The New Spiel

The New The New Spiel

2005-01-10T14:03:00.000-05:00

We're moving!

The New Spiel can now be found at http://www.newdealmagazine.com/nsblog.

Please update your bookmarks, and we'll see you over at the new site!

Hahahahahaha

2005-01-09T14:48:00.000-05:00

Ahahaaahahahahahahaaaahahaha...

Public relations

2005-01-07T12:47:00.000-05:00

Welcome back to a new year at The New Spiel.

Meet Armstrong Williams. Editorial commentator, radio bloviator, frequent talking head. His shtick is that - get this - he's black, and he's also conservative! Oh, and he's also being paid $240,000 in taxpayer money by the Bush administration to shill for the No Child Left Behind Act.

The campaign, part of an effort to promote No Child Left Behind (NCLB), required commentator Armstrong Williams "to regularly comment on NCLB during the course of his broadcasts," and to interview Education Secretary Rod Paige for TV and radio spots that aired during the show in 2004.

Williams said Thursday he understands that critics could find the arrangement unethical, but "I wanted to do it because it's something I believe in."

Is it just me, or doesn't taking money in return for creating favorable content about your benefactor without disclosing the arrangement to your audience mean you don't get to be on TV anymore? Imagine if George Stephanopoulos had been found to be taking money from the Kerry campaign to talk up Kerry's health care plan on "This Week." He'd have to quit, right? Well, this is like that, except this stooge is getting money out of your (and my) pockets.

In other media news, or perhaps I should say, in other news regarding illegal Bush administration efforts to influence media coverage of its actions, somebody's finally saying something about the phony prepackaged news reports the administration has been putting out. Basically, a guy pretending to be a reporter fluffs a Bush policy for a couple minutes and then signs off as if it were a news report. Of course, it comes straight from the administration, and straight from taxpayer resources.

''You think you are getting a news story but what you are getting is a paid announcement," said Susan Poling, managing associate general counsel at the Government Accountability Office. ''What is objectionable about these is the fact the viewer has no idea their tax dollars are being used to write and produce this video segment."

Notice a pattern? And this is just the stuff we've found out about.

Figures her lawyer'd be named "Earl-Ray"

2004-12-22T18:21:00.000-05:00

A student at a lily-white high school in Lexington, Kentucky is suing her school district because she got kicked out of the prom for wearing a giant Confederate battle flag as a dress. Maybe there's something to this tort reform idea.

Today on "That Liberal Media!"

2004-12-22T00:58:00.000-05:00

I mean, I suppose Martin Crutsinger could have just let Scott McClellan write the story for him. But that, I guess, would be bad journalism.

Instead, we get this:

WASHINGTON - President Bush's campaign to make the tax code simpler, fairer and more pro-growth is likely to involve incremental changes to the current system rather than a sweeping effort to scrap the venerable income tax for a radically new approach, such as a national sales tax.

Oh, that liberal media!

"There's one group of people who get bullied all the time, and that's..."

2004-12-19T20:54:00.000-05:00

You'll never guess.

African-Americans?

Gays and lesbians?

Nerds?

Nope - Christians!

This L.A. Times article details one pastor's crusade to force department stores to say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays." This stuff is really amazing. One Rev. Creech of the Christian Action League of North Carolina (I wish I belonged to more Action Leagues) says, "It's a cultural war. We are in the thick of it. It's not so much an attack on us. It's an attack on Christ."

Of course, it isn't. It's a defense against offending shoppers who don't celebrate Christmas. Frankly, I don't know any non-Christians who are offended when they're wished a Merry Christmas, but then again, I don't know any Christians who won't shop in a store where they don't say it, so maybe I'm just living in the wrong part of the country.

Regardless, there's a point to this. How much time are we as progressives wasting on political correctness? In the new issue of NDM, Jon Stein urges Democrats to find populist issues that can resonate with the greater public.

Well, that's a great idea, but we also need to stop handing conservatives issues to mess around with. By insisting on removing every remnant of faith from public life, we're just granting conservatives who want to use the "God gap" against us something to talk about. I talk about this more in my piece this month, in which I argue that our fear of faith is holding us back. Even as a Jew, I'd be perfectly happy to be wished a Merry Christmas if it meant never having to hear from Rev. Creech in the newspaper ever again.

