We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms.

The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But, America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries; we must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure—our forests and waterways, our croplands and snow-capped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

—President Barack Obama, Inaugural Address, 2012

Van Jones, is a former Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and currently a senior fellow at the Center for New American Progress, and a distinguished visiting fellow at Princeton University. Jones feels Obama has lost credibility on his stated climate policy. In the following short video, he lays out arguments against the president’s immanent approval of the Keystone Pipeline.

Obama—long on words, short on action

Barack Obama is, without a doubt, one of the most eloquent and skilled orators ever to hold the office of president. Yet, early on in his presidency, I noticed a recurring pattern—a disconnection between his rhetoric and his actions. His speeches and press conferences are always articulate, intelligent, and convincing yet vague on details. After years of watching and listening to Obama, and experiencing the “disconnect,” I have learned to ignore what he says and focus, instead, on what he does—or doesn’t do. When I focus on his actions alone, I am not confused by the contradiction with his words. What emerge, in his record, is his lack of leadership. His lack of leadership on climate change will be made concrete in his approval of Keystone, but that is just one example in a disturbing pattern.

Obama’s failure to lead on progressive issues

Obama’s failure to lead is more apparant as he moves into in his second term. Free from the excuse of electoral pressures, he could, for example, advocate for increasing social security payments for seniors and the disabled by raising the cap on payroll taxes, something he campained on in 2008, and wildly popular with the electorate in both parties. Yet, after being elected, he has been relentless in his drive for a “Grand Bargain” in his support of chained CPI, which would reduce payments by reducing the cost of living formula. A vast majority of voters, Democrat and Republican, are against this, and no one elected him to strike a Grand Bargain on their backs. The only people who want cuts in Social Security have addresses on Wall Street. Republican elected officials, of course, are happy to have his fingerprints on this rather than their own.

Despite Obama’s 2008 populist rhetoric and campaign promise to not cut Social Security, after his election he partnered with billionaire Pete Peterson, a man who has devoted his life to dismantling Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Pete Peterson supported and funded Obama’s failed Simpson-Bowles Commission to the tune of $1 million. The commission, hand picked by Obama and Peterson, was focused on cutting “entitlements.”

Another example of the “Obama disconnect” is enshrined in his 2012 inaugural address. He spoke beautifully about preserving the environment, about being stewards of the planet, and yet he is hell bent on approving the Keystone pipeline extension, a project that serves no one but oil barons and shareholders. Keystone will most certainly damage the environment and contribute to global warming. There will be the inevitable spills, and the devastation that ensues.

Compare Obama’s rhetoric on civil liberties with the shocking growth of domestic surveillance during his administration. A growth in surveillance is, of course,  lucrative for government contractors. Consider Obama’s rhetoric on whistleblowers vs. his treatment of Bradley Manning who exposed war crimes committed under his administration; and consider, most assuredly, the inevitable prosecution, under the Espionage Act, of Edward Snowden who has revealed the extent of the administration’s domestic spying. Obama, has presented himself, always in beautiful rhetoric, as a champion of open government but has prosecuted more whistleblowers under the Espionage Act than all previous administrations combined.

Compare Obama’s rhetoric the housing crisis and underwater mortgages with his protection of banks, and his refusal to prosecute bankers or help homeowners under threat of foreclosure in a meaningful way. Consider his bait and switch on the public option—a boon for the health insurance industry. And, of course, compare his rhetoric on climate change with his inevitable approval of Keystone. On all issues, his tendency is to say the right thing, in a careful, hedging way, for the voters, and then serve his real constituency, the billionaires and oligarchs who own the government. Obama, a charismatic personality with a million dollar smile, is a master of this juggling act.

The Obama Tar Sands Pipeline

Obama’s assured approval of the extension of the Keystone pipeline—a decision that is his, and his alone, to make—will be an unconscionable decision for the majority of us. It lavishly feeds oil billionaires while endangering the environment and fueling global warming. Obama has given lip-service to the need to address climate change, but he is choosing, instead, to enrich multi-national corporations that have no allegiance to the United States. Contrary to oil company and administration propaganda, Keystone will not make the U.S. more energy independent. As Jones pointed out, much if not all of the tar sands oil will be sold on the open market to the highest bidder—most probably China. Keystone is a job creator? According to the State Department, It will provide over 3,900 temporary jobs, but only 35 permanent. The argument that Canada will build the pipeline if we don’t, and therefore greenhouse gas emissions will be no different if we don’t build it, was shot down recently when the B.C. Liberal government strongly rejected the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline citing environmental concerns.

