Month: November 2008

Terrorist Sissies

by digby

FYI, PropH8 protesters are terrorists. (Actually, wingnuts trying to be funny is an official act of terrorism, in my view…)

al Gayda On The March: “By their fruit, ye shall know them.” The New York Times ends it’s piece with an interesting quote from a prominent Mormon and co-founder of the WordPerfect Corporation:

Mr. Ashton described the protests by same-sex marriage advocates as off-putting. “I think that shows colors,” Mr. Ashton said. “By their fruit, ye shall know them.”

They warned against a potential increase in terrorist activity during a presidential transition. I just don’t think they predicted the right source. And with large majorities of Hispanics and blacks supporting Prop 8 – the New York Times is pointing fingers – at the Mormons. Funny that the black churches draw a pass. It seems al Gayda and the NYT’s like their targets to be easy and white.

Michelle Malkin is following this horrific tale of thuggish gays with the same zeal she pursued the shocking Jamil Hussein non-story, while “reasonable” conservatives call it the “sissy hissy fit” telling gay people they could get more flies with honey than with vinegar.

20 years ago, in most places, gays were pretty thoroughly closeted across most of the nation. Four states (including, as I said, New Hampshire) offer civil unions. Another four have “domestic partnerships.” And the world has not come to an end.

When you push a demand for something, you can usually expect a push back. And the harder you push, the harder the pushback will likely be.

There’s an old saying that “you get more flies with honey than vinegar.” The folks out in California could stand to be reminded of that.

When it comes to social justice, it’s always the same old story:

I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality. Actually, we who engage in nonviolent direct action are not the creators of tension. We merely bring to the surface the hidden tension that is already alive. We bring it out in the open, where it can be seen and dealt with. Like a boil that can never be cured so long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must be exposed, with all the tension its exposure creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured.

Amen.

Update: Oh, and gays (and their secular “friends”) are fascists, too:

GINGRICH: Look, I think there is a gay and secular fascism in this country that wants to impose its will on the rest of us, is prepared to use violence, to use harassment. I think it is prepared to use the government if it can get control of it. I think that it is a very dangerous threat to anybody who believes in traditional religion. And I think if you believe in historic Christianity, you have to confront the fact. And, frank — for that matter, if you believe in the historic version of Islam or the historic version of Judaism, you have to confront the reality that these secular extremists are determined to impose on you acceptance of a series of values that are antithetical, they’re the opposite, of what you’re taught in Sunday school.

How do you stop such terrorist fascists? They are trying to destroy your life.

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Odd

by digby

Tweety and other gasbags, including Christopher Hitchens(an extremely thoughtful critic as always) are all wringing their hands about Obama’s possible choice of Clinton as Secretary of State because he promised change and this is so not it. He’s destroying his mandate before our very eyes.

In other news, Obama is also known to be considering keeping Bush administration cabinet member Robert Gates as secretary of defense, and former secretary of State and war architect Colin Powell is breathlessly mentioned being on the short list for a number of posts. This strikes everyone as being a perfect example of how Obama is bringing change to Washington.

I know the Republicans are busily trying to airbrush George W. Bush out of history, but the people who served him actually did serve more recently than any Democrat. Keeping them in the cabinet or inviting them back is not actually change unless you think Obama’s message of change actually meant “keeping Republicans in charge.”

Clearly, the political establishment assumes that’s the only possible definition, but I’m not sure that’s what the people meant when they voted for change. (A fair number of them may have even voted for a change back to the good economic times under Democrat Bill Clinton.)

OK, We’ll Stop Printing Money Now

by dday

The White House is saying that they may not use all of the bailout money before January 20 and that they will offer about $350 billion of it to President-elect Obama, in a magnanimous gesture, for him to use it as he sees fit. How gracious! The Bush Administration has only drawn $4 TRILLION dollars out of the Treasury and they’re letting Obama handle the rest!

