Hullabaloo

Friday, December 07, 2012

 
The wimmins and teh gays are ruining Christmas. Again.

by digby

This is why privileged, white Christian men can't have anything nice:

MCGUIRK: The war on Christmas is very, very real, and if you ask me, in addition to some grouchy misanthropic heathen atheists it has to do - at the root of it - with two things - abortion and the gay rights agenda, because Christianity is against those things. It's subtle but that's why it's so pronounced in recent years.

O'REILLY: Hundred percent agree. I absolutely agree 100% that the diminishment of Christianity is the target and Christmas is the vehicle because the secularists know the opposition to their agenda (legalized drugs is in that as well) comes primarily from the Judeo-Christian traditionalist people.

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digby 12/07/2012 06:00:00 PM

 
Anderson Cooper actually does his job

by David Atkins

This is the sort of thing that cable news shows should be doing more often:

We shouldn't have to hit rock bottom for CNN to start actually doing its job. But at least we've found a level of insanity that will actually prompt some legitimate journalism.


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thereisnospoon 12/07/2012 04:30:00 PM

 
Village mind reading

by digby

From Drudgico:

WHAT SPEAKER BOEHNER would like to tell President Obama: You gotta give me something to work with here. My leadership knows they’re going to have to eat it – it’s just a question of how and when. But I need something to push off of if I’m going to sell my rank-and-file guys on higher top rates: BIG concessions on entitlements and spending cuts. I see now that I probably shouldn’t have drawn such a red line on rates. But I can’t move, and don’t want to move, from my position on taxes unless you move on entitlements and spending.

—WHAT PRESIDENT OBAMA would like to tell Speaker Boehner: If you want concessions, you need to man up and ask for ’em, which you haven’t done. I want to do something big and I am willing compromise, but I have real leverage and I am not giving away the store. There is an easy deal here, but you have to give on rates and stop painting yourself into corners to get through the news cycle. When you are in a hole, stop digging. We know you need something to move on rates, so you have to say what it is. I won’t negotiate with myself. Rates are going up one way or the other, so let’s do this the easy way.

—WHAT BOEHNER THINKS but won’t tell Obama: We can’t ultimately be against a middle-class tax cut that Dems are for. We get it! But nothing for debt ceiling? You can’t play hardball twice and win. The second debate will sting a lot if you just walk with rates on the first. Either that, or you’re comfortable with walking to the edge of the abyss.

—WHAT OBAMA THINKS but won’t tell Boehner: Your win can be a cut in entitlements, but you don’t consider that a win because you know Republicans can’t boast they cut Medicare.

I just excerpted the pertinent parts. Be sure to read it all (unless you just had lunch.)

This fits with Andrea Mitchell's assertion in this exchange with Debbie Wasserman Shultz (after showing footage of the president saying he's in favor of 'entitlement" reform)

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

Mitchell: Are you willing to work with the president to go up against AARP and bring House Democrats along for specific cuts to some of the most popular programs for your constituents? 

Wasserman Shultz: The savings that we already know we can add upon, that we achieved in the affordable care act ... 

Mitchell: Beyond that congresswoman, you've got to go beyond that if you're going to get anything from the other side.

DWS, to her credit, said there was no need to talk about benefits cuts when there was more savings to be wrung out of the health care system. But clearly, Mitchell is channeling the zeitgeist when she says that the Republicans are going to "need" some benefits cuts.

Mitchell, like so many other wealthy, celebrity pundits sees these "popular" programs as something frivolous that Democratic voters are hanging on to out of immature petulance and they just need a stern Daddy to come along and take away their toys for their own good. The fact that these "toys" are equivalent to Andrea Mitchell's yearly dry cleaning bill doesn't change the fact that they represent the entire hand to mouth existence of millions and millions of elderly people who are too sick and too old to go out and become wealthy TV stars.

Update: Looks like Lawrence O'Donnell is an oracle after all.

 Krugman:

Ezra Klein says that the shape of a fiscal cliff deal is clear: only a 37 percent rate on top incomes, and a rise in the Medicare eligibility age. I’m going to cross my fingers and hope that this is just a case of creeping Broderism, that it’s a VSP fantasy about how we’re going to resolve this in a bipartisan way. Because if Obama really does make this deal, there will be hell to pay. 

First, raising the Medicare age is terrible policy. It would be terrible policy even if the Affordable Care Act were going to be there in full force for 65 and 66 year olds, because it would cost the public $2 for every dollar in federal funds saved. And in case you haven’t noticed, Republican governors are still fighting the ACA tooth and nail; if they block the Medicaid expansion, as some will, lower-income seniors will just be pitched into the abyss. 

Second, why on earth would Obama be selling Medicare away to raise top tax rates when he gets a big rate rise on January 1 just by doing nothing? And no, vague promises about closing loopholes won’t do it: a rate rise is the real deal, no questions, and should not be traded away for who knows what.

Why? Because you can't have a Grand Bargain without everybody having skin in the game.

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digby 12/07/2012 03:00:00 PM

 
Raising the Medicare eligibility age and Saddam Hussein

by digby

Yesterday I wrote that a consensus is emerging among the allegedly liberal punditocrisy about "entitlement cuts" specifically medicare. I quote Lawrence O'Donnell saying that enough Democrats are ready to go along.  Today, Jonathan Chait comes out in favor of raising the Medicare age. His rationale is questionable on all counts but this is mind-boggling:

The political basis for the right’s opposition to universal health insurance has always been that the uninsured are politically disorganized and weak. But a side effect of raising the Medicare retirement age would be that a large cohort of 65- and 66-year-olds would suddenly find themselves needing the Affordable Care Act to buy their health insurance. Which is to say, Republicans attacking the Affordable Care Act would no longer be attacking the usual band of very poor or desperate people they can afford to ignore but a significant chunk of middle-class voters who have grown accustomed to the assumption that they will be able to afford health care. Strengthening the political coalition for universal coverage seems like a helpful side benefit — possibly even one conservatives come to regret, and liberals, to feel relief they accepted.

Yeah, that'll happen. And hey, if a few million people have to suffer, well, it's good politics for Obama.(Let's throw some sick old people out of medicare so Obamacare will be more popular!)

Dday properly decimates the argument here and I highly recommend you read it. I'll just remind everyone that Chait is known for his, shall we say, unusual ideas. This one remains my favorite:

Bring back Hussein, the lesser evil

JONATHAN CHAIT

THE DEBATE about Iraq has moved past the question of whether it was a mistake (everybody knows it was) to the more depressing question of whether it is possible to avert total disaster. Every self-respecting foreign policy analyst has his own plan for Iraq. The trouble is that these tracts are inevitably unconvincing, except when they argue why all the other plans would fail. It's all terribly grim.

So allow me to propose the unthinkable: Maybe, just maybe, our best option is to restore Saddam Hussein to power.

Yes, I know. Hussein is a psychotic mass murderer. Under his rule, Iraqis were shot, tortured and lived in constant fear. Bringing the dictator back would sound cruel if it weren't for the fact that all those things are also happening now, probably on a wider scale...We may be strong enough to stop large-scale warfare or genocide, but we're not strong enough to stop pervasive chaos...Hussein, however, has a proven record in that department. It may well be possible to reconstitute the Iraqi army and state bureaucracy we disbanded, and if so, that may be the only force capable of imposing order in Iraq.
[...]
The disadvantages of reinstalling Hussein are obvious, but consider some of the upside. He would not allow the country to be dominated by Iran, which is the United States' major regional enemy, a sponsor of terrorism and an instigator of warfare between Lebanon and Israel. Hussein was extremely difficult to deal with before the war, in large part because he apparently believed that he could defeat any U.S. invasion if it came to that. Now he knows he can't. And he'd probably be amenable because his alternative is death by hanging.

I know why restoring a brutal tyrant to power is a bad idea. Somebody explain to me why it's worse than all the others.

I wrote this at the time:

When I read Jonathan Chait's piece in the LA Times from yesterday, I assumed he was making a Swiftian modest proposal. I read his piece to be a satirical left hook to the notion that the Baker Commission was going to find some magical solution to the Iraq quagmire and conclude that the only formula that would work would be to put Saddam back in charge.

Imagine my surprise, then, when I just saw him on Chris Matthews' show explaining that he was engaging in "a little bit of hyperbole but I think there's something to it" and "maybe we should put it back where we found it."

Chait said "almost everyone with a brain says we shouldn't have gone in the first place" but later admits that he was for the war but on different grounds than the neocons who were delusional about spreading democracy. He was for the war because he thought "weapons of mass destruction were the rationale" and said "I didn't pay attention to, I confess, I didn't pay much attention to the possibility of a completely failed state. When the Bush administration talked about democracy I thought they were lying they way they lie about everything else that they do."

