Month: September 2010

Small Government

by digby

At least he knows he’s free:

Tom Mukherjee said it was hard to hear recordings of what he believes are Denver police officers torturing his 6-foot, 230-pound son until he shrieked in agony and begged for his life.

The long screams were captured on a friend’s cell phone recording of the clash on the night of April 10 when police responded to a noise complaint about Rohit Mukherjee’s going-away party in his Lower Downtown apartment.

“He’s crying out, ‘Please, help me!'” the father told 7NEWS Thursday.

When police asked if they could enter the apartment, the University of Colorado business graduate asked if officers had a warrant, the father said.

“That’s what set them off,” Tom Mukherjee said.

In a federal civil rights lawsuit filed Monday, Rohit Mukherjee accuses three police officers of bursting into his apartment and slamming him against a door.

He accuses Officer Abbegayle Dorn of choking him with her forearm across his windpipe until he couldn’t breathe, according to the lawsuit that named Dorn, two male officers and the Denver Police Department as defendants. Police have identified one of the male officers as Richard Fischer, but the second male officer’s name has not been released.

Dorn is a professional fitness model who was a contestant on the “American Gladiator” television show in 2008. Her gladiator show bio described Dorn as 5 foot 6 inches, 152 pounds.

Mukherjee said with his hands cuffed behind his back, the officers plowed his face across the floor in a “wheelbarrow fashion,” the lawsuit said.

As he was pinned on the floor, Rohit said a male officer repeatedly pounded his knee into the man’s jaw and bent his fingers backward, while Dorn stood rocking back-and-forth on his ankle, the lawsuit said.

Rohit said an officer also smashed his face into the walls of the hallway and elevator as he was taken to a patrol car, the lawsuit said.

“I believe that it was torture,” Tom Mukherjee said. “Why do they keep trying to break his jaw? Where is the humanity?”

The father gave 7NEWS photographs showing Rohit’s face with red scrapes and swollen fingers and knuckles. Rohit also suffered nerve damage caused by excessively tight handcuffs, the father said.

Party guests used their cell phones to videotape or photograph the officers’ alleged abuse. But Dorn seized the phones and dumped them in a bowl of water “to destroy evidence,” according the lawsuit.

However, a computer laboratory hired by the Mukherjees recovered video from one of the damaged cell phones.

The video showed Dorn snatching a cell phone from a party guest as a male friend lies on the floor in police custody and a man loudly curses the officers and vows to sue the police department. Tom Mukherjee said police had already taken his son to the patrol car by the time the video was shot.

Denver police spokesman Lt. Matt Murray said the department is investigating the incident but declined to discuss details of the ongoing probe. He said the three officers continue to work in District 6, which oversees downtown Denver.

Tom Mukherjee said his son is an upstanding young man who “never, ever” had any trouble with the law.

Rohit Mukherjee is a United States citizen who was born in New Jersey and grew up in Florida and Colorado, his father said. His family lives in Centennial, and Rohit graduated from Cherry Creek High School.

Surely you know what’s coming next:

But the father said police officers repeated called Rohit a “f—— Arab.”

This primer on how to record the police by Radley Balko is useful. It takes a brave person to do it, but if you have what it takes, this article gives a lot of helpful tips.

ht to kvl

Who Sez Neoconservatism Is Dead?

by digby

Who said this:

“Our national interest is this: We need a beachhead in the Middle East, that is a democratic beachhead, not a party but a form of government, And to me, if we have a democracy in several countries there, it become a beachhead. It also protects us because once that beachhead is established it can move further and further and hopefully free up the people of the middle east… However long we stay is a military decision that should not be shared with the public.

Dick Cheney, 2003? Don Rumsfeld, 2004?, Michael Ledeen, 1988?

Nope — Daniel Webster, Alan Grayson’s opponent.

This is the guy who also belongs to an odd fundamentalist religious cult. He’s really got it all.

The Anti-Tea Party

by digby

Chris Hayes has a nice post up about the enthusiasm gap among the Tea Party and the Anti-tea party (what, you haven’t heard about them?) which is composed of young people and African Americans who still have faith in the administration and the Democrats. And it’s fairly heart breaking:

That is the tragic and perilous irony of this political moment: the people with the most faith in the president and the Democratic Party are the hardest hit by the continuing economic disaster; it’s this brute fact that’s driving the so-called enthusiasm gap between liberals and conservatives. More than frustration with the lack of a public option or anger at a White House that seems to relish insulting the “professional left,” the flagging enthusiasm among Obama’s ’08 base is the product of a kind of cognitive dissonance between hope and reality. “Like a lot of people in my generation, I was really inspired by you and by your campaign and message that you brought,” a 30-year-old law school graduate told the president during a live town hall on CNBC recently. “And that inspiration is dying away. It feels like the American Dream is not attainable to a lot of us…. I really want to know, is the American Dream dead for me?”

