Month: July 2013

I gotcher bipartisanship for ya, rightchea

by digby

Funny, for all their talk of a need for bipartisanship, the political establishment was dismayed to see it in full effect last night:

As we’ve seen in other debates over the NSA’s surveillance, the roll call produced some interesting cross-cutting. Ninety-four Republicans sided in favor of the amendment, along with 111 Democrats. Missing, however, was transparency hawk (and darling of the Internet) Rep. Darrell Issa, who voted to uphold the NSA’s surveillance program.

Issa didn’t offer a public explanation for his vote, and efforts to reach his office received no responses Thursday morning.

Other committee leaders played a crucial role in rallying opposition to Amash. House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) and Judiciary Committee chair Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) spent much of Wednesday making calls to other members.

Amash faced stiff high-ranking opposition. The leadership of both parties, as well as the White House, vocally opposed weakening the NSA’s ability to conduct surveillance. But Amash still managed to mount a strong defense — which suggests that momentum is building for critics of the NSA.

“The tide is turning,” read an update last night posted to DefundtheNSA.com, a Web site launched hours before the vote by Sina Khanifar, a digital activist. The site now has a list of the complete roll call, divided into two groups: those who voted for the amendment and those who voted against it. Beneath each lawmaker’s photo is a button urging constituents to tweet or call.

“They were very worried,” said Conyers of the Democratic leadership, which opposed the amendment along with House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). “And the fact that they won this narrowly means they still are worried because this thing isn’t over yet.”

Earlier this month, polls from Quinnipiac and The Washington Post showed a swing in public opinion against the NSA programs. That’s in contrast to a Pew survey conducted immediately after the NSA story broke that showed only a quarter of Americans following those developments closely.

In a few weeks, the online advocates at Restore the Fourth plan to launch new protests against the NSA. In New York, the demonstrations will closely resemble the organization’s events that took place July 4. But in other cities, said spokesman Derick Bellamy, organizers will bring in policy experts to teach workshops and do a bit of on-the-spot education. Restore the Fourth aims to get 100,000 attendees during its “1984 Day” on Aug. 4.

Senior lawmakers and the White House hoped that last night’s vote would become a release valve — a strategic opportunity to let upset congressmen blow off some steam. But, it seems, Team Amash views the amendment’s defeat as simply a tactical setback.

Now why would they need to “let off steam” in a bipartisan fashion unless they felt they needed to show to their constituents that they felt these programs had gone too far?

I would guess that if a Republican were in the White House there would be fewer Republicans on board and more Democrats. But this shows quite clearly that there is a constituency out there that cares about the 4th Amendment and believes that our government has no right to make laws in secret and spy on its own citizens without due process. They should be worried.

Here’s the vote breakdown. There are some Democrats on that list who have now relinquished any right to call themselves civil libertarians. As usual.

And some, like Colleen Hababusa, who are running Senate primaries in deep blue states against real progressives like Brian Schatz should  pay for this shameful vote by being rejected at the ballot box. 

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Entrepreneurship — police state style

by digby

Yet another example of creative public private partnerships in the new American economy:

After seizing more than $1 million in cash in drug stops this year, a district attorney has suspended further roadside busts by his task force because of growing criticism over a private company’s participation.

His prosecutors have dropped all criminal cases arising from the drug stops, The Oklahoman was told. Some seized money is being returned. The attorney general’s office is investigating one complaint some seized funds went missing.

“I’m shocked,” a Caddo County special judge said July 2.

The judge spoke at a hearing after learning the private company’s owner pulled over a pregnant driver along Interstate 40 and questioned her even though he is not a state-certified law enforcement officer.

“For people to pull over people on I-40 without that license is shocking to me,” Special Judge David A. Stephens said.

The judge said he hoped Joe David, owner of Desert Snow LLC, wouldn’t do it again.

“If you do, I hope to see you soon, wearing orange,” the judge said, referring to the color of jail clothes in Caddo County.

At issue is District Attorney Jason Hicks’ decision to hire Desert Snow to do on-site training with his task force for a year.

He signed a one-of-its-kind contract in January to pay the Guthrie-based company 25 percent of any funds seized during actual training days. He agreed to pay the company 10 percent of funds seized by his task force on other days when the company trainers weren’t present.

Most stops have been along a 21-mile stretch of I-40 in the rolling hills of Caddo County.

Sometimes, no drugs were found and no one was arrested, but task force officers took money found in the vehicles anyway after a drug-sniffing dog got excited.

Forfeited funds are split among the law enforcement agencies of the task force after Desert Snow is paid.

Hicks has paid the company more than $40,000 so far. The company could get another $212,000 off the largest seizure its officials participated in — the discovery of almost $850,000 in May.

