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FLASHBACK: Republicans Tried To Block Robert Ford’s Confirmation As U.S. Ambassador To Syria

By Ben Armbruster on Jul 9, 2011 at 12:00 pm

U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford

U.S. ambassador to Syria Robert Ford traveled to the Syrian city of Hama last week “as a show of solidarity” with residents speaking out against Bashar al-Assad’s oppressive rule. Ford even joined a crowd of demonstrators protesting Assad’s regime on Friday and video shows Syrian activists welcoming him with roses and olive branches. One activist said he “felt protected” by Ford’s presence because the Syrian military wouldn’t fire on crowds with Western officials in attendance. “Thank u Mr. Ford, US Ambassador, in Hama among the protesters, and welcomed with flowers,” another Syrian activist said on Twitter.

For weeks, Republicans like Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and GOP presidential hopeful Tim Pawlenty have been attacking President Obama for not doing enough in Syria, saying that he should pull Ford out of Syria. “Words must be backed by clear, firm actions,” Rubio said, “we should now sever ties and recall the ambassador at once.” But if Republicans had their way, Ford never would have even made it to Syria. As Laura Rozen notes, Senate Republicans last year refused to confirm Ford, and several other ambassadors the President nominated, and Obama was forced to issue recess appointments.

Indeed, on May 14, 2010, twelve GOP senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton questioning the wisdom of sending an envoy to Damascus:

We are writing you to express our deep concern about the ongoing Syrian support for terrorism. … If engagement precludes prompt punitive action in response to egregious behavior, such as the transfer of long range missiles to a terrorist group, then it is not only a concession but also a reward for such behavior.

One official called Ford’s visit to Hama “gutsy,” and the move reportedly “was endorsed by the highest levels of the Obama administration.” Washington Institute for Near East Policy Syria expert David Schenker called Ford’s visit “impressive.” While Schenker said that Washington should be more vocal in support of Syria’s democracy movement, he told the Voice of America:

It is a significant statement for him to go to Hama and seemingly cast his lot, and the American lot, with the people of Syria, to provide some protection for the people of Hama, and to demonstrate where the United States’ sympathies and policies lie.

Rozen notes that Clinton criticized the notion of not talking to adversaries. “Diplomacy would be easy if we only had to talk to our friends,” she said.

“Having an ambassador in Syria has allowed us to be in Syria,” White House spokesperson Jay Carney said recently, adding, “I think that has been a useful avenue for us to pursue in terms of communicating our points of view.” But as Israel Policy Forum’s David Halperin said of the GOP’s plans to block Obama’s ambassador appointments, “Republicans think that U.S. interests are better advanced by not showing up.”

NEWS FLASH

New Defense Chief Panetta: Al Qaeda Defeat ‘Within Reach’ | On an unannounced trip to Afghanistan, newly-elevated Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told reporters the U.S. was closing in on top leaders of the terror group that launched the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. “I was convinced in my capacity and I’m convinced in this capacity that we’re within reach of strategically defeating Al Qaeda,” said the former CIA head. He said the late Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden’s captured laptop revealed the organization’s financial woes and that the U.S. was closing in on the group’s new chief, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in Pakistan. He said Yemen poses the greatest Al Qaeda threat to the U.S.

By Ali Gharib on Jul 9, 2011 at 11:00 am

Yglesias

The Weak Economy, Not The Lack of Long-Term Budget Deals, Is Obama’s Vulnerability

By Matthew Yglesias on Jul 9, 2011 at 10:30 am

Mark Halperin’s long speculative post about the debt ceiling endgame ends as follows: “And then it will fully dawn on Boehner and McConnell at the White House signing ceremony (likely as Obama is handing them their souvenir pens) that they were part of history, including part of the part where Obama was able to take off the table the single most damaging issue that could be used against him in 2012.”

This kind of thinking seems dangerously prevalent in Washington. Like voters are standing around here in the summer of 2011 saying to themselves, “well life is pretty good in America under Obama, but I’m really concerned about the long-range CBO projections so I might vote against him.” But that’s nuts. Obama’s vulnerable because conditions in the country right now aren’t very good. The unemployment rate is high, real wages are flat, lots of people have negative equity in their homes, lots of near-retired people have seen their savings vanish, etc.

