Month: May 2013

So it’s liberalism that’s arrogant and condescending?

by digby

He’s quite the joker, isn’t he?

“Progressivism is well-intentioned but it is also — in my humble opinion — arrogant and condescending,” Ryan said, according to a transcript. “Instead of helping people make their own decisions, it makes those decisions for them. It makes Washington the center of power and politicians the center of attention.”

While Ryan had harsh words for progressives, he conceded their “vision proved compelling.”

“The Left keeps winning elections,” Ryan continued. “Why? Well, you can see the appeal. In uncertain times, people look for security. Progressives seem to have an answer … the progressive state offers a sense of security. But it’s a false sense of security because government can’t keep all its promises.”

Well, if it can’t keep its promises it’s because Paul Ryan refuses to let it.

But be that as it may, you have to love this coming from Paul Ryan — especially the comic aside “in my humble opinion.” fter all, he threw his arms around this guy and ran with him on the national ticket:

“There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what … who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims. … These are people who pay no income tax. … and so my job is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them that they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives,” Romney said.

Also too: here’s another very self-effacing Ayn Rand acolyte like Paul Ryan demonstrating his humility:

“Atlas Shrugged is a celebration of life and happiness. Justice is unrelenting. Creative individuals and undeviating purpose and rationality achieve joy and fulfillment. Parasites who persistently avoid either purpose or reason perish as they should.” — Alan Greenspan

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Yeah sure, there’s nothing political about the IRS targeting the Tea Party

by digby

This is exactly the kind of thing that gives conspiracy theorists fodder for their conspiracies and makes all of us mistrust the institution of government as a whole:

The Internal Revenue Service inappropriately flagged conservative political groups for additional reviews during the 2012 election to see if they were violating their tax-exempt status, a top IRS official said Friday.

Organizations were singled out because they included the words “tea party” or “patriot” in their applications for tax-exempt status, said Lois Lerner, who heads the IRS division that oversees tax-exempt groups.

In some cases, groups were asked for their list of donors, which violates IRS policy in most cases, she said.

“That was wrong. That was absolutely incorrect, it was insensitive and it was inappropriate. That’s not how we go about selecting cases for further review,” Lerner said at a conference sponsored by the American Bar Association.

“The IRS would like to apologize for that,” she added.

Lerner said the practice was initiated by low-level workers in Cincinnati and was not motivated by political bias. After her talk, she told The AP that no high level IRS officials knew about the practice. She did not say when they found out.

Many conservative groups complained during the election that they were being harassed by the IRS. They accused the agency of frustrating their attempts to become tax exempt by sending them lengthy, intrusive questionnaires.

The forms, which the groups made available at the time, sought information about group members’ political activities, including details of their postings on social networking websites and about family members.

Certain tax-exempt charitable groups can conduct political activities but it cannot be their primary activity.

IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told Congress in March 2012 that the IRS was not targeting groups based on their political views.

“There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people” who apply for tax-exempt status, Shulman told a House Ways and Means subcommittee.

Oh bullshit.

And here’s the thing: they went after the little guys, the grassroots groups. I happen to think the Tea Party is a blight our politics, but I sure as hell think they have a right to engage in political activism without being singled out and harassed.

And anyway, the real bad guys in the dark money world of politics are the big institutional groups on both sides who have been abusing their tax exempt status for years. It’s led to a total debasement of the political system. If the IRS chose to take a look at some of them, it might make sense. But going after the Tea Party groups based on the fact that they have the words “patriot” in their name is so ironic I honestly don’t know what to say.

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Armchair activism on the bosses dime: International Labor Rights

by digby

Take a little break from work right now and go to this link, read a bit about this initiative and if you are persuaded, sign the petition. It will only cost you a couple of minutes.

The number of workers reported dead in the Rana Plaza building collapse in Dhaka, Bangladesh, has risen to over 800, with scores of workers still unaccounted for. This disaster comes just five months after the fire at Tazreen, which killed 112 workers. Meanwhile, many global corporations are keeping their audits secret, refusing to pay compensation to victims, and ignoring known solutions that could put an end to preventable murders in their supply chains.

Please join us this May in a Month of Action to Stop the Murders of Garment Workers and push for meaningful corporate accountability throughout global supply chains. Please call on the largest buyers of clothing from Bangladesh to adopt real fire and building safety, before the next disaster strikes. Get involved:

Sign our petition to H&M, Walmart and Gap
Take action at a Gap store near you
Donate to ILRF

There is lots more here on their “what you can do”page if you would like to get more involved.

