Month: July 2010

CNN blows up the Melting Pot

by digby

This is helpful:

According to a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation national survey, the vast majority believe that most immigrants are basically good, honest people who are hard-working. However, nearly seven in ten say that immigrants are a burden on the taxpayer, 62 percent think they add to the crime problem, and 59 percent believe they take jobs away from Americans. The poll, released Wednesday, asks about all people who have immigrated from other countries in the past ten years, and not just about illegal immigrants in the U.S. “The results may explain why most Americans think that the policies that made the U.S. a ‘melting pot’ strengthened the country a century ago but do not make the country stronger today,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

Well there you have it. “Most Americans” think immigrants are “basically” good, honest people but they are also criminals and indolent leeches who are stealing our jobs. That makes sense.

I don’t know exactly why CNN thought this was worth doing, but if their polling is correct, it’s apparent that “most Americans” are a bunch of nativist jerks. Perhaps that’s true. It’s certainly always been the case that Americans have always tried to pull the ladder up behind them, whether it was the English settlers to the Germans, then the Germans to the Italians and the Slavs or everybody to the Chinese and other Asians. As for Latinos, well, they have always been here and we just use them as scapegoats whenever we feel like kicking somebody. Apparently, that would be now.

CNN’s definitely stirring the shit with this, though, at a time when it’s terribly irresponsible to do so. When they say “immigrants” in the current climate, most people think they are talking about Hispanics. If they are going to do this, they really need to get specific and ask people if they are talking about Indian doctors or Polish construction workers or Jamaican business owners when they talk about this. My neighbors are French and Irish immigrants. Are they included in this indictment? Or is this just the usual plain old bigotry against Mexicans. I think it would be very helpful to be precise in this debate. You can’t talk about this unless you understand the real issue.

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What Did You Do In The Teabag Revolution Daddy?

by digby

I guess I’d find this video more chilling if the people in it didn’t all look like sales associates at Sears. But still, these aren’t kids. They’re all gun toting adults indulging in a Red Dawn fantasy and you just never know where that might go. Evidently, some of the people in the video are politicians.

These people are all waiting for is the man on the white horse, even if they don’t know it. Any ideas who he (I think he has to be a he) might be?

Update: Joe Sudbay reports that the revolution in Missouri is having some growing pains:

Sean at FiredUp Missouri has the details:

KMBC’s Micheal Mahoney: “More that two dozen Missouri TEA parties say a bid by US Senate candidate to capitalize on their movement has ‘shocked’ them…’Roy Blunt voted for TARP and Cash for Clunkers. For Michele Bachmann to come to Missouri and give the impression that all the Missouri Tea Parties support Roy Blunt is an abomination of everything we have been standing up for,’ said Jedidiah Smith, a Tea Party leader in Franklin County, Missouri.”

Legacy

by digby

I’m afraid that Garry Wills is right:

Most presidents start wondering—or, more often, worrying—about their “legacy” well into their first term. Or, if they have a second term, they worry even more feverishly about what posterity will think of them. Obama need not wonder about his legacy, even this early. It is already fixed, and in one word: Afghanistan. He took on what he made America’s longest war and what may turn out to be its most disastrous one.

“The Good War” meme was a self-laid trap for all Democrats, who consistently fight the last war for fear of being called wimps. This dynamic has caused more grief at the hands of the US than any other.

By the way, in case you haven’t heard, the congress passed yet another “emergency” war supplemental last night. After listening to a bunch of tripe for weeks about having to offset costs to extend unemployment benefits, and watching teachers all over the country be fired for lack of funds, that vote may be the single most illustrative move we’ve seen yet to illustrate that the fall of Rome comparisons are not as far fetched as we like to think.

I had an interesting conversation on the plan last week with someone who said that he thought all politics was a waste of time because both sides were just playing games and had no principles. He used as an example the fact that Democrats are for the war now that Obama’s running it. And I had no argument.

