Month: January 2014

Snark is a tricky business

by digby

And should not be undertaken by humorless conservatives, especially when they’ve been publicly embarrassed for not knowing what they’re talking about. Read this and try to make sense of it:

Paul Krugman offers an actually interesting correction to my Appalachia report: Whereas I had argued that the declining economy of Owsley County, Ky., has resulted in high unemployment, welfare dependency, and lost population, Professor Krugman points out that was really has happened is that the declining economy of Owsley County, Ky., has resulted in high unemployment, welfare dependency, and lost population. Given that Professor Krugman and I hold irreconcilably opposed worldviews, one of us has to be wrong, and I am man enough to admit that it’s me.

That being said, my views and those of the recipient of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel are perhaps not as far removed from one another as it seems. Professor Krugman writes:

Oh, and about the soda: things like that will happen when you try to provide aid in kind to very poor people. Give an only moderately poor person food stamps, and she’ll probably be willing to use all of it on food. Give a very poor person, with hardly any other source of income, food stamps and she’ll try to convert part of it into cash to be spent on other things. This doesn’t say that they’re getting too much help; it just says that they’re pretty desperate across the board, not just in their food budget.

Of the many useful services that Professor Krugman provides, explaining to me that which I just saw with my own eyes is surely the most valuable. As I have written before, even if we take into account the fact that the entire socioeconomic spectrum is thickly sprinkled with people who are not especially bright or notably responsible, most poor people are probably in a better position to judge for themselves whether they need an extra $1 in food or an extra $1 in gas or an extra $1 applied to their utility or insurance bills than is a remote bureaucracy. Jonah makes a similar point in his argument for creating an opt-in UBI as an alternative to the conventional welfare package.

Where I part company with Professor Krugman is in his understanding of why poor people are poor.

The problem isn’t that we’re becoming a nation of takers; it’s the fact that we’re becoming a nation that doesn’t offer enough economic opportunity to the bottom half, or maybe even the bottom 80 percent, of its citizens.

Professor Krugman and those who share his orientation see the bottom half, and maybe even the bottom 80 percent, of citizens as passive participants in economic life, not people who do things but people to whom things are done, the direct object in Lenin’s summary of politics: “Who? Whom?” And from the point of view of the policymaking class—not just the progressive perches at Princeton but the policymaking class in general—it is easy to see the great majority of the American public as something like dogs exhibiting various degrees of ruliness while waiting for table scraps. People cannot be expected to live. It is up to “the nation” to “offer” them life.

He goes on to make the point that Paul Krugman wants to take from the makers and give to the takers through their unions which are laundered with campaign contributions. Or something.

Someone should Sarah Palin to translate.

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What if Chris Christie had access to the NSA?

by digby

Yesterday on Ari Melber’s show on MSNBC (which is really good, by the way) he and Glenn Greenwald chatted a bit about the Chris Christie scandal. And they both pointed out something that people should probably keep in mind as they think about the current ongoing conversation regarding civil liberties: imagine Chris Christie with the power of the NSA.

Here we have a politician who, at the very least, fostered the kind of political culture that encouraged his people to abuse the power of the office and particularly to exact retribution against his political enemies. We know this sort of thing has happened at the federal level many times in the past from J. Edgar Hoover to Dick Cheney. It’s happening in New Jersey right now. And it’s happeeing at the hands of someone virtually everyone understood until now to be a front-runner for the presidency. He even had a ton of donors and supporters among Democrats.

If he became president, it’s clear that he would feel perfectly comfortable using these hardball tactics against his opponents. Or, perhaps more realistically, he would have felt perfectly comfortable letting people — specifically politicians — believe that he would do it. We know the NSA is collecting information on everyone. It’s not hard to see a scenario in which a president Christie would drop that into a conversation. And since that stuff is all classified the person he brought it up to (thratened with) couldn’t talk about it. Even if they did Christie could say he was “joking.” But it’s the fact that all that information is being collected and it’s just sitting there waiting to be accessed that creates the threat.

Before google searches and email and text messages and phone locating services ever existed, we did not require the post office to copy every letter and send it to the government just in case they might want to look at it years later. Librarians have fought against government intrusion into the privacy rights of their patrons for years. In fact, this is the official policy of the American Library Association:

The Council of the American Library Association strongly recommends that the responsible officers of each library, cooperative system, and consortium in the United States:

Formally adopt a policy that specifically recognizes its circulation records and other records identifying the names of library users to be confidential. (See also ALA Code of Ethics, Article III, “We protect each library user’s right to privacy and confidentiality with respect to information sought or received, and resources consulted, borrowed, acquired or transmitted” and Privacy: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights.)

