DIGBY on GRAYSON -->> some real wisdom here

[nashville_brook]

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/reflexive-hippie-bashing-for-thousand.html


Reflexive Hippie Bashing For A Thousand

by digby

The MSM are going to make a big deal out of Jack Conway's Aqua Buddha ad and Alan Grayson being generally rude and aggressive as reason for their losing their races, but they will be reflexively hippie punching and wrong on the facts. (In fact, they are already doing it.)

Regarding Grayson,well we have a little controlled experiment. His neighboring first term Democratic congresswoman Suzanne Kosmas, in a very similar district, took the opposite approach to Grayson. She ran as hard to the right as she could get away with, never had a controversial thought much less uttered one, was rewarded with big money and support from the DCCC --- and she lost too. This race was bigger than both of them. Florida is turning hard right.

At least Grayson went down fighting for something instead of being a sell-out to the lowest common denominator. I'll always be grateful for what he said and did these past two years. The country should thank him too --- the Fed audit wouldn't have happened and I'm not sure they wouldn't have been able to keep the foreclosure fraud cover-up going a lot longer than they did without his intervention. We will miss him.

(snip)

[polichick]

1. Well said - THANK-YOU & KUDOS to Congressman Grayson! nt

[tsuki]

2. Hard right and corrupt as Hell. FIFY

[bullwinkle428]

3. Beautiful - thoughtful and cogent analysis! Paging Jon Stewart to

the white courtesy phone!

[BurtWorm]

4. Orlando, I guess, didn't deserve Grayson.

At least I know Celebration didn't.

[nashville_brook]

5. b/c of work, i have to deal with lots of the big cheetos in town

here in Orlando, and there ugly wind coming from the business community. i gotta tell you, the Chamber of Commerce gang is seriously bent on regression, and not just in economic terms. what i see are a lot of rich white developers who have lost a SHITLOAD of money and 'they're not having it.' they are scared and pissed and dangerous.

ETA -- i'll be specific...the largest land owners in the state are now the Mormons and that is being reflected in our politics. big time.

[Hannah Bell]

25. the church itself? or mormon individuals?

[Dappleganger]

30. I'd love to have more info on that, please.

Or if you could point me in a direction? We're up here in NE FL just south of Jax.

[Hannah Bell]

31. i have no idea, i'm asking nashville brook. did you mean to post to him/her?

[nashville_brook]

68. sorry -- got distracted from this...

the church itself...but i gotta tell you, i have no idea how to separate the entities in this. the church (as it's operating here as a land owner/developer) resembles a business more than anything else. and, the investments and development they're embarking on have nothing to do with "the church" unless they plan to tithe some portion of their profits back into said "church."

for example, they want to build a sprawling development in east orlando between here and cape canaveral -- btw, some of the most ecologically fragile land in the state besides the Everglades...adding tens of thousands of new single family homes to a market that's saturated with foreclosures...and have been pressing the local village out there to pass a variance, which, thankfully didn't go thru on last try.

i give it another year...they'll get their damn sprawl. we'll lose our wetlands and prairie. and it will all be empty as our existing houses lose EVEN MORE value...

sheesh. my point is, this isn't about a "religion" or a "religious group" -- it's a fucking economic tsunami.

[BurtWorm]

39. That's awful news.

I hope Grayson finds a way to influence things in Orlando, Florida and the US. We need him, and more people like him.

[2Design]

8. I did - I voted for him - he was the only breath of fresh air in all of politics

without him - what is the use - it all sucks and florida sucks big time now - this is pre dark ages even worse than jeb bush or the other bushes - this is pre hilter - great depression crazy

[nashville_brook]

18. i'm seriously worried about what's going to happen here in the next few years.

i'm already working on the SO to move.

[BurtWorm]

36. I'm deeply sorry for your loss.

I would be feeling just as dark as you are if I were there.

:evilfrown:

[Lorien]

9. Downtown Orlando did. My area is covered in Grayson signs

The GOP put more money into beating him than any other candidate. NOW will we fight for campaign finance reform?

[2Design]

11. supremes have made it ok to give lots and lots of money - reform won't fix that

[Lorien]

14. That's the whole point; overturn Citizens United. It ain't engraved in stone. nt

[nashville_brook]

15. stupid question here -- but, is there not any lawmaking that can ameliorate this?

i feel like i should know this, but i don't.

[jeff47]

21. Since the decision was based on the first amendment

Then there's only three available legislative remedies:

1) Eliminate corporations
Not gonna happen. And it isn't for nefarious "they're all owned by big business" reasons. There's lots of reasons a structure like a corporation is needed, mostly due to problems with individuals owning the business's property. Imagine having all the assets of Microsoft as income on your 1040 if Bill Gates retires/dies.

