Month: January 2014

Now this is what I call operating outside the law

by digby

Here’s an idea that all rich people can certainly get behind: if the court system requires that you rely on the body of law we’ve developed over the course of centuries for the rubes and that body of law isn’t entirely “comfortable” for certain wealthy interests, just create a new system to fit your needs:

The Delaware Court of Chancery has taken its fight to have a secret business arbitration court to Washington.

Attorneys for the court late Tuesday filed a 116-page “petition for a writ of certiorari” with the U.S. Supreme Court asking the court to review and overturn the decisions of two lower courts that found the secret court violated the U.S. Constitution and the history of openness in the court system.

In their petition to the U.S. Supreme Court, attorneys for the Chancery Court argue that the secret arbitration process does not violate the First Amendment right of access to the courts because it is not a trial, that there is a growing demand for such arbitration and the process is necessary to keep lucrative corporate litigation from being taken overseas.

“Delaware strives to maintain a body of corporate law and set of dispute resolution mechanisms that are up-to-date, fair, predictable, efficient and respected – which is one of the key reasons why most large businesses organize here. If other developed nations provided a dispute resolution system for their corporate citizens better than what is available to businesses organized in Delaware, large multinational companies would have an incentive to relocate,” according to the petition.

See, it’s good for everyone if corporations are allowed to operate outside the normal rule of law that’s been set up for everyone. Job creation! And of course it should be secret. If citizens, employees and consumers could see what was going on, who knows what might happen?

I would assume that the Supremes would rubber stamp this idea since it favors their corporate soul mates, but this might just get under their skin a little bit. After all, they’ve been so good to their pals, why would they want to cut out the American legal system? Are they saying there’s something wrong with it?

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What happens when half the jobs are gone?

by David Atkins

I’ve been banging on this drum for a while now, but someone should probably start thinking about what progressive public policy looks like when half the jobs are gone:

Two hugely important statistics concerning the future of employment as we know it made waves recently:

1. 85 people alone command as much wealth as the poorest half of the world.

2. 47 percent of the world’s currently existing jobs are likely to be automated over the next two decades.

Combined, those two stats portend a quickly-exacerbating dystopia. As more and more automated machinery (robots, if you like) are brought in to generate efficiency gains for companies, more and more jobs will be displaced, and more and more income will accumulate higher up the corporate ladder. The inequality gulf will widen as jobs grow permanently scarce—there are only so many service sector jobs to replace manufacturing ones as it is—and the latest wave of automation will hijack not just factory workers but accountants, telemarketers, and real estate agents.

That’s according to a 2013 Oxford study, which was highlighted in this week’s Economist cover story. That study attempted to tally up the number of jobs that were susceptible to automization, and, surprise, a huge number were. Creative and skilled jobs done by humans were the most secure—think pastors, editors, and dentists—but just about any rote task at all is now up for automation. Machinists, typists, even retail jobs, are predicted to disappear…

Those trends aren’t just occurring in the US, either. That second stat up there is from an Oxfam report entitled Working for the Few, just out this week. It was launched in tandem with the beginning of the World Economic Forum in Davos, in an effort to get the gazillionaires attending it to consider the gravity of their wealth. It finds that “those richest 85 people across the globe share a combined wealth of £1 [trillion], as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world’s population.” Yes, you read that correctly: The 85 richest people have $1.64 trillion between them, the same amount of money as 3.5 billion of the world’s less fortunate souls.

The trend extends beyond a few handfuls of the planet’s most mega-tycoons, of course: “The wealth of the 1% richest people in the world amounts to $110tn (£60.88tn), or 65 times as much as the poorest half of the world.” And they and their corporations are building robots that will have the net effect of letting them keep even more of that capital concentrated in their hands.

As the Economist piece notes, there’s typically a disruptive cycle when new technologies displace old ones, and replace old jobs with new ones. But this time, that cycle is one-sided—so far, there are a lot fewer jobs being created in the new information-based economy than the old manufacturing-based one: Last year, Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook were worth over $1 trillion combined, but employed just 150,000 people.

All of this points towards an uncomfortable prospect: in our globalizing, technologically advanced, and inequality-laden world, we risk becoming the cyber-peasants tending (or loitering on, more likely) the feudal lawn of the machine-owning rich. Oxfam predicts incoming class struggles and social strife, and it’s not hard to see why—to ensure that the 99 percent of tomorrow benefit from still-accelerating technology, we’re going to have to push for policy adjustments that adapt to our mechanized world. Radical income redistribution is probably in order, even a minimum guaranteed income; ideas unlikely to prove popular to the corporate titans used to reaping outsized rewards.