Read the whole item by Wills. It’s short and very interesting. He even takes a shot at Jonathan Alter.
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Colbert Does A Breitbart

by digby

In case you missed Colbert’s return and his take on the Sherrod matter … well, just watch:

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Still Dreaming of Gilead

by digby

I have often wondered how much the success of feminism, particularly the removal of the stigma of “unwed motherhood” has contributed to the acceptance of anti-choice views. You know, back in the day it was shotgun wedding, hiding out for 9 months and giving your child up for secret adoption or shunning, which made all choices terrible. Loosening up those social structures must have made at least a few people more sympathetic to the idea that abortion is an unnecessary “luxury.” Single motherhood is no so common as to be completely unremarkable,thanks to the same feminist revolution that fights for women to be able to make a different choice if they want to. It was all part of the big agenda to finally recognize women’s full agency and autonomy.

Unfortunately, the hardcore right wing was always hostile to every part of that agenda and used abortion as one of their rallying points. But really it was about civil rights amd personal freedom — all of them. And they haven’t laid down their arms.

Here’s culture warrior Phyllis Schlafly, caught “explaining” that the godless abortion pushing Obama administration is simultaneously encouraging unwed births for political purposes:

Via Michigan Liberal:

“One of the things Obama’s been doing is deliberately trying to increase the percentage of our population that is dependent on government…For example, do you know what was the second biggest demographic group that voted for Obama? Obviously the blacks were the biggest demographic, yall know what was the second biggest? Unmarried women. 70% of unmarried women voted for Obama. And this is because when you kick your husband out, you’ve got to have Big Brother Government to be your provider. And they know that. They’ve admitted it. And they have all kinds of bills to continue to subsidize illegitimacy, which is now nationwide, running at 41%. 1.7 million babies were born in our country illegitimately last year. The Obama administration wants to continue to subsidize this group because they know they are Democratic votes. Republicans never could have given the amount of money they are going to get. And as Ronald Reagan said, if you subsidize something you are going to get more of it, and if you tax it you’re going to get less of it. [Applause]

Robin Marty at RhReality who flagged this, comments:

Remember, these are the people who fight against birth control, and say that there should be no access to abortion. Oddly enough, it doesn’t look like they want people to have babies, either.

I actually think they want people to have lots of babies — good, little (preferably white) conservative babies who are products of patriarchal traditional marriages where women grimly submit themselves to their husbands in all ways. Barring that most desirable choice, women should be required to keep themselves “pure.” In other words, they wish to go back to the hypocrisy and repression of the time before the women’s movement.

Serena Joy in A Handmaid’s Tale was partially based on Schlafly, after all.

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“The Issue Is The Mindset”

by digby

Chris Dodd bobbed and weaved earlier today about whether or not Elizabeth Warren can be confirmed to the new CFPB and others are calling into question her ability to run an agency. I’m also hearing from both sides of the political aisle that it’s wrong to argue that she should be confirmed because liberals are backing her. For all I know they are all right.

But I don’t care. She needs to be nominated and then the Fed needs to immediately appoint her as interim chief of the agency because of what Michael Hirsh writes here:

Elizabeth Warren Could Boost Public Confidence

Obama’s economic team is the ultimate insiders’ club, which is exactly why an outsider is needed to lead the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

There has been, in recent days, a groundswell of support for Elizabeth Warren, one of the top candidates to head the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. One less-noted reason for all this outspoken fervor is that, for many liberal critics, Barack Obama’s economic team is something of an intellectual cabal. Starting with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and chief economic adviser Larry Summers, the senior members of this team are all people “who have Bob Rubin on their speed dial,” as one of these critics told me. They are, in other words, part of the deregulatory brigade led by then–treasury secretary Rubin in the 1990s who helped set the stage for the financial disaster by giving Wall Street most of what it wanted, whether it was Glass-Steagall repeal or reduced regulatory oversight of derivatives trading.

[…]
Hence the enthusiasm among the losers [in Financial Reform] in this debate for Elizabeth Warren, the fiery Harvard Law professor who largely sided with the Volcker-Lincoln camp and who first came up with the idea for a consumer-protection agency. Warren is most definitely not a Rubin acolyte. She’s more likely to be the sort of person who reveals to the public just how many administration speed dials Rubin occupies. Warren has long abhorred the sort of inside-the-box thinking that led a lot of smart people in Washington to conclude for more than two decades that Wall Street could be left to sort things out on its own.

