The Tea Partiers' Phony Populism

If there’s one thing the media knows about the Tea Partiers, it is that they are populists. They hate Washington; they hate Wall Street; they wouldn’t be caught dead on Martha’s Vineyard; the mere sight of tofu turns their stomach.

But what if they’re not?

A populist is someone who champions ordinary folks against the privileged few. For the original Populists—the people who created the Populist Party in the late 19th century—the ordinary folks were farmers and workers and the privileged few were bankers and railroad owners. The goal was to redistribute power from the latter to the former. The Populists wanted a currency based upon silver, not gold, which would make it cheaper for farmers to borrow and less profitable for bankers to lend. They wanted to nationalize the railroads, telegraphs and telephones so corporations couldn’t charge ordinary folks extortionate rates. They wanted a progressive income tax, an eight-hour workday, and laws making it easier to join labor unions, so workers would have greater protections and greater pay. And they wanted guaranteed pensions for sailors and soldiers, a kind of precursor to Social Security.

By reducing government oversight of Wall Street, as Palin demanded at the Tea Party convention, the Tea Partiers actually strengthen the very moneyed interests that the Populists wanted to restrain.

And what was the mechanism for this redistribution of power from the privileged few to ordinary folks? The mechanism was government. It was government that would coin silver, nationalize the railroads, and institute the income tax, pensions and the eight-hour shift. As the Populist Party declared in its first platform, in 1892, “We believe that the power of government—in other words, of the people—should be expanded…as rapidly and as far as the good sense of an intelligent people and the teachings of experience shall justify, to the end that oppression, injustice and poverty shall eventually cease in the land.”

That first phrase is key: “the power of government—in other words, of the people.” For the original Populists, government action was the best way to empower ordinary folks, but only if those ordinary folks actually ran the government. That’s why at the same time the Populists tried to strengthen government they also tried to democratize it, by championing the direct election of senators and other reforms. In practice, the Populists were often fervently anti-Washington because Washington was controlled by the privileged few. But their anger at Washington and their anger at Wall Street were different. They believed Washington could represent the people in a way Wall Street never could. They cursed Wall Street because it was too powerful. They cursed Washington because it wasn’t powerful enough.

The Tea Partiers also say they want to empower ordinary folk against the privileged few. But who do they mean by “privileged few?” Unlike the original Populists, the Tea Partiers don’t mean moneyed interests. After all, while they oppose bailing out banks, they also oppose more aggressively regulating them. In fact, the Tea Party crowd wants less government oversight over Wall Street. As Tea Party Convention keynote speaker Sarah Palin declared a while back, “We got into this mess because of government interference in the first place.”

By privileged few, in fact, the Tea Party crowd means government. The ordinary folks are the voters and the privileged few are the people who run Washington in disregard of their wishes. For the original Populists, the answer to this problem was more democracy: reforms that made Washington more responsive to voters and less responsive to moneyed interests. But the Tea Partiers have no interest in such reforms. They simply take it as a fact that Washington is unresponsive and self-interested. While the Populists wanted to empower government as they democratized it, the Tea Partiers want to disempower government because they don’t believe it can be democratized. And by disempowering government—by reducing its oversight of Wall Street, as Palin demanded at the Tea Party convention—the Tea Partiers actually strengthen the very moneyed interests that the Populists wanted to restrain.

The Tea Partiers, in other words, have flipped Populism on its head. They’re less Populists than anti-Populists. It’s time the media called them by their rightful name.

The GOP's Dubious Populism

Creators Syndicate – The most revealing moments in President Obama's State of the Union Address were not in his remarks, but the reaction to them by those listening on the Republican side of the aisle.

When he proposed to recover a "financial responsibility fee" — in plainer English, a bank tax — from the largest and most heavily leveraged Wall Street firms, the Republicans sat on their hands and scowled, while Democrats cheered and whistled. And when he warned that the Supreme Court's latest decision would open the political process to mega-corporations and their foreign owners, the Republicans were so enraged that they have since accused him of lying.

On both counts, the politics and policy are subject to reasonable disagreement — but the facts support the president. More importantly, however, is what both issues say about the continuing character of the Republican Party at a time when its leaders are counting on the "conservative populism" of the "tea party" movement to revive the party's fortunes.

Consider the possibility of unchecked foreign influence in American political campaigns, a change that would seem certain to irritate the self-styled super-patriots of the Republican right. Although Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito appeared to mutter that the president was "not right" during the speech — and was then echoed by every right-wing commentator, from The Washington Times to The Wall Street Journal — nonpartisan observers believe that Obama is indeed correct.

"With the corporate campaign expenditure ban now being declared unconstitutional, domestic corporations controlled by foreign governments or other foreign entities are free to spend money to elect or defeat federal candidates," said J. Gerald Hebert, executive director and director of litigation at the Campaign Legal Center in Washington. Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21, a longtime reform advocate, explained why that is true, despite existing legal prohibitions against any contribution or expenditure by a "foreign national" to influence a federal, state or local election.

The current statute defines a foreign corporation as any firm that is "organized under the laws of or having its principal place of business in a foreign nation." So a company organized in Germany or headquartered in China would still be subject to the existing ban on donations.

"But there are domestic corporations — those organized under state law in the United States — which are and can be controlled by foreign interests," Wertheimer noted. Until the Supreme Court overturned the ban on corporate spending in the Citizens United decision, those foreign-controlled companies were subject to the same restrictions as American-owned firms. By striking down that prohibition, the court's Republican majority freed any foreign-controlled domestic company to spend its funds directly to influence our elections.

At least some of the founders of the "tea party" movement found this development disturbing — and that may be why the Republicans reacted so angrily when the president mentioned it. The same may be said of the new tax on big banks, which Republicans have vowed to reject even though it is designed to recoup the costs of the bailout that was so unpopular among their "populist" constituents.

Again, the facts are simple enough. The legislation that established the Troubled Assets Relief Program — with many Republican votes — required the president to claw back the program's hundreds of billions of dollars through a dedicated tax. As designed by the Obama economic team, that tax falls solely on the largest financial firms and penalizes them according to the degree of leveraged risk those firms have taken on. Its designation as a "responsibility fee" is not merely a way to avoid uttering the word "tax," but recognizes that the economic and social costs of the recession must be charged to those companies and their irresponsible (and sometimes illegal) practices.

Again, the Republican response is anything but populist, unless that term has lost all meaning. The Republican National Committee chairman, Michael Steele, and an array of the party's elected officials marched to the microphones to parrot the same arguments articulated by the bankers: They've already paid back the money! They're going to pass the tax on to their consumers! And a recession is no time to raise taxes anyway!

The new GOP idols, Scott Brown of Massachusetts and Marco Rubio of Florida, were the most eager critics of any attempt to tax the bankers.

The more Republicans claim to change, the more they remain the same. The more they wrap themselves in dubious populism, the more they will defend the wealthy and powerful, without respect to national sovereignty and the national interest.

Bad to Worse in Iraq

The Nation -- The election in Iraq is less than a month away -- that is, if indeed it is held as scheduled on March 7 -- and things are going from bad to worse.

Last month, an unelected commission held over from the early days of the US occupation of Iraq, the Justice and Accountability Commission, issued a shocking ruling banning more than 500 candidates from taking part in the election, including a number of members of the current parliament running for reelection. That commission, successor to the old De-Baathification Commission, is controlled by Ahmed Chalabi and one of his cronies, Ali al-Lami. Chalabi, the darling of Bush-era neoconservatives, who pushed Chalabi as Iraq's leader after 2003, has long had close ties to Tehran, and in this case the ban struck at those Iraqi politicians most opposed to Iran's growing influence in Iraq.

Last week, an Iraqi appeals court seemed to overturn the ban. Its action followed a visit to Baghdad by Vice President Joe Biden, who has assumed the Iraqi portfolio for the Obama administration, and Biden pressed the Iraqis to reinstate the candidates. After the appeals court ruling, US officials congratulated themselves. "We were heartened by the decision earlier this week to reverse the deletion of the 500 names from the list for the upcoming election," said Hillary Clinton.

