Month: October 2012

Tsunami response warnings: another thing Republicans think we don’t need

by David Atkins

By the time you read this Sunday morning, Hawaii and other mid-Pacific islands will have endured a tsunami as a result of the 7.7 earthquake in British Columbia. It may or may not be large. Hopefully there will be no injuries, and little damage to property.

Whatever the waves may bring, however, now would be a good time to remember this from March 2011:

The GOP budget plan that passed through the House last month aimed to cut funding for a tsunami warning center that issued a slew of warnings around Japan’s devastating earthquake.

The budget, which proposed about $60 billion in budget cuts, would slash funding for the National Weather Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). That would potentially cripple the effectiveness of the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center in Hawaii, which issued a series of warnings over the past several days regarding the situation in Japan, where an 8.9 magnitude earthquake triggered a massive tsunami along the nation’s east coast. (The PTWC is a part of the National Weather Service, which falls under the umbrella of NOAA – the organization responsible for providing tsunami warnings in the U.S.)

The Republican’s proposed “continuing resolution” to fund the government, which was defeated in the Senate this week, aimed to cut $1.2 billion – or 21 percent – of President Obama’s proposed budget for NOAA, ClimateProgress.org reports.

Cuts to Sesame Street and tsunami warnings as cents-on-the-dollar offsets for tax cuts for Mitt Romney and his friends. Makes sense–if you’re a plutocrat. A country that wasn’t in denial about reality would have tossed these people out of power a long, long time ago.

.

Saturday Night At The Movies

Halloween double feature: Welcome to Hell

By Dennis Hartley

You’re gonna burn: Hellbound?

God is a concept, by which we measure our pain.
-John Lennon

Whenever I’m about to impart a smart-assed observation (which is often), I tend to preface it with the disclaimer: “I’m already going to Hell anyway…” I’ve never really contemplated why it is that I feel compelled to say that. Is Hell merely a state of mind, or is it an actual travel destination? And if it is the latter, how do you get there? Spend your life committing unspeakable acts? Turn left at Greenland? Besides, don’t you first have to buy into the idea of “Heaven” to enable a “Hell” to co-exist? I have no religious affiliation to speak of, and I’m fairly convinced that any “afterlife” is, at best, a feast for the worms. However, while watching a new documentary called Hellbound? I found it particularly fascinating to learn that even amongst the “true believers”, there seems to be as many different interpretations of “Hell” as there are, oh I don’t know…denominations.

With the exception of the odd rabbi or token atheist, director Kevin Miller has assembled a bevy of (mostly) Christians to offer up their windy definitions. These are Christians of all stripes, from the sober and scholarly (theologians) to the frothing and unhinged (members of the Westboro Baptist Church). To tell you the truth, my eyes began to glaze over about halfway through this film, but from what I was able to discern, interviewees seemed fairly evenly divided between three concepts. There’s your Coke Classic, with Mother Teresa in the penthouse and Hitler in the basement (based on the assumption that evildoers will suffer “eternal torment” after they snuff it). “Annihilationists” believe that it’s their way…or the highway to you-know-where (how that’s different than “fundamentalism” is unclear to me). And lastly, there’s “universalism”, which is pretty much what it sounds like…all sentient beings end up in God’s good graces, no matter how they act (just another way of saying that the penalty for sin has an expiration date?). Once this trio of theories is established, the film becomes somewhat redundant; and it ultimately raises more questions than it answers. For example, how do Muslims define Hell, I wonder? Buddhists? Hindus? It might have made for a more interesting exercise, had Miller approached one or two of those folks to toss in their two cents worth. Then again, I’m no theologian, so what do I know? Besides, I’m already going to Hell anyway.

Wake in Fright: Dude, where’s my car?

