Month: August 2012

QOTD: Glenn Greenwald

by digby

After observing that if the founders are able to see what has become of the American press they must wonder why they worked so hard to secure the First Amendment, Glenn Greenwald followed up with this update:

I was unaware when I made my observation about the Founders that John Adams closed a 1777 letter to his wife Abigail with this thought:

Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present generation to preserve your freedom! I hope you will make a good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven that I ever took half the pains to preserve it.

If Heaven had the misfortunate of subscribing to Time (or, more likely, receiving it for free as a consolation prize for a failed sweepstakes entry), then a moment of silence is warranted to lament Adams’ pain. Then again, if Adams has access to Time in the afterlife, then he’s most certainly not in Heaven.

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Voting rights for me, but not for thee

by David Atkins

In case there was any doubt about what Republicans are really up to and why, this should lay that to rest:

The real story from Ohio is how cutbacks to early voting will disproportionately disenfranchise African-American voters in Ohio’s most populous counties. African-Americans, who supported Obama over McCain by 95 points in Ohio, comprise 28 percent of the population of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga County but accounted for 56 percent of early voters in 2008, according to research done by Norman Robbins of the Northeast Ohio Voter Advocates and Mark Salling of Cleveland State University. In Columbus’s Franklin County, African-Americans comprise 20 percent of the population but made up 34 percent of early voters.

Now, in heavily Democratic cities like Cleveland, Columbus, Akron and Toledo, early voting hours will be limited to 8 am until 5 pm on weekdays beginning on October 1, with no voting at night or during the weekend, when it’s most convenient for working people to vote. Republican election commissioners have blocked Democratic efforts to expand early voting hours in these counties, where the board of elections are split equally between Democratic and Republican members. Ohio Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted has broken the tie by intervening on behalf of his fellow Republicans.

‘I cannot create unequal access from one county board to another, and I must also keep in mind resources available to each county,” Husted said in explaining his decision to deny expanded early voting hours in heavily Democratic counties. Yet in solidly Republican counties like Warren and Butler, GOP election commissioners have approved expanded early voting hours on nights and weekends. Noted the Cincinnati Enquirer: “The counties where Husted has joined other Republicans to deny expanded early voting strongly backed then-candidate Barack Obama in 2008, while most of those where the extra hours will stand heavily supported GOP nominee John McCain.” Moreover, budget constraints have not stopped Republican legislators from passing costly voter ID laws across the map since 2010.

But, of course, both sides do it and racism isn’t at the core of one of our two political parties. That’s divisive tribal talk that gets in the way of bipartisan compromise and our post-racial society.

To get angry about it would be, well, shrill. And that would be…almost indecent.

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You Can’t Be Too Careful

by tristero

Kerry Messer, president of the self-styled Missouri Family Network allaying fears about Missouri’s weird prayer law:

“This is only about religious liberty. If a Christian student is told they must kneel and bow east in a mock Islamic prayer to sensitize students to the Muslim community, that student can refuse to participate.”

And that happens a lot in Missouri public schools.

Credit where credit is due: Democratic sell-out edition

by digby

We are so screwed:

The news media have played a crucial role in Mr. Obama’s career, helping to make him a national star not long after he had been an anonymous state legislator. As president, however, he has come to believe the news media have had a role in frustrating his ambitions to change the terms of the country’s political discussion. He particularly believes that Democrats do not receive enough credit for their willingness to accept cuts in Medicare and Social Security, while Republicans oppose almost any tax increase to reduce the deficit.

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Chris Christie’s worst nightmare

by digby

If only life were like this …
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If Kafka had been Mexican American

by digby

This horrific tale from Arizona is enough to make my head explode:

One of these grotesque laws enacted by referendum was Proposition 100, an amendment to the state constitution denying bail to those presumed to be in the country illegally, who have committed a “serious felony offense,” defined by the Legislature as a Class 4 felony or above.

In 2006, Prop 100 received a 3-to-1 endorsement by the electorate…

Recently, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office alleged Briseira Torres, a shy, 31-year-old single mom from Glendale, was here illegally and that Briseira Torres was not her real name.

She was accused of three counts of forgery, in part because her driver’s license had her real name on it, which the MCAO thought was bogus. Following her arrest, she was held without bond in Estrella Jail for 4 1/2 months.

Torres lost her home and car because she couldn’t make the payments as she endured Estrella’s harsh conditions, lousy food, and detention officers.