But not so fast. Following the court's decision, the government of Iraq -- led by a coalition of Shiite-sectarian politicians closely tied to Iran -- demanded that the appeals court decision be overruled. Ali al-Dabbagh, one of Prime Minister Maliki's closest aides, called the lifting of the ban "illegal and not constitutional." Another of Maliki's aides called for the expulsion of US Ambassador Christopher Hill, who reportedly lobbied behind the scenes to get the ban lifted. And Maliki himself blasted Hill: "We will not allow American Ambassador Christopher Hill to go beyond his diplomatic mission." Maliki began working with leaders of his coalition, members of parliament, and the top court to ensure that the Chalabi-imposed ban remains.

The US intervention in Iraqi politics reveals that, despite the presence of more than 100,000 US troops, America's influence in Iraq is fading fast -- and Iran's is growing. There isn't much that the United States can do about that. As soon as George W. Bush made the fateful decision to sweep away the Iraqi government and install pro-Iranian exiles in Baghdad, the die was cast. President Obama has no choice but to pack up and leave.

But those on the receiving end of the Iranian-inspired mischief feel betrayed and abandoned. Former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, whose key coalition partner, Saleh al-Mutlaq, was banned, blasted the Chalabi commission: "The justice and accountability commission is actually a secret police. We don't know who these members are or how they have been appointed. We know the main culprits." He accused the JAC of "fabricating records." Many of the secular politicians, Sunnis, anti-Iranian Shiites, and others who oppose the Maliki government want the US to intervene on their behalf, including through covert support to their parties, but that does not seem to be in the cards -- nor would it be a good idea.

Still, the JAC action is McCarthyite in the extreme, tarring any and all opponents of the current ruling elite with being Baath party members. Secular politicians, nationalists, former Baathists with low-level positions, dissident Baathists who left the party in the 1970s (such as Allawi and Mutlaq), and many others are painted as blood-stained criminals and "Saddamists." The fact that Maliki has descended to such bitter and petty name calling signals that the prime minister has abandoned any pretense of trying to rise about sectarianism to become a national leader. For the election, at least, Maliki has thrown his lot in with the pro-Iranian clique.

Of course, there is still an election. Whether or not Iraqi voters, including the 60 percent of Iraqis who are Shiites, will but Maliki's waving of the bloody flag of Baathism isn't clear. Also, it's possible that the ban on the hundreds of candidates will be lifted, but time is running out. Ballots have to printed. Campaigning, scheduled to start on Feb. 7, has been postponed until the end of this week, if then. And the damage is done. Maliki, Chalabi, and their friends in Tehran have poisoned the atmosphere for the March 7 vote. The only question left is whether or not the dose is fatal.

Will Obama Play the War Card?

Creators Syndicate – Republicans already counting the seats they will pick up this fall should keep in mind Obama has a big card yet to play.

Should the president declare he has gone the last mile for a negotiated end to Iran's nuclear program and impose the "crippling" sanctions he promised in 2008, America would be on an escalator to confrontation that could lead straight to war.

And should war come, that would be the end of GOP dreams of adding three-dozen seats in the House and half a dozen in the Senate.

Harry Reid is surely aware a U.S. clash with Iran, with him at the president's side, could assure his re-election. Last week, Reid whistled through the Senate, by voice vote, a bill to put us on that escalator.

Senate bill 2799 would punish any company exporting gasoline to Iran. Though swimming in oil, Iran has a limited refining capacity and must import 40 percent of the gas to operate its cars and trucks and heat its homes.

And cutting off a country's oil or gas is a proven path to war.

In 1941, the United States froze Japan's assets, denying her the funds to pay for the U.S. oil on which she relied, forcing Tokyo either to retreat from her empire or seize the only oil in reach, in the Dutch East Indies.

The only force able to interfere with a Japanese drive into the East Indies? The U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.

Egypt's Gamel Abdel Nasser in 1967 threatened to close the Straits of Tiran between the Red Sea and Gulf of Aqaba to ships going to the Israeli port of Elath. That would have cut off 95 percent of Israel's oil.

Israel response: a pre-emptive war that destroyed Egypt's air force and put Israeli troops at Sharm el-Sheikh on the Straits of Tiran.

Were Reid and colleagues seeking to strengthen Obama's negotiating hand?

The opposite is true. The Senate is trying to force Obama's hand, box him in, restrict his freedom of action, by making him impose sanctions that would cut off the negotiating track and put us on a track to war — a war to deny Iran weapons that the U.S. Intelligence community said in December 2007 Iran gave up trying to acquire in 2003.

Sound familiar?

Republican leader Mitch McConnell has made clear the Senate is seizing control of the Iran portfolio. "If the Obama administration will not take action against this regime, then Congress must."

U.S. interests would seem to dictate supporting those elements in Iran who wish to be rid of the regime and re-engage the West. But if that is our goal, the Senate bill, and a House version that passed 412 to 12, seem almost diabolically perverse.

For a cutoff in gas would hammer Iran's middle class. The Revolutionary Guard and Basij militia on their motorbikes would get all they need. Thus the leaders of the Green Movement who have stood up to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollah oppose sanctions that inflict suffering on their own people.

Cutting off gas to Iran would cause many deaths. And the families of the sick, the old, the weak, the women and the children who die are unlikely to feel gratitude toward those who killed them.

And despite the hysteria about Iran's imminent testing of a bomb, the U.S. intelligence community still has not changed its finding that Tehran is not seeking a bomb.

The low-enriched uranium at Natanz, enough for one test, has neither been moved nor enriched to weapons grade. Ahmadinejad this week offered to take the West's deal and trade it for fuel for its reactor. Iran's known nuclear facilities are under U.N. watch. The number of centrifuges operating at Natanz has fallen below 4,000. There is speculation they are breaking down or have been sabotaged.

And if Iran is hell-bent on a bomb, why has Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair not revised the 2007 finding and given us the hard evidence?

U.S. anti-missile ships are moving into the Gulf. Anti-missile batteries are being deployed on the Arab shore. Yet, Gen. David Petraeus warned yesterday that a strike on Iran could stir nationalist sentiment behind the regime.

Nevertheless, the war drums have again begun to beat.

Richard Pipes in a National Review Online piece featured by the Jerusalem Post — "How to Save the Obama Presidency: Bomb Iran" — urges Obama to make a "dramatic gesture to change the public perception of him as a lightweight, bumbling ideologue" by ordering the U.S. military to attack Iran's nuclear facilities.

Citing six polls, Pipes says Americans support an attack today and will "presumably rally around the flag" when the bombs fall.

Will Obama cynically yield to temptation, play the war card and make "conservatives swoon," in Pipes' phrase, to save himself and his party? We shall see.

Obama Calls Out Republicans, But Nobody's Home

"I am not an ideologue," the President said to the House Republicans, cocooned in their annual policy caucus in Baltimore - and the ideologues among them laughed. The President was explaining, in the midst of an unprecedented, televised "Question Time" session, that he was open to any good ideas they might have. "It doesn't make sense," he continued, that if they told him," 'You could do this cheaper and get increased results,' that I wouldn't say, 'Great.'" But the logic of this seemed to slip past the assembled legislators - and the "I am not an ideologue" bite became a derisive staple on Fox News. And therein lies the crisis of democracy that our country faces: a moderate-liberal President, willing to make judicious compromises, confronted by a Republican Party paralyzed by cynicism and hypocrisy, undergirded by inchoate ideological fervor.