Given the speed at which the federal government is throwing money at the financial crisis, the average taxpayer, never mind member of Congress, might not be faulted for losing track.

CNBC, however, has been paying very close attention and keeping a running tally of actual spending as well as the commitments involved.

Try $4.28 trillion dollars. That’s $4,284,500,000,000 and more than what was spent on WW II, if adjusted for inflation, based on our computations from a variety of estimates and sources.

Not only is it a astronomical amount of money, it’s a complicated cocktail of budgeted dollars, actual spending, guarantees, loans, swaps and other market mechanisms by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury and other offices of government taken over roughly the last year, based on government data and new releases. Strictly speaking, not every cent is directed a result of what’s called the financial crisis, but it arguably related to it.

There’s a chart at the link if you want to see for yourself everything you’ve bought this year. By the way it hasn’t done the trick yet.

I think at this point, stripping Henry Paulson of his authority to spend more cash, with Ben Bernanke thrown in for good measure, isn’t an option but a duty. And Chuck Grassley’s call for the newly minted oversight board to investigate conflicts of interest among all the Goldman Sachs execs serving as the ladlers of corporate cash during the bailout is absolutely warranted. However, this oversight is coming at the END of the process, not the beginning. With four trillion already passed out, it’s not like putting the brakes on the giveaways is going to make much of a difference today. This is not to say we shouldn’t be investigating and scrutinizing what amounts to theft, as well as building a new regulatory structure for the future (yes, listen to Eliot Spitzer on this one – setting aside his personal life he’s probably the most knowledgeable person in America about what needs to be done).

And there’s, of course, a double-edged sword to all the newfound vigor on the right, from Grassley and James Inhofe and others, to watch the Treasury Department, after leaving the barn door open to the tune of four trillion. This is but a prelude to the wave of fiscal austerity that we’re going to be hearing 24-7 from those who will claim we just can’t afford health care and investments in alternative energy and infrastructure and early childhood education. We actually need some immediate relief right now, for state and local governments and the unemployed, and my concern is that this retrospective shock at the bailout price tag from Republicans will be used as an excuse to deny that, sending us into the downward spiral we saw in 1930 and 1931, when too much dithering and not enough action created an even bigger economic hole.

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New New Deal

by digby

Shoulda Become A Republican

by digby

Damn, wingnut welfare is awesome:

Joe the Plumber’s latest small business? Apparently: himself. JTP’s deeply researched, carefully edited, thoughtful, and not at all hastily-put-together-to-capitalize-on-his-media-celebrity-before-it-expires treatise on The American Dream—written “with” spiritual novelist Thomas N. Tabback—is slated to be released December 1. Yes, of this year. Oh, and it will be titled, humbly and rather delightfully, Joe the Plumber: Fighting for the American Dream. To celebrate—and to ensure that copies of the book are sold!—YOU THE PEOPLE can now obtain a Freedom Membership from Joe’s hastily-put-together-to-capitalize-on-his-media-celebrity-before-it-expires Web site, SecureOurDream.com. The Membership, like Freedom itself, ain’t free…but the $14.95 yearly fee practically pays for itself! With it, you’ll get:

1) Total Access to “Joe The Forum” where you may chat directly with Joe
2) Subscription to the “Joe The Blog” monthly newsletter
3) Free Shipping on all “Joe The Plumber” merchandise
4) Free Signed Copy of Joe’s forthcoming book “Joe The Plumber” – Fighting for the American Dream
5) Become an integral part of an American movement to restore our government to the people

And don’t forget that he’s working on a country music record contract too. I think his first album is going to be called “There’s A Sucker Born Every Minute: Songs by Sam The Con Man.”

Dead Revolutionaries

by digby

There are many reasons to be grateful that John McCain didn’t win the election, but his reliance on and trust in this economic evildoer has to be at the top of the list:

Phil Gramm, the former United States senator, often told that story of how his mother acquired his childhood home. Considered something of a risk, she took out a mortgage with relatively high interest rates that he likened to today’s subprime loans.

