Month: November 2011

Awesome

by digby

Murmuration from Sophie Windsor Clive on Vimeo.

h/t to @chrislhayes

The Church of TipnRonnie

What’s the matter with Iowa?

by digby

The same thing that’s still wrong with Kansas. Here’s the problem:

Two-thirds of likely Iowa Republican caucusgoers earning less than $50,000 a year believe they personally would be better off or in the same situation under Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 tax plan, The Des Moines Register’s new Iowa Poll shows.

Research-group reviews of the plan have found that most families making $100,000 or less would pay thousands of dollars more each year.

“The larger point is that people don’t really understand what the 9-9-9 plan actually is, and they’re assuming incorrectly that they may not pay one or any of these taxes,” said Joe Rosenberg, a research associate for the Tax Policy Center, a group based in Washington, D.C., that bills itself as a nonpartisan economic research institute.

Cain’s plan would eliminate the current individual income tax, corporate income tax and payroll tax and replace them with a new 9 percent national sales tax, a 9 percent business tax and a 9 percent income tax. Estate and gift taxes would be eliminated.

The Tax Policy Center estimates that the three taxes combined would be the equivalent of a 25.38 percent national sales tax. Because lower-income families spend a larger percentage of their income on tangible goods, they would be affected disproportionately.

The bottom line: A family with an income level of $40,000 to $50,000 would pay $3,407 more a year in taxes, while families making $500,000 to $1 million a year would pay on average $80,315 less, according to the Tax Policy Center.

There is a very long way to go to get people to believe that. It’s like telling them that God didn’t write the Constitution.

Of course, there’s this, which scrambles everything.

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No Unity with These People
by David Atkins

Voters in Mississippi will decide on Tuesday if they want to enshrine in State Law that a fertilized egg is a human being:

An insurgent antiabortion movement that is gaining momentum nationwide is hoping for its first electoral victory Tuesday, when Mississippi voters will decide whether to designate a fertilized egg as a person and potentially label its destruction an act of murder.

If approved, the nation’s first “personhood” amendment could criminalize abortion and limit in-vitro fertilization and some forms of birth control. It also would give a jolt of energy to a national movement that views mainstream antiabortion activists as timid and complacent.

They’ve just taken an incremental approach,” said Les Riley, the founder of Personhood Mississippi and a self-described tractor salesman and father of 10 who initiated the state’s effort. “We’re just going to the heart of the matter, which is: Is this a person or not? God says it is, and science has confirmed it.”

“Life-at-conception” ballot initiatives in other parts of the country, including Colorado last year, have failed amid concerns about their far-reaching, and in some cases unforeseeable, implications.

Given that 2/3 of all fertilized eggs fail to implant properly in the uterus, perhaps these “pro-life” activists should ask their God why He chooses to murder 2/3 of all little spherical-shaped human beings before they can even make it past day 12. I doubt they’ll get that far, though. This isn’t about their God or about little babies smaller than a pinhead. This is about people who feel that society has gotten just too far out of control, and the way to bring it back is to punish women for daring to open their legs except to procreate.

And they’ll pass blatantly unconstitutional laws to force the Supreme Court’s hand if they have to, even if it means finishing the job of tearing the nation in two that their similarly righteous confederates started a century and a half ago.

It doesn’t matter how many Occupy movements declare 99% solidarity on economic issues. There will never be unity with these people. One side is going to win in the legislative and judicial arenas (which means elections, like it not, where the President’s Supreme Court choices on social issues will matter, whatever one thinks of the President on economic matters), or it will become necessary to dissolve the political bands that connect us.

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Brother from another planet

by digby

David Weigel is at the Americans for Properity event with Herman Cain:

David Koch was in the front row. Art Pope, another AFP macher and target of stories about his wealth and influence, was sitting in the same section. There was an opportunity here to smack right back at all the reporters writing stories about how Cain was “connected” to Koch. Cain took it. He reminded the crowd about a New York Times story from last night. That piece had tied together Cain, an AFP speaker, and his campaign chief Mark Block, a former AFP organizer in Wisconsin, and Prosperity USA, the shell group that allegedly, illegally, helped the Cain campaign get started in the start of 2011.

“The article tries to make a case of how close the Koch brothers and I are,” said Cain.

The audience started chuckling.

“I’m proud to know the Koch brothers,” said Cain. “I’m very proud to know the Koch brothers. They make it sound like we’ve had time to go fishing together, hunting together, skiing together, golfing together. But just so I can clarify this for the media?”

Chuckling louder now.

“This may be a breaking news announcement for the media.”

Here it comes.

“I am the Koch brothers’ brother from another mother!”

Adele Stan at Alternet had the Koch connection first, by the way.