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The face of austerity

by digby

I had the privilege of hearing Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot speak about austerity the other night and it was as fascinating as you might imagine. I think most people who read this blog wouldn’t be surprised by what they said, but I think many in the audience were people who may be depending upon more mainstream sources and were very surprised — and alarmed — by what they heard. It’s hard to wrap your mind around.

The CEPR does yoeman’s work in providing the data and analysis that informs all of us and I’m very grateful for them.  And Chris Hayes is also doing something on his show that’s very important — telling stories about how austerity affects real people.

I thought this segment was quite brilliant — and horribly depressing. We’re losing at least one generation’s hopes and dreams with our elite’s obscene obsession with strangling the common good:

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

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Colorado is making it easier to vote in a big way

by David Atkins

Via Greg Sargent:

It hasn’t gotten the national attention it deserves, but a sweeping measure to overhaul elections in Colorado is swiftly moving towards passage — one that could function as a model for other voting reformers in other states, and perhaps even nationally. The Colorado measure will represent a big step forward, because it sticks to the most fundamental principle that most reformers think should guide our efforts to fix voting: That voting should be made easier for as many people as possible.

This, at a time when conservative groups are working to restrict voting in the name of “voter fraud.” As Reid Wilson recently put it, the Colorado measure is “the Democratic comeback to voter ID.”

Reform advocates who have been briefed on Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper’s plans tell me they expect him to sign the legislation tomorrow. The measure, which has cleared both houses in Colorado, contains a number of key provisions. It requires a ballot to be mailed to every registered voter; voters choose how to vote, whether by mail or dropping off the ballot, or even in person, early or on election day. It lengthens the early voting period and shortens the time required for state residency in order to qualify to vote. It expands voter registration through Election Day. And it allows people to vote at any precinct within their county.

“The biggest problem is people showing up at the wrong precinct,” Ellen Dumm, spokesperson for Coloradans for Voter Access and Modernized Elections, tells me. “This is unique in that expands all options. It really does expand access to voting at a time when we’ve seen a lot of restriction of voting. This makes voting a lot easier.”

Another idea out there in California is being promoted by own state senator Hannah-Beth Jackson is to pre-register teenagers to vote so that they’re automatically eligible vote once they turn 18:

State Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson (D-Santa Barbara) has just introduced a bill that would allow 15-year-olds to pre-register to vote.

Senate Bill 113 does not change the voting age. But it would allow a person to fill out the necessary forms to become pre-registered beginning at 15, an age when young people typically head to the DMV to get their instructional permit or driver’s license. Since 1995, the federal Motor Voter Law has allowed voter registration when applying for a driver’s license.

“Becoming a driver is an important rite of passage, and so is becoming a voter,” said Jackson. “When teenagers take the wheel to become a driver, we’re saying, let’s create an easy opportunity for them to also become a future voter.”

And, of course, there’s switching election day from Tuesday to a weekend–or better yet, making federal election days national holidays.

Of all the ills Republicans do, restricting access to democracy is among the most injurious.

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Ole Joe Biden, the good cop

by digby

Some people are very excited about this:

A Sierra Club volunteer in South Carolina said Vice President Joe Biden appeared to indicate his opposition to TransCanada Corp.’s (TRP) Keystone XL in a brief conversation with her last week.

Elaine Cooper, an environmental activist with the state’s Sierra Club chapter, said in a blog post that she asked Biden if the administration was serious about addressing climate change and if President Barack Obama would reject the pipeline, which would carry diluted bitumen from Alberta to refineries in the U.S. Gulf Coast.

“He looked at the Sierra Club hat on my head, and he said ’yes, I do – I share your views – but I am in the minority,’ and he smiled,” Cooper wrote in the blog posted on the Sierra Club’s website.

First of all, he explicitly says he’s in the minority, which doesn’t bode well, I’m afraid.

Moreover, we’ve been here before, have we not?

“Hey, by the way, let’s talk about Social Security,” Biden said after a diner at The Coffee Break Cafe in Stuart, VA expressed his relief that the Obama campaign wasn’t talking about changing the popular entitlement program.

“Number one, I guarantee you, flat guarantee you, there will be no changes in Social Security,” Biden said, per a pool report. “I flat guarantee you.”

Maybe it’s old Joe bein’ Joe again, but you do have to wonder after a while if maybe Joe’s just doing his job.

