Harold Ford said a thing that was mostly correct on Morning Joe today: Democrats get hammered every summer.

We liberals are just going to have cold summers. The Luntz talking point parade starts every spring and rolls into August. By the time football pre-season is here, Dems feel like the sky is falling. Obama is a celebrity. Health Care is death panels and government takeover. We don’t need revenues.

We (professional left, rank and file Democrats and MSNBC watchers) just have to get used to it and make spring to summer local politics/liberal activist season. Every year. Do summer like Wisconsin.

With that, I think everyone who has been complaining all week may want to check his speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan today. He’s back on it.

Pundits: “He should call Congress back to Washington”

Two term Governor John Corzine and Senator Harold Ford wanted Obama to call congress back in session. As if he would look strong if he said “get back here” and then Boehner and McConnell just ignore him.

Obama is past that. As he crosses the nation, bet you he will be focusing on jobs. Jobs. jobs.

“You voted for a divided government, not a do nothing government”

In his speech he said elected officials need to get out of Washington and go listen to voters and come back and get ready to pass some jobs bills. Obama is using the people as the lever against the GOP: look petty or come to Washington and get things done..

“These are things I already proposed”

Obama is about to go on a jobs bus tour and tout his jobs initiative while the GOP is weak in the polls after the debt deal nonsense. The fall is coming.

Even without taking the state Senate, Wisconsin was huge. If all Democrats hold against recall, that means the GOP has lost ground in two deep red districts and gained nothing from chopping out bargaining rights against public union members. The districts the 2 Dems won were long time GOP strongholds and not representative of WI at large. Those people who say this bodes poorly for Dems are wrong. These Dems won districts in this labor driven recall 2011 that they lost in 2008. Think I’m wrong? Look how Scott Walker who was my way or the high way prior to the recall is now trying to “reach out” to Dems and using conciliatory language. Walker knows a few things:

• WI labor is organized and bolstered by people who will never vote for him again
• Republicans lost ground in two red districts
• Labor will try recall to recall him in 2012 and he loses without those districts he won in 2010

Riots are senseless, explosions of violent anger around some grievance (however frivolous or vital) that topple communities into destructive chaos. Regardless, people in the media and government quite often miss the point.

My people did it without mob violence

Not always. Andrew Sullivan links to Sarah Carr, an Egyptian/British blogger who does not understand why “protestors” would riot to protest an unlawful murder. Also, Sully links to a tweet by Egyptian Mosaa Berizing:

Egyptians and Tunisians took revenge for Khaled Said and Bouazizi by peacefully toppling their murdering regimes, not stealing DVD players.

Twitter / @mosaaberizing: Egyptians and Tunisians to …

Egyptians rioted for the purpose of being anti-Algerian Football during the 2009 FIFA World Cup. Egyptians rioted in 2008 Bread Riots due to grain shortages. And they rioted to protest congestion in the traffic riots in 2000 protesting deaths of drivers and riders due dangerous road conditions for the poor. And even a riot when police accidentally killed a man in 2008. Not as widespread, but violent and senseless nonetheless.

So to be sure, Egyptians (like all people) have very well demonstrated the capacity to “take revenge” in the best and worst ways.

Rioters make your people look bad

Groups of black teens (from as young as age 11 to early 20s) have violently attacked pedestrians in flash mobs in Philly this summer (video of one of the awful attacks here). The Mayor, DA and Police Chief are coordinating a large response including curfews for kids, added patrols and a DA focus on this type of violence. Mayor Nutter was livid, during a speech and some other pressers, among some policy suggestions and righteous disappointment, he sprinkled in some unfortunate quack sociology. Annette John-Hall dissects the mayors rhetoric:

And the mayor wasn’t finished. At a City Hall news conference Monday, he told a small group of reporters, “I don’t care what your economic status is in life, you do not have a right to beat someone’s ass on the street.”

We can deal with the public tongue-lashing, even if his intended targets were nowhere to be found among the law-abiding churchgoers in their Sunday best. But what really bothered me was when Nutter fired the age-old salvo that has historically evoked head-hanging shame among black folks:

“You’ve damaged yourself,” the mayor accused. “You’ve damaged your peers, and, quite honestly, you’ve damaged your own race.”