There’s a great old Temptations song that goes “you make your own heaven and hell right here on earth.” That would have made a perfect tag line for a rarely seen, one-of-a-kind 1971 drama called Wake in Fright. Restored in 2009 for a successful revival in Australia and considered a great lost film from that country’s “new wave” of the early to mid-1970s, it was helmed by the eclectic Ted Kotcheff (Fun with Dick and Jane,

North Dallas Forty), and is currently playing in select cities. As someone who is a huge fan of Aussie cinema from that era (

Picnic at Hanging Rock , 

Walkabout, The Last Wave, etc.) I’m ashamed to admit that this film was under my radar until I was offered a DVD press loaner a few weeks back (I don’t recall it showing on cable, and it’s never been available domestically on VHS or Region 1 DVD).

Here’s the film’s actual tag line: “Have a drink, mate? Have a fight, mate? Have some dust and sweat, mate? There’s nothing else out here.” That actually could work as a plot synopsis. Sort of a cross between Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas  and (speaking of the Australian new wave) Peter Weir’s The Cars That Ate Paris, it’s a relatively simple tale about a burned-out teacher (Gary Bond) who works in a one-room schoolhouse somewhere in the Outback. Headed back to Sydney to visit his girlfriend over the school holiday, he takes the train to Bundanyabba (the nearest town with an airport) where he will need to lodge for one night. At least that’s his plan. “The Yabba” is one of those burgs where the clannish regulars at the local pub take an unhealthy interest in strangers, starting with the (too) friendly town cop (Chips Rafferty) who subtly bullies the teacher into getting completely blotto. This kick starts a “lost weekend” that lasts for five days.

Without giving too much away, let’s just say that the ensuing booze-soaked debaucheries have to be seen to be believed; particularly an unnerving and surreal sequence involving a drunken nocturnal kangaroo hunt that I can pretty much guarantee no film before or since matches for sheer audacity (a strange, lengthy disclaimer in the end credits may not assuage animal lovers’ worst fears, but at least acknowledges viewers’ potential sensitivities). That aside, this is a unique and compelling film; dripping with an atmosphere of dread and tempered by sharp, blackly comic dialog (Evan Jones adapted the script from Kenneth Cook’s novel). Splendid performances abound, especially from Donald Pleasance as a boozy MD. Oh, and one more thing. In all sincerity, I hope that no one is foolish enough to devise a drinking game based around the film, because somebody in the room will surely drop dead of alcohol poisoning long before credits roll.

.

I don’t think anyone needs to worry about that sequester

by digby

I saw this tweet and got excited:

Alas:

President Barack Obama said on Friday a bipartisan panel’s deficit reduction recommendation went too far on spending cuts, especially for defense, but set the right tone by also proposing revenue increases.

Obama said the plan put forward by the bipartisan Simpson-Bowles commission – and held out by some as a model compromise that distributes the pain evenly – cut defense spending too deeply.

“They wanted … defense cuts that were steeper than I felt comfortable with as commander in chief,” he said.

The painful cuts to other programs vital to millions of citizens (even the ones that don’t add to the deficit) on the other hand …???

.

Still paying for America’s original sin

by digby

I was just thinking the other day how utterly taboo it was to even raise this question four years ago because to even breathe that we hadn’t completely marginalized, if not eradicated, this problem was to insult the glory of the Obama victory. I’m glad that people are a little bit more clear-eyed than they used to be, although it makes me sick at the same time:

Racial attitudes have not improved in the four years since the United States elected its first black president, an Associated Press poll finds, as a slight majority of Americans now express prejudice toward blacks whether they recognize those feelings or not.

Those views could cost President Barack Obama votes as he tries for re-election, the survey found, though the effects are mitigated by some people’s more favorable views of blacks.

Racial prejudice has increased slightly since 2008 whether those feelings were measured using questions that explicitly asked respondents about racist attitudes, or through an experimental test that measured implicit views toward race without asking questions about that topic directly.

In all, 51 percent of Americans now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in a similar 2008 survey. When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56 percent, up from 49 percent during the last presidential election. In both tests, the share of Americans expressing pro-black attitudes fell.

“As much as we’d hope the impact of race would decline over time … it appears the impact of anti-black sentiment on voting is about the same as it was four years ago,” said Jon Krosnick, a Stanford University professor who worked with AP to develop the survey.

