Friday, February 15, 2008

Whining Rush (11:54 am)

Can Rush contribute to McCain’s downfall? He’s sure trying.

Mr. Limbaugh, who draws more than 13.5 million listeners a week, considers Mr. McCain to have so betrayed conservative principles by voting against tax cuts and not being as tough as Mr. Limbaugh would like on illegal immigrants that the commentator was openly flirting with the enemy.

Fair enough. McCain’s a tax and spend liberal who supports amnesty. And like all strong conservatives, he should critique Republicans from the right when he deems it necessary. Hell, I rail on the Dems all the time. But why now?

Asked what Mr. McCain might do to change his mind, Mr. Limbaugh said: “I don’t think there’s anything he could do. If he did do it, he would be accused of selling out.” Then, in a familiar baritone as resonant as it is on the air, he added, “If I were to endorse McCain based on the current circumstances, I’d be looked at as a party hack.”

Suck it up, Rush. Your candidate(s) isn’t going to win. And since McCain isn’t feeling the pressure from below to “change,” the belated bantering is petty and counter-productive for your movement.

posted by Adam Doster | start the discussion

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Infrastructure, finally…Really? (10:59 am)

I share Adam’s sentiment in the post below, but I gotta say that I find Obama’s plan pretty symptomatic of what’s been disappointing about his campaign in general. I mean, I’m glad he’s talking about how dilapidated our infrastructure is, and, at first blush, $60 billion over 10 years sounds like a decent amount of money, but compared to what actually needs to be done, it’s chicken feed.

Three years ago, the American Society of Civil Engineers put out their Report Card for American Infrastructure, that examined the country’s aviation, bridge, dam, road and water systems, among other stuff. Their overall grade? Let’s just say that the U.S. is like that really stupid kid in your 4th grade class, who you kinda despaired over because he wasn’t even a jock. The ASCE’s overall grade was a D, and that was factoring in a charitable “Incomplete” for Homeland Security and C- for our Rail infrastucture, which strikes me as a gift.

More to the point, ASCE suggested that we need to spend $1.6 trillion over the next five years to upgrade our infrastructure to “Good,” of which $540 billion must come from completely new funding. By my calculations, that means Obama is suggesting that we spend almost nine times less than that, and that we spread out that pittance over twice as much time.

It’s a start, but let’s not kid ourselves. That’s about all it is.

posted by Brian Cook | start the discussion

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Infrastructure, finally (5:05 pm)

Obama called for $60 billion investment in infrastructure today in Wisky.

In a speech today at the General Motors assembly plant in Janesville, Wis., Democratic presidential contender Sen. Barack Obama will call for the creation of a “National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank” that would invest $60 billion over 10 years in highways, technology and other projects. It would be an effort, Obama will say, to “rebuild America” and create 2 million jobs in the process.

A no brainer, really, for both economic and environmental reasons. I’ve been really confused why none of the front-runners have put out a program like Dodd’s in Congress, especially Clinton, who received considerable praise for both her plans on healthcare and global warming.

posted by Adam Doster | 1 comment

Maryland’s Edwards (4:56 pm)

Congrats to Donna Edwards for her primary victory in Maryland. An important win, indeed. Here’s a good run down from The Nation. Yglesias has some good thoughts too.

Last, the tree of progressive politics must be watered with the metaphorical blood of sellouts ever now and again. Some people seem to me to walk around in their head with a model in which politicians are very principled ideologues who then divert from their default status due to electoral fears. In a more plausible schematic, they have a natural tendency to drift in the direction of utter corruption and only electoral fear keeps them doing their jobs in a somewhat responsible manner.

I’d add that in the long run, primary challenges could increase party discipline and save progressive activists time and resources by cutting down the need to lobby conservative Democrats. And more democracy, where elected officials are held accountable to voters and activists, is never a bad thing.

posted by Adam Doster | start the discussion

Ban on Waterboarding Passes Senate (4:54 pm)

The Senate just squeaked the Intelligence authorization package by on a 51-45 vote. A provision inserted into it by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) during a conference committee bans waterboarding. The president, unsurprisingly, has threatened to veto it.

posted by Brian Beutler, Media Consortium | start the discussion

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

The FISA Saga Continues (7:18 pm)

The vote just came down. The FISA Amendments Act passed 68-29. What follows will no doubt be a grueling battle in a conference committee between the House and the Senate. Among those on hand will (most likely) be the chairmen of the four committees (the Senate and House Judiciary and Intelligence committees) with jurisdiction over FISA, three of whom are philosophically much closer to the House bill than the Senate bill. At that conference, for all intents and purposes, one of several things can happen: The senators will accept the House language (unlikely), the representatives will adopt the Senate language (slightly more likely) or a new bill, using language from both bills, will emerge (quite likely). That bill would have to be passed by both houses.

The problem is that getting a Senate-like bill through the House will be much easier than getting a House-like bill through the Senate–According to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, 21 Blue Dog Democrats have sent a letter to Speaker Pelosi endorsing the Senate bill. House leadership can stick to its guns and say “no way” to the radical Senate provisions, but time is running out on the 15-day extension to the old amendments, and doing nothing will touch off the sort of national security fight that Democrats have been avoiding for the entirety of the 110th Congress. Unless they find that willingness, it looks very much as if a fairly terrible piece of legislation will ultimately be signed into law.

There are a few... read more

posted by Brian Beutler, Media Consortium | start the discussion

Monday, February 11, 2008

New Twists in the FISA Fight (8:44 pm)

Tomorrow at 10 am, votes on amendments to FISA will continue. When they’re all done with those, there will be a cloture vote. The agreement Dodd made with Senate leadership was such that he’d drop his bid to block any votes on FISA amendments as long as the key amendments were held to a simple-majority threshold. But he still plans to vote against cloture (and rally his colleagues to vote against cloture) if the bill contains the retroactive immunity provision. In an interesting twist, he now has the support of Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who chairs the Judiciary committee (also known as the committee that penned the superior, competing legislation that has basically been all but blocked from consideration. This in from Leahy’s leadership office:

Tuesday is a critical day in our fight to stand up for American values and preserve our freedoms while protecting our national security.

Tomorrow the Senate will vote on amendments to FISA, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, the law governing the use of wiretaps and other means to conduct surveillance of foreign threats.

Unfortunately, the new FISA bill we’ll be voting on Tuesday still has many problems. I will do everything in my power — including joining my colleague Chris Dodd in a filibuster against this legislation — to fix it.

Now I need your help to encourage more of our House and Senate colleagues to stand with us.

Leahy has some influence. But Republicans and Jay Rockefeller need 60 ayes to get this bill to the floor for a final vote. Assuming everybody’s on hand tomorrow, this means Dodd, Feingold, and Leahy need to rally 41 people to their side. And that won’t be easy.

posted by Brian Beutler, Media Consortium | 1 comment

Could Templeton use a public editor? (5:03 pm)

References to “The Wire” aside, take a look at this CJR interview with Linda Perlstein, the new “Public Editor” for the Education Writers Association, which entails a fair amount of responsibility.

As public editor, Perlstein will coach individual reporters, offering guidance on sourcing and content knowledge, and coordinating with their editors to assure that her work complements what they are doing.

It seems like an interesting model that could really improve education beat reporting, a topic that takes some chops to do well. Time will tell how she’s utilized, but I think we should encourage any new innovations that might refine daily news coverage.