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Photos by: joanneleon. September, 2013.
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"The Harder They Come" Jimmy Cliff
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So should we start a pool for the date and time when Obama throws Social Security and/or Medicare, Medicaid onto the government shutdown kabuki bonfire? I've campaigned against chained CPI and the zombie Catfood Commission so many times now that it's hard to drum up the activism again. I mean, when the president sets out to cut Social Security from the day he takes office (or before) and the party that controls the White House and the Senate is determined to cut Social Security and Medicare and finish the job in undermining the New Deal, and they are ready to do it even against the will of at least 80% of the country, what are our chances, realistically, of doing anything to stop it?
Is Grand Bargain still on the table? Is the Pope Catholic? Hmm.... Of course it is. The Grand Bargain is something this president will never give up on. And time is running out. This dirty work has to get wrapped up long before the 2016 election so it doesn't completely sabotage the next Democratic party candidate. Despite Harry Reid's and Nancy Pelosi's best efforts to blame it on the "terrorists" "anarchists" "fiscal arsonists" Republicans and the Tea Party, the country knows who the Grand Bargain belongs to and Americans have been surprisingly unconvinced by the two wings of the Corporate Party lately.
Like a lot of other people who have their eyes open, I've been waiting for this. Each time they try and fail to get their cuts to Social Security, we look ahead to see what their next disaster capitalism/Shock Doctrine opportunity will be because we've been watching Wall Street's demands to put Social Security and Medicare on the chopping block since Obama took office and of course before that when Bush tried it. I've decided to put the TV on for the morning news shows even though I hate them because (I know, first world problem) to see if they flip the propaganda switch and put it on the table again.
I see signs that the Tea Party is going to back down on defunding Obamacare. I have always thought that they'd settle for wounding it and that a lot of their defunding votes were Tea Party kabuki anyway. I think they'll go after the Medicaid part of it instead and based on the infamous Dick Durbin interview at a Wall Street Journal breakfast last year, which I put a lot of stock in and which I wrote about here, I think the Dem leadership will be down with that and have been planning that all along. And lo and behold, as I write this, Pat Toomey, is on Morning Joe talking about other ways they can cut Obamacare and walking back their defunding Obamacare/shutdown the government crusade. Toomey says their plan should be to chip away at Obamacare and to peel away discrete pieces. Others are talking about how Obamacare is a mess and we need to start over, and how even Warren Buffett agrees with that. We know that the unions aren't happy. Toomey is a new senator but he holds a lot of sway with fiscal issues. He was a key player in the House efforts to repeal Glass-Steagall back in the late 90's. He's saying they should start gutting it piece by piece and he's Tea Party. So it looks like they may switch gears this week. The Morning Joe show is not focused on the attack in Kenya and has put the budget battle at the top of the agenda, which is a change from the weekend reporting.
If we go back to the Durbin's revelations back in March (here's the transcript)), he wanted to form a Social Security reform commission that would function like the sequester did with proposals that get written up as law and get fast tracked through Congress with no amendments. At the time, he said he was going to bring a bill to the Senate soon to form this commission. As far as I know, he didn't do that, but I don't know what his definition of "soon" is. Now it's six months later, which could still be considered "soon", so possibly he make the creation of the commission part of the budget deal. But he also talked about Medicare and Medicaid and had some really interesting, and frankly very despicable things to say about how to cut those. Basically he said that Medicare advocates are more sophisticated than Medicaid advocates, so it's going to be harder to cut Medicare. So it would not surprise me at all to find that Democrats would put the Medicaid expansion part of Obamacare on the table as one of the pieces for Toomey to "peel away", which would hurt those without a voice and without any power most.
The question that I have right now is about whether we should prepare for some activism now and at least organize a blogathon, or something, because when it comes, it will come quickly and the government shutdown date has become a hard deadline (though it always fascinates me how the White House can decide what that hard date is after robbing Peter to pay Paul for months after the actual debt ceiling deadline, and it's interesting how it didn't fall on a date when Congress was on recess, etc.). There are a couple of progressive organizations who, to date, have had their ear to the ground on this and have done some good organizing. One, of course, is Social Security Defenders and the other is Campaign for America's Future. They've been both vigilant and have pulled the progressive movement, or what's left of it, together in the past and have created some formidable push back campaigns. I haven't been following them as closely as usual so when I checked their site today, the story that is at the top of their page is Richard Eskow's Why We Should Fear – and Fight – An Entitlement-Cutting "Grand Bargain".
So now that I've spent too many words making my point, my bottom line is that my guess is that, starting today, the government shutdown kabuki will pivot and that several things will be put on the table. The Zombie Grand Bargain will be back, with either chained CPI cuts or Dick Durbin's reform commission shoved into the bill. Medicare probably won't be part of the deal because changes to Medicare are already baked into Obamacare. But Medicaid will be on the chopping block. The sequester cuts will be reduced, which will be sold as relief from the great pain caused by said (White House designed) sequester. Remember, the purpose of the WH designed sequester was to force Democrats to the table to cut Social Security. This was revealed by one of its designers, Gene Sperling, the Clinton retread Rubinite from Goldman Sachs, who has submitted his resignation, by the way, and that resignation makes me even more convinced that the Grand Bargain zombie is happening.
Joe Firestone over at Naked Capitalism thinks Obama and the Dem leadership will be using the government shutdown threat as a way to roll the Zombie Grand Bargain. He lays out five options that Obama has but it not using and says he is using the Tea Party villain kabuki to achieve his goal of cutting Social Security. I've been waiting for this. If it does happen, they'll put it in there at the eleventh hour, against the will of almost every voter in the country, based on past polls.
