The Constitutional Argument Against the Platinum Coin Stunt

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They came for the 4th Amendment, but it was necessary for the war on drugs. They came for the 5th Amendment, but due process had to be sacrificed for the war on terror. They came for the 6th Amendment, but confrontation had to succumb to classification and secrecy. They came for the War Powers Act because Libya was “required to be protected”. Now they are coming for one of the most fundamental of Constitutional checks and balances, the Congressional prerogative of the purse.

Who are “they”? They are, of course, the ubiquitous Article II Executive Branch. And they have a never ending thirst for usurping power, all in the name of efficacy. It is always necessary, it is always an emergency, there is always a reason, for them to take the power. They are the Daddy Branch, and it is always best to trust them. So they say.

Back when “they” were the Bush/Cheney regime, liberals, progressives, and Democrats in general, had a seriously dim view of accumulation and usurpation of power in a unitary Executive. When Dick Cheney, David Addington and John Yoo contorted existing law, gave it application never intended, and manufactured legal and governmental gimmickry to accomplish stunningly naked Executive power grabs, those on the left, especially the blogosphere, screamed bloody murder. Well, that is precisely what is afoot here with the Mint the Coin! push.

Where is that principled set of voices on the left now? Things are different when it is your guy in office I guess. Because the active liberal/progressive left I see out there is currently screaming to “Mint the Coin!” doesn’t seem to realize they are calling for the same type of sham rule of law that John Yoo engaged in.. This is most curious, because “Minting the Coin!” contemplates a naked power grab by the Executive Branch of historic proportions. It is a wholesale taking of the Congressional purse prerogative under the Constitution. But, hey, its an “emergency”. Of course. It always is when the Article II Executive Branch comes to feed in the name of efficacy.

What is the value of Separation of Powers, and constriction of Constitutionally assigned powers to the branch to which they were assigned, and what is the value in insuring that an imperial Executive Branch does not usurp too many powers? Let James Madison, in Federalist No. 47 explain:

No political truth is certainly of greater intrinsic value, or is stamped with the authority of more enlightened patrons of liberty, than that on which the objection is founded. The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the federal Constitution, therefore, really chargeable with the accumulation of power, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system. I persuade myself, however, that it will be made apparent to every one, that the charge cannot be supported, and that the maxim on which it relies has been totally misconceived and misapplied. In order to form correct ideas on this important subject, it will be proper to investigate the sense in which the preservation of liberty requires that the three great departments of power should be separate and distinct.
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The constitution of Massachusetts has observed a sufficient though less pointed caution, in expressing this fundamental article of liberty. It declares “that the legislative department shall never exercise the executive and judicial powers, or either of them; the executive shall never exercise the legislative and judicial powers, or either of them; the judicial shall never exercise the legislative and executive powers, or either of them. ” This declaration corresponds precisely with the doctrine of Montesquieu, as it has been explained, and is not in a single point violated by the plan of the convention. It goes no farther than to prohibit any one of the entire departments from exercising the powers of another department (Publius, Federalist 47).

What is the import of the Congressional “Power of the Purse”? As James Madison said in Read more →

Time to Fund Fat Al Gore Relief Like We Should Have Funded Iraq, Afghan Wars

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Peter King, House Republican, called today for New Yorkers to stop funding House Republicans because they refused to pass a Sandy relief bill last night.

“These Republicans have no problem finding New York when they’re out raising millions of dollars,” King said on Fox News. “They’re in New York all the time filling their pockets with money from New Yorkers. I’m saying right now, anyone from New York or New Jersey who contributes one penny to congressional Republicans is out of their minds. Because what they did last night was put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans. It was an absolute disgrace.”

King also said he was ready to buck Republican leaders on every issue until the Sandy aid is approved.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m on my own,” King said. “They’re going to have to go a long way to get my vote on anything.”

There’s a lot of choice things to say about what this signals for the GOP and King.

But rather indulge myself in that, I’d like to draw a larger lesson from it.

It is time to start funding relief for climate change related disasters ahead of time–for all the  reasons we should have always funded the Afghan and Iraq Wars through the budget rather than supplemental funding.

