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LOUISVILLE /JEFFERSON COUNTY
DEMOCRATIC PARTY NEWSLETTER
Week of January 31, 2010
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Updated on a regular basis
Bulletin Board:
Think Again: The Truth About Conservative “Journalism”
While we may never find out just who plotted the break-in by James O’Keefe and his comrades of Senator Mary Landrieu’s (D-LA) district office or why, we may be certain it was no accident or “misunderstanding.” It was the culmination of a long-term investment strategy by conservatives to rewrite the rules of professional journalism. Organizations like The Leadership Institute, the Collegiate Network, and the National Journalism Center—an arm of Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative youth organization—have been funneling millions of dollars into college newspapers and training programs designed to overturn what they believe to be a liberal bias on the part of the mainstream media. In doing so, they are also working to subvert the media’s professional standards.
As TPM Muckracker notes, The Leadership Institute, where James O’Keefe was employed to train young activist/journalists—and where he met Ben Wetmore, who put up the alleged criminals in Louisiana—claims on its website to “prepare conservatives for success in politics, government, and the news media.” So far, the organization boasts, it has trained more than 79,000 students since its inception in 1979. It claims assets of $11.8 million and a staff of 58.
And as Dave Wiegel reported in The Washington Independent, O’Keefe and his accomplices, Stan Dai and Joseph Basel, worked as undergraduates at newspapers funded and founded by funds from the Collegiate Network. The Collegiate Network’s parent organization, the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, enjoyed $8.3 million in contributions in 2009. Hannah Giles, O’Keefe’s partner in the ACORN scam, enjoyed an internship at Young Americans for Freedom’s National Journalism Center.
In one respect, this money has been almost entirely wasted. As the antics of O’Keefe and company conclusively demonstrate, the right has failed to train or inspire many genuine journalists. (In addition to his infamous pimp performance in Washington’s ACORN office and his TV repairman gig in Louisiana, O’Keefe and Wetmore also tried to travel the country to stage a series of phony gay marriages in order to claim benefits.)
THE COOK REPORT
Damage Control For Democrats
Three things the majority party can do to improve its chances in November. by Charlie Cook
In today's hurry-up world, we're often told, "Early is on time, on time is late, and late is unacceptable." A more forgiving notion is, "Better late than never." And President Obama and congressional Democrats must hope that the attention they're finally paying to the econ-omy will help put voters in a forgiving mood by November.
Democrats' prospects continue to worsen. GOP former Sen. Dan Coats's announcement that he will challenge Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., means that Republicans now have at least a mathematical possibility of recapturing the Senate in November. Before the 10-year Senate veteran jumped into the fray, Republicans were fielding first- or second-tier challengers in only nine states and a long shot in a 10th, against Wisconsin's Russell Feingold. Now Republicans are prohibitive favorites to win the open-seat races in Delaware and North Dakota; slight favorites for the Illinois open seat; no worse than an even-money bet in their challenges to Michael Bennet of Colorado, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, Harry Reid of Nevada, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania; and in a credible position against Bayh and against Barbara Boxer of California. They also have some chance of picking off Connecticut's open seat. Meanwhile, Republicans are not underdogs in any of their fights to retain the 18 Senate seats they've got on the line.
The Republican Party is the one whose image is improving.
At this point in 2006, five Republican seats were rated as toss-ups. The GOP went on to not only lose four of those five seats but also lose that of Montana's Conrad Burns, rated as leaning Republican at the end of January, and Virginia's George Allen, which at this stage was in the solid-Republican column.
As for Democrats, the $30 billion small-business loan program, $8 billion high-speed rail project, and other economic revitalization proposals unveiled over the past 10 days are exactly what the Obama administration needed to be pushing -- last August. After the July figures showed the unemployment rate still at 9 percent, the White House should have realized it was having a "Houston, we have a problem" moment. Instead, the Obama team has taken until now to begin firing its backup engines.
So can Democrats undo the damage that they did to their party by seeming to shove the nation's economic problems onto a back burner after checking the stimulus box last winter? Would devoting nine months to investing as much energy, attention, and political capital into the economy as they put into overhauling health care last year repair the damage? Obama needs to find out.
What else can Democrats do? First, lower the profile of their congressional leaders. The face of the Democratic Congress should be the locale's House member and senators, not Speaker Nancy Pelosi or Senate Majority Harry Reid. The fact that Pelosi had a 21 percent positive, 44 percent negative rating and Reid had a 13 percent positive, 32 percent negative rating in early-January NBC News/Wall Street Journal polls is a tip-off that they should step away from the cameras.
