Month: November 2013

Yes, your vote does matter

by David Atkins

Regardless of the Republican disenfranchisement shenanigans, the numbers in the Virginia Attorney General’s race are amazing. As of the latest count, The Republican Obenshain is ahead by 17 votes out of more than 2.2 million cast. The Attorney General is an extremely powerful position with a wide range of prosecutorial discretion. Longer term, an Obenshein victory would give the Republicans another credible candidate for statewide office. And the decision could well come down to single digits.

In Seattle, the initiative to raise the minimum wage to $15 at airport-related businesses is leading by a mere 43 votes with many more still left uncounted, even as self-proclaimed Socialist candidate Sawant will come within a hair’s breadth either way of taking a spot on the Seattle city council.

Locally in the city of Ventura, with 250 presumbly Democratic-leaning provisionals left to count, just 43 votes separate Republican Jim Monahan from Democratic challenger Richard Francis–and fellow Democrat Lorrie Brown is just 17 votes behind him. The council is currently split between 3 Republicans, 3 Democrats and 1 conservative-leaning Declined-to-State. The future of affordable housing, local transit and smart growth in the city may well come down to single digits as well.

Democrats may not be perfect. But let no one tell you your vote doesn’t matter, least of all fools like Russell Brand. Numerically speaking, your vote does matter. And at a policy level it matters, too.

Failure to cast a vote isn’t a protest against the system. When Republicans win, no one notices or cares about the people who don’t vote. They just literally don’t have a voice. And if just a few dozen progressives who don’t think their vote matters would take the few minutes to do it, many places all across America would benefit from far better leadership and public policies.

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Devastation

by digby

When I heard that there were few reported deaths and no pictures or footage coming out of the Philippines for 24 hours after what they’re calling the biggest storm to ever hit land, I wondered if it was because the devastation was so severe that no smartphones or other modern communications devices had made it through.

It was horrible:

Really horrible:

Corpses hung from trees, were scattered on sidewalks or buried in flattened buildings — some of the 10,000 people believed killed in one Philippine city alone by ferocious Typhoon Haiyan that washed away homes and buildings with powerful winds and giant waves.

As the scale of devastation became clear Sunday from one of the worst storms ever recorded, officials projected the death toll could climb even higher when emergency crews reach parts of the archipelago cut off by flooding and landslides. Looters raided grocery stores and gas stations in search of food, fuel and water as the government began relief efforts and international aid operations got underway.

Even in a nation regularly beset by earthquakes, volcanoes and tropical storms, Typhoon Haiyan appears to be the deadliest natural disaster on record.

Haiyan hit the eastern seaboard of the Philippines on Friday and quickly barreled across its central islands, packing winds of 147 mph that gusted to 170 mph, and a storm surge of 20 feet.

Its sustained winds weakened to 83 mph as it crossed the South China Sea before approaching northern Vietnam, where it was forecast to hit land early Monday. Authorities there evacuated hundreds of thousands of people.

Hardest hit in the Philippines was Leyte Island, where officials said there may be 10,000 dead in the provincial capital of Tacloban alone. Reports also trickled in from elsewhere on the island, as well as from neighboring islands, indicating hundreds more deaths, although it will be days before the full extent of the storm can be assessed.

“On the way to the airport we saw many bodies along the street,” said Philippine-born Australian Mila Ward, 53, who was waiting at the Tacloban airport to catch a military flight back to Manila, about 580 kilometers (360 miles) to the northwest. “They were covered with just anything – tarpaulin, roofing sheets, cardboard.” She said she passed “well over 100” bodies.

Are we getting so used to these massive disasters that we don’t care anymore?

Is that how we’ll deal with climate change — like the proverbial frogs in the proverbial warming water?

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The audacity of realism?


by digby

Ezra Klein interviewed Peter Baker about his new book on the Bush administration. It’s all quite interesting (especially the fact that we still don’t know why or how the decision to go into Iraq actually came to be.) But I was a little bit taken aback by this:

EK: I’ve found that the Obama team does have a lot of respect for Bush’s foreign policy, but it’s Bush 41, not Bush 43, they admire. In that way, George W. Bush really did do the work of rescuing his father’s legacy.

PB: Obama has said that publicly. And that’s because the father’s foreign policy is more of what we inadequately call the realist school. It’s interest-based. The son attempts to be values-based. Now, George W. Bush made the argument that our values are our interests and vice versa. But his second inaugural call for ending tyranny around the world is not something that’s been emulated or adopted by Democrats — or even his own party.

Really? Obama’s 2008 campaign was completely “values” based, so much so that they gave him the Nobel Peace Prize based entirely on his promises. No, it wasn’t about forcing democracy at the point of a gun like Junior’s, but it certainly wasn’t “realist” in the Bush Senior mode either. In fact, it was supposed to be quite different from both of them.