The President's hour in the lion's den was part of an aggressive week of politics - his first in many moons - that began with his well-received State of the Union address and proceeded through town meetings in Florida and New Hampshire. It was marked by a new willingness to engage the opposition party with cutting humor and offers of compromise. In the State of the Union, he had offered an olive branch to the Republicans - a new commitment to budget balancing (including a bipartisan commission to reduce the deficit that Republicans had been clamoring for), a new emphasis on free trade, a total reversal of his party's traditional positions on nuclear power and offshore drilling. In Baltimore, Obama reminded the Republicans that his $787 billion stimulus package had comprised elements they'd normally support - a $288 billion middle-class tax cut, $275 billion to bail out financially strapped states and an extensive infrastructure plan. "A lot of you," he noted, dryly, "have gone to appear at ribbon cuttings for the same projects you voted against." (See the 10 greatest speeches of all time.)

The Republican response to this barrage was, well, incoherent. But in most cases the need to demonize Obama trumped the party's ideological beliefs. The budget commission - to take one flagrant example - was blocked by a group of Republican Senators who had supported or sponsored it. These included the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and the formerly virtuous John McCain, a sore loser who has reversed his position on practically everything lately. The Senate Republicans then proceeded to vote unanimously against a provision, attached to a necessary increase in the debt limit, that would force Congress to pay for every new initiative it enacts. This "paygo" provision was the law of the land when Bill Clinton was building budget surpluses (in fairness, he inherited it from the equally responsible George H.W. Bush) - and was abandoned when George W. Bush started building the alpine deficits that plague us today. The hypocrisy of all this was staggering, even for politicians.

In Baltimore, the House Republicans seemed hurt that the President wasn't listening to their "new" ideas. Unfortunately, most of these have the sophistication of policy seminars run by high school Libertarian clubs. One of their leading intellectual lights, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, has offered a Medicare reform proposal that should kill any chance he has of winning higher office: he would privatize Medicare and deliver unto the elderly vouchers that would gradually lose much of their value. This would save a boatload of money, of course ... but one wonders whether the party that gave the world "death panels" would stand behind such an all-out assault on the financial security of the nation's most devout voters.

This is quite sad. I've been a fan of a great many Republican policy initiatives in the past. I supported the Republican universal health care plan in 1993 (which Obama's current proposal resembles). I've supported lots of Republican urban-policy ideas, especially when it comes to education. I think the realism deployed overseas by Presidents like Eisenhower, Nixon (except for Vietnam) and Bush the Elder is the wisest foreign policy on offer. But the current Republican Party is about none of these. It is about tactical political gain to the exclusion of all else.

At the end of the Baltimore session, Congressman Jeb Hensarling of Texas launched a diatribe on the budget, including the fabulous claim that the Obama Administration was now running monthly deficits the size of annual Republican deficits in the past. For once, the President flashed anger in response - he interrupted Hensarling and said, "I'm sure there's a question in there somewhere." And then, calmly, he proceeded to take apart Hensarling's nonsense.

The sophistication of Obama's politics has finally caught up to the opposition: he will offer them compromise and lacerate them when they refuse to play. I suspect he'll be successful at this. But absent a responsible opposition party, we'll still be left with a crippled democracy, lacking all ability to address our most serious problems. That is not a recipe for continued success in a competitive world.

Survivors know best: Torture is always wrong

Washington – They live invisibly among us, 41,000 in the Washington area, half a million in the United States. They are survivors of horrific political torture. Unless they open their shirts, you detect few visible scars. “The mark of torture is more inside than out,” says “Elena,” a woman from Gabon who uses a wheelchair.

(Because everyone interviewed has living relatives in their native lands, all names have been changed at their request.)

Americans with no experience deceive themselves about torture. A friend told me that when the US tortured people it was somehow more humane.

But talk to torture victims at the annual gathering of the Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition (TASSC) and they tell you that torture, whatever its guise, is always immoral.

In the early 1980s, Miguel was held prisoner for four years by the Marcos regime in the Philippines. “Torture is always wrong,” he says. “It uses terrorism to try to destroy terrorism. The torturer becomes the terrorist. You think you establish order by breaking the law.”

Torture breaks people as well as the law. Yvette from Cameroon speaks slowly, vacantly, and without focus. One of the TASSC directors acknowledged that “her mind has yet to heal.”

Yvette was tortured for belonging to a human rights defense group in Cameroon. Police were seeking information on political dissidents. “I was beaten continuously,” she says. “They slapped my face and head for three days. I don’t know how long I was unconscious.” When Yvette regained consciousness, she was unable to walk for a week, her legs having been beaten with police batons.

“I think the pain will never stop,” she says. “I still shake when I hear police sirens.”

“Even in Washington, D.C.?” I ask.

“Yes. I feel like they’re after me again.”

Perpetrators of torture share a common rationale: national security. “They tell you torture keeps your families safe and secure,” says Miguel.

What about the Israeli argument – that torture can thwart a suicide bomber, or the American version: “What if Islamic terrorists planted a suitcase-sized nuclear bomb in New York City?”

I put that question to torture survivors. One asked, “Why torture anyone? Wouldn’t you be better off finding an imam ... to sit with the prisoner and let him persuade a suspect it’s morally wrong to take innocent lives?”

Of the dozen survivors I interviewed, people from Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, each said torture doesn’t work. In 2008, Mary from Uganda was beaten, gang raped, and terrorized in prison. Her crime? Being a member of the opposition party. “When they torture you, two things happen,” she says. “First they make you crazy. Next, you believe you’re going to die, so there’s no point in confessing.”

Given the harshness of the interrogation techniques his administration authorized, former President George W. Bush was disingenuous when he insisted in 2006 that the US doesn’t torture. He should first have consulted his father, a former CIA director, about the effectiveness of torturing an enemy.

An Ethiopian named Thomas spoke to that. “Instead of breaking you, it [torture] hardens you,” he says. Security forces threatened to shoot him, saying, “We’re just going to kill you. No one can save you. We’ll say we shot you trying to escape.”

“You think you are losing your mind,” he recalls. But, the former nongovernmental organization worker adds proudly, “I never revealed anything.”

It was the same with Miguel. Drunken soldiers walked him to a beach, pointing guns at him and asking, “You want us to bury you here six feet deep or out there 10 feet under water?” He collapsed in a faint.

The waterboarding technique used by American interrogators this past decade is little different: It’s an implicit threat to kill suspects through drowning – Russian roulette played with a wet towel. To see for yourself, watch journalist Christopher Hitchens (voluntarily) get waterboarded on YouTube. Last year, President Obama banned waterboarding.

Fortunate torture survivors sometimes get asylum in the US. By word of mouth, they learn of TASSC. Officials Miguel and Daoud, both torture survivors, shepherd the newcomers, finding them psychiatric help and shelter. In group counseling, perhaps the most difficult question they deal with is, “Why did this happen to me?”

A 2006 survey showed that a third of the world supports some degree of torture to combat terrorism. Yet we deceive ourselves pretending it does not also destroy our own decency and humanity. Support for torture was highest in Israel, at 43 percent; it was 36 percent in America. The fallacy of torture is the notion that terrorizing others makes us more secure.

With all the talk of the GOP winning back Congress in this year's elections, there's one thing that's promiment in this analysis:

Anything's *far* from certain.

***

Analysis: Can the GOP win control of Congress?

WASHINGTON – Just weeks ago, it seemed inconceivable the Republicans could win control of Congress this fall.

Not anymore.

Almost by the day, Republicans are sensing fresh opportunities to pick up ground. Just Wednesday, former Indiana Sen. Dan Coats announced he would try to reclaim his old seat from Democrat Evan Bayh, who barely a year ago had been a finalist to be Barack Obama's running mate. And Republicans nationwide are still celebrating Scott Brown's January upset to take Edward Kennedy's former seat in Massachusetts.

A Republican takeover on Capitol Hill is still a long shot. But strategists in both parties now see at least narrow paths by which the GOP could win the House and, if the troubled environment for Democrats deteriorates further, possibly even the Senate.

"Democrats have got their hands full trying to navigate through unprecedented economic turmoil and two wars," says former Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb. He suggests the gloomy talk within the party is overstated and the Democrats are still likely to retain control, but he adds: "There's no question that there's anger out there."

