Max Baucus Finally Gets His Grand Bargain!

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Usually, when Max Baucus tries to craft a grand bargain, oversized legislation starts by getting progressively worse, at which point the legislation finally dies.

But he has finally succeeded in getting a grand bargain, with a deal to extend Trade Adjustment Assistance in exchange for votes on the Korea, Colombia, and Panama trade deals.

Baucus said he had secured an agreement with the White House and Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, to renew the expanded version of Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA). The program, which funds job-training programs and healthcare benefits for workers hurt by trade, will be extended until the end of 2013.

If that doesn’t already make you vomit, then consider the way the Chamber of Commerce’s Tom Donohue is preening over this agreement.

“For members of Congress who care about American jobs, this is a moment of truth,” said Tom Donohue, the Chamber’s president and CEO. “I urge members of both parties to seize a reasonable compromise and move the trade agenda forward. The time to act is now.”

As if the Chamber gives a hoot about jobs–aside from the ones they can move to countries where labor organization is met with murder.

Waxman Gives Obama Lessons in Negotiation, Again

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Update: As Dday corrects me, both these lessons in negotiation describe the same confrontation that took place on June 2.

DDay linked to this story describing Henry Waxman confronting President Obama because he had given the Republicans the impression he would cave on debt negotiations.

One Democrat who was there said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) bluntly asked Obama whether he was willing to fight for Democratic priorities amid GOP calls for trillions of dollars in spending cuts.

In asking the question, Waxman said he’d asked several Republicans about their White House meeting the day before and had been concerned by their response.

“To a person, they said the president’s going to cave,” Waxman told Obama, according to his colleague’s account.

“If you’re not going to cave, eliminating that misunderstanding is very, very important to the negotiations,” the lawmaker said, retelling Waxman’s message. “And if you’re going to cave, tell us right now.”

Obama, however, “didn’t answer the question,” the Democrat added. “Obama got in a huff, and he said, ‘I’m the president of the United States, my words carry weight’ — which is not the answer,” the lawmaker said. “That’s not what anyone challenges. It’s whether he is doing this negotiation in the right way.”

It’s not the first time Waxman has voiced Democrats’ frustration with Obama’s serial capitulations to the Republicans.

Earlier this month, they had a nearly identical confrontation in part on precisely the same issue (championing Democratic priorities in negotiations).

The challenge — on behalf of the many Democrats who have long complained that Obama is not making enough use of his White House megaphone — was principally delivered by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), according to the attendees. Waxman, lawmakers said, called for stronger action across the board, rather than on a particular issue.

But Obama responded that he has to be more careful and more considered than that, and that he is executing an existing plan.

The president has heard the complaint before. Democrats have accused Obama repeatedly of ceding too much ground to the GOP, especially on health care and the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. But attendees said the critique appeared to rub him the wrong way on Thursday.

“He was a little testy with the Waxman question. Essentially, Mr. Waxman was urging him to fight more,” one legislator said. “The president reminded folks that he’s the president sitting in that chair and he knows how to negotiate.”

Obama also told the assembled Democrats not to count on more fiery rhetoric from the Oval Office.

“He said, ‘There’s a difference between me and a member of Congress,'” another lawmaker said, paraphrasing the president as saying: “When I say something the markets react, all of society reacts, other countries react. I’ve got to be careful with what I say. I can’t just say it for brinkmanship. I’ve got to say it in a way so that I get what I want said, but I don’t upset markets and so on.”

Aside from the way this earlier article–citing a bunch of progressives claiming they had been heard–showed Democrats getting duped into believing Obama listens to them as often as Obama gets shellacked in negotiations with Republicans, I’m most amused by the underlying logic of the report.

Waxman told Obama that every single Republican he consulted had told Waxman Obama was going to cave on Democratic issues.

Obama’s testy response (I love imagining, btw, the 6’1″ Obama getting pissy as the 5’5″ Waxman challenges him on these issues) was that his “his words carry weight.”

But of course, every Republican asked said that Obama was going to cave.

That either means Obama told them he was going to cave (which is the only scenario in which Obama shouldn’t be ashamed at how little weight his word carries with Republicans). Or Obama’s claim his words carry weight is utterly belied by Republican mockery of his resolve.

