Month: March 2011

That Whiff o’ Freedom Smells like gas

by digby

Boy, I sure do hope that the threat of a no-fly zone forces Qaddafi to step down because if not it looks like we’ve got us another shooting war in the Middle East, once again based on the trope that we are good guys racing in to save the people from the bad guys. If only we could actually achieve such things, or were really interested in doing that.

This is not a war to save people. If we cared about that we would be intervening in Cote D’Ivoire, where there has been horrible violence on the same level as that in Libya. There is human misery all over the planet that we can’t even be bothered to look at, much less intervene. So let’s not kid ourselves about what this is about:

Oil reserves in Libya are the largest in Africa and the ninth largest in the world with 41.5 billion barrels (6.60×10^9 m3) as of 2007. Oil production was 1.8 million barrels per day (290×10^3 m3/d) as of 2006, giving Libya 63 years of reserves at current production rates if no new reserves were to be found. Libya is considered a highly attractive oil area due to its low cost of oil production (as low as $1 per barrel at some fields), and proximity to European markets. Libya would like to increase production from 1.8 Mbbl/d (290×10^3 m3/d) in 2006 to 3 Mbbl/d (480×10^3 m3/d) by 2010–13 but with existing oil fields undergoing a 7–8% decline rate, Libya’s challenge is maintaining production at mature fields, while finding and developing new oil fields. Most of Libya remains unexplored as a result of past sanctions and disagreements with foreign oil companies.

Seriously, we are fighting two wars in the region already. And we have hardly “stabilized” the region. There are some good signs that the people themselves have gotten tired of the “oiligarchy” economies and are finding their way out of it. And some of those rulers are going to fight back. But I find it almost impossible to believe that we are actually going to make things better for the people. The objective is to stabilize the region for the oil companies.

If people want to talk honestly about this and admit what it is we are really doing then perhaps, as a democracy, we can hash this out properly. But using the uprising as an excuse to “intervene” on behalf of Exxon and BP has nothing to do with humanitarianism and liberals need to disabuse themselves of this illusion once and for all.

Like I said, cross your fingers and hope that Qaddafi is sufficiently scared that he backs down without the need for the UN to back up its threat. Otherwise I’m afraid everyone had better get ready for some more of that “sacrifice” they love to tell us we have to make.

We are in the midst of a fight for energy/resources and it’s reaching crisis proportions. As we speak, we are watching one of our allegedly “clean” sources endanger millions of people with potentially lethal radiation. We are already fighting wars in the middle east over oil and it looks like we’re not done yet. You would think that with this, plus climate change, we’d be sufficiently motivated to face the problem and put everything we have into dealing with it. Instead, we’re playing games with people’s lives and futures. The planet will probably survive, but it’s not a good sign for our species.

Update: it’s not about US “credibility” or a test of how macho we are. We’ve proved beyond a reasonable doubt over the past decade that we are willing to blunder into any shooting war and kill a whole bunch of people based on nothing but bullshit. No one can seriously doubt our willingness to drop bombs and spend trillions on useless wars. If that’s the measure of our credibility we have no problem.

Update II: Spencer Ackerman asks the question: what happens next?

I don’t know about the details but I’d be very surprised if they aren’t committed for the long run to oust Qadaffi. There’s just too much oil involved to let the pissed off crazy man run the place any longer. The real question is whether or not Americans and their friends are capable of doing it short of all out invasion a la Iraq (with all that comes after.)

I’d say we’re stretched pretty thin, but maybe we can end all public schooling and health care for our citizens in order to pay for it.

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Common Ground

by digby

Paul Ryan may not be the genius that everyone in DC thinks he is, but he’s certainly a politician. Responding to Harry Reid’s unequivocal support for Social Security during last night’s MSNBC interview, Ryan responded:

I’m boggled. That just boggles my mind…I would argue, even though, it’s not really a driver of our debt, it’s not a significant part of our debt problems, it would build great confidence, fixing Social Security on a bipartisan basis, because it would tell not only the credit markets that Americans are getting their act together, it would buy us more time and space with them, it would show that our government’s not broken.

