Open Thread for Night Owls & Early Birds

At Alternet, Larry Beinhart, author of Wag the Dog, writes:

^{The Myths and Harsh Effects of Bush's Economic Class War}

George Bush came into office. There was a recession almost immediately. Officially it began in March of 2001 and, officially, it ended eight months later.

The causes of that recession are vague and amorphous, generally credited to the "business cycle."

There is, in addition, a minor Republican industry dedicated to backdating the onset by five months, to November 2000, in order to make it a Clinton recession. Or, to inadvertently say that the very election of George Bush screwed up the economy; he didn't even have to come to power. ...

The recession of 2001 never ended.

At least not for ordinary Americans.

Ordinary Americans found that their income was declining. From 2001 to 2007, median family income declined -- depending on where you get your figures from -- by somewhere between $500 and $1,000. Median individual income went down by at least $1,000.

The yearly average number of new private sector jobs created from 2001-2008 was just 369,000, not even keeping up with the growth in population. It should be compared to the average number of new private sector jobs created from '92 to 2,000: 1,760,000 per year.

The number of people in manufacturing jobs decreased by over 3 million.

The number who got healthcare at work went down, from 64.2 million to 59.7 million. The number of people without healthcare went up from 38.4 to 46.9 million.

The number of people in poverty increased from 31.6 million to 36.5 million.

American military fatalities in Iraq since March 2003: 4057

American military fatalities in the Philippine-American War (1899-1902): 4196

The Overnight News Digest has been posted.

Open Thread and Diary Rescue

This evening's Rescue Rangers are Louisiana 1976, PaintyKat, jennyjem, TruthOfAngels, Wes Opinion, and joyful, with shayera as editor.

• In Unless there's a price tag most people don't appreciate beauty, Code Breaker points out how we walk by great beauty everyday without noticing it. (PaintyKat)
• Teen Challenge: A typical week in the "Jesus Gulag" continues dogemperor's startling series into the frightening world of religiously-motivated child abuse. (joyful)
• DowneastDem reports that racism and fear was behind the move to squelch an educational endeavor in How Daniel Pipes Destroyed a New York City Principal. (jennyjem)
• iampunha discusses John Milton's "Paradise Lost" in Today in History: April 27, 1667. The author also tells of the publishing industry in England back then and dissects the Biblical story of Eve and the apple. (Louisiana 1976)
• markthshark warns that nothing is as it seems with the Bush Administration in Cheney's Neocons Behind Syrian/North Korea Nuclear Claims. (jennyjem)
• karateexplosions wonders if racism is indeed over in the rhythmic In the Home of the Brave and the Free. (joyful)
• 8ackgr0und N015e contrasts General Petraeus's policies in Iraq with his press image in David Petraeus, Death Squads and Honorable Men. (jennyjem)
• StormBear takes us back to 1860-1861 (with cartoon!) in Black History: First Shots of the Civil War. (TruthOfAngels)
• Coming to a Governor's Office near you? Save Ohio Now writes that those zany Christian Fundamentalists are at it again in Action Alert: Dobson Quietly Co-opts All Fifty Governors. (jennyjem)
• Jeffrey Feldman details the hypocrisy of the Straight Talk Express in Violent Rhetoric Watch: McCain Launders FOX's Lie RE Obama. (joyful)
• Stranded Wind explains exactly how "they don't make 'em like they used to" in this lovely post, Walkabout #9: This (Centuries) Old House. (jennyjem)

Add your favorite diaries from the past 24 hours and use as an open thread

::

McAuliffe Adopts June 15th as Deadline for Superdelegate Endorsements?

Howard Dean says it again:

"We want the voters to have their say. That's over on June 3," Dean said on ABC News' Good Morning America. Although party rules enable the superdelegates to wait until the presidential nominating convention on Aug. 25 to make a choice, Dean says the party cannot wait that long if it hopes to beat Republican John McCain in November.

"We really can't have a divided convention. If we do it's going to be very hard to heal the party afterwards," Dean said today. "So we'll know who the nominee is, and that'll give us an extra 2 1/2 months to get our party together, heal the wounds of having a very closely divided race and take on Sen. McCain."

