Month: August 2013

The right to shoot teachers shall not be abridged

by digby

You cannot make this stuff up:

Arkansas state Sen. Jeremy Hutchinson (R), who is leading an effort to give guns to school personnel, accidentally shot a teacher during an “active shooter” drill earlier this year, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports.

“The experience gave Hutchinson some pause, but he still supports giving schools the authority to decide how best to secure their campuses.”

Luckily the gun that shot the teacher was only loaded with rubber bullets so no harm no foul. (If we can only get all the armed lunatics to use them too we can arm everybody and have shoot-out all day long with no consequences!) Just because you’ve proved in living color that flying bullets from the “good guys” can harm innocent people exactly as flying bullets from the “bad guys” do, doesn’t mean that you should change your opinion about everybody and their grandmother packing heat at all times. Just take a pause, stick your fingers in your ears and sing lalalalalala!

Update:  Oh dear God.  I’ve just been informed that Jeremy Hutchinson is the nephew of Asa Hutchinson, the former Impeachment manager, DEA chief, Head of Birder enforcement and … current leader of the NRA’s “arm the teachers” task force. 


As I said, you canNOT make this stuff up.

Punishing the few based on the unknown to defend the narrowest of principles

by David Atkins

Maybe intervention is the right course in Syria. Maybe it isn’t. Maybe we should treat a chemical weapons attack that kills a few hundred as morally different from conventional weapons attacks that have been killing tens of thousands. Maybe we shouldn’t. These are judgment calls.

But what’s beyond question is that before anyone starts intervening in anything for any reason, it would good to know the facts. And right now, we just don’t know what happened for certain:

U.S. officials say the intelligence linking the Syrian President Bashar Assad or his inner circle to the alleged chemical weapons attack that killed at least 100 people is no “slam dunk.”

The officials say questions remain about who controls some of Syria’s chemical weapons stores, and there are doubts about whether Assad himself ordered such a strike.

President Barack Obama has declared unequivocally that the Syrian government is responsible and has been laying the groundwork for an expected U.S. military strike.

A report by the Office of the Director for National Intelligence builds a case that Assad’s forces are most likely responsible but also points to gaps in the U.S. intelligence picture.

None of us mere mortals have access to the intelligence briefings the White House gets. But what has been leaked down from on high suggests that the attack was probably not sanctioned by Assad himself (after all, it would be a woefully ill-considered strategic move on his part) but by rogue elements allied to his regime. Current discussion of a bombing campaign seems to be targeted toward punishing those rogue elements in particular. If, in fact, that is what happened.

Intervention in this situation is somewhat perplexing. After watching tens of thousands of Syrians die in a brutal civil war, the United States seems determined to use bombs on a rogue faction of an oppressive regime based on murky intelligence in order not to alter the course of the civil war, but to defend the narrow principle that it’s OK to kill people with bombs but not with poisonous gas. That doesn’t sound like a great idea.

Either it’s worth taking a side in the Syrian civil war, or it isn’t. Either it’s worth the blood and treasure to end the conflict and hold the war criminals to account, or it isn’t. Bombing a country to prove a point about observing internationally sanctioned methods of killing seems unjustifiable. If the United States is less intent on saving lives in Syria than on proving to the United Nations how much we care about observing international war crimes law, we would do better to begin by delivering Dick Cheney to the Hague, instead.

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What’s in a name?

by digby

I think we should just take the bull by the horns and do this:

CNN presents the full range of establishment opinion on Syria

by digby

FAIR reports that CNN did a sort of dry run of its retooled “Crossfire” today and featured a spirited debate on the impending bombardment of Syria:

On the show The Lead, guest host John Berman moderated a “debate” between conservative S.E. Cupp and left-leaning Van Jones.

“Look, I want to commend the president for finally following through on our red line threats,” Cupp declared–before explaining that Obama’s plan was too timid:

We should absolutely intervene to stop the genocide of more than 100,000 people. We should absolutely intervene to stop Al-Qaeda and Islamic extremism from jihadizing yet another conflict. It is absolutely our obligation, and instead we do the bare minimum to save face and pat ourselves on the back for our civility and our diplomacy. I think it’s pathetic.

OK, and from the left? Jones said:

This president has now said there is a red line. It was not clear before whether the line was crossed. It’s crossed, he’s moving forward. I think we need to stand behind this president and send a clear message to Assad that this type behavior is not acceptable.

Jones did go on to point out that if Assad isn’t killed it won’t be the end of the world because his death would leave a power vacuum and that’s bad. And he pointed out that people should be a little bit more reasonable with the president on this because it just isn’t as easy to depose people like it was when we installed the Shah back in the 50’s. (And who can argue with how well that worked out over the long run?)

So, there you have the full range of establishment elite opinion on Syria in living color. The fact that the public wants no part of it is irrelevant.

