The Jim Crow Guide to Fine Dining

Even the plutocrats of One Percent Nation have to eat. They eat well, they eat regularly, and they dine out. A lot. Because the Long Depression has not affected the pocketbooks of the wealthy, the high-end hospitality business is one of the few booming industries in this dismal economy. One out of every 12 private sector jobs is in restaurants. It is also very likely that when Richie Rich Congressman or K Street Kleptocrat sits down at, say, the Capital Grille, his server will be white.

 Brown and black employees rarely get table-waiting jobs in fancy restaurants. They're usually relegated to the clean-up crew, the dishwashing detail, or at best, to the crummy tables in the back of the room.  The restaurant employment watchdog group ROC (Restaurant Opportunities Center) says that in an industry already notorious for its poverty level wages, black employees earn an average of $4 less an hour than whites.

A 2009 study revealed that hiring discrimination in high-end New York City restaurants, where workers can earn up to $100,000 annually, is also common. The wealthier the clientele and the pricier the menu, the likelier it is that your server will be fair-skinned and accent-free. Unless, naturally, it's a French accent.

Now, a federal lawsuit against the Darden Group, a huge restaurant chain with a  reputation for serial discrimination, has been filed in Illinois. Minority workers in the chain, which includes Olive Garden, Red Lobster and the tonier Capital Grille, claim that they are paid less than minimum wage, are often forced to work off the clock, and are denied promotion. One restaurant (the Capital Grille in Washington) allegedly fired a group of black servers en masse because it was suddenly decided they didn't meet optical standards. How ironic, considering that Darden CEO Clarence Otis Jr is himself a well-regarded African American businessman. He used to work for JP Morgan, and is also a member of the Federal Reserve in Atlanta.

Otis, judging from an indignant editorial he wrote recently on the CNN website, finds it annoying that his wage slaves want to be treated with dignity. An Obama donor, he also reportedly met personally with the president to kvetch about how hard it is out there for job creators providing all those thousands of fantastic minimum wage jobs, only to have their largesse and civic-mindedness abused by burdensome government regulations eating into bottom lines and investor dividends.  We have no idea whether Obama told him off, placated him, laughed uproariously, or what. It was private. But here is what Otis actually had the chutzpah to whine about publicly: 

 Regulatory mandates flowing from federal health care reform may be the most visible, but the list also includes measures such as new mandatory paid leave provisions that require us to change the way we accommodate employees who need to take time off when they are ill and ever more unrealistic requirements regarding employee meal and rest breaks that, in California for example, force our employees to take breaks in the middle of serving lunch or dinner.

Otis, who makes $7.16 million a year, actually did get one of the many Obamacare waivers absolving him from having to fully cover his part-timers. Yet, according to the lawsuit filed last week in Chicago, he doesn’t even pay some of them minimum wage.  Color of Change, an African-American advocacy group, is outraged:

Darden runs nearly 2,000 restaurants nationwide and boasts annual sales of $7.5 billion. But the few Black workers who make it into the big leagues there often don't stay very long. According to reports from two Black servers who worked at Darden's Capital Grille in DC -- a restaurant patronized by politicians, lobbyists, and others in the Washington elite -- Black front-of-the-house staff were let go en masse within a short period of time because they “didn’t fit the company image.” They were all replaced by White workers.

Despite the pattern of racial discrimination, Darden -- the world's largest full-service restaurant company -- ranks in the "Top 100 Places to Work," an annual list published by Fortune Magazine. The company gets high marks for a diverse workforce (of course, there's no mention of who works which job.) At a time when Black unemployment is nearly twice the national average and the private sector is being heralded as our greatest hope, Darden's pattern of relegating Black workers to lowest wage work is unconscionable.

Despite the lawsuit, Darden will get a dollop of free positive publicity this week when First Lady Michelle Obama celebrates the second anniversary of her "Let's Move" anti-obesity campaign at a Texas Olive Garden restaurant. Darden is among the corporations which have pledged to gradually (they get five years) start reducing the salt and fat content of the food they sell and to add healthier sides. 

But I digress. If you're wondering whether your own favorite restaurant is among the many which treat its employees like crap, ROC has put out a handy Zagat-type rating guide to help you. (You can also sign Color of Change's petition telling Mr. Wonderful's Darden chain to cut the crap, right here.)  

