Yesterday, the Lake County News-Sun chose to gush over Bob Dold as an environmentalist because he went up 40 feet in a bucket lift while touring Illinois Beach State Park and Spring Bluff Forest Preserve. They went on to report that he was there because he was on his way to (or from) a groundbreaking ceremony for a Macy's in Gurnee Mills. Apparently, that was enough to give him both environmental and bipartisan creds for the News-Sun.



To see if the News-Sun is even close, let's take a look at Dold's environmental votes.



Back in April 2011, there was the Energy Tax Prevention Act (H.R. 910). It wasn't exactly a tax prevention provision. It really stopped the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas. Dold voted yes. He voted to take greenhouse gases out of the definition of a pollutant, subject to regulation by the EPA. Most Democrats voted against this bill, so Dold gets no bipartisan kudos here either.



Then came the Air Quality Impact of Oil Drilling (H.R. 2021). This bill limited the area in which an agency could measure impact of oil drilling to the immediate shoreline. Dold liked this bill too.



Dold voted to repeal emissions standards for cement manufacturing plants in H.R. 2681. Then he voted to strip the EPA's power to regulate the disposal of coal combustion waste and leave it to the states (H.R. 2273). Divide and conquer on pollution from coal combustion. Then he agreed with his party that farm dust is not a particulate worthy of EPA regulation (H.R. 1633). The odd thing about the farm dust bill is that there was no existing or pending EPA regulation of farm dust. The other odd thing about the farm dust bill is that it didn't free up farm dust, but addressed "nuisance dust" which really has more to do with deregulating open pit and asbestos mines. Now that some polluting private industries were freed up from regulation under the guise of helping farmers, Dold helped his party divert water from fish, wildlife and habitat restoration efforts to private contractors working on the Central Valley Project (H.R. 1837). The Central Valley Project grows cities and intense irrigation required farming in areas of California where there isn't enough water to sustain them. The project has been very controversial and is said to have damaged natural river environments, Native American tribal lands and gutted the salmon population. But, no one worried because the bill Dold favored also repeals legislation that required the Project to replace the dead salmon.



Then, Dold capped off his environmental votes with a vote in favor of the Keystone Tar Sands Pipeline with no plan on how to limit or deal with the environmental destruction.



So, Bob Dold managed to vote against the environment seven (7) times in 2011 and 2012 and voted with his party 7 out of 11 times on the environment, but going up on a bucked lift impressed the Lake County News-Sun.

WASHINGTON -- He barely speaks in his own first general-election ad. On the top floor of his Boston campaign headquarters, the most visible poster is one of his dad's. His party's leaders in Congress, the states and the lobbying world don't bow to him, or mention him much, even as they make moves that can't help but define his agenda for him. Arguably the key person in his campaign is Republican kingpin Karl Rove, but Rove doesn't work there.

And this is just the way Mitt Romney and his team like it. Romney is the incidental candidate in an incidental campaign. He's a bland, blunt instrument, but only an instrument, in a wider crusade dedicated to one goal: ousting President Barack Obama and reversing whatever policy victories he has won.

Goofy or creepy when off script, burdened by an ideologically muddled record and a penchant for privacy in his business and religious life, Romney has chosen to focus on everyone but himself and to surrender his campaign to a larger conservative effort.

The question is whether Romney's attempt at political self-abnegation will work. Will voters see him as selfless, shrewd and focused on the unglamorous task at hand? Or will they dismiss him as a weak, evasive figure with contempt for facts and a lot to hide?

So far, the answer isn't clear. Romney's likability and fundraising numbers are up, but he trails in the Electoral College projections. The consensus on the fall race: it's close.

There hasn't been a presidential campaign like Romney's in more than half a century -- since before 1960, when another Bostonian and Harvard graduate, John F. Kennedy, burst onto the scene.

In that year, television transformed politics into a contest between personal narratives and a search for the most convincing communicator. Also that year, presidential campaigns themselves -- the mechanics, the harried advisers, the closed-door dramas of decision-making -- took on Homeric public stature. The party was incidental in this saga; it was all about the Kennedys.

It's not all about Mitt; it's about everything but Mitt. It's not about his Boston campaign apparatus; it's about everything and everyone else surrounding it. As for the party, Mitt is glad to let them lead.

The strategy is reflected in his staff. They are not the kind to quote Tennyson.

Romney's campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, is a publicity-shy ninja of "oppo." If many voters concluded in 2004 that Sen. John Kerry was a French-fried, flip-flopping toff, Rhoades is the reason: He was head of "research" for the Bush-Cheney campaign that year. Stuart Stevens, Romney's top message and advertising man, is known for his penchant for attack spots.

There's no "Making of the President" or even "Game Change" aura here. One reason may be that the indirect godfather of the enterprise isn't on the premises. Karl Rove's influence lies in the accumulation of personal ties and changes in the way presidential campaigns are operated and financed.

Much of the top staff is composed of protégés of "The Architect." Rhoades was Rove's research aide in 2004; Stevens was a key part of the Bush advertising team in 2000 and 2004 under Rove. Romney's close friend and former gubernatorial chief of staff, Beth Myers (who is now in charge of vetting vice presidential candidates), received her start in politics working with Rove in Texas.

As the man behind the super PAC American Crossroads and its affiliate Crossroads GPS, which together are expecting to raise more than $300 million for "independent" spending, Rove may have more impact on Romney than Romney's own campaign. Federal law bars Rove and his Boston friends from talking strategy with each other. But they don't have to. They know each other's thinking and how to read the public signals.

American Crossroads will be the largest Republican-oriented super PAC and one that Rove & Co. hope will draw money and attention away from renegade operations that would drag the party off its economic message and into counterproductive attacks on religion and race.

As for GOP congressional leaders, Romney has long since tied his destiny to theirs, and far more willingly than presidential candidates generally like to do. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell engineered a day of votes on draconian GOP budget plans, Romney was happy to stress his own, only slightly less drastic plan.

He signed onto Rep. Paul Ryan's budget in the House early and has repeated his support often. Doing so gave Romney a way to ingratiate himself with conservatives who were and are suspicious of him.

Romney's speeches and interviews rarely produce news or provide much information, and rarely seem designed to do so. His May 12 speech at Liberty University was a chance to deliver a memorable moment of eloquent faith witness. Some evangelicals professed to be pleased by what he said, but it was, in fact, nothing more than an anodyne, risk-free homily on the value of service, with one line tucked in about his belief in man-woman marriage.

When he has to answer unscripted questions, the results have been so problematic so often that he now is determined to fade into the woodwork as quickly as possible. Asked to defend an earlier comment about President Obama's relationship with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Romney tried to erase himself from view. "I'm not familiar precisely with exactly what I said," Romney said, "but I stand by what I said, whatever it was." In other words, he is incidental to his own history.

Anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist depicts the Romney presidency -- if there is one -- as a kind of figurehead monarchy in which the real power will lie with Congress, and within Congress, the power will lie with tax-cutting conservatives such as Norquist.

"All we have to do is replace Obama," Norquist said in February. "We are not auditioning for Fearless Leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. We just need a president to sign this stuff."

If Romney objected to this view of his role, he didn't say so. And why would he object? In Norquist's view, the identity of the person who isn't Obama is incidental. And that seems to be Romney's point.

Jamelle Bouie, American Prospect
The defining feature of the Republican presidential primaries was the constant Sturm und Drang over Mitt Romney’s ability to win Republican voters. Pundits claimed that Romney had a “ceiling” with conservatives in the party, and opponents like former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum routinely assailed the front-runner as a candidate whose commitment to conservatism was short-lived and inauthentic—a human “Etch A Sketch,” in the words of Romney’s own campaign spokesperson. But when Romney locked up the nomination...

MIAMI -- Sen. Marco Rubio has close ties to a colleague accused of questionable financial dealings. The freshman senator also once was enmeshed in a controversy over the use of the state party's credit card for his personal expenses. And he has faced increased scrutiny over his personal background since bursting onto the national political scene, including conflicting details of his parents' immigration from Cuba and his recently disclosed ties to the Mormon faith.