I’m constantly struck by a metaphorical image of ants fighting over sand castles in the face of an incoming tide. The world is changing dramatically, and smart public policy needs to start dealing with radical and innovative solutions to the onslaughts that are coming, rather than trying to replace what is gone and never coming back.

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Justice is in the eye of Eric Holder

by digby

Edward Snowden took questions earlier today. Here’s a sample of his traitorous thinking:

Q: What (in your opinion) is the appropriate extent of US national security apparatus? Surely some spying is needed?

SNOWDEN: Not all spying is bad. The biggest problem we face right now is the new technique of indiscriminate mass surveillance, where governments are seizing billions and billions and billions of innocents’ communication every single day. This is done not because it’s necessary — after all, these programs are unprecedented in US history, and were begun in response to a threat that kills fewer Americans every year than bathtub falls and police officers — but because new technologies make it easy and cheap.

I think a person should be able to dial a number, make a purchase, send an SMS, write an email, or visit a website without having to think about what it’s going to look like on their permanent record. Particularly when we now have courts, reports from the federal government, and even statements from Congress making it clear these programs haven’t made us any more safe, we need to push back.

This is a global problem, and America needs to take the lead in fixing it. If our government decides our Constitution’s 4th Amendment prohibition against unreasonable seizures no longer applies simply because that’s a more efficient means of snooping, we’re setting a precedent that immunizes the government of every two-bit dictator to perform the same kind of indiscriminate, dragnet surveillance of entire populations that the NSA is doing.

It’s not good for our country, it’s not good for the world, and I wasn’t going to stand by and watch it happen, no matter how much it cost me. The NSA and the rest of the US Intelligence Community is exceptionally well positioned to meet our intelligence requirements through targeted surveillance — the same way we’ve always done it — without resorting to the mass surveillance of entire populations.

When we’re sophisticated enough to be able to break into any device in the world we want to (up to and including Angela Merkel’s phone, if reports are to be believed), there’s no excuse to wasting our time collecting the call records of grandmothers in Missouri.

Way to shred the constitution there, Trotsky.

The good news is that Attorney General Eric Holder reiterated today that just because we are now having this overdue and necessary reevaluation of our secret surveillance programs as a result of Snowden’s revelations, it does not mean he should not be held criminally liable. After all, what would happen if people could just break the law and violate the constitution with impunity?

I guess reporters had no time to follow up with the Attorney General about why he feels so adamant about punishment of this particular “crime” when the wealthy criminals who crashed the global financial system are still free and living like kings and the sadists who violated the law and the constitution with torture and indefinite detention are walking around with impunity.

If I recall correctly, the original rationale for not pursuing the torturers was this:

“This is a time for reflection, not retribution. I respect the strong views and emotions that these issues evoke. We have been through a dark and painful chapter in our history. But at a time of great challenges and disturbing disunity, nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past.”

And the financial markets are very fragile creatures, so holding our Master of the Universe liable for their crimes would be unwise:

According to three people briefed at the time about the meeting, Mr. Geithner expressed concern about the fragility of the financial system. His worry, according to these people, sprang from a desire to calm markets, a goal that could be complicated by a hard-charging attorney general.

Several years after the financial crisis, which was caused in large part by reckless lending and excessive risk taking by major financial institutions, no senior executives have been charged or imprisoned, and a collective government effort has not emerged. This stands in stark contrast to the failure of many savings and loan institutions in the late 1980s. In the wake of that debacle, special government task forces referred 1,100 cases to prosecutors, resulting in more than 800 bank officials going to jail. Among the best-known: Charles H. Keating Jr., of Lincoln Savings and Loan in Arizona, and David Paul, of Centrust Bank in Florida.

It’s interesting how forgiving government officials can be when it suits them, isn’t it?

In the case of torture, the government decided they needed to balance out the obvious immorality and unconstitutionality of torture with the morale of the operatives who carried it out and the “good faith” of the sadists who designed the policy and legalized it in secret. The case of the Masters of the Universe was “complicated” and might hinder the recovery to hold any of the big players responsible for the widespread misery they caused. The greater good demanded that we not look in the rearview mirror.

