Here I am in LA – no ticket to the Oscars, missed the Hillary and Obama moments – but one thing is clear- we need a new category for cool movies called “Most Global Movie Award” And the winner this year is….

Read more »

"Al-Qaeda functions on the basis that they think they can break our will."

So says the Vice President. But isn't it more likely that Al-Qaeda intends to draw the United States into unending battles that drain our treasury, weaken our military, distract our foreign policy, and yet never reverse our willingness to go on fighting. It's the American will to fight without end and arguably without judgment or flexibility that Al-Qaeda is counting on, isn't it? Dealt with as a small, criminal, despicable, subhuman gang, Al-Qaeda has minimal stature in geopolitics. Elevated into a titanic global opponent by the rhetoric of a contest of national will, Al-Qaeda is lifted to a level of prominence, and probably fund-raising and recruiting, that it could not reach on its own. That's the contrary view to the Vice President.

I just want to alert tpmcafe readers to an article I wrote with Robert Nathan, who is co- exec producer on the TV show Law & Order. It's about the image of unions and working people in contemporary movies and TV (major studios). I think that tpmcafe readers would enjoy debating it--why or why not popular culture images working people. What is the image of unions in popular culture? We focus on the amazing and iconic film Norma Rae, the story of the old Textile Workers Union of America (today UNITE HERE and my former union) campaign to unionize JP Stevens. You can read about it here:The Nation magazine

Take a peek at MoDo today. She took my advice posted here. Went on campaign trail with a Republican. Saw clearly. Wrote it right. On road to recovery of context; not as snarky when observing world objectively of course. Hope she goes to Oscars on her West Coast swing, manages to praise Gore movie -- that would be a breakthrough!

While we're all obsessed with a U.S. presidential race a year and a half out, there is an actual race going on now in France for president--and the collapse this week of the Italian government. What does this have to do with the U.S.? A lot--if we are hoping to have reliable allies and, for those of us who are progressives--even more if we are hoping to have reliable European allies who will strongly and assertively promote democratic values around the world. Ironically, to American ears, at least, one of the parties who has been most forceful in promoting a democratic--and interventionist (although not along Bush lines) international policy has been the very short-lived Prodi government in Italy, which fell this week.

Read more »

What a week! Sorry I wasn't around more, illness struck and put me out of commission for a few days. Looks like there was lots going on in my absence, but a few quick management updates:

• We're looking forward next week to a visit from Jeff Faux, founder and senior fellow at the Economic Policy Institute, to discuss his new argument that the global economy (and therefore the globe) is run by an investor elite he's named "The Party of Davos." Check out his previous piece in Democracy Journal and come prepared with thoughts for him on Monday.

• A warm welcome to Katha Pollitt, who joined us on Wednesday as a Special Guest and will be joining to Coffee House as a regular contributer in March.

• Special thanks to Amanda Marcotte for joining us for the week to share her thoughts on blogging, religion, political debate and presidential politics. Those were some amazingly long discussion threads...
  

• And, a happy announcement that literature professor and retired solo blogger Michael Berube will be joining the Coffee House in March to share his thoughts. But warning: he's one of the 100 most dangerous professors in America.

I hope everyone had a good week and shared some wisdom. I'm sure it'll be a busy weekend and then back to work on Monday!

Today's New York Times spotlights a new organization involved in lobbying/activist work on behalf of our nation's mothers. But what really makes the article interesting is how it’s finally spotlighting in the mainstream media many issues that many have already been talked about for a long time around water coolers and in living room conversations about family finances.

Read more »

From the various tangents that went off here this week on the subject of the blogger dust-up on the Edwards campaign, it's clear that the final "meaning" of the whole sad affair won't be untangled from the various threads of religion and politics, the acceptable use of satire and "uncivil" language in politics and of course, the evolution of politics in the internet age. That said, I think Ari Melber of The Nation wrote an article that gets to the most important element of this whole story, which is that this right wing smear campaign against Melissa McEwan and myself was not about deep religious offense or any genuine offense over some naughty words, but about separating the Democrats from the resources provided by bloggers.

