SOTU: The day after (with video)

"Markos reviews State of the Union" Jed Lewison (Daily Kos), video (05:02):

Markos discusses President Obama's State of the Union address with Keith Olbermann, saying the speech was "very, very strong" on specifics, including on clean energy, don't ask, don't tell, and expanded assistance for student loan programs.

"A Bid to Recapture the Magic, and a Dose of Reality" (Peter Baker-NY Times)":

By now, President Obama can hardly be under any illusions about the depth of the partisan divide as he seeks to reboot his presidency. Yet he still seemed surprised on Wednesday night when he could not get Republicans to applaud tax cuts.

As he boasted in his first State of the Union address that his economic program had cut taxes for 95 percent of working families, Democrats jumped to their feet to cheer. Republicans sat quietly. Mr. Obama paused as he glanced over to their side of the House chamber. “I thought I’d get some applause on that one,” he said.

If Mr. Obama thought he could take the rostrum in the House chamber and restore his image as the change agent who came to Washington to end the politics of division, he received another reminder just how hard that will be. Mr. Obama tried to recapture the magic of his yes-we-can campaign after a season of no-we-can’t governing, but conceded little if any ground to critics on either the right or the left.

"State of health reform: Still grim" (Politico):

With Democrats in Congress looking for a way out of the health care impasse, President Barack Obama offered them words of encouragement but little else —no concrete plan to jump-start progress on a bill, no timeline for getting it done and no guidance on what he wants to see in what was once his top legislative initiative.

Greg Sargent:

In retrospect, I think this line from Obama on health care was important: “As temperatures cool, I want everyone to take another look at the plan we’ve proposed.” That was followed by this exhortation to Congress: “Do not walk away from reform. Not now. Not when we are so close. Let us find a way to come together and finish the job.”

Taken together, one way to read those lines is as a signal that Obama does want the House to pass the Senate bill, with a reconciliation fix if necessary. After all, he’s essentially telling Congress to move the plan already on the table. It’s too subtle, perhaps, but he did offer Congress a bit more direction than I’d first thought. Right?

Howie P.S.: Arianna has a bone to pick: ""Obama Did Not Make Middle Class The Priority In State Of The Union Speech," with video. More punditry worth reading: "Reality check: Obama gropes for a strategy"(John F. Harris-Politico). Andrew @ the NPI Advocate turns in "President Obama delivers another eloquent call to action... but will there be any action?" Good question.

Maddow Show: "Slowly but Surely for Health Care Reform" (with video)

Morgan Ashenfelter (The Nation) with video from The Rachel Maddow Show (09:45):

The Nation's Washington editor Chris Hayes visits The Rachel Maddow Show to discuss the status of health care reform and the differences of the bill's future between the Senate and House. Hayes explains that while in the House there is a "real movement...to coalesce around a real intent to pass it," the Senate "looks a little tougher."

Because the Senate bill is unlikely to pass as it stands, the bill will have to go through a reconciliation process, which means the Senate will pass a smaller package with changes that the House must pass in order to send it to the president. Hayes says there are three major issues that will be amended by the Senate: the excise tax, national versus state exchanges and subsidies.

Though Hayes is optimistic and believes the votes in the Senate will be there in the reconciliation process, he is worried about a lack of leadership in the Senate to make the process happen quickly. "The Senate needs to show good faith in that they're going to move this through reconciliation," Hayes says. "And the sooner the better."

GRITtv: "Welcome to Irrational America" (with video)

GRITtv, with video (22:10):

A year ago, we had a popular new president and the country seemed ready to make some major changes. Now, we’ve dissolved into anger, infighting, and the most cohesive group in the country at times seems to be the “tea party patriots.” What happened to rational thought, reasonable argument, disputes that didn’t end in name-calling and learning from those who disagree with us?

We ask Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason and contributor to the Washington Post, and Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy for God and Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism), to talk about the problems with our politics, our discourse, our religious disputes, and why “moderates” don’t get off the hook for this.

State of the Union Roundup

"Americans Want Obama to Spend More Time on the Economy, Poll Finds" (Wall Street Journal):

On the eve of President Barack Obama's State of the Union address, voters think the president should be spending more time on the economy.

According to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC poll, 51% of Americans believe Mr. Obama has paid "too little attention" to the economy. Forty-four percent think he has paid "too much attention" to his proposed overhaul of health care. A plurality continues to think that Mr. Obama's health-care plan is a bad idea.

"Obama will 'accept responsibility' (but not blame) for the lack of promised change" (AMERICAblog/NY Times):

The latest revelation about tonight's speech, via Jeff Zeleny at the NY Times, is that Obama will be somewhat contrite in his speech tonight. Giving this leak to Zeleny means the White House team really wanted prominent placement for this aspect of the speech (and for it to be part of the pundit chatter today.)

"House to Senate: We're Ready On Health Care If You Are" (TPM):

Leading Democrats in the House still insist that "all options are on the table" to move ahead on health care. But for the first time since last Tuesday's special election in Massachusetts, it's clear that they're coalescing around the most widely discussed option: moving ahead with the Senate bill once it's clear that it will be changed through the filibuster-proof reconciliation process. Before they can move ahead, they need the Senate to make some real headway on their end of the bargain--and they're not getting the signs they need.

Howie P.S.: Tie health care to the economy, take a 2x4 to certain senators and "it's all good!" Hit the links for the full stories. More good news: Joe Wilson promises to"button it"! Ben Smith ruins my happy-talk party by linking to this from Politico: "Top Democrats at war - with each other." Another turd in the punch bowl: "The Sorry State of the Union" (Robert Scheer).

"This President Ought to Know Better" (FiveThirtyEight)

Tom Schaller (FiveThirtyEight):

My post yesterday flowered into a full-blown column for the Baltimore Sun today, in which I concede that America is a center-right nation--but not, however, in the way you might think.

An excerpt first, and then some further observations to follow:

Let me preface the following analogy by clarifying that I am not equating conservatives or Republicans to terrorists. But enacting progressive change is akin to defending against terror in one important way: Progressives must win repeatedly and at every stage, whereas those opposed to change typically need to win but once, at any stage. Power is as power resists.

Consider, for example, that Republican George W. Bush was able to push not one but three far-from-popular income tax cuts through a Congress boasting smaller Republican majorities than those the Democrats enjoy today. Thanks to the Republican voting tendencies of smaller states, the GOP's Senate majority at the time represented fewer Americans nationally than did the Democratic minorities.

What this and other juxtapositions tell us is that a supermajority is needed to govern from the center-left, whereas a simple majority or even a minority is capable of governing from the center-right. See, for example, the 2000 election result...

When conservative commentators grumble that "America is a center-right nation," they are right in one, undeniable sense: The institutional dynamics of American politics favor doing less in general, and yet more in the pursuit and preservation of powerful, monied interests. Nobody familiar with the long, slow, costly political battles for abolition, labor equality, consumer protection, civil rights and women's rights would dare argue otherwise.

