Sometimes, it seems like it's one of the greatest successes never told... Except, of course, if you're a regular reader here. ;-)
No really, we don't often see reports in the media about what's actually in the Affordable Care Act and how it helps more Americans access better health care. Maybe this is why this new campaign is so badly needed. Just look at how Nevada benefits from the Affordable Care Act.
518,000 residents who are uninsured and 132,000 residents who have individual market insurance will gain access to affordable coverage.
311,000 residents will qualify for premium tax credits to help them purchase health coverage.
328,000 seniors will receive free preventive services and 58,200 seniors will have their drug costs in the Medicare Part D “donut hole” covered over time.
30,300 small businesses will be eligible for tax credits for premiums.
9,400 young adults will be eligible for quality affordable coverage through their parents
Premium Tax Credits to Expand Private Insurance Coverage in Nevada:
Reform will provide $5 billion in premium tax credits and cost-sharing tax credits for residents in Nevada from 2014 to 2019 to purchase private health insurance.
Reduced Premiums:
Health insurance reform will lower premiums in the nongroup market by 14 to 20% for the same benefits – premium savings of $1,380 to $1,970 for a family in Nevada.
Increased Medicaid Support:
The Federal government will fully fund the coverage expansion for the first three years of the policy, and continue substantial support, paying for 90% of costs after 2020, compared to Nevada’s current FMAP of 50.2%.
In total, Nevada could receive $3.6 billion more dollars in federal funds for Medicaid as a result of the expansion from 2014 to 2019.
Improved Value for Medicare Advantage:
The 228,000 seniors in Nevada who are not enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan will no longer cross subsidize these private plans, saving $45 in premium costs per year.
The proposal will gradually move toward a fair payment system that rewards performance.
And look at this.
Congressional Republicans, including Nevada's own Dean Heller and Joe Heck, have been waging war against "ObamaCare" all this year. They've been wasting time in Congress on votes to undermine it and/or completely repeal it. And even though it's taken us nearly half a century to finally achieve significant health care reform, Republicans are demanding to scrap this entirely and restart entirely with something they prefer (that would burden consumers far more).
And what are the Republicans' alternative health care solutions? Really? Michele Bachmann says we should rely on "charity". Mitt Romney wants to throw seniors out of nursing homes and take medicine away from sick children. Rick Perry is likely angling to do the same. Why are we taking any of those clowns seriously?
While the White House tried to avoid predicting how many homeowners would benefit from the revamped refinancing program, the Federal Housing Finance Administration estimated an additional 1 million people would qualify. Moody's Analytics say the figure could be as high as 1.6 million.
Under Obama's proposal, homeowners who are still current on their mortgages would be able to refinance no matter how much their home value has dropped below what they still owe.
"Now, over the past two years, we've already taken some steps to help folks refinance their mortgages," Obama said, listing a series of measures. "But we can do more."
At the same time, Obama acknowledged that his latest proposal will not do all that's not needed to get the housing market back on its feet. "Given the magnitude of the housing bubble, and the huge inventory of unsold homes in places like Nevada, it will take time to solve these challenges," he said.
Is it a panacea? Not quite, since this is an executive order and not Congressional legislation that can assume broader authority. But for being such a limited program, it can still be of significant use here in Nevada.
Under the new program, homeowners who are current on their payments, have government-backed mortgages and who are up to 25 percent underwater will qualify for refinancing to a lower interest rate.
Although the program doesn’t address principal balances, it would make monthly payments more affordable, giving homeowners more money to spend, stimulating the economy.
The new program would also increase the ability of major banks to compete for the refinancing business, eliminate the need for an appraisal in many cases and reduce refinancing fees — all good things for Nevada homeowners, said Nasser Daneshvary, director of the Lied Institute for Real Estate Studies at UNLV.
“This is huge,” Daneshvary said. “If this is implemented, people really can find solutions now.”
Hmmm, I wonder which plan benefits Nevada more... "Don't try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit bottom."? Or real, concrete policy plans to start chipping away at the foreclosure crisis?
Last Saturday, Project GREEN members, Henderson neighbors, UNLV volunteers, and more came over to help keep Pittman Wash beautiful. The volunteers repaired signs, restored walking trails, removed trash, and brushed off dirt under the bridge. After a rough year of vandalism, flooding, and plenty of wear & tear, the Legacy Learning Trail (which is right around the corner from my home!) got some much needed TLC.
Believe it or not, Project GREEN does more than just lobby the City of Henderson to stop proposed parking lots and concrete channels in the wash (though this is always important and badly needed!). Project GREEN also pitches helping hands to help with the day to day maintenance of the wash, especially in the trails going into the wash. And for all of us who live along Pittman Wash, we can't ever be grateful enough for the work they do.
After moderating a panel at Project New West last week, National Journal's Ron Brownstein noted in his column the increasingly high stakes of winning The West again for President Obama.
