Midday open thread

• Somehow this will be bad news for the President in particular and Democrats in general:

  Budget airline SpiceJet will buy 30 B737 planes from US aircraft manufacturer Boeing in a deal worth $2.7 billion, which will form part of $10 billion pacts being sealed during US President Barack Obama's visit ... The deal is part of 20-odd pacts, worth USD about 10 billion, that are to be sealed during Obama's 3-day visit. The agreements are expected to create 50,000 jobs in the US.

• This is truly vomit-inducing:

  In an interview aired on NBC’s Today show this morning, President Bush said Vice President Cheney angrily confronted him about Bush’s decision to not pardon Scooter Libby over his role in outing CIA operative Valerie Plame. “I can’t believe you’re going to leave a soldier on the battlefield,” said Cheney according to Bush

• Sore loser Republican Ed Martin concedes to Rep. Russ Carnahan (D) in Missouri's 3rd District:

  Republican House candidate Ed Martin has now conceded a close race against Democratic Rep. Russ Carnahan, after Martin had initially claimed that voter fraud or other misbehavior may have been responsible for Carnahan's win.

  ... Martin had initially refused to concede, alleging possible voter fraud in Democratic areas.

• Arizona state senator Russell Pearce (R), the man behind Arizona's odious racial profiling law, says they'll refuse federal funding for health care, never mind the one million people who rely on it:

  RESNIK: And the one million people on access, what’s their future?

  PEARCE: They’ll probably be okay.

• Jeffrey Kluger says that being a Constitutional conservative is the oldest trick in the book.
• Who knew?

  Americans for Prosperity, the Astroturf group run by pollution billionaire David Koch, claims that voters rejected “tax-the-rich ideas” in the midterm elections. On NovemberSpeaks.com — a website launched the day after the election — AFP rallies its supporters to oppose any action by Congress during the lame-duck session that begins November 15, while Democrats still control the House of Representatives. Not only does AFP falsely claim that Democrats intend to pass “enormous Social Security tax hikes,” it also makes the absurd claim that the midterm elections were driven by popular support for the Bush tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires.

• Press secretary Robert Gibbs put his foot on the line for the White House press corps.
• This should really hack off the teahadist wing of the Republican Party:

  If the tea party is expecting Rubio to plant its yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag in the hallowed Senate chamber, it’s in for a letdown. This career politician who once carried the state party’s American Express card defines himself first and foremost as a Republican.[...]

  Rubio has already made it clear that he will not be a rogue senator. One day after the election, he declared his support for the GOP establishment when he said he looked forward to serving under Republican Leader Mitch McConnell. He didn’t mention Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, viewed as the more ideologically pure conservative and alternative power center, who championed Rubio’s campaign early on.

• Another example of the lunatics wanting to run the asylum.
• Marc Ambinder announces that he's no longer a blogger. In related news, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce that I'm no longer a heart surgeon.
• Some post-election fun -- which candidates spent the most money per vote?
• If you haven't already done so, follow Daily Kos at Twitter and "like" us at Facebook.

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4 ETFs Beating the Dow by a Mile

Martin here with a quick update on four of our favorite exchange traded funds (ETFs).

From the first trading day in May through this past Friday, November 5, the Dow is up 4 percent.

That’s actually somewhat better than we expected for U.S. stocks — given the still-somber state of . . . → Full Story: 4 ETFs Beating the Dow by a Mile

Read The Full Article:
http://jutiagroup.com/2010/11/08/4-etfs-beating-the-dow-by-a-mile/

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Banner Day for Black Conservatives

BILL BERKOWTIZ FOR BUZZFLASH

For the first time since 1996, two conservative African Americans will occupy seats in the House of Representatives at the same time. Black conservative writer and commentator Ron Miller claims that the election of Tim Scott and Allen West means that the GOP is finally establishing a "beachhead" in the black community.

It has been more than a decade since two African American conservatives - Gary Franks of Connecticut and J.C. Watts of Oklahoma -- served in the House of Representatives at the same time. Come January, two newly elected black conservatives, Tim Scott and Allen West, will head to Washington to take seats in the newly constituted Republican-controlled House.

For years, black conservatives have been searching for a foothold within the black community. While there have always been a handful of relatively high-profile African American conservatives -- religious leaders supportive of the Religious Right's social agenda, and a handful of well-paid  pundits and commentators espousing conservative economic principles -- there hasn't been any evidence that they've made any inroads with the black electorate. And, this year, despite the fact that fourteen black conservatives ran for Congress and two emerged victorious, pretty much nothing has changed, as, according to the New York Times, 91% of black voters voted for Democrats while 9% voted for Republicans.