The Guide evaluates more than 150 popular restaurants and chains nationwide against 3 criteria: provision of paid sick days, wages of at least $9 per hour for non-tipped workers and $5 per hour of tipped workers, and opportunities for internal advancement.
These are good criteria. I don’t want a sick person handling my food, nor do I want them to lose wages or jobs because they’re sick. The minimum wage for tipped workers has remained at a measly $2.13 per hour for nearly 20 years, so every day consumers have to push for a higher standard since Congress won’t. And finally, racial and gender hierarchies are a fact of life in the restaurant industry, with white men getting the best paying jobs at the front of the house. Across the country, ROC United has found that a system that enables internal promotion so that back of the house workers can get access to front of the house jobs, is a key element of restaurants that don’t discriminate.
The Guide goes further than telling you where to go. Since it doesn’t cover absolutely every one of the millions of restaurants in this country, ROC United asks diners to simply take a look around and ask a few questions when they eat out. Just opening our eyes will tell us who works where. Are all the waiters white? Are all the bussers Latinos? Are there no black people or women anywhere? It isn’t difficult to ask your waiter what his hourly wages are. And if the restaurant doesn’t meet the standards listed above, there are tear out cards in the back of the guide that you can leave with management to let them know where they can get help to do better.

Let Them Eat Cake... Or Not

Urban legend has it that Twinkies have a shelf life of decades: not only do they contain no actual food, but one ingredient is the same chemical used in embalming fluid. Even though this claim is probably bogus, all you Hostess junkies (and you know who you are) might want to start hoarding your supplies. In what has become a tried and true tactic of vulture capitalism, the private equity firm that bought out Hostess several years ago, and already forced it into bankruptcy once, is at it again. Wonder Bread, that miracle of unhealthy enzyme-enhanced sculptable softness beloved by kids, is in danger too.  Either the worker bees cave, or Hostess may shut down for good.

It seems that the debt-riddled owners (they have been predatory, many, and varied) sloppily forgot to eviscerate the union's pension plan last time around, and are heading back into court to force the Twinkie-transporting Teamsters and the factory food workers  to give up their contracts. Hostess executives from the Texas HQ went judge-shopping, and finally settled on a friendly New York bankruptcy court.

The judge with the reputation for coercing concessions from unions in bankruptcies to make the capitalist vultures happy and whole is one Robert D. Drain. I am not kidding. This guy is a living legend in the world of legal union-busting for fun and profit. Writes labor journalist Robert Vail:

Between 2005 and 2009 Drain presided over the infamous Delphi auto parts bankruptcy, in which the United Auto Workers saw its Delphi membership decimated.
More recently, he has been overseeing the case of the A&P supermarket chain. Just six weeks ago, about 30,000 grocery clerks and store employees represented by the United Food & Commercial Workers union were forced into broad concessions under circumstances just like those faced by the Hostess workers.

The workers are being asked to give up $659 million in wages and benefits over three years, in addition to relinquishing their pensions.  All for the good of the bottom line, of course. Management will apparently try to appeal to the employees' sense of junk food junkie grass-roots solidarity and job security. They might even stir up anti-union sentiment by threatening to raise the price of SnoBalls to $5 for the already-struggling indigent middle class. Divide and conquer -- works every time.

The union boss is not having it. He represents the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers union. (Not to editorialize or anything, but the combo of Twinkies and cigs doesn't exactly inspire sympathy. On the other hand, it is pretty cruel and irresponsible for a company whose products contribute mightily to America's bloated health care costs to cut the medical benefits of its own employees. I call this the WWDBA-- the WalMart Way of Doing Business in America). Anyway, the union boss's name is Frank Hurt, and he is mightily pained:  

I find it deeply offensive and highly disingenuous for the company to claim that its financial woes are the result of its union contracts and pension and health benefits obligations. We contend that the company is in dire financial shape because of a string of failed business decisions made by a series of ineffective executives who have been running the company for the past decade.

For a junk food company, you'd think they'd know better than to indulge in that no-no of snacking: the double-dip. It previously filed for Chapter 11 in 2004, when it was known as Interstate Bakeries. The company also named a new chief executive, James R. Elsessor, who had taken over as CEO for Charles Sullivan,  replaced by Tony Alvarez. Confused yet? Mitt Romney, amazingly enough, is nowhere to be found in this labyrinth, but that doesn't mean he's not lurking nearby. Interstate Bakery's stock, which had been at one time $34/share, fell to $2.05/share as they declared bankruptcy.

