Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Financial Reform: The GOP strategy to Block it Frank Luntz, their media guru / wordsmith, recommends selling the Democratic regulatory plan, including the Consumer Protection Agency, as a Big Bank Rescue. His framing has worked before: Recall that much of the population no longer refers to the Estate tax or the Inheritance tax, but rather to the “Death tax.”
Nine months after he penned a memo laying out the arguments for health care legislation's destruction, Republican message guru Frank Luntz has put together a playbook to help derail financial regulatory reform.
In a 17-page memo titled, "The Language of Financial Reform," Luntz urged opponents of reform to frame the final product as filled with bank bailouts, lobbyist loopholes, and additional layers of complicated government bureaucracy.
"If there is one thing we can all agree on, it's that the bad decisions and harmful policies by Washington bureaucrats that in many ways led to the economic crash must never be repeated," Luntz wrote. "This is your critical advantage. Washington's incompetence is the common ground on which you can build support."
Luntz continued: "Ordinarily, calling for a new government program 'to protect consumers' would be extraordinary popular. But these are not ordinary times. The American people are not just saying 'no.' They are saying 'hell no' to more government agencies, more bureaucrats, and more legislation crafted by special interests."
In Republican circles Luntz's words, which have helped the party score win the message wars over health care and other legislative battles, are often treated as gospel. Already, some of the advice he's offered on regulatory reform has found its way into the political discourse -- with a proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency seemingly on life support under Republican objections.
In addition to tying regulatory reform to a massive government takeover, Luntz's memo includes several other data points and messaging suggestions as a blue print for the legislation's defeat. Opponents, he writes, would be well served to link the package to the financial industry bailout (which, it should be noted, is fundamentally not part of the legislation). According to accompanying polling data, 52 percent of voters said they would be "much less likely" to vote for their member of Congress if they voted for a financial reform bill that contained a fund to bail out banks and Wall Street. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/02/01/frank-luntz-pens-memo-to_n_444332.html
Pakistan: Air War Drones aplenty, yet, under the media radar
Missiles fired by suspected US drones have killed at least 17 people and wounded many more in Pakistan, residents and security officials say.
Officials said the missiles rained down on Dattakhel village in the Degan area of North Waziristan, part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal region near the Afghan border, on Tuesday.
They said the missiles struck suspected fighters' hideouts and a training centre.
Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, said there were reports that up to 19 missiles had been fired.
"This would be the first time you get a co-ordinated attack by such a large group of drones since the attacks against targets inside Pakistan began. http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2010/02/201022151350906994.html
China, World Power Already a powerhouse, they’re now considering setting up military bases outside their territory. As the article asks, “Well, why not?” As “China already pays for our military imperialism by loaning us the money to play soldier. So, why shouldn't the world's new Superpower just cut to the chase and open their own bases?”
The Chinese point of view:
It is baseless to say that we will not set up any military bases in future because we have never sent troops abroad," an article published on Thursday at a Chinese government website said. "It is our right," the article said and went on to suggest that it would be done in the neighborhood, possibly Pakistan.
"As for the military aspect, we should be able to conduct the retaliatory attack within the country or at the neighboring area of our potential enemies. We should also be able to put pressure on the potential enemies' overseas interests," it said.
A military base in Pakistan will also help China keep a check on Muslim Uighur separatists fighting for an independent nation in its western region of Xingjian, which borders the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Beijing recently signed an agreement with the local government of NWFP in order to keep a close watch on the movement of Uighur ultras.
… Setting up overseas military bases is not an idea we have to shun; on the contrary, it is our right. Bases established by other countries appear to be used to protect their overseas rights and interests. As long as the bases are set up in line with international laws and regulations, they are legal ones. But if the bases are established to harm other countries, their existence becomes illegal and they are likely to be opposed by other countries.
