Hullabaloo

Saturday, November 26, 2011

 

Saturday Night At The Movies

The Haole and the IV

By Dennis Hartley

Archipelago of angst: The Descendants

In the course of (what passes for) my “career” as a movie critic, I have avowed to avoid the trite phrase “heartwarming family film” as a descriptive. Well, so much for principles. The Descendants is a heartwarming family film. There, I said it. Now, let me qualify that. Since it is directed by Alexander Payne (Citizen Ruth, Election, About Schmidt, Sideways ) it is not a typical heartwarming family film. It is a heartwarming family film riddled with dysfunction and middle-aged angst (which is how I prefer my heartwarming family films, thank you very much). Think of it as Terms of Endearment goes Hawaiian.

Despite the lush and verdant tropical setting for his tale, Payne wastes no time clueing us in that there is trouble in Paradise. People who live in Hawaii get cancer, feel pain and generally encounter their own fair share of potholes as they caterwaul down the road of life, just like anyone else. That is the gist of an internal monologue that opens the film, delivered by its protagonist, Matt King (George Clooney), as he holds vigil in an ICU, where his wife (Patricia Hastie) lies in a coma, gravely injured from a water-skiing mishap off Waikiki. As he contemplates the maze of IV tubes and other apparatus keeping his wife alive, Matt, like anyone confronting the Abyss, begins taking inventory.

After all, what family doesn’t have its ups and downs? On the “up” side, Matt is financially set for life, as an heir to and executor for a sizable chunk of prime, undeveloped land on Kauai, held in a family trust (thanks to genuine Hawaiian royalty buried in the woodpile a ways back). On the “down” side, his workaholic tendencies have precipitated an emotional distance from his wife and two daughters in recent years. His 17-year old, the sullen and combative Alexandra (Shailene Woodley) is away at boarding school; and precocious 10-year old Scottie (Amara Miller) is in hot water for antics like bringing photos of her comatose mother to school, and for cyber-bullying a classmate.

In the past, Matt’s wife has served as the buffer between him and this type of day-to-day daughterly drama, but now that she is indefinitely incapacitated, it’s all landed in his lap. He may be a respected pillar of the community and more than capable of running his own law office, but now finds himself akin to the proverbial deer in the headlights. After awkwardly putting out Scottie’s fires, Matt decides that he will need to enlist the assistance of her older sister for riot control. Besides, he figures it would be best to keep both of his girls close by, should the worst happen. As if this weren’t enough on his plate, Matt is also up against a pending deadline to sell the family’s land to a real estate developer. He is being egged on by a sizable coterie of cousins who (a couple anti-development dissenters aside) are eager to milk this potential cash cow for all its worth.

Then, the real bombshell gets dropped on Matt’s head. The bombardiers are his daughters, who let it slip that, completely unbeknownst to Dad, Mom has been getting a little action on the side as of late, with a younger man (Matthew Lillard). And he’s a real estate agent, no less (shades of American Beauty ). Poor Matt. He’s no sooner steeled himself for the looming possibility of becoming a grieving widower who must stay strong for his kids, than he instead finds himself suffering the confounded humiliation of a blindsided cuckold…as they look on. Flummoxed, Matt demands confirmation from his wife’s friends, who fess up. Although he has no real idea what he wants to say (or do) to him, Matt nonetheless decides that he must track down his wife’s lover (it’s a guy thing). With Scottie, Alexandra and her boyfriend (Nick Krause) in tow, he embarks on the Alexander Payne Road Trip, which in this case involves taking a puddle jumper to Kauai.

While the setup may feel somewhat familiar (like the aforementioned American Beauty meets Little Miss Sunshine ), or even rote, in Payne’s hands it is anything but. Yes, on one level it’s another soaper about a middle-aged male heading for a meltdown, but every time you think you’ve got it sussed, Payne keeps pitching curve balls. His script (which he co-adapted with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash, from the novel by Kaui Hart Hemmings) consistently hits the sweet spot between comedy and drama, giving us characters who, in spite of (or perhaps, due to) their contradictions and flaws, are people to whom we can all easily relate to. The film also showcases Clooney’s best work in years; it’s the closest he has come thus far to proving that he may indeed be this generation’s Cary Grant, after all.

This is one of the first true knockouts on the autumn release calendar, and one of the best films I’ve seen this year. There are many reasons to recommend it, not the least of which is a bevy of fine performances from the entire cast. Lillard shows surprising depth, and it’s a hoot to watch veteran character actors like Robert Forster and Beau Bridges doing that voodoo that they do so well. I also like the way Payne subtly utilizes the Hawaiian landscapes like another character in the story, much in the same manner he employed the California wine country milieu in Sideways. After all, it is only when human beings are set against the simple perfection of an orchid or a grape that we are truly exposed as the silly, needlessly self-absorbed and ultimately inconsequential creatures that we really are.

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Dennis Hartley 11/26/2011 05:00:00 PM |

 
California Leading the Way

by David Atkins

Some good news for today:

cross the country, the era of ambitious public works projects seems to be over. Governments are shelving or rejecting plans for highways, railroads and big buildings under the weight of collapsing revenues and voters’ resistance.

But not California.

With a brashness and ambition that evoke a California of a generation ago, state leaders — starting with Gov. Jerry Brown — have rallied around a plan to build a 520-mile high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco, cutting the trip from a six-hour drive to a train ride of two hours and 38 minutes. And they are doing it in the face of what might seem like insurmountable political and fiscal obstacles.

The pro-train constituency has not been derailed by a state report this month that found the cost of the bullet train tripling to $98 billion for a project that would not be finished until 2033, by news that Republicans in Congress are close to eliminating federal high-speed rail financing this year, by opposition from California farmers and landowners upset about tracks tearing through their communities or by questions about how much the state or private businesses will be able to contribute.

Adam Nagourney's article paints the whole project in a negative light, but that's just Nagourney being the concern troll he is.

California bucked the Republican wave in 2010. It has bucked the trend of rejection of public works projects. And it's only the ridiculous 2/3 requirement for passing tax increases that prevents California from becoming a progressive utopia in a sea of conservative economic policy.

