Month: February 2012

No Embarrassment

by David Atkins

George Clooney, speaking about marriage equality, gets what bothers me most about social conservatives:

“It’s always been this albatross that stood out to me as the final leg of the civil rights movement,” [Clooney] told Voss. “Well before Prop. 8, I’ve made the point that every time we’ve stood against equality, we’ve been on the wrong side of history. It’s the same kind of argument they made when they didn’t want blacks to serve in the military, or when they didn’t want blacks to marry whites. One day the marriage equality fight will look as archaic as George Wallace standing on the University of Alabama steps keeping James Hood from attending college because he was black. People will be embarrassed to have been on the wrong side.”

Opponents of progressivism are almost always wrong on scientific and social issues. They were wrong on burning people at the stake to preserve theocratic geocentrism, wrong on opposing the renaissance to preserve the primacy of the Church, wrong on opposing democratic/republican government to preserve the nobility and divine right of kings, wrong on opposing the abolition of slavery to defend their feudal racist system, wrong on opposing women’s suffrage and liberation to preserve the patriarchy, wrong on opposing the creation of the welfare state to preserve social darwinism, wrong on opposing the labor movement to preserve the power of robber baron capital, wrong on opposing desegregation to preserve white privilege. The list goes on and on and on and on.

And they’re demonstrably wrong on opposing marriage equality, action in the face of climate change, and universal healthcare today.

Demonstrably wrong. Just as wrong as they’ve ever been, and always are. The only counterarguments conservatives can make in reverse are about prohibition and state Communism, and those are weak arguments at best: prohibition was not a truly progressive move, it was repealed soon afterward when it was shown not to work, and progressivism today stands on the opposite side of the issue of banning controlled substances. State Communism, meanwhile, was 1) not adopted in the West, and 2) the misguided attempt to jump 500 years of history from feudal to industrial societies overnight while disempowering the robber barons. At least in the West, conservative opposition to reasonable progressive policy is almost always wrong, and has always been wrong.

And yet conservatives have no compunction about loudly proclaiming the primacy of their antiquated belief systems and defense of privilege, and unfortunately all too often shed this mortal coil before their deeply held beliefs become the laughingstock of society.

I do wish these people could somehow be punished posthumously for all the pain they caused, and continue to cause, during their lifetimes. If there is a hell or anything resembling it, they’re almost certainly bound there.

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Just when we were rid of Joe Lieberman, Bob Kerrey announces he is running for the Senate. Feel the magic. For those of you who are too young to remember much about him, think Evan Bayh except even more irritating. My only wish would be that he would join the Republican Party where he could be the pain in the ass gadfly in their ointment for a change.

“I think he would do very well with young people, and it would very exciting to see him reintroduce himself to a new generation of Nebraskans,” said Bob Shrum, a retired Democratic consultant now teaching at New York University. “He is the anti-politician and in this age of conformity and often drabness, his life story will appeal to young people.”

But given his age and experience, Kerrey will have a freedom many candidates don’t enjoy and thinks he can bring a message that focuses of two issues that have greatly worsened since he left the Senate in 2001—the growing federal debt and the level of income inequality in the nation.

I don’t know what that means, but he’s been a deficit scold for decades, so I’d imagine he’s come up with some completely unworkable idea that will place him as a GOP swing vote and also before the microphones as frequently as possible to posture and preen about his moral superiority. That’s pretty much what he does. I’m honestly not sure it wouldn’t be better to just have a hardcore Nebraska Republican in there so that Democrats won’t bother to bow and scrape under the misapprehension that he will vote their way.

Here’s who we’ll be dealing with:

Protection racket

by digby

There have been quite a few people who have mistakenly assumed that Darrell Issa’s turn as lead corruption inquisitor was a blessing because he would have to turn up the heat on members of both parties to maintain credibility on these bipartisan money scandals. Wellll, not so much:

Last Friday at the California Republican Party’s spring convention in Burlingame, CA, Republic Report caught up with Congressman Darrell Issa (R-CA), who has been leading the investigation into the massive Countrywide bribery scandal. To Issa’s credit, his subpoena requests have revealed that members from both parties received heavily discounted mortgages, waived fees, and other special deals from Countrywide, the troubled subprime lending company that is now owned by Bank of America.

