The Retirement Gamble - yet another reason to reject Chained CPI scam

Two-thirds of your 401k goes to Wall Street.

ZeroHedge has more

Wasted Capital and Stranded Assets

Today the Guardian put a story on its front page about the biggest gamble in human history. 

Governments, corporations and pension funds have $6 trillion worth of unburnable carbon assets on the books -- that means that either their investments pay off and the planet tanks, or we avert climate catastrophe and those investments are worthless.  -350.org 

Needless to say, if Obama allows KeystoneXL, then he is directly complicit in this economic idiocy/global suicide.

A summary and link to the full report is here:  http://www.carbontracker.org/wastedcapital 

Ron Suskind Gets Obama Exactly Right

I've nearly finished the book, and the evidence it mounts in support of the portrait of Obama it paints is actually nothing short of devastating. Dan Froomkin has a post that everyone should read in its entirety.

Further to Ron Suskind's "Confidence Men"

UPDATE: I've read more of the book now, and would like to re-phrase the below. Ezra Klein is in fact *far* too kind to Obama. The "vice" he speaks of is largely of Obama's own making, through his cowardly inaction and unwillingness to lead. More on this later...

Nevermind, Dan Froomkin does it for us, and much better:

Meanwhile, in a more rigorous critique, Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein, writing in the New York Review of Books, accused the book of "incoherence" largely based on what he called a contradiction between Suskind's description of Summers as all-powerful -- and Suskind's own reporting about the several times Summers' more progressive ideas were rejected as too radical.

But in the book, Suskind never suggested that Summers or Geithner won all their battles; what he described was an environment in which Summers or Geithner -- or Emanuel -- all won some and lost some; an environment in which any one of the old Clinton hands could shoot down a bold idea as untested, too radical, unsellable, or too likely to spook the markets.

The only consistent theme, especially when it came to dealing with Wall Street or job creation, was that whoever was most cautious tended to emerge the victor, either outright, by winning over the president, or because they could block the execution.

Klein also argued that, while Obama clearly underestimated the severity of the financial crisis, the insufficient response was largely the fault of Congress. "The president is but one actor in the drama of American politics, and he is quite constrained in his capacity to make -- or remake -- American policy," Klein wrote.

But Suskind documents case after case in which the White House didn't even try -- and certainly never came even close to twisting arms the way, say, Lyndon Johnson might have.

Words And Deeds

Politically, Obama's economic policy has been a disaster. There was enormous political will to make the banks pay for their mistakes back in 2009 -- and judging by the Occupy movement, it's still there. It remains unsatisfied.

Ezra Klein cuts Obama some slack, and probably has a point:

The problem is political. Having very publicly passed a very big policy that you promised would revive the economy, the country blames you when the economy does not, in fact, revive. Your policies are discredited and your opponents are emboldened. You lose seats in the next election and your leverage over lawmakers. So you can’t, with any prospect of success, go back to the well and ask for a bigger stimulus or more money to buy up bad mortgages. And then, when the economy gets worse, you’re simultaneously in charge and out of options. You came to Washington promising change and now you’re begging for patience. It’s a crummy situation, and there’s no combination of policy proposals or speeches that can get you out of it. But this is the vise that has tightened around Barack Obama’s presidency.

Read the whole thing.

So now we appear stuck in precisely the sort of "lost decade" Japan experienced after merely bailing out its elites. The same "lost decade" Obama wished–and failed–to avoid. The stimulus was too small, as many predicted, and now there's no political capital to go back for the necessary larger one. Why did Obama fail? Because he didn't even try to break up the banks Because his stimulus was too small. Geithner, more than Summers, deserves large credit for this failure. On that score, I think Ron Suskind's verdict is actually pretty fair.

Of course, the bully-pulpit and other tools of both public and private persuasion and pressure are still very much available to any President, should he or she ever choose to use them, for instance in laying down a genuinely motivational, actually truthful narrative. But professionals hate scenarios of real bravery for which there is no preexisting data.

Thugs in Oakland, Honorable Police in Albany

The movement enters a new stage...

• Police in Albany know what "good policing" means (not the mayor or the governor). You can thank them, right here.

• Not so much in Oakland. A marine among the peaceful protestors is currently in the hospital with a skull fracture. Despite widespread videos from every conceivable angle, Oakland police officially deny using flashbang grenades and rubber bullets.


