From DCorps Stan Greenberg:
In our latest video, James and I discuss the challenges facing the Republican Party on the eve of critical debates over the budget and the debt ceiling. The Republican Party has a serious brand problem, and it keeps getting worse. The GOP is viewed unbelievably negatively, and even Republicans themselves agree that it is deeply divided.
Polls show the Republican brand problem manifesting itself in the Virginia gubernatorial race, and in Senate races across the country. And if Republicans damage their brand even worse by shutting down the government, we think they could trigger a revolt that might even imperil their House majority in 2014:

Democrats have improved their prospects for holding their Senate majority, with the entry of a solid candidate into the WV senate race for the seat being vacated by retiring Sen. Jay Rockefeller. In their post, “Tennant Moves the Needle in West Virginia,” at Sabato’s Crystal Ball Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley, two of the more astute election-watchers, explain:

…Secretary of State Natalie Tennant (D) will reportedly enter the contest Tuesday morning. Her entry, which has been rumored for months, gives Democrats a credible opponent for Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R, WV-2), the likely Republican nominee. We are changing the rating in this race from Likely Republican to LEANS REPUBLICAN. With a successful statewide elected official now running, Democrats have kept the race on the competitive board, but it would still be a significant surprise if Republicans fumbled away one of their best pickup opportunities in the country.
…After graduating from West Virginia University in 1991…Tennant spent many years as a TV reporter and anchor in Charleston and Clarksburg. She was comfortably elected and reelected as secretary of state in 2008 and 2012, respectively, and this will be the second time she’s run for office “from safety” in the middle of her term in office. In running an uphill Senate race, Tennant is risking a third statewide defeat: She lost the Democratic nomination for secretary of state in 2004, and in 2011 she finished third in a special Democratic primary election for governor.

Skelley and Kondik caution that the likely GOP opponent, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, is seasoned and well-connected and the state GOP is only slightly divided by tea party factions. They rate Capito the favorite to win in a state that has been trending Republican in recent years. However, Capito has a problematic track record, which raises questions about her credibility and inconsistency.
It won’t be a cakewalk against Tennant, a media-savvy Democrat who has won statewide elections on two occasions and has an intimate knowledge of state voting patterns, as a Secretary of State. Those who read up on Tennant’s salt-of-the-earth narrative won’t have much trouble envisioning an upset win.
The writers also review the GOP’s prospects for a U.S. Senate takeover, which contains a lot of dicey “ifs,” and conclude:

Democrats remain small favorites to hold the Senate, but control of the chamber is very much in play. Ultimately, Tennant’s entry in the race might not be enough to keep Capito from ascending to the Upper Chamber, but it could tie down Republican resources that might be better used in some of these other contests. That’s important in a cycle where Democrats are largely playing defense.

Tennant does not yet have an ActBlue page, but those who want to help should visit her well-designed campaign web page.

As a result of the horrific massacre in Washington, D.C.’s Navy Yard, the NRA and its political minions have suddenly eased off gloating about the Colorado vote in which a very small minority of eligible voters recalled two supporters of gun control from the state senate.
The massacre, in which a man who had a history of disturbing incidents with guns reportedly killed 12 people and wounded at least 8 others with an AR-15 assault weapon, a semi-automatic pistol and another unspecified gun, has evoked new calls for gun control. Senator Diane Feinstein’s statement on the massacre got straight to the point:

There are reports the killer was armed with an AR-15, a shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol when he stormed an American military installation in the nation’s capital and took at least 12 innocent lives…This is one more event to add to the litany of massacres that occur when a deranged person or grievance killer is able to obtain multiple weapons-including a military-style assault rifle-and kill many people in a short amount of time.
“When will enough be enough?
“Congress must stop shirking its responsibility and resume a thoughtful debate on gun violence in this country. We must do more to stop this endless loss of life.”

Senator Jay Rockefeller echoed the call: “We are becoming far too familiar with senseless, tragic violence. This is the seventh shooting since 2009, and these repeated incidents demand our attention.”
The NRA declined comment on Monday. Later on, they are expected to regurgitate the “a good guy with a gun is the only way to stop a bad/crazy guy with a gun” and “the real issue here is weak national security” memes. With respect to their argument that not much can be done about people with psychological derangement getting guns, however, Eugene Robinson responds in his WaPo column:

Opponents of gun control argue that, instead of infringing Second Amendment rights, we should focus on the fact that most, if not all, of these mass shooters are psychologically disturbed. But many of the officials who take this view are simultaneously trying their best to repeal Obamacare, which will provide access to mental health services to millions of Americans who are now uninsured.

