The editorial page of the New York Times today attacked Senator Chris Dodd for his receipt of fundraising contributions from pay day lenders and, according to them, subsequently not acting to reform pay day lending laws to cap interest rates.  They write:

Forget what it looked like, this was a private fund-raiser by Mr. Johnson for his friend Mr. Dodd, not payday lenders wooing a senator whose committee was considering a bill that could seriously cramp their business.

That bill, sponsored by Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, caps interest rates on consumer loans at 36 percent. That’s the reasonable limit that Congress placed on loans to members of the armed forces.

Mr. Dodd, who was recently praised after Congress passed a bill limiting abuses by credit-card companies, should follow the same crusading impulse to go after the egregious exploitation of payday loans. He should avoid even the slightest hint that he is cozying up to it.

Unfortunately, the Times has gone off more than half-cocked.  Dodd not only supports reforming pay day lending and has voted for it repeatedly in the past, but he’s a cosponsor of the Durbin legislation in question.

On May 13th, Dodd voted was one of only 33 senators to vote in favor of Bernie Saunders amendment to provide even stricter interest rate caps than the Durbin legislation.

On May 23rd, the Hartford Courant reported:

In a conference call with reporters Friday, Dodd said there are still two major issues that remain unfinished business: a cap on interest rates and limits on fees that merchants pay when a customer uses a credit card for a purchase.

You can go back in history and see many other votes and other statements that have shown Chris Dodd’s commitment to protecting worker Americans’ interests when it comes to usurious lending. But what is most stunning is that the Times ran an editorial criticizing Dodd for being so close to pay day lenders that he wouldn’t support legislation capping their interest rates when he is a cosponsor of the legislation in question.

I don’t know if the NY Times knew that Dodd had cosponsored this legislation when they chose to run their op-ed. I hope that it’s the case that they simply failed to do their basic fact checking before running it. Because if the Times knew that Dodd had cosponsored this legislation yesterday, it would mean that they ran an op-ed attacking a senator for giving undue influence to contributors and not sticking up for working Americans when they knew that he in fact was doing the exact opposite of what his contributors want and is standing up for working Americans.

It’s quite common elected officials to receive campaign contributions from corporations and industries that they’re trying to regulate. The act of them receiving this money, while not always savory, does not in itself constitute any form of obligation for the official to act on the corporation or industry’s behalf. In fact, it can be an opportunity for a public servant to show that they are beholden to no one other than the interests of the voting public.

That’s precisely what Chris Dodd has done when it comes to any number of financial players who have contributed to his campaigns over the years. From banks to credit card companies to the insurance industry and now, especially, pay day lenders, Dodd has held true to his Democratic values of protecting the interests of working Americans and not been swayed by campaign lucre.

What’s so unfortunate is that the New York Times is unwilling or incapable of identifying the clear difference  between the people who give Dodd money and the interests on whose behalf Dodd legislates. The two aren’t even in the same ballpark.

The simple fact is that the New York Times fundamentally missed the mark in their editorial attacking Chris Dodd. At best the attack comes from a failure to do their due diligence before publishing. At worst, the Times has maliciously attacked a man for doing precisely what they say he should be doing.

Update:

Tparty at My Left Nutmeg adds more:

As both Chair of the Banking Committee and a  vulnerable incumbent up for re-election, Dodd will continue to be a huge target for those looking to influence politics and/or policy on all sides, and sorting through competing arguments and knocking down spurious claims is apparently going to be a challenge for a traditional media still largely uninterested in doing that type of real work. But at the very least, Dodd deserves accurate reporting and praise when he does the right thing, even if that means re-writing an editorial before it goes to press - or printing a correction after it does.

I’d have to imagine Senator Dodd is pushing for a correction to the editorial. Who knows if they’ll get it? But unfortunately more people will read this editorial than will read the correction, even if it is forthcoming.

(originally posted at Hold Fast Blog)

Matt Browner-Hamlin is a writer, activist, and organizer living in Washington DC. He currently works at SEIU and previously worked on Chris Dodd’s presidential campaign and Mark Begich’s Senate campaign. This post represents his views alone and does not represent his employer or former employers.

