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Politics

GOP House Candidate Jesse Kelly Says ‘It’s Our Job To Protect Ourselves’ From Salmonella Outbreaks

By Zaid Jilani on Oct 23, 2010 at 6:00 pm

Although there are a diverse set of political beliefs in the United States, there are currently two major political philosophies clashing for control of the American body politic. One, the progressive view, believes in a society where a democratically elected government plays an active role in helping all people achieve the American Dream, no matter who they are. The other, the conservative vision, believes in the on-your-own-society that favors the wealthy, big corporations, and other privileged sectors of society.

GOP House candidate Jesse Kelly, who is running in Arizona’s 8th congressional district, championed this second vision a week ago at a campaign rally hosted by the Pima County Tea Party Patriots. During a question-and-answer period, a voter asked Kelly about the recent salmonella outbreak, which led to recall of more than half a billion eggs.

The voter asked if Kelly, if elected, would he help pass a law that would allow the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other government agencies to shut down companies that have too many safety violations, such as the companies that allowed millions of eggs that sickened people to be sold to the public. Kelly responded that he doesn’t “believe what we’re lacking right now is more regulations on companies,” complaining that “you could probably spit on the grass and get arrested by the federal government by now.” When the voter followed up by asking, “Who’s protecting us?” Kelly responded, “It’s our job to protect ourselves.” The exasperated voter asked once more, “Am I supposed to go to a chicken farmer and say I’d like you to close down because all of your birds are half dead?” Kelly once more answered, “There’s a new thing that comes along every day. But I know this: Every part of our economy that is regulated by the government doesn’t have fewer disasters, it has more”:

QUESTIONER: Given the salmonella outbreaks that we have seen every three weeks, with the chicken industry, with pesticides and what not that they put onto spinach in order to get the salmonella. We have rules and regulations. However there is no rule mandating that they be enforced. Is there some way when you’re in Congress that you’ll have a bill passed that says instead of having companies voluntarily change, mandate that they must change or give them the ability to shut ‘em down and that goes for mining companies or anyone who has hundreds of violations against ‘em.

KELLY: Here’s the thing with that point, that’s the first time I’ve ever had that question. Congratulations on being unique. First shot out of the box, no ma’am. I do not believe that what we’re lacking right now is a lack of regulations on business. [...] You could literally go spit on the grass and get arrested by the federal government if you wanted to right now. [...] More regulation, more federal control, giving Nancy Pelosi more power, is not the solution right now.

QUESTIONER: Who’s protecting us?

KELLY: That’s the thing, ma’am, it’s our job to protect ourselves. Because no one else is going to look out for your best interests except for you. [...]

QUESTIONER: Am I supposed to go to a chicken farmer and say I’d like you to close down because all of your birds are half dead?

KELLY: I’ve not heard a lot about that recently, obviously there’s a new thing that comes along every day. But I know this, every portion of our economy that is heavily regulated doesn’t have fewer disasters, it has more.

Watch it:

Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Kelly attacked the FDA and advocated that people would be better off if no one was helping protect them from security hazards like diseased eggs which are very difficult for the average person to detect.

At a Rotary Club meeting earlier this month, the candidate said he wanted to “reduce the [FDA] as much as humanly possible,” claiming that we want to “blame the evil pharmaceutical companies” because drugs cost too much, and that we shouldn’t “spend our time blaming big business” (ignoring that the drug industry’s political clout over the FDA is the real problem).

Yglesias

The Funniest Thing I’ve Heard All Week

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 23, 2010 at 5:31 pm

In a couple of tweets the morning, Joshua Foust said:

I finally figured out what bothers me so much about Wikileaks, and it is precisely what bothers me about the DOD: a sense, on both sides… … Of hypocritical entitlement, combined with arrogance and a blithe disregard for consequences. Wikileaks is the Left’s Pentagon.