At the time it was the longest bankruptcy in U.S. history. During that time, it fought a 2007 bid from Mexican baked goods giant Grupo Bimbo and ex-Bill Clinton vulture capitalist pal Ron Burkle of the Yucapaipa Companies. With the leadership of Craig Jung, the company emerged from bankruptcy as a private company on February 3, 2009.  The plan included a 50 percent equity stake by Ripplewood Holdings and lines/loans by General Electric Capital and GE Capital Markets, Silver Point Finance and Monarch Master Funding. Interstate's union workers made contract concessions in exchange for equity. Since declaring bankruptcy in 2009, Interstate closed nine of its 54 bakeries and more than 300 outlet stores. It also reduced its work force from 32,000 to 22,000 people and pulled out of some markets. (Wikipedia).

The next trial in New York's Southern District Bankruptcy court is scheduled for next month.

While you're waiting, do read the wonderful Charles Pierce's "In Defense of Twinkies", a masterpiece of junk food gourmandism and caloric history. An excerpt: 

   The Twinkie's formidable shelf life has aroused curiosity among bored undergraduates, the scientific community, and people who are, well, members of both. Most seriously, the Twinkie was subjected to a grim series of experiments eight years ago by a pair of young scientists at Rice University in Houston. They tested Twinkies for artificial intelligence (the cakes failed), electric resistivity (the filling bubbled a little, but that was all), and gravitational response, in which test a Twinkie was launched from a sixth-floor window, with the result that, upon contact with the sidewalk, only a small crack opened on the Twinkie's side. The pair also performed a solubility test, immersing a Twinkie in a glass of tap water. After 24 hours, they reported "the beginnings of a creamy ooze at the surface of the water."
     "After 48 hours in the water," they continued, "the Twinkie had not changed any more in size. However, the creamy filling somehow oozed out of the center and was collecting on the surface of the water. The water itself was a very dark brown. When we attempted to pour the water out of the cup, it quickly became apparent that the Twinkie had no structural integrity at all. It ... turned into a lump of goo in the sink."
     Pity. You should probably eat them if you're going to do anything with them. Or not. 

Okay, I think it's time for a Twinkie run. Watch out for vulture capitalists scarfing up the supplies in the snack aisles, and attack if you must. I won't tell if you don't.  

In Election Year, Poverty Swept Under the Rug

The politicians and the press, for the most part, will not cover poverty in this country. If you hold your breath waiting for that to happen, you're just going to die. -- Bob Herbert, former New York Times columnist, speaking at the Spotlight on Poverty Opportunity Forum.

Herbert is right. Although 88% of Americans believe that poverty should be an issue in the presidential campaign, media coverage of it is pretty much limited to whatever hateful outburst erupts from a GOP candidate on any given day. Newt Gingrich got plenty of press for suggesting poor kids work as janitors in their schools. Yet, major news organizations didn't fall all over themselves racing to a crumbling school in a poor neighborhood to actually talk to the kids to find out what they thought. As Bob Herbert points out, there have been no hard-hitting investigative pieces on faulty plumbing or wiring in public schools. Just a lot of "wow, can you believe what Newt just said?" from the so-called liberal media, who just can't get enough of wingnut psychopathology.

Today it was Mitt Romney's turn to generate some red meat buzz.  The MSM was faux-shocked when he allowed how he is not all that concerned about "very" poor people, because they're already protected by a social safety net. The point he was most likely trying to make is that you have to be literally in the gutter before qualifying for Medicaid, so where's the beef?  Or, more likely, Romney is not concerned about the poorest of the poor because they have a tendency not to vote. The corporate stenography slant: OMG, what will come out of this guy's mouth next? The numbers, the polls, the numbers! 

