Month: April 2013

Let’s hope we do this right this time

by digby

Can I just say how important it is for this bombing suspect to be taken alive so that we can have a trial and a public airing of what happened through our civilized legal system? This is important for more than just the proper application of justice, which is the primary purpose. It’s to demonstrate justice to everyone through a fair evaluation of all the facts and an application of the rule of law.

There are a good many people who likely think it is a waste of time and money. (The chatter on the right is truly depressing — all the usual immigrant bashing and authoritarian impulses are on prominent display today.) But that’s why it’s a necessary exercise so that we can start to enfold our values and constitutional principles into our response to terrorist threats.

This particular case presents a challenge because this Boston Bombing and the aftermath is “domestic” in the sense that these were long time residents of America, the youngest of whom at least, was thought of by all his friends as an average American kid. They aren’t all that different from Tim McVeigh in that sense, maybe even less alienated and more mainstream. On the other hand, it’s possible they were motivated by international politics in which case a whole lot of people are going to claim they are foreigners and have no rights.

But as Chris Hayes pointed out the other day, the constitution doesn’t apply just to Americans, it applies to America and that includes everyone in it.

Hopefully, this young man will be apprehended and tried in a court of law, in front of the world, so that Americans and everyone else can see the justice system working. It is far from perfect and who knows what the result will be, but it’s better than accepting the logic that our cities are all war zones in the Global War on Terror and treating them accordingly. They aren’t. And has been said so many times that it’s embarrassingly trite, but still true: that means the terrorists win.

If you’re a praying person or even if you’re not, send out some thoughts that this ends with a capture and a trial. It’s important for the health of our society and our body politic. Just as we rely on law enforcement and the legal system to bring the Aurora killer, Gabby Giffords’ shooter and other mass killers to justice, we need to rely on them in these cases as well if we hope to keep our free society. Clearly, we’re in an era of mass violence, whether it’s from delusional madmen, sociopaths or political extremists. We need to determine what’s causing it and do what we can to change it. But first and foremost, it’s time we started using the systems we’ve developed over many centuries to deal with it. We must remember that this isn’t an invasion from outer space — these are just human beings.

We’ve confronted harder challenges in our history and we can confront this one too without completely losing our bearings. It’s vital that we do this right this time.

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Factoid ‘o the day: “makers” on steroids

by digby

From Doug Henwood, on the top hedge fund earners:

In 2012, the top 20 hedgies collectively earned $14.14 billion in 2012. That’s the lowest since 2008, but down only 2% from 2011. It is also equivalent to the collective income of 1.3 million of the poorer households in the U.S.

He also asks the important question about just what it is these guys really contribute to the economy. The answer: profits to their rich investors. That’s it.

But lest you think they aren’t civic minded citizens doing their best to pay it forward, there’s this:

At the top of the list was David Tepper, who made $2.2 billion last year. Tepper, you might be surprised to learn, said a couple of years ago that he was “tired of making money” and wanted to start giving it away. Less surprisingly, Tepper wants to put some of it to work kicking around teachers’ unions and promoting charter schools and vouchers (“Hedge fund manager readies for battle with NJEA to reform NJ schools”). In second place, Ray Dalio at $1.7 billion, less than half what he made as 2011’s #1. Dalio is best known for doing transcendental meditation, and also for cultivating a brutal, chilly, even cult-like atmosphere at his firm, Bridgewater Associates (The Billion-Dollar Aphorisms of Hedge Fund Cult Leader Ray Dalio). Together, Tepper and Dalio earned as must as almost 350,000 poorer households.

This just proves that most of our society’s wealth is in good hands. Don’t worry your pretty little heads about it.  They’ve got it under control.

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Chechnya?

by digby

Wow. That comes out of nowhere.Not that there isn’t a precedent for terrorism from there.  Recall the terrible Beslan massacre from a decade or so ago. This was nothing like that, but there are lessons to be gleaned from what happened in Russia:

The Beslan school hostage crisis (also referred to as the Beslan school siege or Beslan massacre)of early September 2004 lasted three days and involved the capture of over 1,100 people as hostages (including 777 children), ending with the death of over 380 people. The crisis began when a group of armed Islamic separatist militants, mostly Ingush and Chechen, occupied School Number One (SNO) in the town of Beslan, North Ossetia (an autonomous republic in the North Caucasus region of the Russian Federation) on 1 September 2004. The terrorists were the Riyadus-Salikhin Battalion, sent by the Chechen separatist warlord Shamil Basayev, who demanded recognition of the independence of Chechnya at the UN and Russian withdrawal from Chechnya. On the third day of the standoff, Russian security forces entered the building with the use of tanks, incendiary rockets and other heavy weapons. At least 334 hostages were killed as a result of the crisis, including 186 children, with a significant number of people injured and reported missing.

