Daily Kos

Steve Yoder writes:

Call it the Big Selloff—America is headed toward a future in which fewer people own the spaces they call home. The effective homeownership rate, which excludes borrowers whose homes are underwater, stands at 62 percent, down from 69 percent in 2006, according to a 2010 report by the New York Federal Reserve.

As more people move from owning to renting, apartment vacancy rates have fallen fast, from 8 percent in 2009 to 5.6 percent in third quarter 2011. That’s pushed up rents in all markets by 2.5 percent, including apartments and single-family homes, to an average of $846 nationwide, according to Local Market Monitor, a home price forecaster. For a two-bedroom dwelling, the average rent was at $1,020 in June 2011.

Those trends are just the beginning, concludes a July report from investment bank Morgan Stanley: the United States is becoming a nation of renters and home ownership will keep falling. And that, say some experts, could be good for the country.

This dramatic change, triggered by the 2008 housing collapse, has shifted people’s views of home ownership. The number of those who consider a home a safe investment fell from 83 percent in 2003 to 66 percent this year, according to a survey by Fannie Mae and two other organizations. In another poll last April, commissioned by real estate data firms RealtyTrac and Trulia, 40 percent of renters questioned said they plan never to buy a home. Another reason—many baby boom retirees don’t want the burden of home repairs, rising property taxes and other responsibilities.

All very interesting. But for many working Americans, according to the the Center for Housing Policy, affordable housing, owned or rented, is out of reach. For instance, the center's latest edition of Paycheck to Paycheck took a look at five categories of workers we see a lot of during the holiday season: delivery truck drivers, mail carriers, retail salespersons, retail assistant managers, stock clerks.

Despite sizable declines in home prices since the peak of the housing market in 2006 only one of these five jobs—mail carrier—earns enough to afford to buy housing at typical prices nationwide. ... Rent for a two bedroom apartment is almost as difficult to afford, with only mail carriers and assistant managers able to afford to the national average fair market rent.

These findings underscore the fundamental gap between wages for retail workers and
the cost of housing.  Even after record home price declines, retail workers do not generally earn enough to afford to buy a median-priced home.  With rents actually increasing (modestly), these workers face considerable difficulties affording their housing costs.

It is also worth noting that housing prices in the third quarter of 2011 – the most recent data available—were essentially the same or higher than they were in the fourth quarter of 2009 in 58 percent of the metro areas studied.

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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2003:

I went to see The Two Towers last night, and I enjoyed it immensely – although not quite as much as the first Lord of the Rings movie, for esthetic reasons I won’t bother with here.

My real problem with the movie—the one I do want to talk about—is political, and it applies to the entire Lord of the Rings saga. As much as I love and admire Tolkien’s books, and Peter Jackson’s brilliant adaptations, I think it’s probably unfortunate these particular stories are being re-injected into the popular culture at this particular moment in history.

My fears were best captured in a single scene from The Two Towers, in which the traitorous and lecherous Grima Wormtongue accuses one of King Theoden’s bravest soldiers of being a "warmonger." This at a time when the foul orc brigades of the evil wizard Saruman are overrunning Theoden’s kingdom.

The scene is unquestionably effective—and true to the spirit, if not the precise text, of Tolkien’s original. But it also comes dangerously close to an Ann Coulter view of the world, in which anyone who seeks to avoid war is, by definition, either a traitor, a terrorist stooge, or both.

The entire Lord of the Rings saga can—and has been—interpreted the same way: As a parable for our times, a mythic lesson in the virtue and necessity of moral clarity in the face of evil. ...

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Reposted from Daily Kos Elections by Steve Singiser

A trio of national polls exploring the GOP primary hit our eyes on Thursday. If you are rooting for Romney or supporting Santorum, you can find a poll to fit your meme out of that smattering of data.

Take your pick:

• Holy smokes! Santorum is on fire! He is right on Romney's rear end in a national poll! (Rasmussen)
• Santorum is nowhere. It is still Mitt Romney's race to win, and Rick Santorum is all out to beat Rick Perry for fifth place (YouGov)
• Santorum is on the move, but Mitt Romney still has a solid lead. Stay tuned, though, because there is some legitimate post-Iowa love apparent for the new Anti-Mitt. (Gallup Tracking

Now that we've established the "lessons" from each poll, let's take a look at the actual numbers:

NATIONAL (Gallup Tracking): Romney 27, Gingrich 19, Paul 13, Santorum 11, Perry 6, "Other" (presumably including Bachmann) 6, Huntsman 2