The fight was not so much about religion or online obscenity as power. The netroots are the most aggressive, ascendant force in progressive politics, wielding more members, money and media impact than most liberal organizations. In the 2006 election cycle, MoveOn alone spent more than every other liberal political action committee except the prochoice EMILY's List. According to the Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet, online donors gave Kerry $82 million in 2004, and Democrats expect much more in 2008. (Bush pulled only $14 million from the web.) And now top bloggers--like Jerome Armstrong, Markos Moulitsas and Glenn Greenwald--have hundreds of thousands of readers, successful books and a bully pulpit in print and broadcast media.

Read more »

As an immigrant I read the constitution several times, quite carefully. Still I have been unable to find any mentioning of a right to present false IDs. However this is in effect the claim set forth by the state of Maine, soon by to be joined by several others. These states, and allied privacy advocates, do not object to the requirement that those who negotiate public roads must carry a driver license. They object “only” the new measures that seek to make it difficult to falsify these documents. They reveal all the chutzpah of a under aged college kid who demands a right to Xerox the ID of an older fraternity brother, so that he can booze all he wants. The hell with law and public safety.

Read more »

Read more »

Did anyone else get a look at Kara Jesella's smart article yesterday in the New York Times about Moms Rising's organizing for working families? The group has a linked group of goals, including: undo workplace discrimination against women with children; and expand family-friendly policies of all kinds, enabling dual-earner couples both to earn a living AND care for their families.

Here's my question: why did the Times bury this smart article about family economics in the "Women's" -- er, "Style" -- section? The Times is happy enough to give prominent placement to "trend" articles that say moms just want to go home. But when the Times looks at the economic realities, it's buried in the frivolity section.

Read more »

I am extremely pissed off about the recent news out of Walter Reed Hospital. And you should be too. Turn off the non-stop coverage of Anna Nicole Smith and let's have a little talk about how we treat our returning heroes.

Read more »

This may be a first in the history of US foreign policy. The Bush administration is demanding that the Israeli government not explore peace feelers emanating from Damascus.

This Ha'aretz report must be read.

Read more »

Without taking a position on whether or not Leonard Peltier should have been pardoned by Bill Clinton, I do have to post to say that I doubt that the reason the Clinton campaign and mogul David Geffen are at war (of words) is due to whether or not Peltier was pardoned or not as my tpm colleague Larry Johnson writes.

The race is on for big bucks and big names and while America likes to scapegoat Hollywood, the fact is that a huge chunk of presidential campaign cash comes from movieland--and this year both Dems and Republicans are racing out to the bask in the sunshine and adoring audiences as they briskly raise cash. The reason that the Clinton-Geffen-Obama slugfest is out in the public is most likely due to one thing: who's on the "A" list at a fundraising party, who's on whose "A" list, and who can disqualify someone from someone else's "A" list to gain advantage.

The fact is, the politicians love to run with and run against Hollywood at the same time, but if you want to add big bucks and big names to your roster, you have to go there. And...what's more, it's not such a bad place to go.

Read more »

Seana Shiffrin has written a very interesting article that raises the issue of credit card late fees as an unconstitutional form of punitive damages.  Her approach is intriguing, largely because state and federal laws have allowed credit lenders to leap-frog over traditional principles of contract law that might otherwise invalidate such fees.  If the fees are subject to a constitutional challenge, however, then an industry-favorable legislature can't rescue them by statute.

I pose one additional question along the same lines: whether various credit card clauses other than late fees violate fundamental contract law doctrine (which hasn't been legislatively overridden) when used to penalize consumers.  For an explanation, continue reading below...

Read more »

Read more »

Some late comments inspired by, but not directly responsive to, Amanda Marcotte's initial post here:

The history of American presidential campaigns from the 1960s to the present has been one of ever-tighter control – the candidate, the process, the message have to be planned out, and the gameplan executed with total discipline. From the 1950s when the candidates barely knew what was going on among the wheeler-dealers who would decide their fate, through the chaotic haze of the “Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail” years to the tighter discipline of Carter, then Reagan, and reaching its apotheosis in Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, the movement has been toward politics that leaves nothing to chance, where everything that can be known about every voter is known, where there are no surprises and no grand gambles.

