Thank You, Nancy Pelosi
Most in Washington can’t figure out how Nancy Pelosi could make such a hash of her first week in office, but it sure does carry a message for foreign policy folks: “Keep Your Eye on the Ball”.
Week of November 12, 2006 - November 18, 2006
Pro-Israel? Support Negotiations NOW
The other day a young colleague and I were discussing the best argument to use against those who say that advocating negotiations as the only means to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is "naïve."
We debated the most effective response to the charge that there is no Palestinian partner; that Oslo failed because of Palestinian cheating; that the Hamas victory ends any hope for peace; and that the only realistic approach for Israel is to militarily crush the Palestinians.
I offered my own detailed response to each of those points, responses that are airtight. But my colleague wouldn't have any of it.
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Rebooting the Dictator Software
A ray of reality hits the Captain's Quarters as the hard right wing blogger opines that abandoning "Democracy" - or such that passes for it in the minds of people like Bush and Cheney - is abandoning the long term strategy in Iraq.
No, you oaf, Democracy was never the outcome for this debacle, neo-conservatism was the supply side economics of the Bush executive, the nonsense spewed to get people to eat the low mileage recycled dog food of a policy that a few people wanted to drop on the country.
Iraq was always headed for de facto partition, and it has always been headed for a reboot of the dictator software. There never was any Democracy coming. The ponyhawks are beginning to realize this. Too late of course, they realize that it is a disaster. Thank Tony for saying the obvious far too late.
Legislative Pet Cemetery: Eulogy for Trifecta
The body of Trifecta was uncovered this Monday, buried under the rubble of campaign signs and champaign corks. Last rites were performed by William H. Frist (DR.-TN), who also performed the autopsy. Few observers believed Trifecta, legislative pet of Dr. Frist, had the right parts – comprising a set of tax credit extensions, a controversial estate tax cut, and a minimum wage increase –or that it was fit to survive in Congress.
Yet GOP leaders marched on.
Someone Tell Bush We Lost Vietnam
I had my Scooby Doo moment for the day when President Bush, speaking in Vietnam's capital, Hanoi, said there were lessons to be learned from the divisive Vietnam war:
We tend to want there to be instant success in the world, and the task in Iraq is going to take awhile . . .We'll succeed unless we quit.
What in God's name is he talking about? I realize W missed the last few months of his time with the Air National Guard during the Vietnam War, but I had not realized, until now, that he completely ignored what happened in Vietnam. Mr. President. We fought in Vietnam for more than twelve years. More than two million U.S. soldiers fought there. Almost 57,000 American soldiers died and several hundred thousand were wounded. We trained hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese troops, we killed almost one million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, we dropped more explosives on Vietnam then we used during World War II, and we defolitated significant portions of Vietnam's rain forest.
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New Republic Trashs Pelosi, Etc
I know that I'm one of the very few but I actually read the new vanity blog by Marty Peretz, owner of the New Republic.
Time to Get SMART about South Asian Nuclear Arms
The test firing of a Pakistani medium range missile is now the last image that the US Senate will have before voting on liberalizing nuclear trade with India. The long running tension over the entrance of South Asia as a deterent zone is about to be squarely in front of US policy makers.
India has already said that the deal being offered by Bush and being presented to the US Senate is "unacceptable", at least in part, and does not address India's security needs. Anti-proliferation advocates say that the deal goes to far. However, the real questions are orthagonal - the deal neither gives India a leg up in its attempt to hold Pakistan in check, nor does it reduce the very real and growing nuclear tension in the region. A tension that must be seen to include Iran, since Iran is also part of the sphere of nations that live within the shadow of the now contending arsenals.
If this were your credit card statement, what would you do?
We talk a lot about credit cards on Warren Reports. My proposal for the 110th Congress is to consider closely what’s going on with our collective national credit card.
Here’s what our most recent statement looks like. We owe close to $9 trillion. That adorable little 300 millionth American – she’s already $30,000 in the hole, hardly an auspicious beginning.