We need to start setting aside realistic relief funds–say $100 billion a year–to deal with these disasters, because if we don’t, these supplementals will become yet more hostage situations for the GOP. After all, while it was probably a fracking-related disaster rather than a climate change one, Eric Cantor held his own constituents hostage when they needed funds after the earthquake in his district. If Cantor will hold them hostage (and they’ll continue to reelect him), then they’ll hold anyone hostage. And if a city as big and vital as NYC can get held hostage, then the towns that extreme weather are wiping off the map in Arkansas and Alabama will surely be hostages, too.

We can’t let increasingly frequent not-quite-so-natural disasters be serial opportunities for Republicans to gut government.

Furthermore, until we start budgeting climate change relief as such, we’ll never start accounting for how much we’re already paying because of climate change. We’ll never adequately balance whatever benefits come from–say–Shell drilling in the Arctic or KXL pipeline transit of the US if, as we did with the Iraq War, we simply don’t treat relief for climate victims as a real cost, one we’re going to have to pay year after year in increasing amounts.

Democrats are very happy to harp on Bush’s wars, which were treated as but never really were free. But the government’s commitment to drilling over better approaches to energy in the face of climate change–along with a failure to fund the obvious outcome of that drilling–is no less foolish.

Future Forecast: Roundup of Scattered Probabilities

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[The Crystal Ball by John William Waterhouse, c. 1902]

While thinking about forecasting the future, I collected a few short-term predictions for the year ahead worth kicking around a bit. After gazing deeply into my crystal ball, I added a few predictions of my own.

The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center at NOAA forecasts below-average precipitation in the Pacific Northwest along with higher than average temperatures in the Southwest through Summer 2013. Looks like rainfall across areas stricken by drought in 2012 might be normal, but this will not overcome the soil moisture deficit.

My prediction: Beef, pork, and milk prices will remain high or increase — and that’s before any weirdness in pricing due to changes in federal regulations after the so-called “fiscal cliff.” And the U.S. government, both White House and Congress, will continue to do even less than the public expects when it comes to climate change.

The European Commission predicted the UK will lead economic recovery in the EU with a meager 0.9% growth rate anticipated in 2013. The southern portion of the EU is expected to continue to struggle while the rest of the EU stagnates.

My prediction: More mumbling about breaking up the EU, with just enough growth to keep at bay any action to that effect. Silvio Berlusconi will continue to provide both embarrassment and comedic relief to Italy and the EU. (What are they putting in that old freak’s pasta? Or are they doping his hair color?)

In September, the Federal Reserve Bank forecast slowish growth in the U.S. through 2013. Did they take into account the lame duck status of an already lethargic and incompetent Congress in this prediction? Did the Fed Reserve base this forecast on a Romney or an Obama win? This forecast seems oddly optimistic before November’s election.

My prediction: All bets are off now, since the over-long backbiting and quibbling over the so-called fiscal cliff has eroded public sentiment. Given the likelihood of increased food prices due to the 2012 global drought, the public will feel more pain in their wallet no matter the outcome of fiscal cliff negotiations, negatively affecting consumer sentiment. The only saving grace has been stable to lower gasoline prices due to lower heating oil demand–the only positive outcome of a rather warm winter to date.

An analyst forecast Apple sales of iPads will equate nearly 60 percent of the total tablet market in 2013. As an owner of AAPL stock, I rather liked this. Unfortunately, that prediction was made in October, before the release of the iPad Mini. The stock market had something entirely different to say about the forecast–more like a bitchslap to the tune of nearly $200 decline per share between October and year-end. *Ouch!* Not all of that was based on the market’s rejection of the forecast on iPad Mini sales, though; much of that fall was related to the gross failure of Apple’s map application launched alongside the iPhone 5.

My prediction: I will continue to bemoan the failure to sell some AAPL stock in September 2012, while many of you will continue to buy Apple products. I thank you buyers in advance for trying so hard to boost my spirits and bolster my kids’ college fund in the coming year. Oh, and Google Maps will continue to eat at market share; it’s going to be a while before Apple recovers from its epic map failures. Conveniently, there’s GOOG stock in the kids’ college fund, too.