This is why the flip of a single Senate seat means more for obstructionism than it ever could for progressivism. All ties go to the status quo even though, with 59 percent Democratic majorities in each chamber, Congress is hardly split evenly.

Look, liberals should be rightly upset with the Obama Administration for failing to recognize that battles to effect major, non-incremental policy change require (1) a lot of political capital in the first place; (2) and the exertion of unusual presidential influence on other Washington elites; (3) and a sophisticated and coordinated message campaign; (4) and probably a bit of luck.

On the first, as political scientist Paul Light explained long ago, a president's political capital--comprised as Light contends of public approval ratings; electoral margins and mandates; congressional party support; and presidential reputation--is largely an external resource, mostly determined by others or outside forces. Although presidents surely can do things to improve their public standing or boost their congressional majorities, their bank reserve of political capital is not entirely within their control. On the last, well, luck is luck: You take it when you can get it and hope it doesn't turn against you.

That leaves the middle two factors--exertion of presidential influence over key Washington actors, and the education and persuasion of the broader public--both of which remain(ed) almost exclusively within the control and purview of the White House. In that regard, while recently re-reading recently an autumn National Journal article by Kirk Victor entitled "Is Obama Tough Enough?", this three-paragraph section near the start of the piece jumped off the page at me:

"Obama has created an atmosphere of no fear," says Douglas Brinkley, a history professor at Rice University and the author of several presidential biographies. "Nobody is really worried about the revenge of Barack Obama, because he is not a vengeful man. That's what we love about him -- he is so high-minded, and a conciliatory guy, and he tries to govern with a sense of consensus -- all noble goals, but they don't get you very far in this Washington knifing environment."

"He has been all carrots and no sticks so far," observed a veteran Senate Democratic aide, speaking on condition of anonymity. Obama's style "has to be more Lyndon Johnson. Half, 'I love you, but I'll stick this screwdriver right through your heart in a second if it is to my advantage.' On the fear question, I don't think he or his team is feared."

Brinkley agrees: "He needs to be more like LBJ or Theodore Roosevelt. He has to change his tactical framework, if his personality will allow it, to being a much more in-your-face, cutthroat, high-minded nationalist, pushing the country's agenda to the people."

Connecting the top and bottom halves of this post, Obama--who, incidentally, is not only a former community organizer fully conversant in the history of social movements and the resistance to them, but a former constitutional law professor and student of presidential politics--needed to recognize from the jump that a supermajority-worthy personal and public campaign had to be waged on behalf of healthcare reform. A few heads should have rolled, a few prisoners taken. Rather than worrying as she was today about disgusting and devious wiretappers, Sen. Mary Landrieu--no Senate titan she--should have spent the past few months worried about the Wrath of Obama. Joe Lieberman, ditto.

Meanwhile, there should have been a rollout explaining that reform was not only good for corporate employers and thus American productivity, but also for worker and workplace performance and, thus again, American productivity. He should framed reform in those terms--rather than as a series of vignettes, true and as sad as they may be, about people with dropped coverage or bankrupting bills--and then publicly dared Republicans and their tea-partying conservative allies to vote against a bill that would make the American economy and the workers who fuel it more effective, more efficient, more productive and more competitive because we would no longer lose time and money and paperwork and missed work days to a cobbled-together health care system constructed more or less around the time The Edsel rolled out.

This much is for sure: Tomorrow night is a big moment for the President. And Obama should come out with guns ablazing. Hope, bipartisanship, compromise and listening are great while campaigning as a presidential candidate. But this is governing by the President of the United States and, more specifically, presidential governing within a political system and during a partisan era in which truly progressive reforms will always need to clear more and higher hurdles...as this President--of all presidents--ought to know.

Howie P.S.: Eugene Robinson advises "Obama can't create change with words alone":

It doesn't matter whether Obama speaks in a loud voice. What's important is that he speak in a clear voice, a definitive voice. When he draws a line in the sand -- about health care, jobs, energy, whatever -- he should do everything in his power to defend that line, even if it means bruised feelings and ruffled feathers.

In the end, voters will respect Obama's accomplishments, not his aspirations. They will reward his passion, not his polish. It's fine for the president to tell Americans that he's fighting on their behalf, as long as he remembers that what they really want is not so much for him to fight but to win.

"Clyburn: House Dems Will Pass Senate Bill If Fix Is Guaranteed; Urges Obama To Push Dems Harder"

Greg Sargent:

An influential House Democrat is now predicting that House Dems will pass the Senate health bill if they are persuaded they have a guarantee that it will be fixed in reconciliation — a declaration that could give a boost of momentum for the prospects of getting reform done via this route.

In an interview with me, House majority whip James Clyburn also urged the President to throw his weight behind this approach during tomorrow’s State of the Union Address, declaring that it would be “helpful.”

The comments from Clyburn — who’s been canvassing opinion from members in recent days — could contribute to a growing sense that this is course of action most likely to succeed, and could give ammo to to those pressing this case.

“I feel certain that the House Democrats will pass health care reform if the fixes that we feel need to be made to the Senate bill are guaranteed,” Clyburn said. Asked directly if the House votes would be there if this happened, Clyburn said: “Yes, sir.”

Clyburn’s comments suggest that if Dem leaders figure out a way of demonstrating to House Democrats that the reconciliation fix is iron-clad, they could support the Senate bill in large enough numbers to pass.

Clyburn cautioned, however, that House Dems would have to be convinced of the veracity of the fix, citing the “natural distrust between the two bodies.” He added that House Dems would want to see the fix address their opposition to the “Cadillac” tax, to state-based exchanges, and to various sweetheart deals for Senators.

Clyburn called on the President to use his clout and prestige to urge Congressional Dems to follow this course of action during tomorrow’s speech.

“I think that would be helpful,” Clyburn said. “I would like for him to say that we ought to do the fixes…and pass the rest of the Senate bill. I think it would be good for him to let everybody know.”

Howie P.S.: Another post from Sargent: "Failing To Change The Way People Think."

Where's Obama the populist? (Updated)

UPDATE: "Dem leaders unite on health care strategy" (WaPo).

Howie P.S.: Memo to House---Pass the Senate Bill.

Rahm "Draws Fire From Left as Obama Falters" (Wall Street Journal), with video (04:17):

President Barack Obama's liberal backers have a long list of grievances. The Guantanamo Bay prison is still open. Health care hasn't been transformed. And Wall Street banks are still paying huge bonuses.

But they are directing their anger less at Mr. Obama than at the man who works down the hall from him. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, they say, is the prime obstacle to the changes they thought Mr. Obama's election would bring.

The friction was laid bare in August when Mr. Emanuel showed up at a weekly strategy session featuring liberal groups and White House aides. Some attendees said they were planning to air ads attacking conservative Democrats who were balking at Mr. Obama's health-care overhaul.

"F—ing retarded," Mr. Emanuel scolded the group, according to several participants. He warned them not to alienate lawmakers whose votes would be needed on health care and other top legislative items.