China develops its military force with a theme of peace in mind. Therefore, we can either develop military forces domestically to maintain peace, or place the forces abroad as long as we take world peace as the ultimate goal. In the 1950s, the Korean War enflamed the border of China. China had no option but to call up volunteer soldiers to fight against the overseas intervention in its northern neighbor. Many of the volunteer soldiers remained in North Korea for years after the end of the Korean war to safeguard the peace of the two countries. Finally, the troops withdrew from the peninsular where the stability was regained. http://www.antemedius.com/content/game-changer-china-plans-open-military-bases-worldwide
Obama Accomplishment: Regulation Credit where credit’s due. After the travesty of Bush-Cheney personnel, Obama’s regulatory appointments could not be more different. From the Reagan-Bush-Bush cronies and pro-industry zealots we improve with OSHA’s David Michaels to EPA’s Lisa Jackson, from FDA’s Margaret Hamburg to FEMA’s W. Craig Fugate- they are experts and often veteran advocates for the public.
[Note: The Friday Obama-GOP leadership ‘debate’ was a rare exposure of their respective “positions”- i.e. Obama’s views and policy initiatives and the Republican postures and talking points. Very revealing, and the GOP may now stay clear of such.]
These days, liberals don’t know whether to feel betrayed by or merely disappointed with Barack Obama. They have gone from decrying his willingness to remove the public option from his health care plan to worrying that, in the wake of Democrat Martha Coakley’s defeat in Massachusetts, he won’t get any plan through Congress. On other subjects, too, from Afghanistan to Wall Street, Obama has thoroughly let down his party’s left flank.
Yet there is one extremely consequential area where Obama has done just about everything a liberal could ask for--but done it so quietly that almost no one, including most liberals, has noticed. Obama’s three Republican predecessors were all committed to weakening or even destroying the country’s regulatory apparatus: the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and the other agencies that are supposed to protect workers and consumers by regulating business practices. Now Obama is seeking to rebuild these battered institutions. In doing so, he isn’t simply improving the effectiveness of various government offices or making scattered progress on a few issues; he is resuscitating an entire philosophy of government with roots in the Progressive era of the early twentieth century. Taken as a whole, Obama’s revival of these agencies is arguably the most significant accomplishment of his first year in office. http://www.tnr.com/print/article/politics/the-quiet-revolution
Elections: Corporate $ Already #1 Prior to the Citizens United decision, they already were dominant
Marc Ambinder:
For the first time in recent history, the lobbying, grassroots and advertising budget of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has surpassed the spending of BOTH the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee.
This is significant. It means that the Great Transition has already begun. In the days following the decision in Citizens United, campaign finance experts predicted that the decision would open the floodgates of money for trade associations like the Chamber of Commerce. The influx of corporate money, according to some, would weaken the power of the political parties and candidates and lead the political parties to become less important. Republican lawyer Ben Ginsberg went so far as to say that the parties would be "threatened by extinction." And Ginsberg supports the CU decision!
As it turns out, the surge of contributions into the U.S. Chamber has already caused its budget on lobbying, grassroots and advertising to surpass that of both the Republican National Committee and the Democratic National Committee for the first time in recent memory. According to The Center for Responsive Politics, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and its national subsidiaries spent $144.5 million in 2009, far more than the RNC and more than double the expenditures by the DNC. http://politics.theatlantic.com/2010/02/the_corporations_already_outspend_the_parties.php
Health Care: California Single Payer bill Advances: No media coverage, unfortunately… and unsurprisingly.
SB 810, The California Universal Healthcare Act, authored by Sen. Mark Leno and sponsored by the California Nurses Association/National Nurses United (CNA/NNU), with broad support among many healthcare, community, and labor groups, will now proceed to a vote by the Assembly, which has passed similar legislation in the past. The bill would establish a single-payer system in California, modeled on the healthcare systems flourishing in virtually all other industrialized nations, where better patient outcomes are achieved at a fraction of the cost of the U.S. system.
… Noting during the floor debate that, “consistently 59 per cent of California voters say yes” they want a Medicare for all system in the state, Sen. Leno added that single-payer is not just a bill for a humane health system, but also a jobs program for a state that desperately needs one: “We can’t compete in a global marketplace where all our competitors have had the government take the burden of healthcare off the shoulders of their employers….as we move towards single-payer in this state, and have better universal coverage, this will attract employers to California. We are already underwater in our healthcare system. We can’t keep up.”
Referring to opposition arguments about supposed ballooning costs under the bill, Sen. Leno pointed out that a single payer system would simply redirect current spending on healthcare, away from insurance overhead and towards a more direct and efficient way of providing care. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/28-7
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