The iconic political figure is the man (sometimes a woman) with a phone on each ear, taking in information and screaming directives, usually in a profane stream which is fortunately not preserved in a Googleable cache.

Read more »

Democrats all over the web are worried. Why did Hillary's guy say what he did? Why did Obama's guy respond the way he did?

Shouldn't everybody just place nice in the name of party unity?

Read more »

As a devoted reader of both Pandagon and Shakespeare's Sister, I sympathize with Amanda's and Melissa's experience. William Donohue? Hate mail? Horrid. But much as I admire A and M, I was amazed that the Edwards campaign hired them in the first place. The man is running for president, not king of the blogosphere, and he's running now, not in some putative future when words like "christofascist" and "fuck" have lost their punch. He wants -- he needs -- the votes of people who have never looked at a blog in their lives, who are deeply religious, culturally staid, and easily offended in about a thousand ways. Would those unemployed mill workers Edwards likes to talk about see Amanda's "vulgarity" as populist and fun? or as smartypants elitism? How many Catholic undecideds think that joke about the Virgin Mary was funny and/or a sly critique of sexism in the church versus how many see it as rude and insulting, or would think so, after they'd heard it a thousand times thanks to William Donohue? It's all very well to dismiss as outmoded people who respond poorly to obscenities and dirty jokes about religion. Fact is, there are a lot of them. A candidate would be out of his mind to alienate them over a staffing matter.

Read more »

Read more »

Well, there were a lot of different angles that I could take the discussion that we started here on Monday, but it seems that the people want to talk about religion and politics and what the people want, they shall have. My fellow politically active atheists have also voiced complaints about the under-analysis of how my atheism was a factor in making me an attractive target for a right wing smear campaign, and so I figured this was as good a time as any to address that issue. I have to admit that I find it hard to believe that my critics had any inkling that I was an outspoken atheist, except in the abstract sense that the right wingers who went after me seem to think that feminist=anti-Christian=atheist, which isn't generally true. (Plenty of feminists resolve to work inside their respective faiths in order to make their church cultures less sexist.) Nonetheless, the slew of hatemail and comments I got made it clear that people who heard about me on Bill O'Reilly's show got the strong impression that I am an atheist, because a lot of them asked why I hate god.

The most common fallacy about atheists is that we "hate" god. We no more hate god or the gods than we hate unicorns. We just don't believe.

Before I drift off-topic, let me get back to it. I'm wary in general of crying that there's blatant double standards in the American discourse. For instance, I'm not convinced the corporate media is strongly conservative so much as their particular mish-mash of corporatethink and laziness means they are easily manipulated by right wing shills. But one double standard that definitely exists is the idea that religion and religious belief is somehow exempt from the same kind of scrutiny that anything else gets. In addition, there's blatant, unfair prejudice against atheists.

Read more »

Listen to Professor Warren discuss bankruptcy, debt, and the middle class with PBS' Maria Hinojosa.

I am going to pick on Brad Delong precisely because he is a brilliant and well-educated academic-- and his list of "constitutional moments" where the Supreme Court rewrote American law against the decisions of elected officials is glaring in its silence about the Supreme Court murder of Reconstruction after the Civil War.

This amnesia about the Supreme Court judicially striking down a series of Reconstruction Civil Rights laws in the 1870s and 1880s, de facto licensing the Klan to murder at will, and sanctioning segregation and disenfranchisement of black voters is all too common, a point I made in this piece a few years ago. In fact, that Brad so easily forgets this piece of constitutional history is a triumph of rightwing historiography and it's remarkable that it has persisted so long:

Read more »

Well, by attacking Senator Obama she didn't really pull a B.Spears, but in the world of words, she's heading in that direction.

Helpful tip to MoDo: actually go spend a day on the campaign trail. And with any Republican. Then write it straight or skewed. Call it rehab; call it a test; call it a search for context.

I'm wondering if Roger Ailes and Ms. Dowd are really the same person. Or use the same writer.