On one side are demographic trends that favor Democrats—rising levels of racial diversity, education, and urbanization. On the other is the ideological backlash that the party has repeatedly faced across the region, particularly from whites, when it has controlled the White House and implemented a national Democratic agenda.
President Obama and the Republican presidential contenders who gathered here on Tuesday for their most voluble debate yet all have much at stake in how those competing dynamics intersect in 2012. Obama could struggle in the graying blue-collar Midwestern states that once tipped national elections. That will increase the pressure on him to defend his 2008 victories in Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico, which constitute part of a new arc of youthful and growing swing states emerging across the Sun Belt. Once, the Mountain West was a luxury for Democrats; now, it looks like a necessity.
But then, he said this...
But Democrats were again routed across the region in 2010 (losing seven House seats and two governorships) as they faced both economic discontent and the widespread sense that Obama was spending and regulating too much. Like the backlash against Clinton, that avalanche raises doubts that Democrats, for all their demographic advantages, can solidify enough support for their national agenda to maintain a lasting edge in these states.
Next year’s election should offer more answers. With the economy still lagging, Obama’s regional standing “has not recovered at all” since 2010, says independent pollster Floyd Ciruli, who is based in Denver. Fewer Democrats talk of flipping Arizona or Montana. And the party faces tough battles in four regional Senate races.
And it makes me think the DC pundit crew still don't get Western politics.
You see, we're about more than just "Bonanza" style "rugged individualism" and "anti-government" mentality. Really, that last "quality" has been fading as a driving force here as many Western states have become more urban and suburban. And especially as people here continue to struggle in this economy, they're looking for real solutions, not more "tea party" "hot air". And as we talked about yesterday, most folks here are smart enough to realize that "the free market" alone can't solve all our problems.
So why don't we see it this way on the TV news programs? Well, the Republicans are hoping we all have collective amnesia and blame Obama for their obstruction. But when I've talked to other voters here, it isn't quite that simple. They're not all ignorant enough to forget about that thing called Congress, and those that are more in tune with what's happening really don't like what Congress is (not) doing.
If Obama has been so successful in foreign policy, why has he been so unsuccessful on domestic issues? [...]
So what’s the deal?
It isn't that he's escaped criticism on foreign policy. Republicans -- heck, even some Democrats -- have been critical of Obama's moves. But what he's done has, in the main, worked.
No, domestically the problem is that Obama's opponents have turned criticism into obstructionism. Unlike his foreign policies, Obama's efforts to fix the economy have been thwarted at every turn by Republicans. [...]
The bottom line? It's wrong to say the president's domestic policies haven't worked when those policies haven't even been given the chance to work.
Abroad, Obama has been allowed to set policy, and those policies have been given time to work. And, for the most part, they have.
Perhaps if Republicans gave the president that same leeway on domestic policy, we might be winning some battles at home, too.
In his National Journal column, Brownstein expressed awe as "leading [Democratic Party] strategists expressed unruffled, almost blithe, optimism about Obama’s ability to hold the three Mountain states he carried in 2008". At first glance, it may seem like crazy talk. But when one puts together the pieces of the puzzle, the picture becomes crystal clear. People are looking for help. And right now, the Republicans in Congress offer none as the Republican Presidential Candidates promise only more pain. Obama, on the other hand, is offering real solutions. The contrast couldn't be any clearer, and it should be awfully clear once President Obama stands in this neighborhood and details his new foreclosure fighting ideas.
Despite so much going wrong, Obama must be doing something right. For all the talk of bad poll numbers, something isn't adding up. Maybe voters aren't too stupid to realize who's breaking down the system?
Yesterday, I saw perhaps the best LTE (letter to the editor) I've ever encountered here in Nevada. Steve Davis from Reno wrote this to The Sun:
Mitt Romney’s solution to the housing crisis in Nevada — foreclose on thousands of unlucky families so investors can scoop up real estate bargains that they can rent out — perfectly illustrates the real agenda of Wall Street and the GOP: return us to the two-class landlord system of Dickensian England, where the wealthy, aristocratic lords owned all the land, and the other 99 percent, the working class and peasantry, had to rent from them.
Wake up, America! When the middle class is gone, so is the American dream.
Hard as it is to hear for Las Vegas residents, Romney might be right, according to real estate experts and economists from across the spectrum.
Preventing the bubble by raising interest rates and enforcing tougher lending standards was the proper policy. Once the bubble inflated, however, it had to deflate and prices had to reach equilibrium before there could be any recovery. [...]
For whatever you think of Romney and his callous message to Nevadans, the lesson here is this: Once you’ve fallen for the scam — be it Tulips in 1630, Pets.com in 1999, or Las Vegas houses in 2005 — you shouldn’t expect to get repaid. The money wasn’t there in the first place.