One of the biggest reasons I'm involved in local Democratic politics is to help elect Democrats to the State Senate and Assembly, which are both held my Republicans in my neck of the woods despite being in competitive districts. Just a handful more across the state and California will have 2/3 supermajorities in both houses--enough to overcome the Republican tyranny of the minority here on budgetary issues.

Conservatives should be worried: demographically speaking, the rest of the country is going to look more and more like California over the coming years. Cultural trends begun in California tend to sweep the nation. For conservatives, that's a very scary future.

And that's a good thing.


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thereisnospoon 11/26/2011 03:00:00 PM |

 
Walking with the Egyptians

by digby

If you are trying to figure out what's happening in Egypt right now (it's not good) and wonder how it got there, this fascinating segment from Up with Chris Hayes will fill you in.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

When I hear how this whole thing has evolved and transformed, I can't help but worry about where this is all leading there --- and here.

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digby 11/26/2011 01:30:00 PM |

 
Attention LA Locals

by digby

If you can't occupy or get arrested, you can do this:

[Yesterday] at 4:30pm, Mayor Villaraigosa announced the eviction of Occupy LA from the grounds of City Hall. He has offered the West Steps as a meeting area for General Assemblies, but this space is not sufficient for hundreds of people who attend Occupy LA daily. He has set aside 50 beds for homeless occupiers and will send down various social service organizations to inform people of their options before Sunday’s eviction.

However, occupiers are resolved to stay. We need your help. If you are at an occupation, plan a Sunday night action in solidarity with our cause. We must remain occupied.

We have generated a petition to stop the eviction. Take the time to sign it, tweet it, and pass it along to your friends:

Stop the eviction of Occupy LA

Call and email the Mayor and Council Members too!

Antonio Villaraigosa: mayor@lacity.org (213) 978-0600 or (213) 978-0721
District 1: Ed Reyes: councilmember.reyes@lacity.org (213)-473-7001
District 2: Paul Krekorian: councilmember.Krekorian@lacity.org (213)-473-7002
District 3: Dennis Zine: councilmember.zine@lacity.org (213)-473-7003
District 4: Tom LaBonge: councilmember.Labonge@lacity.org (213)-473-7004
District 5: Paul Koretz: paul.koretz@lacity.org (213)-473-7005
District 6: Tony Cardenas: councilmember.cardenas@lacity.org (213) -473-7006
District 7: Richard Alacorn: councilmember.alarcon@lacity.org (213)-473-7007
District 8: Bernard Parks: councilmember.parks@lacity.org (213)-473-7008
District 9: Jan Perry: Jan.Perry@lacity.org (213)-473-7009
District 10: Herb Wesson Jr.: councilmember.wesson@lacity.org (213)-473-7010
District 11: Bill Rosendahl: councilman.rosendahl@lacity.org (213)-473-7011
District 12: Mitchell Englander: councilmember.englander@lacity.org (213)-473-7012
District 13: Eric Garcetti: councilmember.garcetti@lacity.org (213)-473-7013
District 14: Jose Huizar: councilmember.huizar@lacity.org (213)-473-7014

Here's a block of email addresses to send one email message:

mayor@lacity.org; councilmember.reyes@lacity.org; councilmember.Krekorian@lacity.org; councilmember.zine@lacity.org; councilmember.Labonge@lacity.org; paul.koretz@lacity.org; councilmember.cardenas@lacity.org; councilmember.alarcon@lacity.org; councilmember.parks@lacity.org; Jan.Perry@lacity.org; councilmember.wesson@lacity.org; councilman.rosendahl@lacity.org; councilmember.englander@lacity.org; councilmember.garcetti@lacity.org; councilmember.huizar@lacity.org


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digby 11/26/2011 12:30:00 PM |

 
Wingnut Pie

by digby

Apparently the right wingers are all up in arms that Planned Parenthood offered some advice to pro-choice adherents on how to have a conversation with relatives who don't agree on the subject. It's undoubtedly the work of the devil (and Michelle Obama) and certainly cause for immediate defunding of birth control services everywhere.

Tbogg explains:

You see, trying to find common ground and pointing that abortion is a very personal and private decision that should be made by the woman and her doctor and the deity of her choice is actually an act that is the moral equivalent of feeding newborns into a woodchipper, so you and Planned Parenthood should be ashamed of yourselves because, as Steve says, you’re “promoting abortion”. In fact, failure to completely agree with Steve that all abortion should be banned and doctors who perform them should be hunted down like animals and immediately dispatched to hell with a bullet between their eyes means that you probably don’t love God as much as you think you do.

If that is the case, and since you are going to go to Hell anyway, you might as well as go all in by dispensing with the Planned Parenthood ‘diplomacy’ and telling the Steve Ertelts in your family, to, oh I don’t know… “Why don’t you mind your own fucking business you panty-sniffing twatwaffle” or the ever popular, “What? Aren’t there already enough kids in the world for you to molest?.” Not only will the subsequent uproar change the direction of the conversation, but the dinner may come to a premature ending meaning more pie for you.

And who doesn’t like more pie?

MMMM. Pie.

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digby 11/26/2011 11:00:00 AM |

 

Political Entrepreneurs and Lunatics

by digby

If you haven't read this David Frum analysis of the Republican Party in New York magazine, you are missing out.

The Bush years cannot be repudiated, but the memory of them can be discarded to make way for a new and more radical ideology, assembled from bits of the old GOP platform that were once sublimated by the party elites but now roam the land freely: ultralibertarianism, crank monetary theories, populist fury, and paranoid visions of a Democratic Party controlled by ACORN and the New Black Panthers. For the past three years, the media have praised the enthusiasm and energy the tea party has brought to the GOP. Yet it’s telling that that movement has failed time and again to produce even a remotely credible candidate for president. Sarah Palin, Donald Trump, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich: The list of tea-party candidates reads like the early history of the U.S. space program, a series of humiliating fizzles and explosions that never achieved liftoff. A political movement that never took governing seriously was exploited by a succession of political entrepreneurs uninterested in governing—but all too interested in merchandising. Much as viewers tune in to American Idol to laugh at the inept, borderline dysfunctional early auditions, these tea-party champions provide a ghoulish type of news entertainment each time they reveal that they know nothing about public affairs and have never attempted to learn. But Cain’s gaffe on Libya or Perry’s brain freeze on the Department of Energy are not only indicators of bad leadership. They are indicators of a crisis of followership. The tea party never demanded knowledge or concern for governance, and so of course it never got them.

