“The Poor Door”: A Symbol Of A Truth We All Know
A few words about the “poor door.”
Maybe you already know about this. Maybe you read on Slate, saw on Colbert or heard on NPR how a developer qualified for tax benefits under New York City’s Inclusionary Housing Program by agreeing to add to its new luxury building on the Upper West Side a set number of “affordable” apartments. How the company won permission to build that building with two entrances, one in front for the exclusive use of upper-income residents, another, reportedly in the alley, for residents of more modest means.
Hence, the “poor door,” though the term is something of a misnomer. While the premium units with the Hudson River views would probably strain the average budget at a reported sale price of $2,000 a square foot, the 55 “affordable” apartments overlooking the street are not exactly priced for the family from Good Times. We are told they are expected to draw small families earning up to $51,000 a year — not enough to contemplate putting in a bid for the Knicks, but more than enough to ensure you don’t have to squeegee windshields for pocket change.
Anyway, Extell Development apparently thinks it too much to ask the well-heeled to use the same door as such relative paupers. Observers have responded with outrage. A New York Times pundit called it “odious.” CNN called it “income segregation.” The Christian Science Monitor called it “Dickensian.”
The door is all those things, yes, but it is also the pointed symbol of a truth we all know but pretend not to, so as to preserve the fiction of an egalitarian society. Namely, that rich and poor already have different doors. The rich enter the halls of justice, finance, education, health and politics through portals of advantage from which the rest of us are barred.
Politicians who send you form letters line up to kiss Sheldon Adelson’s pinky finger because he has access to that door. O.J. Simpson got away with murder because he had access to that door.
Over the years, I’ve met a number of wealthy people. I have envied exactly one: Tom Cousins, the Atlanta developer who founded the East Lake Foundation, a combination social experiment and real estate development that transfigured a blighted and impoverished community, raising test scores, banishing crime, lifting incomes, changing lives.
I envied him not his money, but the privilege he has had of using that money in the service of other people. What joy and satisfaction it must give to know your wealth has made a difference in the world.
The “poor door” reflects a different ideal. Unfortunately, this is the same ideal one too frequently sees reflected in the nation at large. In our elevation of the do-nothing-of-value, contribute-nothing-of-value, say-nothing-of-value likes of Paris Hilton and Donald Trump to the highest station our culture offers — celebrity — we betray not simply a worship of wealth for its own sake, but an implicit belief that net worth equals human worth. And it does not.
It’s only money. Money is neutral. It’s what one does with money that defines character.
I begrudge no one whatever luxuries fortune makes possible. Enjoy the French chalet if it makes you feel good and the wallet allows. But the poor door seems to me a bridge too far. Were I as rich as Bill Gates plus the Koch brothers multiplied by Oprah Winfrey, I don’t think I’d want to live in a building of separate but unequal access, a building built on the tacit assumption that I would be — or should be — mortally affronted at sharing a lobby with someone just because he had fewer material trinkets than I.
The very idea offends our common and interconnected humanity. In the final analysis, we all entered this life through the same door. And we’ll leave it that way, too.
By: Leonard Pitts, Jr., Columnist, The Miami Herald; The National Memo, August 4, 2014
“Our Political System Is Morphing”: The Problem With The Koch Brothers Isn’t Their Politics. It’s Their Copycats
Did you see the “Creepy Carnival” from the Koch brothers on the Washington Mall the other day? Sponsored by the youth-outreach tentacle of the brothers’ operation, it featured Pennywise the Clown doppelgangers dunking millennials into “High-Risk Pools” – though, surely, they missed an opportunity to nail some old people to death panels. (There was no word about the presence of funhouse mirrors to artificially shrink the outsize influence of the Kochs on our national agenda.)
These two men have commanded center stage in the dark-money circus since the US supreme court started the political money free-for-all four and a half years ago. The Kochs have become the focus of electoral campaigns themselves.
