Fold/Spindle/Mutilate 2.1

(Obama’s Core Team at press conference on Obama administration’s 100th day)

Steve Clemons
Publisher of “The Washington Note”

Financial Times Washington Bureau Chief Edward Luce has written a granularly informed insider account about those who hold the keys to the inner most sanctum of Obama Land — Rahm Emanuel, Robert Gibbs, Valerie Jarrett and David Axelrod.

It’s a vital article — a brave one — that includes “dozens of interviews with his closest allies and friends in Washington.”

Most are unnamed because the consequences of retribution from this powerful foursome can be severe in an access-dependent town. John Podesta, president of the powerful, administration-tilting Center for American Progress, had the temerity and self-confidence to put his thoughts publicly on the record. But most others could not.

Mark Schmitt, executive editor of the liberal magazine the American Prospect, wrote that “Luce has written what seems to me the best and most succinct rundown of what’s gone wrong in the White House, with particular attention to the role of Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.” But some of the big aggregators out there — Mike Allen at Politico and ABC’s The Note among others — didn’t give Luce’s juicy and lengthy essay any love.

Why not? Allen is a good friend of mine and tries to keep a good balance between tough-hitting political stuff, but also goes out of his way to give strokes to those in the White House he can — particularly “Axe” — who is a regular in Mike’s daily Playbook. I try to do the same, to be honest, and have a particular thing for Bill Burton’s wit and was pleased to see Rahm Emanuel giving David Geffen rather than Rick Warren lots of hugs during the Inauguration eve fests.

But this Luce piece is unavoidably, accurately hard-hitting, and while many of the nation’s top news anchors and editors are sending emails back and forth (I have been sent three such emails in confidence) on what a spot-on piece Luce wrought on the administration, they fear that the “four horsepersons of the Obama White House” will shut down and cut off access to those who give the essay ‘legs.’

But in the too regularly vapid chatter about DC’s political scene, serious critiques of the internal game around Obama not only deserve review on their own merits but have to be read — because Obama is not winning. He is failing and people need to consider why.

Any serious survey of the Obama administration’s accomplishments and setbacks over the last year has to conclude that the administration is deeply in the red.

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The team seen most often in the Oval Office

By Edward Luce

David Axelrod, senior adviser A former journalist on the Chicago Tribune who quit to set up a political advertising firm, Mr Axelrod, 54, is Barack Obama’s longest-standing mentor, from his days in Chicago politics. Always at the candidate’s side during the election campaign, he is the chief defender of the Obama brand. Still a journalist at heart, he describes himself as having been “posted to Washington”.

Robert Gibbs, communications chief

The most visible face of the White House for his sardonic daily briefings. Mr Gibbs, 38, is perhaps the least likely member of the circle – he is a career Democratic press officer from Alabama who quit John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign and shortly afterwards went to work for Senator Obama. A constant presence during the campaign, he is also seen as a keeper of the flame.

Rahm Emanuel, chief of staff

The best story about Mr Emanuel, 50, concerns the dead fish he delivered to a pollster who displeased him. The least honey-tongued politician in Washington, he is also one of the most effective. Friends say he is relentlessly energetic, critics that he has attention deficit disorder. He has enemies but even detractors concede he may well achieve his aim of becoming the first Jewish speaker of the House of Representatives.

Valerie Jarrett, senior adviser

An old friend of the Obamas, having hired Michelle to work in Chicago politics in the early 1990s, Ms Jarrett, 53, is probably the first family’s most intimate White House confidante. A former businessperson and aide to Richard Daley, mayor of Chicago, she was briefly considered as a candidate to fill Mr Obama’s Senate seat. She was part of the circle he consulted before running for president.

At a crucial stage in the Democratic primaries in late 2007, Barack Obama rejuvenated his campaign with a barnstorming speech, in which he ended on a promise of what his victory would produce: “A nation healed. A world repaired. An America that believes again.”

Just over a year into his tenure, America’s 44th president governs a bitterly divided nation, a world increasingly hard to manage and an America that seems more disillusioned than ever with Washington’s ways. What went wrong?

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By GRETCHEN MORGENSON and LOUISE STORY

Billions of dollars were at stake when 21 executives of Goldman Sachs and the American International Group convened a conference call on Jan. 28, 2008, to try to resolve a rancorous dispute that had been escalating for months.

A.I.G. had long insured complex mortgage securities owned by Goldman and other firms against possible defaults. With the housing crisis deepening, A.I.G., once the world’s biggest insurer, had already paid Goldman $2 billion to cover losses the bank said it might suffer.