Jonathan Chait, you'll remember, wrote the seminal essay on why liberals should support the war in October of 2002 in TNR. Here's what he had to say back then:

When asked about war, they [liberals] typically offer the following propositions: President Bush has cynically timed the debate to bolster Republican chances in the November elections, he has pursued his Iraq policy with an arrogant disregard for the views of Congress and the public, and his rationales for military action have been contradictory and in some cases false. I happen to believe all these criticisms are true (although the first is hard to prove) and that they add more evidence to what is already a damning indictment of the Bush presidency. But these are objections to the way Bush has carried out his Iraq policy rather than to the policy itself. (If Bush were to employ such dishonest tactics on behalf of, say, universal health care, that wouldn't make the policy a bad idea.) Ultimately the central question is: Does war with Iraq promote liberal foreign policy principles? The answer is yes, it does.

His reasoning was that we believe "American global dominance cannot last unless it is accepted by the rest of the world, and that cannot happen unless it operates on behalf of the broader good and on the basis of principles more elevated than 'might makes right.'" How invading Iraq met that criteria he didn't explain, (or why American dominance was a positive value in the first place) other than to say that Saddam was a very bad man --- the same bad man he later suggested we re-install to power when things went wrong.

So, you know, the lesson is that the Very Serious people always have bad ideas and misunderstand how how things really work. Best to just move along and pay no attention.

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digby 12/07/2012 01:10:00 PM

 
Let's do it anyway, shall we?

by digby

Who could have ever predicted that Eurozone economy would shrink for the second consecutive quarter?
Bloomberg reports:

The euro-area economy was pushed into a recession for the second time in four years as trade slowed and government spending declined.

Gross domestic product in the 17-nation currency bloc slipped 0.1 percent in the third quarter from the previous three months, when it fell 0.2 percent, the European Union’s statistics office in Luxembourg said today, confirming an initial estimate published on Nov. 15.

Eurozone unemployment reached 26 percent in September. The youth unemployment rate has topped 50 percent and resulted in a “lost generation” for the continent’s young adults. Still, the pursuit of austerity continues.

The US unemployment picture looks better than that, obviously, (although not as good as some would like to pretend) but then so did the Eurozone's before they instituted widespread austerity. Not that anyone's paying any attention. Travis Waldren at Think Progress writes:

Lawmakers around the world have ignored the European lesson, though. Australia’s growth slowed last quarter as its government pursued deficit reduction, and in the United States, the so-called “fiscal cliff” brought on by Republican-demanded spending cuts is threatening the country with a bigger austerity package than those that have been implemented in Europe, even with ample proof that the U.S.’s original preference toward stimulus was more effective than the austere European approach.

As Bob Borosage at CAF says:

“The economy still faces fierce headwinds – tightening austerity at the federal level, recession in Europe, slower growth in India and China. There is no sign of the robust levels of growth that would produce the jobs we need for the more than 20 million people in need of full-time work. Mass, long-term unemployment is continuing. That means stagnant or falling wages, spreading misery, jobless young people, inadequate demand and a recovery that will continue to falter, if it continues at all.

“The high drama Washington fiscal cliff negotiations get it wrong. You can’t fix the debt, as the lavishly funded CEO lobby suggests, by focusing on deficits. You have to fix the economy. Fixing the economy will fix the debt.

If you step back a little from the daily sturm und drang it's almost impossible to believe they are focusing on long term debt at a time like this. The only philosophy that would require such a thing is the Shock Doctrine, anything else would at the very least demand flexibility and room to maneuver when all these moving parts are going in the same direction. Instead, we are locking in severe cuts and fetishizing tax hikes.

Oh well. Maybe it will work here where it didn't work anywhere else. We're exceptional dontcha know?

Also too, Krugman.

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digby 12/07/2012 12:00:00 PM

 
Psycho victim blamers

by digby

I guess we're all supposed to be personally armed at all times with a loaded gun.  Even in our houses, while caring for infants and children:

NBC sports anchor Bob Costas believes that Kasandra Perkins’ life could have been saved had her boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs Linebacker Javon Belcher, not had access to a firearm. The CEO of the National Rifle Association, on the other hand, thinks the situation might have resolved itself had both Belcher and Perkins had guns.

“The one thing missing in that equation is that woman owning a gun so she could have saved her life from that murderer,” LaPierre told USA TODAY Sports on Thursday [...]

That is so deeply absurd I'm surprised he doesn't start giggling maniacally when he says it. Does anyone sane believe such a thing? That everything would have ok if only there had been more guns at the scene? Where a tiny three month old baby lived?

They keep saying this ridiculous thing as if it makes sense. But the truth is that they just don't care about innocent victims of gun violence. By saying that this woman could have saved herself if only she were armed at all times, even in her own home, they're basically saying that anyone who can't be bothered to pack heat constantly and be prepared to use it at a moment's notice has only themselves to blame if they get shot.

After all, they could say, "well, unfortunately the price of freedom is very high, so those are the breaks" which is also sick, but at least it's closer to something that resembles their true belief. But they don't. The always say that there would have been less bloodshed if only the shooting victims had defended themselves by shooting the other person first. And that makes no sense at all unless you believe that the victims should not only be armed all the times but they should be quick draw artists with the ability to wing the bad guy rather than kill him,just like in the old westerns. And I'm guessing they do. After all, if you really wanted to take responsibility for yourself you'd do that. Being willing to shoot first and ask questions later is what liberty is all about.


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digby 12/07/2012 11:01:00 AM

 
Why Presidential rhetoric on climate matters

by David Atkins

David Roberts, looking at a takes a look at a recent study on climate change and persuasion which found that personal experience with climate-related phenomena can help change the minds of the mushy middle who haven't decided whether the problem is a serious one, summarizes with the following:

This seems about right. If I could boil it down:

1. Focus on the mushy middle; committed deniers are largely beyond reach.
2. Be opportunistic — make the most of those times when climate chaos makes itself known at a visceral level.
3. Find trusted communicators.

This third one is so key and it’s a huge problem on climate. God bless Al Gore and Bill McKibben and those guys, but they are reaching a fairly circumscribed slice of culture. Storms and the like can unsettle people, leave them open to new or revised information, but even then they will look, not to scientists or activists, but to more familiar, proximate sources of authority and trust. The question on their mind is, “What are people like me supposed to think about things like this?” That’s not a scientific question; it’s not about evidence or argument. It’s about social and tribal connections.

There are, of course, many kinds of communicators that have more cachet with various social groups.

But one of the most important, dare I say "greatest" communicators on the planet would be the President of the United States. He's incredibly influential. Not with a retrograde 35% or so of the American public, but with at least 60% of the rest.

We've already seen recently the power of this very President to affect changes in public opinion on policy. Almost the very moment the President finally came out in full support of marriage equality, support for the position among minorities (particularly African-Americans) shot up substantially.

Rhetoric matters here. Even if the President can't change the votes of Congress through rhetoric, at the very least he can affect public opinion on a subject with as much misinformation and general apathy as climate change.

In just 30 years his legacy will be more determined by this question than by even the economic one.


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thereisnospoon 12/07/2012 07:30:00 AM

Thursday, December 06, 2012

 
"It's working"

by digby

HuffPost Hill with a little reminder:

During a press conference demanding unemployment insurance be part of a fiscal cliff deal, Chuck Schumer noted that last December, 5 million Americans relied on federal unemployment insurance, while only 2 million currently do so. "It's working," he said. 

Sure, fewer people are on unemployment because more people have jobs, but another reason fewer people are on benefits is that Congress slashed the number of weeks available back in February.

The last time the cost for this necessary funding was the extension of the Bush tax cuts. I wonder what it will cost this time?

Meanwhile, Paul Krugman has this on a new study about the effect of unemployment:

[F]rom the Boston Fed (pdf), it looks at the recent deterioration of the Beveridge curve — the apparent worsening of the tradeoff between vacancies and unemployment. Many people have argued that this is evidence of structural unemployment, of workers not having the right skills or something like that. But the authors show that the worsening of the tradeoff seems to apply to all skill groups, all types of work, and so on. But they also find something else: the short-term unemployment rate has fallen just as we might have expected, it’s long-term unemployment that’s higher than it “should” be. And as Brad DeLong suggests, this is very much consistent with a story in which long-term unemployment makes it hard to get back into employment — exactly the kind of thing we should fear, because it means that failure to address the slump is damaging the economy’s long-run prospects.

"It's working."


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digby 12/06/2012 06:00:00 PM

 
Sheldon's pocket change

by digby

People seem to be shocked by this because it's so much money:

Nevada casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife Miriam contributed $33 million to two major Republican super PACs in the closing weeks of the 2012 campaign, according to campaign finance disclosure reports filed Thursday with the Federal Election Commission.

I'm just going to reprise this post from last year:

Does everyone understand that Sheldon Adelson is worth 25 billion dollars? He's the 7th richest man in the United States. 

The following illustration compares an human being against a stack of $100 currency note bundles. A bundle of $100 notes is equivalent to $10,000 and that can easily fit in your pocket. 1 million dollars will probably fit inside a standard shopping bag while a billion dollars would occupy a small room of your house:

Adelson has 25 of those rooms full of money. Even if he does spend a full hundred million, as he's been reported to be planning, it is the equivalent of a modest week-end getaway for you and me. He really is that rich.

We have never before had so much money concentrated at the top. These are vast fortunes beyond our imaginations. It makes perfect sense that some of these oligarchs would spend tens of millions to buy elections. It's not that much money to them. There is no shaming them about it.



