Democrats Know Why Clinton Lost

Democrats know why they lost. Even Bill Clinton was warning of impending disaster, and thus he was all the more pissed once the results came it. It was the ultimate I told you so moment.

But autopsies continue to pour in, and if they've got some supreme pedigree, some establishment authority and gloss, the updated spin sort of excuses base Democrats of their stupidity. If they'd only known this before the election!

At McClatchy, "Democrats say they now know exactly why Clinton lost" (via Memeorandum):

A select group of top Dem strategists know why Clinton lost. Will the rest of the party listen to them? https://t.co/QnHAeYwdnw

— Alex Roarty (@Alex_Roarty) May 1, 2017

A select group of top Democratic Party strategists have used new data about last year’s presidential election to reach a startling conclusion about why Hillary Clinton lost. Now they just need to persuade the rest of the party they’re right.

Many Democrats have a shorthand explanation for Clinton’s defeat: Her base didn’t turn out, Donald Trump’s did and the difference was too much to overcome.

But new information shows that Clinton had a much bigger problem with voters who had supported President Barack Obama in 2012 but backed Trump four years later.

Those Obama-Trump voters, in fact, effectively accounted for more than two-thirds of the reason Clinton lost, according to Matt Canter, a senior vice president of the Democratic political firm Global Strategy Group. In his group’s analysis, about 70 percent of Clinton’s failure to reach Obama’s vote total in 2012 was because she lost these voters.

In recent months, Canter and other members of Global Strategy Group have delivered a detailed report of their findings to senators, congressmen, fellow operatives and think tank wonks – all part of an ongoing effort to educate party leaders about what the data says really happened in last year’s election.

“We have to make sure we learn the right lesson from 2016, that we don’t just draw the lesson that makes us feel good at night, make us sleep well at night,” Canter said.

His firm’s conclusion is shared broadly by other Democrats who have examined the data, including senior members of Clinton’s campaign and officials at the Democratic data and analytics firm Catalist. (The New York Times, doing its own analysis, reached a similar conclusion.)

More.

'Trumpism' and the GOP

Not sure exactly what "Trumpism" is, but if WaPo's Ashley Parker means populist nationalism, then she's on to something.

An interesting piece, "How Trumpism has come to define the Republican":

How Trumpism upended long held Republican orthodoxy. My Sunday take: https://t.co/2frvCLtPmy

— Ashley Parker (@AshleyRParker) March 25, 2018

Over just a few days last week, the essence of Trumpism was on global display: The president ignored his advisers by congratulating Vladi­mir Putin, took the first steps toward imposing tariffs on billions of dollars in Chinese goods and signed a huge $1.3 trillion spending bill that will balloon the federal deficit.

In each case, President Trump cast aside years of Republican orthodoxy — and most of the party followed right along. The raw, undefined brand of populism that Trump rode into office is now hardening into a clearer set of policies in his second year, remaking the Republican Party and the country on issues ranging from trade and immigration to spending and entitlement programs.

Even amid persistent unpopularity and the chaotic din of his White House, Trump has used a mix of legislation and unilateral actions to successfully push ahead with key parts of his vision — tariffs that have rocked global markets; harsh crackdowns on illegal immigrants; a nationalistic foreign policy that spurns allies while embracing foes and costly policies with little concern for the growing national debt.

The spending legislation — which puts the deficit on track to pass $1 trillion in 2019 — faced little meaningful opposition from Republican lawmakers despite years of GOP complaints that federal expenditures were out of control. Trump called the bill “ridiculous,” but focused on issues other than the amount of spending.

It was another example of how Trump seems to have overtaken his party’s previously understood values, from a willingness to flout free-trade principles and fiscal austerity to a seeming abdication of America’s role as a global voice for democratic values.

“While the president’s vision of pro-American immigration, trade and national security policies may not have had widespread support in Washington, they are widely supported by the American people,” said Raj Shah, a White House spokesman. “This is President Trump’s Republican Party.”

A tweet Friday, in which Trump threatened to veto the spending bill, also underscored another tenet of Trumpism — a state of continuous uncertainty about where he will land on key policies. In the tweet, Trump said he was frustrated with the legislation both because it “totally abandoned” young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers” (long a Democratic priority) and because it failed to “fully” fund his controversial border wall (now a Republican priority).

“There has certainly been a wholesale repudiation of many core principles that have guided the Republican Party’s thinking over the years,” said Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University. “Their willingness to accept certain victories on their agenda in return for the acceptance of Trumpism more broadly — that seems to be the guiding principle of Republican Party leaders.”

Trump allies and advisers say that while he has in some ways reshaped the Republican Party, he rose to power by understanding where the party’s base already was and channeling those existing worries and desires.

“I would argue that Trump is more a reflection of where the voters are today,” said Barry Bennett, a former Trump campaign adviser. “I don’t think he persuaded them into these stances. That’s where they were. He’s merely being a mirror to them. . . . He heard what the voters were talking about, what they feared, the pain that they had, and he immediately championed it.”

White House officials also stressed that Trump’s professed “America First” theme serves as a kind of connective ideology, whether in prioritizing American workers over foreign workers on immigration or calling for NATO members to spend more on a shared defense. They said that on many regulatory and economic issues, such as last year’s tax cuts, the president and Republican lawmakers remain naturally aligned.

For many pro-Trump voters, one senior White House official said, the actual policies are less important than the principle — and the principal, Trump himself, promising to stand up and fight for them...

Keep reading.

Democratic Economic Incompetence

President Barack Obama warned the nation today of economic "catastrophe" if Congress fails to pass the disastrous economic stimulus package under consideration in Washington.

Perhaps we'll see more sky-is-falling desperation from the administration, given that the public is quickly souring on this larded-legislative boondoggle. Gallup's new poll finds huge public consensus on the need for government action, but only 10 percent of Americans believe Obama's plan "will improve the economy in 2009" (source). Nancy Pelosi's rank dishonesty certainly can't be helping the Democratic agenda either:

So, what's a hard-left partisan do? Why, cry wolf and blame the GOP, of course:

Behind all the back and forth over the Stimulus Bill is a simple fact: the debate in Washington is rapidly moving away from any recognition that the US economy - and the global economy, for that matter - is in free-fall ...

The other key into the current debate is that the Republican position is ominously similar to their position on global warming or, for that matter, evolution. The discussion of what to do on the Democratic side tracks more or less with textbook macroeconomics, while Republican argument track either with tax cut monomania or rhetorical claptrap intended to confuse. It's true that macro-economics doesn't make controlled experiments possible. And economists can't speak to these issues with certainty. But in most areas of our lives, when faced with dire potential consequences, we put our stock with scientific or professional consensus where it exists, as it does here. Only in cases where it goes against Republican political interests or economic interests of money-backers do we prefer the schemes of yahoos and cranks to people who study the stuff for a living.

Of course, at some level, why would Republicans be trying to drive the country off a cliff? Well, not pretty to say, but they see it in their political interests. Yes, the DeMints and Coburns just don't believe in government at all or have genuinely held if crankish economic views. But a successful Stimulus Bill would be devastating politically for the Republican party. And they know it. If the GOP successfully bottles this up or kills it with a death of a thousand cuts, Democrats will have a good argument amongst themselves that Republicans were responsible for creating the carnage that followed.

It's not too smart to deny the reality that this legislation is the Democrats' folly. They passed it in the House, and they'll be thanking the GOP from saving them from utter disaster if it fails in the Senate.