The media continues to represent the country’s attitudes by thrusting immoderates into the limelight. On the Sunday news shows, the freaks like George Wills and Pat Buchanans are lined up beside Dr. Paul Krugman and Sen. Patrick Leahy, as if they had the weight and soundness of real intellects.

The results are dismally predictable. Craziness sounds like sanity, so the careless listener gives it credit. We get opinions that poll as if the entire constituency of the country were gaga. Today’s AP poll results were released, and we who keep pounding out facts and trying to counterbalance the lies are discouraged.

What is the majority convinced of by bad information?

Torture is okay if it gives good results, even though (1) it’s illegal and unconstitutional and (2) the results of torture are known to be unusable as actual intelligence.

Closing Gitmo is okay, but not if it’s hard work.

Just over half of Americans say torture is at least sometimes justified to thwart terrorist attacks and are evenly divided over whether to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, according to a poll that underscores the challenges President Barack Obama faces in selling his terror-fighting policies.
(snip)
A novice commander in chief, Obama risks further defeat of his policies in Congress and disapproval of them abroad if he can’t get the public on board. Thus, he’s making a tough sell.

For now at least, the AP-GfK poll shows most Americans have faith in him, with 70 percent saying they are confident of Obama’s ability to address terrorism. That’s divided along party lines, with nearly all Democrats, two-thirds of independents and just over a third of Republicans expressing confidence.

Nearly eight years after terrorists struck on U.S. soil, more than a third of Americans say they worry about the chance that they or their relatives might fall victim to a terrorist attack — essentially unchanged from 35 percent five years ago.

While the total failures of the ideology that prevailed through disgusting tactics for eight years has had some effect of alienating the afflicted public, continuing media coverage of war criminals that erases their crimes works against their outright rejection.

Folks, we need to be clearer. Prosecution is going to have to follow crime, and the polls show it. While they knew they were being robbed, your average Joes/Janes are just not making the connection that the folks who were robbing them were the ones charged with enforcing the laws. We don’t make the point until we actually do enforce them.

The media doesn’t do its job until we give it no choice.

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The TX legislature adjourned without doing its basic job. A very good coverage of this is at jobsanger;

…..the Republicans spent a large part of the session trying to pass a voter suppression bill (which they called the Voter ID bill). The Republicans know the political winds are currently blowing against them. They have only two choices — moderate their views and appeal to a broader range of voters or suppress as many votes as possible. These right-wing nuts chose voter suppression.

The voter suppression bill easily passed the Republican-dominated Senate, but was killed in the House (where there are 76 Repubs and 74 Dems). The only hope to revive the bill is to force the governor to call a “special session” of the legislature. That is why the Senate refused to pass the resolution to keep TxDOT alive for another two years. If they had passed it, there would be no reason for a special session to be called.

So don’t be surprised when the governor calls for a special session to save TxDOT. And don’t be surprised when a voter suppression bill is added to the special session agenda. That’s what this whole mess is about.

We have a whole mess of recidivists in Austin keeping the government from protecting the citizens. It’s gotten closer in numbers, the Democrats are close to balance now. We have to push harder.

(This post also at http://cabdrollery.blogspot.com/ )

I’ve said this before, but our field operation is why we’ll win this health care reform fight. However, I’ve never taken the time to really explain how our field works and why it’s effective.

Today, Margarida Jorge, our field director, spoke at America’s Future Now, explaining why HCAN is structured how it is and why it really works.

Put simply, our strategy is focused around moving members of Congress. Everything the field does is designed to move their specific targets in their states. That means that what we do is not tactic-driven. We don’t say, “Hey, if we can only get 1 million people to march on the Mall in Washington, we’ll win health care.” As Margarida said, “This is just not so.” Each Member of Congress we need to move has their own specific requirements. For example, Olympia Snowe in Maine cares a lot about small business, and so our field in Maine has a large focus on organizing small businesses for health reform. The states then devise the tactics, whether it be protests, marches, town halls, or in-person meetings, that will move that member of Congress.

Another unique feature of our field, built out of this Congress-centric focus, is our method of getting buy-in. All the strategic decisions, and all of the tactical planning, are either initiated or approved by each of our field organizations. This means that at every level of the campaign, people organizing out in the states have a hand in the direction of this campaign. They are very invested in what we’re doing, because what we’re doing is what they want to be doing and what they proposed we do. This helps foster buy-in, enthusiasm, and accountability on all levels.