And the really great thing about them is the fact that they have gained prominence at the worst possible time. I know it's fashionable to call people like me whores and hacks for pointing out that the Republicans are certifiably nuts when the Democrats are also so feckless, but it's true. (Over this week-end if you feel like reading about something that may or may not be relevant to that question, read about this again.)

In any case, at least read Frum's long essay if you have the time. I still disagree with him philosophically on virtually everything, but I think he is at least living in the same dimension. That can't be said of the looney tunes who are running his party. What he doesn't seem to grasp is that the Democratic Party is already playing the role he wants to assign to the Republicans --- defending the status quo. He really should just join the Party. At this point he'd be to the left of at least half the Senate Democratic caucus.

On the other hand, the right's insane intransigence has saved us so far from a Grand Bargain, so from my perspective they are at the moment behaving as useful idiots, for which I'm grateful. In the age of austerity anything that stops the economic quacks from bleeding the patient is a good thing. But it's important to keep in mind that these people are only stopping the bleeding because they want to cut the patients arms and legs off. Lord help us if they ever get what they really want.

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digby 11/26/2011 09:30:00 AM |

 
Lego John Pike

by David Atkins

This was emailed by a friend who said she got it off twitter but couldn't remember where. I haven't been able to find it online otherwise, so if anyone knows whom to attribute to, let me know in the comments.



You can see more John Pike meme goodness here.


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thereisnospoon 11/26/2011 07:30:00 AM |

Friday, November 25, 2011

 
Friday cat blogging

by digby

A happy ending:



Thanks officers.

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digby 11/25/2011 06:30:00 PM |

 
Eurotrashed

by digby

Oh, come on Kevin. This is nothing that a big shot of austerity won't cure:

Worried about Europe? You should be! Via Stuart Staniford, here's the latest bad news from the eurozone: In September, as the chart below shows, industrial orders plunged 6.4% in the euro area (pink line) and 2.3% in the broader EU (black line). Here's Stuart:

There have been indicators suggesting mild contraction for a while — eg retail trade. But this is the first indicator I've seen that looks like the kind of sharp non-linear contraction characteristic of an out-and-out recession. I guess there's always the possibility that October will be better. However, given the financial news flow in the last six weeks, it's hard to imagine too many European executives getting all giddy and excited in approving new projects.

The good news is that Germany's Angela Merkel has her priorities straight:

Ms Merkel instead used a three-way summit with France and Italy in Strasbourg to insist that new treaty powers to intervene and punish sinner states remained the key focus of Europe's rescue efforts. She said: "The countries who don't keep to the stability pact have to be punished – those who contravene it need to be penalised. We need to make sure this doesn't happen again."

Oy vey. Read Krugman. And Martin Wolf.


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digby 11/25/2011 05:00:00 PM |

 
Pepper Spray Friday Revisited

by David Atkins

A few days ago I wrote sarcastically that Black Friday shoppers should be pepper sprayed instead of Occupy protesters, since Black Friday chaos has caused death, paralysis and other serious injuries, while the same can't be said of OWS.

Well, perhaps I spoke too soon:

Matthew Lopez went to the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch on Thursday night for the Black Friday sale but instead was caught in a pepper-spray attack by a woman who authorities said was "competitive shopping."

Lopez described a chaotic scene in the San Fernando Valley store among shoppers looking for video games soon after the sale began.

"I heard screaming and I heard yelling," said Lopez, 18. "Moments later, my throat stung. I was coughing really bad and watering up."

Lopez said customers were already in the store when a whistle signaled the start of Black Friday at 10 p.m., sending shoppers hurtling in search of deeply discounted items.

By the time Lopez arrived at the video games, the display had been torn down. Employees attempted to hold back the scrum of shoppers and pick up merchandise even as customers trampled the video games and DVDs strewn on the floor...

"People started screaming, pulling and pushing each other, and then the whole area filled up with pepper spray," the Selmar resident said. "I guess what triggered it was people started pulling the plastic off the pallets and then shoving and bombarding the display of games. It started with people pushing and screaming because they were getting shoved onto the boxes."

The pepper spray wafted through the air, Seminario said, and she breathed some in and started coughing. Her face also started itching....

Wal-Mart employees were taking statements from about eight customers who had been pepper sprayed near the front of the store, Seminario said. "After we paid, we saw five that were in really bad shape," she said. "They had been sprayed in the face, it looked like, and they had swelling of the face, really extreme swelling of face, redness, coughing."

Nakeasha Contreras, 20, of North Hollywood, arrived at midnight and hadn't heard what happened. Even if she had, she said, she wouldn't have been bothered: "I don't care. I'm still getting my TV. I've never seen Wal-Mart so crazy, but I guess it could have been worse."

You can't say the average American consumer doesn't have their priorities down pat. As long as there are more people willing to brave pepper spray and overnight camping in the cold in order to pay a big corporation for a gadget, than there are people who will do the same to save the safety net and demand economic justice, something tells me our economic overlords won't be too scared of us.

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thereisnospoon 11/25/2011 03:30:00 PM |

 
Econ4

by tristero

Now, we're talking, a genuine attempt to operationalize and expand upon OWS, by focusing expert attention on one of its most compelling and apt observations: the extraordinary concentration of wealth in the hands of a few contemporary America:

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For more info on Econ4, a group of economists who are committed to changing the way economics are understood and taught, go here for a mission statement, more information, and other information.
tristero 11/25/2011 02:00:00 PM |

 
Your Daily Grayson marathon

by digby

Howie has posted a fabulous Thanksgiving series over on Down With Tyranny called "Today we are thankful for Alan Grayson" in five parts.