The real pleasure of seeing the extreme incompetence of this administration, and so soon, is only surpassed by the equally-extreme mortification on the radical-left that their historic moment of revolutionary transformation is evaporating faster than one of candidate Obama's ethereal post-partisan stump speeches.

Partisan Realignment After the 2016 Election

This is the best piece I've read on our current crisis of political polarization.

It's not a crisis of governmental institutions. It's a crisis of the party system. What a great read.

From Stanford political scientists David Brady and Bruce Cain, at National Affairs, "Are Our Parties Realigning?":

THE STRUGGLE FOR THE GOP

The election of Donald Trump was even more of a blow to any expectations of a new equilibrium than the back-and-forth elections of the prior decades. Not only was he not a standard Republican on free trade, taxes, entitlements, and so on, but the Republicans in Congress did not expect him to win. Their reaction to his victory was to try to pull together and pass the legislation they thought mandated by their 2010 wins six years earlier: end Obamacare, reform taxes, cut regulation, and increase energy production, among other longstanding Republican agenda items.

But the narrow Senate margin and Trump's lack of policy knowledge and legislative skill left Republicans with only a tax-bill victory. Obamacare is still the law of the land; immigration reform and budget policy remain problematic; and Trump is a more divisive president than either Bush or Obama. Thus our system — already burdened by partisan divisiveness, close elections, and few incentives for parties to cooperate on public policy — is saddled with an inexperienced, chaotic president and a governing party with no clear sense of what it wants or what voters want.

One result has been a struggle to define the GOP, which has sometimes seemed like a fight between the party's longstanding priorities and some of President Trump's particular emphases. But the battle lines have not been very clear — especially since neither the practical and contemporary meaning of the party's longstanding priorities nor Trump's beliefs are actually all that clear at this point, and since disputes about the president's character often overshadow internal policy debates.

If Republicans lose one or both houses of Congress in 2018, then the battle lines could be drawn more clearly, because those congressional Republicans who have held back criticism of Trump in order to pass legislation will no longer need to restrain themselves in the battle for the party. The 2018 and 2020 election cycles will, by and large, shape what Republicans become post-Trump. Republican incumbents might buy into Trump's views on immigration, deficits, trade, and so on to appease the Trump base, and thus change the party. Or the battle between Trump-like candidates and traditional Republicans could yield a new set of internal divisions and patterns. Or traditional Republican views might come to be reaffirmed.

The dimensions of the battle are revealed in survey data that YouGov has collected over the past few years. Starting in May 2015, they interviewed a panel of 5,000 Americans 17 times, with more interviews scheduled prior to the 2018 elections. The results have shown that Trump voters, compared to those Republicans who voted in the primaries for other candidates, are older, whiter, less well-educated, have lower incomes, and are disproportionately from the Southern, border, and Midwestern states. They are also, on average, angrier about politics, more likely to believe that many in the government are crooks, and  more dissatisfied with government. They are very anti-trade and anti-immigration and favor taxing the rich (those making over $250,000).

When asked about illegal immigrants living in the U.S. now, 70% of Trump supporters said they should be required to leave, while less than 35% of other Republicans agreed. In fact, a slight majority of other Republicans thought that they should be allowed to stay and acquire citizenship. On social issues such as gay marriage and the death penalty, Trump supporters were much more conservative than their fellow Republicans; in fact, a majority of other Republicans opposed the death penalty. In the post-election surveys, by a two-to-one margin, Trump Republicans favored a Muslim ban, while other Republicans opposed the ban. The battle for the heart and soul of the party is underway.

While these issues will be important, perhaps even more important is the extent to which Trump Republicans and other Republicans differ regarding the president. The August 2017 YouGov re-contact survey showed that 92% of early Trump supporters liked him, with 72% liking him a lot; Republicans who weren't early supporters, however, liked him less, with only 29% liking him a lot. The president's ability to retain the support of his base means those Republicans running for Congress must face the delicate task of appealing to that base in both the primary and general elections. Ed Gillespie's run for governor of Virginia in 2017 was an excellent example of such balancing. As one Washington Post article put it a few days before the election, "Gillespie is at the center of a civil war that is dividing his party, one pitting the Republican establishment he personifies with his four-star credentials against the anti-Washington forces that propelled President Trump's rise."

The battle between the Trump wing and other Republicans will play out numerous times over the next two election cycles, and the future of the party hangs on who wins. Crucial to Republican success will be suburban independents and Republican women who chose Trump over Hillary but today do not like the president. Off-year election turnout numbers in Virginia and Alabama confirm the importance of these voters.

THE RACE TO REALIGNMENT

In American political science, the standard party-change model has focused on "realigning elections," wherein one party achieves dominance that lasts long enough to resolve the key issues generated by the instability of the era. Those issues, in our time, appear to be challenges like immigration, inequality, family and social breakdown, worker insecurity, automation, trade, America's role in the world, and environmental challenges, among others.

Some observers suggest that Democrats have the best chance to arrive at a formula that captures a durable majority on most of these issues. As of this writing, the 2018 generic congressional poll favors Democrats by seven points (according to the RealClearPolitics average), and Trump's popularity is low. Historically, presidents in their first term often lose seats at the midterm election. And winning the House, the Senate, or both in 2018 would be seen as a harbinger of winning control of the government in 2020.

Control of all the elected branches would give Democrats a base of support from which to reduce inequality, reform the immigration system, and restore American leadership in the economic realm, on the environment, and in other respects. Nice scenario, if you ask any progressive. But there are many reasons why the Democrats are likely to fail in their efforts to create a new stable majority. The first and most obvious is that Democrats, like Republicans, are badly split on how the party should respond to both the Trump presidency and the dominant issues of our time. The result is that the number of Democrats running for president in 2020 may well be in the double digits, creating divisions that resemble those the Republicans faced in 2016.

Second, potential candidates are already favoring policies, like Medicare for all and free tuition, that even Californians know are not affordable. These views don't actually represent today's Democratic coalition all that well. In YouGov surveys, Democrats, by over two-to-one, favor cutting spending over raising taxes to balance the budget, and by almost two-to-one, they believe that quite a few in government do not know what they are doing. In regard to free tuition, 40% of Democratic voters are either against it or are not sure that it would work. Thus, the Democrats have not achieved agreement within their party regarding policies that deal with today's core challenges, and a multi-candidate presidential primary is not likely to resolve the issues and create a stable majority. That leaves the Democrats, like the Republicans, divided and not unified, and, just as with the GOP, the necessary changes seem more likely to occur in primary and general-election contests over the next few electoral cycles. The Democratic Party does not look ready to step up; the Republicans don't either.

Here again, a student of history would be reminded of the closing decades of the 19th century, when there were pro-silver Republicans and pro-gold Democrats (like President Cleveland) and the same intra-party mix on tariffs and immigration and many other prominent issues. Control of the government shifted back and forth between these unsteady parties over and over again. But by 1896, the sorting of the parties had occurred, and Republicans were pro-gold, pro-tariffs, and so on, while the Democrats under William Jennings Bryan were the opposite. The electorate, in that case, chose Republicans, and the ensuing stability gave rise to economic growth and a period of prosperity.

A broadly similar transformation is very likely in our future. The sorting process in the Republican Party has begun, with the Democrats to follow in 2020. This time the sorting will not be conservatives to the GOP and liberals to the Democrats, since that has already occurred and has defined the very order that is growing exhausted. Rather, the coming era will be defined by questions like what do conservatism and liberalism mean to Republicans and Democrats, and which vision will the American people support? Whichever way it turns out, the parties have finally begun the process of adjusting to the realities of the new global economy.