What about you? Are any of these predictions worth the pixels with which they’re presented?  What do you predict for the year ahead? Do tell.

High Profile Republican Firm, Cerberus, to Sell Freedom

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It has come to this. Cerberus–the private equity firm full of well-connected Republicans like John Snow and Dan Quayle–has decided it can no longer continue to invest in Freedom Group, the maker of the Bushmaster assault rifle used in Friday’s massacre at Sandy Hook.

In its statement announcing the decision, it attempts to absolve itself of responsibility for killing 20 children.

In 2006 affiliates of Cerberus Capital Management, L.P. made a financial investment in Freedom Group.  Freedom Group does not sell weapons or ammunition directly to consumers, through gun shows or otherwise.  Sales are made only to federally licensed firearms dealers and distributors in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.  We do not believe that Freedom Group or any single company or individual can prevent senseless violence or the illegal use or procurement of firearms and ammunition.

It then couches its decision to sell Freedom in fiscal responsibility, not moral complicity.

It is apparent that the Sandy Hook tragedy was a watershed event that has raised the national debate on gun control to an unprecedented level.  The debate essentially focuses on the balance between public safety and the scope of the Constitutional rights under the Second Amendment.  As a Firm, we are investors, not statesmen or policy makers.  Our role is to make investments on behalf of our clients who are comprised of the pension plans of firemen, teachers, policemen and other municipal workers and unions, endowments, and other institutions and individuals.  It is not our role to take positions, or attempt to shape or influence the gun control policy debate.  That is the job of our federal and state legislators.

There are, however, actions that we as a firm can take.  Accordingly, we have determined to immediately engage in a formal process to sell our investment in Freedom Group. [my emphasis]

But that mention of its clients, including teachers pension plans, is the real tell. As CNN suggests, it was likely pressure from the California Teacher’s pension fund that prompted this decision.

Yesterday we reported that one of the largest investors in Cerberus private equity funds was the California State Teachers’ Retirement System, which subsequently said it would review its indirect investment in Freedom Group (it made no such pledge following the Aurora shooting, where a Bushmaster rifle also was used).

In any case, having made the decision to sell Freedom, things will now get interesting for Cerberus, as the sharp decline in gun stocks will force Cerberus to sell Freedom at a big loss.

Often when something like that happens–most spectacularly when Cerberus decided to sell Chrysler–it asks for a bailout. Will John Snow and Dan Quayle orchestrate a federal bailout for themselves again, as they did with the auto bailout?

Bangladeshi Garment Fire: Downstream Effect of a WalMart Economy?

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One of the things hot on the nets yesterday was Peter Suderman’s pushback against the anti-WalMart action that has been progressing over the last week, culminating in organized protests at numerous stores across the country on Black Friday. Even Alan Grayson got in on the WalMart Thanksgiving protest mix.

But Suderman, loosing followup thoughts after an appearance regarding the subject on Up With Chris Hayes caused a storm. Here is a Storify with all 17 of Suderman’s Tweet thoughts. Suderman, who is a Libertarian and certainly no progressive, nevertheless makes some pretty cogent arguments, and the real gist can be summed up in just a few of the Tweets:

So the benefits of Walmart’s substantially lower prices to the lowest earning cohort are huge, especially on food.
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Obama adviser Jason Furman has estimated the welfare boost of Walmart’s low food prices alone is about $50b a year.
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Paying Walmart’s workers more would mean the money has to come from somewhere. But where?
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Raise prices to pay for increased wages and you cut into the store’s huge low-price benefits for the poor. It’s regressive.

Suderman goes on to note that WalMart workers are effectively within the norm for their business sector as to pay and benefits.

My purpose here is not to get into a who is right and who is wrong, the protesters or Suderman, I actually think there is relative merit to both sides and will leave resolution of that discussion for others.

