Bill Clinton: “I hope Democrats don’t use [NY-26] as an excuse to do nothing.”

Posted: May 25, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: just because | 33 Comments

We’re back to what the meaning of is is, or rather what the meaning of “doing nothing” is.

Via ABC News, Bill Clinton caught on a mic schmoozing with Paul Ryan after Hochul’s win:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

“So anyway, I told them before you got here, I said I’m glad we won this race in New York,” Clinton told Ryan, when the two met backstage at a forum on the national debt held by the Pete Peterson Foundation. But he added, “I hope Democrats don’t use this as an excuse to do nothing.”

Ryan told Clinton he fears that now nothing will get done in Washington.

“My guess is it’s going to sink into paralysis is what’s going to happen. And you know the math. It’s just, I mean, we knew we were putting ourselves out there. You gotta start this. You gotta get out there. You gotta get this thing moving,” Ryan said.

Clinton told Ryan that if he ever wanted to talk about it, he should “give me a call.” Ryan said he would.

For more context, here’s a bit of the speech Clinton gave just prior to his backstage exchange with Ryan:

“It was about Medicare,” Clinton said during a speech to the debt forum minutes before he met Ryan back stage. Clinton was referring to Ryan’s controversial budget plan, passed by the House this year, which would transform Medicare for those under the age of 55.

“You shouldn’t draw the conclusion that the New York race means that nobody can do anything solve the rising Medicare costs,” said during his speech. “I just don’t agree with that.  I think you should draw the conclusion that the people made a judgment that this proposal in the Republican is not the right one.  I agree with that, but I’m afraid that the Democrats will draw the conclusion that because Congressman Ryan’s proposal, I think, is not the best one, that we shouldn’t do anything and I completely disagree with that.”

Well, as I’ve been saying, what NY-26 showed is that Democrat can win on being Democrats, in the reddest of red districts no less, but unless Dems actually govern like Democrats and make good on protecting the social safety net, demagoguery and running against the GOP and Ryancare will not actually change anything.

I agree that Democrats can’t just spout a bunch of heated campaign rhetoric and do nothing…but I’m not sure what Clinton was trying to communicate with Ryan or whether he’s got some kind of triangulating scheme up his sleeve.

What Democrats need to “do” (instead of just “say”) is to actually govern like Democrats.

Bill Clinton’s exchange with Paul Ryan no doubt reinforces all the criticisms progressives have of the Clinton presidency, though it is important to remember that Clinton is the president who in ’95 vetoed Newt Gingrich’s plan to cut Medicare:

“I am using this pen to preserve our commitment to our parents, to protect opportunity for our children, to defend the public health and our natural resources and natural beauty, and to stop a tax increase that actually undercuts the value of work,” Clinton said in an Oval Office ceremony.

To dramatize his point, he vetoed the bill with the same pen Johnson used to sign the Social Security Act amendments of 1965, which created Medicare and Medicaid. The pen was rushed to the White House by Federal Express from the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas.

Earlier that year in threatening the veto, Clinton had said the following:

President Clinton said today that he would veto the Republicans’ legislative package for Medicare and Medicaid. He said that their proposals for large savings in the Government health plans for the elderly and the poor would have “Draconian consequences” and would “dismantle Medicare as we know it.”

Speaking to elderly people at the White House just 24 hours after House Republicans outlined their proposals, Mr. Clinton said, “If these health care cuts come to my desk, of this size, I would have no choice but to veto it.”

[…]

Even while threatening a veto, Mr. Clinton urged elderly people to seek bipartisan support for changes in Medicare that would control costs without harming beneficiaries. “We ought to be here to build a bridge,” he said.

So in that sense, Bill Clinton is being consistent, albeit annoying, in rubbing shoulders with Paul Ryan the way he has.

But, as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities graph below shows, it’s Tax Cuts and War that are driving the national debt (h/t Susie Madrak):

This is what Democrats need to start doing something about.

It’s the War and the Tax Cuts, stupid.

If the DC crowd really cared about saving Medicare and Social Security, they wouldn’t be pushing austerity before cutting defense spending, bringing our troops home, going back to the Clinton tax rates, and spending money here at home, where our own infrastructure is crumbling, instead of “nation-building” everywhere else.

As Hillary said at the Brookings Institution, speaking for herself and not for the Obama Administration, almost a year ago today:

“The rich are not paying their fair share in any nation that is facing the kind of employment issues [America currently does] — whether it’s individual, corporate or whatever [form of] taxation forms.”

The FDR/LBJ social policy legacy is the closest thing to “American exceptionalism” that we have had.

From my first official post at Sky Dancing:

Peter Daou earlier this week: “It’s a nightmarish joke that Republicans and Tea Partiers want to assail President Obama for denying American exceptionalism, while doing everything possible to undercut it.” Perfectly said, but of course, on the other side of the mockery, the great DLC/Clinton Slayer That Never Was… wants to call himself a Blue Dog, not to mention do everything to undercut the domestic policy legacy of FDR and LBJ. Another sick joke for sure, though it is no surprise. (See Politico, March 2009: “I am a New Democrat.” –a newly inaugurated President Obama )

Obama won’t even mention Medicare in his congratulations to Kathy Hochul. He leaves that for Debbie Wasserman Schultz to do.

