Month: December 2013

Fox News is a joke

by David Atkins

This is a screenshot taken directly from my Google News feed:

Note the Fox News headline with “intelligence” claim saying the direct opposite of the report.

That “intelligence” claim is just some speculative garbage from Republican Mike Rogers of Michigan, the same guy who said that isn’t worth helping the “few” uninsured, and that European nations should be grateful for the NSA’s spying operations.

Fox News keeps its readers and viewers in a vacuum devoid of actual information. That helps them secure votes, but the problem is that the disconnect is getting worse, and there just aren’t enough people brainwashed by the conservative movement left to win national elections. The more Fox News delivers a version of the world utterly at odds with reality, the harder it will be for the GOP to reorient itself as a serious and viable national party.

.

Chipping away at our rights one county at a time

by digby

David Ferguson at Raw Story shares this lovely holiday story:

Women in Ft. Wayne, Indiana will not have access to legal abortions as the solitary physician who performs the procedures is forced to temporarily suspend operations by anti-choice legislation. According to the Ft. Wayne News Sentinel, Dr. Ulrich Klopfer will continue to practice, but only at his offices in South Bend.

Women who need abortions will “have to drive another 100 or 200 miles,” Klopfer told the paper. “That will add to their cost and hardship.”

Through a series of byzantine rules designed for the purpose, they managed to catch him in a bureaucratic reporting error (he failed to send forms in triplicate or some such nonsense) and that was it. And then they claimed that the doctor was somehow responsible for a child molester being allowed to roam free. It’s a depressing story of anti-abortion liars gleefully and proudly manipulating the law to circumvent the constitution. It’s becoming a right wing specialty.

And to those who believe that the “right to life” zealots aren’t really trying to outlaw abortion in all cases, regardless of the circumstances, think again:

“It’s heartbreaking to learn that a 13-year-old became pregnant and now must live with the pain of an abortion for the rest of her life, but it’s doubly heartbreaking that Dr. Klopfer’s failure to report the abortion may have allowed the girl’s molester to walk free,” said a press release from Allen County Right to Life director Cathie Humbarger.
[…]
Humbarger admitted to the News-Standard that her group’s success is a temporary gain, but called it “tremendous news for desperate mothers and babies vulnerable to abortion. Our goal has been to make Allen County abortion-free.”

They would make 13 year old molestation victims bear their rapists children. They are so blinded by their zeal to outlaw abortion that they actually believe it’s worse for a little girl to have one than to require her to give birth to her own sibling.

I don’t traffic in the words good and evil — they have a little too much religious absolutist baggage for my taste. But if it did, I know into which category I would put this.

.

Love it or leave it

by digby

Remember, this is a fellow from whom Republican politicians seek dispensation:

On Sunday, John Hagee delivered a sermon to his congregation during which he raged against the supposed “War on Christmas” which he began by declaring that America was founded as, and still remains, a Christian nation. As such, if atheists and humanists don’t like being wished a “Merry Christmas” … well, they can just get out of the country.

Telling atheists to get out of America is one of Hagee’s favorite pieces of advice, so it was no surprise to hear him declare it again during his Sunday sermon when he told any atheists listening that “if you pass a manger scene and someone is singing ‘Joy To The World,’ you can take your Walkman and stuff it into your ears, or you can call your lawyer, or you can just exercise your right to leave the country; planes are leaving every hour on the hour, get on one”

Click through for the video, but only if you have no life. (Do click through to Right Wing Watch in general however, and read up on the even more reprehensible rhetoric of John Hagee among way too many others.)

First, I love Christmas Carols and sing along to them with abandon during this season. I was on a long drive over the holiday and virtually every radio station for hundreds of miles was playing Christmas music, including the really religious stuff like “Oh Holy Night.” I also love religious art and appreciate it whenever I visit museums. Churches and cathedrals too. I personally fail to see why it’s necessary that civic property displays religious symbols when tax free churches are on virtually every street corner in America and are able to publicly exhibit any religious display they choose. But it doesn’t keep me up at night if they do.

In other words, STFU.

But more importantly, who in the hell still uses a Walkman?

When is indisputable disputable?

by digby

I don’t think the word means what Judge William Pauley thinks it means. Adam Serwer writes:

When Judge William H. Pauley ruled that the National Security Agency’s metadata program was lawful on Friday, he argued that there was no significant dispute about “the effectiveness of bulk telephony metadata collection.”

Pauley–who issued his ruling from a courthouse less than two miles from where the twin towers once stood–then offered a series of examples cited by the NSA to bolster their claims that the program is effective, all of which have been “seriously disputed.”

Only four plots among the fifty-four the NSA claims to have helped foil have been made public. Pauley cited three of those four plots in arguing that the metadata program was effective, but journalists and legislators have picked already picked those examples apart. ProPublica published a piece in October by Justin Elliott and Theodoric Meyer noting that in each of the three cases Pauley mentions, there were serious doubts as to whether or not the NSA was exaggerating either the plot itself or the impact of the program.