From the Occupiers Journal series:

Wednesday, October 26th
Oakland, CA

Chants of "Whose streets? Our Streets!" ring out from nearly a thousand protesters outside City Hall in Downtown Oakland. Standing on the street corner, I see a peaceful but angry crowd. Tensions were already high after police executed early morning raids; firing beanbag rounds and tear gas at sleeping #OccupyWallStreet activists before finally arresting nearly a hundred people.

My morning started by witnessing a man attempt to retrieve his tent from the remains of the campground. Four police officers picked him up and slammed him face first into the concrete right in front of my office building. Busted and bleeding, he was cuffed and tossed into the back of a van.

Now, the crowd marches back to the plaza. Fueled by stories of injured family and friends, the objective is clear. We cannot be intimidated, by police brutality or any other means.

"I hereby declare this an unlawful assembly," one police officer with a bullhorn says. "In the name of the people of California, I order you to disperse. If you do not do so, you will be arrested, subjected to force, chemical agents and possible serious injury."

But we are the people of California? Isn't it our duty to protest insane campaign finance laws? To demand concrete financial reform? To refuse to allow our taxpayer dollars to prop up an unethical system of corporate welfare? While all of these ideas are certainly present, in this moment, the shouting from the crowd is more reflective of a pure, basic emotion. The furious frustration that not only is no one listening but now they are trying to forcibly shut us up too.

And then, flash-bang grenades. Tear gas. Confusion and panic. What was a peaceful protest one second earlier now resembles a warzone. People trip, fall, help one another up, and duct flying flash-bang grenades and tear gas canisters that seem to be fired directly at them.

After three hours, the police finally clear most of the square with this type of force. What they can't seem to understand is that this was never about the square. It was never about this one night. It is about a collective effort the change the narrative to something more reflective of what people are actually experiencing in their daily lives. It is about cultivating the space to allow an expression to gradually and organically develop into a movement. We aren't there yet. But we are going back tonight.

With resolved hope,

Jackson Raders
Downtown Oakland

• "Prepared for winter. We're going to be here for a while:"

Where Do We Go From Here? Occupy Wall St. from Ed David on Vimeo.

#OWS Friday

• All the live streams are collected here: http://www.iamliverightnow.com/

(Austin, TX is especially good right now.)

• Denver (and Seattle) were shut down by police this morning (some arrested). Huge crowds and victory in NYC this morning.

#OWS

• http://www.occupystream.com/

• Matt Taibbi "My Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters"

• Keith Gessen, "On Wall Street"

• From n+1, "The Police and the 99%"

• Elizabeth Warren has announced that she has raised $3.15 million in just six weeks, with 19 out of every 20 donations under $100. Show your grassroots support and chip in $3!

• From The Guardian:

If we believe democracy is the best way to govern our residential communities, then it likewise deserves to govern our workplaces. Democracy at work is a goal that can help build this movement.

We all know that moving in this direction will elicit the screams of "socialism" from the usual predictable corners. The tired rhetoric lives on long after the cold war that orchestrated it fades out of memory. The audience for that rhetoric is fast fading, too. It is long overdue in the US for us to have a genuine conversation and struggle over our current economic system. Capitalism has gotten a free pass for far too long.

• From Bernie Sanders: Six Reform Proposals

• Occupy Boston could use some timely support.

#OccupyWallStreet , #OccupyTogether

• "Attorneys General Settlement: The Next Big Bailout" by Matt Taibbi

• http://www.occupytogether.org/

• http://www.livestream.com/globalrevolution

Today is a big day for Occupy Wall Street

Update: Live video here.

Meanwhile, in the news this morning:

Some of the nation’s largest banks are being accused of defrauding military veterans and taxpayers out of hundreds of millions of dollars. In a new lawsuit, companies including Wells Fargo, Bank of America, J.P. Morgan Chase, CitiMortgage, Countrywide Home Loans, Washington Mutual Bank and GMAC Mortgage are accused of illegally raking in hundreds of millions of dollars through hidden fees in the refinancing of veterans’ homes. The loans have been available under a government provision for retired or active-duty veterans. The case was brought by two whistleblowers who work as mortgage brokers in Georgia. They allege over one million veterans may have been subjected to fraud, and that the fees may have pushed tens of thousands of loans into default or foreclosure, at massive cost to taxpayers.