My point is that the discussion is bigger than than simply the plight of the WalMart retail workers in the US. WalMart is such a huge buyer and seller that it is the avatar of modern low cost retailing and what it does has reverberations not just in the US life and economy, but that of the world. Ezra Klein came close to going there in a reponse piece to Suderman’s take:

But Wal-Mart’s effect on its own employees pales in comparison to its effect on its supply chain’s workers, and its competitors’ workers. As Barry Lynn argued in his Harper’s essay “Breaking the Chain,” and as Charles Fishman demonstrated in his book “The Wal-Mart Effect,” the often unacknowledged consequence of Wal-Mart is that it has reshaped a huge swath of the American, and perhaps even the global, economy.

Not “perhaps” the global economy Ezra, definitively the global economy. WalMart sets the tone for high volume Read more →

Foxes Are to Hen House Security as Bankers Are to Occupy Wall Street

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[photo: Daquella manera via Flickr]

Hey, it’s me, Angry Mom. Yeah, the one who spent the last nine years in political activism. I was utterly immersed in the effort, from baking cookies to persuade voters, to writing op-eds, licking envelopes, dragging my poor kids to conventions, to debating conservative candidates at local forums.

Along the way I learned a thing or two.

First, the overwhelming majority of Americans do not realize how very thin and brittle this democracy is–if we have one at all. I’ve done the math in my own state, and the numbers are probably very similar in yours based on conversations over the years with activists nationwide. A scant 4000 people who show up and do the work actually make democracy run for a state with a ballpark population of ten million.

4000/10,000,000 = roughly 0.0004 of the entire state is actively engaged.

Not even 1% of this state’s residents. Hell, the über-wealthy 1% are more numerous.

That’s it. Active members (not merely voters) of both major parties combined comprise less than 1% of the population. The other parties have so few people actively involved as to be statistically irrelevant. Go ahead, throw a tantrum about a beloved third party–the fact remains if a third party isn’t de-listed in this or other states, it may be close for lack of adequate numbers of voters.

Second, all kinds of arrogant boneheads think they know enough about politics and its process in America to tell others what what’s wrong with it. Virtually ALL of these opinionators are not a member of that less-than-1%-actively-involved, and probably never have been. I’ve seen them from my perspective as an activist, and I’ve seen them as an editor/journalist–they don’t know anything based on actual experience, but they’ll dump all kinds of opinion and call it fact.

Thirdly, based on what I’ve learned inside the trenches, it’s bloody hard to launch and sustain a movement in this country if you don’t have the right people with the right smarts. With so few Americans actually investing effort in the political process, political leaders are those who simply show up. That’s all it takes. Unfortunately, not everyone who shows up is a charismatic, well-trained genius who can coalesce an organization that can fight back successfully against corporate-funded behemoths. We have political leadership by default, not purely by merit.

These are three of the biggest truths I learned  from this school of hard knocks, tuition paid with sweat, shoe leather, long hours, lost opportunities to watch my kids’ soccer, and tepid spaghetti dinners. Keep these facts in mind and consider the loosely organized Occupy Wall Street movement, which is even smaller than any one political party in their respective state. Read more →

Creeping Unemployment in the New Battlegrounds: PA and MI

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The big news of the campaign, once you get beyond Mitt’s kabuki storm assistance and auto bashing, is that PA and MI are battlegrounds again.

Maybe.

First, Restore Our Future PAC announced $2 million ad buys in both states.  The the Obama campaign announced they’d buy ads as well.

Today, the Detroit News has a poll showing Mitt within 2.7% of Obama (though polling ended on the 29th, when Mitt’s deceitful auto binge began). In fact, while Romney and Ryan were “not campaigning” yesterday, Ann Romney was, here in Grand Rapids.

Some commentators suggest this is just Mitt’s effort to open up new battlegrounds as it becomes clear he won’t win OH and might not win VA (or FL, but that would be game over for him). That is, Mitt has to look viable, and by moving into MI and PA, he can sustain narratives that he still has a shot.

That may be what’s going on.

But it pays to look at what has been going on with the unemployment rate in both MI and PA (I’ve included OH for comparison and MN because it often gets thrown into these discussions).

MI’s unemployment rate is up 1% off its recent low in April (the downtick this month, and some of last month’s uptick, is probably due to the way the auto companies handled model year layoffs). Part of the uptick is probably due to Rick Snyder’s austerity plans; part is probably due to Obama’s failure to provide real mortgage relief.