But here's the thing: Coolican just admitted that the big banks pulled a scam on then new homeowners in the early to mid 2000s. And typically when this kind of crime is committed, victims can at least pursue proper restitution (as well as report to authorities so they can file criminal charges). Now perhaps not all the Las Vegas home buyers of the last decade were completely innocent, but one can't deny that their real or perceived "sins" pale in comparison to what Wall Street did to blow up the housing market. And for all those buyers who jumped in hopes of purchasing their first home and finally joining George W. Bush's "Ownership Society", should they bear the greatest burden of punishment for simply following Bush's advice and doing what our leaders were encouraging?
Teabaggers like to place blame on "Fannie & Freddie" and working poor minorities, but they're wrong. And Mitt Romney's wrong. And I suspect Coolican is going in the wrong direction here. But again, they're missing the real root of this crisis: Wall Street deregulation.
The conservative whipping boy of the 2008 [financial crisis] was Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.** The GOP did everything in their power to steer focus away from the deregulation of Wall Street banks. They blamed people taking on more risk than they could afford. They didn’t blame the banks for providing the mechanisms to attract people into the market in the first place. Mechanisms like no doc loans, adjustable rate mortgages and no down payment loans were created by the Wall Street banks in order to increase customers into the housing market.
(** Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are publicly traded companies on Wall Street)
Deregulation made this obtainable and possible. In a free market, banks should be allowed to offer what ever they want in order to attract consumption. The free market also allows mergers and acquisitions, thus creating TOO BIG TO FAIL.
If progressive policies were in place, all these financial mechanisms would be illegal. In fact, if progressive regulations were in place, too big too fail banks would also be illegal making this collapse of 2008 not even part of our history. There was a reason why there weren’t any bank bailouts from the 1940s to 1980s, it was progressive policies that were put in place by FDR and upheld by every administration until Reagan.
The 2008 collapse spurred the Dodd-Frank bill, and while this bill does not address as many problems as I and many other progressives would like, it does address financial mechanisms that attract people into the market that they would otherwise not be in. The Dodd-Frank bill creates a regulation mandating 10-20% down payment on mortgages.
Are underwater homeowners to blame for deregulating Wall Street, allowing banks to create and advertise "No Down Payment! Interest Only! Record Low Rates! Buy Now!" adjustable rate mortgages, then repackage and sell this bad debt as "AAA gold standard mortgage backed securities!"? Are underwater homeowners to blame for the enormous lack of regulatory oversight of the financial sector that reached its horrifying climax in the 2008 economic collapse? So why are underwater homeowners expected by the likes of Mitt Romney to "SUCK IT UP!" when Wall Street "21st century robber barons" are the chief culprits behind this fiasco?
So is that enough to put to rest the inane assertions that Mitt Romney is onto some great idea in wanting more home foreclosures? If not, then let me set aside all notions of altruism (for now) and get down to the economic nitty-gritty: Home foreclosures are a huge economic drag!
The fact remains that 1 million homeowners are expected to go into foreclosure this year, producing a serious drag on the economy. As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said in a speech today, “the housing sector has been a significant driver of recovery from most recessions in the United States since World War II, but this time — with an overhang of distressed and foreclosed properties, tight credit conditions for builders and potential homebuyers, and ongoing concerns by both potential borrowers and lenders about continued house price declines — the rate of new home construction has remained at less than one-third of its pre-crisis peak.”
If we follow Mitt Romney's advice to "let it run its course and hit the bottom", our economy will be in an even deeper hole that will be even more difficult to escape from. Housing has nearly always been the starting force in turning an economy from recession to recovery. So how do our communities benefit from empty homes? And yes, Romney's "do nothing and let the banks foreclose" policy prescription would lead to even more empty homes if implemented. And this leads to a "domino effect" of depressed home values, scared consumers, fewer home goods purchases, less construction, and fewer jobs. Properly addressing the home foreclosure crisis is not about "re-inflating the bubble", but rather restarting the economy.
I can't believe I'm saying this, but I have to agree with Brian Sandoval on this...
Without a doubt, expanded mediation programs would be a great start in solving this crisis. Continued mortgage financing reform can also help, albeit reform that avoids further privatization and deregulation in favor of a more balanced system that offers prospective buyers home loans that they can actually afford. And funny enough, Coolican actually mentioned in his article the idea of implementing "right to rent" programs that would allow the foreclosed the option of renting back their homes. Another idea out there involves "rehab and rent" programs that would employ workers in rehabilitating foreclosed properties before selling them in "neighborhood clusters" to investors willing to rent them out as affordable housing. But of course, all of these ideas involve some sort of federal intervention. There's really no way to solve the foreclosure crisis without some sort of government intervention.
Of course, Mitt Romney wouldn't be interested in any real solution to the foreclosure crisis, not when one of his top fundraisers is a lobbyist for the notorious robo-signing foreclosure mill that is Lending Processing Services! For Romney's friends, foreclosure is just too profitable to pass up. And there we have the real reason behind Romney's housing policies. It's always been about his bottom line, not the well being of Nevada or the country. It's callous, it's hurtful, and it's just plain wrong.
Nevada has moved its caucus date to Feb. 4, ending a long standoff between the state and New Hampshire, the state and the national Republican organizations, and several of the Republican candidates, including frontrunner Herman Cain.
