Month: July 2013

The spying scandal that isn’t

by digby

Gee, this looks bad:

As the Obamacare train-wreck begins to gather steam, there is increasing concern in Congress over something called the Federal Data Services Hub. The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide “electronic, near real-time access to federal data” and “access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information.” In these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by, the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous.

They certainly should be; the potential for abuse is enormous. The massive, centralized database will include comprehensive personal information such as income and financial data, family size, citizenship and immigration status, incarceration status, social security numbers, and private health information. It will compile dossiers based on information obtained from the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration, state Medicaid databases, and for some reason the Peace Corps. The Data Hub will provide web-based, one-stop shopping for prying into people’s personal affairs.

Well, not exactly. It is designed to facilitate the determination of subsidy eligibility which, because the formula is so complicated, may require the input of several agencies. It has no connection to your medical file:

“On October 1, the health insurance marketplace will be open for business,” CMS administrator Tavenner said. “They can trust their information is being protected through the highest privacy standards.”

Tavenner said she wanted to emphasize two points. While the insurance exchange application does ask for personal identifying information like Social Security numbers, “it never asks for personal health information.”

Now it’s true that your financial information will be available to more people than it currently is. Right now it’s only available to the employees of the IRS, the company you work for, credit reporting agencies, every credit card or loan processor, your mortgage company and landlord and anyone who wants to do a background check, among others. So, yeah, it’s quite the intrusion.

And as a privacy advocate, I can’t say I like the fact that a whole new database is being created with my information on it. But I am confident that it’s not going to be tracking what anti-depressants I’m on or the results of my colonoscopy. The huge insurance conglomerate, staffed by strangers in another state, that handles my health care policy will do that. Just as it does today. The good news is that if their records system is as inscrutable as their billing system not even Edward Snowden will be able to figure it out.

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Let’s keep blue Hawaii blue

by digby

Here’s a smart take on the Hawaii Senate race from an FDL diarist named paiagirl. This seat will not go to a Republican. But, by God, there’s no good reason it should go to a New Dem centrist sell-out either:

In D.C., Congresswoman Colleen Hanabusa of Hawai’i is known as a leader of the New Democrat Coalition. New Dems describe themselves as “centrists.” Pro Publica describes them as “The Coalition Pharma and Wall Street Love”. New Dems urge other Democrats to be more open to compromising with John Boehner, Michele Bachmann and other Congressional Republicans.
[…]
She recently participated in an economic forum with Wall Street shill and former GOP presidential candidate, Tim Pawlenty. Pawlenty is president and CEO of Financial Services Roundtable, a Washington, D.C.-based Wall Street lobbying group. That’s one bipartisan position the New Dems and the GOP can agree on — supporting Wall Street by gutting regulations.

After that lovefest, she joined Republican Congressman Randy Forbes in a defense forum. Forbes is founder and chairman of the Congressional Prayer Caucus, formed for the purpose of encouraging prayer through legislation and fighting for school prayer. He’s also virulently anti-abortion. And once again, the New Dems “bipartisanship” the heck out of defense contractors – even going so far as to vote for armaments that even the Pentegon doesn’t want. But supporting defense contractors keeps the donations flowing from this rich well.

In case her fondness for Republicans isn’t clear, she uses Twitter hashtags like #bipartisanshipworks. (Works to move the country even farther to the right.)
[…]
Sort of like Henry Higgins singing, “Why can’t a woman be more like a man!” We Democrats, according to these “New Democrats” just need to be more like Republicans.

One of the leading items in the New Dems’ domestic agenda is to “fix the debt” through a “grand bargain” that includes cuts to Social Security benefits. Indeed, Adam Pase, the New Democrat Coalition’s Executive Director, is lobbying for cuts. Adam Pase has been described as a “toady for the banking industry“.

As a loyal member of the New Democrat Coalition, Hanabusa has diligently furthered this objective in D.C.

Hanabusa appeared at a post-election press conference last fall with New Dem Chair Ron Kind and other coalition members, where they announced they were “ready to deal” and that “everything was on the table.” Pictures from that press conference, including Hanabusa, are prominently displayed in all the New Dems’ online venues.

The New Dems reiterated their message a few months later. Former Sen. Alan Simpson and Morgan Stanley director Erskine Bowles – who have been advocating Social Security cuts for years – issued a new budget-reduction proposal in February. Once again, they called for benefits to be cut. The New Dems immediately and formally praised the new Simpson-Bowles initiative in a letter, signed by Hanabusa, to Obama and Boehner.

Hanabusa also voted this year against the budgets proposed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus and the Congressional Black Caucus – both of which would’ve preserved Social Security.

She’s made it apparent to the Beltway: Hanabusa is willing to cut Social Security. She’s been rewarded by receiving tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the New Dems’ PAC and others sympathetic to the Simpson-Bowles worldview.

