The White House Blog
The Same Old Washington Blame Game
Posted by Dan Pfeiffer on December 30, 2009 at 03:34 PM EST
There has been a lot of discussion online and in the mainstream media about our response to various critics of the President, specifically former Vice President Cheney, who have been coming out of the woodwork since the incident on Christmas Day. I think we all agree that there should be honest debate about these issues, but it is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers. Unfortunately too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer.
First, it’s important that the substantive context be clear: for seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq – a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion – Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda's leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States. Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years. It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda – more than doubling our troops in Afghanistan, and building partnerships to target al Qaeda’s safe-havens in Yemen and Somalia. And in less than one year, we have already seen many al Qaeda leaders taken out, our alliances strengthened, and the pressure on al Qaeda increased worldwide.
To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.
Second, the former Vice President makes the clearly untrue claim that the President – who is this nation’s Commander-in-Chief – needs to realize we are at War. I don’t think anyone realizes this very hard reality more than President Obama. In his inaugural, the President said “our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” In a recent speech, Assistant to the President for Terrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan said “Instead, as the president has made clear, we are at war with al-Qaida, which attacked us on 9/11 and killed 3,000 people. We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al-Qaida’s murderous agenda. These are the terrorists we will destroy; these are the extremists we will defeat.” At West Point, the President told the nation why it was “in our vital national interest” to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to fight the war in Afghanistan, adding that as Commander in Chief, “I see firsthand the terrible wages of war.” And at Oslo, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the President said, “We are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land.”
There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered.
Dan Pfeiffer is White House Communications Director
Thursday, December 31, 2009
The Lying Unpatriotic Hypocrisy of Dick Cheney
Dick Cheney's Lies about President Obama
Dick Cheney's Loose Lips -- Democrats Blame GOP for politicizing attempted airline bombing
By Eugene Robinson -- The Washington Post -- Thursday, December 31, 2009:
It's pathetic to break a New Year's resolution before we even get to New Year's Day, but here I go. I had promised myself that I would do a better job of ignoring Dick Cheney's corrosive and nonsensical outbursts -- that I would treat them, more or less, like the pearls of wisdom one hears from homeless people sitting in bus shelters.
But he is a former vice president, which gives him a big stage for his histrionic Rottweiler-in-Winter act. It is never a good idea to let widely disseminated lies and distortions go unchallenged. And the shrill screed that Cheney unloosed Wednesday is so full of outright mendacity that, well, my resolution will have to wait.
In a statement to Politico, Cheney seemed to be trying to provide talking points for opponents of the Obama administration who -- incredibly -- would exploit the Christmas Day terrorist attack for political gain. Cheney's broadside opens with a big lie, which he then repeats throughout. It is as if he believes that saying something over and over again, in a loud enough voice, magically makes it so.
"As I've watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war," Cheney begins.
Flat-Out Untrue.
The fact is that Obama has said many times that we are at war against terrorists. He said it as a candidate. He said it in his inaugural address: "Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred." He has said it since.
As Cheney well knows, unless he has lost even the most tenuous grip on reality, Obama's commitment to warfare as an instrument in the fight against terrorism has won the president nothing but grief from the liberal wing of his party, with more certainly to come. Hasn't anyone told Cheney that Obama is sharply boosting troop levels in Afghanistan in an attempt to avoid losing a war that the Bush administration started but then practically abandoned?
Cheney knows this. But he goes on to use the big lie -- that Obama is "trying to pretend we are not at war" -- to bludgeon the administration on a host of specific issues. Here is the one that jumps out at me: The president, Cheney claims, "seems to think that if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won't be at war."
Interesting that Cheney should bring that up, because it now seems clear that the man accused of trying to blow up Northwest Flight 253, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was given training -- and probably the bomb itself, which involved plastic explosives sewn into his underwear -- by al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. It happens that at least two men who were released from Guantanamo appear to have gone on to play major roles as al-Qaeda lieutenants in Yemen. Who let these dangerous people out of our custody? They were set free by the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Dick Cheney's Loose Lips -- Democrats Blame GOP for politicizing attempted airline bombing
By Eugene Robinson -- The Washington Post -- Thursday, December 31, 2009:
It's pathetic to break a New Year's resolution before we even get to New Year's Day, but here I go. I had promised myself that I would do a better job of ignoring Dick Cheney's corrosive and nonsensical outbursts -- that I would treat them, more or less, like the pearls of wisdom one hears from homeless people sitting in bus shelters.
But he is a former vice president, which gives him a big stage for his histrionic Rottweiler-in-Winter act. It is never a good idea to let widely disseminated lies and distortions go unchallenged. And the shrill screed that Cheney unloosed Wednesday is so full of outright mendacity that, well, my resolution will have to wait.
In a statement to Politico, Cheney seemed to be trying to provide talking points for opponents of the Obama administration who -- incredibly -- would exploit the Christmas Day terrorist attack for political gain. Cheney's broadside opens with a big lie, which he then repeats throughout. It is as if he believes that saying something over and over again, in a loud enough voice, magically makes it so.
"As I've watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war," Cheney begins.
Flat-Out Untrue.
The fact is that Obama has said many times that we are at war against terrorists. He said it as a candidate. He said it in his inaugural address: "Our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred." He has said it since.
As Cheney well knows, unless he has lost even the most tenuous grip on reality, Obama's commitment to warfare as an instrument in the fight against terrorism has won the president nothing but grief from the liberal wing of his party, with more certainly to come. Hasn't anyone told Cheney that Obama is sharply boosting troop levels in Afghanistan in an attempt to avoid losing a war that the Bush administration started but then practically abandoned?
Cheney knows this. But he goes on to use the big lie -- that Obama is "trying to pretend we are not at war" -- to bludgeon the administration on a host of specific issues. Here is the one that jumps out at me: The president, Cheney claims, "seems to think that if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won't be at war."
Interesting that Cheney should bring that up, because it now seems clear that the man accused of trying to blow up Northwest Flight 253, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was given training -- and probably the bomb itself, which involved plastic explosives sewn into his underwear -- by al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. It happens that at least two men who were released from Guantanamo appear to have gone on to play major roles as al-Qaeda lieutenants in Yemen. Who let these dangerous people out of our custody? They were set free by the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.
Is Obama "Pallin' Around with Terrorists"?
White House releases more visitor records,' by POLITICO's Nia-Malika Henderson and Kendra Marr - December 31, 2009:
"The White House's most recent list of visitors, released Wednesday, serves as a partial mirror of the Obama administration's domestic priorities, particularly health care reform and economic policy affecting Wall Street and the auto industry. The list includes 25,000 visits from Sept. 16 to Sept. 30, as well as about 2,000 visits dating back to January.
Records show that top administration officials met with Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman of Goldman Sachs, Microsoft's Bill Gates and Karen Ignagni, a lobbyist for AHIP, which represents health care companies as well as Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, and former Vice President Al Gore.
Steve Rattner, who was tasked with restructuring General Motors and Chrysler before returning to New York, visited the White House 56 times dating back to the beginning of the year. Most of his visits were to see Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council. Andrew Stern, head of Service Employees International Union and a key labor ally, visited 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue 28 times."
Funny, I don't see the names of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright or Bill Ayres on the White House visitor lists, do you?
So, why are Dumbo Hannity and Lyin' Palin still harping on these folks? And, why is Dumbo Hannity still Pallin' Around with Palin?
"The White House's most recent list of visitors, released Wednesday, serves as a partial mirror of the Obama administration's domestic priorities, particularly health care reform and economic policy affecting Wall Street and the auto industry. The list includes 25,000 visits from Sept. 16 to Sept. 30, as well as about 2,000 visits dating back to January.
Records show that top administration officials met with Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman of Goldman Sachs, Microsoft's Bill Gates and Karen Ignagni, a lobbyist for AHIP, which represents health care companies as well as Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women, and former Vice President Al Gore.
Steve Rattner, who was tasked with restructuring General Motors and Chrysler before returning to New York, visited the White House 56 times dating back to the beginning of the year. Most of his visits were to see Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council. Andrew Stern, head of Service Employees International Union and a key labor ally, visited 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue 28 times."
Funny, I don't see the names of the Reverend Jeremiah Wright or Bill Ayres on the White House visitor lists, do you?
So, why are Dumbo Hannity and Lyin' Palin still harping on these folks? And, why is Dumbo Hannity still Pallin' Around with Palin?
No Thanks to the Party of No
Jobless claims fall unexpectedly as layoffs ease.
The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims for unemployment insurance fell by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 432,000, the lowest since July 2008. That's much better than the rise to 460,000 that Wall Street economists expected.
December 31, 2009 -- Happy New Year!
The Labor Department said Thursday that new claims for unemployment insurance fell by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 432,000, the lowest since July 2008. That's much better than the rise to 460,000 that Wall Street economists expected.
December 31, 2009 -- Happy New Year!
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
President Obama's Effective Actions Against Islamic World-Wide Terrorism Vs. Dick Cheney's Ineffectual Blithering Bellicose Blather
From The Huffington Post -- DECEMBER 30, 2009
Steve Benen "President Grown-Up"
White House Responds To Cheney: "Your 'Bellicose Rhetoric' Did Nothing"
It's probably too soon to say whether Republicans' truly ridiculous attacks against President Obama on counter-terrorism are going to have an effect. The daily tracking polls haven't shown much of a shift as of yet, and much of the public is enjoying the holiday season and may not be fully engaged in the GOP talking points of the day.
Ideally, Americans would see through the baseless condemnations of the White House, and recognize them for what they are: petty, stupid, and easily debunked. But if public attitudes start to shift, and wrong-but-loud criticism undermines confidence in the administration's national security policies, there is an alternative strategy available.
Up until now, the president has chosen a mature, sensible approach to counter-terrorism. After learning of the failed Abdulmutallab plot, the White House reacted quickly with new security measures behind the scenes, with the president overseeing a carefully-crafted response. But publicly, the White House decided not to elevate the actions of a two-bit thug. President Obama signaled to the country that there was no reason to panic, and no need to give a new round of sought-after attention to a bunch of lunatics.
Republicans didn't care for that approach, and preferred a collective display of pants-wetting. GOP voices and the media decided the strategy to deny terrorists a symbolic public relations victory wasn't good enough -- this was a time for partisan grandstanding, not mature leadership.
Again, maybe Americans will find the president's approach compelling. They should; it's how leaders are supposed to operate. But at this point, it seems pretty obvious that the president acting like an adult is going over the political world's head.
There's apparently an expectation that the president can -- and probably should -- exploit incidents for as much political gain as possible. The Obama administration's track record on counter-terrorism is extremely impressive, but because officials don't dance in the end-zone after every successful operation, most Americans haven't heard about the success stories, and most political journalists still internalize the absurd notion that national security is a Republican "strength."
If the White House wanted to try a new approach, grandstanding opportunities are not uncommon. For example, when U.S. forces, acting on the president's orders, successfully took out Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the ringleader of a Qaeda cell in Kenya and one of the most wanted Islamic militants in Africa, the president could have appeared before the cameras to explain, "Hey, look at me! I took out one of the world's most dangerous terrorists!"
When U.S. forces, acting on the president's orders, killed Baitullah Mehsud, the terrorist leader of the Taliban movement in Pakistan, Obama could have assembled reporters to declare, "Booyah! Bush and Cheney only wish they had a record like mine!"
When the Obama administration took suspected terrorists Najibullah Zazi, Talib Islam, and Hosam Maher Husein Smadi into custody before they could launch their planned attacks, each of the success stories could have been accompanied by its own press conference, at which the president could proclaim, "Republicans' talk is cheap; I'm the one keeping Americans safe."
Of course, the administration preferred a more low-key approach in each instance. Obama has scored the kind of counter-terrorism victories that, if they'd come a couple of years ago, would have led the White House to release photos of Dick Cheney and Bill Kristol chest-bumping each other on the South Lawn, but this White House prefers to simply get the job done, not make a show of it.
The result, however, is that the media and the public don't necessarily know the counter-terrorism victories have even happened.
The president, by all appearances, finds shameless politicization of counter-terrorism offensive. And it is. But Republicans are running an aggressive misinformation scheme, and if it's effective, the White House may need to reconsider whether the public rewards or punishes leaders who act like grown-ups.
Steve Benen "President Grown-Up"
White House Responds To Cheney: "Your 'Bellicose Rhetoric' Did Nothing"
It's probably too soon to say whether Republicans' truly ridiculous attacks against President Obama on counter-terrorism are going to have an effect. The daily tracking polls haven't shown much of a shift as of yet, and much of the public is enjoying the holiday season and may not be fully engaged in the GOP talking points of the day.
Ideally, Americans would see through the baseless condemnations of the White House, and recognize them for what they are: petty, stupid, and easily debunked. But if public attitudes start to shift, and wrong-but-loud criticism undermines confidence in the administration's national security policies, there is an alternative strategy available.
Up until now, the president has chosen a mature, sensible approach to counter-terrorism. After learning of the failed Abdulmutallab plot, the White House reacted quickly with new security measures behind the scenes, with the president overseeing a carefully-crafted response. But publicly, the White House decided not to elevate the actions of a two-bit thug. President Obama signaled to the country that there was no reason to panic, and no need to give a new round of sought-after attention to a bunch of lunatics.
Republicans didn't care for that approach, and preferred a collective display of pants-wetting. GOP voices and the media decided the strategy to deny terrorists a symbolic public relations victory wasn't good enough -- this was a time for partisan grandstanding, not mature leadership.
Again, maybe Americans will find the president's approach compelling. They should; it's how leaders are supposed to operate. But at this point, it seems pretty obvious that the president acting like an adult is going over the political world's head.
There's apparently an expectation that the president can -- and probably should -- exploit incidents for as much political gain as possible. The Obama administration's track record on counter-terrorism is extremely impressive, but because officials don't dance in the end-zone after every successful operation, most Americans haven't heard about the success stories, and most political journalists still internalize the absurd notion that national security is a Republican "strength."
If the White House wanted to try a new approach, grandstanding opportunities are not uncommon. For example, when U.S. forces, acting on the president's orders, successfully took out Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, the ringleader of a Qaeda cell in Kenya and one of the most wanted Islamic militants in Africa, the president could have appeared before the cameras to explain, "Hey, look at me! I took out one of the world's most dangerous terrorists!"
When U.S. forces, acting on the president's orders, killed Baitullah Mehsud, the terrorist leader of the Taliban movement in Pakistan, Obama could have assembled reporters to declare, "Booyah! Bush and Cheney only wish they had a record like mine!"
When the Obama administration took suspected terrorists Najibullah Zazi, Talib Islam, and Hosam Maher Husein Smadi into custody before they could launch their planned attacks, each of the success stories could have been accompanied by its own press conference, at which the president could proclaim, "Republicans' talk is cheap; I'm the one keeping Americans safe."
Of course, the administration preferred a more low-key approach in each instance. Obama has scored the kind of counter-terrorism victories that, if they'd come a couple of years ago, would have led the White House to release photos of Dick Cheney and Bill Kristol chest-bumping each other on the South Lawn, but this White House prefers to simply get the job done, not make a show of it.
The result, however, is that the media and the public don't necessarily know the counter-terrorism victories have even happened.
The president, by all appearances, finds shameless politicization of counter-terrorism offensive. And it is. But Republicans are running an aggressive misinformation scheme, and if it's effective, the White House may need to reconsider whether the public rewards or punishes leaders who act like grown-ups.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
A Word to My Dear Friend Ray Gun About The Word of God
Dear Ray Gun:
Patriotism is a Very Good Thing. Even so -- as you know -- "An Excessive Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Likewise, the Bible is a Good Book. Even so: "The Devil can quote Scripture." And, as you have so aptly pointed out, there is a lot in the Bible for the Devil to quote.
The Koran is a Good Book. Millions of good people around the world believe in the Koran, follow its teachings, and lead good peaceful lives. Even so, today, we find many Devils throughout the world quoting the Koran, and misleading the naive and the gullible, to achieve their own evil goals.
So, Ray Gun, even though they can all be turned on their heads and used for wicked purposes, still: Patriotism, the Bible, and the Koran are all basically good things. Why? Because they have influenced many more people to lead good lives than bad lives.
Nothing in human life is black or white, Ray Gun. Everything is Gray -- even the Word of God.
Patriotism is a Very Good Thing. Even so -- as you know -- "An Excessive Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
Likewise, the Bible is a Good Book. Even so: "The Devil can quote Scripture." And, as you have so aptly pointed out, there is a lot in the Bible for the Devil to quote.
The Koran is a Good Book. Millions of good people around the world believe in the Koran, follow its teachings, and lead good peaceful lives. Even so, today, we find many Devils throughout the world quoting the Koran, and misleading the naive and the gullible, to achieve their own evil goals.
So, Ray Gun, even though they can all be turned on their heads and used for wicked purposes, still: Patriotism, the Bible, and the Koran are all basically good things. Why? Because they have influenced many more people to lead good lives than bad lives.
Nothing in human life is black or white, Ray Gun. Everything is Gray -- even the Word of God.
Another Profit Center for Right-Wing Phony Patriots -- The Real Tea-Bagger Tax
From Common Dreams.org -- December 29, 2009
Majority Of Tea Party Group's Spending Went To GOP Firm That Created It
by Zachary Roth
The political action committee behind the Tea Party Express (TPE) -- which already has been slammed as inauthentic and corporate-controlled by rival factions in the Tea Party movement -- directed almost two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period back to the Republican consulting firm that created the PAC in the first place.
Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) spent around $1.33 million from July through November, according to FEC filings examined by TPMmuckraker. Of that sum, a total of $857,122 went to Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates, or people associated with it.
OCDB, which built the Tea Party Express, is essentially a Russo, Marsh creation, as we've detailed. The PAC's site was registered in July 2008 by Sal Russo, the firm's founder. That site also lists Russo as the PAC's "chief strategist." Tea Party Express fundraising emails, sent by OCDB and obtained by TPMmuckraker, come from another Russo, Marsh employee, Joe Wierzbicki.
Just for good measure, legendary GOP bamboozler Howard Kaloogian is also on OCDB's board, and has close ties to Russo, Marsh.
From July through November 2009, the firm received $832,403 from OCDB, according to the FEC records. An additional $8,500 went to Russo himself. And Wierzbicki took in $16,219.
The services for which Russo, Marsh was paid appear to be legitimate campaign needs. For instance, it took in several hundred thousand for what OCDB listed in the FEC filings as "PAC Email Newsletter Costs - Generic Fun." That would appear to refer to the numerous fund-raising and activism emails sent to volunteers to promote and build the Tea Party Express -- a nationwide bus tour to build opposition to the Obama agenda -- many of them by Wierzbicki.