Now it’s possible that the Democrats will successfully use this to discredit Ryan on this subject and inform the American people that even the most strident safety net destroyers know that SS is not a deficit issue. And maybe the public is jaundiced enough about the “markets” that they will see this for the silly reasoning it is. Let’s hope so.

But the audience Ryan was trying to reach with that statement has just a little bit more power than all the rest of us put together on this. His name is Barack Obama and he has long signaled that he really, really, really wants to make a deal (aka the Grand Bargain).

And Ryan just backed Tim Geithner in what’s been reported as the battle for Obama’s soul within the White House:

Geithner and his lieutenants argue that benefits reform will give the markets confidence that Obama and Congress have the will to address the problem of long-term national debt…

I suspect Geithner is just blathering nonsensical CW and that Ryan is just lying outright, but if you don’t care about the reasoning, this sure looks like bipartisan agreement to me. And everyone knows we’ve got a president who loves bipartisanship.

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Cokie’s Law In Action

by digby

Those of you who have been reading this blog for a while know what Cokie’s Law is. But for new readers, here’s what it refers to:

“At this point,” said Roberts, “it doesn’t much matter whether she said it or not because it’s become part of the culture. I was at the beauty parlor yesterday and this was all anyone was talking about.”

We are watching Cokie’s Law in action with respect tothe James O’Keefe video. Here’s CNN responding to the question of how the House decided on the question of whether NPR should be funded by the federal government:

Brianna Keeler: [They decided] that NPR should not be subsidized by taxpayer dollars. That they shouldn’t be directly funded through the Corporation for federal broadcasting that gets federal funding, but also that local stations shouldn’t be able to use their federal funds to purchase NPR programming, which you know if you listen to the radio they fill up their line-up with a lot of that.

So this was an almost total party line vote Republicans for, Democrats against here.

NPR, when you cut it down here it’s just not beloved by conservatives. A lot of them think it smacks of liberal elitism and that was especially the case after a conservative activist put out a secretly taped video with an NPR fundraiser saying the NPR would ultimately better off without federal funding.

Liberals have eviscerated this video saying that it had been overly edited and that things were taken out of context but it’s really the fuel to the fire here as Republicans are looking for spending cuts.

Now it’s certainly true that “liberals” have not been the only ones eviscerating those videos — unless Beck’s site is now considered liberal, which I doubt. But that’s just a normal he said/she said formulation. Cokie’s Law refers to the idea that it doesn’t matter that the tapes are total bullshit because it’s adding fuel to the fire (a corollary of “where there’s smoke there’s fire”).

This is why O’Keefe is able to keep going. The Village really believes that it doesn’t matter if it’s true or not once it’s “out there”. O’Keefe and the Brietbartians know this and since they get oxygen from the fact that liberals flail around trying to prove them wrong, they can keep going on for a long time before they make a bad decision and attack someone the Village really cares about(someone like Scooter Libby.) At that point he will be ostracized.

Until then they will continue to get traction and the liberal political establishment will fear them because it quite literally doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.

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What Dean Baker Said

by digby

… he writes:

The NYT told readers this morning:

“Once this year’s budget battle is settled, Congress will move on to potentially bigger fights over whether to raise the national debt limit and how to rein in the costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.”

Wow, huge majorities oppose cuts to Social Security (Medicare also), but the only debate in Congress is over “how” to cut the program. So much for democracy in America.

This is a perfect example of reflexive conventional wisdom among the ruling elites. of course, social security will be cut. They don’t even question the assumption or try to present a he said/she said is so embedded in their thinking. And it explains this:

The vast majority of Americans see Social Security headed toward a crisis, and most think the system needs a major overhaul, a new poll suggests.Eighty-one percent of those surveyed for a Washington Post-ABC News poll released Thursday said they think that if no changes are made to Social Security, the program will be in trouble, while just 15 percent said the system will be fine as it is.The poll comes as some members of Congress have begun talking about reforming entitlement programs – not just Social Security, but also Medicare and Medicaid – as the only way to make a dent in the annual federal budget deficit and, ultimately, the national debt. While Republicans and Democrats have in the past suggested ways to cut the costs of entitlements, they’re generally unwilling to touch what has for decades been a third rail in American politics.While fear for the future of Social Security has grown in the last six years, Americans aren’t much warmer on whether or how to go about fixing it.