With nine months to go, 2010 is shaping up in one sense to be a traditional midterm election for a new president: The out-of-power party is poised to gain seats in both houses. The question now is whether it will be a historic election with Republicans actually seizing power in Congress.

The Republicans would have to gain 40 seats in the 435-member House, ten in the 100-member Senate — a tall order no matter how upset voters are. But still. ...

In the Senate, two Democratic seats are all but gone.

North Dakota's Byron Dorgan is retiring, and the Democrats don't have anyone to challenge the Republican, Gov. John Hoeven. Democrats also failed to recruit their top candidate in Delaware. Vice President Joe Biden's son eschewed a run against Republican Mike Castle. New Castle County executive Chris Coons, a Democrat, got in the race Wednesday but he's expected to face an uphill battle.

For a GOP takeover, incumbent Democrats also would have to lose in Colorado, where appointed Sen. Michael Bennet hasn't run statewide and faces a primary; Nevada, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is unpopular but has a hefty bank account; Arkansas, where Sen. Blanche Lincoln suffers from representing a GOP-leaning state; Pennsylvania, where party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter is extraordinarily vulnerable, and Illinois, where a dogfight is certain for President Obama's old seat.

Republicans would have to hold on to all the Senate seats they have now, hardly a sure thing. And the GOP also would have to beat incumbents in New York, where no Republican has emerged to challenge appointed Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and Connecticut, where Democrat Richard Blumenthal is comfortably leading all GOP contenders in polls.

If all that somehow happens, the tipping point could be either in Indiana or in California.

"Every state is now in play," California Sen. Barbara Boxer said one day after the Massachusetts election. It was a frank recognition that no Democrat is safe — not even a three-term liberal with bunches of money in a solidly Democratic state.

Not coincidentally, when Obama had a televised question-and-answer session with Democrats on Wednesday, the senators given prominent face time included Boxer, Reid, Bayh, Bennet, Lincoln, Gillibrand and Specter.

"It would be surprising if Democrats lost power," says former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla. "But anything in politics is possible. And if the economy's still in the tank 60 days out of the election, it's going to be difficult for Democrats."

In the House, Democrats hold a 256-178 advantage with one vacancy. But 49 Democrats are in districts that Republican presidential candidate John McCain won in 2008. And many are freshmen who rode into power on Obama's coattails in an election that saw a voting surge by minorities and youths. Obama won't be on the ballot this time, and he has a poor track record so far when it comes to turning out his 2008 backers for fellow Democrats.

Possible bellwethers: A GOP wave could be in the offing if Democrats like John Salazar in Colorado, Zack Space in Ohio, John Spratt in South Carolina or Ben Chandler in Kentucky are in close races this fall.

House Republicans have their own challenges.

In more than 50 districts, divisive GOP primaries are certain to drain bank accounts and force Republicans into taking positions that could be troublesome come the general election. In many cases, "tea party" candidates are running to the right of establishment-endorsed Republicans, casting them as too moderate for the party and too cozy with Washington. In other races, Republican candidates are dropping out to run as third party candidates who could siphon votes from the eventual GOP nominee.

To understand why incumbents are nervous, look no further than the persistent 10 percent unemployment rate, the country's bitterness over Wall Street bailouts and voters' anti-Washington fervor.

Obama's party, controlling both the White House and Congress, is likely to feel that fury the most. And it's defending far more seats than the Republicans.

The Democrats already have faced one monumental setback this year, the GOP Senate victory in the Democratic bastion of Massachusetts. That outcome further energized Republicans and demoralized Democrats. It also fueled hope among Republicans and fear among at least some Democrats that another 1994 may be ahead.

"Something's happening out there," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, the galvanizing Republican who helped unite the GOP that year when it swept to power in Congress on President Bill Clinton's watch. "The economy hurts. People are unhappy."

He put at even the chances that Republicans will take the House, though he predicted they would gain only up to six Senate seats.

Compared with 1994, he said: "Democrats are more isolated ideologically with a much bigger economic problem." Conversely, he said, the GOP's brand is weaker and it doesn't have enough money.

Indeed, Republicans dramatically trail Democrats in fundraising. They also lack a charismatic leader to rally around and are enmeshed in a bitter debate over their party's future. And, like their Democratic counterparts, GOP incumbents face an electorate inclined to topple lawmakers of all political stripes.

With Americans going hungry every day, what's the government response to it?

"Let's add only ONE BILLION DOLLARS more to combat child hunger!"

>rolls eyes in disgust<

(And how much money has our government wasted on illegal wars, no-bid contracts, tax cuts for the rich and powerful and so on...?)

See for yourself:

Biting recession leaves ever more Americans hungry

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The number of Americans receiving emergency food from the largest U.S. hunger-relief charity and its partners rose 46 percent from 2005 to 2009, according to a report released on Tuesday.

"Feeding America" said 37 million people, including 14 million children, needed emergency food aid each year, more than 10 percent of the U.S. population of 300 million. It based the figure on 61,000 interviews and 37,000 surveys of local charitable agencies.

That compares to 25.3 million people in 2005, when the group released its last quadrennial study.

"The findings of this study are nothing short of tragic," said Feeding America chief executive Vicki Escarra. "We have to find a way to feed people in the land of plenty."

The United States is the world's top corn and soybeans exporter as well as a major beef exporter.

Escarra was especially worried about the effects of hunger on children. It affects not only their health but their ability to succeed in school, she said.

Although the U.S. economy returned to growth in the second half of 2009 after nearly two years of recession, unemployment has remained stubbornly high at 10 percent. Feeding America reported last September that unemployment has played a major role in rising demand for emergency food.

"This is a real challenge for America," said Dennis Smith, director of the Northern Illinois Food Bank. "Hunger has become almost epidemic in this country."

The study also found that black and Hispanic Americans have been disproportionately affected by hunger.

Although each group makes up around 15 percent of the U.S. population, the report found that black Americans account for 34 percent of people seeking food and Hispanics 21 percent.

President Barack Obama has set a target of ending child hunger by 2015. Last year he backed a $1 billion annual increase in school lunch and other child nutrition programs.

My INR this past Thursday was 2.4--which was slightly low, but almost in range.

BP was 130/79--also good--so my weight-training and BP meds is doing some good--though I had to reduce my regimens down to a couple; rather than five or six sets.

I just don't have as much energy to go full out anymore. I try, but it's become quite taxing.

Even walking these days is tiring enough. If and when I do get my laptop, I don't see how walking from here to the mall is going to make much difference.

I just may end up taking the #11 down and walk back--cutting down the amount of strain placed on my body.

But I did discover the source of my boil problem on the back of my legs: An internet search last night revealed that when people sit down frequently and *stay* parked for a signicant amount of time...? They develop "blood blisters" in the worst parts of the human anatomy imaginable!

And it's not only discomforting, but quite painful.

I do get up often to do things, but I have to stay parked most of the time to conserve energy and my strength.

It's like having a quarter of your energy reserves available and that's all you're given--no matter how much you improve yourself.

I was watching this guy *bike* a couple days ago--when I went for my INR--and I was just envious and wistful.

There are some things I *do* take for granted: Being able to pee (because of my ongoing laser lithotripsy procedures every six months), able to breathe without having to worry about asthmas problems or whatnot, and being able to do the things that I *loved* to do.

Biking was one of them.

Oh, how I *enjoyed* the exercise. Being able to zip around and feel the wind in my hair and in my face and just seeing the world open up before me on two wheels; while chasing traffic the best I could.

But I realized that--now--it would just be too dangerous for me to undertake. Injury and accidents would create a *nightmare* for the EMTs treating me for injuries and possible severe blood loss; should I get hit by a car again.

On the way back from the library earlier this week, I started thinking about how I could give people like myself the *freedom*--just to move around.

I tried taking up rollerblading once--without much success--and the *idea* of hoverblades started to pop up in my head: A pair of self-contained jet boots with maybe 500 pounds of contained thrust; used just like skates--allowing the user to "skate" using nothing but compressed air and a little bit of jet propulsion.