On Tuesday, November 2, South Carolinian Tim Scott became the first African American Republican from the "Deep South" to be elected to Congress since Reconstruction, when he defeated Democrat Ben Frasier in the race to represent the state's First Congressional District - a seat held by republicans since 1987 -- a majority white (nearly 75%) district. According to Ron Miller, a black conservative writer and commentator, Scott's election was "an impressive victory" that proves that the tea party is not racist.

OneNewsNow, the news service of the Wildmon family's American Family Association, pointed out that in the Republican primary, Scott, an insurance company owner, "beat out two white candidates ... the son of late Senator Strom Thurmond and the son of former South Carolina Governor Carroll Campbell." Scott, who was endorsed by Sarah Palin and the tea party, will represent a district where white voters outnumber blacks three to one.

Two days after being elected, Scott declare d that "The first order of business for all of us I think is to take a look at the financial insanity that's been created by the Obama administration with overspending. We've gotta reign in that spending and the way that you do that is that you just create priorities so that we know what the federal government's priorities should be."

read more

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Bringing what GOP plans to do to the dinner table

I hope this works for you.

My wife and I were conversing about what the GOP plans to do for the next two years. I put it in simple terms. The GOP wants us to all care about debt and deficits. Right? Well, I personally have debt and deficits. So, in order to pay down such, you have to have revenue. I equate revenue to a job, which brings in money. Taxes bring in revenue on the government level.

I lose my job. No revenue. Taxes are cut. No revenue. My debt and deficit either rises or stays. Same with the government. Now, GOP members want to cut spending. Domestic spending. They want to extend Bush tax cuts on the rich. They want to pay down the deficit, debt while increasing defense spending.

So, if I want to do the same, I have to make big cuts in major parts of my life to make a dent. That would be food, clothing, utilities. For the government, that means Social Security and Medicare, plus Education. However, the government wants to extend defense spending, beat the war drum. That, to me, equates to going to movies, buying CDs, books, and fancy yachts and other non-necessities.

So, in order to live the GOP life, we must take our food and clothes and utilities away, go to movies and buy some books while we pay down the debt, deficit. All while not working. I suppose borrowing money to pay others is something we're going back to.

The GOP plans to party it up with your money for their benefit while you remain in the cold. We already have GOP senators beating the war drum, um... looking for a couple movies to go to.

Since the GOP could not tell you one thing they'd cut, do not complain when they start with what you teabaggers didn't want the government to touch.

Read The Full Article:
http://thepoliticsofjamiesanderson.blogspot.com/2010/11/bringing-what-gop-plans-t
o-do-to-dinner.html

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Who Kidnapped Darrell Issa

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who is set to become chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in the new Congress, has been on what appears to be a "I'm reasonable, really" offensive since the election. [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/FIjF-TgnvZU/who_kidnapped_d
arrell_issa.php

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Gracious In Defeat

Tom Foley, the Republican nominee for governor of Connecticut, has now conceded to Democrat Dan Malloy -- and went out of his way to remove any doubt about the outcome of the election. [...]

Read The Full Article:
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Talking-Points-Memo/~3/6GtTmx3u92I/gracious_in_def
eat.php

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Glenn Greenwald 'debates' MSNBC's Lawrence
O'Donnell

I don't want to say too much about this; I'll leave that to you, as you mutter your own reactions to yourself. But I think the following video is both instructive and a pointer to the future of MSNBC.

It features Glenn Greenwald and rising MSNBC star Lawrence O'Donnell on the Morning Joe program arguing: (1) What O'Donnell did or did not say about progressive losses on air on election night; (2) Whether Blue Dogs are necessary for a winning Dem coalition; and (3) What metric should be used to determine whether the country is left-leaning or right-ish.

There's also the question of tone, which in this case is part of the content. Watch:



Instructive: The clip lays bare the bones of the debate we always have about whether Blue Dogs types are a necessity (O'Donnell) or a roadblock (Greenwald).

The future of MSNBC: If I were the devil whispering in Comcast Bushie Steve Burke's ear, my mutterings would include O'Donnell's name.

Much to think about.

For a reference to what was actually said on election night, Greenwald has published excepts from the transcript at his Salon site. Greenwald's original comments on election night coverage, to which O'Donnell refers, are here. It's worth a click to read them.