Most Americans expressed anti-Hispanic sentiments, too. In an AP survey done in 2011, 52 percent of non-Hispanic whites expressed anti-Hispanic attitudes. That figure rose to 57 percent in the implicit test. The survey on Hispanics had no past data for comparison.

The AP surveys were conducted with researchers from Stanford University, the University of Michigan and NORC at the University of Chicago.

Experts on race said they were not surprised by the findings.

“We have this false idea that there is uniformity in progress and that things change in one big step. That is not the way history has worked,” said Jelani Cobb, professor of history and director of the Institute for African-American Studies at the University of Connecticut. “When we’ve seen progress, we’ve also seen backlash.”

Read the whole article, The methodology is quite interesting.

None of this means that there hasn’t been progress. That’s obvious to anyone who has eyes. But the idea that it was pretty much irrelevant was always a stretch. It’s too embedded in our culture for that to happen within a generation. It will eventually I think because this culture is remarkably adaptive to change compared to others. But we’ve got a lot of baggage in this area and it’s going to always be two steps forward, one step back.

.

¡Idiota

by digby

So crooked Republican Marco Rubio said today that Obama’s ideas are “the ideas of countries people come here to get away from.”

On Mitt Romney’s campaign plane shortly after the rally, Rubio was asked what he meant by the comments.]

“I’m talking about big government. I’m talking about countries where the government dominates the economy,” Rubio, whose parents were Cuban exiles, replied, noting that “virtually every country in Latin America” was governed by the policies he was condemning.

“The president’s just not a supporter of the free enterprise system,” he said, adding, “This isn’t the first time I’ve said it, and I believe it with all my heart.

You know, I think he really does. And that makes him a blithering idiot.

Update: Sam Youngman, campaign correspondent tweeted this as well:

Rubio said on plane that Mourdock had apologized and it’s about control of the senate, not one man

It’s confirmed. He is a blithering idiot.

.

Somali conspiracy in Ohio

by digby

So I’m guessing that if President Obama wins Ohio by a small margin, we’re going to here a whole lot more about the alleged “vote fraud” that got him into office, based upon hysterical “evidence” like this from Human Events magazine:

Two volunteer poll workers at an Ohio voting station told Human Events that they observed van loads of Ohio residents born in Somalia — the state is home to the second-largest Somali population in the United States — being driven to the voting station and guided by Democratic interpreters on the voting process. No Republican interpreters were present, according to these volunteers.

While it’s not unusual for get-out-the-vote groups to help voters get to the polls, the volunteers who talked to Human Events observed a number of troubling and questionable activities.

A source, who wishes to remain anonymous, is a volunteer outside the Morse Road polling center. She has witnessed Somalis who cannot speak English come to the polling center. They are brought in groups, by van or bus. The Democrats hand them a slate card and say, “vote Brown all the way down.” Given that Sherrod Brown is the incumbent Democrat Senator in Ohio, one can assume that this is the reference.

Non-English speaking voters may use an interpreter. The interpreters are permitted by law to interpret for the individual voting; however, they are forbidden from influencing their vote in any way. Another source who also wishes to remain anonymous has seen Democrat interpreters show the non-English speaking Somalis how to vote the Democrat slate that they were handed outside. According to this second source, there are not any Republican Somali interpreters available.

The logical follow-up question is whether a non-English speaking person is an American citizen.

Of course it is. And there’s absolutely no reason to believe any volunteer Republican poll worker without any evidence might be embellishing her tale at all.

It will be very interesting to see what the legal moves will be if any of these swing states are very close. But it almost doesn’t matter. If Obama wins with anything other than a decisive victory in both the popular vote and the electoral college, we will see a collective right wing primal scream. They don’t think he’s legitimate in the first place, but to eke out a close victory when they already believe that many of “those people” are voting illegally is likely to provoke an emotional response.

This is why I very much doubt that we are going to see a chastened and reasonable GOP in the next congress. Their base is going to be wild with the belief that the election was stolen from them.

h/t to DJ

.