But for some reason, despite the fact that everyone from the president on down acknowledges that the revelations about the NSA programs have spurred a vital conversation and much needed reforms, there can be no thought of treating Snowden like a whistleblower instead of a criminal. But then, he didn’t torture anyone or order the torture of anyone and he didn’t bring down the global financial system and destroy the economic security of millions of people. In fact, nobody can point to anything but “embarrassment” as the damage his leaks have caused.

So I guess we know now where they draw the line. Torture, indefinite imprisonment and economic chaos are one thing. But having to put up with Angela Merkel’s temper will not stand. Being forced to admit that these programs have gotten out of hand is humiliating for an exceptional country like ours.  Having a bright light shining on extremely expensive secret government activity that doesn’t seem to be producing any results is mortifying, especially to those who have been charge with overseeing these programs and obviously haven’t got a clue. The world thinks we’re perfect and any evidence to the contrary will irreparably weaken us.

But the opposite is true. Nobody thinks we’re perfect. And a hugely powerful nation like the United States is far stronger if it is able to face its mistakes, punish those who perpetrate them and forgive those who reveal them. This mishmash of injustice, hypocrisy, favoritism and, frankly, rank immorality we’ve seen escalating since 9/11 is weakening us far more than any power point chart Edward Snowden leaked to the newspapers.

Update: here’s another example of Snowden’s irrational point of view:

“Intelligence agencies do have a role to play, and the people at the working level at the NSA, CIA, or any other member of the IC are not out to get you. They’re good people trying to do the right thing, and I can tell you from personal experience that they were worried about the same things I was.

The people you need to watch out for are the unaccountable senior officials authorizing these unconstitutional programs, and unreliable mechanisms like the secret FISA court, a rubber-stamp authority that approves 99.97% of government requests (which denied only 11 requests out of 33,900 in 33 years). They’re the ones that get us into trouble with the Constitution by letting us go too far.”

Update II: According to this, Holder indicated today that he might consider a plea deal of some sort. Very interesting. Perhaps the fact that Snowden is exiled while John Yoo roams free teaching his law students that torture is legal feels a bit uncomfortable.

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On little bitches as Real Men

by digby

@RBPundit Gotta love a guy like @chrislhayes Even women call him “a little bitch” @Kredo0
— DanRiehl (@DanRiehl) January 23, 2014

You all remember Dan Riehl, right? He’s the blogger and Breitbart columnist who had a wet dream on the subway after a Tea Party rally:

Riding out of DC on the Metro, 9/12, there were some folks from South Dakota and also another Mid-West state I can’t recall in the same Metro car. We were talking, nothing special, really – politics, of course.

In the back were maybe ten or so black kids taking up that section of the car. There was no confrontation, just one or two of them talking loudly enough to make sure they’d be heard.

Without resorting to the poor diction it was along the lines of, these are the people who think Obama is the anti-Christ. That McCain he wasn’t shit. Obama’s going to be president as long as he wants, so these people better get used to it, etc. It went on but not really to a level that was so loud, or so confrontational that it needed to be addressed.

We just ignored them without much trouble at all.

Yeah, they were technically thugs. But the reality was they were still wannabes really, pretty young, not that big, or many. And if the several adults there for 9/12 actually needed to do something about it, the kids wouldn’t have lasted very long. Maybe if they were bigger, or more numerous, it might have been worse. Or it may not have happened at all. Who knows?

That, my friends, is a Real Man.

Also keep in mind that this little fellow was travelling from this rally:

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This is like something out of science fiction

by digby

The latest on the Munoz tragedy in Texas:

Attorneys for the family of a pregnant Haltom City woman who has been on life support at John Peter Smith Hospital for eight weeks issued a statement late Wednesday that the fetus is “distinctly abnormal.”

The 22-week-old fetus’s lower extremities are deformed and it is impossible to determine its gender, the attorneys for the woman’s husband, Erick Muñoz, said in an emailed statement.

“The fetus suffers from hydrocephalus [water on the brain]. It also appears that there are further abnormalities, including a possible heart problem, that cannot be specifically determined due to the immobile nature of Mrs. Muñoz’s deceased body,” the statement said.

The fetus, which was deprived of oxygen for “an indeterminate length of time, is gestating within a dead and deteriorating body as the horrified family looks on,” the attorneys said.

Marlise Muñoz, 33, was 14 weeks pregnant when she collapsed Nov. 26. She was taken to JPS, where doctors told her husband that she was brain-dead. He and other relatives asked that life support be removed.