Mother Knows Best
The world will long wonder what took the American people so long to realise that George W Bush, the swaggering, macho, faux rancher from Texas, was an incompetent and dangerous man who threatened the democratic foundations and moral credibility of the United States.
The answer, I believe, can be summed up in one word: fear.
After 11 September 2001, Bush successfully employed a politics of fear which resulted in widespread indifference to his domestic and foreign-policy agenda. Urged to be terrified by terrorism, Americans became blinded by fear. If a policy was part of the "war against terror", most Americans figured it was probably worthwhile. As a result, they ignored the administration's "tax relief" to the wealthy, its lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, its zealous campaign to promote the religious right's vision of a Christian nation, and its determination to privatise anything and everything, including security in Iraq.
As long as they thought they had a strong masculine president who would protect them, Americans seemed willing to give up all kinds of constitutional liberties and rights. As long as they felt comforted by the illusion of safety, Americans also seemed willing to tolerate Bush's arrogant attitude toward the rest of the world.
Counseling Congress on Credit
My policy proposal for the new Congress is fairly modest. I would like to see Congress repeal the requirement that consumers receive credit counseling before they are eligible to file for bankruptcy. This requirement has served little purpose other than to place an expensive speed bump in the way of consumers who wish to file for bankruptcy (consumers have to pay for this counseling themselves).
Credit counseling agencies have reported that, in the vast majority of cases, they are unable to provide any useful advice to debtors. Apparently, there’s not much you can say to people who got laid off or went deep into debt because they got sick and couldn’t afford health care. To make matters worse, forcing all consumers to go through this counseling chews up the resources of the counseling agencies, limiting the assistance they can give to those people who could actually use it.
For those interested in a different approach or who think this is an attempt to avoid responsibility for one’s actions, keep reading.
Service Pays: Opening up Education and Public Service
This week, we’re proposing new ideas here at Warren Reports. Over the next few months, Elizabeth Warren, Sandy Baum and I will be proposing a bold idea – any student who works in public service after college can have her loans forgiven. We call it Service Pays, and we think it has the potential to transform American education and the American economy. Details below.
Ringing endorsement for Mister Ambassador
In the run up to the once stalemated and now completed battle to elect a Latin American Member State to the Security Council, John Bolton tried to make a funny. When asked why the US was stumping so hard for Guatemala, Ambassador Bolton is reported to have said the following:
In an interview, Bolton joked that the United States could be for Guatemala or against it – whichever would help it win.
According to another Associated Press story today, it appears that maybe China's Ambassador is getting in on the non-stop stand-up comedy routine that the media stake out position outside the Security Council sometimes gets turned into:
On Tuesday, Bolton got a vote of confidence from China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya.
"I enjoy working with him," Wang told reporters who asked about Bolton's performance at the U.N.. "Professionally, he's capable. He's effective, but I don't want to get into the politics of the U.S."
Yup. China likes him. Must be the right choice to represent America.
Dems, So Now What Do We Do?
OK, so we won the mid-term elections. Now what do we do? How about designing a Progressive Foreign Policy with some oomph to it?
Big Labor, Where Art Thou?
Surely the editors on the Wall Street Journal editorial page see the irony--placing their lead editorial decrying "Big Labor" right next to an op-ed entry from Jim Webb, an unlikely new poster boy from the incoming congressional class for workers' rights and economic populism?
How many times has the WSJ ed page run an editorial attacking organized labor for their trade stance and warning the Dems against support for labor? Let us count the ways. Now, with Charlie Rangel about to take over Ways and Means, they're going full force on the trade issue once again. And they are doing it by attacking the AFL-CIO, and I kid you not, actually still using the phrase "Big Labor."
They end the editorial by denouncing organized labor's claim that the election was partly a referendum on the Bush/Rove economic agenda in favor of economic populism--but then, Jim Webb, the very face of a Reagan Democrat, states the same case that the AFL-CIO and others have made just perfectly in the adjoining column.
