Two Tickets To The Gun Show

Mike Bloomberg is in an election that is surprisingly tough (in single digits) despite spending around $75 million dollars, and despite his faults he's always been a strong supporter of gun control. So I'm not surprised he launched this investigation into gun show practices and released some damning hidden-camera video.

Even though private unlicensed sellers are not required to run background checks using the FBI National Instant Criminal Background Check system, it is a federal felony for them to sell guns to people they have reason to believe are prohibited purchasers (such as felons or the mentally ill). In purchases attempted on 30 private sellers, the undercover investigator showed interest in buying a gun by asking about stopping power or by dry-firing the weapon. After agreeing on a price, the undercover would indicate that he probably couldn’t pass a background check. At that point, the seller is required by law to refuse the sale – but only 11 out of 30 sellers did so. Investigators found private dealers who failed these integrity tests at every show, including two sellers who failed at multiple shows. In total, 19 of the 30 private sellers approached failed the integrity test.

The 11 sellers who terminated the sale confirmed that private sellers know the law. As one seller in Columbus, Ohio, explained “I mean even as a private citizen, I’m kind of allowed a certain latitude, but once you say that [you can’t pass the background check], I’m kind of obligated not to….I think that’s what the rules are.”

The investigation also revealed that some private sellers are in fact apparently “engaged in the business” of selling firearms without a federal license, in violation of the law. For example, one seller sold to investigators at three different gun shows and acknowledged selling 348 assault rifles in less than one year.

There are more videos at Gun Show Undercover. The gun show loophole seriously needs to be closed, and this investigation could provide that. The ATF Bureau reports that 30% of all illegal guns are coming in through these gun shows.

Media Matters wonders if this undercover investigation will tickle the fancy of outlets like Andrew Breitbart and Fox News, who have shown such an affinity for this kind of operation in the past.

And Digby writes:

There's lots of anger and frustration out there right now. The zeitgeist is as angry and negative as I've ever seen it. Economic stress almost always leads to a rise in crime. The conservatives' only answer to this problem is to allow business to exploit their customers even more than they already have and create an ever more authoritarian police capacity to "keep people in line." The real answer is to find ways to ease the economic stress and get some of these deadly weapons out of the hands of criminals. You can probably guess which way this is likely to go.

But still, there is a need to shine a light on this out of control gun industry. I'm not a gun control absolutist, but the kind of activity that's exposed in these undercover videos is far more unacceptable than somebody giving tax advice to phony pimps. This is a deadly business that's killing innocent people.

One can only hope that this legitimate undercover investigation will get the kind of attention the ACORN videos did. It's a matter of life and death.

Indeed.

The Plaintive Wail Of The Not-Quite-As-Obscenely-Rich

There's a new sub-genre in journalism, tracking the travails and hardships of the not-quite-as-obscenely-rich. Inequality is still at its highest level since the Gilded Age, mind you, and the top 1% still rakes in 35% of all compensation, but selected still-rich individuals lost a little of their fortunes. This is the stuff of front-page news.

Last year, the number of Americans with a net worth of at least $30 million dropped 24 percent, according to CapGemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management. Monthly income from stock dividends, which is concentrated among the affluent, has fallen more than 20 percent since last summer, the biggest such decline since the government began keeping records in 1959.

Bill Gates, Warren E. Buffett, the heirs to the Wal-Mart Stores fortune and the founders of Google each lost billions last year, according to Forbes magazine. In one stark example, John McAfee, an entrepreneur who founded the antivirus software company that bears his name, is now worth about $4 million, from a peak of more than $100 million. Mr. McAfee will soon auction off his last big property because he needs cash to pay his bills after having been caught off guard by the simultaneous crash in real estate and stocks.

“I had no clue,” he said, “that there would be this tandem collapse.”

You really have to be kidding me with this. The stock market dropped 40%, so we're talking about paper value, not real but imagined wealth. And none of it was real anyway. That same stock market is now at a 52-week high at today's close, so the first thing to come back in this so-called recovery has been the fortunes of these same lamented rich people. The jobs for everyday Americans, not so much.

The ostensible premise of the article, that lesser yields for the rich may lead to a flattening of income distribution and maybe some relief for the middle and lower classes, is proven wrong by the middle of the article.

Few economists expect the country to return to the relatively flat income distribution of the 1950s and 1960s. Indeed, they say that inequality is likely to remain significantly greater than it was for most of the 20th century. The Obama administration has not proposed completely rewriting the rules for Wall Street or raising the top income-tax rate to anywhere near 70 percent, its level as recently as 1980. Market forces that have increased inequality, like globalization, are also not going away.

No, the real reason for this article is so super-rich people can read about other super-rich people and not feel so bad about poor people dying in the streets because of their hoarded fortunes. For example, here's Mike Bloomberg, of all people, singing a dirge for the poor little rich people.

Billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical companies and their chief executives on Friday, declaring that they "don't make a lot of money" and shouldn't be scapegoats in the health care debate.

The mayor – and wealthiest person in New York City with a fortune estimated at $16.5 billion – made the comments on his radio show Friday during a discussion about health care.

"You know, last time I checked, pharmaceutical companies don't make a lot of money, their executives don't make a lot of money – not that they couldn't be better," Bloomberg said.

Pharmaceutical CEOs are known to make millions, with generous salaries, stock options and other perks.

This is a guy who bought the Mayoralty in New York for $100 million dollars over two terms, talking about people who routinely make tens of millions of dollars and hold hundreds of millions more in stock options, telling the public that the plebes shouldn't revolt because things are tough all over and those pharmaceutical CEOs are barely scraping by.

Well, tell you what then. As long as CEOs from the insurance and drug industries are basically pikers, they should have no problem adhering to Henry Waxman's request and providing readouts of their salaries and perks, so they can prove to the world once and for all that they're in this for the saving of lives and not the filthy lucre. Surely they'll agree to that.

Maybe they'll even tell the New York Times what a bad year they're having.

Unity 08?

Bloomberg on the ballot in Virginia would be an interesting phenomenon. He apparently has enough signatures (with Ron Paul as VP!), but it's an independent effort and he could apparently ask to be removed.