The shapes our parties are likely to take might be easier to see if we consider their most extreme possible forms — which aren't where we will end up but can show us the contours of possibility. For Republicans, these are the possible alternatives on either pole: a Trump-like Republican Party that is anti-immigrant, protectionist, anti-gay marriage, dependent on entitlements, white, old, not well-educated, and concentrated in the southern and central United States; or a party that favors markets and smaller government, and is not anti-immigration per se but is, rather, more libertarian and diverse in membership.

The Democrats, likewise, face a similar polar choice: a Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren Party that pushes socialist-leaning policies (Medicare for all, free tuition, a smaller military, higher taxes, and more regulation) joined to an identity politics that excludes moderates from swing states; or a Democratic Party more like that envisioned by the Clinton-era Democratic Leadership Council, which is center-left on economic policy, inclusive on social issues, relatively moderate on defense and immigration, and somewhat resistant to identity politics.

The battles between these alternatives have already begun in some primaries. And the likely outcome is not any of the polar opposites, but a shuffling of the issues that gives shape to complex coalitions...

RTWT, at the link.

No Enemies on the Left? Progressives for Barack Obama

I've been having a debate with Repsac 3, a far-left partisan who blogs over at Wingnuts & Moonbats, over the degree of radical support for Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Sure, I no doubt throw out terms like nihilist and Stalinist quite frequently, perhaps imprecisely. But one point I suggest has been that folks like this - however defined - are prominent members of the Obama coalition. In response, Repsac 3 claims that there's no evidence that hardline activists of this sort back Obama (for the debate thread see, "Where's the Revolution? Wait Until November").

I generally know what I'm talking about, so radical support for Obama's presidential bid's really just a matter of common sense to me. But Repsac's one to demand concrete evidence for claims (as are others, no doubt), and that's fine, so in that spirit I'll be documenting the degree of hardline radical support for the Obama campaign in my writing, beginning with this post.

First, let me be specific in what I'm referring to when I say "hardline left-wing radicals." A good definition is found in Leon Baradat's Political Ideologies, where he notes:

...a radical may defined as a person who is extremely dissastified with the society as it is and therefore is impatient with less than extreme proposals for changing it. Hence, all radicals favor an immediate and fundamental change in the society. In other words, all radicals favor revolutionary change.

Baradat also notes that the criteria to distinuish one type of radical from another is by examining the methods they advocate to bring about transformation.

Also, a good brief definition is also available from Wikipedia:

The Radical Left, an umbrella term to describe those who adhere explicitly and openly to revolutionary socialism, communism or anarchism — the "radical" qualifier tends in this case to denote a revolutionary fervor, and is a subset of, but should not be confused with, the far left.

Note Wikipedia's reference to the "far left," which is a term used more commonly with reference to political competition in European parliamentary democracies (with the extreme left being represented by neo-Stalinism), but is still valid in U.S. political discourse when discussing extreme left-wing partisans.

Now, it's frankly not common in mainstream media commentary to note how substantial is radical left influence on today's Democratic Party. Yet there's considerable evidence that after the Clinton years of DLC centrism, a far-left wing version of Democratic Party liberalism has definitely made a comeback (a good case can be made that Ned Lamont's defeat of Senator Joseph Lieberman in the 2006 Connecticut Senate primary was based in the radical politics of the online netroots faction).

It's hard to deny the degree of essentially radical mobilization taking place today in American electoral politics, especially in the netroots, which I contend is replacing more traditional street mobilization as the main channel for fundamental change.

In any case, Tom Hayden, a prominent social and political activist and politician, who's still known for radical advocacy, has issued a major statement of far-left political support for Barack Obama's presidential campaign, "Progressives for Obama":

This call has been drafted for immediate circulation, discussion, and action.

All American progressives should unite for Barack Obama. We descend from the proud tradition of independent social movements that have made America a more just and democratic country. We believe that the movement today supporting Barack Obama continues this great tradition of grass-roots participation drawing millions of people out of apathy and into participation in the decisions that affect all our lives. We believe that Barack Obama's very biography reflects the positive potential of the globalization process that also contains such grave threats to our democracy when shaped only by the narrow interests of private corporations in an unregulated global marketplace. We should instead be globalizing the values of equality, a living wage and environmental sustainability in the new world order, not hoping our deepest concerns will be protected by trickle down economics or charitable billionaires. By its very existence, the Obama campaign will stimulate a vision of globalization from below.

As progressives we believe this sudden and unexpected new movement is just what America needs. The future has arrived. The alternative would mean a return to the dismal status quo party politics that have failed so far to deliver peace, health care, full employment and effective answers to crises like global warming.

During past progressive peaks in our political history - the late Thirties, the early Sixties - social movements have provided the relentless pressure and innovative ideas that allowed centrist leaders to embrace visionary solutions. We find ourselves in just such a situation today.

We intend to join and engage with our brothers and sisters in the vast rainbow of social movements to come together in support of Obama's unprecedented campaign and candidacy. Even though it is candidate-centered, there is no doubt that the campaign is a social movement, one greater than the candidate himself ever imagined.

Now some might argue that Hayden's mellowed from his prominent 1960-era radicalism - for example, when he was a member of the Chicago Seven - and, well, he may have to some degree.

But he maintains today, on his personal website, the full-text version of "The Port Huron Statement," which is widely considered the most important political document of new left revolutionary socialism of the 1960s era, and Hayden was the statement's primary author.

The document's worth a good read, especially for people wondering what the progressive movement would do today, should they gain power (the term "progressive" has been appropriated by far-left activists in order to make their radical policies appear more mainstream, and hence politically acceptable).

But note this passage, near the conclusion of The Port Huron Statement outlining an agenda for dramatic social transformation:

A new left must transform modern complexity into issues that can be understood and felt close-up by every human being. It must give form to the feelings of helplessness and indifference, so that people may see the political, social and economic sources of their private troubles and organize to change society. In a time of supposed prosperity, moral complacency and political manipulation, a new left cannot rely on only aching stomachs to be the engine force of social reform. The case for change, for alternatives that will involve uncomfortable personal efforts, must be argued as never before. The university is a relevant place for all of these activities.

We see striking similarities when comparing Hayden's positions in his current essay, "Progressives for Obama," to those in "The Port Huron Statement."

Of course, Hayden's not a spokesman for any major political advocacy group or political party, but his essay is going out as a general call to action among all left-wing progressive forces. Indeed, the language of his essay seeks complete mobilization, which we can infer as including the various left-wing factions that would normally be considered under the notion of the "radical left" as identified by Baradat.

So, whereas while some progressives would abjure revolutionary violence (and I assume Hayden's does), some would not. Indeed, some of the most prominent antiwar progressive organizations today, like World Can't Wait, are indeed revolutionary hard-left organzations, implacably committed to "driving out the Bush regime."

The World Can't Wait list of endorsers includes everyone from prominent left-wing actors like Susan Sarandon and Marin Sheen to neo-Stalinist organizations such as International ANSWER (a review of the listing gives some credence to the notion of "no enemies on the left").

So, while the exact degree and nature of Obama's support among the various hardline organizations is uncertain, we know without a doubt, from Hayden's essay, that many on the contemporary left see the Obama campaign as the electoral vehicle to operationalize their program for radical, revolutionary change.