No girls (or Democrats) allowed

2004-12-17T20:45:00.000-05:00

Viacom, which owns CBS, is looking for a lobbyist. According to the Washington Post, no women or Democrats need apply. Real nice.

Bill O'Reilly is a weasel: Welcome to the Links

2004-12-17T01:46:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure how I feel about David Brock. His book, which I choose to plug , details his transformation from member of the right-wing lie factory (RWLF) to a whistleblower of sorts. I have to say that anyone who can be taken in by these chuckleheads is suspect, if only because it suggests poor judgment. But Brock's website, Media Matters, is an invaluable resource for RWLF-hunters, honest Americans looking to become disenchanted with their political media, and/or lazy bloggers who don't want to do another piece on Social Security.

For instance: here's Brock's letter to RWLF All-Star Bill O'Reilly pointing out the sheer hypocrisy of - well, I won't spoil it for you.

My point here is to introduce the Links section of TNS, visible to your immediate right. Here, we're trying to collect some invaluable resources (like Media Matters) for progressives, and perhaps a few schadenfreude examples of the right gone wrong. Maybe more than a few. Enjoy!

Zell Miller joins Fox News

2004-12-15T10:49:00.000-05:00

I know you're shocked, but retiring Georgia Senator Zell Miller will become a Fox News contributor. Sometimes the jokes just write themselves, don't they...

What, Chuck Colson wasn't interested?

2004-12-13T02:01:00.000-05:00

In case you missed it this weekend, Josh Marshall at TalkingPointsMemo.com has a roundup of the charges against Bernard Kerik, President Bush's abortive nominee for the top job at Homeland Security. Apparently, Kerik (in order from most-ridiculous to least):

1. has Mafia ties
2. was a Bond-villain-esque henchman in Saudi Arabia
3. ran a corrupt prison system
4. was accused of kiboshing the promotion of someone who got in the way of his mistress
5. once had a warrant issued for his arrest
6. ran away from post-war Iraq when the going got tough

Nice guy. Good choice, Mr. President.

Krugman has bingo

2004-12-09T14:18:00.000-05:00

Speaking of Social Security, Paul Krugman is back (temporarily) with his usual great take.

Winging it

2004-12-09T14:10:00.000-05:00

Based on this CNN.com article, it's pretty clear that there isn't a real discussion taking place within the Bush Administration on Social Security. Bush say he won't raise payroll taxes on wealthy Americans, but "reassure[s] retired Americans and those about to retire that nothing would change with the system." Well, if you're allowing people to take their money out of the system, and not putting more money in to compensate, things damn well will change.

Of course, what they're going to do is add to the deficit to pay for this transition. I discussed this a couple of weeks ago - the plan is to just not count this extra borrowing as additional debt. I sure wish Visa would let me get away with that.

In a major upset...

2004-12-06T16:42:00.000-05:00

Fox News Radio will be providing "news" content for Clear Channel stations. Try and contain your surprise.

Bill Frist's bad medicine

2004-12-06T16:12:00.000-05:00

A reader of Sam Rosenfeld at TAPPED, one of the blogs you should be reading, picked up on a particularly disturbing exchange between Bill Frist and George Stephanopoulos regarding whether or not sweat and tears can transmit HIV and AIDS.

***SPOILER ALERT***

No, they can't.

Today on "That Liberal Media"

2004-12-06T11:12:00.000-05:00

Via Atrios:

The New York Times's insistence on "balanced" coverage leads to them completely missing the point of a phony controversy drummed up by the RWEC (Right Wing Echo Chamber). Here's how the RWEC works:

Step 1: Story concocted by right-wing pressure group.
Step 2: Story distorted and publicized by right-wing media outlets.
Step 3: Story becomes A Big Controversy.
Step 4: Mainstream media, terrified of being labeled as "liberal", objectively pretends that both sides have a point in the phony controversy.

Anytime someone tells you the media are liberal, you know you're talking to a liar.

What about Moldovia?

2004-12-03T15:25:00.000-05:00

Here's a rundown of the status of the "Coalition of the Willing." This alliance is diverse like a box of Saltines.

How do these people win elections?