To me, the fact that these private contractors weren’t real police officers is only slightly more shocking than the fact that we commonly fund our police agencies by allowing them to steal from citizens and then force the citizens to fight their way through the justice system to get it back. I honestly believe that one of the main reasons so many police agencies love the drug war is all that loot from asset forfeiture.

Splitting the booty with private contractors just shows some capitalistic moxie.

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State GOP parties in disarray

by David Atkins

This is what happens when you have a paranoia-based organization run by nutcases:

Plagued by infighting and deep ideological divisions, state Republican parties from Alaska to Maine are mired in dysfunction. Several state Republican leaders have been forced out or resigned in recent months, and many state GOP parties face financial problems and skeptical national leaders.

Democrats are not immune to such problems, but the conflicts on the Republican side highlight the tug of war over the GOP’s future as national leaders work to improve the party’s brand. At the same time, the Republican dysfunction raises questions about the GOP’s ability to coordinate political activities in key battleground states ahead of next year’s midterm congressional elections.

“There’s been a lot of division and disharmony in the Republican Party,” newly elected Maine GOP Chairman Rick Bennett told The Associated Press…

The Illinois state GOP chairman resigned in May after party moderates clashed with social conservatives over the chairman’s support for gay marriage. The Alaska Republican Party is on its third chairman this year; party activists ousted the first two over fundraising concerns. The Minnesota GOP also has cycled through chairmen and long has been troubled by financial issues.

And state parties in Nevada and Iowa are largely controlled by members of the GOP’s libertarian wing, a group that’s known for criticizing the very same Republican establishment leaders they’re supposed to be cooperating with heading into the 2014 campaign season. Problems have been lingering for much of the past year.

Sure, Democrats have been known to have organizational problems as well–but not like this. The GOP’s issues are rather amazing, considering that the Democratic Party is a mixture of disenfranchised groups, labor (whose interests are not necessarily neatly aligned with disenfranchised groups or environmentalists), environmentalists, and fiscally conservative wealthy social liberals. That’s an uneasy coalition to be sure.

But Republicans have even bigger problems. The libertarians, social conservatives and neoconservatives have hated each other for a while, but they were at least tethered to reality. Between the Fox News epistemic closure, gerrymandering and the Tea Party takeover, it’s gotten far far worse.

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America, where being a jerk is the highest form of patriotism

by digby

He is a scary cop with a big mouth, but I will fight to the death for his right to be one. And that’s obviously the ending he prefers:

A police chief in a small town in Pennsylvania is attracting controversy this week after posting a series of YouTube videos attacking people that disagree with his views on gun rights.

Mark Kessler, police chief of Gilberton Burough and a member of the North Schuylkill school board, caught the attention of viewers earlier this month with profanity-laced videos blasting “libtards” and Secretary of State John Kerry for supposedly wanting to take away his guns.

“Fuck all you libtards out there … yous take it in the ass,” he says in the video, posted in mid-July. “I don’t give a fuck what you say, so you can all go fuck yourselves. Period.”
[…]
The initial round of videos apparently made enough of a stir for Kessler to make an apology video, in which he offers a tongue-in-cheek “sorry” for “hurting feelings,” before shooting off a bunch of rounds from an automatic assault rifle:

The videos are just a few in a series that express Kessler’s outspoken and extreme brand of gun rights activism. According to the Morning Call, Kessler has also organized a volunteer group called the Constitutional Security Force. While the group doesn’t consider itself to be a militia, it does vow to take up arms to protect against tyranny

He has a right to say what he wants. But the people of his town also have a right not to have their police chief be a psycho. From the rest of the story it doesn’t appear they’ll get their wish. Because the constitution.

So it’s yet another place where intelligent people, especially those with innocent kids, won’t be spending their time or money.  Too bad.  It looks like a beautiful area.

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The student loan bill is not a victory. Stop calling it that.

by David Atkins

I guess this is what passes for a “victory” these days:

The Senate voted 81-18 Wednesday for legislation on student loan rates, splitting Democrats in the chamber.

Seventeen Democrats voted against the bipartisan bill that would cap most student loan rates at 8.25 percent.

“I cannot support a plan that raises interest rates in the long-term while the federal government profits off them,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said. “This is obscene. Students should not be used to generate profits for the government.”

Some Senate Dems have been slagging Warren for posturing on this issue, claiming that this bill is the best they’ll get through Republican opposition. Maybe so.

But if this is the best they can do, don’t call it a victory. Don’t say it’s helping students. It isn’t.

Conventional wisdom in politics says to take credit for victories wherever possible. That thinking is understandable–perpetual anger and frustration leads to defeatism that de-energizes activists–but in cases like this, it’s important to call it like it is and lay blame at the feet of the opposition.