There, he said it.

In a way that his white constituents would hear him loud and clear. At that point, he wasn’t talking to black people anymore.

[…]

Nutter expressed in no uncertain terms the sentiment that so often shackles black people – that the unlawful actions of a few smear everyone else.

via Annette John-Hall: In admonishing teen mobs, Nutter pulls out shame-game shackle | Philadelphia Inquirer | 08/09/2011

These thugs discredited themselves. That’s it. It’s why they will be charged for the crimes when they are caught. What Nutter is signifying is some responsibility among all black people for the actions of these few. Just like if these kids were straight A students, it wouldn’t have anything

The Mob is the story

Darcus Howe, is a writer and broadcaster who is a 68 year old emigrant from Trinidad & Tobago who has been in London for over 50 years talks about why the shooting of the young man was a flash point that sparked the riots. At no point does he condone them. But he does explain the initial source of anger. He’s kind of the perfect subject to interview because he is a journalist, and he talks about issues in his community from his earlier years to today. Unfortunately, he is basically talking to a news anchor that fails to report news and instead is looking to justify an opinion. The common pathology in these communities that have carried this violence throughout the country.

Whenever there is a setback to a Democratic Administration, there is a tendency to unfavorably contrast Obama to caricatures of FDR. Or LBJ. Or JFK. Or Bill Clinton. Each and every pundit starts their Democratic Presidents Fantasy League (DPFL) emerges where past presidents and then Democratic parties of their time are no longer empirically judged and never lose points for betraying the liberals of their time. On top of that, they receive bonus points for wielding the power of mythical Excalibur of US Presidential politics: the “bully pulpit”. Drew Westen started the NYT DPFL using a Bedtime Stories Told Scoring System which ignores the role race plays in the Obama presidency and gives big points for stories a president tells. The harsh reality is storytelling doesn’t really convince the public you’re right and only certain parts of the Democratic party are really hearing your stories from a liberal point of view:

“Back in 1984, just 26 percent of the people voting Democratic for Congress said they were liberals. . .that fraction has now risen to 41 percent.”

These numbers explain a lot. John Boehner governs like a guy who speaks for Republican voters who are 67 percent conservative. Obama governs like a guy who speaks for voters who are just 41 percent liberal.

So Westen’s scoring is skewed. Why? The ideological makeup of the Democratic party is (and has been) mostly moderates, a lot of liberals, and a solid minority of conservatives. The moderates and conservatives who are Democrats may not respond to the liberal narrative Westen feels we Democrats (who he equates with liberals) need to hear.

Cornel West, has started a DPFL using the FDR Scoring System:

It was a chat that found West imparting wisdom about the critical importance of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) Works Projects Administration (WPA) as an example from which America could be learning. He also provided some illumination as to why Obama has not chosen the course of reigniting FDR’s grand civic plan in a way that is appropriately nuanced for today.

Well, it seems FDR wasn’t the liberal invincible bully pulpit angel everyone makes him out to be. In 1938, some of his New Deal passed between 1933 and 1936, was repealed or weakened by a wave of Republicans and Conservative Democrats who (surprise) voted together to repeal or strike down some of his liberal policies in coming years.

In the hard-fought 1938 congressional elections, the Republicans scored major gains in both houses, picking up six Senate seats and 80 House seats. Thereafter the conservative Democrats and Republicans in both Houses of Congress would often vote together on major economic issues, thus defeating many proposals by liberal Democrats.^[2] A handful of liberal measures, notably the minimum wage laws, did pass when the Conservative Coalition split.

Liberals should remember, the Democratic Party and FDR were very much leaders of their time, not ours. US Olympic Legend, Jesse Owens, harbored no love for FDR or Truman. And FDR and Truman’s snub of Owens seems a bit more substantial than Obama’s imagined snub of West.