But one expert on political action committees told TPMmuckraker it was unusual for a PAC to direct so much spending back to the entity that created it. And the spending details raised hackles among members of the Tea Party Patriots, a rival faction of conservative activists who have denounced TPE as a creature of Republican political professionals that lacks grassroots authenticity. In an email to a Patriots group that was obtained by TPMmuckaker, one TPPer who had examined the filings asked, "What would the true grassroots people think if they knew their money is being spent in this manner?"
A message left in the general mailbox for Russo, Marsh was not immediately returned.
Majority Of Tea Party Group's Spending Went To GOP Firm That Created It
by Zachary Roth
The political action committee behind the Tea Party Express (TPE) -- which already has been slammed as inauthentic and corporate-controlled by rival factions in the Tea Party movement -- directed almost two thirds of its spending during a recent reporting period back to the Republican consulting firm that created the PAC in the first place.
Our Country Deserves Better (OCDB) spent around $1.33 million from July through November, according to FEC filings examined by TPMmuckraker. Of that sum, a total of $857,122 went to Sacramento-based GOP political consulting firm Russo, Marsh, and Associates, or people associated with it.
OCDB, which built the Tea Party Express, is essentially a Russo, Marsh creation, as we've detailed. The PAC's site was registered in July 2008 by Sal Russo, the firm's founder. That site also lists Russo as the PAC's "chief strategist." Tea Party Express fundraising emails, sent by OCDB and obtained by TPMmuckraker, come from another Russo, Marsh employee, Joe Wierzbicki.
Just for good measure, legendary GOP bamboozler Howard Kaloogian is also on OCDB's board, and has close ties to Russo, Marsh.
From July through November 2009, the firm received $832,403 from OCDB, according to the FEC records. An additional $8,500 went to Russo himself. And Wierzbicki took in $16,219.
The services for which Russo, Marsh was paid appear to be legitimate campaign needs. For instance, it took in several hundred thousand for what OCDB listed in the FEC filings as "PAC Email Newsletter Costs - Generic Fun." That would appear to refer to the numerous fund-raising and activism emails sent to volunteers to promote and build the Tea Party Express -- a nationwide bus tour to build opposition to the Obama agenda -- many of them by Wierzbicki.
But one expert on political action committees told TPMmuckraker it was unusual for a PAC to direct so much spending back to the entity that created it. And the spending details raised hackles among members of the Tea Party Patriots, a rival faction of conservative activists who have denounced TPE as a creature of Republican political professionals that lacks grassroots authenticity. In an email to a Patriots group that was obtained by TPMmuckaker, one TPPer who had examined the filings asked, "What would the true grassroots people think if they knew their money is being spent in this manner?"
A message left in the general mailbox for Russo, Marsh was not immediately returned.
A Brilliant Comment By Steve Smith About the Right Wing Media Jackals Who Are Intent on Destroying This Country
"I am tired of all the Obama bashing being generated from the right wing of this country. We are at the point where even the Burak Obama supporters are questioning his competence and the direction in which he is driving America. Why is our president more popular in Europe and Asia than he is in the U.S.? Because the GOP media and politicians, who act like spoiled brats, kick and scream louder than majority. They have no platform other than to disagree with Obama, to avoid being marginalized.
These blowhards including Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin know that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, even though so much of what they holler about has no merit.
My question is…Where are all the people that were apart of the greatest political and social victory in the history of our country? One year ago African Americans were basically vindicated and released from 300 years of oppression and segregation by the conservative shackles put upon them. This was not only a victory for them but for all Americans of color or those with a social conscious. Our American brothers and sisters that were all for change, that come from India, Africa, China, Japan, South America, Central America and on and on, this was a victory and redemption for all of you. This was the moment in time when all of these citizens were given the opportunity to be a legitimate piece of the American fabric, to take what has always been rightfully yours, and take action to help advance our country back into the global leader that we had once been. Not from a military standpoint but from a social, economic and humanitarian standpoint.
When I look at what is going on through the media, in communities, social networking, to see what is going on with the Change that we all wanted, supported and won, I see much more effort and discussion spent on figuring out why Oprah is canceling her show or if Lebron is going to NY or Miami.
I realize times are tough and so many of us are worried about jobs, medical insurance and losing our homes, but what is happening is that the imperial warlords that want their bombs and power back are taking advantage of the diversion to our problems, to kick our guy out of office.
Remember what got us here. Stop eating that bag of Cheetos in front of the TV, and make something happen. “Ask not what our country can do for you…”. YOUR country is working for you, now help our president achieve the things we all gathered around and supported, and let’s build this country into what we always dreamed it could be, the reason we all came here or live here in the first place.
If you don’t, you will have wasted a monumental opportunity that will probably not come back to you in your lifetime."
Steve Smith
These blowhards including Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin know that the squeaky wheel gets the grease, even though so much of what they holler about has no merit.
My question is…Where are all the people that were apart of the greatest political and social victory in the history of our country? One year ago African Americans were basically vindicated and released from 300 years of oppression and segregation by the conservative shackles put upon them. This was not only a victory for them but for all Americans of color or those with a social conscious. Our American brothers and sisters that were all for change, that come from India, Africa, China, Japan, South America, Central America and on and on, this was a victory and redemption for all of you. This was the moment in time when all of these citizens were given the opportunity to be a legitimate piece of the American fabric, to take what has always been rightfully yours, and take action to help advance our country back into the global leader that we had once been. Not from a military standpoint but from a social, economic and humanitarian standpoint.
When I look at what is going on through the media, in communities, social networking, to see what is going on with the Change that we all wanted, supported and won, I see much more effort and discussion spent on figuring out why Oprah is canceling her show or if Lebron is going to NY or Miami.
I realize times are tough and so many of us are worried about jobs, medical insurance and losing our homes, but what is happening is that the imperial warlords that want their bombs and power back are taking advantage of the diversion to our problems, to kick our guy out of office.
Remember what got us here. Stop eating that bag of Cheetos in front of the TV, and make something happen. “Ask not what our country can do for you…”. YOUR country is working for you, now help our president achieve the things we all gathered around and supported, and let’s build this country into what we always dreamed it could be, the reason we all came here or live here in the first place.
If you don’t, you will have wasted a monumental opportunity that will probably not come back to you in your lifetime."
Steve Smith
Monday, December 28, 2009
A Few of the Terrorist Attacks Carried Out on U. S. Soil During the Bush/Cheney Administration
2001 September 11: September 11, 2001 attacks carried out by Al-Qaeda. The attacks were carried out by Islamic Fundamentalists using hijacked commercial airplanes to damage the twin towers of the World Trade Center, and The Pentagon. Building 7 of the World Trade Center was also destroyed but was not hit with a plane. A fourth plane crashed prematurely in Pennsylvania. Over 2,500 people were killed in these attacks.
2001 September 18: November - 2001 anthrax attacks. Letters tainted with anthrax kill five across the United States, with politicians and media officials as the apparent targets. On July 31, 2008 Bruce E. Ivins a top biodefense researcher committed suicide. On August 6, 2008 the FBI concluded that Ivins was solely responsible for the attacks and suggested that Ivins wanted to bolster support for a vaccine he helped create and that he targeted two lawmakers because they were Catholics who held pro choice views.
May 2002 Mailbox Pipe Bomber: Lucas John Helder rigged pipe bombs in private mailboxes to explode when the boxes were opened. He injured 6 people in Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, and Iowa. His motivation was to garner media attention so that he could spread a message denouncing government control over daily lives and the illegality of marijuana as well as promoting astral projection.
2002 July 4: 2002 Los Angeles Airport shooting - Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, a 41-year-old Egyptian national, kills two Israelis and wounds four others at the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport. The FBI concluded this was terrorism, although they found no evidence linking Hadayet to any terrorist group.
October 2002 Beltway Sniper Attacks: During three weeks in October 2002 John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo killed 10 people and critically injured three others in Washington D.C, Baltimore, and Virginia. An earlier spree by the pair had resulted in 3 deaths in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, California, Arizona, and Texas to bring the total to 16 deaths. No motivation was given at the trial but evidence presented showed an affinity to the cause of the Islamic jihad.
2006 March 5: Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar injured 6 when he drove an SUV into a group of pedestrians at UNC-Chapel Hill to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world".
2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting, Egyptian shoots six Jewish woman.
2007 October 26: A pair of improvised explosive devices were thrown at the Mexican Consulate in New York City. The fake grenades were filled with black powder and detonated by fuses causing very minor damage. Police were investigating the connection between this and a similar attack against the British Consulate in New York in 2005.
2008 February: In the first reported incident of animal-rights extremists physically assaulting the family members of animal researchers, six masked activists attempted to force their way into the home of a University of California, Santa Cruz, researcher and injured the researcher's husband.
2008 March 3: Four multimillion-dollar show homes place in Woodinville, Washington are torched. The Earth Liberation Front is suspected in the fires.
2008 May 4 Multiple nail laden pipe bombs exploded at a Federal Courthouse in San Diego at 1:40 AM causing "considerable damage" to the entrance and lobby and sending shrapnel two blocks away. The F.B.I. is investigating links between this attack and an April 25 explosion at the FedEx building also in San Diego.
2008 July 27 Jim D. Adkisson opened fire in the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville,Tennessee killing two and injuring seven before being tackled to the ground by congregation members. A note found in his SUV indicated this was intended as a suicide attack and said the church was apparently targeted because of its support of liberal social policies.
2008 August 2, August 3 University of California-Santa Cruz molecular biologist David Feldheim's home was firebombed. A car belonging to another researcher from that University was destroyed by a firebomb in what is presumed to be related. FBI is investigating incidents as domestic terrorism related to animal rights groups.
2001 September 18: November - 2001 anthrax attacks. Letters tainted with anthrax kill five across the United States, with politicians and media officials as the apparent targets. On July 31, 2008 Bruce E. Ivins a top biodefense researcher committed suicide. On August 6, 2008 the FBI concluded that Ivins was solely responsible for the attacks and suggested that Ivins wanted to bolster support for a vaccine he helped create and that he targeted two lawmakers because they were Catholics who held pro choice views.
May 2002 Mailbox Pipe Bomber: Lucas John Helder rigged pipe bombs in private mailboxes to explode when the boxes were opened. He injured 6 people in Nebraska, Colorado, Texas, Illinois, and Iowa. His motivation was to garner media attention so that he could spread a message denouncing government control over daily lives and the illegality of marijuana as well as promoting astral projection.
2002 July 4: 2002 Los Angeles Airport shooting - Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, a 41-year-old Egyptian national, kills two Israelis and wounds four others at the El Al ticket counter at Los Angeles International Airport. The FBI concluded this was terrorism, although they found no evidence linking Hadayet to any terrorist group.
October 2002 Beltway Sniper Attacks: During three weeks in October 2002 John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo killed 10 people and critically injured three others in Washington D.C, Baltimore, and Virginia. An earlier spree by the pair had resulted in 3 deaths in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, California, Arizona, and Texas to bring the total to 16 deaths. No motivation was given at the trial but evidence presented showed an affinity to the cause of the Islamic jihad.
2006 March 5: Mohammed Reza Taheri-azar injured 6 when he drove an SUV into a group of pedestrians at UNC-Chapel Hill to "avenge the deaths or murders of Muslims around the world".
2006 Seattle Jewish Federation shooting, Egyptian shoots six Jewish woman.
2007 October 26: A pair of improvised explosive devices were thrown at the Mexican Consulate in New York City. The fake grenades were filled with black powder and detonated by fuses causing very minor damage. Police were investigating the connection between this and a similar attack against the British Consulate in New York in 2005.
2008 February: In the first reported incident of animal-rights extremists physically assaulting the family members of animal researchers, six masked activists attempted to force their way into the home of a University of California, Santa Cruz, researcher and injured the researcher's husband.
2008 March 3: Four multimillion-dollar show homes place in Woodinville, Washington are torched. The Earth Liberation Front is suspected in the fires.
2008 May 4 Multiple nail laden pipe bombs exploded at a Federal Courthouse in San Diego at 1:40 AM causing "considerable damage" to the entrance and lobby and sending shrapnel two blocks away. The F.B.I. is investigating links between this attack and an April 25 explosion at the FedEx building also in San Diego.
2008 July 27 Jim D. Adkisson opened fire in the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville,Tennessee killing two and injuring seven before being tackled to the ground by congregation members. A note found in his SUV indicated this was intended as a suicide attack and said the church was apparently targeted because of its support of liberal social policies.
2008 August 2, August 3 University of California-Santa Cruz molecular biologist David Feldheim's home was firebombed. A car belonging to another researcher from that University was destroyed by a firebomb in what is presumed to be related. FBI is investigating incidents as domestic terrorism related to animal rights groups.
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Yes, Virginia, Clinton Did Leave Us With a Budget Surplus in 2000
Joel Achenbach on the 2000s: The decade we didn't see coming:
At the start of the decade, prosperity reigned, there was a budget surplus, and housing prices were on the rise. Then we got bogged down in overseas wars, the economy tanked, and we gave up much of our privacy for the convenience of the Internet. Here's a look back at the decade and the moments that defined it.
By Joel Achenbach
Sunday, December 27, 2009 - The Washington Post
"The decade began so swimmingly. No Y2K bug, no terrorism, nothing but lots of fireworks as the planet turned and, time zone by time zone, all the zeroes replaced the nines.
America was at peace. Prosperity reigned. The popular president soon announced a budget surplus of $230 billion. The dilemma for Washington lawmakers was what to do with all the extra money."
Where on Earth do Conservatives get the idea that President Clinton did not leave this country with a huge budget surplus? Bush couldn't squander that surplus fast enough. Do Conservatives have any contact at all with the real world?
At the start of the decade, prosperity reigned, there was a budget surplus, and housing prices were on the rise. Then we got bogged down in overseas wars, the economy tanked, and we gave up much of our privacy for the convenience of the Internet. Here's a look back at the decade and the moments that defined it.
By Joel Achenbach
Sunday, December 27, 2009 - The Washington Post
"The decade began so swimmingly. No Y2K bug, no terrorism, nothing but lots of fireworks as the planet turned and, time zone by time zone, all the zeroes replaced the nines.
America was at peace. Prosperity reigned. The popular president soon announced a budget surplus of $230 billion. The dilemma for Washington lawmakers was what to do with all the extra money."
Where on Earth do Conservatives get the idea that President Clinton did not leave this country with a huge budget surplus? Bush couldn't squander that surplus fast enough. Do Conservatives have any contact at all with the real world?
Saturday, December 26, 2009
US Commandos Are Vigorously Pursuing Al Quaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan
Elite U.S. Force Expanding Hunt in Afghanistan
Kevin Frayer/Associated Press
American and Afghan troops in Helmand Province. Special Operations units are stepping up attacks on insurgents, officers say.
By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: December 26, 2009 - The New York Times:
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — Secretive branches of the military’s Special Operations forces have increased counterterrorism missions against some of the most lethal groups in Afghanistan and, because of their success, plan an even bigger expansion next year, according to American commanders.
Officers at Bagram Air Base expect a major fight in Marja.
The commandos, from the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s classified Seals units, have had success weakening the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the strongest Taliban warrior in eastern Afghanistan, the officers said. Mr. Haqqani’s group has used its bases in neighboring Pakistan to carry out deadly strikes in and around Kabul, the Afghan capital.
Guided by intercepted cellphone communications, the American commandos have also killed some important Taliban operatives in Marja, the most fearsome Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province in the south, the officers said. Marine commanders say they believe that there are some 1,000 fighters holed up in the town.
Although President Obama and his top aides have not publicly discussed these highly classified missions as part of the administration’s revamped strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the counterterrorism operations are expected to increase, along with the deployment of 30,000 more American forces in the next year.
The increased counterterrorism operations over the past three or four months reflect growth in every part of the Afghanistan campaign, including conventional forces securing the population, other troops training and partnering with Afghan security forces, and more civilians to complement and capitalize on security gains.
American commanders in Afghanistan rely on the commando units to carry out some of the most complicated operations against militant leaders, and the missions are never publicly acknowledged.
The commandos are the same elite forces that have been pursuing Osama bin Laden, captured Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003 and led the hunt that ended in 2006 in the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader in Iraq of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
In recent interviews here, commanders explained that the special-mission units from the Joint Special Operations Command were playing a pivotal role in hurting some of the toughest militant groups, and buying some time before American reinforcements arrived and more Afghan security forces could be trained.
“They are extremely effective in the areas where we are focused,” said one American general in Afghanistan about the commandos, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the classified status of the missions.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, who is in charge of the military’s Central Command, mentioned the increased focus on counterterrorism operations in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Dec. 9. But he spoke more obliquely about the teams actually conducting attacks against hard-core Taliban extremists, particularly those in rural areas outside the reach of population centers that conventional forces will focus on.
“We actually will be increasing our counterterrorist component of the overall strategy,” General Petraeus told lawmakers. “There’s no question you’ve got to kill or capture those bad guys that are not reconcilable. And we are intending to do that, and we will have additional national mission force elements to do that when the spring rolls around.”
Senior military officials say it is not surprising that the commandos are playing such an important role in the fight, particularly because Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior American and NATO officer in Afghanistan, led the Joint Special Operations Command for five years.
In addition to the classified American commando missions, military officials say that other NATO special operations forces have teamed up with Afghan counterparts to attack Taliban bomb-making networks and other militant cells.
About six weeks ago, allied and Afghan special operations forces killed about 150 Taliban fighters in several villages near Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, a senior NATO military official said.
Some missions have killed Taliban fighters while searching for Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, who was reported missing on June 30 in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban in July posted a video on jihadist Web sites in which the soldier identified himself and said that he had been captured when he lagged behind on a patrol. A second video was released on Friday.
“We’ve been hitting them hard, but I want to be careful not to overstate our progress,” said the NATO official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to describe the operations in detail. “It has not yet been decisive.”
In Helmand, more than 10,000 Marines, as well as Afghan and British forces, are gearing up for a major confrontation in Marja early next year. Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the senior Marine commander in the south, said in a recent interview, “The overt message we’re putting out is, Marja is next.”
General Nicholson said there were both “kinetic and nonkinetic shaping operations” under way. In military parlance that means covert operations, including stealthy commando raids against specific targets, as well as an overt propaganda campaign intended to persuade some Taliban fighters to defect.
