The War On Labor

There's been lots of GOP huffing and puffing on Obama's cabinet appointees this week, but so far all have passed with flying colors. However, that could very well change.

President Barack Obama’s nominee for Labor secretary is running into fierce resistance from Republicans over her reluctance to state her views clearly on legislation that would make it easier for unions to organize.

The nomination of Rep. Hilda Solis has yet to be approved by the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee — even though her confirmation hearing two weeks ago was among the first for Obama’s cabinet picks.

The committee, chaired by Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, could not say Thursday when it would hold a vote.

Even if the committee approves Solis, her nomination could be blocked by a Republican senator on the floor.

The committee’s ranking Republican, Sen. Mike Enzi of Wyoming, has been pressing for more detailed responses to questions posed on several issues, including the Employee Free Choice Act or card check bill.

The legislation would allow workers to organize simply by handing in enough cards expressing their preference. Under card check, union membership rose steadily in the past century until 1947, when Congress, under pressure from business, began requiring secret ballot elections. Unions claim the election campaigns allow management to dissuade workers with threats. Businesses argue that card check allows unions to pressure workers unduly to organize.

When asked Thursday whether he was satisfied with the answers Solis has given, Enzi said: “What answers?”

“She doesn’t even recognize her own record when giving the answers,” Enzi said. “Right now there are people who don’t want her out of committee. It’s not just me.”

While most of the press has been focused on Obama's appointee for AG Eric Holder, the real fireworks are over Solis and her support for the Employee Free Choice Act.

If there's one issue both the Chamber of Commerce and the Rightwing Nutjob wings of the GOP can agree on, it's killing the bejeezus out of union labor. EFCA would make it much, much easier to organize collective labor unions in the country, and the GOP is having none of it.

While the opposition to Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, and Lisa Jackson at the EPA have been symbolic, the GOP has the long knives out for Solis, EFCA, and the Labor Department in general. Obama's going to have to face down the "anonymous hold" law, because frankly, Solis won't even get a vote as long as the GOP can do this.

The hold can be lifted by a filibuster-style 60 vote margin, but forcing that vote is one of those things that just isn't done by Senate tradition.

Obama's going to have to do something about it and soon.

Clearly It's Some Sort Of Brilliant Trick

After eight years of the Village reading too much into Bush's complete incompetence and attributing it to being "shifty political maneuvers based on never wanting to ever be pinned down on anything substantive", the Village has taken a look at Obama's position on Gitmo and decided that it's a "shifty political maneuver based on never wanting to ever be pinned down on anything substantive." (h/t Digby)

Following up on my post below, I just heard Jim Miklasewski on NBC Nightly News say that Obama's orders today are designed to give himself wiggle room to distance himself from Bush's policies but not force him to live up to his campaign promises. Seriously. As I said earlier, I don't know that this is what Obama intended, but it's what the political media are interpreting his actions to mean.

I'm sure I don't need to go into the moral dimension of this issue, but I think the administration needs to set the press straight on this if he means to have a successful foreign policy. Trying to split the baby on these issues is impossible and it will undermine his moral authority in the rest of the world if they think he's being cute. (You can bet the intelligence community will leak any information that indicates he isn't sincere.)

If he means to make a clean break, he should make it clear to the media that it's what he means. They aren't seeing it that way.

Nor will they. You see, trying to pretend that everything Obama does is a brilliant Cheneyesque ploy to become Barack O-teflon is much more fun than reporting boring shit like "Obama has principles" or "Obama has a conscience" or "Obama has a human soul inside his human body and not kept in an obsidian phylactery" or anything that you know, might be the truth. Hope and change? They have to die. Hard. Obama must be defined as "just another politician" so that the Village can continue running the show.

Part of the "Obama is worse than Bush" meme of the next four years is to establish that Obama is no different from Bush on the substantitive issues, that everything he does is just politics and jockeying. Attributing all the stuff Democrats accused Bush of being and doing to Obama is a vital part of the plan. The "much worse" part is then much easier to segue into.

However, Digby is right: Obama has to lay down the law on the Village Idiots before they define Obama into something he most certainly isn't.

Well Now Here's Your Problem

The problem with your "liberal" Village media is the fact they can't identify actual fucking liberals. (h/t Balloon Juice)

Forbes.com has its list of the “The 25 Most Influential Liberals In The U.S. Media“. Here’s some of the people on the list: Maureen Dowd, Tom Friedman, Chris Hitchens, Andrew Sullivan, Fareed Zakaria, Fred Hiatt.

