Month: September 2013

Welcome to the Republican heartland

by David Atkins

Kansas:

Now the state’s “Committee on Energy and Environment” is proposing a law that would prohibit spending on anything that won’t set Kansas on a course to self-destruction. House Bill No. 2366 would ban all state and municipal funds for anything related to “sustainable development,” which it defines as: “development in which resource use aims to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that these needs can be met not only in the present, but also for generations to come.”

If this definition sounds familiar, that’s because it was lifted verbatim from what’s commonly referred to as the Brundtland Report, one of the seminal documents in the modern practice of sustainability. The Brundtland Report was the product of a four-year commission set up by United Nations member countries that were increasingly concerned that the world’s resources were being squandered and its environment spoiled.

Read the full text of House Bill No. 2366 here.

Oklahoma:

In a policy reversal, the Oklahoma National Guard will no longer process benefit requests from same-sex couples after being notified by Gov. Mary Fallin’s office that doing so violates state law banning gay marriage.

Oklahoma now joins Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana as the only states that have publicly said they will limit how and where such couples can register for benefits, despite a recent Pentagon directive that gay couples be treated equally. Oklahoma National Guard soldiers and airmen seeking such benefits are now being told they can apply at federal facilities, such as Tinker Air Force Base or Fort Sill, but not at state-run facilities manned by state employees.

I challenge any “both sides do it” pundit to name any far-left legislation in a deep blue state that begins to match this level of crazy.

One side of the body politic has gone far off the edge into cuckoo land. The sooner we admit that as a collective society, the sooner we can start to the fix some of our problems.

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Your moment of zen: NSA edition

by digby

Marc Ambinder has updated his NSA organizational chart:

Click here to enlarge further.

That could never get out of hand. It’s so simple to oversee.

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“This successful use of diplomacy to achieve our goal is the worst defeat in American history“

by digby

Kevin is exactly right about this:

Being willing to change course isn’t a sign of vacillation or weakness. It’s simply nuts to think this. The Russian proposal for UN inspections represented a pretty good opportunity to salvage a decent outcome from the congressional mutiny; it was a chance to nudge Vladimir Putin in a constructive direction; and it doesn’t preclude future military action in any way. Only someone with near-clinical insecurity issues would reject this opportunity simply because it represented a change of course. […]

Syria will have precisely zero effect on domestic fights over the budget and the debt ceiling. The whole idea is preposterous, and I think everyone knows it. The Republican gridlock freight train has been on track for months and it hasn’t budged an inch since spring. Syria hasn’t had the slightest impact on this.

As Greg Sargent points out here, the GOP is going to be dealing with much bigger issues than the president’s stance on Syria (which they don’t agree on internally either.)

Here’s how silly the Republicans sound, from Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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“Ah wanted to tie Assad up and spank his taut Syrian … I’m gettin’ the vapuhs …”

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
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Honestly, I think the Democrats’ who’ve joined this silly bandwagon are just retreating into idiotic Cold War rhetoric because Putin’s PR firm wrote that op-ed. Which is so stupid I can hardly stand it.

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The president has more power than just a bully pulpit


by digby

When I was in college I worked as a staffer for a home health agency for a while. And I learned what a terribly difficult job it is. These people care for the elderly and disabled in their homes often under very difficult conditions and they almost always do it with a generosity of spirit that comes from the heart, not from any pecuniary interest. They are dramatically underpaid and overworked and they care for some of our society’s most vulnerable citizens. That’s a reflection of America’s misplaced priorities.

Anyway, President Obama did something about it today which was long overdue. And good for him:

The Obama administration announced on Tuesday that it was extending minimum wage and overtime protections to the nation’s nearly two million home care workers.

Advocates for low-wage workers have pushed for this change, asserting that home care workers, who care for elderly and disabled Americans, were wrongly classified into the same “companionship services” category as baby sitters — a group that is exempt from minimum wage and overtime coverage. Under the new rule, home care aides, unlike baby sitters, would be protected under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the nation’s main wage and hour law.

Just goes to show you that the presidency and the executive branch have the juice to make progressive change without GOP nihilists after all.