Is anyone detecting a pattern here?

Hillary, Debbie, Kathy, Kirsten… they fight like Democrats of old, like FDR and New Deal architect Frances Perkins.

They say the simple truths, be it Hillary saying the rich aren’t paying their fair share or Kirsten picking up where John Murtha left off in starting the call in earnest for an end to the war in Afghanistan.

As I asked several months back — What if this is as good as an Obama Administration gets?:

A huge part of the problem is that we have an empty suit in the White House from whom the best we can hope for is that he simply lets other people lead for him and make something good happen once in awhile, if we are even that lucky. It’s a victory if he lets other people throw us a bone and fight the fights of ordinary Americans for him. Woo hoo.

And, it seems like he increasingly relies on women to take the heat for him. Just look at what Liz Warren is going through right now.

So if progressives want to hate on Bill Clinton for hobnobbing with another policy wonk, albeit a scary right wing one, and sending weird triangulating signals to him, that’s fine… but if they’re going to do that, they need to come clean and address that their hero, Barack Obama, is not only the same, but worse.

At least with Clinton, there appears to be some genuine history of trying to protect that social policy legacy.

With Obama, there’s a photoshopped picture of him hearting Reagan.

I’ll leave you with Sophia Petrillo singing,”Thanks for the Medicare…”:

Let’s hear it for the “Emily’s List” candidate: Kathy Hochul wins NY-26

Posted: May 24, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic Policy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Kirsten Gillibrand campaigning for Kathy Hochul at a rally this past Saturday.

With over 60% reporting and Hochul holding onto her lead, lots of people calling it for Hochul:

@fivethirtyeight: Dave Wasserman (@Redistrict) has called it for Hochul. Good as done. #ny26

Another great tweet:

@thepeoplesview: First Republican electoral casualty of Paul Ryan’s Kill-Medicare plan: Kathy Hochul wins in NY-26! Hee!

As I noted in my post earlier tonight, in a move signaling how weak the GOP is, their candidate Jane Corwin obtained a court order blocking a certification of the winner tonight… it looks like we’ll have to wait until Thursday or so, but let the celebrating begin… here’s hoping this is a huge blow to DC and the Austerity crowd.

It was after all Kirsten Gillibrand, and not DC Dems, who saw the opening in NY-26 and campaigned hard for Kathy Hochul…via the Hill:

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) has emerged as one of the most prominent supporters of New York House candidate Kathy Hochul.

Washington Democrats have been keeping their distance from Hochul, the party’s nominee in the May 24 special election for former Rep. Chris Lee’s (R-N.Y.) seat. Meanwhile, Republicans leaders including Rep. Pete Sessions (Texas) and Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) have lent their backing to the GOP nominee, Jane Corwin.

Gillibrand, a former upstate congresswoman, sent a fundraising pitch on Hochul’s behalf and teamed with the pro-choice group EMILY’s List to urge activists to lend their support.

“Kathy is an extraordinary candidate,” Gillibrand said Tuesday during a Web forum hosted by EMILY’s List. “I know she can win this race.”

This just reminds me of all the attacks on Coakley and Emily’s List during the Scott Brown race… as I said then, “In Defense of the Emily’s List Candidate”:

Emily’s List produced a winning primary candidate (they backed the candidate who won the popular vote in the 2008 primaries too for that matter). It’s the Obama Era of the Democratic party that has created bad electoral conditions for Democratic nominees and made it difficult for liberals to stand on principle. (Even the socialist in the U.S. Senate voted for Obama’s health insurance scam. Way to discredit the right-wing canard that Obama’s terrible policies are synonymous with socialism.)

The one surefire way to avoid becoming the target of local backlash against Obama is to run against Obama’s policies–and in today’s environment where the activist left is split up along deep fault lines (“submit to party unity or else you’re a certain class of politician, voter, or woman”), Democratic nominees do not have the benefit of a ready-made independent fundraising network to take on the Obama machine during a general election yet. Of course they could try to build one, but either way it is an uphill battle and there is no easy path to victory whatever they choose.

This race was somewhat different in that Hochul could run against the GOP’s toxic Ryancare rather than against Obamacare, but when you hear all the spin tonight and the Dem machine taking credit for Hochul’s win, remember that it was Kirsten Gillibrand and Emily’s List who shored up Kathy Hochul, not Washington Dems, who were too afraid to get behind Hochul.

The “Emily’s List” candidate won in the very red district of NY-26!

Congrats to Kathy, and Kirsten for president!