A fierce opponent of government intervention in the marketplace, Mr. Gramm, a Republican from Texas, recalled the episode during a 2001 Senate debate over a measure to curb predatory lending. What some view as exploitive, he argued, others see as a gift.

“Some people look at subprime lending and see evil. I look at subprime lending and I see the American dream in action,” he said. “My mother lived it as a result of a finance company making a mortgage loan that a bank would not make.”

On Capitol Hill, Mr. Gramm became the most effective proponent of deregulation in a generation, by dint of his expertise (a Ph.D in economics), free-market ideology, perch on the Senate banking committee and force of personality (a writer in Texas once called him “a snapping turtle”). And in one remarkable stretch from 1999 to 2001, he pushed laws and promoted policies that he says unshackled businesses from needless restraints but his critics charge significantly contributed to the financial crisis that has rattled the nation.

He led the effort to block measures curtailing deceptive or predatory lending, which was just beginning to result in a jump in home foreclosures that would undermine the financial markets. He advanced legislation that fractured oversight of Wall Street while knocking down Depression-era barriers that restricted the rise and reach of financial conglomerates.

And he pushed through a provision that ensured virtually no regulation of the complex financial instruments known as derivatives, including credit swaps, contracts that would encourage risky investment practices at Wall Street’s most venerable institutions and spread the risks, like a virus, around the world.

Many of his deregulation efforts were backed by the Clinton administration. Other members of Congress — who collectively received hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from financial industry donors over the last decade — also played roles.

Many lawmakers, for example, insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the nation’s largest mortgage finance companies, take on riskier mortgages in an effort to aid poor families. Several Republicans resisted efforts to address lending abuses. And Congressional committees failed to address early symptoms of the coming illness.

But, until he left Capitol Hill in 2002 to work as an investment banker and lobbyist for UBS, a Swiss bank that has been hard hit by the market downturn, it was Mr. Gramm who most effectively took up the fight against more government intervention in the markets.

“Phil Gramm was the great spokesman and leader of the view that market forces should drive the economy without regulation,” said James D. Cox, a corporate law scholar at Duke University. “The movement he helped to lead contributed mightily to our problems.”

In two recent interviews, Mr. Gramm described the current turmoil as “an incredible trauma,” but said he was proud of his record.

He blamed others for the crisis: Democrats who dropped barriers to borrowing in order to promote homeownership; what he once termed “predatory borrowers” who took out mortgages they could not afford; banks that took on too much risk; and large financial institutions that did not set aside enough capital to cover their bad bets.

But looser regulation played virtually no role, he argued, saying that is simply an emerging myth.

Complicated events such as this economic meltdown can’t ever be attributed to just one person. But there are those who stand out above all others for their pride in their error and and their arrogant unwillingness to take responsibility for what they did.

Phil Gramm was one of the Generals of the Republican Revolution and the economic prophet of the free market fundamentalists. Like neocons such as Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, he and fellow travellers like Dick Armey and Newt Gingrich have been completely discredited and should be allowed nowhere near power again as long as they live.

It was only 14 years ago that Dick Armey wrote this in the Heritage Foundation’s Policy Review, on the 50th anniversary of the publication of The Road To Serfdom:

“Liberation is at hand…. A paradigm-shattering revolution has just taken place. In the signal events of the 1980s–from the collapse of communism to the Reagan economic boom to the rise of the computer–the idea of economic freedom has been overwhelmingly vindicated. The intellectual foundation of statism has turned to dust. This revolution has been so sudden and sweeping that few in Washington have yet grasped its full meaning…. But when the true significance of the 1980s freedom revolution sinks in, politics, culture–indeed, the entire human outlook–will change…. Once this shift takes place–by 1996, I predict–we will be able to advance a true Hayekian agenda, including…. radical spending cuts, the end of the public school monopoly, a free market health-care system, and the elimination of the family-destroying welfare dole. Unlike 1944, history is now on the side of freedom.”