Navigating would be done by a pair of hand gauntlets that would act as maneuvering-control jets.

Of course, the user would have to wear a special suit like those Olympic candidates whom do the tandem ice saloms around in a tightly confined rink--in order to cut down wind resistance and protect the body from stress.

And a helmet.

Have to have a helmet deigned. Maybe an HUD interface of some kind--with a telemtry pack installed as a guidance module...

So no one ends up in the drink by accident. :0)

Might be good for fishing free-style.

Stand over the water, throw in your line...?

More airport security won’t do much to stop terrorists. Leaving the Middle East would.

Cambridge, Mass. – Earlier this week, Osama bin Laden praised the Christmas Day attack in which a Nigerian-born man living in London attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound airplane by igniting explosives in his underwear.

Mr. bin Laden’s endorsement, along with recent attacks in Baghdad, raise concerns about a new round of attacks against the United States. Politicians, security experts, and pundits have therefore called for heightened security measures at airports and on airplanes.

It won’t work without addressing why there are attacks to begin with.

Additional security measures may prevent a few attacks, at least until terrorists learn to circumvent the new policies. But these measures will have little lasting impact, as with many past tactics, because they do nothing to reduce the demand for terrorism against the US.

If the desire to engage in a certain activity is not reduced, attempts to raise the costs (such as harsher punishment) of such an activity do not matter much.

Consider the evidence from existing policies toward drugs, prostitution, and immigration. In each case, policy tries to ban or limit the activity, hoping to raise the costs of supplying it. Meanwhile, minimal effort is exerted to reduce the demand for intoxication, sex, and a higher income.

The net result is that drugs and prostitution are widely available and the US is home to at least 9 million illegal immigrants. Sure, existing laws may reduce these activities somewhat, but the net impact appears to be minor.

Why?

Desire often trumps law. And it’s just too easy to get around the law. Illegal drugs and immigrants can enter the country along lengthy borders and via sea, air, or land routes. Purveyors of prostitution services have endless means for avoiding even the most robust enforcement effort, from massage parlors to escort services to Internet sex.

Thus governments cannot substantially reduce drug use, prostitution, or immigration by raising the penalty (supply costs): If demand is strong, underground markets will accommodate it. Whether policy should attempt to reduce these demands is a different question. Regardless, policies that only address the supply side cost a lot and afford minimal results.

What does this mean for antiterrorism policy? The same conditions that undermine supply-side policies against drugs, prostitution, and immigration apply here.

There are too many potential terrorist targets and too many ways for terrorists to innovate their tactics for the US government to seriously tackle them all in a meaningful way.

But while not everyone in the US agrees that the drug trade, prostitution, and immigration are something that should be addressed, all Americans want to reduce the number of people or organizations that seek to commit terrorist acts against the US – the demand.

So what can the US do to reduce this demand?

The answer is expeditious withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, and other Middle Eastern countries, along with cessation of economic and military aid to Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, and the rest of the region.

Legalization of opium growing in Afghanistan, so that Afghan farmers can grow their crops in peace, would also do much to ease tensions.

Ending US interference in the Middle East is a necessary condition for reducing terrorism against the US because Islamic resentment results directly from this interference. The fact that virtually all terrorist attacks against the US since 9/11 have targeted US forces in the Middle East, rather than targets on US soil, suggests the crucial objective is getting the US to leave. Of course, terminating US intrusions in the Middle East will not eliminate antipathy to the US.

Some Muslims, just like some non-Muslims, hate the US merely because it is rich and powerful. But ending US interference – which is not mild or occasional but pervasive and severe – would help achieve a significant reduction in the demand for terrorist acts against us. Numerous examples illustrate this view; terrorist attacks against Britain, for example, were concentrated historically against targets in the Middle East and India, but ceased when the British departed. US withdrawal from the Middle East must, of course, proceed slowly enough to safeguard US troops and equipment, and avoid putting locals in harm’s way. And this withdrawal may initially increase violence and instability, as the remaining factions attempt to consolidate power.

But the existing situation is already unstable and violent, and with continued US presence, this seems likely to persist. So US absence is a recipe for short-term pain but longer-term gain.

Some observers may view a US departure negatively because it appears to leave a mission undone. Many, however, will recognize that the US can no longer do any good – whatever one thinks about the original invasions – and therefore applaud the good sense in cutting losses.

None of this means that all antiterror tactics are ill-advised. Securing cockpit doors on airplanes, expanding the number of air marshals, or allowing security agencies to question terror suspects before handing them over to criminal justice can plausibly yield a good ratio of deterred terrorism to resentment and other costs. Yet these tactics can only do so much as long as the desire to attack the US remains strong.

The US must defend itself against terrorism, but it must do so using tactics that work. When one side of US policy is fanning the flames of anti-US hatred, the other side faces an unwinnable battle in trying to safeguard the country.

The Sorry State of the Union

Creators Syndicate – The state of the union is just miserable, no matter how President Obama sugarcoats it. He will claim that progress has been made in stabilizing the markets, increasing national security and advancing toward meaningful health care reform, but he will be wrong on all three counts.

What he will be right about is that none of these problems were originally of his creation, and that the opposition party wants to exacerbate rather than solve any of them — believing, as they do, in that destructive maxim of desperate losers who find their salvation in the stumbles of the winners.

There is no doubt that Obama and his party represent the lesser evil, but it is deeply disturbing to have to defend the leaders of our nation in those terms. They were supposed to lead us to peace, but as the cables from the U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, printed in The New York Times on Monday, make absolutely clear, the escalation in Afghanistan is tantamount to a disaster without end.

Ambassador Karl W. Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general who was previously the top American commander in Afghanistan, warned, "Sending additional forces will delay the day when Afghans will take over, and make it difficult, if not impossible, to bring our people home on a reasonable timetable."

Obama distracted progressives with a grand crusade for health care reform that reasserted the fundamental fallacy of the previous health reform effort of the Bill Clinton years: Give the insurance companies a captive universal market under the absurd illusion that we can control costs without undermining their greed with a competitive government-run option.

The same is the case with the collapse of the economy, as Obama shamefully continued the George W. Bush administration's mugging of U.S. taxpayers by throwing trillions of dollars at the Wall Street bandits who caused the financial meltdown. Meanwhile, 7 million Americans have lost their jobs and 15 million families owe more on their homes than they are worth.

Someday our president, whom I still regard as a decent and well-intentioned politician, will have to confront the demons of that fatal opportunism that led him to turn over the economy to the likes of Lawrence Summers and Timothy Geithner, who can most charitably be described as hugely successful Wall Street pimps.

Obama knows of Summers' devilish role, during his time in the Clinton administration, in pushing the radical deregulation of the markets that the president blamed last week for our economic debacle. And he is aware that the TARP inspector general is hot on Geithner's heels for his role, as head of the New York Fed, in the funneling of $62 billion dollars through AIG to Goldman Sachs and the other bonus payout alchemists.

But there is no indication from the carefully orchestrated leaks of his State of the Union speech that Obama is truly set to reverse course. Rhetoric about the "fat cat" bankers aside, his policies represent more of the same. There will be some hokey gestures of support for the disappearing middle class, but at the heart of his new budget proposal are cuts in needed domestic spending for education, nutrition, air traffic control and just about every other worthwhile domestic program. But there are no cuts for the military budget that already makes up 60 percent of the federal government's discretionary spending and is comparable to the total military budget for the rest of the world's nations combined.

Budget director Peter Orszag, who is overseeing those cuts, is — like Summers and Geithner — a disciple of former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, whose radical deregulatory policies brought us to this point. Orszag's freeze on domestic spending, projected for the rest of Obama's term, will reduce the domestic budget to its lowest percentage in 50 years. That portion of the discretionary budget is already so small that the proposed cuts will save a scant $10 billion to $15 billion next year — chump change compared to the $145 billion in bonuses for Wall Street's high rollers dispensed after a year of massive national suffering that they engineered.