Hochul’s win tonight also makes Eric Cantor’s and Jonah Goldberg’s push for Paul Ryan to run for president (not to mention Charles Krathammer’s “Draft Paul Ryan” noises from a month ago) all the more ridiculous and embarrassing for the GOP.

Go, Kathy Hochul, Go! (NY-26 Special Election Open Thread)

Posted: May 24, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Domestic Policy, U.S. Politics | Tags: , , , , | 28 Comments

Democratic candidate for the 26th District Congressional seat, Kathy Hochul speaks while holding a pair of boxing gloves during a news conference in Clarence, N.Y., Monday, May 9, 2011. David Duprey / AP Photo

UPDATE, via Buffalo News, with 57% of precincts reporting, Kathy Hochul leads Jane Corwin by 4 points:

Hochul , Kathy 47%
Corwin , Jane 43%
Davis , Jack 8%
Murphy , Ian 1%

***

Tonight’s the big day for NY-26. Election returns are supposed to start showing up here after the polls close tonight. Democrat Kathy Hochul has got the technical edge in some very close polling, which is amazing for this very red district, and the following reporting from Wapo’s Behind the Numbers earlier today seems to point to good news on how the internals are shaking out for her as well:

N.Y.-26 Special Election – Tuesday’s Special Election in New York’s 26th Congressional District finds a very tight race in available polling. Democrat Kathy Hochul has a numerical lead of 42 percent to 38 percent for Republican Jane Corwin and 12 percent for tea party candidate Jack Davis in data from Siena College Research Institute. Those results are well within the poll’s margin of error completed Friday.

Despite the very close numbers, some of the internals are revealing. Hochul secures more of her base voters, winning 76 percent among Democrats, while Corwin only secures 66 percent of her base Republican voters. Independents tilt to Hochul by 44 to 36 percent. Again, those results among independents are within the error margins.

Many pundits have pointed to this race as an early test of Republican attempts to tackle Medicare as a part of budget reform. In the Siena poll, Medicare was not singled out as the most important issue in the vote. Fully 21 percent call it most important, about the same level as the federal budget (19 percent) and jobs (20 percent). Medicare does rise to the top for Democrats, but less so for Republicans and independents.

This afternoon, the NYT Caucus reported heavy turnout and had this to say, in terms of what that means for Hochul and Corwin:

Turnout appeared fairly strong for the special election in western New York State’s 26th Congressional district on Tuesday, officials said. But it was not immediately clear which of the candidates, if any, would benefit from the high degree of voters’ interest in the race.

[…]

But what that high interest will translate into, in terms of votes, is hard to discern. If turnout is strong across the board, Ms. Corwin would likely stand to benefit, since Republicans have a large registration advantage in the district. Ms. Hochul, for her part, would be in a particularly strong position if voters in Erie County, where she is county clerk, turn out in high numbers.

In a move indicating just how vulnerable the GOP is, Jane Corwin has obtained a court order barring certification of a winner tonight… via Buffalo News:

Jane L. Corwin this afternoon obtained a court order from State Supreme Court Justice Russell P. Buscaglia barring a certification of a winner in the special 26th Congressional District race pending a show-cause hearing before him later this week.

The Buffalo News obtained a copy of the show-cause order Buscaglia signed this morning based on a petition the Republican candidate filed Monday.

Under the judge’s 11-page order, attorneys for Corwin have until Wednesday to serve copies of the court order on the election boards of Erie, Niagara, Genesee, Orleans, Wyoming, Livingston and Monroe counties, their sheriff’s offices, the state Board of Elections and her three opponents.

The Atlantic Wire has a good overview of the race and what various pundits are saying — Get Ready to Spin the Results of New York-26:

Voters in New York’s 26th congressional district are voting Tuesday to pick a replacement for Chris Lee, who resigned after the whole Internet saw him with his top off. The special election is now seen as a referendum on Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to phase out Medicare because even though the district is conservative, Democrat Kathy Hochul is ahead in the polls. As the national significance debated, the parties are mounting big get-out-the-vote operations–Republican Jane Corwin’s campaign had 500 volunteers knocking on doors over the weekend–150 of them bussed up from Washington, the Niagara Gazette‘s Eric DuVall reports. Hochul says the Democratic Party is running a “full field program” with hundreds of volunteers contacting thousands of voters.

Politico’s Alex Isenstadt writes that both parties are playing the “expectations game”–Republicans saying this race means nothing because third party candidate Jack Davis is siphoning votes from Corwin (pictured above, voting), and Democrats insisting they shouldn’t even be competitive in such a red district. (Conservatives started spinning the race even before polls put Hochul ahead, Dave Weigel notes.) And this strategy can be seen in browsing political blogs: liberal sites are giving a lot of coverage to the race Tuesday, while few conservative sites are bothering with it (the opposite was true in Wisconsin’s special election earlier this year, once missing votes were found handing the race to the conservative candidate.) The New Republic‘s Jonathan Chait says the race might be an outlier, but it’s still significant. It has “centered almost entirely around the exact theme that Democrats plan to employ in the next election cycle,” Chait writes. “All this suggests the party has gotten deep traction on the issue, and that the public can react against the policies of the House GOP. The political landscape that produced the Republican sweep of 2010 is gone. Just what replaces it remains to be seen.”

