The G Spot

Emily's List: bane or blessing?

By Kathy G.

I may want to address this in greater length after Tuesday's election, but I wanted to draw your attention to this post by Brien Jackson, about Emily's List. Brien is a critic of Emily's List because, as he points out, Emily's List will endorses women only, even in cases where the male candidate is clearly more progressive and a better candidate. This also means there's no incentive for male candidates to try to compete for the endorsement, by, for example, making a stronger a commitment to women's issues. And, unlike the case with other PACS, the female candidate who receives the endorsement doesn't need to do any favors for Emily's List in return, because it's a given that, so long as you're a pro-choice woman, you will get their endorsement, no questions asked.

Brien has a point. Certainly, Emily's List has made some poor choices at times. They've occasionally endorsed really bad candidates, as they did last year, when, in a Democratic Congressional primary, they endorsed the egregious Nikki Tinker over the progressive Democratic incumbent, Steve Cohen.

Or take, for example, in the IL-05 race, where Sarah Feigenholtz won the coveted Emily's List endorsement -- and the even more coveted funding that goes along with the endorsement. In the IL-05 race, not only is there a male candidate in the race who is more progressive than Feigenholtz (that would be Geoghegan, obviously). There is also another female candidate, Jan Donatelli, who is not only more progressive, but also smarter and more engaging than the blandly mediocre Feigenholtz. I understand why they endorsed Feigenholtz -- she's an elected officeholder with more political experience than Donatelli, who's a political novice.

Sirota for MSNBC

By Kathy G.

I want to urge you all to join the campaign to get David Sirota hired by MSNBC as the host of its proposed 10 pm (Eastern) political show (following the Rachel Maddow show). David is a talented journalist who has spent a career as a dedicated soldier for the progressive movement. (You Geoghegan fans out there should know that David is a big fan of Tom's, has been promoting Tom's work since well before the campaign, and has been a strong supporter of Geoghegan for Congress).

There are two reasons I think Sirota would be ideal for the 10 pm slot. First of all, Sirota is a passionate economic populist, and especially in the midst of an economic crisis where we've seen unprecedented levels of wealth distribution upwards, from ordinary taxpayers to greedhead bankers, we could certainly use a strong left economic populist voice in a mainstream medium forum. In particular, an economic populist would contrast nicely with the other liberal MSNBC hosts -- it's different both from Keith Olbermann, who alternates entertainingly between snark and moral outrage, and from Rachel Maddow's engaging wonkiness.

Secondly, David does very well on television -- I remember one particular appearance a couple of years back in which he eviscerated that lying weasel John Stossel, over the issue of minimum wages.

Interested in seeing Sirota in the 10 pm slot? Then email MSNBC at letters@msnbc.com, and tell 'em so. You can also join the "David Sirota for MSNBC!" Facebook group, which was started by Open Left's Chris Bowers, here. It already has 1,2999 members.

Note to Citibank

By Kathy G.

When even the Wall Street Journal editorial page says you totally suck, you should be taken over by the FDIC, and you need to be broken up into little pieces until you are no longer "too big to succeed" -- can there by any doubt that you do totally suck, that you should be taken over by the FDIC, and that you do need to be broken up into little pieces until you are no longer "too big to succeed"?

Awesome

By Kathy G.

The Washington Independent's excellent David Weigel attended a the so-called "new American tea party" protest of the stimulus bill put on by the wingnuts. Apparently it was quite the five-star freakshow on the dance floor. He's posted some priceless pictures of the event (and be sure to read his captions, which are hilarious).

He said the picture below was his favorite. I agree.

Credit: David Weigel

Reason to be (very) cheerful

By Kathy G.

Check out Paul Krugman's latest column.

Though maybe I should put the column in context first. Among leading liberals, there is perhaps no one who has been more skeptical of Barack Obama than Paul Krugman. Indeed, at times that skepticism has crossed over into out-and-out ungraciousness.

With that in mind, read what Krugman has to say about Obama's budget:

Elections have consequences. President Obama’s new budget represents a huge break, not just with the policies of the past eight years, but with policy trends over the past 30 years. If he can get anything like the plan he announced on Thursday through Congress, he will set America on a fundamentally new course. [emphasis mine]

[. . .]

. . . [F]ears that Mr. Obama would sacrifice progressive priorities in his budget plans, and satisfy himself with fiddling around the edges of the tax system, have now been banished.

After describing the significant new expenditures in the budget for health care and emission allowances, he writes:

And these new priorities are laid out in a document whose clarity and plausibility seem almost incredible to those of us who grew accustomed to reading Bush-era budgets, which insulted our intelligence on every page. This is budgeting we can believe in.

Krugman does offer some qualms. And he does note that, "{t}he administration’s refusal to get tough on the banks may be deeply disappointing," which is certainly true. Indeed, Geithner and Summers have sucked ass even harder than I feared they would.

