Month: December 2013

QOTD: A Fox News Catholic

by digby

And here I thought right wingers believe that religion is sacred:

Pope Francis is undergoing a popularity surge comparable to the way Barack Obama was greeted by the world in 2008. And just as President Obama has been a disappointment for America, Pope Francis will prove a disaster for the Catholic Church.

My fellow Catholics should be suspicious when bastions of anti-Catholicism in the left-wing media are in love with him.

Much is being made of his ‘compassion’ and ‘humility,’ but kissing babies and hugging the sick is nothing new. Every pope in recent memory has done the same, yet only now are the media paying attention. Benedict XVI and John Paul II refused to kowtow to the liberal agenda, and so such displays of tenderness were under-covered.

Francis is beating a retreat for the Catholic Church, and making sure its controversial doctrines are whispered, not yelled – no wonder the New York Times is in love.

I don’t know about you but I’m shocked, shocked to see that to conservative Catholics even the pope is only as good as his politics. But then right wing religion is usually just the bludgeon of choice to with which to beat  political opponents over the head. It would appear that even Pope Francis is guilty of violating the code of wingnut religious correctness.

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Could be worse. Could be pitchforks.

by digby

The news actually seems to be covering this. And covering it pretty fairly, too. I get the feeling that many of the TV News celebrities are genuinely shocked that so many people are working full time yet are still in poverty and having to get public assistance just to keep hearth and home together:

When you’re making eight bucks an hour, which is pretty typical in the fast-food industry, it’s tough to make ends meet.

And increasingly, the working poor are asking this question: Why am I living in poverty, even when I’m working full time?

That’s the message that thousands of fast-food workers rallying Thursday in about 100 U.S. cities — from Oakland to Memphis to Washington, D.C. — want heard. A living wage in big cities is closer to $14 an hour, and it jumps to about $20 an hour for an adult supporting a child.

The protests are part of a growing campaign backed by a coalition of advocacy groups, religious organizations and union organizers aimed at raising fast-food wages to $15 an hour.

At at time when the fastest-growing jobs in the U.S. economy are also the lowest paid, the issue of income inequality is on the lips of leaders worldwide.

Amal Mimish, an organizer with Good Jobs Nation, registers protesters at the fast-food workers’ rally in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.Enlarge image
Amal Mimish, an organizer with Good Jobs Nation, registers protesters at the fast-food workers’ rally in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

From the remarks by Pope Francis a few weeks back to President Obama’s speech Wednesday, it’s clear that there’s growing unease about the divide between the haves and the have-nots.

And the image problem for the fast-food industry is exemplified by this online petition urging McDonald’s chief executive officer, Donald Thompson, to cancel his order for another corporate jet until he pays all his employees a decent wage.

According to the petition, McDonald’s just bought a $35 million luxury Bombardier jet for its corporate executives. Yet many of the company’s employees make so little that they rely on public assistance to get by.

“It’s not right to impoverish your employees while sailing above them at a rate of $2,500 an hour,” reads the petition started by the Campaign For America’s Future. “It’s immoral to do it with a taxpayer subsidy.”

In a recent study, economists at the University of California, Berkeley, found that 52 percent of fast-food workers rely on taxpayer-funded public assistance programs, such as food stamps or Medicaid.

“Taxpayers are subsidizing the low-wage model of these employers, who are making record profits in some cases,” says Dorian Warren, an associate professor at Columbia University who studies income inequality.

It’s not just fast food workers, either. A lot of office temps and retail workers and maids among others are also toiling for poverty wages in this country as the 1% hoovers up more and more of the wealth. If the owners are smart they’ll open their eyes and see that unless they want pitchforks, they’ll make some concessions now.

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The good news you hear nothing about

by digby

Check it out:

That’s right. The teen pregnancy rate is dropping like a stone. And that’s not just from some artificial high during the sex crazed 60s. Teen pregnancy was always high — teen-agers are very fertile. So this is a big deal.

There’s lots of interesting info at the link, with data showing that the abortion rate has logically fallen along with the pregnancy rate and that women are having children later than they used to, which makes sense.

I don’t know all the reasons for these changes and I’m sure that there are a lot of theories. But regardless of the why the news is very good for women who do much better in their lives if they delay childbearing.

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The cost of Gitmo

by digby

There are a whole lot of intangible costs to keeping Guantanamo open, not the least of which is the ongoing damage it is doing to American notions of justice and its reputation in the world. But there’s an outsized financial cost as well:

Congress spent $1.42 billion on Guantanamo when all Guantanamo detainees could have been held in existing U.S. prisons for a cost of $29.9 million.