Military officials say the commandos are mindful of General McChrystal’s directive earlier this year to take additional steps to prevent civilian casualties.
In February, before General McChrystal was named to his current position, the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, ordered a halt to most commando missions in Afghanistan, reflecting a growing concern that civilian deaths caused by American firepower were jeopardizing broader goals there.
The halt, which lasted about two weeks, came after a series of nighttime raids by Special Operations troops killed women and children, and after months of mounting outrage in Afghanistan about civilians killed in air and ground attacks. The order covered all commando missions except those against the top leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, military officials said.
Across the border in Pakistan, where American commandos are not permitted to operate, the Central Intelligence Agency has stepped up its missile strikes by Predator and Reaper drones on groups like the Haqqani network.
But an official with Pakistan’s main spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or I.S.I., said there had also been more than 60 joint operations involving the I.S.I. and the C.I.A. in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Baluchistan in the past year.
The official said the missions included “snatch and grabs” — the abduction of important militants — as well as efforts to kill leaders. These operations were based on intelligence provided by either the United States or Pakistan to be used against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the official said.
“We can expect to see more U.S. action against Haqqani,” a senior American diplomat in Pakistan said in a recent interview.
The increasing tempo of commando operations in Afghanistan has caused some strains with other American commanders. Many of the top Special Operations forces, as well as intelligence analysts and surveillance aircraft, are being moved to Afghanistan from Iraq, as the Iraq war begins to wind down.
“It’s caused some tensions over resources,” said Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr., the second-ranking commander in Iraq.
So, what is all this phony lying Right-Wing propaganda that the Obama Administration is not hunting Islamic terrorists? Obama is pursuing these creatures in Afghanistan far more vigorously and effectively than Bush and his Neo-Con Chickenhawks ever did during their eight years in office.
Kevin Frayer/Associated Press
American and Afghan troops in Helmand Province. Special Operations units are stepping up attacks on insurgents, officers say.
By ERIC SCHMITT
Published: December 26, 2009 - The New York Times:
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan — Secretive branches of the military’s Special Operations forces have increased counterterrorism missions against some of the most lethal groups in Afghanistan and, because of their success, plan an even bigger expansion next year, according to American commanders.
Officers at Bagram Air Base expect a major fight in Marja.
The commandos, from the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s classified Seals units, have had success weakening the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the strongest Taliban warrior in eastern Afghanistan, the officers said. Mr. Haqqani’s group has used its bases in neighboring Pakistan to carry out deadly strikes in and around Kabul, the Afghan capital.
Guided by intercepted cellphone communications, the American commandos have also killed some important Taliban operatives in Marja, the most fearsome Taliban stronghold in Helmand Province in the south, the officers said. Marine commanders say they believe that there are some 1,000 fighters holed up in the town.
Although President Obama and his top aides have not publicly discussed these highly classified missions as part of the administration’s revamped strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, the counterterrorism operations are expected to increase, along with the deployment of 30,000 more American forces in the next year.
The increased counterterrorism operations over the past three or four months reflect growth in every part of the Afghanistan campaign, including conventional forces securing the population, other troops training and partnering with Afghan security forces, and more civilians to complement and capitalize on security gains.
American commanders in Afghanistan rely on the commando units to carry out some of the most complicated operations against militant leaders, and the missions are never publicly acknowledged.
The commandos are the same elite forces that have been pursuing Osama bin Laden, captured Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003 and led the hunt that ended in 2006 in the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader in Iraq of the insurgent group Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
In recent interviews here, commanders explained that the special-mission units from the Joint Special Operations Command were playing a pivotal role in hurting some of the toughest militant groups, and buying some time before American reinforcements arrived and more Afghan security forces could be trained.
“They are extremely effective in the areas where we are focused,” said one American general in Afghanistan about the commandos, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the classified status of the missions.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, who is in charge of the military’s Central Command, mentioned the increased focus on counterterrorism operations in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Dec. 9. But he spoke more obliquely about the teams actually conducting attacks against hard-core Taliban extremists, particularly those in rural areas outside the reach of population centers that conventional forces will focus on.
“We actually will be increasing our counterterrorist component of the overall strategy,” General Petraeus told lawmakers. “There’s no question you’ve got to kill or capture those bad guys that are not reconcilable. And we are intending to do that, and we will have additional national mission force elements to do that when the spring rolls around.”
Senior military officials say it is not surprising that the commandos are playing such an important role in the fight, particularly because Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior American and NATO officer in Afghanistan, led the Joint Special Operations Command for five years.
In addition to the classified American commando missions, military officials say that other NATO special operations forces have teamed up with Afghan counterparts to attack Taliban bomb-making networks and other militant cells.
About six weeks ago, allied and Afghan special operations forces killed about 150 Taliban fighters in several villages near Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, a senior NATO military official said.
Some missions have killed Taliban fighters while searching for Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, who was reported missing on June 30 in eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban in July posted a video on jihadist Web sites in which the soldier identified himself and said that he had been captured when he lagged behind on a patrol. A second video was released on Friday.
“We’ve been hitting them hard, but I want to be careful not to overstate our progress,” said the NATO official, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to describe the operations in detail. “It has not yet been decisive.”
In Helmand, more than 10,000 Marines, as well as Afghan and British forces, are gearing up for a major confrontation in Marja early next year. Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, the senior Marine commander in the south, said in a recent interview, “The overt message we’re putting out is, Marja is next.”
General Nicholson said there were both “kinetic and nonkinetic shaping operations” under way. In military parlance that means covert operations, including stealthy commando raids against specific targets, as well as an overt propaganda campaign intended to persuade some Taliban fighters to defect.
Military officials say the commandos are mindful of General McChrystal’s directive earlier this year to take additional steps to prevent civilian casualties.
In February, before General McChrystal was named to his current position, the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, ordered a halt to most commando missions in Afghanistan, reflecting a growing concern that civilian deaths caused by American firepower were jeopardizing broader goals there.
The halt, which lasted about two weeks, came after a series of nighttime raids by Special Operations troops killed women and children, and after months of mounting outrage in Afghanistan about civilians killed in air and ground attacks. The order covered all commando missions except those against the top leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, military officials said.
Across the border in Pakistan, where American commandos are not permitted to operate, the Central Intelligence Agency has stepped up its missile strikes by Predator and Reaper drones on groups like the Haqqani network.
But an official with Pakistan’s main spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or I.S.I., said there had also been more than 60 joint operations involving the I.S.I. and the C.I.A. in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Baluchistan in the past year.
The official said the missions included “snatch and grabs” — the abduction of important militants — as well as efforts to kill leaders. These operations were based on intelligence provided by either the United States or Pakistan to be used against the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the official said.
“We can expect to see more U.S. action against Haqqani,” a senior American diplomat in Pakistan said in a recent interview.
The increasing tempo of commando operations in Afghanistan has caused some strains with other American commanders. Many of the top Special Operations forces, as well as intelligence analysts and surveillance aircraft, are being moved to Afghanistan from Iraq, as the Iraq war begins to wind down.
“It’s caused some tensions over resources,” said Lt. Gen. Charles H. Jacoby Jr., the second-ranking commander in Iraq.
So, what is all this phony lying Right-Wing propaganda that the Obama Administration is not hunting Islamic terrorists? Obama is pursuing these creatures in Afghanistan far more vigorously and effectively than Bush and his Neo-Con Chickenhawks ever did during their eight years in office.
A Superb Article By Paul Krugman on the new Health Care Reform Bill -- No Thanks to the Misbegotten GOP --The Party of Hope vs. The Party of Nope
Tidings of Comfort
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 24, 2009 - The New York Times:
Indulge me while I tell you a story — a near-future version of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” It begins with sad news: young Timothy Cratchit, a k a Tiny Tim, is sick. And his treatment will cost far more than his parents can pay out of pocket.
Fortunately, our story is set in 2014, and the Cratchits have health insurance. Not from their employer: Ebenezer Scrooge doesn’t do employee benefits. And just a few years earlier they wouldn’t have been able to buy insurance on their own because Tiny Tim has a pre-existing condition, and, anyway, the premiums would have been out of their reach.
But reform legislation enacted in 2010 banned insurance discrimination on the basis of medical history and also created a system of subsidies to help families pay for coverage. Even so, insurance doesn’t come cheap — but the Cratchits do have it, and they’re grateful. God bless us, everyone.
O.K., that was fiction, but there will be millions of real stories like that in the years to come. Imperfect as it is, the legislation that passed the Senate on Thursday and will probably, in a slightly modified version, soon become law will make America a much better country.
So why are so many people complaining? There are three main groups of critics.
First, there’s the crazy right, the tea party and death panel people — a lunatic fringe that is no longer a fringe but has moved into the heart of the Republican Party. In the past, there was a general understanding, a sort of implicit clause in the rules of American politics, that major parties would at least pretend to distance themselves from irrational extremists. But those rules are no longer operative. No, Virginia, at this point there is no sanity clause.
A second strand of opposition comes from what I think of as the Bah Humbug caucus: fiscal scolds who routinely issue sententious warnings about rising debt. By rights, this caucus should find much to like in the Senate health bill, which the Congressional Budget Office says would reduce the deficit, and which — in the judgment of leading health economists — does far more to control costs than anyone has attempted in the past.
But, with few exceptions, the fiscal scolds have had nothing good to say about the bill. And in the process they have revealed that their alleged concern about deficits is, well, humbug. As Slate’s Daniel Gross says, what really motivates them is “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, is receiving social insurance.”
Finally, there has been opposition from some progressives who are unhappy with the bill’s limitations. Some would settle for nothing less than a full, Medicare-type, single-payer system. Others had their hearts set on the creation of a public option to compete with private insurers. And there are complaints that the subsidies are inadequate, that many families will still have trouble paying for medical care.
Unlike the tea partiers and the humbuggers, disappointed progressives have valid complaints. But those complaints don’t add up to a reason to reject the bill. Yes, it’s a hackneyed phrase, but politics is the art of the possible.
The truth is that there isn’t a Congressional majority in favor of anything like single-payer. There is a narrow majority in favor of a plan with a moderately strong public option. The House has passed such a plan. But given the way the Senate rules work, it takes 60 votes to do almost anything. And that fact, combined with total Republican opposition, has placed sharp limits on what can be enacted.
If progressives want more, they’ll have to make changing those Senate rules a priority. They’ll also have to work long term on electing a more progressive Congress. But, meanwhile, the bill the Senate has just passed, with a few tweaks — I’d especially like to move the start date up from 2014, if that’s at all possible — is more or less what the Democratic leadership can get.
And for all its flaws and limitations, it’s a great achievement. It will provide real, concrete help to tens of millions of Americans and greater security to everyone. And it establishes the principle — even if it falls somewhat short in practice — that all Americans are entitled to essential health care.
Many people deserve credit for this moment. What really made it possible was the remarkable emergence of universal health care as a core principle during the Democratic primaries of 2007-2008 — an emergence that, in turn, owed a lot to progressive activism. (For what it’s worth, the reform that’s being passed is closer to Hillary Clinton’s plan than to President Obama’s). This made health reform a must-win for the next president. And it’s actually happening.
So progressives shouldn’t stop complaining, but they should congratulate themselves on what is, in the end, a big win for them — and for America.
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 24, 2009 - The New York Times:
Indulge me while I tell you a story — a near-future version of Charles Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” It begins with sad news: young Timothy Cratchit, a k a Tiny Tim, is sick. And his treatment will cost far more than his parents can pay out of pocket.
Fortunately, our story is set in 2014, and the Cratchits have health insurance. Not from their employer: Ebenezer Scrooge doesn’t do employee benefits. And just a few years earlier they wouldn’t have been able to buy insurance on their own because Tiny Tim has a pre-existing condition, and, anyway, the premiums would have been out of their reach.
But reform legislation enacted in 2010 banned insurance discrimination on the basis of medical history and also created a system of subsidies to help families pay for coverage. Even so, insurance doesn’t come cheap — but the Cratchits do have it, and they’re grateful. God bless us, everyone.
O.K., that was fiction, but there will be millions of real stories like that in the years to come. Imperfect as it is, the legislation that passed the Senate on Thursday and will probably, in a slightly modified version, soon become law will make America a much better country.
So why are so many people complaining? There are three main groups of critics.
First, there’s the crazy right, the tea party and death panel people — a lunatic fringe that is no longer a fringe but has moved into the heart of the Republican Party. In the past, there was a general understanding, a sort of implicit clause in the rules of American politics, that major parties would at least pretend to distance themselves from irrational extremists. But those rules are no longer operative. No, Virginia, at this point there is no sanity clause.
A second strand of opposition comes from what I think of as the Bah Humbug caucus: fiscal scolds who routinely issue sententious warnings about rising debt. By rights, this caucus should find much to like in the Senate health bill, which the Congressional Budget Office says would reduce the deficit, and which — in the judgment of leading health economists — does far more to control costs than anyone has attempted in the past.
But, with few exceptions, the fiscal scolds have had nothing good to say about the bill. And in the process they have revealed that their alleged concern about deficits is, well, humbug. As Slate’s Daniel Gross says, what really motivates them is “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, is receiving social insurance.”
Finally, there has been opposition from some progressives who are unhappy with the bill’s limitations. Some would settle for nothing less than a full, Medicare-type, single-payer system. Others had their hearts set on the creation of a public option to compete with private insurers. And there are complaints that the subsidies are inadequate, that many families will still have trouble paying for medical care.
Unlike the tea partiers and the humbuggers, disappointed progressives have valid complaints. But those complaints don’t add up to a reason to reject the bill. Yes, it’s a hackneyed phrase, but politics is the art of the possible.
The truth is that there isn’t a Congressional majority in favor of anything like single-payer. There is a narrow majority in favor of a plan with a moderately strong public option. The House has passed such a plan. But given the way the Senate rules work, it takes 60 votes to do almost anything. And that fact, combined with total Republican opposition, has placed sharp limits on what can be enacted.
If progressives want more, they’ll have to make changing those Senate rules a priority. They’ll also have to work long term on electing a more progressive Congress. But, meanwhile, the bill the Senate has just passed, with a few tweaks — I’d especially like to move the start date up from 2014, if that’s at all possible — is more or less what the Democratic leadership can get.
And for all its flaws and limitations, it’s a great achievement. It will provide real, concrete help to tens of millions of Americans and greater security to everyone. And it establishes the principle — even if it falls somewhat short in practice — that all Americans are entitled to essential health care.
Many people deserve credit for this moment. What really made it possible was the remarkable emergence of universal health care as a core principle during the Democratic primaries of 2007-2008 — an emergence that, in turn, owed a lot to progressive activism. (For what it’s worth, the reform that’s being passed is closer to Hillary Clinton’s plan than to President Obama’s). This made health reform a must-win for the next president. And it’s actually happening.
So progressives shouldn’t stop complaining, but they should congratulate themselves on what is, in the end, a big win for them — and for America.
Some Appreciation of President Obama from Peggy Noonan of the Wall Street Journal
PAUSING TO APPRECIATE POTUS -- Peggy Noonan's WSJ 'Declarations' column, 'He Just Does What He Thinks Is Right': 'Cannon to the left of him, cannon to the right of him, cannon in front of him volley and thunder. That's our president's position on the political battlefield now, taking it from all sides. And the odd thing, the unique thing in terms of modern political history, is that no one really defends him, no one holds high his flag. ... There are people who deeply admire the president, who work with him and believe he's doing right. This week, this column is their forum. They speak not for attribution to avoid the charge of suckupism. ... [An] Obama staffer spoke of last week's senior staff dinner, at which the president went around the table and told each one individually 'what they meant to him, and thanked the spouses for putting up with what they have to put up with.' He marks birthdays by marching in with cakes. He'll walk around the White House, pop into offices and tease people for putting their feet on the desk. 'Sometimes he puts his feet on the desk.' He's concerned about much, but largely unruffled. 'He's not taken aback by the challenges he has. He seems more focused than he's ever been. He's like Michael Jordan in that at the big moments everything slows down for him.'
Right on, Peggy! That's a pretty accurate assessment of our exceptionally excellent president.
Right on, Peggy! That's a pretty accurate assessment of our exceptionally excellent president.
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Republican Profiles In Cowardice
From The New York Times December 23, 2009
Profiles in Cowardice By TIMOTHY EGAN:
After the last insult had been spat from the Senate floor, after final passage of a legislative attempt to do something significant in this messy democracy, a leading voice of the opposition made a public prediction:
“People will be hunting Democrats with dogs,” said Senator Phil Gramm of Texas.
This was 1993, in the fragile first year of Bill Clinton’s presidency, on a vote to raise taxes for the wealthiest 1.2 percent and cut them for the poor and small businesses. That budget bill passed without a single Republican vote.
What followed was the greatest period of peacetime prosperity in modern times, a budget surplus of $559 billion and a president who left office with an approval rating of 66 percent — the highest of any since World War II. But first, some Democrats were indeed hunted, particularly in the South, which has been cleansing itself of the party since the Civil Rights era.
Gramm went on to deregulate the banking industry, setting the stage for a binge of economic nihilism that nearly brought down the world economy.
That fight in 1993 is worth recalling this Christmas Eve, as the voices of the apocalypse rain down on Democrats who dare try to expand health care for their fellow Americans.
In many ways, the budget vote 16 years ago ushered in the modern era of hyper-partisanship. Right-wing talk radio hosts were just entering their steroid phase, threatening any Republican who voted for a bill that ultimately led to budget surpluses.
From then on, nobody could “respectfully disagree.” Moderates were called wussies, traitors and socialists. When Republicans gained control of everything, the fringe Democratic left took their rhetorical cues from their angry counterparts on the right. This year, things became coarser still with the “tea party” extremists, who taught Republicans in Congress how to shout “You lie!” to the president and cast aspersions on something so innocuous as a pep talk to school children.
What the Senate has done this week will not break the economy or cure all that ails a profoundly imperfect health care system. “What we are building here is not a mansion,” said Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. “It’s a starter home. But it’s got a great foundation.”
For that, it deserved at least a handful of Republican votes. Can the bill, without its public option, making reforms that many in the G.O.P. advocated in last year’s election, really be so one-sided that not one lone Republican could support it?
I was hoping for a profile in courage, just to signal a truce of sorts during this awful epoch of toxic nastiness. Instead, we got cowardice. But by the rules of political combat dating to 1993, the opposing party can take no other stance.