Advise all librarians and library employees that such records shall not be made available to any agency of state, federal, or local government except pursuant to such process, order or subpoena as may be authorized under the authority of, and pursuant to, federal, state, or local law relating to civil, criminal, or administrative discovery procedures or legislative investigative power.

Resist the issuance of enforcement of any such process, order, or subpoena until such time as a proper showing of good cause has been made in a court of competent jurisdiction.

I don’t think there’s any law requiring libraries to keep information about its patrons’ reading habits for periods of years just in case the government wants to look at it either. This idea of having the information available “just in case” is really quite new. And i don’t think we’ve thought through the implications of that.

I’m sure that president Obama isn’t ordering politically friendly NSA and FBI supporters to find damaging information against his political rivals. And I’m sure he isn’t even hinting that he is, even in a joking fashion, when he is engaged in important legislative negotiations. But somebody could. Chris Christie could. And I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that Chris Christie, under political pressure, could easily order the surveillance of dissenters. And think about this: he is a former US Attorney, with friends throughout federal law enforcement. I’m sure most of them are as honest as the day is long. And I’m also sure there are a few who aren’t.

Finally, since the NSA cannot even point to any terrorist plots that have been successfully foiled with this massive collection, this little demonstration in political thuggishness up in New Jersey this week from the new chairman of the Republican Governors Association and an early favorite for the GOP presidential nomination should make even the supporters ask themselves whether or not these programs are really worth it. Just because the technology exists to keep this information doesn’t mean we should do it.

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Making the poor too comfortable

by digby

So extending Unemployment Insurance is now just another game to these people:

“…the White House has a tough sell here,” said Representative Charlie Dent, Republican of Pennsylvania and a key swing-vote moderate. “On the one hand they say the economy is getting better. On the other, they need emergency unemployment benefits. The two can’t coexist.”

So, unless the unemployment numbers are going up they simply aren’t a problem. Good to know.

Republicans have become more vocal in pinning the weak economy on President Obama — and have argued that Congress needs to pave the path for businesses to make more jobs, rather than what they see as the Democrats’ approach of simply making poverty or unemployment more comfortable.

“We have been trying to focus this Congress on getting back to a more optimistic view of what the economy can do,” said Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader. “It is about jobs. It is about growth. Our focus is about wanting people to get a job. It’s on employment, not unemployment.”

Because they’ve been so helpful on the jobs front with all their proposals and sincere commitment to fixing the problem. If only those Democrats would stop obstructing them. But all they want to do is make poor people “comfortable” which is the last thing they should be. Poor people should be suffering, everyone knows that. Especially the kids, the sick and the elderly. Parasites all of ’em. Go out and get a job, goddamit.

And anyway, these fabulous jobs numbers argue for doing nothing:

Even if the measure does clear the Senate, House Republicans say they simply do not feel much pressure to take it up. Mr. Coats said the job numbers weren’t great, but continued job growth, even sluggish growth, dissipates the pressure to act.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t make a little deal, now does it?

Republicans argue that the jobs report underscores that Mr. Obama’s economic policies have failed, and that Congress should focus on spurring businesses to hire, in part by reducing regulatory requirements and cutting taxes. The price for House action would be steep, Republicans say, citing as options approval of the Keystone XL oil pipeline and repeal of a tax on medical devices, which helps pay for the health care law.

Environmental degradation, regulation and tax cuts, baby! Now we’re talking! If you can’t use the suffering of the unemployed to help out your rich friends what good are you? I’m just surprised they aren’t asking for a capital gains tax cut. That’s a perennial.

If I were to guess, I’d go with the medical device tax simply because that lobby has been very active and may have persuaded some Democrats that they need it. The fact is that the Republican leadership knows that extending those benefits is important but also know they have an opportunity to extract a pound of flesh from the Democrats, which is really the only thing they care about in these sorts of negotiations. What used to be considered simply pro-forma bipartisan votes that everyone understood to be necessary functions of government are now used as opportunities to rub liberals’ faces in the dirt on behalf of the red meat base and their wealthy donors. They’ll probably find something.