NBC’s First Read says that special elections aren’t a good guide to how the parties will fare in fall elections–but still, the power of Medicare shouldn’t be understated. A “GOP loss in NY-26–a district John McCain won in 2008, 52%-46%–would be a wake-up call for Republicans on Medicare, forcing their House members and even presidential candidates to re-evaluate how they approach the issue.”

Bill Clinton and Chris Chrisitie hit the phones for their respective party candidates… via Talking Points Memo:

“Now, I’m sure you’ve received many phone calls about this election already, nut please just give me a few seconds of your time as the election draws near,” Christie says in the call, according to The Buffalo News. “I’m calling to ask you for your support for Jane Corwin for Congress as you go to the polls Tuesday, May 24th. I ran for governor of New Jersey because like you, I wanted to see REAL change. Jane Corwin is a fighter who knows how to get things done. We’re in critical times for our country, and Washington needs stand-up leaders who will fight to control spending and change business as usual.”

Rallying Democrats, former President and current New York State resident Bill Clinton has recorded a call as well. Clinton’s script focuses tightly on the Medicare angle that Democrats have been pushing in the district, an approach they credit with their current lead in the polls.

“You can count on Kathy to say no to partisan politics that would end Medicare as we know it to pay for more tax cuts for multi-millionaires,” he says. “That’s just one reason I hope you’ll join me in supporting Kathy Hochul for Congress in the Special Election tomorrow, May 24th.”

ABC News on why NY-26 matters:

First, “If Hochul wins, even in a three-way race, it will be great news for Democrats, who will use the victory not only to talk about Medicare, Budget Chairman Paul Ryan’s budget and their own momentum, but also to recruit candidates around the country and raise funds,” the Rothenberg Political Report stated in a recent analysis. “And Democrats will have a right to brag, given the district’s fundamentals and the cash that Corwin and Republican groups have poured into the race.”

Second, the N.Y.-26 election would help both sides determine whether national dollars by party organizations and interest groups really make a difference.

Third, the race is important nationally because it has exposed the divisiveness and relative lack of coordination within the Tea Party movement. The biggest Tea Party group in the area, TEA New York, has endorsed Corwin, but not all Tea Party activisits are on board, which sends a warning sign to Washington that they will not back candidates based on party affiliation alone.

All eyes are obviously going to be on the exit polling and what it says about Ryancare.

Also from the link:

Hochul, the Erie County clerk, is widely expected to pull a victory in what would be a stunning defeat for Corwin, a state assemblywoman. The last Democrat to be elected from the district left office eight years ago, and only three Democrats have won in this area in the past century. New York’s 26th was only one of four districts in the state that voted for John McCain over Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election.

Hochul, however, has been cautious about declaring victory too quickly.

“We don’t have the enrollment advantage, but I’m going to keep fighting till the very last minute,” she said at a restaurant in Amherst.

NY Magazine has a primer on how to interpret the tonight’s returns… if Hochul wins, here’s pretty much what to expect from the Dems and points to consider about the validity of their claims:

Democrats point to this surprising result as the first definitive proof of the powerful opposition to Ryan’s Medicare-reform plan. The plan is clearly as toxic as a stroll through Fukushima, as they’ve been saying all along, and it will likely lead to an Obama victory in November of 2012.

It’s true that voters who care most about Medicare are strongly in Hochul’s camp, according to polling. But the causality here isn’t quite so clear-cut, as Nate Silver explains:

What’s tricky about this is that it isn’t straightforward to determine whether voters are prepared to vote for Ms. Hochul because of the Medicare issue — or rather, whether they were going to vote for her for some other reason, but emphasize Medicare to pollsters because she has also.

There are also other factors to consider — the candidates themselves, their reputations and personalities, for example. So though Medicare will play a role in the outcome, it will be difficult to tell how large that role will be.

And even assuming that opposition to Paul Ryan’s Medicare plan is a decisive factor, how much can that foretell about November 2012? The Medicare plan may be a central issue at the moment, but will it remain prominent in the political discussion fifteen months from now? What if an agreement on reforming Medicare has been reached by then? What if the presidential election, or unforeseeable events, cause other issues to overshadow the debate over Medicare entirely? It’s a long time until 2012.

And points to consider about the GOP spin if Hochul wins:

Republicans will insist that they would have won if not for the presence of Jack Davis, the eccentric businessman pulling in around 12 or 13 percent of the vote on the Tea Party line, and therefore the results are meaningless, and everyone should forget that this ever happened. The truth though, is that if Hochul wins, it’s a victory regardless of Davis. Davis may be running on the “Tea Party” line this year, but he ran as a Democrat for the same seat in 2004, 2006, and 2008, and his “ideology is too inconsistent to be readily categorized,” as the Washington Post put it. In a recent Siena poll, he draws about the same amount of support from Republicans as he does from Democrats. In other words, if Hochul wins, it won’t be because Davis split the conservative vote.