Congratulations to all the people who worked on this issue for over 30 years to make it happen.

Why are so many Americans in love with causing pain?

by David Atkins

Why do so many Americans feel so strongly that pain is morally good?

Assisted suicide is in the news again after Stephen Hawking came out in support of it. For some reason it remains a controversial question whether people wracked with terminal illnesses should be able to bring an end to their own suffering. Apparently many Americans feel it’s the the greater moral good for dying people to spend an extra few months excruciatingly experiencing every organ failure until a painful, convulsing release finally sets them free. Why is that?

Then there are the Americans who believe that unless food stamps are eliminated, poor people won’t be suffering enough to take horrible jobs. Never mind that even horrible jobs are often unavailable, or that society shouldn’t be encouraging the existence of awful jobs with terrible pay. There are many Americans who believe that the suffering itself is an intrinsic value, part of some cosmic justice that applies to people who didn’t have rich parents, or didn’t happen to make that one lucky friendship, or had to take care of a sick family member as a teenager at the expense of their studies. Why do so many Americans feel that their fellow Americans should be starved into waving signs on street corners at $5/hour rather than receive help to get back on their feet? What psychosis leads to that belief?

Then there are the Americans who seem to be just fine with a police culture that treats even minor incidents as an opportunity to deal out incredibly painful doses of electric shock via taser. What cruel perversion is that?

And then, of course, there is the new acceptance of outright torture as a method of preventing terrorism. Don’t we need to question how exactly that happened?

What is it in the American psyche that seems to be in love with the idea of forced pain as an instrument of terrestrial and divine justice?

Whatever it is, the country could use a collective therapist. Our obsession with causing and enduring pain isn’t a healthy one.

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Oh Lord, this is just what we need. A spike in deficit fever …

by digby

Well, this worked out awfully well:

Broad tax cuts made permanent during the fiscal cliff fight last year have dramatically darkened the nation’s long-term budget outlook, congressional budget analysts said Tuesday, nearly doubling the projected size of the national debt over the next 25 years.

The biggest driver of federal spending — health care programs – is rising more slowly than in the past, according to a new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. But a New Year’s Day law that permanently extended the George W. Bush-era tax cuts for the vast majority of Americans is projected to drive borrowing from outside investors to 100 percent of the economy by 2038. Previous projections showed the debt drifting down to 52 percent of GDP by that time.

Krugman explains why this is not actually a crisis although I’m sure the Villagers have been digging in the closet for their last case of smelling salts all day long.

Meanwhile, we have the administration so energetically patting itself on the back for lowering the deficit that it’s falling flat on its face. It cannot seem to make the connection that its buying into that insane austerian obsession as early as 2009 helped make this economic recovery so anemic.

Oh, and there’s this problem too:

This morning, the Census Bureau released its report on income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in 2012. It shows that from 2011 to 2012, median household income for non-elderly households (those with a head of household younger than 65 years old) increased 1.0 percent from $56,802 to $57,353. However, that modest growth barely begins to offset the losses incurred during the Great Recession. Between 2007 and 2011, median household income for non-elderly households dropped from $62,617 to $56,802, a decline of $5,815, or 9.3 percent. Furthermore, the disappointing trends of the Great Recession and its aftermath come on the heels of the weak labor market from 2000-2007, where the median income of non-elderly households fell significantly, from $64,843 to $62,617, the first time in the post-war period that incomes failed to grow over a business cycle. Altogether, from 2000 to 2012, median income for non-elderly households fell from $64,843 to $57,353, a decline of $7,490, or 11.6 percent.

Golly, if only our obsession with tax cuts and the deficit didn’t contribute heavily to income inequality, poverty and wage stagnation we might we might get somewhere. But they can’t help themselves:

In suggesting that falling deficits were something to celebrate, or at least politely applaud, Obama helped make the case for maintaining the policies that got us there. One major reason that deficits are shrinking so quickly right now is because both Democrats and Republicans agreed to a deal during the 2011 debt-ceiling crisis with significant spending cuts: $900 billion in upfront cuts and $85 billion more this year due to the automatic cuts under sequestration.