The antipathy reflects deep dissatisfaction on the Democratic left with Mr. Obama's first year in office, and represents a fracturing of the relationship between the president and the political base that mobilized to elect him. A little more than one year ago, Mr. Obama's victory led some to predict an era of Democratic dominance.

The anger on the left shows that Mr. Obama is caught in an internal battle over both the course of his administration and the Democratic Party.

Many in the party, particularly in the wake of the loss last week of a Massachusetts Senate seat, contend that the White House should chart a centrist approach focusing on the economy. They point to polls showing Mr. Obama's approval rating among independent voters has dropped by nearly 20 percentage points since early last year.

The left has gotten some of what it wanted: a ban on torture, an expansion of children's health insurance and an equal-pay law for women. But liberal activists say those and other measures add up to far less than what they expected.

Cenk Uygur, a liberal talk-radio host, calls Mr. Emanuel "Barack Obama's Dick Cheney." One group has run ads against Mr. Emanuel in his hometown of Chicago. And Jane Hamsher, a prominent liberal blogger, is going after Mr. Emanuel's service—10 years ago—on the board of housing-finance giant Freddie Mac.

For the president, Mr. Emanuel is a useful foil, playing a role akin to that of James Baker, who absorbed attacks from unhappy conservatives while chief of staff to Ronald Reagan. Mr. Emanuel is a centrist cut from the Bill Clinton mold, and his presence is useful as the president tries to cut deals with centrists and conservatives.

The unrest among liberals comes at a perilous political time. Party strategists worry that anger on the left could depress turnout in this year's midterm elections and cost the party congressional seats and state governorships. The most recent Wall Street Journal/NBC survey found 55% of Republicans "very interested" in the November elections, compared with 38% of Democrats.

The tension between Mr. Emanuel and liberals has spurred speculation that he might leave the White House, perhaps to run for office again, something he denies.

After the party's Massachusetts loss, criticism of the chief of staff—not only from activists, but from members of Congress—has increased.

In recent days, the White House turned to two other top advisers, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod, to discuss on network television how the Massachusetts defeat will affect the president's agenda.

There have been reports of tension between Mr. Emanuel and Ms. Jarrett, who is more ideologically in tune with the liberal base and close with the Obama family, but several people who have worked with the two say they get along fine.

Matthew Rothschild, editor of the Progressive, an antiwar magazine, wrote this month that Mr. Emanuel has "delivered defeat" for Mr. Obama and should be fired.

The president, he wrote, "needs a chief of staff with the wisdom to help point him down a bold, progressive path."

Mr. Emanuel responds with a reference to the party's base: "They like the president, and that's all that counts."

Allies say the chief of staff's strategy is purely realistic, that compromise is required in order to pass legislation. Mr. Emanuel's defenders note that Mr. Obama campaigned as a pragmatist who would value bipartisanship over ideology.

On health care, Mr. Emanuel negotiated with Republicans, pharmaceutical and health-insurance companies.

He also supported Congress dropping liberal ideas that didn't have enough support, in particular the "public option," a provision in which the government would provide health insurance for a large swath of the population. "Rahm's approach, like the president, is not ideological. It's practical," says Bruce Reed, chief executive of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council and a frequent recipient of Mr. Emanuel's phone calls. "The administration's strategy has been to pass health-care reform, not die trying."

John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning think tank with close ties to the White House, says he hears the griping about Mr. Emanuel's health-care strategy all the time, even in his own organization. "He's a pretty skilled practitioner of what it takes to get something done on Capitol Hill," he says. "But by moving in that direction, they've paid a big price on the public side, and the bill is unpopular and misunderstood."

"It's better if everyone on the outside is mad at the chief of staff than mad at the president," adds Mr. Podesta, a chief of staff to President Clinton.

While a number of Mr. Emanuel's predecessors, including Messrs. Baker and Podesta, were considered skilled gatekeepers for their bosses, Mr. Emanuel's résumé is somewhat unique: previous White House experience, a short spell as an investment banker, six years in the House as a representative from Illinois, responsibility for setting national campaign strategy for House races and a reputation as a brass-knuckled enforcer.

From his early days in Washington, Mr. Emanuel, who is 50 years old, was more interested in legislative and political victories than ideological warfare, say friends and critics alike. He saw himself as a "New Democrat," identifying with party centrists who were embroiled in an ideological struggle with liberals. As a senior adviser in the Clinton White House, Mr. Emanuel supported the president's tactic of "triangulation," in which Mr. Clinton joined forces with Republicans to push an overhaul of welfare, crime and illegal-immigration policies.

After winning a House seat in 2002, he was chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and was credited with delivering the majority for his party in the 2006 elections. His strategy was to recruit conservative Democrats to run in Republican-leaning districts.

Within weeks of taking up his White House post, Mr. Emanuel was shuttling between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to resolve disagreements over the $787 billion economic-stimulus package. The legislation angered Republicans, but also irked the left, which regarded the package as too small and complained that Mr. Emanuel was intent on negotiating with the party's more conservative members.

Activists and former campaign staff members watched with dismay as Mr. Emanuel and his team pursued a traditional Washington style of Capitol Hill negotiations and deal making. Activists on the left had hoped the administration would use Mr. Obama's grass-roots campaign network, Organizing for America, and its email list with 13 million names to pressure lawmakers into adopting a more left-leaning agenda, such as pushing for universal health-care coverage.

House aides describe Mr. Emanuel's role in legislative negotiations as more involved than any chief of staff in recent times. During tense House votes on the stimulus package, climate-change legislation and health care, Mr. Emanuel barraged skittish members with phone calls and BlackBerry messages. In one case, he tracked down a Democratic member in the showers at the House gym to make sure he was an aye vote, says one congressional aide.

By the spring, civil libertarians and others were pushing the White House to roll back Bush-era antiterrorism policies on matters ranging from Guantanamo Bay to torture. In meetings of senior advisers, Mr. Emanuel was often the loudest voice questioning the wisdom of such changes, according to a participant in the discussions. His concern wasn't so much the substance of the policy, but the political consequences, this person says.

On May 19, civil-liberties advocates joined Mr. Obama, Mr. Emanuel and other aides for a meeting at the White House. They aired their frustrations with the president's policies. The president listened and asked questions.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who attended the meeting, says he had grown suspicious of Mr. Emanuel, who as a congressman had a largely pro-ACLU voting record. Mr. Romero says he noticed a shift when Mr. Emanuel became "consigliere at the White House," where he focuses "less on the policy outcomes and more on maintaining a Democratic agenda that will keep the party in power."

In the Clinton White House, Mr. Emanuel saw the pharmaceutical industry kill the administration's health agenda. Avoiding that outcome was his goal last year. He and other White House aides assured industry officials that the legislation wouldn't include price controls, and that the administration wouldn't pursue allowing the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada and Europe if the health plan passed.

The discussions with PhRMA, the drug industry's main lobby group, and other business groups angered many liberals, who felt Mr. Emanuel ceded too much ground. They also opposed the White House's decision to pursue support from Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe.

