Month: February 2011

Opening another front in the war against women

by digby

One would think that after the ACORN videos were shown to be edited and misleading that the mainstream press would be a little bit more skeptical of this latest nonsense about Planned Parenthood , but from what I’m seeing on the TV, they are choosing to cover this as a he said/she said and it’s legitimizing the hoax — and the tactic.

But needless to say, the right wingers are using them to further their radical anti-choice agenda. Media matters has the story:

Since the release of a second video from anti-choice group Live Action, which shows a Planned Parenthood worker at a Richmond, Virginia, clinic advising a man and woman posing as a pimp and prostitute, right-wing media have suggested that the video shows Planned Parenthood engaged in wrongdoing. In fact, the Richmond clinic reported the incident to Planned Parenthood’s national security team, and legal experts have agreed that the worker’s advice in the video is consistent with state law.

She told them that it was illegal for underage persons to obtain abortions without parental consent unless they obtain a judicial bypass. That is the letter of the law. And yet the wingnuts are having a full blown hissy fit over it by suggesting that this person did something wrong.

Now there is also the issue of these people pretending to be sex workers exploiting underage girls. But Planned Parenthood strictly followed the law and reported these hoaxters to the FBI. So unless the idea is that Planned Parenthood is not allowed to tell patients what the law states and must perform a citizen’s arrest rather than call the FBI when confronted with a self-proclaimed sex trafficker, this should not even be worthy of comment.

But if this goes the way that these things tend to go, I suspect it will put judicial bypass back on the agenda of abortion rights that are no longer available in many places. After all, conservative legislators will now have “evidence” that it’s being used to exploit under age prostitutes.

Update: And it does appear that they are doctoring their videos again.

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Gang Beatdown

by digby

The victim was a 16 year old burglar, who was convicted. And the court refused to allow the tape into evidence because it would be prejudicial.

But that’s not the worst story I’ve heard this week about police violence:

A Goodwater police officer shot a defendant twice inside the municipal courthouse Thursday after the man became unruly in response to a jail sentence, eyewitnesses said.

Struck by at least one bullet, the man, identified by witnesses as Brian Keith Ford, was taken by helicopter to the hospital at the University of Alabama in Birmingham, where he was in critical condition.

Court records show that Ford, 25, was due in court on a harassment charge filed by a neighbor who claimed he cursed at her in December after accusing her of talking to police about him.

The Alabama Bureau of Investigation (ABI) is investigating the shooting. The initial investigation indicates that the man attacked the judge and tried to forcibly obtain a firearm, according to a Bureau statement.

Eyewitnesses said the man was on crutches and became belligerent when Municipal Judge Carlton Teel sentenced him to jail on a misdemeanor harassment charge.

Attorney Bill Denson said Ford went for the judge’s gun before being shot.

[…]

Sara Williams said she was sitting in the front row when the man, whom she knew, got agitated after the judge fined him $800. He waved one of his crutches in the air.

“The police were hollering for him to get down” when an officer opened fire, she said.

Another woman who said she was in the courtroom at the time of shooting also disputes the official version of what happened.

“That man never went for no gun,” Marion Allen said.

The guy was on crutches.

Unless the judge was wearing his gun over his robe or kept it on the top of the bench I don’t see how this suspect could have known he had one to try to grab. But he was carrying a deadly weapon –a crutch. There was obviously no way that law enforcement could have done anything else but shoot into a crowded courtroom. Like tackle the man. Who was on crutches.

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Spinning Into Austerity

by digby

Steven Moore just told me that the unemployment rate is down because of the tax cuts signed in December. I’m guessing this is part of the new “cut and grow” GOP spin:

GOP leaders and their top aides say they are recalibrating their communications strategy. They are shifting from a constant uttering of “Where are the jobs?” to explaining how their actions on the floor will spur the economy.

The centerpiece right now is an argument over whether a proposal to slash spending on domestic programs will create jobs.

The cuts, envisioned for a Continuing Resolution to fund the government through the end of September, will “restore restraints to the broken budget process and help promote better economic conditions for sustained job creation,” Republicans argued in a fresh set of talking points circulated to lawmakers Thursday.