Worst of all, she was separated from her 14-year-old daughter, who stayed with Torres’ friend Amy Diaz while her mom was behind bars.

Torres’ eyes well up as she recalls the days her daughter came to visit and had to see Torres in county stripes.

“It was really hard, especially the first time,” Torres tells me in the offices of her attorney, Delia Salvatierra. “She was very sad.”

Torres was released on August 3, after the MCAO was forced to dismiss the case.

Salvatierra, a well-known immigration attorney, along with the aid of criminal attorney Antonio Bustamante and Johnny Sinodis, a counsel in Salvatierra’s office, went to battle on Torres’ behalf.

In the pile of paperwork they provided to the court, to the prosecutor, and to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was a silver bullet: a sworn statement from Arizona’s Office of Vital Records attesting to the legitimacy of documents on file for Torres.

Among these docs is Torres’ birth certificate, showing she was born August 14, 1981, in Avondale.

Read the whole story for a tale of malevolent bureaucratic hell so terrifying it will make your hair stand on end. Obviously, Arizona doesn’t have any real crime to worry about because the amount of government time and energy that went into entrapping and keeping this woman behind bars is mind boggling. I can’t imagine doing this even if she had been guilty of what the said, much less an innocent US Citizen. Four months in jail?

We already know that the private prison industry is reaping huge profits from the misery of the poor people caught in this sadistic web, but I’m beginning to think that immigrant hunting is some sort of all all purpose, full employment act for Arizona wingnuts. This is chilling.

h/t to @PattyPelfrey

Robin Hood and the evolving predation of the elite

by David Atkins

Rush Limbaugh gets frustrated:

Everybody thinks that Robin Hood was out there stealing money from the rich and taking it back and giving it to the citizens of Sherwood Forrest. Robin Hood was stealing from the Government! Robin Hood was a tea party activist. Robin Hood was Anti-Taxes! And it’s another myth that so many people misunderstand what Robin Hood is all about. And of course, the Democrats don’t care about the truth, they care about the illusion that they can carry forward, so Obama now trying to call Romney, Romneyhood, and by the way, this is not new, this is not new . . .

Now, those of us with heads on our shoulders read this with some mix of exasperation, anger and amusement. We all know Rush is ridiculous here.

But the historian in me does feel for him, just a little bit. It’s not that he’s wrong. The Robin Hood legend is deeply anti-tax. It is. But then, most progressive stories involving historical or semi-historical figures from the pre-Industrial era are, also. The American and French revolutions were both heavily anti-tax in their own ways as well.

But that’s the basis of the key conceit of the modern tea party right. In the days before representative democracies and broad middle classes, the elites served as royalty and nobility. Part of the way they funneled income from the lower classes to themselves was in the form of arbitrary taxation. Back in the olden days, elites used whimsical tax policy to steal from the 99% to fund the lavish lifestyles and wars of choice for the 1%. So Robin Hood was all about taking that money, taxed and untaxed, from the rich and giving it back to the poor. It’s also notable that wealthy church figures were not immune from the legend’s redistributive impulse.

Changing that balance of power was one of the great advances of modern representative democracy. By putting the power in the hands of an ever-broadening middle class, the power of the 1% to inflict punitive taxes to fatten their own purses was dramatically lessened. At least in theory, democracy allows for the taxed to choose the level of its own taxation and its spending priorities. Since the 1% account for only 1% of the vote, their decisions carry less weight, which forces them to be more humble and act in the best interests of everyone. Also, the middle class has the right to vote for progressive taxation to place a check on runaway theft by the 1%. That’s the theory, anyway. Of course, when global economic dynamics swamp the tax policies of nation states and the 1% are allowed to spend untold sums to buy elections, that balance of power changes immeasurably.

But from a simplistic point of view, the reforms of representative democracy turned taxation from an elitist burden on the 99% to a progressive tool of the 99%. In the olden days, the 1% eagerly used taxation on the poor to benefit themselves. Now, the 1% fear taxation above all things. Of course, the flat tax plans of Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are an attempt to reverse course and reinstitute regressive taxes. So considerable backsliding is possible.

But to say that Robin Hood was anti-tax is tell a major lie by way of a minor truth. The legend of Robin Hood was about redistributing the wealth from the super rich to the poor. Taxation was just one tool the super rich used to steal money from the very poor. But the taxes weren’t what was important. Income inequality was.