But if this budget is as good as Krugman claims it is -- and I have no reason to believe it is not -- then that gives me hope that, in the end, Obama will do the right thing, concerning the banks.

Though it's frightening to ponder how much taxpayer money will be pissed away first.

Still, Krugman concludes that this budget "looks very, very good." And that's probably the best political news I've heard since Election Day.

Afflict the comfortable -- elect Tom Geoghegan to Congress!

By Kathy G.

If you were to ask me why I'm supporting Tom Geoghegan in the IL-05 special election for Congress, the answer would be simple. I'm supporting Tom because he is the truest progressive in the race.

What, you may ask, is a progressive? A progressive is someone who "comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable" -- someone who, above all, will fight for the rights and the dignity of ordinary people, even -- especially -- when that means taking on the most powerful institutions and entrenched interests in our society. Given that so many injustices derive from economic inequality, the cause of economic justice will always be at the center of a progressive vision. But economic justice is by no means the only vitally important progressive value. A true progressive is someone who signs on to the entire progressive agenda -- not just the bits and pieces of it that happen to be popular at any given moment, or happen to coincide with his or her own self-interest. And finally, a progressive is someone who is committed not merely to advocating incremental change, but to advancing big, bold, and sometimes quite controversial new ideas.

By those measures, Geoghegan is far and away the most progressive candidate in the race. He has bloody well spent a lifetime "comforting the afflicted, and afflicting the comfortable." He's filed lawsuits against employers who illegally discriminated against workers or prevented them from joining unions. He's won back pensions, health care, and lost wages for thousands of people. He's gone to court to enforce child labor laws, and to crack down on predatory payday lenders.

Scenes from the class struggle; or, don't give up on us, baby

By Kathy G.

Kicking off this series of random yet connected observations -- Dean Baker should tell us how he really feels:

The NYT piece on bailout III for Citigroup looks like it was written by Citi's lobbyists. The piece never once points out that the government has handed tens of billions to Citigroup for almost nothing. Let me say that about six more times: the NYT article on the latest Citi bailout never once points out that the government has handed tens of billions to Citigroup for almost nothing. The NYT article on the latest Citi bailout never once points out that the government has handed tens of billions to Citigroup for almost nothing. The NYT article on the latest Citi bailout never once points out that the government has handed tens of billions to Citigroup for almost nothing.I suppose tens of billions for Citi doesn't deserve as much attention as $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts or $25 million for the Smithsonian.

[. . .]

It's time that the media stopped covering up for Wall Street. The issue is not "nationalization," the issue is a bankruptcy type receivership for insolvent banks. It is absurd to pretend that this is prevented by trade agreements or anything other than the power of the shareholders and executives who run these banks.

As Baker had earlier noted:

I was just at a White House conference listening to a lot of people talking about cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits for retirees. How can the same government that hands tens of billions of dollars to Citi's shareholders and top executives cut key benefits for the retirees? Why aren't the news reports calling attention to this massive give away to some of the nation's richest people?

I'm not sure whether this is the conference to which Baker is referring, but at any rate, it's nice to know Dean was wide awake, even if Larry Summers was sound asleep. And obviously I'd vastly prefer it that way, than the other way around.

Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal reports that "TARP Said to Be Ripe for Fraud":

The U.S. government's rescue of the financial system is vulnerable to fraud that could potentially cost taxpayers tens of billions of dollars, government watchdogs warned lawmakers Tuesday.

Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, told a House subcommittee that the government's experiences in the reconstruction of Iraq, hurricane-relief programs and the 1990s savings-and-loan bailout suggest the rescue program could be ripe for fraud.

[. . .]

Federal officials have already alleged TARP-related fraud. In January, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged a Nashville, Tenn.-based firm with defrauding investors of at least $6.5 million by claiming their money was invested in TARP and other securities that didn't exist. Mr. Barofsky's office is working with the SEC in investigating the case.

Great column about Geoghegan in tomorrow's Washington Post

By Kathy G.

Harold Meyerson has a terrific column about Tom and the campaign in tomorrow's Washington Post. You can read it here.

As they say, read the whole thing. But to whet your appetite, here are some of the highlights:

In March of 2004, a few days before the Illinois Democratic senatorial primary, I wrote a column for this page headlined "A Bright Hope in Illinois." It was, I believe, the first column for a daily newspaper outside Illinois devoted to a rising young pol named Barack Obama. Bolstered by polling that showed Obama to be the clear leader in the race, I fearlessly predicted that he'd become Illinois' next senator and quoted the assessment of Jan Schakowsky, the Democratic member of Congress from Chicago's Gold Coast district, that Obama would "march right onto the national stage and the international stage."