And it’s real outside-the-box thinking that may be needed now. Because as “pay czar” Kenneth Feinberg’s recent report makes clear, little has changed in how Wall Street operates, and the big banks are even now finding their way through the new law’s many loopholes and continuing to award traders outrageous amounts of money for taking speculative risks. Feinberg lamented the payout of some $1.6 billion in bonuses and retention awards even as the government was bailing out the firms in 2008 and 2009; as a solution, he proposed a voluntary “brake provision” that would allow the boards of companies to reverse their contractual obligations to pay out such extras. But as Wallace C. Turbeville, a former VP at Goldman Sachs turned financial blogger, put it: Feinberg “might have more success asking the lions of the Serengeti to give the wildebeests a sporting chance of making an escape … The government’s flaccid approach to Wall Street compensation, embodied in the Feinberg report, is appalling. These young traders are simply doing what America has told them to do. They are allowed to earn obscene amounts of money using the advantageous information, technology, and capital of their employers. Making money from less powerful counterparties is like shooting fish in a barrel.”

[…]Nonetheless, it is undeniable that those who have been most aligned with the “progressive” side of the Wall Street reform issue and, often, most farsighted and outspoken about the dangers are still on the outside of the administration looking in. Among them: Brooksley Born, the former chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission who famously warned of out-of-control derivatives trading in the ’90s; Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz; and Michael Greenberger, the former Born deputy who as an outside consultant helped to toughen transparency requirements for OTC derivatives in recent months. One leading “progressive” critic told me recently, “Our ruling intelligentsia in economics runs the spectrum from A to A-minus. These guys all talk to each other, and they all say the same thing.” Or as Stiglitz himself put it at one point: “America has had a revolving door. People go from Wall Street to Treasury and back to Wall Street. Even if there is no quid pro quo, that is not the issue. The issue is the mindset.”

I heard Warren speak at Netroots Nation and she was eloquent on all of this. It’s clear that her focus is on working families and not the banks and Wall Street. It’s vital that someone represents those interests and she’s the right one to do it because she comes to it with a political constituency (albeit one that is despised by certain members of the administration) but one which Obama will need as he goes into 2012 against the spoiled princes who are so rich that they are now more worried about being loved by strangers than they are about taking care of the golden goose. (After all, the administration has hardly laid a substantive glove on them, but they get hysterical at every tiny affront to their dignity.)

They truly believe they are doing God’s work and they are going to work to pay Obama back for his imaginary apostasy. (Besides, Republicans are so much easier to deal with — they are allowed to openly and proudly worship money, which makes the Masters of the Universe the Centers of the Universe, something the Democrats have a hard time with, what with all the minorities, unions and lowly paid womenfolk in their coalition.)

Warren has a very winning way about her which, if used properly, could be a huge political boon to the Democrats. Of course she will bother the Big money Boyz to no end, but that’s the point. The public needs to see someone doing that or the whole Democratic party is going to be left holding Bush’s ball mess with no way out. Hirsh concludes:

It may well be that Obama can’t win on this issue no matter what he does. After all, even among some so-called New Democrats, never mind Republicans, there is a growing sense that the president is anti-business. Still, if he can’t beat ’em, maybe he should join ’em.

I hope they’re getting this. The administration is not going to escape being seen as anti-business. The Big Money Boys are Nobles fighting for their “honor” now and they want to teach the Democrats a lesson. So he may as well fight, and he’s going to need unconventional Generals with big armies to do it. Warren is one of the few out there who has what it takes.

Update: Plus Krugman
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Steaming Teabags

by digby

Via Kos, I see that the Council of Conservative Citizens (the heir to the White Citizens Councils) is chiding their brothers in the tea party for failing to stand up tall for their shared supremacist ideals. It seems like the average white racist just can’t get a break any more.

The article linked above features a sick blog post by a radio talk show host and sick piece of work, named James Edwards:

His website, the Political Cesspool, declares as its motto: “Conservatism is dead. Liberalism has no answers. What comes next? The rise of ethnopolitics.”