The current Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2014 would likely save U.S. taxpayers billions by easing the restrictions on transferring detainees out of Guantanamo. The portion of this legislation that would make it easier to move out those already cleared for transfer would save almost $2 billion in the next budget cycle.

A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you’re talking about real money.

Guantanamo is not just a horrible stain on the US Constitution. It’s a drain on US resources as well. But I won’t be all that surprised if many of the prisoners in it die of old age.

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They’re just making the criminal justice system more efficient

by digby

For some reason this NSA piece by Barton Gellman seems to be bothering people more than most of the Snowden revelations. Perhaps it’s the fact that we are all carrying tracking devices (aka cell phones) with us these days and that the NSA, without any probable cause, is collecting all the data our phones generate about where we’ve been and who we’ve come in contact with. The good news is supposed to be that they promise not to look at that information unless they suspect us of doing something wrong, so if you haven’t done anything, you have nothing at all to worry about.

But I suspect that many people instinctively understand that what this adds up to is the fact that the government is storing reams of information about everyone just in case they might need to make a “case” against them someday. We know for a fact that one of the government’s most annoying problems of late is that there are people they just “know” are dangerous, but they’ve tainted the evidence with torture or some such or otherwise can’t prove it. So they’re having to do some unpleasant things like indefinitely imprison them without trial and assassinate them in foreign countries. It’s a real PR mess. But if they can amass a huge data base filled with “evidence” against everyone, it should be easy peasy for them to simply throw something together to create the illusion of a crime when they run into these little legal roadblocks to keeping us safe from the boogeymen — whoever they might be. (After all, terrorists aren’t the only people governments find dangerous are they?)

The one thing we be sure of is that the government, much like Santa Claus, always knows who’s really guilty and since the authorities are never corrupt we can feel very comfortable allowing them to have easy access to information that will allow them to create a criminal case whenever they believe they need to take a “dangerous” person out. This is just making government more efficient and relieving them of the expensive burden of having to make cases on the merits. What could be wrong with that?

Also too, since this “criminal case” business only applies to Americans the millions of people they’re tracking around the world should probably hope they don’t find themselves inadvertently crossing paths with someone the NSA considers dangerous. It could get sticky.

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Bill and Ted’s jobless adventure

by David Atkins

Andrew McAfee explores the consequences of our jobless future:

Mr. McAfee is appropriately trying to shake the consciences of the cyberlibertarian techno-utopians of Silicon Valley. But even he understates the case. Not even the “Ted” creative entrepreneurs are going to be well-off when there’s no consumer base for all their 3D-printed products transported by self-driving trucks. Not unless there’s a fairly dramatic reorientation of the social contract.

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Before political correctness ruined everything

by digby

…there was this sort of good clean fun  (Via Buzzfeed)

White House Press Briefing — Oct. 15, 1982

Q: Larry, does the President have any reaction to the announcement—the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, that AIDS is now an epidemic and have over 600 cases? 

MR. SPEAKES: What’s AIDS? 

Q: Over a third of them have died. It’s known as “gay plague.” (Laughter.) No, it is. I mean it’s a pretty serious thing that one in every three people that get this have died. And I wondered if the President is aware of it? 

MR. SPEAKES: I don’t have it. Do you? (Laughter.) 

Q: No, I don’t 

MR. SPEAKES: You didn’t answer my question. 

Q: Well, I just wondered, does the President— 

MR. SPEAKES: How do you know? (Laughter.) 

Q: In other words, the White House looks on this as a great joke? 

MR. SPEAKES: No, I don’t know anything about it, Lester. 

Q: Does the President, does anybody in the White House know about this epidemic, Larry? 

MR. SPEAKES: I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s been any— 

Q: Nobody knows? 

MR. SPEAKES: There has been no personal experience here, Lester. 

Q: No, I mean, I thought you were keeping— 

MR. SPEAKES: I checked thoroughly with Dr. Ruge this morning and he’s had no—(laughter)—no patients suffering from AIDS or whatever it is. 

Q: The President doesn’t have gay plague, is that what you’re saying or what? 

MR. SPEAKES: No, I didn’t say that. 

Q: Didn’t say that? 

MR. SPEAKES: I thought I heard you on the State Department over there. Why didn’t you stay there? (Laughter.) 

