August 3, 2015

Warren Group Post: Thanks for contacting me about TPP

As some of readers may recall, I don't think our contacting our Rep and Senators changes the way they plan to vote, but I do it anyway.

Some months ago, I contacted my alleged representatives about TPP. Lynch replied promptly, telling me what I already knew: he opposed Fast Track, though not necessarily TPP. I just heard back from Warren, below (also no surprise). I've not heard from Markey.

Dear merrily,

Thank you for contacting me about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). As you may know, the TPP is large trade agreement that the United States is currently negotiating with eleven other countries, including Canada, Mexico, Vietnam, Australia, and Japan.

I am concerned about the process our government has created for negotiating this massive agreement. The United States Trade Representative (USTR) is responsible for negotiating the TPP. Although the agreement will affect nearly every American industry and modify everything from copyright protections to labor standards for 40% of the world's economy, USTR does not make its negotiating texts publicly available. Even Members of Congress can only view the negotiating text with strict restrictions. If our government believes that this trade deal is a good one for working families, it should be more transparent about its negotiations.

I am also concerned with certain aspects of the agreement that have become public. The TPP, like many previous trade deals, includes a process known as investor-state dispute settlement, or ISDS. ISDS permits corporations to go straight to an arbitration panel when a country passes new laws or applies existing laws in ways that the corporations believe will cost them money. These panels can force countries to pay billions of dollars in compensation, and their decisions cannot be appealed or reviewed by a domestic court. Because of how costly these awards can be, ISDS creates enormous pressure on governments to avoid actions that might offend corporate interests -- actions like raising the minimum wage, attempting to cut smoking rates, or prohibiting the dumping of toxic chemicals.

While corporations can use ISDS to enforce their interests, everyone else must rely on our government to enforce the labor and environmental standards in the TPP. According to reports from the Government Accountability Office and the State and Labor Departments, our track record in this area is abysmal, with the government refusing to act even in the face of clear evidence of violations.

America needs trade - but not trade agreements that offer gold-plated enforcement for giant corporations and meaningless promises for everyone else. We should fix the way we enforce trade agreements to ensure a level playing field for everyone -- and then, and only then, should we consider entering into any new trade agreements.

Thank you again for your input on this important issue.

Sincerely,

August 2, 2015

Howard Dean: Before the Scream

So far, I've written some in this group about Bubba's earlier years and Huey Long's.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12779706 (Long)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12779385 (Bubba)

Howard Dean is yet another Democrat with whose earlier life I was not very familiar and about which I had a very mistaken impression.

Dean was born in East Hampton, where Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis was raised, and where President Clinton and First Lady (now Secretary) Hillary enjoyed a couple of vacations while he was in office and where Sean Combs started his much-imitated white parties.

Of all the towns out east, East Hampton is the one of most desirable zip codes among the monied set. The town, around 105 miles from Midtown Manhattan, is home to celebrities and business tycoons alike......Find out whom Jerry Seinfeld counts among his neighbors, and which celebrity opted for an estate on the northern shore of the South Fork.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/star-map-east-hampton-2011-8?op=1#ixzz3heWKZWpo

The family belonged to the country club and also had a three bedroom pied a terre in the city--in Manhattan's Upper East Side on--wait for it--Park Avenue.

Dean attended prep schools and then a "frat boy" at Yale University. His wiki is full of references to his friends and enemies alike trying to minimize and dismiss this golden spoon in the mouth and Republican background, with friends saying he wasn't as rich as they were and Peggy Noonan saying he wasn't a typical WASP. Hello?

During the Vietnam War, Dean had a draft deferment because of an unfused vertebra. He worked as a stockbroker for a time, then decided to go to medical school, taking the pre-med courses he needed at Columbia University in NYC. Then came two life changing events: his brother's disappearance and meeting his future wife.

In 1974, Dean's younger brother Charlie, who had been traveling through southeast Asia at the time, was captured and killed by Laotian guerrillas, a tragedy widely reported to have an enormous influence in Dean's life; he wore his brother's belt every day of his presidential campaign.....

Dean received his medical degree from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University in 1978 and began a medical residency at the University of Vermont. In 1981, he married fellow doctor Judith Steinberg, whom he met in medical school, and together they began a family medical practice in Shelburne, Vermont (where she continued to use her maiden name to avoid confusion).[22]....

Though he was raised an Episcopalian, Dean joined the Congregational church in 1982 after a negotiation with the local Episcopal diocese over a bike trail.[23] By his own account, he does not attend church "very often"; at one point, when asked to name his favorite book in the New Testament, he offered the Old Testament Book of Job, then corrected himself an hour later.[24] Dean has stated he is more "spiritual" than religious.[23] He and his wife have raised their two children, Anne and Paul, in Judaism.[25]

During his early years in Vermont, Dean opposed a condo development on Lake Champlain and fought instead for a bike trail, something that can be viewed as either indulgent or populist. (Think the criticism Senator Kennedy got for resisting wind farms around his favorite sailing waters.)

The success of the bike path campaign launched Dean's political career. He volunteered for Jimmy Carter's losing re-election campaign. In 1982, Dean ran for the Vermont House of Representatives, and won.