The Obama administration has acknowledged before that these cuts haven’t been a good way to reduce the deficit. “Bad policy is driving down the deficit more quickly than anyone intended,” as Treasury Secretary Jack Lew admitted in May. Economists almost uniformly agree that fiscal contraction has slowed GDP growth this year, which Obama noted in passing during his speech. But Obama ultimately made his case against sequestration without explaining Democrats’ fundamental change of heart on the 2011 deal that wrote them into law.

Oy. Let’s see if that “fundamental change of heart” sticks once the get a load of those new deficit numbers. The stupid runs strong on this.

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Trader Joe’s explains itself. (And does it well.)

by digby

Last week there was a lot of discussion of the fact that Trader Joe’s was cutting health insurance for some of its part time employees.  The right wing went nuts as usual claiming this as more evidence that people were getting screwed by Obamacare.

The story is a little bit more complicated.  An employee received this letter of explanation from the company and sent it to Sarah Kliff at the Washington Post:

Thank you for writing to us. It’s possible you have been misled, at least to some degree, by the headlines in some articles regarding our reasons for implementing the [Affordable Care Act] in January. We’d like to take this opportunity to clarify some facts.

For over 77% of our Crew Members there is absolutely no change to their healthcare coverage provided by Trader Joe’s.

The ACA brings a new potential player into the arena for the acquisition of health care. Stated quite simply, the law is centered on providing low cost options to people who do not make a lot of money. Somewhat by definition, the law provides those people a pretty good deal for insurance … a deal that can’t be matched by us — or any company. However, an individual employee (we call them Crew Member) is only able to receive the tax credit from the exchanges under the act if we do not offer them insurance under our company plan.

Perhaps an example will help. A Crew Member called in the other day and was quite unhappy that she was being dropped from our coverage unless she worked more hours. She is a single mom with one child who makes $18 per hour and works about 25 hours per week. We ran the numbers for her. She currently pays $166.50 per month for her coverage with Trader Joe’s. Because of the tax credits under the ACA she can go to an exchange and purchase insurance that is almost identical to our plan for $69.59 per month. Accordingly, by going to the exchange she will save $1,175 each year … and that is before counting the $500 we will give her in January.

While we understand her fear of change, at her income level this is a big benefit that we will help her achieve.

Clearly, there are others who will go to the exchanges and will be required to pay more. That is usually because they have other income and typically a spouse who had a job with no benefits and they do not qualify for the subsidies under the ACA.

One example of that we had yesterday was the male Crew Member who worked an average of 20 hours per week but had a spouse who is a contract consultant who makes more than $200,000 per year. The Crew Member worked for the medical benefits and unfortunately for them they are likely to have to pay more because of their real income. We understand how important healthcare coverage is to our Crew Members and we are pleased to be able to provide and support this program.

We do hope this information helps, and we appreciate your interest in Trader Joe’s.

It’s true that the part time employee who is married to someone making over 200k a year is going to have to pay more. Probably a lot more. He or she won’t benefit from the exchange. But really, that isn’t unfair. The principle of this thing is that prices over all will eventually come down, which will benefit even people in the upper wealth percentile like these folks. And all the other advantages like the ban on denial for pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps on spending will already work for them. So it isn’t a complete bust for this person.

And it’s evidently a better deal for the part-timer who isn’t married to someone who makes a lot of money. She just didn’t know that.How could she? The good news is that Trader Joes has decided to explain all this to their employees (and their employees are sharing it with the press.) It’s going to take efforts from every quarter for people to understand these changes and with the right wing doing everything in its power to make that effort fail, it’s more important than ever that the private sector fills in the gaps wherever possible. It’s all very confusing and the wingnuts are taking full advantage of that.

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They shot him full of electricity from the back. He couldn’t hear them coming.

by digby

There have been too many horrible stories of violence lately, but some still have the power to shock. This is one:

The family of a 12-year-old boy known only as “A.M.” in court documents is suing police, the American School for the Deaf and the city of Hartford, CT over allegations that police unnecessarily Tasered the boy after school officials abused him and denied him food. According to the Courthouse News Service, the student ran away from the school to a construction site to escape staffers who had beaten and choked him, and it was there that police Tasered the boy, who is “profoundly deaf,” with no warning.