Q: Because I love you, Larry, that’s why. (Laughter.) 

MR. SPEAKES: Oh, I see. Just don’t put it in those terms, Lester. (Laughter.) 

Q: Oh, I retract that. 

MR. SPEAKES: I hope so. 

Q: It’s too late.

White House Press Briefing — June 13, 1983

Q: Larry, does the President think that it might help if he suggested that the gays cut down on their “cruising”? (Laughter.) What? I didn’t hear your answer, Larry. 

MR. SPEAKES: I just was acknowledging your interest— 

Q: You were acknowledging but— 

MR. SPEAKES: —interest in this subject. 

Q: —you don’t think that it would help if the gays cut down on their cruising—it would help AIDS? 

MR. SPEAKES: We are researching it. If we come up with any research that sheds some light on whether gays should cruise or not cruise, we’ll make it available to you. (Laughter.) 

Q: Back to fairy tales.

These excerpts are from Jon Cohen’s 2001 book, Shots in the Dark: The Wayward Search for an AIDS Vaccine.

That’s how it was. I was in college during this period and working nights at a hospital in San Francisco. Nobody was laughing there, I can guarantee it.

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A more polite society

by digby

Gun owners are more responsible, sober and mature than the rest of us, so we have nothing to worry about if they’re armed at all times. As long as we don’t offend them with our opinions:

A woman charged with killing a fellow Alabama fan after the end of last weekend’s Iron Bowl football game was angry that the victim and others didn’t seem upset over the Crimson Tide’s loss to archrival Auburn, said the sister of the slain woman.

Adrian Laroze Briskey, 28, was charged Monday with murder in the killing of 36-year-old Michelle Shepherd.

Hoover police Capt. Jim Coker said both Birmingham women were Alabama fans and at the same party for the annual game between intrastate rivals. With no time left on the clock, Auburn returned a missed Crimson Tide field goal more than 100 yards for a 34-28 victory, dashing any hopes of Alabama playing for a third straight national championship.

The victim’s sister, Nekesa Shepherd, said she witnessed the killing and had no doubt it was about football, even though it was unclear to investigators whether the violence was motivated by the game.

“That’s one of the things we are investigating,” Coker said Monday.

Nekesa Shepherd said Briskey flew into a rage when she saw the sisters and others joking that the Crimson Tide’s loss wasn’t as bad as if the NBA’s Miami Heat had lost a game.

“She said we weren’t real Alabama fans because it didn’t bother us that they lost. And then she started shooting,” Shepherd told The Associated Press.

The good news is that they’re legalizing carrying guns in bars all over the country.

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The President puts income inequality front and center: “the defining issue of our time”

by David Atkins

One of the primary critiques of the left against the President is that his speeches are so rarely backed up by actions. But even so, when a sitting President gives a landmark address on a topic so infrequently tackled as income inequality, one can’t help but applaud and notice. From the speech:

But we know that people’s frustrations run deeper than these most recent political battles. Their frustration is rooted in their own daily battles, to make ends meet, to pay for college, buy a home, save for retirement. It’s rooted in the nagging sense that no matter how hard they work, the deck is stacked against them. And it’s rooted in the fear that their kids won’t be better off than they were.

They may not follow the constant back-and-forth in Washington or all the policy details, but they experience, in a very personal way, the relentless decadeslong trend that I want to spend some time talking about today, and that is a dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility that has jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead. I believe this is the defining challenge of our time: making sure our economy works for every working American. That’s why I ran for president. It was the center of last year’s campaign. It drives everything I do in this office.

One might ask why the President has made certain policy decisions that negatively affect the middle class while benefiting the financial sector, if this is the case. But that a President is willing and able to come out and publicly say something like this in the post-Reagan era is itself a singular victory and an acknowledgment that something is deeply wrong with the economy. It is likely to be the issue that drives the Democratic presidential primary for 2016 as well.

Greg Sargent has a few other important points of note:

Obama described the decline in economic mobility as a direct consequence of inequality — as opposed to arguing that lack of mobility is itself the problem — and as the product of trends that are decades in the making. He cast the need to ensure that ”opportunity is real” for our children as “the defining issue of our time.”

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And, crucially, Obama described the overall problem as the result of the rich pulling away from the rest. He noted that the share of the country’s wealth is increasingly going to the top while tax cuts for the wealthiest have cut into investments that benefit the rest, emphasizing that this has made it harder for poor children to escape poverty. Meanwhile middle class incomes have stagnated thanks to technological advances and declining unions. Result: The “basic bargain at the heart of our economy has frayed.”