Since the Democrats have transformed themselves from being champions of the poor to groveling before Wall Street to get that all-important campaign cash, President Obama doesn't talk much about poverty at all.  He is more inclined to characterize the indigent as the "struggling middle class", not the nouveau-poor. The backdrops of his campaign speeches always include well-dressed, well-fed "folks" right out of sitcom suburbia. He did not involve himself in last summer's progressive caucus "Poverty Tour" with  Cornel West and Tavis Smiley.  When he does go to Detroit, it's to visit an auto plant, not an inner city neighborhood. When he causes massive traffic gridlock during his romps to Harlem, it's for canoodling with the slumming rich. Even the "cheap" seats at his recent Apollo gig went for $100.

(Actually, he did visit a ghetto last year. But it was Rio de Janeiro's notorious slum, as a photo-op during a "free" trade mission/family vacation with the wife and kids. You see, despite the fact that almost half of all American families are just a paycheck or two away from dire straits, poverty does not and cannot exist in the greatest superpower on earth).



The Obama Version of a Poverty Tour: A Foreign Country


It was not always thus. As recently as the 2008 post-election transition period, the Obama team dared use the "P" word.  There is a whole page still up devoted to the subject of poverty.  In those days, the president was a "lifelong advocate for the poor."  President-elect Obama wanted to prevent prison recidivism by providing substance abuse counseling for ex-cons. The reality? The War on Drugs is bigger than ever, minority youths are filling what are increasingly private prisons at record rates and black unemployment is well above 16%.  He promised to raise the federal minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011. Oops! He vowed to increase affordable housing for poor people. Instead, he cut neighborhood block grants and home heating assistance.  He did this without the Republicans even asking. He offered.

Meanwhile, nearly half of all children live on the brink of poverty and one-quarter actually do live below the poverty level. Data released by the Census Bureau last year put about one-third of Americans at the poverty level.

Stephen Gray of Time wrote about last summer's pre-Occupy poverty tour --

"Poverty and poor people are an afterthought" said (Tavis) Smiley. "For many folks in this country – politicians – they’re disposable, they’re invisible.” Poverty rarely stirs powerful political forces. There’s no major Washington lobby for the poor. There are few major Congressional figures with the stature of Ted Kennedy or Daniel Patrick Moynihan who’ve made poverty issues central to their political identities. The term “poverty” has taken on baggage, evoking in some images of the Cadillac-driving “welfare queen” introduced by Ronald Reagan’s 1976 presidential campaign. Earlier this year, the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, released a study questioning the plight of the nearly 44 million Americans whom the Census Bureau categorizes as impoverished, but also own appliances such as air conditioners and TVs.

Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne was also a panelist at this week's poverty forum.  "In politics" he said, "I think there are two obvious coalitions. One is when the middle class allies with the folks below them, and one is when the middle allies with the folks above them."

Since neither political party identifies with the "lower folks" Occupy has served to fill the vacuum. Republicans and Democrats both love to pontificate about aspiring to that American Dream of consumerism, property ownership and moolah. The OWS movement has stepped up to talk about social injustice. It has brought the homeless and poor population to public attention, and that does not sit well with the political elites of either Wall Street-serving party. Mainstream coverage has carefully and dutifully not concentrated on the poverty aspect.The camps have been broken up by paramilitary thugs, and so the extreme poor and homeless are back where they came from. Out of sight, out of mind. 

(You can read the entire transcript of the poverty forum, as well as watch the video, here.)

Update: the president talked to struggling homeowners in Falls Church, Va today about how his plans for mortgage relief are better than Romney's. The median family income in Falls Church: $97,225. I rest my case.

Stock Shlock

Well, nobody in the Senate dared vote against insider corrupt stock trading, unless you count professional contrarian Tom Coburn, who votes against everything from healthy lunches for school children to a museum honoring women. And a North Carolinian named Richard Burr also nixed bringing it to a final vote this Thursday. I don't know why, and I don't care. He was probably just trying to be a thorn in Harry Reid's side.


As per usual, this bill has a cute and easy-to remember acronym: STOCK -- standing for Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge. Not as sexy as SOPA and PIPA, but very catchy and righteous-sounding.  As in, Congress is finally taking stock of itself before the citizenry goes all tar and feathers and puts them in the stocks. For a minute I thought it meant "stop counting on congressional intelligence if you want the country to function", but that's another bill for another day.  Since Congress seems hell-bent on defunding and privatizing education, I was rather surprised they are having much of anything to do with something so entitle-y/elitist as knowledge. As God warned Adam and Eve and the right wing nihilist Republicans, don't eat ye the apple of the Tree of Knowledge, of Good and Evil. Stay stupid and stay safe.


