by tristero
A friend involved with Econ4 sent me the following email:
Econ4 — the group of fact-based and ethical economists I helped found — is running a series on critical issues facing the nation…
here’s the introduction to the series, called “The Bottom Line”
and here’s where you can find the jobs video and jobs statement
www.econ4.org
How accurate will those polls be?
by David Atkins
With the state-by-state polls showing narrow but substantial leads for Obama, conservatives in the media have taken to attacking poll averages as unreliable. But how unreliable might they be? John Sides at The Monkey Cage has the details:
How trustworthy are this year’s presidential polls? On Monday, November 5, will they be able to tell us who is likely to win the election? We’ll know soon enough, but in the meantime the historical record provides some important context. This record suggests three things:
1) The polls have been fairly accurate. (Adverbs are always a bit subjective, so see what you think after you read the post.)
2) To the extent that they miss, they do so by over-estimating the frontunner’s vote.
3) The reason they miss is not because of late movement among the undecideds but because of “no-show” voters who tells pollsters that they will vote but then don’t.
They don’t miss much:
In very close elections, the polls are still quite close to the actual outcome—missing by 1-2 points at most. They slightly underestimated Gore’s share of the vote, for example. Of course, in a close election, 1-2 points is consequential. But it’s not reasonable to expect polls to call very close elections right on the nose…
The attack on polling itself is just another Republican attack on science that conflicts with their preferred worldview. They’ve filled their supporters’ heads with the line that all the pollsters but Rasmussen are in the bag for Obama, and that Democrats are engaged in invisible, massive voter fraud. So rather than shatter their illusions, a rejected Obama lead in the polls will become a rejected Obama margin on election day, with a different conspiracy theory narrative neatly aligned to fit the event.
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Do you know John Husted? You should.
by digby
I’m sure everyone remembers Katherine Harris, Florida Secretary of State during the 2000 election, who acted pretty much as the GOP’s puppet in ruling on election issues.
On August 31st, one day after the Republican National Convention ended in Tampa, a federal judge in Ohio issued a ruling that stymied an effort by Republican officials there to limit early voting dates for hundreds of thousands of registered voters. Citing the United States Supreme Court’s Bush v. Gore ruling, the 5-4 decision which ended the 2000 Florida recount, U.S. District Judge Peter Economus wrote that Ohio lawmakers and bureaucrats couldn’t, by “arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that of another.”
Upon receiving word of the federal court order, the man responsible for implementing Ohio’s election laws at first decided not to enforce it. Secretary of State Jon Husted, the Republican who had fought for years against voting rights advocates in and out of the courts as a lawmaker and, later, member of the executive branch, initially disregarded Judge Economus’ order. Not just that. He defied it. He specifically ordered his county election boards not to restore the early voting hours the judge had endorsed.
It was only when the judge ordered Husted to court to personally explain his disobedience, a sure sign of judicial anger, that Husted relented. Relented — but did not give up. Husted appealed Judge Economus’ ruling to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which is based in Ohio. No dice. On October 5th, the 6th Circuit affirmed Judge Economus’ order. Husted then appealed again, to the United States Supreme Court, arguing that the federal courts shouldn’t mess with state election laws. Again, no dice. The justices refused to hear the appeal.
Over the past year, in one election-related fight after another, Husted has proven to be a relentless partisan, the national face of voter suppression. Now, with one week to go before a close election, an election which many political observers believe could come down to Ohio, Husted is about to become something else: an unabashed local partisan who could very well decide who wins by deciding which rules apply. Is America ready for this? Ready for this man to be the one supervising the vote counting in the only state left that seems to matter?
This is a guy who has in the words of the reporter, “flirted” with True the Vote, the Texas tea party outfit that is deploying to swing states to intimidate voters at the polls. But that’s not the only or perhaps the biggest problem, in my opinion. Just as with Katherine Harris, who purged the voter rolls and did other dirty GOP work prior to the 2000 election, the real power of that office will be clear if the vote is contested. And it could be.