2004-12-02T21:42:00.000-05:00

Wonkette has another example of what is either an incredibly dumb oversight on the part of the Bushies or a rather arrogant photo op in the vein of "Mission Accomplished." I guess it's probably both.

Eep

2004-12-02T16:52:00.000-05:00

When I went home for Thanksgiving, my mother had stuck to the fridge a little article from the Boston Globe showing that Americans are more likely to believe in creationism than evolution. Editor and Publisher reports that 45% of Americans believe that human beings "were created by God essentially as they are today (that is, without evolving) about 10,000 years ago."

That is just stunning, and it's not about religion, either. I am neither surprised nor particularly bothered to learn that, for instance, "about a third of Americans are biblical literalists." But if I've got this right, almost half the country thinks dinosaurs never existed? Yikes.

Required reading

2004-12-01T19:29:00.000-05:00

We're approaching Month 2 of the "What Went Wrong And What Do We Do Now?" weep-a-thon. At the risk of sounding like a smartypants (alright, in the HOPE of sounding like a smartypants), maybe a good first step would be to run smarter individual campaigns. In other words, instead of changing our organizational philosophy as a whole, let's work on our organization itself to allow local Democrats more freedom and more resources to run campaigns in the states.

What am I talking about? I'm talking about the model set by Brian Schweitzer, the Democratic governor-elect of Montana. David Sirota, who works at the Center for American Progress, worked on the campaign, and wrote a fantastic piece for Washington Monthly about how Schweitzer won. I'll have more thoughts on this at some point, but think about what the lessons are from this and how they can be applied across the country.

Liberal bias alert!

2004-12-01T09:37:00.000-05:00

The United Church of Christ welcomes "all people regardless of ability, age, race, economic circumstance, or sexual orientation." I'm telling you this because those got-danged librulz at CBS, NBC, and, oddly, UPN won't allow the church to advertise as such.

Apparently, "[b]ecause this commercial touches on the exclusion of gay couples and other minority groups by other individuals and organizations, and the fact the Executive Branch has recently proposed a Constitutional Amendment to define marriage as a union between a man and a woman, this spot is unacceptable for broadcast on the [CBS and UPN] networks." That's their line, anyway.

So it's no longer OK to advertise if what you're advertising has something to do with public policy? Got-danged librulz!

A good idea

2004-11-28T19:18:00.000-05:00

One of the things that Republicans did in composing their platform for the 1994 congressional elections (you know, the ones in which we got our asses kicked) was to position themselves as the reform party - the party with the ideas that would make government work more efficiently and get rid of corruption and gridlock and all these other intangible nouns that we don't like.

That's where the term limits boomlet got started. Term limits are a terrible idea for a variety of reasons, and the Republicans weren't even all that commited to it themselves, with the exception of the true believers. But it was an issue that had some traction - making an argument for them makes you look like a clear-headed reformer fighting against Big Government.

In that vein, kudos to Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.), whose idea for a
three-day "reading period" for new legislation sounds like the kind of common-sense reform Democrats should be thinking up in their spare time. Never mind its utility - even three days isn't enough time to read every line of every bill voted on in Congress - it just makes sense. And it's a great way to keep Rep. Istook's sneaky maneuver in the spotlight.

Read this while TNS eats turkey

2004-11-24T15:18:00.000-05:00

We'd like to take a moment to say hello to a truly terrific student blog, the Princeton Progressive Review. We'll be highlighting sites like this as we go, and hopefully we'll get some permanent links up so that you, like us here at TNS, can spend 24 hours a day reading blogs.

That said, we'll be off for the weekend - more super-blogging post-tryptophan.

Happy/healthy!

Profiles in spinelessness

2004-11-23T10:33:00.000-05:00

The problem with privatizing Social Security - well, one problem - is that it creates an enormous budget problem in the short term. The way SS works now is that workers pay into the system and the elderly receive benefits from the system.

The privatization plan would allow working folk like you and me to start diverting some of our Social Security taxes into personal accounts, so that instead of being used to pay for benefits for seniors today, the money is used to pay for benefits for ourselves when we're seniors.