Senator Reid obeyed his master Barry and immediately scheduled the vote to make it seem like they're really not all a bunch of crooks, and so the prez has something to run on besides Lilly Ledbetter and killing bin Laden. From The Hill:

Reid said the legislation would help restore confidence in Congress by stipulating that profiting from privileged political intelligence is illegal. 


"Members of Congress and their staffers have the duty to the American people," Reid said. "They may not use privileged information they get on the job to personally profit. [This bill] will end any confusion over whether members of Congress can be prosecuted for the serious crime. They can be."

Thank God, because I was feeling mighty jittery and befuddled, wondering if Nancy Pelosi would end up going scot free because of all the Visa stock she and her multimillionaire husband bought right before she made sure that credit card debt would not be included in tough new bankruptcy legislation.


Lawmakers were shaken when 60 Minutes ran a report recently about Pelosi and practically everybody in Congress making some heavy-duty bucks from insider trading.  Most of them professed shock that it was going on, and that they were doing it. Again, from The Hill article:

"I was shocked by this report, I think we all were," (Mass. Sen. Scott) Brown said. "[M]embers of Congress should not be lining their pockets on insider information. Serving our country is a privilege. I believe we must level the playing field and show the American people that the United States Congress does not consider itself to be above laws that apply to everyone else.”

When the bill passes Thursday and goes on to the House for approval, no doubt the nouveau- and olde-riche millionaires will be back-slapping each other in another orgy of self-congratulation. I can already see their 9 percent approval rating skyrocketing off the charts as the engaged public audience applauds their courage and honesty.


And to be fair, 60 Minutes did not really break this story. All its information came from a little book published in November called "Throw Them All Out", written in the best old-fashioned muckraking tradition.  A journalist named Peter Schweizer actually looked through votes and stock trades and their timing, and put two and two together. The info has been hiding in plain sight for decades, if not centuries.


Congressional corruption, says Schweizer, puts lie to the notion that the two political parties are engaged in a constant battle royal. Of course, we knew they were really two phony factions of an oligarchic uniparty, especially when it comes to funding wars, the security state, indefinite detention and anything and everything that does not make life better for their constituents. "Republicans and Democrats are not so different as you think", he writes. "They work together to enrich themselves. They have designed the system to work so that they can make lots of money doing things that would get the rest of us sent to jail".


Schweizer is painstakingly bipartisan and absolutely relentless in exposing both Democrats and Republicans. Besides Pelosi, he puts the spotlight on John Kerry; Tom Carper; Melissa Bean; Jared Polis; James Oberstar; Jeb Bradley; John Boehner; Jim McDermott; Amo Houghton; Johnny Isakson; Sheldon Whitehouse; Max Baucus; Jim Moran; Dick Durbin; Rahm Emanuel;  Gary Ackerman; Dennis Hastert; Carolyn Maloney; Judd Gregg; Ken Calvert; David Hobson; Heath Shuler; Bennie Thompson; Maurice Hinchey; Jerry Lewis.... and last but least, Harry Reid!!


The bill will pass, and then Congress will hire its own lobbyists to punch it to shreds with the obligatory loopholes. Or they won't bother to fund it, or they'll appoint Joe Lieberman their impartial watchdog when he retires next year. 


Throw the bums out.



Ye Olde Village Stocks



Hegemon-omania

Via Josh Rogin, we are just now finding out that the inspiration for President Obama's ode to American imperialism in his speech last week came from, of all people, Mitt Romney's NeoCon foreign policy adviser! According to Rogin, who writes for Foreign Policy magazine, Obama just can't get enough of Robert Kagan's screed in the The New Republic, which says the good old days of American superiority are here to stay. People have always kvetched that the USA is in decline, even when it was in its fetal stage and Patrick Henry despaired.  It wasn't true then, says this cheerleader for the Iraq surge -- and it isn't true now. Depression, shmepression.  Economic inequality is just a bothersome and distracting subplot in the continuing saga of of American superiority over all other nations.  We are built to last, people!

