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jerome armstrong's User Page

Political blogger since 2001, I've worked for statewide and national campaigns.
http://claimid.com/jeromearmstrong

None of the above

What the FU&%$ is this?






If anyone is still there that worked with Howard Dean they ought to hang their head low.



Screw Mark Penn and the dept of debt that he rode in on.



I'm too busy trying to defeat Terry McAuliffe in the VA primary to blog much lately (its a sort of karmic payback for the '08 primary experience); you'll thank me later.

btw, this video was shot from the driver seat of a UAW/American-built Chevy Traverse recently, and expresses a glimpse on the race I'm too close too for any sort of analytical reflection, but none-the-less:

Bailouts & Parties

I read through Glenn Reynolds article about the Tea Parties today, which presents itself as "a post-partisan expression of outrage" which makes me chuckle, given how front and center the "former" hyper-partisan Republicans like Michelle Malkin have been to the movement.  

On the one hand, it's obvious that the Democrats capitulating to their knees for Bank bailouts has severely damaged the Party's credibility as an outsider agent of change. I had mild hopes for February and March being markers when we would see Congress/Obama makes some real progress, either on Labor bargaining, or Healthcare reform. Instead, the continuation of failed Wall Street bailouts became the agenda-- a political disaster for the Democratic Party.

On the other hand, most of the Republican Representatives and Senators are even more in the pocket of interests such as the banks. They might feign outrage for mock political capital, but when the AIG bonuses are voted on, they quickly capitulate to their bellies before their gods on Wall Street.

Glenn Reynolds recognizes a failed party when he sees it:

This influx of new energy and new talent is likely to inject new life into small-government politics around the nation. The mainstream Republican Party still seems limp and disorganized. This grassroots effort may revitalize it. Or the tea-party movement may lead to a new third party that may replace the GOP, just as the GOP replaced the fractured and hapless Whigs.

Then, at the same time, we have a DHS ("Janet Napolitano, playing the role of Janet Reno") that has put out a lame report on "right-wing extremist activity" rising in the US. Again, how can one resist a chuckle, with what Glenn Greenwald calls the ultimate reaping of what one sows:

I don't recall any complaints from Jonah Goldberg or Michelle Malkin. I don't recall Glenn Reynolds or Mark Steyn complaining that the FBI, for virtually the entire Bush administration, was systematically abusing its new National Security Letters authorities under the Patriot Act to collect extremely invasive information, in secret, about Americans who had done nothing wrong. Russ Feingold's efforts to place limits and abuse-preventing safeguards on these Patriot Act powers in 2006 attracted a grand total of 10 votes in the Senate -- none Republican.
But then, we have the "Obama Mimics Bush on State Secrets" & "an emerging progressive consensus on Obama's executive power and secrecy abuses" to contemplate; alongside the military getting their surge in Afghanistan while Obama & passive Democratic Congress acquiesce to the Pentagon's agenda. It all combines with providing a simple realization. Whatever partisan chuckle you might get from re-invented posturing by conservatives, its main holding power is a distraction from noticing the way in which Democrats have taken a hold of the worst of the Bush agenda --corporate bailouts, abuse of executive powers, failed middle-east policy-- with insider ownership.

TGFK



That's upcoming issue of newsweek (via Politico). Thank Goodness For Krugman.


"A devoted liberal, Krugman hungers for what he calls `a new New Deal,' and he prides himself on his status as an outsider. (He is as much of an outsider as a Nobel laureate from Princeton with a column in the Times can be.) Is Krugman right? Is the Obama administration too beholden to Wall Street and to the status quo, trying to save a system that is beyond salvation? Does Obama have--despite the brayings of the right--too much faith in the markets at a time when prudence suggests that they cannot rescue themselves? We do not know yet, and will not for a while to come. But as Evan--hardly a rabble-rousing lefty--writes, a lot of people have a `creeping feeling' that the Cassandra from Princeton may just be right. After all, the original Cassandra was."
On that note, going up against the status quo corporate interests that drive the Obama-Clinton administrations economic agenda, I'd like to encourage you to check out A New Way Forward: No more corporate bailouts.
Tell Obama and Congress: "If it's too big to fail, it's too big to exist. Dismantle the power of the financial elite and make policies that keep a new crop from springing up. We want our economy and politics restored for the public."

