Bad Barney

In general, I like Barney Frank. He's important because he's willing to go on television and ridicule Republicans. But he certainly has picked up that Beltway tendency to punch the hippies, hasn't he?

“Off the record, it’s what we call the responsible left,” said one Massachusetts lawmaker. Frank himself was scathing toward both sides, who had often mimicked one another’s arguments that the IMF money constituted a European bank bailout.

“The left and the right live in parallel universes,” Frank told POLITICO. “The right listens to talk radio, the left’s on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality. ... I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.”

I don't totally disagree that obsessing over $5 billion, far less than 1% of the federal budget, in the IMF loan doesn't make a lot of sense. Of course, antiwar activists really wanted to leverage the GOP opposition to get timelines in the Iraq and Afghan war funding - something Frank and all his Democratic colleagues loved when George Bush was in office. There's no reason that the SOFA deadlines had to be implicit, adding them into the funding request would have given Congress the voice they should have on these matters.

Worse, Frank betrays a certain comfort with parroting the party line of the White House and the leadership here, even when it comes to his own community:

Well, it seems a trip to the Oval Office is all openly gay congressman Barney Frank needs to stab his community in the back. After criticizing the DOJ's anti-gay DOMA brief this morning, Frank did a 180 this evening and lauded the brief, which invoked incest and pedophilia. Frank now thinks the brief is just super.

Frank claims that he gave a newspaper reporter his negative opinion of the brief without actually having read it.

Did you catch that? Barney Frank, our senior gay elected representative, and a lawyer himself, claims that he was giving legal opinions on a legal brief that he hadn't even read. At least Joe and I, who are also lawyers, read the brief before commenting on it. How many other issues has Barney opined on about which he's been knowingly willfully ignorant? (Of course, I don't believe Frank for a minute - he read the brief, but the president got him to recant.)

I am simply astounded. Even more astounding is that Barney's release sounds as if it were written by the White House. Their talking points are all through it, including the bizarre notion that somehow Obama would be as bad as George Bush if he opposed DOMA in court. (Repeating the lie that presidents never oppose existing legislation in court.)

I didn't realize until now what a slave to power Frank has turned out to be. He could use his intellect and rapier wit in an independent fashion, but clearly he chooses to do otherwise. Hope that helps his career arc.

...Lawdork disputes John Aravosis' reading of Frank's remarks, in a somewhat compelling fashion.

The House Gives Thumbs-Up To Obama's War

The White House muscled through a bill yesterday in the House of Representatives that provides $106 billion dollars in supplemental funding, much of it for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but also a controversial measure adding $5 billion to a line of credit for the IMF, some pandemic flu funding, a bunch of planes that the Air Force never even requested, and a Christmas tree of other proposals. The final margin was 226-202, with 32 Democrats sticking to their positions and voting no (5 Republicans voted yes). Fortunately the photo-suppression amendment was stripped out of the bill, a small but important victory (although I can't seem to gather whether or not it was stuffed into the bill regulating tobacco). There's also a major initiative in the bill called "cash for clunkers," which I want to address in a separate post.

Jane Hamsher did some amazing work getting the White House to sweat over this, and she ought to be commended for it. Rahm Emanuel really backed himself into a corner by putting the IMF funding inside the war spending bill. Democrats in tough districts got forked - support the bill and you voted for bailing out European banks, oppose it and you voted to abandon troops on the battlefield. I suppose the same could be said for Republicans, but Democrats pulling the "he voted against the troops" trick never seems to work. As for stopping the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, clearly we have about 30 votes for that in the House, which is kind of pitiful. Jane was able to do the work she did by leveraging Republican opposition.

Just remember:

They had to hold it open 10 extra minutes and after the Dems hit 218 and there were five GOP votes that scurried in under the wire.

We made the President of the United States himself whip to get the votes.

We tried to make the Dems fight like this when Bush was in office to stop funding the war, but they wouldn't--so we did it ourselves.

I'm very proud to have worked with every single one of you. This was going to be a rout. They had to work for it.

Let's do it again.

I wish the timeline language was in the Iraq part of the funding, since the Administration has repeatedly vowed to honor the status of forces agreement. And an endgame strategy in the incomparably difficult maze in Afghanistan would also be nice. But it's now Obama's war, and should it go awry, he'll receive a deserved amount of blame.

A nice reform for Congress, though one that would never happen, would be to end the practice of adding unrelated riders to must-pass spending bills.

The Fight Over Executive Power

House leaders and the President are extremely worried that they will not get their supplemental war funding bill passed through Congress, and are whipping support among Democratic holdouts. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of strange bedfellows.

First, a non-trivial part of the Progressive Caucus opposes any additional funding for Afghanistan, particularly given the vague, open-ended strategy put forward by the Administration. The current dynamic, where the US makes pretenses toward a counter-insurgency strategy and then steps up bombing campaigns to terrorize and inflame the local populations is anathema to a segment of the caucus.