Everything's fucked up, and nobody goes to jail.

Right Here All Over (Occupy Wall St.) from Alex Mallis on Vimeo.

#OccupyWallStreet

Very Much Alive and Growing: Day 14 of Occupy Wall Street

• The testimonials on http://wearethe99percent.tumblr.com/ keep coming, and they are downright heart-breaking.

• There is a new central hub for all the protests springing up in each state, here: http://www.occupytogether.org/

• From a great article in The Guardian:

But the ultimate failure here is of imagination. What we are witnessing can also be seen as a demand to finally have a conversation we were all supposed to have back in 2008. There was a moment, after the near-collapse of the world's financial architecture, when anything seemed possible.

Everything we'd been told for the last decade turned out to be a lie. Markets did not run themselves; creators of financial instruments were not infallible geniuses; and debts did not really need to be repaid – in fact, money itself was revealed to be a political instrument, trillions of dollars of which could be whisked in or out of existence overnight if governments or central banks required it. Even the Economist was running headlines like "Capitalism: Was it a Good Idea?"

It seemed the time had come to rethink everything: the very nature of markets, money, debt; to ask what an "economy" is actually for. This lasted perhaps two weeks. Then, in one of the most colossal failures of nerve in history, we all collectively clapped our hands over our ears and tried to put things back as close as possible to the way they'd been before.

Perhaps, it's not surprising. It's becoming increasingly obvious that the real priority of those running the world for the last few decades has not been creating a viable form of capitalism, but rather, convincing us all that the current form of capitalism is the only conceivable economic system, so its flaws are irrelevant. As a result, we're all sitting around dumbfounded as the whole apparatus falls apart.

What we've learned now is that the economic crisis of the 1970s never really went away. It was fobbed off by cheap credit at home and massive plunder abroad – the latter, in the name of the "third world debt crisis". But the global south fought back. The "alter-globalisation movement", was in the end, successful: the IMF has been driven out of East Asia and Latin America, just as it is now being driven from the Middle East. As a result, the debt crisis has come home to Europe and North America, replete with the exact same approach: declare a financial crisis, appoint supposedly neutral technocrats to manage it, and then engage in an orgy of plunder in the name of "austerity".

The form of resistance that has emerged looks remarkably similar to the old global justice movement, too: we see the rejection of old-fashioned party politics, the same embrace of radical diversity, the same emphasis on inventing new forms of democracy from below. What's different is largely the target: where in 2000, it was directed at the power of unprecedented new planetary bureaucracies (the WTO, IMF, World Bank, Nafta), institutions with no democratic accountability, which existed only to serve the interests of transnational capital; now, it is at the entire political classes of countries like Greece, Spain and, now, the US – for exactly the same reason. This is why protesters are often hesitant even to issue formal demands, since that might imply recognising the legitimacy of the politicians against whom they are ranged....

• Last but not least, check out the dedicated You-Tube channel

Solidarity.

Lost Opportunity and Insubordinate Slow-Walkers: New Book Details How Timothy Geithner, Larry Summers, Rahm Emanuel Screwed Obama, and America

• The Ron Suskind book itself is an important read.

Here's why, according to two people who have actually read it: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2011/09/obamas_economic_quagmire_frank.html

(via DailyKos, where there is more)

A lifelong Democrat writes an important book, based on extensive taped interviews with the Obama administration, who are given the chance and do not deny the account.

A brave work of highly-credible journalism which basically validates what Progressives have been screaming ever since Obama, against his own better judgement, fell back on Clinton's old Rubinite big-bank-coddling cronies Geithner, Summers and Emanuel in a moment of unprecedented fragility, and sidelined the progressive wisdom of Paul Volcker, Stiglitz, Christina Romer, Elizabeth Warrene, Sheila Bair, Brooksley Born, Maria Cantwell and Alan Krueger, et al.

Why should it be any surprise that Geithner, et al. SLOW WALKED Obama's justifiable desire to follow Sweden's model of breaking up the banks, not Japan's proven longer-term financial disaster of merely protecting/bailing out the financial elite?

Asking themselves this question, the mainstream media temporarily (for a good week at least) adopts as their own the Progressive mantra that as a result Obama is now widely seen to have done too little too late. And hardly anyone stands up to say WTF, no fucking shit, we've been saying this all along.