The part that I highlighted above was always a hazard of the 2008 campaign. There was almost no where to go but down, even in the best of circumstances. And we are not in the best of circumstances. I assume they believe that “when the economy turns around” that enthusiasm will return in time for Morning in America in 2012. I just hope they have a Plan B.

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Coming Together In Hate And Intolerance

by digby

Before I get any more lectures about how the Tea Party is distinct from the religious Right (even after the Glen Beck revival show) read this from Adele Stan who has been following the religious right for years and has been closely tracking the Tea Party movement:

Many leaders of the Tea Party movement would have you believe theirs is a secular movement, one based on a free-market vision of the economy forged in the fires of our nation’s founding documents. But with control of the Congress up for grabs this November, the secular veil is growing a bit tattered in the tussle for power between Tea Party and religious right leaders. If the speakers at last weekend’s Values Voters Summit, an annual Washington conference for religious-right activists, have anything to say about it, Tea Party personalities had better drop that secular talk and walk slowly, with their hands up, toward the church door.

“[A]s I travel around the country, someone will tell me, ‘I’m a fiscal conservative, but I’m not a social conservative,'” Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., a Tea Party booster, told the Values Voter audience. “I want to straighten them out a little bit this morning, because the fact is you cannot be a real fiscal conservative if you do not understand the value of having a culture that’s based on values.”

In truth, these two movements have been intertwined since the dawn of the Tea Party movement in 2009, when Republicans with a religious-right constituency saw a way to seize greater power within their party by playing to the Tea Party crowd. The Tea Party favorites who graced the Values Voter stage are well-known to followers of the religious right: Like DeMint, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind. (who won the Values Voter presidential straw poll), and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., make frequent appearances before audiences of both the religious right and Tea Party groups.

At last year’s Values Voter Summit, any differences between Tea Party organizers and the religious right were downplayed. Then, the religious right was in a waning period, while the Tea Party movement was on the upswing. But as the Tea Party movement became a political force, with a lot of help from large, professionalized astroturfing groups, candidates for political office — and the experienced campaigners they need — had to be drawn from somewhere on the right-wing spectrum. And the most hard-core political experience on the right is found among the ranks of the religious.

The pro-corporate right has always found ways to exist peacefully with their Christian brethren. They just need to do a little work to let the rubes re-synthesize their various hated “others.” I’m fairly sure Muslim bashing will do just fine.

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Scared Revolutionaries

by digby

You just have to love these brave patriotic conservatives. They run from the legitimate press into the arms of their propaganda outlets and now they won’t even allow political rivals to be in the same room with them:

Yesterday the Jim Thorpe Museum was host to the annual President’s Forum, a gathering of University and College Presidents, the Board of Regents, and a handful of other dignitaries and invited guests. Speaking before this distinguished audience were the two candidates for governor, Lieutenant Governor Jari Askins, and Congresswoman Mary Fallin. The format for the event was that Fallin would first deliver remarks, then take questions, and then Askins would do the same.

However, just before she was to begin, Fallin made a strange request of the event organizers; she didn’t want the Lieutenant Governor in the room while she spoke. Nor did she want any of Jari’s staff in the room. In fact, she even scanned the crowd for faces that might be unfriendly, to see who else she could have ejected. Apparently she didn’t like the look on State Senator Mike Morgan’s face, because she told the event organizers she would not take the podium until he had left the room.

Senator Morgan was a guest of the event. He was seated at a table enjoying his lunch, until he was unceremoniously asked to gather up his things and leave the room until it became Jari’s turn to address the crowed, at which point he was welcome to re-take his seat.

These are the people swaggering around with guns and talking about revolution. But they’re just scared authoritarians underneath it all placing their faith in the Big Security State to do their dirty work for them.