Second, Democrats need to grasp that their brand is quickly losing its edge over the GOP's. In two NBC/Wall Street Journal polls taken by Peter Hart and Bill McInturff in January, 38 and 39 percent of Americans viewed the Democratic Party positively, whereas 38 and 41 percent had a negative impression. A year ago, the same poll gave Democrats a positive rating of 49 and a negative rating of just 31. In the recent surveys, the Republican Party had positive ratings of 30 and 32, negative ratings of 38 and 42 percent. A year ago, the GOP had a positive rating of 26 and a negative rating of 47 percent. The Republican Party is the one whose image is improving.
Third, Democrats need to remember that although the Vietnam War ended 35 years ago, the weak-on-defense monkey is still on their backs. And, fairly or not, talk of closing Guantanamo and reading terrorist suspects their Miranda rights introduces a whole new generation of voters to security concerns.
Twenty years ago, the late Sen. Howell Heflin, D-Ala., accused his earnest challenger, Bill Cabaniss, a businessman from the wealthy Birmingham suburb of Mountain Brook, of being "one of them silk-stocking boys. A part of the Grey Poupon crowd. He's a Mercedes-driving, polo-playing, Jacuzzi-soaking, Gucci-wearing, Perrier-sipping, debutante-dancing, ritzy-rich Republican." Heflin went on to crush Cabaniss like an overripe chardonnay grape, 61 percent to 39 percent. Since then, deliberately or not, Democrats have shed their working-class image. They are increasingly viewed as an elitist, noblesse oblige party that is out of touch with working people -- and people who wish they were working. As Heflin could have told fellow Democrats, there aren't enough hoity-toity voters to keep them in power long.
Idea of the Day: Helping Our Unemployed Youth
A study just released by Northeastern University’s Center for Labor Market Studies underscored that the employment of teens is at a historic low, and the hardest hit are minority male and low-income teens. Following a long decline over the last decade, the employment rate of black teens is less than 14 percent and for low-income Latino teens just 23 percent. Young adults, aged 20 to 24, fare slightly better, but both groups are far more likely to be unemployed or underemployed than they were just two years ago.
Programs such as YouthBuild or AmeriCorps can help solve this problem, however. A random assignment study by Abt Associates and Brandeis University confirmed the value of youth service and conservation corps for young people, especially for African-American men. The programs increased their employment and earnings, educational aspirations, associate’s degree attainment, and community involvement. But while the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, engaged 3 million young men, today fewer than 30,000 similar youth corps positions exist. The cost of such positions—$16,000 to $24,000—is well below many private-sector job creation efforts and far below the costs of doing nothing.
The jobs bill passed by the House providing funding for additional AmeriCorps positions is a good first step. The president’s budget also offers a substantial increase in AmeriCorps, to add 20,000 new positions, and an increase in YouthBuild funding to engage several hundred additional corpsmembers. In the face of frozen domestic discretionary spending, these increases are welcome. But in the face of the need, Congress should do more by scaling up both these programs more dramatically and creating a new dedicated funding stream for youth service and conservation corps.
We may well owe our freedom—as well as many of our great parks, forests, and monuments—to the Depression-era CCC. Choosing whether to invest in those young people being left behind today will affect not just their generation, but their children and their children’s children. These young people need not be left out of the recovery, and in fact, they could become one of our greatest generations—if we choose to invest in comprehensive youth corps programs.
For more information please see:
- Why We Need to Help Unemployed Youth by Shirley Sagawa
YOUR COMMENTS
Quotes of the Day
"Osama bin Laden has released yet another audiotape message. Where does he find all these audiotapes, O.K.? You can't even buy audiotapes anymore. I mean, is there a tiny country in the Middle East called Radioshackistan? Is that where they're coming from? Where do you — we can't even play them. We don't have machines that old." –Jay Leno
Recent Senate Votes
NONE TO REPORT
NONE TO REPORT
Key Investments, Important Reforms, and Tough Choices for Education
Analysis of the President’s Fiscal Year 2011 Budget
The president’s announcement of a proposed $3 billion increase in education funding can go a long way in boosting the nation’s economic health and helping prepare all students for the rigors of college and the modern workplace. Indeed, this is one of the largest funding increases for federal education programs ever requested—a large and important investment in our nation’s troubled school system. But more importantly, the president’s budget focuses on program outcomes and makes a greater investment in competitive grant programs that support innovative strategies for boosting student achievement.
This budget also makes clear that the president hopes to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and he plans to provide an additional $1 billion in funding toward education if Congress passes the law. As we’ve noted before, the No Child Left Behind Act was an important step in closing academic achievement gaps, but it must be restructured to reflect the growing consensus for common core standards, improved teacher effectiveness, and a more sophisticated accountability system that can more effectively distinguish between chronically ineffective schools and less troubled schools.