The event led to security and political repercussions in Russia, most notably it contributed to a series of federal government reforms consolidating power in the Kremlin and strengthening of the powers of the President of Russia. As of 2011, aspects of the crisis in relation to the militants remain contentious; including how many militants were involved, the nature of their preparations and whether a section of the group had escaped. Questions about the Russian government’s management of the crisis have also persisted; including allegations of disinformation and censorship in news media, whether the journalists who were present at Beslan were allowed to freely report on the crisis, the nature and content of negotiations with the militants, allocation of responsibility for the eventual outcome, and perceptions that excessive force was used.

Let’s hope we manage to have learned from our mistake — and theirs — as we go forward.

Also too: David didn’t need to make the apology below. CNN gave so many hints that it was the same guy the twitterati were fingering that they might as well have said it. They barely got out of that one unscathed.

Update: Oh great

Wherein I apologize for being an arrogant, blithering idiot among many

by David Atkins

Tonight all of twitter went manic after a number of people listening to police scanners heard that police were considering “Suspect #2” to be a missing Brown university student. For hours, just about everyone on twitter was convinced that Suspect #2 was the student in question. It became a “known fact”, even as the traditional media refused to state any names.

This led to a bunch of fools, myself included, making fun of the traditional media for its “failure” to state what people on twitter already “knew.”

One of the very few to express skepticism about the identification was Digby.

Why R people so sure about this Tripathi ID? I don’t find the pics all that convincing, although it’s hard to tell. Is there something else?— digby (@digby56) April 19, 2013

While we don’t have positive identities yet, it’s increasingly clear that Suspect #2 is not the student in question. As usual, Digby was right. And so was the traditional media.

There are many things to learn from this, but the biggest lesson of all is that while there may be wisdom in crowds, there is also greater foolishness. Dangerous foolishness. Foolishness that Digby even wrote about less than 24 hours ago.

We have professionals for a reason, and oftentimes–particularly when not all the facts are in–it’s best to let them do their jobs.

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Your moment of zen: baseball style

by digby

LA Dodger Tony Gwynne Jr:

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Why stop enforcement when it’s so darned lucrative?

by digby

Oh good. I feel safe now:

U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske sought to portray the White House as a champion of drug policy reform on Wednesday, while staunchly opposing marijuana legalization and leaving unanswered questions about how the Justice Department will handle legalized recreational pot in Colorado and Washington.

“The Justice Department’s responsibility to enforce the Controlled Substances Act remains unchanged,” said Kerlikowske in a speech that came two weeks after a Pew Research poll revealed that 52 percent of Americans support legalizing marijuana.

“Neither a state nor the executive branch can nullify a statute passed by Congress,” said Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. “Nor should we lose sight of the fundamental fact that using marijuana has public health consequences, and the most responsible public policy is one that restricts its availability and discourages its use.”

He did say the administration seeks a middle ground: they are against legalization but also against the War on drugs.

And the good news is that marijuana enforcement pays for itself!

Sultan Alkhraisat owns a medical marijuana dispensary in the back of a cafe in San Francisco’s Mission District. The pot club is half a block away from the San Francisco Friends School. In fact, there are several other cannabis dispensaries near Friends and two other schools.
Alkhraisat declined to be interviewed, but he did confirm that the owner of his building received a letter from the U.S. Attorney last week. It said, “there is a marijuana dispensary operating…within a prohibited distance of a school.” And that it “may result in criminal prosecution, imprisonment, fines and forfeiture of assets.”
ABC7 has learned that the same letter has been sent to many other pot clubs operating in Northern California…
The U.S. Attorney’s office declined to be interviewed, but a spokesperson said they are targeting dispensaries which are operating within 1,000 feet of schools.
California Watch explains how this new strategy could destroy the semi-legitimate medical marijuana industry in California: 

The U.S. attorneys from California’s four federal districts are preparing to unveil in the coming days their latest effort to push a coordinated statewide marijuana enforcement strategy. That approach includes the possible seizure of land or buildings leased to marijuana operations that may be legal under state law but remain illegal under federal statutes. 