Lucky for them we do have a big security state for which spending cuts are untouchable. Old people are going to be starving in the streets before anyone even thinks of cutting the Homeland Security budget. So they’re very, very safe …

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Get ‘Em On The Grid

by digby

I’ve been saying this for a long time. If it weren’t for the bigotry and xenophobia that’s really driving the immigration debate, this would the obvious solution to a number of problems, even the ones that don’t exist:

Crist called Social Security “one of the only federal programs that’s working” and criticized his U.S. Senate rivals for proposing reforms. Republican Marco Rubio has suggested raising the retirement age, while Democrat Kendrick Meek wants to “punt it to a commission,” said Crist, a former Republican running without party affiliation.

“I’m the only candidate in the race who is saying we need to preserve it as it is and protect it,” Crist told about 400 Century Village residents.

He added: “There are other ways we can help fund it, by creating a pathway to citizenship. Secure the border, make sure we have a pathway that is earned — no amnesty — and if we have those 11 to 14 million people productively participating in the American economy and paying the payroll taxes that would be attended to it, that would help Social Security.”

If demographics are the problem, as everyone says it is, then short of forcing seniors to work into their 70s (at what?) or forcing citizens to have more children, this is the obvious solution — more working people. (The demographics aren’t really much of a problem in reality, but since we can’t possibly raise taxes on the poor oppressed wealthy, the minor shortfall anticipated in 30 years or so could easily be dealt with with by allowing more people to pay into the system.)

Unfortunately, the problem for a whole lot of bigoted Americans is that they don’t like Spanish speaking people. They’re ruining our traditional mall and fast food culture which must be preserved for our children.

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Dump The Muslim And His “Tribe”

by digby

One of my psycho emailers sent this to me. It’s from Resistnet, one of the major Tea Party sites:

We were forewarned and no one would listen. This is one of the goals of the Islamic plan to get a Muslim in the White House of the USA. He is there to enable them to increase their invasion. American tax payers are paying to build Mosques world wide. Yet try to replace a Greek Church or a new Christian Church. We can’t put our hands in the air to pray but the Muslims can block traffic with their butts in the air for blocks and blocks which disrupts American Life.

Hussein is there to destroy the American Economy, Hussein is there to destroy our job markets and create chaos to make us weak. Thank GOD Americans are fighting back and Hussein and his tribe will out of there. How dare they attack and ignore our Constitution and our beliefs.

This is America and it will remain America once we get rid of the jerks and corruption in our White House and wants to destroy American and make us a One World Gov.

DUMP THE MUSLIM AND HIS TRIBE – THEY ARE A DISGRACE TO THE AMERICAN WHITE HOUSE.

The good news is that there’s not a bigoted bone in their bodies so at least we don’t have to worry about that. But who’s his “tribe”? Here’s the Christian Broadcast Network with the big news. They’ve got it all figured out:

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Bush Billionaire Tax Cut Dance

by digby

I don’t know what they’re going to finally do about extending these Bush tax cuts, but I think that their main objective right now is to give Blue Dogs and candidates running in conservative states the ability to finesse the issue until after the election. They could do this with a vote, of course, and let their Blue Dogs vote for billionaire bailouts, but I think they’re probably fairly worried about blow back from Democratic voters if they actually do it.

It’s kabuki and has been for the past month as they listen to strategists who insist that any Democrat who says he’ll vote for a tax hike, no matter who it’s for, is going to be slaughtered. It’s become a axiom. More importantly perhaps, they are deathly afraid of losing the Big Money from petulant little billionaire babies like this:

MR. HARWOOD HAD said that Wall Street felt Obama treated them like dogs, but he’d mixed his metaphors. “He went on 60 Minutes and said ‘fat cat bankers,'” one of the four senior executives The Observer talked to complained. “He didn’t say Dick Fuld or Ken Lewis, he just said ‘fat cat bankers.’ Meaning all bankers are fat cats. And we have over one million bankers in this country. And they’re all taxpayers.” That interview was in late December, after the year’s huge bonuses were announced. Later on in the interview, the executive, who watched the CNBC town hall but, exasperated, had to turn the sound off after five minutes, came back to the slur. “He just said that we are all fat cats! All of Wall Street! He said ‘fat cat bankers.’ He said ‘fat cat,’ he’s doing name calling, stereotyping, which is pretty amazing.”

Back during the second month of the administration, writing in New York magazine, Gabriel Sherman documented the anxious rage of a privileged class that was unsure of what to expect. What has happened to Wall Street under Obama, though, has not been bad at all. But never mind the death of the Brown-Kaufman amendment, which would have limited the size of the nation’s mega-banks; or the softened Volcker Rule; or Goldman Sachs’ record 2009, followed by a quarter this year when Bank of America, Citigroup, Goldman and JPMorgan made a trading profit every single day; let alone the administration’s satisfaction with the new Basel III rules on leverage and capital ratios, which were much laxer than they would have been without the banks’ massive global lobbying effort.