So, there was Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, all but calling for the Almighty to strike down an aging Democratic legislator, when he urged people to pray that at least one senator would not make it to the chambers during a snowstorm. His colleagues took it as a clear reference to the ailing, wheelchair-bound, 92-year-old Robert Byrd.
And there was Mike Huckabee, showing once again his Gomer Pyle piety without Gomer’s sincerity, comparing the vote of Senator Ben Nelson, the last Democratic holdout to join his party, to Judas Iscariot, who sold out Christ.
Topping them all was Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee chair, saying Congress was “flipping the bird” to the American people with the vote to expand health care. Daniel Webster he ain’t. But let’s put that quote up on the board for posterity.
The other side was not much better, with Democratic majority leader Harry Reid comparing opponents to slave holders.
For now, Americans are against “the bill,” whatever they think it is. But strong majorities favor a public option, and reining in insurance companies, and overhauling the medical industrial complex. They want reform. They just don’t want the fight.
As people get a chance to see what’s actually in the bill, sentiment will shift. Over time, it closes the dreaded doughnut hole, which makes cash-strapped seniors pay for their meds at the point when they are most in hock to Big Pharma. It forces insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. By creating an exchange where people can shop for coverage, the bill seeks to bring care to 31 million additional Americans. And it does all this, according to the independent Congressional Budget Office, by reducing the deficit $132 billion over 10 years.
There are new taxes on tanning salons — already dubbed the Boehner tax, for the preternaturally bronzed Republican House leader from Ohio — and those at the highest end.
Will Democrats run on it, or run from it? That depends on whether they take a long view, and fight, or a short view and cower. There are plenty of people in the latter camp. The former can look to the lonely legislators who stood with Bill Clinton in 1993 and say “told you so,” while grandchildren listen at Christmas.
Profiles in Cowardice By TIMOTHY EGAN:
After the last insult had been spat from the Senate floor, after final passage of a legislative attempt to do something significant in this messy democracy, a leading voice of the opposition made a public prediction:
“People will be hunting Democrats with dogs,” said Senator Phil Gramm of Texas.
This was 1993, in the fragile first year of Bill Clinton’s presidency, on a vote to raise taxes for the wealthiest 1.2 percent and cut them for the poor and small businesses. That budget bill passed without a single Republican vote.
What followed was the greatest period of peacetime prosperity in modern times, a budget surplus of $559 billion and a president who left office with an approval rating of 66 percent — the highest of any since World War II. But first, some Democrats were indeed hunted, particularly in the South, which has been cleansing itself of the party since the Civil Rights era.
Gramm went on to deregulate the banking industry, setting the stage for a binge of economic nihilism that nearly brought down the world economy.
That fight in 1993 is worth recalling this Christmas Eve, as the voices of the apocalypse rain down on Democrats who dare try to expand health care for their fellow Americans.
In many ways, the budget vote 16 years ago ushered in the modern era of hyper-partisanship. Right-wing talk radio hosts were just entering their steroid phase, threatening any Republican who voted for a bill that ultimately led to budget surpluses.
From then on, nobody could “respectfully disagree.” Moderates were called wussies, traitors and socialists. When Republicans gained control of everything, the fringe Democratic left took their rhetorical cues from their angry counterparts on the right. This year, things became coarser still with the “tea party” extremists, who taught Republicans in Congress how to shout “You lie!” to the president and cast aspersions on something so innocuous as a pep talk to school children.
What the Senate has done this week will not break the economy or cure all that ails a profoundly imperfect health care system. “What we are building here is not a mansion,” said Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa. “It’s a starter home. But it’s got a great foundation.”
For that, it deserved at least a handful of Republican votes. Can the bill, without its public option, making reforms that many in the G.O.P. advocated in last year’s election, really be so one-sided that not one lone Republican could support it?
I was hoping for a profile in courage, just to signal a truce of sorts during this awful epoch of toxic nastiness. Instead, we got cowardice. But by the rules of political combat dating to 1993, the opposing party can take no other stance.
So, there was Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, all but calling for the Almighty to strike down an aging Democratic legislator, when he urged people to pray that at least one senator would not make it to the chambers during a snowstorm. His colleagues took it as a clear reference to the ailing, wheelchair-bound, 92-year-old Robert Byrd.
And there was Mike Huckabee, showing once again his Gomer Pyle piety without Gomer’s sincerity, comparing the vote of Senator Ben Nelson, the last Democratic holdout to join his party, to Judas Iscariot, who sold out Christ.
Topping them all was Michael Steele, the Republican National Committee chair, saying Congress was “flipping the bird” to the American people with the vote to expand health care. Daniel Webster he ain’t. But let’s put that quote up on the board for posterity.
The other side was not much better, with Democratic majority leader Harry Reid comparing opponents to slave holders.
For now, Americans are against “the bill,” whatever they think it is. But strong majorities favor a public option, and reining in insurance companies, and overhauling the medical industrial complex. They want reform. They just don’t want the fight.
As people get a chance to see what’s actually in the bill, sentiment will shift. Over time, it closes the dreaded doughnut hole, which makes cash-strapped seniors pay for their meds at the point when they are most in hock to Big Pharma. It forces insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. By creating an exchange where people can shop for coverage, the bill seeks to bring care to 31 million additional Americans. And it does all this, according to the independent Congressional Budget Office, by reducing the deficit $132 billion over 10 years.
There are new taxes on tanning salons — already dubbed the Boehner tax, for the preternaturally bronzed Republican House leader from Ohio — and those at the highest end.
Will Democrats run on it, or run from it? That depends on whether they take a long view, and fight, or a short view and cower. There are plenty of people in the latter camp. The former can look to the lonely legislators who stood with Bill Clinton in 1993 and say “told you so,” while grandchildren listen at Christmas.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Wall Street's 10 Biggest Lies of 2009
Wall Street's 10 Biggest Lies of 2009
By Les Leopold - From The Huffington Post - December 22, 2009:
Say goodbye to 2009, the worst economic year since the Great Depression.
Say hello to the billionaire bailout society in which the super-rich gamble, lose and get bailed out by the rest of us.
To save the system from total collapse we poured trillions of dollars into the financial sector. The result? Banks still are refusing to lend. Thirty million Americans are looking for full-time jobs and 49 million are skipping meals including one out of four children. But Wall Street again is reaping record profits and bonuses.
Not only are we richly rewarding those who wrecked our economy, but also, we have to put up with hundreds of fabrications about how the big banks got us here. Here is my biggest, fattest lies list for 2009:
1. "Government programs for low-income home buyers caused the financial crash." Wall Street defenders were quick to blame the Community Reinvestment Act, which urges banks to loan money in minority communities. In fact, almost none of the CRA loans are sub-prime and the vast majority are doing well, thank you. Blaming government programs deflects us from the real cause: Wall Street's incredibly reckless creation, marketing, selling and trading of "innovative" new securities that supposedly removed the risk from pools of risky debt. It didn't work. Wall Street, not the poor, crashed our economy.
2. "Income inequality is good for everyone." Lord Brian Griffiths, Vice-Chairman of Goldman Sachs at least had the nerve to say what so many of the super-rich really believe:
"We have to accept that inequality is a way of achieving greater opportunity and prosperity for all."
Unfortunately, the facts suggest otherwise. There is a high correlation between the mal-distribution of income and economic crashes. The last time our wealth and income distribution was as skewed as it is today was 1929, and that's not an accident. When too much money is in the hands of the few it runs out of real world investment and gravitates towards speculative investments. This inevitably creates asset bubbles and crashes. Record pay and bonuses on Wall Street and high unemployment are connected. (See The Looting of America Chapter 11).
3. "The rising number of billionaires is a sign of economic health." It's accepted media wisdom that the more billionaires the better. China with 130 billionaires now trails only the US, which has 359, according to Forbes magazine. But in our billionaire bailout society, the rising number of billionaires signals a collapsing middle class. Ponder this statistic: In 1970 the ratio of the compensation of the top 100 CEOs compared to the average production worker was 45 to 1. By 2006 it was an astounding 1,723 to one. Does that look healthy to you?
4. "Paying back TARP means banks are no longer on government welfare." Bank after bank is rushing to repay TARP funds during the worst economic year since 1937. They want to get out from under the Pay Czar (not that he's been sufficiently tough on the banks under his purview.) Banks that were insolvent only a few months ago now say they have the financial strength to refund tens of billions of dollars to the government. Where did all that money come from? Much of it comes from other government welfare programs for Wall Street (over $12 trillion worth) that aren't publicized. (See Nomi Prins's excellent accounting.) It may be the case that our banks are paying us back with our own money. Now that's financial innovation.
5. "Wall Street's freedom to innovate must be protected." Congressional leaders are tripping all over themselves to say new regulations will not discourage Wall Street innovations, something they claim is vital to our economy. Oh really? Do those "innovations" add anything useful to our country other than new casino games for the super-rich? Former Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volker, recently blew the whistle on this fabrication:
"I hear about these wonderful innovations in the financial markets and they sure as hell need a lot of innovation. I can tell you of two - Credit Default Swaps and CDOs - which took us right to the brink of disaster: were they wonderful innovations that we want to create more of?
.... I wish that somebody would give me some shred of neutral evidence about the relationship between financial innovation recently and the growth of the economy, just one shred of information....
The most important financial innovation that I have seen in the past 20 years is the automatic teller machine... How many other innovations can you tell me of that have been as important to the individual?" ("What Has Financial Innovation Done for You?")
6. "To retain critically needed talent, Wall Street must be free to pay top salaries and bonuses." Where would they flee if they just got paid like normal people rather than like gods? The British are putting in place a 50 percent tax on bonuses. Also, compensation is much, much lower in the European Union. But the real lie is that we need such "talent" in the first place. That kind of "talent" just crashed our economy. That kind of "talent" is widely overpaid - no way should bond traders receive 10 to 100 times what is earned by the best neurosurgeons in the world. Something is really wrong and it starts with the lie of banking "talent."
7. "Overpaid American workers are the real cause of unemployment." The New York Times writers who concocted this argument didn't think they were lying. But this is one of the most preposterous ideas put forth during 2009. ("American Wages out of Balance" New York Times November 11, 2009) Edward Hadas, Martin Huchinson and Antony Currie informed us that:
"American manufacturing workers should take average real wage cuts of as much as 20 percent to get into global balance."
They don't mention that the average non-supervisory worker has already taken an 18 percent cut in real wages between 1973 and 2007. What's worse, they claim that if workers don't take these additional cuts, these "overpaid" working stiffs will be the cause of another Great Depression. They write:
"But if American wages get stuck above global market-clearing levels, as in the 1930s, the result could well be something approaching Depression-era levels of unemployment."
Not a word is mentioned about how Wall Street's gambling caused all of this unemployment and how the continued failure of Wall Street banks to lend is stalling job growth, right now.
8. "I'm doing God's Work." Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman of Goldman Sachs said what too many Wall Street leaders truly believe: that they are so privileged and entitled that it seems as if the heavens bless their work. Why else are they earning hundreds of millions of dollars? Mr. Blankfein believes he is creating a virtuous circle by raising capital for corporations who create jobs and help our society prosper. But Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and the rest of the apostles helped to bring the entire world economy to its knees. Does that mean God likes unemployment and widespread hunger?
9. "We're out of money." Who's we? Yes, the middle class is tapped out but the super-rich haven't even begun to pay their fair share for the mess they created. Yet the top 400 richest Americans alone are sitting on $1.27 trillion or so in wealth. Here's a dangerous thought. What if we had a very steeply progressive wealth/income tax that reduced the net worth of the super-rich to "only" about $100 million each? You wouldn't be suffering if you had $100 million kicking around. Now do the math: The 400 richest x $100 million each would equal $40 billion. That would leave about $1.23 trillion to help pay back the country for the Wall Street meltdown that we, our children and their children will be subsidizing.
10. "We are becoming a socialist economy." Somewhere between 68 and 78 percent of the US GDP is private sector activity, the highest among developed nations. And much of the government expenditures go to private contractors as well. But there's a kernel of truth in the socialist scare: What do you call a society that encourages the private accumulation of wealth without limit, and then when the super-wealthy get into serious trouble, we bail them out with taxpayer funds - largely from a declining middle-class? That's not free-enterprise. That's not socialism either. It's something new and it deserves to be called the billionaire bailout society.
Here's hoping that in 2010 we can begin to undo it.
Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It, Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009. u
By Les Leopold - From The Huffington Post - December 22, 2009:
Say goodbye to 2009, the worst economic year since the Great Depression.
Say hello to the billionaire bailout society in which the super-rich gamble, lose and get bailed out by the rest of us.
To save the system from total collapse we poured trillions of dollars into the financial sector. The result? Banks still are refusing to lend. Thirty million Americans are looking for full-time jobs and 49 million are skipping meals including one out of four children. But Wall Street again is reaping record profits and bonuses.
Not only are we richly rewarding those who wrecked our economy, but also, we have to put up with hundreds of fabrications about how the big banks got us here. Here is my biggest, fattest lies list for 2009:
1. "Government programs for low-income home buyers caused the financial crash." Wall Street defenders were quick to blame the Community Reinvestment Act, which urges banks to loan money in minority communities. In fact, almost none of the CRA loans are sub-prime and the vast majority are doing well, thank you. Blaming government programs deflects us from the real cause: Wall Street's incredibly reckless creation, marketing, selling and trading of "innovative" new securities that supposedly removed the risk from pools of risky debt. It didn't work. Wall Street, not the poor, crashed our economy.
2. "Income inequality is good for everyone." Lord Brian Griffiths, Vice-Chairman of Goldman Sachs at least had the nerve to say what so many of the super-rich really believe:
"We have to accept that inequality is a way of achieving greater opportunity and prosperity for all."
Unfortunately, the facts suggest otherwise. There is a high correlation between the mal-distribution of income and economic crashes. The last time our wealth and income distribution was as skewed as it is today was 1929, and that's not an accident. When too much money is in the hands of the few it runs out of real world investment and gravitates towards speculative investments. This inevitably creates asset bubbles and crashes. Record pay and bonuses on Wall Street and high unemployment are connected. (See The Looting of America Chapter 11).
3. "The rising number of billionaires is a sign of economic health." It's accepted media wisdom that the more billionaires the better. China with 130 billionaires now trails only the US, which has 359, according to Forbes magazine. But in our billionaire bailout society, the rising number of billionaires signals a collapsing middle class. Ponder this statistic: In 1970 the ratio of the compensation of the top 100 CEOs compared to the average production worker was 45 to 1. By 2006 it was an astounding 1,723 to one. Does that look healthy to you?
4. "Paying back TARP means banks are no longer on government welfare." Bank after bank is rushing to repay TARP funds during the worst economic year since 1937. They want to get out from under the Pay Czar (not that he's been sufficiently tough on the banks under his purview.) Banks that were insolvent only a few months ago now say they have the financial strength to refund tens of billions of dollars to the government. Where did all that money come from? Much of it comes from other government welfare programs for Wall Street (over $12 trillion worth) that aren't publicized. (See Nomi Prins's excellent accounting.) It may be the case that our banks are paying us back with our own money. Now that's financial innovation.
5. "Wall Street's freedom to innovate must be protected." Congressional leaders are tripping all over themselves to say new regulations will not discourage Wall Street innovations, something they claim is vital to our economy. Oh really? Do those "innovations" add anything useful to our country other than new casino games for the super-rich? Former Federal Reserve Chairman, Paul Volker, recently blew the whistle on this fabrication:
"I hear about these wonderful innovations in the financial markets and they sure as hell need a lot of innovation. I can tell you of two - Credit Default Swaps and CDOs - which took us right to the brink of disaster: were they wonderful innovations that we want to create more of?
.... I wish that somebody would give me some shred of neutral evidence about the relationship between financial innovation recently and the growth of the economy, just one shred of information....
The most important financial innovation that I have seen in the past 20 years is the automatic teller machine... How many other innovations can you tell me of that have been as important to the individual?" ("What Has Financial Innovation Done for You?")
6. "To retain critically needed talent, Wall Street must be free to pay top salaries and bonuses." Where would they flee if they just got paid like normal people rather than like gods? The British are putting in place a 50 percent tax on bonuses. Also, compensation is much, much lower in the European Union. But the real lie is that we need such "talent" in the first place. That kind of "talent" just crashed our economy. That kind of "talent" is widely overpaid - no way should bond traders receive 10 to 100 times what is earned by the best neurosurgeons in the world. Something is really wrong and it starts with the lie of banking "talent."
7. "Overpaid American workers are the real cause of unemployment." The New York Times writers who concocted this argument didn't think they were lying. But this is one of the most preposterous ideas put forth during 2009. ("American Wages out of Balance" New York Times November 11, 2009) Edward Hadas, Martin Huchinson and Antony Currie informed us that:
"American manufacturing workers should take average real wage cuts of as much as 20 percent to get into global balance."
They don't mention that the average non-supervisory worker has already taken an 18 percent cut in real wages between 1973 and 2007. What's worse, they claim that if workers don't take these additional cuts, these "overpaid" working stiffs will be the cause of another Great Depression. They write:
"But if American wages get stuck above global market-clearing levels, as in the 1930s, the result could well be something approaching Depression-era levels of unemployment."
Not a word is mentioned about how Wall Street's gambling caused all of this unemployment and how the continued failure of Wall Street banks to lend is stalling job growth, right now.
8. "I'm doing God's Work." Lloyd Blankfein, Chairman of Goldman Sachs said what too many Wall Street leaders truly believe: that they are so privileged and entitled that it seems as if the heavens bless their work. Why else are they earning hundreds of millions of dollars? Mr. Blankfein believes he is creating a virtuous circle by raising capital for corporations who create jobs and help our society prosper. But Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and the rest of the apostles helped to bring the entire world economy to its knees. Does that mean God likes unemployment and widespread hunger?
9. "We're out of money." Who's we? Yes, the middle class is tapped out but the super-rich haven't even begun to pay their fair share for the mess they created. Yet the top 400 richest Americans alone are sitting on $1.27 trillion or so in wealth. Here's a dangerous thought. What if we had a very steeply progressive wealth/income tax that reduced the net worth of the super-rich to "only" about $100 million each? You wouldn't be suffering if you had $100 million kicking around. Now do the math: The 400 richest x $100 million each would equal $40 billion. That would leave about $1.23 trillion to help pay back the country for the Wall Street meltdown that we, our children and their children will be subsidizing.
