If you had an inkling that political discourse was getting dumbed down by the day, it appears you were right:
The Sunlight Foundation determined that Congress is talking at nearly a full grade level below the level at which members spoke seven years ago, according to its study of the Congressional Record—the official record of members’ proceedings and speech. The foundation applied the Flesch-Kincaid grade level test to congressional conversations and found that today’s Congress speaks “at about a 10.6 grade level, down from 11.5 in 2005,” senior fellow Lee Drutman wrote in his analysis. Sunlight also found that the newest as well as the most conservative members of Congress on average speak at the lowest grade level.
Is it a surprise that all the new Tea Partiers are dumbing down the discourse? No, it isn’t. But then, that may be part of the reason they were successful. Strategists often note that Democrats speak more to the brain than to heart, while Republicans do the reverse. Part of speaking to the heart means speaking in language that most people can understand. The article’s accompanying chart, meanwhile, shows that Democrats have also been vulgarizing their speeches, just not as dramatically as Republicans.
So maybe the drop in linguistic register is a good thing for democracy. But I can’t help feeling that when the political discourse of the highest lawmaking body in the land drops down to a 10th grade level, we lose something vital to democracy in the process.
Of course, as long as all the legislation is written by the lobbyists, anyway, I guess it doesn’t much matter what’s in the speeches.
I will never understand the homoerotic rape scenarios these authoritarians always seem to gravitate toward, but it’s so common (think Abu Ghraib) that I think it must be a huge part of the pathology.
In any case, here’s a bit of the transcript if you can’t follow it on the video:
New York Police Sergeant Lesly Charles told the man, who was getting harassed for parking illegally, that he didn’t mind the “hustling” as long as he paid him respect.
“I have the long d–k. You don’t,” the cop bragged.
“Your pretty face — I like it very much. My d–k will go in your mouth and come out your ear. Don’t f–k with me. All right?”
After the target of his tirade insisted, “I didn’t do anything,” Charles retorted, “Listen to me. When you see me, you look the other way. Tell your boys, I don’t f–k around. All right?”
“I’ll take my gun and put it up your a– and then I’ll call your mother afterwards. You understand that?”
For good measure, the sergeant added: “And I’ll put your s–t in your own mouth.”
“The FBI had a file on him when he was 14 years old”
by digby
Alan Grayson endorsed Norman Solomon yesterday. Did he ever:
I have five children. Sometimes I try to explain to them what it was like to live in America in the Sixties and Seventies. When the federal government listened in on phone conversations of civil rights leaders, and bugged their homes. When the President of the United States and his henchmen plotted to kill a reporter, Jack Anderson. When one major party burglarized the headquarters of the other major party. When the National Guard shot and killed college students. When rioting prisoners were picked off and killed by marksmen with rifle scopes.
There is one candidate for Congress this year who knows all about that. Because the FBI had a file on him. When he was 14 years old.
Here is how Solomon describes how it came about that the FBI opened a file on him when he was 14:
“I’d heard that some people were protesting at an all-white apartment complex close by, near the D.C. border, named Summit Hills. I was just a kid, but I’d figured out that segregation was wrong. So I picked up a sign, and joined the picket line.”
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was enough in 1966 to label you a “subversive,” and put you under FBI surveillance.
But what’s important now is that Norman Solomon showed what he was made of, at the age of 14.
Support someone who doesn’t just talk the talk, but someone who walks the walk. Someone who has been walking in picket lines and protest marches for the past 46 years. Someone whom J. Edgar Hoover wouldn’t like at all. Someone named Norman Solomon.
A lot of people who have been working in progressive causes for almost half a century are too tired, too burnt out, to run for Congress. But not Norman Solomon. He still has the energy, and the drive, and the conscience, to make a difference in Congress.
Tuesday, June 5th is what Blue America is calling its “Super Tuesday”, when several extremely important primary races will be decided. In fact, early voting has begun in California and Norman’s running to replace progressive stalwart Lynn Woolsey in the second district just above San Francisco.