“The speech was not just about the top one percent, or about the middle class, or about the poor,” Smeeding says. “It was about the three of them together. It was about all three parts of the distribution — the whole thing.”

It is somewhat frustrating that inequality gets so little attention today that the speech is noteworthy. After all, the position of the middle class been eroding for decades now, even as the incomes of the wealthy have skyrocketed and their effetive tax rates have decreased.

The time to have started this important conversation was 20 years ago. Today, the facts of inequality and global economic trends of mechanization and deskilling mean that we now need to be having conversations about what a light-labor economy begins to look like.

Still, a major presidential address on income inequality is a good start. The key now will be to see what legislative actions follow from the President’s words. One place he can start would be raise wages for workers employed through federal government contracts with private companies through executive order.

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Inequality on the agenda for real?

by digby

I’m sure there is much weeping and wailing and rending of garments in the corridors of Third Way and Fix the Debt today: President Obama gave a nice speech today about income inequality — and he didn’t mention cutting “entitlements” even once. And he didn’t express a spirit of compromise and bipartisanship either. I’m afraid the Village smelling salt concession must be all sold out.

CNN reported it this way:

The growing gap between rich and poor Americans is threatening the ideals the country was founded upon, President Barack Obama said in remarks Wednesday that appeared to signal a leftward turn in his economic agenda.

Making sure that the U.S. economy works for every working American is “the defining challenge of our time,” Obama said in a speech at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank. He later said the “dangerous and growing” income and opportunity gap is jeopardizing the notion that if people work hard, they can get ahead.

“The idea that so many children are born into poverty in the wealthiest nation on Earth is heartbreaking enough, but the idea that a child may never be able to escape that poverty, because she lacks a decent education or health care or a community that views her future as their own, that should offend all of us,” Obama said during his remarks.

To combat the chasm between haves and have-nots, Obama called for a hike in the federal minimum wage, saying an increase is a good step for families and the economy as a whole.

Democrats on Capitol Hill have pushed for an increase in the federal minimum wage, which currently stands at $7.25 an hour. A proposal would boost it to about $10, and the White House has said Obama supports such a measure.

On Wednesday, Obama also made a general push to simplify the tax code, provide more work training in high schools, and make it easier for Americans to save for retirement.

Those are notions Obama has presented before; however, by packaging them into a clear plan for the next three years, Obama seemed to be making a play to revive his core of liberal supporters, who over the past several months have weathered the disappointments of his health care rollout and allegations of NSA spying.

Obama took sharp aim at Republicans during his remarks, saying they had failed to present their own plans for pulling Americans out of poverty.

“If Republicans have concrete plans that will actually reduce inequality, build the middle class, provide more ladders of opportunity to the poor, let’s hear them. I want to know what they are,” Obama said.

Even CNN seems to have finally noticed that something rather startling has happened:

While Wall Street indexes and corporate earnings have reached new highs, the situation for low and middle class Americans has largely remained dire, including a jobless rate that remains high and scores of people who have given up looking for work.

The current economy is “profoundly unequal,” Obama proclaimed on Wednesday.

“Growing inequality and lack of upward mobility that has jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain, that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead,” Obama said. “I believe this is the defining challenge of our time, making sure our economy works for every working American.”

The problem of income disparity, and the fight for a higher minimum wage, have gained renewed attention in the past weeks – low wage fast food workers have staged one-day strikes across the country demanding higher paychecks, and protesters stood outside Wal-Marts and other box stores on Black Friday demanding employees be paid better.

Yeah.

I can only wonder what might have happened if the administration had “pivoted” strongly (instead of sporadically)to this message, which has been obvious for years, rather than blindly adhere to its original Grand Bargain reform agenda of “shared sacrifice” on deficits and spending. It’s not that he hasn’t said it before — he did, in his Kansas speech back in 2011. But his actual policies and more consistent exhortations to be “fiscally responsible” led us into another round of austerity that’s going to make the agenda he spoke of today that much harder.

Still, it’s important for the president to talk about this stuff. I know that the bully pulpit doesn’t move numbers and maybe it doesn’t move voters in the short run, but I absolutely to believe that it can, over time, change the way people think about our national problems and priorities. It’s good to see the president making the case. Let’s hope that the candidates running for office in 2014 and 2016 take a page from this book and amplify it in their own races.

Read the whole thing, here.

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