Shame on Obama for now telling us after wasting many trillions on Wall Street and the Pentagon that he will seek to balance the biggest indebtedness in U.S. history not by cutting from that greasy pork but rather into the bone of our civic life, found in funding for schools and other desperately needed social services.

That is the opposite of a New Deal for ordinary folks in need of their government's assistance more than at any other time since the days of that last great Democratic president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Will we ever have another?

Obama and the myth of job creation

San Francisco – A president’s speechwriter, desperate to relieve the rhetorical ramble of a State of the Union, will often stage a special guest in the gallery, or a line or two from a letter – anything to generate something like intimacy.

Wednesday night, President Obama described the letters that he reads “each night. The toughest to read,” he said, “are those written by children, asking … when their mom or dad will be able to go back to work.”

Does official Washington really believe that we’re waiting for government to generate jobs, somehow? What is the effect of an American president reciting everything government might do to support job creation – loans, tax cuts, high speed rail, clean energy, basic research, community colleges, student loan forgiveness – while asking nothing of the people themselves?

There’s actually very little that any administration can do to create sustainable, real employment – other than reduce the cost of credit (which the Federal Reserve has long discounted to record lows).

The “deficit of trust” Mr. Obama spoke of tonight – and sounded so determined to resolve – referred to that of a people and their government. But where real job creation is concerned, Americans should start by trusting themselves.

To do something about the state of the soup we’re in, it would be helpful if the president and commentariat would focus less on the way Washington works, and more on the way the rest of us work.Â

Politics corrupt our conversation about job creation. Democrats demonize trade. Republicans demonize unions. And both parties indulge in culture wars and talk in code. Whether you call a stimulus package “targeted investments” or “taxpayer dollars” depends on whether you’re getting any.

When we imagine that government – and even companies – “create” jobs, we’re missing half the story: the crucial part. The part that most of us can actually influence, right now.

It’s a paradox, but job seekers are actually job creators. People (and the politicians that love their votes) tend to focus on how many employers happen to be hiring. But an overlooked tenet of labor economics says that what’s equally vital to creating jobs is the presence of an adequately skilled workforce capable of filling them.

In other words, when the workers are ready, the jobs appear.Â

This is no Zen abstraction. “Ready” means retraining – going to night school, learning new skills, taking risks – not complaining, as some do, about bringing jobs back from China.

It calls for presidential leadership that doesn’t bemoan “the burden of working harder and longer for less” (a debatable factoid). It means studying harder and longer, to earn more.

It means that job seekers have to keep seeking – aware, as Woody Allen said, that 80 percent of success is just showing up. Sometimes before an employer is able or willing to pay what you’re worth.

You’ll hear much talk pegging the “true” US employment rate at over 17 percent, when we include what the Labor Department classes as “discouraged workers” – those “not currently looking for work specifically because they believed no jobs were available for them.”

Media make money merchandizing misery – which does a great disservice to those who need to stay motivated to look for work, the hardest job there is. To do it right, you have to keep faith in yourself, and with your family, for 12 hours a day, six days a week.

Consider a few steps to create sustainable job growth, that don’t rely on official Washington:

Redefine our idea of a “job.” The labor market already has, ever since the employment “contract” began to change forever back in the 1980s. Particularly for white collar workers – disproportionately affected in this recession – the prospect of contract work and free agency has never been easier. And by doing something of value, the résumé expands and the long grind (and potentially paralyzing shame) of joblessness is eased.

Re-tool, quickly and regularly. Small businesses looking to expand are finding more independent contractors for Web design, programming, marketing, videography, and similar work. Focus on areas of employment in healthcare and education, where there’s growth.

Reconsider unemployment benefits. Rather than make unemployment insurance an all-benefits-for-no-work proposition (which discourages any work and earnings at all), states should apply the same kind of incentive that worked with the Earned Income Tax Credit – as beneficiaries earn a little more, they receive a little less in benefits, but their net take-home is higher.

Welcome free trade. For seven decades, America’s economic and political leadership has told the rest of the world to open up trade. They did – and we and the global economy prospered. The irony of our closing down trade now makes no sense. It’s our responsibility to mitigate the negative consequences of global trade for the vulnerable (that’s something government can be good at). But to drive living standards up, we need more and freer trade, not less.

Recognize immigration for the competitive advantage it is. Our great secret, relative to Europe and much of Asia, has always been our ability to assimilate and engage the most ambitious people from around the world. This applies as much to the PhD student here from Asia or India as it does to the guy with the leaf-blower. We need to find better ways to enlist them here, not erect paper walls of visa requirements.

Innovation is no abstraction. In fact, all innovation is local – it applies to the payables clerk who comes up with a more readable spreadsheet, or the line manufacturing employee who tweaks and improves a machining process. There’s nothing exotic about “knowledge work” – we all work with our brains. Some of us use them to run our mouths. Others, our hands – on paint brushes, keyboards, school chalk, machine tools – but we all use our brains. And we can all use them better, starting tomorrow.

While tax cuts and government spending may help at the margin – for a while – “the key to a recovery is optimism,” says the godfather of all pavement-pounders, Richard Bolles (author of “What Color is Your Parachute”), who tells us that too many quit looking for work after two months – and most rely on luck.

The end of a job search doesn’t happen by luck. It’s driven by an optimism that hears past the hysteria.

The economy won’t regain momentum until Americans become more confident about spending. They won’t spend until they’re more confident in their job prospects. Until, in fact, Americans themselves start creating jobs, rather than waiting for their government to do it for them.

Reactions To The State Of The Union From People Being Squeezed Out Of The Middle Class

President Obama spoke in his State of the Union address about how health insurance reform could help middle class families.

"I took on health care because of the stories I've heard from Americans with preexisting conditions whose lives depend on getting coverage; patients who've been denied coverage; families -- even those with insurance -- who are just one illness away from financial ruin," he said.

The Huffington Post asked three people who are being squeezed out of the middle class for their reaction to Obama's speech.

Heather and Greg Mroz of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., told HuffPost they are in the process of filing for bankruptcy after losing their insurance earlier this year because, Mroz said, they failed to notify the insurance company that they had twins instead of just one baby.

"It all came crashing down on us when I took our babies to their third doctor's appointment," said Heather Mroz, 24. "I handed them our insurance card and they said it was canceled." After they lost their insurance, they accumulated $480,000 in debt before they stopped counting. They've since moved in with her parents. "Before all this mess, we were middle class," said Mroz. "Now, we're homeless."

Mroz said she loved the way Obama seemed to take a hard line with Congress. "What he said was great," said Mroz. "I hope he has finally grown a backbone."

On Monday, the administration previewed initiatives to help the middle class, including a more generous child-care tax credit, a cap on student loan payments, and help for people caring for their parents.

Kristen Huff, a 35-year-old lawyer in Austin, Texas feels sandwiched by the pressures of raising two kids and taking care of her 56-year-old father, who she said recently suffered a catastrophic stroke in the brain stem. She told HuffPost that even though he has what she calls a "Cadillac" health insurance plan, the cost of taking care of him is extremely burdensome. She said her family is current on the bills but racking up credit card debt.

"I would say that we don't feel middle class," said Huff. She said she doesn't know how she will afford college for her children or her own retirement.

She said that Obama did an excellent job in his speech of aligning himself with regular people and showing leadership.

"It's not about the policy. I think it's about morale," she said. "It's about trying to get the tone of Washington, the tone of Congress, more in line with the tone of everybody's lives."

Mary Duffy of Redwood City, Calif. volunteered for the Obama campaign because she wanted health care reform. The three-time breast cancer survivor knows what it's like to be denied insurance because of a preexisting condition. Her desire to see the health insurance industry reformed became particularly acute when she lost her job in June of 2008. She continued her employer's coverage through COBRA, but spent all of 2009 applying for jobs knowing that her COBRA coverage would end in December.