On the other hand, if Corwin pulls it out, here’s how NY mag breaks down what to expect from the spinmeisters and how to gauge what they are saying:

The Democratic Spin:

Democrats will insist that, because this is usually such a Republican-friendly district, they overperformed despite losing. And that may be true, depending on the margin of victory, because this district has been represented by a Republican for 40 of the last 50 years, including the last eight, and John McCain carried it by 6 percent over Barack Obama in 2008. Using that result as a benchmark, it’s fair to say that if Hochul loses by a few points to Corwin, the Democrats still beat expectations, and can plausibly claim a sort of moral victory, if not a tangible one. But if Hochul loses by six or more points, there’s no way Democrats can spin this in their favor.

The Republican Counter-Spin:

Republicans will claim that a win by any margin, regardless of the “Beltway expectations game,” proves that the Democrats’ “Mediscaring” strategy has failed miserably and that Ryan’s Medicare plan isn’t as toxic as the Democrats and the liberal media would like everyone to believe. In fact, as this was essentially the first referendum on the GOP’s Medicare plan, Democrats in Congress should now heed this mandate and enact the plan into law.

The polls will close at 9 p.m. Eastern. Again, the numbers are supposed to start streaming here once voting has ended.

I’ll leave you with this teaser from Huffpo’s Mark Blumenthal and his take on how to watch the numbers as they roll in:

Click to view larger. image via Huffpo/NationalAtlas.gov

Judging vote composition is tricky when results are incomplete, but the percentage contributed by Erie and Niagara Counties is worth watching. If Democrats are having an exceptionally good night, the share of the vote from Erie and Niagara might be a point or two higher than the last few elections. If the vote share from those counties winds up being a point or two lower, then Republicans may post even stronger numbers than in 2010.

This is an open thread.

Saturday: Women’s Rights, America’s Infrastructure, and Hillary’s Red Coat

Posted: May 21, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | 37 Comments

Morning, news junkies…so are you ready for the gazillionth end of the world or what? I have to say, even after reading the FAQ at that link, I’m still a little unclear on the rules here in Texas. Do pregnant women have to get a sonogram before they can get raptured?

This Day in History (May 21)

  • The painting to the right is by New Deal/WPA-era artist Jerry Bywaters. Bywaters was born on this day in 1906, in Paris, TX, and died in 1989. Via the Blanton, at the Univ. of Texas:

In Oil Field Girls, Bywaters used a somber palette to describe the bleak and thinly populated west Texas landscape. With its economically depressed vistas, the town (if it can be called that) is clearly godforsaken. By contrast, the women poised to hitch a ride out of those sad environs are vivid and forceful; although they are most likely working as prostitutes, Bywaters made no apparent judgment of them, instead vesting them with a vitality, even ambition, that offers the picture’s only hope. A canny mixture of reportage and editorial commentary, Oil Field Girls is a history painting that captures a surprisingly humane narrative of a specific time and place.

I chose Oil Field Girls for the spotlight this Saturday because it reflects my mood lately, especially here in Texas. As I look at it, I’m visualizing all of us brazen little hussies at the grassroots hitching a ride out of our politically regressive environs. Something’s gotta give. The headlines, which I’ll get to in a moment, are that dreary.

First, a quick tidbit from Francine Carraro’s Jerry Bywaters: a life in art…

For Bywaters the major contribution of the New Deal art project was the nationwide advancement of art and the decentralization of the art world. The golden age of American art could come for Bywaters only with the developing of “original art of the provinces . . . [rather] than provincial imitations of New York or European art.”

If your interest is piqued by any of the above, you might enjoy a virtual mini-tour of Bywaters’ WPA murals housed in the Paris public library, via someone who was kind enough to put them up on flickr. I especially recommend Paris Fire of 1916 and Rebuilding for the story they tell. Note the young boy at the lower right corner on the first. Bywaters was ten years old at the time of the Paris fire.

And, now for the week-in-review…

Women’s Rights: Texas

I’m going to focus on a bit of what’s been going on in my state. I hope some of you chime in with what’s going on in yours.

The forced sonogram has already gotten ink, so I’m going to try to draw out some of the other angles of abortion politics in the Lone Star state. This item is from the Austin American-Statesman the other day — Abortion fight derails women’s health initiative. If you haven’t been following this development, the article at the link gives a good overview of the dynamics at play.

Also see the Houston Chronicle — Texas House approves key Medicaid funding overhaul:

AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas House voted late Thursday to strip state funding to all hospitals and clinics that perform abortions or even “abortion-related services,” endorsing an obscure amendment tacked onto an already convoluted overhaul of Medicaid funding and disbursements.