Will issues like those in Rubio's personal and political background hold back one of the GOP's fastest-rising stars? That's a question being debated in Republican circles in Washington, Florida and elsewhere as the Cuban-American senator with solid conservative credentials works to raise his profile beyond Florida, if not position himself for a national role within the GOP.

"Marco Rubio is a huge star in the Republican Party in much the same way that Barack Obama was in the Democratic Party between his convention speech in 2004 and his candidacy for the president," said Steve Schmidt, a top adviser to John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign. "There are a lot of plusses when you look at Marco Rubio as a potential vice presidential candidate, but there are also unknowns."

Rubio, who all but certainly has political aspirations that extend beyond the Senate, frequently is mentioned by Republican insiders as an attractive candidate to be Mitt Romney's running mate partly because the party needs to attract Hispanic voters in battleground states like Nevada and Florida in November.

While Rubio denies any interest in the No. 2 slot on the ticket this year, he's working hard to stay in the national spotlight. He recently gave a major foreign policy address in Washington, he's talking about writing a bill to allow some young illegal immigrants to remain and work in the country without citizenship, and next month he'll release a memoir.

The country is only just starting to get to know Rubio and his political vulnerabilities, though Florida residents know both well.

Rubio's relationship with fellow freshman lawmaker Rep. David Rivera, now facing a federal probe into tax evasion, and the credit card controversy surfaced during his 2010 Senate campaign. And they didn't have much effect. But that doesn't mean the country as a whole would overlook those eyebrow-raising issues.

"Floridians may be numb to these hits because of the rough-and-tumble nature of politics in the state, when it's looked at by a national audience it may not be as palatable," said Abe Dyk, a political strategist who managed the 2010 Senate campaign of Rubio's Democratic challenger.

Rubio and Rivera met in 1992, during the campaign of former Republican Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a fellow South Florida Cuban-American. The two rose through the ranks in the statehouse with Rivera oftentimes playing bad cop to the more congenial Rubio.

During the legislative session, they shared a Tallahassee townhouse, which a bank began foreclosure proceedings on in 2010. Rubio made only partial payments on that mortgage for five months in 2010, even as he held jobs as a consultant, professor and TV commentator. He has said the missed payments were due to a dispute over the terms of the mortgage.

State officials closed a criminal probe into Rivera's personal financial dealings without filing charges but didn't clear him entirely. They cited Florida's brief statute of limitations and its lax campaign finance laws for not charging him with living off of his campaign funds and failing to disclose his income.

In the last year, Rubio has publicly kept some distance from Rivera and has said that his friend has some issues he must address on the campaign trail. Still, Rubio threw a small Washington fundraiser for Rivera last week. So far, Rubio hasn't faced blowback from his friendship with Rivera.

"It's tough to say how that will play out," says Emilio Gonzalez, a consultant who served in the Bush administration and sees Rubio as a potentially formidable presidential candidate in 2016.

If Rubio were to end up on the GOP presidential ticket or mount his own national campaign in the coming years, he all but certainly would face questions about the scandal over the use of state GOP funds when he was the speaker of the Florida House.

The head of the party, Jim Greer, was forced to resign following revelations he and his second-in-command charged $1.5 million on party credit cards, much of it on luxurious hotels, fancy restaurants, chauffeured sedans and lavish entertaining. Greer's trial is set to start July 30, just ahead of the Republican convention, and many Republican observers anticipate he will detail unethical use of party money by other high-ranking GOP officials.

Rubio himself spent more than $100,000 on the party card between 2006 and 2008, paying off about $16,000 in personal expenses and claiming the rest as official party business. His records from 2005, when he was lobbying to become Florida House speaker, never were released. When asked about using the party card for personal expenses, Rubio has said he sometimes just pulled the wrong card out of his wallet and he has called it a "lesson learned."

He also has had to answer criticism for how he spent money donated to two political committees he formed - including payments to relatives. He has acknowledged the bookkeeping for at least one of the accounts was sloppy.

And then there's the fuzziness around his family's background.

Rubio long claimed his parents fled Fidel Castro's regime. But it was recently disclosed that they arrived several years before Castro took power – although they quickly embraced the Cuban exile community as Castro turned toward communism. Rubio has said the dates he gave were based on his parents' recollections.

There's another part of Rubio's upbringing that long had gone undisclosed, and the revelation is one that could turn off evangelicals who make up the base of the GOP.

Rubio was baptized as Mormon when his family lived for a few years in Las Vegas, thanks to the influence of cousins who belonged to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Rubio returned to the Catholic Church as a young teen, and as an adult he has also frequently attended Baptist services.

When it comes to the vice presidency, Rubio's greatest liability may be one only time can resolve.

"I suspect that the Romney campaign is going to pick someone who is viewed as unquestionably qualified for the office," said Schmidt, who was intimately involved in McCain's selection of Sarah Palin. "To the extent that (Rubio's) in his first term, he's in the first two years of his term and he's 40 years old probably doesn't help him."

___

Farrington reported from Tallahassee, Fla.

Follow Laura Wides-Munoz on Twitter: (at)lwmunoz

So, it's official. Disco is dead. The passing of Donna Summer brings to a close an era in American music that... well... if you didn't live through it, it's hard to explain. Especially the outfits people wore in public. And making John Travolta a movie star (although he did atone somewhat, by genuflecting to the 1950s immediately thereafter, in Grease).

Music history aside, it was a somewhat eclectic week in politics. The House -- in one of their rare moments when they actually meet and attempt to get something done -- passed a bunch of bills which have exactly zero chance of becoming law. Well, at least they had fun, right? Republicans were doing their usual clown routine out on the campaign trail, including questioning Obama's commitment to America and (once again) his birth certificate.

Sigh. The more things change, the more the clown makeup remains the same, I suppose. On a lighter note in clowning around, it seems arriving at a red carpet in a dog crate on top of a car is now chic. Heh.

Chicago is about to become "Protest Central" this weekend, for a meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The G-8 meeting was also supposed to have happened in Chicago, but was instead hastily whisked away to Camp David in the Maryland mountains, where popular protest is impossible (Camp David is definitely not a "free speech zone," to put it in Orwellian terms). This likely won't deflate the balloon of protest in the Windy City, but we'll all just have to see what happens over the weekend.

House Republicans passed a budget bill which hikes spending further than what they already agreed to -- yes, you read that right, Republicans are spending too much money -- because it is the one budget item that they'll never ever consider cutting: the Pentagon. They'll happily slash money for the poor, for the retired, and for the hungry... as long as we can build Ronald Reagan's missile defense system to protect us against the Soviet Union (which, someone really ought to tell Mitt Romney and the rest of the Republicans, no longer actually exists).

Americans Elect suffered a spectacular failure this week. These were the Wall Street kids who wanted to play in the big presidential sandbox, by buying ballot access in all 50 states so that they could run a "balanced ticket" of one moderate Republican and one moderate Democrat. However, it seems Americans aren't all that interested in the pipe dream of the Beltway chattering class for some sort of non-partisan "centrist" ticket, and not enough people voted online for anyone -- not even, astonishingly enough, Ron Paul -- for them to qualify for the next round of voting. C'mon, guys, just end the window-dressing attempts and go ahead and offer the ballot access you've already won (in over half the states) to Michael Bloomberg, which was really the whole reason you created this fake-grassroots movement in the first place, OK? Stop pretending you weren't going to do this anyway, and just jump in with both feet.

Enough of this looking backward, though, let's move forward to the rest of this week's nonsense.

 

We've got to award an early Honorable Mention to all the folks in Wisconsin who are working hard to recall their odious governor. The matter is still very much up in the air, and the election is right around the corner. Wisconsin groups are doing the best they can with what they've got, and a story leaked out that they were a bit miffed at the lack of support from the national Democrats for their campaign. Since then, fundraisers have been announced, and support seems to now be a bit more forthcoming.