Today We're Thankful For... Alan Grayson

Today We're Thankful For... Alan Grayson, Part 2

Today We're Thankful For... Alan Grayson, Part 3

Today We're Thankful For... Alan Grayson, Part 4

Today We're Thankful For... Alan Grayson, Part 5

Today We're Thankful For... Alan Grayson, Part 6

I urge you to watch all the videos. I am particularly fond of this one from Part 3:

Howie sez:

Alan's the kind of political leader we need in Washington, ably representing the interests of ordinary working families. He has his own unique style, which never fails to get the attention of the media-- and of the 1%. Last time they poured more money into his campaign than they deployed against any other Democrat running for the House anywhere! There's no reason to think they won't do the same thing this year. In fact, they have a conservative Democrat already lined up-- backed by the untrustworthy corporate shills at the DCCC and Emily's List-- to try to defeat Alan in the Florida primary. He deserves our help. If you can, please consider making a contribution to his campaign today.

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digby 11/25/2011 12:30:00 PM |

 
Premium Randroids

by digby

Gosh, for some reason every time some group of political elites get together to deal with the devil deficit the consensus position moves farther and farther to the right:

Though it reached no agreement, the special Congressional committee on deficit reduction built a case for major structural changes in Medicare that would limit the government’s open-ended financial commitment to the program, lawmakers and health policy experts say.

Members of both parties told the panel that Medicare should offer a fixed amount of money to each beneficiary to buy coverage from competing private plans, whose costs and benefits would be tightly regulated by the government.

Republicans have long been enamored of that idea. In the last few weeks, two of the Republican candidates for president, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, have endorsed variations of it.

The idea faces opposition from many Democrats, who say it would shift costs to beneficiaries and eliminate the guarantee of affordable health insurance for older Americans. But some Democrats say that — if carefully designed, with enough protections for beneficiaries — it might work.

The idea is sometimes known as premium support, because Medicare would subsidize premiums charged by private insurers that care for beneficiaries under contract with the government...

John C. Rother, president of the National Coalition on Health Care, which represents consumers, employers and providers, said, “The supercommittee may have laid the groundwork for future reductions in the growth of Medicare.”

I don't know who these Democrats are and perhaps they are just speculating that there's bipartisan support. But considering how far to the right we've moved on everything else, I'm guessing a few Dems at least have opened the door on this one too. After all, "premium support" was originally a New Democrat idea back in the 90s.

Today, however, "premium support" will add up to Paul Ryan's vouchers. That's all. It's not complicated. It adds up to elderly people with less money buying sub-standard health care policies (like I have now) that basically force you to wait until you are dying before you get medical care. I'm sure it will save money. After all, many people are going to die much earlier than they otherwise would. Silver lining, I guess.

One of the New Dem experts who originally devised the term "premium support" disavowed the idea earlier this year.

Here's the conclusion:

In brief, current proposals are not premium support as Reischauer and I used the term.In addition, I now believe that even with the protections we set forth, vouchers have serious shortcomings. Only systemic health care reform holds out real promise of slowing the growth of Medicare spending. Predicted savings from vouchers or premium support are speculative. Cost shifting to the elderly, disabled, and poor and to states is not. Medicare's size confers power, so far largely untapped, that no private plan can match to promote the systemic change that can improve quality and reduce cost. The advantages of choice in health care relate less to choice of insurance plan than to choice of provider, which traditional Medicare now provides and which many private plans restrict as a management tool. Finally, the success of premium support depends on sustained and rigorous regulation of plan offerings and marketing that the current Congress shows no disposition to establish and maintain.

I think that last goes without saying.

"Premium support" as we know it is an obvious step to the dismantling of Medicare. There's a reason why Paul Randroid Ryan took up the phrase and doubled down on its premises. And it has the added benefit of making the health care reforms (which need Medicare to be a government cost leverager) unworkable too. A twofer!

I think one of the major lessons from all of this is that, as predicted, the Rube Goldberg contraption of the health care reform is going to be subject to a whole lot of malicious tinkering, any piece of which could bring the whole thing down. That's always been a weakness of such a uselessly complicated, politically restrained program run by special interests. In the grand scheme of things it may turn out to be better than nothing over the long run, but as everyone knows, in the long run we'll all be dead. If this current wrecking crew has its way, we'll be dead a lot sooner than we need to be.


Update:

Also too:

In their initial analysis of the Ryan Medicare plan, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office determined, “Under the proposal, most elderly people would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system… Under the proposal, the gradually increasing number of Medicare beneficiaries participating in the new premium support program would bear a much larger share of their health care costs than they would under the traditional program…That greater burden would require them to reduce their use of health care services, spend less on other goods and services, or save more in advance of retirement than they would under current law.” [CBO, 4/5/11]

digby 11/25/2011 11:00:00 AM |

 
666 alarm pepper spray

by digby


Uhm:

A woman who pepper-sprayed other shoppers Thursday night at the Wal-Mart in Porter Ranch had armed herself with the caustic spray to gain an advantage in the fight for merchandise at the Black Friday sale, a fire captain said.

The woman, who is still being sought, used the spray in more than one area of the Wal-Mart "to gain preferred access to a variety of locations in the store," said Los Angeles Fire Capt. James Carson.

"She was competitive shopping," he said.

Twenty customers, including children, were hurt in the 10:10 p.m. incident. Shoppers complained of minor skin and eye irritation and sore throats, he said.

So much for the idea that Americans are losing their religion (consumerism.)

I wonder if she'll be charged with assault?

Speaking of Black Friday, the economist Robert Frank had a terrific piece in the New York Times yesterday about how to end this Black Friday nonsense: the 6-6-6 plan.


Update: It's a trend!

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digby 11/25/2011 09:30:00 AM |

 
99.9%

by David Atkins

Paul Krugman has a great op-ed today with a reminder that it's not just the 1% that is the problem, but the upper one tenth of one percent of Americans who constitute the biggest problem. It's an issue that Hacker and Pierson have covered at some length, as has Matt Taibbi. The rewards of our skewed economy increase exponentially as you approach the top of the income chart.

“We are the 99 percent” is a great slogan. It correctly defines the issue as being the middle class versus the elite (as opposed to the middle class versus the poor). And it also gets past the common but wrong establishment notion that rising inequality is mainly about the well educated doing better than the less educated; the big winners in this new Gilded Age have been a handful of very wealthy people, not college graduates in general.

If anything, however, the 99 percent slogan aims too low. A large fraction of the top 1 percent’s gains have actually gone to an even smaller group, the top 0.1 percent — the richest one-thousandth of the population.