Earlier this year legislation to curb gun violence, including mental health reforms and bills to provide stronger background checks and restrict high-capacity gun magazines failed in congress shortly after the Newtown, Connecticut elementary school massacre. In response, Vice President Biden announced that the Administration is taking executive action, which does not require congressional consent: As CNN’s Adam Aigner-Treworgy reports:

The first action closes a loophole that could allow individuals prohibited from purchasing certain restricted weapons to do so legally by registering them under the name of a trust or corporation. Calling this “an easy way to evade the required background checks,” Biden said this new proposed rule, issued by ATF, would require individuals attempting to register firearms under a trust or corporation to be subject to the same background checks as individual gun purchasers…”Last year alone there were 39,000 requests for transfer of these restricted firearms to trusts or to corporations,” Biden said.
The second action addresses U.S. military firearms sold or transferred to foreign allies. Currently the government must approve any re-importation of these weapons back to the United States, but the rule announced Thursday would deny nearly all such requests. The vice president said that since 2005, the government has approved the transfer of more than 250,000 of these firearms.
“We’re ending the practice of allowing countries to send back to the United States these military weapons to private entities,” Biden said. “Period. Period. The new policy’s going to help keep military-grade firearms off our streets.”

The reforms are welcome, but are small-scale in a nation that has more guns than people. Thus the Vice President emphasized that legislative reforms remain the “best way to reduce gun violence.”
“If Congress won’t act, we’ll fight for a new congress,” Biden said. “It’s that simple.” That’s the unavoidable challenge advocates of a sane firearms policy must accept to put an end to the NRA’s political bullying.

The next time some pious politician parrots cliches about the glories of ‘the free market,’ you may want to respond with some of the points former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich makes in his HuffPo post, “The Myth of the ‘Free Market’ and How to Make the Economy Work for Us“. As Reich sets the stage:

One of the most deceptive ideas continuously sounded by the Right (and its fathomless think tanks and media outlets) is that the “free market” is natural and inevitable, existing outside and beyond government…And whatever ways we might seek to reduce inequality or insecurity — to make the economy work for us — are unwarranted constraints on the market’s freedom, and will inevitably go wrong.
By this view, if some people aren’t paid enough to live on, the market has determined they aren’t worth enough. If others rake in billions, they must be worth it. If millions of Americans remain unemployed or their paychecks are shrinking or they work two or three part-time jobs with no idea what they’ll earn next month or next week, that’s too bad; it’s just the outcome of the market.
According to this logic, government shouldn’t intrude through minimum wages, high taxes on top earners, public spending to get people back to work, regulations on business, or anything else, because the “free market” knows best.

Such is the pablum Americans are spoon-fed from childhood on. But Reich takes an interesting angle on the term:

In reality, the “free market” is a bunch of rules about (1) what can be owned and traded (the genome? slaves? nuclear materials? babies? votes?); (2) on what terms (equal access to the internet? the right to organize unions? corporate monopolies? the length of patent protections? ); (3) under what conditions (poisonous drugs? unsafe foods? deceptive Ponzi schemes? uninsured derivatives? dangerous workplaces?) (4) what’s private and what’s public (police? roads? clean air and clean water? healthcare? good schools? parks and playgrounds?); (5) how to pay for what (taxes, user fees, individual pricing?). And so on.
These rules don’t exist in nature; they are human creations. Governments don’t “intrude” on free markets; governments organize and maintain them. Markets aren’t “free” of rules; the rules define them.

Reich adds that “If our democracy was working as it should, presumably our elected representatives, agency heads, and courts would be making the rules roughly according to what most of us want the rules to be.” In reality, however,

Instead, the rules are being made mainly by those with the power and resources to buy the politicians, regulatory heads, and even the courts (and the lawyers who appear before them). As income and wealth have concentrated at the top, so has political clout. And the most important clout is determining the rules of the game…Not incidentally, these are the same people who want you and most others to believe in the fiction of an immutable “free market.”

Reich’s take on ‘free market’ mythology is something all good social studies teachers should use to challenge their students, starting in jr. high/middle school. As it is, most young people are not exposed to anything that challenges free market mythology until/if they get to college, if then. Educators who are serious about teaching critical thinking should put Reich’s essay at the top of their reading lists.

Paul Krugman’s column, “Rich man’s Recovery” focuses on a new study of I.R.S. data by Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, which reveals disturbing conclusions about the growing “concentration of income in America’s upper strata.” As Krugman explains:

According to their estimates, top income shares took a hit during the Great Recession, as things like capital gains and Wall Street bonuses temporarily dried up. But the rich have come roaring back, to such an extent that 95 percent of the gains from economic recovery since 2009 have gone to the famous 1 percent. In fact, more than 60 percent of the gains went to the top 0.1 percent, people with annual incomes of more than $1.9 million.
Basically, while the great majority of Americans are still living in a depressed economy, the rich have recovered just about all their losses and are powering ahead.
…These numbers should (but probably won’t) finally kill claims that rising inequality is all about the highly educated doing better than those with less training. Only a small fraction of college graduates make it into the charmed circle of the 1 percent. Meanwhile, many, even most, highly educated young people are having a very rough time. They have their degrees, often acquired at the cost of heavy debts, but many remain unemployed or underemployed, while many more find that they are employed in jobs that make no use of their expensive educations. The college graduate serving lattes at Starbucks is a cliché, but he reflects a very real situation.