If he isn't, I have to think this helps Obama, particularly with Ron Paul conservatives who may otherwise drift to McCain.

Unity Is The Great Need Of The Hour

Count me as someone slightly worried about the endorsements of bipartisan hacks David Boren and Sam Nunn for the Obama campaign. They wisely focused on foreign policy, where Nunn at least is on sturdier ground, but this is basically the remnants of Unity '08. I'm hoping this is their effort to remain relevant, and certainly Obama is in no position to deny their endorsements, but it gives me the willies. I think Obama's conception of "unity," which is about unifying class under a progressive banner, is far different than the false Broderism that Nunn and Boren profess. Still, hmm....

Although I do have to give Michael Bloomberg, who I often knock, some props for this line:

During a question-and-answer session, Bloomberg said he will not have to agree on all matters with whomever he ultimately endorses for president.

"I'm looking for a candidate that is willing to face reality and say, 'We can't have everything and there are costs and we've got to make choices.'"

The billionaire media mogul added, "Some of the things they will be in favor of I will agree with, some of the things they will be in favor of I won't. But at least we'll have an adult in office who can lead and can accomplish something."

Heh.

(I'm a bit happier with the Robert Reich endorsement.)

Just Another Postpartisan Monarch

Or perhaps, just another spoiled little rich man who is disinterested in complying with the rule of law:

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg invoked a rarely used power today not to enforce a law he deems illegal, saying he would ignore an electronic recycling bill passed by the City Council this week if his planned veto is overridden.

The mayor, on his weekly radio program on WABC-AM (770), said the bill as currently written is “totally illegal.”

“We will not enforce it,” he said. “And we don’t have to enforce it because it violates a whole bunch of federal laws on interstate commerce.”

The threat evokes the much-debated use of so-called “signing statements” by the Bush administration. In a 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Charlie Savage of The Boston Globe showed how the president has used hundreds of these statements to disobey laws passed by Congress on issues ranging from military rules and regulations to affirmative action.

In 2006, the Bloomberg administration won a battle in the state’s highest court saying the mayor does not have to enforce a law he deems to be unconstitutional. That legal fight was waged over a 2004 law passed by the City Council, after overriding the mayor’s veto, that would have required private companies that contract with the city to provide the same health care and other benefits they extend to married couples to domestic partners.

Isn't the whole Bloomberg appeal supposed to be that whole "liberal on social issues and the environment" thing?

Sounds to me like Bloomberg's idea of "getting along and working together to solve problems" is identical to the current resident of the White House.

Mommy And Daddy Are Fighting!

When, oh when will the partisan bickering end?

Testifying in Albany, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said today that Gov. Eliot Spitzer’s state budget unfairly shortchanges New York City out of millions in promised financial support for health care and education, among other things. If not reversed, he said, the broken promises could force the city to further squeeze taxpayers and deepen cuts in programs.

“This year, as we do every year, we’ve made budget decisions in the city based on the expectation, and even the expressed assurances, that Albany will honor its commitments to us,” Mr. Bloomberg said during his testimony at a joint legislative budget hearing in Albany.

I don't know who's right and who's wrong, and I don't care. I just want everyone to stop fighting so we can listen to the obscenely rich guy and move forward to wherever he wants us to go!

Doesn't Eliot Spitzer know his place?

Mike, You're Stupid And Ugly And Nobody Likes You

Turns out that people who endlessly prattle on about how everyone should stop with the democracy and just allow a billionaire plutocrat to rule us aren't very well-liked by anyone.

Yes, someone who does not need voters, donors, or political parties and who will instead act entirely in the interest of media elites is the only person who can truly pull this country together. It is a good thing he doesn’t need voters, since they don’t like him very much [...]

Michael Bloomberg is less popular than the top three Democrats and the top three Republicans running for President right now. He even has lower overall favorables than Ron Paul. Fortunately, since he doesn’t think appealing to the voters is a worthy activity for elected officials, it actually seems like this low favorable rating was one of his goals.

Meanwhile, in his actual job, Bloomberg is preparing for massive budget cuts across city agencies, including $180 million out of the education budget, while keeping property tax cuts for the rich intact. He doesn't have any new ideas. Just the same tax-cut, spending-cut, callous conservatism, and no ask for sacrifice on the part of the taxpayers, no discussion that America is worth paying for.

He's just another stooge, and an unaccountable one at that.

Michael Bloomberg, Sit Down And Shut Up

No amount of your billion dollars is going to make anyone want to vote for you.

Over on his blog, Greg Mitchell flags a new Gallup Poll that probes these questions in some detail. The poll, which surveyed roughly 2,000 adults, finds:

* A startling 84% of respondents think there's a candidate running who would make a "good president."

* Nearly three in four -- 72% -- say that the candidates are talking about issues they "really care about."

* A solid majority -- 58% -- feel that one or more candidates has come up with "good ideas for solving the country's problems," a finding that runs directly counter to Bloomberg's frequent and self-serving criticism of the other candidates.

Gallup's conclusion? "The American public does not appear to believe it is important or necessary for an independent candidate outside of the traditional two major parties to step into the race in order to save the nation." That couldn't be clearer. Are you there, Dean Broder?

To the extent that there's even minor daylight for a third-party run, it comes from the opposite pole of the Broders of the world. It would be fiscally populist and socially conservative (think Huckabee or Lou Dobbs), not fiscally conservative and socially liberal. That position is already filled. A Bloomberg third party would probably not even be so much as a spoiler.

It's not David Broder's country. Sorry.

The Recession Cheerleaders

With Unity 08 morphing into Bloomity 08, with a grassroots movement transformed into an astroturf movement (and the ground is lined with Bloomberg's $1,000 dollar bills), I'm really struck by this new line of argument from the post-partisan folks:

Two founders of the bipartisan Unity08 effort launched a new campaign to draft independent New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg into the presidential race Tuesday, saying he is the right candidate to overcome bitter partisanship and oncoming economic problems.