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Yes, the climate crisis really IS that bad

by David Atkins

I got some pushback from a few readers over posting this piece from The Onion about the devastating severity of climate change. People insist that it can’t possibly be that bad, and that talk about civilization collapse and the end of society as we know it is overwrought.

I’ve posted about this before, but it needs to be done again. Yes, it really is that bad. Reality check time. Let’s start with David Roberts here, who knows a thing or two about climate:

For a longer, more detailed case on video, check out this more recent University of California presentation:

Or you could listen to the World Bank, which says this of a mere 4 degree Celsius increase (which at this point is almost unavoidable absent a miracle technological or political breakthrough):

Among the effects anticipated by the report:
Average monthly summer temperatures Mediterranean, North Africa, Middle East and parts of the United States could increase 6 degrees or more.
Sea levels could rise up to three feet or more, affecting coastal cities in Mexico, India, Bangladesh, Mozambique, Madagascar, the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as small island nations, which could become uninhabitable.
Ocean acidification could cause coral reefs to stop growing or dissolve, threatening biodiversity as well as the income and food sources for humans.
Drought could affect 44 percent of global croplands, threatening the world’s food security.
Water sources for humans could become scarce in northern and eastern Africa, the Middle East and South Asia.

Not noted there are the social and economic consequences and ripple effects of that. Global economic catastrophe doesn’t even begin to describe what even that degree of change looks like, which itself understates the case. But what do those commies at the World Bank know? Let’s try the unAmerican flag burners at The Pentagon:

The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change.

Recent war games and intelligence studies conclude that over the next 20 to 30 years, vulnerable regions, particularly sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and South and Southeast Asia, will face the prospect of food shortages, water crises and catastrophic flooding driven by climate change that could demand an American humanitarian relief or military response.

An exercise last December at the National Defense University, an educational institute that is overseen by the military, explored the potential impact of a destructive flood in Bangladesh that sent hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming into neighboring India, touching off religious conflict, the spread of contagious diseases and vast damage to infrastructure. “It gets real complicated real quickly,” said Amanda J. Dory, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for strategy, who is working with a Pentagon group assigned to incorporate climate change into national security strategy planning.

And keep in mind that most of the sources I referenced are old. As in, two to four years old. The fact is that the more we learn about climate change, the worse the projections get. The World Bank report was hopeful that a four-degree Celsius change with all of its devastating consequences could still be avoided. The latest news suggests otherwise:

Climate change may be far worse than scientists thought, causing global temperatures to rise by at least 4 degrees Celsius by 2100, or about 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit, according to a new study.

The study, published in the journal Nature, takes a fresh look at clouds’ effect on the planet, according to a report by The Guardian. The research found that as the planet heats, fewer sunlight-reflecting clouds form, causing temperatures to rise further in an upward spiral.

That number is double what many governments agree is the threshold for dangerous warming. Aside from dramatic environmental shifts like melting sea ice, many of the ills of the modern world — starvation, poverty, war and disease — are likely to get worse as the planet warms.

“4C would likely be catastrophic rather than simply dangerous,” lead researcher Steven Sherwood told the Guardian. “For example, it would make life difficult, if not impossible, in much of the tropics, and would guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet and some of the Antarctic ice sheet.”

Another report released earlier this month said the abrupt changes caused by rapid warming should be cause for concern, as many of climate change’s biggest threats are those we aren’t ready for.

In September, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said it was “extremely likely” that human activity was the dominant cause of global warming, or about 95 percent certain — often the gold standard in scientific accuracy.

“If this isn’t an alarm bell, then I don’t know what one is. If ever there were an issue that demanded greater cooperation, partnership, and committed diplomacy, this is it,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said after the IPCC report was released.

It’s also worth noting that even all of these projections are probably too optimistic. If that sounds nuts, think again. The chart below lists projections for probable global temperature increases:

Note that A1FI line projecting a global temperature increase of 7 degrees Celsius by 2100, which would basically guarantee the end of civilization as we know it, and that’s no exaggeration. But that’s just an outlier projection, right? Actually, via Gaius Publius at Americablog:

Can we confirm that A1FI is the path we’re taking? The Emissions Scenarios report was written in 2000, which is why the solid black line, showing observed changes, stops there.

But we’ve had a number of years in which to add observations. So here’s an update, one of many we could offer. In 2009, information from previous IPCC assessment reports (the third, or “TAR”, in 2001; the fourth, or “AR4″, in 2007) was combined and updated for the Copenhagen climate conference of 2009. The resulting document, the Copenhagen Diagnosis, is both readable and informative — and beautifully produced; take a look if you get a chance. We’ve already referred to it here.