Mitt’s Mormon Bubble

by digby

For those who consider Mitt Romney a closet moderate, consider this:

It seemed like a minor adjustment. To comply with the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling that legalized gay marriage in 2003, the state Registry of Vital Records and Statistics said it needed to revise its birth certificate forms for babies born to same-sex couples. The box for “father” would be relabeled “father or second parent,’’ reflecting the new law.

But to then-Governor Mitt Romney, who opposed child-rearing by gay couples, the proposal symbolized unacceptable changes in traditional family structures.

He rejected the Registry of Vital Records plan and insisted that his top legal staff individually review the circumstances of every birth to same-sex parents. Only after winning approval from Romney’s lawyers could hospital officials and town clerks across the state be permitted to cross out by hand the word “father’’ on individual birth certificates, and then write in “second parent,’’ in ink.
[…]
The next month, Romney delivered remarks before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington in which he decried the state Supreme Judicial Court’s ruling and its effect on child-rearing. He outlined his misgivings about the request from the Registry of Vital Records.

“The children of America have the right to have a father and a mother,’’ Romney said in his prepared remarks. “What should be the ideal for raising a child? Not a village, not ‘parent A’ and ‘parent B,’ but a mother and a father.’’

Romney also warned about the societal impact of gay parents raising children. “Scientific studies of children raised by same-sex couples are almost nonexistent,’’ he said. “It may affect the development of children and thereby future society as a whole.’’

Romney expressed similar beliefs during a speech in 2005 to socially conservative voters in South Carolina, as he was beginning to be viewed as a serious candidate for president.

“Some gays are actually having children born to them,’’ he declared. “It’s not right on paper. It’s not right in fact. Every child has a right to a mother and father.’’

That’s 2005. This had happened the year before:

Boston Spirit magazine reported last month that when gay activists met with him in his office in 2004, as Romney was backing a failed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in the state, Romney remarked, “I didn’t know you had families.” Julie Goodridge, lead plaintiff in the landmark case that won marriage rights for gays and lesbians before the Supreme Judicial Court, asked what she should tell her 8-year-old daughter about why the governor would block the marriage of her parents. According to Goodridge, Romney responded,”I don’t really care what you tell your adopted daughter. Why don’t you just tell her the same thing you’ve been telling her the last eight years.”

Romney’s retort enraged a speechless Goodridge; he didn’t care, and by referring to her biological daughter as “adopted,” it was clear he hadn’t even been listening. By the time she was back in the hallway, she was reduced to tears. “I really kind of lost it,” says Goodridge. “I’ve never stood before someone who had no capacity for empathy.”

The man was so cloistered in his right wing bubble that he really did not know that gay people had children. And when he found out, he was shocked. As if gay people haven’t been having children since … forever. They just want it all to be honest for a change.

Oy, I don’t mean to bash religion, but it should not go unremarked that this is a very important man in the Mormon Church. A church which feels so strongly about this issue that they spent many millions of church dollars to defeat the gay marriage initiative in California. It is a deeply held belief. And I would likewise suspect that Mitt and his traditional belief system is well reflected in his energetic promise to social conservatives that he would happily sign on to any measures presented to him that would restrict women’s rights.

I don’t think Mitt believes in much beyond profits. But I have no reason to think he isn’t completely sincere in his commitment to traditional Mormon values. And they are socially conservative.

.

In the fast moving abortion wars, is spousal permission next on the agenda?

by digby

Piers Morgan scraped the bottom of the barrel last night and joined George Stephanopoulos in giving Ann Coulter a platform to spew her lies and hideous bile on an unsuspecting public. It was all the usual toxic stew, but this stood out for me. She indicated that gave the usual platitudes about Roe vs Wade going back to the states and reassured everyone that in California and New York it would “still be legal to kill children until after baby is born.”

I try not to pay too much attention to what she’s saying because life is short, but this struck me:

She added later that “we can agree on” things like parental notification in most cases and “the husband being notified.”