Labor joins the rightwing coalition

Israel's Labour Party is history. Yglesias sums it up:

Kadima Leader Tzipi Livni has spent weeks resisting Benjamin Netanyahu's pleas that she enter his cabinet, citing the fact that she has no desire to be moderate window-dressing for a hard-right administration that's overtly opposed to a two-state resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Ehud Barak, though, is eager to provide such window-dressing and now he's got his party's approval to enter into a coalition in which he'll play third fiddle to Netanyahu and Yisrael Beiteinu leader Avigdor Lieberman.

It's hard to imagine this being anything other than the end for the remnants of the Labor Party.

The vote has split Labor into half:
Kadima moved equally quickly to decry Labor's move, saying that Labor's entry into a Likud-led coalition signified ideological bankruptcy. MK Yohanan Plesner said Labor had "signed its own death warrant."

680 of Labor Party central committee members voted in favor of joining the coalition, while 570 voted against. The voter turnout stood at 78 percent of the committee members.

"I'm happy that party delegates have decided to enter the government," Ofer Eini, head of the Histadrut labor union and a senior Labor Party operative, told Israel's Army Radio.

But others chanted slogans like "Disgrace" following the announcement.

Labor's 13 seats in the parliament would give Netanyahu a majority of 66 in the 120-seat house. But there is a possibility that the party could split as a result of the vote, and some members might choose to remain in the opposition.

At least 7 members of Labor were said to have been against this move, so they may even wind up defecting to Kadima.

Organize Virginia with Brian Moran

Organize Virginia is here. As most of you know, I am deep in the VA primary, with our consultant group working for Brian Moran, and we launched the netroots organizing platform for Moran's campaign last Friday. Via CNN's political ticker:

Moran's new site is called "Organize Virginia," a title that calls to mind "Organizing for America," the Obama perma-campaign apparatus that undertook a nationwide canvass over the weekend to rally support for the president's budget.

The site has a look and feel reminiscent of the Obama online platform, offering supporters tools to organize on their own by starting groups, raising money, blogging and planning events.

The Moran campaign isn't hiding from the obvious comparison.

"Our online organizing tool connects the grassroots and the netroots, just like the Obama campaign," said Moran spokesman Jesse Moran. "We can be the first to do this effectively because, from local leaders to big city mayors, we have the grassroots necessary to support it."

The site, which went live for supporters on Friday, was created by Jerome Armstrong, the pioneering blogger and strategist who once worked for former Virginia governor Mark Warner when the now-Senator was considering a presidential bid in 2007 [ed. Actually Luigi Montanez is the brains behind the platform].

Moran is running for his party's nomination against two other Democrats: former DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe and state Sen. Creigh Deeds. The winner of the June 9 primary will face off against Republican Bob McDonnell, the commonwealth's former Attorney General.

Speaking of Terry McAuliffe, he's out  fundraising at GOP lobbying shop tonight (at the prestigious BGR lobbying firm -- co-founded by Republican politicos Ed Rogers and Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour).

In contrast, on Organize Virginia, over 30 people have already launched fundraising pages, which are integrated in partnership with ActBlue.  Here's mine, Bloggers for Brian Moran.

Please, spare us from the melodramatic populism

This is getting to be pretty predictable:

President Barack Obama's top economics adviser, Lawrence Summers, said that insurance giant American International Group's plan to award senior executives hundreds of millions of dollars in bonuses and retention pay is "outrageous."

...In a phone call Wednesday to AIG CEO Edward Liddy, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said it was unacceptable for the company to give out tens of millions of dollars in bonuses for senior executives after the government committed $170 billion to keep the struggling company afloat -- far more government bailout money than has been awarded to any other firm.

"UNACCEPTABLE", says one.
"OUTRAGEOUS", says the other.

Fake and disingenuous also come to mind.
Between Timothy Geithner and Lawrence Summers, its hard to imagine Obama's economic leadership being any worse. We really need for the Democratic congress to take away the economic agenda from these two. The corporate bailouts have become a complete political disaster.

Whisky Fire has had it:

The other fun thing about this continuing saga is that we still have no idea what the bailout money was used for or where it has gone and to whom. Keep in mind that the American taxpayer now owns 80% of A.I.G. The socialization of this company has happened, very quietly, but also very definitely. The large banks and corporations we are bailing out continue to report that it would be impossible to track where all the money is going. This is unequivocal bullshit as these accounting professors point out.

Josh Marshall is too timid:

I've been highly critical of the government bailout of AIG.... So on the business merits, they're bankrupt. But we decide it's in the national interest to prevent formal bankruptcy. And these sharks -- not everyone at AIG, but the execs that created this mess -- use that as a lever to get paid the money they never would have seen if we'd let (market) nature take its course.