And the title of Kagan's piece is just too damned cute for words: Not Fade Away. Nothing like co-opting The Rolling Stones* to make the case for endless hegemony. (Personally, I would have called it Sympathy for the Devil) Here are some of the mendacious snippets: 

The present world order—characterized by an unprecedented number of democratic nations; a greater global prosperity, even with the current crisis, than the world has ever known; and a long peace among great powers—reflects American principles and preferences, and was built and preserved by American power in all its political, economic, and military dimensions.

(Pay no attention to decades-long wars, the rise of the security state and the greatest income disparity the world has ever known. It's been peace, love and rock n roll all along.... reality is only for wimpy pessimists. As long as the 1% get along within their own elite cliques, who cares about the little people and the little countries).

 Some of the pessimism is also due to the belief that the United States has lost favor, and therefore influence, in much of the world, because of its various responses to the attacks of September 11. The detainment facilities at Guantánamo, the use of torture against suspected terrorists, and the widely condemned invasion of Iraq in 2003 have all tarnished the American “brand” and put a dent in America’s “soft power”—its ability to attract others to its point of view.

The fact is, Kagan seems to argue, is that the rest of the world has always gone through these periods of hating us, just like small children who, when throwing tantrums, scream that they hate their parents. But they don't really mean it, and everything always ends up sweetness and light because Father Knows Best. Kagan lists example after example of countries falsely hating the USA to their own detriment, case after case of past predictions of American decline never coming true. The Cold War is over, Communism was destroyed, we shall prevail. America has survived all the blows to its reputation abroad: the McCarthy witch hunts, racial discrimination, The Ugly American depicting Uncle Sam as a big fat bully, assassinations, Kent State, riots at conventions, Vietnam, Watergate.

If one wanted to make a case for American decline (Kagan continues) the 1970s would have been the time to do it; and many did. The United States, Kissinger believed, had evidently “passed its historic high point like so many earlier civilizations.... Every civilization that has ever existed has ultimately collapsed. History is a tale of efforts that failed.” It was in the 1970s that the American economy lost its overwhelming primacy, when the American trade surplus began to turn into a trade deficit, when spending on entitlements and social welfare programs ballooned, when American gold and monetary reserves were depleted.

More examples follow of America not being to control external events: even the world paternalist could not make Israel and Palestine get along. The rest of the world continued to complain about American overreach throughout the 80s and 90s. So what if we don't have complete and total world dominion every minute of every day, Kagan retorts. Whoever said the people we dominate have to love us?  We still got de power! We're in it for the long haul. Here is possibly the most nauseating paragraph in the whole article:

Today the United States lacks the ability to have its way on many issues, but this has not prevented it from enjoying just as much success, and suffering just as much failure, as in the past. For all the controversy, the United States has been more successful in Iraq than it was in Vietnam. It has been just as incapable of containing Iranian nuclear ambitions as it was in the 1990s, but it has, through the efforts of two administrations, established a more effective global counter-proliferation network. Its efforts to root out and destroy Al Qaeda have been remarkably successful, especially when compared with the failures to destroy terrorist networks and stop terrorist attacks in the 1990s—failures that culminated in the attacks of September 11. The ability to employ drones is an advance over the types of weaponry—cruise missiles and air strikes—that were used to target terrorists and facilities in previous decades. Meanwhile America’s alliances in Europe remain healthy; it is certainly not America’s fault that Europe itself seems weaker than it once was. American alliances in Asia have arguably grown stronger over the past few years, and the United States has been able to strengthen relations with India that had previously been strained.

(Translation: we killed hundreds of thousands of people to make up for the murder of 3000 on 9/11. And we will continue to kill countless thousands more. Nothing is our fault.  The global banking cabal headquartered on Wall Street has bolstered our strength even as it has crushed our own citizens).

And finally, Kagan considers economic crises irrelevant to our continuing status of World Superpower. He continues the GOP lie that "entitlements" will destroy our nation faster than any war. Watch for this paragraph to be included, in some form, in an upcoming column by David Brooks: 

What about the financial expense? Many seem to believe that the cost of these deployments, and of the armed forces generally, is a major contributor to the soaring fiscal deficits that threaten the solvency of the national economy. But this is not the case, either. As the former budget czar Alice Rivlin has observed, the scary projections of future deficits are not “caused by rising defense spending,” much less by spending on foreign assistance. The runaway deficits projected for the coming years are mostly the result of ballooning entitlement spending. Even the most draconian cuts in the defense budget would produce annual savings of only $50 billion to $100 billion, a small fraction—between 4 and 8 percent—of the $1.5 trillion in annual deficits the United States is facing.