And while Democrats, by and large, want that super-elite to make at least some contribution to long-term deficit reduction, Republicans want to cut the super-elite’s taxes even as they slash Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the name of fiscal discipline.

All of the goodies have gone to the top one tenth of one percent:

The recent Congressional Budget Office report on inequality didn’t look inside the top 1 percent, but an earlier report, which only went up to 2005, did. According to that report, between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted, after-tax income of Americans in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. The equivalent number for the richest 0.1 percent rose 400 percent.

For the most part, these huge gains reflected a dramatic rise in the super-elite’s share of pretax income. But there were also large tax cuts favoring the wealthy. In particular, taxes on capital gains are much lower than they were in 1979 — and the richest one-thousandth of Americans account for half of all income from capital gains.

And they're not really contributing much to the economy:

Still, don’t some of the very rich get that way by producing innovations that are worth far more to the world than the income they receive? Sure, but if you look at who really makes up the 0.1 percent, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that, by and large, the members of the super-elite are overpaid, not underpaid, for what they do.

For who are the 0.1 percent? Very few of them are Steve Jobs-type innovators; most of them are corporate bigwigs and financial wheeler-dealers. One recent analysis found that 43 percent of the super-elite are executives at nonfinancial companies, 18 percent are in finance and another 12 percent are lawyers or in real estate. And these are not, to put it mildly, professions in which there is a clear relationship between someone’s income and his economic contribution.

Executive pay, which has skyrocketed over the past generation, is famously set by boards of directors appointed by the very people whose pay they determine; poorly performing C.E.O.’s still get lavish paychecks, and even failed and fired executives often receive millions as they go out the door.

Bottom line?

So should the 99.9 percent hate the 0.1 percent? No, not at all. But they should ignore all the propaganda about “job creators” and demand that the super-elite pay substantially more in taxes.

It's pretty obvious, and conservatives don't really have a good answer for these facts and figures. If we had a decent media in this country, this stuff would be all over the airwaves.


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thereisnospoon 11/25/2011 07:30:00 AM |

Thursday, November 24, 2011

 
A better turkey sandwich

by digby

Isn't it time to make a better turkey sandwich?

To call a turkey sandwich the stuff of memories sounds far-fetched (few have waxed Proustian about a turkey club), but that's what it is to Peruvian chef Ricardo Zarate. The chef behind Los Angeles' Mo-Chica and Picca came to know and love the turkey sandwich not in his native Lima but while working at the Millennium hotel in London early on in his culinary career. The object of his craving: roasted turkey with fried sweet potatoes and jalapeno-cilantro aioli between two slices of buttery brioche.

"To be honest," says Zarate, "Peruvians eat turkey only for Christmas. Christmastime it's crazy — you know at dinner we have to have the turkey … marinated with Peruvian spices, garlic, salt, pepper, a little Pisco, soy sauce." Now he's inspired to make it for Thanksgiving — so he can make the sandwich he still remembers.

This week, the leftover-turkey sandwich looms especially large. According to the NationalTurkey Federation, 91% of Americans eat turkey — about 675 million pounds of it — for Thanksgiving. And much of Thursday's bird will probably end up between a couple of pieces of bread. So, what better time to revisit the turkey sandwich?

Click the link for a bunch of interesting recipes. This one's from my neighbor Top Chef winner Michael Voltaggio and it is really, really good:

Adapted from Michael Voltaggio of Ink.Sack

Mostarda

1 (9-ounce) Granny Smith apple, peeled, cored and diced

1 3/4 cups (9 ounces) dried apricots and raisins

1 1/2 teaspoons cider vinegar

Zest and juice of 1 orange

1 small cinnamon stick

1/4 cup (1¾ ounces) brown sugar

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons whole grain Dijon mustard

In a saute pan over medium heat, sweat the apples until they start to become tender, stirring frequently, 4 to 6 minutes. Stir in the dried apricots and raisins, the cider vinegar, orange zest and juice, cinnamon stick and brown sugar, and cook, stirring frequently, until the mixture begins to break down and takes on a deep, golden brown color, about 20 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in the mustard. Cool to room temperature. This makes a generous 2 cupsmostarda, which will keep, covered and refrigerated, up to 1 week.

Sandwich assembly

2 (4-inch) sections crusty French baguette, halved

10 ounces sliced turkey breast

6 slices (4 ounces) Camembert cheese

Olive oil

2 tablespoons mayonnaise

1/2 cup arugula

1/4 to ½ cup mostarda, or to taste

1. On the bottom half of each baguette section, place half of the turkey. Top the turkey with the cheese slices, then lightly drizzle over a little olive oil. Toast the open sandwiches until crisp and lightly golden, 2 to 6 minutes, depending on the heat of the toaster or oven.

2. Spoon a generous amount of the mostarda over the melted cheese, then top with the arugula. Spread 1 tablespoon mayonnaise over each toasted baguette top, then invert each top over the rest of the sandwich to assemble. Serve immediately.

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digby 11/24/2011 06:00:00 PM |

 
Happy Taserday

by digby

Another sad story in the war on the disabled:

The call came on Monday night, and it made mention of a man who had fallen off his bicycle and injured himself in a parking lot. So Officer Turner pulled up to the scene, and found Roger Anthony — a local fixture who people call "Rabbit" because he had big ears — rolling down the street on his bicycle. Turner followed Anthony in his patrol vehicle, sirens blaring, and ordered him to pull over. Anthony didn't respond.

Williams said Turner then saw Anthony take something out his pocket and put it into his mouth. At that time, Turner got out of the car and yelled for Anthony to stop. When Anthony didn't stop, the officer used a stun gun on him, causing him to fall off of his bike.

Anthony was taken to a hospital, where he was declared brain dead. He was taken off life support on Tuesday. According to Anthony's sister, her brother was disabled, had frequent seizures and trouble hearing. He lived in an independent living community, and "used to smoke cigarettes, drink coffee and ride his bicycle around town." That's what Rabbit liked to do.

This is about terrible police training that says it's better to taser first and ask questions later, a terrible Robo-cop tactic that's turning the streets of the nation into electroshock torture chambers for the mentally ill and disabled.