OFA, Obama’s so called “grassroots’ organizing arm, has issued talking points cautioning members to abstain from fighting the Keystone extension. Many OFA members, who thought they had elected a progressive president, are not happy.  Obama’s pattern of progressive rhetoric followed by corporate friendly actions will likely play out in his approval of the Keystone tar sands pipeline. This decision, and a host of others, begs the question, whom is Obama serving?

The post Van Jones: “If Obama believes Keystone is a good thing, he should call it the Obama Tar Sands Pipeline.” appeared first on Occasional Planet.

You may still have romantic vision of a progressive Barack Obama. You know, he’s a Chicago community organizer who ran for president because he wanted the power to help the poor and downtrodden. Or, you are not sure about that community organizer thing, but you’re still wowed by the charismatic, tall, handsome, intelligent Harvard Law Review editor with the exotic Kenyan father and the million-dollar smile—in other words, you just can’t resist his rock star personality.  Perhaps, sadly, you still have a tattered Shepard Fairey poster taped to your wall. You still believe in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary, that he embodies hope and change. Or, as all your fantasies are crumbling, you imagine he is such an extraordinary and exceptional human being, that he arose, from nowhere, from the force of his brilliance and goodness, to be our president, like a Venus on the half shell.

The real story of how Barack Obama became president

Hyatt hotel heiress Penny Pritzker and Wall Street billionaire Robert Rubin, and their wealthy friends, made him president. After the debacle of the Bush presidency, it was clear a Democrat had a better chance of winning. They needed a youthful candidate who had the charisma to get elected and who would be willing to enact policies beneficial to them—policies that would ensure the growth of their obscene fortunes. He needed to be sympathetic to their self-serving “free market” philosophy and to financial deregulation—in other words, he had to be someone who would let them continue to run amuck. They picked Obama over Clinton, and then Obama over McCain.

At the very least, they wanted to make sure they were not prosecuted for the financial crimes they committed, and they needed their banks protected from prosecution in the foreclosure scandals. Any reforms of the financial industry were to be lightweight. And when the bill passed, they would unleash their lobbyists to strip Dodd-Frank like hyenas on a dead carcass. Of course, they wanted the FED spigot to continue to flow, giving them trillions in practically free money with which to gamble. Any healthcare “reform” would have to protect and preserve Big Pharma and the health insurance industry. If not privatized (so-called Democrat Bob Rubin floated that idea before 2008) social safety nets were to be weakened in preparation for future privatization. While the vast majority of voters, Democrats and Republicans, strongly support Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the billionaires who finance campaigns do not.

Obama has dutifully delivered on much of their agenda, and he’s trying his best on Social Security by insisting that chained CPI be on the table. For his efforts, after his presidency, he will be rewarded with hundreds of millions in speaking fees, making $250,000 a pop at Citibank and JP Morgan Chase. They will fund his foundation, and build him a big, honking presidential library somewhere on the south side of Chicago.

Obama agreed to do the bidding of billionaires, not because, as some believe, he wanted to position himself as a progressive Trojan Horse, but because he identifies with them—the “savvy businessmen of Wall Street.” He proudly identifies himself a a “free-market guy,” at his 2006 inaugural speech at Robert Rubin’s neoliberal think tank, the Hamilton Project. At that meeting, it was obvious he no longer identified with his role as community organizer—if he ever did. Obama referred to those displaced by globalization and outsourcing of jobs as the “losers” in the new economy—a very telling choice of words. It was clear: he wanted to be a part of the billionaire’s club where the real movers and shakers of the world—”the winners”—operate. The young junior senator from Illinois was already tapped to be president by Rubin and others.

Being a Wall Street sympathizer, Obama had to lie about his policies to get elected, especially about his plans to cut Social Security and his never-really-real public option. When elected, in return for Robert Rubin’s support, he hired Rubin acolytes and Wall Street surrogates Timothy Geithner and  Lawrence Summers. He then proceeded to hire every Wall Street person he could find to fill his cabinet. So, now, in his second term, when his true progressive self was supposed to be unleashed, at a time when most Americans are struggling and losing economic ground, he appoints his union hating, subprime-mortgage bank fraudster, billionaire, campaign bundler, Penny Pritzker to be Commerce Secretary.