We don’t need to tell you again what an amazing person Norman is. His progressive resume spans 30 years as an activist and media critic and an elected official. He’s been endorsed by the most committed progressives in the nation. His good friend and longtime colleague Jeff Cohen, co-founder of FAIR, is one of them. In a recent impassioned endorsement, he explained why this particular race is so important:
Getting to a bloc of 25 genuine, principled progressives in Congress is attainable. What’s needed is a strategy and resources to develop candidates in dozens of solidly progressive congressional districts nationwide: black, Latino, college town, liberal urban, etc. When an incumbent Democrat sells-out or leaves office, activists in such a district should be able to call upon national organizational and netroots support to get a 100% progressive into Congress. Once elected by the grassroots in such districts, it’s hard for corporate or conservative forces to ever get them out. Think Bernie Sanders. Think Barbara Lee.
Think Blue America. Think Norman Solomon — a progressive leader with a lifetime of liberal activism representing a deep blue district, unencumbered by obligation to business or the Democratic establishment. This is how we build our bloc.
We don’t have to worry about a bunch of Republicans and ConservaDems demanding “centrism” in the second district of California. It’s a place filled with voters who will support liberal policies and reward political courage. It’s a seat that rightfully belongs to a leader of the progressive wing of the Democratic Party.
Ask yourself, if not Norman Solomon, then who? If not in a deep blue district that believes in progressive values, then where? If not now, when?
Before Obama had even lifted a finger, the CBO was already projecting that the federal deficit would rise to $1.2 trillion in fiscal 2009. The government actually spent less money in 2009 than it was projected to, but the deficit expanded to $1.4 trillion because revenue from taxes fell much further than expected, due to the weak economy and the emergency tax cuts that were part of the stimulus bill.
The projected deficit for the 2010-13 period has grown from an expected $1.7 trillion in January 2009 to $4.4 trillion today. Lower-than-forecast revenue accounts for 73% of the $2.7 trillion increase in the expected deficit. That’s assuming that the Bush and Obama tax cuts are repealed completely.
When Obama took the oath of office, the $789 billion bank bailout had already been approved. Federal spending on unemployment benefits, food stamps and Medicare was already surging to meet the dire unemployment crisis that was well under way. See the CBO’s January 2009 budget outlook.
Obama is not responsible for that increase, though he is responsible (along with the Congress) for about $140 billion in extra spending in the 2009 fiscal year from the stimulus bill, from the expansion of the children’s’ health-care program and from other appropriations bills passed in the spring of 2009.
If we attribute that $140 billion in stimulus to Obama and not to Bush, we find that spending under Obama grew by about $200 billion over four years, amounting to a 1.4% annualized increase.
After adjusting for inflation, spending under Obama is falling at a 1.4% annual pace — the first decline in real spending since the early 1970s, when Richard Nixon was retreating from the quagmire in Vietnam.
In per-capita terms, real spending will drop by nearly 5% from $11,450 per person in 2009 to $10,900 in 2013 (measured in 2009 dollars).
And that’s just the Federal government. States are even worse.
Now the Democrats seem to think this is a good thing, something to be proud of. And the Republicans are just lying through their teeth insisting that the administration has been throwing dollars around like drunken sailors. But the truth is that for a number of political and ideological reasons, the United States has been practicing austerity.
And it’s having the same effect that Keynesian economists predicted. By trying to cut the deficit in a recession, you end up making it worse. As Krugman memorably put it:
“Austerity-loving pundits and policy makers really are like medieval doctors who believed in treating illness by bleeding their patients, making the patients even sicker, leading to more bleeding”.
This is terribly rude, and when these candidates said these rude things, there was, you’ll recall, a huge outcry among the moneyed class about just how rude it was:
Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry: “The idea that you’ve got private equity companies that come in and take companies apart so they can make profits and have people lose their jobs, that’s not what the Republican Party’s about.”
Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich: “The Bain model is to go in at a very low price, borrow an immense amount of money, pay Bain an immense amount of money and leave. I’ll let you decide if that’s really good capitalism. I think that’s exploitation.”
Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry: “It’s all about how much money can we make, how quick can we make it, and then get out of town and find the next carcass to feed upon”
Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich: “We find it pretty hard to justify rich people figuring out clever legal ways to loot a company, leaving behind 1,700 families without a job.”
Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry: “Now, I have no doubt Mitt Romney was worried about pink slips — whether he was going to have enough of them to hand out because his company, Bain Capital, of all the jobs that they killed”
Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich: “He claims he created 100,000 jobs. The Washington Post, two days ago, reported in their fact check column that he gets three Pinocchios. Now, a Pinocchio is what you get from The Post if you’re not telling the truth.”
Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry: “There is something inherently wrong when getting rich off failure and sticking it to someone else is how you do your business, and I happen to think that’s indefensible”
Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich: “If Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he’s earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years, then I would be glad to then listen to him”
Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry: “If you’re a victim of Bain Capital’s downsizing, it’s the ultimate insult for Mitt Romney to come to South Carolina and tell you he feels your pain, because he caused it.”
Republican former House Speaker Newt Gingrich: “I think there are things you can legitimately look at in Bain Capital. I think there are things you can legitimately look at in anybody’s record including Mitt Romney’s record.
Republican Texas Governor Rick Perry: “They’re vultures that sitting out there on the tree limb waiting for the company to get sick and then they swoop in, they eat the carcass. They leave with that and they leave the skeleton”
Surely you remember all the clutching of pearls and rending of garments when these people were insulting the fine folks of Bain Capital and, by extension, the All American heroes of “private equity” who basically put the shirt on your back and food on your table andyoushouldbegrateful. What? You don’t remember it?
Anyway, my favorite was this one, which tells the tale perfectly. Newtie always did have a way with words:
“The question is whether or not these companies were being manipulated by the guys who invest to drain them of their money, leaving behind people who were unemployed,” he said. “Show me somebody who has consistently made money while losing money for workers and I’ll show you someone who has undermined capitalism.”
Not that he meant it, of course. But when the political establishment starts whining about Democrats being unfriendly to capitalism, remind them of these quotes. You can say a lot of things about Newtie and Rick Perry, but I’m guessing accusing them of being socialists isn’t going to fly.
Heartland’s claims to “stay above the fray” of the climate wars was exploded by a billboard campaign earlier this month comparing climate change believers to the Unabomer Ted Kaczynski, and a document sting last February that revealed a plan to spread doubt among kindergarteners on the existence of climate change.
Along with the damage to its reputation, Heartland’s financial future is also threatened by an exodus of corporate donors as well as key members of staff.
In a fiery blogpost on the Heartland website, the organisation’s president Joseph Bast admitted Heartland’s defectors were “abandoning us in this moment of need”.
Over the last few weeks, Heartland has lost at least $825,000 in expected funds for 2012, or more than 35% of the funds its planned to raise from corporate donors, according to the campaign group Forecast the Facts, which is pushing companies to boycott the organisation.
The organisation has been forced to make up those funds by taking its first publicly acknowledged donations from the coal industry. The main Illinois coal lobby is a last-minute sponsor of this week’s conference, undermining Heartland’s claims to operate independently of fossil fuel interests.
Its entire Washington DC office, barring one staffer, decamped, taking Heartland’s biggest project, involving the insurance industry, with them.
Board directors quit, conference speakers cancelled at short-notice, and associates of long standing demanded Heartland remove their names from its website. The list of conference sponsors shrank by nearly half from 2010, and many of those listed sponsors are just websites operating on the rightwing fringe.
“It’s haemorrhaging,” said Kert Davies, research director of Greenpeace, who has spent years tracking climate contrarian outfits. “Heartland’s true colours finally came through, and now people are jumping ship in quick order.”