So yeah, since war is cheap, let's blame Grandma for eating more than her share. This is the theme hammered away in countless forms by Brooks. And as an aside, how's this for a Tale of Three Davids: Obama campaign operative David Axelrod told David Gregory yesterday that David Brooks is one of the country's "great public thinkers." 

This perfectly gels with Barry's new man-crush on Kagan. But maybe man-crush is too intense a characterization, because Kagan is already taken. He is married to Dick Cheney's former deputy national security advisor, Victoria Nuland. And just to show how much Obama is truly the embodiment of Bush's Third Term, Nuland was appointed spokesman for the State Department last summer. She replaced P.J. Crowley, who was fired after criticizing inhumane treatment of war crimes whistleblower Bradley Manning.

Ezra Klein elaborates on Obama's enthusiasm for his newfound hero: 

In a recent, off-the-record meeting with news anchors, Obama spent more than 10 minutes "going over its arguments paragraph by paragraph, National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor confirmed." National Security Advisor Tom Donilon was dispatched to Charlie Rose to "discuss Kagan's essay and Obama's love of it." So it's not just the president who likes Kagan's article. It's the White House communications team who likes the idea of letting people know the president likes Kagan's article.

Okay, it's official. Barack Obama is a NeoCon and he wants everybody to know it. So rest easy, Republicans despairing over losing this year's election: you have already won. 

*  The Rolling Stones did a cover of "Not Fade Away" in 1964, and that version is listed in the 500 greatest hits in rock history. It was originally recorded by Buddy Holly in 1957. Thanks, Marina.

Occupied Winter of Our Discontent (continued)

I have to admit that when President Obama tapped New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman to lead a brand spanking new investigation into banksterism, my first cynical thought was "co-optation." Schneiderman would be just the latest in a long line of Democratic malcontents and holdouts to be taken on a figurative ride on Air Force One, emerging chastened, rewarded and mouthing "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good" platitudes.

But there is reason to hope today that the pending sweetheart deal between the banks and the Obama administration may not be as sweet as the Big Five Banks had been hoping for. Schneiderman last night announced a relatively limited proposal: in exchange for a $25bn payout to victims of the robo-signing foreclosure fraud, there will be no criminal prosecution from the states which agree to the deal.  But the blanket perpetual immunity from punishment for the entire panorama of financial felonies apparently is not to be. The state agreement would not preclude the feds (read: Schneiderman and his posse of IRS and FBI agents) going after mortgage fraudsters.

Some of those skeptical that Barack Obama would ever go after the banking hand that feeds him were expressing mild shock today that there might be a Grand Perp Walk of Bank CEOs after all.  Remember, the president has stated time and again that he had no interest in punishing the banks. But then something called Occupy Wall Street came along, and made him an offer he couldn't refuse: investigate and prosecute, or we will hound you wherever you go.  Plutocracy or not, the United States still requires that presidents be voted into office. And savvy politician that he is, Obama knows which way the wind is blowing.

Sam Stein of The Huffington Post reports that banks will still be vulnerable in the following categories:

1. Criminal liability.
2. Tax liability
3. Fair lending, fair housing, or any other civil rights claim.
4. Federal Housing Finance Agency or the GSEs [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac]
5. CFPB claims for the period after they came into existence in July 2011
6. SEC claims
7. National Credit Union Association Claims
8. FDIC claims
9. Federal Reserve Board claims
10. MERS claims

Early reports from the banking sector in the wake of Friday night's announcement and the revelation that Schneiderman's task force has already issued subpoenas show them to be borderline-panicked and indignant. Rupert Murdoch's New York Post ran a McCarthyesque red scare editorial screaming that Schneiderman was "shaking down the banks" and how dare he leave the door open to future criminal prosecution after the banksters pay up in good faith? It's the same old canard used by Timmy Geithner and Co.: if you upset the too-big-to-fail banks, the whole world will collapse. From the right-wing Post:

Besides, the prospect of future court action, should Schneiderman prevail, sure won’t help the economy.
On the other hand, demonizing financial institutions in populist fashion might help rile up the left — which, no doubt, is what Obama and Schneiderman care about most.
New York’s union cat’s-paw, the left-wing Working Families Party, is already tickled pinko — er, pink — with Schneiderman’s appointment, calling it “a big victory for the 99 percent.”
For America and New York, a world financial center, it sounds more like disaster.

Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone is cautiously optimistic that Obama's back may finally be up against the wall on Wall Street. He says the robosigning scandal is really small potatoes compared to what really went on and what remains unpunished:

The securitization offenses were massive criminal conspiracies, identically undertaken by all of the big banks, to defraud investors in mortgage-backed securities. If you’re looking for an appropriate target for a massive federal investigation, one that would get right to the heart of the corruption of the crisis era... well, they picked the right target here. If they were to do a real clean sweep on securitization, the federal prisons would end up literally teeming with senior executives from the biggest banks. A lot of very big names would end up playing ping-pong and cards in Otisville and Englewood.

It may end up being a case of Neopopulist Obama being forced to act upon his own words as much as it pains him to do so. Taibbi adds: "One thing we do know: Obama’s decision to tap Schneiderman publicly, and dump Geithner, and whisper about a millionaire’s tax, signals a shift in its public attitude toward the Wall Street corruption issue. The administration is clearly listening to the Occupy movement. Whether it’s now acting on their complaints, or just trying to look like it’s doing something, is another question. It’s way too early to tell. But it’s certainly very interesting".

And as for Schneiderman's being co-opted, Dave Dayen of Firedoglake writes that the AG has promised to publicly disavow the task force and publicly walk away if he is in any way impeded. I think the only thing we can do for now is give him some time to put his money where his mouth is. But not too much time.

Gretchen Morgenson of the New York Times has written an excellent piece on Obama's task force for her "Fair Game" series about the nefarious banking system. The upshot: if they don't do something big very soon, what little credibility they have left will be shot.

Another glass-half-full observation: for the first time in its elite 0001% history, the World Economic Forum at Davos has heard the "inequality" word uttered. Occupiers are camped out in igloos. Severe income disparity may not be so healthy for capitalism. Greed may not be so good after all, even for the greedheads. The parasite eventually bleeds the host dry. The cancer dies right along with the victim.

The Right Stuff

By Jay - Ottawa

Following events like an American presidential election can be a test of mental endurance and a challenge to the biliary tract.  After a while, one begins to lose faith in humanity.  Anyway, that was my day, until I came across an article about another president -- until late December, one our contemporaries, but from elsewhere and now gone forever.  We still have his legacy.  I’m speaking of Václav Havel (1936-2011).  You may have seen him in the past on the News Hour (PBS), or read one of his books, or seen one of his strange plays.  As a leader enmeshed in the tough choices of managing a country, he proved politics need not be one part lies and one part venality supported by greed.  Havel was different.

A Toronto writer and translator, Paul Wilson, went to Havel’s funeral in Prague.  His full account is linked above. Here are a few quotes in case you can’t take the time to read it all, but still need a boost as we continue to push through the big muddy of 2012 American politics.

Wilson describes a poster that went up all over Prague around the time of Havel's funeral, “a shot of Havel with his back to the camera, walking toward the ocean.”  On the poster was a quotation summarizing “one of Havel’s most deeply held beliefs”:  Then this paragraph near the end of Wilson’s tribute: 

Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out. 

As I said, Václav Havel was different.  It is not madness or naiveté to insist upon -- and to push a little harder for -- that difference.

Like many great Czechs before him, Havel insisted on the importance of truth, but with a difference. “Truth and love,” he was fond of saying, “must prevail over lies and hatred.” He was often ridiculed for what seemed like a Hallmark sentiment (“Why love?” people asked), but he defended the slogan by referring to one of his greatest insights: truth, by itself, is a malleable concept that depends for its truthfulness on who utters it, to whom it is said, and under what circumstances. As a playwright, Havel turned this insight into a dramatic device: in most of his plays, the main characters constantly lie to one another and to themselves, using words that, in other circumstances, would be perfectly truthful. Truth by itself is not enough: it needs a guarantor, someone to stand behind it. It must be uttered with no thought for gain, that is, in Havel’s words, with a love that seeks nothing for itself and everything for others.