Court records say that A.M. was involved in a scuffle with a school staff member in March of this year in which the staffer choked the boy — who has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) — and threw him to the ground, resulting in “significant head injuries.”

Then in April, school officials declined to take the boy’s food order when other students were placing theirs. According to the complaint filed by A.M.’s parents, Audley and Judith Muschette, “A.M. tried to place his order with staff members, however he was denied his requests. A.M. then proceeded to call his parents for help through a videophone.”

After five minutes of conversation between the boy and his family, a school staff member named Chris Hammond reportedly “maliciously and without provocation pulled the wires out of the videophone and disconnected the call.”

A.M., frustrated and upset that he was being denied contact with his parents, fled the building. At a construction site on the ASD campus, he came face to face with Hammond and other staffers, who attempted to violently subdue him, according to the complaint.

“Defendant Chris Hammond informed plaintiff that he was going to kill him and push him into an unsafe area of the construction site,” said the suit. “Defendant Chris Hammond proceeded to grab plaintiff and punched plaintiff in the face with closed fists.”

The boy reportedly picked up a stick to defend himself against Hammond and the other adult staffers. They retreated from the scene and left A.M. sitting by himself with his back to the school.

Police arrived at the construction site after dark. Knowing the boy was deaf, they allegedly made no effort to warn or communicate with him, but Tasered him from behind. As A.M. writhed on the ground from the “burns, paralysis and pain” caused by the Taser barbs, the two police officers rushed him and placed him in handcuffs.

He was taken to Connecticut Children’s Hospital and treated for electrical burns.

I’ve documented many terrible taser stories over the years. But those that horrify me the most are ones that feature deaf people who cannot hear the orders to comply before they are shot through with electricity. This is the worst yet. They hit this kid from the back. He couldn’t hear them coming. God.

Update: This is an excellent piece from David M Perry in The Nation about this war on the disabled. Horrifying.

Update II: According to the police report the student was holding a rock. Which, according to certain readers, makes shooting him full of electricity a-ok.
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The centrists lose their economic prerogative — and that’s a bad thing?

by digby

Apparently, the left took Larry Summers scalp and it’s a bad because it means the Democratic Party has “junked the centrists prerogative to set economic policy.”

This was really never about monetary policy — which is sad, given that it’s the only function of the Fed where it has independence. And I don’t think this was about Summers’s record on financial regulation, although that’s debatable. It was clear that Summers’s views had changed (even if how fully they had changed wasn’t so clear), as I wrote when he was under close consideration. Nor is it as if the issue stopped the Senate from confirming enough of his colleagues, who shared the same opinion at the time, to make the West Wing a family reunion.

No, this was about tribalism. In the mind of progressives, the Democratic Party has let them lead on social issues — see Obama’s quick “evolution” on same-sex marriage — but locked them out of the room where tax rates are set, trade agreements signed, budgets drawn up and regulations stamped. It could only keep them pounding at the door for so long.

“This is a complex moment in our national life.” That’s what Summers wrote in his withdrawal letter. He doesn’t elaborate, and it’s an odd remark to leave hanging. I think he’s writing about change in the Democratic Party as it junks the centrists’ prerogative to set economic policy. I think he’s writing, too, about betrayal. The White House put him into public consideration and then sat there while the left took a scalp.

I’m a little bit confused.  I thought the argument was pretty much all about financial regulation and Summers’ record, even quite recently, as a proponent of less of it. I don’t recall very many people taking him exclusively to task for his views on monetary policy.  True, I may have missed it.  But, I think crazed tribal leftists Jeff Merkley and Sherrod Brown made it pretty clear what their opposition was all about:

Summers had become a lightning rod for some of Obama’s allies in Congress and advocacy groups. Democratic lawmakers, including Senators Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Sherrod Brown of Ohio, said they opposed Summers on the grounds that he was too lax on financial regulation.