I would say, simply, that Obama is not your friend—just like Penny Pritzker is not your friend. In their world, corporate and banking interests will always trump yours. Pritzker, as Secretary of Commerce, will not be working for you; she will be working for her friends.

How did Obama get on billionaire Penny Pritzker’s radar?

Ever on the lookout for a winning politician to buy, Penny Pritzker plucked Obama out of the Illinois state legislature and introduced him to her influential “Ladies Who Lunch” group. Then, she, her family, Barack, Michelle and the kids spent many weekends at the Pritzger mansion getting to know one another. They bonded. She liked his ideas and had plans for him—senator then president. She introduced him to her buddy, Robert Rubin. The rest, as they say, is history.

In 2008, Obama promised Pritzker the Commerce Secretary position if he were elected. He appointed her, then Superior Bank, the Chicago bank she owned and ran, which was heavily involved in subprime lending, imploded.  Thanks to Pritzker, a lot people in Chicago lost their homes. Then, unhappy workers from the lucrative nursing homes her family owns through a string of complex offshore trusts, marched in protest in Washington, D.C.  Truthdig writes about the Pritzker bank failure:

At the time of its collapse, Superior was the costliest bank failure ever and “the first of the deregulated go-go-banks to go bust.” Taxpayers lost nearly half a billion dollars. Depositors lost millions and many poor residents of state Sen. Obama’s South Side of Chicago lost their homes.

Because it all looked so unseemly, Pritzker removed her name from consideration. So, now four years later, Obama is trying. once again, to give his billionaire backer and best buddy, Penny Pritzker, the Commerce Secretary position. Her nomination will most likely be approved.

But, in the end, this is not a story about Barack Obama. It’s about billionaires owning our government, choosing who will run for office, and then buying legislation that enriches them at our expense. It’s about billionaire-backed candidates who get elected by manipulating voters with slick, faux-progressive campaigns hatched on Madison Avenue. The question is, how long will the American people tolerate this charade that passes for democracy?

The post Obama rewards billionaire Penny Pritzker for making him president appeared first on Occasional Planet.

No one should have to stand in line for three hours to vote in a presidential election. But that’s just what 102-year-old Desiline Victor had to do in November 2012. And during the 2013 State of the Union address, President Obama cited her determination to vote as an inspiration and as a reason to make sure that these deliberate, anti-democracy outrages stop happening.

The President called for a bi-partisan commission to look into the problem, but we already know what caused the long lines in 2012, when some voters waited for as long as eight hours: a shameless, concerted effort by Republican state and local election officials to suppress the vote in neighborhoods that tend to vote for Democrats.

A commission is probably a political necessity. But members of that group would be wise to use, as a starting—and perhaps ending—point, a report issued by the Brennan Center for Justice. The report recommends a three-part solution, which includes:

Modernizing voter registration

In an earlier report, the center called for dragging voter registration out of the the 19^th and into the 21^st century by instituting:

• Voluntary, automated registration of all consenting citizens when they interact with a wide range of government agencies.
• “Portable voter registration” systems that would keep voters on the rolls, even when they move.
• Fail-safe procedures to ensure that eligible voters whose information is not on the rolls or not up to date can correct the information online or at the polls.
• Federal funding for states to make necessary technological upgrades.

How would these changes help? According to the Brennan Center, these changes would solve some of the most significant causes of long lines and voter frustration:

• Fewer errors in the registration rolls will mean less time spent looking for misspelled names or addresses while other voters wait.
• Similarly, less time will be spent directing voters to fill out lengthy provisional ballot envelopes, which also consumes time and requires their own, separate set of administrative procedures.
• Finally, officials will have the ability to more precisely allocate resources to polling places, because they will have an exact and accurate number of registered voters.

Providing early voting during a fixed national time period

Before Republican vote suppressors slammed the door, early in-person voting [known in the trade as EIPV] was catching on. Voters liked the convenience and the flexibility, and election officials who cared about democracy saw that EIPV added efficiency to elections.