"We just basically want to be the adults in the room here," Nevada GOP chairwoman Amy Tarkanian said. "This has turned into a huge debacle... It’s unnecesasary, it’s turned into a distraction."
"We will be the good guys in the end because we don’t need to be New Hampshire’s piñata," she said.
Too late, Mrs. Tark Shark. It's already been a huge debacle, an unnecessary distraction, and a way for New Hampshire politicians to use our state as their personal pinata. Maybe you avoided getting deposed as Nevada GOP Chair, but you've already lost as your party has just become the national laughingstock.
And to really put into proper perspective the ridiculous hot mess of a train wreck that today's Nevada GOP Central Committee has been, I give you this very insightful tweet from my great friend, @LauraKMM:
Today #nvdems doing voter reg & #NVcaucus recruitment all over state. #nvgop arguing over right to call someone a jerk at #nvgopcc.
Is there anything else you really need to know? Oh wait, there is. Let me show you who won today's GOP Central Committee... And who will win Nevada (again) next year.
While OFA and Nevada Democrats are busy being... Well, productive, in registering voters and calling to recruit more volunteers, Nevada Republicans were too busy chickening out to New Hampshire teabaggers and sacrificing our state's dignity to pay for Florida's original sin. So there you have it. This may very well be the moment that clinches Nevada, and perhaps the overall 2012 election, for President Obama next year.
What? You think I'm crazy? I think everyone needs to review what happened in last year's Senate election. Welcome to deja vu. The spirit of Sharrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrron lives on in the Nevada Republican Party.
For those of you unfamiliar with how a successful Caucus works, the idea pioneered by the Nevada Democratic Party in 2008 was: get as many people to turn out as possible, especially non-partisans. Register as many people on Caucus day as possible, especially non-partisans. Make the attendees socialize in a big, noisy hall and force them to literally "stand" for their candidate. A little disorder is OK in exchange for excitement and relevance on a national scale.
The Nevada Republican Party has managed to set up a Caucus Program that will achieve NONE of those points. For example, if you want to be part of the NV Caucus, you will need to be a Republican for 30 [days] IN ADVANCE of [February 4], and you better be prepared to prove it buddy! Stupid, paranoid decision. [...]
The lack of campaigning by potential GOP nominees in the run up to the Caucus will absolutely hurt the Republicans in November, in both a missed opportunity to build a base of volunteers, as well as missing the chance to dominate the local headlines with free newsprint with stories about visiting candidates.
Ironically Nevada is the only one of the 4 Official "Early Primary" states that is also potential swing state in November. The prize of an early voting status, is to parley that status into a win on Election Day. The GOP botching the Caucus may cost them any chance at a Red Nevada in 2012.
Funny enough, the usual "Sharrontology Fan Club" TEA-nut conspiracy theorists were trying to claim, "Big Bad Harry Reid HIJACKED!!!!!" their pointless central committee meeting, but that's just crazy talk. Neither he nor Obama needed to. Nevada Republicans are doing a great job losing the upcoming election all by themselves!
So, today, I can report that as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America’s war in Iraq will be over.
Over the next two months our troops in Iraq, tens of thousands of them, will pack up their gear, and board convoys for the journey home. The last American soldier will cross the border out of Iraq with their heads held high, proud of their success, and knowing that the American people stand united in our support for our troops. That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end.
But even as we mark this important milestone, we’re also moving into a new phase in the relationship between the United States and Iraq. As of January first, and in keeping with our strategic framework agreement with Iraq, it will be a normal relationship between sovereign nations, an equal partnership based on mutual interest and mutual respect.
After nearly nine years of war in Iraq, all the troops will be home... Or at least out of Iraq.
Count this as another campaign promise fulfilled by President Obama.
He said it would end under his watch. And to his credit, it has been... But will he get credit for this? And for that matter, helping the Libyan people free themselves of Qaddafi, killing Osama bin Laden, and encouraging "The Arab Spring" that is bringing democracy to The Middle East like we've never really seen before?
I guess time will tell, and we'll have the next year to see.
As for what to do for the housing industry specifically, and are there things that you can do to encourage housing? One is don’t try and stop the foreclosure process. Let it run its course and hit the bottom, allow investors to buy homes, put renters in them, fix the homes up and let it turn around and come back up. The Obama administration has slow-walked the foreclosure processes that have long existed and as a result we still have a foreclosure overhang.
And here's reality.
Romney’s callous disregard for families losing their homes through no fault of their own is bad enough. But it’s also not true that speeding foreclosures is good for the economy, as every foreclosure drags down the value of the homes around it. The Roosevelt Institute Mike Konczal has pointed to research showing that “foreclosures were responsible for 15% to 30% of the decline in residential investment from 2007 to 2009 and 20% to 40% of the decline in auto sales over the same period.”