The Fed has massive regulatory powers and anyone with any sense was concerned that Summers was not a guy who would use it to benefit the people but rather to preserve the status quo, at best.  Sure there were other concerns about Summers’ (and Obama’s) continuing disrespect toward women. (Despite the president’s admirable record on civil right in other areas his record on female appointments is worse than Bill Clinton’s was 15 years ago.)  And Summers has the kind of prickly personality and reputation for loose lips that is not conducive to the role of Fed Chairman which requires very prudent, deliberate rhetoric.  But the essential argument was that Summers’ record on deregulation and his inability to change course or see crises as they were unfolding rendered his judgment suspect at a time when it’s vitally important to reform the system.

But speaking of monetary policy, this is one good reason why we should probably be wary of young “centrists”:

This is a precedent we will regret when, in some distant future, we once again need the Fed to crush inflation at the cost of mass unemployment or when, as now, we want a Fed chairman that would accept some inflation to pull us out of the remnants of a deep recession. 

I lived through the Volcker recession of the early 80s. It was ugly. Very ugly. The country was never quite the same — in fact, take a look at income inequality today and you can see how well all the inflation scaremongering of that time worked to keep wages low for the ensuing 30 years. I didn’t think there was anyone on the center, center-left or, actually, anywhere but the far right who would want to  “crush inflation at the cost of mass unemployment.”  Hopefully, I’ll have finally shuffled off my mortal coil before the next alleged inflation crisis hits. But I feel for you kids if this is idea is blithely accepted among the economic thinkers of your generation. You don’t need any more mass unemployment  in your lifetimes.

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Do you like Eric Clapton? Do you like progressive politics? Have we got a deal for you.

by digby

Howie sent this out to all of our Blue America members today:

We’ve been talking about the race in MA-05 to replace Ed Markey for some time now. It’s just a month away and there are 7 Democrats running. Six of them are garden variety Dems and one, state Rep. Carl Sciortino, is a proven, dedicated progressive leader, which is why we endorsed him– and why progressive organizations from People for the American Way, Progressive Mass and Mass Equality to the Human Rights Campaign and Grey2kUSA have also endorsed him.

This week– starting today– we’re launching a fundraising drive to help Carl pay to run his outstanding TV ad.

We’re being joined in this effort by Congressmen Alan Grayson, Raúl Grijalva and Keith Ellison and by the People for the American Way Voters Alliance and the Congressional Progressive Caucus’ Progressive Action PAC.

And one lucky, random donor is going to get an incredible Eric Clapton platinum award as a “thank you.” Here’s how that works. Contribute any amount– no amount is too small– to Carl’s campaign here and you will become eligible to win.

You probably know what a gold record is– an award for 500,000 RIAA certified sales in the U.S. For a platinum award, the number is a million. In recent years, the music industry created a new category: diamond, to mark 10,000,000 domestic sales. Eric Clapton’s Unplugged album was one of the first– and only– albums to achieve that status. What we’re giving away is one of the original award plaques for 10,000,000 sales of Unplugged, which was made for the president of Eric Clapton’s record company, who is a big fan not just of Eric Clapton, but also of Carl Sciortino.

This stunning 30″ x 30″ custom plaque isn’t something you can buy in a store, no matter how much money you have. Only a small handful were ever made and they were never sold.

Whether you contribute $5, $50 or $500 you will have one chance to become the owner of the plaque. (In fact, if you can’t afford to make a contribution but you want the plaque, you can just send a post card to Blue America, PO Box 27201, Los Angeles, CA 90027 and you’ll be eligible as well!)

And if rock’n’roll memorabilia isn’t your thing, remember this: Carl Sciortino has been fighting for progressive values– and winning– in the Massachusetts legislature. Alan Grayson, Raúl Grijalva, Keith Ellison, Mark Takano and Jared Polis would like to see him in the U.S. Congress helping lead the charge. 

Sciortino wasn’t afraid to speak right out against bombing Syria and he wasn’t afraid to say NO WAY to the Beltway scheme to cut Social Security through a Chained CPI. We’d be lucky to have him in Congress, he’s earned our support.

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