Privatization is crazy on its face for a variety of reasons. First of all, there's no need for it. According to CBPP, Social Security is as of right now in good shape until 2052. And to cover benefits for the next 25 years would cost roughly 1% of taxable income. And privatization could actually hurt our parents. Some seniors would get royally screwed, because of the variations inherent to reliance on the stock market. And creating this system involves a ton of administrative overhead.

However, today we look at a third problem with the plan. As soon as you start allowing workers to opt out of the system, you've got an immediate shortfall on your hands. So, federal government, you have a choice: A) deny seniors the benefits they've been counting on and incur the wrath of the nation's largest voting bloc, or B) bite the bullet and cover the shortfall yourself, creating an even worse budgetary crisis when you've promised to cut the deficit in half by 2009. Either way, it's not likely to generate a ton of support for the privatization plan.

The party of Enron, we learn today, is choosing option C - pretend there isn't a problem by covering up the costs of the transition. Essentially, they're floating excuses for writing the costs of the transition off the books. Some of the quotes in this article are hilarious.

To cope with the cost, while still helping the White House at least appear to be moving toward its goal of cutting the deficit in half by 2009, White House and congressional budget experts are looking at a variety of accounting mechanisms, said Michael Tanner, a Cato Institute Social Security expert who has worked closely with the White House.

They include treating the cost of Social Security reform not as a present-day expenses, but more as a prepaid benefit for future retirees that should not be counted against current deficits. Or they may take the costs "off-budget," meaning Social Security spending would not be included in the calculation of the annual budget deficit.

See, payments into the system represent benefits for future retirees as it stands now. The privatization plan would mean that payments into the system represent potential benefits, subject to the stock market's fluctuations. And the other option is to simply pretend that the transition costs never happened.

"The budget should reflect that this is an investment, a down payment that will have very positive implications," said White House spokesman Trent Duffy.

Actually, the budget should reflect how much money you take in and how much money you spend.

"How they label it is going to be somewhat of an exercise in creative budgeting," Tanner said.

Or, as we like to call it here, utter spinelessness. It's your bad idea, Republicans - own up to it.

Schadenfreude

2004-11-23T00:45:00.000-05:00

Heh, heh...

Do you think...

2004-11-22T09:45:00.000-05:00

...Bill Frist was able to keep a straight face when he told reporters that "accountability will be carried out" against Rep. Ernest Istook (R-Okla.), whoslipped a provision into an omnibus spending bill that would allow a pair committee chairmen to look at the tax returns of any American? Right. Because the Republicans have done such a lackluster job of centralizing control over Congressional affairs, and such a bang-up job of policing themselves. Just for fun, here's a (non-exhaustive) list of investigations of Republicans in which accountability has not been carried out.

1. Someone in the Bush administration leaked Valerie Plame's secret CIA identity to Robert Novak.
2. Someone in the Republican House leadership offered Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.) a bribe on the floor of the House if he would vote for the Medicare bill, which passed by one vote and was a disaster.
3. GOP aides somehow got into the Senate Judiciary Democrats' computer files and leaked private, internal documents to the press.
4. The Bush Administration withheld costs of that Medicare bill from Congress (which is illegal) and fired the Medicare accountant who planned to say something about it.

Also, there was something about African uranium...

Hooray for accountability!

The Bugman speaketh

2004-11-20T09:59:00.000-05:00

So the Republican caucus has voted to allow party leaders to continue in their post even after being indicted, reversing an earlier rule that would prevent accused criminals from having a high degree of control over the nation's agenda. Important business, this, because Tom DeLay, the House Majority Leader, will soon be an accused criminal, as a Texas DA is investigating numerous shady doings related to his illegal redistricting of Texas, which single-handedly cost the Democrats four congressional seats.

Of course, getting a Republican congressman to admit that he voted for the DeLay Rule is pretty hard, since it stinks to high heaven by just about any measure. For an update on who's been put on the record, check out the Daily DeLay - and don't forget to note how much DeLay's PAC has given to those who helped him out.

Anyway, DeLay gave a press conference after the vote which you really should read. It gives you a good idea of the level of arrogance, contempt, and simple meanness we're dealing with here.

Check one, check two - it's the New Spiel!

2004-11-18T16:46:00.000-05:00

Is this thing on?

Stay tuned for more good stuff from your friends at New Deal Magazine!