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digby 12/06/2012 04:30:00 PM

 
Fiscal cliff notes 12/6

by digby

Golly, I sure hope Lawrence O'Donnell is as full of "malarkey" as he sounds because if he isn't, we're in trouble:

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

When asked what the GOP should get in return for what everyone agrees is an impending cave on the high end tax cuts, O'Donnell explained:

The president offers it every time he lays this out and I think that most of the world doesn't hear he second part of what what he says. He always says, "I have to have the top rates go up" --- and it's worth noting that he doesn't specifically say I have to have 36 or 39%, he doesn't offer a specific number. But he always says, "but we're willing to do that by significant spending cuts in entitlements." He says that. He brings it up. He doesn't say the word Medicare, but that s what he's talking about. You have Paul Ryan and Boehner saying, we can't do anything without cuts in Medicare, they specify, they're happy to say what they want to cut in entitlements. [no they're not --- ed.] So it's there. They're both saying they want to do that. It's absolutely true that there are some Democrats who will say "absolutely not, I won't touch medicare in any way in relation to that" but remember, in this kind of package, when it's bipartisan, you don't need every Democratic vote just as you don't need every Republican vote.

At that point Krystal Ball explained that the Democrats are drawing the line at benefit cuts, and O'Donnell helpfully explained that was all bullshit and that there wasn't any more squeezing to be done out of providers and doctors. Now, O'Donnell is hardly an oracle and much of what he says there is just wrong. I've been as harshly critical of the president in this matter as anyone and have followed this story very closely for months and it's just not correct that the president has openly offered cuts to entitlements every time he demands the tax hike. The reason people haven't heard it because he hasn't said it. He has said that he won't allow the rich to have tax cuts while deficit reduction rests on the backs of the middle class and he's said that he wants "balanced approach" and that he's willing to agree to a deal that will make people in his own party mad, but he's never been that explicit in public. The only reason we know that Medicare and other "entitlements" are likely on the table is because we know that he offered them in the previous debt ceiling negotiations. If he'd ever said this aloud, I think you would have a much different negotiation today. As I said, O'Donnell isn't much of an oracle and normally I wouldn't pay any attention to him, but as you can see from my previous post, he isn't the only one who's thinking along these lines. Now that the Republicans are talking tax hikes, the rest of the equation is coming into focus --- as a fait accompli. In other news, the White House took one of the major tools to avoid the debt ceiling standoff off the table today:

White House spokesman Jay Carney put an end to intense speculation Thursday about whether President Obama would do an end run around Congress with one simple line: "This administration does not believe the 14th Amendment gives the president the power to ignore the debt ceiling — period."

I'm going to guess that means it's part of these lame duck negotiations which isn't good news for the home team.

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digby 12/06/2012 02:58:00 PM

 
Surprise, surprise: Some in GOP urge lawmakers to back tax hikes for changes in safety-net programs

by digby

Nobody who reads this blog will be the least bit surprised by this turn of events:

A growing chorus of Republicans is urging House leaders to abandon their staunch opposition to higher tax rates for the wealthy with the aim of clearing the way for a broad deal that would also rein in the cost of federal health and retirement programs.

With less than a month before the “fiscal cliff” deadline, President Obama remains adamant about allowing tax rates to rise for the wealthiest 2 percent of taxpayers. Without such a deal, he is “absolutely” ready to go over the cliff, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said Wednesday on CNBC.

The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza outlines the position of the White House in the fight over how to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff, the tax increases and spending cuts set to going into effect at the end of the year.

Many GOP centrists and some conservatives are calling on House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) to concede on rates now, while he still has some leverage to demand something in return. Republicans are eager to win changes to fast-growing safety-net programs, such as raising the eligibility age for Medicare and applying a less-generous measure of inflation to Social Security benefits.

After Dec. 31, tax rates for most Americans, including the wealthy, are set to automatically rise, and this could cost Republicans a key bargaining chip in winning changes to entitlements.

“I and some others are advocating giving the president what he wants,” said Rep. Steven C. LaTourette (R-Ohio). But he stressed that this must be part of a package that slows federal borrowing and reduces the debt by $4 trillion to $5 trillion.

“Quite frankly, some people in this 2 percent who call me, they’re more worried about the fiscal cliff than about the rates going up a couple points. That has bigger risk for them,” said LaTourette, a close Boehner ally who is retiring in January.

Rep. Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla.) added: “If there are truly real entitlement reforms that are going to preserve Social Security and Medicare for generations to come, it’s going to be very difficult for me to oppose” higher rates for the rich. [imagine that ... ed]

An agreement to raise the top tax rate above the current 35 percent would mark a major concession for a Republican Party that has made opposition to higher tax rates a touchstone for more than two decades.

The step would come on top of what was already a significant compromise for the GOP: an offer earlier this week to increase tax revenue by $800 billion over the next decade. That offer involved generating new revenue by closing loopholes and ending deductions for top earners, not by increasing rates.

Now we're getting down to brass tacks (tax?) Just how far are the Democrats willing to go on cuts once the Republicans say yes to the tax hikes? Since the only people even talking about the cuts have been Bernie Sanders and a few House progressives, we don't really know.

So, reporters out there should be asking the White House:

Are you willing to go over the cliff if the Republicans agree to your demands for tax hikes but require major benefits cuts in return?

In my view, as regular readers know, the real problem has always been that the Republicans could easily decide to take yes for an answer on millionaire chump change in exchange for big cuts to "entitlements". By making the tax cuts the hill they will die on, the Democrats have been setting themselves up for a severe backlash by the Villagers for being unreasonable in the face of GOP capitulation if they refuse to deal on that. Sure, they can say it's "unbalanced" to ask for all these cuts, but they haven't really been making that argument up to now so it's not going to sound all that convincing. (And frankly, the Dems have already shown how far they are willing to go on that ... and it's really far.)

Maybe they don't care about that and will go over the so-called cliff even if the Republican capitulate on taxes but make steep demands on cuts. I hope they do. But this was always the biggest risk of making the tax hikes the be all and end all so it will be a near thing if this happens and they manage to get out of it.

I'm still hoping for Tea Party intransigence on the tax hikes. Going over the cliff because the Republicans refuse to take yes for an answer has always been the best way out of this mess, at least in this first round. Keep those "entitlements" off the table in these fiscal cliff negotiations --- it won't end well.

And in any case, they'll be back to try to destroy them another day. They never give up.



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digby 12/06/2012 12:00:00 PM

 
Please tell me this is rock bottom

by digby

I can't get over this one either.  There was a time when the appearance of someone like Bob Dole would have resulted in an outpouring of conservative sentimentality and given a handful of senators the excuse to vote for a treaty on the rights of the disabled, even if their throwback base is full of delusional paranoids. But not anymore:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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This is who they are, through and through:

digby 12/06/2012 10:30:00 AM

 
Cold DeMint tea

by digby

Not only is Jim DeMint quitting the Senate excellent news for our government, the fact that he's going to run the Heritage Foundation means that no one can ever again argue that its even slightly mainstream.Think Progress has tracked him closely during his years in the Senate and offers the bill of indictment:

1. Stood with Akin after “legitimate rape” remarks. Following Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) infamous statement that victims of “legitimate rape” can’t become pregnant, DeMint was one of the first major conservatives to stand with the Missouri congressman. DeMint even used his political action committee to donate $90,000 to Akin’s campaign and used its network to raise hundreds of thousands more. “We support Todd Akin and hope freedom-loving Americans in Missouri and around the country will join us,” DeMint’s group said.
2. Led the opposition against Obamacare. In 2009, during the height of the GOP’s opposition to health care reform, DeMint told a conference call of conservative activists that, “If we’re able to stop Obama on this, it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Ironically, DeMint once supported Mitt Romney’s health care reform in Massachusetts, the law on which Obamacare is based.
3. Wants to prevent gay or unmarried teachers from teaching in public schools. In 2010, DeMint “said if someone is openly homosexual, they shouldn’t be teaching in the classroom and he holds the same position on an unmarried woman who’s sleeping with her boyfriend — she shouldn’t be in the classroom.” During his first Senate campaign in 2004, DeMint agreed with the state party’s platform barring gay teachers from public schools, claiming that the government shouldn’t endorse certain behaviors.
4. Pushed a bill outlawing the discussion of abortion over the Internet. Last year, DeMint proposed an amendment to an unrelated bill that would have barred a woman and her doctor from discussing abortion over the internet, even if her health was at risk and tele-conferencing was the most feasible option to receive care.
5. Wants to strip all federal employees of collective bargaining rights. Though most federal employees don’t enjoy the rights and benefits of unionization, DeMint wants to take away even the few bargaining rights they currently enjoy. “I don’t believe collective bargaining has any place in government,” DeMint told ThinkProgress last year.
6. Blocked creation of the National Women’s History Museum. Along with fellow arch-conservative Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), DeMint placed a hold on a 2010 bill to sell land near the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC in order to create the National Women’s History Museum. Coburn justified their move to block the museum by noting that there already exist museums for “quilters” and “cowgirls”.
7. Likened striking Chicago teachers to “thugs” in the Middle East. Speaking at the Values Voters Summit in September 2012, DeMint blasted Chicago teachers who were on strike for a brief period earlier this year. “On my way over, I was reading another story about a distant place where thugs had put 400,000 children out in the streets,” DeMint said. “And then I realized that was a story about the Chicago teachers strike.”
8. Threatened to single-handedly shut down the Senate. In September 2010, DeMint warned his colleagues that he would place a unilateral hold on every single piece of legislation in the Senate, bringing the entire lawmaking process to a grinding halt. Despite being in the minority, DeMint threatened to only allow bills to proceed that his office had personally approved.
9. Used a failed terrorist plot to attack unions. Following the failed “underwear bomber” plot in December 2009, DeMint went on Fox News and used the episode as an opportunity to bash unions. “I am concerned, because it’s related to another issue that we’re dealing with now in the Senate,” DeMint said. “The administration is intent on unionizing and submitting our airport security to union bosses’ collective bargaining.”
10. Argued that people with pre-existing conditions got better care before Obamacare. Speaking with ThinkProgress at a Tea Party rally this year, DeMint argued that Obamacare actually hurt people with pre-existing conditions, despite that fact that it bars insurance companies from denying them care. “I can guarantee you people with pre-exisitng conditions are going to get less health care—lower quality health care—under Obamacare,” DeMint said.
11. “Willing” to cause “serious disruptions” in the economy in order to secure draconian cuts. During last year’s debt ceiling showdown, DeMint appeared on Fox Business and said that, despite the fact that not raising the debt ceiling would cause “serious disruptions,” he was “willing to do that” in order to get major cuts to social programs like Medicare and Social Security.

