Frank Rich on marriage equality

He's just so damn good.

Still another recurrent argument from the Thurmond era has it that no judge should overrule the voters, who voted 52 to 48 percent in California for Prop 8 in 2008. But as Olson also told Chris Wallace, “We do not put the Bill of Rights to a vote.” It’s far from certain in any event that a majority of California voters approve of Prop 8 now. A Field poll released two weeks before Walker’s ruling found that Californians approved of same-sex marital rights by 51 to 42 percent. Last week a CNN survey for the first time found that a majority of Americans (52 percent) believed “gays and lesbians should have a constitutional right to get married.”

None of this means that full equality for gay Americans is a done deal. Even if it were, that would be scant consolation to the latest minority groups to enter the pantheon of American scapegoats, Hispanic immigrants and Muslims. We are still a young, imperfect, unfinished country. As a young black man working as a nurse in a 1980s AIDS clinic memorably says in Tony Kushner’s epic drama “Angels in America”: “The white cracker who wrote the national anthem knew what he was doing. He set the word ‘free’ to a note so high nobody can reach it.”

But sometimes we do hit that note, however tentatively.

Read More......

Gingrich, Bolton, Breitbart team up with far-right Muslim-basher Geert Wilders for 9/11 rally targeting Islam

Gingrich, a potential GOP presidential candidate, is teaming up with a foreign extremist who has said that “Islam is not a religion, it’s an ideology - the ideology of a retarded culture.” The Republicans had better watch it. Or else the whole Teabagger infestation of the GOP might just ripen in time to scare every away from voting Republican in November. Read More......

Vancouver BC court rules tasers can kill

Hard on the heels of this post, about the repeated tasering of an 86-year-old woman — on oxygen, in her bed — by ten police officers . . . (still letting that one sink in) . . .

Comes this timely report of a legal crack in lie that tasers don't kill. From the Vancouver Sun (h/t Hue-man in the comments; my emphasis):

VANCOUVER — The company that makes Tasers has lost its legal bid to quash a high-profile report that found the weapons can kill.

The British Columbia Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a legal challenge by Taser International to overturn results of the inquiry into the death of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski.

The company was trying to quash retired justice Thomas Braidwood’s findings that the weapons increase the risk of fatal heart failure.

Dziekanski, 40, died on Oct. 14, 2007, at Vancouver International Airport after being Tasered five times by four RCMP officers responding to a 911 call.

Dziekanski's "crime"? He was immigrating to live his mother, and after a 20-hour flight was held up 11 hours at Vancouver International. He couldn't contact his mother, who was waiting elsewhere, and after "a brief confrontation with the RCMP officers, he was repeatedly Tasered and died." The killing occurred in 2007. RCMP Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass apologized in 2010 to Mrs Kziekanski.

In case you didn't know, the RCMP are the Mounties. Time to revise that sparkly-toothed image of them?

There's so much more to say on this subject, and Digby says much of it all by herself. Here's me:

Tasers kill.
Sadistic cops love using them.
As long as taser death is kept low-key, the abuse will continue.

A pretty sweet setup for some people, but a deadly mix for others. Score one for the good guys.

GP Read More......

Goldman tells analysts No Prob after FinReg passes

Tagging along behind Matt Taibbi's big Rolling Stone piece on Obama's Financial Regulation bill (technically, the Dodd–Frank bill), we get this, from the L.A. Times, along with Taibbi's comment. (Our big piece on Dodd–Frank, with all its tasteful who-screwed-who is here.)

First the Times. The article starts (my emphasis):

As Wall Street scrambles to find the best and most profitable way to operate under the new financial reform law, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. — the firm that was expected to suffer the most under the legislation — could emerge practically unscathed.

Right after Congress passed the regulatory overhaul bill last month, analysts estimated that as much as one-tenth of the preeminent investment bank's earnings could vanish because of new restrictions on activities targeted by the regulatory overhaul.

More recently, however, top Goldman executives privately advised analysts that the bank did not expect the reform measure to cost it any revenue.

Hey, I got yer Dodd–Frank right here. Then the Times writer hedges and talks about changes the new law would force:

Citigroup Inc. analysts recently reported that Goldman executives told them the law would force the firm to reduce its own private equity holdings, accelerating a reduction that had been underway. A Goldman spokeswoman declined to comment on the report.

Etc. The writer appears to be saying: On the one hand, it looks like Goldman is laughing through its teeth; on the other hand, nice work, Mr. Administration, whose contacts I still need, for forcing real change, just like you promised. Etc.

Taibbi comments (my emphasis):

The LAT story suggests that banks like Goldman have either figured out how to compensate for their lost prop trading revenue, or else they’ve figured out a way to keep doing what they have been doing, only in some other form. . . .

I’ve been hearing that the clearing/exchange-trading requirement is not as solid as some thought it might be. In particular some critics are saying that the clearing requirement may be problematic because the banks have tremendous influence over clearing-houses like the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) and the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME). But this LAT story also suggests that the banks are not concerned with that section of the bill. . . .

There are a lot of unknowns about how this is all going to play out, but it’s certainly interesting that the people who should know best about how all of this is going to work appeared to have made a judgment already.