10. "We are becoming a socialist economy." Somewhere between 68 and 78 percent of the US GDP is private sector activity, the highest among developed nations. And much of the government expenditures go to private contractors as well. But there's a kernel of truth in the socialist scare: What do you call a society that encourages the private accumulation of wealth without limit, and then when the super-wealthy get into serious trouble, we bail them out with taxpayer funds - largely from a declining middle-class? That's not free-enterprise. That's not socialism either. It's something new and it deserves to be called the billionaire bailout society.
Here's hoping that in 2010 we can begin to undo it.
Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It, Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009. u
Democratic Senators Get Good Polling News
December 21, 2009 - From Politico - Mike Allen:
Categories: Polls , Public Option
Dem senators to get good polling news
A new polling memo offers encouraging news to Democratic senators as they embark on a high-stakes effort to sell health reform to voters following this week’s historic votes.
In a strategy memo to be provided to Democratic senators on Tuesday, Mark Mellman, CEO of The Mellman Group, reports that public polls are giving a distorted picture of the level of opposition to health-care reform. That’s because in many of these polls, “opponents” include people who think the current proposals do not go far enough.
"The individual elements of the legislation are very popular, as is the bill in total, when it is explained," Mellman writes. "Moreover, the public continues to trust Democrats and the President over Republicans to deal with the issue. The news media has recently highlighted polls showing double-digit margins in opposition to the current healthcare plan. But these cursory stories often neglect to mention two salient facts. First, these poll questions fail to give any content, any specific meaning to the reform proposal. … Focus group research makes clear that voters know little about the substance of the plan … Second, public poll analyses often ignore the fact that a chunk of opposition to the current plan comes from those who support reform, but would like to see Congress go further."
In a telephone interview, Mellman said: "There's still an education job that needs to be done."
Read Mellman’s four-page memo here. More highlights after the jump.
"The most popular provisions of the bill protect against insurance company abuses, expand coverage and make healthcare more affordable. … When the entire proposal is described to voters, they strongly favor healthcare reform Louisiana voters received this description of the bill:
"'This plan would require every American citizen to have health insurance and require large employers to provide coverage to their employees. It would require insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing conditions and prevent them from dropping coverage for people who get sick, while providing incentives for affordable preventive care. Individuals and small businesses that do not have coverage would be able to select a private insurance plan from a range of options sold on a National Insurance Exchange. Lower and middle income people would receive subsidies to help them afford insurance, while those individuals who like the coverage they already have will be able to keep their current plan.'
"After hearing these details Louisianans supported the bill 57% to 38%, with 43% strongly supporting reform. Another poll we conducted among senior voters (over 60) in Maine using a very similar description found 54% in favor with just 36% opposed. …
"Our polling shows that voters, even in the deep red state of Louisiana, overwhelmingly oppose using the filibuster to prevent a final vote. In general, the filibuster is an unpopular tool. After hearing a description, a majority (53%) oppose even allowing a filibuster, while 42% believe it should be permitted in the Senate. …
"Voters continue to trust Obama and Congressional Democrats more than Republicans on the issue of healthcare. Two recent polls conducted by the Washington Post and Quinnipiac report nearly identical numbers: 45% of the public trusts Obama more while 38% put more faith in Congressional Republicans (average of two polls)."
Categories: Polls , Public Option
Dem senators to get good polling news
A new polling memo offers encouraging news to Democratic senators as they embark on a high-stakes effort to sell health reform to voters following this week’s historic votes.
In a strategy memo to be provided to Democratic senators on Tuesday, Mark Mellman, CEO of The Mellman Group, reports that public polls are giving a distorted picture of the level of opposition to health-care reform. That’s because in many of these polls, “opponents” include people who think the current proposals do not go far enough.
"The individual elements of the legislation are very popular, as is the bill in total, when it is explained," Mellman writes. "Moreover, the public continues to trust Democrats and the President over Republicans to deal with the issue. The news media has recently highlighted polls showing double-digit margins in opposition to the current healthcare plan. But these cursory stories often neglect to mention two salient facts. First, these poll questions fail to give any content, any specific meaning to the reform proposal. … Focus group research makes clear that voters know little about the substance of the plan … Second, public poll analyses often ignore the fact that a chunk of opposition to the current plan comes from those who support reform, but would like to see Congress go further."
In a telephone interview, Mellman said: "There's still an education job that needs to be done."
Read Mellman’s four-page memo here. More highlights after the jump.
"The most popular provisions of the bill protect against insurance company abuses, expand coverage and make healthcare more affordable. … When the entire proposal is described to voters, they strongly favor healthcare reform Louisiana voters received this description of the bill:
"'This plan would require every American citizen to have health insurance and require large employers to provide coverage to their employees. It would require insurance companies to cover those with pre-existing conditions and prevent them from dropping coverage for people who get sick, while providing incentives for affordable preventive care. Individuals and small businesses that do not have coverage would be able to select a private insurance plan from a range of options sold on a National Insurance Exchange. Lower and middle income people would receive subsidies to help them afford insurance, while those individuals who like the coverage they already have will be able to keep their current plan.'
"After hearing these details Louisianans supported the bill 57% to 38%, with 43% strongly supporting reform. Another poll we conducted among senior voters (over 60) in Maine using a very similar description found 54% in favor with just 36% opposed. …
"Our polling shows that voters, even in the deep red state of Louisiana, overwhelmingly oppose using the filibuster to prevent a final vote. In general, the filibuster is an unpopular tool. After hearing a description, a majority (53%) oppose even allowing a filibuster, while 42% believe it should be permitted in the Senate. …
"Voters continue to trust Obama and Congressional Democrats more than Republicans on the issue of healthcare. Two recent polls conducted by the Washington Post and Quinnipiac report nearly identical numbers: 45% of the public trusts Obama more while 38% put more faith in Congressional Republicans (average of two polls)."
Friday, December 18, 2009
Republican So-Called "Patriots" Are Hypocrites Who Play Politics With The Lives of American Troops
Senate Democrats Block GOP Filibuster
By Paul Kane and Lori Montgomery
Friday, December 18, 2009 -- The Washington Post:
"Senate Republicans failed early Friday in their bid to filibuster a massive Pentagon bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an unusual move designed to delay President Obama's health-care legislation.
On a 63 to 33 vote, Democrats cleared a key hurdle that should allow them to approve the must-pass military spending bill Saturday and return to the health-care debate. After years of criticizing Democrats for not supporting the troops, just three Republicans supported the military funding.
Democrats were furious at the filibuster attempt on Pentagon funds. "They are prepared to jeopardize funding for troops at war," Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said Thursday evening. "If Democrats did that, there would be cries of treason."
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sent Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a blistering letter Thursday warning of a "serious disruption" in the military's ability to pay troops. "It is inconceivable to me that such a situation would be permitted to occur with U.S. forces actively deployed in combat," Gates wrote."
The GOP -- "The Party of Nope" -- should go back to its Tea Parties and leave the waging of America's wars to the grown-ups.
By Paul Kane and Lori Montgomery
Friday, December 18, 2009 -- The Washington Post:
"Senate Republicans failed early Friday in their bid to filibuster a massive Pentagon bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, an unusual move designed to delay President Obama's health-care legislation.
On a 63 to 33 vote, Democrats cleared a key hurdle that should allow them to approve the must-pass military spending bill Saturday and return to the health-care debate. After years of criticizing Democrats for not supporting the troops, just three Republicans supported the military funding.
Democrats were furious at the filibuster attempt on Pentagon funds. "They are prepared to jeopardize funding for troops at war," Senate Majority Whip Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said Thursday evening. "If Democrats did that, there would be cries of treason."
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates sent Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) a blistering letter Thursday warning of a "serious disruption" in the military's ability to pay troops. "It is inconceivable to me that such a situation would be permitted to occur with U.S. forces actively deployed in combat," Gates wrote."
The GOP -- "The Party of Nope" -- should go back to its Tea Parties and leave the waging of America's wars to the grown-ups.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
A Blizzard of Conservative Lies About Kevin Jennings
The wonderful thing about Conservatives is that they never settle for one smear when a Baker's Dozen will do.
In their frenzied attempt to discredit President Obama's Department of Education official Kevin Jennings, the Right-Wing has unleashed a barrage of attacks on Jennings -- all of them falsehoods and distortions. Media Matters for America has been kind enough to assemble fourteen of these lies, and has refuted each and every one of them -- one lie at a time.
Not that any of this will matter. The people to whom the Right-Wing is directing these smears have no use for the truth. They buy into any bull-poop the Right-Wing Noise Machine cares to feed them. Responding to these lies is a useless exercise in futility.
Even so, it is useful to read the following Media Matters compilation of Right-Wing Horse Manure just to get an instructive guide as to the Far Right's Modus Operandi.
Unfortunately, the Right-Wing Noise Machine is like the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Just when you kill off a dozen pails of water, ten dozen more will grow to take their place. They have turned the technique of the Big Lie into the Big Lies.
Without further ado, here are 14 Conservative Lies about Kevin Jennings and 14 Point By Point Responses from Media Matters:
Unraveling the Right's false attacks on Kevin Jennings
Media Matters for America examines and debunks the wide array of falsehoods and distortions the right-wing media have used in their attempts to smear and discredit Department of Education official Kevin Jennings and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which Jennings founded and previously served as executive director.
1) MassResistance is a legitimate source for Jennings information
2) Right-wing attacks on Jennings are not anti-gay
3) Jennings failed to report "statutory rape" of student
4) Jennings "urged" student to "further the relationship" with "older man ... forcing his way" on him and to "keep quiet"
5) Jennings advocated for or supports NAMBLA
6) Jennings' ties to anti-AIDS group disqualify him from public service
7) Jennings is linked to an "Anti-Christian Art Porn Exhibit"
8) Jennings promoted "Child Porn in the Classroom"
9) Jennings is "linked to shocking teen sex talk"
10) Jennings knew the content of "sex talk" workshop in advance
11) High school students received "fisting kits" at 2001 GLSEN conference
12) GLSEN handed out explicit safe-sex booklet to children
13) GLSEN gave teens "directories to gay 'leather' bars" in Chicago
14) Jennings is a "pedophile"
CLAIM: MassResistance is a legitimate source for Jennings information
REALITY: MassResistance is an anti-gay "hate group." Accuracy in Media pointed readers to the website of the Massachusetts-based anti-gay group MassResistance to get "the facts on Jennings," stating that the group's longtime leader Brian Camenker "has covered the scandal of Obama's appointment of Jennings in much detail." Many right-wing outlets have relied on the group's false or misleading claims about Jennings in attacking him. MassResistance has been labeled a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center; even conservative commentator Dean Barnett has stated that the organization "verges on being a hate group." Camenker himself reportedly denied that gays and lesbians were targeted during the Holocaust and has compared the gay rights movement to the Nazis.
CLAIM: Right-wing attacks on Jennings are not anti-gay
REALITY: Right-wing media unleashed anti-gay rhetoric in attacks on Jennings. In their attacks on Jennings, numerous conservative media figures have resorted to thinly veiled homophobic appeals to paint Jennings, who is gay, as a "radical" "gay activist" with an "agenda" of "promoting homosexuality in schools," and have misrepresented or distorted Jennings' previous comments about religion and tolerance. Moreover, in a blatant appeal to homophobia, the right-wing media have termed a series of allegations "Fistgate," even though several of those allegations have little or nothing to do with the sexual practice of fisting -- or, for that matter, with Jennings himself.
SMEAR: Jennings failed to report "statutory rape" of student
REALITY: Student was at least 16 -- the legal age of consent -- when he spoke to Jennings. Numerous right-wing and Fox News media figures advanced the falsehood that Jennings, in the words of Fox News host Bill Hemmer, knew of a "statutory rape" and "never reported it," based on Jennings' past statements about advice he gave to a student who told him about his relationship with an older man when Jennings was a high school teacher in the late 1980s. In fact, a 2004 letter from Jennings' attorney, as well as a statement from the former student and his Massachusetts driver's license definitively show that he was at least 16 -- the legal age of consent in Massachusetts -- when he approached Jennings.
SMEAR: Jennings "urged" student to "further the relationship" with "older man ... forcing his way" on him and to "keep quiet"
REALITY: No evidence supports these claims. WorldNetDaily, in at least four separate articles, falsely claimed that Jennings "counseled a 15-year-old student to keep quiet about being seduced by an older man." Likewise, Limbaugh accused Jennings of having "encouraged" and "facilitated the relationship," and claimed that he "urged" the "15-year-old" to "further the relationship" with "older man ... forcing his way" on him. In fact, nothing in Jennings' 2000 speech for the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, his 1994 book, or the student's own statement in any way suggests that the student told Jennings that someone was "forcing his way on" him or that Jennings "urged" the student to "further the relationship," nor do they support the claim that Jennings told the student to "keep quiet."
SMEAR: Jennings advocated for or supports NAMBLA
REALITY: Jennings once praised Hay for his pioneering gay civil rights work. Right-wing media sources including The Washington Examiner, The Fox Nation, The Washington Times, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Karl Rove, have linked Jennings to the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) based on a 1997 speech in which Jennings praised gay rights activist Harry Hay. But like many obituaries written about Hay upon his death in 2002, Jennings was touting Hay as a gay civil rights pioneer for his role in helping start "the first ongoing gay rights groups in America" in 1948, and Jennings' comments had nothing to do with NAMBLA.
SMEAR: Jennings' ties to anti-AIDS group disqualify him from public service
REALITY: Group credited with improving awareness, treatment of disease. Hannity and The Washington Times editorial board have insisted that Jennings' past involvement with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) somehow disqualifies him from serving in the Obama administration. But such arguments are absurd, given that ACT UP, an anti-AIDS activist organization, has been credited with both creating awareness of the AIDS epidemic in America and facilitating more effective treatment of the disease. For example, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reportedly stated that ACT UP played "a significant role in the whole idea of expanded access to experimental drugs."
SMEAR: Jennings is linked to an "Anti-Christian Art Porn Exhibit"
REALITY: Exhibit actually features "posters, stickers, and other visual media" used by ACT UP's AIDS activists. Right-wing web sites attempted to smear Jennings by claiming that he, in the words of Gateway Pundit, "funded a pornographic anti-Christian art show." In fact, Jennings is listed on a Harvard Art Museum press release as providing a gift to the museum's exhibit ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993. According to the release, the exhibit includes "over 70 politically-charged posters, stickers, and other visual media that emerged during a pivotal moment of AIDS activism in New York City" and "chronicles New York's AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) through an examination of compelling graphics created by various artist collectives that populated the group."
SMEAR: Jennings promoted "Child Porn in the Classroom"
REALITY: Jennings' group recommended adults review books for suitability. Conservative blogs and The Washington Times editorial board have claimed that Jennings is unfit as "Safe Schools Czar" because he supposedly promoted "child porn" by allowing GLSEN to recommend for students in grades 7-12 books that included sexually explicit content. The organization, however, specifically stated on its book list website that "some titles for adolescent readers contain mature themes" and recommended that "adults selecting books for youth review content for suitability"; further, schools regularly teach books that contain sexually explicit material. In a December 11 statement, Martin Garnar, chair of the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee, said: "Though Jennings' and GLSEN's critics claim to be upholding American morals and values by condemning the GLSEN book list, they are actually undermining the values of tolerance, free inquiry, and self-determination that inform and sustain our democratic way of life in the United States."
SMEAR: Jennings is "linked to shocking teen sex talk"
REALITY: Jennings criticized content of state employees' workshop at GLSEN/Boston conference. Several right-wing media outlets have claimed that Jennings is, in the words of Fox Nation, "linked to shocking teen sex talk," referring to a recorded exchange that occurred during a "Queer Sex and Sexuality" workshop during a 2000 conference sponsored by the Boston branch of GLSEN. In fact, Jennings reportedly criticized some of the workshop's content when the recordings were first released in 2000, and the people involved in conducting the controversial discussion were state employees and contractors, not GLSEN employees.
SMEAR: Jennings knew the content of "sex talk" workshop in advance
REALITY: Critics have presented no credible evidence that Jennings knew the specific contents of the workshop in advance. WorldNetDaily and Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft have both claimed that Jennings knew about the controversial workshop's contents ahead of time, citing a MassResistance blog post which claims, "Of course Jennings and the Massachusetts Department of Education knew beforehand what the 'sexuality educators' would discuss with children at the 'fisting' workshop. The instructor Margot Abels said so herself" [emphasis in original]. But the statements MassResistance cites Abels reportedly making indicate only that her immediate supervisors in the Department of Education were aware of her work -- not Jennings or other GLSEN officials. Moreover, while MassResistance claims that Jennings "worked hand in hand with the Mass. Department of Education from the beginning, as co-chair of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth education committee," Jennings left that commission years before the 2000 workshop took place.
SMEAR: High school students received "fisting kits" at 2001 GLSEN conference
REALITY: Planned Parenthood distributed safe sex kits including "instructions for how to make a 'dental dam.' " Conservative bloggers have followed Hoft's lead in claiming that "fisting kits" -- often placed in quotes -- were distributed at the 2001 GLSEN/Boston conference. But those bloggers have presented no evidence that the kits distributed by Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts were actually intended for fisting. Indeed, while the conservative newspaper Massachusetts News - cited by Hoft -- reported in 2001 that the kits were "intended for 'fisting' or oral sex," the paper described the kit's contents as "a single plastic glove, a package of K-Y lubricant and instructions on how to make a 'dental dam' out of the material," and offered no support for their claim that the kits were "intended for 'fisting.'" FoxNews.com has reported that Hoft "alleged that Jennings and GLSEN were involved in Planned Parenthood's purported distribution of 'fisting kits,'" but that the kit "was actually for making a 'dental dam' -- designed to prevent STD transmission during oral sex."
SMEAR: GLSEN handed out explicit safe-sex booklet to children
REALITY: Community health group -- not GLSEN -- says it mistakenly brought "about 10 copies" of booklet banned under GLSEN policy to conference. Conservative bloggers and the Washington Times editorial board have falsely stated or suggested that GLSEN had distributed to children an explicit safe-sex booklet which included "the addresses and phone numbers of Boston-area gay bars" and "Pushed Anal S*x in Parks With Strangers." In fact, a community health group -- not GLSEN itself -- reportedly said that it had mistakenly "left about 10 copies" of the booklet on an informational table it rented at a 2005 GLSEN conference at Brookline High School in Massachusetts; the group reportedly apologized for doing so; GLSEN stated that if it had known the booklets had been at the conference, it would have demanded they be removed; and the Brookline school superintendent reportedly said he believed no students had actually taken the book.
