Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has an article today on the sensitive topic of lobbyists buying access to President Barack Obama.  The more you donate to his re-election – the more access you have.  See above graphic.

“Although Mr. Obama has made a point of not accepting contributions from registered lobbyists, a review of campaign donations and White House visitor logs shows that special interests have had little trouble making themselves heard. Many of the president’s biggest donors, while not lobbyists, took lobbyists with them to the White House, while others performed essentially the same function on their visits.

More broadly, the review showed that those who donated the most to Mr. Obama and the Democratic Party since he started running for president were far more likely to visit the White House than others. Among donors who gave $30,000 or less, about 20 percent visited the White House, according to a New York Times analysis that matched names in the visitor logs with donor records. But among those who donated $100,000 or more, the figure rises to about 75 percent. Approximately two-thirds of the president’s top fund-raisers in the 2008 campaign visited the White House at least once, some of them numerous times.

The reasons someone might have gained access to the White House and made a donation are wide-ranging, and it is clear that in some cases the administration came down against the policies being sought by the visitors. But the regular appearance of big donors inside the White House underscores how political contributions continue to lubricate many of the interactions between officials and their guests, if for no other reason than that donors view the money as useful for getting a foot in the door…”

Patrick J. Kennedy, the former representative from Rhode Island, who donated $35,800 to an Obama re-election fund last fall while seeking administration support for a nonprofit venture, said contributions were simply a part of “how this business works.”

“If you want to call it ‘quid pro quo,’ fine,” he said. “At the end of the day, I want to make sure I do my part… And as a former chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, he said he was keenly aware of the political realities they face. “

Yes this is how Washington works and why most Americans have little faith in its ability to run this country.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times columnist, David Brooks, has advice for  idealists who think they can take on social causes without recognizing the realities of the political system.  He comments:

“These people are refreshingly uncynical. Their hip service ethos is setting the moral tone for the age. Idealistic and uplifting, their worldview is spread by enlightened advertising campaigns, from Bennetton years ago to everything Apple has ever done.

It’s hard not to feel inspired by all these idealists, but their service religion does have some shortcomings. In the first place, many of these social entrepreneurs think they can evade politics. They have little faith in the political process and believe that real change happens on the ground beneath it.

That’s a delusion.”

I agree fully with Brooks’ assessment.  As someone who grew up in the 1960s as a member of a  generation that was filled with idealism, as early as the 1970s, it became apparent that while some social progress had been made especially in areas such as civil rights, many things had remained the same.  Fifty years later  I continue to think as a society we have made progress but still have a long way to go.

Brooks suggests that young idealists read noir novels such as Dashiell Hammett’s The Maltese Falcon or at least watch the movie starring Humphrey Bogart.  Hammett’s  hero, Sam Spade,  is a moral realist. He assumes that everybody is dappled with virtue and vice, especially himself. He makes no social-class distinction and only provisional moral distinctions between the private eyes like himself and the criminals he pursues. The assumption in a Hammett book is that the good guy has a spotty past, does spotty things and that the private eye and the criminal are two sides to the same personality.  He (or she — the women in these stories follow the same code) adopts a layered personality. He hardens himself on the outside in order to protect whatever is left of the finer self within.

Brooks conclusion:

“I’m not sure I can see today’s social entrepreneurs wearing fedoras and trench coats. But noir’s moral realism would be a nice supplement to today’s prevailing ethos. It would fold some hardheadedness in with today’s service mentality. It would focus attention on the core issues: order and rule of law. And it would be necessary. Contemporary Washington, not to mention parts of the developing world, may be less seedy than the cities in the noir stories, but they are equally laced with self-deception and self-dealing.”

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The Huffington Post is reporting that according to a new Gallup poll released today, a majority of Americans support the proposed Buffett Rule, which would require individuals earning $1 million or more per year to pay at least 30 percent of their income in taxes. The survey found that 60 percent of adults support enacting such a policy, while 37 percent oppose it.

By significant margins, both independents (63 to 33 percent) and Democrats (74 to 24 percent) supported the measure, a key Obama campaign issue. Republicans opposed it, but by a smaller margin of 54 to 43 percent.

The Gallup survey was conducted April 9 to 12 among 1,016 adults and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The media were fixated on George Zimmerman’s appearance in a Florida courtroom yesterday to hear his plea of not guilty of second degree murder in the Trayvon Martin killing.  In the next few months leading up to a trial we will hear a lot about Angela Corey, the special prosecutor in the case.  Already the “experts” were weighing in on her decision to charge Zimmerman with second degree murder rather than the lesser charge of manslaughter.  Alan M. Dershowitz, well-known Harvard law professor, indicated on CNN yesterday that the charge of second degree murder was overreaching and will not be sustained during a trial.  Other experts indicated that Corey’s strategy appeared to be to go for the more serious charge with the hope of settling for the lesser charge of manslaughter or even laying the groundwork for negotiations to settle on  a plea deal with Zimmerman.

This is just the beginning!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

More fallout from the Republican Presidential Primary.  Fox News, the Republican Party’s major media mouthpiece, has take a couple of knocks from the Republcian candidates.  The latest is Newt Gingrich who tore into Fox News yesterday during a meeting with Tea Party leaders in Delaware, saying that his former network home has been deeply biased against him.  The Huffington Post reported:

“I think Fox has been for Romney all the way through,” Gingrich said, according to Real Clear Politics. “In our experience, Callista and I both believe CNN is less biased than Fox this year. We are more likely to get neutral coverage out of CNN than we are of Fox, and we’re more likely to get distortion out of Fox. That’s just a fact.”