Former Republican consultant Doug Bailey and Gerald Rafshoon, a former communications director to President Carter, argued that Bloomberg is the answer to a “severe economic recession” that is threatening the country.

They said Bloomberg would be a non-ideological candidate, in large part because the billionaire business mogul can self-finance his entire campaign.

Buying the White House is now seen as a public good! (By the way, they said the same thing about Schwarzenegger, he said "I can't be bought," and then he had all his travel financed by corporate interests and has fundraised more than any governor in California history, so give me a break.)

But I want to pinpoint this idea that Bloomberg is the answer to a "severe economic recession." This was reiterated in an LA Times article this morning.

Um, guys?

If the US economy is in a recession, doesn't it also follow that New York City is likely to be... also... in a recession? Let me answer that for you.

America's lackluster Christmas in 2007 may have been a precursor of bleaker days ahead. New York City foresees gloomy clouds ahead as the city's leaders forecast a slower paced Wall Street, flat real estate prices and budget deficits.

A doomsayer projects only 500 new jobs to be created in 2008, although official estimates from the Independent Budget Office said jobs to be generated in the city will go up by 20,800, a paltry number compared to 41,100 new jobs in 2007.

If the city's financial center continues to lose money, the new jobs may further downsize to 8,700, and granting the U.S. economy does not experience worse recession, the figure may go up to 15,000 new jobs in 2009.

IBO spokesman Doug Turetsky said to Daily News, "The fiscal picture has dimmed considerably." He added, "There is a fairly significant risk that things could get worse."

And if you want to hold up Bloomberg as this supremely competent fiscal manager, shouldn't the fact that New York City faces a $3.1 billion dollar budget deficit be up for discussion? Shouldn't the fact that the city's housing market is slowing and it's become a playground for the rich, with anyone but the upper class priced out of the market, be a topic? Shouldn't the fact that so many of the mortgage lenders and major banks that are writing down billions as a result of their flawed system of mortgage-backed securities ORIGINATE in New York City, be a factor?

If you're going to root, root, root for recession because you think it makes Mike Bloomberg more electable, and if you're going to bring in his experience of economic stewardship, at some point you're going to have to recognize that the two are in conflict. An economy built on Bushonomics cuts both ways. And we know that Bloomberg's tax cuts have been almost entirely regressive.

The elimination of the 4 percent city sales tax on all clothing in the 2008 budget is marginally progressive, since clothing expenses as a percentage of income will be slightly lower for low-income households. But the loss of tens of millions of dollars in high-end taxes on clothing like the outfits touted in the recent fashion shows is a reminder of how much the modest gains for low-income New Yorkers have cost us.

The biggest part of the 2008 cuts – the across-the-board property tax rate cut and residential owner ($400) rebate -- no doubt eased the tax burden of many lower- and middle-income homeowners who needed it (and many wealthy residential owners who didn’t), but the bulk of the rate-cut benefit went to large corporate property owners.

Further, the one significant progressive idea in recent years never made it into the adopted budget because the mayor rejected the City Council’s proposed $300 rebate to low- and middle-income renters. That’s a missed opportunity.

There's something unseemly in staking one's political future on hoping for a recession. Not to mention that New York City isn't this island of calm among a sea of economic troubles. Not that it's totally Bloomberg's fault: he's a mayor subject to the policies of the federal government. But let's not be so ridiculous to suggest that he can take credit for the positives and brush aside the negatives.

UPDATE: There's another thing: nobody knows who Michael Bloomberg is and those that do aren't particularly interested in him being President (he never polls over 13%). He doesn't beat Hillary Clinton in New York City.

Bipartisanship Observed

The dissolving of Unity08 (what am I going to do with all my political capital points now?) and folding it into a Draft Bloomberg movement is just so revealing. The idea was to have this supposedly inclusive "online convention" to draft a serious alternative to the two parties. Instead, it's a conduit for hero worship toward a billionaire who's looking to buy the White House. I guess the people weren't deciding the right way so their betters had to do the deciding for them. Some grassroots movement.

Now that the speculation has heightened on a Bloomberg candidacy, with even some backlash, it's worth taking a look at how a politics based on nothing but calls to "get along" would work in practice. All of us in California have a unique perspective on this question.

If Arnold Schwarzenegger were named Arnold Schwartz, and if he were born in Austin and not Austria, he would almost certainly be the vessel of the hopes of the Unity08 crowd, not Bloomberg. In truth, Schwarzenegger is a con man, which is what you'd expect from an actor playing at executive. Since coming into office, he has played with a variety of images - reformer, hardcore Republican, environmental advocate - before settling on the label of "post-partisan". These are just labels, because his core ideological concerns have not changed a bit, with policies friendly to big business, concerned with redistributing wealth upwards, and punishing the middle and lower classes.

The first thing Schwarzenegger did in office was eliminate an increase in the vehicle license fee, depriving government of $8 billion dollars in revenues. Then he sought to solve every problem under the sun through massive amounts of borrowing, combined with a philosophical opposition to any tax increases. This constrained any solutions to move the state forward to a narrow band. Then he cut worker's compensation benefits to benefit his corporate buddies. All the while he spent and spent and tried to be all things to all people, in the interest of being liked. An example (Not that I'm a fan of the heartless Tom McClintock, but the quote is so instructive).

McClintock showed the governor a chart he had drawn. It illustrated that spending under Davis had increased an average of 7% a year. Under Schwarzenegger, it was climbing at a 10% rate. Similarly, he pointed out, the deficit -- the billions being spent over the revenue coming in -- was larger than under Davis.

According to McClintock, the governor replied: "That is bad news that people don't want to hear. People want to hear only good news. I don't want to hear pessimism. I'm an optimist."

This year, the inequities in California's budget structure were made clear. The housing debacle and major increases in unemployment shrunk revenues and created a $14 billion dollar deficit. Not only that, but state employee retiree health care was majorly unfunded, and the prisons were the worst in the country, overcrowded and mismanaged to the extent that federal judges were about to mandate releases.