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Outreach: the “where else are they going to go” strategy

by digby

This isnice. The White House chief of staff and Congressional budget committee head Paul Ryan, just hangin’ out like a coupla spending cutters trying to figure out a way to cut the hell out of government. TipNRonnie would be proud:

On April 10, the day President Obama released his 2014 budget, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough held a secret meeting with House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan at a K Street restaurant, Brasserie Beck, to talk, among other things, about possible resolutions to the deficit reduction standoff.

As I report in this week’s TIME magazine, an article that is only available to magazine or tablet subscribers online, the meeting was productive, even if it produced no breakthroughs. “He’s a Minnesota Irish Catholic guy, and I’m a Wisconsin Irish Catholic guy,” Ryan told me, after the conversation. “It quickly dawned on me that we can work together.”

“It was the first time I have had a candid conversation or a substantial conversation with a member of the Obama administration since they came into power,” Ryan added.

The discussion, over beer, included talk about spending levels and paths to reaching a deal, but was not intended as a negotiating session. Rather it was part of a large scale outreach effort by the White House, coordinated by McDonough to increase communication between the White House and Congress, and between Democrats and Republicans.

Warms your heart, doesn’t it? And he didn’t stop here:

President Barack Obama played golf with senators on Monday and is having dinner with House Democratic leaders on Wednesday evening, but he’s not the only one in the White House trying to build closer ties on Capitol Hill: his chief of staff Denis McDonough is, too.

McDonough was spotted by a HuffPost reader Monday night having dinner with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) at Lincoln Restaurant here. It turns out that dinner is just the latest in a string of one-on-one meetings McDonough has been having with Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
[…]
Cantor spokesman Doug Heye later responded only that the dinner went well.

“The leader had a very enjoyable dinner with Denis McDonough and looks forward to more opportunities to keep lines of communication open,” Heye said in a statement.

Robert Costa of the National Review tweeted earlier Wednesday that Cantor had just told him about the dinner, and said the two officials discussed tax reform, fiscal issues and White House-Republican relations.

I’m not sure who the Democratic members of congress have been since there’s been zero reporting on that. But I’m sure there must be some right?

Still, the White House is pretty busy and they’re pressed for time. No word back yet on this:

Congressional Progressive Caucus Co-Chairs Reps. Raúl M. Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN), along with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Donna Edwards (D-MD) and John Conyers (D-MI), sent a letter to President Obama today requesting a meeting on the inclusion of chained CPI in his fiscal year 2014 budget proposal.

“We appreciate your ongoing efforts to negotiate with Congressional Republicans in a serious, thoughtful manner, despite their unwillingness to consider a balanced approach,” the authors write. “However, at a time when many Americans are still struggling, cutting Social Security benefits would take money directly out of the pockets of American seniors and slow our economic recovery.”

Yeah, ok. We’ll get back to you.

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Two birds with one stone: Just pass immigration reform and Social Security funding will take care of itself

by digby

I’ve been saying this for years!

Get ’em on the grid:

An analysis by the Social Security Administration says a bipartisan immigration bill pending in the Senate would boost the retirement program’s trust fund by adding millions of taxpayers to the economy.

The finding comes in a letter to Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., who requested the analysis, from Stephen C. Gross, chief actuary for the agency.

It could provide a boost for the immigration bill, which has been attacked by some conservatives as overly costly, as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepares to begin amending the measure on Thursday.

The analysis says the bill would add more than $300 billion in net additional revenues to Social Security and Medicare over the coming decade.

Gross writes that the overall effect of the bill on the long-range trust fund balance “will be positive.”

It would be really, really cool, if the Democrats, who ostensibly support both immigration reform and Social Security solvency would shut the hell up about cutting Social Security and just get immigration reform passed.

That is what’s known as win-win.

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Why Benghazi? Message: they care

by digby

For those of you trying to figure out just what in the hell the wingnuts are pretending to be all upset about with Benghazi, Jon Podhoretz runs it down in simple terms. Basically, it’s that they’ convinced the administration knew it was a terrorist attack and tried to cover it up in the early days of the raid. Blah, blah, blah.

But this is just precious:

We don’t know why the Obama administration chose to do this. We can speculate. We can guess it did so because it had developed a story line for the 2012 election in which al Qaeda was dead, and this muddied that story line.