They’ll also take to the House floor to direct committees to cut back what they consider harmful regulations — and during the course of the debate, committee chairmen will speak about how they are working to create jobs. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) told committee chairmen during their interviews that their committee work must create jobs, reduce spending and shrink government.

“The expectation is that all Committee Chairmen conduct an appropriate and thorough oversight process with a focus on economic growth and private sector job creation, or as we call it – the cut and grow agenda,” said Cantor spokesman Brad Dayspring. “That means a review of Administration policy that had a negative impact on jobs as well as a focus on proactive solutions that empower the private sector to get America working again.”

Gosh, I sure they can find common ground with the president on this because it’s working out so well everywhere else it’s been tried:

Fiscal austerity has already been started in Greece, Ireland, Spain and Portugal, and this seems to be pushing all of them back into recession. Over the last four quarters, growth in Greece was negative and falling, and bond investors are once more demanding sky-high returns to compensate their risk. The excuse in these countries was that they have little choice because they are stuck in the European monetary union and don’t have the ability to depreciate their exchange rate.

The U.K. may be a purer case of the harm austerity at the wrong time can inflict. Britain now looks as if it is headed back into recession on fear about the damage that will be done by massive spending cuts and tax increases, which haven’t even gone into effect yet. Government ministers with their talk of austerity have already smashed confidence.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne has said the economy was “bankrupt” and had “run out of money,” which of course is simply untrue. Prime Minister David Cameron and other ministers made similar unsupported claims, which seem to have had a deleterious effect on animal spirits.

Confidence Game

Despite the government’s claims that its intent was to raise confidence, consumer and business confidence tumbled right after the new government took office.

Businesses and consumers know what is coming and have cut back accordingly. Retail spending has flat-lined. The balance of trade is deteriorating. Unemployment is rising, and house prices have started to fall again.

Earlier this week, the Office of National Statistics reported that fourth-quarter gross domestic product slumped 0.5 percent while forecasters had expected a gain of 0.5 percent. The ONS suggested that bad weather — as if the U.K. had any other kind in the winter — had contributed to the decline and without it growth would have been zero.

[…]

The government’s Plan B to this point has been to count on the central bank to keep rates down and, if the recovery goes into reverse, do more quantitative easing. But with inflation rising, and minutes of the last meeting of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee showing signs of hawkishness, it’s hard to imagine that monetary policy will ride to the government’s rescue.

Fiscal austerity in the U.K. is failing. The only good thing to be said about it is that it might offer some lessons for the U.S.

I’m not sure they’re taking the right lessons. But if they are, I have a sinking feeling that they will feel they need to pretend to be pushing an austerity agenda without really doing it — by cutting the entitlements which don’t kick in until the future. This will be how they will require “sacrifice” and prove their deficit seriousness — by requiring it of the elderly of the future, aka the younger people of today. And the diabolically clever thing about it is that they’ll do it in the name of their grandchildren.

Sadly, it won’t work. Democrats who sign on to this are being useful idiots for the conservatives and very useful servants for the wealthy. Nobody else will benefit in the short run and a whole lot of people will suffer in the long run. But then, as the old story goes, the people who did this will all be dead.

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They Don’t Know Who To Hate

by digby

Limbaugh this morning, per Media Matters:

LIMBAUGH: Ladies and gentlemen, it is being breathlessly reported that the Egyptian army — Snerdley, have you heard this? The Egyptian army is rounding up foreign journalists.

I mean, even two New York Times reporters were detained. Now, this is supposed to make us feel what, exactly? How we supposed to feel? Are we supposed to feel outrage over it? I don’t feel any outrage over it. Are we supposed to feel anger? I don’t feel any anger over this. Do we feel happy? Well — uh — do we feel kind of going like, “neh-neh-neh-neh”?

I’m sure that your emotions are running the gamut when you hear that two New York Times reporters have been detained along with other journalists in Egypt. Remember now, we’re supporting the people who are doing this.

He’s a wonderful fellow, isn’t he? A real freedom loving mensch.