I'll have more on this in upcoming posts.

**********

Also see the follow-up entries in the "No Enemies on the Left" series," starting with the most recent:

* "Left-Wing Establishment Cheers Wright's "Brilliance."

* "Responsible Plan? Antiwar Groups Endorse Unconditional Iraq Surrender."

* "Ecoterrorism and the Democrats: More on the Radical Left."

* "Democrats Hijacked by Hard-Left Base, Lieberman Says."

* "Muslim Students Association Seeks U.S. Destruction."

* "Imagine, Obama a Liberal: It's Easy If You Try."

* "Barack Obama's Antiwar Coalition."

* "What's a Radical?"

* "Palestinians See Obama as Close Ally."

* "Anti-McCain Mobilization Rooted in Hardline Anti-Iraq Constituencies."

* "Obama's Circle of Friends: The America-Hating Left."

* "Code Pink Bundling Contributions for Obama."

Digby's Hullabaloo Rejects Afghanistan as Just War: Joins Neo-Stalinists in Protest Against U.S. Neo-Colonial Project

Okay, here's a follow up to AOSHQ, "Liberal Blogger Admits: We Claimed to Support 'The Good War' in Afghanistan as Political Strategy to Prove Our "Macho" Credentials; We Never Meant It," and Jim Geraghty's, "Democrats Never Meant What They Said About Afghanistan."

After Geraghty sent the NRO comment trolls over to swarm Digby's page, she closed comments and posted an update. Check this part especially:

I have always believed that The Good War was a myth and that the Democrats used it as a political weapon. I've written about it plenty in the past. But why these bloodthirsty wingnuts should take issue with that and conclude that I'm therefore responsible for the deaths of American soldiers is beyond me.

After all, the Democrats were all for the war --- just like they were. The only problem the right had with it was that the Democrats criticized George W. Bush for not being enough of a warmonger on Afghanistan. They weren't pacifists. They were just liars and political opportunists. And now the Republicans and the Democrats are all potentially on the same team, pulling for a bigger and better and longer war in Afghanistan. Huzzah! Post partisan comity is at hand.

Notice something here: Diby's essentially saying that (1) don't freaking link me in with the Democratic war party, because (2) I'm way out further on the left than almost everyone in Congress. That is to say, obviously, by rejecting the "Good War," Digby aligns with the one-and-only Representative Barbara Lee, who in 2001, was the sole Member of Congress to vote against the the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists (AUMF) --- i.e., the Afghan deployment. It may be recalled that Representative Lee chairs the Hip Hop Caucus Advisory Board, which is the White House-linked group behind plans to desecrate the historical memory of September 11. It all fits together like a puzzle.

Interestingly, Digby's basically in solidarity with the International ANSWER forces who are staging their 8th anniversay Afghanistan protests on October 7th in Los Angeles:

U.S./NATO Out of Afghanistan!
End Colonial Occupation: Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine...
Money for People's Needs, Not War!

Notice the classic Marxist-Leninist agitprop, "End the Colonial Occupation."

And so, yes, Digby's right --- she did oppose the war all along, just like the hardline neo-Stalinists looking to topple global capitalism. Digby's a major player in the "progressive" netroots, but as I've long pointed out, "progressive" is the political-correct contemporary term for "neo-commmunist." Where Digby's not correct is by suggesting today's Democratic Party is simply politically expedient, a shadow war party. The fact is, from the top leadership in Congress, to President Barack Obama, the current U.S. goverment is infiltrated with neo-communists and fifth-column terror enablers. The only reason they support anything resemble mainstream foreign policy views is constituency pressure and the need to keep up the cloak of secret moderation. (We'll see how that works out November 2010.)

The stakes are clearly high for the forces of good in this country. Great job by Ace and Jim Geraghty in hammering Digby, but it's not just that Democratic-leftists "misreprepresented" themselves. It's all part of the larger plan to turn over the U.S. to the world's forces of moral decay and collectivist destruction.

(P.S.: If all goes well, I'll be infiltrating the October 7th ANSWER protest to photograph and report on the antiwar agitation and revolutionary anti-Americanism. Stay tuned ...)

Gay Rights and the Postmodern Agenda

I did not know Steve Clemons was gay. In fact, the only thing I knew about Clemons, from reading his columns occassionally, was that he seemed like one more classic leftist nut spewing BDS across the blogosphere. The erudition of Clemons' essays did nothing to disguise his representation of the essential nihilism of today's postmodern left.

Clemons' Thanksgiving essay, where he discusses his sexual orientation, and his frustrations with Barack Obama, is one more example of how radically left is the progressive agenda of today's Democratic Party base:

Yes, like everyone - I'm pleased that Barack Obama won the White House. But it is only a small beginning in the right direction. But with Barack Obama, we also got Proposition 8. We have him talking about Iraq as the "bad war" and Afghanistan as the "good war". We have political appointments in both security and economic policy that either will be the height of brilliant personnel and policy maneuvering or alternatively could end up as a paralyzed cabinet and government disaster. There is only fog ahead, much yet we don't know.

We have wars going on in the Middle East that shouldn't be going on. I have friends there now being shot at - and helping to kill others - and this wasn't what the 21st century was supposed to be about.

I have been writing here for some time -- far before the National Intelligence Council's Global Trends 2025 report came out chronicling America's global decline - that America's mystique as a great nation had been punctured by the invasion of Iraq. We showed key limits in our military and economic capacity, leading allies and foes respectively to count on us and fear us less. The economic crisis is the punctuation point in America's fall from its once significant global perch. I'm worried about all of this - making a traditional thanksgiving very uncomfortable.

Our new president preaches inclusion, which is a good thing -- and I think he has the potential to be one of the great stewards of the White House and the executive branch authority we have given him.

But how could people who helped deliver this man to the White House also spit on my decision to enter into marriage with someone I have been with for 17 years? Europe has embraced adjustments in marriage easily and in a socially healthy way, and yet we still stoke embers of nativism and fundamentalism in this country. Barack Obama's voice was used on anti-gay marriage robocalls to African-American and Hispanic voters in California. To my knowledge, he didn't ask for his voice not to be used.

I think intolerance is what undermines the glue of a nation, stirring up fear and violence at home and in wars abroad. We have a lot of intolerant Americans who helped elect George W. Bush twice to the White House, and now we have many other intolerant Americans who have come into their civic responsibilities as voters and have tainted the hope that people like my partner and I have for a better and more just nation that recognizes our relationship in the ways it should be recognized.

I'm going to see the movie Milk today starring Sean Penn reprising brilliantly the life of the assassinated first gay elected politician in the United States - and no matter what Proposition 8 thought it achieved, I'll be wearing my ring.

So, this is an uncomfortable Thanksgiving holiday, and I hope that those who read this today do embrace their family and friends - all of them, gay ones too - and remember that this nation needs to stop dragging when it comes to bigotry.

I've written much on gay rights and the unhinged left's backlash against the majority vote on Proposition 8 (which Clemons conveniently omits).

Here I'll simply refer readers back my post on marriage and tradition, "Marriage and Procreation: Bodily Union of Spouses."

As for the rest of Clemons' rant, I'm a little surprised he's resorting to the same smears of intolerance and bigotry used by every other 9th tier leftist on the web.