Faced with the consequences of his own policies of borrowing and putting off reality to our children and grandchildren, Schwarzenegger declared a "fiscal emergency," and is using the shock doctrine principle by taking advantage of the crisis to radically alter the power of the executive in state government. He put together a budget that only deals with the problem from the spending side. He plans to cut education, release 50,000 prisoners, slash services for the elderly and the blind, lay off prison guards, close 48 state parks (that's the California dream, isn't it?), and reduce health care for the needy (more on that later). Loopholes for corporations and people who buy yachts don't come under the budget knife.

Schwarzenegger is trying to suspend Prop. 98, which mandates a certain level of education funding, and he seeks a constitutional cap on spending where mid-year cuts would be at the complete discretion of the executive. This is something that Arnold tried to push through the Legislature in 2004, to no avail. He tried a ballot measure in 2005; it was rejected. Faced with a crisis, he's gone to the same failed solution, and is holding the budget hostage to it.

The "post-partisan" label that Schwarzenegger has taken up has enabled him to just use the language of both sides of the political aisle while rigidly holding to conservative "drown the government in the bathtub" policy. So he sounds schizophrenic to those who don't scratch the surface.

If Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wanted to further his reputation as a dabbler who has political Velcro glued to his fingers, he succeeded with elements of his State of the State speech yesterday.

One minute this Republican governor was praising the public works programs of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. The next he was calling for more partnerships with private industry to build public infrastructure – the seeming antithesis of the New Deal.

One minute he was acknowledging the harsh consequences of spending cuts that involve "not just dollars, but people." The next he was calling for across-the-board spending cuts and refusing to raise taxes.

Because he's supposed to be some kind of post-partisan, state political insiders have convinced themselves into believing that this is an elaborate ruse, that Schwarzenegger is just calling for outlandish cuts without taxes to get a broader compromise (Odd way of forcing compromise, by proposing something entirely on one side of the equation). They're so convinced that he's some kind of coalition builder and compromiser that they don't listen when he says he won't raise taxes (actually, he'll just call taxes fees and make sure they're applied regressively, if at all). It's entirely based on the image of the Governor and not the reality.

Meanwhile, as if it's happening in a different sphere, the Governor is pushing ahead with health care reform while cutting the public programs set to expand under that reform. The health care plan is predicated on an individual mandate, subsidies so everyone can afford coverage, and a massive expansion of public programs. Without the public programs it's just a forced market. And yet this is what he's cutting in the current budget. This is a familiar pattern for the governor. Earlier this year he used the line-item veto to terminate treatment for mentally ill homeless people (now that's post-partisan!) because he claimed a ballot measure that was supposed to add money to the program provided full funding for that treatment. It's a dodge and a lie, yet the same people who want to work with this guy because he's so beyond partisanship continue to fall for it.

I go into so much detail on this because it's a model for how progressive policy would suffer, necessarily, under "post-partisan" executive leadership. Envisioning a government of national unity where everyone puts aside differences neglects the inconvenient fact that politicians have substantive differences, including those who claim to be above politics. Mayor Bloomberg, himself faced with a significant budget deficit, responded to the crisis by saying “The first thing we’re going to do for the city is try to reduce spending.” He has his own ideological rigidities, too, especially in foreign policy, where he shows little difference from George Bush. "Let's everybody get along" is a transparent way to not say "Let's everyone do what I say" when that's the actual meaning. Corporatist warmongers don't get to say who should start or stop the bickering. They have to put their ideas in front of the public and allow them to be accepted or rejected. The cult around Bloomberg mirrors the starstruck media cult around Schwarzenegger. Failing to scrutinize what this call for "bipartisanship" is a cover for will put the country in the same dire straits as California is in right now.

Memories of Wankstock

I'm kicking myself for only catching about 10 minutes of the Wankstock conference on C-SPAN. I was disappointed to see Bob Graham there; I always thought he was better than that. And the deep, thought-provoking discussions I saw consisted mainly of jokes about Oklahoma Sooner football. The only issue anybody brought up was Republican former Congressman Jim Leach's call essentially for public financing of elections, which was met with a decent round of applause. I guess Bloomberg's billion dollars doesn't count.

The more representative quotes were pabulum like this:

"People have stopped working together, government is dysfunctional, there's no collaborating and congeniality," Bloomberg said to applause from the crowd.

This is particularly amusing in light of that floated Bloomberg-Hagel ticket. They agree on absolutely nothing. Bloomberg is fairly Democratic domestically and a neocon on foreign policy, while Hagel is a hardline conservative on everything BUT foreign policy, where he rejects neoconservatism forcefully. Those are actual policy differences. The idea that you can "work together" on those doesn't make any sense.

But apparently, the rise of Barack Obama dampened the spirits of the attendees, kind of like a bad trip.

The event was organized by former Senator Sam Nunn, Democrat of Georgia, with former Senator David L. Boren, Democrat of Oklahoma. In the days leading up the event here, just outside Oklahoma City, Mr. Boren suggested that he would encourage Mr. Bloomberg to run if the major party nominees failed to heed the call for bipartisanship.

But several leading participants took pains to say that they had no intention of abandoning their own parties in the election. Some even cast Mr. Obama’s success as evidence that the nation was yearning for the type of leadership they were offering.

“I believe he is demonstrating, in the support he is getting, that the American people share this concern about excessive partisanship,” said Bob Graham, a Democratic former senator from Florida, who said he would support a Democrat for president.

Gary Hart, a Democrat from Colorado who also served in the Senate, said he intended to endorse one of the Democratic presidential candidates in the next 48 hours, though he declined to identify the candidate.

“I am a Democrat, and I will endorse a Democratic president,” he said. “There are no independent candidates. I won’t endorse a Republican.”

Seems to me like these tools are declaring victory (for now). Obama says a few words on bipartisanship, and the Wise Old Men appear satisfied. They're claiming that everyone is following their dictates.

Of course, that's not true. But it's far easier to influence the debate from the outside, to narrow the options for a progressive agenda. They can go ahead and claim some sort of betrayal the first time Obama offers something that doesn't fall in the narrow lines of the status quo. They'll kneecap him as sure as they kneecapped Bill Clinton.