DeMint was the Tea Party Senator and his quitting to make big bucks to lead the lunatic fringe(don't they all?)really does signal to me a waning of the Tea Party brand. (Not the far right, of course, they always exist.)

My favorite DeMint interview was this one, which defined the Tea Party movement properly:

David Brody: Are you concerned at all that some of the social conservative issues, abortion and same sex marriage, some of these other issues because they are taking somewhat of a back seat right now at least to the fiscal issues that there are some inherent problems for social conservatives in something like that?

Senator Jim DeMint: No actually just the opposite because I really think a lot of the motivation behind these Tea Party crowds is a spiritual component. I think it's very akin to the Great Awakening before the American Revolution. A lot of our founders believed the American Revolution was won before we ever got into a fight with the British. It was a spiritual renewal.

Senator Jim DeMint: I'm 'praying for you' comes up more than anything else in these crowds so I know there's a spiritual component out there.

Senator Jim DeMint: I think as this thing (the Tea Party movement) continues to roll you're going to see a parallel spiritual revival that goes along with it.

David Brody: Just so I understand, when you say spiritual revival how are you terming that? What do you mean specifically as in "spiritual revival?

Senator Jim DeMint: Well, I think people are seeing this massive government growing and they're realizing that it's the government that's hurting us and I think they're turning back to God in effect is our salvation and government is not our salvation and in fact more and more people see government as the problem and so I think some have been drawn in over the years to a dependency relationship with government and as the Bible says you can't have two masters and I think as people pull back from that they look more to God. It's no coincidence that socialist Europe is post-Christian because the bigger the government gets the smaller God gets and vice-versa. The bigger God gets the smaller people want their government because they're yearning for freedom.

Same old, same old.

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digby 12/06/2012 09:06:00 AM

 
Progressive video game Saturday mornings

by David Atkins

Video games and progressivism haven't always had a great history. The video game industry has come under assault for sexism, violence, homophobia in the player base, lack of sophistication and a wide variety of other faults.

But what if I told you that several of the best selling and most critically lauded video games were also complex, incredible and very intentional pieces of progressive storytelling that make Avatar seem simpleminded and downright politically moderate? And that they've managed to do it in a way that, due to the lower visibility of video games in general and the prejudiced assumption that they're all mindless festivals of sex and violence, has largely escaped attention on both the left and right? That Youtube comment sections on clips from these videogames quickly turn into arguments about religion, politics and philosophy directly related to the game's content?

On the next several Saturday mornings I'll be exploring one video game/series per week, delving into their sometimes astonishingly subversive storylines and explaining to a non-gamer audience just how rich and morally enlightened are the entertainments being consumed by many teens and young adults. The focus won't be so much on gameplay (that sort of analysis can be found on innumerable other sites) as on storyline and political implications.

This Saturday I'll be covering the Assassin's Creed series, the latest installment of which features a half-Native-American half-British hero at the dawn of the American Revolution, arguing with George Washington while fighting for the Patriots who will ultimately drive his people from their lands. In case that doesn't whet your appetite, this is also a series that features an Arab hero fighting against European invaders during the crusades, imagines all religion as mythmaking, exposes hypocrisies of the Catholic church during a celebration of the Renaissance through the eyes of an Italian hero, and weaves a yarn that ties in Citizens United, the coups against Allende and Mossadegh, and the homophobic persecution of Alan Turing as all part of a conservative conspiratorial propagandistic quest for control of humanity. All this in a videogame?

You bet. See you and your handy joystick controllers this Saturday.


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thereisnospoon 12/06/2012 07:30:00 AM

Wednesday, December 05, 2012

 
It's Not True Until A Republican Accepts It

 by tristero

Marco Rubio, the currently touted Next Best Hope for Republicans, has condescended, very grudgingly, to dip a sliver of a toenail into the reality-based community:

After dabbling in creationism earlier this month, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., clarified that he does believe that scientists know the Earth is “at least 4.5 billion years old.” 

“There is no scientific debate on the age of the earth. I mean, it’s established pretty definitively, it’s at least 4.5 billion years old,” Rubio told Mike Allen of Politico. ”I was referring to a theological debate, which is a pretty healthy debate. 

“The theological debate is, how do you reconcile with what science has definitively established with what you may think your faith teaches,” Rubio continued. “Now for me, actually, when it comes to the age of the earth, there is no conflict.”

Did you catch all the hedging? The "pretty healthy""theological debate?" (There isn't one, of course, any more than there is a scientific one, just yawping from some rightwing religious loons, ) And check out that "for me," as if the age of the earth is Marco's very own personal opinion - and views can legitimately differ.

It is a measure of how bizarre the Republican worldview has become that,  in order to not to offend the base, Marco Rubio feels he has to qualify his acceptance of one of the most established scientific facts of our time.
tristero 12/05/2012 06:00:00 PM

 
Fiscal cliff notes 12/5

by digby

Brian Beutler at TPM reports on the latest "fiscal cliff" maneuvering. If this is all true, it would appear that they're going to split the Grand Bargain into two parts: Boehner may not have any choice but to go over the cliff and then sign on for the new tax cuts (and remember, Norquist gave the thumbs up on the latter plan) but if that happens, is that the end of the story? I'm afraid not. The Democrats may find themselves in the same position the GOP is in now, in that they will then be "forced" to do the thing their base is adamantly against:

House Republicans are privately contemplating a quiet surrender in the fight over Bush tax rates for top earners, and a quick pivot to a new fight over raising the debt limit, in which they’d demand steep cuts to programs like Medicare and Social Security.

The White House’s official position on this plan is: cram it. Officials say they will not negotiate, or pay a ransom. Congress has to raise the debt limit, period.

“I will not play that game,” Obama told the Business Roundtable on Wednesday. “We are not going to play that game next year. We’ve got to break that habit before it starts.”

But privately, Obama and Democratic leaders have sought to weave a debt limit increase into ongoing negotiations to avert automatic tax increases and spending cuts at the end of the year. Their clear preference is to defuse that bomb now, in a bipartisan way, rather than to stare down the House GOP pointing a gun at the country’s economy.

And recent remarks by Democratic leaders and interviews with top congressional aides suggest Democrats have no consensus plan to execute if the debt ceiling isn’t increased before the end of the year.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and other Dem leaders say that once the long fight over Bush tax cuts for the rich is resolved, the playing field will be evened, and the parties can negotiate further deficit reduction next year.

“If we can take the middle-income tax cuts off the table, then we end the hostage taking that the Republicans have been engaged in,” Pelosi said at a Wednesday media availability when asked about the Democrats’ debt limit contingency plan. “We’re not going to do that unless you give tax cuts to the wealthy. I think that clears the debate to find areas of agreement as we go forward.

Her No.2, Steny Hoyer (D-MD), simply argued against using the debt limit for political leverage, without saying if or how Democrats could prevent Republicans from taking that tack.

“The debt limit ought not to be held hostage to anything,” Hoyer said. “It hurt our economy, we were downgraded for the first time in my career and I think in history by one of the rating agencies. The creditworthiness of America ought not to be put at risk, it ought not to be a negotiating item.”

Neither of those responses constitutes an answer to the GOP’s ongoing demand that new borrowing authority be matched dollar for dollar with cuts to federal spending.