Gingrich’s comments echo those of Rick Santorum, another former Fox News contributor. Both were dropped by the network when they began their presidential bids, and both have accused Fox News of favoring frontrunner Romney over them. Santorum even said it directly to Fox News host Brian Kilmeade.

“He has Fox News shilling for him every day — no offense, Brian, but I see it,” he told Kilmeade.

What is all the more remarkable is that, for a long time, Romney had near-poisonous relations with Fox News.

In his remarks, Gingrich said that he thinks Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch made the call to favor Romney. “I assume it’s because Murdoch at some point said, ‘I want Romney,’ … “And there’s no question that Fox had a lot to do with stopping my campaign because such a high percentage of our base watches Fox.”

And we thought that Fox News was the “fair and balanced” network!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Justice is being served by the decision of a special state prosecutor to bring second-degree murder charges against George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watchman who shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager. A New York Times editorial comments:

“It is critically important for the prosecution and the defense to present the fullest explanation of the shooting before an impartial jury. The need for a thorough investigation of Mr. Zimmerman’s conduct has been obvious since the day of the shooting in February.

The killing stirred national outrage after the local police department failed to bring charges and accepted Mr. Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense under the state’s dangerous Stand Your Ground law. This law — a sop to the gun lobby by state politicians — foolishly gave licensed gun owners the benefit of the doubt in shootings if they “reasonably believed” their lives were threatened. It has hobbled the work of prosecutors by requiring them to disprove a shooter’s claim of self-defense when a slain victim cannot contradict that claim.

Angela Corey, the special prosecutor, declined to discuss details of the case but said that if the Stand Your Ground law is invoked by the defense, “we will fight it” with evidence that the shooting was unjustified. In this case, Mr. Zimmerman exited his car to follow the teenager despite a 911 dispatcher’s warning: “We don’t need you to do that…”

As the case proceeds, the Stand Your Ground law should be on trial as well. It has invited gun owners to flirt with vigilantism by eliminating the traditional requirement to seek a path of retreat before resorting to force in self-defense cases. Claims of justifiable homicide have tripled in Florida since 2005, when the state became the first in the country to enact such a law. A score of other states have followed suit.

That the Police Department in Sanford, Fla., did not bring charges weeks ago shows how this law undermines the justice system and harms public safety. It must be repealed if the Trayvon Martin case is to advance the meaning of justice.”

Undermine indeed!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The news media are reporting that the special prosecutor investigating the death of Trayvon Martin announced earlier this evening that George Zimmerman, who told police he shot the teen in self-defense, has been charged with second-degree murder. Zimmerman faces up to life in prison if convicted.

The Huffington Post reported that:

“Authorities said that Zimmerman, who has been in hiding for weeks, was in police custody. Special prosecutor Angela Corey said during a news conference that she would not reveal where Zimmerman was out of concern for his safety. “He is within the custody of law enforcement officers in the state of Florida,” Corey said.

The murder charge indicates that prosecutors believe that they can prove Zimmerman shot Martin with malice, though without premeditation. A manslaughter charge would have required prosecutors only to prove that Zimmerman acted unlawfully and with criminal negligence in shooting the teen. “

A first step has now been taken to resolve this tragedy!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

The New York Times has an article on the two faces of Mayor Michael Bloomberg.  A month ago he rallied for the public disclosure of evaluations of 18,000 school teachers claiming “the public [has] a right to know” even though there were flaws in the evaluation system and had wide margins of error. In the past few days, he has sung  a different tune and  has fought hard to keep secret a continuing evaluation of the 911 system, which is rumored to be critical of its operation after the city spent $2.1 billion to overhaul it. Mr. Bloomberg maintained that “the public was better off not seeing a draft of a report that he commissioned after the December 2010 snowstorm, when the city couldn’t keep streets cleared and ambulances got stuck in the snow while critically ill people waited for help.”

It is typical of the way Bloomberg has run the city, he knocks and kicks down workers while scrupulously guarding anything negative about himself and senior staff.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

All the news outlets are reporting that Rick Santorum has dropped out of the Republican Presidential Nomination Race.  The Huffington Post reported:

“In a surprise decision Tuesday, former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) announced that he is suspending his presidential campaign, all but putting an end to the Republican primary.

“We made a decision to get into this race at our kitchen table, against all the odds, and we made a decision over the weekend that while this presidential race is over for me, and we will suspend our campaign effective today, we are not done fighting,” Santorum said during an address in Gettysburg, Pa.

He did not endorse Mitt Romney during his annnouncement.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

Coming on the heels of several books exploring America’s descent or ascent as a world economic power, David Brooks takes a look at Tyler Cowen’s   article in The American Interest called “What Export-Oriented America Means.”  American exports are surging. Cowen argues that America’s export strength will only build in the years ahead. He points to three trends that will boost the nation’s economic performance.

“First, smart machines. China and other low-wage countries have a huge advantage when factory floors are crowded with workers. But we are moving to an age of quiet factories, with more robots and better software. That reduces the importance of wage rates. It boosts American companies that make software and smart machines.

[Second] then there is the shale oil and gas revolution. In the past year, fracking, a technology pioneered in the United States, has given us access to vast amounts of U.S. energy that can be sold abroad. Europe and Asian nations have much less capacity. As long as fracking can be done responsibly, U.S. exports should surge.

Finally, there is the growth of the global middle class. When China, India and such places were first climbing the income ladder, they imported a lot of raw materials from places like Canada, Australia and Chile to fuel the early stages of their economic growth. But, in the coming decades, as their consumers get richer, they will be importing more pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, planes and entertainment, important American products.”

Worth the read!

Tony