Provocative! To which Andrew Exum replied:

@joshuafoust You’re being to harsh on the Pentagon: DoD has both systems of accountability and civilian and congressional oversight.

Congressional oversight! Of the Defense Department! We’re truly doomed.

Yglesias

That Old Clinton Magic

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 23, 2010 at 4:31 pm

Josh Marshall puts his finger on what’s so odd about the new idea that Bill Clinton is some kind of political svengali who can/could help Democrats avoid their current political problems with his bold acts of strategic genius:

But let’s not be born yesterday. Anyone over 35 has a good adult memory of the 1994 midterm. That’s when Stan Greenberg was telling congressional candidates to run away from President Clinton, just two years after Stan helped engineer his election. Clinton was considered toxic politically in broad swathes of the country — swathes that anyone around then has to remember look an awful lot like the swathes where President Obama is toxic today. And even though the country was then in a comparatively mild economic funk rather than a full blown catastrophic and persistent recession, for all his political skills President Clinton couldn’t do anything the stem the tide. He was impotent, diminished, helpless, crushed and all the rest.

Conversely, Bill Clinton cruised to re-election and survived a major sex scandal thanks to the fact that US economic performance got very strong. I think it’s a mistake to write that all off to “good luck” or deny that real political skills were involved, but the skills at hand had to do with keeping himself, his administration, and his party focused on delivering the goods even as they were buffeted by all kinds of nonsense. Politics matters, a lot, but the reason it matters is that holding a political coalition together matters for policy and policy outcomes matter in people’s lives. But popularity as such stems from improved quality of life, not message.

Media

Right-Wing ‘Journalists’ At Secret Koch Meeting Make A Living Defending Unlimited Corporate Political Money

By Lee Fang on Oct 23, 2010 at 3:32 pm

Earlier this week, ThinkProgress revealed documents pertaining to a secret election-planning meeting convened by the right-wing billionaires David and Charles Koch of the $120 billion dollar conglomerate Koch Industries. The Koch Meeting included powerful executives from the health insurance, coal, manufacturing, banking, and pharmaceutical industry, as well as the top lobbyist from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents large corporations like AIG and Wal-Mart. One of the most startling revelations about the June 2010 event, as Salon’s Joe Conason noted, was the fact that conservative media stars “Krauthammer, Ponnuru, Barone, Moore and Beck were flown out to Aspen, lodged in luxury accommodations, and presumably paid a handsome honorarium by Koch to entertain and enlighten the would-be saviors of the Republic.” Conason asked, “So where are the guardians of media integrity, who made so much noise about the innocuous jawing of the liberals on Journolist?”

Not only did Koch invite many prominent right-wing media stars, he also invited supposedly objective journalists to his political strategy confab. Many of the journalists at the Koch Meeting have actually made a living for themselves accepting large sums of money from Koch Meeting participants, then parroting talking points promoting corporate control of American democracy:

“Journalist” Michael Barone

– Barone’s Koch Meeting Money: Barone is a Resident Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute — a think tank/trade association well represented at the Koch Meeting — which according to its 990 tax forms, compensates fellows in the $100,000-range. Right-wing billionaire Phil Anschutz, a Koch Meeting participant, owns and subsidizes the Washington Examiner, where Barone is a paid contributor. Earlier this year, Barone was given the “Bradley Prize,” a $250,000 no-strings-attached gift just for being a loyal conservative. Several Koch Meeting businessmen are active with the Bradley Foundation, and Koch Meeting participant Dennis Kuester, a retired bank executive, helped select Barone for the gift. The Bradley Foundation, managed by former Republican National Committee counsel Michael Grebe, is endowed with nearly $500 million dollars from the wealth of deceased industrialist Harry Bradley, a proud John Birch Society member who came under fire for systematically discriminating against African Americans and women in his factories.