“We’ve been ostracized,” another source said. “I went to jury duty about a year ago, and when I said I’m in investment banking, the people in the jury room were making ugh sounds, and I’m like, fuck you. I’m proud of what I do. And I think this firm did a lot to get the recovery going. Somewhere ranked below a pimp and well operator is not right.”

A White House spokesperson did not comment. But Wall Street’s emotions have consequences. “If, as a result of this anger, credit becomes unavailable, particularly for small and mid-size businesses,” Mr. Schwarzman wrote in The Washington Post this year, before his Poland blunder, “then at best the economy will slow and, at worst, we will find ourselves in a dire situation.” He said bankers felt under siege and were responding by “becoming conservative,” a lovely little pun about lending and politics.

“He’s pissing on us and Wall Street and bankers and capitalism; then we have gotten afraid,” the executive who turned CNBC on mute said. “We then are not investing in maybe what we should invest in.”

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Democrats think that an extension of the Bush tax cuts would soothe that little boo boo. Except it won’t. This is about more than money. It’s about their wounded vanity and self-image as the most popular boys in school.I don’t think mere money can fix this. It’s going to require some very serious ass kissing.

The big problem for the rest of us, of course, is that if they don’t vote on extending the tax cuts before the election, it’s far less likely to pass. The arrogant Republicans of this lame duck congress will be screaming to high heaven about mandates and “consequences” and demanding that the congress and the White House fulfill the “will of the people” or they will burn the place down. And the Dems will acquiesce.

If they don’t vote on this now, and win, it ain’t happening short of a huge upset in the election. That could happen of course, but it’s pretty clear that nobody’s counting on it. The upshot is that all the Bush tax cuts are probably going to be extended. They’ll “compromise” by sunsetting it until just before the presidential election — when they can run the same game again.

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Lift DADT For Billionaires

by digby

After reading this piece by Sam Stein about the AIG and Exxon lobbyist who wrote the GOP Pledge I was reminded to pass along the new Tom Tomorrow, in which in a parallel universe the billionaires tire of obfuscating their real agenda and form their own “Tea and Crumpets” party even more blatantly devoted to serving themselves:

It must be exhausting having to live a lie. These billionaires should be able to live their lives in the daylight, proud to be who they are, free to spend their money without hiding behind front groups and Real Americans. It’s time to end the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell Policy for billionaires and pass the the DISCLOSE Act. Let the sunshine in.

Update:

Please let this oppressed minority participate in our system just like anyone else. Stop treating them disrespectfully. They have their valets help them put their pants on one leg at a time just like you and me:

Forbes magazine released its annual list of the 400 richest Americans on Wednesday, and their combined net worth climbed 8% this year, to $1.37 trillion. Wealth rose for 217 members of the list, while 85 saw a decline.

Bill Gates is yet again the richest man in America. The founder of Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), the world’s largest software maker, is first on the Forbes list with an estimated fortune of $54 billion, up from $50 billion in 2009. He’s followed by billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who is worth $45 billion.

Larry Ellison, chief executive of Oracle (ORCL, Fortune 500), stood at No. 3 with $20 billion.

Christy Walton took the No. 4 spot, while members of her family — whose fortune comes from Wal-Mart (WMT, Fortune 500) — took spots 7 through 9.

Charles and David Koch, of private energy conglomerate Koch Industries, tied for No. 5 at $21.5 billion each. Both men saw their wealth skyrocket by $5.5 billion from 2009.

Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, rounded out the list at No. 10 with $18 billion.

[…]

Despite the recession, finance and investment industries continued to dominate the list; 55 members are from the finance industry, while 54 are from the investments sector.

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Bowl Me Over With A Feather

by digby

I can hardly believe what Greg Sargent is reporting here. Rand Paul isn’t really a principled libertarian? Seriously?

In the past, Rand has echoed his father’s views, opposing the Iraq War, and from the neocon point of view, the Paul family’s isolationism is as whacked out as anything hatched by the anti-war left.

Now, it turns out, Rand is looking to mend fences. He made a quiet pilgrimage and met privately with some of Washington’s most influential neocons, as well as the pro-Israel lobby, delivering them a not-too-subtle message: Never mind my father’s views, you guys can trust me now.

Why next thing you know somebody will be telling us that the Tea Party only cares about spending when Democrats are in charge.

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