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digby 11/24/2011 04:30:00 PM |

 
Something to be thankful for

by David Atkins

Karoli of Crooks and Liars has a reminder of what communities of color have been dealing with for generations now:

Earlier this week, Elon James tweeted this:

“Oh? The NYPD are treating you badly? Violent for no reason? Weird.” – Black People

You can buy the T-shirt here.

You might think this is snark but it’s not. I spent some time tonight looking at police brutality in the pre-Occupy Wall Street days. You know. The stuff that doesn’t make the national news because it’s sort of icky and ugly and people don’t really want to know that in this day and age, police are still brutal. That pepper-spraying children as young as 9, killing 7-year olds in police raids, and beating special needs students in the school hallway with no provocation still happens in this country. It does, and I’m hearing a whole lot of stories about it because the outrage doesn’t ever seem to begin until, well…it’s not black or hispanic people in front of the billy clubs.

Those of us who were born into white privilege have the benefit in many cases of only recently being directly exposed to the problem of police brutality via Occupy Wall Street.

On that note, BlackCanseco has a biting open letter to OWS that deserves wider reading, reposted here with his permission:

Dear Occupy Wall Street:

Police brutality in America did not begin with you. It’s older than you, older than your encampments and older than your sudden awareness of it.

As one of the 99% you claim to champion, I for example, have seen police brutality firsthand throughout my childhood and my adult life right on to this day. As an African American male I have seen what happens when you occupy black skin in the presence of a police officer. I’ve buried friends who were shot by police despite having broken no laws. I’ve seen police batons and fists, backs of squad cars and squad car hoods used as weapons—not because I or my fellow African Americans were protesting or making any public statements, but simply because we were breathing and existing outside our homes.

As one of the 99% you claim to champion it’s my belief that Occupy Wall Street’s best hope of addressing police brutality is to first understand that police brutality did not begin with any occupation movement nor has it ever been limited to the parks, college campuses and gatherings where you are.

For every OWS encampment there have been hundreds of unarmed Black men have been shot by police—sometimes in the back for occupying little more than their own skin. For every OWS participant that has been pepper-sprayed there have been hundreds upon hundreds of African American who have been beaten by police often within their own neighborhoods. For every OWS participant that’s been zip-tied and carted off to jail legions of African Americans and Latinos have been unfairly prosecuted and excessively sentenced by local, state and even federal courts.

But until OWS protestors were exposed to police mistreatment it was a complete and total non-issue for the Occupy Movement. There was no outrage from current OWS supporters when even the most famous of police injustices occurred. Unfortunately it has taken the faces of victims of police brutality to become Whiter, seemingly more educated, seemingly more “mainstream” for police brutality and injustice to even register as blips on OWS’s radar. (And don’t think that this obvious and observable fact has been lost on the millions of people of color who have yet to join the occupy movement.)

In the days and weeks since many of the police vs. OWS confrontations I’m not surprised by the lack of calls to “#OccupyTheCops”, “#OccupyTheCourts” or “#OccupyThePrisons” as policing issues most OWS participants must deal with in their communities or daily lives beyond their OWS protest activities.

But let’s be clear: There’s no greater injustice than being so selfishly blind as to selectively claim suffering or fight suffering only when doing so benefits your agenda while willfully ignoring that very same suffering as it festers elsewhere around you. Police injustice is not something any one or any community should be subjected to. But there's something distateful and alienating about seeing folk scream about something that we normally have to beg them to even passingly acknowledge.

To that end, I strongly encourage those in the Occupy Movement to take a long hard look at the issues of Police brutality not just as it relates to OWS, but as it continues to impact the 99% you so proudly fight for.

Let's enjoy our dinners with family tonight. But tomorrow and forward, the fight for justice for everyone in our communities continues.


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thereisnospoon 11/24/2011 03:00:00 PM |

 
Out of horror may come good

by digby

Whoa:

The HIV virus may be about to become a new weapon in the fight against cancer as initial tests have shown it can drastically minimize and even help cure the most common form of leukemia.

A research team, led by Dr. Carl June working out of the Abramson Cancer Center at the University of Pennsylvania, has been experimenting with using a harmless version of the HIV virus combined with genetically modified white blood cells as a new way to fight cancer. The cells are taken from patients and modified with new genes that make them target cancer cells, but just as importantly, they can also multiply once injected allowing them to scale up as a small army inside the body.

The results have surprised everyone. These modified cells have acted like serial killers, multiplying and killing all of the cancer cells in two patients, while reducing them by 70% in a third. The equivalent of five pounds of cancer cells has disappeared from each patient. More good news stems from the fact that the modified cells remain in the body and have been seen to reactivate and kill new cancer cells as long as 12 months after they were first injected.

Amazing. And it's even more of a miracle that this research was done at all:

It’s important to note that this small trial involving just three patients was lucky to go ahead at all. The study was rejected by pharamceutical companies and the National Cancer Institute. It was only through a grant awarded by the Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy that these patients received the treatment. We suspect the next trial will have more than enough interest, and therefore money, to go ahead.

If there's enough money in it.


h/t to @natashchart


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digby 11/24/2011 01:00:00 PM |

 
The level where everything is really weird

by digby

This is the best short documentary you'll see all year

The author Josiah “Tink” Thompson, author of the book “Six Seconds In Dallas” (which considered the “umbrella man”) invokes a piece of writing by John Updike:

In December 1967 John Updike was writing “Talk of the Town” for The New Yorker. And he spent most of that “Talk of the Town” column talking about the “umbrella man.” He said that his learning of the existence of the umbrella man made him speculate that in historical research there may be a dimension similar to the quantum dimension in physical reality. If you put any event under a microscope you will find a whole dimension of completely weird, incredible things going on. It’s as if there’s the macro level of historical research where things sort of obey natural laws and the usual things happen and unusual things don’t happen. And then there’s this other level where everything is really weird.

Via Deathandtaxesmag.com

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digby 11/24/2011 11:00:00 AM |

 
Thankful

by digby

As you sit down and give thanks today, just remember to be thankful that at least we aren't putting up with this:

President Bush's Baghdad turkey was for looking, not for eating.
In the most widely published image from his Thanksgiving Day trip to Baghdad, the beaming president is wearing an Army workout jacket and surrounded by soldiers as he cradles a platter with a golden-brown turkey.