Yes, Rae-Rae, Double G, The Kroog, Kos The Great Orange Satan, Josh Marshall and Jon Stewart are no brainers. But if you can't actually find 25 liberals, they can't be that influential, now can they? I mean come on, Chris Matthews? I can think of a dozen folks more influential *and* more liberal than f'in Tweety. Check the blogroll on the side, damn. Steve Benen, Pam Spaulding, Amanda Marcotte, Marcy Wheeler, Jane Hamsher, Digby, BooMan, the list goes on and on folks.

And people wonder why the Village is broken. Jesus.

Unintended Consequences

Kinda goes like this.

1. Progressives see NY Republican John Sweeney is a douchebag.
2. Progressives convince Kirsten Gillibrand to run against him.
3. Gillibrand has backing of the Pataki Republicans and Chuck Schumer.
4. Gillibrand beats Sweeney in 2006 by running as a Bush Dog.
5. Gillibrand makes a hard right in order to get re-elected in 2008.
   
6. NY Governor Eliot Spitzer resigns in disgrace.
7. Lt. Gov. David Paterson ends up Governor.
8. Hillary Clinton loses the primary to Barack Obama.
9. Obama goes on to win the Presidency.
10. Obama appoints Clinton to State.
11. Paterson finds he needs to pick somebody to replace her.
12. Progressives want Caroline Kennedy. Well, most of them.
13. Kennedy ends up getting done in by a combination of incompetent handlers, GOP gadflys, and Paterson's ego.
14. Paterson wants to get re-elected in 2010, so he names Gillibrand to get votes he'll need in 2010.
15. Gillibrand ends up Senator.

Now, here's where I see this going: either Gillibrand splits the vote in the primary and the Republicans win this seat in 2010, or she keeps the seat by being a de facto Blue Dog and voting against progressive measures in the Senate.

Be careful what you wish for. You just might get it.

Your Liberal Media Strikes Again

Politico headline of Obama's first press visit to the White House press corps last night? "Obama flashes irritation in press room."

You stay classy, San Diego.

Paterson Makes His Play

The practical upshot of the Caroline Kennedy/David Paterson mess in choosing a successor for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat is that Paterson's selection has been confirmed this morning as upstate New York Democratic Congresswoman Kirsten Gillibrand.

There's only one small problem: Gillibrand is Blue Dog through and through.

The governor will announce his selection at noon in Albany. An aide to Ms. Gillibrand confirmed that she had accepted the appointment.

Ms. Gillibrand is largely unknown to New Yorkers statewide, but is considered an up-and-coming and forceful lawmaker in her district and has gained considerable attention from Democratic leaders in Washington.

Mr. Paterson made his final decision shortly before 2 a.m. Friday after a marathon series of phone calls and deliberations with his top aides, according to the person who spoke to him. He began making phone calls to other contenders about 9 p.m., and had notified most of the other contenders by midnight. By then, the only two candidates who had not heard from Mr. Paterson were Ms. Gillibrand and Randi Weingarten, the president of the United Federation of Teachers.

One of Mr. Paterson’s preferences had been to select a woman to replace Mrs. Clinton.

The governor continued to deliberate and discuss the matter with his advisers — despite earlier reports that he had settled on Ms. Gillibrand — until he made his decision, according to the person who talked to him. He then called Ms. Gillibrand, who had earlier in the evening been told to come to Albany to await an announcement, to let her know she was his pick.

If Mr. Paterson was hoping to quiet the tumult over the selection process by picking Ms. Gillibrand, there were indications that he may not get his wish. Ms. Gillibrand, who has been endorsed by the National Rifle Association, is controversial among some of the party’s more liberal leaders downstate.

Representative Carolyn McCarthy, a Long Island Democrat and ardent gun control activist, said Thursday that if Ms. Gillibrand got the job, she was prepared to run against her in a primary in 2010. Ms. McCarthy was elected to Congress after her husband was killed in a gunman’s rampage on the Long Island Rail Road in 1993.

Ms. Gillibrand’s selection was a careful political calculation by the governor, who will run for his second term as governor in 2010, when Ms. Gillibrand will also be on the ballot. The choice reflects Mr. Paterson’s thinking that his selection should be someone who can help him attract key demographics — in Ms. Gillibrand’s case upstate New Yorkers and women.

Not mentioned anywhere in the proceedings: Andrew Cuomo, the state's popular Attorney General, who would have been a much better choice. Gillibrand is going to be a problem for Obama, and isn't going to be a reliable vote for him in the Senate.

Her record so far in the House after two years? Not very good if you were hoping for a progressive voice.