You could hear Sam Nunn, the Jerry Garcia of Wankstock, if you will, just deflated today on an interview with Andrea Mitchell. He kept talking about "the fundamental issues" without really explaining what those issues are (except an allusion to entitlement reform, which means Social Security privatization, of course). Yesterday at Wankstock, he closed it out with an electric guitar version of the Star-Spangled Banner this quote:

"A minister once said to me, if you call yourself a leader, but nobody's following you, you're just takin' a walk."

Wankstock: just takin' a walk.

3 Days Of Peace, Love And Bipartisanship

Today begins the event history will record as Wankstock, where old men and older men from all over the country will get together at the University of Oklahoma and sing in the manner of the old Joni Mitchell song, "and we got to get ourselves, back to the center!"

They're coming to demand unity, which I've always found as the best way to unify any groups of people with differences, by demanding it. Their grievances are legion; they want bipartisanship, although there isn't really an agenda to embrace. If the Democrats want to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making $200,000 or more, and the Republicans don't want any expiration, is the bipartisan position letting the tax cuts expire for those making (infinity-$200,000)/2? It's unclear.

And now that voters in Iowa selected candidates in both parties who at least talk about bringing the country together, now the Wank Brigade is coming to demand specific proposals. Let's break down how ridiculous this is. You can spend an entire week around the clock and not read all of the white papers that the three top Democratic candidates have issued. You can spend 10 seconds on the actual proposals that this Wank Brigade is standing behind.

And if you want to take a look at Michael Bloomberg's actual record, you'd find a "bipartisan" that is really nothing more than a bland technocrat whose positions don't differ radically from any other mainstream candidate, though the Wank Brigade that's built up behind him is more "centrist" in the sense that they want to maintain the status quo and the power elite at all costs.

So if you're interested in moving the country forward in a not-moving-the-country-forward direction, if you have flowers in your hair and a lack of vituperation in your heart, get yourself to Norman and be among your people, experience the best wankers this country has to offer. Be part of Wankstock.

Bring It On, Bipartisan Fetishists

David Sirota basically wrote the post I was about to write, but I'll summarize it in shorter form. This Mike Bloomberg "Old White Men For Bipartisanship As Defined By Agreeing With Us" boomlet is nothing more than a desire to save the country from the evils of a progressive agenda. The High Broderists of the world who scream for centrist bipartisan solutions don't know what they're talking about, nor do they understand how American democracy works, nor do they really want American democracy. Bloomberg is a neoconservative narcissist who wants to buy the White House for him and the Big Money boys. He has steadfastly supported the war in Iraq and some of the dregs of Washington like Paul Wolfowitz and Joe Lieberman. As Greenwald notes:

A Bloomberg candidacy would have no purpose other than satisfy his bottomless personal lust for attention and bestow the wise old men threatening the country with his candidacy with some fleeting sense of rejuvenated relevance and wisdom. His political views are conventional in every way and he's little more than an establishment-enabling figurehead. The whole attraction to his candidacy has nothing to do with any issues or substance and everything to do with an empty addiction to vapid notions of Establishment harmony and a desire to exert control, whereby our Seriousness guardians devote themselves to a candidate for reasons largely unrelated to his policies or political views, thus proving themselves, as usual, to be the exact antithesis of actual seriousness.

Digby's worried about this and thinks that Bloomberg is the kind of guy that could bamboozle a lot of so-called "independent Democrats" and swing the election to the Republicans, but I would relish shutting this guy up. Could you imagine a scenario where John Edwards faces Mitt Romney, with Michael Bloomberg as an independent? Would that not be just the perfect embodiment of Edwards' candidacy, going against two corporate suits and their billions? And I don't think that having the clueless Villagers against you would be an impediment. Worried about an Edwards nomination, you're starting to see shills like Stu Rothenberg and Joe Klein attack him for having the temerity to line up on the side of the working man. Klein's is particularly stupid because he has to lie ("NAFTA has been a wash, creating as many jobs as have been lost.") in order to get his point across, as well as magically find ordinary citizens who just so happen to parrot back his own arguments.

My sense is that the country is fed up with these gasbags who think they can do what's best for the country without interference from the rabble. I think that Sirota is right:

In my reporting over the last year I learned that things are - finally - starting to change. The Joe Kleins, Stu Rothenbergs and Mike Bloombergs still have influence, because they have lots of money behind them. But an uprising is on - one that has already impacted the 2008 presidential race, and one that will continue to seethe well past the upcoming caucuses and primaries. It is that simple fact that truly frightens the defenders of the status quo who have gotten used to the good life inside the palace walls.

Edwards' message resonates to those who've been kicked around by an economy that values the super-rich for the last three decades. He's not running against George Bush, but a system in Washington that is rigged for moneyed interests. He understands that a politics of confrontation is the only way to get a decent outcome, that only through epic fights and, yes, partisanship, have we ever made progress in this country. These bipartisan fetishists don't want anything that would disrupt a status quo that keeps real power for themselves. What's ironic is that, in the name of changing the country, they want to keep it the same.

Sunday Morning Follies

Stop me if you're surprised by this, but Broderella thinks that Michael Bloomberg is a stone-cold lock to be President, because he's been "out there" in the world and people are really really disgusted with Washington (probably because of people like HIM, but don't let him know that). He said that "the Democrats in Congress are destroying the Democratic brand, and George Bush is destroying the Republican brand. Of course, minutes later, a poll showed tht 52% of those surveyed wants to see a Democratic President in 2008, compared to 31% who favor a Republican. Doesn't sound quite "destroyed" to me.

Broder supports a Bloomberg candidacy because he considers him someone who's fiscally conservative and socially liberal, which is also how Broder considers himself. He also expects that's how the whole country feels, obviously. Other pundits imposed their views on the Bloomberg candidacy. Jake Tapper on ABC's This Week insisted that Bloomberg is "a very liberal Democrat," which is simply not true. Too few of them (Roger Simon and George Will being exceptions) think that $500 million dollars can overcome 150 years of infrastructure and entrenchment in the political parties, especially in service to someone who has no natural constituency other than people who are fed up.

