Month: January 2014

This one’s too cold and this one’s to warm and this one is juuuuuust right

by digby

The NY Times previews the president’s proposed NSA reforms scheduled to be made public on Friday:

President Obama will issue new guidelines on Friday to curtail government surveillance, but will not embrace the most far-reaching proposals of his own advisers and will ask Congress to help decide some of the toughest issues, according to people briefed on his thinking.

Mr. Obama plans to increase limits on access to bulk telephone data, call for privacy safeguards for foreigners and propose the creation of a public advocate to represent privacy concerns at a secret intelligence court. But he will not endorse leaving bulk data in the custody of telecommunications firms, nor will he require court permission for all so-called national security letters seeking business records.

The headquarters of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Md. “We do not use foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies,” an N.S.A. official said.

The emerging approach, described by current and former government officials who insisted on anonymity in advance of Mr. Obama’s widely anticipated speech, suggested a president trying to straddle a difficult line in hopes of placating foreign leaders and advocates of civil liberties without a backlash from national security agencies. The result seems to be a speech that leaves in place many current programs, but embraces the spirit of reform and keeps the door open to changes later.

Ah, the entirely predictable bucket of lukewarm spit guaranteed to amount to very little. Not that the president’s commission was exactly bold in its suggested reforms in the first place, but the president has now officially made it the radical, civil liberties position, while he’s the proverbial grown-up in the room brokering a “deal” between the constitution and the surveillance state. Then it will be the congressional crazies’ turn to water it down even more.

Unfortunately, no president is going to publicly “pick a side” in an argument like this, even a vaunted constitutional scholar. It just doesn’t happen. The congress is likely to either ignore or legalize most of the affronts to the constitution and the conservative courts seem highly unlikely to find much fault with any of it. So, I don’t have high hopes that we will see major reforms.

But on the margins there will be some changes for the good. Unlike that moldy old Bill of Rights nobody really cares about (except the 2nd Amendment, of course) the tech companies may be able to exert real power (aka $$$$$) to rein in the government snooping if only to reassure their customers and preserve their market share around the world. So there’s that. And the spooks may have belatedly realized that there really are no secrets in this brave new world and they’d better think a little bit about the ramifications of their methods being found out by citizens and foreigners alike. So it’s not a big waste of time by any means. Ever since it was created in the wake of the second world war, the secret state has had to be exposed every 25 years or so just to keep them from doing even worse than they already do. As long as we have an “existential threat” (and God knows we’ll create one if we don’t) they will be building new agencies and preserving the old institutions dedicated to “protecting us” from those who want to “take away our freedom.” Whether they actually work or not.

Update: Seriously, does anyone think this is going to end well?

Judge John D. Bates, a former chief judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, urged Mr. Obama and Congress not to alter the way the court is appointed or to create an independent public advocate to argue against the Justice Department in secret proceedings. Any such advocate, he wrote, should instead be appointed only when the court decided one was needed.

Judge Bates objected to the workload of requiring that courts approve all national security letters, which are administrative subpoenas allowing the F.B.I. to obtain records about communications and financial transactions without court approval.

And he raised concerns about greater public disclosure of court rulings, arguing that unclassified summaries would be “likely to promote confusion and misunderstanding.”
[…]
“We admire Judge Bates and respect his views,” said Cass R. Sunstein, of Harvard Law School and a former Obama White House official who served on the review panel. “We respectfully disagree with that one, on the ground that the judge sometimes is not in the ideal position to know whether a particular view needs representation and that in our tradition, standardly, the judge doesn’t decide whether one or another view gets a lawyer.”

The mere idea that someone has to point this out — to a Judge — says everything you need to know about where this debate is and where it’s going.

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Wall Street is at war with American consumers

Brad Reed weighs in on T-Mobile’s plans to pay consumers the cost of breaking their with other providers to switch to T-Mobile. The key point here is Wall Street’s deeply felt concern that actual competition in the mobile market will cause mobile stock prices to fall, implicitly affirming that anti-consumer collusion has been highly profitable for the mobile market for the financial sector parasites who feed off their high stock valuations:

Here’s how you know that T-Mobile is onto something: It’s making Wall Street very nervous for all the right reasons. Reuters recently talked with several financial analysts who all expressed fear that T-Mobile was sparking a pricing war in the wireless industry and that carriers were starting to actually compete with one another for our business. Or as Reuters puts it, “the intensifying competition is a new challenge to a U.S. industry long used to imposing its will on consumers, and analysts fear it could result in the loss of billions of dollars of revenue.”