It is time to offer the world a message of hope to counter the prophets of hate. My experience has brought me to the hopeless places. As a boy, I lived in Indonesia and played barefoot with children who could not dream the same dreams that I did. As an adult, I’ve returned to be with my family in their small village in Kenya, where the promise of America is still an inspiration. As a community organizer, I worked in South Side neighborhoods that had been left behind by global change. As a Senator, I’ve been to refugee camps in Chad where proud and dignified people can’t hope for anything beyond the next handout.

In the 21st century, progress must mean more than a vote at the ballot box – it must mean freedom from fear and freedom from want. We cannot stand for the freedom of anarchy. Nor can we support the globalization of the empty stomach. We need new approaches to help people to help themselves. The United Nations has embraced the Millennium Development Goals, which aim to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015. When I’m President, they will be America’s goals. The Bush Administration tried to keep the UN from proclaiming these goals; the Obama Administration will double foreign assistance to $50 billion to lead the world to achieve them.

In the 21st century, we cannot stand up before the world and say that there’s one set of rules for America and another for everyone else. To lead the world, we must lead by example. We must be willing to acknowledge our failings, not just trumpet our victories. And when I’m President, we’ll reject torture – without exception or equivocation; we’ll close Guantanamo; we’ll be the country that credibly tells the dissidents in the prison camps around the world that America is your voice, America is your dream, America is your light of justice.

That’s not Kissingerian “realism” in any recognizable form. But knowing now that the administration actually admired that approach explains the strange disconnect between the campaign vision and policies in the first term. (Not that he didn’t explicitly talk in that speech about hunting down the terrorists and all that, he did. It just wasn’t emphasized.)

In the second term we seem to be seeing more of the big peace and non-proliferation initiatives promised in those big speeches.  His pull-back on Syrian bombing in the face of allied resistance and this latest Iran initiative are far more in keeping with that original worldview. So, maybe they are no longer as enamored of the Bush I  “realist” viewpoint as they were. Or maybe they’ve synthesized it by recognizing that American interests are served by living out its stated values. If they can come to terms with their massive error with respect to NSA surveillance they could conceivably leave a far different legacy than just a continuation of the stale Bush I foreign policy that was formed during the cold war and outlived its usefulness a long time ago.

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QOTD: Cokie Roberts

by digby

Informed punditry on This Week:

ROBERTS: I do not tweet and have never been on Twitter. But I do think that it has the effect of making spinning less effective. Because if somebody’s trying to tell you after a debate for instance, that this is how it went, and spinning. There are all these other people saying something completely differently.

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The only one that matters is the second

by digby

Let’s say you are having a political meeting. And the people who disagree with your point of view show up and stand around like this:

Does that look like a civilized democracy to you?

A person would have to be an idiot to stand up and exercise his or her right to free speech and free assembly in the face of that. Political arguments get heated. People get upset. I’d guess the ones with the guns are the more dangerous in that situation, wouldn’t you? I don’t think those people inside the building will be meeting in public anymore, do you? In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they stop meeting. And that’s the point.

Basically, what these men are all saying is that when you get right down to there’s only one right in the Bill of Rights. The second amendment will always trump the others won’t it?

Here’s the story.

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Dispatch from GOP Bizarroworld

by digby

You’ve undoubtedly read all about the vote suppression being waged right now in Virginia in the Attorney General race. It’s blatant and they don’t care.

But in GOP Bizarroworld it’s a completely different story in which the leftist juggernaut is stealing and rigging elections all over the country — with the help of RINOs who are obviously sympathetic to their cause:

Right now, Republican Mark Obenshain is facing a dwindling lead in the race for attorney general in Virginia. Today, most counties processed provisional votes and submitted totals. Obenshain’s lead is down to just a few dozen out of over two million votes cast. (See my PJ Media piece, “Obenshain, a Reason to Vote in Virginia Tuesday.) The review isn’t over, with Fairfax County waiting until Tuesday to complete the process.

PJ Media spent 2013 reporting how Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell teamed up with the Soros-funded Advancement Project to ram through administrative changes to ensure thousands of felons would be automatically allowed to vote in this election. Senator Obenshain led GOP opposition in the Virginia Senate to the legislative change, and McDonnell’s proposal thankfully died in the Virginia House.

That didn’t stop Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. Taking a page from President Obama’s executive-order playbook, McDonnell rammed through, by edict, what the legislature would not give the governor power to do: automatically approve felons to participate in the 2013 election. The Virginia governor even put out a press release quoting the notoriously leftist Advancement Project and praising himself for teaming with the left to rush through felon voting by executive decision. Seriously.

Why would he do this? As I wrote at the Washington Times:

Republican elected officials must realize that when it comes to election process issues such as felon voting and voter photo identification laws, they are regularly outsmarted by the organized left. Republicans who support their opponents’ election law agenda will gain no friends, at least not friends they should want.