A.I.G. executives wanted some of its money back, insisting that Goldman — like a homeowner overestimating the damages in a storm to get a bigger insurance payment — had inflated the potential losses. Goldman countered that it was owed even more, while also resisting consulting with third parties to help estimate a value for the securities.

After more than an hour of debate, the two sides on the call signed off with nothing settled, according to internal A.I.G. documents and an audio recording reviewed by The New York Times.

Behind-the-scenes disputes over huge sums are common in banking, but the standoff between A.I.G. and Goldman would become one of the most momentous in Wall Street history. Well before the federal government bailed out A.I.G. in September 2008, Goldman’s demands for billions of dollars from the insurer helped put it in a precarious financial position by bleeding much-needed cash. That ultimately provoked the government to step in.

With taxpayer assistance to A.I.G. currently totaling $180 billion, regulatory and Congressional scrutiny of Goldman’s role in the insurer’s downfall is increasing. The Securities and Exchange Commission is examining the payment demands that a number of firms — most prominently Goldman — made during 2007 and 2008 as the mortgage market imploded.

The S.E.C. wants to know whether any of the demands improperly distressed the mortgage market, according to people briefed on the matter who requested anonymity because the inquiry was intended to be confidential.

In just the year before the A.I.G. bailout, Goldman collected more than $7 billion from A.I.G. And Goldman received billions more after the rescue. Though other banks also benefited, Goldman received more taxpayer money, $12.9 billion, than any other firm.

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YOUR CHOICE OF ONE OF THE NEW BUMPER STICKERS FOR NO CHARGE!

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by Jonathan Owen and Paul Bignell

An orchestrated campaign is being waged against climate change science to undermine public acceptance of man-made global warming, environment experts claimed last night.

Stephen McIntyre, who runs climateaudit.org, part of a network of climate change sceptics.

The attack against scientists supportive of the idea of man-made climate change has grown in ferocity since the leak of thousands of documents on the subject from the University of East Anglia (UEA) on the eve of the Copenhagen climate summit last December.Free-market, anti-climate change think-tanks such as the Atlas Economic Research Foundation in the US and the International Policy Network in the UK have received grants totalling hundreds of thousands of pounds from the multinational energy company ExxonMobil. Both organisations have funded international seminars pulling together climate change deniers from across the globe.

Many of these critics have broadcast material from the leaked UEA emails to undermine climate change predictions and to highlight errors in claims that the Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. Professor Phil Jones, who has temporarily stood down as director of UEA’s climactic research unit, is reported in today’s Sunday Times to have “several times” considered suicide. He also drew parallels between his case and that of Dr David Kelly, found dead in the wake of the row over the alleged “sexing up” of intelligence in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Professor Jones said he was taking sleeping pills and beta-blockers and had received two death threats in the past week alone.

Climate sceptic bloggers broadcast stories last week casting doubts on scientific data predicting dramatic loss of the Amazon rainforest. All three stories, picked up by mainstream media, questioned the credibility of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the way it does its work. A new attack on climate science, already dubbed “Seagate” by sceptics, relating to claims that more than half the Netherlands is in danger of being submerged under rising sea levels, is likely to be at the centre of the newest skirmish in coming weeks.

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Andrew Breitbart, center, flanked by James O’Keefe III, left, and Hannah Giles, takes part in a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.

By Eric Alterman

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.)

But while the conservative investment has not paid off in terms of actually training journalists, it has reaped dividends in its ability to undermine the standards of mainstream media organizations and their willingness to swallow the conservative line. In a previous column, I looked at the manner in which mainstream media organizations fell over themselves to credit the “reporting” of O’Keefe and company regarding ACORN.

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By Eugene Robinson

A friend of mine once had a Toyota that wouldn’t die. The odometer had only a dim recollection of passing 100,000 miles, the body was dinged and the paint was faded and the interior was worn, but the thing just kept running. He finally parked it at the airport, removed the plates and walked away.

But that was more than 20 years ago, long before Toyota became the world’s biggest car manufacturer. Now the gas pedal doesn’t work right on some of the company’s models and the brakes don’t work right on others. A brand name that once meant “indestructible” has become a punch line for late-night jokes.

The company’s stock has lost 20 percent of its value over the last few weeks, helped along Wednesday by Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s warning that the U.S. owners of nearly 6 million Toyota and Lexus models with the potential accelerator problem shouldn’t even try to drive the cars. LaHood quickly withdrew his doomsday alert, explaining that all he meant to say was that people shouldn’t delay in seeking repairs. Not what I’d call a message of reassurance.