If I were in the Senate, I would probably vote for the bill. But I would go to every media person who would listen and say, “I voted for this, but I despise it. Students should not be profit cash cows for the government so that billionaires can get tax breaks. But Republicans are insisting on that, and there’s no way to pass a bill without them.“

And then I would look right into the camera and say, “Students and parents of America, if you want the government to stop using you to close the deficit so Wall Street can get tax cuts, give me more progressive colleagues to work with in Congress. The Republicans don’t care about you, or the country’s future.“

Would that be divisive? Yes. But so what? That’s not a bad thing. In cases like this, the only evil is compromise.

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The dangerous Mr Rogers

by digby

For those who might be laboring under the illusion that House Intelligence Committee Chairman is less insane than your average Breitbart wingnut, think again.

Rogers said Amash’s amendment, which stops the NSA from collecting data under the Patriot Act, was an attempt to take advantage of anger over recent scandals including the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups applying for tax exempt status and the Justice Department’s probe of Associated Press journalists in connection to a leak about a thwarted terrorist plot that originated in Yemen …

“It’s certainly inflammatory and certainly misleading,” Rogers said Wednesday in an interview on Michigan radio station WTKG 1230. “I think, he tried to take advantage at any rate of people’s anger of the IRS scandal, which is real, and the AP —Associated Press dragnet by the Attorney General, Benghazi —all of those things are very real and there’s no oversight function

“What they’re talking about doing is turning off a program that after 9/11 we realized we missed —we the intelligence community- missed a huge clue.”

That’s someone they trust with the most secret classified material? Ok, now I’m terrified too.

Emptywheel points out that he isn’t just a rabid partisan weirdo. He’s also a liar. (Perhaps that goes without saying.)

From there, Rogers declined into outright misinformation.

Rogers added that NSA’s telephone data collection program has helped thwart over 50 terrorist plots.

The Section 215 collection — the only thing that would be affected by the Amash-Conyers amendment — has had a role in (per Keith Alexander’s latest claims) 13 plots.

Not 50.

13.

I can’t think of a better way for Mike Rogers to demonstrate that these programs have insufficient oversight — in which the Intelligence Committees play a crucial role — than to open his yap and make such ludicrous statements.

Yeah, well, he’s going to have to join a long line of people who have made ludicrous statements about this issue. But then none of them are chairman of the House Intelligence Committee either.

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A strong foundation

by digby

Can you guess the foundation in question?

That’s right, it’s Pete Peterson’s outfit. And if you look at the report details you will see that he employs a lot of people, most of them in Washington, to fulfill his quest to kill Social Security. In fact, considering how much money is flowing to that end, it’s actually surprising they haven’t been able to get it done yet.

Still, they’ve only been around since 2008, so when you think about it they’ve managed to to advance the ball pretty far down the field. Just the fact that they got a Democratic administration to put it on the table in budget negotiations is an amazing accomplishment. They have a lot to brag about.

No wonder DC is the most prosperous metro area in the nation.

You’ll notice that they’ve still got $470 million on hand.

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Sure you have a constitutional right, honey.  If you can exercise it. 

by digby

This story is by a clinic escort at Mississippi’s last abortion clinic.  It almost made me sick to my stomach to read it and watch this video and realize that a good number of pro-choice people have simply accepted this as normal in the United States of America in 2013:

I take my perch on the cold concrete and wait for the other escort on the shift to show up. After the first day, I learned why iPhone ear buds are a constant accessory of the escorts. It just helps to make it through the “Don’t Kill Your Baby!” when you are listening to Beyoncé. When the antis are particularly vocal, or holding “Church,” Derenda—one of the other escorts—carries a boom box behind the patient to drown out the cries of the protesters. Some are so thankful they latch onto us for the 200 feet to the door and ask if these people are going to “hurt” them. We hold a lot of hands and try to make them laugh as much as possible. Sometimes the antis make this easier.

In the beginning of the day I’m a parking attendant. We have precious few spaces at the clinic and they all must be used exactly correctly or the antis will call in a report to the Health Department stating the clinic is breaking standards. So, I usher cars into spaces as tightly as I can—despite the fact that the women driving them are usually not in their best mental state. When the parking at the clinic gets full, we have no choice but to lead them to another public lot down the hill from the clinic. When this happens, usually one or two escorts run down the hill and walk the patient into the clinic. I affectionately call this “Running the Gauntlet,” because once we step off clinic property, we are fair game. The antis chase us to the woman’s car and try to get in between her and us. They will stand outside the car so she cannot open her door. And we cannot do a thing. We are taught to “not engage.” And we keep this rule regularly. But there are days when “not engaging” isn’t something I can do.