GP

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Economists Krugman and Rajan: US Economy Will
Suffer Terribly from Gridlock

Click here to view this media

CNN's Fareed Zakaria sat down with economists Paul Krugman and Raghuram Rajan, and both men painted a very gloomy picture (to say the least) for what kind of shape the United States economy is going to be in if all we have is gridlock for the next two years, which Krugman believes is inevitable.

Krugman also thinks that we'll be facing at least one government shutdown in the next two years. And of course as Eric Cantor already said today, if that happens the Republicans will try to make political hay out of it and put the blame on President Obama.

Anyone who didn't realize what they were voting for when they put these TeaPublicans back into office are going to be finding out the hard way very soon. And if the Democrats don't start acting like they care about the working class in this country instead of catering to corporate "centrists" and Blue Dogs, they're not going to fare much better. It would be nice to see some Democrats who aren't Republicans with a "D" behind their name trying to get some of these House seats back we lost this time around. I know this blog and Blue America will be doing their part to see that it happens.

Transcript via CNN.

ZAKARIA: Paul Krugman wrote before the election that if Republicans took control of even one House of Congress it would be, quote, "terrible," unquote. Well, of course, that's what happened on Tuesday, so how terrible will it be?

"New York Times" columnist, Nobel Prize winner, Princeton professor Paul Krugman joins me now, along with Raghuram Rajan.

Rajan was the chief economist of the IMF, is now a professor at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and his last book, "Fault Lines" won the "Financial Times'" Business Book of the Year Award. He and Paul Krugman have sparred in blogs and essays, but I believe this is the first time they will do so in person, if they do indeed spar. Paul Krugman, what is going to be so terrible about the Republicans coming to power?

PAUL KRUGMAN, THE NEW YORK TIMES: Mostly - well, first of all, there's almost likely, almost certain to be extreme clashes. I would put pretty heavy odds on - on at least one government shutdown during the next two years. This is going to be - you know, we're looking back fondly on the statesmanship of Newt Gingrich.

But, beyond that, it means no action. It means that we're probably going to see unemployment benefits, extended unemployment benefits, expire at exactly the moment when that would do the most harm. It means no chance of doing anything, really, to tackle the economy's problems.

So we're basically going to be uber -- Herbert Hoover-ing our economic policies at exactly the worst moment for - for the American public.

ZAKARIA: Do you think it's going to be terrible?

RAGHURAM RAJAN, UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO: I'm going to do a two- handed thing. It could be reasonable if they come together and focus on both expenditure and - and tax reform. Both are needed to put this economy back on the sustainable fiscal situation.

I think gridlock, with 10 percent budget deficits to GDP is a very bad idea. So, if the outcome is gridlock, terrible.

KRUGMAN: But of course it's going to be gridlock. I mean, if you - if you believed that the Republicans and the Democrats can come together, you must have been asleep for the last 20 years.

RAJAN: No, no. It's a hope. I'm not saying it's a likelihood.

KRUGMAN: Yes. Yes.

RAJAN: I think it's a hope.

KRUGMAN: It's a no chance.

RAJAN: It's a hope. If you think there's no chance, I think we have serious problems. Even -

(CROSSTALK)

ZAKARIA: ... it's 10 percent budget deficit, 10 percent unemployment and two percent growth. The status quo is pretty unsustainable, and you're going to get effect of using that as status quo government.

KRUGMAN: Yes. Exactly.

ZAKARIA: You said, in one of your columns a couple of weeks ago, that you thought Obama was going to be blamed unfairly for having moved too far left, and that the more accurate criticism would be that he didn't move left enough.

I have to confess, this - this line of argument puzzles me, because liberals turned out and he got 95 percent of the vote. The big difference was a lot more conservatives turned out, a lot more Republicans turned out, and independents crucially broke and went and voted for Republicans.

KRUGMAN: I wouldn't - I don't think I said that he didn't move left enough. I said that he didn't do enough.

What he did, crucially, was settle for a really inadequate fiscal stimulus, take a relatively light touch on the banks. So he didn't do things that might have produced a better economy.

So, I mean, overwhelmingly, the midterm was public disenchantment because unemployment is still close to 10 percent. He failed to deliver on jobs.

No amount of positioning, you know, appearing, sounding more conservative, whatever, could have changed that fact. What could have changed that fact would have been a stronger economic policy. Maybe he couldn't have gotten it, but that's - the point was they played it safe, saying, well let's not push too hard on economic policy, got a weak economy, and got an electoral disaster.