And then he changed his mind. Guess why?

LIMBAUGH: Also, according to Mediaite, Fox News’ Greg Palkot and crew have been severely beaten and are now hospitalized in Cairo. Now we were kidding before about The New York Times, of course. This kind of stuff is terrible. We wouldn’t wish this kind of thing even on reporters. But it’s — it’s serious. And you know, Anderson Cooper got beat upside the head 10 times when he was there. Still feeling it — still feel sorry about — reporters all think that the protestors ought to welcome them, they’re on the same side.

I don’t know when I’ve seen a story that so confused the wingnut gasbags before. They honestly don’t know what to do when they don’t know who they’re supposed to hate.

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Walk This Way

by digby

Huffington Post’s Delaney, Grim and Graves have written a blockbuster article about the effects of being underwater and walking away:

Nearly one in every four homeowners across the country owe more on their home than it’s worth. Once a month, those 10.8 million are faced with a question that cuts to the core of the American Dream and offers a confusing collision between a deep-seated sense of personal obligation and a cold, simple business calculation: Should I pay my mortgage?

For decades, there was only one answer for most people: Of course I should keep paying, it’s the right thing to do. Besides, the argument went, a home is a great investment. Today, in the wake of the most seismic housing collapse in the nation’s history, that logic has increasingly been challenged by homeowners despondent about their lack of options.

Although researchers find that some underwater borrowers who could continue paying their mortgages strategically default anyway, the vast majority continue to pay. Many homeowners, out of a combined sense of fear, shame, courage and morality, resist making what is otherwise a logical financial decision.

Walking away from a home, however, is more than the sum of a few business decisions. For many homeowners, it’s either an act of civic defiance against a system they no longer buy into or the end result of being shuffled around by institutions that don’t help them solve their financial problems.

While walking away is a frightening and dangerous step into the unknown, millions have beaten the path in the past few years. To find out what it’s like to walk away, The Huffington Post asked readers who were considering making the move, or who had already done so, to write in and share their stories. That was in January 2010. A year later, we followed up with them to see how they reflected on the experience.

It’s an amazing story and well worth reading.

Buying a house is the biggest financial investment most Americans ever make and yet they are told that they have a moral obligation to stick with their contract regardless of whether or not it is in their financial interest to do so. Businesses and wealthy investors, however, are not held to such moral obligations and they make these decisions purely in light of their own best interest. Donald Trump has walked away from huge real estate developments and suffered no social or financial penalty for doing so. In fact, he’s an American icon whose opinions are eagerly sought by the media.

It’s so interesting that our elites are so concerned with moral hazard — for everyone but themselves.

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Elite Reflux

by digby

I guess he’s finally figured out that Compassionate Conservatism was nothing but hot air:

Bush: What’s interesting about our country, if you study history, is that there are some ‘isms’ that occasionally pop up — pop up. One is isolationism and its evil twin protectionism and its evil triplet nativism. So if you study the ’20s, for example, there was — there was an American first policy that said who cares what happens in Europe?…And there was an immigration policy that I think during this period argued we had too many Jews and too many Italians; therefore we should have no immigrants. And my point is that we’ve been through this kind of period of isolationism, protectionism and Nativism. I’m a little concerned that we may be going through the same period.”

Yeah, well, it’s the place where Know-nothings always go when the plutocrats like Bush screw everything up.

John Amato has a good post up about this featuring Laura Ingraham, former Bush worshipper extraordinaire, getting highly indignant at the implication of Junior’s statement:

Ingraham: Now as someone who was at the forefront in opposing the 2006 Bush immigration reform effort, I was saddened, but not all that surprised by the President’s insulting characterization…. To say that it’s all about hostility to foreigners is ludicrous.

She went on to call him and his brother “elitists” which is quite a change for the Ivy league millionaire broadcaster and wingnut welfare queen:

INGRAHAM: Well, I think it’s interesting that people like Zuckerman [who wrote a June 2 op-ed suggesting that religious conservatives may hurt the Republican Party] would be saying this now, coming off of an election where President Bush was elected with middle-class support, Bill, from about $23,000 to about $50,000 bracket for annual salary. Bush won by six points in all Americans and 22 points in white middle-class voters. So the Republicans are clearly connecting with the regular people, where the Democrats aren’t.