A more critical review by self-appointed blog celebrity/sometimes megalomaniacal previous insider here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brad-delong/ron-suskind-confidence-men-review-_b_979418.html

Most Disappointing Presidency Ever

A rare unfettered glimpse into how banks own our modern politics: Obama just effectively secured his second term (in the vile and despicable form of pardoning Wall Street crime).

Here's what seems, for all intents and purposes, to have happened:

Wall Street donors waking up to the impending depths of global recession demand Obama do something to reassure markets. Obama calls up Warren Buffett from the Vineyard, somehow reassuring him that propping up our too-big-to-fail-banks is still his number one priority, and that Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Ally Financial and especially Bank of America will be granted effective immunity from future embarrassing and potentially quite costly litigation, after paying their purely symbolic petty one-time fine, so that everyone can move on.

Everyone, that is, unless you happen to be one of the victims of the largest criminal mortgage and pension frauds in history. Your rights, along with any records of the unprecedented criminal activity of the professional gamblers who swindled you into financial ruin, will be swept under the carpet.

True to Obama's word, Eric Schneiderman, the only man alive with any integrity, has been plucked out of the multi-state mortgage-settlement talks.

Buffett suddenly, brazenly invests $5 Billion in Bank of America, whose self-inflicted problems with the crooks at Countrywide are about to go away, and has already earned some of it back based on the extremely positive market reaction.

NPR does its typical kid glove job almost covering the story here, without offending anyone.

Jonathan Turley puts NPR to shame, and gets more intelligent comments as well.


Update: New evidence reveals the failure of the bailout to do anything for Main Street.

America is not broke

Keep fighting the anti-democratic Koch brothers, right here. Update: and now here!

After spending over $324 million on an extremist political agenda that is devastating to the lives of 98% of Americans, despoiling what was once a potentially good planet for everyone while they personally prosper to the tune of $43 billion, David Koch and Charles Koch are finally getting the sort of embarrassing attention they deserve, as every freedom-loving, hard-working American should be glad to see.

And remember, even though a self-employed woodworker in North Carolina pays over three times as much in property taxes as Tom Cruise, and on a (far less desirable) fraction of the acreage, has no health insurance, and still owes tens of thousands in college loans well over a decade after graduating even though he went tuition free, "class war" is still a dangerous fiction invented by elitist poor people to subvert Jesus (link, or something).



• The hell is Obama thinking.

• This is the reality.

• Also, to hell with polite progressive groups like Moveon.org (especially the absolutely boring local Asheville chapter). Those folks lost their critical exigency years ago, and have resigned themselves to knocking on doors in the projects, once every four years. A good summary of the Wisconsin fight is here (via Jodi Dean).

Obama's Budget: "Shared Sacrifice" My Ass

How insulting to everyone's intelligence. The most obvious take-away from Obama's budget is that the poor and middle class have just lost another in a long streak of losing battles in the ongoing class war of the last several decades. And politicians like Obama still have (or rather pretend to have) the naïveté to wonder, why it is so hard to convince the vast majority of our citizens that "big government" isn't the problem, and isn't just another extension of big international greed. The logical explanation for team Obama's political idiocy is to follow the money for 2012, but there is probably a deeper psychological, or biographical element at work as well. Obama is beating himself up to prove a point to the nation, and to Republicans about real sacrifice. He is clearly Jesus, and we just aren't willing to hear him.

Meanwhile John Boehner, Prince of Pork, is still getting his $456 million earmark. And the Rethuglicans still won't be happy until not only are people literally freezing in their houses but their Social Security and Medicare are gambled away just like their mortgages. Congratulations, David and Charles Koch...the America you want is coming to pass. And congratulations to Obama, for holding on to that precious moral high ground.

nb. Keep your eyes on Wisconsin.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is an Anti-Democratic Piece of Shit, cont.

Read all about it....