The chart below shows several of the IPCC scenarios, again projected out from year-2000, overlaid with observations of CO2 emissions predicted by the scenarios. Note that A1FI is one of them, the red line.

We’re smack in the middle of the A1FI range by this measure as of summer 2008 readings. Since then we’ve had the summer of melting Arctic ice and recent news that this is the hottest decade on record.

Reread that. Smack in the middle of the A1FI range by summer 2008 readings. But there’s more:

I don’t see a reason to assume that A1FI is unlikely. Do you?

Last bottom line — A1FI puts us on track for as much as +7°C by 2100. And we’re on track for A1FI based on most recent observations.

I’ll close with a brief note of some hope by Gaius Publius, as my own thoughts about the situation closely reflect his:

It’s not hopeless if we act, especially if we act before the window of opportunity closes. If Hansen is correct (above), that window closes at +3°C. We’ re at +1°C (more or less), with another +1°C in the pipeline. (The coming IPCC assessment report, AR5, will tell us more about that.) I’m worried that when +1.5°C is present and the same is in the pipeline, we’re in trouble. But we’re not there yet. Stay tuned.

We can stop. It will take dislocations at this point, and we’ll have to counter the big money people (carbon criminals) and their enablers and defenders in politics and the press, but it can be done.

So when I say that only massive immediate changes and/or technological miracles will save us this point, or that knowingly deceptive climate deniers are committing crimes against humanity for which appropriate punishment should be meted out, those are not exaggerations.

That is reality. It’s a reality that a lot of people have a hard time grappling with, but it’s reality all the same.

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A cub and a cocktail

by digby

It’s the end of a long cold week for most of you.

I think it’s time for a drink and an adorable polar bear cub, don’t you?

Those are his first steps! 

A perfect high level Nazi


by digby

Jon Schwarz tweeted out this interesting little tid-bit from John Dean’s book, discussing Hoover’s reaction to Kent State:

They always seem to know all about the “sluts” don’t they?

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“I don’t have time for this. Tase him and let’s get him out of here”

by digby

Then they just shot him dead:

The killing of Keith Vidal, 18, of Boling Springs Lakes, NC, over the weekend has spurred a state investigation into the teen’s death and a family’s call for answers as they say police shot Vidal in cold blood.

Family of Vidal said they called police on Sunday afternoon to help subdue the 90-pound teen who was holding a small screwdriver and threatening to fight his mother during a schizophrenic episode. Two officers responded to the family’s home and restrained Vidal. Then, a third officer arrived and soon thereafter reportedly shot Vidal, Mark Wilsey, Vidal’s step-father, told reporters during a press-conference on Monday.

According to Wilsey, as the first two officers were restraining Vidal, the third officer walked into the family’s house and said “I don’t have time for this. Tase him. Let’s get him out of here,” Wilsey said. At that point, one of the officers used a stun gun on Vidal. The young man hit the ground and “this guy shot him,” Wilsey said.

Vidal was taken to a local hospital where he was declared dead.

When Wilsey asked why the officer had shot the teen, he said the officer replied, “Well, I’m protecting my officers.”

He weighed 90 pounds:

Vidal’s death comes just weeks after his 18th birthday, on a Sunday afternoon that by all accounts had gone off without much ado. But soon that would all change. The cops had come to the home before, family members told the Star News. Vidal was schizophrenic and depressive, they said. But he was never violent. The cops would usually come and talk with him until he calmed down.

On this day Vidal was sweeping the floor, holding a screw driver. At some point he threatened to fight his mother. At 12:31 p.m., according to records, Mark Wilsey called 911.

“We wanted him to put the screwdriver down because he does have schizophrenia and we didn’t know if he was gonna hurt himself,” Wilsey told the Star News.

The first officers arrived on the scene at 12:34. Less than 15 minutes later, Vidal had been shot, killed just seconds after the Vassey arrived on the scene. There remain more questions than answers in the teen’s death. And as investigators, prosecutors, and the teen’s family try to unpack just why a stun gun and eventually lethal force was needed to subdue a 90-pound teenager with no apparent history of violence, the business of mourning goes on.

He was a busy man and didn’t have time to deal with this nonsense. 15 minutes or you’re dead.  That’s the rule.