And, of course, focusing only on those homeowners entering the foreclosure process legally ignores the vas amounts of fraud that banks perpetrated in order to speed foreclosures, such as robo-signing and fake notarization of documents. Romney already has the lobbyist for a notorious foreclosure mill fundraising for his campaign — perhaps he should take a moment, while he’s in Nevada, to talk to those who are on the other side of the equation.
Now guess who's piggybacking off Romney's callous disregard for formerly middle class homeowners getting roughed up by the big banks? Oh yes, that's right... New GOP frontrunner darling, Herman Cain!
Cain is championing the same group whose bad mortgage loans helped spur the financial implosion of 2008, has left over 1 million Americans with foreclosed homes, and may push an additional 5.9 million Americans to that outcome over the next few years. Banks and their lobbyists have openly “delayed, diluted, and obstructed attempts to address the problem.” Instead, banks unleashed “robo-signers,” officials who sign foreclosure forms without reading them, and managed to set a foreclosure record last year despite their self-imposed foreclosure moratoriums.
What’s more, by calling for an end to the Dodd-Frank regulations to protect foreclosure victims, Cain is jeopardizing key consumer protections for those looking to own a home. The Consumer Financial Protection Agency — which Republicans are hell-bent on obstructing — is designed to stop predatory lending by helping prevent mortgage brokers from putting borrowers into higher interest loans, regardless of their long-term ability to pay. The Dodd-Frank bill also stops banks from selling off an entire loan to avoid the risk of mortgage default, another problem that contributed to the financial meltdown. The law requires lenders to retain 5 percent of every loan — a policy banks are desperately trying to repeal.
They don't get it. They really don't get it! Nevada is still on top of the foreclosure heap, families are still losing their homes to foreclosure, and the Republican candidates have nothing to offer.
Perhaps this is why #OccupyLasVegas shouted out on Tuesday when CNN was tossing out the usual pre-debate spin. CNN was trying to keep the focus on the inane and insane inside The Venetian, but they couldn't entirely drown out the voices of the people outside. The 99% refused to be ignored.
"The Republicans want to take us low-income people, they want to take more taxes from us and give to the rich," Las Vegas resident Quenton Gavin said. "They're robbing us for what we don't have."
Nevada has the highest unemployment rate in the nation and an ongoing foreclosure crisis. The GOP debate held there offered few solutions, focusing instead on attacking undocumented immigrants, repealing health care reform, slashing taxes and easing regulations.
"It's just the same broken record," Las Vegas resident Judy Ostapow said. "Deregulate, cut taxes for the wealthy, and this is going to stimulate jobs. Well it hasn't stimulated jobs in all these years that they've had these tax cuts and deregulating and it hasn't done anything. It's just made the problem worse."
And really, this dating drama is just a small part of the bigger picture. More importantly, why won't any of the GOP candidates propose anything to halt the foreclosure crisis, put people back to work, and invest in our economy? Why are a few TEA-nuts more important to that party than the strong majority of the American people? Is it really all about the cold, hard cash?
Nevadans especially want answers on how to solve the foreclosure crisis, how to get people back to work, how to create and implement a 21st century energy plan, and how to move our country forward. But instead, all we hear from the GOP candidates, and their fanatical fans, is how to "take our country back" to The Gilded Age by repealing Wall Street oversight, repealing health care reform, and repealing the entire New Deal. There's a giant elephant in this room that GOP leaders and media pundits either can't see or won't see. No wonder why we keep seeing poll numbers like these.
But as even Ralston had to admit today, it's downright ridiculous to expect a fairly drawn map that favors Republicans when there are still 65,000+ more registered Democratic voters than Republican voters in this state. So what's in this Senate map that really scares the Nevada GOP? Let me reveal it to you.
Early this week, I did my best to adhere to the contours of the special masters' map in Dave's Redistricting App in drawing these districts for myself. Here are my estimates of the partisan breakdown of the possible new Nevada Senate.
Safe Republican Seats:
SD 12 (Incumbent: Joe Hardy)
SD 14 (Incumbent: Don Gustavson)
SD 16 (Incumbent: Ben Kieckhefer)
SD 17 (Incumbent: James Settlemeyer)
SD 19 (Open)
Safe Democratic Seats:
SD 1 (Open)
SD 2 (Incumbent: Mo Denis)
SD 3 (Open)
SD 4 (Open)
SD 7 (Incumbent: David Parks)
SD 10 (Open)
SD 11 (Open)
SD 13 (Incumbent: Sheila Leslie)
SD 21 (Incumbent: Mark Manendo)
So right from the start, Democrats have a 9-5 advantage in safe seats. Republicans almost have to sweep the remaining competitive districts just to retake the majority! However in glancing the more marginal seats below, that doesn't seem too likely.
Now do you see why Nevada Republicans are running scared? The Senate map looks downright atrocious for them in 2014, when Halseth and Roberson are up, and they're left with absolutely no pickup opportunities. And next year, Greg Brower will be forced to defend turf less friendly than Bill Raggio's gerrymandered wonder while Breeden and Copening become harder for the GOP to defeat.