– Barone’s Reflexive Defense Of Koch, Secret Corporate Money: Barone enjoys wide distribution of his views through a paid punditry position at Fox News and a syndicated column through Human Events, the Washington Examiner, National Review, and other publications. And Barone has used his media platform to willingly distort ThinkProgress’ investigation of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s foreign fundraising, while also praising the influence of secret corporate money in the 2010 elections. Dismissing the influence of secret corporate cash (like his own), Barone scoffed at “Obamaites” for conjuring a “19th-century caricatures of fat cats.” Barone often uses his columns to mock the poor, and assists his benefactors by sliming financial and clean energy reform.

“Journalist” Tim Carney

– Carney’s Koch Meeting Money: Carney, a “libertarian” writer who defends the right of the fossil fuel industry to emit carbon pollution for free, has attacked ThinkProgress for highlighting his role at the Koch Meeting. In a piece this week, Carney gave full “disclosure” that he only occasionally speaks at Koch-funded dinners at the Koch-funded Institute for Humane Studies, and that his presence at the Koch Meeting was merely to scold the corporate executives about America’s bailout culture. In fact, in addition to being gainfully employed by billionaire Koch Meeting industrialist Phil Anschutz, Carney has received $50,000 from the Koch-funded ISI Enterprise Award, $50,000 from the Koch-funded Phillips Foundation, and was previously a fellow at the Koch-funded Competitive Enterprise Institute, an aggressive front group that defends polluters.

– Carney’s Reflexive Defense Of Koch, Secret Corporate Money: Carney has vigorously defended Koch’s political giving, and the right for corporations to exploit Citizens United for unlimited, undisclosed political contributions. Although he postures as an enemy of bailouts and government subsidies, Carney ignores the fact that his Koch Industries benefactors used their conservative “movement” donations to encourage the Bush Justice Department to largely dismiss $350 million in fines for leaking carcinogenic benzene, or that Koch leveraged its relationship with the Bush administration to take control of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or that Koch begged the Alaskan government for a bailout of one of its refineries.

“Journalist” Stephen Moore

– Moore’s Koch Meeting Money: Moore is subsidized through “fellowships” and “senior fellow” positions at a number of Koch-funded groups, including the Cato Institute and the Goldwater Institute, while actually leading Koch Meeting-aligned groups like the Free Enterprise Fund. In an interview with Charles Koch for the Wall Street Journal, Moore disclosed that Koch has underwritten organizations Moore is involved in, although he did not specify which ones.

– Moore’s Reflexive Defense Of Koch, Secret Corporate Money: Moore, who also serves as a pundit on CNBC and Fox News, is best known for his role as an editorial board member of the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal editorial board has been a constant defender of Koch Industries and of unlimited, secret corporate money in American elections.

Other journalists at the meeting are also on the Koch Meeting payroll. The Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer — who spoke at the Koch Meeting’s mountaintop dinner on “What’s Ahead for America?” — is also a recipient of the $250,000 Bradley Prize gift and sits on the board of other groups funded by the Koch Meeting network. While no one outside the 9/12 “movement” views hate-talker and Koch Meeting participant Glenn Beck as a serious journalist, will the media scrutinize the ties of Barone, Moore, or Carney to their corporate benefactors?

Yglesias

Commodity Prices: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly, and The Irrelevant

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 23, 2010 at 2:28 pm

People continue to struggle in vain to produce some kind of possible bad consequences of “currency wars.” The latest, the WSJ says that if everyone tries to devalue simultaneously the price of oil will go up:

When one country devalues its currency, others tend to follow suit. As a result, nobody achieves trade gains. Instead, the devaluations put upward pressure on the prices of commodities such as oil. Higher commodity prices, in turn, can cut into global economic output. In one ominous sign, the price of oil is up 8.7% since August 27.