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The first step in a long, important journey

by digby

Howie Says:

Yesterday 8 senators– Jeff Merkley (OR), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Tom Harkin (IA), Tom Udall (NM), Michael Bennet (CO), Dick Durbin (IL), Mark Begich (AK) and Chuck Schumer (NY)– all Democrats, introduced a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court ruling, Citizens United vs FEC. Here’s the full text of their resolution, the concept of which is supported by most Americans, though, obviously, opposed by the 1% and their politicians. The Republican Party is expected to fight this to the death– hopefully its own. The poster boy against the amendment is Mitt Romney with his weird assertion that “corporations are people.” This is how Udall, while acknowledging that amending the U.S. Constitution is an extremely difficult process and an impossible one while the Republicans control the House, explained it to New Mexico voters Tuesday:

“Campaigns should be about the best ideas, not the biggest checkbooks. It’s time to put elections back in the hands of American voters, not corporations and special interests… The latest reinterpretation of the Constitution has left our political system vulnerable like never before.”

In announcing its full support for the amendment, MoveOn made clear to its members that this is going to “be a strenuous, long-term endeavor but ultimately it is the only way to reverse the damage of the Citizens United decision. We’ve amended our Constitution before in moments when we needed to make fundamental changes to how our country works. Right now is one of those moments. It isn’t ultimately about who’s benefiting, Democrats or Republicans, it’s about the fact that giving corporations the full First Amendment rights of people is threatening the integrity of our democratic process.”

Every single Blue America candidate backs the amendment. No one will be endorsed who doesn’t. Yeah… that important

This is good. And necessary. Indeed, I think that the various citizens groups, netroots progressives and Occupy protests could get behind this without any worries about partisanship, even though the people backing it are Democrats. The action is inherently political in nature and has to have at least a component of political involvement whether we like it or not. This is a long term project that has to start now and it needs a serious commitment from both politicians and citizens even though it may not come to fruition right away.

Child stealing

by digby

This is like something out of a Dickensian novel:

An unprecedented increase in the deportation of undocumented immigrants has left an estimated 5,100 children languishing in U.S. foster homes — a troubling figure that could triple in the coming years, according to a November report from a New York-based advocacy group.

The “Shattered Families” report from the Applied Research Center, which the activist group says is the first to analyze national data related to the separation of families involved in deportations, offers a look at the human dimension of the highly contentious immigration debate.

The Obama administration deported 46,000 parents of children who are U.S. citizens in the first six months of 2011, the ARC report says. Government data shows a total of 397,000 expulsions in fiscal year 2011, with half involving people with criminal records.

“This means that almost one in four people deported is the parent of a United States citizen child,” said Seth Freed Wessler, the report’s chief investigator and author. “ARC’s research has uncovered a troubling collateral effect of these deportations: Thousands of children enter the child welfare system and are often stuck there.”

ICE says it “works with” these parents, but apparently it doesn’t get very far:

But once separated, the “Shattered Families” report says, the children face enormous obstacles to rejoining their parents, even though child welfare agencies are required by federal law to reunify them with parents who are able to care for them. Because child welfare authorities lack formal policies for dealing with deported parents, the report says, children often fall through the cracks.

After parents are deported, the researchers found that families remain separated for long periods, with child welfare agencies and juvenile courts often moving to terminate the parental rights of deported immigrants. Children who don’t have other immediate family are then put up for adoption.

“One of the most common responses from the hundreds of caseworkers and child welfare attorneys that we interviewed all over the country … was something like, ‘When a parent is detained or deported, they basically fall off the face of the earth when it comes to the child welfare system,'” Wessler said.

I just don’t know what to say. I’m sure the usual miscreants will say these kids are lucky to be adopted by “real” Americans and others will say they should all be sent back to wherever their parents came from. But the fact is that this is a nightmare for these kids who are basically kidnapped from their parents (who they never hear from again) are thrown in to the system and, at least in some cases, adopted out to strangers. I can hardly believe this is the 21st century.

I wish I could understand why the Obama administration is so intent upon all these deportations. Business doesn’t want all this — they like the cheap labor. There’s nothing to be gained politically by it unless they truly believe they will be rewarded for their “toughness” by some rightwingers, which is daft.

I have asked around about this and was told that in this case and the California Medical Marijuana case the agencies are running the show and are not answering to the White House. I suppose that could be true but if so it means our police state apparatus has gone rogue and is answerable to no one. I’m not sure which scenario is worse.

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Battle Of The Populists

by digby

Democracy Corps has been doing some focus groups on the economy. You have to take them as they’re presented, since the test messages in themselves reveal a certain agenda, but it’s informative nonetheless:

Voters are receptive to Republicans when they make statements about big government, spending, ballooning deficits, and regulations on business, which they fear will stymie job growth.