It’s despicable enough that, in a state where one in four people are uninsured no less, Rick Perry and his American Taliban flank have fast-tracked their anti-abortion agenda as an emergency legislative priority to “save lives” and this week made forced sonograms and Choose Life propaganda license plate options the law of the land in Texas while sending us on our way to stripping all state-funding from hospitals that provide abortion and abortion-related services. On top of that they’re jeopardizing the healthcare of thousands of low-income mothers and daughters. If the Women’s Health Program is not renewed, not only will it cut access to contraceptives but to screening for cancer, diabetes, blood pressure, anemia, and STDs. Unconscionable.

The control freaks can’t stand that 46% of women who access the program do it through Planned Parenthood, so women’s health be damned. State officials say the Women’s Health Program saved the state $21.4 million in 2008 by cutting back the number of births financed by Medicaid, but the state budget and taxpayer be damned too. Neither fiscally sound nor morally acceptable…but there they are, the Republican “family values” on display.

We already saw how PP’s lawsuit in Indiana went nowhere, but for what it’s worth this is what Planned Parenthood –Gulf Coast has to say:

Planned Parenthood will never back down from providing Texas women affordable reproductive health care. We have delivered a letter to Senator Deuell clarifying that if his bill passes the Senate, Planned Parenthood will pursue litigation on behalf of low-income Texas women who choose Planned Parenthood health centers for their health care.

We need your help. Please call your State Senator today and tell them to vote NO on SB 1854.

This is a freaking mess here in the “Don’t Mess with…” state. Meanwhile, the peanut gallery tried to “draft Rick Perry” again. Even Perry sorta yawned this time, with Perry adviser Dave Carney laying it on extra thick and saying Guv Goodhair “doesn’t have the fire to be president.“ Well, he sure does have the the fire to gut women’s health and health coverage in general apparently.

A few more notes out of Texas…

  • Check out this wild little extended metaphor/thought experiment from E.R. Bills in Fort Worth, via Dissident Voice — We Have Bigger Abbortive Problems Than Abortion. That’s all you’re going to get in the way of a teaser. If I excerpted, it would ruin the fun.

Maryland abortion provider under attack

Just a quick link on this, but it’s important. The American Independent has the scoop on “Summer of Mercy 2.0” — Radical anti-choice group targeting new abortion provider, previously went after George Tiller.

American Dystopia: News and Views

I’ve got a lot to cover so I’m not going to quote extensively from BAR this weekend, but I do want to point you to Bruce A. Dixon’s report this week, which echoes what I have long maintained about Obama being more of a “Don’t make ME do it” president than a “Make me do it” one like FDR.

Speaking of things Obama doesn’t want any of us to make him do too much about… Scripps Howard columnist Ann McFeatters on America’s Crumbling Infrastructure:

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has been trying to raise the alert, filming short TV commercials in front of such monuments to government efficiency as the Hoover Dam. Individuals, corporations, cities and states do not build such things, she rightly notes; only nations can do it.

For 30 years, the United States has defied the need to repair and upgrade its infrastructure, spending the money on war, on defense, on entitlements — everything but making sure the roof wouldn’t leak. Leaks are appearing.

Of course if the oligarchy can keep the populace regularly fed on urban myths and religious claptrap about how we are all going to be buried under earthquake rubble or some other such hocus pocus within a matter of hours, I suppose they think we won’t disturb our beautiful minds too much over such leaks increasingly appearing in our infrastructure.

McFeatters references the 2011 Infrastructure report from the Urban Land Institute which warns that we will reach a breaking point in 5-10 years.

She ends her editorial with the grim picture of where we are headed:

If we do not act, which looks likely because of the determination in Washington to cut spending — Congress consistently refuses to pass a surface transportation planning act, this is what will happen:

Americans will spend an ever-greater portion of their incomes on services such as tap water, some of which will be undrinkable. There will be new tolls on highway driving and bridges and existing tolls will dramatically increase. Gasoline prices will soar, pushed by higher federal gas taxes.

Some cash-strapped cities will simply stop providing basic services, letting private companies take them over. Road maintenance in rural areas will become problematic. Bridges will collapse and not be rebuilt.

The badly needed new national electric grid to save energy will not be developed. A state-of-the-art satellite air traffic control system will not be built.

In 30 years, there will be almost 100 million more people living in the United States, but the infrastructure will not support 400 million Americans.

The really sad and disturbing part for me is that this seems like the oligarchy’s plan. An entire generation will be left behind so that no profit will.

Next up, a must-read essay in the American Chronicle by Gary Ater — ARE WE TODAY FAILING THE EFFORTS OF OUR PARENTS AND GRANDPARENTS? Ater goes through the New Deal Alphabet Soup listing several projects that would have never been built without these government agencies and calling it “one of the greatest infrastructure legacies of anything that could ever have been passed on to its inheritors,” and then asks:

But how are we inheritors treating that legacy today?