Jefferies analyst Michael McCormack, for one, told Reuters that he found it “most disappointing” that AT&T has been reacting to T-Mobile’s “Uncarrier” moves by offering special offers of its own. After all, it’s harder to maintain sky-high margins when you’re offering T-Mobile subscribers an extra $200 bonus to switch.

Roe Equity Research analyst Kevin Roe, meanwhile, said that T-Mobile’s moves have created an “unhealthy market dynamic” that “will continue until AT&T has market-share stability,” which likely won’t be until it fights many more bloody battles with T-Mobile over wireless subscribers. And New Street Research analyst Felix Wai told Reuters that he feared the added competition would force carriers to spend more on marketing, a move that would once again eat into their margins.

Of course, the average customer should cheer all this Wall Street hand-wringing: To use some Econ 101 terminology, the loss of carrier margins will mean an increase in consumer surplus in the form of lower prices. Or put another way, what’s bad for big wireless carriers might just be good for everyone else.

One of the biggest lies of conservative economics is the notion that allowing outrageous froth in the financial sector helps enrich everyone. Wealth and income inequality, we are told, doesn’t hurt the middle class since it’s not stealing pie from everyone else, but rather growing the pie. That’s a lie.

Wall Street is directly at war with American consumers and wage earners in a bid to steal as much of the money as possible before people finally notice what is going on.

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Mabel’s story

by digby

Oh no, here comes another shocking story about government malfeasance and illegality. Oh wait, sorry. It’s actually a beautiful story  by Glenn Greenwald about his rescue of a pregnant dog on the streets of Rio and how he and his partner added her to his already large pack of rescue dogs and personally brought her pups to new homes he found for them in the US.

Glenn is a friend and I knew this story already. He had a very tough time giving up those puppies. Until now, I didn’t know exactly why:

Oh dear God …

Read the whole story it’s adorable. And so are the puppies. Glenn, the hard charging investigative journalist and civil liberties activist, concludes with this:

Of course, when you rescue or adopt a dog, you do great things for them. But the dogs you rescue do even greater things for you. It’s not just that it’s a deeply gratifying experience to save a loving and innocent creature from a life of untold hardship, though it is that. Even more, each dog emotionally touches you in profound ways that stay with you for life. They each teach you something new about yourself and the world. The dogs you keep become the most loyal companions for life. But the ones you rescue and find homes for leave their own deep and important mark on your life.

David and I have fostered and found homes for numerous other abandoned and abused dogs since then. We never see it as charity, but rather as opportunity. That’s because whatever you do for a dog, they end up doing so much more for you.

Animals keep us human.

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Looks like a warmonger, talks like a warmonger …

by digby

Oh boo hoo. The bloodthirsty/cowardly faction of the Democratic Party is rending its garments over being called warmongers:

House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Tuesday lashed out at White House officials who have suggested that backers of a new Iran sanctions bill in the Senate are actually trying to start a war.

“There have been some that have suggested, in the White House, that those folks were more interested in war than they were in a resolution by peaceful means,” Hoyer said during a sit-down with reporters. “I think that is absolutely untrue, an irresponsible assertion and ought to be clarified or retracted by those who have made it in the administration.”

Yes, I’m sure the last thing the people railing against the peace negotiations want is war. I don’t know where these people in the White House would get such an idea:

LIEBERMAN: Yes, I want to talk about the legislation introduced in the Senate now sponsored by almost 50 members, which would impose tougher new sanctions on Iran if these negotiations fail.

President Obama has threatened to veto over it; the Iranians say if it passes, they’ll walk away from the table. I believe bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress will adopt these tougher sanctions on Iran. The president will not veto it and Iran will not walk away from the table. That’s the good news.

The bad news is I think that the tougher sanctions will not convince Iran to find a diplomatic way to end their nuclear weapons project and I think there is a better than even chance that before the end of 204 the U.S. and/or Israel will take military action to disable Iran’s nuclear program.