This is a big deal, not only for the people of Wisconsin, but on the national level, as well. This election is going to happen long before November, and it will be read as having national implications no matter which way the chips fall. If the recall fails, Republicans will crow and push anti-worker legislation even harder at the state level. If the recall succeeds, Democrats will chalk up a huge victory (only the third governor ever recalled in American history), and feel the wind beneath their wings nationally. So it really behooves Democrats in Washington to support this effort to the hilt, because the stakes are much larger than just one state.

But we have two Most Impressive Democrat of the Week awards this week, for Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey, who introduced a populist-anger bill they charmingly titled the "Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy" Act, or (... wait for it... drumroll...) the "Ex-PATRIOT Act." This measure was introduced over the outrage at the news that one of Facebook's founders, Eduardo Saverin, renounced his American citizenship to avoid paying taxes -- right before his company was about to go public. Not only was the bill appropriately named (for once -- Democrats usually aren't so good at this sort of thing), but Schumer got off a great line explaining the bill: "Eduardo Saverin wants to defriend the United States of America just to avoid paying taxes. We aren't going to let him get away with it." Good one, Chuck -- nice use of "defriend," there. Heh.

Whether the bill succeeds or not, it was a nice political stunt to see. It's easy to work up some populist outrage against this sort of thing, because it taps into what it means to be an American -- and also the differences between how an average American views his or her citizenship and how a billionaire views the same thing. It's not only a 99% argument, it is actually a 99.99% argument. And it's not often Democrats get to push the "American exceptionalism" button in such a fashion.

Schumer and Casey's timing was excellent, too -- because Facebook is guaranteed to be the top story in today's news. If I might be allowed to mix a few metaphors, it was striking while the iron was hot and using the sparks to light a fire in some political hay.

OK, maybe that was just a little too over the top, sorry for the lapse. It won't happen again. Well, at least not until the talking points.

Seriously, though, this sort of tactic is usually used quite well by Republicans, and usually bungled when Democrats attempt it. But it has to be said, Schumer and Casey did an excellent job this time. The move by Saverin is so outrageous that it is impossible to politically defend by anyone. The only question is whether the media takes note or not.

For their efforts, and for so successfully playing this political card, Senators Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey are this week's two Most Impressive Democrat of the Week award winners.

[Congratulate Senator Bob Casey on his Senate contact page, and Senator Chuck Schumer on his Senate contact page, to let them know you appreciate their efforts.]

 

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid apparently woke up this week and realized that the Republicans are abusing the filibuster in the chamber he is supposed to be running. Oh, sure, progressive Democrats had begged him to reform the filibuster rules back when they had a chance to -- with a simple majority vote -- over a year ago, but Harry wasn't convinced, back then. Now he has realized his mistake, and publicly said so on the Senate floor.

Well, good for you, Harry! It's a day late and a dollar short, but we always like to see people evolve in the right direction, politically. Maybe next time, you should listen a bit harder when progressive Democrats come a-knockin' at your door.

Since we can't very well hand Reid even a (Dis-)Honorable Mention for seeing the light, we will just mention it in passing and move right along.

Instead, we have to look back four weeks ago to find our Most Disappointing Democrat of the Week for this week, down in North Carolina. Back then, we handed out only a (Dis-)Honorable Mention to state party chairman David Parker. Parker was charged with badly handling a sexual harassment scandal against a state party official (not Parker himself), and the only reason he didn't get a MDDOTW was because Parker did the right thing, and handed in his resignation.

Now the news comes that the party committee who hires the party chairman actually voted to reject his resignation and reinstate him, much to the embarrassment of many Democrats -- especially those concerned with the upcoming national Democratic convention to be held in the state in only a few months' time. Parker then "unresigned" and accepted his job back.

So we've got a Most Disappointing Democrat of the Week not only for David Parker, but also for the Democratic Executive Committee of North Carolina. This is not what we need right now, folks. Parker himself, speaking to the press, summed the situation up much better than we could ever hope to do: "Well you crazy people, is this the Democratic Party or what?"

Sigh. Or what, indeed.

[Contact North Carolina Democratic Chairman David Parker on his official profile page (email address at bottom), and the North Carolina Democratic Party on their official contact page, to let them know what you think of their actions.]

 

Volume 211 (5/18/12)

Kind of a grab bag of talking points this week. As always, these are offered up to be used by all and sundry to advance the Democrats' positions and frame the issues the way they truly should be framed. Whether you're a politician on a Sunday morning chat show or just a guy hanging around the water cooler at work, try a few of these out in the coming week.

 

   Home-grown austerity

This is such an obvious one, I'm actually surprised nobody else seems to have thought about it. Why use a different term for Europe and the U.S., after all?

"Republicans' plans for our economy can be summed up as more budget cuts, all the time. But you know, we have a word for that sort of thing, when talking about other countries: austerity. The Republicans want to slash budgets with a meat axe, and impose austerity measures on every part of society except the wealthiest one percent, who somehow are exempt from all of this austerity. But you know what? They should take a look at Europe and see how austerity on steroids is working for them over there. America faced the financial crisis and passed Obama's plan. Europe went all-austerity-all-the-time. Guess which economy is growing now? Ours. We don't need to travel the road Europe is traveling, but if the Republicans get all the austerity they are hoping for, that's exactly what will happen."

 

   Do you really want to go there, Mitt?

This one is also pathetically easy to connect the dots, one would think.

"I see that the people trying to elect Mitt Romney have been considering using Jeremiah Wright ads against President Obama. My question is: Do you really want to go there, Mitt? Do you really want to set the standard for attacks on a candidate's religion? Perhaps you are unaware of American history -- I would suggest you look up the Senate hearings on seating Reed Smoot, of Utah. A century ago, the United States Senate spent years taking 3,500 pages of testimony from 100 witnesses on every aspect of Mormonism they could think up questions to ask about. Do you really want to declare that we've returned to that era, Mitt? Personally, I thought America had evolved a bit since then, but you've already brought up Reverend Wright in an interview, so I guess you've decided that a candidate's religion is fair game. That's sad, and it's disappointing."

 

   Republican War on Women continues

Once again, it's not even the odious laws which place the government between a woman and her doctor, but it's just the sheer disrespect Republicans can't help but showing in the process.

"House Republicans just barred a woman from testifying in a committee, once again. This time it was a stringent abortion law they wanted to impose on the District of Columbia, and the Republicans refused to extend a common courtesy the House normally shows to their own members. The House member from D.C., Eleanor Holmes Norton, was denied an opportunity to address the committee on a law which targets her district -- even though such testimony is normally allowed. It's not so much a bunch of old men trying to get between a woman and her doctor, as it is about basic respect -- and you can bet women voters are noticing this sort of thing."

 

   Partisan games before women

GOP War on Women, continued...

"Instead of passing the bipartisan Senate version of the renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, the House Republicans decided to play politics with the bill instead, to water down protections for women against violence. They are putting their own partisan gamesmanship ahead of protecting women, and I find it disgusting. Every other time the VAWA came up for renewal in the past, it would garner a bipartisan vote in both houses. This time around, the Senate passed it with a large bipartisan vote. But the House Republicans would rather play politics on a version of the bill which President Obama has already said he will veto, rather than joining with their Senate Republican counterparts in putting something in this country -- anything, in fact -- before their own desire to play partisan games. Shame on them for doing so!"

 

   JP Morgan's near meltdown

Knock this one out of the park, while the iron's hot. Or, choose your own mixed metaphor -- but get this message out there.

"Republicans have been arguing for years that there's too much 'regulation' on Wall Street -- even after they almost destroyed the American economy because of little or no regulation on the insane risks Wall Street was taking. Republicans tell us over and over again, 'Just let Wall Street run like a casino -- it'll be no problem, because they'll regulate themselves.' This is hogwash, and what we are witnessing at JP Morgan should be seen as a canary in the coal mine. The Dodd-Frank regulations that Democrats passed have not been fully implemented yet. The regulations are still being written, and at every turn Wall Street bankers and their Republican buddies have been blocking everything they can, so that commonsense rules aren't applied to them. The Republicans fighting against these rules should take a long, hard look at JP Morgan -- which has paid millions to lobby against the rules -- and ask themselves if that is really what they want to encourage Wall Street to do again. Wasn't one financial crash enough for them? Then why are they bending so far over backwards to facilitate another?"