A conservative message that says:

After massive spending on a stimulus, ballooning deficits and a spate of new regulations on business, the last thing we should consider is staying with Obama and the congressional Democrats who caused uncertainty, threatened new taxes and imposed vast regulations on business that undermine their ability to create jobs and grow our economy.

beats a Democratic message about regulation, financial excess and the economy.

A conservative message about debt, hard work and responsibility scores as well as the Democratic messages below. Conservatives appear here to understand the debt, leverage and irresponsibility that produced the crisis; it goes to the heart of their frustrations with the current economy and fears about the future.

America has succeeded because of hard work and competition, not because we expect government to give us things for free. For too long, Americans have spent money they couldn’t afford, driving up personal and government debt.

There is no reason why conservatives should be the ones who put irresponsibility at the heart of their message.

Winning the Economic Argument

But there is an emerging power in the progressive economic argument centered on the middle class, 99-1, battling the corrupt nexus of Wall Street and Washington, holding excess to account, taking deficits seriously, and investing for growth.

The real power of our economic worldview lies in the focus on the middle class — battling for a country where they come first. As powerful as the Republican message centered on responsibility is a Democratic framework that also takes responsibility and excess seriously—on behalf of the middle class. Three-quarters agree with a message that says:

The big banks got bailed out but the middle class got left behind. Our economy works for Wall Street CEOs but not for the middle class. America isn’t supposed to only work for the top one percent.

But our best message supported by 81 percent, 57 percent strongly says the economy is “upside down.” Regular people are in recession and work harder and harder for less while CEOs get bigger bonuses yet. This message says:

Our economy is upside down. The majority of America is in a recession, but Wall Street is doing better than ever. Regular people work harder and harder for less and less while Wall Street CEOs enjoy bigger bonuses than ever. If American’s economy isn’t working for the 99 percent, it’s not working.

What do voters want to do about this outrage? The top three policies championed by voters all focus on cleaning up politics, Wall Street and holding people accountable. Voters want reform as the first task for the country.

This kind of makes my head hurt. But it would be a good thing if the country saw the two parties hash it out on this basis. Unfortunately, they probably won’t because the Democrats are going to muddle up their message with a bunch of hoohah about deficits and “sacrifice” and nobody will know what the hell they’re talking about.

Here, from a very tainted messenger, comes a clever way of packaging it from the right, however:

Sarah Palin told Republican donors Thursday that Occupy Wall Street protesters want the same thing as the “fat cats” they’re upset with — a government bailout.

Palin criticized the protesters as believing they’re entitled to other people’s productivity and money and said they’ve drawn the wrong conclusions. Instead, the former Alaska governor said people should look to the tea party.

“They say `Wall Street fat cats got a bailout so now I want one too.’ And the correct answer is no one is entitled to a bailout,” Palin told the crowd of about 1,000 at the Republican Party of Florida dinner. “The American dream, our foundation, is about work ethic and empowerment, not entitlement.”

She compared the protesters and President Barack Obama to the “crony capitalists” they say they oppose.

“Barack Obama is owned by Wall Street. The fat cats, as he calls them, they’re his friends. They’re his pals. That’s where he gets his campaign donations. And he’s very generous about giving these cats their cat nip — bigger returns on their investments in bailouts,” Palin said.

She said she understands why people are frustrated with Wall Street and government and that she’s disgusted by the wrong kind of capitalist. But the proper way to protest is through the tea party movement.

“My question to the Occupy Wall street crowd is, `Where have you been the last three years?’ I suggest if they want to vent and want to change the situation, then they vent in the right direction. They need to hop on a bus and travel south — 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, where there’s plenty of space to occupy,” Palin said.

She does have a knack for finding the populist/reformer sweet spot. Here she takes a shot at the protesters while also portraying Obama as the servant of Wall Street. Basically it’s a co-option of the best Democratic message. It’s clever, although I can’t imagine that Mitt Romney could believably make that case.

Still, you can see the outlines of a populist case using much of what that Democracy Corps finds resonant in the Democrats’ argument, turned against them. Combined with the GOP’s “anti-bailout” theme used against the protesters, it could be put to good use by candidates around the country.
All that’s missing is the sacrifice and deficit part of the message, which the Republicans will probably turn on the Democrats with stealthy, anonymous attacks against their votes to slash Medicare and Social Security (if the Dems are stupid enough to vote for any Super Committee deal.)

This is going to be a very interesting election in terms of rhetoric and argument, with both parties having the walk on fault lines that aren’t natural to them. I’d have to give the edge to the Republicans because they aren’t burdened by any necessity to be consistent and don’t worry about trying to appeal to people who will never vote for them. And then there’s all that the secret money.