Click to read the rest of the analysis
Think Fast
The Wall Street Journal reports that "Republicans are stepping up their campaign to win donations from Wall Street," following the industry's increasing turn against the Democratic Party. House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) reportedly met with J.P. Morgan chief and Democratic ally James Dimon last week to try to persuade him to support his party.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is "preparing a series of gun rights amendments that he intends to offer to must-pass Senate bills this year, hoping to force Democrats to take tough votes and draw clear distinctions between the two parties heading into the midterms." "We'll see gun amendments if we see appropriations bills," Coburn said.
President Bush briefly "considered -- and rejected -- a military response to Russia's 2008 invasion of Georgia," according to a new history of the conflict. Bush's national security aides outlined possible responses, including "surgical strikes," but rejected them as "too risky."
Some prominent Republicans will soon be launching "a center-right version of the Center for American Progress." Former Minnesota senator Norm Coleman and former McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin are leading the effort, while Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), former Florida governor Jeb Bush, and former Bush adviser Ed Gillespie are also involved. "Let them have at it," said CAP President and CEO John Podesta, "and we'll be happy to debate them."
"The Obama administration is aggressively pushing back against Republican criticism of its handling of terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab." Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter yesterday "to Senate Republicans in which he said the legal decisions in the Abdulmutallab case were consistent with the strategy used during George W. Bush's administration."
Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said yesterday that his agency is "widening its probe" of accelerator issues in Toyota vehicles "to look at the possibility of electromagnetic interference" with the cars' throttles. He also said he "wants to talk directly" with the company's CEO.
State Farm Florida announced that it will cancel "the policies of 125,000 of its most vulnerable customers beginning Aug. 1, halfway through the 2010 hurricane season." A spokesman for the company told the press the "decision was the direct result of its failure to win a 47.1 percent rate increase from state regulators."
And finally: Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) says he's "all for full disclosure," but he has turned down Cosmopolitan invitation to show the "full monty" in the magazine.
HUMOR
"President
Obama is having a big Super Bowl
party. This is very shrewd. He has invited a group of Republicans to come to
the White House for his Super Bowl party. He's going to seat the 'you lie'
guy next to the 'not true' guy." -David Letterman
"President
Bush told Obama, he said, 'Listen,
you get 10 Republicans to show up, and I'll drop in and choke on a
pretzel.'" -David Letterman
"Elizabeth Edwards announced that she and John have separated. So it looks
like it's not just
Nancy Pelosi
that's going to lose the house this year." -Jay Leno
"I am stunned that
John Edwards
made a sex tape. Do you realize this guy is basically
Paris Hilton
with better hair? That's all he is." -Jay Leno
"And, of course, Edwards has no remorse. Today, he called ABC to see if he
could be the next 'Bachelor.'" -Jay Leno
"Here's big news: United States Senate reconfirms chairman of the Fed. Ben
Bernanke was reconfirmed. So he'll have the job for four more years. I just
hope we have an economy for four more years." -David Letterman
"During a town hall meeting in New Hampshire yesterday, President Obama said
that using stimulus money to help schools is not sexy, but it's making a
difference. Oddly enough, that's the same way he describes Nancy Pelosi."
-Jimmy Fallon
"They're now coming out with the new, 75th edition of Monopoly, this time
with a round board. No more square boards. And actually, they've updated the
whole game. In the new version, the banker is a Wall Street CEO He
overextends mortgages, he loses the bank, and when things go under, he uses
his get-out-of-jail-for-free card. So it's all very realistic." -Jay Leno
"At the town hall event, President Obama also said jobs will be our No. 1
focus in 2010. He then added, 'Specifically, mine and
Biden's
jobs.'" -Jimmy Fallon
"Well, the Oscar nominations were announced today, you guys. Best-actor
nominees included George Clooney for 'Up in the Air,' Jeremy Renner for 'The
Hurt Locker,' and President Obama
INTERESTING
THE TEA PARTY MOVEMENT
The Tea Parties' Populist Blend
Historian Kazin Says The Movement Fits A Historical Pattern, With Some Ideological And Technological Updates, by Kevin Friedl
Michael Kazin is a busy man these days. As reporters and politicians rush to catch up on the Tea Party movement, Kazin, a historian at Georgetown University specializing in American populist movements, has found himself in high demand. "I've got another reporter on the line, can I call you right back?" he could be overheard saying into his cell phone during a recent interview with NationalJournal.com. "It's populism week right now!"