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The Wall Street Mafia

by David Atkins

Hullabaloo veteran Dave Dayen has a chilling story in Salon today about the depths to which the “financial services community” will stoop to protect themselves from whistleblowers exposing rampant illegal and immoral behavior:

You may know Michael Winston’s story from a series of articles by Gretchen Morgenson in the New York Times, or from a celebrated Frontline episode, “The Untouchables,” about the lack of prosecutions on Wall Street. He was a Ph.D. who rose to the corporate elite, with stints at Lockheed Martin, McDonnell Douglas, Motorola and Merrill Lynch. He was recruited to mortgage originator Countrywide Financial with the promise that it wanted to become the “Goldman Sachs of the Pacific,” a full-service global financial corporation.

“They talked about the importance of ethics and principles, and they said they heard I was a high-integrity guy,” Winston tells Salon, noting his father had a vanity plate that read “HONOR.” Winston initially succeeded as enterprise chief leadership officer at Countrywide, getting promoted twice in 14 months and building a team of 200 working on corporate strategy.

But he could not ignore the rot at the heart of the company’s profitmaking approach.

So now, a successful high-level executive for 30 years, he has been embroiled in seven years of lawsuits with Countrywide and the company that bought it, Bank of America. His determination to speak out against multiple violations of law at Countrywide earned him retaliation, and eventually, he was frozen out of corporate boardrooms, unable to find a new job. He won a jury verdict in his case, but after two and a half more years of fighting, an appellate court reversed the ruling in highly unusual circumstances.

“I keep hearing about whistle-blower protections,” he tells Salon, exasperatedly. “It certainly didn’t happen for me.”

Now, Bank of America wants to gouge Michael Winston one last time, demanding an interest payment on money awarded to him that he never received.

“Thus far, the person who did the right thing got punished, and the person who did the wrong thing got rewarded,” Winston said. The chilling case shows that the greatest enemy for Wall Street is the man or woman who actually tries to expose its secrets.

Read the whole article, as well as Ms. Morgenson’s work in the Times.

There are many corruptions on the body politic that require disinfecting in order to achieve a better, more just and more prosperous society. Many of them are interconnected. Lack of wage growth and the financialization of the economy are intrinsically connected. Disempowering the financial sector while empowering workers must become a national priority if America is to regain her former prosperity.

The longer income inequality and financialization are allowed to run amok, the more like a mafia the financial sector will become at the expense of everyday workers.

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Does Jim DeMint really speak for the civil rights movement?

by digby

He thinks he does:

Would Martin Luther King, Jr. approve of Obamacare? http://t.co/euS0Odg8gb #DreamDay #MarchonWashington
— Jim DeMint (@JimDeMint) August 28, 2013

The Rude One has some news for Mr DeMint:

Conservatives will attempt to claim MLK as one of their own, and they will write worthless bullshit to try to colonize King. For example, here’s Jonah Goldberg: “King pleaded for the fulfillment of America’s classically liberal revolution. At the core of that revolution was the concept of negative liberty — being free from government-imposed oppression.” Oh, so that’s why King wanted the federal government to pass civil rights legislation that the federal government could enforce.

Luckily for you, the Rude Pundit has never forgotten just how bad-ass Martin Luther King actually was, and he has written over the years about how King would fuck up conservatives’ shit. Now, as a handy guide when you scream at Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity on the radio today, here’s links to all of those posts in one place, all filled with King’s words:

1. Martin Luther King was against prayer in school and thought that Christianity meant that you had to help the poor.

2. Martin Luther King thought America’s use of military power was immoral and that protesters loved their country.

3. This is not to mention that Martin Luther King thought that money spent on useless wars would be better spent on anti-poverty programs.

4. Unlike today’s Democrats, Martin Luther King believed that radical activism, even at the risk of arrest, was more important than moderation and compromise. Principle over popularity.

5. Martin Luther King believed that a janitor was as important as a doctor and that the government had the duty to ensure that the janitor was taken care of as well as the doctor was, including a guaranteed wage, health care, and more.

6. Martin Luther King believed that the rich needed to pay their fair share to help lift people out of poverty. They should, you know, spread the wealth, especially through taxation.

7. And, after a change of heart, Martin Luther King did not believe in owning a gun.

If that’s the platform of Jim DeMint’s Republican Party, where do I sign up? If it isn’t, then Jim DeMint should probably keep his mouth shut.

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How do you ask an innocent civilian to be the last to die for a (slightly more than) symbolic gesture?

by digby

So, it appears more and more that the US is planning to do a limited bombing of Syria without any expectatrion of stopping the violence there but rather simply in order to make the point that Syria crossed its red line and that simply will not stand:

The apparent poison gas attack that killed hundreds of Syrian civilians last week is testing President Obama’s views on military intervention, international law and the United Nations as no previous crisis has done.