The health care bill passed by the House, had it become law, would have saved Duffy by providing an automatic extension of her COBRA benefits -- which were subsidized at a rate of 65 percent by the stimulus bill -- until she becomes eligible for a low-cost plan through an insurance "exchange" in 2013. And both the Senate and the House versions created a high-risk plan for people unable to get private insurance that would have gone into effect immediately starting on Jan. 1, 2010 (though the Senate version would have been slightly less accessible than the House version).

Duffy, 60, said she gave up on Obama weeks ago. She told HuffPost she watched the State of the Union while trying to order medicine online from a Canadian pharmacy for the first time since she lost her COBRA coverage. She was not impressed by the speech.

"Overall, it was a nice speech," she said. "Could have been given by anybody. George W Bush could have given that speech."

After 38 hours on, I slept 12 off.

It's pretty quiet--with April passed out. Her DNC turned up a giant jawbreaker-sized tumor on the left side of her uterus. The doctors got out of her easily using a laser.

It's the reason why I stayed up for so long: Somebody had to monitor her and make sure that nothing wrong happened.

So why couldn't it be me? Her husband?

Of course, I had the usual weird dreams when I finally went to bed around 11 last night. I keep getting the impression from them that I'm going to lead a very interesting life--no matter where I go or what I do.

I'm scheduled for a sleep center appointment on the 3rd of March. I also was able to get some diabetic supplies today as well.

I'm not diabetic yet--since I've been changing my diet and losing some weight here and there.

But I am borderline.

And the last thing I need to do is cross that border.

7 Things About The Economy Everyone Should Be Worried About

An extraordinary series of articles recently appeared on the Nieman Watchdog Web site, anchored by investigative reporter John Hanrahan and mostly based on interviews with some of the nation's most perceptive, prescient and prophetic economists. The series laid out a broad landscape of economic issues that have been largely overlooked during the reporting of the nation's economic collapse -- to our great peril.

Hanrahan's articles explore key elements of the story that reporters should have been -- and should still be -- writing about. Among them: The endemic fraud at the heart of the collapse, the resultant need for a comprehensive dissection of some key financial institutions, how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have weakened the economy, the dramatic effects of the crash on domestic poverty and world poverty, and underlying it all, the critically important role of government spending in a recovery, be it through a second stimulus or expanded entitlements or jobs programs, all of which requires that deficits be seen, for the short run at least, as the solution, not the problem.

As a coda to Hanrahan's series, here is a list of seven things all of us should be more alarmed by than we currently are, going forward.

A common theme underlying them all is that while our leaders -- and the voices of conventional wisdom -- treat our current recession as cyclical in nature, and are essentially mostly just waiting around for growth to pick up again, there is plenty of reason to believe that this crisis was instead an expression of structural problems. And if that is so, and we don't take the proper action, then the wait could be a long one.

No. 1: The middle class may never be the same again

The full effects of the crash of 2007-2008 on the lives of regular Americans has yet to be fully appreciated. For most members of the middle class, their sense of financial well-being was largely based on the size of their 401(k)s and their equity as homeowners. After the collapse of stock prices and with the steep drop in home prices, many may never feel the same way again, or spend their money as confidently.

While 401(k)s have somewhat bounced back, about one in four homeowners now actually have negative equity -- are "underwater". A recent study by Barry P. Bosworth and Rosanna Smart for Brookings finds that American households lost $13 trillion in wealth between mid-2007 and March 2009, or about 15 percent in all. That decline badly hit baby boomers just as they're headed into retirement. And middle-income families whose head is age 50 or younger actually have smaller net incomes today than in 1983.

Meanwhile, many American families spent much of the last decade (or two) living beyond their means, piling up debt on their credit cards, or "bubble borrowing." Two University of Chicago researchers have found that the housing bubble hugely increased household consumption as homeowners borrowed on average $0.25 to $0.30 for every $1 increase on their home equity. Now that housing prices have crashed and credit is tight, the inevitable result, Atif Mian and Amir Sufi write somewhat euphemistically, is a "painful process of household de-leveraging."

Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren, an emerging hero among progressives in her role as chair of the congressional bailout oversight panel, sees the latest series of blows as the unfortunate culmination of a crisis that started taking form a generation ago. For long stretches of time, the growth in the nation's GDP has gone almost entirely to the top 1% or less of the population. That has resulted in a dramatic shift in wealth away from the middle class, made the economy more vulnerable to disaster and made the toll of such a disaster more catastrophic to all but the wealthiest Americans. Warren writes:

America today has plenty of rich and super-rich. But it has far more families who did all the right things, but who still have no real security. Going to college and finding a good job no longer guarantee economic safety. Paying for a child's education and setting aside enough for a decent retirement have become distant dreams. Tens of millions of once-secure middle class families now live paycheck to paycheck, watching as their debts pile up and worrying about whether a pink slip or a bad diagnosis will send them hurtling over an economic cliff.

She concludes: "America without a strong middle class? Unthinkable, but the once-solid foundation is shaking."

No. 2: The recovery could take a really long time

Even assuming that we are at the beginning of an enduring recovery, there are many signs that it will be a slow one, and that it could be as long as a decade until most American families return to the standard of living they enjoyed before the crash.

Most notably, unemployment is widely expected to be astronomically high for at least another year or two -- remaining around 10 percent through 2010.

And the recovery, such as it is, has been largely fueled by government money -- not just the stimulus, but also the bailouts, targeted programs such as the homebuyers tax credit and "cash for clunkers," and emergency spending on such things as extended unemployment insurance. What happens, however, when those stop? And none are designed to go on forever.

Washington Post financial columnist Steven Pearlstein recently put it this way:
My best guess is that the current upswings in economic output, confidence and financial asset prices are largely a reflection of the extraordinary fiscal and monetary juice provided by Treasury and the Federal Reserve, along with the natural rebound that occurs after a collapse in consumer and business spending like that which occurred in the first half of 2009. The surprising strength of the bounce-back testifies to the wisdom of the underlying strengths of the U.S. economy and the success of the policies, but is likely to peter out as the stimulus begins to wear off and the inventory correction is completed.

No. 3: The recovery could only be temporary

In an interview with Fox News back in November, Obama himself raised the possibility that the economy could once again head into a tailspin:

I think it is important though to recognize that if we keep on adding to the debt, even in the midst of this recovery, that at some point, people could lose confidence in the US economy in a way that could actually lead to a double-dip recession.

This is the classic Wall-Street influenced worst-case scenario -- with government spending as the villain and interest rate increases as the ultimate horror, leading to doom.

But Obama may be worrying about the wrong side of the Wall Street/Main Street axis. The more likely reason the economy could tank again is because of insufficient demand.

For the past decade or so, the growth of the U.S. economy was primarily fueled by the credit and housing bubbles -- which now turn out to have been illusory. So what will spur growth this time? Especially with so many Americans out of work? Where's the demand going to come from?

Citing, among other things, the likelihood that the U.S. savings rate could go markedly higher in the coming years, Nobel laureate economist Joseph Stiglitz warns that "we are not seeing a recovery of sustained consumption,"and says there is a "significant chance" of a double-dip recesssion for that reason.

One plausible growth model involves extensive government investment in infrastructure, public works and public goods; expansion of social programs; and a return to pre-Reagan era-style growth based on rising middle-class incomes, where wages grow with productivity.

Obama, however, captured as he is by the Wall Streeters and deficit hawks on his economics team, doesn't seem inclined in that direction -- nor, of course, does our utterly dysfunctional Congress. Obama and his advisers don't seem to feel the need for a new approach to growth, or to explain where they think it will come from. Their posture is simply to hang tough until it returns.

But the current economic situation is more fragile that some would have it. One particular danger is that because of bogus accounting rules, banks aren't properly recognizing their losses -- and are in fact largely insolvent.