The president was very tough today, saying that he refuses to play their game on the debt ceiling,  and maybe that will be enough to make the Republicans simply crawl away with their tails between their legs and agree to some perfunctory cuts to medicare providers and some defense cuts and call it a day. That would truly be a new day. However, I would guess that everyone is looking at this thing as a two (maybe three) part Grand Bargain in which the agreement is that they'll drive very carefully over the fiscal curb, cut taxes on the 98% (maybe even sweeten the pot a little) and then get down to some serious cutting.

Geithner on CNBC: Once Republicans agree to raise tax rates, White House will engage on spending cuts.

Obviously, we still don't know what they will be, but suffice to say that at some point in all this we're going to start talking about cuts. After all, just raising taxes on the rich wouldn't be a "balanced approach" would it? Even among the so-called reasonable Republicans, it must not only happen, it must hurt. A lot:

On Sunday, during an appearance on Meet the Press, Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) reiterated his call for restructuring entitlement programs like Medicare, highlighting the “very painful cuts” he has proposed as part of a package to avert the fiscal cliff. Corker 242-page plan calls for a Paul Ryan-like proposal to transform the guaranteed Medicare benefit into a voucher plan for beneficiaries. 

Host David Gregory seemed to agree with Corker’s characterization and pressed fellow panelist Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) to accept reforms that will shift health care costs to seniors in order to show that Democrats are “serious” about entitlements:

CORKER: Look, I laid out in great detail very painful cuts to Medicare. I just did it in a 242 page bill that I’ve shared with the White House [...]

GREGORY: Name some specific programs that ought to be cut that would cause pain in terms of the role of our government that Democrats are prepared to support.

McCASKILL: Well, I think you can see more cuts frankly and a lot of us voted for more cuts in the farm program…and defense. I spent a lot of times in the wings of the Pentagon. if you don’t think there’s more money to be cut in contracting at the pentagon, you don’t understand what has happened at the Pentagon. [...]

CORKER: David, as much as I love Claire, those are not the painful cuts that have to happen. We really have to look at much deeper reforms to the entitlements … I think the Speaker is frustrated right now because as you’ve mentioned, the White House keeps spiking the ball on tax increases for the wealthy. But has not yet been forthcoming on real entitlement reform. And without the two, there really is no deal.

Pelosi says no dice:

Those issues — Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid — they should be in their own realm. Whatever adjustments would be made in Social Security should be there to strengthen Social Security, not to subsidize a tax cut for the wealthiest people in America and say that’s how we balance the budget. The same thing with Medicaid and Medicare…

I don't think she means "their own realm" part of the debt ceiling fight either, FWIW. So, she's taking a hard line.

On the other hand, her second in command is eagerly playing the bad cop:

Hoyer, the Democratic whip, warned that taking entitlement benefits off the table is a bad place to start the negotiations. Such entrenched positions are little different, he said, than the Republicans' refusal to consider hikes in tax rates — a central element of President Obama's deficit-reduction proposal.

Hoyer said GOP proposals to raise the Medicare eligibility age, make wealthier seniors pay higher Medicare rates and limit the cost-of-living increases for some federal programs are legitimate ones, even as he warned he might not support them.

“They clearly are on the table,” Hoyer said of the Medicare changes during his weekly press briefing in the Capitol. “They were on the table in the Boehner-Obama talks. They've been on the table for some period of time. That does not mean that I'd be prepared to adopt them now, but they're clearly, I think, on the table.”

Hoyer said the GOP's proposal to reduce the cost-of-living increases to certain federal programs – the so-called chained consumer price index (CPI) – should also be considered as part of the fiscal cliff talks.

“We have many Republicans say 'absolutely not' ... on [higher] rates or revenues,” he said. “There are Democrats on our side who say 'absolutely not' if they do A or they do B or they do C. … You've got to put everything on the table.”

So, who knows?

Obviously the White House wants to get their tax hikes on the rich above all else, but from where I sit, a "deal" to do that just doesn't look very promising. So, I still think the Republicans need to go over the cliff so they can be reborn as tax cutters. But if that happens I cannot see why they will give up their leverage in the debt ceiling to get some cuts and inflict some pain, particularly since they know that there are plenty of Democrats eager to sign on. They like pain.

Update:

I'm watching Chris Matthews, Ed Rendell and Alex Wagner game this out right now and they apparently think that spending cuts are completely irrelevant to all this deal making and that even if the Republicans bite the bullet on the Bush tax cuts, they'll only use their debt ceiling leverage to try to get some goodies back for the 1%. Let's hope they're right about that.

But I have to point out that every time I see a Republican on TV talking about this they are hammering on "entitlement cuts." (And, by the way, so are quite a few Democrats.) So, while I think there's a good chance we're either going over the cliff ---- not the end of the world --- or that the Republicans will throw in the towel on the hikes and agree to Obama's proposal to extend the middle class tax cuts before the end of the lame duck, I still have a strong feeling that the Grand Bargain is still in the ether.

But as I always say, every day we go without slashing vital programs for average people for no reason is a good day. The more they put it off, the better chance it won't happen.

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digby 12/05/2012 04:30:00 PM

 
Pelosi says no to raising Medicare eligibility age

by David Atkins

This is a good sign:

It’s a perennial fear among liberals: In the quest for a fiscal cliff deal, the White House and Democrats will ultimately acquiesce to GOP demands to raise the Medicare eligibility age. But one Democrat is drawing a line against this possibility: Nancy Pelosi.

“I am very much against that, and I think most of my members are,” Pelosi said in an interview with me today. “I don’t see any reason why that should be in any agreement.”

The argument against raising the eligibility age is that it would leave hundreds of thousands of seniors without health coverage and wouldn’t raise that much money for deficit reduction, since many of those seniors would go into Medicaid or the Obamacare exchanges, offsetting savings. The Congressional Budget Office recently estimated that it would save $125 billion over 10 years.

Pelosi echoed this complaint succinctly, saying: “Show me the money.” She also said flatly that she didn’t believe raising the eligibility age would be in the final deal, despite GOP demands: “I don’t anticipate that it will be in it.”

If Democrats in Congress and enough anti-tax extremist Republicans can inadvertently join forces against Boehner, we may well have a great chance of scuttling this Grand Bargain after all.


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thereisnospoon 12/05/2012 03:01:00 PM

 
Econ 4 On Housing

by tristero

Econ 4, a group of liberal economists, have posted an excellent statement and video on housing issues.

We oppose treating the nation's housing as a bundle of assets to be sliced, diced, flipped, and bailed out in pursuit of inflated profits and bonuses. 

We call for reality-based, ethically grounded housing policies that restore stability to families and sanity to markets. 

We call for mandatory partial reductions of mortgage principal whenever this can keep a family in its home. We call for America's best run housing non-profits to be paid to provide the counsel required to determine when such modifications will work. We call for civil and, when necessary, criminal sanctions on banks and loan-servicing companies whose employees intentionally obstruct implementation of mandated loan modifications. 

We call for amending bankruptcy laws to restore pre-2005 rules that protected families and communities from bank depredations. 

We call for immediate return to the rule of law by requiring those who seek to foreclose to demonstrate they have the proper title and rights to do so – with stiff legal penalties if they ignore the law. 

In response to recent moves by the top 1% to buy distressed housing and convert it to rental stock as absentee landlords, we call for local, state and national standards to protect families from predatory rental practices. 

We extend our support to all who are working in the private, non-profit, and public sectors to promote access to affordable and stable housing as a human right of families and an asset for communities.

tristero 12/05/2012 01:30:00 PM

 
Freedom's just another word for doing what they want

by digby

Wait. The anti-sex crusader and attorney general of Virginia is really referred to as "the cooch"? And he says stuff like this?

In 2005, a pro-choice student group at George Mason University organized its inaugural “Sextravaganza” event — a campus sexuality and health fair aimed at teaching attendees about practicing safer sex and preventing unplanned pregnancy. For this event, the group organized 15 booths to provide “information on abstinence, condoms and self-help exams, as well as sexual orientation.” An array of views were presented to approximately 500 attendees: a minister from the Campus Catholic Ministry staffed one of the tables promoting abstinence and opposing abortion, while others promoted abortion rights and provided information about safer sex.

Sen. Cuccinelli, however, was outraged that his alma mater — a public state university — would host an event he believed “really just designed to push sex and sexual libertine behavior as far, fast and furiously as possibly.” Among Cuccinelli’s objections to the event:

Upset that information about sexuality — other than abstinence only — would be presented to adult college students, he said it was symptomatic of the “moral depravity that has crept across this commonwealth and this country.”

Upset that the event was sponsored by the Pro-Choice Patriots, he said, “They’re selling their product. They are selling abortions.“

Upset that the GMU Pride Alliance presented information on sexual orientation, he said, “You can’t have safe homosexual sex. There is no such thing and yet one of the sponsoring groups is the homosexual group on campus.”

Upset about an (ultimately scrapped) plan to raffle off sex toys at the fair, he said the event would “push every form of sexual promiscuity there is out there.”
Upset that some of the advertising for the event was paid for out of student activity fees, he said, “”This is a how-to fun fair for sex. This isn’t education. This is pushing sex. It’s encouraging it… It doesn’t swell me with pride to see my alma mater putting on a soft porn show.”

