Month: July 2010

Lemon Zinger Teabaggerby digbyThe thing I love most about tea partiers is their common sense approach to sticky problems. For instance, Sharron Angle has a plan for girls who are raped by their fathers and get pregnant. Force the little girl to have a child and then adopt both of them out to a new family!

Angle: I think that two wrongs don’t make a right. And I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for some alternatives, which they did. And they found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade. Well one girl in particular moved in with the adoptive parents of her child, and they both were adopted. Both of them grew up, one graduated from high school, the other had parents that loved her and she also graduated from high school. And I’ll tell you the little girl who was born from that very poor situation came to me when she was 13 and said ‘I know what you did thank you for saving my life.’ So it is meaningful to me to err on the side of life.

No word on what happened to the incest victim, but that’s really not something anyone should waste much time worrying about.

And anyway it just shows that God provides many good alternatives to abortion for for young girls who are raped by their fathers — perhaps we could just bend the rules a little bit and the little girl could marry her daddy so they could make a new family all their own. Talk about lemonade!

I wonder if Third Way has found a way to accommodate these views inside the Democratic Party. There must be some common ground, here, right?

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Don’t Rain On Their Parade

by digby

Alex Pareene reports that the aristocrats have decided that they’ve just about had enough of all this whining from the lower order:

At the Atlantic Magazine’s “Aspen Ideas Festival,” the idle rich go to a ski resort town and pay the Atlantic Media Co. a great deal of money to listen to rich people with intellectual credentials of some kind talk at each other for a while. It may surprise you to learn that these wealthy elites think the biggest problem facing America today is that the wealthy elite have to pay taxes, while the poor and unemployed sit around collecting “Social Security” and “food stamps” and “unemployment benefits.” Real estate tycoon Mort Zuckerman — an intellectual nonentity

Fresh As The Day It Was Written

by digby

The Newshour got an exclusive look at a very special treasure: an unseen manuscript from America’s greatest writer, Mark Twain. And it’s on a subject of great interest at the moment — journalism, specifically “the interview:”

“Concerning the ‘Interview.'” No one likes to be interviewed, and yet no one likes to say no; for interviewers are courteous and gentle-mannered, even when they come to destroy. I must not be understood to mean that they ever come consciously to destroy or are aware afterward that they have destroyed; no, I think their attitude is more that of the cyclone, which comes with the gracious purpose of cooling off a sweltering village, and is not aware, afterward, that it has done that village anything but a favor. The interviewer scatters you all over creation, but he does not conceive that you can look upon that as a disadvantage. People who blame a cyclone, do it because they do not reflect that compact masses are not a cyclone’s idea of symmetry. People who find fault with the interviewer, do it because they do not reflect that he is but a cyclone, after all, though disguised in the image of God, like the rest of us; that he is not conscious of harm even when he is dusting a continent with your remains, but only thinks he is making things pleasant for you; and that therefore the just way to judge him is by his intentions, not his works. The Interview was not a happy invention. It is perhaps the poorest of all ways of getting at what is in a man. In the first place, the interviewer is the reverse of an inspiration, because you are afraid of him. You know by experience that there is no choice between these disasters. No matter which he puts in, you will see at a glance that it would have been better if he had put in the other: not that the other would have been better than this, but merely that it wouldn’t have been this; and any change must be, and would be, an improvement, though in reality you know very well it wouldn’t. I may not make myself clear: if that is so, then I have made myself clear–a thing which could not be done except by not making myself clear, since what I am trying to show is what you feel at such a time, not what you think–for you don’t think; it is not an intellectual operation; it is only a going around in a confused circle with your head off. You only wish in a dumb way that you hadn’t done it, though really you don’t know which it is you wish you hadn’t done, and moreover you don’t care: that is not the point; you simply wish you hadn’t done it, whichever it is; done what, is a matter of minor importance and hasn’t anything to do with the case. You get at what I mean? You have felt that way? Well, that is the way one feels over his interview in print. Read on …

I wonder what General Stanley McChrystal might think about that?

The show reported on a new autobiography, if you can believe that, which sounds fascinating:

SPENCER MICHELS … Overseeing the vault, as the room is sometimes called, is Robert Hirst, general editor of the Mark Twain Project, which, this year, 2010, is finally publishing, along with the University of California Press, Twain’s uncensored autobiography — finally because Twain decreed that this document not be published in its entirety until 100 years after his death, which took place in 1910, when he was 75.