If you try to reason in this direction, you end up tying yourself into knots. Is a higher price of oil “ominous.” Well it depends why it’s going up. If a bunch of equipment in the North Sea breaks, then the price of oil is increasing because the quantity of oil available to the world economy has declined. That’s bad because oil is useful. But conversely, if the US economy were to start growing rapidly that would increase the demand for oil and lead to a price increase. That, however, would be a good thing. If the world’s central banks engage in coordinated monetary stimulus, that will result in some inflation (and hence higher nominal oil prices) but some inflation would be helpful at the moment. But if Israel and Iran go to war, that will also increase the price of oil and it’ll be terrible.

In general, higher supply of useful commodities is good (and leads to lower prices) and higher demand for useful commodities is a side-effect of good things (and leads to higher prices) so you can’t just look at commodity prices and draw any conclusions about what’s happening.

Economy

‘U.S.’ Chamber Of Commerce Is Fueled By Foreign Oil

By Brad Johnson on Oct 23, 2010 at 1:05 pm

The United States Chamber of Commerce is running an unprecedented $75 million campaign to unseat progressives from Congress, in defense of a big-oil agenda. As a ThinkProgress investigation has learned Chamber’s donors — who send their checks to the same account from which the political campaign is run — include multinational oil corporations, and even oil companies owned by the Kingdom of Bahrain. The oil-fueled Chamber has hammered candidates who voted to limit our dependence on oil, falsely claiming they supported a “job-killing energy tax” (like Rep. Paul Hodes (D-NH), Rep Joe Sestak (D-PA), Rep. Betsy Markey (D-CO), Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL), and Rep. Harry Teague (D-NM)).

The Chamber has repeatedly questioned the science behind climate change, even calling for a “Scopes monkey trial” in 2009. Numerous companies, including Apple, Exelon, PNM Resources, PG&E, and PSEG, quit the Chamber because of their reactionary opposition to climate legislation, determined by right-wing board members like coal giants Massey, Peabody, and Consol. Multinational oil companies BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Hess, and Shell Oil fund the Chamber of Commerce through its Business Civic Leadership Council. The Chamber’s anti-clean-energy agenda serves not only domestic coal barons and oil majors, but also the following foreign oil and coal companies, who are some of the dozens of foreign corporations that pay member dues to the Chamber of Commerce’s 501c(6) account, which is used to fund its political ads:

– Avantha Group, India (at least $7,500 in annual member dues): power plants

– The Bahrain Petroleum Company, Kingdom of Bahrain ($5,000): state-owned oil campany

– Gulf Petrochemical Industries Company, Kingdom of Bahrain ($5,000): state-owned oil company

– Essar Group, Mumbai, India ($7,500): oil & gas, coal power

– GMR, Bangalore, India ($15,000): coal power, mining

– Hinduja Group, London, UK ($15,000): the Gulf Oil group

– Jindal Power, New Delhi, India ($15,000): coal power

– Lahmeyer International, Frankfurt, Germany ($7,500): power plant engineering

– Punj Lloyd, Gurgaon, India ($15,000): offshore pipelines

– Reliance Industries, Mumbai, India ($15,000): oil and gas, petrochemicals

– SNC Lavalin, Montreal, Canada ($7,500): mining, power plant, and oil & gas engineering

– Tata Group, Mumbai, India ($15,000): power plants, oil & gas

– Walchandnagar Industries, Mumbai, India ($7,500): power plant, oil & gas engineering

– Welspun, Mumbai, India ($7,500): oil & gas exploration

“To secure America’s long-term energy security, America must reexamine outdated and entrenched positions, become better informed about the sources of our fuel and power, and make judgments based on facts, sound science, and good American common sense,” the Chamber argues. America will be insecure as long as the Chamber is spreading lies about science and energy supported by foreign polluter cash.