Yes, "the Cooch" actually said "swell me with pride."

In case you were wondering how a tea partying, liberty lover (and oh how he loves it) rationalizes censoring talk about sex with his freedom agenda, the Cooch" explains:

He told Bacon’s Rebellion, a Virginia blog, “in the realm of morality, freedom is not the right to do whatever you want (license), it is, in fact, the ability to do as you ought (self control).”

I've always thought that when right wingers talked about freedom it meant "free to do exactly what we want you to do" but it's nice to see it validated.

By the way, "the Cooch" is being talked about as a possible national candidate. Someone needs to tell the Republicans that this won't fool voters into thinking they've softened their position in the War on Women.

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digby 12/05/2012 12:00:00 PM

 
Broken Logic

by tristero

I read the news today, oh boy:

Citigroup announced on Wednesday that it would cut 11,000 jobs, reducing its work force by roughly 4 percent in an effort to cut costs. 

The bank said it would take a pretax charge of roughly $1 billion for the cuts.

Under the reduction, 1,900 jobs will be eliminated in the institutional clients division.

Another 6,200 positions will be removed from the bank’s consumer banking business, along with 2,600 jobs in the operations and technology group. 

The bank’s shares rose about 4 percent in early morning trading.

Sure. I understand exactly why Citigroup's stock would rise when it announced that it would seriously harm, and, in some cases, ruin the livelihoods of 11,000 employees and their families.

It still strikes me as deeply sick.

Yes there is a twisted sense to the decision - destroy the economic value of 11,000 people to save the larger company. But it is the logic of an economic system so perverse that it blithely re-assigns the self-evident rights of human beings - such as sheer survival -  to corporations.

And denies the exact same rights to people.
tristero 12/05/2012 10:30:00 AM

 
Dispatch from torture nation

by digby

The good news is that we are so very, very exceptional:

The warden of a North Carolina prison has been suspended pending the outcome of an investigation into allegations that inmates were forced to rub hot sauce on their genitals, officials said Tuesday.

Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Pamela Walker said that Sampson Correctional Institution administrator Lafayette Hall has been put on paid leave while the State Bureau of Investigation reviews what happened at the Clinton facility.

A correctional officer, David P. Jones, has also been put on leave, officials said.
In July, six inmates from Sampson sent a hand-written letter to the U.S. District Court in Greensboro complaining that staff had forced them to perform numerous humiliating acts for the entertainment of guards, including stripping nude and pretending to have sex. The medium-security facility houses about 500 male inmates in Clinton, which is about 60 miles southeast of Raleigh.

The inmates also reported being forced to gulp a super-hot "Exotic Hot Sauce" purchased off the Internet and slather it on their testicles, as well as being forced to grab and kiss wild snakes while working on a road crew and throwing captured bunnies in to oncoming traffic.

Those who performed for the guards were rewarded with preferential work assignments, food, cigarettes and beer, the inmates alleged. Both tobacco and alcohol are banned in North Carolina's prisons.

It's just some bad apples, not to worry.

You do have to wonder about those guards though. They could have entertained themselves for hours by tasering the inmates and everyone would think it was just good clean fun.

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digby 12/05/2012 09:00:00 AM

 
Boehner: If Republicans can't break the Senate, we'll break the Congress

by David Atkins

John Boehner, obstructionist:

House Speaker John Boehner, Ohio Republican, made it clear that any bill that came to the House from the upper chamber as a result of Senate Democrats changing the rules on the filibuster would be "dead on arrival." In a statement released from Speaker Boehner's office, the Ohio GOP'er remarked:

“Senate Democrats’ attempt to break Senate rules in order to change Senate rules is clearly designed to marginalize Senate Republicans and their constituents while greasing the skids for controversial partisan measures. I question the wisdom of this maneuver, especially at a time when cooperation on Capitol Hill is critical, and fully support Leader McConnell’s efforts to protect minority rights, which are an essential part of our constitutional tradition. Any bill that reaches a Republican-led House based on Senate Democrats’ heavy-handed power play would be dead on arrival.”

In other words, any bill that passes the Senate with at least forty Senate Republicans/Conservadems voting against it would automatically die in Boehner's House.

Republicans seem quite chastened by the election, wouldn't you say? Ready to compromise any time now.


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thereisnospoon 12/05/2012 07:30:00 AM

Tuesday, December 04, 2012

 
And justice for all

by digby

Oh God:

A former death row inmate with intellectual disabilities has languished in the Texas prison system for over 30 years despite having no valid criminal conviction. Jerry Hartfield, an illiterate man with an IQ of 51, had his capital conviction overturned in 1980 because the jury at his trial had been improperly selected. A Texas appeals court ordered a new trial for Hartfield, but that trial has never happened. In 1983, then-Governor Mark White attempted to commute Hartfield's former death sentence to life without parole. However, a federal court has recently ruled that the commutation was irrelevant since Hartfield was not convicted of a crime. No action had been taken on the case until 2006, when another inmate helped Hartfield file a handwritten motion, asking that he be either retried or set free.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected the petition, but a federal judge agreed with Hartfield, saying the decision overturning his conviction still stands. U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Hughes said, "Hartfield's position is as straightforward and subtle as a freight train....The court's mandate was never recalled, its decision never overturned, the conviction never reinstated; yet Hartfield never received the 'entirely new trial' ordered by the court." The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit called the state's defense of Hartfield's incarceration "disturbingly unprofessional" and returned the case to the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals for further action. Given the Sixth Amendment's right to a speedy trial, it is not clear that Hartfield could be re-tried.

And the real joke is that there are many people who will tell you that the fact this poor man hasn't been executed proves that our death penalty system is perfect.

At this point I think it's fairly obvious that Texas is an authoritarian police state. Which makes the US an authoritarian police state as well. How any country that even calls itself civilized can allow this is beyond me. It literally makes me ill.


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digby 12/04/2012 06:00:00 PM

 
"Rupert’s after me as well"

by digby

I always thought the Republicans had visions of "President Petraeus" dancing in their heads. Apparently, their most impressive propagandist was quite serious about it:

In spring 2011, Ailes asked a Fox News analyst headed to Afghanistan to pass on his thoughts to Petraeus, who was then the commander of U.S. and coalition forces there. Petraeus, Ailes advised, should turn down an expected offer from President Obama to become CIA director and accept nothing less than the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the top military post. If Obama did not offer the Joint Chiefs post, Petraeus should resign from the military and run for president, Ailes suggested.

The Fox News chairman’s message was delivered to Petraeus by Kathleen T. McFarland, a Fox News national security analyst and former national security and Pentagon aide in three Republican administrations. She did so at the end of a 90-minute, unfiltered conversation with Petraeus that touched on the general’s future, his relationship with the media and his political aspirations — or lack thereof. The Washington Post has obtained a digital recording from the meeting, which took place in Petraeus’s office in Kabul.

McFarland also said that Ailes — who had a decades-long career as a Republican political consultant, advising Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush — might resign as head of Fox to run a Petraeus presidential campaign. At one point, McFarland and Petraeus spoke about the possibility that Rupert Murdoch, the head of News Corp., which owns Fox News, would “bankroll” the campaign.

“Rupert’s after me as well,” Petraeus told McFarland.

McFarland said she had spoken “directly” to the Fox News chairman and the “advice to you from Roger Ailes is. . . . He says that if you’re offered [JCS] chairman, take it. If you’re offered anything else, don’t take it; resign in six months and run for president.”

Petraeus demurred, saying he would consider the CIA directorship if Obama offered it, as the president did several weeks later. Petraeus was confirmed and sworn in as director on Sept. 6, 2011. He resigned a year later, on Nov. 9, after the disclosure of an extramarital affair with his biographer.

In a telephone interview Monday, the wily and sharp-tongued Ailes said he did indeed ask McFarland to make the pitch to Petraeus. “It was more of a joke, a wiseass way I have,” he said. “I thought the Republican field [in the primaries] needed to be shaken up and Petraeus might be a good candidate.”

Ailes added, “It sounds like she thought she was on a secret mission in the Reagan administration. . . . She was way out of line. . . . It’s someone’s fantasy to make me a kingmaker. It’s not my job.” He said that McFarland was not an employee of Fox but a contributor paid less than $75,000 a year.

Naturally he dismisses the reporter as a low level grunt with delusions of grandeur. he's just that much of an ass.

But I absolutely believe he was serious. When Ailes says he isn't a kingmaker you have to laugh. Of course he is, and he was instrumental in creating The Man Called Petraeus. And to be honest, I think he could have been a formidable candidate in 2008 if he showed any retail political skill at all:

-David Petraeus has a 44/30 favorability rating nationally and is seen much more favorably by Democrats (47/25) at this point than Republicans (38/36).

There are the usual partisan reason for this, of course, and the little matter of his wandering eye. But the fact is that there have always been plenty of Democrats who worshiped TMCP and who knows how many of them would cross over if he proved to be a decent candidate? (I would have thought he would have had a better chance in 2016, but maybe Ailes was believing his own hype too and thought Obama was seriously vulnerable in 2012.)