Or, perhaps I shouldn't be surprised: The gay marriage movement has nothing more to argue for it than to demonize those who oppose them, which is essentially a temper-tantrum masquerading as argumentation. Leftists may indeed win the battle over marriage in the long run - with all the intimidation and claims of "rights" - as society proceeds along the path to hegemonic secularism. What's interesting here is how Clemons' gay marriage advocacy fits right in with all the other outrages against GOP governance over the last eight years.

For every action there's an equal and opposite reaction, or so they say. Conservatives are planning now for their comeback, and 2010's not too soon to make the case that the push for gay marriage is just one pillar of the larger radical program intent to destroy center-right traditionalism in this country.

French Exhibition to Commemorate 9/11

MEMENTOS: Keys from the World Trade Center are among the items representing the 2001 attacks to be shown in the French city of Caen.

*********

Like many Americans, I wasn't pleased with the French pursuit of narrow national self-interests in the run-up to Iraq. On the other hand, I wasn't so pleased with all the French-bashing we saw on this side of the Atlantic in the aftermath.

France, for all it's aspirations to international grandeur and puissance, is one of the world's great nations, with contributions to Western civilization too numerous to recount. French politics veers much too far to the left on occasion, but there's a history and culture to the nation that remains one of the world's most fascinating.

The French people, moreover, do indeed appreciate their centuries-old partnership with America. The strength of those ties seem to wax and wane at times, especially amid periods like the backlash against Iraq, but the fundament's still there, sturdily under the surface.

French respect for the United States will be on display this summer, when a new historical exhibition opens in city of Caen, on the coast of Normandy. The exhibition, "A Global Moment," is covered in today's Los Angeles Times:

On the shores of Normandy where thousands of Americans died in the cataclysm that was D-day, a museum that aims at being more than a collection of rusting relics is preparing to commemorate another day that changed the world: Sept. 11, 2001.

More than 120 mementos, including building keys and a smashed-up vehicle, are being shipped from New York to the French city of Caen for the first exhibition outside the United States, and the largest anywhere on the attack, its roots and aftermath.

That France is playing host to the exhibition might surprise Americans who remember the "freedom fries" uproar that greeted Paris' opposition to the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, which the Bush administration tied to its war on terrorism. But the director of the Caen Memorial, a museum of conflict and peace, said the show would have neither an American nor French take on events surrounding Sept. 11, but rather a global view.

"The people who died in those buildings were from 16 countries and every religion," Director Stephane Grimaldi said. "It was an attack against America. It was an attack against democracy and human rights. We want to tell that story."

The exhibition, titled "A Global Moment," is expected to open June 6 at the museum, which was built to remember those who died on that date in 1944 and in the Battle of Normandy that began with the landings.

Grimaldi said that although the relationship between the French and Americans has been complicated by post-Sept. 11 politics in recent years, museums that try to explain the meaning of war are valuable as a way to discuss peace and shared democratic values.

"The American troops' coming to Normandy to free Europe was a turning point in World War II," he said during an interview in Paris. "While we still don't know the historical significance of 9/11, we know it is a turning point and it is time to begin to understand and explore it together."

Grimaldi said he chose the 9/11 exhibition to mark the 20th anniversary of the French museum because the act of terrorism that day in 2001 is so important to contemporary politics and everyday life around the world.

"The world today is the world of 9/11," he said, "and our museum is here not to be just another collection of things from the past, of old tanks and helmets, but to understand the world of today that is so marked by terrorism."

Read the whole thing.

The article notes the stress of relations surrounding the Iraq war, but notes as well that French President Nicolas Sarkozy 's getting Franco-American relations back on track.

Photo Credit: Los Angeles Times

No, Farmers Don't Use 80 Percent of California's Water

From Representative Devin Nunes, at National Review, "The statistic is manufactured by environmentalists to distract from the incredible damage their policies have caused":

As the San Joaquin Valley undergoes its third decade of government-induced water shortages, the media suddenly took notice of the California water crisis after Governor Jerry Brown announced statewide water restrictions. In much of the coverage, supposedly powerful farmers were blamed for contributing to the problem by using too much water.

“Agriculture consumes a staggering 80 percent of California’s developed water, even as it accounts for only 2 percent of the state’s gross domestic product,” exclaimed Daily Beast writer Mark Hertsgaard in a piece titled “How Growers Gamed California’s Drought.” That 80-percent statistic was repeated in a Sacramento Bee article titled, “California agriculture, largely spared in new water restrictions, wields huge clout,” and in an ABC News article titled “California’s Drought Plan Mostly Lays Off Agriculture, Oil Industries.” Likewise, the New York Times dutifully reported, “The [State Water Resources Control Board] signaled that it was also about to further restrict water supplies to the agriculture industry, which consumes 80 percent of the water used in the state.”

This is a textbook example of how the media perpetuates a false narrative based on a phony statistic. Farmers do not use 80 percent of California’s water. In reality, 50 percent of the water that is captured by the state’s dams, reservoirs, aqueducts, and other infrastructure is diverted for environmental causes. Farmers, in fact, use 40 percent of the water supply. Environmentalists have manufactured the 80 percent statistic by deliberately excluding environmental diversions from their calculations. Furthermore, in many years there are additional millions of acre-feet of water that are simply flushed into the ocean due to a lack of storage capacity — a situation partly explained by environmental groups’ opposition to new water-storage projects.

It’s unsurprising that environmentalists and the media want to distract attention away from the incredible damage that environmental regulations have done to California’s water supply. Although the rest of the state is now beginning to feel the pinch, these regulations sparked the San Joaquin Valley’s water crisis more than two decades ago. The Endangered Species Act spawned many of these regulations, such as rules that divert usable water to protect baby salmon and a 3-inch baitfish called the Delta smelt, as well as rules that protect the striped bass, a non-native fish that — ironically — eats both baby salmon and smelt. Other harmful regulations stem from legislation backed by environmental groups and approved by Democratic-controlled Congresses in 1992 and 2009. These rules have decimated water supplies for San Joaquin farmers and communities, resulting in zero-percent water allocations and the removal of increasing amounts of farmland from production.

One would think the catastrophic consequences of these environmental regulations would be an important part of the reporting on the water crisis. But these facts are often absent, replaced by a fixation on the 80 percent of the water supply that farmers are falsely accused of monopolizing. None of the four articles cited above even mention the problem of environmental diversions. The same holds true for a recent interview with Governor Brown on ABC’s This Week. In that discussion, host Martha Raddatz focused almost exclusively on farmers’ supposed overuse of the water supply, and she invoked the 80 percent figure twice. The governor himself, a strong proponent of environmental regulations, was silent about the topic during the interview, instead blaming the crisis on global warming.

That is no surprise — President Obama also ignored environmental regulations but spoke ominously about climate change when he addressed the water crisis during a visit to California’s Central Valley in February 2014. Indeed, for many on the left, the California water crisis is just another platform for proclaiming their dogmatic fixation on fighting global warming, a campaign that many environmental extremists have adopted as a religion.

You don’t have to take my word for it; just listen to Rajendra Pachauri, former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the United Nations’ foremost body on global warming. After recently leaving his job amid allegations of sexual harassment, Pachauri wrote in his resignation letter: “For me, the protection of Planet Earth, the survival of all species and sustainability of our ecosystems is more than a mission. It is my religion and my dharma.”

Utterly convinced of the righteousness of their crusade, environmental extremists stop at nothing in pursuing their utopian conception of “sustainability.” The interests of families, farmers, and entire communities — whose very existence is often regarded as an impediment to sustainability — are ignored and derided in the quest for an ever-more pristine environment free from human contamination. In the name of environmental purity, these extremists have fought for decades to cut water supplies for millions of Californians...