The benefits of EIPV are fairly obvious, says the Brennan Center report:

First, if a greater number of voters are voting early, fewer will vote on Election Day, meaning the crush of voters at particular times on Election Day will be smaller. Second, early voting provides an important safety valve against the kind of Election Day overload that can result from unexpected problems. Whether those problems are minor (like a failed voting machine at a polling site) or major (like the fallout from Superstorm Sandy), EIPV ensures that fewer voters are forced to choose between waiting in line for seven hours on Election Day and not voting at all.

The Center has found that effective EIPV includes four main elements. Each of them helps ensure that a significant portion of voters has equal access to early voting.

• 10 weekdays of early voting and at least two weekends, including the weekend before Election Day.
• At least some weekday EIPV hours beyond regular business hours (e.g., before 9 a.m. and after 5p.m.).
• Establishment of a standard by which each county (or relevant voting jurisdiction) sets a minimum number of EIPV locations based on its voting population, and polling locations that are reasonably and equally accessible to all voters.
• Establishment of “Early Voting Centers,” at which any voter from a particular county can vote, regardless of how close it is to the voter’s home.

How do these changes help? Mandating the availability of weekend voting, as well as both standard business and non-business hours during the week, frees citizens from making a choice between work and voting. Setting a uniform standard for each county to have a minimum number of EIPV outlets to serve its voting population will aid in dampening controversies over site selection, which too often in the past has led to accusations that some voters were provided less access to early voting than others. Finally, creating Early Voting Centers gives voters much greater flexibility during the early voting period to vote at locations that may be convenient, but not particularly close to their homes.

Setting minimum standards for polling place access

Rules that govern the allocation of election resources vary widely from state to state, and sometimes even from county to county. In 2012, for example, some polling precincts in Florida covered only a few hundred voters, while others had voting rolls of more than 8,000. Some precincts had too many optical scanners, while others were woefully under-supplied.

Some states do a better job than others, but the variability of the essential act of democracy—voting—from state to state and precinct to precinct underscores the need for a federal role in uniform standard-setting and oversight. This is simply too big and too important to be left to the states.  [I hear heads exploding on the right: It’s a government takeover of our elections!]

Nevertheless, the solution, says the Brennan Center, is for the federal government to set minimum standards for voting — an idea Americans overwhelmingly support.

These standards could be set with the goal of ensuring that no American must wait more than one hour to vote on Election Day. Numerous factors need consideration in setting these standards. Studies show that, to be effective, the standards should be based upon, among other things, the number and location of registered voters, turnout in previous elections, the type of voting system used, the needs and numbers of voters with disabilities and limited English proficiency, and the length and complexity of ballots. To ensure these standards are applied uniformly within each state, and enhanced when necessary, the appropriate agency and/or individuals must have the right to seek penalties and demand planning improvements when long lines persist in a particular state.

Addressing legal, political, technical and issues of civil rights

 The Brennan Center’s report also outlines a fourth grouping of issues that need to be addressed.

• Deceptive practices and voter intimidation
• Vacancies at the Election Assistance Commission
• Voting machine failures
• Restoring voting rights for those with past criminal convictions

End note: It’s hard to believe that we live in an America where we even have to talk about these things. The deliberate, cynical corruption of our voting system has brought us to an embarrassingly low point in the history of the vaunted democracy to which “patriotic” politicians loudly pay tribute. The solution is obvious: To quote Ann Romney, who said these famous words in a different context [and you know we’ve gone way too far when I’m quoting her]: “Just stop it.” It’s sad. But this, apparently, is the state of the union in 2013.

The post How to fix long lines at polling places appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Some Democrats in the last election had a hard time voting. Republicans, like Secretary of State John Husted of Ohio, worked overtime, using a variety of means—including restricting hours the polls are open, demanding photo IDs, not supplying enough voting machines at polling places—to disenfranchise those living in traditionally Democratic districts. The poor, African Americans, Hispanics, the elderly, and students struggled in states like Ohio and Florida where Republicans continue to use vote suppression as a political strategy for winning elections.

In his post, “Our recent history of “voting wars,” Arthur Lieber reminds us that the right to vote is guaranteed by the federal government. Given how the right to vote is under siege at the state level by the Republican Party, Republican elected officials, and Republican-backed “Protect the Vote” groups—it makes sense that the federal government takeover our national elections.