2) Constitutional Amendment
This is pretty damn hard to do, probably can't be done in a reasonable time frame.

3) Disclosure rules
The shitstorm that erupted upon Target for its donation would be the model here - make as many companies as possible fear that public donations will alienate their customers. The problem here is I don't see how you could craft disclosure rules that work in a practical way.

A couple examples of the problem I'm talking about:

If Exxon doesn't want people to know they're electioneering, they can can create "Puppies are Cute, Inc.", give it lots of money and then have it electioneer on Exxon's behalf. Disclosure wouldn't link Exxon to the electioneering. Apply as many levels of indirection as necessary, including foreign corporations.

If we try to fix that first problem by requiring all electioneering companies to account for where every donated dollar came from, well then Exxon creates "Pariah, Inc" to do the electioneering, and gives this new company funds to pay for salaries, office furniture, bonuses, etc. Pariah uses what would be its normal operating budget and dumps all of it into electioneering.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer nor constitutional scholar)

[nashville_brook]

23. thanks -- that helps me understand (exactly how doomed we are)

arg.

[shimmergal]

35. There IS a fourth route;

although with the House solildly in REpublican hands it's hard to see how to make it work, either.

Congress _can_ restrict the right of the Supreme Court to rule in certain areas. Article III, section 2 of the Constitution.

I got this from listening to a right-libertarian guy on TV. Could hardly believe my ears, but sure enough, there it is. He said it's only been used a few times in American history. But it's there, ticking away.

Offhand I think it might be easier to "persuade" one or two members of the loathsome five to resign from the S.C., but aside from prayer or spellcasting, I don't know how to do that either.
But hey, here are two more approaches we ought to think about.

[whathehell]

41. Good information -- Thanks. n/t

[AlbertCat]

60. 1) Eliminate corporations

Can't we just stop declaring them "persons"?

That should be an easy thing to challenge. The notion comes from a clerical error in a 19th century ruling's preamble, I think.


From Wiki:

In the United States, corporations were recognized as having rights to contract, and to have those contracts honored the same as contracts entered into by natural persons, in Dartmouth College v. Woodward, decided in 1819. In the 1886 case Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad, 118 U.S. 394, the Supreme Court recognized that corporations were recognized as persons for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment.<1><2> Some critics of corporate personhood, however, most notably author Thom Hartmann in his book "Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights," claim that this was an intentional misinterpretation of the case inserted into the Court record by reporter J.C. Bancroft Davis.<3> Bancroft Davis had previously served as president of Newburgh and New York Railway Co.

For the purposes of the 14th Amendment...huh.

That amendment opens with:

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and....

So, as far as I'm concerned, if corporations are gonna be persons protected by the 14th Amendment, they must prove that the corporation was born or naturalized in the US. Show us the birth certificate!
Prove that a corporation was born. Born...as in given birth. Not metaphorcally... not legally put together. Who are its parents? When was it naturalized and from where? And if corporations are persons, then are not persons corporations? If "born" can also mean legally drawn up, I can draw up legal papers for a "person", "born" of me, and then claim it as a dependent, right? I could draw up 100 of them and then claim them as dependents, right?

ABSURD!

Right.
Corporation = person is as absurd as person = corporation.

[jeff47]

72. Unfortunately

The SCOTUS decision gave corporations first amendment rights. That means it's not easy.

[wizstars]

64. ...and a judicial alternative:

Get a supreme court that will overturn Citizens United, Belotti, and the other rulings that led to those.

But agin, too long a time frame. We don't have that much time before we're swamped in corporate fascism.

[defendandprotect]

61. Constitutional amendment ... "Free Speech" group working on that ... see Thom Hartmann ...

he has a connection to that website if you can't find it --

:)

[BurtWorm]

37. That should definitely be on the agenda.

As well as electoral reform. Preferential voting is an idea whose time has come.

[Pretty_in_CodePink]

76. I deserved him but my neighbors didn't n\t

[ThomCat]

6. As poor as I am, I gave money to his campaign.

He was one of the few candidates I supported strongly enough to scrape together the dollars.

He represented the constituents. He wasn't there to get rich.

He was there to do what was right for all of us while he was in office. He wasn't there to earn his next high paying job from lobbyists.

Grayson is an example of what our party Should Be! He is what our party should have been supporting!