Well! Thus buoyed by my undisputed status as a kingmaker in Illinois politics (undisputed, I acknowledge, because it's never been asserted), I write today about another of the state's Democrat, this one a candidate in Tuesday's special primary election for the overwhelmingly Democratic congressional district in Chicago's North Side that until recently was represented by Rahm Emanuel. As events would have it, this candidate has a lot in common with Obama. Both are Harvard Law grads. Both have authored notable books. Both worked on behalf of unemployed steelworkers: Obama as a community organizer, this candidate as a lawyer who won 2,500 of them their pensions after their employer refused to pay up. And both have politically problematic names.

[. . .]

In [a] column he wrote before Wall Street's collapse, Geoghegan lamented the high percentage of elite college graduates who funneled themselves into finance, and he characterized the bank bailout policy of the Bush administration as "the new social contract: In Tribeca, at least, no kid will ever lose his (or her) first (or second) condo." Another time, he wondered "why, in the party of William Jennings Bryan, is there no one demanding an interest cap on our Visa cards and our MasterCards," also noting that in Chicago, "payday lenders charge more than the Mob wants for juice loans." In the collected works of Tom Geoghegan, the value of social and economic ideas and practices is set by the way they play out on the streets.

There are, by actual count, a gazillion candidates for Emanuel's old seat on Tuesday's ballot, including a number of conventionally liberal pols, some of whom would probably make fine members of Congress. But Congress has no shortage of conventionally liberal or conventionally conservative pols. Of streetwise political intellectuals who've devoted themselves to a career of economic justice it has none.

You can donate to the Geoghegan for Congress campaign here, and volunteer here. The campaign has begun putting out a call for those crucial Election Day volunteers, including poll watchers, and volunteers for its GOTV effort.

Remember, the election is less than a week away -- it's on Tuesday, March 3rd. There's no time to lose.

Barack's speech tonight

By Kathy G.

Well, first of all, I was delighted to see that Justice Ginsberg was able to be there, and bathe in the glow of the warm response of the crowd. And Barack's gracious words about Ted Kennedy were well-struck. We need these liberal lions now more than ever, and it's great to see them get their due.

Secondly, Michelle Obama totally rocks. It's not just that she's gorgeous and stylin', which of course she is. But there's something about her strength, her intelligence, and her humanity that seems to shine through, whatever she's doing. The warmth of her responses to the "real person" schoolgirl who was sitting next to her in the audience tonight was just one example.

Thirdly, I agree with Simon Johnson that more specifics about what we're going to do with the banks would have been welcome.

And fourthly and more generally -- all right, I might as well bloody admit it: what I want more than anything else for America right now is the reincarnation for FDR. This apparently is most definitely a minority view, but during tonight's speech, I'd much rather have heard something like this:

For twelve years this Nation was afflicted with hear-nothing, see-nothing, do-nothing Government. The Nation looked to Government but the Government looked away. Nine mocking years with the golden calf and three long years of the scourge! Nine crazy years at the ticker and three long years in the breadlines! Nine mad years of mirage and three long years of despair! Powerful influences strive today to restore that kind of government with its doctrine that that Government is best which is most indifferent.

[. . .]

We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering.

They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.

Never before in all our history have these forces been so united against one candidate as they stand today. They are unanimous in their hate for me—and I welcome their hatred.

I should like to have it said of my first Administration that in it the forces of selfishness and of lust for power met their match. I should like to have it said of my second Administration that in it these forces met their master.

    -- FDR, Speech at Madison Square Garden, October 31, 1936

Geoghegan: the progressive's progressive

By Kathy G.

We're heading into the final week of the campaign -- the election is just a week away, on March 3rd. There are a plenty of exciting developments to report.

Laura Washington, the award-winning journalist, published a column in yesterday's Sun-Times about Tom, entitled "Geoghegan May Turn 5th District Race on Its Ear." The whole thing is well worth reading (personally, I was particularly proud to see Ms. Washington give a shout-out to this blog), but I want to single out one phrase -- the part where Laura calls Tom the "progressive's progressive."

Indeed he is, and one way you know that for sure is by the impressive of list of progressive luminaries who have endorsed Tom -- everyone from progressive journalists like Thomas Frank, James Fallows, Hendrik Hertzberg, and David Sirota to progressive feminists (are there really any other kind?) like Katha Pollitt, Barbara Ehrenreich, and Naomi Wolf, to that venerable progressive institution The Nation magazine, which made a rare editorial endorsement of Tom in this race.

And now, to add to this list, the campaign recently  announced the endorsement of Tom by four of Chicago's most distinguished living progressives: Abner Mikva, Leon Despres, Marty Oberman, and Dr. Quentin Young. Here's what they've had to say:

Marty Oberman:

“We need to elect Tom Geoghegan to begin the repair of the recent damage to Illinois’ political landscape,” said Oberman, former alderman from Chicago’s 43rd ward. “Tom’s candidacy is steeped in the great progressive tradition of Paul Simon and Adlai Stevenson. He is unmatched for both his serious thought and successful action in the interest of social and political reform.”