Chris in Paris, over at AmericaBlog, has an attitude problem:

Geithner has been such a firebrand, standing up for the American investor who has lost their retirement plans. It's hard to understand how so many people believe Geithner is in deep over his head and not up for the job. Sure, he sat on his hands and did nothing for years while working at the NY Fed, but can't they see that he kindly asked AIG to scale back bonuses after they rolled out yet another round just to kick sand in the face of the American public? I hear he asked very sternly and insisted they would all be very naughty if they ran over him again. The leadership out of the Obama administration has been oh so impressive and investors become happier by the day as they watch such forceful displays of executive power. What red blooded American doesn't like to be abused by Wall Street and lose their retirement money? Heck, there's no way the public would ever start pointing the finger at Obama for failing to stand up to Wall Street with this response. Nope, never, ever, never.

David Waldmanis having a period:

Do. Not. Pay. Any. More. Bonuses. You. Are. Failing. There. Are. No. Bonuses. For. Failure.
Down with Tyranny:
It's time for Liddy and Geithner to get a clue. They don't have the best; they don't have the brightest. They employ a bunch of failures and losers who are lucky to have jobs at all after leading their company into the toilet. Wednesday morning the House Financial Services Committee will be holding an AIG hearing at 10AM. These people won't be facing a Wall Street shill like Geithner or a panel like Stephanopolous' today on ABC-TV. They'll be facing Barney Frank, Alan Grayson, Brad Sherman, Jim Himes, Jackie Speier, Mary Jo Kilroy, Keith Ellison, Brad Miller, Gary Peters and Maxine Waters.
That Cramer vid is classic.

Bring on the Employee Free Choice Act

You know, I haven't heard any chatter about bipartisanship out of Obama or the WH for a week. Maybe it's just my very narrow political reading and watching lately, but its a hopeful sign. So is this:

Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Mr. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.
The election was divided, and progressives won. It's time to notch it up and spend that political capital on increasing the voice and strength of the workers. It's time for the Employee Free Choice Act.

American Progress

I got this email from Ruy Teixeira, and thought I'd pass it on, as the work is right up our alley here:

I've started up a new Progressive Studies Program program with John Halpin at the Center for American Progress and we just put out two major new reports.

One is my own effort, using the latest and best data to analyze the demographic, geographic and attitudinal trends reshaping the country (New Progressive America).  I argue there is a  new demography, a new geography and a new agenda tilting the country progressive.  I include an extensive discussion of minority, white college graduate and white working class voters (national and by state), going back to 1988 and forward to 2050.   And I provide detailed analyses of county, metropolitan area and regional vote shifts since 1988 in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Nevada, Ohio, Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana.  I also cover Millennials, professionals, single and college-educated women and the growth of religious diversity.  And I cover what all of this means for the American attitudes, especially the likely end of the culture wars.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2 009/03/pdf/progressive_america.pdf

The other, by Halpin, covers our new national survey about political ideology (State of American Political Ideology, 2009).  More evidence that we are not, in fact, a center-right nation. We use a five point ideological scale and turn up the interesting finding that about as many people now self identify as progressive or liberal as identify as conservative or libertarian.  Also, the favorability rating of "progressive" has skyrocketed in recent years and is now as high as "conservative".  The heart of the survey is a 40 item battery where we test people's fundamental political values and beliefs in four areas: government, culture, economic and international.  The composite score for the public leans progressive and eight of the top ten items in terms of agreement are progressive ones.  But conservative ideas retain considerable strength.  Check out the report:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2 009/03/pdf/political_ideology.pdf

Plus! you can take our 40 item quiz yourself.  How progressive are you?

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2 009/03/progressive_quiz.html

Plus!! there is a very cool interactive map that includes 7 levels of exit poll demograhics and county level vote shifts going back to 1988.  Take the twenty year test: what's happened in your county since 1988?:

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2 009/03/progressive-map/

Given I'm a free/fair-trader that doesn't believe much in the role of the Gov't to bail out failed businesses, and am a deficit hawk (to the extreme with accountability & transparency), that probably lowers my overall progressive score of believing in gov't healthcare-welfare-social security, cultural and infrastructure spending, am pro-immigration, advocate religious ultra-tolerance, higher taxes for the rich, more unions and more business regulation, favor UN global spending over increased US military spending, and believe a transformation of our energy sources away from being carbon-based and toward renewable fuels as our future.

My "ideology score" was 332/400, which made me "extremely progressive" given the average American score is 210.

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