After the NAACP passed a recent resolution condemning the Tea Party as a bunch of bigots, the ragtag band of would-be American revolutionaries launched into denials. That’s because they’re week-kneed, lily-livered racists whose instinct is to “bend over and grab their ankles”, wrote Edwards, who suggested they connect with their inner-cackling villains.

Click over to read the swill, if you care to.

What’s more interesting to me is this:

Last January, a state chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC) set up shop at a Tea Party rally in Invernness, Citrus County. Senate candidate and Tea-Party darling Marco Rubio headlined the event, while the CCC handed out pamphlets and swag.

They wrote a proud blog entry about it: “Florida CofCC works crowd at TEA party.” The Anti-Defamation League warned of the group’s attendance a day ahead of time.

If I had to guess, that part of what the NAACP was talking about when they asked the tea party to condemn the racial elements in its midst.

In case you don’t know the history of the CCC, it’s really bad — and really Republican.

Most Americans learned of the CCC in late 1998, when a scandal erupted over prominent Southern politicians’ ties to the brazenly racist group. After it was revealed that former Congressman Bob Barr (R-Ga.) gave the keynote speech at the CCC’s 1998 national convention and that then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) had spoken to the group five times, both claimed they knew nothing about the CCC. However, an Intelligence Report investigation, publicized by national television and newspaper reports, made clear what the CCC really was: a hate group that routinely denigrated blacks as “genetically inferior,” complained about “Jewish power brokers,” called homosexuals “perverted sodomites,” accused immigrants of turning America into a “slimy brown mass of glop,” and named Lester Maddox, the now-deceased, ax handle-wielding, arch-segregationist former governor of Georgia, “Patriot of the Century.”

As evidence of widespread association between Southern GOP officeholders and the CCC mounted, Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson took the unusual step in 1998 of asking party members to resign from the group because of its racist views. A resolution moved through the U.S. Congress “condemning the racism and bigotry espoused by the Council of Conservative Citizens,” although it ultimately failed. (Congress had earlier condemned the black supremacist Nation of Islam in a similar manner, but failed to do the same with the CCC. Republican Party leaders, likely embarrassed by Lott’s very public connection to the CCC, managed to defeat the censure effort.)

But six years later, many Southern lawmakers were still pandering to and meeting with the CCC — and still pleading ignorance. According to a 2004 Intelligence Report review of the Citizens Informer, no fewer than 38 federal, state and local elected officials had attended CCC events between 2000 and 2004, most of them giving speeches to local chapters of the hate group.

The Tea Party, representing as it does the hard core right wing of the Republican Party, quite logically features a large contingent of racists. Some of us have been aware of them for years, but now that the rock they had been hiding under was turned over when Bush and Rove successfully strip mined the GOP and they are scurrying around running into each other, it’s hard to avoid them.

BTW: take a look at the comments. Granted, they don’t mean anything in themselves, but they are a little snapshot of this issue. Here’s one skirmish:

The Quadfather says:

The Tea Party movement is not in itself a racist movement. It’s goals have nothing to do with race. If there are few minorities at these events, it merely reflects what little respect for our constitution that members of the other races have. The Tea Party is a constitutional movement. The Constitution is a white man’s creation, and it nust be defended by white men and women because nobody else will.

Bob Fairlane says:

The Tea Party is a tax protest grass roots movement. It is not a party like The Libertarian Party.

And why does it surprise you that white Americans want lower taxes, prosecution of pork spenders, and an end to the reign of Obama (the Chicago Gangster who repeatedly wastes money, supports huge government power grabs, affronts whites and supports black-power media personalities and organizations).

crusader88 says:

I partly agree with the CCC. Though racism proper denotes an abhorrence of people because of their race which is largely absent from the Tea Party movement (and indeed in the CCC, if you follow their website), white people in the Tea Party are rightly sticking up for their own interests and resisting the genocidal depredations of the multiculturalists. To be sure, most Tea Partiers believe colorblindness is the ideal; I believe, however, that God has a place for all races in his divine plan. The white race is under an unprecedented threat of enslavement or demographic extinction, and rightly merits a defense by those of its number who appreciate its beauty and good qualities and want it to persist.