Centrism in Griftopia

The end of this article is much better than the beginning (via PTDR, which has been on a roll lately):

Obama critics decry his failure to use the presidential bully pulpit, compared to its use by Franklin Roosevelt. Apart from it not being Obama’s style, there are two additional problems with this idea. It would be very easy for the Right to portray him as a militant black—making him a black president rather than a president who is black. Obama has assiduously cultivated the latter persona. But more important, FDR had rivals who filled the bully pulpit role and claimed the allegiance of significant constituencies, or could at least threaten to gain them: CIO President John L. Lewis, whose industrial union movement had mushroomed in the 1930s to over three million members; conservative populist radio priest Father Charles Coughlin; African-American leader A. Philip Randolph; senior citizen hero Dr. Francis Townsend; Louisiana populist Governor Huey Long; and perennial socialist presidential candidate Norman Thomas. Each of them could mobilize millions of people.

When FDR had to be pressured from his left, there was someone there to do it. That’s a key element of Von Hoffman’s point: if Roosevelt said to John L. Lewis, “go out and make me do it,” Lewis and the industrial union movement could do it—just as the Deep South civil rights movement could keep the heat on John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. President Lincoln met with African-American former slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass and the Radical Republicans of his own party. With whom would Obama meet today? Who can deliver Democratic constituencies today? The heart of the progressive problem is that the answer is, “no one.”

Blaming the money that is spent to defeat peace and justice candidates who run on progressive issues isn’t an adequate response. We know that kind of money is going to be spent against progressives. That’s a given. Water is wet and rocks are hard. If there isn’t enough grassroots organization behind a peace and justice candidacy to counter the money, then the campaign shouldn’t be run in the first place.

As we know, the Republican sweep knocked both progressives and Blue Dogs out of Congress, including Russ Feingold in what is often a progressive state. Did any third-party, progressive candidates win? Not that I’m aware of. Did any anti-incumbent Blue Dog nominees win Democratic primaries in June, then get elected in November? Not that I’m aware of. Did any new peace and justice congressional candidate get elected? Not that I’m aware of. And even if there are one or two, the likelihood is that the candidate was running against a Tea Party crazy—against whom any Democrat would have won.

What then?

We are in a period in which we have to build toward national victories. That building takes place primarily in local campaigns. It’s a long process, not a short one.

Update: In the wake of Obama's State of the Union, here is one very good place to begin, with Nicholas Ruiz:

if Obama is in need of some regulations to reasonably review, Democrats can help. For example, let’s review the stifling minimum wage regulation. The minimum wage, unreasonably and unrealistically, remains untethered to the consumer price index. Therefore, it almost never goes up. But market prices sure do. And that’s why the buying power of the average American today pales in comparison to the buying power senior citizens had when they were young. Deregulate the minimum wage by tethering it to the market via the consumer price index. Republicans, whose charms and favor Obama seems too eager to court, will be happy, too: it has the word ‘market’ in it.

Go Bernie Sanders, Go!

Bernie has been speaking on the floor of the Senate (live link) for 8 hours straight and still going strong. Historic, beautiful, moving speech and civics lesson, from a Senator who has earned his ire and done his homework. Watch live (at the above link) and send your
message of support/talking suggestions right now!

Follow on Twitter (currently trending #1).

Liveblogging here.

From Facebook:

Bernie Sanders: You can call what I am doing today whatever you want, you it call it a filibuster, you can call it a very long speech. I'm not here to set any great records or to make a spectacle. I am simply here today to take as long as I can to explain to the American people the fact that we have got to do a lot better than this agreement provides.
(from the Senate floor)

From DFA:

Saying he was prepared to speak "as long as possible" against a tax deal between the White House and congressional Republicans, Bernie today took to the Senate floor to make the case against deepening the deficit and widening the income gap in America by extending Bush-era tax breaks for the very wealthy.

As I hit send on this email right now at 4pm Eastern, Senator Bernie Sanders has been speaking for 6 hours -- becuase he knows he has your full support and stands on the side of the majority of Americans. Assuming that by the time you get this email, Bernie is still at it, you can watch him lead his unconventional filibuster live right now.

Bernie's message today is clear. You have the power to stop this bad deal.

Senator Sanders has received thousands of calls in his office against the compromise. He's spoken to other Senators and they are getting it too. Even better, they're listening. Now, on the Senate floor, Senator Sanders is calling on all Americans to turn it up -- don't stop -- keeping calling until we get a better deal.

But don't just focus on the Senate.