SMEAR: GLSEN gave teens "directories to gay 'leather' bars" in Chicago
REALITY: Chicago Area Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce -- not Jennings or GLSEN -- produced guide for GLSEN national conference. Hoft has claimed that GLSEN "passed out guides to gay leather bars in Chicago to students in 2000." But according to an October 7, 2000, press release from the anti-gay groups Americans for Truth, the Chicago Area Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce -- not Jennings or GLSEN -- produced a visitor's guide for attendees of GLSEN's annual conference in Chicago. That guide reportedly, according to the press release, "contain[ed] a full-page ad for Steamworks, a homosexual bathhouse in Chicago" [Americans for Truth press release, 10/7/00 (from the Nexis database)]. According to right-wing WorldNetDaily, "Organizers said around 800 people, including teenage students, some of whom received financial scholarships, attended the event."
SMEAR: Jennings is a "pedophile"
REALITY: Even right-wing Accuracy in Media acknowledged there is "no evidence to support" that smear. On December 10, a blogger for Accuracy in Media, which purports to "set the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage" falsely claimed Jennings is a "pedophile." Shortly after Media Matters brought attention to the blog post and noted that no allegations of pedophilia have been made against Jennings and that the only evidence the blogger appeared to cite to support her allegation was a false claim, the post was removed without comment. The following day, Accuracy in Media stated that it "regret[s] the publication" of the blog post and that it has "no evidence to support" that allegation that Jennings is a "pedophile."
In their frenzied attempt to discredit President Obama's Department of Education official Kevin Jennings, the Right-Wing has unleashed a barrage of attacks on Jennings -- all of them falsehoods and distortions. Media Matters for America has been kind enough to assemble fourteen of these lies, and has refuted each and every one of them -- one lie at a time.
Not that any of this will matter. The people to whom the Right-Wing is directing these smears have no use for the truth. They buy into any bull-poop the Right-Wing Noise Machine cares to feed them. Responding to these lies is a useless exercise in futility.
Even so, it is useful to read the following Media Matters compilation of Right-Wing Horse Manure just to get an instructive guide as to the Far Right's Modus Operandi.
Unfortunately, the Right-Wing Noise Machine is like the Sorcerer's Apprentice. Just when you kill off a dozen pails of water, ten dozen more will grow to take their place. They have turned the technique of the Big Lie into the Big Lies.
Without further ado, here are 14 Conservative Lies about Kevin Jennings and 14 Point By Point Responses from Media Matters:
Unraveling the Right's false attacks on Kevin Jennings
Media Matters for America examines and debunks the wide array of falsehoods and distortions the right-wing media have used in their attempts to smear and discredit Department of Education official Kevin Jennings and the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), which Jennings founded and previously served as executive director.
1) MassResistance is a legitimate source for Jennings information
2) Right-wing attacks on Jennings are not anti-gay
3) Jennings failed to report "statutory rape" of student
4) Jennings "urged" student to "further the relationship" with "older man ... forcing his way" on him and to "keep quiet"
5) Jennings advocated for or supports NAMBLA
6) Jennings' ties to anti-AIDS group disqualify him from public service
7) Jennings is linked to an "Anti-Christian Art Porn Exhibit"
8) Jennings promoted "Child Porn in the Classroom"
9) Jennings is "linked to shocking teen sex talk"
10) Jennings knew the content of "sex talk" workshop in advance
11) High school students received "fisting kits" at 2001 GLSEN conference
12) GLSEN handed out explicit safe-sex booklet to children
13) GLSEN gave teens "directories to gay 'leather' bars" in Chicago
14) Jennings is a "pedophile"
CLAIM: MassResistance is a legitimate source for Jennings information
REALITY: MassResistance is an anti-gay "hate group." Accuracy in Media pointed readers to the website of the Massachusetts-based anti-gay group MassResistance to get "the facts on Jennings," stating that the group's longtime leader Brian Camenker "has covered the scandal of Obama's appointment of Jennings in much detail." Many right-wing outlets have relied on the group's false or misleading claims about Jennings in attacking him. MassResistance has been labeled a "hate group" by the Southern Poverty Law Center; even conservative commentator Dean Barnett has stated that the organization "verges on being a hate group." Camenker himself reportedly denied that gays and lesbians were targeted during the Holocaust and has compared the gay rights movement to the Nazis.
CLAIM: Right-wing attacks on Jennings are not anti-gay
REALITY: Right-wing media unleashed anti-gay rhetoric in attacks on Jennings. In their attacks on Jennings, numerous conservative media figures have resorted to thinly veiled homophobic appeals to paint Jennings, who is gay, as a "radical" "gay activist" with an "agenda" of "promoting homosexuality in schools," and have misrepresented or distorted Jennings' previous comments about religion and tolerance. Moreover, in a blatant appeal to homophobia, the right-wing media have termed a series of allegations "Fistgate," even though several of those allegations have little or nothing to do with the sexual practice of fisting -- or, for that matter, with Jennings himself.
SMEAR: Jennings failed to report "statutory rape" of student
REALITY: Student was at least 16 -- the legal age of consent -- when he spoke to Jennings. Numerous right-wing and Fox News media figures advanced the falsehood that Jennings, in the words of Fox News host Bill Hemmer, knew of a "statutory rape" and "never reported it," based on Jennings' past statements about advice he gave to a student who told him about his relationship with an older man when Jennings was a high school teacher in the late 1980s. In fact, a 2004 letter from Jennings' attorney, as well as a statement from the former student and his Massachusetts driver's license definitively show that he was at least 16 -- the legal age of consent in Massachusetts -- when he approached Jennings.
SMEAR: Jennings "urged" student to "further the relationship" with "older man ... forcing his way" on him and to "keep quiet"
REALITY: No evidence supports these claims. WorldNetDaily, in at least four separate articles, falsely claimed that Jennings "counseled a 15-year-old student to keep quiet about being seduced by an older man." Likewise, Limbaugh accused Jennings of having "encouraged" and "facilitated the relationship," and claimed that he "urged" the "15-year-old" to "further the relationship" with "older man ... forcing his way" on him. In fact, nothing in Jennings' 2000 speech for the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network, his 1994 book, or the student's own statement in any way suggests that the student told Jennings that someone was "forcing his way on" him or that Jennings "urged" the student to "further the relationship," nor do they support the claim that Jennings told the student to "keep quiet."
SMEAR: Jennings advocated for or supports NAMBLA
REALITY: Jennings once praised Hay for his pioneering gay civil rights work. Right-wing media sources including The Washington Examiner, The Fox Nation, The Washington Times, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Karl Rove, have linked Jennings to the North American Man-Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) based on a 1997 speech in which Jennings praised gay rights activist Harry Hay. But like many obituaries written about Hay upon his death in 2002, Jennings was touting Hay as a gay civil rights pioneer for his role in helping start "the first ongoing gay rights groups in America" in 1948, and Jennings' comments had nothing to do with NAMBLA.
SMEAR: Jennings' ties to anti-AIDS group disqualify him from public service
REALITY: Group credited with improving awareness, treatment of disease. Hannity and The Washington Times editorial board have insisted that Jennings' past involvement with the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) somehow disqualifies him from serving in the Obama administration. But such arguments are absurd, given that ACT UP, an anti-AIDS activist organization, has been credited with both creating awareness of the AIDS epidemic in America and facilitating more effective treatment of the disease. For example, the former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases reportedly stated that ACT UP played "a significant role in the whole idea of expanded access to experimental drugs."
SMEAR: Jennings is linked to an "Anti-Christian Art Porn Exhibit"
REALITY: Exhibit actually features "posters, stickers, and other visual media" used by ACT UP's AIDS activists. Right-wing web sites attempted to smear Jennings by claiming that he, in the words of Gateway Pundit, "funded a pornographic anti-Christian art show." In fact, Jennings is listed on a Harvard Art Museum press release as providing a gift to the museum's exhibit ACT UP New York: Activism, Art, and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993. According to the release, the exhibit includes "over 70 politically-charged posters, stickers, and other visual media that emerged during a pivotal moment of AIDS activism in New York City" and "chronicles New York's AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) through an examination of compelling graphics created by various artist collectives that populated the group."
SMEAR: Jennings promoted "Child Porn in the Classroom"
REALITY: Jennings' group recommended adults review books for suitability. Conservative blogs and The Washington Times editorial board have claimed that Jennings is unfit as "Safe Schools Czar" because he supposedly promoted "child porn" by allowing GLSEN to recommend for students in grades 7-12 books that included sexually explicit content. The organization, however, specifically stated on its book list website that "some titles for adolescent readers contain mature themes" and recommended that "adults selecting books for youth review content for suitability"; further, schools regularly teach books that contain sexually explicit material. In a December 11 statement, Martin Garnar, chair of the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee, said: "Though Jennings' and GLSEN's critics claim to be upholding American morals and values by condemning the GLSEN book list, they are actually undermining the values of tolerance, free inquiry, and self-determination that inform and sustain our democratic way of life in the United States."
SMEAR: Jennings is "linked to shocking teen sex talk"
REALITY: Jennings criticized content of state employees' workshop at GLSEN/Boston conference. Several right-wing media outlets have claimed that Jennings is, in the words of Fox Nation, "linked to shocking teen sex talk," referring to a recorded exchange that occurred during a "Queer Sex and Sexuality" workshop during a 2000 conference sponsored by the Boston branch of GLSEN. In fact, Jennings reportedly criticized some of the workshop's content when the recordings were first released in 2000, and the people involved in conducting the controversial discussion were state employees and contractors, not GLSEN employees.
SMEAR: Jennings knew the content of "sex talk" workshop in advance
REALITY: Critics have presented no credible evidence that Jennings knew the specific contents of the workshop in advance. WorldNetDaily and Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft have both claimed that Jennings knew about the controversial workshop's contents ahead of time, citing a MassResistance blog post which claims, "Of course Jennings and the Massachusetts Department of Education knew beforehand what the 'sexuality educators' would discuss with children at the 'fisting' workshop. The instructor Margot Abels said so herself" [emphasis in original]. But the statements MassResistance cites Abels reportedly making indicate only that her immediate supervisors in the Department of Education were aware of her work -- not Jennings or other GLSEN officials. Moreover, while MassResistance claims that Jennings "worked hand in hand with the Mass. Department of Education from the beginning, as co-chair of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth education committee," Jennings left that commission years before the 2000 workshop took place.
SMEAR: High school students received "fisting kits" at 2001 GLSEN conference
REALITY: Planned Parenthood distributed safe sex kits including "instructions for how to make a 'dental dam.' " Conservative bloggers have followed Hoft's lead in claiming that "fisting kits" -- often placed in quotes -- were distributed at the 2001 GLSEN/Boston conference. But those bloggers have presented no evidence that the kits distributed by Planned Parenthood of Massachusetts were actually intended for fisting. Indeed, while the conservative newspaper Massachusetts News - cited by Hoft -- reported in 2001 that the kits were "intended for 'fisting' or oral sex," the paper described the kit's contents as "a single plastic glove, a package of K-Y lubricant and instructions on how to make a 'dental dam' out of the material," and offered no support for their claim that the kits were "intended for 'fisting.'" FoxNews.com has reported that Hoft "alleged that Jennings and GLSEN were involved in Planned Parenthood's purported distribution of 'fisting kits,'" but that the kit "was actually for making a 'dental dam' -- designed to prevent STD transmission during oral sex."
SMEAR: GLSEN handed out explicit safe-sex booklet to children
REALITY: Community health group -- not GLSEN -- says it mistakenly brought "about 10 copies" of booklet banned under GLSEN policy to conference. Conservative bloggers and the Washington Times editorial board have falsely stated or suggested that GLSEN had distributed to children an explicit safe-sex booklet which included "the addresses and phone numbers of Boston-area gay bars" and "Pushed Anal S*x in Parks With Strangers." In fact, a community health group -- not GLSEN itself -- reportedly said that it had mistakenly "left about 10 copies" of the booklet on an informational table it rented at a 2005 GLSEN conference at Brookline High School in Massachusetts; the group reportedly apologized for doing so; GLSEN stated that if it had known the booklets had been at the conference, it would have demanded they be removed; and the Brookline school superintendent reportedly said he believed no students had actually taken the book.
SMEAR: GLSEN gave teens "directories to gay 'leather' bars" in Chicago
REALITY: Chicago Area Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce -- not Jennings or GLSEN -- produced guide for GLSEN national conference. Hoft has claimed that GLSEN "passed out guides to gay leather bars in Chicago to students in 2000." But according to an October 7, 2000, press release from the anti-gay groups Americans for Truth, the Chicago Area Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce -- not Jennings or GLSEN -- produced a visitor's guide for attendees of GLSEN's annual conference in Chicago. That guide reportedly, according to the press release, "contain[ed] a full-page ad for Steamworks, a homosexual bathhouse in Chicago" [Americans for Truth press release, 10/7/00 (from the Nexis database)]. According to right-wing WorldNetDaily, "Organizers said around 800 people, including teenage students, some of whom received financial scholarships, attended the event."
SMEAR: Jennings is a "pedophile"
REALITY: Even right-wing Accuracy in Media acknowledged there is "no evidence to support" that smear. On December 10, a blogger for Accuracy in Media, which purports to "set the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage" falsely claimed Jennings is a "pedophile." Shortly after Media Matters brought attention to the blog post and noted that no allegations of pedophilia have been made against Jennings and that the only evidence the blogger appeared to cite to support her allegation was a false claim, the post was removed without comment. The following day, Accuracy in Media stated that it "regret[s] the publication" of the blog post and that it has "no evidence to support" that allegation that Jennings is a "pedophile."
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Brewster's Statement In Response to Right-Wing MassHysteria
Here's what Brewster himself has to say about this latest Conservative Tempest in a Teapot:
"Since I was of legal consent at the time, the fifteen-minute conversation I had with Mr. Jennings twenty-one years ago is of nobody's concern but his and mine. However, since the Republican noise machine is so concerned about my "well-being" and that of America's students, they'll be relieved to know that I was not "inducted" into homosexuality, assaulted, raped, or sold into sexual slavery.
In 1988, I had taken a bus home for the weekend, and on the return trip met someone who was also gay. The next day, I had a conversation with Mr. Jennings about it. I had no sexual contact with anybody at the time, though I was entirely legally free to do so. I was a sixteen year-old going through something most of us have experienced: adolescence. I find it regrettable that the people who have the compassion and integrity to protect our nation's students are themselves in need of protection from homophobic smear attacks. Were it not for Mr. Jennings' courage and concern for my well-being at that time in my life, I doubt I'd be the proud gay man that I am today."
-Brewster
How come my good friends at MassResistance, The Washington Times, dear Sean Hannity, my pen pal Casey, etc. -- all seem to know better than Brewster what was in Brewster's own best interests?
"Since I was of legal consent at the time, the fifteen-minute conversation I had with Mr. Jennings twenty-one years ago is of nobody's concern but his and mine. However, since the Republican noise machine is so concerned about my "well-being" and that of America's students, they'll be relieved to know that I was not "inducted" into homosexuality, assaulted, raped, or sold into sexual slavery.
In 1988, I had taken a bus home for the weekend, and on the return trip met someone who was also gay. The next day, I had a conversation with Mr. Jennings about it. I had no sexual contact with anybody at the time, though I was entirely legally free to do so. I was a sixteen year-old going through something most of us have experienced: adolescence. I find it regrettable that the people who have the compassion and integrity to protect our nation's students are themselves in need of protection from homophobic smear attacks. Were it not for Mr. Jennings' courage and concern for my well-being at that time in my life, I doubt I'd be the proud gay man that I am today."
-Brewster
How come my good friends at MassResistance, The Washington Times, dear Sean Hannity, my pen pal Casey, etc. -- all seem to know better than Brewster what was in Brewster's own best interests?
Friday, December 11, 2009
MassResistance Should Be Called MassHysteria.
We have all heard of the Big Lie. Simply start with one tiny grain of truth and then extrapolate on that and turn it into a mountain.
Yes, someone at that Massachusetts school conference in 2001 did discuss "fisting" with some students. There were 50 different events going on at the same time, and this conversation apparently happened at one of those events.
So, suddenly, Kevin Jennings is "inept", a "pedophile", etc.
If one is involved in as many excellent activities as Kevin Jennings has been all his life, someone is bound to mess up somewhere along the way. Only a Right-Wing homophobic organization like MassHysteria (which should be its name) can turn such an incident into a vicious attack on Kevin Jennings, and only very gullible people would believe them.
As long as Obama is trying to run a gay-friendly administration, organizations like MassResistance, Punditgate and The Washington Times will say anything they can to rally our anti-gay citizens into the Republican column.
Jennings' organization, GLSEN, has done a superb job of bringing straight and gay students together, and overcoming much of the anti-gay prejudice that used to exist in schools (although plenty still remains). Jennings has never engaged in or condoned discussions of "fisting" or other topics that would be inappropriate for students.
However, the Right-Wing homophobes think they see an opportunity to destroy an Obama "Czar" and they leap at the opportunity. Hopefully, they will be hoisted on their own petard.
I'm glad to see there are other sites on the Internet which are hurling this gauntlet right back at them. Check out Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters; and Media Matters For America.
Yes, someone at that Massachusetts school conference in 2001 did discuss "fisting" with some students. There were 50 different events going on at the same time, and this conversation apparently happened at one of those events.
So, suddenly, Kevin Jennings is "inept", a "pedophile", etc.
If one is involved in as many excellent activities as Kevin Jennings has been all his life, someone is bound to mess up somewhere along the way. Only a Right-Wing homophobic organization like MassHysteria (which should be its name) can turn such an incident into a vicious attack on Kevin Jennings, and only very gullible people would believe them.
As long as Obama is trying to run a gay-friendly administration, organizations like MassResistance, Punditgate and The Washington Times will say anything they can to rally our anti-gay citizens into the Republican column.
Jennings' organization, GLSEN, has done a superb job of bringing straight and gay students together, and overcoming much of the anti-gay prejudice that used to exist in schools (although plenty still remains). Jennings has never engaged in or condoned discussions of "fisting" or other topics that would be inappropriate for students.
However, the Right-Wing homophobes think they see an opportunity to destroy an Obama "Czar" and they leap at the opportunity. Hopefully, they will be hoisted on their own petard.
I'm glad to see there are other sites on the Internet which are hurling this gauntlet right back at them. Check out Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters; and Media Matters For America.