Gillibrand has described her own voting record as "one of the most conservative in the state." She opposes any path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, supports renewing the Bush tax cuts for individuals earning up to $1 million annually, and voted for the Bush-backed FISA bill that permits wiretapping of international calls. She was one of four Democratic freshmen in the country, and the only Democrat in the New York delegation, to vote for the Bush administration's bill to extend funding for the Iraq war shortly after she entered congress in 2007. While she now contends that she's always opposed the war and has voted for bills to end it, one upstate paper reported when she first ran for the seat: "She said she supports the war in Iraq." In addition to her vote to extend funding, she also missed a key vote to override a Bush veto of a Democratic bill with Iraq timetables.

But it's her votes on the bailout bills -- which pleased no one but were widely seen as vital to the national and New York economies -- that could become the most damaging ammunition against her should she run statewide in 2010. She was one of 63 Democrats to break with the other 172 party members in the House and vote against the second bill, which she called "fundamentally flawed." Her argument against the bill seemed to be both parochial and political, contending that "upstate New York needs a plan that will actually work to stabilize our economy and protect taxpayers." Albany's other House Democrat, Mike McNulty, voted for it, perhaps aware that the statewide economy depends upon revenues generated by the financial services industry. "It's the most important vote of my career, and took an enormous amount of effort on my part to decide what was best for my district," Gillbrand said.

So, let me get this straight...arguably the state with one of the most powerful Democratic Party machines in the country has decided to appoint a Republican for Senator.

You know, yesterday when I said Paterson should just appoint a Republican just to break up the monotony of Democratic stupidity out of New York, this isn't what I meant.

The Penguin Versus The Joker

The Batman villains who have been running the country for the last eight years didn't even make it 48 hours before turning on each other. Seems ol' Cheney is leading the way on the brigade of folks who tossed Bush under the wheelchair on Dubya's failure to pardon Scooter Libby.

George W. Bush was widely expected to grant a large number of pardons during his final days in office, but almost none were forthcoming. The non-pardon of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for his role in revealing the identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame may prove to be be the most controversial of these omissions -- at least if former Vice President Dick Cheney and his supporters have anything to say in the matter.

According to conservative columnist and Cheney biographer Stephen F. Hayes, writing in the Weekly Standard, "Bush's decision not to pardon Libby has angered many of the president's strongest defenders. One Libby sympathizer, a longtime defender of Bush, told friends she was 'disgusted' by the president. Another described Bush as 'dishonorable' and a third suggested that refusing to pardon Libby was akin to leaving a soldier on the battlefield."

Hayes quotes Cheney himself as saying, "Scooter Libby is one of the most capable and honorable men I've ever known. He's been an outstanding public servant throughout his career. He was the victim of a serious miscarriage of justice, and I strongly believe that he deserved a presidential pardon. Obviously, I disagree with President Bush's decision."

For this article to come out in the Weekly Standard this quickly after Bush having left office, quoting multiple Republican sources who think Bush has failed and those sources including Dick Cheney, goes to show you just how weak and disorganized the GOP is right now at the top.

The GOP has no real leadership right now. There's nobody to put the brakes on this kind of circular firing squad, and this article proves it. They are lost in the wilderness, everyone fending for themselves. In a sense that's bad for the country, nothing has changed with my insistence that America needs a healthy and productive loyal opposition that produces intelligent and much-needed dissent. Just because Obama and the Democrats are now in charge doesn't mean dissent is no longer needed. Federal power must always be checked.

But the dissent coming out of the GOP at this point is anything but intelligent and useful dissent, it's partisan backbiting and useless obstructionism.

Eventually the GOP will have to find a leader. But to find a leader, they have to find a direction, and right now everyone has their own compass and map and is trying to sabotage everyone else like a season's worth of Survivor. It's telling that without Bush/Cheney calling the shots, the GOP can no longer think for itself and adapt...but that's what happens when all you have to offer is jingoistic platitudes based on knee-jerk reactionary obstructionism over an eight year period.

The Know-Nothing party lacks the critical thinking skills to adapt. Who woulda thunk it?

StupidiNews!

• FDA regulators have okayed the first human trials of stem cell research.
• Former NSA analyst Russell Tice claims the NSA was spying on everyone in America, including credit card records.
• The Senate has overwhelmingly approved the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.
• Samsung Electronics has posted its first ever quarterly loss.
• Even Playboy Magazine is having to make adjustments in this economy.