I don’t even know what to say except to remind people that this mantra of “I had to do what I had to do to protect my officers” is not the way police used to think about their jobs. This is a paramilitary concept, not a policing concept. Former San Jose police chief Joseph McNamara explained:

Simply put, the police culture in our country has changed. An emphasis on “officer safety” and paramilitary training pervades today’s policing, in contrast to the older culture, which held that cops didn’t shoot until they were about to be shot or stabbed. Police in large cities formerly carried revolvers holding six .38-caliber rounds. Nowadays, police carry semi-automatic pistols with 16 high-caliber rounds, shotguns and military assault rifles, weapons once relegated to SWAT teams facing extraordinary circumstances. Concern about such firepower in densely populated areas hitting innocent citizens has given way to an attitude that the police are fighting a war against drugs and crime and must be heavily armed.

Yes, police work is dangerous, and the police see a lot of violence. On the other hand, 51 officers were slain in the line of duty last year, out of some 700,000 to 800,000 American cops. That is far fewer than the police fatalities occurring when I patrolled New York’s highest crime precincts, when the total number of cops in the country was half that of today. Each of these police deaths and numerous other police injuries is a tragedy and we owe support to those who protect us. On the other hand, this isn’t Iraq. The need to give our officers what they require to protect themselves and us has to be balanced against the fact that the fundamental duty of the police is to protect human life and that law officers are only justified in taking a life as a last resort.

Three officers with plenty of training should be able to subdue a 90 pound kid who’s only armed with a screw driver without killing him. Or shooting him with electricity either. They were in a hurry. They felt justified in using deadly force because they see themselves as fighting in the streets of a war zone: otherwise known as their own towns and cities. In other words some of these guys see themselves as being at war with the United States of America.

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The legal march to personhood (and de-personhood)

by digby

I got some blowback from anti-abortion types for this piece I wrote about the Munoz case in Texas and,  in particular, using the term “birthing vessels” which was seen as a provocative and radical term that was contributing to our lack of civility. (I know, this from people who routinely display gory pictures of dismembered body parts in public …)

Anyway, the story is what it is and I stand by my harshly satirical take on the issue.  But if you want to read a more comprehensive look at this phenomenon, this one by Ilyse Hoague is excellent.  I’ll just highlight this small piece:

I’m reminded of the case of Bei Bei Shuai, who faces prosecution in Indiana for feticide after she attempted suicide in 2011 when she was pregnant. She survived the attempt, but her fetus died in the process. So the state has chosen to criminalize her pregnancy, declaring her a murderer for attempting to take her own life. Or Alicia Beltran, a pregnant Wisconsin woman who disclosed to her doctor that she had previously been addicted to pills. Although she proudly stated that she had been clean for a year, and confirmed it with a subsequent urine test, her doctor insisted that she go on anti-addiction medication. When she refused, she was arrested and taken to court, where she did not have a lawyer. However, one was appointed to represent her fetus.
Individually, the cases of Shuai, Beltran, and Munoz are troubling. Together, they add up to a clear picture of how many politicians think it’s not only acceptable, but preferable, for women to lose rights once they become pregnant. And increasingly, state laws reflect that outdated paradigm.

That’s my emphasis. Keep in mind that the laws were never so designed before. It may have been true that women did not have the same rights as men. But this new approach is making them have fewer rights than a fetus that cannot survive outside the woman herself. That is just bizarre. And this movement is growing.

Lynn Paltrow at National Advocates for Pregnant Women has been tracking these laws for years and advocating for women to be full citizens in the eyes of the law. In 2010, she wrote a piece for The Huffington Post exposing the move towards “personhood” as part of this sinister agenda. She points out that recognizing the humanity of others has never before come at a cost to an entire class of people. When women were recognized as equal citizens under the constitution, this did not come at a cost to men. She states that “efforts to legally disconnect fetuses and to grant them entirely independent constitutional status would not merely add a new group to the constitutional population: it would effectively denaturalize pregnant women, removing from them their status as constitutional persons.”

And you can easily see that at some point these laws would logically have to apply to women who might be pregnant as well — all women of childbearing age. After all, women engage in all kinds of behavior that might endanger a fetus and they don’t always know if they are pregnant. I suppose we could come up with a daily mandatory government test to ensure that a woman isn’t impregnated but that dystopian solution will hardly be necessary. What’s more likely is that this grows into cultural acceptance backed up by “examples” like the one’s listed above in which the government steps in to enforce the social norm. In this formulation, a women’s primary value is her childbearing potential. After all, her body could be, might be, the “home” of another person who must be protected from her by the state.