That worked out.

Sunday Reruns

by digby

Josh Marshall points out how bizarre it is that the Sunday morning shows are still featuring many more Republicans, even though the whole government is about to be run by Democrats. But, it’s even weirder than that. All the gasbags are already obsessed with the next election — they can’t stop talking about the great Republican comeback of 2012. I’ve heard of withdrawal pains but this is ridiculous.

But then again, it only takes one real liberal to set the Republicans straight. Steve Benen reports:

On ABC’s “This Week” earlier, George Will explained his belief that FDR financial/regulatory policies discouraged investment and created an environment in which the “depression became the Great Depression.”

Fortunately, Will was sitting next to Paul Krugman.

To hear Will tell it, the Roosevelt administration stood in the way of investors. In a fairly devastating 45 seconds, Krugman not only set the record straight, but explained that it was FDR’s desire to balance the budget and cut federal spending that contributed to a decline in 1937.

Don’t fuck with the shrill one.

And is it possible to even dream that Will’s embarrassing trope, which has only been acceptable up to this point in the outer recesses of wingnutville, will be as vigorously rebutted by every Democrat? After the last few years I think it’s fair to say that they can be successful at saying black is white and up is down if nobody says anything… at least for just long enough to make things infinitely worse.

Ht to fdl

Non-negotiable

by digby

Greenwald and Talk Left have been sounding some small alarms about Obama’s intelligence advisor John Brennan and it’s definitely something to keep a close eye on. I’ve speculated before that the intelligence community is going to put a lot of pressure on the new administration to endorse some form of torture and pledge to “get their backs” if they are caught. And if they don’t get their way, they can cause a lot of trouble.

Greenwald’s post today points out that Brennan has said that he doesn’t believe in waterboarding, which is good. And he thinks there should be more debate about all this, which is also good. But there is plenty of evidence that he’s in favor of rendition, warrantless wiretapping and although he’s obviously not comfortable with the way that the Bush administration went about this business, as Greenwald points out in his addendum:

The most incriminating aspect of Brennan’s views, in my opinion, is his support for the Bush administration’s “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Since he says he opposes waterboarding and isn’t on record opposing anything else, one can reasonably assume that must include some combination of things like stress positions, forced nudity, hypothermia, sleep deprivation, exploitation of paranoias, extreme isolation, hanging by the wrists, threats, and other previously forbidden techniques authorized by the Bush administration.

I’m not trying to get ahead of myself. But Brennan is being talked up as the replacement for Michael McConnell and that’s potentially problematic. If Obama comes out and explicitly says that there will be no more use of the techniques Greenwald lists, or anything else that can be construed as torture, and makes sure that his subordinates know he means exactly that, then I’m not quite as worried about the effects of this on foreign policy. But if he tries to split the baby or compromise on it, then he will automatically lose a huge portion of his moral authority both at home and abroad.

They could just go back to secretly torturing and spying as the government did in the past, but after all this — and the political ramifications if it got out — let’s hope not. And anyway, that’s not what the intelligence types want. They want immunity for torture (excuse me, “enhanced interrogation”) and they want it to be public. I don’t think there’s any going back.

Torture is not negotiable and it can’t be redefined or “smoothed out” or anything else. This one is a bright line. I give Obama the benefit of the doubt at this point, of course — nothing’s been announced. But I’m nervous. The institutional pressure is going to be acute and I’m not reassured by the presence of people like John Brennan. The fact that he isn’t as bad as Dick Cheney just isn’t good enough.

Taser Update

by digby

Just a little note to let you all know that the latest development in taser nation is to allow average citizens to carry tasers. For self-defense. Or maybe just to keep the kids in line.

Here’s a recent typical incident:

The stoush between the two Queensland law-enforcement bodies comes amid a CMC investigation into police officers who in April held down and tasered a 16-year-old girl who had defied a move-on order because she was waiting for an ambulance to treat her sick friend.