NATIONAL (Rasmussen): Romney 29, Santorum 21, Gingrich 16, Paul 12, Huntsman 4, Perry 4

NATIONAL (YouGov): Romney 30, Gingrich 17, Paul 13, Perry 8, Santorum 8, Huntsman 5, Bachmann 2

NEW HAMPSHIRE (Suffolk Tracking): Romney 41, Paul 18, Santorum 8, Gingrich 7, Huntsman 7, Bachmann 1, Roemer 1, Karger <1, Perry <1

NEW HAMPSHIRE (Washington Times/John Zogby Analytics): Romney 38, Paul 24, Santorum 11, Gingrich 9, Huntsman 8, Perry 1, Bachmann <1

We also, for the first time in a long time, have more than one piece of general election data. And, when you consider the source, the news is pretty darned good for el Presidente:

NATIONAL (Rasmussen): Obama tied with Romney (42-42)

NATIONAL (YouGov): Obama d. Romney (49-40); Obama d. Gingrich (51-37)

Some analysis, which might help to explain the disparate GOP primary numbers, awaits you just past the jump.

The Montana Supreme Court, let's be clear, did not quite overturn Citizens United last week. Its 5-2 decision did uphold a ban in Montana state races on corporations funding independent expenditure ads, but the benefits of this decision will be extremely short-lived.

First off, what happened here? The Montana law in question states that "a corporation may not make a contribution or an expenditure in connection with a candidate or a political committee that supports or opposes a candidate or a political party." In other words, just like the federal law pre-Citizens United, no direct contributions to candidates, and (the issue here) no independent spending on their behalves.

So why did five Montana Supreme Court justices not see this as an open-and-shut case? What makes Montana different? According to the majority, it’s Montana’s unique history:

[T]he Montana law at issue in this case cannot be understood outside the context of the time and place it was enacted, during the early twentieth century. (Montana became a state in 1889.) Those tumultuous years were marked by rough contests for political and economic domination primarily in the mining center of Butte, between mining and industrial enterprises controlled by foreign trusts or corporations. These disputes had profound long-term impacts on the entire State, including issues regarding the judiciary, the location of the state capitol, the procedure for election of U.S. Senators, and the ownership and control of virtually all media outlets in the State.

Examples of well-financed corruption abound. In the fight over mineral rights between entrepreneur F. Augustus Heinze and the Anaconda Company, then controlled by Standard Oil, Heinze managed to control the two State judges in Butte, who routinely decided cases in his favor. K. Ross Toole, Montana, An Uncommon Land, 196-99 (Univ. of Okla. Press 1959) the Butte judges denied being bribed, but one of them admitted that Anaconda representatives had offered him $250,000 cash to sign an affidavit that Heinze had bribed him. Toole, Montana, An Uncommon Land, 204.

In response to the legal conflicts with Heinze, in 1903 Anaconda/Standard closed down all its industrial and mining operations (but not the many newspapers it controlled), throwing 4/5 of the labor force of Montana out of work. Toole, Montana, An Uncommon Land, 206. Its price for sending its employees back to work was that the Governor call a special session of the Legislature to enact a measure that would allow Anaconda to avoid having to litigate in front of the Butte judges. The Governor and Legislature capitulated and the statute survives. [...]

The State of Montana was still contending with corporate domination even in the mid-20th century. For example, the Anaconda Company maintained controlling ownership of all but one of Montana’s major newspapers until 1959.

This historical understanding is crucial to understanding the particular problems Montana faces with outside corporate influence:

History professor Dr. Harry Fritz, in his affidavit presented in the District Court, affirmed that the “dangers of corporate influence remain in Montana” because the resources upon which its economy depends in turn depend upon distant markets. He affirmed: “What was true a century ago is as true today: distant corporate interests mean that corporate dominated campaigns will only work ‘in the essential interest of outsiders with local interests a very secondary consideration.’” While specific corporate interests come and go in Montana, they are always present. Montana’s mineral wealth, for example, has historically been exported from the State, and that is still true today.

The problem, however, is that the Citizens United majority already considered these arguments and rejected them. Basically, Justice Kennedy + 4 argued, independent speech doesn’t corrupt, and even if it did, well, that’s too bad:

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson It's been less than six weeks since New Hampshire Republicans failed to override Democratic Gov. John Lynch's veto of a so-called "right to work" law, which would force union members to pay the costs of representing coworkers who chose not to join a union.

Thwarted in that, Republicans apparently came back to the 2012 legislative session determined to work something anti-union into their busy schedule of voting to make gun permits optional and to dismantle consumer protections on heating oil. Thursday the state House passed a "right to work" bill applying to state workers by a 212-128 margin. That's a big margin, but since Democrats only hold 103 seats in the House, it actually represents bipartisan opposition to the bill.