Jon Green, writing at Americablog, has thought about what that would look like. He calls for the federal government to create “an independent, non-partisan body charged with administering elections.” The following is an edited version of his ideas. For the entire post click here.

The federal non-partisan body would have the following responsibilities:

Universalize Voter Registration

A federal voter registrar should be established to ensure that every eligible citizen is registered to vote somewhere. Nationalizing and universalizing voter registration would enfranchise millions, resulting in elections that more accurately reflected the will of the people. Moreover, if universal registration were coupled with a national ID card, as it is in many European countries, it would put concerns about voter impersonation fraud to bed.

Standardize the Ballot

A standard ballot, with consistent formatting for all types of races and uniform guidelines for issues such as candidate order, would make it easier for voters to inform themselves and others about what to expect when they show up to vote.

Standardize the Polling Place

It is time to take voting machines out of the hands of partisan Secretaries of State and mandate that each polling location be allocated voting machines and paper ballots proportional to the number of registered voters in that precinct.  And perhaps it’s time we stopped permitting partisans from owning companies that make voting machines, then we could stop worrying about machines that change your vote from Obama to Romney, or about “computer glitches” that suddenly make 1,000 early voters (in a black neighborhood, of course) vanish.

Waiting for all 50 states to pass and enforce meaningful regulations that prevent activities such as these from occurring is a pipe dream at best; federal action is necessary to ensure that voter suppression on this scale is prohibited and prosecuted.


Establish Election Week

To reflect the varying schedules and obligations of our diverse population, many states have increased accessibility to vote by letting citizens vote early. This practice has worked well in the states that have established it, and should be implemented nationwide. While some states offer early voting quite early (Iowans can start casting their ballots more than a month before Election Day), a national voting week would ensure that nobody’s work schedule or weekly routine could prevent them from casting a ballot, while avoiding concerns about whether we’re all really voting in the same election when some of us vote in November, and others in September (thus missing the presidential debates, among other concerns).

Taking the responsibility of administering elections out of the hands of individual states, and setting a clear standard for what an American election should look like, would make our elections freer, fairer and more accurate. After a series of elections fraught with mishaps, federal action is necessary to set things right.

The post Blueprint for a federal takeover of national elections appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Taken together, four  letters to the New York Times editor, posted on Nov. 19, 2012, sum up what happened to the supposedly all-powerful religious right in the 2012 election–and why. The first is from a woman who self-identifies as a ” white upper-middle-class married mother of three and a mainline Protestant, in other words, Mitt Romney’s targeted demographic.” She says that she has voted twice for President Obama, because her “religious understanding involves healing the sick and feeding the poor, so I support food stamps and Obamacare.”

As an educated person, I find myself alienated by the anti-woman and anti-science sentiments espoused by the G.O.P. Its “take back America from the undesirables” message nakedly exploits and encourages people’s prejudices against undocumented immigrants, gays, single mothers and minorities.

I wouldn’t allow such hateful and nonsensical talk at my dinner table; I certainly don’t want to send it to Washington.

The second letter writer says:

At long last Election Day efforts to legislate religious beliefs met with failure throughout the country. Personal liberty and freedom were affirmed when anti-abortion candidates were defeated and measures permitting people the right to same-sex marriage were enacted.

In this process there has been no infringement of the rights of churchgoers to practice their own theology but confirms that they may not impose their dogma on others.

The third sees the election as a rejection of the religious right’s “effort to create civil law to enforce or deny behavior based on one’s religious belief. Teaching and preaching about moral principles are certainly legitimate functions of religious leaders, but to try to enlist the government as an enforcer is to go down a dangerous path.”

And the fourth letter admonishes religious leaders not to attempt to cast the election as ” a sign of America’s rejection of moral values and of our national decline.” The opposite is true, he asserts.

We have rejected moralism, not morality. We have rejected the premise that sanctimonious preachers can herd our votes by claiming to be on God’s chat list. We are evolving to a higher morality of knowledge, compassion and stewardship.

The pessimist in me takes issue with that final sentence. But overall, I’m hoping that what happened at the polls on Nov. 6, 2012 will, indeed, be construed as a rejection of the political overreach–and may I say “chutzpah?”–that  has typified the religious right  in recent decades.