Now, you will recall that in Casey vs Planned Parenthood, this the one thing that Anthony Kennedy agreed was an “undue burden” (for the dizzy broads who he came to believe all regretted their foolish decision and had to be “protected” from it otherwise.)It was big of him to notice that if a woman doesn’t tell her husband she’s pregnant, there are likely reasons for it far more complicated than a Supreme Court judge might be able to discern from afar. (Also too: individual liberty.)

Normally, I would think that Coulter was just doing her usual bomb throwing act, but this is apparently something that’s being heavily talked up in anti-abortion circles. (I’m guessing “men’s rights” are going to be the big talking point.) Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones reported:

Robin Marty at RH Reality Check flags another potential new tactic: mandatory spousal notification. The National Pro-Life Alliance (NPLA) sent a questionnaire to candidates for the Kansas legislature, which Huffington Post obtained. Included in the 11 questions, most of which have become fairly typical anti-abortion fare, is this:

Will you support legislation giving spouses the right to be notified and intervene before any abortion is performed on the couple’s baby?

As RH Reality Check’s Marty notes, NPLA’s 2008 presidential questionnaire also included that question. Republican candidates Tom Tancredo, Mike Huckabee and now-governor of Kansas Sam Brownback said “yes” to all the questions, including that one. Between that and this latest survey, it wouldn’t be too surprising if something like this popped up in the Kansas legislature sometime soon.

No it wouldn’t. Two things. This is currently a far out, extreme position. But keep in mind that until very recently, banning abortion even in the case of incest and rape (and the life of the mother) was considered barbaric. The idea that an employer should be able to opt-out of an employment regulation because it allegedly violates their religious liberty wasn’t even on the radar screen. These things are happening quickly.

Casey, interestingly enough, was decided in the lower Court by a panel that included Justice Samuel Alito. He believes that women should have to essentially get their husband’s permission before getting an abortion. It’s not that fringe.

In case anyone doesn’t automatically understand this issue on grounds of basic human rights and individual liberty, the practical issue is well illustrated by the famous case of Gerri Santoro, which is credited with galvanizing the pro-choice movement. (Hint: she died because she tried to perform an abortion on herself. The reason? She had gotten pregnant as a result of an affair while her husband was out of town. The husband was a violent abuser.)

.

Friday baby gazelle blogging

by digby

 Because we all need this.  Badly.

This Youtube via Jess Zimmerman at Grist Magazine, who writes:

Seriously, watch this little dude bouncing around like he was at a No Doubt concert in 1995. (It’s called “stotting,” apparently.) Do you not feel better? Do the worries clouding your mind not seem to dissipate? Do you not feel serene — right up until you realize that he lives in D.C., where FRANKENSTORMZILLAPOCALYPSE is set to hit. Crap.

National Zoo, you’d better take really good care of these babies on Monday. Put them inside, give them raincoats, tether them to the ground, develop a force shield ray, whatever it takes. Because if I have to watch a video like this and feel sad, I am going to be pissed.

Me too. And wrap all the human babies up too. It looks like it’s gong to be a nasty one.

Update: Also too, this.
.

Republican prudes confronted with a sexytime comment from God

by digby

I feel faint. In fact, I think I might just keel over if I don’t have a small glass of sherry and tiny drop of laudanum immediately. What kind of sex fiend would ever say something like this in public?

“I know what it’s like to pull the Republican lever for the first time, because I used to be a Democrat myself, and I can tell you it only hurts for a minute and then it feels just great.”

That statement is so despicably obscene I think I might just take to my bed and  expire. Like Eric Erickson I must protest: “If you need any further proof we live in a fallen world destined for hell fire, consider the number of people who have no problem with the President of the United States, ridiculing virgins and comparing sex to voting.” Oh yes indeed.

Who is this horrible degenerate who would bring sex into a political campaign in such a vulgar manner?

The Washington Post reported on Nov. 1, 1980:  Ronald Reagan.

Big hat tip to Eric Kleefeld at Talking Points Memo for digging this up.