Actually the number hasn’t really grown. But because virtually everyone in the know routinely screams about it, about two thirds of the public assumes there must be something to it. It’s the old “where there’s smoke there’s fire” syndrome.

Of those who see the system as in crisis or on the verge of one, 66 percent said they think Social Security needs a major overhaul. In 2005, 67 percent said the same. Meanwhile, 32 percent said the system needs only minor changes, up a bit from 30 percent in 2005.

But luckily, they have not been sold on cuts because somewhere in the back of their minds perhaps they know there is something fishy about all this:

When it comes to specific ways to potentially fix Social Security, Americans aren’t much more willing to consider certain options now than they were in 2005.

At least they haven’t been duped into buying the assumption that cuts are not only necessary but inevitable. And as long as that remains true, there is hope. Politicians will remain cautious as long as there is a chance that they will be punished. Republicans know they have the reputation of being Scrooges and enemies of the program so they are very nervous about being blamed. And the Democrats know that even if they hold hands with Boehner and McConnell and jump off the cliff together the GOP will use it against them. Seniors are the Republicans’ only growing demographic.

Right now, the best option is stalemate and Obama and his so-called economic genius advisors are living in another universe if they think they can finesse it. It would be a political blunder of epic proportions for them to try to create a legacy issue out of this.

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Just Don’t Call It Terrorism

by digby

Media Matters:

On March 9, the day before the much-hyped Peter King hearings on the radicalization of Muslims in America began in Washington, D.C., federal agents in Washington state arrested an apparent neo-Nazi on charges of planting a bomb on the route of a Martin Luther King Day parade. Two days later, five members of a”sovereign citizen” militia in Alaska were arrested for plotting to murder State Troopers and a federal judge.

Compared to the political theater of the King hearings, these busts of accused right-wing domestic terrorists received scant media attention. Even less publicized was the arrest, also on March 9, of another accused right-wing extremist who allegedly firebombed a Planned Parenthood clinic and vandalized an Islamic center in Madera, California.

The case of Donny Eugene Mower further illustrates the narrow-mindedness of Rep. King and his conservative media cheerleaders for focusing on Muslim domestic terrorists to the exclusion of all other violent extremists, including white supremacists, militia members and anti-abortion radicals.

Read on. I hadn’t heard about it either and I live in California, where it took place.

Sadly, the lack of attention to this problem — or our blase acceptance of it — has even led people like Bill Maher to speciously contend that homegrown Islamic terrorism presents a much greater threat than any other kind of homegrown terrorism. I honestly don’t know why he thinks that. These are really the same kind of people except for the fact that they are being radicalized for similar purposes by Americans instead of foreigners.

There are reasons why these things crop up at times of great social transition and stress. And that’s worth looking into and attempting to deal with. But those who are pretending that it’s a”foreign problem” are coming to the point of being culpable. After all, when the department of Homeland Security merely noted the potential of a problem in their annual report, the right wing didn’t distance itself from these radicals, it sprung into gear and basically shut the report down. Cui bono?

Here’s the manifesto:

ANB is AMERICAN nationalist, not white nationalist, black nationalist, or any other racist motivated group. The signs posted, the things to come, and yes even the brick, are not hate motivated, but rather messages. The (sic) are the voices of us who refuse to allow America to continue to be torn down brick by brick. Notice also, that the mosque was not the only target of choice. We are here to revive American pride, which has been dampened by a lot of things: The rise of Islam in America, despite 9/11; the sickening number of murdered children since 1973, hidden behind the guise of “abortion” or “choice”; the abomination of homosexuality being rewarded, while those who chose (sic) natural relationships are bigots. These and so many more are (sic) the hate crimes, they hit America with a sucker punch… isn’t it time that someone hit back?