Krugman adds that “the effect of that concentration is to undermine all the values that define America. Year by year, we’re diverging from our ideals. Inherited privilege is crowding out equality of opportunity; the power of money is crowding out effective democracy… Extreme inequality is still on the rise — and it’s poisoning our society.”
Krugman goes on to commend New York mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio for his call for a small surtax on incomes over $500K to finance universal prekindergarten education as an example of the kind of policies that can help rectify stalled upward mobility. He notes that Peter Beinhart’s Daily Beast post on “The Rise of the New New Left” cites de Blasio’s proposal as a good example of “new economic populism that will shake up our whole political system.”
Krugman is right that tax increases on the wealthy to help fund upward mobility in America are urgently needed at the federal, state and local levels. The other half of the policy mix would be the restoration of a healthy labor movement, without which any effort to rebuild the middle class is doomed. There is simply no getting around the reality that the precondition for both causes is a nationwide defeat of Republicans in 2014 — an enormous, but unavoidable challenge for Democrats.

The following article, by Democratic strategist Robert Creamer, author of Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, is cross-posted from HuffPo:
The ultimate reason to support the Congressional resolution to authorize the use of military force to stop chemical weapons use in Syria is clear: it’s working.
Over a year ago, the U.S. proposed that Syria turn over its chemical weapons for destruction by the international community and join the chemical weapons treaty that bans their possession or use. Syria refused, and Russia refused to demand that it do so.
Today they have both said yes. There is only one reason. They hope to stop the use of military force that President Obama has proposed to degrade their ability to deliver these weapons — and make the regime pay a price for the indiscriminate slaughter of 1,400 adults and children using chemical weapons containing poison sarin gas.
Many of my fellow Progressives — who like me were strong opponents of the Iraq War — support President Obama’s request for Congressional authorization to use force to sanction chemical weapons use in Syria and deter its future use. They include Congressman Keith Ellison, the Co-Chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus; former anti-war presidential candidate Howard Dean, progressive columnists E.J. Dionne and Gene Robinson; and of course former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
But for those who do not want to see the use of military force in Syria, the best thing they can do to assure that the military action is not needed is to support the Congressional resolution authorizing the president to use military force if necessary. That is the absolute best way to make certain the Syrian regime actually gives up its chemical weapons once and for all — and that there is no need for the U.S. to take military action to force Assad to comply.
As the President argued last night, we need to make certain that the Russians and Syrians are absolutely convinced that if they do not make good on their new promise to turn over Syrian chemical weapons, military action will ensue — it’s that simple.
Three additional arguments have been used over the last few days that need to be addressed:
1). Some have argued that it is never justified to use force to counter malicious use of violence.
There are some Progressives who are truly pacifists — who feel that the use of force and violence is never justified.
I respect the convictions of those who hold pacifist views, but I do not agree with them.

Read more…

From Dave Nir’s elections Morning Digest at Daily Kos:

In a devastating result for Democrats, two legislators who supported new gun safety laws, state Senate President John Morse and state Sen. Angela Giron, both lost in recall elections spurred by the NRA and gun activists on Tuesday night, Morse by less than 2 percent, Giron by 12. Morse will be replaced by Republican Bernie Herpin; Giron’s seat, meanwhile, will be taken over by another Republican, George Rivera. Both Herpin and Rivera have to go before voters next year, and both seats gave Barack Obama about 58 to 59 percent of the vote in 2012, so they won’t be easy holds for the GOP. But last night’s results show just how badly Democratic turnout dropped in these unusually timed, off-off-year elections.
For now, Democrats’ 20-15 edge in the Senate has been whittled down to a precarious 18-17–and the NRA and their allies will crow about what this means for proponents of gun regulations. Conservatives have talked about ushering in a “wave of fear” among Democratic lawmakers nationwide, but more immediately, they might attempt another recall to try to take control of the chamber, since Republicans clearly benefit when holding elections in non-presidential years. This falloff in enthusiasm in years not divisible by four is probably the biggest electoral challenge Democrats face nationwide right now, and these recalls, if any good is to come of them, should spur the party to seriously address this major problem.

The recall election is a setback for both Democrats and public safety in a state that has experienced more than it’s share of tragedy as a result of mass shootings in Columbine and Aurora. Now might be a good time for Democratic leaders to convene top experts on maximizing voter turnout in non-presidential elections and implement a program to address the issue.