Maybe after being blown off yet again, the Democrats will stop being the only ones around who believe Obama’s word carries any weight.

Obama Capitulates to GOP and Withdraws Labor Protection from Colombia Trade Deal

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Rep. Sander Levin

Rep. Sander Levin by jimrenaud

The website for the US Trade Representative still has a link to the inadequate–but nevertheless improved–labor protections that the US had demanded from Colombia to support a trade deal with the country.

But according to Sander Levin–who just announced his opposition to the deal–Obama has agreed to a Republican demand to drop such protections from the deal.

Rep. Sander Levin, D-Royal Oak, told reporters today he will oppose the free trade deal with Colombia, saying he can’t support the deal unless a plan to protect worker rights is included.

Levin criticized Republican opposition to including a reference to a labor rights action plan in implementing legislation — and the Obama administration’s acquiescence.

“Refusal to refer to the action plan on workers rights in the implementing bill is a fatal flaw,” Levin said.

I know I shouldn’t be surprised by Republican’s sheer cynicism anymore. But with this move they have effectively demanded–and Obama has agreed–that our workers should have to compete against workers in a country who may well be murdered if they stand up to management. The GOP has now insisted that the race to the bottom include murder.

What does that say they want for their own constituents?

Netroots Nation Recap: Saving the Middle Class

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Sorry to be AWOL for most of Netroots Nation. bmaz says I’ve been offline for the last few days because we’ve been drunk and busy, but it seems to me I’ve just been incredibly busy for five days straight. There were a lot of conversations, but the overall theme seemed like a desperate conversation on saving the middle class.

Early in the week, I had some extended conversations with labor folks, including some interesting discussions about the UAW’s plans to organize transplants–I hope to do an extensive follow-up on that.

On Thursday, I had the honor to be on a podium between Howard Dean and Russ Feingold, two of my political inspirations. Though the speakers of the night were probably a Pakistani and Zimbabwean woman talking about how important blogs are to giving women voices in oppressive societies. American Federation of Teachers President, Randi Weingarten, also gave a great talk.

On Thursday, I joined the ACLU and Julian Sanchez talking about all the surveillance we’re under. I think we succeded in scaring a lot of people.

I had conversations with a number of elected officials: Luis Gutierrez on immigration, Keith Ellison on saving the middle class, Sheldon Whitehouse on saving the middle class. Alan Grayson talked about what he’s reading about our increasing inequality in Fed documents. While he’s not elected, Jared Bernstein and I had a great talk about the MI auto bailout (and the fact Republican leaders are now claiming credit for results of stimulus in the midwest).

And then there were two more panels: how to beat back the demonization of the working class, and how to make blogging sustainable. Not sure I know the answer to any of those questions.

I was so busy I didn’t get to see many panels. But Van Jones had a great speech and the best panel I did sit in on featured Whitehouse and Dahlia Lithwick talking about the corporatization of the courts. Whitehouse emphasized how real people are increasingly losing the access to jury trials, something which our Constitution protects with far more urgency than corporations.

And I suppose bmaz is right that we spent a good deal of time, um, socializing. Barry Eisler–the author of the novel, Inside Out, that features a character named Marcy Wheeler–was one of the people I met for the first time this year. I thanked him for making it so Marcy Wheeler didn’t get laid or killed. But I saw a bunch of old friends, too.

I’m sure I’ll have more substantive stuff as I process the last several days. But processing it all is going to take a day or so yet.

China Is Hiding Its Counterfeit Electronics Parts

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The Senate Armed Services Committee is trying to investigate how allegedly counterfeit parts get into the military supply chain. But China won’t give visas–or promise freedom of movement without minders–to its investigators.

Two key US senators on Tuesday accused China of hampering a congressional probe into how counterfeit electronics end up in the US military supply chain by denying entry visas to investigators.

[snip]

And the senators said China had required that government minders attend any interviews conducted in China as part of the investigation, which was announced in March, but agreed that request was a “non-starter.”