ROBERT HIRST, general editor, Mark Twain Project: Most people don’t have the nerve to speak exactly what they believe while they’re alive, because of the repercussions. People will shun them. He says: I’m only human. I don’t want to be shunned. I don’t want to be thought ill of, and, therefore, I’m willing to write this down and put it on paper and leave it behind…

SPENCER MICHELS: The autobiography does include social and political material Twain thought too hot for the times, like these remarks about President Theodore Roosevelt’s role in the massacre of Filipino guerrillas after the Spanish-American War. ROBERT HIRST: “He knew perfectly well that to pen 600 helpless and weaponless savages in a hole like rats in a trap and massacre them in detail during a stretch of a day-and-a-half from a safe position on the heights above was no brilliant feat of arms. He knew perfectly well that our uniformed assassins had not upheld the honor of the American flag.”

It’s still too hot, a hundred years later. I’m afraid he’d be very disappointed to hear that.

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Co-dependent GOP Gadflies And Their Grateful Stenographers

by digby

Greg Sargent pointed to this fawning puff piece on Darrel Issa in today’s NY Times and dryly observed that one can read the entire article and have absolutely no idea if anything Issa has ever said has merit. The excitement that they might have a new Dan Burton to spoon feed them juicy administration scandals is palpable. It’s clear they can hardly wait for the Republicans to take over:

Every Congress seems to produce a designated pest, adept at drawing attention to nuisance issues (and his nuisance self) while making trouble for the other party when it controls the White House. Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California, played that role during the Bush administration, while Representative Dan Burton, Republican of Indiana, did it before him in the Clinton years. Now comes Mr. Issa, 57, who was charged with two long-ago auto thefts before eventually making a fortune selling car alarms; his signature product, the Viper, features his own deep voice ordering would-be burglars to “please step away from the car.” Mr. Issa’s voice has become inescapable, and not just among car thieves. He has been shouting forth on matters high-profile (the administration’s response to the BP oil spill) and obscure (a possible conflict involving a member of the National Labor Relations Board). Like Mr. Waxman and Mr. Burton before him, Mr. Issa (pronounced EYE-suh) is his party’s ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, a perch that can become particularly visible for a member of the opposition party. He is, depending on the point of view, an invaluable gadfly or an insufferable grandstander — terms not always mutually exclusive on Capitol Hill. “Getting oxygen is hard when you’re in the minority,” said former Representative Tom Davis, Republican of Virginia. “You have to create conflict. The press likes that.” The press loves Darrell Issa. The feeling is mutual — and co-dependent. He is a tireless publicity-seeker with a game-show-host smile and a Bluetooth affixed to his ear. His jet-black Congressional hair is brilliantly in place and perfectly stagnant. “Glue,” Mr. Issa said, is his secret. “That and a lot of spray.”

Adorable! So down-to-earth and self-effacing. His colorful past just makes all the more appealing. In fact, he’s just a lovable guy all around.

And just think once he has that gavel they won’t have write all that boring junk about economics and stuff if Issa can just get a good, meaty scandal going. Won’t that be a relief.

Remember, scandal politics can never work without the eager participation of the political press. And they are obviously chomping at the bit.

BTW: Does anyone remember Henry Waxman running to the press every five minutes with Bush administration pseudo-scandals? I think I would remember it, but maybe I was distracted.

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These Aren’t The Good Old Days

by digby

I remember my parent and grandparents talking about the Great Depression with wistful nostalgia, recalling how as much as people were hurting it brought out the best in them and made everyone pull together. I don’t know if it was true or just their own clouded memories of the past. But one thing is sure. If America ever pulled together in times of tribulation, it certainly isn’t doing it now:

A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that it’s OK for Orlando to restrict the group feedings that have brought dozens of homeless people to Lake Eola Park.

In a case watched by cities and homeless advocates across the country, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta reversed a 2008 ruling by a federal judge in Orlando who believed the city’s rules were unconstitutional.

“We won on every single point. It’s a complete vindication for the city,” said City Attorney Mayanne Downs. “The point here was to protect Lake Eola Park. It’s a very important part of our city’s heritage and history, and all we wanted to do was to protect it from an unfair burden.”

Advocates have continued to serve meals to large groups of homeless and needy people at Lake Eola Park since U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell ordered City Hall to stop enforcing its ordinance. In fact, in the nearly two years since his ruling, the regular feedings at Lake Eola have grown substantially, city officials say.

“Over 100 people have been gathering at the park every day, and it’s really becoming a problem,” said Commissioner Patty Sheehan, whose district includes the iconic downtown park. “It’s gotten to the point where people are telling me they are no longer going to take their families to the park anymore.”