 

   Bain-ful

The Obama reelection team fired a salvo against Romney's experience at Bain Capital this week. This is smart politics, and we are likely to see more of it soon. Romney is perceived by the public as being some sort of financial private-sector guru who knows what to do about the American economy. Obama began to launch a full-scale frontal attack on this perception, which is good news. I have to admit, the core of this particular talking point came from an excellent blog post by Robert Creamer at The Huffington Post.

"Mitt Romney says he knows how to create jobs because of his private-sector experience at Bain Capital. But nothing could be further from the truth. Bain is not in the business of 'creating jobs' -- they are in the business of 'creating wealth' for their shareholders. They take over a business and use accounting tricks to insure that Bain makes money no matter what happens to the company. Sometimes the company does well, and hires people. Sometimes it goes bust, and lays everybody off. In either case, Bain walks away with millions of dollars. This is the experience Mitt Romney is supposed to bring to the White House? No wonder he pals around with people like Meg Whitman, whose own company is about to lay off over 30,000 people. Do you think Meg's salary goes down one dollar for destroying these jobs under her watch? Nope. That's the world these people live in -- whether the company and the jobs survive or not, they continue to line their pockets. America simply can't afford someone with this sort of outlook in charge of our economy. It would be an unmitigated disaster."

 

   Good enough for me, good enough for my money

This one may cross some sort of line. Then again, it may not. Innocent deniability is the way to go, should Mitt Romney's name come up in response. You have to refrain from throwing in items like "an elevator for my cars" for this to work, however.

"I personally find it astounding that any sane person would voluntarily give up their American citizenship for any reason, and to hear someone do it just to save money is flat-out disgusting to me. These people live in a different world, apparently. They own multiple houses all over the world, they treat national borders as some sort of inconvenience, and they seek tax havens where they can live with others of the tiny fraction of the one percent who can afford such luxuries as a fluid concept of citizenship and national pride. As I said, to me this is outrageous, but then I've never had millions of dollars in a Cayman Islands or Swiss bank account, so I guess I see things differently. But I do know one thing: you could not pay me enough money to ever -- ever -- give up my American citizenship for any reason whatsoever. America's good enough for me, and it's good enough for me to keep my money in, as well."

 

Chris Weigant blogs at:

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The Republican leaders in Congress have mostly defined themselves by what they're against, but now they've announced what they're for -- the most popular parts of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

I can only imagine the political identity crisis this is causing within the GOP. Their hallmark is opposing anything the President supports, even if it started as a Republican legislative proposal, and now they've plunged themselves into a partisan political abyss of their own making: they are supporting the key provisions of the president's signature legislative achievement, a law the Republicans have derisively and incessantly called "Obamacare" for two years. It turns out that the party realizes that may not have been such a good idea. So they're now pretending to come up with what amounts to their own version of Obamacare.

As Politico reports: "If the law is partially or fully overturned they'll draw up bills to keep the popular, consumer-friendly portions [of Obamacare] in place -- like allowing adult children to remain on parents' health care plans until age 26, and forcing insurance companies to provide coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. Ripping these provisions from law is too politically risky, Republicans say."

These provisions are not just popular and central to the law. They are among the few elements of the ACA that are inextricably tied to and, some say, dependent upon the individual responsibility provision, also known as the individual mandate. Yet the Republicans and their extremist friends in the corporate special interest crowd are challenging that provision and the entire law at the U.S. Supreme Court. You can call this irony or hypocrisy or both.

The simple fact is that Obamacare expands coverage to more than 30 million people and eliminates the worst insurance company abuses for those of us with coverage. It stops insurance companies from denying our care and jacking up our rates whenever they please. Apparently the Republicans have noticed that these things are good and popular with voters.

The GOP's political schizophrenia was evident in the quick backtrack by Speaker John Boehner and Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, who responded to the Politico report by stridently saying they would repeal the entire law, no matter what. Recognizing the political quicksand he was entering, Ryan offered uninsured families a single strand of hope: while the GOP has no intention of crafting actual legislation that could help actual people, which the ACA does every day, the Republicans may deign to share their "vision" with the huddled masses.

Republicans' political back-flips are staggering and make Mitt Romney, the presumptive GOP presidential nominee, look consistent by comparison. While telling their diehards they're repealing Obamacare in full, they're misleading the public and telling them they can keep the provisions that protect them from insurance company abuses. Many of the Obamacare provisions the Republicans say they'd like to keep are ones that are already in effect. If the court were to fulfill the desperate hopes of Republicans in Congress and overturn Obamacare, the Republicans would then try to immediatelly reinstitute much of what the court will have overturned. That's stunning and bizarre.

For two years the Republicans have promised to "replace" Obamacare as part of their non-stop repeal campaign. A fake plan like this is hardly a "replacement."

Just like their promise to protect Medicare, the talk about preserving the good stuff is an election year lie. The Republicans will always put the big corporations before the consumers they represent. They have an extremist agenda, and they're pursuing it at all costs. They've been driving an assault on women's health care, on health care in general, on every program central to the goal of opportunity and shared prosperity for all. Now that the election is getting closer, their right-wing agenda doesn't seem like such a great idea.

Boehner's words show that the GOP has discovered that hating the people they represent is bad politics. But how can the party reconcile that realization with its fundamental desire to do whatever big corporations say? They have to lie to the voters.

The Republicans in Congress and Mitt Romney will never do anything to help the middle class. They want to end Medicare as we know it. They support insurance company discrimination against the sick. They are waging an enthusiastic war on women and students and middle-class taxpayers. They want to give massive tax breaks to the 1 percent and protect outrageous things like big tax subsidies for the oil companies. Anyone inclined to entrust our nation's health care to this duplicitous party that exists to front for people who have grown rich off the status quo should remember that.

WASHINGTON -- As the Securities and Exchange Commission considers requiring corporations to disclose their political spending to shareholders, a coalition of institutional investors and public interest groups are seeking to make next week's Bank of America shareholder meeting a flashpoint for getting corporate money out of politics.

Consumer watchdog Public Citizen and a host of activist groups are planning protests around several major shareholder meetings in the coming months, but the Bank of America meeting Wednesday will be among the most prominent. At the meeting, Trillium Asset Managment, a firm that manages $1 billion in environmentally friendly investments, will present a resolution that would bar the company from engaging in any political spending whatsoever. That ban would include lobbying, campaign contributions and donations to politically oriented groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. BofA has given money to ALEC, but the Chamber is more secretive about its members, and it is not clear whether BofA has contributed to the Chamber or not.

In recent years, significant percentages of shareholders at some large companies have voted to require their firms to provide increased disclosure about the extent of their political donations, although none of these resolutions have passed to date. And Trillium views its more aggressive proposal to get BofA to end all political spending as intimately connected with a campaign pressuring the SEC to require disclosure.

"For the better part of the last decade, we've seen consistent and increasingly strong shareholder votes on political spending proposals," said Shelley Alpern, Vice President of Shareholder Advocacy for Trillium. "A growing number of investors consider this area to be a material factor in evaluating the financial worth a company and the strength of its governance mechanisms. Investors will be better off when the SEC requires disclosure from all publicly traded companies. Companies deserve a level playing field and investors need the information."

Trillium's efforts to push BofA's money out of politics coincide with a major protest of the meeting being organized by a host of good government and consumer-rights groups, including National People's Action, The New Bottom Line, Rainforest Action Network, North Carolina Coalition Against Corporate Power, Common Cause, Action North Carolina, Jobs with Justice, Right to the City and Unity Alliance. Organizers anticipate significant turn out from east coast Occupy enclaves in New York, Atlanta, Ashville, N.C., and Charlotte, N.C. -- BofA's headquarters. Another institutional investor, the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Pension Plan, will initiate a separate vote that would force BofA to disclose its political spending at the same meeting.