Before, the scandal was almost entirely a Democrat-only affair. Former Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) received a discounted mortgage, and the news may have led to his decision to retire from the Senate in 2010. But in the last two months, it was revealed that Republican Congressmen Buck McKeon, Elton Gallegly, and Pete Sessions were also recipients of VIP Countrywide mortgages.

In previous years, Issa has called the Countrywide mortgage scandal a “bribe.” On an appearance with Fox News, Issa declared, “I call it bribes,” and mocked Democrats for not using the term. In a widely publicized showdown with Congressman Ed Towns, another Democratic recipient of a discounted Countrywide mortgage, Issa referred to the VIP mortgages as “an attempt to bribe” government officials.

So, we asked Issa if he would extend the same language he reserved for Democrats to newly identified recipients of special Countrywide loan deals.

FANG: You’ve called the discounted mortgages an attempt to bribe Congressman Towns. Do you think it was an attempt to bribe people like Congressman Buck McKeon?

ISSA: Well, I know you’re quoting something but you’re not quoting from anything I said.

FANG: I think that was from the Oversight website actually.

ISSA: I never said attempt to bribe. What I said was Angelo Mozilo and Countrywide attempted to influence government at all levels. An important detail.

Yes, it’s an important detail. Attempting to influence government is legal and bribery isn’t. Making a partisan distinction between the two

Counting on Darrell Issa to police corruption in Washington in an unbiased manner is like counting on the Military Industrial Complex to come up with federal spending cuts. It’s fairly sure it’s going to be a self-serving exercise.

I’m hope that Issa keeps protecting McKeon and the rest of the boys, actually. Maybe when they go to jail, which is increasingly likely, he’ll go down with them.

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Right wing feminist pron

by digby

Dana Loesch:
“Feminists” like this seem more like the trophy girlfriends of a Sugar Daddy government than “empowered” women

Then she linked to this piece of garbage:

Sex-Crazed Co-Eds Going Broke Buying Birth Control, Student Tells Pelosi Hearing Touting Freebie Mandate

By Craig Bannister

A Georgetown co-ed told Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s hearing that the women in her law school program are having so much sex that they’re going broke, so you and I should pay for their birth control.

Speaking at a hearing held by Pelosi to tout Pres. Obama’s mandate that virtually every health insurance plan cover the full cost of contraception and abortion-inducing products, Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke said that it’s too expensive to have sex in law school without mandated insurance coverage.

Apparently, four out of every ten co-eds are having so much sex that it’s hard to make ends meet if they have to pay for their own contraception, Fluke’s research shows.

“Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy (Georgetown student insurance not covering contraception), Fluke reported.

It costs a female student $3,000 to have protected sex over the course of her three-year stint in law school, according to her calculations.

“Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school,” Fluke told the hearing.

$3,000 for birth control in three years? That’s a thousand dollars a year of sex – and, she wants us to pay for it.

Yes, us. Where do you think the insurance companies forced to cover this cost get the money to pay for these co-eds to have sex? It comes from the health care insurance premiums you and I pay.

But, back to this woman’s complaint that she’s spending $3,000 for birth control during her time in college.

“For a lot of students, like me, who are on public interest scholarships, that’s practically an entire summer’s salary,” she complains.

So, she earns enough money in just one summer to pays for three full years of sex. And, yes, they are full years – since she and her co-ed classmates are having sex nearly three times a day for three years straight, apparently.

At a dollar a condom if she shops at CVS pharmacy’s website, that $3,000 would buy her 3,000 condoms – or, 1,000 a year. (By the way, why does CVS.com list the weight of its condom products in terms of pounds?)

Assuming it’s not a leap year, that’s 1,000 divided by 365 – or having sex 2.74 times a day, every day, for three straight years. And, I thought Georgetown was a Catholic university where women might be prone to shun casual, unmarried sex. At least its health insurance doesn’t cover contraception (that which you subsidize, you get more of, you know).