And every talk show guest seemed to agree that a Bloomberg run would hurt the Democrats, despite the fact that the only polling data suggested the exact opposite.

It seems like these pundits put their views in place for the views of the country. Look, the last third-party candidate to do well was an economic populist and social conservative, Ross Perot. Bloomberg's profile is the opposite. I don't know why he's running (if he is) or who he's supposed to attract.

UPDATE: Broder's centrism mania is also in convenient written form.

UPDATE II: Let me add that the real problem in government right now is ideological rigidity which prevents compromise. The Mayor of a city doesn't have many impediments when he's essentially compromising with the majority opinion on his city council, for example. But unless the Bloomberg Party is planning on winning 60 or so Senators and 250 House members as well, you'd see the same old Washington gridlock were he President, perhaps even more so because he wouldn't have party loyalty to fall back on.

A New Generation of Progressive Leadership

Democrats and particularly bloggers like to take the piss out of Barack Obama and John Edwards and the rest of our slate of Democratic Presidential candidates a lot; I've joined them. But it's undeniable that we're seeing a completely different dynamic in 2007 that we saw in 2003 leading up to the primaries. Then, centrist pro-gun fiscally conservative Howard Dean was seen as a wild-eyed liberal just to the left of Karl Marx. The range of topics was extremely narrow, and the solutions expressed even narrower. Today, we see a broad progressive agenda espoused by everyone - even Hillary Clinton - and practically everyone in this race has pitched their message in a more progressive way than even Dean. (OK, not Biden, but he represents the past)

The candidates' liberal chorus about the war in Iraq, gay rights, healthcare and labor issues was a testament to the Democratic left wing's growing strength since the Republican rout in the 2006 midterm election.

The White House hopefuls called for broad healthcare reform. All embraced allowing gays to serve in the military, a step to the left of President Clinton's policy of "don't ask, don't tell."

The rival candidates also paid homage to their party's deep antiwar sentiment by competing for the mantle of being the most strongly opposed to the war in Iraq [...]

At a time when many Republicans are dissatisfied with their presidential candidates, the mood at the twin forums illustrated the energy and high hopes coursing through liberal ranks.

"There's enthusiasm and optimism that someone in this room will be elected president," said Wayne Holland Jr., head of the Utah Democratic Party who attended the conference of liberal activists organized by the Campaign for America's Future. "There's a confidence I've never seen."

We begged, pleaded, and cajoled Democrats to emphasize a true politics of contrast in 2004 and 2006. We urged them to be bold and not passive or cautious. Now we're just starting to see the fruits of that, at least on the campaign trail (in Congress is another story, though I think they're beginning to get the message as well). People in this country are starving for change and leadership; that's why they're so disgusted with Congress right now, because it appears unwilling or unable to challenge George Bush.

But candidates on the stump ARE offering a leadership agenda. Barack Obama offered one of the boldest good government proposals in recent memory today, and he framed it in terms of a regrettable American past that we are slipping into again.

As factories multiplied and profits grew, the winnings of the new economy became more and more concentrated in the hands of a few robber barons, railroad tycoons and oil magnates.

It was known as the Gilded Age, and it was made possible by a government that played along. From the politicians in Washington to the big city machines, a vast system of payoffs and patronage, scandal and corruption kept power in the hands of the few while the workers who streamed into the new factories found it harder and harder to earn a decent wage or work in a safe environment or get a day off once in awhile.
The importance of this cannot be overstated. Preventing and even discouraging partipation in the political system are important tools of the entrenched interests in society. If people can't or won't change the system, the system becomes a tool for preserving injustice instead of eradicating it [...]

From Jack Abramoff to Tom Delay, from briberies to indictments, the scandals that have plagued Washington over the last few years have been too numerous to recall.

But their most troubling aspect goes far beyond the headlines that focus on the culprits and their crimes. It's an entire culture in Washington – some of it legal, some of it not – that allows this to happen. Because what's most outrageous is not the morally offensive conduct on behalf of these lobbyists and legislators, but the morally offensive laws and decisions that get made as a result.

The specific policies are numerous, but they include banning political appointees from working on anything related to their prior employer, ending no-bid contracting abuse, banning gifts to executive branch employees, enforcing the Hatch Act which bans government officials from engaging in partisan activities, ELMINATING SIGNING STATEMENTS, allowing for public comment on all bills before signage, conducting regulatory business and federal earmarking in public, and more. Obama is a candidate with a message of changing our politics, and all of these proposals, many of which he advocated before coming to Washington, all get at a drastic change from the tarnished legacy of the Bush era and a restoration of the principles of good government and respect for the Constitution. Even Ralph Nader's old group gave it a thumbs-up. You can see the speech he gave here.

We have another Presidential candidate, John Edwards, who is the first since Lyndon Johnson, really, to talk about the shame of poverty in America and advocate for those voiceless poor who have no access to the levers of power. Because he happens to be wealthy and wants to be President so he can do something about this issue, he takes a lot of heat from a clueless media, like this story today in the New York Times, alleging that Edwards' anti-poverty nonprofit was somehow used for nefarious purposes. Never mind the fact that The Times never bothered to talk to any poor people that were helped by Edwards' nonprofit. If you just look at what the Paper of Record thinks is dastardly - going abroad to talk with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and criss-crossing the country helping build unions and talking about poverty - it doesn't seem all that untoward. In fact, it seems pretty impressive:

Indeed, this all seems like an extremely successful venture. Edwards raised some money to fight poverty. He used a certain amount of that money to finance his own pre-presidential campaigning, which was entirely focused on poverty reduction. During that campaigning, he spent an enormous amount of time...talking about poverty, and restoring its place in the national political discussion. Given that the sum of money we're talking about is $1.3 million, how has this not been an extraordinarily effective anti-poverty center? Granted, among its methods were to enable a national politician to continually raise the issue's profile through his personal advocacy, but isn't that what folks donating to a John Edwards poverty center were expecting? And hasn't Edwards -- who still brings up poverty in his speeches, just released a book on the subject, and whose efforts spurred Matt Bai to write a New York Times Magazine cover story on the reemergence of the issue in the national political discourse -- proven very, very effective? If you care about poverty, this seems like $1.3 million well spent.