Lastly, we hope that with our field program, we will be building long-term progressive infrastructure. We put a high priority on building in-state coalitions. The hope is that if these coalitions of state groups (community organizations, labor, faith groups, small business, etc…) will learn how to win a national reform goal together, and will take that experience and connection on to the next fight. In a lot of states with smaller progressive infrastructure, this kind of organizing is new and will be very powerful for the next fight. And in some states, where progressive infrastructure is established, this model helps them work with national groups in a new way for a shared goal.

This is a hybrid model - retail organizing, community organizing, national organizing, online organizing. It’s not without problems, but it has been powerful. So far, it’s responsible for getting 192 members of Congress to sign on to strong principles for health reform, and it will be responsible for corralling the remaining reticent members to get them to do the right thing for everyone in American - passing quality, affordable health care for all.

(also posted at the NOW! blog)

The big number the press will concentrate on today, from the press conference today launching America’s Future Now and progressive health care campaigns, is $82 million:

Progressive groups are poised to spend more than $82 million to support President Obama’s goal of achieving quality, affordable health care for all this year, according to leaders gathered today at the “America’s Future Now” conference in Washington.

Truth be told, it is a big number. But if you think for one second that the insurance industry or the drug industry couldn’t double or triple that in a push against health care reform if they want to, you’ve got another thing coming. $82 million is chump change to big PhRMA.

The real story today is the fact that progressives are united behind President Obama’s health care plan:

Participants in the effort include the Health Care for America Now campaign; the two main labor federations, the AFL-CIO and Change To Win; as well as MoveOn.org, Democracy for America and mobilization groups representing people of color, women and young people. The various organizations serve different functions, with the bulk of the spending financing advertising and grassroots organizing on- and off-line across the country.

The collective effort involves the more than 1,000 organizations that are part of Health Care for America Now, representing over 30 million members committed to winning a guarantee of quality, affordable health care for all this year. It is the largest national progressive issue campaign in history, one that was lacking when President Clinton’s health care proposals were defeated by the health care industry and conservative groups more than a decade ago.

This is where our strength comes from, and this is why we will win. We can mobilize America, and we have voters on our side.

It is this level of organization and coordination with will move health care reform through Congress and on to the President’s desk. It is our ability to talk to broad swaths of America, to mobilize volunteers to go door-to-door, and to get voters to contact their Members of Congress that will manifest the public pressure we’ll need to pass historic legislation.

And of course, this contrasts pretty strongly with what’s happening on the conservative side of the spectrum. There is a war for the GOP going on between moderates and hard-line conservatives. They’re attention is diverted and unity is hard to find. As has been noted elsewhere, Republicans have been fairly silent on health reform, and a lot of their natural constituencies (big business, the insurance industry) are ostensibly on the side of reform.

There is a reason we have unity over health care - it’s because it is perhaps the most important issue that touches everyone in America every day. Reforming health care will do more for the average person in America than anything that has been passed by progressives in the last 40 years. America knows this, and progressive groups know this. As Dr. Howard Dean said at the press conference today, “This is a center-left country.”

And so, we’re united in working to bring this change to America, change that America wants and needs.

(also posted at the NOW! blog)

From time to time, events unfold that are so large in scope, so all-encompassing in their implications that one’s initial response is muted by an inability to categorize it all within the realm of experience. Previous reference points prove of little service. One’s image of oneself and one’s place in the world is under siege, perhaps even in danger of being torn away. One stare’s into the abyss, until the abyss removes its dark shades and makes direct eye contact. The mind buzzes; one’s thoughts scuttle in circles like stunned insects.

On a collective basis, we as a nation are living through such a time. At present, we are witnessing the descending spiral of Icarusian Capitalism; our sacred delusion of the perpetual ascendancy of a god-like market place lies broken in the dust. Malls and McMansions stand abandoned, desolate as the edifices of forgotten gods, as the come-ons of the salesmen of deregulated capitalism are churned to spittle amid a cacophony of collapsing market platitudes.