More.

Does the Nobel Prize Vindicate Al Gore?

From the New York Times: "With Prize, Gore Is Vindicated Without Having to Add President to Résumé." Here's an excerpt:

Al Gore's seven-year journey from loser to laureate began in bitterness, settled for a time into self-imposed exile and led him in the end to rediscover his voice on climate change.

The question now is what he will do with the prestige and attention that comes to him with the Nobel Peace Prize. The answer appears to be that he will neither embrace nor reject another quest for the presidency, but harness the speculation about his intentions to become a more formidable force on environmental policy and a power within the Democratic party.

Mr. Gore’s close friends and advisers said Friday that he had no desire to be drawn into the race for the presidency but that he saw the clear advantage of leveraging the acclaim. The clearest expression of his true feelings, they said, was his brief statement of thanks for the prize in an appearance in Palo Alto, Calif., where he talked about planetary politics and uttered not a word about the kind unfolding in Iowa and New Hampshire.

“This obviously turns everybody toward the presidency, but I think he’s saying what he means,” said Paul Begala, a political adviser in the Clinton White House who prepared Mr. Gore for his 2000 presidential debates against George W. Bush. “He knows there’s a Democratic field that Democrats are happy with, and that they don’t need a white knight riding in.”

Democrats also said Mr. Gore’s entry into the messy world of politics would undermine the stature that comes with the prize and his role as a wise man and conscience among many liberals.

“Why would he run for president when he can be a demigod?” said Representative Rahm Emanuel, Democrat of Illinois, who was a top aide in the Clinton White House. “He now towers over all of us because he’s pure.”

Michael Feldman, a Gore strategist who was meeting with him on Friday near San Francisco Bay, also said that Mr. Gore was not entering the 2008 race. “He’s focused on trying to solve the climate crisis,” Mr. Feldman said.

The speculation that Mr. Gore would win a Nobel Peace Prize began soon after the success of “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary on global warming he starred in that won an Oscar.

But Mr. Gore’s close aides said they did not believe it would come to him as soon as this year. When his phone failed to ring early Friday morning, Mr. Gore assumed he had been passed over. He and his wife, Tipper, then turned on CNN to see who had been awarded the prize, only to learn it was him.

Although he shares the award with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it was in many ways a personal victory for Mr. Gore, one achieved beyond the shadow of the disputed 2000 election and outside the orbit of the couple to which he has been linked for so long as a partner and a rival, Bill andHillary Rodham Clinton.

The presidency was within Gore's reach in 2000, but after his disastrous presidential campaign - where he stiff-armed Bill Clinton, who was leaving office with approval ratings in the 60 percent range - Democratic insiders snubbed their former standard-bearer. If there's any vindication here, it has more to do with the distant memory of Gore's incredibly poor political skills during his White House bid (rather than the controversy surrounding the Florida recount). To his credit, though, at least Gore didn't wind up like Michael Dukakis, who still wallows in that special ignominious obscurity reserved for presidential losers.

I blogged on Gore's Nobel win on Friday. With its history of controversy, I doubt the Nobel Prize committee will ever be vindicated (and I'm not alone).

President Trump Gets Warm Embrace at #CPAC2017 (VIDEO)

He skipped the conservative conclave last year, suggesting he'd be too radical for the right-wing mobs.

But he was welcomed like the king he is this year. What a blast.

At the Los Angeles Times, "Trump's popularity at CPAC gathering, which he shunned a year ago, shows how he's conquered conservatives":

Conservatives love Trump now b/c 'he has all the right enemies.' But how long this honeymoon? https://t.co/CQ5DoTAYbI @Noahbierman

— Marc Duvoisin (@MarcDuvoisin) February 24, 2017

A year ago, Donald Trump skipped the nation’s preeminent conference of conservatives, underscoring the friction between the populist candidate and many of the warring factions in his party during a heated presidential primary season.

Friday, Trump returned to the Conservative Political Action Conference with the blunt force of a conqueror, planting his brand of nationalist, anti-globalist populism like a flag.

His speech, with rhetoric that even Trump said would have been too controversial at the event even a year ago, marked his takeover of the conservative movement, one of several signs of his dominance throughout the conference, which also featured a rare and well-received speech from his chief intellectual influence and advisor, Stephen K. Bannon.

"There is no such thing as a global anthem, a global currency or a global flag," Trump said to great applause from thousands of conservatives. "I'm not representing the globe. I'm representing your country."

He echoed ideas he has espoused in the past — denouncing trade deals as the antithesis of "economic freedom," warning that Paris and other great cities of Europe have been ruined by mass immigration, criticizing Democratic and Republican presidents for their interventions in the Middle East.

Although many of the words were familiar, the venue and the passion made Friday's speech remarkable.

Trump spoke directly of his ambition to turn the GOP into "the party of the American worker."

"I'm here today to tell you what this movement means for the future of the Republican Party and for the future of America," Trump said. "The core conviction of our movement is that we are a nation that [must] put and will put its own citizens first."

While Trump tried to unite conservatives, the speech made little effort to bridge the country's larger political divide. For example, Trump dismissed people who have shown up at town halls around the country to protest reversal of Obamacare.

"They're not you. They're largely — many of them are the side that lost," he said.

The visuals around the waterfront conference outside Washington were just as striking: the red “Make America Great Again” caps, the throngs of college Republicans surrounding Trump’s aides and allies, the giant Trump-decorated pickup truck at the convention center entrance.

As he has repeatedly done in the last couple of weeks, Trump attacked the media for what he sees as unfair coverage. He also showed how much he remembers the details of how his campaign was described in the press, at one point praising The Times for its election tracking poll that consistently showed him leading.

“I must say Los Angeles Times did a great job — shocking,” he said. “A couple polls got it right.”

In reality, the USC Dornsife/L.A. Times “Daybreak” tracking poll overstated Trump’s support, although it did correctly pick up the backing he was getting from disaffected white voters, many of whom had sat out the 2012 election.

Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist and the former executive chairman of Breitbart News, an outlet that has presented itself as a voice of the white nationalist alt-right movement, joked a day earlier as he sat down for a marquee event about how far he had come.

He used to hold a competing event called “Uninvited” for conservatives whose philosophies were considered too radical for the conference, Bannon said at a panel featuring him and White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus.

Bannon reveled in his newfound influence as the conference organizer interviewed him in front of thousands of people.

He praised Priebus, the former GOP chairman, another indication of how the mainstream of the party has come into Trump’s fold. But both men made clear that Bannon was the dominant force in shaping Trump’s vision.

Bannon spoke about defending his notion of American culture and lashed out against the “corporatist, globalist media” standing in the way of Trump’s “economic nationalist agenda.”

“If you think they're going to give you your country back without a fight," he said. "You are sadly mistaken.”

“We're at the top of the first inning of this,” Bannon said near the end of his remarks. “We want you to have our back.”

Conference organizers seemed to have gotten the message.

Breitbart News owns the first booth by the entrance of the convention hall, hawking “Border Wall Construction Company” T-shirts...

Keep reading.

Darcy Burner, Netroots' Epic Fail, Now Helping Leftist House Members ... Fail

I couldn't resist the schadenfreude of leftist Darcy Burner's defeat in last November's election.