And, that’s not even considering that there are Planned Parenthood clinics in her neighborhood that give condoms away and sell them at a discount, which could help make her sexual zeal more economical.

Besides, maybe, these female law students could cut back on some other expenses to make room for more birth control in their budgets, instead of making us pick up the tab. With classes and studying and all that sex, who’s got time for cable?

And, let’s not forget about these deadbeat boyfriends (or random hook-ups?) who are having sex 2.74 times a day. If Fluke’s going to ask the government to force anyone to foot the bill for her friends’ birth control, shouldn’t it be these guys?

All of this seems to suggest at least two important conclusions:

1. If these women want to have sex, we shouldn’t be forced to pay for it, and
2. If these co-eds really are this guy crazy, I should’ve gone to law school.

Why do I have the feeling that this snotty little jerk has just dribbled out one of his sexual fantasies and is now lying back smoking a cigarette?

The conflation of condoms with other forms of birth control is cute, but unpersuasive. Condoms have a high failure rate and they require that women trust men to use them properly, so it’s not exactly the smart way to go if you are in a relationship. Not that this fellow would know — you get the feeling he thinks that that all these women who are having sex in their 20s are having it with different men each night — again, his fantasy apparently.

And you have to love Loesch, who seems to have confused female empowerment with sadistic machismo. Here, you can see her telling Bill Maher that she’d like to “teabag” him and who can forget her memorable announcement that she’d “drop trou” and urinate all over corpses if she had the chance. I guess that’s what passes for feminism on the right. We used to call it psychotic.

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Homeland Occupation

by digby

So, we found out yesterday that Homeland Security was doing some tracking of the Occupy Wall Street Movement. It they’ve only done what was reported, it seems to be fairly benign, limited to tracking and analyzing the movement through public media. Here’s the main thrust of its reasoning:

Mass gatherings associated with public protest movements can have disruptive effects on transportation, commercial, and government services, especially when staged in major metropolitan areas. Large scale demonstrations also carry the potential for violence, presenting a significant challenge for law enforcement.

I suppose that’s true. But why is it the federal government’s problem? No large scale political demonstration is going to be big enough that it could “disrupt” beyond the borders of a major metropolitan area or certainly not state borders. Lord knows there are plenty of local and state police around to handle anything that happens. There is no federal implication to any of it, unless it’s happening in Washington DC.

These are explicitly political demonstrations, even if they aren’t partisan, and great care needs to be taken to ensure that the government isn’t interfering with that. I realize that we have a huge new federal policing apparatus with Homeland Security that needs to play with its toys, but I don’t think it was designed for the purpose of monitoring domestic political demonstrations. After all, we already have the FBI for that — and I would imagine they are doing their own monitoring, (also for no good reason, by the way.)

Local police are perfectly capable of handling demonstrations. There’s no reason for the Feds to be involved.

But I do wonder, considering this revelation, if Homeland Security is monitoring the Tea Party at all? After all, there was a fairly good chance that some of the fringe far right characters who were involved were actually planning some terrorism. My guess is that the locals and maybe the FBI would have also been capable of dealing with that, but one could at least see some remote reasoning for DHS to be concerned with them over Occupy, which hasn’t shown the slightest inclination toward any kind of terrorism or violent national threat.

DHS did warn of some threat from the Tea Party back on 09, of course. But you’ll recall that they were harassed by the right wing into withdrawing their warnings. In fact, they ended up closing down the whole unit that was devoted to right wing extremist groups:

In an in-depth interview published in the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Intelligence Report, [former DHS analyst]Johnson reveals the level of sway the political right had in thwarting intelligence work on right-wing extremism. He says DHS deliberately “mischaracterized the report as unauthorized, even though it had passed through proper channels” and “instituted restrictive policies that brought the important work of his unit to a virtual standstill.” As a result, Johnson “left DHS in dismay and was followed by almost all the members of his team, leaving a single analyst where there had been six.” In comparison, there are at least 25 analysts devoted to tracking Islamic terrorism.