But those were the days of heady wingnut Bush love. But that kind of thing never lasts does it?

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Depopulating For Electoral Gain

by digby

Mission Accomplished:

The city of New Orleans has a population of 343,829, according to the 2010 Census. The number is based on forms residents mailed back to the federal government in April of last year and follow-up visits conducted by Census workers.

The drop isn’t that unexpected in light of the exodus from the region following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but it shows a city 29 percent smaller than it was in the 2000 head count.

This is quite victory for the Republicans. New Orleans was the Democratic strong hold of the state. And it is not an accident. I wrote about this happening a few years ago in which I quoted from this article by Jonathan Alter:

I ended on a hopeful note: “What kind of president does George W. Bush want to be? … If he seizes the moment, he could undertake a midcourse correction that might materially change the lives of millions. Katrina gives Bush an only-Nixon-could-go-to-China opportunity, if he wants it.”

Some readers told me at the time that this was naive—that the president, if not indifferent to the problems of black people, as the singer Kanye West charged, was not going to do anything significant to help them. At first this seemed too cynical. The week after the article appeared, Bush went to Jackson Square in New Orleans and made televised promises not only for Katrina relief but to address some of the underlying struggles of the poor. He proposed “worker recovery accounts” to help evacuees find work by paying for job training, school and child care; an Urban Homesteading Act that would make empty lots and loans available to the poor to start over, and a Gulf Enterprise Zone to spur business investment in poor areas. Small ideas, perhaps, but good ones.

Well, it turned out that the critics were largely right. Not only has the president done much less than he promised on the financing and logistics of Gulf Coast recovery, he has dropped the ball entirely on using the storm and its aftermath as an opportunity to fight poverty. Worker recovery accounts and urban homesteading never got off the ground, and the new enterprise zone is mostly an opportunity for Southern companies owned by GOP campaign contributors to make some money in New Orleans. The mood in Washington continues to be one of not-so-benign neglect of the problems of the poor.

I added:

It’s not neglect. It’s design. The Republicans took a hit for their incompetence in handling Katrina, but in the long run they stand to benefit greatly from the African American displacement outside the state. The reconstruction delays and “not so blind” neglect serve the goal of a much lower black population in New Orleans. Louisiana is likely to be a deep red state from now on.

Perhaps that sounds too cynical, just as the idea that Bush would do nothing significant to help the poor victims sounded cynical last year. But after Bush vs Gore and the Texas gerrymandering and the California recall and voter disenfranchisement and on and on, I think it’s incredibly naive to think they wouldn’t make lemonade out of the Katrina lemon. The modern Republican party is deadly serious about electoral politics and nothing is too cynical for them.

That original post has a lot more information about how they went about this.

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Comedy Up From The Fever Swamps

by digby

Hey, there’s political comedy outside of Comedy Central! Here’s my pal Jamie Kilstein on Conan O’Brien last night:

Jamie and Allison Kilkenny run Citizen Radio. If you aren’t listening, you’re missing out on some of the best in progressive radio on the net.

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Reasonable Republicans

by digby

So the Republicans have generously compromised their principles and will remove the “forcible rape” language of the new abortion restriction bill. The pro-choice forces “won” this one and now the onus is on them to be as generous in return. After all, it’s not as if the rest of the bill is any big deal. Note the anti-choicers’ careful talking points:

“The word forcible will be replaced with the original language from the Hyde Amendment,” Smith spokesman Jeff Sagnip told POLITICO, referring to the long-standing ban on direct use of taxpayer dollars for abortion services…

“The language of H.R. 3 was not intended to change existing law regarding taxpayer funding for abortion in cases of rape, nor is it expected that it would do so,” Lipinski told Talking Points Memo in a statement.