Justice

Sixteen Senators Ask DOJ To Investigate Potentially Illegal State Voter Disenfranchisement Laws

By Ian Millhiser on Jul 9, 2011 at 10:00 am

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO)

Sixteen senators led by Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) submitted a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder last week asking him to examine whether the Voting Rights Act’s prohibitions on laws preventing minorities from voting invalidate so-called “voter ID” laws, which effectively disenfranchise thousands of elderly, disabled, and low-income voters:

We are writing to express our concerns about highly restrictive photo identification requirements under consideration or already signed into law in several states. These measures have the potential to block millions of eligible American voters without addressing any problem commensurate with this kind of restriction on voting rights. Studies have shown that as high as 11% of eligible voters nationwide do not have a government-issued ID. This percentage is higher for seniors, racial minorities, low-income voters and students. Voting is the foundation of our democracy, and we urge you to protect the voting rights of Americans by using the full power of the Department of Justice to review these voter identification laws and scrutinize their implementation.

Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act vests significant authority in the Department to review laws before they are implemented in covered jurisdictions. As you know, the burden of proof in this preclearance process is on those covered jurisdictions, which must be able to show that legal changes will not have a discriminatory impact on minority voters. [...] The Department should [also] exercise vigilance in overseeing whether these laws are implemented in a way that discriminates against protected classes in violation of Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. Additionally, federal civil rights law – 42 U.S.C. 1971(a)(2)- prohibits different standards, practices or procedures from being applied to individuals within a jurisdiction. We believe the Department should ensure that these photo identification laws do not violate this statute or other federal voting rights statutes.

It is difficult to see how many of the voter ID laws being pushed in GOP-controlled states could survive scrutiny under the Voting Rights Act, which not only forbids laws that are passed specifically to target minority voters but also strikes down state laws that have a greater impact on minority voters than on others.

There is, however, reason to fear that the Supreme Court could simply strike down parts of the VRA if the Justice Department attempted to make Republican-controlled states follow the law. The Court’s conservatives strongly hinted that they may strike down the provision of the VRA requiring many stakes to preclear new voting laws, and another recent case dealing with race discrimination in the workplace raises the — albeit less likely — possibility that they could also invalidate the VRA’s ban on laws that have a disproportionate impact on minorities.

Sadly, in the wake of Bush v. Gore and Citizens United v. FEC, there are no longer any guarantees that the Supreme Court will place democratic values ahead of corporate interest groups and other conservatives eager to seize control of our elections.

Economy

GOP Financial Services Chairman Opposes Including Help For Homeowners In Foreclosure Fraud Settlement

By Pat Garofalo on Jul 9, 2011 at 10:00 am

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL)

A groups of state attorneys general have been attempting to negotiate a settlement with the nation’s biggest banks over the foreclosure fraud scandal that erupted several months ago. Reportedly, the settlement will involve the banks paying billions in penalties, at least some of which will go towards helping troubled homeowners who are underwater on their mortgages through no fault of their own.

However, several Republican AGs have balked at requiring the banks to aid homeowners, with one, Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, deriding such help as “welfare.” And now, House Financial Services Chairman Spencer Bachus (R-AL) is piling on:

Federal regulators are trying to prevent future fraud by clamping down on the nation’s largest mortgage servicers that engaged in some shady practices during the housing crisis, but the legal action by the states could yield significant financial penalties of more than $20 billion, according to some reports.

Bachus suggested that the money go toward paying down the national debt instead of forcing companies to reduce the amount some homeowners owe on their mortgages.

Bachus — who is of the opinion that Washington’s role is to “serve the banks” — has opposed the very idea of a foreclosure fraud settlement, so its not surprising that he would oppose using the money to aid troubled homeowners. But at the moment, more than 20 percent of the homes in America are underwater, and housing is proving to be a substantial drag on the economy.

At the current rate, it would take 103 months to “sell off all the foreclosed homes in banks’ possession, plus all the homes likely to end up there over the next couple years, at the current rate of sales.” That’s eight and a half years of backlog. Wall Street is also not maintaining the properties it owns, further dragging down the value of homes. More foreclosures and empty houses will do nothing to help the situation.