[…]

The rules require advocates to obtain a permit for feedings of 25 or more people, and only two feedings a year are allowed in a given park. The City Council adopted the ordinance in 2006 after businesses and residents downtown complained that the feedings drew crowds of vagrants who caused problems outside the park.

And as we know, this is necessary tough love. Feeding hungry people just spoils them and makes them refuse to take one of the many available jobs out there which they think are beneath their skill level.

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“A Very Dangerous Thing”

by digby

Yesterday Chris Matthews asked Mark Halperin if all those wealthy wall street guys who are reportedly refusing to give money to Democrats are reaching a crisis in their lives and recognizing that supporting them is contrary to their class interest. (Seriously.)Halperin helpfully explained:

Chris both their falling love with Obama and now falling out of love with Obama is one of the most interesting sociological and psychological political stories going today. There are a lot of reasons why Wall Street sometimes goes to Democrats. First of all they are the party in power. Second, a lot of them are liberal on social issues or have spouses who are liberal on social issues. The past administration engaged in a war that was not popular on Wall Street and also ran up big deficits which Wall Street doesn’t like. So I don’t think there’s one big reason.

Also Obama is great in Manhattan living rooms.I think that really helped him. Bill Clinton was the same way. They can come up to Manhattan and go into these salons and just court people with their charm, their intellect, their Ivy league degrees.

Matthews: But isn’t it true that what they really want on Wall Street is lower taxes and less regulation?

Halperin: Well, there’s great frustration within this administration as you know, Chris. There are people in there who say, “You know what? The country wants regulation of Wall Street, these people got rich and deserve everything they get out of this bill.”

There are those, though, who consider that this administration’s in almost a crisis, and not just because of the campaign contributions. But if the president wants to move a lot of his agenda — immigration, energy,more on the economy — he’s going to need the support of people not just on Wall Street but in the wider business community and right now you’re right, they’re thinking about their self-interest.

And administration officials are frustrated. They call them in, they have meetings with them and they ask, “what should we do?” and they basically say “cut our taxes.”

Matthews: Well you know we hear these stories like I do Mark, we all hear them that say the president doesn’t have any warmth for Israel, you hear that he doesn’t have any warmth for business people generally. He’s sort of a liberal, a progressive you know, he’s for the third world, you know he looks out for the Palestinians, he looks out for poor people. He doesn’t have any sympathy for rich guys. But you know, in the Democratic party you’ve got to get your money from these guys. You have to make friends with them personally. You and I know this. You make personal friendships. Is that the conflict here? He’s asking these people to be traitors to their class basically and they’re tired of it. They don’t want that part anymore.

Halperin: They think he should be wearing a beret and standing off playing hackeysack…

Matthews: What does that mean?

Halperin: check with the junior staff there, that’s what they play during the breaks.

Look, he did not have relationships with a lot of business executives when he was a Senator. He’s just not been on the national scene long enough. He does not have a reservoir of good will. It’s been widely said there are not a lot of people in this administration with ties to the business community.

So now Chris, you find the same thing. Anybody who travels around the country and talks to people in business finds they not only think he’s too liberal, they don’t think he knows a thing about the economy.

Matthews: That’s what I hear…

Halperin: And that’s a very dangerous thing. Because any Democratic president has a high hurdle. Bill Clinton knew this and he worked it hard, with Bob Rubin and others. He was constantly thinking “how do I keep the pentagon on my side and how do I keep the business community on my side?” This president is in a dangerous place with the business community and Wall Street and the regulation bill. When this thing passes and they have a signing ceremony, it’s going to push a lot of Democrats further away from the White House, and that’s dangerous again, not just for his campaign contributions but for his agenda.

To paraphrase James Baker, I guess the idea would be “fuck the citizens, they don’t vote for us anyway.” (That begs the question of whether it would ever be possible to win elections, but perhaps that really is beside the point.)

Halperin went on like that for while longer basically spouting the same odd notion that the president can’t pass his agenda if businessmen don’t get a tax cut, until Matthews did finally note that the people are fairly miffed at the Big Money Boyz and the president has to place the blame somewhere. Halperin replied, correctly, that the BMBs are a bunch of sniveling Fauntleroys whose feelings are hurt by even the slightest criticism, so it’s not even enough for the reform bill to be watered down, he has to publicly defend their honor as well. (Which, by the way, he does.)So playing the blame game is off the table.