But however effective they may be as conservative bogeymen, the real problem with the Kochs is not that they are ultra-conservative. The problem is that they are a leading indicator that our political system is morphing from elections based on ideology to elections based on the preferences of individual donors.
Big “fundraisers” like the Kochs don’t care so much about candidates or parties. They care about policies, and that tendency to narrowly target their dollars naturally pushes candidates to tailor their platforms to issues more than coherent ideologies. Jjust look at Sheldon Adelson and Israel, or Tom Steyer and green energy, or Paul Singer and gay rights – or the Koch brothers themselves, whose political manipulations have always been based in a fervent economic libertarianism more than purely Republican politics.
The negative focus on mega-donors on both sides of the aisle is having one effect: it’s turning Americans firmly against the current electoral financing system. According to Gallup, fully 50% of the country would support a federally funded campaign finance system with no private contributions whatsoever; 79% would vote for a law limiting contributions in some way.
As a result, the movement for a small-donor revolution in campaign finance is slowly clawing its way into the mainstream. The leading general in that revolution, Lawrence Lessig – who launched Mayday Pac to blow up big money in politics by raising big money – just surpassed his initial fundraising goal of $5m by raking in $7.6m in small donations. (Ironically, a few mega-donors will be kicking in another $5m in matching funds.)
But Lessig’s Kickstarter-esque project is itself the kind of single-issue project that has, to date, been the purview of fundraising behemoths: he plans to give the money only to candidates who hew to his vision of campaign finance reform. Like them, it lays the groundwork for the decentralization of parties, whether or not Lessig’s own goals are achieved.
As it stands, the number of Americans who identify with a particular political party do so now with unprecedented intensity, and the number of Americans who don’t identify with either party has grown as well. Sheer frustration could move some – or perhaps many – independents who currently favor a particular party to a more radicalized center.
Disillusioned with actual politicians, apolitical activists could make the candidates the least important part of a ballot by donating to and campaigning for policies, rather than politicians. And that is what issue-oriented Super Pacs, like Lessig’s and others, are counting on: small donors, and voters interested in issues over ideology – or, at least issues-as-ideology.
The idea of non-partisan issue activism is an old one, but what’s changed is the degree of overall partisanship and our expectations of infinite, individualized choice today. When we’ve got Uber in our hands and Spotify playlists inside our headphones, it seems reasonable to expect technology could do the same for democracy.
Anil Dash, a tech activist and entrepreneur, envisions a kind of Amazon for activism – a literal marketplace of ideas, wherein a donor with a little money and a few major passions could shop for candidates that fit an issue checklist. They could even target those who appear particularly “flexible”, based on a database matching their voting history to donors, or particularly in need of cash to keep the campaign going. These, of course, are tactics that big money donors have long used to sway the opinions of politicians. The question is whether the aggregation of enough small donors could be equally effective.
But do today’s policy crises even lend themselves to the micro-targeted solutions that app-enabled voters could select? Do we wind up with solutions to climate change, or just pockets of pollution? And what issues disappear entirely when pressures from both special interest big donors and special interest small donors push parties to the breaking point?
As it is, just the system is broken – or bent, leaning heavily in the direction of that easy mega-donor money. The undoing of campaign finance reform has made more and more obvious to more and more people; Larry Lessig’s project to leverage that disgust will spotlight the ugliness just in time for 2016. Perhaps it will drive at least some conversations, if not solutions.
By: Ana Marie Cox, The Guardian, July 28, 2014
“Why Scott Walker Will Never Be President”: A Political Style That Doesn’t Say Statesman
Scott Walker, an ardent Ronald Reagan fan from his youth, was never likely to follow Reagan’s footsteps to the White House. The Wisconsin governor lacks his hero’s way with words, skill for crossing lines of partisan and ideogical division (especially within the Republican Party) and confidence on the national campaign trail.