This week, President Obama hinted that the administration is planning to pressure banks into implementing additional aid for homeowners. Having the foreclosure fraud settlement provide substantial aid for homeowners would be an excellent development, but Republicans at both the state and federal level seem to be doing their best to prevent such an outcome.

Climate Progress

The Dirty Coal Guys Take A Few Pages From The Climate Science Denier Playbook

By Climate Guest Blogger on Jul 9, 2011 at 9:43 am

—Dominique Browning

We have entered another period of vocal warming. The political rhetoric in the “debate” over the EPA’s new Mercury and Air Toxics Regulation is falling into a terrible and familiar pattern. Supporters of the Clean Air Act would be well advised to take note. Pro-polluters are beginning to sound like climate deniers.

We shouldn’t dismiss them as hot-headed extremists–that didn’t work too well last time around. Remember when it looked like cap-and-trade was a done deal, and climate deniers had lost momentum? A few loud-mouths have a way of turning many heads.

Just look at the arc this issue is taking. In March, the EPA announced new Mercury and Air Toxics Standards; they have been in the works for 21 years. As we were reminded during testimony in recent Senate subcommittee hearings, it was Administrator Leavitt, in 2004, who told utilities where his (Republican) administration stood on new anti-pollution regulations: “It’s time to start cleaning up.” Time to invest “now” in reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury. Power plant clean up has been a continuous policy under two Democratic and two Republican presidents.

When the EPA announced its new standards last winter, the response was reasoned. Indeed, a letter, published in the Wall Street Journal, signed by CEOs of major utilities supported the regulations as good for the economy.

That was in December.

By June, we were in the midst of such anti-EPA sentiment that a Presidential candidate, Michele Bachman, was emboldened to call for the Mother of All Repeals, the repeal of the Clean Air Act. Congressman Ed Whitfield (R KY) then picked up the repeal rhetoric.

Suddenly, we’re spinning backwards, to pre-1970 days. Repeal the Clean Air Act? How is such talk even possible–and can it stick?

What’s happening? There’s one very good reason to take vocal warming very seriously: Pro-Polluters are using the same tactics that were used so successfully during the last round of the climate change battle.

From the Pro-Polluter Playbook:

1. Keep repeating falsehoods. Make that: LIES

Read more

NEWS FLASH

U.S. Officially Recognizes South Sudan | South Sudan became an independent state today. The AP reports that “the country’s flag was officially raised for the first time over Juba, South Sudan’s capital, on Saturday after the speaker of the legislature made a formal proclamation of independence from Sudan.” “I am proud to declare that the United States formally recognizes the Republic of South Sudan as a sovereign and independent state upon this day, July 9, 2011,” President Obama said in a statement. “This historic achievement is a tribute, above all, to the generations of southern Sudanese who struggled for this day,” he said. Yesterday, the U.N. Security Council voted to establish a force of up to 7,000 peacekeepers in the new republic, a move Germany’s ambassador said “is a strong signal of support to the new South Sudan.”

Politics

In 2009, Bachmann Agreed That Obama Is ‘Not a Big Fan of American Sovereignty’

By Guest Blogger on Jul 9, 2011 at 9:00 am

Our guest blogger is Elon Green, a freelance writer living in Brooklyn.

In April 2009, current GOP presidential candidate Michele Bachmann (R-MN) was interviewed by Pamela Geller — a right-wing driving force behind the Cordoba House protests and anti-Islamic bus ads, and a failed author of anti-Sharia literature. The interview largely consisted of Geller and Bachmann trading outlandish ideas. For example:

GELLER: I mean, don’t you see it — I see a war on American sovereignty –

BACHMANN: Oh, yes.

GELLER: — in money, in hegemony, um, in foreign policy, abdicating our soversignty to what I consider to be a malevolent body, in the UN — whose objectives are frankly more along the lines of the Organization of Islamic Conference [sic] than it is for free men. Um, and this is all, it seems to me, tied — I’m not suggesting a conspiracy. Um, there is conspiracy theory and there is conspiracy fact, too. But I’m not going down that line, but there are very definite things happening. And again, he is not a big fan of American sovereignty; he believes in transnationalism; and wouldn’t sort of weakening our dollar, weakening out monetary value system play right into — we’d be forced to — subjugate ourselves to some extent?