It’s a neat little trick. Many dispensaries just close under the threat of asset forfeiture and those that try to fight for their rights? Guess what?

California’s four U.S. Attorneys are waging their war on medical marijuana without winning a conviction, bringing a case to trial or even filing criminal charges. They find that strong-arm tactics work better.

Using a legal maneuver called civil asset forfeiture, they are seizing cash, cars and businesses – without the need of proving guilt or innocence in court.

You are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. But this doesn’t even come up in a civil asset forfeiture. It’s the weapon of choice of the four federal prosecutors in California, where they strong-arm commercial landlords into evicting marijuana dispensaries and caregivers by threatening to take all they own. It’s a cheap, effective solution that keeps controversial medical marijuana prosecutions out of the courts, and it has the added benefit of turning the presumption of innocence on its head: the landlords must prove that they didn’t know about the alleged criminal activity in order to save their forfeited property.

Since the U.S. Attorneys announced their coordinated crackdown in October 2011, civil asset forfeiture warnings have shuttered hundreds of dispensaries, including the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, which was the oldest in the state. U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag sent a letter to the Marin Alliance’s landlord last November, threatening “criminal prosecution, imprisonment, fines and forfeiture of assets” unless he evicted his tenant.

The landlord served the Marin Alliance with an eviction notice, but the dispensary resisted, and the matter ended up in a local court. Yet even as the landlord was working to comply, Haag’s office initiated the forfeiture anyway and the Marin Alliance closed for good in December.

Though it’s the federal government leading the charge against medical marijuana, local California cops are also getting a piece of the asset-forfeiture action through a practice known as equitable sharing.

Under equitable sharing, local police can request the help of federal law enforcement agencies in conducting raids and seizing assets for forfeiture. By doing this, the local cops get two huge benefits, the first of which is more money: By bringing the action under federal law, local precincts can claim up to 80 percent of the forfeiture proceeds, whereas their take would be capped at 65 percent if they operated under California law.

Even more importantly, equitable sharing allows local California police to conduct raids based on federal laws, muscling aside state laws that were designed to protect Californians from overzealous property seizure. This loophole enables local governments that are hostile toward the medical marijuana movement to shut down dispensaries in defiance of state law and make a tidy profit in the process.

“The DEA doesn’t have a lot of agents in California — maybe 100 or so,” said Matt Kumin, a civil rights attorney who has brought constitutional challenges to all four U.S. attorneys targeting medical marijuana in California. “They don’t initiate investigations. Most of that is done by the local law enforcement agencies, which are essentially deputized to work with the feds in this effort, as they’re getting federal funds for drug interventions.”

And people wonder why the Department of Justice still prioritizes this even in the face of many other more important crimes which people haven’t voted to decriminalize. Follow da money.

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Dispatch from the Chained-CPI trail

by digby

Watch Speaker Pelosi do a very fancy pas de deux around the Chained-CPI in response to a constituent’s question:

This is obviously going to take more than polite questions. It’s probably going to take some very serious in-your-face Tea Party style confrontation and some civil disobedience. She clearly doesn’t take the opposition to this seriously and figures they’ll get away with it. Unless they get some serious blowback from constituents they’ll all make some gestures and shake their fists but in the end they’ll do it because it’s always considered the easier path for liberals to back their president than oppose him because liberals don’t fear their constituents. (Maybe they should…)

At this point I’m afraid that the best we can hope for is that the Republicans are so offended by Pelosi’s lugubrious endorsement of Obama’s brilliant liberal budget that they can’t muster enough of them to even hang this thing around the Democrats’ necks and light it on fire. So pass it around.

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California Democrats call on an end to the automatic filibuster

by David Atkins

I’ve taken a lot of heat for being involved in the institutional Democratic Party, but I’ve also noted before that the Democratic infrastructure in California is different from that of much of the rest of the country–partly due to the tireless activism of progressives who have worked to change it from the inside. Case in point: the California Democratic Party sent this press release today:

At no point has the need to end the Senate’s absurd 60-vote requirement been made clearer than yesterday. A measure to require more gun buyers to go through background checks garnered 54 votes – more than a majority – but failed to clear the 60 vote threshold that has become a baseline to move any business forward in the Senate.

