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In today’s Politicker, we read the following –
Jackie Salit, head of the Independence Party in New York City, said Obama has lost touch with the independent voter and has been too focused on tending to the Democratic base. Salit, in an email to supporters this morning, said that Obama could lose the White House if he keeps this up.
Fun fact that Ms. Salit does not want us to remember –
Piercing the Corporate Veil
By Michael Boyajian
Corporations are a creation of the people through the government that serves the people. Corporations were given certain privileges that would allow them to raise capital to build things that would benefit the public good. They are designed to shield their directors and officers from liability so they can effectively raise money.
The day after the Massachusetts Special Election, pundits did what they usually do after major(?) events.
Most declared that it proves what they have been writing and saying was right all along!
But only David Brooks of the New York Times would say this in such an intellectually dishonest way that it makes me wonder if Brooks thinks his readers are fools.
On the Times blog, fellow columnist Gail Collins and Brooks discussed the Massachusetts results. The issue was whether Obama and the Democrats should still try to pass health care reform. This is what Brooks, who opposed both the House and Senate bills said:
It is quite clear that the New York Post’s Charles Hurt thinks his readers are stupid.
Certainly, he has good reason to believe this–after all, they do read the New York Post.
On Sunday Morning he published the following:
“Call it smear by association.
It appears to be — literally — the only hope Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has to pull off a slender victory here, in one of the most Democratic states in the country, for a seat so long owned by one of the most beloved liberal lions America has ever known.
Pitched Preservation Battle to Save New York’s Valley Forge
By Michael Boyajian
There is a scene in a Sherlock Holmes story where Holmes turns to Watson as their train passes through a country village and says this is where the real crimes take place. That might be the story of the scenic Hudson Valley Town of Fishkill where preservationists under the direction of Mara Farrell and the Friends of the Fishkill Supply Depot ( http://www.fishkillsupplydepot.org/ ) along with the likes of Senator Chuck Schumer are engaged in a pitched battle to save New York’s Valley Forge from the back hoes of commercial developers.
1) THE DEMOCRATS MUST NOW PASS A HEALTH CARE BILL WITH A ROBUST PUBLIC OPTION USING RECONCILIATION (or some other left variation on that theme).
Yes, people really are still saying stuff like that. The nonsense about reconciliation proceeds from a total misunderstanding of the Senate rules. Reconciliation can only be used for budgetary adjustments in existing programs, not to create new ones. While reconciliation does create some opportunity for bootstrapping, using reconciliation still only makes sense if one is advocating passage of the Senate bill as is, and then fixing it through this process. But since Reconciliation cannot be used to create new programs, I'm not even sure that using it to add a public option to the Senate bill would be permissible after it passes.
If it passes.
Sadly, I have major doubts that after last night, the Senate Bill can win a majority in the House. First, with or without last night, doing such a deal would require a level of trust that may be lacking under the best of circumstances. Secondly, a lot of balls got shrunk last night. Finally, there are still the Kucinich types who will vote to kill Health Care Reform in order to save it, even though starting all over again will not result in a more liberal bill, and probably won’t result in any bill at all.
The sad effort of the Democratic Party establishment to lay the blame for tonight’s devastating defeat, reflected in the efforts of bloggers including myself, to lay the blame for the disaster on Martha Coakley is aided and abetted by the fact that she was her campaign proceeded without an effort or a clue.
How did this woman ever win a statewide election?
According to Crain's Chicago Business, the State of Illinois is heading for a de facto bankruptcy. "While Illinois doesn't have the option of shutting its doors or shedding debts in a bankruptcy reorganization, it seems powerless to avert the practical equivalent. Despite a budget shortfall estimated to be as high as $5.7 billion, state officials haven't shown the political will to either raise taxes or cut spending sufficiently to close the gap." That is, they don't want to tell the voters that as a result of their past decisions Illinois residents face a future of high taxes and degraded services, to pay for unfunded pension obligations and debts run up by past residents and older generations. Of course, the overall tax burden in Illinois is much lower than in New York.
On the private sector side, one of the dwindling number of honest men in business asserts in the Wall Street Journal that corporate executives are collectively fleecing investors and wrecking the economy and institutional investors, part of the same class of people, are thus unwilling to meet their fiduciary obligations by stopping them. "The faith of investors has been betrayed" according to John C. Bogle, founder of Vanguard.
CHARLES HURT (in, [where else?] the NEW YORK POST): Call it smear by association.
It appears to be — literally — the only hope Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has to pull off a slender victory here, in one of the most Democratic states in the country, for a seat so long owned by one of the most beloved liberal lions America has ever known.
Yet this is what it's come to: Don't vote for Scott Brown because look at all the yucky people in his party.
In a brilliant New Republic article, The Rise of Republican Nihilism, Jonathan Chair skewers the intellectual bankruptcy of the contemporary Republican Party.
Because Chait’s primary focus is domestic policy, he leaves out some of my favorite examples. For instance, late last year, the self proclaimed “Party of National Security” announced its willingness to block the Defense Spending Bill, which contained the funding for continuing the two wars that Party had dragged us into without an exit strategy (and, in the case of Iraq, without any good reason).