It’s hard to imagine that anything like this could happen. But a few years ago I would have thought it absurd that anyone would keep a woman’s body alive against her own and her family’s wishes to serve as an incubator. I certainly wouldn’t have thought there could be specific laws governing such bizarre, science fiction worthy scenarios on the books. I wouldn’t have thought that the state would represent the interests of a fetus against the woman outside of whose body it cannot survive, either, or that any woman could be charged with child murder for trying to take her own life. In other words, I would never have believed that the state would define women as a class as the enemies of fetuses, enemies who must be controlled lest they do something to harm them. But it has. And it seems to me that once you have codified a concept so unnatural and so grotesque, you really can’t be sure where it will lead.

Update: BTW, it turns out that women very rarely choose not to have an abortion once they see an ultrasound. Apparently, they already knew they were pregnant and what that meant before they made the decision to have an abortion.  Imagine that.

But then the people who instituted these ridiculous laws probably knew that too.  The idea is to punish these women and make them feel guilty. Ultrasounds don’t seem to be getting the job done. What’s next? Tasers?
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Guess who’s been both leaking and publishing sensitive information directly to the internet?

by digby

So, Darrell Issa is having a hissy fit over the security of HealthCare.gov but it turns out the greatest threat is none other than — Darrell Issa:

HealthCare.gov could clearly be compromised if, say, sensitive documents were leaked to the public that included software code or other technical information that provided hackers with a road map for vulnerabilities in the site. Such documents currently reside with Issa, who obtained them last month — unredacted — after subpoenaing them from MITRE Corporation, the federal contractor overseeing security of the website.

Throughout the subpoena process, MITRE officials warned Issa in three separate letters that the documents could result in “irreparable harm” to the website’s security if they end up in the wrong hands, even with redactions. They offered to let him come into MITRE’s offices and view redacted versions of them. Beyond that, White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler sent Issa a letter warning that disclosures could increase risks to all IT systems across the federal government. Top House Democrats, meanwhile, pressed for a classified briefing with administration cyber security officials to assess the risks posed by a potential leak of those documents.

But Issa insisted on getting the unredacted versions, and on Dec. 17, he posted excerpts from them online in a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in which he raised concerns with the website’s security.

The move drew a harsh response from Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), ranking member on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee. He blasted Issa for being “reckless” with sensitive data.

“Chairman Issa’s letter cherry-picks from the documents, mischaracterizes the status of the website, and appears inconsistent with the House Parliamentarian’s longstanding interpretation and guidance relating to Committee documents,” Cummings said in a statement. “The Chairman’s actions are a reckless and transparent attempt to frighten Americans away from the Heathcare.gov website and deny them health insurance to which they are entitled.”

It remains to be seen if Issa will release more excerpts from the documents, but he’s got quite a track record of leaking sensitive information. In Oct. 2012, he compromised the identity of Libyans working with the U.S. by posting 166 pages of sensitive State Department cables online. He leaked a document in May 2011 that was covered by a court-ordered seal, he released sensitive information in July 2011 about security breaches at U.S. airports and in June 2012, he revealed information from court-sealed wiretaps while speaking on the House floor.

Just one question: why isn’t Darrell Issa being excoriated by mainstream reporters for being a threat to the nation? And why hasn’t anyone suggested he be tried for espionage and “hanged by his neck until he’s dead?” Here he is, over and over again, leaking sensitive information directly to the internet and nobody says boo. How odd.

As for the health care information, I have little doubt that Issa can be trusted to keep it all very confidential. He’s just not the sort of partisan type to use it for his own purposes and he certainly wouldn’t be reckless enough to endanger anyone’s privacy. So it’s all good.

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“Avowedly with them” redux

by digby

Ed Kilgore pointed me to this article at the Monkey Cage about the difference between what we ordinarily think of as “polarization” and the scorched earth style of politics we see in our politics today:

I have been studying party polarization in Congress for more than a decade. The more I study it, the more I question that it is the root cause of what it is that Americans hate about Congress. Pundits and political scientists alike point to party polarization as the culprit for all sorts of congressional ills. I, too, have contributed to this chorus bemoaning party polarization. But increasingly, I’ve come to think that our problem today isn’t just polarization in Congress; it’s the related but more serious problem of political warfare….