The former constitutional law professor, who came to office determined to end what critics called the cowboy foreign policy of George W. Bush, now is wrestling with some of the same moral and legal realities that led Bush to invade Iraq without clear U.N. consent in 2003.
[…]
White House officials cautioned that Obama was still considering the options, but the administration appeared positioned to act quickly once he chooses a course. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said during a visit to Brunei that the Pentagon was prepared to strike targets in Syria and hinted that such a move could come within days.
[…]
One U.S. official who has been briefed on the options on Syria said he believed the White House would seek a level of intensity “just muscular enough not to get mocked” but not so devastating that it would prompt a response from Syrian allies Iran and Russia.

“They are looking at what is just enough to mean something, just enough to be more than symbolic,” he said.

Hey, this sort of baby splitting has worked so well with the US congress, why not try it in the Middle East?

There are a lot of reasons floating around out there as to why this military intervention is inevitable, but the one that’s floating to the surface as the main rationale is that we must “enforce” the taboo against chemical warfare. The problem with that, as everyone seems to acknowledge, even if they support it,  is that the expected outcome of this action is expected to be nothing — except perhaps a few unfortunate incidents of “collateral damage.” (But then we don’t concern ourselves with that sort of thing as a general rule these days, do we?)  In fact, it could end up loosening the taboo even more. People aren’t dumb and they’ll see that a use of these weapons inspires a symbolic gesture of violence, some unnecessary death and then back to business.

So what’s the real point? It appears to be so that the US doesn’t get mocked. But I’m afraid that ship sailed the day we decided to invade countries that didn’t attack us using the most transparent pack of lies imaginable. And as far as intervention being necessary to back up the Geneva Conventions, well that ship sank the minute the US decided to torture prisoners and punished no one for doing it.

Not long ago there used to be a lot of talk a lot about maintaining America’s “moral authority.”  Well, after the last decade’s military adventures (longer than that, actually) we’re in very short supply. Initiating a  bombing campaign, however limited, because we are worried about “losing credibility” or being “mocked” is hardly a good way to get it back.

Update: For a thorough and serious discussion of the pros and cons of this action, I think this piece from the European Council on Foreign Relations hits all the right points.

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“We will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream …”

by digby

50 years ago he had a dream. Some of it has come true. Some of it still pending:

I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.

Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.

But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languishing in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. So we have come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.

In a sense we have come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked “insufficient funds.” But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. So we have come to cash this check — a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.

It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. Those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.

But there is something that I must say to my people who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice. In the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.

We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. They have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.

As we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied, as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating “For Whites Only”. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.

I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive.

Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair. 

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.”

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with a new meaning, “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.”

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”

As amazing today as it was 50 years ago.

Update:

In preparation for the rally, the Pentagon readied 19,000 troops in the suburbs.

The powers that be knew the times they were a-changin.  And it scared them.
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Stretching the “T” word

The New York Police Department has secretly labeled entire mosques as terrorist organizations, a designation that allows police to use informants to record sermons and spy on imams, often without specific evidence of criminal wrongdoing.

Designating an entire mosque as a terrorism enterprise means that anyone who attends prayer services there is a potential subject of an investigation and fair game for surveillance.

Since the 9/11 attacks, the NYPD has opened at least a dozen “terrorism enterprise investigations” into mosques, according to interviews and confidential police documents. The TEI, as it is known, is a police tool intended to help investigate terrorist cells and the like.

Many TEIs stretch for years, allowing surveillance to continue even though the NYPD has never criminally charged a mosque or Islamic organization with operating as a terrorism enterprise.

The documents show in detail how, in its hunt for terrorists, the NYPD investigated countless innocent New York Muslims and put information about them in secret police files. As a tactic, opening an enterprise investigation on a mosque is so potentially invasive that while the NYPD conducted at least a dozen, the FBI never did one, according to interviews with federal law enforcement officials.

I get why New York was especially paranoid after 9/11. Obviously. But this was never a
particularly rational idea — it’s a waste of resources, focuses on way too many people and misses completely the fact that they would have gotten the same information from decent American Muslims in the mosques if they got wind of any terrorist activity. Clearly, they felt that all Muslims are potential terrorists and will stick together in the event of a plot unfolding around them. That’s the way authoritarians look at their fellow citizens.

This idea that you can use the “T” word to justify skirting the constitution is the most pernicious outcome of that horrible day. Power once given is very hard to take back and I don’t know what it’s going to take to make it happen. The security state has institutionalized not just a series of unconstitutional policies, but a way of looking at the world that is essentially undemocratic and, frankly, paranoid. The people are going to have a rough row to hoe to turn that around.

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Question

by tristero

There really is only question on the table right now:

Is the invasion of Syria – and let’s face it, if tables were turned and Assad’s forces spent two days bombing Virginia, no American politician would consider it anything less than an invasion – so, is the invasion of Syria the stupidest idea since the invasion of Iraq?

Or is it simply an incredibly stupid idea?

Discuss.