But hey, this is exactly what the Republicans asked for! They encouraged Sandoval to veto the maps passed by the Legislature in hopes of sending redistricting to court. And they were licking their chops when the case landed in Judge Russell's court. The Republicans got everything they wanted in the redistricting process, so how on earth can they complain about the results?
So should it really come as a surprise that the winner of last night's debate (other than Barack Obama) was #OccupyLasVegas? ProgressNow Nevada started the festivities outside The Venetian with a rally and quick press conference on what the Republican candidates were about to talk about.
Afterward, the Occupy Las Vegas activists began to show up and protest alongside the folks who showed up earlier. I know we've all heard plenty about what can be found at Occupy/99% movement events, but I wanted to give you a chance to see for yourself who makes the Occupy/99% movement.
No really, look closely at these photos (and the ones I posted at the top).
Yes, there were a few conspiracy nuts. And there were some Ron Paul fans. And there were some genuine socialists.
However, there were also unemployed workers. And there were frustrated students. And there were union workers. And there were angry seniors. And there was an amazing cross-section of Southern Nevada present outside The Venetian. For all of Wall Street's efforts to smear and denigrate the Occupy/99% movement, there's obviously far more to it than just the small radical fringes that's really resonating with the strong majority of Americans. And that scares the corporate powers that be.
They just can't lump together all the Occupy/99% protesters as "crazies". It's easy to zoom in on one person and try it, but it's not so easy to dismiss this kind of crowd. And it's not easy to dismiss the policy ideas that most in Occupy support that most Americans also support, such as making the super-rich pay their fair share so we can make better investments in taking care of our seniors, putting people back to work, and educating our future leaders. The big corporate powers that be simply can't spin that as "fringe" or "extreme", and that scares them.
The Republicans on the stage inside The Venetian last night may be in love with Wall Street robber barons, but the American people are not. That's the key takeaway from last night. And over time, it may just show that Occupy has more staying power than any of the clowns on the GOP stage in The Venetian.
For months, Nevada Republicans have giddily anticipated how today’s nationally televised presidential debate and subsequent Western leadership conference would draw the eyes of the nation to the state and establish its first-in-the-West caucuses as a key contest for GOP contenders.
Instead, most candidates spent the past week pledging to boycott Nevada’s Jan. 14 caucuses over a dispute the state is having with New Hampshire related to its primary date. [...]
But Mitt Romney and Ron Paul, who placed first and second in the Nevada caucuses four years ago, were the only candidates to hold public rallies by the eve of the debate (which will be aired at 5 p.m. on CNN).
“Most of the candidates, they’re going to use us as a great backdrop ... but you start looking at their plans, and there isn’t really much in there for Nevada,” UNLV politics professor David Damore said. “My fear is that we get sort of taken as a prop.”
Think about it. Will we hear anything of consequence at tonight's debate? Are the Republican candidates really taking Nevada's economic worries seriously? Remember what we talked about yesterday on perception and reality. I'm sure the GOP candidates who actually bother to show up at The Venetian tonight will claim ability to wave a magic wand and make all our problems disappear, but look closer. Look past the empty rhetoric. And realize that actions speak louder than words, and that their actions clearly indicate they're just not that into us.
Finally, all eyes will be on us this week... Oh wait, they're not? Who are those candidates looking at? Are they lusting for New Hampshire again (while they're supposed to be with us)?
When Nevada elbowed its way toward the front of the presidential calendar, the idea was simple: No longer would candidates ignore the West and its issues. Rather, they would come here and speak to the concerns of people like Victor Tingley.
At 56, the former assistant casino manager has been jobless for nearly three years. His home in North Las Vegas, purchased more than a decade ago when the neighborhood was more desert than development, is worth less than a third of its former value.
Yet Tingley, a Republican-leaning independent, has heard nothing meaningful from the GOP hopefuls about the collapse of the housing market or the resulting implosion of Nevada's building industry, which, experts say, may take decades to recover. Not even from Mitt Romney, who took a well-publicized tour of Tingley's foreclosure-wracked neighborhood in April and held it up as an example of the nation's struggling economy.
"They don't give a [damn] about us," said Tingley, as he stood in his front yard surveying a gloomy landscape of empty and abandoned homes, many worth far less than their outstanding mortgages.
There's a reason why the Republicans are largely ignoring Nevada's economic woes. Since most of the rest of them don't expect to win here, they're deliberately downplaying our concerns and drumming up the kind of extreme rhetoric that excites the hearts of teabaggers in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. And perhaps more importantly, the Republicans' campaign donors don't really care about things like home foreclosures.
The virtual silence from the GOP field is not just frustrating to Tingley and his neighbors — "They're not really talking about it. Nobody is," said Republican Shirley Ayala, 77 — but also puzzling to business and economic analysts. They say the economy will not fully recover, here in Nevada or elsewhere across the country, until housing rebounds and the construction industry mends.