Mr. Emanuel gave early indication that he was flexible on the public option, telling The Wall Street Journal last July that the door was open to alternative ideas to "keep the private insurers honest." That prompted a mass email from liberal group MoveOn.org, which said that "Emanuel's remarks will only embolden conservative opponents of reform" and that he was backing "disastrous half-measures."

"Everyone seems to be waiting around for the Chicago street brawler Rahm, because the one that showed up in the White House has little apparent fight in him," says Markos Moulitsas, publisher of the liberal blog Daily Kos. "Sure, he's quick to attack progressives when they criticize Obama or put legislative pressure on him from the left, but he's far too quick and happy to accommodate the Democratic Party's corporatist wing."

Mr. Emanuel's "retarded" outburst in August heightened the belief among some liberal leaders that the chief of staff was tough only on the left, especially when the health-care debate turned into a conflagration during a series of town-hall meetings.

The weekly strategy sessions where he made the remark, called the Common Purpose Project, are by invitation only, and participants are sworn to secrecy. Activists say it's a one-way conversation, with the White House presenting its views and asking liberals to refrain from public criticism. Ms. Hamsher, publisher of the Fire Dog Lake blog, calls the gatherings the "veal pen."

One liberal group, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, founded by ex-MoveOn staff member Adam Green, spent $20,000 to briefly air a television ad featuring a former constituent in Mr. Emanuel's House district. "A lot of us back home hope Rahm Emanuel is fighting for people like us as White House chief of staff," said the man in the ad. "But if he sides with insurance companies and undermines the public option, well, he won't have many fans in Chicago."

Rep. Anthony Weiner, a New York Democrat and one of the House's more liberal members, recalls telling Mr. Emanuel the White House needed to apply more pressure to secure passage of the public option. Mr. Emanuel's response, Mr. Weiner says, was always the same: He was open to any idea that could gain a majority vote.

"Where's The Movement?" (George Lakoff):

In forming his administration, President Obama abandoned the movement that had begun during his campaign for deal-making and a pragmatism that hasn’t worked. That movement is still possible and needed now. Here is look at what is required, and how a version of it is forming in California.

Freedom vs. The Public Option

Which would you prefer, consumer choice or freedom? Extended coverage or freedom? Bending the cost curve or freedom?

John Boehner, House Minority Leader, speaking of health care, said recently, "This bill is the greatest threat to freedom that I have seen in the 19 years I have been here in Washington....It’s going to lead to a government takeover of our health care system, with tens of thousands of new bureaucrats right down the street, making these decisions [choose your doctor, buy your own health insurance] for you."

This is exactly what Frank Luntz advised conservatives to say. They have repeated it and repeated it. Why has it worked to rally conservative populists against their interests? The most effective framing is more than mere language, more than spin or salesmanship. It has worked because conservatives really believe that the issue is freedom. It fits the conservative moral system. It fits how conservatives see the world.

The Democrats have helped the conservatives. Their pathetic attempt to make any deal to get 60 votes convinced even Massachusetts voters that government under the Democrats was corrupt and oppressive, not just inept, but immoral.

All politics is moral

All political leaders argue that they are doing the right thing, not the wrong thing, that their policies are moral, not evil.

Conservatives understand this, liberals tend not to. Conservatives know a morality tale when they see it: Greedy Wall Street bankers, who have cost people their homes, their jobs, and their savings get billion-dollar bailouts from the government, while those honest hard-working people get nothing. Corruption. Oppression. A threat to freedom.

The conservatives are winning the framing wars again — by sticking to moral principles as conservatives see them, and communicating their view of morality effectively. In the 2008 election, Barack Obama ran a campaign based on his moral principles and communicated those principles as effectively as any candidate ever has.

But the Obama administration made a 180-degree turn, trading Obama’s 2008 moral principles for the deal-making of Rahm Emanuel and Tim Geithner, assuming it would be "pragmatic" to court corporations and move to the right, in the false hope of bipartisan support. A clear unified moral vision was replaced by long laundry lists of policy options that the public could not understand, and that made ordinary folks feel they were being bamboozled. And in many cases, they were.

Even the language was a disaster. Liberals thought that conservatives would like consumer choice. That’s why they used "public option." As Harry Reid said, "It’s public and it’s an option — a public option." But what did a conservative hear in the words "public option?" Say "public" and he hears "government." "Option" is a policy-wonk term, from the language of bureaucracy. Say "public option" and the conservative hears "government bureaucracy."

The results of deal-making in the name of pragmatism have been considerably immoral, as documented thoroughly by progressives like Drew Westen, Matt Taibbi, Robert Kuttner, and many others. Advice on what to do instead has not been lacking from other progressives. Advice is all over the blogs. Guy Saperstein is an excellent example.

We progressives are long on factual analysis, critique, suggestion — and ridicule. Rachel Maddow is one of the best, and her popularity is well-deserved. What’s more fun than ridiculing Tea Party-ers, Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck, and the like, by showing the factual errors, the flaws in their logic, and the cruelty of their positions.

But we have been dealt a triple blow. A year of failed deal-making by our side, the Tea Party win in Massachusetts, and worst of all, the 5-4 Supreme Court decision to turn our democracy into a corporate plutocracy. This is serious.

Democrats still have the presidency and a majority in the House and Senate, but the momentum is on the conservative side. Their victories in the framing wars have inevitably led to a crucial electoral victory and to a Supreme Court death threat to democracy itself, framed as free speech.
Democrats have electoral power, but progressives have not created an effective movement to take advantage of that power.

"Where’s the movement?"

In the emerging Obama mythology, this is the question attributed to President Obama whenever he is asked to take the lead on a progressive issue. It is not an idle question. Leaders can only lead if there is a pre-existing movement for them to get in front of.

Moreover, there are other conditions. The idea behind a movement, and the language expressing its goals, must also pre-exist in public discourse. In other words, the movement must already have:

• a popular base;
• organizing tools;
• a generally accepted morally-based conceptual framing;
• an overall narrative, with heroes, victims, and villains;
• a readily recognizable, well-understood language;
• funding sources;
• and a national communication system set up for both leaders and ordinary citizens to use.

The base is there, waiting for something worth getting behind. The organizing tools are there. The rest is not there.

That is the present reality. Expecting Obama to be FDR was politically unrealistic. And complaining that he isn’t doesn’t move anything forward.

Howard Dean was right when he said, "YOU have the power." What is needed is an organized activist public with a positive understanding of what our values are and how to links them to every issue. Barney Frank was only half-right when he said that the public gets active only when it is angry. That may be true for isolated issues — he was talking about regulating Wall Street. But anger is directed at isolated negatives. An effective movement must be positive, organized, and long-term, where an overall positive understanding defines the isolated negatives. And it must have all of the above.

The California Democracy Movement

We have the beginning of such a movement in California.
The central issue in California is basic democracy. California is the only state in America where the legislature is controlled by a relatively small conservative minority. Because it takes a 2/3 vote in both the Senate and Assembly to pass a budget or any tax, 1/3 plus one – 34% — in either house can control the vote by saying no to measures that would finance public needs.