Public Citizen supports Trillium's resolution. "We don't think corporations should play in politics, both because it's bad for democracy and because it's bad for their own bottom line," said Lisa Gilbert, deputy director of Public Citizen's Congress Watch.

The city of Charlotte is preparing for the protest with a preemptive civil liberties crackdown that will likely provide some insight into the city's tactics for coping with the Democratic National Convention in September. Under the rules, protesters can be arrested or searched for carrying bags with the "intent" to conceal any of a host prohibited items, which range from weapons to commonplace markets. Wearing a scarf with the intent to conceal one's identity is also grounds for arrest under the rules.

Although Charlotte has long been nicknamed "The Wall Street of the South," it has rarely been a prominent destination in Democratic Party politics. The party leadership's decision to hold its convention in the banking mecca has been criticized by many Democrats who believe big banks and financial interests are not currently supportive of the party or its economic policies.

Up in Washington, there is also some support in the SEC for companies to disclose their political spending to shareholders.

"The Commission should provide for disclosure of corporate political expenditures," SEC Commissioner Luis Aguilar said during a February speech. "Investors are not receiving adequate disclosure, and as the investors' advocate, the Commission should act swiftly to rectify the situation by requiring transparency."

While the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision barred the government from restricting political expenditures by corporations, it explicitly permitted the government to require transparency, and allowed shareholders to demand more stringent actions against individual firms.

Resolutions requiring major CEOs to change the way they operate their companies rarely pass. While millions of citizens own small stakes in big companies through their retirement plans, most are passive or even unaware of their investments. When firms host annual meetings, large money managers like hedge funds and banks are tasked with voting on behalf of their clients. Such firms are reluctant to favor changing a company's operations. Shareholder advisory companies like Glass Lewis & Co. and Institutional Shareholder Services provide recommendations to these large investment houses, but generally shy away from recommending voting for overtly political or social resolutions.

In addition to the Bank of America meeting on Wednesday, Trillium will float similar proposals at a meeting on Tuesday for 3M, a multinational chemical and consumer product conglomerate, and Target's meeting in June. New Bottom Line and other consumer groups are targeting 40 major shareholder meetings with protests this year.

Bank of America's management team opposes both resolutions on political spending. It even challenged the legality of Trillium making the proposal to shareholders by appealing to the SEC, which upheld Trillium's right to force a vote on political spending by fellow BofA shareholders.

In materials distributed to shareholders, BofA board members argued that the firm's political expenditures are in the best interests of its shareholders and customers.

"We regularly communicate with and express our policy positions and concerns to policymakers, public officials and regulators at the federal, state and local levels, in order to protect and advance the long-term goals and interests of our company, customers and stockholders," the BofA board said. In the same set of materials, the board said BofA should not be required to disclose political expenditures to stockholders, saying that doing so would be "unnecessary" and "provide our stockholders with little, if any, meaningful information."

More than 178,000 people disagree, however. That's the number of comment letters the SEC has received to date demanding that the agency require disclosure of political expenditures. Supporters include some major figures in finance, most notably John Bogle, founder of Vanguard Group, one of the world's largest investment firms, responsible for trillions of dollars in client funds.

While Commissioner Aguilar has also endorsed disclosure, the SEC has not formally begun writing any rules on the matter, and it is not yet clear if other commissioners would support the measure.

How long can the Republicans keep up the pretense that they plan to come up with their alternative health-care-reform plan? I'm going to go with "forever." Robert Pear and Jonathan Weisman report in today's New York Times that the party is really working hard on that alternative plan:

Steve Kornacki, Salon
At the very least, the Republican Party base's revolt against its own establishment cost the GOP a 50-50 Senate tie in 2010, with primary voters forcing unelectable nominees on the party in three races that it had otherwise been on course to win. A decent case can be made that the uprising actually cost Republicans outright Senate control.And now the same thing may be happening all over again, with Nebraska joining a growing list of unexpected 2012 Senate battlegrounds "“ at least for the moment. 

Josh Kraushaar, National Journal
For those who think Sen. Richard Lugar's defeat was primarily attributable to running a weak campaign or for living outside of Indiana for decades, I've got one number in dissent: 38 percent. That's the shockingly low percentage of the vote the six-term senator won this month, with a margin of defeat larger than any other senator in a primary over the past three decades. That's a 2006 Rick Santorum-like loss, for a politician who had been accustomed to coasting to landslide victories. It suggests that even if Lugar had run a top-notch campaign, he would have been...

Drucker & Livingston, Roll Call
As Washington's tea party class endeavors to rekindle the movement's magic, this month's Texas Republican Senate primary stands as a crucial test of its strength and influence.The effort might backfire in Nebraska, where GOP Sens. Jim DeMint (S.C.) and Rand Paul (Ky.) and conservative organizations including the Club for Growth and FreedomWorks have been stumping for state Treasurer Don Stenberg in Tuesday's three-way GOP Senate primary. 

* President to meet smaller parties from 1630 GMT

* Talks with big parties hit impasse

* Radical left seen gaining if new poll held

* Der Spiegel calls for Greek exit from euro

By Lefteris Papadimas and Harry Papachristou

ATHENS, May 13 (Reuters) - Greek political leaders on Sunday ignored a final plea from the president to form a coalition government to avert a repeat election, pushing the debt-stricken nation closer to bankruptcy and a possible exit from the euro zone.

Leaders of the three biggest parties met at the presidential mansion for a final attempt to bridge their differences, but the talks quickly hit an impasse as they traded accusations on a deeply unpopular bailout package tied to harsh spending cuts.

Conservative leader Antonis Samaras, who finished first in last week's election, pinned the blame on the far-left SYRIZA party, which flatly rules out backing a pro-bailout coalition with Samaras's New Democracy and Socialist PASOK parties.

"They are not asking for agreement, they are asking us to be their partners in crime and we will not be their accomplices," said Alexis Tsipras, who has become an overnight sensation since leading SYRIZA to a surprise second place in the vote.

The other leader at the morning talks - Socialist leader Evangelos Venizelos - said he was holding on to hopes that a deal could still be salvaged, but warned time was running out.

"Despite the impasse at the meeting we had with the president, I hold on to some limited optimism that a government can be formed," said Venizelos, whose PASOK party finished a humiliating third in the election, a shadow of its former might.

"The moment of truth has come. We either form a government or we go to elections."

Both New Democracy and PASOK - which have taken turns in ruling Greece for nearly four decades and jointly negotiated a bailout that requires deep cuts in wages, pensions and spending - are eager to avoid facing the voters again.

Polls since the election show the balance of power tipping even further towards opponents of the bailout, who were divided among several small parties but now appear to be rallying behind Tsipras, a 37-year-old ex-Communist student leader.

Tsipras has injected a dose of enthusiasm into the squabbling left and offered hope to millions of austerity-weary Greeks by promising to rip up the bailout deal without abandoning the euro, saying Europe cannot afford to cut Greece loose.

European leaders have retorted that the country will not get new loans to stay afloat if it fails to honour its pledges, while banks and some companies like travel operator Kuoni have begun to prepare for a Greek exit from the eurozone.

But Greek voters remain unfazed. Indeed, they are expected to hand SYRIZA a first-place finish in a new election, winning the party an automatic extra 50 seats at the expense of Samaras.


ELECTIONS AGAIN

President Karolos Papoulias now meets the small parties that made it parliament from 1630 GMT onwards in a last-ditch bid to stitch together some form of a "national unity" government.

His final hope rests with the small Democratic Left party led by lawyer Fotis Kouvelis, which could provide enough seats to form a government with New Democracy and PASOK. But it says it will not do so unless the coalition also includes SYRIZA.

Papoulias' list of meetings also include the far right Golden Dawn, which made it parliament for the first time in its history on an anti-immigrant and anti-politician platform.