Then, included in the bill are a tranche of money ($5 billion) for the IMF to use to lend to the developing world, an agreement that the President made at the latest G-20 summit. Almost all Republicans (and a few Democrats) oppose it and will oppose the entire supplemental as a result - because they support the troops.

Lastly and most important, attached to this bill is a truly heinous amendment written by Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham - but that's redundant - which would essentially rewrite the Freedom of Information Act and protect past abuses by keeping them secret.

It was one thing when President Obama reversed himself last month by announcing that he would appeal the Second Circuit's ruling that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) compelled disclosure of various photographs of detainee abuse sought by the ACLU. Agree or disagree with Obama's decision, at least the basic legal framework of transparency was being respected, since Obama's actions amounted to nothing more than a request that the Supreme Court review whether the mandates of FOIA actually required disclosure in this case. But now -- obviously anticipating that the Government is likely to lose in court again (.pdf) -- Obama wants Congress to change FOIA by retroactively narrowing its disclosure requirements, prevent a legal ruling by the courts, and vest himself with brand new secrecy powers under the law which, just as a factual matter, not even George Bush sought for himself.

The White House is actively supporting a new bill jointly sponsored by Sens. Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman -- called The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009 -- that literally has no purpose other than to allow the government to suppress any "photograph taken between September 11, 2001 and January 22, 2009 relating to the treatment of individuals engaged, captured, or detained after September 11, 2001, by the Armed Forces of the United States in operations outside of the United States." As long as the Defense Secretary certifies -- with no review possible -- that disclosure would "endanger" American citizens or our troops, then the photographs can be suppressed even if FOIA requires disclosure. The certification lasts 3 years and can be renewed indefinitely. The Senate passed the bill as an amendment last week.

Plenty of House Democrats are angered by the inclusion of this highly pernicious amendment. While reports allege that Nouri al-Maliki was the driving force behind preventing the release of the photos, and that he claimed "Baghdad will burn" if they're released - quite at odds with the assertion by the President that the photos show "nothing sensational." But this is clearly a precedent too far, providing the President the sole discretion to suppress information above and beyond federal statutes. Barney Frank and another slice of House progressives will not support this amendment. And if they hold firm against the President, they can succeed.

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. -- who initially opposed the package and is now trying to help Democratic leaders raise support for it -- said he recently told Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner that liberal Democrats would not likely support the package if it includes the Lieberman amendment.

"I made it clear to the administration that I believe that we can get liberals like myself who are against the war [to] vote for it because the IMF is so important, but not if the [Freedom of Information Act] exception is in it," Frank said.

Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., previously supported the supplemental but said she would not vote for the bill if it includes the amendment.

"There is no reason in the world for us to vote to suspend" FOIA, Slaughter said.

Nick Bauman has more, and views this fight as a first step for Congress to end the imperial presidency and the march toward official secrecy.

The photo suppression bill is an abomination that is reminiscent of the worst Bush-era excesses. It gives the executive branch the power to withhold an entire category of information from public scrutiny without any review. This law is Example A of the theory of the Presidency that says citizens should just trust the benevolent executive to do the right thing. Even in you oppose releasing some of the photos, I don't see why you would want to give the White House the power to unilaterally decide what's best. It says a lot about the Congress that members are willing to give Obama this kind of power. It says a lot about Obama that he supports this bill. Thank God for Barney Frank.

Jane Hamsher has an action item. To be clear, there's an easy way out of this - the President can ask the conference committee to strip the photo-suppression amendment, at which point passage would be fairly secure on a party-line vote.

G20 FTW

The G20 Summit has wrapped up with a final communiqué (French? I knew it!). Kevin Drum sees little change from the draft communiqué. Basically, the big news is $1.1 trillion dollars in guarantees to the IMF and the World Bank standing in for global stimulus, as well as a load of new regulations of the global financial system.

The Group of 20 also agreed on new global rules to cap the pay and bonuses of bankers, as well as a common approach to dealing with the toxic assets on the balance sheets of the world’s banks. That is an issue that has bedeviled the Obama administration and other governments [...]

A financial stability board with enhanced authorities will also be created to provide an early warning mechanism to alert nations of systemic risks to the international economy, the communiqué said.

“Together these steps give us confidence that world economy can return to trend growth,” Mr. Brown said.

The announcements came after negotiators from the United States and Europe worked frantically to hash out an agreement on new regulations, a day after France and Germany signaled a rift over the level of scrutiny that regulators should have over hedge funds and other global financial institutions.

While the United States was determined to resist European efforts to create regulatory authorities with crossborder authority, officials said the two sides worked out policies on transparency and early risk warnings for banks that would placate France and Germany.

“There’s not going to be a ceding of sovereignty to a global regulator,” said a White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the negotiations were confidential.