The bird looks perfect, with bunches of grapes and other trimmings completing a Norman Rockwell image that evokes bounty and security in one of the most dangerous parts of the world.

But as a small sign of the many ways the White House maximized the impact of the 2½-hour stop at the Baghdad airport, administration officials said yesterday that Bush picked up a decoration, not a serving platter.

It's not much, but it's better than nothing.


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digby 11/24/2011 09:29:00 AM |

 
No Deal

by David Atkins

The death of the supercommittee has left Democrats in a great political position, if only they're willing to seize the opportunity to simply do nothing. This is a point that a number of us having been making for some time now, including on this blog, but Ezra Klein summed it up succinctly yesterday:

Imagine if the Democrats offered Republicans a deficit deal that had more than $3 in tax increases for every $1 in spending cuts, assigned most of those spending cuts to the Pentagon, and didn't take a dime from Social Security, Medicaid or Medicare beneficiaries. Republicans would laugh at them. But without quite realizing it, that's the deal Republicans have now offered to the Democrats.

In August, Republicans scored what they thought was a big win by persuading Democrats to accept a trigger that consisted only of spending cuts. The price they paid was 1) concentrating the cuts on the Pentagon while exempting Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare beneficiaries, and 2) delaying the cuts until January 1, 2013. That was, they figured, a win, as it eschewed taxes. Grover Norquist's pledge remained unbroken.

But 12 years earlier, George W. Bush had set a trigger of his own. In order to pass his tax cuts using the 51-vote budget reconciliation process, he had agreed to let them sunset in 2010. A last-minute deal extended them until the end of 2012.

So now there are two triggers. One is an extremely progressive spending trigger worth $1.2 trillion that goes off on January 1, 2013. The other is an extremely progressive tax trigger worth $3.8 trillion that goes off on...January 1, 2013. If you count reduced interest payments, the two policies alone would reduce future deficits by about $6 trillion. That's far more than anything the supercommittee came close to discussing. It's distributed far more progressively than anything the Democrats have even considered proposing. And all that needs to happen for it to pass is, well, nothing.

Republicans can't stop these triggers on their own.

Klein points out that there are two main dangers for Democrats: first, that pulling back all the Bush tax cuts, including for the middle class, would be politically suicidal in an election year. Second, that the impact of all of these cuts and tax increases would be a very damaging shock to the economy.

But Klein is right: for once, the ratchet effect works in progressives' favor here. The Democrats can offer the Republicans a deal: extending the Bush tax cuts only for the middle class, in exchange for cuts to various unpopular programs that only fall mostly in Republican areas of the country. Or the Republicans can offer a more unpopular package, which Democrats can rightly refuse, leading to all the tax cuts being rescinded. That would likely end the Obama presidency, which is one reason the President will strongly push for a deal. But it could also have the effect of galvanizing support for the President against the GOP House. I'm not sure the GOP would relish the prospect of sending Gingrich and Boehner to a Clinton-era-style duel to the death with Obama in an election year. They just might back down, if the President were to stand up and refuse to negotiate except on Democratic terms.

Of course, given this President's history, that's fantasy talk. But that doesn't change the fact that the terrain is favorable to Democrats on this one. The ratchet is working to our advantage, and all Democrats need do is sit back, offer politically popular plans, and watch the GOP squirm and whine. The only things keeping this from being a slam dunk are the certainty that 1) the President will go into conflict avoidance mode and seek a politically damaging deal, and 2) the Villagers will lay blame on the Democrats for the conflict if they don't give Republicans everything they want.

Still, it's a risk worth taking. Time and popular opinion are on our side here.


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thereisnospoon 11/24/2011 07:30:00 AM |

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

 
Who could have ever predicted?

by digby

From August 9th, 2011:

Also, too, this piece by Dana Milbank, which has provoked a John McCain into a mild case of twitoplexy:

Dem mouthpiece Dana Milbank sinks to disgraceful & false attack on @SenJonKyl - a decent man.

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digby 11/23/2011 07:00:00 PM |

 
She can see Manchuria from her house

by digby

How did I miss this? Pamela Gellar has called for a boycott of Butterball turkeys because they are certified halal, which means we are all going to become terrorists if we eat one. Or something.

I'll let Tbogg take it from here:

[Butterball spokesperson]Wendy Howze is, like, the worst terrorist ever. Without even having Marc Theissen waterboard her, she is admitting that Butterball turkeys are tryptophan-laden IED’s that use Pop-Up Turkey Timers as fuses and then explode getting Islam all over the cranberries and stuffing and even the All-American Apple Pie (4th Thursday of November! Never forget!). But wait. What is a halal turkey? Does Butterball single out the turkeys that face Mecca several times a day? Ones that are dark meat only? No, it is much more complicated than that:

Halal slaughter involves cutting the trachea, the esophagus, and the jugular vein, and letting the blood drain out while saying “Bismillah allahu akbar” — in the name of Allah the greatest.

Tbogg had exactly the same thought I did when I read that:

So basically Muslim death turkeys are the end result of ritual turkey throat slitting that occurs while someone stands nearby spouting gibberish, which confirms what we have suspected for some time: Sarah Palin is a Muslim sleeper cell spy.

digby 11/23/2011 05:30:00 PM |

 
Top 1% tax cuts worth more than bottom 99% salaries

by David Atkins

Via Pat Garofalo at Think Progress, another depressing data point about income inequality in America:

As Occupy Wall Street protestors continue to demonstrate across the country, congress’ fiscal super committee failed to craft a deficit reduction package due to Republican refusal to consider tax increases on the super wealthy. In fact, the only package that the GOP officially submitted to the committee included lowering the top tax rate from 35 percent to 28 percent, even as new research shows that the optimal top tax rate is closer to 70 percent.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), who co-chaired the super committee, explained that the major sticking point during negotiations with the GOP was what to do with the Bush tax cuts. With that in mind, the National Priorities Project points out that those tax cuts this year will give the richest 1 percent of Americans a bigger tax cut than the other 99 percent will receive in average income:

The average Bush tax cut in 2011 for a taxpayer in the richest one percent is greater than the average income of the other 99 percent ($66,384 compared to $58,506).