In one of the unfolding drama's many sub-plots, Greeks will watch with interest to see how the president, a revered 82-year-old veteran of the World War II anti-Nazi resistance, receives a group whose members give Nazi-style salutes.

The constitution sets no deadline for Papoulias to complete his search for a deal and he has given no indication how long he will spend trying before he calls a new election.

Greeks seem resigned to returning to the polls.

"Why would we believe they'll agree on something? All they care about is being in power and we're sitting here not even able to pay our electricity bills," said Maria Kissou, 53, a corner shop owner in Athens. "Let us go to elections again."

Kissou voted for Tsipras on May 6.

"He's young, I like him because at least he's trying to renegotiate with the Europeans," Kissou said.

Supporters of the two establishment parties will be hoping that if a new election is held, Greeks will be frightened of the prospect of leaving the euro and return to the fold.

Polls show an overwhelming majority of Greeks reject the bailout but want to keep the euro - a position widely regarded as untenable. As many as 78.1 percent want the new government to do whatever it takes to keep their country in the currency, a poll by Kappa Research for To Vima daily showed.

In a sign of the shifting mood in Europe towards Greece, Germany's influential Der Spiegel magazine suggested an exit from the euro zone may now be the best option in a front-page

Its front page headline read: "Acropolis, Adieu! Why Greece must leave the euro."

"The Greeks were never ripe for the currency union and they still are not today," the German magazine wrote in an editorial.

"Only an exit of Greece from the euro zone gives the country a chance in the long term to get back on its feet."

Flying in the face of the national trend in favor of same-sex marriage, Indiana Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Gregg announced his support of a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages and civil unions on the same day President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage. Gregg's Republican opponent, far-right Congressman Mike Pence, also supports the discriminatory amendment. Libertarian candidate Rupert Boneham, the former Survivor reality show star, has already announced his support of full marriage equality for all Hoosiers.

The entire national Democratic leadership reiterated their support for LGBT equality this week, including President Obama, Vice President Biden, House leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, Senate leaders Harry Reid and Richard Durbin, as well as the heads of the Democratic National Committee, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. The party is also expected to include a plank in their national platform to support marriage equality.

"John believes that everyone should be treated with respect and dignity," said campaign spokesperson Megan Jacobs over email. "However, he also believes that marriage is between a man and a woman and does not support legalizing gay marriage. John doesn't base his policy positions on polling numbers or on what national Democrats are saying. His personal belief is that marriage is between a man and a woman and he's not going to change any of his beliefs because it's politically expedient." Jacobs refused to answer whether or not Gregg supported civil unions or domestic partner benefits.

"I just don't get it," said Boneham in reaction to Gregg's announcement. "I don't understand why they are so hostile to committed consenting adults getting the same legal protections and benefits as everyone else. I'm not just making empty statements about supporting LGBT Hoosiers. I've been saying publicly that I will fight for marriage equality in Indiana. I will put everything I've got into defeating this bigoted amendment and then I will focus in on repealing Indiana DoMA."

He continued: "The protections in the Indiana and U.S. Constitutions apply to each and every one of us. We aren't supposed to have second class citizens in this country and we won't stand by and allow there to be second class Hoosiers."

Democratic Base Reacts

Civil rights organizations and some of the candidate's backers were justifiably outraged by Gregg's endorsement of governmental discrimination of a minority group.

"A true commitment to dignity for all demands supporting marriage for same-sex couples," said Human Rights Campaign Vice President of Communications Fred Sainz. "There is no dignity in being unable to make medical decisions for your partner in the hospital, in being unable to immediately place your name on your child's birth certificate, or in being asked to lie to your government on legal documents about your relationship to your spouse. John Gregg does not even have respect for same-sex couples to indicate that he supports a lesser status for same-sex couples such as civil unions."

While the AFL-CIO had previously endorsed Gregg's candidacy, his support for discrimination could put that assistance in jeopardy. Shortly following Gregg's acknowledgement that he endorses bigotry, AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka put out a release saying, "Working people believe in equality and fairness and that's why we are happy to stand with millions of Americans and with President Obama in supporting marriage equality. Most important, we should respect and honor our friends, neighbors, and family members who want to take care of their families and their loved ones -- whatever their sexual orientation. We are proud to come together for a more just America."

"Marriage is not 'defined' by who it's denied to, and government has no business placing obstacles in the path of people seeking to take care of their loved ones," Freedom to Marry President Evan Wolfson commented. Seeking to cement discrimination into the constitution is a shameful failure of leadership for any candidate of any party. There is no 'respect' or 'dignity' in having your family targeted for attack by politicians who are supposed to stand for liberty and justice for all."

LGBT Democrats Respond

Criticism from the Indiana Stonewall Democrats was rather muted, however. While the organization refused to endorse noted anti-gay Senate candidate Brad Ellsworth in the last national election and is currently mulling over whether or not they will support this year's candidate, conservative Congressman Joe Donnelly, they refused to say whether or not Gregg's attack on the LGBT community will disqualify him from endorsement consideration.

"We are thrilled with the president's evolution on this important civil rights issue but recognize that not everyone is there yet," said President Aaron Schaler. "The president has had four plus years to evolve and the LGBT community hopes that with time and conversations that the next governor of Indiana will come to the same conclusion."

"It will be hard for the LGBT community and their supporters to find a statewide voice when it comes to the right of freedom to marry, unfortunately both Democratic and Republican candidates for governor support a constitutional amendment banning the freedom to marry the man or women of choice," he continued. "ISD will be continuing our dialogue with John Gregg about the importance of protections for the LGBT community and the harm that an anti-gay marriage amendment will do to those that do have existing protections through their job or domestic partner benefits."

National Stonewall Democrats Executive Director Jerame Davis, a former Vice President of the Indiana chapter, was not as restrained in expressing his disappointment.

"As a Hoosier ex-patriot and a Democrat, I couldn't be more disappointed in John Gregg's regressive position on the freedom to marry," Davis said. "Staking out the most extreme position possible, Gregg sounds more like his Republican opponent than a principled Democrat. What choice is John Gregg giving equality-minded Hoosiers when he uses the same language and adopts the same position as a rabid culture warrior like Mike Pence?"

Gregg on LGBT and Progressive Issues

Jacobs, however, disagreed that the two candidates' positions were identical on LGBT rights. "The difference between John and Congressman Pence on this issue is that John believes our government in Indiana should be focused on creating job opportunities and improving education, not trying to legislate social issues," she said. "John also supports having strong hate crime legislation which includes members of the LGBT community while Congressman Pence has voted against hate crime legislation twice."

Hate crimes legislation passed nationally in 2009. While Pence voted against passage, Gregg has never served in Congress to have a vote on the record. Further requests for clarification on why Gregg would list his support for an already passed bill went unanswered. During Gregg's tenure as Indiana Speaker of the House, he didn't press for passage of a state-level hate crimes law. The state is one of five that doesn't have its own version of the national law.

Recent polling has shown that over 50 percent of Americans now support gays' and lesbians' freedom to marry. A 2011 poll of Hoosiers found that more voters opposed the proposed amendment than favored it.

Gregg seems to be bucking all of the traditional Democratic base. He has announced his opposition to women's right to choose and refused to condemn the state's new "right to work" law. In response to questions, Gregg has echoed his statement that each is a "divisive issue" and refused to further explain his positions.

A quick look at Gregg's campaign website shows absolutely nothing under the "Issues" section. From the looks of the campaign's recent strategy to alienate the Democratic base, it seems he could easily copy Republican Mike Pence's.

Below is a remarkable document. It's a memo circulated by Jan van Lohuizen, a highly respected Republican pollster, (he polled for George W. Bush in 2004), to various leading Republican operatives, candidates and insiders. It's on the fast-shifting poll data on marriage equality and gay rights in general, and how that should affect Republican policy and language. And the pollster's conclusion is clear: if the GOP keeps up its current rhetoric and positions on gays and lesbians, it is in danger of marginalizing itself to irrelevance or worse.