Firstly, I just want to say a big thanks to Josh and Andrew; I’m psyched to be on board. Now, down to business…

Something that’s been on my mind recently—especially as feminism is increasingly in the media (thanks, Hill and Nancy!)—is just how impossible it’s been to get decent and accurate coverage of women’s issues. While one would hope that reporters would do their homework when it comes to writing about feminist issues, I guess it’s just too easy to sneak in words like “grating,” or “strident.” Anything to perpetuate the big, scary feminist stereotype!

Read more »

Jessica Valenti, Executive Editor of Feministing.com, has agreed to join us as a regular contributer to the Coffee House. You can read about her here or here.

Josh and I are excited to have her with us, so give her a wonderful Cafe denizen welcome when she starts writing (hopefully later today!).

I suspect Mitt Romney's candidacy, whatever its other successes and failures, will provide endless fodder for conversations on the pros, cons and contradictions of religion in US politics. Case in point: this past three-day weekend, responding to a voter who declared that because of his Mormonism he did "not know the Lord," he declared in Florida that:

"We need to have a person of faith lead the country."

Andrew Sullivan jumped on the statement, arguing that Romney's attempt at placing a religious test on the office equated fighting anti-Mormon bigotry with anti-atheist bigotry. Oliver Willis wondered aloud whether or not Romney has read the Constitution. Atrios worried about the slippery slope leading us to:

"We need to have a member of the Reformed Baptist Church of God, Reformation of 1915 to lead this country."

Our own Nathan Newman wasn't so worried.

Read more »

Rather than join the diverse chorus critiquing the latest report on the middle class from the newish think tank calling itself the Third Way – see Jeff Madrick’s take on an earlier version for what I think is the strongest substantive rebuttal – my meta beef is that we should once and for all retire the outmoded and now counterproductive concept of “the third way” itself. The country today is much worse off now on virtually every front than it was when Clinton left office because the government has been in the hands of conservative ideologues. The solution to those problems is getting the conservatives who have supported one failed policy after another out of office. The right is the problem – not Bob Kuttner or any other real or conjured counterpart on the left.

Read more »

In his column Monday, Paul Krugman explains why Senator Clinton's refusal to admit that her vote authorizing the war was a mistake is such a huge deal.

"For the last six years we have been ruled by men who are pathologically incapable of owning up to mistakes. And this pathology has had real, disastrous consequences. The situation in Iraq might not be quite so dire — and we might even have succeeded in stabilizing Afghanistan — if Mr. Bush or Vice President Dick Cheney had been willing to admit early on that things weren’t going well or that their handpicked appointees weren’t the right people for the job."

Read more »

This Sunday's New York Times included a fascinating consumer finance/personal interest piece on individuals who have harnessed their blogs to help them get their finances in shape. As one would expect, a heavy debt load, regardless of its cause, is not something most people willingly discuss. However, the anonymity provided by the internet has allowed heavily indebted consumers to chronicle their struggles to return to financial health. In response, these bloggers have received their share of encouragement and admonition from their readers.

As someone who is externally motivated, I can appreciate the desire to be held accountable by others. I'm also enthusiastic about the possibility of gaining better insight into the lives of heavily indebted Americans. I welcome any chance to move beyond the rhetoric surrounding consumer debt and into the reality of it.

Read more »

Senator Ed Kennedy has proposed a bill that "would require employers with 15 or more employees to offer seven sick days to their workers, who could use the days for a medical condition or to take care of a sick family member." He's onto a real problem. In our ongoing study of people losing their homes to foreclosure, we are finding that missing work for medical emergencies is one of the primary causes. (The lost wages may be even bigger than the medical expenses themselves.)

Kennedy's bill might just be the gap-filler that people need between full employment and disability insurance, which may come too late. Below the fold -- a few words from the homeowners themselves, and some analysis from me.

Read more »

Remember how Tiger Woods said that he would pass up a major golf tournament if, to play in it, he would have to miss the birth of his baby? Silly man. Colleen Pavelka may not be as famous as Tiger, but she has this one figured out.

"Nine months pregnant and married to a fervent Bears fan with tickets to" the NFC Championship game, reports the Associated Press, Ms. Pavelka solved the conflict by having her doctor induce her so she gave birth three days early. This way she didn't have to worry about going into labor during the game.

How about it, Tiger?