With party money backing him, party apparatus supporting him, and the base forming a grass roots movement underneath him he would have been re-elected. But he only got one out of three. :(

[nashville_brook]

7. i really hopes he stays in the game, whether it's doing party consulting, or movement work

or anything. i'd do anything to help.

i gave money too. -- wearing out my Act Blue account. don't regret it a bit. he's the best we've seen in my generation.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. "Florida is turning hard right."

It's corrupt, is what it is. Goes to show you, when you're 48th out of 50 in Education, it really is easy to mislead ignorant people.

[nashville_brook]

20. the schools are a mess here!

[myrna minx]

12. K&R n/t

[Individualist]

13. Excellent article by digby. K&R

[DirkGently]

16. Grayson has no basis for regret. nt

[marmar]

17. Digby always gets it.

nt

[nashville_brook]

19. he's done a great job of covering Grayson.

[charlie]

22. She n/t

[nashville_brook]

24. ACK!! you're right. i'm an idiot!

[charlie]

26. Lol, nooooo

Not an idiot. Everybody assumes she's a guy until told otherwise :)

The number of ladies who call themselves Digby probably wouldn't fill a broom closet.

[nashville_brook]

27. she kicks so much ass!

[girl gone mad]

28. Down, but not out.

I think we will be seeing more of him in the future.

[nashville_brook]

29. i do too.

[chill_wind]

32. He's only just begun. There is a place yet for him in history

and I look forward to seeing him seizing it.

[disillusioned73]

33. I agree...

:applause:

I just hope he didn't get jaded through this all.... hell, I'm feeling a bit jaded after last night, where do we go from here if every two years the low-info voters get a ton of casholla dumped on them (not literally - I wish)??

[Hubert Flottz]

34. Grayson would be a good guy to take Rahm's old job.

[BrklynLiberal]

43. That is a great idea...that the White House will never even consider...

They will put Dean in there first, and we know how likely that would be.

[DirkGently]

49. Seconded!

[Dappleganger]

38. FL republicans have taken a hard right...

and more of them showed up at the polls yesterday.

This state is so fucked and I've not felt this much negativity since Bush stole his first election.

[Octafish]

40. Grayson stayed true.

For that alone, he was a threat to the War & Money Party.

[nashville_brook]

44. he was also a target b/c of how he unseated their good old boy, Ric Keller (warning: GRAPHIC!)

[bongbong]

51. Keller?

If that's Keller, he looks more like a space alien than a human.

[nashville_brook]

66. those picket fence teeth can't be real -- i'm thinking reptilian.

[BrklynLiberal]

42. Kudos to Grayson...He WILL be missed. I hope he does not walk away....

[Laelth]

45. k&r for the Honorable Alan Grayson. n/t

-Laelth

[bobbolink]

46. "At least Grayson went down fighting for something instead of being a sell-out to the lowest common

denominator."

That says it all.

But I am willing to bet the Dems don't learn one fucking thing from him, much to the loss of the country.

[felix_numinous]

47. We badly need more like him

he didn't fall for that 'bipartisan' crap.

[zeos3]

48. K&R

[newtothegame]

50. Disagree on Grayson. Franken is getting himself into the same trouble.

A staffer for our Dem rep here was touring the hospital last week and said Al is an absolute jerk, to everyone.

[Sugarcoated]

53. Could you elaborate?

[butterfly77]

52. Kicked&Recommended!

:kick:

[Gamey]

54. Grayson meant enough to me to send him money....

...all the way from New Mexico.

[Zoeisright]

55. No more Florida vacations for me.

Ever.

[Loki]

56. Maybe Mother Nature will take care of the Florida problem.

I know I won't be putting any of my spending dollars in either Arizona or Florida until things change.

[JDPriestly]

62. And be sure to stay away from Kentucky.

West Virginia might be an interesting destination for a holiday. I was there as a child. Back then it was beautiful.

[JDPriestly]

57. Florida has been hit hard by the foreclosure wave.

Obama has done nothing to help homeowners -- even those who always paid and are not being foreclosed but who are stuck in homes that have lost their value.

So, of course Floridians and others in states like Nevada that was also very hard hit, are angry and voted against the status quo.

[nashville_brook]

78. Grayson actually pushed techniques that cut foreclosures in half in Orange County...

that were adopted statewide. Unfortunately, regardless of what he achieved, he paid for the inaction of our party's leadership, i.e. the WH.

[ooglymoogly]

58. KR Grayson needs to take up residence in Vermont.

New York or any true blue state. We need him in congress....if not the POTUS. At least now he is free to mount a primary challenge, where I would back him to the hilt.