Let Us Count the Smears Against Kevin Jennings
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2009 -- from Holy Bullies and Headless Monsters site:
Latest smear against Kevin Jennings revisits familiar lie - 'Little Black Book'
Gateway Pundit continues to tell its Mass Resistance fueled lies on Obama appointee Kevin Jennings.
This time the site is claiming that Jennings and the organization he founded to help lgbt children, GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network), passed out a guide encouraging children to have sex with strangers in public parks.
It's the latest in the plethora of lies pushed against Jennings.
Let's look at the list of lies before hitting on the new one:
Gateway Pundit falsely claimed that Jennings and GLSEN were encouraging students to read explicit books. This was a serious misrepresentation of the facts.
The site brought up the Fistgate lie irregardless of the fact that this story had been refuted
It propagated a lie that Jennings had led the way to the passing out of "fisting kits" to children. The kits had nothing to do with "fisting" and they were created by Planned Parenthood.
Gateway Pundit made the false claim that Jennings and GLSEN passed out an explicit sex guide "Little Black Book" to students at a conference in 2005. This was another falsehood. Fenway Community Health officials said they accidentally left about 10 copies of the ''Little Black Book" on an informational table they rented at the conference. Furthermore, no students actually got copies of the book.
That last lie is important to remember because the new lie Gateway Pundit is pushing is linked to it.
You see, the guide that Gateway Pundit is claiming that Jennings and GLSEN distributed to children encouraging them to have public sex with strangers is "Little Black Book:"
Right-wing site removes post calling Kevin Jennings a pedophile.
Post also falsely claimed that there were videos of Jennings teaching children sex acts.
Today comes the news that some on the right have thrown a slur at Kevin Jennings which may have scared even them.
From Media Matters comes the news that the right-wing group Accuracy in Media (pardon me for laughing) has thrown a very ugly slur at Jennings. So ugly in fact that the site backtracked like a dancer doing the moonwalk:
In attacking the media for allegedly insufficient coverage of Obama administration official Kevin Jennings, a blogger for Accuracy in Media, which purports to "set the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage" -- and which has a record of antagonism toward gays -- smeared Jennings as a "pedophile" and falsely claimed that "[v]ideos have surfaced of Jennings teaching 14-year-old boys the dangerous sexual practice of 'fisting,' and discussing with them the particulars of oral sex." In fact, Jennings did not conduct that seminar and, in fact, reportedly criticized it when he became aware of its content.
It appears that the anti-gay hate group, Mass Resistance, Gateway Pundit and The Washington Times have all joined forces in their headlong charge to lead the Republican Party over the cliff.
Latest smear against Kevin Jennings revisits familiar lie - 'Little Black Book'
Gateway Pundit continues to tell its Mass Resistance fueled lies on Obama appointee Kevin Jennings.
This time the site is claiming that Jennings and the organization he founded to help lgbt children, GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network), passed out a guide encouraging children to have sex with strangers in public parks.
It's the latest in the plethora of lies pushed against Jennings.
Let's look at the list of lies before hitting on the new one:
Gateway Pundit falsely claimed that Jennings and GLSEN were encouraging students to read explicit books. This was a serious misrepresentation of the facts.
The site brought up the Fistgate lie irregardless of the fact that this story had been refuted
It propagated a lie that Jennings had led the way to the passing out of "fisting kits" to children. The kits had nothing to do with "fisting" and they were created by Planned Parenthood.
Gateway Pundit made the false claim that Jennings and GLSEN passed out an explicit sex guide "Little Black Book" to students at a conference in 2005. This was another falsehood. Fenway Community Health officials said they accidentally left about 10 copies of the ''Little Black Book" on an informational table they rented at the conference. Furthermore, no students actually got copies of the book.
That last lie is important to remember because the new lie Gateway Pundit is pushing is linked to it.
You see, the guide that Gateway Pundit is claiming that Jennings and GLSEN distributed to children encouraging them to have public sex with strangers is "Little Black Book:"
Right-wing site removes post calling Kevin Jennings a pedophile.
Post also falsely claimed that there were videos of Jennings teaching children sex acts.
Today comes the news that some on the right have thrown a slur at Kevin Jennings which may have scared even them.
From Media Matters comes the news that the right-wing group Accuracy in Media (pardon me for laughing) has thrown a very ugly slur at Jennings. So ugly in fact that the site backtracked like a dancer doing the moonwalk:
In attacking the media for allegedly insufficient coverage of Obama administration official Kevin Jennings, a blogger for Accuracy in Media, which purports to "set the record straight on important issues that have received slanted coverage" -- and which has a record of antagonism toward gays -- smeared Jennings as a "pedophile" and falsely claimed that "[v]ideos have surfaced of Jennings teaching 14-year-old boys the dangerous sexual practice of 'fisting,' and discussing with them the particulars of oral sex." In fact, Jennings did not conduct that seminar and, in fact, reportedly criticized it when he became aware of its content.
It appears that the anti-gay hate group, Mass Resistance, Gateway Pundit and The Washington Times have all joined forces in their headlong charge to lead the Republican Party over the cliff.
The Republicans Continue Their Long March Over the Cliff
One problem with Republicans: They've got the wrong Mitch
By Steven Pearlstein -- Indianapolis
Friday, December 11, 2009 -- The Washington Post:
Earlier this week, I found myself in the majestic office of Indiana's diminutive governor, Mitch Daniels, talking about health care.
Daniels is a rarity these days, an incredibly popular Republican politician who overcame last year's Democratic tide in his state to win a second term as governor with nearly 60 percent of the vote. His Republican pedigree includes service to Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar and Ronald Reagan before being named director of the Office of Management and Budget in George W. Bush's first cabinet. His belief in free markets, and dislike of high taxes and regulation, puts him squarely in the conservative camp.
On this day, Daniels is describing how, in his first term, he won bipartisan support for a program known as Healthy Indiana, which provides health insurance for Hoosiers who aren't poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but earn too little to afford buying coverage for themselves. So far, 50,000 residents have signed up for the program, under which the state contributes up to $1,100 each year to each enrollee's individual health savings account. Participants also contribute according to their income, and when the account is depleted, a catastrophic insurance plan kicks in to cover any additional expenses. It's all paid for with a portion of the state's Medicaid funds, along with an increase in the cigarette tax that Daniels pushed through a reluctant legislature.
In fact, Daniels is such a believer in health savings accounts and consumer-directed health plans that he made sure one was offered to state employees. So far, he reports, 70 percent of state workers have signed up -- including himself -- saving millions of dollars each year for themselves and taxpayers.
As he's talking, a thought suddenly occurs to me: They've got the wrong Mitch! Instead of relying on Mitch McConnell to lead Senate Republicans into battle over health care (or anything else, for that matter), they should have turned to Daniels instead.
The bad Mitch, as most Americans know by now, is the charmless and shameless hypocrite who offers up a steady stream of stale ideology and snarky talking points but almost never a constructive idea. McConnell has decided that the only way for Republicans to win is for President Obama to lose, and he will use lies, threats and all manner of parliamentary subterfuge to obstruct the president's programs.
The good Mitch, by contrast, is a principled but practical conservative who respects the intelligence of voters and would rather get something done than score political points. Daniels is a genuine fiscal conservative who took a $600 million state budget deficit and turned it into a $1 billion surplus but managed to do so without cutting spending for education and even increased funding for child welfare services. He pushed hard to lower property taxes but didn't hesitate to propose temporary hikes in income and sales taxes to keep the state in the black. He privatized the state's toll road and then used the $4 billion proceeds to launch a major public works investment program.
Tellingly, both Mitches like to talk about the Department of Motor Vehicles. The Washington Mitch conjures the image of long lines and uncaring bureaucrats and asks, cynically, whether you want folks like that determining your medical care. The Indiana Mitch, by contrast, rolled up his sleeves and transformed his DMV into an efficient, consumer-friendly operation.
One can only imagine how Republicans could have reshaped health-reform legislation in the Senate if it had been Mitch Daniels rather than Mitch McConnell running the show, striking deals with the White House and moderate Democrats to win concessions in exchange for a pledge not to filibuster.
Without question, they could have won more deficit-reducing cost savings in the Medicare program by setting limits on spending growth and reforming the way health care is organized, provided and paid for.
And they could have begun to realize their goal of "consumer-driven health care" by insisting that the new insurance exchanges offer at least one plan built around individual health savings accounts and catastrophic coverage.
They could have greatly limited the mandate for small businesses to offer health benefits while giving big businesses the option of turning the management of their health benefit programs over to the government-sponsored exchanges.
They could have taken a page from John McCain's platform and insisted on replacing the current tax exclusion of health-care benefits with a flat tax credit that would be more progressive and put downward pressure on insurance premiums.
My guess is that Republicans might even have won some reasonable limits on malpractice awards and set up a quicker, fairer mechanism outside the courts for resolving disputes between patients and doctors.
And, of course, they could have taken the "public option" off the Senate table, once and for all.
But McConnell would have none of it. For months, he has not only refused to collaborate seriously on a bipartisan bill, but also threatened any moderates who dared to try with political excommunication. And the Republican party -- along with the country -- is likely to come out the losers as a result.
In a prescient speech earlier this year in Washington, the governor of Indiana told a group of fellow conservatives that they could not regain the trust of the American people unless they accepted gracefully their new role as the loyal opposition and learned to root for the success of the country and its political institutions. The question now facing Republicans is whether they are willing to follow Indiana Mitch and become a vital and active part of the solution, or continue to follow Washington Mitch off the political cliff.
By Steven Pearlstein -- Indianapolis
Friday, December 11, 2009 -- The Washington Post:
Earlier this week, I found myself in the majestic office of Indiana's diminutive governor, Mitch Daniels, talking about health care.
Daniels is a rarity these days, an incredibly popular Republican politician who overcame last year's Democratic tide in his state to win a second term as governor with nearly 60 percent of the vote. His Republican pedigree includes service to Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar and Ronald Reagan before being named director of the Office of Management and Budget in George W. Bush's first cabinet. His belief in free markets, and dislike of high taxes and regulation, puts him squarely in the conservative camp.
On this day, Daniels is describing how, in his first term, he won bipartisan support for a program known as Healthy Indiana, which provides health insurance for Hoosiers who aren't poor enough to qualify for Medicaid but earn too little to afford buying coverage for themselves. So far, 50,000 residents have signed up for the program, under which the state contributes up to $1,100 each year to each enrollee's individual health savings account. Participants also contribute according to their income, and when the account is depleted, a catastrophic insurance plan kicks in to cover any additional expenses. It's all paid for with a portion of the state's Medicaid funds, along with an increase in the cigarette tax that Daniels pushed through a reluctant legislature.
In fact, Daniels is such a believer in health savings accounts and consumer-directed health plans that he made sure one was offered to state employees. So far, he reports, 70 percent of state workers have signed up -- including himself -- saving millions of dollars each year for themselves and taxpayers.
As he's talking, a thought suddenly occurs to me: They've got the wrong Mitch! Instead of relying on Mitch McConnell to lead Senate Republicans into battle over health care (or anything else, for that matter), they should have turned to Daniels instead.
The bad Mitch, as most Americans know by now, is the charmless and shameless hypocrite who offers up a steady stream of stale ideology and snarky talking points but almost never a constructive idea. McConnell has decided that the only way for Republicans to win is for President Obama to lose, and he will use lies, threats and all manner of parliamentary subterfuge to obstruct the president's programs.
The good Mitch, by contrast, is a principled but practical conservative who respects the intelligence of voters and would rather get something done than score political points. Daniels is a genuine fiscal conservative who took a $600 million state budget deficit and turned it into a $1 billion surplus but managed to do so without cutting spending for education and even increased funding for child welfare services. He pushed hard to lower property taxes but didn't hesitate to propose temporary hikes in income and sales taxes to keep the state in the black. He privatized the state's toll road and then used the $4 billion proceeds to launch a major public works investment program.
Tellingly, both Mitches like to talk about the Department of Motor Vehicles. The Washington Mitch conjures the image of long lines and uncaring bureaucrats and asks, cynically, whether you want folks like that determining your medical care. The Indiana Mitch, by contrast, rolled up his sleeves and transformed his DMV into an efficient, consumer-friendly operation.
One can only imagine how Republicans could have reshaped health-reform legislation in the Senate if it had been Mitch Daniels rather than Mitch McConnell running the show, striking deals with the White House and moderate Democrats to win concessions in exchange for a pledge not to filibuster.
Without question, they could have won more deficit-reducing cost savings in the Medicare program by setting limits on spending growth and reforming the way health care is organized, provided and paid for.
And they could have begun to realize their goal of "consumer-driven health care" by insisting that the new insurance exchanges offer at least one plan built around individual health savings accounts and catastrophic coverage.
They could have greatly limited the mandate for small businesses to offer health benefits while giving big businesses the option of turning the management of their health benefit programs over to the government-sponsored exchanges.
They could have taken a page from John McCain's platform and insisted on replacing the current tax exclusion of health-care benefits with a flat tax credit that would be more progressive and put downward pressure on insurance premiums.
My guess is that Republicans might even have won some reasonable limits on malpractice awards and set up a quicker, fairer mechanism outside the courts for resolving disputes between patients and doctors.
And, of course, they could have taken the "public option" off the Senate table, once and for all.
But McConnell would have none of it. For months, he has not only refused to collaborate seriously on a bipartisan bill, but also threatened any moderates who dared to try with political excommunication. And the Republican party -- along with the country -- is likely to come out the losers as a result.
In a prescient speech earlier this year in Washington, the governor of Indiana told a group of fellow conservatives that they could not regain the trust of the American people unless they accepted gracefully their new role as the loyal opposition and learned to root for the success of the country and its political institutions. The question now facing Republicans is whether they are willing to follow Indiana Mitch and become a vital and active part of the solution, or continue to follow Washington Mitch off the political cliff.
More "Fistgate" Facts
Facts should never stand in the way of smears. Nevertheless ---
No, Jennings didn't know about the workshop's contents in advance
December 10, 2009 by Matt Gertz -- Media Matters for America:
The anti-gay right's newest line of attack on Department of Education staffer Kevin Jennings is that he "knew" in advance about the content of a seminar held at his organization's 2000 conference, in which two Massachusetts Department of Education employees engaged in explicit discussion of sexual practices with a teen audience. But the evidence those right-wing sources are hanging their hats on is extremely thin - even for them.
WorldNetDaily and Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft are both claiming that one of those instructors is on the record stating that Jennings knew. Both are pointing to a blog post by the anti-gay hate group MassResistance which states, "Of course Jennings and the Massachusetts Department of Education knew beforehand what the 'sexuality educators' would discuss with children at the 'fisting' workshop. The instructor Margot Abels said so herself."
But the statements MassResistance cites Abels reportedly making only indicate that her immediate supervisors in the Department of Education were aware of her work - not Jennings or other GLSEN officials. MassResistance emphasizes Rod Dreher's Weekly Standard report that "Abels fumed to the press that the education department had known perfectly well what she had been doing for years and hadn't cared until the tapes had surfaced." They also point to a report in the conservative Mass News, which states that Abels told the LGBT newspaper Bay Windows that "she had the support of state officials during her seven years at the state Department of Education," and quoted her statement that "Maybe David Driscoll [Commissioner of Education] didn't always know everything that we did, but certainly our supervisors did."
So no, Abels hadn't "said so herself" that Jennings "knew beforehand" the contents of her workshop.
The other piece of "evidence" MassResistance and their allies in the right-wing blogosphere are pointing is as follows:
Jennings, after all, worked hand in hand with the Mass. Department of Education from the beginning, as co-chair of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth education committee, which set up the statewide program, "Safe Schools for Gay and Lesbian Students" in the DOE. That is the program the fisting workshop instructors worked for.
In fact, as the bio on Jennings' website indicates, he left that commission years before the 2000 conference. Unless these people are alleging some massive conspiracy in which Jennings plotted out the details of the workshop discussion years in advance (and I suppose we can't really rule out that sort of logic from them), this line of reasoning falls apart pretty quickly.
For that matter, even if Jennings had been aware of the general contents of Abels' presentation (and there's no actual evidence to that effect), that still wouldn't in any way support the argument that he was aware of the specific discussion the right-wing finds so offensive before it happens. What we're left with is still that Department of Education officials held the seminar at GLSEN's conference, Jennings criticized them, and they were fired or resigned.
In short, the right is dredging up a ten-year-old instance that was widely reported at the time, and using innuendo and faulty logic to try to smear Jennings with it. But I guess we couldn't have expected any less.
No, Jennings didn't know about the workshop's contents in advance
December 10, 2009 by Matt Gertz -- Media Matters for America:
The anti-gay right's newest line of attack on Department of Education staffer Kevin Jennings is that he "knew" in advance about the content of a seminar held at his organization's 2000 conference, in which two Massachusetts Department of Education employees engaged in explicit discussion of sexual practices with a teen audience. But the evidence those right-wing sources are hanging their hats on is extremely thin - even for them.
WorldNetDaily and Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft are both claiming that one of those instructors is on the record stating that Jennings knew. Both are pointing to a blog post by the anti-gay hate group MassResistance which states, "Of course Jennings and the Massachusetts Department of Education knew beforehand what the 'sexuality educators' would discuss with children at the 'fisting' workshop. The instructor Margot Abels said so herself."
But the statements MassResistance cites Abels reportedly making only indicate that her immediate supervisors in the Department of Education were aware of her work - not Jennings or other GLSEN officials. MassResistance emphasizes Rod Dreher's Weekly Standard report that "Abels fumed to the press that the education department had known perfectly well what she had been doing for years and hadn't cared until the tapes had surfaced." They also point to a report in the conservative Mass News, which states that Abels told the LGBT newspaper Bay Windows that "she had the support of state officials during her seven years at the state Department of Education," and quoted her statement that "Maybe David Driscoll [Commissioner of Education] didn't always know everything that we did, but certainly our supervisors did."
So no, Abels hadn't "said so herself" that Jennings "knew beforehand" the contents of her workshop.
The other piece of "evidence" MassResistance and their allies in the right-wing blogosphere are pointing is as follows:
Jennings, after all, worked hand in hand with the Mass. Department of Education from the beginning, as co-chair of the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth education committee, which set up the statewide program, "Safe Schools for Gay and Lesbian Students" in the DOE. That is the program the fisting workshop instructors worked for.
In fact, as the bio on Jennings' website indicates, he left that commission years before the 2000 conference. Unless these people are alleging some massive conspiracy in which Jennings plotted out the details of the workshop discussion years in advance (and I suppose we can't really rule out that sort of logic from them), this line of reasoning falls apart pretty quickly.