New Hampshire AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie said in a statement:

While HB 383 only impacts state employees as currently written, it opens a back door for the Speaker and other Tea Party extremists to impose a right-to-work on all New Hampshire workers and businesses. Our legislators' continued opposition to the right-to-work law in any and all forms the Speaker that New Hampshire's people need jobs more than they need political attacks on workers.

Since the state Senate passed the comprehensive RTW bill and had the votes to override the governor's veto of that, it's extremely likely this bill will pass the Senate. Once again, it's likely to come down to a veto override attempt.

Reposted from Maggie's Farm by Kaili Joy Gray

Speaking today in the town of Buckeye, Arizona, which he called "Hawkeye," Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio didn't disappoint the wingers who were waiting on pins and needles.

Joe Arpaio on Thursday announced he'll run for a sixth term as Maricopa County sheriff.... He'll likely face Mike Stauffer, a 20-year veteran of the Scottsdale Police Department who announced in October he'd run against Arpaio as an independent. Stauffer switched his affiliation from Republican for the race because, he said, the election for the position should be nonpartisan. Arizona Republic

Oh, goodie.  

Yeah, we know he's got the most funding, best organization and most insider endorsements. And, despite—not because of—having John (I love my life, and it shows) McCain as his new BFF, he's leading in the polls both nationally and in upcoming New Hampshire, where there will be no surprises.

Regardless, there are four very important reasons Mitt Romney will be the GOP nominee:

1. Rick Santorum is unelectable

Whether it's blaming liberals for the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal or comparing homosexuality to incest, bigamy and adultery, Santorum's extreme statements have made him a guaranteed loser in a national election. No strategic-thinking Republican will support him. He's soon to find out that the support he's gotten so far is more anti-Mitt and less pro-Rick. It won't be enough because he's sharing the wealth with reasons 2, 3 and 4.

2. Newt Gingrich is a jerk

Who says so? Anyone who's worked with him. The astounding thing about Newt's collapse in national polls is that it was aided and abetted by literally countless number of people who, on record and off, say they know him, they've worked with him, and they will not support him.

3. Rick Perry is damaged goods

I won't point out how badly Perry has done when he charged unarmed into a battle of wits with his peers.... YouTube has the details in any one of the debates he participated in. I will point out that the national consensus that Perry is not ready for command is reflected in the polls, and for this year, is simply not reversible.

4. Ron Paul, libertarian, doesn't share a Republican foreign policy

His foreign policy positions make him unelectable in a Republican primary. It doesn't matter how many third place finishes he gets. I wonder if anyone will tell him?

The funny thing is that each of them by themselves, one on one, might—I say, might—have a chance simply because Romney has his own major issues with the Republican base that votes in a primary. But with each of these less than stellar candidates running against each other and splitting the non-Romney vote, Romney will sail through unimportant New hampshire and have a real shot at South Carolina. If he does well there, why should he do poorly in Florida and points beyond?

At some point, the losers are going to have to admit they really can't win. And what's the point of running if you can't win? All you do is tick off the eventual winner and make yourself a pariah. And as long as these are who Romney is running against, he'll take the prize.

Even someone as ill-informed as Michele Bachmann gets that.

All of this has happened before.

The Washington Post reports:

Authorities say the man charged with setting fire to a Florida Panhandle abortion clinic long targeted by violence told investigators he was motivated by his hatred for abortion.

In an affidavit released late Thursday, prosecutors said 41-year-old Bobby Joe Rogers told investigators that he made a fire bomb and threw it at the Pensacola clinic early Sunday.

Rogers said he was pushed to action after he saw a young woman enter the clinic for an abortion while he was standing outside the clinic with a group of protesters recently.

It's almost hard to get worked up about stories like this, when they're so damned common. Bombs thrown, buildings burned, car tires slashed, patients stalked, doctors assassinated ... You can look at the statistics. You can read about the thousands of acts of violence and tens of thousands of acts of "non-violent" terrorism against health care providers and their staff and their patients and their landlords and their landlords' children. It's all part of the "pro-life" movement to save the fetuses. And hey, if some property, or some people, have to get hurt, well, that's a fair price to pay.

We can already predict how this will play out. After all, all of this has happened before:

The two-story Pensacola clinic that was gutted by flames has been attacked before. It was bombed on Christmas Day in 1984, and in 1994 a doctor and a volunteer who escorted patients to and from the clinic were shot to death as they arrived. The gunman, Paul Hill, was executed in 2003.