Some of my thought are here, "Bachmann and Burner: Epic Electoral Fail for Netroots, and here, "Update on Darcy Burner's Epic Fail for Netroots."

The left poured all their resources into electing Burner, and she lost her congressional bid for the second time in a row - and this was in Washington State's 8th District, with its Democratic voter advantage and 15-point margin for Democratic nominee Barack Obama in 2008.

Burner, who is about as hardline radical as they come, is now executive director of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation. This leftist cell's mission is to "is to bring together the collective wisdom of progressives inside and outside of Congress to promote peace and global security, energy independence, environmental sustainability, human rights, civil liberties and the health and economic well-being of us all."

It turns out that Representative Barbara Lee, and Nation editor and publisher Katrina Vanden Heuvel, are on the Board of Directors of Burner's organization. As I wrote regarding Representative Lee at my Pajamas essay, "A ‘National Day of Service’? Or a Political Hijacking of 9/11?", she's "the only member of Congress to vote against the Bush administration’s authorization of force following the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001." She also chairs the Hip Hop Caucus Advisory Board, the organization of the "Reverend" Lennox Yearwood, who leads the White House group seeking to hijack September 11 for a National Day of Service and "eradicate the significance of the day as one of remembrance."

As for Katrina Vanden Heuvel, here's how FrontPage Magazine describes The Nation:

As the flagship publication of the political Left, The Nation consistently champions leftists’ lost causes, supporting totalitarian and Communist regimes while simultaneously rejecting any suggestion the United States is justified in military, or even philosophical, opposition to these rogue states.

It's clear that Darcy Burner is "burning it up" with some hardcore capitalist-bashing cadres.

Now it turns out that Burner's lobbying congressional "liberals" to "hang together" in support of the ObamaCare public option. Roll Call reports, "Burner Helping House Liberals Hold Firm on Public Insurance Option":

An organizer for liberal House Democrats says the bloc “isn’t bluffing” as it prepares to take a reputation-defining stand to protect a public insurance option in the health care overhaul.

Darcy Burner, executive director of the American Progressive Caucus Policy Foundation, said the health care debate has rallied traditionally disparate Congressional liberals to hang together, while galvanizing support for their position from an array of left-leaning outside groups. The result, she said, is that Democratic leaders will not be able to clear a package through the House if it does not include the public plan.

“We have never had the Progressive Caucus organized the way it is right now,” Burner said during a Friday roundtable with Roll Call. “This is not the normal scenario. And Speaker [Nancy] Pelosi [D-Calif.] knows it.”

Whoo hoo!

A "reputation-defining stand"! That's awesome. A two-time congresssional loser now spearheading the left's plan to resurrect the DOA public-socialist option!

Hey, sounds like a winner!

More at Memeorandum. And Daily Kos too!

Runoff Expected in Special Election for California's 36th Congressional Seat

And it looks like Marcy Winograd, the hardline progressive who took 41 percent of the vote against Jane Harmon in the Democratic primary last year, won't make the cut. See Politico, "Class divide in war for Jane Harman's seat":

Washington has largely ignored the special election here Tuesday, focusing instead on a competitive House race across the country in New York. But the winner of California’s 36th District contest could reveal who’s leading the fight for the soul of the Democratic Party heading into the 2012 cycle.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Janice Hahn is an urban Democrat with strong labor backing. She will square off against Secretary of State Debra Bowen, a progressive candidate supported by environmentalists.

Under new California election rules, the top two vote-getters will advance to a July 12 runoff. With 16 names on the ballot, that means a divided Democratic vote won’t tip the seat to a Republican.

Hahn, the front-runner, is a “beer-track” Democrat from a political dynasty. She has support from such politically muscular unions as the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, an AFL-CIO affiliate representing 800,000-plus workers in the region, and the California Service Employees International Union.

Bowen, who previously represented most of the district in the state Legislature, is a “wine-track” Democrat who made a name for herself as an environmental crusader, co-authoring one of the country’s most ambitious laws to curb global warming. That’s earned her strong support from the national Sierra Club and the California League of Conservation Voters.

“Whoever’s voters show up on Election Day, that’s what’s going to win this,” Hahn told POLITICO. “The labor piece in this election is key, and particularly, again, because it’s a special election. L.A. County Federation of Labor knows how to win these.”

Actually, there's really not that much of a "class-divide" here. The South Bay labor constituency boasts major backing from the left's communist organizations. Winograd marched with ANSWER and antiwar veterans groups, but the Los Angeles teachers unions and SEIU recently "dropped the mask" on their communist orientation, so clearly the local Democrat Party has been captured by the hard left. Hahn? Bowen? It doesn't really matter. The 35th District is pulling far left and whoever wins the runoff will be doing bidding for America's ideological enemies in Congress.

More on this at WaPo, "Fighting to be the real progressive in California special election."

'A Memo to the Global Warming Cult'

Read this phenomenal essay from Doctor Zero at Hot Air's Green Room, "A Memo to the Global Warming Cult." An excerpt:

You aren’t going to frighten the world into reducing the human population. You’re not going to succeed in terrorizing free people into embracing totalitarianism, to fend off a phantasmal catastrophe that no democratic nation has the discipline to combat. We’re not going to politely ignore swarms of private jets and limos ferrying you to carbon-belching “climate summits,” where you draw up plans for the Western proletariat to live as primitive hunter-gatherers. We’re not going to let a pampered elitist, who once flew around the world to attend cricket practice, tell us that we need to make do without air travel and ice water.

We’ll never be foolish enough to allow a band of fanatics to use “peer review” to rule all dissenting opinion out-of-bounds, then declare themselves the proud owners of a mighty consensus. You global-warming fanatics underestimate how much you needed those tactics to gain power. You’ll never have that kind of unchallenged authority again, because we will never stop demanding the raw data, and we’ll drown you in laughter when you mutter something about deleting it by accident. We will never forget that you began with a conclusion and sought to harvest data that supported it – the exact opposite of the scientific method.

Your arrogant condescension to your critics is horribly misplaced. You have completely lost the ability to call anyone “stupid.” Your capacity for reason is the matter in question. Your status as “scientists” is on probation. It will take years of faithful adherence to the scientific method, and rigorous efforts to test and disprove your hypotheses, before you can regain the trust of thoughtful men and women. Until you have accomplished this, the attitude we expect from you is humility and contrition. You have much to answer for. The time for you to issue pompous lectures is over. The time for you to give sworn testimony may soon begin. We’re a year away from the American voter’s first opportunity to respond to the politicians who terrorized them by waving a loaded cap-and-trade bill in their faces.

RTWT at the link.

Hat Tip: Theo Spark.

Democrats Hone Anti-Capitalist Attacks

Clarity burns ever brighter on the Democratic agenda, as greater media attention is paid to what we might expect under a left-wing adminisration next year.

This Wall Street Journal report indicates that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are sharpening their attacks on business as the primary election campaign draws towards it denouement (and the stakes grow in attracting the protectionist vote):

As the Democratic presidential contest moves to the distressed industrial Midwest, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have ratcheted up their antitrade, anticorporate rhetoric.

The candidates have made broad attacks on corporate wealth and tax cuts they say tilt toward the rich, along with more specific attacks against health insurers and oil companies, among other industries. On Friday, Mrs. Clinton began airing a TV spot in Wisconsin in which she says, "The oil companies, the drug companies, have had seven years of a president who stands up for them.... It's time we had a president who stands up for all of you."