She has given herself a fig-leaf, however, in the form of co-sponsoring a bill that says she is against cuts. Despite her clear collusion with the Fix the Debt wrecking crew, she uses that back home on the stump to mislead her constituents into thinking she will protect Social Security.

Defenders of Social Security around the nation contend that the strongest and most unequivocal action that can currently be taken on this issue is to sign the “Grayson-Takano letter,” which stands against any and all Social Security cuts

She has not signed it. And she probably won’t. She’s made it quite clear by her actions and active participation in the New Dem sell-out coalition what her agenda really is.

Here’s the rub: she was anointed by the sainted Daniel Inouye as his preferred successor. Brian Schatz won it instead. Unfortunately, that anointment has some juice in Hawaii politics and the Hanabusa people are playing it for all its worth in their opportunistic campaign to unseat the liberal Schatz in the primary.

But the fact is that Hawaii is one of the bluest of blue states and the incumbent Brian Schatz is a real progressive and will represent his constituents far batter than she will. We cannot afford to lose Democrats like him. Allowing New Dem sellouts to take away what should be a very progressive seat is almost as bad as letting a Republican do it.

She’s shilling for dollars, basically, and playing the worst kind of insider game even though it isn’t necessary in a blue state like Hawaii. That’s the worst kind of Democrat there is as far as I’m concerned.

If you’d like to support Senator Brian Schatz for re-election, you can do so here.

Update:

Former Vice President Al Gore is weighing in on Hawaii’s 2014 Senate race, throwing his support behind Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) for his work on environmental issues.

“Thanks to Brian’s visionary leadership, Hawaii implemented its own groundbreaking Clean Energy Initiative. As a result, Hawaii has tripled its renewable energy production from 6% to 18 %,” said Gore in a statement on Sunday morning. “And we’re going to need Brian’s strong, outspoken leadership in Congress for many more years to get the job done.”

A useful comeback

by digby

I realize this will change no minds and they will always find some dumb excuse to rationalize it, but it’s satisfying to do it anyway.

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The fiscal scolds are at it again

by digby

The shrill one:

OK, this is quite amazing: Dean Baker catches the WaPo editorial page claiming that we have $3.8 trillion in unfunded state and local pension liabilities. Say it in your best Dr. Evil voice: THREE POINT EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS. Except the study the WaPo cites very carefully says that it’s $3.8 trillion in total liabilities, not unfunded; unfunded liabilities are only $1 trillion.

I’ll be curious to see how the paper’s correction policy works here.

But how big is that $1 trillion anyway? It still sounds like a big number, doesn’t it? Dean tries to compare it with projected GDP, which is one way to scale it. Here’s another.
[…]
According to the survey, the ARC is currently about 15 percent of payroll; in reality, state and local governments are making only about 80 percent of the required contributions, so there’s a shortfall of 3 percent of payroll. Total state and local payroll, in turn, is about $70 billion per month, or $850 billion per year. So, nationwide, governments are underfunding their pensions by around 3 percent of $850 billion, or around $25 billion a year.

A $25 billion shortfall in a $16 trillion economy. We’re doomed!

OK, there are some questions about the accounting, mainly coming down to whether pension funds are assuming too high a rate of return on their investments. But even if the shortfall is several times as big as the initial estimate, which seems unlikely, this is just not a major national issue.

So, why is it being hyped? Do I even need to ask?

No, there is no need to ask. It’s not as if this scare-mongering about debt is as old as the hills:

No matter what the perceived problem, the answer is always the same.

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Nations band together try to do something about tax evasion. Separately and futilely.

by David Atkins

Faced with rampant global corporate tax evasion and angry citizens, the wealthiest nations of the world are finally getting around to trying to do something about it. If by “doing something” about it one means flailing about wildly with no hope of success:

The world’s richest economies for the first time endorsed a blueprint on Friday to curb widely used tax avoidance strategies that allow some multinational corporations to pay only a pittance in income taxes.

It could be years before any changes take place in national tax laws and big corporations and other interest groups are sure to lobby heavily to preserve their tax breaks. But the proposal was the most concrete response yet to the intensifying pressure on governments around the world to address the issue.

The governments have strong motivation for change. They are starved for revenue and face citizenry who see inequity in a system that enables some highly profitable corporations to pay far lower tax rates than workers.

In one widely cited example, Starbucks last year paid no corporate tax in Britain despite generating sales of nearly £400 million ($630 million) from more than 700 stores in that country. Apple, despite being the most profitable American technology company, avoided billions in taxes in the United States and around the world through a web of complex subsidiaries.

In light of such practices — which are entirely legal, taking advantage of differing tax rules around the world — the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has proposed that all nations adopt 15 new tax principles for corporations. The plan focuses on corporations only and would, if adopted widely, shift some of the global tax burden toward large companies — the ones big and rich enough to devise complex tax-reduction strategies — and away from small businesses and individuals, which tend to spend a much bigger share of their incomes on taxes.