In the coming days and weeks, we'll learn more about this Bobby Joe Rogers, who was so enraged at the sight of a woman walking into a health clinic that he just had to bomb it. We'll probably learn about his obsession with this clinic, perhaps even with a particular doctor who worked there. He'll probably have at least tenuous connections to an anti-choice organization: some literature in his car, perhaps, or the phone number of, say, Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy advisor at Operation Rescue and herself a convicted "pro-life" terrorist who, yes, tried to blow up an abortion clinic. Any organization to which his name might be linked will, of course, denounce his violence. They always do. It's their thinly veiled attempt at plausible deniability—stir up the hate, put $10,000 bounties on the heads of doctors, and then claim innocence and sadness after the fact.

All of this has happened before. And until our government starts treating "pro-life" terrorism like, you know, terrorism—starting with actually identifying such acts as terrorism, rather than as mere isolated incidents of violence, because the "debate" about women's health care is so "complicated"—all of this will, tragically, happen again.

The Nonprofit Quarterly:

USA Today is reporting that donations of homes—many of which have been foreclosed—have increased significantly in the past year. I am not sure whether we are supposed to be happy about this. For instance, Bank of America donated 150 homes in 2011, and plans to donate 1,200 next year. Wells Fargo is ahead of the curve, having donated 1,120 homes this year—up from 295 last year. These two paragons of charity were cited by the treasury department in June, along with JPMorgan Chase, for poor performance in the federal HAMP loan restructure program. In short, they made the process so unwieldy that people would be foreclosed on while still in a miasma of negotiations with the same bank that was foreclosing. Kafka anyone?

So the bad news is, banks still aren't willing to work seriously with underwater homeowners to reduce foreclosures. The good news? After they've taken back the homes and tossed the residents out of them, they're turning around and donating a few of those homes to community programs.

Emphasis is on the phrase a few; as NPQ notes, there are about six million homes in America that either have already been foreclosed or are in danger of being foreclosed. A thousand homes each from the top megabanks hardly puts a dent in that. And like most charity contributions, there is something in it for the banks; I would presume the homes being donated are the ones in the worst shape and/or in the most distressed neighborhoods, and homes for which a bulldozer is the only economical solution. Getting those homes off the bank's books, ridding themselves of the liability for the abandoned properties, and being able to write down a much-inflated "market value" as a tax deduction is probably a considerable net win for the banks.

So bully for them, I suppose. But what is needed here is not a few hundred or a few thousand unsellable homes getting donated to community groups, but for something more substantive to be done about the six million homes in distress. HAMP has been a mess, and banks are still—still—not making good-faith efforts to work with homeowners before foreclosure takes place. It is ridiculous, and it's not doing the housing market, the economy, or the banks any favors. After bailing these banks out, taxpayers should all but own these banks (or at least would, were we not so determined to protect our captains of finance from the free-market consequences of their free-market actions at any price); it seems more than reasonable for taxpayers to be asking these banks to better return the favor.

A pipe dream, I know.

Sucks to be a House GOPer.

A year to the day since Ohio’s John Boehner and 87 eager freshmen took Washington by storm, House Republicans are bruised from battle, irritated with each other and have lost trust in their leadership.

The president whose agenda they came to Washington to stop is vowing to spend the year scoring political points against Republicans now, and they don’t have much leverage against him.

Now, they’re trying to figure out how to revamp their agenda to find much needed political and policy victories in advance of the November election.

Political victories? Watch freshman Republicans rebel against a long-term deal on the payroll tax extension—something mainstream Republicans would rather pass quickly and move on to firmer ground. They got crushed on the issue in December, and would rather not relive it.

They're also talking about some tax code reform, which is obviously nothing more than yet another smokescreen to give the wealthiest another break. They made very clear, in the payroll tax cut debacle, that they have no interest whatsoever in helping out the middle class (and certainly not the lower class).

In case you need a reminder of where the House led by Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor stand with the American people:

For the uninitiated, that's a historical record low. Yes, the GOP-led House is the most unpopular since Gallup started polling in 1958. And several other polls have confirmed the absolute sucktitude of the teabagger-controlled Congress.

And what does that mean for November 2012?

According to a Gallup poll released Friday, more than three quarters of registered voters say most members of Congress deserve to lose their jobs–the highest number since 1993, the year before the political climate resulted in a Republican "tsunami."

House Republicans are in the worst political position of any governing party since the 1994 tsunami. For the first time ever, people want to vote their own congresscritters out.