It still is.

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It’s not the Budget Control Act of God

by digby

I just want to write a short note to answer those who are saying my insistence that the congress and the president don’t need to honor the sequester agreement is wrong. If that weren’t the case, what’s this all about?

One year after Congress approved a controversial plan to extend the nation’s debt ceiling, Republicans are stepping up their campaign to repeal a major part of the law.

The congress made the law and they can unmake it. The “fiscal cliff” is a phony construct that grew out of the Grand Bargain debt ceiling negotiations last year. Recall that this is what was produced by that process, an abortion called The Budget Control Act:

Debt limit:

The debt limit was increased by $400 billion immediately.

The President could request a further increase of $500 billion, which is subject to a congressional motion of disapproval which the President may veto, in which case a two-thirds majority in Congress would be needed to override the veto. This has been called the ‘McConnell mechanism’ after the Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who first suggested it as part of another scheme.

The President could request a final increase of $1.2–1.5 trillion, subject to the same disapproval procedure. The exact amount depends on the amount of cuts in the “super committee” plan if it passes Congress, and whether a Balanced budget amendment has been passed.

Deficit reduction:

Spending was reduced more than the increase in the debt limit. No tax increases or other forms of increases in revenue above current law were included in the bill.

The bill directly specified $917 billion of cuts over 10 years in exchange the initial debt limit increase of $900 billion. This is the first installment (“tranche”) of cuts. $21 billion of this will be applied in the FY2012 budget.

Additionally, the agreement established the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, sometimes called the “super committee”, to produce deficit reduction legislation by November 23, 2011, that would be immune from amendments or filibuster (similar to the Base Realignment and Closure). The goal of the legislation was to cut at least $1.5 trillion over the coming 10 years and be passed by December 23, 2011.

Projected revenue from the committee’s legislation could not exceed the revenue budgeting baseline produced by current law. (Current law has the Bush tax cuts expiring at the end of 2012.) The committee would have 12 members, 6 from each party.

The agreement also specified an incentive for Congress to act. If Congress failed to produce a deficit reduction bill with at least $1.2 trillion in cuts, then Congress could grant a $1.2 trillion increase in the debt ceiling but this would trigger across-the-board cuts (“sequestrations”[note 1]).These cuts would apply to mandatory and discretionary spending in the years 2013 to 2021 and be in an amount equal to the difference between $1.2 trillion and the amount of deficit reduction enacted from the joint committee. There would be some exemptions: reductions would apply to Medicare providers, but not to Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare beneficiaries, civil and military employee pay, or veterans.

As originally envisioned, these caps would equally affect security and non-security programs. Security programs would include the U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Nuclear Security Administration, some management functions of the intelligence community and international affairs from the U.S. State Department. However, because the Joint Select Committee did not report any legistration to Congress, the act reset these caps to defense (essentially the DOD) and non-defense categories.

This is why we have Simpson and Bowles and David Walker and Alice Rivlin and every other fiscal scold in the country is running all over Capitol Hill rending their garments that the congress simply must repeal this horrible “sequester” — and replace it with a more “balanced approach.” Like Simpson-Bowles.

The con is this: they are all acting as if the deficit targets are carved in stone and cannot be changed only the way to get there. And the Democrats are right there selling the same snake oil. Their only deal breaker is some kind of revenue in exchange for cuts, which some of the the Republicans seem to have finally begun to see is the deal of a lifetime.

After all, we already know that the desire to repeal the defense cuts is thoroughly bipartisan. Leon Panetta already gave that game away. They are being used as a negotiating tool to get recalcitrant Republicans on board with some kind of “revenue” that the Democrats can call a “win” in exchange for Simpson-Bowles level cuts. (The Tea Party faction is not inclined to give Democrats even a phony “win” but that calculation may very well be different in the lame duck.)

Regardless of whether or not its politically feasible to repeal this whole mess and start over doesn’t change the fact that it’s not the Budget Control Act of God, it’s just another law and it can be changed if there is political will to do it. Not that I have any faith that there is, mind you. I’m just saying that it’s theoretically possible.

Update: And, by the way, I was wrong to indict AARP as being part of the Peterson Catfood Bus Tour the other day. Their former CEO is on it, but the organization is doing its own bus tour, which you can read about here.