Conservatives exercise that control for the simple reason that they don’t believe that government should serve public needs, that instead government should be privatized and shrunk to fit in a bathtub, as if governing would disappear with government.

But governing doesn’t disappear when government shrinks; instead corporations come to govern your life — like HMO’s, oil companies, drug companies, agribusiness, and so on, with accountability only to maximizing profit, not to public needs.

An overwhelming majority of Californians — over 60% — disagree. They believe that government should serve public needs, and they have elected sensible legislators. But they don’t quite make up 2/3. And so an extreme right-wing minority – about 37% — controls the state, its present and its future.

Luckily, there is a way out for the majority in California. The initiative process that created this situation can get us out. I have proposed The California Democracy Act as an initiative in the November 2010 election. It changes two words in the California Constitution – "two-thirds" becomes "a majority" in two places. It can be described in one simple sentence: All legislative actions on revenue and budget must be determined by a majority vote. That ballot initiative needs only a majority to pass. It would return majority rule to the legislature on everyday economic issues, bringing democracy back to California. Those interested can join the campaign by clicking on www.CaliforniansForDemocracy.com

Democracy is the central issue, and that is what our movement is about. We are setting up an infrastructure in California, with a statewide organization and a speakers’ bureau, for those who want to continue democratizing the state after the election.

Democracy is The Issue

The majority vote campaign gives us a chance to talk not only about this particular issue, but about democracy as it affects all issues. The clearest articulator of what democracy is about has been Barack Obama — the campaigner we cheered for, campaigned hard for, and voted for.

Democracy, he has observed, is based on empathy — on citizens caring about one another. That’s why we have principles like freedom and fairness, for everybody, not just for the rich and powerful. True empathy requires responsibility, not just for oneself, but also for others. And since we, as individuals and as a nation, are far from perfect, empathy demands an ethic of excellence, of making oneself better, one’s family and community better, and one’s nation better.

That view of citizenship in a democracy comes with a view of government. Government has two sacred moral missions: protection and empowerment.

Protection goes well beyond police and the military and the fire department to consumer protection, environmental protection, worker protection, health care, investor protection, social security, and other safety nets.

Empowerment is what the stimulus package was about: building and maintaining roads, bridges, public transportation, and public buildings; systems for communication, electricity, water; education, from pre-school through graduate and professional schools; scientific research and technological development; a banking system that works; a stock market that works; and a judicial system that works.

No one earns a living or lives well without protection and empowerment by the government. That is what taxes pay for. And the more you make from what the government gives you, the more you should contribute to keeping it going.

Tax Shifts

When you cut taxes that pay for public needs, you are actually shifting taxes. You are taxing others. In California tax cuts for corporations last year led to cuts in the support for public universities, which led to 32% higher tuition and a drastic cut in the number of students educated. That 32% constituted a tax on those students and their parents, and when they had to borrow the money for college, interest payments on the loan effectively double the cost of the loan. That’s a very high tax shift. But an even higher tax is shifted onto students who cannot afford the higher tuition: the tax of a lost education lasts all one’s life and its cost is not only monetary, but a cost in human potential. It is also a cost to employers, who get less educated workers, and to society, which gets less educated citizens.

The Movement

We will be talking about all of this and more. Take economic democracy. California is the world’s seventh richest economy. It is ludicrous to say that there is no money in California. If the money for public needs is there, where is it? In California, the richest one percent owns more assets than the bottom 95 per cent. The money is concentrated at the top.

Just about every issue comes down to the issue of democracy. That is why we are starting with the California Democracy Act, which would finally end the rule of the state by a small minority of ultra-conservative legislators. It would finally give the voters of the state a voice in their own future and the future of their children and grandchildren.

If you live in California (one out of eight Americans does), then join the California Democracy Movement. If you live elsewhere, form your own democracy movement and unite with us. The principles are simple, and they are Obama’s:

Democracy is about empathy — caring about your fellow citizens, which leads to the principles of freedom and fairness for all. Empathy requires both personal and social responsibility. The ethic of excellence means making the world better by making yourself better, your family better, your community better, and your nation better. Government has two moral missions: protection and empowerment for all. To carry them out, government must be by, for, and of the people.

It’s only a paragraph. The principles apply to all issues. That’s the basis of a democracy movement. That’s what separates a movement from a coalition. Coalitions are based on interests. Movements are based on principles. We need a movement that transcends interests and goes beyond coalitions.

Movements also transcend particular policies. The framing of moral principles comes first and the policies elaborate on the principles. The way to unite a movement is to form policies that carry out the principles in ways that everyone can understand.

The time is now

We have a triple disaster on our hands: the administration’s failure at deal-making in the name of pragmatism and bipartisanship; the Tea Party victory in Massachusetts fueling and propelling ultra-conservatism; and the anti-democratic 5-4 ruling of the Roberts Court. We can no longer sit on our hands and just criticize the President, or give him advice and hope he can do it alone. We have to provide the answer to his question: Where’s the movement?

Howie P.S.: If Obama can figure out how to be "President Barack-Alinsky," he will realize all the "hope" he inspired.

"Ed Schultz Tells Robert Gibbs He’s ‘Full Of Sh*t’ And ‘You’re Losing Your Base’ " (with video) (Updated)

UPDATE: "Gibbs: Ed Schultz Misleads Viewers To “Get People To Watch His Show” (Greg Sargent).

Think Progress, with video (17:28):

Last night, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz spoke at Minnesota progressive talk radio AM950’s Blue State Bash at the Minneapolis Convention Center. During his remarks, Schultz revealed that he recently had a testy confrontation with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (Gibbs appeared on Schultz’s show this past Thursday). “Mr. Gibbs and I had quite a conversation off the air the other night,” he revealed:

SCHULTZ: I told him he was full of sh*t is what I told him. … And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb. … I told Robert Gibbs, I said “And I’m sorry you’re swearing at me, but I’m just trying to help you out. I’m telling you you’re losing your base. Do you understand you’re losing your base?”

Schultz also noted that April 7 will be his first anniversary of his TV show, a date that coincides with Sarah Palin’s scheduled appearance on behalf of Michele Bachmann in Minnesota. Schultz — resides in Minnesota — made this pledge to the audience:

If all of you here will make a commitment to me tonight that if I bring my TV show right across the street from where they’re doing their rally, you’ll all show up. [applause] That a deal? Ok, we’ll do it. [...]

We need to get rid of Michele Bachmann. [applause] Any congressional member who thinks that members of Congress should be investigated for their anti-American views doesn’t understand what voting is all about.

Van Hollen: "Senate Bill’s Brand May Be Irrevocably Tarnished, So We May Go Reconciliation Instead"

Greg Sargent:

In a candid assessment of the politics of health care, DCCC chief Chris Van Hollen said in an interview that the Senate bill’s brand may be irrevocably tarnished, particularly among independents — and confirmed that partly for this reason, Dem leaders may pass a new set of reforms via reconciliation, which could be repackaged free of the Senate bill’s taint.