Dean remained in the Vermont House until being elected lieutenant governor in 1986, 1988 and 1990. Because those were part-time positions, Dean was able to continue practicing medicine. In 1991, the Governor, Richard A. Snelling died, making Lt. Governor Dean the Governor of Vermont.

After that, Dean ran for and won five two year terms as Governor. Only Thomas Chittenden has served longer as Governor of Vermont. (1778–1789 and 1790–1791). From 1994 to 1995, Dean was also chair of the National Governors Association.

Dean was faced with an economic recession and a $60 million budget deficit. He bucked many in his own party to immediately push for a balanced budget, an act which marked the beginning of a record of fiscal restraint. During his tenure as governor, the state paid off much of its debt, balanced its budget eleven times, raised its bond rating, and lowered income taxes twice.[27]

Dean also focused on health care issues, most notably through the "Dr. Dynasaur" program, which ensures near-universal health coverage for children and pregnant women in the state; the uninsured rate in Vermont fell from 10.8 percent in 1993 to 8.4 percent in 2000 under his watch.[28] Child abuse and teen pregnancy rates were cut roughly in half.[29]

By far the most controversial decision of his career, and the first to draw serious national attention, came in 2000, when the Vermont Supreme Court ruled that the state's marriage laws unconstitutionally excluded same-sex couples and ordered that the state legislature either allow gays and lesbians to marry or create a parallel status. Facing calls to amend the state constitution to prohibit either option, Dean chose to support the latter one, and signed the nation's first civil unions legislation into law, spurring a short-lived "Take Back Vermont" movement which helped Republicans gain control of the State House.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Dean

Vermonters considered him a moderate.

In 2003, Dean began running for the Democratic Presidential nomination, against Senators Joe Lieberman, who had to drop out early on, John Kerry, and about ten others. In March 2003, Dean gave a speech critical of Democrats, beginning with the line, "What I want to know is what in the world so many Democrats are doing supporting the President's unilateral intervention in Iraq?" By Autumn, 2003, he was the apparent frontrunner, despite criticism from the Party's left wing that he was a "Rockefeller Republican"—socially liberal, but fiscally conservative. (The more things change, the more they remain the same?)

In January 2004, however, Dean's placing third in the Iowa caucus led to "the Dean scream" while he was firing up his supporters. Even I know what happened after that.

August 1, 2015

Huey Long

I had a grand plan of a series of posts from the Revolution to the present, but I didn't follow through.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1133&pid=5770

Too ambitious and too disciplined for me, I guess. Instead, I'll be posting on whatever interests me and hoping it interests others, too. Huey Long, aka "Kingfish," interests me.

The question has been whether Long was a populist or a demagogue.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/12779697

I'll leave that to you, dear, dear reader. Anyway, I give you



Huey Long

When Long, who had been home schooled earlier on, completed the 11th grade of his school, his school decided to make completing the 12th grade a requirement. Long circulated a petition to protest, which got him kicked out of school. So, technically, he never completed high school. Nonetheless, he won a debating scholarship to Louisiana State University. However--and this is heartbreaking--he could not afford the textbooks he had to buy. (This is from his wiki, which describes his family as a "middle class" farming family.)

His mother urged him to attend a Baptist university, but he decided he was not cut out to be a preacher and quit. He took some law courses. After a year, he took and passed the bar exam, without a high school or a college or a law school diploma. He practiced law for ten years, bragging that he never took a case against a poor man.

Long won fame by taking on the powerful Standard Oil Company, which he sued for unfair business practices. Over the course of his career, Long continued to challenge Standard Oil's influence in state politics and charged the company with exploiting the state's vast oil and gas resources......In 1918 Long was elected to the Louisiana Railroad Commission at the age of 25 on an anti-Standard Oil platform...

He used his position on the Commission to enhance his populist reputation as an opponent of large oil and utility companies, fighting against rate increases and pipeline monopolies. In the gubernatorial election of 1920, he campaigned prominently for John M. Parker, but later became his vocal opponent after the new governor proved to be insufficiently committed to reform, later calling him the "chattel" of the corporations....

As chairman of the Public Service Commission in 1922, Long won a lawsuit against the Cumberland Telephone & Telegraph Company for unfair rate increases, resulting in cash refunds of $440,000 to 80,000 overcharged customers. Long successfully argued the case on appeal before the United States Supreme Court (Cumberland Tel & Tel Co. v. Louisiana Public Service Commission, 260 U.S. 212 (1922),[1] prompting Chief Justice William Howard Taft to describe Long as one of the best legal minds he had ever encountered.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huey_Long (emphasis added)

Well, I'm impressed so far.


In 1924, at age 31, he ran in the primary for Governor of Louisiana, but lost. In 1928, he won the primary by a plurality with the slogan, "Every man a king, but no one wears a crown," which he had copied from William Jennings Bryan. Long then won the general with 96.1% of the vote, despite a poll tax that kept many of the poor from voting. After consolidating his power via firings and other strong arm and dubious means, he instituted a program of free textbooks for schoolchildren and an adult literacy program, as well as an unprecedented public works program. He also called for a tax on oil. That got him impeached, but he foiled that cleverly and the state legislature abandoned the effort.