Dean isn't saying which of the two Democrats will have to step aside in June. "Either of these candidates, if it's time for them to go, they'll know it and they will go,. They don't need any pushing from me. You know when to get in and you know when to get out. That's just part of the deal."

Dean reiterated this prediction on NBC News' Today : "Five hundred of the 800 unpledged delegates have already said who they are for. The remaining 300 will do that by the end of June and we'll know who our nominee is and that's what we need to do.''

Interestingly, Terry McAuliffe said something similar to David Corn:

So, [Corn asked McAuliffe], when does this end?

"June 15," he said without a nanosecond of hesitation.

Why then? I asked. The primaries finish on June 3, he noted, and after that there will be pressure on the uncommitted superdelegates (who now number about 300) to commit to one candidate or another. It should not take too long for these undecided insiders to make up their minds and declare their intentions--even if there are some who would rather not choose between the two.

So all done by June 15? You won't contend the nomination contest beyond then? I asked.

"Oh, I'm confident we'll be the nominee," he said, smiling.

But, I added, on the night of the Pennsylvania election, you said, "We're going all the way to Denver." That suggested, I noted, that Clinton would not yield any time before then...

"What do you expect me to say?" McAuliffe retorted. "I'm chairman of the campaign." Well, I suggested, you could have said, "We're going on to the next primaries and we're going to keep on winning." He didn't have to use the D-word. He shrugged.

So, I asked, I have a promise? June 15? "June 15," he said. You keep it alive beyond that, I noted, and it could be a nuclear war within the party. (In fact, even if McAuliffe and Clinton succeed by winning enough superdelegates in the 12 days after the primaries to trump Barack Obama's lead in pledged delegates, there still could be an intra-party apocalypse.) He didn't take the bait. "June 15," he repeated.

Clinton must win almost 70% of the remaining pledged delegates to overcome Obama's lead among pledged delegates.  That's not likely.  Over the weekend, she picked up fewer add-on delegates than expected.  As the pool of superdelegates gets smaller, it's harder for Obama to overcome her superdelegate lead (although his odds of doing so are decent), but it's also harder for Clinton to overcome Obama's overall delegate lead by growing her lead among superdelegates.  

Today's superdelegate news was split.  Despite Clinton's win in New Mexico, Senator Jeff Bingaman will endorse Obama.  But Clinton appears ready to pick up a somewhat more valuable endorsement, from North Carolina governor Mike Easely.  

Typically an endorsement from a governor is especially valuable because governors have patronage networks; they can put workers on the street to round up votes.  But this will not be like Ohio with Ted Strikland or Ed Rendell in Pennsylvania, because Easley is in his last months as governor due to term limits.  There aren't that many people who need to curry favor with him, because his term is almost done.  Furthermore, there are contested Democratic  primaries for both governor and Senate, so many of the Dem operatives and power brokers will be pulled in numerous directions, unlike in PA or OH, where down-ballot races weren't big attractions.  Nevertheless, Easley is well-liked, so it's a good pick-up for Clinton.  

But Clinton needs a lot more than a scattered "good pick-up" here and there.  What might McAuliffe be thinking?  After all the talk of going to Denver, is the Clinton campaign changing its talking points?  

Late Afternoonish/Early Eveningish Open Thread

At the peak of its intensity, in 2004, the blue-state/red-state split represented, in a way, an enormous triumph for mainstream politics. It was a time when huge masses of the population could be organized into two rival groups, each trained to hate the other intensely.  But what’s happening now is that many people are beginning to resent being lumped simplistically into shallow, media-created Crossfire-style categories of "left" and right"; on the one hand they distrust the very media that celebrates those simplistic distinctions, and on the other they see that the elected politicians who ostensibly represent those would-be opposing ideologies actually do no such thing.

**

Because a mass Balkanization of the political landscape in this country would, of course, be enormously dangerous to that kind of dug-in, corrupt elite. When the country is split up not into two neat sides but in a million little pieces, how do you tie up the population with hatred for the "other half" while you burgle the national treasure and run Congress like a medieval Khannate?

--Matt Taibbi, The Great Derangement: A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics, and Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire, due for release May 6, 2008

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