Van Hollen also added that it would be a mistake for Dems to pretend the unpopularity of the Senate reform proposals wasn’t a factor in the Massachusetts loss.

Van Hollen’s comments provide perhaps the clearest glimpse yet into the thinking of Dem leaders and the options they’re considering, and illustrate why they may be reluctant for the House to pass the Senate bill, as some want.

“Because of provisions like the Nebraska deal, the Senate bill has been branded in a way that understandably makes it unacceptable in its current form to many voters, especially independents,” Van Hollen told me, adding that Senator Ben Nelson has acknowledged this provision is problematic and must be changed.

He said this was a lesson of Tuesday’s loss: “The Massachusetts election turned on lots of factors. One factor was health care reform,” he said, referring to the Senate bill.

Van Hollen stressed that all options remain on the table, including the House passing the Senate bill with significant legislative changes. But he said the Senate bill’s image problems had led Dem leaders to give serious consideration to assembling a new package and passing it through reconciliation.

“One option would be to pick up where we were in the House and Senate negotiations and work to incorporate those agreements into some legislative package,” Van Hollen said. “It would have to move through what we are calling the majority rule procedure in the Senate. The provisions that had been agreed to between the House and Senate would be able to survive that process.”

“We would focus on essential elements in the health care package that have wide public support,” he said. Among them: Creating more competition and more consumer choice; taking away special deals for the insurance industry, like the antitrust exemption; and “making sure that insurance companies couldn’t deny you coverage at the time you need it the most.”

These provisions “have gotten lost in the public discussion,” Van Hollen said, adding that repackaging the proposals would let Dems “make it clear that this is a different bill.”

Howie P.S.: The AP has their own timeline and history of the behind-the-scenes "discussions."

"Wall Street's $26m lobbyists gear up to fight Obama banks reform"

People walking to work on Wall Street. Photograph: Mark Lennihan/AP

Guardian UK:

Banks are mobilising a smooth-running lobbying machine in Washington to ­battle Barack Obama's plans to limit the size and scope of Wall Street institutions, as financial services firms gear up to stop a shake-up that could slice away large chunks of their operations.

Their influence on Capitol Hill is broad – the top eight US banks spent $26m (£16m) on lobbying efforts last year, an increase of 6% on 2008 despite their financial woes, according to Congressional records. And in the first 10 months of 2009, the financial industry donated $78.2m to federal candidates and party committees – more than any other business sector – according to political research institute the Centre for Responsive Politics.

"The power of the financial services sector in this city has not dissipated at all … they've just done things in a quieter way," said Ethan Siegel, an analyst at financial consultancy The Washington Exchange, who monitors Congress for big investors. "They haven't pulled back on their lobbying just because they've become piñata [punchbags] in the press."

Wall Street lobbyists argue that scaling back the size of banks misdiagnoses the cause of the financial crisis, jeopardises jobs, damages America's competitiveness and could inhibit growth.

The Financial Services Forum, which represents 18 top banks including Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Citigroup, says the problem of institutions becoming "too big to fail" ought to be tackled through more effective supervision, and by creating an authority able to wind down failing firms, rather than by forcing them to shrink. Spokeswoman Erica Hurtt said: "This was not a trading crisis and these proposals miss the mark. They won't get to the causes of the crisis."

Banks' persuasiveness has already had significant impact on the Obama administration. Plans for the creation of a consumer financial protection agency are meeting staunch Senate opposition and may be watered down to get the 60-40 support needed to override objections.

One widely used strategy by the financial industry has been to deploy representatives of smaller high-street banks to make the case to lawmakers. Organisations such as the Independent Community Bankers of America tend to get a sympathetic hearing because they can point to members in towns and cities in almost every Congressional district, rather than purely in lower Manhattan.

Douglas Elliott, a non-partisan expert in financial services at the Brookings Institution, said JP Morgan and a few other firms were likely to be particularly alarmed at the prospect of a tightening of the existing cap preventing a bank from holding more than 10% of America's insured deposits: "They may already be over any limit under consideration. If they are, they'll probably be allowed to stay unchanged but it will mean they have to eschew acquisitions."

He added that banks will not succeed in defeating restrictions entirely: "Everybody hates banks now and my intuition is that bank lobbyists overplayed their hand last year. It would have been better for them to work out some compromises rather than trying to destroy reform bills entirely."

GRITtv: "Is it Fair to Compare Haiti to New Orleans?" (video)

GRITtv, with video (24:30):

The comparisons between the earthquake in Haiti and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans have come fast and furious, but often from people who’ve watched both disasters through the clean-cut white lens of Anderson Cooper broadcasts. Meanwhile, people in Haiti–and those in the Gulf Coast still struggling four years later–need more than blame and comparisons. They need real solutions.

To offer some, we ask Monika Kalra Varma, director of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Princeton professor, Nation contributor, and author of Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought and James Perry, executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center and candidate for mayor of New Orleans.

Thanks to Chicken & Egg Pictures for video in this segment.

Taibbi: "Obama shifts power away from Geithner"

Matt Taibbi:

Senior administration officials say there is now broad consensus within the White House and the Treasury for the plan advanced by Volcker, who leads an outside economic advisory group for the president. At its heart, Volcker’s plan restricts banks from making speculative investments that do not benefit their customers. He has argued that such speculative activity played a key role in the financial crisis. [Source]

Obviously this is good news, but what I find irritating about it is that the government only starts listening to its voters once the more corrupt option turns out to be untenable. They are making these moves out of necessity now, and that’s great — but it’s too bad they had to drive us right to the edge of the cliff before they thought about backing up.

There are rumors all over the place that Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner is about gone, and I’ve even heard some gossip indicating that Rahm Emanuel might have to start watching his back. Hey, whatever works. Obama, as is his nature I think, tried to take the fork in the road all year, making nice to his base while actually delivering to his money people, not realizing the two were perpetually in conflict. His failure to make a clear choice, or rather to make the right choice, is what has doomed him everywhere politically.

It will be interesting to see what comes next, whether this is just for show or not.

Howie P.S.: Another sign of change: "Plouffe stepping up role as adviser to White House."

"The “Grow a Pair” solution to health care reform" (video)

liamkylesullivan, video (01:00).

Howie P.S.: This was released October 18, 2009. It has over 100,000 views. Please forgive the gratuitous references to male anatomy. H/t to Darryl.

Bob Herbert on the Dems: "They Still Don’t Get It"

Bob Herbert (NY Times):

How loud do the alarms have to get? There is an economic emergency in the country with millions upon millions of Americans riddled with fear and anxiety as they struggle with long-term joblessness, home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies and dwindling opportunities for themselves and their children.

The door is being slammed on the American dream and the politicians, including the president and his Democratic allies on Capitol Hill, seem not just helpless to deal with the crisis, but completely out of touch with the hardships that have fallen on so many.