Yet Walker has wanted to believe in the possibility so badly that he has spent the two years since his 2012 recall election win positioning himself as a contender for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. He penned a campaign book, Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge, which was so transparent in its ambitions that Glenn Beck’s The Blaze refers to it as “the prototypical book about someone running for president who doesn’t want to come out and actually say that he is running for president.” He jetted off to Las Vegas to to try and impress Republican mega-donor Sheldon Adelson, but Adelson missed the Wisconsinite´s speech. He even persisted in making the rounds nationally after polls showed that his enthusiasm for presidential politics did not sit well with the Wisconsin voters he must face in a November re-election bid.
But with the release of documents in which Wisconsin prosecutors allege Walker helped to engineer an expansive “criminal scheme” to coordinate efforts by conservative groups to help his recall campaign—by circumventing campaign finance laws—Walker’s presidential prospects look less realistic even than those of his mentor, scandal-plagued New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
The headlines in Wisconsin Thursday were damning:
“John Doe prosecutors allege Scott Walker at center of ‘criminal scheme’”
“Prosecutors accuse Walker of running ‘criminal scheme’”
And the national headlines were just as rough. “Prosecutors: Scott Walker part of ‘criminal scheme,” read the headline of a Politico story that opened with a breathless report that
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker participated in a “criminal scheme” to coordinate fundraising for the Republican in response to efforts to recall him and state senators from office, local prosecutors argue in court documents released Thursday.
Walker, his chief of staff and others were involved in the coordination effort with “a number of national groups and prominent figures,” including Karl Rove, says special prosecutor Francis Schmitz.
“[T]he evidence shows an extensive coordination scheme that pervaded nearly every aspect of the campaign activities during the historic 2011 and 2012 Wisconsin Senate and Gubernatorial recall elections,” Schmitz wrote in a December motion, on behalf of five attorneys from some of the state’s most liberal counties, just now unsealed by an appellate court judge.
Even worse for a governor who has already had to try an explain away highly controversial emails from former aides, as well as the investigations, prosecutions and convictions of aides, appointees, allies and campaign donors, are the actual details of the documents that were ordered unsealed by Federal Appeals Judge Frank Easterbrook.
“The documents include an excerpt from an email in which Walker tells Karl Rove, former top adviser to President George W. Bush, that (veteran Wisconsin Republican operative R.J.) Johnson would lead the coordination campaign. Johnson is also Walker’s longtime campaign strategist and the chief adviser to Wisconsin Club for Growth, a conservative group active in the recall elections,” reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the state’s largest paper.
The May 4, 2011, e-mail to Rove read: “Bottom-line: R.J. helps keep in place a team that is wildly successful in Wisconsin. We are running 9 recall elections and it will be like 9 congressional markets in every market in the state (and Twin Cities).”
Walker, who is certainly no stranger to controversy, claimed Thursday that he had been vindicated by judges who have restricted—and even attempted to shut down—the “John Doe” investigation into political wrongdoing. But other judges have sustained the inquiry.
Walker allies argue that he is the victim of a “witch hunt” organized by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm and other top prosecutors, who they allege are out to silence conservatives and harm Republicans. Chisholm is a Democrat, but he is also a respected prosecutor who has gone after Democrats and worked with Republicans.
Lawyers for targets of the probe are fighting to shut it down and, in this unsettled and uncertain post–Citizens United period with regard to state and national campaign finance laws, they believe they will succeed.
Attempts to halt the probe, which have been cheered on by advocates for a no-holds-barred “big money” politics, are part of a broader strategy to gut remaining campaign-finance laws. One way to super-charge the influence of major donors and corporate interests is to undermine bans on coordination between candidates and their campaigns with “independent” groups that operate under different and more flexible rules for raising and spending money during a campaign.
“If you don’t have restrictions on coordination, then the contribution limits become meaningless,” Paul S. Ryan, the senior counsel for the watchdog group Campaign Legal Center, explained. Ryan told Politico that without the restrictions, a donor “could max out under the limits [for donating to a candidate], but then you could also just say to the candidates, ‘Hey give me an ad script and we’ll walk down to the TV station and do this ad for you.’”