Agiesta & Raum, Associated Press
By Jennifer Agiesta and Tom Raum - May 11, 2012WASHINGTON (AP) -- Americans are growing more pessimistic about the economy and handling it remains President Barack Obama's weak spot and biggest challenge in his bid for a second term, according to a new Associated Press-GfK poll.And the gloomier outlook extends across party lines, including a steep decline in the share of Democrats who call the economy "good," down from 48 percent in February to just 31 percent now.Almost two-thirds of Americans — 65 percent — disapprove of Obama's handling of gas...

Ron Brownstein, National Journal
In the six presidential elections from 1968 to 1988, Democrats effectively competed for so few states that their own strategists lamented that the party needed to draw an “inside straight” to reach the 270 Electoral College votes required for victory. But since then, the parties have played very different hands.In that earlier period, Gerald Ford in 1976 was the sole Republican presidential nominee to win fewer than 301 Electoral College votes. Jimmy Carter, who beat Ford, was the only Democratic nominee during those years to win more than 191. 

Sean Sullivan, National Journal
The tea party, an unsteady movement that was beginning to resemble a wayward ship in 2012, found its north star in Indiana on Tuesday night. State Treasurer Richard Mourdock defeated six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in the Republican primary, a victory owing to the incumbent's inept campaign, the outside groups that lashed him on the air, and a story about his out-of-state residency that would not go away. But well before those issues got a foothold, a grassroots-driven, local movement to unseat Lugar was well under way.

Eugene Robinson, Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- Economic austerity is a dangerous, self-defeating intellectual fad. Perhaps I should say that's what it was, given Sunday's election results in Europe. Perhaps I should also say good riddance.Voters in France, Greece and even Germany -- a hotbed of the austerity cult -- told their political leaders, in no uncertain terms, that boosting economic growth is more important than cutting government spending. Here in the United States, I hope that Democrats, at least, were paying attention; I fear that the addled ideologues who control the Republican Party will never get the...

And another one bites the dust.

French President Nikolas Sarkozy just became the latest politician to lose his job because he wouldn't let economic experience - or political common sense - sway him from the path of austerity.

Will Sarkozy's downfall help Democrats learn what he never could? Democrats should consider Sarkozy's fate a cautionary tale - and a call to action. If they rally around the cause of growth, jobs, and optimism, the nation will benefit and they'll rewarded at the polls.

But if they keep pushing their own brand of "austerity lite," they - and we - will have gained nothing from the lessons of Europe. iI won't matter how much more extreme the Republicans are. Democrats, who hold the White House and the Senate, will still be seen as the party in charge - the one that presided over a terrible economy and, if the "Grand Bargainers" have their way, the one that cut popular government programs.

They'll also run the risk of paying the same price Nikolas Sarkozy paid.

The Austerity Democrats

This should be the Democrats' moment, a time to make political gains in the most honorable way possible: by fighting for what's right. Today's radical Republicans want to destroy government and slash the very spending that's needed to rescue the economy. The GOP is even rejecting the common-sense spending on roads and bridges embraced by past Republicans from Dwight D. Eisenhower to George W. Bush. As austerity measures eviscerate Europe's economy and undermine the political popularity of its leadership, this should be the Democrats' finest hour.

Unfortunately, too many Democratic leaders have preferred to echo the austerity rhetoric of their Republican opponents - and of Europe's embattled leaders. The President's last debt deal with John Boehner was a milder version of European austerity, and it slowed our country's tentative growth. And yet he's reportedly pushing for another "Grand Bargain," leaving him with a muddled economic message, and Americans in a prolonged state of fear.

Even Nancy Pelosi, a long-time stalwart of traditional Democatic liberalism, said that she would vote for the "Simpson/Bowles" plan, a set of personal opinions about deficit reduction which wassubmitted by the co-chairs of the Deficit Commission after they failed to lead it to a successful conclusion.

The Simpson/Bowles plan is nothing more than an American blueprint for repeating Europe's failed policies.

The Right Time to Go Left

These Democrats should have taken a cue from the surge in popularity the President enjoyed after he began fighting for jobs - jobs that can only be created through government spending. But they didn't seem to get the message. The President still repeats the meaningless conservative analogy between governments and families - that governments should "cut their budgets in tough ties, just like families do when they sit around the kitchen table ..."

Nonsense. A better analogy, although still imperfect, would be between government and a business ... a store, let's say, that has good workers and good merchandise, but no customers Nobody's shopping there because the showroom is falling apart and it's running low on inventory. The only way for that business to get back in the black tomorrow is by spending more today.

It's called "investment," and it's nothing more than common sense. That's what our government needs. Polls show that the public understands this common-sense solution.

Too Clever by Half

But too many Democrats seem to think they don't have to fight for jobs or spending to get us through these tough times - that they just have to be less extreme than the other guys. And they seem to have the too-clever-by-half notion that they can offer "bargainss" which the Republicans won't take, proving themselves to be more "reasonable" than the other guy.

One problem with that idea is that the Republicans might take their deal, as Boehner did last year. A bigger problem is that they're repeating the false austerity mantras of the right instead of explaining what's really happening, leaving the public confused and in despair.

But the biggest problem with that idea is the economy itself. More sluggish performance from the economy will sow more doubt on the President and his party while spreading even more pain among the general population.

Nowhere is the madness more self-evident than on the topic of Social Security. Its trustees' latest projections are seen as proof that the program's benefits must be cut, in classic austerity-economics fashion. But the lion's share of the changes to its long-term fiscal projections were due to an ongoing recession caused by ... austerity economics!

The Summit

Next week former President Bill Clinton, whose "triangulating" brand of Democratic centrism places him slightly to the right of Sarkozy economically, will join radical right-wing Rep. Paul Ryan for the second time at a "Fiscal Summit" funding by conservative billionaire Pete Peterson and his foundation. Even more disturbingly, Clinton will be joined by a key Pelosi aide, Rep. Chris Van Hollen, as well as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner (who will also be making a return appearance).

Will Democrats use the "Fiscal Summit" and other upcoming events to challenge the failed austerity policies of Europe's leadership, or to mimic those leaders by leading us down the same road?

If it's the latter, they'll cause incalculable harm to our economy - and their political futures.

Poison

Austerity economics imposes sharp cuts in government spending in an attempt to restore economic growth. That's like putting leeches on a patient to draw the blood out: Instead of curing the disease it makes it much, much worse. Any lingering doubts about that have been dispelled by Europe's experience , where it has turned struggling economies have been turned into shattered economies.

And now Sarkozy's fall has given us yet more confirmation that the austerity which he co-promoted with Germany's Angela Merkel is a political career-killer. (Gallic pride made it impolitic to point out that France was clearly the junior partner in that duo, with Sarko playing Bob Hope to Merkel's Bing Crosby.)

Now he's paid the price. But Sarkozy's not the first to fall, and he won't be the last. Two leaders have already been defeated in Greece because they bowed before the austerity diktats of European power brokers. In the latest round of elections there, where democratic processes were initially all but overruled by the international financial sector, Greeks repudiated that country's externally imposed, "bipartisan" austerity consensus by soundly rejecting all the major political parties.

Would-be Washington "centrists," take heed.

Great Britain's Austerian Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition felt the pain this week too, as Labour made massive gains in local elections throughout England, Scotland, and Wales.

The "fiskalpakt" that the Germans are pushing on their reluctant continent is even becoming political poison in Germany itself, where Merkel's center-right coalition just took a drubbing in a state election.

That's not just a repudiation of economic policy. It's a rejection of the false "bipartisanship" that's forged when political insiders from the right and the mild left come together to follow unpopular policies dictated from powerful unelected forces.

As the guy in the cell phone ads used to say: Can you hear me now?

Warning Signs

Let's hope so. Because another disturbing trend to come out of Europe reflects an age-old pattern: When people feel fearful financially they turn in ever-larger numbers toward xenophobia, racism, and rage. The most dangerous situation in Europe today is probably the one in Hungary. The government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban shows all the signs of incipient totalitarianism, fueled by and reinforced by its practice of using thinly-disguised code words to reinforce hostility toward any citizen who is not "ethnically Hungarian."