ZAKARIA: But you - you had exit polls showing people thinking that the government basically had gone too far left. It was doing too many things, they were wording - voting for conversation Republican candidates. You're saying if they have regulated the banks more, these guys would have, instead of voting for Tea Party candidates, voted for them?

KRUGMAN: People respond - what - whatever people say, what we know overwhelmingly from the political science studies is that it's the state of the economy or, actually, more accurately, the trajectory of the economy, and a year or so before an election that matters.

If the economy had been - you know, if unemployment had been falling, if unemployment had been eight and a half instead of 9.6 and falling, people would have a very, very different view of what was happening.

The notion - I've been thought to be very cynical about this. The notion that people have a set of ideas about ideology, about what - what governments should do, and they'd reward or punish governments based on whether they actually follow that ideology just is completely not true. People may say that, but what they actually do, or how they vote is determined very much by the rate of economic growth in the couple of quarters before an election.

ZAKARIA: So you know that the "Wall Street Journal" editorial page is going to hear this and say, you see, people like Paul Krugman just don't want to hear that the public rejected the Obama agenda.

KRUGMAN: Well, you know, I don't think people like the "Wall Street Journal" admitted in 2008 that the public rejected the Bush agenda either.

What happened was this wasn't a - an unsuccessful economic policy. I mean, possibly - we can argue that it was successful in avoiding things that are even worse, but you have to deliver. For political purposes, you have to deliver actual improvement, not failure of things to get even worse, and they didn't do that.

And so, it was not an ideological referendum. If you actually ask, voters also thought that Republicans are terrible. They hated both parties, and -

ZAKARIA: But they voted for Republicans.

KRUGMAN: They voted because they were protesting about the state of the country, which was, you know, lousy - lousy employment picture.

ZAKARIA: Would you agree, Raghu, that this is a failed economic policy from your mind (ph)?

RAJAN: I wouldn't say failed. I would say it hasn't done enough on reviving the economy, and I would argue that some of the things that need to be done, places where it has to expend political capital, and I think that it expended far too much political capital on universal health care, which I think we need, but, unfortunately, that took time and energy off the things that need to be done.

One, we've got a banking sector, especially small and medium sized banks, they don't have enough capital. They can't support a recovery when that happens, and the lending that needs to take place.

Two, we've got mortgages, which are heavily under water, which need to be renegotiated. We need to spend political capital in creating a solution to that problem, and, right now, there's no - no will to do that.

And third, I think we've created a lot of uncertainty in health care, in the financial sector with these new regulations. We need to make clear what those regulations will be. Undoubtedly, there's a need for reform, but let's make clear, so that businesses know what they are, can then start going out and hiring.

We've essentially created an overload of uncertainty on those areas of the economy, which are big, important. And - and I think more capital on those and less on - on health care might have been more effective.

ZAKARIA: Uncertainty. Businessmen keep saying that that - it is the uncertainty, that regulatory and tax uncertainty that forced - that causes them not to spend the almost $2 trillion that is on the balance sheets.

KRUGMAN: You really need to be a little careful. Business lobbyists say that uncertainty is the big issue. I actually surveyed businesses and asked what's their problem. They say it's inadequate sales. There - there's no good reason to believe that business investment is being held back because of uncertainty about the health care law, which actually - it's actually fairly clear what that is, or any of these things. What you have is, in a depressed economy, with manufacturing operating not much more than 70 percent to capacity, with office buildings vacant, with malls vacant, why are businesses going to invest more? They already had more capacity than they need.

So this is - this is largely a canard, and just the whole argument about political capital. Lots of people say that, there was a failure to focus on the economy, but they almost never explain what it was that Obama should have been doing, right? And I - I actually view the - the whole focus argument as - as a piece of intellectual cowardice. It's a way to criticize the economic performance without actually saying what you would have done differently.

ZAKARIA: Let's just stick, though, with your main point, which is this is the classic Keynesian argument. You are in - you are in a moment where there is simply insufficient demand in the economy.

Consumers aren't spending, businesses aren't spending. The only entity in the - and the only player in the system that can produce demand is the government, so the government should be spending. What's wrong with that argument?

RAJAN: What should the government do? Can it do it efficiently? Can it do effectively?

We always have in mind large construction projects. We've done that. We've run the gambit of large construction projects which (INAUDIBLE) the bottom of the envelop - of the drawer.

What we do next? It takes time. And it's not probably going to be done in time for the recovery.

ZAKARIA: OK.

RAJAN: So the real question is, what do you spend on?

But this idea that somehow there's a button you can press and somehow the government will create spending, which will certainly revive the economy, I think is a canard, and is probably something that is not - not wise.