But even if the probe is prevented from going forward, the documents that have now been released—in combination with the February release of 27,000 pages of e-mails from the seized from the “secret e-mail system” computers of a former Walker aide who has been convicted of political wrongdoing—paint a picture of a governor whose political style does not say “statesman.”
There is no question that Walker is a hero to some Republicans, and to some conservatives.
But Republicans and conservatives who want to win back the White House have to be realistic enough to recognize that Walker has a paper trail that is unlikely to read well on the 2016 campaign trail.
In fact, if the Wisconsin polls that have Walker tied with Democratic challenger Mary Burke are to be believed, Walker might have trouble getting past the 2014 election.
By: John Nichols, The Nation, June 20, 2014
“Up In Smoke”: High Turnout (Wink, Wink) Could Hurt Florida’s Governor Scott
The geniuses running the Republican campaign effort in Florida have now decided that stirring opposition to medical marijuana will help Governor Rick Scott win.
Casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, a huge donor to pro-Scott forces, recently gave $2.5 million to a new group aiming to defeat a proposed constitutional amendment that would legalize cannabis use for patients with cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and six other serious diseases.
Recent polls show that between 66 percent and 70 percent of likely Florida voters favor the medical-marijuana amendment, and that the support cuts broadly across party lines. The measure, listed as Amendment 2 on the November ballot, requires 60-percent approval to become law.
The question is why the Republican brain trust thinks it’s a crackerjack idea to attack a popular social cause while Scott is fighting tooth and nail to save his job. The governor will be in deep trouble if thousands and thousands of marijuana advocates show up to vote in November. They’re not exactly his core constituency, so why get them riled?
Scott’s opposition to the medical-marijuana amendment is well known. He should low-key the issue, except to point out that he has promised to sign a law allowing a non-euphoric strain of the herb to be used for treating severe epilepsy in children and other patients.
That’s a humane decision, and it would win him votes.
But now comes Adelson’s seven-figure donation to the Drug Free Florida Committee, dedicated to defeating Amendment 2.
You might wonder why a rich Las Vegas casino owner is trying to prevent sick people 2,000 miles away from gaining legal access to pot. You think Adelson is genuinely worried that medicinal cannabis is a gateway to total legalization, and that it poses a dire threat to the people of Florida?
The man couldn’t care less. He’s all about getting Republicans elected.
According to The Washington Post, during the 2012 election cycle Adelson spent more than $92 million on political races, most of it on losing candidates. He wasted a ton of dough on Newt Gingrich’s flaccid presidential run, and then dumped more on Mitt Romney.
Now someone apparently has convinced him that Scott’s re-election depends on a large turnout of anti-pot voters. Thirty years ago this might have been a viable strategy, but public opinion has shifted drastically all over the country.
The GOP isn’t really scared of medicinal marijuana. They’re scared that it’s on the same ballot with Scott and their other candidates. They’re scared that more pro-cannabis voters will be Democrats than Republicans.
Feeding that fear is the fact that the biggest booster of Amendment 2 is John Morgan, a wealthy Orlando trial lawyer who’s a top supporter (and employer) of Charlie Crist, Scott’s presumed Democratic opponent in November.
A longtime proponent of legalizing medical marijuana, Morgan spent about $4 million on the statewide petition that put the issue on the ballot. Clearly he believes it won’t hurt Crist’s chances in the governor’s race.
So the Republicans now retaliate with the Drug Free Florida Committee, headed by GOP fundraiser Mel Sembler and his wife, who have close ties to the Bush family. The Semblers also bankrolled the fight against legalizing marijuana in Colorado.
Adelson’s $2.5 million check is by far the heftiest donation to the fledgling committee. When asked why the out-of-state gambling tycoon is pouring so much money into the battle against Amendment 2, Scott replied: “You’d have to ask Sheldon.”
As if Scott has no clue what his sugar daddy is up to. It’s an organized plan by Republican strategists that has nothing to do with the medical dispensation of marijuana, the statutory sturdiness of the amendment, or the ludicrous fantasy of a “drug-free” Florida.