JPS officials refused, citing a state law requiring that a pregnant woman remain on life support until the fetus is viable, usually at 24 to 26 weeks.

Wednesday’s statement from attorneys Heather King and Jessica Janicek does not say whether the fetus is viable.

On Friday, state District Judge R.H. Wallace is scheduled to hear arguments about the law and whether to grant the family’s request.

Marlise Muñoz discussed with her family her wish not to have her life prolonged artificially, and she was competent when she made her wishes known, according to the lawsuit.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out that science doesn’t have much data to determine how gestation in the uterus of a woman being kept alive by artificial means affects the fetus. The one study they have is from small sample of 19 cases that shows some fetuses develop properly and some don’t. But they really have no idea what the causes or effects of such outcomes rally are. Evidently, the authorities aren’t concerned with such trivialities. The broad brush of the law, at the behest of zealots and simpletons, has spoken and says that any braindead pregnant woman’s body must be kept working through artificial means regardless of her own wishes or even the state of the fetus.

I just can’t understand how these “traditionalists” can go along with something so bizarre.

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QOTD: Mike Huckabee Scarlet women edition

by digby

They just can’t help themselves:

Democrats tell women “they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government.

He went on to say that the GOP was “empowering” women not to be victims of their gender, which presumably is to allow them to control their rampant sexual urges. After all, they wouldn’t need all that contraception if they just had enough restraint to stop getting themselves pregnant. Maybe they could just keep those legs crossed, amirite?

Huckabee was too polite to bring this sensitive subject up, but his comments inevitably lead to the plight of the millions of men who are forced against their will to service these trollops. After all, women can’t actually “get themselves” pregnant. Without sperm these reckless jezebels wouldn’t need birth control — they could indulge their uncontrollable libidos to their heart’s content and it wouldn’t cost Uncle Sugar a dime. But these poor male victims are helpless in the face of the wanton temptresses.

It’s not that men want sex. They have no choice. The hussies just won’t leave them alone. And shouldn’t men have the liberty to do what they want with their own bodies? Isn’t that the real pro-choice position?

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A little tough love on an empty stomach


by digby

I’m sure this is character building. Which is all that matters. The problem with all these hungry people is that they just aren’t hungry enough to go out and find jobs (even though there are none.) This should do the trick:

After food stamps were reduced at the beginning of November, New York City food pantries and soup kitchens ran out of food, turned people away, and reduced the meals they handed out after experiencing a surge of demand, according to a new report from Food Bank For New York City.

The organization surveyed 522 food pantries and 138 soup kitchens and found that in November 2013, nearly half had either run out of food altogether or the particular kinds of food they need to make adequate meals. About a quarter had to turn people away since they didn’t have enough food, and another quarter had to reduce the number of meals they provided.

The survey asked them to compare conditions in November of last year to September and October, as well as to November 2012. Three-quarters saw a surge in visitors in November as compared to the months before, with 16 percent saying demand increased by more than 50 percent. Even more reported that the number of visitors climbed compared to the year before, making it likely that the uptick was about the food stamp cut, rather than seasonal changes. The report notes that “the SNAP cuts that took effect November 1 represent the biggest systemic factor reducing the food purchasing power of low-income people,” adding that “other factors that meaningfully affect emergency food program participation, like local unemployment, actually decreased in November 2013.”

The good news is that the truly important, productive people are out there creating jobs so we can fix this problem, via Rich kids of Instagram:

David Walker (R-No Labels) throws his Nascar jacket into the ring

by digby

So King of the deficit scolds, David Walker, is running for Lieutenant Governor of Connecticut. It’s quite a come down for the former No Labels  presidential candidate, but perhaps a wise retrenchment all things considered.

Yes, he is running as a Republican.  I don’t think that should surprise anyone.  Despite his claims to non-partisanship it’s always been obvious that he’s a conservative. It may also explain why he’s wearing this bizarre get-up:

I’m not sure exactly what the patches all say but it appears that one of them says “advocate of fiscal responsibility” as if it’s some sort of quasi-military designation. Not that it matters. Republicans do love a man in uniform. Any uniform.  As long as it’s festooned with flags, they’re good to go.

Still, it’s kind of funny coming from a man who famously ran a group called “No-Labels.”

Update: The black and white patch turns out to be the Navy Seal slogan. Someone asked Walker on his Facebook page if he was a Seal and he replied:

I am an Honorary Seal. I was given the jacket when I was U.S. Comptroller General.

Odd.