[Jesse] Owens said, “Hitler didn’t snub me – it was FDR who snubbed me. The president didn’t even send me a telegram.”^[13] On the other hand, Hitler sent Owens a commemorative inscribed cabinet photograph of himself.^[14] Jesse Owens was never invited to the White House nor were honors bestowed upon him by president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) or his successor Harry S. Truman during their terms. In 1955, President Dwight D. Eisenhower honored Owens by naming him an “Ambassador of Sports.”

And there’s more:

Although northern white liberals were theoretically sympathetic to the plight of African Americans, Poole says, their primary aim was to save the American economy by salvaging the pride of America’s “essential” white male industrial workers. The liberal framers of the Social Security Act elevated the status of Unemployment Insurance and Social Security–and the white workers they were designed to serve–by differentiating them from welfare programs, which served black workers.

Not only FDR, but liberals were not liberal for enough to Jesse Owens or black workers of FDR’s time. And in fact members of the left in FDR’s time weren’t too hype on the New Deal, contrary to Westen’s assertions. The country’s government can work better, the administration can work better, but while comparing Obama to previous Democratic POTUS’s we should be careful not to re-invent predecessors or imagine a US government that never existed.

They all had their warts, and no Democratic President was or will be at the very left of their governing coalitions and significant valuable progress was still made by each, including Presidents FDR and Obama. But they are both Democrats.

For being President during the worst economy since the depression, he’s holding strong with liberal support. The public favors Obama after the debt ceiling debate.

The sky is dark, but it’s not falling.

Good.

Tottenham and Brixton Riots are ragin

• 27 people have been charged so far. Of those:
• 17 charged with burglary (non-dwelling)
• 5 charged with violent disorder
• 3 charged with theft
• 1 for going equipped
• 1 for proceeds of crime act offences
• 2 cautioned
• 23 bailed
• 136 people are still in custody at this time

via Metropolitan Police arrests for the London riots, the key data | News | guardian.co.uk.

There is a special tragic awfulness to riots that erupt from people consumed with anger for injustices unacknowledged and grievances unheard. Such violent outbreaks are almost always met with a blunted, heavy handed justice that far outlasts the riot and quite often births more injustice.

For now, FAA employees will go back to work Monday

This agreement does not resolve the important differences that still remain.
via Over (For Now) | Talking Points Memo.

13 rural airports will lose funding.

In the middle of vacation season, the GOP insists on not fully funding the FAA which licenses pilots, controls air traffic and inspects the fitness of passenger aircraft. 20 times the FAA has gotten short term extensions.

While the scale of disruption from an FAA shutdown paled in comparison to the global repercussions of a potential U.S. debt default, the aviation fallout was not trivial and may carry political consequences if not resolved soon.

The FAA has issued stop work orders for 241 airport construction projects worth nearly $11 billion, officials said.

“We have the best aviation system in the world,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a conference call with reporters. “This is no way to run it.”

LaHood said FAA air traffic operations were not affected and aircraft safety programs remain in place.

The Obama administration estimates the shutdown has thrown more than 70,000 people out of work since July 22 when the FAA’s latest temporary funding authorization expired.

Many are in construction-related jobs, a sector where unemployment tops 15 percent. Starting on Thursday, those workers may begin showing up in a federal report of people claiming unemployment benefits.

WINDFALL FOR AIRLINES

Nearly 4,000 FAA employees have been furloughed and dozens of inspectors who oversee airport safety standards are working without pay, agency officials said.

Some airports are turning to letters of credit, reserves and commercial paper to keep projects going. Smaller airports may have credit problems and less financial flexibility, given their heavy dependence on federal funds, Fitch Ratings said.

Adding to the discontent from the administration and other quarters, airlines have profited handsomely from the shutdown. Political inaction on the temporary spending measure allowed them to drop certain ticket taxes 11 days ago.

Carriers including Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, American Airlines and US Airways raised fares to match the amount of money passengers no longer had to pay in taxes, bringing in a $250 million windfall.

via Senate Fails To End Partial FAA Shutdown | TPM News Pages.

We are supposed to support tax breaks for Delta, United, American and US Airways so they can create more jobs, yet they actively lobby for less job security for FAA workers and all the airport improvement funded by the FAA. great.