ZAKARIA: I've got to interrupt you guys. We are going to take a break. We're going to come right back to have this discussion cum debate. Paul Krugman, Raghuram Rajan, right back.

[...]

ZAKARIA: And we are back with Paul Krugman from "The New York Times" and Princeton University; and Raghuram Rajan from the University of Chicago, but, before that, chief economist of the IMF.

What I want to ask you, Paul, is aren't you going to get some of what you want, which is the Republicans keep talking about tax cuts. Now Keynes actually talked about both, tax cuts and government spending as a way to revive the economy, and if the Republicans give you a bunch of tax cuts, isn't that -

KRUGMAN: OK, now, the trouble with tax cuts is that a temporary tax cut is likely to be saved, not spent. And we know that. That's - that's -

ZAKARIA: We've had three.

KRUGMAN: In fact, that's - that's Milton Friedman. Milton Friedman's theory of - of consumer behavior is that temporary windfalls in income are likely to be saved, not spent.

And now - so can we do permanent tax cuts? Well, have this long- run budget problem. So if you ask, well, what are we going to do that would - that - that would increase demand a lot? Well, we can have big temporary tax cuts, but they're likely to be ineffective, or we can have somewhat smaller, permanent tax cuts, but they're going to worsen the long-run budget outlook.

Add to that the reality that the Republicans - you know, let's be realistic politically - Republicans are not going to say, let's strike a deal to revive the economy. We're going to take some tax cuts that last just a year or two. They're going to try to leverage their position into getting what they want, which is permanently lower taxes, which are then to - going to be used to starve the beast in the out years.

This is not going to work. This is just going to actually worsen.

We - we do have - you know, I'm not one of those people who says that there is no budget problem. There is a longer-run budget problem. Look at the U.S. budget outlook for the year 2025, and it's not a pretty picture.

So we cannot afford to do things that permanently worsen the U.S. budget position. And yet, if we do things on the tax side that are only temporary, they're - it's not going to work, particularly, by the way, if it's tax cuts for the rich, who are the most able to - to smooth out their spending. So, you know, in the end, if - if the Republicans are willing to agree to something that is a - like a temporary payroll tax cut, it's not - it's a pretty poor substitute for actually doing spending on infrastructure, but it may be better than nothing. If they want to do - you know, let's extend the Bush tax cuts indefinitely, that's - that's a policy to do very little in the short run and make the long run worse.

What we're likely to get is some extension of the Bush tax cuts, which, you know what was at stake always was only the high-end tax cuts. And so we - it we get a temporary extension of the high end tax cuts, that's - it would be hard to devise a less efficient stimulus policy.

This is almost guarantee - this is giving money precisely to the people least likely to spend it, and so it will worsen the federal budget outlook while delivering hardly any punch to the economy.

ZAKARIA: I'm guessing that - at least on that issue, you probably agree? That temporary extensions of the Bush tax cuts will not do much?

RAJAN: Probably not. I - I do think that it's a - it's a little problematic raising taxes substantially. But, in the medium term -

ZAKARIA: Now you're talking a Keynesian. You can't have it both ways.

RAJAN: No, no, no. I think we -

ZAKARIA: If raising taxes -

RAJAN: I need - I think we need to do things in the very short run, which deal with some of the problems that Paul is talking about. Too many people are becoming long-term unemployable, and what we need to do is try and move them back into the labor force. We need to focus on those -

ZAKARIA: How do you that fast?

RAJAN: I think you need to focus on skill building. We need - there are programs out there. Many of them don't work. We need to pick ones that work and try work with them.

But I think the real point this crisis is telling us is that America needs to shift. That America, for too long, has seen a deterioration in the underlying fundamentals of the economy, and in an attempt to - to paper over that, we've blown up the economy again and again with monetary policy, perhaps with fiscal policy.

At some point, we have to realize that the fundamentals aren't that good. Too many people are falling behind. Too many people don't have the skills and the education they need to compete in this world.

But, differently, I think the U.S. is a little bit like a car with brakes sort of on, and it - malfunctioning. You sort of get - got to get the brakes to work. But, in the meantime, what we're doing is we're trying to fill the engine with higher and higher octane fuel in an attempt to get it go - to go faster, when in fact the brakes are well and firmly, you know, malfunctioning.

Let's remove those brakes, fix the underlying structural problems, we will go faster.

ZAKARIA: Last word, Paul Krugman.

KRUGMAN: Time is not on our side. The longer this goes on, the more Americans have been unemployed so long that they're no longer employable. We don't have, I believe, a lot of structural unemployment now. But give us two or three more years of this, and we will.