The obvious lesson for Toyota: Be careful what you wish for. Toyota set out to conquer the world. In succeeding, the company grew so fast that its vaunted mastery of quality control—the craftsmanship and care that made people want to buy a Toyota in the first place—couldn’t keep up.

For years, Toyota dominated the rankings for both initial quality and reliability. But the company’s models had begun to slip well before the current public relations disaster.

I think this is more than a retelling of the story of Icarus, who flew too close to the sun. It also may be a Promethean tale of punishment for having stolen fire from the gods.

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Full discloseure: I have known and have occasionally worked with Roger Penske for 50 years…fdv
DETROIT, Feb. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — Penske Corporation and its family of companies announced that today it has donated over $1 million worth of diesel-powered flatbed trucks to the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund.

(Photo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20100205/PH50654 )

“I’m pleased the Penske Corporation has stepped up to donate more than $1 million worth of trucks, which will be instrumental in mobilizing food and lifesaving supplies in Haiti,” President Clinton said. “Their generous contribution is an example of what the private sector can do to help Haiti rebuild and recover from the massive earthquake, and I’m grateful for their leadership.”

“The catastrophe that has struck Haiti is almost unimaginable,” said Roger Penske, Chairman of Penske Corporation. “These trucks will assist in the humanitarian relief efforts in Haiti by facilitating the distribution of critical supplies that will help ease the suffering of the Haitian people.”

About the Clinton Bush Haiti Fund

The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund is working with and supporting the efforts of reputable 501(c)(3) nongovernmental and nonprofit organizations, and Presidents Clinton and Bush oversee the CBHF through their respective nonprofit organizations, the William J. Clinton Foundation and Communities Foundation of Texas. One hundred percent of donations made to the Clinton Foundation and the Communities Foundation of Texas go directly to relief efforts. For more information, visit www.clintonbushhaitifund.org.

About Penske Corporation

Penske Corporation, which includes Penske Automotive Group (NYSE: PAG), Penske Truck Leasing, Penske Motor Group, Truck-Lite, and Davco Technology, is a closely-held diversified transportation services company whose subsidiaries operate in a variety of segments, including retail automotive, truck leasing, transportation logistics, transportation component manufacturing and professional motorsports. Penske Corporation manages businesses with revenues in excess of $14 billion, operates in more than 1,800 locations and employs 36,500 people worldwide. Visit www.penske.com for more information.

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Paul Krugman

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By Kim Hart

Comcast and NBC Universal’s parent company have showered campaign contributions on members of two panels holding hearings Thursday on the cable giant’s proposed purchase of the television network.

Comcast and General Electric have already spent $474,000 on contributions to members of the panels, about 70 percent of what they spent over the entire political cycle of 2008, according to The Hill’s analysis of data on OpenSecrets.org.

Comcast in particular has ramped up its donations to key members of both committees.

It didn’t give a dime in the last cycle to Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.), but has donated $5,000 in this cycle to the chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Technology, Communications and the Internet, which will hold the first hearing on the merger on Thursday.

After not donating to Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) in the last cycle, Comcast has given $15,500 to Schumer’s political committee and his leadership political action committee this cycle. Schumer is a key member of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights, which will also hold a hearing Thursday on the merger.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker are scheduled to testify before both panels.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah), the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has received $17,500 from Comcast, up from $12,500 in the 2008 cycle and zero in 2006.

Schumer is up for reelection in 2010; Hatch is not.

General Electric, typically a big congressional donor, has already spent nearly $180,000 during 2009 and the beginning of 2010 — more than half the corporation’s total spending of last cycle.

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Sam Stein
stein@huffingtonpost.com | HuffPost Reporting

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn) called on Friday for Senate Democrats to commit to passing amendments to its health care legislation through the process of reconciliation — so that the House can then pass legislation of its own.

In a call organized by the pro-reform group Health Care for America Now, the Minnesota Democrat laid out what he called a “pledge and pass” strategy for getting a bill into law.

“If we in the Senate pledge to fix those top priorities right away through reconciliation… the House of Representatives should pass the Senate bill. The exact details of this process need to be worked out by the leadership and the president.”

Franken also tried to alleviate some of the concerns of those who argue that the Senate legislation — even with reconciliation fixes — doesn’t go far enough.

“Like it or not, the reality is that big pieces of legislation often need to be fixed after passage,” he said. “Health care is a historic undertaking and this is no different. I think we have to stop letting the perfect — and everyone has different definitions of perfect — we have to stop letting the perfect be the enemy of the good… Walking away empty-handed to me is just not an option.”