Sounds about right. Goldman got the bill it wanted, and now it's telling stock analysts (who will comment on Goldman's stock price post–Dodd–Frank): Hey, no prob.

I don't think I'd bet they're wrong.

GP Read More......

It's the disappointment, stupid

I agree with Maureen Dowd that Robert Gibbs should be replaced as the WH spokesman. For that move, she makes a good case:

Gibbs does not see his job as a bridge between the press and the presidency. He sees himself more as a moat. He has always wanted to be an inside counselor to the president. So Obama — who bonded with Gibbs during the campaign, over sports, missing their families and how irritating the blog-around-the-clock press corps is — would be wise to promote him to a counselor. Let someone who shows less disdain for the press work with the press, and be the more engaging face of the White House.

But in my opinion, most of the rest of her opinion piece in today's NYT misses the mark by a mile.

I don't believe the left doesn't recognize the necessity of compromise. Instead, I think the left doesn't understand why Obama feels the need to compromise in public. It's not a matter of idealism v. pragmatism as Dowd would suggest. It's a matter of having sold the American public a bill of goods to win the White House and then taking the proposed agenda and treating it like used goods at a giant yard sale where everything starts out marked down to move for cents on the dollar.

Dowd remarks that the left was quick to defend a centrist Clinton but is not showing the same loyalty to the more progressive-ish Obama. What she continues to ignore by making the comparison is how the left - and many centrists who voted for Obama - feel duped and manipulated. Forgive me for not being grateful for crumbs when you've promised me a meal.

I'd be remiss not to comment on Dowd's remark that Obama and some liberals felt they could live without the public option in health care reform. Although the public option was distorted and demonized early and often and arguably was easier for the White House to abandon than defend, it was important. Very. It was the means by which we could control costs and keep the insurance companies honest. It would have provided a benchmark for benefits so that consumers would finally know if what they were getting from their private coverage was a good deal. No one would have been forced to choose it. It just would have been another option in the mix and a good one at that. But instead of explaining to the American people what this really was and why it would work for them, Obama quickly softened his language on the public option until his endorsement had the strength of marshmallow fluff.

Why is anyone blaming the left for wanting Obama to be better? The Administration and its surrogates should be lashing out at the radical right and obstructionists in Congress. They should be chastising the media for perpetuating fabricated controversies like death panels and terror babies. Instead, the meme now is about liberals snacking on their own. It's absurd.

I know some may think me a bit naive to have expected Obama to be as good as he promised, but I know I'm not alone. And reminding him we want better - we need better - is not a flaw to be mocked by his spokesman or opinion columnists or the press. As voters, we're disappointed, and last I checked, in a government of, by, and for the people, the people are allowed to have a say. Read More......

Sunday Talk Shows Open Thread

An array of topics on the Sunday shows today. Seems that each network has its own theme.

NBC is doing Afghanistan (from Afghanistan) with General Petraeus. ABC is doing the economy. CBS is doing politics. CNN is doing the NY mosque story and some politics. And, FOX, well, it doesn't matter. FOX will do what FOX always does.

The full lineup is here. Read More......

I'm a bit of a sucker for these personal testimonials of people facing serious illlnesses

Mary Elizabeth Williams, from Salon:

It started with a bump, a little scab on my head that wouldn't go away. I can't remember the exact day I first noticed it, but it was early summer. It was on the part of my hair, right near a scar from a childhood injury. I just figured I'd dinged myself up somehow and all my sun and swimming and hair care products were preventing it from healing properly. I hypochondriacally Googled "infected cuts," never guessing for a moment I was chasing the wrong search term.

Then last week I went to the dermatologist. I figured I'd get some antibiotics and ointment. Instead, when she looked at my scalp, she gave a little involuntary sucking-in of air and said quietly, "That looks like cancer."

That's how your life changes, in four words.

Even then, however, I didn't fret. The doctor scraped my head to run a biopsy, and I assumed I'd come back in a few days for a minor melanoma procedure. My Facebook status update was "Best summer ever." And then, at 10:15 Wednesday morning, my phone rang. "I'm sorry," the doctor said. "It's malignant."

Read More......

Guy who mocked food allergies has baby with... food allergy

Great column from TIME:

Years ago, sitting on an ear doctor's examining table after causing my inner ear to bleed for days by puncturing it with a Q-tip, I looked up to see a framed copy of a column about how stupid it is to put Q-tips in your ears. It was a column I had written. When you publish hundreds of obnoxiously self-righteous proclamations, some of them are going to cause you embarrassment. Which doesn't seem all that big of a deal when you also have blood leaking from your ears.

At the beginning of last year, I wrote a column that questioned whether the increase in food allergies among children was a matter of overreporting. It began with this carefully calibrated thought: "Your kid doesn't have an allergy to nuts. Your kid has a parent who needs to feel special." After that, I got a little harsh.

The column was not the first thing that came to mind after my 1-year-old son Laszlo started sneezing, then breaking out in hives, then rubbing his eyes, then crying through welded-shut eyes, then screaming and, finally, vomiting copiously at the entrance of the Childrens Hospital emergency room an hour after eating his first batch of blended mixed nuts....

Read More......