And not an uptick in public optimism, nor a surge of euphoria on Wall Street, nor the “invisible hand of the marketplace” sprinkling pixie dust will bring back the Olympian days of 2005, when the wise men of Washington and Wall Street knew the force of gravity was just a myth believed in by those embittered prophets of doom whose only joy in life is fantasizing the fall of their wealthy betters. It does not matter a damn how many dollars our present day believers of neoliberal tall tales, President Obama and Treasury Secretary Geithner, pour into the hole in the ground where the crash occurred, a beanstalk twining skyward towards a golden, debt-negating goose will not flower forth.

Fortunately, when false convictions fall, it is possible for a leveling of sanity to prevail. But there can be no more hubristic flights borne on waxen wings. No more multibillion dollar confidence scams from Wall Street. No more smash and grab imperial wars. No more tea parties for the dim and deranged. There is the banality of evil, and then there is the evil of banality. The present era has produced both in abundance. From about the late nineteen-seventies to the present, The United States all but ceased manufacturing products and went into the business of manufacturing marketplace hype, baseless fears, and illusionary enemies. Due to this economic and cultural derangement, a dark tower of self-imprisoning delusions has circumscribed our nation’s fate. Is it any wonder the quintessential dark lord of the darkest tower, Dick Cheney, will not exit the scene?

And what will foster real change? Not pleasing sound bites and rousing oratory from President Obama, then a continuance of many of the pernicious policies of his criminal predecessors. Conversely, the iron gates of Hell must crash closed behind us. The absence of light must grow so unbearable to us that we’re willing to ask how is it we arrived in this place and become willing to challenge our most cherished concepts about ourselves and our place in the scheme of things. That is the sort of “indefinite detention” the nation could use. What is needed is the audacity of hopelessness.

Starbucks’ social media ad campaign is a great illustration of the kinds of dynamics I’ve been talking about in the Lessons from Skittles for poets and activists series. In yet another example of Twitter’s buzz-creation power, the campaign got coverage in the NY Times and Time even before launching. On the other hand, in Skittles and infowar I concluded that anybody engaging in Twitter-based marketing or activism should expect interference … and that’s just what happens here.

Simon Owens has a good summary on Bloggasm:

Unfortunately for Starbucks, liberal activist and filmmaker Robert Greenwald, founder of Brave New Films, came across that Times article early Tuesday morning. Greenwald, who has directed films for major studios and launched Brave New Films a few years ago, had been working for months on shooting an anti-Starbucks video that debuted on YouTube that very day. The mini-documentary features interviews with several former and current Starbucks employees and makes the argument that the company — despite popular perception that it treats its employees well — has unfair labor practices and has aggressively fought off union organizing.

In defending the decision to torture detainees, Dick Cheney (as well as his daughter, and other defenders of torture) have insisted that the only relevant question to ask is: did it work?  This is a rather limited way to think about waterboarding and other forms of torture that the Bush-Cheney administration seems to have authorized.  Setting aside the question of whether torture “worked” and saved even a single life (and there are serious questions about this, to say the least, including reporting that Cheney authorized waterboarding in an effort to force “confessions” about a non-existent link between Iraq and Al Qaeda ), Cheney’s view of the issue completely ignores what should be the elephant in the room: waterboarding and other forms of torture are illegal, and U.S. law does not allow the president or vice president to set aside the law at their whim.

It’s amazing that anyone has to make this point: Nixon became infamous for claiming that if the president does something, by definition it is not illegal–but that is essentially what Cheney is saying.  I should say, it seems to be what he is saying–no one in the traditional media ever seems to ask Cheney, or his daughter, or other defenders of torture, a simple question: under what circumstances, if any, can the president set aside federal statutory law, international treaties, and the U.S. Constitution?  I would think the answer would be “none”, unless you think the president is above the law.  Cheney’s argument–that the only relevant question to ask about torture is whether it worked–depends on the assumption that the president and his administration can, at least in some circumstances, authorize lawbreaking.

If Bush and Cheney believed torture was needed to save American lives, then they should have argued for a change to governing laws.  Instead, they seem to have unilaterally decided that they could simply disregard the law (much as they decided when they set aside FISA to authorize surveillance that was plainly illegal under federal law and the U.S. Constitution).