While the nation was suffering through the worst economy since the Depression, the Democrats wasted a year squabbling like unruly toddlers over health insurance legislation. No one in his or her right mind could have believed that a workable, efficient, cost-effective system could come out of the monstrously ugly plan that finally emerged from the Senate after long months of shady alliances, disgraceful back-room deals, outlandish payoffs and abject capitulation to the insurance companies and giant pharmaceutical outfits.

The public interest? Forget about it.

With the power elite consumed with its incessant, discordant fiddling over health care, the economic plight of ordinary Americans, from the middle class to the very poor, got pathetically short shrift. And there is no evidence, even now, that leaders of either party fully grasp the depth of the crisis, which began long before the official start of the Great Recession in December 2007.

A new study from the Brookings Institution tells us that the largest and fastest-growing population of poor people in the U.S. is in the suburbs. You don’t hear about this from the politicians who are always so anxious to tell you, in between fund-raisers and photo-ops, what a great job they’re doing. From 2000 to 2008, the number of poor people in the U.S. grew by 5.2 million, reaching nearly 40 million. That represented an increase of 15.4 percent in the poor population, which was more than twice the increase in the population as a whole during that period.

The study does not include data from 2009, when so many millions of families were just hammered by the recession. So the reality is worse than the Brookings figures would indicate.

Job losses, stagnant or reduced wages over the past decade, and the loss of home equity when the housing bubble burst have combined to take a horrendous toll on families who thought they had done all the right things and were living the dream. A great deal of that bleeding is in the suburbs. The study, compiled by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program, said, “Suburbs gained more than 2.5 million poor individuals, accounting for almost half of the total increase in the nation’s poor population since 2000.”

Democrats in search of clues as to why voters are unhappy may want to take a look at the report. In 2008, a startling 91.6 million people — more than 30 percent of the entire U.S. population — fell below 200 percent of the federal poverty line, which is a meager $21,834 for a family of four.

The question for Democrats is whether there is anything that will wake them up to their obligation to extend a powerful hand to ordinary Americans and help them take the government, including the Supreme Court, back from the big banks, the giant corporations and the myriad other predatory interests that put the value of a dollar high above the value of human beings.

The Democrats still hold the presidency and large majorities in both houses of Congress. The idea that they are not spending every waking hour trying to fix the broken economic system and put suffering Americans back to work is beyond pathetic. Deficit reduction is now the mantra in Washington, which means that new large-scale investments in infrastructure and other measures to ease the employment crisis and jump-start the most promising industries of the 21st century are highly unlikely.

What we’ll get instead is rhetoric. It’s cheap, so we can expect a lot of it.

Those at the bottom of the economic heap seem all but doomed in this environment. The Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston put the matter in stark perspective after analyzing the employment challenges facing young people in Chicago: “Labor market conditions for 16-19 and 20-24-year-olds in the city of Chicago in 2009 are the equivalent of a Great Depression-era, especially for young black men.”

The Republican Party has abandoned any serious approach to the nation’s biggest problems, economic or otherwise. It may be resurgent, but it’s not a serious party. That leaves only the Democrats, a party that once championed working people and the poor, but has long since lost its way.

Haiti: "Exploitation Nation?" (Newsweek)

Is This Looting?

What's the difference between desperation and danger

Newsweek:

Naomi Klein worries Haitians won't have a role shaping their future.---Bottom feeders follow closely on the heels of disaster. After Hurricane Katrina, private security contractors landed in New Orleans, hired to guard against looters. After the Indian Ocean tsunami, governments in Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, and the Maldives pushed aside coastal villages to make way for resort developers. That kind of profiteering is standard fare. But is it organized? That's what author Naomi Klein says in her book The Shock Doctrine, arguing that "disaster capitalists" take advantage of post-crisis chaos to push through a set of free-market reforms that further their own interests, rather than those of the victims. Is that the case in Haiti right now, even as rescue operations are still underway? NEWSWEEK's Katie Paul chatted with Klein about what she—and the 20,000 people who have already joined the No Shock Doctrine for Haiti group on Facebook—are watching out for this time around. Excerpts:

You've noted in Shock Doctrine how disasters like this earthquake are perfect opportunities for so-called disaster capitalists to move in and profit. Are you seeing evidence of that so far in Haiti?

The shock doctrine is the use of disasters to avoid democracy—using the state of dislocation following a disaster to say that people aren't able to make decisions, so someone else needs to do it for them. But that means policies are pushed through very quickly—unpopular policies that were often on a wish list for elites anyway, but that can suddenly be implemented because people are either traumatized or literally wiped out. In the case of Haiti, the Heritage Foundation didn't even wait 24 hours before they called for the Obama administration to reform Haiti's economy. They also suggested that George W. Bush be appointed and, lo and behold, he was appointed the next day. So they appear to have an audience.

Wait, isn't that standard—
Right, but that idea was first floated on the Heritage Foundation Web site.

—that he's appointed alongside President Clinton?
It's unclear who Bill Clinton is working for. Is it the U.N., the Obama administration, his own foundation? We've already heard talk of a Marshall Plan for Haiti—by Haiti's largest foreign investor, a cell-phone company, at a meeting in Florida with Bill Clinton. Now, they may have very good plans. But the point is that Haitians are not being included in the planning.

Wouldn't cell-phone service be important right away? Lack of communication is a big problem in the relief effort.
Absolutely. When it comes to distributing aid, speed is of the essence. But it's entirely inappropriate to be setting priorities that Haitians will have to live with for decades, like with this Marshall Plan. When it comes to rebuilding, speed can be very damaging—and can be an excuse for avoiding citizen participation. If there's anything we know from New Orleans and Iraq, there needs to be transparency. I don't usually do this, but I'll quote John McCain: early on with Iraq, he said that Iraq is a big pot of honey and there are a lot of flies. Right now, Haiti is the pot of honey. Billions of dollars are going to be allocated for reconstruction. If we want to make sure that whatever gets built is what Haitians want built, then let's lay down that principle now. Once contracts are handed out, there's no going back. Are you actually seeing contracts being handed out already? It's so early.
There's a huge amount of lobbying going on already. But there are really core questions about what Haiti's postquake economy should look like. So, for example, the garment sector wants the new economy to give them shiny new export zones, tax breaks, public money to rebuild their factories—but we also know that they don't pay taxes that build Haiti's public sector, which is part of what deepened this disaster.

In order for any of these big decisions to be truly representative of Haitian desires, wouldn't they need to be made after democratic elections? Given the damage, it seems like that would be a long way off.
That should be built into the cost of reconstruction. We're months away from any actual rebuilding, so there's no need to hand out contracts now. In fact, I think there should be a freeze on contracts until there are mechanisms in place to allow Haitians to participate in a national reconstruction plan. We're talking about designing a country. It isn't about rebuilding it exactly as it was, because everyone would agree that's unacceptable.