"Job creation" — which the candidates have emphasized — "is not, in and of itself, the answer," said John Restrepo, who runs a Las Vegas economic consulting firm. "You have to deal with the housing market, since that's one of the biggest assets most people have."
[... T]he GOP hopefuls have little incentive to raise the issue — or, for that matter, visit Nevada all that much. Compounding the snub, several said last week that they wouldboycott the state's Jan. 14 caucuses in a dispute over their timing.
Although Nevada is tentatively third in line to vote, Iowa and New Hampshire are still far more consequential. So the candidates are spending the bulk of their time in those two states, where the housing issue rarely comes up. While Nevada ranks first in foreclosures, New Hampshire and Iowa rank 15th and 33rd, respectively. Joblessness in the two states is less than half of Nevada's 13.4% rate, which also leads the country.
So we're in this weird pickle of a situation where we can't get the attention of these GOP hopefuls, even when we're supposed to be taking center stage. But really, is anyone taking Nevada's economic concerns seriously?
Right now, the focus seems to be largely on which big power players are supporting whom in the next election cycle. Who's raising money for Romney? Who's headlining the next Perry event? Who's still packing the room for Obama? Who's in? Who's out? Who's getting the best consultants? In a state like Nevada, where our "elite" are so tight it seems incestuous at times, it's easy to just speculate on who the power players are gravitating towards.
But when one looks beyond the power players to the rest of the state, one sees a different picture. For most Nevadans, none of the insider horse race matters because they fear losing their homes, losing their jobs, losing it all. Outside the glitzy Vegas Strip casinos and posh Tahoe estates, it's a grim picture out here.
That can explain why the Occupy/99% movement seemed to pick up momentum this past weekend. Larger than expected crowds turned out in Las Vegas, Reno, and Carson City. Nationwide, local Occupy chapters are forming and protests are emerging. And now, we are finally starting to see a common message emerge, one of people fighting back and directly challenging the reign of powerful elite.
But is anyone in power really paying attention? Perhaps. Notice these new ads from the House Majority PAC, and notice President Obama's barnburning campaign speeches? National Democrats may now be realizing the angry mood of the electorate and the return of economic justice as a winning populist message. When people are angry about lagging economic recovery (that they don't even believe is happening) after allowing the G-O-TEA to gain a strong hold on Congress last year, this may really be the best way for President Obama to respond.
And thank goodness he is responding. I just hope he will be willing to step outside the cozy confines of The Strip to see for himself the painful reality of Nevada's broken economy when he campaigns here again. Lordy knows the Republican candidates apparently don't care for that when they're here.
What we perceive isn't always what's real. Studying Nevada's political scene today makes one learn this lesson the hard way, and all the attention we will be getting this week should make us think more about what's really happening when the GOP candidates take the stage at The Venetian tomorrow.
Carrying a sign that read, “We are the 99 percent,” Michael Gonzalez shouted to passing motorists, “Jobs on Main Street, not Wall Street.”
He was one of about 75 demonstrators in Carson City on Saturday who joined the global Occupy Wall Street movement, protesting corporate greed and a disenfranchised public.
“It's multifaceted,” he explained. “It's a lack of jobs. It's our economy. It's deficit trading with China. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, this is a people's issue.”
That was the scene in Carson City yesterday. Yes, believe it or not, #OccupyWallStreet has now reached Carson.
Andrew Hamby is one of the many faces of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The 23-year-old Las Vegan went from having a job at Mandalay Bay, a home and a car, to living on the street.
“I became homeless in 2007 when I got laid off along with 2,700 other people,” Hamby said. “Lost my house, lost my car, moved in with my mom for a little while until she got kicked out of her home. Then I lived under a tunnel for a couple months. Now I’m staying with friends.”
So Hamby, along with men and women and children from all walks of life, took to the streets Saturday to protest corporate greed. The group joins the core Occupy Wall Street development that has sparked similar protests in many major U.S. cities for the past few weeks.
The hundreds of Fremont Street demonstrators shared similar stories. An elderly woman who is on the verge of losing her house, a disabled vet whose friends can’t find work, and a union steward who says she’s standing up for “the working man.”
“We’re all standing together now,” Hamby said. “It’s not every man for himself anymore, or at least that’s what I hope to try and make happen here.”
The frustration of people such as Rodgers is exactly the driving force behind the Occupy Wall Street-type rallies now occurring nationwide, said Jared Lowell, a 26-year-old UNR student who helped organize the Occupy Reno movement. While a lot of people have lost their jobs and homes, big companies continue to get away with a lot of shady behavior while enriching their pockets, Lowell said.
“We’re upset with the extremely unjust distribution of wealth in this country,” Lowell said. “What we’re doing in Reno is not so different from what people are doing worldwide. We’re bringing people together to show that we’re united and not all that different from one another.”