In any case, that's over now. The only thing Petraeus had going for him was The Man Called Petraeus myth but unless you're as politically skilled as Bill Clinton (and virtually nobody is) you can't get away with a tawdry affair like that anyway. But his mystique was all about rectitude and brilliance and I don't think he can claim that anymore. After all, General Betrayus has a whole different meaning now. And he certainly didn't behave in a very disciplined or intelligent manner.

Buh bye, TMCP, we hardly knew ye.

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digby 12/04/2012 04:30:00 PM

 
ACORN stole the election, we want to secede, and we control the Republican primary

by David Atkins

PPP does a poll, Tom Jensen reports:

PPP's first post election national poll finds that Republicans are taking the results pretty hard...and also declining in numbers.

49% of GOP voters nationally say they think that ACORN stole the election for President Obama. We found that 52% of Republicans thought that ACORN stole the 2008 election for Obama, so this is a modest decline, but perhaps smaller than might have been expected given that ACORN doesn't exist anymore.

Some GOP voters are so unhappy with the outcome that they no longer care to be a part of the United States. 25% of Republicans say they would like their state to secede from the union compared to 56% who want to stay and 19% who aren't sure.

One reason that such a high percentage of Republicans are holding what could be seen as extreme views is that their numbers are declining. Our final poll before the election, which hit the final outcome almost on the head, found 39% of voters identifying themselves as Democrats and 37% as Republicans. Since the election we've seen a 5 point increase in Democratic identification to 44%, and a 5 point decrease in Republican identification to 32%.

And yet we're supposed to believe that a chastened Republican Party will tack to the center to solve its demographic problem and become competitive in 2016? Hardly. Their base is filled with voters who still believe it's 1976 and they have a "silent majority" that is only being disenfranchised because of millions of fraudulent inner city votes. A great many of these older white exurban and rural voters haven't even seen the inside of a big city in years, and have no idea what 18-35 year olds really think except for their wayward liberal grandchildren and that weird hippie with purple hair who works at the neighborhood grocery store.

Their leaders will bank on total gridlock and dysfunction leading to electoral apathy in 2014 to keep their House majority and pick up Senate seats, becoming even more extreme in their gerrymandered pockets of the country. Then they'll nominate one of the more radical conservatives they can find, or force one of their more "acceptable" candidates to tack so far right to win the primary that like Mitt Romney they'll be hard pressed to win the general election.

This GOP isn't coming back to reality land anytime soon.

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thereisnospoon 12/04/2012 03:03:00 PM

 
Going Galt all the way

by digby

Patriots understand that an epic storm is coming to America.

Economic collapse is imminent. Disruptions of Just-in-Time supply lines will lead America into chaos. Violence along racial, ethnic, religious and economic class lines will bring forth famine, disease and a fundamental reset of life in America.

A group of Patriots have decided to build a community off the most likely lines of peril, a bastion of Jefferson's Rightful Liberty where we may remain safe, warm, healthy and comfortable while American society suffers the inevitable destruction that must accompany the decades of degenerating morality of our Countrymen.

The cornerstone of the Citadel is III Arms Company, an industry to support the first wave of Patriots who will become modern American Pioneers. We will build Fighting Arms and ammunition for Patriots and around us a town will begin to grow. Other revenue streams are already in the works. Our intent is to purchase at least one thousand acres, and construct a walled town of at least one square mile to withstand any potential violence from hungry, diseased Souls. Obviously the Citadel is not being built to defy any laws of the United States or the State of Idaho, or to withstand any .gov or .mil attack. Our fortifications are merely defensive for a SHTF world.

The Citadel will have between 3,500 and 5,000 households within the walls, with a single gate permitting access. The Citadel is not to be a closed society, instead a refuge for genuine Patriots who wish to live without neighbors who are Liberals and Establishment political ideologues, open for tourists who will be welcomed into our town to visit our planned Firearms Museum, shop in our Town Center, stay in a B&B; or hotel while vacationing and exploring the wonderful skiing, hunting and fishing opportunities in the area, and many other attractions we will offer.

If you are a patriotic American who believes in Jefferson's Rightful Liberty, who believes in the Constitution as written, who believes in the Declaration of Independence, and who wishes to live in a beautiful, secure mountain town that bans Liberals from living among us, consider exploring the Citadel as we evolve and build. If you need to escape your suburban life and the vulnerabilities your family faces, consider the Citadel.

Ours is a community of Riflemen and Patriots. Living in a house, townhome or condo within the Citadel requires residents to voluntarily assume responsibilities for the common defense. Our community is not for everyone. But if you think you and your family would like to live among real Patriots and to be prepared for an America when the SHTF, consider the Citadel.

If you are looking for a fresh start, a place to open your dream business in a community where Free Enterprise reigns, a home in a place that will be safe when the rest of America begins to suffer from the long train of abuses endured for several generations, consider the Citadel.

There have been lots of citadels in history, used for all kinds of purposes. I wonder if they know that it doesn't always work out quite they way they think it will.

h/t to JS
digby 12/04/2012 01:30:00 PM

 
These zealots can find a controversy anywhere

by digby

In case you were wondering who are the biggest jackasses in the Senate, here's a handy list:

Alexander (R-TN) Blunt (R-MO) Boozman (R-AR) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coats (R-IN) Coburn (R-OK) Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Cornyn (R-TX) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Enzi (R-WY)

Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA) Hatch (R-UT) Heller (R-NV) Hoeven (R-ND) Hutchison (R-TX) Inhofe (R-OK) Isakson (R-GA) Johanns (R-NE) Johnson (R-WI) Kyl (R-AZ) Lee (R-UT) McConnell (R-KY)

Moran (R-KS) Paul (R-KY) Portman (R-OH) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS) Rubio (R-FL) Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Toomey (R-PA) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)

They all voted against the UN Convention on Persons with Disabilities. And it came up three short because of it.

Why? Well, I'm guessing it's mostly because they are empty, soulless people who care nothing for those who are vulnerable and relish the opportunity to punish sick and disabled people whenever possible. But the ostensible reason was because the treaty calls for access to reproductive health for disabled people and this lunatic fringe equates "reproductive health" with abortion. (That's what kooky Ricky was going on about yesterday.)

What was that I heard about the right being neutered after the last election? I keep forgetting.

I must say that I'm particularly impressed that Kay Bailey Hutchison, the only woman in the group, managed to explicitly slap disabled women across the face in one of her last acts as a Senator. That's quite legacy you have there, Kay. You must be so proud.

Here's more on the treaty from UN dispatch.

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digby 12/04/2012 12:00:00 PM

 
Heckling by homeboys

Heh:

Buzzfeed:

Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) was shouted down by a large group of demonstrators Tuesday, temporarily preventing him from delivering an address at a "Campaign to Fix the Debt" roundtable in Washington, D.C.

BuzzFeed reports that Portman had prepared a speech about the importance of following Republican-backed plans to reform the tax code in order to bring about a longer-term solution to prevent deficit reduction measures, such as the fiscal cliff, from becoming commonplace. As he stood before the crowd however, four protesters took turns touting the importance of Medicare and Social Security and arguing against steps to slash the programs.

As additional hecklers stood up to tell their stories, authorities reportedly came forward to remove the dissenters from the event, which spurred a mass exodus among demonstrators chanting,"We want to grow, not slow, the economy!"

This is the good part:

After they vacated the hall, Portman reportedly resumed his speech. According to BuzzFeed, Portman was later seen meeting with four of the protesters, all Ohio constituents who spoke with the senator for nearly 20 minutes.

That's getting them where they hurt. They really don't like being heckled by their own constituents. Congratulations to the organizers.

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digby 12/04/2012 11:00:00 AM

 
QOTD: Sperling

By digby

We certainly have just seen that there is no shortage of passion on this issue, and it is a reminder that for all of the metrics we will discuss today, that go into this or that as a percentage of GDP, the ultimate metric, the ultimate end, the ultimate test for all we do in economic policy is whether it meets the fundamental values that make this country great — which are (1) are we nation in which the accident of your birth does not overly determine the outcome of your life, where everyone has an opportunity to rise; (2) are we a nation where the economic growth strengthens the middle class and creates more room for the poor and others who want to work their way up; and (3) are we creating an economy where those who work hard and take responsibility can raise their children with dignity, work with dignity, retire with dignity. That’s the ultimate test; that’s the ultimate metric for all we do.

That was from his speech today to "Fix the Debt." I like it.

Aside from the use of counter-productive framing a rhetoric, the rest was pretty good too:

I believe there is no reason we should not be able to find common ground for a balanced, fair and pro-jobs and pro-growth budget agreement. No one – on any side – should ever aspire to go over the cliff or in any other way to do harm to our economy as a budget tactic or political strategy. Those of us in positions of responsibility have an obligation to work together to find common ground – or at least painful but acceptable compromise – that moves our nation forward.