The U.S. House of Representatives needs to hear from you too. Yesterday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that House Democrats will not vote on the compromise without further changes and a better deal for working people, senior citizens, and the unemployed. But House Democrats are under great pressure to cave. They need to know we have their back. That's why we launched a "Thank You and Stand Strong" statement of support yesterday.

We've alerted the Speakers office of the overwhelming response we've had -- over 40,000 signatures in under 24 hours -- and it's already making an impact. But it's not enough. Can we hit 75,000 signatures before we deliver all the signatures on Monday?

PLEASE ADD YOUR NAME NOW

Our strategy is working. Democrats are standing up and fighting for real change. They are working to defend the middle class and restore fiscal sanity. And they are doing it, becuase they are standing up for us. You. Me. And every American. This is why we vote for, contribute to, and fully support progressive Democrats.

Thank you for everything you're doing to move America forward.

-Charles

Charles Chamberlain, Political Director
Democracy for America

P.S. Because no one says it better than Bernie, I've included his message to DFA members from the beginning of the week below.

_______________



Matthew -

President Obama is right about one thing -- Republicans in Congress are holding the middle class hostage.

We have a $13.8 trillion national debt, a collapsing middle class and the most unequal distribution of wealth of any major country. With all this in mind, Republicans in Congress say they will block tax cuts to the middle class and block unemployment benefits to more than two million families unless the President gives huge tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires.

Their behavior is morally bankrupt. It is reprehensible.

But instead of challenging the Republicans for their absurd demands and their outrageous tactics, the President gave them virtually everything they wanted.

I cannot and will not support this deal. I will do everything I can to uphold the promise made to the American people to end the Bush tax cuts for the rich.

Join me and my friends at Democracy for America today and sign our pledge calling on Congress to reject this deal.

One of the most underreported parts of this deal is a cut to the Social Security payroll tax. In just one year, over $120 billion of revenue will be cut from Social Security under the President's compromise plan, weakening the program and virtually guaranteeing benefit cuts in the future.

Make no mistake about it. Social Security has not added one dime to the national debt and this cut will only embolden Republican attempts to privatize the program and increase the age of retirement. Social Security is a vital safety net for all Americans and a cornerstone of our commitment to protect the middle class.

We are not alone in standing against this compromise. Republicans are holding the middle class hostage and the American people know it. I come from a small state and yesterday my office received more than 1,000 calls on this issue, with over 90% of them in opposition to this deal.

Last night, thousands of DFA members joined me on DFA Live where we had a lively discussion on this issue. One thing was clear to me during that call -- DFA members nationwide want Democrats to stop this deal and fight for the middle class, working people, senior citizens and the unemployed while making sure that millionaires and billionaires are not given massive tax breaks.

Make sure Congress gets the message -- Join the fight now and sign the petition opposing this so-called "compromise."

Thank you,

-Bernie

Bernie Sanders
United States Senator from Vermont

Thank you, Sanders.

The first 12 minutes:



MSNBC, the one and only cable news show on the job:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Obama needs a challenge. I vote for Russ Feingold.

Cockburn is usually deep in fantasy-land, but this one I like:

As the dust clears from the electoral battlefield, the corporate press is unanimous: the people have spoken, and their verdict is that President Obama must "move to the center." Onto the butcher block must go entitlements—Medicare, Social Security. The sky darkens with vultures eager to pick the people's bones.

In fact, election day delivered no such verdict. The American people spoke, and their message was confused. When exit pollsters questioned 17,000 voters across the nation as to who should take the blame for the country's economic problems, 35 percent said Wall Street, 29 percent said Bush and 24 percent said Obama. Just over half of the respondents (57 percent) said that their votes in House races had nothing to do with the Tea Party. The other half was split on the Tea Party, pro (22 percent) or con (17 percent). More than 60 percent said the all-important issue is the economy; 86 percent said they are worried about economic conditions. On whether government should lay out money to create jobs or slash expenditures to reduce the deficit, there's also a near-even split.

The American people want a government that doesn't govern, a budget that will simultaneously balance and create jobs, and spending cuts across the board that leave the defense budget intact. Collectively, the election made plain, they haven't a clear notion of which way to march.