Some Republicans think they can gain love from the left. They don’t realize the left is out to destroy conservatives and the GOP, not make friends. And some Republicans start acting strangely when they are facing possible federal indictments for corruption. Remember Illinois Governor George Ryan?

I think they actually believe this.

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Lara Logan in her own words 10/12/2012

by digby

Here are her comments on Benghazi from that speech to the Better Government Association’s annual luncheon October 12, 2012, one month after the Benghazi attack:

When I look at what’s happening in Libya, there’s a big song and dance about whether this was a terrorist attack or a protest. And you just want to scream, for God’s sake, are you kidding me? The last time we were attacked like this was the USS Cole which was a prelude to 9/11. And you’re sending in the FBI to investigate? I hope to God that you are sending in your best clandestine warriors to exact revenge and let the world know that the United States will not be attacked on its own soil, its ambassadors will not be murdered and the United States will not stand by and do nothing about it.

Here’s the whole speech which is mostly about journalism and her recent report from Afghanistan in which she asserted that al Qaeda and the Taliban were stronger than ever, the US was “surrendering” and that “our way of life is under attack” among many other very interesting observations. You really must watch the whole thing to get a sense of where she’s coming from.

Considering the current situation, this comment stands out:

There is a distinction between investigating something to find out what the real situation is and trying to prove something that you believe is true. And those are two very different things. The second one is the enemy of great journalism. And it’s a trap that is very easy to fall into. In fact it was my boss Jeff Fager who kindly reminded me of that fact at a certain point in the process and he was absolutely right about that.

I think it’s fine that Logan  truly believes that Islamic terrorism is an existential threat to the US and that we are all in mortal danger because of it.  She’s clearly got a strong point of view and that’s her privilege.In my view, she sounds like a right wing warblogger circa 2002 and therefore has very little credibility, but nonetheless, I’m not going to criticize her for believing what she believes and doing journalism based on those beliefs.

What isn’t acceptable is that her employers present her as a neutral observer, which she clearly is not. In fact, by her own admission, her bosses had to rein her in on that earlier story and remind her that she had an obligation to follow the evidence where it led. And yet they continued to show her as an unbiased journalist following the evidence in this Benghazi story even though she publicly made these very aggressive comments back in October of 2012.

Needless to say, the fact that she fell for such a clearly ridiculous hoax was due to her biases. She shows in that speech that she had already made up her mind about what happened. And 60 Minutes should have been professionally skeptical of her story because of that. Logan’s agenda blinded her to the fact that she was being played.

It’s a cautionary tale for any advocacy journalists. But that’s why putting your worldview on the table and having your editors and others around you know up front where you’re coming from is essential.  They can then openly challenge your biases and make sure you aren’t looking for proof where none exists. I think they were all trapped by the pretense that Lara Logan is an objective beat journalist. Had they properly categorized her as an aggressive military hawk who only one month after the event was already saying that the United States should “exact revenge” for the attack on Benghazi, they might have known that they needed to go to extra lengths to verify her “blockbuster” story on the subject.

I also think there’s something very odd about this speech.  Logan is talking to the “Better Government Association” not CPAC.  And her affect suggests that she thinks her views are commonly held conventional wisdom, which might have been true in 2003, but seems weirdly out of time ten years on.

It’s an odd speech and it was noted at the time as an odd speech:

[T]he foreign correspondent and 60 Minutes star skewered American policy in Afghanistan and Libya, called for a ramped-up military campaign against terrorists, and criticized the Obama administration and others for both underestimating the Taliban’s strength in Afghanistan and for tolerating Pakistan’s obvious coddling of terrorists killing American soldiers.

The Taliban and al Qaeda, she made clear, “want to destroy the West and us,” and we must fight fire with fire, She appeared to leave the assembled alternatively riveted and just a bit troubled by a critique with interventionist implications clearly drawn from her reporting.

As one nonprofit executive, a former magazine editor, put it the next day when asked to describe her speech: “Shoot ’em, bomb ’em, fuck ’em. They will kill your children.”

There is a rich history of foreign correspondents being outspoken and passionate in offering political commentary, especially those who have been caught in harm’s way. Logan herself was a victim of brutality; in 2011 the South Africa native was beaten and sexually assaulted by a mob in Cairo’s Tahrir Square while she covered the demonstrations prompted by President Hosni Mubarak’s resignation. Such a harrowing experience would surely impact even the most politically cautious of journalists. Still, the sharp advocacy from such a prominent network reporter caught some in the Chicago crowd by surprise.

I have no idea if any of this was prompted by her horrible attack. But I do recall that even before that awful event, she was very critical of Michael Hastings’ “betrayal” of General McChrystal. She has revered the military for a long time and even her critical reporting on Iraq earlier in the decade was criticism for failing to unleash the military in order to “win.” I think she has always held these beliefs.