Kazin, who moonlights as co-editor of the left-leaning Dissent magazine, has spent much of his career studying the development of American social movements. He has written extensively about the history of American populism from the short-lived People's Party of the late 19th century to the "Republican revolution" of the mid-'90s, and sees the Tea Partiers in that mold -- with some differences.
"Obviously, history does not repeat itself," Kazin said. "So there are parallels with other populist movements, but like any movement in history, what's new about it is more interesting in some ways than what's old."
One difference Kazin sees in the movement is its focus on the "libertarian economics" leg of the conservative stool, bypassing "so-called traditional social values and a strong military." Tea Party leaders have sought to play down differences over social issues such as abortion and gay rights in order to focus on the mantras of fiscal discipline and small government.
"Most American political scientists used to argue at least that the libertarian side of conservatism did not have as much of a mass base as the strong military and social values side," he said. "It was mostly Cato Foundation types and intellectuals who read [Friedrich] Hayek and people like that. This Tea Party movement seems to show that that's not really true."
Another difference? Tea Party activists' use of technology -- deeply indebted to the model established by MoveOn.org and the Obama campaign -- which suggests that future populist movements will need shorter and shorter gestation periods before they emerge and begin flexing their muscle. "In the past, social movements started happening locally and people linked up between local areas," Kazin said. "And now, of course, one doesn't need to communicate with people face-to-face."
While online tools may give activists the means to link up and voice their grievances faster, Kazin speculated that it could also make their efforts more ephemeral. "What happened to MoveOn.org? What happened to Organizing for America?" he asked. "Those weren't movements, perhaps, they were more like campaigns. But maybe this isn't a movement either. People like to talk about it in those terms, but it's unclear if this is going to last past the 2010 election."
Kazin is currently teaching a class on the history of conservatism in the U.S., which he plans to end on the Tea Party movement. As with other recent conservative resurgences, the Tea Parties are likely to be institutionalized within the Republican Party or else "decline and die," Kazin said. "Maybe both."
When asked whether there could be a possible "Tea Party ticket," as Fox News host Bill O'Reilly recently suggested, Kazin was dismissive of the idea. "Unless Republicans are pretty inept politically, which they've shown themselves not to be, most Tea Party people will vote for and campaign for Republicans," he said. Every headache the activists cause the Republican establishment is likely to be salved elsewhere in the form of an energized electorate, more small-dollar donations and a slow co-opting of the Tea Parties' energies, he added.
"That's the history of political movements from below in this country," Kazin said. "They just aren't able, and in many cases aren't willing, to construct their own organizations which are separate from the parties. They want to get into power. And if you want to get to power in this country, you don't normally do it unless you link up with one of the major parties." kfriedl@nationaljournal.com
Buy American Mention of the Week
by Roger Simmermaker
Orlando Sentinel Automotive Editor Steven Cole Smith once told me of a friend he was consoling who worked in public relations at Ford when the automaker was going through a crisis. He explained to her that it was just Ford's turn in the barrel, and that someday GM would have a crisis, then Chrysler, then somebody else would have their turn in the barrel. She said "I guess, but really, when will it be Toyota's turn in the barrel? Ever?"
"Ever" is finally here. Who would have thought? After years of the mostly foreign car-loving media heralding Toyota as an example of a car company that does everything right (which of course means they could never do anything wrong), the goldilocks Japanese car company has finally admitted quality took a "back seat" in the interest of "global growth" and the media is now being forced to fess up.
Last week Toyota halted sales on eight models including the Camry, Corolla, Avalon, Tundra, Highlander, Sequoia, Rav4, and Matrix, which represented almost 60 percent of their sales in the United States last year, due to unexpected acceleration that has resulted in several fatalities on U.S. highways.
First Toyota said the unintended acceleration issue was due to accelerator-jamming floor mats when they recalled 4.3 million vehicles last October. Then they added another 1.1 million vehicles to the recall (total now 5.4 million) in January this year. Now Toyota says another 2.3 million autos need to be recalled because of "sticking accelerator pedals."
The Wall Street Journal has reported that Toyota president Akio Toyoda is now dealing with a quality backlash issue he worried the Japanese automaker would face sooner or later. And according to a Toyota spokesman as reported in the Washington Post, the automaker's expansion occurred to an extent that made it difficult to "keep an eye on the ball."
And now we find that according to Massachusetts-based safety research firm Safety Research and Strategies, Toyota vehicles have been involved in 2,274 sudden unintended acceleration incidents, causing 275 crashes and at least 18 fatalities since 1999. So this is obviously more than a recent phenomenon. Did Toyota ever really make good on the promise they made in 2006 when a Toyota Senior Manager said "We used to do quiet recalls called 'service campaigns' to deal with defects but we're not going to hide anything anymore."? We'll see.