From Ed Kilgore’s Washington Monthly post, “Where’s My War?“:

Mitch McConnell has released his draft speech opposing a use-of-force resolution, and it relies very heavily on the no-win-war meme (even if his real motives are inveterate Obama-hatred and fear of getting out of synch with his most crucial ally in his primary battle back home, Rand Paul).
On the deepest level, I think it comes down to a fundamentally different view of America’s role in the world. Unlike the President, I’ve always been a firm and unapologetic believer in the idea that America isn’t just another nation among many; that we’re exceptional. As I’ve said, I believe we have a duty, as a superpower without imperialistic aims, to help maintain an international order and balance of power that we and other allies have worked very hard on over the years.
This President, on the other hand, has always been a very reluctant Commander in Chief. We saw that in the rhetoric of his famous Cairo speech, and in speeches he gave in other foreign capitals in the early days of his administration. The tone, and the policies that followed, were meant to project a humbler, more withdrawn America … and, frankly, I’m hard pressed to see any of the good that’s come from it.
He goes on and on, but the bottom line is that he won’t support a limited war and doesn’t think this president is capable of anything else.

Kilgore concludes, “Yeah, it’s sad that Obama may be in the process of spoiling the war with Syria that was supposed to pave the way to the war with Iran that so many GOP “hawks” actually want. So many of them may well move from a tactical alliance with Obama to a tactical alliance with Rand Paul, squawking belligerently all the way.”

As President Obama prepares for his address on Syria, he has backing for military action from from some Republican leaders, including House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Speaker John Boehner, while others in their party are attacking Obama for what they believe to be a miscalculation of public support for military action. Not all Republican ‘leaders,’ however, have voiced an opinion, as Daniel Strauss notes at Talking Points Memo:

Republican Matt Bevin, the primary challenger running against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) in the 2014 Senate race, is urging him to announce his position on whether to take military action in Syria.
“It’s too late for Mitch McConnell to lead on the issue of Syria, but he needs to let Kentucky and the rest of America know where he stands,” Bevin said in a statement on Monday. “We deserve better than a senator who ducks important debates like amnesty, defunding Obamacare, and now strikes in Syria. Like a true career politician, he waits to see the poll numbers so he can weigh how it will affect his own re-election instead of making decisions based on principles.”…McConnell has withheld publicly taking a stance on Syria, making him the only top congressional leader who has not yet said whether the United States should conduct a missile strike.

McConnell has said he will announce his position this week, presumably when he stops trembling at tea party threats. To be fair, however, McConnell isn’t the only Republican who is having trouble defining his position, as Sahil Kapur explains in his post, “Five Republicans Who Were For Syrian Intervention Before They Were Against It,” also at TPM. From Kapur’s report on GOP presidential aspirant Sen. Marco Rubio:

BEFORE: “The fall of Assad would be a significant blow to Iran’s ambitions. On those grounds alone, we should be seeking to help the people of Syria bring him down. … Finally, the nations in the region see Syria as a test of our continued willingness to lead in the Middle East. If we prove unwilling to provide leadership, they will conclude that we are no longer a reliable security partner, and will decide to take matters into their own hands. … The most powerful and influential nation in the world cannot ask smaller, more vulnerable nations to take risks while we stand on the sidelines. We have to lead because the rewards of effective leadership are so great.”
— Speech to Brooking Institution, April 25, 2012
AFTER: “While I have long argued forcefully for engagement in empowering the Syrian people, I have never supported the use of U.S. military force in the conflict. And I still don’t. I remain unconvinced that the use of force proposed here will work. The only thing that will prevent Assad from using chemical weapons in the future is for the Syrian people to remove him from power.”
— Remarks at Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Sept. 4, 2013

And here’s Sen. Ted Cruz:

BEFORE: “Right now we need to develop a clear, practical plan to go in, locate the weapons, secure or destroy them, and then get out. We might work in concert with our allies, but this needs to be an operation driven by the mission, not by a coalition. The United States should be firmly in the lead to make sure the job is done right.”
— Congressional record, June 20, 2013
AFTER: “I think a military attack is a mistake. For two reasons. One because I think the administration is proceeding with the wrong objective, and two, because they have no viable plan for success. They are beginning from the wrong objective because this attack is not based on defending U.S. national security. … I don’t think that’s the job of our military to be defending amorphous international norms. There are many other steps we can do to express strong disapproval to Assad’s murderous conduct, But I don’t think it’s the job of the military.”
— Transcript of Cruz interview on ABC’s “This Week,” Sept. 8, 2013

M.I.A. Mitch may end his dithering and weigh in today or tomorrow, after the President’s speech. No doubt his supporters hope he will resist the temptation to stake out both sides of the issue, like his vacillating Republican colleagues, Sens. Cruz and Rubio.