See? They aren’t intending to really change anything substantial. Except, of course, they are.
David Waldman at DKos spells out the real effects of what’s left, and it goes beyond abortion rights:

In H.R. 3, Republicans revive the mid-90s “Istook amendment” theory of the fungibility of money to include under their definition of “taxpayer funding for abortion” all tax deductions, credits or other benefits for the cost of health insurance, when that insurance includes under its plan coverage for abortion. So if a company provides health care benefits for its employees, and the plan they pay for includes coverage for abortion, the company becomes ineligible for the normal federal tax deductions and credits that are the usual reward for providing benefits. That’s a gigantic tax increase. If you pay for your own coverage directly, no deductions, credits, etc. for you, either, if the plan you select offers abortion coverage. Whether you or someone on your plan ever gets one or not. All deductions associated with your health care costs are disallowed. That, apparently, will impact approximately 87 percent of private insurance plans on the market today. And that included, until recently, the plan provided to employees of the Republican National Committee. The RNC, of course, dropped that coverage like a hot potato once it “found out” what the facts were. But why did they do it?

“Money from our loyal donors should not be used for this purpose,” Chairman Michael Steele said in a statement. “I don’t know why this policy existed in the past, but it will not exist under my administration. Consider this issue settled.”

Not a word about money from taxpayers. Steele surely didn’t know that Republicans in the House would later introduce such a bill. But then again, the fungibility theory underlying the bill has been in the Republican bag of tricks since at least 1995. It just didn’t occur to Republicans that it might apply to them, just like it never occurred to them to check whether they were paying for abortion coverage. But now that they’ve safely jumped out of the way, the other 87% of you are screwed. And by the way, there’s no difference or barrier between targeting abortion and doing the same in the future for benefit plans that cover contraception.

And in case you think this can’t actually happen with a Democratic Senate and president, Waldman reminds us of some very recent history:

The proponents of H.R. 3 make the false (but possibly attractive) argument that this “just codifies” Hyde, and since pro-choice champions once agreed to get out of the way of such measures, they might as well agree to do so again. I’m not so sure that the Senate wouldn’t jump out of the way again, on precisely that theory. There’s a far better chance of it being blocked as a stand-alone measure, of course. But that would almost certainly not be the end of it. It’d come up as an amendment time and time again. Just see how quickly Republicans in the Senate got a vote on total health care repeal even after Democrats comfortably insisted that that could never happen. The same play would work for H.R. 3.

And what would the White House do with such a bill? Again, it smoothed the path to the passage and enactment of the health care bill on the premise that it didn’t do anything more than continue Hyde, and would be faced with the same argument again. I’m not so sure they don’t jump out of the way, too. Chris Bowers couldn’t get a definitive answer when he asked point blank just last week.

Q Next week the House is going to pass a bill called the No Taxpayer-funded Abortion Act. And there’s a not insignificant chance it will pass the Senate as well. What would President Obama do if that got to his desk?

MR. AXELROD: Well, you know it is unfortunate that the health care debate has now shifted there. We’ve got a lot of challenges that we need to deal with, primary challenges that we’re facing — the economy — and the President outlined some of them last night. Obviously this is a very divisive issue. And one would hope that we don’t take that path and repeat old debates and divisions to the exclusion of dealing with things that are so fundamental right now for the country on which there’s some consensus.

So I haven’t seen — I don’t know what exactly will pass Congress. Obviously, his position on this issue is well known. And we believe that it was addressed responsibly in the health care bill in the first place. But I mean, I just don’t know what’s coming, so it would probably be precipitous of me to say — to even accept your hypothesis that it’s going to arrive.

Here’s a great primer on what Axelrod is so studiously avoiding giving an opinion on.

That would explain why all the Republicans are saying over and over again that they are just codifying existing practice. Nothing to see here folks. Let’s just dot the is and cross the ts. Except, of course, that’s a lie. These bills go much further that anything we’ve seen and have the result of pretty much taking abortion out of the health insurance system altogether. And why in the world should anyone who says they believe in women’s rights allow that to happen? This is, until further notice, a constitutional right we’re talking about.