For that matter, even if Jennings had been aware of the general contents of Abels' presentation (and there's no actual evidence to that effect), that still wouldn't in any way support the argument that he was aware of the specific discussion the right-wing finds so offensive before it happens. What we're left with is still that Department of Education officials held the seminar at GLSEN's conference, Jennings criticized them, and they were fired or resigned.
In short, the right is dredging up a ten-year-old instance that was widely reported at the time, and using innuendo and faulty logic to try to smear Jennings with it. But I guess we couldn't have expected any less.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Obama's FDR Moment
By Harold Meyerson
From The Washington Post --- Wednesday, December 9, 2009:
With a sweeping bow to reality, President Obama unveiled his second economic stimulus program on Tuesday. He didn't call it that, of course, since "stimulus" has become taboo, but the proposals he sketched will considerably amplify the government's efforts to combat the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
The key elements of the plan are a series of tax breaks and, conceivably, redirected TARP funds for small business and a doubling-down of the federal investment in infrastructure. By placing such a heavy emphasis on aid to small business, Obama is essentially daring the GOP to make his day. Republicans have generally opposed his stimulus efforts and particularly oppose the redirection of funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program to anything but deficit reduction. Organized small business is a core Republican constituency. Obama's plan essentially compels the GOP to choose between its ideology (or, at minimum, its strategy of opposing Obama at every turn) and its base.
In putting forth a second stimulus, the administration is acknowledging the limits (while not disputing the necessity) of the top-down economic revival strategy that Congress and the Bush administration adopted by enacting TARP -- chiefly, a program to aid major banks -- last fall. The Obama White House has made the same discovery that Franklin Roosevelt's White House made 75 years ago: that propping up banks is not sufficient to get the economy moving again so long as banks look at a deeply beleaguered economy and see nothing but a sea of risk. By adamantly refusing to lend to small businesses, banks -- for that matter, capitalism itself -- compel the government to create the economic conditions that would entice them to begin lending again. So the government becomes the de facto banker to a small-business sector abandoned by private-sector banks, even though those banks have received massive public assistance. A more frontal challenge to conservative ideology, and a more difficult one for conservatives to oppose, is hard to imagine.
Obama's speech left open the possibility that his administration may have to do still more to salvage the economy. It surely will. Recessions that result from financial crises are longer and deeper than the merely cyclical kind. With one-quarter of U.S. mortgages under water, it will be years before construction rebounds. Moreover, this is the first downturn we've experienced since China and India fully entered the global economy, epochal events that have created a huge oversupply of labor for multinational corporations and global supply chains. If we expect U.S. manufacturers to rehire all -- or even most -- of their laid-off workers, we'll be badly disappointed.
That's why the nation needs a public jobs program in addition to a policy of helping small businesses grow again. The infrastructure investments Obama proposed will go part of the way toward meeting that goal, but specific programs of public employment, such as those created by Franklin Roosevelt and that notorious radical Richard Nixon (who signed into law the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, or CETA) are needed as well. Roosevelt in particular understood that major infrastructure projects took time and a major investment in materials, which is why he established two programs in the depths of the Depression: the Public Works Administration (PWA) for projects such as the construction of the Bonneville Dam, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) for more labor-intensive projects that were quicker to get up and running. He directed more than five times as much funding to the WPA as he did to the PWA, for the simple reason that Americans were clamoring for work and the private sector wasn't generating any.
When Roosevelt became president in 1933, he brought with him plans that progressives had developed over the preceding 30 years for public power and social insurance. When it came to public jobs, however, FDR was improvising -- progressives hadn't envisioned the Depression or how to deal with it. Obama entered office with a similar disconnect: His dance card was filled with health-care reform and climate-change legislation, but nobody had planned for how to deal with the most severe downturn since the 1930s. Roosevelt showed his mettle as a great political leader by pivoting to remedy mass unemployment. This is Obama's turn to do the same.
There's one more lesson Obama should learn from FDR. In the words of Anna Burger, the secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union, "we need a hammer" -- one government official whose sole mission is to oversee the efforts to create more jobs. Roosevelt's hammer was WPA chief Harry Hopkins. If Obama had a hammer, his new stimulus would be more credible still.
From The Washington Post --- Wednesday, December 9, 2009:
With a sweeping bow to reality, President Obama unveiled his second economic stimulus program on Tuesday. He didn't call it that, of course, since "stimulus" has become taboo, but the proposals he sketched will considerably amplify the government's efforts to combat the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.
The key elements of the plan are a series of tax breaks and, conceivably, redirected TARP funds for small business and a doubling-down of the federal investment in infrastructure. By placing such a heavy emphasis on aid to small business, Obama is essentially daring the GOP to make his day. Republicans have generally opposed his stimulus efforts and particularly oppose the redirection of funds from the Troubled Assets Relief Program to anything but deficit reduction. Organized small business is a core Republican constituency. Obama's plan essentially compels the GOP to choose between its ideology (or, at minimum, its strategy of opposing Obama at every turn) and its base.
In putting forth a second stimulus, the administration is acknowledging the limits (while not disputing the necessity) of the top-down economic revival strategy that Congress and the Bush administration adopted by enacting TARP -- chiefly, a program to aid major banks -- last fall. The Obama White House has made the same discovery that Franklin Roosevelt's White House made 75 years ago: that propping up banks is not sufficient to get the economy moving again so long as banks look at a deeply beleaguered economy and see nothing but a sea of risk. By adamantly refusing to lend to small businesses, banks -- for that matter, capitalism itself -- compel the government to create the economic conditions that would entice them to begin lending again. So the government becomes the de facto banker to a small-business sector abandoned by private-sector banks, even though those banks have received massive public assistance. A more frontal challenge to conservative ideology, and a more difficult one for conservatives to oppose, is hard to imagine.
Obama's speech left open the possibility that his administration may have to do still more to salvage the economy. It surely will. Recessions that result from financial crises are longer and deeper than the merely cyclical kind. With one-quarter of U.S. mortgages under water, it will be years before construction rebounds. Moreover, this is the first downturn we've experienced since China and India fully entered the global economy, epochal events that have created a huge oversupply of labor for multinational corporations and global supply chains. If we expect U.S. manufacturers to rehire all -- or even most -- of their laid-off workers, we'll be badly disappointed.
That's why the nation needs a public jobs program in addition to a policy of helping small businesses grow again. The infrastructure investments Obama proposed will go part of the way toward meeting that goal, but specific programs of public employment, such as those created by Franklin Roosevelt and that notorious radical Richard Nixon (who signed into law the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, or CETA) are needed as well. Roosevelt in particular understood that major infrastructure projects took time and a major investment in materials, which is why he established two programs in the depths of the Depression: the Public Works Administration (PWA) for projects such as the construction of the Bonneville Dam, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) for more labor-intensive projects that were quicker to get up and running. He directed more than five times as much funding to the WPA as he did to the PWA, for the simple reason that Americans were clamoring for work and the private sector wasn't generating any.
When Roosevelt became president in 1933, he brought with him plans that progressives had developed over the preceding 30 years for public power and social insurance. When it came to public jobs, however, FDR was improvising -- progressives hadn't envisioned the Depression or how to deal with it. Obama entered office with a similar disconnect: His dance card was filled with health-care reform and climate-change legislation, but nobody had planned for how to deal with the most severe downturn since the 1930s. Roosevelt showed his mettle as a great political leader by pivoting to remedy mass unemployment. This is Obama's turn to do the same.
There's one more lesson Obama should learn from FDR. In the words of Anna Burger, the secretary-treasurer of the Service Employees International Union, "we need a hammer" -- one government official whose sole mission is to oversee the efforts to create more jobs. Roosevelt's hammer was WPA chief Harry Hopkins. If Obama had a hammer, his new stimulus would be more credible still.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The Washington Times Continues Its Anti-Gay War Against Kevin Jennings
From Media Matters -- December 9, 2009:
Washington Times continues its anti-gay war on Kevin Jennings, "Obama's buggery czar"
The Washington Times continued its anti-gay war on Department of Education official Kevin Jennings in a December 8 editorial entitled "Obama's buggery czar," the paper's ninth editorial smearing Jennings since late September. The Times editorial advanced several false and misleading claims in order to paint Jennings as a "moral malefactor" who supported and promoted "kids having sex with adults" as well as "homosexuality and promiscuity."
Wash. Times again falsely suggested Jennings ignored statutory rape
Wash. Times: In speech, "moral malefactor" Jennings discussed advising "a 15-year-old...who was having sex with an older man" to "use a condom." In the December 8 editorial, The Washington Times claimed: "Mr. Jennings is the moral malefactor who gave a speech about how he merely advised a 15-year-old high-school sophomore who was having sex with an older man that, 'I hope you knew to use a condom.'" The Times previously claimed in a September 28 editorial that Jennings had "encouraged" the "statutory rape" of the student.
In fact, counseled student was 16, the age of legal consent, as the Times has previously acknowledged. Despite the Times' suggestion that the student Jennings counseled regarding an encounter he had with an older man was 15-years-old, as Media Matters has previously reported, the student has confirmed that he was 16 at the time of the incident, which is and was the age of consent in Massachusetts. Indeed, the Times itself has already acknowledged the evidence that the student in question was 16 at the time.
Wash. Times baselessly attempted to link Jennings to NAMBLA
Wash. Times: Jennings "expressed admiration for Harry Hay, a notorious and extremely prominent supporter of the North American Man Boy Love Association." The December 8 editorial also charged that Jennings "expressed admiration for Harry Hay, a notorious and extremely prominent supporter of the North American Man Boy Love Association." The Times previously claimed on October 4 that "the late Hay was a 'gay-rights' activist most notorious for supporting the North American Man Boy Love Association."
In fact, Jennings' praise of Hay had nothing to do with NAMBLA. Jennings mentioned Harry Hay in a 1997 speech to GLSEN and the transcript was published by anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera. However, Jennings' praise was of Hay's work as an early gay rights activist and had nothing to do with NAMBLA, as the Times suggested. Jennings reportedly stated: "One of the people that's always inspired me is Harry Hay, who started the first ongoing gay rights groups in America. In 1948, he tried to get people to join the Mattachine Society. It took him two years to find one other person who would join. Well, [in] 1993, Harry Hay marched with a million people in Washington, who thought he had a good idea 40 years before."
Wash. Times distorted book passage to claim GLSEN reading list promoted "being exploited by homosexual pedophiles"
Wash. Times: Jennings promoted relationships between children and "homosexual pedophiles" through GLSEN reading list, which tries "to make sex between children and adults seem normal and acceptable." The December 8 editorial also claimed that Jennings "not only thought there was nothing wrong with boys having sex with older men (or girls having sex with older women), but he also played a role in promoting such relationships." As evidence, the Times reported that the organization that Jennings founded, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) compiled a list of suggested readings for students, some of which are "shocking" and "clearly promote homosexuality and promiscuity." According to the Times, "the readings try to make sex between children and adults seem normal and acceptable. Being exploited by homosexual pedophiles is portrayed as something that can make children happy and fulfilled."
But Times distorted book passage to claim GLSEN reading list promoted idea that "being exploited by homosexual pedophiles... can make children happy and fulfilled." According to the Times, "eleven of the recommended books were examined by Scott Baker from Breitbart.tv and re-examined by The Washington Times." The Times claimed that according to their examination of the texts, the readings promote the idea that "being exploited by homosexual pedophiles is portrayed as something that can make children happy and fulfilled." But, as evidence, the Times distorts at least one of the readings. The Times claimed that a passage in Queer 13, one of the books on the GLSEN reading list, describes "a 13-year old boy who has sexual encounters with older men. His experience caused him to desperately want sex." The Times quotes the author as saying "that feeling of doing it to them and them doing the same for me was just too damn good." However, contrary to the suggestion that this passage depicted a child made "happy and fulfilled" by sexual encounters with older men, the author said his encounters included "brutal and painful experiences" and described this period of his life as "the beginning of my worthlessness." From Queer 13, page 45:
This was the year I realized I was helpless, different, wholly alone and defenseless. This was the beginning of my worthlessness. It was always pointed out to me that I wasn't good enough and that there was always someone somewhere doing better, and that no matter what I did, I could still have done better.
Times cropped GLSEN disclaimer on reading list to omit that GLSEN recommended that adults review content before providing to youths. The Times wrote of GLSEN's Booklink disclaimer: "The organization Web site reassures us, 'All BookLink items are reviewed by GLSEN staff for quality and appropriateness of content.'" The Times omits that the GLSEN disclaimer goes on warn that "some titles for adolescent readers contain mature themes," and "recommend[s] that adults selecting books for youth review content for suitability."
Times editorial latest example of Wash. Times anti-gay war on Jennings
Wash. Times penned eight other editorials smearing Jennings. According to a search of the Nexis database, the Times' editorial board wrote at least eight editorials specifically targeting Jennings between the dates of September 28 and October 22. At least two additional editorials published during that period portrayed him in a negative light.
Editorials advanced falsehoods and distortions to discredit Jennings. As Media Matters for America has extensively documented, a number of the Times' editorials targeting Jennings advanced false claims or distortions and are riddled with anti-gay rhetoric.
Washington Times continues its anti-gay war on Kevin Jennings, "Obama's buggery czar"
The Washington Times continued its anti-gay war on Department of Education official Kevin Jennings in a December 8 editorial entitled "Obama's buggery czar," the paper's ninth editorial smearing Jennings since late September. The Times editorial advanced several false and misleading claims in order to paint Jennings as a "moral malefactor" who supported and promoted "kids having sex with adults" as well as "homosexuality and promiscuity."
Wash. Times again falsely suggested Jennings ignored statutory rape
Wash. Times: In speech, "moral malefactor" Jennings discussed advising "a 15-year-old...who was having sex with an older man" to "use a condom." In the December 8 editorial, The Washington Times claimed: "Mr. Jennings is the moral malefactor who gave a speech about how he merely advised a 15-year-old high-school sophomore who was having sex with an older man that, 'I hope you knew to use a condom.'" The Times previously claimed in a September 28 editorial that Jennings had "encouraged" the "statutory rape" of the student.
In fact, counseled student was 16, the age of legal consent, as the Times has previously acknowledged. Despite the Times' suggestion that the student Jennings counseled regarding an encounter he had with an older man was 15-years-old, as Media Matters has previously reported, the student has confirmed that he was 16 at the time of the incident, which is and was the age of consent in Massachusetts. Indeed, the Times itself has already acknowledged the evidence that the student in question was 16 at the time.
Wash. Times baselessly attempted to link Jennings to NAMBLA
Wash. Times: Jennings "expressed admiration for Harry Hay, a notorious and extremely prominent supporter of the North American Man Boy Love Association." The December 8 editorial also charged that Jennings "expressed admiration for Harry Hay, a notorious and extremely prominent supporter of the North American Man Boy Love Association." The Times previously claimed on October 4 that "the late Hay was a 'gay-rights' activist most notorious for supporting the North American Man Boy Love Association."
In fact, Jennings' praise of Hay had nothing to do with NAMBLA. Jennings mentioned Harry Hay in a 1997 speech to GLSEN and the transcript was published by anti-gay activist Peter LaBarbera. However, Jennings' praise was of Hay's work as an early gay rights activist and had nothing to do with NAMBLA, as the Times suggested. Jennings reportedly stated: "One of the people that's always inspired me is Harry Hay, who started the first ongoing gay rights groups in America. In 1948, he tried to get people to join the Mattachine Society. It took him two years to find one other person who would join. Well, [in] 1993, Harry Hay marched with a million people in Washington, who thought he had a good idea 40 years before."
Wash. Times distorted book passage to claim GLSEN reading list promoted "being exploited by homosexual pedophiles"
Wash. Times: Jennings promoted relationships between children and "homosexual pedophiles" through GLSEN reading list, which tries "to make sex between children and adults seem normal and acceptable." The December 8 editorial also claimed that Jennings "not only thought there was nothing wrong with boys having sex with older men (or girls having sex with older women), but he also played a role in promoting such relationships." As evidence, the Times reported that the organization that Jennings founded, the Gay, Lesbian, and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) compiled a list of suggested readings for students, some of which are "shocking" and "clearly promote homosexuality and promiscuity." According to the Times, "the readings try to make sex between children and adults seem normal and acceptable. Being exploited by homosexual pedophiles is portrayed as something that can make children happy and fulfilled."
But Times distorted book passage to claim GLSEN reading list promoted idea that "being exploited by homosexual pedophiles... can make children happy and fulfilled." According to the Times, "eleven of the recommended books were examined by Scott Baker from Breitbart.tv and re-examined by The Washington Times." The Times claimed that according to their examination of the texts, the readings promote the idea that "being exploited by homosexual pedophiles is portrayed as something that can make children happy and fulfilled." But, as evidence, the Times distorts at least one of the readings. The Times claimed that a passage in Queer 13, one of the books on the GLSEN reading list, describes "a 13-year old boy who has sexual encounters with older men. His experience caused him to desperately want sex." The Times quotes the author as saying "that feeling of doing it to them and them doing the same for me was just too damn good." However, contrary to the suggestion that this passage depicted a child made "happy and fulfilled" by sexual encounters with older men, the author said his encounters included "brutal and painful experiences" and described this period of his life as "the beginning of my worthlessness." From Queer 13, page 45:
This was the year I realized I was helpless, different, wholly alone and defenseless. This was the beginning of my worthlessness. It was always pointed out to me that I wasn't good enough and that there was always someone somewhere doing better, and that no matter what I did, I could still have done better.
Times cropped GLSEN disclaimer on reading list to omit that GLSEN recommended that adults review content before providing to youths. The Times wrote of GLSEN's Booklink disclaimer: "The organization Web site reassures us, 'All BookLink items are reviewed by GLSEN staff for quality and appropriateness of content.'" The Times omits that the GLSEN disclaimer goes on warn that "some titles for adolescent readers contain mature themes," and "recommend[s] that adults selecting books for youth review content for suitability."
Times editorial latest example of Wash. Times anti-gay war on Jennings
Wash. Times penned eight other editorials smearing Jennings. According to a search of the Nexis database, the Times' editorial board wrote at least eight editorials specifically targeting Jennings between the dates of September 28 and October 22. At least two additional editorials published during that period portrayed him in a negative light.
Editorials advanced falsehoods and distortions to discredit Jennings. As Media Matters for America has extensively documented, a number of the Times' editorials targeting Jennings advanced false claims or distortions and are riddled with anti-gay rhetoric.
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