If we can pass the type of balanced agreement the President has advocated, we can beat the low expectations for those of us in Washington that exist for us and provide a spark of confidence to growth, investment and jobs. That type of agreement means balance between high-income revenues and mandatory spending; balance in terms of protecting the poor and the vulnerable, strengthening the middle class and asking the most from those who can contribute the most; and balance in terms of finding the fiscal sweet spot where we both create long-term confidence from showing we are bringing down and stabilizing our debt as a percentage of our economy, but also by including measures like infrastructure and emergency unemployment insurance to ensure we are giving our recovery and working families the strength and momentum they need in the immediate term. All of those are important components of balance, and I am happy that so many of the fiscal commissions, and I heard the reference from Senator Portman, understand that a strong agreement has to make sure that we strengthen the recovery, not contract the recovery in the short term. We don’t need to do that. We can design an intelligent long-term deficit reduction package that gives momentum and strength to jobs in the immediate term as we create more confidence that we will get our debt and deficits under control in the long term.

Make no mistake about it: no budget agreement – however robust – will provide the economic certainty and confidence we aspire to if job creators, investors and working families believe that, after we reach that agreement, just months down the road, we will start the next round of debt limit debacles. As both economist and business leaders have told us, only the greatest national tragedies have competed with the debt limit debacle of 2011 in terms of damaging consumer confidence. So let’s be clear: if we want to see the economic benefit of a bipartisan budget agreement we need to agree that the era of threatening the default of the United States as a budget tactic is over. The full faith and credit of the United States of America is something we should cherish and never use as a bargaining tool by any side. This should be beyond question at this moment.

Second, to the contrary to the claims of some, President Obama has put forward specific and detailed mandatory savings on the table and is deeply committed to leading on passing a balanced plan that includes tough, but smart, entitlement reform. Those of you, and there are many of you who are budget experts, will back be up on the following: it is only the President’s budget – not the House Republican budget – that has specific, detailed, and scorable savings in the first 10 years on Medicare. Those measures include not only provider savings designed to increase value for health services, but increases on high-income premiums in Medicare, and Medigap reform for new beneficiaries that is designed to discourage excess utilization. And I could go on and on. The President has specific proposals for indirect payment for farmers, federal workforce retirement savings, among many others. We understand that others, including people on these panels, will have other ideas – but so far we are still waiting to hear a clear and detailed definition of how those who disagree with us would propose do things differently.

Third, it is important that all those who care about our country reaching a balanced and robust deficit reduction agreement understand that it cannot come together without rates going up on income over $250K. As my colleague Jason Furman and I recently wrote, while the headline number that can technically be reached through simply limiting deduction on high income earners might seem in the ball park, such estimates quickly fall apart with the most minimal scrutiny. To take one proposal, the one to limit deductions to $25,000, it is often described as raising over $1 trillion. Yet, that estimate relies on tax increases on 17 million taxpayers making under $250K. If you remove the tax on those middle class families – and have a proper phase in, which we would all agree you should – the savings number comes down to $650 billion. But even at this point there is a fundamental flaw because the$25K deduction cap means that the charitable deduction for all high income people will essentially be eliminated. It is hard to design a better way to unite the most-well off Americans and those representing the poorest Americans, non-profits, churches, universities and hospitals against a single idea than proposing to completely eliminate the charitable deduction. If you then decide to make an exception for charitable deductions, your savings go down to anywhere from $350 billion to $450 billion.

That means if the President were to take the position that rates could not go up and he then found that so called high-income deduction savings max out at around $400 billion, then to get a robust and balanced deficit agreement, the President would have to be willing to agree to over $1 trillion in revenues through taxes that fall mostly on the middle class – something he definitively will not do. Even worse, such a plan would be asking these middle class Americans to face higher taxes simply to afford lower taxes on the most well-off.

That is why the President has made clear he cannot sign, and will not sign, any bill that does not raise rates or one that seeks to extend the Bush high income tax cuts at their current levels. Of course, tax reform on high income deductions should be part of the package. The President himself has, in his budget proposal for more than one year, has a 28 percent cap on tax expenditure for high income Americans. So the President has not only shown willingness to support that type of reform on tax expenditure reductions, he has led on the issue and put forward as specific and detailed of a proposal to raise over $500 billion as any as I’ve seen.

That is why the letter that came to the President from the House Republican leadership yesterday was so disappointing. It not only failed to recognize the necessity of raising rates; it actually called for lowering rates for the highest earners, which inevitably means a worse deal for the middle class. This is very unfortunate because recognition that we must raise rates on the highest income Americans stands today as the critical key to unlocking the door to a bipartisan budget agreement.

The letter also was disappointing because it failed to acknowledge what virtually every business leader today recognizes: that we must, for the sake of economic confidence and certainty, end the self-inflicted economic wound of sporadic debt fights that threaten default and tarnish the full faith and credit of the United States.

Again, there is no reason for us to approach — no less go over — the cliff. If our colleagues on the other side of the aisle will work in good faith with us, I am confident that we can reach a balanced, fair, pro-growth and pro-jobs agreement in the spirit of good faith and compromise. Thank you, and I’m sure everyone is looking forward to the discussion from the very impressive group of experts, Maya, that you have gathered today. So thank you.

I doubt that Grover Norquist, Pete Peterson or Paul Ryan much cared for that. I would imagine Cokie Roberts would be disappointed that it didn't prescribe the necessary pain for the old and sick. (And needless to say I think we need to be vigilant about all this "balance" talk.) But that was a principled statement that didn't give away the future security of average Americans. I'm mildly optimistic.

Update: Also too, this:

When the well-being of millions of Americans is at stake — as it is with major changes in Medicare and Medicaid — that shouldn’t be acceptable. If policymakers want to propose $600 billion in health care entitlement savings, as they have every right to do, they should show us the specific changes they would make to get there. Until they do, such proposals shouldn’t receive much credibility.
(Some news accounts report the House Republican leaders would raise the Medicare eligibility age to 67 and increase Medicare premiums for more affluent beneficiaries, although those items are not mentioned anywhere in the new offer. But if so, those measures would raise only about one quarter of the $600 billion and raise questions as to whether House Republicans have an answer for what would happen to many 65 and 66 year olds in states that turn down the health reform law’s Medicaid expansion or whether they are willing to turn back the clock nearly 50 years and let ours be the only Western democracy where significant numbers of poor elderly people can go uninsured.)

President Obama’s budget has over $300 billion in specific health entitlement savings. BowlesSimpson detailed its specific health entitlement savings as well. Only with specific proposals can we assess what level of cuts is reasonable and what is not.

For example, analysis shows that, although this wasn’t Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson’s intention, several of their specific health care cut proposals would likely harm vulnerable low-income elderly and disabled people. In response to such analysis, Bowles has expressed openness to modifying some of his proposals.

Other parts of the Republican offer — its $300 billion in cuts in non-health mandatory programs and its $300 billion in additional cuts in discretionary programs — have the same problem: no specifics. The proposal is an exercise in “look Ma, no hands” budgeting.

Take non-health mandatory programs. In the negotiations that Vice President Biden chaired in the spring of 2011 and the subsequent negotiations between President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner that summer, the two parties tentatively agreed on $240 billion to $250 billion in nonhealth mandatory savings. But though a sizeable share of those savings has since been enacted, the new Republican offer calls for $300 billion in savings here. Where would the tens of billions of dollars in additional savings come from? The offer doesn’t say. Consequently, we can’t assess this part of the proposal, either.

We can assess the proposal for $300 billion in additional cuts in discretionary programs. It likely would pose significant risks to investments in areas from education to scientific research to food safety to border security to children’s programs such as child care, WIC, and Head Start. Consider the following.

 The discretionary funding caps set by last year’s Budget Control Act (BCA) will cut
discretionary spending of $1.5 trillion over the next ten years [see this CBPP paper], compared to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) baseline at the end of 2010 — when Bowles and Simpson issued their report.
 And, the existing BCA caps are so austere that, by 2017, non-defense discretionary
spending will be at its lowest level on record as a share of the economy, with data going back to 1962.
 Making the squeeze tighter, some essential non-defense discretionary programs will
require large increases in the years ahead. As an analysis that we will issue shortly shows, spending for veterans’ health care will need to rise by several hundred billion dollars over the coming decade, as more Vietnam veterans reach old age (when health care costs climb) and the number of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans grows. To meet these costs for our veterans, which we will surely do, policymakers will have to cut other nondefense discretionary programs even more deeply to remain within the tough BCA caps.

Adding large further cuts on top of the steep cuts that the BCA requires would be most unwise, as former Senate Budget Committee Chairman Pete Domenici and former CBO
and Office of Management and Budget director Alice Rivlin have warned.

The Republican offer poses these problems for one main reason: its revenues are inadequate. At $800 billion, they don’t even offset the cost of extending President Bush’s tax cuts for the most affluent 2 percent of Americans and extending the current extravagant estate-tax break for the heirs of the richest 0.3 percent of Americans — as the Republican plan apparently does.

In short, people with low incomes or serious disabilities, and elderly people of modest means, would face substantial cuts — but people at the top would get to keep a significant share of their munificent tax cuts.

I have an idea. Why don't we just tax the rich, stimulate the economy and then come back and reassess in a few years? Bueller? Anybody?


h/t to Dan Froomkin
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digby 12/04/2012 09:17:00 AM