Clinton-era Labor Secretary Robert Reich recently speculated about what lies ahead for the economy. He wrote he see only a 10 percent chance of a double dip recession (vs. a 30 percent chance of a strong or solid recovery; a 40 percent chance of a jobless recovery; and a 20 percent chance of a stalled recovery). But his description of that particular scenario was particularly vivid:
The commercial real estate market craters, carrying with it hundreds of regional banks and exposing how much junk is still on the books of major Wall Street banks. This triggers a long-awaited "correction" in the Dow and pushes the nation into another recession. Job losses rise.

No. 4: Then what? This time, we don't have the tools to get out of a recession

The recognized way of dealing with a recession is to lower interest rates in order to stimulate the economy. But the Federal Reserve can't lower the rate to below zero, so that's out.

The government can pour vast amounts of money into the economy, either through a stimulus or a massive bailout -- or, as the case may be, both.

But next time around, that money might not be there. Not only could the political will be lacking, but there is an upper limit to just how much money the country can borrow and spend at one time without it doing more harm than good.

No. 5: The ‘very serious' people in Washington are still obsessed about the deficit

In Washington salons and newsrooms, you are not considered a serious person unless you are very, very worried about the deficit. The principle that reducing the deficit is of the greatest urgency (and must come at the cost of entitlements) is for some reason firmly lodged in the halls of power in Washington. An example of just how uncontroversial deficit hawkery is among Washington's elite was provided by The Washington Post earlier this month when it apparently didn't think twice about turning over its news columns to an organization funded by Peter G. Peterson, the billionaire investment banker on a crusade to reduce the deficit by looting Social Security.

But deficit hawkery right now is not just ludicrous, it's dangerous. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman noted recently, "the calls we're already hearing for an end to stimulus, for reversing the steps the government and the Federal Reserve took to prop up the economy, will grow even louder." He adds:
But if those calls are heeded, we'll be repeating the great mistake of 1937, when the Fed and the Roosevelt administration decided that the Great Depression was over, that it was time for the economy to throw away its crutches. Spending was cut back, monetary policy was tightened -- and the economy promptly plunged back into the depths.

No. 6: Whatever is making the stock market go up could go away

The giddiness over the recovering stock market makes it easy to overlook some key questions about its rise. But what exactly has sent the Dow up almost 70 percent since March? Could it be another bubble? And could it burst?

Was it a function of the extraordinary liquidity pumped into the system, first through the bailouts and now through nearly zero-interest loans to the banks? Was it foreign investors attracted by weak dollar and low interest rates? Where's all the money coming from?

No one seems to know. (Does anyone really care?) But whatever it was could presumably come to an end, devestating the market and the economy.

No. 7: The hugely irresponsible financial sector remains unchastened

Back in March, Obama described modern Wall Street as a "house of cards" and a "Ponzi scheme" in which "a relatively few do spectacularly well while the middle class loses ground."

In his major speech on the economy in April, the president proclaimed that "we cannot go back to the bubble-and-bust economy that led us to this point." He continued:

It is simply not sustainable to have a 21st-century financial system that is governed by 20th-century rules and regulations that allowed the recklessness of a few to threaten the entire economy. It is not sustainable to have an economy where in one year, 40 percent of our corporate profits came from a financial sector that was based on inflated home prices, maxed-out credit cards, over-leveraged banks and overvalued assets. It's not sustainable to have an economy where the incomes of the top 1 percent has skyrocketed while the typical working household has seen their incomes decline by nearly $2,000. That's just not a sustainable model for long-term prosperity.

He was right.

He even used powerful biblical imagery from Jesus's Sermon on the Mount to liken the boom-and-bust economy he inherited to a house built on sand and the future U.S. economy he is working toward to one built on a rock, that could weather a storm.

But the big banks, with their enormous political clout, appear to be managing to duck the re-regulation that seemed inevitable a year ago -- and they are now in fact more powerful than ever. The ultimate litmus test is that the banks that are "too big to fail," rather than being broken up, are now making huge profits -- and paying astronomical bonuses -- based on the implicit guarantee that the government will pay their debts if they ever face bankruptcy. Indeed, that government backstop gives them every reason to place riskier bets than ever. Even Obama's latest, much more assertive and populist proposal to limit bank activities does not break up those banks -- and faces an uncertain future in our nearly paralyzed legislative branch.

Economist Simon Johnson (the subject of one of Hanrahan's articles) recently said on CNBC:

The conventional wisdom is you can't have back-to-back major financial crises. I think we're going to push that, we're going to have a look and see whether that's true. And the next 12 months could really be exciting. People could be very positive, but we are setting ourselves up for an enormous catastrophe.

Indeed. By Obama's biblical analogy, our economy is still very much built on sand --and the next big storm might not be very far away at all.

(The Republican Party will be controlling America for *generations* with this ruling--since it benefits them the MOST. Don't you think it's just a *little* COINCIDENTAL that the SC rules in the GOP's favor when they are down in the dumps and doing badly at the polls? The Bush cabal at work: Reaching beyond the corruption and the grave to screw Americans out of their Constitutional right to vote.

Of course, this should come as no surprise. If you need a strong character reference, watch the beginning of "The Running Man"--and listen to the narrator talk about how the "Corporation" is running everything and everyone's lives.

From soft drinks to reality shows.

Just like *today*.)

Supreme Court opens the money gates

The Supreme Court on Thursday opened wide the gates to allow more corporate and union money to finance political campaigns–and potentially influence politicians and lawmaking.

That's unfortunate, and means that the role of watchdogs tracking the money trail will be more important than ever.

It's not as if corporations and unions have so far had their wallets glued shut. They can fund issue ads that are important to their interests. And they're allowed to form political action committees that directly support candidates, as long as the donations are collected voluntarily from employees and union members.

But even members of Congress, whose energy is increasingly diverted to fundraising, have long recognized the potentially corrupting effect that big money can have on them. More than 100 years ago they banned corporations from donating directly to federal candidates.

Thankfully, the justices upheld that ban Thursday, as well as disclosure rules about contributors. But in a divisive 5-to-4 ruling, they overturned other important restrictions.

In time for this year’s midterm elections, corporations and unions can now spend directly from their treasuries on ads to support or defeat candidates – as long as those ads are produced independently and not coordinated with a campaign. They may also run ads right up until election day, instead of pulling them 30 days before a primary and 60 days before a general election.

Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy grounded the ruling in First Amendment rights. Corporations and unions – like individuals – have a right to free speech, the majority reasoned. “The censorship we now confront is vast in its reach,” he wrote.

But Justice John Paul Stevens said in his dissent, “The court’s ruling threatens to undermine the integrity of elected institutions around the nation.” Indeed, when voters say they want “change” in Washington, the influence of money on politics is the kind of thing they’re talking about.

The high court has the final word, but not the only word. Groups that track campaign fundraising will need to raise their voices when they find wrongdoing or worrisome signs – even as they have more money to watch. Those groups include nonprofits; the news media; and the official watchdog, the Federal Election Commission.

Yet the traditional media are downsizing and the FEC, which has an equal number of Republican and Democratic commissioners, has a poor track record. The FEC could be strengthened if its members were recommended to the president not by the Senate, which has a vested interest in a watchdog with no bark, but by an independent commission.

Transparency is now more important than ever, and so is beefing up the competition to corporate and union donations – small donors and public campaign financing. The Internet has given small donors a much bigger voice, but that can be amplified even further by Congress.

Now is the time for lawmakers to pay serious attention to proposed legislation that would allow House and Senate candidates to choose to run for office without relying on large contributions, big money bundlers, or donations from lobbyists. If candidates commit to raising a certain amount of small donations, they can qualify for competitive public funds for their campaigns.

Thus, candidates would divert far less energy to fundraising – which can take as much as 40 to 50 percent of the time of members of the House, who face election every two years. And, candidates would be less beholden to monied special interests.

The Supreme Court has significantly altered the landscape of campaign finance. The next election will reveal how the new arrangement works in practice.

Watchdogs must keep their eyes open.