It’s raw politics. The platform will be a 21st-century version of Reefer Madness propaganda, and the aim will be to scare people enough to make them go vote against Amendment 2. Those are folks who would also likely vote for Scott.
That’s the GOP theory, anyway.
A hyperbolic media campaign against medical marijuana could easily backfire, motivating pro-pot voters in even larger numbers. A high turnout, no pun intended, can only help Crist and hurt Scott.
If a smart person were making his campaign decisions, the governor would have told Adelson to stay out of Florida’s marijuana debate. Amendment 2 is almost certain to pass, so why run commercials that will only propel more of its supporters to the polls?
The result could extend Adelson’s losing streak, and send Scott’s re-election hopes up in smoke.
By: Carl Hiaasen, Columnist for The Miami Herald; The National Memo, June 17, 2014
“Rand Paul Is A Deeply Cynical Politician”: It’s Hard To Spot The Conviction But The Hypocrisy Is Evident
When Washingtonians refer to Rand Paul as a different breed of politician than his father, they generally mean it in a good way. The implication is that he is more pragmatic and tactical (probably more tactful, too); that his worldview has broader appeal. Whereas Ron Paul is way too much of a crank to ever have a shot of winning the GOP presidential nomination, Rand increasingly looks like a contender.
But whatever you might think about the elder Paul, you can say this for him: He is not cynical. He is a conviction politician, however repugnant some of us may find his convictions. The younger Paul? Well, he certainly styles himself a man of conviction. But at this point in his presidential quest, it’s getting hard to say for sure.
Take this story on Rand Paul’s “evolving” foreign policy views in Saturday’s New York Times. The premise of the piece is that Paul is being somewhat unfairly attacked by the hawkish wing of his party, whose members often fail to see the distinction between his father’s isolationism and his more nuanced brand of non-interventionism. As evidence, the piece adduces this rather eye-catching data point:
Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America and a close associate of [GOP mega-donor Sheldon] Adelson’s, said that when he pressed Mr. Paul to explain his position on aid to Israel in a recent meeting in the senator’s Washington office, Mr. Klein left reassured. “He said if there was a vote and for any reason it seemed like it was actually going to be close, he would vote for it,” Mr. Klein said.
So, if Klein’s account is correct (and the Times presumably ran it by Senator Paul), what we have is as follows: Paul’s public position is that we should cut off all foreign aid, including aid to Israel, which he dubbed “welfare” back in 2011. But if Paul were ever in a position to end aid to Israel—which is to say, the only time his personal position would really matter—he would abandon that position, and instead vote to ensure that the aid continues.
I’m not sure I can think of a more irresponsible position. If Rand Paul thinks aid to Israel is truly important, then it’s deeply cynical to badmouth that aid simply because bad-mouthing appeals to the type of voter he’s courting. And if he thinks aid to Israel is irredeemably wasteful, then it’s deeply cynical to fink out when given the opportunity to roll it back. Either way, it’s hard to spot the conviction here.
In fairness, Paul did try to resolve this tension at another event, telling the board of the Republican Jewish Coalition that, in the Times’ paraphrasing, “while he would eventually like to terminate all foreign aid, he knew that would not be realistic now.” The most charitable interpretation of this riff is that Paul would like to cut off aid as soon as possible, but realizes you can’t do it abruptly without triggering major blowback among U.S. allies that would damage our standing around the world. That would indeed speak to his pragmatism.
But this interpretation seems like a stretch given that Paul’s comments appear to have been a lot less coherent than that, or at least less specific. “You could see he was a work in progress,” former George W. Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer, who attended the meeting, told the Times. Instead, it’s hard to avoid the impression that Paul is simply trying to reassure neoconservatives that he’ll be with them on the issue they care about most, but without junking a big source of his political appeal. That’s not an “evolution.” It’s hypocrisy.
By: Norm Scheiber, The New Republic, May 26, 2014
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 