When questioned about Johnson’s claims — which have been confirmed by current and former department officials in the Washington Post – DHS officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, have repeatedly disputed his account and insist that “the level of activity by right-wing extremist groups has remained consistent over the past few years.” In addition, they claim “the perception of increased extremist activity may be due to increased awareness of the threat by the government and the public.” But the numbers beg to differ.

I wonder how many analysts they put on Occupy?

The fact is that right wing terrorist groups are growing and have been quite active over the past few years, which anyone who reads the paper knows. But the political pressure that was brought to bear was instantaneous and crushing. That was the end of that. So I would imagine they held back on doing any assessment of those who brought guns to political events for intimidation purposes or investigated any of the militia groups that have infiltrated the Tea Parties.

Again, I’m not sure what Homeland Security’s role is supposed to be in all this to begin with. We already had the FBI for national law enforcement, which includes domestic terrorism.(And lord knows they have historically been eager and willing to infiltrate and monitor political movements.) I thought DHS was going to be for bringing all the federal authorities together to assess foreign threats to the “Homeland.”

That it would end up infiltrating and duplicating the FBI and local law enforcement’s jurisdictions was inevitable, however. If you build it, they will use it. And it appears they are using it to monitor events such as peaceful political demonstrations against domestic industries. Just don’t ask them to monitor violent white supremacist groups or anti-government terrorists. It would go against the constitution and that would be wrong.

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Eat What You Kill

by David Atkins

Wall Street likes to defend its lavish bonuses as justification for top performance, and necessary for keeping the best talent. So how do they explain this?

While Wall Street’s profits were battered and beaten last year, workers’ bonuses were merely bruised.

The total payouts to finance industry employees in New York are forecast to drop only 14 percent during this bonus season, according to a report issued on Wednesday by the state comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli. By comparison, profits plunged, falling 51 percent.

“The securities industry, which is a critical component of the economies of New York City and New York State, faces continued challenges as it works through the fallout from the financial crisis and adjusts to regulatory reforms,” Mr. DiNapoli said in a statement

Eat what you kill, indeed.

The funniest part has to be this:

At the same time, overall compensation on Wall Street remains high relative to the rest of New York. In 2010, the average pay, including bonuses, in the securities industry in New York City hit $361,180. (Figures were not yet available for 2011). At that level, Wall Street paychecks are 5.5 times higher than those in the rest of the private sector.

Compensation has posed a dilemma at Wall Street firms. The issue has proved a lightning rod for politicians and critics who contend that the industry’s pay packages are too high.

But some banks defend their practices, arguing that compensation is critical to retaining and rewarding employees. Jamie Dimon, the chief executive of JPMorgan Chase, said at an investor conference on Tuesday that even in tough times, he would not pay his employees less than the going rate.

“We are going to pay competitively,” Mr. Dimon told a roomful of analysts and investors at the conference. “We need top talent. You cannot run these businesses with second-rate talent.”

If crashing the world economy and shrinking profits by half isn’t second-rate talent, what is? If it’s not clear by now that this is a pack of greedy parasites enriching themselves and their friends at our expense, it never will be. Maybe if we forced them to shop at government grocery stores and undergo drug tests for cocaine use it might be clearer what a drain they are on real, hard-working Americans.

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Daily Squalor

by digby

No this wasn’t written at Free Republic. It’s at little Tucker Carlson’s Daily Caller, which must be convinced it needs the white supremacist audience to succeed:

For those of you who missed it, several months ago “Mr. EBT” went viral with his hit tune “My EBT.” Classic examples of Shakespearean prose from the song include this passage: “Damn, I just want some jam. Walkin’ down the aisle ’cause I’m lookin’ for the haaaamm. Wham! Where da hell da cheese at?” And who could forget this line: “I wish I could buy some weed with my EBT, but the drug dealer frontin’ me. I mean, who cares? I mean, who cares? It’s an EBT, it’s not food stamps.” Catchy and brilliant! Mr. EBT is quite the wordsmith. Of course, he would lose his street cred without his Yankees hat and leather coat. Heck, it wasn’t even his Electronic Benefit Transfer card! He “borrowed” it from his sister! And now we have Jesse Jackson telling us Barack Obama should be honored to be the “food stamp president” because food stamps pay for everything under the sun and save lives.