I won’t bore you all now with the details of that fateful election and what they did, but we’ll undoubtedly talk about it if this comes to pass. In the meantime, keep your eyes on all these political hacks who are running the electoral systems in the big swing states. Even if they have integrity, they will be under tremendous pressure from the Republicans to put their thumbs on the scale in the GOP’s interest. The party pooh-bahs have shown they have zero compunction about doing this and they seem nearly hysterical at this point. And anyway, they know from past experience that the only thing that will happen if they thuggishly demand the victory will be for the political establishment to smugly tell the losers to “get over it.” They have nothing to lose by trying.
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Today’s feudalism update courtesy @AddieStan
by digby
This stuff is really, really creepy:
If you live in the Midwest and you’re working on a home-improvement project, you’re as likely to do your shopping at a Menards store as at a Lowe’s or Home Depot. With 270 stores and 40,000 employees , Menards is the third-largest home-improvement chain in the U.S., and one of the largest privately held corporations in the country. But Menards stores sell more than just lumber and building supplies; their employees are sold a bill of goods in the form of right-wing ideology.
This January, as the Iowa Caucuses were underway, Menards began encouraging employees to take an at-home online “civics” course that characterizes the economic policies of President Barack Obama as a threat to the success of businesses such as Menards, and by extension, to the employees’ own well-being.
The course, titled “Civics 101: The National Self Governing Will In-Home Training,” incorporates much of the material comprising the Prosperity 101 program that AlterNet, working in partnership with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, exposed last year — a program concocted by Koch-linked political operatives Mark Block and Linda Hansen, late of the now-defunct Herman Cain presidential campaign. In March, Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the FBI is investigating possible financial improprieties involving two non-profit organizations founded by Block that are linked to Prosperity 101, which is a for-profit venture.
Menards employees who sign up for the course are graded on their knowledge via a multiple choice pass-fail test, and those who pass the test are acknowledged in company publications and bulletins. While workers are not required to take the course, those who hope for promotions may feel pressure to do so, since it is clear that management is paying attention to who is or isn’t taking the at-home classes, which are conducted on the employees’ own time. The civics course is offered as part of a battery of courses, most of which pertain to products sold by the company, or other aspects of working at Menards.
AlterNet has obtained the online textbook for the Menards civics course. The third part of the textbook, subtitled ”FBI Investigation The course, titled “Civics 101: The National Self Governing Will In-Home Training,” incorporates much of the material comprising the Prosperity 101 program that AlterNet, working in partnership with the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute, exposed last year — a program concocted by Koch-linked political operatives Mark Block and Linda Hansen, late of the now-defunct Herman Cain presidential campaign. In March, Daniel Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the FBI is investigating possible financial improprieties involving two non-profit organizations founded by Block that are linked to Prosperity 101, which is a for-profit venture. Menards employees who sign up for the course are graded on their knowledge via a multiple choice pass-fail test, and those who pass the test are acknowledged in company publications and bulletins. While workers are not required to take the course, those who hope for promotions may feel pressure to do so, since it is clear that management is paying attention to who is or isn’t taking the at-home classes, which are conducted on the employees’ own time. The civics course is offered as part of a battery of courses, most of which pertain to products sold by the company, or other aspects of working at Menards. AlterNet has obtained the online textbook for the Menards civics course. The third part of the textbook, subtitled ” American Job Security,” imparts a message similar to the letter sent by Koch Industries CEO Dave Robertson to retirees and employees of the company’s Georgia Pacific subsidiary, as well as the e-mail sent to employees of Rite-Hite, a Milwaukee equipment manufacturer, by company owner Mark White, urging them to vote for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. While the Menards course doesn’t offer an explicit candidate endorsement, it describes Obama policies in threatening terms, while policies that echo Romney’s proposals are portrayed in a positive and uplifting light.
There’s more, much more at the link.
I think what astonished me the most is the utter stupidity and/or selfishness of the CEOs. Evidently, they are either blindly concerned with their own tax rates or they are watching Fox News and would rather believe Gretchen Carlson than their lying eyes. The stock market has done very well under President Obama. It’s a buyer’s market for workers. Nobody in the private sector has been held liable for the chaos that ensued from their reckless gambling. All indicators show that the economy is more beneficial to people like themselves than any time since the gilded age. And it’s just not good enough for them.
One can only hope that the employees of these companies will show more sense than their bosses and vote in the interest of themselves, their employer and their country.