Read more »

There's not much doubt that for far less than what the United States has spent in and on Iraq, scientists, technologists, and entrepreneurs already could have taken critical steps toward creating a high-growth and low-carbon emitting economy for America, ending our dependence on oil, gas, and coal. We wouldn't have gotten to the desired state yet, but we would be much farther on the way. The Manhattan Project and the Race to the Moon are good analogies. If we throw a lot of money at a huge technology problem in five years, with a long-term commitment to more funding over the next 15 or 20 years, we can accomplish a huge amount in a hurry, given the vast scientific resources of the United States. Of course, if we had taken or now take such steps, we could expect later to return the investment many times over by exporting the crucial non-carbon technologies to the rest of the world, especially to those countries that lack access to oil, gas, and coal.

Some MSM commentators beat up politicians for not passing taxes on gasoline at the pump, but such taxes would have little impact on R&D into non-carbon energy technologies for many years, would hardly alter transportation practices, and at least under the current budget policy would paradoxically help fund the military occupation of the oil and gas fields of Iraq. Not just taxing, but spending is critical to developing the new non-carbon energy inventions that the world needs. No other country has the combination of wealth and incentive possessed by the United States.

Read more »

A quick search of the word "vulgar" on Dictionary.com reveals some interesting results.

1. characterized by ignorance of or lack of good breeding or taste: vulgar ostentation. 2. indecent; obscene; lewd: a vulgar work; a vulgar gesture. 3. crude; coarse; unrefined: a vulgar peasant. 4. of, pertaining to, or constituting the ordinary people in a society: the vulgar masses. 5. current; popular; common: a vulgar success; vulgar beliefs. 6. spoken by, or being in the language spoken by, the people generally; vernacular: vulgar tongue. 7. lacking in distinction, aesthetic value, or charm; banal; ordinary: a vulgar painting.

The right wing noise machine that drove Melissa McEwan and me to resign from the Edwards campaign flung a bunch of pointless and unsubstantiated claims to create the illusion there was anything going on besides outrage that we were "vulgar". Donohue's quotes that he culled from Melissa and my blog writing to "prove" anti-Catholic bigotry are all criticisms of church policies that can and do hurt actual Catholics, criticisms of trying to turn dogma into laws, the ideas behind the dogma itself or a bunch of random quotes that were vulgar. My favorite quote that Donohue was pushing as horrible anti-Catholic bigotry was Melissa calling herself "Queen Cunt of Fuck Mountain". After poring over that quote for about 10 minutes, a small committee determined that it might be bigoted against non-royal slang terms for genitalia, but it had nothing to do with praciticing Catholics.

Read more »

That there's life and intelligence in The Democracy (as Walt Whitman used to call the Democratic Party) is fine news if you think that the Bush years have been so ruinous as to require reversals that will take many moons. After these six grotesque years (which are nowhere near finished), a bit of line-in-the-sand theater has the virtue of telling the liberal base both how far we've come and how far we have to go, and telling the other side that we mean business and will keep looking for opportunities to win. Even symbolic lines are better than nothing. They intimate a toughening to come, as more Republican incumbents rerunning in '08 contemplate what they're going to run on.

But some folks are grumping because the Democrats cannot, goddamnit, walk on water, even on Saturdays.

Read more »

Read more »

There's a bit of a furor that Mitt Romney declared:

We need to have a person of fiath lead the country.

So what? I disagree with the statement, but it's no different in kind from someone saying they support Obama because they think we need a person of color as President, or saying they support Clinton because it's high time a woman was President. There's no violation of the Constitution for VOTERS to vote their religious beliefs, just as ethnic and racial solidarity has been common in elections without violating the 14th Amendment.

And at some level, why shouldn't a person's religious beliefs be relevant?

Read more »

Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and Jack Reed (D-RI) just acquitted themselves very well on Tim Russert's Meet the Press.

Hagel made an articulate, compelling call for a new American comprehensive strategy in the Middle East that includes robust diplomacy, coordination with moderate Sunni regimes in the Middle East and new forms of economic engagement.

Hagel said that the White House keeps focusing on a "military approach" to Iraq. But he stated quite firmly, "the US military will not determine the future of Iraq."

Read more »