In theory, the idea is a good one and long overdue. But the G20 has tried it before.

First off, corporations have the ability to use their immense lobbying power to prevent nation-states from making these changes. But more important is the collective action problem: if even a few nations decide not to participate, they can in theory reap the short-term benefit of seeing many corporations relocate their headquarters to those countries and stash their ill-gotten gains in their banks. Attempting to achieve progress on this issue in a cooperative and voluntary manner is a fool’s errand.

The idea is definitely a step in the right direction, but the execution is grossly inadequate. What is needed are global treaties with negative enforcement mechanisms, including but not limited to potential tariffs and sanctions, for nations that refuse to put rules in place to curb corporate theft and malfeasance. Nations that allow corporations conduct the worst forms of corporate tax evasion and arbitrage should be made pariahs as surely as those who harbor terrorists and violate the most basic human rights. Like most white collar crime, the cause and effect between harm done and suffering received is indirect, so it lacks the same emotional stigma. But the removal of trillions of dollars from the world economy into corporate tax havens that could have gone to education, infrastructure, climate change abatement and poverty alleviation directly damages and even destroys the lives of hundreds of millions of people, just so that a few can live the most opulent lives of any creature on the planet in its entire history.

The world doesn’t currently have such international protocols. But it should. And in time, it will. When it does, our age will have seemed quite barbaric indeed.

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Being the elusive character that he was and after hiding out with this terrorist buddies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, American soldiers finally locate the terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden. Many people have helped secure his safety for nearly 10 years. 

Dubbed code name Neptune Spear the operation lasted 38 minutes, included were 23 navy seals and a dog named Cairo, no one wanted detainees. Once the American military confirmed and identified Bin Laden President Barack H. Obama had previously issued a kill order to SEAL Team Six to shoot him.  

In Bin Laden’s house Osama used his wives and children as shields as he tried to escape and get away from the American Military. But the coward Bin Laden could not escape. He was killed hiding behind the dress tail of a young woman.On May 1, 2011, Bin Laded was shot dead and the American Military wrapped him in a white blanket and buried him at sea by throwing his body overboard. Throwing his body into the sea showed him more respect than he showed to the people who died on 9/11. 

Children, the truth is that these acts were done by freedom hating radical Islamic Muslim extremists. These crazy people hate the American way of life because we are FREE and our society is FREE. We must be prepared to know and understand the truth, America is FREE. Ask your mother and father, your teacher your preacher what this really means. What does it mean to be FREE?  Why are we a FREE people? 

We are free to think, free to be honest, free to write, free to live as we wish. We are America. America does not hate other people in the world, but love the world in which we live and will defend our way of life. On the remaining pages of this book we talk about some of our freedoms and our way of life.

Here’s a little explanation of the project from the publisher:

What’s really fun is that the book contains terrorist “trading cards” just in case the little tykes want to know what to look for after all:

In describing the inherent bad nature of a terrorist, the novel features their horrific crimes. This is Good vs. Evil. We Shall Never Forget 9/11 Vol. II 

Terrorist Trading Cards clearly identifies the evil that may sit next to you on an airplane, or it could be an avowed Atheist in the parking lot of your local grocer on a sunny morning.

The world should look at them, make fun of them, name them – shame them, recognize who they are and rid the earth of them. No comic book published, nor any nightmarish fiction written, can compare to the absolute evil pictured in this book, stated, Wayne Bell Publisher. And realize as well “They” are not finished. Imagine a terrorist with a nuclear bomb.

Because we are FREE! Free to be honest, free to write, free to live as we wish…

Be sure to click over to see the trading cards in all their glory. I’m sure you’ll find it interesting to see who they included. I’m fairly sure that Ricky Gervais and Bill Maher are going to be in the update. They are, after all, avowed atheists.

Bwaaaahahahahaaaaaa.

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Pondering Eichmann: Hannah Arendt

Standard Operating Procedure
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Econ 4 On Building the New Economy 

by tristero

The good economists at Econ 4 have a new video, On Building the New Economy. Econ 4 is a terrific group. From their mission statement:

We need an economics that aims to secure long-run human well-being, not an economics preoccupied with maximizing short-run output and profits. We need an economics that recognizes that we need to safeguard the Earth for our children and generations to come. We need an economics for people, the planet, and the future.

Watch.

The sick reaction

by digby

If you haven’t been following the right wing reaction to the Zimmerman verdict and the president’s remarks about it this discussion between Karen Finney and David Brock will quickly fill you in:

I’ve been shocked by the open, unabashed racism and even full-fledged white supremacism I’ve been seeing on Facebook and around the right wing blogosphere over the past week. This is the old school racism in full effect, with a overlay of unctuous sanctimony about “black on black” crime as if that somehow makes them the real heirs to Martin Luther King.