End the Texas Tax Cut Massacre
Yesterday Senator Harry Reid kicked off the new Democratic term in the Senate by calling for a "middle class tax cut". It isn't really, it is passing the extensions to existing tax rates that the Republicans had held hostage, and which they fully intended to have both ways: extending them counts as a "tax cut", while not extending them and allowing the old rates to take effect, counts as a tax increase, even though the increase was passed by a previous Congress.
But the Democrats can do better, and should do better. How? By embracing budget discipline and listening to an idea from one of their own: Byron Dorgan.
An Ugly Truth about Health Care
In August 2004, Delbert Davis lost his job and with it his health care. It happens to millions of Americans every year.
But as the Austin American-Statesman described, Davis had the bad luck to get sick before finding another job. He had cirrhosis.
He quickly ran up $200,000 in medical bills and declared bankruptcy. Expected to live only a year, he couldn't get on the list for a liver transplant without health insurance.
Jim Leach -- An Alternative to Bolton
Amidst the chorus of calls for Bolton’s reappointment on the basis of the failsafe “If not him, then who?” argument, Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) and Congressman Jim Walsh (R-NY) have stepped forward to advocate a new nominee: former Congressman Jim Leech (R-IA). Steve Clemons has the full story.
A summary of Leach’s principled public service profile by Jane Norman, staff writer for the Des Moines Register, is quite telling of his rich experience and consensus-building across the aisle—a staffer for Congressman Donald Rumsfeld (whom he still maintains a close relationship with), foreign service officer, 30 years as a member of Congress who was next in line to chair the House International Relations Committee (HIRC), extensive experience and leadership in dealing with US-North Korean relations, and committed opposition to the war in Iraq.
Intelligent Design
TPMCafe-goers know Jane Harman from her guest posts here, including from her trip to Iraq in the fall of 2005. And, we will be hearing much more about her in the coming days as Nancy Pelosi decides whether to make Harman -- the ranking Democrat on the House Select Committee on Intelligence -- that body's chairwoman.
In many ways, this choice is bigger than the choice Pelosi made in the majority leader contest between John Murtha and Steny Hoyer. Backing Murtha -- but not putting on the full press for him -- can be understood as kind payback for her friend, former campaign manager, and mentor. But in light of the Murtha endorsement -- one in which Pelosi is being increasingly criticized for backing a man who was an "unindicted co-conspirator" during the ABSCAM investigation in the 1980's, has mastered the art of earmarking, and opposed the raft of ethics reforms Democrats proposed in the wake of Abramoff -- the choice for Intel Committee chair is even more important.
One time can be excused. Two times is a trend. And considering that the likely replacement for Harman is Alcee Hastings, a former federal judge who was impeached by an overwhelming vote of a Democratically-controlled House and Senate for taking a $150,000 bribe, Pelosi has to get this right.
You too can buy your own representative to the United Nations
It's exciting to see that even with the Permanent Republican Majority defeated, the spirit of Jack Abramoff hasn't exited the Republican Party. So you don't like the outcome that our form of Constitutional government has produced on a policy matter near and dear to your heart? No problem - you can pay for what you want our government to do.
Indeed, GOP pundits seem to think that they can simply pull out their checkbooks and buy themselves an Ambassador to the United Nations. Evidence can be seen in a slick round-up of blog and pundit commentary by Salon's Alex Koppelman that says that if President Bush is forced to re-recess appoint John Bolton, forces outside our government should put up the money for his paycheck.
The Free Trader's Hard Choice
The PPI tells us something but it isn't what you think. The headline numbers show a sharp plunge in prices - crude, intermediate and finished - driven by even sharper falls in energy prices. However we can sum this up in three words: Katrina and Rita. 2005 and early 2006 were in the shadow of a great inflation spike driven by the shutting in of production from the 2005 hurricane season. This season was not anywhere near as active - 2005 was an epic year for Atlantic tropical cyclones - and the activity was no threat to oil. That the Eastern Pacific has gotten to Sergio is a worry for resorts in Mexico, but not for oil rigs.