I get that Democrats want the Fat Cats’ money. And I get that they all have class solidarity and want jobs after they leave office — and that the trophy wives think Democrats are dreamy. But what law of nature says that the Democrats must seek permission from the business community in order to pass their agenda? I realize that most of the congress is bought and paid for, but I didn’t get the feeling that Halperin’s comments were aimed at that. It appears he truly believes that passing legislation which the leaders of the business community and Wall Street don’t perceive to be in their self-interest is something no competent leader would ever do — regardless of the circumstances. (His passing comment about the Pentagon reveals a similar belief about foreign policy.)It’s rare to see a top Villager express this so openly. But then Halperin is a special case.

And I think I’m going to really going to enjoy watching this pairing of the febrile Tweety and the oddly robotic Halperin trading insights from their respective bizarroworld perspectives. As a citizen I’m fairly appalled. As a blogger well… it just doesn’t get any better than this.

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Traitorous Waitresses

by digby

Who says the Republicans have no ideas?

[Minnesota]Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Emmer rekindled a smoldering debate Monday when he said minimum-wage workers who earn tips should have their wages reduced.

Minnesota is one of seven states that forbids employers from using a “tip credit” to avoid paying the full minimum wage otherwise required by law. The prohibition unfairly
burdens restaurants and small business owners and makes prices higher for consumers, and it should be ended, Emmer said.

“We want to make sure that everybody’s successful. Not just the employees, but the people who want to enjoy our restaurants,” Emmer said. “The employees can’t survive — they can’t take home the money they want to — if there aren’t customers, and, more importantly, if the owners … can’t provide the jobs.”

Absolutely. It’s terribly unfair for those greedy super-successful waitresses to be taking more than fair share. In fact if all retail and customer service workers would agree to just work for tips, we could turn this country around in a jiffy. Except, of course, all those people who would have below subsistence level income might not be able to eat in restaurants, but I’m sure the owners could make up for it by allowing them to work for food. Everybody wins!

h/t to POS

Tortured Memories

by digby

John Sides at The Monkey Cage discusses a mindblowing new report on public opinion about torture. Here’s the opening paragraph of the report:

Many journalists and politicians believe that during the Bush administration, a majority of Americans supported torture if they were assured that it would prevent a terrorist attack….But this view was a misperception…we show here that a majority of Americans were opposed to torture throughout the Bush presidency…even when respondents were asked about an imminent terrorist attack, even when enhanced interrogation techniques were not called torture, and even when Americans were assured that torture would work to get crucial information. Opposition to torture remained stable and consistent during the entire Bush presidency. Even soldiers serving in Iraq opposed the use of torture in these conditions…a public majority in favor of torture did not appear until, interestingly, six months into the Obama administration.

I love that last observation. It took the “liberal” validating it by using rhetorical tricks and refusing to hold anyone accountable for its use for a majority to finally decide that it must be ok. Some values we’ve got here.

But I think we’ve all learned that it pretty much doesn’t matter what we actually believe, the narratives that are spun about such things by gasbags and politicians are seen as proxies for public opinion and we end up watching these atrocities unfold from afar with the sense that it’s a trainwreck that nobody can stop from happening.

Sides continues:

The public opinion data from 2001-2009 is pretty unequivocal. See the paper for the requisite tables and graphs. It’s also worth noting that majorities oppose most specific methods of torture or “enhanced interrogation” even when those techniques are not labeled “torture.”

So why would politicians and journalists misread public opinion? Gronke et al write:

A recent survey we commissioned helps shine a light on this question. Psychologists describe a process of misperception—“false consensus”—whereby an individual mistakenly believes that his or her viewpoint represents the public majority…Our survey shows that this false consensus pervades the opinions of those who support torture, leading them to significantly overestimate the proportion of the public that agrees with them. Those people opposed to torture, in contrast, have remarkably accurate perceptions of the rest of the public.

Indeed, the idea of false consensus is the entire theory of The Village — a small group of elites who have convinced themselves that they are the living, breathing manifestation of the common man. If they and their friends all believe something, then other Real Americans must necessarily believe it too. (It’s being documented right now on the deficit.) I suppose it happens throughout society, but this is the one case in which it ends up affecting policy and therefore the lives of every American. And because it is such a small group, it makes them extremely subject to propaganda. Hence the “center-right” nation that only exists inside the beltway.

If anyone needs a little reminder of what some of these “thought leaders” were saying about torture, this gem from Village scribe Jonathan Alter ought to take you right back.