Perhaps my home state of Texas unnecessarily reinforces the distinction I want to make between these two dimensions. Little separates my two senators’ voting records – of the 279 votes that senators took in 2013, Ted Cruz and John Cornyn disagreed less than 9 percent of the time (the largest category of their disagreement, incidentally, was on confirmation votes). In terms of ideology, they are both very conservative. Cruz, to no one’s surprise, is the most conservative. Cornyn is the 13th most conservative, which is actually further down the list than he was in 2012, when he ranked second. Cornyn’s voting record is more conservative than conservative stalwarts Tom Coburn and Richard Shelby. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz disagreed on twice as many votes as John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.

The difference between my senators is that when John Cornyn shows up for a meeting with fellow senators, he brings a pad of paper and pencil and tries to figure out how to solve problems. Ted Cruz, on the other hand, brings a battle plan.

Kilgore links to this Strategy Memo he and some colleagues at the Democratic Strategist published a while back on this subject and it’s well worth reading. He writes here:

We discerned this tendency in the willingness of conservatives to paralyze government instead of redirecting its policies, and in the recent efforts to strike at democracy itself via large-scale voter disenfranchisement initiatives. And while we noted the genesis of extremist politics in radical ideology, we also warned that “Establishment” Republicans aiming at electoral victories at all costs were funding and leading the scorched-earth permanent campaign.

All I’d add at this point is that it’s not terribly surprising that people who think of much of the policy legacy of the twentieth century as a betrayal of the very purpose of America—and even as defiance of the Divine Will—would view liberals in the dehumanizing way that participants in an actual shooting war so often exhibit.

This crystallized for me during the 90s, when they impeached a president over a sexual indiscretion and then manipulated the system to win an election to win the presidency they hadn’t legitimately won. It’s especially interesting that today so many Villagers consider traditional acts of civil disobedience to be a grave threat to the security of the nation, even as these same people have accepted the blatant destabilization of our system and the escalation of undemocratic political behavior on the part of the Republican party.

There have been a few grave threats to the nation over the years. But there is another one that nearly succeeded in destroying the country. Our president at that time explained the dynamic very well in this famous speech. I can’t help but come back to it whenever this subject comes up. The sad fact is that this has happened before:

And now, if they would listen – as I suppose they will not – I would address a few words to the Southern people.

I would say to them: – You consider yourselves a reasonable and a just people; and I consider that in the general qualities of reason and justice you are not inferior to any other people. Still, when you speak of us Republicans, you do so only to denounce us a reptiles, or, at the best, as no better than outlaws. You will grant a hearing to pirates or murderers, but nothing like it to “Black Republicans.” In all your contentions with one another, each of you deems an unconditional condemnation of “Black Republicanism” as the first thing to be attended to. Indeed, such condemnation of us seems to be an indispensable prerequisite – license, so to speak – among you to be admitted or permitted to speak at all. Now, can you, or not, be prevailed upon to pause and to consider whether this is quite just to us, or even to yourselves? Bring forward your charges and specifications, and then be patient long enough to hear us deny or justify.
[…]
You charge that we stir up insurrections among your slaves. We deny it; and what is your proof? Harper’s Ferry! John Brown!! John Brown was no Republican; and you have failed to implicate a single Republican in his Harper’s Ferry enterprise. If any member of our party is guilty in that matter, you know it or you do not know it. If you do know it, you are inexcusable for not designating the man and proving the fact. If you do not know it, you are inexcusable for asserting it, and especially for persisting in the assertion after you have tried and failed to make the proof. You need to be told that persisting in a charge which one does not know to be true, is simply malicious slander.

Some of you admit that no Republican designedly aided or encouraged the Harper’s Ferry affair, but still insist that our doctrines and declarations necessarily lead to such results. We do not believe it. We know we hold to no doctrine, and make no declaration, which were not held to and made by “our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.” You never dealt fairly by us in relation to this affair. When it occurred, some important State elections were near at hand, and you were in evident glee with the belief that, by charging the blame upon us, you could get an advantage of us in those elections. The elections came, and your expectations were not quite fulfilled. Every Republican man knew that, as to himself at least, your charge was a slander, and he was not much inclined by it to cast his vote in your favor … In your political contests among yourselves, each faction charges the other with sympathy with Black Republicanism; and then, to give point to the charge, defines Black Republicanism to simply be insurrection, blood and thunder among the slaves.
[…]
Your purpose, then, plainly stated, is that you will destroy the Government, unless you be allowed to construe and enforce the Constitution as you please, on all points in dispute between you and us. You will rule or ruin in all events.