The post What and why the religious right lost in the 2012 election appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In a recent blog post, Robert Reich points out that Obama won re-election, so he needs to aim much higher on the upcoming budget deal. Unlike his first not-so-grand bargain, he proposes that Obama take cuts to the safety net programs most American families count on—Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—off the table, and concentrate on increasing revenue.

Obama needs to preserve the safety nets, and I hope he does, but it’s most likely he won’t. As Taylor Marsh has so insightfully pointed out, Obama is a fiscal conservative, a new kind of “Democrat” who is really a new brand of Reagan Republican. This is why the words “Democrat” or “Democratic Party: rarely if ever pass his lips. He has no identification with traditional Democratic principles or ideals, and has no real working relationship with progressives in the House or Senate.

There are a lot of ways to structure a “grand bargain” besides Obama’s draconian plan that loads the reduction of the deficit on the backs of those who can least afford it. Reich offers a compelling alternative to get to $4 trillion in deficit reduction in the next decade. You can read his entire post here. The following is a summary of his ideas.

First, raise taxes on the rich to 55.2% for Americans making over $1 million after deductions and credits, bringing in $80 billion more annually, and reducing the budget deficit by about $1 trillion over the next decade— a quarter of the $4 trillion in deficit reduction.

Next, impose a 2% surtax on the wealth of the richest one-half of 1 percent, bringing in another $750 billion over the decade.

Institute a one-half of 1 percent tax on financial transactions, which will bring in an additional $250 billion. The wealth tax and financial transactions tax, together, brings us to $2 trillion or half of the deficit-reduction goal.

Raise the capital gains rate to match the rate on ordinary income and cap the mortgage interest deduction at $12,000 a year, bringing in another $1 trillion over ten years. So now we’re up to $3 trillion in additional revenue.

Eliminate special tax preferences for oil and gas, price supports for big agriculture, tax breaks and research subsidies for Big Pharma, unnecessary weapons systems for military contractors, and indirect subsidies to the biggest banks on Wall Street, and we’re nearly there.

End the Bush tax cuts on incomes between $250,000 and $1 million, and — bingo — we made it: $4 trillion over 10 years.

What Reich proposes should be Obama’s starting bid. Obviously, he can’t get everything, but as a newly re-elected Democratic president, I think he has a responsibility to move the goal post to the left. Most likely, his Grand Bargain 2.0 will look a lot like Grand Bargain 1.0, because that’s what he wants. I would love to eat my hat.

The strategy for progressives should be to put pressure on the White House, senators and congressman to demand that the wealthy pay a lot more than the small increase Obama is asking and that “entitlements” are left alone. After all, when people like the Koch brothers and Bill Kristol suddenly approve of the Grand Bargain, you can bet the deal is a bad one for you.

The post Robert Reich on how to reduce the deficit appeared first on Occasional Planet.

For the first time in history, an Israeli prime minister took sides in an American election. The right wing, saber rattling prime minister of Israel, Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, broke tradition and openly endorsed Mitt Romney for president.

Before November 6, Bibi, and everyone else, assumed he would coast to victory in the upcoming January 22 elections. But, thanks to his backing loser Mitt Romney, overnight, he has become a loser in the eyes of the Israeli people. The general feeling among Israelis is that he intervened where he shouldn’t have and, by doing so, foolishly endangered U.S. Israeli relations.

It’s no secret that, during his first term, Obama and Netanyahu had a chilly relationship. That Netanyahu meddled in the election and backed Romney doesn’t bode well for their future relationship. Larry Derfner writing on November 7 at liberal Israeli web magazine +972:

If Romney had won, people here would be hailing Bibi right now as a genius, a prophet. But Obama won, which makes Bibi, in Israeli eyes, a screw-up of historic magnitude. He went and tracked mud on the Oval Office carpet right in front of the president’s eyes. The president couldn’t say anything during the campaign because of American domestic politics, but the campaign’s over and now Israelis are wondering when and how this newly liberated president is going to take revenge on them for their prime minister’s spectacular arrogance. Conclusion: The only way to get America back on our side is to get rid of Bibi. That, I believe, is the mood in Israel on this fine morning.