ABC Nightline did a story on the Toyota recall on November 3, 2009 available here which asserts Toyota should have known these problems were due to more than just faulty floor mats.
Perhaps the most dramatic incident occurred last August when a California Highway Patrol Officer and three family members were killed in a 100 mph crash due to what was described in a 911 call as a stuck accelerator. Officer Mark Saylor's Lexus (he was off-duty at the time) rear-ended a Ford Explorer, jumped over a curb, plowed through a fence, hit an embankment, went airborne, then landed and rolled several times before bursting into flames.
Unfortunately, the obvious safety issue surrounding the recall as highlighted by the decade-plus fatalities that are just now coming to light isn't the only scary part. Ranking a close second is the reaction by seemingly brainwashed car-buying consumers who blindly back up the automaker at all (potentially serious) costs.
Take the example of the Chicago Lexus owner who, with his foot firmly on the break, screeched down the street with his wife and daughter before he was able to turn off the ignition and put his car in park. Although he admits the dealer's response that the problem was probably caused by misaligned floor mats was "not credible," he says he continues to drive all three of his Lexus' since he feels he knows how to react if it ever happens again. If it does, hopefully for him and the surrounding traffic and pedestrians, conditions will be just as ideal.
Or how about the example of a 65-year-old California resident who thinks the recall displays Toyota's character since he believes GM and Ford wouldn't stop selling to "get it right" like Toyota is. Little does he know Toyota didn't stop selling because they wanted to. According to Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, "The reason Toyota decided to do the recall and to stop manufacturing was because we asked them to."
Of course GM and Ford would stop manufacturing if the U.S. Government asked them to! Can you imagine having this many recalls linked to this many fatalities under your belt and defying a government request related to the safety of the American driving public? The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) will also have to give the nod to any proposed fix Toyota comes up with to alleviate the problem(s), which is apparently already in the works.
Toyota certainly isn't unfamiliar with massive recalls, and GM and Ford vehicles certainly aren't unfamiliar with high quality and excellent gas mileage. In 2005, Toyota recalled more cars in the U.S. – 2.38 million – than they sold in the U.S. That same year, the Chevrolet Impala beat the Toyota Camry in initial quality according to J.D. Power & Associates.
The following year (2006), Consumer Reports scored the Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan higher than the Toyota Camry. And Consumer Reports now ranks Ford's quality higher than Toyota's. The Wall Street Journal reports that the new Ford Focus is expected to get at least 40 mpg on the highway, which scores higher that the Toyota Corolla or Honda Civic, which are rated at 35 or 36 mpg on the highway.
The top consumer hybrid pick according to Edmunds.com in 2008 was the American-made Mercury Mariner SUV, not the Japanese-made Toyota Prius. Also according to Edmunds.com in their "true cost to own" survey that year, which includes considerations like vehicle cost, depreciation, fuel cost, insurance premiums, and repairs, the Chevrolet Aveo is the least costly car to own. The Aveo is currently made in South Korea, but GM announced the 2011 model will be made in Michigan (which goes against the untrue, repetitive drivel that foreign companies are building plants here and American companies are building them overseas).
I could go on and on with facts that prove that American cars don't suffer a quality gap; but rather it's the majority of the American people that suffer from a perception gap. Overall, foreign cars are not better than American cars. Yes, of course there will be case by case exceptions as it goes with any similarly-diverse industry, but overall this is a true statement.
American automakers deserve our consumer dollars for a variety of reasons including quality, safety, dependability, gas mileage, and the fact that they employ far more workers, use far more American components in their automobiles, and pay far more American taxes than their foreign competitors (explaining and proving all that would take an entirely different article, and I've already written several).
Above all, I hope Toyota fixes their problems soon after halting sales and the number Americans that crash in them on America's highways halts as well. But next, I hope that GM and Ford handsomely benefit from the justice that's been denied them for so long because of past overblown hype and praise for Toyota.
Once the public's quality perception gap between American and foreign automakers is finally eliminated, then justice can finally be served for the benefit of both American automakers and the safety of the American public.
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Roger Simmermaker is the author of How Americans Can Buy American: The Power of Consumer Patriotism and writes "Buy American Mention of the Week" articles for WorldNetDaily.com and his website www.howtobuyamerican.com. Roger is a member of the Machinists Union and National Writers Union, has been a frequent guest on Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC, and has been quoted in the USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Business Week among many other publications.
GOOD NEWS
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