To the earlier question on the CCCs thoughts on Catholics, they have nothing against members of the Church founded by Jesus Christ, but are obviously upset with the USCCB and other clergy for mishandling the immigration issue to the point of effectually denying our Nation’s sovereignty.

Claudia says:

Don’t really care for the Tea Party, they’re pretty much made up of older wealthy citizens(mostly White) who don’t want to pay taxes and want “god” in everything. Just reading some comments here pretty much prove that this group does have some bigots in their organization. But in the end I really don’t care, even if this group was racist free there still a bunch of idiots who I could never relate too or ever associate with, they don’t care about people like me or like my father who fought for this fuckin country and has been laid off since 2007 and looks for a job constantly but is considered “lazy” by these elitists Republicans. Fuck’em.

John Thomas says:

Claudia, we don’t mind paying taxes, we’re just sick and tired of YOU NOT PAYING TAXES. One half of this country has to pay taxes, the other half gets a check in the mail from the IRS every year. It’s time for you to pay your fair share and quit stealing half of OUR EARNED money to pay for your lazy welfare grubbing @sses. The big 0’s “Base” is made up of criminals, thieves, looters and the like. Speaking of “Elitists”, maybe you should take a look at the sorry bunch of liberals you’ve elected. Fuck you Claudia.

I think that gives you a fair overview of the CCC position.

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Begging the Banks, Beggaring The Country

by digby

Yesterday I took a little trip down memory lane to look at some of Hoover’s policies during the depression. This was one of the highlights —- his effort, years into the depression — to persuade the banks take voluntary action:

Hoover in 1931 urged the major banks in the country to form a consortium known as the National Credit Corporation (NCC). The NCC was an example of Hoover’s belief in volunteerism as a mechanism in aiding the economy. Hoover encouraged NCC member banks to provide loans to smaller banks to prevent them from collapsing. The banks within the NCC were often reluctant to provide loans, usually requiring banks to provide their largest assets as collateral. It quickly became apparent that the NCC would be incapable of fixing the problems it was designed to solve, and it was replaced by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation.

Dday writes today about some very sad deja vu:

Sherrod Brown (D-OH) has sent a letter to four top banks (Bank of America, Citi, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo) asking them – begging, really – to cooperate with the HAMP (Home Affordable Modification Program) and help homeowners avoid foreclosures.

It’s not exactly the same thing, of course. But it’s the same principle. 80 years later, no lessons learned, it’s back to begging the banks to “do the right thing.”

It won’t work any better now than it did then (although I can’t blame Brown, who’s reduced to this because there is no other path available for a single senator.) Banks have shown that don’t even “do the right thing” if it’s in their own self interest. Ask Uncle Alan:

“I made a mistake in presuming that the self-interests of organizations, specifically banks and others, were such as that they were best capable of protecting their own shareholders and their equity in the firms,” Greenspan said.

“In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working,” Waxman said.

“Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan replied. “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”

Credit to Greenspan — at least he’s willing to let go of his orthodoxy in the face of reality crashing down on his head. The rest of the wingnuts are doubling down on Hooverism, as if it was just invented last month at a Heritage Foundation retreat.

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Suppressing Evidence

by digby

It looks like this is going to be crazy Tuesday. Get a load of this:

The ACLU of Maryland is defending Anthony Graber, who potentially faces sixteen years in prison if found guilty of violating state wiretap laws because he recorded video of an officer drawing a gun during a traffic stop. In a trend that we’ve seen across the country, police have become increasingly hostile to bystanders recording their actions. You can read some examples here, here and here. However, the scale of the Maryland State Police reaction to Anthony Graber’s video is unprecedented. Once they learned of the video on YouTube, Graber’s parents house was raided, searched, and four of his computers were confiscated. Graber was arrested, booked and jailed. Their actions are a calculated method of intimidation. Another person has since been similarly charged under the same statute. The wiretap law being used to charge Anthony Graber is intended to protect private communication between two parties. According to David Rocah, the ACLU attorney handling Mr. Graber’s case, “To charge Graber with violating the law, you would have to conclude that a police officer on a public road, wearing a badge and a uniform, performing his official duty, pulling someone over, somehow has a right to privacy when it comes to the conversation he has with the motorist.”