Another first: Republican Party brought Israeli politics into election

In another post, Derfner points out that Netanyahu was not the only one who broke new ground. For the first time, the Republican Party brought Israeli right-wing politics into a U.S. election:

This was the first U.S. presidential election in which one of the two parties took the Israeli right-wing line, attacking the other party for endangering Israel’s existence, and calling on American Jews (as well as Christians) to vote for it and donate money to it at least partly on that basis. This wasn’t a marginal, low-key theme, either; in heavily Jewish states, especially the swing state of Florida, the message was as bombastic as can be. Roughly 6.5 million American Jews had this message drummed into their skulls by the Republicans (who took their inspiration and much of their phrasing from the leader of world Jewish nationalism, Bibi Netanyahu): that voting for Obama meant “throwing Israel under the bus.” This was the first time Israel became a left/right issue in a presidential campaign, and the right flogged it with absolutely all their might.

Why did Netanyahu insert himself into the U.S. elections? Billionaire Sheldon Adelson, owner of the influential Israeli newspaper Israel Hayom, and a stalwart backer of Netanyahu, enlisted Netanyahu’s help in supporting Romney. Although Adelson spent $100 million trying to get Romney elected, his efforts failed, and failed spectacularly with the Jewish community. Result? 70% of American Jews voted for Obama.

Thanks to his arrogance and poor judgment in openly backing Romney, Netanyahu faces the upcoming Israeli elections weakened. The newly emboldened center-left political parties of Israel, those dedicated to peace in the Middle East, are scrambling to decide whom to run against him.

Moderate Ehud Olmert, prime minister of Israel 2006 to 2009, who resigned from his party after being charged with corruption, has in recent days been addressing the American Jewish community promising to play a strong role in the upcoming elections and hinting a return to public life. Derfner writes:

The politicians making this case [that they could beat Netanyahu] are Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni. Separately or together, in Kadima or in a new party, they have the potential to knock over Netanyahu in January, form a center-left coalition government, and resume the negotiations they started with Abbas in 2007, when Olmert was prime minister and Livni foreign minister, then left off at the end of 2008 when they launched Operation Cast Lead.

Because of that war and the long siege of Gaza that preceded it (which continued under Netanyahu), I have no love for Olmert or Livni. My natural inclination is to vote for Meretz [Zionist social democratic political party]. But regardless of which left-wing party one votes for, it is absolutely necessary that Olmert and/or Livni enter this election, because there must be a major party running on a peace platform, and only they can fill the bill.

Who lost besides Netanyahu and Romney?

. . . this election was a tremendous blow to the American Jewish right, which has just been getting stronger and more extreme in step with Israel and the Republicans. It’s a blow to AIPAC and the rest of the Israel lobby. It’s a blow, of course, to Netanyahu, particularly because of his unprecedented support for one of the candidates, who happened to lose. It’s a blow to the whole Israeli right.

And they’re all connected – the Republicans, the American Jewish right, the Israel lobby, Netanyahu, Likud-Beiteinu, the settlers, the rest of the Israeli right. Jewish nationalism, all of it, from the inner core to the outer shell, just experienced an earthquake, and there’s a lot of broken stuff lying around.

Larry Derfner’s commentary underscores the fact that the presidential elections in the United States have profound consequences at home and around the world. One can only hope that America’s turn to the left will continue to weaken right-wing forces in the United States, and give Israel encouragement to elect a a more peaceful, progressive government on January 22.

The post Bibi made a bad bet appeared first on Occasional Planet.

When my friend who worked in the Obama campaign’s analytics department told me about Project ORCA, I thought he was talking about an environmental initiative to protect marine life. In our post-election, post-elation debrief, Asher relayed to me the stress he felt on election day while monitoring exit poll results. He had observed that Obama supporters were not showing up to the polls at the rates originally projected while more Romney supporters were going to the polls than projected. Upon analyzing the data, however, he found it to be weak as Obama supporters were far less likely to report back. (Collective sigh of relief.) While the Obama campaign’s “Get out to vote” (GOTV) efforts may have shown weak, troublesome data, the mechanism of reporting, analyzing, and utilizing such data worked.

Project ORCA was the Romney campaign’s sophisticated, high-tech poll-monitoring GOTV strategy. When Asher told me about its massive failure, I did not fully understand how it failed or what it’s objective was… that is, until I read the following first hand account from a Romney campaign volunteer: “The Unmitigated Disaster Known as Project Orca.”

While I am extremely happy about the outcome of the election, I can’t help but feel sorry for the tens of thousands of fired up Romney supporters whose energy was under-utilized –dare we say suppressed?—on election day. This failure mirrors the GOP’s go-to tactic of throwing money — rather than people — at an issue.