What’s going on, America?

These are fine examples of what many Americans witness on a regular basis. The other day, while my family and I were waiting in a check-out line at Wal-Mart, I noticed that the woman checking out in front of us was texting on her $200 cell phone (which probably costs at least $100 a month in service fees and may have been paid for by the government as well) and holding what my wife says was a $100 designer purse, with a stack of junk food, beer and cigarettes on the belt behind a line of subsistence products like milk, cheese, cereal and meat.

People pay for “necessary” items with their EBT government debit cards and then use cash for their smokes, beer and munchies. Yet, I have to fork over my hard-earned dollars for every item in my cart (and in essence theirs as well, since I pay taxes while they probably get “refunds” every April). Something is wrong here. Why is the average taxpayer both screwed by the system and forced to watch his tax dollars being wasted on people who abuse the system?

That’s such a familiar old trope, it makes me feel young again. I think the older racists were a little bit more colorful though:

The term “welfare queen” is most often associated with Ronald Reagan who brought the idea to a national audience. During his 1976 presidential campaign, Reagan would tell the story of a woman from Chicago’s South Side who was arrested for welfare fraud:

“She has eighty names, thirty addresses, twelve Social Security cards and is collecting veteran’s benefits on four non-existing deceased husbands. And she is collecting Social Security on her cards. She’s got Medicaid, getting food stamps, and she is collecting welfare under each of her names. Her tax-free cash income is over $150,000.”

That was, of course, a lie, but then I would imagine this alleged first hand story of standing in line at the local Walmart is too. (Designer purses don’t cost a hundred bucks, by the way …)

This gets to the heart of the right’s loathing for government programs. In their minds they are getting ripped off by “those people” who are freeloading and living high on the hog. (And you know what I mean by “those people” because he subtly opens the piece with a rap tune.)

This fine fellow has a solution:

Dharma-style food stamp reform would have four basic components. First, the federal government would create a government “brand” of essential food items such as milk, cheese, meat, cereal, vegetables, bread, peanut butter, beans, juice, soup, baby formula, diapers, etc., and would package the items with simple black-and-white labels and basic descriptions. The word “Government” would be stamped across the top in bold letters so everyone would know it was a welfare item. These items could be manufactured by major companies through government contracts, thus not creating a net loss to private industry. Because competition is not an issue, taste and quality, with the exception of the baby formula and baby food, would not be a top priority. Snacks, soda, cigarettes and beer would not be available through the program.

Second, the government would lease existing store fronts and set up “government stores.” There are typically several grocery store locations that have gone out of business in any given area; these would make ideal settings for the new government stores. The number of store locations would be chosen based on the size of the area and its number of food stamp recipients. The stores would be placed on public transportation routes for convenience.

Third, and most importantly, all food stamp recipients would be required to spend their government dollars at these stores. Private grocery stores and chains, such as Wal-Mart and McDonald’s, would no longer be allowed to accept EBT cards, and the money loaded on the cards could not be withdrawn and used for any other purpose. Each card would have a set dollar amount sizable enough to purchase essential items from the government store. For example, a family of four could expect to receive enough government-brand beans, rice, bread, milk, cheese, meat, cereal and vegetables to last a month with careful planning. In other words, they must be ready to stretch a food budget. Families with babies would get a month supply of formula, baby food and diapers.

Fourth, anyone who accepts government aid would have to submit to a monthly tobacco and drug test. Food stamp recipients are, after all, wards of the state. They are slaves to the government and should be reminded of that fact. If a recipient is found to have tobacco or drugs in his system, he would be dropped from the program. People on government aid would also lose the privilege of voting. That way they couldn’t vote for greater benefits or easier terms (most of them don’t vote, but now they couldn’t).

What an interesting idea. And who says conservatives believe in vote suppression?

I think this is good though. It’s a straightforward portrayal of exactly what many of these folks think. I appreciate the honesty.