In offering his preferred procedural remedy for health care’s impasse, Franken echoed a emerging sentiment within the Democratic caucus. Sens. Arlen Specter (Penn), Max Baucus (Mont.), Ben Nelson (Neb.) Kent Conrad (ND), Jeff Bingaman (NM), Dick Durbin (Ill.) and others have all either endorsed or openly considered the idea of using reconciliation to change their bill.

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By Robert Reich, Reader Supported News

Congress isn’t doing a thing about Wall Street because it’s in the pocket of Wall Street. Dodd’s outburst at the Street is like the alcoholic who screams at a bartender “How dare you give me another drink when all I’ve done is pleaded with you for one!”

Who’s Killing Financial Reform?

enator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, scolded Wall Street representatives at a hearing Thursday for sending “an army of lobbyists whose only mission is to kill the common-sense financial reforms” needed by the public. “The fact is,” Dodd said, “I am frustrated, and so are the American people.” He charged that Wall Street’s intransigence was the reason for Congress’s failure to pass any bill to regulate the Street. “The refusal of large financial firms to work constructively with Congress on this effort borders on insulting to the American people who have lost so much in this crisis.”

In other words, it isn’t Congress’s fault. It isn’t the Senate Banking Committee’s fault. It certainly isn’t Dodd’s fault. The reason more than a year has passed since the biggest bailout in the history of the world and nothing has been done to prevent a repeat performance – even as the biggest banks are doling out more than $30 billion of bonuses, even as Goldman Sachs is awarding its big traders $16 billion in bonuses (more than the $13 billion Goldman collected from taxpayers via the bailout of AIG), even as AIG itself is handing out bonuses – the reason is … what, exactly, Senator? Because the Street has sent an army of lobbyists to Capitol Hill?

Call me old fashioned, but I thought Congress was in charge of passing legislation, not Wall Street.

Dodd left out the most telling detail, of course. Wall Street is where the campaign money is. Dodd of all people knows that. He’s been on the receiving end of lots of it over the years.

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Huffington Post |  Adam Taylor

The body of a 16-year-old girl who police say was buried alive by relatives in an “honor” killing carried out as punishment for talking to boys has been discovered in Kahta, Turkey.

Turkish police discovered the body after acting on an anonymous tip. The tipster told police that the girl was killed after a family council meeting, and had been buried under a chicken pen. Police say that the girl had complained two months earlier that her grandfather beat her for talking to boys.

The girl, identified by police only by her initials M.M., was said to have a large amount of soil in her stomach and lungs, indicating she had been buried alive.

“The autopsy result is blood-curdling. According to our findings, the girl – who had no bruises on her body and no sign of narcotics or poison in her blood – was alive and fully conscious when she was buried,” one anonymous expert said.

The girl had been reported as missing by her family. Police have arrested her father, mother and grandfather. Her mother has been released but her father and grandfather are awaiting trial.

The case is expected to bring further attention to the issue of “honor” killings in Turkey. Official figures indicate that more than 200 “honor” killings take place each year – almost half of all murders in Turkey.

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By John Byrne

Only one in four Americans know how many votes a Senate filibuster requires. One in three know the name of the chairman of the Republican Party. One in two know the Democratic leader of the US Senate.

Health care? Fewer than one in three Americans even know that no Republicans voted for the Senate health care overhaul.

Americans’ ignorance about politics isn’t new, but the latest results from the Pew Poll suggest few are really paying attention.

Half of Americans don’t even know that Stephen Colbert is a comedian. And among those surveyed, only one in three Democrats knew that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) was the Democratic leader.

“About four-in-ten (39%) know that Nevada Democrat Harry Reid is the majority leader of the U.S. Senate,” Pew reports. “About a third (32%) correctly pick Michael Steele as the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Interestingly, nearly half of Republicans (48%) are able to identify Reid as Senate majority leader compared with just a third (33%) of Democrats. More Republicans can identify Reid as majority leader than can identify Steel as chairman of the RNC (37%).”

“About four-in-ten (41%) correctly say that Stephen Colbert is a comedian and television talk show host,” Pew adds.Notably, those who are more clueless about politics hail from the under 30 age bracket — except for the question about Colbert.

“This is the only question on the quiz that more people younger than 30 than older people answer correctly (49% vs. 39%),” Pew notes.

Adds Pew:

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By David Sirota

Judging by Tim Tebow’s much-hyped Super Bowl ad, “choose life” remains conservatives’ favorite abortion shibboleth. But really, the phrase better captures the stakes in the Great Budget Wars of 2010.