It's clear to me from these examples that we have a new generation of progressive leadership, one that is understanding that in a dangerous world, in the aftermath of a disastrous Presidency, we cannot be timid, we cannot be cowed, we must be strong and principled and tell the nation exactly how we can change this country and make an impact on people's lives. I'll leave the last word to E.J. Dionne, who wrote this admirable piece today:

cliches die hard, so you hear such 20-year-old questions as: "Are Democrats moving too far to the left?" or "Will Democrats abandon the center?"

This approach is about abstractions, not concrete political problems, and it misses the dynamic in American public life, which is the move away from the right and a discrediting of the conservative era. The political "center" of today is not where the "center" was even five years ago.

That's why every leading Democratic candidate for president chose to appear at this week's "Take Back America" conference organized by the Campaign for America's Future, the leading group on the party's progressive end [...]

None of this means that the country would replace the fiercely ideological politics of the right with strident leftism. On the contrary, the reaction against conservatism is being fed by two streams -- a move left by one part of the electorate, and a frustration with ideological politics altogether by another part.

It's why New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, flirting with an independent run for the presidency while denying he's doing so, hit a responsive chord when he declared this week that "good ideas should take precedence over rigid adherence to any particular political ideology."

But the "good ideas" that voters are demanding mostly have to do with problems that have been framed by the left, not the right: the need to disengage from Iraq, to create health security, to ease economic inequalities. It's time to update our sense of where the political center lies and to adjust our view of "the left" accordingly.

The local Air America station has a new tagline: "Progressive, the new mainstream." I'm beginning to think that they're right.

Fighting Dems

I've often said that Rahm Emanuel may be an asshole, but he's our asshole. And sometimes, it's good to have an asshole on your side.

After Dick Cheney's assertion that he's not part of the executive branch, Emanuel's office put out this graphic picking up on my Fourthbranch idea:



And he released this statement:

Today, we discovered that everything we learned in U.S. government class was wrong. Evidently, the Vice President does not consider himself a part of the executive branch, and therefore believes he can obstruct meaningful oversight and avoid being held accountable. If the Vice President truly believes he is not a part of the executive branch, he should return the salary the American taxpayers have been paying him since January 2001, and move out of the home for which they are footing the bill.

I wish he'd go further and actually submit that legislation on the House floor. Rahm Emanuel should be used as our Patrick McHenry.

A far less belligerent politician, Tom Harkin, offered this brilliant frame when talking about potential Presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg. I don't know if it was by design or not, but I love it:

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin this morning said New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is like a “little rich kid” who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty with the sort of retail politics involved in presidential bids.

“Mr. Bloomberg, whom I don’t know real well — I’ve met him a few times — kind of reminds me of the little rich kid that if he can’t have it his way he’s going to take his little balls and go home,” Harkin said in a conference call with Iowa Independent and other media [...]

Harkin said Bloomberg, if he is eyeing an independent presidential run, appears to be wanting to “take all his money and do his own thing like this little rich kid that doesn’t know how to get along with anyone else.”

Harkin said that if Bloomberg were a true leader he would have showcased his skills in the two-party structure.

“Why isn’t he a leader in the Republican Party?” said Harkin, a Democrat. “Why didn’t he take leadership positions in the Democratic Party when he was a Democrat?” [...]

“It sounds like he doesn’t want to go around Iowa,” Harkin said. “He doesn’t want to get his hands dirty. He doesn’t want to go out and go to town meetings and he doesn’t want to go in people’s homes and stuff like that. He kind of wants to ride above it.”

There's an upside to Bloomberg changing parties because a lot of citizens in this country have drifted in the same way. The downside is the notion that he's constantly ducking the mechanisms of party government and changing his status for political expediency. And painting him as a spoiled rich kid is an absolutely brilliant way to portray that.

Some pretty good rapid repsonse by the Dems there.

Rudy's Bad Day

This article is painful to read. I wish I could have seen Giuliani's face as he responded to damaging question after damaging question.

Republican presidential contender Rudy Giuliani, whose tough talk on terrorism is the centerpiece of his campaign, said Wednesday that it was a mistake to join a bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which he later quit.

"I thought it would work, but then after a month or two I realized the idea that I was possibly going to run for president would be inconsistent with that," he said [...]

Giuliani also talked about current New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who announced he left the Republican Party, fueling speculation he could run for president as an independent.

"I like Mike very much," Giuliani said. "I am disappointed that he left the Republican Party. I still respect what he has done as mayor." [...]

Giuliani was in Iowa, delivering a speech about fiscal conservatism, but was forced to address problems with his campaign.

South Carolina State Treasurer Thomas Ravenel was removed as chairman of Giuliani's campaign in that state after he was indicted on cocaine charges.

"Any federal indictment is a very serious case," Giuliani said. "I don't know anything about it. There's no light I can shed on it. He stepped down as having anything to do with the campaign."

At what point did he take a swing at a staffer after that news conference?

We're 18 months out. Rudy will not be able to handle this kind of questioning without flipping. Please, please, PLEASE, Republicans, nominate this guy. I want to see the headline "PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE HANGS JOURNALIST FROM A HOTEL WINDOW."

Bloomentum!

Michael Bloomberg just took the first step to making a run for the Presidency.

Michael R. Bloomberg, a longtime Democrat who switched to the Republican Party to run for mayor of New York City in 2001, announced this evening that he is changing his party status and registering as an independent.

Mr. Bloomberg maintained that "my plans for the future haven't changed," but his decision -- the first change in party affiliation by a sitting New York City mayor since 1971, when John V. Lindsay switched from Republican to Democrat -- immediately set off intense speculation that he will enter the 2008 presidential race as an independent.

As well it should. Bloomberg's party switches have been about opportunism in the past - he switched from the Democratic to Republican parties simply to avoid a primary for the NYC mayor's race. Seems like the same calculation is at work here.