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Newtie and the cross

by digby

This is creepy:

It was through the Pastors’ Policy Briefings that Gingrich—whose campaign declined to comment for this story—reportedly hit on the idea of launching a group called Renewing American Leadership, which he did in 2008. David Barton was among the founding board members. California pastor Jim Garlow, who helped organize the campaign to repeal California’s gay-marriage law and has likened the gay rights movement to an “antichrist spirit,” was later named president. At the time, the Tea Party had just exploded on the scene, and the group’s stated goal was to bring religious and fiscal conservatives together, in part by making a biblical case for conservative economic policies. This has indeed been part of the program. According to a report from the liberal advocacy group People for the American Way, just after the 2010 elections, Barton, Gingrich and Garlow hosted a conference call for pastors to celebrate Republican gains in the House and make the case that progressive taxation, deficit spending and the minimum wage ran counter to biblical teachings.

But Renewing American Leadership has also built bridges to the ascendant Dominionist movement, known as the New Apostolic Reformation or NAR. An offshoot of Pentecostalism—the second largest branch of Christianity and one of the fastest growing—the movement has been spreading rapidly within existing churches and congregations. While there are no credible estimates on the number of adherents, the prayer rallies convened by some NAR leaders fill stadiums. At the movement’s core is a group of self-proclaimed apostles and prophets who see themselves as the forefront of a second Reformation that will transform not only the church, but every facet of society. In fact, one of the apostles’ main teachings is that believers have to infiltrate and take control of what they call the “seven mountains of culture”—religion, family, business, arts and entertainment, education, media and government—before Jesus can return. And when they speak of taking dominion in these spheres, they often resort to the language of war. “The way some of the leaders talk, you’d think they were an army planning to take over the world,” says Margaret Poloma, a professor at the University of Akron and a practicing Pentecostal who has studied the New Apostolic movement. “It sounds to me like radical Islam.”

Obviously these Dominionists are either dumb or they are hypocrites, maybe both. Gingrich? I wonder how much money he got out of them.

I’m being facetious, but the truth is that this movement merits keeping an eye on. True, they backed the wrong horse this time — should have gone with Santorum. But there are more of them than we think and they are very influential at the state level. Rick Perry is one of their major pets. And look at what Texas has accomplished.

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Dow Hits 13,000 under Class Warfare President

by David Atkins

I guess good times are here again on Wall Street:

U.S. stocks closed at multi-year highs, as investors weighed a small pullback in oil prices and improving consumer confidence against a worse-than-expected drop in durable goods orders.

The Dow Jones industrial average (INDU) closed above 13,000 for the first time since May 19, 2008, after narrowly missing that finish line for the past several trading days. The DJIA added 24 points, or 0.2%. While the 13,000 level is not considered technically significant, it is a psychological milestone.

I personally detest the use of stock indices as a measure of economic health. In an age where the top 1% who own the vast majority of stock investments are so utterly disconnected from the rest of us, cheering the rise of the Dow is about as useful as cheering discounted prices on yachts. Sure, a rising market helps 401Ks (for what that’s worth) and can sometimes be a predictor of lagging employment increases–though given our increasingly jobless recoveries, the latter is less and less true. But generally speaking, a healthier stock market doesn’t mean a whole lot to the rest of us. In fact, I think one of the most baneful legacies the Clinton Administration left us was a national obsession with stock market indices as the key measure of our national prosperity, when they used to be the more appropriate concern of the dull business section on page 4 of your newspaper.

Still, Wall Street has a nice psychological gain to cheer about today.

Not that it will matter, of course. Our neoliberal president who has done essentially everything the Bond Lords asked for, will still get smeared from now through November as a radical class warrior because he once dared to hurt their widdle feelings by calling them fat cats that one time.

The funny thing is that these financial genius Masters of the Universe will try in a fit of pique to get a Republican president elected, who will in turn without question escalate a war with Iran, creating oil shocks that will crash the economy again, devastating most of their portfolios (though a few profiteers will make out like bandits.)

These guys may be quantitative mavens with a sociopathic talent for manipulating their fellow man, but geniuses they aren’t. They’re trying to kill their golden goose because it once honked at them the wrong way.

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Angela Merkel in the suds

by digby

I think she was much more bothered by George W. Bush’s uninvited back rub. I suspect beer down the back probably is more pleasant.

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