BACHMANN: Yes, I think you’re correct in that assessment. And I think also by scuttling adherence to the Constitution, we are scuttling political freedom as well. Because economic freedom is inextricably entwined in political freedom. We can’t have one without the other. The genius of United States has been freedom.  That is the genius. It is not the natural state of man. We look through history, and if we look through current geopolitical structure, freedom is not the norm. That is why the United States is an exceptional nation, in time and history. And we are gambling with some very risky dice right now by not continuing to operate under a constitutional form of government.

Shifting from a discussion of the weakening American dollar, Bachmann and Geller had an exchange that suggested Obama is sending the message of weakness to our enemies:

GELLER: I mean, listen, I think that he has basically surrendered. That’s how the enemy sees it. It was a couple of Syrian leaders who said, “It wasn’t Obama who changed the world, it was the jihad who changed the world, it was resistance that changed the world.” So the perception of his not calling it a war on terror, not wanting to insult — respect, respect, respect this barbaric, uh, enemy in many ways, I think is going to let us in for a world of pain.

BACHMANN: I agree.

Given Obama’s subsequent killing of Osama bin Laden, ramping-up of the war in Afghanistan, and militarily supporting the rebellion in Libya, Bachmann and Geller’s fears about Obama seem mordantly humorous in retrospect.

Climate Progress

Government Investment in Innovation is Needed to Overcome the “Valley of Death”

By Climate Guest Blogger on Jul 9, 2011 at 8:49 am

According to a recent study, the Human Genome Project cost $3.8 billion, but created over 310,000 jobs and drove economic growth of almost $800 billion. That government boost spurred a wave of private investment, causing a precipitous drop in the cost of genome decoding.

“Government investment in innovation makes sense,” said Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, at a recent Brookings Institution event on Innovation and America’s Future. “Capital for innovation is very hard to find.”

Collins knows a lot about innovation. He led the Human Genome Project, a government-funded initiative that, according to a recent study, cost the government $3.8 billion, but created over 310,000 jobs and drove economic growth of almost $800 billion. That government boost spurred a wave of private investment, causing a precipitous drop in the cost of genome decoding. (chart above.)

That trend is happening in renewable energy as well:

Read more

Yglesias

Now Really Isn’t the Time To Cut Transportation Funding

By Intern on Jul 9, 2011 at 8:30 am

By Matthew Cameron

Yesterday’s jobs report has prompted another round of existential questioning among politicians and political pundits about how to address the nation’s employment situation. A straightforward answer would seem to entail identifying a few particularly hard-hit sectors of the economy and adjusting federal policies that affect those sectors in a way that boosts employment. But Republicans in Congress are proposing a 35 percent cut to transportation funding in their six-year infrastructure bill, meaning there will be even less demand for construction workers at a time when the sector’s unemployment rate remains 15.6 percent. Here’s the Center for American Progress’s Donna Cooper with the gory details:

Rep. John Mica (R-FL), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, proposes spending $230 billion on transportation over the next six years. That sounds like a lot, but it’s less than the five-year transportation spending plan passed in 2005 when George W. Bush was president — and nearly $6 billion less than this year’s investment in surface transportation, which is already 50 percent less than needed. [...]

[Mica's bill] doesn’t call for a national infrastructure bank, despite evidence from Europe, Canada, and Asia that a superstructure like that enables wiser public and private infrastructure investments. While Republican leaders crow about ending waste in government, Mica’s legislation fails to end politicized allocation formulas that impede delivery of funds where they are most needed. And he doesn’t call for the revival of taxable federally subsidized bonds like Build America Bonds, which successfully attracted more than $55 billion in private investment in new state and local rebuilding projects at a very low cost of $566 million to the U.S. Treasury.

Transportation is an area where the government has tremendous potential to make a positive impact. Unlike other sectors such as retail or leisure and hospitality, hiring for infrastructure projects is directly influenced by government policy. After all, individual consumers don’t pay construction companies to build new roads; governments do that. So if the U.S. wants better transportation infrastructure (it does) and fewer unemployed construction workers (it does), the government can simply hire more firms to complete more projects. For whatever reason, the House GOP has decided it wants to do the opposite.

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