Obama must carry a substantial part of the blame for this. He delivered no clear message, no clarion call. For two years he gave labor nothing; he gave his most loyal constituency—black America—nothing. When the "One Nation" rally mustered in Washington on October 2, there was no stentorian message of support from Obama for the event, sponsored by the NAACP and the AFL-CIO. Among the vast throngs who gathered for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's politically inconsequential "sanity rally" on October 30, how many were young people who had voted for Obama in 2008, their passionate expectations now mutilated on the battlefields of Obamian realpolitik?

As Obama reviews his options, which way will he head? He's already supplied the answer. He'll try to broker deals to reach "common ground" with the Republicans, the strategy that destroyed those first two years of opportunity.

What do the next two years hold? Already there are desperate urgings from progressives for Obama to hold the line. Already there are the omens of a steady stream of concessions by Obama to the right. There's hardly any countervailing pressure for him to do otherwise. The president has no fixed principles of political economy, and who is at his elbow in the White House? Not the labor secretary, Hilda Solis. Not that splendid radical Elizabeth Warren, whose Consumer Financial Protection Bureau the Republicans are already scheduling for destruction. Next to Obama is Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, the bankers' lapdog, whom the president holds in high esteem.

In the months ahead, as Obama parleys amiably with the right on budgetary discipline and deficit reduction, the anger of the progressive left will mount. At some point a champion of the left will step forward to challenge him in the primaries. This futile charade will expire at the 2012 Democratic National Convention amid the rallying cry of "unity."

The White House deserves the menace of a convincing threat now, not some desperate intra–Democratic Party challenge late next year by Michael Moore or, yet again, Dennis Kucinich.

There is a champion of the left with sound appeal to the sane populist right. He was felled on November 2, and he should rise again before his reputation fades. His name is Russ Feingold, currently a Democrat and the junior senator from Wisconsin. I urge him to decline any job proffered by the Obama administration and not to consider running as a challenger inside the Democratic Party. I urge him, not too long after he leaves the Senate, to bruit the possibility of a presidential run as an independent; then, not too far into 2011, to embark on such a course.

Why would he be running? Unlike Teddy Kennedy challenging Jimmy Carter in 1979, Feingold would have a swift answer. To fight against the Republicans and the White House in defense of the causes he has publicly supported across a lifetime. He has opposed the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. His was the single Senate vote against the Patriot Act; his was a consistent vote against the constitutional abuses of both the Bush and Obama administrations. He opposed NAFTA and the bank bailouts. He is for economic justice and full employment. He is the implacable foe of corporate control of the electoral process. The Supreme Court's Citizens United decision in January was aimed in part at his landmark campaign finance reform bill.

A Wisconsin voter wrote me in the wake of the election, "Feingold likely lost because his opponent's ads, including billboards with pictures of him and Obama, as well as TV and radio ads, and last-minute phone bursts, convinced many voters that he has been a party-line Democratic insider all these years." What an irony! Feingold has always been of an independent cast of mind, and it surely would not be a trauma for him to bolt the party. Ralph Nader, having rendered his remarkable service to the country, having endured torrents of undeserved abuse from progressives, should hand the torch to Feingold as a worthy heir to that great hero of Wisconsin, Robert La Follette.

The left must abandon the doomed ritual of squeaking timid reproaches to Obama, only to have the counselors at Obama's elbow contemptuously dismiss them, as did Rahm Emanuel, who correctly divined their near-zero capacity for effective challenge. Two more years, then four more years, of the same downward slide, courtesy of bipartisanship and "working together"? No way. Run, Russ, Run!

Liberated from The Nation (with permission).

Geithner, Summers and the DLC are to blame

Update: Here's what Obama can do now.

Bear in mind there was still some good news for progressives, in Colorado, Arizona, Deleware, Nevada, Maine, Connecticut, Vermont, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Florida, North Carolina, California...as DFA puts it:

While it was a tough night, we had a few important victories too. DFA 2010 Progressive Hero Barbara Boxer won. Public Option Heroes Michael Bennet, Kristen Gillibrand, Jared Polis, and Chellie Pingree all won without running away from their votes for Healthcare. Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus Raul Grijalva was in the fight of his life and won. In fact 94%97% of the rest of the Progressive Caucus also won (compared to only 47% of the Blue Dogs).

Florida amendments legally requiring fair redistricting of congressional districts -- instead of Republican-controlled gerrymandering -- won. The anti-environmental Proposition 23 in California, which could have rolled back some of the most important clean air laws in the country, was defeated. And bold progressive Peter Shumlin was elected the first Democratic Governor of Vermont since Howard Dean left office in 2002.