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Civil liberties board says “end it don’t mend it.”

by digby

Back in the bad old Bush days, there was a genuine effort n the part of congress to create at least the possibility of a civil liberties input into all the new surveillance and spying activities of the government. They created the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight board — which immediately fell into the political pit and was barely heard from again. This 2012 piece by Scott Shane gives a brief overview of its troubled history:

The board got off to a slow start initially and held its first meeting in 2006. Critics noted that since it was then technically part of the White House, it could hardly be considered independent — a point a Democratic member, Lanny J. Davis, emphasized when he resigned in protest in 2007.

That year, heeding the complaints, Congress passed new legislation strengthening the board and removing it from the White House. But for nearly three years after taking office, President Obama did not even nominate a full slate of five members to the reconstituted board. He finally completed the nominations in December [2012].
[…]
By all accounts, the 2007 law gives the board genuine clout. It will have access to even the most secret government programs, with subpoena power to enforce its demands. In principle, it could prove to be a significance check on the counterterrorism machinery built over the last decade. But to do so, the board will have to overcome a daunting history, even by Washington standards, of delay and neglect.

After the Snowden revelations, the board finally went to work. And they are issuing a report this week:

An independent federal privacy watchdog has concluded that the National Security Agency’s program to collect bulk phone call records has provided only “minimal” benefits in counterterrorism efforts, is illegal and should be shut down.

The findings are laid out in a 238-page report, scheduled for release by Thursday and obtained by The New York Times, that represent the first major public statement by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which Congress made an independent agency in 2007 and only recently became fully operational.

The report is likely to inject a significant new voice into the debate over surveillance, underscoring that the issue was not settled by a high-profile speech President Obama gave last week. Mr. Obama consulted with the board, along with a separate review group that last month delivered its own report about surveillance policies. But while he said in his speech that he was tightening access to the data and declared his intention to find a way to end government collection of the bulk records, he said the program’s capabilities should be preserved.

The Obama administration has portrayed the bulk collection program as useful and lawful while at the same time acknowledging concerns about privacy and potential abuse. But in its report, the board lays out what may be the most detailed critique of the government’s once-secret legal theory behind the program: that a law known as Section 215 of the Patriot Act, which allows the F.B.I. to obtain business records deemed “relevant” to an investigation, can be legitimately interpreted as authorizing the N.S.A. to collect all calling records in the country.

The program “lacks a viable legal foundation under Section 215, implicates constitutional concerns under the First and Fourth Amendments, raises serious threats to privacy and civil liberties as a policy matter, and has shown only limited value,” the report said. “As a result, the board recommends that the government end the program.”

There are two dissenters, both Republicans from the Bush administration. They use the usual vacuous excuses that “morale” will be hurt and the spooks will just let Americans die out of sheer depression if the program is changed. (My favorite: that the “peace of mind” that comes from the NSA uncovering no terrorist attacks makes it all worth it.)

But regardless of the legal finding, the recommendations are unanimous and unequivocal: end it don’t mend it.

I guess one can dismiss all these people as a bunch of libertarian cranks who don’t understand the modern world or the threats we face. But it would be wrong. The fact that the congressional Reps and Senators who were ostensibly in charge of oversight are now incoherently shouting that the Russians are coming says all you need to know about their reliability. Something went sideways with the secret surveillance state over the past decade under both Democrats and Republicans. Something that was anticipated by certain people who understood that one of the major dangers we faced in the post-9/11 world was going to come from within:

“We thought everything with a national security label on it was going to pass,” said Thomas H. Kean, chairman of the 9/11 commission and former governor of New Jersey, in an interview. “So we felt very strongly that there had to be some voice for civil liberties in the debate.”

They tried. It didn’t happen, then. maybe it will now. Sometimes it takes a whistleblower.

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QOTD: Lynn Paltrow

by digby

“What’s happened is that women are beginning to recognize that what’s at stake is more than abortion. It is their personhood — their ability to be full, equal, constitutional persons in the United States of America.”

I hope that’s true. If it is it means that women are seeing the fundamental principle at stake in this debate. I’m not honestly sure it is though. It’s complicated, emotional, difficult and that makes it hard to deal with in fundamental terms. But ultimately, that’s what it comes down to. It practical terms it really just means that both biology and society require that women be trusted with this decision. It’s the only way.

That quote is from a very interesting conversation between Bill Moyers, founder and executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women Lynn Paltrow and Jessica González-Rojas, Executive Director of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health. You can see the video here.

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