However, for those of you who are sick of this icky debate or don’t care one way or the other read Waldman’s whole post as it lays out yet another avenue for assault on liberal programs through this notion of fungibility. This is yet another avenue to de-fund government altogether and if it is done in this case there is little reason to believe they will stop at women’s rights.

I like what Debra Cooper at Open Left says in this post:

Let’s talk about radical demands. REPEAL THE HYDE AMENDMENT If we compromise around the rape exception, we get this bill that denies millions of women access to abortion. If we want a good compromise so that this bill doesn’t pass, let’s widen the debate. Let’s do what the right has successfully done for 30 years. REPEAL THE HYDE AMENDMENT.

Think like the generals at the battle of Salamis, Actium and throughout the ages. Outflank them. Demand the repeal of the Hyde amendment so that for the first time in 30 years, the middle will have moved back to where it began.

That’s right. The strategy that was employed in the health care debate was a debacle and should not be repeated. Hyde should be repealed, not codified and no Democratic president should be allowed to get away with even feinting in that direction. He should expect a shitstorm of epic proportions from women if he does this. In fact, he should issue a veto threat and put this thing to rest right now.

Women make up 60% of the Democratic party and are not available as a bargaining chip so that Democrats can “move to the middle.” They’ve been “compromised” quite enough. Find something else this time.

Update: And no, this is not acceptable as an exchange for restricting abortion rights. It’s a necessity in its own right and is a fight that can be won without any compromise at all. The vast majority of the American public believe that birth control should be easily available and there is no reason for these zealots to be able to extract anything to enact this. Outlawing it is part of their long game, to be sure, but they do not want to be exposed on this prematurely.

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Red-lining the Blue States

by digby

If you are buying a house in a Blue State the president of AIG doesn’t want your business. He thinks you are a parasite.

“All of the states where we’re a leader, where we’re the number one insurer, are red states. Allof the states where we’re at the bottom are blue states,” Benmosche said Tuesday at a conference in Washington. “Part of what we found out is that our model is about culture and it’s about the attitude in the public. And what we find is where there’s more of a tendency for people to be more liberal, more that the government is responsible for what happens to me.”

But he does want your tax dollars:

Benmosche oversees an insurer propped up by more than$40 billion in government capital while competing mortgage guarantors operate without Treasury Department assistance.

Just a reminder, here’s a nice table showing how much money each state gets back for each dollar it sends to the federal government. I[‘m sure I don'[t have to point out the obvious:

New Mexico $2.03 1
Mississippi $2.02 2
Alaska $1.84 3
Louisiana $1.78 4
West Virginia $1.76 5
North Dakota $1.68 6
Alabama $1.66 7
South Dakota $1.53 8
Kentucky $1.51 9
Virginia $1.51 10
Montana $1.47 11
Hawaii $1.44 12
Maine $1.41 13
Arkansas $1.41 14
Oklahoma $1.36 15
South Carolina $1.35 16
Missouri $1.32 17
Maryland $1.30 18
Tennessee $1.27 19
Idaho $1.21 20
Arizona $1.19 21
Kansas $1.12 22
Wyoming $1.11 23
Iowa $1.10 24
Nebraska $1.10 25
Vermont $1.08 26
North Carolina $1.08 27
Pennsylvania $1.07 28
Utah $1.07 29
Indiana $1.05 30
Ohio $1.05 31
Georgia $1.01 32
Rhode Island $1.00 33
Florida $0.97 34
Texas $0.94 35
Oregon $0.93 36
Michigan $0.92 37
Washington $0.88 38
Wisconsin $0.86 39
Massachusetts $0.82 40
Colorado $0.81 41
New York $0.79 42
California $0.78 43
Delaware $0.77 44
Illinois $0.75 45
Minnesota $0.72 46
New Hampshire $0.71 47
Connecticut $0.69 48
Nevada $0.65 49
New Jersey $0.61 50

My advice is that all people in Blue States and liberals everywhere do everything in their power to use a mortgage insurer other than AIG. It has a bad track record and is run by someone who has no respect for his customers. Redlining the most populated part of the nation is such bad business I don’t think anyone should trust their most valuable investment with these people.

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