Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to affect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.
Time To Rally
NYT previews Saturday's "One Nation Working Together" march: "Predicting a crowd of more than 100,000, some 300 liberal groups — including the N.A.A.C.P., the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the National Council of La Raza and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force — are sponsoring a march on Saturday in the hope of transforming the national conversation so it focuses less on the Tea Party. The groups sponsoring the rally, which is called 'One Nation Working Together,' say they hope to supplant what they say is the Tea Party’s divisiveness with a message of unity to promote jobs, justice and education."
President Obama to hold first major rally since 2008 campaign on Tuesday. NYT "...the president is scheduled to hold an old-fashioned campaign rally on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, Madison ... While many of the Congressional races will turn on local issues and the performance of individual candidates, party officials are eager to try to match some of the national energy that has been generated among Republicans by the Tea Party movement."
HuffPo's Earl Ofari Hutchinson says the Pajamas TV claim that blacks support the Tea Party is 'pure PT Barnum Bunkum': "The methodology: What were they asked? How were they asked it? And who asked it? PJTV doesn't say."
LAT investigates Karl Rove's secretive campaign organization: "The office is marked only by a sign reading 'American Crossroads' and 'American Action Network.' ... a fundraising operation that has pulled in more than $32 million this year, as well as sophisticated marketing, research and advertising operations — all aimed at getting Republicans elected to the House and Senate. The organizations have been created outside the official party apparatus. They duplicate almost all the functions of the traditional GOP while often taking advantage of legal provisions that allow them to conceal the names of those who foot the bill."
W. Post's E.J. Dionne's questions if conservatism's hold on the GOP will ruin its chances to take over Congress: "It will be very hard for Republicans to take the House if they don't break the Democrats' power in the Northeast ... Republicans have plausible chances for both of New Hampshire's House seats and for an open seat in Massachusetts. They also have realistic prospects in a number of formerly Republican seats in New York and Pennsylvania. But [NY Rep. Dan] Maffei believes the Republicans' evermore right-wing image, shaped in part by Tea Party activists, will impede the GOP's regional comeback efforts."
House Vote Expected on China Currency This Week
House plans to vote on China currency measure this week. Reuters: "A U.S. congressional panel's approval of a bill on China's currency is 'redundant,' China's vice commerce minister said on Monday ... The U.S. House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee approved a bill on Friday, expected to be voted on this week, that would let the United States apply duties on goods from countries with undervalued currencies."
China slaps tariff on American poultry. NYT: "The commerce ministry started the investigation less than two days after President Obama imposed steep tariffs on Chinese tires a year ago. Chinese officials have denied that the inquiry was in retaliation, but poultry is one of the few categories in which the United States runs a trade surplus with China, making it an ideal target for Chinese trade actions. The tariffs are another example of China’s willingness to use its economic leverage when it feels it is being challenged."
"Pledge" To Have Solutions ... Someday
Think Progress' Tanya Somanader finds House Min. Leader Boehner off-message about the "Pledge": "When host Chris Wallace noted that the Pledge does not even address entitlement spending such as Social Security and Medicare, Boehner countered by saying that its purpose is only to 'lay out the size of the problem,' rather than 'to get to potential solutions.' ... [But the] Pledge states, surveying the proposals laid out in its pages, 'We recognize that these solutions are ambitious.' It concludes by affirming that Republicans will fight to 'promote and advance solutions.'"
Heritage Foundation issuing its own policy agenda. WSJ: "Some aspects in the Republican pledge - which actually came out first - 'mirror proposals we have in Solutions for America,' he writes. But, [Heritage's Edwin] Feulner says, 'we want to be even bolder.' ... Cap federal spending, but increase defense spending ... Put Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid under the federal budget ... Raise the Social Security retirement age, but eliminate payroll taxes for those who work beyond it ... Turn welfare payments for able-bodied adults into loans..."