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

Yglesias

True Grit

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 23, 2010 at 12:27 pm

It’s pretty obvious that there’s more to doing well in school—or, indeed, to getting ahead in any endeavor—than being smart. Apparently we’re supposed to call this nexus of qualities grittiness:

There’s a lot of interesting, if methodologically questionable, research on these findings. Check out this 2007 study, which attempted (via surveys, some administered online) to correlate the “grittiness” of a few thousand adults with their life outcomes. The researchers identified two major types of grit: “consistency of interests” and “consistency of efforts,” asking respondents to rate themselves on a 5-point scale as to whether “new ideas and new projects sometimes distract me from previous ones,” or “I have achieved a goal that took years of work.”

The study concludes that even when IQ is controlled for, grittiness is associated with degree attainment and higher GPAs. The grittiest people, however, do not have the highest SAT scores. Perhaps those who perform well on standardized tests have so many other advantages going for them that they aren’t forced to be particularly gritty in order to achieve their goals.

Personally, I only like to see the term used in the context of the southern breakfast food, the Liberal Party of Canada, or the phrase “gritty urban realism.”

Economy

Local Connecticut Chamber Weighing Whether To Break With ‘U.S.’ Chamber

By Faiz Shakir on Oct 23, 2010 at 12:06 pm

The Greater Mystic Chamber of Commerce in southern Connecticut is currently in discussions about whether to break from the ‘U.S.’ Chamber over disagreements about the national Chamber’s involvement in politics.

Chamber Executive Director Tricia Cunningham said her organization, which currently pays dues to the national Chamber, has disagreements over the U.S. Chamber’s use of millions of corporate dollars this election season to lobby and advertise on national issues:

“At a recent board meeting,” Cunningham said, “we did have a conversation about the U.S. Chamber after learning of their recent political advertisements, and we are evaluating our relationship with the organization. We do not necessarily condone or support the views of the U.S. Chamber.”

That lack of transparency can be confusing, said Cunningham. “Because we are a small local chamber, sometimes people assume our views would be the same” as the national chamber, when they’re not, she said, adding, “But we’re happy to clarify that.”

Tony Sheridan, president and chief executive officer of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut, said his organization broke off its relationship with the U.S. Chamber last year. Sheridan said plainly, “My issue with the national chamber is their willingness to take a very narrow slice of a piece of complicated legislation – and it’s generally the most negative spin they’re taking, like health care, when we all know that the health-care system is broken – and claim that the sky is falling, instead of using the money to educate people.”

Since ThinkProgress first reported on the Chamber’s receipt of foreign funds (which go into the same general account that funds the Chamber’s right-wing partisan attack ads), a number of local chambers have publicly broken from the national organization.

Last week, the Greater Hudson Chamber of Commerce in New Hampshire announced it is leaving the U.S. Chamber because it does not want to be associated with the national Chamber’s political ads in favor of Republican candidates. And in Virginia, the local Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce has refused to endorse the political attack ads that the national Chamber is running in its area to defeat Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA).

Conservative defenders of the Chamber like to intentionally conflate the local chambers with the national Chamber, hoping the popularity of the independent locally-run Chambers will disguise the national Chamber’s right-wing activities. The U.S. Chamber also attempts to present itself as an organization the represents mom and pop local businesses. In reality, as the New York Times noted this week, it is funded mostly by a small number of large multi-national corporations.

Yglesias

Broadband Matters

By Matthew Yglesias on Oct 23, 2010 at 10:30 am

Jay Ackroyd convinced me I should make explicit something that’s only implicit in yesterday’s post on the vast consumer surplus associated with digital media, namely that the case for some form of subsidization of fast internet access is very strong. When this is talked about it’s normally discussed in terms of the idea that digital infrastructure is important to economic growth. And it is. But what that misses is the huge amount of value that can and will be created and distributed for free if people have the means to do it.

Exactly what that means in policy terms is another question. There are a lot of different things you could do. But as just a small example it would make a lot more sense for your cell phone bill to be tax deductible than your home mortgage interest.

More ambitiously, instead of having a US Postal Service whose main mission is to provide subsidized delivery of pieces of paper to low-density areas, we could have a government telecommunications entity whose purpose is to provide fast wireless broadband everywhere.

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