Here’s the final paragraph of the DC memo:

This is in an environment where Republicans start with a 7-point advantage on the economy. When voters hear the progressive frameworks, however, they test at least as strong, or better, than the best Republican messages. This is important, as voters look at the Democrats and still see bailouts and excess.

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Wall Street “Democrats”
by David Atkins

Wall Street “Democrats” like Jon Corzine are why so many have given up on the Democratic Party and by extension the normal electoral process. From the Gray Lady:

Months before MF Global teetered on the brink, federal regulators were seeking to rein in the types of risky trades that contributed to the firm’s collapse. But they faced opposition from an influential opponent: Jon S. Corzine, the head of the then little-known brokerage firm.

As a former United States senator and a former governor of New Jersey, as well as the leader of Goldman Sachs in the 1990s, Mr. Corzine carried significant weight in the worlds of Washington and Wall Street. While other financial firms employed teams of lobbyists to fight the new regulation, MF Global’s chief executive in meetings over the last year personally pressed regulators to halt their plans.

The agency proposing the rule, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, relented. Wall Street, which has been working to curb many financial regulations, won another battle.

Yet with MF Global in bankruptcy and regulators scrambling to find $630 million in missing customer funds, Mr. Corzine’s effort may come back to haunt him.

The proposed rule would have restricted a complicated transaction that allowed MF Global in essence to borrow money from its own customers. Brokerage firms are allowed to use customers’ money to earn interest, not unlike banks, but this rule would have outlawed using customer funds for a loan to the firm itself.

While such financing is not unknown on Wall Street, it carries substantial risk. An outside lender would require a firm like MF Global to produce strict accounting for a loan. Without that oversight, regulators worried that firms could use such internal customer money inappropriately, including bolstering the business in hard times. The proposed rule would have affected several dozen other financial firms.

Regulators are now examining whether these transactions explain the missing money at MF Global, according to people briefed on the investigation.

In order for Democrats to be credible over the long-term in the eyes of the voting public, they will have to ditch dead weight like Corzine, the epitome of a Goldman Sachs “Democrat.”

For far too long these folks have skated by in Democratic circles because they’re good on social issues, and because they keep the Wall Street cash rolling in. But with a Republican Party resurgent just a couple of years after it was declared near dead, and the vast majority of the progressive spectrum fiercely against Wall Street, it is no longer feasible for Democrats to keep running the Wall Street playbook simply from a political perspective (to say nothing, of course, of the wrongness of this type of thing from a policy perspective.)

I realize that asking the President to change course, stop trying to protect Wall Street and the big banks, and fire Tim Geithner is like beating my face into a brick wall in one sense. But unlike with the brick wall, it can’t hurt to make the attempt.

No matter what happens with the Presidential election, those who are still looking to make change through the electoral process–and I have yet to read a coherent progressive theory of change that details another scenario in practical and explicit terms–would do well to identify and remove all Wall Street Democrats at the Congressional and State levels. It’s well past time for a cleansing purge of guys like Corzine.

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Generational violence

by digby

I’m pretty sure just about everybody in the country’s seen this hideous video by now. But I think what’s even more horrifying is the comments. Most are appalled, of course. It’s a shocking show of violence.

But there’s an awful lot of this:

Actually young man, young lady, you do not know. I spanked my children, and grandchildren if needed. Did you notice the crying was only temporary. I was the child of beatings w/electric cords back i the 60’s, I’m hear to say it was not fun. She was disobedient and because her Mercedes and money was taken seven years later she posts this, how sad she through family values down the drain. God Bless You

Using a belt is NOT against the law, yeah he’s really vocal but who isnt when their pissed. She broke federal law, and rule of her house. She probably taped it on purpose as you can clearly see her walk DIRECTLY over the camera after the whole thing was over. , I see a good bit of mellow drama there on her part. I dealt with much worse when I was younger, so did my siblings. Result? Mostly successful and not pansies. Go back 100+ years and look at family discipline, This is nothing.

I was beaten and can’t say that this is anything terrible or that it was necessarily detrimental to my development. I’d have no problem with him being a judge in my county, he was actually punishing her for illegally downloading music and software on a repeat offense.

and this too:

My mother used to do the same thing to me with a leather strap. I grew up so angry and hated her for that. I wish we had web cams back in the day, things may have turned out better. I wish Hillary the very best of everything. May you find peace strong girl. Years later there are so many scars.

This just makes me sick … and sad. For all the victims and future victims of the victims.

I think tonight’s a good night for a long walk on the beach and a short shot of Patron. (Or maybe the other way around …)

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