Both candidates increasingly sound like former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as they pursue his endorsement and the voters -- particularly union members -- who were drawn to the populist candidate before he dropped out last month. Illinois Sen. Obama got a boost toward that goal Friday with the backing of the Service Employees International Union, one of the most politically powerful labor organizations.

SEIU long was too divided to make a national endorsement, but Mr. Edwards's withdrawal and Mr. Obama's momentum made a choice easier. Now the union has organizers on the ground working for the Obama campaign in Wisconsin, which holds the next primary Tuesday. "It has now become clear the members of our union and the leaders of our union think that it is time to become part of an effort to make Barack Obama the next president of the United States," said Andy Stern, the union's president, during a phone conference with reporters.

I've expressed my views on trade and interdependence on occasion.

Free trade is good for the U.S. and good for the international economy. A Democratic shift to increased trade protection, combined with tax increases and redistributive economic policies, will slow the economy and foster beggar-thy-neighbor policies within the global system of trade.

Hillary Clinton Expected to Choose Virginia Senator Tim Kaine for Veep

God, it's the year of the ultra-safe veep selections.

Clinton shoulda picked Warren. She's have declared war on the patriarchy and mollified the Bernie or Bust crowd.

At the New York Times, "Tim Kaine Seems Likely for Hillary Clinton’s No. 2, but Liberals Balk":

Tim Kaine may not be liberals’ first choice as Hillary Clinton’s No. 2 https://t.co/uRnRR8xC7q pic.twitter.com/CgSh9H1gyt

— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) July 22, 2016

"One group is already disappointed at the prospect of Mr. Kaine on the Democratic ticket: liberals" @amychozick https://t.co/hdaxXHJvDT

— Michael Tackett (@tackettdc) July 21, 2016

Democrats close to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign signaled strongly Thursday that she would choose Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia as her running mate, rounding out the ticket with a popular politician from a battleground state.

Both former President Bill Clinton and the White House have expressed their support for Mr. Kaine, but aides cautioned that Mrs. Clinton had not yet made a final decision and that other candidates were still under consideration.

Mrs. Clinton is widely expected to announce her choice in an email to supporters while on a campaign swing in Florida on Friday afternoon, an attempt to regain momentum the day after her Republican opponent, Donald J. Trump, accepted his party’s nomination in Cleveland. With Mr. Kaine emerging as a clear favorite, one group already expressed disappointment at the prospect of the former governor of Virginia joining the ticket: liberals.

Many of the groups that backed Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in his Democratic contest against Mrs. Clinton had hoped she would extend an olive branch to the liberal wing of the party and choose a vice-presidential candidate whose stances on Wall Street and global trade deals closely aligned with those of Mr. Sanders.

But with the Democratic National Convention beginning in Philadelphia on Monday, the prospects have dimmed for the two liberal senators who were being considered, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Sherrod Brown of Ohio. That has led to more liberal scrutiny of Mr. Kaine’s record...

So bland. Yuck.

But hey, you don't want your veep showing you up.

Still more.

The Way Forward in Egypt? Defeat the Left's Red-Green Alliance and Build the Secular-Representative Alternative to Mubarak

Over the last few days, William Kristol has been among the most vocal supporters of dramatic democratic change in Egypt. And in today's essay he pushes back against Glenn Beck and others on the right who fear a Red-Green Alliance of communists and Islamists. Kristol also disagrees with Charles Krauthammer, but that seems secondary to him slamming those positing "one-world conspiracies theories" of a communist-backed caliphate across the Muslim world. The problem is that while Glenn Beck's show sometimes comes off as half-baked, the neo-communist left has indeed aligned with global jihad in a campaign against the West. In fact, today was the progressive-left's "international day of mobilization and solidarity with the Egyptian people." The neo-Stalinist ANSWER homepage has the announcement, "Emergency demonstrations: Stop all U.S. aid to Mubarak dictatorship!":

Emergency demonstrations in solidarity with the uprising of the Egyptian people are taking place across the country to demand that the U.S. government stop all aid to the Mubarak dictatorship.

As I've reported many times, the ANSWER contingents have been at the center of every left-wing mobilization over the past decade, from the Iraq war to Proposition 8 to the anti-SB 1070 campaign last year. The left's all-purpose protest machine, ANSWER is bolstered by Democrats and progressives, many of whom have ties to the Obama administration. Code Pink's Jodie Evans, for example, served as a top campaign fundraiser for Barack Obama, and now her organization is leading a fundraising operation for the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt: "Code Pink: Obama, Hamas, Muslim Brotherhood Ally Raising (Tax Exempt) Money to Overthrow Egypt Gov’t:

As we reported previously, Code Pink has been on the ground in Cairo since the beginning of the uprising. The group has made nine trips to Egypt in the past two years as part of a campaign to undermine the Egyptian government and the blockade against Hamas-controlled Gaza.

For over a week now we've had international solidarity protesters calling for an anti-American, anti-Zionist revolution in Egypt, so, folks might want to step back and go easy on the freedom euphoria just a bit (in favor of a prudent democratic realism).

In any case, Egyptian blogger Sandmonkey, a.k.a. Mahmoud Salem, offers a way forward for Egypt's democracy:

So here are my two cents: next time when you head to Tahrir, alongside blankets and food and medicine, please get some foldable tables, chairs, papers, pens, a laptop and a USB connection. Set up a bunch of tables and start registering the protesters. Get their names, ages, addresses & districts. Based on location, start organizing them into committees, and then have those committees elect leaders or representatives. Do the same in Alex, In Mansoura, in Suez, in every major Egyptian city in which the Protesters braved police suppression and came out in the thousands. Protect the Data with your life. Get encryption programs to ensure the security of the data. Use web-based tools like Google documents to input the data in, thus ensuring that even if your laptops get confiscated by State Security Goons, they won’t find anything on your harddrives. Have people outside of Egypt back-up your data daily on secure servers. Then, start building the structure.

You see, with such Proper citizen organization and segmentation, we’ll have the contact information and location of all the protesters that showed up, and that could be transformed into voting blocks in parliamentary districts: i.e. a foundation for an Egyptian Unity party. That Egyptian Unity Party will be an Umbrella party that promotes equality, democracy & accountability, without any ideological slants. It should be centrist, because we don’t want any boring Left vs. Right squabbling at that stage. Once you institute the structure, start educating the members on their rights and their obligations as citizens. Convince them to bring their friends and relatives into meeting. Establish voters’ critical mass , all under that party.

The Egyptian Unity Party, however, will not be a permanent structure, but rather a transitional entity with a clear and direct purpose: create the grassroots organization to take back the parliament and presidency in the next elections. Once sufficient votes and seats have been obtained, the party will amend the constitution to promote civil liberties, plurality, and truly democratic elections. Once that constitution is in place, the party can disband, and its elected members can start forming their own parties and collations, based on their personal beliefs and ideologies, or they can join any of the existing parties, and breathe some life into their decaying carcasses. We will end up with an actual political process and representative political parties that will actually discuss policy and have to represent those who voted for them so that they can get re-elected. Democracy in action. An old but brilliant concept. A way to ensure that no matter what, we will have a huge influence on who becomes the next Egyptian President come election day in September.

That sounds awesome. The only problem is that during revolutionary crises the most highly organized factions often seize power through divide, conquer and assassination politics. We know now that Egypt's Arab street will not be silenced. But the shape of developments is still extremely fluid, and given the left's heavy investment and mobilization in the Muslim Brotherhood, a certain caution is well warranted.