But there’s a very good counter-argument that, politically, Obama missed an opportunity: He could have gotten up and said, “I’m the man who got bin Laden, and we’ll get these men, too.” That would’ve rallied the country. Who would’ve objected? Who would’ve criticized?

The point is, all we will have is speculation until someone on the inside gives up the goods in a memoir, if anyone ever does.

Is this an impeachable offense? No. Will Hillary Clinton’s evident involvement in the revision of the administration’s line on Benghazi harm her presidential chances in 2016? No.

Will this be of great political utility to Republicans? No. Will this harm Democrats terribly? No — even though Democratic Rep. Elijah Cummings did say, “Death is a part of life,” in response to the fact that four Americans were slaughtered by terrorists.

One might wonder, then, why the Republicans have worked themselves up into full-blown hysteria over this. I have my theory — that Roger Ailes and the boys are dusting off the old Clinton scandal playbook, which can most accurately be described as making chicken salad out of chicken shit.

But that’s not the official story among the so-called intellectual right at least as represented by J-Pod:

We can say it’s a big deal because of the testimony of Eric Nordstrom, the regional security officer in Libya at the time of the attacks. “It matters to me personally and it matters to my colleagues at the Department of State,” Nordstrom said as his voice cracked with sorrow and he paused several times to choke back tears. “It matters to the American public for whom we serve and, most importantly, it matters to the friends and family of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, Tyrone Woods, who were murdered on Sept. 11.”

Those old softies.

Update: Mark Ambinder spells it out

Consider me as confused as Terrence Jeffries. The voluble conservative gadfly let it slip on Sean Hannity’s radio program today that he really doesn’t know what possible motivation the Obama administration would have for altering talking points about the Benghazi terrorist attack, or in forcing Hillary Clinton to go along with a conspiracy to somehow cover up something having to do with the death of four American diplomats and intelligence officers.

A few seconds earlier, Jeffries had described a statement that went out from the U.S. embassy in Egypt attempting to calm passions amid the firefight. (He directly attributed the statement to Hillary Clinton, but hey, why let facts get in the way?) Said Jeffries: “They need to explain that Sean. They haven’t done it yet. The root of it is Hillary Clinton.”

Hannity isn’t quite ready to move on. “I think Hillary was running interference for Obama but I’m convinced that the talking points had to go through the re-election campaign that was located in the White House.”

But Jeffries must make sure that the blame lies with Hillary Clinton; the buck must stop with her, because she’s going to run for president in 2016, and Jeffries needs to raise money off of her, and he needs to begin to draw a caricature of her as uncaring, unfeeling, and willing to let four Americans die rather than face up to the fact of an al Qaeda renaissance.

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That Gitmo Paradise

by digby

Mother Jones featured a series of pictures released by the military of the equipment used in the Guanatanamo hunger strike the other day. I’ve shown similar ones before here — the tubes, the shackles and the torture chairs.

But the military was clearly trying to show how good the prisoners have it down there so they also showed a picture of the “luxuries” they’re allowed, like “fresh olives.”   Here a picture of all the belongings these lucky duckies have:

As Barbara Bush might say, “So many of the people here, you know, were underprivileged anyway so this is working very well for them.” I mean, check this out:

“Media room inside Camp V Detention Facility which provides detainees access to television and movies.”

Just look at that comfy old La-z-boy.  They can curl up and watch TV for hours.

 Ooops. I accidentally cropped that…

What fun to sit in a comfortable chair and watch TV and movies — shackled to the floor.

I’m sure I don’t have to remind anyone that most of these prisoners have been cleared for release, many of them having been brutally tortured in the past and found innocent of being involved in terrorism.

Michael Shaw has a typically insightful analysis of the pictures at BagNews Notes:

Although photos from Gitmo have typically excluded the prisoners themselves, not seeing them and knowing they are wasting away makes their absence here that much more palpable. (I think the CYA-minded Pentagon really believes these pictures are informational when they’re not, they’re documentary.) Scenes of olives being delivered that will never be eaten, or full Styrofoam containers getting chucked in the trash, or bottles of Ensure on patient trays next to surgical tubes (to make sure you don’t die on us while the world is watching) can’t help but prompt us to see the prisoners in our own minds (or even imagine we’re getting the treatment).

While the government and the military pretend these photos maintain an adequate level of abstraction, however, to me they do the opposite. In waging a war of wills at the most primitive level, these photos, if highly institutional, somehow take me back to Abu Ghraib. Torturing a man for information, or out of sadism or to keep him alive, is still torture.

Yes it is.