Remember House Blue Dog Caucus Whip Heath Shuler challenged Pelosi’s run for House Minority Leader because she wasn’t in tune with Tea Baggers like he was or conservative enough for him or something:

SEABROOK: Well, Heath Shuler has announced that he will, in fact, run against her if no one else does, and he’s one of those conservative Democrat blue dogs. But remember, their numbers have been decimated, and the numbers just don’t add up to someone like Heath Shuler winning over Nancy Pelosi. It’s more or less a protest run.

And, you know, I mean, there are a lot of people in that vein who think, well, if she just lost, if we just lost our majority under her leadership, why should she still be the leader? And, again, she has been vilified by moderates. She has been run against in a lot of districts across the country, but not the places where there’s still Democrats in the seats.

via Pelosi Brushes Aside Democrat Calls To Step Down : NPR.

Turns out Minority Leader Pelosi was key to the debt deal passing the house. Even with a deal in the bag to keep the US from default, Boehner, Cantor and friends hadn’t whipped any votes and were about to let the US default anyway…

The speaker, as it turned out, did not have enough Republican votes to pass the bill—only 174—and he had made no arrangement to guarantee its success. When there were minutes left for the vote, and it became apparent that Boehner would fall far short of the 216 votes necessary for passage, Pelosi’s Democrats began voting in favor of the measure. “We were not going to let it go down,” she told a small group of journalists on Wednesday morning.

[…]

Yet when the final dramatic vote arrived, Pelosi was surprised that Boehner was so short of the magic 216. “When they didn’t come to us for votes,” Pelosi recalls, “we thought they had the votes on their own.”

But Boehner didn’t. So the Democrats, having waited to see how many Republicans would back the measure, started filling in the gap. Pelosi didn’t have to send any signal. Her Democrats, she says, are a “sophisticated” group, and they could see that without Democratic support the bill would fail.

via How Pelosi Saved Boehner’s You-Know-What | Mother Jones.

Pelosi is really working with the unbelievably inept.

Everyone keeps saying that this is happening because these Tea Bagging, Freshmen “outsiders” aka Republican Representatives are bucking against the way Washington works. It’s not so. Boehner, Cantor and the GOP house leadership fomented this economically destructive stupidity with approval of their political donors and now are having a hell of a time getting their caucus to fall back in line:

An intensive endgame at hand, Republican leaders abruptly postponed a vote Thursday night on legislation to avert a threatened government default and slice federal spending by nearly $1 trillion.

“The votes obviously were not there,” conceded Rep. David Dreier, R-Calif., after Speaker John Boehner and the leadership had spent hours trying to corral the support of rebellious conservatives.

Just over a week ago, Darrell Issa said that the threat of default is imaginary…

“We should not be having a discussion with a artificial deadline of August 2nd, set by the President so the President can extort a deal through his reelection period. That’s not right, it’s not what the American people expect us to do.”

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) piled on Tuesday, saying, “The president needs a crisis to blame us for the economy that he’s made worse.”

Darrell Issa: Debt Deadline Is ‘Artificial’ Date Obama Is Using To ‘Extort’ A Deal From Congress | ThinkProgress.

Boehner’s tact is not a Wall Street by surprise. In May, he told Wall street that his approval of a debt ceiling increase would be saddled with three demands:

1) “Without significant spending cuts and reforms to reduce our debt, there will be no debt limit increase. And the cuts should be greater than the accompanying increase in debt authority the president is given. We should be talking about cuts of trillions, not just billions.”

2) “They should be actual cuts and program reforms, not broad deficit or debt targets that punt the tough questions to the future.”

3) “With the exception of tax hikes — which will destroy jobs — everything is on the table. That includes honest conversations about how best to preserve Medicare.”

Rep. Jeb Hensarling spoke in May was clear about this the GOP demands for spending cuts to be greater than the amount of debt ceiling increase:

Before Tuesday’s vote, Texas Republican Jeb Hensarling, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said the vote will show that Congress won’t raise the debt ceiling without cutting more spending.