Keeps Getting Worse

Caroline Kennedy's appointment is still up in the air, but we finally get a decision tomorrow at noon. However, that decision may very well not be Kennedy. Yesterday and this morning it was "personal reasons" involving her stricken uncle Ted Kennedy, but the NY Times has finally gotten to the truth: vetting of Kennedy reveals a Tim Geithner special: a housekeeper with work status issues and taxes unpaid.

During the early afternoon Wednesday, the aide said, Ms. Kennedy became aware of what the aide referred to as a “personal situation” that could prevent her from fulfilling her duties as senator. The personal situation was not related to the seizure that her uncle, Senator Edward M. Kennedy, suffered during an inauguration luncheon on Tuesday, the aide said, declining to be more specific.

Another aide to Ms. Kennedy, while not denying there were issues that emerged during her vetting, said that there was nothing that surfaced that would disqualify her from the appointment, and that the Kennedy camp and the governor’s operation had been discussing how to publicly disclose the issues.

Virtually no one in state politics on Thursday was willing to make a bet on the appointment the unpredictable governor might make in the end. And the governor and his aides remained shocked at the recent turn of events and stung by criticism of their handling of the process. They have maintained almost complete silence since Wednesday afternoon.

Hasn't New York politics already become a complete joke since Eliot Spitzer, and now this.

God help me, appoint a Republican just so we have something to break up the constant stream of Democratic stupidity flowing from the Empire State.

The American Will

Glenn Greenwald takes on the notion that the "American people approve of torture" and other falsehoods of the Villiage Idiots.

One of the most common and most corrosive aspects of our political discourse is the endless assertions -- based on nothing -- about what "Americans believe." It is exceedingly conventional wisdom that Americans generally view the world through the prism of Jack Bauer and therefore want our government to torture, want Guantanamo kept opened, and do not want suspected Terrorists to be tried in civilian courts inside the U.S. It is even more commonly asserted that Americans do not want, and even further, would never tolerate, criminal investigations into the various crimes of Bush officials.

A new Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday negates all of those beliefs. Here was the question that was asked about torture -- note that it's phrased in the most pro-torture manner possible, because it is grounded in the ludicrous, 24-clichéd "ticking time bomb" excuse that is the most commonly used argument by torture advocates:

Q. Obama has said that under his administration the United States will not use torture as part of the U.S. campaign against terrorism, no matter what the circumstance. Do you support this position not to use torture, or do you think there are cases in which the United States should consider torture against terrorism suspects?

By a wide margin -- 58-40% -- Americans say that torture should never be used, no matter the circumstances. Let's repeat that: "no matter the circumstance." That margin is enormous among Democrats (71-28%) and substantial among independents (56-43%). As usual these days, Republicans hold the minority view, but even among them there is substantial categorical opposition to torture (42-55%).

The poll goes on to say that a majority of Americans favor closing Gitmo and want to see Bush investigated for possible criminal acts.

Obama has said unequivocally that we will end the Bush torture regime and signed an order today closing Gitmo. The question is will he have the courage to investigate and prosecute Bush? The poll gives a 50%-47% result in favor of doing just that, and there's a strong legal argument (put forth by Greenwald and others) that Obama has no choice but to prosecute by decree of US law.

He's two for two so far. Will he make it three for three, as the American people want?

Caught Red Handed

There's no justice quite as expedient in our universe like getting sacrificed on the altar of corporate public relations. Case in point: former Merrill Lynch CEO and now former Bank of America hotshot John Thain, who just got fried up today like shrimp tempura.

Wall Street bonuses, a sore point as the government gives billions of dollars in bailout money to the financial industry, have apparently cost former Merrill Lynch & Co. CEO John Thain his new job at Bank of America Corp.

Thain resigned from Bank of America Thursday following news that Merrill Lynch had rushed out its year-end bonuses, paying them just before Bank of America completed its acquisition of Merrill Lynch and sought $20 billion in additional government bailout money.

The company gave no reason for Thain's departure, but its timing, coming hours after news reports about the bonuses, made it likely that there was a connection with the payouts.

The bonuses to Merrill Lynch executives were also paid out as the company prepared to report a $15.3 billion fourth-quarter loss -- a loss that led Bank of America to request and receive government funds on top of the $25 billion it had already been given.

Bank of America spokesman Scott Silvestri issued a terse statement: "(BofA Chairman and CEO) Ken Lewis flew to New York today to talk to John Thain. And it was mutually agreed that his situation was not working out and he would resign."

The bonuses raise the question of how proper it was for executives in a struggling company to be given big payments even as its soon-to-be-parent was accepting billions of dollars in government money.