Incredulous Americans today woke up to the news that even in the wake of the tragedies in Aurora, Colorado, Oak Creek, Wisconsin and Newtown, Connecticut, the Senate can’t pass sensible gun legislation to make these mass shootings less common or more difficult to carry out.

The Senate is broken. Its procedures are arcane and indefensible.

It is time to end the 60-vote requirement. The victims of tragedies past, and the victims of tragedies that are likely to come without action, demand no less.

Now, the CDP isn’t going to officially come out and directly call out Senator Feinstein for her part in this. But they don’t need to. The point is clear enough.

The governance of the country is broken, and the Democratic Party in the largest state in the country is demanding an end to one of the rules that is most responsible for the dysfunction. We’ll win eventually. It’s just a matter of time. The more progressives gain influence in their own state parties, the faster we’ll win.

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Explosive lessons. (Or what not to do when something’s about to blow up.)

by digby

Word to the wise: if you know that a burning object is about to blow up it’s not a good idea to just sit there and watch it burn so you can take some pictures.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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About that R/R paper: “everyone should have been suspicious from the start”


by digby

This is such a heavy news week that it’s hard to know what to focus on at any given moment. But I really hope that this exposure of the Reinhardt- Rogoff paper as a fraud doesn’t get lost in all the shuffle. (Actually it probably won’t, at least among the policy wonks because it’s a really juicy story that raises many questions about … everything.)

Anyway, there has been a lot written about it this week, but I think Krugman does the right thing by also focusing on the fundamental political problem:

The fact is that R-R was controversial right from the beginning; and very early on, although we didn’t know about the coding error, we knew that they had made a major blooper by citing the US contraction after World War II as an example of debt overhang, when it was actually just postwar demobilization. That should have made everyone suspicious from the start.

Yet the VSPs not only grabbed hold of the alleged result, they wrote again and again as if this highly disputed claim was a known fact. Thus just a few months ago the Washington Post, attacking those who wanted to reduce the focus on deficits, wrote,

If [debt projections are] even slightly off, debt-to-GDP could keep rising — and stick dangerously near the 90 percent mark that economists regard as a threat to sustainable economic growth.

Not “some economists”, let alone “some economists who have been sharply criticized by other economists with equally good credentials”, but “economists”.

This is deciding what you want to believe, finding someone who tells you what you want to hear, and pretending that there are no other voices. It’s deeply irresponsible — and you can’t blame Reinhart-Rogoff for that mistake.

The fact is that there is often disagreement among scientists and academics and it’s not easy to know who to believe if you’re a layperson. But this one wasn’t really that difficult because even if it was correct, the policies the VSPs were producing (and using the report as evidence for their necessity) wouldn’t address the problem. Cutting Social Security won’t solve the problem of soaring health care costs and lord knows Europe has shown that austerity only makes deficits worse. You don’t have to be an economist to see that this entire argument served as an excuse to do what people wanted to do anyway.

After all, the Reinhart-Rogoff Debt Paper was published in 2010. President Obama said this in early 2009:

President-elect Barack Obama will convene a “fiscal responsibility summit” in February designed to bring together a variety of voices on solving the long term problems with the economy and with a special focus on entitlements, he said during an interview with Washington Post reporters and editors this afternoon.

“We need to send a signal that we are serious,” said Obama of the summit.

Those invited to attend will include Senate Budget Chairman Kent Conrad (N.D.), ranking minority member Judd Gregg (N.H.), the conservative Democratic Blue Dog coalition and a host of outside groups with ideas on the matter, said the president-elect.

Obama’s comments came in a wide-ranging, hour-long interview that came just five days before he will be inaugurated as the 44th president of the United States and become the first African American to hold that title.

Obama said that he has made clear to his advisers that some of the difficult choices–particularly in regards to entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare – should be made on his watch. “We’ve kicked this can down the road and now we are at the end of the road,” he said.

The desire to use the financial crisis as an excuse to dramatically cut future spending, particularly on the “welfare state” was on the agenda long before R/R wrote that paper.  They just conveniently supplied some new reasoning for what the politicians already wanted to do.

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