Well, as an example, due to a lack of maintenance, thousands of our nation´s bridges, built by our parents and grandparents decades ago, are in the position today to replicate the 2007 collapse of the Interstate 35 bridge in Minnesota. That bridge was listed as being in serious trouble, but it was still allowed to carry 140,000 cars every day until the day it collapsed. This situation could easily be replicated across the country with other federal buildings, hydroelectric dams, coal burning and nuclear power plants, schools, hospitals, libraries, airports, rail stations, levees, canals, tunnels and roads and highways. At any time, any of these old 1930 to 1960 structures, roads, bridges or past projects could go the way of Minnesota´s I-35 bridge.

And as it was in the 1930´s, the conservatives are once again saying, “America cannot afford to spend tax-payers revenue on its critical infrastructure situation”.

I say, as it was back then, in today´s down economy, we can´t afford NOT to invest in American workers and their ability to restore, or build new, all that we have inherited over the past decades.

Ater goes on to say that we need to replace everyone who doesn’t want to rebuild America with everyone who does. Unfortunately, at the end of a piece that was otherwise astute, he seems to suggest that we can do that by making a choice between Republicans and Democrats in 2012. I’d argue that the American people already made that choice in 2008 and look where it got us. It’s not as simple as who we pick on election day.

For a contrast, and since the wingnuts will just reflexively and mindlessly yell “socialist!” at anyone not in their tribe anyway, I would like to take a look at what actual socialists are saying and put it out there for discussion. This is a recent opinion piece in the WSWS by the SEP’s National Secretary Joseph Kishore — The social counterrevolution in America and the tasks of the working class:

The general strikes in Toledo, San Francisco and Minneapolis in 1934, followed by the great sit-down strikes in Michigan in 1936 and 1937, propelled the reforms of the New Deal, including Social Security, and the gains of manufacturing workers throughout the country. Medicare and Medicaid in the 1960s were the byproduct of the mass mobilization of workers in the civil rights movement, combined with the militant labor struggles of the post-war period.

For the last 40 years, these gains have been under persistent attack. Vast sums of wealth were transferred upwards, into the hands of the financial and corporate elite, fueling the stock market mania of the 1990s and 2000s.

Now under the Obama administration, this scorched earth policy is entering a new phase. The first step was taken last year under the guise of “health care reform,” a drive to reduce corporate and government spending under the fraudulent slogan of “universal coverage.” Now, there is little attempt to hide the fact that what the administration is seeking is a sharp reduction in access to health care and other social programs.

This assault takes place at the same time as the sums of money controlled by the wealthy reach record highs. Corporate profits in the first quarter of this year are expected to break the record set the previous quarter of $1.68 trillion at an annualized rate. CEO pay for 2010 exceeded the previous record levels set prior to the crash. The combined net wealth of just the 400 richest Americans is, at last count, $1.37 trillion—approximately the same amount that would be saved over an entire decade through cuts in Medicaid that will threaten the lives and health of millions of people.

Another view from the WSWS (which picks up where Dakinikat’s “Who are they protecting…?“ expose left off last weekend) — Victims of Mississippi flood must be made whole:

The Obama administration has allocated only a minimal amount in grants for temporary housing and other emergency needs. It is urging those affected—most of whom have no flood insurance or means of rebuilding—to apply for federal disaster and other government loans. In addition to having to pay interest, those who qualify for federal disaster loans are compelled to buy flood insurance to qualify for future assistance.

Like the Bush administration’s response to Hurricane Katrina, the Obama administration has shown callousness and indifference to the plight of the workers and poor families hit by the latest disaster.

The diversion of floodwaters helps ExxonMobil and other big oil companies operating refineries along the Mississippi River, but the administration has never raised that these corporations—rolling in cash from skyrocketing gas prices—should in any way help compensate those being flooded out of their homes and farms.

I don’t want to end on such a miserable note, so let’s turn to our Energizer Secretary.

Hillaryland

As Obama pointed out this week, Hillary is approaching her one million frequent flier mark. In honor of Hill’s globetrotting, here’s my choice for pic of the month… Hillary wheeling down in Greenland on May 12th, in a cheerful red coat:

A couple more Hillary items from this week, briefly:

On Hillary’s agenda next week: London and Paris…

Mr Toner said Ms Clinton will also deliver keynote remarks in support of the launch of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation’s (UNESCO) Global Partnership for Girls’ and Women’s Education.

The Global Partnership will bring together companies, non-governmental organisations, and governments to develop innovative programmes to deliver education to women and girls, he said.

Well, now we’re full circle from where I started at the beginning of this post…as Bill Clinton (no doubt influenced by Hillary) said in an interview to Slate’s DoubleX a couple years ago, putting all the girls in the world in school is the only proven stragety to slowing the birthrate (hence less abortions) and raising per capita income.