However, the same data shows that the conditions that Katrina and Rita exposed, are still in place. We are in a cyclical drop in inflation, but we are still in a secular inflationary environment. Europe recognizes this, with both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank preparing increases in interest rates, and even the Bank of Japan readying to open fire to stop inflation. The Fed, however, is not.
And there in lies a tale.
Put the "Contract" Back into Credit Card Contracts
This week we are proposing specific reform proposals for a new Congress. Chris already suggested that we end credit card companies' ability to prevent consumers from accessing real remedies when they are so entitled. But there's a lot more to do when it comes to credit cards.
The difficult question for me isn't what to reform -- it's where to start. Here's one suggestion: amend the Truth in Lending Act to ban the use of "change in terms" clauses in credit card contracts.
For those who are unfamiliar with these clauses, please read one of my prior posts on the subject. These clauses are the most offensive incarnation of "bait and switch" tactics; they are, in my opinion, the single worst offense of the credit industry.
What are they? In a nutshell, they allow a credit card company to change any term of your contract, for any reason, well after you agree to the original terms. "Any term" means any term -- rates (promotional or otherwise), fees, due dates, incentive programs, obligations, etc. In other words, when you agree to use a card you agree to let the credit card company impose its will on you in whatever way it sees fit, regardless of what it promised you when you signed up. In any other context, this wouldn't be a contract at all, but thus far courts and legislators have decided not to make the credit companies play by the same rules as everyone else.
It's time to even the playing field and hold credit card companies to the same standards as every other person or business entity in America. When we sign a contract we want a contract, not a one-sided license for consumer abuse.
Behaving Like A Superpower in Iraq
One critical dilemma we confront in Iraq is the burden of our status as the Superpower. All people in the region--Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, and Persians--assume that we have a secret plan that we are pursuing unilaterally. The majority of these folks cannot accept that the sectarian violence unleashed in Iraq is a consequence of U.S. incompetence. They assume that the rising sectarian violence is something we want because we are a Superpower. By virtue of our status as a Superpower it is inconceivable that we would allow such violence unless it suited our "hidden" purposes.
The fact that Baghdad still suffers from chronic shortages of electricity, polluted water, broken sewers, and incompetent police is viewed by many in the region as prima facie evidence that we are deliberately and purposefully dismantling every vestige of what was the most secular Arab state in the Middle East. How could it be otherwise? We are a Superpower and a superpower, like any super hero, can do anything it wants.
Big Lie: The Dems Didn't Win, The GOP Lost
By now everyone has heard the mantra. The Democrats did not get a positive mandate last week. The voters didn't vote FOR them; they voted against Republicans.
Legal Analysis Now Up;
The Arnold & Porter legal memo that I mentioned in my last post is now up here. Steve also has some thoughts on the Administration's current thinking that are well worth reading.
Political Cover, not New Policy
I know we all should be eagerly awaiting the results of the Baker-Hamilton report, right? The press is giddy with the notion that this will be the cure for what ails us: an insolveable problem in Iraq, a way forward between the "stay the course" and "cut and run."
Let's be serious here, cause it is war. We, including Democrats, are setting ourselves up for some closure that doesn't exist. As Jim Zogby has written, we're all "waiting for godot." Remember, he never arrives.
What's in your ... cardholder agreement?
Last week, Professor Warren highlighted one of the problems with arbitration clauses – surprise the arbitrators aren’t impartial! But that’s only the start of it. Have you seen this clause in your credit card agreement?
OK, so nobody’s credit card agreement actually says this verbatim. But that seemingly innocuous arbitration clause has this same effect, because it routinely destroys the cardholders’ rights to prosecute their claims in a class action. And if cardholders cannot aggregate their claims, then small claims are waived. ..."You (the cardholder) agree to waive any dispute or claim you may have against us (the card issuer), even if we violate this agreement or violate state or federal law."