Serwer goes on to describe the “dispute” surrounding these three cases in some detail and notes:

All of this information would have been available to Pauley, because the ProPublica piece disputing the NSA’s claims was cited as a footnote in the prior ruling by Judge Richard Leon that found the NSA’s data gathering program unconstitutional. Pauley refers to Leon’s ruling multiple times in his own, indicating that he read it.

In fact, Pauley’s affirmation of the NSA’s effectiveness could be read as an implicit criticism of Leon. Where Leon had written that he had “serious doubts about the efficacy of the metadata collection program,” Pauley wrote that “the effectiveness of bulk telephony metadata collection cannot be seriously disputed.”

There are also some “hair on fire” Senators with access to the classified information who have been saying these programs are not as advertised.

Oh and these yahoos too:

Aside from Leon and federal legislators, there’s one more entity that has disputed the usefulness of the NSA metadata program: The review board appointed by the White House itself. In their report, the board concluded that bulk collection of metadata “was not essential to preventing attacks.” After the report was released, one of the review board members, Geoffrey Stone, a University of Chicago law professor, told NBC News there was no evidence the program had thwarted any attacks.

Serwer notes that the only people aside from Judge Pauley who insist that the programs have been vital in catching terrorists is the NSA itself. To say that’s “undisputed” is simply ridiculous.

Obviously the Supreme Court is going to end up deciding whether or not these programs are constitutional. But whether or not they are actually useful requires a simple ability to tell fact from fiction. I wish I had faith that we could at least agree on that in this country but history shows that facts are very often disputed even when the evidence is obvious,if its in the best interest of the government to do it.

Update: Also too, this, from Pro-publica:

In his decision, Pauley writes: “The NSA intercepted those calls using overseas signals intelligence capabilities that could not capture al-Mihdhar’s telephone number identifier. Without that identifier, NSA analysts concluded mistakenly that al-Mihdhar was overseas and not in the United States.”

As his source, the judge writes in a footnote, “See generally, The 9/11 Commission Report.” In fact, the 9/11 Commission report does not detail the NSA’s intercepts of calls between al-Mihdhar and Yemen. As the executive director of the commission told us over the summer, “We could not, because the information was so highly classified publicly detail the nature of or limits on NSA monitoring of telephone or email communications.”

To this day, some details related to the incident and the NSA’s eavesdropping have never been aired publicly. And some experts told us that even before 9/11 — and before the creation of the metadata surveillance program — the NSA did have the ability to track the origins of the phone calls, but simply failed to do so.

Really good stuff to read

by digby

There are a whole bunch of year-end retrospectives out there, but this one’s dear to my heart: the 2013 round-up of the best blog posts of the year, a memorial to one of our earliest bloggers named Jon Swift and hosted today by one of the long time friends and sometime contributor to this blog, Batocchio at Vagabond Scholar.

There is still a blogosphere out there and they are still doing great work day in and day out. Click over to see a list of the best of the best and settle in for a nice long read on a Saturday afternoon. It’s not all listsicles and twitter wars out there.

Living with the threat of being blown up

by digby

No, I’m not talking about terrorism or war. I’m talking about living in the libertarian paradise of Texas:

In the ritual of modern disaster politics, catastrophes are closely followed by elected officials on the scene to praise local grit and promise swift relief.

Serious remedies and sweeping reforms, in many instances, arrive next.

The aftermath of the April 17 explosion at the West Fertilizer Co. proved in part to be no exception. Within days of the blast, President Barack Obama came to McLennan County. So did Gov. Rick Perry and both U.S. senators from Texas.

Relief has come in the form of government checks. The town is rebuilding.

Major reforms, however, have yet to be designed, much less implemented.

In the weeks after the West disaster, investigators identified numerous ways it might have been prevented — or at least mitigated.

Yet eight months after 15 people died and hundreds were injured, no significant measures have been adopted by state government to keep something like it from occurring again.

Now, new houses rise in the lots where homes were destroyed. And on the streets downtown, residents talk of a rebound.

But outside the city, in many ways, it’s as if nothing happened.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, speaking at West on the last day of August, told residents: “We get to define our lives by how we respond to the challenges we face.”

This is the state’s response at year’s end:

The Legislature, though it was in session when the plant blew up, did little beyond holding hearings.

Perry has been silent on specific changes in Texas’ laws or regulatory approach.

Texas has taken no measurable steps toward adopting a statewide fire code, which could have prevented the blast.

The state has not tightened rules for storing or securing ammonium nitrate, the chemical that exploded at West.

Texas still does not require facilities that stockpile such materials to carry liability insurance.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, the state agency whose mission includes the broader role of protecting the public’s health, has abandoned any role in West-related matters. “We haven’t really been involved,” an agency spokesman said.

Hey, only 15 deaths and a few hundred injured? That is a small price to pay for the job creators’ economic freedom, amirite? Sure it might be more next time, and it’s a little bit unfair that kids have to be threatened since they have no agency in all this but you’re not going to be able to make low tax omelettes without sacrificing a few little eggs now are you?