Robert Reich sees GOP economics as "Social Darwinism": "[Herbert] Hoover’s means of purging the rottenness was by doing exactly what Boehner and his colleagues are now calling for: shrink government, cut the federal deficit, reduce the national debt, and balance the budget. And we all know what happened after 1929, at least until FDR reversed course."
Health Reform Increasingly Popular
More like health reform, but will they vote? USA Today: "The nation's new health care law regained support among more Americans this month, but opponents are more motivated to vote in November ... the law was favored by 49% to 40% in the Kaiser Family Foundation monthly tracking poll. That margin shrunk to 46%-45% among likely voters."
An AP Poll shows a majority want health care reform expanded, not repealed: "...Americans who think the law should have done more outnumber those who think the government should stay out of health care by 2-to-1. ...The poll found that about four in 10 adults think the new law did not go far enough to change the health care system, regardless of whether they support the law, oppose it or remain neutral. On the other side, about one in five say they oppose the law because they think the federal government should not be involved in health care at all."
Making Excuses Instead Of Jobs
NYT's Paul Krugman takes on Bill Clinton over "structural" unemployment: "... I’d respectfully suggest that Mr. Clinton talk to researchers at the Roosevelt Institute and the Economic Policy Institute, both of which have recently released important reports completely debunking claims of a surge in structural unemployment ... [If there was,] there should be significant labor shortages somewhere in America — major industries that are trying to expand but are having trouble hiring, major classes of workers who find their skills in great demand, major parts of the country with low unemployment even as the rest of the nation suffers. None of these things exist ... structural unemployment isn’t a real problem, it’s an excuse..."
Dems to put bill on Senate floor discouraging outsourcing, GOP expected to filibuster. WSJ: "The bill would provide tax breaks to companies that bring jobs home from abroad, and end certain tax credits, deductions and deferrals for U.S. companies expanding or moving overseas.
House unlikely to hold vote on Bush tax cuts before election. W. Post: "'I doubt that we will' stage a vote before adjourning next week, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) said. Speaking on the Sunday talk shows, he and White House senior adviser David Axelrod added that Democrats are nonetheless determined to act before the tax cuts expire in January."
Taking A Bullet For The Anti-Immigrant Cause?
Josh Marshall suggests the incident that inflamed Arizona's immigration debate may have been a hoax: "In the furor surrounding the passage of Arizona's notorious immigration crackdown bill, one incident that heavily inflamed the debate was the shooting of Pinal County Deputy Louie Puroll, who was allegedly shot by gang of drug smugglers he was tracking in the desert. Puroll reported being ambushed by the drug smugglers and then engaged in a running gun battle in which was grazed by a bullet in the back. Now though two renowned forensic pathologists are saying that Puroll's wound was clearly suffered at point-blank range and thus, quite possibly, self-inflicted as part of an effort to create a cause celebre to rally anti-immigrant forces in the state."
Fight over volunteer effort to provide water to immigrants crossing the border illegally. NYT: "From 2002 to 2009, 25 illegal immigrants died while passing through the [Buenos Aires National Wildlife] refuge’s rolling hills ... the government considered but ultimately decided against allowing No More Deaths to tether gallon jugs to trees to allow immigrants in more remote areas to drink without taking the jugs on their way. ... So furious are some at the practice of aiding immigrants that they have slashed open the water jugs, crushed them with their vehicles or simply poured the water into the desert."
Unloading AIG?
AIG bailout may end. Bloomberg: "The U.S. Treasury Department may announce plans as early as this week to return American International Group Inc. to independence and recoup taxpayer money from the insurer’s bailout ... The biggest part of that strategy is for Treasury to begin converting its $49 billion preferred stake into common stock for sales by the first half of next year ..."
Citigroup may increase exec pay. AP: "Citigroup, still partly owned by the government after a rescue during the financial meltdown, is giving raises to top executives that could amount to millions of dollars. CEO Vikram Pandit, who is drawing a salary of $1 for the second year in a row, did not get a raise, but the chairman of the bank hinted it plans a big payout for him next year."