Two-in-three voters say most members of Congress should be voted out of office in 2012 – the highest on record. And the number who say their own member should be replaced matches the all-time high recorded in 2010, when fully 58 members of Congress lost reelection bids – the most in any election since 1948.

Republicans know they're f'd, and they're fighting about how to right their ship. And given the huge schisms between establishment and teabagger Republicans in the House, this isn't a fight that will be resolved quickly, or quietly.

I don't see how Mitt Romney can lose his party's nomination. That said, I don't see how he can win it, either. Dana Milbank:

But [McCain] grimaced when he was introduced, and as Romney delivered his own stump speech, an increasingly impatient McCain pulled up his sleeve and checked his watch. McCain gave his endorsement address without mentioning Romney’s Iowa win until the end. “By the way, we forgot to congratulate him on his landslide victory last night,” he said, laughing. Romney ignored him.

Then came the questions: First, one from an Occupy Wall Street infiltrator needling the candidate about his belief that “corporations are people.” A second questioner wanted to know why Romney flip-flopped on universal health care when he was governor of Massachusetts and why he would not increase health-care costs. Later, a Chinese American woman accused Romney of saying “degrading” things about China, and she complained that “after 20 years of Reagan trickle-down economics, it didn’t help me. My tin can is still empty.” [...]

When the end mercifully came, the candidate gave a final rallying call to “get the White House back.” All but a few rose and put on their coats without applauding.

That's an account the New Hampshire rally in which Sen. John McCain was hauled out to give an excruciating-to-all-involved endorsement of Romney. It did not go well. Roger Simon has a similarly brutal take, calling it "the event from hell":

Then Romney announces this is going to be a two-person town hall and that McCain is going to stay on the stage and take questions, too.

This is odd enough — the crowd has probably come to see and hear Romney — but doubly odd since McCain hates public speaking and is no good at it, which he immediately proceeds to demonstrate. [...]

McCain tells an anecdote involving Grantland Rice, Joe Louis and Billy Conn, who everyone as old as McCain (75) no doubt still remembers, bashes President Obama and then wraps up with patented “heh-heh” McCain sarcasm.

Turning to Romney and then the audience, McCain says, “We forgot to congratulate him on his landslide victory last night!” Heh-heh.

Both pieces are worth a full read. The picture they both paint of Romney is about as unflattering as you are allowed to get in mainstream reporting. His campaign is desperately seeks polish and organization, but even the audiences at his own events aren't that into him—but his behind-the-scenes treatment of reporters is, if anything, just as agonizingly awkward and staged as his public persona. It hurts to read it.

I think probably the only way Mitt Romney could become even remotely likable is if he just started dropping bushels of money from the ceiling, during his campaign events. That wouldn't do much to deflect from the perception that he is the candidate for and by the One Percent, however.

It's going to be interesting to watch what happens. The reporters don't like this guy, a large swath of the Republican establishment doesn't like this guy, and the socially conservative Republican base doesn't like this guy. He will probably still be able to struggle through the primaries thanks to the same decided dearth of non-crazy alternatives that has blessed him so far, but it will be a coalition of malcontents, at best. I wonder if Republicans will close ranks around him, after the primaries, or be so irritated with having to support him that many of them just sit this one out.

Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson

President Obama's American Jobs Act included funding for sorely needed summer jobs for young people—the employment rate for people aged 16 to 24 was more than 10 points lower last July than at the same time five years earlier. Congress, of course, wouldn't pass anything that might create jobs and improve the economy, so Obama's administration once again had to find a way to get something, anything done despite congressional obstruction. Their answer is Summer Jobs+, in which, according to a White House release:

[T]he Federal government and private sector came together to commit to creating nearly 180,000 employment opportunities for low-income youth in the summer of 2012, with a goal of reaching 250,000 employment opportunities by the start of summer, at least 100,000 of which will be placements in paid jobs and internships.

Currently, 70,000 commitments for "Learn and Earn" paying jobs have been made, from nonprofits to corporate giants like Bank of America to federal agencies. The other 110,000 commitments currently on the table are for unpaid internships and other occasions to learn "Life Skills" and "Work Skills" through workshops and mentoring.

The commitments for paying jobs are an unalloyed good. For kids who can't find jobs, the opportunity to attend skills workshops or be mentored is definitely better than nothing. In the case of unpaid internships the big question is whether young people are actually being mentored and learning useful things. The Obama administration will need to be sure that some oversight is put in place and kids aren't used as free labor without getting any benefits to themselves, something that is true of far too many unpaid internships. That said, the effort to create paying jobs for young people is another important step by this administration to get things done in the face of Republican obstruction in Congress.