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New Rifts On The Right

by digby

There’s been a lot of talk about rifts in the Republican Party and I think some of it is more wishful thinking than anything else. But this one in Arizona seems significant:

A coalition of Arizona business groups delivered a letter to the Arizona State Senate Tuesday saying it would be unwise for the Legislature to pass additional immigration legislation, despite lack of action on the federal level.

Sixty CEOs – from a wide swath of industries and including heavyweights such as Doug Parker, Gerrit van Huisstede and Linda Hunt – signed the letter as legislators mull a new slate of immigration bills. Last year’s passage of Senate Bill 1070 created a firestorm of criticism and boycotts against the state. The CEO’s point to its “unintended consequences.”

Much is probably attributable to good old fashioned self-interest in that some of these people may just want cheap labor. That’s an old tension in the right coalition. But these CEOs are mainly worried about image and that’s new. They are afraid that people will start to see Arizona as a pariah state, and it’s a real concern.

But just wait until Palin moves to Maricopa to run for office. I’ll just say this — my Alaskan friends are rooting for her to do it. She’s done enough damage to their state.

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Plumes Our Way

by digby

As a friend reminded me last night, we baby boomers were exposed to many radiation plumes throughout our childhoods when they were testing hydrogen bombs in the Pacific, so we shouldn’t get panicked about this. So far we seem to be holding up ok. But it is still startling to see this in black and white:

A United Nations forecast of the possible movement of the radioactive plume coming from crippled Japanese reactors shows it churning across the Pacific, and touching the Aleutian Islands on Thursday before hitting Southern California late Friday.

Health and nuclear experts emphasize that radiation in the plume will be diluted as it travels and, at worst, would have extremely minor health consequences in the United States, even if hints of it are ultimately detectable. In a similar way, radiation from the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 spread around the globe and reached the West Coast of the United States in ten days, its levels measurable but minuscule.

[…]

The forecast assumes that radioactivity in Japan is released continuously and forms a rising plume. It ends with the plume heading into Southern California and the American Southwest, including Nevada, Utah and Arizona. The plume would have continued eastward if the United Nations scientists had run the projection forward.

Earlier this week, the leading edge of the tangible plume was detected by the Navy’s Seventh Fleet when it was operating about 100 miles northeast of the Japanese reactor complex. On Monday, the Navy said it had repositioned its ships and aircraft off Japan “as a precautionary measure.”

The United Nations agency has also detected radiation from the stricken reactor complex at its detector station in Gunma, Japan, which lies about 130 miles to the southwest.

The chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Gregory B. Jaczko, said Monday that the plume posed no danger to the United States. “You just aren’t going to have any radiological material that, by the time it traveled those large distances, could present any risk to the American public,” he said in a White House briefing.

Mr. Jaczko was asked if the meltdown of a core of one of the reactors would increase the chance of harmful radiation reaching Hawaii or the West Coast.

“I don’t want to speculate on various scenarios,” he replied. “But based on the design and the distances involved, it is very unlikely that there would be any harmful impacts.”

If there has to be a radiation plume that’s pretty much how you’d want it to go. The longer it’s out there in the Pacific the more it disperses. Better there than over Tokyo.

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I Gotcher Family Values Right Here

by digby

Congratulations to the dirty, sinful, destroyer of decency and morality, PZ Myers:

Today is my wedding anniversary. I’ve been married to the same woman for 31 years, without ever straying. Newt Gingrich has been married 3 times, divorced one wife while she was recovering from surgery, and has had extra-marital affairs.

Guess who is considered the defender of traditional sexual morality?

Please read the whole thing. It’s the usual scathing indictment of throwbacks and hypocrites, of course, but it’s also a very lovely tribute to a marriage of equals. The right wing doesn’t own or embody real family values.

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The Fox Effect

by digby

New polling on the GOP:

Without Huckabee in the field, Romney edges Palin and Gingrich, 20-19-18, with Paul at 12% and the others further back. In the absence of Palin, Huckabee tops Gingrich and Romney, 22-20-18. With neither Palin nor Huckabee making a bid, Gingrich and Romney tie at 24%, with Paul at 12%. Palin’s voters go more heavily to Gingrich than to Romney.