True, he isn’t in the Senate anymore. But he’s still got a lot of soul mates there.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are coming under increasing pressure to declare themselves on this. And it’s very dicey. Some, like Jeff Merkeley,  are doing the right thing and opposing these sanctions, but according to Greg Sargent, at the moment it looks very possible they’ll get the 60 votes they need to blow up the talks. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that so many are willing to defy their president on the first realistic chance to find a peaceful solution in Iran for the first time in 40 years. There’s always a fairly large group who are eager for war. After all, Holy Joe Lieberman himself only left the Senate last year. Still, it’s just sad.

Statesmen will invent cheap lies, putting blame upon the nation that is attacked, and every man will be glad of those conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them; and thus he will by and by convince himself that the war is just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys after this process of grotesque self-deception.
– Mark Twain “Chronicle of Young Satan”

Update: I’m sure most of my readers don’t need to be convinced, but just in case, please read this from James Fallows. You could pass it on to your Democratic Senator is you like.

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Peer Summit

by digby

What do you suppose the point of this could possibly be?

Politico editor-in-chief John Harris and chief executive Jim VandeHei are expected to visit The Washington Post on Wednesday to discuss the paper’s recent scrutiny of chief White House correspondent Mike Allen and his influential Playbook newsletter, according to a source familiar with the meeting who is not authorized to discuss it.

The Politico higher-ups are scheduled to sit down with both editorial page editor Fred Hiatt and media critic Erik Wemple, who has aggressively covered Allen and recently suggested the Politico star writer rewards Playbook advertisers with favorable coverage. After digging through Playbook’s archives, Wemple concluded in November that “the special interests that pay for slots in the newsletter get adoring coverage elsewhere in the playing field of Playbook.”

A few years ago, it was Politico’s Allen breaking the “Salon-gate” scandal at the Post; he reported the paper planned to allow lobbyists and executives the opportunity to pay for off-the-record access to Post editors and reporters at exclusive salons. Now it’s the Post, through Wemple, that’s asking Politico questions about blurring the line between editorial and business interests.

So far, Allen has been silent on the matter. He didn’t answer Wemple’s queries prior to publication or at a public event after the story ran on Nov. 20.

While VandeHei and Harris haven’t engaged Wemple’s line of questioning about Playbook’s sponsors, each has criticized his coverage in recent interviews.

Gosh I sure hope they can work it all out. It would be a shame if these good friends weren’t able to hash out some guidelines about how to report on each others’ corruption. It’s just plain uncomfortable.

Sheesh, aren’t we Number 1 in anything anymore?

by digby

Beaten by the cheese eating surrender monkeys no less …

The world’s biggest whiskey drinkers (http://t.co/Koewu4hfnr) pic.twitter.com/v957hgx8Qg
— Digg (@digg) January 14, 2014

(And what in the hell has happened to Ireland???)

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This is why you don’t let the private sector self-regulate

by David Atkins

Fracking doesn’t contaminate drinking water–after all, the industry itself tested the water and everything’s fine! Right?

When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency declared that a group of Texas homes near a gas-drilling operation didn’t have dangerous levels of methane in their water, it relied on tests conducted by the driller itself.

Now, independent tests from Duke University researchers have found combustible levels of methane in some of the wells, and homeowners want the EPA to re-open the case.

The previously undisclosed Duke testing illustrate the complaints of critics who say the agency is reluctant to sanction a booming industry that has pushed down energy prices for consumers, created thousands of jobs and buoyed the economy.

“I don’t understand why they would let the company that was accused of doing the wrongdoing conduct the tests,” said Shelly Perdue, who lives near the two wells in Weatherford, 60 miles (97 kilometers) west of Dallas. “It doesn’t make sense.”

Because it’s Texas, of course, while corporate self-regulation rules the day and they joke about shooting any Californians who might have a problem with that

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The war on the mentally ill escalates

by digby

So they found the police not guilty of a crime in the torture and beating death of Kelly Thomas. I haven’t heard what the jury thought they were doing but the defense was based upon the idea that the officers were fighting for their lives.

Take a look at the victim after the beating he endured:

I wrote about the Thomas killing at the time it happened.

When animals attack

Killers in uniform: 

Via Carlos Miller at Photography is Not a Crime comes the news that the Orange County DA finally released security footage of the brutal beating death of 37-year-old Kelly Thomas, a homeless man from Fullerton, California. 