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Gaius Publius writing at Americablog comments on a recent New York Times article on this election cycle’s monstrous cost. I suggest reading the NYT article then read Gaius’ commentary here—one of two posts he is writing on money in this past election. The second post will deal with foreign contributions, which, he notes, appear to be “banned from public discourse.”

In his first post on 2012 election spending, Gaius covers the main players: Sheldon Adelson, the Koch Brothers, wrestling executive Linda McMahon, and other oligarchs and what they gave. He also mentions Joe Ricketts, owner of the Chicago Cubs who spent almost $13 million to attack President Obama on federal spending. Gaius’ comment:

See what happens when sports owners are made invisible to the fans? Fans give them their money to spend against them. Dumb; really dumb. Take that, Cubs fans. And don’t worry, there’s plenty more waiting. You give him the wherewithal, every losing season.

So will a more politicized and politically enlightened electorate put heat on elusive arch-conservative sports owners? Will fans begin to boycott games over an owner’s massive right wing political spending aimed squarely against their interests? Interesting thought as we move on from a startling election that resembled the awakening of a sleeping giant—a brown-faced electorate that will no longer tolerate Republican attempts to suppress their voices and votes.

In one of his most interesting insights, Gaius fingers corporate owned networks and TV stations as deeply invested in perpetuating our massively expensive elections. He asks:

Where did all this money go? Most of it went to the media:

Remember how I said above that the media — the networks and TV stations — were a huge part of the [election reform] problem? Most people only look at the front end of the election system. They see how Big Money buys candidates who pay them back with favorable laws, low taxes, and lack of prosecutions.

But think of the candidate as just a pass-through for the cash. The money starts somewhere (Our Betters); they give it to campaigns and campaign surrogates; tons of people take a very generous cut; and it ends up somewhere. The candidate isn’t bought with the money; the candidate is bought with electoral office.

What does most of that money actually buy? TV time. Very expensive TV time. Think for a minute from the standpoint of the network or TV station owner:

■ I the media owner have a broadcast license that, in practice, I can never lose. (I pray daily to the Great God Clinton, blessings on his name, for that one.)

■ I have a political system that allows me to charge big bucks for what used to be free — access to TV for candidates.

■ I have a campaign financing system that dumps unlimited money into the pockets of politicians and their supporters — and that money needs to be spent.

■ Who do they spend it on? Me.

As a general rule, 75% of campaign money goes to media and communications, and while I don’t have the TV numbers (national and local), I’d bet that TV accounts for the bulk of it.

And this is why we may never get low-cost uncorrupted elections. It’s not just the candidates who are corrupted. Everyone who touches that money is corrupted — especially the end-user, our national and local media. They will kill to keep things just like this. Wouldn’t you, if you were a monomaniac money-seeker (sorry, corporate-profit-responsible CEO)?

I’ll link to part 2 of Gaius’ comments on money in the 2012 election when he posts it.

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“The Democratic Caucus will bring to the 113th Congress the first Caucus where the majority is women and minorities. Our new Caucus will celebrate the great diversity and strength of our nation,” Nancy Pelosi said in an email to Democrats.

2012 marks many positive, progressive historic occurrences: a black man wins the presidency for the second time, the first openly gay female Senator (Tammy Baldwin, WI) is elected, marriage equality gets a green light in four new states (MD, ME, MN, WA), and the new Democratic caucus is made up of primarily women and minorities. To wit: 61 women, 43 African Americans, 27 Hispanics, 10 Asian Americans, and 6 LGBT Americans.

In January 2013, the Democratic caucus will most adequately represent the actual populace, in terms of demographics. This is a huge step for American equality and democracy. Traditionally, [Caucasian] males have vastly outnumbered both women and minorities in Congress and our policies on issues like reproductive rights, health care, and immigration often reflect that. Until very recently, women and minorities have not been well represented: women outnumber men overall and the minority population is increasing exponentially, set to outgrow their minority status in just a few short decades.

For those keeping track, the U.S. Senate also added two women to their ranks and women will be holding all the top government positions in New Hampshire, making it a first for any U.S. state. All of this was made possible by new record turnouts at the polls, despite rightwing-driven voter suppression efforts. Now this is progress!

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