At the same time, Lowell and his colleagues stressed that their movement is a non-violent cause that aims to raise awareness and educate people. Lowell pointed to several workshops they have planned on topics ranging from the global financial system to the importance of buying local. They also stressed that while they might talk about the problems with corporate influence on politics, their movement is apolitical and does not favor one party over another. Their focus is not about right or left, it’s about right or wrong, supporters said.
It's looking increasingly obvious that this budding movement isn't leaving center stage any time soon. So what can we expect in the days and weeks to come? Is this "The Tea Party of the Left" that some progressives have been longing for? Is this an effort to take down the American capitalist system as we know it? Will this root out the corporate money at the center of political corruption today? Or will this go in another direction?
The Occupy/99% folks say they're nonpartisan now. Does this mean they are off limits to Democrats, too? Will these people even vote next year? Do they have any real political goals for the next year?
I guess we will find out as this goes on. We will have to see what kind of role Occupy/99% plays on the political stage. But without a doubt, they don't want to leave the stage any time soon. They will be a part of this play, and we will be seeing more of them here in our acts here in Nevada as campaign season rolls onward.
So I played with the numbers last night to get a better sense of the political state of play in redistricting. Now that Judge Russell and his special masters have given us districts, we can get a better sense of who will end up with what. Here are my rough estimates of the partisan makeup of each district after drawing each one as close to reality as possible on Dave's Redistricting App:
Democrats who live here- Steven Horsford, John Lee, Larry Brown
Republicans who live here- Ed Goedhart, Shari Buck
Race Rating- Leans Democratic
So this is what we have so far: one solidly safe Democratic seat, one Democratic leaning seat, one tossup seat, and one Republican leaning seat. As it stands now, Nevada Democrats likely have at least two seats (NV-01 and NV-04) firmly in their pocket while Republicans have a good leg up in one seat (NV-02). NV-03 will probably be the barnburner that both sides will have to fiercely contest again.
Earlier this afternoon, we caught a first glimpse at Judge Russell's panel's first draft of redistricting maps.
Incumbent Rep. Joe Heck’s congressional seat would have more Democrats than Republicans and one central Las Vegas congressional district would be almost 43 percent Hispanic, according to maps released by the Nevada District Court today.
The masters decided against drawing a district with a majority of Hispanic voters, as Republicans wanted.
“The Special Masters concluded that bloc voting by the white majority was not shown to usually defeat a minority’s preferred candidate,” they wrote.
The three “special masters” appointed by Judge Todd Russell drew the maps after holding hearings and taking public testimony this week.
- NV-01 is now 42.8% Latino (in general population I believe, not VAP) and centered in Las Vegas' urban core. Its voter registration breakdown is 52% Democrats to 25% Republicans.
- NV-02 now narrows to Greater Carson-Reno and Northern Nevada. Its voter registration breakdown is 42% Republican to 35% Democratic.
- NV-03 narrows to mostly just the Southwest side of the valley and Henderson-Boulder, along with some of Summerlin and all of the southern rurals (Searchlight and Laughlin). It's 40% Dem and 37% GOP.
- And NV-04, the brand spanking new district, takes in Ely and Tonopah, then gallops its way down to Clark County to take most of North Las Vegas, the Northwest end of the valley, and Summerlin. It's 46% Dem and 33% GOP.
So far, it looks like Dina Titus, Ruben Kihuen, and Barbara Cegavske all live in the new NV-01, while Mark Amodei lives in the new NV-02, Joe Heck and John Oceguera live in the new NV-03, and Steven Horsford and John Lee live in the new NV-04. And so far, it looks like Horsford may get to breathe a nice sigh of relief, Kihuen gets to do a good fist pump, and the rest have huge political headaches awaiting them.
Tomorrow morning, I'll have more analysis of this late breaking development... But in the mean time, here are my quick observations:
- Judge Russell probably dodged a HUGE legal bullet, as his panel split the difference on the Voting Rights Act issue by giving NV-01 sizable Latino influence without unduly packing it.
- Nevada Democrats overall dodged HUGE political bullets in getting two safe Dem Congressional seats, along with a State Senate map that favors Democrats (more on that later, too!).
- However, two particular Clark County Democrats will have to bite painful bullets. Dina Titus' base is now split between NV-01 and NV-03, so she will have to choose whether to fight a bloody primary with Ruben Kihuen in NV-01 or agree to challenge Joe Heck again in NV-03. And if she chooses the latter, then John Oceguera had better watch out.
- At this point, Nevada Republicans look to be the biggest losers. Joe Heck is far from safe in the new NV-03, NV-04 looks quite out of reach from them, the State Senate will probably be less likely to flip with Shirley Breeden's and Alison Copening's districts made more Democratic (along with Elizabeth Halseth's too, haha!), and the Assembly still looks firmly out of reach for them as well.
And unless the Nevada Supreme Court somehow decides to invalidate this map, which I see as increasingly unlikely (judging by their recent smoke signals in letting this panel call the shots for now), these new Congressional and Legislature maps are probably here to stay. And so far, I'm mostly liking what I'm seeing. Let the games begin!