This is a story about a New Orleans school psychologist whom the Southern Poverty Law center, in the course of a larger investigation into complaints about the school system’s treatment of black and special education students, found was making decisions about which students should be diverted into “alternative” schools on the basis of race. I’ll just pick it up here:
The Southern Poverty Center knows that these allegations are ABSOLUTELY NOT TRUE!,” Traina wrote in an education forum on NOLA.com, using his own name as he criticized the center’s earlier allegations. “This is just another way to harass the Jefferson Parish Public School System. One only needs to read the Times Picayune to see who the real trouble makers are. Sadly, it is disproportionately young black males. Everyone knows that our jails throughout the United States are disproportionately filled with black people. Why would the rate be any different in an educational environment?”
He cited what he said are statistics about high incarceration rates among African-Americans and high crime in predominantly black neighborhoods.
“Even one of the best known Civil Rights Activists in America recently indicated (I won’t mention any names) that it is MUCH safer to walk through a predominately white neighborhood after dark than in black neighborhood,” he wrote.
“I live in Slidell land I MUST admit it is one of the safest places that I have ever lived in the State of Louisiana,” he wrote. “All I can say is, ‘Thank God for Lake Pontchartrain.'”
His posts on Twitter are more heated, including a January comment that, “Young Black Thugs who won’t follow the law need to be put down not incarcerated. Put down like the Dogs they are!”
In a March comment about an article on a violent incident in New Orleans, he wrote, “Quick someone call David Duke before the NAACP gets here!”
Remarking in March about the Republican presidential primaries, he wrote, “I grew up in Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana – I am a Wallace Man at Heart!”
Heilman said the comments bolster the Southern Poverty Law Center’s case, providing a rare glimpse into the personal attitudes of officials who work with troubled students.
“He has some, my take on it, some pretty clear biases,” Heilman said. She said Traina has participated in meetings discussing individual student’s cases with the law center.
“It’s particularly alarming to have someone who works for the school system in a position of authority be pro-segregation,” she said, referring to his remark about George Wallace, segregationist governor of Alabama.
Traina said Monday that he stands by his online commentary and that it doesn’t apply to the functioning of the school system.
“I don’t represent the Jefferson Parish school system,” Traina said. “I represent Mark Traina. I make that very clear in my comments.”
He argued some of the law center’s allegations against the Jefferson system are unfair.
Ok, so what’s the big deal? Nothing really. These stories crop up from time to time. But I chose to post it because it shows his racial bias so clearly — and yet he also says this:
“Everything I said is fact-based, backed up by data,” he said. “I don’t have a prejudiced bone in my body. I’m not a racist. I’m a realist.”
Of course. In fact, I think that most people you or I might call racist truly believe they aren’t racists, but rather are realists. They simply think that the truth is that black people are dangerous and need to be kept separately from white people — by white people. In his mind that’s not racism. Racism is to him, by definition, an unfair accusation. It’s interesting to see it laid out so clearly and openly.
Other than that, he’s just another jerk who should not have the lives and futures of young black males in his bigoted hands.
The latest Democratic complaint came after House Speaker John Boehner said Tuesday that when Congress raises the nation’s borrowing cap in early 2013, he will again insist on big spending cuts to offset the increase. Boehner, R-Ohio, continues to reject higher tax rates, which Democrats demand from the wealthy.
That led Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to say Boehner is virtually assuring another debt-ceiling crisis as bad or worse than the one that shook financial markets nine months ago.
“The last thing the country needs is a rerun of last summer’s debacle that nearly brought down our economy,” Schumer said in a statement. In an interview, Schumer added: “I hope that the speaker is not doing this because he doesn’t want to see the economy improve, because what he said will certainly rattle the markets.”
Boehner responded in a statement: “Republicans have passed nearly 30 bills that would help small businesses create jobs and we are waiting on Senate Democrats to vote on these common-sense measures. The failure to act on these jobs bills, as well as our crushing debt burden, is undermining economic growth and job creation.”
Democrats say Republicans loaded their jobs bills with provisions certain to doom them in the Senate, such as restrictions on unions and on regulatory agencies such as the Environmental Protection Agency.
He said. Then she said. But then he retorted. And then she responded. Do journalists even bother to report actual facts anymore, or do they just dutifully transcribe whatever the press secretaries tell them to?