The video above is of this exact situation. Me and another escort, Sarah Roberts, were attempting to walk a woman from her car in the public lot, up the hill, and onto the safety of the clinic grounds. Once we get through Roy, we still have to get through the throng of protesters that stay at the clinic waiting to yell at this woman once we step through the gates. And the only point I need to make here is this: In what other place where a human being goes to access medical services are they subjected to this treatment? Because I’d like to remind people some of these women are just here to get birth control pills for a reduced price. And they have to put up with this:

This is also another example of smug, patronizing whites using African American history to advance their own agenda.  It is offensive on every level — he’s a sexist, racist religious thug.

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Because you’re very, very afraid

by digby

Tom Tomorrow brilliantly synthesizes … all of it:

Why would anyone think it makes sense to nominate Rambo as Fed Chair?

by digby

There is a lot of chatter right now about the administration’s trial balloon about Larry Summers possibly being named Fed Chairman in the next few weeks. The bill of indictment against him is very long and should have been enough to keep him off anyone’s short list for this office.  He is known as a friend to Wall Street, a protector of corrupt investors, a terrible manager, and early proponent of deregulation and generally a guy who had made far too many bad economic calls to be considered for such an important job. To me, you need to know nothing else to see that he is a very bad choice for the job.

But that’s not all of it, not by a long shot. The other person who is reportedly being considered is Janet Yellen, a thoroughly qualified person and one who carries none of the baggage that Summers has strapped to his back. As this piece by Josh Bivens shows:

[S]he has been far ahead of the policymakers’ curve when it comes to diagnosing macroeconomic trouble. Recently released minutes from Federal Reserve Open Market Committee meetings in December 2007 show that Yellen was nearly alone in warning that a recession was imminent—a warning that proved correct.

For another, it’s hard to imagine somebody more qualified and better-groomed for the job. She has served as Chair of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers, has had previous stints on the Fed’s Board of Governors, has run the San Francisco Federal Reserve, and has been Vice-Chair of the Federal Reserve since 2010.

But the Wall Street faction of the Democratic Party seems to be convening their fellow Boys Club members to conduct a rather shocking whisper campaign against Yellen based upon the most sexist “concerns” you can imagine. As Ezra reported yesterday, they’re basically saying that Yellen isn’t macho enough:

The “but” is a variation on a theme. She lacks “toughness.” She’s short on “gravitas.” Too “soft-spoken” or “passive.” Some mused that she is not as aggressively brilliant or intellectually probing as other candidates — though they hasten to say she’s clearly very knowledgeable about monetary policy. Others have wondered whether she could handle the inevitable fights with Congress.

Requests for specifics don’t yield much. It’s more a feeling. An intuition. A sense. But these airy hunches are held by powerful people who will be involved, formally and otherwise, in the selection of Bernanke’s replacement.

What the complaints share is an implicit definition of leadership based on stereotypically male qualities. They aren’t qualities that all men have, or all women lack, but they’re qualities that tend to be more rewarded in men than in women, and thus more prevalent among men than women. And because every chairman of the Federal Reserve (as well as every Treasury secretary) has been male, such qualities have steadily, perhaps subconsciously, informed the portrait etched in many minds of high-level economic policy makers.

This generic portrait survives in part because monetary economics remains a bit of a boys’ club. “In the general finance world, and even in economics, there are tons of women,” said Christina Romer, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley and former chairman of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. “But I’m lucky at monetary-economics conferences if I’m one of three women, and now that Anna Schwartz has died, if I’m one of two.”

He goes on to point out that Bernanke isn’t exactly Rambo and yet his reputation among these fine fellows couldn’t be better.

This is 100% Old Boy Network bullshit. If there is a job on this earth that requires careful deliberation, a calm prudent personality and a consensus building style it’s the Federal Reserve Chair. The skittish wild horses of the markets hang on every word and someone as undisciplined as Larry Summers — a man who was so reckless as to say that women aren’t good at math and science as the president of Harvard University for God’s sakes — is likely to set off a worldwide panic. The mere idea that this man whose reputation as an unruly blabbermouth would be more suited than this meticulous, circumspect woman is completely ridiculous. The last thing we should want is some cowboy with a big mouth as Fed Chairman.

I suspect President Obama wants a legacy of breaking down cultural barriers to opportunity and advancement for all Americans. It is very much a part of his central promise and he knows it. It will be a shameful act if President Obama names his good old boy buddy Summers instead of the more qualified woman Janet Yellen to this job. I think he’s smart enough to know that this is not the sort of image that great legacies make:

Also too: the last I heard the Democrats were gaming out elections based upon their huge advantage with women. It’s not as if he has to do us any favors here — just nominate the most qualified person for the job.

Update:  Oy.  Look who’s giving Summers a huge platform today.

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