This, plainly stated, is your language. Perhaps you will say the Supreme Court has decided the disputed Constitutional question in your favor. Not quite so. But waiving the lawyer’s distinction between dictum and decision, the Court have decided the question for you in a sort of way. The Court have substantially said, it is your Constitutional right to take slaves into the federal territories, and to hold them there as property. When I say the decision was made in a sort of way, I mean it was made in a divided Court, by a bare majority of the Judges, and they not quite agreeing with one another in the reasons for making it; that it is so made as that its avowed supporters disagree with one another about its meaning, and that it was mainly based upon a mistaken statement of fact – the statement in the opinion that “the right of property in a slave is distinctly and expressly affirmed in the Constitution.”
[…]
Under all these circumstances, do you really feel yourselves justified to break up this Government unless such a court decision as yours is, shall be at once submitted to as a conclusive and final rule of political action?

But you will not abide the election of a Republican president! In that supposed event, you say, you will destroy the Union; and then, you say, the great crime of having destroyed it will be upon us! That is cool. A highwayman holds a pistol to my ear, and mutters through his teeth, “Stand and deliver, or I shall kill you, and then you will be a murderer!”

To be sure, what the robber demanded of me – my money – was my own; and I had a clear right to keep it; but it was no more my own than my vote is my own; and the threat of death to me, to extort my money, and the threat of destruction to the Union, to extort my vote, can scarcely be distinguished in principle.

A few words now to Republicans. It is exceedingly desirable that all parts of this great Confederacy shall be at peace, and in harmony, one with another…Judging by all they say and do, and by the subject and nature of their controversy with us, let us determine, if we can, what will satisfy them.

Will they be satisfied if the Territories be unconditionally surrendered to them? We know they will not. In all their present complaints against us, the Territories are scarcely mentioned. Invasions and insurrections are the rage now. Will it satisfy them, if, in the future, we have nothing to do with invasions and insurrections? We know it will not. We so know, because we know we never had anything to do with invasions and insurrections; and yet this total abstaining does not exempt us from the charge and the denunciation.

The question recurs, what will satisfy them? Simply this: We must not only let them alone, but we must somehow, convince them that we do let them alone. This, we know by experience, is no easy task. We have been so trying to convince them from the very beginning of our organization, but with no success. In all our platforms and speeches we have constantly protested our purpose to let them alone; but this has had no tendency to convince them. Alike unavailing to convince them, is the fact that they have never detected a man of us in any attempt to disturb them.

These natural, and apparently adequate means all failing, what will convince them? This, and this only: cease to call slavery wrong, and join them in calling it right. And this must be done thoroughly – done in acts as well as in words. Silence will not be tolerated – we must place ourselves avowedly with them. Senator Douglas’ new sedition law must be enacted and enforced, suppressing all declarations that slavery is wrong, whether made in politics, in presses, in pulpits, or in private. We must arrest and return their fugitive slaves with greedy pleasure. We must pull down our Free State constitutions. The whole atmosphere must be disinfected from all taint of opposition to slavery, before they will cease to believe that all their troubles proceed from us.

This has not changed. This faction of American politics, then the southern slave states associated with the Democratic Party, today the GOP, still centered in the South but ideologically organized throughout the nation, inevitably becomes frustrated that it is not universally acknowledged for being right. It is not enough that they can exert outsized power in the political system in proportion to their population. Our system was born of compromises that have always allowed them that. But it’s never been enough. They simply cannot accept the fact that the rest of the country does not agree with them and at some point their bitterness and resentment boils over into this determination that they must declare war to solve the problem once and for all.

Obviously, this time it is a “cold” civil war rather than a hot one (although the amount of gun violence could be seen as an offshoot of the culture war in some respects.) But this attitude and the reckless strategy that stems from it is not unprecedented. The ideological descendants of those Southerners Lincoln so vividly describes are at the same psychological place they were in 1860. It makes no difference how much the Democrats compromise or try to split the difference. Unless these Democrats cry uncle and loudly proclaim that they are “avowedly with” the Republicans in every way, they will not be satisfied.

It’s a psychological problem not a political one.

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