But it gets better (worse, really):
Regardless of whether Schumer’s suspicions are right, there’s evidence that unceasing partisan gridlock and the prospect of big tax increases and spending cuts in January are causing some companies to postpone expansions. Even small economic slowdowns are bad news for Obama, who is seeking re-election amid high unemployment.
The Washington Post this past week compiled a list of military contractors, hospitals and universities that are delaying hires and bracing for cuts, partly because of fears that Washington’s partisan divisions will not abate.
Wait, what? Let’s deconstruct this. Lack of hiring is blamed on two things: 1) partisan gridlock, and 2) austerity. But since some sort of austerity package is the one thing that the “moderates” in both parties seem to agree on, wouldn’t the gridlock help the hiring picture? And about those tax increases, the President has actually been promoting lowering the corporate rate while closing as many of the supposedly complicated loopholes as possible. Anyone with an ounce of political acumen knows that the GOP will probably win seats in the Senate if not control the body outright, which means that it will be functionally impossible to raise taxes on the wealthy or on the corporate sector, anyway. And since corporate profits are at record high with little hiring on the radar, what difference exactly would a minor boost or siphon on their bottom lines make, anyway?
Seriously, journalists are paid to ask questions and get answers. Charles Babbington at AP, the guy who wrote those paragraphs, clearly didn’t bother to ask himself the first question about what he was writing. Instead, he lazily reprinted topsy-turvy ridiculous conventional wisdom as it were fact, embedded in a he-said-she-said sandwich free of any factual analysis.
And this, in a story progressives are cheering about.
The media in this country is screwed up beyond repair.
I hope all girls and women who are feeling psychologically embattled in the ongoing challenge and assault on their personhood and autonomy will have a chance to read this inspiring cri de coeur. It’s all good, but this struck me as especially important to understand:
If you were not powerful, they would not take you so seriously and they take you very, very seriously. You should, too. You can set the world on fire.
Girls, these things happen because there are men with power who fear you and want to control you. I know that I have equated relatively benign baseball games with deadly, honor killings but, whereas one is a type of daily, seemingly harmless micro-aggression and the other is a lethal macro-aggression they share the same roots. The basis of both, and escalating actions in between, is the same: To teach you, and all girls subject to these men and their authority, a lesson: “Know your place.” …
I get a fair amount of criticism for worrying about the “first world” problems of women with their “contraception” obsession and their “choices” when there are people being killed around the world today at Americans’ hands, so I found this instructive and illuminating.
I think it’s probably ok to be concerned with more than one thing at a time. I’m concerned about the people being killed at the American government’s hands, whether it’s innocent families in Pakistan or innocent citizens being electrocuted for failing to comply properly with a policeman’s order. And a whole lot of stuff in between. I suppose it’s probably inevitable that everyone prioritizes some things over others. You’re not going to please everyone.
But it must be noted that the alleged first world “trivialities” of American women and the second class status of women all over the world are connected in a very basic and fundamental way. And it’s a problem that faces more than half the population of the world to one degree or another. I think that’s important too.
Rush Limbaugh thinks organic food turns people into jerks.
I’m fairly sure that Limbaugh doesn’t eat organic foods. So what’s his excuse?
He does say something important here, though to which people should pay attention. He says that everything can be categorized as liberal or conservative. I think that’s cracked, but I think it’s the essence of the culture war that the right has been waging for decades. To right wingers, everything can be identified as a political act.
I suppose liberals do that too to some extent, but I honestly don’t think something like what food you choose to eat is a sure-fire political identifier. If it is, all whole lot of bacon gobbling, krispy-kreme wolfing friends I thought were liberals are actually conservatives. And the organic farmer at the Farmer’s Market with the Romney sticker on his truck isn’t an entrepreneur, he’s a liberal activist. Who knew?
Sure, more vegetarians may be liberal than conservative, but I’ve met a surprising number of vegetarian right wingers over the years. I won’t mention well…. you know who. We’ll just get into a discussion of whether you-know-who was really a liberal and totally lose the thread.