Apparently we have reached a tipping point in which no American can be held responsible for the destruction of others’ lives by their fellow citizens, whether through economic ruin or the kind of violence perpetrated by the right wing gun fetishists. You want to live in the US? Then you obviously agree that your life will always be at risk from anyone who wants to make a buck. To do otherwise would curtail the efficiency of the economic engine of our society. And if you happen to be caught in the crossfire of our shooting gallery, you need to take responsibility for yourself and blindly shoot back.

But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t foul our trousers in fear and demand our government do everything it is capable of doing by any means possible to keep us safe from the one true threat:  terrorism. I think it’s fair to say that there is no freedom we aren’t willing to sacrifice in order that we “feel safe” from that particular boogeyman. But other than that, preserving our liberty depends upon us being willing to sacrifice every penny we have so that Wall Street sharks can gamble away our savings or die from fertilizer plant explosions that could have been prevented and people killing others by the tens of thousands with deadly weapons. That’s what we call liberty.

Our crops and other plants may not be able to adapt to climate change

by David Atkins

More bad news on the climate front:

A new study suggests that modern flowering plants, trees and agricultural crops may not have the characteristics, or the time, to respond to rapid human-induced climate change.

The report in Nature looks at how plants evolved to cope with cold in the past, but finds these same mechanisms may not provide the same defense against human-induced climate change…

They identified three traits that help them do that: dropping their leaves before the winter chill, narrowing the cells that transport water from the roots to the leaves, and dying back to the ground and re-sprouting from their roots or seeds in the spring.

“The next bit was, we wanted to not just look at where species are today and whether they are seeing freezing or not, but to try to understand the evolution of these characteristics and the order of the evolution of those characteristics or those traits,” Zanne said.

To do that, the researchers constructed the largest-ever time-scaled evolutionary tree of 32,000 plant species. They then compared the emergence of those adaptive traits with big changes in the Earth’s climate to reconstruct how plants evolved with the cold as they spread across the globe.

What happened, unsurprisingly, is that the plants evolved traits to deal with changing temperatures over gradual timescales. If the changes had been more sudden, they would not have been able to adapt.

Climate change, needless to say, is a sudden event. Crops and other plants will have a difficult time adapting.

It’s not going to be possible to simply “adapt” to climate change. Mitigation will be essential. And, unfortunately, for right-wing economic ideology, mitigation is going to require large-scale international governmental regulation. There’s no other way.

.

Phil Robertson and Sarah Palin save the First Amendment. Or something.

by digby

Yay, it’s cocktail hour! And you’re going to need one:

The A+E network has decided not to suspend Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson, after saying they were putting him on indefinite hiatus following his controversial comments about homosexual sex.

In a statement, the network attempted to explain why they “reacted so quickly” to Robertson’s interview with GQ magazine but also confirmed that they plan to resume filming with the entire Robertson family as scheduled later this spring:

As a global media content company, A+E Networks’ core values are centered around creativity, inclusion and mutual respect. We believe it is a privilege for our brands to be invited into people’s home and we operate with a strong sense of integrity and deep commitment to these principals.

That is why we reacted so quickly and strongly to a recent interview with Phil Robertson. While Phil’s comments made in the interview reflect his personal views based on his own beliefs, and his own personal journey, he and his family have publicly stated they regret the “coarse language” he used and the mis-interpretation of his core beliefs based only on the article. He also made it clear he would “never incite or encourage hate.” We at A+E Networks expressed our disappointment with his statements in the article, and reiterate that they are not views we hold.

But Duck Dynasty is not a show about one man’s views. It resonates with a large audience because it is a show about family… a family that America has come to love. As you might have seen in many episodes, they come together to reflect and pray for unity, tolerance and forgiveness. These are three values that we at A+E Networks also feel strongly about.

So after discussions with the Robertson family, as well as consulting with numerous advocacy groups, A&E has decided to resume filming Duck Dynasty later this spring with the entire Robertson family.

We will also use this moment to launch a national public service campaign (PSA) promoting unity, tolerance and acceptance among all people, a message that supports our core values as a company, and the values found in Duck Dynasty. These PSAs will air across our entire portfolio.

The Robertson family has been on a contractually-stipulated hiatus for duck hunting season since the story broke on December 18th, so with the news that the show will resume filming on schedule, it does not appear that the “suspension” affected the network’s ability to deliver the show on time.

Can we finally just get one thing straight? As long as you don’t use repellant language to insult a right winger your job is safe. This is America, people.

And can we have a big shout-out for liberal Hollywood while we’re at it? This whole liberal media thing is cool and all but the bottom line is the bottom line …

QOTD: I.F. Stone

by digby

“I followed the rise of Hitler very closely, beginning in twenty-nine and thirty. I remember one German-Jewish reader [of the Philadelphia Record] coming to me, about thirty-one or thirty-two. He said, “Why are you writing these editorials against Hitler? I got a letter from Germany that says he’s only against Ostjuden [Eastern Jews].”

That’s via Jonathan Schwarz, who offers typically insightful commentary.