PA’s unemployment rate is up .8% from its recent low in May. Here, too, Republican governor Tom Corbett has pursued austerity measures. In addition, PA is exposed to the Euro-related decline that has hurt much of the Northeast.

The point, though, is that both these states have the makings of a battleground state–including a white working class population that can swing with economic tides–plus rising unemployment. Obama is still ahead in both. A few more ads about the auto bailout–indeed, Mitt’s deceitful attacks on GM and Chrysler generally–will probably move MI back towards Obama. And the Philadelphia area was spared the worst of Sandy, staving off the possibility that Pennsyltucky would have unimpeded voting while the Democratic Southeast would have floods. So it’s still most likely Obama will win both by comfortable margins.

But one thing makes movement towards Mitt more realistic here than in, say, MN. The economy is getting worse again. And in spite of all Mitt’s unforced errors in recent days, and in spite of the way that Snyder and Corbett’s state level policies–which mirror those Mitt would adopt at the federal level–have almost certainly exacerbated unemployment, voters may still turn to Mitt as an alternative to a stalled recovery.

Mitt’s play in MI and PA is probably a ploy to look viable. But there are a lot of unemployed workers in both states who will help him along.

Will Paul Ryan’s Photo Op Hurt a Catholic Charity’s Efforts to Feed the Poor?

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The Nuns on the Bus have been saying for months that Paul Ryan’s miserly budgetary approach betrays his Catholic values. The Bishops agree. Joe Biden even called Ryan out for “taking issue” with the Church’s social teachings.

Just days after being called out by a fellow Catholic for being stingy with the poor, Ryan commandeered a soup kitchen so he could stage a photo op.

It turns out the soup kitchen is run by the Society of St. Vincent de Paul–a Catholic lay organization.

And the local president of the society suggests Ryan’s photo op might hurt their donations.

Brian J. Antag, president of the Mahoning County St. Vincent De Paul Society, said that he was not contacted by the Romney campaign ahead of the Saturday morning visit by Ryan, whostopped by the soup kitchen after a town hall at Youngstown State University.

“We’re a faith-based organization; we are apolitical because the majority of our funding is from private donations,” Antag said in a phone interview Monday afternoon. “It’s strictly in our bylaws not to do it. They showed up there and they did not have permission. They got one of the volunteers to open up the doors.”

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“I can’t afford to lose funding from these private individuals,” he said. “For us to even appear like we’re backing somebody, it’s suicide. … If this was the Democrats, I’d have the same exact problem. It doesn’t matter who it was.”

He added that the incident had caused him “all kind of grief” and that regardless of whether Ryan had intended to serve food to patrons or wash dishes, he would not have allowed the visit to take place.

Ryan has made a concerted effort to make it harder for the Federal government to help the poor.

And now, with his selfish big-footing, he may have made it harder for Catholics serving the poor to do so.

Congressman Tim Ryan’s 4 Reasons Obama Is Winning Ohio

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The Alliance for American Manufacturing just had a press conference with Congressman Tim Ryan, who represents Youngstown and part of Akron, Ohio, to talk about the role that China is playing in this year’s President election.

Earlier in the day, in the wake of the release of a WaPo poll showing Obama with an 8 point lead in OH, Adam Serwer had suggested, “There’s a great piece of journalism to be done about how Obama nuked Romney in Ohio.” So I asked Ryan for the four top reasons why Obama is doing so well in OH.

He listed, in order:

  1. The auto bailout (Ryan’s district also includes GM’s Lordstown Chevy Cruze plant)
  2. Obama’s successful WTO trade complaint against China’s tire dumping (which affected Akron)
  3. The Administration’s investment in education and research
  4. Mitt’s campaigning against Proposal 2, which protected collective bargaining for OH’s public workers

As Ryan said of Mitt’s anti-union campaigning, “he was against [OH’s teachers, police, and firefighters] when they needed him.”

Obviously, Ryan’s not an unbiased observer. But he does represent a bunch of Ohioans who appear poised to swing the election to Obama.

Maybe Mitt shouldn’t have spent so much time demonizing workers?