“This is how hate sounds”

by digby

NY Daily News:

Five years ago, a man named James called his father and came out to him as gay.

This week, James posted a letter he says his father sent in response that disowned his son forever to the Web forum Reddit under the heading, “This is how hate sounds.”

What a sick perversion of Jesus’ message that is.

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Romney’s guru

by digby

I’ve been meaning to pass on a link to this Noam Scheiber profile of Romney guru Stuart Stevens for a while. It’s a fascinating look at a talented and eccentric political strategist who is probably as responsible as anyone for GOP success over the last decade. I first wrote about him back in 2005, commenting on this article about the GOP convention:

Between the production values and Zell Miller, the mix of TV gloss and stump-speech populism made for supersized propaganda… Mr. Schriefer’s partner, Stuart Stevens, assembled the seven-minute nominating film that introduced Mr. Bush on Thursday, Sept. 2. It was series of photographic stills depicting the President as a hero after the Sept. 11 attacks: his bullhorn moment at Ground Zero; running with a soldier who lost his leg; hugging a girl whose mother perished in the attacks; and his opening pitch at Yankee Stadium for the stirring post–Sept. 11 season opener-the only moving video image.

“You keep pitching, no matter what,” intoned actor and former Senator Fred Thompson, in a baritone to match Morgan Freeman’s-who narrated John Kerry’s Democratic nomination film. “You throw, and you become who you are.”

The script was by former Reagan and Bush speechwriter and Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan.

After it aired, Mr. Bush appeared magically-speaking of David Copperfield!-onstage, passing through two sliding video screens with American flags on them, and walked down the runway to the circular dais, which effectively became his pitcher’s mound.

“Sort of like a performance piece or something,” said Mr. Stevens. “Like the Academy Awards.”

I highly recommend Scheiber’s profile of this guy. He’s been around a long time, worked with all the GOP luminaries but he’s not a true modern Republican. Like his boss Mitt Romney, he doesn’t understand the hardcore nature of the right wing:

Unfortunately for Romney, his chief strategist isn’t much better at navigating the minefield on the right. Stevens’s signature approach to dealing with conservatives is to slog through the primaries while conceding as little to them as possible. In 2007, he briefly worked on John McCain’s campaign for president. At the time, McCain was the moderate and Romney was challenging him from the right. Stevens urged McCain to go relentlessly negative—“you have to keep your foot on his throat” was his mantra. The idea was to solve McCain’s problem with his base by eliminating the conservative threat. But the McCain brain trust was perplexed. “The base’s concerns with John had nothing to do with Romney,” said one McCain aide. “It didn’t make logical sense to us.”

In 2012, Stevens sought to reprise the attack strategy for Romney, except with an added wrinkle. Rather than simply knee-cap his conservative rivals, Romney would also channel the country’s frustration with Obama. This would appeal to the base, which considered the president illegitimate, without alienating general election voters, who considered Obama’s economic policies a failure. Romney could capture the nomination without moving rightward. He wouldn’t even have to renounce his own health care plan so long as he was sufficiently scathing toward Obamacare.

Somewhat unusually for a presidential candidate, Romney has been deeply involved in hashing out his own campaign strategy. “Romney plays a big role in the strategic direction,” says one Romney aide. “Stuart is the artiste.” And Romney liked what he heard. He was especially hesitant to abandon his health care record and was heartened that Stevens urged him not to.

Except the base doesn’t like the “art” he’s putting out:

The problem was that the plan badly underestimated the fever on the right. “I don’t think [Stevens] understands the base at all,” says the McCain aide. “He tends to take [the base] for granted. … There’s no art to what they’re doing.”

And guess what?

A Mitt Romney spokesperson offered an unusual counterattack Tuesday to an ad in which a laid-off steelworker blames the presumptive GOP nominee for his family losing health care: If that family had lived in Massachusetts, it would have been covered by the former governor’s universal health care law.

“To that point, if people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care,” Andrea Saul, Romney’s campaign press secretary, said during an appearance on Fox News. “There are a lot of people losing their jobs and losing their health care in President [Barack] Obama’s economy.”

Erick Erickson immediately melted down like the wicked witch of the west:

Judging from Romney’s actions so far I’d imagine we’ll see them disavow this in some way by the end of the day. There are already calls for this woman’s firing. But if that profile is correct, if they want to get to the source of their trouble, they’re going to have to fire the candidate too.

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