“The super committee failed to grapple with the extraordinarily costly Bush tax cuts for the richest—tax policies that, according to the Congressional Budget Office, cost more in added federal debt than they add in additional economic activity,” explained Jo Comerford, NPP’s Executive Director. Frank Knapp, vice chairman of the American Sustainable Business Council, added in a statement yesterday, “the high-end Bush tax cuts are a big part of the problem – not the solution…It’s obscene to keep slashing infrastructure and services for everybody on Main Street to keep up tax giveaways for millionaires and multinational corporations.”

As Digby and I have often said in the past, making significant cuts to Social Security and Medicare in exchange for tax increases is a bad deal regardless. On the other hand, our political system is built on compromise and sausage-making.

But any sort of compromise being remotely considered by Democrats must start with ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. If Republicans won't cooperate, there's no sense even talking about a deal. Better to do nothing and simply let the triggers go off, and let the tax cuts expire through inaction.


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thereisnospoon 11/23/2011 03:51:00 PM |

 

Karen Tumulty Pumpkin Cake

by digby

A few years back on Thanksgiving eve I ran this recipe for Pumpkin Cake and received a very nice note from journalist Karen Tumulty saying that she'd been tooling around the web for something to bake and tried it and liked it very much. Ever since then I've called it Karen Tumulty cake.

It's easy even for non bakers and it really is very good.

For cake

* (3/4 cup) softened unsalted butter.
* 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting pan
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1 teaspoon cinnamon
* 3/4 teaspoon ground allspice
* 2 tablespoons crystalized ginger, finely chopped
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin
* 3/4 cup well-shaken buttermilk
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar
* 3 large eggs


Icing

* 2 tablespoons plus 2 teaspoons well-shaken buttermilk
* 1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar,
* 1/4 cup chopped walnuts
* a 10-inch nonstick bundt pan


Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter bundt pan generously.

Sift flour (2 1/4 cups), baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, allspice, and salt in a bowl. Whisk together pumpkin, 3/4 cup buttermilk, ginger and vanilla in another bowl.

Beat butter and granulated sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, add eggs and beat 1 minute. Reduce speed to low and add flour and pumpkin mixtures alternately in batches, beginning and ending with flour mixture, just until smooth.

Spoon batter into pan, then bake until a wooden pick inserted in center of cake comes out clean, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan 15 minutes, then invert rack over cake and reinvert cake onto rack. Cool 10 minutes more.

Icing:

Whisk together buttermilk and confectioners sugar until smooth. Drizzle over warm cake, sprinkle with chopped walnuts (keep a little icing in reserve to drizzle lightly over walnuts) then cool cake completely. Icing will harden slightly.

Easy as pie (easier, actually.)

Happy T-Day everyone.
digby 11/23/2011 01:30:00 PM |

 
Knowing their marks

by digby

I'm not sure why we should be shocked by these Romney operatives taking credit for a dishonest campaign ad since operatives do it all the time, but I guess it's just the arrogant openness about their rank dishonesty that makes it remarkable:

The offending moment comes when Obama says "if we keep talking about the economy, we're going to lose." That was a quote from a way-too-honest McCain adviser that Obama loved to repeat on the trail. By evening, the ad had been attacked, derided, parodied, and ruled "pants on fire" worthy by Politifact. The Romney campaign could have cared less.
[...]
Romney adviser Ron Kaufman, an RNC committee member and longtime operative, simply said that the ad "worked."

"They always squeal the most when you hold a mirror up to them," he said, "and they overreacted, clearly. All they did was make the ad more effective."
[...]
What about the tough response from Politifact?

"Do you know how many times they did that to Barack Obama in 2008?" he said. "Quite a few. And that's utterly absurd. Did he say this? Yes. Did we say he said it in a certain context? No."

There you go. But why should they care? This exchange on the Washington Post chat on Monday with reporter Paul Kane explains perfectly why these political operatives have no worries about telling the truth:

Q. (IM)MORAL EQUIVALENCE

Paul, I'm guessing you won't be sympathetic to the following point, but I'll put it out there anyway. Most reporting on the supercommittee--like most reporting on the deficit--reflects an acceptance of a basic fallacy. Whenever there is an impasse, there seems to be a desire to blame both sides equally, on the theory that if only Democrats would concede more, Republicans would reciprocate (all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding). Yes, Democrats have drawn lines in the sand, but as Greg Sargent and other commentators have documented, when you compare the specifics, there is no factual basis for blaming both parties equally. So my question is, why does the Post's coverage do so anyway, either explicitly or implicitly?
– November 21, 2011 11:48 AM

A. PAUL KANE:

Yeah, you're right. I think this point is just absurd and ridiculous. This is a big thing among folks calling it "moral equivalence" (Fallows, Ornstein) and others calling it the "cult of balance" (Krugman).

It's just stupid. If you want someone to tell you that Republicans stink, read opinion pages. Read blogs. Also, the underlying sentiment on the left is that this is the real reason why things went wrong in 2010: That the mainstream media is to blame. Sorry, I think that's the sorta head-in-sand outlook that leads to longer term problems for a movement.

Greg is a fine writer. He's an opinion writer, in the opinion section of the web site. I encourage you to keep reading him. And I encourage you to keep reading the news coverage, which should always strive to present both sides of the story. If you really don't want to hear anything about the other side of the story, I really do encourage you to stop reading the news section.

– November 21, 2011 11:58 AM

He's right about one thing. You should stop reading anything this reporter writes because clearly it is completely worthless. He is simply not interested in the truth and gets angry when anyone calls him on it --- even to the point that he dispenses unwanted advice about "the movement" as if that has anything to do with it. Indeed, his defensiveness is most telling --- clearly, he knows on some level that he's bullshitting his readers.

Those Romney operatives aren't fools and they know they can get away with lying as long as the press decides they can get away with it. Whether it's because they want Romney to be the nominee or because it fits with their narrative about Obama or some combination of the two, they are very likely to let this pass or even allow it to become part of the CW, thus kicking in Cokie's Law, which says "it doesn't matter if it's true or not, it's out there." Fact checking only matters if the press wants it to matter.

This lie may or may not become conventional wisdom, but whatever happens it won't be a result of the news media doing its job and getting to the truth. It will be because it fits their story line.

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digby 11/23/2011 11:30:00 AM |