[laughingliberal]

59. HUGE K & R! Grayson and NB rock! nt

[defendandprotect]

63. Randi Rhodes right now saying she thinks FL the saddest of all ....

elderly in FL so concerned about Medicare/drugs -- elected a guy quite counter

to their interests -- in fact, in the very criminal sense!

Took 5th amendment 75X --

[nashville_brook]

65. we were targeted.

[Cleita]

67. He can come to California and run in my district

any time he wants to.

[Jim Sagle]

69. KNR and FNA.

:headbang:

[tridim]

70. Grayson might be pretty entertaining in the lame duck session.

[Shining Jack]

71. K&R

[reggie the dog]

73. thanks Mr Grayson

If you ran in the suburbs of chicago i sure as hell would have voted for you.... I wish you all the best, perhaps you can find a place that is good to people like you who fight for us little folks, kucinich found his calling in ohio, perhaps you can find yours in another distric??? dade county perhaps????

[quaker bill]

74. There is a difference digby avoids

When comparing Kosmas and Grayson, one needs to consider context. It is not as simple as suggested.

Alex Sink(dem) candidate for Governor lost Kosmas' district badly, but won Grayson's District easily and by a large margin. Democratic Party voters turned out in Grayson's district in sufficient numbers for him to win. They just voted for Webster.

In Kosmas' district the margin in the Governor's race and the House race were nearly the same. In Grayson's district the margins were massively different.

The divide, I am afraid is not so much liberal / conservative as it is that this community simply does not like showboats. I personally enjoyed most of Grayson's stuff, however when you look at the representatives this district has produced over the last 30 years (Frey, McCollum, and Keller) charisma does not come to mind. These men were nearly uniquely forgettable, you basically did not know much about them at all, except their name would be on the ballot each time and you would get the occasional piece of franking in the mailbox. Dan Webster is cut from that bolt of bland gray cloth, Grayson wasn't.

I am sure the pundits have another take, but I have been a resident of this district since 1966.

[nashville_brook]

75. i think Amendment 4 and the role of the churches also played into this

the Hometown Democracy amendment had enormous money behind it, and the friends of development are also friends of Webster's from wayback. also, Webster was able to marshall troops from inside the conservative church circles who swung in the last election.

[quaker bill]

80. All that may be the case

but people in his district voted for Sink by a margin that has only been produced by Obama in the past. Kerry and Gore took Orange County by about 2000 votes (I worked for both campaigns), Obama by 65,000, Sink by over 50,000. Many people who voted for Sink simply did not vote for Grayson. Whereas in Seminole, most folks who voted for Sink also voted for Kosmas.

It is a different dynamic in Seminole where there has not been a democratic party county commissioner since the Carter Administration. In Orange County the commission has at various times recently been majority democratic.

Saying that Grayson is not from the right cut of cloth for this community is no knock on Grayson. I voted for him and wanted him to win. While unfortunate as it is, my take is that this community has no long term tolerance for large personas in public office. While I believe it true, this is not to our credit.

Dan Webster is anything but a large persona. He could be in office for a long time to come.

[nashville_brook]

83. ah -- you may be on to something with the large persona thing.

[Dinger]

77. Kick And Rec # 186 From Me :)

:patriot:

[zenprole]

79. Grayson's Greatest Hits

In only two years, Alan Grayson probably thrashed more corporate drones than any other politician in Florida history. I especially liked him pwning various functionaries, elected and appointed, on subjects like the Bill of Rights, due process, parliamentary procedure, and various other democratic forms. The looks on their faces were priceless.

Take a long vacation, Mr. Grayson. Recharge and think about your next move. We'll be here when you get back.

[nashville_brook]

81. amen!

[INdemo]

82. what happen?

well the republican strategy was very well planned and quite simple.....Something the Democrats could never do (unless we had someone like Howard Dean running the show)..They were very successful at blaming this huge deficit on the Democrats..never mind the fact that the Republicans nearly bankrupt the country..Bush and the Repukes never met a spending bill they didn't like..And over the course of 8 plus years Re pukes built the largest deficit in history..And then they blamed this complete financial crisis on the Democrats and they got away with it; because the Democrats did not say one word in their own defense...Now the Republicans had an allie with their success,the corporate media repeating their message everyday for 18 months..every day..And thats how they brainwashed the public

Alan Grayson was my kind of Democrat ..Of course I am still the kind of Democrat that is not afraid to tell the world that I am a liberal and I don't care if anyone thinks its a dirty word.









republicans

[nashville_brook]

84. very well said!