France other Europeans countries also pressed China to accept action against tax havens, a step it has resisted because of the possible consequences for its coastal banking centers, Hong Kong and Macao.

“I think we’re going to see an agreement,” said Stephen Timms, the financial secretary to the Treasury. “I am expecting sanctions against tax havens. We want that pressure to be maintained.”

There's also some namby-pamby language about "naming and shaming" countries that erect trade barriers, but the truth is that every developed country does it, and the playing field is never level.

I actually do appreciate this statement from the President, signaling that the US cannot carry the consumption growth of the global economy any more.

Such resistance may not have mattered as much in the past. In previous downturns -- including the Asian crisis in the late 1990s -- the United States was by and large the driving force of global recoveries. But in the wake of the current crisis, Obama said, Washington will have to deal with "our long-term fiscal position" and the notoriously low consumer savings rates that for years drove Americans further into debt even as U.S. imports soared.

This time, he said, the rest of the world cannot depend on the "United States being a voracious consumer market."

"Those are all issues that we have to deal with internally, which means that if there's going to be renewed growth, it cannot just be the United States as the engine," he said during a news conference with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown. "Everybody is going to have to pick up the pace."

For too long we have used cheap credit and a culture of consumption to drive growth, and that's just not sustainable any more. Our citizens are drowning in debt and can't buy all of China's crap. I don't want to see a zero-growth economy - with population growth you consign large chunks of the world to endless poverty and starvation - but the burden must be shared and the go-go consumption just has to end.

I Suggest Everyone Take A Course In Mandarin

Barack Obama's op-ed on the G20 Summit has a global audience for a reason: there has been a lot of wrangling between member nations about how to best tackle the global economic crisis. America has called for additional stimulus while Europe in particular wants increased regulation of the financial sector. I think Obama mainly asks for a both/and approach here rather than either/or.

My message is clear: The United States is ready to lead, and we call on our partners to join us with a sense of urgency and common purpose. Much good work has been done, but much more remains. Our leadership is grounded in a simple premise: We will act boldly to lift the American economy out of crisis and reform our regulatory structure, and these actions will be strengthened by complementary action abroad. Through our example, the United States can promote a global recovery and build confidence around the world; and if the London summit helps galvanize collective action, we can forge a secure recovery, and future crises can be averted.

Our efforts must begin with swift action to stimulate growth. Already, the United States has passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act -- the most dramatic effort to jump-start job creation and lay a foundation for growth in a generation. Other members of the G-20 have pursued fiscal stimulus as well, and these efforts should be robust and sustained until demand is restored. As we go forward, we should embrace a collective commitment to encourage open trade and investment, while resisting the protectionism that would deepen this crisis [...]

While these actions can help get us out of crisis, we cannot settle for a return to the status quo. We must put an end to the reckless speculation and spending beyond our means; to the bad credit, over-leveraged banks and absence of oversight that condemns us to bubbles that inevitably bust. Only coordinated international action can prevent the irresponsible risk-taking that caused this crisis. That is why I am committed to seizing this opportunity to advance comprehensive reforms of our regulatory and supervisory framework.

All of our financial institutions -- on Wall Street and around the globe -- need strong oversight and common- sense rules. All markets should have standards for stability and a mechanism for disclosure. A strong framework of capital requirements should protect against future crises. We must crack down on offshore tax havens and money laundering. Rigorous transparency and accountability must check abuse, and the days of out-of-control compensation must end. Instead of patchwork efforts that enable a race to the bottom, we must provide the clear incentives for good behavior that foster a race to the top.

Generally speaking, we actually do have to deal with all these things at once, not just because of the political concerns (no better time for reform than in the midst of the crisis, etc.), but to insure against the very real prospect of moral hazard or the desire for personal greed to supersede a return to stability for the greater economy.

However, I'm concerned that the only people playing 8-dimensional chess with respect to this are the Chinese:

China will propose the new world 'currency' with reserve status, in fact a basket of major currencies as defined by the IMF Special Drawing Rights, at the G20 meeting on April 2.

It will take a few years until a full fledged SDR based system will become functional. The U.S. and the UK will likely fight against this. The Euro based countries will mostly be indifferent. For China this is now a major official policy goal. With BRIC pressing for a new reserve system and support from others medium weight countries like South Korea and South Africa the new initiative has a lot of momentum.

So far the U.S. could borrow cheaply and pay back less in real value than the original loan. That privilege is now going away. The trillions the U.S. currently needs to borrow from abroad will have to be payed back in full. That is a major change in its global power status and will seriously decrease its influence in international policy questions.

Russia appears to be on board with this, which would tip it in the direction of China. It doesn't seem like hyperbole to call this the end of American empire. And you know, we screwed the pooch so we lost the right to lead the world, in many respect. However, I find it always worthwhile to fear second-rate powers with lots and lots of guns. Steve Hynd has more.