It’s important to see the political play this is for Obama before leaping to the conclusion that he’s protecting Big Oil. By going after China on solar, Obama can point to their unfair trade practices as the reason Solyndra failed. It takes away a talking point his opponents simply won’t let go of: that his administration invested in Solyndra purely out of cronyism. Now Obama can say the investment was good, but China’s dumping killed it.

Overall I like the move as it helps bring people around to the notion that we can protect our manufacturing industries in this country. Now we need a subsidy funded by this tariff to help solar energy producers buy panels.

Technical question. When does a demand like the one being made by the donors here cross the line into “quid pro quo?” I support the move, and think a lot of progressive causes ought to use the same pressure tactic. But only if it’s legal to say “We’ll give you money so long as you do X.”

Other indicators are also going the wrong way. Oil demand is down, which is a very bad sign for how much economic activity there is. Manufacturing orders are also way down, though it may be a blip driven by a drop in aircraft orders.

The underlying problems with the economy haven’t changed: flat wages and dropping housing prices. Democrats have done nothing to fix these problems, and by allowing states to cut public jobs, they’ve made them worse.

No problem. Just refer to it as “The Panthers’ stadium. You know the one with the big, black Panther on it!”

Or…not.

I think what Bloomberg doesn’t get is that if the protesters are going to get arrested and brutalized anyway, they might as well block some shit up for their trouble. There are definitely places the movement can go while still remaining non-violent that would cause more disruption.

Message from Ohio: stop sellling us out to big money interests, assholes.

Cenk Uyger’s take is that the Stuporcommittee will push through a plan fairly close to the one the Republicans are proposing. Congress will pass it on the grounds that the alternative would “put the country at risk” due to the defense cuts that would be triggered by a failure of the supercommittee plan. Obama will claim not to want to sign it, but will claim to have no choice.

I frankly don’t find a lot to argue with there. I don’t really believe the triggered cuts to defense will happen, as there is just too much lobbyist cash from the M-I complex on Capitol Hill to allow it.

For one thing, it’s EXPENSIVE to move. The move itself costs more than the taxes they would pay

Ding! Ding! Ding!

Modest increases in marginal income tax rates never amount to much money in absolute terms. The cost of a move, finding a new job, plus the non-monetary “cost” of dislocation of one’s family are rarely going to outweigh cost in increased tax.

And the increased cost in taxes is, by defintion, relative to the amount earned. The increase is always a very small fraction (like 5%) of the marginal earned dollars…ie the dollars over the amount below which the tax isn’t in effect.

Therefore any impacted taxpayer by definition can afford it, and with little difficulty, unless they are wildly irresponsible.

Democrats should worry when the “loyalist” position is that they are only 50% corrupt. I would seriously love to see the Democratic party replaced with a true Labor-oriented party. There are a lot of difficulties with this, the greatest of which is that Labor would be almost completely without power while dismantling the Democratic machine. I personally don’t think we can afford this right now. I wish the alternative to the Democrats was the Republican Party of 1970. But it’s the Republican Party of 2011 and it’s too dangerous to risk handing over more power.

But I guess we’ll get to see this dynamic in action in such places as Florida, Wisconsin, Indiana, et al. The backlash in those places might be exactly the model for a new party. It might even be just the impetus we need. On the other hand, the country may melt down into chaos before any good comes of it.

Voting isn’t about sending a message or catharsis. Especially with respect to the President, it’s about determining who shall wield tremendous power. The parties are corrupt, but not to the same degree. The Republicans are 95% corrupt (at least) with a few honorable holdouts. Many of those that aren’t corrupt are ideologically aligned with the corrupting interests to such a degree it doesn’t matter.

The Democrats are %50 corrupt. They can be saved. We can bring them back from the edge.

The choice in 2012 at the top of the ticket is likely to be stark. A centrist that throws the left a bone and does the right thing now and again, or a crazy motherfucker. You cannot in good conscience undertake a course of action that will help the crazy motherfucker win. This is not a serious alternative, and will accomplish nothing. If I’ve misunderstood how the Protest Vote would work in this respect, then my apologies…this is my big concern with “message” voting.

I’m all for pumping up quality third party candidates and / or primary challengers within the parties. Pledging can work. But mostly on the state and local level, IMO.

I we make a Labor Party can we spell it like we do here in ‘Merka?

In the end we can’t do things like they do them in England because we don’t have a parliamentary system with proportional representation. The way an independant movement can have the most influence is by supporting candidates within the more friendly party who also support its agenda. Which sounds like the plan here. It’s not that Trumka is going to support some Republicans here, some Democrats there. He’s going to support Democrats who help Labor, and not those that don’t. Instead of sending money to DNC / DCCC / DSCC he’s focusing on individual candidates.

The best thing they could do would be to set up a recruiting pipeline to fund primary challengers in districts with unfriendly Democrats. Hold the “Blue Dogs” feet to the fire the same way their corporate paymasters do.

Obama may be a calculating politician, whose motives shift with the political winds. But that doesn’t mean we should reject his advances when the political winds are blowing our way. He needs to get his base excited about reelecting him. That means we have leverage. That means we may be able to actually hold his feet to the fire.

Obama has undoubtedly played “punch the hippie” to win points with “centrists.” He sold out his base on health care for fear of angering big insurance and big pharma. But now he needs us again which means we can actually get stuff.

What sucks is that the stuff we get when it comes to Social Security will likely be (now try not to get too excited) the status quo!! Right now that’s the way-out-there liberal position: don’t change it.

I can barely contain myself.

I like how even assassinations can be compromised upon in this administration. That even the weak, completely fake goal of this “stress test” is only to reduce assassinations.

Not sure who the “chickenhawk” is here, but I can’t completely disagree with your suspicion. I take heart that the administration has, so far, done what it could to take a measured response. If this were the Bush era we’d have Marines in Tripoli writing a new verse to their hymn.

One thing to watch out for is that the military may try to force Obama’s hand into committing troops. I just really think even the military leadership sees invasion as a bad idea, per Gates’ recent comments.

Ok, I did NOT see the post about Clinton suggesting we could arm the rebels. The danger here is that if we arm them, we need to train them on using our weapons. This means “Advisors.” I’m not for this.

This is where the Arab League needs to step up. Both to buffer us from the risk of putting boots on the ground, and for the sheer optics of having this be an Arab-led effort on the ground. Mostly what the rebels need are the same kinds of weapons they have, which are all Soviet-bloc in origin. It’s easier to get these guys more AK-47′s and ammo than train them on US rifles and create a whole separate logistical chain. The Arab League can do this on their own.

Sending US weapons goes too far for me.

Here’s why I’m ok with this level of mission creep. The best chance we have of getting out of the conflict with our heads held high is if we A) Never set foot on Libyan soil (except for downed pilots and people rescuing them) and B) The rebels take down Ghadaffi on their own. The best way to do this is to go beyond the strict wording of the mandate and do air support for the Libyan rebels. Aggressively, but with as much precision as possible.

Will there be casualties? Yes, but far, far less than under any scenario involving a protracted civil war, or even a decisive victory by Ghadaffi at this point. Hundreds of thousands could die in either of those cases and with civil war the country may never come together again in our lifetime.

No, the best scenario is one in which NATO with UN (mostly) approval paves the way with its airpower for a very quick Rebel victory. So far this is what is happening.