Update: Here’s Fox News’ Howard Kurtz on the story.

His guest James Pinkerton says this is not as big a deal as the Dan Rather national guard hoax because Dan Rather was obsessed with the Bush family.(“It will be a blip not a shipwreck.”) Because a hoax about an old story about the president’s youth is so much more important than one that is ongoing, has relevance to current foreign policy and national security and is even spilling over into domestic affairs since Lindsay Graham has put a hold on all presidential nominations in the wake of this bogus story.

It looks as if the Village is circling the wagons.

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Budget band-aids

by digby

Yes, they’re asking for some loopholes to be closed, but the Democrats are still defending the cutting:

The U.S. tax code clearly benefits the wealthy and well-connected. It would be unfair, and unacceptable, to ignore every last loophole and special interest carve-out yet ask seniors and families to bear the burden of deficit reduction alone.

At our first conference meeting, House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said, “If this conference becomes an argument about taxes, we’re not going to get anywhere.” I absolutely agree. A budget conference is not the place to debate comprehensive tax reform. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) have been working hard with their committees on reform plans, and we will have time to debate this critical issue as their work progresses.

But closing a few wasteful loopholes now would not threaten the much larger debate over simplifying the 75,000-page tax code. In fact, doing so would underscore how much more work remains. Anything we do to get a fair deal in this budget conference would be a drop in the ocean compared with an estimated $14 trillion in forgone revenue from tax expenditures over the next 10 years.

Consider two examples of wasteful loopholes that could be ended immediately without risking overall tax reform.

Right now, big corporations can skirt the limits on deductible executive compensation and claim massive tax breaks by paying their CEOs in stock options and bonuses instead of paychecks. Not only is this unfair but it also encourages the sort of reckless, short-term focus on profits that contributed to the financial crisis. Closing this loophole would save as much as $50 billion over 10 years.

Another loophole, known as “check the box,” allows major multinational corporations to hide foreign subsidiaries and profits from the Internal Revenue Service simply by marking a box on their tax forms. The ability to easily create these “disregarded entities” was intended to help U.S. companies reduce their tax filing paperwork. But big U.S. companies put their foreign subsidiaries in this category as part of their efforts to shuttle profits to tax havens such as Bermuda. Closing this loophole would save as much as $80 billion over 10 years.

If we eliminated these two loopholes — totaling less than 1 percent of all federal tax expenditures — and paired that with an equal amount of responsible spending cuts, we could replace more than two full years of sequestration’s cuts to education, research, infrastructure, jobs and the military.

That’s Patty Murray in an op-ed staking out the Democratic ask in this budget negotiation. You’ll notice that the whole thing is still centered around deficit reduction — those budget caps are on tight and the best these democrats are hoping for is a two year respite. The only question at the moment is whether we’ll close a couple of loopholes with an equal amount of cutting or whether we’ll just rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic instead. There has been no revisiting of the basic premise of deficit reduction in a weak economy and there’s little reason to hope that will happen.

Obviously, having some millionaires and corporations kick in some spare change would be nice if only for a (purely symbolic) nod toward fairness. But I think we all know that in these days of politics awash in Big Money, the minute one “loophole” is closed, another one will be opened. It is highly, highly unlikely that this amount of money from “loopholes” will ever fully materialize. K Street will see to that.

It’s long past time for Democrats to challenge the central premise of all the budget battles of the past few years. Otherwise our future is going to be very grim. What they are doing is, as Krugman pointed out on Friday, economic self-mutilation. Putting a little band-aid on it in the form of “loophole closing” isn’t going to stop the bleeding.

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Head of programming: La Maison de la Radio

So Catholics aren’t Christian again?

by digby

On the occasion of Billy Graham’s 95th birthday:

“His message transformed my mom’s life,” Sarah Palin, one of the dinner’s speakers, said in an interview with USA TODAY.

“In the 70s, she would tune into the Billy Graham crusades, televised. My mom was raised Catholic, and she … was yearning for something more,” she said. “His invitation for people to know that they could have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ — my mom understood that from the way that he could articulate it. She became a Christian, led the rest of the family to Christ, and that I believe transformed our family.”

Because Catholics don’t know nothin’ about Christ apparently.

I used to hear a lot of that from the evangelical Christians when I was kid. I thought those days were long over.

Speaking of which, I will continue to be somewhat hostile to the Catholic Church because of its unwillingness to allow women to use birth control, thus consigning many of them to poverty, ill health and early death in much of the world. However, I cannot help but be as moved as so many others are by scenes like this:

This morning Pope Francis kissed and blessed a man suffering from severe facial disfigurement during his audience in St. Peter’s Square.

Whether you believe in religion or not,  that’s a beautiful thing.

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