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Daddy Party Platform

by digby

Misty at Shakespeare’s Sister featured a fun quiz over the week-end:

Do you know whose platform this is?

Excerpts:

We shall ever build anew, that our children and their children, without distinction because of race, creed or color, may know the blessings of our free land.

We believe that basic to governmental integrity are unimpeachable ethical standards and irreproachable personal conduct by all people in government. We shall continue our insistence on honesty as an indispensable requirement of public service. We shall continue to root out corruption whenever and wherever it appears.

We are proud of and shall continue our far-reaching and sound advances in matters of basic human needs—expansion of social security—broadened coverage in unemployment insurance —improved housing—and better health protection for all our people. We are determined that our government remain warmly responsive to the urgent social and economic problems of our people…

The spirit of our people is the strength of our nation.

America does not prosper unless all Americans prosper.

Government must have a heart as well as a head.

Courage in principle, cooperation in practice make freedom positive.

[…]

Business and Economic Policy

We shall continue to advocate the maintenance and expansion of a strong, efficient, privately-owned and operated and soundly financed system of transportation that will serve all of the needs of our Nation under Federal regulatory policies that will enable each carrier to realize its inherent economic advantages and its full competitive capabilities.

[…]

Labor

[C]ontinue to fight for dynamic and progressive programs which, among other things, will:

Stimulate improved job safety of our workers, through assistance to the States, employees and employers;

Continue and further perfect its programs of assistance to the millions of workers with special employment problems, such as older workers, handicapped workers, members of minority groups, and migratory workers;

Strengthen and improve the Federal-State Employment Service and improve the effectiveness of the unemployment insurance system;

Protect by law, the assets of employee welfare and benefit plans so that workers who are the beneficiaries can be assured of their rightful benefits;

Assure equal pay for equal work regardless of Sex;

Clarify and strengthen the eight-hour laws for the benefit of workers who are subject to federal wage standards on Federal and Federally-assisted construction, and maintain and continue the vigorous administration of the Federal prevailing minimum wage law for public supply contracts;

Extend the protection of the Federal minimum wage laws to as many more workers as is possible and practicable;

Continue to fight for the elimination of discrimination in employment because of race, creed, color, national origin, ancestry or sex;

Provide assistance to improve the economic conditions of areas faced with persistent and substantial unemployment;

…[P]rotect more effectively the rights of labor unions, management, the individual worker, and the public. The protection of the right of workers to organize into unions and to bargain collectively is the firm and permanent policy…

[…]

Have an idea yet? Some more clues:

Health, Education and Welfare

…[T]he physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the people is as important as their economic health. It will continue to support this conviction with vigorous action.

…[L]eadership has enlarged Federal assistance for construction of hospitals, emphasizing low-cost care of chronic diseases and the special problems of older persons, and increased Federal aid for medical care of the needy.

We have asked the largest increase in research funds ever sought in one year to intensify attacks on cancer, mental illness, heart disease and other dread diseases.

We demand once again, […], Federal assistance to help build facilities to train more physicians and scientists.

We have encouraged a notable expansion and improvement of voluntary health insurance, and urge that reinsurance and pooling arrangements be authorized to speed this progress.

We have strengthened the Food and Drug Administration, and we have increased the vocational rehabilitation program to enable a larger number of the disabled to return to satisfying activity.

We have supported measures that have made more housing available than ever before in history, reduced urban slums in local-federal partnership, stimulated record home ownership, and authorized additional low-rent public housing.

We initiated the first flood insurance program in history under Government sponsorship in cooperation with private enterprise.

We shall continue to seek extension and perfection of a sound social security system.

Immigration

…[S]upports an immigration policy which is in keeping with the traditions of America in providing a haven for oppressed peoples, and which is based on equality of treatment, freedom from implications of discrimination between racial, nationality and religious groups, and flexible enough to conform to changing needs and conditions.

We believe that such a policy serves our self-interest, reflects our responsibility for world leadership and develops maximum cooperation with other nations in resolving problems in this area.

Click here for the answer. Let’s just say it was literally the world I was born into.

And let’s just say that party today would call the people who wrote that socialists.

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Post racist trash talking

by digby

I’m awfully glad that racism is no longer mainstream on the right anymore or this man might have the most popular radio show in the country with 25 million listeners a week. Or this absurdity of a scandal trumped up by a GOP hitman might be breathlessly discussed by Republican operatives as the “sleeper issue for the 2010 midterms.”

Thank goodness we don’t have to worry about that anymore.

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