The Future Belongs to US
While the actual results seem razer-thin in this election, I'll be bold and argue that they are part of a significant move towards a more progressive future for America-- one foretold by the stolen 2000 election and only delayed by the hysteria of post-911 war fever. But when you look at shifts in voting patterns, especially among youth and latinos, it's clear the future belongs to progressives.
Kevin Drum, among others, is pooh-poohing the youth vote, arguing that youth turnout was nothing special this year. I think the key in looking at the youth vote, as well as the latino vote, is whatever the numbers year to year, these votes represent the future-- and we should all be wearing shades 'cause it looks so bright.
LAWYERS CONFIRM: NO GOOD OPTIONS FOR BOLTON OUTSIDE SENATE CONFIRMATION
The press is writing now what was clear well over a month ago: John Bolton will not be confirmed by the Senate. But ever since the possibility of his rejection arose, White House officials have been not-so-subtly hinting at the possibility of either giving Bolton a second recess appointment or even appointing him to a lower position and designating him the "acting" Ambassador.
Well, we got curious. We requested a legal analysis from the powerhouse law firm Arnold & Porter to consider the Administration's options for extending Bolton's tenure as U.N. Ambassador. The verdict? One of the Administration's options is unprecedented is Constitutionally questionable; the second runs directly contrary to a law passed in 1998 by a Republican Congress.
My synopsis of the analysis is below; the full memo will be posted later, most likely at The Washington Note.
The Bushplosion
It was one of the shortest eras in American history, the great moderate era proclaimed with such vigor by Time and Newsweek lasted about 72 hours. Today, the US is back on its march towards a more divided and parliamentary system of government. Tom Tomorrow satirizes, or should I say, quotes publicly, the attitude from the right wing. Fox and CNN's talk hosts were still engaged in heavy headbanging slurs and sneers, with either nerry a liberal in sight, or the host and frequent guest trying to gang up on the token Democrat. It didn't always work out so well, as Ari Melber managed to insist on facts and civility despite repeated attempts by the regulars to turn the segment he appeared on into a televised food fight.
The dead give aways of a Republican Party deciding that this is really just a long recess in a Republican Congress, and not a sea change in American government are everywhere in evidence.
COME THE REVOLUTION, GONNA BE NO MORE LIMOUSINES
How liberal or progressive is the incoming Democratic caucus in Congress? Kos has shut down the kerfuffle between the Kossian netroots and the incoming House leadership -- Pelosi, Emanuel, and Hoyer -- but the question remains. I don't think any one-word answer suffices because there are different dimensions and Democrats have diverse support for what are ordinarily thought of as liberal positions.
Lame duck vacation
If you are a Sunday Talk Show watcher then you already know, as Reuters reported, that the White House made a big stink this weekend about advancing the Bolton nomination to confirmation by our lame duck Senate. It's a sign of how little the White House is seriously hoping to get anything done in the weeks to come that they'd make so much noise about all of this right now. To really get a sign of how high a priority the Bolton nomination is, see the Human Events list of priorities for the lame duck Congress - it's #9, behind confirming Gates as Secretary of Defense, and just ahead of confirming all those judges who prefer what Ministers say on Sunday to what the Framers of our Constitution divined more than two centuries ago.
Why this cynical move at this time?
The Center of Attention
Remember how, after George Bush's narrow escape into the White House in 2000, the rhetoric was all how he would "govern from the center?" I remember it everywhere, it was "a tie election" and therefore we could expect Bush to govern as a "moderate". At the time I told people that there were two theories of the election, one is that it was the closest Presidential race in American, and therefore Bush would govern in a bipartisan manner, the other was that the election had been stolen, and that no one steals an election to govern as a moderate.
I think history can now judge which theory - was correct.
We are now seeing from Time, Newsweek and other outlets a recycling of that same theory - namely that the Democrats, because of the "conservative" tilt of the new freshman class are going to have to be "moderates". This prediction is just as off base. The American people voted for change, not for slight tweaking.