69% of these voters say they regularly watch Fox News. A lot of hay has been made about the “Fox primary” influencing the outcome, since Palin, Gingrich, and Huckabee all work for the network. In the field with all four frontrunners, those three are tied for the lead with Fox viewers at 17-18%, with Romney at 15%, but with non-Fox viewers, Romney leads with 21%, followed by Huckabee’s 19%, Palin’s 12%, Paul’s 10%, and Gingrich back at 8%. In the other permutations, Romney wins the non-Fox viewers even more overwhelmingly, but places third or fourth or, at best, second with Fox viewers.

According to the same poll Obama isn’t looking so good either (about 50/50 approval) he’s winning by virtue of this weak field.

Considering the GOP’s tradition of anointing their preferred candidate fairly early, I’d think this was quite odd if not for the fact that I suspect they aren’t entirely committed to winning this one. After all, the Big Money Boyz are getting what they want and the Democrats are being blamed for the fallout. Why mess with success? Let the base have one of their pets win the nomination because no matter what happens they will have their biases confirmed:

Do you think ACORN will steal the election for Barack Obama next year or not?

Think ACORN will steal the election 25% …………… Think they will not 43% ……………………………………. Not sure 31%

The fact that ACORN doesn’t exist isn’t really relevant. They have simply replaced the “N” word with the “A” word.

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What happens when you don’t have time to earn it back?

by digby

Arthur Delaney gives us yet another look at the real faces of the economic crisis. This is a group I’m familiar with — the late baby boomers in their late 40s and 50s who are having a hell of a time finding a decent paying job. They’ve gone through their savings and cashed out their retirement funds and they’re just not coming back.

Keep in mind that this remains the biggest single generational demographic in the country:

Americans are more pessimistic than ever about their retirement prospects, with 27 percent of all workers saying they are “not at all confident” about retirement, according to a yearly survey released Tuesday by the Employee Benefit Research Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. That’s a 5 percent increase from a year ago. What’s worse is that some of the people who should be looking forward to retirement the most don’t even want to think about it. Jayne Dunn, 55, said she’s been out of work since December 2008, when she lost her job as a landscape designer in Cheshire, Conn. She described her job search as “demeaning, demoralizing, just desperately awful” and said thoughts of retirement are forbidden. “You just don’t do that,” she said. “You just think kind of day to day.”[…]The unemployment rate for Americans ages 55 and up stands at just 6.4 percent, compared with 8.9 percent for the population as a whole. But according to the AARP Public Policy Institute, the average jobless spell lasts 45.5 weeks for Americans older than 55, compared with 35.2 weeks for those younger than that. As of October, according to the Congressional Research Service, more than one in 10 unemployed workers older than 55 had been jobless for longer than 99 weeks, which is the cutoff point for unemployment benefits in the hardest-hit states. Just 6 percent of unemployed workers younger than 35 have been out of work that long.And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, among displaced workers — people who lost their jobs after three years with the same employer — folks older than 55 were much less likely than their younger counterparts to have found new jobs between 2007 and 2010. Many long-term jobless in their fifties say unspoken age discrimination is the reason they can’t find work.

Read on for some more of Delaney’s brilliant interviews with economic victims.

It isn’t a sexy story. These are middle aged people, many of them sandwiched between kids in college and aging parents, without a lot of time to start over and rebuild to where they thought they’d be at retirement age. I don’t guess a lot of people are particularly interested in their plight. But it’s worth keeping an eye on even if their fates don’t affect yours. If the economy recovers enough to re-employ these people (not a sure thing) large numbers of the baby boom are still going to be unable to retire from the workforce as planned. That sounds very right to our Randian overlords who think people should either get rich quick or die working. But in truth, having a bunch of elderly people competing for jobs means a strain on the economy as a whole. You want to get them out to make room for the young.

There’s a depression going on in this country for millions of people and some of the hardest hit are people in their 50s who fear they may never work at a decent job again. I know a few of them. It’s a truly frightening situation.

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