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Teach your children well
by digby
It’s not like 50,000 volts ever hurt anyone:
“According to the complaint, [New Mexico police officer Chris] Webb shot his Taser at the child after he said he did not want to join fellow classmates in cleaning the officer’s patrol car. Courthouse News reported: Defendant Webb responded by pointing his Taser at R.D. and saying, ‘Let me show you what happens to people who do not listen to the police.’ … [H]e sent 50,000 volts of electricity into the child’s chest on the playground. The young boy blacked out and has, according to his legal representative, been suffering from post traumatic stress disorder ever since.”
That police officer was only telling the truth. This is what happens to people who don’t “listen to the police.” Even if they are having epileptic fits, are mentally ill, drunk, on drugs or are otherwise unable to comply.
Also too, if they are asserting their rights under the constitution.
If we train our kids to understand that they must automatically drop their eyes, shut their mouths and comply instantly with anything the government authorities demand, we will have a much more docile and cooperative population. And what better way to train them than an electric prod? It’s certain that this little fellow won’t soon forget his lesson.
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Proving what’s in his heart: nothing
by digby
As I wrote yesterday, I have some sympathy for any presidential challenger in a situation like this. An epic natural disaster automatically makes them look irrelevant and small and there’s not a lot they can do about it. But this is about as embarrassing a response as I can imagine:
As the East Coast and parts of Ohio struggled to regroup in the devastating wake of “Superstorm” Sandy, the Romney campaign hastily transformed a scheduled victory rally in Dayton, Ohio into a non-political “storm relief event” on Tuesday. According to BuzzFeed, the campaign encouraged supporters to bring hurricane relief supplies and “deliver the bags of canned goods, packages of diapers, and cases of water bottles to the candidate, who would be perched behind a table along with a slew of volunteers and his Ohio right-hand man, Senator Rob Portman.”
Just to be safe, campaign aides reportedly spent $5,000 at a local Wal-Mart on supplies that could be put on display. When supporters arrived at the rally-turned-relief event, they were treated to the 10-minute video about Romney’s life, which was first unveiled at the RNC. The event ended with supporters lined up to hand over supplies and meet Romney. But according to BuzzFeed, this donation process was also staged:
Empty-handed supporters pled for entrance, with one woman asking, “What if we dropped off our donations up front?”
The volunteer gestured toward a pile of groceries conveniently stacked near the candidate. “Just grab something,” he said.
Two teenage boys retrieved a jar of peanut butter each, and got in line. When it was their turn, they handed their “donations” to Romney. He took them, smiled, and offered an earnest “Thank you.”
Despite the fact that the Red Cross can’t really use these supplies, according to the Romney campaign they have relented and will put them in a warehouse in New Jersey somewhere.
Who knows if very many voters will see this sad display on the new? But anyone who does have to think it’s pathetic.
What could Romney have done? It’s unclear. Going to the states where the storm hit would have interfered with the relief and clean-up efforts. And he’s running out of time so he can’t just sit it out. But you’d think that with all their money and all their alleged talent they could have come up with something better than this.
People always say that campaigns are a window into how a president will govern and I’ve always thought that was overblown hype. A campaign is not a country. But I do think this is one of those situations where the lack of empathy for fellow human beings shows. They have no reserve of good will built up in this area because they really don’t give a damn and have spent the entire campaign talking about lazy, good-for-nothings who refuse to take care of themselves. When all hell breaks loose and people are suffering, nobody believes them when they pretend they care.
And when they put on a half baked show like the did yesterday, they prove it.
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You Halloween treat: profile of a sociopath
by David Atkins
The word “sociopath” gets thrown around quite a bit and all too loosely. It’s commonplace to accuse a person of being a sociopath because of dickish behavior, when the person in question was guilty more of run-of-the-mill selfishness than of the character trait of sociopathy. It’s also very important not to assume that an enemy or disliked individual is a “sociopath” because, once labeled falsely it’s an almost impossible for a person to disprove the accusation.
Still, there are some people who fit the profile of a sociopath so perfectly that it’s safe to assume the label is accurate. Most of us won’t have significant relations and encounters with more than a few of these people in our lives, and it’s possible that a certain degree of sociopathy can lead to some needed iconoclastic leadership when societal structures are too strict.