I will give Cheney credit for one thing–he knows how to work the traditional media, which is buying into his tunnelvision way of looking at the world.  In today’s Washington Post, Kathleen Parker was impressed by Cheney’s argument that the public needs to know what information was gained by torture, concluding that “this is just what the nation needs”.    Does it matter to Parker that the torture itself was illegal?  She says nothing about this point, having accepted Cheney’s rules of debate–the only thing that matters is whether torture worked, not whether the administration broke the law in authorizing it.

Similarly, David Broder, also in today’s Post, accepts Cheney’s formulation, focusing on the question of whether there is “proof…that would let laymen judge Cheney’s assertion that the methods Obama now has banned were necessary to prevent a second Sept. 11.”   Broder’s words wrongly suggest that waterboarding was legal before Obama prohibited them: that is simply not so.  As recently as 1983, we prosecuted people for waterboarding (and the waterboarders were sentenced to 10 year prison terms).  Nothing changed after 1983 to make waterboarding legal.

Obama has to be blamed as well for Broder’s wording–in his speech last week, Obama used a similar formulation that suggested waterboarding is only “now” prohibited.

That is simply not true.  The traditional media is missing this crucial point when it accepts Cheney’s argument that all that matters is whether torture works.  What Cheney is really saying is that the president and vice president can decide to set aside the law at their whim.  If they decide that rescinding free speech protections, setting aside constitutionally required criminal trial procedures, or rounding up groups of Americans for detention are needed to save lives, then, by Cheney’s logic, they are justified in doing so.  The only thing that matters, after all, is whether their decision “works” — the fact that such actions would violate the Constitution is of no moment.

Cheney’s argument is Nixon’s: if the president, or vice president, does something, then, by definition, it is legal.  The only relevant question to ask is whether a decision to break the law saves lives.  That is obviously an appealing argument to the traditional media, but it is, quite simply, an argument that the rule of law does not govern presidential action.  Cheney’s argument depends on fear, but it should be pretty scary to realize that his argument also depends on a Nixonian view of the executive branch that substitutes authoritarianism for democracy.

Over the last 30 years, the Republican party has played a dangerous game with the religious right, buying their support by paying lip service to the right-wing religious on reproductive rights, discrimination against the LGBT community, and breaking down the boundary between church and state.  The party’s decision to court the radical religious right, taking their extreme positions seriously and giving them the cover needed to appear mainstream, has had profound consequences for American politics.  We have reached a point where a first-tier Republican presidential candidate (Mike Huckabee) could openly call for theocracy, saying the Constitution must be changed to match “God’s standards” and not disqualify himself from consideration.

I have great respect for religious freedom, but, as the radical religious right has injected its views into politics at every level, it is perfectly appropriate to note just how extreme this movement is.  One recent example caught my eye.  Liberty University, the school founded by Jerry Falwell, decided to revoke its recognition of the campus Democratic club.  In explaining the decision, the school’s vice president of student affairs said that “Among other things, Liberty University stands for the sanctity of human life.  The loss of human life is a great tragedy and we cannot remain silent when the political policies or politicians themselves promote the destruction of innocent human life.  While those who are members of the LU Democratic club are well-intentioned and honorable, the platform and policies of the national Democratic party, and the candidates supported by that party, and thus the student organization itself, are inconsistent with the mission of the University.” Or, as the club’s staff advisor said the vice president explained it to her, “You can’t be a Democrat and be a Christian…” (the vice president denied saying this).

Ugly, ugly stuff.  We shouldn’t have religious tests in politics–in fact, the Constitution expressly forbids it.  But the good folks at Liberty University think otherwise–they have solemnly concluded that the Democratic party is a party that stands for the destruction of human life, and that its policies are inconsistent with the mission of the University — which is “to develop Christ-centered men and women…”  So, the school’s vice president may bob and weave, but his own words make clear that the Democratic party’s platform and policies are inconsistent with developing “Christ-centered men and women…”–in other words, you can’t be a Democrat and a Christian.