The ACLU has posted a fact sheet (PDF) about this case.

You can see the video here.

This isn’t the only incident. It’s a trend:

In response to a flood of Facebook and YouTube videos that depict police abuse, a new trend in law enforcement is gaining popularity. In at least three states, it is now illegal to record any on-duty police officer.

Even if the encounter involves you and may be necessary to your defense, and even if the recording is on a public street where no expectation of privacy exists.

The legal justification for arresting the “shooter” rests on existing wiretapping or eavesdropping laws, with statutes against obstructing law enforcement sometimes cited. Illinois, Massachusetts, and Maryland are among the 12 states in which all parties must consent for a recording to be legal unless, as with TV news crews, it is obvious to all that recording is underway. Since the police do not consent, the camera-wielder can be arrested. Most all-party-consent states also include an exception for recording in public places where “no expectation of privacy exists” (Illinois does not) but in practice this exception is not being recognized.

Massachusetts attorney June Jensen represented Simon Glik who was arrested for such a recording. She explained, “[T]he statute has been misconstrued by Boston police. You could go to the Boston Common and snap pictures and record if you want.” Legal scholar and professor Jonathan Turley agrees, “The police are basing this claim on a ridiculous reading of the two-party consent surveillance law – requiring all parties to consent to being taped. I have written in the area of surveillance law and can say that this is utter nonsense.”

There’s no reason that police officers should ever have an expectation of privacy when dealing with the public. Ever. The mere idea of it is authoritarian. I realize that videos and audio tapes don’t always reflect the context, but the burden of proof is on the government, not the citizen and police have to factor that into their behavior.

Police have a very difficult job. They should be paid very well, have many benefits and be allowed to retire with good pensions at a fairly early age, a package which most of them have (thanks to unions) and which no one begrudges them. The stress level is extremely high and the dangers are many. But being a police officer requires a specialized set of skills that includes being able to govern their emotions and use common sense in difficult situations. Trying to suppress evidence of when they fail to do that is both illegal and immoral. And it flies in the face of American values on all sides of the tribal political divide. Let’s hope the courts don’t decide that we need to ratcvhet up the police state by siding with officers who hope to cover up their unprofessional and illegal behavior.

via
h/t to bb

There’s Crazy and Then There’s Crazy

by digby

Howie sez:

It’s too easy to dismiss John Boehner, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin, David Vitter, Virginia Foxx and even Rand Paul and Sharron Angle as merely a gaggle of crackpots and misanthropes unworthy of being taken seriously. All of them have won Republican primaries and some have won general elections. Inasmuch as they can implement their ideas and the agendas of the corporate CEOs and lobbyists who finance their careers, they’re actually dangerous to our families and our country.

Two progressive public interest political action committees, Blue America and Americans For America, have teamed up to help expose some of the real dangers behind these characters. Today we’re releasing our first video: Think Crazy.

Howie’s writing up the crazy TanMan John Boehner, Amato’s got the kooky Grizzly Mama and I’ve got my favorite nutty Li’l Libertarian Teabagger, Rand Paul.

What can I say about Rand? That he’s a fringy wingnut who calls himself a libertarian but believes women’s bodies are owned by the state? That he’s a self-accredited ophthalmologist who rails against socialist Medicare while taking millions of dollars from the program (because doctors have a “right” to make a comfortable living)? That he’s a misinformed misanthrope who thinks that the Americans with Disabilities act requires two story buildings to install elevators and that unemployed workers need “tough love” rather than unemployment insurance? That he’s a deluded (or mendacious) fool who thinks that civil rights for African Americans could have been achieved through voluntary efforts on the part of bigots? Well, he’s all those things and more.

After all, he’s a man who uttered these ridiculous words the night he won the nomination:

“We’re from the Tea Party and we’ve come to take our country back.

Rand Paul is not just a crazy politician. He’s not even a crazy libertarian, at least in the classical sense. He’s a crazy preacher and he’s spreading the Bircher gospel, wrapped up in libertarian/Tea Party mantle. He’s pure kook, from top to bottom.

Let’s not forget that he’s also a crazy Republican — and fits right in with the new mainstream of the Party.

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