How can reconstruction be done without replicating the existing power structures, which have been so problematic for so long?
There should be line items for community-development plans, even referendums. And no contract should be handed out without guarantees that the work will be done by Haitians, at a living wage. People who are donating money right now should be asking a lot of questions about how their money is being spent.

Can you give an example of a country that has managed a disaster economy well?
The community-based responses to the tsunami in Thailand were amazing. Communities set up councils, then worked with architects and planners who actually asked them they wanted their own communities to look like. So often, there's an assumption that a 22-year-old from the Kennedy School knows more about what's best for a country than someone in their 60s who's lived there his entire life. But that's an infantalization of a country.

You've noted that the relief effort so far has been overly militarized. Given that the military is responsible for coordinating much of the aid, why do you think that's inappropriate?
It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. Every day that people are not receiving food, it becomes harder to maintain order.

What we're hearing from U.N. and aid agencies is that they're afraid of going out without military escort. And what we just saw during the quake is that some foreign investors had their own parallel privatized disaster infrastructure. Citigroup sent in private-security SWAT teams equipped with medical supplies and satellite phones to save their people, but not their neighbors. That's dehumanizing. Aid should be prioritized over security. Any aid agency that's afraid of Haitians should get out of Haiti.

Howard Dean: "Health Care Not Dead" (video)

CBSNews, video (02:32).

"The Stars Come Together for Haiti" (live streaming video here today from Hulu@ 5pm Pacific)

Watch here.

Arianna on ED Show on "Lesson learned for the Dems?" (video)

MSNBC, video (06:43).

"It’s Time for Kucinich, Conyers, Feingold and Other ‘Progressives’ to Take a Stand"

Dave Lindorff:

What’s missing in Congress these days is real progressive leadership and real political courage.

Over the past several decades, the Democratic Party has been entirely taken over by corporate shills and money-grubbing sleazes while those who might still have some vestigial remnant of a conscience or genuine concern for the plight of the common person have been co-opted or intimidated into silence or powerlessness.

Look at Dennis Kucinich (D-OH). He says all the right things. He’s fought all the good fights. And yet after 15 years in Congress, he is chair of what? The House subcommittee on domestic policy of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Heck, his post doesn’t even merit capitalization in the AP Stylebook! And when he submits an important bill, like his articles of impeachment of both former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney, he can’t even get a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee.

Which, of course, is chaired by another long-standing allegedly progressive House member, Rep. John Conyers (D-MI). Conyers, despite being chair of the House Progressive Caucus (the largest, and least powerful Democratic Party caucus in the Congress) and despite his having served 22 terms in the House, couldn’t even manage to get “permission” from the Speaker (Rep. Nancy Pelosi–once a member of the Progressive Caucus!) to hold a hearing on impeachment during the Bush/Cheney years in the Judiciary Committee that he chairs. And more recently, he was even barred from having his own health reform proposal–an expansion of Medicare to cover all Americans–get a lousy hearing in the House.

Progressives in the Democratic Party are both joke and oxymoron.

It is time for any real progressives in House or Senate to admit the truth–that they are boxed in and effectively neutered by the Party leadership–and that if they really want to be defenders of the public interest and the progressive cause, they must give up their sinecures, cut themselves loose from the shackles of the Democratic Party, and form a new and independent national progressive party. They have a model: Bernie Sanders, the independent self-described socialist senator from Vermont. Of course, even Sanders is boxed in, given that he is alone in the Senate as an independent progressive , so that if he wants a committee assignment he has to agree to vote with the Democrats on the key issues of party control. But that is because there is nobody standing with him in the Senate.

This could change if the progressive caucus members of both houses were to quit the sell-out Democrats and form the nucleus of a new party, instead of just a caucus within the sclerotic and rancidly corrupt Democratic Party.

There is a huge ferment across the land. Americans of all political persuasions are angry, fearful, frustrated and ready for change. That’s why so many of them voted for a black presidential candidate promising “real change” in 2008. The trouncing of Democratic senate candidate Martha Coakley this week in the Massachusetts special election to fill the seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy was a direct result of the anger that those same voters feel at being betrayed by that president, who instead of change has given them more of the same pro-corporate, anti-common-citizen politics that they were trying to escape.

We on the left know that nothing much is going to change in America until there is a genuine people’s party on the ballot, but for years we have watched in despair as well-meaning third parties like Peace & Freedom, the Green Party, the Socialist Party-USA and others (including parties not on the left like the Libertarians) have tried and failed to become national political forces. These efforts have been stymied because American voters, sensibly, have not wanted to “waste their votes” by casting ballots for Third Party candidates who stand no chance of being elected. They have been stymied because Americans have either been forced to accept a “lesser of two evils” approach to voting, or to simply not vote.

But true progressives in Congress who have the advantage of incumbency–people like Kucinich, Conyers, Feingold and others–could run as independents, or better, as third party candidates and win. And if they were to choose to run as a new third party, they would open the door for many other new candidates to run with them. They would give legitimacy to the idea of voting for something other than a corrupt Republican or a corrupt Democrat.

Americans are not stupid. They recognize that the two big parties are both acting in collusion in selling them all out to monolithic corporate interests, and that Washington is thoroughly owned by the rich and the powerful. That’s why only half of Americans even bother to vote (actually far fewer than that in off-year elections like the one coming up this November). And those who do vote, vote for major party candidates, for the most part not out of enthusiasm, but out of desperation.

If they had candidates on the ballot whom they really thought were on their side, and who really had a shot at winning, they would abandon the Democratic Party frauds in a heartbeat.

A secession by true progressives in Congress from the Democratic Party and the formation of a new party by that group of rebels–and remember, there are 80 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus–would hit the Democratic Party like a perfectly placed explosive charge detonated in the foundation of an old building slated for demolition. The whole edifice would collapse in a cloud of smoke and dust. No Democratic incumbent would be safe. Upstart candidates would come out of the woodwork to challenge them from the left in virtually every state in the country. Republican candidates too would face real challenges, not from centrists, but from real left candidates.

Too much can be expected of electoral politics, and certainly, even in the highly improbable event that every member of the Progressive Caucus were to quit the Democrats, run for re-election as an independent or as the member of some new progressive party, and win the first time out, the dominant Democrats and Republicans and the corporate lobbyists behind them could still keep the government in the hands of the existing corporate power structure.

But even if only some of the caucus were to bolt, the door would suddenly be open for a new national politics. Workers and their labor unions would no longer feel bound to support Democratic hacks, and many could be expected to shift their allegiance and financial backing to the new party, as could environmentalists, health care reform advocates, anti-war activists, education reformers and all the other progressives who have had nowhere to turn politically for years.

So here’s the call: If you have a so-called progressive as your Senator or Representative, tell him or her that you will no longer giver them your vote unless they first quit the Democratic Party.

It’s time for the Progressive Caucus in Congress to put up or shut up: Quit the party! You ain’t doing no good for nobody serving in Congress as a Democrat!

Howie P.S.: Anybody heard anything from Congressman McDermott?

Rachel Maddow: "They can't let it die" (video)

MSNBC, video (05:46).