Two police officers, Manuel Ramos and Jay Cicinelli, are now on trial for the killing of Thomas, who suffered from schizophrenia. Cops used their fists and batons to beat Thomas. They Tasered him multiple times. Cause of death was apparently “mechanical suppression of the thorax.” 

Besides eventually screaming for his father, a former police officer himself, Thomas also repeatedly yells that he can’t breathe. 

Here’s what went down: 

“Now you see my fists?” Fullerton police officer Manny Ramos asked Thomas while slipping on a pair of latex gloves. 

“Yeah, what about them?” Thomas responded. 

“They are getting ready to fuck you up,” said Ramos, a burly cop who appears to outweigh Thomas by 100 pounds. 

“Well, start punching,” Thomas responds, never once displaying any physical aggression towards Ramos. 

Moments later, as Thomas is standing while Ramos is ordering him to get on his “fucking knees,” Fullerton cop Joseph Wolfe, who is not charged in the case, walks up and starts beating his legs with a baton. 

Then Ramos gets into the act and Thomas takes off running, moving out of the frame of the camera. 

The camera, operated by a dispatcher at the station, then moves toward the beating, showing Ramos and Fullerton cop Jay Cicinelli on top of Thomas as Thomas repeatedly apologizes and telling them he is unable to breathe. 

The cops keep telling him to put his hands behind his back and lay on his stomach, but they are both laying on top of him, making it impossible to even breathe, much less move. 

As the video continues, one of the cops can be seen kneeing him. 

“Please, I can’t breathe,” Thomas pleads as the officers keep telling him to put his hands behind his “fucking back.” 

The cops keep telling him to “relax” to which he responds, “I can’t, dude.” 

More cops eventually arrive and a little more than four minutes into the video, they start tasing him. 

And a little after five minutes into the video, as three cops are piled on top of him, beating him, tasing him, one cop looks up at another cop who just arrived on the scene and says, “help us.”
At one point he yells out, “Dad, they are killing me.” 

Even after seven minutes into the video, when six cops are on top of him and all Thomas is doing is crying for his father, they keep telling him to “relax.” 

After they got him down, the police repeatedly say “he’s on something.” But he wasn’t. He suffered from mental illness. At the end he’s just saying “daddy…daddy …daddy” and then he stops talking at all.  

This is heard distinctly on the tape:

“We ran out of options so I got the end of my Taser and I probably … I just start smashing his face to hell,” Cicinelli said, according to the transcript provided by prosecutors. “He was on something. Cause the three of us couldn’t even control him.”

You can see the video at the link, but it’s so horrible I’m not sure about telling people to watch it.

The mentally ill die frequently at the hands of police. And yes, sometimes the police do kill them in self-defense. Often they just kill them. Certainly they taser them fairly constantly, which ends up being a form of electo-shock torture since these people are literally unable to comprehend and comply. 

Here’s a perfect example of the more “benign” variety. We have a schizophrenic man outside a diner who is alleged to have been harassing customers. Police are called. (Note the sick reaction of the young male observer on the audio): 

Had this man had a heart condition he could have died. He was hit square in the chest. 
I realize these are tough situations for the police. Dealing with people who cannot comprehend your orders — or the stakes in refusal — makes it even tougher. But ask yourself why that officer couldn’t have walked behind the man rather than demanding that he turn around and shooting him full of electricity in the chest when he didn’t. The man’s hands are up, he’s presenting no threat. So often these things end up being a battle of wills rather than a means to an end. It’s one thing if thing if the person is clearly threatening, but too many times it’s police needing to demonstrate their authority. Needing to do that with people who are hearing lots of voices in their heads telling them all kinds of things already, is just pathetic. 

Mentally ill people often live horrible lives in the streets of our towns and cities. They face danger from the elements, criminals and each other. And they often end up in police custody for a variety of reasons. Tasers (and worse) are cruelly used against them. It’s medieval.
It goes without saying that without cameras taping this incident there would not be a trial.

I confess that I did expect the police to be held responsible for that atrocity. I couldn’t imagine how they could get away with it.  But it would seem that at least 12 citizens of this country have bought into the notion that the police are fighting a war on the streets of America.  And they must defeat the enemy by any means necessary.

Those police officers are free now.  How free do you feel? 