Even after Greece's "bipartisan" leaders trampled on the public's needs and preferences, this week's election results were still somewhat shocking. The Socialists led other Greek parties for many years and won 44 percent of the vote in 2009. But this time around they trailed a party called "the Coalition of the Radical Left," which won between 15 and 17 percent of the vote to its 12 or 13 percent. That may be understandable, since the increasingly bland parties of European socialism have lost their bite - but what's truly frightening is the rise of the anti-immigrant and Nazi-saluting "Golden Dawn Party," which achieved its first Parliamentary presence with 5 to 8 percent of the vote.

In France the racist, far-right party of Jean-Marie Le Pen, now led by Le Pen's more telegenic and less blunt daughter Marine, performed exceptionally well in the first round of this year's elections. Sarkozy openly appealed to xenophobia himself in the runoff. Had Ms. Le Pen not urged her supporters to abstain from voting, his ugly race-baiting appeals might very well have worked.

It can't happen here, somebody's probably saying. But it can - and we're already seeing the warning signs. Our elected officials have an obligation to do the right thing for the sake of our social order, as well as our economy.

Showtime

Republicans are already using our poor economic performance to argue that Keynesian economics and stimulus spending don't work, when the exact opposite is true: We're doing better than parts of Europe because we did have some stimulus spending, but it wasn't enough. Call our policy "austerity lite" - but if we switch to the hard stuff we'll have a hangover that will last for generations. And if the Democratic Party doesn't clearly and forcefully map the case for the policies we really need, the President and his party could find themselves following in Sarkozy's footsteps.

At last year's Fiscal Summit Bill Clinton repeated the austerity-economics claptrap of the right, especially on Social Security, telling the radically right-wing Rep. Ryan that Republicans and Democrats should "break out of theology" and push for "bipartisan cooperation." Now Nancy Pelosi's saying she would have voted for the draconian Simpson/Bowles plan, which is more of the same austerity madness.

If we hear more austerity talk at the "Fiscal Summit" rom party leaders like Clinton, Administration officials like Tim Geithner, and Pelosi ally Chris Van Hollen the result will be disastrous - for the economy, for ordinary Americans, and for the electoral prospects of Democrats everywhere. It would mean that the lessons of Europe, and the fate of Nikolas Sarkozy, has taught them nothing.

It's almost showtime. Will the Democrats meet the moment and fight for the future - or follow in Sarkozy's footsteps and walk blindly toward the failures of the past?

Former basketball star Charles Barkley weighed in on the presidential race during an NBA broadcast on Sunday night, saying that Democrats would "beat" presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney "like a drum in November."

Romney, who was at the playoff game between the Boston Celtics and the Atlanta Hawks with his wife Ann, was shown mingling with the crowd at Boston's TD Garden during a broadcast on TNT.

"We're going to beat you like a drum in November," Barkley said as the camera cut to the former Massachusetts governor. "Don't take it personally. You seem like a nice guy, but you're going down, bro."

Barkley, an analyst for TNT's NBA coverage who famously switched his allegiance from the Republican to Democratic party, is no stranger to political commentary. In December, he slammed the GOP presidential field, calling the potential nominees "idiots" who unfairly criticize President Obama.

He has also considered getting involved in politics himself. In 1995, while still affiliated with the Republican party, Barkley weighed a potential run for governor in Alabama, his home state. While that run never materialized, he surfaced the idea again in 2010 -- that time as a Democrat.

However, in an interview with the New Republic in 2008, Barkley claimed to be apolitical.

"I do not use words like liberal or conservative," he said. "You can ask me a question and I will give you an answer. Those are words rich people on television use to divide and conquer. I am pro-choice. And if gay people want to get married, that is none of my business."

According to the Associated Press, the Romneys and longtime friend Bob White sat about 12 rows back at mid-court.

LAS VEGAS -- Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is campaigning to win the White House as a Libertarian after receiving scant attention in the Republican presidential race.

Johnson easily became the party's presidential nominee at the Libertarian national convention in Las Vegas on Saturday. He hopes to appeal to voters fed up with the traditional two-party system this November.

Johnson was a longshot candidate for the Republican presidential nomination when he announced in December that he would instead pursue the Libertarian ticket.

He won 74 percent of the vote on the first ballot in Las Vegas, an unusual showing of support. In 2008, Libertarian delegates needed six rounds of voting to pick a presidential nominee.

Johnson supports legalized marijuana, low taxes and immigration reform.

He was elected New Mexico's governor in 1994.

A consistent frustration with President Barack Obama by those active on the left is his apparent unwillingness to pay political costs on behalf of core constituencies of his party. But the calculations are not hard to understand, and, just in case you missed them, acolytes of the president and his reelection team will quickly remind you of the anticipated closeness of the coming election and the costliness of embracing key priorities of the left while trying to win independent, middle-of-the-road voters.

But every so often, the almost congenital cautiousness of this administration and president results in decision making so weak, so absent of leadership, that the resulting outcome is wrong from both a policy and a political perspective. Such is the president's recent decision not to sign an executive order prohibiting discrimination against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Americans by government contractors.

Seventy-one years ago, on the eve of World War II, Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 8802, prohibiting racial discrimination by firms and unions doing work for the United States government. How ironic, then, that the first African-American president of the United States will not do for millions of LGBT Americans what Franklin Roosevelt did for racial and ethnic minorities.

Let's be clear. This is bad policy. Twenty-nine states lack any anti-discrimination protection for LGBT workers. Should their employers take exception to their sexual orientation, millions of LGBT Americans are without recourse if they are fired, regardless of how hard they work or how great a job they are doing. And even though an executive order, confined to federal contractors, is not as good as legislation applying to everyone, it is a huge start in protecting LGBT workers. The federal government, let's recall, is the largest purchaser of, well, everything.

But what's most vexing about this decision is that this bad policy choice comes with no political upside whatsoever, a conclusion for which there is a mountain of data. In the 2008 American National Election Study, over 73 percent of Americans (including supermajorities of every racial and ethnic group) favored protection from job discrimination for LGBT people. And this isn't new; in fact, the ANES has been asking this question for 20 years. Since 1992 a supermajority of American citizens have favored anti-discrimination protections for LGBT Americans.

To be sure, this is not a unanimous position. But it is not a big leap to suggest that those opposing these protections are either very unlikely Democratic voters or attach little salience to the issue. By contrast, supporters of anti-discrimination laws, which we see is the vast majority of the public, include not just enthused supporters of the president but also disaffected Democrats and many (most?) independent voters.

All of which is to say that the president's reticence to do the right thing is inexplicable from a political standpoint. For a nice change, good policy and good politics neatly line up. The only remaining question is why the president refuses to act.

President Obama should sign this order and eliminate anti-LGBT discrimination by federal contractors. And he should do so on June 25, the 71st anniversary of Roosevelt's historic act.

The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly False | Ad says stimulus tax credits funded traffic lights in China

Is our stimulus money paying for traffic lights on Chinese streets? A TV ad running in eight states blames President Barack Obama for sending stimulus money overseas while Americans are out of work. "Tell President Obama, American tax dollars should help American taxpayers," the narrator says. Instead, $2.3 billion in tax credits funded jobs in Mexico, Finland and China, the ad claims. Americans for Prosperity, a group dedicated to "educating citizens about economic policy" that works closely with tea party activists and has been funded ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: False | Ad says stimulus tax credits funded jobs in Finland

Is your tax money paying for jobs in Finland? A TV ad running in eight states blames President Barack Obama for sending stimulus money overseas while Americans are out of work. "Tell President Obama, American tax dollars should help American taxpayers," the narrator says. Instead, $2.3 billion in tax credits funded jobs in Mexico, Finland and China, the ad claims. Americans for Prosperity, a group dedicated to "educating citizens about economic policy" that works closely with tea party activists and has been funded by the ...

>> More