Plagued by deficits, communities everywhere must now decide between tax reform and public spending cuts—between economic life and death. And thanks to two Western bellwether states, we know what each choice means.

Choosing death means mimicking Colorado Springs—a Republican red tattoo on Colorado’s purple heart.

As a venue for political experiments, the sprawly GOP enclave is as pristine a conservative laboratory as you’ll find in America. If the city has garnered contemporary notoriety at all, it has achieved infamy for domiciling right-wing groups like Focus on the Family and infecting the world with viruses like Douglas Bruce—the father of draconian initiatives that seek to prohibit governments from raising levies.

When the so-called tea party movement’s anti-tax activists refer to the abstract concept of conservative purity, we can turn to a microcosm like The Springs (as we Coloradoans call it) for a good example of what such purity looks like in practice—and the view isn’t pretty.

Thanks to the city’s rejection of tax increases—and, thus, depleted municipal revenues—The Denver Post reports that “more than a third of the streetlights in Colorado Springs will go dark; the city is dumping firefighting jobs, a vice team, burglary investigators, beat cops; water cutbacks mean most parks will be dead … recreation centers, indoor and outdoor pools [and] museums will close for good; buses no longer run on evenings and weekends; [and] the city won’t pay for any street paving.”

Meanwhile, even with the Colorado Springs Gazette uncovering tent ghettos of newly homeless residents, the city’s social services are being reduced—all as fat cats aim to punish what remains of a middle class. As just one example, rather than initiating a tax discussion, the CEO of The Springs’ most lavish luxury hotel is pushing city leaders to cut public employee salaries to the $24,000-a-year level he pays his own workforce—a level approaching Colorado’s official poverty line for a family of four.

This is what Reaganites have always meant when they’ve talked of a “shining city on a hill.” They envision a dystopia whose anti-tax fires incinerate social fabric faster than James Dobson can say “family values”—a place like Colorado Springs that is starting to reek of economic death.

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Josh Silver
Executive Director, Free Press

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC President Jeff Zucker testified in front of House and Senate subcommittees Thursday as regulators decide whether to allow the proposed merger of the two media giants. Comcast is the largest cable TV and residential high-speed Internet company in the nation. NBC is one of the largest content providers.

The House hearing opened with several politicians waxing poetic about how the merger is great for America. While nobody in the room cracked a smile, their enthusiasm is laughable. The only people who could believe that the largest media merger in a generation is good for the public are either: 1) on the receiving end of the massive campaign contributions from said media companies; 2) bending to the phalanx of industry lobbyists swarming Capitol Hill; or 3) hoodwinked believers in the “all regulation is bad” approach that brought us Enron and the financial meltdown.

Not everyone is swallowing the snake oil Comcast is peddling to grease its takeover of NBC. None shone brighter yesterday than Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who aggressively interrogated Comcast CEO Brian Roberts and NBC Universal President Jeff Zucker — all but accusing them of lying to his face.

“You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t trust these promises, and that is from experience in this business,” Franken said. “It matters who runs our media companies….the media are our source of entertainment, but they’re also the way we get our information about the world. So when the same company produces the programs and runs the pipes that bring us those programs, we have a reason to be nervous.”

We sure do. Here are 10 more reasons to be very afraid of the proposed Comcast/NBC merger:

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Zumante Lucero, a 9 year-old Denver boy with asthma, died in July after a severe attack. His family had previously been on Medicaid, but was unexpectedly cut off from the program, and lost access to medication as a result. Zumante’s doctors believe that access to a prescription that helped control inflaming in his lungs could have saved his life.

Since Zumante’s death, it has become clear that the Lucero family should have had prescription drug benefits under Medicaid, and the State of Colorado erred in cutting them off of coverage.

According to Zuton Lucero, Zumante’s mother, she called Denver Human Services every few days for months. Human Services responded by affirming that all of her children were in fact covered under Medicaid. However, when local pharmacists’ computers did not register the family as having prescription drug coverage. This pattern continued until Zumante’s death in July.

A group of lawyers is now considering suing the state for rampant flaws in its benefits management system. State officials have said that errors in a $243 million computer system installed in 2004 are to blame for mistakes like the one that led to Zumante Lucero’s death.

The Colorado Benefits Management System’s computer problems also account for rampant delays in processing food stamp cases. For fiscal year 2008, the most recent with available data, Colorado ranked 52nd in the country (behind Guam) in getting food stamps out on time.

Watch Zumante Lucero’s Sister Tell Her Story Below:

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