Conservatives can sure dish it out …

by digby

I’m just putting this up here for posterity so I can easily find it the next time some right wing jackass gets his shorts in a wad about how the South gets no respect:

“I’ve said this several times in Texas before and I’ve said it to Mr. Cruz as a representative of the Texas government, I’ve said it to Gov. (Rick) Perry directly, and now I’m going to say it to you as individual Texas citizens,” said Bill Whittle, a Fox News guest, Pajamas Media commentator and former National Review Online contributor.

Whittle told the crowd at Saturday’s “Freedom Rally,” sponsored by Texans for Freedom and Liberty, that the issue he wanted to discuss should involve the state Highway Patrol, the National Guard and private citizens.

“You will see a lot of cars coming west heading east on Interstate 10, and they’re going to have California license plates on them,” Whittle said, as the crowd begins to laugh. “Now, if you see these cars pull into rest areas or hotels or restaurants, that’s fine; wave goodbye, make sure they go out on the Louisiana end.”

“But if you see them pull off into residential areas, you need to open fire on these vehicles immediately,” Whittle said, as the crowd laughs appreciatively and applauds loudly. “Immediately. Not with 9mm or AR rounds; you need to put mortars on those things, you cannot take any chances.”

After the crowd quiets down, Whittle reminds them that he is from Los Angeles and says that Californians are trying desperately to move to Texas to enjoy its “awesome job opportunities, the incredible economy and the conservative government.”

“They will change it and mess it up,” Whittle said. “Don’t let that happen. Just start shooting.”

He suggested that no judge would convict them of opening fire on California residents.

“What’s the worst that could happen to you?” Whittle said. “I mean, honestly, this is Texas, right? You’ll stand in front of a Texas judge, (and) he’ll say, ‘Did you shoot up that car full of Californians?’ You’ll say yes, he’ll say why. You’ll say, ‘Well, your honor, they needed killing.’ And he’ll say, ‘We’ll strike a medal in your honor,’ and off you go.”

The crowd applauded, and Whittle said he was warning them about California residents because they would someday come to Texas as refugees from a potential financial crisis or “zombie apocalypse.”

“I know many of you kindhearted Texans will walk up to some of those starving California families, and maybe you’ll offer a crust of bread to some of those hopeless-looking California children, and the California parents will say ‘thank you, but is this crust of bread gluten-free?’” Whittle said. “’Because, you know, Enoch and Mia have an intolerance and they’re indigo aura children, and they really don’t react well to gluten.’”

Whittle said he would be among those refugees, offering to earn his keep in his adopted home.

“I’ll be 500 yards off to the side with a long-handled spade and my AR 15, and I’m going to say, ‘Texans, I can shoot and I can shovel, please let me in,’” Whittle said to more applause and laughter. “’I promise I’ll do more good than harm.’”

I’m sure it was just a joke. All those silly insults and bizarre stereotypes about “liberal” culture roll off my back. I don’t care. I’m not crazy about threatening people with death but again, it’s a joke and I’m sure everyone in the audience understood this to be nothing more than a celebration of their own culture of gun proliferation and low taxes vs the morons who live in California. Fine.

But one thing these fine conservatives prove over and over again: they can dish it out but they sure can’t take it.

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QOTD: Tea Party Senate candidate

by digby

This GOP Senate candidate from North Carolina makes Sarah Palin sound like Winston Churchill:

“We’re taking our plunder, that’s taken from us as individuals, [giving] it to the government, and the government is now keeping itself in power by giving these goodies away. The answer is the Department of Agriculture should go away at the federal level. And now 80 percent of the Farm Bill was food stamps. That enslaves people. What you want to do, it’s crazy but it’s true, teach people to fish instead of giving them fish. When you’re at the behest of somebody else, you are actually a slavery to them. That kind of charity does not make people freer.”

Yeah. Well, even slave owners understood that people need to eat.

Tim Murphy at Mother Jones points out that he’s a little bit mixed up:

Brannon is suggesting that people on food stamps are lazy, while also conflating them with a system of labor exploitation in which people were literally worked to death.

This bozo is also rambling on about freedom as if the freedom to starve is written into the constitution — or the Bible. Or something. But then, he’s obviously a total idiot. I expect he’ll win and be James Inhofe’s best friend in the Senate.

La majestueuse égalité des lois, qui interdit au riche comme au pauvre de coucher sous les ponts, de mendier dans les rues et de voler du pain.

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