Joe Firestone: Stop the Kabuki: It’s About “the Great Betrayal”
TINA does not apply in this case, and the President’s choices are not limited to just refusing to negotiate or giving in to defunding Obamacare. By framing things in this way, the media are echoing the Administration’s framing of the situation and absolving the President of his share of the blame for the crisis. They are also preparing the way for a compromise, that if it doesn’t defund Obamacare, will, almost certainly, result in hurtful cuts to Government spending including renewed consideration of the Great Betrayal, also known as the Grand Bargain, and probably passage of the chained CPI cuts to Social Security over the objections of a large majority of the American people.
[...]
Yves Smith used the list in this recent post to make the point:
“. . . the larger point is that this budgetary Battle of the Titans is a phony war. Obama can finesse the Republicans if he needs to. . . .
So hang tight for way too much unnecessary melodrama over the next month. It’s another round of watching the two parties play chicken, with each posturing that it won’t be the one to steer out of the impending crash. The fact is that Obama really wants his Grand Bargain. All of this high drama is necessary for him to pretend to his base that he was forced to do what he’s been trying to do for years: sacrifice old people since he perversely believes that “reforming” Social Security and Medicare will get him brownie points in the presidential legacy ledger. . . .
[...]
In addition, the Grand Bargain, along with the upcoming Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TAFTA) are three more nails in the coffin of the middle class. We must not let him, the corporate partisans in both parties, and the cable networks drive the first of these nails home by getting people to accept their narrative about the issues involved here.
To stop it from coming about, the first thing we must do is unmask (as Naked Capitalism and many others have been trying to do) the news networks, the cable media, and the village progressives like Ezra Klein, as actively attempting to constrain debate by ignoring the options the President has, apart from a simple “I will not negotiate, or I must cave stance.” Let us make them come to grips with the alternatives and, in doing so, spread the news that there are a number available, and that whatever unpalatable compromises the President proposes, are his choices and his fault; not necessary expedients, he is being forced into because he has no effective weapons to use in countering the Republicans using the debt limit law to take hostages.
Yves Smith.
Budget Brinksmanship is Baaack!
Now all this pearl-clutching perpetuates the canard that Obama could be forced to shut the government down to preserve cash in order to avoid defaulting on Treasuries. No, folks, even if the Republicans miscalculate, Obama can easily prevent a crisis, so if the government indeed were to shut down, it’s entirely his doing. Ditto with diluting or delaying Obamacare or making any other concession.
Joe Firestone describes how the mouthpiece of Democratic orthodoxy, Ezra Klein, is “terrified” because Boehner has lost control of the rank and file, which is determined to play hardball, and Obama is similarly refusing to negotiate.
[...]
But here’s a full list of the ways out of this impasse:
1. a selective default strategy by the Executive, prioritizing not paying for things that Congress needed, and perhaps not paying debt to the Fed when it falls due and working with the Fed to get the $1.6 Trillion in bonds that it was holding canceled;
[...]
Of all the items on the list, option 1 looks far and away the most likely, although an Administration with more guts might try a bit of option 2 along with it.
[...]
The fact is that Obama really wants his Grand Bargain. All of this high drama is necessary for him to pretend to his base that he was forced to do what he’s been trying to do for years: sacrifice old people since he perversely believes that “reforming” Social Security and Medicare will get him brownie points in the presidential legacy ledger. This staged impasse is hard to take it as seriously until there’s evidence that this iteration of budget farce really is different from its predecessors.
I agree with Richard Eskow. But it's not a "face saving deal". Please. It's been the plan all along. Now my question to Eskow is why aren't you organizing like you've done before?
Why We Should Fear – and Fight – An Entitlement-Cutting “Grand Bargain”
It’s autumn, when a politician’s fancy turns to thoughts of a Grand Bargain.
Right now it looks as if the two sides are at an impasse. But the President’s “no negotiations” posture only applies to the debt ceiling, and his budget still includes the “chained CPI” cut to Social Security. The Republicans who are attempting to force a showdown over Obamacare are still railing against the programs they call “entitlements.”
They’re all looking for a face-saving deal, and Social Security and Medicare could very well become that deal’s Ground Zero.
[Emphasis added]
That independent, not a Clapper led, NSA review panel?
CLOSE TIES BETWEEN WHITE HOUSE, NSA SPYING REVIEW
WASHINGTON (AP) — Stung by public unease about new details of spying by the National Security Agency, President Barack Obama selected a panel of advisers he described as independent experts to scrutinize the NSA's surveillance programs to be sure they weren't violating civil liberties and to restore Americans' trust.
But with just weeks remaining before its first deadline to report back to the White House, the review panel has effectively been operating as an arm of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees the NSA and all other U.S. spy efforts.
The panel's advisers work in offices on loan from the DNI. Interview requests and press statements from the review panel are carefully coordinated through the DNI's press office. James Clapper, the intelligence director, exempted the panel from U.S. rules that require federal committees to conduct their business and their meetings in ways the public can observe. Its final report, when it's issued, will be submitted for White House approval before the public can read it.
[...]
The panel's advisers work in offices on loan from the DNI. Interview requests and press statements from the review panel are carefully coordinated through the DNI's press office. James Clapper, the intelligence director, exempted the panel from U.S. rules that require federal committees to conduct their business and their meetings in ways the public can observe. Its final report, when it's issued, will be submitted for White House approval before the public can read it.
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