The longer this goes on, the more we head towards a deflationary trap. Look at U.S. inflation rates and Japanese inflation rates from - from 20 years earlier, and we're right on top of the Japanese. We're matching the Japanese track exactly. And more deflation means that the debt burden gets worse.

So we're actually in a situation where there are heavy costs being paid right now. We are not in a recovery in any sense that matters. But, during the years of the bubble, there was a - a great overexpansion of indebtedness by parts of the population, and we cannot have a permanent recovery unless people get a chance to pay that down, and that's - that's what booms do.

Booms - you know, we know that World War II produced an economic recovery. Why didn't the U.S. economy slide back into depression after the war was over? And the answer was that during the war, during the boom, the - the private sector greatly reduced its debt burden. That's what we need to do right now.

But, of course, the point is, given the midterm elections, the next two years, at - at minimum, are awash, and none of this is going to happen.

ZAKARIA: And we're going to have to leave it at that.

Thank you, Paul Krugman, Raghuram Rajan. Right back.

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Meet The Speaker From K Street: John Boehner

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), widely expected to become the next Speaker of the House, has promised to create a more “open” and “transparent” Congress. To cultivate an image of independence, Boehner has projected a media profile revolving around his humble upbringing and his refusal to request earmarks.

However, Boehner’s media profile simply does not comport with his career-long record of corruption and influence peddling. Before his ascent to leadership, Boehner had been known for once handing out campaign contribution checks from tobacco lobbyists on the House floor. When Republicans controlled Congress, Boehner and Rep. Roy Blunt (R-MO) were the point men for former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) in communicating with corporate lobbyists. At one point, Boehner even convened a weekly meeting called the “Thursday Group” to huddle with K Street lobbyists.

As the Guardian’s Paul Harris noted yesterday, Boehner was caught lobbying the Environmental Protection Agency to drop a lawsuit against one of Boehner’s biggest contributors in the steel industry, and has attacked an array of regulations aimed at the specific businesses which contribute to his campaign committee. Moreover, the overwhelmingly positive and uncritical press accounts of Boehner’s career have ignored his cozy relationship with business lobbyists in just the past two years:

– Roll Call reported that lobbyists view Boehner as a “good investment,” and that Boehner assembled a “kitchen cabinet” of lobbyists to organize his fundraising operation, including representatives from Goldman Sachs, Phillip Morris, UnitedHealth, and FedEx. According to the article, Boehner leaned on these lobbyists to pressure their clients to increase their contributions to vulnerable Republican lawmakers. Boehner’s outreach helped his own campaign war chest swell to $3.2 million, while his leadership PAC had brought in $1.9 million by the end of March.

– In July of 2009, Boehner interrupted House proceedings so Republican lawmakers could attend his annual “Boehner Beach Party” fundraiser with corporate lobbyists. [Politico]

– In December of 2009, Boehner convened a meeting with 100 corporate lobbyists to plot strategy to defeat Wall Street reform. [Roll Call]

– In January of 2010, Boehner organized a House Republican retreat. In an interview with ThinkProgress, Boehner said he didn’t know if any corporate lobbyists would be there. However, ThinkProgress traveled to the retreat, and found lobbyists from Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, and the health insurance industry not only in attendance, but helping to fund the event. [ThinkProgress]

– In March of 2010, Boehner addressed the American Bankers Association, telling corporate lobbyists to fight financial reform. “Don’t let those little punk staffers take advantage of you,” Boehner implored the bank lobbyists, encouraging them to stand up to Capitol Hill staffers. [MarketWatch]

– Last week, Boehner selected Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) to lead his Majority Transition Team to help set the rules and staffing selections for the new Republican Congress. Rather than select a lawmaker with a strong ethical history, Walden gained his new leadership stature by serving as the National Republican Campaign Committee liaison to the big business community for 2009 and 2010.

Boehner and his allies have pledged largely cosmetic attempts at reforming the ethics of Washington. For instance, he has indicated that he is open to cutting his own pay. This move may garner more good press and promote Boehner’s image. However, a more apt symbol of Boehner’s ethical standards occurred four years ago. In 2006, Boehner was caught living in a house owned by a lobbyist who had sought legislative favors from him.

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Immigration in fantasy land

Not only is illegal immigration on the decline--contrary to Tea Party panickers and others (when do[...]

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/OpenLeft-FrontPage/~3/2UKJyqUbwDY/immigration-in-f
antasy-land

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