Third party candidacies are a fixture of Presidential politics; it's a bit more rare when there isn't a credible one than when there is. 1992 (Perot), 1996 (Perot), and 2000 (Nader) all had substantial third-party votes. So did 1952 (Dixiecrat Thurmond) and 1968 (George Wallace) and 1980 (John Anderson). What's not normal is a third-party candidate getting so much as a single electoral vote - I believe 1968 was the last time. But Bloomberg isn't a normal candidate and this isn't a normal year. Still, early indications are that Bloomberg would factor as a spoiler helping the Democrat in the race over the Republican. Of course, Bloomberg has a billion reasons, all of them with George Washington on the face, to change that dynamic. Odds are he would match up with conservative Democrat David Boren on a ticket, if not Chuck Hagel.

Bloomberg's done a decent enough job as mayor of New York City, actually, so I certainly believe he'd have more credentials than Perot. But would he run on... what, his executive experience? The same Democratic ideas on the environment that would typify the Democratic nominee? Perot's populism got him 20% of the vote. I don't know what Bloomberg's message would be outside of "I want to be President." Although, I must say that Bloomberg's dismissal of the whole booga-booga terrorism hysteria in the wake of the silly JFK plot was very heartening. If he runs on a "let's get America back to work again and stop the fear" message, maybe that would inspire people. Could be interesting.

Booga-Booga Be Afraid!

Rudy Giuliani at the Republican debate.

And we just saw it just last week in New York, an attempt by Islamist terrorists to attack JFK airport; three weeks ago, an attempt to attack Fort Dix.

These are real problems. This war is not a bumper sticker. This war is a real war.

His handpicked successor, Michael Bloomberg, the actual Mayor of New York City, yesterday, about the "Islamist terror" plot to ignite jet fuel in pipelines, which is an almost entirely impossible action:

"There are lots of threats to you in the world. There's the threat of a heart attack for genetic reasons. You can't sit there and worry about everything. Get a life. You have a much greater danger of being hit by lightning than being struck by a terrorist."

I should mention that Giuliani was, in fact, almost struck by lightning last night.

2008 Matters

We're inching toward a time when what happens in the Presidential race might actually matter, so maybe I'll start doing more of these roundups.

• We'll start on the Republican side, where Rudy Giuliani is learning that the worst place to be in the Republican nomination is the front-runner. Adding to the list of recent revelations is that he paid his wife $125,000 a year to "write" speeches for him, and this New Republic article which chronicles his monomania.

• I think it's significant that the other two front-runners on the GOP side are attacking each other in the expectation that Giuliani will collapse on his own. Today John McCain lashed out at Mitt Romney's criticisms of the immigration compromise:

Mitt Romney has been trying to make quite a bit of political hay out of the compromise immigration bill — he sees it as one of John McCain's key weaknesses as relates to the Republican base and a great way to differentiate himself as the One True Conservative in the race (at least until Fred Thompson jumps in).

Well, today, on a conference call with bloggers, Mr. McCain fired back at the former Massachusetts governor, who has (of course) held varying positions on immigration over the years.

"Maybe I should wait a couple weeks and see if it changes," Mr. McCain said of Mr. Romney's position on immigration this week. "Maybe he can get out his small varmint gun and drive those Guatemalans off his yard."

Ouch. As Romney heads into the front-runner position (he's way ahead in Iowa, according to the last poll), expect more of this. It's amusing that Republicans are giving Democrats all the attack lines they'll use in the general election. But I don't know that this line of attack will work. There are two kinds of flip-flops, the ones that are due to new information and the ones made for political expediency. But people with strongly held views will always believe that a poltician coming to their side is doing it due to new information. Matthew Yglesias has more.

• San Brownback deserves a pat on the back for personally divesting himself of tens of thousands of dollars in companies that do business with Sudan. Brownback's supporters do not deserve a pat on the back for believing that heliocentrism, the idea that the Earth moves around the sun, is an "atheist doctrine."

I support the Bible, and I don’t want my children learning about Heliocentrism in school. I think this doctrine encourages atheism, Darwinism, and anti-Americanism. I don’t want my tax dollars going to finance this kind of false science. It’s complete rot, and I hope that those of us who come to realize this can ultimately prevail against its propogation amongst OUR children with the money from OUR salaries.

At some point, you have to blame Brownback for engendering this kind of anti-intellectualism.

• Somewhere in the middle is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who may spend a billion dollars on his own third-party run, possibly with Chuck Hagel in tow as Vice President. Somehow this is being spun as trouble for Democrats. Ahem? When a Republican mayor and a Republican Senator run for President, they're not quite likely to take away votes from the Democrat.

• Turning to the Democrats, I thought this was a brilliant move by Barack Obama.

Officially, the event held in a large, muddy parking lot north of the city was called a statewide grassroots canvas. Unofficially, let's call it the first of many "Saul Alinsky" days. Alinsky is the legendary organizer and theorist who Barack Obama reportedly counts as an inspiration [...]

To "canvass," means to go house-to-house and collect something. Today, Obama's team is collecting signatures to to pressure Sens. Gregg and Sununu to end the war in Iraq. Unoffiically, the event serves another,more Alinskian purpose. There are so many Obama volunteers statewide that the campaign itself cannot accomodate all the solicited help. So today's event is a place-holder of sorts, a way for those thousands of volunteers to invest their time for Obama's greater cause. The canvass cements their link to Obama by appealing to another part of their political self-interest.

A side benefit: big early grassroots events impress reporters. I was impressed.

This is a GREAT way to get people involved tangibly 7 months before the election. It kickstarts your activist base to organize, and shows that you can run a successful canvas. There's no downside.

• Richardson announced for President today in Los Angeles. Late last week he unveiled his climate change and energy policy to good reviews. I actually had the opposite reaction to Richardson when I met him, I thought he wasn't impressive at all personally, but I caught him before an important speech, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on that. What I'm not willing to waive away is his continued adoption of right-wing frames on tax policy. Matt Stoller has more on the climate policies of all the candidates. It's great that all the Democratic candidates HAVE a climate and energy policy; it's a far cry from 2004. Edwards and Richardson and Dodd all have excellent policies.

I have more on Edwards and Hillary Clinton, but they're going to be separated into their own posts.