But for the most part, people should avoid involvement and contact with sociopathic personalities at all costs. Involvement almost never leads to anything but pain. I can say that from personal experience, having lived for many, many years with a clinical sociopath of the cultic variety who perfectly meets every criterion for diagnosing a sociopath. If you suspect that someone you know may be a sociopath, use this handy determinative guide:
Glibness and Superficial Charm
Manipulative and Conning
They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.
Grandiose Sense of Self
Feels entitled to certain things as “their right.”
Pathological Lying
Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.
Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.
Shallow Emotions
When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.
Incapacity for Love
Need for Stimulation
Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.
Callousness/Lack of Empathy
Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others’ feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.
Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.
Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet “gets by” by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.
Irresponsibility/Unreliability
Not concerned about wrecking others’ lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.
Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.
Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.
Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.
Other Related Qualities:
Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them
Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them
Authoritarian
Secretive
Paranoid
Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired
Conventional appearance
Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)
Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim’s life
Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim’s affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)
Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim
Incapable of real human attachment to another
Unable to feel remorse or guilt
Extreme narcissism and grandiose
May state readily that their goal is to rule the world
Whether this description sounds like anyone prominent on the national political stage like, say, a certain someone running for President, I leave to the reader to decide.
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Classy all the way
by digby
The flier says it was produced by Americans for Tax Reform. That’s the anti-tax group run by Grover Norquist.
Who else?
Update: Someone on twitter says this ad is from September, but the Houston Chronicle (which posted it yesterday) says that someone they know got it yesterday.
Look out McNasty is back
by digby
What with the aptly named “comfortablysmug” on Twitter being revealed as a hedge fund analyst and GOP operative and John McCain turning up the partisan insults at a “storm relief” event, it’s been quite a day for Republican jackasses:
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) spoke on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney at a “storm relief and volunteer appreciation” event in Ohio on Tuesday, serving up a generous portion of hyper-partisan rhetoric on President Barack Obama’s handling of the September attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya.
“This president is either engaged in a massive cover-up deceiving the American people, or he is so grossly incompetent that he is not qualified to be the commander in chief of our armed forces. It’s either one of them,” McCain told Romney volunteers, according to NBC News.
I guess disasters don’t bring out the best everyone after all.
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Someone actually said this:”A baby is not the worst thing that could ever happen to a rape victim — an abortion is”
by digby
Ed Kilgore writes about the Romney campaign’s furious shaking of the etch-a-sketch on abortion
Former Sen. (and Romney surrogate) Norm Coleman has taken a slightly different approach with a Jewish Republican Coalition audience, per Evan McMorris-Santoro of TPM:
“President Bush was president eight years, Roe v. Wade wasn’t reversed. He had two Supreme Court picks, Roe v. Wade wasn’t reversed,” former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) told a Republican Jewish Coalition meeting in Beechwood, Ohio. “It’s not going to be reversed.”
Bush, of course, chose two Court nominees deemed almost certain to support reversal or at least a major modification of Roe. One of them replaced the retiring Chief Justice who had dissented from the original Roe decision. So the Bush years produced a 1-vote swing against Roe, one short of a majority. I gather Coleman’s audience doesn’t know those very basic facts, but Norm probably does.
More broadly, though, Coleman is suggesting to a socially liberal Jewish audience that Romney is continuing a Republican tradition of playing the poor dumb bible-thumper goyim for suckers. Let ‘em do the grunt work of the campaign day in and day out, dreaming of the day when the baby-killers will finally be put out of business. It’s like a mechanical rabbit keeping them running around the dog track, but it’s not real!
I happen to believe that Mitt is actually a committed anti-choicer, but that’s neither here nor there. His shape-shifting on the issue should be enough for no one on either side to trust him — which means you have to look at what he could do in power under pure pressure from the base. And I think it’s clear that banning abortion is a very big litmus test on the right.