I find it disgusting that anyone would denounce the Democrats as un-Christian, but leaving that aside for the moment, why is it that the radical religious right makes abortion the only litmus test for judging the faith of politicians and political parties?  Liberty’s statement says the school “stands for the sanctity of human life”.  Why do they give the Republican party a pass on the death penalty, or on the war in Irq, which has killed more than its share of innocent civillians, including children?

The unholy alliance between the Republican party and the radical religious right is an affront to the Constitution, especially in the sense that religious righties have expressly developed a religious test for politicians, one that invariably places abortion as the make or break issue.  If these extremists insist on forcing their sanctimonious tests into political discussion, can they at least explain why they give Republicans a pass on issues like the death penalty?

The right-wing attack on health care is coming into full view. Not surprisingly, they’ve settled on a tried and too-often true strategy: scare the @@#% out people. Health care reform will be defined as a “government-takeover.” The result of government-run health care will be long lines, waiting for treatment, not getting the treatment you need, not being able to choose your doctor or hospital. Health care reform is government rationing and Washington bureaucrats running the health care system.

While It started this winter with Rush Limbaugh’s reaction to the health proposals in the Presidents Economic Recovery bill, the message was given a huge boost a few days ago when Republican message meister Frank Luntz briefed Republicans in the House on “The Language of Health Care 2009: The 10 Rules for Stopping the ‘Washington Takeover’ of Healthcare.”

Luntz’s message is already being used by Republicans in the Senate and House. South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint published an article this week in which he said: “That’s how a government take-over of your health care will try to get costs under control: cheap, outdated treatments, long waiting lists, and low-tech hospitals. It won’t take long before families realize the true costs of such a plan aren’t counted in dollars and sense.”

Now Rick Scott, the disgraced former head of Columbia/HCA, is running ads on TV talking about people in England who have died because of government health care.

Will this message work? Not if we get our message out in response. The big problem with the Republican strategy to, as Luntz said, “kill what they’re [Democrats] trying to do,” is revealed in Luntz’s memo: “…because the American people blame the insurance companies more than almost anybody else for why health care is such a mess in this country right now.”

Everyday people in America get their health care denied by insurance company bureaucrats, directed by insurance company CEOs who make millions of dollars a year, flying around in their corporate jets, paid for by hiking your premiums, denying you the care you need and coming in-between you and your doctor.
The American people know that. We have to remind them.

Take a look at this exchange between me and John Roberts, the host of CNN’s American Morning, last week (you can also watch it here):

I’ve long argued that the word bipartisanship’s definition is fungible. It means nothing on its own, and can have very different definitions in different contexts. But, because it carries a connotation of political harmony and consensus that the national press corps finds so appealing, it can be a very useful tool.

Everything was bipartisan in the Bush era, of course. But under Bush, bipartisan meant Democrats rolling over, giving Republicans what they wanted, and then voting with the GOP. Now, perhaps, Obama is changing the definition.

As reported by the New York Times, Republican obstructionism may be showing some cracks:

Scores of House Republicans joined Democrats in recent days in pushing through measures meant to rein in credit card companies, increase federal resources to pursue financial fraud and crack down on predatory housing lenders — all legislation opposed by top House Republicans. On the credit card and financial fraud bills, only a minority of Republicans ended up opposing them.

…

Democrats say the fracturing suggests that rank-and-file Republicans are growing nervous about their leadership’s near-blanket opposition to the agenda that Congressional Democrats and President Obama are pursuing, particularly on measures that have obvious popular appeal.

Republicans should be very nervous about being labeled the party of no. It’s not a very good way to win elections, especially in the midst of a crisis. And because they are nervous, they may begin showing “bipartisanship.” By that I mean they may start rolling over and giving Democrats what they want, just like Democrats did in the Bush years.

Obama certainly ran on bipartisanship, but he ran more on the connotation than the practice. And so, he is free to redefine it as he goes. Certainly, he tried to play it straight in the beginning of his term and paid the price with the Judd Gregg pick and the way the economic recovery negotiations were handled. But signs point to Obama getting smart about bipartisanship. For example, his personal insistence on reconciliation for health care says to me getting things done is his top priority.

And so, I’m looking forward to this new bipartisan era. If Republicans want to come along with Democrats, they should feel welcome.