"He's just completely tone-deaf to the culture of BofA" if he was paying out bonuses days before reporting a multibillion dollar quarterly loss and as Lewis was securing more government support, Tony Plath, a finance professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, said about Thain. "My surprise is the board gave him an opportunity to resign and didn't just fire him."

Door. Ass. Hit. Way out.

Obama's Choice

When it comes down to it, Obama will be remembered most for his response to the economic crisis more than anything. It's a bit disturbing to find the chorus of voices growing louder that are saying that Obama will have to make a fundamental rewrite of our economic system to save America.

The nation's fast-darkening circumstances define the essential dilemma of Barack Obama's presidency. His instinct is to govern by consensus, in the moderate middle ground of politics. Yet dire events are pushing the new president toward solutions more fundamental than those he had intended. The longer he resists taking more forceful action, the more likely it is that he will be overwhelmed by the gathering adversities.

Three large obstacles are blocking Obama's path. The first is one of scale: his nearly $800 billion recovery package sounds huge, but it is perhaps two or three times too small to produce a turnaround. The second is that the financial system--still dysfunctional despite the bailouts--requires much more than fiscal stimulus and bailout: the government must nationalize and supervise the banks to ensure that they carry out the lending and investing needed for recovery. This means liquidating some famous nameplates--led by Citigroup--that are spiraling toward insolvency. The third is that the crisis is global: the US economy cannot return to normal unless the unbalanced world trading system is simultaneously reformed. Globalization has vastly undermined US productive strength, as trade deficits have led the nation into deepening debtor dependence.

While Washington debates the terms of Obama's stimulus package, others see disappointment ahead. The Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, an outpost of Keynesian thinking, expresses its doubts in emotional language that professional economists seldom use. "The prospects for the US economy have become uniquely dreadful, if not frightening," Levy analysts reported. The institute's updated strategic analysis warns that the magnitude of negative forces--the virtual collapse of bank lending, private spending, consumer incomes and demand--"will make it impossible for US authorities to apply a fiscal and monetary stimulus large enough to return output and unemployment to tolerable levels within the next two years." Instead, the unemployment rate is likely to rise to 10 percent by 2010. Obama's package amounts only to around 3 percent, annually, of GDP in a $13 trillion economy. Levy's analysis calculates that it would require federal deficits of 8 to 10 percent of GDP--$2 trillion or more--to reverse the economic contraction. And yet, the institute observed, it is inconceivable that this level "could be tolerated for purely political reasons" or that the United States could sustain the rising indebtedness without terrifying our leading creditors, like China.

In other words, Obama's stimulus package is a fraction of what it has to be. Republicans will never allow a larger one...but a massive package three times what Obama is planning is our only realistic hope.

The alternative is the dreaded Japan scenario: a decade long depression that will cost tens of millions of jobs and drop the standard of living in this country to a bare memory of what it is today. In order to avoid the slow death of our economy, a massive jolt of capital is needed immediately.

Sometime within the next couple of months, Tim Geithner and Ben Bernanke will be pleading for trillions again. They will be throwing around the N word...nationalization. The reported unemployment rate of 9 or 10% will in reality be much closer to 20 to 25% or more.

In other words, by 2010 we'll most likely be in the middle of the Second Great Depression.

Wrap your head around that. You'll have to. We'll all have to. Obama's window to truly fix the problem is growing narrower every day. Time is almost up.

If It's Thursday...

...It must be time for another 589,000 new jobless claims and another record low month for new housing starts.

More Bad Bank News

Big banks like Citigroup and Bank of America are in deep trouble. Quite possibly, they are already zombie banks, their financial corpses animated by TARP billions and the promise of more billions from Obama in the future.

That's what makes today's earnings news from mid-size regional banks all the more depressing. Across the board, regional banks like KeyCorp, Comerica, Huntington, SunTrust, BB&T and Fifth Third (especially Fifth Third) announced staggering losses this morning.

How many of these banks are zombie banks? I'm betting more than you think. The entire financial system is collapsing around us. Many of these banks won't be around in year, I'm thinking. Massive consolidation is coming in the industry in 2009 out of necessity, and it will involve a number of regional banks like this being snapped up the way Cleveland's National City was.

Look for banks to take another round of stock hammerings today and tomorrow.

StupidiNews!

• On again, off again, Caroline Kennedy again this morning has pulled out of the running for Hillary Clinton's Senate seat.
• Harry Reid says Democrats will try to seat Al Franken despite Norm Coleman's lawsuit.
• Republicans vow to stall Eric Holder's nomination vote until they get his full view on prosecuting torture.
• The $825 billion stimulus package gets past a key hurdle in the House.
• Commercial and online radio are taking major financial static in 2009.