“It’s an important vote to have to show the president that is not where Congress is, it’s not where the American people are,” he said.

via House Rejects Debt Limit Increase Without Cuts : NPR.

Walking out of negotiations or refusing to work towards progress was not borne of the new Tea Party faction either? Majority Leader Cantor led that behavior:

The breakdown was set off by the surprise decision of Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader and one of two Republicans participating in sessions led by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., to quit the negotiations.

So when you read stories about Boehner and Cantor telling Tea Baggers Representatives to bite the bullet and vote for their deal, mind you they are trying to pull Tea Baggers back from from where they led them.

All the deals being debated and voting on now satisfy GOP demands. There are no revenue demands. Obama now only has one demand: make the debt limit increase extend to the end of 2012 so that the US’s credit rating doesn’t get downgraded under the threat of more debt ceiling negotiations 3 to 4 months from now and 6 months again afer that. Boehner, Cantor and the GOP leadership have already walked their caucus passed accepting this clearly GOP leaning legislation and a political win and their troubles getting Tea Baggers to vote for their legislation in the House is borne of their own irresponsible leadership.

Hope he gets help. He needs it. And this investigation shouldn’t stop here, the allegations are very serious.

Rep. David Wu (D-OR) was behaving so strangely that staffers staged multiple interventions and requested he check into a psychiatric hospital, The Oregonian and Willamette Week reported on Friday. Staffers went so far as to make inquiries about the availability of beds in Portland and Washington.

Staffers Feared For Rep. David Wu’s Mental Health, Staged Interventions | TPMMuckraker.

If Wall Street, GOP Senate and Hedge Fund Managers haven’t come out against House GOP’s game of default chicken yet and advocated for the Reid or McConnell plans, which both are all spending and tax cuts, shouldn’t you have to assume all of those folks are hedged against a default of the US government already?

It just seems to me like Daddy just went to get some cigarettes and bread, and we are the newly abandoned bastard who is too innocent and naive to figure out our father is a deadbeat and Mommy isn’t crying because her allergies are just killing her.

In “You’ve Got Mail” Joe Fox (Tom Hanks) family business turned Goliath Fox’s Books, a Borders-like mega chain, moves into a New York neighborhood and crushes the life out of Kathleen Kelly’s (Meg Ryan) local bookstore The Shop Around the Corner. Now the giant is Amazon and a more nimble Barnes and Noble and Borders is The Shop Around the Corner except for one thing. Kathleen Kelly’s fictional shop employed a handful of highly educated, well positioned job seekers in the booming late 1990s while Borders employed 11K workers who are losing their jobs in the worst recession since the great depression. The hits just keep on coming.

UPDATE: Also, the argument that Borders failed because of taxes is nutty on its face. Tea Party/Norquist ideology passed off as facts. Barnes and Nobles exists and is still in business. They incur taxes for books sold in stores as well, but pursued an e-reader strategy based around the nook that has helped them increase revenue. Borders fell because they were poorly managed inefficient business. Not because of predictable sales taxes.

The Liberal Argument for raising revenue in a recession was framed perfectly by former Obama economic adviser Larry Summers:

We have infrastructure in this country — I mean you can argue whether we need a new high speed rail system or whether we don’t need a new high speed rail system. But I don’t know what the argument is for letting bridges collapse. I don’t know what the argument is.

via Brainstorm Tech video: Larry Summers on debt, bubbles, and Obama – Fortune Tech

This is what the President is only touching on when he says “he cannot guarantee Social Security checks” and this is what rank and file Democrats need to argue for. The end result of the GOP push to cut spending is one that will reduce our standard of living for years to come.

The top two recipients, not surprisingly, were House Speaker John Boehner, the Ohio Republican, who received $77,300; and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat, who received $36,150. Neither signed the letter.

Here are the 72 House Democrats who sent the letter, followed by how much each received from the AT&T in the last election.

Amount 2010 cycle[…]

Chaka Fattah $8,000

via AT&T Gave $500k to House Democrats Pushing The T-Mobile Takeover | paidContent.