The fact is progressive heroes who lost last night like Russ Feingold and Alan Grayson became collateral damage in a toxic election environment created by weak leadership and corporate Democrats who refused to stand up and fight for real change. Progressives like Annie Kuster, Mary Jo Kilroy, and Tom Perriello ran some of the strongest grassroots campaigns in history, but were drowned out by unregulated corporate front groups that spent hundreds of millions to scare and lie to voters. [That's an important link.]

The biggest lesson from last night is actually pretty simple. For Democrats to win in the future, they need to fight for the people they represent and stop cutting deals to water down reform with the same corporate interests who will turn around and spend unlimited amounts of money to defeat Democrats year after year.

Good riddance, Blue Dogs.

(Also, my brother points out, a long-haired hippie kid just won the world series for San Francisco. In Texas. And with Bush Walker "I'm happy I won't be around when history judges me" and Bush Herbert watching. (Well, I enjoyed it.))

Also: No shit:

Marc Ambinder highlighted a fascinating statistic that we missed last night.

"Who's to blame for the economy? Bankers (34%), Bush (29%), Obama (24%). Of those who blame bankers, Republicans hold an 11 point advantage."

Readers of this blog will recall our reading of the bailout hustle. The defeat for Democrats no doubt began there, in accepting Rubinomics and the precedent of Bush's unconditional bailout without seriously re-messaging it (despite firing the heads of GM, and some luke-warm protections) together with a serious "JOBS BILL" and "TAX CUTS" (as Michael Moore, says, "stimulus" sounds like a disease, at least they watered it down).

How ironic then, that after giving one of the biggest tax cuts in history, Obama is the enemy and Wall Street is the big winner last night.

Especially Karl Rove's "American Crossroads" hedge fund palls.

If that's not incompetent messaging, I don't know what is.

Of course I'm not the only one who is furious with the DSCC and DCCC for ignoring Elaine Marshall and Ann Kuster, respectively, among lots of other electable, and essential bold progressives, while supporting Rethuglicans in Democrat disguise with millions of dollars and high profile visits, like a battered wife who just swallows her pain and principles and comes out to smile beside her husband for the company. That strategy is doomed to failure, even if you win. How does the Harry Truman saying go?

"Given a chance to vote for a Republican, or a Democrat who acts like a Republican most of the day, the voter will choose the real Republican every time!"

So, corporate right-wing Democrats lost. Progressives meanwhile, with a few very sad exceptions the blame for which sits partly on the DLC's lap and partly on "Citizens United", survived. Bold Progressives will show the Democrats how to fight. Join the PCCC.


Also, just for all those Tea-Baggers so ignorantly quick to claim that race has nothing to do with it:

a rare political post

Seth Ackerman rightly underwhelmed at Ezra Klein's sense of history:

The Democrats shot their historical wad on health care by re-introducing Bob Dole’s bill from 1994 and justifying it as a free-market solution. How is that a “huge progressive victory”?

Taibbi on the continued reign of credit default swaps: "Jesus..."

James K. Galbraith: In Defense of Deficits

Richard Parker: Athens, The First Domino?

Moreover, unlike Wall Street bankers, Papandreou isn't asking for a bailout (let alone a bonus for himself or senior ministers); what he wants is help stabilizing the market for Greece's bonds. And unlike Wall Street in the fall of 2008, Athens isn't being frozen out of the credit markets; in fact, it is still able to borrow....

But Wall Street speculators have swarmed in, playing Greece, as the Financial Times put it, "like a piñata." The country's tiny bond market–barely a billion euros a day were trading in Athens in January–makes an easy and tempting target for traders with big bats; by attacking Greek bonds, the traders get to play on an increasingly pan-European volatility in bond and currency rates, thereby leveraging a little nation's problems into gigantic trading-floor gains. And thanks to the Obama administration's repeated refusal to limit such activities–despite pleas from our European allies since 2008 to jointly regulate global financial markets–what the traders are doing is legal. In fact, massive immediate trading profits are the means by which banks like Goldman, Citi, JPMorgan, Barclays, UBS and Deutsche Bank are rebuilding their balance sheets without providing the lending the real economies of America and Europe need to begin their recovery....