Pamela Geller synthesizes it perfectly in this stomach churning deep dive down the rabbit hole:

I know we must suffer this buffoon his on the job training but is there not a shred of decency in him? Is there not one iota of responsibility, or conscience, or goodness to this Jeremiah Wright disciple? He is inciting instead of calming , which is what a leader does.They picked the wrong case to exploit to their own racist ends and still he and his thugocracy persist in spite of the facts.

The bloody joke is on all those voters who bought the “uniter” ad copy. All of those voters who cast a vote for Obama if only to show that we were beyond racism and the 20th century’s defects. But what America got was the opposite. Instead, we, as a nation, have been hurled backwards – horribly backwards. I have never known the country to be so race fixed, so race obsessed, so race abused as we are under Obama.

What an ugly transformation he has orchestrated. It is shocking. His sanction”Every F***ing Cop Is A Target”, of the mindless violence, the beatings of innocent people in the name of Trayvon, is sedition. But predicted: The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America.

His flapping tongue is too eager to publicly lynch Geroge Zimmerman but strangley silent on Banghazi, the IRS war on patriots, Fast and Furious, the Muslim Brotherhood, etc. Obama’s flapping tongue is strangley silent on the hundreds of young balck men murdered by black men. Obama’s flapping tongue is strangley silent on the failure of Trayvon Martin’s parents. [AtlasShrugs.com, 7/19/13]

Many more like it at the link. Yuck. I have to have a drink now. I can’t take it.

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Where the sadists fit right in

by digby

Jonathan Schwarz brings us the kind of modern immigrant tale a right winger can love:

Imagine you were Iraqi and had the right personality to join Saddam’s military in 1985, just before it engaged in actual genocide against other Iraqis, and rise through the ranks for 18 years until, by the time the U.S. invaded in 2003, you were a lieutenant colonel.

But then suddenly you’re transplanted to America. Where would someone with your background and personality end up on the political spectrum here?

As [Muhanned al-Kusairy] ascended to the 19th floor of a downtown building on a Baghdad-hot afternoon, his hands trembled, his face flushed, and his stomach, he remarked, felt as if it were “filled with mice, not butterflies.” He was heading to see a man he had come to idolize since moving to Arizona three years ago, a man who he hoped would fulfill his American dream. 

“Mr. Sheriff!” Muhanned exclaimed. “It’s a huge honor to meet you.” 

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, whose hard-line approaches to illegal immigration have drawn nationwide attention, embraced the fawning Iraqi immigrant. “Tell me about yourself,” he said… 

“My dream is to be a deputy sheriff,” he told Arpaio. “I want to work for you…Ever since I arrived here, I’ve wanted to wear a uniform with the American flag on it.”… 

He and his family must wait two more years to become citizens — “it feels like two centuries” — but that has not dissuaded him from trying to be what he deems American. He covers his bald pate with a black Stetson, sports a stars-and-stripes sticker on the tailgate of his Tahoe, listens to country star Alan Jackson’s greatest hits and spouts off on politics when wedged in traffic on I-17. 

“We have too many illegals here,” he said soon after picking me up from the airport last month. It was three days before his meeting with Arpaio. He went on to rail about how many immigrants receive state-funded health care and food stamps. “And they don’t pay taxes,” he groused. “They’re stealing from both my pockets.”… 

“I came legally, and I pay my fair share in taxes,” he said. A few miles later, he returned to the topic. “I wish I was in charge of the Department of State. Anyone who doesn’t love the United States, I’d deport him to Mexico.”… 

Muhanned has spent more than 40 hours in evening classes, learning how to use a two-way radio, process detainees and conduct a traffic stop. He is moving on to intermediate-level instruction this summer — “They will teach me to use a Taser!” — and he hopes to earn his certification to carry a sidearm and a posse badge by the end of the year….
He is unmoved by criticism that the squad of 3,500 civilians, some of whom are armed, has not been properly screened or trained. “Don’t believe everything you read in the media,” Muhanned said. 

“We,” he told me, referring to the United States in the first person, “should have sent the sheriff to Iraq in 2003 instead of Paul Bremer,” the White House envoy who ran the initial U.S. occupation. “We needed someone tough like him.”

As this shows, no one’s political perspective has much to do with ideas or the structure of their country’s government or history or whatever. It’s just about their personality.

I always thought it would be a good thing to allow Iraqis to come to the United States since we did such a job on their country. But I never imagined we’d invite Saddam’s henchmen. It’s not as if we haven’t met our sadistic psycho quota already.

As Jonathan says, these people are in every society, including ours and they’re pretty much the same everywhere:

The important thing is just that someone is in charge and telling him what to do, and that this includes hurting other people while wearing a costume.

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