Levin and McCain said that they had worked for weeks to get entry visas for staff to visit the city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province, which they described as the epicenter of the fake parts trade based on US government reports.

The development is interesting for several reasons. First, while the article cites F-15 and USMDA parts as the problem, most cybersecurity initiatives these days suggest we’ve got parts that are helping people hack our network. Thus, while Levin suggests China isn’t really our adversary, these “counterfeit” parts may well be designed for more than failure. It seems someone has gotten a backdoor into some of our networks because of hardware vulnerabilities.

Then there’s the more obvious issue raised by this. If military contractors can’t source parts to China without being “infiltrated” with counterfeit parts, and if China won’t let us investigate how these counterfeit parts keep getting into our supply chain, then why are we still allowing contractors to use Chinese parts? It seems to me this shows precisely why our outsourcing–and the consequent loss of manufacturing capacity–is really a defense issue.

The Chambermaid’s Revenge: IMF Hacked

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Usually, the apparent purpose of hacks is fairly banal. To steal defense secrets. To profit organized crime. To embarrass a political opponent.

But a reported sophisticated hack on the IMF is far more intriguing.

Because the fund has been at the center of economic bailout programs for Portugal, Greece and Ireland — and possesses sensitive data on other countries that may be on the brink of crisis — its database contains potentially market-moving information. It also includes communications with national leaders as they negotiate, often behind the scenes, on the terms of international bailouts. Those agreements are, in the words of one fund official, “political dynamite in many countries.” It was unclear what information the attackers were able to access.

The concern about the attack was so significant that the World Bank, an international agency focused on economic development, whose headquarters is across the street from the I.M.F. in downtown Washington, cut the computer link that allows the two institutions to share information.

The story mentions market-moving information, so I assume it could just be someone trying to play the bond markets.

But what is the scenario under which hackers compromise IMF’s top secret files to get information on the deals signed between the banksters and debtor nations? While I’d like to see that information–and I’m sure the Greeks rioting in the streets and the Irish stoically bearing down accepting their fate would like to see that information–I don’t understand what entity would sponsor the hackers? Organized crime? China? Hacktivists? If it were the latter–which seems most plausible to me–wouldn’t we already be looking at the demands German banksters made of Greek leaders?

I’m sure we’ll learn more about this in the future. But for now, I’m really curious about who had the means and motive to hack the IMF.

Aside from a bunch of chambermaids, of course.

E. Coli EFMs

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Chris Savage (Eclectablog) continues to track what the Emergency Financial Managers have been doing around Michigan. In new developments, the EFM for Pontiac MI, Michael Stampfler, broke the Police Dispatcher’s union contract, dissolved the Planning Commission, fired the water and wastewater department, and outsourced the latter function to a private company, United Water Services.

Now, Pontiac has had compliance problems with its wastewater treatment since 2009. Which is why Stampfler’s chosen replacement for Pontiac’s wastewater department is troublesome. As Savage points out, United Water was indicted in December for tampering with E Coli testing in Gary, IN.

Because United Water was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice last December for violating the Clean Water Act.

United Water Services Inc., the former contract operator of the Gary Sanitary District wastewater treatment works in Gary, Ind., and two of its employees, were charged today with conspiracy and felony violations of the Clean Water Act in a 26-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury, the Justice Department announced today.

United Water Services Inc., and employees Dwain L. Bowie, and Gregory A. Ciaccio, have been charged with manipulating daily wastewater sampling methods by turning up disinfectant treatment levels shortly before sampling, then turning them down shortly after sampling.

~SNIP~

According to the indictment, the defendants conspired to tamper with E. coli monitoring methods by turning up levels of disinfectant dosing prior to E. coli sampling. The indictment states that the defendants would avoid taking E. coli samples until disinfectants had reached elevated levels, which in turn were expected to lead to reduced E. coli levels. Immediately after sampling, the indictment alleges, the defendants turned down disinfectant levels, thus reducing the amount of treatment chemicals they used.

That would be a neat way to save money on wastewater treatment, huh? To hire a company allegedly willing to tamper with water quality readings to appear to have fixed water treatment problems.

Of course, the cost of infecting a city with E Coli might end up being a bigger problem.