Following the failed impeachment attempt in the Senate, Long became ruthless when dealing with his enemies. He fired their relatives from state jobs and supported candidates to defeat them in elections. After impeachment, Long appears to have concluded that extra-legal means would be needed to defend the interests of the common people against the powerful money interests. "I used to try to get things done by saying 'please'," said Long. "Now...I dynamite 'em out of my path."[18] Since the state's newspapers were financed by the opposition, in March 1930 Long founded his own paper, the Louisiana Progress, which he used to broadcast achievements and denounce his enemies.[19] To receive lucrative state contracts, companies were first expected to buy advertisements in Long's newspaper. Long attempted to pass laws placing a surtax on newspapers and forbidding the publishing of "slanderous material," but these efforts were defeated. After the impeachment attempt, Long received death threats. Fearing for his personal safety, he surrounded himself with armed bodyguards at all times.[20]

id.

Soon after that, Long ran for the U.S. Senate, and won, beginning his term in 1931, but also remained Governor until 1932 and continued to control politics in Louisiana until his death in 1935. In Washington, he denounced both Republicans and Democrats for failing to do enough about the crisis of that era and supported Franklin Roosevelt for President.

Roosevelt considered Long a radical demagogue. The president privately said of Long that along with General Douglas MacArthur, "[H]e was one of the two most dangerous men in America."[31]

In June 1933, in an effort to undermine Long's political dominance, Roosevelt cut Long out of consultation on the distribution of federal funds or patronage in Louisiana and placed Long's opponents in charge of federal programs in the state. Roosevelt also supported a Senate inquiry into the election of Long ally John H. Overton to the Senate in 1932. The Long machine was charged with election fraud and voter intimidation but the inquiry came up empty, and Overton was seated.[citation needed]

To discredit Long and damage his support base, in 1934 Roosevelt had Long's finances investigated by the Internal Revenue Service. Though they failed to link Long to any illegality, some of Long's lieutenants were charged with income tax evasion, but only one had been convicted by the time of Long's death.

id.


Long was shot in 1935, one month after announcing his intent to run in the 1936 Presidential election, presumably by Dr. Weiss, the son in law of a Louisiana judge and long-time opponent whom Long was attempting to oust. (Speculation had it that the fatal bullet had actually come from the gun of one of Long's bodyguards and had been mean to stop Weiss, but historians reject that theory.) A doctor treated Long unsuccessfully and that doctor's actions have also been called into question. Long's machine continued to control Louisiana politics and a number of Long's family members served in state and national politics.


I urge you to read his entire wiki, which is friggin' fascinatin'.

August 1, 2015

Populist or demagogue?

Hmmm. Seems as though even some dictionary definitions are rigged against populists!

demagogue
Also found in: Legal, Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
dem·a·gogue also dem·a·gog (dĕm?ə-gôg?, -gŏg? )
n.

1. A leader who obtains power by means of impassioned appeals to the emotions and prejudices of the populace.

2. A leader of the common people in ancient times.

tr.v. dem·a·gogued, dem·a·gogu·ing, dem·a·gogues also dem·a·goged or dem·a·go·ging or dem·a·goges
Usage Problem To speak about (an issue, for example) in the manner of a demagogue.
[Greek dēmagōgos, popular leader : dēmos, people; see dā- in Indo-European roots + agōgos, leading (from agein, to lead; see ag- in Indo-European roots).]

Usage Note: Even though demagogue has been used as a verb meaning "to speak about something in the manner of a demagogue" since the 1600s, the verb has kept a low profile in the language. Recently, however, it has become a favorite of newspaper columnists. The Usage Panel does not view the verb with much favor in either its transitive or intransitive use. In our 1997 survey, 94 percent rejected it in the sentence Clinton will demagogue Medicare, unwilling to acknowledge that fundamental reforms need to be made in the system. A similar percentage rejected an example in which a representative can demagogue about price-fixing. Perhaps this resistance should not be surprising, since the use of familiar nouns as verbs is often the subject of complaints

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/demagogue

populist
Also found in: Encyclopedia, Wikipedia.
pop·u·list (pŏp?yə-lĭst)
n.
1. A supporter of the rights and power of the people.

2. Populist A supporter of the Populist Party.

n
1. (Historical Terms) history US a member of the People's Party, formed largely by agrarian interests to contest the 1892 presidential election. The movement gradually dissolved after the 1904 election
adj

2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) of, characteristic of, or relating to the People's Party, the Populists, or any individual or movement with similar aims

3. (Historical Terms) of, characteristic of, or relating to the People's Party, the Populists, or any individual or movement with similar aims
ˈPopulism npopulist (ˈpɒpjʊlɪst)

adj
1. appealing to the interests or prejudices of ordinary people
n
2. (Government, Politics & Diplomacy) a person, esp a politician, who appeals to the interests or prejudices of ordinary people

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/populist

Let's be clear. One is a populist; the other is a demagogue. What I mean when I use the term "populist" is (from above) "1. A supporter of the rights and power of the people."