$8000 dollars for my congressman means I get to be pushed to AT&T and probably get lower quality service. great.

After Cantor cheerily walked out on budget talks led by VP Joe Biden last month, Andrew Sullivan called Eric Cantor a “shallow, callow fanatic”

They see this ideologically, i.e. not politically. But the political facts are these. Federal tax revenues are at a 50-year low; marginal rates are lower for many than they were when Reagan was president. In a divided government, any achievement requires some sacrifice from both sides. And yet the GOP is insisting that its side offers no sacrifice, even as the other party controls the Senate and the White House. Their own party, moreover, contributed dramatically to the debt we now face. And there is no clear evidence that raising revenues will lead to economic decline. […]

This is brinksmanship with all of our lives, our money, our core financial stability and future growth. It is an outrageously reckless way to run a government.

via Cantor’s Cant – The Dish | By Andrew Sullivan – The Daily Beast.

Eric Cantor is being berated by Sullivan for trying to pull the budget deal towards Paul Ryan’s no new taxes, dollar for dollar trade of cuts for debt ceiling increase, medicare busting budget plan…but Paul Ryan is still very bold and serious because he was the first to propose drastic cuts to entitlement spending. Mind you, dragging all of this out has been in the GOP schedule from the beginning. The so serious Paul Ryan acknowledged the coming “brinkmanship” in May:

Just a day after Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced that the United States had hit its $14.3 trillion debt limit, Rep. Paul Ryan predicted that negotiations over raising the limit would go until the “last minute” – despite Geithner’s entreaties to act “as soon as possible” in order to prevent an economic crisis.

These guardians of low tax rates for the rich have cynically used the debt ceiling and expanding deficit as cover for their anti-tax agenda. All the plans on the table all inflate the federal deficit more than doing nothing. We will not be better off after August 2nd whether an agreement is made or not.

A question that hasn’t fully been answered and leaves more doubt about the Libyan mess we have mired ourselves in while sustaining the rebels coup attempt against Gaddaffi. Now rebels are rumored to have death squads.

Rebel commanders have created a wanted list and placed suspects under round-the-clock surveillance. Secret militia units raid houses without court warrants and often interrogate suspects for hours. Those released have to sign a document stating their loyalty to the revolution.

[…]

In recent weeks, at least seven former members of the internal security police have turned up dead, their bodies riddled with bullets. Although it is not known who killed them, many suspect that they died at the hands of rebel-affiliated death squads.

via Libyan rebels accused of reprisal attacks – The Washington Post.

How are the detainees treated under rebel care? Reports are not positive.

The woman’s 18-year-old son, Amar Abdul Baset, said his mother had left Gaddafi’s military in the 1980s and had been a housewife ever since, receiving a pension.

She was interrogated for 12 hours. The rebels peppered her with questions and showed her a list of suspects. They asked whether she was working with anyone on the list or organizing military action for Gaddafi. Before they released her, she was ordered to sign a pledge that she supported the revolution, her son said.

“When she came back, she was very scared,” Baset recalled. “It’s the same tactics Gaddafi’s regime used.”

This is the side we’re on.

The GOP wants to give a tax holiday to US Corporate tax dodgers who have stashed money overseas. The argument is that such a tax holiday would flood our economy with new cash.

They were treated to such a holiday in 2005, and according to MIT economics professor Kristin Forbes, who was a member of Bush’s council of economic advisers:

“For every dollar that was brought back, there were zero cents used for additional capital expenditures, research and development, or hiring and employees wages.”

via p m carpenter’s commentary: Another ‘facts holiday’.

Tax cuts, benefits and subsidies for the rich do not make them “job creators”.

Isn’t it enough to run, try hard and then lose an election?

Well, today Ehrlich’s Communication Director and a well known scum for hire in Maryland politics were indicted on multiple counts of election fraud. TPM has details here and Steve Benen weighs in here

via Balloon Juice » This Indictment is quite a read…

No one at so liberal MSNBC has asked their newest contributor Michael Steele, Lt. Gov. under Ehrlich, what the deal is with his old campaign pals.