“As I plan to inform the White House”

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DDay already noted Peter Diamond’s op-ed withdrawing his nomination as a Fed Governor. But I wanted to emphasize one thing:

It is time for me to withdraw, as I plan to inform the White House.

It appears that this very public complaint was how Diamond informed the White House he was withdrawing–not a discrete phone call.

That’s not the normal way nominees handle communications with the White House.

To be fair, Diamond focuses all of his criticism in the op-ed on the Republicans who believe a Nobel prize winner is unqualified to serve on the Fed. The op-ed itself does not criticize the White House’s handing of the nomination.

But if it’s true that this was Diamond’s way of informing the White House, then it suggests he’s pretty damned pissed at the White House as well. As well he should be–he got the same treatment Dawn Johnsen and Goodwin Liu did, with repeated renominations but no public fight (or recess appointment).

That club of good nominees hung out to dry by this White House is growing longer.

How’s that Plan Going, Mr. President?

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I was going to write about this story–about a confrontation between Henry Waxman and Barack Obama over the latter’s ineffective negotiating strategy–yesterday.

The president has heard the complaint before. Democrats have accused Obama repeatedly of ceding too much ground to the GOP, especially on health care and the extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthy. But attendees said the critique appeared to rub him the wrong way on Thursday.

“He was a little testy with the Waxman question. Essentially, Mr. Waxman was urging him to fight more,” one legislator said. “The president reminded folks that he’s the president sitting in that chair and he knows how to negotiate.”

Obama also told the assembled Democrats not to count on more fiery rhetoric from the Oval Office.

“He said, ‘There’s a difference between me and a member of Congress,'” another lawmaker said, paraphrasing the president as saying: “When I say something the markets react, all of society reacts, other countries react. I’ve got to be careful with what I say. I can’t just say it for brinkmanship. I’ve got to say it in a way so that I get what I want said, but I don’t upset markets and so on.”

But I’m sort of glad I waited until after today’s announcement that unemployment has gone up and declining public sector employment is dragging down the economy. Because it makes it all the more appropriate to highlight Obama’s claim that he has a plan.

But Obama responded that he has to be more careful and more considered than that, and that he is executing an existing plan. [my emphasis]

Not only does the crummy economic news weaken what had been a position of relative strength for the President, but it shows that if he’s got a plan, it’s either not working or not designed to work. Obama’s plan–to focus on the deficit–only makes it more likely we’ll see ongoing cuts to public employment.

Is that really the plan, Mr. President?

Can’t We Call this “Counter-Terrorism Preparedness”?

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Jared Bernstein (whose blog I still recommend) has responded to his 2-day PEPCO power outage by posting the crummy infrastructure report card the US got in 2009:

Check out the 2009 Report Card from the American Society of Civil Engineers:Aviation D

Bridges C

Dams D

Drinking Water D-

Energy D+

Hazardous Waste D

Inland Waterways D-

Levees D-

Public Parks and Recreation C-

Rail C-

Roads D-

Schools D

Solid Waste C+

Transit D

Wastewater D-

America’s Infrastructure GPA: D

Estimated 5 Year Investment Need: $2.2 Trillion

Bernstein’s take (channeling Atrios) is that fixing all this infrastructure ought to be a good way to get 20 million people back to work.

But fixing just about every single one of these infrastructure problems is also a way to make our country more resilient to terrorism. Bridges? Dams? They make attractive terrorist targets, particularly if they’re already crumbling. Drinking water? Another vulnerability to terrorist attacks. Rails? We know Osama bin Laden was reviewing plans to derail trains (as it crossed a bridge–this one’s a twofer).

So can’t we start fixing this stuff and, rather than calling it stimulus, call it “counter-terrorism preparedness”? There’s no way, of course, the idiots in DC would support 2 trillion of stimulus, but their willingness to keep funding multiple wars in the name of terrorism–to the tune of trillions–show they might do so if we can give it a national security spin.

And between us? If we fixed things like levees and energy plants, we’d also be more resilient to things like earthquakes and climate change. Mind you, if Republicans found out about that, it’d be enough reason to defund it. So we’ll just keep that part a secret between us.