Plus, let’s not forget his running mate:
WHEN DURING THE VICE-PRESIDENTIAL debate Martha Raddatz asked Paul Ryan what role his religion has played in his own personal views on abortion, Ryan was quick to explain not only the central role of religion in his life, but his family’s and his political party’s:
I don’t see how a person can separate their public life from their private life or from their faith. Our faith informs us in everything we do. My faith informs me about how to take care of the vulnerable, of how to make sure that people have a chance in life. […] Now, you want to ask basically why I’m pro-life? It’s not simply because of my Catholic faith. That’s a factor, of course. But it’s also because of reason and science […] I believe that life begins at conception.
The “vulnerable” in Ryan’s charge, the “people” in need of a chance in life, were not women, but blastocyst embryos. Ryan was appealing to parens patriae (literally, “father of the people”), a doctrine which state courts have often used in the past to, among other things, compel medical treatment of in utero fetuses. This would not have been lost on the ticket’s radical ‘pro-life’ supporters, even if it was lost on the public at large. It was a high-five to a radical agenda that is pro-life when it comes to zygotes, but not to women involved in their conception.
Under parens patriae, the state has the power, and even the duty, to protect individuals not otherwise able or willing to protect themselves. If Roe v. Wade were overturned during a Romney presidency — an eventuality that Romney himself has made clear is his goal — abortion would be remanded to the states, exactly the way it had been before the 1973 Supreme Court ruling.
States could not only pass zygote personhood legislation without constitutional challenge (either by amending a state’s constitution or by making it a law), but, under parens patriae, could intervene in all sorts of medical and scientific cases, such as stem cell research and in vitro fertilization. There would be no limit.
An awful lot of people find the idea of abortion going back to the states to be quite comforting. After all, it’s impossible that it could ever be totally banned, right?
Why people persist in believing that is beyond me. Look at that legal rationale spelled out above. Is it beyond the realm of possibility that the high court would not eventually adopt it?
That article details just how radical both Ryan and Romney are on this and how they plan to go about it. This was particularly striking:
What Ryan and Romney are after with “personhood” is to undo Roe v. Wade entirely. Personhood USA, the largest anti-abortion organization, counts Newt Gingrich, Michelle Bachmann, Rick Perry, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum as signatories to their Republican presidential candidate pledge, which reads in relevant part:
If elected President, I will . . . to the best of my knowledge . . . only appoint federal judges and relevant officials who will uphold and enforce state and federal laws recognizing that all human beings at every stage of development are persons with the unalienable right to life.
It is a pro-life referendum machine that uses the tag line “protecting the pre-born by love and by law.” Their primary mission is to “serve Jesus by being an advocate for those who cannot speak for themselves” — the zygotes. Personhood USA spokesperson Rebecca Kiessling explained:
As someone who really cares about rape victims, I want to protect them from the rapist, and from the abortion, but not the baby. A baby is not the worst thing that could ever happen to a rape victim — an abortion is.
It’s hard for me to even read that utter bullshit without throwing something. (Or throwing up.) If it were just something said by a zealous egomaniac, I think I wouldn’t be so angry. But that infantilizing logic has made its way all the way to the Supreme Court:
That abortion is bad for fetuses is a statement of the obvious. That it is bad for women, too, is a contested premise that nonetheless got five votes at the Supreme Court on Wednesday.
It was a development that stunned abortion rights advocates and that represents a major departure from how the court has framed the abortion issue for the past 34 years. The question on the day after the justices voted 5 to 4 to uphold the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is where the court goes from here.
[…]
In his majority opinion, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy suggested that a pregnant woman who chooses abortion falls away from true womanhood.“Respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child,” he said.
Justice Kennedy conceded that “we find no reliable data” on whether abortion in general, or the procedure prohibited by the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, causes women emotional harm. But he said it was nonetheless “self-evident” and “unexceptional to conclude” that “some women” who choose to terminate their pregnancies suffer “regret,” “severe depression,” “loss of esteem” and other ills.
Consequently, he said, the government has a legitimate interest in banning a particularly problematic abortion procedure to prevent women from casually or ill-advisedly making “so grave a choice.”
If “a necessary effect of the regulation and the knowledge it conveys will be to encourage some women to carry the infant to full term,” Justice Kennedy continued, that outcome will advance “the state’s interest in respect for life.”
How anyone read that and come away still believing that there is no possibility that Roe vs Wade will be overturned or that abortion will never be banned nationally is beyond me.
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