blog readers to donate money to Feingold’s campaign.
*****
Glenn Greenwald
TUESDAY, SEP 14, 2010 06:15 ET
Interview with Sen. Russ Feingold
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/radio/2010/09/14/feingold/index.html
Excerpt:
Even for those who are disillusioned and angry with the Democratic Party, or even apathetic about the outcome generally of the 2010 elections, Russ Feingold is one of the very few candidates whose re-election is genuinely worth caring about. No matter how bad Democrats generally become, Feingold’s presence in the Senate provides unique and real value. I spoke with him for 15 minutes late last week about a variety of topics, including Obama’s civil liberties record. The discussion can be heard by clicking PLAY on the player below. But before you listen, I’d like to review just some of the reasons for my view that Feingold’s re-election is compelling and important, and why I strongly encourage donating to his campaign as part of his “Money Bomb” today — here — as he tries, within the confines of his self-imposed campaign finance limits, to defeat an extremist, multi-millionaire, right-wing candidate who will be as radically awful on civil liberties, secrecy and war issues as Feingold is great.
Feingold is responsible for what is easily one of the most courageous political acts of the last decade, when he stood up on the Senate floor a mere six weeks after the 9/11 attacks — in a climate in which almost nobody with a real platform was willing to dissent on anything, let alone anything significant — and vehemently warned of the dangers posed by the U.S.A. PATRIOT Act. He then proceeded to cast the only Senate vote against that Orwellian-ly named bill, making it a 98-1 vote in favor. As he explained on October 25, 2001, he had even spoken on the Senate floor on September 12 — within 24 hours of the 9/11 attack — to warn of the dangers to the Constitution which overreaction would cause. I’m quoting his October 25 Senate speech against the PATRIOT Act at some length because, even now, it’s so worth hearing, but back then, literally within weeks of the 9/11 attacks, he was one of a tiny handful of people with a national platform who was saying any of this:
Tony C The primaries are over and why did you say you were against Feingold? You said new faces not famous faces before. How can you make blanket statements about candidates if you are so limited in your research? You said you were for a very progressive income tax on previous posts. Above you said you favor a libertarian approach. Since when are libertarians for a progressive income tax?
Is it possible that Obama underestimated the passion many liberals felt for him and his promises? Nothing worse than being scorned by the one you love.
@Swarthmore: You mentioned Bill White in Texas, I agree with that. He did good things for Houston, according to two friends of mine that live there, and from what little I can tell via email, the charges Perry brings of some kind of self-serving corruption by White are unfounded. I don’t know that for sure. Anyway, he hasn’t been governor before, has he?
In terms of famous faces, I don’t know any. What research I can do on candidates is limited to Google and opposition stuff; so in the event I am presented with a primary challenger or an Independent with at least nominally liberal or modernized libertarian ideals, that can withstand a half hour of research on my part, I will vote for THEM against an incumbent.
(By modernized libertarian I mean defending the bill of rights, not the Rand Paul branch of institutionalized racism, killing Social Security and Medicare, etc. I would not vote for anybody crazy enough to espouse that drivel. But somebody subscribing to the ACLU and concentrating on the bill of rights and constraints on government spying and such, I like that brand of libertarianism.)
@Slarti: I will respond, but I have two meetings to attend immediately.
Elaine,
I’m pissed off and disappointed too, but that wont stop me from making my decision about who to vote for rationally. If Tony C can come up with a logical argument as to why his strategy is better that doesn’t contain an emotional appeal to punish innocent people (as Mike S so ably pointed out) in order to do something (kick out incumbents) that he himself has argued isn’t really a punishment, then I’ll listen but, quite frankly, I doubt that he can.
The Texas Board of Education is up for election this year.
Slarti,
I think I’m nearly as pissed off and as disappointed as Tony C. I’m fed up with many of the Democrats–but some of the Republicans that might get elected in November truly are “nut jobs.” Some are anti-science right-wing religious fundamentalists. Tony may feel it’s okay for Republicans like these to be voted into office. I don’t. I can’t imagine much good coming from it. One of the things that comes to mind is what’s happened in certain places where anti-science religious fundamentalist right-wing conservatives have held power on
local school committees and state education boards.
**********
From Think Progress (3/12/2010)
Texas Board of Education cuts Thomas Jefferson out of its textbooks.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/03/12/texas-education-board-cuts-thomas-jefferson-out-of-its-textbooks/
The Texas Board of Education has been meeting this week to revise its social studies curriculum. During the past three days, “the board’s far-right faction wielded their power to shape lessons on the civil rights movement, the U.S. free enterprise system and hundreds of other topics”:
– To avoid exposing students to “transvestites, transsexuals and who knows what else,” the Board struck the curriculum’s reference to “sex and gender as social constructs.”
– The Board removed Thomas Jefferson from the Texas curriculum, “replacing him with religious right icon John Calvin.”
– The Board refused to require that “students learn that the Constitution prevents the U.S. government from promoting one religion over all others.”
– The Board struck the word “democratic” from the description of the U.S. government, instead terming it a “constitutional republic.”
As the nation’s second-largest textbook market, Texas has enormous leverage over publishers, who often “craft their standard textbooks based on the specs of the biggest buyers.” Indeed, as The Washington Monthly has reported, “when it comes to textbooks, what happens in Texas rarely stays in Texas.”
*****
Texas Education Board Bans Popular Children’s Author by Mistake (1/7/2010)
http://wildrosereader.blogspot.com/2010/01/texas-education-board-bans-popular.html
Swarthmore mom,
I meant that Harry Reid was responsible for not forcing the Republicans to stand on the floor and continue talking whenever they want to filibuster – as I understand it he can require this and I can’t see how it would do anything but play in the Democrats’ favor…