Sheros on the Screen

A few super quick links to wrap things up:

  • RH Reality Check on why Bridesmaids is striking a chord. Obviously portraying women as human beings is a good start, if in fact that’s what Bridesmaids does. I still would like to judge for myself. I’ll probably go see it this weekend or next.
  • Anyone else following Top Chef Masters right now think they’re dropping the anvils all over the place about a woman actually winning this season? I’m thinking it will come down to Naomi and Traci.

The End! What’s on your blogging list?

[originally posted at Let Them Listen; crossposted at Taylor Marsh and Liberal Rapture]

Meet PJ Crowley’s Replacement

Posted: May 17, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: Foreign Affairs | Tags: , | 25 Comments

Victoria "Toria" Nuland. Click to go to FP.com

FP/The Cable’s Josh Rogin reports:

The Cable has confirmed that career Foreign Service officer Victoria “Toria” Nuland will soon be named as the State Department’s top spokesperson, the latest in a string of promotions for senior career officers in Foggy Bottom.

Nuland’s job will somewhat different than her predecessor P.J. Crowley, who resigned after making off-message comments criticizing the Defense Department’s treatment of alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning. Unlike Crowley, Nuland will not be dual-hatted as assistant secretary of State for Public Affairs. Former National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer will be officially named to that job soon, a State Department official confirmed.

Nuland is currently the Special Envoy for the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe. From her bio on the State Department website:

Ambassador Victoria Nuland was named Special Envoy for Conventional Armed Forces in Europe in February 2010. She previously served on the faculty of the National War College (2008-2009).

She was the 18th United States Permanent Representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) from 2005-2008. As NATO Ambassador, she focused heavily on strengthening Allied support for the ISAF mission in Afghanistan, on NATO-Russia issues, and on the Alliance’s global partnerships and continued enlargement.

A career Foreign Service Officer, Ambassador Nuland was Principal Deputy National Security Advisor to the Vice President from 2003-2005, and the U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO from 2000- 2003. From 1997-1999, she was Deputy Director for former Soviet Union affairs at the Department of State, with primary responsibility for U.S. policy towards Russia and the Caucasus countries. She has also spent two years at the Council on Foreign Relations as a “Next Generation” Fellow looking at the effects of anti-Americanism in 1999-2000, and as a State Department Fellow in 1996-1997, when she directed a CFR task force on “Russia, its Neighbors and an Expanding NATO.”

Via Laura Rozen/The Envoy:

“Toria is very skilled and talented and will do very well here,” one denizen of the State Department’s “executive level” seventh floor said, noting that given Nuland’s ties to GOP circles – her husband is Brookings foreign policy scholar and Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan, and she previously served as an adviser to Cheney — “who better…to aggressively defend the Administration’s foreign policy?”

That paragraph struck me as very telling, especially since this is the person the Obama Administration is replacing PJ Crowley with.

Just as an aside, Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol were co-founders of the now defunct neocon think tank PNAC, which BTW has morphed into the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI). Nuland herself was one of Cheney’s top policy advisors.

I think the noises out of the seventh floor touting all this GOP cred is interesting given the clueless class and their recent and utterly baffling hope that Obama will have incentive to move left now that he’s captured Osama. See tristero’s reaction to OBL’s death:

If ever there was a time that Obama could be persuaded to pursue even a moderately liberal agenda – as opposed to a (roughly) centrist/right one – that time is now.

More on Nuland from the FP/Rogin link that I started out with:

During the first term of Bill Clinton‘s administration, she was chief of staff to Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and then moved on to serve as deputy director for former Soviet Union affairs.

In an interview, Talbott, now president of the Brookings Institution, praised Nuland as a consummate professional who proved that Foreign Service officers could be trusted to put professionalism over politics.

Talbott says Nuland is dedicated to whatever Administration she works for. Being as dedicated to Bush and then to Obama as she was to Clinton is not something I really consider a selling point:

“Her appointment demonstrates that Secretary Clinton has, quite rightly, an extremely high estimation of the value and confidence in the Foreign Service,” Talbott said, “The more use that’s made of the foreign policy civil service and the Foreign Service, the better.”

He noted Nuland’s public role as the U.S. envoy to NATO as evidence she can handle the spotlight and highlighted her roles across several administrations as evidence of her apolitical nature.

“She has a high degree of self confidence and an absolute dedication to working for the administration she is working for, whatever administration that is,” Talbot said.

Perhaps Nuland is more of an independent career foreign servant than an ideological type, but this appointment, combined with the trumpeting of Nuland’s GOP ties to say “who better to aggressively defend the Administration’s foreign policy” strikes me as part of a pattern of the Administration playing to the the right-wing after “Obama killed Osama” was supposed to have given Obama the national security trump card and assorted Democrats and progressives spoke of it as if this would give Democrats/progressives the national security trump card.

As usual, I think the left made the mistake of confusing victories and trump cards for Obama as victories and trump cards for the left. I don’t know how they expected Obama to move to the left on anything, when it seemed plain as day to me that he had all the more incentive to move to the right on everything from national security and foreign policy to drill, baby, drill.

Any thoughts?

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