The girl, who cannot be named, had a charge of obstructing police dismissed after the Children’s Court last Friday ruled one of the two officers involved did not give adequate directions, under police move-on powers, before he and two private security guards held down the slightly built teenager, shot her in the thigh with the taser and then arrested her, initially on a charge of assaulting police.

Closed circuit television footage of the incident, seen by The Australian, shows an apparent breach of the guidelines in tasering the slightly built juvenile – who was sitting down in a garden bed the time – where there was no risk of injury to police.

Wouldn’t it be great if parents and teachers could do that? And why shouldn’t they? It’s not like they leave any marks or anything…

Police departments are very happy with them:

Last September, Suffolk Police Officer Duffie McLamb deployed a Taser on a mentally disturbed patient who was struggling after being pulled from the third floor hospital window he’d just tried to jump out of.

McLamb’s efforts earned the officer a lifesaving award.

In Norfolk last month, a cop shocked Pamela Brown – known as the Hula Hoop Lady of Granby Street – three times with a Taser as he tried to arrest her.

That officer, who was criticized by some for being too quick to use the Taser, was placed on administrative duty pending a review of the case. The incidents show the two sides of Tasers: the controversial weapon and the device that can deter crime and save lives.

In South Hampton Roads, two police departments, Suffolk and Norfolk, widely outfit police officers with Tasers. Suffolk got them in June 2007, Norfolk in February.

Suffolk officers have deployed them 88 times this year, a figure that includes drawing a Taser, but not activating it.

In the first seven weeks the Tasers were used in Norfolk, 20 people were struck with Tasers, and 48 others decided to cooperate with police before getting shocked.

I suspect the police would get a 100% compliance rate if they put a gun to citizens’ heads and threatened to pull the trigger. They’d probably only have to kill a few people before we got very clear on how important it is to immediately comply when a police officer gives us an order (and hope to hell we understand what they want of us or that they aren’t in a bad mood.) And since they are already killing people with tasers anyway, maybe this is the more efficient way to go.

I still think the best, safest, way to use this taser technology is to figure out how to implant electrodes in every person so that they can be dropped to the ground writhing in pain whenever they do things that those in authority feel are problematic. That way the authority figures can remain “safe” when they are torturing citizens into compliance, which is what this ostensibly is all about. After all, it doesn’t last for more than minute or so and after it’s all over the person knows exactly what they did wrong and won’t do it again. That’s what liberty is all about.

Update: And there’s some news on “shockwave” which will be a fantastic advance in the control of political dissent.

Update I: Here’s a story about Antioch police officers being sued by a San Francisco police inspector — for tasering her. Maybe if all the authority figures start tasering each other we might get some insight into why this is so wrong. It certainly isn’t obvious to them in the abstract why they shouldn’t be allowed to zap citizens with 50,000 volts for any reason at all.

And by the way — volunteering to be tasered doesn’t prove anything. It’s the freedom, stupid.

Update III: Oh, and one thing that’s really, rally cool about tasers is that you can use them on animals both for fun —- and to save time. It’s no biggie. After all, it doesn’t kill them and doesn’t leave any marks. In fact, tasers are tested on pigs to see how much pain they can tolerate.

Imagine how great it will be when Americans can buy these things down at WalMart! I feel safer already.

Simply The Best

by digby

Condi Rice gave an “exit interview” with the NY Times today and made this observation:

I’ve heard people commenting on how in this election, in far places, people talk about what is a caucus and how does that differ from a primary. I think that links up with the fact that the United States under this president has been more active and more insistent that democracy is not just something for a few. People are watching, and I think they’re trying to learn from democratic experience.

And what they are also learning is that America’s particular democratic system is bizarre. In all the democratization around the globe in the last century not one country has adopted our system of government. You’d think that would be cause for some reflection. I suspect that all this talk overseas about caucuses and primaries basically comes down to …”what the hell?”